These lines are from Whitman’s most famous poem, “Song of Myself,” which first appeared untitled in his self-published collection Leaves of Grass, in 1855.
The runaway slave came to my house and
stopt outside,
I heard his motions crackling the
twigs of the woodpile,
Through the swung half-door of the
kitchen I saw him limpsy and weak,
And went where he sat on a log and led
him in and assured him,
And brought water and fill'd a tub for
his sweated body and bruised feet,
And gave him a room that enter'd from
my own, and gave him some coarse
clean clothes,
And remember perfectly well his
revolving eyes and his awkwardness,
And remember putting plasters on the
galls of his neck and ankles;
He staid with me a week before he was
recuperated and pass'd north,
I had him sit next me at table, my
fire-lock lean'd in the corner.
