A Child Said, What Is The Grass? Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCD EF GHDI JF KLMNOP Q RSTUVV WXSY ZYA2 SFA2V SUF B2C2D2CE2 F2UG2| A child said What is the grass fetching it to me with full | A |
| hands | B |
| How could I answer the child I do not know what it | C |
| is any more than he | D |
| - | |
| I guess it must be the flag of my disposition out of hopeful | E |
| green stuff woven | F |
| - | |
| Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord | G |
| A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropped | H |
| Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners that we | D |
| may see and remark and say Whose | I |
| - | |
| Or I guess the grass is itself a child the produced babe | J |
| of the vegetation | F |
| - | |
| Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic | K |
| And it means Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow | L |
| zones | M |
| Growing among black folks as among white | N |
| Kanuck Tuckahoe Congressman Cuff I give them the | O |
| same I receive them the same | P |
| - | |
| And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves | Q |
| - | |
| Tenderly will I use you curling grass | R |
| It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men | S |
| It may be if I had known them I would have loved them | T |
| It may be you are from old people and from women and | U |
| from offspring taken soon out of their mother's laps | V |
| And here you are the mother's laps | V |
| - | |
| This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old | W |
| mothers | X |
| Darker than the colorless beards of old men | S |
| Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths | Y |
| - | |
| O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues | Z |
| And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths | Y |
| for nothing | A2 |
| - | |
| I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men | S |
| and women | F |
| And the hints about old men and mothers and the offspring | A2 |
| taken soon out of their laps | V |
| - | |
| What do you think has become of the young and old men | S |
| What do you think has become of the women and | U |
| children | F |
| - | |
| They are alive and well somewhere | B2 |
| The smallest sprouts show there is really no death | C2 |
| And if ever there was it led forward life and does not wait | D2 |
| at the end to arrest it | C |
| And ceased the moment life appeared | E2 |
| - | |
| All goes onward and outward and nothing collapses | F2 |
| And to die is different from what any one supposed and | U |
| luckier | G2 |
Walt Whitman
(1)
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