I am Walt Whitman!
(I like best my name in full—Walt Whitman—it is a good name, to me!)
I stand here, a personality in the universe, perfect and sound,
I need no assurances, I am poised on myself alone.

Something long preparing and formless is arrived and form’d in me,
Before I was born out of my mother generations guided me,
My fathers and mothers and the accumulations of past ages,
All which, had it not been, I would not now be here, as I am.

I go backward primeval, I descend many steps, I retrace steps oceanic,
The long patience through millions of years—the slow formation,
Afar down I see the huge first nothing, I know I was even there,
I waited unseen and always, and slept through the lethargic mist,
And took my time, and took no hurt from the fetid carbon.

Immense have been the preparations for me,
All has been gentle with me,
Faithful and friendly the arms that have help’d me,
Long I was hugg’d close—long and long.
Cycles ferried my cradle, rowing and rowing like cheerful boatmen,
For room to me stars kept aside in their own rings,
They sent influences to look after what was to hold me.

My embryo has never been torpid, nothing could overlay it,
For it the nebula cohered to an orb,
The long slow strata piled to rest it on,
Vast vegetables gave it sustenance,
Monstrous sauroids transported it in their mouths and deposited it with care,
All forces have been steadily employ’d to complete and delight me.

I am an acme of things accomplish’d—and I an encloser of things to be,
O me while I stride ahead, material, visible, imperious as ever,
Myself moving forward then and now and forever,
Rise after rise bow the phantoms behind me.

My feet strike an apex of the apices of the stairs,
All below duly travel’d, and still I mount and mount,
On every step bunches of ages, and larger bunches between the steps.
With the soul I defy you quicksand years, slipping from under my feet,
I bide my hour over billions and billions of years,
I never abandon myself, nor the sweet of myself, nor the eternity of myself.

I am not to be known as a piece of something but as a totality,
One—yet of contradictions made;
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
I am large, I contain multitudes,
Many moods, one contradicting another, a chaos—and an answering purpose.
What is a human being but a struggle between conflicting, paradoxical, opposing elements?
And they themselves, and their most violent contests, important parts of the one identity, and of its development,
Buoyed hither, in the vehement struggle so fierce for unity in one’s-self.

I swear I dare not shirk any part of myself, good or bad,
Not faith, sin, defiance, nor any disposition or duty of myself—
I resist anything better than my own diversity.
(We must have the cares, the diseases, the dyspepticisms, all expressed,
Along with the joy, the health, the wholesome inertia that round out every representative personality.)

There can be no two thoughts on Walt Whitman’s egotism,
That is what he steps out of the crowd and turns and faces them for.
Egotism is my vein, and I must flow in it; I am not ashamed of it,
I effuse egotism, the unquenchable creed, and show it underlying all—
I know that ego is divine.
We have had ducking and deprecating about enough,
To take an inferior place or be humble is unbecoming,
(A great dread of being egotistic, a shrinking from the suspicion of a show of it, is almost—who knows, quite?—an egotism itself.)

So I rate myself high—I receive no small sums,
I must have my full price, whoever enjoys me,
I am eternally equal with the best, I am not subordinate,
I know I am august, I am so wonderful!
Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself.

Yes Christ was large and Homer was great, and so Columbus and Washington—
Personal ambition, the pride of leadership, seems the means, all through progress and civilization, by which strong men and strong convictions achieve anything definite.
But greatness is the other word for development,
And in my soul I know that I am large and strong as any of them, probably larger,
Because all that they did I feel that I too could do, and more and that multiplied,
And after none of them or their achievements does my stomach say enough and satisfied.

Self-reliant, with haughty eyes,
What I shall attain to I can never tell,
I will make cities and civilizations defer to me.
I am larger, better than I thought,
I did not know I held so much goodness,
Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune,
I think I could stop here myself and do miracles.

Yet I don’t want to practice self-exaltation,
I talk of myself as I would of you, blamed and praised just the same,
Look at myself just as if I was somebody else,
The sort of egotism that is willing to know itself as honestly as it is willing to know third or fourth parties;
I have never praised myself where I would not if I had been somebody else.

I have merely looked myself over and repeated candidly what I saw—the mean things and the good things,
I reckoned up my own account, so to speak.
I know this is unusual, but is it wrong?
Why should not everybody do it?
No man understands any greatness or goodness but his own, or the indication of his own.
Why shouldn’t a man be allowed to weigh himself?
He can’t do worse than go wrong; going wrong is no hurt.

Held by this electric self, out of the pride of which I utter poems,
I will be the bard of personality,
Avowedly chanting the chant of dilation or pride,
Pressing the pulse of the life that has seldom exhibited itself—
The great pride of man in himself.
The full-spread pride of man, the endless pride and outstretching of man, is calming and excellent to the soul,
But wretched is that man who does not esteem himself—
For me the man that is proud and feels how it stings to be slighted.

Pride, indispensable, is not inconsistent with obedience, humility, deference, and self-questioning,
The utmost pride goes with the utmost resignation.
The soul has that measureless pride which revolts from every lesson but its own,
But it has sympathy as measureless as its pride and the one balances the other,
And neither can stretch too far while it stretches in company with the other.

There are two attributes of the soul, and both are illimitable,
And they are its north latitude and its south latitude—
One of these is love, the other is dilation or pride.
Dilation or pride is a father of causes,
And a mother of causes is goodness or love,
And they are the parents yet, and witness and register their amours eternally.

Walt Whitman, who has the most simplicity and good nature of any man alive, is also the haughtiest;
But I wouldn’t like people to say, he is a giant, and then forget I know how to love,
It would be no consolation to me to be a giant with the love left out,
I am awake to personality, contact, sympathy, emotionality at all times, anywhere.

I, the most loving and arrogant of men, no more modest than immodest,
I breathe the air but leave plenty after me,
And am not stuck up, and am in my place.
I reckon I behave no prouder than the level I plant my house by after all,
(Careful lest this o’er topples, and falls down from too much pride.) 

Friend, did you think then you knew me?
Will someone when I am dead and gone write my life?
As if any man really knew aught of my life,
(As if you, cunning soul, did not keep your secret well!)
To write the life of a human being takes many a book,
And after all the story is not told;
All the years of all the beings that have ever lived on the earth, with all the science and genius, were nobly occupied investigating this single minute of my life.

Trippers and askers surround me,
People I meet, or the city I live in, or the nation,
The horrors of war, the fever of doubtful news, the fitful events,
My dinner, dress, associates, looks,
The sickness of one of my folks or of myself,
Depressions or exaltations, the effect upon me of my early life;
These come to me days and nights and go from me again,
But they are not the me myself—
Did you think that talking and the laughter of me represented me?

My final merit I refuse you,
I refuse putting from me what I really am,
The real me stands yet untouch’d, untold, altogether unreach’d,
(There is something furtive in my nature, like an old hen.)

Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am,
Stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, unitary,
Looks down, is erect, or bends an arm on an impalpable certain rest,
Looking with side-curved head curious what will come next,
Both in and out of the game and watching and wondering at it.

 NEXT: YOUR IDENTITY

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).