Fast Anchor'd, Eternal, O Love

Fast-anchor'd, eternal, O love! O woman I love!
O bride! O wife! more resistless than I can tell, the thought of you!
Then separate, as disembodied, or another born,
Ethereal, the last athletic reality, my consolation;
I ascend--I float in the regions of your love, O man,
O sharer of my roving life.

Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman was an American poet, essayist, and journalist, often considered one of the most influential poets in the American canon. His work broke the boundaries of poetic form and is known for its free verse style. Whitman’s most famous collection, 'Leaves of Grass', celebrates democracy, nature, love, and friendship. He had a significant impact on later literary traditions and is often referred to as the father of free verse.

Walt Whitman

On Old Man's Thought Of School

Walt Whitman, Simple Poetry

Others May Praise What They Like

Walt Whitman, Simple Poetry

I Will Take An Egg Out Of The Robin's Nest

Walt Whitman, Simple Poetry

A Promise To California

Walt Whitman, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Primeval My Love For The Woman I Love

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 ascend - I float in the regions of your love, O man,
O sharer of my roving life.

Walt Whitman

From Pent-Up Aching Rivers

From pent-up, aching rivers;
From that of myself, without which I were nothing;
From what I am determin'd to make illustrious, even if I stand sole among men;
From my own voice resonant--singing the phallus,
Singing the song of procreation,
Singing the need of superb children, and therein superb grown people,
Singing the muscular urge and the blending,
Singing the bedfellow's song, (O resistless yearning!
O for any and each, the body correlative attracting!
O for you, whoever you are, your correlative body! O it, more than all else, you delighting!)
From the hungry gnaw that eats me night and day;
From native moments--from bashful pains--singing them;
Singing something yet unfound, though I have diligently sought it, many a long year;
Singing the true song of the Soul, fitfu...

Walt Whitman

Spontaneous Me

Spontaneous me, Nature,
The loving day, the mounting sun, the friend I am happy with,
The arm of my friend hanging idly over my shoulder,
The hill-side whiten'd with blossoms of the mountain ash,
The same, late in autumn the hues of red, yellow, drab, purple, and light and dark green,
The rich coverlid of the grass animals and birds the private untrimm'd bank the primitive apples the pebble-stones,
Beautiful dripping fragments the negligent list of one after another, as I happen to call them to me, or think of them,
The real poems, (what we call poems being merely pictures,)
The poems of the privacy of the night, and of men like me,
This poem, drooping shy and unseen, that I always carry, and that all men carry,
(Know, once for all, avow'd on purpose, wherever are men like me, are our lust...

Walt Whitman

A Woman Waits For Me

A woman waits for me--she contains all, nothing is lacking,
Yet all were lacking, if sex were lacking, or if the moisture of the
right man were lacking.

Sex contains all,
Bodies, Souls, meanings, proofs, purities, delicacies, results,
promulgations,
Songs, commands, health, pride, the maternal mystery, the seminal
milk;
All hopes, benefactions, bestowals,
All the passions, loves, beauties, delights of the earth,
All the governments, judges, gods, follow'd persons of the earth,
These are contain'd in sex, as parts of itself, and justifications of
itself.

Without shame the man I like knows and avows the deliciousness of his
sex,
Without shame the woman I like knows and avows hers.

Now I will dismiss myself from impassive women,
I will go s...

Walt Whitman

Immortal Love, Forever Full

Immortal love, forever full,
Forever flowing free,
Forever shared, forever whole,
A never ebbing sea!

Our outward lips confess the name
All other names above;
Love only knoweth whence it came,
And comprehendeth love.

Blow, winds of God, awake and blow
The mists of earth away:
Shine out, O Light divine, and show
How wide and far we stray.

We may not climb the heavenly steeps
To bring the Lord Christ down;
In vain we search the lowest deeps,
For Him no depths can drown.

But warm, sweet, tender, even yet,
A present help is He;
And faith still has its Olivet,
And love its Galilee.

The healing of His seamless dress
Is by our beds of pain;
We touch Him in lifes throng and press,
And we are whole again...

John Greenleaf Whittier

To The Garden The World

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;
The revolving cycles, in their wide sweep, have brought me again,
Amorous, mature all beautiful to me all wondrous;
My limbs, and the quivering fire that ever plays through them, for reasons, most wondrous;
Existing, I peer and penetrate still,
Content with the present content with the past,
By my side, or back of me, Eve following,
Or in front, and I following her just the same.

Walt Whitman