A shock electric--the night sustained it;
Till, with ominous hum, our hive at daybreak poured out its myriads.
Till, with ominous hum, our hive at daybreak poured out its myriads.
Whitman
You woolly-haired hordes!
You owned persons, dropping sweat-drops or blood-drops!
You human forms with the fathomless ever-impressive countenances of brutes!
I dare not refuse you--the scope of the world, and of time and space, are
upon me.
You poor koboo whom the meanest of the rest look down upon, for all your
glimmering language and spirituality!
You low expiring aborigines of the hills of Utah, Oregon, California!
You dwarfed Kamtschatkan, Greenlander, Lap!
You Austral negro, naked, red, sooty, with protrusive lip, grovelling,
seeking your food!
You Caffre, Berber, Soudanese!
You haggard, uncouth, untutored Bedowee!
You plague-swarms in Madras, Nankin, Kaubul, Cairo!
You bather bathing in the Ganges!
You benighted roamer of Amazonia! you Patagonian! you Fejee-man!
You peon of Mexico! you slave of Carolina, Texas, Tennessee!
I do not prefer others so very much before you either;
I do not say one word against you, away back there, where you stand;
You will come forward in due time to my side.
My spirit has passed in compassion and determination around the whole
earth;
I have looked for equals and lovers, and found them ready for me in all
lands;
I think some divine rapport has equalised me with them.
13.
O vapours! I think I have risen with you, and moved away to distant
continents, and fallen down there, for reasons;
I think I have blown with you, O winds;
O waters, I have fingered every shore with you.
I have run through what any river or strait of the globe has run through;
I have taken my stand on the bases of peninsulas, and on the highest
embedded rocks, to cry thence.
_Salut au Monde! _
What cities the light or warmth penetrates, I penetrate those cities
myself;
All islands to which birds wing their way, I wing my way myself.
Toward all
I raise high the perpendicular hand--I make the signal,
To remain after me in sight for ever,
For all the haunts and homes of men.
_A BROADWAY PAGEANT. _
(RECEPTION OF THE JAPANESE EMBASSY, JUNE 16, 1860. )
1.
Over sea, hither from Niphon,
Courteous, the Princes of Asia, swart-cheeked princes,
First-comers, guests, two-sworded princes,
Lesson-giving princes, leaning back in their open barouches, bare-headed,
impassive,
This day they ride through Manhattan.
2.
Libertad!
I do not know whether others behold what I behold,
In the procession, along with the Princes of Asia, the errand-bearers,
Bringing up the rear, hovering above, around, or in the ranks marching;
But I will sing you a song of what I behold, Libertad.
3.
When million-footed Manhattan, unpent, descends to its pavements;
When the thunder-cracking guns arouse me with the proud roar I love;
When the round-mouthed guns, out of the smoke and smell I love, spit their
salutes;
When the fire-flashing guns have fully alerted me--when heaven-clouds
canopy my city with a delicate thin haze;
When, gorgeous, the countless straight stems, the forests at the wharves,
thicken with colours;
When every ship, richly dressed, carries her flag at the peak;
When pennants trail, and street-festoons hang from the windows;
When Broadway is entirely given up to foot-passengers and foot-standers--
when the mass is densest;
When the facades of the houses are alive with people--when eyes gaze,
riveted, tens of thousands at a time;
When the guests from the islands advance--when the pageant moves forward,
visible;
When the summons is made--when the answer, that waited thousands of years,
answers;
I too, arising, answering, descend to the pavements, merge with the crowd,
and gaze with them.
4.
Superb-faced Manhattan!
Comrade Americanos! --to us, then, at last, the Orient comes.
To us, my city,
Where our tall-topped marble and iron beauties range on opposite sides--to
walk in the space between,
To-day our Antipodes comes.
The Originatress comes,
The land of Paradise--land of the Caucasus--the nest of birth,
The nest of languages, the bequeather of poems, the race of eld,
Florid with blood, pensive, rapt with musings, hot with passion,
Sultry with perfume, with ample and flowing garments,
With sunburnt visage, with intense soul and glittering eyes,
The race of Brahma comes!
See, my cantabile! these, and more, are flashing to us from the procession;
As it moves changing, a kaleidoscope divine it moves changing before us.
Not the errand-bearing princes, nor the tanned Japanee only;
Lithe and silent, the Hindoo appears--the whole Asiatic continent itself
appears--the Past, the dead,
The murky night-morning of wonder and fable, inscrutable,
The enveloped mysteries, the old and unknown hive-bees,
The North--the sweltering South--Assyria--the Hebrews--the Ancient of
ancients,
Vast desolated cities--the gliding Present--all of these, and more, are in
the pageant-procession.
Geography, the world, is in it;
The Great Sea, the brood of islands, Polynesia, the coast beyond;
The coast you henceforth are facing--you Libertad! from your Western golden
shores;
The countries there, with their populations--the millions _en masse_, are
curiously here;
The swarming market-places--the temples, with idols ranged along the sides,
or at the end--bronze, brahmin, and lama;
The mandarin, farmer, merchant, mechanic, and fisherman;
The singing-girl and the dancing-girl--the ecstatic person--the divine
Buddha;
The secluded Emperors--Confucius himself--the great poets and heroes--the
warriors, the castes, all,
Trooping up, crowding from all directions--from the Altay mountains,
From Thibet--from the four winding and far-flowing rivers
of China,
From the Southern peninsulas, and the demi-continental islands--from
Malaysia;
These, and whatever belongs to them, palpable, show forth to me, and are
seized by me,
And I am seized by them, and friendlily held by them,
Till, as here, them all I chant, Libertad! for themselves and for you.
5.
For I too, raising my voice, join the ranks of this pageant;
I am the chanter--I chant aloud over the pageant;
I chant the world on my Western Sea;
I chant, copious, the islands beyond, thick as stars in the sky;
I chant the new empire, grander than any before--As in a vision it comes to
me;
I chant America, the Mistress--I chant a greater supremacy;
I chant, projected, a thousand blooming cities yet, in time, on those
groups of sea-islands;
I chant my sail-ships and steam-ships threading the archipelagoes;
I chant my stars and stripes fluttering in the wind;
I chant commerce opening, the sleep of ages having done its work--races
reborn, refreshed;
Lives, works, resumed--The object I know not--but the old, the Asiatic,
resumed, as it must be,
Commencing from this day, surrounded by the world.
And you, Libertad of the world!
You shall sit in the middle, well-poised, thousands of years;
As to-day, from one side, the Princes of Asia come to you;
As to-morrow, from the other side, the Queen of England sends her eldest
son to you.
The sign is reversing, the orb is enclosed,
The ring is circled, the journey is done;
The box-lid is but perceptibly opened--nevertheless the perfume pours
copiously out of the whole box.
6.
Young Libertad!
With the venerable Asia, the all-mother,
Be considerate with her, now and ever, hot Libertad--for you are all;
Bend your proud neck to the long-off mother, now sending messages over the
archipelagoes to you:
Bend your proud neck for once, young Libertad.
7.
Were the children straying westward so long? so wide the tramping?
Were the precedent dim ages debouching westward from Paradise so long?
Were the centuries steadily footing it that way, all the while unknown, for
you, for reasons?
They are justified--they are accomplished--they shall now be turned the
other way also, to travel toward you thence;
They shall now also march obediently eastward, for your sake, Libertad.
_OLD IRELAND. _
1.
Far hence, amid an isle of wondrous beauty,
Crouching over a grave, an ancient sorrowful mother,
Once a queen--now lean and tattered, seated on the ground,
Her old white hair drooping dishevelled round her shoulders;
At her feet fallen an unused royal harp,
Long silent--she too long silent--mourning her shrouded hope and heir;
Of all the earth her heart most full of sorrow, because most full of love.
2.
Yet a word, ancient mother;
You need crouch there no longer on the cold ground, with forehead between
your knees;
O you need not sit there, veiled in your old white hair, so dishevelled;
For know you, the one you mourn is not in that grave;
It was an illusion--the heir, the son you love, was not really dead;
The Lord is not dead--he is risen again, young and strong, in another
country;
Even while you wept there by your fallen harp, by the grave,
What you wept for was translated, passed from the grave,
The winds favoured, and the sea sailed it,
And now, with rosy and new blood,
Moves to-day in a new country.
_BOSTON TOWN. _
1.
To get betimes in Boston town, I rose this morning early;
Here's a good place at the corner--I must stand and see the show.
2.
Clear the way there, Jonathan!
Way for the President's marshal! Way for the government cannon!
Way for the Federal foot and dragoons--and the apparitions copiously
tumbling.
I love to look on the stars and stripes--I hope the fifes will play "Yankee
Doodle,"
How bright shine the cutlasses of the foremost troops!
Every man holds his revolver, marching stiff through Boston town.
3.
A fog follows--antiques of the same come limping,
Some appear wooden-legged, and some appear bandaged and bloodless.
Why this is indeed a show! It has called the dead out of the earth!
The old graveyards of the hills have hurried to see!
Phantoms! phantoms countless by flank and rear!
Cocked hats of mothy mould! crutches made of mist!
Arms in slings! old men leaning on young men's shoulders!
What troubles you, Yankee phantoms? What is all this chattering of bare
gums?
Does the ague convulse your limbs? Do you mistake your crutches for
firelocks, and level them?
If you blind your eyes with tears, you will not see the President's
marshal;
If you groan such groans, you might baulk the government cannon.
For shame, old maniacs! Bring down those tossed arms, and let your white
hair be;
Here gape your great grandsons--their wives gaze at them from the windows,
See how well-dressed--see how orderly they conduct themselves.
Worse and worse! Can't you stand it? Are you retreating?
Is this hour with the living too dead for you?
Retreat then! Pell-mell!
To your graves! Back! back to the hills, old limpers!
I do not think you belong here, anyhow.
4.
But there is one thing that belongs here--shall I tell you what it is,
gentlemen of Boston?
I will whisper it to the Mayor--He shall send a committee to England;
They shall get a grant from the Parliament, go with a cart to the royal
vault--haste!
Dig out King George's coffin, unwrap him quick from the grave-clothes, box
up his bones for a journey;
Find a swift Yankee clipper--here is freight for you, black-bellied
clipper,
Up with your anchor! shake out your sails! steer straight toward Boston
bay.
5.
Now call for the President's marshal again, bring out the government
cannon,
Fetch home the roarers from Congress,--make another procession, guard it
with foot and dragoons.
This centre-piece for them!
Look, all orderly citizens! Look from the windows, women!
The committee open the box; set up the regal ribs; glue those that will not
stay;
Clap the skull on top of the ribs, and clap a crown on top of the skull.
You have got your revenge, old bluster! The crown is come to its own, and
more than its own.
6.
Stick your hands in your pockets, Jonathan--you are a made man from this
day;
You are mighty 'cute--and here is one of your bargains.
_FRANCE, THE EIGHTEENTH YEAR OF THESE STATES. _[1]
1.
A great year and place;
A harsh, discordant, natal scream out-sounding, to touch the mother's heart
closer than any yet.
2.
I walked the shores of my Eastern Sea,
Heard over the waves the little voice,
Saw the divine infant, where she woke, mournfully wailing, amid the roar of
cannon, curses, shouts, crash of falling buildings;
Was not so sick from the blood in the gutters running--nor from the single
corpses, nor those in heaps, nor those borne away in the tumbrils;
Was not so desperate at the battues of death--was not so shocked at the
repeated fusillades of the guns.
Pale, silent, stern, what could I say to that long-accrued retribution?
Could I wish humanity different?
Could I wish the people made of wood and stone?
Or that there be no justice in destiny or time?
3.
O Liberty! O mate for me!
Here too the blaze, the bullet, and the axe, in reserve to fetch them out
in case of need,
Here too, though long repressed, can never be destroyed;
Here too could rise at last, murdering and ecstatic;
Here too demanding full arrears of vengeance.
Hence I sign this salute over the sea,
And I do not deny that terrible red birth and baptism,
But remember the little voice that I heard wailing--and wait with perfect
trust, no matter how long;
And from to-day, sad and cogent, I maintain the bequeathed cause, as for
all lands,
And I send these words to Paris with my love,
And I guess some _chansonniers_ there will understand them,
For I guess there is latent music yet in France--floods of it.
O I hear already the bustle of instruments--they will soon be drowning all
that would interrupt them;
O I think the east wind brings a triumphal and free march,
It reaches hither--it swells me to joyful madness,
I will run transpose it in words, to justify it,
I will yet sing a song for you, _ma femme! _
[Footnote 1: 1793-4---The great poet of Democracy is "not so shocked" at
the great European year of Democracy. ]
_EUROPE, THE SEVENTY-SECOND AND SEVENTY-THIRD YEARS OF THESE STATES. _[1]
1.
Suddenly, out of its stale and drowsy lair, the lair of slaves,
Like lightning it leaped forth, half startled at itself,
Its feet upon the ashes and the rags--its hands tight to the throats of
kings.
O hope and faith!
O aching close of exiled patriots' lives!
O many a sickened heart!
Turn back unto this day, and make yourselves afresh.
2.
And you, paid to defile the People! you liars, mark!
Not for numberless agonies, murders, lusts,
For court thieving in its manifold mean forms, worming from his simplicity
the poor man's wages,
For many a promise sworn by royal lips, and broken, and laughed at in the
breaking,
Then in their power, not for all these did the blows strike revenge, or the
heads of the nobles fall;
The People scorned the ferocity of kings.
3.
But the sweetness of mercy brewed bitter destruction, and the frightened
rulers come back;
Each comes in state with his train--hangman, priest, tax-gatherer,
Soldier, lawyer, lord, jailer, and sycophant.
4.
Yet behind all, lowering, stealing--lo, a Shape,
Vague as the night, draped interminably, head, front, and form, in scarlet
folds,
Whose face and eyes none may see:
Out of its robes only this--the red robes, lifted by the arm--
One finger crooked, pointed high over the top, like the head of a snake
appears.
5.
Meanwhile, corpses lie in new-made graves--bloody corpses of young men;
The rope of the gibbet hangs heavily, the bullets of princes are flying,
the creatures of power laugh aloud,
And all these things bear fruits--and they are good.
Those corpses of young men,
Those martyrs that hang from the gibbets--those hearts pierced by the grey
lead,
Cold and motionless as they seem, live elsewhere with unslaughtered
vitality.
They live in other young men, O kings!
They live in brothers, again ready to defy you!
They were purified by death--they were taught and exalted.
Not a grave of the murdered for freedom but grows seed for freedom, in its
turn to bear seed,
Which the winds carry afar and resow, and the rains and the snows nourish.
Not a disembodied spirit can the weapons of tyrants let loose,
But it stalks invisibly over the earth, whispering, counselling,
cautioning.
6.
Liberty! let others despair of you! I never despair of you.
Is the house shut? Is the master away?
Nevertheless, be ready--be not weary of watching:
He will soon return--his messengers come anon.
[Footnote 1: The years 1848 and 1849. ]
_TO A FOILED REVOLTER OR REVOLTRESS. _
1.
Courage! my brother or my sister!
Keep on! Liberty is to be subserved, whatever occurs;
That is nothing that is quelled by one or two failures, or any number of
failures,
Or by the indifference or ingratitude of the people, or by any
unfaithfulness,
Or the show of the tushes of power, soldiers, cannon, penal statutes.
2.
What we believe in waits latent for ever through all the continents, and
all the islands and archipelagoes of the sea.
What we believe in invites no one, promises nothing, sits in calmness and
light, is positive and composed, knows no discouragement,
Waiting patiently, waiting its time.
3.
The battle rages with many a loud alarm, and frequent advance and retreat,
The infidel triumphs--or supposes he triumphs,
The prison, scaffold, garrote, handcuffs, iron necklace and anklet, lead-
balls, do their work,
The named and unnamed heroes pass to other spheres,
The great speakers and writers are exiled--they lie sick in distant lands,
The cause is asleep--the strongest throats are still, choked
with their own blood,
The young men drop their eyelashes toward the ground when they meet;
But, for all this, Liberty has not gone out of the place, nor the infidel
entered into possession.
When Liberty goes out of a place, it is not the first to go, nor the second
or third to go,
It waits for all the rest to go--it is the last.
When there are no more memories of heroes and martyrs,
And when all life and all the souls of men and women are discharged from
any part of the earth,
Then only shall Liberty be discharged from that part of the earth,
And the infidel and the tyrant come into possession.
4.
Then courage! revolter! revoltress!
For till all ceases neither must you cease.
5.
I do not know what you are for, (I do not know what I am for myself, nor
what anything is for,)
But I will search carefully for it even in being foiled,
In defeat, poverty, imprisonment--for they too are great.
Did we think victory great?
So it is--But now it seems to me, when it cannot be helped, that defeat is
great,
And that death and dismay are great.
_DRUM TAPS. _
_MANHATTAN ARMING. _
1.
First, O songs, for a prelude,
Lightly strike on the stretched tympanum, pride and joy in my city,
How she led the rest to arms--how she gave the cue,
How at once with lithe limbs, unwaiting a moment, she sprang;
O superb! O Manhattan, my own, my peerless!
O strongest you in the hour of danger, in crisis! O truer than steel!
How you sprang! how you threw off the costumes of peace with indifferent
hand;
How your soft opera-music changed, and the drum and fife were heard in
their stead;
How you led to the war, (that shall serve for our prelude, songs of
soldiers,)
How Manhattan drum-taps led.
2.
Forty years had I in my city seen soldiers parading;
Forty years as a pageant--till unawares, the Lady of this teeming and
turbulent city,
Sleepless, amid her ships, her houses, her incalculable wealth,
With her million children around her--suddenly,
At dead of night, at news from the South,
Incensed, struck with clenched hand the pavement.
A shock electric--the night sustained it;
Till, with ominous hum, our hive at daybreak poured out its myriads.
From the houses then, and the workshops, and through all the doorways,
Leaped they tumultuous--and lo! Manhattan arming.
3.
To the drum-taps prompt,
The young men falling in and arming;
The mechanics arming, the trowel, the jack-plane, the black-smith's hammer,
tossed aside with precipitation;
The lawyer leaving his office, and arming--the judge leaving the court;
The driver deserting his waggon in the street, jumping down, throwing the
reins abruptly down on the horses' backs;
The salesman leaving the store--the boss, book-keeper, porter, all leaving;
Squads gathering everywhere by common consent, and arming;
The new recruits, even boys--the old men show them how to wear their
accoutrements--they buckle the straps carefully;
Outdoors arming--indoors arming--the flash of the musket-barrels;
The white tents cluster in camps--the armed sentries around--the sunrise
cannon, and again at sunset;
Armed regiments arrive every day, pass through the city, and embark from
the wharves;
How good they look, as they tramp down to the river, sweaty, with their
guns on their shoulders!
How I love them! how I could hug them, with their brown faces, and their
clothes and knapsacks covered with dust!
The blood of the city up--armed! armed! the cry everywhere;
The flags flung out from the steeples of churches, and from all the public
buildings and stores;
The tearful parting--the mother kisses her son--the son kisses his mother;
Loth is the mother to part--yet not a word does she speak to detain him;
The tumultuous escort--the ranks of policemen preceding, clearing the way;
The unpent enthusiasm--the wild cheers of the crowd for their favourites;
The artillery--the silent cannons, bright as gold, drawn along, rumble
lightly over the stones;
Silent cannons--soon to cease your silence,
Soon, unlimbered, to begin the red business!
All the mutter of preparation--all the determined arming;
The hospital service--the lint, bandages, and medicines;
The women volunteering for nurses--the work begun for, in earnest--no mere
parade now;
War! an armed race is advancing! --the welcome for battle--no turning away;
War! be it weeks, months, or years--an armed race is advancing to welcome
it.
4.
Mannahatta a-march! --and it's O to sing it well!
It's O for a manly life in the camp!
5.
And the sturdy artillery!
The guns, bright as gold--the work for giants--to serve well the guns:
Unlimber them! no more, as the past forty years, for salutes for courtesies
merely;
Put in something else now besides powder and wadding.
6.
And you, Lady of Ships! you, Mannahatta!
Old matron of the city! this proud, friendly, turbulent city!
Often in peace and wealth you were pensive, or covertly frowned amid all
your children;
But now you smile with joy, exulting old Mannahatta!
_1861. _
Armed year! year of the struggle!
No dainty rhymes or sentimental love verses for you, terrible year!
Not you as some pale poetling, seated at a desk, lisping cadenzas piano;
But as a strong man, erect, clothed in blue clothes, advancing, carrying a
rifle on your shoulder,
With well-gristled body and sunburnt face and hands--with a knife in the
belt at your side,
As I heard you shouting loud--your sonorous voice ringing across the
continent;
Your masculine voice, O year, as rising amid the great cities,
Amid the men of Manhattan I saw you, as one of the workmen, the dwellers in
Manhattan;
Or with large steps crossing the prairies out of Illinois and Indiana,
Rapidly crossing the West with springy gait, and descending the
Alleghanies;
Or down from the great lakes, or in Pennsylvania, or on deck along the Ohio
river;
Or southward along the Tennessee or Cumberland rivers, or at Chattanooga on
the mountain-top,
Saw I your gait and saw I your sinewy limbs, clothed in blue, bearing
weapons, robust year;
Heard your determined voice, launched forth again and again;
Year that suddenly sang by the mouths of the round-lipped cannon,
I repeat you, hurrying, crashing, sad, distracted year.
_THE UPRISING. _
1.
Rise, O days, from your fathomless deeps, till you loftier and fiercer
sweep!
Long for my soul, hungering gymnastic, I devoured what the earth gave me;
Long I roamed the woods of the North--long I watched Niagara pouring;
I travelled the prairies over, and slept on their breast--I crossed the
Nevadas,
I crossed the plateaus;
I ascended the towering rocks along the Pacific, I sailed out to sea;
I sailed through the storm, I was refreshed by the storm;
I watched with joy the threatening maws of the waves;
I marked the white combs where they careered so high, curling over;
I heard the wind piping, I saw the black clouds;
Saw from below what arose and mounted, (O superb! O wild as my heart, and
powerful! )
Heard the continuous thunder, as it bellowed after the lightning;
Noted the slender and jagged threads of lightning, as sudden and fast amid
the din they chased each other across the sky;
--These, and such as these, I, elate, saw--saw with wonder, yet pensive and
masterful;
All the menacing might of the globe uprisen around me;
Yet there with my soul I fed--I fed content, supercilious.
2.
'Twas well, O soul! 'twas a good preparation you gave me!
Now we advance our latent and ampler hunger to fill;
Now we go forth to receive what the earth and the sea never gave us;
Not through the mighty woods we go, but through the mightier cities;
Something for us is pouring now, more than Niagara pouring;
Torrents of men, (sources and rills of the North-west, are you indeed
inexhaustible? )
What, to pavements and homesteads here--what were those storms of the
mountains and sea?
What, to passions I witness around me to-day, was the sea risen?
Was the wind piping the pipe of death under the black clouds?
Lo! from deeps more unfathomable, something more deadly and savage;
Manhattan, rising, advancing with menacing front--Cincinnati, Chicago,
unchained;
--What was that swell I saw on the ocean? behold what comes here!
How it climbs with daring feet and hands! how it dashes!
How the true thunder bellows after the lightning! how bright the flashes of
lightning!
How DEMOCRACY with desperate vengeful port strides on, shown through the
dark by those flashes of lightning!
Yet a mournful wail and low sob I fancied I heard through the dark,
In a lull of the deafening confusion.
3.
Thunder on! stride on, Democracy! strike with vengeful stroke!
And do you rise higher than ever yet, O days, O cities!
Crash heavier, heavier yet, O storms! you have done me good;
My soul, prepared in the mountains, absorbs your immortal strong nutriment.
Long had I walked my cities, my country roads, through farms, only half
satisfied;
One doubt, nauseous, undulating like a snake, crawled on the ground before
me,
Continually preceding my steps, turning upon me oft, ironically hissing
low;
--The cities I loved so well I abandoned and left--I sped to the
certainties suitable to me
Hungering, hungering, hungering, for primal energies, and Nature's
dauntlessness,
I refreshed myself with it only, I could relish it only;
I waited the bursting forth of the pent fire--on the water and air I waited
long.
--But now I no longer wait--I am fully satisfied--I am glutted;
I have witnessed the true lightning--I have witnessed my cities electric;
I have lived to behold man burst forth, and warlike America rise;
Hence I will seek no more the food of the northern solitary wilds,
No more on the mountains roam, or sail the stormy sea.
_BEAT! BEAT! DRUMS! _
1.
Beat! beat! drums! --Blow! bugles! blow!
Through the windows--through doors--burst like a force of ruthless men,
Into the solemn church, and scatter the congregation;
Into the school where the scholar is studying:
Leave not the bridegroom quiet--no happiness must he have now with his
bride;
Nor the peaceful farmer any peace, ploughing his field or gathering his
grain;
So fierce you whirr and pound, you drums--so shrill you bugles blow.
2.
Beat! beat! drums! --Blow! bugles! blow!
Over the traffic of cities--over the rumble of wheels in the streets:
Are beds prepared, for sleepers at night in the houses? No sleepers must
sleep in those beds;
No bargainers' bargains by day--no brokers or speculators--Would they
continue?
Would the talkers be talking? would the singer attempt to sing?
Would the lawyer rise in the court to state his case before the judge?
Then rattle quicker, heavier, drums--you bugles wilder blow.
3.
Beat! beat! drums! --Blow! bugles! blow!
Make no parley--stop for no expostulation;
Mind not the timid--mind not the weeper or prayer;
Mind not the old man beseeching the young man;
Let not the child's voice be heard, nor the mother's entreaties;
Make even the trestles to shake the dead, where they lie awaiting the
hearses,
So strong you thump, O terrible drums--so loud you bugles blow.
_SONG OF THE BANNER AT DAYBREAK. _
POET.
O a new song, a free song,
Flapping, flapping, flapping, flapping, by sounds, by voices clearer,
By the wind's voice and that of the drum,
By the banner's voice, and child's voice, and sea's voice, and father's
voice,
Low on the ground and high in the air,
On the ground where father and child stand,
In the upward air where their eyes turn,
Where the banner at daybreak is flapping.
Words! book-words! what are you?
Words no more, for hearken and see,
My song is there in the open air--and I must sing,
With the banner and pennant a-flapping.
I'll weave the chord and twine in,
Man's desire and babe's desire--I'll twine them in, I'll put in life;
I'll put the bayonet's flashing point--I'll let bullets and slugs whizz;
I'll pour the verse with streams of blood, full of volition, full of joy;
Then loosen, launch forth, to go and compete,
With the banner and pennant a-flapping.
BANNER AND PENNANT.
Come up here, bard, bard;
Come up here, soul, soul;
Come up here, dear little child,
To fly in the clouds and winds with us, and play with the measureless
light.
CHILD.
Father, what is that in the sky beckoning to me with long finger?
And what does it say to me all the while?
FATHER.
Nothing, my babe, you see in the sky;
And nothing at all to you it says. But look you, my babe,
Look at these dazzling things in the houses, and see you the money-shops
opening;
And see you the vehicles preparing to crawl along the streets with goods:
These! ah, these! how valued and toiled for, these!
How envied by all the earth!
POET.
Fresh and rosy red, the sun is mounting high;
On floats the sea in distant blue, careering through its channels;
On floats the wind over the breast of the sea, setting in toward land;
The great steady wind from west and west-by-south,
Floating so buoyant, with milk-white foam on the waters.
But I am not the sea, nor the red sun;
I am not the wind, with girlish laughter;
Not the immense wind which strengthens--not the wind which lashes;
Not the spirit that ever lashes its own body to terror and death:
But I am of that which unseen comes and sings, sings, sings,
Which babbles in brooks and scoots in showers on the land;
Which the birds know in the woods, mornings and evenings,
And the shore-sands know, and the hissing wave, and that banner and
pennant,
Aloft there flapping and flapping.
CHILD.
O father, it is alive--it is full of people--it has children!
O now it seems to me it is talking to its children!
I hear it--it talks to me--O it is wonderful!
O it stretches--it spreads and runs so fast! O my father,
It is so broad it covers the whole sky!
FATHER.
Cease, cease, my foolish babe,
What you are saying is sorrowful to me--much it displeases me;
Behold with the rest, again I say--behold not banners and pennants aloft;
But the well-prepared pavements behold--and mark the solid-walled houses.
BANNER AND PENNANT.
Speak to the child, O bard, out of Manhattan;
Speak to our children all, or north or south of Manhattan,
Where our factory-engines hum, where our miners delve the ground,
Where our hoarse Niagara rumbles, where our prairie-ploughs are ploughing;
Speak, O bard! point this day, leaving all the rest, to us over all--and
yet we know not why;
For what are we, mere strips of cloth, profiting nothing,
Only flapping in the wind?
POET.
I hear and see not strips of cloth alone;
I hear the tramp of armies, I hear the challenging sentry;
I hear the jubilant shouts of millions of men--I hear LIBERTY!
I hear the drums beat, and the trumpets blowing;
I myself move abroad, swift-rising, flying then;
I use the wings of the land-bird, and use the wings of the sea-bird, and
look down as from a height.
I do not deny the precious results of peace--I see populous cities, with
wealth incalculable;
I see numberless farms--I see the farmers working in their fields or barns;
I see mechanics working--I see buildings everywhere founded, going up, or
finished;
I see trains of cars swiftly speeding along railroad tracks, drawn by the
locomotives;
I see the stores, depots, of Boston, Baltimore, Charleston, New Orleans;
I see far in the west the immense area of grain--I dwell a while, hovering;
I pass to the lumber forests of the north, and again to the southern
plantation, and again to California;
Sweeping the whole, I see the countless profit, the busy gatherings, earned
wages;
See the identity formed out of thirty-six spacious and haughty States, (and
many more to come;)
See forts on the shores of harbours--see ships sailing in and out;
Then over all, (aye! aye! ) my little and lengthened pennant shaped like a
sword
Runs swiftly up, indicating war and defiance--And now the halyards have
raised it,
Side of my banner broad and blue--side of my starry banner,
Discarding peace over all the sea and land.
BANNER AND PENNANT.
Yet louder, higher, stronger, bard! yet farther, wider cleave!
No longer let our children deem us riches and peace alone;
We can be terror and carnage also, and are so now.
Not now are we one of these spacious and haughty States, (nor any five, nor
ten;)
Nor market nor depot are we, nor money-bank in the city;
But these, and all, and the brown and spreading land, and the mines below,
are ours;
And the shores of the sea are ours, and the rivers great and small;
And the fields they moisten are ours, and the crops, and the fruits are
ours;
Bays and channels, and ships sailing in and out, are ours--and we over all,
Over the area spread below, the three millions of square miles--the
capitals,
The thirty-five millions of people--O bard! in life and death supreme,
We, even we, from this day flaunt out masterful, high up above,
Not for the present alone, for a thousand years, chanting through you
This song to the soul of one poor little child.
CHILD.
O my father, I like not the houses;
They will never to me be anything--nor do I like money!
But to mount up there I would like, O father dear--that banner I like;
That pennant I would be, and must be.
FATHER.
Child of mine, you fill me with anguish,
To be that pennant would be too fearful;
Little you know what it is this day, and henceforth for ever;
It is to gain nothing, but risk and defy everything;
Forward to stand in front of wars--and O, such wars! --what have you to do
with them?
With passions of demons, slaughter, premature death?
POET.
Demons and death then I sing;
Put in all, aye all, will I--sword-shaped pennant for war, and banner so
broad and blue,
And a pleasure new and ecstatic, and the prattled yearning of children,
Blent with the sounds of the peaceful land, and the liquid wash of the sea;
And the icy cool of the far, far north, with rustling cedars and pines;
And the whirr of drums, and the sound of soldiers marching, and the hot sun
shining south;
And the beach-waves combing over the beach on my eastern shore, and my
western shore the same;
And all between those shores, and my ever-running Mississippi, with bends
and chutes;
And my Illinois fields, and my Kansas fields, and my fields of Missouri;
The CONTINENT--devoting the whole identity, without reserving an atom,
Pour in! whelm that which asks, which sings, with all, and the yield of
all.
BANNER AND PENNANT.
Aye all! for ever, for all!
From sea to sea, north and south, east and west,
Fusing and holding, claiming, devouring the whole;
No more with tender lip, nor musical labial sound,
But out of the night emerging for good, our voice persuasive no more,
Croaking like crows here in the wind.
POET.
My limbs, my veins dilate;
The blood of the world has filled me full--my theme is clear at last.
--Banner so broad, advancing out of the night, I sing you haughty and
resolute;
I burst through where I waited long, too long, deafened and blinded;
My sight, my hearing and tongue, are come to me, (a little child taught
me;)
I hear from above, O pennant of war, your ironical call and demand;
Insensate! insensate! yet I at any rate chant you, O banner!
Not houses of peace are you, nor any nor all their prosperity; if need be,
you shall have every one of those houses to destroy them;
You thought not to destroy those valuable houses, standing fast, full of
comfort, built with money;
May they stand fast, then? Not an hour, unless you, above them and all,
stand fast.
--O banner! not money so precious are you, nor farm produce you, nor the
material good nutriment,
Nor excellent stores, nor landed on wharves from the ships;
Not the superb ships, with sail-power or steam-power, fetching and carrying
cargoes,
Nor machinery, vehicles, trade, nor revenues,--But you, as henceforth I see
you,
Running up out of the night, bringing your cluster of stars, ever-enlarging
stars;
Divider of daybreak you, cutting the air, touched by the sun, measuring the
sky,
Passionately seen and yearned for by one poor little child,
While others remain busy, or smartly talking, for ever teaching thrift,
thrift;
O you up there! O pennant! where you undulate like a snake, hissing so
curious,
Out of reach--an idea only--yet furiously fought for, risking bloody
death--loved by me!
So loved! O you banner, leading the day, with stars brought from the night!
Valueless, object of eyes, over all and demanding all--O banner and
pennant!
I too leave the rest--great as it is, it is nothing--houses, machines are
nothing--I see them not;
I see but you, O warlike pennant! O banner so broad, with stripes, I sing
you only,
Flapping up there in the wind.
_THE BIVOUAC'S FLAME. _
By the bivouac's fitful flame,
A procession winding around me, solemn and sweet and slow;--but first I
note
The tents of the sleeping army, the fields' and woods' dim outline,
The darkness, lit by spots of kindled fire--the silence;
Like a phantom far or near an occasional figure moving;
The shrubs and trees, (as I lift my eyes they seem to be stealthily
watching me;)
While wind in procession thoughts, O tender and wondrous thoughts,
Of life and death--of home and the past and loved, and of those that are
far away;
A solemn and slow procession there as I sit on the ground,
By the bivouac's fitful flame.
_BIVOUAC ON A MOUNTAIN-SIDE. _
I see before me now a travelling army halting;
Below, a fertile valley spread, with barns, and the orchards of summer;
Behind, the terraced sides of a mountain, abrupt in places, rising high;
Broken with rocks, with clinging cedars, with tall shapes, dingily seen;
The numerous camp-fires scattered near and far, some away up on the
mountain;
The shadowy forms of men and horses, looming, large-sized, flickering;
And over all, the sky--the sky! far, far out of reach, studded with the
eternal stars.
_CITY OF SHIPS. _
City of ships!
(O the black ships! O the fierce ships!
O the beautiful, sharp-bowed steam-ships and sail-ships! )
City of the world! (for all races are here;
All the lands of the earth make contributions here;)
City of the sea! city of hurried and glittering tides!
City whose gleeful tides continually rush or recede, whirling in and out,
with eddies and foam!
City of wharves and stores! city of tall facades of marble and iron!
Proud and passionate city! mettlesome, mad, extravagant city!
Spring up, O city! not for peace alone, but be indeed yourself, warlike!
Fear not! submit to no models but your own, O city!
Behold me! incarnate me, as I have incarnated you!
I have rejected nothing you offered me--whom you adopted, I have adopted;
Good or bad, I never question you--I love all--I do not condemn anything;
I chant and celebrate all that is yours--yet peace no more;
In peace I chanted peace, but now the drum of war is mine;
War, red war, is my song through your streets, O city!
_VIGIL ON THE FIELD. _
VIGIL strange I kept on the field one night,
When you, my son and my comrade, dropped at my side that day.
One look I but gave, which your dear eyes returned with a look I shall
never forget;
One touch of your hand to mine, O boy, reached up as you lay on the ground.
Then onward I sped in the battle, the even-contested battle;
Till, late in the night relieved, to the place at last again I made my way;
Found you in death so cold, dear comrade--found your body, son of
responding kisses, (never again on earth responding;)
Bared your face in the starlight--curious the scene--cool blew the moderate
night-wind.
Long there and then in vigil I stood, dimly around me the battlefield
spreading;
Vigil wondrous and vigil sweet, there in the fragrant silent night.
You owned persons, dropping sweat-drops or blood-drops!
You human forms with the fathomless ever-impressive countenances of brutes!
I dare not refuse you--the scope of the world, and of time and space, are
upon me.
You poor koboo whom the meanest of the rest look down upon, for all your
glimmering language and spirituality!
You low expiring aborigines of the hills of Utah, Oregon, California!
You dwarfed Kamtschatkan, Greenlander, Lap!
You Austral negro, naked, red, sooty, with protrusive lip, grovelling,
seeking your food!
You Caffre, Berber, Soudanese!
You haggard, uncouth, untutored Bedowee!
You plague-swarms in Madras, Nankin, Kaubul, Cairo!
You bather bathing in the Ganges!
You benighted roamer of Amazonia! you Patagonian! you Fejee-man!
You peon of Mexico! you slave of Carolina, Texas, Tennessee!
I do not prefer others so very much before you either;
I do not say one word against you, away back there, where you stand;
You will come forward in due time to my side.
My spirit has passed in compassion and determination around the whole
earth;
I have looked for equals and lovers, and found them ready for me in all
lands;
I think some divine rapport has equalised me with them.
13.
O vapours! I think I have risen with you, and moved away to distant
continents, and fallen down there, for reasons;
I think I have blown with you, O winds;
O waters, I have fingered every shore with you.
I have run through what any river or strait of the globe has run through;
I have taken my stand on the bases of peninsulas, and on the highest
embedded rocks, to cry thence.
_Salut au Monde! _
What cities the light or warmth penetrates, I penetrate those cities
myself;
All islands to which birds wing their way, I wing my way myself.
Toward all
I raise high the perpendicular hand--I make the signal,
To remain after me in sight for ever,
For all the haunts and homes of men.
_A BROADWAY PAGEANT. _
(RECEPTION OF THE JAPANESE EMBASSY, JUNE 16, 1860. )
1.
Over sea, hither from Niphon,
Courteous, the Princes of Asia, swart-cheeked princes,
First-comers, guests, two-sworded princes,
Lesson-giving princes, leaning back in their open barouches, bare-headed,
impassive,
This day they ride through Manhattan.
2.
Libertad!
I do not know whether others behold what I behold,
In the procession, along with the Princes of Asia, the errand-bearers,
Bringing up the rear, hovering above, around, or in the ranks marching;
But I will sing you a song of what I behold, Libertad.
3.
When million-footed Manhattan, unpent, descends to its pavements;
When the thunder-cracking guns arouse me with the proud roar I love;
When the round-mouthed guns, out of the smoke and smell I love, spit their
salutes;
When the fire-flashing guns have fully alerted me--when heaven-clouds
canopy my city with a delicate thin haze;
When, gorgeous, the countless straight stems, the forests at the wharves,
thicken with colours;
When every ship, richly dressed, carries her flag at the peak;
When pennants trail, and street-festoons hang from the windows;
When Broadway is entirely given up to foot-passengers and foot-standers--
when the mass is densest;
When the facades of the houses are alive with people--when eyes gaze,
riveted, tens of thousands at a time;
When the guests from the islands advance--when the pageant moves forward,
visible;
When the summons is made--when the answer, that waited thousands of years,
answers;
I too, arising, answering, descend to the pavements, merge with the crowd,
and gaze with them.
4.
Superb-faced Manhattan!
Comrade Americanos! --to us, then, at last, the Orient comes.
To us, my city,
Where our tall-topped marble and iron beauties range on opposite sides--to
walk in the space between,
To-day our Antipodes comes.
The Originatress comes,
The land of Paradise--land of the Caucasus--the nest of birth,
The nest of languages, the bequeather of poems, the race of eld,
Florid with blood, pensive, rapt with musings, hot with passion,
Sultry with perfume, with ample and flowing garments,
With sunburnt visage, with intense soul and glittering eyes,
The race of Brahma comes!
See, my cantabile! these, and more, are flashing to us from the procession;
As it moves changing, a kaleidoscope divine it moves changing before us.
Not the errand-bearing princes, nor the tanned Japanee only;
Lithe and silent, the Hindoo appears--the whole Asiatic continent itself
appears--the Past, the dead,
The murky night-morning of wonder and fable, inscrutable,
The enveloped mysteries, the old and unknown hive-bees,
The North--the sweltering South--Assyria--the Hebrews--the Ancient of
ancients,
Vast desolated cities--the gliding Present--all of these, and more, are in
the pageant-procession.
Geography, the world, is in it;
The Great Sea, the brood of islands, Polynesia, the coast beyond;
The coast you henceforth are facing--you Libertad! from your Western golden
shores;
The countries there, with their populations--the millions _en masse_, are
curiously here;
The swarming market-places--the temples, with idols ranged along the sides,
or at the end--bronze, brahmin, and lama;
The mandarin, farmer, merchant, mechanic, and fisherman;
The singing-girl and the dancing-girl--the ecstatic person--the divine
Buddha;
The secluded Emperors--Confucius himself--the great poets and heroes--the
warriors, the castes, all,
Trooping up, crowding from all directions--from the Altay mountains,
From Thibet--from the four winding and far-flowing rivers
of China,
From the Southern peninsulas, and the demi-continental islands--from
Malaysia;
These, and whatever belongs to them, palpable, show forth to me, and are
seized by me,
And I am seized by them, and friendlily held by them,
Till, as here, them all I chant, Libertad! for themselves and for you.
5.
For I too, raising my voice, join the ranks of this pageant;
I am the chanter--I chant aloud over the pageant;
I chant the world on my Western Sea;
I chant, copious, the islands beyond, thick as stars in the sky;
I chant the new empire, grander than any before--As in a vision it comes to
me;
I chant America, the Mistress--I chant a greater supremacy;
I chant, projected, a thousand blooming cities yet, in time, on those
groups of sea-islands;
I chant my sail-ships and steam-ships threading the archipelagoes;
I chant my stars and stripes fluttering in the wind;
I chant commerce opening, the sleep of ages having done its work--races
reborn, refreshed;
Lives, works, resumed--The object I know not--but the old, the Asiatic,
resumed, as it must be,
Commencing from this day, surrounded by the world.
And you, Libertad of the world!
You shall sit in the middle, well-poised, thousands of years;
As to-day, from one side, the Princes of Asia come to you;
As to-morrow, from the other side, the Queen of England sends her eldest
son to you.
The sign is reversing, the orb is enclosed,
The ring is circled, the journey is done;
The box-lid is but perceptibly opened--nevertheless the perfume pours
copiously out of the whole box.
6.
Young Libertad!
With the venerable Asia, the all-mother,
Be considerate with her, now and ever, hot Libertad--for you are all;
Bend your proud neck to the long-off mother, now sending messages over the
archipelagoes to you:
Bend your proud neck for once, young Libertad.
7.
Were the children straying westward so long? so wide the tramping?
Were the precedent dim ages debouching westward from Paradise so long?
Were the centuries steadily footing it that way, all the while unknown, for
you, for reasons?
They are justified--they are accomplished--they shall now be turned the
other way also, to travel toward you thence;
They shall now also march obediently eastward, for your sake, Libertad.
_OLD IRELAND. _
1.
Far hence, amid an isle of wondrous beauty,
Crouching over a grave, an ancient sorrowful mother,
Once a queen--now lean and tattered, seated on the ground,
Her old white hair drooping dishevelled round her shoulders;
At her feet fallen an unused royal harp,
Long silent--she too long silent--mourning her shrouded hope and heir;
Of all the earth her heart most full of sorrow, because most full of love.
2.
Yet a word, ancient mother;
You need crouch there no longer on the cold ground, with forehead between
your knees;
O you need not sit there, veiled in your old white hair, so dishevelled;
For know you, the one you mourn is not in that grave;
It was an illusion--the heir, the son you love, was not really dead;
The Lord is not dead--he is risen again, young and strong, in another
country;
Even while you wept there by your fallen harp, by the grave,
What you wept for was translated, passed from the grave,
The winds favoured, and the sea sailed it,
And now, with rosy and new blood,
Moves to-day in a new country.
_BOSTON TOWN. _
1.
To get betimes in Boston town, I rose this morning early;
Here's a good place at the corner--I must stand and see the show.
2.
Clear the way there, Jonathan!
Way for the President's marshal! Way for the government cannon!
Way for the Federal foot and dragoons--and the apparitions copiously
tumbling.
I love to look on the stars and stripes--I hope the fifes will play "Yankee
Doodle,"
How bright shine the cutlasses of the foremost troops!
Every man holds his revolver, marching stiff through Boston town.
3.
A fog follows--antiques of the same come limping,
Some appear wooden-legged, and some appear bandaged and bloodless.
Why this is indeed a show! It has called the dead out of the earth!
The old graveyards of the hills have hurried to see!
Phantoms! phantoms countless by flank and rear!
Cocked hats of mothy mould! crutches made of mist!
Arms in slings! old men leaning on young men's shoulders!
What troubles you, Yankee phantoms? What is all this chattering of bare
gums?
Does the ague convulse your limbs? Do you mistake your crutches for
firelocks, and level them?
If you blind your eyes with tears, you will not see the President's
marshal;
If you groan such groans, you might baulk the government cannon.
For shame, old maniacs! Bring down those tossed arms, and let your white
hair be;
Here gape your great grandsons--their wives gaze at them from the windows,
See how well-dressed--see how orderly they conduct themselves.
Worse and worse! Can't you stand it? Are you retreating?
Is this hour with the living too dead for you?
Retreat then! Pell-mell!
To your graves! Back! back to the hills, old limpers!
I do not think you belong here, anyhow.
4.
But there is one thing that belongs here--shall I tell you what it is,
gentlemen of Boston?
I will whisper it to the Mayor--He shall send a committee to England;
They shall get a grant from the Parliament, go with a cart to the royal
vault--haste!
Dig out King George's coffin, unwrap him quick from the grave-clothes, box
up his bones for a journey;
Find a swift Yankee clipper--here is freight for you, black-bellied
clipper,
Up with your anchor! shake out your sails! steer straight toward Boston
bay.
5.
Now call for the President's marshal again, bring out the government
cannon,
Fetch home the roarers from Congress,--make another procession, guard it
with foot and dragoons.
This centre-piece for them!
Look, all orderly citizens! Look from the windows, women!
The committee open the box; set up the regal ribs; glue those that will not
stay;
Clap the skull on top of the ribs, and clap a crown on top of the skull.
You have got your revenge, old bluster! The crown is come to its own, and
more than its own.
6.
Stick your hands in your pockets, Jonathan--you are a made man from this
day;
You are mighty 'cute--and here is one of your bargains.
_FRANCE, THE EIGHTEENTH YEAR OF THESE STATES. _[1]
1.
A great year and place;
A harsh, discordant, natal scream out-sounding, to touch the mother's heart
closer than any yet.
2.
I walked the shores of my Eastern Sea,
Heard over the waves the little voice,
Saw the divine infant, where she woke, mournfully wailing, amid the roar of
cannon, curses, shouts, crash of falling buildings;
Was not so sick from the blood in the gutters running--nor from the single
corpses, nor those in heaps, nor those borne away in the tumbrils;
Was not so desperate at the battues of death--was not so shocked at the
repeated fusillades of the guns.
Pale, silent, stern, what could I say to that long-accrued retribution?
Could I wish humanity different?
Could I wish the people made of wood and stone?
Or that there be no justice in destiny or time?
3.
O Liberty! O mate for me!
Here too the blaze, the bullet, and the axe, in reserve to fetch them out
in case of need,
Here too, though long repressed, can never be destroyed;
Here too could rise at last, murdering and ecstatic;
Here too demanding full arrears of vengeance.
Hence I sign this salute over the sea,
And I do not deny that terrible red birth and baptism,
But remember the little voice that I heard wailing--and wait with perfect
trust, no matter how long;
And from to-day, sad and cogent, I maintain the bequeathed cause, as for
all lands,
And I send these words to Paris with my love,
And I guess some _chansonniers_ there will understand them,
For I guess there is latent music yet in France--floods of it.
O I hear already the bustle of instruments--they will soon be drowning all
that would interrupt them;
O I think the east wind brings a triumphal and free march,
It reaches hither--it swells me to joyful madness,
I will run transpose it in words, to justify it,
I will yet sing a song for you, _ma femme! _
[Footnote 1: 1793-4---The great poet of Democracy is "not so shocked" at
the great European year of Democracy. ]
_EUROPE, THE SEVENTY-SECOND AND SEVENTY-THIRD YEARS OF THESE STATES. _[1]
1.
Suddenly, out of its stale and drowsy lair, the lair of slaves,
Like lightning it leaped forth, half startled at itself,
Its feet upon the ashes and the rags--its hands tight to the throats of
kings.
O hope and faith!
O aching close of exiled patriots' lives!
O many a sickened heart!
Turn back unto this day, and make yourselves afresh.
2.
And you, paid to defile the People! you liars, mark!
Not for numberless agonies, murders, lusts,
For court thieving in its manifold mean forms, worming from his simplicity
the poor man's wages,
For many a promise sworn by royal lips, and broken, and laughed at in the
breaking,
Then in their power, not for all these did the blows strike revenge, or the
heads of the nobles fall;
The People scorned the ferocity of kings.
3.
But the sweetness of mercy brewed bitter destruction, and the frightened
rulers come back;
Each comes in state with his train--hangman, priest, tax-gatherer,
Soldier, lawyer, lord, jailer, and sycophant.
4.
Yet behind all, lowering, stealing--lo, a Shape,
Vague as the night, draped interminably, head, front, and form, in scarlet
folds,
Whose face and eyes none may see:
Out of its robes only this--the red robes, lifted by the arm--
One finger crooked, pointed high over the top, like the head of a snake
appears.
5.
Meanwhile, corpses lie in new-made graves--bloody corpses of young men;
The rope of the gibbet hangs heavily, the bullets of princes are flying,
the creatures of power laugh aloud,
And all these things bear fruits--and they are good.
Those corpses of young men,
Those martyrs that hang from the gibbets--those hearts pierced by the grey
lead,
Cold and motionless as they seem, live elsewhere with unslaughtered
vitality.
They live in other young men, O kings!
They live in brothers, again ready to defy you!
They were purified by death--they were taught and exalted.
Not a grave of the murdered for freedom but grows seed for freedom, in its
turn to bear seed,
Which the winds carry afar and resow, and the rains and the snows nourish.
Not a disembodied spirit can the weapons of tyrants let loose,
But it stalks invisibly over the earth, whispering, counselling,
cautioning.
6.
Liberty! let others despair of you! I never despair of you.
Is the house shut? Is the master away?
Nevertheless, be ready--be not weary of watching:
He will soon return--his messengers come anon.
[Footnote 1: The years 1848 and 1849. ]
_TO A FOILED REVOLTER OR REVOLTRESS. _
1.
Courage! my brother or my sister!
Keep on! Liberty is to be subserved, whatever occurs;
That is nothing that is quelled by one or two failures, or any number of
failures,
Or by the indifference or ingratitude of the people, or by any
unfaithfulness,
Or the show of the tushes of power, soldiers, cannon, penal statutes.
2.
What we believe in waits latent for ever through all the continents, and
all the islands and archipelagoes of the sea.
What we believe in invites no one, promises nothing, sits in calmness and
light, is positive and composed, knows no discouragement,
Waiting patiently, waiting its time.
3.
The battle rages with many a loud alarm, and frequent advance and retreat,
The infidel triumphs--or supposes he triumphs,
The prison, scaffold, garrote, handcuffs, iron necklace and anklet, lead-
balls, do their work,
The named and unnamed heroes pass to other spheres,
The great speakers and writers are exiled--they lie sick in distant lands,
The cause is asleep--the strongest throats are still, choked
with their own blood,
The young men drop their eyelashes toward the ground when they meet;
But, for all this, Liberty has not gone out of the place, nor the infidel
entered into possession.
When Liberty goes out of a place, it is not the first to go, nor the second
or third to go,
It waits for all the rest to go--it is the last.
When there are no more memories of heroes and martyrs,
And when all life and all the souls of men and women are discharged from
any part of the earth,
Then only shall Liberty be discharged from that part of the earth,
And the infidel and the tyrant come into possession.
4.
Then courage! revolter! revoltress!
For till all ceases neither must you cease.
5.
I do not know what you are for, (I do not know what I am for myself, nor
what anything is for,)
But I will search carefully for it even in being foiled,
In defeat, poverty, imprisonment--for they too are great.
Did we think victory great?
So it is--But now it seems to me, when it cannot be helped, that defeat is
great,
And that death and dismay are great.
_DRUM TAPS. _
_MANHATTAN ARMING. _
1.
First, O songs, for a prelude,
Lightly strike on the stretched tympanum, pride and joy in my city,
How she led the rest to arms--how she gave the cue,
How at once with lithe limbs, unwaiting a moment, she sprang;
O superb! O Manhattan, my own, my peerless!
O strongest you in the hour of danger, in crisis! O truer than steel!
How you sprang! how you threw off the costumes of peace with indifferent
hand;
How your soft opera-music changed, and the drum and fife were heard in
their stead;
How you led to the war, (that shall serve for our prelude, songs of
soldiers,)
How Manhattan drum-taps led.
2.
Forty years had I in my city seen soldiers parading;
Forty years as a pageant--till unawares, the Lady of this teeming and
turbulent city,
Sleepless, amid her ships, her houses, her incalculable wealth,
With her million children around her--suddenly,
At dead of night, at news from the South,
Incensed, struck with clenched hand the pavement.
A shock electric--the night sustained it;
Till, with ominous hum, our hive at daybreak poured out its myriads.
From the houses then, and the workshops, and through all the doorways,
Leaped they tumultuous--and lo! Manhattan arming.
3.
To the drum-taps prompt,
The young men falling in and arming;
The mechanics arming, the trowel, the jack-plane, the black-smith's hammer,
tossed aside with precipitation;
The lawyer leaving his office, and arming--the judge leaving the court;
The driver deserting his waggon in the street, jumping down, throwing the
reins abruptly down on the horses' backs;
The salesman leaving the store--the boss, book-keeper, porter, all leaving;
Squads gathering everywhere by common consent, and arming;
The new recruits, even boys--the old men show them how to wear their
accoutrements--they buckle the straps carefully;
Outdoors arming--indoors arming--the flash of the musket-barrels;
The white tents cluster in camps--the armed sentries around--the sunrise
cannon, and again at sunset;
Armed regiments arrive every day, pass through the city, and embark from
the wharves;
How good they look, as they tramp down to the river, sweaty, with their
guns on their shoulders!
How I love them! how I could hug them, with their brown faces, and their
clothes and knapsacks covered with dust!
The blood of the city up--armed! armed! the cry everywhere;
The flags flung out from the steeples of churches, and from all the public
buildings and stores;
The tearful parting--the mother kisses her son--the son kisses his mother;
Loth is the mother to part--yet not a word does she speak to detain him;
The tumultuous escort--the ranks of policemen preceding, clearing the way;
The unpent enthusiasm--the wild cheers of the crowd for their favourites;
The artillery--the silent cannons, bright as gold, drawn along, rumble
lightly over the stones;
Silent cannons--soon to cease your silence,
Soon, unlimbered, to begin the red business!
All the mutter of preparation--all the determined arming;
The hospital service--the lint, bandages, and medicines;
The women volunteering for nurses--the work begun for, in earnest--no mere
parade now;
War! an armed race is advancing! --the welcome for battle--no turning away;
War! be it weeks, months, or years--an armed race is advancing to welcome
it.
4.
Mannahatta a-march! --and it's O to sing it well!
It's O for a manly life in the camp!
5.
And the sturdy artillery!
The guns, bright as gold--the work for giants--to serve well the guns:
Unlimber them! no more, as the past forty years, for salutes for courtesies
merely;
Put in something else now besides powder and wadding.
6.
And you, Lady of Ships! you, Mannahatta!
Old matron of the city! this proud, friendly, turbulent city!
Often in peace and wealth you were pensive, or covertly frowned amid all
your children;
But now you smile with joy, exulting old Mannahatta!
_1861. _
Armed year! year of the struggle!
No dainty rhymes or sentimental love verses for you, terrible year!
Not you as some pale poetling, seated at a desk, lisping cadenzas piano;
But as a strong man, erect, clothed in blue clothes, advancing, carrying a
rifle on your shoulder,
With well-gristled body and sunburnt face and hands--with a knife in the
belt at your side,
As I heard you shouting loud--your sonorous voice ringing across the
continent;
Your masculine voice, O year, as rising amid the great cities,
Amid the men of Manhattan I saw you, as one of the workmen, the dwellers in
Manhattan;
Or with large steps crossing the prairies out of Illinois and Indiana,
Rapidly crossing the West with springy gait, and descending the
Alleghanies;
Or down from the great lakes, or in Pennsylvania, or on deck along the Ohio
river;
Or southward along the Tennessee or Cumberland rivers, or at Chattanooga on
the mountain-top,
Saw I your gait and saw I your sinewy limbs, clothed in blue, bearing
weapons, robust year;
Heard your determined voice, launched forth again and again;
Year that suddenly sang by the mouths of the round-lipped cannon,
I repeat you, hurrying, crashing, sad, distracted year.
_THE UPRISING. _
1.
Rise, O days, from your fathomless deeps, till you loftier and fiercer
sweep!
Long for my soul, hungering gymnastic, I devoured what the earth gave me;
Long I roamed the woods of the North--long I watched Niagara pouring;
I travelled the prairies over, and slept on their breast--I crossed the
Nevadas,
I crossed the plateaus;
I ascended the towering rocks along the Pacific, I sailed out to sea;
I sailed through the storm, I was refreshed by the storm;
I watched with joy the threatening maws of the waves;
I marked the white combs where they careered so high, curling over;
I heard the wind piping, I saw the black clouds;
Saw from below what arose and mounted, (O superb! O wild as my heart, and
powerful! )
Heard the continuous thunder, as it bellowed after the lightning;
Noted the slender and jagged threads of lightning, as sudden and fast amid
the din they chased each other across the sky;
--These, and such as these, I, elate, saw--saw with wonder, yet pensive and
masterful;
All the menacing might of the globe uprisen around me;
Yet there with my soul I fed--I fed content, supercilious.
2.
'Twas well, O soul! 'twas a good preparation you gave me!
Now we advance our latent and ampler hunger to fill;
Now we go forth to receive what the earth and the sea never gave us;
Not through the mighty woods we go, but through the mightier cities;
Something for us is pouring now, more than Niagara pouring;
Torrents of men, (sources and rills of the North-west, are you indeed
inexhaustible? )
What, to pavements and homesteads here--what were those storms of the
mountains and sea?
What, to passions I witness around me to-day, was the sea risen?
Was the wind piping the pipe of death under the black clouds?
Lo! from deeps more unfathomable, something more deadly and savage;
Manhattan, rising, advancing with menacing front--Cincinnati, Chicago,
unchained;
--What was that swell I saw on the ocean? behold what comes here!
How it climbs with daring feet and hands! how it dashes!
How the true thunder bellows after the lightning! how bright the flashes of
lightning!
How DEMOCRACY with desperate vengeful port strides on, shown through the
dark by those flashes of lightning!
Yet a mournful wail and low sob I fancied I heard through the dark,
In a lull of the deafening confusion.
3.
Thunder on! stride on, Democracy! strike with vengeful stroke!
And do you rise higher than ever yet, O days, O cities!
Crash heavier, heavier yet, O storms! you have done me good;
My soul, prepared in the mountains, absorbs your immortal strong nutriment.
Long had I walked my cities, my country roads, through farms, only half
satisfied;
One doubt, nauseous, undulating like a snake, crawled on the ground before
me,
Continually preceding my steps, turning upon me oft, ironically hissing
low;
--The cities I loved so well I abandoned and left--I sped to the
certainties suitable to me
Hungering, hungering, hungering, for primal energies, and Nature's
dauntlessness,
I refreshed myself with it only, I could relish it only;
I waited the bursting forth of the pent fire--on the water and air I waited
long.
--But now I no longer wait--I am fully satisfied--I am glutted;
I have witnessed the true lightning--I have witnessed my cities electric;
I have lived to behold man burst forth, and warlike America rise;
Hence I will seek no more the food of the northern solitary wilds,
No more on the mountains roam, or sail the stormy sea.
_BEAT! BEAT! DRUMS! _
1.
Beat! beat! drums! --Blow! bugles! blow!
Through the windows--through doors--burst like a force of ruthless men,
Into the solemn church, and scatter the congregation;
Into the school where the scholar is studying:
Leave not the bridegroom quiet--no happiness must he have now with his
bride;
Nor the peaceful farmer any peace, ploughing his field or gathering his
grain;
So fierce you whirr and pound, you drums--so shrill you bugles blow.
2.
Beat! beat! drums! --Blow! bugles! blow!
Over the traffic of cities--over the rumble of wheels in the streets:
Are beds prepared, for sleepers at night in the houses? No sleepers must
sleep in those beds;
No bargainers' bargains by day--no brokers or speculators--Would they
continue?
Would the talkers be talking? would the singer attempt to sing?
Would the lawyer rise in the court to state his case before the judge?
Then rattle quicker, heavier, drums--you bugles wilder blow.
3.
Beat! beat! drums! --Blow! bugles! blow!
Make no parley--stop for no expostulation;
Mind not the timid--mind not the weeper or prayer;
Mind not the old man beseeching the young man;
Let not the child's voice be heard, nor the mother's entreaties;
Make even the trestles to shake the dead, where they lie awaiting the
hearses,
So strong you thump, O terrible drums--so loud you bugles blow.
_SONG OF THE BANNER AT DAYBREAK. _
POET.
O a new song, a free song,
Flapping, flapping, flapping, flapping, by sounds, by voices clearer,
By the wind's voice and that of the drum,
By the banner's voice, and child's voice, and sea's voice, and father's
voice,
Low on the ground and high in the air,
On the ground where father and child stand,
In the upward air where their eyes turn,
Where the banner at daybreak is flapping.
Words! book-words! what are you?
Words no more, for hearken and see,
My song is there in the open air--and I must sing,
With the banner and pennant a-flapping.
I'll weave the chord and twine in,
Man's desire and babe's desire--I'll twine them in, I'll put in life;
I'll put the bayonet's flashing point--I'll let bullets and slugs whizz;
I'll pour the verse with streams of blood, full of volition, full of joy;
Then loosen, launch forth, to go and compete,
With the banner and pennant a-flapping.
BANNER AND PENNANT.
Come up here, bard, bard;
Come up here, soul, soul;
Come up here, dear little child,
To fly in the clouds and winds with us, and play with the measureless
light.
CHILD.
Father, what is that in the sky beckoning to me with long finger?
And what does it say to me all the while?
FATHER.
Nothing, my babe, you see in the sky;
And nothing at all to you it says. But look you, my babe,
Look at these dazzling things in the houses, and see you the money-shops
opening;
And see you the vehicles preparing to crawl along the streets with goods:
These! ah, these! how valued and toiled for, these!
How envied by all the earth!
POET.
Fresh and rosy red, the sun is mounting high;
On floats the sea in distant blue, careering through its channels;
On floats the wind over the breast of the sea, setting in toward land;
The great steady wind from west and west-by-south,
Floating so buoyant, with milk-white foam on the waters.
But I am not the sea, nor the red sun;
I am not the wind, with girlish laughter;
Not the immense wind which strengthens--not the wind which lashes;
Not the spirit that ever lashes its own body to terror and death:
But I am of that which unseen comes and sings, sings, sings,
Which babbles in brooks and scoots in showers on the land;
Which the birds know in the woods, mornings and evenings,
And the shore-sands know, and the hissing wave, and that banner and
pennant,
Aloft there flapping and flapping.
CHILD.
O father, it is alive--it is full of people--it has children!
O now it seems to me it is talking to its children!
I hear it--it talks to me--O it is wonderful!
O it stretches--it spreads and runs so fast! O my father,
It is so broad it covers the whole sky!
FATHER.
Cease, cease, my foolish babe,
What you are saying is sorrowful to me--much it displeases me;
Behold with the rest, again I say--behold not banners and pennants aloft;
But the well-prepared pavements behold--and mark the solid-walled houses.
BANNER AND PENNANT.
Speak to the child, O bard, out of Manhattan;
Speak to our children all, or north or south of Manhattan,
Where our factory-engines hum, where our miners delve the ground,
Where our hoarse Niagara rumbles, where our prairie-ploughs are ploughing;
Speak, O bard! point this day, leaving all the rest, to us over all--and
yet we know not why;
For what are we, mere strips of cloth, profiting nothing,
Only flapping in the wind?
POET.
I hear and see not strips of cloth alone;
I hear the tramp of armies, I hear the challenging sentry;
I hear the jubilant shouts of millions of men--I hear LIBERTY!
I hear the drums beat, and the trumpets blowing;
I myself move abroad, swift-rising, flying then;
I use the wings of the land-bird, and use the wings of the sea-bird, and
look down as from a height.
I do not deny the precious results of peace--I see populous cities, with
wealth incalculable;
I see numberless farms--I see the farmers working in their fields or barns;
I see mechanics working--I see buildings everywhere founded, going up, or
finished;
I see trains of cars swiftly speeding along railroad tracks, drawn by the
locomotives;
I see the stores, depots, of Boston, Baltimore, Charleston, New Orleans;
I see far in the west the immense area of grain--I dwell a while, hovering;
I pass to the lumber forests of the north, and again to the southern
plantation, and again to California;
Sweeping the whole, I see the countless profit, the busy gatherings, earned
wages;
See the identity formed out of thirty-six spacious and haughty States, (and
many more to come;)
See forts on the shores of harbours--see ships sailing in and out;
Then over all, (aye! aye! ) my little and lengthened pennant shaped like a
sword
Runs swiftly up, indicating war and defiance--And now the halyards have
raised it,
Side of my banner broad and blue--side of my starry banner,
Discarding peace over all the sea and land.
BANNER AND PENNANT.
Yet louder, higher, stronger, bard! yet farther, wider cleave!
No longer let our children deem us riches and peace alone;
We can be terror and carnage also, and are so now.
Not now are we one of these spacious and haughty States, (nor any five, nor
ten;)
Nor market nor depot are we, nor money-bank in the city;
But these, and all, and the brown and spreading land, and the mines below,
are ours;
And the shores of the sea are ours, and the rivers great and small;
And the fields they moisten are ours, and the crops, and the fruits are
ours;
Bays and channels, and ships sailing in and out, are ours--and we over all,
Over the area spread below, the three millions of square miles--the
capitals,
The thirty-five millions of people--O bard! in life and death supreme,
We, even we, from this day flaunt out masterful, high up above,
Not for the present alone, for a thousand years, chanting through you
This song to the soul of one poor little child.
CHILD.
O my father, I like not the houses;
They will never to me be anything--nor do I like money!
But to mount up there I would like, O father dear--that banner I like;
That pennant I would be, and must be.
FATHER.
Child of mine, you fill me with anguish,
To be that pennant would be too fearful;
Little you know what it is this day, and henceforth for ever;
It is to gain nothing, but risk and defy everything;
Forward to stand in front of wars--and O, such wars! --what have you to do
with them?
With passions of demons, slaughter, premature death?
POET.
Demons and death then I sing;
Put in all, aye all, will I--sword-shaped pennant for war, and banner so
broad and blue,
And a pleasure new and ecstatic, and the prattled yearning of children,
Blent with the sounds of the peaceful land, and the liquid wash of the sea;
And the icy cool of the far, far north, with rustling cedars and pines;
And the whirr of drums, and the sound of soldiers marching, and the hot sun
shining south;
And the beach-waves combing over the beach on my eastern shore, and my
western shore the same;
And all between those shores, and my ever-running Mississippi, with bends
and chutes;
And my Illinois fields, and my Kansas fields, and my fields of Missouri;
The CONTINENT--devoting the whole identity, without reserving an atom,
Pour in! whelm that which asks, which sings, with all, and the yield of
all.
BANNER AND PENNANT.
Aye all! for ever, for all!
From sea to sea, north and south, east and west,
Fusing and holding, claiming, devouring the whole;
No more with tender lip, nor musical labial sound,
But out of the night emerging for good, our voice persuasive no more,
Croaking like crows here in the wind.
POET.
My limbs, my veins dilate;
The blood of the world has filled me full--my theme is clear at last.
--Banner so broad, advancing out of the night, I sing you haughty and
resolute;
I burst through where I waited long, too long, deafened and blinded;
My sight, my hearing and tongue, are come to me, (a little child taught
me;)
I hear from above, O pennant of war, your ironical call and demand;
Insensate! insensate! yet I at any rate chant you, O banner!
Not houses of peace are you, nor any nor all their prosperity; if need be,
you shall have every one of those houses to destroy them;
You thought not to destroy those valuable houses, standing fast, full of
comfort, built with money;
May they stand fast, then? Not an hour, unless you, above them and all,
stand fast.
--O banner! not money so precious are you, nor farm produce you, nor the
material good nutriment,
Nor excellent stores, nor landed on wharves from the ships;
Not the superb ships, with sail-power or steam-power, fetching and carrying
cargoes,
Nor machinery, vehicles, trade, nor revenues,--But you, as henceforth I see
you,
Running up out of the night, bringing your cluster of stars, ever-enlarging
stars;
Divider of daybreak you, cutting the air, touched by the sun, measuring the
sky,
Passionately seen and yearned for by one poor little child,
While others remain busy, or smartly talking, for ever teaching thrift,
thrift;
O you up there! O pennant! where you undulate like a snake, hissing so
curious,
Out of reach--an idea only--yet furiously fought for, risking bloody
death--loved by me!
So loved! O you banner, leading the day, with stars brought from the night!
Valueless, object of eyes, over all and demanding all--O banner and
pennant!
I too leave the rest--great as it is, it is nothing--houses, machines are
nothing--I see them not;
I see but you, O warlike pennant! O banner so broad, with stripes, I sing
you only,
Flapping up there in the wind.
_THE BIVOUAC'S FLAME. _
By the bivouac's fitful flame,
A procession winding around me, solemn and sweet and slow;--but first I
note
The tents of the sleeping army, the fields' and woods' dim outline,
The darkness, lit by spots of kindled fire--the silence;
Like a phantom far or near an occasional figure moving;
The shrubs and trees, (as I lift my eyes they seem to be stealthily
watching me;)
While wind in procession thoughts, O tender and wondrous thoughts,
Of life and death--of home and the past and loved, and of those that are
far away;
A solemn and slow procession there as I sit on the ground,
By the bivouac's fitful flame.
_BIVOUAC ON A MOUNTAIN-SIDE. _
I see before me now a travelling army halting;
Below, a fertile valley spread, with barns, and the orchards of summer;
Behind, the terraced sides of a mountain, abrupt in places, rising high;
Broken with rocks, with clinging cedars, with tall shapes, dingily seen;
The numerous camp-fires scattered near and far, some away up on the
mountain;
The shadowy forms of men and horses, looming, large-sized, flickering;
And over all, the sky--the sky! far, far out of reach, studded with the
eternal stars.
_CITY OF SHIPS. _
City of ships!
(O the black ships! O the fierce ships!
O the beautiful, sharp-bowed steam-ships and sail-ships! )
City of the world! (for all races are here;
All the lands of the earth make contributions here;)
City of the sea! city of hurried and glittering tides!
City whose gleeful tides continually rush or recede, whirling in and out,
with eddies and foam!
City of wharves and stores! city of tall facades of marble and iron!
Proud and passionate city! mettlesome, mad, extravagant city!
Spring up, O city! not for peace alone, but be indeed yourself, warlike!
Fear not! submit to no models but your own, O city!
Behold me! incarnate me, as I have incarnated you!
I have rejected nothing you offered me--whom you adopted, I have adopted;
Good or bad, I never question you--I love all--I do not condemn anything;
I chant and celebrate all that is yours--yet peace no more;
In peace I chanted peace, but now the drum of war is mine;
War, red war, is my song through your streets, O city!
_VIGIL ON THE FIELD. _
VIGIL strange I kept on the field one night,
When you, my son and my comrade, dropped at my side that day.
One look I but gave, which your dear eyes returned with a look I shall
never forget;
One touch of your hand to mine, O boy, reached up as you lay on the ground.
Then onward I sped in the battle, the even-contested battle;
Till, late in the night relieved, to the place at last again I made my way;
Found you in death so cold, dear comrade--found your body, son of
responding kisses, (never again on earth responding;)
Bared your face in the starlight--curious the scene--cool blew the moderate
night-wind.
Long there and then in vigil I stood, dimly around me the battlefield
spreading;
Vigil wondrous and vigil sweet, there in the fragrant silent night.
