My Picture-Gallery
In a little house keep I pictures suspended, it is not a fix’d house,It is round, it is only a few inches from one side to the other;Yet behold, it has room for all the shows of the world, all memories!Here the tableaus of life, and here the groupings of death;Here, do you know this? this is cicerone himself,With finger rais’d he points to the prodigal pictures.
Words in this poem
- cicerone n.
- One who shows strangers the curiosities of a place; a guide. [It., fr. L. Cicero, the Roman orator. So called from the ordinary talkativeness of such a guide.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
My Picture-Gallery 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, My Picture-Gallery, in Leaves of Grass (1855–1892), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1322, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/whitman-leaves/my-picture-gallery.html, id L04014.
Form and metre
My Picture-Gallery is 6 lines in a single verse paragraph. It is unrhymed, as far as the pronouncing dictionary can tell. The lines average 15.2 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 |
|---|---|---|
| In a little house keep I pictures suspended, it is not a fix’d house, | 18 | ··/˘···/˘˘/˘······ |
| It is round, it is only a few inches from one side to the other; | 18 | ·····/˘··/˘·····/˘ |
| Yet behold, it has room for all the shows of the world, all memories! | 17 | ·˘/···········/˘˘ |
| Here the tableaus of life, and here the groupings of death; | 13 | ··˘/·····/˘·· |
| Here, do you know this? this is cicerone himself, | 12 | ·······/˘·˘/ |
| With finger rais’d he points to the prodigal pictures. | 13 | ·/˘·····/˘˘/˘ |
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.