The poem continues: “The earth never tires. The earth is rude, silent incomprehensible at first. . . be not discouraged, keep on. . . there are divine things more beautiful than words can tell.” I once wrote these words on my kitchen wall so that my kids would grow up thinking that “traveling” is part of life and a source of poetry. Here’s more: “Not I, nor anyone else can travel that road for you. You must travel it by yourself. . . Perhaps you have been on it since you were born, and did not know. Perhaps it is everywhere — on water and land.”
Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass (Garden City, NJ: Doubleday & Company, Inc., year unknown), 127.
I love Walt Whitman..he is my favorite Am. author. Thanks for sharing.
Who doesn’t love Walt Whitman and Leaves of Grass. Quintessential American yearning for the “frontier” – someplace other than where we are now which is certain to be better – or at least more interesting than what we have grown used to. Travel is a wonderful thing, though. Nothing exposes your limitations like traveling in a country where you don’t speak the language. And yet nothing also expands your possibilities like traveling. Thanks for a good post!