All 3 Uses of
specter
in
Leaves of Grass
- Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems, You shall possess the good of the earth and sun, (there are millions of suns left,) You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books, You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me, You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self.†
Chpt 3
- Pensive and Faltering Pensive and faltering, The words the Dead I write, For living are the Dead, (Haply the only living, only real, And I the apparition, I the spectre.†
Chpt 30
- Queries to My Seventieth Year Approaching, nearing, curious, Thou dim, uncertain spectre—bringest thou life or death?†
Chpt 34 *
Definition:
-
(specter as in: specter of national poverty) a frightening or disturbing mental image or possibility
or:
a ghostly appearing image