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JackField"Not Heaving from my Ribb'd Breast Only" (1860)"Not Heaving from my Ribb'd Breast Only" (1860

Adhesiveness," which the poet addresses in "Not Heaving" as the "pulse of my life," is a term from phrenology

"Not Heaving from my Ribb'd Breast Only" (1860)

." ***** "O despairer, here is my neck, You shall not go down! Hang your whole weight upon me."

My moral constitution may be hopelessly tainted or—too sound to be tainted, as the critic wills, but

, Earth of the limpid grey of clouds brighter and clearer for my sake! Far swooping elbowed earth!

The damp of the night drives deeper into my soul."

———Under Niagara, the cataract falling like a veil over my countenance ."

Sheree L.Gilbert"As I Lay with My Head in Your Lap Camerado" (1865–1866)"As I Lay with My Head in Your

Lap Camerado" (1865–1866)"As I Lay with My Head in Your Lap Camerado" first appeared in Whitman's separately

"As I Lay with My Head in Your Lap Camerado" (1865–1866)

do I not see my love fluttering out there among the breakers?

Loud I call to you, my love!

who I am, my love.

Hither, my love! Here I am! Here!

But my love no more, no more with me! We two together no more!

WalterGraffinHarris, Frank (1856–1931)Harris, Frank (1856–1931) Best known for his unreliable autobiography My

In My Life and Loves, he tells of hearing Whitman's 1877 Philadelphia lecture on Paine and being greatly

My Life and Loves. 1922. Ed. John F. Gallagher. New York: Grove, 1963. Pullar, Philippa.

Donald BarlowStauffer"Good-Bye my Fancy" (Second Annex) (1891)"Good-Bye my Fancy" (Second Annex) (1891

)This group of poems originally appeared in the book Good-Bye My Fancy (1891), Whitman's last miscellany

the New York theater, etc.A group of thirty-one poems from the book was later printed as "Good-Bye my

death he had frequently expressed in his younger years.There are two poems with the title "Good-Bye my

"Good-Bye my Fancy" (Second Annex) (1891)

thereof—and no less in myself than the whole of the Mannahatta in itself, Singing the song of These, my

ever united lands—my body no more inevitably united, part to part, and made one identity, any more than

my lands are inevitably united, and made one identity, Nativities, climates, the grass of the great

GuiyouHuang"Beginning My Studies" (1865)"Beginning My Studies" (1865)This poem first appeared in the

declaration not to become a systematic or aggressive student of philosophy.In theme and tone "Beginning My

"Beginning My Studies" (1865)

First Annex" (the Second Annex contains poems from a previously published miscellany entitled Good-Bye My

Talking to Traubel about the subject matter of these poems, Whitman said, "Of my personal ailments, of

"Queries to My Seventieth Year" reveals some of the ambiguous feelings he has about the year to come.

In "As I Sit Writing Here" he writes, "Not my least burden is that dulness of the years, querilities,

/ Ungracious glooms, aches, lethargy, constipation, whimpering ennui, / May filter in my daily songs

with a secret wish that I had not begun to read and a vow that I would never do the like again), by my

Lowell voices in the best way it can be voiced this limitation, or to my mind wrong poetic notion, in

"Behind the hill, behind the sky, Behind my inmost thought, he sings; No feet avail; to hear it nigh,

—you say in "New York;" but I had my hearing of most of those you mention elsewhere.

Sidney Morse . ∗ "Good-Bye, my Fancy!" Walt Whitman. 1891. The Second Annex to "Leaves of Grass"

I rubbed my eyes a little, to see if this sunbeam were no illusion; but the solid sense of the book is

head at nightfall, and he is fain to say,— I too am not a bit tamed—I too am untranslatable; I sound my

I loafe and invite my soul, I lean and loafe at my ease…observing a spear of summer grass.

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeeful green stuff woven.

All I mark as my own you shall offset it with your own, Else it were time lost listening to me.

I know perfectly well my own egotism. . . .

I will put in my poems, that with you is heroism, upon land and sea. . . .

On my way a moment I pause, Here for you! And here for America!

of my own, And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the women my sisters and lovers,

Earth of the limpid gray of clouds, brighter and clear- er clearer for my sake!

succeeding poem, we have him clearly in trance, and the impressing spirit speaking through him:— Take my

see Hermes, unsuspected, dying, well-beloved, saying to the people, Do not weep for me, This is not my

Here is one which again proclaims his purpose:— I stand in my place, with my own day, here.

And what are my miracles? 2.

side, and some behind, and some embrace my arms and neck.

philosopher's life in the quiet woodland ways, Where if I cannot be gay let a passionless peace be my

And my heart is a handful of dust, And the wheels go over my head, And my bones are shaken with pain,

What I experience or portray shall go from my composition without a shred of my composition.

You shall stand by my side, and look in the mirror with me."

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.

grave illness, I gather up the pieces of prose and poetry left over since publishing a while since my

For some reason—not explainable or definite to my own mind, yet secretly pleasing and satisfactory to

And thee, My Soul! Joys, ceaseless exercises, exaltations!

Thee for my recitative!

Roll through my chant with all thy lawless music!

Oh my captain! called Whitman."

This is why I send you My leaping verses, my bounding verses, my spasmodic verses, My hysteria-attack

Hydraulic pump tearing out my guts and my feeling it!

My soul! .. . My ties and ballasts leave me ...

My Captain!," "Come up from the Fields, Father," and "The Singer in Prison."

I thank my daughter, Myrth Killingsworth, an ecocritic in her own right, for being my writing companion

On hikes in the Smoky Mountains, one of my regular companions was my friend and major professor F.

Professor Miller directed my dissertation, which ultimately led to my first book, Whitman's Poetry of

just as I was saying good-bye to DeWolfe Miller and my friends in Tennessee and heading west where my

bare-stript heart, And reach'd till you felt my beard, and reach'd till you held my feet.

Robert K.Martin"What Think You I Take My Pen in Hand?"

(1860)"What Think You I Take My Pen in Hand?"

"What Think You I Take My Pen in Hand?" (1860)

The récherché or ethereal sense, as used in my book, arises probably from it, Calamus presenting the

attachment," concluding "I proceed for all who are or have been young men, / To tell the secret of my

The next poem, "Scented Herbage of My Breast," initially introduces an extraordinarily copious imagery

expose me more than all my other poems."

O pulse of my life! / Need I that you exist and show yourself any more than in these songs."

Do you think my getting my shirts made so cheaply, or my buying clothes at a low price, has anything

In the 1860 edition he boasts that he will "take for my love some prostitute" ("Enfans d'Adam" number

They look at me, and my eyes start out of my head; they speak to me, and I yell with de- light delight

; they touch me, and the flesh crawls off my bones.

heaven, it bears me beyond the stars, I tread upon the air, I sail upon the ether, I spread myself my

O my soul! O your soul, which is no better than my soul, and no worse, but just the same!

O my eye! 1247. These things are not in Webster's Dictionary— Unabridged, Pictorial.

Was't charged against my chants they had forgotten art? . . .

son and my comrade, dropt at my side that day, One look I but gave, which your dear eyes return'd with

do I not see my love fluttering out among the breakers?

Loud I call to you, my love! High and clear I shoot my voice over the waves.

Hither, my love! Here I am! here!

PatrickMcGuire"My Boys and Girls" (1844)"My Boys and Girls" (1844)While this sketch first appeared in

"My Boys and Girls" (1844)

When it was first published, it began with the line "Here my last words, and the most baffling."

They are his "frailest . . . and yet my strongest lasting."

have survived as positive examples of homosexual desire.Whitman admits in this poem, "I shade and hide my

Townsend Trowbridge left a deft and important portrait of their relationship in his autobiography, My

In My Own Story Trowbridge relates how he first came across excerpts of Leaves of Grass while staying

accepted me on general principles and has never so far as I know revised his original declaration in my

little scholarship exists which examines Whitman's influence on Trowbridge but surely poems such as "My

My Own Story. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1903. ———. The Poetical Works of John Townsend Trowbridge.

All I mark as my own, you shall offset it with your own, Else it were time lost listening to me.

I know I am august; I do not trouble my spirit to vindicate itself, or be understood; I see that the

My foothold is tenon'd and mortis'd in granite; I laugh at what you call dissolution; And I know the

My feet strike an apex of the apices of the stairs; On every step bunches of ages, and larger bunches

Before I was born out of my mother, generations guided me; My embryo has never been torpid—nothing could

I rubbed my eyes a little to see if this sunbeam were no illusion; but the solid sense of the book is

I wish to see my benefactor, and have felt much like striking my tasks and visiting New York to pay you

my respects.

Whitman's own experiences during this visit to the front.The soldier's epitaph—"Bold, cautious, true, and my

The latent meaning submerged within "my loving comrade" as the antithesis of "true," in other words,

"My book and the war are one," Whitman would assert in "To Thee Old Cause" (1871); in "Toilsome" that

I loafe, and invite my soul; I lean and loafe at my ease— Observing a spear of Summer grass."

I know that the hand of God is the elderhand of my own, And I know that the spirit of God is the eldest

brother of my own, And that all the men ever born are also my brothers…and the women my sisters and

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.

is as big to me as any, Logic and sermons never convince, The damp of the night drives deeper into my

I do not press my finger across my mouth, I keep as delicate around the bowels as around the head and

Amelioration is my lesson, he says with calm voice, and progress is my lesson and the lesson of all things

I am the teacher of athletes, He that by me spreads a wider breast than my own proves the width of my

own, He most honors my style who learns under it to destroy the teacher.

What is commonest and cheapest and nearest and easiest is Me, Me going in for my chances, spending for

what he had recently described in "A Backward Glance O'er Travel'd Roads" as his program to "exploit [my

The dominant themes in the two annexes, "Sands and Seventy" and Good-Bye my Fancy," as well as in "Old

Speaking to Horace Traubel about their subject matter, Whitman said, "Of my personal ailments, of sickness

This questioning mood may be found in "Queries to my Seventieth Year," published about a month before

Still the lingering sparse leaves are, he says, "my soul-dearest leaves confirming all the rest, / The

that Walt acted as a substitute father to his brothers and sisters, as he suggests in an early story, "My

"I nourish active rebellion," Whitman challenges (section 14); "Camerado, I give you my hand!

with him I love" (1860 Leaves), but even for Whitman, the decision to publicly "tell the secret of my

Perhaps he was thinking of Vaughan when he wrote, "This the far-off depth and height reflecting my own

that he would "confront peace, security, and all the settled laws, to unsettle them" ("As I Lay with My

"What I experience or portray shall go from my composition without a shred of my composition.

You shall stand by my side and look in the mirror with me."

"I am the teacher of Athletes; He that by me spreads a wider breast than my own, proves the width of

my own; He most honors my style who learns under it to destroy the teacher; The boy I love, the same

I cannot tell how my ankles bend, nor whence the causes of my faintest wish, Nor the cause of the friendship

That I walk up my stoop, I pause to consider if it really be.

A morning glory at my window satisfies me more than the meta- physics metaphysics of books."

I blow through my embouchures my loudest and gayest music to them. Vivas to those who have failed.

In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass.

To-day my soul is full of the love of the body.

"Clear and sweet is my soul, and clear and sweet is all that is not my soul. ∗∗∗∗∗ While they discuss

The first doubt lodged in my mind against the claims of the Christian Church and ministry was the first

To my surprise and horror, they spent the whole time in regaling one another with smutty yarns.

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.

. * "No one will get at my verses who insists upon viewing them as a literary performance, or as aiming

Leaves of Grass has been chiefly the outcropping of my own emotional and other personal nature—an attempt

day, there can be no such thing as a long poem, fascinated him: "The same thought had been haunting my

flashes of lightning, with the emotional depths it sounded and arous'd (of course, I don't mean in my

"I round and finish little, if anything; and could not, consistently with my scheme.

Good-bye, my fancy: 2 d annex to "Leaves of grass." D. McKay. por. 8º, $1.

Review of Good-bye My Fancy

Robert K.Martin"Scented Herbage of My Breast" (1860)"Scented Herbage of My Breast" (1860)The second of

"Scented Herbage of My Breast" (1860)

published in Lippincott's Magazine in December of 1890 and included in the second annex, "Good-Bye my

characteristically, letting go of its material attributes: "For thou art spiritual, Godly, most of all known to my

is well known, as in line 7: "So sweet thy primitive taste to breathe within—thy soothing fingers on my

"Good-Bye, my Fancy!"

'Good-bye, my Fancy!'

These brave beliefs ring almost gayly through 'An Ended Day,' 'The Pallid Wreath,' 'My 71st Year,' 'Shakespeare-Bacon's

like the arch of the full moon, nebulous, Ossianlike, but striking in its filmy vagueness. ∗ Good-Bye, my

New York "Good-Bye, my Fancy!"

The only American prophet to my knowledge who enjoys a fame in England not accorded him in his own country

, strolling tides, Companions, travelers, gossiping as they journey; And he sends it out 'partly as my

And thee, My Soul! Joys, ceaseless exercises, exaltations!

Thee for my recitative!

Roll through my chant with all thy lawless music!

or ambition to articulate and faithfully express in literary and poetic form, and uncompromisingly, my

say entirely my own way, and put it unerringly on record."

In another place the feeling of pride leads to this exclamation: "My Book and I—what a period we have

Difficult as it will be, it has become, in my opinion, imperative to achieve a shifted attitude from

These snowy hairs, my feeble arm, my frozen feet, For them thy faith, thy role I take, and grave it to

Whitman referred to Rossetti's edition as a "horrible dismemberment of my book" in his August 12, 1871

his remarks to others of how it was to live with Louisa and George: "[I] have for three years, during my

as at an inn—and the whole affair in precisely the same business spirit" (Correspondence 3:47), and "My

the morning, & keeps me a good bed and room—all of which is very acceptable—(then, for a fellow of my

In his Memoirs, Neruda wrote of his own work, "If my poetry has any meaning at all, it is [its] tendency

Another poet of this same hemisphere helped me along this road, Walt Whitman, my comrade from Manhattan

Nixonicide and Praise for the Chilean Revolution) with the following invocation:It is as an act of love for my

I round and finish little, if anything; and could not consistently with my scheme.

"'Leaves of Grass' indeed (I cannot too often reiterate) has mainly been the outcropping of my own emotional

No one will get at my verses who insists upon viewing them as a literary performance, or as aiming mainly

"My Voice Goes After What My Eyes Cannot Reach": Pragmatic Language and the Making of a Democratic Mythology

My voice goes after what my eyes cannot reach, With the twirl of my tongue I encompass worlds and volumes

to balance them at last, My knowledge my live parts....it keeping tally with the meaning of things,

Come my children, Come my boys and girls, and my women and household and intimates, Now the performer

, Depriving me of my best as for a purpose, Unbuttoning my clothes and holding me by the bare waist,

impending death as but one of his soul's many incarnations and promotions: "I receive now again of my

many translations, from my avataras ascending, while others doubtless await me" ("So Long!").

especially profound or "real" form of experience which develops or "identifies" his soul: "O the joy of my

My soul vibrated back to me from them . . .

The real life of my senses and flesh transcending my senses and flesh" ("Song of Joys").This sense of

I loafe and invite my soul, I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this soil, this air.

My special word to thee. Hear me illustrious!

woodedge, thy touching-distant beams enough, or man matured, or young or old, as now to thee I launch my

lengthening shadows, prepare my starry nights.

over waves, towards the house of maternity, the land of migrations, look afar, Look off the shores of my

"My days I sing, and the land's:" this is the key-note.

I cannot tell how my ankles bend, nor whence the cause of my faintest wish, Nor the cause of the friendship

That I walk up my stoop!

The little light fades the immense and diaphanous shadows; The air tastes good to my palate.

Good By My Fancy . 2d Annex to Leaves of Grass By Walt Whitman. (Philadelphia: David McKay.).

Review of Good-Bye My Fancy