Quotes from Walt Whitman

You Lingering Sparse Leaves of Me" You lingering sparse leaves of me on winter-nearing boughs, And I some well-shorn tree of field or orchard-row; You tokens diminute and lorn—(not now the flush of May, or July clover-bloom—no grain of August now;) You pallid banner-staves—you pennants valueless—you overstay'd of time, Yet my soul-dearest leaves confirming all the rest, The faithfulest—hardiest—last.

I am given up by traitors; I talk wildly . . . . I have lost my wits . . . . I and nobody else am the greatest traitor, I went myself first to the headland . . . . my own hands carried me there.

Keep your face always toward the sun and the shadows fall behind you

The pleasures of heaven are with me, and the pains of hell are with me.

The new society at last, proportionate to Nature, In man of you, more than your mountain peaks or stalwart trees imperial, In woman more, far more, than all your gold or vines, or even vital air. Fresh come, to a new world indeed, yet long prepared, I see the genius of the modern, child of the real and ideal, Clearing the ground for broad humanity, the true America, heir of the past so grand, To build a grander future.

Have you learned lessons only of those who admired you, and were tender with you, and stood aside for you? Have you not learned great lessons from those who braced themselves against you, and disputed the passage with you?

And as to you corpse I think you are good manure, but that does not offend me, I smell the white roses sweetscented and growing, I reach to the leafy lips . . . . I reach to the polished breasts of melons.

To the States To the States or any one of them, or any city of the States, Resist much, obey little, Once unquestioning obedience, once fully enslaved, Once fully enslaved, no nation, state, city of this earth, ever afterward resumes its liberty.

I am larger, better than I thought, / I did not know I held so much goodness

America, too, is a prophecy.

Tú, lector, palpitas de vida y de orgullo y de amor como yo. Para ti, pues, estos cantos.

I am exact and merciless but I love you.

Jeff Whitman [Walt's brother, who was with him in New Orleans] complained to his mother about all the folks who eagerly hurried to church on Sundays, dip their fingers in the holy water, and then go home and whip their slaves.

To quote from Whitman, 'O me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless... of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life?' Answer. That you are here — that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. That the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?

Allons! to that which is endless as it was beginningless.

Thick-sprinkled bunting! flag of stars! Long yet your road, fateful flag—long yet your road, and lined with bloody death, For the prize I see at issue at last is the world

As for me, I love screaming, wrestling, boiling-hot days.

But to bring perhaps from afar what is already founded, To give it our own identity, average, limitless, free, To fill the gross the torpid bulk with vital religious fire, Not to repel or destroy so much as accept, fuse, rehabilitate, To obey as well as command, to follow more than to lead, These also are the lessons of our New World; While how little the New after all, how much the Old, Old World! - Song of the exposition

The instincts of the American people are all perfect, and tend to make heroes.

I have distanced what is behind me for good reasons, And call any thing close again when I desire it.

Worse and worse...Can't you stand it? Are you retreating? Is this hour with the living too dead for you?

I loafe and invite my soul, I lean and loafe at my ease . . . observing a spear of summer grass.

Strangle the singers who will not sing you loud and strong.

What do I know of life? what of myself? I know not even my own work past or present