Walt Whitman was born on this date in West hills, New York, in 1819, 204 years ago. For me an Indigenous Man Of The Anglosphere is someone who has achieved greatness in their use of the English language. Few can touch Walt Whitman for that.
Wikipedia states: “Art historian Mary Berenson says, “You cannot really understand America without Walt Whitman, without Leaves of Grass ….. He has expressed that civilization, ‘up to date,’ as he would say, and no student of the philosophy of history can do without him.” “
Here are some of Whitman’s own words which I believe justify Berenson’s assessment.
“These are really the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands, they are not original with me.”
“Battles are lost in the same spirit in which they are won.”
“I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable: I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.”
“My words itch at your ears till you understand them”
“Resist much, obey little.”
“All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses, And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.”
“I accept Time absolutely. It alone is without flaw, It alone rounds and completes all, That mystic baffling wonder.”
“This is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless, Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson done, Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the themes thou lovest best. Night, sleep, and the stars.”
“Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes.”
“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.”
Geoff Fox, 31 May, 2023, Down Under
Previous men named as IMOTA are:
- John Wycliffe
- Douglas MacArthur
- George Pell
- R.S. Thomas
- Donald Trump
- John Barrymore
- William Shatner
- Thomas Jefferson
- Count Basie
- Clint Eastwood