O Living Always - Always Dying

O living always - always dying!
O the burials of me, past and present!
O me, while I stride ahead, material, visible, imperious as ever!
O me, what I was for years, now dead, (I lament not - I am content;)
O to disengage myself from those corpses of me, which I turn and look at, where I cast them!
To pass on, (O living! always living!) and leave the corpses behind!

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

So Long

Walt Whitman, Simple Poetry

Debris

Walt Whitman, Simple Poetry

To Foreign Lands

Walt Whitman, Simple Poetry

Who Learns My Lesson Complete?

Walt Whitman, Simple Poetry

English

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O Me! O Life!

O me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring;
Of the endless trains of the faithless - of cities fill'd with the foolish;
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light - of the objects mean - of the struggle ever renew'd;
Of the poor results of all - of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me;
Of the empty and useless years of the rest - with the rest me intertwined;
The question, O me! so sad, recurring - What good amid these, O me, O life?

Answer.

That you are here - that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.

Walt Whitman

Pensive And Faltering

Pensive and faltering,
The words, the dead, I write;
For living are the Dead;
(Haply the only living, only real,
And I the apparition - I the spectre.)

Walt Whitman

Pensive On Her Dead Gazing, I Heard The Mother Of All

Pensive, on her dead gazing, I heard the Mother of All,
Desperate, on the torn bodies, on the forms covering the battle-fields gazing;
(As the last gun ceased but the scent of the powder-smoke linger'd;)
As she call'd to her earth with mournful voice while she stalk'd:
Absorb them well, O my earth, she cried I charge you, lose not my sons! lose not an atom;
And you streams, absorb them well, taking their dear blood;
And you local spots, and you airs that swim above lightly,
And all you essences of soil and growth and you, my rivers' depths;
And you, mountain sides and the woods where my dear children's blood, trickling, redden'd;
And you trees, down in your roots, to bequeath to all future trees,
My dead absorb my young men's beautiful bodies absorb and their precious, precious, precious b...

Walt Whitman

Of Him I Love Day And Night

Of him I love day and night, I dream'd I heard he was dead;
And I dream'd I went where they had buried him I love - but he was not in that place;
And I dream'd I wander'd, searching among burial-places, to find him;
And I found that every place was a burial-place;
The houses full of life were equally full of death, (this house is now;)
The streets, the shipping, the places of amusement, the Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, the Mannahatta, were as full of the dead as of the living,
And fuller, O vastly fuller, of the dead than of the living;
And what I dream'd I will henceforth tell to every person and age,
And I stand henceforth bound to what I dream'd;
And now I am willing to disregard burial-places, and dispense with them;
And if the memorials of the dead were put up indifferently everywhe...

Walt Whitman

Scented Herbage Of My Breast

Scented herbage of my breast,
Leaves from you I yield, I write, to be perused best afterwards,
Tomb-leaves, body-leaves, growing up above me, above death,
Perennial roots, tall leaves O the winter shall not freeze you, delicate leaves,
Every year shall you bloom again out from where you retired, you shall emerge again;
O I do not know whether many, passing by, will discover you, or inhale your faint odor but I believe a few will;
O slender leaves! O blossoms of my blood! I permit you to tell, in your own way, of the heart that is under you;
O burning and throbbing surely all will one day be accomplish'd;
O I do not know what you mean, there underneath yourselves you are not happiness,
You are often more bitter than I can bear you burn and sting me,
Yet you are very beautiful to me, you fai...

Walt Whitman

In Former Songs

In former songs Pride have I sung, and Love, and passionate, joyful Life,
But here I twine the strands of Patriotism and Death.

And now, Life, Pride, Love, Patriotism and Death,
To you, O freedom, purport of all!
(You that elude me most - refusing to be caught in songs of mine,)
I offer all to you.

'Tis not for nothing, Death,
I sound out you, and words of you, with daring tone - embodying you,
In my new Democratic chants - keeping you for a close,
For last impregnable retreat - a citadel and tower,
For my last stand - my pealing, final cry.

Walt Whitman