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Cover of Leaves of Grass

Leaves of Grass

by Walt Whitman (1819–1892)

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  • 8 hours to read
  • 78 chapters
  • Reading level: 8th & 9th grade

"Leaves of Grass" by Walt Whitman is a poetry collection first published in 1855. Beginning with just twelve poems, Whitman continuously revised and expanded this work throughout his life, eventually creating a collection of over four hundred poems. He celebrates American democracy, nature, the human body, and sensual pleasure in verse that breaks traditional rules of rhyme and meter. The book's explicit content sparked controversy and condemnation, yet it ultimately became recognized as one of the central works of American poetry.

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  • American poetry · 19th century

Read the opening

Book I: Inscriptions

One’s-Self I Sing

One’s-self I sing, a simple separate person,
Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-Masse.

Of physiology from top to toe I sing,
Not physiognomy alone nor brain alone is worthy for the Muse, I say
the Form complete is worthier far,
The Female equally with the Male I sing.

Of Life immense in passion, pulse, and power,
Cheerful, for freest action form’d under the laws divine,
The Modern Man I sing.

As I Ponder’d in Silence

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Contents

Show all 78 chapters
  1. Book I: Inscriptions
  2. Book II
  3. Book II
  4. Chapter 10: Know you, solely to drop in the earth the germs of a greater religion, The following chants each for its kind I sing
  5. Chapter 12: Democracy! near at hand to you a throat is now inflating itself and joyfully singing
  6. Chapter 14: Whoever you are, to you endless announcements!
  7. Book III
  8. Book III
  9. Chapter 5: I believe in you my soul, the other I am must not abase itself to you, And you must not be abased to the other
  10. Chapter 6: A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands; How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he
  11. Chapter 7: Has any one supposed it lucky to be born? I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die, and I know it
  12. Chapter 20: Who goes there? hankering, gross, mystical, nude; How is it I extract strength from the beef I eat?
  13. Chapter 23: Endless unfolding of words of ages! And mine a word of the modern, the word En-Masse
  14. Chapter 25: Dazzling and tremendous how quick the sun-rise would kill me, If I could not now and always send sun-rise out of me
  15. Chapter 26: Now I will do nothing but listen, To accrue what I hear into this song, to let sounds contribute toward it
  16. Chapter 29: Blind loving wrestling touch, sheath’d hooded sharp-tooth’d touch! Did it make you ache so, leaving me?
  17. Chapter 39: The friendly and flowing savage, who is he? Is he waiting for civilization, or past it and mastering it?
  18. Chapter 40: Flaunt of the sunshine I need not your bask — lie over! You light surfaces only, I force surfaces and depths also
  19. Chapter 41: I am he bringing help for the sick as they pant on their backs, And for strong upright men I bring yet more needed help
  20. Chapter 42: A call in the midst of the crowd, My own voice, orotund sweeping and final
  21. Chapter 44: It is time to explain myself — let us stand up
  22. Chapter 45: O span of youth! ever-push’d elasticity! O manhood, balanced, florid and full
  23. Chapter 46: I know I have the best of time and space, and was never measured and never will be measured
  24. Chapter 49: And as to you Death, and you bitter hug of mortality, it is idle to try to alarm me
  25. Chapter 50: There is that in me — I do not know what it is — but I know it is in me
  26. Chapter 51: The past and present wilt — I have fill’d them, emptied them. And proceed to fill my next fold of the future
  27. Chapter 52: The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering
  28. Book IV: Children of Adam
  29. Book IV: Children of Adam
  30. Chapter 3: I knew a man, a common farmer, the father of five sons, And in them the fathers of sons, and in them the fathers of sons
  31. Book V: Calamus
  32. Book VI
  33. Book VI
  34. Chapter 3: What do you hear Walt Whitman?
  35. Book VII
  36. Book VII
  37. Chapter 9: Allons! whoever you are come travel with me! Traveling with me you find what never tires
  38. Chapter 14: Allons! through struggles and wars! The goal that was named cannot be countermanded
  39. Book VIII
  40. Book VIII
  41. Chapter 5: What is it then between us? What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us?
  42. Book IX
  43. Chapter 1: Now list to my morning’s romanza, I tell the signs of the Answerer, To the cities and farms I sing as they spread in the sunshine before me
  44. Book X
  45. Book XI
  46. Book XII
  47. Book XII
  48. Chapter 9: (America! I do not vaunt my love for you, I have what I have.)
  49. Book XIII
  50. Book XIV
  51. Book XV
  52. Book XVI
  53. Book XVI
  54. Chapter 2: Whoever you are! motion and reflection are especially for you, The divine ship sails the divine sea for you
  55. Book XVII: Birds of Passage
  56. Book XVII: Birds of Passage
  57. Chapter 3: In the name of these States and in your and my name, the Past, And in the name of these States and in your and my name, the Present time
  58. Book XVIII
  59. Book XIX: Sea-Drift
  60. Book XX: By the Roadside: A Boston Ballad [1854]
  61. Book XXI: Drum-Taps
  62. Book XXII: Memories of President Lincoln
  63. Book XXII: Memories of President Lincoln
  64. Chapter 4: In the swamp in secluded recesses, A shy and hidden bird is warbling a song
  65. Book XXIII
  66. Book XXIII
  67. Chapter 5: Ages, precedents, have long been accumulating undirected materials, America brings builders, and brings its own styles
  68. Chapter 11: For the great Idea, That, O my brethren, that is the mission of poets
  69. Chapter 14: Fall behind me States! A man before all — myself, typical, before all
  70. Book XXIV: Autumn Rivulets
  71. Book XXV
  72. Book XXVI
  73. Book XXVI
  74. Chapter 2: Passage O soul to India! Eclaircise the myths Asiatic, the primitive fables
  75. Book XXVII
  76. Book XXVIII
  77. Book XXVIII
  78. Chapter 2: I descend my western course, my sinews are flaccid, Perfume and youth course through me and I am their wake
  79. Chapter 4: I turn but do not extricate myself, Confused, a past-reading, another, but with darkness yet
  80. Book XXIX
  81. Chapter 1: To think of time — of all that retrospection, To think of to-day, and the ages continued henceforward
  82. Chapter 2: Not a day passes, not a minute or second without an accouchement, Not a day passes, not a minute or second without a corpse
  83. Chapter 6: What will be will be well, for what is is well, To take interest is well, and not to take interest shall be well
  84. Book XXX: Whispers of Heavenly Death
  85. Book XXXI
  86. Book XXXII: From Noon to Starry Night
  87. Book XXXII: From Noon to Starry Night
  88. Chapter 2: Do you suppose I could be content with all if I thought them their own finale?
  89. Chapter 5: The old face of the mother of many children, Whist! I am fully content
  90. Chapter 1: Hark, some wild trumpeter, some strange musician, Hovering unseen in air, vibrates capricious tunes to-night
  91. Chapter 4: Blow again trumpeter! and for my sensuous eyes, Bring the old pageants, show the feudal world
  92. Chapter 6: Blow again trumpeter — conjure war’s alarums
  93. Book XXXIII: Songs of Parting
  94. Book XXXIV: Sands at Seventy

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About this edition

This free edition of Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman comes from Project Gutenberg eBook #1322, released 1998-05-01. It is in the public domain in the United States, so you can read it here in full at no cost, on any phone, tablet or computer. Genre: Poetry, Classics of Literature, American Literature.

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