[ { "title": "Primeval my Love for the Woman I Love.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "PRIMEVAL my love for the woman I love,", "O bride! O wife! more resistless, more enduring than I can tell, the thought of you!", "Then separate, as disembodied, the purest born,", "The ethereal, the last athletic reality, my consolation,", "I ascend—I float in the regions of your love, O man,", "O sharer of my roving life." ], "linecount": "6" }, { "title": "A Boston Ballad, 1854.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "TO get betimes in Boston town, I rose this morning early;", "Here’s a good place at the corner—I must stand and see the show.", "", "Clear the way there, Jonathan!", "Way for the President’s marshal! Way for the government cannon!", "Way for the Federal foot and dragoons—and the apparitions copiously tumbling.", "", "I love to look on the stars and stripes—I hope the fifes will play Yankee Doodle.", "", "How bright shine the cutlasses of the foremost troops!", "Every man holds his revolver, marching stiff through Boston town.", "", "A fog follows—antiques of the same come limping,", "Some appear wooden-legged, and some appear bandaged and bloodless.", "", "Why this is indeed a show! It has called the dead out of the earth!", "The old grave-yards of the hills have hurried to see!", "Phantoms! phantoms countless by flank and rear!", "Cock’d hats of mothy mould! crutches made of mist!", "Arms in slings! old men leaning on young men’s shoulders!", "", "What troubles you, Yankee phantoms? What is all this chattering of bare gums?", "Does the ague convulse your limbs? Do you mistake your crutches for fire-locks, and level", " them?", "", "", "If you blind your eyes with tears, you will not see the President’s marshal;", "If you groan such groans, you might balk the government cannon.", "", "For shame, old maniacs! Bring down those toss’d arms, and let your white hair be;", "Here gape your great grand-sons—their wives gaze at them from the windows,", "See how well dress’d—see how orderly they conduct themselves.", "", "Worse and worse! Can’t you stand it? Are you retreating?", "Is this hour with the living too dead for you?", "", "Retreat then! Pell-mell!", "To your graves! Back! back to the hills, old limpers!", "I do not think you belong here, anyhow.", "", "But there is one thing that belongs here—shall I tell you what it is, gentlemen of", " Boston?", "", "I will whisper it to the Mayor—he shall send a committee to England;", "They shall get a grant from the Parliament, go with a cart to the royal vault—haste!", "", "Dig out King George’s coffin, unwrap him quick from the grave-clothes, box up his", " bones", " for a", " journey;", "Find a swift Yankee clipper—here is freight for you, black-bellied clipper,", "Up with your anchor! shake out your sails! steer straight toward Boston bay.", "", "Now call for the President’s marshal again, bring out the government cannon,", "Fetch home the roarers from Congress, make another procession, guard it with foot and", " dragoons.", "", "This centre-piece for them:", "Look! all orderly citizens—look from the windows, women!", "", "The committee open the box, set up the regal ribs, glue those that will not stay,", "Clap the skull on top of the ribs, and clap a crown on top of the skull.", "", "You have got your revenge, old buster! The crown is come to its own, and more than its", " own.", "", "Stick your hands in your pockets, Jonathan—you are a made man from this day;", "You are mighty cute—and here is one of your bargains." ], "linecount": "49" }, { "title": "Whispers of Heavenly Death.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "WHISPERS of heavenly death, murmur’d I hear;", "Labial gossip of night—sibilant chorals;", "Footsteps gently ascending—mystical breezes, wafted soft and low;", "Ripples of unseen rivers—tides of a current, flowing, forever flowing;", "(Or is it the plashing of tears? the measureless waters of human tears?)", "", "I see, just see, skyward, great cloud-masses;", "Mournfully, slowly they roll, silently swelling and mixing;", "With, at times, a half-dimm’d, sadden’d, far-off star,", "Appearing and disappearing.", "", "(Some parturition, rather—some solemn, immortal birth:", "On the frontiers, to eyes impenetrable,", "Some Soul is passing over.)" ], "linecount": "12" }, { "title": "Starting from Paumanok.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "1", "STARTING from fish-shape Paumanok, where I was born,", "Well-begotten, and rais’d by a perfect mother;", "After roaming many lands—lover of populous pavements;", "Dweller in Mannahatta, my city—or on southern savannas;", "Or a soldier camp’d, or carrying my knapsack and gun—or a miner in", " California;", "Or rude in my home in Dakota’s woods, my diet meat, my drink from the", " spring;", "Or withdrawn to muse and meditate in some deep recess,", "Far from the clank of crowds, intervals passing, rapt and happy;", "Aware of the fresh free giver, the flowing Missouri—aware of mighty", " Niagara;", "Aware of the buffalo herds, grazing the plains—the hirsute and", " strong-breasted bull;", "Of earth, rocks, Fifth-month flowers, experienced—stars, rain, snow, my", " amaze;", "Having studied the mocking-bird’s tones, and the mountainhawk’s,", "And heard at dusk the unrival’d one, the hermit thrush from the", " swamp-cedars,", "Solitary, singing in the West, I strike up for a New World.", "", "2Victory, union, faith, identity, time,", "The indissoluble compacts, riches, mystery,", "Eternal progress, the kosmos, and the modern reports.", "", "This, then, is life;", "Here is what has come to the surface after so many throes and convulsions.", "", "How curious! how real!", "Underfoot the divine soil—overhead the sun.", "", "See, revolving, the globe;", "The ancestor-continents, away, group’d together;", "The present and future continents, north and south, with the isthmus between.", "", "See, vast, trackless spaces;", "As in a dream, they change, they swiftly fill;", "Countless masses debouch upon them;", "They are now cover’d with the foremost people, arts, institutions, known.", "", "See, projected, through time,", "For me, an audience interminable.", "", "With firm and regular step they wend—they never stop,", "Successions of men, Americanos, a hundred millions;", "One generation playing its part, and passing on;", "Another generation playing its part, and passing on in its turn,", "With faces turn’d sideways or backward towards me, to listen,", "With eyes retrospective towards me,", "", "3Americanos! conquerors! marches humanitarian;", "Foremost! century marches! Libertad! masses!", "For you a programme of chants.", "", "Chants of the prairies;", "Chants of the long-running Mississippi, and down to the Mexican sea;", "Chants of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota;", "Chants going forth from the centre, from Kansas, and thence, equi-distant,", "Shooting in pulses of fire, ceaseless, to vivify all.", "", "4In the Year 80 of The States,", "My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this air,", "Born here of parents born here, from parents the same, and their parents the", " same,", "I, now thirty-six years old, in perfect health, begin,", "Hoping to cease not till death.", "", "Creeds and schools in abeyance,", "(Retiring back a while, sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,)", "I harbor, for good or bad—I permit to speak, at every hazard,", "Nature now without check, with original energy.", "", "5Take my leaves, America! take them, South, and take them, North!", "Make welcome for them everywhere, for they are your own offspring;", "Surround them, East and West! for they would surround you;", "And you precedents! connect lovingly with them, for they connect lovingly with", " you.", "", "I conn’d old times;", "I sat studying at the feet of the great masters:", "Now, if eligible, O that the great masters might return and study me!", "", "In the name of These States, shall I scorn the antique?", "Why These are the children of the antique, to justify it.", "", "6Dead poets, philosophs, priests,", "Martyrs, artists, inventors, governments long since,", "Language-shapers, on other shores,", "Nations once powerful, now reduced, withdrawn, or desolate,", "I dare not proceed till I respectfully credit what you have left, wafted hither:", "", "I have perused it—own it is admirable, (moving awhile among it;)", "Think nothing can ever be greater—nothing can ever deserve more than it", " deserves;", "Regarding it all intently a long while—then dismissing it,", "I stand in my place, with my own day, here.", "", "Here lands female and male;", "Here the heir-ship and heiress-ship of the world—here the flame of", " materials;", "Here Spirituality, the translatress, the openly-avow’d,", "The ever-tending, the finale of visible forms;", "The satisfier, after due long-waiting, now advancing,", "Yes, here comes my mistress, the Soul.", "", "7The SOUL:", "Forever and forever—longer than soil is brown and solid—longer than", " water ebbs and flows.", "", "I will make the poems of materials, for I think they are to be the most", " spiritual poems;", "And I will make the poems of my body and of mortality,", "For I think I shall then supply myself with the poems of my Soul, and of", " immortality.", "", "I will make a song for These States, that no-one State may under any", " circumstances be subjected to another State;", "And I will make a song that there shall be comity by day and by night between", " all The States, and between any two of them:", "And I will make a song for the ears of the President, full of weapons with", " menacing points,", "And behind the weapons countless dissatisfied faces:", "—And a song make I, of the One form’d out of all;", "The fang’d and glittering One whose head is over all;", "Resolute, warlike One, including and over all;", "(However high the head of any else, that head is over all.)", "", "I will acknowledge contemporary lands;", "I will trail the whole geography of the globe, and salute courteously every city", " large and small;", "And employments! I will put in my poems, that with you is heroism, upon land and", " sea;", "And I will report all heroism from an American point of view.", "", "I will sing the song of companionship;", "I will show what alone must finally compact These;", "I believe These are to found their own ideal of manly love, indicating it in me;", "", "I will therefore let flame from me the burning fires that were threatening to", " consume me;", "I will lift what has too long kept down those smouldering fires;", "I will give them complete abandonment;", "I will write the evangel-poem of comrades, and of love;", "(For who but I should understand love, with all its sorrow and joy?", "And who but I should be the poet of comrades?)", "", "8I am the credulous man of qualities, ages, races;", "I advance from the people in their own spirit;", "Here is what sings unrestricted faith.", "", "Omnes! Omnes! let others ignore what they may;", "I make the poem of evil also—I commemorate that part also;", "I am myself just as much evil as good, and my nation is—And I say there is", " in fact no evil;", "(Or if there is, I say it is just as important to you, to the land, or to me, as", " anything else.)", "", "I too, following many, and follow’d by many, inaugurate a Religion—I", " descend into the arena;", "(It may be I am destin’d to utter the loudest cries there, the", " winner’s pealing shouts;", "Who knows? they may rise from me yet, and soar above every thing.)", "", "Each is not for its own sake;", "I say the whole earth, and all the stars in the sky, are for Religion’s", " sake.", "", "I say no man has ever yet been half devout enough;", "None has ever yet adored or worship’d half enough;", "None has begun to think how divine he himself is, and how certain the future is.", "", "", "I say that the real and permanent grandeur of These States must be their", " Religion;", "Otherwise there is no real and permanent grandeur:", "(Nor character, nor life worthy the name, without Religion;", "Nor land, nor man or woman, without Religion.)", "", "9What are you doing, young man?", "Are you so earnest—so given up to literature, science, art, amours?", "These ostensible realities, politics, points?", "Your ambition or business, whatever it may be?", "", "It is well—Against such I say not a word—I am their poet also;", "But behold! such swiftly subside—burnt up for Religion’s sake;", "For not all matter is fuel to heat, impalpable flame, the essential life of the", " earth,", "Any more than such are to Religion.", "", "10What do you seek, so pensive and silent?", "What do you need, Camerado?", "Dear son! do you think it is love?", "", "Listen, dear son—listen, America, daughter or son!", "It is a painful thing to love a man or woman to excess—and yet it", " satisfies—it is great;", "But there is something else very great—it makes the whole coincide;", "It, magnificent, beyond materials, with continuous hands, sweeps and provides", " for all.", "", "11Know you! solely to drop in the earth the germs of a greater Religion,", "The following chants, each for its kind, I sing.", "", "My comrade!", "For you, to share with me, two greatnesses—and a third one, rising", " inclusive and more resplendent,", "The greatness of Love and Democracy—and the greatness of Religion.", "", "Melange mine own! the unseen and the seen;", "Mysterious ocean where the streams empty;", "Prophetic spirit of materials shifting and flickering around me;", "Living beings, identities, now doubtless near us, in the air, that we know not", " of;", "Contact daily and hourly that will not release me;", "These selecting—these, in hints, demanded of me.", "", "Not he, with a daily kiss, onward from childhood kissing me,", "Has winded and twisted around me that which holds me to him,", "Any more than I am held to the heavens, to the spiritual world,", "And to the identities of the Gods, my lovers, faithful and true,", "After what they have done to me, suggesting themes.", "", "O such themes! Equalities!", "O amazement of things! O divine average!", "O warblings under the sun—usher’d, as now, or at noon, or setting!", "O strain, musical, flowing through ages—now reaching hither!", "I take to your reckless and composite chords—I add to them, and cheerfully", " pass them forward.", "", "12As I have walk’d in Alabama my morning walk,", "I have seen where the she-bird, the mocking-bird, sat on her nest in the briers,", " hatching her brood.", "", "I have seen the he-bird also;", "I have paused to hear him, near at hand, inflating his throat, and joyfully", " singing.", "", "And while I paused, it came to me that what he really sang for was not there", " only,", "Nor for his mate, nor himself only, nor all sent back by the echoes;", "But subtle, clandestine, away beyond,", "A charge transmitted, and gift occult, for those being born.", "", "13Democracy!", "Near at hand to you a throat is now inflating itself and joyfully singing.", "", "Ma femme!", "For the brood beyond us and of us,", "For those who belong here, and those to come,", "I, exultant, to be ready for them, will now shake out carols stronger and", " haughtier than have ever yet been heard upon earth.", "", "I will make the songs of passion, to give them their way,", "And your songs, outlaw’d offenders—for I scan you with kindred eyes,", " and carry you with me the same as any.", "", "I will make the true poem of riches,", "To earn for the body and the mind whatever adheres, and goes forward, and is not", " dropt by death.", "", "I will effuse egotism, and show it underlying all—and I will be the bard of", " personality;", "And I will show of male and female that either is but the equal of the other;", "And sexual organs and acts! do you concentrate in me—for I am", " determin’d to tell you with courageous clear voice, to prove you", " illustrious;", "And I will show that there is no imperfection in the present—and can be", " none in the future;", "And I will show that whatever happens to anybody, it may be turn’d to", " beautiful results—and I will show that nothing can happen more beautiful", " than death;", "And I will thread a thread through my poems that time and events are compact,", "And that all the things of the universe are perfect miracles, each as profound", " as any.", "", "I will not make poems with reference to parts;", "But I will make leaves, poems, poemets, songs, says, thoughts with reference to", " ensemble:", "And I will not sing with reference to a day, but with reference to all days;", "And I will not make a poem, nor the least part of a poem, but has reference to", " the Soul;", "(Because, having look’d at the objects of the universe, I find there is no", " one, nor any particle of one, but has reference to the Soul.)", "", "14Was somebody asking to see the Soul?", "See! your own shape and countenance—persons, substances, beasts, the trees,", " the running rivers, the rocks and sands.", "", "All hold spiritual joys, and afterwards loosen them:", "How can the real body ever die, and be buried?", "", "Of your real body, and any man’s or woman’s real body,", "Item for item, it will elude the hands of the corpse-cleaners, and pass to", " fitting spheres,", "Carrying what has accrued to it from the moment of birth to the moment of death.", "", "Not the types set up by the printer return their impression, the meaning, the", " main concern,", "Any more than a man’s substance and life, or a woman’s substance and", " life, return in the body and the Soul,", "Indifferently before death and after death.", "", "Behold! the body includes and is the meaning, the main concern—and includes", " and is the Soul;", "Whoever you are! how superb and how divine is your body, or any part of it.", "", "15Whoever you are! to you endless announcements.", "", "Daughter of the lands, did you wait for your poet?", "Did you wait for one with a flowing mouth and indicative hand?", "", "Toward the male of The States, and toward the female of The States,", "Live words—words to the lands.", "", "O the lands! interlink’d, food-yielding lands!", "Land of coal and iron! Land of gold! Lands of cotton, sugar, rice!", "Land of wheat, beef, pork! Land of wool and hemp! Land of the apple and grape!", "Land of the pastoral plains, the grass-fields of the world! Land of those", " sweet-air’d interminable plateaus!", "Land of the herd, the garden, the healthy house of adobie!", "Lands where the northwest Columbia winds, and where the southwest Colorado", " winds!", "Land of the eastern Chesapeake! Land of the Delaware!", "Land of Ontario, Erie, Huron, Michigan!", "Land of the Old Thirteen! Massachusetts land! Land of Vermont and Connecticut!", "Land of the ocean shores! Land of sierras and peaks!", "Land of boatmen and sailors! Fishermen’s land!", "Inextricable lands! the clutch’d together! the passionate ones!", "The side by side! the elder and younger brothers! the bony-limb’d!", "The great women’s land! the feminine! the experienced sisters and the", " inexperienced sisters!", "Far breath’d land! Arctic braced! Mexican breez’d! the diverse! the", " compact!", "The Pennsylvanian! the Virginian! the double Carolinian!", "O all and each well-loved by me! my intrepid nations! O I at any rate include", " you all with perfect love!", "I cannot be discharged from you! not from one, any sooner than another!", "O Death! O for all that, I am yet of you, unseen, this hour, with irrepressible", " love,", "Walking New England, a friend, a traveler,", "Splashing my bare feet in the edge of the summer ripples, on Paumanok’s", " sands,", "Crossing the prairies—dwelling again in Chicago—dwelling in every", " town,", "Observing shows, births, improvements, structures, arts,", "Listening to the orators and the oratresses in public halls,", "Of and through The States, as during life—each man and woman my neighbor,", "The Louisianian, the Georgian, as near to me, and I as near to him and her,", "The Mississippian and Arkansian yet with me—and I yet with any of them;", "Yet upon the plains west of the spinal river—yet in my house of adobie,", "Yet returning eastward—yet in the Sea-Side State, or in Maryland,", "Yet Kanadian, cheerily braving the winter—the snow and ice welcome to me,", "Yet a true son either of Maine, or of the Granite State, or of the Narragansett", " Bay State, or of the Empire State;", "Yet sailing to other shores to annex the same—yet welcoming every new", " brother;", "Hereby applying these leaves to the new ones, from the hour they unite with the", " old ones;", "Coming among the new ones myself, to be their companion and equal—coming", " personally to you now;", "Enjoining you to acts, characters, spectacles, with me.", "", "16With me, with firm holding—yet haste, haste on.", "", "For your life, adhere to me!", "Of all the men of the earth, I only can unloose you and toughen you;", "I may have to be persuaded many times before I consent to give myself really to", " you—but what of that?", "Must not Nature be persuaded many times?", "", "No dainty dolce affettuoso I;", "Bearded, sun-burnt, gray-neck’d, forbidding, I have arrived,", "To be wrestled with as I pass, for the solid prizes of the universe;", "For such I afford whoever can persevere to win them.", "", "17On my way a moment I pause;", "Here for you! and here for America!", "Still the Present I raise aloft—Still the Future of The States I harbinge,", " glad and sublime;", "And for the Past, I pronounce what the air holds of the red aborigines.", "", "The red aborigines!", "Leaving natural breaths, sounds of rain and winds, calls as of birds and animals", " in the woods, syllabled to us for names;", "Okonee, Koosa, Ottawa, Monongahela, Sauk, Natchez, Chattahoochee, Kaqueta,", " Oronoco,", "Wabash, Miami, Saginaw, Chippewa, Oshkosh, Walla-Walla;", "Leaving such to The States, they melt, they depart, charging the water and the", " land with names.", "", "18O expanding and swift! O henceforth,", "Elements, breeds, adjustments, turbulent, quick, and audacious;", "A world primal again—Vistas of glory, incessant and branching;", "A new race, dominating previous ones, and grander far—with new contests,", "New politics, new literatures and religions, new inventions and arts.", "", "These! my voice announcing—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.", "", "19See! steamers steaming through my poems!", "See, in my poems immigrants continually coming and landing;", "See, in arriere, the wigwam, the trail, the hunter’s hut, the flatboat, the", " maize-leaf, the claim, the rude fence, and the backwoods village;", "See, on the one side the Western Sea, and on the other the Eastern Sea, how they", " advance and retreat upon my poems, as upon their own shores.", "", "See, pastures and forests in my poems—See, animals, wild and tame—See,", " beyond the Kanzas, countless herds of buffalo, feeding on short curly grass;", "See, in my poems, cities, solid, vast, inland, with paved streets, with iron and", " stone edifices, ceaseless vehicles, and commerce;", "See, the many-cylinder’d steam printing-press—See, the electric", " telegraph, stretching across the Continent, from the Western Sea to Manhattan;", "See, through Atlantica’s depths, pulses American, Europe", " reaching—pulses of Europe, duly return’d;", "See, the strong and quick locomotive, as it departs, panting, blowing the", " steam-whistle;", "See, ploughmen, ploughing farms—See, miners, digging mines—See, the", " numberless factories;", "See, mechanics, busy at their benches, with tools—See from among them,", " superior judges, philosophs, Presidents, emerge, drest in working dresses;", "See, lounging through the shops and fields of The States, me, well-belov’d,", " close-held by day and night;", "Hear the loud echoes of my songs there! Read the hints come at last.", "", "20O Camerado close!", "O you and me at last—and us two only.", "", "O a word to clear one’s path ahead endlessly!", "O something extatic and undemonstrable! O music wild!", "", "O now I triumph—and you shall also;", "O hand in hand—O wholesome pleasure—O one more desirer and lover!", "O to haste, firm holding—to haste, haste on with me." ], "linecount": "366" }, { "title": "Passage to India.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "1", "SINGING my days,", "Singing the great achievements of the present,", "Singing the strong, light works of engineers,", "Our modern wonders, (the antique ponderous Seven outvied,)", "In the Old World, the east, the Suez canal,", "The New by its mighty railroad spann’d,", "The seas inlaid with eloquent, gentle wires,", "I sound, to commence, the cry, with thee, O soul,", "The Past! the Past! the Past!", "", "The Past! the dark, unfathom’d retrospect!", "The teeming gulf! the sleepers and the shadows!", "The past! the infinite greatness of the past!", "For what is the present, after all, but a growth out of the past?", "(As a projectile, form’d, impell’d, passing a certain line, still keeps on,", "So the present, utterly form’d, impell’d by the past.)", "", "2", "Passage, O soul, to India!", "Eclaircise the myths Asiatic—the primitive fables.", "", "Not you alone, proud truths of the world!", "Nor you alone, ye facts of modern science!", "But myths and fables of eld—Asia’s, Africa’s fables!", "The far-darting beams of the spirit!—the unloos’d dreams!", "The deep diving bibles and legends;", "The daring plots of the poets—the elder religions;", "—O you temples fairer than lilies, pour’d over by the rising sun!", "O you fables, spurning the known, eluding the hold of the known, mounting to heaven!", "You lofty and dazzling towers, pinnacled, red as roses, burnish’d with gold!", "Towers of fables immortal, fashion’d from mortal dreams!", "You too I welcome, and fully, the same as the rest;", "You too with joy I sing.", "", "3", "Passage to India!", "Lo, soul! seest thou not God’s purpose from the first?", "The earth to be spann’d, connected by net-work,", "The people to become brothers and sisters,", "The races, neighbors, to marry and be given in marriage,", "The oceans to be cross’d, the distant brought near,", "The lands to be welded together.", "", "(A worship new, I sing;", "You captains, voyagers, explorers, yours!", "You engineers! you architects, machinists, your!", "You, not for trade or transportation only,", "But in God’s name, and for thy sake, O soul.)", "", "4", "Passage to India!", "Lo, soul, for thee, of tableaus twain,", "I see, in one, the Suez canal initiated, open’d,", "I see the procession of steamships, the Empress Eugenie’s leading the van;", "I mark, from on deck, the strange landscape, the pure sky, the level sand in the distance;", "", "I pass swiftly the picturesque groups, the workmen gather’d,", "The gigantic dredging machines.", "", "In one, again, different, (yet thine, all thine, O soul, the same,)", "I see over my own continent the Pacific Railroad, surmounting every barrier;", "I see continual trains of cars winding along the Platte, carrying freight and passengers;", "I hear the locomotives rushing and roaring, and the shrill steam-whistle,", "I hear the echoes reverberate through the grandest scenery in the world;", "I cross the Laramie plains—I note the rocks in grotesque shapes—the buttes;", "I see the plentiful larkspur and wild onions—the barren, colorless, sage-deserts;", "I see in glimpses afar, or towering immediately above me, the great mountains—I see", " the", " Wind River and the Wahsatch mountains;", "I see the Monument mountain and the Eagle’s Nest—I pass the Promontory—I", " ascend", " the Nevadas;", "I scan the noble Elk mountain, and wind around its base;", "I see the Humboldt range—I thread the valley and cross the river,", "I see the clear waters of Lake Tahoe—I see forests of majestic pines,", "Or, crossing the great desert, the alkaline plains, I behold enchanting mirages of waters", " and", " meadows;", "Marking through these, and after all, in duplicate slender lines,", "Bridging the three or four thousand miles of land travel,", "Tying the Eastern to the Western sea,", "The road between Europe and Asia.", "", "(Ah Genoese, thy dream! thy dream!", "Centuries after thou art laid in thy grave,", "The shore thou foundest verifies thy dream!)", "", "5", "Passage to India!", "Struggles of many a captain—tales of many a sailor dead!", "Over my mood, stealing and spreading they come,", "Like clouds and cloudlets in the unreach’d sky.", "", "Along all history, down the slopes,", "As a rivulet running, sinking now, and now again to the surface rising,", "A ceaseless thought, a varied train—Lo, soul! to thee, thy sight, they rise,", "The plans, the voyages again, the expeditions:", "Again Vasco de Gama sails forth;", "Again the knowledge gain’d, the mariner’s compass,", "Lands found, and nations born—thou born, America, (a hemisphere unborn,)", "For purpose vast, man’s long probation fill’d,", "Thou, rondure of the world, at last accomplish’d.", "", "6", "O, vast Rondure, swimming in space!", "Cover’d all over with visible power and beauty!", "Alternate light and day, and the teeming, spiritual darkness;", "Unspeakable, high processions of sun and moon, and countless stars, above;", "Below, the manifold grass and waters, animals, mountains, trees;", "With inscrutable purpose—some hidden, prophetic intention;", "Now, first, it seems, my thought begins to span thee.", "", "Down from the gardens of Asia, descending, radiating,", "Adam and Eve appear, then their myriad progeny after them,", "Wandering, yearning, curious—with restless explorations,", "With questionings, baffled, formless, feverish—with never-happy hearts,", "With that sad, incessant refrain, Wherefore, unsatisfied Soul? and Whither, O", " mocking", " Life?", "", "Ah, who shall soothe these feverish children?", "Who justify these restless explorations?", "Who speak the secret of impassive Earth?", "Who bind it to us? What is this separate Nature, so unnatural?", "What is this Earth, to our affections? (unloving earth, without a throb to answer ours;", "Cold earth, the place of graves.)", "", "Yet, soul, be sure the first intent remains—and shall be carried out;", "(Perhaps even now the time has arrived.)", "", "After the seas are all cross’d, (as they seem already cross’d,)", "After the great captains and engineers have accomplish’d their work,", "After the noble inventors—after the scientists, the chemist, the geologist,", " ethnologist,", "Finally shall come the Poet, worthy that name;", "The true Son of God shall come, singing his songs.", "", "Then, not your deeds only, O voyagers, O scientists and inventors, shall be justified,", "All these hearts, as of fretted children, shall be sooth’d,", "All affection shall be fully responded to—the secret shall be told;", "All these separations and gaps shall be taken up, and hook’d and link’d", " together;", "The whole Earth—this cold, impassive, voiceless Earth, shall be completely justified;", "", "Trinitas divine shall be gloriously accomplish’d and compacted by the the Son of God,", " the", " poet,", "(He shall indeed pass the straits and conquer the mountains,", "He shall double the Cape of Good Hope to some purpose;)", "Nature and Man shall be disjoin’d and diffused no more,", "The true Son of God shall absolutely fuse them.", "", "7", "Year at whose open’d, wide-flung door I sing!", "Year of the purpose accomplish’d!", "Year of the marriage of continents, climates and oceans!", "(No mere Doge of Venice now, wedding the Adriatic;)", "I see, O year, in you, the vast terraqueous globe, given, and giving all,", "Europe to Asia, Africa join’d, and they to the New World;", "The lands, geographies, dancing before you, holding a festival garland,", "As brides and bridegrooms hand in hand.", "", "8", "Passage to India!", "Cooling airs from Caucasus far, soothing cradle of man,", "The river Euphrates flowing, the past lit up again.", "", "Lo, soul, the retrospect, brought forward;", "The old, most populous, wealthiest of Earth’s lands,", "The streams of the Indus and the Ganges, and their many affluents;", "(I, my shores of America walking to-day, behold, resuming all,)", "The tale of Alexander, on his warlike marches, suddenly dying,", "On one side China, and on the other side Persia and Arabia,", "To the south the great seas, and the Bay of Bengal;", "The flowing literatures, tremendous epics, religions, castes,", "Old occult Brahma, interminably far back—the tender and junior Buddha,", "Central and southern empires, and all their belongings, possessors,", "The wars of Tamerlane, the reign of Aurungzebe,", "The traders, rulers, explorers, Moslems, Venetians, Byzantium, the Arabs, Portuguese,", "The first travelers, famous yet, Marco Polo, Batouta the Moor,", "Doubts to be solv’d, the map incognita, blanks to be fill’d,", "The foot of man unstay’d, the hands never at rest,", "Thyself, O soul, that will not brook a challenge.", "", "9", "The medieval navigators rise before me,", "The world of 1492, with its awaken’d enterprise;", "Something swelling in humanity now like the sap of the earth in spring,", "The sunset splendor of chivalry declining.", "", "And who art thou, sad shade?", "Gigantic, visionary, thyself a visionary,", "With majestic limbs, and pious, beaming eyes,", "Spreading around, with every look of thine, a golden world,", "Enhuing it with gorgeous hues.", "", "As the chief histrion,", "Down to the footlights walks, in some great scena,", "Dominating the rest, I see the Admiral himself,", "(History’s type of courage, action, faith;)", "Behold him sail from Palos, leading his little fleet;", "His voyage behold—his return—his great fame,", "His misfortunes, calumniators—behold him a prisoner, chain’d,", "Behold his dejection, poverty, death.", "", "(Curious, in time, I stand, noting the efforts of heroes;", "Is the deferment long? bitter the slander, poverty, death?", "Lies the seed unreck’d for centuries in the ground? Lo! to God’s due occasion,", "Uprising in the night, it sprouts, blooms,", "And fills the earth with use and beauty.)", "", "10", "Passage indeed, O soul, to primal thought!", "Not lands and seas alone—thy own clear freshness,", "The young maturity of brood and bloom;", "To realms of budding bibles.", "", "O soul, repressless, I with thee, and thou with me,", "Thy circumnavigation of the world begin;", "Of man, the voyage of his mind’s return,", "To reason’s early paradise,", "Back, back to wisdom’s birth, to innocent intuitions,", "Again with fair Creation.", "", "11", "O we can wait no longer!", "We too take ship, O soul!", "Joyous, we too launch out on trackless seas!", "Fearless, for unknown shores, on waves of extasy to sail,", "Amid the wafting winds, (thou pressing me to thee, I thee to me, O soul,)", "Caroling free—singing our song of God,", "Chanting our chant of pleasant exploration.", "", "With laugh, and many a kiss,", "(Let others deprecate—let others weep for sin, remorse, humiliation;)", "O soul, thou pleasest me—I thee.", "", "Ah, more than any priest, O soul, we too believe in God;", "But with the mystery of God we dare not dally.", "", "O soul, thou pleasest me—I thee;", "Sailing these seas, or on the hills, or waking in the night,", "Thoughts, silent thoughts, of Time, and Space, and Death, like waters flowing,", "Bear me, indeed, as through the regions infinite,", "Whose air I breathe, whose ripples hear—lave me all over;", "Bathe me, O God, in thee—mounting to thee,", "I and my soul to range in range of thee.", "", "O Thou transcendant!", "Nameless—the fibre and the breath!", "Light of the light—shedding forth universes—thou centre of them!", "Thou mightier centre of the true, the good, the loving!", "Thou moral, spiritual fountain! affection’s source! thou reservoir!", "(O pensive soul of me! O thirst unsatisfied! waitest not there?", "Waitest not haply for us, somewhere there, the Comrade perfect?)", "Thou pulse! thou motive of the stars, suns, systems,", "That, circling, move in order, safe, harmonious,", "Athwart the shapeless vastnesses of space!", "", "How should I think—how breathe a single breath—how speak—if, out of myself,", "I could not launch, to those, superior universes?", "", "Swiftly I shrivel at the thought of God,", "At Nature and its wonders, Time and Space and Death,", "But that I, turning, call to thee, O soul, thou actual Me,", "And lo! thou gently masterest the orbs,", "Thou matest Time, smilest content at Death,", "And fillest, swellest full, the vastnesses of Space.", "", "Greater than stars or suns,", "Bounding, O soul, thou journeyest forth;", "—What love, than thine and ours could wider amplify?", "What aspirations, wishes, outvie thine and ours, O soul?", "What dreams of the ideal? what plans of purity, perfection, strength?", "What cheerful willingness, for others’ sake, to give up all?", "For others’ sake to suffer all?", "", "Reckoning ahead, O soul, when thou, the time achiev’d,", "(The seas all cross’d, weather’d the capes, the voyage done,)", "Surrounded, copest, frontest God, yieldest, the aim attain’d,", "As, fill’d with friendship, love complete, the Elder Brother found,", "The Younger melts in fondness in his arms.", "", "12", "Passage to more than India!", "Are thy wings plumed indeed for such far flights?", "O Soul, voyagest thou indeed on voyages like these?", "Disportest thou on waters such as these?", "Soundest below the Sanscrit and the Vedas?", "Then have thy bent unleash’d.", "", "Passage to you, your shores, ye aged fierce enigmas!", "Passage to you, to mastership of you, ye strangling problems!", "You, strew’d with the wrecks of skeletons, that, living, never reach’d you.", "", "13", "Passage to more than India!", "O secret of the earth and sky!", "Of you, O waters of the sea! O winding creeks and rivers!", "Of you, O woods and fields! Of you, strong mountains of my land!", "Of you, O prairies! Of you, gray rocks!", "O morning red! O clouds! O rain and snows!", "O day and night, passage to you!", "", "O sun and moon, and all you stars! Sirius and Jupiter!", "Passage to you!", "", "Passage—immediate passage! the blood burns in my veins!", "Away, O soul! hoist instantly the anchor!", "Cut the hawsers—haul out—shake out every sail!", "Have we not stood here like trees in the ground long enough?", "Have we not grovell’d here long enough, eating and drinking like mere brutes?", "Have we not darken’d and dazed ourselves with books long enough?", "", "Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!", "Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;", "For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,", "And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.", "", "O my brave soul!", "O farther, farther sail!", "O daring joy, but safe! Are they not all the seas of God?", "O farther, farther, farther sail!" ], "linecount": "281" }, { "title": "Spain 1873–’74.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "OUT of the murk of heaviest clouds,", "Out of the feudal wrecks, and heap’d-up skeletons of kings,", "Out of that old entire European debris—the shatter’d mummeries,", "Ruin’d cathedrals, crumble of palaces, tombs of priests,", "Lo! Freedom’s features, fresh, undimm’d, look forth—the same immortal face", " looks", " forth;", "(A glimpse as of thy mother’s face, Columbia,", "A flash significant as of a sword,", "Beaming towards thee.)", "", "Nor think we forget thee, Maternal;", "Lag’d’st thou so long? Shall the clouds close again upon thee?", "Ah, but thou hast Thyself now appear’d to us—we know thee;", "Thou hast given us a sure proof, the glimpse of Thyself;", "Thou waitest there, as everywhere, thy time." ], "linecount": "15" }, { "title": "What General has a Good Army.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "WHAT General has a good army in himself, has a good army;", "He happy in himself, or she happy in herself, is happy,", "But I tell you you cannot be happy by others, any more than you can beget or conceive a", " child", " by others." ], "linecount": "5" }, { "title": "O Sun of Real Peace.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "O SUN of real peace! O hastening light!", "O free and extatic! O what I here, preparing, warble for!", "O the sun of the world will ascend, dazzling, and take his height—and you too, O my", " Ideal,", " will surely ascend!", "O so amazing and broad—up there resplendent, darting and burning!", "O vision prophetic, stagger’d with weight of light! with pouring glories!", "O lips of my soul, already becoming powerless!", "O ample and grand Presidentiads! Now the war, the war is over!", "New history! new heroes! I project you!", "Visions of poets! only you really last! sweep on! sweep on!", "O heights too swift and dizzy yet!", "O purged and luminous! you threaten me more than I can stand!", "(I must not venture—the ground under my feet menaces me—it will not support me:", "O future too immense,)—O present, I return, while yet I may, to you." ], "linecount": "15" }, { "title": "Sleepers, The.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "1", "I WANDER all night in my vision,", "Stepping with light feet, swiftly and noiselessly stepping and stopping,", "Bending with open eyes over the shut eyes of sleepers,", "Wandering and confused, lost to myself, ill-assorted, contradictory,", "Pausing, gazing, bending, and stopping.", "", "How solemn they look there, stretch’d and still!", "How quiet they breathe, the little children in their cradles!", "", "The wretched features of ennuyés, the white features of corpses, the livid faces of", " drunkards, the sick-gray faces of onanists,", "The gash’d bodies on battle-fields, the insane in their strong-door’d rooms, the", " sacred", " idiots, the new-born emerging from gates, and the dying emerging from gates,", "The night pervades them and infolds them.", "", "The married couple sleep calmly in their bed—he with his palm on the hip of the wife,", " and", " she", " with her palm on the hip of the husband,", "The sisters sleep lovingly side by side in their bed,", "The men sleep lovingly side by side in theirs,", "And the mother sleeps, with her little child carefully wrapt.", "", "The blind sleep, and the deaf and dumb sleep,", "The prisoner sleeps well in the prison—the run-away son sleeps;", "The murderer that is to be hung next day—how does he sleep?", "And the murder’d person—how does he sleep?", "", "The female that loves unrequited sleeps,", "And the male that loves unrequited sleeps,", "The head of the money-maker that plotted all day sleeps,", "And the enraged and treacherous dispositions—all, all sleep.", "", "2", "I stand in the dark with drooping eyes by the worst-suffering and the most restless,", "I pass my hands soothingly to and fro a few inches from them,", "The restless sink in their beds—they fitfully sleep.", "", "Now I pierce the darkness—new beings appear,", "The earth recedes from me into the night,", "I saw that it was beautiful, and I see that what is not the earth is beautiful.", "", "I go from bedside to bedside—I sleep close with the other sleepers, each in turn,", "I dream in my dream all the dreams of the other dreamers,", "And I become the other dreamers.", "", "3", "I am a dance—Play up, there! the fit is whirling me fast!", "", "I am the ever-laughing—it is new moon and twilight,", "I see the hiding of douceurs—I see nimble ghosts whichever way I look,", "Cache, and cache again, deep in the ground and sea, and where it is neither ground or sea.", "", "Well do they do their jobs, those journeymen divine,", "Only from me can they hide nothing, and would not if they could,", "I reckon I am their boss, and they make me a pet besides,", "And surround me and lead me, and run ahead when I walk,", "To lift their cunning covers, to signify me with stretch’d arms, and resume the way;", "Onward we move! a gay gang of blackguards! with mirth-shouting music, and wild-flapping", " pennants of", " joy!", "", "4", "I am the actor, the actress, the voter, the politician;", "The emigrant and the exile, the criminal that stood in the box,", "He who has been famous, and he who shall be famous after to-day,", "The stammerer, the well-form’d person, the wasted or feeble person.", "", "5", "I am she who adorn’d herself and folded her hair expectantly,", "My truant lover has come, and it is dark.", "", "Double yourself and receive me, darkness!", "Receive me and my lover too—he will not let me go without him.", "", "I roll myself upon you, as upon a bed—I resign myself to the dusk.", "", "6", "He whom I call answers me, and takes the place of my lover,", "He rises with me silently from the bed.", "", "Darkness! you are gentler than my lover—his flesh was sweaty and panting,", "I feel the hot moisture yet that he left me.", "", "My hands are spread forth, I pass them in all directions,", "I would sound up the shadowy shore to which you are journeying.", "", "Be careful, darkness! already, what was it touch’d me?", "I thought my lover had gone, else darkness and he are one,", "I hear the heart-beat—I follow, I fade away.", "", "7", "O hot-cheek’d and blushing! O foolish hectic!", "O for pity’s sake, no one must see me now! my clothes were stolen while I was abed,", "Now I am thrust forth, where shall I run?", "", "Pier that I saw dimly last night, when I look’d from the windows!", "Pier out from the main, let me catch myself with you, and stay—I will not chafe you,", "I feel ashamed to go naked about the world.", "", "I am curious to know where my feet stand—and what this is flooding me, childhood or", " manhood—and the hunger that crosses the bridge between.", "", "8", "The cloth laps a first sweet eating and drinking,", "Laps life-swelling yolks—laps ear of rose-corn, milky and just ripen’d;", "The white teeth stay, and the boss-tooth advances in darkness,", "And liquor is spill’d on lips and bosoms by touching glasses, and the best liquor", " afterward.", "", "9", "I descend my western course, my sinews are flaccid,", "Perfume and youth course through me, and I am their wake.", "", "It is my face yellow and wrinkled, instead of the old woman’s,", "I sit low in a straw-bottom chair, and carefully darn my grandson’s stockings.", "", "It is I too, the sleepless widow, looking out on the winter midnight,", "I see the sparkles of starshine on the icy and pallid earth.", "", "A shroud I see, and I am the shroud—I wrap a body, and lie in the coffin,", "It is dark here under ground—it is not evil or pain here—it is blank here, for", " reasons.", "", "It seems to me that everything in the light and air ought to be happy,", "Whoever is not in his coffin and the dark grave, let him know he has enough.", "", "10", "I see a beautiful gigantic swimmer, swimming naked through the eddies of the sea,", "His brown hair lies close and even to his head—he strikes out with courageous", " arms—he", " urges himself with his legs,", "I see his white body—I see his undaunted eyes,", "I hate the swift-running eddies that would dash him head-foremost on the rocks.", "", "What are you doing, you ruffianly red-trickled waves?", "Will you kill the courageous giant? Will you kill him in the prime of his middle age?", "", "Steady and long he struggles,", "He is baffled, bang’d, bruis’d—he holds out while his strength holds out,", "The slapping eddies are spotted with his blood—they bear him away—they roll him,", " swing", " him, turn him,", "His beautiful body is borne in the circling eddies, it is continually bruis’d on", " rocks,", "Swiftly and out of sight is borne the brave corpse.", "", "11", "I turn, but do not extricate myself,", "Confused, a past-reading, another, but with darkness yet.", "", "The beach is cut by the razory ice-wind—the wreck-guns sound,", "The tempest lulls—the moon comes floundering through the drifts.", "", "I look where the ship helplessly heads end on—I hear the burst as she strikes—I", " hear", " the", " howls of dismay—they grow fainter and fainter.", "", "I cannot aid with my wringing fingers,", "I can but rush to the surf, and let it drench me and freeze upon me.", "", "I search with the crowd—not one of the company is wash’d to us alive;", "In the morning I help pick up the dead and lay them in rows in a barn.", "", "12", "Now of the older war-days, the defeat at Brooklyn,", "Washington stands inside the lines—he stands on the intrench’d hills, amid a", " crowd of", " officers,", "His face is cold and damp—he cannot repress the weeping drops,", "He lifts the glass perpetually to his eyes—the color is blanch’d from his", " cheeks,", "He sees the slaughter of the southern braves confided to him by their parents.", "", "The same, at last and at last, when peace is declared,", "He stands in the room of the old tavern—the well-belov’d soldiers all pass", " through,", "The officers speechless and slow draw near in their turns,", "The chief encircles their necks with his arm, and kisses them on the cheek,", "He kisses lightly the wet cheeks one after another—he shakes hands, and bids good-by", " to", " the", " army.", "", "13", "Now I tell what my mother told me to-day as we sat at dinner together,", "Of when she was a nearly grown girl, living home with her parents on the old homestead.", "", "A red squaw came one breakfast time to the old homestead,", "On her back she carried a bundle of rushes for rush-bottoming chairs,", "Her hair, straight, shiny, coarse, black, profuse, half-envelop’d her face,", "Her step was free and elastic, and her voice sounded exquisitely as she spoke.", "", "My mother look’d in delight and amazement at the stranger,", "She look’d at the freshness of her tall-borne face, and full and pliant limbs,", "The more she look’d upon her, she loved her,", "Never before had she seen such wonderful beauty and purity,", "She made her sit on a bench by the jamb of the fireplace—she cook’d food for", " her,", "She had no work to give her, but she gave her remembrance and fondness.", "", "The red squaw staid all the forenoon, and toward the middle of the afternoon she went", " away,", "O my mother was loth to have her go away!", "All the week she thought of her—she watch’d for her many a month,", "She remember’d her many a winter and many a summer,", "But the red squaw never came, nor was heard of there again.", "", "14", "Now Lucifer was not dead—or if he was, I am his sorrowful terrible heir;", "I have been wrong’d—I am oppress’d—I hate him that oppresses me,", "I will either destroy him, or he shall release me.", "", "Damn him! how he does defile me!", "How he informs against my brother and sister, and takes pay for their blood!", "How he laughs when I look down the bend, after the steamboat that carries away my woman!", "", "Now the vast dusk bulk that is the whale’s bulk, it seems mine;", "Warily, sportsman! though I lie so sleepy and sluggish, the tap of my flukes is death.", "", "15", "A show of the summer softness! a contact of something unseen! an amour of the light and", " air!", "I am jealous, and overwhelm’d with friendliness,", "And will go gallivant with the light and air myself,", "And have an unseen something to be in contact with them also.", "", "O love and summer! you are in the dreams, and in me!", "Autumn and winter are in the dreams—the farmer goes with his thrift,", "The droves and crops increase, and the barns are well-fill’d.", "", "16", "Elements merge in the night—ships make tacks in the dreams,", "The sailor sails—the exile returns home,", "The fugitive returns unharm’d—the immigrant is back beyond months and years,", "The poor Irishman lives in the simple house of his childhood, with the well-known", " neighbors and", " faces,", "They warmly welcome him—he is barefoot again, he forgets he is well off;", "The Dutchman voyages home, and the Scotchman and Welshman voyage home, and the native of", " the", " Mediterranean voyages home,", "To every port of England, France, Spain, enter well-fill’d ships,", "The Swiss foots it toward his hills—the Prussian goes his way, the Hungarian his way,", " and", " the", " Pole his way,", "The Swede returns, and the Dane and Norwegian return.", "", "17", "The homeward bound, and the outward bound,", "The beautiful lost swimmer, the ennuyé, the onanist, the female that loves", " unrequited,", " the", " money-maker,", "The actor and actress, those through with their parts, and those waiting to commence,", "The affectionate boy, the husband and wife, the voter, the nominee that is chosen, and the", " nominee", " that has fail’d,", "The great already known, and the great any time after to-day,", "The stammerer, the sick, the perfect-form’d, the homely,", "The criminal that stood in the box, the judge that sat and sentenced him, the fluent", " lawyers,", " the", " jury, the audience,", "The laugher and weeper, the dancer, the midnight widow, the red squaw,", "The consumptive, the erysipelite, the idiot, he that is wrong’d,", "The antipodes, and every one between this and them in the dark,", "I swear they are averaged now—one is no better than the other,", "The night and sleep have liken’d them and restored them.", "", "I swear they are all beautiful;", "Every one that sleeps is beautiful—everything in the dim light is beautiful,", "The wildest and bloodiest is over, and all is peace.", "", "18", "Peace is always beautiful,", "The myth of heaven indicates peace and night.", "", "The myth of heaven indicates the Soul;", "The Soul is always beautiful—it appears more or it appears less—it comes, or it", " lags", " behind,", "It comes from its embower’d garden, and looks pleasantly on itself, and encloses the", " world,", "Perfect and clean the genitals previously jetting, and perfect and clean the womb", " cohering,", "The head well-grown, proportion’d and plumb, and the bowels and joints", " proportion’d", " and", " plumb.", "", "19", "The Soul is always beautiful,", "The universe is duly in order, everything is in its place,", "What has arrived is in its place, and what waits is in its place;", "The twisted skull waits, the watery or rotten blood waits,", "The child of the glutton or venerealee waits long, and the child of the drunkard waits", " long,", " and the", " drunkard himself waits long,", "The sleepers that lived and died wait—the far advanced are to go on in their turns,", " and", " the far", " behind are to come on in their turns,", "The diverse shall be no less diverse, but they shall flow and unite—they unite now.", "", "20", "The sleepers are very beautiful as they lie unclothed,", "They flow hand in hand over the whole earth, from east to west, as they lie unclothed,", "The Asiatic and African are hand in hand—the European and American are hand in hand,", "Learn’d and unlearn’d are hand in hand, and male and female are hand in hand,", "The bare arm of the girl crosses the bare breast of her lover—they press close", " without", " lust—his lips press her neck,", "The father holds his grown or ungrown son in his arms with measureless love, and the son", " holds", " the", " father in his arms with measureless love,", "The white hair of the mother shines on the white wrist of the daughter,", "The breath of the boy goes with the breath of the man, friend is inarm’d by friend,", "The scholar kisses the teacher, and the teacher kisses the scholar—the wrong’d", " is", " made", " right,", "The call of the slave is one with the master’s call, and the master salutes the", " slave,", "The felon steps forth from the prison—the insane becomes sane—the suffering of", " sick", " persons is reliev’d,", "The sweatings and fevers stop—the throat that was unsound is sound—the lungs of", " the", " consumptive are resumed—the poor distress’d head is free,", "The joints of the rheumatic move as smoothly as ever, and smoother than ever,", "Stiflings and passages open—the paralyzed become supple,", "The swell’d and convuls’d and congested awake to themselves in condition,", "They pass the invigoration of the night, and the chemistry of the night, and awake.", "", "21", "I too pass from the night,", "I stay a while away, O night, but I return to you again, and love you.", "", "Why should I be afraid to trust myself to you?", "I am not afraid—I have been well brought forward by you;", "I love the rich running day, but I do not desert her in whom I lay so long,", "I know not how I came of you, and I know not where I go with you—but I know I came", " well,", " and", " shall go well.", "", "I will stop only a time with the night, and rise betimes;", "I will duly pass the day, O my mother, and duly return to you." ], "linecount": "298" }, { "title": "This Moment, Yearning and Thoughtful.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "THIS moment yearning and thoughtful, sitting alone,", "It seems to me there are other men in other lands, yearning and thoughtful;", "It seems to me I can look over and behold them, in Germany, Italy, France, Spain—or far,", " far", " away,", " in China, or in Russia or India—talking other dialects;", "And it seems to me if I could know those men, I should become attached to them, as I do to", " men", " in my", " own lands;", "O I know we should be brethren and lovers,", "I know I should be happy with them." ], "linecount": "12" }, { "title": "Walt Whitman.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "1", "I CELEBRATE myself;", "And what I assume you shall assume;", "For every atom belonging to me, as good belongs to you.", "", "I loafe and invite my Soul;", "I lean and loafe at my ease, observing a spear of summer grass.", "", "Houses and rooms are full of perfumes—the shelves are crowded with", " perfumes;", "I breathe the fragrance myself, and know it and like it;", "The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it.", "", "The atmosphere is not a perfume—it has no taste of the distillation—it", " is odorless;", "It is for my mouth forever—I am in love with it;", "I will go to the bank by the wood, and become undisguised and naked;", "I am mad for it to be in contact with me.", "", "2", "The smoke of my own breath;", "Echoes, ripples, buzz’d whispers, love-root, silk-thread, crotch and vine;", "My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart, the passing of blood", " and air through my lungs;", "The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the shore, and", " dark-color’d sea-rocks, and of hay in the barn;", "The sound of the belch’d words of my voice, words loos’d to the eddies", " of the wind;", "A few light kisses, a few embraces, a reaching around of arms;", "The play of shine and shade on the trees as the supple boughs wag;", "The delight alone, or in the rush of the streets, or along the fields and", " hill-sides;", "The feeling of health, the full-noon trill, the song of me rising from bed and", " meeting the sun.", "", "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?", "", "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.", "", "3", "I have heard what the talkers were talking, the talk of the beginning and the", " end;", "But I do not talk of the beginning or the end.", "", "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.", "", "Urge, and urge, and urge;", "Always the procreant urge of the world.", "", "Out of the dimness opposite equals advance—always substance and increase,", " always sex;", "Always a knit of identity—always distinction—always a breed of life.", "", "To elaborate is no avail—learn’d and unlearn’d feel that it is", " so.", "", "Sure as the most certain sure, plumb in the uprights, well entretied, braced in", " the beams,", "Stout as a horse, affectionate, haughty, electrical,", "I and this mystery, here we stand.", "", "Clear and sweet is my Soul, and clear and sweet is all that is not my Soul.", "", "Lack one lacks both, and the unseen is proved by the seen,", "Till that becomes unseen, and receives proof in its turn.", "", "Showing the best, and dividing it from the worst, age vexes age;", "Knowing the perfect fitness and equanimity of things, while they discuss I am", " silent, and go bathe and admire myself.", "", "Welcome is every organ and attribute of me, and of any man hearty and clean;", "Not an inch, nor a particle of an inch, is vile, and none shall be less familiar", " than the rest.", "", "I am satisfied—I see, dance, laugh, sing:", "As the hugging and loving Bed-fellow sleeps at my side through the night, and", " withdraws at the peep of the day, with stealthy tread,", "Leaving me baskets cover’d with white towels, swelling the house with their", " plenty,", "Shall I postpone my acceptation and realization, and scream at my eyes,", "That they turn from gazing after and down the road,", "And forthwith cipher and show me a cent,", "Exactly the contents of one, and exactly the contents of two, and which is", " ahead?", "", "4", "Trippers and askers surround me;", "People I meet—the effect upon me of my early life, or the ward and city I", " live in, or the nation,", "The latest dates, discoveries, inventions, societies, authors old and new,", "My dinner, dress, associates, looks, compliments, dues,", "The real or fancied indifference of some man or woman I love,", "The sickness of one of my folks, or of myself, or ill-doing, or loss or lack of", " money, or depressions or exaltations;", "Battles, the horrors of fratricidal war, the fever of doubtful news, the fitful", " events;", "These come to me days and nights, and go from me again,", "But they are not the Me myself.", "", "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.", "", "Backward I see in my own days where I sweated through fog with linguists and", " contenders;", "I have no mockings or arguments—I witness and wait.", "", "5", "I believe in you, my Soul—the other I am must not abase itself to you;", "And you must not be abased to the other.", "", "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 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.", "", "", "Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and knowledge that pass all the", " argument of the earth;", "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;", "And limitless are leaves, stiff or drooping in the fields;", "And brown ants in the little wells beneath them;", "And mossy scabs of the worm fence, and heap’d stones, elder, mullen and", " poke-weed.", "", "6", "A child said, What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;", "How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is, any more than he.", "", "I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.", "", "", "Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,", "A scented gift and remembrancer, designedly dropt,", "Bearing the owner’s name someway in the corners, that we may see and", " remark, and say, Whose?", "", "Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the vegetation.", "", "Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic;", "And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones,", "Growing among black folks as among white;", "Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I receive them the", " same.", "", "And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.", "", "Tenderly will I use you, curling grass;", "It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men;", "It may be if I had known them I would have loved them;", "It may be you are from old people, and from women, and from offspring taken soon", " out of their mothers’ laps;", "And here you are the mothers’ laps.", "", "This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers;", "Darker than the colorless beards of old men;", "Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths.", "", "O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues!", "And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for nothing.", "", "I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and women,", "And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring taken soon out of", " their laps.", "", "What do you think has become of the young and old men?", "And what do you think has become of the women and children?", "", "They are alive and well somewhere;", "The smallest sprout shows there is really no death;", "And if ever there was, it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to", " arrest it,", "And ceas’d the moment life appear’d.", "", "All goes onward and outward—nothing collapses;", "And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.", "", "7", "Has any one supposed it lucky to be born?", "I hasten to inform him or her, it is just as lucky to die, and I know it.", "", "I pass death with the dying, and birth with the new-wash’d babe, and am not", " contain’d between my hat and boots;", "And peruse manifold objects, no two alike, and every one good;", "The earth good, and the stars good, and their adjuncts all good.", "", "I am not an earth, nor an adjunct of an earth;", "I am the mate and companion of people, all just as immortal and fathomless as", " myself;", "(They do not know how immortal, but I know.)", "", "Every kind for itself and its own—for me mine, male and female;", "For me those that have been boys, and that love women;", "For me the man that is proud, and feels how it stings to be slighted;", "For me the sweet-heart and the old maid—for me mothers, and the mothers of", " mothers;", "For me lips that have smiled, eyes that have shed tears;", "For me children, and the begetters of children.", "", "Undrape! you are not guilty to me, nor stale, nor discarded;", "I see through the broadcloth and gingham, whether or no;", "And am around, tenacious, acquisitive, tireless, and cannot be shaken away.", "", "8", "The little one sleeps in its cradle;", "I lift the gauze, and look a long time, and silently brush away flies with my", " hand.", "", "The youngster and the red-faced girl turn aside up the bushy hill;", "I peeringly view them from the top.", "", "The suicide sprawls on the bloody floor of the bed-room;", "I witness the corpse with its dabbled hair—I note where the pistol has", " fallen.", "", "The blab of the pave, the tires of carts, sluff of boot-soles, talk of the", " promenaders;", "The heavy omnibus, the driver with his interrogating thumb, the clank of the", " shod horses on the granite floor;", "The snow-sleighs, the clinking, shouted jokes, pelts of snowballs;", "The hurrahs for popular favorites, the fury of rous’d mobs;", "The flap of the curtain’d litter, a sick man inside, borne to the hospital;", "The meeting of enemies, the sudden oath, the blows and fall;", "The excited crowd, the policeman with his star, quickly working his passage to", " the centre of the crowd;", "The impassive stones that receive and return so many echoes;", "What groans of over-fed or half-starv’d who fall sun-struck, or in fits;", "What exclamations of women taken suddenly, who hurry home and give birth to", " babes;", "What living and buried speech is always vibrating here—what howls", " restrain’d by decorum;", "Arrests of criminals, slights, adulterous offers made, acceptances, rejections", " with convex lips;", "I mind them or the show or resonance of them—I come, and I depart.", "", "9", "The big doors of the country barn stand open and ready;", "The dried grass of the harvest-time loads the slow-drawn wagon;", "The clear light plays on the brown gray and green intertinged;", "The armfuls are pack’d to the sagging mow.", "", "I am there—I help—I came stretch’d atop of the load;", "I felt its soft jolts—one leg reclined on the other;", "I jump from the cross-beams, and seize the clover and timothy,", "And roll head over heels, and tangle my hair full of wisps.", "", "10", "Alone, far in the wilds and mountains, I hunt,", "Wandering, amazed at my own lightness and glee;", "In the late afternoon choosing a safe spot to pass the night,", "Kindling a fire and broiling the fresh-kill’d game;", "Falling asleep on the gather’d leaves, with my dog and gun by my side.", "", "The Yankee clipper is under her sky-sails—she cuts the sparkle and scud;", "My eyes settle the land—I bend at her prow, or shout joyously from the", " deck.", "", "The boatmen and clam-diggers arose early and stopt for me;", "I tuck’d my trowser-ends in my boots, and went and had a good time:", "(You should have been with us that day round the chowder-kettle.)", "", "I saw the marriage of the trapper in the open air in the far west—the bride", " was a red girl;", "Her father and his friends sat near, cross-legged and dumbly smoking—they", " had moccasins to their feet, and large thick blankets hanging from their", " shoulders;", "On a bank lounged the trapper—he was drest mostly in skins—his", " luxuriant beard and curls protected his neck—he held his bride by the hand;", "", "She had long eyelashes—her head was bare—her coarse straight locks", " descended upon her voluptuous limbs and reach’d to her feet.", "", "The runaway slave came to my house and stopt outside;", "I heard his motions crackling the twigs of the woodpile;", "Through the swung half-door of the kitchen I saw him limpsy and weak,", "And went where he sat on a log, and led him in and assured him,", "And brought water, and fill’d a tub for his sweated body and bruis’d", " feet,", "And gave him a room that enter’d from my own, and gave him some coarse", " clean clothes,", "And remember perfectly well his revolving eyes and his awkwardness,", "And remember putting plasters on the galls of his neck and ankles;", "He staid with me a week before he was recuperated and pass’d north;", "(I had him sit next me at table—my fire-lock lean’d in the corner.)", "", "11", "Twenty-eight young men bathe by the shore;", "Twenty-eight young men, and all so friendly:", "Twenty-eight years of womanly life, and all so lonesome.", "", "She owns the fine house by the rise of the bank;", "She hides, handsome and richly drest, aft the blinds of the window.", "", "Which of the young men does she like the best?", "Ah, the homeliest of them is beautiful to her.", "", "Where are you off to, lady? for I see you;", "You splash in the water there, yet stay stock still in your room.", "", "Dancing and laughing along the beach came the twenty-ninth bather;", "The rest did not see her, but she saw them and loved them.", "", "The beards of the young men glisten’d with wet, it ran from their long", " hair:", "Little streams pass’d all over their bodies.", "", "An unseen hand also pass’d over their bodies;", "It descended tremblingly from their temples and ribs.", "", "The young men float on their backs—their white bellies bulge to the", " sun—they do not ask who seizes fast to them;", "They do not know who puffs and declines with pendant and bending arch;", "They do not think whom they souse with spray.", "", "12", "The butcher-boy puts off his killing clothes, or sharpens his knife at the stall", " in the market;", "I loiter, enjoying his repartee, and his shuffle and break-down.", "", "Blacksmiths with grimed and hairy chests environ the anvil;", "Each has his main-sledge—they are all out—(there is a great heat in", " the fire.)", "", "From the cinder-strew’d threshold I follow their movements;", "The lithe sheer of their waists plays even with their massive arms;", "Over-hand the hammers swing—over-hand so slow—over-hand so sure:", "They do not hasten—each man hits in his place.", "", "13", "The negro holds firmly the reins of his four horses—the block swags", " underneath on its tied-over chain;", "The negro that drives the dray of the stone-yard—steady and tall he stands,", " pois’d on one leg on the string-piece;", "His blue shirt exposes his ample neck and breast, and loosens over his hip-band;", "", "His glance is calm and commanding—he tosses the slouch of his hat away from", " his forehead;", "The sun falls on his crispy hair and moustache—falls on the black of his", " polish’d and perfect limbs.", "", "I behold the picturesque giant, and love him—and I do not stop there;", "I go with the team also.", "", "In me the caresser of life wherever moving—backward as well as forward", " slueing;", "To niches aside and junior bending.", "", "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.", "", "My tread scares the wood-drake and wood-duck, on my distant and day-long ramble;", "", "They rise together—they slowly circle around.", "", "I believe in those wing’d purposes,", "And acknowledge red, yellow, white, playing within me,", "And consider green and violet, and the tufted crown, intentional;", "And do not call the tortoise unworthy because she is not something else;", "And the jay in the woods never studied the gamut, yet trills pretty well to me;", "And the look of the bay mare shames silliness out of me.", "", "14", "The wild gander leads his flock through the cool night;", "Ya-honk! he says, and sounds it down to me like an invitation;", "(The pert may suppose it meaningless, but I listen close;", "I find its purpose and place up there toward the wintry sky.)", "", "The sharp-hoof’d moose of the north, the cat on the house-sill, the", " chickadee, the prairie-dog,", "The litter of the grunting sow as they tug at her teats,", "The brood of the turkey-hen, and she with her half-spread wings;", "I see in them and myself the same old law.", "", "The press of my foot to the earth springs a hundred affections;", "They scorn the best I can do to relate them.", "", "I am enamour’d of growing out-doors,", "Of men that live among cattle, or taste of the ocean or woods,", "Of the builders and steerers of ships, and the wielders of axes and mauls, and", " the drivers of horses;", "I can eat and sleep with them week in and week out.", "", "What is commonest, cheapest, nearest, easiest, is Me;", "Me going in for my chances, spending for vast returns;", "Adorning myself to bestow myself on the first that will take me;", "Not asking the sky to come down to my good will;", "Scattering it freely forever.", "", "15", "The pure contralto sings in the organ loft;", "The carpenter dresses his plank—the tongue of his foreplane whistles its", " wild ascending lisp;", "The married and unmarried children ride home to their Thanksgiving dinner;", "The pilot seizes the king-pin—he heaves down with a strong arm;", "The mate stands braced in the whale-boat—lance and harpoon are ready;", "The duck-shooter walks by silent and cautious stretches;", "The deacons are ordain’d with cross’d hands at the altar;", "The spinning-girl retreats and advances to the hum of the big wheel;", "The farmer stops by the bars, as he walks on a First-day loafe, and looks at the", " oats and rye;", "The lunatic is carried at last to the asylum, a confirm’d case,", "(He will never sleep any more as he did in the cot in his mother’s", " bed-room;)", "The jour printer with gray head and gaunt jaws works at his case,", "He turns his quid of tobacco, while his eyes blurr with the manuscript;", "The malform’d limbs are tied to the surgeon’s table,", "What is removed drops horribly in a pail;", "The quadroon girl is sold at the auction-stand—the drunkard nods by the", " bar-room stove;", "The machinist rolls up his sleeves—the policeman travels his beat—the", " gate-keeper marks who pass;", "The young fellow drives the express-wagon—(I love him, though I do not know", " him;)", "The half-breed straps on his light boots to complete in the race;", "The western turkey-shooting draws old and young—some lean on their rifles,", " some sit on logs,", "Out from the crowd steps the marksman, takes his position, levels his piece;", "The groups of newly-come immigrants cover the wharf or levee;", "As the woolly-pates hoe in the sugar-field, the overseer views them from his", " saddle;", "The bugle calls in the ball-room, the gentlemen run for their partners, the", " dancers bow to each other;", "The youth lies awake in the cedar-roof’d garret, and harks to the musical", " rain;", "The Wolverine sets traps on the creek that helps fill the Huron;", "The squaw, wrapt in her yellow-hemm’d cloth, is offering moccasins and", " bead-bags for sale;", "The connoisseur peers along the exhibition-gallery with half-shut eyes bent", " sideways;", "As the deck-hands make fast the steamboat, the plank is thrown for the", " shore-going passengers;", "The young sister holds out the skein, while the elder sister winds it off in a", " ball, and stops now and then for the knots;", "The one-year wife is recovering and happy, having a week ago borne her first", " child;", "The clean-hair’d Yankee girl works with her sewing-machine, or in the", " factory or mill;", "The nine months’ gone is in the parturition chamber, her faintness and", " pains are advancing;", "The paving-man leans on his two-handed rammer—the reporter’s lead", " flies swiftly over the note-book—the sign-painter is lettering with red and", " gold;", "The canal boy trots on the tow-path—the book-keeper counts at his", " desk—the shoemaker waxes his thread;", "The conductor beats time for the band, and all the performers follow him;", "The child is baptized—the convert is making his first professions;", "The regatta is spread on the bay—the race is begun—how the white sails", " sparkle!", "The drover, watching his drove, sings out to them that would stray;", "The pedler sweats with his pack on his back, (the purchaser higgling about the", " odd cent;)", "The camera and plate are prepared, the lady must sit for her daguerreotype;", "The bride unrumples her white dress, the minute-hand of the clock moves slowly;", "The opium-eater reclines with rigid head and just-open’d lips;", "The prostitute draggles her shawl, her bonnet bobs on her tipsy and pimpled", " neck;", "The crowd laugh at her blackguard oaths, the men jeer and wink to each other;", "(Miserable! I do not laugh at your oaths, nor jeer you;)", "The President, holding a cabinet council, is surrounded by the Great", " Secretaries;", "On the piazza walk three matrons stately and friendly with twined arms;", "The crew of the fish-smack pack repeated layers of halibut in the hold;", "The Missourian crosses the plains, toting his wares and his cattle;", "As the fare-collector goes through the train, he gives notice by the jingling of", " loose change;", "The floor-men are laying the floor—the tinners are tinning the", " roof—the masons are calling for mortar;", "In single file, each shouldering his hod, pass onward the laborers;", "Seasons pursuing each other, the indescribable crowd is gather’d—it is", " the Fourth of Seventh-month—(What salutes of cannon and small arms!)", "Seasons pursuing each other, the plougher ploughs, the mower mows, and the", " winter-grain falls in the ground;", "Off on the lakes the pike-fisher watches and waits by the hole in the frozen", " surface;", "The stumps stand thick round the clearing, the squatter strikes deep with his", " axe;", "Flatboatmen make fast, towards dusk, near the cottonwood or pekan-trees;", "Coon-seekers go through the regions of the Red river, or through those", " drain’d by the Tennessee, or through those of the Arkansaw;", "Torches shine in the dark that hangs on the Chattahoochee or Altamahaw;", "Patriarchs sit at supper with sons and grandsons and great-grandsons around", " them;", "In walls of adobie, in canvas tents, rest hunters and trappers after their", " day’s sport;", "The city sleeps, and the country sleeps;", "The living sleep for their time, the dead sleep for their time;", "The old husband sleeps by his wife, and the young husband sleeps by his wife;", "And these one and all tend inward to me, and I tend outward to them;", "And such as it is to be of these, more or less, I am.", "", "16", "I am of old and young, of the foolish as much as the wise;", "Regardless of others, ever regardful of others,", "Maternal as well as paternal, a child as well as a man,", "Stuff’d with the stuff that is coarse, and stuff’d with the stuff that", " is fine;", "One of the Great Nation, the nation of many nations, the smallest the same, and", " the largest the same;", "A southerner soon as a northerner—a planter nonchalant and hospitable, down", " by the Oconee I live;", "A Yankee, bound by my own way, ready for trade, my joints the limberest joints", " on earth, and the sternest joints on earth;", "A Kentuckian, walking the vale of the Elkhorn, in my deer-skin leggings—a", " Louisianian or Georgian;", "A boatman over lakes or bays, or along coasts—a Hoosier, Badger, Buckeye;", "At home on Kanadian snow-shoes, or up in the bush, or with fishermen off", " Newfoundland;", "At home in the fleet of ice-boats, sailing with the rest and tacking;", "At home on the hills of Vermont, or in the woods of Maine, or the Texan ranch;", "Comrade of Californians—comrade of free north-westerners, (loving their big", " proportions;)", "Comrade of raftsmen and coalmen—comrade of all who shake hands and welcome", " to drink and meat;", "A learner with the simplest, a teacher of the thoughtfullest;", "A novice beginning, yet experient of myriads of seasons;", "Of every hue and caste am I, of every rank and religion;", "A farmer, mechanic, artist, gentleman, sailor, quaker;", "A prisoner, fancy-man, rowdy, lawyer, physician, priest.", "", "I resist anything better than my own diversity;", "I breathe the air, but leave plenty after me,", "And am not stuck up, and am in my place.", "", "(The moth and the fish-eggs are in their place;", "The suns I see, and the suns I cannot see, are in their place;", "The palpable is in its place, and the impalpable is in its place.)", "", "17", "These are the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands—they are not", " original with me;", "If they are not yours as much as mine, they are nothing, or next to nothing;", "If they are not the riddle, and the untying of the riddle, they are nothing;", "If they are not just as close as they are distant, they are nothing.", "", "This is the grass that grows wherever the land is, and the water is;", "This is the common air that bathes the globe.", "", "18", "With music strong I come—with my cornets and my drums,", "I play not marches for accepted victors only—I play great 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 beat and pound for the dead;", "I blow through my embouchures my loudest and gayest for them.", "", "Vivas to those who have fail’d!", "And to those whose war-vessels sank in the sea!", "And to those themselves who sank in the sea!", "And to all generals that lost engagements! and all overcome heroes!", "And the numberless unknown heroes, equal to the greatest heroes known.", "", "19", "This is the meal equally set—this is the meat for natural hunger;", "It is for the wicked just the same as the righteous—I make appointments", " with all;", "I will not have a single person slighted or left away;", "The kept-woman, sponger, thief, are hereby invited;", "The heavy-lipp’d slave is invited—the venerealee is invited:", "There shall be no difference between them and the rest.", "", "This is the press of a bashful hand—this is the float and odor of hair;", "This is the touch of my lips to yours—this is the murmur of yearning;", "This is the far-off depth and height reflecting my own face;", "This is the thoughtful merge of myself, and the outlet again.", "", "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.", "", "Do you take it I would astonish?", "Does the daylight astonish? Does the early redstart, twittering through the", " woods?", "Do I astonish more than they?", "", "This hour I tell things in confidence;", "I might not tell everybody, but I will tell you.", "", "20", "Who goes there? hankering, gross, mystical, nude;", "How is it I extract strength from the beef I eat?", "", "What is a man, anyhow? What am I? What are you?", "", "All I mark as my own, you shall offset it with your own;", "Else it were time lost listening to me.", "", "I do not snivel that snivel the world over,", "That months are vacuums, and the ground but wallow and filth;", "That life is a suck and a sell, and nothing remains at the end but threadbare", " crape, and tears.", "", "Whimpering and truckling fold with powders for invalids—conformity goes to", " the fourth-remov’d;", "I wear my hat as I please, indoors or out.", "", "Why should I pray? Why should I venerate and be ceremonious?", "", "Having pried through the strata, analyzed to a hair, counsell’d with", " doctors, and calculated close,", "I find no sweeter fat than sticks to my own bones.", "", "In all people I see myself—none more, and not one a barleycorn less;", "And the good or bad I say of myself, I say of them.", "", "And I know I am solid and sound;", "To me the converging objects of the universe perpetually flow;", "All are written to me, and I must get what the writing means.", "", "I know I am deathless;", "I know this orbit of mine cannot be swept by the carpenter’s compass;", "I know I shall not pass like a child’s carlacue cut with a burnt stick at", " night.", "", "I know I am august;", "I do not trouble my spirit to vindicate itself or be understood;", "I see that the elementary laws never apologize;", "(I reckon I behave no prouder than the level I plant my house by, after all.)", "", "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 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.", "", "My foothold is tenon’d and mortis’d in granite;", "I laugh at what you call dissolution;", "And I know the amplitude of time.", "", "21", "I am the poet of the Body;", "And I am the poet of the Soul.", "", "The pleasures of heaven are with me, and the pains of hell are with me;", "The first I graft and increase upon myself—the latter I translate into a", " new tongue.", "", "I am the poet of the woman the same as the man;", "And I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man;", "And I say there is nothing greater than the mother of men.", "", "I chant the chant of dilation or pride;", "We have had ducking and deprecating about enough;", "I show that size is only development.", "", "Have you outstript the rest? Are you the President?", "It is a trifle—they will more than arrive there, every one, and still pass", " on.", "", "I am he that walks with the tender and growing night;", "I call to the earth and sea, half-held by the night.", "", "Press close, bare-bosom’d night! Press close, magnetic, nourishing night!", "Night of south winds! night of the large few stars!", "Still, nodding night! mad, naked, summer night.", "", "Smile, O voluptuous, cool-breath’d earth!", "Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees;", "Earth of departed sunset! earth of the mountains, misty-topt!", "Earth of the vitreous pour of the full moon, just tinged with blue!", "Earth of shine and dark, mottling the tide of the river!", "Earth of the limpid gray of clouds, brighter and clearer for my sake!", "Far-swooping elbow’d earth! rich, apple-blossom’d earth!", "Smile, for your lover comes!", "", "Prodigal, you have given me love! Therefore I to you give love!", "O unspeakable, passionate love!", "", "22", "You sea! I resign myself to you also—I guess what you mean;", "I behold from the beach your crooked inviting fingers;", "I believe you refuse to go back without feeling of me;", "We must have a turn together—I undress—hurry me out of sight of the", " land;", "Cushion me soft, rock me in billowy drowse;", "Dash me with amorous wet—I can repay you.", "", "Sea of stretch’d ground-swells!", "Sea breathing broad and convulsive breaths!", "Sea of the brine of life! sea of unshovell’d yet always-ready graves!", "Howler and scooper of storms! capricious and dainty sea!", "I am integral with you—I too am of one phase, and of all phases.", "", "Partaker of influx and efflux I—extoller of hate and conciliation;", "Extoller of amies, and those that sleep in each others’ arms.", "", "I am he attesting sympathy;", "(Shall I make my list of things in the house, and skip the house that supports", " them?)", "", "I am not the poet of goodness only—I do not decline to be the poet of", " wickedness also.", "", "Washes and razors for foofoos—for me freckles and a bristling beard.", "", "What blurt is this about virtue and about vice?", "Evil propels me, and reform of evil propels me—I stand indifferent;", "My gait is no fault-finder’s or rejecter’s gait;", "I moisten the roots of all that has grown.", "", "Did you fear some scrofula out of the unflagging pregnancy?", "Did you guess the celestial laws are yet to be work’d over and rectified?", "", "I find one side a balance, and the antipodal side a balance;", "Soft doctrine as steady help as stable doctrine;", "Thoughts and deeds of the present, our rouse and early start.", "", "This minute that comes to me over the past decillions,", "There is no better than it and now.", "", "What behaved well in the past, or behaves well to-day, is not such a wonder;", "The wonder is, always and always, how there can be a mean man or an infidel.", "", "23", "Endless unfolding of words of ages!", "And mine a word of the modern—the word En-Masse.", "", "A word of the faith that never balks;", "Here or henceforward, it is all the same to me—I accept Time, absolutely.", "", "It alone is without flaw—it rounds and completes all;", "That mystic, baffling wonder I love, alone completes all.", "", "I accept reality, and dare not question it;", "Materialism first and last imbuing.", "", "Hurrah for positive science! long live exact demonstration!", "Fetch stonecrop, mixt with cedar and branches of lilac;", "This is the lexicographer—this the chemist—this made a grammar of the", " old cartouches;", "These mariners put the ship through dangerous unknown seas;", "This is the geologist—this works with the scalpel—and this is a", " mathematician.", "", "Gentlemen! to you the first honors always:", "Your facts are useful and real—and yet they are not my dwelling;", "(I but enter by them to an area of my dwelling.)", "", "Less the reminders of properties told, my words;", "And more the reminders, they, of life untold, and of freedom and extrication,", "And make short account of neuters and geldings, and favor men and women fully", " equipt,", "And beat the gong of revolt, and stop with fugitives, and them that plot and", " conspire.", "", "24", "Walt Whitman am I, a Kosmos, of mighty Manhattan the son,", "Turbulent, fleshy and sensual, eating, drinking and breeding;", "No sentimentalist—no stander above men and women, or apart from them;", "No more modest than immodest.", "", "Unscrew the locks from the doors!", "Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs!", "", "Whoever degrades another degrades me;", "And whatever is done or said returns at last to me.", "", "Through me the afflatus surging and surging—through me the current and", " index.", "", "I speak the pass-word primeval—I give the sign of democracy;", "By God! I will accept nothing which all cannot have their counterpart of on the", " same terms.", "", "Through me many long dumb voices;", "Voices of the interminable generations of slaves;", "Voices of prostitutes, and of deform’d persons;", "Voices of the diseas’d and despairing, and of thieves and dwarfs;", "Voices of cycles of preparation and accretion,", "And of the threads that connect the stars—and of wombs, and of the", " father-stuff,", "And of the rights of them the others are down upon;", "Of the trivial, flat, foolish, despised,", "Fog in the air, beetles rolling balls of dung.", "", "Through me forbidden voices;", "Voice of sexes and lusts—voices veil’d, and I remove the veil;", "Voices indecent, by me clarified and transfigur’d.", "", "I do not press my fingers across my mouth;", "I keep as delicate around the bowels as around the head and heart;", "Copulation is no more rank to me than death is.", "", "I believe in the flesh and the appetites;", "Seeing, hearing, feeling, are miracles, and each part and tag of me is a", " miracle.", "", "Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or am touch’d", " from;", "The scent of these arm-pits, aroma finer than prayer;", "This head more than churches, bibles, and all the creeds.", "", "If I worship one thing more than another, it shall be the spread of my own body,", " or any part of it.", "", "Translucent mould of me, it shall be you!", "Shaded ledges and rests, it shall be you!", "Firm masculine colter, it shall be you.", "", "Whatever goes to the tilth of me, it shall be you!", "You my rich blood! Your milky stream, pale strippings of my life.", "", "Breast that presses against other breasts, it shall be you!", "My brain, it shall be your occult convolutions.", "", "Root of wash’d sweet flag! timorous pond-snipe! nest of guarded duplicate", " eggs! it shall be you!", "Mix’d tussled hay of head, beard, brawn, it shall be you!", "Trickling sap of maple! fibre of manly wheat! it shall be you!", "", "Sun so generous, it shall be you!", "Vapors lighting and shading my face, it shall be you!", "You sweaty brooks and dews, it shall be you!", "Winds whose soft-tickling genitals rub against me, it shall be you!", "Broad, muscular fields! branches of live oak! loving lounger in my winding", " paths! it shall be you!", "Hands I have taken—face I have kiss’d—mortal I have ever", " touch’d! it shall be you.", "", "I dote on myself—there is that lot of me, and all so luscious;", "Each moment, and whatever happens, thrills me with joy.", "", "O I am wonderful!", "I cannot tell how my ankles bend, nor whence the cause of my faintest wish;", "Nor the cause of the friendship I emit, nor the cause of the friendship I take", " again.", "", "That I walk up my stoop! I pause to consider if it really be;", "A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books.", "", "To behold the day-break!", "The little light fades the immense and diaphanous shadows;", "The air tastes good to my palate.", "", "Hefts of the moving world, at innocent gambols, silently rising, freshly", " exuding,", "Scooting obliquely high and low.", "", "Something I cannot see puts upward libidinous prongs;", "Seas of bright juice suffuse heaven.", "", "The earth by the sky staid with—the daily close of their junction;", "The heav’d challenge from the east that moment over my head;", "The mocking taunt, See then whether you shall be master!", "", "25", "Dazzling and tremendous, how quick the sun-rise would kill me,", "If I could not now and always send sun-rise out of me.", "", "We also ascend, dazzling and tremendous as the sun;", "We found our own, O my Soul, in the calm and cool of the daybreak.", "", "My voice goes after what my eyes cannot reach;", "With the twirl of my tongue I encompass worlds, and volumes of worlds.", "", "Speech is the twin of my vision—it is unequal to measure itself;", "It provokes me forever;", "It says sarcastically, Walt, you contain enough—why don’t you let", " it out, then?", "", "Come now, I will not be tantalized—you conceive too much of articulation.", "", "Do you not know, O speech, how the buds beneath you are folded?", "Waiting in gloom, protected by frost;", "The dirt receding before my prophetical screams;", "I underlying causes, to balance them at last;", "My knowledge my live parts—it keeping tally with the meaning of things,", "HAPPINESS—which, whoever hears me, let him or her set out in search of this", " day.", "", "My final merit I refuse you—I refuse putting from me what I really am;", "Encompass worlds, but never try to encompass me;", "I crowd your sleekest and best by simply looking toward you.", "", "Writing and talk do not prove me;", "I carry the plenum of proof, and everything else, in my face;", "With the hush of my lips I wholly confound the skeptic.", "", "26", "I think I will do nothing now but listen,", "To accrue what I hear into myself—to let sounds contribute toward me.", "", "I hear bravuras of birds, bustle of growing wheat, gossip of flames, clack of", " sticks cooking my meals;", "I hear the sound I love, the sound of the human voice;", "I hear all sounds running together, combined, fused or following;", "", "Sounds of the city, and sounds out of the city—sounds of the day and night;", "", "Talkative young ones to those that like them—the loud laugh of work-people", " at their meals;", "The angry base of disjointed friendship—the faint tones of the sick;", "The judge with hands tight to the desk, his pallid lips pronouncing a", " death-sentence;", "The heave’e’yo of stevedores unlading ships by the wharves—the", " refrain of the anchor-lifters;", "The ring of alarm-bells—the cry of fire—the whirr of swift-streaking", " engines and hose-carts, with premonitory tinkles, and color’d lights;", "The steam-whistle—the solid roll of the train of approaching cars;", "The slow-march play’d at the head of the association, marching two and two,", "", "(They go to guard some corpse—the flag-tops are draped with black muslin.)", "", "I hear the violoncello (’tis the young man’s heart’s complaint;)", "I hear the key’d cornet—it glides quickly in through my ears;", "It shakes mad-sweet pangs through my belly and breast.", "", "I hear the chorus—it is a grand opera;", "Ah, this indeed is music! This suits me.", "", "A tenor large and fresh as the creation fills me;", "The orbic flex of his mouth is pouring and filling me full.", "", "I hear the train’d soprano—(what work, with hers, is this?)", "The orchestra whirls me wider than Uranus flies;", "It wrenches such ardors from me, I did not know I possess’d them;", "It sails me—I dab with bare feet—they are lick’d by the indolent", " waves;", "I am exposed, cut by bitter and angry hail—I lose my breath,", "Steep’d amid honey’d morphine, my windpipe throttled in fakes of", " death;", "At length let up again to feel the puzzle of puzzles,", "And that we call BEING.", "", "27", "To be, in any form—what is that?", "(Round and round we go, all of us, and ever come back thither;)", "If nothing lay more develop’d, the quahaug in its callous shell were", " enough.", "", "Mine is no callous shell;", "I have instant conductors all over me, whether I pass or stop;", "They seize every object and lead it harmlessly through me.", "", "I merely stir, press, feel with my fingers, and am happy;", "To touch my person to some one else’s is about as much as I can stand.", "", "28", "Is this then a touch? quivering me to a new identity,", "Flames and ether making a rush for my veins,", "Treacherous tip of me reaching and crowding to help them,", "My flesh and blood playing out lightning to strike what is hardly different from", " myself;", "On all sides prurient provokers stiffening my limbs,", "Straining the udder of my heart for its withheld drip,", "Behaving licentious toward me, taking no denial,", "Depriving me of my best, as for a purpose,", "Unbuttoning my clothes, holding me by the bare waist,", "Deluding my confusion with the calm of the sunlight and pasture-fields,", "Immodestly sliding the fellow-senses away,", "They bribed to swap off with touch, and go and graze at the edges of me;", "No consideration, no regard for my draining strength or my anger;", "Fetching the rest of the herd around to enjoy them a while,", "Then all uniting to stand on a headland and worry me.", "", "The sentries desert every other part of me;", "They have left me helpless to a red marauder;", "They all come to the headland, to witness and assist against me.", "", "I am given up by traitors;", "I talk wildly—I have lost my wits—I and nobody else am the greatest", " traitor;", "I went myself first to the headland—my own hands carried me there.", "", "You villian touch! what are you doing? My breath is tight in its throat;", "Unclench your floodgates! you are too much for me.", "", "29", "Blind, loving, wrestling touch! sheath’d, hooded, sharp-tooth’d touch!", "", "Did it make you ache so, leaving me?", "", "Parting, track’d by arriving—perpetual payment of perpetual loan;", "Rich, showering rain, and recompense richer afterward.", "", "Sprouts take and accumulate—stand by the curb prolific and vital:", "Landscapes, projected, masculine, full-sized and golden.", "", "30", "All truths wait in all things;", "They neither hasten their own delivery, nor resist it;", "They do not need the obstetric forceps of the surgeon;", "The insignificant is as big to me as any;", "(What is less or more than a touch?)", "", "Logic and sermons never convince;", "The damp of the night drives deeper into my soul.", "", "Only what proves itself to every man and woman is so;", "Only what nobody denies is so.", "", "A minute and a drop of me settle my brain;", "I believe the soggy clods shall become lovers and lamps,", "And a compend of compends is the meat of a man or woman,", "And a summit and flower there is the feeling they have for each other,", "And they are to branch boundlessly out of that lesson until it becomes omnific,", "And until every one shall delight us, and we them.", "", "31", "I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars,", "And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg of the", " wren,", "And the tree-toad is a chef-d’oeuvre for the highest,", "And the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven,", "And the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery,", "And the cow crunching with depress’d head surpasses any statue,", "And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels,", "And I could come every afternoon of my life to look at the farmer’s girl", " boiling her iron tea-kettle and baking shortcake.", "", "I find I incorporate gneiss, coal, long-threaded moss, fruits, grains, esculent", " roots,", "And am stucco’d with quadrupeds and birds all over,", "And have distanced what is behind me for good reasons,", "And call anything close again, when I desire it.", "", "In vain the speeding or shyness;", "In vain the plutonic rocks send their old heat against my approach;", "In vain the mastodon retreats beneath its own powder’d bones;", "In vain objects stand leagues off, and assume manifold shapes;", "In vain the ocean settling in hollows, and the great monsters lying low;", "In vain the buzzard houses herself with the sky;", "In vain the snake slides through the creepers and logs;", "In vain the elk takes to the inner passes of the woods;", "In vain the razor-bill’d auk sails far north to Labrador;", "I follow quickly, I ascend to the nest in the fissure of the cliff.", "", "32", "I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and", " self-contain’d;", "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 to his kind that lived thousands of years ago;", "Not one is respectable or industrious over the whole earth.", "", "So they show their relations to me, and I accept them;", "They bring me tokens of myself—they evince them plainly in their", " possession.", "", "I wonder where they get those tokens:", "Did I pass that way huge times ago, and negligently drop them?", "Myself moving forward then and now and forever,", "Gathering and showing more always and with velocity,", "Infinite and omnigenous, and the like of these among them;", "Not too exclusive toward the reachers of my remembrancers;", "Picking out here one that I love, and now go with him on brotherly terms.", "", "A gigantic beauty of a stallion, fresh and responsive to my caresses,", "Head high in the forehead, wide between the ears,", "Limbs glossy and supple, tail dusting the ground,", "Eyes full of sparkling wickedness—ears finely cut, flexibly moving.", "", "His nostrils dilate, as my heels embrace him;", "His well-built limbs tremble with pleasure, as we race around and return.", "", "I but use you a moment, then I resign you, stallion;", "Why do I need your paces, when I myself out-gallop them?", "Even, as I stand or sit, passing faster than you.", "", "33", "O swift wind! O space and time! now I see it is true, what I guessed at;", "What I guess’d when I loaf’d on the grass;", "What I guess’d while I lay alone in my bed,", "And again as I walk’d the beach under the paling stars of the morning.", "", "My ties and ballasts leave me—I travel—I sail—my elbows rest in", " the sea-gaps;", "I skirt the sierras—my palms cover continents;", "I am afoot with my vision.", "", "By the city’s quadrangular houses—in log huts—camping with", " lumbermen;", "Along the ruts of the turnpike—along the dry gulch and rivulet bed;", "Weeding my onion-patch, or hoeing rows of carrots and parsnips—crossing", " savannas—trailing in forests;", "Prospecting—gold-digging—girdling the trees of a new purchase;", "Scorch’d ankle-deep by the hot sand—hauling my boat down the shallow", " river;", "Where the panther walks to and fro on a limb overhead—where the buck turns", " furiously at the hunter;", "Where the rattlesnake suns his flabby length on a rock—where the otter is", " feeding on fish;", "Where the alligator in his tough pimples sleeps by the bayou;", "Where the black bear is searching for roots or honey—where the beaver pats", " the mud with his paddle-shaped tail;", "Over the growing sugar—over the yellow-flower’d cotton plant—over", " the rice in its low moist field;", "Over the sharp-peak’d farm house, with its scallop’d scum and slender", " shoots from the gutters;", "Over the western persimmon—over the long-leav’d corn—over the", " delicate blue-flower flax;", "Over the white and brown buckwheat, a hummer and buzzer there with the rest;", "Over the dusky green of the rye as it ripples and shades in the breeze;", "Scaling mountains, pulling myself cautiously up, holding on by low scragged", " limbs;", "Walking the path worn in the grass, and beat through the leaves of the brush;", "Where the quail is whistling betwixt the woods and the wheat-lot;", "Where the bat flies in the Seventh-month eve—where the great gold-bug drops", " through the dark;", "Where flails keep time on the barn floor;", "Where the brook puts out of the roots of the old tree and flows to the meadow;", "Where cattle stand and shake away flies with the tremulous shuddering of their", " hides;", "Where the cheese-cloth hangs in the kitchen—where andirons straddle the", " hearth-slab—where cobwebs fall in festoons from the rafters;", "Where trip-hammers crash—where the press is whirling its cylinders;", "Wherever the human heart beats with terrible throes under its ribs;", "Where the pear-shaped balloon is floating aloft, (floating in it myself, and", " looking composedly down;)", "Where the life-car is drawn on the slip-noose—where the heat hatches", " pale-green eggs in the dented sand;", "Where the she-whale swims with her calf, and never forsakes it;", "Where the steam-ship trails hind-ways its long pennant of smoke;", "Where the fin of the shark cuts like a black chip out of the water;", "Where the half-burn’d brig is riding on unknown currents,", "Where shells grow to her slimy deck—where the dead are corrupting below;", "Where the dense-starr’d flag is borne at the head of the regiments;", "Approaching Manhattan, up by the long-stretching island;", "Under Niagara, the cataract falling like a veil over my countenance;", "Upon a door-step—upon the horse-block of hard wood outside;", "Upon the race-course, or enjoying picnics or jigs, or a good game of base-ball;", "At he-festivals, with blackguard jibes, ironical license, bull-dances, drinking,", " laughter;", "At the cider-mill, tasting the sweets of the brown mash, sucking the juice", " through a straw;", "At apple-peelings, wanting kisses for all the red fruit I find;", "At musters, beach-parties, friendly bees, huskings, house-raisings:", "Where the mocking-bird sounds his delicious gurgles, cackles, screams, weeps;", "Where the hay-rick stands in the barn-yard—where the dry-stalks are", " scattered—where the brood-cow waits in the hovel;", "Where the bull advances to do his masculine work—where the stud to the", " mare—where the cock is treading the hen;", "Where the heifers browse—where geese nip their food with short jerks;", "Where sun-down shadows lengthen over the limitless and lonesome prairie;", "Where herds of buffalo make a crawling spread of the square miles far and near;", "Where the humming-bird shimmers—where the neck of the long-lived swan is", " curving and winding;", "Where the laughing-gull scoots by the shore, where she laughs her near-human", " laugh;", "Where bee-hives range on a gray bench in the garden, half hid by the high weeds;", "", "Where band-neck’d partridges roost in a ring on the ground with their heads", " out;", "Where burial coaches enter the arch’d gates of a cemetery;", "Where winter wolves bark amid wastes of snow and icicled trees;", "Where the yellow-crown’d heron comes to the edge of the marsh at night and", " feeds upon small crabs;", "Where the splash of swimmers and divers cools the warm noon;", "Where the katy-did works her chromatic reed on the walnut-tree over the well;", "Through patches of citrons and cucumbers with silver-wired leaves;", "Through the salt-lick or orange glade, or under conical firs;", "Through the gymnasium—through the curtain’d saloon—through the", " office or public hall;", "Pleas’d with the native, and pleas’d with the", " foreign—pleas’d with the new and old;", "Pleas’d with women, the homely as well as the handsome;", "Pleas’d with the quakeress as she puts off her bonnet and talks", " melodiously;", "Pleas’d with the tune of the choir of the white-wash’d church;", "Pleas’d with the earnest words of the sweating Methodist preacher, or any", " preacher—impress’d seriously at the camp-meeting:", "Looking in at the shop-windows of Broadway the whole forenoon—flatting the", " flesh of my nose on the thick plate-glass;", "Wandering the same afternoon with my face turn’d up to the clouds,", "My right and left arms round the sides of two friends, and I in the middle:", "Coming home with the silent and dark-cheek’d bush-boy—(behind me he", " rides at the drape of the day;)", "Far from the settlements, studying the print of animals’ feet, or the", " moccasin print;", "By the cot in the hospital, reaching lemonade to a feverish patient;", "Nigh the coffin’d corpse when all is still, examining with a candle:", "Voyaging to every port, to dicker and adventure;", "Hurrying with the modern crowd, as eager and fickle as any;", "Hot toward one I hate, ready in my madness to knife him;", "Solitary at midnight in my back yard, my thoughts gone from me a long while;", "Walking the old hills of Judea, with the beautiful gentle God by my side;", "Speeding through space—speeding through heaven and the stars;", "Speeding amid the seven satellites, and the broad ring, and the diameter of", " eighty thousand miles;", "Speeding with tail’d meteors—throwing fire-balls like the rest;", "Carrying the crescent child that carries its own full mother in its belly;", "Storming, enjoying, planning, loving, cautioning,", "Backing and filling, appearing and disappearing;", "I tread day and night such roads.", "", "I visit the orchards of spheres, and look at the product:", "And look at quintillions ripen’d, and look at quintillions green.", "", "I fly the flight of the fluid and swallowing soul;", "My course runs below the soundings of plummets.", "", "I help myself to material and immaterial;", "No guard can shut me off, nor law prevent me.", "", "I anchor my ship for a little while only;", "My messengers continually cruise away, or bring their returns to me.", "", "I go hunting polar furs and the seal—leaping chasms with a pike-pointed", " staff—clinging to topples of brittle and blue.", "", "I ascend to the foretruck;", "I take my place late at night in the crow’s-nest;", "We sail the arctic sea—it is plenty light enough;", "Through the clear atmosphere I stretch around on the wonderful beauty;", "The enormous masses of ice pass me, and I pass them—the scenery is plain in", " all directions;", "The white-topt mountains show in the distance—I fling out my fancies toward", " them;", "(We are approaching some great battle-field in which we are soon to be engaged;", "We pass the colossal outposts of the encampment—we pass with still feet and", " caution;", "Or we are entering by the suburbs some vast and ruin’d city;", "The blocks and fallen architecture more than all the living cities of the", " globe.)", "", "I am a free companion—I bivouac by invading watchfires.", "", "I turn the bridegroom out of bed, and stay with the bride myself;", "I tighten her all night to my thighs and lips.", "", "My voice is the wife’s voice, the screech by the rail of the stairs;", "They fetch my man’s body up, dripping and drown’d.", "", "I understand the large hearts of heroes,", "The courage of present times and all times;", "How the skipper saw the crowded and rudderless wreck of the steam-ship, and", " Death chasing it up and down the storm;", "How he knuckled tight, and gave not back one inch, and was faithful of days and", " faithful of nights,", "And chalk’d in large letters, on a board, Be of good cheer, we will not", " desert you:", "How he follow’d with them, and tack’d with them—and would not", " give it up;", "How he saved the drifting company at last:", "How the lank loose-gown’d women look’d when boated from the side of", " their prepared graves;", "How the silent old-faced infants, and the lifted sick, and the sharp-lipp’d", " unshaved men:", "All this I swallow—it tastes good—I like it well—it becomes mine;", "I am the man—I suffer’d—I was there.", "", "The disdain and calmness of olden martyrs;", "The mother, condemn’d for a witch, burnt with dry wood, her children gazing", " on;", "The hounded slave that flags in the race, leans by the fence, blowing,", " cover’d with sweat;", "The twinges that sting like needles his legs and neck—the murderous", " buckshot and the bullets;", "All these I feel, or am.", "", "I am the hounded slave, I wince at the bite of the dogs,", "Hell and despair are upon me, crack and again crack the marksmen;", "I clutch the rails of the fence, my gore dribs, thinn’d with the ooze of my", " skin;", "I fall on the weeds and stones;", "The riders spur their unwilling horses, haul close,", "Taunt my dizzy ears, and beat me violently over the head with whip-stocks.", "", "Agonies are one of my changes of garments;", "I do not ask the wounded person how he feels—I myself become the wounded", " person;", "My hurts turn livid upon me as I lean on a cane and observe.", "", "I am the mash’d fireman with breast-bone broken;", "Tumbling walls buried me in their debris;", "Heat and smoke I inspired—I heard the yelling shouts of my comrades;", "I heard the distant click of their picks and shovels;", "They have clear’d the beams away—they tenderly lift me forth.", "", "I lie in the night air in my red shirt—the pervading hush is for my sake;", "Painless after all I lie, exhausted but not so unhappy;", "White and beautiful are the faces around me—the heads are bared of their", " fire-caps;", "The kneeling crowd fades with the light of the torches.", "", "Distant and dead resuscitate;", "They show as the dial or move as the hands of me—I am the clock myself.", "", "I am an old artillerist—I tell of my fort’s bombardment;", "I am there again.", "", "Again the long roll of the drummers;", "Again the attacking cannon, mortars;", "Again, to my listening ears, the cannon responsive.", "", "I take part—I see and hear the whole;", "The cries, curses, roar—the plaudits for well-aim’d shots;", "The ambulanza slowly passing, trailing its red drip;", "Workmen searching after damages, making indispensable repairs;", "The fall of grenades through the rent roof—the fan-shaped explosion;", "The whizz of limbs, heads, stone, wood, iron, high in the air.", "", "Again gurgles the mouth of my dying general—he furiously waves with his", " hand;", "He gasps through the clot, Mind not me—mind—the entrenchments.", "", "34", "Now I tell what I knew in Texas in my early youth;", "(I tell not the fall of Alamo,", "Not one escaped to tell the fall of Alamo,", "The hundred and fifty are dumb yet at Alamo;)", "’Tis the tale of the murder in cold blood of four hundred and twelve young", " men.", "", "Retreating, they had form’d in a hollow square, with their baggage for", " breastworks;", "Nine hundred lives out of the surrounding enemy’s, nine times their number,", " was the price they took in advance;", "Their colonel was wounded and their ammunition gone;", "They treated for an honorable capitulation, receiv’d writing and seal, gave", " up their arms, and march’d back prisoners of war.", "", "They were the glory of the race of rangers;", "Matchless with horse, rifle, song, supper, courtship,", "Large, turbulent, generous, handsome, proud, and affectionate,", "Bearded, sunburnt, drest in the free costume of hunters,", "Not a single one over thirty years of age.", "", "The second First-day morning they were brought out in squads, and", " massacred—it was beautiful early summer;", "The work commenced about five o’clock, and was over by eight.", "", "None obey’d the command to kneel;", "Some made a mad and helpless rush—some stood stark and straight;", "A few fell at once, shot in the temple or heart—the living and dead lay", " together;", "The maim’d and mangled dug in the dirt—the newcomers saw them there;", "Some, half-kill’d, attempted to crawl away;", "These were despatch’d with bayonets, or batter’d with the blunts of", " muskets;", "A youth not seventeen years old seiz’d his assassin till two more came to", " release him;", "The three were all torn, and cover’d with the boy’s blood.", "", "At eleven o’clock began the burning of the bodies:", "That is the tale of the murder of the four hundred and twelve young men.", "", "35", "Would you hear of an old-fashion’d sea-fight?", "Would you learn who won by the light of the moon and stars?", "List to the story as my grandmother’s father, the sailor, told it to me.", "", "Our foe was no skulk in his ship, I tell you, (said he;)", "His was the surly English pluck—and there is no tougher or truer, and never", " was, and never will be;", "Along the lower’d eve he came, horribly raking us.", "", "We closed with him—the yards entangled—the cannon touch’d;", "My captain lash’d fast with his own hands.", "", "We had receiv’d some eighteen pound shots under the water;", "On our lower-gun-deck two large pieces had burst at the first fire, killing all", " around, and blowing up overhead.", "", "Fighting at sun-down, fighting at dark;", "Ten o’clock at night, the full moon well up, our leaks on the gain, and", " five feet of water reported;", "The master-at-arms loosing the prisoners confined in the afterhold, to give them", " a chance for themselves.", "", "The transit to and from the magazine is now stopt by the sentinels,", "They see so many strange faces, they do not know whom to trust.", "", "Our frigate takes fire;", "The other asks if we demand quarter?", "If our colors are struck, and the fighting is done?", "", "Now I laugh content, for I hear the voice of my little captain,", "We have not struck, he composedly cries, we have just begun our part", " of the fighting.", "", "Only three guns are in use;", "One is directed by the captain himself against the enemy’s mainmast;", "Two, well served with grape and canister, silence his musketry and clear his", " decks.", "", "The tops alone second the fire of this little battery, especially the main-top;", "They hold out bravely during the whole of the action.", "", "Not a moment’s cease;", "The leaks gain fast on the pumps—the fire eats toward the powder-magazine.", "", "One of the pumps has been shot away—it is generally thought we are sinking.", "", "", "Serene stands the little captain;", "He is not hurried—his voice is neither high nor low;", "His eyes give more light to us than our battle-lanterns.", "", "Toward twelve at night, there in the beams of the moon, they surrender to us.", "", "36", "Stretch’d and still lies the midnight;", "Two great hulls motionless on the breast of the darkness;", "Our vessel riddled and slowly sinking—preparations to pass to the one we", " have conquer’d;", "The captain on the quarter-deck coldly giving his orders through a countenance", " white as a sheet;", "Near by, the corpse of the child that serv’d in the cabin;", "The dead face of an old salt with long white hair and carefully curl’d", " whiskers;", "The flames, spite of all that can be done, flickering aloft and below;", "The husky voices of the two or three officers yet fit for duty;", "Formless stacks of bodies, and bodies by themselves—dabs of flesh upon the", " masts and spars,", "Cut of cordage, dangle of rigging, slight shock of the soothe of waves,", "Black and impassive guns, litter of powder-parcels, strong scent,", "Delicate sniffs of sea-breeze, smells of sedgy grass and fields by the shore,", " death-messages given in charge to survivors,", "The hiss of the surgeon’s knife, the gnawing teeth of his saw,", "Wheeze, cluck, swash of falling blood, short wild scream, and long, dull,", " tapering groan;", "These so—these irretrievable.", "", "37", "O Christ! This is mastering me!", "In at the conquer’d doors they crowd. I am possess’d.", "", "I embody all presences outlaw’d or suffering;", "See myself in prison shaped like another man,", "And feel the dull unintermitted pain.", "", "For me the keepers of convicts shoulder their carbines and keep watch;", "It is I let out" ], "linecount": "1209" }, { "title": "On the Beach at Night, Alone.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "ON the beach at night alone,", "As the old mother sways her to and fro, singing her husky song,", "As I watch the bright stars shining—I think a thought of the clef of the universes, and of", " the future.", "", "A VAST SIMILITUDE interlocks all,", "All spheres, grown, ungrown, small, large, suns, moons, planets, comets, asteroids,", "All the substances of the same, and all that is spiritual upon the same,", "All distances of place, however wide,", "All distances of time—all inanimate forms,", "All Souls—all living bodies, though they be ever so different, or in different worlds,", "All gaseous, watery, vegetable, mineral processes—the fishes, the brutes,", "All men and women—me also;", "All nations, colors, barbarisms, civilizations, languages;", "All identities that have existed, or may exist, on this globe, or any globe;", "All lives and deaths—all of the past, present, future;", "This vast similitude spans them, and always has spann’d, and shall forever span them, and", " compactly hold them, and enclose them." ], "linecount": "17" }, { "title": "That Music Always Round Me.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "THAT music always round me, unceasing, unbeginning—yet long untaught I did not hear;", "But now the chorus I hear, and am elated;", "A tenor, strong, ascending, with power and health, with glad notes of day-break I hear,", "A soprano, at intervals, sailing buoyantly over the tops of immense waves,", "A transparent bass, shuddering lusciously under and through the universe,", "The triumphant tutti—the funeral wailings, with sweet flutes and violins—all", " these I", " fill myself with;", "I hear not the volumes of sound merely—I am moved by the exquisite meanings,", "I listen to the different voices winding in and out, striving, contending with fiery", " vehemence", " to excel each other in emotion;", "I do not think the performers know themselves—but now I think I begin to know them." ], "linecount": "13" }, { "title": "These, I, Singing in Spring.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "THESE, I, singing in spring, collect for lovers,", "(For who but I should understand lovers, and all their sorrow and joy?", "And who but I should be the poet of comrades?)", "Collecting, I traverse the garden, the world—but soon I pass the gates,", "Now along the pond-side—now wading in a little, fearing not the wet,", "Now by the post-and-rail fences, where the old stones thrown there, pick’d from the", " fields,", " have accumulated,", "(Wild-flowers and vines and weeds come up through the stones, and partly cover", " them—Beyond", " these I pass,)", "Far, far in the forest, before I think where I go,", "Solitary, smelling the earthy smell, stopping now and then in the silence,", "Alone I had thought—yet soon a troop gathers around me,", "Some walk by my side, and some behind, and some embrace my arms or neck,", "They, the spirits of dear friends, dead or alive—thicker they come, a great crowd,", " and I", " in the", " middle,", "Collecting, dispensing, singing in spring, there I wander with them,", "Plucking something for tokens—tossing toward whoever is near me;", "Here! lilac, with a branch of pine,", "Here, out of my pocket, some moss which I pull’d off a live-oak in Florida, as it", " hung", " trailing", " down,", "Here, some pinks and laurel leaves, and a handful of sage,", "And here what I now draw from the water, wading in the pondside,", "(O here I last saw him that tenderly loves me—and returns again, never to separate", " from", " me,", "And this, O this shall henceforth be the token of comrades—this Calamus-root shall,", "Interchange it, youths, with each other! Let none render it back!)", "And twigs of maple, and a bunch of wild orange, and chestnut,", "And stems of currants, and plum-blows, and the aromatic cedar:", "These, I, compass’d around by a thick cloud of spirits,", "Wandering, point to, or touch as I pass, or throw them loosely from me,", "Indicating to each one what he shall have—giving something to each;", "But what I drew from the water by the pond-side, that I reserve,", "I will give of it—but only to them that love, as I myself am capable of loving." ], "linecount": "40" }, { "title": "Song of the Broad-Axe.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "1", "WEAPON, shapely, naked, wan!", "Head from the mother’s bowels drawn!", "Wooded flesh and metal bone! limb only one, and lip only one!", "Gray-blue leaf by red-heat grown! helve produced from a little seed sown!", "Resting the grass amid and upon,", "To be lean’d, and to lean on.", "", "Strong shapes, and attributes of strong shapes—masculine trades, sights and sounds;", "Long varied train of an emblem, dabs of music;", "Fingers of the organist skipping staccato over the keys of the great organ.", "", "2", "Welcome are all earth’s lands, each for its kind;", "Welcome are lands of pine and oak;", "Welcome are lands of the lemon and fig;", "Welcome are lands of gold;", "Welcome are lands of wheat and maize—welcome those of the grape;", "Welcome are lands of sugar and rice;", "Welcome the cotton-lands—welcome those of the white potato and sweet potato;", "Welcome are mountains, flats, sands, forests, prairies;", "Welcome the rich borders of rivers, table-lands, openings;", "Welcome the measureless grazing-lands—welcome the teeming soil of orchards, flax, honey,", " hemp;", "", "Welcome just as much the other more hard-faced lands;", "Lands rich as lands of gold, or wheat and fruit lands;", "Lands of mines, lands of the manly and rugged ores;", "Lands of coal, copper, lead, tin, zinc;", "LANDS OF IRON! lands of the make of the axe!", "", "3", "The log at the wood-pile, the axe supported by it;", "The sylvan hut, the vine over the doorway, the space clear’d for a garden,", "The irregular tapping of rain down on the leaves, after the storm is lull’d,", "The wailing and moaning at intervals, the thought of the sea,", "The thought of ships struck in the storm, and put on their beam ends, and the cutting away", " of", " masts;", "", "The sentiment of the huge timbers of old-fashion’d houses and barns;", "The remember’d print or narrative, the voyage at a venture of men, families, goods,", "The disembarkation, the founding of a new city,", "The voyage of those who sought a New England and found it—the outset anywhere,", "The settlements of the Arkansas, Colorado, Ottawa, Willamette,", "The slow progress, the scant fare, the axe, rifle, saddle-bags;", "The beauty of all adventurous and daring persons,", "The beauty of wood-boys and wood-men, with their clear untrimm’d faces,", "The beauty of independence, departure, actions that rely on themselves,", "The American contempt for statutes and ceremonies, the boundless impatience of restraint,", "", "The loose drift of character, the inkling through random types, the solidification;", "The butcher in the slaughter-house, the hands aboard schooners and sloops, the raftsman,", " the", " pioneer,", "Lumbermen in their winter camp, day-break in the woods, stripes of snow on the limbs of", " trees,", " the", " occasional snapping,", "The glad clear sound of one’s own voice, the merry song, the natural life of the woods,", " the", " strong", " day’s work,", "The blazing fire at night, the sweet taste of supper, the talk, the bed of hemlock boughs,", " and", " the", " bear-skin;", "—The house-builder at work in cities or anywhere,", "The preparatory jointing, squaring, sawing, mortising,", "The hoist-up of beams, the push of them in their places, laying them regular,", "Setting the studs by their tenons in the mortises, according as they were prepared,", "The blows of mallets and hammers, the attitudes of the men, their curv’d limbs,", "Bending, standing, astride the beams, driving in pins, holding on by posts and braces,", "The hook’d arm over the plate, the other arm wielding the axe,", "The floor-men forcing the planks close, to be nail’d,", "Their postures bringing their weapons downward on the bearers,", "The echoes resounding through the vacant building;", "The huge store-house carried up in the city, well under way,", "The six framing-men, two in the middle, and two at each end, carefully bearing on their", " shoulders a", " heavy stick for a cross-beam,", "The crowded line of masons with trowels in their right hands, rapidly laying the long", " side-wall, two", " hundred feet from front to rear,", "The flexible rise and fall of backs, the continual click of the trowels striking the", " bricks,", "The bricks, one after another, each laid so workmanlike in its place, and set with a knock", " of", " the", " trowel-handle,", "The piles of materials, the mortar on the mortar-boards, and the steady replenishing by", " the", " hod-men;", "—Spar-makers in the spar-yard, the swarming row of well-grown apprentices,", "The swing of their axes on the square-hew’d log, shaping it toward the shape of a mast,", "The brisk short crackle of the steel driven slantingly into the pine,", "The butter-color’d chips flying off in great flakes and slivers,", "The limber motion of brawny young arms and hips in easy costumes;", "The constructor of wharves, bridges, piers, bulk-heads, floats, stays against the sea;", "—The city fireman—the fire that suddenly bursts forth in the close-pack’d square,", "The arriving engines, the hoarse shouts, the nimble stepping and daring,", "The strong command through the fire-trumpets, the falling in line, the rise and fall of", " the", " arms", " forcing the water,", "The slender, spasmic, blue-white jets—the bringing to bear of the hooks and ladders, and", " their", " execution,", "The crash and cut away of connecting wood-work, or through floors, if the fire smoulders", " under", " them,", "", "The crowd with their lit faces, watching—the glare and dense shadows;", "—The forger at his forge-furnace, and the user of iron after him,", "The maker of the axe large and small, and the welder and temperer,", "The chooser breathing his breath on the cold steel, and trying the edge with his thumb,", "The one who clean-shapes the handle, and sets it firmly in the socket;", "The shadowy processions of the portraits of the past users also,", "The primal patient mechanics, the architects and engineers,", "The far-off Assyrian edifice and Mizra edifice,", "The Roman lictors preceding the consuls,", "The antique European warrior with his axe in combat,", "The uplifted arm, the clatter of blows on the helmeted head,", "The death-howl, the limpsey tumbling body, the rush of friend and foe thither,", "The siege of revolted lieges determin’d for liberty,", "The summons to surrender, the battering at castle gates, the truce and parley;", "The sack of an old city in its time,", "The bursting in of mercenaries and bigots tumultuously and disorderly,", "Roar, flames, blood, drunkenness, madness,", "Goods freely rifled from houses and temples, screams of women in the gripe of brigands,", "Craft and thievery of camp-followers, men running, old persons despairing,", "The hell of war, the cruelties of creeds,", "The list of all executive deeds and words, just or unjust,", "The power of personality, just or unjust.", "", "4", "Muscle and pluck forever!", "What invigorates life, invigorates death,", "And the dead advance as much as the living advance,", "And the future is no more uncertain than the present,", "And the roughness of the earth and of man encloses as much as the delicatesse of the earth", " and", " of", " man,", "And nothing endures but personal qualities.", "What do you think endures?", "Do you think the great city endures?", "Or a teeming manufacturing state? or a prepared constitution? or the best-built", " steamships?", "Or hotels of granite and iron? or any chef-d’oeuvres of engineering, forts, armaments?", "", "Away! These are not to be cherish’d for themselves;", "They fill their hour, the dancers dance, the musicians play for them;", "The show passes, all does well enough of course,", "All does very well till one flash of defiance.", "", "The great city is that which has the greatest man or woman;", "If it be a few ragged huts, it is still the greatest city in the whole world.", "", "5", "The place where the great city stands is not the place of stretch’d wharves, docks,", " manufactures,", " deposits of produce,", "Nor the place of ceaseless salutes of new comers, or the anchor-lifters of the departing,", "", "Nor the place of the tallest and costliest buildings, or shops selling goods from the rest", " of", " the", " earth,", "Nor the place of the best libraries and schools—nor the place where money is plentiest,", "Nor the place of the most numerous population.", "", "Where the city stands with the brawniest breed of orators and bards;", "Where the city stands that is beloved by these, and loves them in return, and understands", " them;", "", "Where no monuments exist to heroes, but in the common words and deeds;", "Where thrift is in its place, and prudence is in its place;", "Where the men and women think lightly of the laws;", "Where the slave ceases, and the master of slaves ceases;", "Where the populace rise at once against the never-ending audacity of elected persons;", "Where fierce men and women pour forth, as the sea to the whistle of death pours its", " sweeping", " and", " unript waves;", "Where outside authority enters always after the precedence of inside authority;", "Where the citizen is always the head and ideal—and President, Mayor, Governor, and what", " not,", " are", " agents for pay;", "Where children are taught to be laws to themselves, and to depend on themselves;", "Where equanimity is illustrated in affairs;", "Where speculations on the Soul are encouraged;", "Where women walk in public processions in the streets, the same as the men,", "Where they enter the public assembly and take places the same as the men;", "Where the city of the faithfulest friends stands;", "Where the city of the cleanliness of the sexes stands;", "Where the city of the healthiest fathers stands;", "Where the city of the best-bodied mothers stands,", "There the great city stands.", "", "6", "How beggarly appear arguments before a defiant deed!", "How the floridness of the materials of cities shrivels before a man’s or woman’s look!", "", "All waits, or goes by default, till a strong being appears;", "A strong being is the proof of the race, and of the ability of the universe;", "When he or she appears, materials are overaw’d,", "The dispute on the Soul stops,", "The old customs and phrases are confronted, turn’d back, or laid away.", "", "What is your money-making now? what can it do now?", "What is your respectability now?", "What are your theology, tuition, society, traditions, statute-books, now?", "Where are your jibes of being now?", "Where are your cavils about the Soul now?", "", "7", "A sterile landscape covers the ore—there is as good as the best, for all the forbidding", " appearance;", "There is the mine, there are the miners;", "The forge-furnace is there, the melt is accomplish’d; the hammers-men are at hand with", " their", " tongs", " and hammers;", "What always served, and always serves, is at hand.", "", "Than this, nothing has better served—it has served all:", "Served the fluent-tongued and subtle-sensed Greek, and long ere the Greek:", "Served in building the buildings that last longer than any;", "Served the Hebrew, the Persian, the most ancient Hindostanee;", "Served the mound-raiser on the Mississippi—served those whose relics remain in Central", " America;", "Served Albic temples in woods or on plains, with unhewn pillars, and the druids;", "Served the artificial clefts, vast, high, silent, on the snow-cover’d hills of", " Scandinavia;", "Served those who, time out of mind, made on the granite walls rough sketches of the sun,", " moon,", " stars, ships, ocean-waves;", "Served the paths of the irruptions of the Goths—served the pastoral tribes and nomads;", "Served the long, long distant Kelt—served the hardy pirates of the Baltic;", "Served before any of those, the venerable and harmless men of Ethiopia;", "Served the making of helms for the galleys of pleasure, and the making of those for war;", "Served all great works on land, and all great works on the sea;", "For the mediæval ages, and before the mediæval ages;", "Served not the living only, then as now, but served the dead.", "", "8", "I see the European headsman;", "He stands mask’d, clothed in red, with huge legs, and strong naked arms,", "And leans on a ponderous axe.", "", "(Whom have you slaughter’d lately, European headsman?", "Whose is that blood upon you, so wet and sticky?)", "", "I see the clear sunsets of the martyrs;", "I see from the scaffolds the descending ghosts,", "Ghosts of dead lords, uncrown’d ladies, impeach’d ministers, rejected kings,", "Rivals, traitors, poisoners, disgraced chieftains, and the rest.", "", "I see those who in any land have died for the good cause;", "The seed is spare, nevertheless the crop shall never run out;", "(Mind you, O foreign kings, O priests, the crop shall never run out.)", "", "I see the blood wash’d entirely away from the axe;", "Both blade and helve are clean;", "They spirt no more the blood of European nobles—they clasp no more the necks of queens.", "", "I see the headsman withdraw and become useless;", "I see the scaffold untrodden and mouldy—I see no longer any axe upon it;", "I see the mighty and friendly emblem of the power of my own race—the newest, largest race.", "", "", "9", "(America! I do not vaunt my love for you;", "I have what I have.)", "", "The axe leaps!", "The solid forest gives fluid utterances;", "They tumble forth, they rise and form,", "Hut, tent, landing, survey,", "Flail, plough, pick, crowbar, spade,", "Shingle, rail, prop, wainscot, jamb, lath, panel, gable,", "Citadel, ceiling, saloon, academy, organ, exhibition-house, library,", "Cornice, trellis, pilaster, balcony, window, shutter, turret, porch,", "Hoe, rake, pitch-fork, pencil, wagon, staff, saw, jack-plane, mallet, wedge, rounce,", "Chair, tub, hoop, table, wicket, vane, sash, floor,", "Work-box, chest, string’d instrument, boat, frame, and what not,", "Capitols of States, and capitol of the nation of States,", "Long stately rows in avenues, hospitals for orphans, or for the poor or sick,", "Manhattan steamboats and clippers, taking the measure of all seas.", "", "The shapes arise!", "Shapes of the using of axes anyhow, and the users, and all that neighbors them,", "Cutters down of wood, and haulers of it to the Penobscot or Kennebec,", "Dwellers in cabins among the California mountains, or by the little lakes, or on the", " Columbia,", "", "Dwellers south on the banks of the Gila or Rio Grande—friendly gatherings, the characters", " and", " fun,", "", "Dwellers up north in Minnesota and by the Yellowstone river—dwellers on coasts and off", " coasts,", "Seal-fishers, whalers, arctic seamen breaking passages through the ice.", "", "The shapes arise!", "Shapes of factories, arsenals, foundries, markets;", "Shapes of the two-threaded tracks of railroads;", "Shapes of the sleepers of bridges, vast frameworks, girders, arches;", "Shapes of the fleets of barges, towns, lake and canal craft, river craft.", "", "The shapes arise!", "Ship-yards and dry-docks along the Eastern and Western Seas, and in many a bay and", " by-place,", "The live-oak kelsons, the pine planks, the spars, the hackmatack-roots for knees,", "The ships themselves on their ways, the tiers of scaffolds, the workmen busy outside and", " inside,", "The tools lying around, the great auger and little auger, the adze, bolt, line, square,", " gouge,", " and", " bead-plane.", "", "10", "The shapes arise!", "The shape measur’d, saw’d, jack’d, join’d, stain’d,", "The coffin-shape for the dead to lie within in his shroud;", "The shape got out in posts, in the bedstead posts, in the posts of the bride’s bed;", "The shape of the little trough, the shape of the rockers beneath, the shape of the babe’s", " cradle;", "", "The shape of the floor-planks, the floor-planks for dancers’ feet;", "The shape of the planks of the family home, the home of the friendly parents and children,", "", "The shape of the roof of the home of the happy young man and woman—the roof over the", " well-married", " young man and woman,", "The roof over the supper joyously cook’d by the chaste wife, and joyously eaten by the", " chaste", " husband, content after his day’s work.", "", "The shapes arise!", "The shape of the prisoner’s place in the court-room, and of him or her seated in the", " place;", "The shape of the liquor-bar lean’d against by the young rum-drinker and the old", " rum-drinker;", "The shape of the shamed and angry stairs, trod by sneaking footsteps;", "The shape of the sly settee, and the adulterous unwholesome couple;", "The shape of the gambling-board with its devilish winnings and losings;", "The shape of the step-ladder for the convicted and sentenced murderer, the murderer with", " haggard", " face and pinion’d arms,", "The sheriff at hand with his deputies, the silent and white-lipp’d crowd, the dangling of", " the", " rope.", "", "The shapes arise!", "Shapes of doors giving many exits and entrances;", "The door passing the dissever’d friend, flush’d and in haste;", "The door that admits good news and bad news;", "The door whence the son left home, confident and puff’d up;", "The door he enter’d again from a long and scandalous absence, diseas’d, broken down,", " without", " innocence, without means.", "", "11", "Her shape arises,", "She, less guarded than ever, yet more guarded than ever;", "The gross and soil’d she moves among do not make her gross and soil’d;", "She knows the thoughts as she passes—nothing is conceal’d from her;", "She is none the less considerate or friendly therefor;", "She is the best belov’d—it is without exception—she has no reason to fear, and she does", " not", " fear;", "Oaths, quarrels, hiccupp’d songs, smutty expressions, are idle to her as she passes;", "She is silent—she is possess’d of herself—they do not offend her;", "She receives them as the laws of nature receive them—she is strong,", "She too is a law of nature—there is no law stronger than she is.", "", "12", "The main shapes arise!", "Shapes of Democracy, total—result of centuries;", "Shapes, ever projecting other shapes;", "Shapes of turbulent manly cities;", "Shapes of the friends and home-givers of the whole earth,", "Shapes bracing the earth, and braced with the whole earth." ], "linecount": "346" }, { "title": "Salut au Monde.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "1", "O TAKE my hand, Walt Whitman!", "Such gliding wonders! such sights and sounds!", "Such join’d unended links, each hook’d to the next!", "Each answering all—each sharing the earth with all.", "", "What widens within you, Walt Whitman?", "What waves and soils exuding?", "What climes? what persons and lands are here?", "Who are the infants? some playing, some slumbering?", "Who are the girls? who are the married women?", "Who are the groups of old men going slowly with their arms about each other’s necks?", "What rivers are these? what forests and fruits are these?", "What are the mountains call’d that rise so high in the mists?", "What myriads of dwellings are they, fill’d with dwellers?", "", "2", "Within me latitude widens, longitude lengthens;", "Asia, Africa, Europe, are to the east—America is provided for in the west;", "Banding the bulge of the earth winds the hot equator,", "Curiously north and south turn the axis-ends;", "Within me is the longest day—the sun wheels in slanting rings—it does not set for months;", "", "Stretch’d in due time within me the midnight sun just rises above the horizon, and sinks", " again;", "", "Within me zones, seas, cataracts, plants, volcanoes, groups,", "Malaysia, Polynesia, and the great West Indian islands.", "", "3", "What do you hear, Walt Whitman?", "", "I hear the workman singing, and the farmer’s wife singing;", "I hear in the distance the sounds of children, and of animals early in the day;", "I hear quick rifle-cracks from the riflemen of East Tennessee and Kentucky, hunting on", " hills;", "I hear emulous shouts of Australians, pursuing the wild horse;", "I hear the Spanish dance, with castanets, in the chestnut shade, to the rebeck and guitar;", "", "I hear continual echoes from the Thames;", "I hear fierce French liberty songs;", "I hear of the Italian boat-sculler the musical recitative of old poems;", "I hear the Virginia plantation-chorus of negroes, of a harvest night, in the glare of", " pine-knots;", "I hear the strong baritone of the ’long-shore-men of Mannahatta;", "I hear the stevedores unlading the cargoes, and singing;", "I hear the screams of the water-fowl of solitary north-west lakes;", "I hear the rustling pattering of locusts, as they strike the grain and grass with the", " showers", " of", " their terrible clouds;", "I hear the Coptic refrain, toward sundown, pensively falling on the breast of the black", " venerable", " vast mother, the Nile;", "I hear the bugles of raft-tenders on the streams of Kanada;", "I hear the chirp of the Mexican muleteer, and the bells of the mule;", "I hear the Arab muezzin, calling from the top of the mosque;", "I hear the Christian priests at the altars of their churches—I hear the responsive bass", " and", " soprano;", "I hear the wail of utter despair of the white-hair’d Irish grandparents, when they learn", " the", " death", " of their grandson;", "I hear the cry of the Cossack, and the sailor’s voice, putting to sea at Okotsk;", "I hear the wheeze of the slave-coffle, as the slaves march on—as the husky gangs pass on", " by", " twos", " and threes, fasten’d together with wrist-chains and ankle-chains;", "I hear the entreaties of women tied up for punishment—I hear the sibilant whisk of thongs", " through", " the air;", "I hear the Hebrew reading his records and psalms;", "I hear the rhythmic myths of the Greeks, and the strong legends of the Romans;", "I hear the tale of the divine life and bloody death of the beautiful God—the Christ;", "I hear the Hindoo teaching his favorite pupil the loves, wars, adages, transmitted safely", " to", " this", " day, from poets who wrote three thousand years ago.", "", "4", "What do you see, Walt Whitman?", "Who are they you salute, and that one after another salute you?", "", "I see a great round wonder rolling through the air;", "I see diminute farms, hamlets, ruins, grave-yards, jails, factories, palaces, hovels, huts", " of", " barbarians, tents of nomads, upon the surface;", "I see the shaded part on one side, where the sleepers are sleeping—and the sun-lit part on", " the", " other side,", "I see the curious silent change of the light and shade,", "I see distant lands, as real and near to the inhabitants of them, as my land is to me.", "", "I see plenteous waters;", "I see mountain peaks—I see the sierras of Andes and Alleghanies, where they range;", "I see plainly the Himalayas, Chian Shahs, Altays, Ghauts;", "I see the giant pinnacles of Elbruz, Kazbek, Bazardjusi,", "I see the Rocky Mountains, and the Peak of Winds;", "I see the Styrian Alps, and the Karnac Alps;", "I see the Pyrenees, Balks, Carpathians—and to the north the Dofrafields, and off at sea", " Mount", " Hecla;", "I see Vesuvius and Etna—I see the Anahuacs;", "I see the Mountains of the Moon, and the Snow Mountains, and the Red Mountains of", " Madagascar;", "I see the Vermont hills, and the long string of Cordilleras;", "I see the vast deserts of Western America;", "I see the Lybian, Arabian, and Asiatic deserts;", "I see huge dreadful Arctic and Antarctic icebergs;", "I see the superior oceans and the inferior ones—the Atlantic and Pacific, the sea of", " Mexico,", " the", " Brazilian sea, and the sea of Peru,", "The Japan waters, those of Hindostan, the China Sea, and the Gulf of Guinea,", "The spread of the Baltic, Caspian, Bothnia, the British shores, and the Bay of Biscay,", "The clear-sunn’d Mediterranean, and from one to another of its islands,", "The inland fresh-tasted seas of North America,", "The White Sea, and the sea around Greenland.", "", "I behold the mariners of the world;", "Some are in storms—some in the night, with the watch on the look-out;", "Some drifting helplessly—some with contagious diseases.", "", "I behold the sail and steamships of the world, some in clusters in port, some on their", " voyages;", "", "Some double the Cape of Storms—some Cape Verde,—others Cape Guardafui, Bon, or Bajadore;", "Others Dondra Head—others pass the Straits of Sunda—others Cape Lopatka—others Behring’s", " Straits;", "Others Cape Horn—others sail the Gulf of Mexico, or along Cuba or Hayti—others Hudson’s", " Bay or", " Baffin’s Bay;", "Others pass the Straits of Dover—others enter the Wash—others the Firth of Solway—others", " round", " Cape Clear—others the Land’s End;", "Others traverse the Zuyder Zee, or the Scheld;", "Others add to the exits and entrances at Sandy Hook;", "Others to the comers and goers at Gibraltar, or the Dardanelles;", "Others sternly push their way through the northern winter-packs;", "Others descend or ascend the Obi or the Lena;", "Others the Niger or the Congo—others the Indus, the Burampooter and Cambodia;", "Others wait at the wharves of Manhattan, steam’d up, ready to start;", "Wait, swift and swarthy, in the ports of Australia;", "Wait at Liverpool, Glasgow, Dublin, Marseilles, Lisbon, Naples, Hamburg, Bremen, Bordeaux,", " the", " Hague, Copenhagen;", "Wait at Valparaiso, Rio Janeiro, Panama;", "Wait at their moorings at Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston, New Orleans,", " Galveston,", " San", " Francisco.", "", "5", "I see the tracks of the rail-roads of the earth;", "I see them welding State to State, city to city, through North America;", "I see them in Great Britain, I see them in Europe;", "I see them in Asia and in Africa.", "", "I see the electric telegraphs of the earth;", "I see the filaments of the news of the wars, deaths, losses, gains, passions, of my race.", "", "", "I see the long river-stripes of the earth;", "I see where the Mississippi flows—I see where the Columbia flows;", "I see the Great River and the Falls of Niagara;", "I see the Amazon and the Paraguay;", "I see the four great rivers of China, the Amour, the Yellow River, the Yiang-tse, and the", " Pearl;", "I see where the Seine flows, and where the Danube, the Loire, the Rhone, and the", " Guadalquiver", " flow;", "I see the windings of the Volga, the Dnieper, the Oder;", "I see the Tuscan going down the Arno, and the Venetian along the Po;", "I see the Greek seaman sailing out of Egina bay.", "", "6", "I see the site of the old empire of Assyria, and that of Persia, and that of India;", "I see the falling of the Ganges over the high rim of Saukara.", "", "I see the place of the idea of the Deity incarnated by avatars in human forms;", "I see the spots of the successions of priests on the earth—oracles, sacrificers, brahmins,", " sabians, lamas, monks, muftis, exhorters;", "I see where druids walked the groves of Mona—I see the mistletoe and vervain;", "I see the temples of the deaths of the bodies of Gods—I see the old signifiers.", "", "I see Christ once more eating the bread of his last supper, in the midst of youths and old", " persons;", "I see where the strong divine young man, the Hercules, toil’d faithfully and long, and", " then", " died;", "", "I see the place of the innocent rich life and hapless fate of the beautiful nocturnal son,", " the", " full-limb’d Bacchus;", "I see Kneph, blooming, drest in blue, with the crown of feathers on his head;", "I see Hermes, unsuspected, dying, well-beloved, saying to the people, Do not weep for", " me,", "This is not my true country, I have lived banish’d from my true country—I now go back", " there,", "I return to the celestial sphere, where every one goes in his turn.", "", "7", "I see the battle-fields of the earth—grass grows upon them, and blossoms and corn;", "I see the tracks of ancient and modern expeditions.", "", "I see the nameless masonries, venerable messages of the unknown events, heroes, records of", " the", " earth.", "", "I see the places of the sagas;", "I see pine-trees and fir-trees torn by northern blasts;", "I see granite boulders and cliffs—I see green meadows and lakes;", "I see the burial-cairns of Scandinavian warriors;", "I see them raised high with stones, by the marge of restless oceans, that the dead men’s", " spirits,", " when they wearied of their quiet graves, might rise up through the mounds, and gaze on", " the", " tossing", " billows, and be refresh’d by storms, immensity, liberty, action.", "I see the steppes of Asia;", "I see the tumuli of Mongolia—I see the tents of Kalmucks and Baskirs;", "I see the nomadic tribes, with herds of oxen and cows;", "I see the table-lands notch’d with ravines—I see the jungles and deserts;", "I see the camel, the wild steed, the bustard, the fat-tail’d sheep, the antelope, and the", " burrowing wolf.", "", "I see the high-lands of Abyssinia;", "I see flocks of goats feeding, and see the fig-tree, tamarind, date,", "And see fields of teff-wheat, and see the places of verdure and gold.", "", "I see the Brazilian vaquero;", "I see the Bolivian ascending Mount Sorata;", "I see the Wacho crossing the plains—I see the incomparable rider of horses with his lasso", " on", " his", " arm;", "I see over the pampas the pursuit of wild cattle for their hides.", "", "8", "I see little and large sea-dots, some inhabited, some uninhabited;", "I see two boats with nets, lying off the shore of Paumanok, quite still;", "I see ten fishermen waiting—they discover now a thick school of mossbonkers—they drop the", " join’d seine-ends in the water,", "The boats separate—they diverge and row off, each on its rounding course to the beach,", " enclosing", " the mossbonkers;", "The net is drawn in by a windlass by those who stop ashore,", "Some of the fishermen lounge in their boats—others stand negligently ankle-deep in the", " water,", " pois’d on strong legs;", "The boats are partly drawn up—the water slaps against them;", "On the sand, in heaps and winrows, well out from the water, lie the green-back’d spotted", " mossbonkers.", "", "9", "I see the despondent red man in the west, lingering about the banks of Moingo, and about", " Lake", " Pepin;", "He has heard the quail and beheld the honey-bee, and sadly prepared to depart.", "", "I see the regions of snow and ice;", "I see the sharp-eyed Samoiede and the Finn;", "I see the seal-seeker in his boat, poising his lance;", "I see the Siberian on his slight-built sledge, drawn by dogs;", "I see the porpoise-hunters—I see the whale-crews of the South Pacific and the North", " Atlantic;", "I see the cliffs, glaciers, torrents, valleys, of Switzerland—I mark the long winters, and", " the", " isolation.", "", "I see the cities of the earth, and make myself at random a part of them;", "I am a real Parisian;", "I am a habitan of Vienna, St. Petersburg, Berlin, Constantinople;", "I am of Adelaide, Sidney, Melbourne;", "I am of London, Manchester, Bristol, Edinburgh, Limerick;", "I am of Madrid, Cadiz, Barcelona, Oporto, Lyons, Brussels, Berne, Frankfort, Stuttgart,", " Turin,", " Florence;", "I belong in Moscow, Cracow, Warsaw—or northward in Christiania or Stockholm—or in Siberian", " Irkutsk—or in some street in Iceland;", "I descend upon all those cities, and rise from them again.", "", "10", "I see vapors exhaling from unexplored countries;", "I see the savage types, the bow and arrow, the poison’d splint, the fetish, and the obi.", "", "I see African and Asiatic towns;", "I see Algiers, Tripoli, Derne, Mogadore, Timbuctoo, Monrovia;", "I see the swarms of Pekin, Canton, Benares, Delhi, Calcutta, Yedo;", "I see the Kruman in his hut, and the Dahoman and Ashanteeman in their huts;", "I see the Turk smoking opium in Aleppo;", "I see the picturesque crowds at the fairs of Khiva, and those of Herat;", "I see Teheran—I see Muscat and Medina, and the intervening sands—I see the caravans", " toiling", " onward;", "I see Egypt and the Egyptians—I see the pyramids and obelisks;", "I look on chisel’d histories, songs, philosophies, cut in slabs of sand-stone, or on", " granite-blocks;", "I see at Memphis mummy-pits, containing mummies, embalm’d, swathed in linen cloth, lying", " there", " many centuries;", "I look on the fall’n Theban, the large-ball’d eyes, the side-drooping neck, the hands", " folded", " across the breast.", "", "I see the menials of the earth, laboring;", "I see the prisoners in the prisons;", "I see the defective human bodies of the earth;", "I see the blind, the deaf and dumb, idiots, hunchbacks, lunatics;", "I see the pirates, thieves, betrayers, murderers, slave-makers of the earth;", "I see the helpless infants, and the helpless old men and women.", "", "I see male and female everywhere;", "I see the serene brotherhood of philosophs;", "I see the constructiveness of my race;", "I see the results of the perseverance and industry of my race;", "I see ranks, colors, barbarisms, civilizations—I go among them—I mix indiscriminately,", "And I salute all the inhabitants of the earth.", "", "11", "You, whoever you are!", "You daughter or son of England!", "You of the mighty Slavic tribes and empires! you Russ in Russia!", "You dim-descended, black, divine-soul’d African, large, fine-headed, nobly-form’d,", " superbly", " destin’d, on equal terms with me!", "You Norwegian! Swede! Dane! Icelander! you Prussian!", "You Spaniard of Spain! you Portuguese!", "You Frenchwoman and Frenchman of France!", "You Belge! you liberty-lover of the Netherlands!", "You sturdy Austrian! you Lombard! Hun! Bohemian! farmer of Styria!", "You neighbor of the Danube!", "You working-man of the Rhine, the Elbe, or the Weser! you working-woman too!", "You Sardinian! you Bavarian! Swabian! Saxon! Wallachian! Bulgarian!", "You citizen of Prague! Roman! Neapolitan! Greek!", "You lithe matador in the arena at Seville!", "You mountaineer living lawlessly on the Taurus or Caucasus!", "You Bokh horse-herd, watching your mares and stallions feeding!", "You beautiful-bodied Persian, at full speed in the saddle, shooting arrows to the mark!", "You Chinaman and Chinawoman of China! you Tartar of Tartary!", "You women of the earth subordinated at your tasks!", "You Jew journeying in your old age through every risk, to stand once on Syrian ground!", "You other Jews waiting in all lands for your Messiah!", "You thoughtful Armenian, pondering by some stream of the Euphrates! you peering amid the", " ruins", " of", " Nineveh! you ascending Mount Ararat!", "You foot-worn pilgrim welcoming the far-away sparkle of the minarets of Mecca!", "You sheiks along the stretch from Suez to Bab-el-mandeb, ruling your families and tribes!", "", "You olive-grower tending your fruit on fields of Nazareth, Damascus, or Lake Tiberias!", "You Thibet trader on the wide inland, or bargaining in the shops of Lassa!", "You Japanese man or woman! you liver in Madagascar, Ceylon, Sumatra, Borneo!", "All you continentals of Asia, Africa, Europe, Australia, indifferent of place!", "All you on the numberless islands of the archipelagoes of the sea!", "And you of centuries hence, when you listen to me!", "And you, each and everywhere, whom I specify not, but include just the same!", "Health to you! Good will to you all—from me and America sent.", "", "Each of us inevitable;", "Each of us limitless—each of us with his or her right upon the earth;", "Each of us allow’d the eternal purports of the earth;", "Each of us here as divinely as any is here.", "", "12", "You Hottentot with clicking palate! You woolly-hair’d hordes!", "You own’d persons, dropping sweat-drops or blood-drops!", "You human forms with the fathomless ever-impressive countenances of brutes!", "I dare not refuse you—the scope of the world, and of time and space, are upon me.", "", "You poor koboo whom the meanest of the rest look down upon, for all your glimmering", " language", " and", " spirituality!", "You low expiring aborigines of the hills of Utah, Oregon, California!", "You dwarf’d Kamtschatkan, Greenlander, Lapp!", "You Austral negro, naked, red, sooty, with protrusive lip, grovelling, seeking your food!", "", "You Caffre, Berber, Soudanese!", "You haggard, uncouth, untutor’d, Bedowee!", "You plague-swarms in Madras, Nankin, Kaubul, Cairo!", "You bather bathing in the Ganges!", "You benighted roamer of Amazonia! you Patagonian! you Fejee-man!", "You peon of Mexico! you slave of Carolina, Texas, Tennessee!", "I do not prefer others so very much before you either;", "I do not say one word against you, away back there, where you stand;", "(You will come forward in due time to my side.)", "", "My spirit has pass’d in compassion and determination around the whole earth;", "I have look’d for equals and lovers, and found them ready for me in all lands;", "I think some divine rapport has equalized me with them.", "", "13", "O vapors! I think I have risen with you, and moved away to distant continents, and fallen", " down", " there, for reasons;", "I think I have blown with you, O winds;", "O waters, I have finger’d every shore with you.", "", "I have run through what any river or strait of the globe has run through;", "I have taken my stand on the bases of peninsulas, and on the high embedded rocks, to cry", " thence.", "", "Salut au monde!", "What cities the light or warmth penetrates, I penetrate those cities myself;", "All islands to which birds wing their way, I wing my way myself.", "", "Toward all,", "I raise high the perpendicular hand—I make the signal,", "To remain after me in sight forever,", "For all the haunts and homes of men." ], "linecount": "367" }, { "title": "When I heard at the Close of the Day.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "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." ], "linecount": "27" }, { "title": "Italian Music in Dakota.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "THROUGH the soft evening air enwrinding all,", "Rocks, woods, fort, cannon, pacing sentries, endless wilds,", "In dulcet streams, in flutes’ and cornets’ notes,", "Electric, pensive, turbulent artificial,", "(Yet strangely fitting even here, meanings unknown before,", "Subtler than ever, more harmony, as if born here, related here,", "Not to the city’s fresco’d rooms, not to the audience of the opera house,", "Sounds, echoes, wandering strains, as really here at home,", "Sonnambula’s innocent love, trios with Norma’s anguish,", "And thy ecstatic chorus Poliuto;)", "Ray’d in the limpid yellow slanting sundown,", "Music, Italian music in Dakota.", "", "While Nature, sovereign of this gnarl’d realm,", "Lurking in hidden barbaric grim recesses,", "Acknowledging rapport however far remov’d,", "(As some old root or soil of earth its last-born flower or fruit,)", "Listens well pleas’d." ], "linecount": "17" }, { "title": "Pensive on Her Dead Gazing, I Heard the Mother of All.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "PENSIVE, on her dead gazing, I heard the Mother of All,", "Desperate, on the torn bodies, on the forms covering the battle-fields gazing;", "(As the last gun ceased—but the scent of the powder-smoke linger’d;)", "As she call’d to her earth with mournful voice while she stalk’d:", "Absorb them well, O my earth, she cried—I charge you, lose not my sons! lose not an", " atom;", "And you streams, absorb them well, taking their dear blood;", "And you local spots, and you airs that swim above lightly,", "And all you essences of soil and growth—and you, my rivers’ depths;", "And you, mountain sides—and the woods where my dear children’s blood, trickling,", " redden’d;", "And you trees, down in your roots, to bequeath to all future trees,", "My dead absorb—my young men’s beautiful bodies absorb—and their precious,", " precious, precious blood;", "Which holding in trust for me, faithfully back again give me, many a year hence,", "In unseen essence and odor of surface and grass, centuries hence;", "In blowing airs from the fields, back again give me my darlings—give my immortal", " heroes;", "Exhale me them centuries hence—breathe me their breath—let not an atom be lost;", "O years and graves! O air and soil! O my dead, an aroma sweet!", "Exhale them perennial, sweet death, years, centuries hence." ], "linecount": "21" }, { "title": "Warble for Lilac-Time.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "WARBLE me now, for joy of Lilac-time,", "Sort me, O tongue and lips, for Nature’s sake, and sweet life’s sake—and", " death’s the same as life’s,", "Souvenirs of earliest summer—birds’ eggs, and the first berries;", "Gather the welcome signs, (as children, with pebbles, or stringing shells;)", "Put in April and May—the hylas croaking in the ponds—the elastic air,", "Bees, butterflies, the sparrow with its simple notes,", "Blue-bird, and darting swallow—nor forget the high-hole flashing his golden wings,", "The tranquil sunny haze, the clinging smoke, the vapor,", "Spiritual, airy insects, humming on gossamer wings,", "Shimmer of waters, with fish in them—the cerulean above;", "All that is jocund and sparkling—the brooks running,", "The maple woods, the crisp February days, and the sugar-making;", "The robin, where he hops, bright-eyed, brown-breasted,", "With musical clear call at sunrise, and again at sunset,", "Or flitting among the trees of the apple-orchard, building the nest of his mate;", "The melted snow of March—the willow sending forth its yellow-green sprouts;", "—For spring-time is here! the summer is here! and what is this in it and from it?", "Thou, Soul, unloosen’d—the restlessness after I know not what;", "Come! let us lag here no longer—let us be up and away!", "O for another world! O if one could but fly like a bird!", "O to escape—to sail forth, as in a ship!", "To glide with thee, O Soul, o’er all, in all, as a ship o’er the waters!", "—Gathering these hints, these preludes—the blue sky, the grass, the morning", " drops of", " dew;", "(With additional songs—every spring will I now strike up additional songs,", "Nor ever again forget, these tender days, the chants of Death as well as Life;)", "The lilac-scent, the bushes, and the dark green, heart-shaped leaves,", "Wood violets, the little delicate pale blossoms called innocence,", "Samples and sorts not for themselves alone, but for their atmosphere,", "To tally, drench’d with them, tested by them,", "Cities and artificial life, and all their sights and scenes,", "My mind henceforth, and all its meditations—my recitatives,", "My land, my age, my race, for once to serve in songs,", "(Sprouts, tokens ever of death indeed the same as life,)", "To grace the bush I love—to sing with the birds,", "A warble for joy of Lilac-time." ], "linecount": "38" }, { "title": "Gods.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "1", "THOUGHT of the Infinite—the All!", "Be thou my God.", "", "2", "Lover Divine, and Perfect Comrade!", "Waiting, content, invisible yet, but certain,", "Be thou my God.", "", "3", "Thou—thou, the Ideal Man!", "Fair, able, beautiful, content, and loving,", "Complete in Body, and dilate in Spirit,", "Be thou my God.", "", "4", "O Death—(for Life has served its turn;)", "Opener and usher to the heavenly mansion!", "Be thou my God.", "", "5", "Aught, aught, of mightiest, best, I see, conceive, or know,", "(To break the stagnant tie—thee, thee to free, O Soul,)", "Be thou my God.", "", "6", "Or thee, Old Cause, when’er advancing;", "All great Ideas, the races’ aspirations,", "All that exalts, releases thee, my Soul!", "All heroisms, deeds of rapt enthusiasts,", "Be ye my Gods!", "", "7", "Or Time and Space!", "Or shape of Earth, divine and wondrous!", "Or shape in I myself—or some fair shape, I, viewing, worship,", "Or lustrous orb of Sun, or star by night:", "Be ye my Gods." ], "linecount": "32" }, { "title": "Song of the Exposition.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "1", "AFTER all, not to create only, or found only,", "But to bring, perhaps from afar, what is already founded,", "To give it our own identity, average, limitless, free;", "To fill the gross, the torpid bulk with vital religious fire;", "Not to repel or destroy, so much as accept, fuse, rehabilitate;", "To obey, as well as command—to follow, more than to lead;", "These also are the lessons of our New World;", "—While how little the New, after all—how much the Old, Old World!", "", "Long, long, long, has the grass been growing,", "Long and long has the rain been falling,", "Long has the globe been rolling round.", "", "2", "Come, Muse, migrate from Greece and Ionia;", "Cross out, please, those immensely overpaid accounts,", "That matter of Troy, and Achilles’ wrath, and Eneas’, Odysseus’ wanderings;", "Placard “Removed” and “To Let” on the rocks of your snowy", " Parnassus;", "Repeat at Jerusalem—place the notice high on Jaffa’s gate, and on Mount Moriah;", "The same on the walls of your Gothic European Cathedrals, and German, French and Spanish", " Castles;", "For know a better, fresher, busier sphere—a wide, untried domain awaits, demands you.", "", "3", "Responsive to our summons,", "Or rather to her long-nurs’d inclination,", "Join’d with an irresistible, natural gravitation,", "", "She comes! this famous Female—as was indeed to be expected;", "(For who, so-ever youthful, ’cute and handsome, would wish to stay in mansions such as", " those,", "", "When offer’d quarters with all the modern improvements,", "With all the fun that ’s going—and all the best society?)", "", "She comes! I hear the rustling of her gown;", "I scent the odor of her breath’s delicious fragrance;", "I mark her step divine—her curious eyes a-turning, rolling,", "Upon this very scene.", "", "The Dame of Dames! can I believe, then,", "Those ancient temples classic, and castles strong and feudalistic,", "could none of them restrain her?", "Nor shades of Virgil and Dante—nor myriad memories, poems, old associations, magnetize and", " hold on to her?", "But that she ’s left them all—and here?", "", "Yes, if you will allow me to say so,", "I, my friends, if you do not, can plainly see Her,", "The same Undying Soul of Earth’s, activity’s, beauty’s, heroism’s Expression,", "Out from her evolutions hither come—submerged the strata of her former themes,", "Hidden and cover’d by to-day’s—foundation of to-day’s;", "Ended, deceas’d, through time, her voice by Castaly’s fountain;", "Silent through time the broken-lipp’d Sphynx in Egypt—silent those century-baffling tombs;", "", "Closed for aye the epics of Asia’s, Europe’s helmeted warriors;", "Calliope’s call for ever closed—Clio, Melpomene, Thalia closed and dead;", "Seal’d the stately rhythmus of Una and Oriana—ended the quest of the Holy Graal;", "Jerusalem a handful of ashes blown by the wind—extinct;", "The Crusaders’ streams of shadowy, midnight troops, sped with the sunrise;", "Amadis, Tancred, utterly gone—Charlemagne, Roland, Oliver gone,", "Palmerin, ogre, departed—vanish’d the turrets that Usk reflected,", "Arthur vanish’d with all his knights—Merlin and Lancelot and Galahad—all", " gone—dissolv’d utterly, like an exhalation;", "Pass’d! pass’d! for us, for ever pass’d! that once so mighty World—now void, inanimate,", " phantom World!", "", "Embroider’d, dazzling World! with all its gorgeous legends, myths,", "Its kings and barons proud—its priests, and warlike lords, and courtly dames;", "Pass’d to its charnel vault—laid on the shelf—coffin’d, with Crown and Armor on,", "Blazon’d with Shakspeare’s purple page,", "And dirged by Tennyson’s sweet sad rhyme.", "", "I say I see, my friends, if you do not, the Animus of all that World,", "Escaped, bequeath’d, vital, fugacious as ever, leaving those dead remains, and now this", " spot", " approaching, filling;", "—And I can hear what maybe you do not—a terrible aesthetical commotion,", "With howling, desperate gulp of “flower” and “bower,”", "With “Sonnet to Matilda’s Eyebrow” quite, quite frantic;", "With gushing, sentimental reading circles turn’d to ice or stone;", "With many a squeak, (in metre choice,) from Boston, New York, Philadelphia, London;", "As she, the illustrious Emigré, (having, it is true, in her day, although the same,", " changed,", " journey’d considerable,)", "Making directly for this rendezvous—vigorously clearing a path for herself—striding", " through", " the confusion,", "By thud of machinery and shrill steam-whistle undismay’d,", "Bluff’d not a bit by drain-pipe, gasometers, artificial fertilizers,", "Smiling and pleased, with palpable intent to stay,", "She ’s here, install’d amid the kitchen ware!", "", "4", "But hold—don’t I forget my manners?", "To introduce the Stranger (what else indeed have I come for?) to thee, Columbia:", "In Liberty’s name, welcome, Immortal! clasp hands,", "And ever henceforth Sisters dear be both.", "", "Fear not, O Muse! truly new ways and days receive, surround you,", "(I candidly confess, a queer, queer race, of novel fashion,)", "And yet the same old human race—the same within, without,", "Faces and hearts the same—feelings the same—yearnings the same,", "The same old love—beauty and use the same.", "", "5", "We do not blame thee, Elder World—nor separate ourselves from thee:", "(Would the Son separate himself from the Father?)", "Looking back on thee—seeing thee to thy duties, grandeurs, through past ages bending,", " building,", "We build to ours to-day.", "", "Mightier than Egypt’s tombs,", "Fairer than Grecia’s, Roma’s temples,", "Prouder than Milan’s statued, spired Cathedral,", "More picturesque than Rhenish castle-keeps,", "We plan, even now, to raise, beyond them all,", "Thy great Cathedral, sacred Industry—no tomb,", "A Keep for life for practical Invention.", "", "As in a waking vision,", "E’en while I chant, I see it rise—I scan and prophesy outside and in,", "Its manifold ensemble.", "", "6", "Around a Palace,", "Loftier, fairer, ampler than any yet,", "Earth’s modern Wonder, History’s Seven outstripping,", "High rising tier on tier, with glass and iron façades.", "", "Gladdening the sun and sky—enhued in cheerfulest hues,", "Bronze, lilac, robin’s-egg, marine and crimson,", "Over whose golden roof shall flaunt, beneath thy banner, Freedom,", "The banners of The States, the flags of every land,", "A brood of lofty, fair, but lesser Palaces shall cluster.", "", "Somewhere within the walls of all,", "Shall all that forwards perfect human life be started,", "Tried, taught, advanced, visibly exhibited.", "", "Here shall you trace in flowing operation,", "In every state of practical, busy movement,", "The rills of Civilization.", "", "Materials here, under your eye, shall change their shape, as if by magic;", "The cotton shall be pick’d almost in the very field,", "Shall be dried, clean’d, ginn’d, baled, spun into thread and cloth, before you:", "You shall see hands at work at all the old processes, and all the new ones;", "You shall see the various grains, and how flour is made, and then bread baked by the", " bakers;", "You shall see the crude ores of California and Nevada passing on and on till they become", " bullion;", "You shall watch how the printer sets type, and learn what a composing stick is;", "You shall mark, in amazement, the Hoe press whirling its cylinders, shedding the printed", " leaves", " steady and fast:", "The photograph, model, watch, pin, nail, shall be created before you.", "", "In large calm halls, a stately Museum shall teach you the infinite, solemn lessons of", " Minerals;", "", "In another, woods, plants, Vegetation shall be illustrated—in another Animals, animal life", " and development.", "", "One stately house shall be the Music House;", "Others for other Arts—Learning, the Sciences, shall all be here;", "None shall be slighted—none but shall here be honor’d, help’d, exampled.", "", "7", "This, this and these, America, shall be your Pyramids and Obelisks,", "Your Alexandrian Pharos, gardens of Babylon,", "Your temple at Olympia.", "", "The male and female many laboring not,", "Shall ever here confront the laboring many,", "With precious benefits to both—glory to all,", "To thee, America—and thee, Eternal Muse.", "", "And here shall ye inhabit, Powerful Matrons!", "In your vast state, vaster than all the old;", "Echoed through long, long centuries to come,", "To sound of different, prouder songs, with stronger themes,", "Practical, peaceful life—the people’s life—the People themselves,", "Lifted, illumin’d, bathed in peace—elate, secure in peace.", "", "8", "Away with themes of war! away with War itself!", "Hence from my shuddering sight, to never more return, that show of blacken’d, mutilated", " corpses!", "That hell unpent, and raid of blood—fit for wild tigers, or for lop-tongued wolves—not", " reasoning men!", "And in its stead speed Industry’s campaigns!", "With thy undaunted armies, Engineering!", "Thy pennants, Labor, loosen’d to the breeze!", "Thy bugles sounding loud and clear!", "", "Away with old romance!", "Away with novels, plots, and plays of foreign courts!", "Away with love-verses, sugar’d in rhyme—the intrigues, amours of idlers,", "Fitted for only banquets of the night, where dancers to late music slide;", "The unhealthy pleasures, extravagant dissipations of the few,", "With perfumes, heat and wine, beneath the dazzling chandeliers.", "", "9", "To you, ye Reverent, sane Sisters,", "To this resplendent day, the present scene,", "These eyes and ears that like some broad parterre bloom up around, before me,", "I raise a voice for far superber themes for poets and for Art,", "To exalt the present and the real,", "To teach the average man the glory of his daily walk and trade,", "To sing, in songs, how exercise and chemical life are never to be baffled;", "Boldly to thee, America, to-day! and thee, Immortal Muse!", "To practical, manual work, for each and all—to plough, hoe, dig,", "To plant and tend the tree, the berry, the vegetables, flowers,", "For every man to see to it that he really do something—for every woman too;", "To use the hammer, and the saw, (rip or cross-cut,)", "To cultivate a turn for carpentering, plastering, painting,", "To work as tailor, tailoress, nurse, hostler, porter,", "To invent a little—something ingenious—to aid the washing, cooking, cleaning,", "And hold it no disgrace to take a hand at them themselves.", "", "I say I bring thee, Muse, to-day and here,", "All occupations, duties broad and close,", "Toil, healthy toil and sweat, endless, without cessation,", "The old, old general burdens, interests, joys,", "The family, parentage, childhood, husband and wife,", "The house-comforts—the house itself, and all its belongings,", "Food and its preservations—chemistry applied to it;", "Whatever forms the average, strong, complete, sweet-blooded Man or Woman—the perfect,", " longeve", " Personality,", "And helps its present life to health and happiness—and shapes its Soul,", "For the eternal Real Life to come.", "", "With latest materials, works,", "Steam-power, the great Express lines, gas, petroleum,", "These triumphs of our time, the Atlantic’s delicate cable,", "The Pacific Railroad, the Suez canal, the Mont Cenis tunnel;", "Science advanced, in grandeur and reality, analyzing every thing,", "This world all spann’d with iron rails—with lines of steamships", "threading every sea,", "Our own Rondure, the current globe I bring.", "", "10", "And thou, high-towering One—America!", "Thy swarm of offspring towering high—yet higher thee, above all towering,", "With Victory on thy left, and at thy right hand Law;", "Thou Union, holding all—fusing, absorbing, tolerating all,", "Thee, ever thee, I bring.", "", "Thou—also thou, a world!", "With all thy wide geographies, manifold, different, distant,", "Rounding by thee in One—one common orbic language,", "One common indivisible destiny and Union.", "", "11", "And by the spells which ye vouchsafe,", "To those, your ministers in earnest,", "I here personify and call my themes,", "To make them pass before ye.", "", "Behold, America! (And thou, ineffable Guest and Sister!)", "For thee come trooping up thy waters and thy lands:", "Behold! thy fields and farms, thy far-off woods and mountains,", "As in procession coming.", "", "Behold! the sea itself!", "And on its limitless, heaving breast, thy ships:", "See! where their white sails, bellying in the wind, speckle the green and blue!", "See! thy steamers coming and going, steaming in or out of port!", "See! dusky and undulating, their long pennants of smoke!", "", "Behold, in Oregon, far in the north and west,", "Or in Maine, far in the north and east, thy cheerful axemen,", "Wielding all day their axes!", "", "Behold, on the lakes, thy pilots at their wheels—thy oarsmen!", "Behold how the ash writhes under those muscular arms!", "", "There by the furnace, and there by the anvil,", "Behold thy sturdy blacksmiths, swinging their sledges;", "Overhand so steady—overhand they turn and fall, with joyous clank,", "Like a tumult of laughter.", "", "Behold! (for still the procession moves,)", "Behold, Mother of All, thy countless sailors, boatmen, coasters!", "The myriads of thy young and old mechanics!", "Mark—mark the spirit of invention everywhere—thy rapid patents,", "Thy continual workshops, foundries, risen or rising;", "See, from their chimneys, how the tall flame-fires stream!", "", "Mark, thy interminable farms, North, South,", "Thy wealthy Daughter-States, Eastern, and Western,", "The varied products of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Georgia, Texas, and the rest;", "Thy limitless crops—grass, wheat, sugar, corn, rice, hemp, hops,", "Thy barns all fill’d—thy endless freight-trains, and thy bulging store-houses,", "The grapes that ripen on thy vines—the apples in thy orchards,", "Thy incalculable lumber, beef, pork, potatoes—thy coal—thy gold and silver,", "The inexhaustible iron in thy mines.", "", "12", "All thine, O sacred Union!", "Ship, farm, shop, barns, factories, mines,", "City and State—North, South, item and aggregate,", "We dedicate, dread Mother, all to thee!", "", "Protectress absolute, thou! Bulwark of all!", "For well we know that while thou givest each and all, (generous as God,)", "Without thee, neither all nor each, nor land, home,", "Ship, nor mine—nor any here, this day, secure,", "Nor aught, nor any day secure.", "", "13", "And thou, thy Emblem, waving over all!", "Delicate beauty! a word to thee, (it may be salutary;)", "Remember, thou hast not always been, as here to-day, so comfortably ensovereign’d;", "In other scenes than these have I observ’d thee, flag;", "Not quite so trim and whole, and freshly blooming, in folds of stainless silk;", "But I have seen thee, bunting, to tatters torn, upon thy splinter’d staff,", "Or clutch’d to some young color-bearer’s breast, with desperate hands,", "Savagely struggled for, for life or death—fought over long,", "’Mid cannon’s thunder-crash, and many a curse, and groan and yell—and rifle-volleys", " cracking sharp,", "And moving masses, as wild demons surging—and lives as nothing risk’d,", "For thy mere remnant, grimed with dirt and smoke, and sopp’d in blood;", "For sake of that, my beauty—and that thou might’st dally, as now, secure up there,", "Many a good man have I seen go under.", "", "14", "Now here, and these, and hence, in peace all thine, O Flag!", "And here, and hence, for thee, O universal Muse! and thou for them!", "And here and hence, O Union, all the work and workmen thine!", "The poets, women, sailors, soldiers, farmers, miners, students thine!", "None separate from Thee—henceforth one only, we and Thou;", "(For the blood of the children—what is it only the blood Maternal?", "And lives and works—what are they all at last except the roads to Faith and Death?)", "", "While we rehearse our measureless wealth, it is for thee, dear Mother!", "We own it all and several to-day indissoluble in Thee;", "—Think not our chant, our show, merely for products gross, or lucre—it is for Thee, the", " Soul, electric, spiritual!", "Our farms, inventions, crops, we own in Thee! Cities and States in Thee!", "Our freedom all in Thee! our very lives in Thee!" ], "linecount": "298" }, { "title": "Miracles.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "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 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 sun-down—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 cubic inch of space is a miracle,", "Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same,", "Every 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?" ], "linecount": "37" }, { "title": "Says.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "1", "I SAY whatever tastes sweet to the most perfect person, that is finally right.", "2", "I say nourish a great intellect, a great brain;", "If I have said anything to the contrary, I hereby retract it.", "", "3", "I say man shall not hold property in man;", "I say the least developed person on earth is just as important and sacred to himself or", " herself, as the most developed person is to himself or herself.", "", "4", "I say where liberty draws not the blood out of slavery, there slavery draws the blood out", " of", " liberty,", "I say the word of the good old cause in These States, and resound it hence over the world.", "", "", "5", "I say the human shape or face is so great, it must never be made ridiculous;", "I say for ornaments nothing outre can be allowed,", "And that anything is most beautiful without ornament,", "And that exaggerations will be sternly revenged in your own physiology, and in other", " persons’ physiology also;", "And I say that clean-shaped children can be jetted and conceived only where natural forms", " prevail in public, and the human face and form are never caricatured;", "And I say that genius need never more be turned to romances,", "(For facts properly told, how mean appear all romances.)", "", "6", "I say the word of lands fearing nothing—I will have no other land;", "I say discuss all and expose all—I am for every topic openly;", "I say there can be no salvation for These States without innovators—without free", " tongues,", " and ears willing to hear the tongues;", "And I announce as a glory of These States, that they respectfully listen to propositions,", " reforms, fresh views and doctrines, from successions of men and women,", "Each age with its own growth.", "", "7", "I have said many times that materials and the Soul are great, and that all depends on", " physique;", "Now I reverse what I said, and affirm that all depends on the æsthetic or", " intellectual,", "And that criticism is great—and that refinement is greatest of all;", "And I affirm now that the mind governs—and that all depends on the mind.", "", "8", "With one man or woman—(no matter which one—I even pick out the lowest,)", "With him or her I now illustrate the whole law;", "I say that every right, in politics or what-not, shall be eligible to that one man or", " woman, on", " the same terms as any." ], "linecount": "46" }, { "title": "Proud Music of The Storm.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "1", "PROUD music of the storm!", "Blast that careers so free, whistling across the prairies!", "Strong hum of forest tree-tops! Wind of the mountains!", "Personified dim shapes! you hidden orchestras!", "You serenades of phantoms, with instruments alert,", "Blending, with Nature’s rhythmus, all the tongues of nations;", "You chords left us by vast composers! you choruses!", "You formless, free, religious dances! you from the Orient!", "You undertone of rivers, roar of pouring cataracts;", "You sounds from distant guns, with galloping cavalry!", "Echoes of camps, with all the different bugle-calls!", "Trooping tumultuous, filling the midnight late, bending me powerless,", "Entering my lonesome slumber-chamber—Why have you seiz’d me?", "", "2", "Come forward, O my Soul, and let the rest retire;", "Listen—lose not—it is toward thee they tend;", "Parting the midnight, entering my slumber-chamber,", "For thee they sing and dance, O Soul.", "", "A festival song!", "The duet of the bridegroom and the bride—a marriage-march,", "With lips of love, and hearts of lovers, fill’d to the brim with love;", "The red-flush’d cheeks, and perfumes—the cortege swarming, full of friendly", " faces,", " young and old,", "To flutes’ clear notes, and sounding harps’ cantabile.", "", "3", "Now loud approaching drums!", "Victoria! see’st thou in powder-smoke the banners torn but flying? the rout of the", " baffled?", "Hearest those shouts of a conquering army?", "", "(Ah, Soul, the sobs of women—the wounded groaning in agony,", "The hiss and crackle of flames—the blacken’d ruins—the embers of cities,", "The dirge and desolation of mankind.)", "", "4", "Now airs antique and medieval fill me!", "I see and hear old harpers with their harps, at Welsh festivals:", "I hear the minnesingers, singing their lays of love,", "I hear the minstrels, gleemen, troubadours, of the feudal ages.", "", "5", "Now the great organ sounds,", "Tremulous—while underneath, (as the hid footholds of the earth,", "On which arising, rest, and leaping forth, depend,", "All shapes of beauty, grace and strength—all hues we know,", "Green blades of grass, and warbling birds—children that gambol and play—the", " clouds of", " heaven above,)", "The strong base stands, and its pulsations intermits not,", "Bathing, supporting, merging all the rest—maternity of all the rest;", "And with it every instrument in multitudes,", "The players playing—all the world’s musicians,", "The solemn hymns and masses, rousing adoration,", "All passionate heart-chants, sorrowful appeals,", "The measureless sweet vocalists of ages,", "And for their solvent setting, Earth’s own diapason,", "Of winds and woods and mighty ocean waves;", "A new composite orchestra—binder of years and climes—ten-fold renewer,", "As of the far-back days the poets tell—the Paradiso,", "The straying thence, the separation long, but now the wandering done,", "The journey done, the Journeyman come home,", "And Man and Art, with Nature fused again.", "", "6", "Tutti! for Earth and Heaven!", "The Almighty Leader now for me, for once has signal’d with his wand.", "", "The manly strophe of the husbands of the world,", "And all the wives responding.", "", "The tongues of violins!", "(I think, O tongues, ye tell this heart, that cannot tell itself;", "This brooding, yearning heart, that cannot tell itself.)", "", "7", "Ah, from a little child,", "Thou knowest, Soul, how to me all sounds became music;", "My mother’s voice, in lullaby or hymn;", "(The voice—O tender voices—memory’s loving voices!", "Last miracle of all—O dearest mother’s, sister’s, voices;)", "The rain, the growing corn, the breeze among the long-leav’d corn,", "The measur’d sea-surf, beating on the sand,", "The twittering bird, the hawk’s sharp scream,", "The wild-fowl’s notes at night, as flying low, migrating north or south,", "The psalm in the country church, or mid the clustering trees, the open air camp-meeting,", "The fiddler in the tavern—the glee, the long-strung sailor-song,", "The lowing cattle, bleating sheep—the crowing cock at dawn.", "", "8", "All songs of current lands come sounding ’round me,", "The German airs of friendship, wine and love,", "Irish ballads, merry jigs and dances—English warbles,", "Chansons of France, Scotch tunes—and o’er the rest,", "Italia’s peerless compositions.", "", "Across the stage, with pallor on her face, yet lurid passion,", "Stalks Norma, brandishing the dagger in her hand.", "", "I see poor crazed Lucia’s eyes’ unnatural gleam;", "Her hair down her back falls loose and dishevell’d.", "", "I see where Ernani, walking the bridal garden,", "Amid the scent of night-roses, radiant, holding his bride by the hand,", "Hears the infernal call, the death-pledge of the horn.", "", "To crossing swords, and grey hairs bared to heaven,", "The clear, electric base and baritone of the world,", "The trombone duo—Libertad forever!", "", "From Spanish chestnut trees’ dense shade,", "By old and heavy convent walls, a wailing song,", "Song of lost love—the torch of youth and life quench’d in despair,", "Song of the dying swan—Fernando’s heart is breaking.", "", "Awaking from her woes at last, retriev’d Amina sings;", "Copious as stars, and glad as morning light, the torrents of her joy.", "", "(The teeming lady comes!", "The lustrious orb—Venus contralto—the blooming mother,", "Sister of loftiest gods—Alboni’s self I hear.)", "", "9", "I hear those odes, symphonies, operas;", "I hear in the William Tell, the music of an arous’d and angry people;", "I hear Meyerbeer’s Huguenots, the Prophet, or Robert;", "Gounod’s Faust, or Mozart’s Don Juan.", "", "10", "I hear the dance-music of all nations,", "The waltz, (some delicious measure, lapsing, bathing me in bliss;)", "The bolero, to tinkling guitars and clattering castanets.", "", "I see religious dances old and new,", "I hear the sound of the Hebrew lyre,", "I see the Crusaders marching, bearing the cross on high, to the martial clang of cymbals;", "I hear dervishes monotonously chanting, interspers’d with frantic shouts, as they", " spin", " around, turning always towards Mecca;", "I see the rapt religious dances of the Persians and the Arabs;", "Again, at Eleusis, home of Ceres, I see the modern Greeks dancing,", "I hear them clapping their hands, as they bend their bodies,", "I hear the metrical shuffling of their feet.", "", "I see again the wild old Corybantian dance, the performers wounding each other;", "I see the Roman youth, to the shrill sound of flageolets, throwing and catching their", " weapons,", "As they fall on their knees, and rise again.", "", "I hear from the Mussulman mosque the muezzin calling;", "I see the worshippers within, (nor form, nor sermon, argument, nor word,", "But silent, strange, devout—rais’d, glowing heads—extatic faces.)", "", "11", "I hear the Egyptian harp of many strings,", "The primitive chants of the Nile boatmen;", "The sacred imperial hymns of China,", "To the delicate sounds of the king, (the stricken wood and stone;)", "Or to Hindu flutes, and the fretting twang of the vina,", "A band of bayaderes.", "", "12", "Now Asia, Africa leave me—Europe, seizing, inflates me;", "To organs huge, and bands, I hear as from vast concourses of voices,", "Luther’s strong hymn, Eine feste Burg ist unser Gott;", "Rossini’s Stabat Mater dolorosa;", "Or, floating in some high cathedral dim, with gorgeous color’d windows,", "The passionate Agnus Dei, or Gloria in Excelsis.", "", "13", "Composers! mighty maestros!", "And you, sweet singers of old lands—Soprani! Tenori! Bassi!", "To you a new bard, carolling free in the west,", "Obeisant, sends his love.", "", "(Such led to thee, O Soul!", "All senses, shows and objects, lead to thee,", "But now, it seems to me, sound leads o’er all the rest.)", "", "14", "I hear the annual singing of the children in St. Paul’s Cathedral;", "Or, under the high roof of some colossal hall, the symphonies, oratorios of Beethoven,", " Handel,", " or Haydn;", "The Creation, in billows of godhood laves me.", "", "Give me to hold all sounds, (I, madly struggling, cry,)", "Fill me with all the voices of the universe,", "Endow me with their throbbings—Nature’s also,", "The tempests, waters, winds—operas and chants—marches and dances,", "Utter—pour in—for I would take them all.", "", "15", "Then I woke softly,", "And pausing, questioning awhile the music of my dream,", "And questioning all those reminiscences—the tempest in its fury,", "And all the songs of sopranos and tenors,", "And those rapt oriental dances, of religious fervor,", "And the sweet varied instruments, and the diapason of organs,", "And all the artless plaints of love, and grief and death,", "I said to my silent, curious Soul, out of the bed of the slumber-chamber,", "Come, for I have found the clue I sought so long,", "Let us go forth refresh’d amid the day,", "Cheerfully tallying life, walking the world, the real,", "Nourish’d henceforth by our celestial dream.", "", "And I said, moreover,", "Haply, what thou hast heard, O Soul, was not the sound of winds,", "Nor dream of raging storm, nor sea-hawk’s flapping wings, nor harsh scream,", "Nor vocalism of sun-bright Italy,", "Nor German organ majestic—nor vast concourse of voices—nor layers of harmonies;", "Nor strophes of husbands and wives—nor sound of marching soldiers,", "Nor flutes, nor harps, nor the bugle-calls of camps;", "But, to a new rhythmus fitted for thee,", "Poems, bridging the way from Life to Death, vaguely wafted in night air, uncaught,", " unwritten,", "Which, let us go forth in the bold day, and write." ], "linecount": "190" }, { "title": "Out of the Rolling Ocean, the Crowd.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "1", "OUT of the rolling ocean, the crowd, came a drop gently to me,", "Whispering, I love you, before long I die,", "I have travel’d a long way, merely to look on you, to touch you,", "For I could not die till I once look’d on you,", "For I fear’d I might afterward lose you.", "", "2", "(Now we have met, we have look’d, we are safe;", "Return in peace to the ocean, my love;", "I too am part of that ocean, my love—we are not so much separated;", "Behold the great rondure—the cohesion of all, how perfect!", "But as for me, for you, the irresistible sea is to separate us,", "As for an hour, carrying us diverse—yet cannot carry us diverse for ever;", "Be not impatient—a little space—Know you, I salute the air, the ocean and the", " land,", "Every day, at sundown, for your dear sake, my love.)" ], "linecount": "16" }, { "title": "Adieu to a Soldier.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "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 manoeuver,", "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." ], "linecount": "17" }, { "title": "There was a Child went Forth.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "THERE was a child went forth every day;", "And the first object he look’d upon, that object he became;", "And that object became part of him for the day, or a certain part of the day, or for many", " years, or", " stretching cycles of years.", "", "The early lilacs became part of this child,", "And grass, and white and red morning-glories, and white and red clover, and the song of", " the", " phoebe-bird,", "And the Third-month lambs, and the sow’s pink-faint litter, and the mare’s foal,", " and", " the", " cow’s calf,", "And the noisy brood of the barn-yard, or by the mire of the pond-side,", "And the fish suspending themselves so curiously below there—and the beautiful curious", " liquid,", "And the water-plants with their graceful flat heads—all became part of him.", "", "The field-sprouts of Fourth-month and Fifth-month became part of him;", "Winter-grain sprouts, and those of the light-yellow corn, and the esculent roots of the", " garden,", "", "And the apple-trees cover’d with blossoms, and the fruit afterward, and wood-berries,", " and", " the", " commonest weeds by the road;", "And the old drunkard staggering home from the out-house of the tavern, whence he had", " lately", " risen,", "And the school-mistress that pass’d on her way to the school,", "And the friendly boys that pass’d—and the quarrelsome boys,", "And the tidy and fresh-cheek’d girls—and the barefoot negro boy and girl,", "And all the changes of city and country, wherever he went.", "", "His own parents,", "He that had father’d him, and she that had conceiv’d him in her womb, and", " birth’d", " him,", "They gave this child more of themselves than that;", "They gave him afterward every day—they became part of him.", "", "The mother at home, quietly placing the dishes on the supper-table;", "The mother with mild words—clean her cap and gown, a wholesome odor falling off her", " person", " and", " clothes as she walks by;", "The father, strong, self-sufficient, manly, mean, anger’d, unjust;", "The blow, the quick loud word, the tight bargain, the crafty lure,", "The family usages, the language, the company, the furniture—the yearning and swelling", " heart,", "Affection that will not be gainsay’d—the sense of what is real—the thought", " if,", " after", " all, it should prove unreal,", "The doubts of day-time and the doubts of night-time—the curious whether and how,", "Whether that which appears so is so, or is it all flashes and specks?", "Men and women crowding fast in the streets—if they are not flashes and specks, what", " are", " they?", "The streets themselves, and the façades of houses, and goods in the windows,", "Vehicles, teams, the heavy-plank’d wharves—the huge crossing at the ferries,", "The village on the highland, seen from afar at sunset—the river between,", "Shadows, aureola and mist, the light falling on roofs and gables of white or brown, three", " miles", " off,", "", "The schooner near by, sleepily dropping down the tide—the little boat", " slack-tow’d", " astern,", "The hurrying tumbling waves, quick-broken crests, slapping,", "The strata of color’d clouds, the long bar of maroon-tint, away solitary by", " itself—the", " spread of purity it lies motionless in,", "The horizon’s edge, the flying sea-crow, the fragrance of salt marsh and shore mud;", "These became part of that child who went forth every day, and who now goes, and will", " always go", " forth", " every day." ], "linecount": "73" }, { "title": "To Think of Time.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "1", "TO think of time—of all that retrospection!", "To think of to-day, and the ages continued henceforward!", "", "Have you guess’d you yourself would not continue?", "Have you dreaded these earth-beetles?", "Have you fear’d the future would be nothing to you?", "", "Is to-day nothing? Is the beginningless past nothing?", "If the future is nothing, they are just as surely nothing.", "", "To think that the sun rose in the east! that men and women were flexible, real, alive!", " that", " everything was alive!", "To think that you and I did not see, feel, think, nor bear our part!", "To think that we are now here, and bear our part!", "", "2", "Not a day passes—not a minute or second, without an accouchement!", "Not a day passes—not a minute or second, without a corpse!", "", "The dull nights go over, and the dull days also,", "The soreness of lying so much in bed goes over,", "The physician, after long putting off, gives the silent and terrible look for an answer,", "The children come hurried and weeping, and the brothers and sisters are sent for,", "Medicines stand unused on the shelf—(the camphor-smell has long pervaded the rooms,)", "The faithful hand of the living does not desert the hand of the dying,", "The twitching lips press lightly on the forehead of the dying,", "The breath ceases, and the pulse of the heart ceases,", "The corpse stretches on the bed, and the living look upon it,", "It is palpable as the living are palpable.", "", "The living look upon the corpse with their eye-sight,", "But without eye-sight lingers a different living, and looks curiously on the corpse.", "", "3", "To think the thought of Death, merged in the thought of materials!", "To think that the rivers will flow, and the snow fall, and fruits ripen, and act upon", " others as", " upon us now—yet not act upon us!", "To think of all these wonders of city and country, and others taking great interest in", " them—and we taking no interest in them!", "", "To think how eager we are in building our houses!", "To think others shall be just as eager, and we quite indifferent!", "", "(I see one building the house that serves him a few years, or seventy or eighty years at", " most,", "I see one building the house that serves him longer than that.)", "", "Slow-moving and black lines creep over the whole earth—they never cease—they are", " the", " burial lines,", "He that was President was buried, and he that is now President shall surely be buried.", "", "4", "A reminiscence of the vulgar fate,", "A frequent sample of the life and death of workmen,", "Each after his kind:", "Cold dash of waves at the ferry-wharf—posh and ice in the river, half-frozen mud in", " the", " streets, a gray, discouraged sky overhead, the short, last daylight of Twelfth-month,", "A hearse and stages—other vehicles give place—the funeral of an old Broadway", " stage-driver, the cortege mostly drivers.", "", "Steady the trot to the cemetery, duly rattles the death-bell, the gate is pass’d, the", " new-dug grave is halted at, the living alight, the hearse uncloses,", "The coffin is pass’d out, lower’d and settled, the whip is laid on the coffin,", " the", " earth is swiftly shovel’d in,", "The mound above is flatted with the spades—silence,", "A minute—no one moves or speaks—it is done,", "He is decently put away—is there anything more?", "", "He was a good fellow, free-mouth’d, quick-temper’d, not bad-looking, able to", " take his", " own part, witty, sensitive to a slight, ready with life or death for a friend, fond of", " women,", " gambled, ate hearty, drank hearty, had known what it was to be flush, grew low-spirited", " toward", " the last, sicken’d, was help’d by a contribution, died, aged forty-one", " years—and", " that was his funeral.", "", "Thumb extended, finger uplifted, apron, cape, gloves, strap, wet-weather clothes, whip", " carefully chosen, boss, spotter, starter, hostler, somebody loafing on you, you loafing", " on", " somebody, headway, man before and man behind, good day’s work, bad day’s work,", " pet", " stock, mean stock, first out, last out, turning-in at night;", "To think that these are so much and so nigh to other drivers—and he there takes no", " interest in them!", "", "5", "The markets, the government, the working-man’s wages—to think what account they", " are", " through our nights and days!", "To think that other working-men will make just as great account of them—yet we make", " little", " or no account!", "", "The vulgar and the refined—what you call sin, and what you call goodness—to", " think how", " wide a difference!", "To think the difference will still continue to others, yet we lie beyond the difference.", "", "To think how much pleasure there is!", "Have you pleasure from looking at the sky? have you pleasure from poems?", "Do you enjoy yourself in the city? or engaged in business? or planning a nomination and", " election? or with your wife and family?", "Or with your mother and sisters? or in womanly housework? or the beautiful maternal cares?", "", "—These also flow onward to others—you and I flow onward,", "But in due time, you and I shall take less interest in them.", "", "Your farm, profits, crops,—to think how engross’d you are!", "To think there will still be farms, profits, crops—yet for you, of what avail?", "", "6", "What will be, will be well—for what is, is well,", "To take interest is well, and not to take interest shall be well.", "", "The sky continues beautiful,", "The pleasure of men with women shall never be sated, nor the pleasure of women with men,", " nor", " the pleasure from poems,", "The domestic joys, the daily housework or business, the building of houses—these are", " not", " phantasms—they have weight, form, location;", "Farms, profits, crops, markets, wages, government, are none of them phantasms,", "The difference between sin and goodness is no delusion,", "The earth is not an echo—man and his life, and all the things of his life, are", " well-consider’d.", "", "You are not thrown to the winds—you gather certainly and safely around yourself;", "Yourself! Yourself! Yourself, forever and ever!", "", "7", "It is not to diffuse you that you were born of your mother and father—it is to", " identify", " you;", "It is not that you should be undecided, but that you should be decided;", "Something long preparing and formless is arrived and form’d in you,", "You are henceforth secure, whatever comes or goes.", "", "The threads that were spun are gather’d, the weft crosses the warp, the pattern is", " systematic.", "", "The preparations have every one been justified,", "The orchestra have sufficiently tuned their instruments—the baton has given the", " signal.", "", "The guest that was coming—he waited long, for reasons—he is now housed,", "He is one of those who are beautiful and happy—he is one of those that to look upon", " and be", " with is enough.", "", "The law of the past cannot be eluded,", "The law of the present and future cannot be eluded,", "The law of the living cannot be eluded—it is eternal,", "The law of promotion and transformation cannot be eluded,", "The law of heroes and good-doers cannot be eluded,", "The law of drunkards, informers, mean persons—not one iota thereof can be eluded.", "", "8", "Slow moving and black lines go ceaselessly over the earth,", "Northerner goes carried, and Southerner goes carried, and they on the Atlantic side, and", " they", " on the Pacific, and they between, and all through the Mississippi country, and all over", " the", " earth.", "", "The great masters and kosmos are well as they go—the heroes and good-doers are well,", "The known leaders and inventors, and the rich owners and pious and distinguish’d, may", " be", " well,", "But there is more account than that—there is strict account of all.", "", "The interminable hordes of the ignorant and wicked are not nothing,", "The barbarians of Africa and Asia are not nothing,", "The common people of Europe are not nothing—the American aborigines are not nothing,", "The infected in the immigrant hospital are not nothing—the murderer or mean person is", " not", " nothing,", "The perpetual successions of shallow people are not nothing as they go,", "The lowest prostitute is not nothing—the mocker of religion is not nothing as he", " goes.", "", "9", "Of and in all these things,", "I have dream’d that we are not to be changed so much, nor the law of us changed,", "I have dream’d that heroes and good-doers shall be under the present and past law,", "And that murderers, drunkards, liars, shall be under the present and past law,", "For I have dream’d that the law they are under now is enough.", "", "If otherwise, all came but to ashes of dung,", "If maggots and rats ended us, then Alarum! for we are betray’d!", "Then indeed suspicion of death.", "", "Do you suspect death? If I were to suspect death, I should die now,", "Do you think I could walk pleasantly and well-suited toward annihilation?", "", "10", "Pleasantly and well-suited I walk,", "Whither I walk I cannot define, but I know it is good,", "The whole universe indicates that it is good,", "The past and the present indicate that it is good.", "", "How beautiful and perfect are the animals!", "How perfect the earth, and the minutest thing upon it!", "", "What is called good is perfect, and what is called bad is just as perfect,", "The vegetables and minerals are all perfect, and the imponderable fluids are perfect;", "Slowly and surely they have pass’d on to this, and slowly and surely they yet pass", " on.", "", "11", "I swear I think now that everything without exception has an eternal Soul!", "The trees have, rooted in the ground! the weeds of the sea have! the animals!", "", "I swear I think there is nothing but immortality!", "That the exquisite scheme is for it, and the nebulous float is for it, and the cohering is", " for", " it;", "And all preparation is for it! and identity is for it! and life and materials are", " altogether", " for it" ], "linecount": "189" }, { "title": "Weave in, Weave in, My Hardy Life.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "WEAVE in! weave in, my hardy life!", "Weave yet a soldier strong and full, for great campaigns to come;", "Weave in red blood! weave sinews in, like ropes! the senses, sight weave in!", "Weave lasting sure! weave day and night the weft, the warp, incessant weave! tire not!", "(We know not what the use, O life! nor know the aim, the end—nor really aught we", " know;", "But know the work, the need goes on, and shall go on—the death-envelop’d march", " of", " peace as well as war goes on;)", "For great campaigns of peace the same, the wiry threads to weave;", "We know not why or what, yet weave, forever weave." ], "linecount": "11" }, { "title": "Song of the Universal.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "1", "COME, said the Muse,", "Sing me a song no poet yet has chanted,", "Sing me the Universal.", "", "In this broad Earth of ours,", "Amid the measureless grossness and the slag,", "Enclosed and safe within its central heart,", "Nestles the seed Perfection.", "", "By every life a share, or more or less,", "None born but it is born—conceal’d or unconceal’d, the seed is waiting.", "", "2", "Lo! keen-eyed, towering Science!", "As from tall peaks the Modern overlooking,", "Successive, absolute fiats issuing.", "", "Yet again, lo! the Soul—above all science;", "For it, has History gather’d like a husk around the globe;", "For it, the entire star-myriads roll through the sky.", "", "In spiral roads, by long detours,", "(As a much-tacking ship upon the sea,)", "For it, the partial to the permanent flowing,", "For it, the Real to the Ideal tends.", "", "For it, the mystic evolution;", "Not the right only justified—what we call evil also justified.", "", "Forth from their masks, no matter what,", "From the huge, festering trunk—from craft and guile and tears,", "Health to emerge, and joy—joy universal.", "", "Out of the bulk, the morbid and the shallow,", "Out of the bad majority—the varied, countless frauds of men and States,", "", "Electric, antiseptic yet—cleaving, suffusing all,", "Only the good is universal.", "", "3", "Over the mountain growths, disease and sorrow,", "An uncaught bird is ever hovering, hovering,", "High in the purer, happier air.", "", "From imperfection’s murkiest cloud,", "Darts always forth one ray of perfect light,", "One flash of Heaven’s glory.", "", "To fashion’s, custom’s discord,", "To the mad Babel-din, the deafening orgies,", "Soothing each lull, a strain is heard, just heard,", "From some far shore, the final chorus sounding.", "", "4", "O the blest eyes! the happy hearts!", "That see—that know the guiding thread so fine,", "Along the mighty labyrinth!", "", "5", "And thou, America!", "For the Scheme’s culmination—its Thought, and its Reality,", "For these, (not for thyself,) Thou hast arrived.", "", "Thou too surroundest all;", "Embracing, carrying, welcoming all, Thou too, by pathways broad and new,", "To the Ideal tendest.", "", "The measur’d faiths of other lands—the grandeurs of the past,", "Are not for Thee—but grandeurs of Thine own;", "Deific faiths and amplitudes, absorbing, comprehending all,", "All eligible to all.", "", "All, all for Immortality!", "Love, like the light, silently wrapping all!", "Nature’s amelioration blessing all!", "The blossoms, fruits of ages—orchards divine and certain;", "Forms, objects, growths, humanities, to spiritual Images ripening.", "", "6", "Give me, O God, to sing that thought!", "Give me—give him or her I love, this quenchless faith", "In Thy ensemble. Whatever else withheld, withhold not from us,", "Belief in plan of Thee enclosed in Time and Space;", "Health, peace, salvation universal.", "", "Is it a dream?", "Nay, but the lack of it the dream,", "And, failing it, life’s lore and wealth a dream,", "And all the world a dream." ], "linecount": "71" }, { "title": "France, the 18th year of These States.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "1", "A GREAT year and place;", "A harsh, discordant, natal scream out-sounding, to touch the mother’s heart closer", " than", " any yet.", "", "I walk’d the shores of my Eastern Sea,", "Heard over the waves the little voice,", "Saw the divine infant, where she woke, mournfully wailing, amid the roar of cannon,", " curses,", " shouts, crash of falling buildings;", "Was not so sick from the blood in the gutters running—nor from the single corpses,", " nor", " those in heaps, nor those borne away in the tumbrils;", "Was not so desperate at the battues of death—was not so shock’d at the repeated", " fusillades of the guns.", "", "2", "Pale, silent, stern, what could I say to that long-accrued retribution?", "Could I wish humanity different?", "Could I wish the people made of wood and stone?", "Or that there be no justice in destiny or time?", "", "3", "O Liberty! O mate for me!", "Here too the blaze, the grape-shot and the axe, in reserve, to fetch them out in case of", " need;", "Here too, though long represt, can never be destroy’d;", "Here too could rise at last, murdering and extatic;", "Here too demanding full arrears of vengeance.", "", "4", "Hence I sign this salute over the sea,", "And I do not deny that terrible red birth and baptism,", "But remember the little voice that I heard wailing—and wait with perfect trust, no", " matter", " how long;", "And from to-day, sad and cogent, I maintain the bequeath’d cause, as for all lands,", "And I send these words to Paris with my love,", "And I guess some chansonniers there will understand them,", "For I guess there is latent music yet in France—floods of it;", "O I hear already the bustle of instruments—they will soon be drowning all that would", " interrupt them;", "O I think the east wind brings a triumphal and free march,", "It reaches hither—it swells me to joyful madness,", "I will run transpose it in words, to justify it,", "I will yet sing a song for you, MA FEMME." ], "linecount": "43" }, { "title": "Prayer of Columbus.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "A BATTER’D, wreck’d old man,", "Thrown on this savage shore, far, far from home,", "Pent by the sea, and dark rebellious brows, twelve dreary months,", "Sore, stiff with many toils, sicken’d, and nigh to death,", "I take my way along the island’s edge,", "Venting a heavy heart.", "", "I am too full of woe!", "Haply, I may not live another day;", "I can not rest, O God—I can not eat or drink or sleep,", "Till I put forth myself, my prayer, once more to Thee,", "Breathe, bathe myself once more in Thee—commune with Thee,", "Report myself once more to Thee.", "", "Thou knowest my years entire, my life,", "(My long and crowded life of active work—not adoration merely;)", "Thou knowest the prayers and vigils of my youth;", "Thou knowest my manhood’s solemn and visionary meditations;", "Thou knowest how, before I commenced, I devoted all to come to Thee;", "Thou knowest I have in age ratified all those vows, and strictly kept them;", "Thou knowest I have not once lost nor faith nor ecstasy in Thee;", "(In shackles, prison’d, in disgrace, repining not,", "Accepting all from Thee—as duly come from Thee.)", "", "All my emprises have been fill’d with Thee,", "My speculations, plans, begun and carried on in thoughts of Thee,", "Sailing the deep, or journeying the land for Thee;", "Intentions, purports, aspirations mine—leaving results to Thee.", "", "O I am sure they really come from Thee!", "The urge, the ardor, the unconquerable will,", "The potent, felt, interior command, stronger than words,", "A message from the Heavens, whispering to me even in sleep,", "These sped me on.", "", "By me, and these, the work so far accomplish’d (for what has been, has been;)", "By me Earth’s elder, cloy’d and stifled lands, uncloy’d, unloos’d;", "By me the hemispheres rounded and tied—the unknown to the known.", "", "The end I know not—it is all in Thee;", "Or small, or great, I know not—haply, what broad fields, what lands;", "Haply, the brutish, measureless human undergrowth I know,", "Transplanted there, may rise to stature, knowledge worthy Thee;", "Haply the swords I know may there indeed be turn’d to reaping-tools;", "Haply the lifeless cross I know—Europe’s dead cross—may bud and blossom", " there.", "", "One effort more—my altar this bleak sand:", "That Thou, O God, my life hast lighted,", "With ray of light, steady, ineffable, vouchsafed of Thee,", "(Light rare, untellable—lighting the very light!", "Beyond all signs, descriptions, languages!)", "For that, O God—be it my latest word—here on my knees,", "Old, poor, and paralyzed—I thank Thee.", "", "My terminus near,", "The clouds already closing in upon me,", "The voyage balk’d—the course disputed, lost,", "I yield my ships to Thee.", "", "Steersman unseen! henceforth the helms are Thine;", "Take Thou command—(what to my petty skill Thy navigation?)", "My hands, my limbs grow nerveless;", "My brain feels rack’d, bewilder’d; Let the old timbers part—I will not", " part!", "I will cling fast to Thee, O God, though the waves buffet me;", "Thee, Thee, at least, I know.", "", "Is it the prophet’s thought I speak, or am I raving?", "What do I know of life? what of myself?", "I know not even my own work, past or present;", "Dim, ever-shifting guesses of it spread before me,", "Of newer, better worlds, their mighty parturition,", "Mocking, perplexing me.", "", "And these things I see suddenly—what mean they?", "As if some miracle, some hand divine unseal’d my eyes,", "Shadowy, vast shapes, smile through the air and sky,", "And on the distant waves sail countless ships,", "And anthems in new tongues I hear saluting me." ], "linecount": "69" }, { "title": "Full of Life, Now.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "FULL of life, now, compact, visible,", "I, forty years old the Eighty-third Year of The States,", "To one a century hence, or any number of centuries hence,", "To you, yet unborn, these, seeking you.", "", "When you read these, I, that was visible, am become invisible;", "Now it is you, compact, visible, realizing my poems, seeking me;", "Fancying how happy you were, if I could be with you, and become your comrade;", "Be it as if I were with you. (Be not too certain but I am now with you.)" ], "linecount": "8" }, { "title": "Unfolded Out of the Folds.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "UNFOLDED out of the folds of the woman, man comes unfolded, and is always to", " come unfolded;", "Unfolded only out of the superbest woman of the earth, is to come the superbest", " man of the earth;", "Unfolded out of the friendliest woman, is to come the friendliest man;", "Unfolded only out of the perfect body of a woman, can a man be form’d of", " perfect body;", "Unfolded only out of the inimitable poem of the woman, can come the poems of", " man—(only thence have my poems come;)", "Unfolded out of the strong and arrogant woman I love, only thence can appear the", " strong and arrogant man I love;", "Unfolded by brawny embraces from the well-muscled woman I love, only thence come", " the brawny embraces of the man;", "Unfolded out of the folds of the woman’s brain, come all the folds of the", " man’s brain, duly obedient;", "Unfolded out of the justice of the woman, all justice is unfolded;", "Unfolded out of the sympathy of the woman is all sympathy:", "A man is a great thing upon the earth, and through eternity—but every jot", " of the greatness of man is unfolded out of woman,", "First the man is shaped in the woman, he can then be shaped in himself." ], "linecount": "20" }, { "title": "I Dream’d in a Dream.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "I DREAM’D in a dream, I saw a city invincible to the attacks of the whole of the rest of", " the", " earth;", "", "I dream’d that was the new City of Friends;", "Nothing was greater there than the quality of robust love—it led the rest;", "It was seen every hour in the actions of the men of that city,", "And in all their looks and words. 5" ], "linecount": "7" }, { "title": "As the Time Draws Nigh.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "1", "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.", "", "2", "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." ], "linecount": "10" }, { "title": "Beautiful Women.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "WOMEN sit, or move to and fro—some old, some young;", "The young are beautiful—but the old are more beautiful than the young." ], "linecount": "2" }, { "title": "Song for All Seas, All Ships.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "1", "TO-DAY a rude brief recitative,", "Of ships sailing the Seas, each with its special flag or ship-signal;", "Of unnamed heroes in the ships—Of waves spreading and spreading, far as the eye can reach;", "", "Of dashing spray, and the winds piping and blowing;", "And out of these a chant, for the sailors of all nations,", "Fitful, like a surge.", "", "Of Sea-Captains young or old, and the Mates—and of all intrepid Sailors;", "Of the few, very choice, taciturn, whom fate can never surprise, nor death dismay,", "Pick’d sparingly, without noise, by thee, old Ocean—chosen by thee,", "Thou Sea, that pickest and cullest the race, in Time, and unitest Nations!", "Suckled by thee, old husky Nurse—embodying thee!", "Indomitable, untamed as thee.", "", "(Ever the heroes, on water or on land, by ones or twos appearing,", "Ever the stock preserv’d, and never lost, though rare—enough for seed preserv’d.)", "", "2", "Flaunt out O Sea, your separate flags of nations!", "Flaunt out, visible as ever, the various ship-signals!", "But do you reserve especially for yourself, and for the soul of man, one flag above all", " the", " rest,", "A spiritual woven Signal, for all nations, emblem of man elate above death,", "Token of all brave captains, and all intrepid sailors and mates,", "And all that went down doing their duty;", "Reminiscent of them—twined from all intrepid captains, young or old;", "A pennant universal, subtly waving, all time, o’er all brave sailors,", "All seas, all ships." ], "linecount": "27" }, { "title": "A Woman Waits for Me.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "A WOMAN waits for me—she contains all, nothing is lacking,", "Yet all were lacking, if sex were lacking, or if the moisture of the right man were", " lacking.", "", "Sex contains all,", "Bodies, Souls, meanings, proofs, purities, delicacies, results, promulgations,", "Songs, commands, health, pride, the maternal mystery, the seminal milk;", "All hopes, benefactions, bestowals,", "All the passions, loves, beauties, delights of the earth,", "All the governments, judges, gods, follow’d persons of the earth,", "These are contain’d in sex, as parts of itself, and justifications of itself.", "", "Without shame the man I like knows and avows the deliciousness of his sex,", "Without shame the woman I like knows and avows hers.", "", "Now I will dismiss myself from impassive women,", "I will go stay with her who waits for me, and with those women that are warm-blooded and", " sufficient for me;", "I see that they understand me, and do not deny me;", "I see that they are worthy of me—I will be the robust husband of those women.", "", "They are not one jot less than I am,", "They are tann’d in the face by shining suns and blowing winds,", "Their flesh has the old divine suppleness and strength,", "They know how to swim, row, ride, wrestle, shoot, run, strike, retreat, advance, resist,", " defend themselves,", "They are ultimate in their own right—they are calm, clear, well-possess’d of", " themselves.", "", "I draw you close to me, you women!", "I cannot let you go, I would do you good,", "I am for you, and you are for me, not only for our own sake, but for others’ sakes;", "Envelop’d in you sleep greater heroes and bards,", "They refuse to awake at the touch of any man but me.", "", "It is I, you women—I make my way,", "I am stern, acrid, large, undissuadable—but I love you,", "I do not hurt you any more than is necessary for you,", "I pour the stuff to start sons and daughters fit for These States—I press with slow", " rude muscle,", "I brace myself effectually—I listen to no entreaties,", "I dare not withdraw till I deposit what has so long accumulated within me.", "", "Through you I drain the pent-up rivers of myself,", "In you I wrap a thousand onward years,", "On you I graft the grafts of the best-beloved of me and America,", "The drops I distil upon you shall grow fierce and athletic girls, new artists, musicians,", " and singers,", "The babes I beget upon you are to beget babes in their turn,", "I shall demand perfect men and women out of my love-spendings,", "I shall expect them to interpenetrate with others, as I and you interpenetrate now,", "I shall count on the fruits of the gushing showers of them, as I count on the fruits of", " the gushing showers I give now,", "I shall look for loving crops from the birth, life, death, immortality, I plant so", " lovingly now." ], "linecount": "48" }, { "title": "Poem of Remembrance for a Girl or a Boy.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "YOU just maturing youth! You male or female!", "Remember the organic compact of These States,", "Remember the pledge of the Old Thirteen thenceforward to the rights, life, liberty,", " equality of", " man,", "Remember what was promulged by the founders, ratified by The States, signed in black and", " white", " by the Commissioners, and read by Washington at the head of the army,", "Remember the purposes of the founders,—Remember Washington;", "Remember the copious humanity streaming from every direction toward America;", "Remember the hospitality that belongs to nations and men; (Cursed be nation, woman, man,", " without hospitality!)", "Remember, government is to subserve individuals,", "Not any, not the President, is to have one jot more than you or me,", "Not any habitan of America is to have one jot less than you or me.", "", "Anticipate when the thirty or fifty millions, are to become the hundred, or two hundred", " millions, of equal freemen and freewomen, amicably joined.", "", "Recall ages—One age is but a part—ages are but a part;", "Recall the angers, bickerings, delusions, superstitions, of the idea of caste,", "Recall the bloody cruelties and crimes.", "", "Anticipate the best women;", "I say an unnumbered new race of hardy and well-defined women are to spread through all", " These", " States,", "I say a girl fit for These States must be free, capable, dauntless, just the same as a", " boy.", "", "Anticipate your own life—retract with merciless power,", "Shirk nothing—retract in time—Do you see those errors, diseases, weaknesses,", " lies,", " thefts?", "Do you see that lost character?—Do you see decay, consumption, rum-drinking, dropsy,", " fever, mortal cancer or inflammation?", "Do you see death, and the approach of death?" ], "linecount": "33" }, { "title": "Look Down, Fair Moon.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "LOOK down, fair moon, and bathe this scene;", "Pour softly down night’s nimbus floods, on faces ghastly, swollen, purple;", "On the dead, on their backs, with their arms toss’d wide,", "Pour down your unstinted nimbus, sacred moon." ], "linecount": "4" }, { "title": "Poem of Joys.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "1", "O TO make the most jubilant poem!", "Even to set off these, and merge with these, the carols of Death.", "O full of music! full of manhood, womanhood, infancy!", "Full of common employments! full of grain and trees.", "", "O for the voices of animals! O for the swiftness and balance of fishes!", "O for the dropping of rain-drops in a poem!", "O for the sunshine, and motion of waves in a poem.", "", "O the joy of my spirit! it is uncaged! it darts like lightning!", "It is not enough to have this globe, or a certain time—I will have thousands of", " globes,", " and all time.", "", "2", "O the engineer’s joys!", "To go with a locomotive!", "To hear the hiss of steam—the merry shriek—the steam-whistle—the laughing", " locomotive!", "To push with resistless way, and speed off in the distance.", "", "O the gleesome saunter over fields and hill-sides!", "The leaves and flowers of the commonest weeds—the moist fresh stillness of the woods,", "The exquisite smell of the earth at day-break, and all through the forenoon.", "", "O the horseman’s and horsewoman’s joys!", "The saddle—the gallop—the pressure upon the seat—the cool gurgling by the", " ears", " and hair.", "", "3", "O the fireman’s joys!", "I hear the alarm at dead of night,", "I hear bells—shouts!—I pass the crowd—I run!", "The sight of the flames maddens me with pleasure.", "", "O the joy of the strong-brawn’d fighter, towering in the arena, in perfect condition,", " conscious of power, thirsting to meet his opponent.", "", "O the joy of that vast elemental sympathy which only the human Soul is capable of", " generating", " and emitting in steady and limitless floods.", "", "4", "O the mother’s joys!", "The watching—the endurance—the precious love—the anguish—the patiently", " yielded life.", "", "O the joy of increase, growth, recuperation;", "The joy of soothing and pacifying—the joy of concord and harmony.", "", "O to go back to the place where I was born!", "To hear the birds sing once more!", "To ramble about the house and barn, and over the fields, once more,", "And through the orchard and along the old lanes once more.", "", "5", "O male and female!", "O the presence of women! (I swear there is nothing more exquisite to me than the mere", " presence", " of women;)", "O for the girl, my mate! O for the happiness with my mate!", "O the young man as I pass! O I am sick after the friendship of him who, I fear, is", " indifferent", " to me.", "", "O the streets of cities!", "The flitting faces—the expressions, eyes, feet, costumes! O I cannot tell how welcome", " they", " are to me.", "", "6", "O to have been brought up on bays, lagoons, creeks, or along the coast!", "O to continue and be employ’d there all my life!", "O the briny and damp smell—the shore—the salt weeds exposed at low water,", "The work of fishermen—the work of the eel-fisher and clam-fisher.", "", "O it is I!", "I come with my clam-rake and spade! I come with my eel-spear;", "Is the tide out? I join the group of clam-diggers on the flats,", "I laugh and work with them—I joke at my work, like a mettlesome young man.", "", "In winter I take my eel-basket and eel-spear and travel out on foot on the ice—I have", " a", " small axe to cut holes in the ice;", "Behold me, well-clothed, going gaily, or returning in the afternoon—my brood of tough", " boys", " accompaning me,", "My brood of grown and part-grown boys, who love to be with no one else so well as they", " love to", " be with me,", "By day to work with me, and by night to sleep with me.", "", "Or, another time, in warm weather, out in a boat, to lift the lobster-pots, where they are", " sunk", " with heavy stones, (I know the buoys;)", "O the sweetness of the Fifth-month morning upon the water, as I row, just before sunrise,", " toward the buoys;", "I pull the wicker pots up slantingly—the dark-green lobsters are desperate with their", " claws, as I take them out—I insert wooden pegs in the joints of their pincers,", "I go to all the places, one after another, and then row back to the shore,", "There, in a huge kettle of boiling water, the lobsters shall be boil’d till their", " color", " becomes scarlet.", "", "Or, another time, mackerel-taking,", "Voracious, mad for the hook, near the surface, they seem to fill the water for miles:", "Or, another time, fishing for rock-fish, in Chesapeake Bay—I one of the brown-faced", " crew:", "Or, another time, trailing for blue-fish off Paumanok, I stand with braced body,", "My left foot is on the gunwale—my right arm throws the coils of slender rope,", "In sight around me the quick veering and darting of fifty skiffs, my companions.", "", "7", "O boating on the rivers!", "The voyage down the Niagara, (the St. Lawrence,)—the superb scenery—the", " steamers,", "The ships sailing—the Thousand Islands—the occasional timber-raft, and the", " raftsmen", " with long-reaching sweep-oars,", "The little huts on the rafts, and the stream of smoke when they cook their supper at", " evening.", "", "O something pernicious and dread!", "Something far away from a puny and pious life!", "Something unproved! Something in a trance!", "Something escaped from the anchorage, and driving free.", "", "O to work in mines, or forging iron!", "Foundry casting—the foundry itself—the rude high roof—the ample and", " shadow’d space,", "The furnace—the hot liquid pour’d out and running.", "", "8", "O to resume the joys of the soldier:", "To feel the presence of a brave general! to feel his sympathy!", "To behold his calmness! to be warm’d in the rays of his smile!", "To go to battle! to hear the bugles play, and the drums beat!", "To hear the crash of artillery! to see the glittering of the bayonets and musket-barrels", " in the", " sun!", "To see men fall and die, and not complain!", "To taste the savage taste of blood! to be so devilish!", "To gloat so over the wounds and deaths of the enemy.", "", "9", "O the whaleman’s joys! O I cruise my old cruise again!", "I feel the ship’s motion under me—I feel the Atlantic breezes fanning me,", "I hear the cry again sent down from the mast-head—There—she blows!", "—Again I spring up the rigging, to look with the rest—We see—we descend,", " wild", " with excitement,", "I leap in the lower’d boat—We row toward our prey, where he lies,", "We approach, stealthy and silent—I see the mountainous mass, lethargic, basking,", "I see the harpooneer standing up—I see the weapon dart from his vigorous arm:", "O swift, again, now, far out in the ocean, the wounded whale, settling, running to", " windward,", " tows me;", "—Again I see him rise to breathe—We row close again,", "I see a lance driven through his side, press’d deep, turn’d in the wound,", "Again we back off—I see him settle again—the life is leaving him fast,", "As he rises, he spouts blood—I see him swim in circles narrower and narrower, swiftly", " cutting the water—I see him die;", "He gives one convulsive leap in the centre of the circle, and then falls flat and still in", " the", " bloody foam.", "", "10", "O the old manhood of me, my joy!", "My children and grand-children—my white hair and beard,", "My largeness, calmness, majesty, out of the long stretch of my life.", "", "O the ripen’d joy of womanhood!", "O perfect happiness at last!", "I am more than eighty years of age—my hair, too, is pure white—I am the most", " venerable mother;", "How clear is my mind! how all people draw nigh to me!", "What attractions are these, beyond any before? what bloom, more than the bloom of youth?", "What beauty is this that descends upon me, and rises out of me?", "", "O the orator’s joys!", "To inflate the chest—to roll the thunder of the voice out from the ribs and throat,", "To make the people rage, weep, hate, desire, with yourself,", "To lead America—to quell America with a great tongue.", "", "O the joy of my soul leaning pois’d on itself—receiving identity through", " materials,", " and loving them—observing characters, and absorbing them;", "O my soul, vibrated back to me, from them—from facts, sight, hearing, touch, my", " phrenology, reason, articulation, comparison, memory, and the like;", "The real life of my senses and flesh, transcending my senses and flesh;", "My body, done with materials—my sight, done with my material eyes;", "Proved to me this day, beyond cavil, that it is not my material eyes which finally see,", "Nor my material body which finally loves, walks, laughs, shouts, embraces, procreates.", "", "11", "O the farmer’s joys!", "Ohioan’s, Illinoisian’s, Wisconsinese’, Kanadian’s, Iowan’s,", " Kansian’s, Missourian’s, Oregonese’ joys;", "To rise at peep of day, and pass forth nimbly to work,", "To plow land in the fall for winter-sown crops,", "To plough land in the spring for maize,", "To train orchards—to graft the trees—to gather apples in the fall.", "", "O the pleasure with trees!", "The orchard—the forest—the oak, cedar, pine, pekan-tree,", "The honey-locust, black-walnut, cottonwood, and magnolia.", "", "12", "O Death! the voyage of Death!", "The beautiful touch of Death, soothing and benumbing a few moments, for reasons;", "Myself, discharging my excrementitious body, to be burn’d, or render’d to", " powder, or", " buried,", "My real body doubtless left to me for other spheres,", "My voided body, nothing more to me, returning to the purifications, further offices,", " eternal", " uses of the earth.", "", "13", "O to bathe in the swimming-bath, or in a good place along shore!", "To splash the water! to walk ankle-deep—to race naked along the shore.", "", "O to realize space!", "The plenteousness of all—that there are no bounds;", "To emerge, and be of the sky—of the sun and moon, and the flying clouds, as one with", " them.", "", "", "O the joy of a manly self-hood!", "Personality—to be servile to none—to defer to none—not to any tyrant, known", " or", " unknown,", "To walk with erect carriage, a step springy and elastic,", "To look with calm gaze, or with a flashing eye,", "To speak with a full and sonorous voice, out of a broad chest,", "To confront with your personality all the other personalities of the earth.", "", "14", "Know’st thou the excellent joys of youth?", "Joys of the dear companions, and of the merry word, and laughing face?", "Joys of the glad, light-beaming day—joy of the wide-breath’d games?", "Joy of sweet music—joy of the lighted ball-room, and the dancers?", "Joy of the friendly, plenteous dinner—the strong carouse, and drinking?", "", "15", "Yet, O my soul supreme!", "Know’st thou the joys of pensive thought?", "Joys of the free and lonesome heart—the tender, gloomy heart?", "Joy of the solitary walk—the spirit bowed yet proud—the suffering and the", " struggle?", "The agonistic throes, the extasies—joys of the solemn musings, day or night?", "Joys of the thought of Death—the great spheres Time and Space?", "Prophetic joys of better, loftier love’s ideals—the Divine Wife—the sweet,", " eternal, perfect Comrade?", "Joys all thine own, undying one—joys worthy thee, O Soul.", "", "16", "O, while I live, to be the ruler of life—not a slave,", "To meet life as a powerful conqueror,", "No fumes—no ennui—no more complaints, or scornful criticisms.", "", "O me repellent and ugly!", "To these proud laws of the air, the water, and the ground, proving my interior Soul", " impregnable,", "And nothing exterior shall ever take command of me.", "", "O to attract by more than attraction!", "How it is I know not—yet behold! the something which obeys none of the rest,", "It is offensive, never defensive—yet how magnetic it draws.", "", "17", "O joy of suffering!", "To struggle against great odds! to meet enemies undaunted!", "To be entirely alone with them! to find how much one can stand!", "To look strife, torture, prison, popular odium, death, face to face!", "To mount the scaffold! to advance to the muzzles of guns with perfect nonchalance!", "To be indeed a God!", "", "18", "O, to sail to sea in a ship!", "To leave this steady, unendurable land!", "To leave the tiresome sameness of the streets, the sidewalks and the houses;", "To leave you, O you solid motionless land, and entering a ship,", "To sail, and sail, and sail!", "", "19", "O to have my life henceforth a poem of new joys!", "To dance, clap hands, exult, shout, skip, leap, roll on, float on,", "To be a sailor of the world, bound for all ports,", "A ship itself, (see indeed these sails I spread to the sun and air,)", "A swift and swelling ship, full of rich words—full of joys." ], "linecount": "251" }, { "title": "To a Locomotive in Winter.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "THEE for my recitative!", "Thee in the driving storm, even as now—the snow—the winter-day declining;", "Thee in thy panoply, thy measured dual throbbing, and thy beat convulsive;", "Thy black cylindric body, golden brass, and silvery steel;", "Thy ponderous side-bars, parallel and connecting rods, gyrating, shuttling at thy sides;", "Thy metrical, now swelling pant and roar—now tapering in the distance;", "Thy great protruding head-light, fix’d in front;", "Thy long, pale, floating vapor-pennants, tinged with delicate purple;", "The dense and murky clouds out-belching from thy smoke-stack;", "Thy knitted frame—thy springs and valves—the tremulous twinkle of thy wheels;", "Thy train of cars behind, obedient, merrily-following,", "Through gale or calm, now swift, now slack, yet steadily careering:", "Type of the modern! emblem of motion and power! pulse of the continent!", "For once, come serve the Muse, and merge in verse, even as here I see thee,", "With storm, and buffeting gusts of wind, and falling snow;", "By day, thy warning, ringing bell to sound its notes,", "By night, thy silent signal lamps to swing.", "", "Fierce-throated beauty!", "Roll through my chant, with all thy lawless music! thy swinging lamps at night;", "Thy piercing, madly-whistled laughter! thy echoes, rumbling like an earthquake, rousing", " all!", "Law of thyself complete, thine own track firmly holding;", "(No sweetness debonair of tearful harp or glib piano thine,)", "Thy trills of shrieks by rocks and hills return’d,", "Launch’d o’er the prairies wide—across the lakes,", "To the free skies, unpent, and glad, and strong." ], "linecount": "26" }, { "title": "Manhattan Streets I Saunter’d, Pondering.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "1", "MANHATTAN’S streets I saunter’d, pondering,", "On time, space, reality—on such as these, and abreast with them, prudence.", "", "2", "After all, the last explanation remains to be made about prudence;", "Little and large alike drop quietly aside from the prudence that suits immortality.", "", "The Soul is of itself;", "All verges to it—all has reference to what ensues;", "All that a person does, says, thinks, is of consequence;", "Not a move can a man or woman make, that affects him or her in a day, month, any part of", " the", " direct", " life-time, or the hour of death, but the same affects him or her onward afterward through", " the", " indirect life-time.", "", "3", "The indirect is just as much as the direct,", "The spirit receives from the body just as much as it gives to the body, if not more.", "", "Not one word or deed—not venereal sore, discoloration, privacy of the onanist,", " putridity", " of", " gluttons or rum-drinkers, peculation, cunning, betrayal, murder, seduction, prostitution,", " but", " has", " results beyond death, as really as before death.", "", "4", "Charity and personal force are the only investments worth anything.", "", "No specification is necessary—all that a male or female does, that is vigorous,", " benevolent,", " clean, is so much profit to him or her, in the unshakable order of the universe, and", " through", " the", " whole scope of it forever.", "", "5", "Who has been wise, receives interest,", "Savage, felon, President, judge, farmer, sailor, mechanic, literat, young, old, it is the", " same,", "The interest will come round—all will come round.", "", "Singly, wholly, to affect now, affected their time, will forever affect all of the past,", " and", " all of", " the present, and all of the future,", "All the brave actions of war and peace,", "All help given to relatives, strangers, the poor, old, sorrowful, young children, widows,", " the", " sick,", " and to shunn’d persons,", "All furtherance of fugitives, and of the escape of slaves,", "All self-denial that stood steady and aloof on wrecks, and saw others fill the seats of", " the", " boats,", "All offering of substance or life for the good old cause, or for a friend’s sake, or", " opinion’s sake,", "All pains of enthusiasts, scoff’d at by their neighbors,", "All the limitless sweet love and precious suffering of mothers,", "All honest men baffled in strifes recorded or unrecorded,", "All the grandeur and good of ancient nations whose fragments we inherit,", "All the good of the dozens of ancient nations unknown to us by name, date, location,", "All that was ever manfully begun, whether it succeeded or no,", "All suggestions of the divine mind of man, or the divinity of his mouth, or the shaping of", " his", " great", " hands;", "All that is well thought or said this day on any part of the globe—or on any of the", " wandering", " stars, or on any of the fix’d stars, by those there as we are here;", "All that is henceforth to be thought or done by you, whoever you are, or by any one;", "These inure, have inured, shall inure, to the identities from which they sprang, or shall", " spring.", "", "6", "Did you guess anything lived only its moment?", "The world does not so exist—no parts palpable or impalpable so exist;", "No consummation exists without being from some long previous consummation—and that", " from", " some", " other,", "Without the farthest conceivable one coming a bit nearer the beginning than any.", "", "7", "Whatever satisfies Souls is true;", "Prudence entirely satisfies the craving and glut of Souls;", "Itself only finally satisfies the Soul;", "The Soul has that measureless pride which revolts from every lesson but its own.", "", "8", "Now I give you an inkling;", "Now I breathe the word of the prudence that walks abreast with time, space, reality,", "That answers the pride which refuses every lesson but its own.", "", "What is prudence, is indivisible,", "Declines to separate one part of life from every part,", "Divides not the righteous from the unrighteous, or the living from the dead,", "Matches every thought or act by its correlative,", "Knows no possible forgiveness, or deputed atonement,", "Knows that the young man who composedly peril’d his life and lost it, has done", " exceedingly", " well", " for himself without doubt,", "That he who never peril’d his life, but retains it to old age in riches and ease, has", " probably", " achiev’d nothing for himself worth mentioning;", "Knows that only that person has really learn’d, who has learn’d to prefer", " results,", "Who favors Body and Soul the same,", "Who perceives the indirect assuredly following the direct,", "Who in his spirit in any emergency whatever neither hurries or, avoids death." ], "linecount": "103" }, { "title": "As I Sat Alone by Blue Ontario’s Shores.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "1", "AS I sat alone, by blue Ontario’s shore,", "As I mused of these mighty days, and of peace return’d, and the dead that return no", " more,", "A Phantom, gigantic, superb, with stern visage, accosted me;", "Chant me the poem, it said, that comes from the soul of America—chant me", " the", " carol of victory;", "And strike up the marches of Libertad—marches more powerful yet;", "And sing me before you go, the song of the throes of Democracy.", "", "(Democracy—the destin’d conqueror—yet treacherous lip-smiles everywhere,", "And Death and infidelity at every step.)", "", "2", "A Nation announcing itself,", "I myself make the only growth by which I can be appreciated,", "I reject none, accept all, then reproduce all in my own forms.", "", "A breed whose proof is in time and deeds;", "What we are, we are—nativity is answer enough to objections;", "We wield ourselves as a weapon is wielded,", "We are powerful and tremendous in ourselves,", "We are executive in ourselves—We are sufficient in the variety of ourselves,", "We are the most beautiful to ourselves, and in ourselves;", "We stand self-pois’d in the middle, branching thence over the world;", "From Missouri, Nebraska, or Kansas, laughing attacks to scorn.", "", "Nothing is sinful to us outside of ourselves,", "Whatever appears, whatever does not appear, we are beautiful or sinful in ourselves only.", "", "(O mother! O sisters dear!", "If we are lost, no victor else has destroy’d us;", "It is by ourselves we go down to eternal night.)", "", "3", "Have you thought there could be but a single Supreme?", "There can be any number of Supremes—One does not countervail another, any more than", " one", " eyesight countervails another, or one life countervails another.", "", "All is eligible to all,", "All is for individuals—All is for you,", "No condition is prohibited—not God’s, or any.", "", "All comes by the body—only health puts you rapport with the universe.", "", "Produce great persons, the rest follows.", "", "4", "America isolated I sing;", "I say that works made here in the spirit of other lands, are so much poison in The States.", "", "", "(How dare such insects as we see assume to write poems for America?", "For our victorious armies, and the offspring following the armies?)", "", "Piety and conformity to them that like!", "Peace, obesity, allegiance, to them that like!", "I am he who tauntingly compels men, women, nations,", "Crying, Leap from your seats, and contend for your lives!", "", "I am he who walks the States with a barb’d tongue, questioning every one I meet;", "Who are you, that wanted only to be told what you knew before?", "Who are you, that wanted only a book to join you in your nonsense?", "", "(With pangs and cries, as thine own, O bearer of many children!", "These clamors wild, to a race of pride I give.)", "", "O lands! would you be freer than all that has ever been before?", "If you would be freer than all that has been before, come listen to me.", "", "Fear grace—Fear elegance, civilization, delicatesse,", "Fear the mellow sweet, the sucking of honey-juice;", "Beware the advancing mortal ripening of nature,", "Beware what precedes the decay of the ruggedness of states and men.", "", "Ages, precedents, have long been accumulating undirected materials,", "America brings builders, and brings its own styles.", "", "The immortal poets of Asia and Europe have done their work, and pass’d to other", " spheres,", "A work remains, the work of surpassing all they have done.", "", "America, curious toward foreign characters, stands by its own at all hazards,", "Stands removed, spacious, composite, sound—initiates the true use of precedents,", "Does not repel them, or the past, or what they have produced under their forms,", "Takes the lesson with calmness, perceives the corpse slowly borne from the house,", "Perceives that it waits a little while in the door—that it was fittest for its days,", "That its life has descended to the stalwart and well-shaped heir who approaches,", "And that he shall be fittest for his days.", "", "Any period, one nation must lead,", "One land must be the promise and reliance of the future.", "", "These States are the amplest poem,", "Here is not merely a nation, but a teeming nation of nations,", "Here the doings of men correspond with the broadcast doings of the day and night,", "Here is what moves in magnificent masses, careless of particulars,", "Here are the roughs, beards, friendliness, combativeness, the Soul loves,", "Here the flowing trains—here the crowds, equality, diversity, the Soul loves.", "", "6", "Land of lands, and bards to corroborate!", "Of them, standing among them, one lifts to the light his west-bred face,", "To him the hereditary countenance bequeath’d, both mother’s and father’s,", "His first parts substances, earth, water, animals, trees,", "Built of the common stock, having room for far and near,", "Used to dispense with other lands, incarnating this land,", "Attracting it Body and Soul to himself, hanging on its neck with incomparable love,", "Plunging his seminal muscle into its merits and demerits,", "Making its cities, beginnings, events, diversities, wars, vocal in him,", "Making its rivers, lakes, bays, embouchure in him,", "Mississippi with yearly freshets and changing chutes—Columbia, Niagara, Hudson,", " spending", " themselves lovingly in him,", "If the Atlantic coast stretch, or the Pacific coast stretch, he stretching with them north", " or", " south,", "Spanning between them, east and west, and touching whatever is between them,", "Growths growing from him to offset the growth of pine, cedar, hemlock, live-oak, locust,", " chestnut, hickory, cottonwood, orange, magnolia,", "Tangles as tangled in him as any cane-brake or swamp,", "He likening sides and peaks of mountains, forests coated with northern transparent ice,", "Off him pasturage, sweet and natural as savanna, upland, prairie,", "Through him flights, whirls, screams, answering those of the fish-hawk, mocking-bird,", " night-heron, and eagle;", "His spirit surrounding his country’s spirit, unclosed to good and evil,", "Surrounding the essences of real things, old times and present times,", "Surrounding just found shores, islands, tribes of red aborigines,", "Weather-beaten vessels, landings, settlements, embryo stature and muscle,", "The haughty defiance of the Year 1—war, peace, the formation of the Constitution,", "The separate States, the simple, elastic scheme, the immigrants,", "The Union, always swarming with blatherers, and always sure and impregnable,", "The unsurvey’d interior, log-houses, clearings, wild animals, hunters, trappers;", "Surrounding the multiform agriculture, mines, temperature, the gestation of new States,", "Congress convening every Twelfth-month, the members duly coming up from the uttermost", " parts;", "Surrounding the noble character of mechanics and farmers, especially the young men,", "Responding their manners, speech, dress, friendships—the gait they have of persons", " who", " never knew how it felt to stand in the presence of superiors,", "The freshness and candor of their physiognomy, the copiousness and decision of their", " phrenology,", "The picturesque looseness of their carriage, their fierceness when wrong’d,", "The fluency of their speech, their delight in music, their curiosity, good temper, and", " open-handedness—the whole composite make,", "The prevailing ardor and enterprise, the large amativeness,", "The perfect equality of the female with the male, the fluid movement of the population,", "The superior marine, free commerce, fisheries, whaling, gold-digging,", "Wharf-hemm’d cities, railroad and steamboat lines, intersecting all points,", "Factories, mercantile life, labor-saving machinery, the north-east, north-west,", " south-west,", "Manhattan firemen, the Yankee swap, southern plantation life,", "Slavery—the murderous, treacherous conspiracy to raise it upon the ruins of all the", " rest;", "On and on to the grapple with it—Assassin! then your life or ours be the", " stake—and", " respite no more.", "", "7", "(Lo! high toward heaven, this day,", "Libertad! from the conqueress’ field return’d,", "I mark the new aureola around your head;", "No more of soft astral, but dazzling and fierce,", "With war’s flames, and the lambent lightnings playing,", "And your port immovable where you stand;", "With still the inextinguishable glance, and the clench’d and lifted fist,", "And your foot on the neck of the menacing one, the scorner, utterly crush’d beneath", " you;", "The menacing, arrogant one, that strode and advanced with his senseless scorn, bearing the", " murderous knife;", "—Lo! the wide swelling one, the braggart, that would yesterday do so much!", "To-day a carrion dead and damn’d, the despised of all the earth!", "An offal rank, to the dunghill maggots spurn’d.)", "", "8", "Others take finish, but the Republic is ever constructive, and ever keeps vista;", "Others adorn the past—but you, O days of the present, I adorn you!", "O days of the future, I believe in you! I isolate myself for your sake;", "O America, because you build for mankind, I build for you!", "O well-beloved stone-cutters! I lead them who plan with decision and science,", "I lead the present with friendly hand toward the future.", "", "Bravas to all impulses sending sane children to the next age!", "But damn that which spends itself, with no thought of the stain, pains, dismay, feebleness", " it", " is bequeathing.", "", "9", "I listened to the Phantom by Ontario’s shore,", "I heard the voice arising, demanding bards;", "By them, all native and grand—by them alone can The States be fused into the compact", " organism of a Nation.", "", "To hold men together by paper and seal, or by compulsion, is no account;", "That only holds men together which aggregates all in a living principle, as the hold of", " the", " limbs of the body, or the fibres of plants.", "", "Of all races and eras, These States, with veins full of poetical stuff, most need poets,", " and", " are to have the greatest, and use them the greatest;", "Their Presidents shall not be their common referee so much as their poets shall.", "", "(Soul of love, and tongue of fire!", "Eye to pierce the deepest deeps, and sweep the world!", "—Ah, mother! prolific and full in all besides—yet how long barren, barren?)", "", "10", "Of These States, the poet is the equable man,", "Not in him, but off from him, things are grotesque, eccentric, fail of their full returns,", "", "Nothing out of its place is good, nothing in its place is bad,", "He bestows on every object or quality its fit proportion, neither more nor less,", "He is the arbiter of the diverse, he is the key,", "He is the equalizer of his age and land,", "He supplies what wants supplying—he checks what wants checking,", "In peace, out of him speaks the spirit of peace, large, rich, thrifty, building populous", " towns,", " encouraging agriculture, arts, commerce, lighting the study of man, the Soul, health,", " immortality, government;", "In war, he is the best backer of the war—he fetches artillery as good as the", " engineer’s—he can make every word he speaks draw blood;", "The years straying toward infidelity, he withholds by his steady faith,", "He is no argurer, he is judgment—(Nature accepts him absolutely;)", "He judges not as the judge judges, but as the sun falling round a helpless thing;", "As he sees the farthest, he has the most faith,", "His thoughts are the hymns of the praise of things,", "In the dispute on God and eternity he is silent,", "He sees eternity less like a play with a prologue and denouement,", "He sees eternity in men and women—he does not see men and women as dreams or dots.", "", "For the great Idea, the idea of perfect and free individuals,", "For that idea the bard walks in advance, leader of leaders,", "The attitude of him cheers up slaves and horrifies foreign despots.", "", "Without extinction is Liberty! without retrograde is Equality!", "They live in the feelings of young men, and the best women;", "Not for nothing have the indomitable heads of the earth been always ready to fall for", " Liberty.", "", "11", "For the great Idea!", "That, O my brethren—that is the mission of Poets.", "", "Songs of stern defiance, ever ready,", "Songs of the rapid arming, and the march,", "The flag of peace quick-folded, and instead, the flag we know,", "Warlike flag of the great Idea.", "", "(Angry cloth I saw there leaping!", "I stand again in leaden rain, your flapping folds saluting;", "I sing you over all, flying, beckoning through the fight—O the hard-contested fight!", "O the cannons ope their rosy-flashing muzzles! the hurtled balls scream!", "", "The battle-front forms amid the smoke—the volleys pour incessant from the line;", "Hark! the ringing word, Charge!—now the tussle, and the furious maddening", " yells;", "Now the corpses tumble curl’d upon the ground,", "Cold, cold in death, for precious life of you,", "Angry cloth I saw there leaping.)", "", "12", "Are you he who would assume a place to teach, or be a poet here in The States?", "The place is august—the terms obdurate.", "", "Who would assume to teach here, may well prepare himself, body and mind,", "He may well survey, ponder, arm, fortify, harden, make lithe, himself,", "He shall surely be question’d beforehand by me with many and stern questions.", "", "Who are you, indeed, who would talk or sing to America?", "Have you studied out the land, its idioms and men?", "Have you learn’d the physiology, phrenology, politics, geography, pride, freedom,", " friendship, of the land? its substratums and objects?", "Have you consider’d the organic compact of the first day of the first year of", " Independence, sign’d by the Commissioners, ratified by The States, and read by", " Washington", " at the head of the army?", "Have you possess’d yourself of the Federal Constitution?", "Do you see who have left all feudal processes and poems behind them, and assumed the poems", " and", " processes of Democracy?", "Are you faithful to things? do you teach as the land and sea, the bodies of men,", " womanhood,", " amativeness, angers, teach?", "Have you sped through fleeting customs, popularities?", "Can you hold your hand against all seductions, follies, whirls, fierce contentions? are", " you", " very strong? are you really of the whole people?", "Are you not of some coterie? some school or mere religion?", "Are you done with reviews and criticisms of life? animating now to life itself?", "Have you vivified yourself from the maternity of These States?", "Have you too the old, ever-fresh forbearance and impartiality?", "Do you hold the like love for those hardening to maturity; for the last-born? little and", " big?", " and for the errant?", "", "What is this you bring my America?", "Is it uniform with my country?", "Is it not something that has been better told or done before?", "Have you not imported this, or the spirit of it, in some ship?", "Is it not a mere tale? a rhyme? a prettiness? is the good old cause in it?", "Has it not dangled long at the heels of the poets, politicians, literats, of enemies’", " lands?", "Does it not assume that what is notoriously gone is still here?", "Does it answer universal needs? will it improve manners?", "Does it sound, with trumpet-voice, the proud victory of the Union, in that secession war?", "Can your performance face the open fields and the seaside?", "Will it absorb into me as I absorb food, air—to appear again in my strength, gait,", " face?", "Have real employments contributed to it? original makers—not mere amanuenses?", "Does it meet modern discoveries, calibers, facts face to face?", "What does it mean to me? to American persons, progresses, cities? Chicago, Kanada,", " Arkansas?", " the planter, Yankee, Georgian, native, immigrant, sailors, squatters, old States, new", " States?", "Does it encompass all The States, and the unexceptional rights of all the men and women of", " the", " earth? (the genital impulse of These States;)", "Does it see behind the apparent custodians, the real custodians, standing, menacing,", " silent—the mechanics, Manhattanese, western men, southerners, significant alike in", " their", " apathy, and in the promptness of their love?", "Does it see what finally befalls, and has always finally befallen, each temporizer,", " patcher,", " outsider, partialist, alarmist, infidel, who has ever ask’d anything of America?", "What mocking and scornful negligence?", "The track strew’d with the dust of skeletons;", "By the roadside others disdainfully toss’d.", "", "13", "Rhymes and rhymers pass away—poems distill’d from foreign poems pass away,", "The swarms of reflectors and the polite pass, and leave ashes;", "Admirers, importers, obedient persons, make but the soul of literature;", "America justifies itself, give it time—no disguise can deceive it, or conceal from", " it—it is impassive enough,", "Only toward the likes of itself will it advance to meet them,", "If its poets appear, it will in due time advance to meet them—there is no fear of", " mistake,", "", "(The proof of a poet shall be sternly deferr’d, till his country absorbs him as", " affectionately as he has absorb’d it.)", "", "He masters whose spirit masters—he tastes sweetest who results sweetest in the long", " run;", "The blood of the brawn beloved of time is unconstraint;", "In the need of poems, philosophy, politics, manners, engineering, an appropriate native", " grand-opera, shipcraft, any craft, he or she is greatest who contributes the greatest", " original", " practical example.", "", "Already a nonchalant breed, silently emerging, appears on the streets,", "People’s lips salute only doers, lovers, satisfiers, positive knowers;", "There will shortly be no more priests—I say their work is done,", "Death is without emergencies here, but life is perpetual emergencies here,", "Are your body, days, manners, superb? after death you shall be superb;", "Justice, health, self-esteem, clear the way with irresistible power;", "How dare you place anything before a man?", "", "14", "Fall behind me, States!", "A man before all—myself, typical before all.", "", "Give me the pay I have served for!", "Give me to sing the song of the great Idea! take all the rest;", "I have loved the earth, sun, animals—I have despised riches,", "I have given alms to every one that ask’d, stood up for the stupid and crazy, devoted", " my", " income and labor to others,", "I have hated tyrants, argued not concerning God, had patience and indulgence toward the", " people,", " taken off my hat to nothing known or unknown,", "I have gone freely with powerful uneducated persons, and with the young, and with the", " mothers", " of families,", "I have read these leaves to myself in the open air—I have tried them by trees, stars,", " rivers,", "I have dismiss’d whatever insulted my own Soul or defiled my Body,", "I have claim’d nothing to myself which I have not carefully claim’d for others", " on the", " same terms,", "I have sped to the camps, and comrades found and accepted from every State;", "(In war of you, as well as peace, my suit is good, America—sadly I boast;", "Upon this breast has many a dying soldier lean’d, to breathe his last;", "This arm, this hand, this voice, have nourish’d, rais’d, restored,", "To life recalling many a prostrate form:)", "—I am willing to wait to be understood by the growth of the taste of myself,", "I reject none, I permit all.", "", "(Say, O mother! have I not to your thought been faithful?", "Have I not, through life, kept you and yours before me?)", "", "15", "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—it is you up there, or any one;", "It is to walk rapidly through civilizations, governments, theories,", "Through poems, pageants, shows, to form great individuals.", "", "Underneath all, individuals!", "I swear nothing is good to me now that ignores individuals,", "The American compact is altogether with individuals,", "The only government is that which makes minute of individuals,", "The whole theory of the universe is directed to one single individual—namely, to You.", "", "", "(Mother! with subtle sense severe—with the naked sword in your hand,", "I saw you at last refuse to treat but directly with individuals.)", "", "16", "Underneath all, nativity,", "I swear I will stand by my own nativity—pious or impious, so be it;", "I swear I am charm’d with nothing except nativity,", "Men, women, cities, nations, are only beautiful from nativity.", "", "Underneath all is the need of the expression of love for men and women,", "I swear I have seen enough of mean and impotent modes of expressing love for men and", " women,", "After this day I take my own modes of expressing love for men and women.", "", "I swear I will have each quality of my race in myself,", "(Talk as you like, he only suits These States whose manners favor the audacity and sublime", " turbulence of The States.)", "", "Underneath the lessons of things, spirits, Nature, governments, ownerships, I swear I", " perceive", " other lessons,", "Underneath all, to me is myself—to you, yourself—(the same monotonous old song.)", "", "", "17", "O I see now, flashing, that this America is only you and me,", "Its power, weapons, testimony, are you and me,", "Its crimes, lies, thefts, defections, slavery, are you and me,", "Its Congress is you and me—the officers, capitols, armies, ships, are you and me,", "Its endless gestations of new States are you and me,", "The war—that war so bloody and grim—the war I will henceforth forget—was", " you and", " me,", "Natural and artificial are you and me,", "Freedom, language, poems, employments, are you and me,", "Past, present, future, are you and me.", "", "18", "I swear I dare not shirk any part of myself,", "Not any part of America, good or bad,", "Not the promulgation of Liberty—not to cheer up slaves and horrify foreign despots,", "Not to build for that which builds for mankind,", "Not to balance ranks, complexions, creeds, and the sexes,", "Not to justify science, nor the march of equality,", "Nor to feed the arrogant blood of the brawn beloved of time.", "", "I swear I am for those that have never been master’d!", "For men and women whose tempers have never been master’d,", "For those whom laws, theories, conventions, can never master.", "", "I swear I am for those who walk abreast with the whole earth!", "Who inaugurate one, to inaugurate all.", "", "I swear I will not be outfaced by irrational things!", "I will penetrate what it is in them that is sarcastic upon me!", "I will make cities and civilizations defer to me!", "This is what I have learnt from America—it is the amount—and it I teach again.", "", "(Democracy! while weapons were everywhere aim’d at your breast,", "I saw you serenely give birth to immortal children—saw in dreams your dilating form;", "Saw you with spreading mantle covering the world.)", "", "19", "I will confront these shows of the day and night!", "I will know if I am to be less than they!", "I will see if I am not as majestic as they!", "I will see if I am not as subtle and real as they!", "I will see if I am to be less generous than they!", "I will see if I have no meaning, while the houses and ships have meaning!", "I will see if the fishes and birds are to be enough for themselves, and I am not to be", " enough", " for myself.", "", "20", "I match my spirit against yours, you orbs, growths, mountains, brutes,", "Copious as you are, I absorb you all in myself, and become the master myself.", "", "America isolated, yet embodying all, what is it finally except myself?", "These States—what are they except myself?", "", "I know now why the earth is gross, tantalizing, wicked—it is for my sake,", "I take you to be mine, you beautiful, terrible, rude forms.", "", "(Mother! bend down, bend close to me your face!", "I know not what these plots and wars, and deferments are for;", "I know not fruition’s success—but I know that through war and peace your work", " goes", " on, and must yet go on.)", "", "21", ".... Thus, by blue Ontario’s shore,", "While the winds fann’d me, and the waves came trooping toward me,", "I thrill’d with the Power’s pulsations—and the charm of my theme was upon", " me,", "Till the tissues that held me, parted their ties upon me.", "", "And I saw the free Souls of poets;", "The loftiest bards of past ages strode before me,", "Strange, large men, long unwaked, undisclosed, were disclosed to me.", "", "22", "O my rapt verse, my call—mock me not!", "Not for the bards of the past—not to invoke them have I launch’d you forth,", "Not to call even those lofty bards here by Ontario’s shores,", "Have I sung so capricious and loud, my savage song.", "", "Bards for my own land, only, I invoke;", "(For the war, the war is over—the field is clear’d,)", "Till they strike up marches henceforth triumphant and onward,", "To cheer, O mother, your boundless, expectant soul.", "", "Bards grand as these days so grand!", "Bards of the great Idea! Bards of the peaceful inventions! (for the war, the war is over!)", "", "Yet Bards of the latent armies—a million soldiers waiting, ever-ready,", "Bards towering like hills—(no more these dots, these pigmies, these little piping", " straws,", " these gnats, that fill the hour, to pass for poets;)", "Bards with songs as from burning coals, or the lightning’s fork’d stripes!", "Ample Ohio’s bards—bards for California! inland bards—bards of the war;)", "(As a wheel turns on its axle, so I find my chants turning finally on the war;)", "Bards of pride! Bards tallying the ocean’s roar, and the swooping eagle’s", " scream!", "You, by my charm, I invoke!" ], "linecount": "456" }, { "title": "Brother of All, with Generous Hand.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "1", "BROTHER of all, with generous hand,", "Of thee, pondering on thee, as o’er thy tomb, I and my Soul,", "A thought to launch in memory of thee,", "A burial verse for thee.", "", "What may we chant, O thou within this tomb?", "What tablets, pictures, hang for thee, O millionaire?", "—The life thou lived’st we know not,", "But that thou walk’dst thy years in barter, ’mid the haunts of brokers;", "Nor heroism thine, nor war, nor glory.", "", "Yet lingering, yearning, joining soul with thine,", "If not thy past we chant, we chant the future,", "Select, adorn the future.", "", "2", "Lo, Soul, the graves of heroes!", "The pride of lands—the gratitudes of men,", "The statues of the manifold famous dead, Old World and New,", "The kings, inventors, generals, poets, (stretch wide thy vision, Soul,)", "The excellent rulers of the races, great discoverers, sailors,", "Marble and brass select from them, with pictures, scenes,", "(The histories of the lands, the races, bodied there,", "In what they’ve built for, graced and graved,", "Monuments to their heroes.)", "", "3", "Silent, my Soul,", "With drooping lids, as waiting, ponder’d,", "Turning from all the samples, all the monuments of heroes.", "", "While through the interior vistas,", "Noiseless uprose, phantasmic (as, by night, Auroras of the North,)", "Lambent tableaux, prophetic, bodiless scenes,", "Spiritual projections.", "", "In one, among the city streets, a laborer’s home appear’d,", "After his day’s work done, cleanly, sweet-air’d, the gaslight burning,", "The carpet swept, and a fire in the cheerful stove.", "", "In one, the sacred parturition scene,", "A happy, painless mother birth’d a perfect child.", "", "In one, at a bounteous morning meal,", "Sat peaceful parents, with contented sons.", "", "In one, by twos and threes, young people,", "Hundreds concentering, walk’d the paths and streets and roads,", "Toward a tall-domed school.", "", "In one a trio, beautiful,", "Grandmother, loving daughter, loving daughter’s daughter, sat,", "Chatting and sewing.", "", "In one, along a suite of noble rooms,", "’Mid plenteous books and journals, paintings on the walls, fine statuettes,", "Were groups of friendly journeymen, mechanics, young and old,", "Reading, conversing.", "", "All, all the shows of laboring life,", "City and country, women’s, men’s and children’s,", "Their wants provided for, hued in the sun, and tinged for once with joy,", "Marriage, the street, the factory, farm, the house-room, lodging-room,", "Labor and toil, the bath, gymnasium, play-ground, library, college,", "The student, boy or girl, led forward to be taught;", "The sick cared for, the shoeless shod—the orphan father’d and mother’d,", "The hungry fed, the houseless housed;", "(The intentions perfect and divine,", "The workings, details, haply human.)", "", "4", "O thou within this tomb,", "From thee, such scenes—thou stintless, lavish Giver,", "Tallying the gifts of Earth—large as the Earth,", "Thy name an Earth, with mountains, fields and rivers.", "", "Nor by your streams alone, you rivers,", "By you, your banks, Connecticut,", "By you, and all your teeming life, Old Thames,", "By you, Potomac, laving the ground Washington trod—by you Patapsco,", "You, Hudson—you, endless Mississippi—not by you alone,", "But to the high seas launch, my thought, his memory.", "", "5", "Lo, Soul, by this tomb’s lambency,", "The darkness of the arrogant standards of the world,", "With all its flaunting aims, ambitions, pleasures.", "", "(Old, commonplace, and rusty saws,", "The rich, the gay, the supercilious, smiled at long,", "Now, piercing to the marrow in my bones,", "Fused with each drop my heart’s blood jets,", "Swim in ineffable meaning.)", "", "Lo, Soul, the sphere requireth, portioneth,", "To each his share, his measure,", "The moderate to the moderate, the ample to the ample.", "", "Lo, Soul, see’st thou not, plain as the sun,", "The only real wealth of wealth in generosity,", "The only life of life in goodness?" ], "linecount": "84" }, { "title": "Longings for Home.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "O MAGNET-SOUTH! O glistening, perfumed South! My South!", "O quick mettle, rich blood, impulse, and love! Good and evil! O all dear to me!", "O dear to me my birth-things—All moving things, and the trees where I was", " born—the", " grains,", " plants, rivers;", "Dear to me my own slow sluggish rivers where they flow, distant, over flats of silvery", " sands,", " or", " through swamps;", "Dear to me the Roanoke, the Savannah, the Altamahaw, the Pedee, the Tombigbee, the Santee,", " the", " Coosa, and the Sabine;", "O pensive, far away wandering, I return with my Soul to haunt their banks again;", "Again in Florida I float on transparent lakes—I float on the Okeechobee—I cross", " the", " hummock land, or through pleasant openings, or dense forests;", "I see the parrots in the woods—I see the papaw tree and the blossoming titi;", "Again, sailing in my coaster, on deck, I coast off Georgia—I coast up the Carolinas,", "I see where the live-oak is growing—I see where the yellow-pine, the scented", " bay-tree, the", " lemon and orange, the cypress, the graceful palmetto;", "I pass rude sea-headlands and enter Pamlico Sound through an inlet, and dart my vision", " inland;", "O the cotton plant! the growing fields of rice, sugar, hemp!", "The cactus, guarded with thorns—the laurel-tree, with large white flowers;", "The range afar—the richness and barrenness—the old woods charged with mistletoe", " and", " trailing moss,", "The piney odor and the gloom—the awful natural stillness, (Here in these dense swamps", " the", " freebooter carries his gun, and the fugitive slave has his conceal’d hut;)", "O the strange fascination of these half-known, half-impassable swamps, infested by", " reptiles,", " resounding with the bellow of the alligator, the sad noises of the night-owl and the", " wild-cat,", " and", " the whirr of the rattlesnake;", "The mocking-bird, the American mimic, singing all the forenoon—singing through the", " moon-lit", " night,", "The humming-bird, the wild turkey, the raccoon, the opossum;", "A Tennessee corn-field—the tall, graceful, long-leav’d corn—slender,", " flapping,", " bright", " green with tassels—with beautiful ears, each well-sheath’d in its husk;", "An Arkansas prairie—a sleeping lake, or still bayou;", "O my heart! O tender and fierce pangs—I can stand them not—I will depart;", "O to be a Virginian, where I grew up! O to be a Carolinian!", "O longings irrepressible! O I will go back to old Tennessee, and never wander more!" ], "linecount": "50" }, { "title": "Song of the Open Road.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "1", "AFOOT and light-hearted, I take to the open road,", "Healthy, free, the world before me,", "The long brown path before me, leading wherever I choose.", "", "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.", "", "The earth—that is sufficient;", "I do not want the constellations any nearer;", "I know they are very well where they are;", "I know they suffice for those who belong to them.", "", "(Still here I carry my old delicious burdens;", "I carry them, men and women—I carry them with me wherever I go;", "I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them;", "I am fill’d with them, and I will fill them in return.)", "", "2", "You road I enter upon and look around! I believe you are not all that is here;", "I believe that much unseen is also here.", "", "Here the profound lesson of reception, neither preference or denial;", "The black with his woolly head, the felon, the diseas’d, the illiterate person, are not", " denied;", "", "The birth, the hasting after the physician, the beggar’s tramp, the drunkard’s stagger,", " the", " laughing party of mechanics,", "The escaped youth, the rich person’s carriage, the fop, the eloping couple,", "The early market-man, the hearse, the moving of furniture into the town, the return back", " from", " the", " town,", "They pass—I also pass—anything passes—none can be interdicted;", "None but are accepted—none but are dear to me.", "", "3", "You air that serves me with breath to speak!", "You objects that call from diffusion my meanings, and give them shape!", "You light that wraps me and all things in delicate equable showers!", "You paths worn in the irregular hollows by the roadsides!", "I think you are latent with unseen existences—you are so dear to me.", "", "You flagg’d walks of the cities! you strong curbs at the edges!", "You ferries! you planks and posts of wharves! you timber-lined sides! you distant ships!", "You rows of houses! you window-pierc’d façades! you roofs!", "You porches and entrances! you copings and iron guards!", "You windows whose transparent shells might expose so much!", "You doors and ascending steps! you arches!", "You gray stones of interminable pavements! you trodden crossings!", "From all that has been near you, I believe you have imparted to yourselves, and now would", " impart the", " same secretly to me;", "From the living and the dead I think you have peopled your impassive surfaces, and the", " spirits", " thereof would be evident and amicable with me.", "", "4", "The earth expanding right hand and left hand,", "The picture alive, every part in its best light,", "The music falling in where it is wanted, and stopping where it is not wanted,", "The cheerful voice of the public road—the gay fresh sentiment of the road.", "", "O highway I travel! O public road! do you say to me, Do not leave me?", "Do you say, Venture not? If you leave me, you are lost?", "Do you say, I am already prepared—I am well-beaten and undenied—adhere to me?", "", "O public road! I say back, I am not afraid to leave you—yet I love you;", "You express me better than I can express myself;", "You shall be more to me than my poem.", "", "I think heroic deeds were all conceiv’d in the open air, and all great poems also;", "I think I could stop here myself, and do miracles;", "(My judgments, thoughts, I henceforth try by the open air, the road;)", "I think whatever I shall meet on the road I shall like, and whoever beholds me shall like", " me;", "I think whoever I see must be happy.", "", "5", "From this hour, freedom!", "From this hour I ordain myself loos’d of limits and imaginary lines,", "Going where I list, my own master, total and absolute,", "Listening to others, and considering well what they say,", "Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating,", "Gently, but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds that would hold me.", "", "I inhale great draughts of space;", "The east and the west are mine, and the north and the south are mine.", "", "I am larger, better than I thought;", "I did not know I held so much goodness.", "", "All seems beautiful to me;", "I can repeat over to men and women, You have done such good to me, I would do the same to", " you.", "", "", "I will recruit for myself and you as I go;", "I will scatter myself among men and women as I go;", "I will toss the new gladness and roughness among them;", "Whoever denies me, it shall not trouble me;", "Whoever accepts me, he or she shall be blessed, and shall bless me.", "", "6", "Now if a thousand perfect men were to appear, it would not amaze me;", "Now if a thousand beautiful forms of women appear’d, it would not astonish me.", "", "Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons,", "It is to grow in the open air, and to eat and sleep with the earth.", "", "Here a great personal deed has room;", "A great deed seizes upon the hearts of the whole race of men,", "Its effusion of strength and will overwhelms law, and mocks all authority and all argument", " against", " it.", "", "Here is the test of wisdom;", "Wisdom is not finally tested in schools;", "Wisdom cannot be pass’d from one having it, to another not having it;", "Wisdom is of the Soul, is not susceptible of proof, is its own proof,", "Applies to all stages and objects and qualities, and is content,", "Is the certainty of the reality and immortality of things, and the excellence of things;", "Something there is in the float of the sight of things that provokes it out of the Soul.", "", "Now I reëxamine philosophies and religions,", "They may prove well in lecture-rooms, yet not prove at all under the spacious clouds, and", " along", " the", " landscape and flowing currents.", "", "Here is realization;", "Here is a man tallied—he realizes here what he has in him;", "The past, the future, majesty, love—if they are vacant of you, you are vacant of them.", "", "Only the kernel of every object nourishes;", "Where is he who tears off the husks for you and me?", "Where is he that undoes stratagems and envelopes for you and me?", "", "Here is adhesiveness—it is not previously fashion’d—it is apropos;", "Do you know what it is, as you pass, to be loved by strangers?", "Do you know the talk of those turning eye-balls?", "", "7", "Here is the efflux of the Soul;", "The efflux of the Soul comes from within, through embower’d gates, ever provoking", " questions:", "These yearnings, why are they? These thoughts in the darkness, why are they?", "Why are there men and women that while they are nigh me, the sun-light expands my blood?", "Why, when they leave me, do my pennants of joy sink flat and lank?", "Why are there trees I never walk under, but large and melodious thoughts descend upon me?", "(I think they hang there winter and summer on those trees, and always drop fruit as I", " pass;)", "What is it I interchange so suddenly with strangers?", "What with some driver, as I ride on the seat by his side?", "What with some fisherman, drawing his seine by the shore, as I walk by, and pause?", "What gives me to be free to a woman’s or man’s good-will? What gives them to be free to", " mine?", "", "8", "The efflux of the Soul is happiness—here is happiness;", "I think it pervades the open air, waiting at all times;", "Now it flows unto us—we are rightly charged.", "", "Here rises the fluid and attaching character;", "The fluid and attaching character is the freshness and sweetness of man and woman;", "(The herbs of the morning sprout no fresher and sweeter every day out of the roots of", " themselves,", " than it sprouts fresh and sweet continually out of itself.)", "", "Toward the fluid and attaching character exudes the sweat of the love of young and old;", "From it falls distill’d the charm that mocks beauty and attainments;", "Toward it heaves the shuddering longing ache of contact.", "", "9", "Allons! whoever you are, come travel with me!", "Traveling with me, you find what never tires.", "", "The earth never tires;", "The earth is rude, silent, incomprehensible at first—Nature is rude and incomprehensible", " at", " first;", "", "Be not discouraged—keep on—there are divine things, well envelop’d;", "I swear to you there are divine things more beautiful than words can tell.", "", "Allons! we must not stop here!", "However sweet these laid-up stores—however convenient this dwelling, we cannot remain", " here;", "However shelter’d this port, and however calm these waters, we must not anchor here;", "However welcome the hospitality that surrounds us, we are permitted to receive it but a", " little", " while.", "", "10", "Allons! the inducements shall be greater;", "We will sail pathless and wild seas;", "We will go where winds blow, waves dash, and the Yankee clipper speeds by under full sail.", "", "", "Allons! with power, liberty, the earth, the elements!", "Health, defiance, gayety, self-esteem, curiosity;", "Allons! from all formules!", "From your formules, O bat-eyed and materialistic priests!", "", "The stale cadaver blocks up the passage—the burial waits no longer.", "", "Allons! yet take warning!", "He traveling with me needs the best blood, thews, endurance;", "None may come to the trial, till he or she bring courage and health.", "", "Come not here if you have already spent the best of yourself;", "Only those may come, who come in sweet and determin’d bodies;", "No diseas’d person—no rum-drinker or venereal taint is permitted here.", "", "I and mine do not convince by arguments, similes, rhymes;", "We convince by our presence.", "", "11", "Listen! I will be honest with you;", "I do not offer the old smooth prizes, but offer rough new prizes;", "These are the days that must happen to you:", "", "You shall not heap up what is call’d riches,", "You shall scatter with lavish hand all that you earn or achieve,", "You but arrive at the city to which you were destin’d—you hardly settle yourself to", " satisfaction, before you are call’d by an irresistible call to depart,", "You shall be treated to the ironical smiles and mockings of those who remain behind you;", "What beckonings of love you receive, you shall only answer with passionate kisses of", " parting,", "You shall not allow the hold of those who spread their reach’d hands toward you.", "", "12", "Allons! after the GREAT COMPANIONS! and to belong to them!", "They too are on the road! they are the swift and majestic men; they are the greatest", " women.", "Over that which hinder’d them—over that which retarded—passing impediments large or small,", "", "Committers of crimes, committers of many beautiful virtues,", "Enjoyers of calms of seas, and storms of seas,", "Sailors of many a ship, walkers of many a mile of land,", "Habitués of many distant countries, habitués of far-distant dwellings,", "Trusters of men and women, observers of cities, solitary toilers,", "Pausers and contemplators of tufts, blossoms, shells of the shore,", "Dancers at wedding-dances, kissers of brides, tender helpers of children, bearers of", " children,", "", "Soldiers of revolts, standers by gaping graves, lowerers down of coffins,", "Journeyers over consecutive seasons, over the years—the curious years, each emerging from", " that", " which preceded it,", "Journeyers as with companions, namely, their own diverse phases,", "Forth-steppers from the latent unrealized baby-days,", "Journeyers gayly with their own youth—Journeyers with their bearded and well-grain’d", " manhood,", "Journeyers with their womanhood, ample, unsurpass’d, content,", "Journeyers with their own sublime old age of manhood or womanhood,", "Old age, calm, expanded, broad with the haughty breadth of the universe,", "Old age, flowing free with the delicious near-by freedom of death.", "", "13", "Allons! to that which is endless, as it was beginningless,", "To undergo much, tramps of days, rests of nights,", "To merge all in the travel they tend to, and the days and nights they tend to,", "Again to merge them in the start of superior journeys;", "To see nothing anywhere but what you may reach it and pass it,", "To conceive no time, however distant, but what you may reach it and pass it,", "To look up or down no road but it stretches and waits for you—however long, but it", " stretches", " and", " waits for you;", "To see no being, not God’s or any, but you also go thither,", "To see no possession but you may possess it—enjoying all without labor or", " purchase—abstracting", " the feast, yet not abstracting one particle of it;", "To take the best of the farmer’s farm and the rich man’s elegant villa, and the chaste", " blessings", " of the well-married couple, and the fruits of orchards and flowers of gardens,", "To take to your use out of the compact cities as you pass through,", "To carry buildings and streets with you afterward wherever you go,", "To gather the minds of men out of their brains as you encounter them—to gather the love", " out of", " their hearts,", "To take your lovers on the road with you, for all that you leave them behind you,", "To know the universe itself as a road—as many roads—as roads for traveling souls.", "", "14", "The Soul travels;", "The body does not travel as much as the soul;", "The body has just as great a work as the soul, and parts away at last for the journeys of", " the", " soul.", "", "", "All parts away for the progress of souls;", "All religion, all solid things, arts, governments,—all that was or is apparent upon this", " globe", " or", " any globe, falls into niches and corners before the procession of Souls along the grand", " roads", " of", " the", " universe.", "", "Of the progress of the souls of men and women along the grand roads of the universe, all", " other", " progress is the needed emblem and sustenance.", "", "Forever alive, forever forward,", "Stately, solemn, sad, withdrawn, baffled, mad, turbulent, feeble, dissatisfied,", "Desperate, proud, fond, sick, accepted by men, rejected by men,", "They go! they go! I know that they go, but I know not where they go;", "But I know that they go toward the best—toward something great.", "", "15", "Allons! whoever you are! come forth!", "You must not stay sleeping and dallying there in the house, though you built it, or though", " it", " has", " been built for you.", "", "Allons! out of the dark confinement!", "It is useless to protest—I know all, and expose it.", "", "Behold, through you as bad as the rest,", "Through the laughter, dancing, dining, supping, of people,", "Inside of dresses and ornaments, inside of those wash’d and trimm’d faces,", "Behold a secret silent loathing and despair.", "", "No husband, no wife, no friend, trusted to hear the confession;", "Another self, a duplicate of every one, skulking and hiding it goes,", "Formless and wordless through the streets of the cities, polite and bland in the parlors,", "In the cars of rail-roads, in steamboats, in the public assembly,", "Home to the houses of men and women, at the table, in the bed-room, everywhere,", "Smartly attired, countenance smiling, form upright, death under the breast-bones, hell", " under", " the", " skull-bones,", "Under the broadcloth and gloves, under the ribbons and artificial flowers,", "Keeping fair with the customs, speaking not a syllable of itself,", "Speaking of anything else, but never of itself.", "", "16", "Allons! through struggles and wars!", "The goal that was named cannot be countermanded.", "", "Have the past struggles succeeded?", "What has succeeded? yourself? your nation? nature?", "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.", "", "My call is the call of battle—I nourish active rebellion;", "He going with me must go well arm’d;", "He going with me goes often with spare diet, poverty, angry enemies, desertions.", "", "17", "Allons! the road is before us!", "It is safe—I have tried it—my own feet have tried it well.", "", "Allons! be not detain’d!", "Let the paper remain on the desk unwritten, and the book on the shelf unopen’d!", "Let the tools remain in the workshop! let the money remain unearn’d!", "Let the school stand! mind not the cry of the teacher!", "Let the preacher preach in his pulpit! let the lawyer plead in the court, and the judge", " expound", " the", " law.", "", "Mon enfant! I give you my hand!", "I give you my love, more precious than money,", "I give you myself, before preaching or law;", "Will you give me yourself? will you come travel with me?", "Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?" ], "linecount": "313" }, { "title": "Or from that Sea of Time.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "1", "OR, from that Sea of Time,", "Spray, blown by the wind—a double winrow-drift of weeds and shells;", "(O little shells, so curious-convolute! so limpid-cold and voiceless!", "Yet will you not, to the tympans of temples held,", "Murmurs and echoes still bring up—Eternity’s music, faint and far,", "Wafted inland, sent from Atlantica’s rim—strains for the Soul of the Prairies,", "Whisper’d reverberations—chords for the ear of the West, joyously sounding", "Your tidings old, yet ever new and untranslatable;)", "Infinitessimals out of my life, and many a life,", "(For not my life and years alone I give—all, all I give;)", "These thoughts and Songs—waifs from the deep—here, cast high and dry,", "Wash’d on America’s shores.", "", "2", "Currents of starting a Continent new,", "Overtures sent to the solid out of the liquid,", "Fusion of ocean and land—tender and pensive waves,", "(Not safe and peaceful only—waves rous’d and ominous too.", "Out of the depths, the storm’s abysms—Who knows whence? Death’s waves,", "Raging over the vast, with many a broken spar and tatter’d sail.)" ], "linecount": "20" }, { "title": "Unnamed Lands.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "NATIONS ten thousand years before These States, and many times ten thousand years before", " These", " States;", "Garner’d clusters of ages, that men and women like us grew up and travel’d their", " course, and pass’d on;", "What vast-built cities—what orderly republics—what pastoral tribes and nomads;", "What histories, rulers, heroes, perhaps transcending all others;", "What laws, customs, wealth, arts, traditions;", "What sort of marriage—what costumes—what physiology and phrenology;", "What of liberty and slavery among them—what they thought of death and the soul;", "Who were witty and wise—who beautiful and poetic—who brutish and", " undevelop’d;", "Not a mark, not a record remains—And yet all remains.", "", "O I know that those men and women were not for nothing, any more than we are for nothing;", "I know that they belong to the scheme of the world every bit as much as we now belong to", " it,", " and as all will henceforth belong to it.", "", "Afar they stand—yet near to me they stand,", "Some with oval countenances, learn’d and calm,", "Some naked and savage—Some like huge collections of insects,", "Some in tents—herdsmen, patriarchs, tribes, horsemen,", "Some prowling through woods—Some living peaceably on farms, laboring, reaping,", " filling", " barns,", "Some traversing paved avenues, amid temples, palaces, factories, libraries, shows, courts,", " theatres, wonderful monuments.", "", "Are those billions of men really gone?", "Are those women of the old experience of the earth gone?", "Do their lives, cities, arts, rest only with us?", "Did they achieve nothing for good, for themselves?", "", "I believe of all those billions of men and women that fill’d the unnamed lands, every", " one", " exists this hour, here or elsewhere, invisible to us, in exact proportion to what he or", " she", " grew from in life, and out of what he or she did, felt, became, loved, sinn’d, in", " life.", "", "I believe that was not the end of those nations, or any person of them, any more than this", " shall be the end of my nation, or of me;", "Of their languages, governments, marriage, literature, products, games, wars, manners,", " crimes,", " prisons, slaves, heroes, poets, I suspect their results curiously await in the yet unseen", " world—counterparts of what accrued to them in the seen world.", "I suspect I shall meet them there,", "I suspect I shall there find each old particular of those unnamed lands." ], "linecount": "44" }, { "title": "From Paumanok Starting.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "FROM Paumanock starting, I fly like a bird,", "Around and around to soar, to sing the idea of all;", "To the north betaking myself, to sing there arctic songs,", "To Kanada, till I absorb Kanada in myself—to Michigan then,", "To Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, to sing their songs, (they are inimitable;)", "Then to Ohio and Indiana to sing theirs—to Missouri and Kansas and Arkansas, to sing", " theirs,", "To Tennessee and Kentucky—to the Carolinas and Georgia, to sing theirs,", "To Texas, and so along up toward California, to roam accepted everywhere;", "To sing first, (to the tap of the war-drum, if need be,)", "The idea of all—of the western world, one and inseparable.", "And then the song of each member of These States." ], "linecount": "12" }, { "title": "An Old Man’s Thought of School.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "AN old man’s thought of School;", "An old man, gathering youthful memories and blooms, that youth itself cannot.", "", "Now only do I know you!", "O fair auroral skies! O morning dew upon the grass!", "", "And these I see—these sparkling eyes,", "These stores of mystic meaning—these young lives,", "Building, equipping, like a fleet of ships—immortal ships!", "Soon to sail out over the measureless seas,", "On the Soul’s voyage.", "", "Only a lot of boys and girls?", "Only the tiresome spelling, writing, ciphering classes?", "Only a Public School?", "", "Ah more—infinitely more;", "(As George Fox rais’d his warning cry, “Is it this pile of brick and", " mortar—these dead floors, windows, rails—you call the church?", "Why this is not the church at all—the Church is living, ever living Souls.”)", "", "And you, America,", "Cast you the real reckoning for your present?", "The lights and shadows of your future—good or evil?", "To girlhood, boyhood look—the Teacher and the School." ], "linecount": "20" }, { "title": "I Sing the Body Electric.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "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 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, supple quality he has, strikes through the cotton and flannel;", "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 fro in the heave of the", " water,", "The bending forward and backward of rowers in row-boats—the horseman 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 hoeing corn—the sleigh-driver guiding 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 the 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, and count.", "", "3", "I know a man, a common farmer—the father of five sons;", "And in them were the fathers of sons—and in them were the fathers of sons.", "", "This man was of wonderful vigor, calmness, beauty of person;", "The shape of his head, the pale yellow and white of his hair and beard, and 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, the atmosphere and the clouds,", " 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 juice;", "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 is the nucleus—after the child is born of woman, the man is born of woman;", "This is the bath of birth—this is 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 and 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 everything 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 a slave? 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 beautiful motion.)", "", "Do you know so much yourself, that you call the slave or the dull-face 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;", "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 so 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 back-bone 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 is 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?", "Your father—where is your father?", "Your mother—is she living? have you been much with her? and has she been much with you?", "", "—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 beautiful as 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 poems,", "Man’s, woman’s, child’s, 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, eye-brows, 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, arm-pit, elbow-socket, lower-arm, arm-sinews, arm-bones,", "Wrist and wrist-joints, hand, palm, knuckles, thumb, fore-finger, finger-balls,", " finger-joints, finger-nails,", "Broad breast-front, curling hair of the breast, breast-bone, breast-side,", "Ribs, belly, back-bone, joints of the back-bone,", "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 sun-burnt 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!" ], "linecount": "217" }, { "title": "In Former Songs.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "1", "IN former songs Pride have I sung, and Love, and passionate, joyful Life,", "But here I twine the strands of Patriotism and Death.", "", "And now, Life, Pride, Love, Patriotism and Death,", "To you, O FREEDOM, purport of all!", "(You that elude me most—refusing to be caught in songs of mine,)", "I offer all to you.", "", "2", "’Tis not for nothing, Death,", "I sound out you, and words of you, with daring tone—embodying you,", "In my new Democratic chants—keeping you for a close,", "For last impregnable retreat—a citadel and tower,", "For my last stand—my pealing, final cry." ], "linecount": "13" }, { "title": "O Star of France.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "1", "O STAR of France!", "The brightness of thy hope and strength and fame,", "Like some proud ship that led the fleet so long,", "Beseems to-day a wreck, driven by the gale—a mastless hulk;", "And ’mid its teeming, madden’d, half-drown’d crowds,", "Nor helm nor helmsman.", "", "2", "Dim, smitten star!", "Orb not of France alone—pale symbol of my soul, its dearest hopes,", "The struggle and the daring—rage divine for liberty,", "Of aspirations toward the far ideal—enthusiast’s dreams of brotherhood,", "Of terror to the tyrant and the priest.", "", "3", "Star crucified! by traitors sold!", "Star panting o’er a land of death—heroic land!", "Strange, passionate, mocking, frivolous land.", "", "Miserable! yet for thy errors, vanities, sins, I will not now rebuke thee;", "Thy unexampled woes and pangs have quell’d them all,", "And left thee sacred.", "", "In that amid thy many faults, thou ever aimedest highly,", "In that thou wouldst not really sell thyself, however great the price,", "In that thou surely wakedst weeping from thy drugg’d sleep,", "In that alone, among thy sisters, thou, Giantess, didst rend the ones that shamed thee,", "In that thou couldst not, wouldst not, wear the usual chains,", "This cross, thy livid face, thy pierced hands and feet,", "The spear thrust in thy side.", "", "4", "O star! O ship of France, beat back and baffled long!", "Bear up, O smitten orb! O ship, continue on!", "", "Sure, as the ship of all, the Earth itself,", "Product of deathly fire and turbulent chaos,", "Forth from its spasms of fury and its poisons,", "Issuing at last in perfect power and beauty,", "Onward, beneath the sun, following its course,", "So thee, O ship of France!", "", "Finish’d the days, the clouds dispell’d,", "The travail o’er, the long-sought extrication,", "When lo! reborn, high o’er the European world,", "(In gladness, answering thence, as face afar to face, reflecting ours, Columbia,)", "Again thy star, O France—fair, lustrous star,", "In heavenly peace, clearer, more bright than ever,", "Shall beam immortal." ], "linecount": "43" }, { "title": "On Journeys Through The States.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "ON journeys through the States we start,", "(Ay, through the world—urged by these songs,", "Sailing henceforth to every land—to every sea;)", "We, willing learners of all, teachers of all, and lovers of all.", "", "We have watch’d the seasons dispensing themselves, and passing on,", "We have said, Why should not a man or woman do as much as the seasons, and effuse as much?", "", "", "We dwell a while in every city and town;", "We pass through Kanada, the north-east, the vast valley of the Mississippi, and the", " Southern", " States;", "We confer on equal terms with each of The States,", "We make trial of ourselves, and invite men and women to hear;", "We say to ourselves, Remember, fear not, be candid, promulge the body and the Soul;", "Dwell a while and pass on—Be copious, temperate, chaste, magnetic,", "And what you effuse may then return as the seasons return,", "And may be just as much as the seasons." ], "linecount": "16" }, { "title": "Native Moments.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "NATIVE moments! when you come upon me—Ah you are here now!", "Give me now libidinous joys only!", "Give me the drench of my passions! Give me life coarse and rank!", "To-day, I go consort with nature’s darlings—to-night too;", "I am for those who believe in loose delights—I share the midnight orgies of young men;", "I dance with the dancers, and drink with the drinkers;", "The echoes ring with our indecent calls;", "I take for my love some prostitute—I pick out some low person for my dearest friend,", "He shall be lawless, rude, illiterate—he shall be one condemn’d by others for deeds", " done;", "I will play a part no longer—Why should I exile myself from my companions?", "O you shunn’d persons! I at least do not shun you,", "I come forthwith in your midst—I will be your poet,", "I will be more to you than to any of the rest." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Spontaneous Me.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "SPONTANEOUS me, Nature,", "The loving day, the mounting sun, the friend I am happy with,", "The arm of my friend hanging idly over my shoulder,", "The hill-side whiten’d with blossoms of the mountain ash,", "The same, late in autumn—the hues of red, yellow, drab, purple, and light and dark", " green,", "The rich coverlid of the grass—animals and birds—the private untrimm’d", " bank—the primitive apples—the pebble-stones,", "Beautiful dripping fragments—the negligent list of one after another, as I happen to", " call them to me, or think of them,", "The real poems, (what we call poems being merely pictures,)", "The poems of the privacy of the night, and of men like me,", "This poem, drooping shy and unseen, that I always carry, and that all men carry,", "(Know, once for all, avow’d on purpose, wherever are men like me, are our lusty,", " lurking, masculine poems;)", "Love-thoughts, love-juice, love-odor, love-yielding, love-climbers, and the climbing sap,", "Arms and hands of love—lips of love—phallic thumb of love—breasts of", " love—bellies press’d and glued together with love,", "Earth of chaste love—life that is only life after love,", "The body of my love—the body of the woman I love—the body of the man—the", " body of the earth,", "Soft forenoon airs that blow from the south-west,", "The hairy wild-bee that murmurs and hankers up and down—that gripes the full-grown", " lady-flower, curves upon her with amorous firm legs, takes his will of her, and holds", " himself tremulous and tight till he is satisfied,", "The wet of woods through the early hours,", "Two sleepers at night lying close together as they sleep, one with an arm slanting down", " across and below the waist of the other,", "The smell of apples, aromas from crush’d sage-plant, mint, birch-bark,", "The boy’s longings, the glow and pressure as he confides to me what he was dreaming,", "The dead leaf whirling its spiral whirl, and falling still and content to the ground,", "The no-form’d stings that sights, people, objects, sting me with,", "The hubb’d sting of myself, stinging me as much as it ever can any one,", "The sensitive, orbic, underlapp’d brothers, that only privileged feelers may be", " intimate where they are,", "The curious roamer, the hand, roaming all over the body—the bashful withdrawing of", " flesh where the fingers soothingly pause and edge themselves,", "The limpid liquid within the young man,", "The vexed corrosion, so pensive and so painful,", "The torment—the irritable tide that will not be at rest,", "The like of the same I feel—the like of the same in others,", "The young man that flushes and flushes, and the young woman that flushes and flushes,", "The young man that wakes, deep at night, the hot hand seeking to repress what would master", " him;", "The mystic amorous night—the strange half-welcome pangs, visions, sweats,", "The pulse pounding through palms and trembling encircling fingers—the young man all", " color’d, red, ashamed, angry;", "The souse upon me of my lover the sea, as I lie willing and naked,", "The merriment of the twin-babes that crawl over the grass in the sun, the mother never", " turning her vigilant eyes from them,", "The walnut-trunk, the walnut-husks, and the ripening or ripen’d long-round walnuts;", "The continence of vegetables, birds, animals,", "The consequent meanness of me should I skulk or find myself indecent, while birds and", " animals never once skulk or find themselves indecent;", "The great chastity of paternity, to match the great chastity of maternity,", "The oath of procreation I have sworn—my Adamic and fresh daughters,", "The greed that eats me day and night with hungry gnaw, till I saturate what shall produce", " boys to fill my place when I am through,", "The wholesome relief, repose, content;", "And this bunch, pluck’d at random from myself;", "It has done its work—I tossed it carelessly to fall where it may." ], "linecount": "61" }, { "title": "Ship Starting, The.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "LO! the unbounded sea!", "On its breast a Ship starting, spreading all her sails—an ample Ship,", " carrying even her moonsails;", "The pennant is flying aloft, as she speeds, she speeds so stately—below,", " emulous waves press forward,", "They surround the Ship, with shining curving motions, and foam." ], "linecount": "6" }, { "title": "Indications, The.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "THE indications, and tally of time;", "Perfect sanity shows the master among philosophs;", "Time, always without flaw, indicates itself in parts;", "What always indicates the poet, is the crowd of the pleasant company of singers, and their", " words;", "The words of the singers are the hours or minutes of the light or dark—but the words", " of", " the", " maker of poems are the general light and dark;", "The maker of poems settles justice, reality, immortality,", "His insight and power encircle things and the human race,", "He is the glory and extract thus far, of things, and of the human race.", "", "The singers do not beget—only the POET begets;", "The singers are welcom’d, understood, appear often enough—but rare has the day", " been,", " likewise the spot, of the birth of the maker of poems, the Answerer,", "(Not every century, or every five centuries, has contain’d such a day, for all its", " names.)", "", "", "The singers of successive hours of centuries may have ostensible names, but the name of", " each of", " them", " is one of the singers,", "The name of each is, eye-singer, ear-singer, head-singer, sweet-singer, echo-singer,", " parlor-singer,", " love-singer, or something else.", "", "All this time, and at all times, wait the words of true poems;", "The words of true poems do not merely please,", "The true poets are not followers of beauty, but the august masters of beauty;", "The greatness of sons is the exuding of the greatness of mothers and fathers,", "The words of poems are the tuft and final applause of science.", "", "Divine instinct, breadth of vision, the law of reason, health, rudeness of body,", " withdrawnness,", "", "Gayety, sun-tan, air-sweetness—such are some of the words of poems.", "", "The sailor and traveler underlie the maker of poems, the answerer;", "The builder, geometer, chemist, anatomist, phrenologist, artist—all these underlie", " the", " maker of", " poems, the answerer.", "", "The words of the true poems give you more than poems,", "They give you to form for yourself, poems, religions, politics, war, peace, behavior,", " histories,", " essays, romances, and everything else,", "They balance ranks, colors, races, creeds, and the sexes,", "They do not seek beauty—they are sought,", "Forever touching them, or close upon them, follows beauty, longing, fain, love-sick.", "", "They prepare for death—yet are they not the finish, but rather the outset,", "They bring none to his or her terminus, or to be content and full;", "Whom they take, they take into space, to behold the birth of stars, to learn one of the", " meanings,", "To launch off with absolute faith—to sweep through the ceaseless rings, and never be", " quiet", " again.THE indications, and tally of time;", "Perfect sanity shows the master among philosophs;", "Time, always without flaw, indicates itself in parts;", "What always indicates the poet, is the crowd of the pleasant company of singers, and their", " words;", "The words of the singers are the hours or minutes of the light or dark—but the words", " of", " the", " maker of poems are the general light and dark;", "The maker of poems settles justice, reality, immortality,", "His insight and power encircle things and the human race,", "He is the glory and extract thus far, of things, and of the human race.", "", "The singers do not beget—only the POET begets;", "The singers are welcom’d, understood, appear often enough—but rare has the day", " been,", " likewise the spot, of the birth of the maker of poems, the Answerer,", "(Not every century, or every five centuries, has contain’d such a day, for all its", " names.)", "", "", "The singers of successive hours of centuries may have ostensible names, but the name of", " each of", " them", " is one of the singers,", "The name of each is, eye-singer, ear-singer, head-singer, sweet-singer, echo-singer,", " parlor-singer,", " love-singer, or something else.", "", "All this time, and at all times, wait the words of true poems;", "The words of true poems do not merely please,", "The true poets are not followers of beauty, but the august masters of beauty;", "The greatness of sons is the exuding of the greatness of mothers and fathers,", "The words of poems are the tuft and final applause of science.", "", "Divine instinct, breadth of vision, the law of reason, health, rudeness of body,", " withdrawnness,", "", "Gayety, sun-tan, air-sweetness—such are some of the words of poems.", "", "The sailor and traveler underlie the maker of poems, the answerer;", "The builder, geometer, chemist, anatomist, phrenologist, artist—all these underlie", " the", " maker of", " poems, the answerer.", "", "The words of the true poems give you more than poems,", "They give you to form for yourself, poems, religions, politics, war, peace, behavior,", " histories,", " essays, romances, and everything else,", "They balance ranks, colors, races, creeds, and the sexes,", "They do not seek beauty—they are sought,", "Forever touching them, or close upon them, follows beauty, longing, fain, love-sick.", "", "They prepare for death—yet are they not the finish, but rather the outset,", "They bring none to his or her terminus, or to be content and full;", "Whom they take, they take into space, to behold the birth of stars, to learn one of the", " meanings,", "To launch off with absolute faith—to sweep through the ceaseless rings, and never be", " quiet", " again.THE indications, and tally of time;", "Perfect sanity shows the master among philosophs;", "Time, always without flaw, indicates itself in parts;", "What always indicates the poet, is the crowd of the pleasant company of singers, and their", " words;", "The words of the singers are the hours or minutes of the light or dark—but the words", " of", " the", " maker of poems are the general light and dark;", "The maker of poems settles justice, reality, immortality,", "His insight and power encircle things and the human race,", "He is the glory and extract thus far, of things, and of the human race.", "", "The singers do not beget—only the POET begets;", "The singers are welcom’d, understood, appear often enough—but rare has the day", " been,", " likewise the spot, of the birth of the maker of poems, the Answerer,", "(Not every century, or every five centuries, has contain’d such a day, for all its", " names.)", "", "", "The singers of successive hours of centuries may have ostensible names, but the name of", " each of", " them", " is one of the singers,", "The name of each is, eye-singer, ear-singer, head-singer, sweet-singer, echo-singer,", " parlor-singer,", " love-singer, or something else.", "", "All this time, and at all times, wait the words of true poems;", "The words of true poems do not merely please,", "The true poets are not followers of beauty, but the august masters of beauty;", "The greatness of sons is the exuding of the greatness of mothers and fathers,", "The words of poems are the tuft and final applause of science.", "", "Divine instinct, breadth of vision, the law of reason, health, rudeness of body,", " withdrawnness,", "", "Gayety, sun-tan, air-sweetness—such are some of the words of poems.", "", "The sailor and traveler underlie the maker of poems, the answerer;", "The builder, geometer, chemist, anatomist, phrenologist, artist—all these underlie", " the", " maker of", " poems, the answerer.", "", "The words of the true poems give you more than poems,", "They give you to form for yourself, poems, religions, politics, war, peace, behavior,", " histories,", " essays, romances, and everything else,", "They balance ranks, colors, races, creeds, and the sexes,", "They do not seek beauty—they are sought,", "Forever touching them, or close upon them, follows beauty, longing, fain, love-sick.", "", "They prepare for death—yet are they not the finish, but rather the outset,", "They bring none to his or her terminus, or to be content and full;", "Whom they take, they take into space, to behold the birth of stars, to learn one of the", " meanings,", "To launch off with absolute faith—to sweep through the ceaseless rings, and never be", " quiet", " again." ], "linecount": "154" }, { "title": "Come up from the Fields, Father.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "1", "COME up from the fields, father, here’s a letter from our Pete;", "And come to the front door, mother—here’s a letter from thy dear son.", "", "2", "Lo, ’tis autumn;", "Lo, where the trees, deeper green, yellower and redder,", "Cool and sweeten Ohio’s villages, with leaves fluttering in the moderate wind;", "Where apples ripe in the orchards hang, and grapes on the trellis’d vines;", "(Smell you the smell of the grapes on the vines?", "Smell you the buckwheat, where the bees were lately buzzing?)", "", "Above all, lo, the sky, so calm, so transparent after the rain, and with wondrous clouds;", "Below, too, all calm, all vital and beautiful—and the farm prospers well.", "", "3", "Down in the fields all prospers well;", "But now from the fields come, father—come at the daughter’s call;", "And come to the entry, mother—to the front door come, right away.", "", "Fast as she can she hurries—something ominous—her steps trembling;", "She does not tarry to smoothe her hair, nor adjust her cap.", "", "Open the envelope quickly;", "O this is not our son’s writing, yet his name is sign’d;", "O a strange hand writes for our dear son—O stricken mother’s soul!", "All swims before her eyes—flashes with black—she catches the main words only;", "Sentences broken—gun-shot wound in the breast, cavalry skirmish, taken to", " hospital,", "At present low, but will soon be better.", "", "4", "Ah, now, the single figure to me,", "Amid all teeming and wealthy Ohio, with all its cities and farms,", "Sickly white in the face, and dull in the head, very faint,", "By the jamb of a door leans.", "", "Grieve not so, dear mother, (the just-grown daughter speaks through her sobs;", "The little sisters huddle around, speechless and dismay’d;)", "See, dearest mother, the letter says Pete will soon be better.", "", "5", "Alas, poor boy, he will never be better, (nor may-be needs to be better, that brave and", " simple", " soul;)", "While they stand at home at the door, he is dead already;", "The only son is dead.", "", "But the mother needs to be better;", "She, with thin form, presently drest in black;", "By day her meals untouch’d—then at night fitfully sleeping, often waking,", "In the midnight waking, weeping, longing with one deep longing,", "O that she might withdraw unnoticed—silent from life, escape and withdraw,", "To follow, to seek, to be with her dear dead son." ], "linecount": "45" }, { "title": "Ashes of Soldiers.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "ASHES of soldiers!", "As I muse, retrospective, murmuring a chant in thought,", "Lo! the war resumes—again to my sense your shapes,", "And again the advance of armies.", "", "Noiseless as mists and vapors,", "From their graves in the trenches ascending,", "From the cemeteries all through Virginia and Tennessee,", "From every point of the compass, out of the countless unnamed graves,", "In wafted clouds, in myraids large, or squads of twos or threes, or single ones, they", " come,", "And silently gather round me.", "", "Now sound no note, O trumpeters!", "Not at the head of my cavalry, parading on spirited horses,", "With sabres drawn and glist’ning, and carbines by their thighs—(ah, my brave", " horsemen!", "My handsome, tan-faced horsemen! what life, what joy and pride,", "With all the perils, were yours!)", "", "Nor you drummers—neither at reveille, at dawn,", "Nor the long roll alarming the camp—nor even the muffled beat for a burial;", "Nothing from you, this time, O drummers, bearing my warlike drums.", "", "But aside from these, and the marts of wealth, and the crowded promenade,", "Admitting around me comrades close, unseen by the rest, and voiceless,", "The slain elate and alive again—the dust and debris alive,", "I chant this chant of my silent soul, in the name of all dead soldiers.", "", "Faces so pale, with wondrous eyes, very dear, gather closer yet;", "Draw close, but speak not.", "", "Phantoms of countless lost!", "Invisible to the rest, henceforth become my companions!", "Follow me ever! desert me not, while I live.", "", "Sweet are the blooming cheeks of the living! sweet are the musical voices sounding!", "But sweet, ah sweet, are the dead, with their silent eyes.", "", "Dearest comrades! all is over and long gone;", "But love is not over—and what love, O comrades!", "Perfume from battle-fields rising—up from foetor arising.", "", "Perfume therefore my chant, O love! immortal Love!", "Give me to bathe the memories of all dead soldiers,", "Shroud them, embalm them, cover them all over with tender pride!", "", "Perfume all! make all wholesome!", "Make these ashes to nourish and blossom,", "O love! O chant! solve all, fructify all with the last chemistry.", "", "Give me exhaustless—make me a fountain,", "That I exhale love from me wherever I go, like a moist perennial dew,", "For the ashes of all dead soldiers." ], "linecount": "43" }, { "title": "Song of the Redwood-Tree.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "1", "A CALIFORNIA song!", "A prophecy and indirection—a thought impalpable, to breathe, as air;", "A chorus of dryads, fading, departing—or hamadryads departing;", "A murmuring, fateful, giant voice, out of the earth and sky,", "Voice of a mighty dying tree in the Redwood forest dense.", "", "Farewell, my brethren,", "Farewell, O earth and sky—farewell, ye neighboring waters;", "My time has ended, my term has come.", "", "2", "Along the northern coast,", "Just back from the rock-bound shore, and the caves,", "In the saline air from the sea, in the Mendocino country,", "With the surge for bass and accompaniment low and hoarse,", "With crackling blows of axes, sounding musically, driven by strong arms,", "Riven deep by the sharp tongues of the axes—there in the Redwood forest dense,", "I heard the mighty tree its death-chant chanting.", "", "The choppers heard not—the camp shanties echoed not;", "The quick-ear’d teamsters, and chain and jack-screw men, heard not,", "As the wood-spirits came from their haunts of a thousand years, to join the refrain;", "But in my soul I plainly heard.", "", "Murmuring out of its myriad leaves,", "Down from its lofty top, rising two hundred feet high,", "Out of its stalwart trunk and limbs—out of its foot-thick bark,", "That chant of the seasons and time—chant, not of the past only, but the future.", "", "3", "You untold life of me,", "And all you venerable and innocent joys,", "Perennial, hardy life of me, with joys, ’mid rain, and many a summer sun,", "And the white snows, and night, and the wild winds;", "O the great patient, rugged joys! my soul’s strong joys, unreck’d by man;", "(For know I bear the soul befitting me—I too have consciousness, identity,", "And all the rocks and mountains have—and all the earth;)", "Joys of the life befitting me and brothers mine,", "Our time, our term has come.", "", "Nor yield we mournfully, majestic brothers,", "We who have grandly fill’d our time;", "With Nature’s calm content, and tacit, huge delight,", "We welcome what we wrought for through the past,", "And leave the field for them.", "", "For them predicted long,", "For a superber Race—they too to grandly fill their time,", "For them we abdicate—in them ourselves, ye forest kings!", "In them these skies and airs—these mountain peaks—Shasta—Nevadas,", "These huge, precipitous cliffs—this amplitude—these valleys grand—Yosemite,", "To be in them absorb’d, assimilated.", "", "4", "Then to a loftier strain,", "Still prouder, more ecstatic, rose the chant,", "As if the heirs, the Deities of the West,", "Joining, with master-tongue, bore part.", "", "Not wan from Asia’s fetishes,", "Nor red from Europe’s old dynastic slaughter-house,", "(Area of murder-plots of thrones, with scent left yet of wars and scaffolds every", " where,)", "But come from Nature’s long and harmless throes—peacefully builded thence,", "These virgin lands—Lands of the Western Shore,", "To the new Culminating Man—to you, the Empire New,", "You, promis’d long, we pledge, we dedicate.", "", "You occult, deep volitions,", "You average Spiritual Manhood, purpose of all, pois’d on yourself—giving, not taking", " law,", "You Womanhood divine, mistress and source of all, whence life and love, and aught that", " comes", " from life and love,", "You unseen Moral Essence of all the vast materials of America, (age upon age,", " working", " in Death the same as Life,)", "You that, sometimes known, oftener unknown, really shape and mould the New World,", " adjusting", " it to Time and Space,", "You hidden National Will, lying in your abysms, conceal’d, but ever alert,", "You past and present purposes, tenaciously pursued, may-be unconscious of", " yourselves,", "Unswerv’d by all the passing errors, perturbations of the surface;", "You vital, universal, deathless germs, beneath all creeds, arts, statutes,", " literatures,", "", "Here build your homes for good—establish here—These areas entire, Lands of the Western", " Shore,", "We pledge, we dedicate to you.", "", "For man of you—your characteristic Race,", "Here may be hardy, sweet, gigantic grow—here tower, proportionate to Nature,", "Here climb the vast, pure spaces, unconfined, uncheck’d by wall or roof,", "Here laugh with storm or sun—here joy—here patiently inure,", "Here heed himself, unfold himself (not others’ formulas heed)—here fill", " his time,", "To duly fall, to aid, unreck’d at last,", "To disappear, to serve.", "", "Thus, on the northern coast,", "In the echo of teamsters’ calls, and the clinking chains, and the music of choppers’ axes,", "", "The falling trunk and limbs, the crash, the muffled shriek, the groan,", "Such words combined from the Redwood-tree—as of wood-spirits’ voices ecstatic, ancient and", " rustling,", "The century-lasting, unseen dryads, singing, withdrawing,", "All their recesses of forests and mountains leaving,", "From the Cascade range to the Wasatch—or Idaho far, or Utah,", "To the deities of the Modern henceforth yielding,", "The chorus and indications, the vistas of coming humanity—the settlements, features all,", "In the Mendocino woods I caught.", "", "5", "The flashing and golden pageant of California!", "The sudden and gorgeous drama—the sunny and ample lands;", "The long and varied stretch from Puget Sound to Colorado south;", "Lands bathed in sweeter, rarer, healthier air—valleys and mountain cliffs;", "The fields of Nature long prepared and fallow—the silent, cyclic chemistry;", "The slow and steady ages plodding—the unoccupied surface ripening—the rich ores forming", " beneath;", "At last the New arriving, assuming, taking possession,", "A swarming and busy race settling and organizing every where;", "Ships coming in from the whole round world, and going out to the whole world,", "To India and China and Australia, and the thousand island paradises of the Pacific;", "Populous cities—the latest inventions—the steamers on the rivers—the railroads—with", " many a thrifty farm, with machinery,", "And wool, and wheat, and the grape—and diggings of yellow gold.", "", "6", "But more in you than these, Lands of the Western Shore!", "(These but the means, the implements, the standing-ground,)", "I see in you, certain to come, the promise of thousands of years, till now deferr’d,", "Promis’d, to be fulfill’d, our common kind, the Race.", "", "The New Society at last, proportionate to Nature,", "In Man of you, more than your mountain peaks, or stalwart trees imperial,", "In Woman more, far more, than all your gold, or vines, or even vital air.", "", "Fresh come, to a New World indeed, yet long prepared,", "I see the Genius of the Modern, child of the Real and Ideal,", "Clearing the ground for broad humanity, the true America, heir of the past so grand,", "To build a grander future." ], "linecount": "126" }, { "title": "Locations and Times.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "LOCATIONS and times—what is it in me that meets them all, whenever and wherever, and", " makes", " me at home?", "Forms, colors, densities, odors—what is it in me that corresponds with them?" ], "linecount": "4" }, { "title": "O Me! O Life!", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "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." ], "linecount": "12" }, { "title": "Mother and Babe.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "I SEE the sleeping babe, nestling the breast of its mother;", "The sleeping mother and babe—hush’d, I study them long and long." ], "linecount": "2" } ]