Whitman, as Printed

‹ Leaves of Grass, 1891–92

The lines with “or”

or 1,127 Back to O

  1. p. 10, line 1(Yet methinks certain, or as good as certain, at the last,) the field the world,
  2. p. 10, line 8Or some lone bark buoy'd on the dense marine,
  3. p. 10, line 10She cleaves the ether mid the sparkle and the foam of day, or under many a star at night,
  4. p. 12, line 17Lo, I or you,
  5. p. 12, line 18Or woman, man, or state, known or unknown,
  6. p. 12, line 22The substance of an artist's mood or savan's studies long,
  7. p. 12, line 23Or warrior's, martyr's, hero's toils,
  8. p. 12, line 27The whole or large or small summ'd, added up,
  9. p. 13, line 26Beyond thy telescope or spectroscope observer keen, beyond all mathematics,
  10. p. 14, line 22Why even I myself I often think know little or nothing of my real life,
  11. p. 14, line 27The least insect or animal, the senses, eyesight, love,
  12. p. 15, line 8TO the States or any one of them, or any city of the States, Resist much, obey little,
  13. p. 15, line 16And have said, Why should not a man or woman do as much as the seasons, and effuse as much?
  14. p. 16, line 2I was reserving it for some hero, speaker, or general,
  15. p. 16, line 7Master of all or mistress of all, aplomb in the midst of irrational things,
  16. p. 16, line 10Me toward the Mexican sea, or in the Mannahatta or the Tennessee, or far north or inland,
  17. p. 16, line 11A river man, or a man of the woods or of any farm-life of these States or of the coast, or the lakes or Kanada,
  18. p. 17, line 3The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
  19. p. 17, line 4The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,
  20. p. 17, line 7The wood-cutter's song, the ploughboy's on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown,
  21. p. 17, line 8The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing,
  22. p. 17, line 9Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,
  23. p. 18, line 5I myself but write one or two indicative words for the future,
  24. p. 18, line 17Dweller in Mannahatta my city, or on southern savannas,
  25. p. 18, line 18Or a soldier camp'd or carrying my knapsack and gun, or a miner in California,
  26. p. 18, line 19Or rude in my home in Dakota's woods, my diet meat, my drink from the spring,
  27. p. 18, line 20Or withdrawn to muse and meditate in some deep recess,
  28. p. 19, line 27With faces turn'd sideways or backward towards me to listen,
  29. p. 20, line 21Nations once powerful, now reduced, withdrawn, or desolate,
  30. p. 22, line 7(Or if there is I say it is just as important to you, to the land or to me, as any thing else.)
  31. p. 22, line 14None has ever yet adored or worship'd half enough,
  32. p. 22, line 19Nor land nor man or woman without religion.)
  33. p. 22, line 23Your ambition or business whatever it may be?
  34. p. 23, line 4Listen dear son—listen America, daughter or son,
  35. p. 23, line 5It is a painful thing to love a man or woman to excess, and yet it satisfies, it is great,
  36. p. 23, line 24Warblings under the sun, usher'd as now, or at noon, or setting,
  37. p. 25, line 12Of your real body and any man's or woman's real body,
  38. p. 25, line 16Any more than a man's substance and life or a woman's substance and life return in the body and the soul,
  39. p. 25, line 19Whoever you are, how superb and how divine is your body, or any part of it!
  40. p. 27, line 2Yet returning eastward, yet in the Seaside State or in Maryland,
  41. p. 27, line 4Yet a true son either of Maine or of the Granite State, or the Narragansett Bay State, or the Empire State,
  42. p. 29, line 17I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,
  43. p. 30, line 8The delight alone or in the rush of the streets, or along the fields and hill-sides,
  44. p. 30, line 15You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books,
  45. p. 30, line 19But I do not talk of the beginning or the end.
  46. p. 30, line 21Nor any more youth or age than there is now,
  47. p. 30, line 23Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.
  48. p. 31, line 22People I meet, the effect upon me of my early life or the ward and city I live in, or the nation,
  49. p. 32, line 2The real or fancied indifference of some man or woman I love,
  50. p. 32, line 3The sickness of one of my folks or of myself, or ill-doing or loss or lack of money, or depressions or exaltations,
  51. p. 32, line 9Looks down, is erect, or bends an arm on an impalpable certain rest,
  52. p. 32, line 13I have no mockings or arguments, I witness and wait.
  53. p. 32, line 17Not words, not music or rhyme I want, not custom or lecture, not even the best,
  54. p. 32, line 28And limitless are leaves stiff or drooping in the fields,
  55. p. 33, line 6Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
  56. p. 33, line 9Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the vegetation.
  57. p. 33, line 10Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,
  58. p. 33, line 18It may be you are from old people, or from offspring taken soon out of their mothers' laps,
  59. p. 34, line 11I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die, and I know it.
  60. p. 34, line 25I see through the broadcloth and gingham whether or no,
  61. p. 35, line 15What groans of over-fed or half-starv'd who fall sunstruck or in fits,
  62. p. 35, line 19I mind them or the show or resonance of them—I come and I depart.
  63. p. 36, line 7My eyes settle the land, I bend at her prow or shout joyously from the deck.
  64. p. 37, line 19The butcher-boy puts off his killing-clothes, or sharpens his knife at the stall in the market,
  65. p. 38, line 9To niches aside and junior bending, not a person or object missing,
  66. p. 38, line 11Oxen that rattle the yoke and chain or halt in the leafy shade, what is that you express in your eyes?
  67. p. 39, line 8Of men that live among cattle or taste of the ocean or woods,
  68. p. 40, line 7The groups of newly-come immigrants cover the wharf or levee,
  69. p. 40, line 17The clean-hair'd Yankee girl works with her sewing-machine or in the factory or mill,
  70. p. 41, line 17Flatboatmen make fast towards dusk near the cotton-wood or pecan-trees,
  71. p. 41, line 18Coon-seekers go through the regions of the Red river or through those drain'd by the Tennessee, or through those of the Arkansas,
  72. p. 41, line 19Torches shine in the dark that hangs on the Chattahooche or Altamahaw,
  73. p. 42, line 1And such as it is to be of these more or less I am,
  74. p. 42, line 10A Kentuckian walking the vale of the Elkhorn in my deer-skin leggings, a Louisianian or Georgian,
  75. p. 42, line 11A boatman over lakes or bays or along coasts, a Hoosier, Badger, Buckeye;
  76. p. 42, line 12At home on Kanadian snow-shoes or up in the bush, or with fishermen off Newfoundland,
  77. p. 42, line 14At home on the hills of Vermont or in the woods of Maine, or the Texan ranch,
  78. p. 43, line 2If they are not yours as much as mine they are nothing, or next to nothing,
  79. p. 43, line 20I will not have a single person slighted or left away,
  80. p. 44, line 16I wear my hat as I please indoors or out.
  81. p. 44, line 21And the good or bad I say of myself I say of them.
  82. p. 45, line 3I do not trouble my spirit to vindicate itself or be understood,
  83. p. 45, line 10And whether I come to my own to-day or in ten thousand or ten million years,
  84. p. 45, line 11I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I can wait.
  85. p. 45, line 21I chant the chant of dilation or pride,
  86. p. 47, line 1My gait is no fault-finder's or rejecter's gait,
  87. p. 47, line 10What behaved well in the past or behaves well to-day is not such a wonder,
  88. p. 47, line 11The wonder is always and always how there can be a mean man or an infidel.
  89. p. 47, line 15Here or henceforward it is all the same to me, I accept Time absolutely.
  90. p. 48, line 7No sentimentalist, no stander above men and women or apart from them,
  91. p. 48, line 12And whatever is done or said returns at last to me.
  92. p. 49, line 3Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or am touch'd from,
  93. p. 49, line 6If I worship one thing more than another it shall be the spread of my own body, or any part of it,
  94. p. 50, line 23Happiness, (which whoever hears me let him or her set out in search of this day.)
  95. p. 51, line 5I hear all sounds running together, combined, fused or following,
  96. p. 52, line 8I have instant conductors all over me whether I pass or stop,
  97. p. 52, line 24No consideration, no regard for my draining strength or my anger,
  98. p. 53, line 14(What is less or more than a touch?)
  99. p. 53, line 21And a compend of compends is the meat of a man or woman,
  100. p. 54, line 10In vain the speeding or shyness,
  101. p. 54, line 27Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.
  102. p. 55, line 14Even as I stand or sit passing faster than you.
  103. p. 55, line 24Weeding my onion-patch or hoeing rows of carrots and parsnips, crossing savannas, trailing in forests,
  104. p. 56, line 1Where the black bear is searching for roots or honey, where the beaver pats the mud with his paddle-shaped tail;
  105. p. 56, line 27Upon the race-course, or enjoying picnics or jigs or a good game of base-ball,
  106. p. 57, line 21Through the salt-lick or orange glade, or under conical firs,
  107. p. 57, line 22Through the gymnasium, through the curtain'd saloon, through the office or public hall;
  108. p. 58, line 2Wandering the same afternoon with my face turn'd up to the clouds, or down a lane or along the beach,
  109. p. 58, line 5Far from the settlements studying the print of animals' feet, or the moccasin print,
  110. p. 58, line 27My messengers continually cruise away or bring their returns to me.
  111. p. 59, line 8Or we are entering by the suburbs some vast and ruin'd city,
  112. p. 60, line 2All these I feel or am.
  113. p. 60, line 22They show as the dial or move as the hands of me, I am the clock myself.
  114. p. 61, line 26A few fell at once, shot in the temple or heart, the living and dead lay together,
  115. p. 62, line 2These were despatch'd with bayonets or batter'd with the blunts of muskets,
  116. p. 62, line 11His was the surly English pluck, and there is no tougher or truer, and never was, and never will be;
  117. p. 63, line 20The husky voices of the two or three officers yet fit for duty,
  118. p. 64, line 5Embody all presences outlaw'd or suffering,
  119. p. 65, line 3The grave of rock multiplies what has been confided to it, or to any graves,
  120. p. 65, line 12Is he waiting for civilization, or past it and mastering it?
  121. p. 65, line 15The mountains? prairie-life, bush-life? or sailor from the sea?
  122. p. 65, line 21They are wafted with the odor of his body or breath, they fly out of the glance of his eyes.
  123. p. 65, line 26Man or woman, I might tell how I like you, but cannot,
  124. p. 66, line 3Behold, I do not give lectures or a little charity,
  125. p. 66, line 12To cotton-field drudge or cleaner of privies I lean,
  126. p. 67, line 15Discovering as much or more in a framer framing a house,
  127. p. 67, line 17Not objecting to special revelations, considering a curl of smoke or a hair on the back of my hand just as curious as any revelation,
  128. p. 69, line 1I am aware who they are, (they are positively not worms or fleas,)
  129. p. 69, line 11The well-taken photographs—but your wife or friend close and solid in your arms?
  130. p. 69, line 14The sky up there—yet here or next door, or across the way?
  131. p. 69, line 23Making a fetich of the first rock or stump, powowing with sticks in the circle of obis,
  132. p. 69, line 24Helping the llama or brahmin as he trims the lamps of the idols,
  133. p. 70, line 1To the mass kneeling or the puritan's prayer rising, or sitting patiently in a pew,
  134. p. 70, line 2Ranting and frothing in my insane crisis, or waiting dead-like till my spirit arouses me,
  135. p. 70, line 3Looking forth on pavement and land, or outside of pavement and land,
  136. p. 70, line 25Nor any thing in the earth, or down in the oldest graves of the earth,
  137. p. 71, line 13Were mankind murderous or jealous upon you, my brother, my sister?
  138. p. 71, line 14I am sorry for you, they are not murderous or jealous upon me,
  139. p. 73, line 5If I, you, and the worlds, and all beneath or upon their surfaces, were this moment reduced back to a pallid float, it would not avail in the long run,
  140. p. 73, line 8A few quadrillions of eras, a few octillions of cubic leagues, do not hazard the span or make it impatient,
  141. p. 75, line 1Wicked rather than virtuous out of conformity or fear,
  142. p. 75, line 3Unrequited love or a slight cutting him worse than sharp steel cuts,
  143. p. 75, line 4First-rate to ride, to fight, to hit the bull's eye, to sail a skiff, to sing a song or play on the banjo,
  144. p. 75, line 10I do not say these things for a dollar or to fill up the time while I wait for a boat,
  145. p. 75, line 13I swear I will never again mention love or death inside a house,
  146. p. 75, line 14And I swear I will never translate myself at all, only to him or her who privately stays with me in the open air.
  147. p. 75, line 15If you would understand me go to the heights or water-shore,
  148. p. 75, line 16The nearest gnat is an explanation, and a drop or motion of waves a key,
  149. p. 75, line 18No shutter'd room or school can commune with me,
  150. p. 75, line 24The soldier camp'd or upon the march is mine,
  151. p. 76, line 10And I or you pocketless of a dime may purchase the pick of the earth,
  152. p. 76, line 11And to glance with an eye or show a bean in its pod confounds the learning of all times,
  153. p. 76, line 12And there is no trade or employment but the young man following it may become a hero,
  154. p. 76, line 14And I say to any man or woman, Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes.
  155. p. 77, line 20And debouch to the steady and central from the offspring great or small.
  156. p. 78, line 3It is not chaos or death—it is form, union, plan—it is eternal life—it is Happiness.
  157. p. 79, line 1You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
  158. p. 79, line 16By my side or back of me Eve following,
  159. p. 79, line 17Or in front, and I following her just the same.
  160. p. 80, line 6Renascent with grossest Nature or among animals,
  161. p. 80, line 13The swimmer swimming naked in the bath, or motionless on his back lying and floating,
  162. p. 80, line 15The divine list for myself or you or for any one making,
  163. p. 80, line 26O you and I! what is it to us what the rest do or think?
  164. p. 81, line 2From the long sustain'd kiss upon the mouth or bosom,
  165. p. 81, line 3From the close pressure that makes me or any man drunk, fainting with excess,
  166. p. 81, line 24The love of the body of man or woman balks account, the body itself balks account,
  167. p. 82, line 7The swimmer naked in the swimming-bath, seen as he swims through the transparent green-shine, or lies with his face up and rolls silently to and fro in the heave of the water,
  168. p. 82, line 11The female soothing a child, the farmer's daughter in the garden or cow-yard,
  169. p. 83, line 9When he went with his five sons and many grand-sons to hunt or fish, you would pick him out as the most beautiful and vigorous of the gang,
  170. p. 83, line 14To pass among them or touch any one, or rest my arm ever so lightly round his or her neck for a moment, what is this then?
  171. p. 83, line 22Books, art, religion, time, the visible and solid earth, and what was expected of heaven or fear'd of hell, are now consumed,
  172. p. 85, line 6Each belongs here or anywhere just as much as the well-off, just as much as you,
  173. p. 85, line 7Each has his or her place in the procession.
  174. p. 85, line 11Do you suppose you have a right to a good sight, and he or she has no right to a sight?
  175. p. 85, line 19For it the globe lay preparing quintillions of years without one animal or plant,
  176. p. 85, line 23Examine these limbs, red, black, or white, they are cunning in tendon and nerve,
  177. p. 86, line 18And in man or woman a clean, strong, firm-fibred body, is more beautiful than the most beautiful face.
  178. p. 86, line 19Have you seen the fool that corrupted his own live body? or the fool that corrupted her own live body?
  179. p. 86, line 22I believe the likes of you are to stand or fall with the likes of the soul, (and that they are the soul,)
  180. p. 87, line 1I believe the likes of you shall stand or fall with my poems, and that they are my poems,
  181. p. 87, line 4Eyes, eye-fringes, iris of the eye, eyebrows, and the waking or sleeping of the lids,
  182. p. 87, line 17All attitudes, all the shapeliness, all the belongings of my or your body or of any one's body, male or female,
  183. p. 88, line 2The thin red jellies within you or within me, the bones and the marrow in the bones,
  184. p. 88, line 7Yet all were lacking if sex were lacking, or if the moisture of the right man were lacking.
  185. p. 89, line 27Beautiful dripping fragments, the negligent list of one after another as I happen to call them to me or think of them,
  186. p. 91, line 3The walnut-trunk, the walnut-husks, and the ripening or ripen'd long-round walnuts,
  187. p. 91, line 5The consequent meanness of me should I skulk or find myself indecent, while birds and animals never once skulk or find themselves indecent,
  188. p. 92, line 2To have the feeling to-day or any day I am sufficient as I am.
  189. p. 93, line 26So the body of me to all I meet or know.
  190. p. 96, line 7I proceed for all who are or have been young men,
  191. p. 96, line 15O I do not know whether many passing by will discover you or inhale your faint odor, but I believe a few will;
  192. p. 96, line 23Death or life I am then indifferent, my soul declines to prefer,
  193. p. 98, line 3Or else by stealth in some wood for trial,
  194. p. 98, line 4Or back of a rock in the open air,
  195. p. 98, line 6And in libraries I lie as one dumb, a gawk, or unborn, or dead,)
  196. p. 98, line 8Or possibly with you sailing at sea, or on the beach of the sea or some quiet island,
  197. p. 98, line 10With the comrade's long-dwelling kiss or the new husband's kiss,
  198. p. 98, line 12Or if you will, thrusting me beneath your clothing,
  199. p. 98, line 13Where I may feel the throbs of your heart or rest upon your hip,
  200. p. 98, line 14Carry me when you go forth over land or sea;
  201. p. 99, line 19Far, far in the forest, or sauntering later in summer, before I think where I go,
  202. p. 99, line 22Some walk by my side and some behind, and some embrace my arms or neck,
  203. p. 99, line 23They the spirits of dear friends dead or alive, thicker they come, a great crowd, and I in the middle,
  204. p. 100, line 10Wandering, point to or touch as I pass, or throw them loosely from me,
  205. p. 100, line 29Not in any or all of them O adhesiveness! O pulse of my life!
  206. p. 101, line 9May-be seeming to me what they are (as doubtless they indeed but seem) as from my present point of view, and might prove (as of course they would) nought of what they appear, or nought anyhow, from entirely changed points of view;
  207. p. 101, line 11When he whom I love travels with me or sits a long while holding me by the hand,
  208. p. 101, line 14I cannot answer the question of appearances or that of identity beyond the grave,
  209. p. 101, line 15But I walk or sit indifferent, I am satisfied,
  210. p. 102, line 20And else when I carous'd, or when my plans were accomplish'd, still I was not happy,
  211. p. 105, line 3Glow upon all I have written or shall write, bleeding drops,
  212. p. 105, line 10Nor to converse with learn'd persons, or bear my share in the soiree or feast;
  213. p. 105, line 18And I on the crossing of the street or on the ship's deck give a kiss in return,
  214. p. 106, line 10You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking, (it comes to me as of a dream,)
  215. p. 106, line 13You grew up with me, were a boy with me or a girl with me,
  216. p. 106, line 16I am not to speak to you, I am to think of you when I sit alone or wake at night alone,
  217. p. 106, line 22Or far, far away, in China, or in Russia or Japan, talking other dialects,
  218. p. 107, line 3(What indeed have I in common with them? or what with the destruction of them?)
  219. p. 107, line 5And in the fields and woods, and above every keel little or large that dents the water,
  220. p. 107, line 6Without edifices or rules or trustees or any argument,
  221. p. 108, line 7Misers, menials, priests alarming, air breathing, water drinking, on the turf or the sea-beach dancing,
  222. p. 108, line 11Or inland to the great pastoral Plains, and on to Puget sound and Oregon;
  223. p. 108, line 20Nor will I be able to leave behind me any wealthy bequest to found a hospital or library,
  224. p. 110, line 3The splendors of the past day? or the splendor of the night that envelops me?
  225. p. 110, line 4Or the vaunted glory and growth of the great city spread around me?—no;
  226. p. 110, line 15But now I think there is no unreturn'd love, the pay is certain one way or another,
  227. p. 111, line 3Then separate, as disembodied or another born,
  228. p. 111, line 15As I walk by your side or sit near, or remain in the same room with you,
  229. p. 112, line 1To one a century hence or any number of centuries hence,
  230. p. 114, line 23Some double the cape of Storms, some cape Verde, others capes Guardafui, Bon, or Bajadore,
  231. p. 114, line 25Others cape Horn, others sail the gulf of Mexico or along Cuba or Hayti, others Hudson's bay or Baffin's bay,
  232. p. 115, line 1Others traverse the Zuyder Zee or the Scheld,
  233. p. 115, line 2Others as comers and goers at Gibraltar or the Dardanelles,
  234. p. 115, line 4Others descend or ascend the Obi or the Lena,
  235. p. 115, line 5Others the Niger or the Congo, others the Indus, the Burampooter and Cambodia,
  236. p. 117, line 17I belong in Moscow, Cracow, Warsaw, or northward in Christiania or Stockholm, or in Siberian Irkutsk, or in some street in Iceland,
  237. p. 118, line 2I look on chisell'd histories, records of conquering kings, dynasties, cut in slabs of sand-stone, or on granite-blocks,
  238. p. 118, line 18You daughter or son of England!
  239. p. 118, line 27You working-man of the Rhine, the Elbe, or the Weser! you working-woman too!
  240. p. 118, line 31You mountaineer living lawlessly on the Taurus or Caucasus!
  241. p. 119, line 10You olive-grower tending your fruit on fields of Nazareth, Damascus, or lake Tiberias!
  242. p. 119, line 11You Thibet trader on the wide inland or bargaining in the shops of Lassa!
  243. p. 119, line 12You Japanese man or woman! you liver in Madagascar, Ceylon, Sumatra, Borneo!
  244. p. 119, line 19Each of us limitless—each of us with his or her right upon the earth,
  245. p. 119, line 23You own'd persons dropping sweat-drops or blood-drops!
  246. p. 120, line 14I have run through what any river or strait of the globe has run through,
  247. p. 120, line 17What cities the light or warmth penetrates I penetrate those cities myself,
  248. p. 123, line 11Whoever accepts me he or she shall be blessed and shall bless me.
  249. p. 125, line 24None may come to the trial till he or she bring courage and health,
  250. p. 125, line 27No diseas'd person, no rum-drinker or venereal taint is permitted here.
  251. p. 126, line 7You shall scatter with lavish hand all that you earn or achieve,
  252. p. 126, line 26Journeyers with their own sublime old age of manhood or womanhood,
  253. p. 127, line 7To look up or down no road but it stretches and waits for you, however long but it stretches and waits for you,
  254. p. 127, line 8To see no being, not God's or any, but you also go thither,
  255. p. 127, line 9To see no possession but you may possess it, enjoying all without labor or purchase, abstracting the feast yet not abstracting one particle of it,
  256. p. 127, line 17All religion, all solid things, arts, governments—all that was or is apparent upon this globe or any globe, falls into niches and corners before the procession of souls along the grand roads of the universe.
  257. p. 128, line 1Whoever you are, come forth! or man or woman come forth!
  258. p. 128, line 2You must not stay sleeping and dallying there in the house, though you built it, or though it has been built for you.
  259. p. 129, line 7I give you myself before preaching or law;
  260. p. 130, line 5A hundred years hence, or ever so many hundred years hence, others will see them,
  261. p. 130, line 8I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever so many generations hence,
  262. p. 130, line 26The sailors at work in the rigging or out astride the spars,
  263. p. 131, line 14What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us?
  264. p. 131, line 20In my walks home late at night or as I lay in my bed they came upon me,
  265. p. 132, line 13Was call'd by my nighest name by clear loud voices of young men as they saw me approaching or passing,
  266. p. 132, line 14Felt their arms on my neck as I stood, or the negligent leaning of their flesh against me as I sat,
  267. p. 132, line 15Saw many I loved in the street or ferry-boat or public assembly, yet never told them a word,
  268. p. 132, line 17Play'd the part that still looks back on the actor or actress,
  269. p. 132, line 19Or as small as we like, or both great and small.
  270. p. 133, line 2What is more subtle than this which ties me to the woman or man that looks in my face?
  271. p. 133, line 9Gorgeous clouds of the sunset! drench with your splendor me, or the men and women generations after me!
  272. p. 133, line 14Gaze, loving and thirsting eyes, in the house or street or public assembly!
  273. p. 133, line 16Live, old life! play the part that looks back on the actor or actress!
  274. p. 133, line 17Play the old role, the role that is great or small according as one makes it!
  275. p. 133, line 20Fly on, sea-birds! fly sideways, or wheel in large circles high in the air;
  276. p. 133, line 22Diverge, fine spokes of light, from the shape of my head, or any one's head, in the sunlit water!
  277. p. 133, line 23Come on, ships from the lower bay! pass up or down, white-sail'd schooners, sloops, lighters!
  278. p. 134, line 1Appearances, now or henceforth, indicate what you are,
  279. p. 134, line 9Not you any more shall be able to foil us, or withhold yourselves from us,
  280. p. 134, line 13Great or small, you furnish your parts toward the soul.
  281. p. 135, line 17Whichever the sex, whatever the season or place, he may go freshly and gently and safely by day or by night,
  282. p. 135, line 19His welcome is universal, the flow of beauty is not more welcome or universal than he is,
  283. p. 135, line 20The person he favors by day or sleeps with at night is blessed.
  284. p. 136, line 12No matter what the work is, that he is the one to follow it or has follow'd it,
  285. p. 136, line 17The Italian or Frenchman is sure, the German is sure, the Spaniard is sure, and the island Cuban is sure,
  286. p. 136, line 18The engineer, the deck-hand on the great lakes, or on the Mississippi or St. Lawrence or Sacramento, or Hudson or Paumanok sound, claims him.
  287. p. 137, line 3The words of the singers are the hours or minutes of the light or dark, but the words of the maker of poems are the general light and dark,
  288. p. 137, line 11The name of each is, eye-singer, ear-singer, head-singer, sweet-singer, night-singer, parlor-singer, love-singer, weird-singer, or something else.
  289. p. 138, line 2Forever touching them or close upon them follows beauty, longing, fain, love-sick.
  290. p. 138, line 4They bring none to his or her terminus or to be content and full,
  291. p. 139, line 3In their northerly wilds beasts of prey haunting the Adirondacks the hills, or lapping the Saginaw waters to drink,
  292. p. 139, line 17Thirty or forty great wagons, the mules, cattle, horses, feeding from troughs,
  293. p. 140, line 2In Tennessee and Kentucky slaves busy in the coalings, at the forge, by the furnace-blaze, or at the corn-shucking,
  294. p. 140, line 5Some of the younger men dance to the sound of the banjo or fiddle, others sit on the gunwale smoking and talking;
  295. p. 140, line 9Children at play, or on his father's lap a young boy fallen asleep, (how his lips move! how he smiles in his sleep!)
  296. p. 140, line 12Down in Texas the cotton-field, the negro-cabins, drivers driving mules or oxen before rude carts, cotton bales piled on banks and wharves;
  297. p. 140, line 13Encircling all, vast-darting up and wide, the American Soul, with equal hemispheres, one Love, one Dilation or Pride;
  298. p. 141, line 15Otherways there atwixt the banks of the Arkansaw, the Rio Grande, the Nueces, the Brazos, the Tombigbee, the Red River, the Saskatchawan or the Osage, I with the spring waters laughing and skipping and running,
  299. p. 142, line 17It is not enough to have this globe or a certain time,
  300. p. 143, line 20O to have been brought up on bays, lagoons, creeks, or along the coast,
  301. p. 144, line 2Behold me well-clothed going gayly or returning in the afternoon, my brood of tough boys accompanying me,
  302. p. 145, line 1O to work in mines, or forging iron,
  303. p. 146, line 21O to bathe in the swimming-bath, or in a good place along shore,
  304. p. 146, line 22To splash the water! to walk ankle-deep, or race naked along the shore.
  305. p. 146, line 27To be servile to none, to defer to none, not to any tyrant known or unknown,
  306. p. 147, line 2To look with calm gaze or with a flashing eye,
  307. p. 147, line 14The agonistic throes, the ecstasies, joys of the solemn musings day or night?
  308. p. 147, line 20No fumes, no ennui, no more complaints or scornful criticisms,
  309. p. 147, line 25Myself discharging my excrementitious body to be burn'd, or render'd to powder, or buried,
  310. p. 149, line 8Lands rich as lands of gold or wheat and fruit lands,
  311. p. 149, line 18The remember'd print or narrative, the voyage at a venture of men, families, goods,
  312. p. 150, line 4The house-builder at work in cities or anywhere,
  313. p. 151, line 4The crash and cut away of connecting wood-work, or through floors if the fire smoulders under them,
  314. p. 151, line 25The list of all executive deeds and words just or unjust,
  315. p. 151, line 26The power of personality just or unjust.
  316. p. 152, line 5Or a teeming manufacturing state? or a prepared constitution? or the best built steamships?
  317. p. 152, line 6Or hotels of granite and iron? or any chef-d'œuvres of engineering, forts, armaments?
  318. p. 152, line 14Nor the place of ceaseless salutes of new-comers or the anchor-lifters of the departing,
  319. p. 152, line 15Nor the place of the tallest and costliest buildings or shops selling goods from the rest of the earth,
  320. p. 153, line 14How the floridness of the materials of cities shrivels before a man's or woman's look!
  321. p. 153, line 15All waits or goes by default till a strong being appears;
  322. p. 153, line 17When he or she appears materials are overaw'd,
  323. p. 153, line 19The old customs and phrases are confronted, turn'd back, or laid away.
  324. p. 154, line 6Served Albic temples in woods or on plains, with unhewn pillars and the druids,
  325. p. 155, line 19Long stately rows in avenues, hospitals for orphans or for the poor or sick,
  326. p. 155, line 23Cutters down of wood and haulers of it to the Penobscot or Kennebec,
  327. p. 155, line 24Dwellers in cabins among the Californian mountains or by the little lakes, or on the Columbia,
  328. p. 155, line 25Dwellers south on the banks of the Gila or Rio Grande, friendly gatherings, the characters and fun,
  329. p. 155, line 26Dwellers along the St. Lawrence, or north in Kanada, or down by the Yellowstone, dwellers on coasts and off coasts,
  330. p. 156, line 20The shape of the prisoner's place in the court-room, and of him or her seated in the place,
  331. p. 157, line 12She is none the less considerate or friendly therefor,
  332. p. 157, line 27After all not to create only, or found only,
  333. p. 158, line 4Not to repel or destroy so much as accept, fuse, rehabilitate,
  334. p. 158, line 19Or rather to her long-nurs'd inclination,
  335. p. 162, line 5That hell unpent and raid of blood, fit for wild tigers or for lop-tongued wolves, not reasoning men,
  336. p. 162, line 24To use the hammer and the saw, (rip, or cross-cut,)
  337. p. 163, line 4Whatever forms the average, strong, complete, sweet-blooded man or woman, the perfect longeve personality,
  338. p. 163, line 31See, the steamers coming and going, steaming in or out of port,
  339. p. 164, line 2Or in Maine, far in the north and east, thy cheerful axemen,
  340. p. 164, line 11Thy continual workshops, foundries, risen or rising,
  341. p. 165, line 4Or clutch'd to some young color-bearer's breast with desperate hands,
  342. p. 165, line 5Savagely struggled for, for life or death, fought over long,
  343. p. 165, line 19Think not our chant, our show, merely for products gross or lucre—it is for thee, the soul in thee, electric, spiritual!
  344. p. 165, line 24A chorus of dryads, fading, departing, or hamadryads departing,
  345. p. 168, line 2Here climb the vast pure spaces unconfined, uncheck'd by wall or roof,
  346. p. 168, line 3Here laugh with storm or sun, here joy, here patiently inure,
  347. p. 168, line 13From the Cascade range to the Wahsatch, or Idaho far, or Utah,
  348. p. 169, line 6In man of you, more than your mountain peaks or stalwart trees imperial,
  349. p. 169, line 7In woman more, far more, than all your gold or vines, or even vital air.
  350. p. 170, line 2If you bestow gifts on your brother or dearest friend I demand as good as your brother or dearest friend,
  351. p. 170, line 3If your lover, husband, wife, is welcome by day or night, I must be personally as welcome,
  352. p. 170, line 7If you meet some stranger in the streets and love him or her, why I often meet strangers in the street and love them.
  353. p. 170, line 11Or the rich better off than you? or the educated wiser than you?
  354. p. 170, line 12(Because you are greasy or pimpled, or were once drunk, or a thief,
  355. p. 170, line 13Or that you are diseas'd, or rheumatic, or a prostitute,
  356. p. 170, line 14Or from frivolity or impotence, or that you are no scholar and never saw your name in print,
  357. p. 170, line 17It is not you I go argue pro and con about, and to settle whether you are alive or no,
  358. p. 170, line 20And all else behind or through them.
  359. p. 171, line 5I send no agent or medium, offer no representative of value, but offer the value itself.
  360. p. 171, line 13Nothing in the reports from the State department or Treasury department, or in the daily papers or weekly papers,
  361. p. 171, line 14Or in the census or revenue returns, prices current, or any accounts of stock.
  362. p. 171, line 18And that the enclosing purport of us here is not a speculation or bon-mot or reconnoissance,
  363. p. 172, line 1Have you reckon'd them for your trade or farm-work? or for the profits of your store?
  364. p. 172, line 2Or to achieve yourself a position? or to fill a gentleman's leisure, or a lady's leisure?
  365. p. 172, line 4Or men and women that they might be written of, and songs sung?
  366. p. 172, line 5Or the attraction of gravity, and the great laws and harmonious combinations and the fluids of the air, as subjects for the savans?
  367. p. 172, line 6Or the brown land and the blue sea for maps and charts?
  368. p. 172, line 7Or the stars to be put in constellations and named fancy names?
  369. p. 172, line 8Or that the growth of seeds is for agricultural tables, or agriculture itself?
  370. p. 172, line 19Leaves are not more shed from the trees, or trees from the earth, than they are shed out of you.
  371. p. 173, line 8(Did you think it was in the white or gray stone? or the lines of the arches and cornices?)
  372. p. 173, line 13Can each see signs of the best by a look in the looking-glass? is there nothing greater or more?
  373. p. 173, line 22Iron-works, forge-fires in the mountains or by river-banks, men around feeling the melt with huge crowbars, lumps of ore, the due combining of ore, limestone, coal,
  374. p. 174, line 3Stone-cutting, shapely trimmings for façades or window or door-lintels, the mallet, the tooth-chisel, the jib to protect the thumb,
  375. p. 174, line 9The awl and knee-strap, the pint measure and quart measure, the counter and stool, the writing-pen of quill or metal, the making of all sorts of edged tools,
  376. p. 174, line 19The hourly routine of your own or any man's life, the shop, yard, store, or factory,
  377. p. 175, line 10In things best known to you finding the best, or as good as the best,
  378. p. 175, line 13Man in the first you see or touch, always in friend, brother, nighest neighbor—woman in mother, sister, wife,
  379. p. 175, line 14The popular tastes and employments taking precedence in poems or anywhere,
  380. p. 175, line 20When I can touch the body of books by night or by day, and when they touch my body back again,
  381. p. 176, line 8(In the best poems re-appears the body, man's or woman's, well-shaped, natural, gay,
  382. p. 176, line 9Every part able, active, receptive, without shame or the need of shame.)
  383. p. 176, line 13A healthy presence, a friendly or commanding gesture, are words, sayings, meanings,
  384. p. 178, line 1Seen at hand or seen at a distance,
  385. p. 178, line 3Duly approach and pass with their companions or a companion,
  386. p. 178, line 5From the countenances of children or women or the manly countenance,
  387. p. 178, line 6From the open countenances of animals or from inanimate things,
  388. p. 178, line 7From the landscape or waters or from the exquisite apparition of the sky,
  389. p. 178, line 22Whoever you are! you are he or she for whom the earth is solid and liquid,
  390. p. 178, line 23You are he or she for whom the sun and moon hang in the sky,
  391. p. 179, line 6And no man understands any greatness or goodness but his own, or the indication of his own.
  392. p. 179, line 7I swear the earth shall surely be complete to him or her who shall be complete,
  393. p. 179, line 8The earth remains jagged and broken only to him or her who remains jagged and broken.
  394. p. 179, line 9I swear there is no greatness or power that does not emulate those of the earth,
  395. p. 179, line 11No politics, song, religion, behavior, or what not, is of account, unless it compare with the amplitude of the earth,
  396. p. 179, line 15I swear I begin to see little or nothing in audible words,
  397. p. 180, line 1The best of the earth cannot be told anyhow, all or any is best,
  398. p. 181, line 8By every life a share or more or less,
  399. p. 181, line 9None born but it is born, conceal'd or unconceal'd the seed is waiting.
  400. p. 182, line 30Give me, give him or her I love this quenchless faith,
  401. p. 184, line 18By those swarms upon our rear we must never yield or falter,
  402. p. 184, line 31Holding single or together, steady moving to the front, all for us,
  403. p. 187, line 13Silence, the desk, the flippant expression, the night, the accustom'd routine, if these conceal you from others or from yourself, they do not conceal you from me,
  404. p. 187, line 16There is no endowment in man or woman that is not tallied in you,
  405. p. 187, line 17There is no virtue, no beauty in man or woman, but as good is in you,
  406. p. 188, line 1These furies, elements, storms, motions of Nature, throes of apparent dissolution, you are he or she who is master or mistress over them,
  407. p. 188, line 2Master or mistress in your own right over Nature, elements, pain, passion, dissolution.
  408. p. 188, line 4Old or young, male or female, rude, low, rejected by the rest, whatever you are promulges itself,
  409. p. 188, line 17Or that there be no justice in destiny or time?
  410. p. 189, line 12To stand the cold or heat, to take good aim with a gun, to sail a boat, to manage horses, to beget superb children,
  411. p. 190, line 12I charge that there be no theory or school founded out of me,
  412. p. 193, line 6And that where I am or you are this present day, there is the centre of all days, all races,
  413. p. 193, line 7And there is the meaning to us of all that has ever come of races and days, or ever will come.
  414. p. 193, line 14Bringing up the rear, hovering above, around, or in the ranks marching,
  415. p. 195, line 2The swarming market-places, the temples with idols ranged along the sides or at the end, bonze, brahmin, and llama,
  416. p. 197, line 6As a flock, twittering, rising, or overhead passing,
  417. p. 197, line 26Winds blow south, or winds blow north,
  418. p. 197, line 27Day come white, or night come black,
  419. p. 197, line 28Home, or rivers and mountains from home,
  420. p. 198, line 2Or flitting from brier to brier by day,
  421. p. 200, line 28Demon or bird! (said the boy's soul,)
  422. p. 200, line 29Is it indeed toward your mate you sing? or is it really to me?
  423. p. 201, line 33(Or like some old crone rocking the cradle, swathed in sweet garments, bending aside,)
  424. p. 202, line 27Aware now that amid all that blab whose echoes recoil upon me I have not once had the least idea who or what I am,
  425. p. 203, line 23Rustle not up so hoarse and angry against my feet as I touch you or gather from you.
  426. p. 204, line 5Musing, pondering, a breath, a briny tear, a dab of liquid or soil,
  427. p. 204, line 7A limp blossom or two, torn, just as much over waves floating, drifted at random,
  428. p. 204, line 11You up there walking or sitting,
  429. p. 206, line 27Longer than sun or any revolving satellite,
  430. p. 206, line 28Or the radiant sisters the Pleiades.
  431. p. 207, line 3Sluggish existences grazing there suspended, or slowly crawling close to the bottom,
  432. p. 207, line 4The sperm-whale at the surface blowing air and spray, or disporting with his flukes,
  433. p. 207, line 16All souls, all living bodies though they be ever so different, or in different worlds,
  434. p. 207, line 19All identities that have existed or may exist on this globe, or any globe,
  435. p. 207, line 24Of ships sailing the seas, each with its special flag or ship-signal,
  436. p. 208, line 5Of sea-captains young or old, and the mates, and of all intrepid sailors,
  437. p. 208, line 11(Ever the heroes on water or on land, by ones or twos appearing,
  438. p. 208, line 19Reminiscent of them, twined from all intrepid captains young or old,
  439. p. 212, line 1Then in their power not for all these did the blows strike revenge, or the heads of the nobles fall;
  440. p. 213, line 3No more a flashing eye, no more a sonorous voice or springy step,
  441. p. 213, line 23Aught, aught of mightiest, best I see, conceive, or know,
  442. p. 213, line 29Or Time and Space,
  443. p. 213, line 30Or shape of Earth divine and wondrous,
  444. p. 213, line 31Or some fair shape I viewing, worship,
  445. p. 213, line 32Or lustrous orb of sun or star by night,
  446. p. 214, line 6Such-like, and as good as such-like, visible here or anywhere, stand provided for in a handful of space, which I extend my arm and half enclose with my hand,
  447. p. 214, line 8OF ownership—as if one fit to own things could not at pleasure enter upon all, and incorporate them into himself or herself;
  448. p. 215, line 13And that what is less than they must sooner or later lift off from these States.
  449. p. 216, line 8For I bestow upon any man or woman the entrance to all the gifts of the universe.
  450. p. 217, line 3As contending against some being or influence.
  451. p. 217, line 8WOMEN sit or move to and fro, some old, some young,
  452. p. 217, line 19As if it might be this thing or that thing, according to decisions.
  453. p. 221, line 2War! be it weeks, months, or years, an arm'd race is advancing to welcome it.
  454. p. 221, line 11Often in peace and wealth you were pensive or covertly frown'd amid all your children,
  455. p. 221, line 14No dainty rhymes or sentimental love verses for you terrible year,
  456. p. 221, line 21Or with large steps crossing the prairies out of Illinois and Indiana,
  457. p. 221, line 23Or down from the great lakes or in Pennsylvania, or on deck along the Ohio river,
  458. p. 221, line 24Or southward along the Tennessee or Cumberland rivers, or at Chattanooga on the mountain top,
  459. p. 222, line 9Nor the peaceful farmer any peace, ploughing his field or gathering his grain,
  460. p. 222, line 14No bargainers' bargains by day—no brokers or speculators—would they continue?
  461. p. 222, line 20Mind not the timid—mind not the weeper or prayer,
  462. p. 224, line 14The great steady wind from west or west-by-south,
  463. p. 225, line 6To our children all, or north or south of Manhattan,
  464. p. 225, line 17I see numberless farms, I see the farmers working in their fields or barns,
  465. p. 225, line 18I see mechanics working, I see buildings everywhere founded, going up, or finish'd,
  466. p. 226, line 13Over the area spread below, the three or four millions of square miles, the capitals,
  467. p. 228, line 1Not the superb ships with sail-power or steam-power, fetching and carrying cargoes,
  468. p. 228, line 6While others remain busy or smartly talking, forever teaching thrift, thrift;)
  469. p. 230, line 12No more the mountains roam or sail the stormy sea.
  470. p. 231, line 4City whose gleeful tides continually rush or recede, whirling in and out with eddies and foam!
  471. p. 231, line 11Good or bad I never question you—I love all—I do not condemn any thing,
  472. p. 236, line 12Like a phantom far or near an occasional figure moving,
  473. p. 239, line 17Some on the bare ground, some on planks or stretchers, some in the death-spasm sweating,
  474. p. 239, line 18An occasional scream or cry, the doctor's shouted orders or calls,
  475. p. 241, line 1Yet at times through changeful season and scene, abrupt, alone, or in the crowded street,
  476. p. 241, line 7More than I have charged myself, heeded or unheeded, to compose a march for these States,
  477. p. 241, line 20To sit by the wounded and soothe them, or silently watch the dead;)
  478. p. 242, line 5Of hard-fought engagements or sieges tremendous what deepest remains?
  479. p. 242, line 11Pass and are gone they fade—I dwell not on soldiers' perils or soldiers' joys,
  480. p. 242, line 22Or to the rows of the hospital tent, or under the roof'd hospital,
  481. p. 243, line 15But a day or two more, for see the frame all wasted and sinking,
  482. p. 245, line 15(The soldiers in companies or regiments—some starting away, flush'd and reckless,
  483. p. 247, line 21Or by an agreement on a paper? or by arms?
  484. p. 247, line 27I saw a hundred and more step forth from the ranks, but two or three were selected,
  485. p. 248, line 22And ever the sound of the cannon far or near, (rousing even in dreams a devilish exultation and all the old mad joy in the depths of my soul,)
  486. p. 249, line 2Grime, heat, rush, aide-de-camps galloping by or on a full run,
  487. p. 249, line 3With the patter of small arms, the warning s-s-t of the rifles, (these in my vision I hear or see,)
  488. p. 249, line 19Are the things so strange and marvelous you see or have seen?
  489. p. 249, line 24Beauty, knowledge, inure not to me—yet there are two or three things inure to me,
  490. p. 249, line 26And at intervals waiting or in the midst of camp,
  491. p. 251, line 22And the threat of what is call'd hell is little or nothing to me,
  492. p. 251, line 23And the lure of what is call'd heaven is little or nothing to me;
  493. p. 251, line 25Or whether we shall be victorious, or utterly quell'd and defeated.
  494. p. 260, line 17Sooner or later delicate death.
  495. p. 263, line 29Against the foulest crime in history known in any land or age,
  496. p. 264, line 19From Missouri, Nebraska, or Kansas, laughing attacks to scorn.
  497. p. 264, line 21Whatever appears, whatever does not appear, we are beautiful or sinful in ourselves only.
  498. p. 264, line 26There can be any number of supremes—one does not countervail another any more than one eyesight countervails another, or one life countervails another.
  499. p. 265, line 3No condition is prohibited, not God's or any.
  500. p. 266, line 2Does not repel them or the past or what they have produced under their forms,
  501. p. 266, line 26If the Atlantic coast stretch or the Pacific coast stretch, he stretching with them North or South,
  502. p. 267, line 2Tangles as tangled in him as any canebrake or swamp,
  503. p. 268, line 4On and on to the grapple with it—Assassin! then your life or ours be the stake, and respite no more.
  504. p. 269, line 2To hold men together by paper and seal or by compulsion is no account,
  505. p. 269, line 3That only holds men together which aggregates all in a living principle, as the hold of the limbs of the body or the fibres of plants.
  506. p. 269, line 12He bestows on every object or quality its fit proportion, neither more nor less,
  507. p. 270, line 2He sees eternity in men and women, he does not see men and women as dreams or dots.
  508. p. 270, line 24Are you he who would assume a place to teach or be a poet here in the States?
  509. p. 271, line 1Who are you indeed who would talk or sing to America?
  510. p. 271, line 10Are you not of some coterie? some school or mere religion?
  511. p. 271, line 17Is it not something that has been better told or done before?
  512. p. 271, line 18Have you not imported this or the spirit of it in some ship?
  513. p. 272, line 10America justifies itself, give it time, no disguise can deceive it or conceal from it, it is impassive enough,
  514. p. 272, line 17He or she is greatest who contributes the greatest original practical example.
  515. p. 273, line 7Hated tyrants, argued not concerning God, had patience and indulgence toward the people, taken off my hat to nothing known or unknown,
  516. p. 273, line 10Dismiss'd whatever insulted my own soul or defiled my body,
  517. p. 273, line 22It is I who am great or to be great, it is You up there, or any one,
  518. p. 274, line 4I swear I will stand by my own nativity, pious or impious so be it;
  519. p. 274, line 24Not any part of America good or bad,
  520. p. 276, line 18Bards with songs as from burning coals or the lightning's fork'd stripes!
  521. p. 277, line 2Or wayward rivulets in autumn flowing,
  522. p. 277, line 3Or many a herb-lined brook's reticulations,
  523. p. 277, line 4Or subterranean sea-rills making for the sea,
  524. p. 277, line 8Some threading Ohio's farm-fields or the woods,
  525. p. 277, line 10Some half-hid in Oregon, or away southward in Texas,
  526. p. 277, line 22Or from the sea of Time, collecting vasting all, I bring,
  527. p. 279, line 12Or pass'd with slow step through the wounded and dying.
  528. p. 280, line 8Nor in winter or summer my lost ones,
  529. p. 280, line 30Other the arms the fields henceforth for you, or South or North,
  530. p. 281, line 5I see the true arenas of my race, or first or last,
  531. p. 282, line 11Gather the cotton in Mississippi or Alabama, dig and hoard the golden the sweet potato of Georgia and the Carolinas,
  532. p. 282, line 12Clip the wool of California or Pennsylvania,
  533. p. 282, line 13Cut the flax in the Middle States, or hemp or tobacco in the Borders,
  534. p. 282, line 14Pick the pea and the bean, or pull apples from the trees or bunches of grapes from the vines,
  535. p. 282, line 15Or aught that ripens in all these States or North or South,
  536. p. 282, line 19And that object became part of him for the day or a certain part of the day,
  537. p. 282, line 20Or for many years or stretching cycles of years.
  538. p. 282, line 24And the noisy brood of the barnyard or by the mire of the pond-side,
  539. p. 283, line 21Whether that which appears so is so, or is it all flashes and specks?
  540. p. 284, line 1Shadows, aureola and mist, the light falling on roofs and gables of white or brown two miles off,
  541. p. 285, line 7Or white-domed capitol with majestic figure surmounted, or all the old high-spired cathedrals,
  542. p. 286, line 2I do not see any of it upon you to-day, or perhaps I am deceiv'd,
  543. p. 287, line 7COURAGE yet, my brother or my sister!
  544. p. 287, line 9That is nothing that is quell'd by one or two failures, or any number of failures,
  545. p. 287, line 10Or by the indifference or ingratitude of the people, or by any unfaithfulness,
  546. p. 287, line 11Or the show of the tushes of power, soldiers, cannon, penal statutes.
  547. p. 287, line 21The infidel triumphs, or supposes he triumphs,
  548. p. 288, line 1When liberty goes out of a place it is not the first to go, nor the second or third to go,
  549. p. 288, line 5Then only shall liberty or the idea of liberty be discharged from that part of the earth,
  550. p. 289, line 12I believe of all those men and women that fill'd the unnamed lands, every one exists this hour here or elsewhere, invisible to us,
  551. p. 289, line 13In exact proportion to what he or she grew from in life, and out of what he or she did, felt, became, loved, sinn'd, in life.
  552. p. 289, line 14I believe that was not the end of those nations or any person of them, any more than this shall be the end of my nation, or of me;
  553. p. 290, line 2Not a move can a man or woman make, that affects him or her in a day, month, any part of the direct lifetime, or the hour of death,
  554. p. 290, line 3But the same affects him or her onward afterward through the indirect lifetime.
  555. p. 290, line 6Not one word or deed, not venereal sore, discoloration, privacy of the onanist,
  556. p. 290, line 7Putridity of gluttons or rum-drinkers, peculation, cunning, betrayal, murder, seduction, prostitution,
  557. p. 290, line 10No specification is necessary, all that a male or female does, that is vigorous, benevolent, clean, is so much profit to him or her,
  558. p. 290, line 19All offering of substance or life for the good old cause, or for a friend's sake, or opinion's sake,
  559. p. 290, line 22All honest men baffled in strifes recorded or unrecorded,
  560. p. 291, line 1All that was ever manfully begun, whether it succeeded or no,
  561. p. 291, line 2All suggestions of the divine mind of man or the divinity of his mouth, or the shaping of his great hands,
  562. p. 291, line 3All that is well thought or said this day on any part of the globe, or on any of the wandering stars, or on any of the fix'd stars, by those there as we are here,
  563. p. 291, line 4All that is henceforth to be thought or done by you whoever you are, or by any one,
  564. p. 291, line 5These inure, have inured, shall inure, to the identities from which they sprang, or shall spring.
  565. p. 291, line 7The world does not so exist, no parts palpable or impalpable so exist,
  566. p. 291, line 18Divides not the righteous from the unrighteous or the living from the dead,
  567. p. 291, line 19Matches every thought or act by its correlative,
  568. p. 291, line 20Knows no possible forgiveness or deputed atonement,
  569. p. 292, line 30For soon or late the certain grace;
  570. p. 293, line 26Gather the welcome signs, (as children with pebbles or stringing shells,)
  571. p. 294, line 8Or flitting among the trees of the apple-orchard, building the nest of his mate,
  572. p. 295, line 27The student, boy or girl, led forward to be taught,
  573. p. 296, line 18This subtler astronomic orb than sun or moon, than Jupiter, Venus, Mars,
  574. p. 297, line 1As on the road or at some crevice door by chance, or open'd window,
  575. p. 297, line 14Then toward that man or that woman swiftly hasten all—none refuse, all attend,
  576. p. 297, line 16They debouch as they are wanted to march obediently through the mouth of that man or that woman.
  577. p. 297, line 18Surely whoever speaks to me in the right voice, him or her I shall follow,
  578. p. 298, line 19Who am I too that I am not on trial or in prison?
  579. p. 298, line 20Me ruthless and devilish as any, that my wrists are not chain'd with iron, or my ankles with iron?
  580. p. 298, line 21You prostitutes flaunting over the trottoirs or obscene in your rooms,
  581. p. 299, line 17What do you suppose I would intimate to you in a hundred ways, but that man or woman is as good as God?
  582. p. 299, line 20And that you or any one must approach creations through such laws?
  583. p. 300, line 10It is the life of one man or one woman to-day—the average man of to-day,
  584. p. 300, line 17And often to me each one mocks the others, and mocks himself or herself,
  585. p. 301, line 4Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
  586. p. 301, line 5Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of the water,
  587. p. 301, line 6Or stand under trees in the woods,
  588. p. 301, line 7Or talk by day with any one I love, or sleep in the bed at night with any one I love,
  589. p. 301, line 8Or sit at table at dinner with the rest,
  590. p. 301, line 9Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,
  591. p. 301, line 10Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive of a summer forenoon,
  592. p. 301, line 11Or animals feeding in the fields,
  593. p. 301, line 12Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,
  594. p. 301, line 13Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining so quiet and bright,
  595. p. 301, line 14Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring;
  596. p. 303, line 12Did you think there was nothing but two or three pronunciations in the sound of your name?
  597. p. 303, line 15Who has not look'd forth from the windows the eyes for nothing, or whose brain held audience with messengers for nothing,
  598. p. 303, line 17Who holds duly his or her triune proportion of realism, spiritualism, and of the æsthetic or intellectual,
  599. p. 303, line 19Who, out of the theory of the earth and of his or her body understands by subtle analogies all other theories,
  600. p. 304, line 2Who, constructing the house of himself or herself, not for a day but for all time, sees races, eras, dates, generations,
  601. p. 304, line 5But I, from the banks of the running Missouri, praise nothing in art or aught else,
  602. p. 304, line 20It is no small matter, this round and delicious globe moving so exactly in its orbit for ever and ever, without one jolt or the untruth of a single second,
  603. p. 305, line 1I do not think seventy years is the time of a man or woman,
  604. p. 305, line 2Nor that seventy millions of years is the time of a man or woman,
  605. p. 305, line 3Nor that years will ever stop the existence of me, or any one else.
  606. p. 308, line 18The lights and shadows of your future, good or evil?
  607. p. 309, line 23(As some old root or soil of earth its last-born flower or fruit,)
  608. p. 312, line 10My mother's voice in lullaby or hymn,
  609. p. 312, line 16The wild-fowl's notes at night as flying low migrating north or south,
  610. p. 312, line 17The psalm in the country church or mid the clustering trees, the open air camp-meeting,
  611. p. 313, line 12I hear Meyerbeer's Huguenots, the Prophet, or Robert,
  612. p. 313, line 13Gounod's Faust, or Mozart's Don Juan.
  613. p. 314, line 5Or to Hindu flutes and the fretting twang of the vina,
  614. p. 314, line 11Or floating in some high cathedral dim with gorgeous color'd windows,
  615. p. 314, line 12The passionate Agnus Dei or Gloria in Excelsis.
  616. p. 314, line 21Or, under the high roof of some colossal hall, the symphonies, oratorios of Beethoven, Handel, or Haydn,
  617. p. 316, line 26You, not for trade or transportation only,
  618. p. 317, line 8I see in glimpses afar or towering immediately above me the great mountains, I see the Wind river and the Wahsatch mountains,
  619. p. 317, line 13Or crossing the great desert, the alkaline plains, I behold enchanting mirages of waters and meadows,
  620. p. 317, line 15Bridging the three or four thousand miles of land travel,
  621. p. 321, line 14Sailing these seas or on the hills, or waking in the night,
  622. p. 322, line 4Greater than stars or suns,
  623. p. 323, line 21I cannot rest O God, I cannot eat or drink or sleep,
  624. p. 324, line 5Sailing the deep or journeying the land for Thee;
  625. p. 324, line 16Or small or great I know not—haply what broad fields, what lands,
  626. p. 325, line 1Is it the prophet's thought I speak, or am I raving?
  627. p. 325, line 3I know not even my own work past or present,
  628. p. 326, line 31The stammerer, the well-form'd person, the wasted or feeble person.
  629. p. 327, line 22It is dark here under ground, it is not evil or pain here, it is blank here, for reasons.
  630. p. 331, line 7The soul is always beautiful, it appears more or it appears less, it comes or it lags behind,
  631. p. 331, line 14The twisted skull waits, the watery or rotten blood waits,
  632. p. 331, line 15The child of the glutton or venerealee waits long, and the child of the drunkard waits long, and the drunkard himself waits long,
  633. p. 331, line 23The father holds his grown or ungrown son in his arms with measureless love, and the son holds the father in his arms with measureless love,
  634. p. 332, line 19LET the reformers descend from the stands where they are forever bawling—let an idiot or insane person appear on each of the stands;
  635. p. 333, line 11Not a day passes, not a minute or second without an accouchement,
  636. p. 333, line 12Not a day passes, not a minute or second without a corpse.
  637. p. 334, line 3(I see one building the house that serves him a few years, or seventy or eighty years at most,
  638. p. 334, line 17A minute—no one moves or speaks—it is done,
  639. p. 334, line 20Ready with life or death for a friend, fond of women, gambled, ate hearty, drank hearty,
  640. p. 335, line 3To think that other working-men will make just as great account of them, yet we make little or no account.
  641. p. 335, line 7Do you enjoy yourself in the city? or engaged in business? or planning a nomination and election? or with your wife and family?
  642. p. 335, line 8Or with your mother and sisters? or in womanly housework? or the beautiful maternal cares?
  643. p. 335, line 15The domestic joys, the daily housework or business, the building of houses, are not phantasms, they have weight, form, location,
  644. p. 336, line 3You are henceforth secure, whatever comes or goes.
  645. p. 338, line 20(Or is it the plashing of tears? the measureless waters of human tears?)
  646. p. 339, line 20Wending my way through the homes of men, rich or poor, with the kiss of affection,
  647. p. 340, line 10Nor time nor change shall ever change me or my words.
  648. p. 341, line 5And if the memorials of the dead were put up indifferently everywhere, even in the room where I eat or sleep, I should be satisfied,
  649. p. 341, line 6And if the corpse of any one I love, or if my own corpse, be duly render'd to powder and pour'd in the sea, I shall be satisfied,
  650. p. 341, line 7Or if it be distributed to the winds I shall be satisfied.
  651. p. 343, line 11Or coming in, to avoid the bars and follow the channel a perfect pilot needs?
  652. p. 344, line 13I am more than nurse, more than parent or neighbor,
  653. p. 345, line 9Or waiting to arrive, or pass'd on farther than those of the earth,
  654. p. 345, line 11Or the lives of the earth arrived as far as mine, or waiting to arrive.
  655. p. 346, line 12Or the sower sowing in the fields, or the harvester harvesting,
  656. p. 347, line 16Nor rhyme, nor the classics, nor perfume of foreign court or indoor library;
  657. p. 347, line 17But an odor I'd bring as from forests of pine in Maine, or breath of an Illinois prairie,
  658. p. 347, line 18With open airs of Virginia or Georgia or Tennessee, or from Texas uplands, or Florida's glades,
  659. p. 347, line 19Or the Saguenay's black stream, or the wide blue spread of Huron,
  660. p. 347, line 20With presentment of Yellowstone's scenes, or Yosemite,
  661. p. 348, line 19With thee Time voyages in trust, the antecedent nations sink or swim with thee,
  662. p. 350, line 21Open'd by thee to heaven's light for benefit or bale.
  663. p. 352, line 9Or man matured, or young or old, as now to thee I launch my invocation.
  664. p. 353, line 1SAUNTERING the pavement or riding the country by-road, lo, such faces!
  665. p. 353, line 7The ugly face of some beautiful soul, the handsome detested or despised face,
  666. p. 353, line 14Sauntering the pavement thus, or crossing the ceaseless ferry, faces and faces and faces,
  667. p. 353, line 25And more of the drug-shelf, laudanum, caoutchouc, or hog's-lard,
  668. p. 354, line 13Splay and twist as you like, poke with the tangling fores of fishes or rats,
  669. p. 354, line 19And I shall look again in a score or two of ages,
  670. p. 355, line 5These faces bear testimony slumbering or awake,
  671. p. 355, line 9Spots or cracks at the windows do not disturb me,
  672. p. 359, line 9Through gale or calm, now swift, now slack, yet steadily careering;
  673. p. 359, line 19(No sweetness debonair of tearful harp or glib piano thine,)
  674. p. 359, line 26Dear to me my own slow sluggish rivers where they flow, distant, over flats of silvery sands or through swamps,
  675. p. 360, line 2Again in Florida I float on transparent lakes, I float on the Okeechobee, I cross the hummock-land or through pleasant openings or dense forests,
  676. p. 361, line 9Immigrants arriving, fifteen or twenty thousand in a week,
  677. p. 361, line 12The winter snows, the sleigh-bells, the broken ice in the river, passing along up or down with the flood-tide or ebb-tide,
  678. p. 361, line 21Discovering to-day there is no lie or form of lie, and can be none, but grows as inevitably upon itself as the truth does upon itself,
  679. p. 361, line 22Or as any law of the earth or any natural production of the earth does.
  680. p. 362, line 1Where has fail'd a perfect return indifferent of lies or the truth?
  681. p. 362, line 2Is it upon the ground, or in water or fire? or in the spirit of man? or in the meat and blood?
  682. p. 362, line 3Meditating among liars and retreating sternly into myself, I see that there are really no liars or lies after all,
  683. p. 362, line 7And that there is no flaw or vacuum in the amount of the truth—but that all is truth without exception;
  684. p. 362, line 8And henceforth I will go celebrate any thing I see or am,
  685. p. 362, line 11Unheard by sharpest ear, unform'd in clearest eye or cunningest mind,
  686. p. 362, line 26Or strangely in the coffin'd dead,
  687. p. 362, line 27Or show of breaking dawn or stars by night,
  688. p. 363, line 11Or midnight's silent glowing northern lights unreachable.
  689. p. 363, line 24And who possesses a perfect and enamour'd body? for I do not believe any one possesses a more perfect or enamour'd body than mine,
  690. p. 364, line 3(For what is my life or any man's life but a conflict with foes, the old, the incessant war?)
  691. p. 364, line 13Of a calm and cool fiat sooner or later, (how impassive! how certain and final!)
  692. p. 365, line 16We know not why or what, yet weave, forever weave.
  693. p. 367, line 10(I bring no dirge for it or thee, I bring a glad triumphal sonnet,)
  694. p. 367, line 12After thy many battles in which never yielding up a gun or a color,
  695. p. 367, line 24Where through the carnage I moved with a callous composure, or away from the fallen,
  696. p. 368, line 10Or that thou sat'st where Washington sat, ruling the land in peace,
  697. p. 368, line 11Or thou the man whom feudal Europe feted, venerable Asia swarm'd upon,
  698. p. 370, line 4I shall traverse the States awhile, but I cannot tell whither or how long,
  699. p. 370, line 5Perhaps soon some day or night while I am singing my voice will suddenly cease.
  700. p. 371, line 13Your dreams O years, how they penetrate through me! (I know not whether I sleep or wake;)
  701. p. 371, line 16ASHES of soldiers South or North,
  702. p. 371, line 24In wafted clouds, in myriads large, or squads of twos or threes or single ones they come,
  703. p. 372, line 29For the ashes of all dead soldiers South or North.
  704. p. 373, line 6How few see the arrived models, the athletes, the Western States, or see freedom or spirituality, or hold any faith in results,
  705. p. 373, line 15And how now or at any time each serves the exquisite transition of death.
  706. p. 373, line 20(Or afar, mounting the Northern Pacific to Sitka or Aliaska,)
  707. p. 374, line 27Illustrious whatever I see or hear or touch, to the last.
  708. p. 375, line 26I too carol the sun, usher'd or at noon, or as now, setting,
  709. p. 376, line 3Or cities or silent woods, or even amid the sights of war,
  710. p. 376, line 5I sing to the last the equalities modern or old,
  711. p. 376, line 10And I do not see one cause or result lamentable at last in the universe.
  712. p. 376, line 25Devises houses and lands to his children, bequeaths stocks, goods, funds for a school or hospital,
  713. p. 377, line 2Nor houses nor lands, nor tokens of gems or gold for my friends,
  714. p. 377, line 16My dead absorb or South or North—my young men's bodies absorb, and their precious precious blood,
  715. p. 378, line 5Or proceed to battle.
  716. p. 381, line 6I announce a man or woman coming, perhaps you are the one, (So long!)
  717. p. 385, line 6And one the Atlantic's wind caressing, fierce or gentle—mighty hulls dark-gliding in the distance.
  718. p. 386, line 13Wrath, argument, or praise, or comic leer, or prayer devout,
  719. p. 386, line 16Or sooth'd to ease and sheeny sun and sleep,
  720. p. 387, line 2Thou dim, uncertain spectre—bringest thou life or death?
  721. p. 387, line 4Or placid skies and sun? Wilt stir the waters yet?
  722. p. 387, line 5Or haply cut me short for good? Or leave me here as now,
  723. p. 387, line 7Greater than memory of Achilles or Ulysses,
  724. p. 387, line 17All, all alike endear'd, grown, ungrown, young or old,
  725. p. 388, line 9After the clangor of organ majestic, or chorus, or perfect band,
  726. p. 388, line 17The aspiring lilac bushes with profuse purple or white flowers.
  727. p. 388, line 19Nor wealth, nor honor'd middle age, nor victories of politics or war;
  728. p. 389, line 11Or Shakspere's woe-entangled Hamlet, Lear, Othello—Tennyson's fair ladies,
  729. p. 389, line 12Metre or wit the best, or choice conceit to wield in perfect rhyme, delight of singers;
  730. p. 389, line 15Or breathe one breath of yours upon my verse,
  731. p. 390, line 5As of speakers far or hid.
  732. p. 390, line 27In every crest some undulating light or shade—some retrospect,
  733. p. 391, line 6And haply yet some drop within God's scheme's ensemble—some wave, or part of wave,
  734. p. 391, line 21Yet more than all Rome's wars of old, or modern Napoleon's:) the peaceful choice of all,
  735. p. 391, line 22Or good or ill humanity—welcoming the darker odds, the dross:
  736. p. 393, line 8As some old tree, or rock or cliff, thrill'd with its soul,
  737. p. 393, line 15Europe's as well, in every part, castle of lord or laborer's cot,
  738. p. 393, line 16Or frozen North, or sultry South—the African's—the Arab's in his tent,
  739. p. 393, line 21Wherever sails a ship, or house is built on land, or day or night,
  740. p. 393, line 22Through teeming cities' streets, indoors or out, factories or farms,
  741. p. 393, line 23Now, or to come, or past—where patriot wills existed or exist,
  742. p. 393, line 25Stands or is rising thy true monument.
  743. p. 394, line 7Not summer's zones alone—not chants of youth, or south's warm tides alone,
  744. p. 394, line 10What hurrying human tides, or day or night!
  745. p. 395, line 22I fold thenceforth, or seek to fold, within my chants transmuting,
  746. p. 396, line 1Nothing is ever really lost, or can be lost,
  747. p. 396, line 14Yonnondio—I see, far in the west or north, a limitless ravine, with plains and mountains dark,
  748. p. 396, line 25Ever the grappled mystery of all earth's ages old or new;
  749. p. 397, line 3Ended our talk—"The sum, concluding all we know of old or modern learning, intuitions deep,
  750. p. 397, line 15Old farmers, travelers, workmen (no matter how crippled or bent,)
  751. p. 398, line 16(You distant, dim unknown—or young or old—countless, unspecified, readers belov'd,
  752. p. 399, line 10Reck'd or unreck'd. duly with love returns.)
  753. p. 399, line 24Lay on the graves of all dead soldiers, North or South,
  754. p. 400, line 20Have you not learn'd great lessons from those who reject you, and brace themselves against you? or who treat you with contempt, or dispute the passage with you?
  755. p. 402, line 2And I some well-shorn tree of field or orchard-row;
  756. p. 402, line 3You tokens diminute and lorn—(not now the flush of May, or July clover-bloom—no grain of August now;)
  757. p. 402, line 9To verdant leaves, or sheltering shade—to nourishing fruit,
  758. p. 403, line 8From ups and downs—with intervals—from elder years, mid-age, or youth,)
  759. p. 403, line 9"In Cabin'd Ships," or " Thee Old Cause" or " Poets to Come"
  760. p. 403, line 10Or "Paumanok, " "Song of Myself," "Calamus," or "Adam,"
  761. p. 403, line 11Or "Beat! Beat! Drums!" or "To the Leaven'd Soil they Trod,"
  762. p. 403, line 12Or " Captain! My Captain! " " Kosmos," "Quicksand Years," or "Thoughts,"
  763. p. 403, line 17Of life or death, or soldier's wound, of country's loss or safety,
  764. p. 407, line 11[…] to silently retire?—(indeed amid no loud call or market for my sort of poetic utterance […]
  765. p. 407, line 13In answer, or rather defiance, to that kind of well-put interrogation, here comes […]
  766. p. 407, line 31[…] and my brain more and more palpably neglects or refuses, month after month, even slight tasks or revisions […]
  767. p. 407, line 32[…] or refuses, month after month, even slight tasks or revisions […]
  768. p. 407, line 35[…] much like some hard-cased dilapidated grim ancient shell-fish or time-bang'd conch (no legs, utterly non-locomotive) cast up high and […]
  769. p. 408, line 10[…] to-day almost a part of some frolicsome wave, or for sporting yet like a kid or kitten—probably a […]
  770. p. 408, line 11[…] wave, or for sporting yet like a kid or kitten—probably a streak of physical adjustment and perfection here […]
  771. p. 408, line 22[…] and sick army volunteers, both sides, in campaigns or contests, or after them, or in hospitals or fields south of Washington City, or in that place and […]
  772. p. 408, line 23[…] in hospitals or fields south of Washington City, or in that place and elsewhere—those hot, sad, wrenching times […]
  773. p. 408, line 24[…] sad, wrenching times—the army volunteers, all States,—or North or South—the wounded, suffering, dying—the exhausting, sweating […]
  774. p. 408, line 25[…] times—the army volunteers, all States,—or North or South—the wounded, suffering, dying—the exhausting, sweating summers, marches […]
  775. p. 409, line 16But 'tis not quite the time—The best of any man's word or say,
  776. p. 410, line 18As some old broken soldier, after a long, hot, wearying march, or haply after battle,
  777. p. 411, line 35[…] continued it to the end, whenever the ebb or flood tide began the latter part of day, of punctually […]
  778. p. 411, line 36[…] that time populous wards of suffering men. Somehow (or I thought so) the effect of the hour was palpable […]
  779. p. 411, line 38[…] ease, and would like to talk a little, or be talk'd to. Intellectual and emotional natures would be at […]
  780. p. 411, line 44[…] same experience on the fields cover'd with fallen or dead […]
  781. p. 412, line 17In each old song bequeath'd—in every noble page or text,
  782. p. 413, line 33[…] In the grand constellation of five or six names, under Lincoln's Presidency, that history will bear for […]
  783. p. 416, line 14Your mystic roll entire of unknown names, or North or South,
  784. p. 418, line 3The gather'd thousands to their funeral mounds, and thousands never found or gather'd.
  785. p. 418, line 5(Faithful to them found or unfound, forgetting not, bearing the past, here new musing,)
  786. p. 418, line 6A day—a passing moment or an hour—America itself bends low,
  787. p. 418, line 17Thou that in all the life and death of us, in action or in sleep!
  788. p. 420, line 2Times again, now mostly just after sunrise or before sunset,
  789. p. 420, line 4Camps far or near, the crowded streets of cities and the shopfronts,
  790. p. 420, line 5(Account for it or not—credit or not—it is all true,
  791. p. 420, line 13Now and then mark'd faces of sorrow or joy,
  792. p. 420, line 16Or plainly there to the left on the hill-tops.
  793. p. 420, line 17NOT to exclude or demarcate, or pick out evils from their formidable masses (even to expose them,)
  794. p. 421, line 8After the countless songs, or long or short, all tongues, all lands,
  795. p. 421, line 9Still something not yet told in poesy's voice or print—something lacking,
  796. p. 421, line 20Under the snow and ice, under the darkness, in every square or cubic inch,
  797. p. 422, line 4Or to what fortune, or whether I may ever see you again,
  798. p. 425, line 4PERHAPS the best of songs heard, or of any and all true love, or life's fairest episodes, or sailors', soldiers' trying scenes on land […]
  799. p. 425, line 5[…] and all true love, or life's fairest episodes, or sailors', soldiers' trying scenes on land or sea, is the […]
  800. p. 425, line 6[…] episodes, or sailors', soldiers' trying scenes on land or sea, is the résumé of them, or any of them, long afterwards, looking at the actualities away […]
  801. p. 425, line 13[…] years, with many halts and gaps of intervals—or some lengthen'd ship-voyage, wherein more than once the last hour […]
  802. p. 425, line 18[…] light of their own (at the time unconscious, or mostly unconscious) intentions, with certain unfoldings of the thirty years […]
  803. p. 425, line 23Result of seven or eight stages and struggles extending through nearly thirty years, (as […]
  804. p. 426, line 3[…] it I have been the object of two or three pretty serious special official buffetings—is all probably no […]
  805. p. 426, line 7[…] approbation of existing schools and conventions. As fulfill'd, or partially fulfill'd, the best comfort of the whole business (after […]
  806. p. 426, line 9[…] dearest friends and upholders ever vouchsafed to man or cause—doubtless all the more faithful and uncompromising—this little […]
  807. p. 426, line 18[…] to be too absolutely certain of any thing, or any results.) In the second place, the volume is a […]
  808. p. 426, line 36[…] to thirty-three, with a special desire and conviction. Or rather, to be quite exact, a desire that had been […]
  809. p. 426, line 37[…] that had been flitting through my previous life, or hovering on the flanks, mostly indefinite hitherto, had steadily advanced […]
  810. p. 426, line 40[…] finally dominated everything else. This was a feeling or ambition to articulate and faithfully express in literary or poetic […]
  811. p. 426, line 41[…] ambition to articulate and faithfully express in literary or poetic form, and uncompromisingly, my own physical, emotional, moral, intellectual […]
  812. p. 427, line 2[…] candid and comprehensive sense than any hitherto poem or book […]
  813. p. 427, line 3Perhaps this is in brief, or suggests, all I have sought to do. Given the Nineteenth […]
  814. p. 427, line 5[…] and points of view, "Leaves of Grass " is, or seeks to be, simply a faithful and doubtless self-will'd record […]
  815. p. 427, line 9[…] all with any decided coloring from other faiths or other identities. Plenty of songs had been sung—beautiful, matchless […]
  816. p. 427, line 12[…] evolution; but I would sing, and leave out or put in, quite solely with reference to America and to-day […]
  817. p. 427, line 22[…] appear in it: none of the stock ornamentation, or choice plots of love or war, or high, exceptional personages of Old-World song; nothing, as I may […]
  818. p. 427, line 24[…] I may say, for beauty's sake—no legend, or myth, or romance, nor euphemism, nor rhyme. But the broadest average of […]
  819. p. 427, line 33[…] changed attitude of the ego, the one chanting or talking, towards himself and towards his fellow-humanity. It is certainly […]
  820. p. 428, line 4[…] only. Without that ultimate vivification—which the poet or other artist alone can give—reality would seem incomplete, and […]
  821. p. 428, line 8[…] which have been profounder far than the material or inventive or war-produced ones. The Nineteenth Century, now well towards its close […]
  822. p. 428, line 24Let me not dare, here or anywhere, for my own purposes, or any purposes, to attempt the definition of Poetry, nor answer […]
  823. p. 428, line 29[…] encloses the name Poetry; nor can any rule or convention ever so absolutely obtain but some great exception may […]
  824. p. 429, line 1[…] and adoration—always love, beauty, some fine plot, or pensive or other emotion. But, strange as it may sound at first […]
  825. p. 429, line 14[…] United States to-day—the facts of these thirty-eight or forty empires solder'd in one—sixty or seventy millions of […]
  826. p. 429, line 15[…] thirty-eight or forty empires solder'd in one—sixty or seventy millions of equals, with their lives, their passions, their […]
  827. p. 429, line 19[…] and limited area of the poets of past or present Europe, no matter how great their genius. Think of […]
  828. p. 429, line 27In estimating first-class song, a sufficient Nationality, or, on the other hand, what may be call'd the negative […]
  829. p. 429, line 31[…] only a little penetration to see, at more or less removes, the material facts of their country and radius […]
  830. p. 429, line 33[…] of humanity at the time, and its gloomy or hopeful prospects, behind all poets and each poet, and forming […]
  831. p. 429, line 35[…] that my "Leaves" could not possibly have emerged or been fashion'd or completed, from any other era than the […]
  832. p. 429, line 36[…] could not possibly have emerged or been fashion'd or completed, from any other era than the latter half of […]
  833. p. 429, line 40And whether my friends claim it for me or not, I know well enough, too, that in respect to […]
  834. p. 429, line 45[…] of them immeasurably transcend) all I have done, or could do. But it seem'd to me, as the objects […]
  835. p. 430, line 13[…] the approved style, some choice plot of fortune or misfortune, or fancy, or fine thoughts, or incidents, or courtesies—all of which has been done overwhelmingly […]
  836. p. 430, line 14[…] misfortune, or fancy, or fine thoughts, or incidents, or courtesies—all of which has been done overwhelmingly and well […]
  837. p. 430, line 23[…] anything hitherto; and that such conception of current or gone-by life and art is for us the only means […]
  838. p. 430, line 32[…] and spirit of song superior to anything past or present? To the effectual and moral consolidation of our lands […]
  839. p. 430, line 40[…] the modern time, and dominate all that precedes or opposes them—is not either a radical advance and step […]
  840. p. 430, line 41[…] not either a radical advance and step forward, or a new verteber of the best song indispensable […]
  841. p. 431, line 2[…] ballads—seeks not in the least to deaden or displace those voices from our ear and area—holds them […]
  842. p. 431, line 7[…] parts of current character in nations, social groups, or any man's or woman's individuality, Old World or New, are from them—and though if I were ask'd […]
  843. p. 431, line 15[…] one that is consistent with these United States, or essentially applicable to them as they are and are to […]
  844. p. 431, line 22[…] far-back ages out of their arriere and darkness, or, at most, twilight dimness! What is there in those works […]
  845. p. 432, line 16[…] heroic and spiritual evolution poems and everything directly or indirectly tend, Old World or New […]
  846. p. 432, line 19[…] subject, my friends have more than once suggested—or may be the garrulity of advancing age is possessing me […]
  847. p. 432, line 25[…] ready to start its own way for good or bad. Not till after all this, did I attempt any […]
  848. p. 432, line 34[…] week at a stretch, down in the country, or to Long Island's seashores—there, in the presence of outdoor […]
  849. p. 433, line 3[…] better advantage for me than in any library or indoor room—it makes such difference where you read,) Shakspere […]
  850. p. 433, line 6[…] German Nibelungen, the ancient Hindoo poems, and one or two other masterpieces, Dante's among them. As it happen'd, I […]
  851. p. 433, line 14[…] the sun, with the far-spreading landscape and vistas, or the sea rolling in […]
  852. p. 433, line 36[…] also felt strongly (whether I have shown it or not) that to the true and full estimate of the […]
  853. p. 434, line 12[…] of this henceforth homogeneous Union. Without those three or four years and the experiences they gave, "Leaves of Grass […]
  854. p. 434, line 15[…] set out with the intention also of indicating or hinting some point-characteristics which I since see (though I did […]
  855. p. 434, line 22[…] my scheme. The reader will always have his or her part to do, just as much as I have […]
  856. p. 434, line 23[…] have had mine. I seek less to state or display any theme or thought, and more to bring you, reader, into the atmosphere […]
  857. p. 434, line 24[…] you, reader, into the atmosphere of the theme or thought—there to pursue your own flight. Another impetus-word is […]
  858. p. 434, line 36[…] artistic expressers, past and present—Greek æsthetes, Shakspere—or in our own day Tennyson, Victor Hugo, Carlyle, Emerson—is […]
  859. p. 434, line 38[…] questions. I say the profoundest service that poems or any other writings can do for their reader is not […]
  860. p. 434, line 39[…] reader is not merely to satisfy the intellect, or supply something polish'd and interesting, nor even to depict great […]
  861. p. 434, line 40[…] and interesting, nor even to depict great passions, or persons or events, but to fill him with vigorous and […]
  862. p. 434, line 41[…] nor even to depict great passions, or persons or events, but to fill him with vigorous and clean manliness […]
  863. p. 435, line 16[…] in himself," and permit it to be more or less a motif of nearly all my verse. I think […]
  864. p. 435, line 44[…] which Greek and feudal poets endow'd their god-like or lordly born characters—indeed prouder and better based and with […]
  865. p. 436, line 8[…] the States in my songs without any preference or partiality whatever. Henceforth, if they live and are read, it […]
  866. p. 436, line 29[…] Leaves of Grass," and the work must stand or fall with them, as the human body and soul must […]
  867. p. 436, line 31[…] as are certain facts and symptoms of communities or individuals all times, there is nothing so rare in modern […]
  868. p. 437, line 2[…] all. Ever since what might be call'd thought, or the budding of thought, fairly began in my youthful mind […]
  869. p. 437, line 8[…] ones; to formulate a poem whose every thought or fact should directly or indirectly be or connive at an […]
  870. p. 437, line 9[…] poem whose every thought or fact should directly or indirectly be or connive at an implicit belief in the wisdom, health, mystery […]
  871. p. 437, line 11[…] of every process, every concrete object, every human or other existence, not only consider'd from the point of view […]
  872. p. 437, line 13While I can not understand it or argue it out, I fully believe in a clue and […]
  873. p. 437, line 23[…] heroic. To help start and favor that growth—or even to call attention to it, or the need of it—is the beginning, middle and final […]
  874. p. 437, line 29Isolated advantages in any rank or grace or fortune—the direct or indirect threads of all the poetry […]
  875. p. 437, line 30[…] any rank or grace or fortune—the direct or indirect threads of all the poetry of the past—are […]
  876. p. 437, line 41[…] is perhaps mainly an attempt at personal statement or illustration, I will allow myself as further help to extract […]
  877. p. 438, line 3[…] questions (as to what school the work implied or belong'd,) "I do not believe the artist, unknown and perhaps […]
  878. p. 438, line 5[…] world this legacy, ever belong'd to any school, or ever painted anything but this one picture, which is a […]
  879. p. 438, line 15[…] not on "Leaves of Grass " distinctively as literature, or a specimen thereof, that I feel to dwell, or advance claims. No one will get at my verses who […]
  880. p. 438, line 17[…] insists upon viewing them as a literary performance, or attempt at such performance, or as aiming mainly toward art or æstheticism […]
  881. p. 438, line 18[…] such performance, or as aiming mainly toward art or æstheticism […]
  882. p. 438, line 19I say no land or people or circumstances ever existed so needing a race of singers and […]
  883. p. 438, line 36[…] really great poetry is always (like the Homeric or Biblical canticles) the result of a national spirit, and not […]