This entry is a tract on the purity of
nakedness and solitude in nature. Whitman attacks our “manners,”
inverting the conventional idea
of clothes-nudity, claiming that clothes make us indecent, and he elevates the potential of nudity in nature as a means of self-renewal
(he is free of “prostration, pain.”). It is also a religious,
transcendental experience for Whitman, as heaven “filters nutriment
and peace” to him. He engages in a typical trope of his as he
imagines himself merging with nature.
Instead
of seeing himself as a communal figure, he emphasizes seclusion
within nature in this entry, and invites his readers to the same
thing, attributing his daily excursions into Nature to his enhanced
health (and knowledge of “purity, art, faith,” etc.). He loves
the touch of water against his whole body (“never before did I get
so close to Nature.”).The language he employs is more poetic than
in other entries, as he is experiencing a swelling of emotion.
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