Me Imperturbe
Me Imperturbe - meaning Summary
Self-balanced Amid Nature
Whitman asserts an unshakable inner calm and equality with the natural world. The speaker downplays social status, mistakes, and fame, claiming equal worth with the best and a steady, receptive stance amid chaos. Emphasizing presence across places and roles, he longs for self-balance to meet hardships—night, storms, hunger, ridicule—just as trees and animals endure. The poem celebrates resilient, democratic individualism rooted in nature.
Read Complete AnalysesME imperturbe, standing at ease in Nature, Master of all, or mistress of all—aplomb in the midst of irrational things, Imbued as they—passive, receptive, silent as they, Finding my occupation, poverty, notoriety, foibles, crimes, less important than I thought; Me private, or public, or menial, or solitary—all these subordinate, (I am eternally equal with the best—I am not subordinate;) Me toward the Mexican Sea, or in the Mannahatta, or the Tennessee, or far north, or inland, A river man, or a man of the woods, or of any farm-life in These States, or of the coast, or the lakes, or Kanada, Me, wherever my life is lived, O to be self-balanced for contingencies! O to confront night, storms, hunger, ridicule, accidents, rebuffs, as the trees and animals do.
Feel free to be first to leave comment.