Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Whitman

Despite not being great fans of the famous, early American poet Whitman [1819-1892], there is still something to discover in him. All the greats are that way, in a sense. Even as someone who doesn't love Bach, we can find passages that move us. Hopefully the singer Lana del Rey's music can bring more people to try Whitman [ie. like her song 'I sing the body electric', etc.] 

Here is a short poem by Walt Whitman that is both simple and yet has depth from his famous 1855 volume Leaves of Grass, read it all here:



The Pallid Wreath

  Somehow I cannot let it go yet, funeral though it is,
  Let it remain back there on its nail suspended,
  With pink, blue, yellow, all blanch'd, and the white now gray and ashy,
  One wither'd rose put years ago for thee, dear friend;
  But I do not forget thee. Hast thou then faded?
  Is the odor exhaled? Are the colors, vitalities, dead?
  No, while memories subtly play—the past vivid as ever;
  For but last night I woke, and in that spectral ring saw thee,
  Thy smile, eyes, face, calm, silent, loving as ever:
  So let the wreath hang still awhile within my eye-reach,
  It is not yet dead to me, nor even pallid.

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