All 7 Uses of
amplitude
in
Leaves of Grass
- My foothold is tenon'd and mortis'd in granite,
I laugh at what you call dissolution,
And I know the amplitude of time.†Chpt 3 *amplitude = greatness of magnitude or range
- In them these skies and airs, these mountain peaks, Shasta, Nevadas,
These huge precipitous cliffs, this amplitude, these valleys, far Yosemite,
To be in them absorb'd, assimilated.†Chpt 14
- I swear there is no greatness or power that does not emulate those
of the earth,
There can be no theory of any account unless it corroborate the
theory of the earth,
No politics, song, religion, behavior, or what not, is of account,
unless it compare with the amplitude of the earth,
Unless it face the exactness, vitality, impartiality, rectitude of
the earth.†Chpt 16
- The measure'd faiths of other lands, the grandeurs of the past,
Are not for thee, but grandeurs of thine own,
Deific faiths and amplitudes, absorbing, comprehending all,
All eligible to all.†Chpt 17amplitudes = measurements of greatness of magnitude or range
- To a President
All you are doing and saying is to America dangled mirages,
You have not learn'd of Nature—of the politics of Nature you have
not learn'd the great amplitude, rectitude, impartiality,
You have not seen that only such as they are for these States,
And that what is less than they must sooner or later lift off from
these States.†Chpt 20amplitude = greatness of magnitude or range
- Kosmos
Who includes diversity and is Nature,
Who is the amplitude of the earth, and the coarseness and sexuality of
the earth, and the great charity of the earth, and the equilibrium also,
Who has not look'd forth from the windows the eyes for nothing,
or whose brain held audience with messengers for nothing,
Who contains believers and disbelievers, who is the most majestic lover,
Who holds duly his or her triune proportion of realism,
spiritualism, and of the aesthetic or intellectual,
Who having consider'd the body finds all its organs and parts good,
Who, out of the theory of the earth and of his or her body
understands by subtle analogies all other theories,
The†Chpt 24
- A Prairie Sunset
Shot gold, maroon and violet, dazzling silver, emerald, fawn,
The earth's whole amplitude and Nature's multiform power consign'd
for once to colors;
The light, the general air possess'd by them—colors till now unknown,
No limit, confine—not the Western sky alone—the high meridian— North, South, all,
Pure luminous color fighting the silent shadows to the last.†Chpt 34
Definitions:
-
(1)
(amplitude) greatness of magnitude or range -- especially the height of a waveMore technically, the amplitude of a wave is the maximum distance from the mean.
-
(2)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) meaning too rare to warrant focus