O Me! O Life!

O Me! O Life! - context Summary

Published in 1867

This short poem, appearing in the 1867 edition of Leaves of Grass, stages an anguished series of rhetorical questions about life’s purpose and human failure, then offers a resolute answer: individual existence and action matter because each person contributes a unique part to the ongoing whole. It condenses Whitman’s democratic, metaphysical optimism and his conviction in the interconnectedness of all things as a response to doubt and despair.