Analysis of To The States

Walt Whitman 1819 (West Hills) – 1892 (Camden)




   WHY reclining, interrogating? Why myself and all drowsing?
   What deepening twilight! scum floating atop of the waters!
   Who are they, as bats and night-dogs, askant in the Capitol?
   What a filthy Presidentiad! (O south, your torrid suns! O north, your
         arctic freezings!)
   Are those really Congressmen? are those the great Judges? is that the
         President?
   Then I will sleep awhile yet--for I see that These States sleep, for
         reasons;
   (With gathering murk--with muttering thunder and lambent shoots, we
         all duly awake,
   South, north, east, west, inland and seaboard, we will surely awake.)


Scheme ABCDBEFDGHAA
Poetic Form
Metre 1010010011011 11001110011010 11111011100100 10101111101111 101 1110100110110110 10 111101111111111 10 110011100100111 11001 1111101111001
Closest metre Iambic hexameter
Characters 637
Words 96
Sentences 13
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 12
Lines Amount 12
Letters per line (avg) 38
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 454
Words per stanza (avg) 92
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 06, 2023

28 sec read
111

Walt Whitman

Walter "Walt" Whitman was an American poet, essayist and journalist. more…

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