The Weekly Walt: “Beginning my Studies.”
In honor of my second first day of school (one of the pleasanter aspects of having a differing schedule for each day of the week), this poem:
Beginning my studies, the first step pleas’d me so much,
The mere fact, consciousness - these forms - the power of motion,
The least insect or animal - the senses - eyesight - love;
The first step, I say, aw’d me and pleas’d me so much,
I have hardly gone, and hardly wish’d to go, any farther,
But stop and loiter all the time, to sing it in ecstatic songs.
8. “Beginning my Studies,” from the 1900 edition of Leaves of Grass.
