The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me,
he complains of my gab and my loitering.
|
I too am not a bit tamed, I too am
untranslatable, |
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of
the world.
|
The last scud of day holds back for me, |
It flings my likeness after the rest and
true as any on the shadow’d wilds, |
It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.
|
I depart as air, I shake my white locks at
the runaway sun, |
I effuse my flesh eddies, and drift it in
lacy jags.
|
I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from
the grass I love, |
If you want me again look for me under your
boot-soles.
|
You will hardly know who I am or what I
mean, |
But I shall be good health to you
nevertheless, |
And filter and fibre your blood.
|
Failing to fetch me at first keep
encouraged, |
Missing me one place search another, |
I stop somewhere waiting for you.
|
Walt Whitman
| Classic Poems |
|
[ Song of Myself XXIV ] [ Song of Myself LII ] [ Crossing Brooklyn Ferry ] [ When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd ] [ To a Locomotive in Winter ] |