A Promise to California
A Promise to California - fact Summary
Intent to Settle the West
This short Leaves of Grass poem voices Whitman’s pledge to move westward to California and Oregon. He presents the journey as both personal relocation and a mission: to "teach robust American love." The poem links the poet’s identity with the inland and Pacific regions, expressing admiration for the American West and an intention to settle there as part of a broader national pull toward the Western Sea.
Read Complete AnalysesA PROMISE to California, Also to the great Pastoral Plains, and for Oregon: Sojourning east a while longer, soon I travel toward you, to remain, to teach robust American love; For I know very well that I and robust love belong among you, inland, and along the Western Sea; For These States tend inland, and toward the Western Sea—and I will also.
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