Walt Whitman

Walter "Walt" Whitman was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Wikipedia

To You

WHOEVER you are, I fear you are walking the walks of dreams, I fear these supposed realities are to melt from under your feet and hands; Even now, your features, joys, speech, house, trade, manners, troubles, follies, costume, crimes, dissipate away from you, Your true Soul and Body...

By Walt Whitman
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14 September

O Captain!

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...

By Walt Whitman
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20 August

The Learn’d Astronomer

When I heard the learn’d astronomer, When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me, When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them, When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room, How soon unaccountable I became...

By Walt Whitman
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31 July

Prayer of Columbus

My terminus near, The clouds already closing in upon me, The voyage balk’d—the course disputed, lost, I yield my ships to Thee. Steersman unseen! henceforth the helms are Thine; Take Thou command—(what to my petty skill Thy navigation?) My hands, my limbs grow nerveless; My brain feels rack’d, bewilder’d; Let the old...

By Walt Whitman
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29 July

To a Historian

You who celebrate bygones! Who have explored the outward, the surfaces of the races—the life that has exhibited itself; Who have treated of man as the creature of politics, aggregates, rulers and priests; I, habitan of the Alleghanies, treating of him as he is in himself, in his...

By Walt Whitman
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08 July