Life poems
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Singer in the Prison, The.
© Walt Whitman
1
O sight of shame, and pain, and dole!
O fearful thoughta convict Soul!
RANG the refrain along the hall, the prison,
Now Finale to the Shore.
© Walt Whitman
NOW finale to the shore!
Now, land and life, finale, and farewell!
Now Voyager depart! (much, much for thee is yet in store;)
Often enough hast thou adventurd oer the seas,
As At Thy Portals Also Death.
© Walt Whitman
AS at thy portals also death,
Entering thy sovereign, dim, illimitable grounds,
To memories of my mother, to the divine blending, maternity,
To her, buried and gone, yet buried not, gone not from me,
Joy, Shipmate, Joy!
© Walt Whitman
JOY! shipmatejoy!
(Pleasd to my Soul at death I cry;)
Our life is closedour life begins;
The long, long anchorage we leave,
Native Moments.
© Walt Whitman
NATIVE moments! when you come upon meAh you are here now!
Give me now libidinous joys only!
Give me the drench of my passions! Give me life coarse and rank!
To-day, I go consort with natures darlingsto-night too;
Untold Want, The.
© Walt Whitman
THE untold want, by life and land neer granted,
Now, Voyager, sail thou forth, to seek and find.
Give me the Splendid, Silent Sun.
© Walt Whitman
1
GIVE me the splendid silent sun, with all his beams full-dazzling;
Give me juicy autumnal fruit, ripe and red from the orchard;
Give me a field where the unmowd grass grows;
Hushd be the Camps To-day.
© Walt Whitman
1
HUSHD be the camps to-day;
And, soldiers, let us drape our war-worn weapons;
And each with musing soul retire, to celebrate,
Assurances.
© Walt Whitman
I NEED no assurancesI am a man who is preoccupied, of his own Soul;
I do not doubt that from under the feet, and beside the hands and face I am cognizant of,
are
now looking faces I am not cognizant ofcalm and actual faces;
Quicksand Years.
© Walt Whitman
QUICKSAND years that whirl me I know not whither,
Your schemes, politics, faillines give waysubstances mock and elude me;
Only the theme I sing, the great and strong-possessd Soul, eludes not;
Ones-self must never give waythat is the final substancethat out of all
One Hour to Madness and Joy.
© Walt Whitman
ONE hour to madness and joy!
O furious! O confine me not!
(What is this that frees me so in storms?
What do my shouts amid lightnings and raging winds mean?)
Primeval my Love for the Woman I Love.
© Walt Whitman
PRIMEVAL my love for the woman I love,
O bride! O wife! more resistless, more enduring than I can tell, the thought of you!
Then separate, as disembodied, the purest born,
The ethereal, the last athletic reality, my consolation,
I ascendI float in the regions of your love, O man,
O sharer of my roving life.
Great are the Myths.
© Walt Whitman
1
GREAT are the mythsI too delight in them;
Great are Adam and EveI too look back and accept them;
Great the risen and fallen nations, and their poets, women, sages, inventors, rulers,
A Riddle Song.
© Walt Whitman
THAT which eludes this verse and any verse,
Unheard by sharpest ear, unformd in clearest eye or cunningest mind,
Nor lore nor fame, nor happiness nor wealth,
And yet the pulse of every heart and life throughout the world incessantly,
A Song.
© Walt Whitman
1
COME, I will make the continent indissoluble;
I will make the most splendid race the sun ever yet shone upon;
I will make divine magnetic lands,
My Picture-Gallery.
© Walt Whitman
IN a little house keep I pictures suspended, it is not a fixd house,
It is round, it is only a few inches from one side to the other;
Yet behold, it has room for all the shows of the world, all memories?
Here the tableaus of life, and here the groupings of death;
Here, do you know this? this is cicerone himself,
With finger raisd he points to the prodigal pictures.
Poem of Remembrance for a Girl or a Boy.
© Walt Whitman
YOU just maturing youth! You male or female!
Remember the organic compact of These States,
Remember the pledge of the Old Thirteen thenceforward to the rights, life, liberty,
equality of
To the Garden the World.
© Walt Whitman
TO the garden, the world, anew ascending,
Potent mates, daughters, sons, preluding,
The love, the life of their bodies, meaning and being,
Curious, here behold my resurrection, after slumber;
Weave in, Weave in, My Hardy Life.
© Walt Whitman
WEAVE in! weave in, my hardy life!
Weave yet a soldier strong and full, for great campaigns to come;
Weave in red blood! weave sinews in, like ropes! the senses, sight weave in!
Weave lasting sure! weave day and night the weft, the warp, incessant weave! tire not!
