MUSIC.

I heard you, solemn-sweet pipes of the organ, as last Sunday morn I passed the church; Winds of autumn!—as I walked the woods at dusk, I heard your long-stretched sighs, up above, so mournful; I heard the perfect Italian tenor, singing at the opera—I heard the soprano in the midst of the quartette singing. —Heart of my love! you too I heard, murmuring low, through one of the wrists around my head; Heard the pulse of you, when all was still, ringing little bells last night under my ear.



WHEREFORE?

O me! O life!—of the questions of these recurring; Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities filled with the foolish; Of myself for ever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?) Of eyes that vainly crave the light—of the objects mean—of the struggle ever renewed; Of the poor results of all—of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me; Of the empty and useless years of the rest—with the rest me intertwined; The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?



ANSWER.

That you are here—that life exists, and identity; That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.



QUESTIONABLE.

As I lay with my head in your lap, camerado, The confession I made I resume—what I said to you and the open air I resume. I know I am restless, and make others so; I know my words are weapons, full of danger, full of death; (Indeed I am myself the real soldier; It is not he, there, with his bayonet, and not the red-striped artilleryman;) For I confront peace, security, and all the settled laws, to unsettle them; I am more resolute because all have denied me than I could ever have been had all accepted me; I heed not, and have never heeded, either experience, cautions, majorities, nor ridicule; And the threat of what is called hell is little or nothing to me; And the lure of what is called heaven is little or nothing to me. —Dear camerado! I confess I have urged you onward with me, and still urge you, without the least idea what is our destination, Or whether we shall be victorious, or utterly quelled and defeated.



SONG AT SUNSET.

1.

Splendour of ended day, floating and filling me! Hour prophetic—hour resuming the past: Inflating my throat—you, divine Average! You, Earth and Life, till the last ray gleams, I sing.

2.

Open mouth of my soul, uttering gladness, Eyes of my soul, seeing perfection, Natural life of me, faithfully praising things; Corroborating for ever the triumph of things.

3.

Illustrious every one! Illustrious what we name space—sphere of unnumbered spirits; Illustrious the mystery of motion, in all beings, even the tiniest insect; Illustrious the attribute of speech—the senses—the body; Illustrious the passing light! Illustrious the pale reflection on the new moon in the western sky! Illustrious whatever I see, or hear, or touch, to the last.

Good in all, In the satisfaction and aplomb of animals, In the annual return of the seasons, In the hilarity of youth, In the strength and flush of manhood, In the grandeur and exquisiteness of old age, In the superb vistas of Death.

Wonderful to depart; Wonderful to be here! The heart, to jet the all-alike and innocent blood, To breathe the air, how delicious! To speak! to walk! to seize something by the hand! To prepare for sleep, for bed—to look on my rose-coloured flesh, To be conscious of my body, so happy, so large, To be this incredible God I am, To have gone forth among other Gods—those men and women I love.

Wonderful how I celebrate you and myself! How my thoughts play subtly at the spectacles around! How the clouds pass silently overhead!

How the earth darts on and on! and how the sun, moon, stars, dart on and on! How the water sports and sings! (Surely it is alive!) How the trees rise and stand up—with strong trunks—with branches and leaves! Surely there is something more in each of the trees—some living soul.

O amazement of things! even the least particle! O spirituality of things! O strain musical, flowing through ages and continents—now reaching me and America! I take your strong chords—I intersperse them, and cheerfully pass them forward.

I too carol the sun, ushered, or at noon, or, as now, setting, I too throb to the brain and beauty of the earth, and of all the growths of the earth, I too have felt the resistless call of myself.

As I sailed down the Mississippi, As I wandered over the prairies, As I have lived—As I have looked through my windows, my eyes, As I went forth in the morning—As I beheld the light breaking in the east; As I bathed on the beach of the Eastern Sea, and again on the beach of the Western Sea; As I roamed the streets of inland Chicago-whatever streets I have roamed; Wherever I have been, I have charged myself with contentment and triumph.

I sing the Equalities; I sing the endless finales of things; I say Nature continues—Glory continues; I praise with electric voice: For I do not see one imperfection in the universe; And I do not see one cause or result lamentable at last in the universe.

O setting sun! though the time has come, I still warble under you unmitigated adoration.



LONGINGS FOR HOME.

O Magnet South! O glistening, perfumed South! my South! O quick mettle, rich blood, impulse, and love! good and evil! O all dear to me! O dear to me my birth-things—all moving things, and the trees where I was born,[1] the grains, plants, rivers; Dear to me my own slow, sluggish rivers, where they flow distant over flats of silvery sands or through swamps; Dear to me the Roanoke, the Savannah, the Altamahaw, the Pedee, the Tombigbee, the Santee, the Coosa, and the Sabine— O pensive, far away wandering, I return with my soul to haunt their banks again. Again in Florida I float on transparent lakes—I float on Okeechobee—I cross the hummock land, or through pleasant openings or dense forests. I see the parrots in the woods, I see the papaw-tree, and the blossoming titi. Again, sailing in my coaster, on deck, I coast off Georgia, I coast up the Carolinas; I see where the live-oak is growing—I see where the yellow-pine, the scented bay-tree, the lemon and orange, the cypress, the graceful palmetto. I pass rude sea-headlands, and enter Pamlico Sound through an inlet, and dart my vision inland; O the cotton plant! the growing fields of rice, sugar, hemp! The cactus, guarded with thorns—the laurel-tree, with large white flowers; The range afar—the richness and barrenness—the old woods charged with mistletoe and trailing moss, The piney odour and the gloom—the awful natural stillness, Here in these dense swamps the freebooter carries his gun, and the fugitive slave has his concealed hut; O the strange fascination of these half-known, half-impassable swamps, infested by reptiles, resounding with the bellow of the alligator, the sad noises of the night-owl and the wild-cat, and the whirr of the rattlesnake; The mocking-bird, the American mimic, singing all the forenoon—singing through the moon-lit night, The humming-bird, the wild-turkey, the raccoon, the opossum; A Tennessee corn-field—the tall, graceful, long-leaved corn—slender, flapping, bright green, with tassels—with beautiful ears, each well-sheathed in its husk; An Arkansas prairie—a sleeping lake, or still bayou. O my heart! O tender and fierce pangs—I can stand them not—I will depart! O to be a Virginian, where I grew up! O to be a Carolinian! O longings irrepressible! O I will go back to old Tennessee, and never wander more!

[Footnote 1: These expressions cannot be understood in a literal sense, for Whitman was born, not in the South, but in the State of New York. The precise sense to be attached to them may be open to some difference of opinion.]



APPEARANCES.

Of the terrible doubt of appearances, Of the uncertainty after all—that we may be deluded, That maybe reliance and hope are but speculations after all, That maybe identity beyond the grave is a beautiful fable only, Maybe the things I perceive—the animals, plants, men, hills, shining and flowing waters, The skies of day and night—colours, densities, forms—Maybe these are (as doubtless they are) only apparitions, and the real something has yet to be known; (How often they dart out of themselves, as if to confound me and mock me! How often I think neither I know, nor any man knows, aught of them!) Maybe seeming to me what they are (as doubtless they indeed but seem) as from my present point of view—And might prove (as of course they would) naught of what they appear, or naught anyhow, from entirely changed points of view; —To me, these, and the like of these, are curiously answered by my lovers, my dear friends. When he whom I love travels with me, or sits a long while holding me by the hand, When the subtle air, the impalpable, the sense that words and reason hold not, surround us and pervade us, Then I am charged with untold and untellable wisdom—I am silent—I require nothing further, I cannot answer the question of appearances, or that of identity beyond the grave; But I walk or sit indifferent—I am satisfied, He ahold of my hand has completely satisfied me.

THE FRIEND.

Recorders ages hence! Come, I will take you down underneath this impassive exterior—I will tell you what to say of me; Publish my name and hang up my picture as that of the tenderest lover, The friend, the lover's portrait, of whom his friend, his lover, was fondest, Who was not proud of his songs, but of the measureless ocean of love within him—and freely poured it forth, Who often walked lonesome walks, thinking of his dear friends, his lovers, Who pensive, away from one he loved, often lay sleepless and dissatisfied at night, Who knew too well the sick, sick dread lest the one he loved might secretly be indifferent to him, Whose happiest days were far away, through fields, in woods, on hills, he and another, wandering hand in hand, they twain, apart from other men, Who oft, as he sauntered the streets, curved with his arm the shoulder of his friend—while the arm of his friend rested upon him also.



MEETING AGAIN.

When I heard at the close of the day how my name had been received with plaudits in the capitol, still it was not a happy night for me that followed; And else, when I caroused, or when my plans were accomplished, still I was not happy. But the day when I rose at dawn from the bed of perfect health, refreshed, singing, inhaling the ripe breath of autumn, When I saw the full moon in the west grow pale and disappear in the morning light, When I wandered alone over the beach, and undressing bathed, laughing with the cool waters, and saw the sunrise, And when I thought how my dear friend, my lover, was on his way coming, O then I was happy; O then each breath tasted sweeter—and all that day my food nourished me more—and the beautiful day passed well, And the next came with equal joy—and with the next, at evening, came my friend; And that night, while all was still, I heard the waters roll slowly continually up the shores, I heard the hissing rustle of the liquid and sands, as directed to me, whispering, to congratulate me; For the one I love most lay sleeping by me under the same cover in the cool night, In the stillness, in the autumn moonbeams, his face was inclined toward me, And his arm lay lightly around my breast—and that night I was happy.



A DREAM.

Of him I love day and night, I dreamed I heard he was dead; And I dreamed I went where they had buried him I love—but he was not in that place; And I dreamed I wandered, searching among burial-places, to find him; And I found that every place was a burial-place; The houses full of life were equally full of death, (this house is now;) The streets, the shipping, the places of amusement, the Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, the Mannahatta, were as full of the dead as of the living, And fuller, O vastly fuller, of the dead than of the living. —And what I dreamed I will henceforth tell to every person and age, And I stand henceforth bound to what I dreamed; And now I am willing to disregard burial-places, and dispense with them; And if the memorials of the dead were put up indifferently everywhere, even in the room where I eat or sleep, I should be satisfied; And if the corpse of any one I love, or if my own corpse, be duly rendered to powder, and poured in the sea, I shall be satisfied; Or if it be distributed to the winds, I shall be satisfied.



PARTING FRIENDS.

What think you I take my pen in hand to record? The battle-ship, perfect-modelled, majestic, that I saw pass the offing to- day under full sail? The splendours of the past day? Or the splendour of the night that envelops me? Or the vaunted glory and growth of the great city spread around me?—No; But I record of two simple men I saw to-day, on the pier, in the midst of the crowd, parting the parting of dear friends; The one to remain hung on the other's neck, and passionately kissed him, While the one to depart tightly pressed the one to remain in his arms.



TO A STRANGER.

Passing stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you; You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking (it comes to me, as of a dream). I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you. All is recalled as we flit by each other, fluid, affectionate, chaste, matured; You grew up with me, were a boy with me, or a girl with me; I ate with you, and slept with you—your body has become not yours only, nor left my body mine only; You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as we pass—you take of my beard, breast, hands in return; I am not to speak to you—I am to think of you when I sit alone, or wake at night alone; I am to wait—I do not doubt I am to meet you again; I am to see to it that I do not lose you.



OTHER LANDS.

This moment yearning and thoughtful, sitting alone, It seems to me there are other men in other lands, yearning and thoughtful; It seems to me I can look over and behold them in Prussia, Italy, France, Spain—or far, far away, in China, or in Russia or India—talking other dialects; And it seems to me, if I could know those men, I should become attached to them, as I do to men in my own lands. O I know we should be brethren and lovers; I know I should be happy with them.



ENVY.

When I peruse the conquered fame of heroes, and the victories of mighty generals, I do not envy the generals, Nor the President in his Presidency, nor the rich in his great house.

But when I read of the brotherhood of lovers, how it was with them; How through life, through dangers, odium, unchanging, long and long, Through youth, and through middle and old age, how unfaltering, how affectionate and faithful they were, Then I am pensive—I hastily put down the book, and walk away, filled with the bitterest envy.



THE CITY OF FRIENDS.

I dreamed in a dream I saw a city invincible to the attacks of the whole of the rest of the earth; I dreamed that it was the new City of Friends; Nothing was greater there than the quality of robust love—it led the rest; It was seen every hour in the actions of the men of that city, And in all their looks and words.



OUT OF THE CROWD.

1.

Out of the rolling ocean, the crowd, came a drop gently to me, Whispering, I love you; before long I die: I have travelled a long way, merely to look on you, to touch you: For I could not die till I once looked on you, For I feared I might afterward lose you.

2.

Now we have met, we have looked, we are safe; Return in peace to the ocean, my love; I too am part of that ocean, my love—we are not so much separated; Behold the great rondure—the cohesion of all, how perfect! But as for me, for you, the irresistible sea is to separate us, As for an hour carrying us diverse—yet cannot carry us diverse for ever; Be not impatient—a little space—know you, I salute the air, the ocean, and the land, Every day, at sundown, for your dear sake, my love.



AMONG THE MULTITUDE.

Among the men and women, the multitude, I perceive one picking me out by secret and divine signs, Acknowledging none else—not parent, wife, husband, brother, child, any nearer than I am; Some are baffled—But that one is not—that one knows me.

Ah, lover and perfect equal! I meant that you should discover me so, by my faint indirections; And I, when I meet you, mean to discover you by the like in you.



LEAVES OF GRASS.



PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S FUNERAL HYMN.

1.

When lilacs last in the door-yard bloomed, And the great star[1] early drooped in the western sky in the night, I mourned,...and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.

O ever-returning spring! trinity sure to me you bring; Lilac blooming perennial, and drooping star in the west, And thought of him I love.

2.

O powerful, western, fallen star! O shades of night! O moody, tearful night! O great star disappeared! O the black murk that hides the star! O cruel hands that hold me powerless! O helpless soul of me! O harsh surrounding cloud that will not free my soul!

3.

In the door-yard fronting an old farm-house, near the whitewashed palings, Stands the lilac bush, tall-growing, with heart-shaped leaves of rich green, With many a pointed blossom, rising delicate, with the perfume strong I love, With every leaf a miracle: and from this bush in the dooryard, With delicate-coloured blossoms, and heart-shaped leaves of rich green, A sprig, with its flower, I break.

4.

In the swamp, in secluded recesses, A shy and hidden bird is warbling a song.

Solitary, the thrush, The hermit, withdrawn to himself, avoiding the settlements, Sings by himself a song:

Song of the bleeding throat! Death's outlet song of life—for well, dear brother, I know, If thou wast not gifted to sing, thou wouldst surely die.

5.

Over the breast of the spring, the land, amid cities, Amid lanes, and through old woods, where lately the violets peeped from the ground, spotting the greydebris; Amid the grass in the fields each side of the lanes—passing the endless grass; Passing the yellow-speared wheat, every grain from its shroud in the dark-brown fields uprising; Passing the apple-tree blows of white and pink in the orchards; Carrying a corpse to where it shall rest in the grave, Night and day journeys a coffin.

6.

Coffin that passes through lanes and streets, Through day and night, with the great cloud darkening the land, With the pomp of the inlooped flags, with the cities draped in black, With the show of the States themselves as of crape-veiled women standing, With processions long and winding, and the flambeaus of the night, With the countless torches lit—with the silent sea of faces, and the unbared heads, With the waiting depot, the arriving coffin, and the sombre faces, With dirges through the night, with the thousand voices rising strong and solemn; With all the mournful voices of the dirges, poured around the coffin, The dim-lit churches and the shuddering organs—Where amid these you journey, With the tolling, tolling bells' perpetual clang; Here! coffin that slowly passes, I give you my sprig of lilac.

7.

Nor for you, for one, alone; Blossoms and branches green to coffins all I bring: For fresh as the morning—thus would I chant a song for you, O sane and sacred Death.

All over bouquets of roses, O Death! I cover you over with roses and early lilies; But mostly and now the lilac that blooms the first, Copious, I break, I break the sprigs from the bushes! With loaded arms I come, pouring for you, For you and the coffins all of you, O Death.

8.

O western orb, sailing the heaven! Now I know what you must have meant, as a month since we walked, As we walked up and down in the dark blue so mystic, As we walked in silence the transparent shadowy night, As I saw you had something to tell, as you bent to me night after night, As you drooped from the sky low down, as if to my side, while the other stars all looked on; As we wandered together the solemn night, for something, I know not what, kept me from sleep; As the night advanced, and I saw on the rim of the west, ere you went, how full you were of woe; As I stood on the rising ground in the breeze, in the cool transparent night, As I watched where you passed and was lost in the netherward black of the night, As my soul, in its trouble, dissatisfied, sank, as where you, sad orb, Concluded, dropped in the night, and was gone.

9.

Sing on, there in the swamp! O singer bashful and tender! I hear your notes—I hear your call; I hear—I come presently—I understand you; But a moment I linger—for the lustrous star has detained me; The star, my comrade departing, holds and detains me.

10.

O how shall I warble myself for the dead one there I loved? And how shall I deck my song for the large sweet soul that has gone? And what shall my perfume be for the grave of him I love?

Sea-winds, blown from east and west, Blown from the Eastern Sea, and blown from the Western Sea, till there on the prairies meeting: These, and with these, and the breath of my chant, I perfume the grave of him I love.

11.

O what shall I hang on the chamber walls? And what shall the pictures be that I hang on the walls, To adorn the burial-house of him I love?

Pictures of growing spring, and farms, and homes, With the Fourth-month eve at sundown, and the grey smoke lucid and bright, With floods of the yellow gold of the gorgeous, indolent sinking sun, burning, expanding the air; With the fresh sweet herbage under foot, and the pale green leaves of the trees prolific; In the distance the flowing glaze, the breast of the river, with a wind-dapple here and there; With ranging hills on the banks, with many a line against the sky, and shadows; And the city at hand, with dwellings so dense, and stacks of chimneys, And all the scenes of life, and the workshops, and the workmen homeward returning.

12.

Lo! body and soul! this land! Mighty Manhattan, with spires, and the sparkling and hurrying tides, and the ships; The varied and ample land—the South and the North in the light—Ohio's shores, and flashing Missouri, And ever the far-spreading prairies, covered with grass and corn.

Lo! the most excellent sun, so calm and haughty; The violet and purple morn, with just-felt breezes; The gentle, soft-born, measureless light; The miracle, spreading, bathing all—the fulfilled noon; The coming eve, delicious—the welcome night, and the stars, Over my cities shining all, enveloping man and land.

13.

Sing on! sing on, you grey-brown bird! Sing from the swamps, the recesses—pour your chant from the bushes; Limitless out of the dusk, out of the cedars and pines.

Sing on, dearest brother—warble your reedy song, Loud human song, with voice of uttermost woe.

O liquid, and free, and tender! O wild and loose to my soul! O wondrous singer! You only I hear,... yet the star holds me, (but will soon depart;) Yet the lilac, with mastering odour, holds me.

14.

Now while I sat in the day, and looked forth, In the close of the day, with its light, and the fields of spring, and the farmer preparing his crops, In the large unconscious scenery of my land, with its lakes and forests, In the heavenly aerial beauty, after the perturbed winds and the storms; Under the arching heavens of the afternoon swift passing, and the voices of children and women, The many-moving sea-tides,—and I saw the ships how they sailed, And the summer approaching with richness, and the fields all busy with labour, And the infinite separate houses, how they all went on, each with its meals and minutiae of daily usages; And the streets, how their throbbings throbbed, and the cities pent—lo! then and there, Falling upon them all, and among them all, enveloping me with the rest, Appeared the cloud, appeared the long black trail; And I knew Death, its thought, and the sacred knowledge of Death.

15.

And the Thought of Death close-walking the other side of me, And I in the middle, as with companions, and as holding the hands of companions, I fled forth to the hiding receiving night, that talks not, Down to the shores of the water, the path by the swamp in the dimness, To the solemn shadowy cedars, and ghostly pines so still.

And the singer so shy to the rest received me; The grey-brown bird I know received us Comrades three; And he sang what seemed the song of Death, and a verse for him I love.

From deep secluded recesses, From the fragrant cedars, and the ghostly pines so still, Came the singing of the bird.

And the charm of the singing rapt me, As I held, as if by their hands, my Comrades in the night; And the voice of my spirit tallied the song of the bird.

16.

Come, lovely and soothing Death, Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving, In the day, in the night, to all, to each, Sooner or later, delicate Death.

Praised be the fathomless universe, For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious; And for love, sweet love—But praise! O praise and praise, For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding Death.

Dark Mother, always gliding near, with soft feet, Have none chanted for thee a chant of fullest welcome? Then I chant it for thee—I glorify thee above all; I bring thee a song that, when thou must indeed come, come unfalteringly.

Approach, encompassing Death-strong deliveress! When it is so—when thou hast taken them, I joyously sing the dead, Lost in the loving, floating ocean of thee, Laved in the flood of thy bliss, O Death.

From me to thee glad serenades, Dances for thee I propose, saluting thee—adornments and feastings for thee; And the sights of the open landscape, and the high-spread sky, are fitting, And life and the fields, and the huge and thoughtful night.

The night, in silence, under many a star; The ocean shore, and the husky whispering wave, whose voice I know; And the soul turning to thee, O vast and well-veiled Death, And the body gratefully nestling close to thee.

Over the tree-tops I float thee a song! Over the rising and sinking waves—over the myriad fields, and the prairies wide; Over the dense-packed cities all, and the teeming wharves and ways, I float this carol with joy, with joy, to thee, O Death!

17.

To the tally of my soul Loud and strong kept up the grey-brown bird, With pure, deliberate notes, spreading, filling the night.

Loud in the pines and cedars dim, Clear in the freshness moist, and the swamp-perfume, And I with my Comrades there in the night.

While my sight that was bound in my eyes unclosed, As to long panoramas of visions.

18.

I saw the vision of armies; And I saw, as in noiseless dreams, hundreds of battle-flags; Borne through the smoke of the battles, and pierced with missiles, I saw them, And carried hither and yon through the smoke, and torn and bloody; And at last but a few shreds of the flags left on the staffs, (and all in silence,) And the staffs all splintered and broken.

I saw battle-corpses, myriads of them, And the white skeletons of young men—I saw them; I saw the debris and debris of all dead soldiers. But I saw they were not as was thought; They themselves were fully at rest—they suffered not; The living remained and suffered—the mother suffered, And the wife and the child, and the musing comrade suffered, And the armies that remained suffered.

19.

Passing the visions, passing the night; Passing, unloosing the hold of my Comrades' hands; Passing the song of the hermit bird, and the tallying song of my soul; Victorious song, Death's outlet song, yet varying, ever-altering song; As low and wailing, yet clear, the notes, rising and falling, flooding the night, Sadly sinking and fainting, as warning and warning, and yet again bursting with joy. Covering the earth, and filling the spread of the heaven, As that powerful psalm in the night, I heard from recesses.

20.

Must I leave thee, lilac with heart-shaped leaves? Must I leave thee there in the door-yard, blooming, returning with spring?

Must I pass from my song for thee— From my gaze on thee in the west, fronting the west, communing with thee, O comrade lustrous, with silver face in the night?

21.

Yet each I keep, and all; The song, the wondrous chant of the grey-brown bird, And the tallying chant, the echo aroused in my soul, With the lustrous and drooping star, with the countenance full of woe; With the lilac tali, and its blossoms of mastering odour; Comrades mine, and I in the midst, and their memory ever I keep—for the dead I loved so well; For the sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and lands—and this for his dear sake; Lilac and star and bird, twined with the chant of my soul, With the holders holding my hand, nearing the call of the bird, There in the fragrant pines, and the cedars dusk and dim.

[Footnote 1: "The evening star, which, as many may remember night after night, in the early part of that eventful spring, hung low in the west with unusual and tender brightness."—JOHN BURROUGHS.]



O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN! (FOR THE DEATH OF LINCOLN.)

1.

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done! The ship has weathered every wrack, the prize we sought is won. The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring. But, O heart! heart! heart! Leave you not the little spot Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.

2.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells! Rise up! for you the flag is flung, for you the bugle trills: For you bouquets and ribboned wreaths; for you the shores a-crowding: For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning.

O Captain! dear father! This arm I push beneath you. It is some dream that on the deck You've fallen cold and dead!

3.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still: My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will. But the ship, the ship is anchored safe, its voyage closed and done: From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won! Exult, O shores! and ring, O bells! But I, with silent tread, Walk the spot my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.



PIONEERS! O PIONEERS!

1.

Come, my tan-faced children, Follow well in order, get your weapons ready; Have you your pistols? have you your sharp-edged axes? Pioneers! O pioneers!

2.

For we cannot tarry here, We must march, my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger, We, the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend. Pioneers! O pioneers!

3.

O you youths, Western youths, So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship, Plain I see you, Western youths, see you tramping with the foremost, Pioneers! O pioneers!

4.

Have the elder races halted? Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied, over there beyond the seas? We take up the task eternal, and the burden, and the lesson, Pioneers! O pioneers!

5.

All the past we leave behind; We debouch upon a newer, mightier world, varied world; Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labour and the march, Pioneers! O pioneers!

6.

We detachments steady throwing, Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep, Conquering, holding, daring, venturing, as we go, the unknown ways, Pioneers! O pioneers!

7.

We primeval forests felling, We the rivers stemming, vexing we, and piercing deep the mines within; We the surface broad surveying, and the virgin soil upheaving, Pioneers! O pioneers!

8.

Colorado men are we, From the peaks gigantic, from the great sierras and the high plateaus, From the mine and from the gully, from the hunting trail we come, Pioneers! O pioneers!

9.

From Nebraska, from Arkansas, Central inland race are we, from Missouri, with the continental blood interveined; All the hands of comrades clasping, all the Southern, all the Northern, Pioneers! O pioneers!

10.

O resistless, restless race! O beloved race in all! O my breast aches with tender love for all! O I mourn and yet exult—I am rapt with love for all, Pioneers! O pioneers;

11.

Raise the mighty mother mistress, Waving high the delicate mistress, over all the starry mistress, (bend your heads all,) Raise the fanged and warlike mistress, stern, impassive, weaponed mistress, Pioneers! O pioneers!

12.

See, my children, resolute children, By those swarms upon our rear, we must never yield or falter, Ages back in ghostly millions, frowning there behind us urging, Pioneers! O pioneers!

13.

On and on, the compact ranks, With accessions ever waiting, with the places of the dead quickly filled, Through the battle, through defeat, moving yet and never stopping, Pioneers! O pioneers!

14.

O to die advancing on! Are there some of us to droop and die? has the hour come? Then upon the march we fittest die, soon and sure the gap is filled, Pioneers! O pioneers!

15.

All the pulses of the world, Falling in, they beat for us, with the Western movement beat; Holding single or together, steady moving, to the front, all for us, Pioneers! O pioneers!

16.

Life's involved and varied pageants, All the forms and shows, all the workmen at their work, All the seamen and the landsmen, all the masters with their slaves, Pioneers, O pioneers!

17.

All the hapless silent lovers, All the prisoners in the prisons, all the righteous and the wicked, All the joyous, all the sorrowing, all the living, all the dying, Pioneers! O pioneers!

18.

I too with my soul and body, We, a curious trio, picking, wandering on our way, Through these shores, amid the shadows, with the apparitions pressing, Pioneers! O pioneers!

19.

Lo! the darting, bowling orb! Lo! the brother orbs around! all the clustering suns and planets; All the dazzling days, all the mystic nights with dreams, Pioneers! O pioneers!

20.

These are of us, they are with us, All for primal needed work, while the followers there in embryo wait behind, We to-day's procession heading, we the route for travel clearing, Pioneers! O pioneers!

21.

O you daughters of the West! O you young and elder daughters! O you mothers and you wives! Never must you be divided, in our ranks you move united, Pioneers! O pioneers!

22.

Minstrels latent on the prairies! (Shrouded bards of other lands! you may sleep—you have done your work;) Soon I hear you coming warbling, soon you rise and tramp amid us, Pioneers! O pioneers!

23.

Not for delectations sweet; Not the cushion and the slipper, not the peaceful and the studious; Not the riches safe and palling, not for us the tame enjoyment, Pioneers! O pioneers!

24.

Do the feasters gluttonous feast? Do the corpulent sleepers sleep? have they locked and bolted doors? Still be ours the diet hard, and the blanket on the ground, Pioneers! O pioneers!

25.

Has the night descended? Was the road of late so toilsome? did we stop discouraged, nodding on our way? Yet a passing hour I yield you in your tracks to pause oblivious, Pioneers! O pioneers!

26.

Till with sound of trumpet, Far, far off the daybreak call—hark! how loud and clear I hear it wind; Swift! to the head of the army!—swift! spring to your places, Pioneers! O pioneers!



TO THE SAYERS OF WORDS.

1.

Earth, round, rolling, compact—suns, moons, animals—all these are words to be said; Watery, vegetable, sauroid advances—beings, premonitions, lispings of the future, Behold! these are vast words to be said.

Were you thinking that those were the words—those upright lines? those curves, angles, dots? No, those are not the words—the substantial words are in the ground and sea, They are in the air—they are in you.

Were you thinking that those were the words—those delicious sounds out of your friends' mouths? No; the real words are more delicious than they.

Human bodies are words, myriads of words; In the best poems reappears the body, man's or woman's, well-shaped, natural, gay; Every part able, active, receptive, without shame or the need of shame.

Air, soil, water, fire—these are words; I myself am a word with them—my qualities interpenetrate with theirs—my name is nothing to them; Though it were told in the three thousand languages, what would air, soil, water, fire, know of my name?

A healthy presence, a friendly or commanding gesture, are words, sayings, meanings; The charms that go with the mere looks of some men and women are sayings and meanings also.

2.

The workmanship of souls is by the inaudible words of the earth; The great masters know the earth's words, and use them more than the audible words.

Amelioration is one of the earth's words; The earth neither lags nor hastens; It has all attributes, growths, effects, latent in itself from the jump; It is not half beautiful only—defects and excrescences show just as much as perfections show.

The earth does not withhold—it is generous enough; The truths of the earth continually wait, they are not so concealed either; They are calm, subtle, untransmissible by print; They are imbued through all things, conveying themselves willingly, Conveying a sentiment and invitation of the earth. I utter and utter: I speak not; yet, if you hear me not, of what avail am I to you? To bear—to better; lacking these, of what avail am I?

Accouche! Accouchez! Will you rot your own fruit in yourself there? Will you squat and stifle there?

The earth does not argue, Is not pathetic, has no arrangements, Does not scream, haste, persuade, threaten, promise, Makes no discriminations, has no conceivable failures, Closes nothing, refuses nothing, shuts none out; Of all the powers, objects, states, it notifies, shuts none out.

The earth does not exhibit itself, nor refuse to exhibit itself—possesses still underneath; Underneath the ostensible sounds, the august chorus of heroes, the wail of slaves, Persuasions of lovers, curses, gasps of the dying, laughter of young people, accents of bargainers, Underneath these, possessing the words that never fail.

To her children, the words of the eloquent dumb great Mother never fail; The true words do not fail, for motion does not fail, and reflection does not fail; Also the day and night do not fail, and the voyage we pursue does not fail.

3.

Of the interminable sisters, Of the ceaseless cotillons of sisters, Of the centripetal and centrifugal sisters, the elder and younger sisters, The beautiful sister we know dances on with the rest.

With her ample back towards every beholder, With the fascinations of youth, and the equal fascinations of age, Sits she whom I too love like the rest—sits undisturbed, Holding up in her hand what has the character of a mirror, while her eyes glance back from it, Glance as she sits, inviting none, denying none, Holding a mirror day and night tirelessly before her own face.

Seen at hand, or seen at a distance, Duly the twenty-four appear in public every day, Duly approach and pass with their companions, or a companion, Looking from no countenances of their own, but from the countenances of those who are with them, From the countenances of children or women, or the manly countenance, From the open countenances of animals, or from inanimate things, From the landscape or waters, or from the exquisite apparition of the sky, From our countenances, mine and yours, faithfully returning them, Every day in public appearing without fail, but never twice with the same companions.

Embracing man, embracing all, proceed the three hundred and sixty-five resistlessly round the sun; Embracing all, soothing, supporting, follow close three hundred and sixty- five offsets of the first, sure and necessary as they.

Tumbling on steadily, nothing dreading, Sunshine, storm, cold, heat, for ever withstanding, passing, carrying,

The Soul's realisation and determination still inheriting; The fluid vacuum around and ahead still entering and dividing, No baulk retarding, no anchor anchoring, on no rock striking, Swift, glad, content, unbereaved, nothing losing, Of all able and ready at any time to give strict account, The divine ship sails the divine sea.

4.

Whoever you are! motion and reflection are especially for you; The divine ship sails the divine sea for you.

Whoever you are! you are he or she for whom the earth is solid and liquid, You are he or she for whom the sun and moon hang in the sky; For none more than you are the present and the past, For none more than you is immortality.

Each man to himself, and each woman to herself, such as the word of the past and present, and the word of immortality; No one can acquire for another—not one! Not one can grow for another—not one!

The song is to the singer, and comes back most to him; The teaching is to the teacher, and comes back most to him; The murder is to the murderer, and comes back most to him;

The theft is to the thief, and comes back most to him; The love is to the lover, and conies back most to him; The gift is to the giver, and comes back most to him—it cannot fail; The oration is to the orator, the acting is to the actor and actress, not to the audience; And no man understands any greatness or goodness but his own, or the indication of his own.

5.

I swear the earth shall surely be complete to him or her who shall be complete! I swear the earth remains jagged and broken only to him or her who remains broken and jagged!

I swear there is no greatness or power that does not emulate those of the earth! I swear there can be no theory of any account, unless it corroborate the theory of the earth! No politics, art, religion, behaviour, or what not, is of account, unless it compare with the amplitude of the earth, Unless it face the exactness, vitality, impartiality, rectitude, of the earth.

I swear I begin to see love with sweeter spasms than that which responds love! It is that which contains itself—which never invites, and never refuses.

I swear I begin to see little or nothing in audible words! I swear I think all merges toward the presentation of the unspoken meanings of the earth; Toward him who sings the songs of the Body, and of the truths of the earth; Toward him who makes the dictionaries of words that print cannot touch.

I swear I see what is better than to tell the best; It is always to leave the best untold.

When I undertake to tell the best, I find I cannot, My tongue is ineffectual on its pivots, My breath will not be obedient to its organs, I become a dumb man.

The best of the earth cannot be told anyhow—all or any is best; It is not what you anticipated—it is cheaper, easier, nearer; Things are not dismissed from the places they held before; The earth is just as positive and direct as it was before; Facts, religions, improvements, politics, trades, are as real as before; But the Soul is also real,—it too is positive and direct; No reasoning, no proof has established it, Undeniable growth has established it.

6.

This is a poem for the sayers of words—these are hints of meanings, These are they that echo the tones of souls, and the phrases of souls; If they did not echo the phrases of souls, what were they then? If they had not reference to you in especial, what were they then? I swear I will never henceforth have to do with the faith that tells the best! I will have to do only with that faith that leaves the best untold.

7.

Say on, sayers! Delve! mould! pile the words of the earth! Work on—it is materials you bring, not breaths; Work on, age after age! nothing is to be lost! It may have to wait long, but it will certainly come in use; When the materials are all prepared, the architects shall appear.

I swear to you the architects shall appear without fail! I announce them and lead them; I swear to you they will understand you and justify you; I swear to you the greatest among them shall be he who best knows you, and encloses all, and is faithful to all; I swear to you, he and the rest shall not forget you—they shall perceive that you are not an iota less than they; I swear to you, you shall be glorified in them.



VOICES.

1.

Now I make a leaf of Voices—for I have found nothing mightier than they are, And I have found that no word spoken but is beautiful in its place.

2.

O what is it in me that makes me tremble so at voices? Surely, whoever speaks to me in the right voice, him or her I shall follow, As the water follows the moon, silently, with fluid steps anywhere around the globe.

All waits for the right voices; Where is the practised and perfect organ? Where is the developed Soul? For I see every word uttered thence has deeper, sweeter, new sounds, impossible on less terms.

I see brains and lips closed—tympans and temples unstruck, Until that comes which has the quality to strike and to unclose, Until that comes which has the quality to bring forth what lies slumbering, for ever ready, in all words.



WHOSOEVER.

Whoever you are, I fear you are walking the walks of dreams, I fear those supposed realities are to melt from under your feet and hands; Even now, your features, joys, speech, house, trade, manners, troubles, follies, costume, crimes, dissipate away from you, Your true Soul and Body appear before me, They stand forth out of affairs-out of commerce, shops, law, science, work, farms, clothes, the house, medicine, print, buying, selling, eating, drinking, suffering, dying.

Whoever you are, now I place my hand upon you, that you be my poem; I whisper with my lips close to your ear, I have loved many women and men, but I love none better than you.

Oh! I have been dilatory and dumb; I should have made my way straight to you long ago; I should have blabbed nothing but you, I should have chanted nothing but you.

I will leave all, and come and make the hymns of you; None have understood you, but I understand you; None have done justice to you—you have not done justice to yourself; None but have found you imperfect—I only find no imperfection in you; None but would subordinate you—I only am he who will never consent to subordinate you; I only am he who places over you no master, owner, better, God, beyond what waits intrinsically in yourself.

Painters have painted their swarming groups, and the centre figure of all, From the head of the centre figure spreading a nimbus of gold-coloured light; But I paint myriads of heads, but paint no head without its nimbus of gold- coloured light; From my hand, from the brain of every man and woman, it streams, effulgently flowing for ever.

O I could sing such grandeurs and glories about you! You have not known what you are—you have slumbered upon yourself all your life; Your eyelids have been the same as closed most of the time; What you have done returns already in mockeries; Your thrift, knowledge, prayers, if they do not return in mockeries, what is their return?

The mockeries are not you; Underneath them, and within them, I see you lurk; I pursue you where none else has pursued you; Silence, the desk, the flippant expression, the night, the accustomed routine, if these conceal you from others, or from yourself, they do not conceal you from me; The shaved face, the unsteady eye, the impure complexion, if these baulk others, they do not baulk me. The pert apparel, the deformed attitude, drunkenness, greed, premature death, all these I part aside.

There is no endowment in man or woman that is not tallied in you; There is no virtue, no beauty, in man or woman, but as good is in you; No pluck, no endurance in others, but as good is in you; No pleasure waiting for others, but an equal pleasure waits for you. As for me, I give nothing to any one, except I give the like carefully to you; I sing the songs of the glory of none, not God, sooner than I sing the songs of the glory of you.

Whoever you are! claim your own at any hazard! These shows of the east and west are tame compared to you; These immense meadows—these interminable rivers—you are immense and interminable as they; These furies, elements, storms, motions of Nature, throes of apparent dissolution—you are he or she who is master or mistress over them, Master or mistress in your own right over Nature, elements, pain, passion, dissolution.

The hopples fall from your ankles—you find an unfailing sufficiency; Old or young, male or female, rude, low, rejected by the rest, whatever you are promulgates itself; Through birth, life, death, burial, the means are provided, nothing is scanted; Through angers, losses, ambition, ignorance, ennui, what you are picks its way.



BEGINNERS.

How they are provided for upon the earth, appearing at intervals; How dear and dreadful they are to the earth; How they inure to themselves as much as to any—What a paradox appears their age; How people respond to them, yet know them not; How there is something relentless in their fate, all times; How all times mischoose the objects of their adulation and reward, And how the same inexorable price must still be paid for the same great purchase.



TO A PUPIL.

1.

Is reform needed? Is it through you? The greater the reform needed, the greater the PERSONALITY you need to accomplish it.

You! do you not see how it would serve to have eyes, blood, complexion, clean and sweet? Do you not see how it would serve to have such a Body and Soul that, when you enter the crowd, an atmosphere of desire and command enters with you, and every one is impressed with your personality?

2.

O the magnet! the flesh over and over! Go, dear friend! if need be, give up all else, and commence to-day to inure yourself to pluck, reality, self-esteem, definiteness, elevatedness; Rest not, till you rivet and publish yourself of your own personality.



LINKS.

1.

Think of the Soul; I swear to you that body of yours gives proportions to your Soul somehow to live in other spheres; I do not know how, but I know it is so.

2.

Think of loving and being loved; I swear to you, whoever you are, you can interfuse yourself with such things that everybody that sees you shall look longingly upon you.

3.

Think of the past; I warn you that, in a little while, others will find their past in you and your times.

The race is never separated—nor man nor woman escapes; All is inextricable—things, spirits, nature, nations, you too—from precedents you come.

Recall the ever-welcome defiers (the mothers precede them); Recall the sages, poets, saviours, inventors, lawgivers, of the earth; Recall Christ, brother of rejected persons—brother of slaves, felons, idiots, and of insane and diseased persons.

4.

Think of the time when you was not yet born; Think of times you stood at the side of the dying; Think of the time when your own body will be dying.

Think of spiritual results: Sure as the earth swims through the heavens, does every one of its objects pass into spiritual results.

Think of manhood, and you to be a man; Do you count manhood, and the sweet of manhood, nothing?

Think of womanhood, and you to be a woman; The creation is womanhood; Have I not said that womanhood involves all? Have I not told how the universe has nothing better than the best womanhood?



THE WATERS.

The world below the brine. Forests at the bottom of the sea—the branches and leaves, Sea-lettuce, vast lichens, strange flowers and seeds—the thick tangle, the openings, and the pink turf, Different colours, pale grey and green, purple, white, and gold—the play of light through the water, Dumb swimmers there among the rocks—coral, gluten, grass, rushes—and the aliment of the swimmers, Sluggish existences grazing there, suspended, or slowly crawling close to the bottom: The sperm-whale at the surface, blowing air and spray, or disporting with his flukes, The leaden-eyed shark, the walrus, the turtle, the hairy sea-leopard, and the sting-ray. Passions there, wars, pursuits, tribes—sight in those ocean-depths— breathing that thick breathing air, as so many do. The change thence to the sight here, and to the subtle air breathed by beings like us, who walk this sphere: The change onward from ours to that of beings who walk other spheres.



TO THE STATES.

TO IDENTIFY THE SIXTEENTH, SEVENTEENTH, OR EIGHTEENTH PRESIDENTIAD.[1]

Why reclining, interrogating? Why myself and all drowsing? What deepening twilight! Scum floating atop of the waters! Who are they, as bats and night-dogs, askant in the Capitol? What a filthy Presidentiad! (O South, your torrid suns! O North, your Arctic freezings!) Are those really Congressmen? Are those the great Judges? Is that the President? Then I will sleep a while yet—for I see that these States sleep, for reasons. With gathering murk—with muttering thunder and lambent shoots, we all duly awake, South, North, East, West, inland and seaboard, we will surely awake.

[Footnote 1: These were the three Presidentships of Polk; of Taylor, succeeded by Fillmore; and of Pierce;—1845 to 1857.]



TEARS.

Tears! tears! tears! In the night, in solitude, tears; On the white shore dripping, dripping, sucked in by the sand; Tears—not a star shining—all dark and desolate; Moist tears from the eyes of a muffled head: —O who is that ghost?—that form in the dark, with tears? What shapeless lump is that, bent, crouched there on the sand? Streaming tears—sobbing tears—throes, choked with wild cries; O storm, embodied, rising, careering, with swift steps along the beach; O wild and dismal night-storm, with wind! O belching and desperate! O shade, so sedate and decorous by day, with calm countenance and regulated pace; But away, at night, as you fly, none looking—O then the unloosened ocean Of tears! tears! tears!



A SHIP.

1.

Aboard, at the ship's helm, A young steersman, steering with care.

A bell through fog on a sea-coast dolefully ringing, An ocean-bell—O a warning bell, rocked by the waves.

O you give good notice indeed, you bell by the sea-reefs ringing, Ringing, ringing, to warn the ship from its wreck-place. For, as on the alert, O steersman, you mind the bell's admonition, The bows turn,—the freighted ship, tacking, speeds away under her grey sails; The beautiful and noble ship, with all her precious wealth, speeds away gaily and safe.

2.

But O the ship, the immortal ship! O ship aboard the ship! O ship of the body—ship of the soul—voyaging, voyaging, voyaging.



GREATNESS.

1.

Great are the myths—I too delight in them; Great are Adam and Eve—I too look back and accept them; Great the risen and fallen nations, and their poets, women, sages, inventors, rulers, warriors, and priests.

Great is Liberty! great is Equality! I am their follower; Helmsmen of nations, choose your craft! where you sail, I sail, I weather it out with you, or sink with you.

Great is Youth—equally great is Old Age—great are the Day and Night; Great is Wealth—great is Poverty—great is Expression—great is Silence.

2.

Youth, large, lusty, loving—Youth, full of grace, force, fascination! Do you know that Old Age may come after you, with equal grace, force, fascination?

Day, full-blown and splendid—Day of the immense sun, action, ambition, laughter, The Night follows close, with millions of suns, and sleep, and restoring darkness.

Wealth, with the flush hand, fine clothes, hospitality; But then the soul's wealth, which is candour, knowledge, pride, enfolding love; Who goes for men and women showing Poverty richer than wealth?

Expression of speech! in what is written or said, forget not that Silence is also expressive; That anguish as hot as the hottest, and contempt as cold as the coldest, may be without words.

3.

Great is the Earth, and the way it became what it is: Do you imagine it has stopped at this? the increase abandoned? Understand then that it goes as far onward from this as this is from the times when it lay in covering waters and gases, before man had appeared.

4.

Great is the quality of Truth in man; The quality of truth in man supports itself through all changes; It is inevitably in the man—he and it are in love, and never leave each other.

The truth in man is no dictum, it is vital as eyesight; If there be any Soul, there is truth—if there be man or woman, there is truth—if there be physical or moral, there is truth; If there be equilibrium or volition, there is truth—if there be things at all upon the earth, there is truth.

O truth of the earth! O truth of things! I am determined to press my way toward you; Sound your voice! I scale mountains, or dive in the sea, after you.

5.

Great is Language—it is the mightiest of the sciences, It is the fulness, colour, form, diversity of the earth, and of men and women, and of all qualities and processes; It is greater than wealth, it is greater than buildings, ships, religions, paintings, music.

Great is the English speech—what speech is so great as the English? Great is the English brood—what brood has so vast a destiny as the English? It is the mother of the brood that must rule the earth with the new rule; The new rule shall rule as the Soul rules, and as the love, justice, equality in the Soul rule.

6.

Great is Law—great are the old few landmarks of the law, They are the same in all times, and shall not be disturbed.

Great is Justice! Justice is not settled by legislators and laws—it is in the Soul; It cannot be varied by statutes, any more than love, pride, the attraction of gravity, can; It is immutable—it does not depend on majorities—majorities or what not come at last before the same passionless and exact tribunal.

For justice are the grand natural lawyers, and perfect judges—it is in their souls; It is well assorted—they have not studied for nothing—the great includes the less; They rule on the highest grounds—they oversee all eras, states, administrations.

The perfect judge fears nothing—he could go front to front before God; Before the perfect judge all shall stand back—life and death shall stand back—heaven and hell shall stand back.

7.

Great is Life, real and mystical, wherever and whoever; Great is Death—sure as Life holds all parts together, Death holds all parts together.

Has Life much purport?—Ah! Death has the greatest purport.



THE POET.

1.

Now list to my morning's romanza; To the cities and farms I sing, as they spread in the sunshine before me.

2.

A young man came to me bearing a message from his brother; How should the young man know the whether and when of his brother? Tell him to send me the signs.

And I stood before the young man face to face, and took his right hand in my left hand, and his left hand in my right hand, And I answered for his brother, and for men, and I answered for THE POET, and sent these signs.

Him all wait for—him all yield up to—his word is decisive and final, Him they accept, in him lave, in him perceive themselves, as amid light, Him they immerse, and he immerses them.

Beautiful women, the haughtiest nations, laws, the landscape, people, animals, The profound earth and its attributes, and the unquiet ocean (so tell I my morning's romanza), All enjoyments and properties, and money, and whatever money will buy, The best farms—others toiling and planting, and he unavoidably reaps, The noblest and costliest cities—others grading and building, and he domiciles there, Nothing for any one but what is for him—near and far are for him,—the ships in the offing, The perpetual shows and marches on land, are for him, if they are for anybody.

He puts things in their attitudes; He puts to-day out of himself, with plasticity and love; He places his own city, times, reminiscences, parents, brothers and sisters, associations, employment, politics, so that the rest never shame them afterward, nor assume to command them.

He is the answerer; What can be answered he answers—and what cannot be answered, he shows how it cannot be answered.

3.

A man is a summons and challenge; (It is vain to skulk—Do you hear that mocking and laughter? Do you hear the ironical echoes?)

Books, friendships, philosophers, priests, action, pleasure, pride, beat up and down, seeking to give satisfaction; He indicates the satisfaction, and indicates them that beat up and down also.

Whichever the sex, whatever the season or place, he may go freshly and gently and safely, by day or by night; He has the pass-key of hearts—to him the response of the prying of hands on the knobs.

His welcome is universal—the flow of beauty is not more welcome or universal than he is; The person he favours by day or sleeps with at night is blessed.

Every existence has its idiom—everything has an idiom and tongue; He resolves all tongues into his own, and bestows it upon men, and any man translates, and any man translates himself also; One part does not counteract another part—he is the joiner—he sees how they join.

He says indifferently and alike, "How are you, friend?" to the President at his levee, And he says, "Good-day, my brother!" to Cudge that hoes in the sugar- field, And both understand him, and know that his speech is right.

He walks with perfect ease in the Capitol, He walks among the Congress, and one representative says to another, "Here is our equal, appearing and new."

4.

Then the mechanics take him for a mechanic, And the soldiers suppose him to be a soldier, and the sailors that he has followed the sea, And the authors take him for an author, and the artists for an artist, And the labourers perceive he could labour with them and love them; No matter what the work is, that he is the one to follow it, or has followed it, No matter what the nation, that he might find his brothers and sisters there.

The English believe he comes of their English stock, A Jew to the Jew he seems—a Russ to the Russ—usual and near, removed from none.

Whoever he looks at in the travellers' coffee-house claims him; The Italian or Frenchman is sure, and the German is sure, and the Spaniard is sure, and the island Cuban is sure; The engineer, the deck-hand on the great lakes, or on the Mississippi, or St. Lawrence, or Sacramento, or Hudson, or Paumanok Sound, claims him.

The gentleman of perfect blood acknowledges his perfect blood; The insulter, the prostitute, the angry person, the beggar, see themselves in the ways of him—he strangely transmutes them, They are not vile any more—they hardly know themselves, they are so grown.



BURIAL.

1.

To think of it! To think of time—of all that retrospection! To think of to-day, and the ages continued henceforward! Have you guessed you yourself would not continue? Have you dreaded these earth-beetles? Have you feared 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 eyesight, But without eyesight lingers a different living, and looks curiously on the corpse.

3.

To think that the rivers will flow, and the snow fall, and the 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.

Gold dash of waves at the ferry-wharf—posh and ice in the river, half- frozen mud in the streets, a grey 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 passed, the new-dug grave is halted at, the living alight, the hearse uncloses, The coffin is passed out, lowered, and settled, the whip is laid on the coffin, the earth is swiftly shovelled in, The mound above is flattened 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-mouthed, quick-tempered, 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, sickened, was helped 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 fly onward, But in due time you and I shall take less interest in them.

Your farm, profits, crops,—to think how engrossed 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-considered.

You are not thrown to the winds—you gather certainly and safely around yourself; Yourself! Yourself! Yourself, for ever 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 formed in you, You are henceforth secure, whatever comes or goes.

The threads that were spun are gathered, 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 distinguished, 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.

I shall go with the rest—we have satisfaction, I have dreamed that we are not to be changed so much, nor the law of us changed, I have dreamed 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 dreamed that the law they are under now is enough.

And I have dreamed that the satisfaction is not so much changed, and that there is no life without satisfaction; What is the earth? what are Body and Soul without satisfaction?

I shall go with the rest, We cannot be stopped at a given point—that is no satisfaction, To show us a good thing, or a few good things, for a space of time—that is no satisfaction, We must have the indestructible breed of the best, regardless of time. If otherwise, all these things came but to ashes of dung, If maggots and rats ended us, then alarum! for we are betrayed! 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 is my Soul! 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 passed on to this, and slowly and surely they yet pass on.

My Soul! if I realise you, I have satisfaction; Animals and vegetables! if I realise you, I have satisfaction; Laws of the earth and air! if I realise you, I have satisfaction.

I cannot define my satisfaction, yet it is so; I cannot define my life, yet it is so.

11.

It comes to me now! 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 death are altogether for it!



THIS COMPOST.

1.

Something startles me where I thought I was safest; I withdraw from the still woods I loved; I will not go now on the pastures to walk; I will not strip the clothes from my body to meet my lover the sea; I will not touch my flesh to the earth, as to other flesh, to renew me.

2.

O how can the ground not sicken? How can you be alive, you growths of spring? How can you furnish health, you blood of herbs, roots, orchards, grain? Are they not continually putting distempered corpses in you? Is not every continent worked over and over with sour dead?

Where have you disposed of their carcasses? Those drunkards and gluttons of so many generations; Where have you drawn off all the foul liquid and meat? I do not see any of it upon you to-day—or perhaps I am deceived; I will run a furrow with my plough—I will press my spade through the sod, and turn it up underneath; I am sure I shall expose some of the foul meat.

3.

Behold this compost! behold it well! Perhaps every mite has once formed part of a sick person—Yet behold! The grass covers the prairies, The bean bursts noiselessly through the mould in the garden, The delicate spear of the onion pierces upward, The apple-buds cluster together on the apple branches, The resurrection of the wheat appears with pale visage out of its graves, The tinge awakes over the willow-tree and the mulberry-tree, The he-birds carol mornings and evenings, while the she-birds sit on their nests, The young of poultry break through the hatched eggs, The new-born of animals appear—the calf is dropped from the cow, the colt from the mare, Out of its little hill faithfully rise the potato's dark-green leaves, Out of its hill rises the yellow maize-stalk; The summer growth is innocent and disdainful above all those strata of sour dead.

What chemistry! That the winds are really not infectious, That this is no cheat, this transparent green-wash of the sea, which is so amorous after me; That it is safe to allow it to lick my naked body all over with its tongues, That it will not endanger me with the fevers that have deposited themselves in it, That all is clean for ever and for ever, That the cool drink from the well tastes so good, That blackberries are so flavorous and juicy, That the fruits of the apple-orchard, and of the orange-orchard—that melons, grapes, peaches, plums, will none of them poison me, That when I recline on the grass I do not catch any disease, Though probably every sphere of grass rises out of what was once a catching disease.

4.

Now I am terrified at the Earth! it is that calm and patient, It grows such sweet things out of such corruptions, It turns harmless and stainless on its axis, with such endless successions of diseased corpses, It distils such exquisite winds out of such infused fetor, It renews with such unwitting looks its prodigal, annual, sumptuous crops, It gives such divine materials to men, and accepts such leavings from them at last.



DESPAIRING CRIES.

1.

Despairing cries float ceaselessly toward me, day and night, The sad voice of Death—the call of my nearest lover, putting forth, alarmed, uncertain, "The Sea I am quickly to sail: come tell me, Come tell me where I am speeding—tell me my destination."

2.

I understand your anguish, but I cannot help you; I approach, hear, behold—the sad mouth, the look out of the eyes, your mute inquiry, "Whither I go from the bed I recline on, come tell me." Old age, alarmed, uncertain—A young woman's voice, appealing to me for comfort; A young man's voice, "Shall I not escape?"



THE CITY DEAD-HOUSE

By the City Dead-House, by the gate, As idly sauntering, wending my way from the clangour, I curious pause—for lo! an outcast form, a poor dead prostitute brought; Her corpse they deposit unclaimed, it lies on the damp brick pavement. The divine woman, her body—I see the body—I look on it alone, That house once full of passion and beauty—all else I notice not; Nor stillness so cold, nor running water from faucet, nor odours morbific impress me; But the house alone—that wondrous house—that delicate fair house—that ruin! That immortal house, more than all the rows of dwellings ever built, Or white-domed Capitol itself, with majestic figure surmounted—or all the old high-spired cathedrals, That little house alone, more than them all—poor, desperate house! Fair, fearful wreck! tenement of a Soul! itself a Soul! Unclaimed, avoided house! take one breath from my tremulous lips; Take one tear, dropped aside as I go, for thought of you, Dead house of love! house of madness and sin, crumbled! crushed! House of life—erewhile talking and laughing—but ah, poor house! dead even then; Months, years, an echoing, garnished house-but dead, dead, dead!



TO ONE SHORTLY TO DIE.

1.

From all the rest I single out you, having a message for you: You are to die—Let others tell you what they please, I cannot prevaricate, I am exact and merciless, but I love you—There is no escape for you.

2.

Softly I lay my right hand upon you—you just feel it; I do not argue—I bend my head close, and half envelop it, I sit quietly by—I remain faithful, I am more than nurse, more than parent or neighbour, I absolve you from all except yourself, spiritual, bodily—that is eternal,— The corpse you will leave will be but excrementitious.

The sun bursts through in unlooked-for directions! Strong thoughts fill you, and confidence—you smile! You forget you are sick, as I forget you are sick, You do not see the medicines—you do not mind the weeping friends—I am with you, I exclude others from you—there is nothing to be commiserated, I do not commiserate—I congratulate you.



UNNAMED LANDS.

1.

Nations, ten thousand years before these States, and many times ten thousand years before these States; Garnered clusters of ages, that men and women like us grew up and travelled their course, and passed 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 undeveloped; Not a mark, not a record remains,—And yet all remains.

2.

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, learned 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, labouring, 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?

3.

I believe, of all those billions of men and women that filled 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, sinned, 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.



SIMILITUDE.

1.

On the beach at night alone, As the old Mother sways her to and fro, singing her savage and husky song, As I watch the bright stars shining—I think a thought of the clef of the universes, and of the future.

2.

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, colours, barbarisms, civilisations, 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 spanned, and shall for ever span them, and compactly hold them.



THE SQUARE DEIFIC.

GOD.

Chanting the Square Deific, out of the One advancing, out of the sides; Out of the old and new—out of the square entirely divine, Solid, four-sided, (all the sides needed)—From this side JEHOVAH am I, Old Brahm I, and I Saturnius am; Not Time affects me—I am Time, modern as any; Unpersuadable, relentless, executing righteous judgments; As the Earth, the Father, the brown old Kronos, with laws, Aged beyond computation—yet ever new—ever with those mighty laws rolling, Relentless, I forgive no man—whoever sins dies—I will have that man's life; Therefore let none expect mercy—Have the seasons, gravitation, the appointed days, mercy?—No more have I; But as the seasons, and gravitation—and as all the appointed days, that forgive not, I dispense from this side judgments inexorable, without the least remorse.

SAVIOUR.

Consolator most mild, the promised one advancing, With gentle hand extended, the mightier God am I, Foretold by prophets and poets, in their most wrapt prophecies and poems; From this side, lo! the Lord CHRIST gazes—lo! Hermes I—lo! mine is Hercules' face; All sorrow, labour, suffering, I, tallying it, absorb in myself; Many times have I been rejected, taunted, put in prison, and crucified—and many times shall be again; All the world have I given up for my dear brothers' and sisters' sake—for the soul's sake; Wending my way through the homes of men, rich or poor, with the kiss of affection; For I am affection—I am the cheer-bringing God, with hope, and all- enclosing charity; Conqueror yet—for before me all the armies and soldiers of the earth shall yet bow—and all the weapons of war become impotent: With indulgent words, as to children—with fresh and sane words, mine only; Young and strong I pass, knowing well I am destined myself to an early death: But my Charity has no death—my Wisdom dies not, neither early nor late, And my sweet Love, bequeathed here and elsewhere, never dies.

SATAN.

Aloof, dissatisfied, plotting revolt, Comrade of criminals, brother of slaves, Crafty, despised, a drudge, ignorant, With sudra face and worn brow—black, but in the depths of my heart proud as any; Lifted, now and always, against whoever, scorning, assumes to rule me; Morose, full of guile, full of reminiscences, brooding, with many wiles, Though it was thought I was baffled and dispelled, and my wiles done—but that will never be; Defiant I SATAN still live—still utter words—in new lands duly appearing, and old ones also; Permanent here, from my side, warlike, equal with any, real as any, Nor time, nor change, shall ever change me or my words.

THE SPIRIT.

Santa SPIRITA,[1] breather, life, Beyond the light, lighter than light, Beyond the flames of hell—joyous, leaping easily above hell; Beyond Paradise—perfumed solely with mine own perfume; Including all life on earth—touching, including God—including Saviour and Satan; Ethereal, pervading all—for, without me, what were all? what were God? Essence of forms—life of the real identities, permanent, positive, namely the unseen, Life of the great round world, the sun and stars, and of man—I, the General Soul, Here the Square finishing, the solid, I the most solid, Breathe my breath also through these little songs.

[Footnote 1: The reader will share my wish that Whitman had written sanctus spiritus, which is right, instead of santa spirita, which is methodically wrong.]



SONGS OF PARTING.



SINGERS AND POETS.

1.

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.

2.

The singers do not beget—only the POET begets; The singers are welcomed, understood, appear often enough—but rare has the day been, likewise the spot, of the birth of the maker of poems; Not every century, or every five centuries, has contained 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, parlour-singer, love-singer, or something else.

3.

All this time, and at all times, wait the words of poems; 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, gaiety, sun-tan, air-sweetness—such are some of the words of poems.

4.

The sailor and traveller underlie the maker of poems, The builder, geometer, chemist, anatomist, phrenologist, artist—all these underlie the maker of poems.

5.

The words of the true poems give you more than poems, They give you, to form for yourself, poems, religions, politics, war, peace, behaviour, histories, essays, romances, and everything else, They balance ranks, colours, races, creeds, and the sexes, They do not seek beauty—they are sought, For ever 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.



TO A HISTORIAN.

You who celebrate bygones: Who have explored the outward, the surfaces of the races—the life that has exhibited itself; Who have treated of man as the creature of politics, aggregates, rulers, and priests. I, habitue of the Alleghanies, treating man as he is in himself, in his own rights, Pressing the pulse of the life that has seldom exhibited itself, the great pride of man in himself; Chanter of Personality, outlining what is yet to be; I project the history of the future.



FIT AUDIENCE.

1.

Whoever you are, holding me now in hand, Without one thing, all will be useless: I give you fair warning, before you attempt me further, I am not what you supposed, but far different.

2.

Who is he that would become my follower? Who would sign himself a candidate for my affections?

The way is suspicious—the result uncertain, perhaps destructive; You would have to give up all else—I alone would expect to be your God, sole and exclusive; Your novitiate would even then be long and exhausting, The whole past theory of your life, and all conformity to the lives around you, would have to be abandoned; Therefore release me now, before troubling yourself any further—Let go your hand from my shoulders, Put me down, and depart on your way.

Or else, by stealth, in some wood, for trial, Or back of a rock, in the open air, (For in any roofed room of a house I emerge not—nor in company, And in libraries I lie as one dumb, a gawk, or unborn, or dead,) But just possibly with you on a high hill—first watching lest any person, for miles around, approach unawares— Or possibly with you sailing at sea, or on the beach of the sea, or some quiet island, Here to put your lips upon mine I permit you, With the comrade's long-dwelling kiss, or the new husband's kiss, For I am the new husband, and I am the comrade.

Or, if you will, thrusting me beneath your clothing, Where I may feel the throbs of your heart, or rest upon your hip, Carry me when you go forth over land or sea; For thus, merely touching you, is enough—is best, And thus, touching you, would I silently sleep, and be carried eternally.

3.

But these leaves conning, you con at peril, For these leaves, and me, you will not understand, They will elude you at first, and still more afterward—I will certainly elude you, Even while you should think you had unquestionably caught me, behold! Already you see I have escaped from you.

For it is not for what I have put into it that I have written this book, Nor is it by reading it you will acquire it, Nor do those know me best who admire me, and vauntingly praise me, Nor will the candidates for my love (unless at most a very few) prove victorious, Nor will my poems do good only—they will do just as much evil, perhaps more; For all is useless without that which you may guess at many times and not hit—that which I hinted at; Therefore release me, and depart on your way.



SINGING IN SPRING.

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, picked 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 silent troop gathers around me; Some walk by my side, and some behind, and some embrace my arms or neck, They, the spirits of 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 pulled 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 pond-side, (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[1] 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, compassed 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.

[Footnote 1: I am favoured with the following indication, from Mr Whitman himself, of the relation in which this word Calamus is to be understood:—"Calamus is the very large and aromatic grass or rush growing about water-ponds in the valleys—spears about three feet high; often called Sweet Flag; grows all over the Northern and Middle States. The recherche or ethereal sense of the term, as used in my book, arises probably from the actual Calamus presenting the biggest and hardiest kind of spears of grass, and their fresh, aquatic, pungent bouquet."]



LOVE OF COMRADES.

1.

Come, I will make the continent indissoluble; I will make the most splendid race the sun ever yet shone upon! I will make divine magnetic lands, With the love of comrades, With the life-long love of comrades.

2.

I will plant companionship thick as trees along all the rivers of America, and along the shores of the great lakes, and all over the prairies; I will make inseparable cities, with their arms about each other's necks; By the love of comrades, By the manly love of comrades.

3.

For you these, from me, O Democracy, to serve you, ma femme! For you! for you, I am trilling these songs, In the love of comrades, In the high-towering love of comrades.



PULSE OF MY LIFE.

Not heaving from my ribbed breast only; Not in sighs at night, in rage, dissatisfied with myself; Not in those long-drawn, ill-suppressed sighs; Not in many an oath and promise broken; Not in my wilful and savage soul's volition; Not in the subtle nourishment of the air; Not in this beating and pounding at my temples and wrists; Not in the curious systole and diastole within, which will one day cease; Not in many a hungry wish, told to the skies only; Not in cries, laughter, defiances, thrown from me when alone, far in the wilds; Not in husky pantings through clenched teeth; Not in sounded and resounded words—chattering words, echoes, dead words; Not in the murmurs of my dreams while I sleep, Nor the other murmurs of these incredible dreams of every day; Nor in the limbs and senses of my body, that take you and dismiss you continually—Not there; Not in any or all of them, O Adhesiveness! O pulse of my life! Need I that you exist and show yourself, any more than in these songs.



AUXILIARIES.

WHAT place is besieged, and vainly tries to raise the siege? Lo! I send to that place a commander, swift, brave, immortal; And with him horse and foot, and parks of artillery, And artillerymen, the deadliest that ever fired gun.



REALITIES.

1.

As I walk, solitary, unattended, Around me I hear that eclat of the world—politics, produce, The announcements of recognised things—science, The approved growth of cities, and the spread of inventions.

I see the ships, (they will last a few years,) The vast factories, with their foremen and workmen, And hear the endorsement of all, and do not object to it.

2.

But I too announce solid things; Science, ships, politics, cities, factories, are not nothing—they serve, They stand for realities—all is as it should be.

3.

Then my realities; What else is so real as mine? Libertad, and the divine Average-Freedom to every slave on the face of the earth, The rapt promises and lumine[1] of seers—the spiritual world—these centuries-lasting songs, And our visions, the visions of poets, the most solid announcements of any.

For we support all, After the rest is done and gone, we remain, There is no final reliance but upon us; Democracy rests finally upon us, (I, my brethren, begin it,) And our visions sweep through eternity.

[Footnote 1: I suppose Whitman gets this odd word lumine, by a process of his own, out of illuminati, and intends it to stand for what would be called clairvoyance, intuition.]



NEARING DEPARTURE.

1.

As nearing departure, As the time draws nigh, glooming, a cloud, A dread beyond, of I know not what, darkens me.

2.

I shall go forth, I shall traverse the States—but I cannot tell whither or how long; Perhaps soon, some day or night while I am singing, my voice will suddenly cease.

3.

O book and chant! must all then amount to but this? Must we barely arrive at this beginning of me?... And yet it is enough, O soul! O soul! we have positively appeared—that is enough.



POETS TO COME.

1.

Poets to come! Not to-day is to justify me, and Democracy, and what we are for; But you, a new brood, native, athletic, continental, greater than before known, You must justify me.

2.

I but write one or two indicative words for the future, I but advance a moment, only to wheel and hurry back in the darkness.

I am a man who, sauntering along, without fully stopping, turns a casual look upon you, and then averts his face, Leaving it to you to prove and define it, Expecting the main things from you.



CENTURIES HENCE.

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, realising my poems, seeking me; Fancying how happy you were, if I could be with you, and become your loving comrade; Be it as if I were with you. Be not too certain but I am now with you.



SO LONG!

1.

To conclude—I announce what comes after me; I announce mightier offspring, orators, days, and then depart,

I remember I said, before my leaves sprang at all, I would raise my voice jocund and strong, with reference to consummations.

When America does what was promised, When there are plentiful athletic bards, inland and sea-board, When through these States walk a hundred millions of superb persons, When the rest part away for superb persons, and contribute to them, When breeds of the most perfect mothers denote America, Then to me my due fruition.

I have pressed through in my own right, I have offered my style to every one—I have journeyed with confident step. While my pleasure is yet at the full, I whisper, So long! And take the young woman's hand, and the young man's hand for the last time.

2.

I announce natural persons to arise, I announce justice triumphant, I announce uncompromising liberty and equality, I announce the justification of candour, and the justification of pride.

I announce that the identity of these States is a single identity only, I announce the Union, out of all its struggles and wars, more and more compact, I announce splendours and majesties to make all the previous politics of the earth insignificant.

I announce a man or woman coming—perhaps you are the one (So long!) I announce the great individual, fluid as Nature, chaste, affectionate, compassionate, fully armed. I announce a life that shall be copious, vehement, spiritual, bold, And I announce an old age that shall lightly and joyfully meet its translation.

THE END