Delicate Cluster
DELICATE cluster! flag of teeming life!
Covering all my lands! all my sea-shores lining!
Flag of death! (how I watch'd you through the smoke of battle
pressing!
How I heard you flap and rustle, cloth defiant!)
Flag cerulean! sunny flag! with the orbs of night dappled!
Ah my silvery beauty! ah my woolly white and crimson!
Ah to sing the song of you, my matron mighty!
My sacred one, my mother.
poem by Walt Whitman
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
When I Read The Book
WHEN I read the book, the biography famous,
And is this, then, (said I,) what the author calls a man's life?
And so will some one, when I am dead and gone, write my life?
(As if any man really knew aught of my life;
Why, even I myself, I often think, know little or nothing of my real
life;
Only a few hints--a few diffused, faint clues and indirections,
I seek, for my own use, to trace out here.)
poem by Walt Whitman
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Savantism
THITHER, as I look, I see each result and glory retracing itself and
nestling close, always obligated;
Thither hours, months, years--thither trades, compacts,
establishments, even the most minute;
Thither every-day life, speech, utensils, politics, persons, estates;
Thither we also, I with my leaves and songs, trustful, admirant,
As a father, to his father going, takes his children along with him.
poem by Walt Whitman
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
To The East And To The West
TO the East and to the West;
To the man of the Seaside State, and of Pennsylvania,
To the Kanadian of the North--to the Southerner I love;
These, with perfect trust, to depict you as myself--the germs are in
all men;
I believe the main purport of These States is to found a superb
friendship, exalté, previously unknown,
Because I perceive it waits, and has been always waiting, latent in
all men.
poem by Walt Whitman
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Among The Multitude
AMONG the men and women, the multitude,
I perceive one picking me out by secret and divine signs,
Acknowledging none else--not parent, wife, husband, brother, child,
any nearer than I am;
Some are baffled--But that one is not--that one knows me.
Ah, lover and perfect equal!
I meant that you should discover me so, by my faint indirections;
And I, when I meet you, mean to discover you by the like in you.
poem by Walt Whitman
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Quicksand Years
QUICKSAND years that whirl me I know not whither,
Your schemes, politics, fail--lines give way--substances mock and
elude me;
Only the theme I sing, the great and strong-possess'd Soul, eludes
not;
One's-self must never give way--that is the final substance--that out
of all is sure;
Out of politics, triumphs, battles, life--what at last finally
remains?
When shows break up, what but One's-Self is sure?
poem by Walt Whitman
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Tests
ALL submit to them, where they sit, inner, secure, unapproachable to
analysis, in the Soul;
Not traditions--not the outer authorities are the judges--they are
the judges of outer authorities, and of all traditions;
They corroborate as they go, only whatever corroborates themselves,
and touches themselves;
For all that, they have it forever in themselves to corroborate far
and near, without one exception.
poem by Walt Whitman
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
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.
poem by Walt Whitman
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
An Army Corps On The March
WITH its cloud of skirmishers in advance,
With now the sound of a single shot, snapping like a whip, and now an
irregular volley,
The swarming ranks press on and on, the dense brigades press on;
Glittering dimly, toiling under the sun--the dust-cover'd men,
In columns rise and fall to the undulations of the ground,
With artillery interspers'd--the wheels rumble, the horses sweat,
As the army corps advances.
poem by Walt Whitman
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Bathed In War's Perfume
BATHED in war's perfume--delicate flag!
(Should the days needing armies, needing fleets, come again,)
O to hear you call the sailors and the soldiers! flag like a
beautiful woman!
O to hear the tramp, tramp, of a million answering men! O the ships
they arm with joy!
O to see you leap and beckon from the tall masts of ships!
O to see you peering down on the sailors on the decks!
Flag like the eyes of women.
poem by Walt Whitman
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
