Leaves of Grass
#1855 #AmericanWriters #LeavesOfGrass
NOW I make a leaf of Voices—for… they are, And I have found that no word spo… O what is it in me that makes me t… Surely, whoever speaks to me in th…
I do not despise you priests, all… My faith is the greatest of faiths… Enclosing worship ancient and mode… Believing I shall come again upon… Waiting responses from oracles, ho…
City of orgies, walks and joys! City whom that I have lived and s… you illustrious, Not the pageants of you—not your s… repay me;
Come my tan-faced children, Follow well in order, get your wea… Have you your pistols? have you yo… Pioneers! O pioneers! For we cannot tarry here,
Would you hear of an old-time sea-… Would you learn who won by the lig… List to the yarn, as my grandmothe… Our foe was no skulk in his ship… His was the surly English pluck,…
Is reform needed? Is it through y… The greater the reform needed, the… to accomplish it. You! do you not see how it would s… complexion, clean and sweet?
LONG I thought that knowledge al… but obtain knowledge! Then my lands engrossed me—Lands… southern savannas, engrossed me—Fo… be their orator;
Still though the one I sing, (One, yet of contradictions made,)… I leave in him revolt, (O latent… indispensable fire!)
With all thy gifts America, Standing secure, rapidly tending,… Power, wealth, extent, vouchsafed… vouchsafed to thee, What if one gift thou lackest? (th…
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…
From all the rest I single out yo… You are to die—let others tell you… I am exact and merciless, but I l… Softly I lay my right hand upon y… I do not argue, I bend my head cl…
Centre of equal daughters, equal s… All, all alike endear’d, grown, un… Strong, ample, fair, enduring, cap… Perennial with the Earth, with Fr… A grand, sane, towering, seated M…
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…
O, Death! a black and pierceless… Hangs round thee, and the future s… No eye may see, no mind may grasp That mystery of fate. This braid, which now alternate th…
These I singing in spring collect… (For who but I should understand… And who but I should be the poet… Collecting I traverse the garden… Now along the pond-side, now wadin…