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Leaves of grass. (1861-1861)

Whitman, Walt (1819-1892)

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Proto-Leaf.
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WALT WHITMAN.
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CHANTS DEMOCRATIC AND NATIVE AMERICAN.
  
Apostroph.
 1. 
[1. A nation announcing itself, (many in one,)]
 2. 
[2. Broad-axe, shapely, naked, wan!]
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[3. Come closer to me]
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[4. America always!]
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[5. Respondez! Respondez!]
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[6. You just maturing youth! You male or female!]
 7. 
[7. With antecedents]
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[8. Splendor of falling day, floating and filling me]
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[9. A thought of what I am here for]
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[10. Historian! you who celebrate bygones!]
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[11. The thought of fruitage]
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[12. To oratists—to male or female]
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[13. Laws for Creations]
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[14. Poets to come!]
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[15. Who has gone farthest? For I swear I will go farther]
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[16. They shall arise in the States—mediums shall]
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[17. Now we start hence, I with the rest, on our journeys through The States]
 18. 
[18. Me imperturbe]
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[19. I was looking a long while for the history of the past for myself, and for these Chants—and now I have found it,]
 20. 
[20. American mouth-songs!]
 21. 
[21. As I walk, solitary, unattended]
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Leaves of Grass.
 1. 
[1. Elemental drifts!]
 2. 
[2. Great are the myths—I too delight in them]
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[3. A young man came to me with a message from his brother]
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[4. Something startles me where I thought I was safest]
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[5. All day I have walked the city, and talked with my friends, and thought of prudence]
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[6. Perfect sanity shows the master among philosophs]
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[7. I need no assurances—I am a man who is preoccupied, of his own Soul]
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[8. What shall I give? and which are my miracles?]
 9. 
[9. There was a child went forth every day]
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[10. It is ended—I dally no more]
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[11. Who learns my lesson complete?]
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[12. This night I am happy]
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[13. O bitter sprig! Confession sprig!]
 14. 
[14. Unfolded out of the folds of the woman, man comes unfolded, as is always to come unfolded]
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[15. Night on the Prairies]
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[16. Sea-water, and all living below it]
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[17. I sit and look out upon all the sorrows of the world, and upon all oppression and shame]
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[18. O me, man of slack faith so long!]
 19. 
[19. Forms, qualities, lives, humanity, language, thoughts]
 20. 
[20. So far, and so far, and on toward the end]
 21. 
[21. Now I make a leaf of Voices—for I have found nothing mightier than they are]
 22. 
[22. What am I, after all, but a child, pleased with the sound of my own name? repeating it over and over]
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[23. Locations and times—what is it in me that meets them all, whenever and wherever, and makes me at home?]
 24. 
[24. Lift me close to your face till I whisper]
  
Salut au Monde!
  
Poem of Joys.
  
A WORD OUT OF THE SEA.
  
REMINISCENCE.
  
LEAF OF FACES.
  
EUROPE, The 72d and 73d Years of These States.
  
THOUGHT.
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Enfans d' Adam.
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[1. To the garden, the world, anew ascending]
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[2. From that of myself, without which I were nothing]
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[3. O my children! O mates!]
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[4. A woman waits for me—she contains all, nothing is lacking]
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[5. Spontaneous me, Nature]
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[6. O furious! O confine me not!]
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[7. You and I—what the earth is, we are]
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[8. Native moments! when you come upon me—Ah you are here now!]
 9. 
[9. Once I passed through a populous city, imprinting my brain, for future use, with its shows, architecture, customs, and traditions]
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[10. Inquiring, tireless, seeking that yet unfound]
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[11. In the new garden, in all the parts]
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[12. Ages and ages, returning at intervals]
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[13. O hymen! O hymenee!]
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[14. I am he that aches with love]
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[15. Early in the morning]
  
POEM OF THE ROAD.
  
TO THE SAYERS OF WORDS.
  
A BOSTON BALLAD, The 78th Year of These States.
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CALAMUS.
 1. 
[1. In paths untrodden]
 2. 
[2. Scented herbage of my breast]
 3. 
[3. Whoever you are holding me now in hand]
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[4. These I, singing in spring, collect for lovers]
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[5. States!]
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[6. Not heaving from my ribbed breast only]
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[7. Of the terrible question of appearances]
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[8. Long I thought that knowledge alone would suffice me—O if I could but obtain knowledge!]
 9. 
[9. Hours continuing long, sore and heavy-hearted]
 10. 
[10. You bards of ages hence! when you refer to me, mind not so much my poems]
 11. 
[11. When I heard at the close of the day how my name had been received with plaudits in the capitol, still it was not a happy night for me that followed]
 12. 
[12. Are you the new person drawn toward me, and asking something significant from me?]
 13. 
[13. Calamus taste]
 14. 
[14. Not heat flames up and consumes]
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[15. O drops of me! trickle, slow drops]
 16. 
[16. Who is now reading this?]
 17. 
[17. Of him I love day and night, I dreamed I heard he was dead]
 18. 
[18. City of my walks and joys!]
 19. 
[19. Mind you the the timid models of the rest, the majority?]
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[20. I saw in Louisiana a live-oak growing]
 21. 
[21. Music always round me, unceasing, unbeginning—yet long untaught I did not hear]
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[22. Passing stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you]
 23. 
[23. This moment as I sit alone, yearning and thoughtful, it seems to me there are other men in other lands, yearning and thoughtful]
 24. 
[24. I hear it is charged against me that I seek to destroy institutions]
 25. 
[25. The prairie-grass dividing—its own odor breathing]
 26. 
[26. We two boys together clinging]
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[27. O love!]
 28. 
[28. When I peruse the conquered fame of heroes, and the victories of mighty generals, I do not envy the generals]
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[29. One flitting glimpse, caught through an interstice]
 30. 
[30. A promise and gift to California]
 31. 
[31. What ship, puzzled at sea, cons for the true reckoning?]
 32. 
[32. What think you I take my pen in hand to record?]
 33. 
[33. No labor-saving machine]
 34. 
[34. I dreamed in a dream, I saw a city invincible to the attacks of the whole of the rest of the earth]
 35. 
[35. To you of New England]
 36. 
[36. Earth! my likeness!]
 37. 
[37. A leaf for hand in hand!]
 38. 
[38. Primeval my love for the woman I love]
 39. 
[39. Sometimes with one I love, I fill myself with rage, for fear I effuse unreturned love]
 40. 
[40. That shadow, my likeness, that goes to and fro, seeking a livelihood, chattering, chaffering]
 41. 
[41. Among the men and women, the multitude, I perceive one picking me out by secret and divine signs]
 42. 
[42. To the young man, many things to absorb, to engraft, to develop, I teach, to help him become élève of mine]
 43. 
[43. O you whom I often and silently come where you are, that I may be with you]
 44. 
[44. Here my last words, and the most baffling]
 45. 
[45. Full of life, sweet-blooded, compact, visible]
  
CROSSING BROOKLYN FERRY.
  
LONGINGS FOR HOME.
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MESSENGER LEAVES.
  
To You, Whoever You Are.
  
To a Foiled Revolter or Revoltress.
  
To Him that was Crucified.
  
To One shortly To Die.
  
To a Common Prostitute.
  
To Rich Givers.
  
To a Pupil.
  
To The States, To Identify the 16th, 17th, or 18th Presidentiad.
  
To a Cantatrice.
  
Walt Whitman's Caution.
  
To a President.
  
To other Lands.
  
To Old Age.
  
To You.
  
To You.
  
MANNAHATTA.
  
FRANCE, The 18th Year of These States.
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THOUGHTS.
 1. 
[1. Of the visages of things—And of piercing through to the accepted hells beneath]
 2. 
[2. Of waters, forests, hills]
 3. 
[3. Of persons arrived at high positions, ceremonies, wealth, scholarships, and the like]
 4. 
[4. Of ownership—As if one fit to own things could not at pleasure enter upon all, and incorporate them into himself or herself]
 5. 
[5. As I sit with others, at a great feast, suddenly, while the music is playing]
 6. 
[6. Of what I write from myself—As if that were not the resumé]
 7. 
[7. Of obedience, faith, adhesiveness]
  
UNNAMED LANDS.
  
KOSMOS.
  
A HAND-MIRROR.
  
BEGINNERS.
  
TESTS.
  
SAVANTISM.
  
PERFECTIONS.
  
SAYS.
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DEBRIS.
  
[He is wisest who has the most caution]
  
[Any thing is as good as established, when that is established that will produce it and continue it]
  
[What General has a good army in himself, has a good army]
  
[Have you learned lessons only of those who admired you, and were tender with you, and stood aside for you?]
  
[Despairing cries float ceaselessly toward me, day and night]
  
[I understand your anguish, but I cannot help you]
  
[A thousand perfect men and women appear]
  
[A mask—a perpetual natural disguiser of herself]
  
[One sweeps by, attended by an immense train]
  
[One sweeps by, old, with black eyes, and profuse white hair]
  
[Three old men slowly pass, followed by three others, and they by three others]
  
[Women sit, or move to and fro—some old, some young]
  
[What weeping face is that looking from the window?]
  
[I will take an egg out of the robin's nest in the orchard]
  
[Behavior—fresh, native, copious, each one for himself or herself]
  
[Not the pilot has charged himself to bring his ship into port, though beaten back, and many times baffled]
  
[I thought I was not alone, walking here by the shore]
  
SLEEP-CHASINGS.
  
BURIAL.
  
TO MY SOUL.
  
So long!

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237

[18. O me, man of slack faith so long!]

1.

O me, man of slack faith so long!
Standing aloof—denying portions so long;
Me with mole's eyes, unrisen to buoyancy and vision—unfree,
Only aware to-day of compact, all-diffused truth,
Discovering to-day there is no lie, or form of lie, and can be none, but grows just as inevitably upon itself as the truth does upon itself,
Or as any law of the earth, or any natural production of the earth does.

2.

(This is curious, and may not be realized immediately—But it must be realized;
I feel in myself that I represent falsehoods equally with the rest,
And that the universe does.)

3.

Where has failed a perfect return, indifferent of lies or the truth?
Is it upon the ground, or in water or fire? or in the spirit of man? or in the meat and blood?

4.

Meditating among liars, and retreating sternly into myself, I see that there are really no liars or lies after all,
And that nothing fails its perfect return—And that what are called lies are perfect returns,
238

And that each thing exactly represents itself, and what has preceded it,
And that the truth includes all, and is compact, just as much as space is compact,
And that there is no flaw or vacuum in the amount of the truth—but that all is truth without exception,
And henceforth I will go celebrate anything I see or am,
And sing and laugh, and deny nothing.
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