All 3 Uses of
reconcile
in
Leaves of Grass
- Reconciliation
Word over all, beautiful as the sky,
Beautiful that war and all its deeds of carnage must in time be
utterly lost,
That the hands of the sisters Death and Night incessantly softly
wash again, and ever again, this solid world;
For my enemy is dead, a man divine as myself is dead,
I look where he lies white-faced and still in the coffin—I draw near,
Bend down and touch lightly with my lips the white face in the coffin.†Chpt 21 *
- When the Full-Grown Poet Came
When the full-grown poet came,
Out spake pleased Nature (the round impassive globe, with all its
shows of day and night,) saying, He is mine;
But out spake too the Soul of man, proud, jealous and unreconciled,
Nay he is mine alone;
—Then the full-grown poet stood between the two, and took each
by the hand;
And to-day and ever so stands, as blender, uniter, tightly holding hands,
Which he will never release until he reconciles the two,
And wholly and joyously blends them.†Chpt 34 *unreconciled = had not come to terms withstandard prefix: The prefix "un-" in unreconciled means not and reverses the meaning of reconciled. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.
- When the Full-Grown Poet Came
When the full-grown poet came,
Out spake pleased Nature (the round impassive globe, with all its
shows of day and night,) saying, He is mine;
But out spake too the Soul of man, proud, jealous and unreconciled,
Nay he is mine alone;
—Then the full-grown poet stood between the two, and took each
by the hand;
And to-day and ever so stands, as blender, uniter, tightly holding hands,
Which he will never release until he reconciles the two,
And wholly and joyously blends them.†Chpt 34
Definitions:
-
(1)
(reconcile as in: reconciled their differences) to make peace between people or bring different ideas into agreement
-
(2)
(reconcile as in: reconciled herself to) to accept something difficult or unwanted -- especially when it can’t be changed