Sometimes With One I Love

Sometimes with one I love, I fill myself with rage, for fear I effuse unreturn'd love;
But now I think there is no unreturn'd love the pay is certain, one way or another;
(I loved a certain person ardently, and my love was not return'd;
Yet out of that, I have written these songs.)

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

Germs

Walt Whitman, Simple Poetry

Year That Trembled

Walt Whitman, Simple Poetry

Reconciliation

Walt Whitman, Simple Poetry

Song For All Seas, All Ships

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.

Still, Though The One I Sing

Still, though the one I sing,
(One, yet of contradictions made,) I dedicate to Nationality,
I leave in him Revolt, (O latent right of insurrection! O quenchless, indispensable fire!)

Walt Whitman

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

Once I Pass'd Through A Populous City

Once I pass'd through a populous city, imprinting my brain, for future use, with its shows, architecture, customs, and traditions;
Yet now, of all that city, I remember only a woman I casually met there, who detain'd me for love of me;
Day by day and night by night we were together, - All else has long been forgotten by me;
I remember, I say, only that woman who passionately clung to me;
Again we wander - we love - we separate again;
Again she holds me by the hand - I must not go!
I see her close beside me, with silent lips, sad and tremulous.

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

As If A Phantom Caress'd Me

As if a phantom caress'd me,
I thought I was not alone, walking here by the shore;
But the one I thought was with me, as now I walk by the shore--the one I loved, that caress'd me,
As I lean and look through the glimmering light--that one has utterly disappear'd,
And those appear that are hateful to me, and mock me.

Walt Whitman

Stanzas To A Lady, On Leaving England.

1.

Tis done - and shivering in the gale
The bark unfurls her snowy sail;
And whistling o'er the bending mast,
Loud sings on high the fresh'ning blast;
And I must from this land be gone,
Because I cannot love but one.


2.

But could I be what I have been,
And could I see what I have seen -
Could I repose upon the breast
Which once my warmest wishes blest -
I should not seek another zone,
Because I cannot love but one.


3.

'Tis long since I beheld that eye
Which gave me bliss or misery;
And I have striven, but in vain,
Never to think of it again:
For though I fly from Albion,
I still can only love but one.


4.

As some lone bird, without a mate,
My weary heart is desolate;<...

George Gordon Byron