Search Results

COME closer to me, Push closer, my lovers, and take the best I possess, Yield closer and closer, and

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

become so for your sake, If you remember your foolish and outlawed 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

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

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 me flies, suspended,

, futurity, In space, the sporades, the scattered islands, the stars —on the firm earth, the lands, my

less in myself than the whole of the Manna- hatta 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

dear brothers' and sisters' sake, for the soul's sake, Wending my way through the homes of men, rich

words, mine only, Young and strong I pass knowing well I am destin'd myself to an early death; But my

charity has no death—my wisdom dies not, neither early nor late, And my sweet love bequeath'd here and

of reminiscences, brooding, with many wiles, (Though it was thought I was baffled and dispel'd, and my

side, warlike, equal with any, real as any, Nor time nor change shall ever change me or my words. 4

dear brothers' and sisters' sake, for the soul's sake, Wending my way through the homes of men, rich

words, mine only, Young and strong I pass knowing well I am destin'd myself to an early death; But my

charity has no death—my wisdom dies not, neither early nor late, And my sweet love bequeath'd here and

of reminiscences, brooding, with many wiles, (Though it was thought I was baffled and dispel'd, and my

side, warlike, equal with any, real as any, Nor time nor change shall ever change me or my words. 4

dear brothers' and sisters' sake—for the soul's sake; Wending my way through the homes of men, rich

children—with fresh and sane words, mine only; Young and strong I pass, knowing well I am destin'd my

- self myself to an early death: But my Charity has no death—my Wisdom dies not, neither early nor late

, And my sweet Love, bequeath'd here and elsewhere, never dies. 3 Aloof, dissatisfied, plotting revolt

side, warlike, equal with any, real as any, Nor time, nor change, shall ever change me or my words.

.; Reprinted in Good-Bye My Fancy (1891).; Published with the subtitle "For unknown buried soldiers,

Revised and reprinted in Good-Bye My Fancy (1891).

My Soul and I: The Inner Life of Walt Whitman. Boston: Beacon, 1985.Dougherty, James.

Why do you tremble, and clutch my hand so convul- sively convulsively ?

Aye, this is the ground; My blind eyes, even as I speak, behold it re-peopled from graves; The years

night of that, mist lifting, rain ceasing, Silent as a ghost, while they thought they were sure of him, my

him at the river-side, Down by the ferry, lit by torches, hastening the embar- cation embarcation ; My

But when my General pass'd me, As he stood in his boat, and look'd toward the coming sun, I saw something

Why do you tremble and clutch my hand so convulsively?

Aye, this is the ground, My blind eyes even as I speak behold it re-peopled from graves, The years recede

That and here my General's first battle, No women looking on nor sunshine to bask in, it did not conclude

I saw him at the river-side, Down by the ferry lit by torches, hastening the embarcation; My General

But when my General pass'd me, As he stood in his boat and look'd toward the coming sun, I saw something

Why do you tremble, and clutch my hand so convul- sively convulsively ?

Aye, this is the ground; My blind eyes, even as I speak, behold it re-peopled from graves: The years

night of that, mist lifting, rain ceasing, Silent as a ghost, while they thought they were sure of him, my

him at the river-side, Down by the ferry, lit by torches, hastening the embar- cation embarcation ; My

But when my General pass'd me, As he stood in his boat, and look'd toward the coming sun, I saw something

Why do you tremble and clutch my hand so convulsively?

Aye, this is the ground, My blind eyes even as I speak behold it re-peopled from graves, The years recede

That and here my General's first battle, No women looking on nor sunshine to bask in, it did not conclude

I saw him at the river-side, Down by the ferry lit by torches, hastening the embarcation; My General

But when my General pass'd me, As he stood in his boat and look'd toward the coming sun, I saw something

Troy March 7th 65 Your last letter from Washington in the paper lying on my lap—Your book in the hands

of my friend Lucy who sits there by the window reading it in the morning sunshine.

So anyway I thought you wd. like to know that we here (my boys & we masters) had been reading yr.

For my boys & colleagues truly yours Cecil Reddie. Cecil Reddie to Walt Whitman, 14 June 1891

Whitman: "Because you have, as it were, given me a ground for the love of men I thank you continually in my

Ferry" in her novel Alexander's Bridge (1912), to Whitman's doctrine of the "open road" in her novel My

"The Doctrine of the Open Road in My Ántonia." Approaches to Teaching Cather's "My Ántonia." Ed.

The Johns Hopkins University holds one Whitman poetry manuscript (a handwritten version of O Captain!

My Captain!)

White Hall, Ky. 7-9-1887 My dear Mr.

I enclose my address at Yale University delivered before the Alumni & whole College .

As but 15 minutes were allowed, I have barely been able to state my views without discussion.

I have but the moment to return you my thanks—I wish you all happiness. Truly C. M.

Jan. 6. 1891 Dear Sir, I have just received your "Leaves of Grass &c." 1890—for which accept my thanks

criticism . . . after full retrospect of his works and life, the aforesaid 'odd-kind chiel' remains to my

Perryville—Md Feb. 12/90 My dear Mr Whitman You will, no doubt be surprised, when you see the signature

I have often been tempted to write you—to thank you for your kindness in writing to my boy —far away

He examined his own experience in My Days and Dreams (1890).

Oh, my God! my God!"

Oh, my divine Redeemer! Oh, my Friend, my Saviour!"

own husband, my first, my only love, my love forever!

"O my God—my boy George!"

boy, my George; my saved and ransomed George; my son, my son!

Whitman: "Because you have, as it were, given me a ground for the love of men I thank you continually in my

shame or the need of shame. 2 Air, soil, water, fire—these are words; I myself am a word with them—my

qualities interpene- trate 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

CAROL OF OCCUPATIONS. 1 COME closer to me; Push close, my lovers, and take the best I possess!

Neither a servant nor a master am I; I take no sooner a large price than a small price—I will have my

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!

A carol closing sixty-nine—a résumé—a repetition, My lines in joy and hope continuing on the same, Of

ye, O God, Life, Nature, Freedom, Poetry; Of you, my Land—your rivers, prairies, States—you, mottled

entire—Of north, south, east and west, your items all; Of me myself—the jocund heart yet beating in my

, old, poor and paralyzed—the strange inertia falling pall-like round me, The burning fires down in my

May 7, '90 Walt Whitman My dear Friend How best can I introduce myself to you?

And then I read the Leaves of Grass and met my dearest friend!

I will write again if my disjointed rhapsodies are bearable and I hope to come down and see you very

bribed to swap off with touch, and go and graze at the edges of me, / No consideration, no regard for my

draining strength or my anger" (1855, p. 33).; 22; Transcribed from digital images of the original.;

Was born May 31, 1819, in my father'sfarm-house, atWest Hills,L. I., sailor— on my New York State.

My parents' folks mostly farmers and father'sside, of English — on my mother's,.

hands,my limbsgrow nerveless, My brainfeelrack'd,bewilder'd.

It was for this and for no lesserreason that he was, able to hail Lincoln as "My Captain."

In the " presence of calamity he sobs, as a child, Oh my Captain my Father !"

gossiping in the candle light" that resonates with the beginning of the second paragraph of the article My

included Two Rivulets, a collection of prose and poetry that Whitman hoped would "set the key-stone to my

to the President at the levee, And he says Good-day, my brother!

Not in this beating & pounding at my temples & wrists, O pulse of my life!

See the pastures and forests in my poems.

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

stretch of my life.— I will duly pass the day, O my mother!

Philadelphia, May 12 189 1 Dear Walt Whitman, I hand you my check for the precious book into which you

Dear Walt I am going to try and write you a few lines this morning, but you must overlook my poor composition

also my writing, for I am very weak and my mind is not as it was before I was sun stroke .

My Sister and also my friends are very anxious to see and to read your Leaves of Grass and I hope they

able to be proped up in bed and able to write to my true friend and comrade.

My Sister Mary says when I go back to war she shall write to you.

I do not know but you think me rather neglectful in my writing to you but if you knew the pain that I

have in my head, the whole of the time you would not think hard of me.

Walt—I am sorry that I am as feeble, and that my friends and likewise my Doctor think that I never shall

lying in my pathway and I can not seem to remove them nor hide them from my mind, I have tried to look

I feel she has saved me, in the worst of my sickness she hardly left my room how often have I thought

heavy-hearted, Hours of the dusk, when I withdraw to a lonesome and unfrequented spot, seating myself, leaning my

face in my hands; Hours sleepless, deep in the night, when I go forth, speeding swiftly the country

(I am ashamed—but it is useless—I am what I am;) Hours of my torment—I wonder if other men ever have

Then my lands engrossed me—Lands of the prairies, Ohio's land, the southern savannas, engrossed me—For

to enclose all, it came to me to strike up the songs of the New World—And then I be- lieved believed my

knowledge, and the grandeur of The States, and the example of heroes, no more, I am indifferent to my

aught of them;) May-be they only seem to me what they are, (as doubtless they indeed but seem,) as from my

from entirely changed points of view; To me, these, and the like of these, are curiously answered by my

lovers, my dear friends; When he whom I love travels with me, or sits a long while holding me by the

appearances, or that of identity beyond the grave, But I walk or sit indifferent—I am satisfied, He ahold of my

NOT heaving from my ribbed breast only, Not in sighs at night, in rage, dissatisfied with myself, Not

in those long-drawn, ill-suppressed sighs, Not in many an oath and promise broken, Not in my wilful

savage soul's volition, Not in the subtle nourishment of the air, Not in this beating and pounding at my

sleep, Nor the other murmurs of these incredible dreams of every day, Nor in the limbs and senses of my

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

There shall from me be a new friendship—It shall be called after my name, It shall circulate through

other shall be invincible, They shall finally make America completely victo- rious victorious , in my

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

HERE my last words, and the most baffling, Here the frailest leaves of me, and yet my strongest- lasting

, Here I shade down and hide my thoughts—I do not expose them, And yet they expose me more than all my

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

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

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

lovers, and carolling my songs, O I never doubt whether that is really me.

and then in the silence, Alone I had thought—yet soon a silent troop gathers around me, Some walk by my

side, and some behind, and some embrace my arms or neck, They, the spirits of friends, dead or alive—thicker

lilac, with a branch of pine, Here, out of my pocket, some moss which I pulled off a live-oak in Florida

is certain, one way or another, Doubtless I could not have perceived the universe, or written one of my

PRIMEVAL my love for the woman I love, O bride ! O wife !

Then separate, as disembodied, the purest born, The 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.

my likeness!

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

Who is he that would become my follower?

Who would sign himself a candidate for my affec- tions affections ? Are you he?

doned abandoned ; Therefore release me now, before troubling yourself any further—Let go your hand from my

it, Nor do those know me best who admire me, and vauntingly praise me, Nor will the candidates for my

love, (unless at most a very few,) prove victorious, Nor will my poems do good only—they will do just

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

own lands, It seems to me they are as wise, beautiful, benevolent, as any in my own lands; O I know

or a girl with me, I ate with you, and slept with you—your body has become not yours only, nor left my

body mine only, You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as we pass—you take of my beard,