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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.
The first line of the poem is the same as the title and a question addressed to another second-person character whom the first-person speaker addresses. The speaker questions, “Are you the new person […]” (Line 1). The second-person pronoun indicates the speaker addresses a specific individual, and the descriptor “new” identifies this individual as a stranger. The speaker asks this other individual if they are “drawn toward” them (Line 1). The verb “drawn” has a notion of passivity around it. There is the sense that the individual addressed has no control over their attraction to the speaker. They are pulled toward the speaker involuntarily, like a magnetic field. The interrogative tone of the first line shifts to the imperative in the second line. The speaker notes, “To begin with, take warning” (Line 2). Saying “To begin with” implies that there will be a long list of demands or commands the speaker has to give their addressee; what follows in the second line is only the first of many. The specific command of “take warning” hints at possible danger and uncertainty. The particular reasoning for this warning follows in the second half of this second line. The addressee should take warning because the speaker is “surely far different” than what the addressee “suppose[s]” (Line 2).
By Walt Whitman
A Glimpse
Walt Whitman
America
Walt Whitman
A Noiseless Patient Spider
Walt Whitman
As I Walk These Broad Majestic Days
Walt Whitman
Crossing Brooklyn Ferry
Walt Whitman
For You O Democracy
Walt Whitman
Hours Continuing Long
Walt Whitman
I Hear America Singing
Walt Whitman
I Sing the Body Electric
Walt Whitman
I Sit and Look Out
Walt Whitman
Leaves of Grass
Walt Whitman
O Captain! My Captain!
Walt Whitman
Song of Myself
Walt Whitman
Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night
Walt Whitman
When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer
Walt Whitman
When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd
Walt Whitman