In his celebration of love and friendship, poet Walt Whitman (1819–1892) wrote with passionate, irregular lines. Unrhymed words of intimacy and magic, inviting us all to love and be loved.

“For every atom belongs to me as good as belongs to you,” wrote Whitman, who jotted his ideas in a pocket notebook and celebrated his deep connection with himself, nature, and the universe.

The first edition of his self-published Leaves of Grass (1855) began with the word “I” and ended with the word “you.”

Biographer Justin Kaplan explained that Whitman “wanted a bold, original vernacular that above all reflected American speech rather than traditional poetic language. He was far ahead of his time, but he knew time would catch up with him.”

There was a price for Whitman’s unshakable faith. His work was dismissed as “uncouth,” and he was fired from a government job for “immoral passages.” But still he wrote, dedicating his life’s work to “companionship thick as trees.”

Born on this day in West Hills, New York, Whitman and his Leaves of Grass—including the enduring “Song of Myself”—changed literature forever.

“I tramp a perpetual journey,” he declared. “I and this mystery, here we stand.”