‘Come, said My Soul’ appears as an epigraph within certain editions of Walt Whitman’s seminal poetry collection ‘Leaves of Grass.’ Serving as a brief introduction to both the poet’s vivacious voice and intimately-minded imagery. But it also reveals an innermost hope for the lines of verse he writes. One that is grounded in the belief that poetry imbued with one’s spirit can transcend death, soothing the sorrow and reinvigorating the revelries of people we will never meet.
Come, said My Soul Walt WhitmanCome, said my SoulSuch verses for my Body let us write, (for we are one,)That should I after death invisibly return,Or, long, long hence, in other spheres,There to some group of mates the chants resuming,(Tallying Earth’s soil, trees, winds, tumultuous waves,)Ever with pleas’d smiles I may keep on,Ever and ever yet the verses owning — as, first, I here and now,Signing for Soul and Body, set to them my name,Walt Whitman
Summary
‘Come, said My Soul’ by Walt Whitman expresses an earnest desire to write altruistic poetry that will outlast one’s life.
‘Come, said My Soul’ begins with the speaker being addressed by their soul, enlisting them to write poetry that will also entangle their body. They also mention that both their soul and body, though addressed separately, are unified. The reason for writing “such verses” is owed to the possibility that they might “invisibly return” after they die, perhaps amongst a “group of mates” chanting the speaker’s verses. Another parenthetical aside catalogs some elements found within the poem: “Earth’s soil, trees, winds, tumultuous waves.”
Watching the friends sing their poetry imbues the speaker with “pleas’d smiles” because they echo the ideals of the “long, long” dead poet. The poem ends with the speaker “signing” for the verses with the “soul and body” of their creator, Walt Whitman.
Structure and Form
‘Come, said My Soul’ is written in free verse and, as a result, lacks any formal rhyme scheme or meter. Instead, Whitman uses a variety of devices like caesura and repetition to create a cadence around the poem’s imagery.
Literary Devices
‘Come, said My Soul’ uses a variety of literary devices, which include but are not limited to:
- Auditory Imagery: “There to some group of mates the chants resuming” (5) mentions the sound of these friends reciting the speaker’s poems.
- Visual Imagery: “Tallying Earth’s soil, trees, winds, tumultuous waves” (6) conjures up sights of nature.
- Personification: “Come, said my Soul” (1) personifies the speaker’s soul as an entity that speaks to them directly, as another person might.
- Oxymoron: a seemingly contradictory statement such as “invisibly return” (3).
- Anaphora: The repetition of the beginning of a line, as in the lines, “Ever with pleas’d smiles I may keep on, / Ever and ever yet the verses owning” (7-8).
Detailed Analysis
Lines 1-6
Come, said my Soul
Such verses for my Body let us write, (for we are one,)
That should I after death invisibly return,
Or, long, long hence, in other spheres,
There to some group of mates the chants resuming,
(Tallying Earth’s soil, trees, winds, tumultuous waves,)
‘Come, said My Soul’ opens with the speaker being beckoned by their soul. Which is personified as being paradoxically distinct but unified with their body: “(for we are one,)” (2). The speaker’s soul then reveals its desire to write “such verses for [their] Body” (2) that they survive their physical death.
How might poetry grant such immortality? Through its recitation. The speaker “invisibly return[s]” (3) in spirit when a “group of mates” (4) start chanting their verses. The parenthetical line also catalogs some of the lush imagery of nature commonly found in Whitman’s poems, offering a glimpse into the contents of the poem being read by the group.
Lines 7-10
Ever with pleas’d smiles I may keep on,
Ever and ever yet the verses owning — as, first, I here and now,
Signing for Soul and Body, set to them my name,
Walt Whitman
In the next sequence of lines from ‘Come, said My Soul,’ the speaker reflects on being resurrected in spirit by the chanting group of friends. Using anaphora, Whitman emphasizes the perpetual happiness it brings them to see their words appreciated: “with pleas’d smiles I may keep on” (7).
But another enduring feature is the verses’ ownership over their creator. This inversion of authority underscores the speaker’s desire that their words — not themselves — will be remembered. Yet it also implies that the speaker has devoted their body and soul to writing these verses. As a result, they are synonymous with their identity, so much so that even those who do not realize they are reading the words of one Walt Whitman will have met him all the same.
FAQs
The poem’s theme is a desire to invest oneself so sufficiently with their art that anyone who ever engages with it also intimately interacts with a part of you. In this way, Whitman reveals the way poetry can transcend the limitation of our mortal bodies by tapping into the immortality of soul-infused words.
One of Whitman’s beliefs as a Transcendentalist was in the immortality of the human soul. In the poem, the speaker’s soul returns whenever their poetry is read and appreciated.
One interpretation of this ambiguous piece of imagery is that the speaker is referring to social circles or worlds they are not a part of. This is because they are “long, long” dead. The group of friends that the speaker mentions are an example of the “other spheres” that might interact with their poetry, circulating it amongst one another.
Similar Poems
Here are a few more poems by Walt Whitman worth exploring:
- ‘Whoever You Are Holding Me Now in Hand’ – this poem serves as a kind of guide for how to read and approach Whitman’s poetry.
- ‘I Sing the Body Electric’ – a famous poem full of some of his most compelling imagery and figurative language.
- ‘When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer’ – this poem expresses a love of nature for nature’s sake alone.
