Are you an adventurous woman seeking poetry that echoes your spirit of exploration and freedom?
Walt Whitman, with his bold and pioneering style, crafts verses that celebrate the essence of adventure and the human experience.
Here are 10 of Whitman’s most inspiring poems that resonate with themes of courage, discovery, and the boundless possibilities of life.
Let’s get right to it!
My favorite poem by Walt Whitman for adventurous women
#1 “Beautiful Women” by Walt Whitman
Women sit, or move to and fro–some old, some young;
The young are beautiful–but the old are more beautiful than the young.
In a world that often values youth over age, Whitman’s poem “Beautiful Women” offers a refreshing perspective.
This poem captures the beauty in every stage of a woman’s life, celebrating both the vitality of youth and the profound grace that comes with age.
It speaks to adventurous women who embrace life’s journey, finding inspiration in the wisdom and experiences that shape them.
9 more poems by Walt Whitman for adventurous women
#2 “No Labor-Saving Machine” by Walt Whitman
No labor-saving machine,
Nor discovery have I made;
Nor will I be able to leave behind me any wealthy bequest to found a hospital or library,
Nor reminiscence of any deed of courage, for America,
Nor literary success, nor intellect–nor book for the book-shelf;
Only a few carols, vibrating through the air, I leave,
For comrades and lovers.
#3 “A Glimpse” by Walt Whitman
A glimpse, through an interstice caught,
Of a crowd of workmen and drivers in a bar-room, around the stove,
late of a winter night–And I unremark’d seated in a corner;
Of a youth who loves me, and whom I love, silently approaching, and
seating himself near, that he may hold me by the hand;
A long while, amid the noises of coming and going–of drinking and
oath and smutty jest,
There we two, content, happy in being together, speaking little,
perhaps not a word.
#4 “A Child’s Amaze” by Walt Whitman
Silent and amazed, even when a little boy,
I remember I heard the preacher every Sunday put God in his
statements,
As contending against some being or influence.
#5 “Shut Not Your Doors” by Walt Whitman
Shut not your doors to me, proud libraries,
For that which was lacking on all your well-fill’d shelves, yet needed most, I bring;
Forth from the army, the war emerging a book I have made,
The words of my book nothing the drift of it everything;
A book separate, not link’d with the rest, nor felt by the intellect,
But you, ye untold latencies, will thrill to every page;
Through Space and Time fused in a chant, and the flowing, eternal Identity,
To Nature, encompassing these, encompassing God to the joyous, electric All,
To the sense of Death and accepting, exulting in Death, in its turn, the same as life,
The entrance of Man I sing.
#6 “My Picture-Gallery” by Walt Whitman
In a little house keep I pictures suspended, it is not a fix’d house,
It is round, it is only a few inches from one side to the other;
Yet behold, it has room for all the shows of the world, all memories?
Here the tableaus of life, and here the groupings of death;
Here, do you know this? this is cicerone himself,
With finger rais’d he points to the prodigal pictures.
#7 “After The Sea-Ship” by Walt Whitman
After the Sea-Ship–after the whistling winds;
After the white-gray sails, taut to their spars and ropes,
Below, a myriad, myriad waves, hastening, lifting up their necks,
Tending in ceaseless flow toward the track of the ship:
Waves of the ocean, bubbling and gurgling, blithely prying,
Waves, undulating waves–liquid, uneven, emulous waves,
Toward that whirling current, laughing and buoyant, with curves,
Where the great Vessel, sailing and tacking, displaced the surface;
Larger and smaller waves, in the spread of the ocean, yearnfully flowing;
The wake of the Sea-Ship, after she passes–flashing and frolicsome, under the sun,
A motley procession, with many a fleck of foam, and many fragments,
Following the stately and rapid Ship–in the wake following.
#8 “Bathed In War’s Perfume” by Walt Whitman
Bathed in war’s perfume–delicate flag!
(Should the days needing armies, needing fleets, come again,)
O to hear you call the sailors and the soldiers! flag like a beautiful woman!
O to hear the tramp, tramp, of a million answering men! O the ships they arm with joy!
O to see you leap and beckon from the tall masts of ships!
O to see you peering down on the sailors on the decks!
Flag like the eyes of women.
#9 “A Song” by Walt Whitman
Come, I will make the continent indissoluble;
I will make the most splendid race the sun ever yet shone upon;
I will make divine magnetic lands,
With the love of comrades,
With the life-long love of comrades.
I will plant companionship thick as trees along all the rivers of
America, and along the shores of the great lakes, and all over
the prairies;
I will make inseparable cities, with their arms about each other’s
necks;
By the love of comrades,
By the manly love of comrades.
For you these, from me, O Democracy, to serve you, ma femme!
For you! for you, I am trilling these songs,
In the love of comrades,
In the high-towering love of comrades.
#10 “Beginners” by Walt Whitman
How they are provided for upon the earth, (appearing at intervals;)
How dear and dreadful they are to the earth;
How they inure to themselves as much as to any–What a paradox appears their age;
How people respond to them, yet know them not;
How there is something relentless in their fate, all times;
How all times mischoose the objects of their adulation and reward,
And how the same inexorable price must still be paid for the same great purchase.