Read "To a Stranger" by Walt Whitman online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Passing stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you; / You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking (it comes to me, as of a / dream). / I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you. / All is recalled as we flit by each other, fluid, affectionate, chaste, matured; / You grew up with me, were a boy with me, or a girl with me; / I ate with you, and slept with you -- your body has become not yours only, / nor left my body mine only; / You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as we pass -- you take of / my beard, breast, hands in return; / I am not to speak to you -- I am to think of you when I sit alone, or wake at / night alone; / I am to wait -- I do not doubt I am to meet you again; / I am to see to it that I do not lose you.