Walt Whitman, "Song of Myself", in Leaves of Grass. Possibly the most famous book of poetry in the US, at least. Apparently you need to do some reading of that "literature", as you call it - the kind that doesn't come with an abstract! :)

>Possibly the most famous book of poetry in the US

That's why I was confident it wouldn't be a difficult search ;)

>Leaves of Grass

The exact literature I was talking about.

Seriously though, I appreciate your posting the abstract (and attribution) and I'm sure a lot of other visitors have enjoyed it.

Some concepts really stand the test of time a lot more than others.