Walt Whitman (1819-1892) is widely considered to be the greatest and most influential of all American poets. The first edition of LEAVES OF GRASS, his sole book which he would continue to revise over the course of his life expanding and rewriting it until the year of his death, appeared in 1855. This volume endeavors to recreate that debut edition as much as an e-book’s virtual typesetting will allow....

I celebrate myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.   I loafe and invite my soul, I lean and loafe at my ease . . . . observing a spear of summer grass.   Houses and rooms are full of perfumes . . . . the shelves are crowded with perfumes, I breathe the fragrance myself, and know it and like it, The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it.   The atmosphere is not a perfume . . . . it has no taste of the distillation . . . . it is odorless, It is for my mouth forever . . . . I am in love with it, I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked, I am mad for it to be in contact with me.   The smoke of my own breath, Echos, ripples, and buzzed whispers . . . . loveroot, silkthread, crotch and vine, My respiration and inspiration . . . . the beating of my heart . . . . the passing of blood and air through my lungs, “The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the shore and darkcolored sea-rocks, and of hay in the barn, The sound of the belched words of my voice . . . . words loosed to the eddies of the wind, A fe...

Contents Introduction "Frontispiece" "Letter from Ralph Waldo Emerson" "Original Title Page" "Entered according to Act of Congress..." "Preface" "Song of Myself" "A Song for Occupations" "To Think of Time" "The Sleepers" "I Sing the Body Electric" "Faces" "Song of the Answerer" "Europe the 72d and 73d Years of These States" "A Boston Ballad" "There Was a Child Went Forth" "Who Learns My Lesson Complete" "Great Are the Myths" About the Editor Also by William Ralph Press...

Alexander Pope (1688-1744) is widely considered to be the best poet of the Augustan age, and perhaps English verse’s best satirist ever. Pope was mostly self-taught having been denied a formal protestant education because of his family’s Roman Catholic beliefs; he also suffered from the effects of Pott’s disease his entire life, which left him deformed and of small stature never growing past the height of four feet six inches. Despite these challenges, Pope flourished in English society and was likely its first professional literary writer having garnered significant income from the sales of books to the public as opposed to traditional patronages, capitalizing mostly on his excellent translations of Homer and an edited edition of Shakespeare. A close friend of Jonathan Swift in their famous Scriblerus Club, he was quite famous in his time, and while his reputation declined in the 19th century, he is now considered the most canonical poet of his era and the true master of the heroic couplet (followed closely by his predecessor, John Dryden) and English poetic satire. This edition of his poems collects all of his major work, and most...

from "Essay on Criticism" “Tis hard to say if greater want of skill Appear in writing or in judging ill; But of the two less dangerous is th’ offence To tire our patience than mislead our sense: Some few in that, but numbers err in this; Ten censure wrong for one who writes amiss; A fool might once himself alone expose; Now one in verse makes many more in prose.     ’Tis with our judgments as our watches, none Go just alike, yet each believes his own. In Poets as true Genius is but rare, True Taste as seldom is the Critic’s share; Both must alike from Heav’n derive their light, These born to judge, as well as those to write. Let such teach others who themselves excel, And censure freely who have written well; Authors are partial to their wit, ’tis true, But are not Critics to their judgment too? “    Yet if we look more closely, we shall find Most have the seeds of judgment in their mind: Nature affords at least a glimm’ring light; The lines, tho’ touch’d but faintly, are drawn right: But as the slightest sketch, if justly traced, Is by ill col’ring but the more disgraced, So by false learning is good sens...

Introduction Ode on Solitude A Paraphrase (On Thomas à Kempis) To the Author of a Poem Entitled Successio The First Book of Statius’s Thebais Imitation of Chaucer Imitation of Spenser: The Alley Imitation of Waller: On a Lady Singing to Her Lute Imitation of Waller: On a Fan of the Author’s Design Imitation of Abraham Cowley: The Garden Imitation of Abraham Cowley: Weeping Imitation of Earl of Rochester: On Silence Imitation of Earl of Dorset: Artemisia Imitation of Earl of Dorset: Phryne Imitation of Dr. Swift: The Happy Life of a Country Parson Pastorals I. Spring; or, Damon II. Summer; or, Alexis III. Autumn; or, Hylas and Ægon IV. Winter; or, Daphne Windsor Forest Paraphrases from Chaucer January and May; or, The Merchant’s Tale The Wife of Bath The Temple of Fame Translations from Ovid Sappho to Phaon The Fable of Dryope Vertumnus and Pomona An Essay on Criticism Part I Part II Part III Ode for Music on St. Cecilia’s Day Argus The Balance of Europe The Translator On Mrs. Tofts, a Famous Opera-Singer Epistle to Mrs. Blount, with the Works of Voiture Adriani Morientis Ad Animam Epistle to M...

Walt Whitman (1819-1892) is widely considered to be the greatest and most influential of all American poets. LEAVES OF GRASS, Whitman's sole book published at his own expense, represents almost the entirety of his poetical output. The first edition of LEAVES OF GRASS, which he would continue to revise over the course of his life expanding and rewriting it until the year of his death, appeared in 1855. This volume represents the final edition, commonly referred to as the “deathbed” edition, and comes with a prefatory note from Whitman asserting that this is the version he most considered full and complete. While it was a commercial and critical failure during Whitman’s lifetime, LEAVES OF GRASS has gone on to become one of the most canonical books of poetry ever written, influencing and inspiring countless artists in the last two centuries. Written in a groundbreaking prosodic style Whitman referred to as “free verse” LEAVES OF GRASS takes the individual and a young American democracy as its themes and illustrates them with a long-lined cadence Whitman coined his “barbaric yawp” along with all the details that constitute them, a few ...

O Captain! My 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 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...

Contents Introduction LEAVES OF GRASS INSCRIPTIONS One's-Self I Sing As I Ponder'd in Silence In Cabin'd Ships at Sea To Foriegn Lands To a Historian To Thee Old Cause Eidólons For Him I Sing When I Read the Book Beginning My Studies Beginners To the States On Journeys through the States To a Certain Cantatrice Me Imperturbe Savantism The Ship Starting I Hear America Singing What Place Is Besieged Still though the One I Sing Shut Not Your Doors Poets to Come To You Thou Reader STARTING FROM PAUMANOK SONG OF MYSELF CHILDREN OF ADAM To the Garden the World From Pent-Up Aching Rivers I Sing the Body Electric A Woman Waits for Me Spontaneous Me One Hour to Madness and Joy Out of the Rolling Ocean the Crowd Ages and Ages Returning at Intervals We Two, How Long We Were Fool'd O Hymen! O Hymenee! I Am He that Aches with Love Native Moments Once I Pass'd through a Populous City I Heard You Solemn-Sweet Pipes of the Organ Facing West from California's Shores As Adam Early in the Morning CALAMUS In Paths Untrodden Scented Herbage of My Breast Whoever You Are Holding Me Now in Hand For Y...