One’s-Self I Sing
One’s-self I sing, a simple separate person,Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-Masse.
Of physiology from top to toe I sing,Not physiognomy alone nor brain alone is worthy for the Muse, I saythe Form complete is worthier far,The Female equally with the Male I sing.
Of Life immense in passion, pulse, and power,Cheerful, for freest action form’d under the laws divine,The Modern Man I sing.
About this text
One’s-Self I Sing 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’s-Self I Sing, in Leaves of Grass (1855–1892), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1322, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/whitman-leaves/one-s-self-i-sing.html, id L03824.
Form and metre
One’s-Self I Sing is 9 lines in 3 stanzas. The metre is alexandrines, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 84%). 86% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 11.9 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 11% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in alexandrines.
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 A--A singA · say · far · singA
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. Read against alexandrines. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| One’s-self I sing, a simple separate person, | 12 | ·····/˘/˘·/˘ |
| Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-Masse. | 13 | ·/˘···˘/˘···· |
| Of physiology from top to toe I sing, | 12 | ··˘/˘˘······ |
| Not physiognomy alone nor brain alone is worthy for the Muse, I say | 19 | ·····˘/··˘/·/˘····· |
| the Form complete is worthier far, | 9 | ··˘/·/˘˘· |
| The Female equally with the Male I sing. | 11 | ·/·/˘˘····· |
| Of Life immense in passion, pulse, and power, | 11 | ··˘/·/˘··/˘ |
| Cheerful, for freest action form’d under the laws divine, | 14 | /˘·/˘/˘·····˘/ |
| The Modern Man I sing. | 6 | ·/˘··· |
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.