dots-menu
×

Upton Sinclair, ed. (1878–1968). rn The Cry for Justice: An Anthology of the Literature of Social Protest. 1915.

The Free Woman

Whitman, Walt

Walt Whitman

(America’s most original and creative poet, 1819–1892; printer and journalist, during the war an army nurse, and later a government clerk, discharged for publishing what his superiors considered an “indecent” book)

SHE is less guarded than ever, yet more guarded than ever,

The gross and soil’d she moves among do not make her gross and soiled,

She knows the thoughts as she passes, nothing is concealed from her,

She is none the less considerate or friendly therefor,

She is the best belov’d, it is without exception; she has no reason to fear, and she does not fear.