The Quiet Dust by Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman’s Song 6 both have stylistic choices that highlight the theme in each poem. Dickinson’s poem is quite short, only having two stanzas with four lines in each. She is also strict about using a certain number of syllables in every alternate line: “The quiet dust was gentlemen and ladies/And lads and girls…And frocks and curls…(1-4)”. In this first stanza, the second and fourth lines both consist of four syllables. This technique that Dickinson uses makes the overall poem more brief. This structure connects with the message of her poem, as she is conveying that everything in this world has an ending, one that abruptly ends: “This passive place a summer’s nimble mansion…Then ceased, like these (5-8).” This second stanza of the poem is essentially saying that the graveyard, where the “dust” of people who passed away is, used to be a scene filled with life before it was even a graveyard. Then, Dickinson uses the last line of the stanza to emphasize how the “bloom and bees” had also “ceased” like the deceased people in the graveyard. There is also a comma in the last line to pause the reader after “ceased”, and this decision that she made gives the reader time to take in the information, as well as emphasizing the abruptness of death. Therefore, the style of the poem matches the theme it’s about.
Whitman’s poem greatly contrasts Dickinson’s in many ways. While Dickinson’s poem was short with an abrupt ending, Whitman’s is lengthy, as he uses a lot of language to describe imagery as well as convey his complete thought process. Whitman has twelve stanzas in this particular Song, and although some consist of only one or two lines, many others have about four or five lines, and all of them are longer lines than the ones seen in This Quiet Dust. He also starts his poem off by asking questions and different explanations of what the grass is, and he guesses various things, like “the handkerchief of the Lord (102)”, and “the produced babe of vegetation (105)”. Whitman then explains his opinion and uses the grass as a symbol of the cycle of life by saying that life does not end after death: You’re rushing here. You missed some useful images, and it’s not clear what “they” refers to in the next line. “They are all alive and well somewhere/The smallest sprout shows that there is really no death… (125-126)” This broad ref greatly contrasts Dickinson’s darker and more bittersweet tone in her poem, as Whitman’s tone in these lines clearly indicate a tone RA the tone indicates a tone of determination and curiosity. Whitman’s stylistic choices, such as long sentences and colorful language, also reflect the theme of the poem, as they both never abruptly end.
