Long, Too Long, O Land!
Long, Too Long, O Land! - context Summary
Civil War Reflection
Whitman addresses the nation as a land that once knew only prosperity but must now be remade by suffering. The speaker urges America to learn from anguish and confront dire fate without recoiling, so it can reveal the true character of its people collected en masse. The poem frames national crisis as a crucible that reveals and forges collective identity and patriotic resolve.
Read Complete AnalysesLONG, too long, O land, Traveling roads all even and peaceful, you learn’d from joys and prosperity only; But now, ah now, to learn from crises of anguish—advancing, grappling with direst fate, and recoiling not; And now to conceive, and show to the world, what your children en-masse really are; (For who except myself has yet conceiv’d what your children en-masse really are?) 5
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