Walt Whitman Series

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A man of another century, many of us still can identify with our gay or bi poet, Walt Whitman (1819-1892), who revealed his orientation most clearly in the “Calamus” poems collected in his Leaves of Grass (1860). He begins the collection indicating his “manly attachment” and promises to tell us “the secret of [his] nights and days, to celebrate the need of comrades.”

In paths untrodden,
In the growth by margins of pond waters,
Escaped from the life that exhibits itself,
From all the standards hitherto published — from the pleasures, profits, conformities,
Which too long I was offering to feed my Soul;
Clear to me now, standards not yet published — clear to me that my Soul,
That the Soul of the man I speak for, feeds, rejoices only in comrades;
Here, by myself, away from the clank of the world,
Tallying and talked to here by tongues aromatic,
No longer abashed — for in this secluded spot I can respond as I would not dare elsewhere,
Strong upon me the life that does not exhibit itself, yet contains all the rest,
Resolved to sing no songs to-day but those of manly attachment,
Projecting them along that substantial life,
Bequeathing, hence, types of athletic love

Afternoon, this delicious Ninth Month, in my forty-first year,
I proceed, for all who are, or have been, young men,
To tell the secret of my nights and days,
To celebrate the need of comrades.

* A man of another century, many of us still can identify with our gay or bi poet, Walt Whitman (1819-1892), who revealed his orientation most clearly in the “Calamus” poems collected in his Leaves of Grass.

Source: “Calamus” poem No. 1 from Leaves of Grass (1860)

Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library

http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/WhiCala.htmlFor the full set of “Calamus” poems:
http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/WhiCala.html

(Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library)