Scented Herbage of My Breast

The second of the 1860 "Calamus" group, this poem remained substantially unchanged except for the dropping in 1881 of the folling line after the present seventh line:

Oh burning and throbbing--surely all will one
day be accomplished;

The intricate symbolism of the "emblematic and capricious blades" is difficult to follow-- even the poet (line 22) cries that they serve him not, but it is clear that in this poignant confession love has led him to think of death as a deliverance. D.H. Lawrence, reflecting upon this poem (see Studies in Classic American Literature, 1922) remarks that "Whitman is a very great poet, of the end of life." The exultant celebrator of life is also the solicitor of death, which to him is not morbid, but beautiful. Esther Shepard has made the interesting discovery that his concept of tomb leaves growing out of his breast, Walt Whitman was influenced by poring over illustrations in Ippolito Rosellini's account of the Egyptian (Pisa, 1844) which show the burial chamber of Osiris, from whose mummy are sprouting leaves of grain. Walt Whitman had seen the plates of the book in the Astor Library and wrote of it in Life Illustrated, December 8, 1855. See Shephard, "Possible Sources of Some of Whitman's Ideas and Symbols in Hermes Mercurius Trismegistus and Other Works," MLQ, XIV, 60-81.

(Blodgett 112-113)