Lyric Poem · Nature

Italian Music in Dakota

by Walt Whitman

THROUGH the soft evening air enwrinding all,

Rocks, woods, fort, cannon, pacing sentries, endless wilds,

In dulcet streams, in flutes’ and cornets’ notes,

Electric, pensive, turbulent artificial,

(Yet strangely fitting even here, meanings unknown before,

Subtler than ever, more harmony, as if born here, related here,

Not to the city’s fresco’d rooms, not to the audience of the opera house,

Sounds, echoes, wandering strains, as really here at home,

Sonnambula’s innocent love, trios with Norma’s anguish,

And thy ecstatic chorus Poliuto;)

Ray’d in the limpid yellow slanting sundown,

Music, Italian music in Dakota.

While Nature, sovereign of this gnarl’d realm,

Lurking in hidden barbaric grim recesses,

Acknowledging rapport however far remov’d,

(As some old root or soil of earth its last-born flower or fruit,)

Listens well pleas’d.

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“Italian Music in Dakota” by Walt Whitman — quilloak.com/poems/italian-music-in-dakota

Quick facts

Poem: Italian Music in Dakota
Poet: Walt Whitman
Length: 17 lines
Form: Lyric Poem
Themes: Nature, Love, War & Remembrance

Craft notes

How this poem works

Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.

Shape: 17 lines · 2 stanzas of 5–12 lines

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Text, source & rights

A traceable edition

Full-text display is based on the committed source record and a United States term-expiry review.

Author record: Walt Whitman1819–1892
Source record: PoetryDBItalian Music in Dakota by walt-whitman, PoetryDB transcription
Display decision: Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
Publication record: Not recorded in the imported source
Text fingerprint: SHA-256 50abde4058f4386e…
Editorial handling: Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.