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Leaves of Grass (1891-92)
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SONG OF THE BANNER AT DAYBREAK.
Poet.
O A new song, a free song, |
Flapping, flapping, flapping, flapping, by sounds, by voices clearer, |
By the wind's voice and that of the drum, |
By the banner's voice and child's voice and sea's voice and father's
voice,
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Low on the ground and high in the air, |
On the ground where father and child stand, |
In the upward air where their eyes turn, |
Where the banner at daybreak is flapping. |
Words! book-words! what are you? |
Words no more, for hearken and see, |
My song is there in the open air, and I must sing, |
With the banner and pennant a-flapping. |
I'll weave the chord and twine in, |
Man's desire and babe's desire, I'll twine them in, I'll put in life, |
I'll put the bayonet's flashing point, I'll let bullets and slugs whizz, |
(As one carrying a symbol and menace far into the future, |
Crying with trumpet voice, Arouse and beware! Beware and
arouse! )
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I'll pour the verse with streams of blood, full of volition, full of joy, |
Then loosen, launch forth, to go and compete, |
With the banner and pennant a-flapping. |
Pennant.
Come up here, bard, bard, |
Come up here, soul, soul, |
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Come up here, dear little child, |
To fly in the clouds and winds with me, and play with the measure-
less light.
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Child.
Father what is that in the sky beckoning to me with long finger? |
And what does it say to me all the while? |
Father.
Nothing my babe you see in the sky, |
And nothing at all to you it says—but look you my babe, |
Look at these dazzling things in the houses, and see you the
money-shops opening,
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And see you the vehicles preparing to crawl along the streets with
goods;
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These, ah these, how valued and toil'd for these! |
How envied by all the earth. |
Poet.
Fresh and rosy red the sun is mounting high, |
On floats the sea in distant blue careering through its channels, |
On floats the wind over the breast of thesea setting in toward
land,
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The great steady wind from west or west-by-south, |
Floating so buoyant with milk-white foam on the waters. |
But I am not the sea nor the red sun, |
I am not the wind with girlish laughter, |
Not the immense wind which strengthens, not the wind which
lashes,
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Not the spirit that ever lashes its own body to terror and death, |
But I am that which unseen comes and sings, sings, sings, |
Which babbles in brooks and scoots in showers on the land, |
Which the birds know in the woods mornings and evenings, |
And the shore-sands know and the hissing wave, and that banner
and pennant,
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Aloft there flapping and flapping. |
Child.
O father it is alive—it is full of people—it has children, |
O now it seems to me it is talking to its children, |
I hear it—it talks to me—O it is wonderful! |
O it stretches—it spreads and runs so fast—O my father, |
It is so broad it covers the whole sky. |
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Father.
Cease, cease, my foolish babe, |
What you are saying is sorrowful to me, much it displeases me; |
Behold with the rest again I say, behold not banners and pennants
aloft,
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But the well-prepared pavements behold, and mark the solid-wall'd
houses.
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Banner and Pennant.
Speak to the child O bard out of Manhattan, |
To our children all, or north or south of Manhattan, |
Point this day, leaving all the rest, to us over all—and yet we
know not why,
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For what are we, mere strips of cloth profiting nothing, |
Only flapping in the wind? |
Poet.
I hear and see not strips of cloth alone, |
I hear the tramp of armies, I hear the challenging sentry, |
I hear the jubilant shouts of millions of men, I hear Liberty! |
I hear the drums beat and the trumpets blowing, |
I myself move abroad swift-rising flying then, |
I use the wings of the land-bird and use the wings of the sea-bird,
and look down as from a height,
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I do not deny the precious results of peace, I see populous cities
with wealth incalculable,
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I see numberless farms, I see the farmers working in their fields
or barns,
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I see mechanics working, I see buildings everywhere founded,
going up, or finish'd,
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I see trains of cars swiftly speeding along railroad tracks drawn
by the locomotives,
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I see the stores, depots, of Boston, Baltimore, Charleston, New
Orleans,
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I see far in the West the immense area of grain, I dwell awhile
hovering,
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I pass to the lumber forests of the North, and again to the South-
ern plantation, and again to California;
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Sweeping the whole I see the countless profit, the busy gatherings,
earn'd wages,
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See the Identity formed out of thirty-eight spacious and haughty
States, (and many more to come,)
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See forts on the shores of harbors, see ships sailing in and out; |
Then over all, (aye! aye!) my little and lengthen'd pennant
shaped like a sword,
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Runs swiftly up indicating war and defiance—and now the hal-
yards have rais'd it,
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Side of my banner broad and blue, side of my starry banner, |
Discarding peace over all the sea and land. |
Banner and Pennant.
Yet louder, higher, stronger, bard! yet farther, wider cleave! |
No longer let our children deem us riches and peace alone, |
We may be terror and carnage, and are so now, |
Not now are we any one of these spacious and haughty States,
(nor any five, nor ten,)
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Nor market nor depot we, nor money-bank in the city, |
But these and all, and the brown and spreading land, and the
mines below, are ours,
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And the shores of the sea are ours, and the rivers great and small, |
And the fields they moisten, and the crops and the fruits are ours, |
Bays and channels and ships sailing in and out are ours—while
we over all,
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Over the area spread below, the three or four millions of square
miles, the capitals,
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The forty millions of people,—O bard! in life and death supreme, |
We, even we, henceforth flaunt out masterful, high up above, |
Not for the present alone, for a thousand years chanting through
you,
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This song to the soul of one poor little child. |
Child.
O my father I like not the houses, |
They will never to me be any thing, nor do I like money, |
But to mount up there I would like, O father dear, that banner I
like,
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That pennant I would be and must be. |
Father.
Child of mine you fill me with anguish, |
To be that pennant would be too fearful, |
Little you know what it is this day, and after this day, forever, |
It is to gain nothing, but risk and defy every thing, |
Forward to stand in front of wars—and O, such wars!—what
have you to do with them?
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With passions of demons, slaughter, premature death? |
Banner.
Demons and death then I sing, |
Put in all, aye all will I, sword-shaped pennant for war, |
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And a pleasure new and ecstatic, and the prattled yearning of
children,
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Blent with the sounds of the peaceful land and the liquid wash
of the sea,
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And the black ships fighting on the sea envelop'd in smoke, |
And the icy cool of the far, far north, with rustling cedars and
pines,
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And the whirr of drums and the sound of soldiers marching, and
the hot sun shining south,
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And the beach-waves combing over the beach on my Eastern
shore, and my Western shore the same,
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And all between those shores, and my ever running Mississippi
with bends and chutes,
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And my Illinois fields, and my Kansas fields, and my fields of
Missouri,
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The Continent, devoting the whole identity without reserving an
atom,
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Pour in! whelm that which asks, which sings, with all and the
yield of all,
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Fusing and holding, claiming, devouring the whole, |
No more with tender lip, nor musical labial sound, |
But out of the night emerging for good, our voice persuasive no
more,
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Croaking like crows here in the wind. |
Poet.
My limbs, my veins dilate, my theme is clear at last, |
Banner so broad advancing out of the night, I sing you haughty
and resolute,
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I burst through where I waited long, too long, deafen'd and
blinded,
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My hearing and tongue are come to me, (a little child taught me,) |
I hear from above O pennant of war your ironical call and demand, |
Insensate! insensate! (yet I at any rate chant you,) O banner! |
Not houses of peace indeed are you, nor any nor all their pros-
perity, (if need be, you shall again have every one of those
houses to destroy them,
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You thought not to destroy those valuable houses, standing fast,
full of comfort, built with money,
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May they stand fast, then? not an hour except you above them
and all stand fast;)
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O banner, not money so precious are you, not farm produce you,
nor the material good nutriment,
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Nor excellent stores, nor landed on wharves from the ships, |
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Not the superb ships with sail-power or steam-power, fetching and
carrying cargoes,
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Nor machinery, vehicles, trade, nor revenues—but you as hence-
forth I see you,
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Running up out of the night, bringing your cluster of stars, (ever-
enlarging stars,)
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Divider of daybreak you, cutting the air, touch'd by the sun,
measuring the sky,
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(Passionately seen and yearn'd for by one poor little child, |
While others remain busy or smartly talking, forever teaching
thrift, thrift;)
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O you up there! O pennant! where you undulate like a snake
hissing so curious,
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Out of reach, an idea only, yet furiously fought for, risking bloody
death, loved by me,
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So loved—O you banner leading the day with stars brought from
the night!
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Valueless, object of eyes, over all and demanding all—(absolute
owner of all)—O banner and pennant!
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I too leave the rest—great as it is, it is nothing—houses,
machines are nothing—I see them not,
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I see but you, O warlike pennant! O banner so broad, with stripes,
I sing you only,
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Flapping up there in the wind. |
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