 | Leaves of grass (1872) |  |
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Leaves of Grass.
A CAROL OF HARVEST, FOR 1867.
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A song of the good green grass!A song no more of the city streets;
A song of farms—a song of the soil of fields.
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A song with the smell of sun-dried hay, where the nimble pitchers handle the pitch-fork;A song tasting of new wheat, and of fresh-husk'd maize.
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For the lands, and for these passionate days, and for myself,Now I awhile return to thee, O soil of Autumn fields,
Reclining on thy breast, giving myself to thee,
Answering the pulses of thy sane and equable heart,
Tuning a verse for thee.
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O Earth, that hast no voice, confide to me a voice!O harvest of my lands! O boundless summer growths!
O lavish, brown, parturient earth! O infinite, teeming womb!
A verse to seek, to see, to narrate thee.
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Ever upon this stage,Is acted God's calm, annual drama,
Gorgeous processions, songs of birds,
Sunrise, that fullest feeds and freshens most the soul,
The heaving sea, the waves upon the shore, the musical, strong waves,
The woods, the stalwart trees, the slender, tapering trees,
The flowers, the grass, the lilliput, countless armies of the grass,
The heat, the showers, the measureless pasturages,
The scenery of the snows, the winds' free orchestra,
The stretching, light-hung roof of clouds—the clear cerulean, and the bulging, silvery fringes,
The high dilating stars, the placid, beckoning stars,
The moving flocks and herds, the plains and emerald meadows,
The shows of all the varied lands, and all the growths and products.
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Fecund America! To day,Thou art all over set in births and joys!
Thou groan'st with riches! thy wealth clothes thee as with a swathing garment!
Thou laughest loud with ache of great possessions!
A myriad-twining life, like interlacing vines, binds all thy vast demesne!
As some huge ship, freighted to water's edge, thou ridest into port!
As rain falls from the heaven, and vapors rise from earth, so have the precious values fallen upon thee, and risen out of thee!
Thou envy of the globe! thou miracle!
Thou, bathed, choked, swimming in plenty!
Thou lucky Mistress of the tranquil barns!
Thou Prairie Dame that sittest in the middle, and lookest out upon thy world, and lookest East, and lookest West!
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Thou All-Acceptress—thou Hospitable—(thou only art hospitable, as God is hospitable.)
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When late I sang, sad was my voice;Sad were the shows around me, with deafening noises of hatred, and smoke of conflict;
In the midst of the armies, the Heroes, I stood,
Or pass'd with slow step through the wounded and dying.
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But now I sing not War,Nor the measur'd march of soldiers, nor the tents of camps,
Nor the regiments hastily coming up, deploying in line of battle.
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No more the dead and wounded;No more the sad, unnatural shows of War.
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Ask'd room those flush'd immortal ranks? the first forth-stepping armies?Ask room, alas, the ghastly ranks—the armies dread that follow'd.
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(Pass—pass, ye proud brigades!So handsome, dress'd in blue—with your tramping, sinewy legs;
With your shoulders young and strong—with your knapsacks and your muskets;
—How elate I stood and watch'd you, where, starting off, you march'd!
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Pass;—then rattle, drums, again!Scream, you steamers on the river, out of whistles loud and shrill, your salutes!
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Swarming, trailing on the rear—O you dread, accruing army!
O you regiments so piteous, with your mortal diarrhœa! with your fever!
O my land's maimed darlings! with the plenteous bloody bandage and the crutch!
Lo! your pallid army follow'd!)
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But on these days of brightness,On the far-stretching beauteous landscape, the roads and lanes, the high-piled farm-wagons, and the fruits and barns,
Shall the dead intrude?
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Ah, the dead to me mar not—they fit well in Nature;They fit very well in the landscape, under the trees and grass,
And along the edge of the sky, in the horizon's far margin.
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Nor do I forget you, departed;Nor in winter or summer, my lost ones;
But most, in the open air, as now, when my soul is rapt and at peace—like pleasing phantoms,
Your dear memories, rising, glide silently by me.
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I saw the day, the return of the Heroes;(Yet the Heroes never surpass'd, shall never return;
Them, that day, I saw not.)
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I saw the interminable Corps—I saw the processions of armies,I saw them approaching, defiling by, with divisions,
Streaming northward, their work done, camping awhile in clusters of mighty camps.
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No holiday soldiers!—youthful, yet veterans;Worn, swart, handsome, strong, of the stock of homestead and workshop,
Harden'd of many a long campaign and sweaty march,
Inured on many a hard-fought, bloody field.
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A pause—the armies wait;A million flush'd, embattled conquerors wait;
The world, too, waits—then, soft as breaking night, and sure as dawn,
They melt—they disappear.
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Exult, indeed, O lands! victorious lands!Not there your victory, on those red, shuddering fields;
But here and hence your victory.
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Melt, melt away, ye armies! disperse, ye blue-clad soldiers!Resolve ye back again—give up, for good, your deadly arms;
Other the arms, the fields henceforth for you, or South or North, or East or West,
With saner wars—sweet wars—life-giving wars.
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Loud, O my throat, and clear, O soul!The season of thanks, and the voice of full-yielding;
The chant of joy and power for boundless fertility.
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All till'd and untill'd fields expand before me;I see the true arenas of my race—or first, or last,
Man's innocent and strong arenas.
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I see the Heroes at other toils;I see, well-wielded in their hands, the better weapons.
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I see where America, Mother of All,Well-pleased, with full-spanning eye, gazes forth, dwells long,
And counts the varied gathering of the products.
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Busy the far, the sunlit panorama;Prairie, orchard, and yellow grain of the North,
Cotton and rice of the South, and Louisianian cane;
Open, unseeded fallows, rich fields of clover and timothy,
Kine and horses feeding, and droves of sheep and swine,
And many a stately river flowing, and many a jocund brook,
And healthy uplands with their herby-perfumed breezes,
And the good green grass—that delicate miracle, the ever-recurring grass.
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Toil on, Heroes! harvest the products!Not alone on those warlike fields, the Mother of All,
With dilated form and lambent eyes, watch'd you.
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Toil on, Heroes! toil well! Handle the weapons well!The Mother of All—yet here, as ever, she watches you.
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Well-pleased, America, thou beholdest,Over the fields of the West, those crawling monsters,
The human-divine inventions, the labor-saving implements:
Beholdest, moving in every direction, imbued as with life, the revolving hay-rakes,
The steam-power reaping-machines, and the horse-power machines,
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Beholdest the newer saw-mill, the southern cotton-gin, and the rice-cleanser.
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Beneath thy look, O Maternal,With these, and else, and with their own strong hands, the Heroes harvest.
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All gather, and all harvest;(Yet but for thee, O Powerful! not a scythe might swing, as now, in security;
Not a maize-stalk dangle, as now, its silken tassels in peace.)
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Under Thee only they harvest—even but a wisp of hay, under thy great face, only;Harvest the wheat of Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin—every barbed spear, under thee;
Harvest the maize of Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee—each ear in its light-green sheath,
Gather the hay to its myriad mows, in the odorous, tranquil barns,
Oats to their bins—the white potato, the buckwheat of Michigan, to theirs;
Gather the cotton in Mississippi or Alabama—dig and hoard the golden, the sweet potato of Georgia and the Carolinas,
Clip the wool of California or Pennsylvania,
Cut the flax in the Middle States, or hemp, or tobacco in the Borders,
Pick the pea and the bean, or pull apples from the trees, or bunches of grapes from the vines,
Or aught that ripens in all These States, or North or South,
Under the beaming sun, and under Thee.
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THE SINGER IN THE PRISON.
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O sight of shame, and pain, and dole!
O fearful thought—a convict Soul!
O fearful thought—a convict Soul!
Rang the refrain along the hall, the prison,
Rose to the roof, the vaults of heaven above,
Pouring in floods of melody, in tones so pensive, sweet and strong, the like whereof was never heard,
Reaching the far-off sentry, and the armed guards, who ceas'd their pacing,
Making the hearer's pulses stop for extasy and awe.
Rose to the roof, the vaults of heaven above,
Pouring in floods of melody, in tones so pensive, sweet and strong, the like whereof was never heard,
Reaching the far-off sentry, and the armed guards, who ceas'd their pacing,
Making the hearer's pulses stop for extasy and awe.
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O sight of pity, gloom, and dole!
O pardon me, a hapless Soul!
O pardon me, a hapless Soul!
The sun was low in the west one winter day,
When down a narrow aisle, amid the thieves and outlaws of the land,
(There by the hundreds seated, sear-faced murderers, wily counterfeiters,
Gather'd to Sunday church in prison walls—the keepers round,
Plenteous, well-arm'd, watching, with vigilant eyes,)
All that dark, cankerous blotch, a nation's criminal mass,
Calmly a Lady walk'd, holding a little innocent child by either hand,
Whom, seating on their stools beside her on the platform,
She, first preluding with the instrument, a low and musical prelude,
In voice surpassing all, sang forth a quaint old hymn.
When down a narrow aisle, amid the thieves and outlaws of the land,
(There by the hundreds seated, sear-faced murderers, wily counterfeiters,
Gather'd to Sunday church in prison walls—the keepers round,
Plenteous, well-arm'd, watching, with vigilant eyes,)
All that dark, cankerous blotch, a nation's criminal mass,
Calmly a Lady walk'd, holding a little innocent child by either hand,
Whom, seating on their stools beside her on the platform,
She, first preluding with the instrument, a low and musical prelude,
In voice surpassing all, sang forth a quaint old hymn.
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The Hymn.
A Soul, confined by bars and bands,
Cries, Help! O help! and wrings her hands;
Blinded her eyes—bleeding her breast,
Nor pardon finds, nor balm of rest.
Cries, Help! O help! and wrings her hands;
Blinded her eyes—bleeding her breast,
Nor pardon finds, nor balm of rest.
O sight of shame, and pain, and dole!
O fearful thought—a convict Soul!
O fearful thought—a convict Soul!
Ceaseless, she paces to and fro;
O heart-sick days! O nights of wo!
Nor hand of friend, nor loving face;
Nor favor comes, nor word of grace,
O heart-sick days! O nights of wo!
Nor hand of friend, nor loving face;
Nor favor comes, nor word of grace,
O sight of pity, gloom, and dole!
O pardon me, a hapless Soul!
O pardon me, a hapless Soul!
It was not I that sinn'd the sin,
The ruthless Body dragg'd me in;
Though long I strove courageously,
The Body was too much for me.
The ruthless Body dragg'd me in;
Though long I strove courageously,
The Body was too much for me.
O Life! no life, but bitter dole!
O burning, beaten, baffled Soul!
O burning, beaten, baffled Soul!
(Dear prison'd Soul, bear up a space,
For soon or late the certain grace;
To set thee free, and bear thee home,
The Heavenly Pardoner, Death shall come.
For soon or late the certain grace;
To set thee free, and bear thee home,
The Heavenly Pardoner, Death shall come.
Convict no more—nor shame, nor dole!
Depart! a God-enfranchis'd Soul!)
Depart! a God-enfranchis'd Soul!)
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The singer ceas'd;One glance swept from her clear, calm eyes, o'er all those up-turn'd faces;
Strange sea of prison faces—a thousand varied, crafty, brutal, seam'd and beauteous faces;
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While her gown touch'd them, rustling in the silence,
She vanish'd with her children in the dusk.
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While upon all, convicts and armed keepers, ere they stirr'd,
(Convict forgetting prison, keeper his loaded pistol,)
A hush and pause fell down, a wondrous minute,
With deep, half-stifled sobs, and sound of bad men bow'd, and moved to weeping,
And youth's convulsive breathings, memories of home,
The mother's voice in lullaby, the sister's care, the happy childhood,
The long-pent spirit rous'd to reminiscence;
—A wondrous minute then—But after, in the solitary night, to many, many there,
Years after—even in the hour of death—the sad refrain—the tune, the voice, the words,
Resumed—the large, calm Lady walks the narrow aisle,
The wailing melody again—the singer in the prison sings:
(Convict forgetting prison, keeper his loaded pistol,)
A hush and pause fell down, a wondrous minute,
With deep, half-stifled sobs, and sound of bad men bow'd, and moved to weeping,
And youth's convulsive breathings, memories of home,
The mother's voice in lullaby, the sister's care, the happy childhood,
The long-pent spirit rous'd to reminiscence;
—A wondrous minute then—But after, in the solitary night, to many, many there,
Years after—even in the hour of death—the sad refrain—the tune, the voice, the words,
Resumed—the large, calm Lady walks the narrow aisle,
The wailing melody again—the singer in the prison sings:
O sight of shame, and pain, and dole!
O fearful thought—a convict Soul!
O fearful thought—a convict Soul!
WARBLE FOR LILAC TIME.
Warble me now, for joy of Lilac-time,Sort me, O tongue and lips, for Nature's sake, and sweet life's sake—and death's the same as life's,
Souvenirs of earliest summer—birds' eggs, and the first berries;
Gather the welcome signs, (as children, with pebbles, or stringing shells;)
Put in April and May—the hylas croaking in the ponds—the elastic air,
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Blue-bird, and darting swallow—nor forget the high-hole flashing his golden wings,
The tranquil sunny haze, the clinging smoke, the vapor,
Spiritual, airy insects, humming on gossamer wings,
Shimmer of waters, with fish in them—the cerulean above;
All that is jocund and sparkling—the brooks running,
The maple woods, the crisp February days, and the sugar-making;
The robin, where he hops, bright-eyed, brown-breasted,
With musical clear call at sunrise, and again at sunset,
Or flitting among the trees of the apple-orchard, building the nest of his mate;
The melted snow of March—the willow sending forth its yellow-green sprouts;
—For spring-time is here! the summer is here! and what is this in it and from it?
Thou, Soul, unloosen'd—the restlessness after I know not what;
Come! let us lag here no longer—let us be up and away!
O for another world! O if one could but fly like a bird!
O to escape—to sail forth, as in a ship!
To glide with thee, O Soul, o'er all, in all, as a ship o'er the waters!
—Gathering these hints, these preludes—the blue sky, the grass, the morning drops of dew;
(With additional songs—every spring will I now strike up additional songs,
Nor ever again forget, these tender days, the chants of Death as well as Life;)
The lilac-scent, the bushes, and the dark green, heart-shaped leaves,
Wood violets, the little delicate pale blossoms called innocence,
Samples and sorts not for themselves alone, but for their atmosphere,
To tally, drench'd with them, tested by them,
Cities and artificial life, and all their sights and scenes,
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My land, my age, my race, for once to serve in songs,
(Sprouts, tokens ever of death indeed the same as life,)
To grace the bush I love—to sing with the birds,
A warble for joy of Lilac-time.
Who Learns My Lesson Complete?
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Who learns my lesson complete?Boss, journeyman, apprentice—churchman and atheist,
The stupid and the wise thinker—parents and offspring—merchant, clerk, porter and customer,
Editor, author, artist, and schoolboy—Draw nigh and commence;
It is no lesson—it lets down the bars to a good lesson,
And that to another, and every one to another still.
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The great laws take and effuse without argument;I am of the same style, for I am their friend,
I love them quits and quits—I do not halt, and make salaams.
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I lie abstracted, and hear beautiful tales of things, and the reasons of things;They are so beautiful, I nudge myself to listen.
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I cannot say to any person what I hear—I cannot say it to myself—it is very wonderful.5
It is no small matter, this round and delicious globe, moving so exactly in its orbit forever and ever, without one jolt, or the untruth of a single second;I do not think it was made in six days, nor in ten thousand years, nor ten billions of years,
Nor plann'd and built one thing after another, as an architect plans and builds a house.
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I do not think seventy years is the time of a man or woman,Nor that seventy millions of years is the time of a man or woman,
Nor that years will ever stop the existence of me, or any one else.
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Is it wonderful that I should be immortal? as every one is immortal;I know it is wonderful, but my eyesight is equally wonderful, and how I was conceived in my mother's womb is equally wonderful;
And pass'd from a babe, in the creeping trance of a couple of summers and winters, to articulate and walk—All this is equally wonderful.
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And that my Soul embraces you this hour, and we affect each other without ever seeing each other, and never perhaps to see each other, is every bit as wonderful.9
And that I can think such thoughts as these, is just as wonderful;And that I can remind you, and you think them, and know them to be true, is just as wonderful.
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And that the moon spins round the earth, and on with the earth, is equally wonderful,And that they balance themselves with the sun and stars, is equally wonderful.
Thought.
Of Justice—As if Justice could be anything but the same ample law, expounded by natural judges and saviors,As if it might be this thing or that thing, according to decisions.
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Myself and Mine.
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Myself and mine gymnastic ever,To stand the cold or heat—to take good aim with a gun—to sail a boat—to manage horses—to beget superb children,
To speak readily and clearly—to feel at home among common people,
And to hold our own in terrible positions, on land and sea.
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Not for an embroiderer;(There will always be plenty of embroiderers—I welcome them also;)
But for the fibre of things, and for inherent men and women.
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Not to chisel ornaments,But to chisel with free stroke the heads and limbs of plenteous Supreme Gods, that The States may realize them, walking and talking.
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Let me have my own way;Let others promulge the laws—I will make no account of the laws;
Let others praise eminent men and hold up peace—I hold up agitation and conflict;
I praise no eminent man—I rebuke to his face the one that was thought most worthy.
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(Who are you? you mean devil! And what are you secretly guilty of, all your life?Will you turn aside all your life? Will you grub and chatter all your life?)
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(And who are you—blabbing by rote, years, pages, languages, reminiscences,Unwitting to-day that you do not know how to speak a single word?)
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Let others finish specimens—I never finish specimens;I shower them by exhaustless laws, as Nature does, fresh and modern continually.
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I give nothing as duties;What others give as duties, I give as living impulses;
(Shall I give the heart's action as a duty?)
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Let others dispose of questions—I dispose of nothing—I arouse unanswerable questions;Who are they I see and touch, and what about them?
What about these likes of myself, that draw me so close by tender directions and indirections?
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I call to the world to distrust the accounts of my friends, but listen to my enemies—as I myself do;I charge you, too, forever, reject those who would expound me—for I cannot expound myself;
I charge that there be no theory or school founded out of me;
I charge you to leave all free, as I have left all free.
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After me, vista!O, I see life is not short, but immeasurably long;
I henceforth tread the world, chaste, temperate, an early riser, a steady grower,
Every hour the semen of centuries—and still of centuries.
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I will follow up these continual lessons of the air, water, earth;I perceive I have no time to lose.
TO OLD AGE.
I see in you the estuary that enlarges and spreads its grandly as it pours in the great Sea.102
MIRACLES.
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Why! who makes much of a miracle?As to me, I know of nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach, just in the edge of the water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with any one I love—or sleep in the bed at night with any one I love,
Or sit at table at dinner with my mother,
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,
Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive, of a summer forenoon,
Or animals feeding in the fields,
Or birds—or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,
Or the wonderfulness of the sun-down—or of stars shining so quiet and bright,
Or the exquisite, delicate, thin curve of the new moon in spring;
Or whether I go among those I like best, and that like me best—mechanics, boatmen, farmers,
Or among the savans—or to the soiree—or to the opera,
Or stand a long while looking at the movements of machinery,
Or behold children at their sports,
Or the admirable sight of the perfect old man, or the perfect old woman,
Or the sick in hospitals, or the dead carried to burial,
Or my own eyes and figure in the glass;
These, with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,
The whole referring—yet each distinct, and in its place.
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To me, every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
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Every foot of the interior swarms with the same;
Every spear of grass—the frames, limbs, organs, of men and women, and all that concerns them,
All these to me are unspeakably perfect miracles.
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To me the sea is a continual miracle;The fishes that swim—the rocks—the motion of the waves—the ships, with men in them,
What stranger miracles are there?
SPARKLES FROM THE WHEEL.
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Where the city's ceaseless crowd moves on, the live-long day,
Withdrawn, I join a group of children watching—I pause aside with them.
Withdrawn, I join a group of children watching—I pause aside with them.
By the curb, toward the edge of the flagging,
A knife-grinder works at his wheel, sharpening a great knife;
Bending over, he carefully holds it to the stone—by foot and knee,
With measur'd tread, he turns rapidly—As he presses with light but firm hand,
Forth issue, then, in copious golden jets,
Sparkles from the wheel.
A knife-grinder works at his wheel, sharpening a great knife;
Bending over, he carefully holds it to the stone—by foot and knee,
With measur'd tread, he turns rapidly—As he presses with light but firm hand,
Forth issue, then, in copious golden jets,
Sparkles from the wheel.
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The scene, and all its belongings—how they seize and affect me!The sad, sharp-chinn'd old man, with worn clothes, and broad shoulder-band of leather;
Myself, effusing and fluid—a phantom curiously floating—now here absorb'd and arrested;
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The attentive, quiet children—the loud, proud, restive base of the streets;
The low, hoarse purr of the whirling stone—the light-press'd blade,
Diffusing, dropping, sideways-darting, in tiny showers of gold,
Sparkles from the wheel.
EXCELSIOR.
Who has gone farthest? For lo! have not I gone 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 lavish'd 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? Have I not outvied him? have I not said the words that shall stretch through longer time?
And who has receiv'd the love of the most friends? For I know what it is to receive the passionate love of many friends;
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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 extasy to make joyous hymns for the whole earth!
Mediums.
They shall arise in the States;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 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 convey'd in gospels—Trees, animals, waters, shall be convey'd,
Death, the future, the invisible faith, shall all be convey'd.
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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 look'd 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 consider'd 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 all other theories,
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.
TO A PUPIL.
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Is reform needed? Is it through you?The greater the reform needed, the greater the personality you need to accomplish it.
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You! do you not see how it would serve to have eyes, blood, complexion, clean and sweet?107
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O the magnet! the flesh over and over!Go, dear friend! if need be, give up all else, and commence to-day to inure yourself to pluck, reality, self-esteem, definiteness, elevatedness;
Rest not, till you rivet and publish yourself of your own personality.
WHAT AM I, AFTER ALL.
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What am I, after all, but a child, pleas'd with the sound of my own name? repeating it over and over;I stand apart to hear—it never tires me.
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To you, your name also;Did you think there was nothing but two or three pronunciations in the sound of your name?
OTHERS MAY PRAISE WHAT THEY LIKE.
Others may praise what they like;But I, from the banks of the running Missouri, praise nothing, in art, or aught else,
Till it has well inhaled the atmosphere of this river—also the western prairie-scent,
And fully exudes it again.
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BROTHER OF ALL, WITH GENEROUS HAND.
(G. P., Buried February, 1870.)
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Brother of all, with generous hand,Of thee, pondering on thee, as o'er thy tomb, I and my Soul,
A thought to launch in memory of thee,
A burial verse for thee.
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What may we chant, O thou within this tomb?What tablets, pictures, hang for thee, O millionaire?
—The life thou lived'st we know not,
But that thou walk'dst thy years in barter, 'mid the haunts of brokers;
Nor heroism thine, nor war, nor glory.
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Yet lingering, yearning, joining soul with thine,If not thy past we chant, we chant the future,
Select, adorn the future.
2
4
Lo, Soul, the graves of heroes!The pride of lands—the gratitudes of men,
The statues of the manifold famous dead, Old World and New,
The kings, inventors, generals, poets, (stretch wide thy vision, Soul,)
The excellent rulers of the races, great discoverers, sailors,
Marble and brass select from them, with pictures, scenes,
(The histories of the lands, the races, bodied there,
In what they've built for, graced and graved,
Monuments to their heroes.)
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3
5
Silent, my Soul,With drooping lids, as waiting, ponder'd,
Turning from all the samples, all the monuments of heroes.
6
While through the interior vistas,Noiseless uprose, phantasmic, (as, by night, Auroras of the North,)
Lambent tableaux, prophetic, bodiless scenes,
Spiritual projections.
7
In one, among the city streets, a laborer's home appear'd,After his day's work done, cleanly, sweet-air'd, the gaslight burning,
The carpet swept, and a fire in the cheerful stove.
8
In one, the sacred parturition scene,A happy, painless mother birth'd a perfect child.
9
In one, at a bounteous morning meal,Sat peaceful parents, with contented sons.
10
In one, by twos and threes, young people,Hundreds concentering, walk'd the paths and streets and roads,
Toward a tall-domed school.
11
In one a trio, beautiful,Grandmother, loving daughter, loving daughter's daughter, sat,
Chatting and sewing.
12
In one, along a suite of noble rooms,'Mid plenteous books and journals, paintings on the walls, fine statuettes,
Were groups of friendly journeymen, mechanics, young and old,
Reading, conversing.
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13
All, all the shows of laboring life,City and country, women's, men's and children's,
Their wants provided for, hued in the sun, and tinged for once with joy,
Marriage, the street, the factory, farm, the house-room, lodging-room,
Labor and toil, the bath, gymnasium, play-ground, library, college,
The student, boy or girl, led forward to be taught;
The sick cared for, the shoeless shod—the orphan father'd and mother'd,
The hungry fed, the houseless housed;
(The intentions perfect and divine,
The workings, details, haply human.)
4
14
O thou within this tomb,From thee, such scenes—thou stintless, lavish Giver,
Tallying the gifts of Earth—large as the Earth,
Thy name an Earth, with mountains, fields and rivers.
15
Nor by your streams alone, you rivers,By you, your banks, Connecticut,
By you, and all your teeming life, Old Thames,
By you, Potomac, laving the ground Washington trod—by you Patapsco,
You, Hudson—you, endless Mississippi—not by you alone,
But to the high seas launch, my thought, his memory.
5
16
Lo, Soul, by this tomb's lambency,The darkness of the arrogant standards of the world,
With all its flaunting aims, ambitions, pleasures.
17
(Old, commonplace, and rusty saws,The rich, the gay, the supercilious, smiled at long,
Now, piercing to the marrow in my bones,
Fused with each drop my heart's blood jets,
Swim in ineffable meaning.)
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18
Lo, Soul, the sphere requireth, portioneth,To each his share, his measure,
The moderate to the moderate, the ample to the ample.
19
Lo, Soul, see'st thou not, plain as the sun,The only real wealth of wealth in generosity,
The only life of life in goodness?
NIGHT ON THE PRAIRIES.
1
Night on the prairies;The supper is over—the fire on the ground burns low;
The wearied emigrants sleep, wrapt in their blankets:
I walk by myself—I stand and look at the stars, which I think now I never realized before.
2
Now I absorb immortality and peace,I admire death, and test propositions.
3
How plenteous! How spiritual! How resumé!The same Old Man and Soul—the same old aspirations, and the same content.
4
I was thinking the day most splendid, till I saw what the not-day exhibited,I was thinking this globe enough, till there sprang out so noiseless around me myriads of other globes.
5
Now, while the great thoughts of space and eternity fill me, I will measure myself by them;And now, touch'd with the lives of other globes, arrived as far along as those of the earth,
Or waiting to arrive, or pass'd on farther than those of the earth,
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Or the lives of the earth arrived as far as mine, or waiting to arrive.
6
O I see now that life cannot exhibit all to me—as the day cannot,I see that I am to wait for what will be exhibited by death.
ON JOURNEYS THROUGH THE STATES.
1
On journeys through the States we start,(Ay, through the world—urged by these songs,
Sailing henceforth to every land—to every sea;)
We, willing learners of all, teachers of all, and lovers of all.
2
We have watch'd the seasons dispensing themselves, and passing on,We have said, Why should not a man or woman do as much as the seasons, and effuse as much?
3
We dwell a while in every city and town;We pass through Kanada, the north-east, the vast valley of the Mississippi, and the Southern States;
We confer on equal terms with each of The States,
We make trial of ourselves, and invite men and women to hear;
We say to ourselves, Remember, fear not, be candid, promulge the body and the Soul;
Dwell a while and pass on—Be copious, temperate, chaste, magnetic,
And what you effuse may then return as the seasons return,
And may be just as much as the seasons.
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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.
LOCATIONS AND TIMES.
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?
THOUGHT.
Of Equality—As if it harm'd 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.OFFERINGS.
A thousand perfect men and women appear,Around each gathers a cluster of friends, and gay children and youths, with offerings.
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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.
THE TORCH.
On my northwest coast in the midst of the night, a fishermen's group stands watching;Out on the lake, that expands before them, others are spearing salmon;
The canoe, a dim shadowy thing, moves across the black water,
Bearing a Torch a-blaze at the prow.
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,
Let us talk of death—unbosom all freely,
Tell me what you would not tell your brother, wife, husband, or physician.
| Leaves of grass (1872) | |