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[[File:Whitman at about fifty.jpg|thumb|right|To [[me]] the converging objects of the [[universe]] perpetually flow, [[All]] are written to me, and I must get what the [[writing]] [[means]].]]
'''''[[w:Leaves of Grass|Leaves of Grass]]''''' (First edition 1855; final edition 1892) is a book of poetry by [[Walt Whitman]]. Whitman revised and rearranged his masterwork many times after the first edition of 1855. These selections are arranged in the sequence in which they were presented in the final edition of 1892, with some additional material from earlier editions and Whitman's manuscripts occasionally supplementing it.
[[File:Whitman, Walt (1819-1892) - 1855 - Da front. di Foglie d'Erba.gif|thumb|right|In [[all]] [[people]] I see [[myself]], none more and not one a barley-corn less, And the [[good]] or [[bad]] I say of myself I say of them...]]
[[File:Walt Whitman - Project Gutenberg eText 16786.jpg|thumb|right|[[Seeing]], [[hearing]], [[feeling]], are [[miracles]], and each part and tag of me is a miracle. <br> [[Divine]] am I inside and out, and I make [[holy]] whatever I touch or am touch'd from...]]
===Prefatory Note===
* [[Ever]] and ever yet the verses owning — as, first, I here and [[now]] <br> Signing for [[Soul]] and [[Body]], set to them my [[name]], <br> '''''[[Walt Whitman]]'''''
** Prefatory Note to "Leaves of Grass" in some editions.
==INSCRIPTIONS==
[[File:Grass of Happiness.jpg|thumb|right|One's-[[self]] I [[sing]], a simple separate person…]]
[[File:Expecting family.jpg|thumb|right|The Female equally with the Male I [[sing]].]]
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[[File:Barye - Thésée Minotaure.png|thumb|right|I too haughty Shade also sing [[war]], and a longer and [[greater]] one than any...]]
* '''I too haughty Shade also sing war, and a longer and greater one than any''', <br> Waged in my book with varying fortune, with flight, advance and retreat, victory deferr'd and wavering, <br> (Yet methinks certain, or as good as certain, at the last,) the field the world, <br> '''For life and death, for the Body and for the eternal Soul, <br> Lo, I too am come, chanting the chant of battles, <br> I above all promote brave soldiers.'''
**As I Ponder'd in Silence (1871)
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[[File:Eugène Delacroix - La liberté guidant le peuple.jpg|thumb|right|To thee old cause! Thou peerless, passionate, [[good]] [[cause]], thou stern, remorseless, sweet [[idea]], [[deathless]] throughout the ages, races, lands...]]
* '''Chanter of Personality, outlining what is yet to be, <br> I project the [[history]] of the [[future]].'''
**To a Historian (1860; 1871)
[[File:Glory, spectre.jpg|thumb|right|I met a seer, passing the hues and objects of the [[world]], the fields of [[art]] and [[learning]], [[pleasure]], [[sense]], to glean [[wikt:eidolon|eidolons]].]]
*'''To thee old cause! <br> Thou peerless, passionate, good cause, <br> Thou stern, remorseless, sweet idea, <br> Deathless throughout the ages, races, lands,'''<br> After a strange sad war, great war for thee, <br> (I think all war through time was really fought, and ever will be really fought, for thee,) <br> These chants for thee, the eternal march of thee.
**To Thee Old Cause (1871; 1881)
[[File:Abell 520.PNG|thumb|right|Put first before the rest as light for all and entrance-song of [[all]], that of eidolons.]]
* '''I met a seer, <br> Passing the hues and objects of the world, <br> The fields of art and learning, pleasure, sense, <br> To glean [[wikt:eidolon|eidolons]].''' <br> Put in thy chants said he, <br> No more the puzzling hour nor day, nor segments, parts, put in, <br> '''Put first before the rest as light for all and entrance-song of all, <br> That of eidolons.'''
**Eidolons (1876) <small> ( [[wikt:eidolon|Eidolon]]: An image or representation of an ''idea''; an [[w:Platonic idealism|ideal]] form; an ''apparition'' of some ''aspect'' or ''entity'' of '''[[w:Reality|Reality]]''' )</small>
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[[File:
* '''For him I sing, <br> I raise the present on the past''', <br> (As some perennial tree out of its roots, the present on the past,) <br> '''With time and space I him dilate and fuse the immortal laws, <br> To make himself by them the law unto himself.'''
** For Him I Sing (1871)
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[[File:Caspar David Friedrich
*How they are provided for upon the earth, (appearing at intervals,) <br> '''How dear and dreadful they are to the earth''', <br> How they inure to themselves as much as to any — what a paradox appears their age, <br> How people respond to them, yet know them not, <br> How there is something relentless in their fate all times, <br> How all times mischoose the objects of their adulation and reward, <br> And how the same inexorable price must still be paid for the same great purchase.
**Beginners (1860)
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* '''Poets to come! orators, singers, musicians to come! <br> Not to-day is to justify me and answer what I am for, <br> But you, a new brood, native, athletic, continental, greater than <br> before known, <br> Arouse! for you must justify me.''' <br> I myself but write one or two indicative words for the future, <br> I but advance a moment only to wheel and hurry back in the darkness. <br>'''I am a man who, sauntering along without fully stopping, turns a casual look upon you and then averts his face, <br> Leaving it to you to prove and define it, <br> Expecting the main things from you.'''
** Poets to Come (1860; 1867)
*[[Stranger|STRANGER]]! if you, passing, meet me, and desire to [[speak]] to me, why should you not speak to me? <br> And why should I not speak to you?
** To You (1860)
===''Starting from Paumanok''===
* I will write the evangel-poem of comrades and of [[love]]. (6)
* I say the whole [[earth]] and all the [[stars]] in the [[sky]] are for [[religion]]'s sake. (7)
* None has begun to think how [[divine]] he himself is and how [[certain]] the [[future]] is. (7)
* I say the real and permanent grandeur of these States must be their religion. (7)
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=== Song of Myself (1855; 1881)===
:<small> Section numbers appear at the end of quotes from this composition </small>
[[File:Eyes lumen design.svg|thumb|right|You shall not look through my [[eyes]] either, nor take things from me, You shall [[listen]] to [[all]] sides and filter them from your [[self]]...]]
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[[File:Bbrot225x225x24.PNG
* To elaborate is no avail, learn'd and unlearn'd feel that it is so. <br> … <br> '''I and this mystery here we stand.''' (3)
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[[File:SurfaceTension.jpg|thumb|right|I have no mockings or [[arguments]], I witness and wait.]]
* Knowing the perfect fitness and equanimity of things, while they discuss I am silent, and go bathe and admire myself. <br> '''Welcome is every organ and attribute of me, and of any man hearty and clean,<br> Not an inch nor a particle of an inch is vile, and none shall be less familiar than the rest.''' (3)
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[[File:Tropfen auf Gras.JPG|thumb|right|A [[child]] said ''What is the grass?'' fetching it to me with full hands; <br> How could I answer the child? I do not [[know]] what it is any more than he...]]
* '''Swiftly arose and spread around me the [[peace]] and [[knowledge]] that pass all the argument of the earth, <br> And I know that the [[hand]] of [[God]] is the [[promise]] of my own, <br> And I know that the [[spirit]] of God is the brother of my own, <br> And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the women my sisters and lovers, <br> And that a kelson of the creation is [[love]],''' <br> And limitless are leaves stiff or drooping in the fields, <br> And brown ants in the little wells beneath them, <br> And mossy scabs of the worm fence, heap'd stones, elder, mullein and poke-weed. (5)
[[File:Arundo donax.JPG|thumb|right|I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of [[hopeful]] green stuff woven...]]
* '''A child said ''What is the grass?'' fetching it to me with full hands; <br> How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he. <br> I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.''' <br>… <br> And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves. <br>… <br> What do you think has become of the young and old men? <br> And what do you think has become of the women and children? <br> They are alive and well somewhere, <br> The smallest sprout shows there is really no death, <br> And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it, <br> And ceas'd the moment life appear'd. <br> '''All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses, <br> And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.''' (6)
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[[File:Buddha-Footprint.jpeg|thumb|right|What is commonest, cheapest, nearest, easiest, is [[Me]]...]]
* The brood of the turkey-hen and she with her half-spread wings,<br> '''
* '''
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[[File:Whitman, Walt 1849.jpg|thumb|right|Do you guess I have some intricate purpose? Well I have, for the Fourth-month showers have, and the mica on the side of a rock has...]]
* '''Do you guess I have some intricate purpose? <br> Well I have, for the Fourth-month showers have, and the mica on the side of a rock has.<br> Do you take it I would astonish? <br> Does the daylight astonish?
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[[File:Tiffany Education (center).JPG|thumb|right|A word of the faith that never balks,
* Did you guess the celestial laws are yet to be work'd over and rectified? (22)
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* '''Walt Whitman, a kosmos, of Manhattan the son,'''<br> Turbulent, fleshy, sensual, eating, drinking and breeding, <br> No sentimentalist, no stander above men and women or apart from them, <br> No more modest than immodest. <br> Unscrew the locks from the doors! <br> Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs! <br>'''Whoever degrades another degrades me, <br> And whatever is done or said returns at last to me.''' (24)
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[[File:Morning-glory-flower.jpg
* I dote on myself, there is that lot of me and all so luscious, <br> Each moment and whatever happens thrills me with joy, <br> I cannot tell how my ankles bend, nor whence the cause of my faintest wish, <br> Nor the cause of the friendship I emit, nor the cause of the friendship I take again. (24)
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* '''My final merit I refuse you, I refuse putting from me what I really am,<br> Encompass worlds, but never try to encompass me''',<br> I crowd your sleekest and best by simply looking toward you.<br> Writing and talk do not prove me,<br> I carry the plenum of proof and every thing else in my face,<br> With the hush of my lips I wholly confound the skeptic. (25)
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[[File:Aivasovsky Ivan Constantinovich The Rescue.jpg
* '''I [[understand]] the large hearts of [[heroes]], <br> The [[courage]] of [[present]] times and [[all]] times''', <br> How the skipper saw the crowded and rudderless wreck of the steamship, and [[Death]] chasing it up and down the [[storm]], <br> How he knuckled tight and gave not back an inch, and was faithful of days and faithful of nights, <br> And chalk'd in large letters on a board, '''''Be of good cheer, we will not desert you'''''; <br> How he follow'd with them and tack'd with them three days and would not give it up, <br> How he saved the drifting company at last, <br> How the lank loose-gown'd women look'd when boated from the side of their prepared graves, <br> How the silent old-faced infants and the lifted sick, and the sharp-lipp'd unshaved men; <br> '''All this I swallow, it tastes good, I like it well, it becomes mine, <br> I am the man, I suffer'd, I was there.''' (33)
[[File:Albrecht Dürer 032.jpg|thumb|right|[[Agonies]] are one of my changes of garments, <br> I do not ask the wounded person how he [[feels]], I myself become the wounded person...]]
* '''The disdain and calmness of martyrs, <br> The mother of old, condemn'd for a witch, burnt with dry wood, her children gazing on, <br> The hounded slave that flags in the race, leans by the fence, blowing, cover'd with sweat, <br> The twinges that sting like needles his legs and neck, the murderous buckshot and the bullets, <br> All these I feel or am. <br> I am the hounded slave, I wince at the bite of the dogs, <br> Hell and despair are upon me''', crack and again crack the marksmen, <br> I clutch the rails of the fence, my gore dribs, thinn'd with the ooze of my skin, <br> I fall on the weeds and stones, <br> The riders spur their unwilling horses, haul close, <br> Taunt my dizzy ears and beat me violently over the head with whip-stocks. <br> '''Agonies are one of my changes of garments, <br> I do not ask the wounded person how he feels, I myself become the wounded person''', <br> My hurts turn livid upon me as I lean on a cane and observe. (33)
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* '''I am not to be denied, I compel, I have stores plenty and to spare, <br> And any thing I have I bestow.<br> I do not ask who you are, that is not important to me,<br> You can do nothing and be nothing but what I will infold you.'''<br> To cotton-field drudge or cleaner of privies I lean,<br> On his right cheek I put the family kiss,<br> And in my soul I swear I never will deny him. (40)
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* I am the teacher of athletes, <br> He that by me spreads a wider breast than my own proves the width of my own, <br> '''He most honors my style who learns under it to destroy the teacher.''' (47)
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[[File:
*'''I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least''', <br> Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself. <br> Why should I wish to see God better than this day? <br> I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each moment then, <br> '''In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass, <br> I find letters from God dropt in the street, and every one is sign'd by God's name, <br> And I leave them where they are, for I know that wheresoe'er I go, <br> Others will punctually come for ever and ever.''' (48)
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[[File:William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905) - The Youth of Bacchus (1884).jpg
* '''Do I contradict myself?<br> Very well then I contradict myself,<br> (I am large, I contain multitudes.)''' (51)
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* The female contains all qualities and tempers them,<br> She is in her place and moves with perfect balance,<br> She is all things duly veil'd, she is both passive and active,<br> She is to conceive daughters as well as sons, and sons as well as daughters. (5)
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[[File:Leonhard Euler
* '''Do you know so much yourself that you call the meanest ignorant?'''<br> Do you suppose you have a right to a good sight, and he or she has no right to a sight?<br> '''Do you think matter has cohered together from its diffuse float, and the soil is on the surface, and water runs and vegetation sprouts,<br> For you only, and not for him and her?''' (6)
* A man's body at auction,<br> (For before the war I often go to the slave-mart and watch the sale,)<br> I help the auctioneer, the sloven does not half know his business. (7)
** <small> 1855 version:<br> A slave at auction! <br> I help the auctioneer… the sloven does not half know his business. </small>
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<!-- <small> End of "A Woman Waits for Me"</small> -->
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* The consequent meanness of me should I skulk or find myself indecent,<br> while birds and animals never once skulk or find themselves indecent,<br> The great chastity of paternity, to match the great chastity of maternity,<br> The oath of procreation I have sworn…
** Spontaneous Me (1856; 1867).
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* To feed the remainder of life with one hour of fulness<!--[sic]--> and freedom!<br> With one brief hour of madness and joy.
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[[File:Panmosaic.jpg|thumb|right|We two, how long we were fool'd, now transmuted, We swiftly escape as Nature escapes, We are Nature, long have we been absent, but now we return…]]
*
** Out of the Rolling Ocean the Crowd (1865;1881).
* We two, how long we were fool'd,<br> Now transmuted, we swiftly escape as Nature escapes,<br> '''We are Nature, long have we been absent, but now we return…'''
** We Two, How Long We Were Fool'd (1860;1881).
* I will play a part no longer, why should I exile myself from my companions?<br> O you shunn'd persons, I at least do not shun you,<br> I come forthwith in your midst, I will be your poet,<br> I will be more to you than to any of the rest.
** Native Moments (1860;1881).
[[File:CarmelScene.jpg|thumb|right|Where is what I started for so long ago?<br> And why is it yet unfound?]]
*Once I pass'd through a populous city imprinting my brain for future use with its shows, architecture, customs, traditions,<br> Yet now of all that city I remember only a woman I casually met there who detain'd me for love of me…
** Once I Pass'd Through a Populous City (1860;1861).
* '''Where is what I started for so long ago?<br> And why is it yet unfound?'''
** Facing West from California's Shores (1860;1867).
* Behold me where I pass, hear my voice, approach,<br> Touch me, touch the palm of your hand to my body as I pass,<br> Be not afraid of my body.
** As Adam Early in the Morning (1861;1867).
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[[File:Edward Burne-Jones- Princess Sabra (the King's Daughter).JPG|thumb|right|I give you fair warning before you attempt me further, I am not what you supposed, but far different.]]
* '''O I do not know whether many passing by will discover you or inhale your faint odor, but I believe a few will...'''
** Scented Herbage of My Breast (1860;1881).
* Whoever you are holding me now in hand,<br> Without one thing all will be useless,<br> '''I give you fair warning before you attempt me further,<br> I am not what you supposed, but far different.'''
**Whoever You Are Holding Me Now in Hand (1860;1881).
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[[File:Live oak Georgetown.jpg|thumb|right|I saw in Louisiana a live-oak growing...]]
* '''I saw in Louisiana a live-oak growing''',<br> All alone stood it and the moss hung down from the branches,<br> Without any companion it grew there uttering joyous of dark green,<br> And its look, rude, unbending, lusty, made me think of myself,<br> But '''I wonder'd how it could utter joyous leaves standing alone there without its friend near, for I knew I could not,'''
** I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing (1860; 1867).
* '''Though the live-oak glistens there in Louisiana solitary in a wide in a wide flat space,<br> Uttering joyous leaves all its life without a friend a lover near,<br> I know very well I could not.'''
** I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing (1860; 1867).
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* I am to wait, I do not doubt I am to meet you again,<br> I am to see to it that I do not lose you.
** To a Stranger (1860; 1867).
[[File:UN HQ 157652121 5b5979da9e2.jpg|thumb|right|I hear it was charged against me that I sought to destroy institutions, but really I am neither for nor against institutions, (What indeed have I in common with them? or what with the destruction of them?)]]
* This moment yearning and thoughtful sitting alone,<br> It seems to me there are other men in other lands yearning and thoughtful…
** This Moment Yearning and Thoughtful (1860;1881).
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===Song of the Answerer (1855; 1856; 1881)===
[[File:Crepuscular rays with clouds and high contrast fg FL.jpg|thumb|right|He puts things in their attitudes, He puts to-day out of himself with plasticity and [[love]]...]]
[[File:RainbowFormation DropletPrimary.png|thumb|right|It is [[vain]] to skulk — do you hear that mocking and [[laughter]]? do you hear the [[ironical]] echoes?]]
[[File:Rainbow1.svg|thumb|right|Every [[existence]] has its idiom, every thing has an idiom and tongue...]]
[[File:The Key to my Heart (300766538).jpg|thumb|He has the [[Key|pass-key]] of [[hearts]], to him the response of the prying of [[hands]] on the knobs.]]
[[File:Friendship love and truth.jpg|thumb|right|One part does not counteract another part, he is the joiner, he sees how they join.]]
[[File:Summer Solstice Sunrise over Stonehenge 2005.jpg|thumb|right|[[Time]], always without break, indicates itself in parts, What always indicates the [[poet]] is the crowd of the pleasant company of [[singers]], and their [[words]]...]]
[[File:CroxdenAbbey(LindaBailey)Aug2006.jpg|thumb|right|The [[words]] of the [[true]] [[poems]] give you more than poems, they give you to form for yourself poems, [[religions]], [[politics]], [[war]], [[peace]], behavior, [[histories]], essays, daily [[life]], and every thing else...]]
[[File:010712 STS104 Atlantis launch glow.jpg|thumb|right|Whom they take they take into [[space]] to behold the [[birth]] of [[stars]], to [[learn]] one of the [[meanings]],<br> To launch off with absolute [[faith]], to sweep through the ceaseless rings and never be [[quiet]] again.]]
* Now list to my morning's romanza, I tell the [[signs]] of the Answerer,<br> To the cities and farms I sing as they spread in the sunshine before me.
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* Him all wait for, him all yield up to, his word is decisive and final, <br> Him they accept, in him lave, in him perceive themselves as amid light,<br> Him they immerse and he immerses them.
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* '''He puts things in their attitudes,<br> He puts to-day out of himself with plasticity and love,<br> He places his own times, reminiscences, parents, brothers and sisters, associations, employment, politics, so that the rest never shame them afterward, nor assume to command them.'''
* '''He is the Answerer, <br /> What can be answer'd he answers, and what cannot be answer'd he shows how it cannot be answer'd.''' <p> A man is a summons and challenge, <br /> (It is vain to skulk — do you hear that mocking and [[laughter]]? do you hear the [[ironical]] echoes?) <p> [[Books]], [[friendships]], [[philosophers]], priests, action, pleasure, pride, beat up and down seeking to give satisfaction, <br /> He indicates the satisfaction, and indicates them that beat up and down also. <p> Whichever the sex, whatever the season or place, he may go freshly and gently and safely by day or by night, <br /> '''He has the pass-key of hearts, to him the response of the prying of hands on the knobs.''' <p> His welcome is universal, the flow of [[beauty]] is not more welcome or universal than he is, <br /> The person he favors by day or sleeps with at night is blessed.
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* He walks with perfect ease in the capitol,<br> He walks among the Congress, and one Representative says to another,<br>Here is our equal appearing and new.
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* '''The gentleman of perfect blood acknowledges his perfect blood,<br> The insulter, the prostitute, the angry person, the beggar, see themselves in the ways of him, he strangely transmutes them,<br> They are not vile any more, they hardly know themselves they are so grown.'''
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* '''All this time and at all times wait the words of true poems,<br> The words of true poems do not merely please,<br> The true poets are not followers of beauty but the august masters of beauty…'''
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* '''They prepare for death, yet are they not the finish, but rather the outset,<br> They bring none to his or her terminus or to be content and full,<br> Whom they take they take into space to behold the birth of stars, to learn one of the meanings,<br> To launch off with absolute faith, to sweep through the ceaseless rings and never be quiet again.'''
=== A Song
*''' We consider bibles and religions divine — I do not say they are not divine, <br /> I say they have all grown out of you, and may grow out of you still''', <br /> It is not they who give the life, it is you who give the life, <br /> Leaves are not more shed from the trees, or trees from the earth, <br /> than they are shed out of you.
* The sum of [[all]] known [[reverence]] I add up in you whoever you are, <br /> The [[President]] is there in the White House for you, it is not you who are here for him, <br /> The Secretaries act in their bureaus for you, not you here for them, <br /> The [[Congress]] convenes every Twelfth-month for you, <br /> [[Laws]], [[courts]], the forming of States, the charters of [[cities]], the going and coming of [[commerce]] and malls, are all for you.
=== Song of the Rolling Earth (1856; 1881)===
[[File:Etruscan Horse 2.jpg|thumb|right|The [[true]] [[words]] do not [[fail]], for [[motion]] does not fail and reflection does not fail, <br> Also the [[day]] and [[night]] do not fail, and the voyage we pursue does not fail.]]
[[File:Earth-Moon System.jpg|thumb|right|Whoever you are! you are he or she for whom the [[earth]] is solid and liquid,<br> You are he or she for whom the [[sun]] and [[moon]] hang in the [[sky]]...]]
[[File:Robot_Arm_Over_Earth_with_Sunburst_-_GPN-2000-001097.jpg|thumb|right|I swear I see what is better than to tell the best, It is always to leave the best untold.]]
[[File:Rose-on-music-book-on-piano.jpg|thumb|right|The best of the [[earth]] cannot be told anyhow, [[all]] or any is best,<br> It is not what you anticipated, it is cheaper, easier, nearer...]]
[[File:Rosa sp.181.jpg|thumb|right| Work on, age after age, [[nothing]] is to be lost,<br> It may have to wait long, but it will certainly come in use,<br>When the materials are all prepared and ready, the architects shall appear.]]
* A song of the rolling earth, and of words according,<br> '''Were you thinking that those were the words, those upright lines? those curves, angles, dots?<br> No, those are not the words, the substantial words are in the ground and sea,<br> They are in the air, they are in you.'''
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* The earth neither lags nor hastens,<br> It has all attributes, growths, effects, latent in itself from the jump,<br> It is not half beautiful only, defects and excrescences show just as much as perfections show.
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* '''I swear the earth shall surely be complete to him or her who shall be complete,<br> The earth remains jagged and broken only to him or her who remains jagged and broken.'''
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* '''The best of the earth cannot be told anyhow, all or any is best, <br> It is not what you anticipated, it is cheaper, easier, nearer''', <br> Things are not dismiss'd from the places they held before, <br> The earth is just as positive and direct as it was before, <br> Facts, religions, improvements, politics, trades, are as real as before, <br> But the soul is also real, it too is positive and direct, <br> '''No reasoning, no proof has establish'd it,<br> Undeniable growth has establish'd it.'''
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* Say on, sayers! sing on, singers! <br> Delve! mould! pile the words of the earth!<br> Work on, age after age, nothing is to be lost, <br> It may have to wait long, but it will certainly come in use,<br> '''When the materials are all prepared and ready, the architects shall appear.'''
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==BIRDS OF PASSAGE==
===To You (1856; 1881)===
[[File:Mute.swan.flaps.arp.750pix.jpg|thumb|right|Whoever you are, I [[fear]] you are walking the walks of [[dreams]], I fear these supposed [[realities]] are to melt from under your feet and
[[File:Chakras.jpg|thumb|right|Through [[birth]], [[life]], [[death]], burial, the means are provided, [[nothing]] is scanted,<br> Through [[angers]], [[losses]], [[ambition]], [[ignorance]], ennui, what you are picks its way.]]
* '''Whoever you are, I fear you are walking the walks of dreams,<br> I fear these supposed realities are to melt from under your feet and hands…'''
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* '''O I could sing such grandeurs and glories about you!<br> You have not known what you are, you have slumber'd upon yourself all your life''',<br> Your eyelids have been the same as closed most of the time,<br> What you have done returns already in mockeries,<br> (Your thrift, knowledge, prayers, if they do not return in mockeries, what is their return?)<br> '''The mockeries are not you,'''<br> Underneath them and within them I see you lurk,<br> I pursue you where none else has pursued you…
* There is no endowment in man or woman that is not tallied in you,<br> There is no virtue, no beauty in man or woman, but as good is in you,<br> No pluck, no endurance in others, but as good is in you,<br> No pleasure waiting for others, but an equal pleasure waits for you.
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* The hopples fall from your ankles, you find an unfailing sufficiency,<br> Old or young, male or female, rude, low, rejected by the rest, whatever you are promulges itself,<br> '''Through birth, life, death, burial, the means are provided, nothing is scanted,<br> Through angers, losses, ambition, ignorance, ennui, what you are picks its way.'''
==SEA-DRIFT==
[[File:AnttlersNewM45.jpg|thumb|right|Something there is more [[immortal]] even than the [[stars]]... Something that shall endure longer even than lustrous Jupiter Longer than [[sun]] or any revolving satellite, Or the radiant sisters the Pleiades.]]
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* '''Weep not, child,<br> Weep not, my darling,<br> With these kisses let me remove your tears,<br> The ravening clouds shall not long be victorious,<br> They shall not long possess the sky''', they devour the stars only in apparition,<br> Jupiter shall emerge, be patient, watch again another night, the [[Pleiades]] shall emerge,<br> They are immortal…
* The great [[stars]] and the little ones shall shine out again, they endure,<br> The vast immortal suns and the long-enduring pensive moons shall again shine.
* Something there is,<br> (With my lips soothing thee, adding I whisper,<br> I give thee the first suggestion, the problem and indirection,) <br> '''Something there is more immortal even than the stars''',<br> (Many the burials, many the days and nights, passing away,)<br> '''Something that shall endure longer even than lustrous Jupiter<br> Longer than sun or any revolving satellite,<br> Or the radiant sisters the Pleiades.'''
==BY THE ROADSIDE==
[[File:Rosette-nebula-09-01-2005.jpeg|thumb|right|I wander'd off by [[myself]],<br> In the [[mystical]] moist night-air, and from [[time]] to time,<br> Look'd up in [[perfect]] [[silence]] at the [[stars]].]]
* When I heard the learn'd astronomer,<br> When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,<br> When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,<br> When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,<br> How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,<br> Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself,<br> In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,<br> Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.
**When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer (1865)
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* '''Hast never come to thee an hour,<br> A sudden gleam divine, precipitating, bursting all these bubbles, fashions, wealth?<br> These eager business aims — books, politics, art, amours,<br> To utter nothingness?'''
** Hast Never Come to Thee an Hour (1881).
==DRUM-TAPS==
[[File:Crepscular rays hdr.jpg
* '''Give me the splendid silent sun with all his beams full-dazzling…'''
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===Over the Carnage Rose Prophetic a Voice (1860; 1867)===
[[File:
[[File:M1A1 in Frankfurt.jpg|thumb|right|Were you looking to be held together by [[lawyers]]?<br> Or by an agreement on a paper? or by arms?<br> Nay, nor the [[world]], nor any [[living]] thing, will so cohere.]]
[[File:Eagle and American Flag by Bubbels.jpg|thumb|right|Did you find what I sang erewhile so hard to follow? Why — I was not [[singing]] erewhile for you to follow, to [[understand]] — nor am I [[now]]…]]
* '''Over the carnage rose prophetic a voice,<br> Be not dishearten'd, affection shall solve the problems of freedom yet,<br> Those who love each other shall become invincible''',<br> They shall yet make Columbia victorious.
* Sons of the Mother of All, you shall yet be victorious,<br> You shall yet laugh to scorn the attacks of all the remainder of the earth.
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<!-- <small> END of "Over the Carnage Rose Prophetic a Voice"</small> -->
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* '''Did you ask dulcet rhymes from me?<br> Did you seek the civilian's peaceful and languishing rhymes?<br> Did you find what I sang erewhile so hard to follow?<br> Why — I was not singing erewhile for you to follow, to understand — nor am I now…'''
** To a Certain Civilian (1865; 1871)
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* Turn, and be not alarm'd O Libertad — turn your undying face,<br> To where the future, greater than all the past,<br> Is swiftly, surely preparing for you.
** Turn O Libertad (1865; 1871).
==MEMORIES OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN==
[[File:Abraham Lincoln-1864-3a13576v.jpg|thumb|right|When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd, And the great star early droop'd in the western sky in the night, I mourn'd, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.]]
===When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd===
* '''When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd,<br> And the great star early droop'd in the western sky in the night,<br> I mourn'd, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.'''
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[[File:Stanford torus under construction.jpg|thumb|right|Ages, precedents, have long been accumulating undirected materials... A work remains, the work of surpassing all they have done.]]
* '''Ages, [[precedents]], have long been accumulating undirected materials''', <br> America brings builders, and brings its own styles. <br> The immortal poets of Asia and Europe have done their work and pass'd to other spheres, <br> '''A work remains, the work of surpassing all they have done.''' (5)
* These States are the amplest poem, <br> Here is not merely a nation but a teeming Nation of nations… (5)
* Here the flowing trains, here the crowds, equality, diversity, the soul loves. (5)
[[File:
* '''O days of the future I believe in you — I isolate myself for your sake,<br> O America because you build for mankind I build for you''',<br> O well-beloved stone-cutters, I lead them who plan with decision and science,<br> Lead the present with friendly hand toward the future.<br> (Bravas to all impulses sending sane children to the next age!<br> But damn that which spends itself with no thought of the stain, pains, dismay, feebleness, it is bequeathing.) (8)
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[[File:USA NYC Statue-of-Liberty.jpg|thumb|right|The great Idea,<br> That, O my brethren, that is the mission of poets.]]
* '''For the great Idea, the idea of perfect and free individuals,<br> For that, the bard walks in advance, leader of leaders,<br> The attitude of him cheers up slaves and horrifies foreign despots.''' (10)
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* '''Rhymes and rhymers pass away, poems distill'd from poems pass away,'''<br> The swarms of reflectors and the polite pass, and leave ashes… (13)
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* '''Give me to sing the songs of the great Idea, take all the rest,'''<br> I have loved the earth, sun, animals, I have despised riches,<br> I have given alms to every one that ask'd, stood up for the stupid and crazy, devoted my income and labor to others,<br> Hated tyrants, argued not concerning God, had patience and indulgence toward the people, taken off my hat to nothing known or unknown,<br> Gone freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young, and with the mothers of families,<br> Read these leaves to myself in the open air, tried them by trees, stars, rivers,<br> '''Dismiss'd whatever insulted my own soul or defiled my body,<br> Claim'd nothing to myself which I have not carefully claim'd for others on the same terms,'''<br> Sped to the camps, and comrades found and accepted from every State,<br> (Upon this breast has many a dying soldier lean'd to breathe his last,<br> This arm, this hand, this voice, have nourish'd, rais'd, restored,<br> To life recalling many a prostrate form;)<br> '''I am willing to wait to be understood by the growth of the taste of myself,<br> Rejecting none, permitting all.
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* I am for those who walk abreast with the whole earth,<br> Who inaugurate one to inaugurate all.
w, <br>Whether that which appears so is so, or is it all flashes and specks?<br>Men and women crowding fast in the streets, if they are not flashes and specks wha
==AUTUMN RIVULETS==
[[File:Sunrise_Akumal.png|thumb|right|The horizon's edge, the flying sea-crow, the fragrance of salt marsh and shore mud, these became part of that child who went forth every day, and who now goes, and will always go forth every day.]]
=== There Was a Child Went Forth (1855; 1871) ===
* '''There was a child went forth every day,<br> And the first object he look'd upon, that object he became''',<br> And that object became part of him for the day or a certain part of the day,<br> Or for many years or stretching cycles of years.
* Affection that will not be gainsay'd, the sense of what is real, the thought if after all it should prove unreal, <br>The doubts of day-time and the doubts of night-time, the curious whether and
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[[File:William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905) - Compassion (1897).jpg|thumb|right|My spirit to yours dear brother, Do not mind because many sounding your name do not understand you, I do not sound your name, but I understand you...]]
===To Him That Was Crucified (1860; 1881)===
*''' My spirit to yours dear brother,<br> Do not mind because many sounding your name do not understand you,<br> I do not sound your name, but I understand you,'''<br> I specify you with joy O my comrade to salute you, and to salute those who are with you, before and since, and those to come also,<br> That '''we all labor together transmitting the same charge and succession,<br> We few equals indifferent of lands, indifferent of times,<br> We, enclosers of all continents, all castes, allowers of all theologies,'''<br> Compassionaters, perceivers, rapport of men,<br> '''We walk silent among disputes and assertions, but reject not the disputers nor any thing that is asserted,<br> We hear the bawling and din, we are reach'd at by divisions, jealousies, recriminations on every side,<br> They close peremptorily upon us to surround us, my comrade,<br> Yet we walk unheld, free, the whole earth over, journeying up and down till we make our ineffaceable mark upon time and the diverse eras,<br> Till we saturate time and eras, that the men and women of races, ages to come, may prove brethren and lovers as we are.'''
===To a Common Prostitute (1860)===
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=== Miracles (1856; 1881)===
* '''Why, who makes much of a [[miracle]]?<br> As to me I know of nothing else but miracles...'''
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<!-- <small> END of "Miracles"</small> -->
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[[File:Giordano Bruno Campo dei Fiori.jpg
* '''Rest not till you rivet and publish yourself of your own Personality.'''
** To A Pupil
* Unfolded out of the sympathy of the woman is all sympathy;<br> A man is a great thing upon the earth and through eternity, but every jot of the greatness of man is unfolded out of woman;<br> First the man is shaped in the woman, he can then be shaped in himself.
** Unfolded Out of the Folds
* What am I after all but a [[child]], pleas'd with the [[sound]] of my own [[name]]? repeating it over and over;<br> I stand apart to hear — it never tires me.<br> To you your name also;<br> Did you think there was nothing but two or three pronunciations in the sound of your name?
** What Am I After All
* Who believes not only in our globe with its sun and moon, but in other globes with their suns and moons,<br>''' Who, constructing the house of himself or herself, not for a day but for all time, sees races, eras, dates, generations,<br> The past, the future, dwelling there, like space, inseparable together.'''
**Kosmos.
=== Who Learns My Lesson Complete? ===
[[File:Aurora borealis in a lab dsc04517.jpg
* '''The great laws take and effuse without argument,<br> I am of the same style, for I am their friend…'''
[[File:HD 69830 Planet.jpg
* '''I cannot say to any person what I hear — I cannot say it to myself — it is very wonderful.'''
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===Tests===
[[File:Lightning simulator questacon05.jpg
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[[File:Neuron-SEM-2.png
*'''Now the great organ sounds''',<br> Tremulous, while underneath, (as the hid footholds of the earth,<br> On which arising rest, and leaping forth depend,<br> All shapes of beauty, grace and strength, all hues we know,<br> Green blades of grass and warbling birds, children that gambol and play, the clouds of heaven above,)<br> The strong base stands, and its pulsations intermits not,<br> Bathing, supporting, merging all the rest, maternity of all the rest,<br> And with it every instrument in multitudes,<br> The players playing, all the world's musicians,<br> The solemn hymns and masses rousing adoration,<br> All passionate heart-chants, sorrowful appeals,<br> The measureless sweet vocalists of ages,<br> And for their solvent setting earth's own diapason,<br> Of winds and woods and mighty ocean waves,<br> A new composite orchestra, binder of years and climes, ten-fold renewer,<br> As of the far-back days the poets tell, the Paradiso,<br>''' The straying thence, the separation long, but now the wandering done,<br> The journey done, the journeyman come home,<br> And man and art with Nature fused again.''' (2)
[[File:Lightning over Oradea Romania 2.jpg
* Give me to hold all sounds, (I madly struggling cry,)<br> Fill me with all the voices of the universe,<br> Endow me with their throbbings, Nature's also,<br> The tempests, waters, winds, operas and chants, marches and dances,<br> Utter, pour in, for I would take them all! (5)
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* But to a new rhythmus fitted for thee,<br> Poems bridging the way from Life to Death, vaguely wafted in night air, uncaught, unwritten,<br> Which let us go forth in the bold day and write. (6).
==WHISPERS OF HEAVENLY DEATH==
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=== Pensive and Faltering ===
* Pensive and faltering,<br>The words the Dead I write,<br>For living are the Dead,<br>(Haply the only living, only real,<br>And I the apparition, I the spectre.)
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::'''1'''
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::'''2'''
[[File:EdwardMoran-UnveilingTheStatueofLiberty1886Large.jpg|thumb|right|Through thy idea, lo, the immortal reality!<br>Through thy reality, lo, the immortal idea!]]
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::'''3'''
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::'''4'''
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::'''5'''
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[[File:Dean Franklin - 06.04.03 Mount Rushmore Monument (by-sa).jpg|thumb|right|Thy saviours countless, latent within thyself, thy bibles incessant within thyself, equal to any, divine as any
* '''Thee as another equally needed sun, radiant, ablaze, swift-moving, fructifying all''',<br>Thee risen in potent cheerfulness and joy, in endless great hilarity,<br>Scattering for good the cloud that hung so long, that weigh'd so long upon the mind of man,<br>The doubt, suspicion, dread, of gradual, certain decadence of man;<br>Thee in thy larger, saner brood of female, male — thee in thy athletes, moral, spiritual, South, North, West, East,<br>(To thy immortal breasts, Mother of All, thy every daughter, son, endear'd alike, forever equal,)<br>'''Thee in thy own musicians, singers, artists, unborn yet, but certain,<br>Thee in thy moral wealth and civilization, (until which thy proudest material civilization must remain in vain,)<br>Thee in thy all-supplying, all-enclosing worship — thee in no single bible, saviour, merely,<br>Thy saviours countless, latent within thyself, thy bibles incessant within thyself, equal to any, divine as any ...''' <br>These! these in thee, (certain to come,) to-day I prophesy.
::'''6'''
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=== Thou Orb Aloft Full-Dazzling ===
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=== Faces ===
* The Lord advances, and yet advances,<br>Always the shadow in front, always the reach'd hand bringing up the<br> laggards.
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=== The Mystic Trumpeter ===
[[File:Louvre renommée mr1824.jpg|thumb|right|Blow again trumpeter! and for thy theme, take now the enclosing theme of all, the solvent and the setting, [[Love]]
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=== Ah Poverties, Wincings, and Sulky Retreats ===
[[File:Ring21.jpg|thumb|right
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=== Mediums ===
* '''They shall arise in the States,<br>They shall report Nature, laws, physiology, and happiness,<br>They shall illustrate Democracy and the kosmos,<br>They shall be alimentive, amative, perceptive,<br>They shall be complete women and men, their pose brawny and supple, their drink water, their blood clean and clear'''...
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=== Weave in, My Hardy Life ===
[[File:Pride Peace Flag.jpg|thumb|(We [[know]] not what the use O [[life]], nor know the aim, the [[end]], nor really aught we know, <br /> But know the [[work]], the [[need]] goes on and shall go on, the death-envelop'd march of [[peace]] as well as [[war]] goes on,) <br /> For [[great]] campaigns of peace the same the wiry threads to weave, <br /> We know not why or what, yet weave, [[forever]] weave.]]
* Weave in, weave in, my hardy life,<br>Weave yet a soldier strong and full for great campaigns to come,<br>Weave in red blood, weave sinews in like ropes, the senses, sight weave in,<br>Weave lasting sure, weave day and night the wet, the warp, incessant weave, tire not,<br>'''(We know not what the use O life, nor know the aim, the end, nor really aught we know,<br>But know the work, the need goes on and shall go on, the death-envelop'd march of peace as well as war goes on,)<br>For great campaigns of peace the same the wiry threads to weave,<br>We know not why or what, yet weave, forever weave.'''
=== From Far Dakota's Canyons ===
[[File:Lightning animation.gif|thumb|right|From unsuspected parts a fierce and momentary proof, (The sun there at the centre though conceal'd, Electric life forever at the centre,) Breaks forth a lightning flash.]]
* As sitting in dark days,<br>Lone, sulky, through the time's thick murk looking in vain for light, for hope,<br>From unsuspected parts a fierce and momentary proof,<br>(The sun there at the centre though conceal'd,<br>Electric life forever at the centre,)<br>Breaks forth a lightning flash.
=== Old War-Dreams ===
* Long have they pass'd, faces and trenches and fields,<br>Where through the carnage I moved with a callous composure, or away from the fallen,<br>Onward I sped at the time — but now of their forms at night,<br> I dream, I dream, I dream.
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=== As I Walk These Broad Majestic Days ===
[[File:Lutte de Jacob avec l'Ange.jpg|thumb|right|The rapt promises and lumine of seers, the spiritual world, these centuries-lasting songs, and our visions, the visions of poets, the most solid announcements of any.]]
* '''I too announce solid things,<br>Science, ships, politics, cities, factories, are not nothing''',<br>Like a grand procession to music of distant bugles pouring, triumphantly moving, and grander heaving in sight,<br>'''They stand for realities — all is as it should be.'''
* '''Then my realities;<br>What else is so real as mine?'''<br>Libertad and the divine average, freedom to every slave on the face of the earth,<br>'''The rapt promises and lumine of seers, the spiritual world, these centuries-lasting songs,<br>And our visions, the visions of poets, the most solid announcements of any.'''
=== A Clear Midnight ===
* This is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless,<br>Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson done,<br>Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the themes thou lovest best,<br>Night, sleep, death and the stars.
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=== Years of the Modern ===
[[File:
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=== Thoughts ===
* '''How many hold despairingly yet to the models departed, caste, myths, obedience, compulsion, and to infidelity,<br>How few see the arrived models''', the athletes, the Western States, or see freedom or spirituality, or hold any faith in results,<br>(But I see the athletes, and I see the results of the war glorious and inevitable, and they again leading to other results.)
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=== So Long! ===
[[File:Fuller projection.svg|244px|thumb|right|I announce the [[Union (United States)|Union]] more and more compact, indissoluble, I announce splendors and majesties to make all the previous [[politics]] of the [[earth]] insignificant.]]
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[[File:Avenging Angel.jpg|thumb|right|I announce the [[great]] [[individual]], fluid as [[Nature]], chaste, affectionate, [[compassionate]], fully arm'd.]]
* '''I announce the great individual, fluid as Nature, chaste, affectionate, compassionate, fully arm'd.'''
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* I feel like one who has done work for the day to retire awhile,<br>I receive now again of my many translations, from my avataras ascending, while others doubtless await me,<br>'''An unknown sphere more real than I dream'd, more direct, darts awakening rays about me, So long!<br>Remember my words, I may again return,<br>I love you, I depart from materials,<br>I am as one disembodied, triumphant, dead.'''
==FIRST ANNEX: SANDS AT SEVENTY==
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* '''Have you learn'd lessons only of those who admired you, and were tender with you, and stood aside for you?'''<br> Have you not learn'd great lessons from those who reject you, and brace themselves against you? or who treat you with contempt, or dispute the passage with you?
** Stronger Lessons
==SECOND ANNEX; GOOD-BYE MY FANCY==
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=== A Persian Lesson ===
[[File:Allah-green.svg|thumb|right|[[Allah]] is [[all]], all,all — immanent in every [[life]] and object, may-be at many and many-a-more removes — yet Allah, Allah, Allah is there...]]
*''' "Finally my [[children]], to envelop each [[word]], each part of the rest,<br> [[Allah]] is [[all]], all,all — immanent in every [[life]] and object,<br> May-be at many and many-a-more removes — yet Allah, Allah, Allah is there." '''
* "Would you sound below the restless [[ocean]] of the entire [[world]]?<br> Would you know the dissatisfaction? the urge and spur of every life;<br> The something never still'd — never entirely gone? the invisible [[need]] of every seed?<br> "It is the central urge in every atom,<br> (Often unconscious, often [[evil]], downfallen,)<br> To return to its divine source and origin, however distant,<br> Latent the same in subject and in object, without one exception."
=== L. of G.'s Purport ===
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== Quotes about ''Leaves of Grass'' ==
[[File:Ear of rye.jpg|thumb|right|I am not [[blind]] to the [[worth]] of the wonderful [[gift]] of "''LEAVES OF GRASS''." I find it the most extraordinary piece of [[wit]] and [[wisdom]] that [[America]] has yet contributed. ~ [[Ralph Waldo Emerson]] ]]
* '''I am not [[blind]] to the [[worth]] of the wonderful [[gift]] of "''LEAVES OF GRASS''." I find it the most extraordinary piece of [[wit]] and [[wisdom]] that [[America]] has yet contributed.''' I am very [[happy]] in [[reading]] it, as great power makes us happy. It meets the demand I am always making of what seemed the sterile and stingy nature, as if too much handiwork, or too much lymph in the temperament, were making our western wits fat and mean. <br/> '''I give you [[joy]] of your free and brave thought. I have great joy in it. I find incomparable things said incomparably well, as they must be.''' I find the [[courage]] of treatment which so delights us, and which large perception only can inspire. <br/> I greet you at the beginning of a great career, which yet must have had a long foreground somewhere, for such a start. '''I rubbed my eyes a little, to see if this sunbeam were no illusion; but the solid sense of the book is a sober [[certainty]]. It has the best merits, namely, of fortifying and encouraging…'''
** [[Ralph Waldo Emerson]], in a letter to Whitman, thanking him for a copy of ''Leaves of Grass'' (21 July 1855).
* '''[[Walt Whitman|Whitman]]’s masterpiece, his whole [[vision]], is exactly about this: [[life]] as a quest for [[truth]], [[love]], [[beauty]], [[goodness]], and [[freedom]]; life as the [[art]] of becoming [[human]] through the cultivation of the human [[soul]].'''
** [[Rob Riemen]], in ''Nobility of Spirit : A Forgotten Ideal'' (2008), p. xxvii.
==External links==
{{wikipedia}}
{{Wikisource}}
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