All the hapless silent lovers,
All the prisoners in the prisons,
all the righteous and the wicked,
All the joyous, all the sorrowing, all the living, all the dying,

This is not the most famous of Walt Whitman's poems, but it may be his most American. It sings of admiration for the spirit of the Westward expansion and the fierce and reckless people who fueled that great movement. At the same time, it is alternately praising and damning of the feral nature of these people. Non judgmental perhaps, but clearly pointing out the cost of such a dangerous adventure.

Unlike the attractive, healthy and fun loving young adults in the Levis television ad that stole these words(uncredited I might add), the hoards of young adults who raced out west were likely marginally health at the start and largely sickly at the finish. Whitman does not gloss over this, even if history chose to do so.

It is a tribute to the power of his words that Whitman can write an honest, unsanitized version of America that still makes us proud to call them ancestors.


Not the riches safe and palling,
not for us the tame enjoyment,
Pioneers! O pioneers!