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Offers a reading of “There Was a Child Went Forth” emphasizing how Whitman’s poems reconcile images of edges into the ”central edge” of the poem’s ”shore mud,” a gesture that conveys edges as representative of ”the origins of life.” 11 Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, Comprehensive Reader's Edition, ed. Harold W. Blodgett and Sculley Bradley (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1965), p. 335. 12 Whitman, Leaves of Grass, pp. 260-261. 13 Whitman, Leaves of Grass, pp. 64-65. 14 Meyer Schapiro, Vincent van Gogh (Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1980), p. 100. WALT WHITMAN'S "THERE WAS A CHILD WENT FORTH": THE IMAGE OF 'EDGES' IN THE ORIGINS OF LIFE Walt Whitman's "There Was a Child Went Forth" is a poem of edges that reveals a child's generative touch with the world. His encounter with different objects sharpens his perception, for he touches the world through contrasts and opposites. The first edge is the third-month, the month of March, half winter and half spring, an edge between death and renewal of life in nature. As he literally intersects the edge, he interacts with nature and is able to gain a holistic vision of the animals as the "brood of the barnyard"l rather than seeing them separately. He can now see the "relations in all objects"2 after he perceives their idiosyncratic differences. Then he encounters, among other objects, the mire of the pond-side-another edge, a combination of water and soil. This edge enables him to perceive the fish against its background, "the curious liquid." Both of these edges suggest the fertile origin of life. The child's contact with the origin of life nourishes what Sherman Paul calls "the developing seed within the self."3 He encounters the opposing elements in nature, and they become the edging/ sharpening of his perception. After connecting with the world through the edge of the "mire," he is now able to find some sort of unity in different objects: The field-sprouts of Fourth-month and Fifth-month became part of him, Winter-grain sprouts and those of the light-yellow corn, and the esculent roots of the garden, And the apple-trees cover'd with blossoms and the fruit afterward, and wood-berries, and the commonest weeds by the road .... (11. 11-13) The images of roots, sprouts, blossoms and fruits fascinate him, while his perception unfolds like a "bud."4 The contrasts between the images reveal the diverse elements in nature. The winter-grain sprouts are contrasted with roots. The light-yellow corn signifying the fullness of growth stands in opposition to the sprouts and roots which demonstrate to the child the nature of growth as a process. The blossoms with their "fruit afterward" are opposed to the "commonest weeds" on the road. Through the process and the causality of growth, he senses unity in nature's diversity: roots nourish sprouts which eventually blossom and bear fruits.

Walt Whitman's "There Was a Child Went Forth": The Image of "Edges" in the Origins of Life