|
Leaves of Grass (1891-92)
contents
| previous
| next
INSCRIPTIONS.
One's-Self I Sing.
ONE'S-SELF I sing, a simple separate person, |
Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-Masse. |
Of physiology from top to toe I sing, |
Not physiognomy alone nor brain alone is worthy for the Muse, I
say the Form complete is worthier far,
|
The Female equally with the Male I sing. |
Of Life immense in passion, pulse, and power, |
Cheerful, for freest action form'd under the laws divine, |
AS I PONDER'D IN SILENCE.
As I ponder'd in silence, |
Returning upon my poems, considering, lingering long, |
A Phantom arose before me with distrustful aspect, |
Terrible in beauty, age, and power, |
The genius of poets of old lands, |
As to me directing like flame its eyes, |
With finger pointing to many immortal songs, |
And menacing voice, What singest thou? it said, |
Know'st thou not there is but one theme for ever-enduring bards? |
And that is the theme of War, the fortune of battles, |
The making of perfect soldiers. |
Be it so, then I answer'd, |
I too haughty Shade also sing war, and a longer and greater one
than any,
|
Waged in my book with varying fortune, with flight, advance and
retreat, victory deferr'd and wavering,
|
View Page 10
|
(Yet methinks certain, or as good as certain, at the last,) the field
the world,
|
For life and death, for the Body and for the eternal Soul, |
Lo, I too am come, chanting the chant of battles, |
I above all promote brave soldiers. |
IN CABIN'D SHIPS AT SEA.
The boundless blue on every side expanding, |
With whistling winds and music of the waves, the large imperious
waves,
|
Or some lone bark buoy'd on the dense marine, |
Where joyous full of faith, spreading white sails, |
She cleaves the ether mid the sparkle and the foam of day, or
under many a star at night,
|
By sailors young and old haply will I, a reminiscence of the land,
be read,
|
Here are our thoughts, voyagers' thoughts, |
Here not the land, firm land, alone appears, may then by them be
said,
|
The sky o'erarches here, we feel the undulating deck beneath our
feet,
|
We feel the long pulsation, ebb and flow of endless motion, |
The tones of unseen mystery, the vague and vast suggestions of the
briny world, the liquid-flowing syllables,
|
The perfume, the faint creaking of the cordage, the melancholy
rhythm,
|
The boundless vista and the horizon far and dim are all here, |
And this is ocean's poem. |
Then falter not O book, fulfil your destiny, |
You not a reminiscence of the land alone, |
You too as a lone bark cleaving the ether, purpos'd I know not
whither, yet ever full of faith,
|
Consort to every ship that sails, sail you! |
Bear forth to them folded my love, (dear mariners, for you I fold
it here in every leaf;)
|
Speed on my book! spread your white sails my little bark athwart
the imperious waves,
|
Chant on, sail on, bear o'er the boundless blue from me to every
sea,
|
This song for mariners and all their ships. |
View Page 11
|
TO FOREIGN LANDS.
I HEARD that you ask'd for something to prove this puzzle the New
World,
|
And to define America, her athletic Democracy, |
Therefore I send you my poems that you behold in them what you
wanted.
|
TO A HISTORIAN.
YOU who celebrate bygones, |
Who have explored the outward, the surfaces of the races, the life
that has exhibited itself,
|
Who have treated of man as the creature of politics, aggregates,
rulers and priests,
|
I, habitan of the Alleghanies, treating of him as he is in himself
in his own rights,
|
Pressing the pulse of the life that has seldom exhibited itself, (the
great pride of man in himself,)
|
Chanter of Personality, outlining what is yet to be, |
I project the history of the future. |
TO THEE OLD CAUSE.
Thou peerless, passionate, good cause, |
Thou stern, remorseless, sweet idea, |
Deathless throughout the ages, races, lands, |
After a strange sad war, great war for thee, |
(I think all war through time was really fought, and ever will be
really fought, for thee,)
|
These chants for thee, the eternal march of thee. |
(A war O soldiers not for itself alone, |
Far, far more stood silently waiting behind, now to advance in
this book.)
|
Thou seething principle! thou well-kept, latent germ! thou centre! |
Around the idea of thee the war revolving, |
With all its angry and vehement play of causes, |
(With vast results to come for thrice a thousand years,) |
These recitatives for thee,—my book and the war are one, |
Merged in its spirit I and mine, as the contest hinged on thee, |
As a wheel on its axis turns, this book unwitting to itself, |
View Page 12
|
EIDÓLONS.
Passing the hues and objects of the world, |
The fields of art and learning, pleasure, sense, |
Put in thy chants said he, |
No more the puzzling hour nor day, nor segments, parts, put in, |
Put first before the rest as light for all and entrance-song of all, |
Ever the growth, the rounding of the circle, |
Ever the summit and the merge at last, (to surely start again,) |
Ever materials, changing, crumbling, re-cohering, |
Ever the ateliers, the factories divine, |
Or woman, man, or state, known or unknown, |
We seeming solid wealth, strength, beauty build, |
But really build eidólons. |
The substance of an artist's mood or savan's studies long, |
Or warrior's, martyr's, hero's toils, |
(The units gather'd, posted, not a thought, emotion, deed, left out,) |
The whole or large or small summ'd, added up, |
Based on the ancient pinnacles, lo, newer, higher pinnacles, |
From science and the modern still impell'd, |
The old, old urge, eidólons. |
The present now and here, |
America's busy, teeming, intricate whirl, |
Of aggregate and segregate for only thence releasing, |
View Page 13
|
Of vanish'd lands, of all the reigns of kings across the sea, |
Old conquerors, old campaigns, old sailors' voyages, |
Densities, growth, façades, |
Strata of mountains, soils, rocks, giant trees, |
Far-born, far-dying, living long, to leave, |
The visible but their womb of birth, |
Of orbic tendencies to shape and shape and shape, |
The mighty earth-eidólon. |
(The stars, the terrible perturbations of the suns, |
Swelling, collapsing, ending, serving their longer, shorter use,) |
Fill'd with eidólons only. |
The infinite oceans where the rivers empty, |
The separate countless free identities, like eyesight, |
The true realities, eidólons. |
Nor these the universes, they the universes, |
Purport and end, ever the permanent life of life, |
Beyond thy lectures learn'd professor, |
Beyond thy telescope or spectroscope observer keen, beyond all
mathematics,
|
Beyond the doctor's surgery, anatomy, beyond the chemist with
his chemistry,
|
The entities of entities, eidólons. |
Ever shall be, ever have been and are, |
Sweeping the present to the infinite future, |
Eidólons, eidólons, eidólons. |
The prophet and the bard, |
Shall yet maintain themselves, in higher stages yet, |
Shall mediate to the Modern, to Democracy, interpret yet to them, |
View Page 14
|
Joys, ceaseless exercises, exaltations, |
Thy yearning amply fed at last, prepared to meet, |
The body lurking there within thy body, |
The only purport of the form thou art, the real I myself, |
Thy very songs not in thy songs, |
No special strains to sing, none for itself, |
But from the whole resulting, rising at last and floating, |
A round full-orb'd eidólon. |
FOR HIM I SING.
I raise the present on the past, |
(As some perennial tree out of its roots, the present on the past,) |
With time and space I him dilate and fuse the immortal laws, |
To make himself by them the law unto himself. |
WHEN I READ THE BOOK.
WHEN I read the book, the biography famous, |
And is this then (said I) what the author calls a man's life? |
And so will some one when I am dead and gone write my life? |
(As if any man really knew aught of my life, |
Why even I myself I often think know little or nothing of my real
life,
|
Only a few hints, a few diffused faint clews and indirections |
I seek for my own use to trace out here.) |
BEGINNING MY STUDIES.
BEGINNING my studies the first step pleas'd me so much, |
The mere fact consciousness, these forms, the power of motion, |
The least insect or animal, the senses, eyesight, love, |
The first step I say awed me and pleas'd me so much, |
I have hardly gone and hardly wish'd to go any farther, |
But stop and loiter all the time to sing it in ecstatic songs. |
View Page 15
|
BEGINNERS.
HOW they are provided for upon the earth, (appearing at inter-
vals,)
|
How dear and dreadful they are to the earth, |
How they inure to themselves as much as to any—what a paradox
appears their age,
|
How people respond to them, yet know them not, |
How there is something relentless in their fate all times, |
How all times mischoose the objects of their adulation and re-
ward,
|
And how the same inexorable price must still be paid for the same
great purchase.
|
TO THE STATES.
TO the States or any one of them, or any city of the States, Resist
much, obey little,
|
Once unquestioning obedience, once fully enslaved, |
Once fully enslaved, no nation, state, city of this earth, ever after-
ward resumes its liberty.
|
ON JOURNEYS THROUGH THE STATES.
ON journeys through the States we start, |
(Ay through the world, urged by these songs, |
Sailing henceforth to every land, to every sea,) |
We willing learners of all, teachers of all, and lovers of all. |
We have watch'd the seasons dispensing themselves and passing
on,
|
And have said, Why should not a man or woman do as much as
the seasons, and effuse as much?
|
We dwell a while in every city and town, |
We pass through Kanada, the North-east, the vast valley of the
Mississippi, and the Southern States,
|
We confer on equal terms with each of the States, |
We make trial of ourselves and invite men and women to hear, |
We say to ourselves, Remember, fear not, be candid, promulge the
body and the soul,
|
Dwell a while and pass on, be copious, temperate, chaste, mag-
netic,
|
And what you effuse may then return as the seasons return, |
And may be just as much as the seasons. |
View Page 16
|
TO A CERTAIN CANTATRICE.
I was reserving it for some hero, speaker, or general, |
One who should serve the good old cause, the great idea, the prog-
ress and freedom of the race,
|
Some brave confronter of despots, some daring rebel; |
But I see that what I was reserving belongs to you just as much as
to any.
|
ME IMPERTURBE.
ME imperturbe, standing at ease in Nature, |
Master of all or mistress of all, aplomb in the midst of irrational
things,
|
Imbued as they, passive, receptive, silent as they, |
Finding my occupation, poverty, notoriety, foibles, crimes, less im-
portant than I thought,
|
Me toward the Mexican sea, or in the Mannahatta or the Tennes-
see, or far north or inland,
|
A river man, or a man of the woods or of any farm-life of these
States or of the coast, or the lakes or Kanada,
|
Me wherever my life is lived, O to be self-balanced for contingen-
cies,
|
To confront night, storms, hunger, ridicule, accidents, rebuffs, as
the trees and animals do.
|
SAVANTISM.
THITHER as I look I see each result and glory retracing itself and
nestling close, always obligated,
|
Thither hours, months, years—thither trades, compacts, establish-
ments, even the most minute,
|
Thither every-day life, speech, utensils, politics, persons, estates; |
Thither we also, I with my leaves and songs, trustful, admirant, |
As a father to his father going takes his children along with him. |
THE SHIP STARTING.
On its breast a ship starting, spreading all sails, carrying even her
moonsails,
|
The pennant is flying aloft as she speeds she speeds so stately—
below emulous waves press forward,
|
They surround the ship with shining curving motions and foam. |
View Page 17
|
I HEAR AMERICA SINGING.
I HEAR America singing, the varied carols I hear, |
Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe
and strong,
|
The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam, |
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off
work,
|
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deck-
hand singing on the steamboat deck,
|
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing
as he stands,
|
The wood-cutter's song, the ploughboy's on his way in the morn-
ing, or at noon intermission or at sundown,
|
The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work,
or of the girl sewing or washing,
|
Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else, |
The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of young
fellows, robust, friendly,
|
Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs. |
WHAT PLACE IS BESIEGED?
WHAT place is besieged, and vainly tries to raise the siege? |
Lo, I send to that place a commander, swift, brave, immortal, |
And with him horse and foot, and parks of artillery, |
And artillery-men, the deadliest that ever fired gun. |
STILL THOUGH THE ONE I SING.
STILL though the one I sing, |
(One, yet of contradictions made,) I dedicate to Nationality, |
I leave in him revolt, (O latent right of insurrection! O quench-
less, indispensable fire!)
|
SHUT NOT YOUR DOORS.
SHUT not your doors to me proud libraries, |
For that which was lacking on all your well-fill'd shelves, yet
needed most, I bring,
|
Forth from the war emerging, a book I have made, |
The words of my book nothing, the drift of it every thing, |
A book separate, not link'd with the rest nor felt by the intellect, |
But you ye untold latencies will thrill to every page. |
View Page 18
|
POETS TO COME.
POETS to come! orators, singers, musicians to come! |
Not to-day is to justify me and answer what I am for, |
But you, a new brood, native, athletic, continental, greater than
before known,
|
Arouse! for you must justify me. |
I myself but write one or two indicative words for the future, |
I but advance a moment only to wheel and hurry back in the
darkness.
|
I am a man who, sauntering along without fully stopping, turns a
casual look upon you and then averts his face,
|
Leaving it to you to prove and define it, |
Expecting the main things from you. |
TO YOU.
STRANGER, if you passing meet me and desire to speak to me, why
should you not speak to me?
|
And why should I not speak to you? |
THOU READER.
THOU reader throbbest life and pride and love the same as I, |
Therefore for thee the following chants. |
contents
| previous
| next
|
| |