Facing west, from California's shores, Inquiring, tireless, seeking what is yet unfound, I, a child, very old, over waves, towards the house of maternity, the land of migrations, look afar,...
Fast-anchor'd, eternal, O love! O woman I love! O bride! O wife! more resistless than I can tell, the thought of you! Then separate, as disembodied, or another born,...
For him I sing, I raise the Present on the Past, (As some perennial tree, out of its roots, the present on the past:) With time and space I him dilate--and fuse the immortal laws,...
From far Dakota's ca'ons, Lands of the wild ravine, the dusky Sioux, the lonesome stretch, the silence, Haply to-day a mournful wail, haply a trumpet-note for heroes.
From my last years, last thoughts I here bequeath, Scatter'd and dropt, in seeds, and wafted to the West, Through moisture of Ohio, prairie soil of Illinois--through Colorado, California air,...
From Paumanock starting, I fly like a bird, Around and around to soar, to sing the idea of all; To the north betaking myself, to sing there arctic songs,...
From pent-up, aching rivers; From that of myself, without which I were nothing; From what I am determin'd to make illustrious, even if I stand sole among men; From my own voice resonant--singing the phallus,...
Full of life, now, compact, visible, I, forty years old the Eighty-third Year of The States, To one a century hence, or any number of centuries hence, To you, yet unborn, these, seeking you. ...
Forms, qualities, lives, humanity, language, thoughts, The ones known, and the ones unknown - the ones on the stars, The stars themselves, some shaped, others unshaped,...
Give me the splendid silent sun, with all his beams full-dazzling; Give me juicy autumnal fruit, ripe and red from the orchard; Give me a field where the unmow'd grass grows;...
Gliding o'er all, through all, Through Nature, Time, and Space, As a ship on the waters advancing, The voyage of the soul - not life alone, Death, many deaths I'll sing.
Great are the myths - I too delight in them; Great are Adam and Eve - I too look back and accept them; Great the risen and fallen nations, and their poets, women, sages, inventors, rulers, warriors, and priests....
Had I the choice to tally greatest bards, To limn their portraits, stately, beautiful, and emulate at will, Homer with all his wars and warriors, Hector, Achilles, Ajax,...
Hast never come to thee an hour, A sudden gleam divine, precipitating, bursting all these bubbles, fashions, wealth? These eager business aims--books, politics, art, amours, To utter nothingness?
What ship, puzzled at sea, cons for the true reckoning? Or, coming in, to avoid the bars, and follow the channel, a perfect pilot needs? Here, sailor! Here, ship! take aboard the most perfect pilot,...
Here the frailest leaves of me, and yet my strongest-lasting: Here I shade and hide my thoughts - I myself do not expose them, And yet they expose me more than all my other poems.
Hours continuing long, sore and heavy-hearted, Hours of the dusk, when I withdraw to a lonesome and unfrequented spot, seating myself, leaning my face in my hands;...
How solemn, as one by one, As the ranks returning, all worn and sweaty--as the men file by where I stand; As the faces, the masks appear--as I glance at the faces, studying the masks;...