Walt+Whitman+(8)

Walt Whitman
 * May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892
 * Geographic region of influence was in New York.
 * Walt Whitman was the second son of Walter Whitman, a housebuilder, and Louisa Van Velsor. The family of nine lived in Brooklyn and Long Island in the 1820's an1830's.
 * He received very little formal education, but voraciously read the works of Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, and the Bible
 * Authors / poets of influence
 * Mostly all his poems were in relation to sex.
 * works of influence.
 * biographers were uncertain about his sexuality.
 * Some of his many works include: Leaves of Grass, I saw in Louisiana a Live Oak Growing, On the Beach at Night, and Amoung the Multitude.

I SAW IN LOUISIANA A LIVE-OAK GROWING SAW in Louisiana a live-oak growing, All alone stood it, and the moss hung down from the branches; Without any companion it grew there, uttering joyous leaves of dark green, [|And its look, rude, unbending, lusty] And its look, rude, unbending, lusty, made me think of myself; But I wonder'd how it could utter joyous leaves, standing alone there, without its friend, its lover near--for I knew I could not; And broke off a twig with a certain number of leaves upon it, and twined around it a little moss, And brought it away--and I have placed it in sight in my room; It is not needed to remind me as of my own dear friends, (For I believe lately I think of little else than them:) Yet it remains to me a curious token--it makes me think of manly love; For all that, and though the live-oak glistens there in Louisiana, solitary, in a wide flat space, Uttering joyous leaves all its life, without a friend, a lover, near, I know very well I could not.
 * // by: Walt Whitman (1819-1892) //**

ON THE BEACH AT NIGHT N the beach at night, Stands a child with her father, Watching the east, the autumn sky.
 * // by: Walt Whitman (1819-1892) //**

Up through the darkness, While ravening clouds,[|The burial clouds] the burial clouds, in black masses spreading, Lower sullen and fast athwart and down the sky, Amid a transparent clear belt of ether yet left in the east, Ascends large and calm the lord-star Jupiter, And nigh at hand, only a very little above, Swim the delicate sisters the Pleiades.

From the beach the child holding the hand of her father, Those burial-clouds that lower victorious soon to devour all, Watching, silently weeps. Weep not, child, Weep not, my darling, With these kisses let me remove your tears, The ravening clouds shall not long be victorious, They shall not long possess the sky, they devour the stars only in apparition, Jupiter shall emerge, be patient, watch again another night, the Pleiades shall emerge, They are immortal, all those stars both silvery and golden shall shine out again, The great stars and the little ones shall shine out again, they endure, The vast immortal suns and the long-enduring pensive moons shall again shine. Then dearest child mournest thou only for Jupiter? Considerest thou alone the burial of the stars? Something there is, (With my lips soothing thee, adding I whisper, I give thee the first suggestion, the problem and indirection,) Something there is more immortal even than the stars, (Many the burials, many the days and nights, passing away,) Something that shall endure longer even than lustrous Jupiter Longer than sun or any revolving satellite, Or the radiant sisters the Pleiades.

AMONG THE MULTITUDE MONG the men and women the multitude, [|I perceive one picking me out] by secret and divine signs, Acknowledging none else, not parent, wife, husband, brother, child, any nearer than I am, Some are baffled, but that one is not--that one knows me. Ah lover and perfect equal, I meant that you should discover me so by faint indirections, And I when I meet you mean to discover you by the like in you.
 * // by: Walt Whitman (1819-1892) //**