Walt Whitman's 'To Think of Time'

Walt Whitman's "To Think of Time" is a poem in nine parts in which the first-person speaker meditates on the passing of time that brings inevitable death. He ends hopefully, realizing that his own perspective is just a small part in the larger movement of mankind through life and death, thus life does not begin or end with him. Whitman maintains the tone of joyous exaltation at life in all its varieties that he began in "Song of Myself."

In part one, the speaker thinks generally on time and imagines the world before he was alive, realizing that even though he "did not see feel think nor bear [his] part" (8), that "every thing was real and alive" (7). This sets up the general idea of the poem, that life itself continues before and during and after any one person and that no one is bigger than his own allotted time.

Part two describes a moment just after a person has died. The speaker does not say this explicitly, instead remembering all the things that are now over, such as "the soreness of lying so much in bed" (13). The family has been called; the extra medicine now sits unused. The person is described as simply a corpse, never as a person, which distances the reader from the impact of the moment and reinforces the feeling that death is a normal thing. It is certainly a somber moment, but as the speaker tells the reader, "Not a day passes . . not a minute or a second without a corpse" (11).

In part three the speaker moves back from the specific scene into more general thoughts. He thinks about the things that happen to people: the building of a house, ripening fruit, snow falling, and the fact that he takes only "small interest in them" (25). Important moments in one person's life are meaningless to other people, suggesting the largeness of life, which cannot be fully realized by one person. Here the speaker also refers to "black lines" that "creep over the whole earth" (30). These are burial lines, he says, a reminder that no one, not even the President, can escape death.

Part four moves back to more concrete imagery, this time of a funeral. A stagedriver has died and is buried, and the speaker recalls his life and his experiences, saying he was a good man and he fully realized the range of life's experiences. At the end of this part the speaker describes the details of the stagedriver's work, which are so important to the other drivers, but "he there takes no interest in them" (52). Suddenly, the details that consumed his days are nothing to him because he is no longer there to think on them.

Part five takes this thought and moves back again into a universal application. Wages and work, profit and loss, even pleasure and family, things that are so important to a person, will soon cease to matter. They are nothing to a dead person. The experiences will continue to be experienced by the living as "These also flow onward to others" (61).

Part six continues this line of thought. Though the beautiful things in life will cease to matter after death, that does not diminish them. "They are not phantasms . . they have weight and form and location" (69). The important things and the beautiful things are no less important or beautiful simply because one day we will not be able to appreciate them. Other people are appreciating them and will continue to appreciate them. While a person is alive, the world is his to enjoy: "the pleasure of men with women . . . the pleasure of women with men . . . the pleasure from poems" (68). And a person himself is not less real while he is alive because he will inevitably die.

Part seven shifts thoughts slightly and seems to invoke images of purpose to existence. The orchestra is tuned and ready to play, the baton has signaled, a guest that has planned to come has indeed come. These events take advance planning to make happen. The section starts with a stanza about birth before moving to these images, suggesting that to live is not some random accident, but that "the pattern is systematic" (79). The speaker describes begin born as "something long preparing and formless" that "is arrived and formed in you" (77). The section ends with six lines about law, and this law applies to the past, present and future, to "heroes and good-doers" (88), and to "drunkards and informers and mean persons" (89). This law that applies to everyone is the passage of time and inevitable death. There is a sense of order to "the exquisite scheme" (134), a sense that things operate according to a fixed system of rules, and that events are not random.

Part eight again refers to the "black lines" that "go ceaselessly over the earth" (90). The speaker lists all types of people from all parts of the world, rich and poor and prostitutes and Camanches and murderers and inventors, saying that "there is strict account of all" (94). Everyone is under "the law" the speaker has already mentioned, even the speaker himself. The speaker does not despair at his own short time of existence. Rather, he rejoices at the perfection and surety of life: "The past and present indicate that it is good" (120). Satisfaction comes from the awareness of his existence: "O my soul! if I realize you I have satisfaction" (126).

In part nine the poet has a revelation that "everything has an eternal soul!" (131). Not that people do not die, but that there is a larger immortality beyond a single person. Life and death are a part of the "exquisite scheme" (134). At the poem's opening, the speaker asks a series of rhetorical questions about what happens if a person does not continue. "Have you feared the future would be nothing to you?" (4). If the future is nothing, surely the past also becomes nothing, the speaker says. By the end of the poem the speaker has broadened his vision and realized that living and dying are small things. Dying happens constantly, as does birth. When a person dies, the things around him continue even if he is not there to take an interest in them. People are not nothing, though. Rather, everyone will be dead one day, and everyone will be accounted for, thus each person is something because to each person comes to the same fate. Whether any single person realizes that the sky is beautiful, it will continue to be beautiful, and people will continue to enjoy the pleasures of life with or without any one person. Beauty does not become real when someone realizes it. It is real, and we are satisfied when we realize it.