Walt Whitman




Once I passed 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, of all that city, I remember only a woman I casually met there, who detain’d me 
      for love of me; 
Day by day and night by night we were together,—All else has long been forgotten 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.

spoken = Richard Titus