Another birthday !!
Name:
Walt Whitman
Birth Date:
May 31, 1819
Death Date:
March 26, 1892
Place of Birth:
West Hills, New York, United States
Place of Death:
Camden, New Jersey, United States
Read the and tell me Mr. Whitman was not years and years ahead of his time. Then read his biography sometime and learn the coolness of this poet! (btw, you may ask a librarian for such a biography, if you wish! I happen to know one!)
Song of Myself (excerpt)by (the birthday boy) Walt Whitman
This is the meal equally set, this the meat for natural hunger,It is for the wicked just the same as the righteous, I make appointments with all,I will not have a single person slighted or left away,The kept-woman, sponger, thief, are hereby invited,The heavy-lipp'd slave is invited, the venerealee is invited;There shall be no difference between them and the rest.
This is the press of a bashful hand, this the float and odor of hair,
This the touch of my lips to yours, this the murmur of yearning,This the far-off depth and height reflecting my own face,This the thoughtful merge of myself, and the outlet again.Do you guess I have some intricate purpose?Well I have, for the Fourth-month showers have, and the mica on the side of a rock has.
Do you take it I would astonish?Does the daylight astonish? does the early redstart twittering through the woods?Do I astonish more than they?
This hour I tell things in confidence,I might not tell everybody, but I will tell you.
20
Who goes there? hankering, gross, mystical, nude;How is it I extract strength from the beef I eat?
What is a man anyhow? what am I? what are you?
All I mark as my own you shall offset it with your own,Else it were time lost listening to me.
I do not snivel that snivel the world over,That months are vacuums and the ground but wallow and filth.
Whimpering and truckling fold with powders for invalids, conformity goes to the fourth-remov'd,I wear my hat as I please indoors or out.
Why should I pray? why should I venerate and be ceremonious?
Having pried through the strata, analyzed to a hair, counsel'd with doctors and calculated close,I find no sweeter fat than sticks to my own bones.
...
I exist as I am, that is enough,If no other in the world be aware I sit content,And if each and all be aware I sit content.
One world is aware and by far the largest to me, and that is myself,And whether I come to my own to-day or in ten thousand or ten million years,I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I can wait.
Excerpts from "Song of Myself" by Walt Whitman. Public domain.
This is the press of a bashful hand, this the float and odor of hair,
This the touch of my lips to yours, this the murmur of yearning,This the far-off depth and height reflecting my own face,This the thoughtful merge of myself, and the outlet again.Do you guess I have some intricate purpose?Well I have, for the Fourth-month showers have, and the mica on the side of a rock has.
Do you take it I would astonish?Does the daylight astonish? does the early redstart twittering through the woods?Do I astonish more than they?
This hour I tell things in confidence,I might not tell everybody, but I will tell you.
20
Who goes there? hankering, gross, mystical, nude;How is it I extract strength from the beef I eat?
What is a man anyhow? what am I? what are you?
All I mark as my own you shall offset it with your own,Else it were time lost listening to me.
I do not snivel that snivel the world over,That months are vacuums and the ground but wallow and filth.
Whimpering and truckling fold with powders for invalids, conformity goes to the fourth-remov'd,I wear my hat as I please indoors or out.
Why should I pray? why should I venerate and be ceremonious?
Having pried through the strata, analyzed to a hair, counsel'd with doctors and calculated close,I find no sweeter fat than sticks to my own bones.
...
I exist as I am, that is enough,If no other in the world be aware I sit content,And if each and all be aware I sit content.
One world is aware and by far the largest to me, and that is myself,And whether I come to my own to-day or in ten thousand or ten million years,I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I can wait.
Excerpts from "Song of Myself" by Walt Whitman. Public domain.
