Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman

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HOW dare one say it?

After the cycles, poems, singers, plays,

Vaunted Ionia's, India's—Homer, Shakspere—the long, long
times' thick dotted roads, areas,

The shining clusters and the Milky Ways of stars—Nature's
pulses reap'd,

All retrospective passions, heroes, war, love, adoration,

All ages' plummets dropt to their utmost depths,

All human lives, throats, wishes, brains—all experiences' utter-
ance;

After the countless songs, or long or short, all tongues, all lands,

Still something not yet told in poesy's voice or print—something
lacking,

(Who knows? the best yet unexpress'd and lacking.)

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