Back to Index

To Rich Givers

by Walt Whitman, 1892

What you give me I cheerfully accept,
A little sustenance, a hut and garden, a little money, as I rendezvous with my poems,
A traveler's lodging and breakfast as journey through the States,— why should I be ashamed to own such gifts? why to advertise for them?
For I myself am not one who bestows nothing upon man and woman,
For I bestow upon any man or woman the entrance to all the gifts of the universe.

Published in Leaves of Grass
Tags:

Any corrections or public domain poems I should have here? Email me at poems (at) this domain.