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Tuesday, May 31, 2016

A Song of Joys


Listen to:

A Song of Joys (1:36)

by Walt Whitman 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Walt Whitman was born this day is 1819 in West Hills, near Huntington, Long Island

  O to make the most jubilant song!
  Full of music--full of manhood, womanhood, infancy!
  Full of common employments--full of grain and trees.

  O for the voices of animals--O for the swiftness and balance of fishes!
  O for the dropping of raindrops in a song!
  O for the sunshine and motion of waves in a song!

 ….

  O to sail to sea in a ship!
  To leave this steady unendurable land,
  To leave the tiresome sameness of the streets, the sidewalks and the
      houses,
  To leave you O you solid motionless land, and entering a ship,
  To sail and sail and sail!

  O to have life henceforth a poem of new joys!
  To dance, clap hands, exult, shout, skip, leap, roll on, float on!
  To be a sailor of the world bound for all ports,
  A ship itself, (see indeed these sails I spread to the sun and air,)
  A swift and swelling ship full of rich words, full of joys.


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