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—I lend you my own mouth tongue A black I dart ed like a snake from his mouth.— I My eyes are bloodshot

, they look down the river, A steamboat carries off paddles away my woman and children.— Around my neck

am T The His i ron necklace and the red sores of my shoulders I do not feel mind , h H opples and ball

ankles and tight cuffs at the wrists does must not detain me will go down the river, with the sight of my

bloodshot eyes, go in to the steamboat that paddles off wife woman and child A I do not stop with my

. / How he laughs when I look down the bend after the steamboat that carries away my woman"(1855, p.

Grass, ultimately titled Song of Myself: "And I know that the spirit of God is the eldest brother of my

The retrospective extasy ecstasy is upon me— I am now my soul —spirit burns volcanic The earth recedes

ashamed before my prophetical crisis.— Whitman probably drafted this manuscript in the early 1850s as

similar to the following line in the poem eventually titled "Song of Myself": "The dirt receding before my

a makes raises but bubble of the sea-ooze in comparison with against that unspeakable Something in my

—I look back upon that time in my own days.— I have no gibes nor mocks mockings or laughter;—I have only

the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass, which was ultimately titled "Song of Myself": "Backward I see in my

These words are for the five or six grand poets, too; and the masters of artists: — I waste no ink, nor my

receive you, and attach and clasp hands with you, / The facts are useful and real . . . . they are not my

drink, / But as soon as you sleep and renew yourself in sweet clothes I will certainly kiss you with my

Compare these lines from that edition: "I lean and loafe at my ease . . . . observing a spear of summer

this manuscript may connect to the stanza of the poem eventually titled "Song of Myself" that begins "My

senses all men is truth; Logic and sermons never convince ; me; The dew of the night drives deep er into my

/ Logic and sermons never convince, / The damp of the night drives deeper into my soul. / Only what proves

19 I am become the poet of babes and the little things I descend many steps—I go backward primeval My

equanimous arms feet 209 I surround retrace things steps oceanic—I pass to around not merely my own

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

bit of pathos—indubitably human—in my eye, confess now am I not a man and a brother?"

place, with my own day, here."

my dwell- dwelling .)"

'O the life of my senses and flesh, transcending my senses and flesh.'

my South! O quick mettle, rich blood, impulse and love! good and evil! O all dear to me!"

my South!O quick mettle, rich blood, impulse and love! good and evil! O all dear to me!"

The first several lines of Pictures (not including this line) were revised and published as My Picture-Gallery

A similar line in that poem reads: "O the joy of my spirit! It is uncaged!

See, for instance: "I take my place among you as much as among any," (1855, p. 48); "Nor do I understand

Myself": "Looking in at the shop-windows in Broadway the whole forenoon . . . . pressing the flesh of my

pass death with the dying, and birth with the new-washed babe . . . . and am not contained between my

The clearest relation is to the line: "A minute and a drop of me settle my brain" (1855, p. 33), but

however, physical and thematic similarities with And I have discovered them by night and by, above, and My

Bibles i are divine revelations of God But I know say that any each leaf of grass and every hair of my

compiled composed is not august enough to dent endow answer tally a leaf of grass the partition of in my

. / I intend to reach them my hand and make as much of them as I do of men and women" (1855, p. 64).;

White noted a relationship between these pages and the poems Who Learns My Lesson Complete?

. / I intend to reach them my hand and make as much of them as I do of men and women" (1855, p. 64).

See in particular the lines: "The supernatural of no account . . . . myself waiting my time to be one

See in particular the lines: "The supernatural of no account . . . . myself waiting my time to be one

as two—as my soul and I; and I gu reckon it is the same with all oth men and women.— I know that my

trousers around my boots, and my cuffs back from my wrists and go among the rough drivers and boatmen

I tell you just as beautiful to die; For I take my death with the dying And my birth with the new-born

lips, to the palms of my hands, and whatever my hands hold.

hands, and my head my head mocked with a prickly I am here after I remember crucifixion and bloody coronation

7 196 My touch hand will not hurt what it holds, and yet will devour it, That It must remain whole perfect

Only one minute, only two or three passing bulging sheathed touches, Yet they gather all of me and my

spirit into a knot, They hold us so long enough there, to show us what life we can be,— And that my

senses and our flesh, and even a part of flesh, is seems more than all life.— What has become of my senses

My hand will not hurt

/ Why are there men and women that while they are nigh me the sun-light expands my blood?

/ Why when they leave me do my pennants of joy sink flat and lank?

blood—that if I walk with an arm of theirs around my neck, my soul leaps and laughs like a new-waked

—(Am I loved by them boundlessly because my love for them is more boundless?

truth, my sympathy, and my dignity.

do not procreate like men; all of them and all existing creeds grows not so much of God as I grow in my

moustache, And I am myself waiting my time to be a God; I think I h shall do as much good and be as

pure and prodigious, and do as much good as any; — And when my do, I am, do you suppose it will please

wriggles through the world mankind and hides under helmets and it is not beloved never loved or believed.— My

See in particular the lines: "The supernatural of no account . . . . myself waiting my time to be one

sings as well as I, because although she reads no newspaper; never learned the gamut; And to shake my

The first lines of the notebook poem were revised and published as "My Picture-Gallery" in The American

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

My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this soil, this air, Born here of parents born here from

stuck up, and am in my place.

Now comes a passage remarkable for its nobility: "With music strong I come, with my cornets and my drums

I beat and pound for the dead, I blow through my embouchures my loudest and gayest for them.

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

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

I open my scuttle at night and see the far-sprinkled systems, And all I see multiplied as high as I can

; No friend of mine takes his ease in my chair;— I have no chair, no church, no philosophy, I lead no

man to a dinner-table, library, exchange; But each man and each woman of you I lead upon a knoll, My

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

To walk up my stoop is unaccountable . . . . I pause to consider if it really be.

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

Speech is the twin of my vision . . . . it is unequal to measure itself.

I merely stir, press, feel with my fingers, and am happy, To touch my person to some one else's is about

Poem in the 1856 edition of Leaves of Grass: "The best I had done seemed to me blank and suspicious, / My

The lines "I am too great to be a mere President or Major General / I remain with my fellows—with mechanics

fool and the wise thinker" may be related to a similar phrase in the poem eventually titled Who Learns My

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

The smoke of my own breath, Echoes, ripples, buzzed whispers, love-root, silk-thread, crotch and vine

, My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart, the passing of blood and air through my lungs

The sound of the belched words of my voice, words loosed to the eddies of the wind, A few light kisses

Our poet goes on to say (105): I know I am august, I do not trouble my spirit to vindicate itself or

. * shall uncage in my breast a thousand armed great winged broad‑ wide‑winged strengths and unknown

I want that untied tenor, clean and fresh as the Creation, whose vast pure volume floods my soul.

paces and powers, uncage in my heart a thousand new strengths, and unknown ardors and terrible —making

furious than hail hail and lightning. that leap lulling me drowsily with honeyed uncaging waking in my

likely relates to the following lines, from the poem that would be titled "Song of Myself": "I open my

since, after the closest inquiry, "I find no sweeter fat than sticks to my own bones."

If I worship any particular thing, it shall be some the spread of my own body."

As for Mine, Mine has the idea of my own, and what's Mine is my own, and my own is all Mine and believes

in your and my name, the Present time. 6.

I lie in the night air in my red shirt—the pervading hush is for my sake, Painless after all I lie, exhausted

." ***** "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 ."

thousands, each one with his entry to himself; They are always watching with their little eyes, from my

head to my feet.

lift put the girder of the earth a globe the house away if it lay between me and whatever I wanted.— My

.— what my touch wanted any thing whatever I wanted.— Surely I am out of my head!

I am lost to myself and someth something else Nature in another form has laid down in my place.

My Soul Spirit was curious and sped back to the beginning, sped back returned to the times when the earth

eternally; And devise themselves to this spot place These States and this hour, Again But yet still my

My Spirit sped back to

.— I celebrate myself to celebrate you; every man and woman alive; I transpose my my spirit I pass as

that hear me; I am loosen the voice tongue that was tied in you them In me It begins to talk out of my

though I lie so sleepy and sluggish, my tap is death" (1855, p. 74).

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!

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.

I say to my own greatness, Away!

outward" (1855, p. 51). may be related to a similar phrase in the poem eventually titled "Who Learns My

in the 1856 edition of Leaves of Grass : "The best I had done seemed to me blank and suspicious, / My

—I doubt whether who my greatest thoughts, as I had supposed them, are not shallow.

—My pride is impotent; my love gets no response.

O my body, that gives me identity! O my organs !

Underfoot, the divine soil— Overhead, the sun.— Afford foothold to my poems, you Nourish my poems, Earth

In Poem The earth, that is my model of poems model ?

The body of a man, is my model—I do not reject what I find in my body—I am not ashamed—Why should I be

My Darling (Now I am maternal— a child bearer— bea have from my womb borne a child, and observe it For

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

The press of my foot to the earth springs a hundred affections, They scorn the best I can do to relate

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

myself to bestow myself on the first that will take me, Not asking the sky to come down to receive my

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

levee in life,— After death Now when I am looked back upon, I will I hold levee, after death, I lean on my

left elbow—I take ten thousand lovers, one after another, by my right hand.— I have all lives, all effects