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Walt Whitman
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First lines
Walt Whitman
(1819–92)
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First lines
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A
A batter’d, wreck’d old man
A California song
A carol closing sixty-nine — a résumé — a repetition
A glimpse through an interstice caught
A great year and place
A leaf for hand in hand
A lesser proof than old Voltaire’s, yet greater
A line in long array where they wind betwixt green islands
A march in the ranks hard-prest, and the road unknown
A mask, a perpetual natural disguiser of herself
A newer garden of creation, no primal solitude
A noiseless patient spider
A promise to California
A sight in camp in the daybreak gray and dim
A song, a poem of itself — the word itself a dirge
A song for occupations!
A song of the rolling earth, and of words according
A thousand perfect men and women appear
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
Aboard at a ship’s helm
Add to your show, before you close it, France
Adieu O soldier
Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road
After a long, long course, hundreds of years, denials
After a week of physical anguish
After surmounting three-score and ten
After the dazzle of day is gone
After the sea-ship, after the whistling winds
After the supper and talk — after the day is done
Ages and ages returning at intervals
Ah little recks the laborer
Ah, not this marble, dead and cold
Ah poverties, wincings, and sulky retreats
Ah, whispering, something again, unseen
All submit to them where they sit, inner, secure, unapproachable to analysis in the soul
All you are doing and saying is to America dangled mirages
Always our old feuillage!
Amid these days of order, ease, prosperity
Among the men and women the multitude
An ancient song, reciting, ending
An old man bending I come among new faces
An old man’s thought of school
And now gentlemen
And whence and why come you?
And who art thou? said I to the soft-falling shower
Apple orchards, the trees all cover’d with blossoms
Approaching, nearing, curious
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
As I ebb’d with the ocean of life
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 if a phantom caress’d me
As one by one withdraw the lofty actors
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
Ashes of soldiers South or North
At the last, tenderly
B
Be composed — be at ease with me — I am Walt Whitman, liberal and lusty as Nature
Beat! beat! drums! — blow! bugles! blow!
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 the bivouac’s fitful flame
By the city dead-house by the gate
C
Centre of equal daughters, equal sons
Chanting the square deific, out of the One advancing, out of the sides
City of orgies, walks and joys
City of ships!
Come, I will make the continent indissoluble
Come my tan-faced children
Come, said my Soul
Come said the Muse
Come up from the fields father, here’s a letter from our Pete
Courage yet, my brother or my sister!
D
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
E
Earth, my likeness
Ever the undiscouraged, resolute, struggling soul of man
F
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
For the lands and for these passionate days and for myself
Forms, qualities, lives, humanity, language, thoughts
From all the rest I single out you, having a message for you
From east and west across the horizon’s edge
From far Dakota’s cañons
From Paumanok starting I fly like a bird
From pent-up aching rivers
Full of life now, compact, visible
G
Give me the splendid silent sun with all his beams full-dazzling
Give me your hand old Revolutionary
Gliding o’er all, through all
Good-bye my Fancy!
Good-bye my fancy
Grand is the seen, the light, to me — grand are the sky and stars
Greater than memory of Achilles or Ulysses
H
Hark, some wild trumpeter, some strange musician
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 tender with you, and stood aside for you?
Heave the anchor short!
Here first the duties of to-day, the lessons of the concrete
Here, take this gift
Here the frailest leaves of me and yet my strongest lasting
Hold it up sternly — see this it sends back, (who is it? is it you?)
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,)
Hush’d be the camps to-day
I
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 whole of the rest of the earth
I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear
I hear it was charged against me that I sought to destroy institutions
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 met a seer
I need no assurances, I am a man who is pre-occupied of his own soul
I 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
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 oppression and shame
I stand as on some mighty eagle’s beak
I wander all night in my vision
I was asking for something specific and perfect for my city
I was looking a long while for Intentions
If I should need to name, O Western World, your powerfulest scene and show
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
In midnight sleep of many a face of anguish
In paths untrodden
In some unused lagoon, some nameless bay
Is reform needed? is it through you?
J
Joy, shipmate, Joy!
L
Laws for creations
Let that which stood in front go behind
Let the reformers descend from the stands where they are forever bawling — let an idiot or insane person appear on each of the stands
Lo, the unbounded sea
Lo, Victress on the peaks
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 scene
Lover divine and perfect Comrade
M
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
My spirit to yours dear brother
Myself and mine gymnastic ever
N
Nations ten thousand years before these States, and many times ten thousand years before these States
Native moments — when you come upon me — ah you are here now
Night on the prairies
No labor-saving machine
Nor 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
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,)
Not youth pertains to me
Nothing is ever really lost, or can be lost
Now finalè to the shore
Now list to my morning’s romanza, I tell the signs of the Answerer
Now precedent songs, farewell — by every name farewell
O
O A new song, a free song
O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done
O hymen! O hymenee! why do you tantalize me thus?
O living always, always dying!
O 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
O star of France
O take my hand Walt Whitman!
O tan-faced prairie-boy
O to make the most jubilant song!
O you whom I often and silently come where you are that I may be with you
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 him I love day and night I dream’d I heard he was dead
Of justice — as If could be any thing but the same ample law, expounded 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 public opinion
Of that blithe throat of thine from arctic bleak and blank
Of the terrible doubt of appearances
Of these years I sing
Old farmers, travelers, workmen (no matter how crippled or bent,)
On a flat road runs the well-train’d runner
On journeys through the States we start
On my Northwest coast in the midst of the night a fishermen’s group stands watching
On, on the same, ye jocund twain!
On the beach at night
On the beach at night alone
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
Only themselves understand themselves and the like of themselves
Others may praise what they like
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
P
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!
Proud music of the storm
Q
Quicksand years that whirl me I know not whither
R
Race of veterans — race of victors!
Rang the refrain along the hall, the prison
Recorders ages hence
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
Roots and leaves themselves alone are these
S
Sauntering the pavement or riding the country by-road, 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
Skirting the river road, (my forenoon walk, my rest,)
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 unreturn’d love
Soon shall the winter’s foil be here
Sounds of the winter too
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
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
T
Tears! tears! tears!
Thanks in old age — thanks ere I go
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, chattering, 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
The last sunbeam
The noble sire fallen on evil days
The prairie-grass dividing, its special odor breathing
The sobbing of the bells, the sudden death-news everywhere
The soft voluptuous opiate shades
The soothing sanity and blitheness of completion
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
The world below the brine
Thee for my recitative
There was a child went forth every day
These carols sung to cheer my passage through the world I see
These I singing in spring collect for lovers
They shall arise in the States
Thick-sprinkled bunting! flag of stars!
This dust was once the man
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 conclude, I announce what comes after me
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 the garden the world anew ascending
To the leaven’d soil they trod calling I sing for the last
To the States or any one of them, or any city of the States, Resist much, obey little
To thee old cause!
To think of time — of all that retrospection
To those who’ve fail’d, in aspiration vast
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
Trickle drops! my blue veins leaving!
Turn O Libertad, for the war is over
Two boats with nets lying off the sea-beach, quite still
U
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
V
Vigil strange I kept on the field one night
Vocalism, measure, concentration, determination, and the divine power to speak words
W
Wandering at morn
Warble me now for joy of lilac-time, (returning in reminiscence,)
We two boys together clinging
We two, how long we were fool’d
Weapon shapely, naked, wan
Weave in, weave in, my hardy life
Welcome, Brazilian brother — thy ample place is ready
What am I after all but a child, pleas’d with the sound of my own name? repeating it over and over
What are those of the known but to ascend and enter the Unknown?
What best I see in thee
What hurrying human tides, 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 I take my pen in hand to record?
What you give me I cheerfully accept
When his hour for death had come
When I heard at the close of the day how my name had been receiv’d with plaudits in the capitol, still it was not a happy night for me that follow’d
When I heard the learn’d astronomer
When I peruse the conquer’d fame of heroes and the victories of mighty generals, I do not envy the generals
When I read the book, the biography famous
When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d
When the full-grown poet came
Where the city’s ceaseless crowd moves on the livelong day
While my wife at my side lies slumbering, and the wars are over long
While not the past forgetting
Whispers of heavenly death murmur’d I hear
Who are you dusky woman, so ancient hardly human
Who has gone farthest? for I would go farther
Who includes diversity and is Nature
Who learns my lesson complete?
Whoever you are holding me now in hand
Whoever you are, I fear you are walking the walks of dreams
Why reclining, interrogating? why myself and all drowsing?
Why, who makes much of a miracle?
Wild, wild the storm, and the sea high running
With all thy gifts America
With antecedents
With husky-haughty lips, O sea!
With its cloud of skirmishers in advance
Women sit or move to and fro, some old, some young
Word over all, beautiful as the sky
World take good notice, silver stars fading
Y
Year of meteors! brooding year!
Year that trembled and reel’d beneath me!
Years of the modern! years of the unperform’d!
Yet, yet, ye downcast hours, I know ye also
You felons on trial in courts
You lingering sparse leaves of me on winter-nearing boughs
You who celebrate bygones
Youth, large, lusty, loving — youth full of grace, force, fascination