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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/8388-8.txt b/8388-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ee914d0 --- /dev/null +++ b/8388-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9756 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Poems By Walt Whitman, by Walt Whitman + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Poems By Walt Whitman + +Author: Walt Whitman + +Release Date: June, 2005 [EBook #8388] +[This file was first posted on July 6, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, POEMS BY WALT WHITMAN *** + + + + +E-text prepared by Andrea Ball, Jon Ingram, Charles Franks, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team + + + +POEMS BY WALT WHITMAN + +by WALT WHITMAN + +SELECTED AND EDITED BY WILLIAM MICHAEL ROSSETTI + + + +A NEW EDITION + + + + + + + + "Or si sa il nome, o per tristo o per buono, + E si sa pure al mondo ch'io ci sono." + --MICHELANGELO. + + + + +"That Angels are human forms, or men, I have seen a thousand times. I have +also frequently told them that men in the Christian world are in such gross +ignorance respecting Angels and Spirits as to suppose them to be minds +without a form, or mere thoughts, of which they have no other idea than as +something ethereal possessing a vital principle. To the first or ultimate +heaven also correspond the forms of man's body, called its members, organs, +and viscera. Thus the corporeal part of man is that in which heaven +ultimately closes, and upon which, as on its base, it rests." +--SWEDENBORG. + +"Yes, truly, it is a great thing for a nation that it get an articulate +voice--that it produce a man who will speak forth melodiously what the +heart of it means." +--CARLYLE. + + +"Les efforts de vos ennemis contre vous, leurs cris, leur rage impuissante, +et leurs petits succès, ne doivent pas vous effrayer; ce ne sont que des +égratignures sur les épaules d'Hercule." +--ROBESPIERRE. + + + + +TO WILLIAM BELL SCOTT. + + +DEAR SCOTT,--Among various gifts which I have received from you, tangible +and intangible, was a copy of the original quarto edition of Whitman's +_Leaves of Grass_, which you presented to me soon after its first +appearance in 1855. At a time when few people on this side of the Atlantic +had looked into the book, and still fewer had found in it anything save +matter for ridicule, you had appraised it, and seen that its value was real +and great. A true poet and a strong thinker like yourself was indeed likely +to see that. I read the book eagerly, and perceived that its substantiality +and power were still ahead of any eulogium with which it might have come +commended to me--and, in fact, ahead of most attempts that could be made at +verbal definition of them. + +Some years afterwards, getting to know our friend Swinburne, I found with +much satisfaction that he also was an ardent (not of course a _blind_) +admirer of Whitman. Satisfaction, and a degree almost of surprise; for his +intense sense of poetic refinement of form in his own works and his +exacting acuteness as a critic might have seemed likely to carry him away +from Whitman in sympathy at least, if not in actual latitude of perception. +Those who find the American poet "utterly formless," "intolerably rough and +floundering," "destitute of the A B C of art," and the like, might not +unprofitably ponder this very different estimate of him by the author of +_Atalanta in Calydon_. + +May we hope that now, twelve years after the first appearance of _Leaves of +Grass_, the English reading public may be prepared for a selection of +Whitman's poems, and soon hereafter for a complete edition of them? I trust +this may prove to be the case. At any rate, it has been a great +gratification to me to be concerned in the experiment; and this is enhanced +by my being enabled to associate with it your name, as that of an early and +well-qualified appreciator of Whitman, and no less as that of a dear +friend. + +Yours affectionately, +W. M. ROSSETTI. + +_October_ 1867. + + + + + +CONTENTS. + + +PREFATORY NOTICE + + +PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION OF LEAVES OF GRASS + + +CHANTS DEMOCRATIC: + STARTING FROM PAUMANOK + AMERICAN FEUILLAGE + THE PAST-PRESENT + YEARS OF THE UNPERFORMED + FLUX + TO WORKING MEN + SONG OF THE BROAD-AXE + ANTECEDENTS + SALUT AU MONDE + A BROADWAY PAGEANT + OLD IRELAND + BOSTON TOWN + FRANCE, THE EIGHTEENTH YEAR OF THESE STATES + EUROPE, THE SEVENTY-SECOND AND SEVENTY-THIRD YEARS OF THESE STATES + TO A FOILED REVOLTER OR REVOLTRESS + + +DRUM TAPS: + MANHATTAN ARMING + 1861 + THE UPRISING + BEAT! BEAT! DRUMS! + SONG OF THE BANNER AT DAYBREAK + THE BIVOUAC'S FLAME + BIVOUAC ON A MOUNTAIN SIDE + CITY OF SHIPS + VIGIL ON THE FIELD + THE FLAG + THE WOUNDED + A SIGHT IN CAMP + A GRAVE + THE DRESSER + A LETTER FROM CAMP + WAR DREAMS + THE VETERAN'S VISION + O TAN-FACED PRAIRIE BOY + MANHATTAN FACES + OVER THE CARNAGE + THE MOTHER OF ALL + CAMPS OF GREEN + DIRGE FOR TWO VETERANS + SURVIVORS + HYMN OF DEAD SOLDIERS + SPIRIT WHOSE WORK IS DONE + RECONCILIATION + AFTER THE WAR + + +WALT WHITMAN: + ASSIMILATIONS + A WORD OUT OF THE SEA + CROSSING BROOKLYN FERRY + NIGHT AND DEATH + ELEMENTAL DRIFTS + WONDERS + MIRACLES + VISAGES + THE DARK SIDE + MUSIC + WHEREFORE? + QUESTIONABLE + SONG AT SUNSET + LONGINGS FOR HOME + APPEARANCES + THE FRIEND + MEETING AGAIN + A DREAM + PARTING FRIENDS + TO A STRANGER + OTHER LANDS + ENVY + THE CITY OF FRIENDS + OUT OF THE CROWD + AMONG THE MULTITUDE + + +LEAVES OF GRASS: + PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S FUNERAL HYMN + O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN! (FOR THE DEATH OF LINCOLN) + PIONEERS! O PIONEERS + TO THE SAYERS OF WORDS + VOICES + WHOSOEVER + BEGINNERS + TO A PUPIL + LINKS + THE WATERS + TO THE STATES + TEARS + A SHIP + GREATNESSES + THE POET + BURIAL + THIS COMPOST + DESPAIRING CRIES + THE CITY DEAD-HOUSE + TO ONE SHORTLY TO DIE + UNNAMED LANDS + SIMILITUDE + THE SQUARE DEIFIC + + +SONGS OF PARTING: + SINGERS AND POETS + TO A HISTORIAN + FIT AUDIENCE + SINGING IN SPRING + LOVE OF COMRADES + PULSE OF MY LIFE + AUXILIARIES + REALITIES + NEARING DEPARTURE + POETS TO COME + CENTURIES HENCE + SO LONG! + + +POSTSCRIPT + + + + +PREFATORY NOTICE. + + +During the summer of 1867 I had the opportunity (which I had often wished +for) of expressing in print my estimate and admiration of the works of the +American poet Walt Whitman.[1] Like a stone dropped into a pond, an article +of that sort may spread out its concentric circles of consequences. One of +these is the invitation which I have received to edit a selection from +Whitman's writings; virtually the first sample of his work ever published +in England, and offering the first tolerably fair chance he has had of +making his way with English readers on his own showing. Hitherto, such +readers--except the small percentage of them to whom it has happened to +come across the poems in some one of their American editions--have picked +acquaintance with them only through the medium of newspaper extracts and +criticisms, mostly short-sighted, sneering, and depreciatory, and rather +intercepting than forwarding the candid construction which people might be +willing to put upon the poems, alike in their beauties and their +aberrations. Some English critics, no doubt, have been more discerning--as +W. J. Fox, of old, in the _Dispatch_, the writer of the notice in the +_Leader_, and of late two in the _Pall Mall Gazette_ and the _London +Review_;[2] but these have been the exceptions among us, the great majority +of the reviewers presenting that happy and familiar critical combination-- +scurrility and superciliousness. + +[Footnote 1: See _The Chronicle_ for 6th July 1867, article _Walt Whitman's +Poems_.] + +[Footnote 2: Since this Prefatory Notice was written [in 1868], another +eulogistic review of Whitman has appeared--that by Mr. Robert Buchanan, in +the _Broadway_.] + +As it was my lot to set down so recently several of the considerations +which seem to me most essential and most obvious in regard to Whitman's +writings, I can scarcely now recur to the subject without either repeating +something of what I then said, or else leaving unstated some points of +principal importance. I shall therefore adopt the simplest course--that of +summarising the critical remarks in my former article; after which, I shall +leave without further development (ample as is the amount of development +most of them would claim) the particular topics there glanced at, and shall +proceed to some other phases of the subject. + +Whitman republished in 1867 his complete poetical works in one moderate- +sized volume, consisting of the whole _Leaves of Grass_, with a sort of +supplement thereto named _Songs before Parting_,[3] and of the _Drum Taps_, +with its _Sequel_. It has been intimated that he does not expect to write +any more poems, unless it might be in expression of the religious side of +man's nature. However, one poem on the last American harvest sown and +reaped by those who had been soldiers in the great war, has already +appeared since the volume in question, and has been republished in England. + +[Footnote 3: In a copy of the book revised by Whitman himself, which we +have seen, this title is modified into _Songs of Parting_.] + +Whitman's poems present no trace of rhyme, save in a couple or so of chance +instances. Parts of them, indeed, may be regarded as a warp of prose amid +the weft of poetry, such as Shakespeare furnishes the precedent for in +drama. Still there is a very powerful and majestic rhythmical sense +throughout. + +Lavish and persistent has been the abuse poured forth upon Whitman by his +own countrymen; the tricklings of the British press give but a moderate +idea of it. The poet is known to repay scorn with scorn. Emerson can, +however, from the first be claimed as on Whitman's side; nor, it is +understood after some inquiry, has that great thinker since then retreated +from this position in fundamentals, although his admiration may have +entailed some worry upon him, and reports of his recantation have been +rife. Of other writers on Whitman's side, expressing themselves with no +measured enthusiasm, one may cite Mr. M. D. Conway; Mr. W. D. O'Connor, who +wrote a pamphlet named _The Good Grey Poet_; and Mr. John Burroughs, author +of _Walt Whitman as Poet and Person_, published quite recently in New York. +His thorough-paced admirers declare Whitman to be beyond rivalry _the_ poet +of the epoch; an estimate which, startling as it will sound at the first, +may nevertheless be upheld, on the grounds that Whitman is beyond all his +competitors a man of the period, one of audacious personal ascendant, +incapable of all compromise, and an initiator in the scheme and form of his +works. + +Certain faults are charged against him, and, as far as they are true, shall +frankly stand confessed--some of them as very serious faults. Firstly, he +speaks on occasion of gross things in gross, crude, and plain terms. +Secondly, he uses some words absurd or ill-constructed, others which +produce a jarring effect in poetry, or indeed in any lofty literature. +Thirdly, he sins from time to time by being obscure, fragmentary, and +agglomerative--giving long strings of successive and detached items, not, +however, devoid of a certain primitive effectiveness. Fourthly, his self- +assertion is boundless; yet not always to be understood as strictly or +merely personal to himself, but sometimes as vicarious, the poet speaking +on behalf of all men, and every man and woman. These and any other faults +appear most harshly on a cursory reading; Whitman is a poet who bears and +needs to be read as a whole, and then the volume and torrent of his power +carry the disfigurements along with it, and away. + +The subject-matter of Whitman's poems, taken individually, is absolutely +miscellaneous: he touches upon any and every subject. But he has prefixed +to his last edition an "Inscription" in the following terms, showing that +the key-words of the whole book are two--"One's-self" and "En Masse:"-- + +Small is the theme of the following chant, yet the greatest.--namely, +ONE'S-SELF; that wondrous thing, a simple separate person. That, for the +use of the New World, I sing. Man's physiology complete, from top to toe, I +sing. Not physiognomy alone, nor brain alone, is worthy for the Muse: I say +the form complete is worthier far. The female equally with the male I sing. +Nor cease at the theme of One's-self. I speak the word of the modern, the +word EN MASSE. My days I sing, and the lands--with interstice I knew of +hapless war. O friend, whoe'er you are, at last arriving hither to +commence, I feel through every leaf the pressure of your hand, which I +return. And thus upon our journey linked together let us go. + +The book, then, taken as a whole, is the poem both of Personality and of +Democracy; and, it may be added, of American nationalism. It is _par +excellence_ the modern poem. It is distinguished also by this peculiarity-- +that in it the most literal view of things is continually merging into the +most rhapsodic or passionately abstract. Picturesqueness it has, but mostly +of a somewhat patriarchal kind, not deriving from the "word-painting" of +the _littérateur_; a certain echo of the old Hebrew poetry may even be +caught in it, extra-modern though it is. Another most prominent and +pervading quality of the book is the exuberant physique of the author. The +conceptions are throughout those of a man in robust health, and might alter +much under different conditions. + +Further, there is a strong tone of paradox in Whitman's writings. He is +both a realist and an optimist in extreme measure: he contemplates evil as +in some sense not existing, or, if existing, then as being of as much +importance as anything else. Not that he is a materialist; on the contrary, +he is a most strenuous assertor of the soul, and, with the soul, of the +body as its infallible associate and vehicle in the present frame of +things. Neither does he drift into fatalism or indifferentism; the energy +of his temperament, and ever-fresh sympathy with national and other +developments, being an effectual bar to this. The paradoxical element of +the poems is such that one may sometimes find them in conflict with what +has preceded, and would not be much surprised if they said at any moment +the reverse of whatever they do say. This is mainly due to the multiplicity +of the aspects of things, and to the immense width of relation in which +Whitman stands to all sorts and all aspects of them. + +But the greatest of this poet's distinctions is his absolute and entire +originality. He may be termed formless by those who, not without much +reason to show for themselves, are wedded to the established forms and +ratified refinements of poetic art; but it seems reasonable to enlarge the +canon till it includes so great and startling a genius, rather than to draw +it close and exclude him. His work is practically certain to stand as +archetypal for many future poetic efforts--so great is his power as an +originator, so fervid his initiative. It forms incomparably the _largest_ +performance of our period in poetry. Victor Hugo's _Légende des Siècles_ +alone might be named with it for largeness, and even that with much less of +a new starting-point in conception and treatment. Whitman breaks with all +precedent. To what he himself perceives and knows he has a personal +relation of the intensest kind: to anything in the way of prescription, no +relation at all. But he is saved from isolation by the depth of his +Americanism; with the movement of his predominant nation he is moved. His +comprehension, energy, and tenderness are all extreme, and all inspired by +actualities. And, as for poetic genius, those who, without being ready to +concede that faculty to Whitman, confess his iconoclastic boldness and his +Titanic power of temperament, working in the sphere of poetry, do in effect +confess his genius as well. + +Such, still further condensed, was the critical summary which I gave of +Whitman's position among poets. It remains to say something a little more +precise of the particular qualities of his works. And first, not to slur +over defects, I shall extract some sentences from a letter which a friend, +most highly entitled to form and express an opinion on any poetic +question--one, too, who abundantly upholds the greatness of Whitman as a +poet--has addressed to me with regard to the criticism above condensed. His +observations, though severe on this individual point, appear to me not +other than correct. "I don't think that you quite put strength enough into +your blame on one side, while you make at least enough of minor faults or +eccentricities. To me it seems always that Whitman's great flaw is a fault +of debility, not an excess of strength--I mean his bluster. His own +personal and national self-reliance and arrogance, I need not tell you, I +applaud, and sympathise and rejoice in; but the blatant ebullience of +feeling and speech, at times, is feeble for so great a poet of so great a +people. He is in part certainly the poet of democracy; but not wholly, +_because_ he tries so openly to be, and asserts so violently that he is-- +always as if he was fighting the case out on a platform. This is the only +thing I really or greatly dislike or revolt from. On the whole" (adds my +correspondent), "my admiration and enjoyment of his greatness grow keener +and warmer every time I think of him"--a feeling, I may be permitted to +observe, which is fully shared by myself, and, I suppose, by all who +consent in any adequate measure to recognise Whitman, and to yield +themselves to his influence. + +To continue. Besides originality and daring, which have been already +insisted upon, width and intensity are leading characteristics of his +writings--width both of subject-matter and of comprehension, intensity of +self-absorption into what the poet contemplates and expresses. He scans and +presents an enormous panorama, unrolled before him as from a mountain-top; +and yet, whatever most large or most minute or casual thing his eye glances +upon, that he enters into with a depth of affection which identifies him +with it for a time, be the object what it may. There is a singular +interchange also of actuality and of ideal substratum and suggestion. While +he sees men, with even abnormal exactness and sympathy, as men, he sees +them also "as trees walking," and admits us to perceive that the whole show +is in a measure spectral and unsubstantial, and the mask of a larger and +profounder reality beneath it, of which it is giving perpetual intimations +and auguries. He is the poet indeed of literality, but of passionate and +significant literality, full of indirections as well as directness, and of +readings between the lines. If he is the 'cutest of Yankees, he is also as +truly an enthusiast as any the most typical poet. All his faculties and +performance glow into a white heat of brotherliness; and there is a +_poignancy_ both of tenderness and of beauty about his finer works which +discriminates them quite as much as their modernness, audacity, or any +other exceptional point. If the reader wishes to see the great and more +intimate powers of Whitman in their fullest expression, he may consult the +_Nocturn for the Death of Lincoln_; than which it would be difficult to +find anywhere a purer, more elevated, more poetic, more ideally abstract, +or at the same time more pathetically personal, threnody--uniting the +thrilling chords of grief, of beauty, of triumph, and of final unfathomed +satisfaction. With all his singularities, Whitman is a master of words and +of sounds: he has them at his command--made for, and instinct with, his +purpose--messengers of unsurpassable sympathy and intelligence between +himself and his readers. The entire book may be called the paean of the +natural man--not of the merely physical, still less of the disjunctively +intellectual or spiritual man, but of him who, being a man first and +foremost, is therein also a spirit and an intellect. + +There is a singular and impressive intuition or revelation of Swedenborg's: +that the whole of heaven is in the form of one man, and the separate +societies of heaven in the forms of the several parts of man. In a large +sense, the general drift of Whitman's writings, even down to the passages +which read as most bluntly physical, bear a striking correspondence or +analogy to this dogma. He takes man, and every organism and faculty of man, +as the unit--the datum--from which all that we know, discern, and +speculate, of abstract and supersensual, as well as of concrete and +sensual, has to be computed. He knows of nothing nobler than that unit man; +but, knowing that, he can use it for any multiple, and for any dynamical +extension or recast. + +Let us next obtain some idea of what this most remarkable poet--the founder +of _American_ poetry rightly to be so called, and the most sonorous poetic +voice of the tangibilities of actual and prospective democracy--is in his +proper life and person. + +Walt Whitman was born at the farm-village of West Hills, Long Island, in +the State of New York, and about thirty miles distant from the capital, on +the 31st of May 1819. His father's family, English by origin, had already +been settled in this locality for five generations. His mother, named +Louisa van Velsor, was of Dutch extraction, and came from Cold Spring, +Queen's County, about three miles from West Hills. "A fine-looking old +lady" she has been termed in her advanced age. A large family ensued from +the marriage. The father was a farmer, and afterwards a carpenter and +builder; both parents adhered in religion to "the great Quaker iconoclast, +Elias Hicks." Walt was schooled at Brooklyn, a suburb of New York, and +began life at the age of thirteen, working as a printer, later on as a +country teacher, and then as a miscellaneous press-writer in New York. From +1837 to 1848 he had, as Mr. Burroughs too promiscuously expresses it, +"sounded all experiences of life, with all their passions, pleasures, and +abandonments." In 1849 he began travelling, and became at New Orleans a +newspaper editor, and at Brooklyn, two years afterwards, a printer. He next +followed his father's business of carpenter and builder. In 1862, after the +breaking-out of the great Civil War, in which his enthusiastic unionism and +also his anti-slavery feelings attached him inseparably though not +rancorously to the good cause of the North, he undertook the nursing of the +sick and wounded in the field, writing also a correspondence in the _New +York Times_. I am informed that it was through Emerson's intervention that +he obtained the sanction of President Lincoln for this purpose of charity, +with authority to draw the ordinary army rations; Whitman stipulating at +the same time that he would not receive any remuneration for his services. +The first immediate occasion of his going down to camp was on behalf of his +brother, Lieutenant-Colonel George W. Whitman, of the 51st New York +Veterans, who had been struck in the face by a piece of shell at +Fredericksburg. From the spring of 1863 this nursing, both in the field and +more especially in hospital at Washington, became his "one daily and +nightly occupation;" and the strongest testimony is borne to his +measureless self-devotion and kindliness in the work, and to the unbounded +fascination, a kind of magnetic attraction and ascendency, which he +exercised over the patients, often with the happiest sanitary results. +Northerner or Southerner, the belligerents received the same tending from +him. It is said that by the end of the war he had personally ministered to +upwards of 100,000 sick and wounded. In a Washington hospital he caught, in +the summer of 1864, the first illness he had ever known, caused by poison +absorbed into the system in attending some of the worst cases of gangrene. +It disabled him for six months. He returned to the hospitals towards the +beginning of 1865, and obtained also a clerkship in the Department of the +Interior. It should be added that, though he never actually joined the army +as a combatant, he made a point of putting down his name on the enrolment- +lists for the draft, to take his chance as it might happen for serving the +country in arms. The reward of his devotedness came at the end of June +1865, in the form of dismissal from his clerkship by the minister, Mr. +Harlan, who learned that Whitman was the author of the _Leaves of Grass_; a +book whose outspokenness, or (as the official chief considered it) +immorality, raised a holy horror in the ministerial breast. The poet, +however, soon obtained another modest but creditable post in the office of +the Attorney-General. He still visits the hospitals on Sundays, and often +on other days as well. + +The portrait of Mr. Whitman reproduced in the present volume is taken from +an engraving after a daguerreotype given in the original _Leaves of Grass_. +He is much above the average size, and noticeably well-proportioned--a +model of physique and of health, and, by natural consequence, as fully and +finely related to all physical facts by his bodily constitution as to all +mental and spiritual facts by his mind and his consciousness. He is now, +however, old-looking for his years, and might even (according to the +statement of one of his enthusiasts, Mr. O'Connor) have passed for being +beyond the age for the draft when the war was going on. The same gentleman, +in confutation of any inferences which might be drawn from the _Leaves of +Grass_ by a Harlan or other Holy Willie, affirms that "one more +irreproachable in his relations to the other sex lives not upon this +earth"--an assertion which one must take as one finds it, having neither +confirmatory nor traversing evidence at hand. Whitman has light blue eyes, +a florid complexion, a fleecy beard now grey, and a quite peculiar sort of +magnetism about him in relation to those with whom he comes in contact. His +ordinary appearance is masculine and cheerful: he never shows depression of +spirits, and is sufficiently undemonstrative, and even somewhat silent in +company. He has always been carried by predilection towards the society of +the common people; but is not the less for that open to refined and +artistic impressions--fond of operatic and other good music, and discerning +in works of art. As to either praise or blame of what he writes, he is +totally indifferent, not to say scornful--having in fact a very decisive +opinion of his own concerning its calibre and destinies. Thoreau, a very +congenial spirit, said of Whitman, "He is Democracy;" and again, "After +all, he suggests something a little more than human." Lincoln broke out +into the exclamation, "Well, _he_ looks like a man!" Whitman responded to +the instinctive appreciation of the President, considering him (it is said +by Mr. Burroughs) "by far the noblest and purest of the political +characters of the time;" and, if anything can cast, in the eyes of +posterity, an added halo of brightness round the unsullied personal +qualities and the great doings of Lincoln, it will assuredly be the written +monument reared to him by Whitman. + +The best sketch that I know of Whitman as an accessible human individual is +that given by Mr. Conway.[4] I borrow from it the following few details. +"Having occasion to visit New York soon after the appearance of Walt +Whitman's book, I was urged by some friends to search him out.... The day +was excessively hot, the thermometer at nearly 100°, and the sun blazed +down as only on sandy Long Island can the sun blaze.... I saw stretched +upon his back, and gazing up straight at the terrible sun, the man I was +seeking. With his grey clothing, his blue-grey shirt, his iron-grey hair, +his swart sunburnt face and bare neck, he lay upon the brown-and-white +grass--for the sun had burnt away its greenness--and was so like the earth +upon which he rested that he seemed almost enough a part of it for one to +pass by without recognition. I approached him, gave my name and reason for +searching him out, and asked him if he did not find the sun rather hot. +'Not at all too hot,' was his reply; and he confided to me that this was +one of his favourite places and attitudes for composing 'poems.' He then +walked with me to his home, and took me along its narrow ways to his room. +A small room of about fifteen feet square, with a single window looking out +on the barren solitudes of the island; a small cot; a wash-stand with a +little looking-glass hung over it from a tack in the wall; a pine table +with pen, ink, and paper on it; an old line-engraving representing Bacchus, +hung on the wall, and opposite a similar one of Silenus: these constituted +the visible environments of Walt Whitman. There was not, apparently, a +single book in the room.... The books he seemed to know and love best were +the Bible, Homer, and Shakespeare: these he owned, and probably had in his +pockets while we were talking. He had two studies where he read; one was +the top of an omnibus, and the other a small mass of sand, then entirely +uninhabited, far out in the ocean, called Coney Island.... The only +distinguished contemporary he had ever met was the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, +of Brooklyn, who had visited him.... He confessed to having no talent for +industry, and that his forte was 'loafing and writing poems:' he was poor, +but had discovered that he could, on the whole, live magnificently on bread +and water.... On no occasion did he laugh, nor indeed did I ever see him +smile." + +[Footnote 4: In the _Fortnightly Review_, 15th October 1866.] + +The first trace of Whitman as a writer is in the pages of the _Democratic +Review_ in or about 1841. Here he wrote some prose tales and sketches--poor +stuff mostly, so far as I have seen of them, yet not to be wholly +confounded with the commonplace. One of them is a tragic school-incident, +which may be surmised to have fallen under his personal observation in his +early experience as a teacher. His first poem of any sort was named _Blood +Money_, in denunciation of the Fugitive Slave Law, which severed him from +the Democratic party. His first considerable work was the _Leaves of +Grass_. He began it in 1853, and it underwent two or three complete +rewritings prior to its publication at Brooklyn in 1855, in a quarto +volume--peculiar-looking, but with something perceptibly artistic about it. +The type of that edition was set up entirely by himself. He was moved to +undertake this formidable poetic work (as indicated in a private letter of +Whitman's, from which Mr. Conway has given a sentence or two) by his sense +of the great materials which America could offer for a really American +poetry, and by his contempt for the current work of his +compatriots--"either the poetry of an elegantly weak sentimentalism, at +bottom nothing but maudlin puerilities or more or less musical verbiage, +arising out of a life of depression and enervation as their result; or else +that class of poetry, plays, &c., of which the foundation is feudalism, +with its ideas of lords and ladies, its imported standard of gentility, and +the manners of European high-life-below-stairs in every line and verse." +Thus incited to poetic self-expression, Whitman (adds Mr. Conway) "wrote on +a sheet of paper, in large letters, these words, 'Make the Work,' and fixed +it above his table, where he could always see it whilst writing. +Thenceforth every cloud that flitted over him, every distant sail, every +face and form encountered, wrote a line in his book." + +The _Leaves of Grass_ excited no sort of notice until a letter from +Emerson[5] appeared, expressing a deep sense of its power and magnitude. He +termed it "the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has +yet contributed." + +[Footnote 5: Mr. Burroughs (to whom I have recourse for most biographical +facts concerning Whitman) is careful to note, in order that no +misapprehension may arise on the subject, that, up to the time of his +publishing the _Leaves of Grass_, the author had not read either the essays +or the poems of Emerson.] + +The edition of about a thousand copies sold off in less than a year. +Towards the end of 1856 a second edition in 16mo appeared, printed in New +York, also of about a thousand copies. Its chief feature was an additional +poem beginning "A Woman waits for me." It excited a considerable storm. +Another edition, of about four to five thousand copies, duodecimo, came out +at Boston in 1860-61, including a number of new pieces. The _Drum Taps_, +consequent upon the war, with their _Sequel_, which comprises the poem on +Lincoln, followed in 1865; and in 1867, as I have already noted, a complete +edition of all the poems, including a supplement named _Songs before +Parting_. The first of all the _Leaves of Grass_, in point of date, was the +long and powerful composition entitled _Walt Whitman_--perhaps the most +typical and memorable of all of his productions, but shut out from the +present selection for reasons given further on. The final edition shows +numerous and considerable variations from all its precursors; evidencing +once again that Whitman is by no means the rough-and-ready writer, +panoplied in rude art and egotistic self-sufficiency, that many people +suppose him to be. Even since this issue, the book has been slightly +revised by its author's own hand, with a special view to possible English +circulation. The copy so revised has reached me (through the liberal and +friendly hands of Mr. Conway) after my selection had already been decided +on; and the few departures from the last printed text which might on +comparison be found in the present volume are due to my having had the +advantage of following this revised copy. In all other respects I have felt +bound to reproduce the last edition, without so much as considering whether +here and there I might personally prefer the readings of the earlier +issues. + +The selection here offered to the English reader contains a little less +than half the entire bulk of Whitman's poetry. My choice has proceeded upon +two simple rules: first, to omit entirely every poem which could with any +tolerable fairness be deemed offensive to the feelings of morals or +propriety in this peculiarly nervous age; and, second, to include every +remaining poem which appeared to me of conspicuous beauty or interest. I +have also inserted the very remarkable prose preface which Whitman printed +in the original edition of _Leaves of Grass_, an edition that has become a +literary rarity. This preface has not been reproduced in any later +publication, although its materials have to some extent been worked up into +poems of a subsequent date.[6] From this prose composition, contrary to +what has been my rule with any of the poems, it has appeared to me +permissible to omit two or three short phrases which would have shocked +ordinary readers, and the retention of which, had I held it obligatory, +would have entailed the exclusion of the preface itself as a whole. + +[Footnote 6: Compare, for instance, the Preface, pp. 38, 39, with the poem +_To a Foiled Revolter or Revoltress_, p. 133.] + +A few words must be added as to the indecencies scattered through Whitman's +writings. Indecencies or improprieties--or, still better, deforming +crudities--they may rightly be termed; to call them immoralities would be +going too far. Whitman finds himself, and other men and women, to be a +compound of soul and body; he finds that body plays an extremely prominent +and determining part in whatever he and other mundane dwellers have +cognisance of; he perceives this to be the necessary condition of things, +and therefore, as he fully and openly accepts it, the right condition; and +he knows of no reason why what is universally seen and known, necessary and +right, should not also be allowed and proclaimed in speech. That such a +view of the matter is entitled to a great deal of weight, and at any rate +to candid consideration and construction, appears to me not to admit of a +doubt: neither is it dubious that the contrary view, the only view which a +mealy-mouthed British nineteenth century admits as endurable, amounts to +the condemnation of nearly every great or eminent literary work of past +time, whatever the century it belongs to, the country it comes from, the +department of writing it illustrates, or the degree or sort of merit it +possesses. Tenth, second, or first century before Christ--first, eighth, +fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth, or even eighteenth century +A.D.--it is still the same: no book whose subject-matter admits as possible +of an impropriety according to current notions can be depended upon to fail +of containing such impropriety,--can, if those notions are accepted as the +canon, be placed with a sense of security in the hands of girls and youths, +or read aloud to women; and this holds good just as much of severely moral +or plainly descriptive as of avowedly playful, knowing, or licentious +books. For my part, I am far from thinking that earlier state of +literature, and the public feeling from which it sprang, the wrong ones-- +and our present condition the only right one. Equally far, therefore, am I +from indignantly condemning Whitman for every startling allusion or +expression which he has admitted into his book, and which I, from motives +of policy, have excluded from this selection; except, indeed, that I think +many of his tabooed passages are extremely raw and ugly on the ground of +poetic or literary art, whatever aspect they may bear in morals. I have +been rigid in exclusion, because it appears to me highly desirable that a +fair verdict on Whitman should now be pronounced in England on poetic +grounds alone; and because it was clearly impossible that the book, with +its audacities of topic and of expression included, should run the same +chance of justice, and of circulation through refined minds and hands, +which may possibly be accorded to it after the rejection of all such +peccant poems. As already intimated, I have not in a single instance +excised any _parts_ of poems: to do so would have been, I conceive, no less +wrongful towards the illustrious American than repugnant, and indeed +unendurable, to myself, who aspire to no Bowdlerian honours. The +consequence is, that the reader loses _in toto_ several important poems, +and some extremely fine ones--notably the one previously alluded to, of +quite exceptional value and excellence, entitled _Walt Whitman_. I +sacrifice them grudgingly; and yet willingly, because I believe this to be +the only thing to do with due regard to the one reasonable object which a +selection can subserve--that of paving the way towards the issue and +unprejudiced reception of a complete edition of the poems in England. For +the benefit of misconstructionists, let me add in distinct terms that, in +respect of morals and propriety, I neither admire nor approve the +incriminated passages in Whitman's poems, but, on the contrary, consider +that most of them would be much better away; and, in respect of art, I +doubt whether even one of them deserves to be retained in the exact +phraseology it at present exhibits. This, however, does not amount to +saying that Whitman is a vile man, or a corrupt or corrupting writer; he is +none of these. + +The only division of his poems into sections, made by Whitman himself, has +been noted above: _Leaves of Grass_, _Songs before Parting_, supplementary +to the preceding, and _Drum Taps_, with their _Sequel_. The peculiar title, +_Leaves of Grass_, has become almost inseparable from the name of Whitman; +it seems to express with some aptness the simplicity, universality, and +spontaneity of the poems to which it is applied. _Songs before Parting_ may +indicate that these compositions close Whitman's poetic roll. _Drum Taps_ +are, of course, songs of the Civil War, and their _Sequel_ is mainly on the +same theme: the chief poem in this last section being the one on the death +of Lincoln. These titles all apply to fully arranged series of +compositions. The present volume is not in the same sense a fully arranged +series, but a selection: and the relation of the poems _inter se_ appears +to me to depend on altered conditions, which, however narrowed they are, it +may be as well frankly to recognise in practice. I have therefore +redistributed the poems (a latitude of action which I trust the author may +not object to), bringing together those whose subject-matter seems to +warrant it, however far separated they may possibly be in the original +volume. At the same time, I have retained some characteristic terms used by +Whitman himself, and have named my sections respectively-- + + 1. Chants Democratic (poems of democracy). + 2. Drum Taps (war songs). + 3. Walt Whitman (personal poems). + 4. Leaves of Grass (unclassified poems). + 5. Songs of Parting (missives). + +The first three designations explain themselves. The fourth, _Leaves of +Grass_, is not so specially applicable to the particular poems of that +section here as I should have liked it to be; but I could not consent to +drop this typical name. The _Songs of Parting_, my fifth section, are +compositions in which the poet expresses his own sentiment regarding his +works, in which he forecasts their future, or consigns them to the reader's +consideration. It deserves mention that, in the copy of Whitman's last +American edition revised by his own hand, as previously noticed, the series +termed _Songs of Parting_ has been recast, and made to consist of poems of +the same character as those included in my section No. 5. + +Comparatively few of Whitman's poems have been endowed by himself with +titles properly so called. Most of them are merely headed with the opening +words of the poems themselves--as "I was looking a long while;" "To get +betimes in Boston Town;" "When lilacs last in the door-yard bloomed;" and +so on. It seems to me that in a selection such a lengthy and circuitous +method of identifying the poems is not desirable: I should wish them to be +remembered by brief, repeatable, and significant titles. I have therefore +supplied titles of my own to such pieces as bear none in the original +edition: wherever a real title appears in that edition, I have retained it. + +With these remarks I commend to the English reader the ensuing selection +from a writer whom I sincerely believe to be, whatever his faults, of the +order of _great_ poets, and by no means of pretty good ones. I would urge +the reader not to ask himself, and not to return any answer to the +questions, whether or not this poet is like other poets--whether or not the +particular application of rules of art which is found to hold good in the +works of those others, and to constitute a part of their excellence, can be +traced also in Whitman. Let the questions rather be--Is he powerful? Is he +American? Is he new? Is he rousing? Does he feel and make me feel? I +entertain no doubt as to the response which in due course of time will be +returned to these questions and such as these, in America, in England, and +elsewhere--or to the further question, "Is Whitman then indeed a true and a +great poet?" Lincoln's verdict bespeaks the ultimate decision upon him, in +his books as in his habit as he lives--"Well, _he_ looks like a man." + +Walt Whitman occupies at the present moment a unique position on the globe, +and one which, even in past time, can have been occupied by only an +infinitesimally small number of men. He is the one man who entertains and +professes respecting himself the grave conviction that he is the actual and +prospective founder of a new poetic literature, and a great one--a +literature proportional to the material vastness and the unmeasured +destinies of America: he believes that the Columbus of the continent or the +Washington of the States was not more truly than himself in the future a +founder and upbuilder of this America. Surely a sublime conviction, and +expressed more than once in magnificent words--none more so than the lines +beginning + +"Come, I will make this continent indissoluble."[7] + +[Footnote 7: See the poem headed _Love of Comrades_, p. 308.] + +Were the idea untrue, it would still be a glorious dream, which a man of +genius might be content to live in and die for: but is it untrue? Is it +not, on the contrary, true, if not absolutely, yet with a most genuine and +substantial approximation? I believe it _is_ thus true. I believe that +Whitman is one of the huge, as yet mainly unrecognised, forces of our time; +privileged to evoke, in a country hitherto still asking for its poet, a +fresh, athletic, and American poetry, and predestined to be traced up to by +generation after generation of believing and ardent--let us hope not +servile--disciples. + +"Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world." Shelley, who knew +what he was talking about when poetry was the subject, has said it, and +with a profundity of truth Whitman seems in a peculiar degree marked out +for "legislation" of the kind referred to. His voice will one day be +potential or magisterial wherever the English language is spoken--that is +to say, in the four corners of the earth; and in his own American +hemisphere, the uttermost avatars of democracy will confess him not more +their announcer than their inspirer. + +1868. +W. M. ROSSETTI. + +_N.B._--The above prefatory notice was written in 1868, and is reproduced +practically unaltered. Were it to be brought up to the present date, 1886, +I should have to mention Whitman's books _Two Rivulets_ and _Specimen-days +and Collect_, and the fact that for several years past he has been +partially disabled by a paralytic attack. He now lives at Camden, New +Jersey. + +1886. +W. M. R. + + + + +PREFACE TO LEAVES OF GRASS. + + +America does not repel the past, or what it has produced under its forms, +or amid other politics, or the idea of castes, or the old religions; +accepts the lesson with calmness; is not so impatient as has been supposed +that the slough still sticks to opinions and manners and literature while +the life which served its requirements has passed into the new life of the +new forms; perceives that the corpse is slowly borne from the eating and +sleeping rooms of the house; perceives that it waits a little while in the +door, that it was fittest for its days, that its action has descended to +the stalwart and well-shaped heir who approaches, and that he shall be +fittest for his days. + +The Americans, of all nations at any time upon the earth, have probably the +fullest poetical Nature. The United States themselves are essentially the +greatest poem. In the history of the earth hitherto the largest and most +stirring appear tame and orderly to their ampler largeness and stir. Here +at last is something in the doings of man that corresponds with the +broadcast doings of the day and night. Here is not merely a nation, but a +teeming nation of nations. Here is action untied from strings, necessarily +blind to particulars and details, magnificently moving in vast masses. + +Here is the hospitality which for ever indicates heroes. Here are the +roughs and beards and space and ruggedness and nonchalance that the soul +loves. Here the performance, disdaining the trivial, unapproached in the +tremendous audacity of its crowds and groupings and the push of its +perspective, spreads with crampless and flowing breadth, and showers its +prolific and splendid extravagance. One sees it must indeed own the riches +of the summer and winter, and need never be bankrupt while corn grows from +the ground, or the orchards drop apples, or the bays contain fish, or men +beget children. + +Other states indicate themselves in their deputies: but the genius of the +United States is not best or most in its executives or legislatures, nor in +its ambassadors or authors or colleges, or churches, or parlours, nor even +in its newspapers or inventors, but always most in the common people. Their +manners, speech, dress, friendships,--the freshness and candour of their +physiognomy--the picturesque looseness of their carriage--their deathless +attachment to freedom--their aversion to anything indecorous or soft or +mean--the practical acknowledgment of the citizens of one state by the +citizens of all other states--the fierceness of their roused resentment-- +their curiosity and welcome of novelty--their self-esteem and wonderful +sympathy--their susceptibility to a slight--the air they have of persons +who never knew how it felt to stand in the presence of superiors--the +fluency of their speech--their delight in music, the sure symptom of manly +tenderness and native elegance of soul--their good temper and open- +handedness--the terrible significance of their elections, the President's +taking off his hat to them, not they to him--these too are unrhymed poetry. +It awaits the gigantic and generous treatment worthy of it. + +The largeness of nature or the nation were monstrous without a +corresponding largeness and generosity of the spirit of the citizen. Not +nature, nor swarming states, nor streets and steamships, nor prosperous +business, nor farms nor capital nor learning, may suffice for the ideal of +man, nor suffice the poet. No reminiscences may suffice either. A live +nation can always cut a deep mark, and can have the best authority the +cheapest--namely, from its own soul. This is the sum of the profitable uses +of individuals or states, and of present action and grandeur, and of the +subjects of poets.--As if it were necessary to trot back generation after +generation to the eastern records! As if the beauty and sacredness of the +demonstrable must fall behind that of the mythical! As if men do not make +their mark out of any times! As if the opening of the western continent by +discovery, and what has transpired since in North and South America, were +less than the small theatre of the antique, or the aimless sleep-walking of +the Middle Ages! The pride of the United States leaves the wealth and +finesse of the cities, and all returns of commerce and agriculture, and all +the magnitude or geography or shows of exterior victory, to enjoy the breed +of full-sized men, or one full-sized man unconquerable and simple. + +The American poets are to enclose old and new; for America is the race of +races. Of them a bard is to be commensurate with a people. To him the other +continents arrive as contributions: he gives them reception for their sake +and his own sake. His spirit responds to his country's spirit: he +incarnates its geography and natural life and rivers and lakes. Mississippi +with annual freshets and changing chutes, Missouri and Columbia and Ohio +and Saint Lawrence with the Falls and beautiful masculine Hudson, do not +embouchure where they spend themselves more than they embouchure into him. +The blue breadth over the inland sea of Virginia and Maryland, and the sea +off Massachusetts and Maine, and over Manhattan Bay, and over Champlain and +Erie, and over Ontario and Huron and Michigan and Superior, and over the +Texan and Mexican and Floridian and Cuban seas, and over the seas off +California and Oregon, is not tallied by the blue breadth of the waters +below more than the breadth of above and below is tallied by him. When the +long Atlantic coast stretches longer, and the Pacific coast stretches +longer, he easily stretches with them north or south. He spans between them +also from east to west, and reflects what is between them. On him rise +solid growths that offset the growths of pine and cedar and hemlock and +live-oak and locust and chestnut and cypress and hickory and lime-tree and +cottonwood and tulip-tree and cactus and wild-vine and tamarind and +persimmon, and tangles as tangled as any cane-brake or swamp, and forests +coated with transparent ice and icicles, hanging from the boughs and +crackling in the wind, and sides and peaks of mountains, and pasturage +sweet and free as savannah or upland or prairie,--with flights and songs +and screams that answer those of the wild-pigeon and high-hold and orchard- +oriole and coot and surf-duck and red-shouldered-bawk and fish-hawk and +white-ibis and Indian-hen and cat-owl and water-pheasant and qua-bird and +pied-sheldrake and blackbird and mocking-bird and buzzard and condor and +night-heron and eagle. To him the hereditary countenance descends, both +mother's and father's. To him enter the essences of the real things and +past and present events--of the enormous diversity of temperature and +agriculture and mines--the tribes of red aborigines--the weather-beaten +vessels entering new ports, or making landings on rocky coasts--the first +settlements north or south--the rapid stature and muscle--the haughty +defiance of '76, and the war and peace and formation of the constitution-- +the union always surrounded by blatherers, and always calm and +impregnable--the perpetual coming of immigrants--the wharf-hemmed cities +and superior marine--the unsurveyed interior--the loghouses and clearings +and wild animals and hunters and trappers--the free commerce--the fisheries +and whaling and gold-digging--the endless gestations of new states--the +convening of Congress every December, the members duly coming up from all +climates and the uttermost parts--the noble character of the young +mechanics and of all free American workmen and workwomen--the general +ardour and friendliness and enterprise--the perfect equality of the female +with the male--the large amativeness--the fluid movement of the +population--the factories and mercantile life and labour-saving machinery-- +the Yankee swap--the New York firemen and the target excursion--the +Southern plantation life--the character of the north-east and of the north- +west and south-west-slavery, and the tremulous spreading of hands to +protect it, and the stern opposition to it which shall never cease till it +ceases, or the speaking of tongues and the moving of lips cease. For such +the expression of the American poet is to be transcendent and new. It is to +be indirect, and not direct or descriptive or epic. Its quality goes +through these to much more. Let the age and wars of other nations be +chanted, and their eras and characters be illustrated, and that finish the +verse. Not so the great psalm of the republic. Here the theme is creative, +and has vista. Here comes one among the well-beloved stone-cutters, and +plans with decision and science, and sees the solid and beautiful forms of +the future where there are now no solid forms. + +Of all nations, the United States, with veins full of poetical stuff, most +needs poets, and will doubtless have the greatest, and use them the +greatest. Their Presidents shall not be their common referee so much as +their poets shall. Of all mankind, the great poet is the equable man. Not +in him, but off from him, things are grotesque or eccentric, or fail of +their sanity. Nothing out of its place is good, and nothing in its place is +bad. He bestows on every object or quality its fit proportions, neither +more nor less. He is the arbiter of the diverse, and he is the key. He is +the equaliser of his age and land: he supplies what wants supplying, and +checks what wants checking. If peace is the routine, out of him speaks the +spirit of peace, large, rich, thrifty, building vast and populous cities, +encouraging agriculture and the arts and commerce--lighting the study of +man, the soul, immortality--federal, state or municipal government, +marriage, health, free-trade, intertravel by land and sea--nothing too +close, nothing too far off,--the stars not too far off. In war, he is the +most deadly force of the war. Who recruits him recruits horse and foot: he +fetches parks of artillery, the best that engineer ever knew. If the time +becomes slothful and heavy, he knows how to arouse it: he can make every +word he speaks draw blood. Whatever stagnates in the flat of custom or +obedience or legislation, he never stagnates. Obedience does not master +him, he masters it. High up out of reach, he stands turning a concentrated +light; he turns the pivot with his finger; he baffles the swiftest runners +as he stands, and easily overtakes and envelops them. The time straying +toward infidelity and confections and persiflage he withholds by his steady +faith; he spreads out his dishes; he offers the sweet firm-fibred meat that +grows men and women. His brain is the ultimate brain. He is no arguer, he +is judgment. He judges not as the judge judges, but as the sun falling +around a helpless thing. As he sees the farthest, he has the most faith. +His thoughts are the hymns of the praise of things. In the talk on the soul +and eternity and God, off of his equal plane, he is silent. He sees +eternity less like a play with a prologue and denouement: he sees eternity +in men and women,--he does not see men and women as dreams or dots. Faith +is the antiseptic of the soul,--it pervades the common people and preserves +them: they never give up believing and expecting and trusting. There is +that indescribable freshness and unconsciousness about an illiterate person +that humbles and mocks the power of the noblest expressive genius. The poet +sees for a certainty how one not a great artist may be just as sacred and +perfect as the greatest artist. The power to destroy or remould is freely +used by him, but never the power of attack. What is past is past. If he +does not expose superior models, and prove himself by every step he takes, +he is not what is wanted. The presence of the greatest poet conquers; not +parleying or struggling or any prepared attempts. Now he has passed that +way, see after him! there is not left any vestige of despair or misanthropy +or cunning or exclusiveness, or the ignominy of a nativity or colour, or +delusion of hell or the necessity of hell; and no man thenceforward shall +be degraded for ignorance or weakness or sin. + +The greatest poet hardly knows pettiness or triviality. If he breathes into +anything that was before thought small, it dilates with the grandeur and +life of the universe. He is a seer--he is individual--he is complete in +himself: the others are as good as he; only he sees it, and they do not. He +is not one of the chorus--he does not stop for any regulation--he is the +President of regulation. What the eyesight does to the rest he does to the +rest. Who knows the curious mystery of the eyesight? The other senses +corroborate themselves, but this is removed from any proof but its own, and +foreruns the identities of the spiritual world. A single glance of it mocks +all the investigations of man, and all the instruments and books of the +earth, and all reasoning. What is marvellous? what is unlikely? what is +impossible or baseless or vague? after you have once just opened the space +of a peachpit, and given audience to far and near and to the sunset, and +had all things enter with electric swiftness, softly and duly, without +confusion or jostling or jam. + +The land and sea, the animals, fishes, and birds, the sky of heaven and the +orbs, the forests, mountains, and rivers, are not small themes: but folks +expect of the poet to indicate more than the beauty and dignity which +always attach to dumb real objects,--they expect him to indicate the path +between reality and their souls. Men and women perceive the beauty well +enough--probably as well as he. The passionate tenacity of hunters, +woodmen, early risers, cultivators of gardens and orchards and fields, the +love of healthy women for the manly form, seafaring persons, drivers of +horses, the passion for light and the open air, all is an old varied sign +of the unfailing perception of beauty, and of a residence of the poetic, in +outdoor people. They can never be assisted by poets to perceive: some may, +but they never can. The poetic quality is not marshalled in rhyme or +uniformity, or abstract addresses to things, nor in melancholy complaints +or good precepts, but is the life of these and much else, and is in the +soul. The profit of rhyme is that it drops seeds of a sweeter and more +luxuriant rhyme; and of uniformity, that it conveys itself into its own +roots in the ground out of sight. The rhyme and uniformity of perfect poems +show the free growth of metrical laws, and bud from them as unerringly and +loosely as lilacs or roses on a bush, and take shapes as compact as the +shapes of chestnuts and oranges and melons and pears, and shed the perfume +impalpable to form. The fluency and ornaments of the finest poems or music +or orations or recitations are not independent, but dependent. All beauty +comes from beautiful blood and a beautiful brain. If the greatnesses are in +conjunction in a man or woman, it is enough--the fact will prevail through +the universe: but the gaggery and gilt of a million years will not prevail. +Who troubles himself about his ornaments or fluency is lost. This is what +you shall do: love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give +alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your +income and labour to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have +patience and indulgence towards the people, take off your hat to nothing +known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful +uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, +read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, +re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, +dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall be a +great poem, and have the richest fluency, not only in its words, but in the +silent lines of its lips and face, and between the lashes of your eyes, and +in every motion and joint of your body. The poet shall not spend his time +in unneeded work. He shall know that the ground is always ready ploughed +and manured: others may not know it, but he shall. He shall go directly to +the creation. His trust shall master the trust of everything he touches, +and shall master all attachment. + +The known universe has one complete lover, and that is the greatest poet. +He consumes an eternal passion, and is indifferent which chance happens, +and which possible contingency of fortune or misfortune, and persuades +daily and hourly his delicious pay. What balks or breaks others is fuel for +his burning progress to contact and amorous joy. Other proportions of the +reception of pleasure dwindle to nothing to his proportions. All expected +from heaven or from the highest he is rapport with in the sight of the +daybreak, or a scene of the winter woods, or the presence of children +playing, or with his arm round the neck of a man or woman. His love, above +all love, has leisure and expanse--he leaves room ahead of himself. He is +no irresolute or suspicious lover--he is sure--he scorns intervals. His +experience and the showers and thrills are not for nothing. Nothing can jar +him: suffering and darkness cannot--death and fear cannot. To him complaint +and jealousy and envy are corpses buried and rotten in the earth--he saw +them buried. The sea is not surer of the shore, or the shore of the sea, +than he is of the fruition of his love, and of all perfection and beauty. + +The fruition of beauty is no chance of hit or miss--it is inevitable as +life--it is exact and plumb as gravitation. From the eyesight proceeds +another eyesight, and from the hearing proceeds another hearing, and from +the voice proceeds another voice, eternally curious of the harmony of +things with man. To these respond perfections, not only in the committees +that were supposed to stand for the rest, but in the rest themselves just +the same. These understand the law of perfection in masses and floods--that +its finish is to each for itself and onward from itself--that it is profuse +and impartial--that there is not a minute of the light or dark, nor an acre +of the earth or sea, without it--nor any direction of the sky, nor any +trade or employment, nor any turn of events. This is the reason that about +the proper expression of beauty there is precision and balance,--one part +does not need to be thrust above another. The best singer is not the one +who has the most lithe and powerful organ: the pleasure of poems is not in +them that take the handsomest measure and similes and sound. + +Without effort, and without exposing in the least how it is done, the +greatest poet brings the spirit of any or all events and passions and +scenes and persons, some more and some less, to bear on your individual +character, as you hear or read. To do this well is to compete with the laws +that pursue and follow time. What is the purpose must surely be there, and +the clue of it must be there; and the faintest indication is the indication +of the best, and then becomes the clearest indication. Past and present and +future are not disjoined, but joined. The greatest poet forms the +consistence of what is to be from what has been and is. He drags the dead +out of their coffins, and stands them again on their feet: he says to the +past, Rise and walk before me that I may realise you. He learns the +lesson--he places himself where the future becomes present. The greatest +poet does not only dazzle his rays over character and scenes and +passions,--he finally ascends and finishes all: he exhibits the pinnacles +that no man can tell what they are for or what is beyond--he glows a moment +on the extremest verge. He is most wonderful in his last half-hidden smile +or frown: by that flash of the moment of parting the one that sees it shall +be encouraged or terrified afterward for many years. The greatest poet does +not moralise or make applications of morals,--he knows the soul. The soul +has that measureless pride which consists in never acknowledging any +lessons but its own. But it has sympathy as measureless as its pride, and +the one balances the other, and neither can stretch too far while it +stretches in company with the other. The inmost secrets of art sleep with +the twain. The greatest poet has lain close betwixt both, and they are +vital in his style and thoughts. + +The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of +letters, is simplicity. Nothing is better than simplicity,--nothing can +make up for excess or for the lack of definiteness. To carry on the heave +of impulse, and pierce intellectual depths, and give all subjects their +articulations, are powers neither common nor very uncommon. But to speak in +literature with the perfect rectitude and insousiance of the movements of +animals, and the unimpeachableness of the sentiment of trees in the woods +and grass by the roadside, is the flawless triumph of art. If you, have +looked on him who has achieved it, you have looked on one of the masters of +the artists of all nations and times. You shall not contemplate the flight +of the grey-gull over the bay, or the mettlesome action of the blood-horse, +or the tall leaning of sunflowers on their stalk, or the appearance of the +sun journeying through heaven, or the appearance of the moon afterward, +with any more satisfaction than you shall contemplate him. The greatest +poet has less a marked style, and is more the channel of thoughts and +things without increase or diminution, and is the free channel of himself. +He swears to his art,--I will not be meddlesome, I will not have in my +writing any elegance or effect or originality to hang in the way between me +and the rest like curtains. I will have nothing hang in the way, not the +richest curtains. What I tell I tell for precisely what it is. Let who may +exalt or startle or fascinate or soothe, I will have purposes as health or +heat or snow has, and be as regardless of observation. What I experience or +pourtray shall go from my composition without a shred of my composition. +You shall stand by my side, and look in the mirror with me. + +The old red blood and stainless gentility of great poets will be proved by +their unconstraint. A heroic person walks at his ease through and out of +that custom or precedent or authority that suits him not. Of the traits of +the brotherhood of writers, savans, musicians, inventors, and artists, +nothing is finer than silent defiance advancing from new free forms. In the +need of poems, philosophy, politics, mechanism, science, behaviour, the +craft of art, an appropriate native grand opera, shipcraft or any craft, he +is greatest for ever and for ever who contributes the greatest original +practical example. The cleanest expression is that which finds no sphere +worthy of itself, and makes one. + +The messages of great poets to each man and woman are,--Come to us on equal +terms, only then can you understand us. We are no better than you; what we +enclose you enclose, what we enjoy you may enjoy. Did you suppose there +could be only one Supreme? We affirm there can be unnumbered Supremes, and +that one does not countervail another any more than one eyesight +countervails another--and that men can be good or grand only of the +consciousness of their supremacy within them. What do you think is the +grandeur of storms and dismemberments, and the deadliest battles and +wrecks, and the wildest fury of the elements, and the power of the sea, and +the motion of nature, and of the throes of human desires, and dignity and +hate and love? It is that something in the soul which says,--Rage on, whirl +on, I tread master here and everywhere; master of the spasms of the sky and +of the shatter of the sea, master of nature and passion and death, and of +all terror and all pain. + +The American bards shall be marked for generosity and affection and for +encouraging competitors: they shall be kosmos--without monopoly or +secrecy--glad to pass anything to any one--hungry for equals night and day. +They shall not be careful of riches and privilege,--they shall be riches +and privilege: they shall perceive who the most affluent man is. The most +affluent man is he that confronts all the shows he sees by equivalents out +of the stronger wealth of himself. The American bard shall delineate no +class of persons, nor one or two out of the strata of interests, nor love +most nor truth most, nor the soul most nor the body most; and not be for +the eastern states more than the western, or the northern states more than +the southern. + +Exact science and its practical movements are no checks on the greatest +poet, but always his encouragement and support. The outset and remembrance +are there--there the arms that lifted him first and brace him best--there +he returns after all his goings and comings. The sailor and traveller, the +anatomist, chemist, astronomer, geologist, phrenologist, spiritualist, +mathematician, historian, and lexicographer, are not poets; but they are +the lawgivers of poets, and their construction underlies the structure of +every perfect poem. No matter what rises or is uttered, they send the seed +of the conception of it: of them and by them stand the visible proofs of +souls. If there shall be love and content between the father and the son, +and if the greatness of the son is the exuding of the greatness of the +father, there shall be love between the poet and the man of demonstrable +science. In the beauty of poems are the tuft and final applause of science. + +Great is the faith of the flush of knowledge, and of the investigation of +the depths of qualities and things. Cleaving and circling here swells the +soul of the poet: yet is president of itself always. The depths are +fathomless, and therefore calm. The innocence and nakedness are resumed-- +they are neither modest nor immodest. The whole theory of the special and +supernatural, and all that was twined with it or educed out of it, departs +as a dream. What has ever happened, what happens, and whatever may or shall +happen, the vital laws enclose all: they are sufficient for any case and +for all cases--none to be hurried or retarded--any miracle of affairs or +persons inadmissible in the vast clear scheme where every motion, and every +spear of grass, and the frames and spirits of men and women, and all that +concerns them, are unspeakably perfect miracles, all referring to all, and +each distinct and in its place. It is also not consistent with the reality +of the soul to admit that there is anything in the known universe more +divine than men and women. + +Men and women, and the earth and all upon it, are simply to be taken as +they are, and the investigation of their past and present and future shall +be unintermitted, and shall be done with perfect candour. Upon this basis +philosophy speculates, ever looking toward the poet, ever regarding the +eternal tendencies of all toward happiness, never inconsistent with what is +clear to the senses and to the soul. For the eternal tendencies of all +toward happiness make the only point of sane philosophy. Whatever +comprehends less than that--whatever is less than the laws of light and of +astronomical motion--or less than the laws that follow the thief, the liar, +the glutton, and the drunkard, through this life, and doubtless afterward-- +or less than vast stretches of time, or the slow formation of density, or +the patient upheaving of strata--is of no account. Whatever would put God +in a poem or system of philosophy as contending against some being or +influence is also of no account. Sanity and ensemble characterise the great +master:--spoilt in one principle, all is spoilt. The great master has +nothing to do with miracles. He sees health for himself in being one of the +mass--he sees the hiatus in singular eminence. To the perfect shape comes +common ground. To be under the general law is great, for that is to +correspond with it. The master knows that he is unspeakably great, and that +all are unspeakably great--that nothing, for instance, is greater than to +conceive children, and bring them up well--that to be is just as great as +to perceive or tell. + +In the make of the great masters the idea of political liberty is +indispensable. Liberty takes the adherence of heroes wherever men and women +exist; but never takes any adherence or welcome from the rest more than +from poets. They are the voice and exposition of liberty. They out of ages +are worthy the grand idea,--to them it is confided, and they must sustain +it. Nothing has precedence of it, and nothing can warp or degrade it. The +attitude of great poets is to cheer up slaves and horrify despots. The turn +of their necks, the sound of their feet, the motions of their wrists, are +full of hazard to the one and hope to the other. Come nigh them a while, +and, though they neither speak nor advise, you shall learn the faithful +American lesson. Liberty is poorly served by men whose good intent is +quelled from one failure or two failures or any number of failures, or from +the casual indifference or ingratitude of the people, or from the sharp +show of the tushes of power, or the bringing to bear soldiers and cannon or +any penal statutes. Liberty relies upon itself, invites no one, promises +nothing, sits in calmness and light, is positive and composed, and knows no +discouragement. The battle rages with many a loud alarm and frequent +advance and retreat--the enemy triumphs--the prison, the handcuffs, the +iron necklace and anklet, the scaffold, garrote, and lead-balls, do their +work--the cause is asleep--the strong throats are choked with their own +blood--the young men drop their eyelashes toward the ground when they pass +each other ... and is liberty gone out of that place? No, never. When +liberty goes, it is not the first to go, nor the second or third to go: it +waits for all the rest to go--it is the last. When the memories of the old +martyrs are faded utterly away--when the large names of patriots are +laughed at in the public halls from the lips of the orators--when the boys +are no more christened after the same, but christened after tyrants and +traitors instead--when the laws of the free are grudgingly permitted, and +laws for informers and blood-money are sweet to the taste of the people-- +when I and you walk abroad upon the earth, stung with compassion at the +sight of numberless brothers answering our equal friendship, and calling no +man master--and when we are elated with noble joy at the sight of slaves-- +when the soul retires in the cool communion of the night, and surveys its +experience, and has much ecstasy over the word and deed that put back a +helpless innocent person into the gripe of the gripers or into any cruel +inferiority--when those in all parts of these states who could easier +realise the true American character, but do not yet[1]--when the swarms of +cringers, suckers, doughfaces, lice of politics, planners of sly +involutions for their own preferment to city offices or state legislatures +or the judiciary or Congress or the Presidency, obtain a response of love +and natural deference from the people, whether they get the offices or no-- +when it is better to be a bound booby and rogue in office at a high salary +than the poorest free mechanic or farmer, with his hat unmoved from his +head, and firm eyes, and a candid and generous heart--and when servility by +town or state or the federal government, or any oppression on a large scale +or small scale, can be tried on without its own punishment following duly +after in exact proportion, against the smallest chance of escape--or rather +when all life and all the souls of men and women are discharged from any +part of the earth--then only shall the instinct of liberty be discharged +from that part of the earth. + +[Footnote 1: This clause is obviously imperfect in some respect: it is here +reproduced _verbatim_ from the American edition.] + +As the attributes of the poets of the kosmos concentre in the real body and +soul and in the pleasure of things, they possess the superiority of +genuineness over all fiction and romance. As they emit themselves, facts +are showered over with light--the daylight is lit with more volatile +light--also the deep between the setting and rising sun goes deeper many- +fold. Each precise object or condition or combination or process exhibits a +beauty: the multiplication-table its--old age its--the carpenter's trade +its--the grand opera its: the huge-hulled clean-shaped New York clipper at +sea under steam or full sail gleams with unmatched beauty--the American +circles and large harmonies of government gleam with theirs, and the +commonest definite intentions and actions with theirs. The poets of the +kosmos advance through all interpositions and coverings and turmoils and +stratagems to first principles. They are of use--they dissolve poverty from +its need, and riches from its conceit. You large proprietor, they say, +shall not realise or perceive more than any one else. The owner of the +library is not he who holds a legal title to it, having bought and paid for +it. Any one and every one is owner of the library who can read the same +through all the varieties of tongues and subjects and styles, and in whom +they enter with ease, and take residence and force toward paternity and +maternity, and make supple and powerful and rich and large. These American +states, strong and healthy and accomplished, shall receive no pleasure from +violations of natural models, and must not permit them. In paintings or +mouldings or carvings in mineral or wood, or in the illustrations of books +or newspapers, or in any comic or tragic prints, or in the patterns of +woven stuffs, or anything to beautify rooms or furniture or costumes, or to +put upon cornices or monuments or on the prows or sterns of ships, or to +put anywhere before the human eye indoors or out, that which distorts +honest shapes, or which creates unearthly beings or places or +contingencies, is a nuisance and revolt. Of the human form especially, it +is so great it must never be made ridiculous. Of ornaments to a work, +nothing _outré_ can be allowed; but those ornaments can be allowed that +conform to the perfect facts of the open air, and that flow out of the +nature of the work, and come irrepressibly from it, and are necessary to +the completion of the work. Most works are most beautiful without ornament. +Exaggerations will be revenged in human physiology. Clean and vigorous +children are conceived only in those communities where the models of +natural forms are public every day. Great genius and the people of these +states must never be demeaned to romances. As soon as histories are +properly told, there is no more need of romances. + +The great poets are also to be known by the absence in them of tricks, and +by the justification of perfect personal candour. Then folks echo a new +cheap joy and a divine voice leaping from their brains. How beautiful is +candour! All faults may be forgiven of him who has perfect candour. +Henceforth let no man of us lie, for we have seen that openness wins the +inner and outer world, and that there is no single exception, and that +never since our earth gathered itself in a mass has deceit or subterfuge or +prevarication attracted its smallest particle or the faintest tinge of a +shade--and that through the enveloping wealth and rank of a state or the +whole republic of states a sneak or sly person shall be discovered and +despised--and that the soul has never been once fooled and never can be +fooled--and thrift without the loving nod of the soul is only a foetid +puff--and there never grew up in any of the continents of the globe, nor +upon any planet or satellite or star, nor upon the asteroids, nor in any +part of ethereal space, nor in the midst of density, nor under the fluid +wet of the sea, nor in that condition which precedes the birth of babes, +nor at any time during the changes of life, nor in that condition that +follows what we term death, nor in any stretch of abeyance or action +afterward of vitality, nor in any process of formation or reformation +anywhere, a being whose instinct hated the truth. + +Extreme caution or prudence, the soundest organic health, large hope and +comparison and fondness for women and children, large alimentiveness and +destructiveness and causality, with a perfect sense of the oneness of +nature, and the propriety of the same spirit applied to human affairs-- +these are called up of the float of the brain of the world to be parts of +the greatest poet from his birth. Caution seldom goes far enough. It has +been thought that the prudent citizen was the citizen who applied himself +to solid gains, and did well for himself and his family, and completed a +lawful life without debt or crime. The greatest poet sees and admits these +economies as he sees the economies of food and sleep, but has higher +notions of prudence than to think he gives much when he gives a few slight +attentions at the latch of the gate. The premises of the prudence of life +are not the hospitality of it, or the ripeness and harvest of it. Beyond +the independence of a little sum laid aside for burial-money, and of a few +clapboards around and shingles overhead on a lot of American soil owned, +and the easy dollars that supply the year's plain clothing and meals, the +melancholy prudence of the abandonment of such a great being as a man is to +the toss and pallor of years of money-making, with all their scorching days +and icy nights, and all their stifling deceits and underhanded dodgings, or +infinitesimals of parlours, or shameless stuffing while others starve,--and +all the loss of the bloom and odour of the earth, and of the flowers and +atmosphere, and of the sea, and of the true taste of the women and men you +pass or have to do with in youth or middle age, and the issuing sickness +and desperate revolt at the close of a life without elevation or naïveté, +and the ghastly chatter of a death without serenity or majesty,--is the +great fraud upon modern civilisation and forethought; blotching the surface +and system which civilisation undeniably drafts, and moistening with tears +the immense features it spreads and spreads with such velocity before the +reached kisses of the soul. Still the right explanation remains to be made +about prudence. The prudence of the mere wealth and respectability of the +most esteemed life appears too faint for the eye to observe at all when +little and large alike drop quietly aside at the thought of the prudence +suitable for immortality. What is wisdom that fills the thinness of a year +or seventy or eighty years, to wisdom spaced out by ages, and coming back +at a certain time with strong reinforcements and rich presents and the +clear faces of wedding-guests as far as you can look in every direction +running gaily toward you? Only the soul is of itself--all else has +reference to what ensues. All that a person does or thinks is of +consequence. Not a move can a man or woman make that affects him or her in +a day or a month, or any part of the direct lifetime or the hour of death, +but the same affects him or her onward afterward through the indirect +lifetime. The indirect is always as great and real as the direct. The +spirit receives from the body just as much as it gives to the body. Not one +name of word or deed--not of the putrid veins of gluttons or rum-drinkers-- +not peculation or cunning or betrayal or murder--no serpentine poison of +those that seduce women--not the foolish yielding of women--not of the +attainment of gain by discreditable means--not any nastiness of appetite-- +not any harshness of officers to men, or judges to prisoners, or fathers to +sons, or sons to fathers, or of husbands to wives, or bosses to their +boys--not of greedy looks or malignant wishes--nor any of the wiles +practised by people upon themselves--ever is or ever can be stamped on the +programme, but it is duly realised and returned, and that returned in +further performances, and they returned again. Nor can the push of charity +or personal force ever be anything else than the profoundest reason, +whether it bring arguments to hand or no. No specification is necessary--to +add or subtract or divide is in vain. Little or big, learned or unlearned, +white or black, legal or illegal, sick or well, from the first inspiration +down the windpipe to the last expiration out of it, all that a male or +female does that is vigorous and benevolent and clean is so much sure +profit to him or her in the unshakable order of the universe and through +the whole scope of it for ever. If the savage or felon is wise, it is +well--if the greatest poet or savant is wise, it is simply the same--if the +President or chief justice is wise, it is the same--if the young mechanic +or farmer is wise, it is no more or less. The interest will come round--all +will come round. All the best actions of war and peace--all help given to +relatives and strangers, and the poor and old and sorrowful, and young +children and widows and the sick, and to all shunned persons--all +furtherance of fugitives and of the escape of slaves--all the self-denial +that stood steady and aloof on wrecks, and saw others take the seats of the +boats--all offering of substance or life for the good old cause, or for a +friend's sake or opinion's sake--all pains of enthusiasts scoffed at by +their neighbours--all the vast sweet love and precious suffering of +mothers--all honest men baffled in strifes recorded or unrecorded--all the +grandeur and good of the few ancient nations whose fragments of annals we +inherit--and all the good of the hundreds of far mightier and more ancient +nations unknown to us by name or date or location--all that was ever +manfully begun, whether it succeeded or no--all that has at any time been +well suggested out of the divine heart of man, or by the divinity of his +mouth, or by the shaping of his great hands--and all that is well thought +or done this day on any part of the surface of the globe, or on any of the +wandering stars or fixed stars by those there as we are here--or that is +henceforth to be well thought or done by you, whoever you are, or by any +one--these singly and wholly inured at their time, and inured now, and will +inure always, to the identities from which they sprung or shall spring. Did +you guess any of them lived only its moment? The world does not so exist-- +no parts, palpable or impalpable, so exist--no result exists now without +being from its long antecedent result, and that from its antecedent, and so +backward without the farthest mentionable spot coining a bit nearer the +beginning than any other spot.... Whatever satisfies the soul is truth. The +prudence of the greatest poet answers at last the craving and glut of the +soul, is not contemptuous of less ways of prudence if they conform to its +ways, puts off nothing, permits no let-up for its own case or any case, has +no particular Sabbath or judgment-day, divides not the living from the dead +or the righteous from the unrighteous, is satisfied with the present, +matches every thought or act by its correlative, knows no possible +forgiveness or deputed atonement--knows that the young man who composedly +perilled his life and lost it has done exceeding well for himself, while +the man who has not perilled his life, and retains it to old age in riches +and ease, has perhaps achieved nothing for himself worth mentioning--and +that only that person has no great prudence to learn who has learnt to +prefer long-lived things, and favours body and soul the same, and perceives +the indirect assuredly following the direct, and what evil or good he does +leaping onward and waiting to meet him again--and who in his spirit in any +emergency whatever neither hurries nor avoids death. + +The direct trial of him who would be the greatest poet is to-day. If he +does not flood himself with the immediate age as with vast oceanic tides-- +and if he does not attract his own land body and soul to himself, and hang +on its neck with incomparable love--and if he be not himself the age +transfigured--and if to him is not opened the eternity which gives +similitude to all periods and locations and processes and animate and +inanimate forms, and which is the bond of time, and rises up from its +inconceivable vagueness and infiniteness in the swimming shape of to-day, +and is held by the ductile anchors of life, and makes the present spot the +passage from what was to what shall be, and commits itself to the +representation of this wave of an hour, and this one of the sixty beautiful +children of the wave--let him merge in the general run and wait his +development.... Still, the final test of poems or any character or work +remains. The prescient poet projects himself centuries ahead, and judges +performer or performance after the changes of time. Does it live through +them? Does it still hold on untired? Will the same style, and the direction +of genius to similar points, be satisfactory now? Has no new discovery in +science, or arrival at superior planes of thought and judgment and +behaviour, fixed him or his so that either can be looked down upon? Have +the marches of tens and hundreds and thousands of years made willing +detours to the right hand and the left hand for his sake? Is he beloved +long and long after he is buried? Does the young man think often of him? +and the young woman think often of him? and do the middle-aged and the old +think of him? + +A great poem is for ages and ages, in common, and for all degrees and +complexions, and all departments and sects, and for a woman as much as a +man, and a man as much as a woman. A great poem is no finish to a man or +woman, but rather a beginning. Has any one fancied he could sit at last +under some due authority, and rest satisfied with explanations, and realise +and be content and full? To no such terminus does the greatest poet bring-- +he brings neither cessation nor sheltered fatness and ease. The touch of +him tells in action. Whom he takes he takes with firm sure grasp into live +regions previously unattained. Thenceforward is no rest: they see the space +and ineffable sheen that turn the old spots and lights into dead vacuums. +The companion of him beholds the birth and progress of stars, and learns +one of the meanings. Now there shall be a man cohered out of tumult and +chaos. The elder encourages the younger, and shows him how: they two shall +launch off fearlessly together till the new world fits an orbit for itself, +and looks unabashed on the lesser orbits of the stars, and sweeps through +the ceaseless rings, and shall never be quiet again. + +There will soon be no more priests. Their work is done. They may wait a +while--perhaps a generation or two,--dropping off by degrees. A superior +breed shall take their place--the gangs of kosmos and prophets _en masse_ +shall take their place. A new order shall arise; and they shall be the +priests of man, and every man shall be his own priest. The churches built +under their umbrage shall be the churches of men and women. Through the +divinity of themselves shall the kosmos and the new breed of poets be +interpreters of men and women and of all events and things. They shall find +their inspiration in real objects to-day, symptoms of the past and future. +They shall not deign to defend immortality, or God, or the perfection of +things, or liberty, or the exquisite beauty and reality of the soul. They +shall arise in America, and be responded to from the remainder of the +earth. + +The English language befriends the grand American expression--it is brawny +enough, and limber and full enough. On the tough stock of a race who, +through all change of circumstance, was never without the idea of political +liberty, which is the animus of all liberty, it has attracted the terms of +daintier and gayer and subtler and more elegant tongues. It is the powerful +language of resistance--it is the dialect of common sense. It is the speech +of the proud and melancholy races, and of all who aspire. It is the chosen +tongue to express growth, faith, self-esteem, freedom, justice, equality, +friendliness, amplitude, prudence, decision, and courage. It is the medium +that shall well nigh express the inexpressible. + +No great literature, nor any like style of behaviour or oratory or social +intercourse or household arrangements or public institutions, or the +treatment by bosses of employed people, nor executive detail, or detail of +the army or navy, nor spirit of legislation, or courts or police, or +tuition or architecture, or songs or amusements, or the costumes of young +men, can long elude the jealous and passionate instinct of American +standards. Whether or no the sign appears from the mouths of the people, it +throbs a live interrogation in every freeman's and freewoman's heart after +that which passes by, or this built to remain. Is it uniform with my +country? Are its disposals without ignominious distinctions? Is it for the +ever-growing communes of brothers and lovers, large, well united, proud +beyond the old models, generous beyond all models? Is it something grown +fresh out of the fields, or drawn from the sea, for use to me, to-day, +here? I know that what answers for me, an American, must answer for any +individual or nation that serves for a part of my materials. Does this +answer? or is it without reference to universal needs? or sprung of the +needs of the less developed society of special ranks? or old needs of +pleasure overlaid by modern science and forms? Does this acknowledge +liberty with audible and absolute acknowledgment, and set slavery at +nought, for life and death? Will it help breed one good-shaped man, and a +woman to be his perfect and independent mate? Does it improve manners? Is +it for the nursing of the young of the republic? Does it solve readily with +the sweet milk of the breasts of the mother of many children? Has it too +the old, ever-fresh forbearance and impartiality? Does it look with the +same love on the last-born and on those hardening toward stature, and on +the errant, and on those who disdain all strength of assault outside of +their own? + +The poems distilled from other poems will probably pass away. The coward +will surely pass away. The expectation of the vital and great can only be +satisfied by the demeanour of the vital and great. The swarms of the +polished, deprecating, and reflectors, and the polite, float off and leave +no remembrance. America prepares with composure and goodwill for the +visitors that have sent word. It is not intellect that is to be their +warrant and welcome. The talented, the artist, the ingenious, the editor, +the statesman, the erudite--they are not unappreciated--they fall in their +place and do their work. The soul of the nation also does its work. No +disguise can pass on it--no disguise can conceal from it. It rejects none, +it permits all. Only toward as good as itself and toward the like of itself +will it advance half-way. An individual is as superb as a nation when he +has the qualities which make a superb nation. The soul of the largest and +wealthiest and proudest nation may well go half-way to meet that of its +poets. The signs are effectual. There is no fear of mistake. If the one is +true, the other is true. The proof of a poet is that his country absorbs +him as affectionately as he has absorbed it. + +[Script: Meantime, dear friend, +Farewell, Walt Whitman.] + + + + +_CHANTS DEMOCRATIC._ + + + +_STARTING FROM PAUMANOK._ + + +1. + +Starting from fish-shape Paumanok,[1] where I was born, +Well-begotten, and raised by a perfect mother; +After roaming many lands--lover of populous pavements; +Dweller in Mannahatta,[2] city of ships, my city,--or on southern savannas; +Or a soldier camped, or carrying my knapsack and gun--or a miner in + California; +Or rude in my home in Dakotah's woods, my diet meat, my drink from the + spring; +Or withdrawn to muse and meditate in some deep recess, +Far from the clank of crowds, intervals passing, rapt and happy; +Aware of the fresh free giver, the flowing Missouri--aware of mighty + Niagara +Aware of the buffalo herds, grazing the plains--the hirsute and strong- + breasted bull; +Of earths, rocks, fifth-month flowers, experienced--stars, rain, snow, my + amaze; +Having studied the mocking-bird's tones, and the mountain hawk's, +And heard at dusk the unrivalled one, the hermit thrush, from the + swamp-cedars, +Solitary, singing in the West, I strike up for a New World. + + +2. + +Victory, union, faith, identity, time, +Yourself, the present and future lands, the indissoluble compacts, riches, + mystery, +Eternal progress, the kosmos, and the modern reports. + +This, then, is life; +Here is what has come to the surface after so many throes and convulsions. + +How curious! how real! +Under foot the divine soil--over head the sun. + +See, revolving, the globe; +The ancestor-continents, away, grouped together; +The present and future continents, north and south, with the isthmus + between. + +See, vast trackless spaces; +As in a dream, they change, they swiftly fill; +Countless masses debouch upon them; +They are now covered with the foremost people, arts, institutions, known. + +See, projected through time, +For me an audience interminable. + +With firm and regular step they wend--they never stop, +Successions of men, Americanos, a hundred millions; +One generation playing its part, and passing on, +Another generation playing its part, and passing on in its turn, +With faces turned sideways or backward towards me, to listen, +With eyes retrospective towards me. + + +3. + +Americanos! conquerors! marches humanitarian; +Foremost! century marches! Libertad! masses! +For you a programme of chants. + +Chants of the prairies; +Chants of the long-running Mississippi, and down to the Mexican Sea; +Chants of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota; +Chants going forth from the centre, from Kansas, and thence, equidistant, +Shooting in pulses of fire, ceaseless, to vivify all. + + +4. + +In the Year 80 of the States,[3] +My tongue, every atom of my blood, formed from this soil, this air, +Born here of parents born here, from parents the same, and their parents + the same, +I, now thirty-six years old, in perfect health begin, +Hoping to cease not till death. + +Creeds and schools in abeyance, +(Retiring back a while, sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten.) + +I harbour, for good or bad--I permit to speak, at every hazard-- +Nature now without check, with original energy. + + +5. + +Take my leaves, America! take them South, and take them North! +Make welcome for them everywhere, for they are your own offspring; +Surround them, East and West! for they would surround you; +And you precedents! connect lovingly with them, for they connect lovingly + with you. + +I conned old times; +I sat studying at the feet of the great masters: +Now, if eligible, O that the great masters might return and study me! + +In the name of these States, shall I scorn the antique? +Why, these are the children of the antique, to justify it. + + +6. + +Dead poets, philosophs, priests, +Martyrs, artists, inventors, governments long since, +Language-shapers on other shores, +Nations once powerful, now reduced, withdrawn, or desolate, +I dare not proceed till I respectfully credit what you have left, wafted + hither: +I have perused it--own it is admirable, (moving awhile among it;) +Think nothing can ever be greater--nothing can ever deserve more than it + deserves; +Regarding it all intently a long while, then dismissing it, +I stand in my place, with my own day, here. + +Here lands female and male; +Here the heirship and heiress-ship of the world--here the flame of + materials; +Here spirituality, the translatress, the openly-avowed, +The ever-tending, the finale of visible forms; +The satisfier, after due long-waiting, now advancing, +Yes, here comes my mistress, the Soul. + + +7. + +The SOUL! +For ever and for ever--longer than soil is brown and solid--longer than + water ebbs and flows. + +I will make the poems of materials, for I think they are to be the most + spiritual poems; +And I will make the poems of my body and of mortality, +For I think I shall then supply myself with the poems of my soul, and of + immortality. + +I will make a song for these States, that no one State may under any + circumstances be subjected to another State; +And I will make a song that there shall be comity by day and by night + between all the States, and between any two of them; +And I will make a song for the ears of the President, full of weapons with + menacing points, +And behind the weapons countless dissatisfied faces: +And a song make I, of the One formed out of all; +The fanged and glittering one whose head is over all; +Resolute, warlike one, including and over all; +However high the head of any else, that head is over all. + +I will acknowledge contemporary lands; +I will trail the whole geography of the globe, and salute courteously every + city large and small; +And employments! I will put in my poems, that with you is heroism, upon + land and sea--And I will report all heroism from an American point + of view; +And sexual organs and acts! do you concentrate in me--for I am determined + to tell you with courageous clear voice, to prove you illustrious. + +I will sing the song of companionship; +I will show what alone must finally compact these; +I believe These are to found their own ideal of manly love, indicating it + in me; +I will therefore let flame from me the burning fires that were threatening + to consume me; +I will lift what has too long kept down those smouldering fires; +I will give them complete abandonment; +I will write the evangel-poem of comrades and of love; +For who but I should understand love, with all its sorrow and joy? +And who but I should be the poet of comrades? + + +8. + +I am the credulous man of qualities, ages, races; +I advance from the people _en masse_ in their own spirit; +Here is what sings unrestricted faith. +Omnes! Omnes! let others ignore what they may; +I make the poem of evil also--I commemorate that part also; +I am myself just as much evil as good, and my nation is--And I say there is + in fact no evil, +Or if there is, I say it is just as important to you, to the land, or to + me, as anything else. + +I too, following many, and followed by many, inaugurate a Religion--I too + go to the wars; +It may be I am destined to utter the loudest cries thereof, the winner's + pealing shouts; +Who knows? they may rise from me yet, and soar above everything. + +Each is not for its own sake; +I say the whole earth, and all the stars in the sky, are for religion's + sake. + +I say no man has ever yet been half devout enough; +None has ever yet adored or worshipped half enough; +None has begun to think how divine he himself is, and how certain the + future is. + +I say that the real and permanent grandeur of these States must be their + religion; +Otherwise there is no real and permanent grandeur; +Nor character, nor life worthy the name, without religion; +Nor land, nor man or woman, without religion. + + +9. + +What are you doing, young man? +Are you so earnest--so given up to literature, science, art, amours? +These ostensible realities, politics, points? +Your ambition or business, whatever it may be? + +It is well--Against such I say not a word--I am their poet also; +But behold! such swiftly subside--burnt up for religion's sake; +For not all matter is fuel to heat, impalpable flame, the essential life of + the earth, +Any more than such are to religion. + + +10. + +What do you seek, so pensive and silent? +What do you need, Camerado? +Dear son! do you think it is love? + +Listen, dear son--listen, America, daughter or son! +It is a painful thing to love a man or woman to excess--and yet it + satisfies--it is great; +But there is something else very great--it makes the whole coincide; +It, magnificent, beyond materials, with continuous hands, sweeps and + provides for all. + + +11. + +Know you: to drop in the earth the germs of a greater religion, +The following chants, each for its kind, I sing. + +My comrade! +For you, to share with me, two greatnesses--and a third one, rising + inclusive and more resplendent, +The greatness of Love and Democracy--and the greatness of Religion. + +Mélange mine own! the unseen and the seen; +Mysterious ocean where the streams empty; +Prophetic spirit of materials shifting and flickering around me; +Living beings, identities, now doubtless near us in the air, that we know + not of; +Contact daily and hourly that will not release me; +These selecting--these, in hints, demanded of me. + +Not he with a daily kiss onward from childhood kissing me +Has winded and twisted around me that which holds me to him, +Any more than I am held to the heavens, to the spiritual world, +And to the identities of the Gods, my lovers, faithful and true, +After what they have done to me, suggesting themes. + +O such themes! Equalities! +O amazement of things! O divine average! +O warblings under the sun--ushered, as now, or at noon, or setting! +O strain, musical, flowing through ages--now reaching hither, +I take to your reckless and composite chords--I add to them, and cheerfully + pass them forward. + + +12. + +As I have walked in Alabama my morning walk, +I have seen where the she-bird, the mocking-bird, sat on her nest in the + briars, hatching her brood. +I have seen the he-bird also; +I have paused to hear him, near at hand, inflating his throat, and joyfully + singing. + +And while I paused, it came to me that what he really sang for was not + there only, +Nor for his mate nor himself only, nor all sent back by the echoes; +But subtle, clandestine, away beyond, +A charge transmitted, and gift occult, for those being born. + + +13. + +Democracy! +Near at hand to you a throat is now inflating itself and joyfully singing. +Ma femme! +For the brood beyond us and of us, +For those who belong here, and those to come, +I, exultant, to be ready for them, will now shake out carols stronger and + haughtier than have ever yet been heard upon earth. + +I will make the songs of passion, to give them their way, +And your songs, outlawed offenders--for I scan you with kindred eyes, and + carry you with me the same as any. + +I will make the true poem of riches,-- +To earn for the body and the mind whatever adheres, and goes forward, and + is not dropped by death. + +I will effuse egotism, and show it underlying all--and I will be the bard + of personality; +And I will show of male and female that either is but the equal of the + other; +And I will show that there is no imperfection in the present--and can be + none in the future; +And I will show that, whatever happens to anybody, it may be turned to +beautiful results--and I will show that nothing can happen more beautiful + than death; +And I will thread a thread through my poems that time and events are + compact, +And that all the things of the universe are perfect miracles, each as + profound as any. + +I will not make poems with reference to parts; +But I will make leaves, poems, poemets, songs, says, thoughts, with + reference to ensemble: +And I will not sing with reference to a day, but with reference to all + days; +And I will not make a poem, nor the least part of a poem, but has reference + to the soul; +Because, having looked at the objects of the universe, I find there is no + one, nor any particle of one, but has reference to the soul. + + +14. + +Was somebody asking to see the Soul? +See! your own shape and countenance--persons, substances, beasts, the + trees, the running rivers, the rocks and sands. + +All hold spiritual joys, and afterwards loosen them: +How can the real body ever die, and be buried? + +Of your real body, and any man's or woman's real body, +Item for item, it will elude the hands of the corpse-cleaners, and pass to + fitting spheres, +Carrying what has accrued to it from the moment of birth to the moment of + death. + +Not the types set up by the printer return their impression, the meaning, + the main concern, +Any more than a man's substance and life, or a woman's substance and life, + return in the body and the soul, +Indifferently before death and after death. + +Behold! the body includes and is the meaning, the main concern--and + includes and is the soul; +Whoever you are! how superb and how divine is your body, or any part of it. + + +15. + +Whoever you are! to you endless announcements. + +Daughter of the lands, did you wait for your poet? +Did you wait for one with a flowing mouth and indicative hand? + +Toward the male of the States, and toward the female of the States, +Live words--words to the lands. +O the lands! interlinked, food-yielding lands! +Land of coal and iron! Land of gold! Lands of cotton, sugar, rice! +Land of wheat, beef, pork! Land of wool and hemp! Land of the apple and + grape! +Land of the pastoral plains, the grass-fields of the world! Land of those + sweet-aired interminable plateaus! +Land of the herd, the garden, the healthy house of adobie! +Lands where the north-west Columbia winds, and where the south-west + Colorado winds! +Land of the eastern Chesapeake! Land of the Delaware! +Land of Ontario, Erie, Huron, Michigan! +Land of the Old Thirteen! Massachusetts land! Land of Vermont and + Connecticut! +Land of the ocean shores! Land of sierras and peaks! +Land of boatmen and sailors! Fishermen's land! +Inextricable lands! the clutched together! the passionate ones! +The side by side! the elder and younger brothers! the bony-limbed! +The great women's land! the feminine! the experienced sisters and the + inexperienced sisters! +Far-breathed land! Arctic-braced! Mexican-breezed! the diverse! the + compact! +The Pennsylvanian! the Virginian! the double Carolinian! +O all and each well-loved by me! my intrepid nations! O I at any rate +include you all with perfect love! +I cannot be discharged from you--not from one, any sooner than another! + +O Death! O!--for all that, I am yet of you unseen, this hour, with + irrepressible love, +Walking New England, a friend, a traveller, +Splashing my bare feet in the edge of the summer ripples, on Paumanok's + sands, +Crossing the prairies--dwelling again in Chicago--dwelling in every town, +Observing shows, births, improvements, structures, arts, +Listening to the orators and the oratresses in public halls, +Of and through the States, as during life[4]--each man and woman my + neighbour, +The Louisianian, the Georgian, as near to me, and I as near to him and her, +The Mississippian and Arkansian yet with me--and I yet with any of them; +Yet upon the plains west of the spinal river--yet in my house of adobie, +Yet returning eastward--yet in the Sea-Side State, or in Maryland, +Yet Canadian cheerily braving the winter--the snow and ice welcome to me, + or mounting the Northern Pacific, to Sitka, to Aliaska; +Yet a true son either of Maine, or of the Granite State,[5] or of the + Narragansett Bay State, or of the Empire State;[6] +Yet sailing to other shores to annex the same--yet welcoming every new + brother; +Hereby applying these leaves to the new ones, from the hour they unite with + the old ones; +Coming among the new ones myself, to be their companion and equal--coming + personally to you now; +Enjoining you to acts, characters, spectacles, with me. + + +16. + +With me, with firm holding--yet haste, haste on. +For your life, adhere to me; +Of all the men of the earth, I only can unloose you and toughen you; +I may have to be persuaded many times before I consent to give myself to + you--but what of that? + +Must not Nature be persuaded many times? +No dainty _dolce affettuoso_ I; +Bearded, sunburnt, gray-necked, forbidding, I have arrived, +To be wrestled with as I pass, for the solid prizes of the universe; +For such I afford whoever can persevere to win them. + + +17. + +On my way a moment I pause; +Here for you! and here for America! +Still the Present I raise aloft--still the Future of the States I harbinge, + glad and sublime; +And for the Past, I pronounce what the air holds of the red aborigines. + +The red aborigines! +Leaving natural breaths, sounds of rain and winds, calls as of birds and + animals in the woods, syllabled to us for names; +Okonee, Koosa, Ottawa, Monongahela, Sauk, Natchez, Chattahoochee, Kaqueta, +Oronoco, Wabash, Miami, Saginaw, Chippewa, Oshkosh, Walla-Walla; +Leaving such to the States, they melt, they depart, charging the water and + the land with names. + + +18. + +O expanding and swift! O henceforth, +Elements, breeds, adjustments, turbulent, quick, and audacious; +A world primal again--vistas of glory, incessant and branching; +A new race, dominating previous ones, and grander far, with new contests, +New politics, new literatures and religions, new inventions and arts. + +These my voice announcing--I will sleep no more, but arise; +You oceans that have been calm within me! how I feel you, fathomless, +stirring, preparing unprecedented waves and storms. + + +19. + +See! steamers steaming through my poems! +See in my poems immigrants continually coming and landing; +See in arriere, the wigwam, the trail, the hunter's hut, the flat-boat, the + maize-leaf, the claim, the rude fence, and the backwoods village; +See, on the one side the Western Sea, and on the other the Eastern Sea, how + they advance and retreat upon my poems, as upon their own shores; +See pastures and forests in my poems--See animals, wild and tame--See, + beyond the Kanzas, countless herds of buffalo, feeding on short + curly grass; +See, in my poems, cities, solid, vast, inland, with paved streets, with + iron and stone edifices, ceaseless vehicles, and commerce; +See the many-cylindered steam printing-press--See the electric telegraph, + stretching across the Continent, from the Western Sea to Manhattan; +See, through Atlantica's depths, pulses American, Europe reaching--pulses + of Europe, duly returned; +See the strong and quick locomotive, as it departs, panting, blowing the + steam-whistle; +See ploughmen, ploughing farms--See miners, digging mines--See the + numberless factories; +See mechanics, busy at their benches, with tools--See, from among them, + superior judges, philosophs, Presidents, emerge, dressed in working + dresses; +See, lounging through the shops and fields of the States, me, well-beloved, + close-held by day and night; +Hear the loud echoes of my songs there! Read the hints come at last. + + +20. + +O Camerado close! +O you and me at last--and us two only. +O a word to clear one's path ahead endlessly! +O something ecstatic and undemonstrable! O music wild! +O now I triumph--and you shall also; +O hand in hand--O wholesome pleasure--O one more desirer and lover! +O to haste, firm holding--to haste, haste on, with me. + +[Footnote 1: Paumanok is the native name of Long Island, State of New York. +It presents a fish-like shape on the map.] + +[Footnote 2: Mannahatta, or Manhattan, is (as many readers will know) New +York.] + +[Footnote 3: 1856.] + +[Footnote 4: The poet here contemplates himself as yet living spiritually +and in his poems after the death of the body, still a friend and brother to +all present and future American lands and persons.] + +[Footnote 5: New Hampshire.] + +[Footnote 6: New York State.] + + + +_AMERICAN FEUILLAGE._ + + +AMERICA always! +Always our own feuillage! +Always Florida's green peninsula! Always the priceless delta of Louisiana! +Always the cotton-fields of Alabama and Texas! +Always California's golden hills and hollows--and the silver mountains of +New Mexico! Always soft-breathed Cuba! +Always the vast slope drained by the Southern Sea--inseparable with the + slopes drained by the Eastern and Western Seas! +The area the eighty-third year of these States[1]--the three and a half + millions of square miles; +The eighteen thousand miles of sea-coast and bay-coast on the main--the + thirty thousand miles of river navigation, +The seven millions of distinct families, and the same number of dwellings-- +Always these, and more, branching forth into numberless branches; +Always the free range and diversity! Always the continent of Democracy! +Always the prairies, pastures, forests, vast cities, travellers, Canada, + the snows; +Always these compact lands--lands tied at the hips with the belt stringing + the huge oval lakes; +Always the West, with strong native persons--the increasing density there-- + the habitans, friendly, threatening, ironical, scorning invaders; +All sights, South, North, East--all deeds, promiscuously done at all times, +All characters, movements, growths--a few noticed, myriads unnoticed. +Through Mannahatta's streets I walking, these things gathering. +On interior rivers, by night, in the glare of pine knots, steamboats + wooding up: +Sunlight by day on the valley of the Susquehanna, and on the valleys of the +Potomac and Rappahannock, and the valleys of the Roanoke and Delaware; +In their northerly wilds beasts of prey haunting the Adirondacks the + hills--or lapping the Saginaw waters to drink; + +In a lonesome inlet, a sheldrake, lost from the flock, sitting on the + water, rocking silently; +In farmers' barns, oxen in the stable, their harvest labour done--they rest + standing--they are too tired; +Afar on arctic ice, the she-walrus lying drowsily, while her cubs play + around; +The hawk sailing where men have not yet sailed--the farthest polar sea, + ripply, crystalline, open, beyond the floes; +White drift spooning ahead, where the ship in the tempest dashes. +On solid land, what is done in cities, as the bells all strike midnight + together; +In primitive woods, the sounds there also sounding--the howl of the wolf, + the scream of the panther, and the hoarse bellow of the elk; +In winter beneath the hard blue ice of Moosehead Lake, in summer visible + through the clear waters, the great trout swimming; +In lower latitudes, in warmer air, in the Carolinas, the large black + buzzard floating slowly, high beyond the tree-tops, +Below, the red cedar, festooned with tylandria--the pines and cypresses, + growing out of the white sand that spreads far and flat; +Rude boats descending the big Pedee--climbing plants, parasites, with + coloured flowers and berries, enveloping huge trees, +The waving drapery on the live oak, trailing long and low, noiselessly + waved by the wind; +The camp of Georgia waggoners, just after dark--the supper-fires, and the + cooking and eating by whites and negroes, +Thirty or forty great waggons--the mules, cattle, horses, feeding from + troughs, +The shadows, gleams, up under the leaves of the old sycamore-trees--the + flames--also the black smoke from the pitch-pine, curling and + rising; +Southern fishermen fishing--the sounds and inlets of North Carolina's + coast--the shad-fishery and the herring-fishery--the large sweep- + seines--the windlasses on shore worked by horses--the clearing, + curing, and packing houses; +Deep in the forest, in piney woods, turpentine dropping from the incisions + in the trees--There are the turpentine works, +There are the negroes at work, in good health--the ground in all directions + is covered with pine straw. +--In Tennessee and Kentucky, slaves busy in the coalings, at the forge, by + the furnace-blaze, or at the corn-shucking; +In Virginia, the planter's son returning after a long absence, joyfully + welcomed and kissed by the aged mulatto nurse. +On rivers, boatmen safely moored at nightfall, in their boats, under + shelter of high banks, +Some of the younger men dance to the sound of the banjo or fiddle--others + sit on the gunwale, smoking and talking; +Late in the afternoon the mocking-bird, the American mimic, singing in the +Great Dismal Swamp-there are the greenish waters, the resinous odour, the + plenteous moss, the cypress-tree, and the juniper-tree. +--Northward, young men of Mannahatta--the target company from an excursion + returning home at evening--the musket-muzzles all bear bunches of + flowers presented by women; +Children at play--or on his father's lap a young boy fallen asleep, (how + his lips move! how he smiles in his sleep!) +The scout riding on horseback over the plains west of the Mississippi--he + ascends a knoll and sweeps his eye around. +California life--the miner, bearded, dressed in his rude costume--the + staunch California friendship--the sweet air--the graves one, in + passing, meets, solitary, just aside the horse-path; +Down in Texas, the cotton-field, the negro-cabins--drivers driving mules or + oxen before rude carts--cotton-bales piled on banks and wharves. +Encircling all, vast-darting, up and wide, the American Soul, with equal + hemispheres--one Love, one Dilation or Pride. +--In arriere, the peace-talk with the Iroquois, the aborigines--the + calumet, the pipe of good-will, arbitration, and endorsement, +The sachem blowing the smoke first toward the sun and then toward the + earth, +The drama of the scalp-dance enacted with painted faces and guttural + exclamations, +The setting-out of the war-party--the long and stealthy march, +The single-file--the swinging hatchets--the surprise and slaughter of + enemies. +--All the acts, scenes, ways, persons, attitudes, of these States-- + reminiscences, all institutions, +All these States, compact--Every square mile of these States, without + excepting a particle--you also--me also. +Me pleased, rambling in lanes and country fields, Paumanok's fields, +Me, observing the spiral flight of two little yellow butterflies, shuffling + between each other, ascending high in the air; +The darting swallow, the destroyer of insects--the fall-traveller + southward, but returning northward early in the spring; +The country boy at the close of the day, driving the herd of cows, and + shouting to them as they loiter to browse by the roadside; +The city wharf--Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston, New Orleans, + San Francisco, +The departing ships, when the sailors heave at the capstan; +Evening--me in my room--the setting sun, +The setting summer sun shining in my open window, showing the swarm of + flies, suspended, balancing in the air in the centre of the room, + darting athwart, up and down, casting swift shadows in specks on + the opposite wall, where the shine is. +The athletic American matron speaking in public to crowds of listeners; +Males, females, immigrants, combinations--the copiousness--the + individuality of the States, each for itself--the money-makers; +Factories, machinery, the mechanical forces--the windlass, lever, pulley-- +All certainties, +The certainty of space, increase, freedom, futurity; +In space, the sporades, the scattered islands, the stars--on the firm + earth, the lands, my lands! +O lands! O all so dear to me--what you are (whatever it is), I become a + part of that, whatever it is. +Southward there, I screaming, with wings slow-flapping, with the myriads of + gulls wintering along the coasts of Florida--or in Louisiana, with + pelicans breeding, +Otherways, there, atwixt the banks of the Arkansaw, the Rio Grande, the + Nueces, the Brazos, the Tombigbee, the Red River, the Saskatchewan, + or the Osage, I with the spring waters laughing and skipping and + running; +Northward, on the sands, on some shallow bay of Paumanok, I, with parties + of snowy herons wading in the wet to seek worms and aquatic plants; +Retreating, triumphantly twittering, the king-bird, from piercing the crow + with its bill, for amusement--And I triumphantly twittering; +The migrating flock of wild geese alighting in autumn to refresh + themselves--the body of the flock feed--the sentinels outside move + around with erect heads watching, and are from time to time + relieved by other sentinels--And I feeding and taking turns with + the rest; +In Canadian forests, the moose, large as an ox, cornered by hunters, rising + desperately on his hind-feet, and plunging with his fore-feet, the + hoofs as sharp as knives--And I plunging at the hunters, cornered + and desperate; +In the Mannahatta, streets, piers, shipping, store-houses, and the + countless workmen working in the shops, +And I too of the Mannahatta, singing thereof--and no less in myself than + the whole of the Mannahatta in itself, +Singing the song of These, my ever-united lands--my body no more inevitably + united part to part, and made one identity, any more than my lands + are inevitably united, and made ONE IDENTITY; +Nativities, climates, the grass of the great pastoral plains, +Cities, labours, death, animals, products, good and evil--these me,-- +These affording, in all their particulars, endless feuillage to me and to +America, how can I do less than pass the clue of the union of them, to + afford the like to you? +Whoever you are! how can I but offer you divine leaves, that you also be + eligible as I am? +How can I but, as here, chanting, invite you for yourself to collect +bouquets of the incomparable feuillage of these States? + +[Footnote 1: 1858-59.] + + + +_THE PAST-PRESENT._ + + +I was looking a long while for the history of the past for myself, and for + these chants--and now I have found it. +It is not in those paged fables in the libraries, (them I neither accept + nor reject;) +It is no more in the legends than in all else; +It is in the present--it is this earth to-day; +It is in Democracy--in this America--the Old World also; +It is the life of one man or one woman to-day, the average man of to-day; +It is languages, social customs, literatures, arts; +It is the broad show of artificial things, ships, machinery, politics, + creeds, modern improvements, and the interchange of nations, +All for the average man of to-day. + + + +_YEARS OF THE UNPERFORMED._ + + +Years of the unperformed! your horizon rises--I see it part away for more + august dramas; +I see not America only--I see not only Liberty's nation but other nations + embattling; +I see tremendous entrances and exits--I see new combinations--I see the + solidarity of races; +I see that force advancing with irresistible power on the world's stage; +Have the old forces played their parts? are the acts suitable to them + closed? +I see Freedom, completely armed, and victorious, and very haughty, with Law + by her side, both issuing forth against the idea of caste; +--What historic denouements are these we so rapidly approach? +I see men marching and countermarching by swift millions! +I see the frontiers and boundaries of the old aristocracies broken; +I see the landmarks of European kings removed; +I see this day the People beginning their landmarks, all others give way; +Never were such sharp questions asked as this day; +Never was average man, his soul, more energetic, more like a God. +Lo! how he urges and urges, leaving the masses no rest; +His daring foot is on land and sea everywhere--he colonises the Pacific, + the archipelagoes; +With the steam-ship, the electric telegraph, the newspaper, the wholesale + engines of war, +With these, and the world-spreading factories, he interlinks all geography, + all lands; +--What whispers are these, O lands, running ahead of you, passing under the +seas? +Are all nations communing? is there going to be but one heart to the globe? +Is humanity forming _en masse_?--for lo! tyrants tremble, crowns grow dim; +The earth, restive, confronts a new era, perhaps a general divine war; +No one knows what will happen next--such portents fill the days and nights. +Years prophetical! the space ahead as I walk, as I vainly try to pierce it, + is full of phantoms; +Unborn deeds, things soon to be, project their shapes around me; +This incredible rush and heat--this strange ecstatic fever of dreams, O + years! +Your dreams, O years, how they penetrate through me! (I know not whether I + sleep or wake!) +The performed America and Europe grow dim, retiring in shadow behind me, +The unperformed, more gigantic than ever, advance, advance upon me. + + + +_FLUX._ + + +Of these years I sing, +How they pass through convulsed pains, as through parturitions; +How America illustrates birth, gigantic youth, the promise, the sure + fulfilment, despite of people--Illustrates evil as well as good; +How many hold despairingly yet to the models departed, caste, myths, + obedience, compulsion, and to infidelity; +How few see the arrived models, the athletes, the States--or see freedom or + spirituality--or hold any faith in results. +But I see the athletes--and I see the results glorious and inevitable--and + they again leading to other results; +How the great cities appear--How the Democratic masses, turbulent, wilful, + as I love them, +How the whirl, the contest, the wrestle of evil with good, the sounding and + resounding, keep on and on; +How society waits unformed, and is between things ended and things begun; +How America is the continent of glories, and of the triumph of freedom, and + of the Democracies, and of the fruits of society, and of all that + is begun; +And how the States are complete in themselves--And how all triumphs and + glories are complete in themselves, to lead onward, +And how these of mine, and of the States, will in their turn be convulsed, + and serve other parturitions and transitions. +And how all people, sights, combinations, the Democratic masses, too, + serve--and how every fact serves, +And how now, or at any time, each serves the exquisite transition of Death. + + + +_TO WORKING MEN._ + + +1. + +Come closer to me; +Push close, my lovers, and take the best I possess; +Yield closer and closer, and give me the best you possess. + +This is unfinished business with me--How is it with you? +(I was chilled with the cold types, cylinder, wet paper between us.) + +Male and Female! +I pass so poorly with paper and types, I must pass with the contact of + bodies and souls. + +American masses! +I do not thank you for liking me as I am, and liking the touch of me--I + know that it is good for you to do so. + + +2. + +This is the poem of occupations; +In the labour of engines and trades, and the labour of fields, I find the + developments, +And find the eternal meanings. +Workmen and Workwomen! +Were all educations, practical and ornamental, well displayed out of me, + what would it amount to? +Were I as the head teacher, charitable proprietor, wise statesman, what + would it amount to? +Were I to you as the boss employing and paying you, would that satisfy you? + +The learned, virtuous, benevolent, and the usual terms; +A man like me, and never the usual terms. + +Neither a servant nor a master am I; +I take no sooner a large price than a small price--I will have my own, + whoever enjoys me; +I will be even with you, and you shall be even with me. + +If you stand at work in a shop, I stand as nigh as the nighest in the same + shop; +If you bestow gifts on your brother or dearest friend, I demand as good as + your brother or dearest friend; +If your lover, husband, wife, is welcome by day or night, I must be + personally as welcome; +If you become degraded, criminal, ill, then I become so for your sake; +If you remember your foolish and outlawed deeds, do you think I cannot + remember my own foolish and outlawed deeds? +If you carouse at the table, I carouse at the opposite side of the table; +If you meet some stranger in the streets, and love him or her--why I often + meet strangers in the street, and love them. + +Why, what have you thought of yourself? +Is it you then that thought yourself less? +Is it you that thought the President greater than you? +Or the rich better off than you? or the educated wiser than you? + +Because you are greasy or pimpled, or that you was once drunk, or a thief, +Or diseased, or rheumatic, or a prostitute, or are so now; +Or from frivolity or impotence, or that you are no scholar, and never saw + your name in print, +Do you give in that you are any less immortal? + + +3. + +Souls of men and women! it is not you I call unseen, unheard, untouchable + and untouching; +It is not you I go argue pro and con about, and to settle whether you are + alive or no; +I own publicly who you are, if nobody else owns. + +Grown, half-grown, and babe, of this country and every country, indoors and +outdoors, one just as much as the other, I see, +And all else behind or through them. + +The wife--and she is not one jot less than the husband; +The daughter--and she is just as good as the son; +The mother--and she is every bit as much as the father. + +Offspring of ignorant and poor, boys apprenticed to trades, +Young fellows working on farms, and old fellows working on farms, +Sailor-men, merchant-men, coasters, immigrants, +All these I see--but nigher and farther the same I see; +None shall escape me, and none shall wish to escape me. +I bring what you much need, yet always have, +Not money, amours, dress, eating, but as good; +I send no agent or medium, offer no representative of value, but offer the + value itself. + +There is something that comes home to one now and perpetually; +It is not what is printed, preached, discussed--it eludes discussion and + print; +It is not to be put in a book--it is not in this book; +It is for you, whoever you are--it is no farther from you than your hearing + and sight are from you; +It is hinted by nearest, commonest, readiest--it is ever provoked by them. + +You may read in many languages, yet read nothing about it; +You may read the President's Message, and read nothing about it there; +Nothing in the reports from the State department or Treasury department, or + in the daily papers or the weekly papers, +Or in the census or revenue returns, prices current, or any accounts of + stock. + + +4. + +The sun and stars that float in the open air; +The apple-shaped earth, and we upon it--surely the drift of them is + something grand! +I do not know what it is, except that it is grand, and that it is + happiness, +And that the enclosing purport of us here is not a speculation, or bon-mot, + or reconnoissance, +And that it is not something which by luck may turn out well for us, and + without luck must be a failure for us, +And not something which may yet be retracted in a certain contingency. + +The light and shade, the curious sense of body and identity, the greed that + with perfect complaisance devours all things, the endless pride and + outstretching of man, unspeakable joys and sorrows, +The wonder every one sees in every one else he sees, and the wonders that + fill each minute of time for ever, +What have you reckoned them for, camerado? +Have you reckoned them for a trade, or farm-work? or for the profits of a + store? +Or to achieve yourself a position? or to fill a gentleman's leisure, or a + lady's leisure? + +Have you reckoned the landscape took substance and form that it might be + painted in a picture? +Or men and women that they might be written of, and songs sung? +Or the attraction of gravity, and the great laws and harmonious + combinations, and the fluids of the air, as subjects for the + savans? +Or the brown land and the blue sea for maps and charts? +Or the stars to be put in constellations and named fancy names? +Or that the growth of seeds is for agricultural tables, or agriculture + itself? + +Old institutions--these arts, libraries, legends, collections, and the + practice handed along in manufactures--will we rate them so high? +Will we rate our cash and business high?--I have no objection; +I rate them as high as the highest--then a child born of a woman and man I + rate beyond all rate. + +We thought our Union grand, and our Constitution grand; +I do not say they are not grand and good, for they are; +I am this day just as much in love with them as you; +Then I am in love with you, and with all my fellows upon the earth. + +We consider Bibles and religions divine--I do not say they are not divine; +I say they have all grown out of you, and may grow out of you still; +It is not they who give the life--it is you who give the life; +Leaves are not more shed from the trees, or trees from the earth, than they + are shed out of you. + + +5. + +When the psalm sings, instead of the singer; +When the script preaches, instead of the preacher; +When the pulpit descends and goes, instead of the carver that carved the + supporting desk; +When I can touch the body of books, by night or by day, and when they touch + my body back again; +When a university course convinces, like a slumbering woman and child + convince; +When the minted gold in the vault smiles like the night-watchman's + daughter; +When warrantee deeds loafe in chairs opposite, and are my friendly + companions; +I intend to reach them my hand, and make as much of them as I do of men and + women like you. +The sum of all known reverence I add up in you, whoever you are; +The President is there in the White House for you--it is not you who are + here for him; +The Secretaries act in their bureaus for you--not you here for them; +The Congress convenes every twelfth month for you; +Laws, courts, the forming of States, the charters of cities, the going and + coming of commerce and mails, are all for you. + +List close, my scholars dear! +All doctrines, all politics and civilisation, exsurge from you; +All sculpture and monuments, and anything inscribed anywhere, are tallied + in you; +The gist of histories and statistics, as far back as the records reach, is + in you this hour, and myths and tales the same; +If you were not breathing and walking here, where would they all be? +The most renowned poems would be ashes, orations and plays would be + vacuums. + +All architecture is what you do to it when you look upon it; +Did you think it was in the white or grey stone? or the lines of the arches + and cornices? + +All music is what awakes from you, when you are reminded by the + instruments; +It is not the violins and the cornets--it is not the oboe nor the beating + drums, nor the score of the baritone singer singing his sweet + romanza--nor that of the men's chorus, nor that of the women's + chorus, +It is nearer and farther than they. + + +6. + +Will the whole come back then? +Can each see signs of the best by a look in the looking-glass? is there + nothing greater or more? +Does all sit there with you, with the mystic, unseen soul? + +Strange and hard that paradox true I give; +Objects gross and the unseen Soul are one. + +House-building, measuring, sawing the boards; +Blacksmithing, glass-blowing, nail-making, coopering, tin-roofing, shingle- + dressing, +Ship-joining, dock-building, fish-curing, ferrying, flagging of side-walks + by flaggers, +The pump, the pile-driver, the great derrick, the coal-kiln and brick-kiln, +Coal-mines, and all that is down there,--the lamps in the darkness, echoes, + songs, what meditations, what vast native thoughts looking through + smutched faces, +Ironworks, forge-fires in the mountains, or by the river-banks--men around + feeling the melt with huge crowbars--lumps of ore, the due + combining of ore, limestone, coal--the blast-furnace and the + puddling-furnace, the loup-lump at the bottom of the melt at last-- + the rolling-mill, the stumpy bars of pig-iron, the strong, clean + shaped T-rail for railroads; +Oilworks, silkworks, white-lead-works, the sugar-house, steam-saws, the + great mills and factories; +Stone-cutting, shapely trimmings for façades, or window or door lintels-- + the mallet, the tooth-chisel, the jib to protect the thumb, Oakum, + the oakum-chisel, the caulking-iron--the kettle of boiling vault- + cement, and the fire under the kettle, +The cotton-bale, the stevedore's hook, the saw and buck of the sawyer, the + mould of the moulder, the working knife of the butcher, the ice- + saw, and all the work with ice, +The implements for daguerreotyping--the tools of the rigger, grappler, + sail-maker, block-maker, +Goods of gutta-percha, papier-mâché, colours, brushes, brush-making, + glaziers' implements, +The veneer and glue-pot, the confectioner's ornaments, the decanter and + glasses, the shears and flat-iron, +The awl and knee-strap, the pint measure and quart measure, the counter and + stool, the writing-pen of quill or metal--the making of all sorts + of edged tools, +The brewery, brewing, the malt, the vats, everything that is done by + brewers, also by wine-makers, also vinegar-makers, +Leather-dressing, coach-making, boiler-making, rope-twisting, distilling, + sign-painting, lime-burning, cotton-picking--electro-plating, + electrotyping, stereotyping, +Stave-machines, planing-machines, reaping-machines, + ploughing-machines, thrashing-machines, steam waggons, +The cart of the carman, the omnibus, the ponderous dray; +Pyrotechny, letting off coloured fireworks at night, fancy figures and + jets, +Beef on the butcher's stall, the slaughter-house of the butcher, the + butcher in his killing-clothes, +The pens of live pork, the killing-hammer, the hog-hook, the scalder's tub, + gutting, the cutter's cleaver, the packer's maul, and the plenteous + winter-work of pork-packing, +Flour-works, grinding of wheat, rye, maize, rice--the barrels and the half + and quarter barrels, the loaded barges, the high piles on wharves + and levees, +The men, and the work of the men, on railroads, coasters, fish-boats, + canals; +The daily routine of your own or any man's life--the shop, yard, store, or + factory; +These shows all near you by day and night-workmen! whoever you are, your + daily life! +In that and them the heft of the heaviest--in them far more than you + estimated, and far less also; +In them realities for you and me--in them poems for you and me; +In them, not yourself--you and your soul enclose all things, regardless of + estimation; +In them the development good--in them, all themes and hints. + +I do not affirm what you see beyond is futile--I do not advise you to stop; +I do not say leadings you thought great are not great; +But I say that none lead to greater than those lead to. + + +7. + +Will you seek afar off? You surely come back at last, +In things best known to you finding the best, or as good as the best, +In folks nearest to you finding the sweetest, strongest, lovingest; +Happiness, knowledge, not in another place, but this place--not for another + hour, but this hour; +Man in the first you see or touch--always in friend, brother, nighest + neighbour--Woman in mother, sister, wife; +The popular tastes and employments taking precedence in poems or anywhere, +You workwomen and workmen of these States having your own divine and strong + life, +And all else giving place to men and women like you. + + + + +_SONG OF THE BROAD-AXE._ + +1. + +Weapon, shapely, naked, wan; +Head from the mother's bowels drawn! +Wooded flesh and metal bone! limb only one, and lip only one! +Grey-blue leaf by red-heat grown! helve produced from a little seed sown! +Resting the grass amid and upon, +To be leaned, and to lean on. + +Strong shapes, and attributes of strong shapes--masculine trades, sights + and sounds; +Long varied train of an emblem, dabs of music; +Fingers of the organist skipping staccato over the keys of the great organ. + +2. + +Welcome are all earth's lands, each for its kind; +Welcome are lands of pine and oak; +Welcome are lands of the lemon and fig; +Welcome are lands of gold; +Welcome are lands of wheat and maize--welcome those of the grape; +Welcome are lands of sugar and rice; +Welcome are cotton-lands--welcome those of the white potato and sweet + potato; +Welcome are mountains, flats, sands, forests, prairies; +Welcome the rich borders of rivers, table-lands, openings, +Welcome the measureless grazing-lands--welcome the teeming soil of + orchards, flax, honey, hemp; +Welcome just as much the other more hard-faced lands; +Lands rich as lands of gold, or wheat and fruit lands; +Lands of mines, lands of the manly and rugged ores; +Lands of coal, copper, lead, tin, zinc; +LANDS OF IRON! lands of the make of the axe! + + +3. + +The log at the wood-pile, the axe supported by it; +The sylvan hut, the vine over the doorway, the space cleared for a garden, +The irregular tapping of rain down on the leaves, after the storm is + lulled, +The wailing and moaning at intervals, the thought of the sea, +The thought of ships struck in the storm, and put on their beam-ends, and + the cutting away of masts; +The sentiment of the huge timbers of old-fashioned houses and barns; +The remembered print or narrative, the voyage at a venture of men, + families, goods, +The disembarkation, the founding of a new city, +The voyage of those who sought a New England and found it--the outset + anywhere, +The settlements of the Arkansas, Colorado, Ottawa, Willamette, +The slow progress, the scant fare, the axe, rifle, saddle-bags; +The beauty of all adventurous and daring persons, +The beauty of wood-boys and wood-men, with their clear untrimmed faces, +The beauty of independence, departure, actions that rely on themselves, +The American contempt for statutes and ceremonies, the boundless impatience + of restraint, +The loose drift of character, the inkling through random types, the + solidification; +The butcher in the slaughter-house, the hands aboard schooners and sloops, + the raftsman, the pioneer, +Lumbermen in their winter camp, daybreak in the woods, stripes of snow on + the limbs of trees, the occasional snapping, +The glad clear sound of one's own voice, the merry song, the natural life + of the woods, the strong day's work, +The blazing fire at night, the sweet taste of supper, the talk, the bed of + hemlock boughs, and the bearskin; +--The house-builder at work in cities or anywhere, +The preparatory jointing, squaring, sawing, mortising, +The hoist-up of beams, the push of them in their places, laying them + regular, Setting the studs by their tenons in the mortises, + according as they were prepared, +The blows of mallets and hammers, the attitudes of the men, their curved + limbs, +Bending, standing, astride the beams, driving in pins, holding on by posts + and braces, +The hooked arm over the plate, the other arm wielding the axe, +The floor-men forcing the planks close, to be nailed, +Their postures bringing their weapons downward on the bearers, +The echoes resounding through the vacant building; +The huge store-house carried up in the city, well under way, +The six framing men, two in the middle, and two at each end, carefully + bearing on their shoulders a heavy stick for a cross-beam, +The crowded line of masons with trowels in their right hands, rapidly + laying the long side-wall, two hundred feet from front to rear, +The flexible rise and fall of backs, the continual click of the trowels + striking the bricks, +The bricks, one after another, each laid so workmanlike in its place, and + set with a knock of the trowel-handle, +The piles of materials, the mortar on the mortar-boards, and the steady + replenishing by the hod-men; +--Spar-makers in the spar-yard, the swarming row of well-grown apprentices, +The swing of their axes on the square-hewed log, shaping it toward the + shape of a mast, +The brisk short crackle of the steel driven slantingly into the pine, +The butter-coloured chips flying off in great flakes and slivers, +The limber motion of brawny young arms and hips in easy costumes; +The constructor of wharves, bridges, piers, bulk-heads, floats, stays + against the sea; +--The city fireman--the fire that suddenly bursts forth in the close-packed + square, +The arriving engines, the hoarse shouts, the nimble stepping and daring, +The strong command through the fire-trumpets, the falling in line, the rise + and fall of the arms forcing the water, +The slender, spasmic blue-white jets--the bringing to bear of the hooks and + ladders, and their execution, +The crash and cut-away of connecting woodwork, or through floors, if the + fire smoulders under them, +The crowd with their lit faces, watching--the glare and dense shadows; +--The forger at his forge-furnace, and the user of iron after him, +The maker of the axe large and small, and the welder and temperer, +The chooser breathing his breath on the cold steel, and trying the edge + with his thumb, +The one who clean-shapes the handle and sets it firmly in the socket; +The shadowy processions of the portraits of the past users also, +The primal patient mechanics, the architects and engineers, +The far-off Assyrian edifice and Mizra edifice, +The Roman lictors preceding the consuls, +The antique European warrior with his axe in combat, +The uplifted arm, the clatter of blows on the helmeted head, +The death-howl, the limpsey tumbling body, the rush of friend and foe + thither, +The siege of revolted lieges determined for liberty, +The summons to surrender, the battering at castle-gates, the truce and + parley; +The sack of an old city in its time, +The bursting in of mercenaries and bigots tumultuously and disorderly, +Roar, flames, blood, drunkenness, madness, +Goods freely rifled from houses and temples, screams of women in the gripe + of brigands, +Craft and thievery of camp-followers, men running, old persons despairing, +The hell of war, the cruelties of creeds, +The list of all executive deeds and words, just or unjust, +The power of personality, just or unjust. + + +4. + +Muscle and pluck for ever! +What invigorates life invigorates death, +And the dead advance as much as the living advance, +And the future is no more uncertain than the present, +And the roughness of the earth and of man encloses as + much as the _delicatesse_ of the earth and of man, +And nothing endures but personal qualities. + +What do you think endures? +Do you think the great city endures? +Or a teeming manufacturing state? or a prepared constitution? or the best- + built steamships? +Or hotels of granite and iron? or any _chefs-d'oeuvre_ of engineering, + forts, armaments? + +Away! These are not to be cherished for themselves; +They fill their hour, the dancers dance, the musicians play + for them; +The show passes, all does well enough of course, +All does very well till one flash of defiance. + +The great city is that which has the greatest man or woman; +If it be a few ragged huts, it is still the greatest city in the + whole world. + + +5. + +The place where the great city stands is not the place of + stretched wharves, docks, manufactures, deposits of produce, +Nor the place of ceaseless salutes of new-comers, or the + anchor-lifters of the departing, +Nor the place of the tallest and costliest buildings, or shops + selling goods from the rest of the earth, +Nor the place of the best libraries and schools--nor the place where money + is plentiest, +Nor the place of the most numerous population. + +Where the city stands with the brawniest breed of orators and bards; +Where the city stands that is beloved by these, and loves them in return, + and understands them; +Where no monuments exist to heroes but in the common words and deeds; +Where thrift is in its place, and prudence is in its place; +Where the men and women think lightly of the laws; +Where the slave ceases, and the master of slaves ceases; +Where the populace rise at once against the never-ending audacity of + elected persons; +Where fierce men and women pour forth, as the sea to the whistle of death + pours its sweeping and unripped waves; +Where outside authority enters always after the precedence of inside + authority; +Where the citizen is always the head and ideal--and President, Mayor, + Governor, and what not, are agents for pay; +Where children are taught to be laws to themselves, and to depend on + themselves; +Where equanimity is illustrated in affairs; +Where speculations on the Soul are encouraged; +Where women walk in public processions in the streets, the same as the men; +Where they enter the public assembly and take places the same as the men; +Where the city of the faithfullest friends stands; +Where the city of the cleanliness of the sexes stands; +Where the city of the healthiest fathers stands; +Where the city of the best-bodied mothers stands,-- +There the great city stands. + + +6. + +How beggarly appear arguments before a defiant deed! +How the floridness of the materials of cities shrivels before a man's or + woman's look! + +All waits, or goes by default, till a strong being appears; +A strong being is the proof of the race, and of the ability of the + universe; +When he or she appears, materials are overawed, +The dispute on the Soul stops, +The old customs and phrases are confronted, turned back, or laid away. + +What is your money-making now? What can it do now? +What is your respectability now? +What are your theology, tuition, society, traditions, statute-books, now? +Where are your jibes of being now? +Where are your cavils about the Soul now? + +Was that your best? Were those your vast and solid? +Riches, opinions, politics, institutions, to part obediently from the path + of one man or woman! +The centuries, and all authority, to be trod under the foot-soles of one + man or woman! + + +7. + +A sterile landscape covers the ore--there is as good as the best, for all + the forbidding appearance; +There is the mine, there are the miners; +The forge-furnace is there, the melt is accomplished; the hammersmen are at + hand with their tongs and hammers; +What always served and always serves is at hand. + +Than this nothing has better served--it has served all: +Served the fluent-tongued and subtle-sensed Greek, and long ere the Greek; +Served in building the buildings that last longer than any; +Served the Hebrew, the Persian, the most ancient Hindostanee; +Served the mound-raiser on the Mississippi--served those whose relics + remain in Central America; +Served Albic temples in woods or on plains, with unhewn pillars, and the + druids; +Served the artificial clefts, vast, high, silent, on the snow-covered hills + of Scandinavia; +Served those who, time out of mind, made on the granite walls rough + sketches of the sun, moon, stars, ships, ocean-waves; +Served the paths of the irruptions of the Goths--served the pastoral tribes + and nomads; +Served the long long distant Kelt--served the hardy pirates of the Baltic; +Served, before any of those, the venerable and harmless men of Ethiopia; +Served the making of helms for the galleys of pleasure, and the making of + those for war; +Served all great works on land, and all great works on the sea; +For the mediaeval ages, and before the mediaeval ages; +Served not the living only, then as now, but served the dead. + + +8. + +I see the European headsman; +He stands masked, clothed in red, with huge legs and strong naked arms, +And leans on a ponderous axe. + +Whom have you slaughtered lately, European headsman? +Whose is that blood upon you, so wet and sticky? + +I see the clear sunsets of the martyrs; +I see from the scaffolds the descending ghosts, +Ghosts of dead lords, uncrowned ladies, impeached ministers, rejected + kings, +Rivals, traitors, poisoners, disgraced chieftains, and the rest. + +I see those who in any land have died for the good cause; +The seed is spare, nevertheless the crop shall never run out; +(Mind you, O foreign kings, O priests, the crop shall never run out.) + +I see the blood washed entirely away from the axe; +Both blade and helve are clean; +They spirt no more the blood of European nobles--they clasp no more the + necks of queens. + +I see the headsman withdraw and become useless; +I see the scaffold untrodden and mouldy--I see no longer any axe upon it; +I see the mighty and friendly emblem of the power of my own race--the + newest, largest race. + + +9. + +America! I do not vaunt my love for you; +I have what I have. + +The axe leaps! +The solid forest gives fluid utterances; +They tumble forth, they rise and form, +Hut, tent, landing, survey, +Flail, plough, pick, crowbar, spade, +Shingle, rail, prop, wainscot, jamb, lath, panel, gable, +Citadel, ceiling, saloon, academy, organ, exhibition house, library, +Cornice, trellis, pilaster, balcony, window, shutter, turret, porch, +Hoe, rake, pitchfork, pencil, waggon, staff, saw, jack-plane, mallet, + wedge, rounce, +Chair, tub, hoop, table, wicket, vane, sash, floor, +Work-box, chest, stringed instrument, boat, frame, and what not, +Capitols of States, and capitol of the nation of States, +Long stately rows in avenues, hospitals for orphans, or for the poor or + sick, +Manhattan steamboats and clippers, taking the measure of all seas. + +The shapes arise! +Shapes of the using of axes anyhow, and the users, and all that neighbours + them, +Cutters-down of wood, and haulers of it to the Penobscot or Kennebec, +Dwellers in cabins among the Californian mountains, or by the little lakes, + or on the Columbia, +Dwellers south on the banks of the Gila or Rio Grande--friendly gatherings, + the characters and fun, +Dwellers up north in Minnesota and by the Yellowstone river--dwellers on + coasts and off coasts, +Seal-fishers, whalers, arctic seamen breaking passages through the ice. + +The shapes arise! +Shapes of factories, arsenals, foundries, markets; +Shapes of the two-threaded tracks of railroads; +Shapes of the sleepers of bridges, vast frameworks, girders, arches; +Shapes of the fleets of barges, tows, lake craft, river craft. + +The shapes arise! +Shipyards and dry-docks along the Eastern and Western Seas, and in many a + bay and by-place, +The live-oak kelsons, the pine-planks, the spars, the hackmatack-roots for + knees, +The ships themselves on their ways, the tiers of scaffolds, the workmen + busy outside and inside, +The tools lying around, the great auger and little auger, the adze, bolt, + line, square, gouge, and bead-plane. + + +10. + +The shapes arise! +The shape measured, sawed, jacked, joined, stained, +The coffin-shape for the dead to lie within in his shroud; +The shape got out in posts, in the bedstead posts, in the posts of the + bride's bed; +The shape of the little trough, the shape of the rockers beneath, the shape + of the babe's cradle; +The shape of the floor-planks, the floor-planks for dancers' feet; +The shape of the planks of the family home, the home of the friendly + parents and children, +The shape of the roof of the home of the happy young man and woman, the + roof over the well-married young man and woman, +The roof over the supper joyously cooked by the chaste wife, and joyously + eaten by the chaste husband, content after his day's work. + +The shapes arise! +The shape of the prisoner's place in the court-room, and of him or her + seated in the place; +The shape of the liquor-bar leaned against by the young rum-drinker and the + old rum-drinker; +The shape of the shamed and angry stairs, trod, by sneaking footsteps; +The shape of the sly settee, and the adulterous unwholesome couple; +The shape of the gambling-board with its devilish winnings and losings; +The shape of the step-ladder for the convicted and sentenced murderer, the + murderer with haggard face and pinioned arms, +The sheriff at hand with his deputies, the silent and white-lipped crowd, + the sickening dangling of the rope. + +The shapes arise! +Shapes of doors giving many exits and entrances; +The door passing the dissevered friend, flushed and in haste; +The door that admits good news and bad news; +The door whence the son left home, confident and puffed up; +The door he entered again from a long and scandalous absence, diseased, + broken down, without innocence, without means. + + +11. + +Her shape arises, +She less guarded than ever, yet more guarded than ever; +The gross and soiled she moves among do not make her gross and soiled; +She knows the thoughts as she passes--nothing is concealed from her; +She is none the less considerate or friendly therefor; +She is the best beloved--it is without exception--she has no reason to + fear, and she does not fear; +Oaths, quarrels, hiccupped songs, smutty expressions, are idle to her as + she passes; +She is silent--she is possessed of herself--they do not offend her; +She receives them as the laws of nature receive them--she is strong, +She too is a law of nature--there is no law stronger than she is. + + +12. + +The main shapes arise! +Shapes of Democracy, total result of centuries; +Shapes, ever projecting other shapes; +Shapes of a hundred Free States, begetting another hundred; +Shapes of turbulent manly cities; +Shapes of the women fit for these States, +Shapes of the friends and home-givers of the whole earth, +Shapes bracing the earth, and braced with the whole earth. + + + +_ANTECEDENTS._ + + +1. + +With antecedents; +With my fathers and mothers, and the accumulations of past ages: +With all which, had it not been, I would not now be here, as I am; +With Egypt, India, Phoenicia, Greece, and Rome; +With the Kelt, the Scandinavian, the Alb, and the Saxon; +With antique maritime ventures,--with laws, artisanship, wars, and + journeys; +With the poet, the skald, the saga, the myth, and the oracle; +With the sale of slaves--with enthusiasts--with the troubadour, the + crusader, and the monk; +With those old continents whence we have come to this new continent; +With the fading kingdoms and kings over there; +With the fading religions and priests; +With the small shores we look back to from our own large and present + shores; +With countless years drawing themselves onward, and arrived at these years; +You and Me arrived--America arrived, and making this year; +This year! sending itself ahead countless years to come. + + +2. + +O but it is not the years--it is I--it is You; +We touch all laws, and tally all antecedents; +We are the skald, the oracle, the monk, and the knight--we easily include + them, and more; +We stand amid time, beginningless and endless--we stand amid evil and good; +All swings around us--there is as much darkness as light; +The very sun swings itself and its system of planets around us: +Its sun, and its again, all swing around us. + + +3. + +As for me, (torn, stormy, even as I, amid these vehement days;) +I have the idea of all, and am all, and believe in all; +I believe materialism is true, and spiritualism is true--I reject no part. + +Have I forgotten any part? +Come to me, whoever and whatever, till I give you recognition. + +I respect Assyria, China, Teutonia, and the Hebrews; +I adopt each theory, myth, god, and demi-god; +I see that the old accounts, bibles, genealogies, are true, without + exception; +I assert that all past days were what they should have been; +And that they could nohow have been better than they were, +And that to-day is what it should be--and that America is, +And that to-day and America could nohow be better than they are. + + +4. + +In the name of these States, and in your and my name, the Past, +And in the name of these States, and in your and my name, the Present time. + +I know that the past was great, and the future will be great, +And I know that both curiously conjoint in the present time, +For the sake of him I typify--for the common average man's sake--your sake, + if you are he; +And that where I am, or you are, this present day, there is the centre of + all days, all races, +And there is the meaning, to us, of all that has ever come of races and + days, or ever will come. + + + +_SALUT AU MONDE!_ + + +1. + +O take my hand, Walt Whitman! +Such gliding wonders! such sights and sounds! +Such joined unended links, each hooked to the next! +Each answering all--each sharing the earth with all. + +What widens within you, Walt Whitman? +What waves and soils exuding? +What climes? what persons and lands are here? +Who are the infants? some playing, some slumbering? +Who are the girls? who are the married women? +Who are the three old men going slowly with their arms about each others' + necks? +What rivers are these? what forests and fruits are these? +What are the mountains called that rise so high in the mists? +What myriads of dwellings are they, filled with dwellers? + + +2. + +Within me latitude widens, longitude lengthens; +Asia, Africa, Europe, are to the east--America is provided for in the west; +Banding the bulge of the earth winds the hot equator, +Curiously north and south turn the axis-ends; +Within me is the longest day--the sun wheels in slanting rings--it does not + set for months. +Stretched in due time within me the midnight sun just rises above the + horizon, and sinks again; +Within me zones, seas, cataracts, plants, volcanoes, groups, +Malaysia, Polynesia, and the great West Indian islands. + + +3. + +What do you hear, Walt Whitman? + +I hear the workman singing, and the farmer's wife singing; +I hear in the distance the sounds of children, and of animals early in the + day; +I hear quick rifle-cracks from the riflemen of East Tennessee and Kentucky, + hunting on hills; +I hear emulous shouts of Australians, pursuing the wild horse; +I hear the Spanish dance, with castanets, in the chestnut shade, to the + rebeck and guitar; +I hear continual echoes from the Thames; +I hear fierce French liberty songs; +I hear of the Italian boat-sculler the musical recitative of old poems; +I hear the Virginian plantation chorus of negroes, of a harvest night, in + the glare of pine-knots; +I hear the strong barytone of the 'long-shore-men of Mannahatta; +I hear the stevedores unlading the cargoes, and singing; +I hear the screams of the water-fowl of solitary north-west lakes; +I hear the rustling pattering of locusts, as they strike the grain and + grass with the showers of their terrible clouds; +I hear the Coptic refrain, toward sundown, pensively falling on the breast + of the black venerable vast mother, the Nile; +I hear the bugles of raft-tenders on the streams of Canada; +I hear the chirp of the Mexican muleteer, and the bells of the mule; +I hear the Arab muezzin, calling from the top of the mosque; +I hear the Christian priests at the altars of their churches--I hear the + responsive bass and soprano; +I hear the wail of utter despair of the white-haired Irish grandparents, + when they learn the death of their grandson; +I hear the cry of the Cossack, and the sailor's voice, putting to sea at + Okotsk; +I hear the wheeze of the slave-coffle, as the slaves march on--as the husky + gangs pass on by twos and threes, fastened together with wrist- + chains and ankle-chains; +I hear the entreaties of women tied up for punishment--I hear the sibilant + whisk of thongs through the air; +I hear the Hebrew reading his records and psalms; +I hear the rhythmic myths of the Greeks, and the strong legends of the + Romans; +I hear the tale of the divine life and bloody death of the beautiful God, + the Christ; +I hear the Hindoo teaching his favourite pupil the loves, wars, adages, + transmitted safely to this day from poets who wrote three thousand + years ago. + + +4. + +What do you see, Walt Whitman? +Who are they you salute, and that one after another salute you? + +I see a great round wonder rolling through the air: +I see diminute farms, hamlets, ruins, grave-yards, jails, factories, + palaces, hovels, huts of barbarians, tents of nomads, upon the + surface; +I see the shaded part on one side, where the sleepers are sleeping--and the + sun-lit part on the other side; +I see the curious silent change of the light and shade; +I see distant lands, as real and near to the inhabitants of them as my land + is to me. + +I see plenteous waters; +I see mountain-peaks--I see the sierras of Andes and Alleghanies, where + they range; +I see plainly the Himalayas, Chian Shahs, Altays, Ghauts; +I see the Rocky Mountains, and the Peak of Winds; +I see the Styrian Alps, and the Karnac Alps; +I see the Pyrenees, Balks, Carpathians--and to the north the Dofrafields, + and off at sea Mount Hecla; +I see Vesuvius and Etna--I see the Anahuacs; +I see the Mountains of the Moon, and the Snow Mountains, and the Red + Mountains of Madagascar; +I see the Vermont hills, and the long string of Cordilleras; +I see the vast deserts of Western America; +I see the Libyan, Arabian, and Asiatic deserts; +I see huge dreadful Arctic and Anarctic icebergs; +I see the superior oceans and the inferior ones--the Atlantic and Pacific, + the sea of Mexico, the Brazilian sea, and the sea of Peru, +The Japan waters, those of Hindostan, the China Sea, and the Gulf of + Guinea, +The spread of the Baltic, Caspian, Bothnia, the British shores, and the Bay + of Biscay, +The clear-sunned Mediterranean, and from one to another of its islands, +The inland fresh-tasted seas of North America, +The White Sea, and the sea around Greenland. +I behold the mariners of the world; +Some are in storms--some in the night, with the watch on the look-out; +Some drifting helplessly--some with contagious diseases. + +I behold the sail and steam ships of the world, some in clusters in port, + some on their voyages; +Some double the Cape of Storms--some Cape Verde,--others Cape Guardafui, + Bon, or Bajadore; +Others Dondra Head--others pass the Straits of Sunda--others Cape Lopatka-- + others Behring's Straits; +Others Cape Horn--others the Gulf of Mexico, or along Cuba or Hayti--others + Hudson's Bay or Baffin's Bay; +Others pass the Straits of Dover--others enter the Wash--others the Firth + of Solway--others round Cape Clear--others the Land's End; +Others traverse the Zuyder Zee, or the Scheld; +Others add to the exits and entrances at Sandy Hook; +Others to the comers and goers at Gibraltar, or the Dardanelles; +Others sternly push their way through the northern winter-packs; +Others descend or ascend the Obi or the Lena: +Others the Niger or the Congo--others the Indus, the Burampooter and + Cambodia; +Others wait at the wharves of Manhattan, steamed up, ready to start; +Wait, swift and swarthy, in the ports of Australia; +Wait at Liverpool, Glasgow, Dublin, Marseilles, Lisbon, Naples, Hamburg, + Bremen, Bordeaux, the Hague, Copenhagen; +Wait at Valparaiso, Rio Janeiro, Panama; +Wait at their moorings at Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston, New + Orleans, Galveston, San Francisco. + + +5. + +I see the tracks of the railroads of the earth; +I see them welding State to State, city to city, through North America; +I see them in Great Britain, I see them in Europe; +I see them in Asia and in Africa. + +I see the electric telegraphs of the earth; +I see the filaments of the news of the wars, deaths, losses, gains, + passions, of my race. + +I see the long river-stripes of the earth; +I see where the Mississippi flows--I see where the Columbia flows; +I see the Great River, and the Falls of Niagara; +I see the Amazon and the Paraguay; +I see the four great rivers of China, the Amour, the Yellow River, the + Yiang-tse, and the Pearl; +I see where the Seine flows, and where the Loire, the Rhone, and the + Guadalquivir flow; +I see the windings of the Volga, the Dnieper, the Oder; +I see the Tuscan going down the Arno, and the Venetian along the Po; +I see the Greek seaman sailing out of Egina bay. + + +6. + +I see the site of the old empire of Assyria, and that of Persia, and that + of India; +I see the falling of the Ganges over the high rim of Saukara. +I see the place of the idea of the Deity incarnated by avatars in human + forms; +I see the spots of the successions of priests on the earth--oracles, + sacrificers, brahmins, sabians, lamas, monks, muftis, exhorters; +I see where druids walked the groves of Mona--I see the mistletoe and + vervain; +I see the temples of the deaths of the bodies of Gods--I see the old + signifiers. + +I see Christ once more eating the bread of His last supper, in the midst of + youths and old persons: +I see where the strong divine young man, the Hercules, toiled faithfully + and long, and then died; +I see the place of the innocent rich life and hapless fate of the beautiful + nocturnal son, the full-limbed Bacchus; +I see Kneph, blooming, drest in blue, with the crown of feathers on his + head; +I see Hermes, unsuspected, dying, well-beloved, saying to the people, _Do + not weep for me, +This is not my true country, I have lived banished from my true country--I + now go back there, +I return to the celestial sphere, where every one goes in his turn_. + + +7. + +I see the battlefields of the earth--grass grows upon them, and blossoms + and corn; +I see the tracks of ancient and modern expeditions. + +I see the nameless masonries, venerable messages of the unknown events, + heroes, records of the earth; +I see the places of the sagas; +I see pine-trees and fir-frees torn by northern blasts; +I see granite boulders and cliffs--I see green meadows and lakes; +I see the burial-cairns of Scandinavian warriors; +I see them raised high with stones, by the marge of restless oceans, that + the dead men's spirits, when they wearied of their quiet graves, + might rise up through the mounds, and gaze on the tossing billows, + and be refreshed by storms, immensity, liberty, action. + +I see the steppes of Asia; +I see the tumuli of Mongolia--I see the tents of Kalmucks and Baskirs; +I see the nomadic tribes, with herds of oxen and cows; +I see the table-lands notched with ravines--I see the jungles and deserts; +I see the camel, the wild steed, the bustard, the fat-tailed sheep, the + antelope, and the burrowing-wolf. + +I see the highlands of Abyssinia; +I see flocks of goats feeding, and see the fig-tree, tamarind, date, +And see fields of teff-wheat, and see the places of verdure and gold. + +I see the Brazilian vaquero; +I see the Bolivian ascending Mount Sorata; +I see the Wacho crossing the plains--I see the incomparable rider of horses +with his lasso on his arm; +I see over the pampas the pursuit of wild cattle for their hides. + + +8. + +I see little and large sea-dots, some inhabited, some uninhabited; +I see two boats with nets, lying off the shore of Paumanok, quite still; +I see ten fishermen waiting--they discover now a thick school of + mossbonkers--they drop the joined sein-ends in the water, +The boats separate--they diverge and row off, each on its rounding course + to the beach, enclosing the mossbonkers; +The net is drawn in by a windlass by those who stop ashore, +Some of the fishermen lounge in their boats--others stand negligently + ankle-deep in the water, poised on strong legs; +The boats are partly drawn up--the water slaps against them; +On the sand, in heaps and winrows, well out from the water, lie the green- + backed spotted mossbonkers. + + +9. + +I see the despondent red man in the west, lingering about the banks of + Moingo, and about Lake Pepin; +He has heard the quail and beheld the honey-bee, and sadly prepared to + depart. + +I see the regions of snow and ice; +I see the sharp-eyed Samoiede and the Finn; +I see the seal-seeker in his boat, poising his lance; +I see the Siberian on his slight-built sledge, drawn by dogs; +I see the porpess-hunters--I see the whale-crews of the South Pacific and + the North Atlantic; +I see the cliffs, glaciers, torrents, valleys, of Switzerland--I mark the + long winters, and the isolation. + +I see the cities of the earth, and make myself at random a part of them; +I am a real Parisian; +I am a habitant of Vienna, St. Petersburg, Berlin, Constantinople; +I am of Adelaide, Sidney, Melbourne; +I am of London, Manchester, Bristol, Edinburgh, Limerick, +I am of Madrid, Cadiz, Barcelona, Oporto, Lyons, Brussels, Berne, + Frankfort, Stuttgart, Turin, Florence; +I belong in Moscow, Cracow, Warsaw--or northward in Christiania or + Stockholm--or in Siberian Irkutsk--or in some street in Iceland; +I descend upon all those cities, and rise from them again. + + +10. + +I see vapours exhaling from unexplored countries; +I see the savage types, the bow and arrow, the poisoned splint, the fetish, + and the obi. + +I see African and Asiatic towns; +I see Algiers, Tripoli, Derne, Mogadore, Timbuctoo, Monrovia; +I see the swarms of Pekin, Canton, Benares, Delhi, Calcutta, Yedo; +I see the Kruman in his hut, and the Dahoman and Ashantee-man in their + huts; +I see the Turk smoking opium in Aleppo; +I see the picturesque crowds at the fairs of Khiva, and those of Herat; +I see Teheran--I see Muscat and Medina, and the intervening sands--I see + the caravans toiling onward; +I see Egypt and the Egyptians--I see the pyramids and obelisks; +I look on chiselled histories, songs, philosophies, cut in slabs of + sandstone or on granite blocks; +I see at Memphis mummy-pits, containing mummies, embalmed, swathed in linen + cloth, lying there many centuries; +I look on the fallen Theban, the large-balled eyes, the side-drooping neck, + the hands folded across the breast. + +I see the menials of the earth, labouring; +I see the prisoners in the prisons; +I see the defective human bodies of the earth; +I see the blind, the deaf and dumb, idiots, hunchbacks, lunatics; +I see the pirates, thieves, betrayers, murderers, slave-makers of the + earth; +I see the helpless infants, and the helpless old men and women. + +I see male and female everywhere; +I see the serene brotherhood of philosophs; +I see the constructiveness of my race; +I see the results of the perseverance and industry of my race; +I see ranks, colours, barbarisms, civilisations--I go among them--I mix + indiscriminately, +And I salute all the inhabitants of the earth. + + +11. + +You, where you are! +You daughter or son of England! +You of the mighty Slavic tribes and empires! you Russ in Russia! +You dim-descended, black, divine-souled African, large, fine-headed, + nobly-formed, superbly destined, on equal terms with me! +You Norwegian! Swede! Dane! Icelander! you Prussian! +You Spaniard of Spain! you Portuguese! +You Frenchwoman and Frenchman of France! +You Belge! you liberty-lover of the Netherlands! +You sturdy Austrian! you Lombard! Hun! Bohemian! farmer of Styria! +You neighbour of the Danube! +You working-man of the Rhine, the Elbe, or the Weser! you working-woman + too! +You Sardinian! you Bavarian! Swabian! Saxon! Wallachian! Bulgarian! +You citizen of Prague! Roman! Neapolitan! Greek! +You lithe matador in the arena at Seville! +You mountaineer living lawlessly on the Taurus or Caucasus! +You Bokh horse-herd, watching your mares and stallions feeding! +You beautiful-bodied Persian, at full speed in the saddle shooting arrows + to the mark! +You Chinaman and Chinawoman of China! you Tartar of Tartary! +You women of the earth subordinated at your tasks! +You Jew journeying in your old age through every risk, to stand once on + Syrian ground! +You other Jews waiting in all lands for your Messiah! +You thoughtful Armenian, pondering by some stream of the Euphrates! you + peering amid the ruins of Nineveh! you ascending Mount Ararat! +You foot-worn pilgrim welcoming the far-away sparkle of the minarets of + Mecca! +You sheiks along the stretch from Suez to Babelmandeb, ruling your families + and tribes! +You olive-grower tending your fruit on fields of Nazareth, Damascus, or + Lake Tiberias! +You Thibet trader on the wide inland, or bargaining in the shops of Lassa! +You Japanese man or woman! you liver in Madagascar, Ceylon, Sumatra, + Borneo! +All you continentals of Asia, Africa, Europe, Australia, indifferent of + place! +All you on the numberless islands of the archipelagoes of the sea! +And you of centuries hence, when you listen to me! +And you, each and everywhere, whom I specify not, but include just the + same! +Health to you! Goodwill to you all--from me and America sent. + +Each of us inevitable; +Each of us limitless--each of us with his or her right upon the earth; +Each of us allowed the eternal purports of the earth: +Each of us here as divinely as any is here. + + +12. + +You Hottentot with clicking palate! You woolly-haired hordes! +You owned persons, dropping sweat-drops or blood-drops! +You human forms with the fathomless ever-impressive countenances of brutes! +I dare not refuse you--the scope of the world, and of time and space, are + upon me. + +You poor koboo whom the meanest of the rest look down upon, for all your + glimmering language and spirituality! +You low expiring aborigines of the hills of Utah, Oregon, California! +You dwarfed Kamtschatkan, Greenlander, Lap! +You Austral negro, naked, red, sooty, with protrusive lip, grovelling, + seeking your food! +You Caffre, Berber, Soudanese! +You haggard, uncouth, untutored Bedowee! +You plague-swarms in Madras, Nankin, Kaubul, Cairo! +You bather bathing in the Ganges! +You benighted roamer of Amazonia! you Patagonian! you Fejee-man! +You peon of Mexico! you slave of Carolina, Texas, Tennessee! +I do not prefer others so very much before you either; +I do not say one word against you, away back there, where you stand; +You will come forward in due time to my side. + +My spirit has passed in compassion and determination around the whole + earth; +I have looked for equals and lovers, and found them ready for me in all + lands; +I think some divine rapport has equalised me with them. + + +13. + +O vapours! I think I have risen with you, and moved away to distant + continents, and fallen down there, for reasons; +I think I have blown with you, O winds; +O waters, I have fingered every shore with you. + +I have run through what any river or strait of the globe has run through; +I have taken my stand on the bases of peninsulas, and on the highest + embedded rocks, to cry thence. + +_Salut au Monde!_ +What cities the light or warmth penetrates, I penetrate those cities + myself; +All islands to which birds wing their way, I wing my way myself. + +Toward all +I raise high the perpendicular hand--I make the signal, +To remain after me in sight for ever, +For all the haunts and homes of men. + + + +_A BROADWAY PAGEANT._ + +(RECEPTION OF THE JAPANESE EMBASSY, JUNE 16, 1860.) + + +1. + +Over sea, hither from Niphon, +Courteous, the Princes of Asia, swart-cheeked princes, +First-comers, guests, two-sworded princes, +Lesson-giving princes, leaning back in their open barouches, bare-headed, + impassive, +This day they ride through Manhattan. + + +2. + +Libertad! +I do not know whether others behold what I behold, +In the procession, along with the Princes of Asia, the errand-bearers, +Bringing up the rear, hovering above, around, or in the ranks marching; +But I will sing you a song of what I behold, Libertad. + + +3. + +When million-footed Manhattan, unpent, descends to its pavements; +When the thunder-cracking guns arouse me with the proud roar I love; +When the round-mouthed guns, out of the smoke and smell I love, spit their + salutes; +When the fire-flashing guns have fully alerted me--when heaven-clouds + canopy my city with a delicate thin haze; +When, gorgeous, the countless straight stems, the forests at the wharves, + thicken with colours; +When every ship, richly dressed, carries her flag at the peak; +When pennants trail, and street-festoons hang from the windows; +When Broadway is entirely given up to foot-passengers and foot-standers-- +when the mass is densest; +When the façades of the houses are alive with people--when eyes gaze, + riveted, tens of thousands at a time; +When the guests from the islands advance--when the pageant moves forward, + visible; +When the summons is made--when the answer, that waited thousands of years, + answers; +I too, arising, answering, descend to the pavements, merge with the crowd, + and gaze with them. + + +4. + +Superb-faced Manhattan! +Comrade Americanos!--to us, then, at last, the Orient comes. +To us, my city, +Where our tall-topped marble and iron beauties range on opposite sides--to + walk in the space between, +To-day our Antipodes comes. + +The Originatress comes, +The land of Paradise--land of the Caucasus--the nest of birth, +The nest of languages, the bequeather of poems, the race of eld, +Florid with blood, pensive, rapt with musings, hot with passion, +Sultry with perfume, with ample and flowing garments, +With sunburnt visage, with intense soul and glittering eyes, +The race of Brahma comes! + +See, my cantabile! these, and more, are flashing to us from the procession; +As it moves changing, a kaleidoscope divine it moves changing before us. + +Not the errand-bearing princes, nor the tanned Japanee only; +Lithe and silent, the Hindoo appears--the whole Asiatic continent itself + appears--the Past, the dead, +The murky night-morning of wonder and fable, inscrutable, +The enveloped mysteries, the old and unknown hive-bees, +The North--the sweltering South--Assyria--the Hebrews--the Ancient of + ancients, +Vast desolated cities--the gliding Present--all of these, and more, are in + the pageant-procession. + +Geography, the world, is in it; +The Great Sea, the brood of islands, Polynesia, the coast beyond; +The coast you henceforth are facing--you Libertad! from your Western golden + shores; +The countries there, with their populations--the millions _en masse_, are + curiously here; +The swarming market-places--the temples, with idols ranged along the sides, + or at the end--bronze, brahmin, and lama; +The mandarin, farmer, merchant, mechanic, and fisherman; +The singing-girl and the dancing-girl--the ecstatic person--the divine + Buddha; +The secluded Emperors--Confucius himself--the great poets and heroes--the + warriors, the castes, all, +Trooping up, crowding from all directions--from the Altay mountains, +From Thibet--from the four winding and far-flowing rivers + of China, +From the Southern peninsulas, and the demi-continental islands--from + Malaysia; +These, and whatever belongs to them, palpable, show forth to me, and are + seized by me, +And I am seized by them, and friendlily held by them, +Till, as here, them all I chant, Libertad! for themselves and for you. + + +5. + +For I too, raising my voice, join the ranks of this pageant; +I am the chanter--I chant aloud over the pageant; +I chant the world on my Western Sea; +I chant, copious, the islands beyond, thick as stars in the sky; +I chant the new empire, grander than any before--As in a vision it comes to + me; +I chant America, the Mistress--I chant a greater supremacy; +I chant, projected, a thousand blooming cities yet, in time, on those + groups of sea-islands; +I chant my sail-ships and steam-ships threading the archipelagoes; +I chant my stars and stripes fluttering in the wind; +I chant commerce opening, the sleep of ages having done its work--races + reborn, refreshed; +Lives, works, resumed--The object I know not--but the old, the Asiatic, + resumed, as it must be, +Commencing from this day, surrounded by the world. + +And you, Libertad of the world! +You shall sit in the middle, well-poised, thousands of years; +As to-day, from one side, the Princes of Asia come to you; +As to-morrow, from the other side, the Queen of England sends her eldest + son to you. + +The sign is reversing, the orb is enclosed, +The ring is circled, the journey is done; +The box-lid is but perceptibly opened--nevertheless the perfume pours + copiously out of the whole box. + + +6. + +Young Libertad! +With the venerable Asia, the all-mother, +Be considerate with her, now and ever, hot Libertad--for you are all; +Bend your proud neck to the long-off mother, now sending messages over the + archipelagoes to you: +Bend your proud neck for once, young Libertad. + + +7. + +Were the children straying westward so long? so wide the tramping? +Were the precedent dim ages debouching westward from Paradise so long? +Were the centuries steadily footing it that way, all the while unknown, for + you, for reasons? +They are justified--they are accomplished--they shall now be turned the + other way also, to travel toward you thence; +They shall now also march obediently eastward, for your sake, Libertad. + + + +_OLD IRELAND._ + + +1. + +Far hence, amid an isle of wondrous beauty, +Crouching over a grave, an ancient sorrowful mother, +Once a queen--now lean and tattered, seated on the ground, +Her old white hair drooping dishevelled round her shoulders; +At her feet fallen an unused royal harp, +Long silent--she too long silent--mourning her shrouded hope and heir; +Of all the earth her heart most full of sorrow, because most full of love. + + +2. + +Yet a word, ancient mother; +You need crouch there no longer on the cold ground, with forehead between + your knees; +O you need not sit there, veiled in your old white hair, so dishevelled; +For know you, the one you mourn is not in that grave; +It was an illusion--the heir, the son you love, was not really dead; +The Lord is not dead--he is risen again, young and strong, in another + country; +Even while you wept there by your fallen harp, by the grave, +What you wept for was translated, passed from the grave, +The winds favoured, and the sea sailed it, +And now, with rosy and new blood, +Moves to-day in a new country. + + + + +_BOSTON TOWN._ + + +1. + +To get betimes in Boston town, I rose this morning early; +Here's a good place at the corner--I must stand and see the show. + + +2. + +Clear the way there, Jonathan! +Way for the President's marshal! Way for the government cannon! +Way for the Federal foot and dragoons--and the apparitions copiously + tumbling. + +I love to look on the stars and stripes--I hope the fifes will play "Yankee + Doodle," +How bright shine the cutlasses of the foremost troops! +Every man holds his revolver, marching stiff through Boston town. + + +3. + +A fog follows--antiques of the same come limping, +Some appear wooden-legged, and some appear bandaged and bloodless. + +Why this is indeed a show! It has called the dead out of the earth! +The old graveyards of the hills have hurried to see! +Phantoms! phantoms countless by flank and rear! +Cocked hats of mothy mould! crutches made of mist! +Arms in slings! old men leaning on young men's shoulders! + +What troubles you, Yankee phantoms? What is all this chattering of bare + gums? +Does the ague convulse your limbs? Do you mistake your crutches for + firelocks, and level them? + +If you blind your eyes with tears, you will not see the President's + marshal; +If you groan such groans, you might baulk the government cannon. + +For shame, old maniacs! Bring down those tossed arms, and let your white + hair be; +Here gape your great grandsons--their wives gaze at them from the windows, +See how well-dressed--see how orderly they conduct themselves. + +Worse and worse! Can't you stand it? Are you retreating? +Is this hour with the living too dead for you? + +Retreat then! Pell-mell! +To your graves! Back! back to the hills, old limpers! +I do not think you belong here, anyhow. + + +4. + +But there is one thing that belongs here--shall I tell you what it is, + gentlemen of Boston? + +I will whisper it to the Mayor--He shall send a committee to England; +They shall get a grant from the Parliament, go with a cart to the royal + vault--haste! +Dig out King George's coffin, unwrap him quick from the grave-clothes, box + up his bones for a journey; +Find a swift Yankee clipper--here is freight for you, black-bellied + clipper, +Up with your anchor! shake out your sails! steer straight toward Boston + bay. + + +5. + +Now call for the President's marshal again, bring out the government + cannon, +Fetch home the roarers from Congress,--make another procession, guard it + with foot and dragoons. + +This centre-piece for them! +Look, all orderly citizens! Look from the windows, women! + +The committee open the box; set up the regal ribs; glue those that will not + stay; +Clap the skull on top of the ribs, and clap a crown on top of the skull. + +You have got your revenge, old bluster! The crown is come to its own, and + more than its own. + + +6. + +Stick your hands in your pockets, Jonathan--you are a made man from this + day; +You are mighty 'cute--and here is one of your bargains. + + + +_FRANCE, THE EIGHTEENTH YEAR OF THESE STATES._[1] + + +1. + +A great year and place; +A harsh, discordant, natal scream out-sounding, to touch the mother's heart + closer than any yet. + + +2. + +I walked the shores of my Eastern Sea, +Heard over the waves the little voice, +Saw the divine infant, where she woke, mournfully wailing, amid the roar of + cannon, curses, shouts, crash of falling buildings; +Was not so sick from the blood in the gutters running--nor from the single + corpses, nor those in heaps, nor those borne away in the tumbrils; +Was not so desperate at the battues of death--was not so shocked at the + repeated fusillades of the guns. + +Pale, silent, stern, what could I say to that long-accrued retribution? +Could I wish humanity different? +Could I wish the people made of wood and stone? +Or that there be no justice in destiny or time? + + +3. + +O Liberty! O mate for me! +Here too the blaze, the bullet, and the axe, in reserve to fetch them out + in case of need, +Here too, though long repressed, can never be destroyed; +Here too could rise at last, murdering and ecstatic; +Here too demanding full arrears of vengeance. + +Hence I sign this salute over the sea, +And I do not deny that terrible red birth and baptism, +But remember the little voice that I heard wailing--and wait with perfect + trust, no matter how long; +And from to-day, sad and cogent, I maintain the bequeathed cause, as for + all lands, +And I send these words to Paris with my love, +And I guess some _chansonniers_ there will understand them, +For I guess there is latent music yet in France--floods of it. +O I hear already the bustle of instruments--they will soon be drowning all + that would interrupt them; +O I think the east wind brings a triumphal and free march, +It reaches hither--it swells me to joyful madness, +I will run transpose it in words, to justify it, +I will yet sing a song for you, _ma femme!_ + +[Footnote 1: 1793-4---The great poet of Democracy is "not so shocked" at +the great European year of Democracy.] + + + +_EUROPE, THE SEVENTY-SECOND AND SEVENTY-THIRD YEARS OF THESE STATES._[1] + + +1. + +Suddenly, out of its stale and drowsy lair, the lair of slaves, +Like lightning it leaped forth, half startled at itself, +Its feet upon the ashes and the rags--its hands tight to the throats of + kings. + +O hope and faith! +O aching close of exiled patriots' lives! +O many a sickened heart! +Turn back unto this day, and make yourselves afresh. + + +2. + +And you, paid to defile the People! you liars, mark! +Not for numberless agonies, murders, lusts, +For court thieving in its manifold mean forms, worming from his simplicity + the poor man's wages, +For many a promise sworn by royal lips, and broken, and laughed at in the + breaking, +Then in their power, not for all these did the blows strike revenge, or the + heads of the nobles fall; +The People scorned the ferocity of kings. + + +3. + +But the sweetness of mercy brewed bitter destruction, and the frightened + rulers come back; +Each comes in state with his train--hangman, priest, tax-gatherer, +Soldier, lawyer, lord, jailer, and sycophant. + + +4. + +Yet behind all, lowering, stealing--lo, a Shape, +Vague as the night, draped interminably, head, front, and form, in scarlet + folds, +Whose face and eyes none may see: +Out of its robes only this--the red robes, lifted by the arm-- +One finger crooked, pointed high over the top, like the head of a snake + appears. + + +5. + +Meanwhile, corpses lie in new-made graves--bloody corpses of young men; +The rope of the gibbet hangs heavily, the bullets of princes are flying, + the creatures of power laugh aloud, +And all these things bear fruits--and they are good. + +Those corpses of young men, +Those martyrs that hang from the gibbets--those hearts pierced by the grey + lead, +Cold and motionless as they seem, live elsewhere with unslaughtered + vitality. + +They live in other young men, O kings! +They live in brothers, again ready to defy you! +They were purified by death--they were taught and exalted. +Not a grave of the murdered for freedom but grows seed for freedom, in its + turn to bear seed, +Which the winds carry afar and resow, and the rains and the snows nourish. + +Not a disembodied spirit can the weapons of tyrants let loose, +But it stalks invisibly over the earth, whispering, counselling, + cautioning. + + +6. + +Liberty! let others despair of you! I never despair of you. + +Is the house shut? Is the master away? +Nevertheless, be ready--be not weary of watching: +He will soon return--his messengers come anon. + +[Footnote 1: The years 1848 and 1849.] + + + +_TO A FOILED REVOLTER OR REVOLTRESS._ + + +1. + +Courage! my brother or my sister! +Keep on! Liberty is to be subserved, whatever occurs; +That is nothing that is quelled by one or two failures, or any number of + failures, +Or by the indifference or ingratitude of the people, or by any + unfaithfulness, +Or the show of the tushes of power, soldiers, cannon, penal statutes. + + +2. + +What we believe in waits latent for ever through all the continents, and + all the islands and archipelagoes of the sea. + +What we believe in invites no one, promises nothing, sits in calmness and + light, is positive and composed, knows no discouragement, +Waiting patiently, waiting its time. + + +3. + +The battle rages with many a loud alarm, and frequent advance and retreat, +The infidel triumphs--or supposes he triumphs, +The prison, scaffold, garrote, handcuffs, iron necklace and anklet, lead- + balls, do their work, +The named and unnamed heroes pass to other spheres, +The great speakers and writers are exiled--they lie sick in distant lands, +The cause is asleep--the strongest throats are still, choked +with their own blood, +The young men drop their eyelashes toward the ground when they meet; +But, for all this, Liberty has not gone out of the place, nor the infidel + entered into possession. + +When Liberty goes out of a place, it is not the first to go, nor the second + or third to go, +It waits for all the rest to go--it is the last. + +When there are no more memories of heroes and martyrs, +And when all life and all the souls of men and women are discharged from + any part of the earth, +Then only shall Liberty be discharged from that part of the earth, +And the infidel and the tyrant come into possession. + + +4. + +Then courage! revolter! revoltress! +For till all ceases neither must you cease. + + +5. + +I do not know what you are for, (I do not know what I am for myself, nor + what anything is for,) +But I will search carefully for it even in being foiled, +In defeat, poverty, imprisonment--for they too are great. + +Did we think victory great? +So it is--But now it seems to me, when it cannot be helped, that defeat is + great, +And that death and dismay are great. + + + + +_DRUM TAPS._ + + + +_MANHATTAN ARMING._ + + +1. + +First, O songs, for a prelude, +Lightly strike on the stretched tympanum, pride and joy in my city, +How she led the rest to arms--how she gave the cue, +How at once with lithe limbs, unwaiting a moment, she sprang; +O superb! O Manhattan, my own, my peerless! +O strongest you in the hour of danger, in crisis! O truer than steel! +How you sprang! how you threw off the costumes of peace with indifferent + hand; +How your soft opera-music changed, and the drum and fife were heard in + their stead; +How you led to the war, (that shall serve for our prelude, songs of + soldiers,) +How Manhattan drum-taps led. + + +2. + +Forty years had I in my city seen soldiers parading; +Forty years as a pageant--till unawares, the Lady of this teeming and + turbulent city, +Sleepless, amid her ships, her houses, her incalculable wealth, +With her million children around her--suddenly, +At dead of night, at news from the South, +Incensed, struck with clenched hand the pavement. + +A shock electric--the night sustained it; +Till, with ominous hum, our hive at daybreak poured out its myriads. + +From the houses then, and the workshops, and through all the doorways, +Leaped they tumultuous--and lo! Manhattan arming. + + +3. + +To the drum-taps prompt, +The young men falling in and arming; +The mechanics arming, the trowel, the jack-plane, the black-smith's hammer, + tossed aside with precipitation; +The lawyer leaving his office, and arming--the judge leaving the court; +The driver deserting his waggon in the street, jumping down, throwing the + reins abruptly down on the horses' backs; +The salesman leaving the store--the boss, book-keeper, porter, all leaving; +Squads gathering everywhere by common consent, and arming; +The new recruits, even boys--the old men show them how to wear their + accoutrements--they buckle the straps carefully; +Outdoors arming--indoors arming--the flash of the musket-barrels; +The white tents cluster in camps--the armed sentries around--the sunrise + cannon, and again at sunset; +Armed regiments arrive every day, pass through the city, and embark from + the wharves; +How good they look, as they tramp down to the river, sweaty, with their + guns on their shoulders! +How I love them! how I could hug them, with their brown faces, and their + clothes and knapsacks covered with dust! +The blood of the city up--armed! armed! the cry everywhere; +The flags flung out from the steeples of churches, and from all the public + buildings and stores; +The tearful parting--the mother kisses her son--the son kisses his mother; +Loth is the mother to part--yet not a word does she speak to detain him; +The tumultuous escort--the ranks of policemen preceding, clearing the way; +The unpent enthusiasm--the wild cheers of the crowd for their favourites; +The artillery--the silent cannons, bright as gold, drawn along, rumble + lightly over the stones; +Silent cannons--soon to cease your silence, +Soon, unlimbered, to begin the red business! +All the mutter of preparation--all the determined arming; +The hospital service--the lint, bandages, and medicines; +The women volunteering for nurses--the work begun for, in earnest--no mere + parade now; +War! an armed race is advancing!--the welcome for battle--no turning away; +War! be it weeks, months, or years--an armed race is advancing to welcome + it. + + +4. + +Mannahatta a-march!--and it's O to sing it well! +It's O for a manly life in the camp! + + +5. + +And the sturdy artillery! +The guns, bright as gold--the work for giants--to serve well the guns: +Unlimber them! no more, as the past forty years, for salutes for courtesies +merely; +Put in something else now besides powder and wadding. + + +6. + +And you, Lady of Ships! you, Mannahatta! +Old matron of the city! this proud, friendly, turbulent city! +Often in peace and wealth you were pensive, or covertly frowned amid all +your children; +But now you smile with joy, exulting old Mannahatta! + + + +_1861._ + +Armed year! year of the struggle! +No dainty rhymes or sentimental love verses for you, terrible year! +Not you as some pale poetling, seated at a desk, lisping cadenzas piano; +But as a strong man, erect, clothed in blue clothes, advancing, carrying a + rifle on your shoulder, +With well-gristled body and sunburnt face and hands--with a knife in the + belt at your side, +As I heard you shouting loud--your sonorous voice ringing across the + continent; +Your masculine voice, O year, as rising amid the great cities, +Amid the men of Manhattan I saw you, as one of the workmen, the dwellers in + Manhattan; +Or with large steps crossing the prairies out of Illinois and Indiana, +Rapidly crossing the West with springy gait, and descending the + Alleghanies; +Or down from the great lakes, or in Pennsylvania, or on deck along the Ohio + river; +Or southward along the Tennessee or Cumberland rivers, or at Chattanooga on + the mountain-top, +Saw I your gait and saw I your sinewy limbs, clothed in blue, bearing + weapons, robust year; +Heard your determined voice, launched forth again and again; +Year that suddenly sang by the mouths of the round-lipped cannon, +I repeat you, hurrying, crashing, sad, distracted year. + + + +_THE UPRISING._ + + +1. + +Rise, O days, from your fathomless deeps, till you loftier and fiercer + sweep! +Long for my soul, hungering gymnastic, I devoured what the earth gave me; +Long I roamed the woods of the North--long I watched Niagara pouring; +I travelled the prairies over, and slept on their breast--I crossed the + Nevadas, +I crossed the plateaus; +I ascended the towering rocks along the Pacific, I sailed out to sea; +I sailed through the storm, I was refreshed by the storm; +I watched with joy the threatening maws of the waves; +I marked the white combs where they careered so high, curling over; +I heard the wind piping, I saw the black clouds; +Saw from below what arose and mounted, (O superb! O wild as my heart, and + powerful!) +Heard the continuous thunder, as it bellowed after the lightning; +Noted the slender and jagged threads of lightning, as sudden and fast amid + the din they chased each other across the sky; +--These, and such as these, I, elate, saw--saw with wonder, yet pensive and + masterful; +All the menacing might of the globe uprisen around me; +Yet there with my soul I fed--I fed content, supercilious. + + +2. + +'Twas well, O soul! 'twas a good preparation you gave me! +Now we advance our latent and ampler hunger to fill; +Now we go forth to receive what the earth and the sea never gave us; +Not through the mighty woods we go, but through the mightier cities; +Something for us is pouring now, more than Niagara pouring; +Torrents of men, (sources and rills of the North-west, are you indeed + inexhaustible?) +What, to pavements and homesteads here--what were those storms of the + mountains and sea? +What, to passions I witness around me to-day, was the sea risen? +Was the wind piping the pipe of death under the black clouds? + +Lo! from deeps more unfathomable, something more deadly and savage; +Manhattan, rising, advancing with menacing front--Cincinnati, Chicago, + unchained; +--What was that swell I saw on the ocean? behold what comes here! +How it climbs with daring feet and hands! how it dashes! +How the true thunder bellows after the lightning! how bright the flashes of + lightning! +How DEMOCRACY with desperate vengeful port strides on, shown through the + dark by those flashes of lightning! +Yet a mournful wail and low sob I fancied I heard through the dark, +In a lull of the deafening confusion. + + +3. + +Thunder on! stride on, Democracy! strike with vengeful stroke! +And do you rise higher than ever yet, O days, O cities! +Crash heavier, heavier yet, O storms! you have done me good; +My soul, prepared in the mountains, absorbs your immortal strong nutriment. +Long had I walked my cities, my country roads, through farms, only half + satisfied; +One doubt, nauseous, undulating like a snake, crawled on the ground before + me, +Continually preceding my steps, turning upon me oft, ironically hissing + low; +--The cities I loved so well I abandoned and left--I sped to the + certainties suitable to me +Hungering, hungering, hungering, for primal energies, and Nature's + dauntlessness, +I refreshed myself with it only, I could relish it only; +I waited the bursting forth of the pent fire--on the water and air I waited + long. +--But now I no longer wait--I am fully satisfied--I am glutted; +I have witnessed the true lightning--I have witnessed my cities electric; +I have lived to behold man burst forth, and warlike America rise; +Hence I will seek no more the food of the northern solitary wilds, +No more on the mountains roam, or sail the stormy sea. + + + + +_BEAT! BEAT! DRUMS!_ + + +1. + +Beat! beat! drums!--Blow! bugles! blow! +Through the windows--through doors--burst like a force of ruthless men, +Into the solemn church, and scatter the congregation; +Into the school where the scholar is studying: +Leave not the bridegroom quiet--no happiness must he have now with his + bride; +Nor the peaceful farmer any peace, ploughing his field or gathering his + grain; +So fierce you whirr and pound, you drums--so shrill you bugles blow. + + +2. + +Beat! beat! drums!--Blow! bugles! blow! +Over the traffic of cities--over the rumble of wheels in the streets: +Are beds prepared, for sleepers at night in the houses? No sleepers must + sleep in those beds; +No bargainers' bargains by day--no brokers or speculators--Would they + continue? +Would the talkers be talking? would the singer attempt to sing? +Would the lawyer rise in the court to state his case before the judge? +Then rattle quicker, heavier, drums--you bugles wilder blow. + + +3. + +Beat! beat! drums!--Blow! bugles! blow! +Make no parley--stop for no expostulation; +Mind not the timid--mind not the weeper or prayer; +Mind not the old man beseeching the young man; +Let not the child's voice be heard, nor the mother's entreaties; +Make even the trestles to shake the dead, where they lie awaiting the + hearses, +So strong you thump, O terrible drums--so loud you bugles blow. + + + +_SONG OF THE BANNER AT DAYBREAK._ + + +POET. + + +O a new song, a free song, +Flapping, flapping, flapping, flapping, by sounds, by voices clearer, +By the wind's voice and that of the drum, +By the banner's voice, and child's voice, and sea's voice, and father's + voice, +Low on the ground and high in the air, +On the ground where father and child stand, +In the upward air where their eyes turn, +Where the banner at daybreak is flapping. + +Words! book-words! what are you? +Words no more, for hearken and see, +My song is there in the open air--and I must sing, +With the banner and pennant a-flapping. + +I'll weave the chord and twine in, +Man's desire and babe's desire--I'll twine them in, I'll put in life; +I'll put the bayonet's flashing point--I'll let bullets and slugs whizz; +I'll pour the verse with streams of blood, full of volition, full of joy; +Then loosen, launch forth, to go and compete, +With the banner and pennant a-flapping. + + + +BANNER AND PENNANT. + + +Come up here, bard, bard; +Come up here, soul, soul; +Come up here, dear little child, +To fly in the clouds and winds with us, and play with the measureless + light. + + +CHILD. + +Father, what is that in the sky beckoning to me with long finger? +And what does it say to me all the while? + + +FATHER. + +Nothing, my babe, you see in the sky; +And nothing at all to you it says. But look you, my babe, +Look at these dazzling things in the houses, and see you the money-shops + opening; +And see you the vehicles preparing to crawl along the streets with goods: +These! ah, these! how valued and toiled for, these! +How envied by all the earth! + + +POET. + +Fresh and rosy red, the sun is mounting high; +On floats the sea in distant blue, careering through its channels; +On floats the wind over the breast of the sea, setting in toward land; +The great steady wind from west and west-by-south, +Floating so buoyant, with milk-white foam on the waters. + +But I am not the sea, nor the red sun; +I am not the wind, with girlish laughter; +Not the immense wind which strengthens--not the wind which lashes; +Not the spirit that ever lashes its own body to terror and death: +But I am of that which unseen comes and sings, sings, sings, +Which babbles in brooks and scoots in showers on the land; +Which the birds know in the woods, mornings and evenings, +And the shore-sands know, and the hissing wave, and that banner and + pennant, +Aloft there flapping and flapping. + + +CHILD. + +O father, it is alive--it is full of people--it has children! +O now it seems to me it is talking to its children! +I hear it--it talks to me--O it is wonderful! +O it stretches--it spreads and runs so fast! O my father, +It is so broad it covers the whole sky! + + +FATHER. + +Cease, cease, my foolish babe, +What you are saying is sorrowful to me--much it displeases me; +Behold with the rest, again I say--behold not banners and pennants aloft; +But the well-prepared pavements behold--and mark the solid-walled houses. + + +BANNER AND PENNANT. + +Speak to the child, O bard, out of Manhattan; +Speak to our children all, or north or south of Manhattan, +Where our factory-engines hum, where our miners delve the ground, +Where our hoarse Niagara rumbles, where our prairie-ploughs are ploughing; +Speak, O bard! point this day, leaving all the rest, to us over all--and + yet we know not why; +For what are we, mere strips of cloth, profiting nothing, +Only flapping in the wind? + + +POET. + +I hear and see not strips of cloth alone; +I hear the tramp of armies, I hear the challenging sentry; +I hear the jubilant shouts of millions of men--I hear LIBERTY! +I hear the drums beat, and the trumpets blowing; +I myself move abroad, swift-rising, flying then; +I use the wings of the land-bird, and use the wings of the sea-bird, and + look down as from a height. +I do not deny the precious results of peace--I see populous cities, with + wealth incalculable; +I see numberless farms--I see the farmers working in their fields or barns; +I see mechanics working--I see buildings everywhere founded, going up, or + finished; +I see trains of cars swiftly speeding along railroad tracks, drawn by the + locomotives; +I see the stores, depots, of Boston, Baltimore, Charleston, New Orleans; +I see far in the west the immense area of grain--I dwell a while, hovering; +I pass to the lumber forests of the north, and again to the southern + plantation, and again to California; +Sweeping the whole, I see the countless profit, the busy gatherings, earned + wages; +See the identity formed out of thirty-six spacious and haughty States, (and + many more to come;) +See forts on the shores of harbours--see ships sailing in and out; +Then over all, (aye! aye!) my little and lengthened pennant shaped like a + sword +Runs swiftly up, indicating war and defiance--And now the halyards have + raised it, +Side of my banner broad and blue--side of my starry banner, +Discarding peace over all the sea and land. + + +BANNER AND PENNANT. + +Yet louder, higher, stronger, bard! yet farther, wider cleave! +No longer let our children deem us riches and peace alone; +We can be terror and carnage also, and are so now. +Not now are we one of these spacious and haughty States, (nor any five, nor + ten;) +Nor market nor depot are we, nor money-bank in the city; +But these, and all, and the brown and spreading land, and the mines below, + are ours; +And the shores of the sea are ours, and the rivers great and small; +And the fields they moisten are ours, and the crops, and the fruits are + ours; +Bays and channels, and ships sailing in and out, are ours--and we over all, +Over the area spread below, the three millions of square miles--the + capitals, +The thirty-five millions of people--O bard! in life and death supreme, +We, even we, from this day flaunt out masterful, high up above, +Not for the present alone, for a thousand years, chanting through you +This song to the soul of one poor little child. + + +CHILD. + +O my father, I like not the houses; +They will never to me be anything--nor do I like money! +But to mount up there I would like, O father dear--that banner I like; +That pennant I would be, and must be. + + +FATHER. + +Child of mine, you fill me with anguish, +To be that pennant would be too fearful; +Little you know what it is this day, and henceforth for ever; +It is to gain nothing, but risk and defy everything; +Forward to stand in front of wars--and O, such wars!--what have you to do + with them? +With passions of demons, slaughter, premature death? + + +POET. + +Demons and death then I sing; +Put in all, aye all, will I--sword-shaped pennant for war, and banner so + broad and blue, +And a pleasure new and ecstatic, and the prattled yearning of children, +Blent with the sounds of the peaceful land, and the liquid wash of the sea; +And the icy cool of the far, far north, with rustling cedars and pines; +And the whirr of drums, and the sound of soldiers marching, and the hot sun + shining south; +And the beach-waves combing over the beach on my eastern shore, and my + western shore the same; +And all between those shores, and my ever-running Mississippi, with bends + and chutes; +And my Illinois fields, and my Kansas fields, and my fields of Missouri; +The CONTINENT--devoting the whole identity, without reserving an atom, +Pour in! whelm that which asks, which sings, with all, and the yield of + all. + + +BANNER AND PENNANT. + +Aye all! for ever, for all! +From sea to sea, north and south, east and west, +Fusing and holding, claiming, devouring the whole; +No more with tender lip, nor musical labial sound, +But out of the night emerging for good, our voice persuasive no more, +Croaking like crows here in the wind. + + +POET. + +My limbs, my veins dilate; +The blood of the world has filled me full--my theme is clear at last. +--Banner so broad, advancing out of the night, I sing you haughty and + resolute; +I burst through where I waited long, too long, deafened and blinded; +My sight, my hearing and tongue, are come to me, (a little child taught + me;) +I hear from above, O pennant of war, your ironical call and demand; +Insensate! insensate! yet I at any rate chant you, O banner! +Not houses of peace are you, nor any nor all their prosperity; if need be, +you shall have every one of those houses to destroy them; +You thought not to destroy those valuable houses, standing fast, full of + comfort, built with money; +May they stand fast, then? Not an hour, unless you, above them and all, + stand fast. +--O banner! not money so precious are you, nor farm produce you, nor the + material good nutriment, +Nor excellent stores, nor landed on wharves from the ships; +Not the superb ships, with sail-power or steam-power, fetching and carrying + cargoes, +Nor machinery, vehicles, trade, nor revenues,--But you, as henceforth I see + you, +Running up out of the night, bringing your cluster of stars, ever-enlarging + stars; +Divider of daybreak you, cutting the air, touched by the sun, measuring the + sky, +Passionately seen and yearned for by one poor little child, +While others remain busy, or smartly talking, for ever teaching thrift, + thrift; +O you up there! O pennant! where you undulate like a snake, hissing so + curious, +Out of reach--an idea only--yet furiously fought for, risking bloody + death--loved by me! +So loved! O you banner, leading the day, with stars brought from the night! +Valueless, object of eyes, over all and demanding all--O banner and + pennant! +I too leave the rest--great as it is, it is nothing--houses, machines are + nothing--I see them not; +I see but you, O warlike pennant! O banner so broad, with stripes, I sing + you only, +Flapping up there in the wind. + + + +_THE BIVOUAC'S FLAME._ + + +By the bivouac's fitful flame, +A procession winding around me, solemn and sweet and slow;--but first I + note +The tents of the sleeping army, the fields' and woods' dim outline, +The darkness, lit by spots of kindled fire--the silence; +Like a phantom far or near an occasional figure moving; +The shrubs and trees, (as I lift my eyes they seem to be stealthily + watching me;) +While wind in procession thoughts, O tender and wondrous thoughts, +Of life and death--of home and the past and loved, and of those that are + far away; +A solemn and slow procession there as I sit on the ground, +By the bivouac's fitful flame. + + + +_BIVOUAC ON A MOUNTAIN-SIDE._ + + +I see before me now a travelling army halting; +Below, a fertile valley spread, with barns, and the orchards of summer; +Behind, the terraced sides of a mountain, abrupt in places, rising high; +Broken with rocks, with clinging cedars, with tall shapes, dingily seen; +The numerous camp-fires scattered near and far, some away up on the + mountain; +The shadowy forms of men and horses, looming, large-sized, flickering; +And over all, the sky--the sky! far, far out of reach, studded with the + eternal stars. + + + +_CITY OF SHIPS._ + + +City of ships! +(O the black ships! O the fierce ships! +O the beautiful, sharp-bowed steam-ships and sail-ships!) +City of the world! (for all races are here; +All the lands of the earth make contributions here;) +City of the sea! city of hurried and glittering tides! +City whose gleeful tides continually rush or recede, whirling in and out, + with eddies and foam! +City of wharves and stores! city of tall façades of marble and iron! +Proud and passionate city! mettlesome, mad, extravagant city! +Spring up, O city! not for peace alone, but be indeed yourself, warlike! +Fear not! submit to no models but your own, O city! +Behold me! incarnate me, as I have incarnated you! +I have rejected nothing you offered me--whom you adopted, I have adopted; +Good or bad, I never question you--I love all--I do not condemn anything; +I chant and celebrate all that is yours--yet peace no more; +In peace I chanted peace, but now the drum of war is mine; +War, red war, is my song through your streets, O city! + + + +_VIGIL ON THE FIELD._ + + +VIGIL strange I kept on the field one night, +When you, my son and my comrade, dropped at my side that day. +One look I but gave, which your dear eyes returned with a look I shall + never forget; +One touch of your hand to mine, O boy, reached up as you lay on the ground. +Then onward I sped in the battle, the even-contested battle; +Till, late in the night relieved, to the place at last again I made my way; +Found you in death so cold, dear comrade--found your body, son of + responding kisses, (never again on earth responding;) +Bared your face in the starlight--curious the scene--cool blew the moderate + night-wind. +Long there and then in vigil I stood, dimly around me the battlefield + spreading; +Vigil wondrous and vigil sweet, there in the fragrant silent night. +But not a tear fell, not even a long-drawn sigh--Long, long I gazed; +Then on the earth partially reclining, sat by your side, leaning my chin in + my hands; +Passing sweet hours, immortal and mystic hours, with you, dearest comrade-- +Not a tear, not a word; +Vigil of silence, love, and death--vigil for you, my son and my soldier, +As onward silently stars aloft, eastward new ones upward stole; +Vigil final for you, brave boy, (I could not save you, swift was your + death, +I faithfully loved you and cared for you living--I think we shall surely + meet again;) +Till at latest lingering of the night, indeed just as the dawn appeared, +My comrade I wrapped in his blanket, enveloped well his form, +Folded the blanket well, tucking it carefully over head, and carefully + under feet; +And there and then, and bathed by the rising sun, my son in his grave, in + his rude-dug grave, I deposited; +Ending my vigil strange with that--vigil of night and battlefield dim; +Vigil for boy of responding kisses, never again on earth responding; +Vigil for comrade swiftly slain, vigil I never forget--how as day + brightened +I rose from the chill ground, and folded my soldier well in his blanket, +And buried him where he fell. + + + +_THE FLAG._ + + +Bathed in war's perfume--delicate flag! +O to hear you call the sailors and the soldiers! flag like a beautiful + woman! +O to hear the tramp, tramp, of a million answering men! O the ships they + arm with joy! +O to see you leap and beckon from the tall masts of ships! +O to see you peering down on the sailors on the decks! +Flag like the eyes of women. + + + +_THE WOUNDED._ + + +A march in the ranks hard-pressed, and the road unknown; +A route through a heavy wood, with muffled steps in the darkness; +Our army foiled with loss severe, and the sullen remnant retreating; +Till after midnight glimmer upon us the lights of a dim-lighted building; +We come to an open space in the woods, and halt by the dim-lighted + building. +'Tis a large old church, at the crossing roads--'tis now an impromptu + hospital; +--Entering but for a minute, I see a sight beyond all the pictures and + poems ever made: +Shadows of deepest, deepest black, just lit by moving, candles and lamps, +And by one great pitchy torch, stationary, with wild red flame, and clouds + of smoke; +By these, crowds, groups of forms, vaguely I see, on the floor, some in the + pews laid down; +At my feet more distinctly, a soldier, a mere lad, in danger of bleeding to + death, (he is shot in the abdomen;) +I staunch the blood temporarily, (the youngster's face is white as a lily;) +Then before I depart I sweep my eyes o'er the scene, fain to absorb it all; +Faces, varieties, postures, beyond description, most in obscurity, some of + them dead; +Surgeons operating, attendants holding lights, the smell of ether, the + odour of blood; +The crowd, O the crowd of the bloody forms of soldiers--the yard outside + also filled; +Some on the bare ground, some on planks or stretchers, some in the death- + spasm sweating; +An occasional scream or cry, the doctor's shouted orders or calls; +The glisten of the little steel instruments catching the glint of the + torches; +These I resume as I chant--I see again the forms, I smell the odour; +Then hear outside the orders given, _Fall in, my men, Fall in_. +But first I bend to the dying lad--his eyes open--a half-smile gives he me; +Then the eyes close, calmly close: and I speed forth to the darkness, +Resuming, marching, as ever in darkness marching, on in the ranks, +The unknown road still marching. + + + +_A SIGHT IN CAMP._ + + +1. + +A sight in camp in the daybreak grey and dim, +As from my tent I emerge so early, sleepless, +As slow I walk in the cool fresh air the path near by the hospital tent, +Three forms I see on stretchers lying, brought out there, untended lying; +Over each the blanket spread, ample brownish woollen blanket, +Grey and heavy blanket, folding, covering all. + + +2. + +Curious, I halt, and silent stand; +Then with light fingers I from the face of the nearest, the first, just + lift the blanket; +Who are you, elderly man, so gaunt and grim, with well-greyed hair, and + flesh all sunken about the eyes? +Who are you, my dear comrade? + +Then to the second I step--And who are you, my child and darling? +Who are you, sweet boy, with cheeks yet blooming? + +Then to the third--a face nor child nor old, very calm, as of beautiful + yellow-white ivory: +Young man, I think I know you--I think this face of yours is the face of + the Christ Himself; +Dead and divine and brother of all, and here again He lies. + + + +_A GRAVE._ + + +1. + +As toilsome I wandered Virginia's woods, +To the music of rustling leaves kicked by my feet--for 'twas autumn-- +I marked at the foot of a tree the grave of a soldier; +Mortally wounded he, and buried on the retreat--easily all could I + understand; +The halt of a mid-day hour--when, Up! no time to lose! Yet this sign left +On a tablet scrawled and nailed on the tree by the grave, +_Bold, cautious, true, and my loving comrade_. + + +2. + +Long, long I muse,--then on my way go wandering, +Many a changeful season to follow, and many a scene of life. +Yet at times through changeful season and scene, abrupt,--alone, or in the + crowded street,-- +Comes before me the unknown soldier's grave, comes the inscription rude in + Virginia's woods, +_Bold, cautious, true, and my loving comrade_. + + + +_THE DRESSER._ + + +1. + +An old man bending, I come among new faces, +Years, looking backward, resuming, in answer to children, +"Come tell us, old man," (as from young men and maidens that love me, Years + hence) "of these scenes, of these furious passions, these chances, +Of unsurpassed heroes--(was one side so brave? the other was equally brave) +Now be witness again--paint the mightiest armies of earth; +Of those armies, so rapid, so wondrous, what saw you to tell us? +What stays with you latest and deepest? of curious panics, +Of hard-fought engagements, or sieges tremendous, what deepest remains?" + + +2. + +O maidens and young men I love, and that love me, +What you ask of my days, those the strangest and sudden your talking + recalls, +Soldier alert I arrive, after a long march, covered with sweat and dust; +In the nick of time I come, plunge in the fight, loudly shout in the rush + of successful charge; +Enter the captured works,...yet lo! like a swift-running river, they fade, +Pass, and are gone; they fade--I dwell not on soldiers' perils or soldiers' + joys; +(Both I remember well--many the hardships, few the joys, yet I was + content.) + +But in silence, in dreams' projections, +While the world of gain and appearance and mirth goes on, +So soon what is over forgotten, and waves wash the imprints off the sand, +In nature's reverie sad, with hinged knees returning, I enter the + doors--(while for you up there, Whoever you are, follow me without + noise, and be of strong heart.) +Bearing the bandages, water, and sponge, +Straight and swift to my wounded I go, +Where they lie on the ground, after the battle brought in; +Where their priceless blood reddens the grass, the ground; +Or to the rows of the hospital tent, or under the roofed hospital; +To the long rows of cots, up and down, each side, I return; +To each and all, one after another, I draw near--not one do I miss; +An attendant follows, holding a tray--he carries a refuse-pail, +Soon to be filled with clotted rags and blood, emptied, and filled again. + +I onward go, I stop, +With hinged knees and steady hand, to dress wounds; +I am firm with each--the pangs are sharp, yet unavoidable; +One turns to me his appealing eyes--poor boy! I never knew you, +Yet I think I could not refuse this moment to die for you if that would + save you. + +On, on I go--(open, doors of time! open, hospital doors!) +The crushed head I dress (poor crazed hand, tear not the bandage away;) +The neck of the cavalry-man, with the bullet through and through, I + examine; +Hard the breathing rattles, quite glazed already the eye, yet life + struggles hard; +Come, sweet death! be persuaded, O beautiful death! +In mercy come quickly. + +From the stump of the arm, the amputated hand, +I undo the clotted lint, remove the slough, wash off the matter and blood; +Back on his pillow the soldier bends, with curved neck, and side-falling + head; +His eyes are closed, his face is pale, he dares not look on the bloody + stump, +And has not yet looked on it. + +I dress a wound in the side, deep, deep; +But a day or two more--for see, the frame all wasted and sinking, +And the yellow-blue countenance see. + +I dress the perforated shoulder, the foot with the bullet wound, +Cleanse the one with a gnawing and putrid gangrene, so sickening, so + offensive, +While the attendant stands behind aside me, holding the tray and pail. + +I am faithful, I do not give out; +The fractured thigh, the knee, the wound in the abdomen, +These and more I dress with impassive hand--yet deep in my breast a fire, a + burning flame. + + +3. + +Thus in silence, in dreams' projections, +Returning, resuming, I thread my way through the hospitals; +The hurt and the wounded I pacify with soothing hand, +I sit by the restless all the dark night--some are so young, +Some suffer so much--I recall the experience sweet and sad. +Many a soldier's loving arms about this neck have crossed and rested, +Many a soldier's kiss dwells on these bearded lips. + + + +_A LETTER FROM CAMP._ + + +1. + +"Come up from the fields, father, here's a letter from our Pete; +And come to the front door, mother--here's a letter from thy dear son." + + +2. + +Lo, 'tis autumn; +Lo, where the trees, deeper green, yellower and redder, +Cool and sweeten Ohio's villages, with leaves fluttering in the moderate + wind; +Where apples ripe in the orchards hang, and grapes on the trellised vines; +Smell you the smell of the grapes on the vines? +Smell you the buckwheat, where the bees were lately buzzing? + +Above all, lo, the sky, so calm, so transparent after the rain, and with + wondrous clouds; +Below, too, all calm, all vital and beautiful--and the farm prospers well. + + +3. + +Down in the fields all prospers well; +But now from the fields come, father--come at the daughter's call; +And come to the entry, mother--to the front door come, right away. + +Fast as she can she hurries--something ominous--her steps trembling; +She does not tarry to smooth her white hair, nor adjust her cap. + + +4. + +Open the envelope quickly; +O this is not our son's writing, yet his name is signed; +O a strange hand writes for our dear son--O stricken mother's soul! +All swims before her eyes--flashes with black--she catches the main words + only; +Sentences broken--"_gun-shot wound in the breast, cavalry skirmish, taken + to hospital, +At present low, but will soon be better_." + + +5. + +Ah, now the single figure to me, +Amid all teeming and wealthy Ohio, with all its cities and farms, +Sickly white in the face and dull in the head, very faint, +By the jamb of a door leans. + + +6. + +"Grieve not so, dear mother," the just-grown daughter speaks through her + sobs; +The little sisters huddle around, speechless and dismayed; +"See, dearest mother, the letter says Pete will soon be better." + + +7. + +Alas! poor boy, he will never be better, (nor maybe needs to be better, + that brave and simple soul;) +While they stand at home at the door, he is dead already; +The only son is dead. + +But the mother needs to be better; +She, with thin form, presently dressed in black; +By day her meals untouched--then at night fitfully sleeping, often waking, +In the midnight waking, weeping, longing with one deep longing, +O that she might withdraw unnoticed--silent from life escape and withdraw, +To follow, to seek, to be with her dear dead son! + + + +_WAR DREAMS._ + + +1. + +In clouds descending, in midnight sleep, of many a face in battle, +Of the look at first of the mortally wounded, of that indescribable look, +Of the dead on their backs, with arms extended wide-- + I dream, I dream, I dream. + + +2. + +Of scenes of nature, the fields and the mountains, +Of the skies so beauteous after the storm, and at night the +moon so unearthly bright, +Shining sweetly, shining down, where we dig the trenches, +and gather the heaps-- + I dream, I dream, I dream. + + +3. + +Long have they passed, long lapsed--faces, and trenches, and fields: +Long through the carnage I moved with a callous composure, or away from the +fallen +Onward I sped at the time. But now of their faces and forms, at night, + I dream, I dream, I dream. + + + +_THE VETERAN'S VISION._ + + +While my wife at my side lies slumbering, and the wars are over long, +And my head on the pillow rests at home, and the mystic midnight passes, +And through the stillness, through the dark, I hear, just hear, the breath + of my infant, +There in the room, as I wake from sleep, this vision presses upon me. +The engagement opens there and then, in my busy brain unreal; +The skirmishers begin--they crawl cautiously ahead--I hear the irregular + snap! snap! +I hear the sound of the different missiles--the short _t-h-t! t-h-t!_ of + the rifle-balls; +I see the shells exploding, leaving small white clouds--I hear the great + shells shrieking as they pass; +The grape, like the hum and whirr of wind through the trees, (quick, + tumultuous, now the contest rages!) +All the scenes at the batteries themselves rise in detail before me again; +The crashing and smoking--the pride of the men in their pieces; +The chief gunner ranges and sights his piece, and selects a fuse of the + right time; +After firing, I see him lean aside, and look eagerly off to note the + effect; +--Elsewhere I hear the cry of a regiment charging--the young colonel leads + himself this time, with brandished sword; +I see the gaps cut by the enemy's volleys, quickly filled up--no delay; +I breathe the suffocating smoke--then the flat clouds hover low, concealing + all; +Now a strange lull comes for a few seconds, not a shot fired on either + side; +Then resumed, the chaos louder than ever, with eager calls, and orders of + officers; +While from some distant part of the field the wind wafts to my ears a shout + of applause, (some special success;) +And ever the sound of the cannon, far or near, rousing, even in dreams, a + devilish exultation, and all the old mad joy, in the depths of my + soul; +And ever the hastening of infantry shifting positions--batteries, cavalry, + moving hither and thither; +The falling, dying, I heed not--the wounded, dripping and red, I heed not-- + some to the rear are hobbling; +Grime, heat, rush--aides-de-camp galloping by, or on a full run: +With the patter of small arms, the warning _s-s-t_ of the rifles, (these in + my vision I hear or see,) +And bombs bursting in air, and at night the vari-coloured rockets. + + + +_O TAN-FACED PRAIRIE BOY._ + + +O tan-faced prairie boy! +Before you came to camp came many a welcome gift; +Praises and presents came, and nourishing food--till at last, among the + recruits, +You came, taciturn, with nothing to give--we but looked on each other, +When lo! more than all the gifts of the world you gave me. + + + +_MANHATTAN FACES._ + + +1. + +Give me the splendid silent sun, with all his beams full-dazzling; +Give me juicy autumnal fruit, ripe and red from the orchard; +Give me a field where the unmowed grass grows; +Give me an arbour, give me the trellised grape; +Give me fresh corn and wheat--give me serene-moving animals, teaching + content; +Give me nights perfectly quiet, as on high plateaus west of the + Mississippi, and I looking up at the stars; +Give me odorous at sunrise a garden of beautiful flowers, where I can walk + undisturbed; +Give me for marriage a sweet-breathed woman, of whom I should never tire; +Give me a perfect child--give me, away, aside from the noise of the world, + a rural domestic life; +Give me to warble spontaneous songs, relieved, recluse by myself, for my + own ears only; +Give me solitude--give me Nature--give me again, O Nature, your primal + sanities! +--These, demanding to have them, tired with ceaseless excitement, and + racked by the war-strife, +These to procure incessantly asking, rising in cries from my heart, +While yet incessantly asking, still I adhere to my city; +Day upon day, and year upon year, O city, walking your streets, +Where you hold me enchained a certain time, refusing to give me up, +Yet giving to make me glutted, enriched of soul--you give me for ever + faces; +O I see what I sought to escape, confronting, reversing my cries; +I see my own soul trampling down what it asked for. + + +2. + +Keep your splendid silent sun; +Keep your woods, O Nature, and the quiet places by the woods; +Keep your fields of clover and timothy, and your cornfields and orchards; +Keep the blossoming buckwheat fields, where the ninth-month bees hum. +Give me faces and streets! give me these phantoms incessant and endless + along the _trottoirs_! +Give me interminable eyes! give me women! give me comrades and lovers by + the thousand! +Let me see new ones every day! let me hold new ones by the hand every day! +Give me such shows! give me the streets of Manhattan! +Give me Broadway, with the soldiers marching--give me the sound of the + trumpets and drums! +The soldiers in companies or regiments--some starting away, flushed and + reckless; +Some, their time up, returning, with thinned ranks--young, yet very old, + worn, marching, noticing nothing; +--Give me the shores and the wharves heavy-fringed with the black ships! +O such for me! O an intense life! O full to repletion, and varied! +The life of the theatre, bar-room, huge hotel, for me! +The saloon of the steamer, the crowded excursion, for me! the torchlight + procession! +The dense brigade, bound for the war, with high-piled military waggons + following; +People, endless, streaming, with strong voices, passions, pageants; +Manhattan streets, with their powerful throbs, with the beating drums, as + now; +The endless and noisy chorus, the rustle and clank of muskets, even the + sight of the wounded; +Manhattan crowds, with their turbulent musical chorus--with varied chorus + and light of the sparkling eyes; +Manhattan faces and eyes for ever for me! + + + +_OVER THE CARNAGE._ + + +1. + +Over the carnage rose prophetic a voice,-- +Be not disheartened--Affection shall solve the problems of Freedom yet; +Those who love each other shall become invincible--they shall yet make + Columbia victorious. + +Sons of the Mother of all! you shall yet be victorious! +You shall yet laugh to scorn the attacks of all the remainder of the earth. + +No danger shall baulk Columbia's lovers; +If need be, a thousand shall sternly immolate themselves for one. + +One from Massachusetts shall be a Missourian's comrade; +From Maine and from hot Carolina, and another an Oregonese, shall be + friends triune, +More precious to each other than all the riches of the earth. + +To Michigan, Florida perfumes shall tenderly come; +Not the perfumes of flowers, but sweeter, and wafted beyond death. + +It shall be customary in the houses and streets to see manly affection; +The most dauntless and rude shall touch face to face lightly; +The dependence of Liberty shall be lovers, +The continuance of Equality shall be comrades. + +These shall tie you and band you stronger than hoops of iron; +I, ecstatic, O partners! O lands! with the love of lovers tie you. + + +2. + +Were you looking to be held together by the lawyers? +Or by an agreement on a paper? or by arms? +--Nay--nor the world nor any living thing will so cohere. + + + +_THE MOTHER OF ALL._ + + +Pensive, on her dead gazing, I heard the Mother of all, +Desperate, on the torn bodies, on the forms covering the battlefields, + gazing; +As she called to her earth with mournful voice while she stalked. +"Absorb them well, O my earth!" she cried--"I charge you, lose not my sons! + lose not an atom; +And you, streams, absorb them well, taking their dear blood; +And you local spots, and you airs that swim above lightly, +And all you essences of soil and growth--and you, O my rivers' depths; +And you mountain-sides--and the woods where my dear children's blood, + trickling, reddened; +And you trees, down in your roots, to bequeath to all future trees, +My dead absorb--my young men's beautiful bodies absorb--and their precious, + precious, precious blood; +Which, holding in trust for me, faithfully back again give me, many a year + hence, +In unseen essence and odour of surface and grass, centuries hence; +In blowing airs from the fields, back again give me my darlings--give my + immortal heroes; +Exhale me them centuries hence--breathe me their breath--let not an atom be + lost. +O years and graves! O air and soil! O my dead, an aroma sweet! +Exhale them, perennial, sweet death, years, centuries hence." + + + +_CAMPS OF GREEN._ + + +1. + +Not alone our camps of white, O soldiers, +When, as ordered forward, after a long march, +Footsore and weary, soon as the light lessens, we halt for the night; +Some of us so fatigued, carrying the gun and knapsack, dropping asleep in + our tracks; +Others pitching the little tents, and the fires lit up begin to sparkle; +Outposts of pickets posted, surrounding, alert through the dark, +And a word provided for countersign, careful for safety; +Till to the call of the drummers at daybreak loudly beating the drums, +We rise up refreshed, the night and sleep passed over, and resume our + journey, +Or proceed to battle. + + +2. + +Lo! the camps of the tents of green, +Which the days of peace keep filling, and the days of war keep filling, +With a mystic army, (is it too ordered forward? is it too only halting a + while, +Till night and sleep pass over?) + +Now in those camps of green--in their tents dotting the world; +In the parents, children, husbands, wives, in them--in the old and young, +Sleeping under the sunlight, sleeping under the moonlight, content and + silent there at last; +Behold the mighty bivouac-field and waiting-camp of us and ours and all, +Of our corps and generals all, and the President over the corps and + generals all, +And of each of us, O soldiers, and of each and all in the ranks we fight, +There without hatred we shall all meet. + +For presently, O soldiers, we too camp in our place in the bivouac-camps of + green; +But we need not provide for outposts, nor word for the countersign, +Nor drummer to beat the morning drum. + + + +_DIRGE FOR TWO VETERANS._ + + +1. + + The last sunbeam +Lightly falls from the finished Sabbath +On the pavement here--and, there beyond, it is looking + Down a new-made double grave. + + +2. + + Lo! the moon ascending! +Up from the east, the silvery round moon; +Beautiful over the house-tops, ghastly, phantom moon; + Immense and silent moon. + + +3. + + I see a sad procession, +And I hear the sound of coming full-keyed bugles; +All the channels of the city streets they're flooding, + As with voices and with tears. + + +4. + + I hear the great drums pounding, +And the small drums steady whirring; +And every blow of the great convulsive drums + Strikes me through and through. + + +5. + + For the son is brought with the father; +In the foremost ranks of the fierce assault they fell; +Two veterans, son and father, dropped together, + And the double grave awaits them. + + +6. + + Now nearer blow the bugles, +And the drums strike more convulsive; +And the daylight o'er the pavement quite has faded, + And the strong dead-march enwraps me. + + +7. + + In the eastern sky up-buoying, +The sorrowful vast phantom moves illumined, +'Tis some mother's large, transparent face, + In heaven brighter growing. + + +8. + + O strong dead-march, you please me! +O moon immense, with your silvery face you soothe me! +O my soldiers twain! O my veterans, passing to burial! + What I have I also give you. + + +9. + + The moon gives you light, +And the bugles and the drums give you music; +And my heart, O my soldiers, my veterans, + My heart gives you love. + + + +_SURVIVORS._ + + +How solemn, as one by one, +As the ranks returning, all worn and sweaty--as the men file by where I + stand; +As the faces, the masks appear--as I glance at the faces, studying the + masks; +As I glance upward out of this page, studying you, dear friend, whoever you + are;-- +How solemn the thought of my whispering soul, to each in the ranks, and to + you! +I see, behind each mask, that wonder, a kindred soul. +O the bullet could never kill what you really are, dear friend, +Nor the bayonet stab what you really are. +--The soul, yourself, I see, great as any, good as the best, +Waiting secure and content,--which the bullet could never kill, +Nor the bayonet stab, O friend! + + + +_HYMN OF DEAD SOLDIERS._ + + +1. + +One breath, O my silent soul! +A perfumed thought--no more I ask, for the sake of all dead soldiers. + + +2. + +Buglers off in my armies! +At present I ask not you to sound; +Not at the head of my cavalry, all on their spirited horses, +With their sabres drawn and glistening, and carbines clanking by their + thighs--(ah, my brave horsemen! My handsome, tan-faced horsemen! + what life, what joy and pride, With all the perils, were yours!) + +Nor you drummers--neither at _reveillé_, at dawn, +Nor the long roll alarming the camp--nor even the muffled beat for a + burial; +Nothing from you, this time, O drummers, bearing my warlike drums. + + +3. + +But aside from these, and the crowd's hurrahs, and the land's + congratulations, +Admitting around me comrades close, unseen by the rest, and voiceless, +I chant this chant of my silent soul, in the name of all dead soldiers. + + +4. + +Faces so pale, with wondrous eyes, very dear, gather closer yet; +Draw close, but speak not. +Phantoms, welcome, divine and tender! +Invisible to the rest, henceforth become my companions; +Follow me ever! desert me not, while I live! + +Sweet are the blooming cheeks of the living, sweet are the musical voices + sounding; +But sweet, ah sweet, are the dead, with their silent eyes. + +Dearest comrades! all now is over; +But love is not over--and what love, O comrades! +Perfume from battlefields rising--up from foetor arising. + +Perfume therefore my chant, O love! immortal love! +Give me to bathe the memories of all dead soldiers. + +Perfume all! make all wholesome! +O love! O chant! solve all with the last chemistry. + +Give me exhaustless--make me a fountain, +That I exhale love from me wherever I go, +For the sake of all dead soldiers. + + + +_SPIRIT WHOSE WORK IS DONE._ + + +Spirit whose work is done! spirit of dreadful hours! +Ere, departing, fade from my eyes your forests of bayonets-- +Spirit of gloomiest fears and doubts, yet onward ever unfaltering pressing! +Spirit of many a solemn day, and many a savage scene! Electric spirit! +That with muttering voice, through the years now closed, like a tireless + phantom flitted, +Rousing the land with breath of flame, while you beat and beat the drum; +--Now, as the sound of the drum, hollow and harsh to the last, reverberates + round me; +As your ranks, your immortal ranks, return, return from the battles; +While the muskets of the young men yet lean over their shoulders; +While I look on the bayonets bristling over their shoulders; +While those slanted bayonets, whole forests of them, appearing in the + distance, approach and pass on, returning homeward, +Moving with steady motion, swaying to and fro, to the right and left, +Evenly, lightly, rising and falling, as the steps keep time: +--Spirit of hours I knew, all hectic red one day, but pale as death next + day; +Touch my mouth, ere you depart--press my lips close! +Leave me your pulses of rage! bequeath them to me! fill me with currents + convulsive! +Let them scorch and blister out of my chants, when you are gone; +Let them identify you to the future in these songs! + + + +_RECONCILIATION._ + + +Word over all, beautiful as the sky! +Beautiful that war, and all its deeds of carnage, must in time be utterly + lost; +That the hands of the sisters Death and Night incessantly, softly wash + again, and ever again, this soiled world. +For my enemy is dead--a man divine as myself is dead. +I look where he lies, white-faced and still, in the coffin--I draw near; +I bend down and touch lightly with my lips the white face in the coffin. + + + +_AFTER THE WAR._ + + +To the leavened soil they trod, calling, I sing, for the last; +Not cities, nor man alone, nor war, nor the dead: +But forth from my tent emerging for good--loosing, untying the tent-ropes; +In the freshness, the forenoon air, in the far-stretching circuits and + vistas, again to peace restored; +To the fiery fields emanative, and the endless vistas beyond--to the south + and the north; +To the leavened soil of the general Western World, to attest my songs, +To the average earth, the wordless earth, witness of war and peace, +To the Alleghanian hills, and the tireless Mississippi, +To the rocks I, calling, sing, and all the trees in the woods, +To the plain of the poems of heroes, to the prairie spreading wide, +To the far-off sea, and the unseen winds, and the sane impalpable air. +And responding they answer all, (but not in words,) +The average earth, the witness of war and peace, acknowledges mutely; +The prairie draws me close, as the father, to bosom broad, the son:-- +The Northern ice and rain, that began me, nourish me to the end; +But the hot sun of the South is to ripen my songs. + + + +WALT WHITMAN + + + +_ASSIMILATIONS._ + + +1. + +There was a child went forth every day; +And the first object he looked upon, that object he became; +And that object became part of him for the day, or a certain part of the + day, or for many years, or tretching cycles of years. + + +2. + +The early lilacs became part of this child, +And grass, and white and red morning-glories,[1] and white and red clover, + and the song of the phoebe-bird,[2] +And the Third-month lambs, and the sow's pink-faint litter, and the mare's + foal, and the cow's calf, +And the noisy brood of the barn-yard, or by the mire of the pond-side, +And the fish suspending themselves so curiously below there--and the + beautiful, curious liquid, +And the water-plants with their graceful fiat heads--all became part of + him. +The field-sprouts of Fourth-month and Fifth-month became part or him; + + +3. +Winter-grain sprouts, and those of the light-yellow corn, and the esculent + roots of the garden, +And the apple-trees covered with blossoms, and the fruit afterward, and + wood-berries, and the commonest weeds by the road; +And the old drunkard staggering home from the outhouse of the tavern, + whence he had lately risen, +And the schoolmistress that passed on her way to the school, +And the friendly boys that passed, and the quarrelsome boys, +And the tidy and fresh-cheeked girls, and the barefoot negro boy and girl, +And all the changes of city and country, wherever he went. + +His own parents; +He that had fathered him, and she that had conceived him in her womb, and + birthed him, +They gave this child more of themselves than that; +They gave him afterward every day--they became part of him. +The mother at home, quietly placing the dishes on the supper-table; +The mother with mild words--clean her cap and gown, a wholesome odour + falling off her person and clothes as she walks by; +The father, strong, self-sufficient, manly, mean, angered, unjust; +The blow, the quick loud word, the tight bargain, the crafty lure, +The family usages, the language, the company, the furniture--the yearning + and swelling heart, +Affection that will not be gainsaid--the sense of what is real--the thought + if after all it should prove unreal, +The doubts of day-time and the doubts of night-time--the curious whether + and how-- +Whether that which appears so is so, or is it all flashes and specks? +Men and women crowding fast in the streets--if they are not flashes and + specks, what are they? +The streets themselves, and the façades of houses, and goods in the + windows, +Vehicles, teams, the heavy-planked wharves--the huge crossing at the + ferries, +The village on the highland, seen from afar at sunset--the river between; +Shadows, aureola and mist, light falling on roofs and gables of white or + brown, three miles off; +The schooner near by, sleepily dropping down the tide--the little boat + slack-towed astern, +The hurrying tumbling waves quick-broken crests slapping, +The strata of coloured clouds, the long bar of maroon-tint, away solitary + by itself-the spread of purity it lies motionless in, +The horizon's edge, the flying sea-crow, the fragrance of salt marsh and + shore mud;-- +These became part of that child who went forth every day, and who now goes, + and will always go forth every day. + +[Footnote 1: The name of "morning-glory" is given to the bindweed, or a +sort of bindweed, in America. I am not certain whether this expressive name +is used in England also.] + +[Footnote 2: A dun-coloured little bird with a cheerful note, sounding like +the word Phoebe.] + + + +_A WORD OUT OF THE SEA._ + + +1. + +Out of the rocked cradle, +Out of the mocking-bird's throat, the musical shuttle, +Out of the Ninth-month midnight, +Over the sterile sands, and the fields beyond, where the child, leaving his + bed, wandered alone, bareheaded, barefoot, +Down from the showered halo, +Up from the mystic play of shadows, twining and twisting; as if they were + alive, +Out from the patches of briars and blackberries, +From the memories of the birds that chanted to me, +From your memories, sad brother--from the fitful risings and fallings I + heard, +From under that yellow half-moon, late-risen, and swollen as if with tears, +From those beginning notes of sickness and love, there in the transparent + mist, +From the thousand responses of my heart, never to cease, +From the myriad thence-aroused words, +From the word stronger and more delicious than any,-- +From such, as now they start, the scene revisiting, +As a flock, twittering, rising, or overhead passing, +Borne hither--ere all eludes me, hurriedly,-- +A man--yet by these tears a little boy again, +Throwing myself on the sand, confronting the waves, +I, chanter of pains and joys, uniter of here and hereafter, +Taking all hints to use them, but swiftly leaping beyond + them, +A reminiscence sing. + + +2. + +Once, Paumanok, +When the snows had melted, and the Fifth-month grass + was growing, +Up this sea-shore, in some briars, +Two guests from Alabama--two together, +And their nest, and four light-green eggs spotted with brown; +And every day the he-bird, to and fro, near at hand, +And every day the she-bird, crouched on her nest, silent, + with bright eyes; +And every day I, a curious boy, never too close, never + disturbing them, +Cautiously peering, absorbing, translating. + + +3. + +_Shine! shine! shine! +Pour down your warmth, great Sun! +While we bask--we two together. + +Two together! +Winds blow South, or winds blow North, +Day come white or night come black, +Home, or rivers and mountains from home, +Singing all time, minding no time, +If we two but keep together_. + + +4. + +Till of a sudden, +Maybe killed, unknown to her mate, +One forenoon the she-bird crouched not on the nest, +Nor returned that afternoon, nor the next, +Nor ever appeared again. + +And thenceforward, all summer, in the sound of the sea, +And at night, under the full of the moon, in calmer weather, +Over the hoarse surging of the sea, +Or flitting from briar to briar by day, +I saw, I heard at intervals, the remaining one, the he-bird, +The solitary guest from Alabama. + + +5. + + +_Blow! blow! blow! +Blow up, sea-winds, along Paumanok's shore! +I wait and I wait, till you blow my mate to me_. + + +6. + +Yes, when the stars glistened. +All night long, on the prong of a moss-scalloped stake, +Down, almost amid the slapping waves, +Sat the lone singer, wonderful, causing tears. + +He called on his mate; +He poured forth the meanings which I, of all men, know. +Yes, my brother, I know; +The rest might not--but I have treasured every note; +For once, and more than once, dimly, down to the beach gliding, +Silent, avoiding the moonbeams, blending myself with the shadows, +Recalling now the obscure shapes, the echoes, the sounds and sights after + their sorts, +The white arms out in the breakers tirelessly tossing, +I, with bare feet, a child, the wind wafting my hair, +Listened long and long. + +Listened, to keep, to sing--now translating the notes, +Following you, my brother. + + +7. + +_Soothe! soothe! soothe! +Close on its wave soothes the wave behind, +And again another behind, embracing and lapping, every one close,-- +But my love soothes not me, not me. + +Low hangs the moon--it rose late; +O it is lagging--O I think it is heavy with love, with love. + +O madly the sea pushes, pushes upon the land, +With love--with love. +O night! do I not see my love fluttering out there among the breakers? +What is that little black thing I see there in the white? + +Loud! loud! loud! +Loud. I call to you, my love! +High and clear I shoot my voice over the waves; +Surely you must know who is here, is here; +You must know who I am, my love. + +Low-hanging moon! +What is that dusky spot in your brown yellow? +O it is the shape, the shape of my mate! +O moon, do not keep her from me any longer! + +Land! land! O land! +Whichever way I turn, O I think you could give me my mate back again, if + you only would; +For I am almost sure I see her dimly whichever way I look. + +O rising stars! +Perhaps the one I want so much will rise, will rise with some of you. + +O throat! O trembling throat! +Sound clearer through the atmosphere! +Pierce the woods, the earth; +Somewhere, listening to catch you, must be the one I want. + +Shake out, carols! +Solitary here--the night's carols! +Carols of lonesome love! Death's carols! +Carols under that lagging, yellow, waning moon! +O, under that moon, where she droops almost down into the sea! +O reckless, despairing carols! + +But soft! sink low; +Soft! let me just murmur; +And do you wait a moment, you husky-noised sea; +For somewhere I believe I heard my mate responding to me, +So faint--I must be still, be still to listen; +But not altogether still, for then she might not come immediately to me. + +Hither, my love! +Here I am! Here! +With this just-sustained note I announce myself to you; +This gentle call is for you, my love, for you! + +Do not be decoyed elsewhere! +That is the whistle of the wind--it is not my voice; +That is the fluttering, the flattering of the spray; +Those are the shadows of leaves. + +O darkness! O in vain! +O I am very sick and sorrowful! + +O brown halo in the sky, near the moon, drooping upon the sea! +O troubled reflection in the sea! +O throat! O throbbing heart! +O all!--and I singing uselessly, uselessly all the night.! + +Yet I murmur, murmur on! +O murmurs--you yourselves make me continue to sing, I know not why. + +O past! O life! O songs of joy! +In the air--in the woods--over fields; +Loved! loved! loved! loved! loved! +But my love no more, no more with me! +We two together no more_! + + +8. + +The aria sinking; +All else continuing--the stars shining, +The winds blowing--the notes of the bird continuous echoing, +With angry moans the fierce old Mother incessantly moaning, +On the sands of Paumanok's shore, grey and rustling; +The yellow half-moon enlarged, sagging down, drooping, the face of the sea + almost touching; +The boy ecstatic--with his bare feet the waves, with his hair the + atmosphere, dallying, +The love in the heart long pent, now loose, now at last tumultuously + bursting; +The aria's meaning the ears, the soul, swiftly depositing, +The strange tears down the cheeks coursing; +The colloquy there--the trio--each uttering; +The undertone--the savage old Mother, incessantly crying, +To the boy's soul's questions sullenly timing--some drowned secret hissing +To the outsetting bard of love. + + +9. + +Demon or bird! (said the boy's soul,) +Is it indeed toward your mate you sing? or is it mostly to me? +For I, that was a child, my tongue's use sleeping, +Now I have heard you, +Now in a moment I know what I am for--I awake; +And already a thousand singers--a thousand songs, clearer, louder, and more + sorrowful than yours, +A thousand warbling echoes, have started to life within me, +Never to die. + +O you singer, solitary, singing by yourself--projecting me; +O solitary me, listening--never more shall I cease perpetuating you; +Never more shall I escape, never more, the reverberations, +Never more the cries of unsatisfied love be absent from me, +Never again leave me to be the peaceful child I was before what there, in + the night, +By the sea, under the yellow and sagging moon, +The messenger there aroused--the fire, the sweet hell within, +The unknown want, the destiny of me. + +O give me the clue! (it lurks in the night here somewhere;) +O if I am to have so much, let me have more! +O a word! O what is my destination? I fear it is henceforth chaos;-- +O how joys, dreads, convolutions, human shapes and all shapes, spring as + from graves around me! + +O phantoms! you cover all the land, and all the sea! +O I cannot see in the dimness whether you smile or frown upon me; +O vapour, a look, a word! O well-beloved! +O you dear women's and men's phantoms! + +A word then, (for I will conquer it,) +The word final, superior to all, +Subtle, sent up--what is it?--I listen; +Are you whispering it, and have been all the time, you sea-waves? +Is that it from your liquid rims and wet sands? + + +10. + +Whereto answering, the Sea, +Delaying not, hurrying not, +Whispered me through the night, and very plainly before daybreak, +Lisped to me the low and delicious word DEATH; +And again Death--ever Death, Death, Death, +Hissing melodious, neither like the bird nor like my aroused child's heart, +But edging near, as privately for me, rustling at my feet, +Creeping thence steadily up to my ears, and laving me softly all over, +Death, Death, Death, Death, Death. + +Which I do not forget, +But fuse the song of my dusky demon and brother, +That he sang to me in the moonlight on Paumanok's grey beach, +With the thousand responsive songs, at random, +My own songs, awaked from that hour; +And with them the key, the word up from the waves, +The word of the sweetest song, and all songs, +That strong and delicious word which, creeping to my feet, +The Sea whispered me. + + + +_CROSSING BROOKLYN FERRY._ + + +1. + +Flood-tide below me! I watch you face to face; +Clouds of the west! sun there half an hour high! I see you also face to + face. + + +2. + +Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes, how curious you are + to me! +On the ferry-boats the hundreds and hundreds that cross, returning home, + are more curious to me than you suppose; +And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence are more to me, + and more in my meditations, than you might suppose. + + +3. + +The impalpable sustenance of me from all things, at all hours of the day; +The simple, compact, well-joined scheme--myself disintegrated, every one + disintegrated, yet part of the scheme; +The similitudes of the past, and those of the future; +The glories strung like beads on my smallest sights and hearings--on the + walk in the street, and the passage over the river; +The current rushing so swiftly, and swimming with me far away; +The others that are to follow me, the ties between me and them; +The certainty of others--the life, love, sight, hearing, of others. + +Others will enter the gates of the ferry, and cross from shore to shore; +Others will watch the run of the flood-tide; +Others will see the shipping of Manhattan north and west, and the heights + of Brooklyn to the south and east; +Others will see the islands large and small; +Fifty years hence, others will see them as they cross, the sun half an hour + high; +A hundred years hence, or ever so many hundred years hence, others will see + them, +Will enjoy the sunset, the pouring-in of the flood-tide, the falling-back + to the sea of the ebb-tide. +It avails not, neither time nor place--distance avails not; +I am with you--you men and women of a generation, or ever so many + generations hence; +I project myself--also I return--I am with you, and know how it is. + +Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt; +Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a crowd; +Just as you are refreshed by the gladness of the river and the bright flow, +I was refreshed; +Just as you stand and lean on the rail, yet hurry with the swift current, I + stood, yet was hurried; +Just as you look on the numberless masts of ships, and the + thick-stemmed pipes of steamboats, I looked. + +I too many and many a time crossed the river, the sun half an hour high; +I watched the twelfth-month sea-gulls--I saw them high in the air, floating + with motionless wings, oscillating their bodies, +I saw how the glistening yellow lit up parts of their bodies, and left the + rest in strong shadow, +I saw the slow-wheeling circles, and the gradual edging toward the south. + +I too saw the reflection of the summer sky in the water, +Had my eyes dazzled by the shimmering track of beams, +Looked at the fine centrifugal spokes of light round the shape of my head + in the sun-lit water, +Looked on the haze on the hills southward and southwestward, +Looked on the vapour as it flew in fleeces tinged with violet, +Looked toward the lower bay to notice the arriving ships, +Saw their approach, saw aboard those that were near me, +Saw the white sails of schooners and sloops, saw the ships at anchor, +The sailors at work in the rigging, or out astride the spars. +The round masts, the swinging motion of the hulls, the slender serpentine + pennants, +The large and small steamers in motion, the pilots in their + pilot-houses, +The white wake left by the passage, the quick tremulous whirl of the + wheels, +The flags of all nations, the falling of them at sunset, +The scallop-edged waves in the twilight, the ladled cups, the frolicsome + crests and glistening, +The stretch afar growing dimmer and dimmer, the grey walls of the granite + store-houses by the docks, +On the river the shadowy group, the big steam-tug closely flanked on each + side by the barges--the hay-boat, the belated lighter, +On the neighbouring shore, the fires from the foundry chimneys burning high + and glaringly into the night, +Casting their flicker of black, contrasted with wild red and yellow light, + over the tops of houses and down into the clefts of streets. + +These, and all else, were to me the same as they are to you; +I project myself a moment to tell you--also I return. + +I loved well those cities; +I loved well the stately and rapid river; +The men and women I saw were all near to me; +Others the same--others who look back on me because I looked forward to + them; +The time will come, though I stop here to-day and to-night. + +What is it, then, between us? +What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us? + +Whatever it is, it avails not--distance avails not, and place avails not. + +I too lived--Brooklyn, of ample hills, was mine; +I too walked the streets of Manhattan Island, and bathed in the waters + around it; +I too felt the curious abrupt questionings stir within me; +In the day, among crowds of people, sometimes they came upon me, +In my walks home late at night, or as I lay in my bed, they came upon me. + +I too had been struck from the float for ever held in solution, I too had + received identity by my Body; +That I was, I knew, was of my body--and what I should be, I knew, I should + be of my body. + +It is not upon you alone the dark patches fall, +The dark threw patches down upon me also; +The best I had done seemed to me blank and suspicious; +My great thoughts, as I supposed them, were they not in reality meagre? + would not people laugh at me? + +It is not you alone who know what it is to be evil; +I am he who knew what it was to be evil; +I too knitted the old knot of contrariety, +Blabbed, blushed, resented, lied, stole, grudged; +Had guile, anger, lust, hot wishes I dared not speak; +Was wayward, vain, greedy, shallow, sly, cowardly, malignant; +The wolf, the snake, the hog, not wanting in me; +The cheating look, the frivolous word, the adulterous wish, not wanting; +Refusals, hates, postponements, meanness, laziness, none of these wanting. + +But I was Manhattanese, friendly and proud! +I was called by my nighest name by clear loud voices of young men as they + saw me approaching or passing, +Felt their arms on my neck as I stood, or the negligent leaning of their + flesh against me as I sat; +Saw many I loved in the street, or ferry-boat, or public assembly, yet + never told them a word; +Lived the same life with the rest, the same old laughing, gnawing, + sleeping; +Played the part that still looks back on the actor or actress, +The same old rôle, the rôle that is what we make it,--as great as we like, +Or as small as we like, or both great and small. + +Closer yet I approach you: +What thought you have of me, I had as much of you-- +I laid in my stores in advance; +I considered long and seriously of you before you were born. + +Who was to know what should come home to me? +Who knows but I am enjoying this? +Who knows but I am as good as looking at you now, for all you cannot see + me? + +It is not you alone, nor I alone; +Not a few races, nor a few generations, nor a few centuries; +It is that each came or comes or shall come from its due +emission, without fail, either now or then or henceforth. + +Everything indicates--the smallest does, and the largest does; +A necessary film envelops all, and envelops the Soul for a proper time. + +Now I am curious what sight can ever be more stately and admirable to me + than my mast-hemmed Manhatta, +My river and sunset, and my scallop-edged waves of flood-tide; +The sea-gulls oscillating their bodies, the hay-boat in the twilight, and + the belated lighter; +Curious what Gods can exceed these that clasp me by the hand, and with + voices I love call me promptly and loudly by my nighest name as I + approach; +Curious what is more subtle than this which ties me to the woman or man + that looks in my face, +Which fuses me into you now, and pours my meaning into you. + +We understand, then, do we not? +What I promised without mentioning it have you not accepted? +What the study could not teach--what the preaching could not accomplish, is + accomplished, is it not? +What the push of reading could not start, is started by me personally, is + it not? + + +4. + +Flow on river! flow with the flood-tide, and ebb with the ebb-tide! +Frolic on, crested and scallop-edged waves! +Gorgeous clouds of the sunset, drench with your splendour me, or the men + and women generations after me! +Cross from shore to shore, countless crowds of passengers! +Stand up, tall masts of Mannahatta!-stand up, beautiful hills of Brooklyn! +Bully for you! you proud, friendly, free Manhattanese! +Throb, baffled and curious brain! throw out questions and answers! +Suspend here and everywhere, eternal float of solution! + +Blab, blush, lie, steal, you or I or any one after us! +Gaze, loving and thirsting eyes, in the house, or street, or public + assembly! +Sound out, voices of young men! loudly and musically call me by my nighest + name! +Live, old life! play the part that looks back on the actor or actress! +Play the old role, the role that is great or small, according as one makes + it! +Consider, you who peruse me, whether I may not in unknown ways be looking + upon you: +Be firm, rail over the river, to support those who lean idly, yet haste + with the hasting current; +Fly on, sea-birds! fly sideways, or wheel in large circles high in the air; +Receive the summer sky, you water! and faithfully hold it, till all + downcast eyes have time to take it from you; +Diverge, fine spokes of light, from the shape of my head, or any one's + head, in the sun-lit water; +Come on, ships from the lower bay! pass up or down, white-sailed schooners, + sloops, lighters! +Flaunt away, flags of all nations! be duly lowered at sunset; +Burn high your fires, foundry chimneys! cast black shadows at nightfall; + cast red and yellow light over the tops of the houses; +Appearances, now or henceforth, indicate what you are; +You necessary film, continue to envelop the soul; +About my body for me, and your body for you, be hung our divinest aromas; +Thrive, cities! bring your freight, bring your shows, ample and sufficient + rivers! +Expand, being than which none else is perhaps more spiritual! +Keep your places, objects than which none else is more lasting! + +We descend upon you and all things--we arrest you all; +We realise the soul only by you, you faithful solids and fluids; +Through you colour, form, location, sublimity, ideality; +Through you every proof, comparison, and all the suggestions and + determinations of ourselves. + +You have waited, you always wait, you dumb, beautiful ministers! you + novices! +We receive you with free sense at last, and are insatiate henceforward; +Not you any more shall be able to foil us, or withhold yourselves from us; +We use you, and do not cast you aside--we plant you permanently within us; +We fathom you not--we love you--there is perfection in you also; +You furnish your parts toward eternity; +Great or small, you furnish your parts toward the soul. + + + +_NIGHT AND DEATH._ + + +1. + +Night on the prairies. +The supper is over--the fire on the ground burns low; +The wearied emigrants sleep, wrapped in their blankets; +I walk by myself--I stand and look at the stars, which I think now I never + realised before. + +Now I absorb immortality and peace, +I admire death, and test propositions. + +How plenteous! How spiritual! How _resumé_! +The same Old Man and Soul--the same old aspirations, and the same content. + + +2. + +I was thinking the day most splendid, till I saw what the not day + exhibited, +I was thinking this globe enough, till there sprang out so noiseless around + me myriads of other globes. + +Now, while the great thoughts of space and eternity fill me, I will measure + myself by them: +And now, touched with the lives of other globes, arrived as far along as + those of the earth, +Or waiting to arrive, or passed on farther than those of the earth, +I henceforth no more ignore them than I ignore my own life, +Or the lives of the earth arrived as far as mine, or waiting to arrive. + + +3. + +O I see now that life cannot exhibit all to me-as the day cannot, +I see that I am to wait for what will be exhibited by death. + + + +_ELEMENTAL DRIFTS._ + + +1. + +Elemental drifts! +O I wish I could impress others as you and the waves have just been + impressing me. + +As I ebbed with an ebb of the ocean of life, +As I wended the shores I know, +As I walked where the sea-ripples wash you, Paumanok, +Where they rustle up, hoarse and sibilant, +Where the fierce old Mother endlessly cries for her castaways, +I, musing, late in the autumn day, gazing off southward, +Alone, held by this eternal self of me, out of the pride of which I have + uttered my poems, +Was seized by the spirit that trails in the lines underfoot, +In the rim, the sediment, that stands for all the water and all the land of + the globe. + +Fascinated, my eyes, reverting from the south, dropped, to follow those + slender winrows, +Chaff, straw, splinters of wood, weeds, and the sea-gluten, +Scum, scales from shining rocks, leaves of salt-lettuce, left by the tide; +Miles walking, the sound of breaking waves the other side of me, +Paumanok, there and then, as I thought the old thought of likenesses. +These you presented to me, you fish-shaped Island, +As I wended the shores I know, +As I walked with that eternal self of me, seeking types. + + +2. + +As I wend to the shores I know not, +As I list to the dirge, the voices of men and women wrecked, +As I inhale the impalpable breezes that set in upon me, +As the ocean so mysterious rolls toward me closer and closer, +I too but signify, at the utmost, a little washed-up drift, +A few sands and dead leaves to gather, +Gather, and merge myself as part of the sands and drift. + +O baffled, baulked, bent to the very earth, +Oppressed with myself that I have dared to open my mouth, +Aware now that, amid all the blab whose echoes recoil upon me, I have not + once had the least idea who or what I am, +But that before all my insolent poems, the real ME stands yet untouched, + untold, altogether unreached, +Withdrawn far, mocking me with mock-congratulatory signs and bows, +With peals of distant ironical laughter at every word I have written, +Pointing in silence to all these songs, and then to the sand beneath. + +Now I perceive I have not understood anything--not a single object--and + that no man ever can. + +I perceive Nature, here in sight of the sea, is taking advantage of me, to + dart upon me, and sting me, +Because I have dared to open my mouth to sing at all. + + +3. + +You oceans both! I close with you; +These little shreds shall indeed stand for all. + +You friable shore, with trails of debris! +You fish-shaped Island! I take what is underfoot; +What is yours is mine, my father. + +I too, Paumanok, +I too have bubbled up, floated the measureless float, and been washed on + your shores; +I too am but a trail of drift and debris, +I too leave little wrecks upon you, you fish-shaped Island. + +I throw myself upon your breast, my father, +I cling to you so that you cannot unloose me, +I hold you so firm till you answer me something. + +Kiss me, my father, +Touch me with your lips, as I touch those I love, +Breathe to me, while I hold you close, the secret of the wondrous murmuring +I envy. + + +4. + +Ebb, ocean of life, (the flow will return.) +Cease not your moaning, you fierce old Mother, +Endlessly cry for your castaways--but fear not, deny not me, +Rustle not up so hoarse and angry against my feet, as I touch you, or + gather from you. + +I mean tenderly by you, +I gather for myself, and for this phantom, looking down where we lead, and +following me and mine. + +Me and mine! +We, loose winrows, little corpses, +Froth, snowy white, and bubbles, +(See! from my dead lips the ooze exuding at last! +See--the prismatic colours, glistening and rolling!) +Tufts of straw, sands, fragments, +Buoyed hither from many moods, one contradicting another, +From the storm, the long calm, the darkness, the swell; +Musing, pondering, a breath, a briny tear, a dab of liquid or soil; +Up just as much out of fathomless workings fermented and thrown; +A limp blossom or two, torn, just as much over waves floating, drifted at + random; +Just as much for us that sobbing dirge of Nature; +Just as much, whence we come, that blare of the cloud-trumpets; +We, capricious, brought hither, we know not whence, spread out before you, +You, up there, walking or sitting, +Whoever you are--we too lie in drifts at your feet. + + + + +_WONDERS._ + + +1. + +Who learns my lesson complete? +Boss, journeyman, apprentice--churchman and atheist, +The stupid and the wise thinker--parents and offspring--merchant, clerk, + porter, and customer, +Editor, author, artist; and schoolboy--Draw nigh and commence; +It is no lesson--it lets down the bars to a good lesson, +And that to another, and every one to another still. + + +2. + +The great laws take and effuse without argument; +I am of the same style, for I am their friend, +I love them quits and quits--I do not halt and make salaams. + +I lie abstracted, and hear beautiful tales of things, and the reasons of + things; +They are so beautiful I nudge myself to listen. +I cannot say to any person what I hear--I cannot say it to myself--it is + very wonderful. + +It is no small matter, this round and delicious globe, moving so exactly in + its orbit for ever and ever, without one jolt, or the untruth of a + single second; +I do not think it was made in six days, nor in ten thousand years, nor ten + billions of years, +Nor planned and built one thing after another, as an architect plans and + builds a house. +I do not think seventy years is the time of a man or woman, +Nor that seventy millions of years is the time of a man or woman, +Nor that years will ever stop the existence of me, or any one else. + + +3. + +Is it wonderful that I should be immortal? as every one is immortal; +I know it is wonderful--but my eyesight is equally wonderful, and how I was + conceived in my mother's womb is equally wonderful; +And passed from a babe, in the creeping trance of a couple of summers and + winters, to articulate and walk--All this is equally wonderful. + +And that my Soul embraces you this hour, and we affect each other without + ever seeing each other, and never perhaps to see each other, is + every bit as wonderful. + +And that I can think such thoughts as these is just as wonderful; +And that I can remind you, and you think them and know them to be true, is + just as wonderful. +And that the moon spins round the earth, and on with the earth, is equally + wonderful; +And that they balance themselves with the sun and stars is equally + wonderful. + + + + +_MIRACLES._ + + +1. + +What shall I give? and which are my miracles? + + +2. + +Realism is mine--my miracles--Take freely, +Take without end--I offer them to you wherever your feet can carry you or + your eyes reach. + + +3. + +Why! who makes much of a miracle? +As to me, I know of nothing else but miracles, +Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan, +Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky, +Or wade with naked feet along the beach, just in the edge of the water, +Or stand under trees in the woods, +Or talk by day with any one I love--or sleep in the bed at night with any + one I love, +Or sit at the table at dinner with my mother, +Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car, +Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive, of a summer forenoon, +Or animals feeding in the fields, +Or birds--or the wonderfulness of insects in the air, +Or the wonderfulness of the sundown--or of stars shining so quiet and + bright, +Or the exquisite, delicate, thin curve of the new moon in spring; +Or whether I go among those I like best, and that like me best--mechanics, + boatmen, farmers, +Or among the savans--or to the _soirée_--or to the opera. +Or stand a long while looking at the movements of machinery, +Or behold children at their sports, +Or the admirable sight of the perfect old man, or the perfect old woman, +Or the sick in hospitals, or the dead carried to burial, +Or my own eyes and figure in the glass; +These, with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles, +The whole referring--yet each distinct and in its place. + + +4. + +To me, every hour of the light and dark is a miracle, +Every inch of space is a miracle, +Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same, +Every cubic foot of the interior swarms with the same; +Every spear of grass--the frames, limbs, organs, of men and women, and all + that concerns them, +All these to me are unspeakably perfect miracles. + +To me the sea is a continual miracle; +The fishes that swim--the rocks--the motion of the waves--the ships, with + men in them, +What stranger miracles are there? + + + + +_VISAGES._ + + +Of the visages of things--And of piercing through to the accepted hells + beneath. +Of ugliness--To me there is just as much in it as there is in + beauty--And now the ugliness of human beings is acceptable to me. +Of detected persons--To me, detected persons are not, in any respect, worse + than undetected persons--and are not in any respect worse than I am + myself. +Of criminals--To me, any judge, or any juror, is equally criminal--and any + reputable person is also--and the President is also. + + + +_THE DARK SIDE._ + + +I sit and look out upon all the sorrows of the world, and upon all + oppression and shame; +I hear secret convulsive sobs from young men, at anguish with themselves, + remorseful after deeds done; +I see, in low life, the mother misused by her children, dying, neglected, + gaunt, desperate; +I see the wife misused by her husband--I see the treacherous seducer of + young women; +I mark the ranklings of jealousy and unrequited love, attempted to be hid-- + I see these sights on the earth; +I see the workings of battle, pestilence, tyranny--I see martyrs and + prisoners; +I observe a famine at sea--I observe the sailors casting lots who shall be + killed, to preserve the lives of the rest; +I observe the slights and degradations cast by arrogant persons upon + labourers, the poor, and upon negroes, and the like; +All these--all the meanness and agony without end, I, sitting, look out + upon; +See, hear, and am silent. + + + + +_MUSIC._ + + +I heard you, solemn-sweet pipes of the organ, as last Sunday morn I passed + the church; +Winds of autumn!--as I walked the woods at dusk, I heard your + long-stretched sighs, up above, so mournful; +I heard the perfect Italian tenor, singing at the opera--I heard the + soprano in the midst of the quartette singing. +--Heart of my love! you too I heard, murmuring low, through one of the + wrists around my head; +Heard the pulse of you, when all was still, ringing little bells last night + under my ear. + + + +_WHEREFORE?_ + + +O me! O life!--of the questions of these recurring; +Of the endless trains of the faithless--of cities filled with the foolish; +Of myself for ever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and + who more faithless?) +Of eyes that vainly crave the light--of the objects mean--of the struggle + ever renewed; +Of the poor results of all--of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around + me; +Of the empty and useless years of the rest--with the rest me intertwined; +The question, O me! so sad, recurring--What good amid these, O me, O life? + + + +_ANSWER_. + + +That you are here--that life exists, and identity; +That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse. + + + +_QUESTIONABLE._ + + +As I lay with my head in your lap, camerado, +The confession I made I resume--what I said to you and the open air I + resume. +I know I am restless, and make others so; +I know my words are weapons, full of danger, full of death; +(Indeed I am myself the real soldier; +It is not he, there, with his bayonet, and not the red-striped + artilleryman;) +For I confront peace, security, and all the settled laws, to unsettle them; +I am more resolute because all have denied me than I could ever have been + had all accepted me; +I heed not, and have never heeded, either experience, cautions, majorities, + nor ridicule; +And the threat of what is called hell is little or nothing to me; +And the lure of what is called heaven is little or nothing to me. +--Dear camerado! I confess I have urged you onward with me, and still urge + you, without the least idea what is our destination, +Or whether we shall be victorious, or utterly quelled and defeated. + + + +_SONG AT SUNSET._ + + +1. + +Splendour of ended day, floating and filling me! +Hour prophetic--hour resuming the past: +Inflating my throat--you, divine Average! +You, Earth and Life, till the last ray gleams, I sing. + + +2. + +Open mouth of my soul, uttering gladness, +Eyes of my soul, seeing perfection, +Natural life of me, faithfully praising things; +Corroborating for ever the triumph of things. + +3. + +Illustrious every one! +Illustrious what we name space--sphere of unnumbered spirits; +Illustrious the mystery of motion, in all beings, even the tiniest insect; +Illustrious the attribute of speech--the senses--the body; +Illustrious the passing light! Illustrious the pale reflection on the new + moon in the western sky! +Illustrious whatever I see, or hear, or touch, to the last. + +Good in all, +In the satisfaction and _aplomb_ of animals, +In the annual return of the seasons, +In the hilarity of youth, +In the strength and flush of manhood, +In the grandeur and exquisiteness of old age, +In the superb vistas of Death. + +Wonderful to depart; +Wonderful to be here! +The heart, to jet the all-alike and innocent blood, +To breathe the air, how delicious! +To speak! to walk! to seize something by the hand! +To prepare for sleep, for bed--to look on my rose-coloured flesh, +To be conscious of my body, so happy, so large, +To be this incredible God I am, +To have gone forth among other Gods--those men and women I love. + +Wonderful how I celebrate you and myself! +How my thoughts play subtly at the spectacles around! +How the clouds pass silently overhead! + +How the earth darts on and on! and how the sun, moon, stars, dart on and + on! +How the water sports and sings! (Surely it is alive!) +How the trees rise and stand up--with strong trunks--with branches and + leaves! +Surely there is something more in each of the trees--some living soul. + +O amazement of things! even the least particle! +O spirituality of things! +O strain musical, flowing through ages and continents--now reaching me and + America! +I take your strong chords--I intersperse them, and cheerfully pass them + forward. + +I too carol the sun, ushered, or at noon, or, as now, setting, +I too throb to the brain and beauty of the earth, and of all the growths of + the earth, +I too have felt the resistless call of myself. + +As I sailed down the Mississippi, +As I wandered over the prairies, +As I have lived--As I have looked through my windows, my eyes, +As I went forth in the morning--As I beheld the light breaking in the east; +As I bathed on the beach of the Eastern Sea, and again on the beach of the + Western Sea; +As I roamed the streets of inland Chicago-whatever streets I have roamed; +Wherever I have been, I have charged myself with contentment and triumph. + +I sing the Equalities; +I sing the endless finales of things; +I say Nature continues--Glory continues; +I praise with electric voice: +For I do not see one imperfection in the universe; +And I do not see one cause or result lamentable at last in the universe. + +O setting sun! though the time has come, +I still warble under you unmitigated adoration. + + + +_LONGINGS FOR HOME._ + + +O Magnet South! O glistening, perfumed South! my South! +O quick mettle, rich blood, impulse, and love! good and evil! O all dear to + me! +O dear to me my birth-things--all moving things, and the trees where I was + born,[1] the grains, plants, rivers; +Dear to me my own slow, sluggish rivers, where they flow distant over flats + of silvery sands or through swamps; +Dear to me the Roanoke, the Savannah, the Altamahaw, the Pedee, the + Tombigbee, the Santee, the Coosa, and the Sabine-- +O pensive, far away wandering, I return with my soul to haunt their banks + again. +Again in Florida I float on transparent lakes--I float on Okeechobee--I + cross +the hummock land, or through pleasant openings or dense forests. +I see the parrots in the woods, I see the papaw-tree, and the blossoming + titi. +Again, sailing in my coaster, on deck, I coast off Georgia, I coast up the + Carolinas; +I see where the live-oak is growing--I see where the yellow-pine, the + scented bay-tree, the lemon and orange, the cypress, the graceful + palmetto. +I pass rude sea-headlands, and enter Pamlico Sound through an inlet, and + dart my vision inland; +O the cotton plant! the growing fields of rice, sugar, hemp! +The cactus, guarded with thorns--the laurel-tree, with large white flowers; +The range afar--the richness and barrenness--the old woods charged with + mistletoe and trailing moss, +The piney odour and the gloom--the awful natural stillness, Here in these + dense swamps the freebooter carries his gun, and the fugitive slave + has his concealed hut; +O the strange fascination of these half-known, half-impassable swamps, + infested by reptiles, resounding with the bellow of the alligator, + the sad noises of the night-owl and the wild-cat, and the whirr of + the rattlesnake; +The mocking-bird, the American mimic, singing all the forenoon--singing + through the moon-lit night, +The humming-bird, the wild-turkey, the raccoon, the opossum; +A Tennessee corn-field--the tall, graceful, long-leaved corn--slender, + flapping, bright green, with tassels--with beautiful ears, each + well-sheathed in its husk; +An Arkansas prairie--a sleeping lake, or still bayou. +O my heart! O tender and fierce pangs--I can stand them not--I will depart! +O to be a Virginian, where I grew up! O to be a Carolinian! +O longings irrepressible! O I will go back to old Tennessee, and never + wander more! + +[Footnote 1: These expressions cannot be understood in a literal +sense, for Whitman was born, not in the South, but in the State +of New York. The precise sense to be attached to them may be open +to some difference of opinion.] + + + +_APPEARANCES._ + + +Of the terrible doubt of appearances, +Of the uncertainty after all--that we may be deluded, +That maybe reliance and hope are but speculations after all, +That maybe identity beyond the grave is a beautiful fable only, +Maybe the things I perceive--the animals, plants, men, hills, shining and + flowing waters, +The skies of day and night--colours, densities, forms--Maybe these are (as + doubtless they are) only apparitions, and the real something has + yet to be known; +(How often they dart out of themselves, as if to confound me and mock me! +How often I think neither I know, nor any man knows, aught of them!) +Maybe seeming to me what they are (as doubtless they indeed but seem) as + from my present point of view--And might prove (as of course they + would) naught of what they appear, or naught anyhow, from entirely + changed points of view; +--To me, these, and the like of these, are curiously answered by my lovers, + my dear friends. +When he whom I love travels with me, or sits a long while holding me by the + hand, +When the subtle air, the impalpable, the sense that words and reason hold + not, surround us and pervade us, +Then I am charged with untold and untellable wisdom--I am silent--I require + nothing further, +I cannot answer the question of appearances, or that of identity beyond the + grave; +But I walk or sit indifferent--I am satisfied, +He ahold of my hand has completely satisfied me. + + +_THE FRIEND._ + + +Recorders ages hence! +Come, I will take you down underneath this impassive exterior--I will tell + you what to say of me; +Publish my name and hang up my picture as that of the tenderest lover, +The friend, the lover's portrait, of whom his friend, his lover, was + fondest, +Who was not proud of his songs, but of the measureless ocean of love within + him--and freely poured it forth, +Who often walked lonesome walks, thinking of his dear friends, his lovers, +Who pensive, away from one he loved, often lay sleepless and dissatisfied + at night, +Who knew too well the sick, sick dread lest the one he loved might secretly + be indifferent to him, +Whose happiest days were far away, through fields, in woods, on hills, he + and another, wandering hand in hand, they twain, apart from other + men, +Who oft, as he sauntered the streets, curved with his arm the shoulder of + his friend--while the arm of his friend rested upon him also. + + + +_MEETING AGAIN._ + + +When I heard at the close of the day how my name had been received with + plaudits in the capitol, still it was not a happy night for me that + followed; +And else, when I caroused, or when my plans were accomplished, still I was + not happy. +But the day when I rose at dawn from the bed of perfect health, refreshed, + singing, inhaling the ripe breath of autumn, +When I saw the full moon in the west grow pale and disappear in the morning + light, +When I wandered alone over the beach, and undressing bathed, laughing with + the cool waters, and saw the sunrise, +And when I thought how my dear friend, my lover, was on his way coming, O + then I was happy; +O then each breath tasted sweeter--and all that day my food nourished me + more--and the beautiful day passed well, +And the next came with equal joy--and with the next, at evening, came my + friend; +And that night, while all was still, I heard the waters roll slowly + continually up the shores, +I heard the hissing rustle of the liquid and sands, as directed to me, + whispering, to congratulate me; +For the one I love most lay sleeping by me under the same cover in the cool + night, +In the stillness, in the autumn moonbeams, his face was inclined toward me, +And his arm lay lightly around my breast--and that night I was happy. + + + +_A DREAM._ + + +Of him I love day and night, I dreamed I heard he was dead; +And I dreamed I went where they had buried him I love--but he was not in + that place; +And I dreamed I wandered, searching among burial-places, to find him; +And I found that every place was a burial-place; +The houses full of life were equally full of death, (this house is now;) +The streets, the shipping, the places of amusement, the Chicago, Boston, +Philadelphia, the Mannahatta, were as full of the dead as of the living, +And fuller, O vastly fuller, of the dead than of the living. +--And what I dreamed I will henceforth tell to every person and age, +And I stand henceforth bound to what I dreamed; +And now I am willing to disregard burial-places, and dispense with them; +And if the memorials of the dead were put up indifferently everywhere, even + in the room where I eat or sleep, I should be satisfied; +And if the corpse of any one I love, or if my own corpse, be duly rendered + to powder, and poured in the sea, I shall be satisfied; +Or if it be distributed to the winds, I shall be satisfied. + + + +_PARTING FRIENDS._ + + +What think you I take my pen in hand to record? +The battle-ship, perfect-modelled, majestic, that I saw pass the offing to- + day under full sail? +The splendours of the past day? Or the splendour of the night that envelops + me? +Or the vaunted glory and growth of the great city spread around me?--No; +But I record of two simple men I saw to-day, on the pier, in the midst of + the crowd, parting the parting of dear friends; +The one to remain hung on the other's neck, and passionately kissed him, +While the one to depart tightly pressed the one to remain in his arms. + + + +_TO A STRANGER._ + + +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. + + + +_OTHER LANDS._ + + +This moment yearning and thoughtful, sitting alone, +It seems to me there are other men in other lands, yearning and thoughtful; +It seems to me I can look over and behold them in Prussia, Italy, France, + Spain--or far, far away, in China, or in Russia or India--talking + other dialects; +And it seems to me, if I could know those men, I should become attached to + them, as I do to men in my own lands. +O I know we should be brethren and lovers; +I know I should be happy with them. + + + +_ENVY._ + +When I peruse the conquered fame of heroes, and the victories of mighty + generals, I do not envy the generals, +Nor the President in his Presidency, nor the rich in his great house. + +But when I read of the brotherhood of lovers, how it was with them; +How through life, through dangers, odium, unchanging, long and long, +Through youth, and through middle and old age, how unfaltering, how + affectionate and faithful they were, +Then I am pensive--I hastily put down the book, and walk away, filled with +the bitterest envy. + + + +_THE CITY OF FRIENDS._ + + +I dreamed in a dream I saw a city invincible to the attacks of the whole of + the rest of the earth; +I dreamed that it was the new City of Friends; +Nothing was greater there than the quality of robust love--it led the rest; +It was seen every hour in the actions of the men of that city, +And in all their looks and words. + + + +_OUT OF THE CROWD._ + + +1. + +Out of the rolling ocean, the crowd, came a drop gently to me, +Whispering, _I love you; before long I die: +I have travelled a long way, merely to look on you, to touch you: +For I could not die till I once looked on you, +For I feared I might afterward lose you_. + + +2. + +Now we have met, we have looked, we are safe; +Return in peace to the ocean, my love; +I too am part of that ocean, my love--we are not so much separated; +Behold the great _rondure_--the cohesion of all, how perfect! +But as for me, for you, the irresistible sea is to separate us, +As for an hour carrying us diverse--yet cannot carry us diverse for ever; +Be not impatient--a little space--know you, I salute the air, the ocean, + and the land, +Every day, at sundown, for your dear sake, my love. + + + +_AMONG THE MULTITUDE._ + + +Among the men and women, the multitude, +I perceive one picking me out by secret and divine signs, +Acknowledging none else--not parent, wife, husband, brother, child, any + nearer than I am; +Some are baffled--But that one is not--that one knows me. + +Ah, lover and perfect equal! +I meant that you should discover me so, by my faint indirections; +And I, when I meet you, mean to discover you by the like in you. + + + + +LEAVES OF GRASS. + + + +_PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S FUNERAL HYMN._ + + +1. + +When lilacs last in the door-yard bloomed, +And the great star[1] early drooped in the western sky in the night, +I mourned,...and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring. + +O ever-returning spring! trinity sure to me you bring; +Lilac blooming perennial, and drooping star in the west, +And thought of him I love. + + +2. + +O powerful, western, fallen star! +O shades of night! O moody, tearful night! +O great star disappeared! O the black murk that hides the star! +O cruel hands that hold me powerless! O helpless soul of me! +O harsh surrounding cloud that will not free my soul! + + +3. + +In the door-yard fronting an old farm-house, near the whitewashed palings, +Stands the lilac bush, tall-growing, with heart-shaped leaves of rich + green, +With many a pointed blossom, rising delicate, with the perfume strong I + love, +With every leaf a miracle: and from this bush in the dooryard, +With delicate-coloured blossoms, and heart-shaped leaves of rich green, +A sprig, with its flower, I break. + + +4. + +In the swamp, in secluded recesses, +A shy and hidden bird is warbling a song. + +Solitary, the thrush, +The hermit, withdrawn to himself, avoiding the settlements, +Sings by himself a song: + +Song of the bleeding throat! +Death's outlet song of life--for well, dear brother, I know, +If thou wast not gifted to sing, thou wouldst surely die. + + +5. + +Over the breast of the spring, the land, amid cities, +Amid lanes, and through old woods, where lately the violets peeped from the + ground, spotting the greydebris; +Amid the grass in the fields each side of the lanes--passing the endless + grass; +Passing the yellow-speared wheat, every grain from its shroud in the + dark-brown fields uprising; +Passing the apple-tree blows of white and pink in the orchards; +Carrying a corpse to where it shall rest in the grave, +Night and day journeys a coffin. + + +6. + +Coffin that passes through lanes and streets, +Through day and night, with the great cloud darkening the land, +With the pomp of the inlooped flags, with the cities draped in black, +With the show of the States themselves as of crape-veiled women standing, +With processions long and winding, and the flambeaus of the night, +With the countless torches lit--with the silent sea of faces, + and the unbared heads, +With the waiting depot, the arriving coffin, and the sombre faces, +With dirges through the night, with the thousand voices rising strong and + solemn; +With all the mournful voices of the dirges, poured around the coffin, +The dim-lit churches and the shuddering organs--Where amid these you + journey, +With the tolling, tolling bells' perpetual clang; +Here! coffin that slowly passes, +I give you my sprig of lilac. + + +7. + +Nor for you, for one, alone; +Blossoms and branches green to coffins all I bring: +For fresh as the morning--thus would I chant a song for you, O sane and + sacred Death. + +All over bouquets of roses, +O Death! I cover you over with roses and early lilies; +But mostly and now the lilac that blooms the first, +Copious, I break, I break the sprigs from the bushes! +With loaded arms I come, pouring for you, +For you and the coffins all of you, O Death. + + +8. + +O western orb, sailing the heaven! +Now I know what you must have meant, as a month since we walked, +As we walked up and down in the dark blue so mystic, +As we walked in silence the transparent shadowy night, +As I saw you had something to tell, as you bent to me night after night, +As you drooped from the sky low down, as if to my side, while the other + stars all looked on; +As we wandered together the solemn night, for something, I know not what, + kept me from sleep; +As the night advanced, and I saw on the rim of the west, ere you went, how + full you were of woe; +As I stood on the rising ground in the breeze, in the cool transparent + night, +As I watched where you passed and was lost in the netherward black of the + night, +As my soul, in its trouble, dissatisfied, sank, as where you, sad orb, +Concluded, dropped in the night, and was gone. + + +9. + +Sing on, there in the swamp! +O singer bashful and tender! I hear your notes--I hear your call; +I hear--I come presently--I understand you; +But a moment I linger--for the lustrous star has detained me; +The star, my comrade departing, holds and detains me. + + +10. + +O how shall I warble myself for the dead one there I loved? +And how shall I deck my song for the large sweet soul that has gone? +And what shall my perfume be for the grave of him I love? + +Sea-winds, blown from east and west, +Blown from the Eastern Sea, and blown from the Western Sea, till there on + the prairies meeting: +These, and with these, and the breath of my chant, +I perfume the grave of him I love. + + +11. + +O what shall I hang on the chamber walls? +And what shall the pictures be that I hang on the walls, +To adorn the burial-house of him I love? + +Pictures of growing spring, and farms, and homes, +With the Fourth-month eve at sundown, and the grey smoke lucid and bright, +With floods of the yellow gold of the gorgeous, indolent sinking sun, + burning, expanding the air; +With the fresh sweet herbage under foot, and the pale green leaves of the + trees prolific; +In the distance the flowing glaze, the breast of the river, + with a wind-dapple here and there; +With ranging hills on the banks, with many a line against the sky, and + shadows; +And the city at hand, with dwellings so dense, and stacks of chimneys, +And all the scenes of life, and the workshops, and the workmen homeward + returning. + + +12. + +Lo! body and soul! this land! +Mighty Manhattan, with spires, and the sparkling and hurrying tides, and + the ships; +The varied and ample land--the South and the North in the +light--Ohio's shores, and flashing Missouri, +And ever the far-spreading prairies, covered with grass and corn. + +Lo! the most excellent sun, so calm and haughty; +The violet and purple morn, with just-felt breezes; +The gentle, soft-born, measureless light; +The miracle, spreading, bathing all--the fulfilled noon; +The coming eve, delicious--the welcome night, and the stars, +Over my cities shining all, enveloping man and land. + + +13. + +Sing on! sing on, you grey-brown bird! +Sing from the swamps, the recesses--pour your chant from the bushes; +Limitless out of the dusk, out of the cedars and pines. + +Sing on, dearest brother--warble your reedy song, +Loud human song, with voice of uttermost woe. + +O liquid, and free, and tender! +O wild and loose to my soul! O wondrous singer! +You only I hear,... yet the star holds me, (but will soon depart;) +Yet the lilac, with mastering odour, holds me. + + +14. + +Now while I sat in the day, and looked forth, +In the close of the day, with its light, and the fields of spring, and the + farmer preparing his crops, +In the large unconscious scenery of my land, with its lakes and forests, +In the heavenly aerial beauty, after the perturbed winds and the storms; +Under the arching heavens of the afternoon swift passing, and the voices of + children and women, +The many-moving sea-tides,--and I saw the ships how they sailed, +And the summer approaching with richness, and the fields all busy with + labour, +And the infinite separate houses, how they all went on, each with its meals +and minutiae of daily usages; +And the streets, how their throbbings throbbed, and the cities + pent--lo! then and there, +Falling upon them all, and among them all, enveloping me with the rest, +Appeared the cloud, appeared the long black trail; +And I knew Death, its thought, and the sacred knowledge of Death. + + +15. + +And the Thought of Death close-walking the other side of me, +And I in the middle, as with companions, and as holding the hands of + companions, +I fled forth to the hiding receiving night, that talks not, +Down to the shores of the water, the path by the swamp in the dimness, +To the solemn shadowy cedars, and ghostly pines so still. + +And the singer so shy to the rest received me; +The grey-brown bird I know received us Comrades three; +And he sang what seemed the song of Death, and a verse for him I love. + +From deep secluded recesses, +From the fragrant cedars, and the ghostly pines so still, +Came the singing of the bird. + +And the charm of the singing rapt me, +As I held, as if by their hands, my Comrades in the night; +And the voice of my spirit tallied the song of the bird. + + +16. + +Come, lovely and soothing Death, +Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving, +In the day, in the night, to all, to each, +Sooner or later, delicate Death. + +Praised be the fathomless universe, +For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious; +And for love, sweet love--But praise! O praise and praise, +For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding Death. + +Dark Mother, always gliding near, with soft feet, +Have none chanted for thee a chant of fullest welcome? +Then I chant it for thee--I glorify thee above all; +I bring thee a song that, when thou must indeed come, come unfalteringly. + +Approach, encompassing Death-strong deliveress! +When it is so--when thou hast taken them, I joyously sing the dead, +Lost in the loving, floating ocean of thee, +Laved in the flood of thy bliss, O Death. + +From me to thee glad serenades, +Dances for thee I propose, saluting thee--adornments and feastings for + thee; +And the sights of the open landscape, and the high-spread sky, are fitting, +And life and the fields, and the huge and thoughtful night. + +The night, in silence, under many a star; +The ocean shore, and the husky whispering wave, whose voice I know; +And the soul turning to thee, O vast and well-veiled Death, +And the body gratefully nestling close to thee. + +Over the tree-tops I float thee a song! +Over the rising and sinking waves--over the myriad fields, and the prairies + wide; +Over the dense-packed cities all, and the teeming wharves and ways, +I float this carol with joy, with joy, to thee, O Death! + + +17. + +To the tally of my soul +Loud and strong kept up the grey-brown bird, +With pure, deliberate notes, spreading, filling the night. + +Loud in the pines and cedars dim, +Clear in the freshness moist, and the swamp-perfume, +And I with my Comrades there in the night. + +While my sight that was bound in my eyes unclosed, +As to long panoramas of visions. + + +18. + + +I saw the vision of armies; +And I saw, as in noiseless dreams, hundreds of battle-flags; +Borne through the smoke of the battles, and pierced with missiles, I saw + them, +And carried hither and yon through the smoke, and torn and bloody; +And at last but a few shreds of the flags left on the staffs, (and all in + silence,) +And the staffs all splintered and broken. + +I saw battle-corpses, myriads of them, +And the white skeletons of young men--I saw them; +I saw the debris and debris of all dead soldiers. +But I saw they were not as was thought; +They themselves were fully at rest--they suffered not; +The living remained and suffered--the mother suffered, +And the wife and the child, and the musing comrade suffered, +And the armies that remained suffered. + + +19. + +Passing the visions, passing the night; +Passing, unloosing the hold of my Comrades' hands; +Passing the song of the hermit bird, and the tallying song of my soul; +Victorious song, Death's outlet song, yet varying, ever-altering song; +As low and wailing, yet clear, the notes, rising and falling, flooding the + night, +Sadly sinking and fainting, as warning and warning, and yet again bursting + with joy. +Covering the earth, and filling the spread of the heaven, +As that powerful psalm in the night, I heard from recesses. + + +20. + +Must I leave thee, lilac with heart-shaped leaves? +Must I leave thee there in the door-yard, blooming, returning with spring? + +Must I pass from my song for thee-- +From my gaze on thee in the west, fronting the west, communing with thee, +O comrade lustrous, with silver face in the night? + + +21. + +Yet each I keep, and all; +The song, the wondrous chant of the grey-brown bird, +And the tallying chant, the echo aroused in my soul, +With the lustrous and drooping star, with the countenance full of woe; +With the lilac tali, and its blossoms of mastering odour; +Comrades mine, and I in the midst, and their memory ever I keep--for the + dead I loved so well; +For the sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and lands--and this for his + dear sake; +Lilac and star and bird, twined with the chant of my soul, +With the holders holding my hand, nearing the call of the bird, +There in the fragrant pines, and the cedars dusk and dim. + +[Footnote 1: "The evening star, which, as many may remember night after +night, in the early part of that eventful spring, hung low in the west with +unusual and tender brightness."--JOHN BURROUGHS.] + + + +_O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN!_ +(FOR THE DEATH OF LINCOLN.) + + +1. + +O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done! +The ship has weathered every wrack, the prize we sought is won. +The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, +While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring. + But, O heart! heart! heart! + Leave you not the little spot + Where on the deck my Captain lies, + Fallen cold and dead. + + +2. + +O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells! +Rise up! for you the flag is flung, for you the bugle trills: +For you bouquets and ribboned wreaths; for you the shores a-crowding: +For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning. + + O Captain! dear father! + This arm I push beneath you. + It is some dream that on the deck + You've fallen cold and dead! + + +3. + +My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still: +My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will. +But the ship, the ship is anchored safe, its voyage closed and done: +From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won! + Exult, O shores! and ring, O bells! + But I, with silent tread, + Walk the spot my Captain lies, + Fallen cold and dead. + + + +_PIONEERS! O PIONEERS!_ + + +1. + + Come, my tan-faced children, +Follow well in order, get your weapons ready; +Have you your pistols? have you your sharp-edged axes? + Pioneers! O pioneers! + + +2. + + For we cannot tarry here, +We must march, my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger, +We, the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend. + Pioneers! O pioneers! + + +3. + + O you youths, Western youths, +So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship, +Plain I see you, Western youths, see you tramping with the foremost, + Pioneers! O pioneers! + + +4. + + Have the elder races halted? +Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied, over there beyond the seas? +We take up the task eternal, and the burden, and the lesson, + Pioneers! O pioneers! + + +5. + + All the past we leave behind; +We debouch upon a newer, mightier world, varied world; +Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labour and the march, + Pioneers! O pioneers! + + +6. + + We detachments steady throwing, +Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep, +Conquering, holding, daring, venturing, as we go, the unknown ways, + Pioneers! O pioneers! + + +7. + + We primeval forests felling, +We the rivers stemming, vexing we, and piercing deep the mines within; +We the surface broad surveying, and the virgin soil upheaving, + Pioneers! O pioneers! + + +8. + + Colorado men are we, +From the peaks gigantic, from the great sierras and the high plateaus, +From the mine and from the gully, from the hunting trail we come, + Pioneers! O pioneers! + + +9. + + From Nebraska, from Arkansas, +Central inland race are we, from Missouri, with the continental blood +interveined; +All the hands of comrades clasping, all the Southern, all the Northern, + Pioneers! O pioneers! + + +10. + + O resistless, restless race! +O beloved race in all! O my breast aches with tender love for all! +O I mourn and yet exult--I am rapt with love for all, + Pioneers! O pioneers; + + +11. + + Raise the mighty mother mistress, +Waving high the delicate mistress, over all the starry mistress, (bend your +heads all,) +Raise the fanged and warlike mistress, stern, impassive, weaponed mistress, + Pioneers! O pioneers! + + +12. + + See, my children, resolute children, +By those swarms upon our rear, we must never yield or falter, +Ages back in ghostly millions, frowning there behind us urging, + Pioneers! O pioneers! + + +13. + + On and on, the compact ranks, +With accessions ever waiting, with the places of the dead quickly filled, +Through the battle, through defeat, moving yet and never stopping, + Pioneers! O pioneers! + + +14. + + + O to die advancing on! +Are there some of us to droop and die? has the hour come? +Then upon the march we fittest die, soon and sure the gap is filled, + Pioneers! O pioneers! + + +15. + + All the pulses of the world, +Falling in, they beat for us, with the Western movement beat; +Holding single or together, steady moving, to the front, all for us, + Pioneers! O pioneers! + + +16. + + Life's involved and varied pageants, +All the forms and shows, all the workmen at their work, +All the seamen and the landsmen, all the masters with their slaves, + Pioneers, O pioneers! + + +17. + + All the hapless silent lovers, +All the prisoners in the prisons, all the righteous and the wicked, +All the joyous, all the sorrowing, all the living, all the dying, + Pioneers! O pioneers! + + +18. + + I too with my soul and body, +We, a curious trio, picking, wandering on our way, +Through these shores, amid the shadows, with the apparitions pressing, + Pioneers! O pioneers! + + +19. + + Lo! the darting, bowling orb! +Lo! the brother orbs around! all the clustering suns and planets; +All the dazzling days, all the mystic nights with dreams, + Pioneers! O pioneers! + + +20. + + These are of us, they are with us, +All for primal needed work, while the followers there in embryo wait +behind, +We to-day's procession heading, we the route for travel clearing, + Pioneers! O pioneers! + + +21. + + O you daughters of the West! +O you young and elder daughters! O you mothers and you wives! +Never must you be divided, in our ranks you move united, + Pioneers! O pioneers! + + +22. + + Minstrels latent on the prairies! +(Shrouded bards of other lands! you may sleep--you have done your work;) +Soon I hear you coming warbling, soon you rise and tramp amid us, + Pioneers! O pioneers! + +23. + + Not for delectations sweet; +Not the cushion and the slipper, not the peaceful and the studious; +Not the riches safe and palling, not for us the tame enjoyment, + Pioneers! O pioneers! + + +24. + + Do the feasters gluttonous feast? +Do the corpulent sleepers sleep? have they locked and bolted doors? +Still be ours the diet hard, and the blanket on the ground, + Pioneers! O pioneers! + + +25. + + Has the night descended? +Was the road of late so toilsome? did we stop discouraged, nodding on our +way? +Yet a passing hour I yield you in your tracks to pause oblivious, + Pioneers! O pioneers! + + +26. + + Till with sound of trumpet, +Far, far off the daybreak call--hark! how loud and clear I hear it wind; +Swift! to the head of the army!--swift! spring to your places, + Pioneers! O pioneers! + + + +_TO THE SAYERS OF WORDS._ + + +1. + +Earth, round, rolling, compact--suns, moons, animals--all these are words + to be said; +Watery, vegetable, sauroid advances--beings, premonitions, lispings of + the future, +Behold! these are vast words to be said. + +Were you thinking that those were the words--those upright lines? those + curves, angles, dots? +No, those are not the words--the substantial words are in the ground and + sea, +They are in the air--they are in you. + +Were you thinking that those were the words--those delicious sounds out of + your friends' mouths? +No; the real words are more delicious than they. + +Human bodies are words, myriads of words; +In the best poems reappears the body, man's or woman's, well-shaped, + natural, gay; +Every part able, active, receptive, without shame or the need of shame. + +Air, soil, water, fire--these are words; +I myself am a word with them--my qualities interpenetrate + with theirs--my name is nothing to them; +Though it were told in the three thousand languages, what would air, soil, +water, fire, know of my name? + +A healthy presence, a friendly or commanding gesture, are words, sayings, + meanings; +The charms that go with the mere looks of some men and women are sayings + and meanings also. + + +2. + +The workmanship of souls is by the inaudible words of the earth; +The great masters know the earth's words, and use them more than the + audible words. + +Amelioration is one of the earth's words; +The earth neither lags nor hastens; +It has all attributes, growths, effects, latent in itself from the jump; +It is not half beautiful only--defects and excrescences show just as much + as perfections show. + +The earth does not withhold--it is generous enough; +The truths of the earth continually wait, they are not so concealed either; +They are calm, subtle, untransmissible by print; +They are imbued through all things, conveying themselves willingly, +Conveying a sentiment and invitation of the earth. I utter and utter: +I speak not; yet, if you hear me not, of what avail am I to you? +To bear--to better; lacking these, of what avail am I? + +_Accouche! Accouchez!_ +Will you rot your own fruit in yourself there? +Will you squat and stifle there? + +The earth does not argue, +Is not pathetic, has no arrangements, +Does not scream, haste, persuade, threaten, promise, +Makes no discriminations, has no conceivable failures, +Closes nothing, refuses nothing, shuts none out; +Of all the powers, objects, states, it notifies, shuts none out. + +The earth does not exhibit itself, nor refuse to exhibit itself--possesses + still underneath; +Underneath the ostensible sounds, the august chorus of heroes, the wail of + slaves, +Persuasions of lovers, curses, gasps of the dying, laughter of young + people, accents of bargainers, +Underneath these, possessing the words that never fail. + +To her children, the words of the eloquent dumb great Mother never fail; +The true words do not fail, for motion does not fail, and reflection does + not fail; +Also the day and night do not fail, and the voyage we pursue does not fail. + + +3. + +Of the interminable sisters, +Of the ceaseless cotillons of sisters, +Of the centripetal and centrifugal sisters, the elder and younger sisters, +The beautiful sister we know dances on with the rest. + +With her ample back towards every beholder, +With the fascinations of youth, and the equal fascinations of age, +Sits she whom I too love like the rest--sits undisturbed, +Holding up in her hand what has the character of a mirror, while her eyes + glance back from it, +Glance as she sits, inviting none, denying none, +Holding a mirror day and night tirelessly before her own face. + +Seen at hand, or seen at a distance, +Duly the twenty-four appear in public every day, +Duly approach and pass with their companions, or a companion, +Looking from no countenances of their own, but from the countenances of + those who are with them, +From the countenances of children or women, or the manly countenance, +From the open countenances of animals, or from inanimate things, +From the landscape or waters, or from the exquisite apparition of the sky, +From our countenances, mine and yours, faithfully returning them, +Every day in public appearing without fail, but never twice with the same + companions. + +Embracing man, embracing all, proceed the three hundred and + sixty-five resistlessly round the sun; +Embracing all, soothing, supporting, follow close three hundred and sixty- + five offsets of the first, sure and necessary as they. + +Tumbling on steadily, nothing dreading, +Sunshine, storm, cold, heat, for ever withstanding, passing, carrying, + +The Soul's realisation and determination still inheriting; +The fluid vacuum around and ahead still entering and dividing, +No baulk retarding, no anchor anchoring, on no rock striking, +Swift, glad, content, unbereaved, nothing losing, +Of all able and ready at any time to give strict account, +The divine ship sails the divine sea. + + +4. + +Whoever you are! motion and reflection are especially for you; +The divine ship sails the divine sea for you. + +Whoever you are! you are he or she for whom the earth is solid and liquid, +You are he or she for whom the sun and moon hang in the sky; +For none more than you are the present and the past, +For none more than you is immortality. + +Each man to himself, and each woman to herself, such as the word of the + past and present, and the word of immortality; +No one can acquire for another--not one! +Not one can grow for another--not one! + +The song is to the singer, and comes back most to him; +The teaching is to the teacher, and comes back most to him; +The murder is to the murderer, and comes back most to him; + +The theft is to the thief, and comes back most to him; +The love is to the lover, and conies back most to him; +The gift is to the giver, and comes back most to him--it cannot fail; +The oration is to the orator, the acting is to the actor and actress, not + to the audience; +And no man understands any greatness or goodness but his own, or the + indication of his own. + + +5. + +I swear the earth shall surely be complete to him or her who shall be + complete! +I swear the earth remains jagged and broken only to him or her who remains + broken and jagged! + +I swear there is no greatness or power that does not emulate those of the + earth! +I swear there can be no theory of any account, unless it corroborate the + theory of the earth! +No politics, art, religion, behaviour, or what not, is of account, unless + it compare with the amplitude of the earth, +Unless it face the exactness, vitality, impartiality, rectitude, of the + earth. + +I swear I begin to see love with sweeter spasms than that which responds + love! +It is that which contains itself--which never invites, and never refuses. + +I swear I begin to see little or nothing in audible words! +I swear I think all merges toward the presentation of the unspoken meanings + of the earth; +Toward him who sings the songs of the Body, and of the truths of the earth; +Toward him who makes the dictionaries of words that print cannot touch. + +I swear I see what is better than to tell the best; +It is always to leave the best untold. + +When I undertake to tell the best, I find I cannot, +My tongue is ineffectual on its pivots, +My breath will not be obedient to its organs, +I become a dumb man. + +The best of the earth cannot be told anyhow--all or any is best; +It is not what you anticipated--it is cheaper, easier, nearer; +Things are not dismissed from the places they held before; +The earth is just as positive and direct as it was before; +Facts, religions, improvements, politics, trades, are as real as before; +But the Soul is also real,--it too is positive and direct; +No reasoning, no proof has established it, +Undeniable growth has established it. + + +6. + +This is a poem for the sayers of words--these are hints of meanings, +These are they that echo the tones of souls, and the phrases of souls; +If they did not echo the phrases of souls, what were they then? +If they had not reference to you in especial, what were they then? +I swear I will never henceforth have to do with the faith that tells the + best! +I will have to do only with that faith that leaves the best untold. + + +7. + +Say on, sayers! +Delve! mould! pile the words of the earth! +Work on--it is materials you bring, not breaths; +Work on, age after age! nothing is to be lost! +It may have to wait long, but it will certainly come in use; +When the materials are all prepared, the architects shall appear. + +I swear to you the architects shall appear without fail! I announce them + and lead them; +I swear to you they will understand you and justify you; +I swear to you the greatest among them shall be he who best knows you, and + encloses all, and is faithful to all; +I swear to you, he and the rest shall not forget you--they shall perceive + that you are not an iota less than they; +I swear to you, you shall be glorified in them. + + + +_VOICES._ + + +1. + +Now I make a leaf of Voices--for I have found nothing mightier than they + are, +And I have found that no word spoken but is beautiful in its place. + + +2. + +O what is it in me that makes me tremble so at voices? +Surely, whoever speaks to me in the right voice, him or her I shall follow, +As the water follows the moon, silently, with fluid steps anywhere around + the globe. + +All waits for the right voices; +Where is the practised and perfect organ? Where is the developed Soul? +For I see every word uttered thence has deeper, sweeter, new sounds, + impossible on less terms. + +I see brains and lips closed--tympans and temples unstruck, +Until that comes which has the quality to strike and to unclose, +Until that comes which has the quality to bring forth what lies slumbering, + for ever ready, in all words. + + + +_WHOSOEVER._ + + +Whoever you are, I fear you are walking the walks of dreams, +I fear those supposed realities are to melt from under your feet and hands; +Even now, your features, joys, speech, house, trade, manners, troubles, + follies, costume, crimes, dissipate away from you, +Your true Soul and Body appear before me, +They stand forth out of affairs-out of commerce, shops, law, science, work, + farms, clothes, the house, medicine, print, buying, selling, + eating, drinking, suffering, dying. + +Whoever you are, now I place my hand upon you, that you be my poem; +I whisper with my lips close to your ear, +I have loved many women and men, but I love none better than you. + +Oh! I have been dilatory and dumb; +I should have made my way straight to you long ago; +I should have blabbed nothing but you, I should have chanted nothing but + you. + +I will leave all, and come and make the hymns of you; +None have understood you, but I understand you; +None have done justice to you--you have not done justice to yourself; +None but have found you imperfect--I only find no imperfection in you; +None but would subordinate you--I only am he who will never consent to + subordinate you; +I only am he who places over you no master, owner, better, God, beyond what + waits intrinsically in yourself. + +Painters have painted their swarming groups, and the centre figure of all, +From the head of the centre figure spreading a nimbus of + gold-coloured light; +But I paint myriads of heads, but paint no head without its nimbus of gold- + coloured light; +From my hand, from the brain of every man and woman, it streams, + effulgently flowing for ever. + +O I could sing such grandeurs and glories about you! +You have not known what you are--you have slumbered upon yourself all your + life; +Your eyelids have been the same as closed most of the time; +What you have done returns already in mockeries; +Your thrift, knowledge, prayers, if they do not return in mockeries, what + is their return? + +The mockeries are not you; +Underneath them, and within them, I see you lurk; +I pursue you where none else has pursued you; +Silence, the desk, the flippant expression, the night, the accustomed + routine, if these conceal you from others, or from yourself, they + do not conceal you from me; +The shaved face, the unsteady eye, the impure complexion, if these baulk + others, they do not baulk me. +The pert apparel, the deformed attitude, drunkenness, greed, premature + death, all these I part aside. + +There is no endowment in man or woman that is not tallied in you; +There is no virtue, no beauty, in man or woman, but as good is in you; +No pluck, no endurance in others, but as good is in you; +No pleasure waiting for others, but an equal pleasure waits for you. +As for me, I give nothing to any one, except I give the like carefully to + you; +I sing the songs of the glory of none, not God, sooner than I sing the + songs of the glory of you. + +Whoever you are! claim your own at any hazard! +These shows of the east and west are tame compared to you; +These immense meadows--these interminable rivers--you are immense and + interminable as they; +These furies, elements, storms, motions of Nature, throes of apparent + dissolution--you are he or she who is master or mistress over them, +Master or mistress in your own right over Nature, elements, pain, passion, + dissolution. + +The hopples fall from your ankles--you find an unfailing sufficiency; +Old or young, male or female, rude, low, rejected by the rest, whatever you + are promulgates itself; +Through birth, life, death, burial, the means are provided, nothing is + scanted; +Through angers, losses, ambition, ignorance, ennui, what you are picks its + way. + + + +_BEGINNERS._ + + +How they are provided for upon the earth, appearing at intervals; +How dear and dreadful they are to the earth; +How they inure to themselves as much as to any--What a paradox appears + their age; +How people respond to them, yet know them not; +How there is something relentless in their fate, all times; +How all times mischoose the objects of their adulation and reward, +And how the same inexorable price must still be paid for the same great + purchase. + + + + +_TO A PUPIL._ + + +1. + +Is reform needed? Is it through you? +The greater the reform needed, the greater the PERSONALITY you need to + accomplish it. + +You! do you not see how it would serve to have eyes, blood, complexion, + clean and sweet? +Do you not see how it would serve to have such a Body and Soul that, when + you enter the crowd, an atmosphere of desire and command enters + with you, and every one is impressed with your personality? + + +2. + +O the magnet! the flesh over and over! +Go, dear friend! if need be, give up all else, and commence to-day to inure + yourself to pluck, reality, self-esteem, definiteness, + elevatedness; +Rest not, till you rivet and publish yourself of your own personality. + + + +LINKS. + + +1. + +Think of the Soul; +I swear to you that body of yours gives proportions to your Soul somehow to + live in other spheres; +I do not know how, but I know it is so. + + +2. + +Think of loving and being loved; +I swear to you, whoever you are, you can interfuse yourself with such + things that everybody that sees you shall look longingly upon you. + + +3. + +Think of the past; +I warn you that, in a little while, others will find their past in you and + your times. + +The race is never separated--nor man nor woman escapes; +All is inextricable--things, spirits, nature, nations, you too--from + precedents you come. + +Recall the ever-welcome defiers (the mothers precede them); +Recall the sages, poets, saviours, inventors, lawgivers, of the earth; +Recall Christ, brother of rejected persons--brother of slaves, felons, + idiots, and of insane and diseased persons. + + +4. + +Think of the time when you was not yet born; +Think of times you stood at the side of the dying; +Think of the time when your own body will be dying. + +Think of spiritual results: +Sure as the earth swims through the heavens, does every one of its objects + pass into spiritual results. + +Think of manhood, and you to be a man; +Do you count manhood, and the sweet of manhood, nothing? + +Think of womanhood, and you to be a woman; + The creation is womanhood; +Have I not said that womanhood involves all? +Have I not told how the universe has nothing better than the best + womanhood? + + + +_THE WATERS._ + + +The world below the brine. +Forests at the bottom of the sea--the branches and leaves, +Sea-lettuce, vast lichens, strange flowers and seeds--the thick tangle, the + openings, and the pink turf, +Different colours, pale grey and green, purple, white, and gold--the play + of light through the water, +Dumb swimmers there among the rocks--coral, gluten, grass, rushes--and the + aliment of the swimmers, +Sluggish existences grazing there, suspended, or slowly crawling close to + the bottom: +The sperm-whale at the surface, blowing air and spray, or disporting with + his flukes, +The leaden-eyed shark, the walrus, the turtle, the hairy + sea-leopard, and the sting-ray. +Passions there, wars, pursuits, tribes--sight in those ocean-depths-- + breathing that thick breathing air, as so many do. +The change thence to the sight here, and to the subtle air breathed by + beings like us, who walk this sphere: +The change onward from ours to that of beings who walk other spheres. + + + +_TO THE STATES._ + +TO IDENTIFY THE SIXTEENTH, SEVENTEENTH, OR EIGHTEENTH PRESIDENTIAD.[1] + + +Why reclining, interrogating? Why myself and all drowsing? +What deepening twilight! Scum floating atop of the waters! +Who are they, as bats and night-dogs, askant in the Capitol? +What a filthy Presidentiad! (O South, your torrid suns! O North, your + Arctic freezings!) +Are those really Congressmen? Are those the great Judges? Is that the + President? +Then I will sleep a while yet--for I see that these States sleep, for + reasons. +With gathering murk--with muttering thunder and lambent shoots, we all duly + awake, South, North, East, West, inland and seaboard, we will + surely awake. + +[Footnote 1: These were the three Presidentships of Polk; of Taylor, +succeeded by Fillmore; and of Pierce;--1845 to 1857.] + + + +_TEARS._ + + +Tears! tears! tears! + In the night, in solitude, tears; +On the white shore dripping, dripping, sucked in by the sand; +Tears--not a star shining--all dark and desolate; +Moist tears from the eyes of a muffled head: +--O who is that ghost?--that form in the dark, with tears? +What shapeless lump is that, bent, crouched there on the sand? +Streaming tears--sobbing tears--throes, choked with wild cries; +O storm, embodied, rising, careering, with swift steps along the beach; +O wild and dismal night-storm, with wind! O belching and desperate! +O shade, so sedate and decorous by day, with calm countenance and regulated + pace; +But away, at night, as you fly, none looking--O then the unloosened ocean +Of tears! tears! tears! + + + +_A SHIP._ + + +1. + +Aboard, at the ship's helm, +A young steersman, steering with care. + +A bell through fog on a sea-coast dolefully ringing, +An ocean-bell--O a warning bell, rocked by the waves. + +O you give good notice indeed, you bell by the sea-reefs ringing, +Ringing, ringing, to warn the ship from its wreck-place. +For, as on the alert, O steersman, you mind the bell's admonition, +The bows turn,--the freighted ship, tacking, speeds away under her grey + sails; +The beautiful and noble ship, with all her precious wealth, speeds away + gaily and safe. + + +2. + +But O the ship, the immortal ship! O ship aboard the ship! +O ship of the body--ship of the soul--voyaging, voyaging, voyaging. + + + +_GREATNESS._ + + +1. + +Great are the myths--I too delight in them; +Great are Adam and Eve--I too look back and accept them; +Great the risen and fallen nations, and their poets, women, sages, + inventors, rulers, warriors, and priests. + +Great is Liberty! great is Equality! I am their follower; +Helmsmen of nations, choose your craft! where you sail, I sail, +I weather it out with you, or sink with you. + +Great is Youth--equally great is Old Age--great are the Day and Night; +Great is Wealth--great is Poverty--great is Expression--great is Silence. + + +2. + +Youth, large, lusty, loving--Youth, full of grace, force, fascination! +Do you know that Old Age may come after you, with equal grace, force, + fascination? + +Day, full-blown and splendid--Day of the immense sun, action, ambition, + laughter, +The Night follows close, with millions of suns, and sleep, and restoring + darkness. + +Wealth, with the flush hand, fine clothes, hospitality; +But then the soul's wealth, which is candour, knowledge, pride, enfolding + love; +Who goes for men and women showing Poverty richer than wealth? + +Expression of speech! in what is written or said, forget not that Silence + is also expressive; +That anguish as hot as the hottest, and contempt as cold as the coldest, + may be without words. + + +3. + +Great is the Earth, and the way it became what it is: +Do you imagine it has stopped at this? the increase abandoned? +Understand then that it goes as far onward from this as this is from the + times when it lay in covering waters and gases, before man had + appeared. + + +4. + +Great is the quality of Truth in man; +The quality of truth in man supports itself through all changes; +It is inevitably in the man--he and it are in love, and never leave each + other. + +The truth in man is no dictum, it is vital as eyesight; +If there be any Soul, there is truth--if there be man or woman, there is + truth--if there be physical or moral, there is truth; +If there be equilibrium or volition, there is truth--if there be things at + all upon the earth, there is truth. + +O truth of the earth! O truth of things! I am determined to press my way + toward you; +Sound your voice! I scale mountains, or dive in the sea, after you. + + +5. + +Great is Language--it is the mightiest of the sciences, +It is the fulness, colour, form, diversity of the earth, and of men and + women, and of all qualities and processes; +It is greater than wealth, it is greater than buildings, ships, religions, + paintings, music. + +Great is the English speech--what speech is so great as the English? +Great is the English brood--what brood has so vast a destiny as the + English? +It is the mother of the brood that must rule the earth with the new rule; +The new rule shall rule as the Soul rules, and as the love, justice, + equality in the Soul rule. + + +6. + +Great is Law--great are the old few landmarks of the law, +They are the same in all times, and shall not be disturbed. + +Great is Justice! +Justice is not settled by legislators and laws--it is in the Soul; +It cannot be varied by statutes, any more than love, pride, the attraction + of gravity, can; +It is immutable--it does not depend on majorities--majorities or what not + come at last before the same passionless and exact tribunal. + +For justice are the grand natural lawyers, and perfect judges--it is in + their souls; +It is well assorted--they have not studied for nothing--the great includes + the less; +They rule on the highest grounds--they oversee all eras, states, + administrations. + +The perfect judge fears nothing--he could go front to front before God; +Before the perfect judge all shall stand back--life and death shall stand + back--heaven and hell shall stand back. + + +7. + +Great is Life, real and mystical, wherever and whoever; +Great is Death--sure as Life holds all parts together, Death holds all + parts together. + +Has Life much purport?--Ah! Death has the greatest purport. + + + +_THE POET._ + + +1. + +Now list to my morning's romanza; +To the cities and farms I sing, as they spread in the sunshine before me. + + +2. + +A young man came to me bearing a message from his brother; +How should the young man know the whether and when of his brother? +Tell him to send me the signs. + +And I stood before the young man face to face, and took his right hand in + my left hand, and his left hand in my right hand, +And I answered for his brother, and for men, and I answered for THE POET, + and sent these signs. + +Him all wait for--him all yield up to--his word is decisive and final, +Him they accept, in him lave, in him perceive themselves, as amid light, +Him they immerse, and he immerses them. + +Beautiful women, the haughtiest nations, laws, the landscape, people, + animals, +The profound earth and its attributes, and the unquiet ocean (so tell I my + morning's romanza), +All enjoyments and properties, and money, and whatever money will buy, +The best farms--others toiling and planting, and he unavoidably reaps, +The noblest and costliest cities--others grading and building, and he + domiciles there, +Nothing for any one but what is for him--near and far are for him,--the + ships in the offing, +The perpetual shows and marches on land, are for him, if they are for + anybody. + +He puts things in their attitudes; +He puts to-day out of himself, with plasticity and love; +He places his own city, times, reminiscences, parents, brothers and + sisters, associations, employment, politics, so that the rest never + shame them afterward, nor assume to command them. + +He is the answerer; +What can be answered he answers--and what cannot be answered, he shows how + it cannot be answered. + + +3. + +A man is a summons and challenge; +(It is vain to skulk--Do you hear that mocking and laughter? Do you hear + the ironical echoes?) + +Books, friendships, philosophers, priests, action, pleasure, pride, beat up + and down, seeking to give satisfaction; +He indicates the satisfaction, and indicates them that beat up and down + also. + +Whichever the sex, whatever the season or place, he may go freshly and + gently and safely, by day or by night; +He has the pass-key of hearts--to him the response of the prying of hands + on the knobs. + +His welcome is universal--the flow of beauty is not more welcome or + universal than he is; +The person he favours by day or sleeps with at night is blessed. + +Every existence has its idiom--everything has an idiom and tongue; +He resolves all tongues into his own, and bestows it upon men, and any man + translates, and any man translates himself also; +One part does not counteract another part--he is the joiner--he sees how + they join. + +He says indifferently and alike, "_How are you, friend_?" to the President + at his levee, +And he says, "_Good-day, my brother_!" to Cudge that hoes in the sugar- + field, +And both understand him, and know that his speech is right. + +He walks with perfect ease in the Capitol, +He walks among the Congress, and one representative says to another, "_Here + is our equal, appearing and new_." + + +4. + +Then the mechanics take him for a mechanic, +And the soldiers suppose him to be a soldier, and the sailors that he has + followed the sea, +And the authors take him for an author, and the artists for an artist, +And the labourers perceive he could labour with them and love them; +No matter what the work is, that he is the one to follow it, or has + followed it, +No matter what the nation, that he might find his brothers and sisters + there. + +The English believe he comes of their English stock, +A Jew to the Jew he seems--a Russ to the Russ--usual and near, removed from + none. + +Whoever he looks at in the travellers' coffee-house claims him; +The Italian or Frenchman is sure, and the German is sure, and the Spaniard + is sure, and the island Cuban is sure; +The engineer, the deck-hand on the great lakes, or on the Mississippi, or +St. Lawrence, or Sacramento, or Hudson, or Paumanok Sound, claims him. + +The gentleman of perfect blood acknowledges his perfect blood; +The insulter, the prostitute, the angry person, the beggar, see themselves + in the ways of him--he strangely transmutes them, +They are not vile any more--they hardly know themselves, they are so grown. + + + +_BURIAL._ + + +1. + +To think of it! +To think of time--of all that retrospection! +To think of to-day, and the ages continued henceforward! +Have you guessed you yourself would not continue? +Have you dreaded these earth-beetles? +Have you feared the future would be nothing to you? + +Is to-day nothing? Is the beginningless past nothing? +If the future is nothing, they are just as surely nothing. + +To think that the sun rose in the east! that men and women were flexible, + real, alive! that everything was alive! +To think that you and I did not see, feel, think, nor bear our part! +To think that we are now here, and bear our part! + + +2. + +Not a day passes--not a minute or second, without an accouchement! +Not a day passes-not a minute or second, without a corpse! + +The dull nights go over, and the dull days also, +The soreness of lying so much in bed goes over, +The physician, after long putting off, gives the silent and terrible look + for an answer, +The children come hurried and weeping, and the brothers and sisters are + sent for; +Medicines stand unused on the shelf--(the camphor-smell has long pervaded + the rooms,) +The faithful hand of the living does not desert the hand of the dying, +The twitching lips press lightly on the forehead of the dying, +The breath ceases, and the pulse of the heart ceases, +The corpse stretches on the bed, and the living look upon it, +It is palpable as the living are palpable. + +The living look upon the corpse with their eyesight, +But without eyesight lingers a different living, and looks curiously on the + corpse. + + +3. + +To think that the rivers will flow, and the snow fall, and the fruits + ripen, and act upon others as upon us now--yet not act upon us! +To think of all these wonders of city and country, and others taking great + interest in them--and we taking--no interest in them! + +To think how eager we are in building our houses! +To think others shall be just as eager, and we quite indifferent! +I see one building the house that serves him a few years, or seventy or + eighty years at most, +I see one building the house that serves him longer than that. + +Slow-moving and black lines creep over the whole earth--they never cease-- + they are the burial lines; +He that was President was buried, and he that is now President shall surely + be buried. + + +4. + +Gold dash of waves at the ferry-wharf--posh and ice in the river, half- + frozen mud in the streets, a grey discouraged sky overhead, the + short last daylight of Twelfth-month, +A hearse and stages--other vehicles give place--the funeral of an old +Broadway stage-driver, the cortege mostly drivers. + +Steady the trot to the cemetery, duly rattles the death-bell, the gate is + passed, the new-dug grave is halted at, the living alight, the + hearse uncloses, +The coffin is passed out, lowered, and settled, the whip is laid on the + coffin, the earth is swiftly shovelled in, +The mound above is flattened with the spades--silence, +A minute, no one moves or speaks--it is done, +He is decently put away--is there anything more? + +He was a good fellow, free-mouthed, quick-tempered, not bad-looking, able + to take his own part, witty, sensitive to a slight, ready with life + or death for a friend, fond of women, gambled, ate hearty, drank + hearty, had known what it was to be flush, grew low-spirited toward + the last, sickened, was helped by a contribution, died, aged forty- + one years--and that was his funeral. + +Thumb extended, finger uplifted, apron, cape, gloves, strap, wet-weather + clothes, whip carefully chosen, boss, spotter, starter, hostler, + somebody loafing on you, you loafing on somebody, headway, man + before and man behind, good day's work, bad day's work, pet stock, + mean stock, first out, last out, turning-in at night; +To think that these are so much and so nigh to other drivers--and he there + takes no interest in them! + + +5. + +The markets, the government, the working-man's wages--to think what account + they are through our nights and days! +To think that other working-men will make just as great account of them-- + yet we make little or no account! + +The vulgar and the refined--what you call sin, and what you call goodness-- + to think how wide a difference! +To think the difference will still continue to others, yet we lie beyond + the difference. + +To think how much pleasure there is! +Have you pleasure from looking at the sky? have you pleasure from poems? +Do you enjoy yourself in the city? or engaged in business? or planning a + nomination and election? or with your wife and family? +Or with your mother and sisters? or in womanly housework? or the beautiful + maternal cares? +These also flow onward to others--you and I fly onward, +But in due time you and I shall take less interest in them. + +Your farm, profits, crops,--to think how engrossed you are! +To think there will still be farms, profits, crops--yet for you, of what + avail? + + +6. + +What will be will be well--for what is is well; +To take interest is well, and not to take interest shall be well. + +The sky continues beautiful, +The pleasure of men with women shall never be sated, nor the pleasure of + women with men, nor the pleasure from poems; +The domestic joys, the daily housework or business, the building of + houses--these are not phantasms--they have weight, form, location; +Farms, profits, crops, markets, wages, government, are none of them + phantasms; +The difference between sin and goodness is no delusion, +The earth is not an echo--man and his life, and all the things of his life, + are well-considered. + +You are not thrown to the winds--you gather certainly and safely around + yourself; +Yourself! Yourself! Yourself, for ever and ever! + + +7. + +It is not to diffuse you that you were born of your mother and father--it + is to identify you; +It is not that you should be undecided, but that you should + be decided; +Something long preparing and formless is arrived and formed in you, +You are henceforth secure, whatever comes or goes. + +The threads that were spun are gathered, the weft crosses the warp, the + pattern is systematic. + +The preparations have every one been justified, +The orchestra have sufficiently tuned their instruments--the baton has + given the signal. + +The guest that was coming--he waited long, for reasons--he is now housed; +He is one of those who are beautiful and happy--he is one of those that to + look upon and be with is enough. + +The law of the past cannot be eluded, +The law of the present and future cannot be eluded, +The law of the living cannot be eluded--it is eternal; +The law of promotion and transformation cannot be eluded, +The law of heroes and good-doers cannot be eluded, +The law of drunkards, informers, mean persons--not one iota thereof can be + eluded. + + +8. + +Slow-moving and black lines go ceaselessly over the earth, +Northerner goes carried, and Southerner goes carried, and they on the + Atlantic side, and they on the Pacific, and they between, and all + through the Mississippi country, and all over the earth. + +The great masters and kosmos are well as they go--the heroes and good-doers + are well, +The known leaders and inventors, and the rich owners and pious and + distinguished, may be well, +But there is more account than that--there is strict account of all. + +The interminable hordes of the ignorant and wicked are not nothing, +The barbarians of Africa and Asia are not nothing, +The common people of Europe are not nothing--the American aborigines are + not nothing, +The infected in the immigrant hospital are not nothing--the murderer or + mean person is not nothing, +The perpetual successions of shallow people are not nothing as they go, +The lowest prostitute is not nothing--the mocker of religion is not nothing + as he goes. + + +9. + +I shall go with the rest--we have satisfaction, +I have dreamed that we are not to be changed so much, nor the law of us + changed, +I have dreamed that heroes and good-doers shall be under the present and + past law, +And that murderers, drunkards, liars, shall be under the present and past + law, +For I have dreamed that the law they are under now is enough. + +And I have dreamed that the satisfaction is not so much changed, and that + there is no life without satisfaction; +What is the earth? what are Body and Soul without satisfaction? + +I shall go with the rest, +We cannot be stopped at a given point--that is no satisfaction, +To show us a good thing, or a few good things, for a space of time--that is + no satisfaction, +We must have the indestructible breed of the best, regardless of time. +If otherwise, all these things came but to ashes of dung, +If maggots and rats ended us, then alarum! for we are betrayed! +Then indeed suspicion of death. + +Do you suspect death? If I were to suspect death, I should die now: +Do you think I could walk pleasantly and well-suited toward annihilation? + + +10. + +Pleasantly and well-suited I walk: +Whither I walk I cannot define, but I know it is good; +The whole universe indicates that it is good, +The past and the present indicate that it is good. + +How beautiful and perfect are the animals! How perfect is my Soul! +How perfect the earth, and the minutest thing upon it! +What is called good is perfect, and what is called bad is just as perfect, +The vegetables and minerals are all perfect, and the imponderable fluids + are perfect; +Slowly and surely they have passed on to this, and slowly and surely they + yet pass on. + +My Soul! if I realise you, I have satisfaction; +Animals and vegetables! if I realise you, I have satisfaction; +Laws of the earth and air! if I realise you, I have satisfaction. + +I cannot define my satisfaction, yet it is so; +I cannot define my life, yet it is so. + + +11. + +It comes to me now! +I swear I think now that everything without exception has an eternal soul! +The trees have, rooted in the ground! the weeds of the sea have! the + animals! + +I swear I think there is nothing but immortality! +That the exquisite scheme is for it, and the nebulous float is for it, and + the cohering is for it; +And all preparation is for it! and identity is for it! and life and death + are altogether for it! + + + +_THIS COMPOST._ + + +1. + +Something startles me where I thought I was safest; +I withdraw from the still woods I loved; +I will not go now on the pastures to walk; +I will not strip the clothes from my body to meet my lover the sea; +I will not touch my flesh to the earth, as to other flesh, to renew me. + + +2. + +O how can the ground not sicken? +How can you be alive, you growths of spring? +How can you furnish health, you blood of herbs, roots, orchards, grain? +Are they not continually putting distempered corpses in you? +Is not every continent worked over and over with sour dead? + +Where have you disposed of their carcasses? +Those drunkards and gluttons of so many generations; +Where have you drawn off all the foul liquid and meat? +I do not see any of it upon you to-day--or perhaps I am deceived; +I will run a furrow with my plough--I will press my spade through the sod, + and turn it up underneath; +I am sure I shall expose some of the foul meat. + + +3. + +Behold this compost! behold it well! +Perhaps every mite has once formed part of a sick person--Yet behold! +The grass covers the prairies, +The bean bursts noiselessly through the mould in the garden, +The delicate spear of the onion pierces upward, +The apple-buds cluster together on the apple branches, +The resurrection of the wheat appears with pale visage out of its graves, +The tinge awakes over the willow-tree and the mulberry-tree, +The he-birds carol mornings and evenings, while the she-birds sit on their + nests, +The young of poultry break through the hatched eggs, +The new-born of animals appear--the calf is dropped from the cow, the colt + from the mare, +Out of its little hill faithfully rise the potato's dark-green leaves, +Out of its hill rises the yellow maize-stalk; +The summer growth is innocent and disdainful above all those strata of sour + dead. + +What chemistry! +That the winds are really not infectious, +That this is no cheat, this transparent green-wash of the sea, which is so + amorous after me; +That it is safe to allow it to lick my naked body all over with its + tongues, +That it will not endanger me with the fevers that have deposited themselves + in it, +That all is clean for ever and for ever, +That the cool drink from the well tastes so good, +That blackberries are so flavorous and juicy, +That the fruits of the apple-orchard, and of the orange-orchard--that + melons, grapes, peaches, plums, will none of them poison me, +That when I recline on the grass I do not catch any disease, +Though probably every sphere of grass rises out of what was once a catching + disease. + + +4. + +Now I am terrified at the Earth! it is that calm and patient, +It grows such sweet things out of such corruptions, +It turns harmless and stainless on its axis, with such endless successions + of diseased corpses, +It distils such exquisite winds out of such infused fetor, +It renews with such unwitting looks its prodigal, annual, sumptuous crops, +It gives such divine materials to men, and accepts such leavings from them + at last. + + + +_DESPAIRING CRIES._ + + +1. + +Despairing cries float ceaselessly toward me, day and night, +The sad voice of Death--the call of my nearest lover, putting forth, + alarmed, uncertain, +"_The Sea I am quickly to sail: come tell me, +Come tell me where I am speeding--tell me my destination_." + + +2. + +I understand your anguish, but I cannot help you; +I approach, hear, behold--the sad mouth, the look out of the eyes, your + mute inquiry, +"_Whither I go from the bed I recline on, come tell me_." +Old age, alarmed, uncertain--A young woman's voice, appealing to me for + comfort; +A young man's voice, "_Shall I not escape_?" + + + +_THE CITY DEAD-HOUSE_ + + +By the City Dead-House, by the gate, +As idly sauntering, wending my way from the clangour, +I curious pause--for lo! an outcast form, a poor dead prostitute brought; +Her corpse they deposit unclaimed, it lies on the damp brick pavement. +The divine woman, her body--I see the body--I look on it alone, +That house once full of passion and beauty--all else I notice not; +Nor stillness so cold, nor running water from faucet, nor odours morbific + impress me; +But the house alone--that wondrous house--that delicate fair house--that + ruin! +That immortal house, more than all the rows of dwellings ever built, +Or white-domed Capitol itself, with majestic figure surmounted--or all the + old high-spired cathedrals, +That little house alone, more than them all--poor, desperate house! +Fair, fearful wreck! tenement of a Soul! itself a Soul! +Unclaimed, avoided house! take one breath from my tremulous lips; +Take one tear, dropped aside as I go, for thought of you, +Dead house of love! house of madness and sin, crumbled! crushed! +House of life--erewhile talking and laughing--but ah, poor house! dead even + then; +Months, years, an echoing, garnished house-but dead, dead, dead! + + + +_TO ONE SHORTLY TO DIE._ + + +1. + +From all the rest I single out you, having a message for you: +You are to die--Let others tell you what they please, I cannot prevaricate, +I am exact and merciless, but I love you--There is no escape for you. + + +2. + +Softly I lay my right hand upon you--you just feel it; +I do not argue--I bend my head close, and half envelop it, +I sit quietly by--I remain faithful, +I am more than nurse, more than parent or neighbour, +I absolve you from all except yourself, spiritual, bodily--that is + eternal,-- +The corpse you will leave will be but excrementitious. + +The sun bursts through in unlooked-for directions! +Strong thoughts fill you, and confidence--you smile! +You forget you are sick, as I forget you are sick, +You do not see the medicines--you do not mind the weeping friends--I am + with you, +I exclude others from you--there is nothing to be commiserated, +I do not commiserate--I congratulate you. + + + +_UNNAMED LANDS._ + + +1. + +Nations, ten thousand years before these States, and many times ten + thousand years before these States; +Garnered clusters of ages, that men and women like us grew up and travelled + their course, and passed on; +What vast-built cities--what orderly republics--what pastoral tribes and + nomads; +What histories, rulers, heroes, perhaps transcending all others; +What laws, customs, wealth, arts, traditions; +What sort of marriage--what costumes--what physiology and phrenology; +What of liberty and slavery among them--what they thought of death and the + soul; +Who were witty and wise--who beautiful and poetic--who brutish and + undeveloped; +Not a mark, not a record remains,--And yet all remains. + + +2. + +O I know that those men and women were not for nothing, any more than we + are for nothing; +I know that they belong to the scheme of the world every bit as much as we + now belong to it, and as all will henceforth belong to it. + +Afar they stand--yet near to me they stand, +Some with oval countenances, learned and calm, +Some naked and savage--Some like huge collections of insects, +Some in tents--herdsmen, patriarchs, tribes, horsemen, +Some prowling through woods--Some living peaceably on farms, labouring, + reaping, filling barns, +Some traversing paved avenues, amid temples, palaces, factories, libraries, + shows, courts, theatres, wonderful monuments. + +Are those billions of men really gone? +Are those women of the old experience of the earth gone? +Do their lives, cities, arts, rest only with us? +Did they achieve nothing for good, for themselves? + + +3. + +I believe, of all those billions of men and women that filled the unnamed + lands, every one exists this hour, here or elsewhere, invisible to + us, in exact proportion to what he or she grew from in life, and + out of what he or she did, felt, became, loved, sinned, in life. + +I believe that was not the end of those nations, or any person of them, any + more than this shall be the end of my nation, or of me; +Of their languages, governments, marriage, literature, products, games, + wars, manners, crimes, prisons, slaves, heroes, poets, I suspect + their results curiously await in the yet unseen world--counterparts + of what accrued to them in the seen world; +I suspect I shall meet them there, +I suspect I shall there find each old particular of those unnamed lands. + + + +_SIMILITUDE._ + + +1. + +On the beach at night alone, +As the old Mother sways her to and fro, singing her savage and husky song, +As I watch the bright stars shining--I think a thought of the clef of the + universes, and of the future. + + +2. + +A VAST SIMILITUDE interlocks all, +All spheres, grown, ungrown, small, large, suns, moons, planets, comets, + asteroids, +All the substances of the same, and all that is spiritual upon the same, +All distances of place, however wide, +All distances of time--all inanimate forms, +All Souls--all living bodies, though they be ever so different, or in + different worlds, +All gaseous, watery, vegetable, mineral processes--the fishes, the brutes, +All men and women--me also; +All nations, colours, barbarisms, civilisations, languages; +All identities that have existed, or may exist, on this globe, or any + globe; +All lives and deaths--all of the past, present, future; +This vast similitude spans them, and always has spanned, and shall for ever + span them, and compactly hold them. + + + +_THE SQUARE DEIFIC._ + + +GOD. + +Chanting the Square Deific, out of the One advancing, out of the sides; +Out of the old and new--out of the square entirely divine, +Solid, four-sided, (all the sides needed)--From this side JEHOVAH am I, +Old Brahm I, and I Saturnius am; +Not Time affects me--I am Time, modern as any; +Unpersuadable, relentless, executing righteous judgments; +As the Earth, the Father, the brown old Kronos, with laws, +Aged beyond computation--yet ever new--ever with those mighty laws rolling, +Relentless, I forgive no man--whoever sins dies--I will have that man's + life; +Therefore let none expect mercy--Have the seasons, gravitation, the + appointed days, mercy?--No more have I; +But as the seasons, and gravitation--and as all the appointed days, that + forgive not, +I dispense from this side judgments inexorable, without the least remorse. + + +SAVIOUR. + +Consolator most mild, the promised one advancing, +With gentle hand extended, the mightier God am I, +Foretold by prophets and poets, in their most wrapt prophecies and poems; +From this side, lo! the Lord CHRIST gazes--lo! Hermes I--lo! mine is + Hercules' face; +All sorrow, labour, suffering, I, tallying it, absorb in myself; +Many times have I been rejected, taunted, put in prison, and crucified--and + many times shall be again; +All the world have I given up for my dear brothers' and sisters' sake--for + the soul's sake; +Wending my way through the homes of men, rich or poor, with the kiss of + affection; +For I am affection--I am the cheer-bringing God, with hope, and all- + enclosing charity; +Conqueror yet--for before me all the armies and soldiers of the earth shall + yet bow--and all the weapons of war become impotent: +With indulgent words, as to children--with fresh and sane words, mine only; +Young and strong I pass, knowing well I am destined myself to an early + death: +But my Charity has no death--my Wisdom dies not, neither early nor late, +And my sweet Love, bequeathed here and elsewhere, never dies. + + +SATAN. + +Aloof, dissatisfied, plotting revolt, +Comrade of criminals, brother of slaves, +Crafty, despised, a drudge, ignorant, +With sudra face and worn brow--black, but in the depths of my heart proud + as any; +Lifted, now and always, against whoever, scorning, assumes to rule me; +Morose, full of guile, full of reminiscences, brooding, with many wiles, +Though it was thought I was baffled and dispelled, and my wiles done--but + that will never be; +Defiant I SATAN still live--still utter words--in new lands duly appearing, + and old ones also; +Permanent here, from my side, warlike, equal with any, real as any, +Nor time, nor change, shall ever change me or my words. + + +THE SPIRIT. + +Santa SPIRITA,[1] breather, life, +Beyond the light, lighter than light, +Beyond the flames of hell--joyous, leaping easily above hell; +Beyond Paradise--perfumed solely with mine own perfume; +Including all life on earth--touching, including God--including Saviour and + Satan; +Ethereal, pervading all--for, without me, what were all? what were God? +Essence of forms--life of the real identities, permanent, positive, namely + the unseen, +Life of the great round world, the sun and stars, and of man--I, the + General Soul, +Here the Square finishing, the solid, I the most solid, +Breathe my breath also through these little songs. + +[Footnote 1: The reader will share my wish that Whitman had written +_sanctus spiritus_, which is right, instead of _santa spirita_, which is +methodically wrong.] + + + + +_SONGS OF PARTING._ + + + +_SINGERS AND POETS._ + + +1. + +The indications and tally of time; +Perfect sanity shows the master among philosophs; +Time, always without flaw, indicates itself in parts; +What always indicates the poet is the crowd of the pleasant company of + singers, and their words; +The words of the singers are the hours or minutes of the light or dark--but +the words of the maker of poems are the general light and dark; +The maker of poems settles justice, reality, immortality, +His insight and power encircle things and the human race, +He is the glory and extract, thus far, of things and of the human race. + + +2. + +The singers do not beget--only the POET begets; +The singers are welcomed, understood, appear often enough--but rare has the +day been, likewise the spot, of the birth of the maker of poems; +Not every century, or every five centuries, has contained such a day, for + all its names. +The singers of successive hours of centuries may have ostensible names, but + the name of each of them is one of the singers; +The name of each is eye-singer, ear-singer, head-singer, +sweet-singer, echo-singer, parlour-singer, love-singer, or something else. + + +3. + +All this time, and at all times, wait the words of poems; +The greatness of sons is the exuding of the greatness of mothers and + fathers; +The words of poems are the tuft and final applause of science. + +Divine instinct, breadth of vision, the law of reason, health, rudeness of + body, withdrawnness, gaiety, sun-tan, air-sweetness--such are some + of the words of poems. + + +4. + +The sailor and traveller underlie the maker of poems, +The builder, geometer, chemist, anatomist, phrenologist, artist--all these + underlie the maker of poems. + + +5. + +The words of the true poems give you more than poems, +They give you, to form for yourself, poems, religions, politics, war, + peace, behaviour, histories, essays, romances, and everything else, +They balance ranks, colours, races, creeds, and the sexes, +They do not seek beauty--they are sought, +For ever touching them, or close upon them, follows beauty, longing, fain, + love-sick. +They prepare for death--yet are they not the finish, but rather the outset, +They bring none to his or her terminus, or to be content and full; +Whom they take, they take into space, to behold the birth of stars, to + learn one of the meanings, +To launch off with absolute faith--to sweep through the ceaseless rings, + and never be quiet again. + + + +_TO A HISTORIAN._ + + +You who celebrate bygones: +Who have explored the outward, the surfaces of the races--the life that has + exhibited itself; +Who have treated of man as the creature of politics, aggregates, rulers, + and priests. +I, habitué of the Alleghanies, treating man as he is in himself, in his own + rights, +Pressing the pulse of the life that has seldom exhibited itself, the great + pride of man in himself; +Chanter of Personality, outlining what is yet to be; +I project the history of the future. + + + +_FIT AUDIENCE._ + + +1. + +Whoever you are, holding me now in hand, +Without one thing, all will be useless: +I give you fair warning, before you attempt me further, +I am not what you supposed, but far different. + + +2. + +Who is he that would become my follower? +Who would sign himself a candidate for my affections? + +The way is suspicious--the result uncertain, perhaps destructive; +You would have to give up all else--I alone would expect to be your God, + sole and exclusive; +Your novitiate would even then be long and exhausting, +The whole past theory of your life, and all conformity to the lives around + you, would have to be abandoned; +Therefore release me now, before troubling yourself any further--Let go + your hand from my shoulders, +Put me down, and depart on your way. + +Or else, by stealth, in some wood, for trial, +Or back of a rock, in the open air, +(For in any roofed room of a house I emerge not--nor in company, +And in libraries I lie as one dumb, a gawk, or unborn, or dead,) +But just possibly with you on a high hill--first watching lest any person, + for miles around, approach unawares-- +Or possibly with you sailing at sea, or on the beach of the sea, or some + quiet island, +Here to put your lips upon mine I permit you, +With the comrade's long-dwelling kiss, or the new husband's kiss, +For I am the new husband, and I am the comrade. + +Or, if you will, thrusting me beneath your clothing, +Where I may feel the throbs of your heart, or rest upon your hip, +Carry me when you go forth over land or sea; +For thus, merely touching you, is enough--is best, +And thus, touching you, would I silently sleep, and be carried eternally. + + +3. + +But these leaves conning, you con at peril, +For these leaves, and me, you will not understand, +They will elude you at first, and still more afterward--I will certainly + elude you, +Even while you should think you had unquestionably caught me, behold! +Already you see I have escaped from you. + +For it is not for what I have put into it that I have written this book, +Nor is it by reading it you will acquire it, +Nor do those know me best who admire me, and vauntingly praise me, +Nor will the candidates for my love (unless at most a very few) prove + victorious, +Nor will my poems do good only--they will do just as much evil, perhaps + more; +For all is useless without that which you may guess at many times and not + hit--that which I hinted at; +Therefore release me, and depart on your way. + + + +_SINGING IN SPRING._ + +These I, singing in spring, collect for lovers: +For who but I should understand lovers, and all their sorrow and joy? +And who but I should be the poet of comrades? +Collecting, I traverse the garden, the world--but soon I pass the gates, +Now along the pond-side--now wading in a little, fearing not the wet, +Now by the post-and-rail fences, where the old stones thrown there, picked + from the fields, have accumulated, +Wild flowers and vines and weeds come up through the stones, and partly + cover them--Beyond these I pass, +Far, far in the forest, before I think where I go, +Solitary, smelling the earthy smell, stopping now and then in the silence; +Alone, I had thought--yet soon a silent troop gathers around me; +Some walk by my side, and some behind, and some embrace my arms or neck, +They, the spirits of friends, dead or alive--thicker they come, a great + crowd, and I in the middle, +Collecting, dispensing, singing in spring, there I wander with them, +Plucking something for tokens--tossing toward whoever is near me. +Here lilac, with a branch of pine, +Here, out of my pocket, some moss which I pulled off a live-oak in Florida, + as it hung trailing down, +Here some pinks and laurel leaves, and a handful of sage, +And here what I now draw from the water, wading in the pond-side, +(O here I last saw him that tenderly loves me--and returns again, never to + separate from me, +And this, O this shall henceforth be the token of comrades--this Calamus- + root[1] shall, +Interchange it, youths, with each other! Let none render it back!) +And twigs of maple, and a bunch of wild orange, and chestnut, +And stems of currants, and plum-blows, and the aromatic cedar, +These I, compassed around by a thick cloud of spirits, +Wandering, point to, or touch as I pass, or throw them loosely from me, +Indicating to each one what he shall have--giving something to each. +But what I drew from the water by the pond-side, that I reserve; +I will give of it--but only to them that love as I myself am capable of + loving. + +[Footnote 1: I am favoured with the following indication, from Mr Whitman +himself, of the relation in which this word Calamus is to be +understood:--"Calamus is the very large and aromatic grass or rush growing +about water-ponds in the valleys--spears about three feet high; often +called Sweet Flag; grows all over the Northern and Middle States. The +_recherché_ or ethereal sense of the term, as used in my book, arises +probably from the actual Calamus presenting the biggest and hardiest kind +of spears of grass, and their fresh, aquatic, pungent _bouquet_."] + + + +_LOVE OF COMRADES._ + + +1. + +Come, I will make the continent indissoluble; +I will make the most splendid race the sun ever yet shone upon! +I will make divine magnetic lands, + With the love of comrades, + With the life-long love of comrades. + + +2. + +I will plant companionship thick as trees along all the rivers of America, + and along the shores of the great lakes, and all over the prairies; +I will make inseparable cities, with their arms about each other's necks; + By the love of comrades, + By the manly love of comrades. + + +3. + +For you these, from me, O Democracy, to serve you, _ma femme_! +For you! for you, I am trilling these songs, + In the love of comrades, + In the high-towering love of comrades. + + + +_PULSE OF MY LIFE._ + +Not heaving from my ribbed breast only; +Not in sighs at night, in rage, dissatisfied with myself; +Not in those long-drawn, ill-suppressed sighs; +Not in many an oath and promise broken; +Not in my wilful and savage soul's volition; +Not in the subtle nourishment of the air; +Not in this beating and pounding at my temples and wrists; +Not in the curious systole and diastole within, which will one day cease; +Not in many a hungry wish, told to the skies only; +Not in cries, laughter, defiances, thrown from me when alone, far in the + wilds; +Not in husky pantings through clenched teeth; +Not in sounded and resounded words--chattering words, echoes, dead words; +Not in the murmurs of my dreams while I sleep, +Nor the other murmurs of these incredible dreams of every day; +Nor in the limbs and senses of my body, that take you and dismiss you + continually--Not there; +Not in any or all of them, O Adhesiveness! O pulse of my life! +Need I that you exist and show yourself, any more than in these songs. + + + +_AUXILIARIES._ + + +WHAT place is besieged, and vainly tries to raise the siege? +Lo! I send to that place a commander, swift, brave, immortal; +And with him horse and foot, and parks of artillery, +And artillerymen, the deadliest that ever fired gun. + + + +_REALITIES._ + + +1. + +As I walk, solitary, unattended, +Around me I hear that _éclat_ of the world--politics, produce, +The announcements of recognised things--science, +The approved growth of cities, and the spread of inventions. + +I see the ships, (they will last a few years,) +The vast factories, with their foremen and workmen, +And hear the endorsement of all, and do not object to it. + + +2. + +But I too announce solid things; +Science, ships, politics, cities, factories, are not nothing--they serve, +They stand for realities--all is as it should be. + + +3. + +Then my realities; +What else is so real as mine? +Libertad, and the divine Average-Freedom to every slave on the face of the + earth, +The rapt promises and _luminé_[1] of seers--the spiritual + world--these centuries-lasting songs, +And our visions, the visions of poets, the most solid announcements of any. + +For we support all, +After the rest is done and gone, we remain, +There is no final reliance but upon us; +Democracy rests finally upon us, (I, my brethren, begin it,) +And our visions sweep through eternity. + +[Footnote 1: I suppose Whitman gets this odd word _luminé_, by a process of +his own, out of _illuminati_, and intends it to stand for what would be +called clairvoyance, intuition.] + + + +_NEARING DEPARTURE._ + + +1. + +As nearing departure, +As the time draws nigh, glooming, a cloud, +A dread beyond, of I know not what, darkens me. + + +2. + +I shall _go_ forth, +I shall traverse the States--but I cannot tell whither or how long; +Perhaps soon, some day or night while I am singing, my voice will suddenly + cease. + + +3. + +O book and chant! must all then amount to but this? +Must we barely arrive at this beginning of me?... +And yet it is enough, O soul! +O soul! we have positively appeared--that is enough. + + + +_POETS TO COME._ + + +1. + +Poets to come! +Not to-day is to justify me, and Democracy, and what we are for; +But you, a new brood, native, athletic, continental, greater than before + known, +You must justify me. + + +2. + +I but write one or two indicative words for the future, +I but advance a moment, only to wheel and hurry back in the darkness. + +I am a man who, sauntering along, without fully stopping, turns a casual + look upon you, and then averts his face, +Leaving it to you to prove and define it, +Expecting the main things from you. + + + +_CENTURIES HENCE._ + + +Full of life now, compact, visible, +I, forty years old the eighty-third year of the States, +To one a century hence, or any number of centuries hence, +To you, yet unborn, these seeking you. + +When you read these, I, that was visible, am become invisible; +Now it is you, compact, visible, realising my poems, seeking me; +Fancying how happy you were, if I could be with you, and become your loving + comrade; +Be it as if I were with you. Be not too certain but I am now with you. + + + +_SO LONG!_ + + +1. + +To conclude--I announce what comes after me; +I announce mightier offspring, orators, days, and then depart, + +I remember I said, before my leaves sprang at all, +I would raise my voice jocund and strong, with reference to consummations. + +When America does what was promised, +When there are plentiful athletic bards, inland and sea-board, +When through these States walk a hundred millions of superb persons, +When the rest part away for superb persons, and contribute to them, +When breeds of the most perfect mothers denote America, +Then to me my due fruition. + +I have pressed through in my own right, +I have offered my style to every one--I have journeyed with confident step. +While my pleasure is yet at the full, I whisper, _So long_! +And take the young woman's hand, and the young man's hand for the last + time. + + +2. + +I announce natural persons to arise, +I announce justice triumphant, +I announce uncompromising liberty and equality, +I announce the justification of candour, and the justification of pride. + +I announce that the identity of these States is a single identity only, +I announce the Union, out of all its struggles and wars, more and more + compact, +I announce splendours and majesties to make all the previous politics of + the earth insignificant. + +I announce a man or woman coming--perhaps you are the one (_So long_!) +I announce the great individual, fluid as Nature, chaste, affectionate, + compassionate, fully armed. +I announce a life that shall be copious, vehement, spiritual, bold, +And I announce an old age that shall lightly and joyfully meet its + translation. + + +3. + +O thicker and faster! (_So long_!) +O crowding too close upon me; +I foresee too much--it means more than I thought, +It appears to me I am dying. + +Hasten throat, and sound your last! +Salute me--salute the days once more. Peal the old cry once more. + +Screaming electric, the atmosphere using, +At random glancing, each as I notice absorbing, +Swiftly on, but a little while alighting, +Curious enveloped messages delivering, +Sparkles hot, seed ethereal, down in the dirt dropping, +Myself unknowing, my commission obeying, to question it never daring, +To ages, and ages yet, the growth of the seed leaving, +To troops out of me rising--they the tasks I have set promulging, +To women certain whispers of myself bequeathing--their affection me more +clearly explaining, +To young men my problems offering--no dallier I--I the muscle of their + brains trying, +So I pass--a little time vocal, visible, contrary, +Afterward, a melodious echo, passionately bent for--death making me really + undying,-- +The best of me then when no longer visible--for toward that I have been +incessantly preparing. + +What is there more, that I lag and pause, and crouch extended with unshut + mouth? +Is there a single final farewell? + + +4. + +My songs cease--I abandon them, +From behind the screen where I hid, I advance personally, solely to you. + +Camerado! This is no book; +Who touches this touches a man. +(Is it night? Are we here alone?) +It is I you hold, and who holds you, +I spring from the pages into your arms--decease calls me forth. + +O how your fingers drowse me! +Your breath falls around me like dew--your pulse lulls the tympans of my + ears, +I feel immerged from head to foot, +Delicious--enough. + +Enough, O deed impromptu and secret! +Enough, O gliding present! Enough, O summed-up past! + + +5. + + +Dear friend, whoever you are, here, take this kiss, +I give it especially to you--Do not forget me, + +I feel like one who has done his work--I progress on,--(long enough have I + dallied with Life,) +The unknown sphere, more real than I dreamed, more direct, awakening rays + about me--_So long_! +Remember my words--I love you--I depart from materials, +I am as one disembodied, triumphant, dead. + + + + +POSTSCRIPT. + +While this Selection was passing through the press, it has been my +privilege to receive two letters from Mr. Whitman, besides another +communicated to me through a friend. I find my experience to be the same as +that of some previous writers: that, if one admires Whitman in reading his +books, one loves him on coming into any personal relation with him--even +the comparatively distant relation of letter-writing. + +The more I have to thank the poet for the substance and tone of his +letters, and some particular expressions in them, the more does it become +incumbent upon me to guard against any misapprehension. He has had nothing +whatever to do with this Selection, as to either prompting, guiding, or +even ratifying it: except only that he did not prohibit my making two or +three verbal omissions in the _Prose Preface to the Leaves of Grass_, and +he has supplied his own title, _President Lincoln's Funeral Hymn_, to a +poem which, in my Prefatory Notice, is named (by myself) _Nocturn for the +Death of Lincoln_. All admirers of his poetry will rejoice to learn that +there is no longer any doubt of his adding to his next edition "a brief +cluster of pieces born of thoughts on the deep themes of Death and +Immortality." A new American edition will be dear to many: a complete +English edition ought to be an early demand of English poetic readers, and +would be the right and crowning result of the present Selection. + +W. M. R. +1868. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, POEMS BY WALT WHITMAN *** + +This file should be named 8388-8.txt or 8388-8.zip + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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