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Leaves of Grass (1881-82)
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THE SLEEPERS.
1
I WANDER all night in my vision, |
Stepping with light feet, swiftly and noiselessly stepping and
stopping,
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Bending with open eyes over the shut eyes of sleepers, |
Wandering and confused, lost to myself, ill-assorted, contradic-
tory,
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Pausing, gazing, bending, and stopping. |
How solemn they look there, stretch'd and still, |
How quiet they breathe, the little children in their cradles. |
The wretched features of ennuyés, the white features of corpses,
the livid faces of drunkards, the sick-gray faces of onanists,
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The gash'd bodies on battle-fields, the insane in their strong-door'd
rooms, the sacred idiots, the new-born emerging from
gates, and the dying emerging from gates,
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The night pervades them and infolds them. |
The married couple sleep calmly in their bed, he with his palm on
the hip of the wife, and she with her palm on the hip of
the husband,
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The sisters sleep lovingly side by side in their bed, |
The men sleep lovingly side by side in theirs, |
And the mother sleeps with her little child carefully wrapt. |
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The blind sleep, and the deaf and dumb sleep, |
The prisoner sleeps well in the prison, the runaway son sleeps, |
The murderer that is to be hung next day, how does he sleep? |
And the murder'd person, how does he sleep? |
The female that loves unrequited sleeps, |
And the male that loves unrequited sleeps, |
The head of the money-maker that plotted all day sleeps, |
And the enraged and treacherous dispositions, all, all sleep. |
I stand in the dark with drooping eyes by the worst-suffering and
the most restless,
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I pass my hands soothingly to and fro a few inches from them, |
The restless sink in their beds, they fitfully sleep. |
Now I pierce the darkness, new beings appear, |
The earth recedes from me into the night, |
I saw that it was beautiful, and I see that what is not the earth is
beautiful.
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I go from bedside to bedside, I sleep close with the other sleepers
each in turn,
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I dream in my dream all the dreams of the other dreamers, |
And I become the other dreamers. |
I am a dance—play up there! the fit is whirling me fast! |
I am the ever-laughing—it is new moon and twilight, |
I see the hiding of douceurs, I see nimble ghosts whichever way
I look,
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Cache and cache again deep in the ground and sea, and where it
is neither ground nor sea.
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Well do they do their jobs those journeymen divine, |
Only from me can they hide nothing, and would not if they could, |
I reckon I am their boss and they make me a pet besides, |
And surround me and lead me and run ahead when I walk, |
To lift their cunning covers to signify me with stretch'd arms, and
resume the way;
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Onward we move, a gay gang of blackguards! with mirth-shouting
music and wild-flapping pennants of joy!
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I am the actor, the actress, the voter, the politician, |
The emigrant and the exile, the criminal that stood in the box, |
He who has been famous and he who shall be famous after to-day, |
The stammerer, the well-form'd person, the wasted or feeble
person.
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I am she who adorn'd herself and folded her hair expectantly, |
My truant lover has come, and it is dark. |
Double yourself and receive me darkness, |
Receive me and my lover too, he will not let me go without
him.
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I roll myself upon you as upon a bed, I resign myself to the dusk. |
He whom I call answers me and takes the place of my lover, |
He rises with me silently from the bed. |
Darkness, you are gentler than my lover, his flesh was sweaty and
panting,
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I feel the hot moisture yet that he left me. |
My hands are spread forth, I pass them in all directions, |
I would sound up the shadowy shore to which you are journeying. |
Be careful darkness! already what was it touch'd me? |
I thought my lover had gone, else darkness and he are one, |
I hear the heart-beat, I follow, I fade away. |
2
I descend my western course, my sinews are flaccid, |
Perfume and youth course through me and I am their wake. |
It is my face yellow and wrinkled instead of the old woman's, |
I sit low in a straw-bottom chair and carefully darn my grandson's
stockings.
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It is I too, the sleepless widow looking out on the winter mid-
night,
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I see the sparkles of starshine on the icy and pallid earth. |
A shroud I see and I am the shroud, I wrap a body and lie in the
coffin,
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It is dark here under ground, it is not evil or pain here, it is blank
here, for reasons.
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(It seems to me that every thing in the light and air ought to be
happy,
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Whoever is not in his coffin and the dark grave let him know he
has enough.)
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3
I see a beautiful gigantic swimmer swimming naked through the
eddies of the sea,
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His brown hair lies close and even to his head, he strikes out with
courageous arms, he urges himself with his legs,
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I see his white body, I see his undaunted eyes, |
I hate the swift-running eddies that would dash him head-
fore-
most on the rocks.
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What are you doing you ruffianly red-trickled waves? |
Will you kill the courageous giant? will you kill him in the prime
of his middle age?
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Steady and long he struggles, |
He is baffled, bang'd, bruis'd, he holds out while his strength holds
out,
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The slapping eddies are spotted with his blood, they bear him
away, they roll him, swing him, turn him,
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His beautiful body is borne in the circling eddies, it is continually
bruis'd on rocks,
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Swiftly and out of sight is borne the brave corpse. |
4
I turn but do not extricate myself, |
Confused, a past-reading, another, but with darkness yet. |
The beach is cut by the razory ice-wind, the wreck-guns sound, |
The tempest lulls, the moon comes floundering through the drifts. |
I look where the ship helplessly heads end on, I hear the burst as
she strikes, I hear the howls of dismay, they grow fainter
and fainter.
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I cannot aid with my wringing fingers, |
I can but rush to the surf and let it drench me and freeze
upon me.
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I search with the crowd, not one of the company is wash'd to us
alive,
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In the morning I help pick up the dead and lay them in rows in
a barn.
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5
Now of the older war-days, the defeat at Brooklyn, |
Washington stands inside the lines, he stands on the intrench'd
hills amid a crowd of officers,
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His face is cold and damp, he cannot repress the weeping drops, |
He lifts the glass perpetually to his eyes, the color is blanch'd from
his cheeks,
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He sees the slaughter of the southern braves confided to him by
their parents.
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The same at last and at last when peace is declared, |
He stands in the room of the old tavern, the well-belov'd soldiers
all pass through,
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The officers speechless and slow draw near in their turns, |
The chief encircles their necks with his arm and kisses them on
the cheek,
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He kisses lightly the wet cheeks one after another, he shakes
hands and bids good-by to the army.
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6
Now what my mother told me one day as we sat at dinner
together,
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Of when she was a nearly grown girl living home with her parents
on the old homestead.
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A red squaw came one breakfast-time to the old homestead, |
On her back she carried a bundle of rushes for rush-bottoming
chairs,
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Her hair, straight, shiny, coarse, black, profuse, half-envelop'd her
face,
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Her step was free and elastic, and her voice sounded exquisitely
as she spoke.
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My mother look'd in delight and amazement at the stranger, |
She look'd at the freshness of her tall-borne face and full and
pliant limbs,
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The more she look'd upon her she loved her, |
Never before had she seen such wonderful beauty and purity, |
She made her sit on a bench by the jamb of the fireplace, she
cook'd food for her,
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She had no work to give her, but she gave her remembrance and
fondness.
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The red squaw staid all the forenoon, and toward the middle of
the afternoon she went away,
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O my mother was loth to have her go away, |
All the week she thought of her, she watch'd for her many a
month,
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She remember'd her many a winter and many a summer, |
But the red squaw never came nor was heard of there again. |
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7
A show of the summer softness—a contact of something unseen
—an amour of the light and air,
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I am jealous and overwhelm'd with friendliness, |
And will go gallivant with the light and air myself. |
O love and summer, you are in the dreams and in me, |
Autumn and winter are in the dreams, the farmer goes with his
thrift,
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The droves and crops increase, the barns are well-fill'd. |
Elements merge in the night, ships make tacks in the dreams, |
The sailor sails, the exile returns home, |
The fugitive returns unharm'd, the immigrant is back beyond
months and years,
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The poor Irishman lives in the simple house of his childhood
with the well-known neighbors and faces,
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They warmly welcome him, he is barefoot again, he forgets he is
well off,
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The Dutchman voyages home, and the Scotchman and Welshman
voyage home, and the native of the Mediterranean voy-
ages home,
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To every port of England, France, Spain, enter well-fill'd ships, |
The Swiss foots it toward his hills, the Prussian goes his way, the
Hungarian his way, and the Pole his way,
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The Swede returns, and the Dane and Norwegian return. |
The homeward bound and the outward bound, |
The beautiful lost swimmer, the ennuyé, the onanist, the female
that loves unrequited, the money-maker,
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The actor and actress, those through with their parts and those
waiting to commence,
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The affectionate boy, the husband and wife, the voter, the nominee
that is chosen and the nominee that has fail'd,
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The great already known and the great any time after to-day, |
The stammerer, the sick, the perfect-form'd, the homely, |
The criminal that stood in the box, the judge that sat and sen-
tenced him, the fluent lawyers, the jury, the audience,
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The laugher and weeper, the dancer, the midnight widow, the red
squaw,
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The consumptive, the erysipalite, the idiot, he that is wrong'd, |
The antipodes, and every one between this and them in the dark, |
I swear they are averaged now—one is no better than the other, |
The night and sleep have liken'd them and restored them. |
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I swear they are all beautiful, |
Every one that sleeps is beautiful, every thing in the dim light is
beautiful,
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The wildest and bloodiest is over, and all is peace. |
Peace is always beautiful, |
The myth of heaven indicates peace and night. |
The myth of heaven indicates the soul, |
The soul is always beautiful, it appears more or it appears less, it
comes or it lags behind,
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It comes from its embower'd garden and looks pleasantly on
itself and encloses the world,
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Perfect and clean the genitals previously jetting, and perfect and
clean the womb cohering,
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The head well-grown proportion'd and plumb, and the bowels and
joints proportion'd and plumb.
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The soul is always beautiful, |
The universe is duly in order, every thing is in its place, |
What has arrived is in its place and what waits shall be in its place, |
The twisted skull waits, the watery or rotten blood waits, |
The child of the glutton or venerealee waits long, and the child
of the drunkard waits long, and the drunkard himself waits
long,
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The sleepers that lived and died wait, the far advanced are to go
on in their turns, and the far behind are to come on in
their turns,
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The diverse shall be no less diverse, but they shall flow and unite
—they unite now.
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8
The sleepers are very beautiful as they lie unclothed, |
They flow hand in hand over the whole earth from east to west as
they lie unclothed,
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The Asiatic and African are hand in hand, the European and
American are hand in hand,
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Learn'd and unlearn'd are hand in hand, and male and female are
hand in hand,
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The bare arm of the girl crosses the bare breast of her lover, they
press close without lust, his lips press her neck,
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The father holds his grown or ungrown son in his arms with meas-
ureless love, and the son holds the father in his arms with
measureless love,
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The white hair of the mother shines on the white wrist of the
daughter,
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The breath of the boy goes with the breath of the man, friend is
inarm'd by friend,
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The scholar kisses the teacher and the teacher kisses the scholar,
the wrong'd is made right,
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The call of the slave is one with the master's call, and the master
salutes the slave,
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The felon steps forth from the prison, the insane becomes sane,
the suffering of sick persons is reliev'd,
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The sweatings and fevers stop, the throat that was unsound is
sound, the lungs of the consumptive are resumed, the poor
distress'd head is free,
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The joints of the rheumatic move as smoothly as ever, and
smoother than ever,
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Stiflings and passages open, the paralyzed become supple, |
The swell'd and convuls'd and congested awake to themselves in
condition,
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They pass the invigoration of the night and the chemistry of the
night, and awake.
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I too pass from the night, |
I stay a while away O night, but I return to you again and love you. |
Why should I be afraid to trust myself to you? |
I am not afraid, I have been well brought forward by you, |
I love the rich running day, but I do not desert her in whom I lay
so long,
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I know not how I came of you and I know not where I go with
you, but I know I came well and shall go well.
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I will stop only a time with the night, and rise betimes, |
I will duly pass the day O my mother, and duly return to you. |
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