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LEAVES OF GRASS

By Walt Whitman By Walt Whitman Come, said my soul, Such verses for my Body let us write, (for we are one,) That should I after return, Or, long, long hence, in other spheres, There to some group of mates the chants resuming, (Tallying Earth's soil, trees, winds, tumultuous waves,) Ever with pleas'd smile I may keep on, Ever and ever yet the verses owning—as, first, I here and now Signing for Soul and Body, set to them my name, Walt Whitman

BOOK I. INSCRIPTIONS

One's-Self I Sing One's-Self I Sing One's-self I sing, a simple separate person, Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-Masse. Of physiology from top to toe I sing, Not physiognomy alone nor brain alone is worthy for the Muse, I say the Form complete is worthier far, The Female equally with the Male I sing. Of Life immense in passion, pulse, and power, Cheerful, for freest action form'd under the laws divine, The Modern Man I sing.

As I Ponder'd in Silence As I Ponder'd in Silence As I ponder'd in silence, Returning upon my poems, considering, lingering long, A Phantom arose before me with distrustful aspect, Terrible in beauty, age, and power, The genius of poets of old lands, As to me directing like flame its eyes, With finger pointing to many immortal songs, And menacing voice, What singest thou? it said, Know'st thou not there is but one theme for ever-enduring bards? And that is the theme of War, the fortune of battles, The making of perfect soldiers. Be it so, then I answer'd, I too haughty Shade also sing war, and a longer and greater one than any, Waged in my book with varying fortune, with flight, advance and retreat, victory deferr'd and wavering, (Yet methinks certain, or as good as certain, at the last,) the field the world, For life and death, for the Body and for the eternal Soul, Lo, I too am come, chanting the chant of battles, I above all promote brave soldiers.

In Cabin'd Ships at Sea In Cabin'd Ships at Sea In cabin'd ships at sea, The boundless blue on every side expanding, With whistling winds and music of the waves, the large imperious waves, Or some lone bark buoy'd on the dense marine, Where joyous full of faith, spreading white sails, She cleaves the ether mid the sparkle and the foam of day, or under many a star at night, By sailors young and old haply will I, a reminiscence of the land, be read, In full rapport at last. Here are our thoughts, voyagers' thoughts, Here not the land, firm land, alone appears, may then by them be said, The sky o'erarches here, we feel the undulating deck beneath our feet, We feel the long pulsation, ebb and flow of endless motion, The tones of unseen mystery, the vague and vast suggestions of the briny world, the liquid-flowing syllables, The perfume, the faint creaking of the cordage, the melancholy rhythm, The boundless vista and the horizon far and dim are all here, And this is ocean's poem. Then falter not O book, fulfil your destiny, You not a reminiscence of the land alone, You too as a lone bark cleaving the ether, purpos'd I know not whither, yet ever full of faith, Consort to every ship that sails, sail you! Bear forth to them folded my love, (dear mariners, for you I fold it here in every leaf;) Speed on my book! spread your white sails my little bark athwart the imperious waves, Chant on, sail on, bear o'er the boundless blue from me to every sea, This song for mariners and all their ships.

To Foreign Lands To Foreign Lands I heard that you ask'd for something to prove this puzzle the New World, And to define America, her athletic Democracy, Therefore I send you my poems that you behold in them what you wanted.

To a Historian To a Historian You who celebrate bygones, Who have explored the outward, the surfaces of the races, the life that has exhibited itself, Who have treated of man as the creature of politics, aggregates, rulers and priests, I, habitan of the Alleghanies, treating of him as he is in himself in his own rights, Pressing the pulse of the life that has seldom exhibited itself, (the great pride of man in himself,) Chanter of Personality, outlining what is yet to be, I project the history of the future.

To Thee Old Cause To Thee Old Cause To thee old cause! Thou peerless, passionate, good cause, Thou stern, remorseless, sweet idea, Deathless throughout the ages, races, lands, After a strange sad war, great war for thee, (I think all war through time was really fought, and ever will be really fought, for thee,) These chants for thee, the eternal march of thee. (A war O soldiers not for itself alone, Far, far more stood silently waiting behind, now to advance in this book.) Thou orb of many orbs! Thou seething principle! thou well-kept, latent germ! thou centre! Around the idea of thee the war revolving, With all its angry and vehement play of causes, (With vast results to come for thrice a thousand years,) These recitatives for thee,—my book and the war are one, Merged in its spirit I and mine, as the contest hinged on thee, As a wheel on its axis turns, this book unwitting to itself, Around the idea of thee.

Eidolons

For Him I Sing

When I Read the Book

Beginning My Studies

Beginners

To the States

On Journeys Through the States

To a Certain Cantatrice

Me Imperturbe

Savantism

The Ship Starting

I Hear America Singing

What Place Is Besieged?

Still Though the One I Sing

Shut Not Your Doors

Poets to Come

To You

Thou Reader

BOOK II

BOOK III

BOOK IV. CHILDREN OF ADAM

From Pent-Up Aching Rivers

I Sing the Body Electric

A Woman Waits for Me

Spontaneous Me

One Hour to Madness and Joy

Out of the Rolling Ocean the Crowd

Ages and Ages Returning at Intervals

We Two, How Long We Were Fool'd

O Hymen! O Hymenee!

I Am He That Aches with Love

Native Moments

Once I Pass'd Through a Populous City

I Heard You Solemn-Sweet Pipes of the Organ

Facing West from California's Shores

As Adam Early in the Morning

BOOK V. CALAMUS

Scented Herbage of My Breast

Whoever You Are Holding Me Now in Hand

For You, O Democracy

These I Singing in Spring

Not Heaving from My Ribb'd Breast Only

Of the Terrible Doubt of Appearances

The Base of All Metaphysics

Recorders Ages Hence

When I Heard at the Close of the Day

Are You the New Person Drawn Toward Me?

Roots and Leaves Themselves Alone

Not Heat Flames Up and Consumes

Trickle Drops

City of Orgies

Behold This Swarthy Face

I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing

To a Stranger

This Moment Yearning and Thoughtful

I Hear It Was Charged Against Me

The Prairie-Grass Dividing

When I Peruse the Conquer'd Fame

We Two Boys Together Clinging

A Promise to California

Here the Frailest Leaves of Me

No Labor-Saving Machine

A Glimpse

A Leaf for Hand in Hand

Earth, My Likeness

I Dream'd in a Dream

What Think You I Take My Pen in Hand?

To the East and to the West

Sometimes with One I Love

To a Western Boy

Fast Anchor'd Eternal O Love!

Among the Multitude

O You Whom I Often and Silently Come

That Shadow My Likeness

Full of Life Now

BOOK VI

BOOK VII

BOOK VIII

BOOK IX

BOOK X

BOOK XI

BOOK XII

BOOK XIII

BOOK XIV

BOOK XV

BOOK XVI

Youth, Day, Old Age and Night

BOOK XVII. BIRDS OF PASSAGE

Pioneers! O Pioneers!

To You

France [the 18th Year of these States

Myself and Mine

Year of Meteors [1859-60

With Antecedents

BOOK XVIII

BOOK XIX. SEA-DRIFT