Publisher: Poemhunter com The World's Poetry Archive

250
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The city of such women, I am mad to be with them! I will return after
death to be with them!
The city of such young men, I swear I cannot live happy, without I
often go talk, walk, eat, drink, sleep, with them!
Walt Whitman
251
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Me Imperturbe
ME imperturbe, standing at ease in Nature,
Master of all, or mistress of all--aplomb in the midst of irrational
things,
Imbued as they--passive, receptive, silent as they,
Finding my occupation, poverty, notoriety, foibles, crimes, less
important than I thought;
Me private, or public, or menial, or solitary--all these subordinate,
(I am eternally equal with the best--I am not subordinate;)
Me toward the Mexican Sea, or in the Mannahatta, or the Tennessee, or
far north, or inland,
A river man, or a man of the woods, or of any farm-life in These
States, or of the coast, or the lakes, or Kanada,
Me, wherever my life is lived, O to be
self-balanced for
contingencies!
O to confront night, storms, hunger, ridicule, accidents, rebuffs, as
the trees and animals do.
Walt Whitman
252
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Mediums
THEY shall arise in the States,
They shall report Nature, laws, physiology, and happiness;
They shall illustrate Democracy and the kosmos;
They shall be alimentive, amative, perceptive;
They shall be complete women and men--their pose brawny and supple,
their drink water, their blood clean and clear;
They shall enjoy materialism and the sight of products--they shall
enjoy the sight of the beef, lumber, bread-stuffs, of Chicago,
the great city;
They shall train themselves to go in public to become orators and
oratresses;
Strong and sweet shall their tongues be--poems and materials of poems
shall come from their lives--they shall be makers and finders;
Of them, and of their works, shall emerge divine conveyers, to convey
gospels;
Characters, events, retrospections, shall be convey'd in gospels
--Trees, animals, waters, shall be convey'd, 10
Death, the future, the invisible faith, shall all be convey'd.
Walt Whitman
253
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Miracles
WHY! who makes much of a miracle?
As to me, I know of nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach, just in the edge of the
water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with any one I love--or sleep in the bed at night with
any one I love,
Or sit at table at dinner with my mother,
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,
Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive, of a summer forenoon, 10
Or animals feeding in the fields,
Or birds--or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,
Or the wonderfulness of the sun-down--or of stars shining so quiet
and bright,
Or the exquisite, delicate, thin curve of the new moon in spring;
Or whether I go among those I like best, and that like me best--
mechanics, boatmen, farmers,
Or among the savans--or to the soiree--or to the opera,
Or stand a long while looking at the movements of machinery,
Or behold children at their sports,
Or the admirable sight of the perfect old man, or the perfect old
woman,
Or the sick in hospitals, or the dead carried to burial, 20
Or my own eyes and figure in the glass;
These, with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,
The whole referring--yet each distinct, and in its place.
To me, every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the
same,
Every foot of the interior swarms with the same;
Every spear of grass--the frames, limbs, organs, of men and women,
and all that concerns them,
All these to me are unspeakably perfect miracles.