The Prairie States

A newer garden of creation, no primal solitude,
Dense, joyous, modern, populous millions, cities and farms,
With iron interlaced, composite, tied, many in one,
By all the world contributed freedom's and law's and thrift's society,
The crown and teeming paradise, so far, of time's accumulations,
To justify the past.

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

Despairing Cries

Walt Whitman, Simple Poetry

Great Are The Myths

Walt Whitman, Simple Poetry

To Him That Was Crucified

Walt Whitman, Simple Poetry

Rise, O Days

Walt Whitman, Simple Poetry

English

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In The New Garden In All The Parts

In the new garden, in all the parts,
In cities now, modern, I wander,
Though the second or third result, or still further, primitive yet,
Days, places, indifferent - though various, the same,
Time, Paradise, the Mannahatta, the prairies, finding me unchanged,
Death indifferent - Is it that I lived long since? Was I buried very long ago?
For all that, I may now be watching you here, this moment;
For the future, with determined will, I seek - the woman of the future,
You, born years, centuries after me, I seek.

Walt Whitman

American Feuillage

America always!
Always our own feuillage!
Always Florida's green peninsula! Always the priceless delta of Louisiana! Always the cotton-fields of Alabama and Texas!
Always California's golden hills and hollows--and the silver mountains of New Mexico! Always soft-breath'd Cuba!
Always the vast slope drain'd by the Southern Sea--inseparable with the slopes drain'd by the Eastern and Western Seas;
The area the eighty-third year of These States--the three and a half millions of square miles;
The eighteen thousand miles of sea-coast and bay-coast on the main--the thirty thousand miles of river navigation,
The seven millions of distinct families, and the same number of dwellings--Always these, and more, branching forth into numberless branches;
Always the free range and diversity! always the continent of D...

Walt Whitman

To The East And To The West

To the East and to the West;
To the man of the Seaside State, and of Pennsylvania,
To the Kanadian of the North, to the Southerner I love;
These, with perfect trust, to depict you as myself, the germs are in all men;
I believe the main purport of These States is to found a superb friendship, exalté, previously unknown,
Because I perceive it waits, and has been always waiting, latent in all men.

Walt Whitman

Thoughts

Of these years I sing,
How they pass and have pass'd, through convuls'd pains as through parturitions;
How America illustrates birth, muscular youth, the promise, the sure fulfillment, the Absolute Success, despite of people Illustrates evil as well as good;
How many hold despairingly yet to the models departed, caste, myths, obedience, compulsion, and to infidelity;
How few see the arrived models, the Athletes, the Western States or see freedom or spirituality or hold any faith in results,
(But I see the Athletes and I see the results of the war glorious and inevitable and they again leading to other results;)
How the great cities appear How the Democratic masses, turbulent, wilful, as I love them;
How the whirl, the contest, the wrestle of evil with good, the sounding and resounding, keep on and on;

Walt Whitman

The Prairie-Grass Dividing

The prairie-grass dividing its special odor breathing,
I demand of it the spiritual corresponding,
Demand the most copious and close companionship of men,
Demand the blades to rise of words, acts, beings,
Those of the open atmosphere, coarse, sunlit, fresh, nutritious,
Those that go their own gait, erect, stepping with freedom and command leading, not following,
Those with a never-quell'd audacity those with sweet and lusty flesh, clear of taint,
Those that look carelessly in the faces of Presidents and Governors, as to say, Who are you?
Those of earth-born passion, simple, never-constrain'd, never obedient,
Those of inland America.

Walt Whitman

Unnamed Lands

Nations ten thousand years before These States, and many times ten thousand years before These States;
Garner'd clusters of ages, that men and women like us grew up and travel'd their course, and pass'd on;
What vast-built cities, what orderly republics, what pastoral tribes and nomads;
What histories, rulers, heroes, perhaps transcending all others;
What laws, customs, wealth, arts, traditions;
What sort of marriage, what costumes, what physiology and phrenology;
What of liberty and slavery among them, what they thought of death and the soul;
Who were witty and wise, who beautiful and poetic, who brutish and undevelop'd;
Not a mark, not a record remains, And yet all remains.

O I know that those men and women were not for nothing, any more than we are for nothing;
I know that they be...

Walt Whitman