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my blue veins leaving! O drops of me!

, from me falling—drip, bleeding drops, From wounds made to free you whence you were prison'd, From my

face—from my forehead and lips, From my breast—from within where I was conceal'd —press forth, red drops—confession

in the room where I eat or sleep, I should be satisfied; And if the corpse of any one I love, or if my

nor the bright win- dows windows , with goods in them; Nor to converse with learn'd persons, or bear my

your fre- quent frequent and swift flash of eyes offering me love, Offering response to my own—these

BEHOLD this swarthy face, this unrefined face—these gray eyes, This beard—the white wool, unclipt upon my

neck, My brown hands, and the silent manner of me, with- out without charm; Yet comes one, a Manhattanese

leaves upon it, and twined around it a little moss, And brought it away—and I have placed it in sight in my

room; It is not needed to remind me as of my own dear friends, (For I believe lately I think of little

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,

; 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 strongest-lasting : Here I shade down and

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

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?

My Likeness! EARTH! MY LIKENESS! EARTH! my likeness!

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.

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

That Shadow, My Likeness THAT SHADOW, MY LIKENESS.

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.

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

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-beloved, 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

F2 I have run through what any river or strait of the globe has run through; I have taken my stand on

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

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

WHO learns my lesson complete?

as every one is immortal; I know it is wonderful—but my eye-sight is equally wonderful, and how I was

conceived in my mother's womb is equally wonderful; And pass'd from a babe, in the creeping trance of

And that my Soul embraces you this hour, and we affect each other without ever seeing each other, and

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

paint myriads of heads, but paint no head with- out without its nimbus of gold-color'd light; From my

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!

WITH antecedents; With my fathers and mothers, and the accumulations of past ages; With all which, had

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.

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

walks home late at night, or as I lay in my bed, they came upon me.

; That I was, I knew was of my body—and what I should be, I knew I should be of my body.

, My river and sun-set, and my scallop-edg'd waves of flood-tide, The sea-gulls oscillating their bodies

face, Which fuses me into you now, and pours my meaning into you.

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

my brother or my sister! Keep on!

A SIGHT in camp in the day-break grey and dim, As from my tent I emerge so early, sleepless, As slow

Who are you, my dear comrade? Then to the second I step—And who are you, my child and darling?

AS TOILSOME I wander'd Virginia's woods, To the music of rustling leaves, kick'd by my feet, (for 'twas

this sign left, On a tablet scrawl'd and nail'd on the tree by the grave, Bold, cautious, true, and my

Long, long I muse, then on my way go wandering; Many a changeful season to follow, and many a scene of

the unknown soldier's grave—comes the inscription rude in Virginia's woods, Bold, cautious, true, and my

the air I breathed froze me; A thick gloom fell through the sunshine and darken'd me; Must I change my

said I to my- self myself ; Must I indeed learn to chant the cold dirges of the baf- fled baffled ?

2 O maidens and young men I love, and that love me, What you ask of my days, those the strangest and

without noise, and be of strong heart.) 3 Bearing the bandages, water and sponge, Straight and swift to my

knee, the wound in the abdo- men abdomen ; These and more I dress with impassive hand—(yet deep in my

a fire, a burning flame.) 5 Thus in silence, in dreams' projections, Returning, resuming, I thread my

world, a rural domestic life; Give me to warble spontaneous songs, reliev'd, recluse by myself, for my

excitement, and rack'd by the war-strife;) These to procure, incessantly asking, rising in cries from my

heart, While yet incessantly asking, still I adhere to my city; Day upon day, and year upon year, O

enrich'd of soul—you give me forever faces; (O I see what I sought to escape, confronting, reversing my

cries; I see my own soul trampling down what it ask'd for.) 2 Keep your splendid, silent sun; Keep your

O my soldiers twain! O my veterans, passing to burial!

have I also give you. 9 The moon gives you light, And the bugles and the drums give you music; And my

heart, O my soldiers, my veterans, My heart gives you love.

WHILE my wife at my side lies slumbering, and the wars are over long, And my head on the pillow rests

vacant midnight passes, And through the stillness, through the dark, I hear, just hear, the breath of my

with eager calls, and orders of officers; While from some distant part of the field the wind wafts to my

or near, (rousing, even in dreams, a devilish exultation, and all the old mad joy, in the depths of my

galloping by, or on a full run; With the patter of small arms, the warning s-s-t of the rifles, (these in my

Death and Night, inces- santly 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

Ere, departing, fade from my eyes your forests of bayo- nets bayonets ; Spirit of gloomiest fears and

steps keep time: —Spirit of hours I knew, all hectic red one day, but pale as death next day; Touch my

mouth, ere you depart—press my lips close!

Let them scorch and blister out of my chants, when you are gone; Let them identify you to the future,

glance upward out of this page, studying you, dear friend, whoever you are;) How solemn the thought of my

trod, calling, I sing, for the last; (Not cities, nor man alone, nor war, nor the dead, But forth from my

vistas beyond—to the south and the north; To the leaven'd soil of the general western world, to attest my

Northern ice and rain, that began me, nourish me to the end; But the hot sun of the South is to ripen my

Features of my equals, would you trick me with your creas'd and cadaverous march?

I saw the face of the most smear'd and slobbering idiot they had at the asylum; And I knew for my consolation

what they knew not; I knew of the agents that emptied and broke my brother, The same wait to clear the

pickets, Come here, she blushingly cries—Come nigh to me, lim-ber-hipp'dlimber-hipp'd man, Stand at my

upon you, Fill me with albescent honey, bend down to me, Rub to me with your chafing beard, rub to my

That, O my brethren—that is the mission of Poets.

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

I swear I will have each quality of my race in my- self myself , (Talk as you like, he only suits These

rapt verse, my call—mock me not!

You, by my charm, I invoke!

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

2 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!

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

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

and let one line of my poems contra- dict contradict another!

tain-high mountain-high ; Brazen effrontery, scheming, rolling like ocean's waves around and upon you, O my

my lands!

Let him who is without my poems be assassinated!

Then my realities; What else is so real as mine?

done and gone, we remain; There is no final reliance but upon us; Democracy rests finally upon us, (I, my

Weave In, Weave In, My Hardy Life. WEAVE IN, WEAVE IN, MY HARDY LIFE. WEAVE in!

weave in, my hardy life!

O the sun of the world will ascend, dazzling, and take his height—and you too, O my Ideal, will surely

O lips of my soul, already becoming powerless! O ample and grand Presidentiads!

(I must not venture—the ground under my feet men- aces menaces me—it will not support me: O future too

the still woods I loved; I will not go now on the pastures to walk; I will not strip the clothes from my

body to meet my lover the sea; I will not touch my flesh to the earth, as to other flesh, to renew me

and meat; I do not see any of it upon you to-day—or perhaps I am deceiv'd; I will run a furrow with my

plough—I will press my spade through the sod, and turn it up under- neath underneath ; I am sure I shall

transparent green-wash of the sea, which is so amorous after me, That it is safe to allow it to lick my

that was not the end of those nations, or any person of them, any more than this shall be the end of my

I WAS asking for something specific and perfect for my city, Whereupon, lo!

there is in a name, a word, liquid, sane, unruly, musical, self-sufficient; I see that the word of my

my city! The city of such women, I am mad to be with them!

—at last I accept your terms; Bringing to practical, vulgar tests, of all my ideal dreams, And of me,

Covering all my lands! all my sea-shores lining! Flag of death!

Ah my silvery beauty! ah my woolly white and crim- son crimson !

Ah to sing the song of you, my matron mighty! My sacred one, my mother.

O my father, It is so broad, it covers the whole sky! FATHER.

now the halyards have rais'd it, Side of my banner broad and blue—side of my starry banner, Discarding

eastern shore, and my western shore the same; And all between those shores, and my ever-running Mississippi

, with bends and chutes; And my Illinois fields, and my Kansas fields, and my fields of Missouri; The

My limbs, my veins dilate; The blood of the world has fill'd me full—my theme is clear at last: —Banner

to me, As, under doughty Sherman, I march toward the sea.) 3 Me, master, years a hundred, since from my

such-like, visible here or any- where anywhere , stand provided for in a handful of space, which I extend my

arm and half enclose with my hand; That contains the start of each and all—the virtue, the germs of