Walt Whitman

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

O ME
O life
… of the questions of these recurring;
Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill'd with the         foolish;

As if a phantom caress'd me,
I thought I was not alone, walking here by the shore;
But the one I thought was with me, as now I walk by the shore—the one I loved, that caress'd me,
As I lean and look through the glimmering light—that...

Arm'd year
year of the struggle
No dainty rhymes or sentimental love verses for you, terrible year
Not you as some pale poetling, seated at a desk, lisping cadenzas         piano;

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Flood-tide below me! I see you face to face!
Clouds of the west—sun there half an hour high—I see you also face to face.
Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes, how curious you are to me!

As I ponder'd in silence,
Returning upon my poems, considering, lingering long,
A Phantom arose before me, with distrustful aspect,
Terrible in beauty, age, and power,

RE you the new person drawn toward me
To begin with, take warning—I am surely far different from what you         suppose;
Do you suppose you will find in me your ideal
Do you think it so easy to have me become your lover

Come, said my soul,
Such verses for my body let us write, (For we are One),
That should I after death invisibly return,
Or, long, long hence, in other spheres,

A
AN waits for me—she contains all, nothing is lacking,
Yet all were lacking, if sex were lacking, or if the moisture of the        right man were lacking
Sex contains all,

NG 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,
Look off the shores of my Western Sea—the circ...

As I ebb'd with the ocean of life,
As I wended the shores I know,
As I walk'd where the ripples continually wash you Paumanok,
Where they rustle up hoarse and sibilant,

A noiseless patient spider,
I mark’d where on a little promontory it stood isolated,
Mark’d how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,