Section: «Poems»

Verse (ancient Greek ὁ στίχος — row, structure), a term in versification used in several meanings: artistic speech organized by division into rhythmically commensurate segments; poetry in the narrow sense; in particular, it implies the properties of versification of a particular tradition ("antique verse", "Akhmatova's verse", etc.); a line of poetic text organized according to a certain rhythmic pattern ("My uncle of the most honest rules").

Song Of Myself, XXXIX

The friendly and flowing savage, who is he?Is he waiting for civilization, or past it and mastering it?Is he some Southwesterner rais'd out-doors? is..

© Walt Whitman

Song Of Myself, XXXVIII

Enough! enough! enough!Somehow I have been stunn'd. Stand back!Give me a little time beyond my cuff'd head, slumbers, dreams, gaping,I discover..

© Walt Whitman

Song Of Myself, XXXVII

You laggards there on guard! look to your arms!In at the conquer'd doors they crowd! I am possess'd!Embody all presences outlaw'd or suffering,See..

© Walt Whitman

Song Of Myself, XXXVI

Stretch'd and still lies the midnight,Two great hulls motionless on the breast of the darkness,Our vessel riddled and slowly sinking, preparations to..

© Walt Whitman

Song Of Myself, XXXV

Would you hear of an old-time sea-fight?Would you learn who won by the light of the moon and stars?List to the yarn, as my grandmother's father the..

© Walt Whitman

Song Of Myself, XXXIV

Now I tell what I knew in Texas in my early youth,(I tell not the fall of Alamo,Not one escaped to tell the fall of Alamo,The hundred and fifty are..

© Walt Whitman

Song Of Myself, XXXIII

Space and Time! now I see it is true, what I guess'd at,What I guess'd when I loaf'd on the grass,What I guess'd while I lay alone in my bed,And..

© Walt Whitman

Song Of Myself, XXXII

I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contain'd,I stand and look at them long and long.They do not sweat and whine..

© Walt Whitman

Song Of Myself, XXXI

I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars,And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg of the..

© Walt Whitman

Song Of Myself, XXX

All truths wait in all things,They neither hasten their own delivery nor resist it,They do not need the obstetric forceps of the surgeon,The..

© Walt Whitman

Song Of Myself, XXIX

Blind loving wrestling touch, sheath'd hooded sharp-tooth'd touch!Did it make you ache so, leaving me?Parting track'd by arriving, perpetual payment..

© Walt Whitman

Election Day, November, 1884

If I should need to name, O Western World, your powerfulest scene and show,‘Twould not be you, Niagara—nor you, ye limitless prairies—nor your huge..

© Walt Whitman

Broadway

What hurrying human tides, or day or night!What passions, winnings, losses, ardors, swim thy waters!What whirls of evil, bliss and sorrow, stem..

© Walt Whitman

Washington's Monument, February, 1885

Ah, not this marble, dead and cold:Far from its base and shaft expanding—the round zones circling,comprehending,Thou, Washington, art all the..

© Walt Whitman

Song Of Myself, XIX

This is the meal equally set, this the meat for natural hunger,It is for the wicked just the same as the righteous, I make appoint- ments with all,I..

© Walt Whitman

Song Of Myself, XVIII

With music strong I come, with my cornets and my drums,I play not marches for accepted victors only, I play marches for conquer'd and slain..

© 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..

© Walt Whitman

Song Of Myself, XVI

I am of old and young, of the foolish as much as the wise,Regardless of others, ever regardful of others,Maternal as well as paternal, a child as..

© Walt Whitman

Song Of Myself, XV

The pure contralto sings in the organ loft,The carpenter dresses his plank, the tongue of his foreplane whistles its wild ascending lisp,The married..

© Walt Whitman

Song Of Myself, XIII

The negro holds firmly the reins of his four horses, the block swags underneath on its tied-over chain,The negro that drives the long dray of the..

© Walt Whitman

Song Of Myself, XII

The butcher-boy puts off his killing-clothes, or sharpens his knife at the stall in the market,I loiter enjoying his repartee and his shuffle and..

© Walt Whitman

Song Of Myself, VIII

The little one sleeps in its cradle,I lift the gauze and look a long time, and silently brush away flies with my hand.The youngster and the red-faced..

© Walt Whitman

Song Of Myself, VII

Has any one supposed it lucky to be born?I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die, and I know it.I pass death with the dying and..

© Walt Whitman

Song Of Myself, VI

A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he.I guess it..

© Walt Whitman

Song Of Myself, V

I believe in you my soul, the other I am must not abase itself to you,And you must not be abased to the other.Loafe with me on the grass, loose the..

© Walt Whitman