Were the
children
straying westward so long?
Whitman
The shape measured, sawed, jacked, joined, stained,
The coffin-shape for the dead to lie within in his shroud;
The shape got out in posts, in the bedstead posts, in the posts of the
bride's bed;
The shape of the little trough, the shape of the rockers beneath, the shape
of the babe's cradle;
The shape of the floor-planks, the floor-planks for dancers' feet;
The shape of the planks of the family home, the home of the friendly
parents and children,
The shape of the roof of the home of the happy young man and woman, the
roof over the well-married young man and woman,
The roof over the supper joyously cooked by the chaste wife, and joyously
eaten by the chaste husband, content after his day's work.
The shapes arise!
The shape of the prisoner's place in the court-room, and of him or her
seated in the place;
The shape of the liquor-bar leaned against by the young rum-drinker and the
old rum-drinker;
The shape of the shamed and angry stairs, trod, by sneaking footsteps;
The shape of the sly settee, and the adulterous unwholesome couple;
The shape of the gambling-board with its devilish winnings and losings;
The shape of the step-ladder for the convicted and sentenced murderer, the
murderer with haggard face and pinioned arms,
The sheriff at hand with his deputies, the silent and white-lipped crowd,
the sickening dangling of the rope.
The shapes arise!
Shapes of doors giving many exits and entrances;
The door passing the dissevered friend, flushed and in haste;
The door that admits good news and bad news;
The door whence the son left home, confident and puffed up;
The door he entered again from a long and scandalous absence, diseased,
broken down, without innocence, without means.
11.
Her shape arises,
She less guarded than ever, yet more guarded than ever;
The gross and soiled she moves among do not make her gross and soiled;
She knows the thoughts as she passes--nothing is concealed from her;
She is none the less considerate or friendly therefor;
She is the best beloved--it is without exception--she has no reason to
fear, and she does not fear;
Oaths, quarrels, hiccupped songs, smutty expressions, are idle to her as
she passes;
She is silent--she is possessed of herself--they do not offend her;
She receives them as the laws of nature receive them--she is strong,
She too is a law of nature--there is no law stronger than she is.
12.
The main shapes arise!
Shapes of Democracy, total result of centuries;
Shapes, ever projecting other shapes;
Shapes of a hundred Free States, begetting another hundred;
Shapes of turbulent manly cities;
Shapes of the women fit for these States,
Shapes of the friends and home-givers of the whole earth,
Shapes bracing the earth, and braced with the whole earth.
_ANTECEDENTS. _
1.
With antecedents;
With my fathers and mothers, and the accumulations of past ages:
With all which, had it not been, I would not now be here, as I am;
With Egypt, India, Phoenicia, Greece, and Rome;
With the Kelt, the Scandinavian, the Alb, and the Saxon;
With antique maritime ventures,--with laws, artisanship, wars, and
journeys;
With the poet, the skald, the saga, the myth, and the oracle;
With the sale of slaves--with enthusiasts--with the troubadour, the
crusader, and the monk;
With those old continents whence we have come to this new continent;
With the fading kingdoms and kings over there;
With the fading religions and priests;
With the small shores we look back to from our own large and present
shores;
With countless years drawing themselves onward, and arrived at these years;
You and Me arrived--America arrived, and making this year;
This year! sending itself ahead countless years to come.
2.
O but it is not the years--it is I--it is You;
We touch all laws, and tally all antecedents;
We are the skald, the oracle, the monk, and the knight--we easily include
them, and more;
We stand amid time, beginningless and endless--we stand amid evil and good;
All swings around us--there is as much darkness as light;
The very sun swings itself and its system of planets around us:
Its sun, and its again, all swing around us.
3.
As for me, (torn, stormy, even as I, amid these vehement days;)
I have the idea of all, and am all, and believe in all;
I believe materialism is true, and spiritualism is true--I reject no part.
Have I forgotten any part?
Come to me, whoever and whatever, till I give you recognition.
I respect Assyria, China, Teutonia, and the Hebrews;
I adopt each theory, myth, god, and demi-god;
I see that the old accounts, bibles, genealogies, are true, without
exception;
I assert that all past days were what they should have been;
And that they could nohow have been better than they were,
And that to-day is what it should be--and that America is,
And that to-day and America could nohow be better than they are.
4.
In the name of these States, and in your and my name, the Past,
And in the name of these States, and in your and my name, the Present time.
I know that the past was great, and the future will be great,
And I know that both curiously conjoint in the present time,
For the sake of him I typify--for the common average man's sake--your sake,
if you are he;
And that where I am, or you are, this present day, there is the centre of
all days, all races,
And there is the meaning, to us, of all that has ever come of races and
days, or ever will come.
_SALUT AU MONDE! _
1.
O take my hand, Walt Whitman!
Such gliding wonders! such sights and sounds!
Such joined unended links, each hooked to the next!
Each answering all--each sharing the earth with all.
What widens within you, Walt Whitman?
What waves and soils exuding?
What climes? what persons and lands are here?
Who are the infants? some playing, some slumbering?
Who are the girls? who are the married women?
Who are the three old men going slowly with their arms about each others'
necks?
What rivers are these? what forests and fruits are these?
What are the mountains called that rise so high in the mists?
What myriads of dwellings are they, filled with dwellers?
2.
Within me latitude widens, longitude lengthens;
Asia, Africa, Europe, are to the east--America is provided for in the west;
Banding the bulge of the earth winds the hot equator,
Curiously north and south turn the axis-ends;
Within me is the longest day--the sun wheels in slanting rings--it does not
set for months.
Stretched in due time within me the midnight sun just rises above the
horizon, and sinks again;
Within me zones, seas, cataracts, plants, volcanoes, groups,
Malaysia, Polynesia, and the great West Indian islands.
3.
What do you hear, Walt Whitman?
I hear the workman singing, and the farmer's wife singing;
I hear in the distance the sounds of children, and of animals early in the
day;
I hear quick rifle-cracks from the riflemen of East Tennessee and Kentucky,
hunting on hills;
I hear emulous shouts of Australians, pursuing the wild horse;
I hear the Spanish dance, with castanets, in the chestnut shade, to the
rebeck and guitar;
I hear continual echoes from the Thames;
I hear fierce French liberty songs;
I hear of the Italian boat-sculler the musical recitative of old poems;
I hear the Virginian plantation chorus of negroes, of a harvest night, in
the glare of pine-knots;
I hear the strong barytone of the 'long-shore-men of Mannahatta;
I hear the stevedores unlading the cargoes, and singing;
I hear the screams of the water-fowl of solitary north-west lakes;
I hear the rustling pattering of locusts, as they strike the grain and
grass with the showers of their terrible clouds;
I hear the Coptic refrain, toward sundown, pensively falling on the breast
of the black venerable vast mother, the Nile;
I hear the bugles of raft-tenders on the streams of Canada;
I hear the chirp of the Mexican muleteer, and the bells of the mule;
I hear the Arab muezzin, calling from the top of the mosque;
I hear the Christian priests at the altars of their churches--I hear the
responsive bass and soprano;
I hear the wail of utter despair of the white-haired Irish grandparents,
when they learn the death of their grandson;
I hear the cry of the Cossack, and the sailor's voice, putting to sea at
Okotsk;
I hear the wheeze of the slave-coffle, as the slaves march on--as the husky
gangs pass on by twos and threes, fastened together with wrist-
chains and ankle-chains;
I hear the entreaties of women tied up for punishment--I hear the sibilant
whisk of thongs through the air;
I hear the Hebrew reading his records and psalms;
I hear the rhythmic myths of the Greeks, and the strong legends of the
Romans;
I hear the tale of the divine life and bloody death of the beautiful God,
the Christ;
I hear the Hindoo teaching his favourite pupil the loves, wars, adages,
transmitted safely to this day from poets who wrote three thousand
years ago.
4.
What do you see, Walt Whitman?
Who are they you salute, and that one after another salute you?
I see a great round wonder rolling through the air:
I see diminute farms, hamlets, ruins, grave-yards, jails, factories,
palaces, hovels, huts of barbarians, tents of nomads, upon the
surface;
I see the shaded part on one side, where the sleepers are sleeping--and the
sun-lit part on the other side;
I see the curious silent change of the light and shade;
I see distant lands, as real and near to the inhabitants of them as my land
is to me.
I see plenteous waters;
I see mountain-peaks--I see the sierras of Andes and Alleghanies, where
they range;
I see plainly the Himalayas, Chian Shahs, Altays, Ghauts;
I see the Rocky Mountains, and the Peak of Winds;
I see the Styrian Alps, and the Karnac Alps;
I see the Pyrenees, Balks, Carpathians--and to the north the Dofrafields,
and off at sea Mount Hecla;
I see Vesuvius and Etna--I see the Anahuacs;
I see the Mountains of the Moon, and the Snow Mountains, and the Red
Mountains of Madagascar;
I see the Vermont hills, and the long string of Cordilleras;
I see the vast deserts of Western America;
I see the Libyan, Arabian, and Asiatic deserts;
I see huge dreadful Arctic and Anarctic icebergs;
I see the superior oceans and the inferior ones--the Atlantic and Pacific,
the sea of Mexico, the Brazilian sea, and the sea of Peru,
The Japan waters, those of Hindostan, the China Sea, and the Gulf of
Guinea,
The spread of the Baltic, Caspian, Bothnia, the British shores, and the Bay
of Biscay,
The clear-sunned Mediterranean, and from one to another of its islands,
The inland fresh-tasted seas of North America,
The White Sea, and the sea around Greenland.
I behold the mariners of the world;
Some are in storms--some in the night, with the watch on the look-out;
Some drifting helplessly--some with contagious diseases.
I behold the sail and steam ships of the world, some in clusters in port,
some on their voyages;
Some double the Cape of Storms--some Cape Verde,--others Cape Guardafui,
Bon, or Bajadore;
Others Dondra Head--others pass the Straits of Sunda--others Cape Lopatka--
others Behring's Straits;
Others Cape Horn--others the Gulf of Mexico, or along Cuba or Hayti--others
Hudson's Bay or Baffin's Bay;
Others pass the Straits of Dover--others enter the Wash--others the Firth
of Solway--others round Cape Clear--others the Land's End;
Others traverse the Zuyder Zee, or the Scheld;
Others add to the exits and entrances at Sandy Hook;
Others to the comers and goers at Gibraltar, or the Dardanelles;
Others sternly push their way through the northern winter-packs;
Others descend or ascend the Obi or the Lena:
Others the Niger or the Congo--others the Indus, the Burampooter and
Cambodia;
Others wait at the wharves of Manhattan, steamed up, ready to start;
Wait, swift and swarthy, in the ports of Australia;
Wait at Liverpool, Glasgow, Dublin, Marseilles, Lisbon, Naples, Hamburg,
Bremen, Bordeaux, the Hague, Copenhagen;
Wait at Valparaiso, Rio Janeiro, Panama;
Wait at their moorings at Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston, New
Orleans, Galveston, San Francisco.
5.
I see the tracks of the railroads of the earth;
I see them welding State to State, city to city, through North America;
I see them in Great Britain, I see them in Europe;
I see them in Asia and in Africa.
I see the electric telegraphs of the earth;
I see the filaments of the news of the wars, deaths, losses, gains,
passions, of my race.
I see the long river-stripes of the earth;
I see where the Mississippi flows--I see where the Columbia flows;
I see the Great River, and the Falls of Niagara;
I see the Amazon and the Paraguay;
I see the four great rivers of China, the Amour, the Yellow River, the
Yiang-tse, and the Pearl;
I see where the Seine flows, and where the Loire, the Rhone, and the
Guadalquivir flow;
I see the windings of the Volga, the Dnieper, the Oder;
I see the Tuscan going down the Arno, and the Venetian along the Po;
I see the Greek seaman sailing out of Egina bay.
6.
I see the site of the old empire of Assyria, and that of Persia, and that
of India;
I see the falling of the Ganges over the high rim of Saukara.
I see the place of the idea of the Deity incarnated by avatars in human
forms;
I see the spots of the successions of priests on the earth--oracles,
sacrificers, brahmins, sabians, lamas, monks, muftis, exhorters;
I see where druids walked the groves of Mona--I see the mistletoe and
vervain;
I see the temples of the deaths of the bodies of Gods--I see the old
signifiers.
I see Christ once more eating the bread of His last supper, in the midst of
youths and old persons:
I see where the strong divine young man, the Hercules, toiled faithfully
and long, and then died;
I see the place of the innocent rich life and hapless fate of the beautiful
nocturnal son, the full-limbed Bacchus;
I see Kneph, blooming, drest in blue, with the crown of feathers on his
head;
I see Hermes, unsuspected, dying, well-beloved, saying to the people, _Do
not weep for me,
This is not my true country, I have lived banished from my true country--I
now go back there,
I return to the celestial sphere, where every one goes in his turn_.
7.
I see the battlefields of the earth--grass grows upon them, and blossoms
and corn;
I see the tracks of ancient and modern expeditions.
I see the nameless masonries, venerable messages of the unknown events,
heroes, records of the earth;
I see the places of the sagas;
I see pine-trees and fir-frees torn by northern blasts;
I see granite boulders and cliffs--I see green meadows and lakes;
I see the burial-cairns of Scandinavian warriors;
I see them raised high with stones, by the marge of restless oceans, that
the dead men's spirits, when they wearied of their quiet graves,
might rise up through the mounds, and gaze on the tossing billows,
and be refreshed by storms, immensity, liberty, action.
I see the steppes of Asia;
I see the tumuli of Mongolia--I see the tents of Kalmucks and Baskirs;
I see the nomadic tribes, with herds of oxen and cows;
I see the table-lands notched with ravines--I see the jungles and deserts;
I see the camel, the wild steed, the bustard, the fat-tailed sheep, the
antelope, and the burrowing-wolf.
I see the highlands of Abyssinia;
I see flocks of goats feeding, and see the fig-tree, tamarind, date,
And see fields of teff-wheat, and see the places of verdure and gold.
I see the Brazilian vaquero;
I see the Bolivian ascending Mount Sorata;
I see the Wacho crossing the plains--I see the incomparable rider of horses
with his lasso on his arm;
I see over the pampas the pursuit of wild cattle for their hides.
8.
I see little and large sea-dots, some inhabited, some uninhabited;
I see two boats with nets, lying off the shore of Paumanok, quite still;
I see ten fishermen waiting--they discover now a thick school of
mossbonkers--they drop the joined sein-ends in the water,
The boats separate--they diverge and row off, each on its rounding course
to the beach, enclosing the mossbonkers;
The net is drawn in by a windlass by those who stop ashore,
Some of the fishermen lounge in their boats--others stand negligently
ankle-deep in the water, poised on strong legs;
The boats are partly drawn up--the water slaps against them;
On the sand, in heaps and winrows, well out from the water, lie the green-
backed spotted mossbonkers.
9.
I see the despondent red man in the west, lingering about the banks of
Moingo, and about Lake Pepin;
He has heard the quail and beheld the honey-bee, and sadly prepared to
depart.
I see the regions of snow and ice;
I see the sharp-eyed Samoiede and the Finn;
I see the seal-seeker in his boat, poising his lance;
I see the Siberian on his slight-built sledge, drawn by dogs;
I see the porpess-hunters--I see the whale-crews of the South Pacific and
the North Atlantic;
I see the cliffs, glaciers, torrents, valleys, of Switzerland--I mark the
long winters, and the isolation.
I see the cities of the earth, and make myself at random a part of them;
I am a real Parisian;
I am a habitant of Vienna, St. Petersburg, Berlin, Constantinople;
I am of Adelaide, Sidney, Melbourne;
I am of London, Manchester, Bristol, Edinburgh, Limerick,
I am of Madrid, Cadiz, Barcelona, Oporto, Lyons, Brussels, Berne,
Frankfort, Stuttgart, Turin, Florence;
I belong in Moscow, Cracow, Warsaw--or northward in Christiania or
Stockholm--or in Siberian Irkutsk--or in some street in Iceland;
I descend upon all those cities, and rise from them again.
10.
I see vapours exhaling from unexplored countries;
I see the savage types, the bow and arrow, the poisoned splint, the fetish,
and the obi.
I see African and Asiatic towns;
I see Algiers, Tripoli, Derne, Mogadore, Timbuctoo, Monrovia;
I see the swarms of Pekin, Canton, Benares, Delhi, Calcutta, Yedo;
I see the Kruman in his hut, and the Dahoman and Ashantee-man in their
huts;
I see the Turk smoking opium in Aleppo;
I see the picturesque crowds at the fairs of Khiva, and those of Herat;
I see Teheran--I see Muscat and Medina, and the intervening sands--I see
the caravans toiling onward;
I see Egypt and the Egyptians--I see the pyramids and obelisks;
I look on chiselled histories, songs, philosophies, cut in slabs of
sandstone or on granite blocks;
I see at Memphis mummy-pits, containing mummies, embalmed, swathed in linen
cloth, lying there many centuries;
I look on the fallen Theban, the large-balled eyes, the side-drooping neck,
the hands folded across the breast.
I see the menials of the earth, labouring;
I see the prisoners in the prisons;
I see the defective human bodies of the earth;
I see the blind, the deaf and dumb, idiots, hunchbacks, lunatics;
I see the pirates, thieves, betrayers, murderers, slave-makers of the
earth;
I see the helpless infants, and the helpless old men and women.
I see male and female everywhere;
I see the serene brotherhood of philosophs;
I see the constructiveness of my race;
I see the results of the perseverance and industry of my race;
I see ranks, colours, barbarisms, civilisations--I go among them--I mix
indiscriminately,
And I salute all the inhabitants of the earth.
11.
You, where you are!
You daughter or son of England!
You of the mighty Slavic tribes and empires! you Russ in Russia!
You dim-descended, black, divine-souled African, large, fine-headed,
nobly-formed, superbly destined, on equal terms with me!
You Norwegian! Swede! Dane! Icelander! you Prussian!
You Spaniard of Spain! you Portuguese!
You Frenchwoman and Frenchman of France!
You Belge! you liberty-lover of the Netherlands!
You sturdy Austrian! you Lombard! Hun! Bohemian! farmer of Styria!
You neighbour of the Danube!
You working-man of the Rhine, the Elbe, or the Weser! you working-woman
too!
You Sardinian! you Bavarian! Swabian! Saxon! Wallachian! Bulgarian!
You citizen of Prague! Roman! Neapolitan! Greek!
You lithe matador in the arena at Seville!
You mountaineer living lawlessly on the Taurus or Caucasus!
You Bokh horse-herd, watching your mares and stallions feeding!
You beautiful-bodied Persian, at full speed in the saddle shooting arrows
to the mark!
You Chinaman and Chinawoman of China! you Tartar of Tartary!
You women of the earth subordinated at your tasks!
You Jew journeying in your old age through every risk, to stand once on
Syrian ground!
You other Jews waiting in all lands for your Messiah!
You thoughtful Armenian, pondering by some stream of the Euphrates! you
peering amid the ruins of Nineveh! you ascending Mount Ararat!
You foot-worn pilgrim welcoming the far-away sparkle of the minarets of
Mecca!
You sheiks along the stretch from Suez to Babelmandeb, ruling your families
and tribes!
You olive-grower tending your fruit on fields of Nazareth, Damascus, or
Lake Tiberias!
You Thibet trader on the wide inland, or bargaining in the shops of Lassa!
You Japanese man or woman! you liver in Madagascar, Ceylon, Sumatra,
Borneo!
All you continentals of Asia, Africa, Europe, Australia, indifferent of
place!
All you on the numberless islands of the archipelagoes of the sea!
And you of centuries hence, when you listen to me!
And you, each and everywhere, whom I specify not, but include just the
same!
Health to you! Goodwill to you all--from me and America sent.
Each of us inevitable;
Each of us limitless--each of us with his or her right upon the earth;
Each of us allowed the eternal purports of the earth:
Each of us here as divinely as any is here.
12.
You Hottentot with clicking palate! 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!
