Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892)

Walt Whitman was born on May 31, 1819, on the West Hills of Long Island, New York. His mother, Louisa Van Velsor, of Dutch descent and Quaker faith, whom he adored, was barely literate. She never read his poetry, but gave him unconditional love. His father of English lineage, was a carpenter and builder of houses, and a stern disciplinarian. His main claim to fame was his friendship with Tom Paine, whose pamphlet Common Sense (1776), urging the colonists to throw off English domination was in his sparse library. It is doubtful that his father read any of his son's poetry, or would have understood it if he had. The senior Walt was too burdened with the struggle to support his ever-growing family of nine children, four of whom were handicapped.

Young Walt, the second of nine, was withdrawn from public school at the age of eleven to help support the family. At the age of twelve he started to learn the printer's trade, and fell in love with the written and printed word. He was mainly self-taught. He read voraciously, and became acquainted with Homer, Dante, Shakespeare and Scott early in life. He knew the Bible thoroughly, and as a God-intoxicated poet, desired to inaugurate a religion uniting all of humanity in bonds of friendship.

In 1836, at the age of 17, he began his career as an innovative teacher in the one-room school houses of Long Island. He permitted his students to call him by his first name, and devised learning games for them in arithmetic and spelling. He continued to teach school until 1841, when he turned to journalism as a full-time career. He soon became editor for a number of Brooklyn and New York papers. From 1846 to 1847 Whitman was the editor of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. Whitman went to New Orleans in 1848, where he was editor for a brief time of the "New Orleans Crescent". In that city he had become fascinated with the French language. Many of his poems contain words of French derivation. It was in New Orleans that he experienced at first hand the viciousness of slavery in the slave markets of that city.

On his return to Brooklyn in the fall of 1848, he founded a "free soil" newspaper, the "Brooklyn Freeman". Between 1848 and 1855 he developed the style of poetry that so astonished Ralph Waldo Emerson. When the poet's Leaves Of Grass reached him as a gift in July, 1855, the Dean of American Letters thanked him for "the wonderful gift" and said that he rubbed his eyes a little "to see if the sunbeam was no illusion." Walt Whitman had been unknown to Emerson prior to that occasion. The "sunbeam" that illuminated a great deal of Whitman's poetry was Music. It was one of the major sources of his inspiration. Many of his four hundred poems contain musical terms, names of instruments, and names of composers. He insisted that music was "greater than wealth, greater than buildings, ships, religions, paintings." In his final essay written one year before his death in 1891, he sums up his struggles of thirty years to write Leaves of Grass. The opening paragraph of his self-evaluation "A Backward Glance O'er Travel'd Road," begins with his reminiscences of "the best of songs heard." His concluding comments again return to thoughts about music, saying that "the strongest and sweetest songs remain yet to be sung."

"When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed" and "O Captain! My Captain!" (1866) are two of his more famous poems. A poet who was ardently singing on life and himself, Whitman is today claimed as one of the few truly great American men of letters.

The poems are by default sorted according to volume, but you can also choose to sort them alphabetically or by page views.

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A BATTER’D, wreck’d old man,
A GLIMPSE, through an interstice caught,	1 Comment
A LEAF for hand in hand!	1 Comment
A LINE in long array, where they wind betwixt green islands;
A MARCH in the ranks hard-prest, and the road unknown;	1 Comment
A MASK—a perpetual natural disguiser of herself,
A NEWER garden of creation, no primal solitude,
A NOISELESS, patient spider,	12 Comments
A PROMISE to California,
A SIGHT in camp in the day-break grey and dim,	2 Comments
A THOUSAND perfect men and women appear,
A WOMAN waits for me—she contains all, nothing is lacking,	3 Comments
AARM’D year! year of the struggle!	1 Comment
ABOARD, at a ship’s helm,	1 Comment
ADIEU, O soldier!	5 Comments
AFTER the Sea-Ship—after the whistling winds;	1 Comment
AGES and ages, returning at intervals,
AH poverties, wincings, and sulky retreats!
ALL submit to them, where they sit, inner, secure, unapproachable to analysis, in the
ALL you are doing and saying is to America dangled mirages,
AMERICA always!
AMONG the men and women, the multitude,	1 Comment
AN old man’s thought of School;	1 Comment
AND now, gentlemen,
ARE you the new person drawn toward me?	1 Comment
AS Adam, early in the morning,	2 Comments
AS at thy portals also death,	2 Comments
AS consequent from store of summer rains,
AS I lay with my head in your lap, Camerado,
AS I sit with others, at a great feast, suddenly, while the music is playing,
AS I walk these broad, majestic days of peace,	1 Comment
AS I watch’d the ploughman ploughing,
AS if a phantom caress’d me,	1 Comment
AS they draw to a close,
AS toilsome I wander’d Virginia’s woods,	1 Comment
ASHES of soldiers!	2 Comments
BATHED in war’s perfume—delicate flag!
BE composed—be at ease with me—I am Walt Whitman, liberal and lusty as Nature;	2 Comments
BEGINNING my studies, the first step pleas’d me so much,	4 Comments
BEHAVIOR—fresh, native, copious, each one for himself or herself,
BEHOLD this swarthy face—these gray eyes,
BY the bivouac’s fitful flame,
BY the City Dead-House, by the gate,	1 Comment
CITY of orgies, walks and joys!	3 Comments
CITY of ships!	1 Comment
DELICATE cluster! flag of teeming life!
DID you ask dulcet rhymes from me?
EARTH! my likeness!
FACING west, from California’s shores,
FAR hence, amid an isle of wondrous beauty,	6 Comments
FAST-ANCHOR’D, eternal, O love! O woman I love!
FOR him I sing,	3 Comments
FORMS, qualities, lives, humanity, language, thoughts,	7 Comments
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,	2 Comments
GIVE me your hand, old Revolutionary;
GLIDING o’er all, through all,
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:	3 Comments
HERE, take this gift!	1 Comment
HOLD it up sternly! See this it sends back! (Who is it? Is it you?)	6 Comments
HOURS continuing long, sore and heavy-hearted,
HOW solemn, as one by one,
HOW they are provided for upon the earth, (appearing at intervals;)	1 Comment
I AM he that aches with amorous love;	1 Comment
I DREAM’D in a dream, I saw a city invincible to the attacks of the whole of the rest of	2 Comments
I HEAR America singing, the varied carols I hear;	74 Comments
I HEAR it was charged against me that I sought to destroy institutions;
I HEARD that you ask’d for something to prove this puzzle, the New World,	1 Comment
I HEARD you, solemn-sweet pipes of the organ, as last Sunday morn I pass’d the
I MET a Seer,
I NEED no assurances—I am a man who is preoccupied, of his own Soul;
I SAW in Louisiana a live-oak growing,	6 Comments
I SAW old General at bay;	1 Comment
I SEE before me now, a traveling army halting;	2 Comments
I SEE in you the estuary that enlarges and spreads itself grandly as it pours in the great	2 Comments
I SEE the sleeping babe, nestling the breast of its mother;	2 Comments
I SIT and look out upon all the sorrows of the world, and upon all oppression and shame;	29 Comments
I THOUGHT I was not alone, walking here by the shore,	1 Comment
I WAS asking for something specific and perfect for my city,
I WAS looking a long while for a clue to the history of the past for myself, and for these
I WILL take an egg out of the robin’s nest in the orchard,	4 Comments
IN a faraway northern county, in the placid, pastoral region,	1 Comment
IN a little house keep I pictures suspended, it is not a fix’d house,	5 Comments
IN paths untrodden,
IN the new garden, in all the parts,
IS reform needed? Is it through you?	3 Comments
JOY! shipmate—joy!
LAWS for Creations,	8 Comments
LET us twain walk aside from the rest;	1 Comment
LO! the unbounded sea!	4 Comments
LO! Victress on the peaks!
LOCATIONS and times—what is it in me that meets them all, whenever and wherever, and
LONG I thought that knowledge alone would suffice me—O if I could but obtain	1 Comment
LONG, too long, O land,	1 Comment
LOOK down, fair moon, and bathe this scene;
ME imperturbe, standing at ease in Nature,
MY spirit to yours, dear brother;
MYSELF and mine gymnastic ever,
NATIONS ten thousand years before These States, and many times ten thousand years before
NATIVE moments! when you come upon me—Ah you are here now!	1 Comment
NIGHT on the prairies;
NO labor-saving machine,	1 Comment
NOT alone those camps of white, O soldiers,	4 Comments
NOT heat flames up and consumes,
NOT heaving from my ribb’d breast only;
NOT my enemies ever invade me—no harm to my pride from them I fear;
NOT the pilot has charged himself to bring his ship into port, though beaten back, and	1 Comment
NOT youth pertains to me,
NOW finale to the shore!
NOW I make a leaf of Voices—for I have found nothing mightier than they are,	4 Comments
NOW, dearest comrade, lift me to your face,
O BITTER sprig! Confession sprig!
O BOY of the West!	1 Comment
O HYMEN! O hymenee!
O LIVING always—always dying!	6 Comments
O MAGNET-SOUTH! O glistening, perfumed South! My South!	1 Comment
O MATER! O fils!	1 Comment
O ME! O life!... of the questions of these recurring;	19 Comments
O ME, man of slack faith so long!	4 Comments
O SUN of real peace! O hastening light!	1 Comment
O TAN-FACED prairie-boy!
O YOU whom I often and silently come where you are, that I may be with you;	2 Comments
OF Equality—As if it harm’d me, giving others the same chances and rights as	3 Comments
OF him I love day and night, I dream’d I heard he was dead;	1 Comment
OF Justice—As if Justice could be anything but the same ample law, expounded by
OF obedience, faith, adhesiveness;
OF persons arrived at high positions, ceremonies, wealth, scholarships, and the like;	1 Comment
OF Public Opinion;	1 Comment
OF the terrible doubt of appearances,	1 Comment
OF the visages of things—And of piercing through to the accepted hells beneath;
OF what I write from myself—As if that were not the resumé;	1 Comment
ON a flat road runs the well-train’d runner;
ON journeys through the States we start,
ON my northwest coast in the midst of the night, a fishermen’s group stands watching;
ON the beach at night alone,	5 Comments
ONCE I pass'd through a populous city, imprinting my brain, for future use, with its	2 Comments
ONE hour to madness and joy!
ONE song, America, before I go,
ONE sweeps by, attended by an immense train,
ONE’S-SELF I sing—a simple, separate Person;	19 Comments
ONLY themselves understand themselves, and the like of themselves,	2 Comments
OTHERS may praise what they like;
OUT of the murk of heaviest clouds,
OVER the carnage rose prophetic a voice,
PASSING stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you,	14 Comments
PENSIVE and faltering,	1 Comment
PENSIVE, on her dead gazing, I heard the Mother of All,
POET.	2 Comments
POETS to come! orators, singers, musicians to come!	2 Comments
PRIMEVAL my love for the woman I love,
QUICKSAND years that whirl me I know not whither,	2 Comments
RACE of veterans! Race of victors!	4 Comments
RECORDERS ages hence!
RESPONDEZ! Respondez!
ROAMING in thought over the Universe, I saw the little that is Good steadily hastening
ROOTS and leaves themselves alone are these;
SCENTED herbage of my breast,	1 Comment
SHUT not your doors to me, proud libraries,	1 Comment
SILENT and amazed, even when a little boy,
SKIRTING the river road, (my forenoon walk, my rest,)	2 Comments
SMALL is the theme of the following Chant, yet the greatest—namely,
SO far, and so far, and on toward the end,
SOLID, ironical, rolling orb!
SOMETIMES with one I love, I fill myself with rage, for fear I effuse unreturn’d love;	5 Comments
SPIRIT that form’d this scene,
SPIRIT whose work is done! spirit of dreadful hours!
SPLENDOR of ended day, floating and filling me!	1 Comment
SPONTANEOUS me, Nature,
STATES!
STILL, though the one I sing,	2 Comments
STRANGER! if you, passing, meet me, and desire to speak to me, why should you	77 Comments
TEARS! tears! tears!	3 Comments
THAT music always round me, unceasing, unbeginning—yet long untaught I did not hear;	2 Comments
THAT shadow, my likeness, that goes to and fro, seeking a livelihood, chattering,	2 Comments
THAT which eludes this verse and any verse,	2 Comments
THE business man, the acquirer vast,
THE indications, and tally of time;
THE prairie-grass dividing—its special odor breathing,
THE sobbing of the bells, the sudden death-news everywhere,
THE untold want, by life and land ne’er granted,
THE world below the brine;	1 Comment
THEE for my recitative!	5 Comments
THERE are who teach only the sweet lessons of peace and safety;
THERE was a child went forth every day;	9 Comments
THESE Carols, sung to cheer my passage through the world I see,
THESE, I, singing in spring, collect for lovers,
THEY shall arise in the States,
THICK-SPRINKLED bunting! Flag of stars!
THINK of the Soul;
THIS day, O Soul, I give you a wondrous mirror;
THIS dust was once the Man,	2 Comments
THIS is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless,	1 Comment
THIS moment yearning and thoughtful, sitting alone,
THITHER, as I look, I see each result and glory retracing itself and nestling close,
THOU orb aloft full-dazzling! thou hot October noon!
THOU reader throbbest life and pride and love the same as I,
THOU who hast slept all night upon the storm,
THROUGH the ample open door of the peaceful country barn,	2 Comments
THROUGH the soft evening air enwrinding all,	1 Comment
TO get betimes in Boston town, I rose this morning early;
TO oratists—to male or female,	1 Comment
TO the East and to the West;
TO the garden, the world, anew ascending,	2 Comments
TO the leaven’d soil they trod, calling, I sing, for the last;
TO The States, or any one of them, or any city of The States, Resist much, obey	4 Comments
TO thee, old Cause!	4 Comments
TRICKLE, drops! my blue veins leaving!	1 Comment
TURN, O Libertad, for the war is over,
TWO boats with nets lying off the sea-beach, quite still,
TWO Rivulets side by side,	1 Comment
UNFOLDED out of the folds of the woman, man comes unfolded, and is always to	6 Comments
VIGIL strange I kept on the field one night:
WANDERING at morn,
WARBLE me now, for joy of Lilac-time,	3 Comments
WE two boys together clinging,	8 Comments
WE two—how long we were fool’d!	1 Comment
WEAVE in! weave in, my hardy life!
WHAT am I, after all, but a child, pleas’d with the sound of my own name? repeating	1 Comment
WHAT are those of the known, but to ascend and enter the Unknown?
WHAT best I see in thee,	1 Comment
WHAT General has a good army in himself, has a good army;	1 Comment
WHAT place is besieged, and vainly tries to raise the siege?
WHAT ship, puzzled at sea, cons for the true reckoning?	1 Comment
WHAT think you I take my pen in hand to record?	1 Comment
WHAT weeping face is that looking from the window?
WHAT you give me, I cheerfully accept,	1 Comment
WHEN I heard at the close of the day how my name had been receiv’d with plaudits in the	1 Comment
WHEN I heard the learn’d astronomer;	27 Comments
WHEN I peruse the conquer’d fame of heroes, and the victories of mighty generals, I
WHEN I read the book, the biography famous,	4 Comments
WHILE my wife at my side lies slumbering, and the wars are over long,	2 Comments
WHISPERS of heavenly death, murmur’d I hear;	8 Comments
WHO has gone farthest? For lo! have not I gone farther?
WHO includes diversity, and is Nature,
WHO is now reading this?
WHO learns my lesson complete?
WHOEVER you are, holding me now in hand,
WHOEVER you are, I fear you are walking the walks of dreams,	12 Comments
WHY reclining, interrogating? Why myself and all drowsing?
WHY! who makes much of a miracle?	10 Comments
WILD, wild the storm, and the sea high running,	1 Comment
WITH all thy gifts, America,	1 Comment
WITH its cloud of skirmishers in advance,
WOMEN sit, or move to and fro—some old, some young;
WORD over all, beautiful as the sky!
WORLD, take good notice, silver stars fading,	1 Comment
YEAR of meteors! brooding year!
YEAR that trembled and reel’d beneath me!
YEARS of the modern! years of the unperform’d!	1 Comment
YOU felons on trial in courts;
YOU just maturing youth! You male or female!
YOU who celebrate bygones!	2 Comments