Darest Thou Now o Soul
Darest thou now O soul,Walk out with me toward the unknown region,Where neither ground is for the feet nor any path to follow?
No map there, nor guide,Nor voice sounding, nor touch of human hand,Nor face with blooming flesh, nor lips, nor eyes, are in that land.
I know it not O soul,Nor dost thou, all is a blank before us,All waits undream’d of in that region, that inaccessible land.
Till when the ties loosen,All but the ties eternal, Time and Space,Nor darkness, gravitation, sense, nor any bounds bounding us.
Then we burst forth, we float,In Time and Space O soul, prepared for them,Equal, equipt at last, (O joy! O fruit of all!) them to fulfil O soul.
About this text
Darest Thou Now o Soul 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, Darest Thou Now o Soul, in Leaves of Grass (1855–1892), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1322, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/whitman-leaves/darest-thou-now-o-soul.html, id L04022.
Form and metre
Darest Thou Now o Soul is 15 lines in 5 verse paragraphs. It is unrhymed, as far as the pronouncing dictionary can tell. 89% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.5 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.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 2 -AA guide · handA · landA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Darest thou now O soul, | 6 | ······ |
| Walk out with me toward the unknown region, | 11 | ·······˘//˘ |
| Where neither ground is for the feet nor any path to follow? | 15 | ·/˘······/˘··/˘ |
| No map there, nor guide, | 5 | ····· |
| Nor voice sounding, nor touch of human hand, | 10 | ··/˘···/˘· |
| Nor face with blooming flesh, nor lips, nor eyes, are in that land. | 14 | ···/˘········· |
| I know it not O soul, | 6 | ······ |
| Nor dost thou, all is a blank before us, | 10 | ·········· |
| All waits undream’d of in that region, that inaccessible land. | 16 | ··˘/···/˘··˘/˘˘· |
| Till when the ties loosen, | 6 | ····/˘ |
| All but the ties eternal, Time and Space, | 10 | ····˘/˘··· |
| Nor darkness, gravitation, sense, nor any bounds bounding us. | 15 | ·/˘·˘/˘··/˘·/˘· |
| Then we burst forth, we float, | 6 | ······ |
| In Time and Space O soul, prepared for them, | 10 | ······˘/·· |
| Equal, equipt at last, (O joy! O fruit of all!) them to fulfil O soul. | 18 | /˘················ |
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.