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What Best I See In Thee

About This Item

  • Title: What Best I See In Thee
  • Date: 17 December 1879
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: per.00146
  • Source: The Philadelphia Press 17 December 1879: 8. 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. "What Best I See In Thee." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 18 April 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: per.00146.xml (TEI)
per.00146.008per.00146.008_cropped

WHAT BEST I SEE IN THEE.1

[GENERAL GRANT IN PHILADELPHIA, DECEMBER —, 1879.]

What best I see in thee, Is not that where thou mov'st down history's 
  great highways, Ever undimm'd by time shoots warlike vic- 
 tory's dazzle; Or that thou sat'st where Washington, Lincoln 
  sat, ruling the land in peace; Or thou the man whom feudal Europe feted, 
  venerable Asia swarm'd upon; Who walk'd with kings with even pace the 
  round world's promenade; But that in war and peace, and in thy walks 
  with kings, These average prairie sovereigns of the west, 
  Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Ohio's, Indiana's millions, comrades, farmers, 
  soldiers, all to the front, Invisibly with thee walking with kings with 
  even pace the round world's promenade, Were all so justified. WALT WHITMAN. St. Louis, December 1s.

Notes

1. Reprinted in Leaves of Grass (1881–82). [back]

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