Walt Whitman’s Homosexual life and Poetry “Give me now libidinous joys only! Give to me the drench of my passions! Give me life coarse and rank! To-day, I go consort with nature’s darlings- to-night too, I am for those who believe in loose delights- I share the midnight orgies of young men, I dance with the dancers, and drink with the drinkers, The echoes ring with our indecent calls, I take for my …showed first 75 words of 632 total…

…showed last 75 words of 632 total…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.