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Leaves of Grass (1891-92)
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SONG OF MYSELF.
1
I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself, |
And what I assume you shall assume, |
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. |
I loafe and invite my soul, |
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass. |
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this soil, this
air,
|
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their
parents the same,
|
I, now thirty-seven 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 harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard, |
Nature without check with original energy. |
2
Houses and rooms are full of perfumes, the shelves are crowded
with perfumes,
|
I breathe the fragrance myself and know it and like it, |
The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it. |
The atmosphere is not a perfume, it has no taste of the distillation,
it is odorless,
|
It is for my mouth forever, I am in love with it, |
I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and
naked,
|
I am mad for it to be in contact with me. |
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The smoke of my own breath, |
Echoes, ripples, buzz'd whispers, love-root, silk-thread, crotch and
vine,
|
My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart, the pass-
ing of blood and air through my lungs,
|
The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the shore and
dark-color'd sea-rocks, and of hay in the barn,
|
The sound of the belch'd words of my voice loos'd to the eddies
of the wind,
|
A few light kisses, a few embraces, a reaching around of arms, |
The play of shine and shade on the trees as the supple boughs
wag,
|
The delight alone or in the rush of the streets, or along the fields
and hill-sides,
|
The feeling of health, the full-noon trill, the song of me rising from
bed and meeting the sun.
|
Have you reckon'd a thousand acres much? have you reckon'd
the earth much?
|
Have you practis'd so long to learn to read? |
Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems? |
Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin
of all poems,
|
You shall possess the good of the earth and sun, (there are millions
of suns left,)
|
You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look
through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in
books,
|
You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me, |
You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self. |
3
I have heard what the talkers were talking, the talk of the begin-
ning and the end,
|
But I do not talk of the beginning or the end. |
There was never any more inception than there is now, |
Nor any more youth or age than there is now, |
And will never be any more perfection than there is now, |
Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now. |
Always the procreant urge of the world. |
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Out of the dimness opposite equals advance, always substance and
increase, always sex,
|
Always a knit of identity, always distinction, always a breed of life. |
To elaborate is no avail, learn'd and unlearn'd feel that it is so. |
Sure as the most certain sure, plumb in the uprights, well entretied,
braced in the beams,
|
Stout as a horse, affectionate, haughty, electrical, |
I and this mystery here we stand. |
Clear and sweet is my soul, and clear and sweet is all that is not
my soul.
|
Lack one lacks both, and the unseen is proved by the seen, |
Till that becomes unseen and receives proof in its turn. |
Showing the best and dividing it from the worst age vexes age, |
Knowing the perfect fitness and equanimity of things, while they
discuss I am silent, and go bathe and admire myself.
|
Welcome is every organ and attribute of me, and of any man
hearty and clean,
|
Not an inch nor a particle of an inch is vile, and none shall be
less familiar than the rest.
|
I am satisfied—I see, dance, laugh, sing; |
As the hugging and loving bed-fellow sleeps at my side through
the night, and withdraws at the peep of the day with
stealthy tread,
|
Leaving me baskets cover'd with white towels swelling the house
with their plenty,
|
Shall I postpone my acceptation and realization and scream at my
eyes,
|
That they turn from gazing after and down the road, |
And forthwith cipher and show me to a cent, |
Exactly the value of one and exactly the value of two, and which
is ahead?
|
4
Trippers and askers surround me, |
People I meet, the effect upon me of my early life or the ward
and city I live in, or the nation,
|
The latest dates, discoveries, inventions, societies, authors old and
new,
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My dinner, dress, associates, looks, compliments, dues, |
The real or fancied indifference of some man or woman I love, |
The sickness of one of my folks or of myself, or ill-doing or loss or
lack of money, or depressions or exaltations,
|
Battles, the horrors of fratricidal war, the fever of doubtful news,
the fitful events;
|
These come to me days and nights and go from me again, |
But they are not the Me myself. |
Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am, |
Stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, unitary, |
Looks down, is erect, or bends an arm on an impalpable certain
rest,
|
Looking with side-curved head curious what will come next, |
Both in and out of the game and watching and wondering at it. |
Backward I see in my own days where I sweated through fog with
linguists and contenders,
|
I have no mockings or arguments, I witness and wait. |
5
I believe in you my soul, the other I am must not abase itself to you, |
And you must not be abased to the other. |
Loafe with me on the grass, loose the stop from your throat, |
Not words, not music or rhyme I want, not custom or lecture, not
even the best,
|
Only the lull I like, the hum of your valvèd voice. |
I mind how once we lay such a transparent summer morning, |
How you settled your head athwart my hips and gently turn'd over
upon me,
|
And parted the shirt from my bosom-bone, and plunged your
tongue to my bare-stript heart,
|
And reach'd till you felt my beard, and reach'd till you held my
feet.
|
Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and knowledge that
pass all the argument of the earth,
|
And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own, |
And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own, |
And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the
women my sisters and lovers,
|
And that a kelson of the creation is love, |
And limitless are leaves stiff or drooping in the fields, |
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And brown ants in the little wells beneath them, |
And mossy scabs of the worm fence, heap'd stones, elder, mullein
and poke-weed.
|
6
A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands; |
How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any
more than he.
|
I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green
stuff woven.
|
Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord, |
A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt, |
Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we may
see and remark, and say Whose?
|
Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the
vegetation.
|
Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic, |
And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones, |
Growing among black folks as among white, |
Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I
receive them the same.
|
And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves. |
Tenderly will I use you curling grass, |
It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men, |
It may be if I had known them I would have loved them, |
It may be you are from old people, or from offspring taken soon
out of their mothers' laps,
|
And here you are the mothers' laps. |
This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers, |
Darker than the colorless beards of old men, |
Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths. |
O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues, |
And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for
nothing.
|
I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and
women,
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And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring taken
soon out of their laps.
|
What do you think has become of the young and old men? |
And what do you think has become of the women and chil-
dren?
|
They are alive and well somewhere, |
The smallest sprout shows there is really no death, |
And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the
end to arrest it,
|
And ceas'd the moment life appear'd. |
All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses, |
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier. |
7
Has any one supposed it lucky to be born? |
I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die, and I
know it.
|
I pass death with the dying and birth with the new-wash'd babe,
and am not contain'd between my hat and boots,
|
And peruse manifold objects, no two alike and every one good, |
The earth good and the stars good, and their adjuncts all good. |
I am not an earth nor an adjunct of an earth, |
I am the mate and companion of people, all just as immortal and
fathomless as myself,
|
(They do not know how immortal, but I know.) |
Every kind for itself and its own, for me mine male and female, |
For me those that have been boys and that love women, |
For me the man that is proud and feels how it stings to be
slighted,
|
For me the sweet-heart and the old maid, for me mothers and the
mothers of mothers,
|
For me lips that have smiled, eyes that have shed tears, |
For me children and the begetters of children. |
Undrape! you are not guilty to me, nor stale nor discarded, |
I see through the broadcloth and gingham whether or no, |
And am around, tenacious, acquisitive, tireless, and cannot be
shaken away.
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8
The little one sleeps in its cradle, |
I lift the gauze and look a long time, and silently brush away flies
with my hand.
|
The youngster and the red-faced girl turn aside up the bushy hill, |
I peeringly view them from the top. |
The suicide sprawls on the bloody floor of the bedroom, |
I witness the corpse with its dabbled hair, I note where the pistol
has fallen.
|
The blab of the pave, tires of carts, sluff of boot-soles, talk of the
promenaders,
|
The heavy omnibus, the driver with his interrogating thumb, the
clank of the shod horses on the granite floor,
|
The snow-sleighs, clinking, shouted jokes, pelts of snow-balls, |
The hurrahs for popular favorites, the fury of rous'd mobs, |
The flap of the curtain'd litter, a sick man inside borne to the
hospital,
|
The meeting of enemies, the sudden oath, the blows and fall, |
The excited crowd, the policeman with his star quickly working
his passage to the centre of the crowd,
|
The impassive stones that receive and return so many echoes, |
What groans of over-fed or half-starv'd who fall sunstruck or in
fits,
|
What exclamations of women taken suddenly who hurry home and
give birth to babes,
|
What living and buried speech is always vibrating here, what howls
restrain'd by decorum,
|
Arrests of criminals, slights, adulterous offers made, acceptances,
rejections with convex lips,
|
I mind them or the show or resonance of them—I come and I
depart.
|
9
The big doors of the country barn stand open and ready, |
The dried grass of the harvest-time loads the slow-drawn wagon, |
The clear light plays on the brown gray and green intertinged, |
The armfuls are pack'd to the sagging mow. |
I am there, I help, I came stretch'd atop of the load, |
I felt its soft jolts, one leg reclined on the other, |
I jump from the cross-beams and seize the clover and timothy, |
And roll head over heels and tangle my hair full of wisps. |
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10
Alone far in the wilds and mountains I hunt, |
Wandering amazed at my own lightness and glee, |
In the late afternoon choosing a safe spot to pass the night, |
Kindling a fire and broiling the fresh-kill'd game, |
Falling asleep on the gather'd leaves with my dog and gun by my
side.
|
The Yankee clipper is under her sky-sails, she cuts the sparkle and
scud,
|
My eyes settle the land, I bend at her prow or shout joyously from
the deck.
|
The boatmen and clam-diggers arose early and stopt for me, |
I tuck'd my trowser-ends in my boots and went and had a good
time;
|
You should have been with us that day round the chowder-kettle. |
I saw the marriage of the trapper in the open air in the far west,
the bride was a red girl,
|
Her father and his friends sat near cross-legged and dumbly
smoking, they had moccasins to their feet and large thick
blankets hanging from their shoulders,
|
On a bank lounged the trapper, he was drest mostly in skins, his
luxuriant beard and curls protected his neck, he held his
bride by the hand,
|
She had long eyelashes, her head was bare, her coarse straight
locks descended upon her voluptuous limbs and reach'd to
her feet.
|
The runaway slave came to my house and stopt outside, |
I heard his motions crackling the twigs of the woodpile, |
Through the swung half-door of the kitchen I saw him limpsy and
weak,
|
And went where he sat on a log and led him in and assured him, |
And brought water and fill'd a tub for his sweated body and bruis'd
feet,
|
And gave him a room that enter'd from my own, and gave him
some coarse clean clothes,
|
And remember perfectly well his revolving eyes and his awkwardness, |
And remember putting plasters on the galls of his neck and ankles; |
He staid with me a week before he was recuperated and pass'd
north,
|
I had him sit next me at table, my fire-lock lean'd in the corner. |
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11
Twenty-eight young men bathe by the shore, |
Twenty-eight young men and all so friendly; |
Twenty-eight years of womanly life and all so lonesome. |
She owns the fine house by the rise of the bank, |
She hides handsome and richly drest aft the blinds of the window. |
Which of the young men does she like the best? |
Ah the homeliest of them is beautiful to her. |
Where are you off to, lady? for I see you, |
You splash in the water there, yet stay stock still in your room. |
Dancing and laughing along the beach came the twenty-ninth bather, |
The rest did not see her, but she saw them and loved them. |
The beards of the young men glisten'd with wet, it ran from their
long hair,
|
Little streams pass'd all over their bodies. |
An unseen hand also pass'd over their bodies, |
It descended tremblingly from their temples and ribs. |
The young men float on their backs, their white bellies bulge to
the sun, they do not ask who seizes fast to them,
|
They do not know who puffs and declines with pendant and bend-
ing arch,
|
They do not think whom they souse with spray. |
12
The butcher-boy puts off his killing-clothes, or sharpens his knife
at the stall in the market,
|
I loiter enjoying his repartee and his shuffle and break-down. |
Blacksmiths with grimed and hairy chests environ the anvil, |
Each has his main-sledge, they are all out, there is a great heat in
the fire.
|
From the cinder-strew'd threshold I follow their movements, |
The lithe sheer of their waists plays even with their massive arms, |
Overhand the hammers swing, overhand so slow, overhand so
sure,
|
They do not hasten, each man hits in his place. |
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13
The negro holds firmly the reins of his four horses, the block swags
underneath on its tied-over chain,
|
The negro that drives the long dray of the stone-yard, steady and
tall he stands pois'd on one leg on the string-piece,
|
His blue shirt exposes his ample neck and breast and loosens over
his hip-band,
|
His glance is calm and commanding, he tosses the slouch of his
hat away from his forehead,
|
The sun falls on his crispy hair and mustache, falls on the black
of his polish'd and perfect limbs.
|
I behold the picturesque giant and love him, and I do not stop
there,
|
In me the caresser of life wherever moving, backward as well as
forward sluing,
|
To niches aside and junior bending, not a person or object miss-
ing,
|
Absorbing all to myself and for this song. |
Oxen that rattle the yoke and chain or halt in the leafy shade,
what is that you express in your eyes?
|
It seems to me more than all the print I have read in my life. |
My tread scares the wood-drake and wood-duck on my distant and
day-long ramble,
|
They rise together, they slowly circle around. |
I believe in those wing'd purposes, |
And acknowledge red, yellow, white, playing within me, |
And consider green and violet and the tufted crown intentional, |
And do not call the tortoise unworthy because she is not something
else,
|
And the jay in the woods never studied the gamut, yet trills pretty
well to me,
|
And the look of the bay mare shames silliness out of me. |
14
The wild gander leads his flock through the cool night, |
Ya-honk he says, and sounds it down to me like an invitation, |
The pert may suppose it meaningless, but I listening close, |
Find its purpose and place up there toward the wintry sky. |
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The sharp-hoof'd moose of the north, the cat on the house-sill,
the chickadee, the prairie-dog,
|
The litter of the grunting sow as they tug at her teats, |
The brood of the turkey-hen and she with her half-spread wings, |
I see in them and myself the same old law. |
The press of my foot to the earth springs a hundred affections, |
They scorn the best I can do to relate them. |
I am enamour'd of growing out-doors, |
Of men that live among cattle or taste of the ocean or woods, |
Of the builders and steerers of ships and the wielders of axes and
mauls, and the drivers of horses,
|
I can eat and sleep with them week in and week out. |
What is commonest, cheapest, nearest, easiest, is Me, |
Me going in for my chances, spending for vast returns, |
Adorning myself to bestow myself on the first that will take me, |
Not asking the sky to come down to my good will, |
Scattering it freely forever. |
15
The pure contralto sings in the organ loft, |
The carpenter dresses his plank, the tongue of his foreplane whistles
its wild ascending lisp,
|
The married and unmarried children ride home to their Thanks-
giving dinner,
|
The pilot seizes the king-pin, he heaves down with a strong arm, |
The mate stands braced in the whale-boat, lance and harpoon are
ready,
|
The duck-shooter walks by silent and cautious stretches, |
The deacons are ordain'd with cross'd hands at the altar, |
The spinning-girl retreats and advances to the hum of the big
wheel,
|
The farmer stops by the bars as he walks on a First-day loafe and
looks at the oats and rye,
|
The lunatic is carried at last to the asylum a confirm'd case, |
(He will never sleep any more as he did in the cot in his mother's
bed-room;)
|
The jour printer with gray head and gaunt jaws works at his case, |
He turns his quid of tobacco while his eyes blurr with the manu-
script;
|
The malform'd limbs are tied to the surgeon's table, |
What is removed drops horribly in a pail; |
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The quadroon girl is sold at the auction-stand, the drunkard nods
by the bar-room stove,
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The machinist rolls up his sleeves, the policeman travels his beat,
the gate-keeper marks who pass,
|
The young fellow drives the express-wagon, (I love him, though
I do not know him;)
|
The half-breed straps on his light boots to compete in the race, |
The western turkey-shooting draws old and young, some lean on
their rifles, some sit on logs,
|
Out from the crowd steps the marksman, takes his position, levels
his piece;
|
The groups of newly-come immigrants cover the wharf or levee, |
As the woolly-pates hoe in the sugar-field, the overseer views them
from his saddle,
|
The bugle calls in the ball-room, the gentlemen run for their part-
ners, the dancers bow to each other,
|
The youth lies awake in the cedar-roof'd garret and harks to the
musical rain,
|
The Wolverine sets traps on the creek that helps fill the Huron, |
The squaw wrapt in her yellow-hemm'd cloth is offering moccasins
and bead-bags for sale,
|
The connoisseur peers along the exhibition-gallery with half-shut
eyes bent sideways,
|
As the deck-hands make fast the steamboat the plank is thrown for
the shore-going passengers,
|
The young sister holds out the skein while the elder sister winds it
off in a ball, and stops now and then for the knots,
|
The one-year wife is recovering and happy having a week ago
borne her first child,
|
The clean-hair'd Yankee girl works with her sewing-machine or in
the factory or mill,
|
The paving-man leans on his two-handed rammer, the reporter's
lead flies swiftly over the note-book, the sign-painter is
lettering with blue and gold,
|
The canal boy trots on the tow-path, the book-keeper counts at
his desk, the shoemaker waxes his thread,
|
The conductor beats time for the band and all the performers
follow him,
|
The child is baptized, the convert is making his first professions, |
The regatta is spread on the bay, the race is begun, (how the
white sails sparkle!)
|
The drover watching his drove sings out to them that would
stray,
|
The pedler sweats with his pack on his back, (the purchaser hig-
gling about the odd cent;)
|
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The bride unrumples her white dress, the minute-hand of the clock
moves slowly,
|
The opium-eater reclines with rigid head and just-open'd lips, |
The prostitute draggles her shawl, her bonnet bobs on her tipsy
and pimpled neck,
|
The crowd laugh at her blackguard oaths, the men jeer and wink
to each other,
|
(Miserable! I do not laugh at your oaths nor jeer you;) |
The President holding a cabinet council is surrounded by the great
Secretaries,
|
On the piazza walk three matrons stately and friendly with twined
arms,
|
The crew of the fish-smack pack repeated layers of halibut in the
hold,
|
The Missourian crosses the plains toting his wares and his cattle, |
As the fare-collector goes through the train he gives notice by the
jingling of loose change,
|
The floor-men are laying the floor, the tinners are tinning the roof,
the masons are calling for mortar,
|
In single file each shouldering his hod pass onward the laborers; |
Seasons pursuing each other the indescribable crowd is gather'd,
it is the fourth of Seventh-month, (what salutes of cannon
and small arms!)
|
Seasons pursuing each other the plougher ploughs, the mower
mows, and the winter-grain falls in the ground;
|
Off on the lakes the pike-fisher watches and waits by the hole in
the frozen surface,
|
The stumps stand thick round the clearing, the squatter strikes
deep with his axe,
|
Flatboatmen make fast towards dusk near the cotton-wood or
pecan-trees,
|
Coon-seekers go through the regions of the Red river or through
those drain'd by the Tennessee, or through those of the
Arkansas,
|
Torches shine in the dark that hangs on the Chattahooche or
Altamahaw,
|
Patriarchs sit at supper with sons and grandsons and great-grand-
sons around them,
|
In walls of adobie, in canvas tents, rest hunters and trappers after
their day's sport,
|
The city sleeps and the country sleeps, |
The living sleep for their time, the dead sleep for their time, |
The old husband sleeps by his wife and the young husband sleeps
by his wife;
|
And these tend inward to me, and I tend outward to them, |
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And such as it is to be of these more or less I am, |
And of these one and all I weave the song of myself. |
16
I am of old and young, of the foolish as much as the wise, |
Regardless of others, ever regardful of others, |
Maternal as well as paternal, a child as well as a man, |
Stuff'd with the stuff that is coarse and stuff'd with the stuff that
is fine,
|
One of the Nation of many nations, the smallest the same and the
largest the same,
|
A Southerner soon as a Northerner, a planter nonchalant and
hospitable down by the Oconee I live,
|
A Yankee bound my own way ready for trade, my joints the
limberest joints on earth and the sternest joints on
earth,
|
A Kentuckian walking the vale of the Elkhorn in my deer-skin
leggings, a Louisianian or Georgian,
|
A boatman over lakes or bays or along coasts, a Hoosier, Badger,
Buckeye;
|
At home on Kanadian snow-shoes or up in the bush, or with
fishermen off Newfoundland,
|
At home in the fleet of ice-boats, sailing with the rest and tack-
ing,
|
At home on the hills of Vermont or in the woods of Maine, or the
Texan ranch,
|
Comrade of Californians, comrade of free North-Westerners, (lov-
ing their big proportions,)
|
Comrade of raftsmen and coalmen, comrade of all who shake
hands and welcome to drink and meat,
|
A learner with the simplest, a teacher of the thoughtfullest, |
A novice beginning yet experient of myriads of seasons, |
Of every hue and caste am I, of every rank and religion, |
A farmer, mechanic, artist, gentleman, sailor, quaker, |
Prisoner, fancy-man, rowdy, lawyer, physician, priest. |
I resist any thing better than my own diversity, |
Breathe the air but leave plenty after me, |
And am not stuck up, and am in my place. |
(The moth and the fish-eggs are in their place, |
The bright suns I see and the dark suns I cannot see are in their
place,
|
The palpable is in its place and the impalpable is in its place.) |
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17
These are really the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands, they
are not original with me,
|
If they are not yours as much as mine they are nothing, or next
to nothing,
|
If they are not the riddle and the untying of the riddle they are
nothing,
|
If they are not just as close as they are distant they are nothing. |
This is the grass that grows wherever the land is and the water is, |
This the common air that bathes the globe. |
18
With music strong I come, with my cornets and my drums, |
I play not marches for accepted victors only, I play marches for
conquer'd and slain persons.
|
Have you heard that it was good to gain the day? |
I also say it is good to fall, battles are lost in the same spirit in
which they are won.
|
I beat and pound for the dead, |
I blow through my embouchures my loudest and gayest for them. |
Vivas to those who have fail'd! |
And to those whose war-vessels sank in the sea! |
And to those themselves who sank in the sea! |
And to all generals that lost engagements, and all overcome heroes! |
And the numberless unknown heroes equal to the greatest heroes
known!
|
19
This is the meal equally set, this the meat for natural hunger, |
It is for the wicked just the same as the righteous, I make appoint-
ments with all,
|
I will not have a single person slighted or left away, |
The kept-woman, sponger, thief, are hereby invited, |
The heavy-lipp'd slave is invited, the venerealee is invited; |
There shall be no difference between them and the rest. |
This is the press of a bashful hand, this the float and odor of hair, |
This the touch of my lips to yours, this the murmur of yearning, |
This the far-off depth and height reflecting my own face, |
This the thoughtful merge of myself, and the outlet again. |
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|
Do you guess I have some intricate purpose? |
Well I have, for the Fourth-month showers have, and the mica on
the side of a rock has.
|
Do you take it I would astonish? |
Does the daylight astonish? does the early redstart twittering
through the woods?
|
Do I astonish more than they? |
This hour I tell things in confidence, |
I might not tell everybody, but I will tell you. |
20
Who goes there? hankering, gross, mystical, nude; |
How is it I extract strength from the beef I eat? |
What is a man anyhow? what am I? what are you? |
All I mark as my own you shall offset it with your own, |
Else it were time lost listening to me. |
I do not snivel that snivel the world over, |
That months are vacuums and the ground but wallow and filth. |
Whimpering and truckling fold with powders for invalids, con-
formity goes to the fourth-remov'd,
|
I wear my hat as I please indoors or out. |
Why should I pray? why should I venerate and be ceremonious? |
Having pried through the strata, analyzed to a hair, counsel'd with
doctors and calculated close,
|
I find no sweeter fat than sticks to my own bones. |
In all people I see myself, none more and not one a barley-corn
less,
|
And the good or bad I say of myself I say of them. |
I know I am solid and sound, |
To me the converging objects of the universe perpetually flow, |
All are written to me, and I must get what the writing means. |
I know this orbit of mine cannot be swept by a carpenter's
compass,
|
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|
I know I shall not pass like a child's carlacue cut with a burnt
stick at night.
|
I do not trouble my spirit to vindicate itself or be understood, |
I see that the elementary laws never apologize, |
(I reckon I behave no prouder than the level I plant my house by,
after all.)
|
I exist as I am, that is enough, |
If no other in the world be aware I sit content, |
And if each and all be aware I sit content. |
One world is aware and by far the largest to me, and that is my-
self,
|
And whether I come to my own to-day or in ten thousand or ten
million years,
|
I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I can wait. |
My foothold is tenon'd and mortis'd in granite, |
I laugh at what you call dissolution, |
And I know the amplitude of time. |
21
I am the poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul, |
The pleasures of heaven are with me and the pains of hell are
with me,
|
The first I graft and increase upon myself, the latter I translate
into a new tongue.
|
I am the poet of the woman the same as the man, |
And I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man, |
And I say there is nothing greater than the mother of men. |
I chant the chant of dilation or pride, |
We have had ducking and deprecating about enough, |
I show that size is only development. |
Have you outstript the rest? are you the President? |
It is a trifle, they will more than arrive there every one, and still
pass on.
|
I am he that walks with the tender and growing night, |
I call to the earth and sea half-held by the night. |
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|
Press close bare-bosom'd night—press close magnetic nourishing
night!
|
Night of south winds—night of the large few stars! |
Still nodding night—mad naked summer night. |
Smile O voluptuous cool-breath'd earth! |
Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees! |
Earth of departed sunset—earth of the mountains misty-topt! |
Earth of the vitreous pour of the full moon just tinged with blue! |
Earth of shine and dark mottling the tide of the river! |
Earth of the limpid gray of clouds brighter and clearer for my
sake!
|
Far-swooping elbow'd earth—rich apple-blossom'd earth! |
Smile, for your lover comes. |
Prodigal, you have given me love—therefore I to you give love! |
O unspeakable passionate love. |
22
You sea! I resign myself to you also—I guess what you mean, |
I behold from the beach your crooked inviting fingers, |
I believe you refuse to go back without feeling of me, |
We must have a turn together, I undress, hurry me out of sight of
the land,
|
Cushion me soft, rock me in billowy drowse, |
Dash me with amorous wet, I can repay you. |
Sea of stretch'd ground-swells, |
Sea breathing broad and convulsive breaths, |
Sea of the brine of life and of unshovell'd yet always-ready graves, |
Howler and scooper of storms, capricious and dainty sea, |
I am integral with you, I too am of one phase and of all phases. |
Partaker of influx and efflux I, extoller of hate and conciliation, |
Extoller of amies and those that sleep in each others' arms. |
I am he attesting sympathy, |
(Shall I make my list of things in the house and skip the house
that supports them?)
|
I am not the poet of goodness only, I do not decline to be the
poet of wickedness also.
|
What blurt is this about virtue and about vice? |
Evil propels me and reform of evil propels me, I stand indifferent, |
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|
My gait is no fault-finder's or rejecter's gait, |
I moisten the roots of all that has grown. |
Did you fear some scrofula out of the unflagging pregnancy? |
Did you guess the celestial laws are yet to be work'd over and
rectified?
|
I find one side a balance and the antipodal side a balance, |
Soft doctrine as steady help as stable doctrine, |
Thoughts and deeds of the present our rouse and early start. |
This minute that comes to me over the past decillions, |
There is no better than it and now. |
What behaved well in the past or behaves well to-day is not such a
wonder,
|
The wonder is always and always how there can be a mean man
or an infidel.
|
23
Endless unfolding of words of ages! |
And mine a word of the modern, the word En-Masse. |
A word of the faith that never balks, |
Here or henceforward it is all the same to me, I accept Time abso-
lutely.
|
It alone is without flaw, it alone rounds and completes all, |
That mystic baffling wonder alone completes all. |
I accept Reality and dare not question it, |
Materialism first and last imbuing. |
Hurrah for positive science! long live exact demonstration! |
Fetch stonecrop mixt with cedar and branches of lilac, |
This is the lexicographer, this the chemist, this made a grammar
of the old cartouches,
|
These mariners put the ship through dangerous unknown seas. |
This is the geologist, this works with the scalpel, and this is a
mathematician.
|
Gentlemen, to you the first honors always! |
Your facts are useful, and yet they are not my dwelling, |
I but enter by them to an area of my dwelling. |
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|
Less the reminders of properties told my words, |
And more the reminders they of life untold, and of freedom and
extrication,
|
And make short account of neuters and geldings, and favor men
and women fully equipt,
|
And beat the gong of revolt, and stop with fugitives and them that
plot and conspire.
|
24
Walt Whitman, a kosmos, of Manhattan the son, |
Turbulent, fleshy, sensual, eating, drinking and breeding, |
No sentimentalist, no stander above men and women or apart from
them,
|
No more modest than immodest. |
Unscrew the locks from the doors! |
Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs! |
Whoever degrades another degrades me, |
And whatever is done or said returns at last to me. |
Through me the afflatus surging and surging, through me the cur-
rent and index.
|
I speak the pass-word primeval, I give the sign of democracy, |
By God! I will accept nothing which all cannot have their coun-
terpart of on the same terms.
|
Through me many long dumb voices, |
Voices of the interminable generations of prisoners and slaves, |
Voices of the diseas'd and despairing and of thieves and dwarfs, |
Voices of cycles of preparation and accretion, |
And of the threads that connect the stars, and of wombs and of
the father-stuff,
|
And of the rights of them the others are down upon, |
Of the deform'd, trivial, flat, foolish, despised, |
Fog in the air, beetles rolling balls of dung. |
Through me forbidden voices, |
Voices of sexes and lusts, voices veil'd and I remove the veil, |
Voices indecent by me clarified and transfigur'd. |
I do not press my fingers across my mouth, |
I keep as delicate around the bowels as around the head and heart, |
Copulation is no more rank to me than death is. |
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|
I believe in the flesh and the appetites, |
Seeing, hearing, feeling, are miracles, and each part and tag of me
is a miracle.
|
Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or
am touch'd from,
|
The scent of these arm-pits aroma finer than prayer, |
This head more than churches, bibles, and all the creeds. |
If I worship one thing more than another it shall be the spread of
my own body, or any part of it,
|
Translucent mould of me it shall be you! |
Shaded ledges and rests it shall be you! |
Firm masculine colter it shall be you! |
Whatever goes to the tilth of me it shall be you! |
You my rich blood! your milky stream pale strippings of my life! |
Breast that presses against other breasts it shall be you! |
My brain it shall be your occult convolutions! |
Root of wash'd sweet-flag! timorous pond-snipe! nest of guarded
duplicate eggs! it shall be you!
|
Mix'd tussled hay of head, beard, brawn, it shall be you! |
Trickling sap of maple, fibre of manly wheat, it shall be you! |
Sun so generous it shall be you! |
Vapors lighting and shading my face it shall be you! |
You sweaty brooks and dews it shall be you! |
Winds whose soft-tickling genitals rub against me it shall be you! |
Broad muscular fields, branches of live oak, loving lounger in my
winding paths, it shall be you!
|
Hands I have taken, face I have kiss'd, mortal I have ever
touch'd, it shall be you.
|
I dote on myself, there is that lot of me and all so luscious, |
Each moment and whatever happens thrills me with joy, |
I cannot tell how my ankles bend, nor whence the cause of my
faintest wish,
|
Nor the cause of the friendship I emit, nor the cause of the friend-
ship I take again.
|
That I walk up my stoop, I pause to consider if it really be, |
A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the meta-
physics of books.
|
The little light fades the immense and diaphanous shadows, |
The air tastes good to my palate. |
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|
Hefts of the moving world at innocent gambols silently rising
freshly exuding,
|
Scooting obliquely high and low. |
Something I cannot see puts upward libidinous prongs, |
Seas of bright juice suffuse heaven. |
The earth by the sky staid with, the daily close of their junction, |
The heav'd challenge from the east that moment over my head, |
The mocking taunt. See then whether you shall be master! |
25
Dazzling and tremendous how quick the sun-rise would kill me, |
If I could not now and always send sun-rise out of me. |
We also ascend dazzling and tremendous as the sun, |
We found our own O my soul in the calm and cool of the day-
break.
|
My voice goes after what my eyes cannot reach, |
With the twirl of my tongue I encompass worlds and volumes of
worlds.
|
Speech is the twin of my vision, it is unequal to measure itself, |
It provokes me forever, it says sarcastically, |
Walt you contain enough, why don't you let it out then? |
Come now I will not be tantalized, you conceive too much of
articulation,
|
Do you not know O speech how the buds beneath you are folded? |
Waiting in gloom, protected by frost, |
The dirt receding before my prophetical screams, |
I underlying causes to balance them at last, |
My knowledge my live parts, it keeping tally with the meaning of
all things,
|
Happiness, (which whoever hears me let him or her set out in
search of this day.)
|
My final merit I refuse you, I refuse putting from me what I really
am,
|
Encompass worlds, but never try to encompass me, |
I crowd your sleekest and best by simply looking toward you. |
Writing and talk do not prove me, |
I carry the plenum of proof and every thing else in my face, |
With the hush of my lips I wholly confound the skeptic. |
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|
26
Now I will do nothing but listen, |
To accrue what I hear into this song, to let sounds contribute
toward it.
|
I hear bravuras of birds, bustle of growing wheat, gossip of flames,
clack of sticks cooking my meals,
|
I hear the sound I love, the sound of the human voice, |
I hear all sounds running together, combined, fused or following, |
Sounds of the city and sounds out of the city, sounds of the day
and night,
|
Talkative young ones to those that like them, the loud laugh of
work-people at their meals,
|
The angry base of disjointed friendship, the faint tones of the sick, |
The judge with hands tight to the desk, his pallid lips pronoun-
cing a death-sentence,
|
The heave'e'yo of stevedores unlading ships by the wharves, the
refrain of the anchor-lifters,
|
The ring of alarm-bells, the cry of fire, the whirr of swift-streak-
ing engines and hose-carts with premonitory tinkles and
color'd lights,
|
The steam-whistle, the solid roll of the train of approaching cars, |
The slow march play'd at the head of the association marching
two and two,
|
(They go to guard some corpse, the flag-tops are draped with
black muslin.)
|
I hear the violoncello, ('tis the
young man's heart's complaint,) |
I hear the key'd cornet, it glides quickly in through my ears, |
It shakes mad-sweet pangs through my belly and breast. |
I hear the chorus, it is a grand opera, |
Ah this indeed is music—this suits me. |
A tenor large and fresh as the creation fills me, |
The orbic flex of his mouth is pouring and filling me full. |
I hear the train'd soprano (what work with hers is this?) |
The orchestra whirls me wider than Uranus flies, |
It wrenches such ardors from me I did not know I possess'd
them,
|
It sails me, I dab with bare feet, they are lick'd by the indolent
waves,
|
I am cut by bitter and angry hail, I lose my breath, |
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|
Steep'd amid honey'd morphine, my windpipe throttled in fakes
of death,
|
At length let up again to feel the puzzle of puzzles, |
27
To be in any form, what is that? |
(Round and round we go, all of us, and ever come back thither,) |
If nothing lay more develop'd the quahaug in its callous shell were
enough.
|
Mine is no callous shell, |
I have instant conductors all over me whether I pass or stop, |
They seize every object and lead it harmlessly through me. |
I merely stir, press, feel with my fingers, and am happy, |
To touch my person to some one else's is about as much as I can
stand.
|
28
Is this then a touch? quivering me to a new identity, |
Flames and ether making a rush for my veins, |
Treacherous tip of me reaching and crowding to help them, |
My flesh and blood playing out lightning to strike what is hardly
different from myself,
|
On all sides prurient provokers stiffening my limbs, |
Straining the udder of my heart for its withheld drip, |
Behaving licentious toward me, taking no denial, |
Depriving me of my best as for a purpose, |
Unbuttoning my clothes, holding me by the bare waist, |
Deluding my confusion with the calm of the sunlight and pasture-
fields,
|
Immodestly sliding the fellow-senses away, |
They bribed to swap off with touch and go and graze at the edges
of me,
|
No consideration, no regard for my draining strength or my anger, |
Fetching the rest of the herd around to enjoy them a while, |
Then all uniting to stand on a headland and worry me. |
The sentries desert every other part of me, |
They have left me helpless to a red marauder, |
They all come to the headland to witness and assist against me. |
I am given up by traitors, |
I talk wildly, I have lost my wits, I and nobody else am the
greatest traitor,
|
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|
I went myself first to the headland, my own hands carried me
there.
|
You villain touch! what are you doing? my breath is tight in its
throat,
|
Unclench your floodgates, you are too much for me. |
29
Blind loving wrestling touch, sheath'd hooded sharp-tooth'd
touch!
|
Did it make you ache so, leaving me? |
Parting track'd by arriving, perpetual payment of perpetual loan, |
Rich showering rain, and recompense richer afterward. |
Sprouts take and accumulate, stand by the curb prolific and vital, |
Landscapes projected masculine, full-sized and golden. |
30
All truths wait in all things, |
They neither hasten their own delivery nor resist it, |
They do not need the obstetric forceps of the surgeon, |
The insignificant is as big to me as any, |
(What is less or more than a touch?) |
Logic and sermons never convince, |
The damp of the night drives deeper into my soul. |
(Only what proves itself to every man and woman is so, |
Only what nobody denies is so.) |
A minute and a drop of me settle my brain, |
I believe the soggy clods shall become lovers and lamps, |
And a compend of compends is the meat of a man or woman, |
And a summit and flower there is the feeling they have for each
other,
|
And they are to branch boundlessly out of that lesson until it
becomes omnific,
|
And until one and all shall delight us, and we them. |
31
I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars, |
And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the
egg of the wren,
|
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|
And the tree-toad is a chef-d'oeuvre for the highest, |
And the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven, |
And the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery, |
And the cow crunching with depress'd head surpasses any statue, |
And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels. |
I find I incorporate gneiss, coal, long-threaded moss, fruits, grains,
esculent roots,
|
And am stucco'd with quadrupeds and birds all over, |
And have distanced what is behind me for good reasons, |
But call any thing back again when I desire it. |
In vain the speeding or shyness, |
In vain the plutonic rocks send their old heat against my approach, |
In vain the mastodon retreats beneath its own powder'd bones, |
In vain objects stand leagues off and assume manifold shapes, |
In vain the ocean settling in hollows and the great monsters lying
low,
|
In vain the buzzard houses herself with the sky, |
In vain the snake slides through the creepers and logs, |
In vain the elk takes to the inner passes of the woods, |
In vain the razor-bill'd auk sails far north to Labrador, |
I follow quickly, I ascend to the nest in the fissure of the cliff. |
32
I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and
self-contain'd,
|
I stand and look at them long and long. |
They do not sweat and whine about their condition, |
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins, |
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God, |
Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of
owning things,
|
Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of
years ago,
|
Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth. |
So they show their relations to me and I accept them, |
They bring me tokens of myself, they evince them plainly in their
possession.
|
I wonder where they get those tokens, |
Did I pass that way huge times ago and negligently drop them? |
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|
Myself moving forward then and now and forever, |
Gathering and showing more always and with velocity, |
Infinite and omnigenous, and the like of these among them, |
Not too exclusive toward the reachers of my remembrancers, |
Picking out here one that I love, and now go with him on brotherly
terms.
|
A gigantic beauty of a stallion, fresh and responsive to my caresses, |
Head high in the forehead, wide between the ears, |
Limbs glossy and supple, tail dusting the ground, |
Eyes full of sparkling wickedness, ears finely cut, flexibly moving. |
His nostrils dilate as my heels embrace him, |
His well-built limbs tremble with pleasure as we race around and
return.
|
I but use you a minute, then I resign you, stallion, |
Why do I need your paces when I myself out-gallop them? |
Even as I stand or sit passing faster than you. |
33
Space and Time! now I see it is true, what I guess'd at, |
What I guess'd when I loaf'd on the grass, |
What I guess'd while I lay alone in my bed, |
And again as I walk'd the beach under the paling stars of the
morning.
|
My ties and ballasts leave me, my elbows rest in sea-gaps, |
I skirt sierras, my palms cover continents, |
I am afoot with my vision. |
By the city's quadrangular houses—in log huts, camping with
lumbermen,
|
Along the ruts of the turnpike, along the dry gulch and rivulet bed, |
Weeding my onion-patch or hoeing rows of carrots and parsnips,
crossing savannas, trailing in forests,
|
Prospecting, gold-digging, girdling the trees of a new purchase, |
Scorch'd ankle-deep by the hot sand, hauling my boat down the
shallow river,
|
Where the panther walks to and fro on a limb overhead, where
the buck turns furiously at the hunter,
|
Where the rattlesnake suns his flabby length on a rock, where the
otter is feeding on fish,
|
Where the alligator in his tough pimples sleeps by the bayou, |
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|
Where the black bear is searching for roots or honey, where the
beaver patsthe mud with his paddle-shaped tail;
|
Over the growing sugar, over the yellow-flower'd cotton plant, over
the rice in its low moist field,
|
Over the sharp-peak'd farm house, with its scallop'd scum and
slender shoots from the gutters,
|
Over the western persimmon, over the long-leav'd corn, over the
delicate blue-flower flax,
|
Over the white and brown buckwheat, a hummer and buzzer there
with the rest,
|
Over the dusky green of the rye as it ripples and shades in the
breeze;
|
Scaling mountains, pulling myself cautiously up, holding on by low
scragged limbs,
|
Walking the path worn in the grass and beat through the leaves of
the brush,
|
Where the quail is whistling betwixt the woods and the wheat-lot, |
Where the bat flies in the Seventh-month eve, where the great gold-
bug drops through the dark,
|
Where the brook puts out of the roots of the old tree and flows to
the meadow,
|
Where cattle stand and shake away flies with the tremulous shud-
dering of their hides,
|
Where the cheese-cloth hangs in the kitchen, where andirons
straddle the hearth-slab, where cobwebs fall in festoons
from the rafters;
|
Where trip-hammers crash, where the press is whirling its cylinders, |
Wherever the human heart beats with terrible throes under its
ribs,
|
Where the pear-shaped balloon is floating aloft, (floating in it my-
self and looking composedly down,)
|
Where the life-car is drawn on the slip-noose, where the heat
hatches pale-green eggs in the dented sand,
|
Where the she-whale swims with her calf and never forsakes it, |
Where the steam-ship trails hind-ways its long pennant of smoke, |
Where the fin of the shark cuts like a black chip out of the water, |
Where the half-burn'd brig is riding on unknown currents, |
Where shells grow to her slimy deck, where the dead are corrupt-
ing below;
|
Where the dense-starr'd flag is borne at the head of the regiments, |
Approaching Manhattan up by the long-stretching island, |
Under Niagara, the cataract falling like a veil over my countenance, |
Upon a door-step, upon the horse-block of hard wood outside, |
Upon the race-course, or enjoying picnics or jigs or a good game
of base-ball,
|
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|
At he-festivals, with blackguard gibes, ironical license, bull-dances,
drinking, laughter,
|
At the cider-mill tasting the sweets of the brown mash, sucking
the juice through a straw,
|
At apple-peelings wanting kisses for all the red fruit I find, |
At musters, beach-parties, friendly bees, huskings, house-raisings; |
Where the mocking-bird sounds his delicious gurgles, cackles,
screams, weeps,
|
Where the hay-rick stands in the barn-yard, where the dry-stalks
are scatter'd, where the brood-cow waits in the hovel,
|
Where the bull advances to do his masculine work, where the stud
to the mare, where the cock is treading the hen,
|
Where the heifers browse, where geese nip their food with short
jerks,
|
Where sun-down shadows lengthen over the limitless and lonesome
prairie,
|
Where herds of buffalo make a crawling spread of the square
miles far and near,
|
Where the humming-bird shimmers, where the neck of the long-
lived swan is curving and winding,
|
Where the laughing-gull scoots by the shore, where she laughs her
near-human laugh,
|
Where bee-hives range on a gray bench in the garden half hid by
the high weeds,
|
Where band-neck'd partridges roost in a ring on the ground with
their heads out,
|
Where burial coaches enter the arch'd gates of a cemetery, |
Where winter wolves bark amid wastes of snow and icicled trees, |
Where the yellow-crown'd heron comes to the edge of the marsh
at night and feeds upon small crabs,
|
Where the splash of swimmers and divers cools the warm noon, |
Where the katy-did works her chromatic reed on the walnut-tree
over the well,
|
Through patches of citrons and cucumbers with silver-wired leaves, |
Through the salt-lick or orange glade, or under conical firs, |
Through the gymnasium, through the curtain'd saloon, through the
office or public hall;
|
Pleas'd with the native and pleas'd with the foreign, pleas'd with
the new and old,
|
Pleas'd with the homely woman as well as the handsome, |
Pleas'd with the quakeress as she puts off her bonnet and talks
melodiously,
|
Pleas'd with the tune of the choir of the whitewash'd church, |
Pleas'd with the earnest words of the sweating Methodist preach-
er, impress'd seriously at the camp-meeting;
|
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|
Looking in at the shop-windows of Broadway the whole forenoon,
flatting the flesh of my nose on the thick plate glass,
|
Wandering the same afternoon with my face turn'd up to the
clouds, or down a lane or along the beach,
|
My right and left arms round the sides of two friends, and I in the
middle;
|
Coming home with the silent and dark-cheek'd bush-boy, (behind
me he rides at the drape of the day,)
|
Far from the settlements studying the print of animals' feet, or
the moccasin print,
|
By the cot in the hospital reaching lemonade to a feverish patient, |
Nigh the coffin'd corpse when all is still, examining with a candle; |
Voyaging to every port to dicker and adventure, |
Hurrying with the modern crowd as eager and fickle as any, |
Hot toward one I hate, ready in my madness to knife him, |
Solitary at midnight in my back yard, my thoughts gone from me
a long while,
|
Walking the old hills of Judaea with the beautiful gentle God by
my side,
|
Speeding through space, speeding through heaven and the stars, |
Speeding amid the seven satellites and the broad ring, and the
diameter of eighty thousand miles,
|
Speeding with tail'd meteors, throwing fire-balls like the rest, |
Carrying the crescent child that carries its own full mother in
its belly,
|
Storming, enjoying, planning, loving, cautioning, |
Backing and filling, appearing and disappearing, |
I tread day and night such roads. |
I visit the orchards of spheres and look at the product, |
And look at quintillions ripen'd and look at quintillions green. |
I fly those flights of a fluid and swallowing soul, |
My course runs below the soundings of plummets. |
I help myself to material and immaterial, |
No guard can shut me off, no law prevent me. |
I anchor my ship for a little while only, |
My messengers continually cruise away or bring their returns to me. |
I go hunting polar furs and the seal, leaping chasms with a pike-
pointed staff, clinging to topples of brittle and blue.
|
I ascend to the foretruck, |
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|
I take my place late at night in the crow's-nest, |
We sail the arctic sea, it is plenty light enough, |
Through the clear atmosphere I stretch around on the wonderful
beauty,
|
The enormous masses of ice pass me and I pass them, the scenery
is plain in all directions,
|
The white-topt mountains show in the distance, I fling out my
fancies toward them,
|
We are approaching some great battle-field in which we are soon
to be engaged,
|
We pass the colossal outposts of the encampment, we pass with
still feet and caution,
|
Or we are entering by the suburbs some vast and ruin'd city, |
The blocks and fallen architecture more than all the living cities
of the globe.
|
I am a free companion, I bivouac by invading watchfires, |
I turn the bridegroom out of bed and stay with the bride myself, |
I tighten her all night to my thighs and lips. |
My voice is the wife's voice, the screech by the rail of the stairs, |
They fetch my man's body up dripping and drown'd. |
I understand the large hearts of heroes, |
The courage of present times and all times, |
How the skipper saw the crowded and rudderless wreck of the
steam-ship, and Death chasing it up and down the storm,
|
How he knuckled tight and gave not back an inch, and was faith
ful of days and faithful of nights,
|
And chalk'd in large letters on a board, Be of good cheer, we will
not desert you;
|
How he follow'd with them and tack'd with them three days and
would not give it up,
|
How he saved the drifting company at last, |
How the lank loose-gown'd women look'd when boated from the
side of their prepared graves,
|
How the silent old-faced infants and the lifted sick, and the sharp-
lipp'd unshaved men;
|
All this I swallow, it tastes good, I like it well, it becomes mine, |
I am the man, I suffer'd, I was there. |
The disdain and calmness of martyrs, |
The mother of old, condemn'd for a witch, burnt with dry wood,
her children gazing on,
|
The hounded slave that flags in the race, leans by the fence, blow-
ing, cover'd with sweat,
|
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|
The twinges that sting like needles his legs and neck, the mur-
derous buckshot and the bullets,
|
I am the hounded slave, I wince at the bite of the dogs, |
Hell and despair are upon me, crack and again crack the marks-
men,
|
I clutch the rails of the fence, my gore dribs, thinn'd with the
ooze of my skin,
|
I fall on the weeds and stones, |
The riders spur their unwilling horses, haul close, |
Taunt my dizzy ears and beat me violently over the head with
whip-stocks.
|
Agonies are one of my changes of garments, |
I do not ask the wounded person how he feels, I myself become
the wounded person,
|
My hurts turn livid upon me as I lean on a cane and observe. |
I am the mash'd fireman with breast-bone broken, |
Tumbling walls buried me in their debris, |
Heat and smoke I inspired, I heard the yelling shouts of my com-
rades,
|
I heard the distant click of their picks and shovels, |
They have clear'd the beams away, they tenderly lift me forth. |
I lie in the night air in my red shirt, the pervading hush is for my
sake,
|
Painless after all I lie exhausted but not so unhappy, |
White and beautiful are the faces around me, the heads are bared
of their fire-caps,
|
The kneeling crowd fades with the light of the torches. |
Distant and dead resuscitate, |
They show as the dial or move as the hands of me, I am the clock
myself.
|
I am an old artillerist, I tell of my fort's bombardment, |
Again the long roll of the drummers, |
Again the attacking cannon, mortars, |
Again to my listening ears the cannon responsive. |
I take part, I see and hear the whole, |
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The cries, curses, roar, the plaudits for well-aim'd shots, |
The ambulanza slowly passing trailing its red drip, |
Workmen searching after damages, making indispensable repairs, |
The fall of grenades through the rent roof, the fan-shaped explo
sion,
|
The whizz of limbs, heads, stone, wood, iron, high in the air. |
Again gurgles the mouth of my dying general, he furiously waves
with his hand,
|
He gasps through the clot Mind not me—mind—the entrench
ments.
|
34
Now I tell what I knew in Texas in my early youth, |
(I tell not the fall of Alamo, |
Not one escaped to tell the fall of Alamo, |
The hundred and fifty are dumb yet at Alamo,) |
'Tis the tale of the murder in cold blood of four hundred and
twelve young men.
|
Retreating they had form'd in a hollow square with their baggage
for breastworks,
|
Nine hundred lives out of the surrounding enemy's, nine times
their number, was the price they took in advance,
|
Their colonel was wounded and their ammunition gone, |
They treated for an honorable capitulation, receiv'd writing and
seal, gave up their arms and march'd back prisoners of war.
|
They were the glory of the race of rangers, |
Matchless with horse, rifle, song, supper, courtship, |
Large, turbulent, generous, handsome, proud, and affectionate, |
Bearded, sunburnt, drest in the free costume of hunters, |
Not a single one over thirty years of age. |
The second First-day morning they were brought out in squads
and massacred, it was beautiful early summer,
|
The work commenced about five o'clock and was over by eight. |
None obey'd the command to kneel, |
Some made a mad and helpless rush, some stood stark and
straight,
|
A few fell at once, shot in the temple or heart, the living and dead
lay together,
|
The maim'd and mangled dug in the dirt, the new-comers saw
them there, |
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|
Some half-kill'd attempted to crawl away, |
These were despatch'd with bayonets or batter'd with the blunts
of muskets,
|
A youth not seventeen years old seiz'd his assassin till two more
came to release him,
|
The three were all torn and cover'd with the boy's blood. |
At eleven o'clock began the burning of the bodies; |
That is the tale of the murder of the four hundred and twelve
young men.
|
35
Would you hear of an old-time sea-fight? |
Would you learn who won by the light of the moon and stars? |
List to the yarn, as my grandmother's father the sailor told it to me. |
Our foe was no skulk in his ship I tell you, (said he,) |
His was the surly English pluck, and there is no tougher or truer,
and never was, and never will be;
|
Along the lower'd eve he came horribly raking us. |
We closed with him, the yards entangled, the cannon touch'd, |
My captain lash'd fast with his own hands. |
We had receiv'd some eighteen pound shots under the water, |
On our lower-gun-deck two large pieces had burst at the first fire,
killing all around and blowing up overhead.
|
Fighting at sun-down, fighting at dark, |
Ten o'clock at night, the full moon well up, our leaks on the gain,
and five feet of water reported,
|
The master-at-arms loosing the prisoners confined in the after-hold
to give them a chance for themselves.
|
The transit to and from the magazine is now stopt by the sentinels, |
They see so many strange faces they do not know whom to trust. |
The other asks if we demand quarter? |
If our colors are struck and the fighting done? |
Now I laugh content, for I hear the voice of my little captain, |
We have not struck, he composedly cries, we have just begun our
part of the fighting.
|
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|
Only three guns are in use, |
One is directed by the captain himself against the enemy's main-
mast,
|
Two well serv'd with grape and canister silence his musketry and
clear his decks.
|
The tops alone second the fire of this little battery, especially the
main-top,
|
They hold out bravely during the whole of the action. |
The leaks gain fast on the pumps, the fire eats toward the powder-
magazine.
|
One of the pumps has been shot away, it is generally thought we
are sinking.
|
Serene stands the little captain, |
He is not hurried, his voice is neither high nor low, |
His eyes give more light to us than our battle-lanterns. |
Toward twelve there in the beams of the moon they surrender to
us.
|
36
Stretch'd and still lies the midnight, |
Two great hulls motionless on the breast of the darkness, |
Our vessel riddled and slowly sinking, preparations to pass to the
one we have conquer'd,
|
The captain on the quarter-deck coldly giving his orders through
a countenance white as a sheet,
|
Near by the corpse of the child that serv'd in the cabin, |
The dead face of an old salt with long white hair and carefully
curl'd whiskers,
|
The flames spite of all that can be done flickering aloft and below, |
The husky voices of the two or three officers yet fit for duty, |
Formless stacks of bodies and bodies by themselves, dabs of flesh
upon the masts and spars,
|
Cut of cordage, dangle of rigging, slight shock of the soothe of
waves,
|
Black and impassive guns, litter of powder-parcels, strong scent, |
A few large stars overhead, silent and mournful shining, |
Delicate sniffs of sea-breeze, smells of sedgy grass and fields by the
shore, death-messages given in charge to survivors,
|
The hiss of the surgeon's knife, the gnawing teeth of his saw, |
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|
Wheeze, cluck, swash of falling blood, short wild scream, and long,
dull, tapering groan,
|
These so, these irretrievable. |
37
You laggards there on guard! look to your arms! |
In at the conquer'd doors they crowd! I am possess'd! |
Embody all presences outlaw'd or suffering, |
See myself in prison shaped like another man, |
And feel the dull unintermitted pain. |
For me the keepers of convicts shoulder their carbines and keep
watch,
|
It is I let out in the morning and barr'd at night. |
Not a mutineer walks handcuff'd to jail but I am handcuff'd to
him and walk by his side,
|
(I am less the jolly one there, and more the silent one with sweat
on my twitching lips.)
|
Not a youngster is taken for larceny but I go up too, and am tried
and sentenced.
|
Not a cholera patient lies at the last gasp but I also lie at the last
gasp,
|
My face is ash-color'd, my sinews gnarl, away from me people
retreat.
|
Askers embody themselves in me
and I am embodied in them, |
I project my hat, sit shame-faced, and beg. |
38
Somehow I have been stunn'd. Stand back! |
Give me a little time beyond my cuff'd head, slumbers, dreams,
gaping,
|
I discover myself on the verge of a usual mistake. |
That I could forget the mockers and insults! |
That I could forget the trickling tears and the blows of the bludg-
eons and hammers!
|
That I could look with a separate look on my own crucifixion and
bloody crowning.
|
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|
I resume the overstaid fraction, |
The grave of rock multiplies what has been confided to it, or to
any graves,
|
Corpses rise, gashes heal, fastenings roll from me. |
I troop forth replenish'd with supreme power, one of an average
unending procession,
|
Inland and sea-coast we go, and pass all boundary lines, |
Our swift ordinances on their way over the whole earth, |
The blossoms we wear in our hats the growth of thousands of
years.
|
Eleves, I salute you! come forward! |
Continue your annotations, continue your questionings. |
39
The friendly and flowing savage, who is he? |
Is he waiting for civilization, or past it and mastering it? |
Is he some Southwesterner rais'd out-doors? is he Kanadian? |
Is he from the Mississippi country? Iowa, Oregon, California? |
The mountains? prairie-life, bush-life? or sailor from the sea? |
Wherever he goes men and women accept and desire him, |
They desire he should like them, touch them, speak to them, stay
with them.
|
Behavior lawless as snow-flakes, words simple as grass, uncomb'd
head, laughter, and naivetè,
|
Slow-stepping feet, common features, common modes and ema-
nations,
|
They descend in new forms from the tips of his fingers, |
They are wafted with the odor of his body or breath, they fly out
of the glance of his eyes.
|
40
Flaunt of the sunshine I need not your bask—lie over! |
You light surfaces only, I force surfaces and depths also. |
Earth! you seem to look for something at my hands, |
Say, old top-knot, what do you want? |
Man or woman, I might tell how I like you, but cannot, |
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|
And might tell what it is in me and what it is in you, but cannot, |
And might tell that pining I have, that pulse of my nights and
days.
|
Behold, I do not give lectures or a little charity, |
When I give I give myself. |
You there, impotent, loose in the knees, |
Open your scarf'd chops till I blow grit within you, |
Spread your palms and lift the flaps of your pockets, |
I am not to be denied, I compel, I have stores plenty and to spare, |
And any thing I have I bestow. |
I do not ask who you are, that is not important to me, |
You can do nothing and be nothing but what I will infold you. |
To cotton-field drudge or cleaner of privies I lean, |
On his right cheek I put the family kiss, |
And in my soul I swear I never will deny him. |
On women fit for conception I start bigger and nimbler babes, |
(This day I am jetting the stuff of far more arrogant republics.) |
To any one dying, thither I speed and twist the knob of the door, |
Turn the bed-clothes toward the foot of the bed, |
Let the physician and the priest go home. |
I seize the descending man and raise him with resistless will, |
O despairer, here is my neck, |
By God, you shall not go down! hang your whole weight upon me. |
I dilate you with tremendous breath, I buoy you up, |
Every room of the house do I fill with an arm'd force, |
Lovers of me, bafflers of graves. |
Sleep—I and they keep guard all night, |
Not doubt, not decease shall dare to lay finger upon you, |
I have embraced you, and henceforth possess you to myself, |
And when you rise in the morning you will find what I tell you is so. |
41
I am he bringing help for the sick as they pant on their backs, |
And for strong upright men I bring yet more needed help. |
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|
I heard what was said of the universe, |
Heard it and heard it of several thousand years; |
It is middling well as far as it goes—but is that all? |
Magnifying and applying come I, |
Outbidding at the start the old cautious hucksters, |
Taking myself the exact dimensions of Jehovah, |
Lithographing Kronos, Zeus his son, and Hercules his grandson, |
Buying drafts of Osiris, Isis, Belus, Brahma, Buddha, |
In my portfolio placing Manito loose, Allah on a leaf, the crucifix
engraved,
|
With Odin and the hideous-faced Mexitli and every idol and image, |
Taking them all for what they are worth and not a cent more, |
Admitting they were alive and did the work of their days, |
(They bore mites as for unfledg'd birds who have now to rise and
fly and sing for themselves,)
|
Accepting the rough deific sketches to fill out better in myself,
bestowing them freely on each man and woman I see,
|
Discovering as much or more in a framer framing a house, |
Putting higher claims for him there with his roll'd-up sleeves driving
the mallet and chisel,
|
Not objecting to special revelations, considering a curl of smoke
or a hair on the back of my hand just as curious as any
revelation,
|
Lads ahold of fire-engines and hook-and-ladder ropes no less to
me than the gods of the antique wars,
|
Minding their voices peal through the crash of destruction, |
Their brawny limbs passing safe over charr'd laths, their white
foreheads whole and unhurt out of the flames;
|
By the mechanic's wife with her babe at her nipple interceding for
every person born,
|
Three scythes at harvest whizzing in a row from three lusty angels
with shirts bagg'd out at their waists,
|
The snag-tooth'd hostler with red hair redeeming sins past and to
come,
|
Selling all he possesses, traveling on foot to fee lawyers for his
brother and sit by him while he is tried for forgery;
|
What was strewn in the amplest strewing the square rod about
me, and not filling the square rod then,
|
The bull and the bug never worshipp'd half enough, |
Dung and dirt more admirable than was dream'd, |
The supernatural of no account, myself waiting my time to be one
of the supremes,
|
The day getting ready for me when I shall do as much good as
the best, and be as prodigious;
|
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|
By my life-lumps! becoming already a creator, |
Putting myself here and now to the ambush'd womb of the shadows. |
42
A call in the midst of the crowd, |
My own voice, orotund sweeping and final. |
Come my boys and girls, my women, household and intimates, |
Now the performer launches his nerve, he has pass'd his prelude
on the reeds within.
|
Easily written loose-finger'd chords—I feel the thrum of your
climax and close.
|
My head slues round on my neck, |
Music rolls, but not from the organ, |
Folks are around me, but they are no household of mine. |
Ever the hard unsunk ground, |
Ever the eaters and drinkers, ever the upward and downward sun,
ever the air and the ceaseless tides,
|
Ever myself and my neighbors, refreshing, wicked, real, |
Ever the old inexplicable query, ever that thorn'd thumb, that
breath of itches and thirsts,
|
Ever the vexer's hoot! hoot! till we find where the sly one hides
and bring him forth,
|
Ever love, ever the sobbing liquid of life, |
Ever the bandage under the chin, ever the trestles of death. |
Here and there with dimes on the eyes walking, |
To feed the greed of the belly the brains liberally spooning, |
Tickets buying, taking, selling, but in to the feast never once going. |
Many sweating, ploughing, thrashing, and then the chaff for pay-
ment receiving,
|
A few idly owning, and they the wheat continually claiming. |
This is the city and I am one of the citizens, |
Whatever interests the rest interests me, politics, wars, markets,
newspapers, schools,
|
The mayor and councils, banks, tariffs, steamships, factories, stocks,
stores, real estate and personal estate.
|
The little plentiful manikins skipping around in collars and tail'd
coats,
|
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|
I am aware who they are, (they are positively not worms or fleas,) |
I acknowledge the duplicates of myself, the weakest and shallowest
is deathless with me,
|
What I do and say the same waits for them, |
Every thought that flounders in me the same flounders in them. |
I know perfectly well my own egotism, |
Know my omnivorous lines and must not write any less, |
And would fetch you whoever you are flush with myself. |
Not words of routine this song of mine, |
But abruptly to question, to leap beyond yet nearer bring; |
This printed and bound book—but the printer and the printing-
office boy?
|
The well-taken photographs—but your wife or friend close and
solid in your arms?
|
The black ship mail'd with iron, her mighty guns in her turrets—
but the pluck of the captain and engineers?
|
In the houses the dishes and fare and furniture—but the host and
hostess, and the look out of their eyes?
|
The sky up there—yet here or next door, or across the way? |
The saints and sages in history—but you yourself? |
Sermons, creeds, theology—but the fathomless human brain, |
And what is reason? and what is love? and what is life? |
43
I do not despise you priests, all time, the world over, |
My faith is the greatest of faiths and the least of faiths, |
Enclosing worship ancient and modern and all between ancient
and modern,
|
Believing I shall come again upon the earth after five thousand
years,
|
Waiting responses from oracles, honoring the gods, saluting the
sun,
|
Making a fetich of the first rock or stump, powowing with sticks in
the circle of obis,
|
Helping the llama or brahmin as he trims the lamps of the idols, |
Dancing yet through the streets in a phallic procession, rapt and
austere in the woods a gymnosophist,
|
Drinking mead from the skull-cup, to Shastas and Vedas admirant,
minding the Koran,
|
Walking the teokallis, spotted with gore from the stone and knife,
beating the serpent-skin drum,
|
Accepting the Gospels, accepting him that was crucified, knowing
assuredly that he is divine,
|
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|
To the mass kneeling or the puritan's prayer rising, or sitting
patiently in a pew,
|
Ranting and frothing in my insane crisis, or waiting dead-like till
my spirit arouses me,
|
Looking forth on pavement and land, or outside of pavement and
land,
|
Belonging to the winders of the circuit of circuits. |
One of that centripetal and centrifugal gang I turn and talk like a
man leaving charges before a journey.
|
Down-hearted doubters dull and excluded, |
Frivolous, sullen, moping, angry, affected, dishearten'd, atheistical, |
I know every one of you, I know the sea of torment, doubt,
despair and unbelief.
|
How they contort rapid as lightning, with spasms and spouts of
blood!
|
Be at peace bloody flukes of doubters and sullen mopers, |
I take my place among you as much as among any, |
The past is the push of you, me, all, precisely the same, |
And what is yet untried and afterward is for you, me, all, precisely
the same.
|
I do not know what is untried and afterward, |
But I know it will in its turn prove sufficient, and cannot fail. |
Each who passes is consider'd, each who stops is consider'd, not
a single one can it fail.
|
It cannot fail the young man who died and was buried, |
Nor the young woman who died and was put by his side, |
Nor the little child that peep'd in at the door, and then drew back
and was never seen again,
|
Nor the old man who has lived without purpose, and feels it with
bitterness worse than gall,
|
Nor him in the poor house tubercled by rum and the bad dis-
order,
|
Nor the numberless slaughter'd and wreck'd, nor the brutish koboo
call'd the ordure of humanity,
|
Nor the sacs merely floating with open mouths for food to slip in, |
Nor any thing in the earth, or down in the oldest graves of the
earth,
|
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|
Nor any thing in the myriads of spheres, nor the myriads of
myriads that inhabit them,
|
Nor the present, nor the least wisp that is known. |
44
It is time to explain myself—let us stand up. |
What is known I strip away, |
I launch all men and women forward with me into the Unknown. |
The clock indicates the moment—but what does eternity indicate? |
We have thus far exhausted trillions of winters and summers, |
There are trillions ahead, and trillions ahead of them. |
Births have brought us richness and variety, |
And other births will bring us richness and variety. |
I do not call one greater and one smaller, |
That which fills its period and place is equal to any. |
Were mankind murderous or jealous upon you, my brother, my
sister?
|
I am sorry for you, they are not murderous or jealous upon me, |
All has been gentle with me, I keep no account with lamentation, |
(What have I to do with lamentation?) |
I am an acme of things accomplish'd, and I an encloser of things
to be.
|
My feet strike an apex of the apices of the stairs, |
On every step bunches of ages, and larger bunches between the
steps,
|
All below duly travel'd, and still I mount and mount. |
Rise after rise bow the phantoms behind me, |
Afar down I see the huge first Nothing, I know I was even there, |
I waited unseen and always, and slept through the lethargic mist, |
And took my time, and took no hurt from the fetid carbon. |
Long I was hugg'd close—long and long. |
Immense have been the preparations for me, |
Faithful and friendly the arms that have help'd me. |
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|
Cycles ferried my cradle, rowing and rowing like cheerful boatmen, |
For room to me stars kept aside in their own rings, |
They sent influences to look after what was to hold me. |
Before I was born out of my mother generations guided me, |
My embryo has never been torpid, nothing could overlay it. |
For it the nebula cohered to an orb, |
The long slow strata piled to rest it on, |
Vast vegetables gave it sustenance, |
Monstrous sauroids transported it in their mouths and deposited
it with care.
|
All forces have been steadily employ'd to complete and delight me, |
Now on this spot I stand with my robust soul. |
45
O span of youth! ever-push'd elasticity! |
O manhood, balanced, florid and full. |
Crowding my lips, thick in the pores of my skin, |
Jostling me through streets and public halls, coming naked to me
at night,
|
Crying by day Ahoy! from the rocks of the river, swinging and
chirping over my head,
|
Calling my name from flower-beds, vines, tangled underbrush, |
Lighting on every moment of my life, |
Bussing my body with soft balsamic busses, |
Noiselessly passing handfuls out of their hearts and giving them
to be mine.
|
Old age superbly rising! O welcome, ineffable grace of dying
days!
|
Every condition promulges not only itself, it promulges what grows
after and out of itself,
|
And the dark hush promulges as much as any. |
I open my scuttle at night and see the far-sprinkled systems, |
And all I see multiplied as high as I can cipher edge but the rim
of the farther systems.
|
Wider and wider they spread, expanding, always expanding, |
Outward and outward and forever outward. |
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My sun has his sun and round him obediently wheels, |
He joins with his partners a group of superior circuit, |
And greater sets follow, making specks of the greatest inside them. |
There is no stoppage and never can be stoppage, |
If I, you, and the worlds, and all beneath or upon their surfaces,
were this moment reduced back to a pallid float, it would
not avail in the long run,
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We should surely bring up again where we now stand, |
And surely go as much farther, and then farther and farther. |
A few quadrillions of eras, a few octillions of cubic leagues, do not
hazard the span or make it impatient,
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They are but parts, any thing is but a part. |
See ever so far, there is limitless space outside of that, |
Count ever so much, there is limitless time around that. |
My rendezvous is appointed, it is certain, |
The Lord will be there and wait till I come on perfect terms, |
The great Camerado, the lover true for whom I pine will be there. |
46
I know I have the best of time and space, and was never measured
and never will be measured.
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I tramp a perpetual journey, (come listen all!) |
My signs are a rain-proof coat, good shoes, and a staff cut from
the woods,
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No friend of mine takes his ease in my chair, |
I have no chair, no church, no philosophy, |
I lead no man to a dinner-table, library, exchange, |
But each man and each woman of you I lead upon a knoll, |
My left hand hooking you round the waist, |
My right hand pointing to landscapes of continents and the public
road.
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Not I, not any one else can travel that road for you, |
You must travel it for yourself. |
It is not far, it is within reach, |
Perhaps you have been on it since you were born and did not
know,
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Perhaps it is everywhere on water and on land. |
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Shoulder your duds dear son, and I will mine, and let us hasten
forth,
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Wonderful cities and free nations we shall fetch as we go. |
If you tire, give me both burdens, and rest the chuff of your hand
on my hip,
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And in due time you shall repay the same service to me, |
For after we start we never lie by again. |
This day before dawn I ascended a hill and look'd at the crowded
heaven,
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And I said to my spirit When we become the enfolders of those
orbs, and the pleasure and knowledge of every thing in
them, shall we be fill'd and satisfied then?
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And my spirit said No, we but level that lift to pass and continue
beyond.
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You are also asking me questions and I hear you, |
I answer that I cannot answer, you must find out for yourself. |
Here are biscuits to eat and here is milk to drink, |
But as soon as you sleep and renew yourself in sweet clothes, I
kiss you with a good-by kiss and open the gate for your
egress hence.
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Long enough have you dream'd contemptible dreams, |
Now I wash the gum from your eyes, |
You must habit yourself to the dazzle of the light and of every
moment of your life.
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Long have you timidly waded holding a plank by the shore, |
Now I will you to be a bold swimmer, |
To jump off in the midst of the sea, rise again, nod to me, shout,
and laughingly dash with your hair.
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47
I am the teacher of athletes, |
He that by me spreads a wider breast than my own proves the
width of my own,
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He most honors my style who learns under it to destroy the
teacher.
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The boy I love, the same becomes a man not through derived
power, but in his own right,
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Wicked rather than virtuous out of conformity or fear, |
Fond of his sweetheart, relishing well his steak, |
Unrequited love or a slight cutting him worse than sharp steel
cuts,
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First-rate to ride, to fight, to hit the bull's eye, to sail a skiff, to
sing a song or play on the banjo,
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Preferring scars and the beard and faces pitted with small-pox
over all latherers,
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And those well-tann'd to those that keep out of the sun. |
I teach straying from me, yet who can stray from me? |
I follow you whoever you are from the present hour, |
My words itch at your ears till you understand them. |
I do not say these things for a dollar or to fill up the time while I
wait for a boat,
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(It is you talking just as much as myself, I act as the tongue of
you,
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Tied in your mouth, in mine it begins to be loosen'd.) |
I swear I will never again mention love or death inside a house, |
And I swear I will never translate myself at all, only to him or her
who privately stays with me in the open air.
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If you would understand me go to the heights or water-shore, |
The nearest gnat is an explanation, and a drop or motion of waves
a key,
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The maul, the oar, the hand-saw, second my words. |
No shutter'd room or school can commune with me, |
But roughs and little children better than they. |
The young mechanic is closest to me, he knows me well, |
The woodman that takes his axe and jug with him shall take me
with him all day,
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The farm-boy ploughing in the field feels good at the sound of my
voice,
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In vessels that sail my words sail, I go with fishermen and seamen
and love them.
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The soldier camp'd or upon the march is mine, |
On the night ere the pending battle many seek me, and I do not
fail them,
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On that solemn night (it may be their last) those that know me
seek me.
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My face rubs to the hunter's face when he lies down alone in his
blanket,
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The driver thinking of me does not mind the jolt of his wagon, |
The young mother and old mother comprehend me, |
The girl and the wife rest the needle a moment and forget where
they are,
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They and all would resume what I have told them. |
48
I have said that the soul is not more than the body, |
And I have said that the body is not more than the soul, |
And nothing, not God, is greater to one than one's self is, |
And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own
funeral drest in his shroud,
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And I or you pocketless of a dime may purchase the pick of the
earth,
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And to glance with an eye or show a bean in its pod confounds
the learning of all times,
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And there is no trade or employment but the young man following
it may become a hero,
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And there is no object so soft but it makes a hub for the wheel'd
universe,
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And I say to any man or woman, Let your soul stand cool and
composed before a million universes.
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And I say to mankind, Be not curious about God, |
For I who am curious about each am not curious about God, |
(No array of terms can say how much I am at peace about God
and about death.)
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I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not
in the least,
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Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than
myself.
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Why should I wish to see God better than this day? |
I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each
moment then,
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In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in
the glass,
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I find letters from God dropt in the street, and every one is sign'd
by God's name,
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And I leave them where they are, for I know that wheresoe'er I go, |
Others will punctually come for ever and ever. |
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49
And as to you Death, and you bitter hug of mortality, it is idle to
try to alarm me.
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To his work without flinching the accoucheur comes, |
I see the elder-hand pressing receiving supporting, |
I recline by the sills of the exquisite flexible doors, |
And mark the outlet, and mark the relief and escape. |
And as to you Corpse I think you are good manure, but that does
not offend me,
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I smell the white roses sweet-scented and growing, |
I reach to the leafy lips, I reach to the polish'd breasts of melons. |
And as to you Life I reckon you are the leavings of many deaths, |
(No doubt I have died myself ten thousand times before.) |
I hear you whispering there O stars of heaven, |
O suns—O grass of graves—O perpetual transfers and pro-
motions,
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If you do not say any thing how can I say any thing? |
Of the turbid pool that lies in the autumn forest, |
Of the moon that descends the steeps of the soughing twilight, |
Toss, sparkles of day and dusk—toss on the black stems that
decay in the muck,
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Toss to the moaning gibberish of the dry limbs. |
I ascend from the moon, I ascend from the night, |
I perceive that the ghastly glimmer is noonday sunbeams reflected, |
And debouch to the steady and central from the offspring great or
small.
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50
There is that in me—I do not know what it is—but I know it is
in me.
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Wrench'd and sweaty—calm and cool then my body becomes, |
I do not know it—it is without name—it is a word unsaid, |
It is not in any dictionary, utterance, symbol. |
Something it swings on more than the earth I swing on, |
To it the creation is the friend whose embracing awakes me. |
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Perhaps I might tell more. Outlines! I plead for my brothers
and sisters.
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Do you see O my brothers and sisters? |
It is not chaos or death—it is form, union,
plan—it is eternal
life—it is Happiness.
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51
The past and present wilt—I have fill'd them, emptied them. |
And proceed to fill my next fold of the future. |
Listener up there! what have you to confide to me? |
Look in my face while I snuff the sidle of evening, |
(Talk honestly, no one else hears you, and I stay only a minute
longer.)
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Very well then I contradict myself, |
(I am large, I contain multitudes.) |
I concentrate toward them that are nigh, I wait on the door-slab. |
Who has done his day's work? who will soonest be through with
his supper?
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Who wishes to walk with me? |
Will you speak before I am gone? will you prove already too late? |
52
The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my
gab and my loitering.
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I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, |
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world. |
The last scud of day holds back for me, |
It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow'd
wilds,
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It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk. |
I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun, |
I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags. |
I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, |
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles. |
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You will hardly know who I am or what I mean, |
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless, |
And filter and fibre your blood. |
Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, |
Missing me one place search another, |
I stop somewhere waiting for you. |
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