Me Imperturbe, by Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

Me imperturbe, standing at ease in Nature,
Master of all or mistress of all, aplomb in the midst of irrational things,
Imbued as they, passive, receptive, silent as they,
Finding my occupation, poverty, notoriety, foibles, crimes, less
important than I thought,
Me toward the Mexican sea, or in the Mannahatta or the Tennessee,
or far north or inland,
A river man, or a man of the woods or of any farm-life of these
States or of the coast, or the lakes or Kanada,
Me wherever my life is lived, O to be self-balanced for contingencies,
To confront night, storms, hunger, ridicule, accidents, rebuffs, as
the trees and animals do.

Me Imperturbe
by: Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

Notes from The complete Writings of Walt Whitman,
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS NEW YORK AND LONDON 1902

1860: Chants Democratic, No. 18, page 91 ; 1867 Me Imper-
turbe, page 318; transferred to Inscriptions in 1881.

Line 1, 1860: " Me imperturbe,
Me standing at ease in Nature." Present reading in 1867.

After line 4, 1860, read: "Me private, or public, or menial,
or solitary all these subordinate, (I am eternally equal with the
best I am not subordinate.") This sentence dropped in 1881.