even the least
particle!
Whitman
Flood-tide below me! I watch you face to face;
Clouds of the west! sun there half an hour high! I see you also face to
face.
2.
Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes, how curious you are
to me!
On the ferry-boats the hundreds and hundreds that cross, returning home,
are more curious to me than you suppose;
And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence are more to me,
and more in my meditations, than you might suppose.
3.
The impalpable sustenance of me from all things, at all hours of the day;
The simple, compact, well-joined scheme--myself disintegrated, every one
disintegrated, yet part of the scheme;
The similitudes of the past, and those of the future;
The glories strung like beads on my smallest sights and hearings--on the
walk in the street, and the passage over the river;
The current rushing so swiftly, and swimming with me far away;
The others that are to follow me, the ties between me and them;
The certainty of others--the life, love, sight, hearing, of others.
Others will enter the gates of the ferry, and cross from shore to shore;
Others will watch the run of the flood-tide;
Others will see the shipping of Manhattan north and west, and the heights
of Brooklyn to the south and east;
Others will see the islands large and small;
Fifty years hence, others will see them as they cross, the sun half an hour
high;
A hundred years hence, or ever so many hundred years hence, others will see
them,
Will enjoy the sunset, the pouring-in of the flood-tide, the falling-back
to the sea of the ebb-tide.
It avails not, neither time nor place--distance avails not;
I am with you--you men and women of a generation, or ever so many
generations hence;
I project myself--also I return--I am with you, and know how it is.
Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt;
Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a crowd;
Just as you are refreshed by the gladness of the river and the bright flow,
I was refreshed;
Just as you stand and lean on the rail, yet hurry with the swift current, I
stood, yet was hurried;
Just as you look on the numberless masts of ships, and the
thick-stemmed pipes of steamboats, I looked.
I too many and many a time crossed the river, the sun half an hour high;
I watched the twelfth-month sea-gulls--I saw them high in the air, floating
with motionless wings, oscillating their bodies,
I saw how the glistening yellow lit up parts of their bodies, and left the
rest in strong shadow,
I saw the slow-wheeling circles, and the gradual edging toward the south.
I too saw the reflection of the summer sky in the water,
Had my eyes dazzled by the shimmering track of beams,
Looked at the fine centrifugal spokes of light round the shape of my head
in the sun-lit water,
Looked on the haze on the hills southward and southwestward,
Looked on the vapour as it flew in fleeces tinged with violet,
Looked toward the lower bay to notice the arriving ships,
Saw their approach, saw aboard those that were near me,
Saw the white sails of schooners and sloops, saw the ships at anchor,
The sailors at work in the rigging, or out astride the spars.
The round masts, the swinging motion of the hulls, the slender serpentine
pennants,
The large and small steamers in motion, the pilots in their
pilot-houses,
The white wake left by the passage, the quick tremulous whirl of the
wheels,
The flags of all nations, the falling of them at sunset,
The scallop-edged waves in the twilight, the ladled cups, the frolicsome
crests and glistening,
The stretch afar growing dimmer and dimmer, the grey walls of the granite
store-houses by the docks,
On the river the shadowy group, the big steam-tug closely flanked on each
side by the barges--the hay-boat, the belated lighter,
On the neighbouring shore, the fires from the foundry chimneys burning high
and glaringly into the night,
Casting their flicker of black, contrasted with wild red and yellow light,
over the tops of houses and down into the clefts of streets.
These, and all else, were to me the same as they are to you;
I project myself a moment to tell you--also I return.
I loved well those cities;
I loved well the stately and rapid river;
The men and women I saw were all near to me;
Others the same--others who look back on me because I looked forward to
them;
The time will come, though I stop here to-day and to-night.
What is it, then, between us?
What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us?
Whatever it is, it avails not--distance avails not, and place avails not.
I too lived--Brooklyn, of ample hills, was mine;
I too walked the streets of Manhattan Island, and bathed in the waters
around it;
I too felt the curious abrupt questionings stir within me;
In the day, among crowds of people, sometimes they came upon me,
In my walks home late at night, or as I lay in my bed, they came upon me.
I too had been struck from the float for ever held in solution, I too had
received identity by my Body;
That I was, I knew, was of my body--and what I should be, I knew, I should
be of my body.
It is not upon you alone the dark patches fall,
The dark threw patches down upon me also;
The best I had done seemed to me blank and suspicious;
My great thoughts, as I supposed them, were they not in reality meagre?
would not people laugh at me?
It is not you alone who know what it is to be evil;
I am he who knew what it was to be evil;
I too knitted the old knot of contrariety,
Blabbed, blushed, resented, lied, stole, grudged;
Had guile, anger, lust, hot wishes I dared not speak;
Was wayward, vain, greedy, shallow, sly, cowardly, malignant;
The wolf, the snake, the hog, not wanting in me;
The cheating look, the frivolous word, the adulterous wish, not wanting;
Refusals, hates, postponements, meanness, laziness, none of these wanting.
But I was Manhattanese, friendly and proud!
I was called by my nighest name by clear loud voices of young men as they
saw me approaching or passing,
Felt their arms on my neck as I stood, or the negligent leaning of their
flesh against me as I sat;
Saw many I loved in the street, or ferry-boat, or public assembly, yet
never told them a word;
Lived the same life with the rest, the same old laughing, gnawing,
sleeping;
Played the part that still looks back on the actor or actress,
The same old role, the role that is what we make it,--as great as we like,
Or as small as we like, or both great and small.
Closer yet I approach you:
What thought you have of me, I had as much of you--
I laid in my stores in advance;
I considered long and seriously of you before you were born.
Who was to know what should come home to me?
Who knows but I am enjoying this?
Who knows but I am as good as looking at you now, for all you cannot see
me?
It is not you alone, nor I alone;
Not a few races, nor a few generations, nor a few centuries;
It is that each came or comes or shall come from its due
emission, without fail, either now or then or henceforth.
Everything indicates--the smallest does, and the largest does;
A necessary film envelops all, and envelops the Soul for a proper time.
Now I am curious what sight can ever be more stately and admirable to me
than my mast-hemmed Manhatta,
My river and sunset, and my scallop-edged waves of flood-tide;
The sea-gulls oscillating their bodies, the hay-boat in the twilight, and
the belated lighter;
Curious what Gods can exceed these that clasp me by the hand, and with
voices I love call me promptly and loudly by my nighest name as I
approach;
Curious what is more subtle than this which ties me to the woman or man
that looks in my face,
Which fuses me into you now, and pours my meaning into you.
We understand, then, do we not?
What I promised without mentioning it have you not accepted?
What the study could not teach--what the preaching could not accomplish, is
accomplished, is it not?
What the push of reading could not start, is started by me personally, is
it not?
4.
Flow on river! flow with the flood-tide, and ebb with the ebb-tide!
Frolic on, crested and scallop-edged waves!
Gorgeous clouds of the sunset, drench with your splendour me, or the men
and women generations after me!
Cross from shore to shore, countless crowds of passengers!
Stand up, tall masts of Mannahatta! -stand up, beautiful hills of Brooklyn!
Bully for you! you proud, friendly, free Manhattanese!
Throb, baffled and curious brain! throw out questions and answers!
Suspend here and everywhere, eternal float of solution!
Blab, blush, lie, steal, you or I or any one after us!
Gaze, loving and thirsting eyes, in the house, or street, or public
assembly!
Sound out, voices of young men! loudly and musically call me by my nighest
name!
Live, old life! play the part that looks back on the actor or actress!
Play the old role, the role that is great or small, according as one makes
it!
Consider, you who peruse me, whether I may not in unknown ways be looking
upon you:
Be firm, rail over the river, to support those who lean idly, yet haste
with the hasting current;
Fly on, sea-birds! fly sideways, or wheel in large circles high in the air;
Receive the summer sky, you water! and faithfully hold it, till all
downcast eyes have time to take it from you;
Diverge, fine spokes of light, from the shape of my head, or any one's
head, in the sun-lit water;
Come on, ships from the lower bay! pass up or down, white-sailed schooners,
sloops, lighters!
Flaunt away, flags of all nations! be duly lowered at sunset;
Burn high your fires, foundry chimneys! cast black shadows at nightfall;
cast red and yellow light over the tops of the houses;
Appearances, now or henceforth, indicate what you are;
You necessary film, continue to envelop the soul;
About my body for me, and your body for you, be hung our divinest aromas;
Thrive, cities! bring your freight, bring your shows, ample and sufficient
rivers!
Expand, being than which none else is perhaps more spiritual!
Keep your places, objects than which none else is more lasting!
We descend upon you and all things--we arrest you all;
We realise the soul only by you, you faithful solids and fluids;
Through you colour, form, location, sublimity, ideality;
Through you every proof, comparison, and all the suggestions and
determinations of ourselves.
You have waited, you always wait, you dumb, beautiful ministers! you
novices!
We receive you with free sense at last, and are insatiate henceforward;
Not you any more shall be able to foil us, or withhold yourselves from us;
We use you, and do not cast you aside--we plant you permanently within us;
We fathom you not--we love you--there is perfection in you also;
You furnish your parts toward eternity;
Great or small, you furnish your parts toward the soul.
_NIGHT AND DEATH. _
1.
Night on the prairies.
The supper is over--the fire on the ground burns low;
The wearied emigrants sleep, wrapped in their blankets;
I walk by myself--I stand and look at the stars, which I think now I never
realised before.
Now I absorb immortality and peace,
I admire death, and test propositions.
How plenteous! How spiritual! How _resume_!
The same Old Man and Soul--the same old aspirations, and the same content.
2.
I was thinking the day most splendid, till I saw what the not day
exhibited,
I was thinking this globe enough, till there sprang out so noiseless around
me myriads of other globes.
Now, while the great thoughts of space and eternity fill me, I will measure
myself by them:
And now, touched with the lives of other globes, arrived as far along as
those of the earth,
Or waiting to arrive, or passed on farther than those of the earth,
I henceforth no more ignore them than I ignore my own life,
Or the lives of the earth arrived as far as mine, or waiting to arrive.
3.
O I see now that life cannot exhibit all to me-as the day cannot,
I see that I am to wait for what will be exhibited by death.
_ELEMENTAL DRIFTS. _
1.
Elemental drifts!
O I wish I could impress others as you and the waves have just been
impressing me.
As I ebbed with an ebb of the ocean of life,
As I wended the shores I know,
As I walked where the sea-ripples wash you, Paumanok,
Where they rustle up, hoarse and sibilant,
Where the fierce old Mother endlessly cries for her castaways,
I, musing, late in the autumn day, gazing off southward,
Alone, held by this eternal self of me, out of the pride of which I have
uttered my poems,
Was seized by the spirit that trails in the lines underfoot,
In the rim, the sediment, that stands for all the water and all the land of
the globe.
Fascinated, my eyes, reverting from the south, dropped, to follow those
slender winrows,
Chaff, straw, splinters of wood, weeds, and the sea-gluten,
Scum, scales from shining rocks, leaves of salt-lettuce, left by the tide;
Miles walking, the sound of breaking waves the other side of me,
Paumanok, there and then, as I thought the old thought of likenesses.
These you presented to me, you fish-shaped Island,
As I wended the shores I know,
As I walked with that eternal self of me, seeking types.
2.
As I wend to the shores I know not,
As I list to the dirge, the voices of men and women wrecked,
As I inhale the impalpable breezes that set in upon me,
As the ocean so mysterious rolls toward me closer and closer,
I too but signify, at the utmost, a little washed-up drift,
A few sands and dead leaves to gather,
Gather, and merge myself as part of the sands and drift.
O baffled, baulked, bent to the very earth,
Oppressed with myself that I have dared to open my mouth,
Aware now that, amid all the blab whose echoes recoil upon me, I have not
once had the least idea who or what I am,
But that before all my insolent poems, the real ME stands yet untouched,
untold, altogether unreached,
Withdrawn far, mocking me with mock-congratulatory signs and bows,
With peals of distant ironical laughter at every word I have written,
Pointing in silence to all these songs, and then to the sand beneath.
Now I perceive I have not understood anything--not a single object--and
that no man ever can.
I perceive Nature, here in sight of the sea, is taking advantage of me, to
dart upon me, and sting me,
Because I have dared to open my mouth to sing at all.
3.
You oceans both! I close with you;
These little shreds shall indeed stand for all.
You friable shore, with trails of debris!
You fish-shaped Island! I take what is underfoot;
What is yours is mine, my father.
I too, Paumanok,
I too have bubbled up, floated the measureless float, and been washed on
your shores;
I too am but a trail of drift and debris,
I too leave little wrecks upon you, you fish-shaped Island.
I throw myself upon your breast, my father,
I cling to you so that you cannot unloose me,
I hold you so firm till you answer me something.
Kiss me, my father,
Touch me with your lips, as I touch those I love,
Breathe to me, while I hold you close, the secret of the wondrous murmuring
I envy.
4.
Ebb, ocean of life, (the flow will return. )
Cease not your moaning, you fierce old Mother,
Endlessly cry for your castaways--but fear not, deny not me,
Rustle not up so hoarse and angry against my feet, as I touch you, or
gather from you.
I mean tenderly by you,
I gather for myself, and for this phantom, looking down where we lead, and
following me and mine.
Me and mine!
We, loose winrows, little corpses,
Froth, snowy white, and bubbles,
(See! from my dead lips the ooze exuding at last!
See--the prismatic colours, glistening and rolling! )
Tufts of straw, sands, fragments,
Buoyed hither from many moods, one contradicting another,
From the storm, the long calm, the darkness, the swell;
Musing, pondering, a breath, a briny tear, a dab of liquid or soil;
Up just as much out of fathomless workings fermented and thrown;
A limp blossom or two, torn, just as much over waves floating, drifted at
random;
Just as much for us that sobbing dirge of Nature;
Just as much, whence we come, that blare of the cloud-trumpets;
We, capricious, brought hither, we know not whence, spread out before you,
You, up there, walking or sitting,
Whoever you are--we too lie in drifts at your feet.
_WONDERS. _
1.
Who learns my lesson complete?
Boss, journeyman, apprentice--churchman and atheist,
The stupid and the wise thinker--parents and offspring--merchant, clerk,
porter, and customer,
Editor, author, artist; and schoolboy--Draw nigh and commence;
It is no lesson--it lets down the bars to a good lesson,
And that to another, and every one to another still.
2.
The great laws take and effuse without argument;
I am of the same style, for I am their friend,
I love them quits and quits--I do not halt and make salaams.
I lie abstracted, and hear beautiful tales of things, and the reasons of
things;
They are so beautiful I nudge myself to listen.
I cannot say to any person what I hear--I cannot say it to myself--it is
very wonderful.
It is no small matter, this round and delicious globe, moving so exactly in
its orbit for ever and ever, without one jolt, or the untruth of a
single second;
I do not think it was made in six days, nor in ten thousand years, nor ten
billions of years,
Nor planned and built one thing after another, as an architect plans and
builds a house.
I do not think seventy years is the time of a man or woman,
Nor that seventy millions of years is the time of a man or woman,
Nor that years will ever stop the existence of me, or any one else.
3.
Is it wonderful that I should be immortal? as every one is immortal;
I know it is wonderful--but my eyesight is equally wonderful, and how I was
conceived in my mother's womb is equally wonderful;
And passed from a babe, in the creeping trance of a couple of summers and
winters, to articulate and walk--All this is equally wonderful.
And that my Soul embraces you this hour, and we affect each other without
ever seeing each other, and never perhaps to see each other, is
every bit as wonderful.
And that I can think such thoughts as these is just as wonderful;
And that I can remind you, and you think them and know them to be true, is
just as wonderful.
And that the moon spins round the earth, and on with the earth, is equally
wonderful;
And that they balance themselves with the sun and stars is equally
wonderful.
_MIRACLES. _
1.
What shall I give? and which are my miracles?
2.
Realism is mine--my miracles--Take freely,
Take without end--I offer them to you wherever your feet can carry you or
your eyes reach.
3.
Why! who makes much of a miracle?
As to me, I know of nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach, just in the edge of the water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with any one I love--or sleep in the bed at night with any
one I love,
Or sit at the table at dinner with my mother,
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,
Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive, of a summer forenoon,
Or animals feeding in the fields,
Or birds--or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,
Or the wonderfulness of the sundown--or of stars shining so quiet and
bright,
Or the exquisite, delicate, thin curve of the new moon in spring;
Or whether I go among those I like best, and that like me best--mechanics,
boatmen, farmers,
Or among the savans--or to the _soiree_--or to the opera.
Or stand a long while looking at the movements of machinery,
Or behold children at their sports,
Or the admirable sight of the perfect old man, or the perfect old woman,
Or the sick in hospitals, or the dead carried to burial,
Or my own eyes and figure in the glass;
These, with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,
The whole referring--yet each distinct and in its place.
4.
To me, every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same,
Every cubic foot of the interior swarms with the same;
Every spear of grass--the frames, limbs, organs, of men and women, and all
that concerns them,
All these to me are unspeakably perfect miracles.
To me the sea is a continual miracle;
The fishes that swim--the rocks--the motion of the waves--the ships, with
men in them,
What stranger miracles are there?
_VISAGES. _
Of the visages of things--And of piercing through to the accepted hells
beneath.
Of ugliness--To me there is just as much in it as there is in
beauty--And now the ugliness of human beings is acceptable to me.
Of detected persons--To me, detected persons are not, in any respect, worse
than undetected persons--and are not in any respect worse than I am
myself.
Of criminals--To me, any judge, or any juror, is equally criminal--and any
reputable person is also--and the President is also.
_THE DARK SIDE. _
I sit and look out upon all the sorrows of the world, and upon all
oppression and shame;
I hear secret convulsive sobs from young men, at anguish with themselves,
remorseful after deeds done;
I see, in low life, the mother misused by her children, dying, neglected,
gaunt, desperate;
I see the wife misused by her husband--I see the treacherous seducer of
young women;
I mark the ranklings of jealousy and unrequited love, attempted to be hid--
I see these sights on the earth;
I see the workings of battle, pestilence, tyranny--I see martyrs and
prisoners;
I observe a famine at sea--I observe the sailors casting lots who shall be
killed, to preserve the lives of the rest;
I observe the slights and degradations cast by arrogant persons upon
labourers, the poor, and upon negroes, and the like;
All these--all the meanness and agony without end, I, sitting, look out
upon;
See, hear, and am silent.
_MUSIC. _
I heard you, solemn-sweet pipes of the organ, as last Sunday morn I passed
the church;
Winds of autumn! --as I walked the woods at dusk, I heard your
long-stretched sighs, up above, so mournful;
I heard the perfect Italian tenor, singing at the opera--I heard the
soprano in the midst of the quartette singing.
--Heart of my love! you too I heard, murmuring low, through one of the
wrists around my head;
Heard the pulse of you, when all was still, ringing little bells last night
under my ear.
_WHEREFORE? _
O me! O life! --of the questions of these recurring;
Of the endless trains of the faithless--of cities filled with the foolish;
Of myself for ever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and
who more faithless? )
Of eyes that vainly crave the light--of the objects mean--of the struggle
ever renewed;
Of the poor results of all--of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around
me;
Of the empty and useless years of the rest--with the rest me intertwined;
The question, O me! so sad, recurring--What good amid these, O me, O life?
_ANSWER_.
That you are here--that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.
_QUESTIONABLE. _
As I lay with my head in your lap, camerado,
The confession I made I resume--what I said to you and the open air I
resume.
I know I am restless, and make others so;
I know my words are weapons, full of danger, full of death;
(Indeed I am myself the real soldier;
It is not he, there, with his bayonet, and not the red-striped
artilleryman;)
For I confront peace, security, and all the settled laws, to unsettle them;
I am more resolute because all have denied me than I could ever have been
had all accepted me;
I heed not, and have never heeded, either experience, cautions, majorities,
nor ridicule;
And the threat of what is called hell is little or nothing to me;
And the lure of what is called heaven is little or nothing to me.
--Dear camerado! I confess I have urged you onward with me, and still urge
you, without the least idea what is our destination,
Or whether we shall be victorious, or utterly quelled and defeated.
_SONG AT SUNSET. _
1.
Splendour of ended day, floating and filling me!
Hour prophetic--hour resuming the past:
Inflating my throat--you, divine Average!
You, Earth and Life, till the last ray gleams, I sing.
2.
Open mouth of my soul, uttering gladness,
Eyes of my soul, seeing perfection,
Natural life of me, faithfully praising things;
Corroborating for ever the triumph of things.
3.
Illustrious every one!
Illustrious what we name space--sphere of unnumbered spirits;
Illustrious the mystery of motion, in all beings, even the tiniest insect;
Illustrious the attribute of speech--the senses--the body;
Illustrious the passing light! Illustrious the pale reflection on the new
moon in the western sky!
Illustrious whatever I see, or hear, or touch, to the last.
Good in all,
In the satisfaction and _aplomb_ of animals,
In the annual return of the seasons,
In the hilarity of youth,
In the strength and flush of manhood,
In the grandeur and exquisiteness of old age,
In the superb vistas of Death.
Wonderful to depart;
Wonderful to be here!
The heart, to jet the all-alike and innocent blood,
To breathe the air, how delicious!
To speak! to walk! to seize something by the hand!
To prepare for sleep, for bed--to look on my rose-coloured flesh,
To be conscious of my body, so happy, so large,
To be this incredible God I am,
To have gone forth among other Gods--those men and women I love.
Wonderful how I celebrate you and myself!
How my thoughts play subtly at the spectacles around!
How the clouds pass silently overhead!
How the earth darts on and on! and how the sun, moon, stars, dart on and
on!
How the water sports and sings! (Surely it is alive! )
How the trees rise and stand up--with strong trunks--with branches and
leaves!
Surely there is something more in each of the trees--some living soul.
O amazement of things!
even the least particle!
O spirituality of things!
O strain musical, flowing through ages and continents--now reaching me and
America!
I take your strong chords--I intersperse them, and cheerfully pass them
forward.
I too carol the sun, ushered, or at noon, or, as now, setting,
I too throb to the brain and beauty of the earth, and of all the growths of
the earth,
I too have felt the resistless call of myself.
As I sailed down the Mississippi,
As I wandered over the prairies,
As I have lived--As I have looked through my windows, my eyes,
As I went forth in the morning--As I beheld the light breaking in the east;
As I bathed on the beach of the Eastern Sea, and again on the beach of the
Western Sea;
As I roamed the streets of inland Chicago-whatever streets I have roamed;
Wherever I have been, I have charged myself with contentment and triumph.
I sing the Equalities;
I sing the endless finales of things;
I say Nature continues--Glory continues;
I praise with electric voice:
For I do not see one imperfection in the universe;
And I do not see one cause or result lamentable at last in the universe.
O setting sun! though the time has come,
I still warble under you unmitigated adoration.
_LONGINGS FOR HOME. _
O Magnet South! O glistening, perfumed South! my South!
O quick mettle, rich blood, impulse, and love! good and evil! O all dear to
me!
O dear to me my birth-things--all moving things, and the trees where I was
born,[1] the grains, plants, rivers;
Dear to me my own slow, sluggish rivers, where they flow distant over flats
of silvery sands or through swamps;
Dear to me the Roanoke, the Savannah, the Altamahaw, the Pedee, the
Tombigbee, the Santee, the Coosa, and the Sabine--
O pensive, far away wandering, I return with my soul to haunt their banks
again.
Again in Florida I float on transparent lakes--I float on Okeechobee--I
cross
the hummock land, or through pleasant openings or dense forests.
I see the parrots in the woods, I see the papaw-tree, and the blossoming
titi.
Again, sailing in my coaster, on deck, I coast off Georgia, I coast up the
Carolinas;
I see where the live-oak is growing--I see where the yellow-pine, the
scented bay-tree, the lemon and orange, the cypress, the graceful
palmetto.
I pass rude sea-headlands, and enter Pamlico Sound through an inlet, and
dart my vision inland;
O the cotton plant! the growing fields of rice, sugar, hemp!
The cactus, guarded with thorns--the laurel-tree, with large white flowers;
The range afar--the richness and barrenness--the old woods charged with
mistletoe and trailing moss,
The piney odour and the gloom--the awful natural stillness, Here in these
dense swamps the freebooter carries his gun, and the fugitive slave
has his concealed hut;
O the strange fascination of these half-known, half-impassable swamps,
infested by reptiles, resounding with the bellow of the alligator,
the sad noises of the night-owl and the wild-cat, and the whirr of
the rattlesnake;
The mocking-bird, the American mimic, singing all the forenoon--singing
through the moon-lit night,
The humming-bird, the wild-turkey, the raccoon, the opossum;
A Tennessee corn-field--the tall, graceful, long-leaved corn--slender,
flapping, bright green, with tassels--with beautiful ears, each
well-sheathed in its husk;
An Arkansas prairie--a sleeping lake, or still bayou.
O my heart! O tender and fierce pangs--I can stand them not--I will depart!
O to be a Virginian, where I grew up! O to be a Carolinian!
O longings irrepressible! O I will go back to old Tennessee, and never
wander more!
[Footnote 1: These expressions cannot be understood in a literal
sense, for Whitman was born, not in the South, but in the State
of New York. The precise sense to be attached to them may be open
to some difference of opinion. ]
_APPEARANCES. _
Of the terrible doubt of appearances,
Of the uncertainty after all--that we may be deluded,
That maybe reliance and hope are but speculations after all,
That maybe identity beyond the grave is a beautiful fable only,
Maybe the things I perceive--the animals, plants, men, hills, shining and
flowing waters,
The skies of day and night--colours, densities, forms--Maybe these are (as
doubtless they are) only apparitions, and the real something has
yet to be known;
(How often they dart out of themselves, as if to confound me and mock me!
How often I think neither I know, nor any man knows, aught of them! )
Maybe seeming to me what they are (as doubtless they indeed but seem) as
from my present point of view--And might prove (as of course they
would) naught of what they appear, or naught anyhow, from entirely
changed points of view;
--To me, these, and the like of these, are curiously answered by my lovers,
my dear friends.
When he whom I love travels with me, or sits a long while holding me by the
hand,
When the subtle air, the impalpable, the sense that words and reason hold
not, surround us and pervade us,
Then I am charged with untold and untellable wisdom--I am silent--I require
nothing further,
I cannot answer the question of appearances, or that of identity beyond the
grave;
But I walk or sit indifferent--I am satisfied,
He ahold of my hand has completely satisfied me.
_THE FRIEND. _
Recorders ages hence!
Come, I will take you down underneath this impassive exterior--I will tell
you what to say of me;
Publish my name and hang up my picture as that of the tenderest lover,
The friend, the lover's portrait, of whom his friend, his lover, was
fondest,
Who was not proud of his songs, but of the measureless ocean of love within
him--and freely poured it forth,
Who often walked lonesome walks, thinking of his dear friends, his lovers,
Who pensive, away from one he loved, often lay sleepless and dissatisfied
at night,
Who knew too well the sick, sick dread lest the one he loved might secretly
be indifferent to him,
Whose happiest days were far away, through fields, in woods, on hills, he
and another, wandering hand in hand, they twain, apart from other
men,
Who oft, as he sauntered the streets, curved with his arm the shoulder of
his friend--while the arm of his friend rested upon him also.
_MEETING AGAIN. _
When I heard at the close of the day how my name had been received with
plaudits in the capitol, still it was not a happy night for me that
followed;
And else, when I caroused, or when my plans were accomplished, still I was
not happy.
But the day when I rose at dawn from the bed of perfect health, refreshed,
singing, inhaling the ripe breath of autumn,
When I saw the full moon in the west grow pale and disappear in the morning
light,
When I wandered alone over the beach, and undressing bathed, laughing with
the cool waters, and saw the sunrise,
And when I thought how my dear friend, my lover, was on his way coming, O
then I was happy;
O then each breath tasted sweeter--and all that day my food nourished me
more--and the beautiful day passed well,
And the next came with equal joy--and with the next, at evening, came my
friend;
And that night, while all was still, I heard the waters roll slowly
continually up the shores,
I heard the hissing rustle of the liquid and sands, as directed to me,
whispering, to congratulate me;
For the one I love most lay sleeping by me under the same cover in the cool
night,
In the stillness, in the autumn moonbeams, his face was inclined toward me,
And his arm lay lightly around my breast--and that night I was happy.
_A DREAM. _
Of him I love day and night, I dreamed I heard he was dead;
And I dreamed I went where they had buried him I love--but he was not in
that place;
And I dreamed I wandered, searching among burial-places, to find him;
And I found that every place was a burial-place;
The houses full of life were equally full of death, (this house is now;)
The streets, the shipping, the places of amusement, the Chicago, Boston,
Philadelphia, the Mannahatta, were as full of the dead as of the living,
And fuller, O vastly fuller, of the dead than of the living.
--And what I dreamed I will henceforth tell to every person and age,
And I stand henceforth bound to what I dreamed;
And now I am willing to disregard burial-places, and dispense with them;
And if the memorials of the dead were put up indifferently everywhere, even
in the room where I eat or sleep, I should be satisfied;
And if the corpse of any one I love, or if my own corpse, be duly rendered
to powder, and poured in the sea, I shall be satisfied;
Or if it be distributed to the winds, I shall be satisfied.
_PARTING FRIENDS. _
What think you I take my pen in hand to record?
The battle-ship, perfect-modelled, majestic, that I saw pass the offing to-
day under full sail?
The splendours of the past day? Or the splendour of the night that envelops
me?
Or the vaunted glory and growth of the great city spread around me? --No;
But I record of two simple men I saw to-day, on the pier, in the midst of
the crowd, parting the parting of dear friends;
The one to remain hung on the other's neck, and passionately kissed him,
While the one to depart tightly pressed the one to remain in his arms.
_TO A STRANGER. _
Passing stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you;
You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking (it comes to me, as of a
dream).
I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you.
All is recalled as we flit by each other, fluid, affectionate, chaste,
matured;
You grew up with me, were a boy with me, or a girl with me;
I ate with you, and slept with you--your body has become not yours only,
nor left my body mine only;
You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as we pass--you take of
my beard, breast, hands in return;
I am not to speak to you--I am to think of you when I sit alone, or wake at
night alone;
I am to wait--I do not doubt I am to meet you again;
I am to see to it that I do not lose you.
_OTHER LANDS. _
This moment yearning and thoughtful, sitting alone,
It seems to me there are other men in other lands, yearning and thoughtful;
It seems to me I can look over and behold them in Prussia, Italy, France,
Spain--or far, far away, in China, or in Russia or India--talking
other dialects;
And it seems to me, if I could know those men, I should become attached to
them, as I do to men in my own lands.
O I know we should be brethren and lovers;
I know I should be happy with them.
_ENVY. _
When I peruse the conquered fame of heroes, and the victories of mighty
generals, I do not envy the generals,
Nor the President in his Presidency, nor the rich in his great house.
But when I read of the brotherhood of lovers, how it was with them;
How through life, through dangers, odium, unchanging, long and long,
Through youth, and through middle and old age, how unfaltering, how
affectionate and faithful they were,
Then I am pensive--I hastily put down the book, and walk away, filled with
the bitterest envy.
_THE CITY OF FRIENDS. _
I dreamed in a dream I saw a city invincible to the attacks of the whole of
the rest of the earth;
I dreamed that it was the new City of Friends;
Nothing was greater there than the quality of robust love--it led the rest;
It was seen every hour in the actions of the men of that city,
And in all their looks and words.
_OUT OF THE CROWD. _
1.
Out of the rolling ocean, the crowd, came a drop gently to me,
Whispering, _I love you; before long I die:
I have travelled a long way, merely to look on you, to touch you:
For I could not die till I once looked on you,
For I feared I might afterward lose you_.
2.
Now we have met, we have looked, we are safe;
Return in peace to the ocean, my love;
I too am part of that ocean, my love--we are not so much separated;
Behold the great _rondure_--the cohesion of all, how perfect!
But as for me, for you, the irresistible sea is to separate us,
As for an hour carrying us diverse--yet cannot carry us diverse for ever;
Be not impatient--a little space--know you, I salute the air, the ocean,
and the land,
Every day, at sundown, for your dear sake, my love.
_AMONG THE MULTITUDE. _
Among the men and women, the multitude,
I perceive one picking me out by secret and divine signs,
Acknowledging none else--not parent, wife, husband, brother, child, any
nearer than I am;
Some are baffled--But that one is not--that one knows me.
Ah, lover and perfect equal!
I meant that you should discover me so, by my faint indirections;
And I, when I meet you, mean to discover you by the like in you.
LEAVES OF GRASS.
_PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S FUNERAL HYMN. _
1.
When lilacs last in the door-yard bloomed,
And the great star[1] early drooped in the western sky in the night,
I mourned,. . . and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.
O ever-returning spring! trinity sure to me you bring;
Lilac blooming perennial, and drooping star in the west,
And thought of him I love.
2.
O powerful, western, fallen star!
O shades of night! O moody, tearful night!
O great star disappeared! O the black murk that hides the star!
O cruel hands that hold me powerless! O helpless soul of me!
O harsh surrounding cloud that will not free my soul!
3.
In the door-yard fronting an old farm-house, near the whitewashed palings,
Stands the lilac bush, tall-growing, with heart-shaped leaves of rich
green,
With many a pointed blossom, rising delicate, with the perfume strong I
love,
With every leaf a miracle: and from this bush in the dooryard,
With delicate-coloured blossoms, and heart-shaped leaves of rich green,
A sprig, with its flower, I break.
4.
In the swamp, in secluded recesses,
A shy and hidden bird is warbling a song.
Solitary, the thrush,
The hermit, withdrawn to himself, avoiding the settlements,
Sings by himself a song:
Song of the bleeding throat!
Death's outlet song of life--for well, dear brother, I know,
If thou wast not gifted to sing, thou wouldst surely die.
5.
Over the breast of the spring, the land, amid cities,
Amid lanes, and through old woods, where lately the violets peeped from the
ground, spotting the greydebris;
Amid the grass in the fields each side of the lanes--passing the endless
grass;
Passing the yellow-speared wheat, every grain from its shroud in the
dark-brown fields uprising;
Passing the apple-tree blows of white and pink in the orchards;
Carrying a corpse to where it shall rest in the grave,
Night and day journeys a coffin.
6.
Coffin that passes through lanes and streets,
Through day and night, with the great cloud darkening the land,
With the pomp of the inlooped flags, with the cities draped in black,
With the show of the States themselves as of crape-veiled women standing,
With processions long and winding, and the flambeaus of the night,
With the countless torches lit--with the silent sea of faces,
and the unbared heads,
With the waiting depot, the arriving coffin, and the sombre faces,
With dirges through the night, with the thousand voices rising strong and
solemn;
With all the mournful voices of the dirges, poured around the coffin,
The dim-lit churches and the shuddering organs--Where amid these you
journey,
With the tolling, tolling bells' perpetual clang;
Here! coffin that slowly passes,
I give you my sprig of lilac.
7.
Nor for you, for one, alone;
Blossoms and branches green to coffins all I bring:
For fresh as the morning--thus would I chant a song for you, O sane and
sacred Death.
All over bouquets of roses,
O Death! I cover you over with roses and early lilies;
But mostly and now the lilac that blooms the first,
Copious, I break, I break the sprigs from the bushes!
With loaded arms I come, pouring for you,
For you and the coffins all of you, O Death.
8.
O western orb, sailing the heaven!
Now I know what you must have meant, as a month since we walked,
As we walked up and down in the dark blue so mystic,
As we walked in silence the transparent shadowy night,
As I saw you had something to tell, as you bent to me night after night,
As you drooped from the sky low down, as if to my side, while the other
stars all looked on;
As we wandered together the solemn night, for something, I know not what,
kept me from sleep;
As the night advanced, and I saw on the rim of the west, ere you went, how
full you were of woe;
As I stood on the rising ground in the breeze, in the cool transparent
night,
As I watched where you passed and was lost in the netherward black of the
night,
As my soul, in its trouble, dissatisfied, sank, as where you, sad orb,
Concluded, dropped in the night, and was gone.
9.
Sing on, there in the swamp!
O singer bashful and tender! I hear your notes--I hear your call;
I hear--I come presently--I understand you;
But a moment I linger--for the lustrous star has detained me;
The star, my comrade departing, holds and detains me.
10.
O how shall I warble myself for the dead one there I loved?
And how shall I deck my song for the large sweet soul that has gone?
And what shall my perfume be for the grave of him I love?
Sea-winds, blown from east and west,
Blown from the Eastern Sea, and blown from the Western Sea, till there on
the prairies meeting:
These, and with these, and the breath of my chant,
I perfume the grave of him I love.
11.
O what shall I hang on the chamber walls?
And what shall the pictures be that I hang on the walls,
To adorn the burial-house of him I love?
Pictures of growing spring, and farms, and homes,
With the Fourth-month eve at sundown, and the grey smoke lucid and bright,
With floods of the yellow gold of the gorgeous, indolent sinking sun,
burning, expanding the air;
With the fresh sweet herbage under foot, and the pale green leaves of the
trees prolific;
In the distance the flowing glaze, the breast of the river,
with a wind-dapple here and there;
With ranging hills on the banks, with many a line against the sky, and
shadows;
And the city at hand, with dwellings so dense, and stacks of chimneys,
And all the scenes of life, and the workshops, and the workmen homeward
returning.
12.
Lo! body and soul! this land!
Mighty Manhattan, with spires, and the sparkling and hurrying tides, and
the ships;
The varied and ample land--the South and the North in the
light--Ohio's shores, and flashing Missouri,
And ever the far-spreading prairies, covered with grass and corn.
Lo! the most excellent sun, so calm and haughty;
The violet and purple morn, with just-felt breezes;
The gentle, soft-born, measureless light;
The miracle, spreading, bathing all--the fulfilled noon;
The coming eve, delicious--the welcome night, and the stars,
Over my cities shining all, enveloping man and land.
13.
Sing on! sing on, you grey-brown bird!
Sing from the swamps, the recesses--pour your chant from the bushes;
Limitless out of the dusk, out of the cedars and pines.
Sing on, dearest brother--warble your reedy song,
Loud human song, with voice of uttermost woe.
O liquid, and free, and tender!
O wild and loose to my soul! O wondrous singer!
You only I hear,. . . yet the star holds me, (but will soon depart;)
Yet the lilac, with mastering odour, holds me.
14.
Now while I sat in the day, and looked forth,
In the close of the day, with its light, and the fields of spring, and the
farmer preparing his crops,
In the large unconscious scenery of my land, with its lakes and forests,
In the heavenly aerial beauty, after the perturbed winds and the storms;
Under the arching heavens of the afternoon swift passing, and the voices of
children and women,
The many-moving sea-tides,--and I saw the ships how they sailed,
And the summer approaching with richness, and the fields all busy with
labour,
And the infinite separate houses, how they all went on, each with its meals
and minutiae of daily usages;
And the streets, how their throbbings throbbed, and the cities
pent--lo! then and there,
Falling upon them all, and among them all, enveloping me with the rest,
Appeared the cloud, appeared the long black trail;
And I knew Death, its thought, and the sacred knowledge of Death.
15.
And the Thought of Death close-walking the other side of me,
And I in the middle, as with companions, and as holding the hands of
companions,
I fled forth to the hiding receiving night, that talks not,
Down to the shores of the water, the path by the swamp in the dimness,
To the solemn shadowy cedars, and ghostly pines so still.
And the singer so shy to the rest received me;
The grey-brown bird I know received us Comrades three;
And he sang what seemed the song of Death, and a verse for him I love.
From deep secluded recesses,
From the fragrant cedars, and the ghostly pines so still,
Came the singing of the bird.
And the charm of the singing rapt me,
As I held, as if by their hands, my Comrades in the night;
And the voice of my spirit tallied the song of the bird.
16.
Come, lovely and soothing Death,
Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving,
In the day, in the night, to all, to each,
Sooner or later, delicate Death.
Praised be the fathomless universe,
For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious;
And for love, sweet love--But praise! O praise and praise,
For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding Death.
Dark Mother, always gliding near, with soft feet,
Have none chanted for thee a chant of fullest welcome?
Then I chant it for thee--I glorify thee above all;
I bring thee a song that, when thou must indeed come, come unfalteringly.
Approach, encompassing Death-strong deliveress!
When it is so--when thou hast taken them, I joyously sing the dead,
Lost in the loving, floating ocean of thee,
Laved in the flood of thy bliss, O Death.
From me to thee glad serenades,
Dances for thee I propose, saluting thee--adornments and feastings for
thee;
And the sights of the open landscape, and the high-spread sky, are fitting,
And life and the fields, and the huge and thoughtful night.
The night, in silence, under many a star;
The ocean shore, and the husky whispering wave, whose voice I know;
And the soul turning to thee, O vast and well-veiled Death,
And the body gratefully nestling close to thee.
Over the tree-tops I float thee a song!
Over the rising and sinking waves--over the myriad fields, and the prairies
wide;
Over the dense-packed cities all, and the teeming wharves and ways,
I float this carol with joy, with joy, to thee, O Death!
17.
To the tally of my soul
Loud and strong kept up the grey-brown bird,
With pure, deliberate notes, spreading, filling the night.
Loud in the pines and cedars dim,
Clear in the freshness moist, and the swamp-perfume,
And I with my Comrades there in the night.
While my sight that was bound in my eyes unclosed,
As to long panoramas of visions.
18.
I saw the vision of armies;
And I saw, as in noiseless dreams, hundreds of battle-flags;
Borne through the smoke of the battles, and pierced with missiles, I saw
them,
And carried hither and yon through the smoke, and torn and bloody;
And at last but a few shreds of the flags left on the staffs, (and all in
silence,)
And the staffs all splintered and broken.
I saw battle-corpses, myriads of them,
And the white skeletons of young men--I saw them;
I saw the debris and debris of all dead soldiers.
But I saw they were not as was thought;
They themselves were fully at rest--they suffered not;
The living remained and suffered--the mother suffered,
And the wife and the child, and the musing comrade suffered,
And the armies that remained suffered.
19.
Passing the visions, passing the night;
Passing, unloosing the hold of my Comrades' hands;
Passing the song of the hermit bird, and the tallying song of my soul;
Victorious song, Death's outlet song, yet varying, ever-altering song;
As low and wailing, yet clear, the notes, rising and falling, flooding the
night,
Sadly sinking and fainting, as warning and warning, and yet again bursting
with joy.
Covering the earth, and filling the spread of the heaven,
As that powerful psalm in the night, I heard from recesses.
20.
Must I leave thee, lilac with heart-shaped leaves?
Must I leave thee there in the door-yard, blooming, returning with spring?
Must I pass from my song for thee--
From my gaze on thee in the west, fronting the west, communing with thee,
O comrade lustrous, with silver face in the night?
21.
Yet each I keep, and all;
The song, the wondrous chant of the grey-brown bird,
And the tallying chant, the echo aroused in my soul,
With the lustrous and drooping star, with the countenance full of woe;
With the lilac tali, and its blossoms of mastering odour;
Comrades mine, and I in the midst, and their memory ever I keep--for the
dead I loved so well;
For the sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and lands--and this for his
dear sake;
Lilac and star and bird, twined with the chant of my soul,
With the holders holding my hand, nearing the call of the bird,
There in the fragrant pines, and the cedars dusk and dim.
[Footnote 1: "The evening star, which, as many may remember night after
night, in the early part of that eventful spring, hung low in the west with
unusual and tender brightness. "--JOHN BURROUGHS. ]
_O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN! _
(FOR THE DEATH OF LINCOLN. )
1.
O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done!
The ship has weathered every wrack, the prize we sought is won.
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring.
But, O heart! heart! heart!
Leave you not the little spot
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
2.
O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells!
Rise up!
