{
 "id": "walt-whitman/excelsior",
 "title": "Excelsior",
 "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": 263,
 "container": "From Noon to Starry Night",
 "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": "from-noon-to-starry-night.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": 12,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 130,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Who has gone farthest? for I would go farther,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And who has been just? for I would be the most just person of the earth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And who most cautious? for I would be more cautious,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And who has been happiest? O I think it is I⁠—I think no one was ever happier than I,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And who has lavish’d all? for I lavish constantly the best I have,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And who proudest? for I think I have reason to be the proudest son alive⁠—for I am the son of the brawny and tall-topt city,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And who has been bold and true? for I would be the boldest and truest being of the universe,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And who benevolent? for I would show more benevolence than all the rest,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And who has receiv’d the love of the most friends? for I know what it is to receive the passionate love of many friends,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And who possesses a perfect and enamour’d body? for I do not believe any one possesses a more perfect or enamour’d body than mine,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And who thinks the amplest thoughts? for I would surround those thoughts,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And who has made hymns fit for the earth? for I am mad with devouring ecstasy to make joyous hymns for the whole earth.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}