To the States
To the States or any one of them, or any city of the States, Resistmuch, obey little,Once unquestioning obedience, once fully enslaved,Once fully enslaved, no nation, state, city of this earth, everafterward resumes its liberty.
About this text
To the States 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 States, in Leaves of Grass (1855–1892), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1322, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/whitman-leaves/to-the-states.html, id L03834.
Form and metre
To the States is 5 lines in a single stanza. The lines average 12.6 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 |
|---|---|---|
| To the States or any one of them, or any city of the States, Resist | 19 | ····/˘····/˘/˘···˘/ |
| much, obey little, | 5 | ·˘//˘ |
| Once unquestioning obedience, once fully enslaved, | 14 | ·˘/˘˘˘/˘˘·/˘˘/ |
| Once fully enslaved, no nation, state, city of this earth, ever | 16 | ·/˘˘/·/˘·/˘···/˘ |
| afterward resumes its liberty. | 9 | /˘˘˘/·/˘˘ |
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.