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Walt Whitman Quotes about Death

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If you want me again look for me under your boot soles.

If you want me again look for me under your boot soles.

Walt Whitman
Death, Dying, Looks
Walt Whitman, Sculley Bradley, Harold W. Blodgett (2008). “Leaves of Grass: A Textual Variorum of the Printed Poems, 1855-1856”, p.83, NYU Press

O Captain! My Captain! our fearful trip is done.

Walt Whitman
Inspirational, Sad, Death
"O Captain! My Captain!" l. 1 (1871)

To die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.

Walt Whitman
Death, Dying, Different
1855 Leaves of Grass, 'Song of Myself', section 6.

Do you see O my brothers and sisters? It is not chaos or death, it is form, union, plan, it is eternal life, it is happiness.

Walt Whitman
Death, Brother, Unions
Walt Whitman, Sculley Bradley, Harold W. Blodgett (2008). “Leaves of Grass: A Textual Variorum of the Printed Poems, 1855-1856”, p.81, NYU Press

What do you think has become of the young and old men? And what do you think has become of the women and children? They are alive and well somewhere, The smallest sprout shows there is really no death, And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it, And ceas'd the moment life appear'd. All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses, And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.

Walt Whitman
Death, Children, Men
1855 Leaves of Grass, 'Song of Myself', section 6.

O joy of suffering! To struggle against great odds! to meet enemies undaunted! To be entirely alone with them! to find how much one can stand! To look strife, torture, prison, popular odium, death, face to face! To mount the scaffold! to advance to the muzzles of guns with perfect nonchalance! To be indeed a God!

Walt Whitman
Death, Struggle, Gun
Walt Whitman (1870). “Passage to India”, p.51, Haskell House Pub Limited

Comrades mine and I in the midst, and their memory ever to keep for the dead I loved so well.

Walt Whitman
Life, Death, Memories
Walt Whitman (2016). “The Patriotic Poems”, p.72, Walt Whitman

Nothing can happen more beautiful than death.

Walt Whitman
Beautiful, Death, Dying
1860 Leaves of Grass, 'Proto-Leaf', later renamed 'Starting From Paumanok' (from 1867).

I see Hermes, unsuspected, dying, well-beloved, saying to the people, "Do not weep for me, This is not my true country, I have lived banished from my true country - I now go back there, I return to the celestial sphere where every one goes in his turn."

Walt Whitman
Death, Country, People
Walt Whitman (2013). “Walt Whitman: Selected Poems 1855-1892”, p.125, St. Martin's Press

That the hands of the sisters Death and Night incessantly softly wash again and ever again, this soiled world.

Walt Whitman
Death, Night, Hands
'Reconciliation'

I see that I am to wait for what will be exhibited by death.

Walt Whitman
Death, Waiting, Short Death
Walt Whitman (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Walt Whitman (Illustrated)”, p.653, Delphi Classics

And as to you Death, and you bitter hug of mortality, it is idle to try to alarm me.... And as to you corpse, I think you are good manure, but that does not offend me, I smell the white roses sweet-scented and growing, I reach to the leafy lips — I reach to the polished breasts of melons. And as to you life, I reckon you are the leavings of many deaths, No doubt I have died myself ten thousand times before.

Walt Whitman
Death, Sweet, Thinking
Walt Whitman, “Song Of Myself, XLIX”

Come lovely and soothing death, Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving, In the day, in the night, to all, to each, Sooner or later, delicate death.

Walt Whitman
Death, Night, Lovely
'When lilacs last in the dooryard bloomed' st. 14

I announce the great individual, fluid as Nature, chaste, affectionate, compassionate, fully armed; I announce a life that shall be copious, vehement, spiritual, bold, And I announce an end that shall lightly and joyfully meet its translation.

Walt Whitman
Death, Spiritual, Vehement
Walt Whitman (1872). “Leaves of Grass”, p.382

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