Year That Trembled

Year that trembled and reel'd beneath me!
Your summer wind was warm enough, yet the air I breathed froze me;
A thick gloom fell through the sunshine and darken'd me;
Must I change my triumphant songs? said I to myself;
Must I indeed learn to chant the cold dirges of the baffled?
And sullen hymns of defeat?

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

We Two, How Long We Were Fool'd

Walt Whitman, Simple Poetry

Others May Praise What They Like

Walt Whitman, Simple Poetry

A Sight In Camp

Walt Whitman, Simple Poetry

Thought

Walt Whitman, Simple Poetry

English

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Year Of Meteors, 1859 '60

Year of meteors! brooding year!
I would bind in words retrospective, some of your deeds and signs;
I would sing your contest for the 19th Presidentiad;
I would sing how an old man, tall, with white hair, mounted the scaffold in Virginia;
(I was at hand, silent I stood, with teeth shut close, I watch'd;
I stood very near you, old man, when cool and indifferent, but trembling with age and your unheal'd wounds, you mounted the scaffold;)
I would sing in my copious song your census returns of The States,
The tables of population and products, I would sing of your ships and their cargoes,
The proud black ships of Manhattan, arriving, some fill'd with immigrants, some from the isthmus with cargoes of gold;
Songs thereof would I sing, to all that hitherward comes would I welcome give;
And you wou...

Walt Whitman

1861

Arm'd year! year of the struggle!
No dainty rhymes or sentimental love verses for you, terrible year!
Not you as some pale poetling, seated at a desk, lisping cadenzas piano;
But as a strong man, erect, clothed in blue clothes, advancing,
carrying a rifle on your shoulder,
With well-gristled body and sunburnt face and hands--with a knife in the belt at your side,
As I heard you shouting loud--your sonorous voice ringing across the continent;
Your masculine voice, O year, as rising amid the great cities,
Amid the men of Manhattan I saw you, as one of the workmen, the dwellers in Manhattan;
Or with large steps crossing the prairies out of Illinois and Indiana,
Rapidly crossing the West with springy gait, and descending the Alleghanies;
Or down from the great lakes, or in Pennsylvania, o...

Walt Whitman

To A Locomotive In Winter

Thee for my recitative!
Thee in the driving storm, even as now the snow the winter-day declining;
Thee in thy panoply, thy measured dual throbbing, and thy beat convulsive;
Thy black cylindric body, golden brass, and silvery steel;
Thy ponderous side-bars, parallel and connecting rods, gyrating, shuttling at thy sides;
Thy metrical, now swelling pant and roar now tapering in the distance;
Thy great protruding head-light, fix'd in front;
Thy long, pale, floating vapor-pennants, tinged with delicate purple;
The dense and murky clouds out-belching from thy smoke-stack;
Thy knitted frame thy springs and valves the tremulous twinkle of thy wheels;
Thy train of cars behind, obedient, merrily-following,
Through gale or calm, now swift, now slack, yet steadily careering:
Type of the mode...

Walt Whitman

Wandering At Morn

Wandering at morn,
Emerging from the night, from gloomy thoughts, thee in my thoughts,
Yearning for thee, harmonious Union! thee, Singing Bird divine!
Thee, seated coil'd in evil times, my Country, with craft and black dismay, with every meanness, treason thrust upon thee;
Wandering, this common marvel I beheld, the parent thrush I watch'd, feeding its young,
(The singing thrush, whose tones of joy and faith ecstatic,
Fail not to certify and cheer my soul.)

There ponder'd, felt I,
If worms, snakes, loathsome grubs, may to sweet spiritual songs be turn'd,
If vermin so transposed, so used, so bless'd may be,
Then may I trust in you, your fortunes, days, my country;
Who knows that these may be the lessons fit for you?
From these your future Song may rise, with joyous trills,

Walt Whitman

Yet, Yet, Ye Downcast Hours

Yet, yet, ye downcast hours, I know ye also;
Weights of lead, how ye clog and cling at my ankles!
Earth to a chamber of mourning turns, I hear the o'erweening, mocking voice,
Matter is conqueror, matter, triumphant only, continues onward.

Despairing cries float ceaselessly toward me,
The call of my nearest lover, putting forth, alarm'd, uncertain,
The Sea I am quickly to sail, come tell me,
Come tell me where I am speeding, tell me my destination.

I understand your anguish, but I cannot help you,
I approach, hear, behold, the sad mouth, the look out of the eyes, your mute inquiry,
Whither I go from the bed I recline on, come tell me:
Old age, alarm'd, uncertain, A young woman's voice, appealing to me for comfort;
A young man's voice, Shall I not escape?

Walt Whitman

Or From That Sea Of Time

Or, from that Sea of Time,
Spray, blown by the wind - a double winrow-drift of weeds and shells;
(O little shells, so curious-convolute! so limpid-cold and voiceless!
Yet will you not, to the tympans of temples held,
Murmurs and echoes still bring up - Eternity's music, faint and far,
Wafted inland, sent from Atlantica's rim - strains for the Soul of the Prairies,
Whisper'd reverberations - chords for the ear of the West, joyously sounding
Your tidings old, yet ever new and untranslatable;)
Infinitessimals out of my life, and many a life,
(For not my life and years alone I give - all, all I give;) 10
These thoughts and Songs - waifs from the deep - here, cast high and dry,
Wash'd on America's shores.


Currents of starting a Continent new,
Overtures sent to the sol...

Walt Whitman