Leaves of Grass. 30. Whispers of Heavenly Death. 9. That Music Always Round Me
That music always round me, unceasing, unbeginning, yet long
untaught I did not hear,
But now the chorus I hear and am elated,
A tenor, strong, ascending with power and health, with glad notes of
daybreak I hear,
A soprano at intervals sailing buoyantly over the tops of immense waves,
A transparent base shuddering lusciously under and through the universe,
The triumphant tutti, the funeral wailings with sweet flutes and
violins, all these I fill myself with,
I hear not the volumes of sound merely, I am moved by the exquisite
meanings,
I listen to the different voices winding in and out, striving,
contending with fiery vehemence to excel each other in emotion;
I do not think the performers know themselves—but now I think
begin to know them.
Walt Whitman’s other poems:
- Leaves of Grass. 35. Good-Bye My Fancy. 10. To the Pending Year
- Leaves of Grass. 35. Good-Bye My Fancy. 11. Shakspere-Bacon’s Cipher
- Leaves of Grass. 35. Good-Bye My Fancy. 13. Bravo, Paris Exposition!
- Leaves of Grass. 35. Good-Bye My Fancy. 24. The Commonplace
- Leaves of Grass. 34. Sands at Seventy. 14. Memories