Whitman’s speaker launches from Paumanok—Long Island—like a bird carried by a single, urgent purpose: to embrace and sing the whole sprawling nation into being. There’s an almost giddy momentum as he sweeps north toward Canada, then westward state by state, naming each one as if gathering them in his arms. The feeling isn’t tourism; it’s absorption. He wants to know these places so deeply they become part of him, and he of them. The mood is buoyant and vast, charged with a democratic love that makes room for every region’s distinct voice—those “inimitable” songs. Yet there’s also a quiet steeliness underneath. He’s ready to drum for war if the union demands it. The flight ends not in a single place but in a double pledge: to sing the indivisible whole and then, only then, to honor each separate state. It’s a poet’s fierce, personal act of holding a country together.
From Paumanok Starting. — Summary
FROM Paumanock starting, I fly like a bird, Around and around to soar, to sing the idea of all; To the north betaking myself, to sing there arctic songs, To Kanada, till I absorb Kanada in myself—to Michigan then, To Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, to sing their songs, (they are inimitable;) Then to Ohio and Indiana to sing theirs—to Missouri and Kansas and Arkansas, to sing theirs, To Tennessee and Kentucky—to the Carolinas and Georgia, to sing theirs, To Texas, and so along up toward California, to roam accepted everywhere; To sing first, (to the tap of the war-drum, if need be,) The idea of all—of the western world, one and inseparable. And then the song of each member of These States.