#1855 #AmericanWriters #LeavesOfGrass
This is thy hour O Soul, thy free… Away from books, away from art, th… Thee fully forth emerging, silent,… lovest best, Night, sleep, death and the stars.
Small the theme of my Chant, yet… simple, separate person. That, for… Man’s physiology complete, from to… alone, nor brain alone, is worthy… Muse;—I say the Form complete is…
YEARS of the unperform’d! your h… parting away for more august drama… I see not America only—I see not… but other nations preparing; I see tremendous entrances and exi…
I celebrate myself, and sing mysel… And what I assume you shall assum… For every atom belonging to me as… I loafe and invite my soul, I lean and loafe at my ease observ…
As I watch’d the ploughman plough… Or the sower sowing in the fields,… I saw there too, O life and death… (Life, life is the tillage, and D…
To get the final lilt of songs, To penetrate the inmost lore of po… Job, Homer, Eschylus, Dante, Sha… To diagnose the shifting-delicate… truly understand,
A voice from Death, solemn and st… With sudden, indescribable blow—to… thousands slain, The vaunted work of thrift, goods,… Dash’d pell-mell by the blow—yet u…
The touch of flame—the illuminatin… O’er city, passion, sea—o’er prair… The airy, different, changing hues… Objects and groups, bearings, face… The calmer sight—the golden settin…
I SAY whatever tastes sweet to t… —That is finally right. I SAY the human shape or face is… never be made ridiculous; I say for ornaments nothing outré…
Did you ask dulcet rhymes from me? Did you seek the civilian’s peacef… Did you find what I sang erewhile… Why I was not singing erewhile fo… am I now;
Greater than memory of Achilles o… More, more by far to thee than tom… Those cart loads of old charnel as… Once living men—once resolute cour… The stepping stones to thee to-day…
The pure contralto sings in the or… The carpenter dresses his plank, t… The married and unmarried children… The pilot seizes the king-pin, he… The mate stands braced in the whal…
BATHED in war’s perfume—delicat… (Should the days needing armies, n… O to hear you call the sailors and… beautiful woman! O to hear the tramp, tramp, of a m…
I MET a Seer, Passing the hues and objects of th… The fields of art and learning, pl… To glean Eidólons. Put in thy chants, said he,
What am I, after all, but a child… name? repeating it over and over; I stand apart to hear—it never tir… To you, your name also; Did you think there was nothing bu…