That I have not gain'd the acceptance of my own time, but have
fallen back on fond dreams of the future..
TO
THE SUNSET BREEZE.
AH,
whispering, something again, unseen,
Where
late this heated day thou enterest at my window, door,
Thou,
laving, tempering all, cool-freshing, gently vitalizing
Me, old,
alone, sick, weak-down, melted-worn with sweat;
Thou,
nestling, folding close and firm yet soft, companion better than
talk,
book, art,
(Thou
hast, O Nature! elements! utterance to my heart beyond the
rest—and
this is of them,)
So sweet
thy primitive taste to breathe within—thy soothing fingers on
my face
and hands,
Thou,
messenger-magical strange bringer to body and spirit of me,
(Distances
balk'd—occult medicines penetrating me from head to foot.)
I feel
the sky, the prairies vast—I feel the mighty northern lakes,
I feel
the ocean and the forest—somehow I feel the globe itself swift-
swimming
in space;
Thou
blown from lips so loved, now gone—haply from endless store,
God sent,
(For thou
art spiritual, Godly, most of all known to my sense,)
Minister
to speak to me, here and now, what word has never told, and
cannot
tell,
Art thou
not universal concrete's distillation? Law's, all Astronomy's
last
refinement?
Hast thou
no soul? Can I not know, identify thee?
Walt
Whitman.
Resist much, obey little.
Not I, nor anyone else can travel that road for you.
You must travel it by yourself.
It is not far. It is within reach.
Perhaps you have been on it since you were born, and did not
know.
Perhaps it is everywhere - on water and land.
Do anything, but let it produce joy.
Peace is always beautiful.
Battles are lost in the same spirit in which they are won.
And as to me, I know nothing else but miracles
O me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring;
Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill’d with
the foolish;
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish
than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light—of the objects mean—of the
struggle ever renew’d;
Of the poor results of all—of the plodding and sordid crowds I
see around me;
Of the empty and useless years of the rest—with the rest me
intertwined;
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O
me, O life?
Answer.
That you are here—that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a
verse.
I am satisfied ... I see, dance, laugh, sing.
If you want me again look for me under your boot soles.
Long enough have you dream'd contemptible dreams,
Now I wash the gum from your eyes,
You must habit yourself to the dazzle of the light
and of every moment of your life
Are you the new person
drawn toward me?
To begin with, take warning - I am surely far different from
what you suppose;
Do you suppose you will find in me your ideal?
Do you think it so easy to have me become your lover?
Do you think the friendship of me would be unalloy'd
satisfaction?
Do you think I am trusty and faithful?
Do you see no further than this façade—this smooth and
tolerant manner of me?
Do you suppose yourself advancing on real ground toward a real
heroic man?
Have you no thought, O dreamer, that it may be all maya,
illusion?
Give me the splendid, silent sun with all his beams
full-dazzling.
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.
O
CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship
has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port
is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While
follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
But O
heart! heart! heart!
O the
bleeding drops of red,
Where on
the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen
cold and dead.
O
Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up -
for you the flag is flung - for you the bugle trills,
For you
bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths - for you the shores
a-crowding,
For you
they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here
Captain! dear father!
This arm
beneath your head!
It is
some dream that on the deck,
You've
fallen cold and dead.
My
Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father
does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
The ship
is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,
From
fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
Exult O
shores, and ring O bells!
But I
with mournful tread,
Walk the
deck my Captain lies,
Fallen
cold and dead.
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.
Your very flesh shall be a great poem...
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.
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?
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.
I accept
Time absolutely.
It alone
is without flaw,
It alone
rounds and completes all,
That
mystic baffling wonder.
If you want me again
look for me under your bootsoles.
You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good help to you nevertheless
And filter and fiber your blood.
Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop some where waiting for you
All beauty comes from beautiful blood and a beautiful brain.
If the greatnesses are in conjunction in a man or woman it is enough...the fact
will prevail through the universe...but the gaggery and gilt of a million years
will not prevail. Who troubles himself about his ornaments or fluency is
lost.
This is what you shall so: Love the earth and sun and the
animals, despise riches, give alms to eVery one 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
life, 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 the lashes of your eyes and in every motion
and joint of your body...
I will You, in all, Myself, with promise to never desert you,
To which I sign my name.
The
question, O me! so sad, recurring -
What good
amid these, O me, O life?
That you
are here - that life
exists
and identity,
that the
powerful play goes on,
and you
may contribute a verse.
Touch me, touch the palm of your hand to my body as I pass,
Be not afraid of my body.
Agonies are one of my
changes of garments.
Clear and sweet is my
soul, clear and sweet is all that is not my soul.
What shall I give? and which are my miracles?
Realism is mine--my miracles--Take freely,
Take without end--I offer them to you wherever your feet can
carry you or your eyes reach.
Why! who
makes much of a miracle?
As to me,
I know of nothing else but miracles,
Whether I
walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart
my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade
with naked feet along the beach, just in the edge of the water,
Or stand
under trees in the woods,
Or talk
by day with any one I love--or sleep in the bed at night with any
one I
love,
Or sit at
the table at dinner with my mother,
Or look
at strangers opposite me riding in the car,
Or watch
honey-bees busy around the hive, of a summer forenoon,
Or
animals feeding in the fields,
Or
birds--or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,
Or the
wonderfulness of the sundown--or of stars shining so quiet and bright,
Or the
exquisite, delicate, thin curve of the new moon in spring;
Or
whether I go among those I like best, and that like me best--mechanics,
boatmen, farmers,
Or among
the savans--or to the _soiree_--or to the opera.
Or stand
a long while looking at the movements of machinery,
Or behold
children at their sports,
Or the
admirable sight of the perfect old man, or the perfect old woman,
Or the
sick in hospitals, or the dead carried to burial,
Or my own
eyes and figure in the glass;
These,
with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,
The whole
referring--yet each distinct and in its place.
To me,
every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every
inch of space is a miracle,
Every
square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same,
Every
cubic foot of the interior swarms with the same;
Every
spear of grass--the frames, limbs, organs, of men and women, and all that
concerns them,
All these
to me are unspeakably perfect miracles.
To me the
sea is a continual miracle;
The
fishes that swim--the rocks--the motion of the waves--the ships, with men in
them,
What
stranger miracles are there?
storming, enjoying, planning, loving, cautioning,
Backing and filling, appearing and disappearing,
I tread day and night such roads.
I am large, I contain multitudes
This is what you shall
do: Love the earth and the sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to
every one 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 life, reexamine 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 the lashes of your
eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.
The untold want, by life and land ne'er granted,
Now, Voyager, sail thou forth, to seek and find.
I refuse putting from me the best that I am.
TO the States or any one of them, or any city of the States,
Resist much, obey little,
Once unquestioning obedience, once fully enslaved,
Once fully enslaved, no nation, state, city of this earth,
ever after-ward resumes its liberty.
Unscrew the locks from the doors !
Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs !
There was never any more inception than there is now,
Nor any more youth or age than there is now;
And will never be any more perfection than there is now,
Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.
Copulation is no more foul to me than death is.
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.
You have not known what you are--you have slumber'd upon
yourself all your life;
Your eye-lids have been the same as closed most of the time;
What you have done returns already in mockeries;
Your thrift, knowledge, prayers, if they do not return in
mockeries, what is their return?
The mockeries are not you;
Underneath them, and within them, I see you lurk;
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!
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
Do you guess I have some intricate purpose?
Well I have, for the Fourth-month showers have, and the mica
on the side of a rock has.
Once I passed through a populous city imprinting my
brain for future use with its shows, architecture,
customs, traditions,
Yet now of all that city I remember only a woman I
Casually met there who detained me for love of me,
Day by day and night by night we were together—all else
Has long been forgotten by me,
I remember I say only that woman who passionately clung
To me,
Again we wander, we love, we separate again,
Again she holds me by the hand, I must not go,
I see her close beside me with silent lips sad and tremulous.
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 pass death with the dying and birth with the new-wash'd
babe, and am not contained between my hat and my boots,
Have you reckon’d a thousand acres much? have you reckon’d the
earth much?
Have you practis’d so long to learn to read?
Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?
not one escaped to tell the fall of Alamo,
The hundred & fifty are dumb yet at Alamo.
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.
This is the female form, vapor,
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 heavaen or fear'd of hell, are now consumed, Mad filament,
ungovernable shoots play out of it, the response likewise ungovernable...
Only themselves understand themselves and the like of
themselves,
As souls only understand souls.
I mind how once we lay such a transparent summer morning,
How you settled your head athwart my hips and gently turn'd
over upon me,
And parted the shirt from my bosom-bone, and plunged your
tongue to my bare-stript heart,
And reach'd till you felt my beard, and reach'd till you held
my feet.
Of Equality--as if it harm'd me, giving others the same
chances and rights as myself--as if it were not indispensable to my own rights
that others possess the same.
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
Oxen that rattle the yoke and chain or halt in the leafy
shade, what is that you express in your eyes? It seems to me more than all the
print I have read in my life.
I wear my hat as I please, indoors or out.
The American bards shall be marked for generosity and
affection and for encouraging competitors… . The great poets are also to be
known by the absence in them of tricks and by the justification of perfect
personal candor… . How beautiful is candor! All faults may be forgiven of him
who has perfect candor.
When I heard at the close of the day how my name had been
receiv’d with plaudits in the capitol, still it was not a happy night for me
that follow’d,
And else when I carous’d, or when my plans were accomplish’d,
still I was not happy,
But the day when I rose at dawn from the bed of perfect
health, refresh’d, singing, inhaling the ripe breath of autumn,
When I saw the full moon in the west grow pale and disappear
in the morning light,
When I wander’d alone over the beach, and undressing bathed,
laughing with the cool waters, and saw the sun rise,
And when I thought how my dear friend my lover was on his way
coming, O then I was happy,
O then each breath tasted sweeter, and all that day my food
nourish’d me more, and the beautiful day pass’d well,
And the next came with equal joy, and with the next at evening
came my friend,
And that night while all was still I heard the waters roll
slowly continually up the shores,
I heard the hissing rustle of the liquid and sands as directed
to me whispering to congratulate me,
For the one I love most lay sleeping by me under the same
cover in the cool night,
In the stillness in the autumn moonbeams his face was inclined
toward me,
And his arm lay lightly around my breast – and that night I
was happy.
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.
O me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring;
Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill’d with
the foolish;
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish
than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light—of the objects mean—of the
struggle ever renew’d;
Of the poor results of all—of the plodding and sordid crowds I
see around me;
Of the empty and useless years of the rest—with the rest me
intertwined;
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O
me, O life?
Answer.
That you are here—that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a
verse.
I swear I will never mention love or death inside a house,
And I swear I never will translate myself at all, only to him
or her who privately stays with me in the open air.
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.
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 the lashes of your eyes, and in
every motion and joint of your body.
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…
Give me such shows--give me the streets of Manhattan!
Sun so generous it shall be you- Leaves of Grass
WHAT am I, after all, but a child, pleas’d with the sound of
my own name? repeating it over and over;
I stand apart to hear—it never tires me.
To you, your name also;
Did you think there was nothing but two or three
pronunciations in the sound of your name?
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.)
Be composed--be at ease with me--I am Walt Whitman, 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.
A blade of grass is the journeywork of the stars
Solitary
the thrush,
The
hermit withdrawn to himself, avoiding the
settlements,
Sings by
himself a song.
...the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.
Give me solitude — give me Nature — give me again, O Nature,
your primal sanities!
Now understand me well--it is provided in the essence of
things that from any fruition of success, no matter what, shall come forth
something to make a greater struggle necessary.
Thought
Of
equality- as if it harm'd me,
giving
others the same chances
and
rights as myself-
as if it
were not indispensable
to my own
rights
that
others possess the same.
One world is aware and by far the largest to me, and that is
myself, / And whether I come to my own to-day or in ten thousand or ten /
million years, / I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I can
wait.
When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with
such 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.
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.