Poetry Problems
O western orb sailing the heaven,
Now I know what you must have meant as a month since I walk’d,
As I walk’d in silence the transparent shadowy night,
As I saw you had something to tell as you bent to me night after night,
As you droop’d from the sky low down as if to my side, (while the other stars all look’d on,)
As we wander’d together the solemn night, (for something I know not what kept me from sleep,)
As the night advanced, and I saw on the rim of the west how full you were of woe,
As I stood on the rising ground in the breeze in the cool transparent night,
As I watch’d where you pass’d and was lost in the netherward black of the night,
As my soul in its trouble dissatisfied sank, as where you sad orb,
Concluded, dropt in the night, and was gone.
This is the section 8 of "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d" by Walt Whitman. I have some problems:
What he means by as a month since I walk’d in second line?
The use of "low down" is just redundant?
"As I watch’d where you pass’d and was lost", if the subject is you, why he used "was"?
(First I asked these questions in literature stackexchange, but no one answered me. So please don't tell me to ask this kind of question on literature stackexchange.)
Since is usually a conjunction in current English; but it can also be used as an adverb, meaning ago.
The OED gives definition 4: "Ago; before now. With time specified, or preceded by long", and doesn't mark it as unusual; but I would describe it as "archaic or dialectal". It is alive and well in Yorkshire where I live: you often hear things like I saw him a month since. But it is not common in standard English.
But the meaning here is clearly "as a month ago I walked".
The use of "low down" is just redundant?
I suppose so.
I would not say it is strikingly redundant -- it's a pretty natural way to express the thought.
"As I watch’d where you pass’d and was lost", if the subject is you, why he used "was"?
Some dialects do this. Whitman was known to do this in other writings, for example in one poem in Leaves of Grass he wrote "Think of the time when you was not yet born!" He also used were, e.g. "Perhaps you have been on it since you were born, and did not know."
Some speakers use you/they was for the past and you/they were for the subjunctive consistently, but I don't believe that is a characteristic of Whitman's writing.