Leaves of Grass, 1855
•Walt Whitman, an
American, one of the
roughs, a kosmos,
•Disorderly fleshy and sensual . . . . eating drinking and breeding,
•No sentimentalist . . . . no stander above men and women or apart from them . . . . no
more modest than
immodest.
•Whoever degrades another degrades me . . . . and whatever is done or said returns
at last to me,
•And whatever I do or say I also return.
•