Song of Myself: The First and Final Editions of the Great American Poem (Illustrated)

by Walt Whitman

There was never any more inception than there is now, Nor any more youth or age than there is now; And will never be any more perfection than there is now,

They come to me days and nights and go from me again, But they are not the Me myself.

And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.

The smallest sprout shows there is really no death, And if ever there was it led forward life,

Oxen that rattle the yoke or halt in the shade, what is that you express in your eyes? It seems to me more than all the print I have read in my life.