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Online Texts
for Craig White's
Literature Courses
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from frontispiece to
Leaves of Grass, 1855 |
Walt Whitman
(1819-1892)
In Paths Untrodden
from Calamus, 1860
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calamus plant |
In paths untrodden, |
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In the growth by
margins of pond-waters, |
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Escaped from the
life that exhibits itself, |
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From all the
standards hitherto publish’d—from the pleasures, profits,
eruditions, conformities, |
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Which too long I
was offering to feed my soul; |
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Clear to me, now,
standards not yet publish’d—clear to me that my Soul, |
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That the Soul of
the man I speak for, feeds, rejoices most in comrades; |
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Here, by myself,
away from the clank of the world, |
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Tallying and talk’d
to here by tongues aromatic, |
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No longer abash’d—for
in this secluded spot I can respond as I would not dare elsewhere, |
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Strong upon me the
life that does not exhibit itself, yet contains all the rest, |
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Resolv’d to sing no
songs to-day but those of manly attachment, |
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Projecting them
along that substantial life, |
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Bequeathing, hence,
types of athletic love, |
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Afternoon, this
delicious Ninth-month, in my forty-first year, |
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I proceed, for all
who are, or have been, young men, |
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To tell the secret
of my nights and days, |
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To celebrate the
need of comrades. |
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from The Lutheran Book of Worship.
Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1978. p. 153 ("Following the sermon one of these prayers
is said")
Lord God, you have called your servants
to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden,
through perils unknown. Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing
where we go, but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Thomas Eakins (1844-1916), Swimming 1885
Thomas Eakins (1844-1916), Walt Whitman 1887
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