Lyric Poem · Nature
Italian Music in Dakota
by Walt Whitman
1THROUGH the soft evening air enwrinding all,
2Rocks, woods, fort, cannon, pacing sentries, endless wilds,
3In dulcet streams, in flutes’ and cornets’ notes,
4Electric, pensive, turbulent artificial,
5(Yet strangely fitting even here, meanings unknown before,
6Subtler than ever, more harmony, as if born here, related here,
7Not to the city’s fresco’d rooms, not to the audience of the opera house,
8Sounds, echoes, wandering strains, as really here at home,
9Sonnambula’s innocent love, trios with Norma’s anguish,
10And thy ecstatic chorus Poliuto;)
11Ray’d in the limpid yellow slanting sundown,
12Music, Italian music in Dakota.
Full-text availability follows the United States display decision recorded below; status can differ elsewhere.
“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.