I have perceived that to be with those i like is enough,To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough,To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough,To pass among them...

O Me! O life!… of the questions of these recurring; Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill’d with the foolish; Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who...

Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road.Healthy, free, the world before me.The long brown path before me leading me wherever I choose.Henceforth, I ask not good fortune, I myself am good fortune.Henceforth, I...

Songs of myselfI am the poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul, The pleasures of heaven are with me and the pains of hell are with me, The first I...

I tramp the perpetual journeyMy signs are a rain-proof coat, good shoes, and a staff cut from the woods, No friend of mine takes his ease in my chair, I have no chair, no philosophy,...

I am of old and young, of the foolish as much as the wise,Regardless of others, ever regardful of others,Maternal as well as paternal, a child as well as a man,Stuffed with the stuff that...

Poets to ComePOETS to come! orators, singers, musicians to come!Not to-day is to justify me, and answer what I am for;But you, a new brood, native, athletic, continental, greater than before known,Arouse! Arousefor you must...

Why should I be afraid to trust myself to you? I am not afraid, I have been well brought forward by you…

The dirtiest book of all is the expurgated book.

Resist much, obey little.

O the joy of my spirit–it is uncaged–it darts like lightning!It is not enough to have this globe or a certain time,I will have thousands of globes and all time.

I think I will do nothing for a long time but listen,And accrue what I hear into myself…and let sound contribute toward me.

Silence? What can New York-noisy, roaring, rumbling, tumbling, bustling, story, turbulent New York-have to do with silence? Amid the universal clatter, the incessant din of business, the all swallowing vortex of the great money whirlpool-who...

The untold want, by life and land ne’er granted,Now, Voyager, sail thou forth, to seek and find.

Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems,You shall possess the good of the earth and sun…. there are millions of suns left,You shall no longer take...

The efflux of the soul is happiness, here is happiness,I think it pervades the open air, waiting at all times,Now it flows unto us, we are rightly charged.

I think I could turn and live with the animals, they are so placid and self contained;I stand and look at them long and long.They do not sweat and whine about their condition;They do not...

Some people are so much sunshine to the square inch.

And I or you pocketless of a dime, may purchase the pick of the earth.

Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes.

ThoughtOf equality- as if it harm’d me, giving others the same chancesand rights as myself- as if it were not indispensable to my own rights that others possess the same.

What is that you express in your eyes? It seems to me more than all the print I have read in my life.

Song of myselfWith music strong I come, with my cornets and my drums, I play not marches for accepted victors only, I play marches for conquer’d and slain persons. Have you heard that it was...

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...

Give me such shows–give me the streets of Manhattan!

Keep your face always toward the sunshine – and shadows will fall behind you.

I believe in the flesh and the appetites; Seeing, hearing, feeling, are miracles, and each part and tag of me is a miracle. Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I...

I believe in you my soul, the other I am must not abase itself to you,And you must not be abased to the other.Loaf with me on the grass, loose the stop from your throat,Not...

They do not sweat and whine about their condition, they do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins, they do not make me sick discussing their duty to God, not one...

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I loveIf you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.You will hardly know who I am or what I meanBut I shall...

Song of myselfA 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. I guess...

The last scud of day holds back for me, It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow’d wilds, It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.I depart as...

Mark the spirit of invention everywhere, thy rapid patents, Thy continual workshops, foundries, risen or rising, See, from their chimneys how the tall flame-fires stream.

Note, to-day, an instructive, curious spectacle and conflict. Science, (twin, in its fields, of Democracy in its)—Science, testing absolutely all thoughts, all works, has already burst well upon the world—a sun, mounting, most illuminating, most...

Song of myselfNow I will do nothing but listen, To accrue what I hear into this song, to let sounds contribute toward it. I hear bravuras of birds, bustle of growing wheat, gossip of flames,...

Only themselves understand themselves and the like of themselves,As souls only understand souls.

(I know, it’s a poem but oh well).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...

Pointing to another world will never stop vice among us; shedding light over this world can alone help us.

I celebrate myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume,For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

have you learned the lessons only of those who admired you, and were tender with you, and stood aside for you? Have you not learned great lessons from those who braced themselves against you, and...

Press close, bare-bosomed Night! Press close, magnetic, nourishing Night!Night of south winds! Night of the large, few stars!Still, nodding Night! Mad, naked, Summer Night!

Copulation is no more foul to me than death is.

The press of my foot to the earth springs a hundred affections,They scorn the best I can do to relate to them

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...

Oh captain my captain

I discover myself on the verge of a usual mistake.

Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself; I am large — I contain multitudes.

The words of the true poems give you more than poems, they give you to form for yourself poems, religions, politics, war, peace, behavior, histories, essays, daily life, & everything else, they balance the ranks,...

Argue not concerning God,…re-examine all that you have been told at church or school or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your soul…

This is the city, and I am one of the citizens/Whatever interests the rest interests me