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Leaves of Grass (1881-82)
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PASSAGE TO INDIA.
1
Singing the great achievements of the present, |
Singing the strong light works of engineers, |
Our modern wonders, (the antique ponderous Seven outvied,) |
In the Old World the east the Suez canal, |
The New by its mighty railroad spann'd, |
The seas inlaid with eloquent gentle wires; |
Yet first to sound, and ever sound, the cry with thee O soul, |
The Past! the Past! the Past! |
The Past—the dark unfathom'd retrospect! |
The teeming gulf—the sleepers and the shadows! |
The past—the infinite greatness of the past! |
For what is the present after all but a growth out of the past? |
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(As a projectile form'd, impell'd, passing a certain line, still keeps
on,
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So the present, utterly form'd, impell'd by the past.) |
2
Eclaircise the myths Asiatic, the primitive fables. |
Not you alone proud truths of the world, |
Nor you alone ye facts of modern science, |
But myths and fables of eld, Asia's, Africa's fables, |
The far-darting beams of the spirit, the unloos'd dreams, |
The deep diving bibles and legends, |
The daring plots of the poets, the elder religions; |
O you temples fairer than lilies pour'd over by the rising sun! |
O you fables spurning the known, eluding the hold of the known,
mounting to heaven!
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You lofty and dazzling towers, pinnacled, red as roses, burnish'd
with gold!
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Towers of fables immortal fashion'd from mortal dreams! |
You too I welcome and fully the same as the rest! |
Lo, soul, seest thou not God's purpose from the first? |
The earth to be spann'd, connected by network, |
The races, neighbors, to marry and be given in marriage, |
The oceans to be cross'd, the distant brought near, |
The lands to be welded together. |
You captains, voyagers, explorers, yours, |
You engineers, you architects, machinists, yours, |
You, not for trade or transportation only, |
But in God's name, and for thy sake O soul. |
3
Lo soul for thee of tableaus twain, |
I see in one the Suez canal initiated, open'd, |
I see the procession of steamships, the Empress Eugenie's leading
the van,
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I mark from on deck the strange landscape, the pure sky, the
level sand in the distance,
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I pass swiftly the picturesque groups, the workmen gather'd, |
The gigantic dredging machines. |
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In one again, different, (yet thine, all thine, O soul, the same,) |
I see over my own continent the Pacific railroad surmounting
every barrier,
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I see continual trains of cars winding along the Platte carrying
freight and passengers,
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I hear the locomotives rushing and roaring, and the shrill steam-
whistle,
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I hear the echoes reverberate through the grandest scenery in the
world,
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I cross the Laramie plains, I note the rocks in grotesque shapes,
the buttes,
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I see the plentiful larkspur and wild onions, the barren, colorless,
sage-deserts,
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I see in glimpses afar or towering immediately above me the
great mountains, I see the Wind river and the Wahsatch
mountains,
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I see the Monument mountain and the Eagle's Nest, I pass the
Promontory, I ascend the Nevadas,
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I scan the noble Elk mountain and wind around its base, |
I see the Humboldt range, I thread the valley and cross the river, |
I see the clear waters of lake Tahoe, I see forests of majestic
pines,
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Or crossing the great desert, the alkaline plains, I behold enchant-
ing mirages of waters and meadows,
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Marking through these and after all, in duplicate slender lines, |
Bridging the three or four thousand miles of land travel, |
Tying the Eastern to the Western sea, |
The road between Europe and Asia. |
(Ah Genoese thy dream! thy dream! |
Centuries after thou art laid in thy grave, |
The shore thou foundest verifies thy dream.) |
4
Struggles of many a captain, tales of many a sailor dead, |
Over my mood stealing and spreading they come, |
Like clouds and cloudlets in the unreach'd sky. |
Along all history, down the slopes, |
As a rivulet running, sinking now, and now again to the surface
rising,
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A ceaseless thought, a varied train—lo, soul, to thee, thy sight,
they rise,
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The plans, the voyages again, the expeditions; |
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Again Vasco de Gama sails forth, |
Again the knowledge gain'd, the mariner's compass, |
Lands found and nations born, thou born America, |
For purpose vast, man's long probation fill'd, |
Thou rondure of the world at last accomplish'd. |
5
O vast Rondure, swimming in space, |
Cover'd all over with visible power and beauty, |
Alternate light and day and the teeming spiritual darkness, |
Unspeakable high processions of sun and moon and countless
stars above,
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Below, the manifold grass and waters, animals, mountains, trees, |
With inscrutable purpose, some hidden prophetic intention, |
Now first it seems my thought begins to span thee. |
Down from the gardens of Asia descending radiating, |
Adam and Eve appear, then their myriad progeny after them, |
Wandering, yearning, curious, with restless explorations, |
With questionings, baffled, formless, feverish, with never-happy
hearts,
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With that sad incessant refrain, Wherefore unsatisfied soul? and
Whither O mocking life?
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Ah who shall soothe these feverish children? |
Who justify these restless explorations? |
Who speak the secret of impassive earth? |
Who bind it to us? what is this separate Nature so unnatural? |
What is this earth to our affections? (unloving earth, without a
throb to answer ours,
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Cold earth, the place of graves.) |
Yet soul be sure the first intent remains, and shall be carried out, |
Perhaps even now the time has arrived. |
After the seas are all cross'd, (as they seem already cross'd,) |
After the great captains and engineers have accomplish'd their
work,
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After the noble inventors, after the scientists, the chemist, the
geologist, ethnologist,
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Finally shall come the poet worthy that name, |
The true son of God shall come singing his songs. |
Then not your deeds only O voyagers, O scientists and inventors,
shall be justified,
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All these hearts as of fretted children shall be sooth'd, |
All affection shall be fully responded to, the secret shall be told, |
All these separations and gaps shall be taken up and hook'd and
link'd together,
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The whole earth, this cold, impassive, voiceless earth, shall be
completely justified,
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Trinitas divine shall be gloriously accomplish'd and compacted by
the true son of God, the poet,
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(He shall indeed pass the straits and conquer the mountains, |
He shall double the cape of Good Hope to some purpose,) |
Nature and Man shall be disjoin'd and diffused no more, |
The true son of God shall absolutely fuse them. |
6
Year at whose wide-flung door I sing! |
Year of the purpose accomplish'd! |
Year of the marriage of continents, climates and oceans! |
(No mere doge of Venice now wedding the Adriatic,) |
I see O year in you the vast terraqueous globe given and giving
all,
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Europe to Asia, Africa join'd, and they to the New World, |
The lands, geographies, dancing before you, holding a festival
garland,
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As brides and bridegrooms hand in hand. |
Cooling airs from Caucasus far, soothing cradle of man, |
The river Euphrates flowing, the past lit up again. |
Lo soul, the retrospect brought forward, |
The old, most populous, wealthiest of earth's lands, |
The streams of the Indus and the Ganges and their many af-
fluents,
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(I my shores of America walking to-day behold, resuming all,) |
The tale of Alexander on his warlike marches suddenly dying, |
On one side China and on the other side Persia and Arabia, |
To the south the great seas and the bay of Bengal, |
The flowing literatures, tremendous epics, religions, castes, |
Old occult Brahma interminably far back, the tender and junior
Buddha,
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Central and southern empires and all their belongings, possessors, |
The wars of Tamerlane, the reign of Aurungzebe, |
The traders, rulers, explorers, Moslems, Venetians, Byzantium, the
Arabs, Portuguese,
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The first travelers famous yet, Marco Polo, Batouta the Moor, |
Doubts to be solv'd, the map incognita, blanks to be fill'd, |
The foot of man unstay'd, the hands never at rest, |
Thyself O soul that will not brook a challenge. |
The mediaeval navigators rise before me, |
The world of 1492, with its awaken'd enterprise, |
Something swelling in humanity now like the sap of the earth in
spring,
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The sunset splendor of chivalry declining. |
And who art thou sad shade? |
Gigantic, visionary, thyself a visionary, |
With majestic limbs and pious beaming eyes, |
Spreading around with every look of thine a golden world, |
Enhuing it with gorgeous hues. |
Down to the footlights walks in some great scena, |
Dominating the rest I see the Admiral himself, |
(History's type of courage, action, faith,) |
Behold him sail from Palos leading his little fleet, |
His voyage behold, his return, his great fame, |
His misfortunes, calumniators, behold him a prisoner, chain'd, |
Behold his dejection, poverty, death. |
(Curious in time I stand, noting the efforts of heroes, |
Is the deferment long? bitter the slander, poverty, death? |
Lies the seed unreck'd for centuries in the ground? lo, to God's
due occasion,
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Uprising in the night, it sprouts, blooms, |
And fills the earth with use and beauty.) |
7
Passage indeed O soul to primal thought, |
Not lands and seas alone, thy own clear freshness, |
The young maturity of brood and bloom, |
To realms of budding bibles. |
O soul, repressless, I with thee and thou with me, |
Thy circumnavigation of the world begin, |
Of man, the voyage of his mind's return, |
To reason's early paradise, |
Back, back to wisdom's birth, to innocent intuitions, |
Again with fair creation. |
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8
Joyous we too launch out on trackless seas, |
Fearless for unknown shores on waves of ecstasy to sail, |
Amid the wafting winds, (thou pressing me to thee, I thee to me,
O soul,)
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Caroling free, singing our song of God, |
Chanting our chant of pleasant exploration. |
With laugh and many a kiss, |
(Let others deprecate, let others weep for sin, remorse, humilia-
tion,)
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O soul thou pleasest me, I thee. |
Ah more than any priest O soul we too believe in God, |
But with the mystery of God we dare not dally. |
O soul thou pleasest me, I thee, |
Sailing these seas or on the hills, or waking in the night, |
Thoughts, silent thoughts, of Time and Space and Death, like
waters flowing,
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Bear me indeed as through the regions infinite, |
Whose air I breathe, whose ripples hear, lave me all over, |
Bathe me O God in thee, mounting to thee, |
I and my soul to range in range of thee. |
Nameless, the fibre and the breath, |
Light of the light, shedding forth universes, thou centre of them, |
Thou mightier centre of the true, the good, the loving, |
Thou moral, spiritual fountain—affection's source—thou reser-
voir,
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(O pensive soul of me—O thirst unsatisfied—waitest not there? |
Waitest not haply for us somewhere there the Comrade perfect?) |
Thou pulse—thou motive of the stars, suns, systems, |
That, circling, move in order, safe, harmonious, |
Athwart the shapeless vastnesses of space, |
How should I think, how breathe a single breath, how speak, if,
out of myself,
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I could not launch, to those, superior universes? |
Swiftly I shrivel at the thought of God, |
At Nature and its wonders, Time and Space and Death, |
But that I, turning, call to thee O soul, thou actual Me, |
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And lo, thou gently masterest the orbs, |
Thou matest Time, smilest content at Death, |
And fillest, swellest full the vastnesses of Space. |
Greater than stars or suns, |
Bounding O soul thou journeyest forth; |
What love than thine and ours could wider amplify? |
What aspirations, wishes, outvie thine and ours O soul? |
What dreams of the ideal? what plans of purity, perfection,
strength?
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What cheerful willingness for others' sake to give up all? |
For others' sake to suffer all? |
Reckoning ahead O soul, when thou, the time achiev'd, |
The seas all cross'd, weather'd the capes, the voyage done, |
Surrounded, copest, frontest God, yieldest, the aim attain'd, |
As fill'd with friendship, love complete, the Elder Brother found, |
The Younger melts in fondness in his arms. |
9
Passage to more than India! |
Are thy wings plumed indeed for such far flights? |
O soul, voyagest thou indeed on voyages like those? |
Disportest thou on waters such as those? |
Soundest below the Sanscrit and the Vedas? |
Then have thy bent unleash'd. |
Passage to you, your shores, ye aged fierce enigmas! |
Passage to you, to mastership of you, ye strangling problems! |
You, strew'd with the wrecks of skeletons, that, living, never
reach'd you.
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Passage to more than India! |
O secret of the earth and sky! |
Of you O waters of the sea! O winding creeks and rivers! |
Of you O woods and fields! of you strong mountains of my land! |
Of you O prairies! of you gray rocks! |
O morning red! O clouds! O rain and snows! |
O day and night, passage to you! |
O sun and moon and all you stars! Sirius and Jupiter! |
Passage, immediate passage! the blood burns in my veins! |
Away O soul! hoist instantly the anchor! |
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Cut the hawsers—haul out—shake out every sail! |
Have we not stood here like trees in the ground long enough? |
Have we not grovel'd here long enough, eating and drinking like
mere brutes?
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Have we not darken'd and dazed ourselves with books long enough? |
Sail forth—steer for the deep waters only, |
Reckless O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me, |
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go, |
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all. |
O daring joy, but safe! are they not all the seas of God? |
O farther, farther, farther sail! |
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