Walt Whitman - Song of Myself (1855)

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Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

Walt Whitman

Logic and sermons never convince,
The damp of the night drives deeper into my soul.

Walt Whitman

I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.

Walt Whitman

And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.

Walt Whitman

Urge and urge and urge,
Always the procreant urge of the world.

Walt Whitman

I dote on myself, there is that lot of me and all so luscious.

Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman, a kosmos, of Manhattan the son, Turbulent, fleshy, sensual, eating, drinking and breeding, No sentimentalist, no stander above men and women or apart from them, No more modest than immodest. Unscrew the locks from the doors! Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs!

Walt Whitman

I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contained,
I stand and look at them long and long.
They do not sweat and whine about their condition,
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,
Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things.

Walt Whitman

Do you guess I have some intricate purpose? Well I have, for the Fourth-month showers have, and the mica on the side of a rock has.

Walt Whitman

Has any one supposed it lucky to be born?
I hasten to inform him or her, it is just as lucky to die and I know it.

Walt Whitman

The scent of these arm-pits aroma finer than prayer, This head more than churches, bibles, and all the creeds.

Walt Whitman

My foothold is tenon'd and mortis'd in granite, I laugh at what you call dissolution, And I know the amplitude of time.

Walt Whitman

Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems.

Walt Whitman

A child said 'What is the grass?' fetching it to me with full hands; How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he. I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.

Walt Whitman

Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and knowledge that pass all the argument of the earth, And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own, And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own, And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the women my sisters and lovers, And that a kelson of the creation is love.

Walt Whitman

I find no sweeter fat than sticks to my own bones.

Walt Whitman

We also ascend dazzling and tremendous as the sun,
We found our own O my soul in the calm and cool of the daybreak.

Walt Whitman

I have said that the soul is not more than the body, And I have said that the body is not more than the soul, And nothing, not God, is greater to one than one's self is, And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own funeral drest in his shroud.

Walt Whitman

I loaf and invite my soul;
I lean and loaf at my ease, observing a spear of
Summer grass.

Walt Whitman

Behold, I do not give lectures or a little charity,
When I give I give myself.

Walt Whitman

Have you heard that it was good to gain the day? I also say it is good to fall, battles are lost in the same spirit in which they are won.

Walt Whitman

Steep'd amid honey'd morphine, my windpipe throttled in fakes of death.

Walt Whitman

I merely stir, press, feel with my fingers, and am happy, To touch my person to someone else's is about as much as I can stand.

Walt Whitman

And the look of the bay mare shames silliness out of me.

Walt Whitman

I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of
summer grass.

Walt Whitman

My rendezvous is appointed, it is certain,
The Lord will be there and wait till I come on perfect terms.

Walt Whitman

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.

Walt Whitman

NOT I - NOT ANYONE else, can travel that road for you, You must travel it for yourself.

Walt Whitman

I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars,
And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg of the wren,
And the tree toad is a chef-d'oeuvre for the highest,
And the running blackberry would adorn the parlours of heaven.

Walt Whitman

I am he that walks with the tender and growing night, I call to the earth and sea half-held by the night. Press close bare-bosom'd night—press close magnetic nourishing night! Night of south winds—night of the large few stars! Still nodding night—mad naked summer night.

Walt Whitman