"I hear America singing . . . "

Happy Birthday, Walt Whitman, who published Leaves of Grass in 1855, the landmark book of poetry which celebrated the common man.

I celebrate myself, and
sing myself,
And what I assume you shall
assume,
For every atom belonging to
me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease
observing a spear of summer
grass.

—Walt Whitman

Source: Walt Whitman. Leaves of Grass (Brooklyn, New York: Rome Brothers, 1855).

Pictured: Thomas Wilmer Dewing, 1851–1938, Walt Whitman, 1875, chalk on paper, 24 1/2 x 18 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Robert Tyler Davis Memorial Fund.