By Broad Potomac’s Shore
By Broad Potomac’s Shore - fact Summary
Included in Leaves of Grass
This short lyric situates the speaker beside the Potomac and repeatedly invokes springtime Virginia—light, grass, roses, hills—asking the river and landscape to "perfume" and infuse his book before he finishes. The refrain of "again" stresses renewal and attachment to place while the speaker seeks to preserve nature’s freshness within his writing. It reads as a vivid, affectionate petition to bind memory and poem to a specific landscape.
Read Complete Analyses1 BY broad Potomac’s shore—again, old tongue! (Still uttering—still ejaculating—canst never cease this babble?) Again, old heart so gay—again to you, your sense, the full flush spring returning; Again the freshness and the odors—again Virginia’s summer sky, pellucid blue and silver, Again the forenoon purple of the hills, Again the deathless grass, so noiseless, soft and green, Again the blood-red roses blooming. 2 Perfume this book of mine, O blood-red roses! Lave subtly with your waters every line, Potomac! Give me of you, O spring, before I close, to put between its pages! O forenoon purple of the hills, before I close, of you! O smiling earth—O summer sun, give me of you! O deathless grass, of you!
Feel free to be first to leave comment.