Song of Myself (Part 2) - Walt Whitman
An Invitation to Direct Experience and Unmediated Communion with the Senses
Song of Myself, Part 2
(Public Domain text, from the 1892 “Deathbed” edition of Leaves of Grass)
2
Houses and rooms are full of perfumes, the shelves are crowded with perfumes,
I breathe the fragrance myself and know it and like it,
The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it.
The atmosphere is not a perfume, it has no taste of the distillation, it is odorless,
It is for my mouth forever, I am in love with it,
I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked,
I am mad for it to be in contact with me.
The smoke of my own breath,
Echoes, ripples, buzz’d whispers, love-root, silk-thread, crotch and vine,
My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart, the passing of blood and air through my lungs,
The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the shore and dark-color’d sea-rocks, and of hay in the barn,
The sound of the belch’d words of my voice loos’d to the eddies of the wind,
A few light kisses, a few embraces, a reaching around of arms,
The play of shine and shade on the trees as the supple boughs wag,
The delight alone or in the rush of the streets, or along the fields and hill-sides,
The feeling of health, the full-noon trill, the song of me rising from bed and meeting the sun.
Have you reckon’d a thousand acres much? have you reckon’d the earth much?
Have you practis’d so long to learn to read?
Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?
Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems,
You shall possess the good of the earth and sun, (there are millions of suns left,)
You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books,
You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,
You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self.
In Part 2 of Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself,” the poet intensifies his focus on direct, unfiltered experience of the world—what he calls the “atmosphere.” Rejecting perfumes (refinements or secondhand experiences) as mere distillations, Whitman urges us to breathe deeply of life’s raw essence.
He dwells on the delights of the senses: inhaling the smell of leaves and sea-rocks, feeling sunlight on his skin, reveling in the physical process of breath and circulation. By cataloging these embodied impressions, Whitman underscores his conviction that each individual can commune with nature and awaken personal insight—no intermediaries required.
Amid the lush sensory images, Whitman transitions into rhetorical questions (“Have you reckon’d a thousand acres much?”) that gently challenge the reader’s assumptions about knowledge and pride. He follows with an invitation to “Stop this day and night with me,” promising that in doing so, one can access the “origin of all poems”—the wellspring of inspiration that transcends borrowed doctrine or secondhand ideas.
Ultimately, Part 2 expands on the premise Whitman established in the poem’s opening: to know oneself and the universe directly, we must break from passively received wisdom, awaken our own senses, and welcome the intimate contact of air, earth, and the vital stirrings of our own bodies. In his view, no institution, text, or prior authority can fully mediate such understanding. Whitman’s optimistic stance—a hallmark of his poetic revolution—celebrates an individual’s capacity to filter all experiences through the self, forging an honest, personal connection with nature and humanity alike.
Key points
1. Whitman prizes immediate sensory engagement, free from artifice or inherited judgments.
2. He presents the body as a vital conduit to deeper consciousness, bridging spirit and earth.
3. Rhetorical questions challenge readers to reevaluate the depth of their own perceptions.
4. By urging self-trust and direct observation, Whitman foreshadows the poem’s broader theme: an expansive democracy of the senses and soul.
