Whitman List Poem, Theme 3: Family

5TH GRADE FAMILY LIST POEM
The following excerpt from “There was a Child went Forth” will be followed by a “List Poem” by Classes 5-303 and 5-302, entered one line at a time as “Comments” to this blog post.

Click the title of this post (Whitman List Poem, Theme 3: Family) and scroll down to read through our list of poetry lines.

Excerpt from Walt Whitman’s There was a Child went Forth with a family theme.

His own parents,
He that had father’d him, and she that had conceiv’d him in her womb, and birth’d him,
They gave this child more of themselves than that;
They gave him afterward every day—they became part of him.
The mother at home, quietly placing the dishes on the supper-table;
The mother with mild words—clean her cap and gown, a wholesome odor falling off her person and clothes as she walks by;
The father, strong, self-sufficient, manly, mean, anger’d, unjust;
The blow, the quick loud word, the tight bargain, the crafty lure,
The family usages, the language, the company, the furniture—the yearning and swelling heart,
Affection that will not be gainsay’d—the sense of what is real—the thought if, after all, it should prove unreal,
The doubts of day-time and the doubts of night-time—the curious whether and how,
Whether that which appears so is so, or is it all flashes and specks?