Walt Whitman spent most of his professional life writing and re-writing Leaves of Grass, revising it multiple times until his death. The first edition was a small book of twelve poems and the last, a compilation of over 400. The poems of Leaves of Grass represent Whitman's celebration of his philosophy of life and humanity. His poetry praises nature and the individual human's role in it.
Leaves of Grass (First Edition):
Song of Myself
A Song for Occupations
To Think of Time
The Sleepers
I Sing the Body Electric
Faces
Song of the Answerer
Europe the 72d and 73d Years of These States
A Boston Ballad
There Was a Child Went Forth
Who Learns My Lesson Complete
Great Are the Myths
Leaves of Grass (Final Edition):
Inscriptions
One's-Self I Sing
As I Ponder'd in Silence
In Cabin'd Ships at Sea
To Foreign Lands
To a Historian
To Thee Old Cause
Eidolons
For Him I Sing
When I Read the Book
Beginning My Studies
Starting from Paumanok
Song of Myself
Children of Adam
From Pent-Up Aching Rivers
I Sing the Body Electric
A Woman Waits for Me
Spontaneous Me
One Hour to Madness and Joy
Out of the Rolling Ocean the Crowd
Calamus
Salut au Monde!
Song of the Open Road
Crossing Brooklyn Ferry
Song of the Answerer
Our Old Feuillage
A Song of Joys
Song of the Broad-Axe
Song of the Exposition
Song of the Redwood-Tree
A Song for Occupations
A Song of the Rolling Earth
Birds of Passage
A Broadway Pageant
Sea-Drift
By the Roadside
Drum-Taps
First O Songs for a Prelude
Eighteen Sixty-One
Beat! Beat! Drums!
From Paumanok Starting I Fly Like a Bird
Song of the Banner at Daybreak
Rise O Days from Your Fathomless Deeps
VirginiaâThe West
City of Ships
The Centenarian's Story
Cavalry Crossing a Ford
Memories of President Lincoln
By Blue Ontario's Shore
Autumn Rivulets
Proud Music of the Storm
Passage to India
Prayer of Columbus
The Sleepers
To Think of Time
Whispers of Heavenly Death
Thou Mother with Thy Equal Brood
From Noon to Starry Night
Songs of Parting
Sands at Seventy
Good-Bye My Fancy