City Dead-House The

Read 'City Dead-House The' by 'Walt Whitman' and provide your summary and literary analysis in the comments section below.

City Dead-House The by Walt Whitman

 BY the City Dead-House, by the gate, 
As idly sauntering, wending my way from the clangor, 
I curious pause—for lo! an outcast form, a poor dead prostitute brought; 
Her corpse they deposit unclaim’d—it lies on the damp brick pavement; 
The divine woman, her body—I see the Body—I look on it alone,
That house once full of passion and beauty—all else I notice not; 
Nor stillness so cold, nor running water from faucet, nor odors morbific impress me; 
But the house alone—that wondrous house—that delicate fair house—that ruin!

That immortal house, more than all the rows of dwellings ever built! 
Or white-domed Capitol itself, with majestic figure surmounted—or all the old
 high-spired
 cathedrals;
That little house alone, more than them all—poor, desperate house! 
Fair, fearful wreck! tenement of a Soul! itself a Soul! 
Unclaim’d, avoided house! take one breath from my tremulous lips; 
Take one tear, dropt aside as I go, for thought of you, 
Dead house of love! house of madness and sin, crumbled! crush’d!
House of life—erewhile talking and laughing—but ah, poor house! dead, even then;

Months, years, an echoing, garnish’d house—but dead, dead, dead.

Form: Free verse

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