Confession painted in red
O DROPS of me! trickle, slow drops,
| Candid, from me falling—drip, bleeding drops, |
| From wounds made to free you whence you were prisoned, |
| From my face—from my forehead and lips, |
| From my breast—from within where I was con- cealed—Press forth, red drops—confession drops, |
| Stain every page—stain every song I sing, every word I say, bloody drops, |
| Let them know your scarlet heat—let them glisten, |
| Saturate them with yourself, all ashamed and wet, |
| Glow upon all I have written or shall write, bleed- ing drops, |
| Let it all be seen in your light, blushing drops.
In this poem, all Whitman’s pain comes to the surface. It flows like a stream, it is not hidden anymore. What caught my attention is Whitman’s “scarlet heat” that is put onto pages of his 1860 edition of “Leaves of Grass”. Whitman’s confession is red, bloody. Like Nathaniel Hawthorne’ s Hester Prynne, who wore the scarlet letter “A”, a badge of shame, Whitman wore his scarlet letter inside of him. His conception of being different is transformed into words and put on the paper. He says “confession drops, stain every page”. One of the meanings of the word “stain” given in Oxford dictionary is “to damage the opinion that people have of something”. Connotation of this word here is negative. The poet admits something in this poem that is wrong for public opinion. This confession is painful but finally, his supressed thoughts and feelings are liberated. Also, interesting fact is that the covers of this edition are red. Whitman’s premonition of the American Civil War made him design the covers in the colour of blood.
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November 26th, 2009 @ 6:45 pm
Hi Neda… there is much potential in the seeds of ideas that you’ve planted here! I think it may be worthwhile to plunge even further into the darkness of Whitman’s strange allusions to shame and sin (think of his use of ‘blushing’ and ‘ashamed’ in addition to ‘scarlet’ and ‘stain’). Why the connection with blood? And is there perhaps another linking Calamus poem that might help shed light on such questions?