Walt Whitman

51 poems

Of Equality--as if it harm'd me, giving others the same chances and / rights as myself--as if it were not indispensable to my own

Of public opinion, / Of a calm and cool fiat sooner or later, (how impassive! how certain

From all the rest I single out you, having a message for you, / You are to die--let others tell you what they please, I cannot prevaricate,

To thee old cause! / Thou peerless, passionate, good cause,

To those who've fail'd, in aspiration vast, / To unnam'd soldiers fallen in front on the lead,

You who celebrate bygones, / Who have explored the outward, the surfaces of the races, the life

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

The appointed winners in a long-stretch'd game; / The course of Time and nations--Egypt, India, Greece and Rome;

When I heard the learn'd astronomer, / When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,

When I peruse the conquer'd fame of heroes and the victories of / mighty generals, I do not envy the generals,

You tides with ceaseless swell! you power that does this work! / You unseen force, centripetal, centrifugal, through space's spread,