Leaves of Grass pdf Walt Whitman Free Download

Walt Whitman, an American, one of the roughs, a kosmos,
Disorderly fleshy and sensual .... eating drinking and breeding,
No sentimentalist .... no stander above men and women or apart
from them .... no more modest than immodest.

Unscrew the locks from the doors!
Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs!

(FROM “SONG OF MYSELF,” 1855, PAGE 52)

I have perceived that to be with those I like is enough,
To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough,
To be surrounded by beautiful curious breathing laughing flesh
is enough,
To pass among them ... to touch any one .... to rest my arm ever
so lightly round his or her neck for a moment .... what is this
then?
I do not ask any more delight .... I swim in it as in a sea.

(FROM “I SING THE BODY ELECTRIC,” 1855, PAGE 121)

To the States or any one of them, or any city of the States,
Resist much, obey little.

(FROM “TO THE STATES,” PAGE 173)

Shut not your doors to me proud libraries,
For that which was lacking on all your well-fill’d shelves, yet
needed most, I bring,
Forth from the war emerging, a book I have made,
The words of my book nothing, the drift of it every thing.

(FROM “SHUT NOT YOUR DOORS,” PAGE 176)

[These women] are not one jot less than I am,
They are tann’d in the face by shining suns and blowing winds,
Their flesh has the old divine suppleness and strength,
They know how to swim, row, ride, wrestle, shoot, run, strike,
retreat, advance, resist, defend themselves,
They are ultimate in their own right—they are calm, clear,
well-possess’d of themselves.

(FROM “A WOMAN WAITS FOR ME,” PAGES 263-264)

City of the world! (for all races are here,
All the lands of the earth make contributions here;)
City of the sea! city of hurried and glittering tides!
City whose gleeful tides continually rush or recede, whirling in
and out with eddies and foam!
City of wharves and stores—city of tall façades of marble and iron!
Proud and passionate city—mettlesome, mad, extravagant city!

(FROM “CITY OF SHIPS,” PAGE 444)

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

(FROM “O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN!” PAGE 484)

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Published by Barnes & Noble Books
122 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10011

www.BookishMall.com.com/classics

Leaves of Grass was published anonymously in 1855.
Throughout his life, Whitman revised Leaves of Grass and regularly issued
new editions. The final authorized ninth, or “Death-bed,”
edition was published in 1891-1892.

Published by Barnes & Noble Classics in 2004 with new Introduction,
Notes, Biography, Chronology, Publication Information, Inspired By,
Comments & Questions, For Further Reading, and Index.

Introduction, Notes, Publishing Information, and For Further Reading

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system,
without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Barnes & Noble Classics and the Barnes & Noble Classics
colophon are trademarks of Barnes & Noble, Inc.

Leaves of Grass

ISBN-13: 978-1-59308-083-9
ISBN-10: 1-59308-083-2

eISBN : 978-1-411-43252-9

LC Control Number 2004102191

Produced and published in conjunction with
Fine Creative Media, Inc.
322 Eighth Avenue
New York, NY 10001

Michael J. Fine, President and Publisher

Printed in the United States of America
QM
5 7 9 10 8 6 4

WALT WHITMAN

004

Walt Whitman was born on May 31, 1819, on a farm near West Hills, New York, on Long Island. In 1823, Walter Senior moved his growing family to Brooklyn, where he worked as a carpenter and introduced Walt to freethinkers and reformers like the Quaker preacher Elias Hicks and women’s rights activist Frances Wright. One of Whitman’s most vivid childhood memories was of being hoisted onto the shoulders of General Lafayette during a visit the Revolutionary War hero made to New York.

While many notable American figures of the mid-nineteenth century, such as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Nathaniel Hawthorne, were the privileged sons of well-established families, Whitman was, at least on the basis of his humble origins, indeed a man of the people. His mother, Louisa Van Velsor, an unfailing supporter of her literary-minded son, was barely literate; of the seven Whitman offspring who survived infancy, Eddy was mentally disabled, Jesse spent much of his life in an insane asylum, Andrew died young of alcoholism and tuberculosis, and Hannah married an abusive man who repeatedly beat her. Whitman was confronted with these often sordid family matters through much of his adult life.

Walt dropped out of school when he was eleven, though he continued to read widely and soon entered the newspaper business as a printer’s apprentice. Before long he was editing and writing for some of the most popular newspapers of the day.

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