# Scented Herbage of My Breast explained — Leaves of Grass

> Chapter companion for Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman.

## What happens

The speaker addresses the leaves growing from his breast as symbols of love and death, asserting that death is beautiful and inseparable from love. He declares his intent to sing for death rather than life, to unbare his heart, and to give an example to lovers that will resonate through the States, ultimately embracing death as the essential reality.

## Themes in this chapter

### Death and Immortality

The entire poem meditates on death as beautiful, essential, and the purports of life; the speaker chants for death and sees it as the lasting reality.

### Comradeship and Love

Love is intertwined with death; the speaker will sound comrades only and give an example to lovers through the States.

## Character check-ins

### Narrator

The speaker who gleans leaves from his own breast, chants for death, and resolves to sound himself and comrades.

### Death

Addressed directly as beautiful, essential, and inseparably folded with love; the speaker asks death for its tone and declares it the real reality.

## Key lines

> Death is beautiful from you, (what indeed is finally beautiful except death and love?)

Death appears beautiful through these leaves, and ultimately only death and love are truly beautiful.

_The speaker equates death and love as the only final beauties._

> I think it is not for life I am chanting here my chant of lovers, I think it must be for death

I believe my song of lovers is not for life but for death.

_The speaker reorients his poetic purpose toward death._

> Give me your tone therefore O death, that I may accord with it, Give me yourself, for I see that you belong to me now above all, and are folded inseparably together, you love and death are

O death, lend me your tone so I may harmonize with it; give yourself to me, because I see that you and love are now inseparably joined and belong to me above all.

_The speaker seeks union with death, affirming its inseparability from love._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/leaves_of_grass_se/chapters/scented-herbage-of-my-breast
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/leaves_of_grass_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/leaves_of_grass_se/chapters