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The Full Text of “I Hear America Singing”
1I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
2Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,
3The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
4The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,
5The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck,
6The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands,
7The wood-cutter’s song, the ploughboy’s on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown,
8The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing,
9Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,
10The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,
11Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.
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“I Hear America Singing” Introduction
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"I Hear America Singing" is a poem by the American poet Walt Whitman, first published in the 1860 edition of his book Leaves of Grass. Though the poem was written on the eve of the Civil War, it presents a vision of America as a harmonious community. Moving from the city to the country, and the land to the sea, the poem envisions America as a place where people do honest, meaningful, and satisfying work—and celebrate that work in song. America emerges from the work of these many and diverse individual people: their separate work comes together to form a coherent whole. In this way, in the poem's account, America is a nation where individuality and unity are balanced, each producing and reinforcing the other.
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“I Hear America Singing” Summary
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I can hear all of America singing: I hear the many different songs that people sing. I hear mechanics singing, and all of them are singing proudly and strongly—as they should be. I hear the carpenter singing as he measures pieces of wood. I hear the bricklayer singing as he gets ready for work or comes home at the end of the day. I hear the boatman singing about his work in the boat. I hear the crew singing on the deck of the steamboat. I hear the cobbler singing as he sits at his bench and the hatter singing as he stands at his workstation. I hear the logger’s song, the young farmer singing on his way to plow the fields in the morning, or during his lunch break, or at sunset. I hear the sweet song of the mother or the new bride working, or of the girl who sews or washes clothes. Each of them sings about their own work, their own life, and nothing else. During the day, they sing songs appropriate to the day. At night, strong, friendly young men sing with open mouths their loud, tuneful songs.
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“I Hear America Singing” Themes
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Work and American Identity
"I Hear America Singing" presents an idyllic—and idealized—vision of American life. The poem moves from the city to the country, from the shore to the sea, introducing the reader along the way to all different works along the way—from farmers, to shoemakers, to housewives.
Traveling through these places and professions, the speaker gradually builds a portrait of America as a place where people find joy and fulfillment in productivity and honest labor—even if that labor is not typically "sung" about in poetry. And while the poem takes care to emphasize the dignity and pride of each of these workers in their own right, it also affirms that the workers’ many songs come together to form the sound of "America" itself.
The speaker’s list of jobs cuts across the whole of the United States: moving from urban professionals making fashionable hats to those engaged in rural jobs, like plowing fields; from jobs on shore to jobs on the water. The speaker even includes women alongside men, acknowledging the work they do as important contributions to American society. Though the speaker limits this work to domestic chores like "sewing or washing," the fact that women are included at all is notable given that they were largely excluded from American political life at the time the poem was written.
In the speaker’s vision, it seems everyone gets to participate in creating the American song, no matter their location, class, or gender (even if, to the modern eye, the terms of their participation are somewhat limited and constrained along traditional lines).
What's more, all of these different workers are singing. This probably isn’t literally true, though perhaps a couple folks are indeed whistling away the hours. Instead, these songs are meant to represent the joy these workers take in their labor. Americans, the singing suggests, derive a sense of pride and dignity from their productivity. When the speaker says, "Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else," this affirms the right of each worker to find personal value, and even a sense of self, directly in whatever work they do.
It's also worth noting that music and song are often used in literature as stand-ins for poetry itself. Part of the beauty of America, the poem thus implies, is that regular people are worthy of such song; you don't need to be some sort of mythical hero, beautiful damsel, or wealthy aristocrat for your life to be "sung" about, i.e., to be elevated to the level of poetry.
Yet even as the poem celebrates self-sufficiency and individualism through these "varied carols," it emphasizes that all these workers together form the fabric of America. However unique each of these workers, the poem is saying, what makes America America is that they are all singing.
After all, as the poem’s first line announces, the speaker hears "America singing"—not "many workers singing." For the speaker, America is a place where people get to have it both ways: they're at once individuals, with personal freedom and independence, and part of a larger, harmonious collective. That, the poem ultimately suggests, is what America's "song" is all about.
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “I Hear America Singing”
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Lines 1-4
I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,
The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,The poem begins with the speaker declaring, in the first person, that he or she hears "America" itself singing. But, in the second half of the line, the speaker notes that the song America sings is actually many separate songs—"varied carols." The word "carols" is especially intriguing in this context, since it is often used for religious songs—and this is very much not a religious poem! The word suggests that Americans dedicate themselves to their country and their work with a passion and devotion that approaches religious faith.
The speaker then moves on to note some specific "songs" being heard: those of mechanics, carpenters, and masons. The speaker will follow this pattern throughout the rest of the poem, celebrating working Americans whose lives are humble and whose work is often difficult and physical. The fact that their songs are "blithe," meaning cheerful, and "strong" underscores the speaker's broader vision of America as a place where people find joy and fulfillment in their work. And as the poem describes these people, the speaker notably avoids using much fancy, literary language. Instead, the poem's tone is casual and conversational.
While it’s certainly possible that all these mechanics, carpenters, and masons are literally singing to pass the hours, it seems more likely that this "singing" is a metaphor. On the one hand, it represents the pride and joy Americans take in their work. It also is meant to reflect the way America as a united nation emerges from its individual citizens, their unique songs blending into a broader harmony, so that, as the speaker says in the poem’s first line, "America" itself is "singing."
As the poem celebrates the diversity and richness of American life, it also tries to find a distinctly American music. Whitman rejects European poetic traditions like meter and rhyme, which feel too constraining to capture the energy of American life. Instead, the poem is written entirely in free verse, and Whitman turns to other devices to make his poem sound musical.
The most obvious of these devices is anaphora, in the repeated phrase, "I hear [insert professional] singing," which begins in line 3. This anaphora operates a little bit like meter: it creates a sense of expectation in the reader, and it separates the poems long lines into more manageable chunks.
The poem also turns to other devices to guide the reader through its long lines and to make its simple language feel poetic. For example, almost all of the lines in the poem are end-stopped. This helps give the lines a sense of definition and integrity even as they expand and contract unpredictably. Further, the speaker uses devices like chiasmus to make the poem feel musical without rhyme. Line 1, for instance, can be divided into two halves, separated by a caesura; in the second half of the line the speaker repeats the information that was provided in the first half, but in reverse order, creating an ABBA pattern:
I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
In this line: "I hear" repeats at the beginning and end, while "America singing" and "varied carols" are just different ways to refer to the same thing: the various songs of American workers.
Similarly, the poem is dense with assonance. Line 4 contains, for instance, contains repetition of the long /a/ sound, the short /i/ sound, the long /ee/ sound, and two variations of the /o/ sound:
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,
The poem is thus not only about America singing: it makes itself into an example of a distinctly American music.
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Lines 5-8
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck,
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands,
The wood-cutter’s song, the ploughboy’s on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown,
The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing,
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Lines 9-11
Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,
The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,
Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.
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“I Hear America Singing” Symbols
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Singing
Throughout "I Hear America Singing," the speaker describes people with a wide variety of different jobs—some are farmers, some are sailors, some are carpenters. But they are united by the fact that all are "singing," a word that the speaker uses 11 times in the poem. It’s certainly possible that some of them are literally singing, but it seems more likely that singing serves as a symbol in the poem for the joy that they feel and the pride that they take in their work.
Further, the "singing" of all these separate individuals also serves as a symbol for America itself. Though the speaker lists each profession separately, the poem’s title suggests that all these separate songs come together to form a united, common song. After all, the poem is called "I Hear America Singing," not "I Hear a Bunch of People with Different Jobs in America Singing." From the many separate songs, a single song emerges—a song that is the nation itself.
As a symbol, then, "singing" suggests something important about the speaker’s understanding of America: it emerges, as an idea, as a collective, from many separate individuals. Instead of being something directed from the top, organized ahead of time, America is as spontaneous and harmonious as the many songs its workers sing.
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Carols
In line 1, the speaker refers to the "varied" songs that the poem describes as "carols." It is the only time in the poem that the speaker uses a specific, descriptive word for those songs—otherwise, the speaker simply describes the various workers that populate the poem "singing" "songs." It is a suggestive and interesting choice: carols are not only very joyful songs, but they are also often religious songs. The poem is otherwise empty of references to religion. In this sense, the carols are probably symbolic: they represent the passion, energy, and dedication that Americans apply to their country, a passion which is so deep and satisfying it has replaced religion.
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“I Hear America Singing” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Enjambment
"I Hear America Singing" contains only one enjambment, in line 10-11, and this classification is rather ambiguous. We've chosen to mark is as being enjambed because it contrasts with the very clear end-stops that mark the rest of the poem's lines as being discrete and grammatically complete—as independent and self-sufficient as the proud American workers the poem describes.
The enjambment in line 10 thus comes as a surprise, an interruption in the poem’s established rhythm. It breaks the sense of sureness and containment that has otherwise characterized the poem. In this sense, it perhaps imitates the rowdy energy of the "party of young fellows" out at night. Like them, the enjambment is a little tipsy, a little unsteady.
One might interpret this in several ways. On the one hand, it seems to admit a measure of insecurity, unsteadiness into the poem—otherwise so definite and confident in America. Maybe the enjambment suggests that the speaker is not quite as sure about America as he or she otherwise insists. On the other hand, the enjambment might seem like a relief after so many end-stops. It gives the reader a sense of freedom and unpredictability: America may be a harmonious community, but it still contains space for raucous energy, unruly pleasures. The enjambment is thus both suggestive and ambiguous: it’s up to the reader to decide what it means.
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End-Stopped Line
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Caesura
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Alliteration
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Assonance
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Consonance
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Anaphora
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Parallelism
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Chiasmus
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Metaphor
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“I Hear America Singing” Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Carols
- Blithe
- Leaves off
- Steamboat
- Hatter
- Ploughboy
- Intermission
- Robust
- Melodious
Carols-
Carols are often religious songs, sung during times of celebration (like Christmas).
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “I Hear America Singing”
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Form
"I Hear America Singing" is not a formal poem. It does not have a set meter or a rhyme scheme. Instead, it is written in free verse, with a single stanza of 11 lines. This doesn't mean the poem is all over the place: these lines are very repetitive in structure, with the first 8 all listing different professions and the final 3 going into a bit more depth regarding the character of these various songs. The lines vary in length, though, and there is no real way to group them together beyond noting these sort of conceptual ideas. None of this is incidental, but is in fact meant to feel free-flowing and exciting.
Whitman is widely credited as the first person to write free verse in English (though the form developed separately around the same time in France). When it first appeared, free verse was a radical and shocking departure from literary tradition: after nearly 700 years of poetry written in accentual-syllabic meters (things like iambic pentameter), early readers had a hard time seeing Whitman’s poems as poetry: for many 19th century readers, poetry was inseparable from meter.
But Whitman rejected meter as an outdated—and un-American—tradition. He sought a way to express the energy and newness of American life that did not depend on European literary examples. He wanted to capture the rhythms of American speech, the way that people really spoke and talked. In this sense, the lack of traditional form marks Whitman’s attempt to capture "America singing"—to recreate, in poetry, the music of American speech and American life.
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Meter
Like all of Whitman’s poems, "I Hear America Singing" is not written in any specific meter. The number of syllables varies widely across the poem: from 12 syllables in line 11 to 23 in line 5. Though the poem has a strong rhythm, that rhythm is not secured by meter. Instead, it comes from Whitman’s use of devices like anaphora and parallelism. "I Hear America Singing" thus departs from one of the central traditions in English poetry—a tradition that dates to the middle ages. It finds a way to make a poem poetic without using accentual-syllabic meters (i.e., meters like the famous iambic pentameter).
Whitman broke from this tradition because he wanted to capture the dynamics of American speech and the energy of American democracy. Writing in the first hundred years after America declared independence, he felt that America represented a radically new way of organizing human life—and that old-fashioned, European traditions couldn’t possibly adequately capture the experience of it. His poem thus does not simply describe "America singing": it tries to be an American song.
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Rhyme Scheme
Because "I Hear America Singing" is a poem in free verse, it has no rhyme scheme. And although some poems in free verse do include occasional, unstructured rhymes, "I Hear America Singing" avoids using rhyme almost altogether—apart from a few incidental internal rhymes, like "he" and "ready" in line 4. Despite its lack of rhyme, however, this is a very musical poem. Whitman finds other, less traditional ways to make his poem feel musical: he relies on devices like anaphora, parallelism, chiasmus, and alliteration.
Like all of Whitman’s poems, then, "I Hear America Singing" diverges sharply from the traditions of English poetry. Indeed, starting in the middle ages and stretching into Whitman’s life, most English poetry was rhymed. (Although earlier poets like Milton did write in blank verse—and, in that way, paved the way for a poetry without rhyme.)
Whitman abandoned this tradition because it was a tradition: it came from Europe and it was old, even antiquated. For a poet like Whitman, dedicated to documenting the dynamics and energy of American democracy, a tradition like rhyme was in no way sufficient to capture the rhythms of American speech or the novelty of American social life. Writing a poem without rhyme, then, Whitman hopes not only to describe "America singing" but to create his own distinctively American song.
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“I Hear America Singing” Speaker
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The poem doesn't give any information about its speaker: the reader never learns the speaker’s class, gender, or job. This is a powerful gesture. Though the poem is rooted in the speaker’s perspective—"I hear America singing," the speaker announces in line 1—that perspective is as broad and diverse as America itself. It is not tied to a specific region, perspective, or political party. This allows the speaker to survey the whole of America, from cities to country, land to sea.
The speaker has a comprehensive view of the country and the people who live there, a view that is broader than any one single person could possibly have. For this reason, it seems possible to think of the speaker not as an individual, but rather as being representative of an entire group: “I Hear America Singing” essentially presents the nation as a chorus that includes many separate voices. The speaker seems to both speaks for and be one of those voices.
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“I Hear America Singing” Setting
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As its title suggests, this poem is set in the United States. It is not set in a specific place in the country, however—say, New York City or the Rocky Mountains. Instead, as the poem lists different professions, from farmers to sailors to hat-makers, it moves across the whole of the American landscape in the 19th century, encompassing its great forests, its farms, its cities, and its rivers.
The poem attempts to survey all of America, to capture all of its diverse environments. In doing so, the poem does not champion one environment over another: it does not, for instance, claim that farmers are more American than city-dwellers. Even as the poem notes the differences between the work that they do, it also emphasizes the common bond that binds them together: they joy they take in their work and in being American. The poem's setting is thus as broad as America itself, and as diverse as the nation's many environments.
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Literary and Historical Context of “I Hear America Singing”
Literary Context
Walt Whitman is one of the most innovative figures in the history of poetry written in English. He is not only widely regarded as the father of American poetry, but also the inventor of free verse, one of the most important poetic techniques in 20th and 21st century poetry. From the middle ages until the mid-19th century, when Whitman began publishing his work, almost all poetry was written in meter—and most of it was written in rhyme. These formal devices acquired the strength of tradition; indeed, for many readers poetry itself was defined by the presence of meter and rhyme. But such devices also acquired the weakness of tradition: instead of offering freedom and possibility, they constrained poets, forcing them to work with techniques developed long in the past.
From the earliest stages of his career, Whitman wanted to break free from everything antiquated and European, to develop a genuinely American poetry, that was responsive to the unique energies of American life and the rhythms of American speech. In crafting this distinctly American poetry, Whitman was inspired by the American transcendentalist philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson. In Emerson’s essay "The Poet," he called for an American poetry free of meter: “Yet America is a poem in our eyes; its ample geography dazzles the imagination, and it will not wait long for metres.” In other words, meter cannot express American life.
As Whitman later wrote about his experience of reading Emerson, "I was simmering, simmering, simmering; Emerson brought me to a boil." Whitman thus became the first poet in English to abandon meter and rhyme entirely, producing a new kind of poetry. For many of his 19th century readers, his poems were so strange and novel that they found them disorienting. Some even questioned whether they were poems at all. But Whitman gradually became a central figure in American poetry, and his free verse poems became a model for poets from Hart Crane ("The Bridge") to Allen Ginsberg ("Howl").
Historical Context
The earliest version of "I Hear America Singing" was written in the late 1850; it was first published, in a different version and with a different title in the 1860 edition of Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. (Whitman published six different editions of the book during his lifetime, beginning in 1855 and ending in 1891-92; each edition is substantially different from the others, with different poems and different versions of each poem). The poem was thus composed at a decisive and troubled moment in American history. In 1850, Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act, which required all escaped slaves to be returned to their masters, even if they had fled to the North. The law significantly increased tensions within the country, culminating in 1860 with the election of Abraham Lincoln. Shortly after, the South seceded from the Union and the Civil War, the bloodiest war in American history, began.
"I Hear America Singing" was thus written at a moment in American history when the country was deeply divided, on the brink of a catastrophic war—and when the country was debating fiercely what it meant to be an American. However, the poem does not explicitly reflect these tensions: it celebrates instead a vision of America as a united community—a community whose difference and diversity does not detract from its overall unity.
However, there are signs that the tensions and divisions in American society in the 1850s have entered the poem. One notes, for instance, that Whitman does not include slaves in his account of joyful American workers, nor does he discuss the products most associated with slave labor, like cotton and tobacco. The poem has arguably repressed the most important fact about work in America during the 1850s: that much of it was done by people who were not free to choose their work or their place of residence; people who were deprived of their rights to participate in American political life. In this sense, Whitman’s celebration of America remains partial and incomplete—a fact that has not been lost on some of Whitman’s later readers.
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More “I Hear America Singing” Resources
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External Resources
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"I Hear America Singing" Read Aloud — A photostory and reading of the poem.
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What Is Free Verse? — A detailed history of free verse, from the Academy of American Poets.
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1860 Version of "I Hear America Singing" — Images and text of the first printing of "I Hear America Singing" in the 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass, where it appears as "Chants Democratic and Native American #20." Because Whitman regularly revised his work—even published poems—it is different in important ways from the version most people study today.
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Walt Whitman's Biography — A detailed biography of Whitman from the Poetry Foundation.
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Why Walt Whitman Called America the "Greatest Poem" — An article from the Atlantic Magazine about Whitman's views of American democracy.
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"The Poet" by Ralph Waldo Emerson — The complete text of Ralph Waldo Emerson's "The Poet"—a key inspiration for Whitman.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by Walt Whitman
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