Trickle, Drops

Trickle, drops! my blue veins
O drops of me! trickle, slow drops,
Candid, from me falling, drip, bleeding drops,
From wounds made to free you whence you were prison'd,
From my face, from my forehead and lips,
From my breast, from within where I was conceal'd, press forth, red drops, confession drops;
Stain every page, stain every song I sing, every word I say, bloody drops;
Let them know your scarlet heat, let them glisten;
Saturate them with yourself, all ashamed and wet;
Glow upon all I have written, or shall write, bleeding drops;
Let it all be seen in your light, blushing drops.

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

As Adam, Early In The Morning

Walt Whitman, Simple Poetry

Spirit That Form'd This Scene

Walt Whitman, Simple Poetry

Earth! My Likeness!

Walt Whitman, Simple Poetry

What Best I See In Thee

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.

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...

Walt Whitman

By Broad Potomac's Shore

By broad Potomac's shore--again, old tongue!
(Still uttering--still ejaculating--canst never cease this babble?)
Again, old heart so gay--again to you, your sense, the full flush spring returning;
Again the freshness and the odors--again Virginia's summer sky, pellucid blue and silver,
Again the forenoon purple of the hills,
Again the deathless grass, so noiseless, soft and green,
Again the blood-red roses blooming.


Perfume this book of mine, O blood-red roses!
Lave subtly with your waters every line, Potomac!
Give me of you, O spring, before I close, to put between its pages!
O forenoon purple of the hills, before I close, of you!
O smiling earth--O summer sun, give me of you!
O deathless grass, of you!

Walt Whitman

Whispers Of Heavenly Death

Whispers of heavenly death, murmur'd I hear;
Labial gossip of night, sibilant chorals;
Footsteps gently ascending, mystical breezes, wafted soft and low;
Ripples of unseen rivers, tides of a current, flowing, forever flowing;
(Or is it the plashing of tears? the measureless waters of human tears?)

I see, just see, skyward, great cloud-masses;
Mournfully, slowly they roll, silently swelling and mixing;
With, at times, a half-dimm'd, sadden'd, far-off star,
Appearing and disappearing.

(Some parturition, rather, some solemn, immortal birth:
On the frontiers, to eyes impenetrable,
Some Soul is passing over.)

Walt Whitman

Delicate Cluster

Delicate cluster! flag of teeming life!
Covering all my lands! all my sea-shores lining!
Flag of death! (how I watch'd you through the smoke of battle pressing!
How I heard you flap and rustle, cloth defiant!)
Flag cerulean! sunny flag! with the orbs of night dappled!
Ah my silvery beauty! ah my woolly white and crimson!
Ah to sing the song of you, my matron mighty!
My sacred one, my mother.

Walt Whitman

Elemental Drifts

Elemental drifts!
How I wish I could impress others as you have just been impressing me!

As I ebb'd with an ebb of the ocean of life,
As I wended the shores I know,
As I walk'd where the ripples continually wash you, Paumanok,
Where they rustle up, hoarse and sibilant,
Where the fierce old mother endlessly cries for her castaways,
I, musing, late in the autumn day, gazing off southward,
Alone, held by this eternal Self of me, out of the pride of which I utter my poems,
Was seiz'd by the spirit that trails in the lines underfoot,
In the rim, the sediment, that stands for all the water and all the land of the globe.

Fascinated, my eyes, reverting from the south, dropt, to follow those slender winrows,
Chaff, straw, splinters of wood, weeds, and the sea-gluten,
Scum...

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