One Hour to Madness and Joy
One hour to madness and joy! O furious! O confine me not!(What is this that frees me so in storms?What do my shouts amid lightnings and raging winds mean?)O to drink the mystic deliria deeper than any other man!O savage and tender achings! (I bequeath them to you my children,I tell them to you, for reasons, O bridegroom and bride.)
O to be yielded to you whoever you are, and you to be yielded to mein defiance of the world!O to return to Paradise! O bashful and feminine!O to draw you to me, to plant on you for the first time the lips ofa determin’d man.
O the puzzle, the thrice-tied knot, the deep and dark pool, alluntied and illumin’d!O to speed where there is space enough and air enough at last!To be absolv’d from previous ties and conventions, I from mine andyou from yours!To find a new unthought-of nonchalance with the best of Nature!To have the gag remov’d from one’s mouth!To have the feeling to-day or any day I am sufficient as I am.
O something unprov’d! something in a trance!To escape utterly from others’ anchors and holds!To drive free! to love free! to dash reckless and dangerous!To court destruction with taunts, with invitations!To ascend, to leap to the heavens of the love indicated to me!To rise thither with my inebriate soul!To be lost if it must be so!To feed the remainder of life with one hour of fulness and freedom!With one brief hour of madness and joy.
Words in this poem
- amid prep.
- In the midst or middle of; surrounded or encompassed by; among. [OE. amidde, amiddes, on midden, AS. on middan, in the middle, fr. midde the middle. The s is an adverbial ending, originally marking the genitive; the t is a la]
- bequeath v. t.
- To give or leave by will; to give by testament; -- said especially of personal property. [OE. biquethen, AS. becwe to say, affirm, bequeath; pref. be- + cwe to say, speak. See Quoth.]
- bridegroom n.
- A man newly married, or just about to be married. [OE. bridegome, brudgume, AS. br (akin to OS. br, D. bruidegom, bruigom, OHG. pr, MHG. briutegome, G. bräutigam); AS. br bride + guma man, akin to Goth. guma, Ic]
- whoever pron.
- Whatever person; any person who; be or she who; any one who; as, he shall be punished, whoever he may be.
- bashful a.
- Abashed; daunted; dismayed. [See Bash.]
- nonchalance n.
- Indifference; carelessness; coolness. [F. See Nonchalant.]
- inebriate v. i.
- To become drunk.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
One Hour to Madness and Joy 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, One Hour to Madness and Joy, in Leaves of Grass (1855–1892), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1322, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/whitman-leaves/one-hour-to-madness-and-joy.html, id L03852.
Form and metre
One Hour to Madness and Joy is 28 lines in 4 stanzas. 77% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 13.0 syllables. 7 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 14% 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.
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.
- 1 --AAA- not · storms · meanA · manA · childrenA · bride
- 2 --A-A me · world · feminineA · of · manA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| One hour to madness and joy! O furious! O confine me not! | 17 | ·/˘·/˘···/˘˘·˘/·· |
| (What is this that frees me so in storms? | 9 | ········· |
| What do my shouts amid lightnings and raging winds mean?) | 13 | ····˘//˘·/˘·· |
| O to drink the mystic deliria deeper than any other man! | 17 | ····/˘···/˘·/˘/˘· |
| O savage and tender achings! (I bequeath them to you my children, | 17 | ·/˘·/˘/˘·˘/····/˘ |
| I tell them to you, for reasons, O bridegroom and bride.) | 13 | ······/˘·/··· |
| O to be yielded to you whoever you are, and you to be yielded to me | 20 | ···/˘··˘/˘······/˘·· |
| in defiance of the world! | 7 | ·˘/˘··· |
| O to return to Paradise! O bashful and feminine! | 15 | ··˘/·/˘··/˘·/˘˘ |
| O to draw you to me, to plant on you for the first time the lips of | 17 | ················· |
| a determin’d man. | 5 | ·˘/˘· |
| O the puzzle, the thrice-tied knot, the deep and dark pool, all | 14 | ··/˘·········· |
| untied and illumin’d! | 6 | ˘/·˘/˘ |
| O to speed where there is space enough and air enough at last! | 15 | ·······˘/··˘/·· |
| To be absolv’d from previous ties and conventions, I from mine and | 17 | ··˘/·/˘˘··˘/˘···· |
| you from yours! | 3 | ··· |
| To find a new unthought-of nonchalance with the best of Nature! | 16 | ·······/˘/····/˘ |
| To have the gag remov’d from one’s mouth! | 9 | ····˘/··· |
| To have the feeling to-day or any day I am sufficient as I am. | 19 | ···/˘···/˘···˘/˘··· |
| O something unprov’d! something in a trance! | 10 | ·/˘˘//˘··· |
| To escape utterly from others’ anchors and holds! | 13 | ·˘//˘˘·/˘/˘·· |
| To drive free! to love free! to dash reckless and dangerous! | 14 | ········/˘·/˘˘ |
| To court destruction with taunts, with invitations! | 12 | ··˘/˘····˘/˘ |
| To ascend, to leap to the heavens of the love indicated to me! | 18 | ·˘/····/˘···/˘·˘·· |
| To rise thither with my inebriate soul! | 11 | ··/˘··˘/˘·· |
| To be lost if it must be so! | 8 | ········ |
| To feed the remainder of life with one hour of fulness and freedom! | 18 | ···˘/˘····/˘·/˘·/˘ |
| With one brief hour of madness and joy. | 10 | ···/˘·/˘·· |
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.