                            ___
                          .'   '.
                         /  .-.  \
                        |  /   \ |
                        | |\   /| |
                       _| |_\ /_| |_
                     .' |          | '.
                    /   |    ()    |   \
                   |    |          |    |
                   '-.__|          |__.-'
                        |   WALT   |
                        | WHITMAN  |
                        |  1819-   |
                        |   1892   |
                        '----------'
                       ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                    LEAVES  OF  GRASS

🍃 The Leaves 🍃

A celebration of Walt Whitman, born this day in 1819

Today Song Life Poems War Quotes Editions About

🌿 Today's Whitman

Do I contradict myself? / Very well then I contradict myself, / (I am large, I contain multitudes.)

— Walt Whitman

Today's Featured Poem

Leaves of Grass (preface)

Explore this poem in the Poems section.

Morning—'Give me the splendid silent sun with all his beams full-dazzling.'

🎭 Compose

Generate your own Song of Self in Whitman's style.

📜 Biography

From West Hills to Camden: the life of the Good Gray Poet.

📖 Poems

Explore the major works of Leaves of Grass.

🩹 The War

Whitman as Civil War nurse: three years among the wounded.

💬 Quotes

The words of Whitman on self, democracy, nature, death, love, journey.

📚 Editions

Seven editions of Leaves of Grass over four decades.

I celebrate myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. I loafe and invite my soul, I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass. My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this soil, this air, 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.

— from "Song of Myself" (1855)