One Hour To Madness And Joy

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?)

O to drink the mystic deliria deeper than any other man!
O savage and tender achings!
(I bequeath them to you, my children, I tell them to you, for reasons, O bridegroom and bride.)

O to be yielded to you, whoever you are, and you to be yielded to me,
in defiance of the world!
O to return to Paradise! O bashful and feminine!
O to draw you to me - to plant on you for the first time the lips of a determin'd man!

O the puzzle - the thrice-tied knot - the deep and dark pool! O all untied and illumin'd!
O to speed where there is space enough and air enough at last!
O to be absolv'd from previous ties and conventions - I from mine, and you from yours!
O to find a new unthought-of nonchalance with the best of nature!
O to have the gag remov'd from one's mouth!
O to have the feeling, to-day or any day, I am sufficient as I am!

O something unprov'd! something in a trance!
O madness amorous! O trembling!
O to escape utterly from others' anchors and holds!
To drive free! to love free! to dash reckless and dangerous!
To court destruction with taunts - with invitations!
To ascend - to leap to the heavens of the love indicated to me!
To rise thither with my inebriate Soul!
To be lost, if it must be so!
To feed the remainder of life with one hour of fulness and freedom!
With one brief hour of madness and joy.

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

1861

Walt Whitman, Simple Poetry

Tears

Walt Whitman, Simple Poetry

Patroling Barnegat

Walt Whitman, Simple Poetry

Debris

Walt Whitman, Simple Poetry

English

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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...

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Song At Sunset

Splendor of ended day, floating and filling me!
Hour prophetic hour resuming the past!
Inflating my throat you, divine average!
You, Earth and Life, till the last ray gleams, I sing.

Open mouth of my Soul, uttering gladness,
Eyes of my Soul, seeing perfection,
Natural life of me, faithfully praising things;
Corroborating forever the triumph of things.

Illustrious every one!
Illustrious what we name space sphere of unnumber'd spirits;
Illustrious the mystery of motion, in all beings, even the tiniest insect;
Illustrious the attribute of speech the senses the body;
Illustrious the passing light! Illustrious the pale reflection on the new moon in the western sky!
Illustrious whatever I see, or hear, or touch, to the last.

Good in all,
In the satisfac...

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Apostroph

O mater! O fils!
O brood continental!
O flowers of the prairies!
O space boundless! O hum of mighty products!
O you teeming cities! O so invincible, turbulent, proud!
O race of the future! O women!
O fathers! O you men of passion and the storm!
O native power only! O beauty!
O yourself! O God! O divine average!
O you bearded roughs! O bards! O all those slumberers!
O arouse! the dawn bird's throat sounds shrill! Do you not hear the cock crowing?
O, as I walk'd the beach, I heard the mournful notes foreboding a tempest--the low, oft-repeated shriek of the diver, the long-lived loon;
O I heard, and yet hear, angry thunder;--O you sailors! O ships! make quick preparation!
O from his masterful sweep, the warning cry of the eagle!
(Give way there, all! It is useless! Give up...

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Rise, O Days

Rise, O days, from your fathomless deeps, till you loftier, fiercer sweep!
Long for my soul, hungering gymnastic, I devour'd what the earth gave me;
Long I roam'd the woods of the north long I watch'd Niagara pouring;
I travel'd the prairies over, and slept on their breast I cross'd the Nevadas, I cross'd the plateaus;
I ascended the towering rocks along the Pacific, I sail'd out to sea;
I sail'd through the storm, I was refresh'd by the storm;
I watch'd with joy the threatening maws of the waves;
I mark'd the white combs where they career'd so high, curling over;
I heard the wind piping, I saw the black clouds;
Saw from below what arose and mounted, (O superb! O wild as my heart, and powerful!)
Heard the continuous thunder, as it bellow'd after the lightning;
Noted the slender and ja...

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The Mystic Trumpeter

Hark! some wild trumpeter some strange musician,
Hovering unseen in air, vibrates capricious tunes to-night.

I hear thee, trumpeter listening, alert, I catch thy notes,
Now pouring, whirling like a tempest round me,
Now low, subdued now in the distance lost.

Come nearer, bodiless one haply, in thee resounds
Some dead composer haply thy pensive life
Was fill'd with aspirations high unform'd ideals,
Waves, oceans musical, chaotically surging,
That now, ecstatic ghost, close to me bending, thy cornet echoing, pealing,
Gives out to no one's ears but mine but freely gives to mine,
That I may thee translate.

Blow, trumpeter, free and clear I follow thee,
While at thy liquid prelude, glad, serene,
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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...

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