Whoever You Are, Holding Me Now In Hand Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCD CE FGFHIJKLM NOPQPRGJSTU HVPWXP NAYSPZS TA2B2PSBNGJC2M| Whoever you are holding me now in hand | A |
| Without one thing all will be useless | B |
| I give you fair warning before you attempt me further | C |
| I am not what you supposed but far different | D |
| - | |
| Who is he that would become my follower | C |
| Who would sign himself a candidate for my affections | E |
| - | |
| The way is suspicious the result uncertain perhaps destructive | F |
| You would have to give up all else I alone would expect to be your | G |
| God sole and exclusive | F |
| Your novitiate would even then be long and exhausting | H |
| The whole past theory of your life and all conformity to the lives | I |
| around you would have to be abandon'd | J |
| Therefore release me now before troubling yourself any further Let | K |
| go your hand from my shoulders | L |
| Put me down and depart on your way | M |
| - | |
| Or else by stealth in some wood for trial | N |
| Or back of a rock in the open air | O |
| For in any roof'd room of a house I emerge not nor in company | P |
| And in libraries I lie as one dumb a gawk or unborn or dead | Q |
| But just possibly with you on a high hill first watching lest any | P |
| person for miles around approach unawares | R |
| Or possibly with you sailing at sea or on the beach of the sea or | G |
| some quiet island | J |
| Here to put your lips upon mine I permit you | S |
| With the comrade's long dwelling kiss or the new husband's kiss | T |
| For I am the new husband and I am the comrade | U |
| - | |
| Or if you will thrusting me beneath your clothing | H |
| Where I may feel the throbs of your heart or rest upon your hip | V |
| Carry me when you go forth over land or sea | P |
| For thus merely touching you is enough is best | W |
| And thus touching you would I silently sleep and be carried | X |
| eternally | P |
| - | |
| But these leaves conning you con at peril | N |
| For these leaves and me you will not understand | A |
| They will elude you at first and still more afterward I will | Y |
| certainly elude you | S |
| Even while you should think you had unquestionably caught me | P |
| behold | Z |
| Already you see I have escaped from you | S |
| - | |
| For it is not for what I have put into it that I have written this | T |
| book | A2 |
| Nor is it by reading it you will acquire it | B2 |
| Nor do those know me best who admire me and vauntingly praise me | P |
| Nor will the candidates for my love unless at most a very few | S |
| prove victorious | B |
| Nor will my poems do good only they will do just as much evil | N |
| perhaps more | G |
| For all is useless without that which you may guess at many times and | J |
| not hit that which I hinted at | C2 |
| Therefore release me and depart on your way | M |
Walt Whitman
(1)
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