Hours Continuing Long

The friend who occupies Whitman’s thoughts and disturbs his emotions is a man. These two men have—or did have—a close relationship. They were emotionally involved with each other, although the poem only has insight into one man’s perspective on the relationship, that of the poet. How the other man felt or feels is unknown because the two have separated. For his part, Whitman feels a deep connection with his friend and cannot bear to be apart from him, as Line 4 makes clear: He longs for “the one I cannot content myself without,” and he cannot forget him. This emotional attachment appears to describe a romantic relationship, however, the poem contains no reference to sexuality. The use of the phrase “his friend, his lover” (Line 8) does not imply sex. The word “lover” was often used by American men in the mid-19th century simply to describe a close male friend (as David S. Reynolds notes in his book, Walt Whitman’s America: A Cultural Biography, 1995, p. 392). However, it cannot be known for certain whether Whitman is describing one of his real relationships in the poem, or whether the relationship presented is a product of his imagination and fantasy.