Leaves of Grass #4

"I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journeywork of the stars,
And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg of the of the wren,
And the tree-toad is a chief-d'ouvre for the highest,
And the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven,
And the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery,
And the cow crunching with depressed head surpasses any statue,
And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels,
And I could come every afternoon of my life to look at the farmer's girl boiling her iron tea-keddle and baking shortcake."

In this segment of Whitman's poetry begins a trend of repetitive syntax. In the first sentence, Whitman expresses his opinion on his title. Because he says "no less" he is expressing the magnitude of something so simple. A leaf of grass is but one piece in an entire field. No one notices it, except for Whitman who notices all the little things around him. He wants the reader to understand what he feels, so he compares it to stars orbiting around in the solar system. The line is juxtaposition between the simplicity and minute size of the grass verses the complexity and large size of the star. Also, the mentality that grass is at people's feet and diminishes its view, while stars are above the heads and gives that larger than life effect plays a role as well.
Then Whitman goes into the repetitive syntax. In this segment, he brings up the motif of nature and the theme of things being more than they appear. Whitman gives aspects of nature, human qualities. What I find so interesting is that nature has human qualities, but Whitman enjoys nature far greater than humans themselves and their actions. This give nature equality to humans, but at the same time superiority to them. The repetitiveness expresses the tone of the speaker has it keeps encountering this idea more and more and it makes the reader feel overwhelmed by the continuous usage.
Then after all that with nature, Whitman says, "And I could come every afternoon of my life to look at the farmer's girl boiling her iron tea-keddle and baking shortcake." Whitman discusses how much better nature is compared to humans and their artifical machinary, yet he says how much he loves seeing a girl using the machinary. This ironic statement either says that Whitman is a hypocret and cares more about what goes on in his pants than in his head or he wants to show that everyone including him is flawed and this increases the connection between him and the reader rather than him saying how the reader is a terrible person.