LEAVES OF GRASS BY WALT WHITMAN

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BOOK I INSCRIPTIONS begins with One's Self I Sing

BOOK II begins with Starting from Paumanok

BOOK III begins with Song of Myself

BOOK IV  CHILDREN OF ADAM begins with To the Garden the World

BOOK V  CALAMUS begins with In Paths Untrodden

BOOK VI begins with Salut au Monde!

BOOK VII begins with Song of the Open Road

BOOK VIII begins with Crossing Brooklyn Ferry

BOOK IX begins with Song of the Answerer

BOOK X begins with Our Old Feuillage

BOOK XI begins with A Song of Joys

BOOK XII begins with Song of the Broad-Axe

BOOK XIII begins with Song of the Exposition

BOOK XIV begins with Song of the Redwood-Tree

BOOK XV begins with  A Song for Occupations

BOOK XVI begins with A Song of the Rolling Earth

BOOK XVII BIRDS OF PASSAGE begins with Song of the Universal

BOOK XVIII begins with A Broadway Pageant

BOOK XIX.  SEA-DRIFT begins with Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking

BOOK XX.  BY THE ROADSIDE begins with A Boston Ballad [1854]

BOOK XXI  DRUM-TAPS begins with First O Songs for a Prelude

BOOK XXII.  MEMORIES OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN begins with When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd

BOOK XXIII begins with By Blue Ontario's Shore

BOOK XXIV.  AUTUMN RIVULETS begins with As Consequent, Etc.

BOOK XXV begins with Proud Music of the Storm

BOOK XXVI begins with Passage to India

BOOK XXVII begins with Prayer of Columbus

BOOK XXVIII begins with The Sleepers

BOOK XXIX begins wtih To Think of Time

BOOK XXX.  WHISPERS OF HEAVENLY DEATH begins with Darest Thou Now O Soul

BOOK XXXI begins with Thou Mother with Thy Equal Brood

BOOK XXXII.  FROM NOON TO STARRY NIGHT begins with Thou Orb Aloft Full-Dazzling

BOOK XXXIII.  SONGS OF PARTING begins with As the Time Draws Nigh

BOOK XXXIV.  SANDS AT SEVENTY begins with Mannahatta

BOOK XXXV.  GOOD-BYE MY FANCY begins with Sail out for Good, Eidolon Yacht!

_____________

Come, said my soul,

Such verses for my Body let us write, (for we are one,)

That should I after return,

Or, long, long hence, in other spheres,

There to some group of mates the chants resuming,

(Tallying Earth's soil, trees, winds, tumultuous waves,)

Ever with pleas'd smile I may keep on,

Ever and ever yet the verses owning--as, first, I here and now

Signing for Soul and Body, set to them my name,

Walt Whitman

BOOK I.  INSCRIPTIONS

One's-Self I Sing

As I Ponder'd in Silence

In Cabin'd Ships at Sea

To Foreign Lands

To a Historian

To Thee Old Cause

Eidolons

Eidolons

For Him I Sing

When I Read the Book

Beginning My Studies

Beginners

To the States

On Journeys Through the States

To a Certain Cantatrice

Me Imperturbe

Savantism

The Ship Starting

I Hear America Singing

What Place Is Besieged?

Still Though the One I Sing

Shut Not Your Doors

Poets to Come

To You

Thou Reader

One's-Self I Sing

One's-self I sing, a simple separate person,

Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-Masse.

Of physiology from top to toe I sing,

Not physiognomy alone nor brain alone is worthy for the Muse, I say

    the Form complete is worthier far,

The Female equally with the Male I sing.

Of Life immense in passion, pulse, and power,

Cheerful, for freest action form'd under the laws divine,

The Modern Man I sing.

As I Ponder'd in Silence

As I ponder'd in silence,

Returning upon my poems, considering, lingering long,

A Phantom arose before me with distrustful aspect,

Terrible in beauty, age, and power,

The genius of poets of old lands,

As to me directing like flame its eyes,

With finger pointing to many immortal songs,

And menacing voice, What singest thou? it said,

Know'st thou not there is hut one theme for ever-enduring bards?

And that is the theme of War, the fortune of battles,

The making of perfect soldiers.

Be it so, then I answer'd,

I too haughty Shade also sing war, and a longer and greater one than any,

Waged in my book with varying fortune, with flight, advance

    and retreat, victory deferr'd and wavering,

(Yet methinks certain, or as good as certain, at the last,) the

    field the world,

For life and death, for the Body and for the eternal Soul,

Lo, I too am come, chanting the chant of battles,

I above all promote brave soldiers.

In Cabin'd Ships at Sea

In cabin'd ships at sea,

The boundless blue on every side expanding,

With whistling winds and music of the waves, the large imperious waves,

Or some lone bark buoy'd on the dense marine,

Where joyous full of faith, spreading white sails,

She cleaves the ether mid the sparkle and the foam of day, or under

    many a star at night,

By sailors young and old haply will I, a reminiscence of the land, be read,

In full rapport at last.

Here are our thoughts, voyagers' thoughts,

Here not the land, firm land, alone appears, may then by them be said,

The sky o'erarches here, we feel the undulating deck beneath our feet,

We feel the long pulsation, ebb and flow of endless motion,

The tones of unseen mystery, the vague and vast suggestions of the

    briny world, the liquid-flowing syllables,

The perfume, the faint creaking of the cordage, the melancholy rhythm,

The boundless vista and the horizon far and dim are all here,

And this is ocean's poem.

Then falter not O book, fulfil your destiny,

You not a reminiscence of the land alone,

You too as a lone bark cleaving the ether, purpos'd I know not

    whither, yet ever full of faith,

Consort to every ship that sails, sail you!

Bear forth to them folded my love, (dear mariners, for you I fold it

    here in every leaf;)

Speed on my book! spread your white sails my little bark athwart the

    imperious waves,

Chant on, sail on, bear o'er the boundless blue from me to every sea,

This song for mariners and all their ships.

To Foreign Lands

I heard that you ask'd for something to prove this puzzle the New World,

And to define America, her athletic Democracy,

Therefore I send you my poems that you behold in them what you wanted.

To a Historian

You who celebrate bygones,

Who have explored the outward, the surfaces of the races, the life

    that has exhibited itself,

Who have treated of man as the creature of politics, aggregates,

    rulers and priests,

I, habitan of the Alleghanies, treating of him as he is in himself

    in...