A Glimpse

Walt Whitman published “A Glimpse” in the 1860 edition of his poetry collection Leaves of Grass. A lyric poem detailing the thoughts and feelings of the poem’s speaker, the single-stanza, seven-line poem is written in free verse with no set meter or rhyme scheme. Considered to be a writer of the Romantic period of American literature, Whitman “bridged the gap between Realism and Transcendentalism” ("Walt Whitman!!" Outrageous Fortune, Mary Baldwin University, 18 Sept. 2014). “A Glimpse” provides readers with an intimate look at the deep connection between two lovers. Despite commotion and noise roiling around them in a bar, the speaker and their lover find solace and security in one another’s presence without having to speak at all. Taken together with the context of the Civil War which was just about to initiate when Whitman published “A Glimpse,” readers can interpret the winter weather and noise surrounding the two lovers as indicative of the political turmoil being experienced by the nation. In his poem, Whitman promotes human connection to counteract the social divisiveness and chaos.

Poet Biography

Born on May 31, 1819, Walt Whitman was born Walter Whitman in Long Island, New York. Whitman’s mother was Louisa Van Velsor, and his father, Walter Whitman, Sr., was a carpenter. The estate where Whitman was born can still be visited as a State Historic Site on the National Register of Historic Places. When Whitman was around four years old, his family moved to Brooklyn, where his father dabbled in real estate, nevertheless finding it difficult to provide for his wife and nine children.

Whitman attended public grammar school while in Brooklyn, although he is considered to be “largely self-taught” and “acquainted with the works of Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, and the Bible” ("Walt Whitman." poets.org). Whitman held a variety of occupations throughout his life. When he was 12 he took his first job working for a printer, The Long Island Patriot. When he was 17, he began teaching in Long Island schoolhouses, working as an instructor until he became a journalist in 1841. In 1838, Whitman founded a weekly newspaper called The Long-Islander, which he sold in 1839. When he was around 27 years old, Whitman took on the role of editor for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. He was let go from this position “because of his support for the antislavery Free Soil faction of the Democratic Party” (Jeffares, Alexander Norman. "Walt Whitman" Britannica, 2022).

Released from his editor duties, Whitman traveled to New Orleans and worked for the Crescent for three months. He returned to Brooklyn in 1848 after seeing slaves auctioned off in Louisiana and founded another paper, the Brooklyn Freeman. After returning to New York, he worked in construction and real estate from approximately 1850 until 1855.

Throughout all of his various occupations, Whitman “continued to pursue his literary and journalistic interests by dabbling in conventional poetry, short stories, and a novel” ("About Whitman." Walt Whitman, 2018). He had gotten some poems and short stories published as well. In 1855 Whitman published the first edition of Leaves of Grass. Whitman was not able to get a publisher to print his collection of poetry, so he had to sell a house in order to print the volume on his own dollar with the help of his printer friends, the Rome brothers. Whitman sent a copy of the collection to Ralph Waldo Emerson, who praised the collection highly. Leaves of Grass was not widely popular, though academics, scholars, and poets alike saw it as a harbinger of a new style of poetry. A second edition of Leaves of Grass appeared in 1856, and Whitman would continue to edit and add to various editions of his own collection. The work extended over six editions between 1855 and 1892 and has been “considered a masterpiece of world literature” ("About Whitman." Walt Whitman, 2018). The first (initially untitled poem) of the collection, “Song of Myself,” is one of Whitman’s most famous pieces.

When the Civil War began in 1861, Whitman’s brother, George Washington Whitman, was wounded in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Whitman traveled to Virginia in order to visit his brother but was so overwhelmed by the wounded and dying soldiers he met in the camp that he decided to stay in Washington, D.C. in order to help. In Washington, D.C. Whitman worked for both the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Department of the Interior. Whitman was let go from his job at the Department of the Interior after his superior discovered Whitman wrote Leaves of Grass. This direct superior found Leaves of Grass to be “offensive,” and therefore Whitman lost his position. After the Department of the Interior, Whitman worked for the attorney general. Whitman ended up staying in Washington, D.C. for 11 years, visiting the various camps and providing presents to both Confederate and Union soldiers.

As a result of these experiences with the Civil War, Whitman’s poetry took on a sense of greater social necessity and commentary: “He was no longer a just poet from New York of Long Island; he now belonged to and spoke for the nation” ("About Whitman." Walt Whitman, 2018). The influence of the Civil War on Whitman’s poetry is evident in his collection Drum-Taps published in May 1865 and Sequel to Drum-Taps published in the fall of 1865.

In 1873, Whitman suffered a stroke and left D.C. to live closer to his brother in Camden, New Jersey. While he was in Camden, Whitman’s mother passed away. The seventh printing of Leaves of Grass sold well and provided Whitman with enough income to purchase a house. In these later years, Whitman received visits from some very prominent literary figures, becoming “the first American poet to achieve international acclaim” ("About Whitman" Walt Whitman, 2018). In 1888 The Complete Poems and Prose was published. Whitman died on March 26, 1892, the same year the last edition of Leaves of Grass was published. The final volume of prose and poetry Whitman worked on up until his death was Good-Bye My Fancy. Essayist Horace Traubel, a friend of Whitman’s, recorded Whitman’s life history for posterity.

Poem Text

A glimpse through an interstice caught,

Of a crowd of workmen and drivers in a bar-room around the stove late of a winter night, and I unremark’d seated in a corner,

Of a youth who loves me and whom I love, silently approaching and seating himself near, that he may hold me by the hand,

A long while amid the noises of coming and going, of drinking and oath and smutty jest,

There we two, content, happy in being together, speaking little, perhaps not a word.

Whitman, Walt. “A Glimpse.” 1860. Poetry Foundation.

Summary

Whitman’s poem opens by presenting readers with a “glimpse,” or a partial view of a scene. In this partial view, a group of working-class individuals gather together around a warm stove on a late winter’s evening in a bar. Since all of the individuals described are workers or drivers, readers can assume two things: that they are members of society’s lower class, and that they have just finished their long day of work. The speaker of the poem does not join this group of individuals but rather sits separately from them. The speaker’s lover then enters the bar, sits next to the speaker, and holds their hand. The scene in the bar progresses, with the noises of individuals entering and exiting, drinking, swearing, and joking. Despite everything going on around them the speaker and their lover remain sitting silently together. They simply enjoy and appreciate one another’s company, not having to even say anything to their beloved.