Published Works

Books by Whitman

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - [begin page 93] - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

WE TWO, HOW LONG WE WERE FOOL'D.

WE two, how long we were fool'd,

Now transmuted, we swiftly escape as Nature escapes,

We are Nature, long have we been absent, but now we return,

We become plants, trunks, foliage, roots, bark,

We are bedded in the ground, we are rocks,

We are oaks, we grow in the openings side by side,

We browse, we are two among the wild herds spontaneous as
any,

We are two fishes swimming in the sea together,

We are what locust blossoms are, we drop scent around lanes
mornings and evenings,

We are also the coarse smut of beasts, vegetables, minerals,

We are two predatory hawks, we soar above and look down,

We are two resplendent suns, we it is who balance ourselves orbic
and stellar, we are as two comets,

We prowl fang'd and four-footed in the woods, we spring on
prey,

We are two clouds forenoons and afternoons driving overhead,

We are seas mingling, we are two of those cheerful waves rolling
over each other and interwetting each other,

We are what the atmosphere is, transparent, receptive, pervious,
impervious,

We are snow, rain, cold, darkness, we are each product and
influence of the globe,

We have circled and circled till we have arrived home again, we
two,

We have voided all but freedom and all but our own joy.

Distributed under a Creative Commons License. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price, editors.