Apple orchards, the trees all cover'd with blossoms A promise to California Are you the new person drawn toward me Arm'd year- -year of the struggle As Adam early in the morning As at thy portals also death As consequent from store of summer rains As down the stage again. Ashes of Soldiers, South or North 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 lay with my head in your lap camerado As I ponder'd in silence As I sit in twilight late alone by the flickering oak-flame As I sit with others at a great feast, suddenly while the music is playing As I sit writing here, sick and grown old As I walk these broad majestic days of peace As I watch'd the ploughman ploughing As one by one withdraw the lofty actors A song, a poem of itself - the word itself a dirge A song of the rolling earth, and of words according As the Greek's signal flame, by antique records told As the time draws nigh glooming a cloud As they draw to a close As toilsome I wander'd Virginia's woods A thousand perfect men and women appear At the last, tenderly A vague mist hanging 'round half the pages A voice from Death, solemn and strange, in all his sweep and power A woman waits for me, she contains all, nothing is lacking. Aye, well I know 'tis ghastly to descend that valley BEAT! beat! drums!-blow! bugles! blow Be composed be at ease with me--I am Walt Whitman, liberal and Beginning my studies the first step pleas'd me so much Behold this swarthy face, these gray eyes Brave, brave were the soldiers (high named to-day) who lived through the fight By blue Ontario's shore By broad Potomac's shore, again old tongue By that long scan of waves, myself call'd back, resumed upon myself By the city dead-house by the gate CENTRE of equal daughters, equal sons Chanting the square deific, out of the One advancing, out of the sides, City of ships Come, I will make the continent indissoluble Come my tan-faced children Come said the Muse Come up from the fields father, here's a letter from our Pete DAREST thou now O soul Delicate cluster! flag of teeming life Did we count great, O Soul, to penetrate the themes of mighty books 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 FACING West from California's shores. Far back, related on my mother's side Far hence amid an isle of wondrous beauty Fast-anchor'd eternal O love! O woman I love First O songs for a prelude Flood tide below me! I see you face to face For him I sing. For his o'erarching and last lesson the greybeard sufi Forms, qualities, lives, humanity, language, thoughts For the lands and for these passionate days and for myself From all the rest I single out you, having a message for you From far Dakota's cañons . From Paumanok starting I fly like a bird From pent-up aching rivers Full of life now, compact, visible Full of wickedness I of many a smutch'd deed reminiscent GIVE me the splendid silent sun with all his beams full-dazzling Gliding o'er all, through all Good-bye my Fancy Good-bye my fancy (I had a word to say --- Grand is the seen, the light, to me — grand are the sky and stars HAD I the choice to tally greatest bards Hark, some wild trumpeter, some strange musician 344 222 79 Hast never come to thee an hour 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 ten- der with you, and stood aside for you Heave the anchor short Here first the duties of to-day, the lessons of the concrete Here the frailest leaves of me, and yet my strongest lasting. - How dare one say it How solemn as one by one How sweet the silent backward tracings How they are provided for upon the earth, (appearing at intervals 251 15 263 2 ม. I AM he that aches with amorous love I 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 If I should need to name, O Western World, your powerfulest scene an show .. I have not so much emulated the birds that musically sing I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear. I heard that you ask'd for something to prove this puzzle the New Wor 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. I need no assurances, I am a man who is pre-occupied of his own In paths untrodden In softness, languor, bloom, and growth In some unused lagoon, some nameless bay 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 I see the sleeping babe nestling the breast of its mother I sing the body electric I sit and look out upon all the sorrows of the world, and upon all of 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 I was looking a long while for Intentions I wander all night in my vision Joy, shipmate, joy. LAST of ebb, and daylight waning Laws for creations Let the reformers descend from the stands where they are forever bawl- Let that which stood in front go behind Locations and times-what is it in me that meets them all, whenever and wherever, and makes me at home. Long, too long America Look down fair moon and bathe this Lo, the unbounded sea Lo, Victress on the peaks Lover divine and perfect Comrade scene MANHATTAN'S streets I saunter'd pondering Many things to absorb I teach to help you become eleve of mine. Me imperturbe, standing at ease in Nature. More experiences and sights, stranger, than you'd think for. My city's fit and noble name resumed. My science-friend, my noblest woman-friend PAGE 16 420 385 397 298 My spirit to yours dear brother Myself and mine gymnastic ever. 189 NAY, do not dream, designer dark 428 Nay tell me not to-day the publish'd shame 426 Nations ten thousand years before these States, and many times ten Not alone those camps of white, old comrades of the wars Not from successful love alone Not heat flames up and consumes Not heaving from my ribb'd breast only Nothing is ever really lost, or can be lost 377 388 104 100 396 Not to exclude or demarcate, or pick out evils from their formidable masses (even to expose them Not the pilot has charged himself to bring his ship into port, though beaten back and many times baffled 241 Now list to my morning's romanza, I tell the signs of the Answerer OA new song, a free song. O 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, expounded by natural judges and saviors. Of obedience, faith, adhesiveness 217 217 and the like 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, Of public opinion Of that blithe throat of thine from arctic bleak and blank O hymen! O hymenee! why do you tantalize me thus 373 ΠΟΙ 93 Old farmers, travelers, workmen (no matter how crippled or bent O living always, always dying O magnet-South! O glistening perfumed South! my South. 397 344 359 On a flat road runs the well-train'd runner Once I pass'd through a populous city imprinting my brain for future ahe One hour to madness and joy! O furious! O confine me not 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 grea 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 take my hand Walt Whitman O tan-faced prairie boy Others may praise what they like O to make the most jubilant song Out from behind this bending rough-cut mask Out of the cradle endlessly rocking Out of the murk of heaviest clouds Out of the rolling ocean the crowd came a drop gently to me Over and through the burial chant Over the carnage rose prophetic a voice Over the Western sea hither from Niphon come O you whom I often and silently come where you are that I may be with PASSING stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you Pensive on her dead gazing I heard the Mother of All. Poets to come! orators, singers, musicians to come QUICKSAND years that whirl me I know not whither RACE of veterans-race of victors Recorders ages hence Rise O days from your fathomless deeps, till you loftier, fiercer sweep Roots and leaves themselves alone are these SACRED, blithesome, undenied Sane, random, negligent hours Sauntering the pavement or riding the country by-road, lo, such faces 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 |