# Twilight explained — Leaves of Grass

> Chapter companion for Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman.

## What happens

A brief meditation on the twilight hour, where the speaker reflects on the soft, opiate quality of the fading light and the approaching night, drawing a parallel to their own impending dissolution and oblivion.

## Themes in this chapter

### Death and Immortality

The poem directly equates the fading of daylight with the speaker's own approaching death and oblivion.

## Character check-ins

### Narrator

The speaker contemplates their own disappearance, mirroring the setting sun.

## Key lines

> The soft voluptuous opiate shades, The sun just gone, the eager light dispell'd⁠—(I too will soon be gone, dispell'd,) A haze⁠—nirwana⁠—rest and night⁠—oblivion.

The gentle, intoxicating shadows of twilight, after the sun has set and the bright light is scattered—I too will soon be scattered and gone—a mist, a state of nothingness, rest, night, and complete forgetfulness.

_The speaker uses the imagery of twilight to foreshadow their own death and absorption into oblivion._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/leaves_of_grass_se/chapters/twilight
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/leaves_of_grass_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/leaves_of_grass_se/chapters