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Home  »  English Poetry III  »  813. One’s-Self I Sing

English Poetry III: From Tennyson to Whitman.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.

Walt Whitman

813. One’s-Self I Sing

ONE’S-SELF I sing, a simple separate person,

Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-Masse.

Of physiology from top to toe I sing,

Not physiognomy alone nor brain alone is worthy for the Muse

—I say the Form complete is worthier far,

The Female equally with the Male I sing.

Of Life immense in passion, pulse, and power,

Cheerful, for freest action form’d under the laws divine,

The Modern Man I sing.