【美国人物志】沃尔特·惠特曼 (5/8)

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沃尔特·惠特曼（英语：Walter Whitman，1819年5月31日－1892年3月26日），美国诗人、散文家、新闻工作者及人文主义者。
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Civil War
Walt Whitman
"Song of Myself"
self-contained

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After the Civil War, Whitman worked for government agencies. He watched the United States try to heal itself and increase democracy.
To Walt Whitman, democracy was more than a political system or idea. It was the natural form of government for free people. Whitman believed democracy is meant to honor the rights of every person and the equality of all people. Whitman denounced people who believed they were better than others in the eyes of God. He expressed these ideas in his poem "Song of Myself."
I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contained,
I stand and look at them long and long.
They do not sweat and whine about their condition.
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins.
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God.
Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things.
Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago.
Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.