By Broad Potomac’s Shore

Walt Whitman (1819–1892) · Leaves of Grass · From Noon to Starry Night · 1876

By broad Potomac’s shore, again old tongue,
(Still uttering, still ejaculating, canst never cease this babble?)
Again old heart so gay, again to you, your sense, the full flush spring returning,
Again the freshness and the odors, again Virginia’s summer sky, pellucid blue and silver,
Again the forenoon purple of the hills,
Again the deathless grass, so noiseless soft and green,
Again the blood-red roses blooming.

Perfume this book of mine O blood-red roses!
Lave subtly with your waters every line Potomac!
Give me of you O spring, before I close, to put between its pages!
O forenoon purple of the hills, before I close, of you!
O deathless grass, of you!

Where this text comes from

First published in Two Rivulets (Camden, 1876). Located in this edition by matching this text's lines against the 1876 Two Rivulets 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, from-noon-to-starry-night.xhtml. Rights: public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931).

Earlier sources (2)

This poem as JSON or plain text. Line anchors #L1–#L12.

Cite this poem

Walt Whitman (1819–1892). “By Broad Potomac’s Shore.” First published in Two Rivulets (Camden, 1876). Text: Poem Index, https://poemindex.org/walt-whitman/by-broad-potomacs-shore/. Append #L14 to cite line 14, or #L4-L9 for lines 4–9.

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