Wednesday, July 2, 2025

Who is now reading this?

Here is the sixteenth untitled poem from a group of forty-five untitled poems that Walt Whitman titled "Calamus" in the 1860 edition of his Leaves of Grass.


Who is now reading this?

May-be one is now reading this who knows some wrong-doing of my past life,
Or may-be a stranger is reading this who has secretly loved me,
Or may-be one who meets all my grand assumptions and egotisms with derision,
Or may-be one who is puzzled at me.

As if I were not puzzled at myself!
Or as if I never deride myself! (O conscience-struck! O self-convicted!)
Or as if I do not secretly love strangers! (O tenderly, a long time, and never avow it;)
Or as if I did not see, perfectly well, interior in myself, the stuff of wrong-doing,
Or as if it could cease transpiring from me until it must cease.

Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

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