About the workLeaves of Grass

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Leaves of Grass

Walt Whitman · 1855

Original text in English.

This collection arrives without metre or rhyme and without an author's name, preceded by the portrait of a man in shirtsleeves who speaks of his flesh and that of others.

Poetry · 383 parts · about 120 000 words · about 8 h 42 of reading

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Contents

  1. Ouverture1 min

BOOK I. INSCRIPTIONS

  1. One’s-Self I Sing1 min
  2. As I Ponder’d in Silence1 min
  3. In Cabin’d Ships at Sea1 min
  4. To Foreign Lands1 min
  5. To a Historian1 min
  6. To Thee Old Cause1 min
  7. Eidolons2 min
  8. For Him I Sing1 min
  9. When I Read the Book1 min
  10. Beginning My Studies1 min
  11. Beginners1 min
  12. To the States1 min
  13. On Journeys Through the States1 min
  14. To a Certain Cantatrice1 min
  15. Me Imperturbe1 min
  16. Savantism1 min
  17. The Ship Starting1 min
  18. I Hear America Singing1 min
  19. What Place Is Besieged?1 min
  20. Still Though the One I Sing1 min
  21. Shut Not Your Doors1 min
  22. Poets to Come1 min
  23. To You1 min
  24. Thou Reader1 min

BOOK II

  1. Starting from Paumanok13 min

BOOK III

  1. Song of Myself1 h 09

BOOK IV. CHILDREN OF ADAM

  1. To the Garden the World1 min
  2. From Pent-Up Aching Rivers3 min
  3. I Sing the Body Electric10 min
  4. A Woman Waits for Me2 min
  5. Spontaneous Me3 min
  6. One Hour to Madness and Joy1 min
  7. Out of the Rolling Ocean the Crowd1 min
  8. Ages and Ages Returning at Intervals1 min
  9. We Two, How Long We Were Fool’d1 min
  10. O Hymen! O Hymenee!1 min
  11. I Am He That Aches with Love1 min
  12. Native Moments1 min
  13. Once I Pass’d Through a Populous City1 min
  14. I Heard You Solemn-Sweet Pipes of the Organ1 min
  15. Facing West from California’s Shores1 min
  16. As Adam Early in the Morning1 min

BOOK V. CALAMUS

  1. In Paths Untrodden1 min
  2. Scented Herbage of My Breast2 min
  3. Whoever You Are Holding Me Now in Hand2 min
  4. For You, O Democracy1 min
  5. These I Singing in Spring2 min
  6. Not Heaving from My Ribb’d Breast Only1 min
  7. Of the Terrible Doubt of Appearances1 min
  8. The Base of All Metaphysics1 min
  9. Recorders Ages Hence1 min
  10. When I Heard at the Close of the Day1 min
  11. Are You the New Person Drawn Toward Me?1 min
  12. Roots and Leaves Themselves Alone1 min
  13. Not Heat Flames Up and Consumes1 min
  14. Trickle Drops1 min
  15. City of Orgies1 min
  16. Behold This Swarthy Face1 min
  17. I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing1 min
  18. To a Stranger1 min
  19. This Moment Yearning and Thoughtful1 min
  20. I Hear It Was Charged Against Me1 min
  21. The Prairie-Grass Dividing1 min
  22. When I Peruse the Conquer’d Fame1 min
  23. We Two Boys Together Clinging1 min
  24. A Promise to California1 min
  25. Here the Frailest Leaves of Me1 min
  26. No Labor-Saving Machine1 min
  27. A Glimpse1 min
  28. A Leaf for Hand in Hand1 min
  29. Earth, My Likeness1 min
  30. I Dream’d in a Dream1 min
  31. What Think You I Take My Pen in Hand?1 min
  32. To the East and to the West1 min
  33. Sometimes with One I Love1 min
  34. To a Western Boy1 min
  35. Fast Anchor’d Eternal O Love!1 min
  36. Among the Multitude1 min
  37. O You Whom I Often and Silently Come1 min
  38. That Shadow My Likeness1 min
  39. Full of Life Now1 min

BOOK VI

  1. Salut au Monde!12 min

BOOK VII

  1. Song of the Open Road12 min

BOOK VIII

  1. Crossing Brooklyn Ferry8 min

BOOK IX

  1. Song of the Answerer5 min

BOOK X

  1. Our Old Feuillage7 min

BOOK XI

  1. A Song of Joys8 min

BOOK XII

  1. Song of the Broad-Axe13 min

BOOK XIII

  1. Song of the Exposition10 min

BOOK XIV

  1. Song of the Redwood-Tree5 min

BOOK XV

  1. A Song for Occupations9 min

BOOK XVI

  1. A Song of the Rolling Earth6 min
  2. Youth, Day, Old Age and Night1 min

BOOK XVII. BIRDS OF PASSAGE

  1. Song of the Universal2 min
  2. Pioneers! O Pioneers!4 min
  3. To You3 min
  4. France [the 18th Year of these States1 min
  5. Myself and Mine2 min
  6. Year of Meteors [1859-601 min
  7. With Antecedents2 min

BOOK XVIII

  1. A Broadway Pageant4 min

BOOK XIX. SEA-DRIFT

  1. Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking7 min
  2. As I Ebb’d with the Ocean of Life3 min
  3. Tears1 min
  4. To the Man-of-War-Bird1 min
  5. Aboard at a Ship’s Helm1 min
  6. On the Beach at Night1 min
  7. The World below the Brine1 min
  8. On the Beach at Night Alone1 min
  9. Song for All Seas, All Ships1 min
  10. Patroling Barnegat1 min
  11. After the Sea-Ship1 min

BOOK XX. BY THE ROADSIDE

  1. A Boston Ballad [1854]2 min
  2. Europe [The 72d and 73d Years of These States]2 min
  3. A Hand-Mirror1 min
  4. Gods1 min
  5. Germs1 min
  6. Thoughts1 min
  7. When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer1 min
  8. Perfections1 min
  9. O Me! O Life!1 min
  10. To a President1 min
  11. I Sit and Look Out1 min
  12. To Rich Givers1 min
  13. The Dalliance of the Eagles1 min
  14. Roaming in Thought [After reading Hegel]1 min
  15. A Farm Picture1 min
  16. A Child’s Amaze1 min
  17. The Runner1 min
  18. Beautiful Women1 min
  19. Mother and Babe1 min
  20. Thought1 min
  21. Visor’d1 min
  22. Thought1 min
  23. Gliding O’er all1 min
  24. Hast Never Come to Thee an Hour1 min
  25. Thought1 min
  26. To Old Age1 min
  27. Locations and Times1 min
  28. Offerings1 min
  29. To The States [To Identify the 16th, 17th, or 18th Presidentiad]1 min

BOOK XXI. DRUM-TAPS

  1. First O Songs for a Prelude3 min
  2. Eighteen Sixty-One1 min
  3. Beat! Beat! Drums!1 min
  4. From Paumanok Starting I Fly Like a Bird1 min
  5. Song of the Banner at Daybreak7 min
  6. Rise O Days from Your Fathomless Deeps3 min
  7. Virginia—The West1 min
  8. City of Ships1 min
  9. The Centenarian’s Story5 min
  10. Cavalry Crossing a Ford1 min
  11. Bivouac on a Mountain Side1 min
  12. An Army Corps on the March1 min
  13. By the Bivouac’s Fitful Flame1 min
  14. Come Up from the Fields Father2 min
  15. Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night2 min
  16. A March in the Ranks Hard-Prest, and the Road Unknown1 min
  17. A Sight in Camp in the Daybreak Gray and Dim1 min
  18. As Toilsome I Wander’d Virginia’s Woods1 min
  19. Not the Pilot1 min
  20. Year That Trembled and Reel’d Beneath Me1 min
  21. The Wound-Dresser3 min
  22. Long, Too Long America1 min
  23. Give Me the Splendid Silent Sun2 min
  24. Dirge for Two Veterans1 min
  25. Over the Carnage Rose Prophetic a Voice1 min
  26. I Saw Old General at Bay1 min
  27. The Artilleryman’s Vision2 min
  28. Ethiopia Saluting the Colors1 min
  29. Not Youth Pertains to Me1 min
  30. Race of Veterans1 min
  31. World Take Good Notice1 min
  32. O Tan-Faced Prairie-Boy1 min
  33. Look Down Fair Moon1 min
  34. Reconciliation1 min
  35. How Solemn As One by One [Washington City, 1865]1 min
  36. As I Lay with My Head in Your Lap Camerado1 min
  37. Delicate Cluster1 min
  38. To a Certain Civilian1 min
  39. Lo, Victress on the Peaks1 min
  40. Spirit Whose Work Is Done [Washington City, 1865]1 min
  41. Adieu to a Soldier1 min
  42. Turn O Libertad1 min
  43. To the Leaven’d Soil They Trod1 min

BOOK XXII. MEMORIES OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN

  1. When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d9 min
  2. O Captain! My Captain!1 min
  3. Hush’d Be the Camps To-Day [May 4, 18651 min
  4. This Dust Was Once the Man1 min

BOOK XXIII

  1. By Blue Ontario’s Shore17 min
  2. Reversals1 min

BOOK XXIV. AUTUMN RIVULETS

  1. As Consequent, Etc1 min
  2. The Return of the Heroes6 min
  3. There Was a Child Went Forth2 min
  4. Old Ireland1 min
  5. The City Dead-House1 min
  6. This Compost2 min
  7. To a Foil’d European Revolutionaire2 min
  8. Unnamed Land2 min
  9. Song of Prudence3 min
  10. The Singer in the Prison2 min
  11. Warble for Lilac-Time1 min
  12. Outlines for a Tomb [G. P., Buried 1870]2 min
  13. Out from Behind This Mask [To Confront a Portrait]1 min
  14. Vocalism1 min
  15. To Him That Was Crucified1 min
  16. You Felons on Trial in Courts1 min
  17. Laws for Creations1 min
  18. To a Common Prostitute1 min
  19. I Was Looking a Long While1 min
  20. Thought1 min
  21. Miracles1 min
  22. Sparkles from the Wheel1 min
  23. To a Pupil1 min
  24. Unfolded out of the Folds1 min
  25. What Am I After All1 min
  26. Kosmos1 min
  27. Others May Praise What They Like1 min
  28. Who Learns My Lesson Complete?2 min
  29. Tests1 min
  30. The Torch1 min
  31. O Star of France [1870-71]1 min
  32. The Ox-Tamer1 min
  33. An Old Man’s Thought of School1 min
  34. Wandering at Morn1 min
  35. Italian Music in Dakota1 min
  36. With All Thy Gifts1 min
  37. My Picture-Gallery1 min
  38. The Prairie States1 min

BOOK XXV

  1. Proud Music of the Storm6 min

BOOK XXVI

  1. Passage to India10 min

BOOK XXVII

  1. Prayer of Columbus2 min

BOOK XXVIII

  1. The Sleepers10 min
  2. Transpositions1 min

BOOK XXIX

  1. To Think of Time7 min

BOOK XXX. WHISPERS OF HEAVENLY DEATH

  1. Darest Thou Now O Soul1 min
  2. Whispers of Heavenly Death1 min
  3. Chanting the Square Deific2 min
  4. Of Him I Love Day and Night1 min
  5. Yet, Yet, Ye Downcast Hours1 min
  6. As If a Phantom Caress’d Me1 min
  7. Assurances1 min
  8. Quicksand Years1 min
  9. That Music Always Round Me1 min
  10. What Ship Puzzled at Sea1 min
  11. A Noiseless Patient Spider1 min
  12. O Living Always, Always Dying1 min
  13. To One Shortly to Die1 min
  14. Night on the Prairies1 min
  15. Thought1 min
  16. The Last Invocation1 min
  17. As I Watch the Ploughman Ploughing1 min
  18. Pensive and Faltering1 min

BOOK XXXI

  1. Thou Mother with Thy Equal Brood6 min
  2. A Paumanok Picture1 min

BOOK XXXII. FROM NOON TO STARRY NIGHT

  1. Thou Orb Aloft Full-Dazzling1 min
  2. Faces4 min
  3. The Mystic Trumpeter3 min
  4. To a Locomotive in Winter1 min
  5. O Magnet-South2 min
  6. Mannahatta1 min
  7. All Is Truth1 min
  8. A Riddle Song1 min
  9. Excelsior1 min
  10. Ah Poverties, Wincings, and Sulky Retreats1 min
  11. Thoughts1 min
  12. Mediums1 min
  13. Weave in, My Hardy Life1 min
  14. Spain, 1873-741 min
  15. By Broad Potomac’s Shore1 min
  16. From Far Dakota’s Canyons [June 25, 1876]1 min
  17. Old War-Dreams1 min
  18. Thick-Sprinkled Bunting1 min
  19. What Best I See in Thee1 min
  20. Spirit That Form’d This Scene1 min
  21. As I Walk These Broad Majestic Days1 min
  22. A Clear Midnight1 min

BOOK XXXIII. SONGS OF PARTING

  1. As the Time Draws Nigh1 min
  2. Years of the Modern2 min
  3. Ashes of Soldiers2 min
  4. Thoughts2 min
  5. Song at Sunset2 min
  6. As at Thy Portals Also Death1 min
  7. My Legacy1 min
  8. Pensive on Her Dead Gazing1 min
  9. Camps of Green1 min
  10. The Sobbing of the Bells [Midnight, Sept. 19-20, 1881]1 min
  11. As They Draw to a Close1 min
  12. Joy, Shipmate, Joy!1 min
  13. The Untold Want1 min
  14. Portals1 min
  15. These Carols1 min
  16. Now Finale to the Shore1 min
  17. So Long!3 min

BOOK XXXIV. SANDS AT SEVENTY

  1. Mannahatta1 min
  2. Paumanok1 min
  3. From Montauk Point1 min
  4. To Those Who’ve Fail’d1 min
  5. A Carol Closing Sixty-Nine1 min
  6. The Bravest Soldiers1 min
  7. A Font of Type1 min
  8. As I Sit Writing Here1 min
  9. My Canary Bird1 min
  10. Queries to My Seventieth Year1 min
  11. The Wallabout Martyrs1 min
  12. The First Dandelion1 min
  13. America1 min
  14. Memories1 min
  15. To-Day and Thee1 min
  16. After the Dazzle of Day1 min
  17. Abraham Lincoln, Born Feb. 12, 18091 min
  18. Out of May’s Shows Selected1 min
  19. Halcyon Days1 min
  20. FANCIES AT NAVESINK3 min
  21. Election Day, November, 18841 min
  22. With Husky-Haughty Lips, O Sea!1 min
  23. Death of General Grant1 min
  24. Red Jacket (From Aloft)1 min
  25. Washington’s Monument February, 18851 min
  26. Of That Blithe Throat of Thine1 min
  27. Broadway1 min
  28. To Get the Final Lilt of Songs1 min
  29. Old Salt Kossabone1 min
  30. The Dead Tenor1 min
  31. Continuities1 min
  32. Yonnondio1 min
  33. Life1 min
  34. “Going Somewhere”1 min
  35. Small the Theme of My Chant1 min
  36. True Conquerors1 min
  37. The United States to Old World Critics1 min
  38. The Calming Thought of All1 min
  39. Thanks in Old Age1 min
  40. Life and Death1 min
  41. The Voice of the Rain1 min
  42. Soon Shall the Winter’s Foil Be Here1 min
  43. While Not the Past Forgetting1 min
  44. The Dying Veteran1 min
  45. Stronger Lessons1 min
  46. A Prairie Sunset1 min
  47. Twenty Years1 min
  48. Orange Buds by Mail from Florida1 min
  49. Twilight1 min
  50. You Lingering Sparse Leaves of Me1 min
  51. Not Meagre, Latent Boughs Alone1 min
  52. The Dead Emperor1 min
  53. As the Greek’s Signal Flame1 min
  54. The Dismantled Ship1 min
  55. Now Precedent Songs, Farewell1 min
  56. An Evening Lull1 min
  57. Old Age’s Lambent Peaks1 min
  58. After the Supper and Talk1 min

BOOKXXXV. GOOD-BYE MY FANCY

  1. Sail out for Good, Eidolon Yacht!1 min
  2. Lingering Last Drops1 min
  3. Good-Bye My Fancy1 min
  4. On, on the Same, Ye Jocund Twain!1 min
  5. MY 71st Year1 min
  6. Apparitions1 min
  7. The Pallid Wreath1 min
  8. An Ended Day1 min
  9. Old Age’s Ship & Crafty Death’s1 min
  10. To the Pending Year1 min
  11. Shakspere-Bacon’s Cipher1 min
  12. Long, Long Hence1 min
  13. Bravo, Paris Exposition!1 min
  14. Interpolation Sounds1 min
  15. To the Sun-Set Breeze1 min
  16. Old Chants1 min
  17. A Christmas Greeting1 min
  18. Sounds of the Winter1 min
  19. A Twilight Song1 min
  20. When the Full-Grown Poet Came1 min
  21. Osceola1 min
  22. A Voice from Death2 min
  23. A Persian Lesson1 min
  24. The Commonplace1 min
  25. “The Rounded Catalogue Divine Complete”1 min
  26. Mirages1 min
  27. L. of G.’s Purport1 min
  28. The Unexpress’d1 min
  29. Grand Is the Seen1 min
  30. Unseen Buds1 min
  31. Good-Bye My Fancy!1 min

About this text

Walt Whitman († 1892): public-domain work. The text is that of the Project Gutenberg e-book (no. 1322). Erostrate has not changed a single word: only the layout and the division into pages are ours.

Note on the edition (in French): Texte de la dernière édition revue par Whitman (1891-1892), et non de la première édition (1855).

A typo, a missing word? Let us know.