Experient of myriads of seasons am I,
Journeyer over consecutive seasons, the annual return of the seasons;
Many a changeful season to follow, and many a scene of life,
I chant of the seasons and time.

Ever upon this stage is acted God’s calm annual drama,
Seasons pursuing each other,
As consequent from store of summer rains,
Or wayward rivulets in autumn flowing,
In winter beneath the hard blue ice of Moosehead Lake, in summer visible through the clear waters, the great trout swimming.

O the farmer’s joys!
To plough land in the fall for winter-sown crops,
To plough land in the spring for maize,
To gather apples in the fall.
I watch’d the ploughman plowing,
Sometimes in spring, oftener in autumn,
The plougher ploughs, the mower mows, and the winter-grain falls in the ground.

O love and summer, you are in the dreams and in me,
Autumn and winter are in the dreams—
O South, your torrid suns! O North, your arctic freezings!
Nor do I forget you departed, nor in winter or summer my lost ones,
Watch’d for many a month, remember’d many a winter and many a summer.

We have thus far exhausted trillions of winters and summers,
There are trillions ahead, and trillions ahead of them.
I do not snivel that snivel the world over,
That months are vacuums—
Good in all, in the annual return of the seasons.

We have watch’d the seasons dispensing themselves and passing on,
All summer, forever, and all winter also, content,
And have said, Why should not a man or woman do as much as the seasons, and effuse as much?
Dwell a while and pass on, fear not,
Be candid, be copious, temperate, chaste, magnetic,
And what you effuse may then return as the seasons return,
And may be just as much as the seasons.

NEXT: SUMMER

The texts in this anthology should NOT be cited as direct quotations from Whitman. If you want to quote from this site for something you are writing or posting, please read this first (click here).