America

BY WALT WHITMAN

Centre of equal daughters, equal sons,

All, all alike endear’d, grown, ungrown, young or old,

Strong, ample, fair, enduring, capable, rich,

Perennial with the Earth, with Freedom, Law and Love,

A grand, sane, towering, seated Mother,

Chair’d in the adamant of Time.

A Glimpse

BY WALT WHITMAN

A glimpse through an interstice caught, 

Of a crowd of workmen and drivers in a bar-room around the stove late of a winter night, and I unremark’d seated in a corner, 

Of a youth who loves me and whom I love, silently approaching and seating himself near, that he may hold me by the hand, 

A long while amid the noises of coming and going, of drinking and oath and smutty jest, 

There we two, content, happy in being together, speaking little, perhaps not a word.