A Glimpse
A GLIMPSE, through an interstice caught, Of a crowd of workmen and drivers in a bar-room, around the stove, late of a winter night-And I unremark’d seated in a corner; Of a youth who
City of Orgies
CITY of orgies, walks and joys! City whom that I have lived and sung in your midst will one day make you illustrious, Not the pageants of you-not your shifting tableaux, your spectacles, repay
What Place is Besieged?
WHAT place is besieged, and vainly tries to raise the siege? Lo! I send to that place a commander, swift, brave, immortal; And with him horse and foot-and parks of artillery, And artillery-men, the
To the Leaven'd Soil They Trod
TO the leaven’d soil they trod, calling, I sing, for the last; (Not cities, nor man alone, nor war, nor the dead, But forth from my tent emerging for good-loosing, untying the tent-ropes;) In
Mannahatta
I WAS asking for something specific and perfect for my city, Whereupon, lo! upsprang the aboriginal name! Now I see what there is in a name, a word, liquid, sane, unruly, musical, self-sufficient; I
So Far and So Far, and on Toward the End
SO far, and so far, and on toward the end, Singing what is sung in this book, from the irresistible impulses of me; But whether I continue beyond this book, to maturity, Whether I
I Heard You, Solemn-sweet Pipes of the Organ
I HEARD you, solemn-sweet pipes of the organ, as last Sunday morn I pass’d the church; Winds of autumn!-as I walk’d the woods at dusk, I heard your long-stretch’d sighs, up above, so mournful;
As I Watch'd the Ploughman Ploughing
AS I watch’d the ploughman ploughing, Or the sower sowing in the fields-or the harvester harvesting, I saw there too, O life and death, your analogies: (Life, life is the tillage, and Death is
Great are the Myths
1 GREAT are the myths-I too delight in them; Great are Adam and Eve-I too look back and accept them; Great the risen and fallen nations, and their poets, women, sages, inventors, rulers, warriors,
To a President
ALL you are doing and saying is to America dangled mirages, You have not learn’d of Nature-of the politics of Nature, you have not learn’d the great amplitude, rectitude, impartiality; You have not seen
When I heard the Learn'd Astronomer
WHEN I heard the learn’d astronomer; When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me; When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them; When I,
In Former Songs
1 IN former songs Pride have I sung, and Love, and passionate, joyful Life, But here I twine the strands of Patriotism and Death. And now, Life, Pride, Love, Patriotism and Death, To you,
At Weeping Face
WHAT weeping face is that looking from the window? Why does it stream those sorrowful tears? Is it for some burial place, vast and dry? Is it to wet the soil of graves?
Still, though the One I Sing
STILL, though the one I sing, (One, yet of contradictions made,) I dedicate to Nationality, I leave in him Revolt, (O latent right of insurrection! O quenchless, indispensable fire!)
To a Common Prostitute
BE composed-be at ease with me-I am Walt Whitman, liberal and lusty as Nature; Not till the sun excludes you, do I exclude you; Not till the waters refuse to glisten for you, and