Time poems
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Shut Not Your Doors, &c.
© Walt Whitman
SHUT not your doors to me, proud libraries,
For that which was lacking on all your well-filld shelves, yet needed most, I bring;
Forth from the army, the war emerginga book I have made,
The words of my book nothingthe drift of it everything;
Dresser, The.
© Walt Whitman
1
AN old man bending, I come, among new faces,
Years looking backward, resuming, in answer to children,
Come tell us, old man, as from young men and maidens that love me;
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,
From Pent-up Aching Rivers.
© Walt Whitman
FROM pent-up, aching rivers;
From that of myself, without which I were nothing;
From what I am determind to make illustrious, even if I stand sole among men;
From my own voice resonantsinging the phallus,
Warble for Lilac-Time.
© Walt Whitman
WARBLE me now, for joy of Lilac-time,
Sort me, O tongue and lips, for Natures sake, and sweet lifes sakeand
deaths the same as lifes,
Souvenirs of earliest summerbirds eggs, and the first berries;
Excelsior.
© Walt Whitman
WHO has gone farthest? For lo! have not I gone farther?
And who has been just? For I would be the most just person of the earth;
And who most cautious? For I would be more cautious;
And who has been happiest? O I think it is I! I think no one was ever happier than I;
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;
Who is now Reading This?
© Walt Whitman
WHO is now reading this?
May-be one is now reading this who knows some wrong-doing of my past life,
Or may-be a stranger is reading this who has secretly loved me,
Or may-be one who meets all my grand assumptions and egotisms with derision,
Song of the Universal.
© Walt Whitman
1
COME, said the Muse,
Sing me a song no poet yet has chanted,
Sing me the Universal.
Out from Behind this Mask.
© Walt Whitman
1
OUT from behind this bending, rough-cut Mask,
(All straighter, liker Masks rejectedthis preferrd,)
This common curtain of the face, containd in me for me, in you for you, in each for
Song for All Seas, All Ships.
© Walt Whitman
1
TO-DAY a rude brief recitative,
Of ships sailing the Seas, each with its special flag or ship-signal;
Of unnamed heroes in the shipsOf waves spreading and spreading, far as the eye can reach;
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;
Think of the Soul.
© Walt Whitman
THINK of the Soul;
I swear to you that body of yours gives proportions to your Soul somehow to live in other
spheres;
I do not know how, but I know it is so.
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,
From My Last Years.
© Walt Whitman
FROM my last years, last thoughts I here bequeath,
Scatterd and dropt, in seeds, and wafted to the West,
Through moisture of Ohio, prairie soil of Illinoisthrough Colorado, California air,
For Time to germinate fully.
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;
