You have not known what you are - you have slumber'd upon yourself all your life; Your eye-lids have been the same as closed most of the time; What you have done returns already in mockeries; Your thrift, knowledge, prayers, if they do not return in mockeries, what is their return? The mockeries are not you; Underneath them, and within them, I see you lurk.
Walt WhitmanStranger, if you passing meet me and desire to speak to me, why should you not speak to me? And why should I not speak to you?
Walt WhitmanIn this broad earth of ours, Amid the measureless grossness and the slag, Enclosed and safe within its central heart, Nestles the seed of perfection.
Walt WhitmanNOT I - NOT ANYONE else, can travel that road for you, You must travel it for yourself.
Walt WhitmanTHIS dust was once the Man, / Gentle, plain, just and resoluteโunder whose cautious hand, / Against the foulest crime in history known in any land or age, / Was saved the Union of These States.
Walt WhitmanI mind how once we lay such a transparent summer morning, How you settled your head athwart my hips and gently turn'd over upon me, And parted the shirt from my bosom-bone, and plunged your tongue to my bare-stript heart, And reach'd till you felt my beard, and reach'd till you held my feet.
Walt Whitman