Apparitions
A vague mist hanging ’round half the pages:(Sometimes how strange and clear to the soul,That all these solid things are indeed but apparitions, concepts,non-realities.)
About this text
Apparitions is in the public domain. This text is taken from Leaves of Grass, Project Gutenberg ebook #1322; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Walt Whitman, Apparitions, in Leaves of Grass (1855–1892), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1322, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/whitman-leaves/apparitions.html, id L04124.
Form and metre
Apparitions is 4 lines in a single stanza. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 3 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| A vague mist hanging ’round half the pages: | 10 | ···/˘···/˘ |
| (Sometimes how strange and clear to the soul, | 9 | ˘/······· |
| That all these solid things are indeed but apparitions, concepts, | 16 | ···/˘··˘/··˘/˘/˘ |
| non-realities.) | 5 | ·˘/˘˘ |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.