Give to me the drench of my passions! Give me life coarse and rank!

To-day, I go consort with nature's darlings- to-night too,

I am for those who believe in loose delights- I share the

I dance with the dancers, and drink with the drinkers,

The echoes ring with our indecent calls,

I take for my love some prostitute- I pick out some low

He shall be lawless, rude, illiterate- he shall be one

condemned by others for deeds done;

I will play a part no longer- Why should I exile myself from my

-Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

Walt Whitman- homosexual before there was such term, and gay when the word was merely underground slang.

Walt Whitman shattered the world of tennis and tea, the stuffy drawing rooms of decorous morality.

After the war, Whitman met Peter Doyle (see picture), a bus driver whom Walt met while stranded together during a storm. "We were familiar at once, I put my hand on his knee, we understood." For years Pete and Walt were inseparable, and were friends until Whitman's death in 1892. It is unknown if they ever shared sexual orgasm, though we do know that they often kissed and embraced and sometimes slept together naked. Much of the inspiration for poems came from the illiterate, bus-driver Pete.

For celebrating reality, a reality that included sex, he was branded as an obscene writer throughout his lifetime. His poetry was banned several times from the United States, and was accused to be about "...that horrible sin not to be named among Christians." His most famous volume of poetry, Leaves of Grass, reflects the way in which America has systematically mutilated its details, and Walt Whitman's personal life suffered m

Some common words found in the essay are:
Whitman America's, Whitman's Homosexual, Pete Walt, Walt Whitman, Peter Doyle, Walt Whitman's, Lew Brown, Walt Whitman-, Leaves Grass, gay love, leaves grass, walt whitman's, homosexual love,
Approximate Word count = 621
Approximate Pages = 2 (250 words per page double spaced)