The Walt Whitman Archive
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About this Item
Title: A Carol Closing Sixty-Nine
Creator: Walt Whitman
Date: May 21, 1888
Whitman Archive ID: per.00091
Source: New York Herald 21 May 1888: 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, and Susan Belasco
 image 1 |  cropped image 1 |
[WRITTEN FOR THE HERALD.]
A CAROL CLOSING SIXTY-NINE.1
A carol closing sixty-nine—a résumé—a repeti-
tion,
tion,
My lines in joy and hope continuing on the
same,
same,
Of ye, O God, Life, Nature, Freedom, Poetry;
Of you, my Land—your rivers, prairies, States—
you, mottled Flag I love,
you, mottled Flag I love,
Your aggregate retain'd entire—Of north, south,
east and west, your items all;
east and west, your items all;
Of me myself—the jocund heart yet beating in
my breast,
my breast,
The body wreck'd, old, poor and paralyzed—
the strange intertia falling pall-like round
me;
the strange intertia falling pall-like round
me;
The burning fires down in my sluggish blood
not yet extinct,
not yet extinct,
The undiminish'd faith—the groups of loving
friends.
friends.
WALT WHITMAN.