A comprehensive collection of Whitman's most beloved works of poetry, prose, and short stories
When Walt Whitman self-published Leaves of Grass in 1855 it was a slim volume of twelve poems and he was a journalist and poet from Long Island, little-known but full of ambition and poetic fire. To give a new voice to the new nation shaken by civil war, he spent his entire life revising and adding to the work, but his initial act of bravado in answering Ralph Waldo Emerson's call for a national poet has made Whitman the quintessential American writer. This rich cross-section of his work includes poems from throughout Whitman's lifetime as published on his deathbed edition of 1891, short stories, his prefaces to the many editions of Leaves of Grass, and a variety of prose selections, including Democratic Vistas, Specimen Days, and Slang in America.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust theseries to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-datetranslations by award-winning translators.
Table of Contents:
The Portable Walt WhitmanIntroduction
Poems From Leaves Of Grass
(dates indicate first book publication)
1855:
Song of Myself
A Song for Occupations
To Think of Time
The Sleepers
I Sing the Body Electric
Faces
There Was a Child Went Forth
Who Learns My Lesson Complete?
1856:
Unfolded Out of the Folds
Song of the Broad-Axe
To You
This Compost
Crossing Brooklyn Ferry
Song of the Open Road
A Woman Waits for Me
To a Foil'd European Revolutionaire
Spontaneous Me
A Song of the Rolling Earth
1860:
Starting from Paumanok
From Pent-up Aching Rivers
Me Imperturbe
I Hear America Singing
As I Ebb'd with the Ocean of Life
You Felons on Trial in Courts
The World below the Brine
I Sit and Look Out
All Is Truth
Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking
Native Moments
Once I Pass'd through a Populous City
Once I Pass'd through a Populous City (draft version)
Facing West from California's Shores
As Adam Early in the Morning
Live Oak, with Moss
I. (Not Heat Flames up and Consumes)
II. (I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing)
III. (When I Heard at the Close of the Day)
IV. (This Moment Yearning and Thoughtful)
V. (Calamus 8: "Long I thought that knowledge alone would suffice me")
VI. (What Think You I Take My Pen in Hand?)
VII. (Recorders Ages Hence!)
VIII. (Calamus 9: "Hours continuing long, sore and heavy-hearted")
IX. (I Dreamed in a Dream)
X. (O You Whom I Often and Silently Come)
XI. (Earth! My Likeness)
XXI. (To a Western Boy)
Calamus:
In Paths Untrodden
Scented Herbage of My Breast
Whoever You Are Holding Me Now in Hand
For You O Democracy
These I Singing in Spring
Of the Terrible Doubt of Appearances
The Base of All Metaphysics (added 1871)
Are You the New Person Drawn toward Me?
Roots and Leaves Themselves Alone
Of Him I Love Day and Night
City of Orgies
To a Stranger
I Hear It Was Charged Against Me
We Two Boys Together Clinging
Here The Frailest Leaves of Me
A Glimpse
Sometimes with One I Love
Among the Multitude
That Shadow My Likeness
Full of Life Now
To Him That Was Crucified
To a Common Prostitute
To You
Mannahatta
A Hand-Mirror
Visor'd
As if a Phantom Caress'd Me
So Long!
1865-66:
Drum-Taps (1865) and Sequel to Drum-Taps (1865-66):
Shut Not Your Doors
Beat! Beat! Drums!
City of Ships
Cavalry Crossing a Ford
Bivouac on a Mountain Side
An Army Corps on the March (1865-66)
By the Bivouac's Fitful Flame
Come Up from the Fields Father
Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night
A March in the Ranks Hard-Prest, and the Road Unknown
A Sight in Camp in the Daybreak Gray and Dim
As Toilsome I Wander'd Virginia's Woods
The Wound-Dresser
When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer
A Farm Picture
Give Me the Splendid Silent Sun
To a Certain Civilian
Years of the Modern
Over the Carnage Rose Prophetic a Voice
As I Lay with My Head in Your Lap Camerado (1865-66)
Out of the Rolling Ocean the Crowd
I Saw Old General at Bay
Look Down Fair Moon
Reconciliation (1865-66)
When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd (1865-66)
O Captain! My Captain! (1865-66)
Old War-Dreams (1865-66)
Chanting the Square Deific (1865-66)
I Heard You Solemn-Sweet Pipes of the Organ (1865-66)
1867:
One's Self I Sing
The Runner
When I Read the Book
1871:
Passage to India
Proud Music of the Storm
A Noiseless Patient Spider
The Last Invocation
On the Beach at Night
Sparkles from the Wheel
Gods
Joy, Shipmate, Joy!
Ethiopia Saluting the Colors
1872:
The Mystic Trumpeter
1876:
Prayer of Columbus
To a Locomotive in Winter
The Ox-Tamer
1881:
The Dalliance of the Eagles
A Clear Midnight
1888:
As I Sit Writing Here
Broadway
1891:
Unseen Buds
Good-bye My Fancy!
PROSE WRITINGS
"The Child's Champion"
Prefaces and Afterwords from Leaves of Grass:
Preface to "Leaves of Grass", 1855
Letter to Ralph Waldo Emerson, from "Leaves of Grass", 1856
Preface to "As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free," 1872
Preface to the Centennial Edition of "Leaves of Grass", 1876
"A Backward Glance O'er Travel'd Roads," 1888
"Democratic Vistas"
From Specimen Days
"Slang in America"
Suggestions for Further Reading
Index of Titles and First Lines
About the Author :
Walt Whitman (1819-1892) was born on Long Island and educated in Brooklyn, New York. He served as a printer's devil, journeyman compositor, itinerant schoolteacher, editor, and unofficial nurse to Northern and Southern soldiers.
Michael Warner is a professor of English at Rutgers University. His most recent works include American Sermons- The Pilgrims to Martin Luther King, and his essays and journalism have appeared in the Village Voice, the Nation, and other magazines.
