SD: A Silent Night's Ramble

A SILENT NIGHT RAMBLE

"October 20th.

-- To-night, after leaving the hospital at 10 o'clock, (I had been on self-imposed duty some five hours, pretty closely confined,) I wander'd a long time around Washington. The night was sweet, very clear, sufficiently cool, a voluptuous half-moon, slightly golden, the space near it of a transparent blue-gray tinge. I walk'd up Pennsylvania avenue, and then to Seventh street, and a long while around the Patent-office. Somehow it look'd rebukefully strong, majestic, there in the delicate moonlight. The sky, the planets, the constellations all so bright, so calm, so expressively silent, so soothing, after those hospital scenes. I wander'd to and fro till the moist moon set, long after midnight."

I chose this excerpt from Whitman's A Specimen's Days for no particular reason except that I suspected that it might be an obvious one to write on. After all, "silent night" (or nature in general) coupled with "rambling" seem to be two relatively important keywords in "Leaves of Grass" even though the two together is a bit of an oxymoron (which is the icing on the cake in this case).

However, what struck me about this entry is how Whitman describes the effects of the night and the moon. Whitman, after spending five hours at the hospital, is almost immediately rejuvenated when he wanders the night-time landscape. Night has an effect of defamiliarizing a familiar world. This concept is immensely important for at least my understanding of Whitman's "Leaves of Grass". Not to point out the obvious, but night makes the world dark. It distances you from your immediate surroundings and your focus is immediately drawn to the moon and the stars. And more importantly, the hectic noise of activity dims and everything becomes quiet. One can almost believe that they are the last person on Earth or maybe something even more meta than that; one could believe that they were a part of the night itself. As Whitman's last line, "I wander'd to and fro till the moist moon set, long after midnight" suggests, one can actually lose themselves within the night. As suggested in the poem, the boundary between the self and the world can easily be blurred.

Night makes a frequent appearance in "Songs of Myself" as well.

I am he that walks with the tender and growing night;

I call to the earth and sea half-held by the night.

Press close barebosomed night! Press close magnetic nourishing night!

Night of the south winds! Night of the large few stars!

Still nodding night! Mad naked summer night! (15)

In these lines, night is personified, but also, almost indistinguishable from Whitman himself. He embraces it as if he wants to merge and become one with it. In a sense, Whitman asks the reader to do the same with his poetry, or at the very least, it is what the Whitman wishes to do to the reader (although he argues in the beginning that we are already one and the same). I understand why he would want to present this ideal. If everyone is the same, we all belong to each other and if that were true, there would be no more fighting, no more useless competition and people will finally be able to learn to share and care for and with one another. However, in the end, night is but a veil that only momentarily distorts and covers up the realities of the day.