A Glimpse by Walt Whitman

Poem first published in the 1860 edition of ‘Leaves of Grass’ and later collected in the 1892 “Deathbed” edition of the same work.

A glimpse through an interstice caught,
Of a crowd of workmen and drivers in a bar-room around the stove late of a winter night, and I
     unremark’d seated in a corner,
Of a youth who loves me and whom I love, silently approaching and seating himself near, that he
     may hold me by the hand,
A long while amid the noises of coming and going, of drinking and oath and smutty jest,
There we two, content, happy in being together, speaking little, perhaps not a word.