University of Virginia Library

Proto-Leaf.

WALT WHITMAN.

1.

I celebrate myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me, as good belongs to you.

2.

I loafe and invite my Soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease, observing a spear of summer grass.

3.

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.

4.

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.

5.

The smoke of my own breath,
Echoes, ripples, buzzed whispers, love-root, silk-thread, crotch and vine,
My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart, the passing of blood and air through my lungs,
The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the shore, and dark-colored sea-rocks, and of hay in the barn,
The sound of the belched words of my voice, words loosed 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.

6.

Have you reckoned a thousand acres much? Have you reckoned the earth much?
Have you practised so long to learn to read?
Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?

7.

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 yourself.

8.

I have heard what the talkers were talking, the talk of the beginning and the end,
But I do not talk of the beginning or the end.

9.

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.

10.

Urge, and urge, and urge,
Always the procreant urge of the world.

11.

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.

12.

To elaborate is no avail—learned and unlearned feel that it is so.

13.

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.

14.

Clear and sweet is my Soul, and clear and sweet is all that is not my Soul.

15.

Lack one lacks both, and the unseen is proved by the seen,
Till that becomes unseen, and receives proof in its turn.

16.

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.

17.

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.

18.

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,
And leaves for me baskets covered 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 contents of one, and exactly the contents of two, and which is ahead?

19.

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 news, discoveries, inventions, societies, authors old and new,
My dinner, dress, associates, looks, work, 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,
These come to me days and nights, and go from me again,
But they are not the Me myself.

20.

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.

21.

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.

22.

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.

23.

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 valved voice.

24.

I mind how once we lay, such a transparent summer morning,
How you settled your head athwart my hips, and gently turned over upon me,
And parted the shirt from my bosom-bone, and plunged your tongue to my bare-stript heart,
And reached till you felt my beard, and reached till you held my feet.

25.

Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and joy and knowledge that pass all the art and 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,
And brown ants in the little wells beneath them,
And mossy scabs of the worm-fence, and heaped stones, elder, mullen, and pokeweed.

26.

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.

27.

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.

28.

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
A scented gift and remembrancer, designedly dropped,
Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark, and say Whose?

29.

Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the vegetation.

30.

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.

31.

And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.

32.

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, and from women, and from offspring taken soon out of their mothers' laps,
And here you are the mothers' laps.

33.

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.

34.

O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues!
And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for nothing.

35.

I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and women,
And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring taken soon out of their laps.

36.

What do you think has become of the young and old men?
And what do you think has become of the women and children?

37.

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 ceased the moment life appeared.

38.

All goes onward and outward—nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.

39.

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.

40.

I pass death with the dying, and birth with the new-washed babe, and am not contained 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.

41.

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.

42.

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 sweetheart 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.

43.

Who need be afraid of the merge?
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 can never be shaken away.

44.

The little one sleeps in its cradle,
I lift the gauze and look a long time, and silently brush away flies with my hand.

45.

The youngster and the red-faced girl turn aside up the bushy hill,
I peeringly view them from the top.

46.

The suicide sprawls on the bloody floor of the bedroom;
It is so—I witnessed the corpse—there the pistol had fallen.

47.

The blab of the pave, the 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, the clinking, shouted jokes, pelts of snow-balls,
The hurrahs for popular favorites, the fury of roused mobs,
The flap of the curtained 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,
The Souls moving along—(are they invisible, while the least of the stones is visible?)
What groans of over-fed or half-starved who fall sun-struck, 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 restrained 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.

48.

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 packed to the sagging mow.

49.

I am there—I help—I came stretched 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.

50.

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-killed game,
Soundly falling asleep on the gathered leaves, with my dog and gun by my side.

51.

The Yankee clipper is under her three sky-sails—she cuts the sparkle and scud,
My eyes settle the land—I bend at her prow, or shout joyously from the deck.

52.

The boatmen and clam-diggers arose early and stopped for me,
I tucked 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.

53.

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 moccasons to their feet, and large thick blankets hanging from their shoulders;
On a bank lounged the trapper—he was dressed mostly in skins—his luxuriant beard and curls protected his neck,
One hand rested on his rifle—the other hand held firmly the wrist of the red girl,
She had long eyelashes—her head was bare—her coarse straight locks descended upon her voluptuous limbs and reached to her feet.

54.

The runaway slave came to my house and stopped outside,
I heard his motions crackling the twigs of the wood-pile,
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 filled a tub for his sweated body and bruised feet,
And gave him a room that entered 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 passed north,
I had him sit next me at table—my fire-lock leaned in the corner.

55.

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.

56.

She owns the fine house by the rise of the bank,
She hides, handsome and richly drest, aft the blinds of the window.

57.

Which of the young men does she like the best?
Ah, the homeliest of them is beautiful to her.

58.

Where are you off to, lady? for I see you,
You splash in the water there, yet stay stock still in your room.

59.

Dancing and laughing along the beach came the twenty-ninth bather,
The rest did not see her, but she saw them and loved them.

60.

The beards of the young men glistened with wet, it ran from their long hair,
Little streams passed all over their bodies.

61.

An unseen hand also passed over their bodies,
It descended tremblingly from their temples and ribs.

62.

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 bending arch,
They do not think whom they souse with spray.

63.

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.

64.

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.

65.

From the cinder-strewed threshold I follow their movements,
The lithe sheer of their waists plays even with their massive arms,
Overhand the hammers roll—overhand so slow—overhand so sure,
They do not hasten—each man hits in his place.

66.

The negro holds firmly the reins of his four horses—the blocks swags underneath on its tied-over chain,
The negro that drives the huge dray of the stone-yard—steady and tall he stands, poised 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 moustache—falls on the black of his polished and perfect limbs.

67.

I behold the picturesque giant and love him—and I do not stop there,
I go with the team also.

68.

In me the caresser of life wherever moving—backward as well as forward slueing,
To niches aside and junior bending.

69.

Oxen that rattle the yoke or halt in the shade! what is that you express in your eyes?
It seems to me more than all the print I have read in my life.

70.

My tread scares the wood-drake and wood-duck, on my distant and day-long ramble,
They rise together—they slowly circle around.

71.

I believe in those winged 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 mocking-bird in the swamp never studied the gamut, yet trills pretty well to me,
And the look of the bay mare shames silliness out of me.

72.

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 listen close,
I find its purpose and place up there toward the wintry sky.

73.

The sharp-hoofed 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.

74.

The press of my foot to the earth springs a hundred affections,
They scorn the best I can do to relate them.

75.

I am enamoured of growing outdoors,
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.

76.

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.

77.

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 Thanksgiving 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 ordained with crossed 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 confirmed case,
He will never sleep any more as he did in the cot in his mother's bedroom;
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 manuscript;
The malformed limbs are tied to the anatomist's table,
What is removed drops horribly in a pail;
The quadroon girl is sold at the stand—the drunkard nods by the bar-room stove,
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 emigrants 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 partners, the dancers bow to each other,
The youth lies awake in the cedar-roofed garret, and harks to the musical rain,
The Wolverine sets traps on the creek that helps fill the Huron,
The reformer ascends the platform, he spouts with his mouth and nose,
The company returns from its excursion, the darkey brings up the rear and bears the well-riddled target,
The squaw, wrapt in her yellow-hemmed cloth, is offering moccasons and bead-bags for sale,
The connoisseur peers along the exhibition-gallery with half-shut eyes bent side-ways,
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-haired Yankee girl works with her sewing-machine, or in the factory or mill,
The nine months' gone is in the parturition chamber, her faintness and pains are advancing,
The paving-man leans on his two-handed rammer—the reporter's lead flies swiftly over the notebook—the sign-painter is lettering with red and gold,
The canal-boy trots on the two-path—the bookkeeper 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—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 higgling about the odd cent,
The camera and plate are prepared, the lady must sit for her daguerreotype,
The bride unrumples her white dress, the minute-hand of the clock moves slowly,
The opium-eater reclines with rigid head and just-opened 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 five friendly matrons 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 gathered—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 pekan-trees,
Coon-seekers go through the regions of the Red river, or through those drained by the Tennessee, or through those of the Arkansaw,
Torches shine in the dark that hangs on the Chattahooche or Altamahaw,
Patriarchs sit at supper with sons and grandsons and great-grandsons 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 one and all tend inward to me, and I tend outward to them,
And such as it is to be of these, more or less, I am.

78.

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,
Stuffed with the stuff that is coarse, and stuffed with the stuff that is fine,
One of the great nation, 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,
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 boatman over lakes or bays, or along coasts—a Hoosier, Badger, Buckeye,
A Louisianian or Georgian—a Poke-easy from sandhills and pines,
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 tacking,
At home on the hills of Vermont, or in the woods of Maine, or the Texas ranch,
Comrade of Californians—comrade of free north-westerners, and loving 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, trade, rank, caste and religion,
Not merely of the New World, but of Africa, Europe, Asia—a wandering savage,
A farmer, mechanic, artist, gentleman, sailor, lover, quaker,
A prisoner, fancy-man, rowdy, lawyer, physician, priest.

79.

I resist anything better than my own diversity,
And breathe the air, and leave plenty after me,
And am not stuck up, and am in my place.

80.

The moth and the fish-eggs are in their place,
The suns I see, and the suns I cannot see, are in their place,
The palpable is in its place, and the impalpable is in its place.

81.

These are 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 do not enclose everything, they are 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.

82.

This is the grass that grows wherever the land is and the water is,
This is the common air that bathes the globe.

83.

This is the breath for America, because it is my breath,
This is for laws, songs, behavior,
This is the tasteless water of Souls—this is the true sustenance.

84.

This is for the illiterate, and for the judges of the Supreme Court, and for the Federal capitol and the State capitols,
And for the admirable communes of literats, composers, singers, lecturers, engineers, and savans,
And for the endless races of work-people, farmers, and seamen.

85.

This is the trilling of thousands of clear cornets, screaming of octave flutes, striking of triangles.

86.

I play not here marches for victors only—I play great marches for conquered and slain persons.

87.

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.

88.

I beat triumphal drums for the dead,
I blow through my embouchures my loudest and gayest music to them.

89.

Vivas to those who have failed!
And to those whose war-vessels sank in the sea!
And 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.

90.

This is the meal pleasantly set—this is the meat and drink for natural hunger,
It is for the wicked just the same as the righteous—I make appointments with all,
I will not have a single person slighted or left away,
The kept-woman, sponger, thief, are hereby invited,
The heavy-lipped slave is invited—the venerealee is invited,
There shall be no difference between them and the rest.

91.

This is the press of a bashful hand—this is the float and odor of hair,
This is the touch of my lips to yours—this is the murmur of yearning,
This is the far-off depth and height reflecting my own face,
This is the thoughtful merge of myself, and the outlet again.

92.

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.

93.

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?

94.

This hour I tell things in confidence,
I might not tell everybody, but I will tell you.

95.

Who goes there! hankering, gross, mystical, nude?
How is it I extract strength from the beef I eat?

96.

What is a man anyhow? What am I? What are you?

97.

All I mark as my own, you shall offset it with your own,
Else it were time lost listening to me.

98.

I do not snivel that snivel the world over,
That months are vacuums, and the ground but wallow and filth,
That life is a suck and a sell, and nothing remains at the end but threadbare crape, and tears.

99.

Whimpering and truckling fold with powders for invalids—conformity goes to the fourth-removed,
I cock my hat as I please, indoors or out.

100.

Why should I pray? Why should I venerate and be ceremonious?

101.

Having pried through the strata, analyzed to a hair, counsell'd with doctors, and calculated close.
I find no sweeter fat than sticks to my own bones.

102.

In all people I see myself—none more, and not one a barleycorn less,
And the good or bad I say of myself I say of them.

103.

And 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.

104.

I know I am deathless,
I know this orbit of mine cannot be swept by a carpenter's compass,
I know I shall not pass like a child's carlacue cut with a burnt stick at night.

105.

I know I am august,
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.

106.

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.

107.

One world is aware, and by far the largest to me, and that is myself,
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.

108.

My foothold is tenoned and mortised in granite,
I laugh at what you call dissolution,
And I know the amplitude of time.

109.

I am the poet of the body,
And I am the poet of the Soul.

110.

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.

111.

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.

112.

I chant the chant of dilation or pride,
We have had ducking and deprecating about enough,
I show that size is only development.

113.

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.

114.

I am He that walks with the tender and growing Night,
I call to the earth and sea, half-held by the Night.

115.

Press close, bare-bosomed Night! Press close, magnetic, nourishing Night!
Night of south winds! Night of the large few stars!
Still, nodding night! Mad, naked, summer night.

116.

Smile, O voluptuous, cool-breathed 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 elbowed Earth! Rich, apple-blossomed Earth!
Smile, for Your Lover comes!

117.

Prodigal, you have given me love! Therefore I to you give love!
O unspeakable passionate love!

118.

Thruster holding me tight, and that I hold tight!
We hurt each other as the bridegroom and the bride hurt each other.

119.

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.

120.

Sea of stretched ground-swells!
Sea breathing broad and convulsive breaths!
Sea of the brine of life! Sea of unshovelled and 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.

121.

Partaker of influx and efflux—extoller of hate and conciliation,
Extoller of amies, and those that sleep in each others' arms.

122.

I am he attesting sympathy,
Shall I make my list of things in the house, and skip the house that supports them?

123.

I am the poet of common sense, and of the demonstrable, and of immortality,
And am not the poet of goodness only—I do not decline to be the poet of wickedness also.

124.

Washes and razors for foofoos—for me freckles and a bristling beard.

125.

What blurt is this about virtue and about vice?
Evil propels me, and reform of evil propels me—I stand indifferent,
My gait is no fault-finder's or rejecter's gait,
I moisten the roots of all that has grown.

126.

Did you fear some scrofula out of the unflagging pregnancy?
Did you guess the celestial laws are yet to be worked over and rectified?

127.

I step up to say that what we do is right, and what we affirm is right—and some is only the ore of right,
Witnesses of us—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.

128.

This minute that comes to me over the past decillions,
There is no better than it and now.

129.

What behaved well in the past, or behaves well to-day, is not such a wonder,
The wonder is, always and always, how can there be a mean man or an infidel.

130.

Endless unfolding of words of ages!
And mine a word of the modern—a word en-masse.

131.

A word of the faith that never balks,
One time as good as another time—here or henceforward, it is all the same to me.

132.

A word of reality—materialism first and last imbuing.

133.

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.

134.

Gentlemen! I receive you, and attach and clasp hands with you,
The facts are useful and real—they are not my dwelling—I enter by them to an area of the dwelling.

135.

I am less the reminder of property or qualities, and more the reminder of life,
And go on the square for my own sake and for others' sakes,
And make short account of neuters and geldings, and favor men and women fully equipped,
And beat the gong of revolt, and stop with fugitives, and them that plot and conspire.

136.

Walt Whitman, an American, one of the roughs, a kosmos,
Disorderly, fleshy, sensual, eating, drinking, breeding,
No sentimentalist—no stander above men and women, or apart from them,
No more modest than immodest.

137.

Unscrew the locks from the doors!
Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs!

138.

Whoever degrades another degrades me,
And whatever is done or said returns at last to me,
And whatever I do or say, I also return.

139.

Through me the afflatus surging and surging—through me the current and index.

140.

I speak the pass-word primeval—I give the sign of democracy,
By God! I will accept nothing which all cannot have their counterpart of on the same terms.

141.

Through me many long dumb voices,
Voices of the interminable generations of slaves,
Voices of prostitutes, and of deformed persons,
Voices of the diseased 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 fatherstuff,
And of the rights of them the others are down upon,—
Of the trivial, flat, foolish, despised,
Fog in the air, beetles rolling balls of dung.

142.

Through me forbidden voices,
Voices of sexes and lusts—voices veiled, and I remove the veil,
Voices indecent, by me clarified and transfigured.

143.

I do not press my finger 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.

144.

I believe in the flesh and the appetites,
Seeing, hearing, feeling, are miracles, and each part and tag of me is a miracle.

145.

Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or am touched from,
The scent of these arm-pits, aroma finer than prayer,
This head more than churches, bibles, and all the creeds.

146.

If I worship any particular thing, it shall be some of the spread of my own body.

147.

Translucent mould of me, it shall be you!
Shaded ledges and rests, it shall be you!
Firm masculine colter, it shall be you.

148.

Whatever goes to the tilth of me, it shall be you!
You my rich blood! Your milky stream, pale strippings of my life.

149.

Breast that presses against other breasts, it shall be you!
My brain, it shall be your occult convolutions.

150.

Root of washed sweet-flag! Timorous pond-snipe! Nest of guarded duplicate eggs! it shall be you!
Mixed tussled hay of head, beard, brawn, it shall be you!
Trickling sap of maple! Fibre of manly wheat! it shall be you!

151.

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 kissed—mortal I have ever touched! it shall be you.

152.

I dote on myself—there is that lot of me, and all so luscious,
Each moment, and whatever happens, thrills me with joy.

153.

O I am so wonderful!
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 friendship I take again.

154.

That I walk up my stoop, I pause to consider if it really be,
That I eat and drink is spectacle enough for the great authors and schools,
A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books.

155.

To behold the day-break!
The little light fades the immense and diaphanous shadows,
The air tastes good to my palate.

156.

Hefts of the moving world, at innocent gambols, silently rising, freshly exuding,
Scooting obliquely high and low.

157.

Something I cannot see puts upward libidinous prongs,
Seas of bright juice suffuse heaven.

158.

The earth by the sky staid with—the daily close of their junction,
The heaved challenge from the east that moment over my head,
The mocking taunt, See then whether you shall be master!

159.

Dazzling and tremendous, how quick the sun-rise would kill me,
If I could not now and always send sun-rise out of me.

160.

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.

161.

My voice goes after what my eyes cannot reach,
With the twirl of my tongue I encompass worlds, and volumes of worlds.

162.

Speech is the twin of my vision—it is unequal to measure itself;
It provokes me forever,
It says sarcastically, Walt, you understand enough—why don't you let it out then?

163.

Come now, I will not be tantalized—you conceive too much of articulation.

164.

Do you not know how the buds beneath 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 things,
Happiness—which, whoever hears me, let him or her set out in search of this day.

165.

My final merit I refuse you—I refuse putting from me the best I am.

166.

Encompass worlds, but never try to encompass me,
I crowd your sleekest talk by simply looking toward you.

167.

Writing and talk do not prove me,
I carry the plenum of proof, and everything else, in my face,
With the hush of my lips I confound the topmost skeptic.

168.

I think I will do nothing for a long time but listen,
To accrue what I hear into myself—to let sounds contribute toward me.

169.

I hear bravuras of birds, bustle of growing wheat, gossip of flames, clack of sticks cooking my meals.

170.

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 recitative of fish-pedlers and fruit-pedlers—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 shaky lips pronouncing 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-streaking engines and hose-carts, with premonitory tinkles, and colored lights,
The steam-whistle—the solid roll of the train of approaching cars,
The slow-march played at night at the head of the association, marching two and two,
(They go to guard some corpse—the flag-tops are draped with black muslin.)

171.

I hear the violoncello, or man's heart's complaint;
I hear the keyed cornet—it glides quickly in through my ears,
It shakes mad-sweet pangs through my belly and breast.

172.

I hear the chorus—it is a grand-opera,
Ah, this indeed is music! This suits me.

173.

A tenor large and fresh as the creation fills me,
The orbic flex of his mouth is pouring and filling me full.

174.

I hear the trained soprano—she convulses me like the climax of my love-grip,
The orchestra wrenches such ardors from me, I did not know I possessed them,
It throbs me to gulps of the farthest down horror,
It sails me—I dab with bare feet—they are licked by the indolent waves,
I am exposed, cut by bitter and poisoned hail,
Steeped amid honeyed morphine, my windpipe throttled in fakes of death,
At length let up again to feel the puzzle of puzzles,
And that we call Being.

175.

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 developed, the quahaug in its callous shell were enough.

176.

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.

177.

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.

178.

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 sun-light 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.

179.

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.

180.

I am given up by traitors,
I talk wildly—I have lost my wits—I and nobody else am the greatest traitor,
I went myself first to the headland—my own hands carried me there.

181.

You villain touch! what are you doing? My breath is tight in its throat,
Unclench your floodgates! you are too much for me.

182.

Blind, loving, wrestling touch! sheathed, hooded, sharp-toothed touch!
Did it make you ache so, leaving me?

183.

Parting, tracked by arriving—perpetual payment of perpetual loan,
Rich showering rain, and recompense richer afterward.

184.

Sprouts take and accumulate—stand by the curb prolific and vital,
Landscapes, projected, masculine, full-sized, and golden.

185.

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?

186.

Logic and sermons never convince,
The damp of the night drives deeper into my Soul.

187.

Only what proves itself to every man and woman is so,
Only what nobody denies is so.

188.

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 every one shall delight us, and we them.

189.

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,
And the tree-toad is a chef-d'œuvre 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 depressed head surpasses any statue,
And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels,
And I could come every afternoon of my life to look at the farmer's girl boiling her iron tea-kettle and baking short-cake.

190.

I find I incorporate gneiss, coal, long-threaded moss, fruits, grains, esculent roots,
And am stuccoed with quadrupeds and birds all over,
And have distanced what is behind me for good reasons,
And call anything close again, when I desire it.

191.

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 powdered 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-billed auk sails far north to Labrador,
I follow quickly, I ascend to the nest in the fissure of the cliff.

192.

I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contained,
I stand and look at them sometimes an hour at a stretch.

193.

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,
No 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 industrious over the whole earth.

194.

So they show their relations to me, and I accept them,
They bring me tokens of myself—they evince them plainly in their possession.

195.

I do not know where they get those tokens,
I may have passed that way untold times ago, and negligently dropt them,
Myself moving forward then and now 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, to go with on brotherly terms.

196.

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 well apart, full of sparkling wickedness—ears finely cut, flexibly moving.

197.

His nostrils dilate, as my heels embrace him,
His well-built limbs tremble with pleasure, as we speed around and return.

198.

I but use you a moment, 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.

199.

O swift wind! Space! my Soul! now I know it is true, what I guessed at,
What I guessed when I loafed on the grass,
What I guessed while I lay alone in my bed,
And again as I walked the beach under the paling stars of the morning.

200.

My ties and ballasts leave me—I travel—I sail—my elbows rest in the sea-gaps,
I skirt the sierras—my palms cover continents,
I am afoot with my vision.

201.

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,
Scorched 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,
Where the black bear is searching for roots or honey—Where the beaver pats the mud with his paddle-tail,
Over the growing sugar—over the cotton plant—over the rice in its low moist field,
Over the sharp-peaked farm house, with its scalloped scum and slender shoots from the gutters,
Over the western persimmon—over the long-leaved corn—over the delicate blue-flowered 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 flails keep time on the barn floor,
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 shuddering 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 out of its ribs,
Where the pear-shaped balloon is floating aloft, floating in it myself 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-burned brig is riding on unknown currents,
Where shells grow to her slimy deck—Where the dead are corrupting below,
Where the striped and starred 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,
At he-festivals, with blackguard gibes, ironical license, bull-dances, drinking, laughter,
At the cider-mill, tasting the sweet of the brown sqush, 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 scattered—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 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-necked partridges roost in a ring on the ground with their heads out,
Where burial coaches enter the arched gates of a cemetery,
Where winter wolves bark amid wastes of snow and icicled trees,
Where the yellow-crowned 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 curtained saloon—through the office or public hall,
Pleased with the native, and pleased with the foreign—pleased with the new and old,
Pleased with women, the homely as well as the handsome,
Pleased with the quakeress as she puts off her bonnet and talks melodiously,
Pleased with the tunes of the choir of the whitewashed church,
Pleased with the earnest words of the sweating Methodist preacher, or any preacher—Impressed seriously at the camp-meeting,
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 turned up to the clouds,
My right and left arms round the sides of two friends, and I in the middle;
Coming home with the silent and dark-cheeked bush-boy—riding behind him at the drape of the day,
Far from the settlements, studying the print of animals' feet, or the moccason print,
By the cot in the hospital, reaching lemonade to a feverish patient,
By the coffined 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 Judea, 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 tailed 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.

202.

I visit the orchards of spheres, and look at the product,
And look at quintillions ripened, and look at quintillions green.

203.

I fly the flight of the fluid and swallowing soul,
My course runs below the soundings of plummets.

204.

I help myself to material and immaterial,
No guard can shut me off, nor law prevent me.

205.

I anchor my ship for a little while only,
My messengers continually cruise away, or bring their returns to me.

206.

I go hunting polar furs and the seal—Leaping chasms with a pike-pointed staff—Clinging to topples of brittle and blue.

207.

I ascend to the foretruck,
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-topped 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 out-posts of the encampment—we pass with still feet and caution,
Or we are entering by the suburbs some vast and ruined city,
The blocks and fallen architecture more than all the living cities of the globe.

208.

I am a free companion—I bivouac by invading watchfires.

209.

I turn the bridegroom out of bed, and stay with the bride myself,
I tighten her all night to my thighs and lips.

210.

My voice is the wife's voice, the screech by the rail of the stairs,
They fetch my man's body up, dripping and drowned.

211.

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 one inch, and was faithful of days and faithful of nights,
And chalked in large letters, on a board, Be of good cheer, We will not desert you,
How he followed with them, and tacked with them—and would not give it up,
How he saved the drifting company at last,
How the lank loose-gowned women looked when boated from the side of their prepared graves,
How the silent old-faced infants, and the lifted sick, and the sharp-lipped unshaved men,
All this I swallow—it tastes good—I like it well—it becomes mine,
I am the man—I suffered—I was there.

212.

The disdain and calmness of martyrs,
The mother, condemned for a witch, burnt with dry wood, her children gazing on,
The hounded slave that flags in the race, leans by the the fence, blowing, covered with sweat,
The twinges that sting like needles his legs and neck—the murderous buck-shot and the bullets,
All these I feel or am.

213.

I am the hounded slave, I wince at the bite of the dogs,
Hell and despair are upon me, crack and again crack the marksmen,
I clutch the rails of the fence, my gore dribs, thinned 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.

214.

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 hurt turns livid upon me as I lean on a cane and observe.

215.

I am the mashed fireman with breastbone broken,
Tumbling walls buried me in their debris,
Heat and smoke I inspired—I heard the yelling shouts of my comrades,
I heard the distant click of their picks and shovels,
They have cleared the beams away—they tenderly lift me forth.

216.

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.

217.

Distant and dead resuscitate,
They show as the dial or move as the hands of me—I am the clock myself.

218.

I am an old artillerist—I tell of my fort's bombardment,
I am there again.

219.

Again the reveille of drummers,
Again the attacking cannon, mortars, howitzers,
Again the attacked send cannon responsive.

220.

I take part—I see and hear the whole,
The cries, curses, roar—the plaudits for well-aimed 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 explosion,
The whizz of limbs, heads, stone, wood, iron, high in the air.

221.

Again gurgles the mouth of my dying general—he furiously waves with his hand,
He gasps through the clot, Mind not me—mind—the entrenchments.

222.

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.

223.

Hear now the tale of the murder in cold blood of four hundred and twelve young men.

224.

Retreating, they had formed 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, received writing and seal, gave up their arms, and marched back prisoners of war.

225.

They were the glory of the race of rangers,
Matchless with horse, rifle, song, supper, courtship,
Large, turbulent, generous, brave, handsome, proud, and affectionate,
Bearded, sunburnt, dressed in the free costume of hunters,
Not a single one over thirty years of age.

226.

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.

227.

None obeyed 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 maimed and mangled dug in the dirt—the newcomers saw them there,
Some, half-killed, attempted to crawl away,
These were despatched with bayonets, or battered with the blunts of muskets,
A youth not seventeen years old seized his assassin till two more came to release him,
The three were all torn, and covered with the boy's blood.

228.

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.

229.

Did you read in the sea-books of the old-fashioned frigate-fight?
Did you learn who won by the light of the moon and stars?

230.

Our foe was no skulk in his ship, I tell you,
His was the English pluck—and there is no tougher or truer, and never was, and never will be;
Along the lowered eve he came, horribly raking us.

231.

We closed with him—the yards entangled—the cannon touched,
My captain lashed fast with his own hands.

232.

We had received 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.

233.

Ten o'clock at night, and the full moon shining, and the 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.

234.

The transit to and from the magazine was now stopped by the sentinels,
They saw so many strange faces, they did not know whom to trust.

235.

Our frigate was afire,
The other asked if we demanded quarter?
If our colors were struck, and the fighting done?

236.

I laughed content when I heard the voice of my little captain,
We have not struck, he composedly cried, We have just begun our part of the fighting.

237.

Only three guns were in use,
One was directed by the captain himself against the enemy's main-mast,
Two, well served with grape and canister, silenced his musketry and cleared his decks.

238.

The tops alone seconded the fire of this little battery, especially the main-top,
They all held out bravely during the whole of the action.

239.

Not a moment's cease,
The leaks gained fast on the pumps—the fire eat toward the powder-magazine,
One of the pumps was shot away—it was generally thought we were sinking.

240.

Serene stood the little captain,
He was not hurried—his voice was neither high nor low,
His eyes gave more light to us than our battle-lanterns.

241.

Toward twelve at night, there in the beams of the moon, they surrendered to us.

242.

Stretched and still lay 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 had conquered,
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 served in the cabin,
The dead face of an old salt with long white hair and carefully curled whiskers,
The flames, spite of all that could 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,
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,
Wheeze, cluck, swash of falling blood, short wild scream, and long dull tapering groan,
These so—these irretrievable.

243.

O Christ! This is mastering me!
Through the conquered doors they crowd. I am possessed.

244.

What the rebel said, gayly adjusting his throat to the rope-noose,
What the savage at the stump, his eye-sockets empty, his mouth spirting whoops and defiance,
What stills the traveller come to the vault at Mount Vernon,
What sobers the Brooklyn boy as he looks down the shores of the Wallabout and remembers the Prison Ships,
What burnt the gums of the red-coat at Saratoga when he surrendered his brigades,
These become mine and me every one—and they are but little,
I become as much more as I like.

245.

I become any presence or truth of humanity here,
See myself in prison shaped like another man,
And feel the dull unintermitted pain.

246.

For me the keepers of convicts shoulder their carbines and keep watch,
It is I let out in the morning and barred at night.

247.

Not a mutineer walks hand-cuffed to the jail, but I am hand-cuffed 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.

248.

Not a youngster is taken for larceny, but I go up too, and am tried and sentenced.

249.

Not a cholera patient lies at the last gasp, but I also lie at the last gasp,
My face is ash-colored—my sinews gnarl—away from me people retreat.

250.

Askers embody themselves in me, and I am embodied in them,
I project my hat, sit shame-faced, and beg.

251.

Enough—I bring such to a close,
Rise extatic through all, sweep with the true gravitation,
The whirling and whirling elemental within me.

252.

Somehow I have been stunned. Stand back!
Give me a little time beyond my cuffed head, slumbers, dreams, gaping,
I discover myself on the verge of a usual mistake.

253.

That I could forget the mockers and insults!
That I could forget the trickling tears, and the blows of the bludgeons and hammers!
That I could look with a separate look on my own crucifixion and bloody crowning.

254.

I remember now,
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.

255.

I troop forth replenished with supreme power, one of an average unending procession,
We walk the roads of the six North Eastern States, and of Virginia, Wisconsin, Manhattan Island, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Texas, Charleston, Havana, Mexico,
Inland and by the sea-coast and boundary lines, and we pass all boundary lines.

256.

Our swift ordinances are on their way over the whole earth,
The blossoms we wear in our hats are the growth of two thousand years.

257.

Élèves, I salute you!
I see the approach of your numberless gangs—I see you understand yourselves and me,
And know that they who have eyes and can walk are divine, and the blind and lame are equally divine,
And that my steps drag behind yours, yet go before them,
And are aware how I am with you no more than I am with everybody.

258.

The friendly and flowing savage, Who is he?
Is he waiting for civilization, or past it and mastering it?

259.

Is he some south-westerner, raised out-doors? Is he Kanadian?
Is he from the Mississippi country? Iowa, Oregon, California? the mountains? prairie-life, bush-life? or from the sea?

260.

Wherever he goes men and women accept and desire him,
They desire he should like them, touch them, speak to them, stay with them.

261.

Behavior lawless as snow-flakes, words simple as grass, uncombed head, laughter, and naïveté,
Slow-stepping feet, common features, common modes and emanations,
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.

262.

263.

Man or woman! I might tell how I like you, but cannot,
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.

264.

Behold! I do not give lectures or a little charity,
What I give, I give out of myself.

265.

You there, impotent, loose in the knees,
Open your scarfed 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 anything I have I bestow.

266.

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.

267.

To a drudge of the cotton-fields 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.

268.

On women fit for conception I start bigger and nimbler babes,
This day I am jetting the stuff of far more arrogant republics.

269.

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.

270.

I seize the descending man, and raise him with resistless will.

271.

O despairer, here is my neck,
By God! you shall not go down! Hang your whole weight upon me.

272.

I dilate you with tremendous breath—I buoy you up,
Every room of the house do I fill with an armed force,
Lovers of me, bafflers of graves.

273.

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.

274.

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.

275.

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?

276.

Magnifying and applying come I,
Outbidding at the start the old cautious hucksters,
The most they offer for mankind and eternity less than a spirt of my own seminal wet,
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 day,
Admitting they bore mites, as for unfledged 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 rolled-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,
Those 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 charred 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 bagged out at their waists,
The snag-toothed hostler with red hair redeeming sins past and to come,
Selling all he possesses, travelling 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 worshipped half enough,
Dung and dirt more admirable than was dreamed,
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,
Guessing when I am it will not tickle me much to receive puffs out of pulpit or print;
By my life-lumps! becoming already a creator,
Putting myself here and now to the ambushed womb of the shadows.

277.

A call in the midst of the crowd,
My own voice, orotund, sweeping, final.

278.

Come my children,
Come my boys and girls, my women, household, and intimates,
Now the performer launches his nerve—he has passed his prelude on the reeds within.

279.

Easily written, loose-fingered chords! I feel the thrum of their climax and close.

280.

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.

281.

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 thorned 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 tressels of death.

282.

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 payment receiving,
A few idly owning, and they the wheat continually claiming.

283.

This is the city, and I am one of the citizens,
Whatever interests the rest interests me—politics, markets, newspapers, schools,
Benevolent societies, improvements, banks, tariffs, steamships, factories, stocks, stores, real estate, and personal estate.

284.

They who piddle and patter here in collars and tailed coats—I am aware who they are—they are not worms or fleas.

285.

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.

286.

I know perfectly well my own egotism,
I know my omnivorous words, and cannot say any less,
And would fetch you, whoever you are, flush with myself.

287.

My words are words of a questioning, and to indicate reality and motive power:
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 fleet of ships of the line, and all the modern improvements—but the craft and pluck of the admiral?
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 human brain, and what is reason? and what is love? and what is life?

288.

I do not despise you, priests,
My faith is the greatest of faiths, and the least of faiths,
Enclosing all 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 fetish of the first rock or stump, powwowing with sticks in the circle of obis,
Helping the lama 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,
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.

289.

One of that centripetal and centrifugal gang, I turn and talk like a man leaving charges before a journey.

290.

Down-hearted doubters, dull and excluded,
Frivolous, sullen, moping, angry, affected, disheartened, atheistical,
I know every one of you—I know the unspoken interrogatories,
By experience I know them.

291.

How the flukes splash!
How they contort, rapid as lightning, with spasms, and spouts of blood!

292.

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,
Day and night are for you, me, all,
And what is yet untried and afterward is for you, me, all, precisely the same.

293.

I do not know what is untried and afterward,
But I know it is sure, alive, sufficient.

294.

Each who passes is considered—Each who stops is considered—Not a single one can it fail.

295.

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 peeped 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 disorder,
Nor the numberless slaughtered and wrecked—nor the brutish koboo called the ordure of humanity,
Nor the sacs merely floating with open mouths for food to slip in,
Nor anything in the earth, or down in the oldest graves of the earth,
Nor anything in the myriads of spheres—nor one of the myriads of myriads that inhabit them,
Nor the present—nor the least wisp that is known.

296.

It is time to explain myself—Let us stand up.

297.

What is known I strip away,
I launch all men and women forward with me into the Unknown.

298.

The clock indicates the moment—but what does eternity indicate?

299.

We have thus far exhausted trillions of winters and summers,
There are trillions ahead, and trillions ahead of them.

300.

Births have brought us richness and variety,
And other births will bring us richness and variety.

301.

I do not call one greater and one smaller,
That which fills its period and place is equal to any.

302.

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?)

303.

I am an acme of things accomplished, and I an encloser of things to be.

304.

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 travelled, and still I mount and mount.

305.

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.

306.

Long I was hugged close—long and long.

307.

Immense have been the preparations for me,
Faithful and friendly the arms that have helped me.

308.

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.

309.

Before I was born out of my mother, generations guided me,
My embryo has never been torpid—nothing could overlay it.

310.

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.

311.

All forces have been steadily employed to complete and delight me,
Now I stand on this spot with my Soul.

312.

O span of youth! Ever-pushed elasticity!
O manhood, balanced, florid, and full.

313.

My lovers suffocate me!
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 under-brush,
Or while I swim in the bath, or drink from the pump at the corner—or the curtain is down at the opera, or I glimpse at a woman's face in the railroad car,
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.

314.

Old age superbly rising! O welcome, ineffable grace of dying days!

315.

Every condition promulges not only itself—it promulges what grows after and out of itself,
And the dark hush promulges as much as any.

316.

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.

317.

Wider and wider they spread, expanding, always expanding,
Outward, outward, and forever outward.

318.

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

319.

There is no stoppage, and never can be stoppage,
If I, you, the worlds, all beneath or upon their surfaces, and all the palpable life, were this moment reduced back to a pallid float, it would not avail in the long run,
We should surely bring up again where we now stand,
And as surely go as much farther—and then farther and farther.

320.

A few quadrillions of eras, a few octillions of cubic leagues, do not hazard the span, or make it impatient,
They are but parts—anything is but a part.

321.

See ever so far, there is limitless space outside of that,
Count ever so much, there is limitless time around that.

322.

My rendezvous is appointed,
The Lord will be there, and wait till I come on perfect terms.

323.

I know I have the best of time and space, and was never measured, and never will be measured.

324.

I tramp a perpetual journey,
My signs are a rain-proof coat, good shoes, and a staff cut from the woods,
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, or 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 a plain public road.

325.

Not I—not any one else, can travel that road for you,
You must travel it for yourself.

326.

It is not far—it is within reach,
Perhaps you have been on it since you were born, and did not know,
Perhaps it is every where on water and on land.

327.

Shoulder your duds, and I will mine, and let us hasten forth,
Wonderful cities and free nations we shall fetch as we go.

328.

If you tire, give me both burdens, and rest the chuff of your hand on my hip,
And in due time you shall repay the same service to me,
For after we start we never lie by again.

329.

This day before dawn I ascended a hill, and looked at the crowded heaven,
And I said to my Spirit, When we become the enfolders of those orbs, and the pleasure and knowledge of everything in them, shall we be filled and satisfied then?
And my Spirit said No, we level that lift, to pass and continue beyond.

330.

You are also asking me questions, and I hear you,
I answer that I cannot answer—you must find out for yourself.

331.

Sit a while, wayfarer,
Here are biscuits to eat, and here is milk to drink,
But as soon as you sleep, and renew yourself in sweet clothes, I will certainly kiss you with my good-bye kiss, and open the gate for your egress hence.

332.

Long enough have you dreamed 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.

333.

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.

334.

I am the teacher of athletes,
He that by me spreads a wider breast than my own, proves the width of my own,
He most honors my style who learns under it to destroy the teacher.

335.

The boy I love, the same becomes a man, not through derived power, but in his own right,
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 a wound cuts,
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,
Preferring scars, and faces pitted with small-pox, over all latherers, and those that keep out of the sun.

336.

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.

337.

I do not say these things for a dollar, or to fill up the time while I wait for a boat,
It is you talking just as much as myself—I act as the tongue of you,
Tied in your mouth, in mine it begins to be loosened.

338.

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.

339.

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,
The maul, the oar, the hand-saw, second my words.

340.

No shuttered room or school can commune with me,
But roughs and little children better than they.

341.

The young mechanic is closest to me—he knows me pretty well,
The woodman, that takes his axe and jug with him, shall take me with him all day,
The farm-boy, ploughing in the field, feels good at the sound of my voice,
In vessels that sail, my words sail—I go with fishermen and seamen, and love them.

342.

My face rubs to the hunter's face, when he lies down alone in his blanket,
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,
They and all would resume what I have told them.

343.

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, dressed in his shroud,
And I or you, pocketless of a dime, may purchase the pick of the earth,
And to glance with an eye, or show a bean in its pod, confounds the learning of all times,
And there is no trade or employment but the young man following it may become a hero,
And there is no object so soft but it makes a hub for the wheeled universe,
And any man or woman shall stand cool and supercilious before a million universes.

344.

And I call 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.

345.

I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least,
Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself.

346.

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,
In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass,
I find letters from God dropped in the street—and every one is signed by God's name,
And I leave them where they are, for I know that others will punctually come forever and ever.

347.

And as to you Death, and you bitter hug of mortality, it is idle to try to alarm me.

348.

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.

349.

And as to you corpse, I think you are good manure, but that does not offend me,
I smell the white roses sweet-scented and growing,
I reach to the leafy lips—I reach to the polished breasts of melons.

350.

And as to you life, I reckon you are the leavings of many deaths,
No doubt I have died myself ten thousand times before.

351.

I hear you whispering there, O stars of heaven,
O suns! O grass of graves! O perpetual transfers and promotions!
If you do not say anything, how can I say anything?

352.

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!
Toss to the moaning gibberish of the dry limbs.

353.

I ascend from the moon, I ascend from the night,
I perceive of the ghastly glimmer the sunbeams reflected,
And debouch to the steady and central from the offspring great or small.

354.

There is that in me—I do not know what it is—but I know it is in me.

355.

Wrenched and sweaty—calm and cool then my body becomes,
I sleep—I sleep long.

356.

I do not know it—it is without name—it is a word unsaid,
It is not in any dictionary, utterance, symbol.

357.

Something it swings on more than the earth I swing on,
To it the creation is the friend whose embracing awakes me.

358.

Perhaps I might tell more. Outlines! I plead for my brothers and sisters.

359.

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.

360.

The past and present wilt—I have filled them, emptied them,
And proceed to fill my next fold of the future.

361.

Listener up there! Here you! 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.

362.

Do I contradict myself?
Very well, then, I contradict myself,
I am large—I contain multitudes.

363.

I concentrate toward them that are nigh—I wait on the door-slab.

364.

Who has done his day's work? Who will soonest be through with his supper?
Who wishes to walk with me?

365.

Will you speak before I am gone? Will you prove already too late?

366.

The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me—he complains of my gab and my loitering.

367.

I too am not a bit tamed—I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.

368.

The last scud of day holds back for me,
It flings my likeness, after the rest, and true as any, on the shadowed wilds,
It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.

369.

I depart as air—I shake my white locks at the run-away sun,
I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.

370.

I bequeathe myself to the dirt, to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again, look for me under your boot-soles.

371.

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.

372.

Failing to fetch me at first, keep encouraged,
Missing me one place, search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.

CHANTS DEMOCRATIC AND NATIVE AMERICAN.

Apostroph.

O mother! O son!
O brood continental!
O flowers of the prairies!
O space boundless! O hum of mighty products!
O you teeming cities! O so invincible, turbulent, proud!
O race of the future! O women!
O fathers! O you men of passion and the storm!
O native power only! O beauty!
O yourself! O God! O divine average!
O you bearded roughs! O bards! O all those slumberers!
O arouse! the dawn-bird's throat sounds shrill! Do you not hear the cock crowing?
O, as I walk'd the beach, I heard the mournful notes foreboding a tempest—the low, oft-repeated shriek of the diver, the long-lived loon;
O I heard, and yet hear, angry thunder;—O you sailors! O ships! make quick preparation!
O from his masterful sweep, the warning cry of the eagle!
(Give way there, all! It is useless! Give up your spoils;)
O sarcasms! Propositions! (O if the whole world should prove indeed a sham, a sell!)
O I believe there is nothing real but America and freedom!
O to sternly reject all except Democracy!
O imperator! O who dare confront you and me?
O to promulgate our own! O to build for that which builds for mankind!
O feuillage! O North! O the slope drained by the Mexican sea!
O all, all inseparable—ages, ages, ages!
O a curse on him that would dissever this Union for any reason whatever!
O climates, labors! O good and evil! O death!
O you strong with iron and wood! O Personality!
O the village or place which has the greatest man or woman! even if it be only a few ragged huts;
O the city where women walk in public processions in the streets, the same as the men;
O a wan and terrible emblem, by me adopted!
O shapes arising! shapes of the future centuries!
O muscle and pluck forever for me!
O workmen and workwomen forever for me!
O farmers and sailors! O drivers of horses forever for me!
O I will make the new bardic list of trades and tools!
O you coarse and wilful! I love you!
O South! O longings for my dear home! O soft and sunny airs!
O pensive! O I must return where the palm grows and the mocking-bird sings, or else I die!
O equality! O organic compacts! I am come to be your born poet!
O whirl, contest, sounding and resounding! I am your poet, because I am part of you;
O days by-gone! Enthusiasts! Antecedents!
O vast preparations for These States! O years!
O what is now being sent forward thousands of years to come!
O mediums! O to teach! to convey the invisible faith!
To promulge real things! to journey through all The States!
O creation! O to-day! O laws! O unmitigated adoration!
O for mightier broods of orators, artists, and singers!
O for native songs! carpenter's, boatman's, ploughman's songs! shoemaker's songs!
O haughtiest growth of time! O free and extatic!
O what I, here, preparing, warble for!
O you hastening light! O the sun of the world will ascend, dazzling, and take his height—and you too will ascend;
O so amazing and so broad! up there resplendent, darting and burning;
O prophetic! O vision staggered with weight of light! with pouring glories!
O copious! O hitherto unequalled!
O Libertad! O compact! O union impossible to dissever!
O my Soul! O lips becoming tremulous, powerless!
O centuries, centuries yet ahead!
O voices of greater orators! I pause—I listen for you!
O you States! Cities! defiant of all outside authority! I spring at once into your arms! you I most love!
O you grand Presidentiads! I wait for you!
New history! New heroes! I project you!
Visions of poets! only you really last! O sweep on! sweep on!
O Death! O you striding there! O I cannot yet!
O heights! O infinitely too swift and dizzy yet!
O purged lumine! you threaten me more than I can stand!
O present! I return while yet I may to you!
O poets to come, I depend upon you!

[1. A nation announcing itself, (many in one,)]

[2. Broad-axe, shapely, naked, wan!]

[3. Come closer to me]

[4. America always!]

America always!
Always me joined with you, whoever you are!
Always our own feuillage!
Always Florida's green peninsula! Always the priceless delta of Louisiana! Always the cotton-fields of Alabama and Texas!
Always California's golden hills and hollows—and the silver mountains of New Mexico! Always soft-breath'd Cuba!
Always the vast slope drained by the Southern Sea—inseparable with the slopes drained by the Eastern and Western Seas,
The area the Eighty-third year of These States—the three and a half millions of square miles,
The eighteen thousand miles of sea-coast and bay-coast on the main—the thirty thousand miles of river navigation,
The seven millions of distinct families, and the same number of dwellings—Always these and more, branching forth into numberless branches;
Always the free range and diversity! Always the continent of Democracy!
Always the prairies, pastures, forests, vast cities, travellers, Kanada, the snows;
Always these compact lands—lands tied at the hips with the belt stringing the huge oval lakes;
Always the West, with strong native persons—the increasing density there—the habitans, friendly, threatening, ironical, scorning invaders;
All sights, South, North, East—all deeds, promiscuously done at all times,
All characters, movements, growths—a few noticed, myriads unnoticed,
Through Mannahatta's streets I walking, these things gathering;
On interior rivers, by night, in the glare of pine knots, steamboats wooding up;
Sunlight by day on the valley of the Susquehanna, and on the valleys of the Potomac and Rappahannock, and the valleys of the Roanoke and Delaware;
In their northerly wilds beasts of prey haunting the Adirondacks, the hills—or lapping the Saginaw waters to drink;
In a lonesome inlet, a sheldrake, lost from the flock, sitting on the water, rocking silently;
In farmers' barns, oxen in the stable, their harvest labor done—they rest standing—they are too tired;
Afar on arctic ice, the she-walrus lying drowsily, while her cubs play around;
The hawk sailing where men have not yet sailed—the farthest polar sea, ripply, crystalline, open, beyond the floes;
White drift spooning ahead, where the ship in the tempest dashes;
On solid land, what is done in cities, as the bells all strike midnight together;
In primitive woods, the sounds there also sounding—the howl of the wolf, the scream of the panther, and the hoarse bellow of the elk;
In winter beneath the hard blue ice of Moosehead Lake—in summer visible through the clear waters, the great trout swimming;
In lower latitudes, in warmer air, in the Carolinas, the large black buzzard floating slowly high beyond the tree-tops,
Below, the red cedar, festooned with tylandria—the pines and cypresses, growing out of the white sand that spreads far and flat;
Rude boats descending the big Pedee—climbing plants, parasites, with colored flowers and berries, enveloping huge trees,
The waving drapery on the live oak, trailing long and low, noiselessly waved by the wind;
The camp of Georgia wagoners, just after dark—the supper-fires, and the cooking and eating by whites and negroes,
Thirty or forty great wagons—the mules, cattle, horses, feeding from troughs,
The shadows, gleams, up under the leaves of the old sycamore-trees—the flames—also the black smoke from the pitch-pine, curling and rising;
Southern fishermen fishing—the sounds and inlets of North Carolina's coast—the shad-fishery and the herring-fishery—the large sweep-seines—the windlasses on shore worked by horses—the clearing, curing, and packing houses;
Deep in the forest, in the piney woods, turpentine and tar dropping from the incisions in the trees—There is the turpentine distillery,
There are the negroes at work, in good health—the ground in all directions is covered with pine straw;
In Tennessee and Kentucky, slaves busy in the coalings, at the forge, by the furnace-blaze, or at the corn-shucking;
In Virginia, the planter's son returning after a long absence, joyfully welcomed and kissed by the aged mulatto nurse;
On rivers, boatmen safely moored at night-fall, in their boats, under the shelter of high banks,
Some of the younger men dance to the sound of the banjo or fiddle—others sit on the gunwale, smoking and talking;
Late in the afternoon, the mocking-bird, the American mimic, singing in the Great Dismal Swamp—there are the greenish waters, the resinous odor, the plenteous moss, the cypress tree, and the juniper tree;
Northward, young men of Mannahatta—the target company from an excursion returning home at evening—the musket-muzzles all bear bunches of flowers presented by women;
Children at play—or on his father's lap a young boy fallen asleep, (how his lips move! how he smiles in his sleep!)
The scout riding on horseback over the plains west of the Mississippi—he ascends a knoll and sweeps his eye around;
California life—the miner, bearded, dressed in his rude costume—the stanch California friendship—the sweet air—the graves one, in passing, meets, solitary, just aside the horse-path;
Down in Texas, the cotton-field, the negro-cabins—drivers driving mules or oxen before rude carts—cotton-bales piled on banks and wharves;
Encircling all, vast-darting, up and wide, the American Soul, with equal hemispheres—one Love, one Dilation or Pride;
In arriere, the peace-talk with the Iroquois, the aborigines—the calumet, the pipe of good-will arbitration, and indorsement,
The sachem blowing the smoke first toward the sun and then toward the earth,
The drama of the scalp-dance enacted with painted faces and guttural exclamations,
The setting out of the war-party—the long and stealthy march,
The single file—the swinging hatchets—the surprise and slaughter of enemies;
All the acts, scenes, ways, persons, attitudes of These States—reminiscences, all institutions,
All These States, compact—Every square mile of These States, without excepting a particle—you also—me also,
Me pleased, rambling in lanes and country fields, Paumanok's fields,
Me, observing the spiral flight of two little yellow butterflies, shuffling between each other, ascending high in the air;
The darting swallow, the destroyer of insects—the fall traveller southward, but returning northward early in the spring;
The country boy at the close of the day, driving the herd of cows, and shouting to them as they loiter to browse by the road-side;
The city wharf—Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston, New Orleans, San Francisco,
The departing ships, when the sailors heave at the capstan;
Evening—me in my room—the setting sun,
The setting summer sun shining in my open window, showing me flies, suspended, balancing in the air in the centre of the room, darting athwart, up and down, casting swift shadows in specks on the opposite wall, where the shine is;
The athletic American matron speaking in public to crowds of listeners;
Males, females, immigrants, combinations—the copiousness—the individuality and sovereignty of The States, each for itself—the money-makers;
Factories, machinery, the mechanical forces—the windlass, lever, pulley—All certainties,
The certainty of space, increase, freedom, futurity,
In space, the sporades, the scattered islands, the stars—on the firm earth, the lands, my lands,
O lands! all so dear to me—what you are, (whatever it is,) I become a part of that, whatever it is,
Southward there, I screaming, with wings slow flapping, with the myriads of gulls wintering along the coasts of Florida—or in Louisiana, with pelicans breeding,
Otherways, there, atwixt the banks of the Arkansaw, the Rio Grande, the Nueces, the Brazos, the Tombigbee, the Red River, the Saskatchawan, or the Osage, I with the spring waters laughing and skipping and running;
Northward, on the sands, on some shallow bay of Paumanok, I, with parties of snowy herons wading in the wet to seek worms and aquatic plants;
Retreating, triumphantly twittering, the king-bird, from piercing the crow with its bill, for amusement—And I triumphantly twittering;
The migrating flock of wild geese alighting in autumn to refresh themselves—the body of the flock feed—the sentinels outside move around with erect heads watching, and are from time to time relieved by other sentinels—And I feeding and taking turns with the rest;
In Kanadian forests, the moose, large as an ox, cornered by hunters, rising desperately on his hind-feet, and plunging with his fore-feet, the hoofs as sharp as knives—And I, plunging at the hunters, cornered and desperate;
In the Mannahatta, streets, piers, shipping, store-houses, and the countless workmen working in the shops,
And I too of the Mannahatta, singing thereof—and no less in myself than the whole of the Mannahatta in itself,
Singing the song of These, my ever united lands—my body no more inevitably united, part to part, and made one identity, any more than my lands are inevitably united, and made ONE IDENTITY,
Nativities, climates, the grass of the great Pastoral Plains,
Cities, labors, death, animals, products, good and evil—these me,
These affording, in all their particulars, endless feuillage to me and to America, how can I do less than pass the clew of the union of them, to afford the like to you?
Whoever you are! how can I but offer you divine leaves, that you also be eligible as I am?
How can I but, as here, chanting, invite you for yourself to collect bouquets of the incomparable feuillage of These States?

[5. Respondez! Respondez!]

Respondez! Respondez!
Let every one answer! Let those who sleep be waked! Let none evade—not you, any more than others!
(If it really be as is pretended, how much longer must we go on with our affectations and sneaking?
Let me bring this to a close—I pronounce openly for a new distribution of roles,)
Let that which stood in front go behind! and let that which was behind advance to the front and speak!
Let murderers, thieves, bigots, fools, unclean persons, offer new propositions!
Let the old propositions be postponed!
Let faces and theories be turned inside out! Let meanings be freely criminal, as well as results!
Let there be no suggestion above the suggestion of drudgery!
Let none be pointed toward his destination! (Say! do you know your destination?)
Let trillions of men and women be mocked with bodies and mocked with Souls!
Let the love that waits in them, wait! Let it die, or pass still-born to other spheres!
Let the sympathy that waits in every man, wait! or let it also pass, a dwarf, to other spheres!
Let contradictions prevail! Let one thing contradict another! and let one line of my poems contradict another!
Let the people sprawl with yearning aimless hands! Let their tongues be broken! Let their eyes be discouraged! Let none descend into their hearts with the fresh lusciousness of love!
Let the theory of America be management, caste, comparison! (Say! what other theory would you?)
Let them that distrust birth and death lead the rest! (Say! why shall they not lead you?)
Let the crust of hell be neared and trod on! Let the days be darker than the nights! Let slumber bring less slumber than waking-time brings!
Let the world never appear to him or her for whom it was all made!
Let the heart of the young man exile itself from the heart of the old man! and let the heart of the old man be exiled from that of the young man!
Let the sun and moon go! Let scenery take the applause of the audience! Let there be apathy under the stars!
Let freedom prove no man's inalienable right! Every one who can tyrannize, let him tyrannize to his satisfaction!
Let none but infidels be countenanced!
Let the eminence of meanness, treachery, sarcasm, hate, greed, indecency, impotence, lust, be taken for granted above all! Let writers, judges, governments, households, religions, philosophies, take such for granted above all!
Let the worst men beget children out of the worst women!
Let priests still play at immortality!
Let Death be inaugurated!
Let nothing remain upon the earth except the ashes of teachers, artists, moralists, lawyers, and learned and polite persons!
Let him who is without my poems be assassinated!
Let the cow, the horse, the camel, the garden-bee—Let the mud-fish, the lobster, the mussel, eel, the sting-ray, and the grunting pig-fish—Let these, and the like of these, be put on a perfect equality with man and woman!
Let churches accommodate serpents, vermin, and the corpses of those who have died of the most filthy of diseases!
Let marriage slip down among fools, and be for none but fools!
Let men among themselves talk and think obscenely of women! and let women among themselves talk and think obscenely of men!
Let every man doubt every woman! and let every woman trick every man!
Let us all, without missing one, be exposed in public, naked, monthly, at the peril of our lives! Let our bodies be freely handled and examined by whoever chooses!
Let nothing but copies, pictures, statues, reminiscences, elegant works, be permitted to exist upon the earth!
Let the earth desert God, nor let there ever henceforth be mentioned the name of God!
Let there be no God!
Let there be money, business, imports, exports, custom, authority, precedents, pallor, dyspepsia, smut, ignorance, unbelief!
Let judges and criminals be transposed! Let the prison-keepers be put in prison! Let those that were prisoners take the keys! (Say! why might they not just as well be transposed?)
Let the slaves be masters! Let the masters become slaves!
Let the reformers descend from the stands where they are forever bawling! Let an idiot or insane person appear on each of the stands!
Let the Asiatic, the African, the European, the American and the Australian, go armed against the murderous stealthiness of each other! Let them sleep armed! Let none believe in good-will!
Let there be no unfashionable wisdom! Let such be scorned and derided off from the earth!
Let a floating cloud in the sky—Let a wave of the sea—Let one glimpse of your eye-sight upon the landscape or grass—Let growing mint, spinach, onions, tomatoes—Let these be exhibited as shows at a great price for admission!
Let all the men of These States stand aside for a few smouchers! Let the few seize on what they choose! Let the rest gawk, giggle, starve, obey!
Let shadows be furnished with genitals! Let substances be deprived of their genitals!
Let there be wealthy and immense cities—but through any of them, not a single poet, saviour, knower, lover!
Let the infidels of These States laugh all faith away! If one man be found who has faith, let the rest set upon him! Let them affright faith! Let them destroy the power of breeding faith!
Let the she-harlots and the he-harlots be prudent! Let them dance on, while seeming lasts! (O seeming! seeming! seeming!)
Let the preachers recite creeds! Let them teach only what they have been taught!
Let the preachers of creeds never dare to go meditate candidly upon the hills, alone, by day or by night! (If one ever once dare, he is lost!)
Let insanity have charge of sanity!
Let books take the place of trees, animals, rivers, clouds!
Let the daubed portraits of heroes supersede heroes!
Let the manhood of man never take steps after itself! Let it take steps after eunuchs, and after consumptive and genteel persons!
Let the white person tread the black person under his heel! (Say! which is trodden under heel, after all?)
Let the reflections of the things of the world be studied in mirrors! Let the things themselves continue unstudied!
Let a man seek pleasure everywhere except in himself! Let a woman seek happiness everywhere except in herself! (Say! what real happiness have you had one single time through your whole life?)
Let the limited years of life do nothing for the limitless years of death! (Say! what do you suppose death will do, then?)

[6. You just maturing youth! You male or female!]

[7. With antecedents]

[8. Splendor of falling day, floating and filling me]

[9. A thought of what I am here for]

A thought of what I am here for,
Of these years I sing—how they pass through convulsed pains, as through parturitions;
How America illustrates birth, gigantic youth, the promise, the sure fulfilment, despite of people—Illustrates evil as well as good;
Of how many hold despairingly yet to the models departed, caste, myths, obedience, compulsion, and to infidelity;
How few see the arrived models, the Athletes, The States—or see freedom or spirituality—or hold any faith in results,
(But I see the Athletes—and I see the results glorious and inevitable—and they again leading to other results;)
How the great cities appear—How the Democratic masses, turbulent, wilful, as I love them,
How the whirl, the contest, the wrestle of evil with good, the sounding and resounding, keep on and on;
How society waits unformed, and is between things ended and things begun;
How America is the continent of glories, and of the triumph of freedom, and of the Democracies, and of the fruits of society, and of all that is begun;
And how The States are complete in themselves—And how all triumphs and glories are complete in themselves, to lead onward,
And how these of mine, and of The States, will in their turn be convulsed, and serve other parturitions and transitions,
And how all people, sights, combinations, the Democratic masses too, serve—and how every fact serves,
And how now, or at any time, each serves the exquisite transition of Death.

[10. Historian! you who celebrate bygones!]

Historian! you who celebrate bygones!
You have explored the outward, the surface of the races—the life that has exhibited itself,
You have treated man as the creature of politics, aggregates, rulers, and priests;
But now I also, arriving, contribute something:
I, an habitué of the Alleghanies, treat man as he is in the influences of Nature, in himself, in his own inalienable rights,
Advancing, to give the spirit and the traits of new Democratic ages, myself, personally,
(Let the future behold them all in me—Me, so puzzling and contradictory—Me, a Manhattanese, the most loving and arrogant of men;)
I do not tell the usual facts, proved by records and documents,
What I tell, (talking to every born American,) requires no further proof than he or she who will hear me, will furnish, by silently meditating alone;
I press the pulse of the life that has hitherto seldom exhibited itself, but has generally sought concealment, (the great pride of man, in himself,)
I illuminate feelings, faults, yearnings, hopes—I have come at last, no more ashamed nor afraid;
Chanter of Personality, outlining a history yet to be,
I project the ideal man, the American of the future.

[11. The thought of fruitage]

The thought of fruitage,
Of Death, (the life greater)—of seeds dropping into the ground—of birth,
Of the steady concentration of America, inland, upward, to impregnable and swarming places,
Of what Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio and the rest, are to be,
Of what a few years will show there in Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota and the rest,
Of what the feuillage of America is the preparation for—and of what all the sights, North, South, East and West, are;
Of the temporary use of materials for identity's sake,
Of departing—of the growth of a mightier race than any yet,
Of myself, soon, perhaps, closing up my songs by these shores,
Of California—of Oregon—and of me journeying hence to live and sing there;
Of the Western Sea—of the spread inland between it and the spinal river,
Of the great pastoral area, athletic and feminine,
Of all sloping down there where the fresh free-giver, the mother, the Mississippi flows—and Westward still;
Of future men and women there—of happiness in those high plateaus, ranging three thousand miles, warm and cold,
Of cities yet unsurveyed and unsuspected, (as I am also, and as it must be,)
Of the new and good names—of the strong developments—of the inalienable homesteads,
Of a free original life there—of simple diet, and clean and sweet blood,
Of litheness, majestic faces, clear eyes, and perfect physique there,
Of immense spiritual results, future years, inland, spread there each side of the Anahuacs,
Of these Leaves well-understood there, (being made for that area,)
Of the native scorn of grossness and gain there,
(O it lurks in me night and day—What is gain, after all, to savageness and freedom?)

[12. To oratists—to male or female]

[13. Laws for Creations]

[14. Poets to come!]

[15. Who has gone farthest? For I swear I will go farther]

Who has gone farthest? For I swear I will go farther;
And who has been just? For I would be the most just person of the earth;
And who most cautious? For I would be more cautious;
And who has been happiest? O I think it is I! I think no one was ever happier than I;
And who has lavished all? For I lavish constantly the best I have;
And who has been firmest? For I would be firmer;
And who proudest? For I think I have reason to be the proudest son alive—for I am the son of the brawny and tall-topt city;
And who has been bold and true? For I would be the boldest and truest being of the universe;
And who benevolent? For I would show more benevolence than all the rest;
And who has projected beautiful words through the longest time? By God! I will outvie him! I will say such words, they shall stretch through longer time!
And who has received the love of the most friends? For I know what it is to receive the passionate love of many friends;
And to whom has been given the sweetest from women, and paid them in kind? For I will take the like sweets and pay them in kind;
And who possesses a perfect and enamoured body? For I do not believe any one possesses a more perfect or enamoured body than mine;
And who thinks the amplest thoughts? For I will surround those thoughts;
And who has made hymns fit for the earth? For I am mad with devouring extacy to make joyous hymns for the whole earth!

[16. They shall arise in the States—mediums shall]

They shall arise in the States—mediums shall,
They shall report Nature, laws, physiology, and happiness,
They shall illustrate Democracy and the kosmos,
They shall be alimentive, amative, perceptive,
They shall be complete women and men—their pose brawny and supple, their drink water, their blood clean and clear,
They shall enjoy materialism and the sight of products—they shall enjoy the sight of the beef, lumber, bread-stuffs, of Chicago, the great city,
They shall train themselves to go in public to become oratists, (orators and oratresses,)
Strong and sweet shall their tongues be—poems and materials of poems shall come from their lives—they shall be makers and finders,
Of them, and of their works, shall emerge divine conveyers, to convey gospels,
Characters, events, retrospections, shall be conveyed in gospels—Trees, animals, waters, shall be conveyed,
Death, the future, the invisible faith, shall all be conveyed.

[17. Now we start hence, I with the rest, on our journeys through The States]

[18. Me imperturbe]

Me imperturbe,
Me 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 important than I thought;
Me private, or public, or menial, or solitary—all these subordinate, (I am eternally equal with the best—I am not subordinate;)
Me toward the Mexican Sea, or in the Mannahatta, or the Tennessee, 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 to be lived, O to be self-balanced for contingencies!
O to confront night, storms, hunger, ridicule, accidents, rebuffs, as the trees and animals do.

[19. I was looking a long while for the history of the past for myself, and for these Chants—and now I have found it,]

I was looking a long while for the history of the past for myself, and for these Chants—and now I have found it,
It is not in those paged fables in the libraries, (them I neither accept nor reject,)
It is no more in the legends than in all else,
It is in the present—it is this earth to-day,
It is in Democracy—in this America—the old world also,
It is the life of one man or one woman to-day, the average man of to-day;
It is languages, social customs, literatures, arts,
It is the broad show of artificial things, ships, machinery, politics, creeds, modern improvements, and the interchanges of nations,
All for the average man of to-day.

[20. American mouth-songs!]

[21. As I walk, solitary, unattended]

Leaves of Grass.

[1. Elemental drifts!]

[2. Great are the myths—I too delight in them]

[3. A young man came to me with a message from his brother]

[4. Something startles me where I thought I was safest]

[5. All day I have walked the city, and talked with my friends, and thought of prudence]

[6. Perfect sanity shows the master among philosophs]

[7. I need no assurances—I am a man who is preoccupied, of his own Soul]

I need no assurances—I am a man who is preoccupied, of his own Soul;
I do not doubt that whatever I know at a given time, there waits for me more, which I do not know;
I do not doubt that from under the feet, and beside the hands and face I am cognizant of, are now looking faces I am not cognizant of—calm and actual faces;
I do not doubt but the majesty and beauty of the world are latent in any iota of the world;
I do not doubt there are realizations I have no idea of, waiting for me through time, and through the universes—also upon this earth;
I do not doubt I am limitless, and that the universes are limitless—in vain I try to think how limitless;
I do not doubt that the orbs, and the systems of orbs, play their swift sports through the air on purpose—and that I shall one day be eligible to do as much as they, and more than they;
I do not doubt there is far more in trivialities, insects, vulgar persons, slaves, dwarfs, weeds, rejected refuse, than I have supposed;
I do not doubt there is more in myself than I have supposed—and more in all men and women—and more in my poems than I have supposed;
I do not doubt that temporary affairs keep on and on, millions of years;
I do not doubt interiors have their interiors, and exteriors have their exteriors—and that the eye-sight has another eye-sight, and the hearing another hearing, and the voice another voice;
I do not doubt that the passionately-wept deaths of young men are provided for—and that the deaths of young women, and the deaths of little children, are provided for;
I do not doubt that wrecks at sea, no matter what the horrors of them—no matter whose wife, child, husband, father, lover, has gone down—are provided for, to the minutest point;
I do not doubt that shallowness, meanness, malignance, are provided for;
I do not doubt that cities, you, America, the remainder of the earth, politics, freedom, degradations, are carefully provided for;
I do not doubt that whatever can possibly happen, any where, at any time, is provided for, in the inherences of things.

[8. What shall I give? and which are my miracles?]

[9. There was a child went forth every day]

[10. It is ended—I dally no more]

[11. Who learns my lesson complete?]

[12. This night I am happy]

[13. O bitter sprig! Confession sprig!]

[14. Unfolded out of the folds of the woman, man comes unfolded, as is always to come unfolded]

Unfolded out of the folds of the woman, man comes unfolded, as is always to come unfolded,
Unfolded only out of the superbest woman of the earth, is to come the superbest man of the earth,
Unfolded out of the friendliest woman, is to come the friendliest man,
Unfolded only out of the perfect body of a woman, can a man be formed of perfect body,
Unfolded only out of the inimitable poem of the woman, can come the poems of man—only thence have my poems come,
Unfolded out of the strong and arrogant woman I love, only thence can appear the strong and arrogant man I love,
Unfolded by brawny embraces from the well-muscled woman I love, only thence come the brawny embraces of the man,
Unfolded out of the folds of the woman's brain, come all the folds of the man's brain, duly obedient,
Unfolded out of the justice of the woman, all justice is unfolded,
Unfolded out of the sympathy of the woman is all sympathy;
A man is a great thing upon the earth, and through eternity—but every jot of the greatness of man is unfolded out of woman,
First the man is shaped in the woman, he can then be shaped in himself.

[15. Night on the Prairies]

[16. Sea-water, and all living below it]

Sea-water, and all living below it,
Forests at the bottom of the sea—the branches and leaves,
Sea-lettuce, vast lichens, strange flowers and seeds—the thick tangle, the openings, and the pink turf,
Different colors, pale gray and green, purple, white, and gold—the play of light through the water,
Dumb swimmers there among the rocks—coral, gluten, grass, rushes—and the aliment of the swimmers,
Sluggish existences grazing there, suspended, or slowly crawling close to the bottom,
The sperm-whale at the surface, blowing air and spray, or disporting with his flukes,
The leaden-eyed shark, the walrus, the turtle, the hairy sea-leopard, and the sting-ray;
Passions there—wars, pursuits, tribes—sight in those ocean-depths—breathing that thick-breathing air, as so many do,
The change thence to the sight here, and to the subtle air breathed by beings like us, who walk this sphere;
The change onward from ours to that of beings who walk other spheres.

[17. I sit and look out upon all the sorrows of the world, and upon all oppression and shame]

I sit and look out upon all the sorrows of the world, and upon all oppression and shame,
I hear secret convulsive sobs from young men, at anguish with themselves, remorseful after deeds done;
I see, in low life, the mother misused by her children, dying, neglected, gaunt, desperate,
I see the wife misused by her husband—I see the treacherous seducer of the young woman,
I mark the ranklings of jealousy and unrequited love, attempted to be hid—I see these sights on the earth,
I see the workings of battle, pestilence, tyranny—I see martyrs and prisoners,
I observe a famine at sea—I observe the sailors casting lots who shall be killed, to preserve the lives of the rest,
I observe the slights and degradations cast by arrogant persons upon laborers, the poor, and upon negroes, and the like;
All these—All the meanness and agony without end, I sitting, look out upon,
See, hear, and am silent.

[18. O me, man of slack faith so long!]

[19. Forms, qualities, lives, humanity, language, thoughts]

Forms, qualities, lives, humanity, language, thoughts,
The ones known, and the ones unknown—the ones on the stars,
The stars themselves, some shaped, others unshaped,
Wonders as of those countries—the soil, trees, cities, inhabitants, whatever they may be,
Splendid suns, the moons and rings, the countless combinations and effects,
Such-like, and as good as such-like, visible here or anywhere, stand provided for in a handful of space, which I extend my arm and half enclose with my hand,
That contains the start of each and all—the virtue, the germs of all;
That is the theory as of origins.

[20. So far, and so far, and on toward the end]

So far, and so far, and on toward the end,
Singing what is sung in this book, from the irresistible impulses of me;
But whether I continue beyond this book, to maturity,
Whether I shall dart forth the true rays, the ones that wait unfired,
(Did you think the sun was shining its brightest?
No—it has not yet fully risen;)
Whether I shall complete what is here started,
Whether I shall attain my own height, to justify these, yet unfinished,
Whether I shall make the Poem of the New World, transcending all others—depends, rich persons, upon you,
Depends, whoever you are now filling the current Presidentiad, upon you,
Upon you, Governor, Mayor, Congressman,
And you, contemporary America.

[21. Now I make a leaf of Voices—for I have found nothing mightier than they are]

[22. What am I, after all, but a child, pleased with the sound of my own name? repeating it over and over]

[23. Locations and times—what is it in me that meets them all, whenever and wherever, and makes me at home?]

Locations and times—what is it in me that meets them all, whenever and wherever, and makes me at home?
Forms, colors, densities, odors—what is it in me that corresponds with them?
What is the relation between me and them?

[24. Lift me close to your face till I whisper]

Lift me close to your face till I whisper,
What you are holding is in reality no book, nor part of a book,
It is a man, flushed and full-blooded—it is I—So long!
We must separate—Here! take from my lips this kiss,
Whoever you are, I give it especially to you;
So long—and I hope we shall meet again.

Salut au Monde!

Poem of Joys.

A WORD OUT OF THE SEA.

Out of the rocked cradle,
Out of the mocking-bird's throat, the musical shuttle,
Out of the boy's mother's womb, and from the nipples of her breasts,
Out of the Ninth Month midnight,
Over the sterile sands, and the fields beyond, where the child, leaving his bed, wandered alone, bareheaded, barefoot,
Down from the showered halo,
Up from the mystic play of shadows, twining and twisting as if they were alive,
Out from the patches of briers and blackberries,
From the memories of the bird that chanted to me,
From your memories, sad brother—from the fitful risings and fallings I heard,
From under that yellow half-moon, late-risen, and swollen as if with tears,
From those beginning notes of sickness and love, there in the transparent mist,
From the thousand responses of my heart, never to cease,
From the myriad thence-aroused words,
From the word stronger and more delicious than any,
From such, as now they start, the scene revisiting,
As a flock, twittering, rising, or overhead passing,
Borne hither—ere all eludes me, hurriedly,
A man—yet by these tears a little boy again,
Throwing myself on the sand, confronting the waves,
I, chanter of pains and joys, uniter of here and hereafter,
Taking all hints to use them—but swiftly leaping beyond them,
A reminiscence sing.

REMINISCENCE.

LEAF OF FACES.

EUROPE, The 72d and 73d Years of These States.

THOUGHT.

Of Public Opinion,
Of a calm and cool fiat, sooner or later, (How impassive! How certain and final!)
Of the President with pale face asking secretly to himself, What will the people say at last?
Of the frivolous Judge—Of the corrupt Congressman, Governor, Mayor—Of such as these, standing helpless and exposed;
Of the mumbling and screaming priest—(soon, soon deserted;)
Of the lessening, year by year, of venerableness, and of the dicta of officers, statutes, pulpits, schools,
Of the rising forever taller and stronger and broader, of the intuitions of men and women, and of self-esteem, and of personality;
Of the New World—Of the Democracies, resplendent, en-masse,
Of the conformity of politics, armies, navies, to them and to me,
Of the shining sun by them—Of the inherent light, greater than the rest,
Of the envelopment of all by them, and of the effusion of all from them.

Enfans d' Adam.

[1. To the garden, the world, anew ascending]

To the garden, the world, anew ascending,
Potent mates, daughters, sons, preluding,
The love, the life of their bodies, meaning and being,
Curious, here behold my resurrection, after slumber,
The revolving cycles, in their wide sweep, having brought me again,
Amorous, mature—all beautiful to me—all wondrous,
My limbs, and the quivering fire that ever plays through them, for reasons, most wondrous;
Existing, I peer and penetrate still,
Content with the present—content with the past,
By my side, or back of me, Eve following,
Or in front, and I following her just the same.

[2. From that of myself, without which I were nothing]

From that of myself, without which I were nothing,
From what I am determined to make illustrious, even if I stand sole among men,
From my own voice resonant—singing the phallus,
Singing the song of procreation,
Singing the need of superb children, and therein superb grown people,
Singing the muscular urge and the blending,
Singing the bedfellow's song, (O resistless yearning!
O for any and each, the body correlative attracting!
O for you, whoever you are, your correlative body! O it, more than all else, you delighting!)
From the pent up rivers of myself.
From the hungry gnaw that eats me night and day,
From native moments—from bashful pains—singing them,
Singing something yet unfound, though I have diligently sought it, ten thousand years,
Singing the true song of the Soul, fitful, at random,
Singing what, to the Soul, entirely redeemed her, the faithful one, the prostitute, who detained me when I went to the city,
Singing the song of prostitutes;
Renascent with grossest Nature, or among animals,
Of that—of them, and what goes with them, my poems informing,
Of the smell of apples and lemons—of the pairing of birds,
Of the wet of woods—of the lapping of waves,
Of the mad pushes of waves upon the land—I them chanting,
The overture lightly sounding—the strain anticipating,
The welcome nearness—the sight of the perfect body,
The swimmer swimming naked in the bath, or motionless on his back lying and floating,
The female form approaching,—I, pensive, love-flesh tremulous, aching;
The slave's body for sale—I, sternly, with harsh voice, auctioneering,
The divine list, for myself or you, or for any one, making,
The face—the limbs—the index from head to foot, and what it arouses,
The mystic deliria—the madness amorous—the utter abandonment,
(Hark, close and still, what I now whisper to you,
I love you—O you entirely possess me,
O I wish that you and I escape from the rest, and go utterly off—O free and lawless,
Two hawks in the air—two fishes swimming in the sea not more lawless than we;)
The furious storm through me careering—I passionately trembling,
The oath of the inseparableness of two together—of the woman that loves me, and whom I love more than my life—That oath swearing,
(O I willingly stake all, for you!
O let me be lost, if it must be so!
O you and I—what is it to us what the rest do or think?
What is all else to us? only that we enjoy each other, and exhaust each other, if it must be so;)
From the master—the pilot I yield the vessel to,
The general commanding me, commanding all—from him permission taking,
From time the programme hastening, (I have loitered too long, as it is;)
From sex—From the warp and from the woof,
(To talk to the perfect girl who understands me—the girl of The States,
To waft to her these from my own lips—to effuse them from my own body;)
From privacy—From frequent repinings alone,
From plenty of persons near, and yet the right person not near,
From the soft sliding of hands over me, and thrusting of fingers through my hair and beard,
From the long-sustained kiss upon the mouth or bosom,
From the close pressure that makes me or any man drunk, fainting with excess,
From what the divine husband knows—from the work of fatherhood,
From exultation, victory, and relief—from the bedfellow's embrace in the night,
From the act-poems of eyes, hands, hips, and bosoms,
From the cling of the trembling arm,
From the bending curve and the clinch,
From side by side, the pliant coverlid off throwing,
From the one so unwilling to have me leave—and me just as unwilling to leave,
(Yet a moment, O tender waiter, and I return,)
From the hour of shining stars and dropping dews,
From the night, a moment, I, emerging, flitting out,
Celebrate you, enfans prepared for,
And you, stalwart loins.

[3. O my children! O mates!]

[4. A woman waits for me—she contains all, nothing is lacking]

[5. Spontaneous me, Nature]

Spontaneous me, Nature,
The loving day, the friend I am happy with,
The arm of my friend hanging idly over my shoulder,
The hill-side whitened with blossoms of the mountain ash,
The same, late in autumn—the gorgeous hues of red, yellow, drab, purple, and light and dark green,
The rich coverlid of the grass—animals and birds—the private untrimmed bank—the primitive apples—the pebble-stones,
Beautiful dripping fragments—the negligent list of one after another, as I happen to call them to me, or think of them,
The real poems, (what we call poems being merely pictures,)
The poems of the privacy of the night, and of men like me,
This poem, drooping shy and unseen, that I always carry, and that all men carry,
(Know, once for all, avowed on purpose, wherever are men like me, are our lusty, lurking, masculine, poems,)
Love-thoughts, love-juice, love-odor, love-yielding, love-climbers, and the climbing sap,
Arms and hands of love—lips of love—phallic thumb of love—breasts of love—bellies pressed and glued together with love,
Earth of chaste love—life that is only life after love,
The body of my love—the body of the woman I love—the body of the man—the body of the earth,
Soft forenoon airs that blow from the south-west,
The hairy wild-bee that murmurs and hankers up and down—that gripes the full-grown lady-flower, curves upon her with amorous firm legs, takes his will of her, and holds himself tremulous and tight upon her till he is satisfied,
The wet of woods through the early hours,
Two sleepers at night lying close together as they sleep, one with an arm slanting down across and below the waist of the other,
The smell of apples, aromas from crushed sage-plant, mint, birch-bark,
The boy's longings, the glow and pressure as he confides to me what he was dreaming,
The dead leaf whirling its spiral whirl, and falling still and content to the ground,
The no-formed stings that sights, people, objects, sting me with,
The hubbed sting of myself, stinging me as much as it ever can any one,
The sensitive, orbic, underlapped brothers, that only privileged feelers may be intimate where they are,
The curious roamer, the hand, roaming all over the body—the bashful withdrawing of flesh where the fingers soothingly pause and edge themselves,
The limpid liquid within the young man,
The vexed corrosion, so pensive and so painful,
The torment—the irritable tide that will not be at rest,
The like of the same I feel—the like of the same in others,
The young woman that flushes and flushes, and the young man that flushes and flushes,
The young man that wakes, deep at night, the hot hand seeking to repress what would master him—the strange half-welcome pangs, visions, sweats,
The pulse pounding through palms and trembling encircling fingers—the young man all colored, red, ashamed, angry;
The souse upon me of my lover the sea, as I lie willing and naked,
The merriment of the twin-babes that crawl over the grass in the sun, the mother never turning her vigilant eyes from them,
The walnut-trunk, the walnut-husks, and the ripening or ripened long-round walnuts,
The continence of vegetables, birds, animals,
The consequent meanness of me should I skulk or find myself indecent, while birds and animals never once skulk or find themselves indecent,
The great chastity of paternity, to match the great chastity of maternity,
The oath of procreation I have sworn—my Adamic and fresh daughters,
The greed that eats me day and night with hungry gnaw, till I saturate what shall produce boys to fill my place when I am through,
The wholesome relief, repose, content,
And this bunch plucked at random from myself,
It has done its work—I toss it carelessly to fall where it may.

[6. O furious! O confine me not!]

[7. You and I—what the earth is, we are]

You and I—what the earth is, we are,
We two—how long we were fooled!
Now delicious, transmuted, swiftly we escape, as Nature escapes,
We are Nature—long have we been absent, but now we return,
We become plants, leaves, foliage, roots, bark,
We are bedded in the ground—we are rocks,
We are oaks—we grow in the openings side by side,
We browse—we are two among the wild herds, spontaneous as any,
We are two fishes swimming in the sea together,
We are what the locust blossoms are—we drop scent around the lanes, mornings and evenings,
We are also the coarse smut of beasts, vegetables, minerals,
We are what the flowing wet of the Tennessee is—we are two peaks of the Blue Mountains, rising up in Virginia,
We are two predatory hawks—we soar above and look down,
We are two resplendent suns—we it is who balance ourselves orbic and stellar—we are as two comets;
We prowl fanged and four-footed in the woods—we spring on prey;
We are two clouds, forenoons and afternoons, driving overhead,
We are seas mingling—we are two of those cheerful waves, rolling over each other, and interwetting each other,
We are what the atmosphere is, transparent, receptive, pervious, impervious,
We are snow, rain, cold, darkness—we are each product and influence of the globe,
We have circled and circled till we have arrived home again—we two have,
We have voided all but freedom, and all but our own joy.

[8. Native moments! when you come upon me—Ah you are here now!]

Native moments! when you come upon me—Ah you are here now!
Give me now libidinous joys only!
Give me the drench of my passions! Give me life coarse and rank!
To-day, I go consort with nature's darlings—to-night too,
I am for those who believe in loose delights—I share the midnight orgies of young men,
I dance with the dancers, and drink with the drinkers,
The echoes ring with our indecent calls,
I take for my love some prostitute—I pick out some low person for my dearest friend,
He shall be lawless, rude, illiterate—he shall be one condemned by others for deeds done;
I will play a part no longer—Why should I exile myself from my companions?
O you shunned persons! I at least do not shun you,
I come forthwith in your midst—I will be your poet,
I will be more to you than to any of the rest.

[9. Once I passed through a populous city, imprinting my brain, for future use, with its shows, architecture, customs, and traditions]

Once I passed through a populous city, imprinting my brain, for future use, with its shows, architecture, customs, and traditions;
Yet now, of all that city, I remember only a woman I casually met there, who detained me for love of me,
Day by day and night by night we were together,—All else has long been forgotten by me,
I remember I say only that woman who passionately clung to me,
Again we wander—we love—we separate again,
Again she holds me by the hand—I must not go!
I see her close beside me, with silent lips, sad and tremulous.

[10. Inquiring, tireless, seeking that yet unfound]

Inquiring, tireless, seeking that yet unfound,
I, a child, very old, over waves, toward the house of maternity, the land of migrations, look afar,
Look off the shores of my Western Sea—having arrived at last where I am—the circle almost circled;
For coming westward from Hindustan, from the vales of Kashmere,
From Asia—from the north—from the God, the sage, and the hero,
From the south—from the flowery peninsulas, and the spice islands,
Now I face the old home again—looking over to it, joyous, as after long travel, growth, and sleep;
But where is what I started for, so long ago?
And why is it yet unfound?

[11. In the new garden, in all the parts]

In the new garden, in all the parts,
In cities now, modern, I wander,
Though the second or third result, or still further, primitive yet,
Days, places, indifferent—though various, the same,
Time, Paradise, the Mannahatta, the prairies, finding me unchanged,
Death indifferent—Is it that I lived long since? Was I buried very long ago?
For all that, I may now be watching you here, this moment;
For the future, with determined will, I seek—the woman of the future,
You, born years, centuries after me, I seek.

[12. Ages and ages, returning at intervals]

Ages and ages, returning at intervals,
Undestroyed, wandering immortal,
Lusty, phallic, with the potent original loins, perfectly sweet,
I, chanter of Adamic songs,
Through the new garden, the West, the great cities, calling,
Deliriate, thus prelude what is generated, offering these, offering myself,
Bathing myself, bathing my songs in sex,
Offspring of my loins.

[13. O hymen! O hymenee!]

O hymen! O hymenee!
Why do you tantalize me thus?
O why sting me for a swift moment only?
Why can you not continue? O why do you now cease?
Is it because, if you continued beyond the swift moment, you would soon certainly kill me?

[14. I am he that aches with love]

I am he that aches with love;
Does the earth gravitate? Does not all matter, aching, attract all matter?
So the body of me to all I meet, or that I know.

[15. Early in the morning]

Early in the morning,
Walking forth from the bower, refreshed with sleep,
Behold me where I pass—hear my voice—approach,
Touch me—touch the palm of your hand to my body as I pass,
Be not afraid of my body.

POEM OF THE ROAD.

TO THE SAYERS OF WORDS.

A BOSTON BALLAD, The 78th Year of These States.

CALAMUS.

[1. In paths untrodden]

In paths untrodden,
In the growth by margins of pond-waters,
Escaped from the life that exhibits itself,
From all the standards hitherto published—from the pleasures, profits, conformities,
Which too long I was offering to feed to my Soul;
Clear to me now, standards not yet published—clear to me that my Soul,
That the Soul of the man I speak for, feeds, rejoices only in comrades;
Here, by myself, away from the clank of the world,
Tallying and talked to here by tongues aromatic,
No longer abashed—for in this secluded spot I can respond as I would not dare elsewhere,
Strong upon me the life that does not exhibit itself, yet contains all the rest,
Resolved to sing no songs to-day but those of manly attachment,
Projecting them along that substantial life,
Bequeathing, hence, types of athletic love,
Afternoon, this delicious Ninth Month, in my forty-first year,
I proceed, for all who are, or have been, young men,
To tell the secret of my nights and days,
To celebrate the need of comrades.

[2. Scented herbage of my breast]

Scented herbage of my breast,
Leaves from you I yield, I write, to be perused best afterwards,
Tomb-leaves, body-leaves, growing up above me, above death,
Perennial roots, tall leaves—O the winter shall not freeze you, delicate leaves,
Every year shall you bloom again—Out from where you retired, you shall emerge again;
O I do not know whether many, passing by, will discover you, or inhale your faint odor—but I believe a few will;
O slender leaves! O blossoms of my blood! I permit you to tell, in your own way, of the heart that is under you,
O burning and throbbing—surely all will one day be accomplished;
O I do not know what you mean, there underneath yourselves—you are not happiness,
You are often more bitter than I can bear—you burn and sting me,
Yet you are very beautiful to me, you faint-tinged roots—you make me think of Death,
Death is beautiful from you—(what indeed is beautiful, except Death and Love?)
O I think it is not for life I am chanting here my chant of lovers—I think it must be for Death,
For how calm, how solemn it grows, to ascend to the atmosphere of lovers,
Death or life I am then indifferent—my Soul declines to prefer,
I am not sure but the high Soul of lovers welcomes death most;
Indeed, O Death, I think now these leaves mean precisely the same as you mean;
Grow up taller, sweet leaves, that I may see! Grow up out of my breast!
Spring away from the concealed heart there!
Do not fold yourselves so in your pink-tinged roots, timid leaves!
Do not remain down there so ashamed, herbage of my breast!
Come, I am determined to unbare this broad breast of mine—I have long enough stifled and choked;
Emblematic and capricious blades, I leave you—now you serve me not,
Away! I will say what I have to say, by itself,
I will escape from the sham that was proposed to me,
I will sound myself and comrades only—I will never again utter a call, only their call,
I will raise, with it, immortal reverberations through The States,
I will give an example to lovers, to take permanent shape and will through The States;
Through me shall the words be said to make death exhilarating,
Give me your tone therefore, O Death, that I may accord with it,
Give me yourself—for I see that you belong to me now above all, and are folded together above all—you Love and Death are,
Nor will I allow you to balk me any more with what I was calling life,
For now it is conveyed to me that you are the purports essential,
That you hide in these shifting forms of life, for reasons—and that they are mainly for you,
That you, beyond them, come forth, to remain, the real reality,
That behind the mask of materials you patiently wait, no matter how long,
That you will one day, perhaps, take control of all,
That you will perhaps dissipate this entire show of appearance,
That may be you are what it is all for—but it does not last so very long,
But you will last very long.

[3. Whoever you are holding me now in hand]

[4. These I, singing in spring, collect for lovers]

These I, singing in spring, collect for lovers,
(For who but I should understand lovers, and all their sorrow and joy?
And who but I should be the poet of comrades?)
Collecting, I traverse the garden, the world—but soon I pass the gates,
Now along the pond-side—now wading in a little, fearing not the wet,
Now by the post-and-rail fences, where the old stones thrown there, picked from the fields, have accumulated,
Wild-flowers and vines and weeds come up through the stones, and partly cover them—Beyond these I pass,
Far, far in the forest, before I think where I get,
Solitary, smelling the earthy smell, stopping now and then in the silence,
Alone I had thought—yet soon a silent troop gathers around me,
Some walk by my side, and some behind, and some embrace my arms or neck,
They, the spirits of friends, dead or alive—thicker they come, a great crowd, and I in the middle,
Collecting, dispensing, singing in spring, there I wander with them,
Plucking something for tokens—something for these, till I hit upon a name—tossing toward whoever is near me,
Here! lilac, with a branch of pine,
Here, out of my pocket, some moss which I pulled off a live-oak in Florida, as it hung trailing down,
Here, some pinks and laurel leaves, and a handful of sage,
And here what I now draw from the water, wading in the pond-side,
(O here I last saw him that tenderly loves me—and returns again, never to separate from me,
And this, O this shall henceforth be the token of comrades—this calamus-root shall,
Interchange it, youths, with each other! Let none render it back!)
And twigs of maple, and a bunch of wild orange, and chestnut,
And stems of currants, and plum-blows, and the aromatic cedar;
These I, compassed around by a thick cloud of spirits,
Wandering, point to, or touch as I pass, or throw them loosely from me,
Indicating to each one what he shall have—giving something to each,
But what I drew from the water by the pond-side, that I reserve,
I will give of it—but only to them that love, as I myself am capable of loving.

[5. States!]

[6. Not heaving from my ribbed breast only]

Not heaving from my ribbed breast only,
Not in sighs at night, in rage, dissatisfied with myself,
Not in those long-drawn, ill-suppressed sighs,
Not in many an oath and promise broken,
Not in my wilful and savage soul's volition,
Not in the subtle nourishment of the air,
Not in this beating and pounding at my temples and wrists,
Not in the curious systole and diastole within, which will one day cease,
Not in many a hungry wish, told to the skies only,
Not in cries, laughter, defiances, thrown from me when alone, far in the wilds,
Not in husky pantings through clenched teeth,
Not in sounded and resounded words—chattering words, echoes, dead words,
Not in the murmurs of my dreams while I sleep,
Nor the other murmurs of these incredible dreams of every day,
Nor in the limbs and senses of my body, that take you and dismiss you continually—Not there,
Not in any or all of them, O adhesiveness! O pulse of my life!
Need I that you exist and show yourself, any more than in these songs.

[7. Of the terrible question of appearances]

Of the terrible question of appearances,
Of the doubts, the uncertainties after all,
That may-be reliance and hope are but speculations after all,
That may-be identity beyond the grave is a beautiful fable only,
May-be the things I perceive—the animals, plants, men, hills, shining and flowing waters,
The skies of day and night—colors, densities, forms—May-be these are, (as doubtless they are,) only apparitions, and the real something has yet to be known,
(How often they dart out of themselves, as if to confound me and mock me!
How often I think neither I know, nor any man knows, aught of them;)
May-be they only seem to me what they are, (as doubtless they indeed but seem,) as from my present point of view—And might prove, (as of course they would,) naught of what they appear, or naught any how, from entirely changed points of view;
To me, these, and the like of these, are curiously answered by my lovers, my dear friends;
When he whom I love travels with me, or sits a long while holding me by the hand,
When the subtle air, the impalpable, the sense that words and reason hold not, surround us and pervade us,
Then I am charged with untold and untellable wisdom—I am silent—I require nothing further,
I cannot answer the question of appearances, or that of identity beyond the grave,
But I walk or sit indifferent—I am satisfied,
He ahold of my hand has completely satisfied me.

[8. Long I thought that knowledge alone would suffice me—O if I could but obtain knowledge!]

Long I thought that knowledge alone would suffice me—O if I could but obtain knowledge!
Then my lands engrossed me—Lands of the prairies, Ohio's land, the southern savannas, engrossed me—For them I would live—I would be their orator;
Then I met the examples of old and new heroes—I heard of warriors, sailors, and all dauntless persons—And it seemed to me that I too had it in me to be as dauntless as any—and would be so;
And then, to enclose all, it came to me to strike up the songs of the New World—And then I believed my life must be spent in singing;
But now take notice, land of the prairies, land of the south savannas, Ohio's land,
Take notice, you Kanuck woods—and you Lake Huron—and all that with you roll toward Niagara—and you Niagara also,
And you, Californian mountains—That you each and all find somebody else to be your singer of songs,
For I can be your singer of songs no longer—One who loves me is jealous of me, and withdraws me from all but love,
With the rest I dispense—I sever from what I thought would suffice me, for it does not—it is now empty and tasteless to me,
I heed knowledge, and the grandeur of The States, and the example of heroes, no more,
I am indifferent to my own songs—I will go with him I love,
It is to be enough for us that we are together—We never separate again.

[9. Hours continuing long, sore and heavy-hearted]

Hours continuing long, sore and heavy-hearted,
Hours of the dusk, when I withdraw to a lonesome and unfrequented spot, seating myself, leaning my face in my hands;
Hours sleepless, deep in the night, when I go forth, speeding swiftly the country roads, or through the city streets, or pacing miles and miles, stifling plaintive cries;
Hours discouraged, distracted—for the one I cannot content myself without, soon I saw him content himself without me;
Hours when I am forgotten, (O weeks and months are passing, but I believe I am never to forget!)
Sullen and suffering hours! (I am ashamed—but it is useless—I am what I am;)
Hours of my torment—I wonder if other men ever have the like, out of the like feelings?
Is there even one other like me—distracted—his friend, his lover, lost to him?
Is he too as I am now? Does he still rise in the morning, dejected, thinking who is lost to him? and at night, awaking, think who is lost?
Does he too harbor his friendship silent and endless? harbor his anguish and passion?
Does some stray reminder, or the casual mention of a name, bring the fit back upon him, taciturn and deprest?
Does he see himself reflected in me? In these hours, does he see the face of his hours reflected?

[10. You bards of ages hence! when you refer to me, mind not so much my poems]

You bards of ages hence! when you refer to me, mind not so much my poems,
Nor speak of me that I prophesied of The States, and led them the way of their glories;
But come, I will take you down underneath this impassive exterior—I will tell you what to say of me:
Publish my name and hang up my picture as that of the tenderest lover,
The friend, the lover's portrait, of whom his friend, his lover, was fondest,
Who was not proud of his songs, but of the measureless ocean of love within him—and freely poured it forth,
Who often walked lonesome walks, thinking of his dear friends, his lovers,
Who pensive, away from one he loved, often lay sleepless and dissatisfied at night,
Who knew too well the sick, sick dread lest the one he loved might secretly be indifferent to him,
Whose happiest days were far away, through fields, in woods, on hills, he and another, wandering hand in hand, they twain, apart from other men,
Who oft as he sauntered the streets, curved with his arm the shoulder of his friend—while the arm of his friend rested upon him also.

[11. When I heard at the close of the day how my name had been received with plaudits in the capitol, still it was not a happy night for me that followed]

When I heard at the close of the day how my name had been received with plaudits in the capitol, still it was not a happy night for me that followed;
And else, when I caroused, or when my plans were accomplished, still I was not happy;
But the day when I rose at dawn from the bed of perfect health, refreshed, singing, inhaling the ripe breath of autumn,
When I saw the full moon in the west grow pale and disappear in the morning light,
When I wandered alone over the beach, and, undressing, bathed, laughing with the cool waters, and saw the sun rise,
And when I thought how my dear friend, my lover, was on his way coming, O then I was happy;
O then each breath tasted sweeter—and all that day my food nourished me more—And the beautiful day passed well,
And the next came with equal joy—And with the next, at evening, came my friend;
And that night, while all was still, I heard the waters roll slowly continually up the shores,
I heard the hissing rustle of the liquid and sands, as directed to me, whispering, to congratulate me,
For the one I love most lay sleeping by me under the same cover in the cool night,
In the stillness, in the autumn moonbeams, his face was inclined toward me,
And his arm lay lightly around my breast—And that night I was happy.

[12. Are you the new person drawn toward me, and asking something significant from me?]

Are you the new person drawn toward me, and asking something significant from me?
To begin with, take warning—I am probably far different from what you suppose;
Do you suppose you will find in me your ideal?
Do you think it so easy to have me become your lover?
Do you think the friendship of me would be unalloyed satisfaction?
Do you suppose I am trusty and faithful?
Do you see no further than this façade—this smooth and tolerant manner of me?
Do you suppose yourself advancing on real ground toward a real heroic man?
Have you no thought, O dreamer, that it may be all maya, illusion? O the next step may precipitate you!
O let some past deceived one hiss in your ears, how many have prest on the same as you are pressing now,
How many have fondly supposed what you are supposing now—only to be disappointed.

[13. Calamus taste]

Calamus taste,
(For I must change the strain—these are not to be pensive leaves, but leaves of joy,)
Roots and leaves unlike any but themselves,
Scents brought to men and women from the wild woods, and from the pond-side,
Breast-sorrel and pinks of love—fingers that wind around tighter than vines,
Gushes from the throats of birds, hid in the foliage of trees, as the sun is risen,
Breezes of land and love—Breezes set from living shores out to you on the living sea—to you, O sailors!
Frost-mellowed berries, and Third Month twigs, offered fresh to young persons wandering out in the fields when the winter breaks up,
Love-buds, put before you and within you, whoever you are,
Buds to be unfolded on the old terms,
If you bring the warmth of the sun to them, they will open, and bring form, color, perfume, to you,
If you become the aliment and the wet, they will become flowers, fruits, tall branches and trees,
They are comprised in you just as much as in themselves—perhaps more than in themselves,
They are not comprised in one season or succession, but many successions,
They have come slowly up out of the earth and me, and are to come slowly up out of you.

[14. Not heat flames up and consumes]

Not heat flames up and consumes,
Not sea-waves hurry in and out,
Not the air, delicious and dry, the air of the ripe summer, bears lightly along white down-balls of myriads of seeds, wafted, sailing gracefully, to drop where they may,
Not these—O none of these, more than the flames of me, consuming, burning for his love whom I love!
O none, more than I, hurrying in and out;
Does the tide hurry, seeking something, and never give up? O I the same;
O nor down-balls, nor perfumes, nor the high rain-emitting clouds, are borne through the open air,
Any more than my Soul is borne through the open air,
Wafted in all directions, O love, for friendship, for you.

[15. O drops of me! trickle, slow drops]

O drops of me! trickle, slow drops,
Candid, from me falling—drip, bleeding drops,
From wounds made to free you whence you were prisoned,
From my face—from my forehead and lips,
From my breast—from within where I was concealed—Press forth, red drops—confession drops,
Stain every page—stain every song I sing, every word I say, bloody drops,
Let them know your scarlet heat—let them glisten,
Saturate them with yourself, all ashamed and wet,
Glow upon all I have written or shall write, bleeding drops,
Let it all be seen in your light, blushing drops.

[16. Who is now reading this?]

[17. Of him I love day and night, I dreamed I heard he was dead]

Of him I love day and night, I dreamed I heard he was dead,
And I dreamed I went where they had buried him I love—but he was not in that place,
And I dreamed I wandered, searching among burial-places, to find him,
And I found that every place was a burial-place,
The houses full of life were equally full of death, (This house is now,)
The streets, the shipping, the places of amusement, the Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, the Mannahatta, were as full of the dead as of the living,
And fuller, O vastly fuller, of the dead than of the living;
—And what I dreamed I will henceforth tell to every person and age,
And I stand henceforth bound to what I dreamed;
And now I am willing to disregard burial-places, and dispense with them,
And if the memorials of the dead were put up indifferently everywhere, even in the room where I eat or sleep, I should be satisfied,
And if the corpse of any one I love, or if my own corpse, be duly rendered to powder, and poured in the sea, I shall be satisfied,
Or if it be distributed to the winds, I shall be satisfied.

[18. City of my walks and joys!]

City of my walks and joys!
City whom that I have lived and sung there will one day make you illustrious,
Not the pageants of you—not your shifting tableaux, your spectacles, repay me,
Not the interminable rows of your houses—nor the ships at the wharves,
Nor the processions in the streets, nor the bright windows, with goods in them,
Nor to converse with learned persons, or bear my share in the soiree or feast;
Not those—but, as I pass, O Manhattan! your frequent and swift flash of eyes offering me love,
Offering me the response of my own—these repay me,
Lovers, continual lovers, only repay me.

[19. Mind you the the timid models of the rest, the majority?]

[20. I saw in Louisiana a live-oak growing]

I saw in Louisiana a live-oak growing,
All alone stood it, and the moss hung down from the branches,
Without any companion it grew there, uttering joyous leaves of dark green,
And its look, rude, unbending, lusty, made me think of myself,
But I wondered how it could utter joyous leaves, standing alone there, without its friend, its lover near—for I knew I could not,
And I broke off a twig with a certain number of leaves upon it, and twined around it a little moss,
And brought it away—and I have placed it in sight in my room,
It is not needed to remind me as of my own dear friends,
(For I believe lately I think of little else than of them,)
Yet it remains to me a curious token—it makes me think of manly love;
For all that, and though the live-oak glistens there in Louisiana, solitary, in a wide flat space,
Uttering joyous leaves all its life, without a friend, a lover, near,
I know very well I could not.

[21. Music always round me, unceasing, unbeginning—yet long untaught I did not hear]

Music always round me, unceasing, unbeginning—yet long untaught I did not hear,
But now the chorus I hear, and am elated,
A tenor, strong, ascending, with power and health, with glad notes of day-break I hear,
A soprano, at intervals, sailing buoyantly over the tops of immense waves,
A transparent base, shuddering lusciously under and through the universe,
The triumphant tutti—the funeral wailings, with sweet flutes and violins—All these I fill myself with;
I hear not the volumes of sound merely—I am moved by the exquisite meanings,
I listen to the different voices winding in and out, striving, contending with fiery vehemence to excel each other in emotion,
I do not think the performers know themselves—But now I think I begin to know them.

[22. Passing stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you]

Passing stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you,
You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking, (It comes to me, as of a dream,)
I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you,
All is recalled as we flit by each other, fluid, affectionate, chaste, matured,
You grew up with me, were a boy with me, or a girl with me,
I ate with you, and slept with you—your body has become not yours only, nor left my body mine only,
You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as we pass—you take of my beard, breast, hands, in return,
I am not to speak to you—I am to think of you when I sit alone, or wake at night alone,
I am to wait—I do not doubt I am to meet you again,
I am to see to it that I do not lose you.

[23. This moment as I sit alone, yearning and thoughtful, it seems to me there are other men in other lands, yearning and thoughtful]

This moment as I sit alone, yearning and thoughtful, it seems to me there are other men in other lands, yearning and thoughtful;
It seems to me I can look over and behold them, in Germany, Italy, France, Spain—Or far, far away, in China, or in Russia or India—talking other dialects;
And it seems to me if I could know those men better, I should become attached to them, as I do to men in my own lands,
It seems to me they are as wise, beautiful, benevolent, as any in my own lands;
O I know we should be brethren and lovers,
I know I should be happy with them.

[24. I hear it is charged against me that I seek to destroy institutions]

I hear it is charged against me that I seek to destroy institutions;
But really I am neither for nor against institutions,
(What indeed have I in common with them?—Or what with the destruction of them?)
Only I will establish in the Mannahatta, and in every city of These States, inland and seaboard,
And in the fields and woods, and above every keel little or large, that dents the water,
Without edifices, or rules, or trustees, or any argument,
The institution of the dear love of comrades.

[25. The prairie-grass dividing—its own odor breathing]

The prairie-grass dividing—its own odor breathing,
I demand of it the spiritual corresponding,
Demand the most copious and close companionship of men,
Demand the blades to rise of words, acts, beings,
Those of the open atmosphere, coarse, sunlit, fresh, nutritious,
Those that go their own gait, erect, stepping with freedom and command—leading, not following,
Those with a never-quell'd audacity—those with sweet and lusty flesh, clear of taint, choice and chary of its love-power,
Those that look carelessly in the faces of Presidents and Governors, as to say, Who are you?
Those of earth-born passion, simple, never constrained, never obedient,
Those of inland America.

[26. We two boys together clinging]

We two boys together clinging,
One the other never leaving,
Up and down the roads going—North and South excursions making,
Power enjoying—elbows stretching—fingers clutching,
Armed and fearless—eating, drinking, sleeping, loving,
No law less than ourselves owning—sailing, soldiering, thieving, threatening,
Misers, menials, priests alarming—air breathing, water drinking, on the turf or the sea-beach dancing,
With birds singing—With fishes swimming—With trees branching and leafing,
Cities wrenching, ease scorning, statutes mocking, feebleness chasing,
Fulfilling our foray.

[27. O love!]

O love!
O dying—always dying!
O the burials of me, past and present!
O me, while I stride ahead, material, visible, imperious as ever!
O me, what I was for years, now dead, (I lament not—I am content;)
O to disengage myself from those corpses of me, which I turn and look at, where I cast them!
To pass on, (O living! always living!) and leave the corpses behind!

[28. When I peruse the conquered fame of heroes, and the victories of mighty generals, I do not envy the generals]

When I peruse the conquered fame of heroes, and the victories of mighty generals, I do not envy the generals,
Nor the President in his Presidency, nor the rich in his great house;
But when I read of the brotherhood of lovers, how it was with them,
How through life, through dangers, odium, unchanging, long and long,
Through youth, and through middle and old age, how unfaltering, how affectionate and faithful they were,
Then I am pensive—I hastily put down the book, and walk away, filled with the bitterest envy.

[29. One flitting glimpse, caught through an interstice]

One flitting glimpse, caught through an interstice,
Of a crowd of workmen and drivers in a bar-room, around the stove, late of a winter night—And I unremarked, seated in a corner;
Of a youth who loves me, and whom I love, silently approaching, and seating himself near, that he may hold me by the hand;
A long while, amid the noises of coming and going—of drinking and oath and smutty jest,
There we two, content, happy in being together, speaking little, perhaps not a word.

[30. A promise and gift to California]

A promise and gift to California,
Also to the great Pastoral Plains, and for Oregon:
Sojourning east a while longer, soon I travel to you, to remain, to teach robust American love;
For I know very well that I and robust love belong among you, inland, and along the Western Sea,
For These States tend inland, and toward the Western Sea—and I will also.

[31. What ship, puzzled at sea, cons for the true reckoning?]

[32. What think you I take my pen in hand to record?]

What think you I take my pen in hand to record?
The battle-ship, perfect-model'd, majestic, that I saw pass the offing to-day under full sail?
The splendors of the past day? Or the splendor of the night that envelops me?
Or the vaunted glory and growth of the great city spread around me?—No;
But I record of two simple men I saw to-day, on the pier, in the midst of the crowd, parting the parting of dear friends,
The one to remain hung on the other's neck, and passionately kissed him,
While the one to depart, tightly prest the one to remain in his arms.

[33. No labor-saving machine]

No labor-saving machine,
Nor discovery have I made,
Nor will I be able to leave behind me any wealthy bequest to found a hospital or library,
Nor reminiscence of any deed of courage, for America,
Nor literary success, nor intellect—nor book for the book-shelf;
Only these carols, vibrating through the air, I leave,
For comrades and lovers.

[34. I dreamed in a dream, I saw a city invincible to the attacks of the whole of the rest of the earth]

I dreamed in a dream, I saw a city invincible to the attacks of the whole of the rest of the earth,
I dreamed that was the new City of Friends,
Nothing was greater there than the quality of robust love—it led the rest,
It was seen every hour in the actions of the men of that city,
And in all their looks and words.

[35. To you of New England]

To you of New England,
To the man of the Seaside State, and of Pennsylvania,
To the Kanadian of the north—to the Southerner I love,
These, with perfect trust, to depict you as myself—the germs are in all men;
I believe the main purport of These States is to found a superb friendship, exalté, previously unknown,
Because I perceive it waits, and has been always waiting, latent in all men.

[36. Earth! my likeness!]

Earth! my likeness!
Though you look so impassive, ample and spherie there,
I now suspect that is not all;
I now suspect there is something fierce in you, eligible to burst forth;
For an athlete is enamoured of me—and I of him,
But toward him there is something fierce and terrible in me, eligible to burst forth,
I dare not tell it in words—not even in these songs.

[37. A leaf for hand in hand!]

A leaf for hand in hand!
You natural persons old and young! You on the Eastern Sea, and you on the Western!
You on the Mississippi, and on all the branches and bayous of the Mississippi!
You friendly boatmen and mechanics! You roughs!
You twain! And all processions moving along the streets!
I wish to infuse myself among you till I see it common for you to walk hand in hand.

[38. Primeval my love for the woman I love]

Primeval my love for the woman I love,
O bride! O wife! more resistless, more enduring than I can tell, the thought of you!
Then separate, as disembodied, the purest born,
The ethereal, the last athletic reality, my consolation,
I ascend—I float in the regions of your love, O man,
O sharer of my roving life.

[39. Sometimes with one I love, I fill myself with rage, for fear I effuse unreturned love]

Sometimes with one I love, I fill myself with rage, for fear I effuse unreturned love;
But now I think there is no unreturned love—the pay is certain, one way or another,
Doubtless I could not have perceived the universe, or written one of my poems, if I had not freely given myself to comrades, to love.

[40. That shadow, my likeness, that goes to and fro, seeking a livelihood, chattering, chaffering]

That shadow, my likeness, that goes to and fro, seeking a livelihood, chattering, chaffering,
How often I find myself standing and looking at it where it flits,
How often I question and doubt whether that is really me;
But in these, and among my lovers, and carolling my songs,
O I never doubt whether that is really me.

[41. Among the men and women, the multitude, I perceive one picking me out by secret and divine signs]

[42. To the young man, many things to absorb, to engraft, to develop, I teach, to help him become élève of mine]

To the young man, many things to absorb, to engraft, to develop, I teach, to help him become élève of mine,
But if blood like mine circle not in his veins,
If he be not silently selected by lovers, and do not silently select lovers,
Of what use is it that he seek to become élève of mine?

[43. O you whom I often and silently come where you are, that I may be with you]

O you whom I often and silently come where you are, that I may be with you,
As I walk by your side, or sit near, or remain in the same room with you,
Little you know the subtle electric fire that for your sake is playing within me.

[44. Here my last words, and the most baffling]

Here my last words, and the most baffling,
Here the frailest leaves of me, and yet my strongest lasting,
Here I shade down and hide my thoughts—I do not expose them,
And yet they expose me more than all my other poems.

[45. Full of life, sweet-blooded, compact, visible]

CROSSING BROOKLYN FERRY.

LONGINGS FOR HOME.

O magnet-South! O glistening, perfumed South! My South!
O quick mettle, rich blood, impulse, and love! Good and evil! O all dear to me!
O dear to me my birth-things—All moving things, and the trees where I was born—the grains, plants, rivers;
Dear to me my own slow sluggish rivers where they flow, distant, over flats of silvery sands, or through swamps,
Dear to me the Roanoke, the Savannah, the Altamahaw, the Pedee, the Tombigbee, the Santee, the Coosa, and the Sabine;
O pensive, far away wandering, I return with my Soul to haunt their banks again,
Again in Florida I float on transparent lakes—I float on the Okeechobee—I cross the hummock land, or through pleasant openings, or dense forests,
I see the parrots in the woods—I see the papaw tree and the blossoming titi;
Again, sailing in my coaster, on deck, I coast off Georgia—I coast up the Carolinas,
I see where the live-oak is growing—I see where the yellow-pine, the scented bay-tree, the lemon and orange, the cypress,the graceful palmetto;
I pass rude sea-headlands and enter Pamlico Sound through an inlet, and dart my vision inland,
O the cotton plant! the growing fields of rice, sugar, hemp!
The cactus, guarded with thorns—the laurel-tree, with large white flowers,
The range afar—the richness and barrenness—the old woods charged with mistletoe and trailing moss,
The piney odor and the gloom—the awful natural stillness, (Here in these dense swamps the free booter carries his gun, and the fugitive slave has his concealed hut;)
O the strange fascination of these half-known, half-impassable swamps, infested by reptiles, resounding with the bellow of the alligator, the sad noises of the night-owl and the wild-cat, and the whirr of the rattlesnake;
The mocking-bird, the American mimic, singing all the forenoon—singing through the moon-lit night,
The humming-bird, the wild-turkey, the raccoon, the opossum;
A Tennessee corn-field—the tall, graceful, long-leaved corn—slender, flapping, bright green, with tassels—with beautiful ears, each well-sheathed in its husk,
An Arkansas prairie—a sleeping lake, or still bayou;
O my heart! O tender and fierce pangs—I can stand them not—I will depart;
O to be a Virginian, where I grew up! O to be a Carolinian!
O longings irrepressible! O I will go back to old Tennessee, and never wander more!

MESSENGER LEAVES.

To You, Whoever You Are.

To a Foiled Revolter or Revoltress.

To Him that was Crucified.

My spirit to yours, dear brother,
Do not mind because many, sounding your name, do not understand you,
I do not sound your name, but I understand you, (there are others also;)
I specify you with joy, O my comrade, to salute you, and to salute those who are with you, before and since—and those to come also,
That we all labor together, transmitting the same charge and succession;
We few, equals, indifferent of lands, indifferent of times,
We, enclosers of all continents, all castes—allowers of all theologies,
Compassionaters, perceivers, rapport of men,
We walk silent among disputes and assertions, but reject not the disputers, nor any thing that is asserted,
We hear the bawling and din—we are reached at by divisions, jealousies, recriminations on every side,
They close peremptorily upon us, to surround us, my comrade,
Yet we walk unheld, free, the whole earth over, journeying up and down, till we make our ineffaceable mark upon time and the diverse eras,
Till we saturate time and eras, that the men and women of races, ages to come, may prove brethren and lovers, as we are.

To One shortly To Die.

To a Common Prostitute.

To Rich Givers.

What you give me, I cheerfully accept,
A little sustenance, a hut and garden, a little money—these as I rendezvous with my poems,
A traveller's lodging and breakfast as I journey through The States—Why should I be ashamed to own such gifts? Why to advertise for them?
For I myself am not one who bestows nothing upon man and woman,
For I know that what I bestow upon any man or woman is no less than the entrance to all the gifts of the universe.

To a Pupil.

To The States, To Identify the 16th, 17th, or 18th Presidentiad.

Why reclining, interrogating? Why myself and all drowsing?
What deepening twilight! Scum floating atop of the waters!
Who are they, as bats and night-dogs, askant in the Capitol?
What a filthy Presidentiad! (O south, your torrid suns! O north, your arctic freezings!)
Are those really Congressmen? Are those the great Judges? Is that the President?
Then I will sleep a while yet—for I see that These States sleep, for reasons;
(With gathering murk—with muttering thunder and lambent shoots, we all duly awake,
South, north, east, west, inland and seaboard, we will surely awake.)

To a Cantatrice.

Here, take this gift!
I was reserving it for some hero, orator, or general,
One who should serve the good old cause, the progress and freedom of the race, the cause of my Soul;
But I see that what I was reserving belongs to you just as much as to any.

Walt Whitman's Caution.

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 afterward resumes its liberty.

To a President.

All you are doing and saying is to America dangled mirages,
You have not learned of Nature—of the politics of Nature, you have not learned the great amplitude, rectitude, impartiality,
You have not seen that only such as they are for These States,
And that what is less than they, must sooner or later lift off from These States.

To other Lands.

I hear you have been asking for something to represent the new race, our self-poised Democracy,
Therefore I send you my poems, that you behold in them what you wanted.

To Old Age.

I see in you the estuary that enlarges and spreads itself grandly as it pours in the great sea.

To You.

Let us twain walk aside from the rest;
Now we are together privately, do you discard ceremony,
Come! vouchsafe to me what has yet been vouchsafed to none—Tell me the whole story,
Tell me what you would not tell your brother, wife, husband, or physician.

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?

MANNAHATTA.

I was asking for something specific and perfect for my city, and behold! here is the aboriginal name!
Now I see what there is in a name, a word, liquid, sane, unruly, musical, self-sufficient,
I see that the word of my city, is that word up there,
Because I see that word nested in nests of water-bays, superb, with tall and wonderful spires,
Rich, hemmed thick all around with sailships and steamships—an island sixteen miles long, solid-founded,
Numberless crowded streets—high growths of iron, slender, strong, light, splendidly uprising toward clear skies;
Tides swift and ample, well-loved by me, toward sundown,
The flowing sea-currents, the little islands, the larger adjoining islands, the heights, the villas,
The countless masts, the white shore-steamers, the lighters, the ferry-boats, the black sea-steamers, well-model'd;
The down-town streets, the jobbers' houses of business—the houses of business of the ship-merchants, and money-brokers—the river-streets,
Immigrants arriving, fifteen or twenty thousand in a week,
The carts hauling goods—the manly race of drivers of horses—the brown-faced sailors,
The summer-air, the bright sun shining, and the sailing clouds aloft,
The winter snows, the sleigh-bells—the broken ice in the river, passing along, up or down, with the flood-tide or ebb-tide;
The mechanics of the city, the masters, well-formed, beautiful-faced, looking you straight in the eyes;
Trottoirs thronged—vehicles—Broadway—the women—the shops and shows,
The parades, processions, bugles playing, flags flying, drums beating;
A million people—manners free and superb—open voices—hospitality—the most courageous and friendly young men;
The free city! no slaves! no owners of slaves!
The beautiful city! the city of hurried and sparkling waters! the city of spires and masts!
The city nested in bays! my city!
The city of such women, I am mad to be with them! I will return after death to be with them!
The city of such young men, I swear I cannot live happy, without I often go talk, walk, eat, drink, sleep, with them!

FRANCE, The 18th Year of These States.

THOUGHTS.

[1. Of the visages of things—And of piercing through to the accepted hells beneath]

Of the visages of things—And of piercing through to the accepted hells beneath;
Of ugliness—To me there is just as much in it as there is in beauty—And now the ugliness of human beings is acceptable to me;
Of detected persons—To me, detected persons are not, in any respect, worse than undetected persons—and are not in any respect worse than I am myself;
Of criminals—To me, any judge, or any juror, is equally criminal—and any reputable person is also—and the President is also.

[2. Of waters, forests, hills]

Of waters, forests, hills,
Of the earth at large, whispering through medium of me;
Of vista—Suppose some sight in arriere, through the formative chaos, presuming the growth, fulness, life, now attained on the journey;
(But I see the road continued, and the journey ever continued;)
Of what was once lacking on the earth, and in due time has become supplied—And of what will yet be supplied,
Because all I see and know, I believe to have purport in what will yet be supplied.

[3. Of persons arrived at high positions, ceremonies, wealth, scholarships, and the like]

Of persons arrived at high positions, ceremonies, wealth, scholarships, and the like,
To me, all that those persons have arrived at, sinks away from them, except as it results to their bodies and Souls,
So that often to me they appear gaunt and naked,
And often, to me, each one mocks the others, and mocks himself or herself,
And of each one, the core of life, namely happiness, is full of the rotten excrement of maggots,
And often, to me, those men and women pass unwittingly the true realities of life, and go toward false realities,
And often, to me, they are alive after what custom has served them, but nothing more,
And often, to me, they are sad, hasty, unwaked sonnambules, walking the dusk.

[4. Of ownership—As if one fit to own things could not at pleasure enter upon all, and incorporate them into himself or herself]

Of ownership—As if one fit to own things could not at pleasure enter upon all, and incorporate them into himself or herself;
Of Equality—As if it harmed me, giving others the same chances and rights as myself—As if it were not indispensable to my own rights that others possess the same;
Of Justice—As if Justice could be any thing but the same ample law, expounded by natural judges and saviours,
As if it might be this thing or that thing, according to decisions.

[5. As I sit with others, at a great feast, suddenly, while the music is playing]

As I sit with others, at a great feast, suddenly, while the music is playing,
To my mind, (whence it comes I know not,) spectral, in mist, of a wreck at sea,
Of the flower of the marine science of fifty generations, foundered off the Northeast coast, and going down—Of the steamship Arctic going down,
Of the veiled tableau—Women gathered together on deck, pale, heroic, waiting the moment that draws so close—O the moment!
O the huge sob—A few bubbles—the white foam spirting up—And then the women gone,
Sinking there, while the passionless wet flows on—And I now pondering, Are those women indeed gone?
Are Souls drowned and destroyed so?
Is only matter triumphant?

[6. Of what I write from myself—As if that were not the resumé]

Of what I write from myself—As if that were not the resumé;
Of Histories—As if such, however complete, were not less complete than my poems;
As if the shreds, the records of nations, could possibly be as lasting as my poems;
As if here were not the amount of all nations, and of all the lives of heroes.

[7. Of obedience, faith, adhesiveness]

Of obedience, faith, adhesiveness;
As I stand aloof and look, there is to me something profoundly affecting in large masses of men, following the lead of those who do not believe in men.

UNNAMED LANDS.

KOSMOS.

Who includes diversity, and is Nature,
Who is the amplitude of the earth, and the coarseness and sexuality of the earth, and the great charity of the earth, and the equilibrium also,
Who has not looked forth from the windows, the eyes, for nothing, or whose brain held audience with messengers for nothing;
Who contains believers and disbelievers—Who is the most majestic lover;
Who holds duly his or her triune proportion of realism, spiritualism, and of the æsthetic, or intellectual,
Who, having considered the body, finds all its organs and parts good;
Who, out of the theory of the earth, and of his or her body, understands by subtle analogies, the theory of a city, a poem, and of the large politics of These States;
Who believes not only in our globe, with its sun and moon, but in other globes, with their suns and moons;
Who, constructing the house of himself or herself, not for a day, but for all time, sees races, eras, dates, generations,
The past, the future, dwelling there, like space, inseparable together.

A HAND-MIRROR.

Holdit up sternly! See this it sends back! (Who is it? Is it you?)
Outside fair costume—within, ashes and filth,
No more a flashing eye—no more a sonorous voice or springy step,
Now some slave's eye, voice, hands, step,
A drunkard's breath, unwholesome eater's face, venerealee's flesh,
Lungs rotting away piecemeal, stomach sour and cankerous,
Joints rheumatic, bowels clogged with abomination,
Blood circulating dark and poisonous streams,
Words babble, hearing and touch callous,
No brain, no heart left—no magnetism of sex;
Such, from one look in this looking-glass ere you go hence,
Such a result so soon—and from such a beginning!

BEGINNERS.

How they are provided for upon the earth, (appearing at intervals,)
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 reward,
And how the same inexorable price must still be paid for the same great purchase.

TESTS.

All submit to them, where they sit, inner, secure, unapproachable to analysis, in the Soul;
Not traditions—not the outer authorities are the judges—they are the judges of outer authorities, and of all traditions,
They corroborate as they go, only whatever corroborates themselves, and touches themselves,
For all that, they have it forever in themselves to corroborate far and near, without one exception.

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, establishments, 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.

PERFECTIONS.

Only themselves understand themselves, and the like of themselves,
As Souls only understand Souls.

SAYS.

DEBRIS.

[He is wisest who has the most caution]

He is wisest who has the most caution,
He only wins who goes far enough.

[Any thing is as good as established, when that is established that will produce it and continue it]

Any thing is as good as established, when that is established that will produce it and continue it.

[What General has a good army in himself, has a good army]

What General has a good army in himself, has a good army;
He happy in himself, or she happy in herself, is happy,
But I tell you you cannot be happy by others, any more than you can beget or conceive a child by others.

[Have you learned lessons only of those who admired you, and were tender with you, and stood aside for you?]

Have you learned lessons only of those who admired you, and were tender with you, and stood aside for you?
Have you not learned the great lessons of those who rejected you, and braced themselves against you? or who treated you with contempt, or disputed the passage with you?
Have you had no practice to receive opponents when they come?

[Despairing cries float ceaselessly toward me, day and night]

Despairing cries float ceaselessly toward me, day and night,
The sad voice of Death—the call of my nearest lover, putting forth, alarmed, uncertain,
This sea I am quickly to sail, come tell me,
Come tell me where I am speeding—tell me my destination.

[I understand your anguish, but I cannot help you]

I understand your anguish, but I cannot help you,
I approach, hear, behold—the sad mouth, the look out of the eyes, your mute inquiry,
Whither I go from the bed I now recline on, come tell me;
Old age, alarmed, uncertain—A young woman's voice appealing to me, for comfort,
A young man's voice, Shall I not escape?

[A thousand perfect men and women appear]

A thousand perfect men and women appear,
Around each gathers a cluster of friends, and gay children and youths, with offerings.

[A mask—a perpetual natural disguiser of herself]

A mask—a perpetual natural disguiser of herself,
Concealing her face, concealing her form,
Changes and transformations every hour, every moment,
Falling upon her even when she sleeps.

[One sweeps by, attended by an immense train]

One sweeps by, attended by an immense train,
All emblematic of peace—not a soldier or menial among them.

[One sweeps by, old, with black eyes, and profuse white hair]

One sweeps by, old, with black eyes, and profuse white hair,
He has the simple magnificence of health and strength,
His face strikes as with flashes of lightning whoever it turns toward.

[Three old men slowly pass, followed by three others, and they by three others]

Three old men slowly pass, followed by three others, and they by three others,
They are beautiful—the one in the middle of each group holds his companions by the hand,
As they walk, they give out perfume wherever they walk.

[Women sit, or move to and fro—some old, some young]

Women sit, or move to and fro—some old, some young,
The young are beautiful—but the old are more beautiful than the young.

[What weeping face is that looking from the window?]

What weeping face is that looking from the window?
Why does it stream those sorrowful tears?
Is it for some burial place, vast and dry?
Is it to wet the soil of graves?

[I will take an egg out of the robin's nest in the orchard]

I will take an egg out of the robin's nest in the orchard,
I will take a branch of gooseberries from the old bush in the garden, and go and preach to the world;
You shall see I will not meet a single heretic or scorner,
You shall see how I stump clergymen, and confound them,
You shall see me showing a scarlet tomato, and a white pebble from the beach.

[Behavior—fresh, native, copious, each one for himself or herself]

Behavior—fresh, native, copious, each one for himself or herself,
Nature and the Soul expressed—America and freedom expressed—In it the finest art,
In it pride, cleanliness, sympathy, to have their chance,
In it physique, intellect, faith—in it just as much as to manage an army or a city, or to write a book—perhaps more,
The youth, the laboring person, the poor person, rivalling all the rest—perhaps outdoing the rest,
The effects of the universe no greater than its;
For there is nothing in the whole universe that can be more effective than a man's or woman's daily behavior can be,
In any position, in any one of These States.

[Not the pilot has charged himself to bring his ship into port, though beaten back, and many times baffled]

Not the pilot has charged himself to bring his ship into port, though beaten back, and many times baffled,
Not the path-finder, penetrating inland, weary and long,
By deserts parched, snows chilled, rivers wet, perseveres till he reaches his destination,
More than I have charged myself, heeded or unheeded, to compose a free march for These States,
To be exhilarating music to them, years, centuries hence.

[I thought I was not alone, walking here by the shore]

I thought I was not alone, walking here by the shore,
But the one I thought was with me, as now I walk by the shore,
As I lean and look through the glimmering light—that one has utterly disappeared,
And those appear that perplex me.

SLEEP-CHASINGS.

BURIAL.

TO MY SOUL.

So long!