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Walt Whitman

United States poet who celebrated the greatness of America (1819-1892)

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From this hour I ordain myself loos'd of limits and imaginary lines, Going where I list, my own master total and absolute, Listening to others, considering well what they say, Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating, Gently, but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds that would hold me.
Answer That you are here---that life exists and identity, That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.
And whether I come to my own today or in ten thousand or ten million years, I can cheefully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I can wait... And as to you, Life, I reckon you are the leavings of many deaths, (No doubt I have died myself ten thousand times before.)
Some people are so much sunshine to the square inch.
Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons. It is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth.
I celebrate myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I see great things in baseball. It's our game--the American game. It will take our people out-of-doors, fill them with oxygen, give them a larger physical stoicism. Tend to relieve us from being a nervous, dyspeptic set. Repair these losses, and be a blessing to us.
I no doubt deserved my enemies, but I don't believe I deserved my friends.
Do I contradict myself Very well then I contradict myself,
Either define the moment or the moment will define you.
Give me the splendid silent sun with all his beams full-dazzling.
I am as bad as the worst, but, thank God, I am as good as the best.
I celebrate myself, and sing myself.
I exist as I am, that is enough.
I have learned that to be with those I like is enough.
I have said that the soul is not more than the body, And I have said that the body is not more than the soul, And nothing, not God, is greater to one than one's self is.
I say that democracy can never prove itself beyond cavil, until it founds and luxuriantly grows its own forms of art, poems, schools, theology, displacing all that exists, or that has been produced anywhere in the past, under opposite influences.
I send no agent or medium, offer no representative of value,
If any thing is sacred the human body is sacred.
In America the young are always ready to give to those who are older than themselves the full benefits of their inexperience.
Judging from the main portion of the history of the world, so far, justice is always in jeopardy.
My final merit I refuse you, I refuse putting from me what I really am, Encompass worlds but never try to encompass me, I crowd your sleekest and best by simply looking toward you. Writing and talk do not prove me, I carry the plenum of proof in my face, With the hush of my lips I wholly confound the skeptic.
Nothing endures but personal qualities.
Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons.
Stranger, if you passing meet me and desire to speak to me, why should you not speak to me And why should I not speak to you
Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and knowledge that pass all the argument of the earth, And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own, And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own, And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the women my sisters and lovers, And that a kelson of the creation is love.
The habit of giving only enhances the desire to give.
The poet judges not as a judge judges but as the sun falling around a helpless thing.
This day before dawn I ascended a hill and looked at the crowded heaven.

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