Leaves of Grass

by Walt Whitman

Leaves of Grass: Individual Longer Poems: Summary and Analysis


Song of the Open Road - Summary
Whitman extends an invitation to the reader to travel with him, spiritually and literally, and he will lead by example. The opening lines of the poem celebrate both the options that lie before Whitman and the length and breadth of the continent: “The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.” Whitman finds all he needs (“The earth, that is sufficient”) in these possibilities, as he begins to walk on the road. He imagines all who have traveled the same path before him, believing “that much is also unseen here.” Not only...

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