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Leaves of Grass (1881-82)
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THOU MOTHER WITH THY EQUAL BROOD.
1
THOU Mother with thy equal brood, |
Thou varied chain of different States, yet one identity only, |
A special song before I go I'd sing o'er all the rest, |
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I'd sow a seed for thee of endless Nationality, |
I'd fashion thy ensemble including body and soul, |
I'd show away ahead thy real Union, and how it may be accom-
plish'd.
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The paths to the house I seek to make, |
But leave to those to come the house itself. |
Belief I sing, and preparation; |
As Life and Nature are not great with reference to the present
only,
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But greater still from what is yet to come, |
Out of that formula for thee I sing. |
2
As a strong bird on pinions free, |
Joyous, the amplest spaces heavenward cleaving, |
Such be the thought I'd think of thee America, |
Such be the recitative I'd bring for thee. |
The conceits of the poets of other lands I'd bring thee not, |
Nor the compliments that have served their turn so long, |
Nor rhyme, nor the classics, nor perfume of foreign court or
indoor library;
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But an odor I'd bring as from forests of pine in Maine, or breath
of an Illinois prairie,
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With open airs of Virginia or Georgia or Tennessee, or from Texas
uplands, or Florida's glades,
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Or the Saguenay's black stream, or the wide blue spread of
Huron,
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With presentment of Yellowstone's scenes, or Yosemite, |
And murmuring under, pervading all, I'd bring the rustling sea-
sound,
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That endlessly sounds from the two Great Seas of the world. |
And for thy subtler sense subtler refrains dread Mother, |
Preludes of intellect tallying these and thee, mind-formulas fitted
for thee, real and sane and large as these and thee,
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Thou! mounting higher, diving deeper than we knew, thou
transcendental Union!
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By thee fact to be justified, blended with thought, |
Thought of man justified, blended with God, |
Through thy idea, lo, the immortal reality! |
Through thy reality, lo, the immortal idea! |
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3
Brain of the New World, what a task is thine, |
To formulate the Modern—out of the peerless grandeur of the
modern,
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Out of thyself, comprising science, to recast poems, churches, art, |
(Recast, may-be discard them, end them—may-be their work is
done, who knows?)
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By vision, hand, conception, on the background of the mighty
past, the dead,
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To limn with absolute faith the mighty living present. |
And yet thou living present brain, heir of the dead, the Old
World brain,
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Thou that lay folded like an unborn babe within its folds so long, |
Thou carefully prepared by it so long—haply thou but unfoldest
it, only maturest it,
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It to eventuate in thee—the essence of the by-gone time contain'd
in thee,
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Its poems, churches, arts, unwitting to themselves, destined with
reference to thee;
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Thou but the apples, long, long, long a-growing, |
The fruit of all the Old ripening to-day in thee. |
4
Sail, sail thy best, ship of Democracy, |
Of value is thy freight, 'tis not the Present only, |
The Past is also stored in thee, |
Thou holdest not the venture of thyself alone, not of the Western
continent alone,
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Earth's résumé entire floats on thy keel O ship, is steadied by thy
spars,
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With thee Time voyages in trust, the antecedent nations sink or
swim with thee,
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With all their ancient struggles, martyrs, heroes, epics, wars, thou
bear'st the other continents,
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Theirs, theirs as much as thine, the destination-port triumphant; |
Steer then with good strong hand and wary eye O helmsman, thou
carriest great companions,
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Venerable priestly Asia sails this day with thee, |
And royal feudal Europe sails with thee. |
5
Beautiful world of new superber birth that rises to my eyes, |
Like a limitless golden cloud filling the western sky, |
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Emblem of general maternity lifted above all, |
Sacred shape of the bearer of daughters and sons, |
Out of thy teeming womb thy giant babes in ceaseless procession
issuing,
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Acceding from such gestation, taking and giving continual strength
and life,
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World of the real—world of the twain in one, |
World of the soul, born by the world of the real alone, led to
identity, body, by it alone,
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Yet in beginning only, incalculable masses of composite precious
materials,
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By history's cycles forwarded, by every nation, language, hither
sent,
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Ready, collected here, a freer, vast, electric world, to be con-
structed here,
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(The true New World, the world of orbic science, morals, litera-
tures to come,)
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Thou wonder world yet undefined, unform'd, neither do I define
thee,
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How can I pierce the impenetrable blank of the future? |
I feel thy ominous greatness evil as well as good, |
I watch thee advancing, absorbing the present, transcending the
past,
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I see thy light lighting, and thy shadow shadowing, as if the
entire globe,
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But I do not undertake to define thee, hardly to comprehend thee, |
I but thee name, thee prophesy, as now, |
Thee in thy only permanent life, career, thy own unloosen'd mind,
thy soaring spirit,
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Thee as another equally needed sun, radiant, ablaze, swift-moving,
fructifying all,
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Thee risen in potent cheerfulness and joy, in endless great
hilarity,
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Scattering for good the cloud that hung so long, that weigh'd so
long upon the mind of man,
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The doubt, suspicion, dread, of gradual, certain decadence of man; |
Thee in thy larger, saner brood of female, male—thee in thy
athletes, moral, spiritual, South, North, West, East,
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(To thy immortal breasts, Mother of All, thy every daughter, son,
endear'd alike, forever equal,)
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Thee in thy own musicians, singers, artists, unborn yet, but cer-
tain,
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Thee in thy moral wealth and civilization, (until which thy proud-
est material civilization must remain in vain,)
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Thee in thy all-supplying, all-enclosing worship—thee in no single
bible, saviour, merely,
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Thy saviours countless, latent within thyself, thy bibles incessant
within thyself, equal to any, divine as any,
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(Thy soaring course thee formulating, not in thy two great wars,
nor in thy century's visible growth,
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But far more in these leaves and chants, thy chants, great Mother!) |
Thee in an education grown of thee, in teachers, studies, students,
born of thee,
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Thee in thy democratic fêtes en-masse, thy high original festivals,
operas, lecturers, preachers,
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Thee in thy ultimata, (the preparations only now completed, the
edifice on sure foundations tied,)
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Thee in thy pinnacles, intellect, thought, thy topmost rational joys,
thy love and godlike aspiration,
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In thy resplendent coming literati, thy full-lung'd orators, thy
sacerdotal bards, kosmic savans,
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These! these in thee, (certain to come,) to-day I prophesy. |
6
Land tolerating all, accepting all, not for the good alone, all good
for thee,
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Land in the realms of God to be a realm unto thyself, |
Under the rule of God to be a rule unto thyself. |
(Lo, where arise three peerless stars, |
To be thy natal stars my country, Ensemble, Evolution, Freedom, |
Land of unprecedented faith, God's faith, |
Thy soil, thy very subsoil, all upheav'd, |
The general inner earth so long so sedulously draped over, now
hence for what it is boldly laid bare,
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Open'd by thee to heaven's light for benefit or bale. |
Not to fair-sail unintermitted always, |
The storm shall dash thy face, the murk of war and worse than
war shall cover thee all over,
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(Wert capable of war, its tug and trials? be capable of peace, its
trials,
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For the tug and mortal strain of nations come at last in prosper-
ous peace, not war;)
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In many a smiling mask death shall approach beguiling thee, thou
in disease shalt swelter,
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The livid cancer spread its hideous claws, clinging upon thy
breasts, seeking to strike thee deep within,
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Consumption of the worst, moral consumption, shall rouge thy
face with hectic,
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But thou shalt face thy fortunes, thy diseases, and surmount them
all,
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Whatever they are to-day and whatever through time they may be, |
They each and all shall lift and pass away and cease from thee, |
While thou, Time's spirals rounding, out of thyself, thyself still
extricating, fusing,
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Equable, natural, mystical Union thou, (the mortal with immortal
blent,)
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Shalt soar toward the fulfilment of the future, the spirit of the
body and the mind,
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The soul, its destinies, the real real, |
(Purport of all these apparitions of the real;) |
In thee America, the soul, its destinies, |
Thou globe of globes! thou wonder nebulous! |
By many a throe of heat and cold convuls'd, (by these thyself
solidifying,)
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Thou mental, moral orb—thou New, indeed new, Spiritual World! |
The Present holds thee not—for such vast growth as thine, |
For such unparallel'd flight as thine, such brood as thine, |
The FUTURE only holds thee and can hold thee. |
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