To the Garden the World
To the garden the world anew ascending,Potent mates, daughters, sons, preluding,The love, the life of their bodies, meaning and being,Curious here behold my resurrection after slumber,The revolving cycles in their wide sweep having brought me again,Amorous, mature, all beautiful to me, all wondrous,My limbs and the quivering fire that ever plays through them, forreasons, most wondrous,Existing I peer and penetrate still,Content with the present, content with the past,By my side or back of me Eve following,Or in front, and I following her just the same.
Words in this poem
- curious a.
- Difficult to please or satisfy; solicitous to be correct; careful; scrupulous; nice; exact. [OF. curios, curius, F. curieux, L. curiosus careful, inquisitive, fr. cura care. See Cure.]
- resurrection n.
- A rising again; the resumption of vigor. [F. résurrection, L. resurrectio, fr. resurgere, resurrectum, to rise again; pref. re- re- + surgere to rise. See Source.]
- wondrous adv.
- In a wonderful or surprising manner or degree; wonderfully. [OE. wonders, adv. (later also adj.). See Wonder, n., and cf. -wards.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
To the Garden the World 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, To the Garden the World, in Leaves of Grass (1855–1892), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1322, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/whitman-leaves/to-the-garden-the-world.html, id L03847.
Form and metre
To the Garden the World is 12 lines in a single stanza. 69% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 11.9 syllables. 7 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 8% 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 -----A-A---- ascending · preluding · being · slumber · again · wondrousA · for · wondrousA · still · past · following · same
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 |
|---|---|---|
| To the garden the world anew ascending, | 11 | ··/˘··˘/˘/˘ |
| Potent mates, daughters, sons, preluding, | 9 | /˘·/˘·/·˘ |
| The love, the life of their bodies, meaning and being, | 13 | ······/˘/˘·/˘ |
| Curious here behold my resurrection after slumber, | 15 | /˘˘·˘/··˘/˘··/˘ |
| The revolving cycles in their wide sweep having brought me again, | 16 | ·˘/˘/˘····/˘··˘/ |
| Amorous, mature, all beautiful to me, all wondrous, | 14 | /˘˘˘/·/˘˘···/˘ |
| My limbs and the quivering fire that ever plays through them, for | 16 | ····/˘˘/˘·/˘···· |
| reasons, most wondrous, | 5 | /˘·/˘ |
| Existing I peer and penetrate still, | 10 | ˘/˘···/˘·· |
| Content with the present, content with the past, | 11 | /˘··/˘/˘··· |
| By my side or back of me Eve following, | 11 | ········/˘˘ |
| Or in front, and I following her just the same. | 12 | ·····/˘˘···· |
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.