Whitman, as Printed

‹ Leaves of Grass, 1891–92

The lines with “they”

they 499 Back to T

  1. p. 13, line 22Nor these the universes, they the universes,
  2. p. 15, line 1HOW they are provided for upon the earth, (appearing at intervals,)
  3. p. 15, line 2How dear and dreadful they are to the earth,
  4. p. 15, line 3How they inure to themselves as much as to any—what a paradox appears their age,
  5. p. 16, line 8Imbued as they, passive, receptive, silent as they,
  6. p. 16, line 22They surround the ship with shining curving motions and foam.
  7. p. 19, line 18As in a dream they change, they swiftly fill,
  8. p. 19, line 20They are now cover'd with the foremost people, arts, institutions, known.
  9. p. 19, line 23With firm and regular step they wend, they never stop,
  10. p. 20, line 10Make welcome for them everywhere, for they are your own offspring,
  11. p. 20, line 11Surround them East and West, for they would surround you,
  12. p. 20, line 12And you precedents, connect lovingly with them, for they connect lovingly with you.
  13. p. 21, line 7I will make the poems of materials, for I think they are to be the most spiritual poems,
  14. p. 22, line 4Omnes! omnes! let others ignore what they may,
  15. p. 22, line 10Who knows? they may rise from me yet, and soar above every thing.)
  16. p. 23, line 22After what they have done to me, suggesting themes.
  17. p. 27, line 6Hereby applying these leaves to the new ones from the hour they unite with the old ones,
  18. p. 27, line 25Leaving such to the States they melt, they depart, charging the water and the land with names.
  19. p. 28, line 11See, on the one side the Western Sea and on the other the Eastern Sea, how they advance and retreat upon my poems as upon their own shores,
  20. p. 29, line 16Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,
  21. p. 31, line 11Knowing the perfect fitness and equanimity of things, while they discuss I am silent, and go bathe and admire myself.
  22. p. 31, line 18That they turn from gazing after and down the road,
  23. p. 32, line 6But they are not the Me myself.
  24. p. 33, line 24And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for nothing.
  25. p. 34, line 4They are alive and well somewhere,
  26. p. 34, line 17(They do not know how immortal, but I know.)
  27. p. 36, line 12Her father and his friends sat near cross-legged and dumbly smoking, they had moccasins to their feet and large thick blankets hanging from their shoulders,
  28. p. 37, line 16The young men float on their backs, their white bellies bulge to the sun, they do not ask who seizes fast to them,
  29. p. 37, line 17They do not know who puffs and declines with pendant and bending arch,
  30. p. 37, line 18They do not think whom they souse with spray.
  31. p. 37, line 22Each has his main-sledge, they are all out, there is a great heat in the fire.
  32. p. 37, line 26They do not hasten, each man hits in his place.
  33. p. 38, line 14They rise together, they slowly circle around.
  34. p. 39, line 2The litter of the grunting sow as they tug at her teats,
  35. p. 39, line 6They scorn the best I can do to relate them.
  36. p. 43, line 1These are really the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands, they are not original with me,
  37. p. 43, line 2If they are not yours as much as mine they are nothing, or next to nothing,
  38. p. 43, line 3If they are not the riddle and the untying of the riddle they are nothing,
  39. p. 43, line 4If they are not just as close as they are distant they are nothing.
  40. p. 43, line 10I also say it is good to fall, battles are lost in the same spirit in which they are won.
  41. p. 44, line 5Do I astonish more than they?
  42. p. 45, line 25It is a trifle, they will more than arrive there every one, and still pass on.
  43. p. 47, line 26Your facts are useful, and yet they are not my dwelling,
  44. p. 48, line 2And more the reminders they of life untold, and of freedom and extrication,
  45. p. 51, line 14(They go to guard some corpse, the flag-tops are draped with black muslin.)
  46. p. 51, line 25It sails me, I dab with bare feet, they are lick'd by the indolent waves,
  47. p. 52, line 9They seize every object and lead it harmlessly through me.
  48. p. 52, line 23They bribed to swap off with touch and go and graze at the edges of me,
  49. p. 52, line 28They have left me helpless to a red marauder,
  50. p. 52, line 29They all come to the headland to witness and assist against me.
  51. p. 53, line 11They neither hasten their own delivery nor resist it,
  52. p. 53, line 12They do not need the obstetric forceps of the surgeon,
  53. p. 53, line 22And a summit and flower there is the feeling they have for each other,
  54. p. 53, line 23And they are to branch boundlessly out of that lesson until it becomes omnific,
  55. p. 54, line 20I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contain'd,
  56. p. 54, line 22They do not sweat and whine about their condition,
  57. p. 54, line 23They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
  58. p. 54, line 24They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,
  59. p. 54, line 28So they show their relations to me and I accept them,
  60. p. 54, line 29They bring me tokens of myself, they evince them plainly in their possession.
  61. p. 54, line 30I wonder where they get those tokens,
  62. p. 59, line 14They fetch my man's body up dripping and drown'd.
  63. p. 60, line 16They have clear'd the beams away, they tenderly lift me forth.
  64. p. 60, line 22They show as the dial or move as the hands of me, I am the clock myself.
  65. p. 61, line 13Retreating they had form'd in a hollow square with their baggage for breastworks,
  66. p. 61, line 14Nine hundred lives out of the surrounding enemy's, nine times their number, was the price they took in advance,
  67. p. 61, line 16They treated for an honorable capitulation, receiv'd writing and seal, gave up their arms and march'd back prisoners of war.
  68. p. 61, line 17They were the glory of the race of rangers,
  69. p. 61, line 22The second First-day morning they were brought out in squads and massacred, it was beautiful early summer,
  70. p. 62, line 21They see so many strange faces they do not know whom to trust.
  71. p. 63, line 5They hold out bravely during the whole of the action.
  72. p. 63, line 12Toward twelve there in the beams of the moon they surrender to us.
  73. p. 64, line 4In at the conquer'd doors they crowd! I am possess'd!
  74. p. 65, line 17They desire he should like them, touch them, speak to them, stay with them.
  75. p. 65, line 20They descend in new forms from the tips of his fingers,
  76. p. 65, line 21They are wafted with the odor of his body or breath, they fly out of the glance of his eyes.
  77. p. 66, line 26Sleep—I and they keep guard all night,
  78. p. 66, line 30I am he bringing help for the sick as they pant on their backs,
  79. p. 67, line 11Taking them all for what they are worth and not a cent more,
  80. p. 67, line 12Admitting they were alive and did the work of their days,
  81. p. 67, line 13(They bore mites as for unfledg'd birds who have now to rise and fly and sing for themselves,)
  82. p. 68, line 11Folks are around me, but they are no household of mine.
  83. p. 68, line 23A few idly owning, and they the wheat continually claiming.
  84. p. 69, line 1I am aware who they are, (they are positively not worms or fleas,)
  85. p. 70, line 10How they contort rapid as lightning, with spasms and spouts of blood!
  86. p. 71, line 14I am sorry for you, they are not murderous or jealous upon me,
  87. p. 72, line 3They sent influences to look after what was to hold me.
  88. p. 72, line 27Wider and wider they spread, expanding, always expanding,
  89. p. 73, line 9They are but parts, any thing is but a part.
  90. p. 75, line 19But roughs and little children better than they.
  91. p. 76, line 4The girl and the wife rest the needle a moment and forget where they are,
  92. p. 76, line 5They and all would resume what I have told them.
  93. p. 76, line 24And I leave them where they are, for I know that wheresoe'er I go,
  94. p. 81, line 18They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,
  95. p. 81, line 21And if those who defile the living are as bad as they who defile the dead?
  96. p. 83, line 5They and his daughters loved him, all who saw him loved him,
  97. p. 83, line 6They did not love him by allowance, they loved him with personal love,
  98. p. 85, line 18Whatever the bids of the bidders they cannot be high enough for it,
  99. p. 85, line 23Examine these limbs, red, black, or white, they are cunning in tendon and nerve,
  100. p. 85, line 24They shall be stript that you may see them.
  101. p. 86, line 4(Do you think they are not there because they are not express'd in parlors and lecture-rooms?)
  102. p. 86, line 20For they do not conceal themselves, and cannot conceal themselves.
  103. p. 86, line 22I believe the likes of you are to stand or fall with the likes of the soul, (and that they are the soul,)
  104. p. 87, line 1I believe the likes of you shall stand or fall with my poems, and that they are my poems,
  105. p. 88, line 18I see that they understand me and do not deny me,
  106. p. 88, line 19I see that they are worthy of me, I will be the robust husband of those women.
  107. p. 88, line 20They are not one jot less than I am,
  108. p. 88, line 21They are tann'd in the face by shining suns and blowing winds,
  109. p. 88, line 23They know how to swim, row, ride, wrestle, shoot, run, strike, retreat, advance, resist, defend themselves,
  110. p. 88, line 24They are ultimate in their own right—they are calm, clear, well-possess'd of themselves.
  111. p. 89, line 5They refuse to awake at the touch of any man but me.
  112. p. 90, line 10Two sleepers at night lying close together as they sleep, one with an arm slanting down across and below the waist of the other,
  113. p. 90, line 16The sensitive, orbic, underlapp'd brothers, that only privileged feelers may be intimate where they are,
  114. p. 97, line 13That you hide in these shifting forms of life, for reasons, and that they are mainly for you,
  115. p. 98, line 19They will elude you at first and still more afterward, I will certainly elude you,
  116. p. 98, line 26Nor will my poems do good only, they will do just as much evil, perhaps more,
  117. p. 99, line 23They the spirits of dear friends dead or alive, thicker they come, a great crowd, and I in the middle,
  118. p. 101, line 6The skies of day and night, colors, densities, forms, may-be these are (as doubtless they are) only apparitions, and the real something has yet to be known,
  119. p. 101, line 7(How often they dart out of themselves as if to confound me and mock me!
  120. p. 101, line 9May-be seeming to me what they are (as doubtless they indeed but seem) as from my present point of view, and might prove (as of course they would) nought of what they appear, or nought anyhow, from entirely changed points of view;
  121. p. 102, line 17Whose happiest days were far away through fields, in woods, on hills, he and another wandering hand in hand, they twain apart from other men,
  122. p. 104, line 7If you bring the warmth of the sun to them they will open and bring form, color, perfume, to you,
  123. p. 104, line 8If you become the aliment and the wet they will become flowers, fruits, tall branches and trees.
  124. p. 104, line 12Wafted, sailing gracefully, to drop where they may;
  125. p. 107, line 22Through youth and through middle and old age, how unfaltering, how affectionate and faithful they were,
  126. p. 108, line 17And yet they expose me more than all my other poems.
  127. p. 112, line 19What myriads of dwellings are they fill'd with dwellers?
  128. p. 113, line 9I hear the locusts in Syria as they strike the grain and grass with the showers of their terrible clouds,
  129. p. 113, line 21Who are they you salute, and that one after another salute you?
  130. p. 114, line 5I see mountain peaks, I see the sierras of Andes where they range,
  131. p. 116, line 15I see them raised high with stones by the marge of restless oceans, that the dead men's spirits when they wearied of their quiet graves might rise up through the mounds and gaze on the tossing billows, and be refresh'd by storms, immensity, liberty, action.
  132. p. 121, line 7I know they are very well where they are,
  133. p. 121, line 8I know they suffice for those who belong to them.
  134. p. 121, line 20They pass, I also pass, any thing passes, none can be interdicted,
  135. p. 122, line 24Listening to others, considering well what they say,
  136. p. 123, line 27They may prove well in lecture-rooms, yet not prove at all under the spacious clouds and along the landscape and flowing currents.
  137. p. 124, line 3The past, the future, majesty, love—if they are vacant of you, you are vacant of them.
  138. p. 124, line 12These yearnings why are they? these thoughts in the darkness why are they?
  139. p. 124, line 13Why are there men and women that while they are nigh me the sunlight expands my blood?
  140. p. 124, line 14Why when they leave me do my pennants of joy sink flat and lank?
  141. p. 124, line 16(I think they hang there winter and summer on those trees and always drop fruit as I pass;)
  142. p. 126, line 13They too are on the road—they are the swift and majestic men—they are the greatest women,
  143. p. 127, line 3To merge all in the travel they tend to, and the days and nights they tend to,
  144. p. 127, line 22They go! they go! I know that they go, but I know not where they go,
  145. p. 127, line 23But I know that they go toward the best—toward something great.
  146. p. 130, line 4Fifty years hence, others will see them as they cross, the sun half an hour high,
  147. p. 131, line 8These and all else were to me the same as they are to you,
  148. p. 131, line 19In the day among crowds of people sometimes they came upon me,
  149. p. 131, line 20In my walks home late at night or as I lay in my bed they came upon me,
  150. p. 132, line 2My great thoughts as I supposed them, were they not in reality meagre?
  151. p. 132, line 13Was call'd by my nighest name by clear loud voices of young men as they saw me approaching or passing,
  152. p. 134, line 15To the cities and farms I sing as they spread in the sunshine before me.
  153. p. 134, line 22Him they accept, in him lave, in him perceive themselves as amid light,
  154. p. 134, line 23Him they immerse and he immerses them.
  155. p. 135, line 7The perpetual shows and marches on land are for him if they are for anybody.
  156. p. 136, line 2One part does not counteract another part, he is the joiner, he sees how they join.
  157. p. 136, line 21They are not vile any more, they hardly know themselves they are so grown.
  158. p. 137, line 22They give you to form for yourself poems, religions, politics, war, peace, behavior, histories, essays, daily life, and every thing else,
  159. p. 137, line 23They balance ranks, colors, races, creeds, and the sexes,
  160. p. 138, line 1They do not seek beauty, they are sought,
  161. p. 138, line 3They prepare for death, yet are they not the finish, but rather the outset,
  162. p. 138, line 4They bring none to his or her terminus or to be content and full,
  163. p. 138, line 5Whom they take they take into space to behold the birth of stars, to learn one of the meanings,
  164. p. 139, line 5In farmers' barns oxen in the stable, their harvest labor done, they rest standing, they are too tired,
  165. p. 141, line 3The country boy at the close of the day driving the herd of cows and shouting to them as they loiter to browse by the roadside,
  166. p. 144, line 3My brood of grown and part-grown boys, who love to be with no one else so well as they love to be with me,
  167. p. 144, line 5Another time in warm weather out in a boat, to lift the lobster-pots where they are sunk with heavy stones, (I know the buoys,)
  168. p. 144, line 11Voracious, mad for the hook, near the surface, they seem to fill the water for miles;
  169. p. 144, line 19The little huts on the rafts, and the stream of smoke when they cook supper at evening.
  170. p. 150, line 7Setting the studs by their tenons in the mortises according as they were prepared,
  171. p. 152, line 8They fill their hour, the dancers dance, the musicians play for them,
  172. p. 153, line 7Where they enter the public assembly and take places the same as the men;
  173. p. 155, line 1They spirt no more the blood of European nobles, they clasp no more the necks of queens.
  174. p. 155, line 9They tumble forth, they rise and form,
  175. p. 157, line 15She is silent, she is possess'd of herself, they do not offend her,
  176. p. 161, line 8You shall see the crude ores of California and Nevada passing on and on till they become bullion,
  177. p. 164, line 8Overhand so steady, overhand they turn and fall with joyous clank,
  178. p. 165, line 16And lives and works, what are they all at last, except the roads to faith and death?)
  179. p. 167, line 2For a superber race, they too to grandly fill their time,
  180. p. 172, line 4Or men and women that they might be written of, and songs sung?
  181. p. 172, line 13I do not say they are not grand and good, for they are,
  182. p. 172, line 16We consider bibles and religions divine—I do not say they are not divine,
  183. p. 172, line 17I say they have all grown out of you, and may grow out of you still,
  184. p. 172, line 18It is not they who give the life, it is you who give the life,
  185. p. 172, line 19Leaves are not more shed from the trees, or trees from the earth, than they are shed out of you.
  186. p. 173, line 5If you were not breathing and walking here, where would they all be?
  187. p. 173, line 11It is nearer and farther than they.
  188. p. 175, line 20When I can touch the body of books by night or by day, and when they touch my body back again,
  189. p. 176, line 4They are in the air, they are in you.
  190. p. 176, line 6No, the real words are more delicious than they.
  191. p. 176, line 22The truths of the earth continually wait, they are not so conceal'd either,
  192. p. 177, line 1They are calm, subtle, untransmissible by print,
  193. p. 177, line 2They are imbued through all things conveying themselves willingly,
  194. p. 178, line 11Embracing all, soothing, supporting, follow close three hundred and sixty-five offsets of the first, sure and necessary as they.
  195. p. 180, line 3Things are not dismiss'd from the places they held before,
  196. p. 180, line 10(If they did not echo the phrases of souls what were they then?
  197. p. 180, line 11If they had not reference to you in especial what were they then?)
  198. p. 180, line 20I swear to you they will understand you and justify you,
  199. p. 180, line 22He and the rest shall not forget you, they shall perceive that you are not an iota less than they,
  200. p. 183, line 18Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied over there beyond the seas?
  201. p. 184, line 30Falling in they beat for us, with the Western movement beat,
  202. p. 185, line 17These are of us, they are with us,
  203. p. 185, line 34Do the corpulent sleepers sleep? have they lock'd and bolted doors?
  204. p. 186, line 13They stand forth out of affairs, out of commerce, shops, work, farms, clothes, the house, buying, selling, eating, drinking, suffering, dying.
  205. p. 187, line 9(Your thrift, knowledge, prayers, if they do not return in mockeries, what is their return?)
  206. p. 187, line 13Silence, the desk, the flippant expression, the night, the accustom'd routine, if these conceal you from others or from yourself, they do not conceal you from me,
  207. p. 187, line 14The shaved face, the unsteady eye, the impure complexion, if these balk others they do not balk me,
  208. p. 187, line 24These immense meadows, these interminable rivers, you are immense and interminable as they,
  209. p. 189, line 6O I hear already the bustle of instruments, they will soon be drowning all that would interrupt them,
  210. p. 190, line 8Who are they I see and touch, and what about them?
  211. p. 191, line 15Of such, and fitful as they, I sing—with gleams from them would I gleam and patch these chants,
  212. p. 192, line 26I assert that all past days were what they must have been,
  213. p. 192, line 27And that they could no-how have been better than they were,
  214. p. 192, line 29And that to-day and America could no-how be better than they are.
  215. p. 196, line 11They are justified, they are accomplish'd, they shall now be turn'd the other way also, to travel toward you thence,
  216. p. 196, line 12They shall now also march obediently eastward for your sake Libertad.
  217. p. 196, line 18Up from the mystic play of shadows twining and twisting as if they were alive,
  218. p. 197, line 5From such as now they start the scene revisiting,
  219. p. 202, line 4Where they rustle up hoarse and sibilant,
  220. p. 206, line 14They shall not long possess the sky, they devour the stars only in apparition,
  221. p. 206, line 16They are immortal, all those stars both silvery and golden shall shine out again,
  222. p. 206, line 17The great stars and the little ones shall shine out again, they endure,
  223. p. 207, line 16All souls, all living bodies though they be ever so different, or in different worlds,
  224. p. 210, line 16See how well dress'd, see how orderly they conduct themselves.
  225. p. 210, line 24They shall get a grant from the Parliament, go with a cart to the royal vault,
  226. p. 212, line 13And all these things bear fruits, and they are good.
  227. p. 212, line 16Cold and motionless as they seem live elsewhere with unslaughter'd vitality.
  228. p. 212, line 17They live in other young men O kings!
  229. p. 212, line 18They live in brothers again ready to defy you,
  230. p. 212, line 19They were purified by death, they were taught and exalted.
  231. p. 214, line 4Wonders as of those countries, the soil, trees, cities, inhabitants, whatever they may be,
  232. p. 215, line 12You have not seen that only such as they are for these States,
  233. p. 215, line 13And that what is less than they must sooner or later lift off from these States.
  234. p. 219, line 1Who are they as bats and night-dogs askant in the capitol?
  235. p. 220, line 2Leapt they tumultuous, and lo! Manhattan arming.
  236. p. 220, line 10The new recruits, even boys, the old men show them how to wear their accoutrements, they buckle the straps carefully,
  237. p. 220, line 14(How good they look as they tramp down to the river, sweaty, with their guns on their shoulders!
  238. p. 222, line 14No bargainers' bargains by day—no brokers or speculators—would they continue?
  239. p. 222, line 23Make even the trestles to shake the dead where they lie awaiting the hearses,
  240. p. 223, line 2To Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, to sing their songs, (they are inimitable;)
  241. p. 226, line 11And the fields they moisten, and the crops and the fruits are ours,
  242. p. 226, line 19They will never to me be any thing, nor do I like money,
  243. p. 227, line 23May they stand fast, then? not an hour except you above them and all stand fast;)
  244. p. 228, line 21I mark'd the white combs where they career'd so high, curling over,
  245. p. 229, line 3Noted the slender and jagged threads of lightning as sudden and fast amid the din they chased each other across the sky;
  246. p. 231, line 27The troops are but drilling, they are yet surrounded with smiles,
  247. p. 232, line 1But drill and parade are over, they march back to quarters,
  248. p. 232, line 8And below there where the boys were drilling, and up the slopes they ran,
  249. p. 232, line 27We could watch down the lower bay where they lay at anchor,
  250. p. 232, line 29A few days more and they landed, and then the battle.
  251. p. 233, line 8Jauntily forward they went with quick step toward Gowanus' waters,
  252. p. 233, line 13They made repeated desperate attempts to burst their environment,
  253. p. 234, line 10Silent as a ghost while they thought they were sure of him, my General retreated.
  254. p. 235, line 3They are cut off, murderous artillery from the hills plays upon them,
  255. p. 235, line 10A LINE in long array where they wind betwixt green islands,
  256. p. 235, line 11They take a serpentine course, their arms flash in the sun—hark to the musical clank,
  257. p. 236, line 13The shrubs and trees, (as I lift my eyes they seem to be stealthily watching me,)
  258. p. 237, line 22While they stand at home at the door he is dead already,
  259. p. 242, line 10Enter the captur'd works—yet lo, like a swift-running river they fade,
  260. p. 242, line 11Pass and are gone they fade—I dwell not on soldiers' perils or soldiers' joys,
  261. p. 242, line 20Where they lie on the ground after the battle brought in,
  262. p. 246, line 18(In the foremost ranks of the fierce assault they fell,
  263. p. 247, line 4They shall yet make Columbia victorious.
  264. p. 248, line 1I saw them receive their orders aside, they listen'd with care, the adjutant was very grave,
  265. p. 248, line 8The skirmishers begin, they crawl cautiously ahead, I hear the irregular snap! snap!
  266. p. 248, line 10I see the shells exploding leaving small white clouds, I hear the great shells shrieking as they pass,
  267. p. 249, line 12A little child, they caught me as the savage beast is caught,
  268. p. 254, line 19TO the leaven'd soil they trod calling I sing for the last,
  269. p. 255, line 2And responding they answer all, (but not in words,)
  270. p. 259, line 18The many-moving sea-tides, and I saw the ships how they sail'd,
  271. p. 259, line 20And the infinite separate houses, how they all went on, each with its meals and minutia of daily usages,
  272. p. 261, line 26But I saw they were not as was thought,
  273. p. 261, line 27They themselves were fully at rest, they suffer'd not,
  274. p. 263, line 2For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
  275. p. 263, line 24As they invault the coffin there,
  276. p. 263, line 25Sing—as they close the doors of earth upon him—one verse,
  277. p. 265, line 24A work remains, the work of surpassing all they have done.
  278. p. 266, line 2Does not repel them or the past or what they have produced under their forms,
  279. p. 267, line 17Responding their manners, speech, dress, friendships, the gait they have of persons who never knew how it felt to stand in the presence of superiors,
  280. p. 270, line 7They live in the feelings of young men and the best women,
  281. p. 275, line 14I will know if I am to be less than they,
  282. p. 275, line 15I will see if I am not as majestic as they,
  283. p. 275, line 16I will see if I am not as subtle and real as they,
  284. p. 275, line 17I will see if I am to be less generous than they,
  285. p. 275, line 23These States, what are they except myself?
  286. p. 276, line 14Till they strike up marches henceforth triumphant and onward,
  287. p. 280, line 4Ah the dead to me mar not, they fit well in Nature,
  288. p. 280, line 5They fit very well in the landscape under the trees and grass,
  289. p. 280, line 24They melt, they disappear.
  290. p. 282, line 6Under thee only they harvest, even but a wisp of hay under thy great face only,
  291. p. 283, line 12They gave this child more of themselves than that,
  292. p. 283, line 13They gave him afterward every day, they became part of him.
  293. p. 283, line 22Men and women crowding fast in the streets, if they are not flashes and specks what are they?
  294. p. 285, line 1Her corpse they deposit unclaim'd, it lies on the damp brick pavement,
  295. p. 285, line 23Are they not continually putting distemper'd corpses within you?
  296. p. 287, line 24The great speakers and writers are exiled, they lie sick in distant lands,
  297. p. 287, line 26The young men droop their eyelashes toward the ground when they meet;
  298. p. 288, line 11In defeat, poverty, misconception, imprisonment—for they too are great.
  299. p. 288, line 21What of liberty and slavery among them, what they thought of death and the soul,
  300. p. 289, line 1I know that they belong to the scheme of the world every bit as much as we now belong to it.
  301. p. 289, line 2Afar they stand, yet near to me they stand,
  302. p. 289, line 11Did they achieve nothing for good for themselves?
  303. p. 291, line 5These inure, have inured, shall inure, to the identities from which they sprang, or shall spring.
  304. p. 293, line 11While upon all, convicts and armed keepers ere they stirr'd,
  305. p. 297, line 7Do you move in these broad lands as broad as they?
  306. p. 297, line 16They debouch as they are wanted to march obediently through the mouth of that man or that woman.
  307. p. 298, line 14They close peremptorily upon us to surround us, my comrade,
  308. p. 300, line 16So that often to me they appear gaunt and naked,
  309. p. 300, line 20And often to me they are alive after what custom has served them, but nothing more,
  310. p. 300, line 21And often to me they are sad, hasty, unwaked sonnambules walking the dusk.)
  311. p. 302, line 3The scene and all its belongings, how they seize and affect me,
  312. p. 304, line 4OTHERS may praise what they like;
  313. p. 304, line 18They are so beautiful I nudge myself to listen.
  314. p. 305, line 11And that they balance themselves with the sun and stars is equally wonderful.
  315. p. 305, line 12ALL submit to them where they sit, inner, secure, unapproachable to analysis in the soul,
  316. p. 305, line 14They are the judges of outer authorities and of all traditions,
  317. p. 305, line 15They corroborate as they go only whatever corroborates themselves, and touches themselves;
  318. p. 305, line 16For all that, they have it forever in themselves to corroborate far and near without one exception.
  319. p. 307, line 10There they bring him the three-year-olds and the four-year-olds to break them,
  320. p. 307, line 16They all know him, all are affectionate to him;
  321. p. 307, line 21How straight and square they stand on their legs—what fine sagacious eyes!
  322. p. 307, line 22How they watch their tamer—they wish him near them—how they turn to look after him!
  323. p. 307, line 23What yearning expression! how uneasy they are when he moves away from them;
  324. p. 310, line 27Listen, lose not, it is toward thee they tend,
  325. p. 310, line 29For thee they sing and dance O soul.
  326. p. 313, line 20I hear dervishes monotonously chanting, interspers'd with frantic shouts, as they spin around turning always towards Mecca,
  327. p. 313, line 23I hear them clapping their hands as they bend their bodies,
  328. p. 313, line 27As they fall on their knees and rise again.
  329. p. 317, line 23Over my mood stealing and spreading they come,
  330. p. 317, line 27A ceaseless thought, a varied train—lo, soul, to thee, thy sight, they rise,
  331. p. 318, line 26After the seas are all cross'd, (as they seem already cross'd,)
  332. p. 319, line 15Europe to Asia, Africa join'd, and they to the New World,
  333. p. 323, line 11O daring joy, but safe! are they not all the seas of God?
  334. p. 324, line 7O I am sure they really came from Thee,
  335. p. 325, line 7And these things I see suddenly, what mean they?
  336. p. 325, line 17How solemn they look there, stretch'd and still,
  337. p. 325, line 18How quiet they breathe, the little children in their cradles.
  338. p. 326, line 11The restless sink in their beds, they fitfully sleep.
  339. p. 326, line 22Well do they do their jobs those journeymen divine,
  340. p. 326, line 23Only from me can they hide nothing, and would not if they could,
  341. p. 326, line 24I reckon I am their boss and they make me a pet besides,
  342. p. 328, line 9The slapping eddies are spotted with his blood, they bear him away, they roll him, swing him, turn him,
  343. p. 328, line 16I look where the ship helplessly heads end on, I hear the burst as she strikes, I hear the howls of dismay, they grow fainter and fainter.
  344. p. 330, line 11They warmly welcome him, he is barefoot again, he forgets he is well off,
  345. p. 330, line 26I swear they are averaged now—one is no better than the other,
  346. p. 331, line 1I swear they are all beautiful,
  347. p. 331, line 17The diverse shall be no less diverse, but they shall flow and unite—they unite now.
  348. p. 331, line 18The sleepers are very beautiful as they lie unclothed,
  349. p. 331, line 19They flow hand in hand over the whole earth from east to west as they lie unclothed,
  350. p. 331, line 22The bare arm of the girl crosses the bare breast of her lover, they press close without lust, his lips press her neck,
  351. p. 332, line 10They pass the invigoration of the night and the chemistry of the night, and awake.
  352. p. 332, line 19LET the reformers descend from the stands where they are forever bawling—let an idiot or insane person appear on each of the stands;
  353. p. 333, line 7If the future is nothing they are just as surely nothing.
  354. p. 334, line 5Slow-moving and black lines creep over the whole earth—they never cease—they are the burial lines,
  355. p. 335, line 2The markets, the government, the working-man's wages, to think what account they are through our nights and days,
  356. p. 335, line 15The domestic joys, the daily housework or business, the building of houses, are not phantasms, they have weight, form, location,
  357. p. 336, line 16Northerner goes carried and Southerner goes carried, and they on the Atlantic side and they on the Pacific,
  358. p. 336, line 17And they between, and all through the Mississippi country, and all over the earth.
  359. p. 336, line 18The great masters and kosmos are well as they go, the heroes and good-doers are well,
  360. p. 336, line 23The perpetual successions of shallow people are not nothing as they go.
  361. p. 337, line 3For I have dream'd that the law they are under now is enough.
  362. p. 337, line 19Slowly and surely they have pass'd on to this, and slowly and surely they yet pass on.
  363. p. 338, line 22Mournfully slowly they roll, silently swelling and mixing,
  364. p. 340, line 22And I dream'd I went where they had buried him I love, but he was not in that place,
  365. p. 342, line 5I do not doubt that the orbs and the systems of orbs play their swift sports through the air on purpose, and that I shall one day be eligible to do as much as they, and more than they,
  366. p. 344, line 8You are to die—let others tell you what they please, I cannot prevaricate,
  367. p. 345, line 16Of certain ships, how they sail from port with flying streamers and wafted kisses, and that is the last of them,
  368. p. 351, line 5Whatever they are to-day and whatever through time they may be,
  369. p. 351, line 6They each and all shall lift and pass away and cease from thee,
  370. p. 351, line 21Ten fishermen waiting—they discover a thick school of mossbonkers—they drop the join'd seine-ends in the water,
  371. p. 353, line 23Its sleepy and wabbling icebergs crunch as they go.
  372. p. 353, line 24This is a face of bitter herbs, this an emetic, they need no label,
  373. p. 354, line 2Its veins down the neck distend, its eyes roll till they show nothing but their whites,
  374. p. 354, line 15I saw the face of the most smear'd and slobbering idiot they had at the asylum,
  375. p. 354, line 16And I knew for my consolation what they knew not,
  376. p. 355, line 6They show their descent from the Master himself.
  377. p. 359, line 26Dear to me my own slow sluggish rivers where they flow, distant, over flats of silvery sands or through swamps,
  378. p. 364, line 23THEY shall arise in the States,
  379. p. 364, line 24They shall report Nature, laws, physiology, and happiness,
  380. p. 364, line 25They shall illustrate Democracy and the kosmos,
  381. p. 365, line 1They shall be alimentive, amative, perceptive,
  382. p. 365, line 2They shall be complete women and men, their pose brawny and supple, their drink water, their blood clean and clear,
  383. p. 365, line 3They shall fully enjoy materialism and the sight of products, they shall enjoy the sight of the beef, lumber, bread-stuffs, of Chicago the great city,
  384. p. 365, line 4They shall train themselves to go in public to become orators and oratresses,
  385. p. 365, line 5Strong and sweet shall their tongues be, poems and materials of poems shall come from their lives, they shall be makers and finders,
  386. p. 367, line 23Long have they pass'd, faces and trenches and fields,
  387. p. 368, line 25Was't charged against my chants they had forgotten art?
  388. p. 368, line 29They have remember'd thee.
  389. p. 369, line 10I see the ships, (they will last a few years,)
  390. p. 369, line 16They stand for realities—all is as it should be.
  391. p. 371, line 13Your dreams O years, how they penetrate through me! (I know not whether I sleep or wake;)
  392. p. 371, line 24In wafted clouds, in myriads large, or squads of twos or threes or single ones they come,
  393. p. 373, line 2How they pass and have pass'd through convuls'd pains, as through parturitions,
  394. p. 373, line 7(But I see the athletes, and I see the results of the war glorious and inevitable, and they again leading to other results.)
  395. p. 378, line 22(Full well they know that message in the darkness,
  396. p. 379, line 1AS they draw to a close,
  397. p. 381, line 25To troops out of the war arising, they the tasks I have set promulging,
  398. p. 390, line 6How they sweep down and out! how they mutter!
  399. p. 396, line 16As flitting by like clouds of ghosts, they pass and are gone in the twilight,
  400. p. 396, line 19Yonnondio! Yonnondio!—unlimn'd they disappear;
  401. p. 403, line 11Or "Beat! Beat! Drums!" or "To the Leaven'd Soil they Trod,"
  402. p. 404, line 12(So hard for his hand to release those hands—no more will they meet,
  403. p. 407, line 3(Will they germinate anything? mere exhalations as they all are—the land's and sea's—America's;
  404. p. 407, line 4Will they filter to any deep emotion? any heart and brain?)
  405. p. 407, line 30[…] see correctly—(for my eyes plainly warn me they are dimming, and my brain more and more palpably neglects […]
  406. p. 409, line 31[…] and balance, and perfect control and scope. But they are valuable beyond measure to confirm and endorse the varied […]
  407. p. 413, line 40[…] ever evinced by any nation on earth. That they possess'd a rank and file ahead of all other known […]
  408. p. 416, line 5Of gather'd dead from all America, North, South, East, West, whence they came up,
  409. p. 421, line 18More multiform far—more lasting thou than they.
  410. p. 425, line 19[…] intentions, with certain unfoldings of the thirty years they seek to embody. These lines, therefore, will probably blend the […]
  411. p. 426, line 28[…] dispassionately reviewing all my intentions, I feel that they were creditable—and I accept the result, whatever it may […]
  412. p. 427, line 5[…] Nineteenth Century, with the United States, and what they furnish as area and points of view, "Leaves of Grass […]
  413. p. 428, line 34[…] luminosity of its own; nor do its poems. They grow of circumstances, and are evolutionary. The actual living light […]
  414. p. 429, line 8[…] most important bases of them, and without which they could have had no reason for being, so "Leaves of […]
  415. p. 430, line 18[…] and probably will never have, anything better than they already possess from the bequests of the past, it still […]
  416. p. 430, line 34[…] known history, and far, far greater through what they prelude and necessitate, and are to be in future)—to […]
  417. p. 431, line 16[…] United States, or essentially applicable to them as they are and are to be? Is there one whose underlying […]
  418. p. 431, line 33[…] in the Western. As authoritative types of song they belong in America just about as much as the persons […]
  419. p. 431, line 34[…] about as much as the persons and institutes they depict. True, it may be said, the emotional, moral, and […]
  420. p. 431, line 37[…] and all times, irrespective of date; and that they are of incalculable value as pictures of the past. I […]
  421. p. 433, line 18[…] ringing from lower b flat up to g) they were melodious expressions, and perhaps never excell'd ones, of certain […]
  422. p. 434, line 13[…] those three or four years and the experiences they gave, "Leaves of Grass" would not now be existing […]
  423. p. 434, line 19[…] put primarily for the description of them as they stand at last, is the word Suggestiveness. I round and […]
  424. p. 436, line 4[…] be in spirit the poems of the morning. (They have been founded and mainly written in the sunny forenoon […]
  425. p. 436, line 9[…] without any preference or partiality whatever. Henceforth, if they live and are read, it must be just as much […]
  426. p. 436, line 28[…] I allude to, and the spirit in which they are spoken, permeate all " Leaves of Grass," and the work […]
  427. p. 438, line 27[…] and minister to them distinctively, so long will they stop short of first-class Nationality and remain defective […]