Beginners
How they are provided for upon the earth, (appearing at intervals,)How dear and dreadful they are to the earth,How they inure to themselves as much as to any--what a paradoxappears their age,How people respond to them, yet know them not,How there is something relentless in their fate all times,How all times mischoose the objects of their adulation and reward,And how the same inexorable price must still be paid for the samegreat purchase.
Words in this poem
- dreadful a.
- Full of dread or terror; fearful.
- inure v. t.
- To apply in use; to train; to discipline; to use or accustom till use gives little or no pain or inconvenience; to harden; to habituate; to practice habitually. [From pref. in- in + ure use, work. See Ure use, practice, Opera, and cf. Manure.]
- relentless a.
- Unmoved by appeals for sympathy or forgiveness; insensible to the distresses of others; destitute of tenderness; unrelenting; unyielding; unpitying; as, a prey to relentless despotism.
- mischoose v. t.
- To choose wrongly.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Beginners 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, Beginners, in Leaves of Grass (1855–1892), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1322, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/whitman-leaves/beginners.html, id L03833.
Form and metre
Beginners is 9 lines in a single verse paragraph. It is unrhymed, as far as the pronouncing dictionary can tell. 82% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 12.3 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 22% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| How they are provided for upon the earth, (appearing at intervals,) | 18 | ···˘/˘·····˘/˘·/˘˘ |
| How dear and dreadful they are to the earth, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| How they inure to themselves as much as to any--what a paradox | 18 | ··˘/·˘/····/˘··/˘· |
| appears their age, | 4 | ˘/·· |
| How people respond to them, yet know them not, | 11 | ·/˘˘/······ |
| How there is something relentless in their fate all times, | 13 | ···/˘˘/˘····· |
| How all times mischoose the objects of their adulation and reward, | 17 | ···˘/·/˘···˘/˘·˘/ |
| And how the same inexorable price must still be paid for the same | 17 | ·····/˘˘˘········ |
| great purchase. | 3 | ·/˘ |
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.