Walt Whitman Poems

MANHATTAN'S streets I saunter'd, pondering,
On time, space, reality--on such as these, and abreast with them,
prudence.
...

COME closer to me;
Push close, my lovers, and take the best I possess;
Yield closer and closer, and give me the best you possess.
...

AT the last, tenderly,
From the walls of the powerful, fortress'd house,
From the clasp of the knitted locks--from the keep of the well-closed
...

QUICKSAND years that whirl me I know not whither,
Your schemes, politics, fail--lines give way--substances mock and
elude me;
...

I MET a Seer,
Passing the hues and objects of the world,
The fields of art and learning, pleasure, sense,
To glean Eidólons.
...

When Lilacs Last in the Door-yard Bloom'd


...

OUT of the cradle endlessly rocking,
Out of the mocking-bird's throat, the musical shuttle,
Out of the Ninth-month midnight,
...

I HEAR it was charged against me that I sought to destroy
institutions;
But really I am neither for nor against institutions;
...

OF the terrible doubt of appearances,
Of the uncertainty after all--that we may be deluded,
That may-be reliance and hope are but speculations after all,
...

HUSH'D be the camps to-day;
And, soldiers, let us drape our war-worn weapons;
And each with musing soul retire, to celebrate,
...