Walt Whitman Poems
A collection of select Walt Whitman famous poems that were written by Walt Whitman or written about the poet by other famous poets. PoetrySoup is a comprehensive educational resource of the greatest poems and poets on history.
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by
Walt Whitman
CITY of orgies, walks and joys!
City whom that I have lived and sung in your midst will one day make you illustrious,
Not the pageants of you—not your shifting tableaux, your spectacles, repay me;
Not the interminable rows of your houses—nor the ships at the wharves,
Nor the processions in the streets, nor the bright windows, with goods...Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
I WILL take an egg out of the robin’s nest in the orchard,
I will take a branch of gooseberries from the old bush in the garden, and go and preach to
the
world;
You shall see I will not meet a single heretic or scorner,
You shall see how I stump clergymen, and confound them,
You shall see...Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
1
OVER the western sea, hither from Niphon come,
Courteous, the swart-cheek’d two-sworded envoys,
Leaning back in their open barouches, bare-headed, impassive,
Ride to-day through Manhattan.
Libertad!
I do not know whether others behold what I behold,
In the procession, along with the nobles of Asia, the errand-bearers,
Bringing up the rear, hovering above, around, or in the ranks marching;
But...Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
1
OUT from behind this bending, rough-cut Mask,
(All straighter, liker Masks rejected—this preferr’d,)
This common curtain of the face, contain’d in me for me, in you for you, in each for
each,
(Tragedies, sorrows, laughter, tears—O heaven!
The passionate, teeming plays this curtain hid!)
This glaze of God’s serenest, purest sky,
This film of Satan’s seething pit,
This heart’s geography’s map—this...Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
GLIDING o’er all, through all,
Through Nature, Time, and Space,
As a ship on the waters advancing,
The voyage of the soul—not life alone,
Death, many deaths I’ll sing. 5...Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
AN old man’s thought of School;
An old man, gathering youthful memories and blooms, that youth itself cannot.
Now only do I know you!
O fair auroral skies! O morning dew upon the grass!
And these I see—these sparkling eyes,
These stores of mystic meaning—these young lives,
Building, equipping, like a fleet of ships—immortal ships!
Soon to sail out over...Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
I HEARD that you ask’d for something to prove this puzzle, the New World,
And to define America, her athletic Democracy;
Therefore I send you my poems, that you behold in them what you wanted....Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
NO labor-saving machine,
Nor discovery have I made;
Nor will I be able to leave behind me any wealthy bequest to found a hospital or library,
Nor reminiscence of any deed of courage, for America,
Nor literary success, nor intellect—nor book for the book-shelf;
Only a few carols, vibrating through the air, I leave,
For comrades and lovers....Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
BY the City Dead-House, by the gate,
As idly sauntering, wending my way from the clangor,
I curious pause—for lo! an outcast form, a poor dead prostitute brought;
Her corpse they deposit unclaim’d—it lies on the damp brick pavement;
The divine woman, her body—I see the Body—I look on it alone,
That house once full of passion and beauty—all else...Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
PENSIVE and faltering,
The words, the dead, I write;
For living are the Dead;
(Haply the only living, only real,
And I the apparition—I the spectre.) 5...Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
1
AS the time draws nigh, glooming, a cloud,
A dread beyond, of I know not what, darkens me.
I shall go forth,
I shall traverse The States awhile—but I cannot tell whither or how long;
Perhaps soon, some day or night while I am singing, my voice will suddenly cease.
2
O book, O chants! must all then amount to but...Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
YEARS of the modern! years of the unperform’d!
Your horizon rises—I see it parting away for more august dramas;
I see not America only—I see not only Liberty’s nation, but other nations
preparing;
I see tremendous entrances and exits—I see new combinations—I see the solidarity
of
races;
I see that force advancing with irresistible power on the world’s stage;
(Have...Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
WHAT are those of the known, but to ascend and enter the Unknown?
And what are those of life, but for Death?...Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
AMONG the men and women, the multitude,
I perceive one picking me out by secret and divine signs,
Acknowledging none else—not parent, wife, husband, brother, child, any nearer than I
am;
Some are baffled—But that one is not—that one knows me.
Ah, lover and perfect equal!
I meant that you should discover me so, by my faint indirections;
And I,...Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
O BOY of the West!
To you many things to absorb, I teach, to help you become eleve of mine:
Yet if blood like mine circle not in your veins;
If you be not silently selected by lovers, and do not silently select lovers,
Of what use is it that you seek to become eleve of mine? 5...Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
THESE, I, singing in spring, collect for lovers,
(For who but I should understand lovers, and all their sorrow and joy?
And who but I should be the poet of comrades?)
Collecting, I traverse the garden, the world—but soon I pass the gates,
Now along the pond-side—now wading in a little, fearing not the wet,
Now by the post-and-rail fences,...Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
A LEAF for hand in hand!
You natural persons old and young!
You on the Mississippi, and on all the branches and bayous of the Mississippi!
You friendly boatmen and mechanics! You roughs!
You twain! And all processions moving along the streets!
I wish to infuse myself among you till I see it common for you to walk hand in...Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
VIGIL strange I kept on the field one night:
When you, my son and my comrade, dropt at my side that day,
One look I but gave, which your dear eyes return’d, with a look I shall never forget;
One touch of your hand to mine, O boy, reach’d up as you lay on the ground;
Then onward I sped...Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,
The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand...Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
1
COURAGE yet! my brother or my sister!
Keep on! Liberty is to be subserv’d, whatever occurs;
That is nothing, that is quell’d by one or two failures, or any number of failures,
Or by the indifference or ingratitude of the people, or by any unfaithfulness,
Or the show of the tushes of power, soldiers, cannon, penal statutes.
Revolt! and still...Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
1
HARK! some wild trumpeter—some strange musician,
Hovering unseen in air, vibrates capricious tunes to-night.
I hear thee, trumpeter—listening, alert, I catch thy notes,
Now pouring, whirling like a tempest round me,
Now low, subdued—now in the distance lost.
2
Come nearer, bodiless one—haply, in thee resounds
Some dead composer—haply thy pensive life
Was fill’d with aspirations high—unform’d ideals,
Waves, oceans musical,...Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
ONE song, America, before I go,
I’d sing, o’er all the rest, with trumpet sound,
For thee—the Future.
I’d sow a seed for thee of endless Nationality;
I’d fashion thy Ensemble, including Body and Soul;
I’d show, away ahead, thy real Union, and how it may be accomplish’d.
(The paths to the House I seek to make,
But leave to...Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
O MATER! O fils!
O brood continental!
O flowers of the prairies!
O space boundless! O hum of mighty products!
O you teeming cities! O so invincible, turbulent, proud!
O race of the future! O women!
O fathers! O you men of passion and the storm!
O native power only! O beauty!
O yourself! O God! O divine average!
O...Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
ME imperturbe, standing at ease in Nature,
Master of all, or mistress of all—aplomb in the midst of irrational things,
Imbued as they—passive, receptive, silent as they,
Finding my occupation, poverty, notoriety, foibles, crimes, less important than I thought;
Me private, or public, or menial, or solitary—all these subordinate, (I am eternally
equal
with
the best—I am not subordinate;)
Me toward...Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
OF Justice—As if Justice could be anything but the same ample law, expounded by
natural
judges and saviors,
As if it might be this thing or that thing, according to decisions....Read more of this...