I exist as I am, that is enough.
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From this hour I ordain myself loos'd of limits and imaginary lines, Going where I list, my own master total and absolute, Listening to others, considering well what they say, Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating, Gently, but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds that would hold me.
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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.
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Some people are so much sunshine to the square inch.
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And whether I come to my own today or in ten thousand or ten million years, I can cheefully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I can wait... And as to you, Life, I reckon you are the leavings of many deaths, (No doubt I have died myself ten thousand times before.)
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I am as bad as the worst, but, thank God, I am as good as the best.
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The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering. I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world. The last scud of the day holds back for me, It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow'd wilds, It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk. I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun, I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags. I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles. You will hardly know who I am or what I mean, But I shall be good health to you nevertheless, And filter and fibre for your blood. Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, Missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you.
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In the swamp in secluded recesses, A shy and hidden bird is warbling a song....
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O past! O happy life! O songs of joy! In the air, in the woods, over fields,...
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The genius of the United States is not best or most in its executives or legislatures, nor in its ambassadors or authors or colleges, or churches, or parlors, nor even in its newspapers or inventors, but always most in the common people.
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And I will show that nothing can happen more beautiful than death.
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Every moment of light and dark is a miracle.
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I celebrate myself, and sing myself.
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I see great things in baseball. It's our game--the American game. It will take our people out-of-doors, fill them with oxygen, give them a larger physical stoicism. Tend to relieve us from being a nervous, dyspeptic set. Repair these losses, and be a blessing to us.
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I have said that the soul is not more than the body, And I have said that the body is not more than the soul, And nothing, not God, is greater to one than one's self is.
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As I ebb'd with the ocean of life, As I wended the shores I know, As I walk'd where the ripples continually wash you Paumanok,
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Has anyone supposed it lucky to be born? I hasten to inform him or her that it is just as lucky to die, and I know it.
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Either define the moment or the moment will define you.
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Give me the splendid silent sun with all his beams full-dazzling.
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Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)
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...The city fireman-the fire that suddenly bursts forth in the close-pack'd square, The arriving engines, the hoarse shouts, the nimble stepping and daring, The strong command through the fire-trumpets, the falling in line, the rise and fall of the arms forcing the water, The slender, spasmic, blue-white jets-the bringing to bear of the hooks and ladders, and their execution, The crash and cut away of connecting wood-work, or through floors, if the fire smoulders under them, The crowd with their lit faces, watching-the glare and dense shadows;....
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Here lies... Walt Whitman. Aaargh! Damn you Walt Whitman! I... hate... you... Walt... freakin... Whitman, leaves of grass my ass!
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Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and knowledge that pass all the argument of the earth, And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own, And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own, And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the women my sisters and lovers, And that a kelson of the creation is love.
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Answer That you are here---that life exists and identity, That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.
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Ebb, ocean of life, (the flow will return,) Cease not your moaning you fierce old mother,...
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Do I contradict myself Very well then I contradict myself,
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Seeing, hearing, feeling, are miracles, and each part and tag of me is a miracle.
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And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own funeral drest in his shroud.
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I celebrate myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
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I say that democracy can never prove itself beyond cavil, until it founds and luxuriantly grows its own forms of art, poems, schools, theology, displacing all that exists, or that has been produced anywhere in the past, under opposite influences.
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