#1855 #AmericanWriters #LeavesOfGrass
As I mused of these mighty days, and of peace return’d, and the dead that return no more, A Phantom, gigantic, superb, with stern visage, accosted me; Chant me the poem, it said, ...
I sing the body electric, The armies of those I love engirt… They will not let me off till I g… And discorrupt them, and charge th… Was it doubted that those who corr…
1 AS I walk, solitary, unattende… Around me I hear that eclat of th… produce, The announcements of recognized th… The approved growth of cities, and…
Ages and ages returning at interva… Undestroy’d, wandering immortal, Lusty, phallic, with the potent or… I, chanter of Adamic songs, Through the new garden the West,…
IN former songs Pride have I sun… Life, But here I twine the strands of P… And now, Life, Pride, Love, Patr… To you, O FREEDOM, purport of…
Thee for my recitative, Thee in the driving storm even as… Thee in thy panoply, thy measur’d… Thy black cylindric body, golden b… Thy ponderous side-bars, parallel…
Laws for creations, For strong artists and leaders, fo… literats for America, For noble savans and coming musici… All must have reference to the ens…
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…
How solemn as one by one, As the ranks returning worn and sw… As the faces the masks appear, as… (As I glance upward out of this p… you are,)
These are really the thoughts of a… If they are not yours as much as m… If they are not the riddle and the… If they are not just as close as t… This is the grass that grows where…
The last sunbeam Lightly falls from the finish’d S… On the pavement here, and there be… Down a new-made double grave. Lo, the moon ascending,
A Leaf for hand in hand! You natural persons old and young! You on the Mississippi, and on al… Mississippi! You friendly boatmen and mechanics…
The friendly and flowing savage, w… Is he waiting for civilization, or… Is he some Southwesterner rais’d… Is he from the Mississippi countr… The mountains? prairie-life, bush-…
The negro holds firmly the reins o… The negro that drives the long dra… His blue shirt exposes his ample n… His glance is calm and commanding,… The sun falls on his crispy hair a…
As down the stage again, With Spanish hat and plumes, and… Back from the fading lessons of th… How much from thee! the revelation… (So firm—so liquid-soft—again that…