No Labor-Saving Machine. 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 […]
Night on The Prairies. by Walt Whitman
NIGHT on the prairies; The supper is over—the fire on the ground burns low; The wearied emigrants sleep, wrapt in their blankets: I walk by myself—I stand and look at the stars, which I think now I never realized before. Now I absorb immortality and peace, I admire death, and test propositions. How plenteous! How […]
Native Moments. by Walt Whitman
NATIVE moments! when you come upon me—Ah you are here now! Give me now libidinous joys only! Give me the drench of my passions! Give me life coarse and rank! To-day, I go consort with nature’s darlings—to-night too; I am for those who believe in loose delights—I share the midnight orgies of young men; I […]
Mystic Trumpeter, The. 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 […]
Myself and Mine. by Walt Whitman
MYSELF and mine gymnastic ever, To stand the cold or heat—to take good aim with a gun—to sail a boat—to manage horses—to beget superb children, To speak readily and clearly—to feel at home among common people, And to hold our own in terrible positions, on land and sea. Not for an embroiderer; (There will always […]
My Picture-Gallery. by Walt Whitman
IN a little house keep I pictures suspended, it is not a fix’d house, It is round, it is only a few inches from one side to the other; Yet behold, it has room for all the shows of the world, all memories? Here the tableaus of life, and here the groupings of death; Here, […]
Mother and Babe. by Walt Whitman
I SEE the sleeping babe, nestling the breast of its mother; The sleeping mother and babe—hush’d, I study them long and long. ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem © Poetry Monster, 2021. Poems by topic and subject. Poetry Monster — the ultimate repository of world poetry. Poetry Monster — the multilingual library […]
Miracles. by Walt Whitman
WHY! who makes much of a miracle? As to me, I know of nothing else but miracles, Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan, Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky, Or wade with naked feet along the beach, just in the edge of the water, Or stand under trees […]
Mediums. by Walt Whitman
THEY shall arise in the States, They shall report Nature, laws, physiology, and happiness; They shall illustrate Democracy and the kosmos; They shall be alimentive, amative, perceptive; They shall be complete women and men—their pose brawny and supple, their drink water, their blood clean and clear; They shall enjoy materialism and the sight of products—they […]
Me Imperturbe. 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 […]
Mannahatta. by Walt Whitman
I WAS asking for something specific and perfect for my city, Whereupon, lo! upsprang the aboriginal name! Now I see what there is in a name, a word, liquid, sane, unruly, musical, self-sufficient; I see that the word of my city is that word up there, Because I see that word nested in nests of […]
Manhattan Streets I Saunter’d, Pondering. by Walt Whitman
1 MANHATTAN’S streets I saunter’d, pondering, On time, space, reality—on such as these, and abreast with them, prudence. 2 After all, the last explanation remains to be made about prudence; Little and large alike drop quietly aside from the prudence that suits immortality. The Soul is of itself; All verges to it—all has reference to […]
Look Down, Fair Moon. by Walt Whitman
LOOK down, fair moon, and bathe this scene; Pour softly down night’s nimbus floods, on faces ghastly, swollen, purple; On the dead, on their backs, with their arms toss’d wide, Pour down your unstinted nimbus, sacred moon. ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem © Poetry Monster, 2021. Poems by topic and subject. […]
Longings for Home. by Walt Whitman
O MAGNET-SOUTH! O glistening, perfumed South! My South! O quick mettle, rich blood, impulse, and love! Good and evil! O all dear to me! O dear to me my birth-things—All moving things, and the trees where I was born—the grains, plants, rivers; Dear to me my own slow sluggish rivers where they flow, distant, over […]
Long, too Long, O Land! by Walt Whitman
LONG, too long, O land, Traveling roads all even and peaceful, you learn’d from joys and prosperity only; But now, ah now, to learn from crises of anguish—advancing, grappling with direst fate, and recoiling not; And now to conceive, and show to the world, what your children en-masse really are; (For who except myself has […]
Long I Thought that Knowledge. by Walt Whitman
LONG I thought that knowledge alone would suffice me—O if I could but obtain knowledge! Then my lands engrossed me—Lands of the prairies, Ohio’s land, the southern savannas, engrossed me—For them I would live—I would be their orator; Then I met the examples of old and new heroes—I heard of warriors, sailors, and all dauntless […]
Locations and Times. by Walt Whitman
LOCATIONS and times—what is it in me that meets them all, whenever and wherever, and makes me at home? Forms, colors, densities, odors—what is it in me that corresponds with them? ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem © Poetry Monster, 2021. Poems by topic and subject. Poetry Monster — the ultimate repository […]
Lo! Victress on the Peaks. by Walt Whitman
LO! Victress on the peaks! Where thou, with mighty brow, regarding the world, (The world, O Libertad, that vainly conspired against thee;) Out of its countless beleaguering toils, after thwarting them all; Dominant, with the dazzling sun around thee, Flauntest now unharm’d, in immortal soundness and bloom—lo! in these hours supreme, No poem proud, I, […]
Lessons. by Walt Whitman
THERE are who teach only the sweet lessons of peace and safety; But I teach lessons of war and death to those I love, That they readily meet invasions, when they come. ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem © Poetry Monster, 2021. Poems by topic and subject. Poetry Monster — the ultimate […]
Laws for Creations. by Walt Whitman
LAWS for Creations, For strong artists and leaders—for fresh broods of teachers, and perfect literats for America, For noble savans, and coming musicians. All must have reference to the ensemble of the world, and the compact truth of the world; There shall be no subject too pronounced—All works shall illustrate the divine law of indirections. […]
Last Invocation, The. by Walt Whitman
1 AT the last, tenderly, From the walls of the powerful, fortress’d house, From the clasp of the knitted locks—from the keep of the well-closed doors, Let me be wafted. 2 Let me glide noiselessly forth; With the key of softness unlock the locks—with a whisper, Set ope the doors, O Soul! 3 Tenderly! be […]
Kosmos. by Walt Whitman
WHO includes diversity, and is Nature, Who is the amplitude of the earth, and the coarseness and sexuality of the earth, and the great charity of the earth, and the equilibrium also, Who has not look’d forth from the windows, the eyes, for nothing, or whose brain held audience with messengers for nothing; Who contains […]
Joy, Shipmate, Joy! by Walt Whitman
JOY! shipmate—joy! (Pleas’d to my Soul at death I cry;) Our life is closed—our life begins; The long, long anchorage we leave, The ship is clear at last—she leaps! She swiftly courses from the shore; Joy! shipmate—joy! ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem © Poetry Monster, 2021. Poems by topic and subject. […]
Italian Music in Dakota. by Walt Whitman
THROUGH the soft evening air enwrinding all, Rocks, woods, fort, cannon, pacing sentries, endless wilds, In dulcet streams, in flutes’ and cornets’ notes, Electric, pensive, turbulent artificial, (Yet strangely fitting even here, meanings unknown before, Subtler than ever, more harmony, as if born here, related here, Not to the city’s fresco’d rooms, not to the […]
Inscription. by Walt Whitman
SMALL is the theme of the following Chant, yet the greatest—namely, One’s-Self—that wondrous thing a simple, separate person. That, for the use of the New World, I sing. Man’s physiology complete, from top to toe, I sing. Not physiognomy alone, nor brain alone, is worthy for the muse;—I say the Form complete is worthier far. […]
Indications, The. by Walt Whitman
THE indications, and tally of time; Perfect sanity shows the master among philosophs; Time, always without flaw, indicates itself in parts; What always indicates the poet, is the crowd of the pleasant company of singers, and their words; The words of the singers are the hours or minutes of the light or dark—but the words […]
In the New Garden in all the Parts. by Walt Whitman
IN the new garden, in all the parts, In cities now, modern, I wander, Though the second or third result, or still further, primitive yet, Days, places, indifferent—though various, the same, Time, Paradise, the Mannahatta, the prairies, finding me unchanged, Death indifferent—Is it that I lived long since? Was I buried very long ago? For […]
In Paths Untrodden. by Walt Whitman
IN paths untrodden, In the growth by margins of pond-waters, Escaped from the life that exhibits itself, From all the standards hitherto publish’d—from the pleasures, profits, eruditions, conformities, Which too long I was offering to feed my soul; Clear to me, now, standards not yet publish’d—clear to me that my Soul, That the Soul of […]
In Midnight Sleep. by Walt Whitman
1 IN midnight sleep, of many a face of anguish, Of the look at first of the mortally wounded—of that indescribable look; Of the dead on their backs, with arms extended wide, I dream, I dream, I dream. 2 Of scenes of nature, fields and mountains; Of skies, so beauteous after a storm—and at night […]
In Cabin’d Ships at Sea. by Walt Whitman
1 IN cabin’d ships, at sea, The boundless blue on every side expanding, With whistling winds and music of the waves—the large imperious waves—In such, Or some lone bark, buoy’d on the dense marine, Where, joyous, full of faith, spreading white sails, She cleaves the ether, mid the sparkle and the foam of day, or […]
I will Take an Egg Out of the Robin’s Nest. 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 […]
I was Looking a Long While. by Walt Whitman
I WAS looking a long while for a clue to the history of the past for myself, and for these chants—and now I have found it; It is not in those paged fables in the libraries, (them I neither accept nor reject;) It is no more in the legends than in all else; It is […]
I Thought I was not Alone. by Walt Whitman
I THOUGHT I was not alone, walking here by the shore, But the one I thought was with me, as now I walk by the shore, As I lean and look through the glimmering light—that one has utterly disappeared, And those appear that perplex me. ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem […]
I Sit and Look Out. by Walt Whitman
I SIT and look out upon all the sorrows of the world, and upon all oppression and shame; I hear secret convulsive sobs from young men, at anguish with themselves, remorseful after deeds done; I see, in low life, the mother misused by her children, dying, neglected, gaunt, desperate; I see the wife misused by […]
I Sing the Body Electric. by Walt Whitman
1 I SING the Body electric; The armies of those I love engirth me, and I engirth them; They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them, And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the Soul. Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies […]
I saw Old General at Bay. by Walt Whitman
I SAW old General at bay; (Old as he was, his grey eyes yet shone out in battle like stars;) His small force was now completely hemm’d in, in his works; He call’d for volunteers to run the enemy’s lines—a desperate emergency; I saw a hundred and more step forth from the ranks—but two or […]
I Heard You, Solemn-sweet Pipes of the Organ. by Walt Whitman
I HEARD you, solemn-sweet pipes of the organ, as last Sunday morn I pass’d the church; Winds of autumn!—as I walk’d the woods at dusk, I heard your long-stretch’d sighs, up above, so mournful; I heard the perfect Italian tenor, singing at the opera—I heard the soprano in the midst of the quartet singing; … […]
I hear it was Charged against Me. by Walt Whitman
I HEAR it was charged against me that I sought to destroy institutions; But really I am neither for nor against institutions; (What indeed have I in common with them?—Or what with the destruction of them?) Only I will establish in the Mannahatta, and in every city of These States, inland and seaboard, And in […]
I Hear America Singing. 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 […]
I Dream’d in a Dream. by Walt Whitman
I DREAM’D in a dream, I saw a city invincible to the attacks of the whole of the rest of the earth; I dream’d that was the new City of Friends; Nothing was greater there than the quality of robust love—it led the rest; It was seen every hour in the actions of the men […]