24 To One Shortly to Die by Walt Whitman

In this poem, the speaker — unidentified by profession or precise relationship to the listener — singles his listener out “from all the rest…having a message for you.”

Whoever the speaker may be, his message of painful truth — that his listener is dying — is one doctors are often called upon to deliver. What is to be learned from the way this mysterious emissary approaches the task?

He begins by confronting the truth, head-on: “You are to die…| I am exact and merciless, but I love you.” After this the emissary offers touch — not an an active touch, but mere contact, and with his right hand. He provides quiet and faithful companionship, spiritual reassurance communicated in silence.

“The sun bursts through,” and the dying one appears cheered by an insight he has received. He begins to separate himself from the living, with their preoccupation with illness, their hopes for a cure, and their grief. – Leon Kass

Walt Whitman (1819–1892) from Leaves of Grass, 1900.

244. To One Shortly to Die

1

FROM all the rest I single out you, having a message for you:

You are to die—Let others tell you what they please, I cannot prevaricate,

I am exact and merciless, but I love you—There is no escape for you.

Softly I lay my right hand upon you—you just feel it,

I do not argue—I bend my head close, and half envelope it,                                                                                  5

I sit quietly by—I remain faithful,

I am more than nurse, more than parent or neighbor,

I absolve you from all except yourself, spiritual, bodily—that is eternal—you yourself will surely escape,

The corpse you will leave will be but excrementitious.

2

The sun bursts through in unlooked-for directions!                                                                                           10

Strong thoughts fill you, and confidence—you smile!

You forget you are sick, as I forget you are sick,

You do not see the medicines—you do not mind the weeping friends—I am with you,

I exclude others from you—there is nothing to be commiserated,

I do not commiserate—I congratulate you.

1. Does the exactitude of the speaker make him also merciless? What is the meaning and force of the “but” in “I am exact and merciless, but I love you”? What is the relations between the speaker’s abrupt “You are to die” and his love? For what does the speaker offer congratulations with his final words? He began truthfully; does he end that way?
2. Who is the speaker? Does it matter?
3. Why might nurse, parent, or neighbor be inadequate, at the end of life? How ought we speak “to one shortly to die?”

This poem is in the public domain and is made available in this course under the educational purposes guidelines of fair use.