Germs

FORMS, qualities, lives, humanity, language, thoughts,
The ones known, and the ones unknown--the ones on the stars,
The stars themselves, some shaped, others unshaped,
Wonders as of those countries--the soil, trees, cities, inhabitants,
whatever they may be,
Splendid suns, the moons and rings, the countless combinations and
effects;
Such-like, and as good as such-like, visible here or anywhere, stand
provided for in a handful of space, which I extend my arm and
half enclose with my hand;
That contains the start of each and all--the virtue, the germs of
all.

poem by Walt Whitman
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Poets to Come

POETS to come! orators, singers, musicians to come!
Not to-day is to justify me, and answer what I am for;
But you, a new brood, native, athletic, continental, greater than
before known,
Arouse! Arouse--for you must justify me--you must answer.

I myself but write one or two indicative words for the future,
I but advance a moment, only to wheel and hurry back in the darkness.

I am a man who, sauntering along, without fully stopping, turns a
casual look upon you, and then averts his face,
Leaving it to you to prove and define it,
Expecting the main things from you.

poem by Walt Whitman
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Despairing Cries

DESPAIRING cries float ceaselessly toward me, day and night,
The sad voice of Death--the call of my nearest lover, putting forth,
alarmed, uncertain,
This sea I am quickly to sail, come tell me,
Come tell me where I am speeding--tell me my destination.

I understand your anguish, but I cannot help you,
I approach, hear, behold--the sad mouth, the look out of the eyes,
your mute inquiry,
Whither I go from the bed I now recline on, come tell me;
Old age, alarmed, uncertain--A young woman's voice appealing to me,
for comfort,
A young man's voice, Shall I not escape?

poem by Walt Whitman
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As At Thy Portals Also Death

AS at thy portals also death,
Entering thy sovereign, dim, illimitable grounds,
To memories of my mother, to the divine blending, maternity,
To her, buried and gone, yet buried not, gone not from me,
(I see again the calm benignant face fresh and beautiful still,
I sit by the form in the coffin,
I kiss and kiss convulsively again the sweet old lips, the cheeks,
the closed eyes in the coffin;)
To her, the ideal woman, practical, spiritual, of all of earth, life,
love, to me the best,
I grave a monumental line, before I go, amid these songs,
And set a tombstone here. 10

poem by Walt Whitman
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To The States

WHY reclining, interrogating? Why myself and all drowsing?
What deepening twilight! scum floating atop of the waters!
Who are they, as bats and night-dogs, askant in the Capitol?
What a filthy Presidentiad! (O south, your torrid suns! O north, your
arctic freezings!)
Are those really Congressmen? are those the great Judges? is that the
President?
Then I will sleep awhile yet--for I see that These States sleep, for
reasons;
(With gathering murk--with muttering thunder and lambent shoots, we
all duly awake,
South, north, east, west, inland and seaboard, we will surely awake.)

poem by Walt Whitman
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To The Garden The World

TO THE garden, the world, anew ascending,
Potent mates, daughters, sons, preluding,
The love, the life of their bodies, meaning and being,
Curious, here behold my resurrection, after slumber;
The revolving cycles, in their wide sweep, have brought me again,
Amorous, mature--all beautiful to me--all wondrous;
My limbs, and the quivering fire that ever plays through them, for
reasons, most wondrous;
Existing, I peer and penetrate still,
Content with the present--content with the past,
By my side, or back of me, Eve following, 10
Or in front, and I following her just the same.

poem by Walt Whitman
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Weave In, Weave In, My Hardy Life

WEAVE in! weave in, my hardy life!
Weave yet a soldier strong and full, for great campaigns to come;
Weave in red blood! weave sinews in, like ropes! the senses, sight
weave in!
Weave lasting sure! weave day and night the weft, the warp, incessant
weave! tire not!
(We know not what the use, O life! nor know the aim, the end--nor
really aught we know;
But know the work, the need goes on, and shall go on--the death-
envelop'd march of peace as well as war goes on;)
For great campaigns of peace the same, the wiry threads to weave;
We know not why or what, yet weave, forever weave.

poem by Walt Whitman
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A Noiseless Patient Spider

A noiseless, patient spider,
I mark’d, where, on a little promontory, it stood, isolated;
Mark’d how, to explore the vacant, vast surrounding,
It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself;
Ever unreeling them—ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you, O my Soul, where you stand,
Surrounded, surrounded, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing,—seeking the spheres, to connect them;
Till the bridge you will need, be form’d—till the ductile anchor hold;
Till the gossamer thread you fling, catch somewhere, O my Soul.

poem by Walt Whitman
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The Unexpressed

How dare one say it?
After the cycles, poems, singers, plays,
Vaunted Ionia's, India's -Homer, Shakespeare -the long, long times, thick
dotted roads, areas,
The shining clusters and the Milky Ways of stars -Nature's pulses reaped,
All retrospective passions, heroes, war, love, adoration,
All ages' plummets dropped to their utmost depths,
All human lives, throats, wishes, brains -all experiences' utterance;
After the countless songs, or long or short, all tongues, all lands,
Still something not yet told in poesy's voice or print -something lacking,
(Who knows? the best yet unexpressed and lacking.)

poem by Walt Whitman
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Thoughts

OF ownership--As if one fit to own things could not at pleasure enter
upon all, and incorporate them into himself or herself.

Of waters, forests, hills;
Of the earth at large, whispering through medium of me;
Of vista--Suppose some sight in arriere, through the formative chaos,
presuming the growth, fulness, life, now attain'd on the
journey;
(But I see the road continued, and the journey ever continued;)
--Of what was once lacking on earth, and in due time has become
supplied--And of what will yet be supplied,
Because all I see and know, I believe to have purport in what will
yet be supplied.

poem by Walt Whitman
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