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Leaves of Grass (1891-92)
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A SONG OF JOYS.
O to make the most jubilant song! |
Full of music—full of manhood, womanhood, infancy! |
Full of common employments—full of grain and trees. |
O for the voices of animals—O for the swiftness and balance of
fishes!
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O for the dropping of raindrops in a song! |
O for the sunshine and motion of waves in a song! |
O the joy of my spirit—it is uncaged—it darts like lightning! |
It is not enough to have this globe or a certain time, |
I will have thousands of globes and all time. |
O the engineer's joys! to go with a locomotive! |
To hear the hiss of steam, the merry shriek, the steam-whistle, the
laughing locomotive!
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To push with resistless way and speed off in the distance. |
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O the gleesome saunter over fields and hillsides! |
The leaves and flowers of the commonest weeds, the moist fresh
stillness of the woods,
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The exquisite smell of the earth at daybreak, and all through the
forenoon.
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O the horseman's and horsewoman's joys! |
The saddle, the gallop, the pressure upon the seat, the cool gurgling
by the ears and hair.
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I hear the alarm at dead of night, |
I hear bells, shouts! I pass the crowd, I run! |
The sight of the flames maddens me with pleasure. |
O the joy of the strong-brawn'd fighter, towering in the arena in
perfect condition, conscious of power, thirsting to meet his
opponent.
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O the joy of that vast elemental sympathy which only the human
soul is capable of generating and emitting in steady and
limitless floods.
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The watching, the endurance, the precious love, the anguish, the
patiently yielded life.
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O the joy of increase, growth, recuperation, |
The joy of soothing and pacifying, the joy of concord and harmony. |
O to go back to the place where I was born, |
To hear the birds sing once more, |
To ramble about the house and barn and over the fields once more, |
And through the orchard and along the old lanes once more. |
O to have been brought up on bays, lagoons, creeks, or along the
coast,
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To continue and be employ'd there all my life, |
The briny and damp smell, the shore, the salt weeds exposed at
low water,
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The work of fishermen, the work of the eel-fisher and clam-fisher; |
I come with my clam-rake and spade, I come with my eel-spear, |
Is the tide out? I join the group of clam-diggers on the flats, |
I laugh and work with them, I joke at my work like a mettlesome
young man;
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In winter I take my eel-basket and eel-spear and travel out on foot
on the ice—I have a small axe to cut holes in the ice,
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Behold me well-clothed going gayly or returning in the afternoon,
my brood of tough boys accompanying me,
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My brood of grown and part-grown boys, who love to be with no
one else so well as they love to be with me,
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By day to work with me, and by night to sleep with me. |
Another time in warm weather out in a boat, to lift the lobster-pots
where they are sunk with heavy stones, (I know the
buoys,)
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O the sweetness of the Fifth-month morning upon the water as I
row just before sunrise toward the buoys,
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I pull the wicker pots up slantingly, the dark green lobsters are
desperate with their claws as I take them out, I insert
wooden pegs in the joints of their pincers,
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I go to all the places one after another, and then row back to the
shore,
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There in a huge kettle of boiling water the lobsters shall be boil'd
till their color becomes scarlet.
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Another time mackerel-taking, |
Voracious, mad for the hook, near the surface, they seem to fill the
water for miles;
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Another time fishing for rock-fish in Chesapeake bay, I one of the
brown-faced crew;
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Another time trailing for blue-fish off Paumanok, I stand with
braced body,
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My left foot is on the gunwale, my right arm throws far out the
coils of slender rope,
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In sight around me the quick veering and darting of fifty skiffs,
my companions.
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The voyage down the St. Lawrence, the superb scenery, the
steamers,
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The ships sailing, the Thousand Islands, the occasional timber-raft
and the raftsmen with long-reaching sweep-oars,
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The little huts on the rafts, and the stream of smoke when they
cook supper at evening.
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(O something pernicious and dread! |
Something far away from a puny and pious life! |
Something unproved! something in a trance! |
Something escaped from the anchorage and driving free.) |
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O to work in mines, or forging iron, |
Foundry casting, the foundry itself, the rude high roof, the ample
and shadow'd space,
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The furnace, the hot liquid pour'd out and running. |
O to resume the joys of the soldier! |
To feel the presence of a brave commanding officer—to feel his
sympathy!
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To behold his calmness—to be warm'd in the rays of his smile! |
To go to battle—to hear the bugles play and the drums beat! |
To hear the crash of artillery—to see the glittering of the bayonets
and musket-barrels in the sun!
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To see men fall and die and not complain! |
To taste the savage taste of blood—to be so devilish! |
To gloat so over the wounds and deaths of the enemy. |
O the whaleman's joys! O I cruise my old cruise again! |
I feel the ship's motion under me, I feel the Atlantic breezes fan-
ning me,
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I hear the cry again sent down from the mast-head, There—she
blows!
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Again I spring up the rigging to look with the rest—we descend,
wild with excitement,
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I leap in the lower'd boat, we row toward our prey where he lies, |
We approach stealthy and silent, I see the mountainous mass,
lethargic, basking,
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I see the harpooneer standing up, I see the weapon dart from his
vigorous arm;
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O swift again far out in the ocean the wounded whale, settling,
running to windward, tows me,
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Again I see him rise to breathe, we row close again, |
I see a lance driven through his side, press'd deep, turn'd in
the wound,
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Again we back off, I see him settle again, the life is leaving him
fast,
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As he rises he spouts blood, I see him swim in circles narrower
and narrower, swiftly cutting the water—I see him die,
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He gives one convulsive leap in the centre of the circle, and then
falls flat and still in the bloody foam.
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O the old manhood of me, my noblest joy of all! |
My children and grand-children, my white hair and beard, |
My largeness, calmness, majesty, out of the long stretch of my life. |
O ripen'd joy of womanhood! O happiness at last! |
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I am more than eighty years of age, I am the most venerable
mother,
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How clear is my mind—how all people draw nigh to me! |
What attractions are these beyond any before? what bloom more
than the bloom of youth?
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What beauty is this that descends upon me and rises out of me? |
To inflate the chest, to roll the thunder of the voice out from the
ribs and throat,
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To make the people rage, weep, hate, desire, with yourself, |
To lead America—to quell America with a great tongue. |
O the joy of my soul leaning pois'd on itself, receiving identity
through materials and loving them, observing characters
and absorbing them,
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My soul vibrated back to me from them, from sight, hearing, touch,
reason, articulation, comparison, memory, and the like,
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The real life of my senses and flesh transcending my senses and flesh, |
My body done with materials, my sight done with my material eyes, |
Proved to me this day beyond cavil that it is not my material eyes
which finally see,
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Nor my material body which finally loves, walks, laughs, shouts,
embraces, procreates.
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Ohioan's, Illinoisian's, Wisconsinese', Kanadian's, Iowan's, Kan-
sian's, Missourian's, Oregonese' joys!
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To rise at peep of day and pass forth nimbly to work, |
To plough land in the fall for winter-sown crops, |
To plough land in the spring for maize, |
To train orchards, to graft the trees, to gather apples in the fall. |
O to bathe in the swimming-bath, or in a good place along shore, |
To splash the water! to walk ankle-deep, or race naked along the
shore.
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The plenteousness of all, that there are no bounds, |
To emerge and be of the sky, of the sun and moon and flying
clouds, as one with them.
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O the joy of a manly self-hood! |
To be servile to none, to defer to none, not to any tyrant known
or unknown,
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To walk with erect carriage, a step springy and elastic, |
To look with calm gaze or with a flashing eye, |
To speak with a full and sonorous voice out of a broad chest, |
To confront with your personality all the other personalities of the
earth.
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Know'st thou the excellent joys of youth? |
Joys of the dear companions and of the merry word and laughing
face?
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Joy of the glad light-beaming day, joy of the wide-breath'd games? |
Joy of sweet music, joy of the lighted ball-room and the dancers? |
Joy of the plenteous dinner, strong carouse and drinking? |
Know'st thou the joys of pensive thought? |
Joys of the free and lonesome heart, the tender, gloomy heart? |
Joys of the solitary walk, the spirit bow'd yet proud, the suffering
and the struggle?
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The agonistic throes, the ecstasies, joys of the solemn musings day
or night?
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Joys of the thought of Death, the great spheres Time and Space? |
Prophetic joys of better, loftier love's ideals, the divine wife, the
sweet, eternal, perfect comrade?
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Joys all thine own undying one, joys worthy thee O soul. |
O while I live to be the ruler of life, not a slave, |
To meet life as a powerful conqueror, |
No fumes, no ennui, no more complaints or scornful criticisms, |
To these proud laws of the air, the water and the ground, proving
my interior soul impregnable,
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And nothing exterior shall ever take command of me. |
For not life's joys alone I sing, repeating—the joy of death! |
The beautiful touch of Death, soothing and benumbing a few
moments, for reasons,
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Myself discharging my excrementitious body to be burn'd, or
render'd to powder, or buried,
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My real body doubtless left to me for other spheres, |
My voided body nothing more to me, returning to the purifications,
further offices, eternal uses of the earth.
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O to attract by more than attraction! |
How it is I know not—yet behold! the something which obeys
none of the rest,
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It is offensive, never defensive—yet how magnetic it draws. |
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O to struggle against great odds, to meet enemies undaunted! |
To be entirely alone with them, to find how much one can stand! |
To look strife, torture, prison, popular odium, face to face! |
To mount the scaffold, to advance to the muzzles of guns with
perfect nonchalance!
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O to sail to sea in a ship! |
To leave this steady unendurable land, |
To leave the tiresome sameness of the streets, the sidewalks and
the houses,
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To leave you O you solid motionless land, and entering a ship, |
To sail and sail and sail! |
O to have life henceforth a poem of new joys! |
To dance, clap hands, exult, shout, skip, leap, roll on, float on! |
To be a sailor of the world bound for all ports, |
A ship itself, (see indeed these sails I spread to the sun and air,) |
A swift and swelling ship full of rich words, full of joys. |
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