Allons! the road is before us! It is safe — I have tried it — my own feet have tried it well — be not detain’d! Let the paper remain on the desk unw… - Walt Whitman

Trippers and askers surround me,
People I meet.... the effect upon me of my early life.....
of the ward and city I live in....of the nation,
The latest news....discoveries, inventions, societies....
authors old and new,
My dinner, dress, associates, looks, business, compliments,
dues,
The real or fancified indifference of some man or woman
I love,
The sickness of one of my folks- or of myself....or
ill-doing....or loss or lack of money....or
depressions or exaltations,
They come to me days and nights and go from me again,
But they are not the Me myself.

Song of myself
think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and
self-contain'd,
I stand and look at them long and long.

They do not sweat and whine about their condition,
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,
Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of
owning things,
Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of
years ago,
Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.

So they show their relations to me and I accept them,
They bring me tokens of myself, they evince them plainly in their
possession.

I wonder where they get those tokens,
Did I pass that way huge times ago and negligently drop them?

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up — for you the flag is flung — for you the bugle trills…