Property of:
Horace Traubel
Received from Walt Whitman May 23rd 1890—W. saying: "You fellows value
these curios more than I do. This will help you to see how the book grew, if
that is
-
for Pioneers O pioneers
- Song of the Broad axe
- as I wandered the prairies alone at night
- O brood continental
- song at sunset
- come list to my morning's romanza
(from preceding page)
went on: "This is gives a glimpse into the workshop.
It is wonderful to me how great a store you fellows have got to set on these
things. God be with you!"
7HxH.
Acquired Sept 1933
1860-61
*KLW
Leaves
of
Grass.
(1860-61)
words and phrases to put in German text, either wherever they occur, or in pronounced situations
"divine average" "the unknown"
Democracy
the Soul
B
YWALT WHITMAN,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.
ELECTROTYPED AT THE
BOSTON STEREOTYPE FOUNDRY.
PRINTED BY
GEORGE C. RAND & AVERY.
-
Pieces to be included in next, issue, "Leaves of Grass"
- "Quadriune" (?or "Deus Quadriune")
- "Quicksand years that whirl me I know not whither"
- "I and the old round Earth."
)
- 23
- 24
- 20
- 49
- 17
- 143
- 20
- 163
Starting from fish‑shape Paumanok
I was born.
of populous pavements.
my city
with central Nebraskan air,
my knapsack and gun
passing, rapt and happy.
sionate
stars, rain, snow, my amaze,
aware of mighty Niagara,
the plains, the hirsute and strong-breasted bull,
—aware of the mighty Niagara,
the
stars, rain, snow, my amaze,
mountain hawks'
harsh sea‑hawk,
ROTO-L
EAF.
REE, fresh, savage,
places,
resounding Missouri,
meat,
recess,
rapt and happy,
flowers, my amaze, my love,
strong-breasted and hairy,
break,
world.
self,
luble
the kosmos,
throes and convulsions.
together,
with the isthmus between.
institutions known.
stop,
on in its turn,
to listen,
Kansas & thence equi‑distant
Kentucky and Tennessee,
Western Sea,
the same,
begin,
never forgotten,
to speak,
your own offspring;
surround you
they connect lovingly with you.
return and study me!
antique?
justify it.
desolate,
have left, wafted hither,
ever deserve more than it deserves;
the Soul.
solid—
are to be the most spiritual poems,
mortality,
poems of my Soul and of immortality.
State may under any circumstances be subjected
to another State
day and by night
between any two of them
These States—And a shrill song of curses on
him who would dissever the Union;
full of weapons with menacing points,
salute courteously every city large and small;
with you is heroism, upon land and sea
will report all heroism from an American point
of view;
me
love, indicating it in me;
that were threatening to consume me,
dering
of love,
sorrow and joy?
spirit
part also
there is in fact no evil
the
gurate
thereof, the conqueror's shouts
thing.
for Religion's sake.
and how certain the future is.
nent
name without religion,
science, art, amours?
their poet also;
Religion's sake,
the essential life of the earth,
excess—
whole coincide
hands, sweeps and provides for all.
earth the germs of
third one, rising inclusive and more resplendent,
greatness of Religion.
around me,
the air, that we know not of,
me to him,
spiritual world,
lovers
noon, or setting!
reaching hither,
add to them, and cheerfully pass them forward.
on her nest in the briers, hatching her brood.
throat, and joyfully singing.
really sang for was not there only,
by the echoes,
being born.
and joyfully singing.
carols
their way,
kindred eyes,
as any.
adheres,
death.
And I will be the bard of Personality;
the equal of the other,
and can be none in the future,
may be turned to beautiful results
show that nothing can happen more beautiful
than death
no one thing in the universe is inferior to another
thing,
miracles, each as profound as any.
thoughts, with reference to ensemble;
reference to all days,
a poem, but has reference to the Soul,
I find there is no one,
but has reference to the Soul.
substances,
the rocks and sands.
body,
the corpse-cleaners,
carrying what has accrued to it
of birth to the moment of death.
pression,
more than a man's substance and life,
woman's substance and life, return in the body
and the Soul, indifferently before death and
after death.
main concern—and includes and is the Soul;
body, or any part of it.
indicative hand?
female of The States,
ernors,
lands!
cotton, sugar, rice!
the Alleghanies! Ohio's land!
Land of the
the healthy house of adobie!
where the southwest Colorado winds!
Land of Vermont and Connecticut!
passionate
the bony-limbed!
perienced
the diverse! the compact!
Carolinian!
this hour, with irrepressible love,
ripples, on Paumanok's sands,
dwelling in
arts,
halls,
man and woman my neighbor,
- Colorado
- Nevada
as near to him and her,
in my house of adobie,
or in Maryland,
braving the winter—the snow and ice welcome
to me,
State,
the Empire State,
welcoming every new brother,
the hour they unite with the old ones,
companion
me.
and toughen you,
consent to give myself to you—but what of
that?
arrived,
of the universe,
the red aborigines.
syllabled to us for names,
Chattahoochee, Kaqueta, Oronoco.
Walla,
audacious,
and branching,
far,
inventions and arts.
no more, but arise;
I feel you,
unprecedented waves and storms.
and landing;
hut, the flat-boat,
rude fence, and the backwoods village;
other side the Eastern Sea,
and retreat upon my poems, as upon their own
shores;
wild and tame—See, beyond the Kanzas,
less
grass;
inland, with paved streets,
edifices,
tall, muscular, both sexes,
dignified clothes—
rying,
the electric telegraph
quick locomotive, as it departs, panting, blowing
the steam-whistle;
digging mines—See, the numberless factories;
sophs,
dresses;
States, me, well-beloved, close-held by day and
night,
hints come at last.
of vices as virtues!
all to common ground! O adhesiveness!
why, and I know not why.
wild!
more desirer and lover
CELEBRATEmyself,
to you.
summer grass.
are crowded with perfumes,
like it,
not let it.
the distillation, it is odorless,
undisguised and naked,
thread, crotch and vine
heart, the passing of blood and air through my
lungs
shore, and dark-colored sea-rocks, and of hay in
the barn
loosed to the eddies of the wind
of arms
boughs wag
along the fields and hill-sides
me rising from bed and meeting the sun.
you reckon
poems?
sess
hand, nor look through the eyes of the dead,
nor feed on the spectres in books
things from me
yourself.
of the beginning and the end
now,
now,
substance and increase, always sex
always a breed of life.
feel that it is so.
well entretied, braced in the beams,
all that is not my Soul.
seen,
turn.
vexes age
while they discuss I am silent,
and admire myself.
any man hearty and clean
none shall be less familiar than the rest.
side through the night, and withdraws at the
peep of the day,
swelling the house with their plenty,
scream at my eyes,
of two, and which is ahead?
or the ward and city I live in, or the nation,
authors old and new,
dues,
woman I love,
ill-doing, or loss or lack of money, or depressions
or exaltations
of doubtful news, the
again,
unitary
impalpable certain rest,
come next
wondering at it.
through fog with linguists and contenders
wait.
not abase itself to you,
your throat
or lecture, not even the best,
morning
gently turned over upon me,
plunged your tongue to my bare-stript heart,
you held my feet.
argument of the earth
my own
my own
and the women my sisters and lovers
fields
stones, elder, mullen, and pokeweed.
What is the grass?fetching it to me
with full hands;
it is, any more than he.
hopeful green stuff woven.
Whose?
babe of the vegetation.
narrow zones,
the same, I receive them the same.
graves.
men
them
mothers' laps
old mothers,
mouths.
mouths for nothing.
young men and women,
offspring taken soon out of their laps.
old men?
and children?
not wait at the end to arrest it
and luckier.
die, and I know it.
washed babe,
hat and boots
one good
adjuncts all good.
immortal and fathomless as myself;
and female
women
to be slighted
mothers, and the mothers of mothers
tears
discarded
or no
brush away flies with my hand.
the bushy hill
bedroom;
soles, talk of the promenaders,
thumb,
granite floor,
snow-balls,
mobs,
borne to the hospital,
and fall,
quickly working his passage to the centre of
the crowd,
echoes,
the least of the stones is visible
struck,
hurry home and give birth to babes,
here—what howls restrained by decorum,
acceptances, rejections with convex lips
come and I depart.
ready,
drawn wagon,
intertinged,
load,
timothy,
wisps.
night,
my dog and gun by my side.
she cuts the sparkle and scud
joyously from the deck.
stop
had a good time;
chowder-kettle.
the far-west—the bride was a red girl
dumbly smoking
feet, and large thick blankets hanging from their
shoulders;
mostly in skins—
firmly the wrist of the red girl,
coarse straight locks
tuous
outside,
pile
him limpsy and weak,
assured him,
body and bruis
gave him some coarse clean clothes,
his awkwardness,
neck and ankles;
and pass
in the corner.
lonesome.
of the window.
your room.
twenty-ninth bather
them.
ran from their long hair,
ribs.
bellies bulge to the sun—they do not ask who
seizes fast to them
pendant and bending arch
ens
break-down.
anvil
is a great heat in the fire.
movements
massive arms
overhand so sure
—the block
chain
—steady and tall he stands, pois
the string-piece
loosens over his hip-band,
slouch of his hat away from his forehead
falls on the black
limbs.
I do not stop there
ward
is that you express in your eyes?
my life.
my distant and day-long ramble
me,
intentional,
not something else,
gamut, yet trills pretty well to me,
of me.
night,
Ya-honk!he says, and sounds it down to me like an
invitation
wintry sky.
house-sill, the chickadee, the prairie-dog,
teats,
spread wings,
affections,
or woods,
of axes and mauls, and the drivers of horses
returns,
will take me,
foreplane whistles its wild ascending lisp
their Thanksgiving dinner
a strong arm
and harpoon are ready
stretches
altar
of the big wheel
firm
his mother's bedroom;
works at his case,
with the manuscript;
table,
nods by the bar-room stove
travels his beat—the gate-keeper marks who
pass
him, though I do not know him
in the race
some lean on their rifles, some sit on logs,
position, levels his piece;
or levee
seer
for their partners, the dancers bow to each other
harks to the musical rain
the Huron
his mouth and nose,
brings up the rear and bears the well-riddled
target,
offer
with half-shut eyes bent side-ways
is thrown for the shore-going passengers
sister winds it off in a ball, and stops now and
then for the knots
a week ago borne her first child
machine, or in the factory or mill
her faintness and pains are advancing
book
gold
counts at his desk—the shoemaker waxes his
thread
performers follow him
professions
sails sparkle!
would stray
purchaser higgling about the odd cent
for her daguerreotype
hand of the clock moves slowly
opened lips
her tipsy and pimpled neck,
jeer and wink to each other,
you;)
rounded
arms
halibut in the hold
and his cattle
notice by the jingling of loose change
tinning the roof—the masons are calling for
mortar
the laborers
is gathered—it is the Fourth of Seventh
—
the mower mows, and the winter-grain falls in
the ground
the hole in the frozen surface
squatter strikes deep with his axe
wood
or through those drained by the Tennessee, or
through those of the Arkansaw
hooche
great-grandsons around them
trappers after their day's sport
their time
husband sleeps by his wife;
outward to them,
wise,
I! that discord
the stuff that is fine,
the smallest the same, and the largest the same,
chalant
joints the limberest joints on earth and the
sternest joints on earth,
my deer-skin leggings,
Hoosier, Badger, Buckeye,
hills and pines
or with fishermen off Newfoundland,
and tacking,
of Maine, or the Texan ranch
westerners,
who shake hands and welcome to drink and
meat
fullest
seasons,
Asia—a wandering savage,
priest.
place
its place.
lands—they are not original with me
nothing, or next to nothing
nothing
riddle, they are nothing
are nothing.
and the water is
sustenance
received willingly.
the State capitols,
posers,
and seamen
screaming of octave flutes, striking of triangles.
great marches for conquered and slain persons.
same spirit in which they are won.
gayest
overcome heroes!
greatest heroes known.
make appointments with all,
invited,
rest.
and odor of hair,
murmur of yearning,
own face,
again.
¶and the mica on the side of a rock has.
twittering through the woods?
you?
own,
wallow and filth,
the end
invalids—conformity goes to the fourth-removed,
counsell'd with doctors, and calculated close,
barleycorn less,
petually
writing means.
I know this orbit of mine cannot be swept by a
carpenter's compass
with a burnt stick at night.
understood
my house by, after all.
that is myself
thousand or ten million years,
ness
of hell are with me
I translate into a new tongue.
man,
of men.
one, and still pass on.
netic,
misty-topt!
tinged with blue!
river!
clearer for my sake!
OURL
OVERcomes!
you give love!
hurt each other.
what you mean
me out of sight of the land,
always-ready graves!
of all phases.
conciliation,
arms.
the house that supports them?
strable,
decline to be the poet of wickedness also.
a bristling beard.
stand
pregnancy?
over and rectified?
we affirm is right—and some is only the ore of
right,
odal
early start.
to-day, is not such a wonder
a mean man or an infidel.
forward,
buing.
stration!
lilac,
made a grammar of the old cartouches,
known
and this is a mathematician.
dwelling—
dwelling.
sakes,
favor men and women fully equip
and them that plot and conspire.
men,
through me the current and index.
their counterpart of on the same terms.
and dwarfs,
wombs, and of the fatherstuff,
remove the veil,
head and heart,
and tag of me is a miracle.
ever
creeds.
the spread of my own body
pings
you!
you
be you
shall be you
you
shall be you
ing
you
have ever touch
luscious,
joy.
cause of my faintest wish,
of the
really be
authors and schools,
the metaphysics of books.
shadows,
silently rising, freshly exuding,
prongs,
their junction,
my head,
would kill me,
of me.
of the day-break.
volumes of worlds.
measure itself;
Walt, you
understand
contain
enough—
why don't you let it out then?
the meaning of things,
set out in search of this day.
me
you.
my face,
skeptic.
contribute toward me.
meals
voice
or following,
sounds of the day and night,
loud laugh of work-people at their meals,
tones of the sick,
pronouncing a death-sentence,
wharves—the refrain of the anchor-lifters,
of swift-streaking engines and hose-carts, with
premonitory tinkles, and colored lights,
approaching cars,
association, marching two and two,
draped with black muslin.)
my ears,
breast.
me full.
not know I possessed them,
by the indolent waves,
tled
EING.
back thither
callous shell were enough.
or stop,
through me.
happy,
much as I can stand.
help them,
what is hardly different from myself,
drip,
waist,
and pasture-fields,
at the edges of me,
or my anger,
a while,
me.
against me.
else am the greatest traitor,
carried me there.
is tight in its throat,
sharp-toothed touch!
perpetual loan,
ward.
prolific and vital,
golden.
surgeon,
is so,
lamps,
woman,
have for each other,
until it becomes omnific,
work
sand, and the egg of the wren,
of heaven,
machinery,
any statue,
of infidels,
at the farmer's girl boiling her iron tea-kettle
and baking short-cake.
fruits, grains, esculent roots,
reasons,
my approach
dered
shapes
monsters lying low,
logs
woods
Labrador
of the cliff.
so placid and self-contained
sins
God
mania of owning things
thousands of years ago
earth.
them
plainly in their possession.
negligently dropt them,
velocity,
them
brancers,
brotherly terms.
to my caresses,
finely cut, flexibly moving.
speed around and return.
them?
true, what I guess
stars of the morning.
my elbows rest in the sea-gaps
camping with lumbermen
and rivulet bed
and parsnips—crossing savannas—trailing in
forests
new purchase
boat down the shallow river
head
hunter
rock—Where the otter is feeding on fish
bayou
—Where the beaver pats the mud with his
paddle
over the rice in its low moist field
scum and slender shoots from the gutters
corn—over the delicate blue-flower
and buzzer there with the rest
shades in the breeze
holding on by low scragged limbs
the leaves of the brush
the wheat-lot
dark
and flows to the meadow
tremulous shuddering of their hides
andirons straddle the hearth-slab—Where
webs
whirling its cylinders
out of its ribs
ing
the heat hatches pale-green eggs in the dented
sand
forsakes it
nant
of the water
currents,
dead are corrupting below
head of the regiments
island
my countenance
wood outside
a good game of base-ball
bull-dances, drinking, laughter,
I find
house-raisings;
gles,
the dry-stalks are scattered—Where the brood
cow waits in the hovel
Where the stud to the mare—Where the cock
is treading the hen
with short jerks
and lonesome prairie
the square miles far and near
neck of the long-lived swan is curving and
winding
she laughs her near-human laugh
half hid by the high weeds
ground with their heads out
cemetery
icicled trees
the marsh at night and feeds upon small crabs
warm noon
walnut-tree over the well
silver-wired leaves
ical
saloon—through the office or public hall
—pleas
handsome
and talks melodiously
washed
Methodist preacher, or any preacher—Impress
seriously at the camp-meeting
whole forenoon—
on the thick plate-glass
up to the clouds,
friends, and I in the middle;
bush-boy—riding behind him at the drape of
the day
mals'
feverish patient
with a candle
as any
him
gone from me a long while
gentle God by my side
and the stars
ring, and the diameter of eighty thousand miles
like the rest,
mother
tillions
returns to me.
chasms with a pike-pointed staff—
topples of brittle and blue.
the wonderful beauty
—the scenery is plain in all directions
I fling out my fancies toward them
we are soon to be engaged
we pass with still feet and caution
ruin
living cities of the globe.
watchfires.
bride myself
of the stairs
wreck of the steam-ship, and Death chasing it up
and down the storm
and was faithful of days and faithful of nights,
Be of good
cheer, We will not desert you
,
;
and would not give it up
boated from the side of their prepared graves
and the sharp-lipp
it becomes mine
wood, her children gazing on
the fence, blowing, cover
—the murderous buck-shot and the bullets
dogs
the marksmen
with the ooze of my skin
head with whip-stocks.
myself become the wounded
observe.
shouts of my comrades
lift me forth.
hush is for my sake
heads are bared of their fire-caps
torches.
I am the clock myself.
ment
shots
pensable
fan-shaped explosion
the air.
furiously waves with his hand
Mind not me—
mind—
the entrenchments.
hundred and twelve young men.
their baggage for breastworks
nine times their
in advance
gone
writing and seal, gave up their arms,
and affectionate,
hunters,
in squads
summer
by eight.
stark and straight
living and dead lay together
comers saw them there
the blunts of muskets
two more came to release him
blood.
stars?
or truer,
cannon touch
the water
the first fire, killing all around, and blowing up
overhead.
the leaks on the gain, and five feet of water
reported
the after-hold, to give them a chance for
selves.
stop
whom to trust.
captain
We have not struck,he composedly crie
We have
just begun our part of the fighting.
enemy's main-mast
musketry and clear
especially the main-top
action.
toward the powder-magazine
thought we were
nor low
lanterns.
moon, they surrender
darkness
to pass to the one we had
orders through a countenance
cabin
carefully curl
aloft and below
for duty
—dabs of flesh upon the masts and spars
soothe of waves,
strong scent,
fields by the shore, death-messages given in
charge to survivors,
his saw,
scream, and long dull tapering groan
possessed.
rope-noose
his mouth spirting whoops and defiance
Vernon,
shores of the Wallabout and remembers the
Prison Ships,
when he surrender
but little
carbines and keep watch
am hand-cuffed to him and walk by his side
with sweat on my twitching lips.
and am tried and sentenced.
lie at the last grasp
from me people retreat.
in them
tion,
bers,
of the bludgeons and hammers!
crucifixion and bloody crowning.
to it, or to any graves
an average unending procession
and of Virginia, Wisconsin, Manhattan Island,
Philadelphia, New Orleans, Texas, Charleston,
Havana, Mexico,
earth
you understand
divine, and the blind and lame are equally divine,
them,
with everybody.
ing
Kanadian?
California?
life? or from the sea?
him
to them, stay with them.
grass,
and emanations
fingers,
—they fly out of the glance of his eyes.
over!
also.
cannot
you, but cannot
nights and days.
plenty and to spare,
me
infold you.
I lean
bler
republics.
knob of the door
less
weight upon me.
you
myself
I tell you is so.
their backs
help.
than a spirt of my own seminal wet,
his grandson
the crucifix engraved,
idol and image
cent more
day
who have now to rise and fly and sing for
selves
in myself—bestowing them freely on each man
and woman I see
house
up sleeves, driving the mallet and chisel
curl of smoke
just as curious as any revelation
no less to me than the Gods of the antique wars,
destruction,
the flames;
interceding for every person born
three lusty angels with shirts bagg
their waists
past and to come,
lawyers for his brother, and sit by him while he
is tried for forgery;
rod about me, and not filling the square rod
then
time to be one of the Supremes
much good as the best, and be as prodigious
receive puffs out of pulpit or print;
of the shadows.
and intimates
passed
of
mine.
and downward sun—Ever the air
less
real
thumb—that breath of itches and thirsts
hoot! hoot!till we find where the
sly one hides, and bring him forth;
of death.
spooning,
never once going,
chaff for payment receiving,
claiming.
markets, newspapers, schools,
steamships, factories,
and personal estate.
coats—
worms or fleas.
and shallowest is deathless with me
ders
less
myself.
reality and motive power:
the printing-office boy?
close and solid in your arms?
improvements—
hostess, and the look out of their eyes?
the way?
is life?
faiths,
between ancient and modern
five thousand years,
saluting the sun,
with sticks in the circle of obis,
of the idols,
cession
gymnosophist,
Vedas admirant—minding the Koran,
stone and knife, beating the serpent-skin drum,
crucified, knowing assuredly that he is divine,
or sitting patiently in a pew,
dead-like till my spirit arouses me,
pavement and land,
and talk like a man leaving charges before a
journey.
en
and spouts of blood!
mopers
same
me, all, precisely the same.
considered—
buried,
side,
then drew back, and was never seen again,
feels it with bitterness worse than gall,
the bad disorder,
the brutish koboo called the ordure of humanity,
food to slip in,
graves of the earth,
the myriads of myriads that inhabit them,
THEU
NKNOWN.
summers
brother, my sister?
ous
with lamentation
encloser of things to be.
between the steps
was even there
lethargic mist,
carbon.
cheerful boatmen
hold me.
guided me
overlay it.
and deposited it with care.
and delight me,
coming naked to me at night
Ahoy!from the rocks of the river
—swinging and chirping over my head,
under-brush,
at the corner
opera,
railroad car
giving them to be mine.
of dying days!
mulges
systems,
but the rim of the farther systems.
expanding,
wheels
inside them.
faces,
reduced back to a pallid float,
stand,
and farther.
leagues,
impatient
of that
that.
never measured, and never will be measured.
cut from the woods
a knoll,
and a plain public road.
you
and did not know
hasten forth
we go.
of your hand on my hip,
to me
at the crowded heaven,
When we become the
enfolders of those orbs,
¶
and the pleasure and
knowledge of everything in them,
¶
shall we be
fill
e
'
d and satisfied then?
No, webut
level that lift, to pass and
continue beyond.
for yourself.
sweet clothes,
good-bye kiss,
hence.
and of every moment of your life.
the shore
to me, shout, and laughingly dash with your hair.
proves the width of my own
destroy the teacher.
derived power, but in his own right,
fear,
sail a skiff, to sing a song, or play on the banjo,
all latherers,
me?
hour
them.
the time while I wait for a boat
the tongue of you
inside a house
to him or her
the open air.
water-shore
motion of waves a key
shall take me with him all day
sound of my voice
men
alone in his blanket
of his wagon
forget where they are
body,
the Soul,
self is.
walks to his own funeral, dressed in his shroud,
the pick of the earth,
pod, confounds the learning of all times,
man following it may become a hero,
for the wheel
about God
about God, and about death.
stand
derful
and each moment then
my own face in the glass
every one is sign
it is idle to try to alarm me.
escape.
but that does not offend me
breasts of melons.
many deaths
before.
promotions!
twilight,
stems that decay in the muck!
flected,
offspring great or small.
I know it is in me.
becomes
unsaid
awakes me.
brothers and sisters.
is eternal
tied
confide to me?
only a minute longer.
the door-slab.
through with his supper?
already too late?
complains of my gab and my loitering.
on the shadow
run-away sun
grass I love
soles.
proud!
berers!
foreboding a tempest
shriek of the diver, the long-lived loon
sailors!
eagle!
spoils;)
should prove indeed a sham, a sell!)
freedom!
builds for mankind!
Mexican sea!
any reason whatever!
woman!
the streets, the same as the men;
for me!
sunny airs!
and the mocking-bird sings, or else I die!
your born poet!
your poet, because I am part of you;
States!
adoration!
man's
ascend, dazzling, and take his height—and you
too will ascend;
darting and burning;
with pouring glories!
dissever!
you!
I spring
sweep on!
stand!
E pluribus unum
America
Subject for a ballad
The hand organ in the street
NATION
appreciated,
forms
E ARE—nativity is answer enough
to objections;
in the variety of ourselves,
selves,
beautiful or sinful in ourselves only.
Supreme?
not countervail another,
sight
vails
with the universe.
poems for The
not diseased?
nations,
for
tongue, questioning every one I meet—
tioning
knew before?
your nonsense?
before, come listen to me
states and men.
lating
other spheres,
they have done.
its own at all hazards,
the
produced under their forms, ¶
itics,
religions,
slowly borne
of the
that it was fittest for its days,
shaped heir who approaches,
future.
nations,
cast
ness,
diversity,
mother's and father's,
near,
land,
neck with incomparable love,
demerits,
spending themselves lovingly in him,
stretch, he stretching with them north or south,
whatever is between them,
pine, cedar, hemlock, live-oak,
nut,
swamp,
coated with
from the boughs,
upland, prairie,
of the
to good and evil,
and present times,
aborigines,
rapid
the formation of the Constitution,
immigrants,
always calm and impregnable,
animals, hunters, trappers;
perature,
bers
farmers, especially the young men,
how it felt to stand in the presence of superiors,
copiousness and decision of their phrenology,
deathless attachment to freedom,
when wronged,
ness
ativeness,
fluid movement of the population,
whaling, gold-digging,
intersecting all points,
north-east, north-west, south-west,
tation
it—
when it ceases.
space ahead!
structive,
present, I adorn you!
for you!
with decision and science,
Pete will soon be better.
(nor may‑be needs to be bette
that brave & simple soul,)
door, he is dead already,
in black
at night fitfully sleeping, often
waking,
with one deep longing,
—silent from life escape & withdr
dear absent son
future.
some
some children to the next age!
dalliers,
be fused into the compact organism of
nation.
pulsion,
ciple
the fibres of plants.
of poetical stuff, most need
the greatest, and use them the greatest,
so much as their poets shall.
eccentric, fail of their full returns,
is bad,
tions,
wants checking,
rich, thrifty,
aging
study of man, the Soul, health, immortality,
government
artillery as good as the engineer's
every word he speaks draw blood;
his steady faith,
falling round a helpless thing;
denouement,
see men and women as dreams or dots.
leader of leaders,
is Equality!
best women,
earth been always ready to fall for Liberty!
himself, body and mind,
make lithe, himself,
many and stern questions.
America?
Y LAND
men?
tics,
my land? its substratums and objects?
day of the first year of
States,
The States, and read by Washington at the head
of the army?
tion?
lute
for
poems
the land and sea,
amativeness, angers, excesses, crimes, teach?
Are you of the whole people?
mating
The
mother of many children?
impartiality?
maturity?
and for the errant?
before?
some ship?
ticians,
still here?
manners?
sea-side?
meanness
face?
makers—not amanuenses?
to face?
progresses, cities? ¶Chicago, Kanada, Arkansas?
the planter, Yankee, Georgian, ¶native,
grant,
tional
earth,
real custodians, standing, menacing, silent,
mechanics, Manhattanese, western men,
erners,
the promptness of their love?
each temporizer,
from other poems pass away,
leave ashes;
of literature;
deceive it,
enough,
them,
there is no fear of mistake,
country absorbs him as affectionately as he has
absorbed it.
who results sweetest in the long run,
straint,
engineering, an appropriate native grand-opera,
shipcraft, any craft, he or she is greatest who
contributes the greatest original practical
ample.
the
positive knowers;
work is done,
petual
you shall be superb;
with irresistible power;
rest;
riches,
for the stupid and crazy, devoted my income
and labor to others,
had patience and indulgence toward the people,
taken off my hat to nothing known or unknown,
families,
I have tried them by trees, stars, rivers,
defiled my body,
carefully claimed for others on the same terms.
of the taste of myself,
for me ever afterward.
any one,
ments,
viduals.
individuals!
individuals,
single individual—namely, to You.
impious, so be it;
nativity.
for men and women,
modes of expressing love for men and women,
love for men and women.
myself,
manners favor the audacity and sublime
lence
other lessons,
(the same monotonous old song,)
to you and me?
and me,
and me,
sissippi,
Raleigh, Nashville, Havana, are you and me,
Washington,
and me,
are you and me,
and me,
armies, ships, are you and me,
you and me,
and me,
creation,
tities
of myself,
slaves and horrify despots,
sexes,
of time.
mastered!
mastered,
master
whole earth!
upon me!
amount—and it I teach again.)
ships have meaning!
for themselves,
myself.
mountains, brutes,
become the master myself.
wicked—it is for my sake,
forms.
2.
ROAD-AXE
lip only one!
from a little seed sown!
masculine trades, sights and sounds,
keys of the great organ.
those of the grape,
white potato and sweet potato,
openings,
the teeming soil of orchards, flax, honey, hemp,
lands,
ANDS OFI
RON! lands of the make of the axe!
cleared for a garden,
after the storm is lulled,
the sea,
their beam-ends, and the cutting away of masts;
houses and barns;
venture of men, families, goods,
found it—the outset anywhere,
Willamette,
saddle-bags;
clear untrimmed faces,
rely on themselves,
the boundless impatience of restraint,
random types, the solidification;
schooners and sloops, the raftsman, the pioneer,
woods,
occasional snapping,
song,
day's work,
the talk,
bear-skin;
tising,
places, laying them regular,
according as they were prepared,
the men, their curved limbs,
holding on by posts and braces,
wielding the axe,
the bearers,
under way,
each end,
heavy stick for a cross-beam,
right hands,
two hundred feet from front to rear,
of the trowels striking the bricks,
like in its place, and set with a knock of the
trowel-handle,
boards, and the steady replenishing by the
men;
well-grown apprentices,
shaping it toward the shape of a mast,
into the pine,
slivers,
in easy costumes;
floats, stays against the sea;
in the close-packed square,
stepping and daring,
falling in line,
forcing the water,
to bear of the hooks and ladders,
execution,
through floors, if the fire smoulders under them,
and dense shadows;
after him,
welder and temperer,
and trying the edge with his thumb,
firmly in the socket,
users also,
engineers,
combat,
helmeted head,
of friend and foe thither,
gates, the truce and parley,
tuously
of women in the gripe of brigands,
old persons despairing,
unjust,
as much as the delicatesse of the earth and of
man,
constitution? or the best built steamships?
of engineering, forts, armaments?
play for them,
or woman,
in the whole world.
place of stretched wharves, docks, manufactures,
deposits of produce,
the anchor-lifters of the departing,
or shops selling goods from the rest of the earth,
the place where money is plentiest,
orators and bards,
loves them in return, and understands them,
streets, with their arms familiar to the shoulders
of their friends,
common words and deeds,
place,
laws,
ceases,
ending
to the whistle of death
unript waves,
precedence of inside authority,
President, Mayor, Governor, and what not, are
agents for pay,
are
themselves,
streets, the same as the men,
places the same as the men,
to by the orators, the same as the men,
before
before a man's or woman's look!
appears;
ability of the universe,
back, or laid away.
now?
statute-books now?
solid?
diently
the foot-soles of one man or woman!
good as the best,
ance,
and hammers,
all,
and long ere the Greek,
than any,
Hindostanee,
those whose relics remain in Central America,
unhewn pillars,
body laid in the hollow of the great stone,
snow-covered hills of Scandinavia,
granite walls
stars, ships, ocean-waves,
served the pastoral tribes and nomads,
hardy pirates of the Baltic,
less
pleasure, and the making of those for war,
on the sea,
ages,
the dead.
and strong naked arms,
man?
ministers, rejected kings,
the rest.
cause,
run out,
never run out.)
they clasp no more the necks of queens.
longer any axe upon it,
my own race, the newest largest race.
house, library,
turret, porch,
plane,
and what not,
for the poor or sick,
ure
and all that neighbors them,
nobscot,
or by the little lakes, or on the Columbia,
Grande—friendly gatherings, the characters and
fun,
stone
through the ice.
girders, arches,
craft.
Western Seas, and in many a bay and by-place,
hackmatack-roots for knees,
scaffolds, the workmen busy outside and inside,
auger,
bead-plane.
shroud;
the posts of the bride's bed,
rockers beneath, the shape of the babe's cradle,
dancers' feet,
home of the friendly parents and children,
young man and woman, the roof over the well-
married young man and woman,
chaste wife, and joyously eaten by the chaste
husband, content after his day's work.
and of him or her seated in the place,
box,
applying it,
young rum-drinker and the old rum-drinker,
sneaking footsteps,
unwholesome couple,
winnings and losings,
the bed of the corruption of gluttony or alcoholic
drinks,
sentenced murderer,
face and pinioned arms,
white-lipped crowd,
the rope.
trances,
in haste,
puffed up,
dalous
innocence, without means.
full-sized men,
manners of the open air,
response,
you approached for,
are after.
ever,
her gross and soiled,
concealed from her,
she has no reason to fear, and she does not fear,
expressions, are idle to her as she passes,
not offend her,
—she is strong,
than she is.
swimmer in rivers or by the sea,
perfect,
forever from headache and dyspepsia, clean-
breathed,
inches round the breast and back,
on equal terms
and open, of slow movement on foot,
friends, companion of the street
touches, and never their meanest,
Broadway,
the great ferries,
understood after all,
orating
alimentive, intuitive,
sublimity, firmness, self-esteem, comparison,
individuality, form, locality, eventuality,
trations
strength against his.
in earnest with life,
hundred north and south,
natural persons,
earth,
earth,
whole earth.
3.
OMEcloser to me,
you?
between us.
with the contact of bodies and
the touch of me
to do so.
displayed out of me, what would it amount to?
wise statesman, what would it amount to?
you, would that satisfy you?
terms,
I will have my own, whoever enjoys me,
with me.
the nighest in the same shop,
I demand as good as your brother or dearest
friend,
night, I must be personally as welcome,
so for your sake,
you think I cannot remember my own foolish
and outlawed deeds?
side of the table,
him or her,
street, and love them?
as much, perhaps more, in you.
you?
wiser than you?
once drunk,
or a prostitute
impotence,
saw your name in print,
are any less immortal?
unheard, untouchable and untouching,
settle whether you are alive or no,
new States,
parlor,
uniform
every country,
much as the other
husband,
father.
trades,
working on farms,
polls to vote, he who has a good time, and he
has who a bad time,
man-o'wars-men,
see,
me.
of value, but offer the value itself.
perpetually,
eludes discussion and print,
book,
you than your hearing and sight are from you,
them
about it,
nothing about it there,
Treasury department, or in the daily papers or
the weekly papers,
current, or any accounts of stock.
apple-shaped earth, and we upon it—surely the
drift of
and that it is happiness,
speculation, or bon-mot, or reconnoissance,
turn out well for us, and without luck must be
a failure for us,
a certain contingency.
and identity,
plaisance
and out-stretching of man,
sorrows,
ever,
self
or a lady's leisure?
form that it might be painted in a picture?
and songs sung?
harmonious combinations,
air,
charts?
fancy names?
or agriculture itself?
lections,
factures
no objection,
of a woman and man I rate beyond all rate.
grand,
are,
you,
upon the earth.
say they are not divine,
out of you still,
the life,
from the earth, than they are shed out of you.
whoever you are,
it is not you who are here for him,
you here for them,
you,
cities, the going and coming of commerce and
mails, are all for you.
you,
anywhere, are tallied in you,
records reach, is in you this hour, and myths
and tales the same,
would they all be?
and plays would be vacuums.
upon it,
or the lines of the arches and cornices?
reminded by the instruments,
oboe nor the beating drums,
baritone singer singing his sweet romanza
that of the men's chorus, nor that of the women's
chorus
looking-glass? is there nothing greater or more?
closest, simplest things, this moment with you
person,
encouragement at every deed or sight
you do in secret between-days
what you behold or touch, or what causes your
anger or wonder
house, the cards of the gambler, the plates of
the forger
learnt,
writing, ciphering, the black-board, the teacher's
diagrams
them
spending of the day
got what you wanted?)
store, desk
ing
lings,
draining
bits, the very wisps of straw,
racks
cities,
implements of every trade,
square, mitre, jointer, smoothing-plane,
work of walls and ceilings, or any mason-work
air-pump, boiler,
band, bolt, throttle, governors, up and down
rods
and lanyards,
mooring, the life-boat for wrecks,
or fish-smack
hundred-foot steamboat, under full headway,
her proud fat breasts, and her delicate swift-
flashing paddles
hauling the seine
wadding, ordnance for war, and carriages;
terpane
wind blowing, indefinite noises
lodge-hut in the woods, the still-hunt
aqueduct
—the dishes of breakfast, dinner, supper
car or truck behind
write,
curious way we write what we think,
faintly
ranks on the book-shelves, the clock attached to
the wall
powder, the druggist's vials and jars, the draught
of lager-beer,
or aurist's instruments, or dentist's instruments,
as many different ways as there are minutes in a
year,
shingle-dressing,
hanging,
kiln and brick-kiln,
darkness, echoes, songs, what meditations,
vast native thoughts
faces
banks,
crowbars
ore, limestone, coal
puddling-furnace, the loup-lump at the bottom of
the melt at last
bars of pig-iron, the strong clean-shaped T rail
for railroads
house,
with the lead afterward
formed out of the sheets, and all the work in
forming it
dow
the jib to protect the thumb
kettle of boiling vault-cement, and the fire under
the kettle
buck of the sawyer,
screener,
ing-knife
work with ice
frisket and tympan, the compositor's stick and
rule, type-setting, making up the forms,
work of newspaper counters, folders, carriers,
news-men
the rigger, grappler, sail-maker, block-maker
brush-making, glazier's implements,
ments,
flat-iron
measure,
of quill or metal—the making of all sorts of
edged tools
manly exercises, the game of base-ball, running,
leaping, pitching quoits
fancies for goods for women, the book-binder's
stamps
thing that is done by brewers,
makers,
twisting,
trotyping,
ploughing-machines, thrashing-machines, steam-
wagons
dray
or laid at the bottom of the sea, and then the
message in an instant from a thousand miles off,
ride in the express-train of only one car,
swift go through a howling storm—the
tive,
in the open lot in the city, and the crowd of
children watching
one-two-three
fancy figures and jets
on the fruit-stand
the slaughter-house of the butcher, the butcher
in his killing-clothes
hog-hook, the scalder's tub, gutting,
cleaver, the packer's maul, and the plenteous
winter-work of pork-packing
loaded barges, the high piles on wharves and
levees,
bons,
the home-made sweetmeats;
weekly newspapers
by telegraph, amusements, operas, shows
when thousands of well-dressed people walk up
and down
make and spend,
and cook-pans,
deposit in the savings-bank, the trade at the
grocery,
the purchases;
than you estimated, and far less also,
you and me,
things, regardless of estimation,
earth has no
had.
not advise you to stop,
than those lead to
good as the best,
strongest, lovingest,
place—not for another hour, but this hour,
friend, brother,
in poems or any where,
your own divine and strong life,
unbending, nonchalant,
and sharp account of himself,
like you.
women like you.
carver that carved the supporting-desk,
day, and when they touch my body back again,
or
the young silver-smiths or bakers, or the masons
in their over-alls,
woman and child convince,
night-watchman's daughter,
are my friendly companions,
of them as I do of men and women like you.
4.
MERICAalways!
less
of Alabama and Texas!
the silver mountains of New Mexico!
soft-breath'd Cuba
—inseparable with the slopes drained by the
Eastern and Western Seas,
three and a half millions of square miles,
coast on the main—the thirty thousand miles
of river navigation,
number of dwellings—Always these and more,
branching forth into numberless branches;
continent of Democracy!
travellers, Kanada, the snows;
with the belt stringing the huge oval lakes;
increasing density there—the habitans, friendly,
threatening, ironical, scorning invaders;
cuously
myriads unnoticed,
gathering
knots, steamboats wooding up;
and on the valley
hannock
Delaware;
Adirondacks, the hills—or lapping the Saginaw
waters to drink;
sitting on the water, rocking silently;
labor done
tired;
while her cubs play around;
the farthest polar sea, ripply, crystalline, open,
beyond the floes;
tempest dashes;
strike midnight
the howl of the wolf, the scream of the panther,
and the hoarse bellow of the elk;
Lake—in summer visible through the clear
waters, the great trout swimming;
the large black buzzard floating slowly high
beyond the tree-tops,
pines and cypresses, growing out of the white
sand that spreads far and flat;
plants, parasites, with colored flowers and berries,
enveloping huge trees,
low, noiselessly waved by the wind;
supper-fires, and the cooking and eating by
whites and negroes,
horses, feeding from troughs,
sycamore-trees—the flames
smoke from the pitch-pine, curling and rising;
of North Carolina's coast—the shad-fishery
and the herring-fishery
—the windlasses on shore worked by horses—
the clearing, curing, and packing houses;
and tar dropping from the incisions in the trees
—There is the turpentine distillery,
ground in all directions is covered with pine
straw;
ings,
corn-shucking;
absence, joyfully welcomed and kissed by the
aged mulatto nurse;
boats, under the shelter of high banks,
banjo or fiddle—others sit on the gunwale,
smoking and talking;
mimic, singing in the Great Dismal Swamp—
the plenteous moss, the cypress tree, and the
juniper tree;
company from an excursion returning home at
evening—the musket-muzzles all bear bunches
of flowers presented by women;
fallen asleep, (how his lips move! how he smiles
in his sleep!)
the
his eye around;
rude costume—the stanch California friendship
meets, solitary, just aside the horse-path;
drivers driving mules or oxen before rude carts
—cotton-bales piled on banks and wharves;
ican
one Dilation or Pride;
aborigines—the calumet, the pipe of good-will
arbitration, and indorsement,
and then toward the earth,
faces and guttural exclamations,
stealthy march,
and slaughter of enemies;
States—
These States, without excepting a particle—you
also—me also,
Paumanok's fields,
butterflies, shuffling between each other,
ing
fall traveller southward, but returning northward
early in the spring;
herd of cows, and shouting to them as they loiter
to browse by the road-side;
Charleston, New Orleans, San Francisco,
capstan
showing me flies, suspended, balancing in the
air in the centre of the room,
up and down, casting swift shadows in specks on
the opposite wall, where the shine is;
crowds of listeners;
piousness
of The States, each for itself—the money-
makers;
windlass, lever, pulley—All certainties,
—on the firm earth, the lands, my lands,
ever
it is,
ping,
the coasts of Florida
pelicans breeding,
the Rio Grande, the Nueces, the Brazos, the
Tombigbee,
the Osage, I with the spring waters laughing and
skipping and running;
Paumanok, I, with parties of snowy herons
wading in the wet
plants;
from piercing the crow with its bill, for
ment
to refresh themselves—the body of the flock feed
heads watching, and are from time to time
lieved
taking turns with the rest;
nered
feet,
as sharp as knives—And I, plunging at the
hunters, cornered and desperate;
houses, and the countless workmen working in
the shops,
no less in myself than the whole of the
hatta
—my body no more inevitably united, part to
part, and made one identity,
my lands are inevitably united, and made
IDENTITY
Plains,
—these me,
feuillage
less than pass
afford the like to you?
leaves, that you also be eligible as I am?
yourself to collect bouquets of
feuillage of
ESPONDEZ!
waked! Let none evade—not you, any more
than others!
we go on with our affectations and sneaking?
a new distribution of roles
that which was behind advance to the front and
speak
offer new propositions
meanings be freely criminal, as well as results
drudgery
do you know your destination?)
bodies and mocked with Souls
or pass still-born to other spheres
or let it also pass, a dwarf, to other spheres
another
another
Let their tongues be broken
discouraged
with the fresh lusciousness of love
comparison
you?)
rest
days be darker than the nights
bring less slumber than waking-time brings
it was all made
heart of the old man
old man be exiled from that of the young man
applause of the audience
under the stars
one who can tyrannize, let him tyrannize to his
satisfaction
hate, greed, indecency, impotence, lust, be taken
for granted above all
ernments,
such for granted above all
women
teachers, artists, moralists, lawyers, and learned
and polite persons
sting-ray, and the grunting pig-fish
and the like of these, be put on a perfect equality
with man and woman
corpses of those who have died of the most filthy
of diseases
but fools
of women
woman trick every man
naked, monthly, at the peril of our lives
our bodies be freely handled and examined by
whoever chooses
cences,
upon the earth
forth
tom,
smut, ignorance, unbelief!
prison-keepers be put in prison
were prisoners take the keys
they not just as well be transposed?)
slaves
they are forever bawling
person appear on each of the stands
American and the Australian, go armed against
the murderous stealthiness of each other
them sleep armed
scorned and derided off from the earth!
sea
landscape or grass
onions, tomatoes
shows at a great price for admission
few smouchers
choose
stances
through any of them, not
knower, lover
If one man be found who has faith, let the rest
set upon him
them destroy the power of breeding faith
Let them dance on, while seeming lasts
seeming! seeming! seeming!)
what they have been taught!
candidly upon the hills, alone, by day or by
night! (If one ever once dare, he is lost!)
clouds
sumptive
heel
all ?)
in mirrors
unstudied
self!
except in herself!
have you had
life ?)
less
death will do, then ?)
forward
man,
ified
the Commissioners, and read by Washington at
the head of the army,
Washington;
direction toward America;
men; (Cursed be nation, woman, man, without
hospitality!)
than you or me,
than you or me.
come
part;
of the idea of caste,
defined
States,
dauntless, just the same as a boy.
power,
errors, diseases, weaknesses, lies, thefts?
cay,
mortal cancer or inflammation?
your Soul somehow to live in other spheres,
yourself with such things
you shall look longingly upon you.
past in you and your times.
escapes,
you too—from precedents you come.
them;)
of the earth,
of slaves, felons, idiots, and of insane and diseased
persons.
every one of its objects pass into spiritual results.
nothing?
than the best womanhood?
ITHantecedents,
of past ages,
hero, as I am,
Saxon,
sanship,
oracle,
the troubadour, the crusader, and the monk,
new continent,
large and present shores,
arrived at these years,
this year,
come.
knight—we easily include them, and more,
stand amid evil and good,
light,
around us,
I reject no part.
recognition.
true, without exception,
been,
they were,
America is,
than they are.
name, the Past,
name, the Present time.
be great,
ent
average man's sake—your sake, if you are he;)
there is the centre of all days, all races,
come of races and days, or ever will come.
PLENDORof falling day, floating and filling me,
bered
the tiniest insect,
body,
reflection on the
last.
colored flesh,
and women I love.
around!
moon, stars, dart on and on!
alive!)
—with branches and leaves!
some living Soul.)
—now reaching me and America!
cheerfully pass them forward.
of all the growths of the earth,
windows, my eyes,
light breaking in the east,
again on the beach on the Western Sea,
streets I have roamed,
contentment and triumph.
last in the universe.
gated
THOUGHTof what I am here for,
vulsed
promise, the sure fulfilment, despite of people
—Illustrates evil as well as good;
departed, caste, myths, obedience, compulsion,
and to infidelity;
States—or see freedom or spirituality—or
any faith in results,
glorious and inevitable—and they again leading
to other results;)
masses, turbulent, wilful, as I love them,
good,
and on;
ended and things begun;
triumph of freedom, and of the Democracies, and
of the fruits of society, and of all that is begun;
And how all triumphs and glories are complete
in themselves, to lead onward,
their turn be convulsed, and serve other
turitions
cratic
serves,
exquisite transition of Death.
ISTORIAN!
races—the life that has exhibited itself,
aggregates, rulers, and priests;
the influences of Nature, in himself, in his own
Democratic ages, myself, personally,
puzzling and contradictory—Me,
ese,
documents,
requires no further proof than he or she who
will hear me, will furnish, by silently meditating
alone;
exhibited itself, but has generally sought
cealment,
HEthought of fruitage,
the ground—of birth,
upward, to impregnable and swarming places,
to be,
Kansas,
rest,
for—and of what all the sights, North, South,
East and West, are;
sake,
than any yet,
these shores,
hence to live and sing there;
it and the spinal river,
giver,
Westward still;
those
miles,
also, and as it must be,)
ments
clean and sweet blood,
physique there,
spread there each side of the
for that area,)
after all, to savageness and freedom?)
tion
stretching long?
the vast round edge of
friendship, procreation, prudence, and nakedness,
peraments,
crimes,
and removing obstructions,
to a man, a woman, the
all—None refuse, all attend,
ings,
theft, murder, aspiration, form in close ranks,
through the mouth of that man, or that woman.
become a man,
light shall pour, and the storm rage around,
suns, on stars,
fore
AWS
teachers, and perfect literats for America,
reference to the ensemble of the world, and the
compact truth of the world
copyist shall be allowed
shall illustrate the divine law of indirections;
and in its place,
biographies, essays, theories—
sedes
given birth to them, and I have also;)
and as the rocks and weeds—fitted to them,
rustle among the trees with rustling leaves,
ships silently sail in the distance.
walk free and own no superior?
hundred ways, but that man or woman is as good
as God?
finally mean?
through such laws?
OETSto come!
what we are for,
broad fat prairies spread, and thence to Oregon
and California inclusive
hence, will understand me,
understand me and love me,
many hundred years from now,
splendor of the snow and woods, or on the icy
lakes, will take me with them,
enjoy themselves with me.
am the bard of the future,
back in the darkness.
stopping,
averts his face,
HOhas gone farthest
farther;
just person of the earth;
cautious;
think no one was ever happier than I;
the best I have;
the proudest son alive—for I am the son of the
brawny and tall-topt city;
the boldest and truest being of the universe;
nevolence
longest time?
will say such words, they shall stretch through
longer time!
For I know what it is to receive the passionate
love of many friends;
women, and paid them in kind? For I will
take the like sweets and pay them in kind;
For I do not believe any one possesses a more
perfect or enamoured body than mine;
surround those thoughts;
am mad with devouring extacy to make joyous
hymns for the whole earth!
HEYshall arise in the States—
happiness,
brawny and supple, their drink water, their blood
ucts
lumber, bread-stuffs, of Chicago, the great city,
materials of poems shall come from their lives—
they shall be makers and finders,
conveyers, to convey gospels,
in gospels—Trees, animals, waters, shall be
conveyed,
conveyed.
neys
of all.
and passing on,
do as much as the seasons, and effuse as much?
valley of the Mississippi, and the Southern
States,
women to hear,
promulge the body and the Soul,
humankind, and never forget immortality;
chaste, magnetic,
return,
Eimperturbe,
midst of irrational things,
crimes, less important than I thought;
these subordinate, (I am eternally equal with
the best—I am not subordinate;)
or the Tennessee, or far north, or inland,
life of These States, or of the coast, or the lakes,
or Kanada,
anced
dents,
WASlooking a long while for
past
I have found
I neither accept nor reject,)
also,
average man of to-day;
chinery,
and the interchanges of nations,
MERICANmouth-songs!
should be, blithe and strong,
or beam,
or leaves off work,
—the deck-hand singing on the steamboat deck,
hatter singing as he stands,
in the morning, or at the noon intermission, or at
sundown;
young wife at work—or of the girl sewing or
washing—Each singing what belongs to her,
and to none else,
party, of young fellows, robust, friendly,
blooded,
dious
fit for The States only.
produce,
inventions.
to it.
ing
slave on the face of the earth,
itual
announcements of any.
begin it,)
LEMENTALdrifts!
have just been impressing me.
manok,
castaways,
ward,
to get the better of me, and stifle me,
underfoot,
and all the land of the globe.
drop
gluten,
lettuce, left by the tide;
side of me,
thought of likenesses,
types.
wreck
upon me,
and closer,
that I see or touch, I know not;
drift,
drift.
mouth,
recoil upon me,
idea who or what I
E
still stands
reach
ulatory
I have written
sand.
single object—and that no man ever can.
advantage of me, to dart upon me, and sting me,
And because
at all.
and been wash
island.
the
it,
to me.
deny not me,
I touch you, or gather from you.
down where we lead,
mine.
another,
swell,
liquid or soil,
mented
floating, drifted at random,
cloud-trumpets;
sitting,
REATare the myths—I too delight in them,
accept them,
women, sages, inventors, rulers, warriors, and
priests.
lower,
sail, I sail,
perfect science—in you I have absolute faith.
better.
Democracy,
plorations.
est
are the Day and Night,
pression
force, fascination,
sun, action, ambition, laughter,
sleep, and restoring darkness.
edge,
richer than wealth?)
get
cold as the coldest, may be without words,
and without kneeling.
of equal nations
abandoned?
this,
covering waters and gases, before man had
peared.
all changes,
and never leave each other.
sight,
or woman
or moral, there is truth,
if there be things at all upon the earth, there
is truth.
termined
sea after you.
ences,
and of men and women, and of all qualities
and processes,
ings,
great as the English?
a destiny as the English?
with the new rule,
love, justice, equality in the Soul, rule.
the law,
disturbed.
railroads, steamers, international mails,
graphs,
the Soul,
pride, the attraction of gravity, can,
same passionless and exact tribunal.
judges—it is in their Souls,
ing
eras, states, administrations.
to front before God,
and death shall stand back
shall stand back.
health is—but I know it is great.
much as I admire goodness,
eternal overthrow of things is great,
Death holds all parts together,
Death confers,
they are great,
can I understand the realities of Death?
YOUNGman
brother,
when of his brother?
hand in my right hand,
answer
THEP
OET, and sen
decisive and final,
selves,
landscape, people, animals,
ocean,
ever
unavoidably reaps,
building, and he domiciles there,
far are for him,
marches on land, are for him, if they are for any
body.
love,
politics,
ward,
be answered, he shows how it cannot be answered.
laughter? Do you hear the ironical echoes?)
ure,
satisfaction,
beat up and down also.
may go freshly and gently and safely, by day or
by night,
of the prying of hands on the knobs.
more welcome or universal than he is,
blessed.
idiom and tongue,
upon men,
translates himself also,
joiner—he sees how they join.
How are you, friend?
to the President at his levee,
Good-day, my brother!to Cudge that
hoes in the sugar-field,
is right.
says to another,
Here is our equal, appearing and
new.
sailors that he has followed the sea,
artists for an artist,
and love them,
low
brothers and sisters there.
usual and near, removed from none.
claims him,
sure, and the Spaniard is sure, and the island
Cuban is sure;
the Mississippi, or St. Lawrence, or Sacramento,
or Hudson, or Paumanok Sound, claims him.
fect
beggar, see themselves in the ways of him—he
strangely transmutes them,
selves,
melodious verses?
verses;
could have?
behavior?
prentice-boy
been in prison, or is likely to be in prison?
OMETHINGstartles me where I thought I was safest,
lover the sea,
flesh, to renew me.
orchards, grain?
in you?
dead?
I am deceived,
my spade through the sod, and turn it up
derneath,
person—Yet behold!
garden,
out of its graves,
berry-tree,
she-birds sit on their nests,
from the cow, the colt from the mare,
green leaves,
all those strata of sour dead.
the sea, which is so amorous after me,
over with its tongues,
have deposited themselves in it,
orange-orchard
plums, will none of them poison me,
disease,
what was once a catching disease.
patient,
endless successions of diseased corpses,
fetor,
annual, sumptuous crops,
such leavings from them at last.
LL
friends, and thought of prudence,
with them,
about prudence,
prudence that suits immortality.
quence,
him or her in a day, month,
direct life-time, or the hour of death,
same affects him or her onward afterward
through the indirect life-time.
gives to the body, if not more.
ation,
or rum-drinkers, peculation,
murder, seduction, prostitution,
beyond death, as really as before death.
worth anything.
female does, that is vigorous, benevolent, clean,
order of the universe,
scope of it forever.
chanic,
forever affect,
present, and all of the future,
sorrowful,
to shunned persons,
slaves,
and saw others fill the seats of the boats,
or for a friend's sake, or opinion's sake,
mothers,
corded,
fragments we inherit,
known
ceeded
divinity of his mouth, or the shaping of his great
hands;
of the globe—or on any of the wandering stars,
are here,
whoever you are, or by any one,
from which they sprang, or shall spring.
impalpable so exist,
long previous consummation—and that from
some other,
nearer the beginning than any.
Souls,
from every lesson but its own.
abreast with time, space, reality
its own
the living from the dead,
his life and lost it, has done exceeding well for
himself, without doubt,
old age in riches and ease, has probably achieved
nothing for himself worth mentioning;
has learned to prefer results,
direct,
hurries
ERFECTsanity shows the master among philosophs,
pleasant company
the light or dark—but the words of the maker
of poems are the general light and dark,
tality,
race,
of the human race.
THEP
OETbegets,
enough
spot, of the birth of the maker of poems,
tained
ostensible names, but the name of each of them
is one of the singers,
singer, law-singer,
singer, wise-singer,
singer,
singer, passion-singer, mystic-singer, fable-singer,
item-singer, weeping-singer,
poems;
of mothers and fathers,
science.
health,
sun-tan, air-sweetness
words of poems.
melodist, chemist, anatomist, spiritualist,
guage-searcher,
politics, war, peace,
romances, and everything else
sexes,
beauty, longing, fain, love-sick.
but rather the outset,
tent
birth of stars,
the ceaseless rings, and never be quiet again.
NEEDno assurances
occupied,
the hands and face I am cognizant of,
looking faces I am not cognizant of—calm and
actual faces;
world are latent in any iota of the world;
waiting for me through time, and through the
universes—also upon this earth;
are limitless—
limitless;
play their swift sports through the air on purpose
much as they, and more than they;
vulgar persons, slaves, dwarfs, weeds, rejected
refuse, than I have supposed;
supposed
and more in my poems than I have supposed;
millions of years;
exteriors have their exteriors
eye-sight has another eye-sight,
another hearing, and the voice another voice;
young men
deaths of young women, and the deaths of little
children, are provided for;
horrors of them
husband, father, lover, has gone down
vided
nance,
mainder
dations,
any where, at any time,
inherences of things.
HATshall I give? and which are my miracles?
your feet can carry you, or your eyes reach.
sky,
edge of the water,
bed at night with any one I love,
mer
shining so quiet and bright,
in spring;
me best—mechanics, boatmen, farmers,
opera,
machinery,
perfect old woman,
place.
with the same,
men and women, and all that concerns them,
waves—the ships, with men in them,
HEREwas a child went forth every day,
with wonder, pity, love, or dread,
became,
certain part of the day,
stretching cycles of years.
white and red clover, and the song of the phœbe-
bird,
litter, and the mare's foal, and the cow's calf,
of the pond-side,
there—and the beautiful curious liquid,
all became part of him.
became part of him,
corn, and the esculent roots of the garden,
fruit afterward,
monest
house
school,
some
foot
went.
in her womb, and birth
them
supper-table,
gown,
and clothes as she walks by;
gered,
crafty lure
furniture—the yearning and swelling heart,
what is real—the thought if, after all, it should
prove unreal,
the curious whether and how,
and specks?
are not flashes and specks, what are they?
goods in the windows,
huge crossing at the ferries,
the river between,
gables of white or brown, three miles off,
tide—the little boat slack-towed astern,
slapping,
tint, away solitary by itself—the spread of purity
it lies motionless in,
of salt-marsh and shore-mud;
day,
every day,
Tis ended—
wrestle,
gun
beget superb children,
common people,
and sea.
welcome them also;)
women.
plenteous Supreme Gods,
realize them, walking and talking.
count
I hold up agitation and conflict,
one that was thought most worthy.
secretly guilty of, all your life?
and chatter all your life?)
languages, reminiscences,
a single word?)
fresh and modern continually.
ing
close by tender directions and indirections?
them—but how can I the like?
me, half as bad as the evil I really am;
friends, but listen to my enemies—as I
self
expound me—for I cannot expound myself,
of me,
early riser, a gymnast, a steady grower,
turies.
water, earth,
HO
ist,
spring
commence
lesson,
salaams.
and the reasons of things,
say it to myself—it is very wonderful.
moving so exactly in its orbit forever and ever,
second
thousand years, nor ten billions of years,
architect plans and builds a house.
woman,
man or woman,
any one else.
wonderful,
er's
was born on the last day of Fifth Month, in the
Year 43 of America,
three summers and three winters, to articulate
and walk
a man thirty-six years old in the Year 79 of
America
equally wonderful.
fect
and never perhaps to see each other,
as wonderful.
wonderful,
know them to be true, is just as wonderful.
the earth, is equally wonderful,
stars, is equally wonderful.
is in yourself that is not just as wonderful,
tween
that is not just as wonderful.
HISnight I am happy;
and fro, singing her savage and husky song,
the clef of the universes,
this earth,
just as much as before.
myself,
better?
parts of me.
old men, and to love them the same,
with whom I shall sleep will touch the side of my
face the same,
near and always divine to me, her true child and
son, whatever comes.
time,
and that the experience of this earth will prove
only one out of myriads;
those experiences,
majestic and beautiful than I have already found
on the earth,
universes,
the clef of eternity.
VAST SIMILITUDEinterlocks all,
moons, planets, comets, asteroids,
upon the same,
different, or in different worlds,
the fishes, the brutes,
globe or any globe,
spanned,
compactly hold them.
sprig
B
B
ITTER
cator,
stuff out of which it is thought?
companion?
sins,
not chained with iron, or my ankles with iron?
in your rooms,
myself?
make me wince,
tides continually run,
prostitutes myself,
deny myself?
NFOLDED
unfolded,
earth, is to come the superbest man of the earth,
the friendliest man,
can a man be formed of perfect body,
woman, can come the poems of man—
thence have my poems come,
love, only thence can appear the strong and
arrogant man I love,
woman I love, only thence come the brawny
embraces of the man,
all the folds of the man's brain, duly obedient,
is unfolded,
sympathy;
eternity
is unfolded out of woman
shaped in himself.
IGHTon the Prairies;
which I think now I never realized before.
rations,
the not-day exhibited,
upon
fill me,
arrived as far along as those of the earth,
of the earth,
own life,
waiting to arrive.
me—as the day cannot,
by death.
EA-WATER, and all living below it,
leaves,
and
gluten,
swimmers,
slowly crawling close to the bottom,
spray, or disporting with his flukes,
hairy sea-leopard, and the sting-ray;
those ocean-depths—
ing
sphere;
SIT
and upon
anguish with themselves,
done;
dying, neglected, gaunt, desperate,
treacherous seducer of the young woman,
attempted to be hid—
earth,
cast
lives of the rest,
gant
negroes, and the like;
I
ME, man of slack faith so long!
—unfree,
upon itself as the truth does upon itself,
of the earth does.
ately
with the rest,
or the truth?
spirit of man? or in the meat and blood?
myself,
lies after all,
what are called lies are perfect returns,
what has preceded it,
as much as space is compact,
of the truth—but that
ception,
or am,
ORMS, qualities, lives, humanity, language, thoughts,
on the stars,
inhabitants, whatever they may be,
combinations and effects,
anywhere,
space, which I extend my arm and half enclose
with my hand
the germs of all
ofar, and so far, and on toward the end,
ble
turity,
that wait unfired,
yet unfinished,
THEP
OEM OF THEN
EWW
ORLD,
transcending all others—depends, rich persons,
upon you,
OWI make a leaf of Voices—
ing
tiful,
voices?
or her I shall follow, as the waters follow the
moon,
the globe.
the developed Soul?
sweeter, new
ples
to unclose,
what lies slumbering,
HATam I, after all, but a child, pleased with the
sound of my own name?
over,
it from women's voices, and from men's voices,
or from my own voice,
pronunciations in the sound of your name?
OCATIONSand times—what is it in me that meets
them all, whenever and wherever, and makes me
at home?
corresponds with them?
IFTme close to your face till I whisper,
of a book,
So
long!
kiss,
So long—and I hope we shall meet again.
TAKEmy hand, Walt Whitman!
bering?
arms about each others' necks?
these?
the mists?
dwellers?
provided for in the west,
slanting rings—it does not set for months,
just rises above the horizon, and sinks again,
groups,
Indian islands.
singing,
animals early in the day,
Tennessee and Kentucky, hunting on hills,
wild horse,
nut
of old poems,
a harvest night, in the glare of pine knots,
Man
singing,
west lakes,
the grain and grass with the showers of their
terrible clouds,
falling on the breast of the black venerable vast
mother, the Nile,
Kanada,
bells of the mule,
mosque,
—I hear the responsive base and soprano,
Irish grand-parents, when they learn the death
of their grand-son,
putting to sea at Okotsk,
march on—as the husky gangs pass on by twos
and threes, fastened together with wrist-chains
and ankle-chains,
—I hear the sibilant whisk of thongs through
the air;
strong legends of the Romans,
of the beautiful God, the Christ,
loves, wars, adages, transmitted safely to this
day from poets who wrote three thousand years
ago.
salute you?
factories, palaces, hovels, huts of barbarians, tents
of nomads, upon the surface,
are sleeping—and the sun-lit part on the other
side,
of them, as my land is to me.
Alleghanies, where they range,
Gauts,
north the Dofrafields, and off at sea Mount Hecla,
tains,
dilleras;
Atlantic and Pacific, the sea of Mexico, the
zilian
and the Gulf of Guinea,
shores, and the Bay of Biscay,
other
watch on the look-out,
eases.
da
Straits,
along Cuba or Hayti
Baffin's Bay,
Wash
Cape Clear
Dardanelles,
winter-packs,
the Burampooter and Cambodia,
ready to start,
bon,
Hague, Copenhagen,
more,
Francisco.
North America;
losses, gains, passions, of my race.
Columbia flows,
Yellow River, the Yiang-tse, and the Pearl;
Rhone, and the Guadalquiver flow,
Oder,
tian
of Persia, and that of India,
Saukara.
avatars in human forms,
—oracles, sacrificers, brahmins, sabians, lamas,
monks, muftis, exhorters;
the mistletoe and vervain,
I see the old signifiers.
per,
toiled faithfully and long, and then died,
fate of the beautiful nocturnal son, the full-limbed
Bacchus,
of feathers on his head,
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.
them, and blossoms and corn,
the unknown events, heroes, records of the earth.
and lakes,
restless oceans,
they wearied of their quiet graves,
through the mounds, and gaze on the tossing
billows,
liberty, action.
mucks
jungles and deserts,
tailed sheep, the antelope, and the burrowing
wolf.
tamarind, date,
verdure and gold.
incomparable rider of horses with his lasso on
his arm,
their hides.
uninhabited;
manok,
thick school of mossbonkers—they drop the
joined seine-ends in the water,
on its rounding course to the beach, enclosing
the mossbonkers,
ashore,
stand negligently ankle-deep in the water, poised
on strong legs,
against them,
water, lie the green-backed spotted mossbonkers.
about the banks of Moingo, and about Lake
Pepin,
sadly prepared to depart.
dogs,
the South Pacific and the North Atlantic,
land
isolation.
dom a
Constantinople,
Limerick,
Brussels, Berne, Frankfort, Stuttgart, Turin,
Florence,
in Christiania or Stockholm
Irkutsk—or in some street in Iceland;
again.
poisoned splint, the fetish, and the obi.
Monrovia,
Calcutta, Yedo,
Ashantee-man in their huts,
those of Herat,
intervening sands—I see the caravans toiling
onward;
and obelisks,
in slabs of sand-stone, or on granite blocks,
embalmed, swathed in linen cloth, lying there
many centuries,
side-drooping neck, the hands folded across the
breast.
backs,
makers of the earth,
and women.
my race,
among them—I mix indiscriminately,
Russ in Russia!
large, fine-headed, nobly-formed, superbly
tined,
Prussian!
mian!
Weser! you working-woman too!
Wallachian! Bulgarian!
Greek!
Caucasus!
lions
saddle, shooting arrows to the mark!
tar
risk, to stand once on Syrian ground!
of the Euphrates! you peering amid the ruins of
Nineveh! you ascending Mount Ararat!
of the minarets of Mecca!
mandel, ruling your families and tribes!
areth,
in the shops of Lassa!
car,
tralia,
of the sea!
but include just the same!
America sent,
right upon the earth,
of slaves!
drops!
countenances of brutes!
down upon,
and spirituality!
Oregon, California!
lip, grovelling, seeking your food!
Cairo!
you Fegee-man!
Carolina, Texas, Tennessee!
where you stand,
around the whole earth,
ready for me in all lands;
away to distant continents, and fallen down
there, for reasons
globe has run through,
on the highest embedded rocks, to cry thence.
Salut au Monde!
etrate
way myself.
signal,
OEM OFJ
OYS.
TOmake
infancy!
trees.
balance of fishes!
around;
lightning!
steam-whistle—the laughing locomotive!
distance.
—the cool gurgling by the ears and hair.
in the arena, in perfect condition,
power, thirsting to meet his opponent.
emitting in steady and limitless floods.
the anguish—the patiently yielded life.
concord and harmony.
fields, once more,
once more.
exquisite to me than the presence of women;)
mate!
friendship of him who, I fear, is indifferent
to me.
tumes!
to me;
memory of only one look—the boy lingering
and waiting.
or along the coast!
weeds exposed at low water
and clam-fisher.
my eel-spear;
the flats,
like a mettlesome young man.
out on foot on the ice
holes in the ice;
the afternoon
panying
to be with none else so well as they love to be
with me,
me.
lift the lobster-pots,
heavy stones, (I know the buoys;)
water,
buoys;
lobsters are desperate with their claws, as I take
them out
their pincers,
back to the shore,
shall be boiled till their color becomes scarlet.
seem to fill the water for miles;
Bay—I one of the brown-faced crew;
I stand with braced body,
the coils of slender rope,
fifty skiffs, my companions.
the superb scenery
sional
reaching sweep-oars,
free.
roof—the ample and shadowed space,
sympathy!
his smile!
beat!
onets
again!
breezes fanning me,
There she blows,
We see—we descend, wild with excitement,
where he lies,
tainous
dart from his vigorous arm;
whale, settling, running to windward, tows me,
again,
turned in the wound,
is leaving him fast,
cles
water—I see him die,
cle,
foam.
beard,
stretch of my life.
pure white—I am the most venerable mother;
me!
bloom, more than the bloom of youth?
out of me?
ing
facts, sight, hearing, touch,
reason, articulation, comparison, memory, and
the like
my senses and flesh;
with my material eyes;
is not my material eyes which finally see,
laughs, shouts, embraces, procreates.
wan's,
apples in the fall.
pekan-tree,
nolia.
ing
body, to be burned, or rendered to powder, or
buried,
purifications,
earth.
along shore!
naked along the shore.
and the flying clouds, as one with them.
ful
the ground,
nable,
which obeys none of the rest,
it draws.
daunted!
can stand!
face to face!
guns with perfect nonchalance!
moist fresh stillness of the woods,
through the forenoon.
out from the ribs and throat,
yourself,
tongue.
—not to any tyrant, known or unknown,
elastic,
broad chest,
sonalities
float on,
Death of Brooklyn's most ancient citizen,
UTof the rocked cradle
of her breasts
the child, leaving his bed, wandered alone,
headed,
twisting as if they were alive
risings and fallings I heard
swollen as if with tears
there in the transparent mist
cease
after,
beyond them,
NCE, Paumanok,
grass was growing,
brown
silent, with bright eyes,
disturbing them,
Shine!
S
s
hine!
Pour down your warmth, great Sun!
While we bask—we two together.
Two together!
Winds blow South, or winds blow North,
Day come white, or night come black,
Home, or rivers and mountains from home,
Singing all time, minding no time,
If we two but keep together.
sea,
weather,
he-bird,
Blow! Blow!
Blow up sea-winds along Paumanok's shore;
I wait and I wait, till you blow my mate to me.
know.
beach gliding,
the shadows,
sounds and sights after their sorts,
notes,
Soothe!
S
s
oothe!
S
s
oothe!
Close on its wave soothes the wave behind,
And again another behind, embracing and lapping,
every one close,
(
But my love
, my love
soothes not me
Low hangs the moon—it rose late
,
;
O it is lagging—O I think it is heavy with love
O madly the sea
the se
pushes,
pushes upon the
land,
With love—with love.
O night!do
O do
I not see my love fluttering out there among the
breakers?
What is that little black thing I see there in the
white?
Loud!
L
l
oud! Loud!
So Loud
I callI call to you
my love!
So High
and clear I shoot my voice over the waves
,
;
Surely you must know who is here,is here.
You must know who I am, my love.
Low-hanging moon!
wet, sul
What is that dusky spot in your brown yellow?
O it is the shapethe shape of my mate!
O moon, do not keep her from me any longer.
Land!land! O dim and
sullen land!
Whichever way I turn, O I
think you could give me
my mate back again, if youonly would
,
;
For I am almost sure I see her dimly whichever way
I look.
O rising stars!
Perhaps the one I want so much will risewill rise with
some
of you.
O throat!O
trembling throat!
Sound clearer through the atmosphere!
Pierce
Pierce the woods, the earth
,
;
O Somewhere
listening to catch you must be the one I
want.
Shake out, carols!
Solitary here—
the night's
carols!
Carols of lonesome love! Death's carols!
Carols under that lagging, yellow, waning moon!
O, under that moon, where she droops almost down
into the sea!
the sea,
.
O
reckless, despairing carols
But soft!
Sink low
—
soft!
Soft! Let me just
just
murmur
,
;
And do you wait a moment, you husky-noised sea
,
;
For somewhere I
believe
think
I heard my mate responding
to me
,
;
So faint—I must be stillbe still to
listen,
But not altogether still, for then she might not come
immediately to me.
Hither, my love!
Here I am!
Here!
With this just-sustained note I announce myself to
you
,
;
This gentle call is for you, my love
Do not be decoyed elsewhere
!
;
That is the whistle of the wind—it is not my voice
,
;
That is the flutteringthe fluttering of the spray
,
;
Those are the shadows of leaves.
O darkness! O in vain!(no answer comes—nor will ever
come;)
O I am very sick and sorrowful.
O brown halo in the sky, near the moon, drooping
upon the sea!
O troubled reflection in the sea!
O throat! O throbbing heart!
O all—and I
singing
chanting
murmuring
uselessly,
uselessly through
all the night.
Yet will I
Murmur! Murmur on
!
;
O murmurs—you yourselves make me continue to
sing, I know not why.
O past!
O joy!
O life!
O songs of joy!
In the air—in the woods—over fields,
Loved!
L
l
oved!
L
l
oved!
L
l
oved!
L
l
oved!
Happily
Loved
O my love
in the past
—but
Once
no more no more
with me,
We two together no more.
echoing
incessantly moaning,
ing,
his hair the atmosphere dallying
iting
crying,
drowned secret hissing,
mostly to me?
clearer, louder, more sorrowful than yours,
within me,
from me,
before what
within,
all shapes, spring as from graves around me!
frown upon me;
you
before daybreak,
D
EATH,
aroused child's heart,
my feet,
gray beach,
my feet,
AUNTERING
road,
ality,
common, benevolent face,
natural lawyers and judges, broad at the back-
top,
—the shaved blanched faces of orthodox citizens,
face,
detested or despised face,
mother of many children,
face,
of the gelder.
ferry,
all.
thought them their own finale?
its hole.
need no label
or hog's-lard.
the unearthly cry,
show nothing but their whites,
turned-in nails
while he speculates well.
scabbard.
the great round globe!
guises.
fores of fishes or rats
idiot they had at the asylum,
brother,
tenement
harmed,
hand bringing up the laggards.
superb! I see what is coming,
runners clearing the way,
odds of the rest
all good.
white, black, are all deific,
thousand years.
me,
pickets,
Come here,she blushingly cries—
Come nigh to me,
limber-hipp'd man,
and give me your finger and
thumb,
Stand at my side till I lean as high as I can upon you,
Fill me with albescent honey, bend down to me,
Rub to me with your chafing beard, rub to my breast
and shoulders.
morning,
the cat-brier under them.
froth and the water-blue.
clearer and more beautiful than the sky.
the farm-house,
daughters
wheel.
does not wish to go,
1776 72 = 48
UDDENLYout of its stale and drowsy lair, the lair of
slaves,
to the throats of kings.
afresh.
ing
and laughed at in the breaking,
strike revenge, or the heads of the nobles fall;
and the frightened rulers come back
tax-gatherer,
and form, in scarlet folds,
the arm,
the head of a snake appears.
corpses of young men;
princes are flying, the creatures of power laugh
aloud,
hearts pierced by the gray lead,
unslaughter'd vitality.
exalted.
seed for freedom, in its turn to bear seed,
and the snows nourish.
let loose,
counselling, cautioning.
of you.
FPublic Opinion,
passive!
himself,
What will the people say at last?
Governor, Mayor—Of such as these, standing
helpless and exposed;
deserted;)
of the dicta of officers, statutes, pulpits, schools,
of the intuitions of men and women, and of
esteem,
en-masse,
and to me,
greater than the rest,
of all from them.
Othe garden, the world, anew ascending,
brought me again,
drous,
ROMthat of myself, without which I were nothing,
if I stand sole among men,
superb grown people,
O it, more than all else, you delighting!)
ing
gently
faithful one,
I went to the city,
poems informing,
of birds,
chanting,
pating,
body,
tionless
tremulous, aching;
voice, auctioneering,
making,
and what it arouses,
abandonment,
utterly off—O free and lawless,
sea
ately
the woman that loves me, and whom I love more
than my life—
think?
and exhaust each other, if it must be so;)
him permission taking,
too long, as it is;)
girl of The States,
them from my own body;)
not near,
of fingers through my hair and beard,
bosom,
drunk, fainting with excess,
work of fatherhood,
fellow's
me just as unwilling to leave,
MYchildren! O mates!
them, respond to them,
them,
Soul.
conceal themselves?
who defile the dead?
—the body itself balks account,
perfect.
only in his face,
joints of his hips and wrists,
of his waist and knees—dress does not hide
him,
through the cotton and flannel,
perhaps more,
and shoulder-side.
heads of women, the folds of their dress,
style as we pass in the street, the contour of their
shape downwards,
he swims through the transparent green-shine,
lies with his face up, and rolls silently to and fro
in the heave of the water
boats
ances,
open dinner-kettles, and their wives waiting,
in the garden or cow-yard,
guiding his six horses through the crowd,
grown, lusty, good-natured,
the vacant lot at sun-down, after work,
and resistance,
over and blinding the eyes;
play of masculine muscle through clean-setting
trousers and waist-straps,
bell strikes suddenly again,
the alert,
the curved neck, and the counting,
the mother's breast with the little child,
and count.
sons,
of person,
his manners,
hair and beard,
of his black eyes,
also
loved him
with personal love;
through the clear-brown skin of his face
his boat himself
to him by a ship-joiner
pieces, presented to him by men that loved
him;
sons
as the most beautiful and vigorous of the
gang
and he might touch
enough
enough
laughing flesh is enough
arm ever so lightly round his or her neck for a
moment—what is this, then?
a sea.
women, and looking on them,
and odor of them, that pleases the Soul well
Soul well.
a helpless vapor
and it
the atmosphere and the clouds,
expected of heaven or feared of hell, are now
consumed
response likewise ungovernable
hands, all diffused—mine too diffused
love-flesh swelling and deliciously aching,
juice,
into the prostrate dawn
day.
woman, the man is born of woman
and large, and the outlet again.
the rest, and is the exit of the rest,
of the Soul.
balance
active,
as well as daughters.
pleteness
the female I see.
his place
become him well
sorrow
is for him,
to
brings everything to the test of himself
he strikes soundings at last only here
sacred,
just landed on the wharf?
well-off—just as much as you,
beautiful motion.
or the dull-face ignorant?
he or she has no right to a sight?
diffused float
and water runs, and vegetation sprouts,
his business.
enough for it
without one animal or plant,
heroes
so cunning in tendon and nerve,
flesh not flabby, good-sized arms and legs,
desires, reachings, aspirations
expressed
who shall be fathers in their turns
bodiments
of his offspring through the centuries?
you could trace back through the centuries?
mother of mothers,
mates to the mothers.
knows who shall mate with them?
come from them?
divine mystery, the same old beautiful mystery.
with her? and has she been much with you?
in all nations and times, all over the earth?
manhood untainted,
ceal
other men and women,
of you;
likes of the Soul, (and that they are the Soul,)
I believe the likes of you shall stand or fall with my
poems—and that they are poems,
mother's, father's, young man's, young woman's
poems,
waking or sleeping of the lids,
and the jaw-hinges,
neck, neck-slue,
ders,
sinews, arm-bones,
fore-finger, finger-balls, finger-joints, finger-nails,
bone, breast-side,
round, man-balls, man-root,
female,
and clean,
ternity,
that comes from woman,
ter,
risings,
ing
swimming,
curving, and tightening,
around the eyes,
the hand the naked
another person's
and out,
thence downward toward the knees,
bones, and the marrow in the bones,
WOMAN
lacking,
moisture of the right man were lacking.
results, promulgations,
the semitic milk,
earth,
of the earth,
tifications
deliciousness of his sex,
hers.
those women that are warm-blooded and
cient
husband of those women.
ing
run, strike, retreat,
selves
clear, well-possessed of
own sake, but for others' sakes;
you
States—I press with slow rude muscle,
accumulated within me.
of
athletic girls, new artists, musicians, and singers,
their turn,
love-spendings,
and you interpenetrate now,
immortality, I plant so lovingly now.
PONTANEOUSme,
ash,
yellow,
—the pebble-stones,
one after another, as I happen to call them to me,
or think of them,
pictures,)
like me,
carry, and that all men carry,
men like me, are our lusty, lurking, masculine,
poems,)
climbers, and the climbing sap,
of love
glued together with love,
love,
love
earth,
down
his will of her,
tight upon her till he is satisfied
the waist of the other,
mint, birch-bark,
fides
and content to the ground,
me with,
ever can any one,
privileged
are,
body
the fingers soothingly pause and edge themselves,
rest,
others,
young man that flushes and flushes,
hand seeking to repress what would master him
encircling fingers
red, ashamed, angry;
and naked,
grass in the sun,
vigilant eyes from them,
or ripened long-round walnuts,
myself indecent,
once skulk or find themselves indecent,
chastity of maternity,
and fresh daughters,
gnaw,
fill my place when I am through,
where it may.
FURIOUS!O confine me not!
mean?)
man!
bride.)
be yielded me, in defiance of the world!
look upon, or touch with the tips of my fingers,
time, the lips of a determined man!
blood of life for yourself, whoever you are—and
no matter when and where you live.
dark pool! O all untied and illumined!
enough at last!
tions
best of nature!
cient
dangerous!
indicated to me!
ness
OUand I—what the earth is, we are,
Nature escapes,
we return,
spontaneous as any,
minerals,
up in Virginia,
look down,
ourselves orbic and stellar
comets;
spring on prey;
overhead,
waves, rolling over each other, and interwetting
each other,
pervious, impervious,
product and influence of the globe,
home again—we two have,
own joy.
ATIVEmoments! when you come upon me—Ah
you are here now!
coarse and rank!
too,
the midnight orgies of young men,
ers,
low person for my dearest friend,
condemned by others for deeds done;
myself from my companions?
NCEI passed through a populous city,
my brain, for future use, with its shows,
ture,
I
of me
All else has long been forgotten
clung to me
tremulous.
NQUIRING, tireless, seeking
maternity, the land of migrations,
arrived at last where I am
circled
of Kashmere,
sage, and the hero,
the spice islands,
joyous,
INthe new garden, in all the parts,
primitive yet,
me unchanged
Was I buried
moment;
woman of the future,
GESand ages, returning at intervals,
sweet,
calling,
these, offering myself,
HYMEN! O hymenee!
cease?
moment, you would soon certainly kill me?
AMhe that aches with love;
ing,
ARLYin the morning,
body as I pass,
FOOTand light-hearted I take to the open road,
choose.
fortune,
need nothing,
me wherever I go,
are not all that is here,
preference or denial,
eased,
gar's
party of mechanics,
the eloping couple,
furniture into the town, the return back from
the town,
be interdicted,
give them shape!
equable showers!
insects!
stalks and weeds by the fences!
sides!
are so dear to me.
the edges!
timber-lined sides! you distant ships!
you roofs!
guards!
so much!
den
imparted to yourselves,
your impassive surfaces,
would be
where it was not wanted,
sentiment of the road.
me, Do not leave me?
lost?
and undenied—adhere to me?
you—yet I love you,
air,
whoever beholds me shall like me,
imaginary lines,
lute,
say,
the holds that would hold me.
the south are mine.
such good to me, I would do the same to you.
shall bless me.
would not amaze me,
it would not astonish me.
persons,
with the earth.
of men,
mocks all authority and all argument against it.
other
its own proof,
content,
things, and the excellence of things;
that provokes it out of the Soul.
at all under the spacious clouds,
landscape and flowing currents.
in him,
majesty, love,
are vacant of them.
you and me?
—it is apropos;
strangers?
the darkness, why are they?
nigh me, the sun-light expands my blood?
flat and lank?
melodious thoughts descend upon me?
trees, and always drop fruit as I pass;)
side?
shore, as I walk by and pause?
will?
happiness,
sweetness of man and woman,
sweet
selves
ually
sweat of the love of young and old,
and attainments,
contact.
things, well enveloped,
than words can tell.
venient
waters, we must not anchor here,
we are permitted to receive it but a little while.
Yankee clipper speeds by under full sail.
priests!
waits no longer.
endurance,
courage and health.
yourself;
mined
taint is permitted here.
rhymes,
new prizes
or achieve,
tined
before you are called
depart,
ings
answer with passionate kisses of parting,
their reached hands toward you.
REATC
OMPANIONS! and to belong
to them!
majestic men! they are the greatest women.
retarded—passing impediments large or small,
virtues,
land,
distant dwellings,
tary
the shore,
helpers of children, bearers of children,
ers
preceded it,
diverse phases,
with their bearded and well-grained manhood,
passed,
womanhood,
breadth of the universe,
dom
less,
and nights they tend to,
neys;
and pass it,
may reach it and pass it,
for you
for you;
thither,
ing
the feast, yet not abstracting one particle of it;
man's elegant villa,
the well-married couple,
chards
pass through,
wherever you go,
encounter them
hearts,
that you leave them behind you,
roads—as roads for travelling Souls.
parts away at last for the journeys of the Soul.
that was or is apparent upon this globe or any
globe,
procession of Souls
universe.
the grand roads of the universe,
ress
lent,
jected
not where they go,
something great.
house,
built for you.
people,
washed and trimmed faces,
and hiding it goes,
goes,
cities, polite and bland in the parlors,
assembly,
families,
where,
skull-bones,
and artificial flowers,
of itself,
Nature?
essence of things,
cess,
to make a greater struggle necessary.
bellion,
angry enemies, desertions.
it well.
book on the shelf unopened!
remain unearned!
plead in the court, and the judge expound the
law.
with me?
ARTH, round, rolling,
mals—
monitions,
upright lines?
are in the ground and sea,
mouths?
woman's,
the need of shame.
penetrate
them,
what would air, soil, water, fire, know of
name
ture,
and women, are sayings and meanings also.
of the earth,
and use them more than the audible words.
from the jump,
cences
not so concealed either,
selves
I utter and utter,
I to you?
am I?
ures,
none out.
itself—possesses still underneath,
of heroes, the wail of slaves,
laughter of young people, accents of bargainers,
fail.
great mother never fail,
and reflection does not fail,
we pursue does not fail.
and younger sisters,
tions
turbed,
mirror, while her eyes glance back from it,
own face.
a companion,
the countenances of those who are with them,
manly countenance,
inanimate things,
apparition of the sky,
returning them,
twice with the same companions.
hundred and sixty-five resistlessly round the sun,
hundred and sixty-five offsets of the first,
and necessary as they.
passing, carrying,
ing,
and dividing,
striking,
account,
cially
earth is solid and liquid,
in the sky,
the word of the past and present, and the word
of immortality,
him,
to him,
to him,
—it cannot fail,
actor and actress, not to the audience,
but his own, or the indication of his own.
her who shall be complete!
him or her who remains broken and jagged!
emulate those of the earth!
it corroborate the theory of the earth!
account, unless it compare with the amplitude of
the earth,
rectitude of the earth.
that which responds love!
and never refuses.
words!
the unspoke
the truths of the earth,
that print cannot touch.
any is best,
nearer,
before,
before,
real as before,
direct,
hints of meanings,
phrases of Souls;
they then?
they then?
faith that tells the best!
best untold.
in use,
shall appear.
I announce them and lead them,
you,
who best knows you,
faithful to all,
less than they,
The 78th Year of These States.
LEARthe way there, Jonathan!
ernment
ritions
town,
see the show.
will play Yankee Doodle.
Boston town.
daged
the earth!
see!
of it!
mist!
shoulders!
this chattering of bare gums?
take
them?
the President's marshal,
ment
arms, and let your white hair be,
at them from the windows,
themselves.
retreating!
limpers!
you what it is, gentlemen of Boston?
mittee
cart to the royal vault—haste!
from the grave-clothes, box up his bones for a
journey,
black-bellied clipper,
straight toward Boston bay.
the government cannon,
other
goons.
women!
glue those that will not stay,
top of the skull.
come to its own, and more than its own.
are a made man from this day,
bargains.
N
the pleasures, profits, conformities,
clear to me that my Soul,
respond as I would not dare elsewhere,
yet contains all the rest,
attachment,
first year,
men,
CENTEDherbage of my breast,
afterwards,
death,
freeze you, delicate leaves,
you retired, you shall emerge again;
cover
believe a few will;
you to tell, in your own way, of the heart that is
under you,
accomplished;
yourselves—you are not happiness,
and sting me,
roots—you make me think of Death,
tiful,
chant of lovers—I think it must be for Death,
atmosphere of lovers,
clines
death most;
cisely
up out of my breast!
timid leaves!
breast!
mine—I have long enough stifled and choked;
you serve me not,
again utter a call, only their call,
The States,
shape and will through The States;
exhilarating,
accord with it,
now above all, and are folded together
—you Love and Death are,
I was calling
ports
reasons—and that they are mainly for you,
real reality,
wait, no matter how long,
appearance,
not last so very long,
HOEVERyou are holding me now in hand,
further,
tions?
hausting,
to the lives around you, would have to be
doned;
any further
shoulders,
nor in company,
or dead,)
approach unawares,
the sea, or some quiet island,
husband's kiss,
carried eternally.
ward
caught me, behold!
written this book,
vauntingly praise me,
very few,) prove victorious,
as much evil, perhaps more
at many times and not hit—that which I
hinted at
HESEI,
sorrow and joy?
soon I pass the gates,
fearing not the wet,
mulated,
the stones, and partly cover them
I pass,
then in the silence,
around me,
embrace my arms or neck,
they come, a great crowd, and I in the middle,
der
till I hit upon a name
is near me,
a live-oak in Florida, as it hung trailing down,
sage,
the pond-side,
returns again, never to separate from me,
comrades—this calamus-root shall,
render it back!)
chestnut,
aromatic cedar;
loosely from me,
something to each,
I reserve,
myself am capable of loving.
TATES!
itself is held together.
be called after my name,
place,
new signs,
freedom,
rious
sourian,
an Oregonese, shall be friends triune,
cious
earth.
beyond death.
selves
the Kansian, and the Kansian for the Kanuck,
on due need.
and streets, to see manly affection,
maining
Northeasterner's,
the Southwesterner's,
power,
mainder
lightly,
love of lovers tie you.
shone upon,
rivers of America,
great lakes, and all over the prairies
each other's necks.
ma femme!
OTheaving from
wrists,
will one day cease,
when alone, far in the wilds,
words, echoes, dead words,
every day,
and dismiss you continually—Not there,
of my life!
than in these songs.
Fthe terrible
after all,
fable only,
men, hills, shining and flowing waters,
apparitions,
known,
found
knows, aught of them;)
doubtless they indeed but seem,) as from my
present point of view
course they would,) naught of what they appear,
of view;
answered by my lovers, my dear friends;
while holding me by the hand,
words and reason hold not, surround
pervade
dom
of identity beyond the grave,
ONGI thought that knowledge alone would suffice
me—O if I could but obtain knowledge!
Ohio's land, the southern savannas, engrossed
me—For them I would live—I would be their
orator;
heard of warriors, sailors, and all dauntless
sons
in me to be as dauntless as any—and would
be so;
the songs of the New World—And then I
lieved
the south savannas, Ohio's land,
Huron—and all that with you roll toward
Niagara—and you Niagara also,
and all find somebody else to be your singer of
songs,
who loves me is jealous of me, and withdraws me
from all but love,
thought would suffice me, for it does not—it is
now empty and tasteless to me,
and the example of heroes, no more,
him I love,
never separate again.
OURScontinuing long, sore and heavy-hearted,
and unfrequented spot,
my face in my hands;
the city streets,
fling
content myself without,
himself without me;
passing, but I believe I am never to forget!)
is useless—I am what I am;)
have the like, out of the like feelings?
friend, his lover, lost to him?
ing,
at night, awaking, think who is lost?
harbor his anguish and passion?
name, bring the fit back upon him, taciturn and
deprest?
does he see the face of his hours reflected?
OU
not so much my poems,
led them the way of their glories;
impassive exterior—I will tell you what to say
of me:
the tenderest lover,
lover, was fondest,
less
it forth,
dear friends, his lovers,
less
he loved might secretly be indifferent to him,
woods, on hills,
in hand, they twain, apart from other men,
arm the shoulder of his friend
his friend rested upon him also.
HENI heard
had been received with plaudits
lowed;
accomplished,
perfect health,
ripe breath of autumn
disappear in the morning light,
ing,
saw the sun rise,
was on his way coming, O then I was happy;
my food nourished me more
day passed
next, at evening, came my friend;
roll slowly continually up the shores,
me,
same cover in the cool night,
was inclined toward me,
night I was happy.
REyou the new person drawn toward me
something
different from what you suppose;
lover?
satisfaction?
and tolerant manner of me?
toward a real heroic man?
maya, illusion? O
you
many have prest on the same as you are pressing
now,
posing
ALAMUStaste,
pensive leaves, but leaves of joy,)
woods, and from the pond-side,
around tighter than vines,
of trees, as the sun is risen,
shores out to you on the living sea—to you,
O sailors!
fered
the fields when the winter breaks up,
you are,
open, and bring form, color, perfume, to you,
become flowers, fruits, tall branches and trees,
selves
but many successions,
and are to come slowly up out of you.
OTheat flames up and consumes,
summer,
myriads of seeds, wafted,
drop where they may
of me, consuming, burning for his love whom I
love!
give up? O I the same;
rain-emitting clouds, are borne through the open
air,
air,
you.
DROPSof me!
prisoned,
cealed
drops
word I say, bloody drops
ing
HOis now reading this?
wrong-doing of my past life,
loved me,
and egotisms with derision,
O self-convicted!)
a long time, and never avow it;)
myself, the stuff of wrong-doing,
must cease.
Fhim I love day and night, I dreamed I heard he
was dead,
love—but he was not in that place,
places, to find him,
(This house is now,)
hatta,
living;
person and age,
dispense with them,
ferently
eat or sleep, I should be satisfied,
corpse,
in the sea, I shall be satisfied,
isfied.
ITYof
day make you illustrious,
leaux,
ships at the wharves,
dows,
share in the soiree or feast;
quent
me,
INDyou the timid models of the rest, the
majority?
have adopted models for myself, and now offer
them to The Lands.
out
kisses me lightly on the lips with
street, or on the ship's deck,
and sea,
SAWin Louisiana a live-oak growing,
branches,
leaves of dark green,
of myself,
standing alone there, without its friend, its
lover near—for I knew I could not,
leaves upon it, and twined around it a little
moss,
in my room,
friends,
them,)
think of manly love;
Louisiana, solitary, in a wide flat space,
lover, near,
USICalways round me, unceasing, unbeginning—
yet long untaught I did not hear,
with glad notes of day-break I hear,
tops of
through the universe,
sweet flutes and violins—
with;
moved by the exquisite meanings,
striving,
excel each other in emotion,
now I think I begin to know them.
ASSINGstranger! you do not know how longingly I
look upon you,
(It comes to me, as of a dream,)
you,
tionate,
with me,
become not yours only, nor left my body mine
only,
we pass—you take of my beard, breast, hands,
in return,
when I sit alone, or wake at night alone,
again,
HISmoment as
lands, yearning and thoughtful;
in Germany, Italy, France, Spain
away, in China, or in Russia or India—talking
other dialects;
I should become attached to them, as I do to men
in my own lands,
as any in my own lands;
HEARit is charged against me that I seek to destroy
institutions;
what with the destruction of them?)
city of These States, inland and seaboard,
little or large, that dents the water,
gument,
HEprairie-grass
of men,
nutritious,
freedom and command—leading, not following,
sweet and lusty flesh, clear of taint,
chary of its love-power,
and Governors, as to say,
Who are you?
never obedient,
Etwo boys together clinging,
excursions making,
ing,
ing,
ing,
water drinking, on the turf or the sea-beach
dancing,
trees branching and leafing,
feebleness chasing,
LOVE!
ous
—I am content;),
which
corpses behind!
HENI perus
victories of
generals,
his great house;
was with them,
changing,
unfaltering,
were,
and walk
NE
around the stove,
I unremarked, seated in a corner;
approaching,
may hold me by the hand;
—of drinking and oath and smutty jest,
speaking
PROMISE
to remain, to teach robust American love;
among you, inland, and along the Western
Sea
Sea—and I will also.
HATship, puzzled at sea, cons for the
oning?
nel,
fect
hailing you, offer.
siege?
immortal,
HATthink you I take my pen in hand to record?
pass the offing to-day under full sail?
night that envelops me?
spread around me?—No;
pier, in the midst of the crowd, parting the
ing
sionately
remain in his arms.
Olabor-saving machine,
bequest to found a hospital
book-shelf;
DREAMED
attacks of the whole of the rest of the earth,
love—it led the rest,
that city,
Oyou of New England,
love,
the germs are in all men;
a superb friendship, exalt, previously unknown,
ing,
ARTH!my likeness!
there,
to burst forth;
in me, eligible to burst forth,
LEAFfor hand in hand!
Eastern Sea, and you on the Western!
bayous of the Mississippi!
streets!
mon
RIMEVALmy love for the
than I can tell, the thought of you !
OMETIMESwith one I love, I fill myself with rage, for
fear I effuse unreturned love;
pay is certain, one way or another,
or written one of my poems,
given myself to comrades, to love.
HATshadow, my likeness, that goes to and fro,
ing
where it flits,
me;
songs,
MONGthe men and women,
ceive
signs,
band,
knows me.
indirections,
like in you.
O
to develop,
mine
silently select lovers,
mine?
YOUwhom I
are,
same room with you,
sake is playing within me.
EREmy last words, and the most baffling,
lasting,
expose them,
poems.
ULLof life,
hence,
invisible;
seeking me,
you, and become your lover;
am now with you.
LOOD-TIDEbelow me! I watch you, face to face;
see you also face to face.
tumes!
cross, returning home, are more curious to me
than you suppose,
hence, are more to me, and more in my
itations,
all hours of the day,
disintegrated, every one disintegrated, yet part
of the scheme,
and hearings—on the walk in the street, and
the passage over the river,
me far away,
and them,
ing
from shore to shore,
west, and the heights of Brooklyn to the south
and east,
the sun half an hour high,
years hence, others will see them,
tide, the falling back to the sea of the ebb-tide.
not,
or ever so many generations hence,
know how it is.
so I felt,
of a crowd,
and the bright flow, I was refreshed,
the swift current, I stood, yet was hurried,
and the thick-stemmed pipes of steamboats, I
look
sun half an hour high,
high in the air, floating with motionless wings,
oscillating their bodies,
bodies, and left the rest in strong shadow,
edging toward the south.
water,
beams,
the shape of my head in the sun-lit water,
westward,
violet,
ships,
me,
ships at anchor,
spars,
the slender serpentine pennants,
their pilot-houses,
ulous
cups, the frolicsome crests and glistening,
gray walls of the granite store-houses by the
docks,
closely flanked on each side by the barges—the
hay-boat, the belated lighter,
chimneys burning high and glaringly into the
night,
red and yellow light, over the tops of houses,
and down into the clefts of streets.
to you,
return.
because I looked forward to them,
to-night.)
between us?
place avails not.
bathed in the waters around it,
me,
came upon me,
bed, they came upon me.
solution,
should be, I knew I should be of my body.
picious,
in reality meagre? would not people laugh
at me?
malignant,
wish, not wanting,
none of these wanting.
of young men as they saw me approaching or
passing,
ligent
lic
ing,
actress,
as great as we like,
small.
—I laid in my stores in advance,
were born.
for all you cannot see me?
centuries,
due emission,
henceforth.
largest does,
for a proper time.
and admirable to me than my mast-hemm'd
hatta,
flood-tide,
the twilight, and the belated lighter;
by the hand,
promptly and loudly by my nighest name as I
approach,
to the woman or man that looks in my face,
into you.
accepted?
could not accomplish is accomplished, is it not?
me personally, is it not?
the ebb-tide!
splendor me, or the men and women generations
after me;
sengers!
beautiful hills of Brooklyn!
tanese!
and answers!
tion!
or public assembly!
call me by my nighest name!
actor or actress!
according as one makes it!
unknown ways be looking upon you;
idly, yet haste with the hasting current;
circles high in the air;
hold it, till all downcast eyes have time to take
it from you;
head, or any one's head, in the sun-lit water;
white-sailed schooners, sloops, lighters!
sunset;
shadows at nightfall! cast red and yellow light
over the tops of the houses;
are;
hung our divinest aromas;
ample and sufficient rivers;
spiritual;
more lasting.
all,
and fluids,
suggestions and determinations of ourselves.
ful
insatiate henceforward,
hold
you permanently within us,
fection
Soul.
MAGNET-S
OUTH!
South!
and evil! O all dear to me!
and the trees where I was born—the grains,
plants, rivers;
flow, distant, over flats of silvery sands, or
through swamps,
haw,
Coosa, and the Sabine;
to haunt their banks again,
on the Okeechobee—I cross the hummock land,
or through pleasant openings, or dense forests,
and the blossoming titi;
Georgia—I coast up the Carolinas,
yellow-pine, the scented bay-tree, the lemon and
orange, the cypress, the graceful palmetto;
through an inlet, and dart my vision inland,
hemp!
with large white flowers,
old woods charged with mistletoe and trailing
moss,
stillness, (Here in these dense swamps the free-
booter carries his gun, and the fugitive slave has
his concealed hut;)
impassable swamps, infested by reptiles,
ing
of the night-owl and the wild-cat, and the whirr
of the rattlesnake;
the forenoon—singing through the moon-lit
night,
opossum;
corn—slender, flapping, bright green, with
sels
its husk,
them not—I will depart;
Carolinian!
nessee,
HOEVERyou are, I fear you are walking the walks of
dreams,
and hands;
manners, troubles, follies,
sipate
shops, law, science,
house,
drinking, suffering, dying.
that you be my poem,
better than you.
chanted nothing but you.
you;
justice to yourself,
imperfection in you,
will never consent to subordinate you,
better, God,
yourself.
centre figure of all,
bus
out
woman it streams, effulgently flowing forever.
bered
the time
in mockeries, what is their return?
the accustomed routine,
others, or from yourself, they do not conceal you
from me
plexion,
me
ness,
aside
upon you where you thought eye should never
come upon you.
tallied in you,
as good is in you,
in you,
waits for you.
the like carefully to you,
than I sing the songs of the glory of you.
to you,
—you are immense and interminable as they,
throes of apparent dissolution
she who is master or mistress over them,
elements, pain, passion, dissolution.
failing
the rest, whatever you are promulges itself,
vided,
what you are picks its way.
OURAGE!my brother or my sister!
or any number of failures,
or by any unfaithfulness,
penal statutes.
Australia, Cuba,
pelagoes
posed,
hundred centuries.
quent
and anklet, lead-balls, do their work,
spheres,
sick in distant lands,
choked with their own blood,
ground when they meet
nor the infidel entered into possession.
to go, nor the second or third to go,
lovers of the nations of the world,
gatherings by the lips of the orators,
traitors and murderers instead,
anywhere, for all the ostensible appearance,
the sight of slaves, no matter who they are,
are discharged from any part of the earth,
that part of the earth,
possession.
for myself, nor what any thing is for,)
great.
helped, that defeat is great,
Yspirit to yours, dear brother,
not understand you,
(there are others also;)
since—and those to come also,
charge and succession;
times,
of all theologies,
reject not the disputers, nor any thing that is
asserted,
by divisions, jealousies, recriminations on every
side,
my comrade,
journeying up and down,
effaceable
women of races, ages to come,
ren
ROMall the rest I single out you, having a message
for you:
please, I
no escape for you.
feel it,
envelop it,
bodily—that is eternal,
titious.)
weeping friends—I am with you,
commiserated,
Ecomposed—be at ease with me—I am Walt
Whitman, liberal and lusty as Nature,
leaves to rustle for you,
glisten and rustle for you.
charge you that you make preparation to be
worthy to meet me,
I come.
you do not forget me.
HATyou give me, I cheerfully accept,
—these as I rendezvous with my poems,
through The States
to own such gifts? Why to advertise for them?
man and woman,
woman
gifts of the universe.
Sreform needed? Is it through you?
ER-
SONALITY
SONALITY
ERSONALITY
blood, complexion, clean and sweet?
body and Soul, that when you enter the crowd,
an atmosphere of desire and command enters
with you, and every one is impressed with your
personality?
mence
self-esteem, definiteness, elevatedness,
own personality.
To Identify the 16th, 17th, or 18th Presidentiad.
HYreclining, interrogating? Why myself and all
drowsing?
waters!
Capitol?
suns! O north, your arctic freezings!)
Judges? Is that the President?
States sleep, for reasons;
lambent shoots, we all duly awake,
surely awake.)
ERE, take this gift!
ress
my Soul;
just as much as to any.
OThe States, or any one of them, or any city of
The States,
Resist much, obey little,
earth, ever afterward resumes its liberty.
LLyou are doing and saying is to America dangled
mirages,
Nature, you have not learned the great
tude,
These States,
lift off from These States.
HEARyou have been asking for something to
sent
them what you wanted.
SEEin you the estuary that enlarges and spreads
itself grandly as it pours in the great sea.
ETus twain walk aside from the rest;
emony,
to none—Tell me the whole story,
husband, or physician.
TRANGER!if you, passing, meet me, and desire to
speak to me, why should you not speak to me?
WASasking for something specific and perfect for
my city,
name!
sane, unruly, musical, self-sufficient,
superb, with tall and wonderful spires,
steamships
founded,
slender,
clear skies;
down,
adjoining islands, the heights, the villas,
lighters,
well-model'd;
and money-brokers—the river-streets,
week,
of horses—the brown-faced sailors,
ing
the river,
flood-tide or ebb-tide;
men
drums beating;
voices
friendly young men;
waters! the city of spires and masts!
I will return after death to be with them!
happy,
sleep, with them!
The 18th Year of These States.
GREATyear and place,
wailing,
crash of falling buildings,
nor those borne away in the tumbrils,
not so
guns.
accrued retribution?
reserve, to fetch them out in case of need
and wait with perfect trust, no matter how long,
bequeath'd cause, as for all lands,
them,
floods of it,
will soon be drowning all that would interrupt
them,
march,
Fthe visages of things—And of piercing through
to the accepted hells beneath;
there is in beauty—And now the ugliness of
human beings is acceptable to me;
not, in any respect, worse than undetected
sons
am myself;
equally criminal—and any reputable person is
also—and the President is also.
Fwaters, forests, hills,
of me;
formative chaos, presuming the growth, fulness,
life, now attained on the journey;
continued;)
time has become supplied—And of what will
yet be supplied,
in what will yet be supplied.
Fpersons arrived at high positions, ceremonies,
wealth, scholarships, and the like,
away from them, except as it results to their
bodies and Souls,
mocks himself or herself,
is full of the rotten excrement of maggots,
wittingly
false realities,
has served them, but nothing more,
nambules,
Fownership—As if one fit to own things could not
at pleasure enter upon all, and incorporate them
into himself or herself;
same chances and rights as myself—As if it
were not indispensable to my own rights that
others possess the same;
the same ample law, expounded by natural
judges and saviours,
to decisions.
SI sit with others, at a great feast, suddenly, while
the music is playing,
in mist, of a wreck at sea,
tions,
going down—Of the steamship Arctic going
down,
on deck, pale, heroic, waiting the moment that
draws so close—O the moment!
spirting up—And then the women gone,
And I now pondering, Are those women indeed
gone?
Fwhat I write from myself—As if that were not
the resumé;
not less complete than my poems;
be as lasting as my poems;
all the lives of heroes.
Fobedience, faith, adhesiveness;
profoundly affecting in large masses of men,
lowing
men.
ATIONSten thousand years before These States, and
many times ten thousand years before These
States,
us grew up and travelled their course, and
passed on;
What pastoral tribes and nomads,
all others,
physiology and phrenology,
they thought of death and the Soul,
—Who brutish and undeveloped,
remains.
nothing, any more than we are for nothing,
every bit as much as we now belong to it
all will henceforth belong to it.
of insects
men,
bly
factories, libraries,
derful
gone?
filled the unnamed lands,
hour, here or elsewhere, invisible to us,
proportion to what he or she grew from in life,
sinned, in life.
person of them,
end of my nation, or of me;
als,
prudence,
prisons, slaves, heroes, poets,
sults
world
unnamed lands.
HOincludes diversity, and is Nature,
and sexuality of the earth, and the great
of the earth, and the equilibrium also,
for nothing
messengers for nothing;
most majestic lover;
spiritualism, and of the sthetic, or intellectual,
and parts good;
body
of a city, a poem, and of the large politics of
These States;
moon, but in other globes, with their suns and
moons;
for a day, but for all time, sees races, eras, dates,
generations,
arable
OLDit up sternly! See this it sends back! (Who is
it? Is it you?)
or springy step,
nerealee's
cankerous,
hence,
OWthey are provided for upon the earth, (
ing
What a paradox appears, their age,
times,
and reward,
for the same great purchase.
LLsubmit to them, where they sit, inner, secure,
unapproachable to analysis, in the Soul;
judges—they are the judges of outer
ties,
rates
roborate
HITHER, as I look, I see each result and glory
tracing
gated;
pacts,
sons,
admirant,
along with him.
NLYthemselves understand themselves, and the like
of themselves,
SAYwhatever tastes sweet to the most perfect
son
SAYnourish a great intellect, a great brain;
retract it.
SAYman shall not hold property in man;
important and sacred to himself or herself, as
the most developed person is to himself or
self.
SAYwhere liberty draws not the blood out of
slavery, there slavery draws the blood out of
liberty
and resound it hence over the world.
SAYthe human shape or face is so great, it must
never be made ridiculous;
ment,
your own physiology, and in other persons'
iology
and conceived only where natural forms prevail
in public, and the human face and form are
never caricatured;
romances,
romances.)
SAYthe word of lands fearing nothing—I will
have no other land;
topic openly;
out
willing to hear the tongues;
they respectfully listen to propositions, reforms,
fresh views and doctrines, from successions of
men and women,
HAVEsaid many times that materials and the Soul
are great, and that all depends on physique;
on the æsthetic or intellectual,
greatest of all;
all depends on the mind.
ITHone man or woman—(no matter which one—
I even pick out the lowest,)
eligible to that one man or woman, on the same
terms as any.
Eis wisest who has the most caution,
NYthing is
established that will produce it
HATGeneral has a good army in himself, has
good army
happy,
more than you can beget or conceive a child by
others.
AVEyou learned lessons only of those who admired
you, and were tender with you, and stood aside
for you?
rejected you, and braced themselves against you?
the passage with you?
they come?
ESPAIRINGcries float ceaselessly toward me, day and
night,
lover, putting forth, alarmed, uncertain,
This sea I am quickly to sail, come tell me,
Come tell me where I am speeding—tell me my
destination.
UNDERSTANDyour anguish,
out of the eyes, your mute inquiry,
Whither I go from the bed I now recline on, come
tell me;
voice appealing to me, for comfort,
Shall I not escape?
THOUSANDperfect men and women appear,
MASK—a perpetual natural disguiser of herself,
ment,
NEsweeps by, attended by an immense train,
among them.
NEsweeps by,
white hair
strength,
it turns toward.
HREEold men slowly pass, followed by three others,
and they by three others,
group holds his companions by the hand,
walk.
OMENsit, or move to and fro—some old, some
young,
beautiful than the young.
HATweeping face is that looking from the window?
WILL
orchard,
in the garden, and go and preach to the world;
scorner,
them,
white pebble from the beach.
EHAVIOR—fresh, native, copious, each one for
self
dom
chance,
to manage an army or a city, or to write a book
—perhaps more,
rivalling all the rest—perhaps outdoing the
rest,
be more effective than a man's or woman's daily
behavior can be,
OTthe
into port,
baffled,
long,
severes
heeded,
States,
hence.
THOUGHTI was not alone, walking here by the shore,
the shore,
that one has utterly disappeared,
WANDERall night in my vision,
ping
sleepers,
contradictory,
cradles!
of corpses, the livid faces of drunkards, the sick-
gray faces of onanists,
strong-doored rooms, the sacred idiots, the
born
ging
with his palm on the hip of the wife, and she
with her palm on the hip of the husband,
wrapped.
away
does he sleep?
sleeps,
all, all sleep.
suffering and the most restless,
from them,
the earth is beautiful.
the other sleepers, each in turn,
dreamers,
me fast!
whichever way I look,
and where it is neither ground or sea.
if they could,
besides,
I walk,
stretched arms, and resume the way;
mirth-shouting music and wild-flapping pennants
of joy!
in the box,
after to-day,
or feeble person.
expectantly,
without him.
myself to the dusk.
my lover,
was sweaty and panting,
directions,
are journeying.
me?
are one,
clothes were stolen while I was abed,
the windows!
and stay—I will not chafe you,
what this is flooding me, childhood or manhood
between.
and just ripened;
darkness,
glasses, and the best liquor afterward.
their wake.
old woman's,
my grandson's stockings.
winter midnight,
earth.
and lie in the coffin,
here—it is blank here, for reasons.
ought to be happy,
him know he has enough.
through the eddies of the sea,
he strikes out with courageous arms—he urges
himself with his legs,
head-foremost on the rocks.
him in the prime of his middle age?
his strength holds out,
they bear him away—they roll him, swing him,
turn him,
it is continually bruised on rocks,
yet.
guns sound,
through the drifts.
hear the burst as she strikes—I hear the howls
of dismay—they grow fainter and fainter.
freeze upon me.
washed to us alive;
in rows in a barn.
intrenched hills, amid a crowd of officers,
weeping drops,
is blanched from his cheeks,
to him by their parents.
beloved soldiers all pass through,
turns,
kisses them on the cheek,
he shakes hands, and bids good-by to the army.
at dinner together,
with her parents on the old homestead.
homestead,
rush-bottoming chairs,
enveloped her face,
exquisitely as she spoke.
stranger,
full and pliant limbs,
purity,
place
remembrance and fondness.
middle of the afternoon she went away,
her many a month,
summer,
there again.
sorrowful terrible heir,
that oppresses me,
takes pay for their blood!
steamboat that carries away my woman!
seems mine,
gish,
thing
them also.
in me!
goes with his thrift,
filled.
the dreams,
back beyond months and years,
childhood, with the well-known neighbors and
faces,
forgets he is well off;
and Welshman voyage home, and the native of
the Mediterranean voyages home,
filled ships,
his way, the Hungarian his way, and the Pole
his way,
return.
the female that loves unrequited, the
maker,
and those waiting to commence,
the nominee that is chosen, and the nominee that
has failed,
after to-day,
homely,
sat and sentenced him, the fluent lawyers, the
jury, the audience,
widow, the red squaw,
is wronged,
in the dark,
than the other,
them.
the dim light is beautiful,
appears less—it comes, or it lags behind,
pleasantly on itself, and encloses the world,
perfect and clean the womb cohering,
the bowels and joints proportioned and plumb.
place,
in its place;
waits,
the child of the drunkard waits long, and the
drunkard himself waits long,
advanced are to go on in their turns, and the
far behind are to go on in their turns,
flow and unite—they unite now.
east to west, as they lie unclothed,
European and American are hand in hand,
and female are hand in hand,
her lover—they press close without lust—his
lips press her neck,
arms with measureless love,
the father in his arms with measureless love,
wrist of the daughter,
man, friend is inarmed by friend,
the scholar—the wronged is made right,
the master salutes the slave,
becomes sane
relieved,
unsound is sound
are resumed
and smoother than ever,
supple,
themselves in condition,
chemistry of the night, and awake.
again, and love you.
by you,
in whom I lay so long,
I go with you—but I know I came well, and
shall go well.
betimes,
return to you.
Othink of
forward!
nothing.
and women were flexible, real, alive!
thing
bear our part!
an accouchment!
corpse!
and terrible look for an answer,
brothers and sisters are sent for,
smell has long pervaded the rooms,)
hand of the dying,
the dying,
upon it,
looks curiously on the corpse.
and fruits ripen, and act upon others as upon
us now—yet not act upon us!
and others taking great interest in them—and
we taking no interest in them!
indifferent!
years, or seventy or eighty years at most,
than that.
earth
lines,
President shall surely be buried.
ice in the river, half-frozen mud in the streets,
daylight of Twelfth Month,
cortege mostly drivers.
death-bell,
is halted at,
closes,
whip is laid on the coffin, the earth is swiftly
shovelled in,
silence,
not bad-looking,
sensitive to a slight,
a friend, fond of women,
drank hearty, had known what it was to be
flush,
was helped by a contribution,
one years—and that was his funeral.
strap, wet-weather clothes, whip carefully chosen,
on you, you loafing on somebody,
before and man behind, good day's work, bad
day's work,
out, turning in at night,
other drivers
in them!
wages
our nights and days!
great account of them
no account!
what you call goodness—to think how wide a
difference!
yet we lie beyond the difference.
you pleasure from poems?
business?
tion?
house-work? or the beautiful maternal cares?
onward,
in them.
you are!
for you, of what avail?
be well.
pleasure from poems,
the building of houses
tasms
are none of them phantasms,
delusion,
the things of his life, are well-considered.
tainly
mother and father—it is to identify you
It is not that you should be undecided, but that you
should be decided;
formed in you,
crosses the warp, the pattern is systematic.
ments,
reasons—he is now housed,
with is enough.
nal,
eluded,
not one iota of it can be eluded.
earth,
Pacific, and they between,
Mississippi country, and all over the earth.
the heroes and good-doers are well,
and pious and distinguished, may be well,
account of all.
are not nothing,
American aborigines are not nothing,
nothing—the murderer or mean person is not
nothing,
nothing as they go,
religion is not nothing as he goes.
much, nor the law of us changed,
be under the present and past law,
the present and past law,
is enough.
much changed, and that there is no life
out
satisfaction?
satisfaction,
space of time—that is no satisfaction,
regardless of time.
dung,
betrayed!
should die now
toward annihilation?
perfect is my Soul!
it!
is just as perfect,
imponderable fluids are perfect;
slowly and surely they yet pass on.
isfaction,
satisfaction.
tion
the sea have! the animals!
float is for it, and the cohering is for it!
and life and death are altogether for it!
Snearing departure,
ens
or how long;
nahatta,
attachment of young men to me,
the landscape, stars, animals, thunder, rain,
and snow, in my wanderings alone,
my many faults and derelictions,
rades,
fields,
Oconclude
any time suffices for
quent
depart.
my leaves sprang
candid and unloosed summer-poet
city of young men, the Mannahatta city—But
when the Mannahatta leads all the cities of the
earth,
seaboard,
of superb persons,
tribute
breeds of the most perfect mothers denote
America,
better than I am,
under foot,
rior
onward shall be prepared to be established,
onward.
neyed
So long,
man's hand,
and not depend on me,
yourself,
individual, without exception
manhood, womanhood, of The States, I adhere
to it;
procreation, hauteur, prudence,
President with menacing weapons—I adhere
to all,
I set the example.
engineers!
paths!
So long!
fication
single identity only,
previous politics of the earth insignificant.
unloosened,
ing
So long!
are the one,
affectionate, compassionate, fully armed.
So long!
spiritual, bold,
joyfully meet its translation.
old cry once more.
tion
promulging,
their affection me more clearly explaining,
I the muscle of their brains trying,
toward that I have been incessantly preparing.
extended with unshut mouth?
sonally
calls me forth.
lulls the tympans of my ears,
past!
more direct, darts awakening rays about me—
So long!
materials,