I have to say that I hadn’t realized what a fruitful source of lyrics for choral music Walt Whitman has been until I started writing this article. My own choir, the Cherry Creek Chorale in the Denver area, has sung a couple of other pieces besides this one with lyrics by Whitman over the years that I’ve been involved with the group. (You can read about them here and here–you’ll have to scroll down to read about the Whitman poem in that second article.) His poetry is so open, fresh and enthusiastic that music seems like a logical next step in presenting his work. About five hundred composers have written about twelve hundred works rooted, in some way, in Whitman, and the use of his poetry has only grown over the years.