Why are there trees I never walk under but large and melodious thoughts descend upon me? - Walt Whitman

The boy I love, the same becomes a man not through derived power but in his own right,
Wicked, rather than virtuous out of conformity or fear,
Fond of his sweetheart, relishing well his steak,
Unrequited love or a slight cutting him worse than a wound cuts,
First rate to ride, to fight, to hit the bull's eye, to sail a skiff, to sing a song or play on the banjo,
Preferring scars and faces pitted with smallpox over all latherers and those that keep out the sun.

What do you seek, so pensive and silent? What do you need, Camerado? Dear son! do you think it is love? Listen, dear son — listen, America, daughter or son! It is a painful thing to love a man or woman to excess — and yet it satisfies — it is great; But there is something else very great — it makes the whole coincide; It, magnificent, beyond materials, with continuous hands, sweeps and provides for all.

"Each is not for its own sake;
I say the whole earth, and all the stars in the sky, are for religion’s sake.

I say no man has ever yet been half devout enough;
None has ever yet adored or worship’d half enough;
None has begun to think how divine he himself is, and how certain the future is.

I say that the real and permanent grandeur of these States must be their religion;
Otherwise there is no real and permanent grandeur:
(Nor character, nor life worthy the name, without religion;
Nor land, nor man or woman, without religion.)"

-from "Starting from Paumanok"