Lyric Poem · Death & Loss
Poem of Remembrance for a Girl or a Boy
by Walt Whitman
1YOU just maturing youth! You male or female!
2Remember the organic compact of These States,
3Remember the pledge of the Old Thirteen thenceforward to the rights, life, liberty,
4 equality of
5 man,
6Remember what was promulged by the founders, ratified by The States, signed in black and
7 white
8 by the Commissioners, and read by Washington at the head of the army,
9Remember the purposes of the founders,—Remember Washington;
10Remember the copious humanity streaming from every direction toward America;
11Remember the hospitality that belongs to nations and men; (Cursed be nation, woman, man,
12 without hospitality!)
13Remember, government is to subserve individuals,
14Not any, not the President, is to have one jot more than you or me,
15Not any habitan of America is to have one jot less than you or me.
16Anticipate when the thirty or fifty millions, are to become the hundred, or two hundred
17 millions, of equal freemen and freewomen, amicably joined.
18Recall ages—One age is but a part—ages are but a part;
19Recall the angers, bickerings, delusions, superstitions, of the idea of caste,
20Recall the bloody cruelties and crimes.
21Anticipate the best women;
22I say an unnumbered new race of hardy and well-defined women are to spread through all
23 These
24 States,
25I say a girl fit for These States must be free, capable, dauntless, just the same as a
26 boy.
27Anticipate your own life—retract with merciless power,
28Shirk nothing—retract in time—Do you see those errors, diseases, weaknesses,
29 lies,
30 thefts?
31Do you see that lost character?—Do you see decay, consumption, rum-drinking, dropsy,
32 fever, mortal cancer or inflammation?
33Do you see death, and the approach of death?
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“Poem of Remembrance for a Girl or a Boy” by Walt Whitman — quilloak.com/poems/poem-of-remembrance-for-a-girl-or-a-boy
Quick facts
- Poem
- Poem of Remembrance for a Girl or a Boy
- Poet
- Walt Whitman
- Length
- 33 lines
- Form
- Lyric Poem
- Themes
- Death & Loss, Childhood, War & Remembrance
Craft notes
How this poem works
Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.
- Shape
- 33 lines · 5 stanzas of 2–15 lines
- End rhyme
- No regular perfect end rhyme. The poem may still be using slant rhyme, assonance, or internal echo, which this check does not score.
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Text, source & rights
A traceable edition
Full-text display is based on the committed source record and a United States term-expiry review.
- Author record
- Walt Whitman1819–1892
- Source record
- PoetryDBPoem of Remembrance for a Girl or a Boy by walt-whitman, PoetryDB transcription
- Display decision
- Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
- Publication record
- Not recorded in the imported source
- Text fingerprint
- SHA-256 d8a5b66561930751…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.