Whitman, as Printed

‹ Leaves of Grass, 1855

The lines with “my”

my 284 Back to M

  1. p. vii, line 22[…] not be meddlesome, I will not have in my writing any elegance or effect or originality to hang in […]
  2. p. vii, line 30[…] What I experience or portray shall go from my composition without a shred of my composition. You shall stand […]
  3. p. vii, line 31[…] go from my composition without a shred of my composition. You shall stand by my side and look in […]
  4. p. vii, line 33[…] shred of my composition. You shall stand by my side and look in the mirror with me […]
  5. p. xii, line 23[…] this built to remain. Is it uniform with my country? Are its disposals without ignominious distinctions? Is it for […]
  6. p. xii, line 31[…] or nation that serves for a part of my materials. Does this answer? or is it without reference to […]
  7. p. 13, line 4I loafe and invite my soul,
  8. p. 13, line 5I lean and loafe at my ease . . . . observing a spear of summer grass.
  9. p. 13, line 10It is for my mouth forever . . . . I am in love with it,
  10. p. 13, line 13The smoke of my own breath,
  11. p. 13, line 15My respiration and inspiration . . . . the beating of my heart . . . . the passing of blood and air through my lungs,
  12. p. 13, line 17The sound of the belched words of my voice . . . . words loosed to the eddies of the wind,
  13. p. 14, line 7You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,
  14. p. 14, line 23Clear and sweet is my soul . . . . and clear and sweet is all that is not my soul.
  15. p. 15, line 1As God comes a loving bedfellow and sleeps at my side all night and close on the peep of the day,
  16. p. 15, line 3Shall I postpone my acceptation and realization and scream at my eyes,
  17. p. 15, line 8People I meet . . . . . the effect upon me of my early life . . . . of the ward and city I live in . . . . of the nation,
  18. p. 15, line 10My dinner, dress, associates, looks, business, compliments, dues,
  19. p. 15, line 12The sickness of one of my folks—or of myself . . . . or ill-doing . . . . or loss or lack of money . . . . or depressions or exaltations,
  20. p. 15, line 20Backward I see in my own days where I sweated through fog with linguists and contenders,
  21. p. 15, line 22I believe in you my soul . . . . the other I am must not abase itself to you,
  22. p. 15, line 28You settled your head athwart my hips and gently turned over upon me,
  23. p. 15, line 29And parted the shirt from my bosom-bone, and plunged your tongue to my barestript heart,
  24. p. 15, line 30And reached till you felt my beard, and reached till you held my feet.
  25. p. 15, line 32And I know that the hand of God is the elderhand of my own,
  26. p. 16, line 1And I know that the spirit of God is the eldest brother of my own,
  27. p. 16, line 2And that all the men ever born are also my brothers . . . . and the women my sisters and lovers,
  28. p. 16, line 9I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.
  29. p. 17, line 11I pass death with the dying, and birth with the new-washed babe . . . . and am not contained between my hat and boots,
  30. p. 17, line 28I lift the gauze and look a long time, and silently brush away flies with my hand.
  31. p. 18, line 22And roll head over heels, and tangle my hair full of wisps.
  32. p. 18, line 24Wandering amazed at my own lightness and glee,
  33. p. 18, line 27Soundly falling asleep on the gathered leaves, my dog and gun by my side.
  34. p. 18, line 29My eyes settle the land . . . . I bend at her prow or shout joyously from the deck.
  35. p. 18, line 31I tucked my trowser-ends in my boots and went and had a good time,
  36. p. 19, line 5The runaway slave came to my house and stopped outside,
  37. p. 19, line 10And gave him a room that entered from my own, and gave him some coarse clean clothes,
  38. p. 19, line 14I had him sit next me at table . . . . my firelock leaned in the corner.
  39. p. 20, line 21It seems to me more than all the print I have read in my life.
  40. p. 20, line 22My tread scares the wood-drake and wood-duck on my distant and daylong ramble,
  41. p. 21, line 8The press of my foot to the earth springs a hundred affections,
  42. p. 21, line 15Me going in for my chances, spending for vast returns,
  43. p. 21, line 17Not asking the sky to come down to my goodwill,
  44. p. 23, line 27A Yankee bound my own way . . . . ready for trade . . . . my joints the limberest joints on earth and the sternest joints on earth,
  45. p. 23, line 28A Kentuckian walking the vale of the Elkhorn in my deerskin leggings,
  46. p. 24, line 8I resist anything better than my own diversity,
  47. p. 24, line 10And am not stuck up, and am in my place.
  48. p. 25, line 1I sound triumphal drums for the dead . . . . I fling through my embouchures the loudest and gayest music to them,
  49. p. 25, line 10This is the touch of my lips to yours . . . . this is the murmur of yearning,
  50. p. 25, line 11This is the far-off depth and height reflecting my own face,
  51. p. 25, line 23All I mark as my own you shall offset it with your own,
  52. p. 25, line 29I cock my hat as I please indoors or out.
  53. p. 26, line 2And counselled with doctors and calculated close and found no sweeter fat than sticks to my own bones.
  54. p. 26, line 12I do not trouble my spirit to vindicate itself or be understood,
  55. p. 26, line 14I reckon I behave no prouder than the level I plant my house by after all.
  56. p. 26, line 19And whether I come to my own today or in ten thousand or ten million years,
  57. p. 26, line 21My foothold is tenoned and mortised in granite,
  58. p. 27, line 13Earth of the limpid gray of clouds brighter and clearer for my sake!
  59. p. 27, line 34Shall I make my list of things in the house and skip the house that supports them?
  60. p. 28, line 4My gait is no faultfinder's or rejecter's gait,
  61. p. 28, line 27The facts are useful and real . . . . they are not my dwelling . . . . I enter by them to an area of the dwelling.
  62. p. 28, line 29And go on the square for my own sake and for others' sakes,
  63. p. 29, line 25I do not press my finger across my mouth,
  64. p. 30, line 1If I worship any particular thing it shall be some of the spread of my body;
  65. p. 30, line 5You my rich blood, your milky stream pale strippings of my life;
  66. p. 30, line 7My brain it shall be your occult convolutions,
  67. p. 30, line 12Vapors lighting and shading my face it shall be you,
  68. p. 30, line 15Broad muscular fields, branches of liveoak, loving lounger in my winding paths, it shall be you,
  69. p. 30, line 19I cannot tell how my ankles bend . . . . nor whence the cause of my faintest wish,
  70. p. 30, line 21To walk up my stoop is unaccountable . . . . I pause to consider if it really be,
  71. p. 30, line 23A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books.
  72. p. 30, line 26The air tastes good to my palate.
  73. p. 30, line 32The heaved challenge from the east that moment over my head,
  74. p. 31, line 2We found our own my soul in the calm and cool of the daybreak.
  75. p. 31, line 3My voice goes after what my eyes cannot reach,
  76. p. 31, line 4With the twirl of my tongue I encompass worlds and volumes of worlds.
  77. p. 31, line 5Speech is the twin of my vision . . . . it is unequal to measure itself.
  78. p. 31, line 11The dirt receding before my prophetical screams,
  79. p. 31, line 13My knowledge my live parts . . . . it keeping tally with the meaning of things,
  80. p. 31, line 15My final merit I refuse you . . . . I refuse putting from me the best I am.
  81. p. 31, line 19I carry the plenum of proof and every thing else in my face,
  82. p. 31, line 20With the hush of my lips I confound the topmost skeptic.
  83. p. 31, line 23I hear the bravuras of birds . . . . the bustle of growing wheat . . . . gossip of flames . . . . clack of sticks cooking my meals.
  84. p. 32, line 10I hear the trained soprano . . . . she convulses me like the climax of my love-grip;
  85. p. 32, line 12It wrenches unnamable ardors from my breast,
  86. p. 32, line 16Steeped amid honeyed morphine . . . . my windpipe squeezed in the fakes of death,
  87. p. 32, line 24I merely stir, press, feel with my fingers, and am happy,
  88. p. 32, line 25To touch my person to some one else's is about as much as I can stand.
  89. p. 32, line 27Flames and ether making a rush for my veins,
  90. p. 32, line 29My flesh and blood playing out lightning, to strike what is hardly different from myself,
  91. p. 32, line 30On all sides prurient provokers stiffening my limbs,
  92. p. 32, line 31Straining the udder of my heart for its withheld drip,
  93. p. 32, line 33Depriving me of my best as for a purpose,
  94. p. 32, line 34Unbuttoning my clothes and holding me by the bare waist,
  95. p. 32, line 35Deluding my confusion with the calm of the sunlight and pasture fields,
  96. p. 33, line 3No consideration, no regard for my draining strength or my anger,
  97. p. 33, line 10I talk wildly . . . . I have lost my wits . . . . I and nobody else am the greatest traitor,
  98. p. 33, line 11I went myself first to the headland . . . . my own hands carried me there.
  99. p. 33, line 12You villain touch! what are you doing? . . . . my breath is tight in its throat;
  100. p. 33, line 26The damp of the night drives deeper into my soul.
  101. p. 33, line 29A minute and a drop of me settle my brain;
  102. p. 34, line 5And the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery,
  103. p. 34, line 8And I could come every afternoon of my life to look at the farmer's girl boiling her iron tea-kettle and baking shortcake.
  104. p. 34, line 14In vain the plutonic rocks send their old heat against my approach,
  105. p. 35, line 2Not too exclusive toward the reachers of my remembrancers,
  106. p. 35, line 3Picking out here one that shall be my amie,
  107. p. 35, line 5A gigantic beauty of a stallion, fresh and responsive to my caresses,
  108. p. 35, line 9His nostrils dilate . . . . my heels embrace him . . . . his well built limbs tremble with pleasure . . . . we speed around and return.
  109. p. 35, line 12Swift wind! Space! My Soul! Now I know it is true what I guessed at;
  110. p. 35, line 14What I guessed while I lay alone in my bed . . . . and again as I walked the beach under the paling stars of the morning.
  111. p. 35, line 15My ties and ballasts leave me . . . . I travel . . . . I sail . . . . my elbows rest in the sea-gaps,
  112. p. 35, line 16I skirt the sierras . . . . my palms cover continents,
  113. p. 35, line 17I am afoot with my vision.
  114. p. 35, line 20Hoeing my onion-patch, and rows of carrots and parsnips . . . . crossing savannas . . . trailing in forests,
  115. p. 35, line 22Scorched ankle-deep by the hot sand . . . . hauling my boat down the shallow river;
  116. p. 36, line 23Under Niagara, the cataract falling like a veil over my countenance;
  117. p. 37, line 20Looking in at the shop-windows in Broadway the whole forenoon . . . . pressing the flesh of my nose to the thick plate-glass,
  118. p. 37, line 21Wandering the same afternoon with my face turned up to the clouds;
  119. p. 37, line 22My right and left arms round the sides of two friends and I in the middle;
  120. p. 37, line 29Hot toward one I hate, ready in my madness to knife him;
  121. p. 37, line 30Solitary at midnight in my back yard, my thoughts gone from me a long while,
  122. p. 37, line 31Walking the old hills of Judea with the beautiful gentle god by my side;
  123. p. 38, line 9My course runs below the soundings of plummets.
  124. p. 38, line 12I anchor my ship for a little while only,
  125. p. 38, line 13My messengers continually cruise away or bring their returns to me.
  126. p. 38, line 15I ascend to the foretruck . . . . I take my place late at night in the crow's nest . . . . we sail through the arctic sea . . . . it is plenty light enough,
  127. p. 38, line 18The white-topped mountains point up in the distance . . . . I fling out my fancies toward them;
  128. p. 38, line 24And tighten her all night to my thighs and lips.
  129. p. 38, line 25My voice is the wife's voice, the screech by the rail of the stairs,
  130. p. 38, line 26They fetch my man's body up dripping and drowned.
  131. p. 39, line 17I clutch the rails of the fence . . . . my gore dribs thinned with the ooze of my skin,
  132. p. 39, line 20They taunt my dizzy ears . . . . they beat me violently over the head with their whip-stocks.
  133. p. 39, line 21Agonies are one of my changes of garments;
  134. p. 39, line 23My hurt turns livid upon me as I lean on a cane and observe.
  135. p. 39, line 25Heat and smoke I inspired . . . . I heard the yelling shouts of my comrades,
  136. p. 39, line 28I lie in the night air in my red shirt . . . . the pervading hush is for my sake,
  137. p. 40, line 12Again gurgles the mouth of my dying general . . . . he furiously waves with his hand,
  138. p. 41, line 15My captain lashed fast with his own hands.
  139. p. 41, line 23I laughed content when I heard the voice of my little captain,
  140. p. 42, line 25O Christ! My fit is mastering me!
  141. p. 43, line 7I am less the jolly one there, and more the silent one with sweat on my twitching lips.
  142. p. 43, line 10My face is ash-colored, my sinews gnarl . . . . away from me people retreat.
  143. p. 43, line 12I project my hat and sit shamefaced and beg.
  144. p. 43, line 16Give me a little time beyond my cuffed head and slumbers and dreams and gaping,
  145. p. 43, line 20That I could look with a separate look on my own crucifixion and bloody crowning!
  146. p. 44, line 4And that my steps drag behind yours yet go before them,
  147. p. 44, line 18Earth! you seem to look for something at my hands,
  148. p. 44, line 22And might tell the pinings I have . . . . the pulse of my nights and days.
  149. p. 45, line 4And in my soul I swear I never will deny him.
  150. p. 45, line 11O despairer, here is my neck,
  151. p. 45, line 26The most they offer for mankind and eternity less than a spirt of my own seminal wet,
  152. p. 45, line 30In my portfolio placing Manito loose, and Allah on a leaf, and the crucifix engraved,
  153. p. 46, line 5Not objecting to special revelations . . . . considering a curl of smoke or a hair on the back of my hand as curious as any revelation;
  154. p. 46, line 16The supernatural of no account . . . . myself waiting my time to be one of the supremes,
  155. p. 46, line 19By my life-lumps! becoming already a creator!
  156. p. 46, line 22My own voice, orotund sweeping and final.
  157. p. 46, line 23Come my children,
  158. p. 46, line 24Come my boys and girls, and my women and household and intimates,
  159. p. 46, line 27My head evolves on my neck,
  160. p. 47, line 4Ever myself and my neighbors, refreshing and wicked and real,
  161. p. 47, line 23I know perfectly well my own egotism,
  162. p. 47, line 24And know my omniverous words, and cannot say any less,
  163. p. 47, line 26My words are words of a questioning, and to indicate reality;
  164. p. 48, line 8My faith is the greatest of faiths and the least of faiths,
  165. p. 48, line 19Ranting and frothing in my insane crisis—waiting dead-like till my spirit arouses me;
  166. p. 48, line 31I take my place among you as much as among any;
  167. p. 49, line 28Were mankind murderous or jealous upon you my brother or my sister?
  168. p. 50, line 5My feet strike an apex of the apices of the stairs,
  169. p. 50, line 12And took my time . . . . and took no hurt from the fœtid carbon.
  170. p. 50, line 16Cycles ferried my cradle, rowing and rowing like cheerful boatmen;
  171. p. 50, line 19Before I was born out of my mother generations guided me,
  172. p. 50, line 20My embryo has never been torpid . . . . nothing could overlay it;
  173. p. 50, line 24Now I stand on this spot with my soul.
  174. p. 50, line 26My lovers suffocate me!
  175. p. 50, line 27Crowding my lips, and thick in the pores of my skin,
  176. p. 50, line 29Crying by day Ahoy from the rocks of the river . . . . swinging and chirping over my head,
  177. p. 50, line 30Calling my name from flowerbeds or vines or tangled underbrush,
  178. p. 51, line 1Lighting on every moment of my life,
  179. p. 51, line 2Bussing my body with soft and balsamic busses,
  180. p. 51, line 7I open my scuttle at night and see the far-sprinkled systems,
  181. p. 51, line 11My sun has his sun, and round him obediently wheels,
  182. p. 51, line 25My signs are a rain-proof coat and good shoes and a staff cut from the woods;
  183. p. 51, line 26No friend of mine takes his ease in my chair,
  184. p. 52, line 2My left hand hooks you round the waist,
  185. p. 52, line 3My right hand points to landscapes of continents, and a plain public road.
  186. p. 52, line 11If you tire, give me both burdens, and rest the chuff of your hand on my hip,
  187. p. 52, line 15And I said to my spirit, When we become the enfolders of those orbs and the pleasure and knowledge of every thing in them, shall we be filled and satisfied then?
  188. p. 52, line 16And my spirit said No, we level that lift to pass and continue beyond.
  189. p. 52, line 21But as soon as you sleep and renew yourself in sweet clothes I will certainly kiss you with my goodbye kiss and open the gate for your egress hence.
  190. p. 52, line 29He that by me spreads a wider breast than my own proves the width of my own,
  191. p. 52, line 30He most honors my style who learns under it to destroy the teacher.
  192. p. 53, line 9My words itch at your ears till you understand them.
  193. p. 53, line 17The maul the oar and the handsaw second my words.
  194. p. 53, line 22The farmboy ploughing in the field feels good at the sound of my voice,
  195. p. 53, line 23In vessels that sail my words must sail . . . . I go with fishermen and seamen, and love them,
  196. p. 53, line 24My face rubs to the hunter's face when he lies down alone in his blanket,
  197. p. 54, line 13In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass;
  198. p. 55, line 5Wrenched and sweaty . . . . calm and cool then my body becomes;
  199. p. 55, line 11Perhaps I might tell more . . . . Outlines! I plead for my brothers and sisters.
  200. p. 55, line 12Do you see O my brothers and sisters?
  201. p. 55, line 15And proceed to fill my next fold of the future.
  202. p. 55, line 17Look in my face while I snuff the sidle of evening,
  203. p. 55, line 26The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me . . . . he complains of my gab and my loitering.
  204. p. 55, line 28I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.
  205. p. 56, line 1It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadowed wilds,
  206. p. 56, line 3I depart as air . . . . I shake my white locks at the runaway sun,
  207. p. 56, line 4I effuse my flesh in eddies and drift it in lacy jags.
  208. p. 57, line 2Push close my lovers and take the best I possess,
  209. p. 57, line 14I take no sooner a large price than a small price . . . . I will have my own whoever enjoys me,
  210. p. 58, line 2If you remember your foolish and outlawed deeds, do you think I cannot remember my foolish and outlawed deeds?
  211. p. 60, line 14But I am eternally in love with you and with all my fellows upon the earth.
  212. p. 64, line 11When warrantee deeds loafe in chairs opposite and are my friendly companions,
  213. p. 64, line 12I intend to reach them my hand and make as much of them as I do of men and women.
  214. p. 69, line 19How beautiful and perfect are the animals! How perfect is my soul!
  215. p. 69, line 24O my soul! if I realize you I have satisfaction,
  216. p. 69, line 27I cannot define my satisfaction . . yet it is so,
  217. p. 69, line 28I cannot define my life . . yet it is so.
  218. p. 70, line 4I WANDER all night in my vision,
  219. p. 71, line 8I pass my hands soothingly to and fro a few inches from them;
  220. p. 71, line 13I dream in my dream all the dreams of the other dreamers,
  221. p. 71, line 30My truant lover has come and it is dark.
  222. p. 71, line 32Receive me and my lover too . . . . he will not let me go without him.
  223. p. 72, line 2He whom I call answers me and takes the place of my lover,
  224. p. 72, line 4Darkness you are gentler than my lover . . . . his flesh was sweaty and panting,
  225. p. 72, line 6My hands are spread forth . . I pass them in all directions,
  226. p. 72, line 9I thought my lover had gone . . . . else darkness and he are one,
  227. p. 72, line 12O for pity's sake, no one must see me now! . . . . my clothes were stolen while I was abed,
  228. p. 72, line 17And am curious to know where my feet stand . . . . and what is this flooding me, childhood or manhood . . . . and the hunger that crosses the bridge between.
  229. p. 72, line 22I descend my western course . . . . my sinews are flaccid,
  230. p. 72, line 24It is my face yellow and wrinkled instead of the old woman's,
  231. p. 72, line 25I sit low in a strawbottom chair and carefully darn my grandson's stockings.
  232. p. 73, line 19I cannot aid with my wringing fingers;
  233. p. 74, line 4Now I tell what my mother told me today as we sat at dinner together,
  234. p. 74, line 10My mother looked in delight and amazement at the stranger,
  235. p. 74, line 17O my mother was loth to have her go away,
  236. p. 74, line 25How he informs against my brother and sister and takes pay for their blood,
  237. p. 74, line 26How he laughs when I look down the bend after the steamboat that carries away my woman.
  238. p. 74, line 28Warily, sportsman! though I lie so sleepy and sluggish, my tap is death.
  239. p. 77, line 6I will duly pass the day O my mother and duly return to you;
  240. p. 77, line 8Not the womb yields the babe in its time more surely than I shall be yielded from you in my time.
  241. p. 79, line 9To pass among them . . to touch any one . . . . to rest my arm ever so lightly round his or her neck for a moment . . . . what is this then?
  242. p. 80, line 5As I see my soul reflected in nature . . . . as I see through a mist one with inexpressible completeness and beauty . . . . see the bent head and arms folded over the breast . . . . the female I see,
  243. p. 83, line 27Features of my equals, would you trick me with your creased and cadaverous march?
  244. p. 84, line 4And I knew for my consolation what they knew not;
  245. p. 84, line 5I knew of the agents that emptied and broke my brother,
  246. p. 84, line 28Stand at my side till I lean as high as I can upon you,
  247. p. 84, line 30Rub to me with your chafing beard . . rub to my breast and shoulders.
  248. p. 85, line 19And I stood before the young man face to face, and took his right hand in my left hand and his left hand in my right hand,
  249. p. 86, line 23And he says Good day my brother, to Cudge that hoes in the sugarfield;
  250. p. 92, line 1WHO learns my lesson complete?
  251. p. 92, line 20I know it is wonderful . . . . but my eyesight is equally wonderful . . . . and how I was conceived in my mother's womb is equally wonderful,
  252. p. 92, line 23And 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: