Walt Whitman

“None has begun to think how divine he himself is and how certain the future is.”

“Nothing can happen more beautiful than death.”

“I loafe and invite my soul.”

“I have no mockings or arguments; I witness and wait.”

“In the faces of men and women I see God.”

“I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.”

“In our sun-down perambulations, of late, through the outer parts of Brooklyn, we have observed several parties of youngsters playing "base", a certain game of ball ... Let us go forth awhile, and get better air in our lungs. Let us leave our close rooms ... the game of ball is glorious.”

“Some people are so much sunlight to the square inch. I am still bathing in the cheer he radiated.”

“I find I'm a good deal more of a socialist than I thought I was: maybe not technically, politically, so, but intrinsically, in my meanings.”

“I will write the evangel-poem of comrades and of love.”

“I say the real and permanent grandeur of these States must be their religion.”

“I say the whole earth and all the stars in the sky are for religion’s sake.”

“I see Hermes, unsuspected, dying, well-beloved, saying to the people, "Do not weep for me,This is not my true country, I have lived banished from my true country—I now go back there,I return to the celestial sphere where every one goes in his turn."”

“Each of us inevitable;Each of us limitless—each of us with his or her right upon the earth.”

“The great city is that which has the greatest man or woman.”

“In this broad earth of ours,Amid the measureless grossness and the slag,Enclosed and safe within its central heart,Nestles the seed perfection.”

“All, all for immortality,Love like the light silently wrapping all.”

“Youth, large, lusty, loving—Youth, full of grace, force, fascination!Do you know that Old Age may come after you, with equal grace, force, fascination?”

“Roaming in thought over the Universe, I saw the little that is Good steadily hastening towards immortality,And the vast that is evil I saw hastening to merge itself and become lost and dead.”

“Thunder on! Stride on! Democracy. Strike with vengeful stroke!”

“O Banner!Not houses of peace are you, nor any nor all of their prosperity; if need be you shall have every one of those houses to destroy them;You thought not to destroy those valuable houses, standing fast, full of comfort, built with money;May they stand fast then? Not an hour, unless you, above them and all, stand fast.”

“Over all the sky—the sky! far, far out of reach, studded with the eternal stars.”

“Give me the splendid silent sun, with all his beams full-dazzling!”

“Lo! the moon ascending!Up from the East, the silvery round moon;Beautiful over the house-tops, ghastly, phantom moon;Immense and silent moon.”

“Beautiful that war and all its deeds of carnage, must in time be utterly lost;That the hands of the sisters Death and Night incessantly softly wash again and ever again, this soiled world.”

“When lilacs last in the door-yard bloomed,And the great star early drooped in the western sky in the night,I mourned, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.”

“Come lovely and soothing death,Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving,In the day, in the night, to all, to each,Sooner or later, delicate death.”

“Praised be the fathomless universeFor life and joy and for objects and knowledge curious;And for love, sweet love—But praise! O praise and praiseFor the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding Death.”

“O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done!The ship has weathered every wrack, the prize we sought is won,The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting.”

“Liberty is to be subserved, whatever occurs.”