The
words of Walt Whitman.
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Give me the splendid, silent sun with all his beams full-dazzling.
That you are here—that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a
verse.
The love is to the lover, and comes back most to him,
The gift is to the giver, and comes back most to him—it
cannot fail
No man understands any greatness or goodness but his own
This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the
animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the
stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue
not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off
your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely
with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of
families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your
ice, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book,
dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall be a great
poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines
of its lips and face and between lashes of your eyes and in every motion and
joint of your body…
Once unquestioning obedience, once fully enslaved,
Once fully enslaved, no nation, state, city of this earth, ever
after-ward resumes its liberty.
Now, Voyager, sail thou forth, to seek and find.
I refuse putting from me the best that I am.
To me, every hour of the day and night is an unspeakably
perfect miracle.
The ecstasy is so short but the forgetting is so long.
That I have not gain'd
the acceptance of my own time, but have fallen back on fond dreams of the
future.
The past and present wilt—I have fill’d them, emptied them,
And proceed to fill my next fold of the future.
There we two, content, happy in being together, speaking
little, perhaps not a word.
To indeed be a god!
Clear and sweet is my
soul, and clear and sweet is all that is not my soul.
Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million
universes. ,
Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself;
I am large — I contain multitudes.
Resist much, obey little
Not I, nor anyone else can travel that road for you.You must
travel it by yourself.
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before
me;
When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide,
and measure them;
When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with
much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;
Till rising and gliding out, I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.
Peace is always beautiful.
Touch me, touch the palm of your hand to my body as I pass,
Be not afraid of my body.
I will sleep no more but arise, You oceans that have been calm
within me! how I feel you, fathomless, stirring, preparing unprecedented waves
and storms.
Dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh
shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in
the silent lines of its lips and face
We were together. I forget the rest.
I resist anything better than my own diversity,
Breathe the air but leave plenty after me,
And am not stuck up, and am in my place.
…what is that you express in your eyes?
It seems to me more than all the print I have read in my life.
On the Meaning of life:
Answer.
That you are here—that life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a
verse.
I am not to speak to you,
I am to think of you when I sit alone or
wake at night alone,
I am to wait,
I do not doubt I am to meet you again,
I am to see to it that I do not lose you.
The pleasures of heaven are with me, and the pains of hell are
with me.
I am for you, and you are for me, not only for our own sake,
but for others’ sakes.
We affect each other without ever seeing each other,
and never perhaps to see each other, is every bit as wonderful
I am satisfied— I see, dance, laugh, sing
And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own,
And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own,
And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the
women my sisters and lovers,
And that a kelson of the creation is love…
I launch all men and women forward with me into the Unknown.
Births have brought us richness and variety,
And other births will bring us richness and variety.
I do not call one greater and one smaller,
That which fills its period and place is equal to any.
The damp of the night drives deeper into my soul.
Death is the winner in any war
Nothing noble in dying for your religion
For your country
For ideology, for faith
For another man, yes…
To be at all - what is better than that?
I am not in any callous shell;
I am cased with supple conductors, all over,
They take every object by the hand, and lead it within me;
They are thousands, each one with his entry to himself;
They are always watching with their little eyes, from my head
to my feet;
My left hand hooks you around the waist. My right hand points
to landscapes of continents, and a plain public road. Not I, not any one else
can travel that road for you. You must travel it for yourself. It is not far …
It is within reach.
And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own
funeral drest in his shroud.
I am the poet of the body
And I am the poet of the soul.
Don’t let a hard lesson harden your heart.
For we cannot tarry here,
We must march my darlings,
we must bear the brunt of danger,
We, the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
You are not free until you have no need to impress anybody.
I exist as I am, that is enough.
Come, said my soul,
Such verses for my Body let us write, (for we are one,)
And I will not sing with reference to a day, but with
reference to all days
When I read the book, the biography famous,
And is this then (said I) what the author calls a man’s life?
And so will some one when I am dead and gone write my life?
(As if any man really knew aught of my life,
Why even I myself I often think know little or nothing of my
real life,
Only a few hints, a few diffused faint clews and indirections
I seek for my own use to trace out here.)
With music strong I come, with my cornets and my drums,
I play not marches for accepted victors only, I play marches
for conquer’d and slain persons.
Have you heard that it was good to gain the day?
I also say it is good to fall, battles are lost in the same
spirit in which they are won.
I discover myself on the verge of a usual mistake.
I tramp a perpetual journey.
Keep your face towards the sunshine and the shadows will fall
behind you.
Strange (is it not?) that battles, martyrs, blood, even
assassination should so condense—perhaps only really, lastingly condense—a Nationality.
Henceforth I ask not good fortune - I myself am good fortune.
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing.
Strong and content, I travel the open road.
I exist as I am, and that is enough.
What is that you express in your eyes? It seems to me more
than all the print I have read in my life
Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am, Stands
amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, unitary, Looks down, is erect, or
bends an arm on an impalpable certain rest, Looking with side-curved head
curious what will come next, Both in and out of the game and watching and
wondering at it.
Re-examine all that you have been told….
Do anything, but let it produce joy.
Battles are lost in the same spirit in which they are won.
And as to me, I know nothing else but miracles
I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I am too not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.
Your very flesh shall be a great poem...
What shall I give? And which are my miracles?
Storming, enjoying, planning, loving, cautioning,
Backing and filling, appearing and disappearing,
I tread day and night such roads.
My spirit has pass'd in compassion and determination around
the whole earth.
I have look'd for equals and lovers an found them ready for me
in all lands,
I think some divine rapport has equalized me with them
The sum of all known value and respect, I add up in you,
whoever you are.
Why should I wish to see God better than this day?
I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each
moment then,
In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in
the glass;
I find letters from God dropped in the street, and every one
is signed by God's name,
And I leave them where they are,
for I know that others will punctually come forever and ever.
The United States themselves are essentially the greatest
poem.
I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your bootsoles.
All music is what awakes within us
when we are reminded by the instruments;
It is not the violins or the clarinets -
It is not the beating of the drums -
Nor the score of the baritone singing
his sweet romanza; not that of the men's chorus,
Nor that of the women's chorus -
It is nearer and farther than they
I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it
should be blithe and strong,
The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank
or beam,
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work,
or leaves off work,
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his
boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat
deck,
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the
hatter singing as he stands,
The wood-cutter’s song, the ploughboy’s on his
way in the morning, or at noon intermission
or at sundown,
The delicious singing of the mother, or of the
young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or
washing,
Each singing what belongs to him or her and to
none else,
The day what belongs to the day — at night the
party of young fellows, robust, friendly,
Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.
I think I will do nothing for a long time but listen,
And accrue what I hear into myself...and let sound contribute
toward me.
I swear I begin to see the meaning of these things.
It is not the earth, it is not America, who is so great,
it is I who am great or to be great…
A blade of grass is the journeywork of the stars
Give me solitude — give me Nature — give me again, O Nature,
your primal sanities!
I swear to you there are divine things more beautiful than
words can tell. — -
Stranger, if you passing meet me and desire to speak to me,
why should you not speak to me? And why should I not speak to you?
Loafe with me on the grass,
loose the stop from your throat,
Not words, not music or rhyme I want—not custom or lecture,
not even the best,
Only the lull I like, the hum of your valved voice.
I mind how we lay in June, such a transparent summer morning,
You settled your head athwart my hips, and gently turned over
upon me,
And parted the shirt from my bosom-bone, and
plunged your tongue to my bare-stript heart
I hear you are whispering there
O stars of heaven,
O suns—O grass of graves…
If you do not say anything how can I say anything?
I exist as I am, that is enough,
If no other in the world be aware I sit content,
And if each and all be aware I sit content.
One world is aware and by far the largest to me, and that is
myself…
And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing,
seeking the spheres to connect them,
Till the bridge you will need be form’d, till the ductile anchor
hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.
What do you think has become of the young and old men?
What
do you think has become of the women and children?
They are alive and well somewhere;
The smallest sprouts show there is really no death,
And if ever there was it led forward life,
and does not waitat the end to arrest it,
And ceased the moment life appeared.
All goes onward and outward… .and nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and
luckier.
I think I could turn and live with the animals, they are so
placid and self contained;
I stand and look at them long and long.
They do not sweat and whine about their condition;
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins;
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God;
Not one is dissatisfied-not one is demented with the mania of
owning things;
Not one kneels to another, nor his kind that lived thousands
of years ago;
Not one is responsible or industrious over the whole earth.
Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the
origin of all poems,
You shall possess the good of the earth and sun.... there are
millions of suns left,
You shall no longer take things at second or third hand....
nor look through the eyes of the dead.... nor feed on the spectres in books,
You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things
from me,
You shall listen to all sides and filter them from yourself.
Only themselves understand themselves
and the like of themselves,
As souls only understand souls.
Sun so generous it shall be you.
Be composed--be at ease with me—
I am, liberal and lusty as Nature,
Not till the sun excludes you do I exclude you,
Not till the waters refuse to glisten for you and the leaves
to rustle for you,
do my words refuse to glisten and rustle for you.
It avails not, time nor place--distance avails not,
I am with you, you men and women of a generation,
or ever so many generations hence,
Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I
felt,
Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a
crowd,
Just as you are refresh'd by the gladness of the river and the
bright flow,
I was refresh'd,
Just as you stand and lean on the rail,
yet hurry with the
swift current, I stood yet was hurried,
Just as you look on the numberless masts of ships
and the thick-stemm'd
pipes of steamboats, I look'd.
I have perceiv’d that to be with those I like is enough,
To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough,
To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing
flesh is enough,
To pass among them or touch any one, or rest my arm ever
so lightly round his or her neck for a moment, what is this
then?
I do not ask any more delight,
I swim in it as in a sea.
THIS
SECTION (BELOW) ARE FULL POEMS
Need 15 photographs here
I Sing the Body Electric
1
I sing the body
electric,
The armies of those I
love engirth me and I engirth them,
They will not let me
off till I go with them, respond to them,
And discorrupt them,
and charge them full with the charge of the soul.
Was it doubted that
those who corrupt their own bodies conceal themselves?
And if those who
defile the living are as bad as they who defile the dead?
And if the body does
not do fully as much as the soul?
And if the body were
not the soul, what is the soul?
2
The love of the body
of man or woman balks account, the body itself
balks account,
That of the male is
perfect, and that of the female is perfect.
The expression of the
face balks account,
But the expression of
a well-made man appears not only in his face,
It is in his limbs and
joints also, it is curiously in the joints of
his hips and
wrists,
It is in his walk, the
carriage of his neck, the flex of his waist
and knees, dress
does not hide him,
The strong sweet
quality he has strikes through the cotton and broadcloth,
To see him pass
conveys as much as the best poem, perhaps more,
You linger to see his
back, and the back of his neck and shoulder-side.
The sprawl and fulness
of babes, the bosoms and heads of women, the
folds of their
dress, their style as we pass in the street, the
contour of their
shape downwards,
The swimmer naked in
the swimming-bath, seen as he swims through
the transparent
green-shine, or lies with his face up and rolls
silently to and
from the heave of the water,
The bending forward
and backward of rowers in row-boats, the
horse-man in his
saddle,
Girls, mothers,
house-keepers, in all their performances,
The group of laborers
seated at noon-time with their open
dinner-kettles,
and their wives waiting,
The female soothing a
child, the farmer's daughter in the garden or
cow-yard,
The young fellow
hosing corn, the sleigh-driver driving his six
horses through the
crowd,
The wrestle of
wrestlers, two apprentice-boys, quite grown, lusty,
good-natured,
native-born, out on the vacant lot at sundown after work,
The coats and caps
thrown down, the embrace of love and resistance,
The upper-hold and
under-hold, the hair rumpled over and blinding the eyes;
The march of firemen
in their own costumes, the play of masculine
muscle through
clean-setting trowsers and waist-straps,
The slow return from
the fire, the pause when the bell strikes
suddenly again,
and the listening on the alert,
The natural, perfect,
varied attitudes, the bent head, the curv'd
neck and the
counting;
Such-like I love—I
loosen myself, pass freely, am at the mother's
breast with the
little child,
Swim with the
swimmers, wrestle with wrestlers, march in line with
the firemen, and
pause, listen, count.
3
I knew a man, a common
farmer, the father of five sons,
And in them the
fathers of sons, and in them the fathers of sons.
This man was a
wonderful vigor, calmness, beauty of person,
The shape of his head,
the pale yellow and white of his hair and
beard, the
immeasurable meaning of his black eyes, the richness
and breadth of his
manners,
These I used to go and
visit him to see, he was wise also,
He was six feet tall,
he was over eighty years old, his sons were
massive, clean,
bearded, tan-faced, handsome,
They and his daughters
loved him, all who saw him loved him,
They did not love him
by allowance, they loved him with personal love,
He drank water only,
the blood show'd like scarlet through the
clear-brown skin
of his face,
He was a frequent
gunner and fisher, he sail'd his boat himself, he
had a fine one
presented to him by a ship-joiner, he had
fowling-pieces
presented to him by men that loved him,
When he went with his
five sons and many grand-sons to hunt or fish,
you would pick him
out as the most beautiful and vigorous of the gang,
You would wish long
and long to be with him, you would wish to sit
by him in the boat
that you and he might touch each other.
4
I have perceiv'd that
to be with those I like is enough,
To stop in company
with the rest at evening is enough,
To be surrounded by
beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough,
To pass among them or
touch any one, or rest my arm ever so lightly
round his or her
neck for a moment, what is this then?
I do not ask any more
delight, I swim in it as in a sea.
There is something in
staying close to men and women and looking
on them, and in
the contact and odor of them, that pleases the soul well,
All things please the
soul, but these please the soul well.
5
This is the female
form,
A divine nimbus
exhales from it from head to foot,
It attracts with
fierce undeniable attraction,
I am drawn by its
breath as if I were no more than a helpless vapor,
all falls aside
but myself and it,
Books, art, religion,
time, the visible and solid earth, and what
was expected of
heaven or fear'd of hell, are now consumed,
Mad filaments,
ungovernable shoots play out of it, the response
likewise
ungovernable,
Hair, bosom, hips,
bend of legs, negligent falling hands all
diffused, mine too
diffused,
Ebb stung by the flow
and flow stung by the ebb, love-flesh swelling
and deliciously
aching,
Limitless limpid jets
of love hot and enormous, quivering jelly of
love, white-blow
and delirious nice,
Bridegroom night of love
working surely and softly into the prostrate dawn,
Undulating into the
willing and yielding day,
Lost in the cleave of
the clasping and sweet-flesh'd day.
This the nucleus—after
the child is born of woman, man is born of woman,
This the bath of
birth, this the merge of small and large, and the
outlet again.
Be not ashamed women,
your privilege encloses the rest, and is the
exit of the rest,
You are the gates of
the body, and you are the gates of the soul.
The female contains
all qualities and tempers them,
She is in her place
and moves with perfect balance,
She is all things duly
veil'd, she is both passive and active,
She is to conceive
daughters as well as sons, and sons as well as daughters.
As I see my soul reflected
in Nature,
As I see through a
mist, One with inexpressible completeness,
sanity, beauty,
See the bent head and
arms folded over the breast, the Female I see.
6
The male is not less
the soul nor more, he too is in his place,
He too is all
qualities, he is action and power,
The flush of the known
universe is in him,
Scorn becomes him
well, and appetite and defiance become him well,
The wildest largest
passions, bliss that is utmost, sorrow that is
utmost become him
well, pride is for him,
The full-spread pride
of man is calming and excellent to the soul,
Knowledge becomes him,
he likes it always, he brings every thing to
the test of
himself,
Whatever the survey,
whatever the sea and the sail he strikes
soundings at last
only here,
(Where else does he
strike soundings except here?)
The man's body is
sacred and the woman's body is sacred,
No matter who it is,
it is sacred—is it the meanest one in the
laborers' gang?
Is it one of the
dull-faced immigrants just landed on the wharf?
Each belongs here or
anywhere just as much as the well-off, just as
much as you,
Each has his or her
place in the procession.
(All is a procession,
The universe is a
procession with measured and perfect motion.)
Do you know so much
yourself that you call the meanest ignorant?
Do you suppose you
have a right to a good sight, and he or she has
no right to a
sight?
Do you think matter
has cohered together from its diffuse float, and
the soil is on the
surface, and water runs and vegetation sprouts,
For you only, and not
for him and her?
7
A man's body at
auction,
(For before the war I
often go to the slave-mart and watch the sale,)
I help the auctioneer,
the sloven does not half know his business.
Gentlemen look on this
wonder,
Whatever the bids of
the bidders they cannot be high enough for it,
For it the globe lay
preparing quintillions of years without one
animal or plant,
For it the revolving
cycles truly and steadily roll'd.
In this head the
all-baffling brain,
In it and below it the
makings of heroes.
Examine these limbs,
red, black, or white, they are cunning in
tendon and nerve,
They shall be stript
that you may see them.
Exquisite senses,
life-lit eyes, pluck, volition,
Flakes of
breast-muscle, pliant backbone and neck, flesh not flabby,
good-sized arms
and legs,
And wonders within
there yet.
Within there runs
blood,
The same old blood!
the same red-running blood!
There swells and jets
a heart, there all passions, desires,
reachings,
aspirations,
(Do you think they are
not there because they are not express'd in
parlors and
lecture-rooms?)
This is not only one
man, this the father of those who shall be
fathers in their
turns,
In him the start of
populous states and rich republics,
Of him countless
immortal lives with countless embodiments and enjoyments.
How do you know who
shall come from the offspring of his offspring
through the centuries?
(Who might you find
you have come from yourself, if you could trace
back through the
centuries?)
8
A woman's body at
auction,
She too is not only
herself, she is the teeming mother of mothers,
She is the bearer of
them that shall grow and be mates to the mothers.
Have you ever loved
the body of a woman?
Have you ever loved
the body of a man?
Do you not see that
these are exactly the same to all in all nations
and times all over
the earth?
If any thing is sacred
the human body is sacred,
And the glory and
sweet of a man is the token of manhood untainted,
And in man or woman a
clean, strong, firm-fibred body, is more
beautiful than the
most beautiful face.
Have you seen the fool
that corrupted his own live body? or the fool
that corrupted her
own live body?
For they do not
conceal themselves, and cannot conceal themselves.
9
O my body! I dare not
desert the likes of you in other men and
women, nor the
likes of the parts of you,
I believe the likes of you are to stand or
fall with the 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 my
poems,
Man's, woman's, child,
youth's, wife's, husband's, mother's,
father's, young
man's, young woman's poems,
Head, neck, hair,
ears, drop and tympan of the ears,
Eyes, eye-fringes,
iris of the eye, eyebrows, and the waking or
sleeping of the
lids,
Mouth, tongue, lips,
teeth, roof of the mouth, jaws, and the jaw-hinges,
Nose, nostrils of the
nose, and the partition,
Cheeks, temples,
forehead, chin, throat, back of the neck, neck-slue,
Strong shoulders,
manly beard, scapula, hind-shoulders, and the
ample side-round
of the chest,
Upper-arm, armpit,
elbow-socket, lower-arm, arm-sinews, arm-bones,
Wrist and
wrist-joints, hand, palm, knuckles, thumb, forefinger,
finger-joints,
finger-nails,
Broad breast-front,
curling hair of the breast, breast-bone, breast-side,
Ribs, belly, backbone,
joints of the backbone,
Hips, hip-sockets,
hip-strength, inward and outward round,
man-balls,
man-root,
Strong set of thighs,
well carrying the trunk above,
Leg-fibres, knee,
knee-pan, upper-leg, under-leg,
Ankles, instep,
foot-ball, toes, toe-joints, the heel;
All attitudes, all the
shapeliness, all the belongings of my or your
body or of any
one's body, male or female,
The lung-sponges, the
stomach-sac, the bowels sweet and clean,
The brain in its folds
inside the skull-frame,
Sympathies,
heart-valves, palate-valves, sexuality, maternity,
Womanhood, and all
that is a woman, and the man that comes from woman,
The womb, the teats,
nipples, breast-milk, tears, laughter, weeping,
love-looks,
love-perturbations and risings,
The voice,
articulation, language, whispering, shouting aloud,
Food, drink, pulse,
digestion, sweat, sleep, walking, swimming,
Poise on the hips,
leaping, reclining, embracing, arm-curving and tightening,
The continual changes of
the flex of the mouth, and around the eyes,
The skin, the sunburnt
shade, freckles, hair,
The curious sympathy
one feels when feeling with the hand the naked
meat of the body,
The circling rivers
the breath, and breathing it in and out,
The beauty of the
waist, and thence of the hips, and thence downward
toward the knees,
The thin red jellies
within you or within me, the bones and the
marrow in the
bones,
The exquisite
realization of health;
O I say these are not
the parts and poems of the body only, but of the soul,
O I say now these are
the soul!
I Hear
America Singing
I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
Those of mechanics,
each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,
The carpenter singing
his as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his
as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,
The boatman singing
what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand
singing on the
steamboat deck,
The shoemaker singing
as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as
he stands,
The wood-cutter's
song, the ploughboy's on his way in the morning,
or at noon
intermission or at sundown,
The delicious singing
of the mother, or of the young wife at work,
or of the girl sewing
or washing,
Each singing what
belongs to him or her and to none else,
The day what belongs
to the day—at night the party of young
fellows, robust,
friendly,
Singing with open
mouths their strong melodious songs.
A
Noiseless Patient Spider
A noiseless patient
spider,
I mark'd where on a
little promontory it stood isolated,
Mark'd how to explore
the vacant vast surrounding,
It launch'd forth
filament, filament, filament out of itself,
Ever unreeling them,
ever tirelessly speeding them.
And you O my soul
where you stand,
Surrounded, detached,
in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing,
venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to
connect them,
Till the bridge you
will need be form'd, till the ductile anchor hold,
Till the gossamer
thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.
Others
May Praise What They Like
Others may praise what
they like;
But I, from the banks
of the running Missouri, praise nothing in art
or aught else,
Till it has well inhaled
the atmosphere of this river, also the
western
prairie-scent,
And exudes it all
again.
World
Take Good Notice
World take good notice,
silver stars fading,
Milky hue ript, wet of
white detaching,
Coals thirty-eight,
baleful and burning,
Scarlet, significant,
hands off warning,
Now and henceforth
flaunt from these shores.
As the
Time Draws Nigh
As the time draws nigh glooming a cloud,
A dread beyond of I
know not what darkens me.
I shall go forth,
I shall traverse the
States awhile, but I cannot tell whither or how long,
Perhaps soon some day
or night while I am singing my voice will
suddenly cease.
O book, O chants! must
all then amount to but this?
Must we barely arrive
at this beginning of us? —and yet it is
enough, O soul;
O soul, we have
positively appear'd—that is enough.
To a
Historian
You who celebrate
bygones,
Who have explored the
outward, the surfaces of the races, the life
that has exhibited
itself,
Who have treated of
man as the creature of politics, aggregates,
rulers and
priests,
I, habitan of the
Alleghanies, treating of him as he is in himself
in his own rights,
Pressing the pulse of
the life that has seldom exhibited itself,
(the great pride
of man in himself,)
Chanter of
Personality, outlining what is yet to be,
I project the history
of the future.
To
Foreign Lands
I heard that you ask'd for something to prove this puzzle the
New World,
And to define America,
her athletic Democracy,
Therefore I send you
my poems that you behold in them what you wanted.
When I
Read the Book
When I read the book,
the biography famous,
And is this then (said
I) what the author calls a man's life?
And so will some one
when I am dead and gone write my life?
(As if any man really
knew aught of my life,
Why even I myself I
often think know little or nothing of my real life,
Only a few hints, a
few diffused faint clews and indirections
I seek for my own use
to trace out here.)
For Him I
Sing
For him I sing,
I raise the present on
the past,
(As some perennial
tree out of its roots, the present on the past,)
With time and space I
him dilate and fuse the immortal laws,
To make himself by
them the law unto himself.
One's-Self
I Sing
One's-self I sing, a
simple separate person,
Yet utter the word
Democratic, the word En-Masse.
Of physiology from top
to toe I sing,
Not physiognomy alone
nor brain alone is worthy for the Muse, I say
the Form complete
is worthier far,
The Female equally
with the Male I sing.
Of Life immense in
passion, pulse, and power,
Cheerful, for freest
action form'd under the laws divine,
The Modern Man I sing.
As I
Ponder'd in Silence
As I ponder'd in
silence,
Returning upon my
poems, considering, lingering long,
A Phantom arose before
me with distrustful aspect,
Terrible in beauty,
age, and power,
The genius of poets of
old lands,
As to me directing
like flame its eyes,
With finger pointing
to many immortal songs,
And menacing voice,
What singest thou? it said,
Know'st thou not there
is but one theme for ever-enduring bards?
And that is the theme
of War, the fortune of battles,
The making of perfect
soldiers.
Be it so, then I
answer'd,
I too haughty Shade
also sing war, and a longer and greater one than any,
Waged in my book with
varying fortune, with flight, advance
and retreat,
victory deferr'd and wavering,
(Yet methinks certain,
or as good as certain, at the last,) the
field the world,
For life and death,
for the Body and for the eternal Soul,
Lo, I too am come,
chanting the chant of battles,
I above all promote
brave soldiers.
Tears
Tears! tears! tears!
In the night, in
solitude, tears,
On the white shore
dripping, dripping, suck'd in by the sand,
Tears, not a star
shining, all dark and desolate,
Moist tears from the
eyes of a muffled head;
O who is that ghost?
that form in the dark, with tears?
What shapeless lump is
that, bent, crouch'd there on the sand?
Streaming tears,
sobbing tears, throes, choked with wild cries;
O storm, embodied,
rising, careering with swift steps along the beach!
O wild and dismal
night storm, with wind—O belching and desperate!
O shade so sedate and
decorous by day, with calm countenance and
regulated pace,
But away at night as
you fly, none looking—O then the unloosen'd ocean,
Of tears! tears!
tears!
Adieu to
a Soldier
Adieu O soldier,
You of the rude
campaigning, (which we shared,)
The rapid march, the
life of the camp,
The hot contention of
opposing fronts, the long manoeuvre,
Red battles with their
slaughter, the stimulus, the strong terrific game,
Spell of all brave and
manly hearts, the trains of time through you
and like of you
all fill'd,
With war and war's
expression.
Adieu dear comrade,
Your mission is
fulfill'd—but I, more warlike,
Myself and this
contentious soul of mine,
Still on our own
campaigning bound,
Through untried roads
with ambushes opponents lined,
Through many a sharp
defeat and many a crisis, often baffled,
Here marching, ever
marching on, a war fight out—aye here,
To fiercer, weightier
battles give expression.
Old
War-Dreams
In midnight sleep of
many a face of anguish,
Of the look at first
of the mortally wounded, (of that indescribable look,)
Of the dead on their
backs with arms extended wide,
I dream, I dream,
I dream.
Of scenes of Nature,
fields and mountains,
Of skies so beauteous
after a storm, and at night the moon so
unearthly bright,
Shining sweetly,
shining down, where we dig the trenches and
gather the heaps,
I dream, I dream,
I dream.
Long have they pass'd,
faces and trenches and fields,
Where through the
carnage I moved with a callous composure, or away
from the fallen,
Onward I sped at the
time—but now of their forms at night,
I dream, I dream,
I dream.