Songs of Occupations

"If you meet some stranger in the streets and love him or her, why
I often meet strangers in the street and love them.
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Why what have you thought of yourself?"

<><><><> </><><><><> </> <><><><> </> <><><><> </> Here the typical Whitmanian connection to the masses ensues, where he stretches himself out like  grass, and touches the feet of every individual his universe lets possible. This theme of Whitman being a universal lover, the one who fully loves every soul he encounters, is so very Whitmanian. One thing which differentiates this poem from Leaves of Grass is his attempt to get the reader to reflect on themselves with a rhetorical question. This is rare for Whitman, here he seems to hope to alter the readers negativity by expressing and posing a series of questions instantaneously exposing it.

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"The wife, and she is not one jot less than the husband,

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The daughter, and she is just as good as the son,

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The mother, and she is every bit as much as the father.

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Offspring of ignorant and poor, boys apprenticed to trades,

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Young fellows working on farms and old fellows working on farms,

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Sailor-men, merchant-men, coasters, immigrants"

Here, Whitman uses juxtaposition and a series of binaries to express equalness and equality regardless of gender, race, socio-economic class, job, country of origin, age, etc.. I enjoy the Americanness of Whitman, his celebration of freedom and the equality which is necessary to thrive in such a system. These themes of universal authorial love and equalness are centerpeices to the feast of Whitman.