"Darest Thou Now, O Soul"

           

              1

Darest thou now, O Soul,

Walk out with me toward the Unknown Region,

Where neither ground is for the feet, nor any path to follow?

               2

No map, there, nor guide,

Nor voice sounding, nor touch of human hand,

Nor face with blooming flesh, nor lips, nor eyes, are in that land.

               3

I know it not, O Soul;

Nor dost thou--all is a blank before us;

All waits, undream'd of, in that region--that inaccessible land.

               4

Till, when the ties loosen,

All but the ties eternal, Time and Space,

Nor darkness, gravitation, sense, nor any bounds, bound us.

               5

Then we burst forth--we float,

In Time and Space, O Soul--prepared for them;

Equal, equipt at last--(O joy! O fruit of all!) them to fulfil, O

     Soul.

—Walt Whitman

The first time I read Walt Whitman’s poems, my response was, “Well, he’s not bad. He’s better than a lot of the others I’ve read, but I don’t think he’s all that special.” Then I read his work again. That time my response was, “Oh holy crap, I think I love this guy!!” This poem is one of my favorites. The form is really simply and straightforward, but the subject matter is really deep and profound. It one reminds me of Dickinson’s poems about death, because of the simple and unquestioned existence of a soul. This one is different though, because Whitman doesn’t have Dickinson’s creepily immediate access to the soul; where Whitman talks to his soul like it’s a separate entity, Dickinson simply is hers.

But I didn’t really want to get into Dickinson today; I’ll get back to her later. This poem is my subject at present, and I really, really like it. I think most of what draws me is the way Whitman writes it. Yes, like I said, the style is simplistic and easy to understand, and that definitely helps. But I also find myself drawn to the picture he paints, to the images in the poem. I’ve read it several times, and each time I’ve read it as describing the experience of a person after death. And I’m actually having a revelation as I type, and since I find that process so fascinating, I want to share. While I was starting to write how this poem is about death, I suddenly realized that nowhere does Whitman say anything explicitly about death. That was just my instinctive interpretation of what he meant.

I just noticed myself interpreting a poem. That’s kind of neat.

Anyway, despite my current revelation, I’m still pretty convinced that the poem is dealing with death. At the risk of sounding new age-y, it makes me imagine a person who has died and is on some sort of journey that will ultimately end with zem rejoining some sort of vital energy flow. My interpretation is probably affected by my own personal beliefs. I do think that something happens to us after we die, although what exactly that is, I don’t think anyone can know for certain; after all, nobody can fully die and then live to tell about it. But when I look at this poem, I see some sort of after-death journey. Whitman’s narrator asks his soul to go with him to this unknown place, with no path or guide, and no more interaction with flesh-and-blood humans, and then all bonds fall away except time and space. That sounds to me as if this soul is either rejoining some kind of life-force, or else preparing to rejoin life itself (i.e. reincarnation).

Looking back over the poem again, however, in light of my mini-epiphany, I also think it could be about creativity. The narrator and his soul are about to go on a journey into this unknown land with no path to follow and nobody to guide them; everything is a blank and waits undreamed of; then all ties loosen but the immediate ones of time and space, and he suddenly says he’s prepared to fulfill “them,” whoever them is. If “them” were to mean the consumers of whatever work of art he were to create, dude, that sure sounds like the creative process to me. And I think that’s pretty amazing, that I can read this poem as a thoughtful observation about death or a thoughtful observation about the creative process. Both, I think, are destructive and creative in their own ways. It just depends on which way I choose to look at the poem.

What does Whitman actually mean by this poem? I don’t think I really care. I’m kind of happy with my own interpretations.