Great poems
/ page 269 of 549 /
Sing of the Banner at Day-Break.
© Walt Whitman
POET.
O A NEW song, a free song,
Flapping, flapping, flapping, flapping, by sounds, by voices clearer,
By the winds voice and that of the drum,
Base of all Metaphysics, The.
© Walt Whitman
AND now, gentlemen,
A word I give to remain in your memories and minds,
As base, and finale too, for all metaphysics.
Now List to my Mornings Romanza.
© Walt Whitman
1
NOW list to my mornings romanzaI tell the signs of the Answerer;
To the cities and farms I sing, as they spread in the sunshine before me.
Inscription.
© Walt Whitman
SMALL is the theme of the following Chant, yet the greatestnamely,
Ones-Selfthat wondrous thing a simple, separate person. That, for the use of
the
New World, I sing.
Apostroph.
© Walt Whitman
O MATER! O fils!
O brood continental!
O flowers of the prairies!
O space boundless! O hum of mighty products!
As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free.
© Walt Whitman
1
AS a strong bird on pinions free,
Joyous, the amplest spaces heavenward cleaving,
Such be the thought Id think to-day of thee, America,
France, the 18th year of These States.
© Walt Whitman
1
A GREAT year and place;
A harsh, discordant, natal scream out-sounding, to touch the mothers heart closer
than
Mediums.
© Walt Whitman
THEY shall arise in the States,
They shall report Nature, laws, physiology, and happiness;
They shall illustrate Democracy and the kosmos;
They shall be alimentive, amative, perceptive;
These, I, Singing in Spring.
© Walt Whitman
THESE, I, singing in spring, collect for lovers,
(For who but I should understand lovers, and all their sorrow and joy?
And who but I should be the poet of comrades?)
Collecting, I traverse the garden, the worldbut soon I pass the gates,
A Broadway Pageant.
© Walt Whitman
1
OVER the western sea, hither from Niphon come,
Courteous, the swart-cheekd two-sworded envoys,
Leaning back in their open barouches, bare-headed, impassive,
Respondez!
© Walt Whitman
RESPONDEZ! Respondez!
(The war is completedthe price is paidthe title is settled beyond recall;)
Let every one answer! let those who sleep be waked! let none evade!
Must we still go on with our affectations and sneaking?
Salut au Monde.
© Walt Whitman
1
O TAKE my hand, Walt Whitman!
Such gliding wonders! such sights and sounds!
Such joind unended links, each hookd to the next!
Carol of Words.
© Walt Whitman
1
EARTH, round, rolling, compactsuns, moons, animalsall these are words to be
said;
Watery, vegetable, sauroid advancesbeings, premonitions, lispings of the future,
To a foild European Revolutionaire.
© Walt Whitman
1
COURAGE yet! my brother or my sister!
Keep on! Liberty is to be subservd, whatever occurs;
That is nothing, that is quelld by one or two failures, or any number of failures,
Prayer of Columbus.
© Walt Whitman
A BATTERD, wreckd old man,
Thrown on this savage shore, far, far from home,
Pent by the sea, and dark rebellious brows, twelve dreary months,
Sore, stiff with many toils, sickend, and nigh to death,
Says.
© Walt Whitman
1
I SAY whatever tastes sweet to the most perfect person, that is finally right.
2
I say nourish a great intellect, a great brain;
A Carol of Harvest, for 1867
© Walt Whitman
1
A SONG of the good green grass!
A song no more of the city streets;
A song of farmsa song of the soil of fields.
A Promise to California.
© Walt Whitman
A PROMISE to California,
Also to the great Pastoral Plains, and for Oregon:
Sojourning east a while longer, soon I travel toward you, to remain, to teach robust
American
After the Sea-Ship.
© Walt Whitman
AFTER the Sea-Shipafter the whistling winds;
After the white-gray sails, taut to their spars and ropes,
Below, a myriad, myriad waves, hastening, lifting up their necks,
Tending in ceaseless flow toward the track of the ship:
A Boston Ballad, 1854.
© Walt Whitman
TO get betimes in Boston town, I rose this morning early;
Heres a good place at the cornerI must stand and see the show.
Clear the way there, Jonathan!
