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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

I WAS LOOKING A LONG WHILE by WALT WHITMAN

Poet Analysis

First Line: I WAS LOOKING A LONG WHILE FOR INTENTIONS
Last Line: ALL FOR THE MODERN -- ALL FOR THE AVERAGE MAN OF TO-DAY.
I was looking a long while for Intentions,
For a clew to the history of the past for myself, and for
these chants -- and now I have found it,
It is not in those paged fables in the libraries, (them I
neither accept nor reject,)
It is no more in the legends than in all else,
It is in the present -- it is this earth to-day,
It is in Democracy -- (the purport and aim of all the past,)
It is the life of one man or one woman to-day -- the
average man of to-day,
It is in languages, social customs, literatures, arts,
It is in the broad show of artificial things, ships,
machinery, politics, creeds, modern improvements, and
the interchange of nations,
All for the modern -- all for the average man of to-day.



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