10
Alone far in the wilds and mountains I hunt,
Wandering amazed at my own lightness and glee,
In the late afternoon choosing a safe spot to pass the night,
Kindling a fire and broiling the fresh-kill’d game,
Falling asleep on the gather’d leaves with my dog and gun by
my side.
The Yankee clipper is under her sky-sails, she cuts the sparkle
and scud,
My eyes settle the land, I bend at her prow and shout joyously
from the deck.
The boatmen and clam-diggers arose early and stopt for me,
I tuck’d my trowser-ends in my boots and went and had a
good time;
You should have been with us that day round the chowderkettle.
I saw the marriage of the trapper in the open air in the far
west, the bride was a red girl,
Her father and his friends sat near cross-legged and dumbly
smoking, they had moccasins to their feet and large thick
blankets hanging from their shoulders,
On a bank lounged the trapper, he was drest mostly in skins,
his luxuriant beard and curls protected his neck, he held
his bride by the hand,
She had long eyelashes, her head was bare, her coarse straight
locks descended upon her voluptuous limbs and reach’d
to her feet.
The runaway slave came to my house and stopt outside,
I heard his motions crackling the twigs of the woodpile,
Through the swung half-door of the kitchen I saw him limpsy
and weak,
And went where he sat on a log and led him in and assured
him,
And brought water and fill’d a tub for his sweated body and
bruis’d feet,
And gave him a room that enter’d from my own, and gave
him some coarse clean clothes,
And remember perfectly well his revolving eyes and his
awkwardness,
And remember putting plasters on the galls of his neck and
ankles;
He stacsid with me a week before he was recuperated and
pass’d north,
I had him sit next me at table, my fire-lock lean’d in the
corner
In section 8 the poet delineated all the sights and sounds of the city, then in section 9 he describes a scene in the countryside. In those two sections he is the same character, Walt Whitman. in section 10 we see him take different forms, he becomes a vagabond hunter, then a commanding sailor. Thereafter he or the “I” becomes a spectator at a wedding and finally he becomes a caregiver to a runaway slave. Of course there are instances where the speaker and the poet are not the same person. I recall the poem Marriage was a foreign country by Mistuye Yamada as a recent example, where the speaker is her mother while she is the poet. In the poem her mother relays her experiences as a picture bride and Mitsuye moulds the speaker's accounts with poetic techniques. In section 10 the poet and the speaker are still one, however this time Whitman lives out other identities, singing out the songs of other people if you will. But if you remember a recurring theme with Song of Myself is that it is ultimately a celebration of humanity and section 10 is where this celebration is realised.
Let's take a look at the first identity he takes on: a lone hunter, in the wilds and mountains. To be clear at the publishing of this poem Whitman had never been out in the wild hunting, yet he describes a scene where he is delighted as he broils his caught game over a fire. The scene ends with a light contentedness “Falling asleep on the gather’d leaves with my dog and gun by my side.”
In the next scene, Whitman is the commander of a Yankie clipper which is said to have been a clipper ship in United States service. Clipper ships were designed to facilitate faster transport of cargo across oceanic waters and whitman acknowledges his ships speed in the quote
"The Yankee clipper is under her sky-sails, she cuts the sparkle and scud,"
He remarks joyfully on his experiences as a sailor saying to the reader “You should have been with us that day round the chowderkettle.”
Next he describes a wedding taking place between “the trapper…in the far west and the red girl,” The bride is described as red because the poet is referring to her Native American identity. I’m not too sure if he is the trapper being married but he details the scene with great care, describing the groom and bride and the wedding guests. The groom and his “luxuriant beard and curls protecting his neck, holding his brides hand who bore long eyelashes and was without veil or head covering which gave full view of her coarse straight locks which descended upon her voluptuous limbs and reach’d to her feet.”
Right from the brides feet we move to the last scene where whitman encounters a runaway slave. He notes that the slave was limpy and weak and secretly trying to find rest around the speakers home. Whitman finds him and assures him then takes him in. To go off on a little tangent, Whitman’s opinions on slavery appear to be inconsistent, in some of his prose he has been noted to defend the rights of slaveowners while we have sections such as this one where we see Whitman extend humanity to all people, slave and free. While this is something I’d like to delve deeper into , I think we can agree that many factors are at play in pinpointing where Whitman stood regarding slavery.
Continuing, the runaway slave is cared for, he is given a chance to bathe, some fresh clothes and a room close to the poet. Whitman describes the slave’s bewilderment at the treatment he received, noting his “revolving eyes and awkwardness”. Eventually the two seemed to get comfortable around each in the week that the runaway slave stayed and the scene ends with the two sitting at a table with Whitman including that his fire-lock was placed in a corner of the room. From what i could gather, a fire-lock is a type of handgun, and I suppose its inclusion in the scene was to emphasise the amicability between Whitman and the runaway slave; throughout his stay the poet did not see the runaway slave as a threat and went forward treating him like a welcomed guest, an equal.
Overall, section 10 is a fulfilment of Whitman's title of the Common Man’s poet. He delves into the lives of everyday people from various backgrounds and shows how complex, beautiful and earthly each scene is.