Walt Whitman--Greatest American Poet

Here is a segment of Walt Whitman's poem, "Song of Myself," found in his book Leaves of Grass.

5

I believe in you my soul, the other I am must not abase itself to you,

And you must not be abased to the other.

Loafe with me on the grass, loose the stop from your throat,

Not words, not music or rhyme I want, not custom or lecture, not even the best,

Only the lull I like, the hum of your valvèd voice.

I mind how once we lay such a transparent summer morning,

How you settled your head athwart my hips and gently turn’d over upon me,

And parted the shirt from my bosom-bone, and plunged your tongue to my bare-stript heart,

And reach’d till you felt my beard, and reach’d till you held my feet.

Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and knowledge that pass all the argument of the earth,

And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own,

And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own,

And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the women my sisters and lovers,

And that a kelson of the creation is love,

And limitless are leaves stiff or drooping in the fields,

And brown ants in the little wells beneath them,

And mossy scabs of the worm fence, heap’d stones, elder, mullein and poke-weed.

Whitman is our greatest poet. He was a hundred years in front of American poetry when he wrote "Song of Myself" and Leaves of Grace. He is still in the forefront, both in his expansive and loving treatment of human beings and all of Creation, and in his poetic style. Stanza 2 above is so beautiful: 

Loafe with me on the grass, loose the stop from your throat,

Not words, not music or rhyme I want, not custom or lecture, not even the best,

Only the lull I like, the hum of your valvèd voice.

He asks his lover (who might be any human being--you, me, us) to "loose the stop from your throat." He wants us to speak out, sing out, hum out--he loves the very lull, the music of another person's voice. He calls it "your valved voice" -- as if it were a trumpet!

A bit later in the poem he writes these beautiful words, connecting God, you, me, him, and love:

And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own,

And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own,

And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the women my sisters and lovers,

And that a kelson of the creation is love . . . .

This is genuine Walt Whitman. This is America's greatest poet.