The Complete Poems

By: Walt Whitman

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Paperback | 25 October 2004 | Edition Number 1

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From Leaves of Grass to "Song of Myself," all of Whitman's poetry in one volume

In 1855 Walt Whitman published Leaves of Grass, the work that defined him as one of America’s most influential voices and that he added to throughout his life. A collection of astonishing originality and intensity, it spoke of politics, sexual emancipation, and what it meant to be an American. From the joyful “Song of Myself” and “I Sing the Body Electric” to the elegiac “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d,” Whitman’s art fuses oratory, journalism, and song in a vivid celebration of humanity. Containing all Whitman’s known poetic work, this edition reprints the final, or “deathbed,” edition of Leaves of Grass (1891–92). Earlier versions of many poems are also given, including the 1855 “Song of Myself.”

• Features a completely new—and fuller—introduction discussing the development of Whitman's poetic career, his influence on later American poets, and his impact on the American cultural sensibility
• Includes chronology, updated suggestions for further reading, and extensive notes

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

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Non-Fiction Literature, Poetry & Plays History & Criticism of Literature Literary Studies of Poetry & Poets Poetry Poetry By Individual Poets Fiction Classic Fiction Penguin Black Classics Penguin Black Classics Poetry

Acknowledgements	p. xx
Table of Dates	p. xxi
Introduction	p. xxvi
Further Reading	p. xliii
A Note on the Text	p. xlvi
Leaves of Grass	p. 35
Inscriptions
One's-Self I Sing	p. 37
As I Ponder'd in Silence	p. 37
In Cabin'd Ships at Sea	p. 38
To Foreign Lands	p. 39
To a Historian	p. 39
To Thee Old Cause	p. 39
Eidolons	p. 40
For Him I Sing	p. 43
When I Read the Book	p. 43
Beginning My Studies	p. 44
Beginners	p. 44
To the States	p. 44
On Journeys through the States	p. 45
To a Certain Cantatrice	p. 45
Me Imperturbe	p. 46
Savantism	p. 46
The Ship Starting	p. 46
I Hear America Singing	p. 47
What Place is Besieged?	p. 47
Still though the One I Sing	p. 48
Shut not Your Doors	p. 48
Poets to Come	p. 48
To You	p. 49
Thou Reader	p. 49
Starting from Paumanok	p. 50
Song of Myself	p. 63
Children Of Adam
To the Garden the World	p. 125
From Pent-up Aching Rivers	p. 125
I Sing the Body Electric	p. 127
A Woman Waits for Me	p. 136
Spontaneous Me	p. 138
One Hour to Madness and Joy	p. 140
Out of the Rolling Ocean the Crowd	p. 141
Ages and Ages Returning at Intervals	p. 142
We Two, How Long We Were Fool'd	p. 142
O Hymen! O Hymenee!	p. 143
I Am He that Aches with Love	p. 143
Native Moments	p. 143
Once I Pass'd through a Populous City	p. 144
I Heard You Solemn-Sweet Pipes of the Organ	p. 144
Facing West from California's Shores	p. 145
As Adam Early in the Morning	p. 145
Calamus
In Paths Untrodden	p. 146
Scented Herbage of My Breast	p. 146
Whoever You are Holding Me Now in Hand	p. 148
For You O Democracy	p. 150
These I Singing in Spring	p. 151
Not Heaving from my Ribb'd Breast Only	p. 152
Of the Terrible Doubt of Appearances	p. 153
The Base of All Metaphysics	p. 154
Recorders Ages Hence	p. 154
When I Heard at the Close of the Day	p. 155
Are You the New Person Drawn toward Me?	p. 156
Roots and Leaves Themselves Alone	p. 156
Not Heat Flames up and Consumes	p. 157
Trickle Drops	p. 157
City of Orgies	p. 158
Behold This Swarthy Face	p. 158
I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing	p. 159
To a Stranger	p. 159
This Moment Yearning and Thoughtful	p. 160
I Hear It was Charged against Me	p. 160
The Prairie-grass Dividing	p. 161
When I Peruse the Conquer'd Fame	p. 161
We Two Boys together Clinging	p. 162
A Promise to California	p. 162
Here the Frailest Leaves of Me	p. 163
No Labor-Saving Machine	p. 163
A Glimpse	p. 163
A Leaf for Hand in Hand	p. 164
Earth, My Likeness	p. 164
I Dream'd in a Dream	p. 164
What Think You I Take My Pen in Hand?	p. 165
To the East and to the West	p. 165
Sometimes with One I Love	p. 165
To a Western Boy	p. 166
Fast-Anchor'd Eternal O Love!	p. 166
Among the Multitude	p. 166
O You whom I Often and Silently Come	p. 167
That Shadow My Likeness	p. 167
Full of Life Now	p. 167
Salut au Monde!	p. 168
Song of the Open Road	p. 178
Crossing Brooklyn Ferry	p. 189
Song of the Answerer	p. 196
Our Old Feuillage	p. 201
A Song of Joys	p. 206
Song of the Broad-Axe	p. 214
Song of the Exposition	p. 225
Song of the Redwood-Tree	p. 235
A Song for Occupations	p. 240
A Song of the Rolling Earth	p. 248
Youth, Day, Old Age and Night	p. 254
Birds Of Passage
Song of the Universal	p. 255
Pioneers! O Pioneers!	p. 257
To You	p. 261
France, The 18th Year of These States	p. 264
Myself and Mine	p. 265
Year of Meteors (1859-60)	p. 267
With Antecedents	p. 268
A Broadway Pageant	p. 271
Sea-Drift
Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking	p. 275
As I Ebb'd with the Ocean of Life	p. 281
Tears	p. 284
To the Man-of-War Bird	p. 285
Aboard at a Ship's Helm	p. 286
On the Beach at Night	p. 286
The World Below the Brine	p. 287
On the Beach at Night Alone	p. 288
Song for All Seas, All Ships	p. 289
Patroling Barnegat	p. 290
After the Sea-Ship	p. 291
By The Roadside
A Boston Ballad (1854)	p. 292
Europe, The 72d and 73d Years of These States	p. 294
A Hand-Mirror	p. 296
Gods	p. 296
Germs	p. 297
Thoughts	p. 297
When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer	p. 298
Perfections	p. 298
O Me! O Life!	p. 298
To a President	p. 299
I Sit and Look Out	p. 299
To Rich Givers	p. 300
The Dalliance of the Eagles	p. 300
Roaming in Thought	p. 301
A Farm Picture	p. 301
A Child's Amaze	p. 301
The Runner	p. 301
Beautiful Women	p. 302
Mother and Babe	p. 302
Thought	p. 302
Visor'd	p. 302
Thought	p. 302
Gliding o'er All	p. 303
Hast Never Come to Thee an Hour	p. 303
Thought	p. 303
To Old Age	p. 303
Locations and Times	p. 303
Offerings	p. 304
To the States, To Identify the 16th, 17th or 18th Presidentiad	p. 304
Drum-Taps
First O Songs for a Prelude	p. 305
Eighteen Sixty-One	p. 307
Beat! Beat! Drums!	p. 308
From Paumanok Starting I Fly Like a Bird	p. 309
Song of the Banner at Daybreak	p. 310
Rise O Days from Your Fathomless Deeps	p. 316
Virginia - the West	p. 319
City of Ships	p. 319
The Centenarian's Story	p. 320
Cavalry Crossing a Ford	p. 325
Bivouac on a Mountain Side	p. 325
An Army Corps on the March	p. 326
By the Bivouac's Fitful Flame	p. 326
Come up from the Fields Father	p. 327
Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night	p. 328
A March in the Ranks Hard-Prest, and the Road Unknown	p. 330
A Sight in Camp in the Daybreak Gray and Dim	p. 331
As Toilsome I Wander'd Virginia's Woods	p. 332
Not the Pilot	p. 333
Year that Trembled and Reel'd beneath Me	p. 333
The Wound-Dresser	p. 333
Long, too Long America	p. 336
Give Me the Splendid Silent Sun	p. 337
Dirge for Two Veterans	p. 339
Over the Carnage Rose Prophetic a Voice	p. 340
I Saw Old General at Bay	p. 341
The Artilleryman's Vision	p. 341
Ethiopia Saluting the Colors	p. 343
Not Youth Pertains to Me	p. 343
Race of Veterans	p. 344
World Take Good Notice	p. 344
O Tan-Faced Prairie-Boy	p. 344
Look Down Fair Moon	p. 344
Reconciliation	p. 345
How Solemn as One by One	p. 345
As I Lay with My Head in Your Lap Camerado	p. 346
Delicate Cluster	p. 346
To a Certain Civilian	p. 347
Lo, Victress on the Peaks	p. 347
Spirit Whose Work is Done	p. 348
Adieu to a Soldier	p. 349
Turn O Libertad	p. 349
To the Leaven'd Soil They Trod	p. 350
Memories Of President Lincoln
When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd	p. 351
O Captain! My Captain!	p. 359
Hush'd Be the Camps To-day	p. 360
This Dust Was Once the Man	p. 361
By Blue Ontario's Shore	p. 362
Reversals	p. 378
Autumn Rivulets
As Consequent, Etc.	p. 379
The Return of the Heroes	p. 380
There Was a Child Went Forth	p. 386
Old Ireland	p. 388
The City Dead-House	p. 389
This Compost	p. 390
To a Foil'd European Revolutionaire	p. 392
Unnamed Lands	p. 393
Song of Prudence	p. 395
The Singer in the Prison	p. 398
Warble for Lilac-Time	p. 400
Outlines for a Tomb	p. 401
Out from Behind This Mask	p. 403
Vocalism	p. 404
To Him That was Crucified	p. 405
You Felons on Trial in Courts	p. 406
Laws for Creations	p. 407
To a Common Prostitute	p. 408
I Was Looking a Long While	p. 408
Thought	p. 409
Miracles	p. 409
Sparkles from the Wheel	p. 410
To a Pupil	p. 411
Unfolded Out of the Folds	p. 411
What am I After All	p. 412
Kosmos	p. 413
Others May Praise What They Like	p. 413
Who Learns My Lesson Complete?	p. 414
Tests	p. 415
The Torch	p. 415
O Star of France (1870-71)	p. 416
The Ox-Tamer	p. 417
An Old Man's Thought of School	p. 418
Wandering at Morn	p. 419
Italian Music in Dakota	p. 420
With All Thy Gifts	p. 420
My Picture-Gallery	p. 421
The Prairie States	p. 421
Proud Music of the Storm	p. 422
Passage to India	p. 428
Prayer of Columbus	p. 437
The Sleepers	p. 440
Transpositions	p. 449
To Think of Time	p. 449
Whispers Of Heavenly Death
Darest Thou Now O Soul	p. 456
Whispers of Heavenly Death	p. 456
Chanting the Square Deific	p. 457
Of Him I Love Day and Night	p. 459
Yet, Yet, Ye Downcast Hours	p. 460
As if a Phantom Caress'd Me	p. 461
Assurances	p. 461
Quicksand Years	p. 462
That Music Always Round Me	p. 462
What Ship Puzzled at Sea	p. 463
A Noiseless Patient Spider	p. 463
O Living Always, Always Dying	p. 464
To One Shortly to Die	p. 464
Night on the Prairies	p. 465
Thought	p. 466
The Last Invocation	p. 466
As I Watch'd the Ploughman Ploughing	p. 467
Pensive and Faltering	p. 467
Thou Mother with Thy Equal Brood	p. 468
A Paumanok Picture	p. 473
From Noon To Starry Night
Thou Orb Aloft Full-Dazzling	p. 474
Faces	p. 475
The Mystic Trumpeter	p. 479
To a Locomotive in Winter	p. 482
O Magnet-South	p. 483
Mannahatta	p. 485
All is Truth	p. 486
A Riddle Song	p. 487
Excelsior	p. 488
Ah Poverties, Wincings, and Sulky Retreats	p. 489
Thoughts	p. 490
Mediums	p. 490
Weave in, My Hardy Life	p. 491
Spain, 1873-74	p. 491
By Broad Potomac's Shore	p. 492
From Far Dakota's Canons (June 25, 1876)	p. 493
Old War-Dreams	p. 494
Thick-Sprinkled Bunting	p. 494
What Best I See in Thee	p. 495
Spirit That Form'd This Scene	p. 495
As I Walk These Broad Majestic Days	p. 496
A Clear Midnight	p. 497
Songs Of Parting
As the Time Draws Nigh	p. 498
Years of the Modern	p. 498
Ashes of Soldiers	p. 500
Thoughts	p. 501
Song at Sunset	p. 503
As at Thy Portals Also Death	p. 506
My Legacy	p. 506
Pensive on Her Dead Gazing	p. 507
Camps of Green	p. 508
The Sobbing of the Bells	p. 509
As They Draw to a Close	p. 509
Joy, Shipmate, Joy!	p. 510
The Untold Want	p. 510
Portals	p. 510
These Carols	p. 510
Now Finale to the Shore	p. 511
So Long!	p. 511
Sands At Seventy
Mannahatta	p. 517
Paumanok	p. 517
From Montauk Point	p. 517
To Those Who've Fail'd	p. 517
A Carol Closing Sixty-Nine	p. 518
The Bravest Soldiers	p. 518
A Font of Type	p. 519
As I Sit Writing Here	p. 519
My Canary Bird	p. 519
Queries to My Seventieth Year	p. 520
The Wallabout Martyrs	p. 520
The First Dandelion	p. 520
America	p. 521
Memories	p. 521
To-day and Thee	p. 521
After the Dazzle of Day	p. 521
Abraham Lincoln, Born Feb. 12, 1809	p. 522
Out of May's Shows Selected	p. 522
Halcyon Days	p. 522
Fancies at Navesink	p. 523
The Pilot in the Mist	p. 523
Had I the Choice	p. 523
You Tides with Ceaseless Swell	p. 523
Last of Ebb, and Daylight Waning	p. 524
And Yet Not You Alone	p. 525
Proudly the Flood Comes In	p. 525
By That Long Scan of Waves	p. 525
Then Last of All	p. 526
Election Day, November, 1884	p. 526
With Husky-Haughty Lips, O Sea!	p. 527
Death of General Grant	p. 528
Red Jacket (from Aloft)	p. 528
Washington's Monument, February, 1885	p. 529
Of That Blithe Throat of Thine	p. 530
Broadway	p. 530
To Get the Final Lilt of Songs	p. 531
Old Salt Kossabone	p. 531
The Dead Tenor	p. 532
Continuities	p. 533
Yonnondio	p. 533
Life	p. 534
'Going Somewhere'	p. 534
Small the Theme of My Chant	p. 535
True Conquerors	p. 535
The United States to Old World Critics	p. 536
The Calming Thought of All	p. 536
Thanks in Old Age	p. 536
Life and Death	p. 537
The Voice of the Rain	p. 537
Soon Shall the Winter's Foil Be Here	p. 538
While Not the Past Forgetting	p. 538
The Dying Veteran	p. 539
Stronger Lessons	p. 540
A Prairie Sunset	p. 540
Twenty Years	p. 540
Orange Buds by Mail from Florida	p. 541
Twilight	p. 541
You Lingering Sparse Leaves of Me	p. 542
Not Meagre, Latent Boughs Alone	p. 542
The Dead Emperor	p. 542
As the Greek's Signal Flame	p. 543
The Dismantled Ship	p. 543
Now Precedent Songs, Farewell	p. 543
An Evening Lull	p. 544
Old Age's Lambent Peaks	p. 544
After the Supper and Talk	p. 545
Good-Bye My Fancy
Preface Note to Second Annex	p. 549
Sail Out for Good, Eidolon Yacht!	p. 551
Lingering Last Drops	p. 551
Good-Bye My Fancy	p. 551
On, on the Same, Ye Jocund Twain!	p. 552
My 71st Year	p. 553
Apparitions	p. 553
The Pallid Wreath	p. 553
An Ended Day	p. 554
Old Age's Ship and Crafty Death's	p. 554
To the Pending Year	p. 555
Shakspere-Bacon's Cipher	p. 555
Long, Long Hence	p. 556
Bravo, Paris Exposition!	p. 556
Interpolation Sounds	p. 556
To the Sun-set Breeze	p. 557
Old Chants	p. 558
A Christmas Greeting	p. 559
Sounds of the Winter	p. 560
A Twilight Song	p. 560
When the Full-Grown Poet Came	p. 561
Osceola	p. 561
A Voice from Death	p. 562
A Persian Lesson	p. 564
The Commonplace	p. 564
'The Rounded Catalogue Divine Complete'	p. 565
Mirages	p. 565
L. of G.'s Purport	p. 566
The Unexpress'd	p. 567
Grand is the Seen	p. 567
Unseen Buds	p. 568
Good-Bye My Fancy!	p. 568
A Backward Glance O'er Travel'd Roads	p. 569
Old Age Echoes
An Executor's Diary Note, 1891	p. 587
To Soar in Freedom and in Fullness of Power	p. 588
Then Shall Perceive	p. 588
The Few Drops Known	p. 588
One Thought Ever at the Fore	p. 588
While Behind All, Firm and Erect	p. 589
A Kiss to the Bride	p. 589
Nay, Tell Me Not To-day the Publish'd Shame	p. 589
Supplement Hours	p. 590
Of Many a Smutch'd Deed Reminiscent	p. 591
To Be at All	p. 591
Death's Valley	p. 592
On the Same Picture	p. 593
A Thought of Columbus	p. 593
Poems Excluded from Leaves of Grass
Great Are the Myths	p. 597
Poem of Remembrances for a Girl or a Boy of These States	p. 601
Think of the Soul	p. 602
Respondez!	p. 603
[In the New Garden]	p. 607
[Who is Now Reading This?]	p. 607
[I Thought That Knowledge Alone Would Suffice]	p. 608
[Hours Continuing Long]	p. 609
[So Far, and So Far, and On Toward the End]	p. 610
Thoughts - 1: Visages	p. 610
Leaflets	p. 611
Thoughts - 6: 'Of What I Write'	p. 611
Says	p. 611
Apostroph	p. 613
O Sun of Real Peace	p. 615
To You	p. 616
Now Lift Me Close	p. 616
To the Reader at Parting	p. 616
Debris	p. 617
[States!]	p. 620
Bathed in War's Perfume	p. 622
Solid, Ironical, Rolling Orb	p. 622
Not My Enemies Ever Invade Me	p. 623
This Day, O Soul	p. 623
Ashes of Soldiers: Epigraph	p. 623
One Song, America, Before I Go	p. 623
Souvenirs of Democracy	p. 624
From My Last Years	p. 625
In Former Songs	p. 625
The Beauty of the Ship	p. 625
After an Interval	p. 626
Two Rivulets	p. 626
Or, from That Sea of Time	p. 627
As in a Swoon	p. 628
Lessons	p. 628
[Last Droplets]	p. 628
Ship Ahoy!	p. 628
For Queen Victoria's Birthday	p. 629
L of G	p. 629
After the Argument	p. 630
For Us Two, Reader Dear	p. 630
Early Poems
Our Future Lot	p. 633
Young Grimes	p. 634
Fame's Vanity	p. 635
My Departure	p. 637
The Death of the Nature-Lover	p. 638
The Inca's Daughter	p. 639
The Love That Is Hereafter	p. 640
We All Shall Rest at Last	p. 642
The Spanish Lady	p. 643
The End of All	p. 644
The Columbian's Song	p. 646
The Punishment of Pride	p. 648
Ambition	p. 650
The Death and Burial of McDonald Clarke	p. 652
Time to Come	p. 653
The Play-Ground	p. 654
Ode	p. 655
New Year's Day, 1848	p. 656
The House of Friends	p. 657
Resurgemus	p. 658
The Mississippi at Midnight	p. 660
Song for Certain Congressmen	p. 661
Blood-Money	p. 663
Pictures	p. 665
Song of Myself: The Text from the First Edition of Leaves of Grass (1855)	p. 675
Prefaces
Leaves of Grass, 1855	p. 741
Leaves of Grass, 1856	p. 762
As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free, 1872	p. 773
Preface, 1876	p. 778
A Sketch	p. 791
Notes	p. 793
Index of Titles	p. 869
Index of First Lines	p. 885
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

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