Leaves of Grass
By Walt Whitman
A seminal collection of poetry celebrating nature, humanity, democracy, and the individual spirit.
Table of Contents
One’s-Self I Sing One’s-self I sing, a simple separate person, Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-Masse. Of physiology from top to toe I sing, Not physiognomy alo...
Starting from Paumanok 1 Starting from fish-shape Paumanok where I was born, Well-begotten, and rais’d by a perfect mother, After roaming many lands, lover of populou...
Song of Myself 1 I celebrate myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. I loafe and invite...
To the Garden the World To the garden the world anew ascending, Potent mates, daughters, sons, preluding, The love, the life of their bodies, meaning and being, Curious he...
In Paths Untrodden 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...
Salut au Monde! 1 O take my hand Walt Whitman! Such gliding wonders! such sights and sounds! Such join’d unended links, each hook’d to the next, Each answering all,...
Song of the Open Road 1 Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road, Healthy, free, the world before me, The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose. ...
Crossing Brooklyn Ferry 1 Flood-tide below me! I see you face to face! Clouds of the west--sun there half an hour high--I see you also face to face. Crowds of ...
Song of the Answerer 1 Now list to my morning’s romanza, I tell the signs of the Answerer, To the cities and farms I sing as they spread in the sunshine before me. A...
Our Old Feuillage Always our old feuillage! Always Florida’s green peninsula--always the priceless delta of Louisiana--always the cotton-fields of Alabama and Texas, A...
A Song of Joys O to make the most jubilant song! Full of music--full of manhood, womanhood, infancy! Full of common employments--full of grain and trees. O for the voices...
Song of the Broad-Axe 1 Weapon shapely, naked, wan, Head from the mother’s bowels drawn, Wooded flesh and metal bone, limb only one and lip only one, Gray-blue leaf...
Song of the Exposition 1 (Ah little recks the laborer, How near his work is holding him to God, The loving Laborer through space and time.) After all not to create...
Song of the Redwood-Tree 1 A California song, A prophecy and indirection, a thought impalpable to breathe as air, A chorus of dryads, fading, departing, or hamadryads...
A Song for Occupations 1 A song for occupations! In the labor of engines and trades and the labor of fields I find the developments, And find the eternal meanin...
A Song of the Rolling Earth 1 A song of the rolling earth, and of words according, Were you thinking that those were the words, those upright lines? those curves,...
Song of the Universal 1 Come said the Muse, Sing me a song no poet yet has chanted, Sing me the universal. In this broad earth of ours, Amid the measureless gros...
A Broadway Pageant 1 Over the Western sea hither from Niphon come, Courteous, the swart-cheek’d two-sworded envoys, Leaning back in their open barouches, bare-headed,...
Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking Out of the cradle endlessly rocking, Out of the mocking-bird’s throat, the musical shuttle, Out of the Ninth-month midnight, Over the s...
A Boston Ballad [1854] To get betimes in Boston town I rose this morning early, Here’s a good place at the corner, I must stand and see the show. Clear the way there Jonath...
First O Songs for a Prelude First O songs for a prelude, Lightly strike on the stretch’d tympanum pride and joy in my city, How she led the rest to arms, how she gave the cu...
When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d 1 When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d, And the great star early droop’d in the western sky in the night, I mourn’d, and ...
By Blue Ontario’s Shore By blue Ontario’s shore, As I mused of these warlike days and of peace return’d, and the dead that return no more, A Phantom gigantic superb, w...
As Consequent, Etc. As consequent from store of summer rains, Or wayward rivulets in autumn flowing, Or many a herb-lined brook’s reticulations, Or subterranean sea-rills ...
Proud Music of the Storm 1 Proud music of the storm, Blast that careers so free, whistling across the prairies, Strong hum of forest tree-tops--wind of the mountains,...
Passage to India 1 Singing my days, Singing the great achievements of the present, Singing the strong light works of engineers, Our modern wonders, (the antique pon...
Prayer of Columbus A batter’d, wreck’d old man, Thrown on this savage shore, far, far from home, Pent by the sea and dark rebellious brows, twelve dreary months, Sore, sti...
The Sleepers 1 I wander all night in my vision, Stepping with light feet, swiftly and noiselessly stepping and stopping, Bending with open eyes over the shut eyes of ...
To Think of Time 1 To think of time--of all that retrospection, To think of to-day, and the ages continued henceforward. Have you guess’d you yourself would not conti...
Darest Thou Now O Soul Darest thou now O soul, Walk out with me toward the unknown region, Where neither ground is for the feet nor any path to follow? No map there, nor ...
Thou Mother with Thy Equal Brood 1 Thou Mother with thy equal brood, Thou varied chain of different States, yet one identity only, A special song before I go I’d sing...
Thou Orb Aloft Full-Dazzling Thou orb aloft full-dazzling! thou hot October noon! Flooding with sheeny light the gray beach sand, The sibilant near sea with vistas far and f...
As the Time Draws Nigh As the time draws nigh glooming a cloud, A dread beyond of I know not what darkens me. I shall go forth, I shall traverse the States awhile, but I ...
Mannahatta My city’s fit and noble name resumed, Choice aboriginal name, with marvellous beauty, meaning, A rocky founded island--shores where ever gayly dash the coming, ...