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Home: Poetry: Walt Whitman: Roots and Leaves Themselves Alone
| ROOTS AND LEAVES THEMSELVES ALONE |
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a poem by Walt Whitman
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- Roots and leaves themselves alone are these,
- Scents brought to men and women from the wild woods and pond-side,
- Breast-sorrel and pinks of love, fingers that wind around tighter than vines,
- Gushes from the throats of birds hid in the foliage of trees as the sun is risen,
- Breezes of land and love set from living shores to you on the living sea, to you O sailors!
- Frost-mellow'd berries and Third-month twigs offer'd fresh to young persons wandering out in the fields when the winter breaks up,
- Love-buds put before you and within you whoever you are,
- Buds to be unfolded on the old terms,
- If you bring the warmth of the sun to them they will open and bring form, color, perfume, to you,
- If you become the aliment and the wet they will become flowers, fruits, tall branches and trees.
| "Roots and Leaves Themselves Alone" is reprinted from Leaves of Grass. Walt Whitman. Brooklyn: Fowler & Wells, 1856. |
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