Poem by Walt Whitman

Leaves of Grass. 35. Good-Bye My Fancy. 15. To the Sun-Set Breeze

Ah, whispering, something again, unseen,
Where late this heated day thou enterest at my window, door,
Thou, laving, tempering all, cool-freshing, gently vitalizing
Me, old, alone, sick, weak-down, melted-worn with sweat;
Thou, nestling, folding close and firm yet soft, companion better
      than talk, book, art,
(Thou hast, O Nature! elements! utterance to my heart beyond the
      rest—and this is of them,)
So sweet thy primitive taste to breathe within—thy soothing fingers
      my face and hands,
Thou, messenger—magical strange bringer to body and spirit of me,
(Distances balk'd—occult medicines penetrating me from head to foot,)
I feel the sky, the prairies vast—I feel the mighty northern lakes,
I feel the ocean and the forest—somehow I feel the globe itself
      swift-swimming in space;
Thou blown from lips so loved, now gone—haply from endless store,
      God-sent,
(For thou art spiritual, Godly, most of all known to my sense,)
Minister to speak to me, here and now, what word has never told, and
      cannot tell,
Art thou not universal concrete's distillation? Law's, all
      Astronomy's last refinement?
Hast thou no soul? Can I not know, identify thee?

1. Leaves of Grass. 32. From Noon to Starry Night. 9. Excelsior
2. Leaves of Grass. 34. Sands at Seventy. 11. The Wallabout Martyrs
3. Leaves of Grass. 5. Calamus. 38. That Shadow My Likeness
4. Leaves of Grass. 20. By the Roadside. 28. Offerings
5. Leaves of Grass. 21. Drum-Taps. 35. How Solemn As One by One [Washington City, 1865]

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