Leaves of Grass: The Original 1855 Edition (Illustrated)

by Walt Whitman

The United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem.

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

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there is really no death, And if ever there was it led forward life,

I am the poet of the body, And I am the poet of the soul. The pleasures of heaven are with me, and the pains of hell are with me, The first I graft and increase upon myself . . . the latter I translate into a new tongue.

I dream in my dream all the dreams of the other dreamers, And I become the other dreamers.

The melodious character of the earth! The finish beyond which philosophy cannot go and does not wish to go!