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.
Where this text comes from
First published in Drum-Taps (New York, 1865). This date is uncertain. Three lines, matching the Drum-Taps scan on every probe. Verse Whitman later cut from the 1855 preface; an earlier collected appearance has not been established against a readable 1856 or 1860 poem of this title. Located in this edition by matching this text's lines against the 1865 Drum-Taps scan. The corpus text follows the 1891–92 arrangement, by which the poem had been revised. First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established. [1]
Structure read from the source's markup; the words have not been compared against a page scan. Last checked 2026-08-12.
Taken from Standard Ebooks, standardebooks/walt-whitman_leaves-of-grass, by-the-roadside.xhtml. Rights: public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931).
Earlier sources (2)
This poem as JSON or plain text . Line anchors #L1–#L3.
Cite this poem
Walt Whitman (1819–1892).
“A Child’s Amaze.” First published in Drum-Taps (New York, 1865).
Text: Poem Index, https://poemindex.org/walt-whitman/a-childs-amaze/.
Append #L14 to cite line 14, or #L4-L9 for lines 4–9.
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