Walt Whitman citations

Page 5

“Are you the new person drawn toward me?”

“I meet new Walt Whitmans everyday. There are a dozen of them afloat. I don't know which Walt Whitman I am.”

“poor boy! I never knew you, Yet I think I could not refuse this moment to die for you, if that would save you”

“Henceforth I ask not good fortune. I myself am good fortune.”

“I sing the body electric,
The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them,
They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,
And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul.”

“I henceforth tread the world, chaste, temperate, an early riser, a steady grower.”

“My spirit has pass'd in compassion and determination around the whole earth.
I have look'd for equals and lovers an found them ready for me in all lands,
I think some divine rapport has equalized me with them”

“Copulation is no more foul to me than death is.”

“The poet judges not as a judge judges but as the sun falling around a helpless thing.”

“You must not know too much or be too precise or scientific about birds and trees and flowers and watercraft; a certain free-margin, or even vagueness - ignorance, credulity - helps your enjoyment of these things.”

“I wear my hat as I please, indoors or out.”

“Stand up for the Crazy and Stupid”

“And as to you life, I reckon you are the leavings of many deaths, / No doubt I have died myself ten thousand times before.”

“And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own funeral drest in his shroud.”

“For we cannot tarry here,
We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger,
We, the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend, Pioneers! O pioneers!”

“Give me solitude — give me Nature — give me again, O Nature, your primal sanities!”

“Shut not your doors to me proud libraries.”

“I say the whole earth and all the stars in the sky are for religion’s sake.”

“The great city is that which has the greatest man or woman.”

“Lo! the moon ascending!
Up from the East, the silvery round moon;
Beautiful over the house-tops, ghastly, phantom moon;
Immense and silent moon.”

“I swear I think there is nothing but immortality!”

“O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done!
The ship has weathered every wrack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting.”

“I announce the great individual, fluid as Nature, chaste, affectionate, compassionate, fully armed;
I announce a life that shall be copious, vehement, spiritual, bold,
And I announce an end that shall lightly and joyfully meet its translation.”

“I say the real and permanent grandeur of these States must be their religion.”

“Each of us inevitable;
Each of us limitless—each of us with his or her right upon the earth.”

“Society waits unformed and is between things ended and things begun.”

“Come lovely and soothing death,
Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving,
In the day, in the night, to all, to each,
Sooner or later, delicate death.”

“Praised be the fathomless universe
For life and joy and for objects and knowledge curious;
And for love, sweet love—But praise! O praise and praise
For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding Death.”

“In our sun-down perambulations, of late, through the outer parts of Brooklyn, we have observed several parties of youngsters playing "base", a certain game of ball … Let us go forth awhile, and get better air in our lungs. Let us leave our close rooms … the game of ball is glorious.”