...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 ex...

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...

...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 ou...

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...