Poems by Walt Whitman

All Poems Original Poems Translations

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To Him That Was Crucified

MY spirit to yours, dear brother;

Do not mind because many, sounding your name, do not understand you;

I do not sound your name, but I understand you, (there are others

also

I specify you with joy, O my comrade, to salute you, and to salute

those who are with you, before and since—and those to come

also,

That we all labor together, transmitting the same charge and

by Walt Whitman

A Boston Ballad

TO get betimes in Boston town, I rose this morning early;

Here's a good place at the corner—I must stand and see the show.

Clear the way there, Jonathan!

Way for the President's marshal! Way for the government cannon!

Way for the Federal foot and dragoons—and the apparitions copiously

tumbling.

I love to look on the stars and stripes—I hope the fifes will play

Yankee Doodle.

by Walt Whitman

I Sing The Body Electric

I sing the Body electric;

The armies of those I love engirth me, and I engirth them;

They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,

And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the

Soul.

Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal

themselves;

And if those who defile the living are as bad as they who defile the

by 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,

by Walt Whitman

A Child's Amaze

SILENT and amazed, even when a little boy,

I remember I heard the preacher every Sunday put God in his

statements,

As contending against some being or influence.

by Walt Whitman

As I Ebb'd With the Ocean of Life

As I ebb'd with 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,

Held by this electric self out of the pride of which I utter poems,

by Walt Whitman

O Me! O Life!

O ME! O life!… of the questions of these recurring;

Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill'd with the

foolish;

Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I,

and who more faithless?)

Of eyes that vainly crave the light—of the objects mean—of the

struggle ever renew'd;

Of the poor results of all—of the plodding and sordid crowds I see

by Walt Whitman

Good-Bye My Fancy!

Good-bye my Fancy!

Farewell dear mate, dear love!

I'm going away, I know not where,

Or to what fortune, or whether I may ever see you again,

So Good-bye my Fancy.

Now for my last-let me look back a moment;

The slower fainter ticking of the clock is in me,

Exit, nightfall, and soon the heart-thud stopping.

by Walt Whitman

A Woman Waits For Me

A WOMAN waits for me—she contains all, nothing is lacking,

Yet all were lacking, if sex were lacking, or if the moisture of the

right man were lacking.

Sex contains all,

Bodies, Souls, meanings, proofs, purities, delicacies, results,

promulgations,

Songs, commands, health, pride, the maternal mystery, the seminal

milk;

by Walt Whitman

Come, Said My Soul

Come, said my soul,

Such verses for my body let us write, (For we are One),

That should I after death invisibly return,

Or, long, long hence, in other spheres,

There to some group of mates the chants resuming,

(Tallying Earth's soil, trees, winds, tumultuous waves,)

Ever with pleas'd smile I may keep on

Ever and ever to the verses owning - as, first, I here and now,

by Walt Whitman

One's Self I Sing

ONE'S-SELF I sing—a simple, separate Person;

Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-masse.

Of Physiology 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 equally with the male I sing.

Of Life immense in passion, pulse, and power,

Cheerful—for freest action form'd, under the laws divine,

by Walt Whitman

A Hand-Mirror

Hold it up sternly! See this it sends back! (Who is it? Is it you?)

Outside fair costume—within ashes and filth,

No more a flashing eye—no more a sonorous voice or springy step;

Now some slave's eye, voice, hands, step,

A drunkard's breath, unwholesome eater's face, venerealee's flesh,

Lungs rotting away piecemeal, stomach sour and cankerous,

Joints rheumatic, bowels clogged with abomination,

Blood circulating dark and poisonous streams,

by Walt Whitman