PAGE

I AM he that aches with amorous love
celebrate myself, and sing myself
I doubt it not-then more, far more

I dream'd in a dream I saw a city invincible to the attacks of the whole
of the rest of the earth

93

29

412

109

391

425

If I should need to name, O Western World, your powerfulest scene and
show.

I have not so much emulated the birds that musically sing
hear America singing, the varied carols I hear.

I heard that you ask'd for something to prove this puzzle the New World,
I heard you solemn-sweet pipes of the organ as last Sunday morn I
pass'd the church

I hear it was charged against me that I sought to destroy institutions

I met a seer

In a far-away northern county in the placid pastoral region

In a little house keep I pictures suspended, it is not a fix'd house.
In cabin'd ships at sea

I need no assurances, I am a man who is pre-occupied of his Own
In midnight sleep of many a face of anguish

In paths untrodden

In softness, languor, bloom, and growth

In some unused lagoon, some nameless bay
saw in Louisiana a live-oak growing

I saw old General at bay

I see before me now a traveling army halting

I see in you the estuary that enlarges and spreads itself grandly as it
pours in the great sea

218

I see the sleeping babe nestling the breast of its mother

I sit and look out upon all the sorrows of the world, and upon all op.
pression and shame

Is reform needed? is it through you

I stand as on some mighty eagle's beak

I was asking for something specific and perfect for my city

Let the reformers descend from the stands where they are forever bawl-
inglet an idiot or insane person appear on each of the stands

Let that which stood in front go behind

Locations and times what is it in me that meets them all, whenever

Long, too long America

390

299

332

276

218

244

250

16

252

213

MANHATTAN'S streets I saunter'd pondering

Many things to absorb I teach to help you become eleve of mine.

289
110

My city's fit and noble name resumed.

My spirit to yours dear brother

Myself and mine gymnastic ever .

Nay tell me not to-day the publish'd shame

Аме

Me imperturbe, standing at ease in Nature .

More experiences and sights, stranger, than you'd think for.

My science-friend, my noblest woman-friend

NAY, do not dream, designer dark

Nations ten thousand years before these States, and many times ten
thousand years before these States

Not alone those camps of white, old comrades of the wars

Not from successful love alone

- when you come upon me - ah you are here now

Not heat flames up and consumes

Not heaving from my ribb'd breast only

Nothing is ever really lost, or can be lost
Not meagre, latent boughs alone, O songs! (scaly and bare, like eagles'
talons .

Not the pilot has charged himself to bring his ship into port, though
beaten back and many times baffled

Not to exclude or demarcate, or pick out evils from their formidable
masses (even to expose them

Now list to my morning's romanza, I tell the signs of the Answerer
Now precedent songs, farewell—by every name farewell

Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done.

Of Equality- -as if it harm'd me, giving others the same chances and
rights as myself—as if it were not indispensable to my own rights
that others possess the same

Of heroes, history, grand events, premises, myths, poems
Of him I love day and night I dream'd I heard he was dead
Of Justice -as if Justice could be anything but the same ample law, ex-
pounded by natural judges and saviors

Of obedience, faith, adhesiveness

-

Of ownership- as if one fit to own things could not at pleasure enter
upon all, and incorporate them into himself or herself

Of persons arrived at high positions, ceremonies, wealth, scholarships,
and the like

Of that blithe throat of thine from arctic bleak and blank

O hymen! O hymenee! why do you tantalize me thus

Old farmers, travelers, workmen (no matter how crippled or bent

magnet-South! O glistening perfumed South! my South

O me, man of slack faith so long

O me! O life! of the questions of these recurring

On a flat road runs the well-train'd runner

Once I pass'd through a populous city imprinting my brain for future use
with its shows, architecture, customs, traditions

One hour to madness and joy! O furious! O confine me not
One's-self I sing, a simple separate person

One thought ever at the fore

On journeys through the States we start

Only themselves understand themselves and the like of themselves

On my Northwest coast in the midst of the night a fisherman's group
stands watching .

On, on the same, ye jocund twain

On the beach at night

On the beach at night alone

O sight of pity, shame and dole
O star of France

O take my hand Walt Whitman

O tan-faced prairie boy

Others may praise what they like

O to make the most jubilant song

Out of the rolling ocean the crowd came a drop gently to me
Over and through the burial chant

O you whom I often and silently come where you are that I may be with

PAGE

217

PASSING stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you
Pensive and faltering .

Pensive on her dead gazing I heard the Mother of All
Poets to come! orators, singers, musicians to come

Proudly the flood comes in, shouting, foaming, advancing
Proud music of the storm

Rise O days from your fathomless deeps, till you loftier, fiercer sweep
Roaming in thought over the Universe, I saw the little that is Good

steadily hastening towards immortality.

Sauntering the pavement or riding the country by-road, lo, such faces
Scented herbage of my breast

Sea-beauty! stretch'd and basking

Shot gold, maroon and violet, dazzling silver, emerald, fawn

Shut not your doors to me proud libraries

Silent and amazed even when a little boy

Simple and fresh and fair from winter's close emerging

Singing my days

315

-

Small the theme of my Chant, yet the greatest-namely, One's-Self-
a simple, separate person. That, for the use of the New World, I
sing

Somehow I cannot let it go yet, funeral though it is
Something startles me where I thought I was safest

Sometimes with one I love I fill myself with rage for fear I effuse unre-
turn'd love.

Spirit that form'd this scene

Spirit whose work is done-spirit of dreadful hours
Splendor of ended day floating and filling me

Spontaneous me, Nature

Starting from fish-shape Paumanok where I was born

-

Steaming the northern rapids (an old St. Lawrence reminiscence
Still though the one I sing.

Stranger, if you passing meet me and desire to speak to me, why should

you not speak to me

Suddenly out of its stale and drowsy lair, the lair of slaves

That coursing on, whate'er men's speculations
That music always round me, unceasing, unbeginning, yet long untaught
I did not hear

That shadow my likeness that goes to and fro seeking a livelihood, chat-
tering, chaffering

That which eludes this verse and any verse.

The appointed winners in a long-stretch'd game

The business man the acquirer vast

The commonplace I sing

The devilish and the dark, the dying and diseas'd

Thee for my recitative

The last sunbeam

The mystery of mysteries, the crude and hurried ceaseless flame, spon-
taneous, bearing on itself

Then last of all, caught from these shores, this hill

376
419

419

358
246

The prairie-grass dividing, its special odor breathing

These carols sung to cheer my passage through the world I see

The sobbing of the bells, the sudden death-news everywhere

The touch of flame - the illuminating fire-the loftiest look at last

The two old, simple problems ever intertwined
The untold want by life and land ne'er granted

99

378

401

411

404

398

379

206

This is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless

This latent mine- these unlaunch'd voices-passionate powers

This moment yearning and thoughtful sitting alone

Thither as I look I see each result and glory retracing itself and nestling

close, always obligated

Thou Mother with thy Equal brood

Thou orb aloft full-dazzling! thou hot October noon

Thou reader throbbest life and pride and love the same as I,
Thou who hast slept all night upon the storm

Through the ample open door of the peaceful country barn
Through the soft evening air enwinding, all

To be at all-what is better than that

To conclude, I announce what comes after me
To-day a rude brief recitative

To-day, from each and all, a breath of prayer —a pulse of thought
To-day, with bending head and eyes, thou, too, Columbia
To get betimes in Boston town I rose this morning early
To get the final lilt of songs

To the East and to the West

To thee old cause

To the garden the world anew ascending

To the leaven'd soil they trod calling I sing for the last

18

15

333

385

104

254

351

302

To the States or any one of them, or any city of the States, Resist much,
obey little

To think of time of all that retrospection

Two boats with nets lying off the sea-beach, quite still

UNFOLDED out of the folds of the woman man comes unfolded, and is

always to come unfolded

Unseen buds, infinite, hidden well

Upon this scene, this show.

VIGIL strange I kept on the field one night.

Vocalism, measure, concentration, determination, and the divine power
to speak words

WANDERING at morn.

Warble me now for joy of lilac-time, (returning in reminiscence

Welcome, Brazilian brother-thy ample place is ready

We two, how long we were fool'd

238

What am I after all but a child, pleas'd with the sound of my own

What are those of the known but to ascend and enter the Unknown
What best I see in thee

What hurrying human tide, or day or night
What may we chant, O thou within this tomb

What place is besieged, and vainly tries to raise the siege
What ship puzzled at sea, cons for the true reckoning.
What think, you Į take my pen in hand to record

394
294