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Search : of captain, my captain!

8125 results

Salut Au Monde!

  • Date: 1860–1861
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
Text:

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

My spirit has passed in compassion and determination around the whole earth, I have looked for equals

Poem of Joys

  • Date: 1860–1861
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
Text:

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

stretch of my life.

is my mind!

O the real life of my senses and flesh, transcending my senses and flesh; O my body, done with materials—my

O to have my life henceforth my poem of joys!

A Word Out of the Sea

  • Date: 1860–1861
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
Text:

Loud I call to you my love!

am, my love.

Hither, my love! Here I am! Here!

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

steadily up to my ears, Death, Death, Death, Death, Death.

Leaf of Faces

  • Date: 1860–1861
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
Text:

Features of my equals, would you trick me with your creased and cadaverous march?

I saw the face of the most smeared and slobbering idiot they had at the asylum, And I knew for my consolation

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

she blushingly cries—Come nigh to me, limber-hipp'd man, and give me your finger and thumb, Stand at my

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

Enfans D'adam 1

  • Date: 1860–1861
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
Text:

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

wide sweep, having brought me again, Amorous, mature—all beautiful to me—all won- drous wondrous , My

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

Enfans D'adam 2

  • Date: 1860–1861
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
Text:

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

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

, (To talk to the perfect girl who understands me—the girl of The States, To waft to her these from my

own lips—to effuse them from my own body;) From privacy—From frequent repinings alone, From plenty of

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

Enfans D'adam 3

  • Date: 1860–1861
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
Text:

O MY children! O mates!

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 com- pleteness

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

Enfans D'adam 4

  • Date: 1860–1861
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
Text:

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

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

Enfans D'adam 5

  • Date: 1860–1861
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
Text:

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

over my shoulder, The hill-side whitened with blossoms of the mountain ash, The same, late in autumn—the

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

and trembling encircling fingers—the young man all colored, 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

Enfans D'adam 6

  • Date: 1860–1861
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
Text:

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.)

(Know, I am a man, attracting, at any time, her I but look upon, or touch with the tips of my fingers

, Or that touches my face, or leans against me.)

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

Enfans D'adam 8

  • Date: 1860–1861
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
Text:

Give me the drench of my passions! Give me life coarse and rank!

dancers, and drink with the drink- ers drinkers , The echoes ring with our indecent calls, I take for my

love some prostitute—I pick out some low person for my dearest friend, He shall be lawless, rude, illiterate—he

one condemned by others for deeds done; I will play a part no longer—Why should I exile myself from my

Enfans D'adam 9

  • Date: 1860–1861
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
Text:

ONCE I passed through a populous city, imprinting my brain, for future use, with its shows, architec-

Enfans D'adam 10

  • Date: 1860–1861
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
Text:

over waves, toward the house of maternity, the land of migrations, look afar, Look off the shores of my

Enfans D'adam 12

  • Date: 1860–1861
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
Text:

Deliriate, thus prelude what is generated, offering these, offering myself, Bathing myself, bathing my

songs in sex, Offspring of my loins.

Unfolded Out of the Folds.

  • Date: 1891–1892
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
Text:

body, Unfolded only out of the inimitable poems of woman can come the poems of man, (only thence have my

What Am I After All.

  • Date: 1891–1892
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
Text:

WHAT am I after all but a child, pleas'd with the sound of my own name?

Who Learns My Lesson Complete?

  • Date: 1891–1892
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
Text:

Who Learns My Lesson Complete? WHO LEARNS MY LESSON COMPLETE? WHO learns my lesson complete?

as every one is im- mortal immortal ; I know it is wonderful, but my eyesight 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

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

The Torch.

  • Date: 1891–1892
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
Text:

ON my Northwest coast in the midst of the night a fishermen's group stands watching, Out on the lake

O Star of France.

  • Date: 1891–1892
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
Text:

Dim smitten star, Orb not of France alone, pale symbol of my soul, its dearest hopes, The struggle and

The Ox-Tamer.

  • Date: 1891–1892
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
Text:

IN a far-away northern county in the placid pastoral region, Lives my farmer friend, the theme of my

appears to them, (books, politics, poems, depart—all else departs,) I confess I envy only his fascination—my

Wandering at Morn.

  • Date: 1891–1892
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
Text:

WANDERING at morn, Emerging from the night from gloomy thoughts, thee in my thoughts, Yearning for thee

Thee coil'd in evil times my country, with craft and black dismay, with every meanness, treason thrust

its young, The singing thrush whose tones of joy and faith ecstatic, Fail not to certify and cheer my

If vermin so transposed, so used and bless'd may be, Then may I trust in you, your fortunes, days, my

My Picture-Gallery.

  • Date: 1891–1892
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
Text:

My Picture-Gallery. MY PICTURE-GALLERY.

Proud Music of the Storm.

  • Date: 1891–1892
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
Text:

bugle-calls, Trooping tumultuous, filling the midnight late, bending me power- less powerless , Entering my

2 Come forward O my soul, and let the rest retire, Listen, lose not, it is toward thee they tend, Parting

the midnight, entering my slumber-chamber, For thee they sing and dance O soul.

cannot tell itself.) 3 Ah from a little child, Thou knowest soul how to me all sounds became music, My

6 Then I woke softly, And pausing, questioning awhile the music of my dream, And questioning all those

Passage to India.

  • Date: 1891–1892
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
Text:

PASSAGE TO INDIA. 1 SINGING my days, Singing the great achievements of the present, Singing the strong

Struggles of many a captain, tales of many a sailor dead, Over my mood stealing and spreading they come

of you strong mountains of my land! Of you O prairies! of you gray rocks! O morning red! O clouds!

the blood burns in my veins! Away O soul! hoist instantly the anchor!

O my brave soul! O farther farther sail! O daring joy, but safe! are they not all the seas of God?

Prayer of Columbus.

  • Date: 1891–1892
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
Text:

Thou knowest my years entire, my life, My long and crowded life of active work, not adoration merely;

Thou knowest the prayers and vigils of my youth, Thou knowest my manhood's solemn and visionary meditations

All my emprises have been fill'd with Thee, My speculations, plans, begun and carried on in thoughts

, I yield my ships to Thee.

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

The Sleepers.

  • Date: 1891–1892
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
Text:

THE SLEEPERS. 1 I WANDER all night in my vision, Stepping with light feet, swiftly and noiselessly stepping

I stand in the dark with drooping eyes by the worst-suffering and the most restless, I pass my hands

He whom I call answers me and takes the place of my lover, He rises with me silently from the bed.

. 2 I descend my western course, my sinews are flaccid, Perfume and youth course through me and I am

darn my grandson's stockings.

Chanting the Square Deific.

  • Date: 1891–1892
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
Text:

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

Of Him I Love Day and Night.

  • Date: 1891–1892
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
Text:

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

Yet, Yet, Ye Downcast Hours.

  • Date: 1891–1892
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
Text:

YET, yet, ye downcast hours, I know ye also, Weights of lead, how ye clog and cling at my ankles, Earth

Despairing cries float ceaselessly toward me, The call of my nearest lover, putting forth, alarm'd, uncertain

, The sea I am quickly to sail, come tell me, Come tell me where I am speeding, tell me my destination

A Noiseless Patient Spider.

  • Date: 1891–1892
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
Text:

And you O my soul where you stand, Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space, Ceaselessly

need be form'd, till the ductile anchor hold, Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my

To One Shortly to Die.

  • Date: 1891–1892
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
Text:

Softly I lay my right hand upon you, you just feel it, I do not argue, I bend my head close and half

Night on the Prairies.

  • Date: 1891–1892
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
Text:

arrive, or pass'd on farther than those of the earth, I henceforth no more ignore them than I ignore my

Thought.

  • Date: 1891–1892
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
Text:

AS I sit with others at a great feast, suddenly while the music is playing, To my mind, (whence it comes

Thou Mother With Thy Equal Brood.

  • Date: 1891–1892
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
Text:

thee, And royal feudal Europe sails with thee. 5 Beautiful world of new superber birth that rises to my

(Lo, where arise three peerless stars, To be thy natal stars my country, Ensemble, Evolution, Freedom

Thou Orb Aloft Full-Dazzling.

  • Date: 1891–1892
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
Text:

my special word to thee. Hear me illustrious!

wood edge, thy touching-distant beams enough, Or man matured, or young or old, as now to thee I launch my

launch thy subtle dazzle and thy strength for these, Prepare the later afternoon of me myself—prepare my

lengthen- ing lengthening shadows, Prepare my starry nights.

Faces.

  • Date: 1891–1892
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
Text:

This face owes to the sexton his dismalest fee, An unceasing death-bell tolls there. 3 Features of my

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

near the garden pickets, Come here she blushingly cries, Come nigh to me limber-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

The Mystic Trumpeter.

  • Date: 1891–1892
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
Text:

refreshing night the walks of Paradise, I scent the grass, the moist air and the roses; Thy song expands my

and for my sensuous eyes, Bring the old pageants, show the feudal world.

the terrible tableaus. 7 O trumpeter, methinks I am myself the instrument thou playest, Thou melt'st my

heart, my brain—thou movest, drawest, chan- gest changest them at will; And now thy sullen notes send

soul, renew its languishing faith and hope, Rouse up my slow belief, give me some vision of the future

To a Locomotive in Winter.

  • Date: 1891–1892
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
Text:

THEE for my recitative, Thee in the driving storm even as now, the snow, the winter-day declining, Thee

Roll through my chant with all thy lawless music, thy swinging lamps at night, Thy madly-whistled laughter

O Magnet-South.

  • Date: 1891–1892
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
Text:

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

O dear to me my birth-things—all moving things and the trees where I was born—the grains, plants, rivers

, Dear to me my own slow sluggish rivers where they flow, distant, over flats of silvery sands or through

, the Tombigbee, the Santee, the Coosa and the Sabine, O pensive, far away wandering, I return with my

parrots in the woods, I see the papaw-tree and the blos- soming blossoming titi; Again, sailing in my

Mannahatta.

  • Date: 1891–1892
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
Text:

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!

Enfans D'adam 15

  • Date: 1860–1861
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
Text:

EARLY in the morning, Walking forth from the bower, refreshed with sleep, Behold me where I pass—hear my

voice—approach, Touch me—touch the palm of your hand to my body as I pass, Be not afraid of my body.

Poem of the Road

  • Date: 1860–1861
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
Text:

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 sun-light 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. Allons! Be not detained!

I give you my hand!

To the Sayers of Words

  • Date: 1860–1861
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
Text:

shame or the need of shame. 28* Air, soil, water, fire, these are words, I myself am a word with them—my

qualities inter- penetrate 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

Calamus 1

  • Date: 1860–1861
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
Text:

hitherto published—from the pleasures, profits, conformities, Which too long I was offering to feed to my

Soul Clear to me now, standards not yet published— clear to me that my Soul, That the Soul of the man

substantial life, Bequeathing, hence, types of athletic love, 29* Afternoon, this delicious Ninth Month, in my

forty- first year, I proceed, for all who are, or have been, young men, To tell the secret of my nights

Calamus 2

  • Date: 1860–1861
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
Text:

SCENTED herbage of my breast, Leaves from you I yield, I write, to be perused best afterwards, Tomb-leaves

O blossoms of my blood!

O I think it is not for life I am chanting here my chant of lovers—I think it must be for Death, For

Grow up out of my breast! Spring away from the concealed heart there!

Do not remain down there so ashamed, herbage of my breast!

Calamus 3

  • Date: 1860–1861
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
Text:

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

Calamus 4

  • Date: 1860–1861
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
Text:

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

Calamus 5

  • Date: 1860–1861
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
Text:

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

Calamus 6

  • Date: 1860–1861
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
Text:

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.

Calamus 7

  • Date: 1860–1861
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
Text:

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

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