This Dust Was Once the Man
This dust was once the man,Gentle, plain, just and resolute, under whose cautious hand,Against the foulest crime in history known in any land or age,Was saved the Union of these States.
About this text
This Dust Was Once the Man 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, This Dust Was Once the Man, in Leaves of Grass (1855–1892), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1322, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/whitman-leaves/this-dust-was-once-the-man.html, id L03978.
Form and metre
This Dust Was Once the Man is 4 lines in a single stanza. The lines average 11.2 syllables.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| This dust was once the man, | 6 | ······ |
| Gentle, plain, just and resolute, under whose cautious hand, | 14 | /˘···/˘····/˘· |
| Against the foulest crime in history known in any land or age, | 17 | ···/˘··/˘˘··/˘··· |
| Was saved the Union of these States. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
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.