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Ah, Not This Granite Dead and Cold

About This Item

  • Title: Ah, Not This Granite Dead and Cold
  • Date: 22 February 1885
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: per.00068
  • Source: The Philadelphia Press 22 February 1885: 4. Our transcription is based on a digital image of a microfilm copy of an original issue. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the periodical poems, see our statement of editorial policy.
  • Contributors to digital file: Elizabeth Lorang April Lambert Susan Belasco
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "Ah, Not This Granite Dead and Cold." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 18 April 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: per.00068.xml (TEI)
per.00068.004per.00068.004_cropped

Ah, Not This Granite Dead and Cold.1

Ah, not this granite, dead and cold! Far from its base and shaft expanding—the 
  round zones circling, comprehending; Thou, WASHINGTON, art all the worlds, the 
  continent's entire—not yours alone, 
  America; Europe's as well, in every part, castle of lord 
  or laborer's cot, On frozen North, or sultry South—the Arab's in 
  his tent—the African's; Old Asia's there with venerable smile, seated 
  amid her ruins; (Greets the antique the hero new? 'tis but the 
  same—the heir legitimate, continued 
  ever, The indomitable heart and arm—proofs of the 
  never-broken line, Courage, alertness, patience, faith, the same— 
  e'en in defeat defeated not, the same:) Wherever sails a ship, or house is built on land, 
  or day or night, Through teeming cities' streets, indoors or out, 
  factories or farms, Now, or to come, or past—where patriot wills 
  existed or exist, Wherever Freedom, poised by Toleration, 
  swayed by Law, Stands or is rising thy true monument. February 21, 1885.   WALT WHITMAN.

Notes

1. Reprinted as "Washington's Monument, February, 1885" in the "Sands at Seventy" annex to Leaves of Grass (1888). [back]

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