Poems of Walt WhitmanGeneral Books LLC, 2009 - 112 pages This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1902 edition. Excerpt: ...That the fruits of the apple-orchard, and of the orange-orchard--that melons, grapes, peaches, plums, will none of them poison me, That when I recline on the grass I do not catch any disease, Though probably every spear of grass rises out of what was once a catching disease. 6. Now I am terrified at the Earth! it is that calm and patient, It grows such sweet things out of such corruptions, It turns harmless and stainless on its axis, with such endless successions of diseased corpses, It distils such exquisite winds out of such infused fetor, It renews, with such unwitting looks, its prodigal, annual, sumptuous crops, It gives such divine materials to men, and accepts such leavings from them at last. 5. 1. All day I have walked the city, and talked with my friends, and thought of prudence, Of time, space, reality--of such as these, and abreast with them, prudence. 2. After all, the last explanation remains to be made about prudence, Little and large alike drop quietly aside from the prudence that suits immortality. 3. The soul is of itself, All verges to it--all has reference to what ensues, All that a person does, says, thinks, is of conse-quence, Not a move can a man or woman make, that affects him or her in a day, month, any part of the direct life-time, or the hour of death, but the same affects him or her onward afterward through the indirect life-time. 4. The indirect is more than the direct, The spirit receives from the body just as much as it gives to the body, if not more. 5. Not one word or deed--not venereal sore, discolora tion, privacy of the onanist, putridity of gluttons or rum-drinkers, peculation, cunning, betrayal, murder, seduction, prostitution, but has results beyond death, as really as before death. 6. Charity and personal... |