The Base of All Metaphysics

Walt Whitman (1819–1892) · Leaves of Grass · Calamus · 1871

And now gentlemen,
A word I give to remain in your memories and minds,
As base and finalè too for all metaphysics.

(So to the students the old professor,
At the close of his crowded course.)

Having studied the new and antique, the Greek and Germanic systems,
Kant having studied and stated, Fichte and Schelling and Hegel,
Stated the lore of Plato, and Socrates greater than Plato,
And greater than Socrates sought and stated, Christ divine having studied long,
I see reminiscent to-day those Greek and Germanic systems,
See the philosophies all, Christian churches and tenets see,
Yet underneath Socrates clearly see, and underneath Christ the divine I see,
The dear love of man for his comrade, the attraction of friend to friend,
Of the well-married husband and wife, of children and parents,
Of city for city and land for land.

Where this text comes from

First published in Leaves of Grass (Washington, 1871). Located in this edition by matching this text's lines against the 1871 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, calamus.xhtml. Rights: public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931).

Earlier sources (2)

This poem as JSON or plain text. Line anchors #L1–#L15.

Cite this poem

Walt Whitman (1819–1892). “The Base of All Metaphysics.” First published in Leaves of Grass (Washington, 1871). Text: Poem Index, https://poemindex.org/walt-whitman/the-base-of-all-metaphysics/. Append #L14 to cite line 14, or #L4-L9 for lines 4–9.

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