Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.
Descriptive Poems: I. Personal: Great WritersMyself
Walt Whitman (18191892)From “The Song of Myself”
I
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.
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.
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.