Search Results

. * "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.

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

my respects.

The air tastes good to my palate.

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

Another song on the death of Lincoln, "Oh Captain! My Captain!"

Y.) and My Life on It as Child and Young Man…Printing Office—Old Brooklyn…Lafayette…Broadway Sights…My

I have been exercised deeply about it my whole life.)

Again he was ask'd to yield, this time by a rebel captain.

The rebel captain then shot him—but at the same instant he shot the captain.

From today I enter upon my 64th year.

he screams to a gaping universe: "I, Walt Whitman, an American, one of the roughs, a Cosmos; I shout my

voice high and clear over the waves; I send my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world."

From those beginning notes of sickness and love, there in the mist, From the thousand responses in my

O what is my destination? O I fear it is henceforth chaos!"

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

"O my brave soul! O farther, farther sail! O daring joy, but safe!

) For that, O God—be it my latest word — here on my knees, Old, poor, and paralysed—I thank thee.

"My terminus near, The clouds already closing in upon me, The voyage balk'd, the course disputed, lost

, I yield my ships to .

"My hands, my limbs, grow nerveless; My brain feels rack'd, bewilder'd; Let the old timbers part I will

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

Whitman tells us, "Ever since what might be call'd thought, or the budding of thought, fairly began in my

I felt it all as positively then in my young days as I do now in my old ones; to formulate a poem whose

My book ought to emanate buoyancy and gladness legitimately enough, for it was grown out of those elements

, and has been the comfort of my life since it was originally commenced."

last yawp, which (the review) you were frank enough to print in your last issue, emboldens me to speak my

Last Winter I got on skates, my first appearance before an icy audience for fifteen years.

U. is the poet of my concern, her suggestion to that effect was a strong point in favor of Mr.

s fondness for poetry doesn't at all interfere with the clearness of my café noir, the lightness of my

with my lordly prerogative.

Cycles ferried my cradle, rowing and rowing like cheerful boatmen, For room to me stars kept aside in

All forces have been steadily employed to complete and delight me: Now I stand on this spot with my Soul

reckon,’ he adds, with quaint colloquial arrogance, ‘I reckon I behave no prouder than the level I plant my

afternoons and sitting by him, and he liked to have me—liked to put out his arm and lay his hand on my

were hurt by being blamed by his officers for something he was entirely innocent of—said ‘I never in my

Here it is copied from [the] volume before us:— O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN! O Captain! my Captain!

Leave you not the little spot, Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead. O Captain!

my Captain!

My captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still, My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse

But I with mournful tread Walk the spot my Captain lies, Compare with this, for poetic or pathetic feeling

look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books : ; "You shall not look through my

beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough; To pass among them, or touch any one, or rest my

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.

"Unstopp'd and unwarp'd by any influence outside the soul within me, I have had my say entirely my own

Let us quote the two poems entitled "Halcyon Days" and "Queries to my Seventieth Year."

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

Phantoms welcome, divine and tender, Invisible to the rest, henceforth become my companions; Follow me

Perfume therefore my chant, O Love! immortal Love!

For that we live, my brethren—that is the mission of Poets.

the sisters Death and Might, incessantly softly wash again, and ever again, this soil'd world. … For my

where he lies, white-faced and still in the coffin—I draw near; I bend down and touch lightly with my

My other item relates to one of whose merits as an author opinions differ widely.

"My days I sing, and the lands, with interstice I knew of hapless war.

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

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

I lie in the night air in my red shirt… the pervading hush is for my sake.

We close with him: the yards entangled… the masts touched: My captain lashed fast with his own hands.

I laughed content when I heard the voice of my little captain— `We have not struck,' he composedly cried

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"

Bless the Lord,O my soul!

my special word to thee. Who can be a companion of thy course!

lengthening shadows, prepare my starry nights.

my Captain! our fearful trip is done.

O,the bleeding drops of red, Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.

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

, my Captain,' 'When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed.'

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.'

place with my own day here.'

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!

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!

announcing his "positive conviction that some of these birds sing and others fly and flirt about here for my

for me, blew into space a thousand cobwebs of genteel and ethical illusion, and, having thus shaken my

Whatever may be said for the genius that created the peculiar style of (and, for my part, I think a great

Yet it would be wrong not to correct my criticism about Whitman's style by pointing out that there are

Me, ruthless and devilish as any, that my wrists are not chain'd with iron or my ankles with iron?

do I exclude you, Not till the waters refuse to glisten for you and the leaves to rustle for you, do my

"The chief end I purpose to myself in all my labours," wrote Dean Swift, "is to vex the world rather

and flows": "This day, before dawn, I ascended a hill and look'd at the crowded heaven, And I said to my

And my spirit said ' No .'"

suddenly,—reservedly, with a beautiful paucity of communication, even silently, such was its effect on my

Two prose pieces which appeared there under the titles "My Book and I" and "How I made a Book" are now

He said once to my father, 'They talk of the devil—I tell thee, Walter, there is no worse devil than

single line or verse picked out here and there from the midst of his descriptions:— "Evening—me in my

room—the setting sun, The setting summer sun shining in my open windows window , showing the swarm of

take one breath from my tremulous lips; Take one tear, dropped aside as I go, for thought of you, Dead

I meant that you should discover me so, by my faint indirections; And I, when I meet you, mean to discover

Whitman says "no one will get at my verses who insists upon viewing them as a literary performance, or

After celebrating and singing himself, he continues: "I loafe, and invite my soul."

for your dear sake, O soldiers, And for you, O soul of man, and you, love of comrades; The words of my

Whitman as follows: "You came to woo my sister, the human soul.

"After completing my poems," then, writes Mr.

"That I have not gain'd the acceptance of my own time; that from a worldly and business point of view

I had my choice when I commenced.

"The best comfort of the whole business is that I have had my say entirely my own way—the value thereof

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

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.

Bent to the very earth, here preceding what follows, Terrified with myself that I have dared to open my

whose echoes recoil upon me, I have not once had the least idea who or what I am, But that before all my

And I would that my tongue could utter The thoughts that arise in me!

"Beginning my studies, the first step pleased me so much, The mere fact, consciousness—these forms—the

pleas'd me so much, I have never gone, and never wish'd to go, any further, But stop and loiter all my

import of his first book ("without yielding an inch, the working-man and working-woman were to be in my

It seem to me more than all the print I have read in my life."

coffin that slowly passes, I give you my sprig of lilac.

Dozens of pages of his rhythmic prose are not worth "My Captain," which among all his compositions comes

If Whitman, after the same length of time, proves more fortunate, it will be because he wrote "My Captain

its Dantesque horror, and then, brooding over brotherhood, union, democracy, sang 'Leaves of Grass,' 'My

Captain,' 'Calamus,' and all that me quoque which forms the essential germ of the Whitman gospel: egotism

"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

not live another day; I cannot can not rest, O God — eat Or drink or sleep, till I put forth myself, My

West, where "In a far-away faraway northern county, in the placid, pas- toral pastoral region, Lives my

farmer-friend farmer friend , the theme of my recitative, a famous Tamer of Oxen ." : This is a worthy

forced to remember another son of the people, Robert Burns, and one involuntarily thinks of his "O, my

Love's like a red, red rose, That's newly sprung in June: O my Love's like a melodie That's sweetly

(I loved a certain person ardently and my love was unreturned, Yet out of my love have I written these

hardly patience with a man who could offer the public lines like these, and call them poetry: "I tucked my

trowser-ends into my boots, and went and had a good time."

"So here I sit gossiping in the early candle-light of old age—I and my book—casting backward glances

over our travelled road…That I have not gained the acceptance of my own time but have fallen back on

I had my choice when I commenced.

I present my tribute, drop my bit of laurel into the still warm, firm hand of the victorious singer.

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

Whitman defended himself by reversing his previous commentary and writing "My Tribute to Four Poets"

His text is—and it is a stalwart text: "I stand in my place, with my own day, here!" II.

"I resist anything better than my own diversity," he says.

Clifford in his essay on "Cosmic Emotion:" "I open my scuttle at night and see the far-sprinkled far-

"My sun has his sun, and round him obediently wheels, He joins with his partners a group of superior

Hence from my shuddering sight to never more return that Show of blacken'd mutilated corpses!

." ***** "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 ."

When last in the dooryard the lilacs bloomed [sic]," "Chanting the Square Deific," and "As I lay with my

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.

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

camping with lumber-men, Along the ruts of the turnpike . . . along the dry gulch and rivulet bed, Hoeing my

gold-digging . . . girdling the trees of a new purchase, Scorched ankle-deep by the hot sand . . . hauling my