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Walt WhitmanA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
“For You O Democracy” is written as a free verse poem. Free verse poetry is an open form of poetry. It emerged from the French vers libre form, and it does not follow formal poetry conventions of patterned meter, musicality, or rhyme. It typically follows natural speech patterns instead.
The poem consists of three stanzas. The first two stanzas are composed of five lines each, and the final third stanza is composed of two lines. The first two stanzas are composed of a complex sentence. For example, in the first stanza, the stanza opens with the command “Come” (Line 1). Rather than ending the first independent clause with a period to create an independent, punctuated statement, the line ends with a comma. The comma connects the poem’s first line to the poem’s second line—“I will make the most splendid race the sun ever shone upon” (Line 2). The second line is also an independent clause, but like the first, it does not end with a period and ends with a comma. The comma connects the second line to the third line—“I will make divine magnetic lands” (Line 3), which is technically an independent clause.
By Walt Whitman
A Glimpse
A Glimpse
Walt Whitman
America
America
Walt Whitman
A Noiseless Patient Spider
A Noiseless Patient Spider
Walt Whitman
Are you the new person drawn toward me?
Are you the new person drawn toward me?
Walt Whitman
As I Walk These Broad Majestic Days
As I Walk These Broad Majestic Days
Walt Whitman
Crossing Brooklyn Ferry
Crossing Brooklyn Ferry
Walt Whitman
Hours Continuing Long
Hours Continuing Long
Walt Whitman
I Hear America Singing
I Hear America Singing
Walt Whitman
I Sing the Body Electric
I Sing the Body Electric
Walt Whitman
I Sit and Look Out
I Sit and Look Out
Walt Whitman
Leaves of Grass
Leaves of Grass
Walt Whitman
O Captain! My Captain!
O Captain! My Captain!
Walt Whitman
Song of Myself
Song of Myself
Walt Whitman
Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night
Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night
Walt Whitman
When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer
When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer
Walt Whitman
When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd
When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd
Walt Whitman