All Poems
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Ship Starting, The.
© Walt Whitman
LO! the unbounded sea!
On its breast a Ship starting, spreading all her sailsan ample Ship,
carrying even her moonsails;
The pennant is flying aloft, as she speeds, she speeds so statelybelow,
emulous waves press forward,
They surround the Ship, with shining curving motions, and foam.
As I Walk These Broad, Majestic Days.
© Walt Whitman
AS I walk these broad, majestic days of peace,
(For the war, the struggle of blood finishd, wherein, O terrific Ideal!
Against vast odds, having gloriously won,
Now thou stridest onyet perhaps in time toward denser wars,
As I Sat Alone by Blue Ontarios Shores.
© Walt Whitman
1
AS I sat alone, by blue Ontarios shore,
As I mused of these mighty days, and of peace returnd, and the dead that return no
more,
Mannahatta.
© Walt Whitman
I WAS asking for something specific and perfect for my city,
Whereupon, lo! upsprang the aboriginal name!
Now I see what there is in a name, a word, liquid, sane, unruly, musical, self-sufficient;
Unnamed Lands.
© Walt Whitman
NATIONS ten thousand years before These States, and many times ten thousand years before
These
States;
Garnerd clusters of ages, that men and women like us grew up and traveld their
What am I, After All?
© Walt Whitman
WHAT am I, after all, but a child, pleasd with the sound of my own name? repeating
it
over and over;
I stand apart to hearit never tires me.
To Old Age.
© Walt Whitman
I SEE in you the estuary that enlarges and spreads itself grandly as it pours in the great
Sea.
Unfolded Out of the Folds.
© Walt Whitman
UNFOLDED out of the folds of the woman, man comes unfolded, and is always to
come unfolded;
Unfolded only out of the superbest woman of the earth, is to come the superbest
man of the earth;
Of Him I Love Day and Night.
© Walt Whitman
OF him I love day and night, I dreamd I heard he was dead;
And I dreamd I went where they had buried him I lovebut he was not in that
place;
And I dreamd I wanderd, searching among burial-places, to find him;
O Living AlwaysAlways Dying.
© Walt Whitman
O LIVING alwaysalways dying!
O the burials of me, past and present!
O me, while I stride ahead, material, visible, imperious as ever!
O me, what I was for years, now dead, (I lament notI am content;)
This Compost.
© Walt Whitman
1
SOMETHING startles me where I thought I was safest;
I withdraw from the still woods I loved;
I will not go now on the pastures to walk;
To Think of Time.
© Walt Whitman
1
TO think of timeof all that retrospection!
To think of to-day, and the ages continued henceforward!
To a Stranger.
© Walt Whitman
PASSING stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you,
You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking, (it comes to me, as of a dream,)
I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you,
All is recalld as we flit by each other, fluid, affectionate, chaste, matured,
A Woman Waits for Me.
© Walt Whitman
A WOMAN waits for meshe contains all, nothing is lacking,
Yet all were lacking, if sex were lacking, or if the moisture of the right man were
lacking.
To a Historian.
© Walt Whitman
YOU who celebrate bygones!
Who have explored the outward, the surfaces of the racesthe life that has
exhibited itself;
Who have treated of man as the creature of politics, aggregates, rulers and
As the Time Draws Nigh.
© Walt Whitman
1
AS the time draws nigh, glooming, a cloud,
A dread beyond, of I know not what, darkens me.
Thought.
© Walt Whitman
OF what I write from myselfAs if that were not the resumé;
Of HistoriesAs if such, however complete, were not less complete than the preceding
poems;
As if those shreds, the records of nations, could possibly be as lasting as the preceding
poems;
As if here were not the amount of all nations, and of all the lives of heroes.
A Hand-Mirror.
© Walt Whitman
HOLD it up sternly! See this it sends back! (Who is it? Is it you?)
Outside fair costumewithin ashes and filth,
No more a flashing eyeno more a sonorous voice or springy step;
Now some slaves eye, voice, hands, step,
Old Ireland.
© Walt Whitman
FAR hence, amid an isle of wondrous beauty,
Crouching over a grave, an ancient, sorrowful mother,
Once a queennow lean and tatterd, seated on the ground,
Her old white hair drooping disheveld round her shoulders;
Faces.
© Walt Whitman
1
SAUNTERING the pavement, or riding the country by-roadlo! such faces!
Faces of friendship, precision, caution, suavity, ideality;
The spiritual, prescient facethe always welcome, common, benevolent face,
