Walt Whitman is celebrated for his profound connection to and celebration of nature in his poetry. His work is imbued with a deep-rooted belief in the interconnectedness of humanity and the natural world. Whitman saw nature as a source of inspiration, renewal, and spiritual enlightenment. His poetry often celebrates the beauty, power, and mystery of the natural world, from the vastness of the ocean to the delicate details of a blade of grass.

Walt Whitman Quotes About Nature

1. “I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars.”

2. “The earth is rude, silent, incomprehensible at first—Nature is rude and incomprehensible at first; be not discouraged—keep on—there are divine things well envelop’d.”

3. “I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love; if you want me again, look for me under your boot-soles.”

4. “Happiness, not in another place but this place… not for another hour, but this hour.”

5. “There is no object so soft but it makes a hub for the wheeled universe.”

6. “To me, every hour of the light and dark is a miracle, every cubic inch of space is a miracle.”

7. “The world is not contained within a single viewpoint.”

8. “And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.”

9. “The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me—he complains of my gab and my loitering.”

10. “The last scud of day holds back for me, it flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow’d wilds, it coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.”

11. “I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contained.”

12. “The daisy follows soft the sun, and when his golden walk is done, sits shyly at his feet.”

13. “The smallest sprout shows there is really no death.”

14. “A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books.”

15. “I celebrate myself, and sing myself, and what I assume you shall assume, for every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.”

16. “A child said, What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands; How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he.”

17. “I am large, I contain multitudes.”

18. “All beauty comes from beautiful blood and a beautiful brain.”

19. “I loafe and invite my soul, I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.”

20. “I am satisfied—I see, dance, laugh, sing.”

21. “In the faces of men and women, I see God.”

22. “I sing the body electric, the armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them.”

23. “To me, the sea is a continual miracle.”

24. “I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least.”

25. “The beautiful uncut hair of graves.”

26. “I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.”

27. “The press of my foot to the earth springs a hundred affections.”

28. “Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons, it is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth.”

29. “The scent of these arm-pits aroma finer than prayer.”

30. “The sky, the huddling gray clouds, the hiss of the rain.”