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of cities and the shop- fronts shopfronts , (Account for it or not—credit or not—it is all true, And my

peering, dallying with all—war, peace, day and night absorbing, Never even for one brief hour abandoning my

I sing of life, yet mind me well of death: To-day shadowy Death dogs my steps, my seated shape, and has

More evolutionary, vast, puzzling, O my soul! More multiform far—more lasting thou than they.

Good-Bye My Fancy! GOOD-BYE MY FANCY! GOOD-BYE my Fancy! Farewell dear mate, dear love!

going away, I know not where, Or to what fortune, or whether I may ever see you again, So Good-bye my

Now for my last—let me look back a moment; The slower fainter ticking of the clock is in me, Exit, nightfall

—now separation—Good-bye my Fancy.

my Fancy.

Have you studied out MY LAND, its idioms and men?

What is this you bring my America? Is it uniform with my country?

in your and my name, the Present time.

Open mouth of my Soul, uttering gladness, Eyes of my Soul, seeing perfection, Natural life of me, faithfully

To prepare for sleep, for bed—to look on my rose- colored flesh, To be conscious of my body, so amorous

dialects, And it seems to me if I could know those men I should become attached to them as I do to men in my

HERE the frailest leaves of me and yet my strongest lasting, Here I shade and hide my thoughts, I myself

do not expose them, And yet they expose me more than all my other poems.

Earth, My Likeness. EARTH, MY LIKENESS.

EARTH, my likeness, Though you look so impassive, ample and spheric there, I now suspect that is not

What Think You I Take My Pen in Hand? WHAT THINK YOU I TAKE MY PEN IN HAND?

WHAT think you I take my pen in hand to record?

is no unreturn'd love, the pay is certain one way or another, (I loved a certain person ardently and my

Then separate, as disembodied or another born, Ethereal, the last athletic reality, my consolation, I

ascend, I float in the regions of your love O man, O sharer of my roving life.

That Shadow My Likeness. THAT SHADOW MY LIKENESS.

THAT shadow my likeness that goes to and fro seeking a liveli- hood livelihood , chattering, chaffering

and looking at it where it flits, How often I question and doubt whether that is really me; But among my

When you read these I that was visible am become invisible, Now it is you, compact, visible, realizing my

1 O TAKE my hand Walt Whitman! Such gliding wonders! such sights and sounds!

change of the light and shade, I see distant lands, as real and near to the inhabitants of them as my

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

race, I see the results of the perseverance and industry of my race, I see ranks, colors, barbarisms

side.) 13 My spirit has pass'd in compassion and determination around the whole earth, I have look'd

You objects that call from diffusion my meanings and give them shape!

Why are there men and women that while they are nigh me the sunlight expands my blood?

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

It is safe—I have tried it—my own feet have tried it well—be not detain'd!

Camerado, I give you my hand!

than you suppose, And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence are more to me, and more in my

forever held in solution, I too had receiv'd identity by my body, That I was I knew was of my body,

What is more subtle than this which ties me to the woman or man that looks in my face?

Which fuses me into you now, and pours my meaning into you? We understand then do we not?

loudly and musically call me by my nighest name! Live, old life!

SONG OF THE ANSWERER. 1 NOW list to my morning's romanza, I tell the signs of the Answerer, To the cities

And I stand before the young man face to face, and take his right hand in my left hand and his left hand

in my right hand, And I answer for his brother and for men, and I answer for him that answers for all

landscape, people, animals, The profound earth and its attributes and the unquiet ocean, (so tell I my

to the President at his levee, And he says Good-day my brother, to Cudge that hoes in the sugar-field

New Orleans, San Francisco, The departing ships when the sailors heave at the capstan; Evening—me in my

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

freedom, futurity, In space the sporades, the scatter'd islands, the stars—on the firm earth, the lands, my

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 out of a thousand diverse

O I cruise my old cruise again!

My children and grand-children, my white hair and beard, My largeness, calmness, majesty, out of the

long stretch of my life.

my senses and flesh, My body done with materials, my sight done with my material eyes, Proved to me

this day beyond cavil that it is not my material eyes which finally see, Nor my material body which finally

untrodden and mouldy, I see no longer any axe upon it, I see the mighty and friendly emblem of the power of my

I do not vaunt my love for you, I have what I have.) The axe leaps!

Yes, if you will allow me to say so, I, my friends, if you do not, can plainly see her, The same undying

I say I see, my friends, if you do not, the illustrious emigré, (having it is true in her day, although

4 But hold—don't I forget my manners?

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

And by the spells which ye vouchsafe to those your ministers in earnest, I here personify and call my

Farewell my brethren, Farewell O earth and sky, farewell ye neighboring waters, My time has ended, my

heard not, As the wood-spirits came from their haunts of a thousand years to join the refrain, But in my

many a summer sun, And the white snows and night and the wild winds; O the great patient rugged joys, my

Neither a servant nor a master I, I take no sooner a large price than a small price, I will have my own

become so for your sake, If you remember your foolish and outlaw'd deeds, do you think I cannot remember my

are, I am this day just as much in love with them as you, Then I am in love with You, and with all my

List close my scholars dear, Doctrines, politics and civilization exurge from you, Sculpture and monuments

friendly companions, I intend to reach them my hand, and make as much of them as I do of men and women

Air, soil, water, fire—those are words, I myself am a word with them—my qualities interpenetrate with

theirs—my name is nothing to them, Though it were told in the three thousand languages, what would air

, soil, water, fire, know of my name?

When I undertake to tell the best I find I cannot, My tongue is ineffectual on its pivots, My breath

COME my tan-faced children, Follow well in order, get your weapons ready, Have you your pistols?

For we cannot tarry here, We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger, We the youthful

O my breast aches with tender love for all!

See my children, resolute children, By those swarms upon our rear we must never yield or falter, Ages

I too with my soul and body, We, a curious trio, picking, wandering on our way, Through these shores

Whoever you are, now I place my hand upon you, that you be my poem, I whisper with my lips close to your

O I have been dilatory and dumb, I should have made my way straight to you long ago, I should have blabb'd

I paint myriads of heads, but paint no head without its nim- bus nimbus of gold-color'd light, From my

I walk'd the shores of my Eastern sea, Heard over the waves the little voice, Saw the divine infant where

and cogent I maintain the bequeath'd cause, as for all lands, And I send these words to Paris with my

Let me have my own way, Let others promulge the laws, I will make no account of the laws, Let others

I call to the world to distrust the accounts of my friends, but listen to my enemies, as I myself do,

indifferent, but trembling with age and your unheal'd wounds you mounted the scaffold;) I would sing in my

, and singled you out with attachment;) Nor forget I to sing of the wonder, the ship as she swam up my

bay, Well-shaped and stately the Great Eastern swam up my bay, she was 600 feet long, Her moving swiftly

WITH ANTECEDENTS. 1 WITH antecedents, With my fathers and mothers and the accumulations of past ages,

to-day and America could no-how be better than they are. 3 In the name of these States and in your and my

name, the Past, And in the name of these States and in your and my name, the Present time.

salutes, When the fire-flashing guns have fully alerted me, and heaven- clouds heaven-clouds canopy my

To us, my city, Where our tall-topt marble and iron beauties range on opposite sides, to walk in the

See my cantabile!

, I chant the world on my Western sea, I chant copious the islands beyond, thick as stars in the sky,

sail-ships and steam-ships threading the archipelagoes, My stars and stripes fluttering in the wind,

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

Loud I call to you, my love!

who I am, my love.

Hither my love! Here I am! here!

But my mate no more, no more with me! We two together no more.

Fascinated, my eyes reverting from the south, dropt, to follow those slender windrows, Chaff, straw,

O baffled, balk'd, bent to the very earth, Oppress'd with myself that I have dared to open my mouth,

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

sight of the sea taking advantage of me to dart upon me and sting me, Because I have dared to open my

Me and mine, loose windrows, little corpses, Froth, snowy white, and bubbles, (See, from my dead lips

That sport'st amid the lightning-flash and thunder-cloud, In them, in thy experiences, had'st thou my

Weep not, child, Weep not, my darling, With these kisses let me remove your tears, The ravening clouds

Something there is, (With my lips soothing thee, adding I whisper, I give thee the first suggestion,

Of sea-captains young or old, and the mates, and of all intrepid sailors, Of the few, very choice, taciturn

rest, A spiritual woven signal for all nations, emblem of man elate above death, Token of all brave captains

and mates, And all that went down doing their duty, Reminiscent of them, twined from all intrepid captains

And so will some one when I am dead and gone write my life?

(As if any man really knew aught of my life, Why even I myself I often think know little or nothing of

my real life, Only a few hints, a few diffused faint clews and indirections I seek for my own use to

Beginning My Studies. BEGINNING MY STUDIES.

BEGINNING my studies the first step pleas'd me so much, The mere fact consciousness, these forms, the

aplomb in the midst of irrational things, Imbued as they, passive, receptive, silent as they, Finding my

woods or of any farm-life of these States or of the coast, or the lakes or Kanada Canada , Me wherever my

minute, Thither every-day life, speech, utensils, politics, persons, estates; Thither we also, I with my

well-fill'd shelves, yet needed most, I bring, Forth from the war emerging, a book I have made, The words of my

rais'd by a perfect mother, After roaming many lands, lover of populous pavements, Dweller in Mannahatta my

, Or rude in my home in Dakota's woods, my diet meat, my drink from the spring, Or withdrawn to muse

place with my own day here.

My comrade!

my intrepid nations! O I at any rate include you all with perfect love!

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

My ties and ballasts leave me, my elbows rest in sea-gaps, I skirt sierras, my palms cover continents

We closed with him, the yards entangled, the cannon touch'd, My captain lash'd fast with his own hands

Now I laugh content, for I hear the voice of my little captain, We have not struck, he composedly cries

My lovers suffocate me, Crowding my lips, thick in the pores of my skin, Jostling me through streets

daughters, sons, preluding, The love, the life of their bodies, meaning and being, Curious here behold my

cycles in their wide sweep having brought me again, Amorous, mature, all beautiful to me, all wondrous, My

wondrous, Existing I peer and penetrate still, Content with the present, content with the past, By my

I were nothing, From what I am determin'd to make illustrious, even if I stand sole among men, From my

at random, Renascent with grossest Nature or among animals, Of that, of them and what goes with them my

The oath of the inseparableness of two together, of the woman that loves me and whom I love more than my

the right person not near, From the soft sliding of hands over me and thrusting of fingers through my

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

As I see my soul reflected in Nature, As I see through a mist, One with inexpressible completeness, sanity

For they do not conceal themselves, and cannot conceal themselves. 9 O my body!

likes of the soul, (and that they are the soul,) I believe the likes of you shall stand or fall with my

poems, and that they are my poems, Man's, woman's, child's, youth's, wife's, husband's, mother's, father's

It is I, you women, I make my way, I am stern, acrid, large, undissuadable, but I love you, I do not

babes I beget upon you are to beget babes in their turn, I shall demand perfect men and women out of my

SPONTANEOUS me, Nature, The loving day, the mounting sun, the friend I am happy with, The arm of my friend

hanging idly over my shoulder, The hillside whiten'd with blossoms of the mountain ash, The same late

and glued together with love, Earth of chaste love, life that is only life after love, The body of my

trembling encircling fingers, the young man all color'd, red, ashamed, angry; The souse upon me of my

greed that eats me day and night with hungry gnaw, till I saturate what shall produce boys to fill my

What do my shouts amid lightnings and raging winds mean?)

(I bequeath them to you my children, I tell them to you, for reasons, O bridegroom and bride.)

To rise thither with my inebriate soul! To be lost if it must be so!

Now we have met, we have look'd, we are safe, Return in peace to the ocean my love, I too am part of

that ocean my love, we are not so much sepa- rated separated , Behold the great rondure, the cohesion

little space—know you I salute the air, the ocean and the land, Every day at sundown for your dear sake my