To A Historian

You who celebrate bygones!
Who have explored the outward, the surfaces of the races, the life that has exhibited itself;
Who have treated of man as the creature of politics, aggregates, rulers and priests;
I, habitan of the Alleghanies, treating of him as he is in himself, in his own rights,
Pressing the pulse of the life that has seldom exhibited itself, (the great pride of man in himself;)
Chanter of Personality, outlining what is yet to be,
I project the history of the future.

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

Brother Of All, With Genesrous Hand

Walt Whitman, Simple Poetry

Walt Whitman's Caution

Walt Whitman, Simple Poetry

Song At Sunset

Walt Whitman, Simple Poetry

The Prairie States

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.

With Antecedents

With antecedents;
With my fathers and mothers, and the accumulations of past ages;
With all which, had it not been, I would not now be here, as I am:
With Egypt, India, Phenicia, Greece and Rome;
With the Kelt, the Scandinavian, the Alb, and the Saxon;
With antique maritime ventures,, with laws, artizanship, wars and journeys;
With the poet, the skald, the saga, the myth, and the oracle;
With the sale of slaves, with enthusiasts, with the troubadour, the crusader, and the monk;
With those old continents whence we have come to this new continent;
With the fading kingdoms and kings over there;
With the fading religions and priests;
With the small shores we look back to from our own large and present shores;
With countless years drawing themselves onward, and arrived at these years;...

Walt Whitman

I Was Looking A Long While

I was looking a long while for a clue to the history of the past for myself, and for these chants - and now I have found it;
It is not in those paged fables in the libraries, (them I neither accept nor reject;)
It is no more in the legends than in all else;
It is in the present - it is this earth to-day;
It is in Democracy - (the purport and aim of all the past;)
It is the life of one man or one woman to-day - the average man of to-day;
It is in languages, social customs, literatures, arts;
It is in the broad show of artificial things, ships, machinery, politics, creeds, modern improvements, and the interchange of nations,
All for the average man of to-day.

Walt Whitman

Myself And Mine

Myself and mine gymnastic ever,
To stand the cold or heat - to take good aim with a gun - to sail a boat - to manage horses - to beget superb children,
To speak readily and clearly - to feel at home among common people,
And to hold our own in terrible positions, on land and sea.

Not for an embroiderer;
(There will always be plenty of embroiderers - I welcome them also;)
But for the fibre of things, and for inherent men and women.

Not to chisel ornaments,
But to chisel with free stroke the heads and limbs of plenteous
Supreme Gods, that The States may realize them, walking and talking.

Let me have my own way;
Let others promulge the laws - I will make no account of the laws;
Let others praise eminent men and hold up peace - I hold up agitation and conflict;
...

Walt Whitman

Poets To Come

Poets to come! orators, singers, musicians to come!
Not to-day is to justify me, and answer what I am for;
But you, a new brood, native, athletic, continental, greater than before known,
Arouse! Arouse - for you must justify me - you must answer.

I myself but write one or two indicative words for the future,
I but advance a moment, only to wheel and hurry back in the darkness.

I am a man who, sauntering along, without fully stopping, turns a casual look upon you, and then averts his face,
Leaving it to you to prove and define it,
Expecting the main things from you.

Walt Whitman

What Best I See In Thee

What best I see in thee,
Is not that where thou mov'st down history's great highways,
Ever undimm'd by time shoots warlike victory's dazzle,
Or that thou sat'st where Washington sat, ruling the land in peace,
Or thou the man whom feudal Europe feted, venerable Asia, swarm'd upon,
Who walk'd with kings with even pace the round world's promenade;
But that in foreign lands, in all thy walks with kings,
Those prairie sovereigns of the West, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois,
Ohio's, Indiana's millions, comrades, farmers, soldiers, all to the front,
Invisibly with thee walking with kings with even pace the round world's promenade,
We all so justified.

Walt Whitman

Inscription

Small is the theme of the following Chant, yet the greatest - namely,
One's-Self - that wondrous thing a simple, separate person.
That, for the use of the New World, I sing.
Man's physiology complete, from top to toe, I sing. Not physiognomy alone, nor brain alone, is worthy for the muse; - I say the Form complete is worthier far. The female equal with the male, I sing,
Nor cease at the theme of One's-Self. I speak the word of the modern, the word En-Masse:
My Days I sing, and the Lands - with interstice I knew of hapless War.

O friend whoe'er you are, at last arriving hither to commence, I feel through every leaf the pressure of your hand, which I return.
And thus upon our journey link'd together let us go.

Walt Whitman