Walt Whitman: Poems Lesson Plan

What kind of picture of America does "I Hear America Singing" illustrate?

The America Whitman describes in "I Hear America Singing" is a sort of everyman's ideal: it highlights the everyday working people and insists that their voices are the ones that make up the country. He indicates that, though these voices alone are not the loudest, the combination of them "singing" together embodies America. Whitman offers a positive reading of the mundane; he celebrates the hard work of ordinary people, rather than illustrating any harsh realities of their toils.

What is the "complaint" of the phantom in "As I Ponder'd in Silence," and how does the poet counter this complaint?