tman writes, “Aware now that amid all that blab whose echoes recoil upon me I have not once had the least idea who or what I am,/ But that before all my arrogant poems the real Me stands yet untouch'd, untold, altogether unreach'd.” In this line he negates much of what “Song of Myself” is by showing that he had not yet revealed anything about his true self in his poetry, despite his attempts. In “Song of Myself” Whitman convinces the reader that he understands who he is and how he relates to the world, but in “As I Ebb’d With the Oceans of Life” he declares, “I perceive I have not really understood any thing, not a single object, and that no man ever can.” Whitman goes from an enlightened individual to one that is ignorant of everything. The contradiction between the two poems illustrates the change that occurred in Whitman between the times that the poems were written.A comparison of an artist’s earlier work and later work often reveals a shift in the artist. Any change that occurs within the artist shows itself in the artist’s work. As for Walt Whitman’s work, a comparison of an earlier poem “Song of Myself” and a later poem “As I Ebb’d With the Oceans of Life” shows a definite change in the poet. “As I Ebb’d With the Oceans of Life” reveals a more depressed, hopeless Whitman. The multitude of bold statements and definite conclusions presented in “Song of Myself” are replaced with uncertainty and the claim of total ignorance. The contrast between Whitman’s early work and his later work is a strong indicator of a contrast in Whitman’s younger self and older self....
