Section 38 of Song of Myself

Section 38 of Song of Myself

 

"I remember now,

I resume the overstaid fraction,

The grave of rock multiplies what has been confided to it, or to any graves,

Corpses rise, gashes heal, fastenings roll from me.

I troop forth replenish'd with supreme power, one of an average unending procession,

Inland and sea-coast we go, and pass all boundary lines,

Our swift ordinances on their way over the whole earth,

The blossoms we wear in our hats the growth of thousands of years."

 

Whitman continually throws up terms that challenge a good Google search. In the passage above, "overstaid fraction" has me stymied. The passage is in communication with the preceding one, 37, in which Whitman embodies and becomes one with various outlaws and sufferers: convicts, mutineers, larcenous youngsters facing the law, and a beggar. Section 38 begins with him exclaiming, "Enough! enough! enough!" and then shortly after he remembers, as quoted above. But, what does he remember? What is the overstaid fraction? I don't have time to pursue but jot this down in the way of planting these questions in my reading forward and backward henceforth.

 

Before passing, one can't help but note here, as in other passages, Whitman taking on a Christ like role. He does so in more sweeping and dramatic fashion in Section 40, a passage I found moving an trying at once. So full of promise but so impossible to trust:

 

"To any one dying, thither I speed and twist the knob of the door,

Turn the bed-clothes toward the foot of the bed,

Let the physician and the priest go home.

I seize the descending man and raise him with resistless will,

O despairer, here is my neck,

By God, you shall not go down! hang your whole weight upon me.

I dilate you with tremendous breath, I buoy you up,

Every room of the house do I fill with an arm'd force,

Lovers of me, bafflers of graves.

Sleep—I and they keep guard all night,

Not doubt, not decease shall dare to lay finger upon you,

I have embraced you, and henceforth possess you to myself,

And when you rise in the morning you will find what I tell you is so."

 

But, Christianity and its gospels are just fractions of the truth Whitman feels is out there. All gospels but one blind man's take on the elephant. Whitman  adopts bits and pieces of the Christ story and the Christian resurrection only to transform it, to broaden it. And, he does this with all religious texts. I'm section 41, he explains more explicitly, more boldly, his way with gospels of all types:

 

"Magnifying and applying come I,

Outbidding at the start the old cautious hucksters,

Taking myself the exact dimensions of Jehovah,

Lithographing Kronos, Zeus his son, and Hercules his grandson,

Buying drafts of Osiris, Isis, Belus, Brahma, Buddha,

In my portfolio placing Manito loose, Allah on a leaf, the crucifix engraved,

With Odin and the hideous-faced Mexitli and every idol and image,

Taking them all for what they are worth and not a cent more,

Admitting they were alive and did the work of their days,

(They bore mites as for unfledg'd birds who have now to rise and fly and sing for themselves,)

Accepting the rough deific sketches to fill out better in myself, bestowing them freely on each man and woman I see."

 

M and I walked Timmerman, went to Café Strudel and Lowes. Bouyed me up. Saw La, La, Land by myself Saturday and it too blew me away and filled me with joy and hope. Alas, there was work today: another delay in opening and a useless meeting.