Walt Whitman
How sweet the silent backward tracings! — Walt Whitman, from “Memories,” First Annex: Sands at Seventy, Leaves of Grass: The Deathbed Edition (BOMC, 1992)
Tag: Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman
You lingering sparse leaves of me on winter-nearing boughs, And I some well-shorn tree of field or orchard-row; You tokens diminute and lorn—(not now the flush of May, or July clover-bloom—no grain of August now;) You pallid banner-staves—you pennants valueless—you overstay’d of time, Yet my soul-dearest leaves confirming all the rest, The faithfulest—hardiest—last.… Continue reading Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman
PASSING stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you, You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking, (it comes to me, as of a dream,) I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you, All is recall’d as we flit by each other, fluid, affectionate, chaste,… Continue reading Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman
A NOISELESS, patient spider, I mark’d, where, on a little promontory, it stood, isolated; Mark’d how, to explore the vacant, vast surrounding, It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself; Ever unreeling them—ever tirelessly speeding them. And you, O my Soul, where you stand, Surrounded, surrounded, in measureless oceans of space, Ceaselessly musing, venturing,… Continue reading Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman
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, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room, How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;… Continue reading Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman
You sea! I resign myself to you also … . I guess what you mean, I behold from the beach your crooked inviting fingers, I believe you refuse to go back without feeling of me; We must have a turn together … . I undress … . hurry me out of sight of the… Continue reading Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman
The past, the future, dwelling there, like space, inseparable together. — Walt Whitman, from “Kosmos,” Leaves of Grass. Originally published: July 4, 1855.
Walt Whitman
Here the frailest leaves of me, and yet my strongest-lasting: Here I shade and hide my thoughts—I myself do not expose them, And yet they expose me more than all my other poems. — Walt Whitman, “Here the Frailest Leaves of Me,” Leaves of Grass. Originally published: July 4, 1855
Walt Whitman
This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing… Continue reading Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman
A Woman Waits For Me A WOMAN waits for me—she contains all, nothing is lacking, Yet all were lacking, if sex were lacking, or if the moisture of the right man were lacking. Sex contains all, Bodies, Souls, meanings, proofs, purities, delicacies, results, promulgations, Songs, commands, health, pride, the maternal mystery, the seminal milk; All… Continue reading Walt Whitman
