Leaves of grass (1872) :: :: University of Virginia Library

As I a sat alone, by blue Ontario's shore,
As I mused of these mighty days, and of peace return'd, and the dead that return no more,
A Phantom, gigantic, superb, with stern visage, accosted me;
Chant me the poem, it said, that comes from the soul of America—chant me the carol of victory;
And strike up the marches of Libertad—marches more powerful yet;
And sing me before you go, the song of the throes of Democracy.

2

(Democracy—the destin'd conqueror—yet treacherous lip-smiles everywhere,
And Death and infidelity at every step.)

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3

A Nation announcing itself,
I myself make the only growth by which I can be appreciated,
I reject none, accept all, then reproduce all in my own forms.

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4

A breed whose proof is in time and deeds;
What we are, we are—nativity is answer enough to objections;
We wield ourselves as a weapon is wielded,
We are powerful and tremendous in ourselves,
We are executive in ourselves—We are sufficient in the variety of ourselves,
We are the most beautiful to ourselves, and in ourselves
We stand self-pois'd in the middle, branching thence over the world;
From Missouri, Nebraska, or Kansas, laughing attacks to scorn.

5

Nothing is sinful to us outside of ourselves,
Whatever appears, whatever does not appear, we are beautiful or sinful in ourselves only.

6

(O mother! O sisters dear!
If we are lost, no victor else has destroy'd us;
It is by ourselves we go down to eternal night.)

3

7

Have you thought there could be but a single Supreme?
There can be any number of Supremes—One does not countervail another, any more than one eyesight countervails another, or one life countervails another.

8

All is eligible to all,
All is for individuals—All is for you,
No condition is prohibited—not God's, or any.

9

All comes by the body—only health puts you rapport with the universe.

10

Produce great persons, the rest follows.

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11

America isolated I sing;
I say that works made here in the spirit of other lands, are so much poison in The States.

12

(How dare such insects as we see assume to write poems for America?
For our victorious armies, and the offspring following the armies?)

13

Piety and conformity to them that like.
Peace, obesity, allegiance, to them that like!
I am he who tauntingly compels men, women, nations,
Crying, Leap from your seats, and contend for your lives!

14

I am he who walks the States with a barb'd tongue, questioning every one I meet;
Who are you, that wanted only to be told what you knew before?
Who are you, that wanted only a book to join you in your nonsense?

15

(With pangs and cries, as thine own, O bearer of many children!
These clamors wild, to a race of pride I give.)

16

O lands! would you be freer than all that has ever been before?
If you would be freer than all that has been before, come listen to me.

17

Fear grace—Fear elegance, civilization, delicatesse,
Fear the mellow sweet, the sucking of honey-juice;
Beware the advancing mortal ripening of nature,
Beware what precedes the decay of the ruggedness of states and men.

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18

Ages, precedents, have long been accumulating undirected materials,
America brings builders, and brings its own styles.

19

The immortal poets of Asia and Europe have done their work, and pass'd to other spheres,
A work remains, the work of surpassing all they have done.

20

America, curious toward foreign characters, stands by its own at all hazards,
Stands removed, spacious, composite, sound—initiates the true use of precedents,
Does not repel them, or the past, or what they have produced under their forms,
Takes the lesson with calmness, perceives the corpse slowly borne from the house,
Perceives that it waits a little while in the door—that it was fittest for its days,
That its life has descended to the stalwart and well-shaped heir who approaches,
And that he shall be fittest for his days.

21

Any period, one nation must lead,
One land must be the promise and reliance of the future.

22

These States are the amplest poem,
Here is not merely a nation, but a teeming nation of nations,
Here the doings of men correspond with the broadcast doings of the day and night,
Here is what moves in magnificent masses, careless of particulars,
Here are the roughs, beards, friendliness, combativeness, the Soul loves,
Here the flowing trains—here the crowds, equality, diversity, the Soul loves.

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23

Land of lands, and bards to corroborate!
Of them, standing among them, one lifts to the light his west-bred face,
To him the hereditary countenance bequeath'd, both mother's and father's,
His first parts substances, earth, water, animals, trees,
Built of the common stock, having room for far and near,
Used to dispense with other lands, incarnating this land,
Attracting it Body and Soul to himself, hanging on its neck with incomparable love,
Plunging his seminal muscle into its merits and demerits,
Making its cities, beginnings, events, diversities, wars, vocal in him,
Making its rivers, lakes, bays, embouchure in him,
Mississippi with yearly freshets and changing chutes—Columbia, Niagara, Hudson, spending themselves lovingly in him,
If the Atlantic coast stretch, or the Pacific coast stretch, he stretching with them north or south,
Spanning between them, east and west, and touching whatever is between them,
Growths growing from him to offset the growth of pine, cedar, hemlock, live-oak, locust, chestnut, hickory, cotton-wood, orange, magnolia,
Tangles as tangled in him as any cane-brake or swamp,
He likening sides and peaks of mountains, forests coated with northern transparent ice,
Off him pasturage sweet and natural as savanna, upland, prairie,
Through him flights, whirls, screams, answering those of the fish-hawk, mocking-bird, night-heron, and eagle;
His spirit surrounding his country's spirit, unclosed to good and evil,
Surrounding the essences of real things, old times and present times,

314

Surrounding just found shores, islands, tribes of red aborigines,
Weather-beaten vessels, landings, settlements, embryo stature and muscle,
The haughty defiance of the Year 1—war, peace, the formation of the Constitution,
The separate States, the simple, elastic scheme, the immigrants,
The Union, always swarming with blatherers, and always sure and impregnable,
The unsurvey'd interior, log-houses, clearings, wild animals, hunters, trappers;
Surrounding the multiform agriculture, mines, temperature, the gestation of new States,
Congress convening every Twelfth-month, the members duly coming up from the uttermost parts;
Surrounding the noble character of mechanics and farmers, especially the young men,
Responding their manners, speech, dress, friendships—the gait they have of persons who never knew how it felt to stand in the presence of superiors,
The freshness and candor of their physiognomy, the copiousness and decision of their phrenology,
The picturesque looseness of their carriage, their fierceness when wrong'd,
The fluency of their speech, their delight in music, their curiosity, good temper, and open-handedness—the whole composite make,
The prevailing ardor and enterprise, the large amativeness,
The perfect equality of the female with the male, the fluid movement of the population,
The superior marine, free commerce, fisheries, whaling, gold-digging,
Wharf-hemm'd cities, railroad and steamboat lines, intersecting all points,
Factories, mercantile life, labor-saving machinery, the north-east, north-west, south-west,
Manhattan firemen, the Yankee swap, southern plantation life,

315

Slavery—the murderous, treacherous conspiracy to raise it upon the ruins of all the rest;
On and on to the grapple with it—Assassin! then your life or ours be the stake—and respite no more.

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(Lo! high toward heaven, this day,
Libertad! from the conqueress' field return'd,
I mark the new aureola around your head;
No more of soft astral, but dazzling and fierce,
With war's flames, and the lambent lightnings playing,
And your port immovable where you stand;
With still the inextinguishable glance, and the clench'd and lifted fist,
And your foot on the neck of the menacing one, the scorner, utterly crush'd beneath you;
The menacing, arrogant one, that strode and advanced with his senseless scorn, bearing the murderous knife;
—Lo! the wide swelling one, the braggart, that would yesterday do so much!
To-day a carrion dead and damn'd, the despised of all the earth!
An offal rank, to the dunghill maggots spurn'd.)

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Others take finish, but the Republic is ever constructive, and ever keeps vista;
Others adorn the past—but you, O days of the present, I adorn you!
O days of the future, I believe in you! I isolate myself for your sake;
O America, because you build for mankind, I build for you!
O well-beloved stone-cutters! I lead them who plan with decision and science,
I lead the present with friendly hand toward the future.

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Bravas to all impulses sending sane children to the next age!
But damn that which spends itself, with no thought of the stain, pains, dismay, feebleness, it is bequeathing.

9

27

I listened to the Phantom by Ontario's shore,
I heard the voice arising, demanding bards;
By them, all native and grand—by them alone can The States be fused into the compact organism of a Nation.

28

To hold men together by paper and seal, or by compulsion, is no account;
That only holds men together which aggregates all in a living principle, as the hold of the limbs of the body, or the fibres of plants.

29

Of all races and eras, These States, with veins full of poetical stuff, most need poets, and are to have the greatest, and use them the greatest;
Their Presidents shall not be their common referee so much as their poets shall.

30

(Soul of love, and tongue of fire!
Eye to pierce the deepest deeps, and sweep the world!
—Ah, mother! prolific and full in all besides—yet how long barren, barren?)

10

31

Of These States, the poet is the equable man,
Not in him, but off from him, things are grotesque, eccentric, fail of their full returns,
Nothing out of its place is good, nothing in its place is bad,
He bestows on every object or quality its fit proportion, neither more nor less,
He is the arbiter of the diverse, he is the key,
He is the equalizer of his age and land,

317

He supplies what wants supplying—he checks what wants checking,
In peace, out of him speaks the spirit of peace, large, rich, thrifty, building populous towns, encouraging agriculture, arts, commerce, lighting the study of man, the Soul, health, immortality, government;
In war, he is the best backer of the war—he fetches artillery as good as the engineer's—he can make every word he speaks draw blood;
The years straying toward infidelity, he withholds by his steady faith,
He is no arguer, he is judgment—(Nature accepts him absolutely;)
He judges not as the judge judges, but as the sun falling round a helpless thing;
As he sees the farthest, he has the most faith,
His thoughts are the hymns of the praise of things,
In the dispute on God and eternity he is silent,
He sees eternity less like a play with a prologue and denouement,
He sees eternity in men and women—he does not see men and women as dreams or dots.

32

For the great Idea, the idea of perfect and free individuals,
For that idea, the bard walks in advance, leader of leaders,
The attitude of him cheers up slaves, and horrifies foreign despots.

33

Without extinction is Liberty! without retrograde is Equality!
They live in the feelings of young men, and the best women;
Not for nothing have the indomitable heads of the earth been always ready to fall for Liberty.

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For the great Idea!
That, O my brethren—that is the mission of Poets.

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Songs of stern defiance, ever ready,
Songs of the rapid arming, and the march,
The flag of peace quick-folded, and instead, the flag we know,
Warlike flag of the great Idea.

36

(Angry cloth I saw there leaping!
I stand again in leaden rain, your flapping folds saluting;
I sing you over all, flying, beckoning through the fight—O the hard-contested fight!
O the cannons ope their rosy-flashing muzzles! the hurtled balls scream!
The battle-front forms amid the smoke—the volleys pour incessant from the line;
Hark! the ringing word, Charge!—now the tussle, and the furious maddening yells;
Now the corpses tumble curl'd upon the ground,
Cold, cold in death, for precious life of you,
Angry cloth I saw there leaping.)

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37

Are you he who would assume a place to teach, or be a poet here in The States?
The place is august—the terms obdurate.

38

Who would assume to teach here, may well prepare himself, body and mind,
He may well survey, ponder, arm, fortify, harden, make lithe, himself,
He shall surely be question'd beforehand by me with many and stern questions.

39

Who are you, indeed, who would talk or sing to America?
Have you studied out the land, its idioms and men?
Have you learn'd the physiology, phrenology, politics, geography, pride, freedom, friendship, of the land? its substratums and objects?

319

Have you consider'd the organic compact of the first day of the first year of Independence, sign'd by the Commissioners, ratified by The States, and read by Washington at the head of the army?
Have you possess'd yourself of the Federal Constitution?
Do you see who have left all feudal processes and poems behind them, and assumed the poems and processes of Democracy?
Are you faithful to things? do you teach as the land and sea, the bodies of men, womanhood, amativeness, angers, teach?
Have you sped through fleeting customs, popularities?
Can you hold your hand against all seductions, follies, whirls, fierce contentions? are you very strong? are you really of the whole people?
Are you not of some coterie? some school or mere religion?
Are you done with reviews and criticisms of life? animating now to life itself?
Have you vivified yourself from the maternity of These States?
Have you too the old, ever-fresh, forbearance and impartiality?
Do you hold the like love for those hardening to maturity; for the last-born? little and big? and for the errant?

40

What is this you bring my America?
Is it uniform with my country?
Is it not something that has been better told or done before?
Have you not imported this, or the spirit of it, in some ship?
Is it not a mere tale? a rhyme? a prettiness? is the good old cause in it?
Has it not dangled long at the heels of the poets, politicians, literats, of enemies' lands?
Does it not assume that what is notoriously gone is still here?
Does it answer universal needs? will it improve manners?

320

Does it sound, with trumpet-voice, the proud victory of the Union, in that secession war?
Can your performance face the open fields and the seaside?
Will it absorb into me as I absorb food, air—to appear again in my strength, gait, face?
Have real employments contributed to it? original makers—not mere amanuenses?
Does it meet modern discoveries, calibers, facts, face to face?
What does it mean to me? to American persons, progresses, cities? Chicago, Kanada, Arkansas? the planter, Yankee, Georgian, native, immigrant, sailors, squatters, old States, new States?
Does it encompass all The States, and the unexceptional rights of all the men and women of the earth? (the genital impulse of These States;)
Does it see behind the apparent custodians, the real custodians, standing, menacing, silent—the mechanics, Manhattanese, western men, southerners, significant alike in their apathy, and in the promptness of their love?
Does it see what finally befalls, and has always finally befallen, each temporizer, patcher, outsider, partialist, alarmist, infidel, who has ever ask'd anything of America?
What mocking and scornful negligence?
The track strew'd with the dust of skeletons;
By the roadside others disdainfully toss'd.

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Rhymes and rhymers pass away—poems distill'd from foreign poems pass away,
The swarms of reflectors and the polite pass, and leave ashes;
Admirers, importers, obedient persons, make but the soil of literature;
America justifies itself, give it time—no disguise can deceive it, or conceal from it—it is impassive enough,

321

Only toward the likes of itself will it advance to meet them,
If its poets appear, it will in due time advance to meet them—there is no fear of mistake,
(The proof of a poet shall be sternly deferr'd, till his country absorbs him as affectionately as he has absorb'd it.)

42

He masters whose spirit masters—he tastes sweetest who results sweetest in the long run;
The blood of the brawn beloved of time is unconstraint;
In the need of poems, philosophy, politics, manners, engineering, an appropriate native grand-opera, shiperaft, any craft, he or she is greatest who contributes the greatest original practical example.

43

Already a nonchalant breed, silently emerging, appears on the streets,
People's lips salute only doers, lovers, satisfiers, positive knowers;
There will shortly be no more priests—I say their work is done,
Death is without emergencies here, but life is perpetual emergencies here,
Are your body, days, manners, superb? after death you shall be superb;
Justice, health, self-esteem, clear the way with irresistible power;
How dare you place anything before a man?

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44

Fall behind me, States!
A man before all—myself, typical, before all.

45

Give me the pay I have served for!
Give me to sing the song of the great Idea! take all the rest;
I have loved the earth, sun, animals—I have despised riches,

322

I have given alms to every one that ask'd, stood up for the stupid and crazy, devoted my income and labor to others,
I have hated tyrants, argued not concerning God, had patience and indulgence toward the people, taken off my hat to nothing known or unknown,
I have gone freely with powerful uneducated persons, and with the young, and with the mothers of families,
I have read these leaves to myself in the open air—I have tried them by trees, stars, rivers,
I have dismiss'd whatever insulted my own Soul or defiled my Body,
I have claim'd nothing to myself which I have not carefully claim'd for others on the same terms,
I have sped to the camps, and comrades found and accepted from every State;
(In war of you, as well as peace, my suit is good, America—sadly I boast;
Upon this breast has many a dying soldier lean'd, to breathe his last;
This arm, this hand, this voice, have nourish'd, rais'd, restored,
To life recalling many a prostrate form:)
—I am willing to wait to be understood by the growth of the taste of myself,
I reject none, I permit all.

46

(Say, O mother! have I not to your thought been faithful?
Have I not, through life, kept you and yours before me?)

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47

I swear I begin to see the meaning of these things!
It is not the earth, it is not America, who is so great,
It is I who am great, or to be great—it is you up there, or any one;
It is to walk rapidly through civilizations, governments, theories,

323

Through poems, pageants, shows, to form great individuals.

48

Underneath all, individuals!
I swear nothing is good to me now that ignores individuals,
The American compact is altogether with individuals,
The only government is that which makes minute of individuals,
The whole theory of the universe is directed to one single individual—namely, to You.

49

(Mother! with subtle sense severe—with the naked sword in your hand,
I saw you at last refuse to treat but directly with individuals.)

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50

Underneath all, nativity,
I swear I will stand by my own nativity—pious or impious, so be it;
I swear I am charm'd with nothing except nativity,
Men, women, cities, nations, are only beautiful from nativity.

51

Underneath all is the need of the expression of love for men and women,
I swear I have seen enough of mean and impotent modes of expressing love for men and women,
After this day I take my own modes of expressing love for men and women.

52

I swear I will have each quality of my race in myself,
(Talk as you like, he only suits These States whose manners favor the audacity and sublime turbulence of The States.)

53

Underneath the lessons of things, spirits, Nature, governments, ownerships, I swear I perceive other lessons,

324

Underneath all, to me is myself—to you, yourself—(the same monotonous old song.)

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54

O I see now, flashing, that this America is only you and me,
Its power, weapons, testimony, are you and me,
Its crimes, lies, thefts, defections, slavery, are you and me,
Its Congress is you and me—the officers, capitols, armies, ships, are you and me,
Its endless gestations of new States are you and me,
The war—that war so bloody and grim—the war I will henceforth forget—was you and me,
Natural and artificial are you and me,
Freedom, language, poems, employments, are you and me,
Past, present, future, are you and me.

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55

I swear I dare not shirk any part of myself,
Not any part of America, good or bad,
Not the promulgation of Liberty—not to cheer up slaves and horrify foreign despots,
Not to build for that which builds for mankind,
Not to balance ranks, complexions, creeds, and the sexes,
Not to justify science, nor the march of equality,
Nor to feed the arrogant blood of the brawn beloved of time.

56

I swear I am for those that have never been master'd!
For men and women whose tempers have never been master'd,
For those whom laws, theories, conventions, can never master.

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57

I swear I am for those who walk abreast with the whole earth!
Who inaugurate one, to inaugurate all.

58

I swear I will not be outfaced by irrational things!
I will penetrate what it is in them that is sarcastic upon me!
I will make cities and civilizations defer to me!
This is what I have learnt from America—it is the amount—and it I teach again.

59

(Democracy! while weapons were everywhere aim'd at your breast,
I saw you serenely give birth to immortal children—saw in dreams your dilating form;
Saw you with spreading mantle covering the world.)

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60

I will confront these shows of the day and night!
I will know if I am to be less than they!
I will see if I am not as majestic as they!
I will see if I am not as subtle and real as they!
I will see if I am to be less generous than they!

61

I will see if I have no meaning, while the houses and ships have meaning!
I will see if the fishes and birds are to be enough for themselves, and I am not to be enough for myself.

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62

I match my spirit against yours, you orbs, growths, mountains, brutes,
Copious as you are, I absorb you all in myself, and become the master myself.

63

America isolated, yet embodying all, what is it finally except myself?
These States—what are they except myself?

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64

I know now why the earth is gross, tantalizing, wicked—it is for my sake,
I take you to be mine, you beautiful, terrible, rude forms.

65

(Mother! bend down, bend close to me your face!
I know not what these plots and wars, and deferments are for;
I know not fruition's success—but I know that through war and peace your work goes on, and must yet go on.)

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66

......Thus, by blue Ontario's shore,
While the winds fann'd me, and the waves came trooping toward me,
I thrill'd with the Power's pulsations—and the charm of my theme was upon me,
Till the tissues that held me, parted their ties upon me.

67

And I saw the free Souls of poets;
The loftiest bards of past ages strode before me,
Strange, large men, long unwaked, undisclosed, were disclosed to me.

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68

O my rapt verse, my call—mock me not!
Not for the bards of the past—not to invoke them have I launch'd you forth,
Not to call even those lofty bards here by Ontario's shores,
Have I sung, so capricious and loud, my savage song.

69

Bards for my own land, only, I invoke;
(For the war, the war is over—the field is clear'd,)
Till they strike up marches henceforth triumphant and onward,
To cheer, O mother, your boundless, expectant soul.

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Bards grand as these days so grand!
Bards of the great Idea! Bards of the peaceful inventions! (for the war, the war is over!)
Yet Bards of the latent armies—a million soldiers waiting ever-ready,
Bards towering like hills—(no more these dots, these pigmies, these little piping straws, these gnats, that fill the hour, to pass for poets;)
Bards with songs as from burning coals, or the lightning's fork'd stripes!
Ample Ohio's bards—bards for California! inland bards—bards of the war;
(As a wheel turns on its axle, so I find my chants turning finally on the war;)
Bards of pride! Bards tallying the ocean's roar, and the swooping eagle's scream!
You, by my charm, I invoke!

Pioneers! O Pioneers!

1

Come, my tan-faced children,
Follow well in order, get your weapons ready;
Have you your pistols? have you your sharp edged axes?
Pioneers! O pioneers!

2

For we cannot tarry here,
We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger,
We, the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

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3

O you youths, western youths,
So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship,
Plain I see you, western youths, see you tramping with the foremost,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

4

Have the elder races halted?
Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied, over there beyond the seas?
We take up the task eternal, and the burden, and the lesson,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

5

All the past we leave behind;
We debouch upon a newer, mightier world, varied world;
Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labor and the march,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

6

We detachments steady throwing,
Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep,
Conquering, holding, daring, venturing, as we go, the unknown ways,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

7

We primeval forests felling,
We the rivers stemming, vexing we, and piercing deep the mines within;
We the surface broad surveying, we the virgin soil up-heaving,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

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8

Colorado men are we,
From the peaks gigantic, from the great sierras and the high plateaus,
From the mine and from the gully, from the hunting trail we come,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

9

From Nebraska, from Arkansas,
Central inland race are we, from Missouri, with the continental blood intervein'd;
All the hands of comrades clasping, all the Southern, all the Northern,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

10

O resistless, restless race!
O beloved race in all! O my breast aches with tender love for all!
O I mourn and yet exult—I am rapt with love for all,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

11

Raise the mighty mother mistress,
Waving high the delicate mistress, over all the starry mistress, (bend your heads all,)
Raise the fang'd and warlike mistress, stern, impassive, weapon'd mistress,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

12

See, my children, resolute children,
By those swarms upon our rear, we must never yield or falter,
Ages back in ghostly millions, frowning there behind us urging,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

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13

On and on, the compact ranks,
With accessions ever waiting, with the places of the dead quickly fill'd,
Through the battle, through defeat, moving yet and never stopping,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

14

O to die advancing on!
Are there some of us to droop and die? has the hour come?
Then upon the march we fittest die, soon and sure the gap is fill'd,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

15

All the pulses of the world,
Falling in, they beat for us, with the western movement beat;
Holding single or together, steady moving, to the front, all for us,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

16

Life's involv'd and varied pageants,
All the forms and shows, all the workmen at their work,
All the seamen and the landsmen, all the masters with their slaves,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

17

All the hapless silent lovers,
All the prisoners in the prisons, all the righteous and the wicked,
All the joyous, all the sorrowing, all the living, all the dying,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

331

18

I too with my soul and body,
We, a curious trio, picking, wandering on our way,
Through these shores, amid the shadows, with the apparitions pressing,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

19

Lo! the darting bowling orb!
Lo! the brother orbs around! all the clustering suns and planets;
All the dazzling days, all the mystic nights with dreams,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

20

These are of us, they are with us,
All for primal needed work, while the followers there in embryo wait behind,
We to-day's procession heading, we the route for travel clearing,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

21

O you daughters of the west!
O you young and elder daughters! O you mothers and you wives!
Never must you be divided, in our ranks you move united,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

22

Minstrels latent on the prairies!
(Shrouded bards of other lands! you may sleep—you have done your work;)
Soon I hear you coming warbling, soon you rise and tramp amid us,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

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23

Not for delectations sweet;
Not the cushion and the slipper, not the peaceful and the studious;
Not the riches safe and palling, not for us the tame enjoyment,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

24

Do the feasters gluttonous feast?
Do the corpulent sleepers sleep? have they lock'd and bolted doors?
Still be ours the diet hard, and the blanket on the ground,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

25

Has the night descended?
Was the road of late so toilsome? did we stop discouraged, nodding on our way?
Yet a passing hour I yield you, in your tracks to pause oblivious,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

26

Till with sound of trumpet,
Far, far off the day-break call—hark! how loud and clear I hear it wind;
Swift! to the head of the army!—swift! spring to your places,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

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RESPONDEZ!

Respondez! Respondez!
(The war is completed—the price is paid—the title is settled beyond recall;)
Let every one answer! let those who sleep be waked! let none evade!
Must we still 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, bigots, fools, unclean persons, offer new propositions!
Let the old propositions be postponed!
Let faces and theories be turn'd 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 men and women be mock'd with bodies and mock'd 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!
(Stifled, O days! O lands! in every public and private corruption!
Smother'd in thievery, impotence, shamelessness, mountain-high;
Brazen effrontery, scheming, rolling like ocean's waves around and upon you, O my days! my lands!

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For not even those thunderstorms, nor fiercest lightnings of the war, have purified the atmosphere;)
—Let the theory of America still be management, caste, comparison! (Say! what other theory would you?)
Let them that distrust birth and death still 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 still 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 the priest still play at immortality!
Let death be inaugurated!
Let nothing remain but the ashes of teachers, artists, moralists, lawyers, and learn'd 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!

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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 forever obscenely of women! and let women among themselves talk and think obscenely of men!
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 at second hand be permitted to exist upon the earth!
Let the earth desert God, nor let there ever henceforth be mention'd 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 scorn'd and derided off from the earth!
Let a floating cloud in the sky—let a wave of the sea—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!

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Let shadows be furnish'd with genitals! let substances be deprived of their genitals!
Let there be wealthy and immense cities—but still through any of them, not a single poet, savior, 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 still teach only what they have been taught!
Let insanity still have charge of sanity!
Let books take the place of trees, animals, rivers, clouds!
Let the daub'd 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 again 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 still continue unstudied!
Let a man seek pleasure everywhere except in himself!
Let a woman seek happiness everywhere except in herself!
(What real happiness have you had one single hour through your whole life?)
Let the limited years of life do nothing for the limitless years of death! (What do you suppose death will do, then?)

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Turn O Libertad.

Turn, O Libertad, for the war is over,
(From it and all henceforth expanding, doubting no more, resolute, sweeping the world,)
Turn from lands retrospective, recording proofs of the past;
From the singers that sing the trailing glories of the past;
From the chants of the feudal world—the triumphs of kings, slavery, caste;
Turn to the world, the triumphs reserv'd and to come—give up that backward world;
Leave to the singers of hitherto—give them the trailing past;
But what remains, remains for singers for you—wars to come are for you;
(Lo! how the wars of the past have duly inured to you—and the wars of the present also inure:)
—Then turn, and be not alarm'd, O Libertad—turn your undying face,
To where the future, greater than all the past,
Is swiftly, surely preparing for you.

Adieu to a Soldier.

1

Adieu, O soldier!
You of the rude campaigning, (which we shared,)
The rapid march, the life of the camp,
The hot contention of opposing fronts—the long manœuver,
Red battles with their slaughter,—the stimulus—the strong, terrific game,
Spell of all brave and manly hearts—the trains of Time through you, and like of you, all fill'd,
With war, and war's expression.

338

2

Adieu, dear comrade!
Your mission is fulfill'd—but I, more warlike,
Myself, and this contentious soul of mine,
Still on our own campaigning bound,
Through untried roads, with ambushes, opponents lined,
Through many a sharp defeat and many a crisis—often baffled,
Here marching, ever marching on, a war fight out—aye here,
To fiercer, weightier battles give expression.

As I walk These Broad, Majestic Days.

1

As I walk these broad, majestic days of peace,
(For the war, the struggle of blood finish'd, wherein, O terrific Ideal!
Against vast odds, having gloriously won,
Now thou stridest on—yet perhaps in time toward denser wars,
Perhaps to engage in time in still more dreadful contests, dangers,
Longer campaigns and crises, labors beyond all others;)
—As I walk, solitary, unattended,
Around me I hear that eclat of the world—politics, produce,
The announcements of recognized things—science,
The approved growth of cities, and the spread of inventions.

2

I see the ships, (they will last a few years,)
The vast factories, with their foremen and workmen,
And hear the indorsement of all, and do not object to it.

3

But I too announce solid things;
Science, ships, politics, cities, factories, are not nothing—I watch them,

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Like a grand procession, to music of distant bugles, pouring, triumphantly moving—and grander heaving in sight;
They stand for realities—all is as it should be.

4

Then my realities;
What else is so real as mine?
Libertad, and the divine average—Freedom to every slave on the face of the earth,
The rapt promises and luminé of seers—the spiritual world—these centuries-lasting songs,
And our visions, the visions of poets, the most solid announcements of any.

5

For we support all, fuse all,
After the rest is done and gone, we remain;
There is no final reliance but upon us;
Democracy rests finally upon us, (I, my brethren, begin it,)
And our visions sweep through eternity.

Weave In, Weave In, My Hardy Life.

Weave in! weave in, my hardy life!
Weave yet a soldier strong and full, for great campaigns to come;
Weave in red blood! weave sinews in, like ropes! the senses, sight weave in!
Weave lasting sure! weave day and night the weft, the warp, incessant weave! tire not!
(We know not what the use, O life! nor know the aim, the end—nor really aught we know;
But know the work, the need goes on, and shall go on—the death-envelop'd march of peace as well as war goes on;)
For great campaigns of peace the same, the wiry threads to weave;
We know not why or what, yet weave, forever weave.

340

Race of Veterans.

Race of veterans! Race of victors!
Race of the soil, ready for conflict! race of the conquering march!
(No more credulity's race, abiding-temper'd race;)
Race henceforth owning no law but the law of itself;
Race of passion and the storm.

O Sun of Real Peace.

O sun of real peace! O hastening light!
O free and extatic! O what I here, preparing, warble for!
O the sun of the world will ascend, dazzling, and take his height—and you too, O my Ideal, will surely ascend!
O so amazing and broad—up there resplendent, darting and burning!
O vision prophetic, stagger'd with weight of light! with pouring glories!
O lips of my soul, already becoming powerless!
O ample and grand Presidentiads! Now the war, the war is over!
New history! new heroes! I project you!
Visions of poets! only you really last! sweep on! sweep on!
O heights too swift and dizzy yet!
O purged and luminous! you threaten me more than I can stand!
(I must not venture—the ground under my feet menaces me—it will not support me:
O future too immense,)—O present, I return, while yet I may, to you.