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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is piercing through the storm, piercing and pealing as the storm rises up?
(a) Singing.
(b) Tears.
(c) Silence.
(d) Laughter.

2. Whitman addresses the reader in "To You," telling the reader he fears they are walking the walks of _____________.
(a) Clouds.
(b) Armies.
(c) Dreams.
(d) Pain.

3. Whitman says that he sings the songs of the glory of ___________, not God.
(a) Nature.
(b) None.
(c) Words.
(d) Earth.

4. At the time of freedom, the soul can emerge fully and ponder the _________ one loves best.
(a) Animals.
(b) Truth.
(c) Themes.
(d) Silence.

5. Whitman says that not a disembodied _________ can the weapons of tyrants let loose, but it stalks invisibly.
(a) Spirit.
(b) Poem.
(c) Song.
(d) Truth.

Short Answer Questions

1. What was Whitman's voice like when he sang late in the night, according to his writing?

2. The metaphor of __________ is used in relation to the plowman, tilling to life, while the harvester harvests in the end.

3. Whitman says that years of ____________ are transient and strange, though he says he too is one.

4. The combination of justice and God, according to Whitman, can be blended together to make an immortal ___________.

5. From the sea of ________, Whitman says that he will collect and bring a windrow drift of weeds and shells.

Short Essay Questions

1. Who are the phantoms to which Whitman refers in his poems about love being lost?

2. Whose philosophies does Whitman respect without any exceptions, according to the writing?

3. What is an endless source of inspiration for poetry, according to the poems which the poet has created?

4. Why does Whitman pay homage to the young pioneers who forged ahead to find homes for themselves?

5. What happens to the summer rains, according to Whitman's poem "Autumn Rivulets"?

6. What is the lesson of the ebb of the ocean, according to the poem of Whitman?

7. How is the plowman used in reference and as a metaphor for death in Whitman's poem?

8. To whom does Whitman compare the country of old Ireland, in his poem to this land?

9. What does the poem "Passage to India" have to share about this country and about its progress in the world?

10. What does Whitman ask the soul to do in the poems about addressing the idea of mortality?

(see the answer keys)

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