• Frontispiece engraving of Walt Whitman [age 36] by Samuel Hollyer, based on a daguerreotype by Gabriel Harrison, for the first edition of Leaves of Grass, 1855, which was self-published. • Source: Walt Whitman at the Lilly (curated by Christoph Irmscher), Indiana University Library, Bloomington.

WALT WHITMAN: POETRY & PROSE Literary Classics of the United States, Inc., New York, N.Y., 1982. Published in the United States by Library of America. Twenty-second printing, 1982.

#WhitmanWednesday 🌾

Allons! the road is before us!
It is safe — I have tried it — my own feet have tried it well —
be not detain'd!
Let the paper remain on the desk unwritten, and the book
on the shelf unopen'd!
Let the tools remain in the workshop! let the money remain
unearn'd!

• Walt Whitman (1819–1892) frequently visited Philadelphia’s Chestnut Street during his later years while residing in nearby Camden, NJ. • Interesting use of rhyme, which is relatively rare for Whitman. • From: Specimen Days & Collect, published 1882, Philadelphia, Rees Welsh & Company. Sources: • Brigham Young University Library, Internet Archive. • WALT WHITMAN: POETRY & PROSE Literary Classics of the United States, Inc., New York, N.Y., 1982. Published in the United States by Library of America. Twenty-second printing, 1982.

📷 "Walt Whitman by G. Frank Pearsall, September 1872" from The Walt Whitman Archive.

#WhitmanWednesday 🌾

How fast the flitting figures come!
The mild, the fierce, the stony face;
Some bright with thoughtless smiles—and some
Where secret tears have left their trace.

- Whitman (The First Spring Day on Chestnut Street)

#WhitmanWednesday 🌾

. . . Alas, the 'right day' never came. Whitman once confided:

"There is something furtive in my nature, like an old hen."

- Walt Whitman Speaks (from the marvelous introduction by Brenda Wineapple)

Source: "Walt Whitman Speaks: His Final Thoughts on Life, Writing, Spirituality, and the Promise of America" as told to his friend and confidante Horace Traubel over the last several years (c. 1888-1892) of Whitman's life. Published by Library of America, 2019. • From the marvelous Introduction by Brenda Wineapple.🫶✨

#WhitmanWednesday 🌾

"The one big factor, entanglement (I may almost say tragedy) of my life about which I have not so far talked freely with you […] Some day the right day will come—then we'll have a big pow-wow about it."

- Whitman (to oral biographer Horace Traubel)

[+]

• Frontispiece engraving of Walt Whitman [age 36+/-] by Samuel Hollyer, based on a daguerreotype by Gabriel Harrison, for the first edition of Leaves of Grass, 1855, which was self-published. • Source: Walt Whitman at the Lilly (curated by Christoph Irmscher), Indiana University Library, Bloomington.

Excerpt: From "Spring Overtures—Recreations", Specimen Days & Collect, published 1882, Philadelphia, Rees Welsh & Company. Source: Brigham Young University Library, Internet Archive.

#WhitmanWednesday 🌾

"A solitary & pleasant sundown hour at the pond, exercising arms, chest, my whole body, by a tough oak sapling […] After I wrestle with the tree awhile, I can feel its young sap & virtue welling up out of the ground and tingling through me from crown to toe, like health's wine."

Excerpt: "The Common Earth, The Soil" from Specimen Days & Collect First published, 1882, Philadelphia, Rees Welsh & Company. Source: Brigham Young University Library, Internet Archive.

Photo: "Walt Whitman by Napoleon Sarony, July 1878" Source: Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price.

#WhitmanWednesday 🌾

"Let others pen-and-ink the sea, the air, (as I sometimes try)—but now I feel to choose the common soil for theme— […] the dead leaves, the incipient grass, and the latent life underneath—the effort to start something..."

Poem: "Thought", By the Roadside, Collected in Leaves of Grass, c. 1891 - 1892. • Source: WALT WHITMAN: POETRY & PROSE Literary Classics of the United States, Inc., New York, N.Y. Published in the United States by Library of America. Twenty-second printing, 1982.

Portrait: "Walt Whitman [age 50] by G. Frank Pearsall, ca. 1869." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price.

#WhitmanWednesday 🌾

~ Thought ~

Of Equality—as if it harm'd me, giving others the same
chances and rights as myself—as if it were not
indispensable to my own rights that others possess the
same.

- Walt Whitman, By the Roadside, c. 1860

• Quote: Collected in Leaves of Grass, c. 1891 - 1892. • Source: WALT WHITMAN: POETRY & PROSE Literary Classics of the United States, Inc., New York, N.Y. Published in the United States by Library of America. Twenty-second printing, 1982.

Portrait: "Walt Whitman [age 50] by G. Frank Pearsall, ca. 1869 - 1872." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price.

#WhitmanWednesday 🌾

~ Thought ~
Of obedience, faith, adhesiveness;
As I stand aloof and look there is to me something
profoundly affecting in large masses of men following
the lead of those who do not believe in men.

- Walt Whitman, By the Roadside, c. 1860

WALT WHITMAN: POETRY & PROSE Literary Classics of the United States, Inc., New York, N.Y., 1982. Published in the United States by Library of America. Twenty-second printing, 1982.

• Portrait: "Walt Whitman by G. Frank Pearsall, ca. 1869 - 1872." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. • Quote: Walt Whitman wrote "Who Gets the Plunder?" as part of his prose edition Collect, which was published in 1882 as a companion piece to Specimen Days. [Whitman Archive]

#WhitmanWednesday 🌾

The protectionists are fond of flashing to the public eye the glittering delusion of great money-results...But the fact itself is nothing of the kind. The profits of 'protection' go altogether to a few score select persons,...forming a vulgar aristocracy.

-Who Gets the Plunder?

WALT WHITMAN: POETRY & PROSE Literary Classics of the United States, Inc., New York, N.Y., 1982. Published in the United States by Library of America. Twenty-second printing, 1982.

• Portrait: "Walt Whitman by G. Frank Pearsall, ca. 1869 - 1872." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. • Walt Whitman wrote "Who Gets the Plunder?" as part of his prose collection Collect, which was published in 1882 as a companion piece to Specimen Days. [Whitman Archive]

#WhitmanWednesday 🌾

"As Sismondi pointed out, the true prosperity of a nation is not in the great wealth of a special class, but is only to be really attain'd in having the bulk of the people provided with homes or land in fee simple."

- Walt Whitman, Who Gets the Plunder?, c. 1882

Source: "Walt Whitman Speaks: His Final Thoughts on Life, Writing, Spirituality, and the Promise of America" as told to his friend and confidante Horace Traubel over the last several years (c. 1888-1892) of Whitman's life. Published by Library of America, 2019.

#WhitmanWednesday 🌾

People think an event consists of itself alone—but what event is there but involves a thousand elements scarcely dreamed of?

- Walt Whitman, c. 1890

• Title page of the first edition of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, 1855, which was self-published. It was printed and bound by Rome Brothers, Brooklyn, New York, with roughly 300 copies printed in the first run, with additional runs in 1855 totaling about 800 copies — and with the printing, reportedly, closely overseen by Whitman, himself. • WALT WHITMAN: POETRY & PROSE Literary Classics of the United States, Inc., New York, N.Y., 1982. Published in the United States by Library of America. Twenty-second printing, 1982.

• Frontispiece engraving of Walt Whitman [age 36] by Samuel Hollyer, based on a daguerreotype by Gabriel Harrison, for the first edition of Leaves of Grass, 1855, which was self-published. • Source: Walt Whitman at the Lilly (curated by Christoph Irmscher), Indiana University Library, Bloomington.

#WhitmanWednesday 🌾

The truth in man is no dictum, it is vital as eyesight —
If there be any soul there is truth,
If there be equilibrium or volition there is truth

- Walt Whitman, c. 1855

Portrait of Walt Whitman, 1875 [age 56] by Thomas Wilmer Dewing. Chalk on paper. Smithsonian American Art Museum. Public domain.

WALT WHITMAN: POETRY & PROSE Literary Classics of the United States, Inc., New York, N.Y., 1982. Published in the United States by Library of America. Twenty-second printing.

#WhitmanWednesday 🌾

RoamIng in thought over the Universe, I saw the little that
is Good steadily hastening towards immortality,
And the vast all that is call'd Evil I saw hastening to merge
itself and become lost and dead.

- Walt Whitman, c. 1892

• Whitman often used ellipses in the first edition of Leaves of Grass, as shown in this excerpt. • Title page of the first edition of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, 1855, which was self-published. It was printed and bound in Brooklyn, New York, with roughly 300 copies in the first run – with the printing, reportedly, overseen by Whitman himself. • Notably, the author's name is omitted, but is seen only in the copyright notice ("Walter Whitman"); however, later on, as the poem's speaker in the book's central work "Song of Myself," he identifies himself as "Walt Whitman, an American, one of the roughs..." • Source: Walt Whitman at the Lilly (curated by Christoph Irmscher), Indiana University Library, Bloomington.

• Frontispiece engraving of Walt Whitman [age 36] by Samuel Hollyer, based on a daguerreotype by Gabriel Harrison, for the first edition of Leaves of Grass, 1855, which was self-published. • Source: Walt Whitman at the Lilly (curated by Christoph Irmscher), Indiana University Library, Bloomington.

#WhitmanWednesday 🌾

I lie abstracted and hear beautiful tales of things and the
reasons of things,
They are so beautiful I nudge myself to listen.

I cannot say to any person what I hear . . . . I cannot say it
to myself . . . . it is very wonderful.

- Walt Whitman

• Quote is from "With Walt Whitman in Camden" (1906) by his oral biographer, Horace Traubel. • Source: "Walt Whitman Speaks: His Final Thoughts on Life, Writing, Spirituality, and the Promise of America" as told to his friend and confidante Horace Traubel over the last several years (c. 1888-1892) of Whitman's life. Published by Library of America, 2019.

#WhitmanWednesday 🌾

"It was not my purpose to produce a work to dazzle the scholar but to tell a simple story."

- Horace Traubel (Whitman's oral biographer)

Source: "Walt Whitman Speaks: His Final Thoughts on Life, Writing, Spirituality, and the Promise of America" as told to his friend and confidante Horace Traubel over the last several years (c. 1888-1892) of Whitman's life. Published by Library of America, 2019. Photo: From my wife's Monday walk.

#WhitmanWednesday 🌾

"We carry our fresh air with us, wherever we go. He who has it, has it anywhere — nothing can rob him of it."

- Walt Whitman

From my wife's walk:

• Quote is from Whitman's preface to Leaves of Grass, 1855. • Title page of the first edition of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, 1855, which was self-published. It was printed and bound in Brooklyn, New York, with roughly 300 copies in the first run – with the printing, reportedly, overseen by Whitman himself. • Notably, the author's name is omitted, but is seen only in the copyright notice ("Walter Whitman"); however, later on, as the poem's speaker in the book's central work "Song of Myself," he identifies himself as "Walt Whitman, an American, one of the roughs..." • Source: Walt Whitman at the Lilly (curated by Christoph Irmscher), Indiana University Library, Bloomington.

• Frontispiece engraving of Walt Whitman [age 36] by Samuel Hollyer, based on a daguerreotype by Gabriel Harrison, for the first edition of Leaves of Grass, 1855, which was self-published. • Source: Walt Whitman at the Lilly (curated by Christoph Irmscher), Indiana University Library, Bloomington.

#WhitmanWednesday 🌾

Most works are most beautiful without ornament.

- Walt Whitman, c. 1855

"Walt Whitman Speaks: His Final Thoughts on Life, Writing, Spirituality, and the Promise of America" as told to his friend and confidante Horace Traubel over the last several years (c. 1888-1892) of Whitman's life. Published by Library of America, 2019.

From Brenda Wineapple's Introduction.

#WhitmanWednesday 🌾

"You know how I shy at problems, duties, consciences: you seem to like to trip me with your pertinent impertinences."

- Whitman (to confidant and oral biographer, Horace Traubel)

• This excerpt is from Whitman's poem "Salut au Monde !" — first published in the 1856 edition of Leaves of Grass, entitled "Poem of Salutation" and subsequently receiving its present title in 1860. [source: Carol M. Zapata-Whelan, whitmanarchive.org ] • WALT WHITMAN: POETRY & PROSE Literary Classics of the United States, Inc., New York, N.Y., 1982. Published in the United States by Library of America. Twenty-second printing. www.loa.org.

• The poem excerpt is from the second edition of Leaves of Grass (1856), but this since this engraving (1855) depicts Whitman at roughly the same age, it is included here. • Frontispiece engraving of Walt Whitman [age 36] by Samuel Hollyer, based on a daguerreotype by Gabriel Harrison, for the first edition of Leaves of Grass, 1855, which was self-published. • Source: Walt Whitman at the Lilly (curated by Christoph Irmscher), Indiana University Library, Bloomington.

#WhitmanWednesday 🌾

Each of us inevitable,
Each of us limitless—each of us with his or her right upon
the earth,
Each of us allow'd the eternal purports of the earth,
Each of us here as divinely as any is here.

- Walt Whitman, c. 1856

[+]

"Walt Whitman Speaks: His Final Thoughts on Life, Writing, Spirituality, and the Promise of America" as told to his friend and confidante Horace Traubel over the last several years (c. 1888-1892) of Whitman's life. Published by Library of America, 2019.

#WhitmanWednesday 🌾

"Can any sound man believe in a patriotism that means America alone?"

- Walt Whitman, c.1890

• From Whitman's poem Song of the Universal (Birds of Passage, Leaves of Grass, c. 1892). • Publisher: Library of America, 1982, New York, NY.

Portrait: Thomas Wilmer Dewing, Walt Whitman, 1875 [age 56], chalk on paper. Smithsonian American Art Museum.

#WhitmanWednesday 🌾

"In this broad earth of ours,
Amid the measureless grossness and the slag,
Enclosed and safe within its central heart,
Nestles the seed perfection."

- Walt Whitman, c. 1892

Portrait: Thomas Wilmer Dewing, Walt Whitman, 1875 [age 56], chalk on paper. Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Source: whitmanarchive.org Knapp, Ronald W. ''Song of the Universal" (1876)." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price.

#WhitmanWednesday 🌾

Come, said the Muse,
Sing me a song no poet yet has chanted,
Sing me the Universal.

- Walt Whitman

This poem was first published in 1860 as "Walt Whitman's Caution" in the Messenger Leaves section of Leaves of Grass. For the c. 1891 edition, the title was changed, as shown here. Source: WALT WHITMAN: POETRY & PROSE Library of America (Literary Classics of America, 1982, New York, NY).

#WhitmanWednesday 🌾

"Once unquestioning obedience, once fully enslaved,
Once fully enslaved, no nation, state, city of this earth, ever
afterward resumes its liberty."

- Walt Whitman, To The States (1860, 1891)*

#WhitmanWednesday

Beginning of Whitman's Song of the Open Road, c. 1892, from Leaves of Grass. Library of America, 1982, New York, NY.

Portrait: Walt Whitman, 1875, by Thomas Wilmer Dewing, chalk on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum.

#WhitmanWednesday 🌾

"AFOOT and light-hearted I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose."

- Walt Whitman, Song of the Open Road, c. 1892

Publisher: Library of America, 1982, New York, NY.

Portrait: Walt Whitman, c. 1875, by Thomas Wilmer Dewing, chalk on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum.

#WhitmanWednesday 🌾

"Why, who makes much of a miracle?
As to me I know of nothing else but miracles...

To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle..."

- Walt Whitman, c. 1892

• Title page of the first edition of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, 1855, which was self-published. It was printed and bound in Brooklyn, New York, with roughly 300 copies in the first run – with the printing, reportedly, overseen by Whitman himself. • Notably, the author's name is omitted, but is seen only in the copyright notice ("Walter Whitman"); however, later on, as the poem's speaker in the book's central work "Song of Myself," he identifies himself as "Walt Whitman, an American, one of the roughs..." • Source: Walt Whitman at the Lilly (curated by Christoph Irmscher), Indiana University Library, Bloomington.

• Frontispiece engraving of Walt Whitman [age 36] by Samuel Hollyer, based on a daguerreotype by Gabriel Harrison, for the first edition of Leaves of Grass, 1855, which was self-published. • Source: Walt Whitman at the Lilly (curated by Christoph Irmscher), Indiana University Library, Bloomington.

#WhitmanWednesday 🌾 🕯️

"Sit awhile wayfarer,
Here are biscuits to eat and here is milk to drink..."

- Walt Whitman

• Title page of the first edition of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, 1855, which was self-published. It was printed and bound in Brooklyn, New York, with roughly 300 copies in the first run – with the printing, reportedly, overseen by Whitman himself. • Notably, the author's name is omitted, but is seen only in the copyright notice ("Walter Whitman"); however, later on, as the poem's speaker in the book's central work "Song of Myself," he identifies himself as "Walt Whitman, an American, one of the roughs..." • Source: Walt Whitman at the Lilly (curated by Christoph Irmscher), Indiana University Library, Bloomington.

• Frontispiece engraving of Walt Whitman [age 36] by Samuel Hollyer, based on a daguerreotype by Gabriel Harrison, for the first edition of Leaves of Grass, 1855, which was self-published. • Source: Walt Whitman at the Lilly (curated by Christoph Irmscher), Indiana University Library, Bloomington.

#WhitmanWednesday 🌾

". . . . when it is better to be a bound booby and rogue in office at a high salary than the poorest free mechanic or farmer . . . . then only shall the instinct of liberty be discharged from that part of the earth."

- Walt Whitman, c. 1855

The Gleaners by Jean-Francois Millet (1814-1875) Original Title: Les glaneuses Date: 1857 Media: oil, canvas Location: Musée d'Orsay, Paris, France Public domain.

#WhitmanWednesday 🌾

"Millet—he's a whole religion in himself: the best of democracy, the best of all well-bottomed faith, is in his pictures. The man who knows his Millet needs no creed."
- Walt Whitman

Jean-François Millet. The Gleaners. 1857.

• Title page of the first edition of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, 1855, which was self-published. It was printed and bound in Brooklyn, New York, with roughly 300 copies in the first run – with the printing, reportedly, overseen by Whitman himself. • Notably, the author's name is omitted, but is seen only in the copyright notice ("Walter Whitman"); however, later on, as the poem's speaker in the book's central work "Song of Myself," he identifies himself as "Walt Whitman, an American, one of the roughs..." • Source: Walt Whitman at the Lilly (curated by Christoph Irmscher), Indiana University Library, Bloomington.

• Frontispiece engraving of Walt Whitman [age 36] by Samuel Hollyer, based on a daguerreotype by Gabriel Harrison, for the first edition of Leaves of Grass, 1855, which was self-published. • Source: Walt Whitman at the Lilly (curated by Christoph Irmscher), Indiana University Library, Bloomington.

#WhitmanWednesday 🌾

"I am of old and young, of the foolish as much as the wise,
[…]
Maternal as well as paternal, a child as well as a man,
Stuffed with the stuff that is coarse, and stuffed with the
stuff that is fine,

- Walt Whitman, c. 1855

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