Aarm’d year! year of the struggle! A batter’d, wreck’d old man Aboard, at a ship’s helm A California song! Adieu, O soldier! Afoot and light-hearted, I take to the open road After all, not to create only, or found only After the Sea-Ship—after the whistling winds Ages and ages, returning at intervals A glimpse, through an interstice caught A great year and place Ah poverties, wincings, and sulky retreats! A leaf for hand in hand! A line in long array, where they wind betwixt green islands All submit to them, where they sit All you are doing and saying is to America dangled mirages A march in the ranks hard-prest, and the road unknown A mask—a perpetual natural disguiser of herself America always! Among the men and women, the multitude And now, gentlemen A newer garden of creation, no primal solitude A noiseless, patient spider An old man bending, I come, among new faces An old man’s thought of School A promise to California Are you the new person drawn toward me? As Adam, early in the morning As a strong bird on pinions free As at thy portals also death As consequent from store of summer rains Ashes of soldiers! As if a phantom caress’d me A sight in camp in the day-break grey and dim As I lay with my head in your lap, Camerado As I ponder’d in silence As I sat alone, by blue Ontario’s shore As I sit with others, at a great feast As I walk these broad, majestic days of peace As I watch’d the ploughman ploughing A song of the good green grass! As the time draws nigh, glooming, a cloud As they draw to a close As toilsome I wander’d Virginia’s woods A thousand perfect men and women appear At the last, tenderly A woman waits for me—she contains all, nothing is lacking Bathed in war’s perfume—delicate flag! Beat! beat! drums!—Blow! bugles! blow! Be composed—be at ease with me Beginning my studies, the first step pleas’d me so much Behavior—fresh, native, copious Behold this swarthy face—these gray eyes Brother of all, with generous hand Business man, the acquirer vast, The By broad Potomac’s shore—again, old tongue! By the bivouac’s fitful flame By the City Dead-House, by the gate Chanting the square deific, out of the One advancing City of orgies, walks and joys! City of ships! Come closer to me Come, I will make the continent indissoluble Come, my tan-faced children Come, said the Muse Come up from the fields, father Courage yet! my brother or my sister! Darest thou now, O Soul Delicate cluster! flag of teeming life! Despairing cries float ceaselessly toward me, day and night Did you ask dulcet rhymes from me? Earth! my likeness! Earth, round, rolling, compact—suns, moons, animals Elemental drifts! Facing west, from California’s shores Far hence, amid an isle of wondrous beauty Fast-anchor’d, eternal, O love! O woman I love! First, O songs, for a prelude Flood-tide below me! I watch you face to face For him I sing Forms, qualities, lives, humanity, language, thoughts From all the rest I single out you, having a message for you From far Dakota’s cañons From my last years, last thoughts I here bequeath From Paumanock starting, I fly like a bird From pent-up, aching rivers Full of life, now, compact, visible Give me the splendid silent sun Give me your hand, old Revolutionary Gliding o’er all, through all Great are the myths—I too delight in them Hark! some wild trumpeter—some strange musician Hast never come to thee an hour He is wisest who has the most caution Here the frailest leaves of me, and yet my strongest-lasting Here, take this gift! Hold it up sternly! See this it sends back! Hours continuing long, sore and heavy-hearted How solemn, as one by one How they are provided for upon the earth Hush’d be the camps to-day I am he that aches with amorous love I celebrate myself I dream’d in a dream, I saw a city I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear I heard that you ask’d for something to prove this puzzle I heard you, solemn-sweet pipes of the organ I hear it was charged against me I met a Seer In a little house keep I pictures suspended In a faraway northern county, in the placid, pastoral region In cabin’d ships, at sea Indications, and tally of time, The I need no assurances—I am a man who is preoccupied In former songs Pride have I sung In midnight sleep, of many a face of anguish In paths untrodden In the new garden, in all the parts I saw in Louisiana a live-oak growing I saw old General at bay I say whatever tastes sweet to the most perfect person I see before me now, a traveling army halting I see in you the estuary that enlarges and spreads itself I see the sleeping babe, nestling the breast of its mother I sing the Body electric I sit and look out upon all the sorrows of the world Is reform needed? Is it through you? I thought I was not alone, walking here by the shore I wander all night in my vision I was asking for something specific and perfect for my city I was looking a long while for a clue to the history I will take an egg out of the robin’s nest in the orchard Joy! shipmate—joy! Last sunbeam, The Laws for Creations Let us twain walk aside from the rest Locations and times—what is it in me that meets them all Long I thought that knowledge alone would suffice me Long, too long, O land Look down, fair moon, and bathe this scene Lo! the unbounded sea! Lo! Victress on the peaks! Manhattan’s streets I saunter’d, pondering Me imperturbe, standing at ease in Nature Myself and mine gymnastic ever My spirit to yours, dear brother Nations ten thousand years before These States Native moments! when you come upon me—Ah you are here now! Night on the prairies Noble Sire, fallen on evil days, The No labor-saving machine Not alone those camps of white, O soldiers Not heat flames up and consumes Not heaving from my ribb’d breast only Not my enemies ever invade me Not the pilot has charged himself to bring his ship into port Not youth pertains to me Now, dearest comrade, lift me to your face Now finale to the shore! Now I make a leaf of Voices Now list to my morning’s romanza O a new song, a free song O bitter sprig! Confession sprig! O boy of the West! O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done Of Equality—As if it harm’d me Of him I love day and night, I dream’d I heard he was dead Of Justice—As if Justice Of obedience, faith, adhesiveness Of ownership—As if one fit to own things Of persons arrived at high positions Of Public Opinion Of these years I sing Of the terrible doubt of appearances Of the visages of things Of what I write from myself O hymen! O hymenee! O living always—always dying! O magnet-south! O glistening, perfumed South! My South! O mater! O fils! O me, man of slack faith so long! O me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring On a flat road runs the well-train’d runner Once I pass’d through a populous city, imprinting my brain One hour to madness and joy! One song, America, before I go One’s-self I sing—a simple, separate Person One sweeps by, attended by an immense train On journeys through the States we start Only themselves understand themselves On my northwest coast in the midst of the night On the beach, at night On the beach at night alone Or, from that Sea of Time O sight of shame, and pain, and dole! O star of France! O sun of real peace! O hastening light! O take my hand, Walt Whitman! O tan-faced prairie-boy! Others may praise what they like O to make the most jubilant poem! Out from behind this bending, rough-cut Mask Out of the cradle endlessly rocking Out of the murk of heaviest clouds Out of the rolling ocean, the crowd, came a drop gently to me Over the carnage rose prophetic a voice Over the western sea, hither from Niphon come O you whom I often and silently come where you are Passing stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you Pensive and faltering Pensive, on her dead gazing, I heard the Mother of All Poets to come! orators, singers, musicians to come! Prairie-grass dividing—its special odor breathing, The Primeval my love for the woman I love Proud music of the storm! Quicksand years that whirl me I know not whither Race of veterans! Race of victors! Recorders ages hence! Respondez! Respondez! Rise, O days, from your fathomless deeps Roaming in thought over the Universe Roots and leaves themselves alone are these Sauntering the pavement, or riding the country by-road Scented herbage of my breast Shut not your doors to me, proud libraries Silent and amazed, even when a little boy Singing my days Skirting the river road, my forenoon walk, my rest Small is the theme of the following Chant Sobbing of the bells, the sudden death-news everywhere, The So far, and so far, and on toward the end Solid, ironical, rolling orb! Something startles me where I thought I was safest Sometimes with one I love, I fill myself with rage Spirit that form’d this scene Spirit whose work is done! spirit of dreadful hours! Splendor of ended day, floating and filling me! Spontaneous me, Nature Starting from fish-shape Paumanok, where I was born States! Still, though the one I sing Stranger! if you, passing, meet me, and desire to speak to me Suddenly, out of its stale and drowsy lair, the lair of slaves Tears! tears! tears!
