Great Throughts Treasury

"Failing to catch me at first keep encouraged, missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you."

"First, O songs, for a prelude, lightly strike on the stretch'd tympanum, pride and joy in my city, how she led the rest to arms—how she gave the cue, how at once with lithe limbs, unwaiting a moment, she sprang; (O superb! O Manhattan, my own, my peerless! O strongest you in the hour of danger, in crisis! O truer than steel!) How you sprang! how you threw off the costumes of peace with indifferent hand; how your soft opera-music changed, and the drum and fife were heard in their stead; how you led to the war, (that shall serve for our prelude songs of soldiers,) How Manhattan drum-taps led."

"Flood-tide below me! I see you face to face! Clouds of the west—sun there half an hour high—I see you also face to face. Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes, how curious you are to me! On the ferry-boats the hundreds and hundreds that cross, returning home, are more curious to me than you suppose, and you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence are more to me, and more in my meditations, than you might suppose."

"For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you."

"For my enemy is dead, a man divine as myself is dead, I look where he lies white-faced and still in the coffin—I draw near, bend down and touch lightly with my lips the white face in the coffin."

"For the son is brought with the father, (On the foremost ranks of the fierce assault they fell, two veterans son and father dropt together, and the double grave awaits them)."

"For we cannot tarry here, we must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger, we, the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend, Pioneers! O pioneers!"

"Formless stacks of bodies and bodies by themselves, dabs of flesh upon the masts and spars, cut of cordage, dangle of rigging, slight shock of the soothe of waves, black and impassive guns, litter of powder-parcels, strong scent, a few large stars overhead, silent and mournful shining, delicate sniffs of sea-breeze, smells of sedgy grass and fields by the shore, death-messages given in charge to survivors, the hiss of the surgeon's knife, the gnawing teeth of his saw, wheeze, cluck, swash of falling blood, short wild scream, and long, dull, tapering groan, these so, these irretrievable."

"Forth from the war emerging a book I have made, the words of my book nothing, the drift of it everything, a book separate, not link'd with the rest nor felt by the intellect, but you ye untold latencies will thrill to every page."

"Freedom - to walk free and own no superior."

"From the beach the child holding the hand of her father, those burial clouds that lower victorious soon to devour all, watching, silently weeps."

"From this hour I ordain myself loose of limits & imaginary lines, going where I list, my own master total and absolute, listening to others, considering well what they say, pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating, gently, but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds that would hold me."

"From this hour, freedom! Going where I like, my own master."

"Future years will never know the seething hell and the black infernal background, the countless minor scenes and interiors of the secession war; and it is best they should not. The real war will never get in the books."

"Get a good idea and stay with it. Dog it, and work at it until it's done right."

"Give me juicy autumnal fruit, ripe and red from the orchard."

"Give me odorous at sunrise a garden of beautiful flowers where I can walk undisturbed."

"Give me solitude — give me Nature — give me again, O Nature, your primal sanities!"

"Give me such shows--give me the streets of Manhattan!"

"Give me the splendid silent sun with all his beams full-dazzling, give me autumnal fruit ripe and red from the orchard, give me a field where the unmow'd grass grows, give me an arbor, give me the trellis'd grape, give me fresh corn and wheat, give me serene-moving animals teaching content."

"Give me to warble spontaneous songs recluse by myself, for my own ears only, give me solitude, give me Nature, give me again O Nature your primal sanities!"

"Good-bye my Fancy! Farewell dear mate, dear love! I'm going away, I know not where, or to what fortune, or whether I may ever see you again, So Good-bye my Fancy."

"Great is the faith of the flush of knowledge and of the investigation of the depths of qualities and things."

"Great is Youth--equally great is Old Age--great are Day and Night. Great is Wealth--great is Poverty--great is Expression-great is Silence."

"Happiness, not in another place but this place...not for another hour, but this hour."

"Has anyone supposed it lucky to be born? I hasten to inform him or her that it is just as lucky to die, and I know it."

"Have you heard that it was good to gain the day? I also say it is good to fall, battles are lost in the same spirit in which they are won."

"Have you reckon'd a thousand acres much? have you reckon'd the earth much? Have you practis'd so long to learn to read? Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems? Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems, you shall possess the good of the earth and sun, (there are millions of suns left,) you shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books, you shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me, you shall listen to all sides and filter them from yourself."

"Have you surpassed the rest? Are you the president? It doesn't matter. They will more than arrive there, every one, and still pass on."

"He (President Abraham Lincoln) has a face like a hoosier Michael Angelo, so awful ugly it becomes beautiful, with its strange mouth, its deep-cut, criss-cross lines, and its doughnut complexion"

"He most honors my style who learns under it to destroy the teacher."

"Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing, done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms, strong and content I travel the open road."

"Here or henceforward it is all the same to me, I accept Time absolutely."

"Here the frailest leaves of me and yet my strongest lasting, Here I shade and hide my thoughts, I myself do not expose them, And yet they expose me more than all my other poems"

"How beggarly appear arguments before a defiant deed!"

"How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick, till rising and gliding out, I wander'd off by myself, in the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, look'd up in perfect silence at the stars."

"Hushed be the camps to-day. No more for him life's stormy conflicts, nor victory, nor defeat ? no more time's dark events."

"I accept reality and dare not question it"

"I accept Time absolutely. It alone is without flaw, it alone rounds and completes all, that mystic baffling wonder."

"I act as the tongue of you... tied in your mouth… in mine it begins to be loosened."

"I am as bad as the worst, but, thank God, I am as good as the best."

"I am for those who believe in loose delights, I share the midnight orgies of young men, I dance with the dancers and drink with the drinkers."

"I am given up by traitors, I talk wildly, I have lost my wits, I and nobody else am the greatest traitor, I went myself first to the headland, my own hands carried me there. You villain touch! What are you doing? My breath is tight in its throat, unclench your floodgates, you are too much for me."

"I am not to speak to you, I am to think of you when I sit alone or wake at night alone, I am to wait, I do not doubt I am to meet you again, I am to see to it that I do not lose you."

"I am of old and young, of the foolish as much as the wise, regardless of others, ever regardful of others, maternal as well as paternal, a child as well as a man, stuffed with the stuff that is course, and stuffed with the stuff that is fine."

"I am satisfied ... I see, dance, laugh, sing."

"I am sufficient as I am."

"I am the man, I suffered, I was there."

"I am the poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul, the pleasures of heaven are with me and the pains of hell are with me, the first I graft and increase upon myself, the latter I translate into a new tongue."

"I am to wait, I do not doubt I am to meet you again / I am to see to it that I do not lose you"