{"product_id":"leaves-of-grass-isbn-9781984897558","title":"Leaves of Grass","description":"In 1855, an unknown but wildly ambitious young poet self-published the first edition of \u003ci\u003eLeaves of Grass\u003c\/i\u003e, consisting of twelve untitled poems and an explanatory preface. Walt Whitman spent the rest of his life engaged in expanding and revising this work, through six editions and nearly four decades, establishing \u003ci\u003eLeaves of Grass\u003c\/i\u003e as one of the central works in the history of world poetry. This edition reproduces the magnificent \"death-bed edition,\" published in 1892 a mere two months before Whitman's death at the age of seventy-two.\"Whitman's best poems have that permanent quality of being freshly painted, of not being dulled by the varnish of the years.\" --Malcolm CowleyWALT WHITMAN (1819-1892), an American poet, essayist, and journalist, was born on Long Island and educated in Brooklyn, New York. He worked as a teacher, government clerk, and journalist and volunteered as a nurse caring for wounded soldiers during the Civil War. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJOHN HOLLANDER was the author of more than a dozen books of poetry and eight books of criticism, including the award-winning \u003ci\u003eRhyme's Reason: A Guide to English Verse\u003c\/i\u003e. He taught at Connecticut College and Yale and was a professor of English at Hunter College and the Graduate Center, CUNY. In 1990 he received a MacArthur Fellowship. He died in August 2013.\u003ci\u003eINSCRIPTIONS\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eOne's-Self I Sing\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e One's-Self I sing, a simple separate person,\u003cbr\u003eYet utter the word Democratic, the word En-Masse.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Of physiology from top to toe  I sing,\u003cbr\u003eNot physiognomy alone nor brain alone is worthy for the \u003cbr\u003eMuse, I say the  Form complete is worthier far,\u003cbr\u003eThe Female equally with the Male I sing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOf Life  immense in passion, pulse, and power,\u003cbr\u003eCheerful, for freest action form'd under the  laws divine,\u003cbr\u003eThe Modern Man I sing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eAs I Ponder'd in Silence\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs I ponder'd  in silence,\u003cbr\u003eReturning upon my poems, considering, lingering long,\u003cbr\u003eA Phantom arose  before me with distrustful aspect,\u003cbr\u003eTerrible in beauty, age, and power,\u003cbr\u003eThe genius  of poets of old lands,\u003cbr\u003eAs to me directing like flame its eyes,\u003cbr\u003eWith finger pointing  to many immortal songs,\u003cbr\u003eAnd menacing voice, What singest thou? it said,\u003cbr\u003eKnow'st  thou not there is but one theme for ever-enduring bards?\u003cbr\u003eAnd that is the theme of  War, the fortune of battles,\u003cbr\u003eThe making of perfect soldiers.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBe it so, then I  answer'd,\u003cbr\u003eI too haughty Shade also sing war, and a longer and greater one than any,\u003cbr\u003eWaged in my book with varying fortune, with flight, advance and retreat, victory  deferr'd and wavering,\u003cbr\u003e(Yet methinks certain, or as good as certain, at the last,)  the field the world,\u003cbr\u003eFor life and death, for the Body and for the eternal Soul,\u003cbr\u003eLo, I too am come, chanting the chant of battles,\u003cbr\u003eI above all promote brave soldiers.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn Cabin'd Ships at Sea\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In cabin'd ships at sea,\u003cbr\u003eThe boundless blue on every  side expanding,\u003cbr\u003eWith whistling winds and music of the waves, the large imperious  waves,\u003cbr\u003eOr some lone bark buoy'd on the dense marine,\u003cbr\u003eWhere joyous full of faith,  spreading white sails,\u003cbr\u003eShe cleaves the ether mid the sparkle and the foam of day,  or under many a star at night,\u003cbr\u003eBy sailors young and old haply will I, a reminiscence  of the land, be read,\u003cbr\u003eIn full rapport at last.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Here are our thoughts, voyagers'  thoughts,\u003cbr\u003eHere not the land, firm land, alone appears, may then by them be said,\u003cbr\u003eThe sky o'erarches here, we feel the undulating deck beneath our feet,\u003cbr\u003eWe feel  the long pulsation, ebb and flow of endless motion,\u003cbr\u003eThe tones of unseen mystery,  the vague and vast suggestions of the briny world, the liquid-flowing syllables,\u003cbr\u003eThe perfume, the faint creaking of the cordage, the melancholy rhythm,\u003cbr\u003eThe boundless  vista and the horizon far and dim are all here,\u003cbr\u003eAnd this is ocean's poem.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThen  falter not O book, fulfil your destiny,\u003cbr\u003eYou not a reminiscence of the land alone,\u003cbr\u003eYou too as a lone bark cleaving the ether, purpos'd I know not whither, yet ever  full of faith,\u003cbr\u003eConsort to every ship that sails, sail you!\u003cbr\u003eBear forth to them folded  my love, (dear mariners, for you I fold it here in every leaf;)\u003cbr\u003eSpeed on my book!  spread your white sails my little bark athwart the imperious waves,\u003cbr\u003eChant on, sail  on, bear o'er the boundless blue from me to every sea,\u003cbr\u003eThis song for mariners and  all their ships.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eTo Foreign Lands\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I heard that you ask'd for something to prove  this puzzle the New World,\u003cbr\u003eAnd to define America, her athletic Democracy,\u003cbr\u003eTherefore  I send you my poems that you behold in them what you wanted.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eTo a Historian\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou who celebrate bygones,\u003cbr\u003eWho have explored the outward, the surfaces of the races,  the life that has exhibited itself,\u003cbr\u003eWho have treated of man as the creature of politics,  aggregates, rulers and priests,\u003cbr\u003eI, habitan of the Alleghanies, treating of him as  he is in himself in his own rights,\u003cbr\u003ePressing the pulse of the life that has seldom  exhibited itself, (the great pride of man in himself,)\u003cbr\u003eChanter of Personality, outlining  what is yet to be,\u003cbr\u003eI project the history of the future.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eTo Thee Old Cause\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTo thee old cause!\u003cbr\u003eThou peerless, passionate, good cause,\u003cbr\u003eThou stern, remorseless,  sweet idea,\u003cbr\u003eDeathless throughout the ages, races, lands,\u003cbr\u003eAfter a strange sad war,  great war for thee,\u003cbr\u003e(I think all war through time was really fought, and ever will  be really fought, for thee,)\u003cbr\u003eThese chants for thee, the eternal march of thee.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e (A war O soldiers not for itself alone,\u003cbr\u003eFar, far more stood silently waiting behind,  now to advance in this book.)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThou orb of many orbs!\u003cbr\u003eThou seething principle!  thou well-kept, latent germ! thou centre!\u003cbr\u003eAround the idea of thee the war revolving,\u003cbr\u003eWith all its angry and vehement play of causes,\u003cbr\u003e(With vast results to come for  thrice a thousand years,)\u003cbr\u003eThese recitatives for thee,--my book and the war are one,\u003cbr\u003eMerged in its spirit I and mine, as the contest hinged on thee,\u003cbr\u003eAs a wheel on its  axis turns, this book unwitting to itself,\u003cbr\u003eAround the idea of thee.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eEidolons\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI met a seer,\u003cbr\u003ePassing the hues and objects of the world,\u003cbr\u003eThe fields of art and  learning, pleasure, sense,\u003cbr\u003eTo glean eidolons.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Put in thy chants said he,\u003cbr\u003eNo  more the puzzling hour nor day, nor segments, parts, put in,\u003cbr\u003ePut first before the  rest as light for all and entrance-song of all,\u003cbr\u003eThat of eidolons.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEver the dim  beginning,\u003cbr\u003eEver the growth, the rounding of the circle,\u003cbr\u003eEver the summit and the  merge at last, (to surely start again,)\u003cbr\u003eEidolons! eidolons!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEver the mutable,\u003cbr\u003eEver materials, changing, crumbling, re-cohering,\u003cbr\u003eEver the ateliers, the factories  divine,\u003cbr\u003eIssuing eidolons.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLo, I or you,\u003cbr\u003eOr woman, man, or state, known or unknown,\u003cbr\u003eWe seeming solid wealth, strength, beauty build,\u003cbr\u003eBut really build eidolons.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe ostent evanescent,\u003cbr\u003eThe substance of an artist's mood or savan's studies long,\u003cbr\u003eOr warrior's, martyr's, hero's toils,\u003cbr\u003eTo fashion his eidolon.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOf every human  life,\u003cbr\u003e(The units gather'd, posted, not a thought, emotion, deed, left out,)\u003cbr\u003eThe  whole or large or small summ'd, added up,\u003cbr\u003eIn its eidolon.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe old, old urge,\u003cbr\u003eBased on the ancient pinnacles, lo, newer, higher pinnacles,\u003cbr\u003eFrom science and the  modern still impell'd,\u003cbr\u003eThe old, old urge, eidolons.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe present now and here,\u003cbr\u003eAmerica's busy, teeming, intricate whirl,\u003cbr\u003eOf aggregate and segregate for only thence  releasing,\u003cbr\u003eTo-day's eidolons.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThese with the past,\u003cbr\u003eOf vanish'd lands, of all  the reigns of kings across the sea,\u003cbr\u003eOld conquerors, old campaigns, old sailors'  voyages,\u003cbr\u003eJoining eidolons.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDensities, growth, facades,\u003cbr\u003eStrata of mountains,  soils, rocks, giant trees,\u003cbr\u003eFar-born, far-dying, living long, to leave,\u003cbr\u003eEidolons  everlasting.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eExalte, rapt, ecstatic,\u003cbr\u003eThe visible but their womb of birth,\u003cbr\u003eOf  orbic tendencies to shape and shape and shape,\u003cbr\u003eThe mighty earth-eidolon.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAll  space, all time,\u003cbr\u003e(The stars, the terrible perturbations of the suns,\u003cbr\u003eSwelling,  collapsing, ending, serving their longer, shorter use,)\u003cbr\u003eFill'd with eidolons only.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The noiseless myriads,\u003cbr\u003eThe infinite oceans where the rivers empty,\u003cbr\u003eThe separate  countless free identities, like eyesight,\u003cbr\u003eThe true realities, eidolons.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNot this  the world,\u003cbr\u003eNor these the universes, they the universes,\u003cbr\u003ePurport and end, ever the  permanent life of life,\u003cbr\u003eEidolons, eidolons.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBeyond thy lectures learn'd professor,\u003cbr\u003eBeyond thy telescope or spectroscope observer keen, beyond all mathematics,\u003cbr\u003eBeyond  the doctor's surgery, anatomy, beyond the chemist with his chemistry,\u003cbr\u003eThe entities  of entities, eidolons.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eUnfix'd yet fix'd,\u003cbr\u003eEver shall be, ever have been and are,\u003cbr\u003eSweeping the present to the infinite future,\u003cbr\u003eEidolons, eidolons, eidolons.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe  prophet and the bard,\u003cbr\u003eShall yet maintain themselves, in higher stages yet,\u003cbr\u003eShall  mediate to the Modern, to Democracy, interpret yet to them,\u003cbr\u003eGod and eidolons.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd thee my soul,\u003cbr\u003eJoys, ceaseless exercises, exaltations,\u003cbr\u003eThy yearning amply fed  at last, prepared to meet,\u003cbr\u003eThy mates, eidolons.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThy body permanent,\u003cbr\u003eThe body  lurking there within thy body,\u003cbr\u003eThe only purport of the form thou art, the real I  myself,\u003cbr\u003eAn image, an eidolon.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThy very songs not in thy songs,\u003cbr\u003eNo special strains  to sing, none for itself,\u003cbr\u003eBut from the whole resulting, rising at last and floating,\u003cbr\u003eA round full-orb'd eidolon.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eFor Him I Sing\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor him I sing,\u003cbr\u003eI raise the present  on the past,\u003cbr\u003e(As some perennial tree out of its roots, the present on the past,)\u003cbr\u003eWith time and space I him dilate and fuse the immortal laws,\u003cbr\u003eTo make himself by  them the law unto himself.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eWhen I Read the Book\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e When I read the book, the biography  famous,\u003cbr\u003eAnd is this then (said I) what the author calls a man's life?\u003cbr\u003eAnd so will  some one when I am dead and gone write my life?\u003cbr\u003e(As if any man really knew aught  of my life,\u003cbr\u003eWhy even I myself I often think know little or nothing of my real life,\u003cbr\u003eOnly a few hints, a few diffused faint clews and indirections\u003cbr\u003eI seek for my own  use to trace out here.)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eBeginning My Studies\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBeginning my studies the first  step pleas'd me so much,\u003cbr\u003eThe mere fact consciousness, these forms, the power of  motion,\u003cbr\u003eThe least insect or animal, the senses, eyesight, love,\u003cbr\u003eThe first step  I say awed me and pleas'd me so much,\u003cbr\u003eI have hardly gone and hardly wish'd to go  any farther,\u003cbr\u003eBut stop and loiter all the time to sing it in ecstatic songs.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eBeginners\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHow they are provided for upon the earth, (appearing at intervals,)\u003cbr\u003eHow dear  and dreadful they are to the earth,\u003cbr\u003eHow they inure to themselves as much as to any--what  a paradox appears their age,\u003cbr\u003eHow people respond to them, yet know them not,\u003cbr\u003eHow  there is something relentless in their fate all times,\u003cbr\u003eHow all times mischoose the  objects of their adulation and reward,\u003cbr\u003eAnd how the same inexorable price must still  be paid for the same great purchase.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eTo The States\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTo the States or any one  of them, or any city of the States, Resist much, obey little,\u003cbr\u003eOnce unquestioning  obedience, once fully enslaved,\u003cbr\u003eOnce fully enslaved, no nation, state, city of this  earth, ever afterward resumes its liberty.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eOn Journeys through the States\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn  journeys through the States we start,\u003cbr\u003e(Ay through the world, urged by these songs,\u003cbr\u003eSailing henceforth to every land, to every sea,)\u003cbr\u003eWe willing learners of all, teachers  of all, and lovers of all.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe have watch'd the seasons dispensing themselves and  passing on,\u003cbr\u003eAnd have said, Why should not a man or woman do as much as the seasons,  and effuse as much?\u003cbr\u003eWe dwell a while in every city and town,\u003cbr\u003eWe pass through Kanada,  the North-east, the vast valley of the Mississippi, and the Southern States,\u003cbr\u003eWe  confer on equal terms with each of the States,\u003cbr\u003eWe make trial of ourselves and invite  men and women to\u003cbr\u003ehear,\u003cbr\u003eWe say to ourselves, Remember, fear not, be candid, promulge  the body and the soul,\u003cbr\u003eDwell a while and pass on, be copious, temperate, chaste,  magnetic,\u003cbr\u003eAnd what you effuse may then return as the seasons return,\u003cbr\u003eAnd may be  just as much as the seasons.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eTo a Certain Cantatrice\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Here, take this gift,\u003cbr\u003eI was reserving it for some hero, speaker, or general,\u003cbr\u003eOne who should serve the  good old cause, the great idea, the progress and freedom of the race,\u003cbr\u003eSome brave  confronter of despots, some daring rebel;\u003cbr\u003eBut I see that what I was reserving belongs  to you just as much as to any.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eMe Imperturbe\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMe imperturbe, standing at ease  in Nature,\u003cbr\u003eMaster of all or mistress of all, aplomb in the midst of irrational things,\u003cbr\u003eImbued as they, passive, receptive, silent as they,\u003cbr\u003eFinding my occupation, poverty,  notoriety, foibles, crimes, less important than I thought,\u003cbr\u003eMe toward the Mexican  sea, or in the Mannahatta or the Tennessee, or far north or inland,\u003cbr\u003eA 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,\u003cbr\u003eMe wherever my life is lived, O to be self-balanced for contingencies,\u003cbr\u003eTo confront night, storms, hunger, ridicule, accidents, rebuffs, as the trees and  animals do.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eSavantism\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThither as I look I see each result and glory retracing  itself and nestling close, always obligated,\u003cbr\u003eThither hours, months, years--thither  trades, compacts, establishments, even the most minute,\u003cbr\u003eThither every-day life,  speech, utensils, politics, persons, estates;\u003cbr\u003eThither we also, I with my leaves  and songs, trustful, admirant,\u003cbr\u003eAs a father to his father going takes his children  along with him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Ship Starting\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLo, the unbounded sea,\u003cbr\u003eOn its breast a ship  starting, spreading all sails, carrying even her moonsails,\u003cbr\u003eThe pennant is flying  aloft as she speeds she speeds so stately--\u003cbr\u003ebelow emulous waves press forward,\u003cbr\u003eThey surround the ship with shining curving motions and foam.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eI Hear America Singing\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,\u003cbr\u003eThose of mechanics, each one  singing his as it should be blithe and strong,\u003cbr\u003eThe carpenter singing his as he measures  his plank or beam,\u003cbr\u003eThe mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off  work,\u003cbr\u003eThe boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing  on the steamboat deck,\u003cbr\u003eThe shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter  singing as he stands,\u003cbr\u003eThe wood-cutter's song, the ploughboy's on his way in the  morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown,\u003cbr\u003eThe delicious singing of the mother,  or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing,\u003cbr\u003eEach singing what  belongs to him or her and to none else,\u003cbr\u003eThe day what belongs to the day--at night  the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,\u003cbr\u003eSinging with open mouths their strong  melodious songs.Introduction by John Hollander","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46304886849765,"sku":"NP9781984897558","price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781984897558.jpg?v=1767731251","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/leaves-of-grass-isbn-9781984897558","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}