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Leaves of Grass (1881-82)
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FRANCE,
The 18th Year of these States.
A harsh discordant natal scream out-sounding, to touch the
mother's heart closer than any yet.
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I walk'd 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,
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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,
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Was not so desperate at the battues of death—was not so shock'd
at the repeated fusillades of the guns.
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Pale, silent, stern, what could I say to that long-accrued retribu-
tion?
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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? |
O Liberty! O mate for me! |
Here too the blaze, the grape-shot and the axe, in reserve, to
fetch them out in case of need,
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Here too, though long represt, can never be destroy'd, |
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, |
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But remember the little voice that I heard wailing, and wait with
perfect trust, no matter how long,
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And from to-day sad and cogent I maintain the bequeath'd cause,
as for all lands,
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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,
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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. |
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