I am Walt Whitman.”
Once a Week. (London.) December 12, 1868.
Walt Whitman on Oxford.
I am Walt Whitman—who are you?
Who art thou, O brother of me, art thou an Englishman, Welshman, Styrian farmer, or Last of the Red Indians? Oh indescribable idiosyncracies! O, mighty grandeur of ratiocination!
I, Wall Whitman, I, the great I—ineffable I—I have been to Oxford!
O crumbling-ruinous monuments, O velvet-cloathed Proctorial espionage, I am an Americano, yet I am of you, I am you, you are me. Oh!
Yea, but the time all-democratic shall come, all will come to an end of this.
O, America! Libertad! thou shalt swallow up all. Oxford, thy days are gone, thou shalt cringe to Harvard.