Leaves of Grass (1882)

by Walt Whitman

For other versions of this work, see Leaves of Grass.

Leaves

of

Grass

PHILADELPHIA,

REES WELSH & CO.,

No. 23 South Ninth Street.

1882.

Copyright 1881

By WALT WHITMAN

All rights reserved

SHERMAN & CO., PRINTERS,
PHILADELPHIA.

CONTENTS.

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INSCRIPTIONS.		PAGE
⁠	One's-Self I Sing	9
	As I Ponder'd in Silence	9
	In Cabin'd Ships at Sea	10
	To Foreign Lands	11
	To A Historian	11
	To Thee Old Cause	11
	Eidólons	12
	For Him I Sing	14
	When I Read the Book	14
	Beginning My Studies	14
	Beginners	15
	To The States	15
	On Journeys through The States	15
	To a Certain Cantatrice	16
	Me Imperturbe	16
	Savantism	16
	The Ship Starting	16
	I Hear America Singing	17
	What Place is Besieged?	17
	Still though the One I Sing	17
	Shut not Your Doors	17
	Poets to Come	18
	To You	18
	Thou Reader	18
Starting from Paumanok		18
Song of Myself		29
CHILDREN OF ADAM.
	To The Garden the World	79
	From Pent-up Aching Rivers	79
	I Sing the Body Electric	81
	A Woman Waits for Me	88
	Spontaneous Me	89
	One Hour to Madness and Joy	91
	Out of the Rolling Ocean the Crowd	92
	Ages and Ages Returning at Intervals	92
	We Two, How Long We were Fool'd	93
	Hymen! O Hymenee!	93
	I am He that Aches with Love	93
	Native Moments	94
	Once I Pass'd through a Populous City	94
	I Heard You Solemn-Sweet Pipes of the Organ	94
	Facing West from California's Shores	95
	As Adam Early in the Morning	95
CALAMUS
⁠	In Paths Untrodden	95
	Scented Herbage of My Breast	96
	Whoever You are Holding Me Now in Hand	97
	For You O Democracy	99
	These I Singing in Spring	99
	Not Heaving from my Ribb'd Breast Only	100
	Of the Terrible Doubt of Appearances	101
	The Base of All Metaphysics	101
	Recorders Ages Hence	102
	When I Heard at the Close of the Day	102
	Are You the New Person Drawn toward Me?	103
	Roots and Leaves Themselves Alone	103
	Not Heat Flames up and Consumes	104
	Trickle Drops	104
	City of Orgies	105
	Behold This Swarthy Face	105
	I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing	105
	To A Stranger	106
	This Moment Yearning and Thoughtful	106
	I Hear It was Charged against Me	107
	The Prairie-Grass (1882) Dividing	107
	When I Peruse the Conquer'd Fame	107
	We Two Boys together Clinging	108
	A Promise to California	108
	Here the Frailest Leaves of Me	108
	No Labor-Saving Machine	108
	A Glimpse	109
	A Leaf for Hand in Hand	109
	Earth My Likeness	109
	I Dream'd in a Dream	109
	What Think You I Take My Pen in Hand?	110
	To the East and to the West	110
	Sometimes with One I Love	110
	To A Western Boy	110
	Fast-Anchor'd Eternal O Love	111
	Among the Multitude	111
	O You whom I Often and Silently Come	111
	That Shadow My Likeness	111
	Full of Life now	111
Salut au Monde!		112
Song of the Open Road		120
Crossing Brooklyn Ferry		129
Song of the Answerer		134
Our Old Feuillage		138
A Song of Joys		142
Song of the Broad-Axe		148
Song of the Exposition		157
Song of the Redwood-Tree		165
A Song for Occupations		169
A Song of the Rolling Earth		176
Youth, Day, Old Age, and Night		180
BIRDS OF PASSAGE.
	Song of the Universal	181
	Pioneers! O Pioneers!	183
	To You	186
⁠	France the 18th Year of These States	188
	Myself and Mine	189
	Year of Meteors (1859-60)	190
	With Antecedents	191
A Broadway Pageant		193
SEA-DRIFT.
	Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking	196
	As I Ebb'd with the Ocean of Life	202
	Tears	204
	To the Man-of-War-Bird	204
	Aboard at a Ship's Helm	205
	On the Beach at Night	205
	The World Below the Brine	206
	On the Beach at Night Alone	207
	Song for All Seas, All Ships	207
	Patroling Barnegat	208
	After the Sea-Ship	209
BY THE ROADSIDE.
	A Boston Ballad—1854	209
	Europe the 72d and 73d Years of These States	211
	A Hand-Mirror	213
	Gods	213
	Germs	214
	Thoughts	214
	When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer	214
	Perfections	214
	O Me! O Life!	215
	To a President	215
	I Sit and Look Out	215
	To Rich Givers	216
	The Dalliance of the Eagles	216
	Roaming in Thought	216
	A Farm Picture	216
	A Child's Amaze	217
	The Runner	217
	Beautiful Women	217
	Mother and Babe	217
	Thought	217
	Visor'd	217
	Thought	217
	Gliding o'er All	218
	Hast Never Come to Thee an Hour	218
	Thought	218
	To Old Age	218
	Locations and Times	218
	Offerings	218
	To Identify the 16th, 17th or 18th Presidentiad	218
DRUM-TAPS.
	First O Songs for a Prelude	219
	Eighteen Sixty-One	221
	Beat! Beat! Drums!	222
	From Paumanok Starting I Fly like a Bird	222
	Song of the Banner at Daybreak	223
	Rise O Days from Your Fathomless Deeps	228
⁠	Virginia—the West	230
	City of Ships	230
	The Centenarian's Story	231
	Cavalry Crossing a Ford	235
	Bivouac on a Mountain Side	235
	An Army Corps on the March	236
	By the Bivouac's Fitful Flame	236
	Come Up from the Fields Father	236
	Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night	238
	A March in the Ranks Hard-Prest	239
	A Sight in Camp in the Daybreak Gray and Dim	240
	As Toilsome I Wander'd Virginia's Woods	240
	Not the Pilot	241
	Year that Trembled and Reel'd Beneath Me	241
	The Wound-Dresser	241
	Long, too Long America	244
	Give Me the Splendid Silent Sun	244
	Dirge for Two Veterans	246
	Over the Carnage Rose Prophetic a Voice	247
	I Saw Old General at Bay	247
	The Artilleryman's Vision	248
	Ethiopia Saluting the Colors	249
	Not Youth Pertains to Me	249
	Race of Veterans	250
	World Take Good Notice	250
	O Tan-Faced Prairie-Boy	250
	Look Down Fair Moon	250
	Reconciliation	250
	How Solemn as One by One	251
	As I Lay with My Head in Your Lap Camerado	251
	Delicate Cluster	252
	To A Certain Civilian	252
	Lo, Victress on the Peaks	252
	Spirit whose Work is Done	253
	Adieu to a Soldier	253
	Turn O Libertad	254
	To the Leaven'd Soil They Trod	254
MEMORIES OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN.
	When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd	255
	O Captain, My Captain	262
	Hush'd be the Camps To-day	263
	This Dust was Once the Man	263
By Blue Ontario's Shore		264
Reversals		276
AUTUMN RIVULETS.
	As Consequent	277
	The Return of the Heroes	278
	There was a Child Went Forth	282
	Old Ireland	284
	The City Dead-House	284
	This Compost	285
	To A Foil'd European Revolutionaire	287
	Unnamed Lands	288
	Song of Prudence	289
⁠	The Singer in the Prison	292
	Warble for Lilac-Time	293
	Outlines for a Tomb	294
	Out from Behind This Mask	296
	Vocalism	297
	To Him That was Crucified	298
	You Felons on Trial in Courts	298
	Laws for Creations	299
	To A Common Prostitute	299
	I was Looking a Long While	300
	Thought	300
	Miracles	301
	Sparkles From the Wheel	301
	To A Pupil	302
	Unfolded Out of the Folds	302
	What am I After All	303
	Kosmos	303
	Others may Praise What They Like	304
	Who Learns My Lesson Complete	304
	Tests	305
	The Torch	305
	O Star of France (1870–71)	306
	The Ox-Tamer	307
	An Old Man's Thought of School	308
	Wandering at Morn	308
	Italian Music in Dakota	309
	With All Thy Gifts	309
	My Picture-Gallery	310
	The Prairie States	310
Proud Music of the Storm		310
Passage to India		315
Prayer of Columbus		323
The Sleepers		325
Transpositions		332
To Think of Time		333
WHISPERS OF HEAVENLY DEATH.
	Darest Thou Now O Soul	338
	Whispers of Heavenly Death	338
	Chanting the Square Deific	339
	Of Him I Love Day and Night	340
	Yet, Yet, Ye Downcast Hours	341
	As if a Phantom Caress'd Me	341
	Assurances	342
	Quicksand Years	342
	That Music Always Round Me	343
	What Ship Puzzled at Sea	343
	A Noiseless Patient Spider	343
	O Living Always, Always Dying	344
	To One Shortly to Die	344
	Night on the Prairies	344
	Thought	345
	The Last Invocation	346
	As I Watch'd the Ploughman Ploughing	346
	Pensive and Faltering	346
Thou Mother with Thy Equal Brood		346
A Paumanok Picture		351
FROM NOON TO STARRY NIGHT.
⁠	Thou Orb Aloft Full-Dazzling	352
	Faces	353
	The Mystic Trumpeter	356
	To A Locomotive in Winter	358
	O Magnet-South	359
	Mannahatta	360
	All is Truth	361
	A Riddle Song	362
	Excelsior	363
	Ah Poverties, Wincings, and Sulky Retreats	364
	Thoughts	364
	Mediums	364
	Weave in, My Hardy Life	365
	Spain, 1873–74	365
	By Broad Potomac's Shore	366
	From Far Dakota's Cañons (June 25, 1876)	366
	Old War-Dreams	367
	Thick-Sprinkled Bunting	367
	What Best I See in Thee	368
	Spirit That Form'd This Scene	368
	As I Walk These Broad Majestic Days	369
	A Clear Midnight	369
SONGS OF PARTING.
	As the Time Draws Nigh	370
	Years of the Modern	370
	Ashes of Soldiers	371
	Thoughts	373
	Song at Sunset	374
	As at Thy Portals Also Death	376
	My Legacy	376
	Pensive on Her Dead Gazing	377
	Camps of Green	377
	The Sobbing of the Bells	378
	As They Draw to a Close	379
	Joy, Shipmate, Joy	379
	The Untold Want	379
	Portals	379
	These Carols	379
	Now Finalè to the Shore	380
	So Long!	380