Press close, bare-bosomed Night! Press close, magnetic, nourishing Night! Night of south winds! Night of the large, few stars! Still, nodding Night! Mad, naked, Summer Night! ― Walt Whitman, from “Song of Myself,” Leaves of Grass. Originally published: July 4, 1855.
I believe in the flesh and the appetites, Seeing, hearing, feeling, are miracles, and each part and tag of me is a miracle. Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or am touch’d from, The scent of these arm-pits aroma finer than prayer, This head more than churches, bibles,… Continue reading Walt Whitman
It will illustrate one phase of humanity anyhow; how few of life’s days and hours (and they not by relative value or proportion, but by chance) are ever noted. Probably another point too, how we give long preparations for some object, planning and delving and fashioning, and then, when the actual hour for doing arrives,… Continue reading Walt Whitman
I am the poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul, The pleasures of heaven are with me and the pains of hell are with me, The first I graft and increase upon myself, the latter I translate into new tongue. — Walt Whitman, from Section 21 of “Song of… Continue reading Walt Whitman
I Saw in Louisiana A Live-Oak Growing I saw in Louisiana a live-oak growing, All alone stood it and the moss hung down from the branches, Without any companion it grew there uttering joyous leaves of dark green, And its look, rude, unbending, lusty, made me think of myself, But I wonder’d how it could… Continue reading Walt Whitman
… re-examine all you have been told […] dismiss whatever insults your own soul… ― Walt Whitman, from the preface of Leaves of Grass. Originally published: July 4, 1855.
Lilac and star and bird twined with the chant of my soul, there in the fragrant pines and the cedars dusk and dim. —Walt Whitman, from “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d,” Leaves of Grass. Originally published: July 4, 1855.
