Poem by Walt Whitman

Leaves of Grass. 35. Good-Bye My Fancy. 28. The Unexpress'd

How dare one say it?
After the cycles, poems, singers, plays,
Vaunted Ionia's, India's—Homer, Shakspere—the long, long times'
      thick dotted roads, areas,
The shining clusters and the Milky Ways of stars—Nature's pulses reap'd,
All retrospective passions, heroes, war, love, adoration,
All ages' plummets dropt to their utmost depths,
All human lives, throats, wishes, brains—all experiences' utterance;
After the countless songs, or long or short, all tongues, all lands,
Still something not yet told in poesy's voice or print—something lacking,
(Who knows? the best yet unexpress'd and lacking.)

1. Leaves of Grass. 34. Sands at Seventy. 56. Old Age's Lambent Peaks
2. Leaves of Grass. 5. Calamus. 21. The Prairie-Grass Dividing
3. Leaves of Grass. 21. Drum-Taps. 12. An Army Corps on the March
4. Leaves of Grass. 34. Sands at Seventy. 1. Mannahatta
5. Leaves of Grass. 24. Autumn Rivulets. 13. Out from Behind This Mask [To Confront a Portrait]

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