O Captain! My Captain! our fearful trip is done.

The proof of a poet is that his country absorbs him as affectionately as he has absorbed it.

Other lands have their vitality in a few, a class, but we have it in the bulk of our people.

I am as bad as the worst, but, thank God, I am as good as the best.

Now I will do nothing but listen to accrue what I hear into this song. To let sounds contribute toward it. I hear the sound I love. The sound of the human voice. I hear all sounds running together.

A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands; How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he.

When I undertake to tell the best, I find I cannot. My tongue is ineffectual on its pivots, My breath will not be obedient to its organs, I become a dumb man.