Walt Whitman on personal freedom

“From this hour I ordain myself loos’d of limits and imaginary lines, / Going where I list, my own master total and absolute, / listening to others, considering well what they say, / pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating, / Gently, but with undeniable will divesting myself of the holds that would hold me.”
–Walt Whitman, “Song of the Open Road” (1856)