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Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman

Song of Myself, XVII

These are really the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands, they are not original with me,
If they are not yours as much as mine they are nothing, or next to nothing,
If they are not the riddle and the untying of the riddle they are nothing,
If they are not just as close as they are distant they are nothing.
 
This is the grass that grows wherever the land is and the water is,
This the common air that bathes the globe.

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Other works by Walt Whitman...
Book XXX. Whispers of Heavenly Death: To One Shortly to Die

From all the rest I single out yo… You are to die—let others tell you… I am exact and merciless, but I l… Softly I lay my right hand upon y… I do not argue, I bend my head cl…
Book I. Inscriptions: Me Imperturbe

Me imperturbe, standing at ease in… Master of all, or mistress of all—… of irrational things, Imbued as they—passive, receptive,… Finding my occupation, poverty, no…
 1
Burial

1 To think of it! To think of time—of all that retro… To think of to—day and the ages co… forward! 2 Have you guess’d you yourself w…
Man Fishing, by Robert S. Duncanson
Book V. Calamus: To a Stranger

Passing stranger! you do not know… You must be he I was seeking, or… I have somewhere surely lived a li… All is recall’d as we flit by each… You grew up with me, were a boy wi…
 2
Book XXXIII. Songs Of Parting: Camps of Green

Nor alone those camps of white, ol… When as order’d forward, after a l… Footsore and weary, soon as the li… Some of us so fatigued carrying th… in our tracks,
Book V. Calamus: These I Singing in Spring

These I singing in spring collect… (For who but I should understand… And who but I should be the poet… Collecting I traverse the garden… Now along the pond-side, now wadin…
Book XXXII. From Noon to Starry Night: Excelsior

Who has gone farthest? for I woul… And who has been just? for I woul… And who most cautious? for I woul… And who has been happiest? O I th… happier than I,
 1
Book XXXIV. Sands At Seventy: The Dead Tenor

As down the stage again, With Spanish hat and plumes, and… Back from the fading lessons of th… How much from thee! the revelation… (So firm—so liquid-soft—again that…
Book XXXIV. Sands At Seventy: Twenty Years

Down on the ancient wharf, the san… He shipp’d as green-hand boy, and… vehement notion;) Since, twenty years and more have… While he the globe was circling ro…
from a Passage to India

Passage O soul to India! Eclaircise the myths Asiatic, the… Not you alone, proud truths of the… Nor you alone, ye facts of modern… But myths and fables of eld, Asia…
Carol of Occupations

COME closer to me; Push close, my lovers, and take th… Yield closer and closer, and give… This is unfinish’d business with m… (I was chill’d with the cold types…
Book XXX. Whispers of Heavenly Death: O Living Always, Always Dying

O living always, always dying! O the burials of me past and prese… O me while I stride ahead, materi… O me, what I was for years, now d… O to disengage myself from those c…
Now Lift Me Close

Now lift me close to your face til… What you are holding is in reality… of a book; It is a man, flush’d and full-bloo… —We must separate awhile—Here! ta…
Book I. Inscriptions: As I Ponder’d in Silence

As I ponder’d in silence, Returning upon my poems, consideri… A Phantom arose before me, with d… Terrible in beauty, age, and power… The genius of poets of old lands,
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In Midnight Sleep

IN midnight sleep, of many a face… Of the look at first of the mortal… look; Of the dead on their backs, with a… I dream, I dream, I dream.



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