Miracles

Why, who makes much of a miracle?
As to me I know of nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of the water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with any one I love, or sleep in the bed at night
with any one I love,
Or sit at table at dinner with the rest,
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,
Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive of a summer forenoon,
Or animals feeding in the fields,
Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,
Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining so quiet
and bright,
Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring;
These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,
The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place.

To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same,
Every foot of the interior swarms with the same.
To me the sea is a continual miracle,
The fishes that swim--the rocks--the motion of the waves--the
ships with men in them,
What stranger miracles are there?

More poems by Walt Whitman

Now Finale to the Shore

Now finale to the shore, / Now land and life finale and farewell,

Walt Whitman

To the Sun-Set Breeze

Ah, whispering, something again, unseen, / Where late this heated day thou enterest at my window, door,

Walt Whitman

The Pallid Wreath

Somehow I cannot let it go yet, funeral though it is, / Let it remain back there on its nail suspended,

Walt Whitman

For You, O Democracy

Come, I will make the continent indissoluble, / I will make the most splendid race the sun ever shone upon,

Walt Whitman

All poems by Walt Whitman →