Inder of First Lines A BATTER'D, wreck'd old man Aboard at a ship's helm A California song - A carol closing sixty-nine-a résumé — a repetition Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road After a long, long course, hundreds of years, denials After surmounting threescore and ten After the sea-ship, after the whistling winds After the supper and talk-after the day is done Ages and ages returning at intervals. A glimpse through an interstice caught A great year and place Ah little recks the laborer Ah, not this marble, dead and cold ii. 318 ii. 170 ii. 33 Ah, poverties, wincings, and sulky retreats A lesser proof than old Voltaire's, yet greater A line in long array where they wind betwixt green All submit to them where they sit, inner, secure, un- All you are doing and saying is to America dangled i. 206 A march in the ranks hard-prest, and the road un- A mask, a perpetual natural disguiser of herself. And now gentlemen. And whence and why come you And who art thou? said I to the soft-falling shower An old man bending I come among new faces Apple orchards, the trees all cover'd with blossoms A promise to California Are you the new person drawn toward me As Adam early in the morning As at thy portals also death. . As consequent from store of summer rains. Ashes of Soldiers, South or North 69 As I ebb'd with the ocean of life. As if a phantom caress'd me A sight in camp in the daybreak gray and dim As I sit in twilight late alone by the flickering oak flame As I sit writing here, sick and grown old A song, a poem of itself-the word itself a dirge ii. 232 ii. 295 ii. 269 ii. 234 ii. 304 ii. 310 A song of the rolling earth, and of words according As they draw to a close As toilsome I wander'd Virginia's woods A thousand perfect men and women appear A vague mist hanging 'round half the pages iii. 19 A voice from Death, solemn and strange, in all his sweep and power i. 124 A woman waits for me, she contains all, nothing is lacking Aye, well I know 't is ghastly to descend that valley. iii. 36 BEAT! beat! drums!-blow! bugles! blow Be composed-be at ease with me - I am Walt Whitman, liberal and lusty as Nature . ii. 44 161 Beginning my studies the first step pleas'd me so much By blue Ontario's shore By broad Potomac's shore, again old tongue. By that long scan of waves, myself cali'd back, resumed Chanting the square deific, out of the One advancing, Come, I will make the continent indissoluble Come my tan-faced children Come said the Muse ii. Come up from the fields father, here 's a letter from our Pete. Courage yet, my brother or my sister! DAREST thou now O soul Delicate cluster! flag of teeming life Did we count great, O Soul, to penetrate the themes of mighty books Did you ask dulcet rhymes from me Down on the ancient wharf, the sand, I sit, with a new-comer chatting EARTH, my likeness Ever the undiscouraged, resolute, struggling soul of man 317 FACING West from California's shores . i. 135 Far back, related on my mother's side. For him I sing Flood tide below me! I see you face to face For his o'erarching and last lesson the greybeard sufi . From all the rest I single out you, having a message for From far Dakota's cañons . Full of wickedness I-of many a smutch'd deed reminiscent GIVE me the splendid silent sun with all his beams fulldazzling Good-bye my Fancy-(I had a word to say Greater than memory of Achilles or Ulysses HAD I the choice to tally greatest bards Hark, some wild trumpeter, some strange musician Have I no weapon-word for thee—some message brief and fierce Have you learn'd lessons only of those who admired you, and were tender with you, and stood aside for you. Heave the anchor short Here first the duties of to-day, the lessons of the con crete . Here, take this gift Here the frailest leaves of me, and yet my strongest lasting Hold it up sternly iii. II see this it sends back (who is it? How sweet the silent backward tracings. How they are provided for upon the earth (appearing at intervals. Hush'd be the camps to-day I AM he that aches with amorous love. I celebrate myself, and sing myself I doubt it not - then more, far more iii. 12 I dream'd in a dream I saw a city invincible to the attacks of the whole of the rest of the earth. If I should need to name, O Western World, your powerfulest scene and show I have not so much emulated the birds that musically I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear I heard that you ask'd for something to prove this I heard you solemn-sweet pipes of the organ as last |