“I Dreamed a Dream” by Walt Whitman

I dream’d in a dream I saw a city invincible to the attacks of the
whole of the rest of the earth —
I dream’d that was the new city of Friends —
nothing was greater there than the quality of robust love, it led the rest —
it was seen every hour in the actions of the men of that city,
and in all their looks and words.

Walt Whitman
Leaves of Grass (Part 66: “I Dreamed a Dream”)

quoted in “Blue Bloods”
Season 1, Episode 4 “Officer Down”

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Words from Whitman

I am the poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul,
the pleasures of heaven are with me and the pains of hell are with me:
the first I graft and increase upon myself, the latter I translate into a new tongue.

Walt Whitman
Song of Myself (1891-1892)

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“Out of the Rolling Ocean” by Walt Whitman

Out of the rolling ocean, the crowd, came a drop to me

Whispering:  I love you, before long I die,

I have travel’d a long way, merely to look on you, to touch you,

For I could not die till I once look’d on you,

For I fear’d I might afterward lose you.

*

(Now we have met, we have look’d, we are safe;

Return in peace to the ocean, my love;

I too am part of that ocean, my love — we are not so much separated;

Behold the great rondure — the cohesion of all, how perfect!

But as for me, for you, the irresistible sea is to separate us,

As for an hour, carrying us diverse — yet cannot carry us diverse for ever;

Be not impatient –a little space — Know you, I salute the air, the ocean, and the land,

Every day, at sundown, for your dear sake, my love.)

*

Walt Whitman

Leaves of Grass (1900)

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