Walt Whitman

…

…often kissed and embraced and sometimes slept together naked. Much of the inspiration for poems came from the illiterate, bus-driver Pete. In spite of his robustness, and probably because of his internal struggles and efforts to make a hostile society understand him, Whitman grew old prematurely, and suffered many strokes. He resigned himself to the hope that others would take up the flag of his disposition, that someday the world would finally attain some understanding.