Lines 1-2 reflect a major theme of Walt Whitman's poetry: the relationship between the individual and the collective. (e.g., between a single human being and humanity in general). Whitman placed this poem first in the later editions of his masterpiece, Leaves of Grass, so in some ways, it's meant to encapsulate the themes of the whole book. (For more, see the Context section of this guide.)
The speaker (who can be read as representing the poet himself) begins by declaring that they're "sing[ing]" a poetic song of praise for "One's-Self":
- Notice that "One's-Self" is different from "Myself"—something Whitman had already written about in one of his most famous poems, "Song of Myself"!
- The phrase "One's-Self I sing" is meant to allude back to that earlier poem, while also making clear that the poet's true subject isn't Walt Whitman, specifically, but anyone's self. In other words, the poem celebrates the individual spirit: the "simple separate person."
Yet even as the speaker "sing[s]" about, or praises, individuality, they also "utter the word Democratic, the word En-Masse." In other words, the speaker also praises people in general:
- The verb "utter" may sound a little less joyful than "sing," but it, too, can be associated with poetry (as in the phrase poetic utterance).
- "The word Democratic," meanwhile, held a deep significance for Whitman, who considered himself an almost prophet-like advocate of democracy. Here, the speaker places the word in parallel with "the word En-Masse"; en masse is French for "collectively" or "in great numbers," so it refers here to the collective mass of people who make up a democracy.
The speaker, then, is linking two seemingly antithetical concepts—the individual and the collective—and declaring that both are central to their (the speaker's) song. The speaker implies that celebrating the individual is foundational to democracy: that democracy begins with equal and respectful treatment of each "simple separate person" within the collective grouping that is humanity.
Notice how the /s/ alliteration (or sibilance) in "Self," "sing," "simple," and "separate" emphasizes each individual word while also linking them all together through sound. Perhaps this effect, in itself, reflects the theme of individuality within a collective. This first stanza, like the two that follow, is also firmly end-stopped with a period, making it an individual, self-contained unit within the poem's greater whole.