Thursday, May 1, 2008
Section 8
In the 8th section, Whitman addresses the moon ("O western orb sailing the heaven"), who once seemed to know something woeful was to come. Whitman does not know what it was until now, after Lincoln's death. The moon "was lost in the netherward black of the night," perhaps in the way that Lincoln himself is now gone. Whitman conveys that the moon might have had something to tell him, but did not know what it was until the event revealed itself. Here, the moon could be some all-knowing being that is unable to convey its knowledge, or Lincoln himself in his last month. This section of the poem also serves to demonstrate how even a distant part of the natural world mourns for this president, "you sad orb."
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That's an interesting way to look at it. I saw the western orb as a representation of Lincoln, a shining star of the Western World. I though the part where the narrator walked in silence in the transparent night, he was talking about being lost during the civil war. "As I saw you had something to tell as you bent to me night after night,/As you droop'd from the sky low down as if to my side, (while other stars all look'd on)" I thought referenced how Lincoln made an incredible effort to reach the citizens on the battlefields, something other leaders, these other stars, failed to do. Lincoln wept for what was happening around him, and Whitman weeps for the loss of such a man now.
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