Walt Whitman

There was a Child went Forth

 
THERE was a child went forth every day;
 
And the first object he look’d upon, that object he became;
 
And that object became part of him for the day, or a certain part of the day, or for many
years, or stretching cycles of years.
  
 
The early lilacs became part of this child,
        
And grass, and white and red morning-glories, and white and red clover, and the song of the  5
phoebe-bird,
 
And the Third-month lambs, and the sow’s pink-faint litter, and the mare’s foal, and the
cow’s calf,
 
And the noisy brood of the barn-yard, or by the mire of the pond-side,
 
And the fish suspending themselves so curiously below there—and the beautiful curious
liquid,
 
And the water-plants with their graceful flat heads—all became part of him.
  
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The field-sprouts of Fourth-month and Fifth-month became part of him;
 
Winter-grain sprouts, and those of the light-yellow corn, and the esculent roots of the
garden,
 
And the apple-trees cover’d with blossoms, and the fruit afterward, and wood-berries, and
the commonest weeds by the road;
 
And the old drunkard staggering home from the out-house of the tavern, whence he had
lately risen,
 
And the school-mistress that pass’d on her way to the school,
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And the friendly boys that pass’d—and the quarrelsome boys,
 
And the tidy and fresh-cheek’d girls—and the barefoot negro boy and girl,
 
And all the changes of city and country, wherever he went.
  
 
His own parents,
 
He that had father’d him, and she that had conceiv’d him in her womb, and birth’d him,
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They gave this child more of themselves than that;
 
They gave him afterward every day—they became part of him.
  
 
The mother at home, quietly placing the dishes on the supper-table;
 
The mother with mild words—clean her cap and gown, a wholesome odor falling off her
person and clothes as she walks by;
 
The father, strong, self-sufficient, manly, mean, anger’d, unjust;
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The blow, the quick loud word, the tight bargain, the crafty lure,
  
The family usages, the language, the company, the furniture—the yearning and swelling
heart,
 
Affection that will not be gainsay’d—the sense of what is real—the thought if, after all, it
should prove unreal,
 
The doubts of day-time and the doubts of night-time—the curious whether and how,
 
Whether that which appears so is so, or is it all flashes and specks?
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Men and women crowding fast in the streets—if they are not flashes and specks, what are
they?
 
The streets themselves, and the façades of houses, and goods in the windows,
 
Vehicles, teams, the heavy-plank’d wharves—the huge crossing at the ferries,
 
The village on the highland, seen from afar at sunset—the river between,
 
Shadows, aureola and mist, the light falling on roofs and gables of white or brown, three
miles off,
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The schooner near by, sleepily dropping down the tide—the little boat slack-tow’d astern,
 
The hurrying tumbling waves, quick-broken crests, slapping,
 
The strata of color’d clouds, the long bar of maroon-tint, away solitary by itself—the spread
of purity it lies motionless in,
 
The horizon’s edge, the flying sea-crow, the fragrance of salt marsh and shore mud;
These became part of that child who went forth every day, and who now goes, and will
always go forth every day.

I Saw in Louisiana A Live-Oak Growing

BY  WA LT WH IT MA N
I saw in Louisiana a live-oak growing,
All alone stood it and the moss hung down from the branches,
Without any companion it grew there uttering joyous leaves of dark green,
And its look, rude, unbending, lusty, made me think of myself,
But I wonder’d how it could utter joyous leaves standing alone there without its
friend near, for I knew I could not,
And I broke off a twig with a certain number of leaves upon it, and twined
around it a little moss,
And brought it away, and I have placed it in sight in my room,
It is not needed to remind me as of my own dear friends,
(For I believe lately I think of little else than of them,)
Yet it remains to me a curious token, it makes me think of manly love;
For all that, and though the live-oak glistens there in Louisiana solitary in a
wide flat space,
Uttering joyous leaves all its life without a friend a lover near,
I know very well I could not.
 One's-Self I Sing
BY  WA LT WH IT MA N
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.

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! for you must justify me.

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.

O Captain! My Captain!
BY  WA LT WH IT MA N
O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
 While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
                         But O heart! heart! heart!
                            O the bleeding drops of red,
                               Where on the deck my Captain lies,
                                  Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;

Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills,
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
                         Here Captain! dear father!
                            This arm beneath your head!
                               It is some dream that on the deck,
                                 You’ve fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
                         Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
                            But I with mournful tread,
                               Walk the deck my Captain lies,
                                  Fallen cold and dead.

TO A STRANGER.
PASSING stranger! you do not know how longingly I
look upon you,
You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking,
(it comes to me, as of a dream,)
I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you,
All is recall'd as we flit by each other, fluid, affection-
ate, chaste, matured,
You grew up with me, were a boy with me, or a girl
with me,
I ate with you, and slept with you—your body has
become not yours only, nor left my body mine
only,
You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as
we pass—you take of my beard, breast, hands,
in return,
I am not to speak to you—I am to think of you when
I sit alone, or wake at night alone,
I am to wait—I do not doubt I am to meet you again,
I am to see to it that I do not lose you.

SHUT NOT YOUR DOORS.

SHUT not your doors to me proud libraries,
For that which was lacking on all your well-fill'd shelves, yet
needed most, I bring,
Forth from the war emerging, a book I have made,
The words of my book nothing, the drift of it every thing,
A book separate, not link'd with the rest nor felt by the intellect,
But you ye untold latencies will thrill to every page.

THESE CAROLS.
THESE carols sung to cheer my passage through the world I see,
For completion I dedicate to the Invisible World

EMILY DICKINASON

Success is counted sweetest (112)

BY  EMIL Y DIC KI NS ON
Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne'er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.

Not one of all the purple Host

Who took the Flag today
Can tell the definition
So clear of victory

As he defeated – dying –
On whose forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumph
Burst agonized and clear!

“Hope” is the thing with feathers - (314)

BY  EMIL Y DIC KI NS ON
“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -

And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -

And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.
 After great pain, a formal feeling comes –
(372)
BY  EMIL Y DIC KI NS ON
After great pain, a formal feeling comes –
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs –
The stiff Heart questions ‘was it He, that bore,’
And ‘Yesterday, or Centuries before’?

The Feet, mechanical, go round –

A Wooden way
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought –
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone –

This is the Hour of Lead –

Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow –
First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go –

She lay as if at play

She lay as if at play
Her life had leaped away—
Intending to return—
But not so soon—

Her merry Arms, half dropt—

As if for lull of sport—
An instant had forgot—
The Trick to start—

Her dancing Eyes—ajar—

As if their Owner were
Still sparkling through
For fun—at you—

Her Morning at the door—

Devising, I am sure—
To force her sleep—
So light—so deep—

“This is my letter to the world”

1This is my letter to the World
2That never wrote to Me —
3The simple News that Nature told
4With tender Majesty
5Her Message is committed
6To Hands I cannot see —
7For love of Her — Sweet — countrymen
8Judge tenderly — of Me

The last night that she lived

The last Night that She lived
It was a Common Night
Except the Dying—this to Us
Made Nature different

We noticed smallest things—

Things overlooked before
By this great light upon our Minds
Italicized—as 'twere.

As We went out and in

Between Her final Room
And Rooms where Those to be alive
Tomorrow were, a Blame

That Others could exist

While She must finish quite
A Jealousy for Her arose
 So nearly infinite—

We waited while She passed—

It was a narrow time—
Too jostled were Our Souls to speak
At length the notice came.

She mentioned, and forgot—

Then lightly as a Reed
Bent to the Water, struggled scarce—
Consented, and was dead—

Robert Frost
Mending Wall
BY  RO BE RT FR OS T
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned!’
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
‘Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.’ I could say ‘Elves’ to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’

After Apple-Picking
BY  RO BE RT FR OS T
My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there's a barrel that I didn't fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.
I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough
And held against the world of hoary grass.
It melted, and I let it fall and break.
But I was well
Upon my way to sleep before it fell,
And I could tell
What form my dreaming was about to take.
Magnified apples appear and disappear,
Stem end and blossom end,
And every fleck of russet showing clear.
My instep arch not only keeps the ache,
It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.
I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.
And I keep hearing from the cellar bin
The rumbling sound
Of load on load of apples coming in.
For I have had too much
Of apple-picking: I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired.
There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,
Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.
For all
That struck the earth,
No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,
Went surely to the cider-apple heap
As of no worth.
One can see what will trouble
This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.
Were he not gone,
The woodchuck could say whether it's like his
Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,
Or just some human sleep.

The Road Not Taken 

Launch Audio in a New Window
BY  RO BE RT FR OS T
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Tree at my window
 Tree at my window, window tree,
My sash is lowered when night comes on;
But let there never be curtain drawn
Between you and me.

Vague dream head lifted out of the ground,

And thing next most diffuse to cloud,
Not all your light tongues talking aloud
Could be profound.

But tree, I have seen you taken and tossed,

And if you have seen me when I slept,
You have seen me when I was taken and swept
And all but lost.

That day she put our heads together,

Fate had her imagination about her,
Your head so much concerned with outer,
Mine with inner, weather.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

BY  RO BE RT FR OS T
Whose woods these are I think I know.   
His house is in the village though;   
He will not see me stopping here   
To watch his woods fill up with snow.   

My little horse must think it queer   

To stop without a farmhouse near   
Between the woods and frozen lake   
The darkest evening of the year.   

He gives his harness bells a shake   

To ask if there is some mistake.   
The only other sound’s the sweep   
Of easy wind and downy flake.   

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   

But I have promises to keep,   
And miles to go before I sleep,   
And miles to go before I sleep.

Acquainted with the Night

BY  RO BE RT FR OS T
I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.

I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet

When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;

And further still at an unearthly height,
One luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right. 

I have been one acquainted with the night.

The Pasture
BY  RO BE RT FR OS T
I'm going out to clean the pasture spring;
I'll only stop to rake the leaves away
(And wait to watch the water clear, I may):
I sha'n't be gone long.—You come too.
I'm going out to fetch the little calf
That's standing by the mother. It's so young,
It totters when she licks it with her tongue.
I sha'n't be gone long.—You come too.