Leaves of Grass · Chapter
Prayer of Columbus explained
An aged, battered Columbus, stranded on a savage shore and near death, pours out a desperate prayer to God.
What happens
An aged, battered Columbus, stranded on a savage shore and near death, pours out a desperate prayer to God. He recounts his lifelong devotion, his voyages and labors undertaken for the divine, and his hope that his discoveries may transform the world. Despite physical decay and uncertainty, he clings to faith, thanks God for the inner light, and envisions new worlds and anthems greeting him.
Themes in this chapter
Death and Immortality
Columbus faces imminent death but seeks immortality through faith and the enduring impact of his work.
The Poet as Prophet and Unifier
Columbus speaks as a prophetic figure, envisioning a unified world and new spiritual birth from his discoveries.
Characters to notice
Key passages
“A batter’d, wreck’d old man, Thrown on this savage shore, far, far from home, Pent by the sea and dark rebellious brows, twelve dreary months, Sore, stiff with many toils, sicken’d and nigh to death, I take my way along the island’s edge, Venting a heavy heart.”
A broken, shipwrecked old man, cast onto a wild shore far from home, confined by the sea and stormy skies for twelve miserable months, aching and exhausted, sick and near death, I walk along the island's shore, pouring out my sorrow.
Columbus describes his physical and emotional desolation.
“By me earth’s elder cloy’d and stifled lands uncloy’d, unloos’d, By me the hemispheres rounded and tied, the unknown to the known.”
Through me, the old, choked, and stifled lands of the Earth were freed and opened; through me, the hemispheres were connected and the unknown joined to the known.
Columbus claims his voyages liberated and united the world.
“Haply the lifeless cross I know, Europe’s dead cross, may bud and blossom there.”
Perhaps the lifeless cross I know, Europe's dead cross, may sprout and bloom in that new land.
Columbus hopes Christianity will be revitalized in the New World.