I was reading Walt Whitman this weekend and just marveling at his use of language.
1.
"The sea whisper'd me."
2.
"Whoever you are, we too lie in drifts at your feet."
3.
"This is the grass that grows wherever the land is and the water is,
This is the common air that bathes the globe."
I can't explain in so many words why I love these three lines but I just do. There's something about them that takes me places in my mind much like abstract photography and an unexpected curve in music.
4.
"Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself.
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)"
I have tried forever since I first read this line to work it into conversation, but it might be just as well I haven't found a way so far, since I'd probably come across sounding as if I need therapy.
5.
This one I've kept as a junkyard quote long before I knew about junkyard quotes. The phrasing is less unexpected than some of his other phrases but still so beautiful, and the sense of unending is striking.
"Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you."
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