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I loafe and invite my soul I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

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

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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, at...more

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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 a...more

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To have great poets there must be great audiences too.

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I act as the tongue of you,... tied in your mouth . . . . in mine it begins to be loosened.

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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 ...more

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I swear the earth shall surely be complete to him or her who shall be complete,The earth remains jagged and broken only to him or her who remains jagg...more

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Sometimes with one I love, I fill myself with rage, for fear I effuse unreturn'd love; But now I think there is no unreturn'd love—the pay is certain,...more

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Song of MyselfI have heard what the talkers were talking, the talk of the beginning and the end, But I do not talk of the beginning or the end. There ...more

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I have said that the soul is not more than the body,And I have said that the body is not more than the soul,And nothing, not God, is greater to one th...more

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Song of myselfSmile O voluptuous cool-breath'd earth! Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees! Earth of departed sunset--earth of the mountains misty...more

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Why are there trees I never walk under but large and melodious thoughts descend upon me?

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What stays with you longest and deepest? Of curious panics, of hard-fought engagements or sieges tremendous what deepest remains?

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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 fir...more