This Elibron Classics book is a facsimile reprint of a 1872 edition published in Washington. The title Leaves of Grass has come to refer to Walt Whitman's entire poetic corpus; Whitman first published the work anonymously in 1855, revising it and adding new works to many subsequent editions of the same name. Especially prominent is Whitman's preface, in which he declares that "the United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem," and asserts both the burden and the glory of the poet who endeavors to celebrate the nation. In such poems as "Song of Myself," Whitman celebrates the spiritual value of the individual and of nature as a whole.
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