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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


THAT MUSIC ALWAYS ROUND ME by WALT WHITMAN

Poet Analysis

First Line: THAT MUSIC ALWAYS ROUND ME, UNCEASING, UNBEGINNING, YET LONG UNTAUGHT
Last Line: THINK I BEGIN TO KNOW THEM.

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 I begin to know them.



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