Leaves of Grass
#AmericanWriters
Whispers of heavenly death murmur’… Labial gossip of night, sibilant c… Footsteps gently ascending, mystic… Ripples of unseen rivers, tides of… (Or is it the plashing of tears? t…
Skirting the river road, (my foren… Skyward in air a sudden muffled so… The rushing amorous contact high i… The clinching interlocking claws,… Four beating wings, two beaks, a s…
Vocalism, measure, concentration,… to speak words; Are you full-lung’d and limber-lip… practice? from physique? Do you move in these broad lands a…
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;
My spirit to yours dear brother, Do not mind because many sounding… I do not sound your name, but I u… I specify you with joy O my comra… who are with you, before and since…
Not heat flames up and consumes, Not sea-waves hurry in and out, Not the air, delicious and dry, th… lightly along white down-balls of… Wafted, sailing gracefully, to dro…
Now I tell what I knew in Texas… (I tell not the fall of Alamo, Not one escaped to tell the fall o… The hundred and fifty are dumb yet… ’Tis the tale of the murder in col…
DID YOU ask dulcet rhymes from… Did you find what I sang erewhile… to understand? Why I was not singing erewhile fo… understand—nor am I now;
After surmounting three-score and… With all their chances, changes, l… My parents’ deaths, the vagaries o… me, the war of ’63 and ‘4, As some old broken soldier, after…
An ancient song, reciting, ending, Once gazing toward thee, Mother o… Musing, seeking themes fitted for… Accept me, thou saidst, the elder… And name for me before thou goest…
Year that trembled and reel’d bene… Your summer wind was warm enough,… A thick gloom fell through the sun… Must I change my triumphant songs… Must I indeed learn to chant the…
EARTH, round, rolling, compact—s… mals—all these are words to be sai… Watery, vegetable, sauroid advance… tions, lispings of the future, Behold! these are vast words to be…
Out of the rolling ocean the crowd… Whispering, I love you, before lo… I have travell’d a long way merely… For I could not die till I once l… For I fear’d I might afterward lo…
Alone far in the wilds and mountai… Wandering amazed at my own lightne… In the late afternoon choosing a s… Kindling a fire and broiling the f… Falling asleep on the gather’d lea…
Race of veterans—race of victors! Race of the soil, ready for confli… (No more credulity’s race, abiding… Race henceforth owning no law but… Race of passion and the storm.
