All 3 Uses of
torpid
in
Leaves of Grass
- Before I was born out of my mother generations guided me, My embryo has never been torpid, nothing could overlay it.†
Chpt 3 *
- After all not to create only, or found only, But to bring perhaps from afar what is already founded, To give it our own identity, average, limitless, free, To fill the gross the torpid bulk with vital religious fire, Not to repel or destroy so much as accept, fuse, rehabilitate, To obey as well as command, to follow more than to lead, These also are the lessons of our New World; While how little the New after all, how much the Old, Old World!†
Chpt 13
- Of That Blithe Throat of Thine Of that blithe throat of thine from arctic bleak and blank, I'll mind the lesson, solitary bird—let me too welcome chilling drifts, E'en the profoundest chill, as now—a torpid pulse, a brain unnerv'd, Old age land-lock'd within its winter bay—(cold, cold, O cold!†
Chpt 34
Definition:
-
(torpid) of people: slow or inactive -- usually resulting from a lack of energy and interest
or:
of animals: a condition of biological rest or suspended animation -- (could be in the evening, during the cold, or as in a hibernated or dormant state all winter)