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The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering.
I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.
The last scud of day holds back for me,
It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow’d wilds,
It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.
I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun,
I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.
I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.
You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.
Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.
EXPLANATION WITH CRITICAL ANALYSIS
The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering.
In these lines, the poet says that the hawk may accuse him of only wasting his energy by roaming carelessly in the sky. But in reality, he is doing mistake by not recognizing the real worth of poet.
SUMMARY AND CRITICAL APPRECIATION
This last section of Song of Myself is like a testament. The poet suggests that the hawk may accuse him of simply wasting his energy in sounding.
The barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.
The hawk is mistaken. The poet also rises high in the sky, trying to translate into words, his mystic experience. But the words may
be incompetent to voice his mystic experience. Yet the poet tries convincingly to put forth his mystic experience. During his mystic experience he has mingled with the Divine. Hence he is not afraid of Death or the problems posed by life. He wants to do his best for his fellow human beings. He is equally humble. He says'
I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.
He likes to become grass. The people could search for him beneath their boot-soles. It was a blade of grass that launched him on a mystic journey. The sections thenceforward overflowed with thought-provoking ideas about that mystic experience. The vastness of the significance of the mystic experience makes the poet a very humble person. He wants the reader to grasp him and his ideas, as they delve deep into his “Leaves of Grass”. That is why the invitation from the poet to the reader:
Missing me one place search another,I stop somewhere waiting for you.
He assures the reader that the poet can be located in one poem or other. That will really help them on their mystic journey. The poet helps them on their mystic journey. The poet’s help will definitely lead the reader to know the Divine. If that awareness has been awakened in the reader, then the purpose of Whitman - the poet, philosopher, prophet, seer, the spokesman of the entire world has been achieved. He wants every being to live in harmony. He wants everyone to exist with compassion, love and sympathy. He wants people to have the zest to live a healthy and happy life with the belief that there is one Almighty Force who is the Show Maker, the Creator, the Mastermind behind the entire Universe. He does not warn mankind to expostulate the existence of God. Accept Him. This is the message of the poet. He emphasizes the idea of the Bhagavad Gita, that God is present everywhere, and in everyone. Everyone does not realize it. It is people and poets like Whitman, who awaken the slumbering and mechanical minds to the realization of ‘self’ and soul. That understanding will only result if one knows that the body is mortal and the ‘soul’ is immortal and that the Immortal Soul is on a never-ending quest of the Divine soul. The study of Song of Myself is a reward in itself. It leaves the reader rich with the thoughts of the mystic experience of the poet and of his broadminded views and his approach to the many facets of life.