Thoughts

Of ownership⁠—as if one fit to own things could not at pleasure enter upon all, and incorporate them into himself or herself;
Of vista⁠—suppose some sight in arrière through the formative chaos, presuming the growth, fullness, life, now attain’d on the journey,
(But I see the road continued, and the journey ever continued;)
Of what was once lacking on earth, and in due time has become supplied⁠—and of what will yet be supplied,
Because all I see and know I believe to have its main purport in what will yet be supplied.

Where this text comes from

First published in Leaves of Grass (Boston, 1860–61). Located in this edition by matching this text's lines against the 1860–61 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–#L5.

Cite this poem

Walt Whitman (1819–1892). “Thoughts.” First published in Leaves of Grass (Boston, 1860–61). Text: Poem Index, https://poemindex.org/walt-whitman/thoughts/. Append #L14 to cite line 14, or #L4-L9 for lines 4–9.

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