[More than eighty-three degrees north about a good days steaming distance to the Pole by one of our fast oceaners in clear water Greely the explorer heard the song of a single snow-bird merrily sounding over the desolation.]
Of that blithe throat of thine from arctic bleak and blank,
Ill mind the lesson, solitary bird let me too welcome chilling
drifts,
Een the profoundest chill, as now a torpid pulse, a brain un-
nervd,
Old age land-lockd within its winter bay (cold, cold, O cold!)
These snowy hairs, my feeble arm, my frozen feet,
For them thy faith, thy rule I take, and grave it to the last;
Not summers zones alone not chants of youth, or souths warm
tides alone,
But held by sluggish floes, packd in the northern ice, the cumulus
of years,
These with gay heart I also sing.
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Just to preface this poem, the notation under the title references Adolphus Greely who was an officer in the US Army and later an American Polar explorer during Whitman’s time. In this poem, Greely is the narrator and offers these lines after hearing a snowbird in the distance amid the cold isolation in the waters of the Arctic Ocean.
Greely is describing the snowbird’s cry as happy and joyus, when in reality, they are located in an incredibly desolate place. Whitman almost wants to put the reader into the setting and make them feel as confused as Greely might feel here when he hears the cheerful song of the snowbird.
When Greely hears this sound coming from the bird he wishes for himself to be just as grateful to be in the icy cold Arctic. He feels as though this little bird is there for a reason. It is calling to him to teach him a lesson of patience and graciousness. There are times in everyone’s life when things need to be put into perspective and I think Whitman is using this bird’s call to put Greely’s goal into perspective for him. He might also be referencing the coming of old age and death. In poetic language, winter is the season of death, so to speak, and he may be thinking that he needs to embrace that destiny rather than be frightened by it.
This line puts into perspective just how cold the Arctic really is. Gusts of wind can make his blood flow become sluggish and can cause him to become a little delusional. Needless to say, it could probably be incredibly difficult to keep your wits about you in this kind of setting. One would probably not be able to function normally, let alone kept focus on the job at hand. Greely uses the bird’s call to keep 3him focused on why his exploration. In a non-literal way, going back to the death reference, this image is depicting someone who is close to death. The pulse is slowing and the brain is shutting down, so therefore this might be Greely telling us that he is old in age and near death himself as he calls this “the profoundest chill”.
It seems that in this line Greely is lamenting about being surrounded by death no matter where he is going. He is land locked in his old age, as he says. Death is the one thing that no one can really escape from and as one gets older and older it comes nearer to them. He is saying here that his death is the winter bay that is surrounding him.
He’s realizing how much his exploring has taken out of him as well as the cold. When looking at this from the ‘winter as death’ eyes, it seems as though death is going through him now. His “snowy hairs” may very well be the gray or white hair atop his head that comes with age. His feeble arms and frozen feet are limbs that don’t work as well as they used to for him. He is starting to see is old age, or death, manifest itself in him.
He is taking the faith in the bird’s song and applying it to his feelings about his life. He feels that there is no reason to live the rest of his days in a solemn way, but be must take his faith and his optimism to the end. I must be a reflection on how Whitman is feeling at the time facing his own old age. His body isn’t working the way it used to after having had his stroke and he is in the winter of his life. His use of grave is interesting because he makes an obvious pun. It reminds me of Mercutio’s line at his death in Romeo and Juliet when he says “If you ask for me tomorrow, you will find me a grave man.” He knew the end was coming but he makes a joke of it instead, and that is what Whitman is doing here.
In this desolation he sees nothing. He sees no hope or signs of warmth anywhere and this further illustrates the loneliness he must be feeling there. He’s aware that his youth is gone completely, also. That’s something that had provided comfort for him in his earlier years. Greely (and Whitman) knew that he has his whole life ahead of him and that life ahead of him is growing shorter and shorter.
He mentions the warmth being held back while he is at the apex of his life. Greely has all of these years behind him and they are all packed away in the ice. He’ll never have them back again.
He ends his thought process on an optimistic note. All of this came from the cheerful song he heard the snowbird singing and that has taught him to remain optimistic about where he is both literally (in the arctic) and figuratively (in the winter of his life) He is celebrating his life rather than mourning the end of it.
In General Greely’s Expedition in 1884, nineteen of his twenty five person crew had died due to two ships failing to rescue them. This poem seems to be Greely trying to rediscover his faith when he hears the happy song of a bird. Amid Greely facing his own death, Whitman shows his own undertones of fearing the great equalizer.