Publisher, Blackstone Audio (May 2009)

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“The most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Leaves of Grass is a good choice to listen to while cooking, cleaning, gardening, or doing other chores that require rhythmic repetitive motion and leave your mind free to wander. Walt Whitman's reverence for the marvelous and the majestic, and his explorations of life's mysteries, can bring another dimension to any mundane task. But it requires concentration to follow along closely to poem after poem, despite Robin Field's pleasing voice and astute interpretations. This volume, however, can be listened to repeatedly, as Field brings new life to Whitman's poems with his intelligent emphasis and emotion. And when Field recites a particularly resonant phrase at just the right time, the moment can turn into song.” —AudioFile

One of the great innovative figures in American letters, Walt Whitman created a daring new kind of poetry that became a major force in world literature. His poems have been woven into the very fabric of the American character and have continued to provide inspiration to people and poets for generations.

Leaves of Grass is Whitman’s masterpiece, written in a pure, uninhibited style and combining sensual and mystical sensibilities. Self-published in 1855, it was repeatedly expanded and revised by Whitman throughout the rest of his life. This recording follows the final edition which appeared in 1892, the year of Whitman's death.

Index of Contents by CD and Track

CD 1

1 Inscriptions
1 One’s Self I Sing
1 As I Ponder’d in Silence
2 In Cabin’d Ships at Sea
3 To Foreign Lands
3 To a Historian
3 To Thee Old Cause
4 Eidólons
6 For Him I Sing
7 When I Read the Book
8 Beginning My Studies
9 Beginners
10 To the States
11 On Journeys through the States
12 To a Certain Cantatrice
13 Me Imperturbe
14 Savantism
15 The Ship Starting
16 I Hear America Singing
17 What Place Is Besieged?
18 Still Though the One I Sing
19 Shut Not Your Doors
20 Poets to Come
21 To You
22 Thou Reader
23 Starting from Paumanok
32 Song of Myself

CD 3

10 Children of Adam
10 To the Garden the World
11 From Pent-up Aching Rivers
13 I Sing the Body Electric
18 A Woman Waits for Me
19 Spontaneous Me
21 One Hour to Madness and Joy
22 Out of the Rolling Ocean the Crowd
23 Ages and Ages Returning at Intervals
24 We Two, How Long We Were Fool’d
25 O Hymen! O Hymenee!
26 I Am He That Aches with Love
27 Native Moments
28 Once I Pass’d through a Populous City
29 I Heard You Solemn-Sweet Pipes of the Organ
30 Facing West from California’s Shores
31 As Adam Early in the Morning
32 Calamus
32 In Paths Untrodden

CD 4

1 Scented Herbage of My Breast
3 Whoever You Are Holding Me Now in Hand
4 For You O Democracy
5 These I Singing in Spring
6 Not Heaving from My Ribb’d Breast Only
7 Of the Terrible Doubt of Appearances
8 The Base of All Metaphysics
9 Recorders Ages Hence
10 When I Heard at the Close of the Day
11 Are You the New Person Drawn toward Me?
12 Roots and Leaves Themselves Alone
13 Not Heat Flames Up and Consumes
14 Trickle Drops
15 City of Orgies
16 Behold This Swarthy Face
17 I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing
18 To a Stranger
19 This Moment Yearning and Thoughtful
20 I Hear It Was Charged against Me
21 The Prairie-Grass Dividing
22 When I Peruse the Conquer’d Fame
23 We Two Boys Together Clinging
24 A Promise to California
25 Here the Frailest Leaves of Me
26 No Labor-Saving Machine
27 A Glimpse
28 A Leaf for Hand in Hand
29 Earth, My Likeness
30 I Dream’d in a Dream
31 What Think You I Take My Pen in Hand?
32 To the East and to the West
32 Sometimes with One I Love
33 To a Western Boy
34 Fast-Anchor’d Eternal O Love!
35 Among the Multitude
36 O You Whom I Often and Silently Come
37 That Shadow My Likeness
38 Full of Life Now
39 Salut au Monde!
45 Song of the Open Road

CD 5

3 Crossing Brooklyn Ferry
8 Song of the Answerer
11 Our Old Feuillage
15 A Song of Joys
20 Song of the Broad-Axe

CD 6

3 Song of the Exposition
9 Song of the Redwood-Tree
12 A Song for Occupations
17 A Song of the Rolling Earth
21 Youth, Day, Old Age, and Night
22 Birds of Passage
22 Song of the Universal
24 Pioneers! O Pioneers!

CD 7

2 To You
4 France, the 18th Year of These States
5 Myself and Mine
6 Year of Meteors (1859-60)
7 With Antecedents
8 A Broadway Pageant
10 Sea-drift
10 Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking
16 As I Ebb’d with the Ocean of Life
18 Tears
19 To the Man-of-War-Bird
20 Aboard at a Ship’s Helm
21 On the Beach at Night
22 The World below the Brine
23 On the Beach at Night Alone
24 Song for All Seas, All Ships
25 Patroling Barnegat
26 After the Sea-Ship
27 By the Roadside
27 A Boston Ballad – 1854
28 Europe, the 72d and 73d Years of These States
29 A Hand-Mirror
30 Gods
31 Germs

CD 8

1 Thoughts
2 When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer
3 Perfections
4 O Me! O Life!
5 To a President
6 I Sit and Look Out
7 To Rich Givers
8 The Dalliance of the Eagles
9 Roaming in Thought
10 A Farm Picture
11 A Child’s Amaze
12 The Runner
13 Beautiful Women
14 Mother and Babe
15 Thought
16 Visor’d
17 Thought
18 Gliding o’er All
19 Hast Never Come to Thee an Hour
20 Thought
21 To Old Age
22 Locations and Times
23 Offerings
24 To the States, to Identify the 16th, 17th, or 18th Presidentiad
25 Drum-taps
25 First O Songs for a Prelude
27 Eighteen Sixty-One
28 Beat! Beat! Drums
29 From Paumanok Starting I Fly Like a Bird
30 Song of the Banner at Daybreak
35 Rise O Days from Your Fathomless Deeps
37 Virginia – The West
38 City of Ships
39 The Centenarian’s Story
42 Cavalry Crossing a Ford
43 Bivouac on a Mountain Side
44 An Army Corps on the March
45 By the Bivouac’s Fitful Flame
46 Come Up from the Fields Father
47 Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night
48 A March in the Ranks Hard-Prest, and the Road Unknown
49 A Sight in Camp in the Daybreak Gray and Dim
50 As Toilsome I Wander’d Virginia’s Wood
51 Not the Pilot
52 Year That Trembled and Reel’d Beneath Me
53 The Wound-Dresser

CD 9

2 Long, Too Long America
3 Give Me the Splendid Silent Sun
5 Dirge for Two Veterans
6 Over the Carnage Rose Prophetic a Voice
7 I Saw Old General at Bay
8 The Artilleryman’s Vision
9 Ethiopia Saluting the Colors
10 Not Youth Pertains to Me
11 Race of Veterans
12 World Take Good Notice
13 O Tan-Faced Prairie-Boy
14 Look Down Fair Moon
15 Reconciliation
16 How Solemn As One by One
17 As I Lay with My Head in Your Lap Camerado
18 Delicate Cluster
19 To a Certain Civilian
20 Lo, Victress on the Peaks
21 Spirit Whose Work Is Done
22 Adieu to a Soldier
23 Turn O Libertad
24 To the Leaven’d Soil They Trod
25 Memories of President Lincoln
25 When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d
31 O Captain! My Captain!
32 Hush’d Be the Camps To-day (May 4, 1865)
33 This Dust Was Once the Man
34 By Blue Ontario’s Shore

CD 10

5 Reversals
6 Autumn Rivulets
6 As Consequent, Etc.
7 The Return of the Heroes
11 There Was a Child Went Forth
13 Old Ireland
14 The City Dead-House
15 This Compost
17 To a Foil’d European Revolutionaire
18 Unnamed Lands
19 Songs of Prudence
21 The Singer in the Prison
23 Warble for Lilac-Time
24 Outlines for a Tomb
25 Out from behind This Mask
26 Vocalism
27 To Him That Was Crucified
28 You Felons on Trial in Courts
29 Laws for Creations
30 To a Common Prostitute
31 I Was Looking a Long While
32 Thought

CD 11

1 Miracles
2 Sparkles from the Wheel
3 To a Pupil
4 Unfolded out of the Folds
5 What Am I After All
6 Kosmos
7 Others May Praise What They Like
8 Who Learns My Lesson Complete?
9 Tests
10 The Torch
11 O Star of France (1870-71)
12 The Ox-Tamer
13 An Old Man’s Thought of School
14 Wandering at Morn
15 Italian Music in Dakota
16 With All Thy Gifts
17 My Picture-Gallery
18 The Prairie States
19 Proud Music of the Storm
23 Passage to India
30 Prayer of Columbus
32 The Sleepers

CD 12

3 Transpositions
4 To Think of Time
8 Whispers of Heavenly Death
8 Darest Thou Now O Soul
9 Whispers of Heavenly Death
10 Chanting the Square Deific
12 Of Him I Love Day and Night
13 Yet, Yet, Ye Downcast Hours
14 As If a Phantom Caress’d Me
15 Assurances
16 Quicksand Years
17 That Music Always Round Me
18 What Ship Puzzled at Sea
19 A Noiseless Patient Spider
20 O Living Always, Always Dying
21 To One Shortly to Die
22 Night on the Prairies
23 Thought
24 The Last Invocation
25 As I Watch’d the Ploughman Ploughing
26 Pensive and Faltering
27 Thou Mother with Thy Equal Blood
31 A Paumanok Picture
32 From Noon to Starry Night
32 Thou Orb Aloft Full-Dazzling
33 Faces
36 The Mystic Trumpeter

CD 13

1 To a Locomotive in Winter
2 O Magnet-South
3 Mannahatta
4 All Is Truth
5 A Riddle Song
6 Excelsior
7 Ah Poverties, Wincings, and Sulky Retreats
8 Thoughts
9 Mediums
10 Weave In, My Hardy Life
11 Spain, 1873-74
12 By Broad Potomac’s Shore
13 From Far Dakota’s Cañons: June 25, 1876
14 Old War-Dreams
15 Thick-Sprinkled Bunting
16 What Best I See in Thee
17 Spirit That Form’d This Scene: Written in Platte Cañon, Colorado
18 As I Walk These Broad Majestic Days
19 A Clear Midnight
20 Songs of Parting
20 As the Time Draws Nigh
21 Years of the Modern
22 Ashes of Soldiers
23 Thoughts
25 Song at Sunset
27 As at Thy Portals Also Death
28 My Legacy
29 Pensive on Her Dead Gazing
30 Camps of Green
31 The Sobbing of the Bells
32 As They Draw to a Close
33 Joy, Shipmate, Joy!
34 The Untold Want
35 Portals
35 These Carols
36 Now Finale to the Shore
37 So Long!
39 First Annex : Sands at Seventy
39 Mannahatta
40 Paumanok
41 From Montauk Point
42 To Those Who’ve Fail’d
43 A Carol Closing Sixty-Nine
44 The Bravest Soldiers
45 A Font of Type
46 As I Sit Writing Here
47 My Canary Bird
48 Queries to My Seventieth Year
49 The Wallabout Martyrs
50 The First Dandelion
51 America
52 Memories
53 To-day and Thee

CD 14

1 After the Dazzle of Day
2 Abraham Lincoln, Born Feb. 12, 1809
3 Out of May’s Shows Selected
4 Halcyon Days
5 Fancies at Navesink
5 The Pilot in the Mist
6 Had I the Choice
7 You Tides with Ceaseless Swell
8 Last of Ebb, and Daylight Waning
9 And Yet Not You Alone
10 Proudly the Flood Comes In
11 By That Long Scan of Waves
12 Then Last of All
13 Election Day, November, 1884
14 With Husky-Haughty Lips, O Sea!
15 Death of General Grant
16 Red Jacket (from Aloft)
17 Washington’s Monument, February, 1885
18 Of That Blithe Throat of Thine
19 Broadway
20 To Get the Final Lilt of Songs
21 Old Salt Kossabone
22 The Dead Tenor
23 Continuities
24 Yonnondio
25 Life
26 “Going Somewhere”
27 Small the Theme of My Chant
28 True Conquerors
29 The United States to Old World Critics
30 The Calming Thought of All
31 Thanks in Old Age
32 Life and Death
33 The Voice of the Rain
34 Soon Shall the Winter’s Foil Be Here
35 While Not the Past Forgetting
36 The Dying Veteran
37 Stronger Lessons
38 A Prairie Sunset
39 Twenty Years
40 Orange Buds by Mail from Florida
41 Twilight
42 You Lingering Sparse Leaves of Me
43 Not Meagre, Latent Boughs Alone
44 The Dead Emperor
45 As the Greek’s Signal Flame
46 The Dismantled Ship
47 Now Precedent Songs, Farewell
48 An Evening Lull
49 Old Age’s Lambent Peaks
50 After the Supper and Talk
51 Second Annex : Good-bye My Fancy
51 Preface Note to 2d Annex
53 Sail Out for Good, Eidólon Yacht!
54 Lingering Last Drops
55 Good-Bye My Fancy
56 On, On the Same, Ye Jocund Twain
57 My 71st Year
58 Apparitions
59 The Pallid Wreath
60 An Ended Day
61 Old Age’s Ship and Crafty Death’s
62 To the Pending Year
63 Shakespeare-Bacon’s Cipher
64 Long, Long Hence
65 Bravo, Paris Exposition!
66 Interpolation Sounds
67 To the Sun-set Breeze
68 Old Chants
69 A Christmas Greeting

CD 15

1 Sounds of the Winter
2 A Twilight Song
3 When the Full-Grown Poet Came
4 Osceola
5 A Voice from Death
6 A Persian Lesson
7 The Commonplace
8 “The Rounded Catalogue Divine Complete”
9 Mirages
10 L. of G.’s Purport
11 The Unexpress’d
12 Grand Is the Seen
13 Unseen Buds
14 Good-Bye My Fancy!
15 A Backward Glance o’er Travel’d Roads

About the Author: WALT WHITMAN was born in 1819, the son of a carpenter. His formal schooling ended at age eleven, when he was apprenticed to a printer in Brooklyn. He spent the next two decades as a printer, free-lance writer, and editor in New York. In 1855, at his own expense, he published the first edition of Leaves of Grass, which would mark him as the major poetic voice of an emerging America. Whitman would go on expanding and revising it for the rest of his life, with the final edition appearing in 1892, the year of his death.