To have great poets, there must be great audiences, too,
To have great heroic poetry we need great readers—a heroic appetite and audience.
The messages of great poets to each man and woman are:
Come to us on equal terms, only then can you understand us,
We are no better than you; you are not an iota less,
What we enclose you enclose, what we enjoy you may enjoy. 

Here is the poet, without monopoly or secrecy,
Glad to pass anything to anyone, hungry for equals night and day,
He sees health for himself in being one of the mass.
The poet sees for a certainty how one not a great artist may be just as sacred and perfect as the greatest artist,
He knows that he is unspeakably great and that all are unspeakably great,
The others are as good as he, only he sees it and they do not.

He and the rest shall not forget you,
They shall perceive that you are not an iota less than they,
I swear to you they will understand you and justify you,
You shall be fully glorified in them,
The greatest among them shall be he who best knows you, and encloses all and is faithful to all.

Thou reader throbbest life and pride and love the same as I,
You shall stand by my side and look in the mirror with me,
The apparition of the whole form, as of one unclothed before a mirror, is cast back,
To bring the spirit of all events and persons and passions to the formation of the one individual that hears or reads—of you up there.

“Leaves of Grass” is not one man’s book but all men’s book. I wanted to let it go straight from my heart to your heart—from me to anybody, giving us, whoever we are, strangers or friends, a direct relation, establishing us in immediate neighborliness. It is the most emotional and yearning of poems, and really unfolds itself only in the presence of you, the reader, with no third person near.
I like the feeling of a general partnership, as if “Leaves of Grass” was anybody’s who chooses just as truly as mine. It would be ridiculous to think of “Leaves of Grass” belonging to any one person; if it did not make room for all it would not make room for one.

I have come to solace and perhaps flatter myself that it is you indeed in my pages, as much as I,
It is you talking just as much as myself,
At the most I am only the mouthpiece;
I am your voice—it was tied in you—in me it begins to talk,
I act as the tongue of you,
Tied in your mouth, in mine it begins to be loosen’d.

These are really the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands—they are not original with me,
If they are not just as close as they are distant they are nothing,
If they are not the riddle and the untying of the riddle they are nothing,
If they are not yours as much as mine they are nothing, or next to nothing,
If they had not reference to you in especial what were they then?
Poems have long been directing admiration and awe to something in others, other days,
In “Leaves of Grass” the reader is pointed in the main, and quite altogether, to him and herself, the existing day.

Very devilish to some, and very divine to some, will appear these new poems. But I do not look for a vast audience—for great numbers of endorsers, absorbs—just now, perhaps not even after a while. Of today I know I pass a little time vocal, visible, contrary.  The very greatest writers can never be understood or appreciated forthwith any more than the very greatest discoverers; if you have the real stuff in you you’ve got to wait for it to be recognized. It takes some ages to enfold the scope of the invention of steam-power or printing, or the discovery of America, or the commencement of the greatest breed of poets.

So “Leaves of Grass” is written not only with reference to our own time but to time to come—new, far-off ages—made ripe and applicable, in fact to meet any age, any time, any land. I write a poem which addresses those who will, in future ages, understand me, with reference to being far better understood then than I can possibly be now, for it needs people to grow up with it. Here and there, every now and then, one, several, will raise the standard; “Leaves of Grass” will finally make its way.

“Leaves” I write, to be perused best afterwards,
To you yet unborn, you whoe’er you are my book perusing—these, seeking you.
I depend on the future for my audience,
I depend on being realized long, long hence,
Put in only what must be appropriate centuries hence,
Scattered and dropt, in seeds, for time to germinate fully.

Who knows but there are consequences to me seasons and centuries afterward,
The best of me then when no longer visible,
Undestroy’d, wandering immortal—
Toward that I have been incessantly preparing,
Sparkles hot, seed ethereal down in the dirt dropping,
To ages and ages yet the growth of the seed leaving.

After a long, long course, hundreds of years—
After ages’ and ages’ encrustations, denials,
Accumulations, rous’d love and joy and thought,
Hopes, wishes, aspirations, ponderings, victories,
Life, love, sight, hearing of others that are to follow me—
Then only may these centuries-lasting songs reach fruition.

See, projected through time, me lounging through the shops and fields, 
Well-belov’d, close-held by day and night,
For me an audience interminable,
With faces turn’d sideways or backward towards me to listen,
With eyes retrospective towards me,
The certainty of others, myriads of readers,
Others who look back on me because I look’d forward to them.

To one a century hence, three centuries hence, or thirty centuries hence,
To one any number of centuries hence:
You, born years, centuries after me, I seek,
You that shall cross from shore to shore years hence are more to me, and more in my meditations, than you might suppose,
What thought you have of me now, I had as much of you—I laid in my stores in advance,
For I consider’d long and seriously of you before you were born.

When you read these I that was visible am become invisible,
Now it is you, compact, visible, realizing my poem, seeking me,
Fancying how happy you were if I could be with you and become your comrade;
If I were with you, maybe we would love one another.

Be it as if I were with you—
Was I buried very long ago? What is it then between us?
What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us?
The time will come for us two, dear reader, though I stop here today and tonight.

Be not too certain but I am now with you,
Consider, you who peruse me, whether I may not in unknown ways be looking upon you,
Who knows, for all the distance, but I am as good as looking at you now, for all you cannot see me?
For all that, I may now be watching you here, this moment.
Whoever you are, holding me now in hand,
Who knows but I am enjoying this, as I glance upward out of this page studying you, dear friend.

It avails not, time nor place—distance avails not,
I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever so many generations hence,
Death making me really undying.
I am a friend, a traveler, as during life,
Observing shows, births, improvements, structures, arts,
Yet sailing to other shores to annex the same, yet welcoming every new brother,
Coming among the new ones myself to be their companion and equal,
Coming personally to you now.

Is it wonderful that I should be immortal? As everyone is immortal. I know it is wonderful. But that my soul embraces you this hour, and we affect each other without ever seeing each other, and never perhaps to see each other, is every bit as wonderful. We never met, and ne’er shall meet—and yet our souls embrace, long, close and long.

Dear friend, whoe’er you are, at last arriving hither,
Accept from me a word of welcome and hospitality,
Lift me close to your face till I whisper:
Is it night? are we here together alone?
This is unfinished business with me—how is it with you?

From behind the screen where I hid I advance personally solely to you, I project myself to tell you,
I was chilled with the cold types and cylinder and wet paper between us,
I pass so poorly with paper and types,
I must pass with the contact of bodies and souls;
Not merely paper, automatic type, and ink,
The personal urge and form for me,
My life’s hot pulsing blood.

Camerado, what you are holding is in reality no book, nor part of a book,
Who touches this touches a man, flushed and full-bodied,
It is I who live in these poems—O they are truly me!
From fibre heart of mine—from throat and tongue.
It is I, bathing, leavening this leaf especially with my breath,
Pressing on it a moment with my own hands.
Whoever you are! how can I but offer you divine leaves, that you also be eligible as I am?
No leaves of print are these, but human lips, for your sake freely speaking.

Come closer to me,
Closer yet I approach you,
I spring from the pages into your arms—decease calls me forth—
It is I you hold and who holds you, in loving flesh and blood.
O how your fingers drowse me,
I feel through every leaf the curving hold and pressure of your hand, which I return,
Here! Feel how the pulse beats in my wrists! how my heart’s-blood is swelling, contracting!

Let me pick you out singly, reader dear, and talk in perfect freedom, negligently, confidentially—
This hour I tell things in confidence,
I might not tell everybody, but I will tell you,
From me to you, we twain, alone together, a conference, our two souls exclusively,
Giving up all my private interior musings, yearnings, ecstasies, discords, and contradictory moods.

Reserving nothing, I would make a full confession:
Among people whose company is pleasant to me, I almost invariably grow fonder and fonder of those who constantly like me and are not afraid to show it,
Where anyone thinks of me or wishes me, that will allure me,
Where personal love reaches toward me, that will allure me.
I sent out “Leaves of Grass” to arouse and set flowing in men’s and women’s hearts, young and old, endless streams of living, pulsating love and friendship,
Directly from them to myself, now and ever,
To be one whom all look toward with attention, respect, love.

Countless, unspecified, readers belov’d,
My love for you I fold here in every leaf,
I am yet of you unseen this hour with irrepressible love,
I have loved many women and men, but I love none better than you,
I mean tenderly by you and all.

NEXT: YOUR RESPONSIBILITY

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).