By: Trey Terrell

 O HYMEN! O hymenee! why do you tantalize me thus? O why sting me for a swift moment only? Why can you not continue? O why do you now cease? Is it because if you continued beyond the swift moment you would soon certainly kill me?

 This poem has no regular Rhyme scheme.  No meter or sound devices.  It is however a metaphor for is inability to “perform.”

 Born May 31, 1819  Lived in Long Island and Brooklyn  Began working as a printer at 12 years old  Founded a weekly news paper The Long Islander in 1841  1842 his didactic temperance novel, Franklin Evans, or the Inebriate, appears in print.  Whitman founds and edits the Brooklyn Weekly Freeman, in 1848

 Whitman writes for Life Illustrated, and publishes a second edition of Leaves of Grass in 1856  Whitman publishes the fifth edition of Leaves of Grass, Democratic Vistas in 1870  Whitman suffers a stroke, debilitating his left arm and leg in 1873  A second stroke affects the right side of Whitman's body in 1875  November Boughs is published in 1888

 The final version of Leaves of Grass also known as the “death-bed edition” is published in 1892  March 26 th, 1892 Whitman dies.

 Not for a moment, beautiful aged Walt Whitman, have I failed to see your beard full of butterflies. -Federico Garcia Lorca(Poet)  Walt Whitman, he who laid end to end words never seen in each other's company before outside of a dictionary. -David Lodge(author)

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