{
 "id": "walt-whitman/a-song-of-the-rolling-earth",
 "title": "A Song of the Rolling Earth",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Walt Whitman",
 "poet_slug": "walt-whitman",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Leaves of Grass",
 "book_slug": "leaves-of-grass",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 92,
 "container": "A Song of the Rolling Earth",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1856,
  "venue": "Leaves of Grass (Brooklyn, 1856)",
  "note": "Located in this edition by matching this text's lines against the Whitman Archive transcription of the 1856 Fowler & Wells edition (ppp.00237). 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.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://whitmanarchive.org/item/ppp.00237"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/walt-whitman_leaves-of-grass",
  "file": "a-song-of-the-rolling-earth.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1322",
   "https://archive.org/details/leavesgrass03whitgoog"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-12"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 130,
  "n_stanzas": 32,
  "n_parts": 4,
  "longest_line_chars": 128,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [
  {
   "ordinal": "1",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    0,
    17
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "2",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    17,
    21
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "3",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    21,
    28
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "4",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    28,
    32
   ]
  }
 ],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "A song of the rolling earth, and of words according,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Were you thinking that those were the words, those upright lines? those curves, angles, dots?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No, those are not the words, the substantial words are in the ground and sea,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They are in the air, they are in you.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Were you thinking that those were the words, those delicious sounds out of your friends’ mouths?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No, the real words are more delicious than they.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Human bodies are words, myriads of words,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(In the best poems re-appears the body, man’s or woman’s, well-shaped, natural, gay,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Every part able, active, receptive, without shame or the need of shame.)",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Air, soil, water, fire⁠—those are words,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I myself am a word with them⁠—my qualities interpenetrate with theirs⁠—my name is nothing to them,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Though it were told in the three thousand languages, what would air, soil, water, fire, know of my name?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "A healthy presence, a friendly or commanding gesture, are words, sayings, meanings,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The charms that go with the mere looks of some men and women, are sayings and meanings also.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The workmanship of souls is by those inaudible words of the earth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The masters know the earth’s words and use them more than audible words.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Amelioration is one of the earth’s words,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The earth neither lags nor hastens,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It has all attributes, growths, effects, latent in itself from the jump,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It is not half beautiful only, defects and excrescences show just as much as perfections show.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The earth does not withhold, it is generous enough,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The truths of the earth continually wait, they are not so conceal’d either,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They are calm, subtle, untransmissible by print,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They are imbued through all things conveying themselves willingly,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Conveying a sentiment and invitation, I utter and utter,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I speak not, yet if you hear me not of what avail am I to you?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To bear, to better, lacking these of what avail am I?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "(Accouche! accouchez!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Will you rot your own fruit in yourself there?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Will you squat and stifle there?)",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The earth does not argue,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is not pathetic, has no arrangements,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Does not scream, haste, persuade, threaten, promise,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Makes no discriminations, has no conceivable failures,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Closes nothing, refuses nothing, shuts none out,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of all the powers, objects, states, it notifies, shuts none out.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The earth does not exhibit itself nor refuse to exhibit itself, possesses still underneath,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Underneath the ostensible sounds, the august chorus of heroes, the wail of slaves,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Persuasions of lovers, curses, gasps of the dying, laughter of young people, accents of bargainers,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Underneath these possessing words that never fail.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "To her children the words of the eloquent dumb great mother never fail,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The true words do not fail, for motion does not fail and reflection does not fail,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Also the day and night do not fail, and the voyage we pursue does not fail.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Of the interminable sisters,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the ceaseless cotillons of sisters,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the centripetal and centrifugal sisters, the elder and younger sisters,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The beautiful sister we know dances on with the rest.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "With her ample back towards every beholder,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With the fascinations of youth and the equal fascinations of age,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sits she whom I too love like the rest, sits undisturb’d,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Holding up in her hand what has the character of a mirror, while her eyes glance back from it,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Glance as she sits, inviting none, denying none,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Holding a mirror day and night tirelessly before her own face.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Seen at hand or seen at a distance,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Duly the twenty-four appear in public every day,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Duly approach and pass with their companions or a companion,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Looking from no countenances of their own, but from the countenances of those who are with them,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From the countenances of children or women or the manly countenance,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From the open countenances of animals or from inanimate things,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From the landscape or waters or from the exquisite apparition of the sky,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From our countenances, mine and yours, faithfully returning them,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Every day in public appearing without fail, but never twice with the same companions.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Embracing man, embracing all, proceed the three hundred and sixty-five resistlessly round the sun;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Embracing all, soothing, supporting, follow close three hundred and sixty-five offsets of the first, sure and necessary as they.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Tumbling on steadily, nothing dreading,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sunshine, storm, cold, heat, forever withstanding, passing, carrying,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The soul’s realization and determination still inheriting,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The fluid vacuum around and ahead still entering and dividing,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No balk retarding, no anchor anchoring, on no rock striking,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Swift, glad, content, unbereav’d, nothing losing,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of all able and ready at any time to give strict account,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The divine ship sails the divine sea.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Whoever you are! motion and reflection are especially for you,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The divine ship sails the divine sea for you.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Whoever you are! you are he or she for whom the earth is solid and liquid,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You are he or she for whom the sun and moon hang in the sky,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For none more than you are the present and the past,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For none more than you is immortality.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Each man to himself and each woman to herself, is the word of the past and present, and the true word of immortality;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No one can acquire for another⁠—not one,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not one can grow for another⁠—not one.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The song is to the singer, and comes back most to him,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The teaching is to the teacher, and comes back most to him,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The murder is to the murderer, and comes back most to him,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The theft is to the thief, and comes back most to him,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The love is to the lover, and comes back most to him,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The gift is to the giver, and comes back most to him⁠—it cannot fail,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The oration is to the orator, the acting is to the actor and actress not to the audience,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And no man understands any greatness or goodness but his own, or the indication of his own.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I swear the earth shall surely be complete to him or her who shall be complete,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The earth remains jagged and broken only to him or her who remains jagged and broken.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I swear there is no greatness or power that does not emulate those of the earth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "There can be no theory of any account unless it corroborate the theory of the earth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No politics, song, religion, behavior, or whatnot, is of account, unless it compare with the amplitude of the earth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Unless it face the exactness, vitality, impartiality, rectitude of the earth.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I swear I begin to see love with sweeter spasms than that which responds love,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It is that which contains itself, which never invites and never refuses.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I swear I begin to see little or nothing in audible words,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All merges toward the presentation of the unspoken meanings of the earth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Toward him who sings the songs of the body and of the truths of the earth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Toward him who makes the dictionaries of words that print cannot touch.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I swear I see what is better than to tell the best,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It is always to leave the best untold.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "When I undertake to tell the best I find I cannot,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My tongue is ineffectual on its pivots,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My breath will not be obedient to its organs,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I become a dumb man.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The best of the earth cannot be told anyhow, all or any is best,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It is not what you anticipated, it is cheaper, easier, nearer,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Things are not dismiss’d from the places they held before,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The earth is just as positive and direct as it was before,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Facts, religions, improvements, politics, trades, are as real as before,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But the soul is also real, it too is positive and direct,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No reasoning, no proof has establish’d it,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Undeniable growth has establish’d it.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "These to echo the tones of souls and the phrases of souls,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(If they did not echo the phrases of souls what were they then?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If they had not reference to you in especial what were they then?)",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I swear I will never henceforth have to do with the faith that tells the best,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I will have to do only with that faith that leaves the best untold.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Say on, sayers! sing on, singers!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Delve! mould! pile the words of the earth!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Work on, age after age, nothing is to be lost,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It may have to wait long, but it will certainly come in use,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When the materials are all prepared and ready, the architects shall appear.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I swear to you the architects shall appear without fail,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I swear to you they will understand you and justify you,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The greatest among them shall be he who best knows you, and encloses all and is faithful to all,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He and the rest shall not forget you, they shall perceive that you are not an iota less than they,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You shall be fully glorified in them.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}