I believe all poets, however conservative they may be, tend to democratic humanitarianism. A poet need not be personally a democrat for his works to have that tendency. 

But as for me I am a born democrat,
Myself and mine feel at home among common people,
The democratic masses, turbulent, wilful, as I love them,
The human interior and exterior of these great seething oceanic populations is to me best of all.

I alone, of all bards, am suffused as with the common people,
I alone receive them with a perfect reception and love.
Others are more correct and elegant than I,
But I alone advance among the people en-masse, coarse and strong,
Advancing, to give the spirit and the traits of new democratic ages, myself, personally.

Walt Whitman, no sentimentalist, no stander above men and women or apart from them,
I remain with the people—with my fellows, with mechanics and farmers—
I advance from the people in their own spirit.
Everything comes out of the dirt—everything,
Everything comes out of the people, the everyday people, the people as you find them.

I have a curious sort of public sociability, talking with black and white, high and low, male and female, old and young, all grades. I have great respect for the background people—the folks who are not generally included—for the absentees, the forgotten, the shy nobodies who in the end are best of all.
I see how lucky I was that I was myself thrown out early upon the average earth, to wrestle for myself among the masses of people—that I have always lived cheek by jowl with the common people.

I am not a witness for saviors—exceptional men—for the nobility, no,
I am a witness for the average man, the whole.
I never had any desire to hunt up, even to see, the great men,
I was quite contented to be with plain people—to keep close to the ground—
I didn’t do much with pedestals.

I will not descend among professors and capitalists. The best plain men are the best men, anyhow—if there is any better or best among men at all. The ornamental classes make a lot of noise but they create nothing.
Cleanly shaven and grammatical folks I call mister, and lay the tips of my fingers inside their elbows after the orthodox fashion; but for the others, my arm leans over their shoulders and around their necks.

The masters in history have been glorified beyond recognition,
Now glorify the average man—
Put in a word for his sorrows, his tragedies, just for once.
We can’t get on with a world of masters,
We want a world of men, backbone men—the workers, the doers, the humbles.

The workingman is the average man. The serious workingmen of our world—the more informed, ambitious, instructed—they are the hope, the sole hope, the sufficient hope, of our democracy. 

I see all the menials of the earth laboring,
The endless races of work-people, farmers, and seamen,
The strong rich life of the mechanic, farmer, sailor, hunter, and miner,
O all and each well-loved by me!
At the idea of this mass of men, so fresh and free, so loving and so proud, a singular awe falls upon me.

If you stand at work in a shop I stand as nigh as the nighest in the same shop,
I take my place by rights among the sweaty classes,
At home among common people, among men in their shirt sleeves,
A person singularly beloved and welcomed, especially by young men and mechanics—
The young mechanic is closest to me, he knows me well.

My face rubs to the hunter’s face when he lies down alone in his blanket,
My face not refined or intellectual, but calm and wholesome,
A face that absorbs the sunshine and meets savage or gentleman on equal terms—
To cotton-field drudge or cleaner of privies I lean,
On his right cheek I put the family kiss,
And in my soul I swear I never will deny him.

I envy the man out-of-doors—the boatman in the river, the carter with his team, the farmer at his plough—their freedom—the elasticity they develop! I will turn up the ends of my trowsers around my boots, and my cuffs back from my wrists, and go with drivers and boatmen and men that catch fish or work in the field.

I go with fishermen and seamen and love them. How gladly we leave the best of what is called learned and refined society to sail all day on the river amid a party of fresh and jovial boatmen, with no coats or suspenders and their trousers tucked in their boots. Then the quick blood within joins their gay blood and the twain dance polkas from the bottom to the top of the house.

These shows all near you by day and night—workman! whoever you are, your daily life!
To plant and tend,
To use the hammer and the saw,
To cultivate a turn for carpentering, plastering, painting,
To work as tailor, tailoress, nurse, porter—
In that and them the heft of the heaviest,
In that and them far more than you estimated, (and far less also.)

In the labor of engines and trades and the labor of fields I find the developments,
And find the eternal meanings;
Every employment is adorned,
In them realities for you and me, in them poems for you and me,
In them all themes, hints, possibilities.
Ah little recks the laborer how near his work is holding him to God,
The loving Laborer through space and time.

Employments! I will put in my poems that with you is heroism upon land and sea,
All the workmen of the world here to be represented, and held up forever with enthusiasm and dignity,
To teach the average man the glory of his daily walk and trade.
The “Leaves of Grass” is nursed in these native occurrences, facts—the occupations, habits, habitats of men,
The working-man and working-woman were to be in my pages from first to last,
The employment and personnel of mechanics, farmers, boatmen, laborers, and men and women in factories,
Seized upon with decision, saturated with fullest charges of electric illumination.

I want a beautiful book, too, but I want that beautiful book cheap—that is, I want it to be within the reach of the average buyer. If “Leaves of Grass” is not for the average man it is for nobody. If I have failed to make that clear then I’ve missed my mission for certain.

Many friends, persons whom I like being with, have no idea that I am an author. I like it all the better; I have great fun sometimes, for you have no idea what a far-off thing a poet or literary man is to them. A poet is something they have vaguely heard of, and when one comes round talking familiarly, their astonishment is great.

But the young mother and old mother comprehend me,
The farm-boy ploughing in the field feels good at the sound of my voice,
In vessels that sail my words sail,
The woodman that takes his axe and jug with him shall take me with him all day.
The driver thinking of me does not mind the jolt of his wagon,
The girl and the wife rest the needle a moment and forget where they are,
They and all would resume what I have told them.

O workmen and workwomen forever for me!
O to level occupations and the sexes!
O to bring all to common ground!
The democratic wisdom underneath, like solid ground for all.

NEXT: GLOBAL DEMOCRACY ARISING

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).