Leaves of Grass

by Whitman, Walt (Author); Ashberry, John (Introduction by)

• ISBN13: 9780679783428
• ISBN10: 0679783423
• Format: Trade Paper
• Copyright: 2000-11-28
• Publisher: Modern Library

Summary

Abraham Lincoln read it with approval, but Emily Dickinson described its bold language and themes as "disgraceful." Ralph Waldo Emerson found it "the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet produced." Published at the author's expense on July 4, 1855, Leaves of Grass inaugurated a new voice and style into American letters and gave expression to an optimistic, bombastic vision that took the nation as its subject. Unlike many other editions of Leaves of Grass, which reproduce various short, early versions, this Modern Library Paperback Classics "Death-bed" edition presents everything Whitman wrote in its final form, and includes newly commissioned notes. From the Trade Paperback edition.

Author Biography

Before the age of thirty-six there was no sign that Walt Whitman would become even a minor literary figure, let alone the major poetic voice of an emerging America. Born in 1819 on Long Island, he was the second son of a carpenter and contractor. His formal schooling ended at age eleven, when he was apprenticed to a printer in Brooklyn. He became a journeyman printer in 1835 and spent the next two decades as a printer, free-lance writer, and editor in New York. In 1855, at his own expense, he published the twelve long poems, without titles, that make up the first edition of Leaves of Grass. The book, with its unprecedented mixture of the mystical and the earthy, was received with puzzlement or silence, except by America's most distinguished writer, Ralph Waldo Emerson. Whitman lost no time in preparing a second edition, adding "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" and nineteen other new poems in 1856. With the third edition (1860), the book had tripled in size. Whitman would go on adding to it and revising it for the rest of his life. Whitman's poetry slowly achieved a wide readership in America and in England. He was praised by Swinburne and Tennyson, and visited by Oscar Wilde. He suffered a stroke in 1873 and spent the remainder of his life in Camden, New Jersey. His final edition of Leaves of Grass appeared in 1892, the year of his death.


From the Paperback edition.

Table of Contents

Biographical Note	v
Introduction	xxiii
William Carlos Williams
INSCRIPTIONS
One's-Self I Sing	1	(1)
As I Ponder'd in Silence	1	(1)
In Cabin'd Ships at Sea	2	(1)
To Foreign Lands	3	(1)
To a Historian	4	(1)
To Thee Old Cause	4	(1)
Eidolons	5	(4)
For Him I Sing	9	(1)
When I Read the Book	9	(1)
Beginning My Studies	10	(1)
Beginners	10	(1)
To the States	10	(1)
On Journeys Through the States	11	(1)
To a Certain Cantatrice	12	(1)
Me Imperturbe	12	(1)
Savantism	13	(1)
The Ship Starting	13	(1)
I Hear America Singing	13	(1)
What Place Is Besieged?	14	(1)
Still Though the One I Sing	14	(1)
Shut Not Your Doors	15	(1)
Poets to Come	15	(1)
To You	16	(1)
Thou Reader	16	(100)
Starting From Paumanok	16	(17)
Song Of Myself	33	(83)
CHILDREN OF ADAM
To the Garden the World	116	(1)
From Pent-up Aching Rivers	116	(3)
I Sing the Body Electric	119	(11)
A Woman Waits for Me	130	(2)
Spontaneous Me	132	(3)
One Hour to Madness and Joy	135	(2)
Out of the Rolling Ocean the Crowd	137	(1)
Ages and Ages Returning at Intervals	137	(1)
We Two, How Long We Were Fool'd	138	(1)
O Hymen! O Hymenee!	139	(1)
I Am He that Aches with Love	139	(1)
Native Moments	140	(1)
Once I Pass'd Through a Populous City	140	(1)
I Heard You Solemn-Sweet Pipes of the Organ	141	(1)
Facing West from California's Shores	141	(1)
As Adam Early in the Morning	142	(1)
CALAMUS
In Paths Untrodden	143	(1)
Scented Herbage of My Breast	144	(2)
Whoever You Are Holding Me Now in Hand	146	(2)
For You O Democracy	148	(1)
These I Singing in Spring	149	(2)
Not Heaving from My Ribb'd Breast Only	151	(1)
Of the Terrible Doubt of Appearances	152	(1)
The Base of All Metaphysics	153	(1)
Recorders Ages Hence	154	(1)
When I Heard at the Close of the Day	154	(1)
Are You the New Person Drawn toward Me?	155	(1)
Roots and Leaves Themselves Alone	156	(1)
Not Heat Flames up and Consumes	157	(1)
Trickle Drops	157	(1)
City of Orgies	158	(1)
Behold This Swarthy Face	159	(1)
I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing	159	(1)
To a Stranger	160	(1)
This Moment Yearning and Thoughtful	161	(1)
I Hear It Was Charged against Me	161	(1)
The Prairie-Grass Dividing	162	(1)
When I Peruse the Conquer'd Fame	162	(1)
We Two Boys Together Clinging	163	(1)
A Promise to California	163	(1)
Here the Frailest Leaves of Me	164	(1)
No Labor-Saving Machine	164	(1)
A Glimpse	164	(1)
A Leaf for Hand in Hand	165	(1)
Earth, My Likeness	165	(1)
I Dream'd in a Dream	166	(1)
What Think You I Take My Pen in Hand?	166	(1)
To the East and to the West	167	(1)
Sometimes with One I Love	167	(1)
To a Western Boy	167	(1)
Fast-Anchor'd Eternal O Love!	168	(1)
Among the Multitude	168	(1)
O You Whom I Often and Silently Come	168	(1)
That Shadow My Likeness	169	(1)
Full of Life Now	169	(115)
Salut Au Monde!	170	(14)
Song Of The Open Road	184	(14)
Crossing Brooklyn Ferry	198	(9)
Song Of The Answerer	207	(6)
Our Old Feuillage	213	(7)
A Song Of Joys	220	(10)
Song Of The Broad-Axe	230	(15)
Song Of The Exposition	245	(13)
Song Of The Redwood-Tree	258	(6)
A Song For Occupations	264	(11)
A Song Of The Rolling Earth	275	(8)
Youth, Day, Old Age And Night	283	(1)
BIRDS OF PASSAGE
Song of the Universal	284	(3)
Pioneers! O Pioneers!	287	(6)
To You	293	(3)
France, The 18th Year of these States	296	(2)
Myself and Mine	298	(2)
Year of Meteors (1859-60)	300	(2)
With Antecedents	302	(8)
A Broadway Pageant	304	(6)
SEA-DRIFT
Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking	310	(8)
As I Ebb'd with the Ocean of Life	318	(4)
Tears	322	(1)
To the Man-of-War-Bird	323	(1)
Aboard at a Ship's Helm	324	(1)
On the Beach at Night	325	(1)
The World Below the Brine	326	(1)
On the Beach at Night Alone	327	(1)
Song for All Seas, All Ships	328	(1)
Patroling Barnegat	329	(1)
After the Sea-Ship	330	(2)
BY THE ROADSIDE
A Boston Ballad-1854	332	(3)
Europe, The 72d and 73d Years of These States	335	(2)
A Hand-Mirror	337	(1)
Gods	338	(1)
Germs	339	(1)
Thoughts	339	(1)
When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer	340	(1)
Perfections	340	(1)
O Me! O Life!	341	(1)
To a President	341	(1)
I Sit and Look Out	342	(1)
To Rich Givers	342	(1)
The Dalliance of the Eagles	343	(1)
Roaming in Thought	344	(1)
A Farm Picture	344	(1)
A Child's Amaze	344	(1)
The Runner	344	(1)
Beautiful Women	345	(1)
Mother and Babe	345	(1)
Thought	345	(1)
Visor'd	345	(1)
Thought	346	(1)
Gilding o'er All	346	(1)
Hast Never Come to Thee an Hour	346	(1)
Thought	346	(1)
To Old Age	347	(1)
Locations and Times	347	(1)
Offerings	347	(1)
To the States, To Identify the 16th, 17th, or 18th Presidentiad	347	(2)
DRUM-TAPS
First O Songs for a Prelude	349	(3)
Eighteen Sixty-one	352	(1)
Beat! Beat! Drums!	353	(1)
From Paumanok Starting I Fly like a Bird	354	(1)
Song of the Banner at Daybreak	355	(9)
Rise O Days from Your Fathomless Deeps	364	(3)
Virginia---The West	367	(1)
City of Ships	368	(1)
The Centenarian's Story	369	(6)
Cavalry Crossing a Ford	375	(1)
Bivouac on a Mountain Side	376	(1)
An Army Corps on the March	376	(1)
By the Bivouac's Fitful Flame	377	(1)
Come Up from the Fields Father	377	(3)
Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night	380	(1)
A March in the Ranks Hard-Prest, and the Road Unknown	381	(2)
A Sight in Camp in the Daybreak Gray and Dim	383	(1)
As Toilsome I Wander'd Virginia's Woods	384	(1)
Not the Pilot	385	(1)
Year That Trembled and Reel'd Beneath Me	385	(1)
The Wound-Dresser	385	(4)
Long, Too Long America	389	(1)
Give Me the Splendid Silent Sun	390	(2)
Dirge for Two Veterans	392	(2)
Over the Carnage Rose Prophetic a Voice	394	(1)
I Saw Old General at Bay	395	(1)
The Artilleryman's Vision	396	(2)
Ethiopia Saluting the Colors	398	(1)
Not Youth Pertains to Me	398	(1)
Race of Veterans	399	(1)
World Take Good Notice	399	(1)
O Tan-Faced Prairie-Boy	400	(1)
Look Down Fair Moon	400	(1)
Reconciliation	400	(1)
How Solemn as One by One	401	(1)
As I Lay with My Head in Your Lap Camerado	401	(1)
Delicate Cluster	402	(1)
To a Certain Civilian	403	(1)
Lo, Victress on the Peaks	403	(1)
Spirit Whose Work Is Done	404	(1)
Adieu to a Soldier	405	(1)
Turn O Libertad	406	(1)
To the Leaven'd Soil They Trod	407	(1)
MEMORIES OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN
When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd	408	(12)
O Captain! My Captain!	420	(1)
Hush'd Be the Camps To-day	421	(1)
This Dust Was Once the Man	422	(23)
By Blue Ontario's Shore	422	(22)
Reversals	444	(1)
AUTUMN RIVULETS
As Consequent etc.	445	(2)
The Return of the Heroes	447	(7)
There Was a Child Went Forth	454	(3)
Old Ireland	457	(1)
The City Dead-House	458	(1)
This Compost	459	(3)
To a Foil'd European Revolutionaire	462	(2)
Unnamed Lands	464	(2)
Song of Prudence	466	(4)
The Singer in the Prison	470	(2)
Warble for Lilac-Time	472	(2)
Outlines for a Tomb	474	(3)
Out from Behind This Mask	477	(1)
Vocalism	478	(2)
To Him That Was Crucified	480	(1)
You Felons on Trial in Courts	481	(1)
Laws for Creations	482	(1)
To a Common Prostitute	482	(1)
I Was Looking a Long While	483	(1)
Thought	484	(1)
Miracles	484	(1)
Sparkles from the Wheel	485	(1)
To a Pupil	486	(1)
Unfolded Out of the Folds	487	(1)
What Am I After All	488	(1)
Kosmos	489	(1)
Others May Praise What They Like	490	(1)
Who Learns My Lesson Complete?	490	(2)
Tests	492	(1)
The Torch	492	(1)
O Star of France (1870-71)	493	(2)
The Ox-Tamer	495	(1)
An Old Man's Thought of School	496	(1)
Wandering at Morn	497	(1)
Italian Music in Dakota	498	(1)
With All Thy Gifts	499	(1)
My Picture-Gallery	499	(1)
The Prairie States	500	(47)
Proud Music Of The Storm	500	(9)
Passage To India	509	(12)
Prayer Of Columbus	521	(4)
The Sleepers	525	(12)
Transpositions	537	(1)
To Think Of Time	538	(9)
WHISPERS OF HEAVENLY DEATH
Darest Thou Now O Soul	547	(1)
Whispers of Heavenly Death	548	(1)
Chanting the Square Deific	549	(3)
Of Him I Love Day and Night	552	(1)
Yet, Yet, Ye Downcast Hours	553	(1)
As If a Phantom Caress'd Me	553	(1)
Assurances	554	(1)
Quicksand Years	555	(1)
That Music Always Round Me	555	(1)
What Ship Puzzled at Sea	556	(1)
A Noiseless Patient Spider	556	(1)
O Living Always, Always Dying	557	(1)
To One Shortly to Die	557	(1)
Night on the Prairies	558	(1)
Thought	559	(1)
The Last Invocation	560	(1)
As I Watch'd the Ploughman Ploughing	561	(1)
Pensive and Faltering	561	(9)
Thou Mother With Thy Equal Brood	561	(8)
A Paumanok Picture	569	(1)
FROM NOON TO STARRY NIGHT
Thou Orb Aloft Full-Dazzling	570	(1)
Faces	571	(6)
The Mystic Trumpeter	577	(4)
To a Locomotive in Winter	581	(2)
O Magnet-South	583	(1)
Mannahatta	584	(2)
All Is Truth	586	(1)
A Riddle Song	587	(2)
Excelsior	589	(1)
Ah Poverties, Wincings, and Sulky Retreats	590	(1)
Thoughts	590	(1)
Mediums	591	(1)
Weave In, My Hardy Life	592	(1)
Spain, 1873-74	593	(1)
By Broad Potomac's Shore	593	(1)
From Far Dakota's Canons	594	(1)
Old War-Dreams	595	(1)
Thick-Sprinkled Bunting	596	(1)
What Best I See in Thee	597	(1)
Spirit That Form'd This Scene	597	(1)
As I Walk These Broad Majestic Days	598	(1)
A Clear Midnight	599	(1)
SONGS OF PARTING
As the Time Draws Nigh	600	(1)
Years of the Modern	600	(2)
Ashes of Soldiers	602	(3)
Thoughts	605	(2)
Song at Sunset	607	(3)
As at Thy Portals Also Death	610	(1)
My Legacy	611	(1)
Pensive on Her Dead Gazing	611	(2)
Camps of Green	613	(1)
The Sobbing of the Bells	614	(1)
As They Draw to a Close	615	(1)
Joy, Shipmate, Joy!	615	(1)
The Untold Want	616	(1)
Portals	616	(1)
These Carols	616	(1)
Now Finale to the Shore	616	(1)
So Long!	617	(5)
FIRST ANNEX: SANDS AT SEVENTY
Mannahatta	622	(1)
Paumanok	622	(1)
From Montauk Point	623	(1)
To Those Who've Fail'd	623	(1)
A Carol Closing Sixty-nine	623	(1)
The Bravest Soldiers	624	(1)
A Font of Type	624	(1)
As I Sit Writing Here	625	(1)
My Canary Bird	625	(1)
Queries to My Seventieth Year	625	(1)
The Wallabout Martyrs	626	(1)
The First Dandelion	626	(1)
America	626	(1)
Memories	627	(1)
To-day and Thee	627	(1)
After the Dazzle of Day	627	(1)
Abraham Lincoln, Born Feb. 12, 1809	628	(1)
Out of May's Shows Selected	628	(1)
Halcyon Days	628	(1)
Fancies at Navesink	629	(4)
Election Day, November 1884	633	(1)
With Husky-Haughty Lips, O Sea!	634	(1)
Death of General Grant	635	(1)
Red Jacket (from Aloft)	636	(1)
Washington's Monument, February, 1885	636	(1)
Of That Blithe Throat of Thine	637	(1)
Broadway	638	(1)
To Get the Final Lilt of Songs	638	(1)
Old Salt Kossabone	639	(1)
The Dead Tenor	640	(1)
Continuities	640	(1)
Yonnondio	641	(1)
Life	642	(1)
``Going Somewhere''	642	(1)
Small the Theme of May Chant	643	(1)
True Conquerors	643	(1)
The United States to Old World Critics	644	(1)
The Calming Thought of All	644	(1)
Thanks in Old Age	645	(1)
Life and Death	646	(1)
The Voice of the Rain	646	(1)
Soon Shall the Winter's Foil Be Here	647	(1)
While Not the Past Forgetting	647	(1)
The Dying Veteran	648	(1)
Stronger Lessons	649	(1)
A Prairie Sunset	649	(1)
Twenty Years	649	(1)
Orange Buds by Mail from Florida	650	(1)
Twilight	651	(1)
You Lingering Sparse Leaves of Me	651	(1)
Not Meagre, Latent Boughs Alone	651	(1)
The Dead Emperor	652	(1)
As the Greek's Signal Flame	652	(1)
The Dismantled Ship	652	(1)
Now Precedent Songs Farewell	653	(1)
An Evening Lull	654	(1)
Old Age's Lambent Peaks	654	(1)
After the Supper and Talk	655	(1)
SECOND ANNEX: GOOD-BYE MY FANCY
Preface Note to 2d Annex	656	(3)
Sail Out for Good, Eidolon Yacht!	659	(1)
Lingering Last Drops	659	(1)
Good-Bye my Fancy	660	(1)
On, On the Same, Ye Jocund Twain!	660	(1)
My 71st Year	661	(1)
Apparitions	662	(1)
The Pallid Wreath	662	(1)
An Ended Day	662	(1)
Old Age's Ship & Crafty Death's	663	(1)
To the Pending Year	664	(1)
Shakespere-Bacon's Cipher	664	(1)
Long, Long Hence	665	(1)
Bravo, Paris Exposition!	665	(1)
Interpolation Sounds	665	(2)
To the Sun-set Breeze	667	(1)
Old Chants	668	(1)
A Christmas Greeting	669	(1)
Sounds of the Winter	669	(1)
A Twilight Song	670	(1)
When the Full-Grown Poet Came	671	(1)
Osceola	672	(1)
A Voice from Death	673	(2)
A Persian Lesson	675	(1)
The Commonplace	676	(1)
``The Rounded Catalogue Divine Complete''	676	(1)
Mirages	677	(1)
L. of G.'s Purport	678	(1)
The Unexpress'd	678	(1)
Grand Is the Seen	679	(1)
Unseen Buds	680	(1)
Good-Bye my Fancy!	680	(25)
A Backward Glance O'er Travel'd Roads	682	(23)
Notes	705	(28)
Selected Bibliography	733	(2)
Commentary	735	(16)
Reading Group Guide	751

Excerpts

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,

The Modern Man I sing.



AS I PONDER'D IN SILENCE.


As I ponder' in silence,

Returning upon my poems, considering, lingering long,

A Phantom arose before me with distrustful aspect,

Terrible in beauty, age, and power,

The genius of poets of old lands,

As to me directing like flame its eyes,

With finger pointing to many immortal songs,

And menacing voice, What singest thou? it said,

Know'st thou not there is but one theme for ever-enduring bards?

And that is the theme of War, the fortune of battles,

The making of perfect soldiers.


Be it so, then I answer'd,

I too haughty Shade also sing war, and a longer and greater one than any,

Waged in my book with varying fortune, with flight, advance and retreat, victory deferr&rsquod and wavering,

(Yet methinks certain, or as good as certain, at the last,) the field the world,

For life and death, for the Body and for the eternal Soul,

Lo, I too am come, chanting the chant of battles,

I above all promote brave soldiers.



IN CABIN'D SHIPS AT SEA.


In cabin'd ships at sea,

The boundless blue on every side expanding,

With whistling winds and music of the waves, the large imperious waves,

Or some lone bark buoy'd on the dense marine,

Where joyous full of faith, spreading white sails,

She cleaves the ether mid the sparkle and the foam of day, or under many a star at night,

By sailors young and old haply will I, a reminiscence of the land, be read,

In full rapport at last.


Here are our thoughts, voyagers' thoughts,

Here not the land, firm land, alone appears, may then by them be said,

The sky o'arches here, we feel the undulating deck beneath our feet,

We feel the long pulsation, ebb and flow of endless motion,

The tones of unseen mystery, the vague and vast suggestions of the briny world, the liquid-flowing syllables,

The perfume, the faint creaking of the cordage, the melancholy rhythm,

The boundless vista and the horizon far and dim are all here,

And this is ocean's poem.


Then falter not O book, fulfil your destiny,

You not a reminiscence of the land alone,

You too as a lone bark cleaving the ether, purpos'd I know not whither, yet ever full of faith,

Consort to every ship that sails, sail you!

Bear forth to them folded my love, (dear mariners, for you I fold it here in every leaf;)

Speed on my book! spread your white sails my little bark athwart the imperious waves,

Chant on, sail on, bear o'er the boundless blue from me to every sea,

This song for mariners and all their ships.


From the eBook edition.

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Excerpted from Leaves of Grass: The Death-Bed by Walt Whitman
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.