Walt Whitman / Once I Pass'd Through a Populous City

Photography by André Kertész

Walt Whitman

ONCE I PASS’D THROUGH A POPULOUS CITY

Once I pass’d through a populous city imprinting my brain

         for future use with its shows.

         architecture, customs, traditions,

Yet now all that city I remember only a woman I casually

         met there who detain’d me for love of me,

Day by day and nigh by night we were together—all else

         has long been forgoteen by me.

I remember, I say, only that woman who passionately

         clung to me,

Again we wander, we love, we separate again,

Again she holds me by the hand, I must not go,

I see her close beside me with silent lips sad and tremulous.