Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry.
Volume VII. Descriptive: Narrative. 1904. | | | | Descriptive Poems: I. Personal: Great Writers | | Myself | | Walt Whitman (1819–1892) |
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I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself, | |
| And what I assume you shall assume, | |
| For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. | |
| I loaf and invite my soul, | |
| I lean and loaf at my ease observing a spear of summer grass. | 5 |
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| My tongue, every atom of my blood, formed from this soil, this air, | |
| Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same, | |
| I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin, | |
| Hoping to cease not till death. | |
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| Creeds and schools in abeyance, | 10 |
| Retiring back awhile sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten, | |
| I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard, | |
| Nature without check with original energy. | | | | |
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