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I Sing the Body Electric
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Illustration of "The Lamb" from "Songs of Innocence" by William Blake, 1879. poem; poetry
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4:043 Dickinson, Emily: A Life of Letters, This is my letter to the world/That never wrote to me; I'll tell you how the Sun Rose/A Ribbon at a time; Hope is the thing with feathers/That perches in the soul
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Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) only confirmed photograph of Emily Dickinson. 1978 scan of a Daguerreotype. ca. 1847; in the Amherst College Archives. American poet. See Notes:
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I Sing the Body Electric

poem by Whitman
Also known as: “Poem of the Body”
Written and fact-checked by
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History

I Sing the Body Electric, poem by Walt Whitman, published without a title in Leaves of Grass (1855 edition), later appearing as “Poem of the Body,” and acquiring its present title in 1867. The poem is a paean to the human form in all its manifestations of soundness. The respective vigours of male and female, youth and age are equally celebrated, and ultimately the body is equated with the soul.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Kathleen Kuiper.