Walt Whitman

ARM’D year! year of the struggle! No dainty rhymes or sentimental love verses for you, terrible year! Not you as some pale poetling, seated at a desk, lisping cadenzas piano;…

ABOARD, at a ship's helm, A young steersman, steering with care. A bell through fog on a sea-coast dolefully ringing,…

TO get betimes in Boston town, I rose this morning early; Here's a good place at the corner--I must stand and see the show. Clear the way there, Jonathan!…

A child said, What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands; How could I answer the child?. . . .I do not know what it is any more than he.…

SILENT and amazed, even when a little boy, I remember I heard the preacher every Sunday put God in his statements, As contending against some being or influence.

THIS is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless, Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson done, Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering th…

ADIEU, O soldier! You of the rude campaigning, (which we shared,) The rapid march, the life of the camp, The hot contention of opposing fronts- the long manoeuver,…

ADIEU, O soldier! You of the rude campaigning, (which we shared,) The rapid march, the life of the camp, The hot contention of opposing fronts--the long maneuver,…

THROUGH the ample open door of the peaceful country barn, A sun-lit pasture field, with cattle and horses feeding; And haze, and vista, and the far horizon, fading away.

AFTER the Sea-Ship--after the whistling winds; After the white-gray sails, taut to their spars and ropes, Below, a myriad, myriad waves, hastening, lifting up their necks, Tending…

AGES and ages, returning at intervals, Undestroy'd, wandering immortal, Lusty, phallic, with the potent original loins, perfectly sweet, I, chanter of Adamic songs,…

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…

HOLD it up sternly! See this it sends back! (Who is it? Is it you?) Outside fair costume--within ashes and filth, No more a flashing eye--no more a sonorous voice or springy step;…

AH poverties, wincings, and sulky retreats! Ah you foes that in conflict have overcome me! (For what is my life, or any man's life, but a conflict with foes-- the old, the incessan…

A LEAF for hand in hand! You natural persons old and young! You on the Mississippi, and on all the branches and bayous of the Mississippi!…