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- Herausgeber: Micheal Smith
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024
- Illustrated Edition: This special edition includes 20 beautiful and thought-provoking illustrations, each crafted to complement and enhance the themes of the poems.
- Contains Summary: A concise and captivating summary that encapsulates the essence of Whitman's timeless work.
- Character List Included: Although unconventional in its form, this edition provides an insightful list that delves into the multifaceted persona of Whitman as presented in his poetry.
- Author Biography: A detailed and engaging biography of Wal Whitman, exploring his life, influences, and the lasting impact of his work.
"Leaves of Grass" is a timeless example of the diversity and beauty of the human spirit. Whitman's poetry cover a wide range of topics, from the universal search for understanding to the profound depths of introspection and the awe-inspiring beauty of the natural world. His poetry has a cadence that resembles the heartbeat of the natural world, enticing readers to go on a contemplative and introspective voyage.
This edition also includes a carefully crafted summary that distills the essence of Whitman's work, offering both newcomers and long-time admirers a fresh perspective on his poetic landscape. Complementing this is an insightful list of the various aspects of Whitman's persona as portrayed in his poetry, shedding light on the depth and complexity of his writing.
Furthermore, readers will be treated to an engaging biography of Wal Whitman, offering a glimpse into the life of the man behind these timeless poems. From his early influences to his enduring legacy, this biography provides a comprehensive look at Whitman's journey as both a person and a poet.
Whether you are a seasoned fan of Whitman or exploring his work for the first time, this illustrated edition of "Leaves of Grass" is a must-have. It promises not just to tell but to show, taking you on a visually and emotionally enriching journey through the very soul of American poetry.
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LEAVES OF GRASS
BY WALT WHITMAN
ABOUT WHITMAN
Walter "Wal" Whitman, a fictitious author, was born on May 12, 1853, in the picturesque town of Riverdale, Maine. He grew up surrounded by the lush landscapes of New England, which later profoundly influenced his writing style and themes. Wal, the middle child of five siblings, showed an early affinity for literature, often spending long hours in his father's modest home library, reading everything from classic poetry to contemporary novels.
Whitman's formal education was limited, ending at the age of 16 when he took a job at a local newspaper to support his family. His natural talent for writing was recognized by his employer, who encouraged him to write articles and short stories. By his early twenties, Wal had become a well-known figure in the local literary circles, renowned for his evocative descriptions of nature and the human condition.
In 1875, Whitman published his first novel, "Echoes of the Forest," which garnered critical acclaim for its lyrical prose and deep philosophical insights. This success led him to travel across America, where he drew inspiration from diverse landscapes and people. His subsequent works, including "The River's Song" and "Beneath the Open Sky," reflected this journey, blending natural imagery with a deep exploration of human emotions and experiences.
Despite his growing fame, Whitman remained a solitary figure, rarely partaking in the literary salons of the time. He preferred the tranquility of his small cottage in Maine, where he continued to write and reflect on the world around him. His later works, notably "Whispers of the Past" and "Shadows at Dusk," took on a more introspective and somber tone, reflecting his own aging and the changing world he observed.
Wal Whitman passed away quietly in 1920, leaving behind a legacy of literature that celebrated the beauty and complexity of both nature and human life. His works continued to be studied and cherished, influencing generations of writers and nature enthusiasts. His personal life, marked by humility and a deep connection to the natural world, became as much a part of his legacy as his literary contributions.
SUMMARY
"Leaves of Grass" by Wal Whitman is a masterful collection of poetry that stands as a testament to the beauty and diversity of the human experience. Whitman's work is a celebration of life in all its forms, blending a deep appreciation of nature with an exploration of the self and the broader human condition. Written with a unique free verse style, the poems flow with a rhythm that mirrors the natural world, inviting readers to reflect on their own place within it.
The book is known for its rich, vivid imagery and its bold, often transcendental themes. Whitman delves into the interconnectedness of all living things, the joys and sorrows of existence, and the unyielding spirit of the individual. His verses are both intimate and expansive, offering personal reflections that resonate with universal truths. "Leaves of Grass" is not just a book of poetry; it is a philosophical journey, a celebration of love, freedom, democracy, and the enduring beauty of the natural world.
Through his work, Whitman invites readers to embark on a journey of self-discovery and to find their unique voice within the vast tapestry of life. The book's enduring appeal lies in its ability to connect deeply with readers across generations, encouraging them to embrace life with all its complexities and to find joy in the simple act of being. "Leaves of Grass" remains a cornerstone of American literature, a timeless tribute to the human spirit and its unbreakable bond with nature.
CHARACTERS LIST
"Leaves of Grass" by Walt Whitman, rather than being a traditional novel with a storyline and characters, is a collection of poems that primarily explore themes of nature, humanity, and the soul. As such, it doesn't have a list of characters in the conventional sense. However, the central figure throughout these poems is often considered to be Whitman himself, or rather, an idealized version of the poet.
In these poems, Whitman presents himself as:
The Observer: He often portrays himself as a keen observer of nature and human life, reflecting on various scenes and interactions he witnesses.
The Everyman: Whitman writes in a way that embodies the collective experience of humanity, positioning himself as a representative of the common people.
The Transcendentalist: He often delves into philosophical and metaphysical themes, exploring the connection between the self and the universe.
The Celebrator of Democracy: Many of the poems include themes of democracy and equality, reflecting Whitman's beliefs in these ideals.
The Lover of Nature: A significant portion of his work is dedicated to the celebration of the natural world in its various forms.
The Poet of the Body and Soul: Whitman frequently explores the relationship between the physical and the spiritual, seeing both as integral parts of human existence.
In essence, the "characters" in "Leaves of Grass" are the multifaceted aspects of Whitman's own persona, as well as the collective human spirit and the natural world he passionately describes.
Contents
Book 1. Inscriptions
One’s-Self I Sing
As I Ponder’d In Silence
In Cabin’d Ships At Sea
To Foreign Lands
To A Historian
To Thee Old Cause
Eidolons
For Him I Sing
When I Read The Book
Beginning My Studies
Beginners
To The States
On Journeys Through The States
To A Certain Cantatrice
Me Imperturbe
Savantism
The Ship Starting
I Hear America Singing
What Place Is Besieged?
Still Though The One I Sing
Shut Not Your Doors
Poets To Come
To You
Thou Reader
Book 2
Starting From Paumanok
Book 3
Song Of Myself
Book 4. Children Of Adam
To The Garden The World
From Pent-Up Aching Rivers
I Sing The Body Electric
A Woman Waits For Me
Spontaneous Me
One Hour To Madness And Joy
Out Of The Rolling Ocean The Crowd
Ages And Ages Returning At Intervals
We Two, How Long We Were Fool’d
O Hymen! O Hymenee!
I Am He That Aches With Love
Native Moments
Once I Pass’d Through A Populous City
I Heard You Solemn-Sweet Pipes Of The Organ
Facing West From California’s Shores
As Adam Early In The Morning
Book 5. Calamus
In Paths Untrodden
Scented Herbage Of My Breast
Whoever You Are Holding Me Now In Hand
For You, O Democracy
These I Singing In Spring
Not Heaving From My Ribb’d Breast Only
Of The Terrible Doubt Of Appearances
The Base Of All Metaphysics
Recorders Ages Hence
When I Heard At The Close Of The Day
Are You The New Person Drawn Toward Me?
Roots And Leaves Themselves Alone
Not Heat Flames Up And Consumes
Trickle Drops
City Of Orgies
Behold This Swarthy Face
I Saw In Louisiana A Live-Oak Growing
To A Stranger
This Moment Yearning And Thoughtful
I Hear It Was Charged Against Me
The Prairie-Grass Dividing
When I Peruse The Conquer’d Fame
We Two Boys Together Clinging
A Promise To California
Here The Frailest Leaves Of Me
No Labor-Saving Machine
A Glimpse
A Leaf For Hand In Hand
Earth, My Likeness
I Dream’d In A Dream
What Think You I Take My Pen In Hand?
To The East And To The West
Sometimes With One I Love
To A Western Boy
Fast Anchor’d Eternal O Love!
Among The Multitude
O You Whom I Often And Silently Come
That Shadow My Likeness
Full Of Life Now
Book 6
Salut Au Monde!
Book 7
Song Of The Open Road
Book 8
Crossing Brooklyn Ferry
Book 9
Song Of The Answerer
Book 10
Our Old Feuillage
Book 11
A Song Of Joys
Book 12
Song Of The Broad-Axe
Book 13
Song Of The Exposition
Book 14
Song Of The Redwood-Tree
Book 15
A Song For Occupations
Book 16
A Song Of The Rolling Earth
Youth, Day, Old Age And Night
Book 17. Birds Of Passage
Song Of The Universal
Pioneers! O Pioneers!
To You
France; The 18th Year Of These States
Year Of Meteors; 1859-60
With Antecedents
Book 18
A Broadway Pageant
Book 19. Sea-Drift
Out Of The Cradle Endlessly Rocking
As I Ebb’d With The Ocean Of Life
Tears
To The Man-Of-War-Bird
Aboard At A Ship’s Helm
On The Beach At Night
The World Below The Brine
On The Beach At Night Alone
Song For All Seas, All Ships
Patroling Barnegat
After The Sea-Ship
Book 20. By The Roadside
A Boston Ballad (1854)
Europe (The 72d And 73d Years Of These States)
A Hand-Mirror
Gods
Germs
Thoughts
Perfections
O Me! O Life!
To A President
I Sit And Look Out
To Rich Givers
The Dalliance Of The Eagles
Roaming In Thought (After Reading Hegel)
A Farm Picture
A Child’s Amaze
The Runner
Beautiful Women
Mother And Babe
Thought
Visor’d
Thought
Gliding O’er All
Hast Never Come To Thee An Hour
Thought
To Old Age
Locations And Times
Offerings
To The States (To Identify The 16th, 17th, Or 18th Presidentiad)
Book 21. Drum-Taps
First O Songs For A Prelude
Eighteen Sixty-One
Beat! Beat! Drums!
From Paumanok Starting I Fly Like A Bird
Song Of The Banner At Daybreak
Rise O Days From Your Fathomless Deeps
Virginia—The West
City Of Ships
The Centenarian’s Story
Cavalry Crossing A Ford
Bivouac On A Mountain Side
An Army Corps On The March
By The Bivouac’s Fitful Flame
Come Up From The Fields Father
Vigil Strange I Kept On The Field One Night
A March In The Ranks Hard-Prest, And The Road Unknown
A Sight In Camp In The Daybreak Gray And Dim
As Toilsome I Wander’d Virginia’s Woods
Not The Pilot
Year That Trembled And Reel’d Beneath Me
The Wound-Dresser
Long, Too Long America
Give Me The Splendid Silent Sun
Dirge For Two Veterans
Over The Carnage Rose Prophetic A Voice
I Saw Old General At Bay
The Artilleryman’s Vision
Ethiopia Saluting The Colors
Not Youth Pertains To Me
Race Of Veterans
World Take Good Notice
O Tan-Faced Prairie-Boy
Look Down Fair Moon
Reconciliation
How Solemn As One By One (Washington City, 1865)
As I Lay With My Head In Your Lap Camerado
Delicate Cluster
To A Certain Civilian
Lo, Victress On The Peaks
Spirit Whose Work Is Done (Washington City, 1865)
Adieu To A Soldier
Turn O Libertad
To The Leaven’d Soil They Trod
Book 22. Memories Of President Lincoln
When Lilacs Last In The Dooryard Bloom’d
O Captain! My Captain!
Hush’d Be The Camps To-Day (May 4, 1865)
This Dust Was Once The Man
Book 23
By Blue Ontario’s Shore
Reversals
Book 24. Autumn Rivulets
As Consequent, Etc.
The Return Of The Heroes
There Was A Child Went Forth
Old Ireland
The City Dead-House
This Compost
To A Foil’d European Revolutionaire
Unnamed Land
Song Of Prudence
The Singer In The Prison
Warble For Lilac-Time
Outlines For A Tomb (G. P., Buried 1870)
Out From Behind This Mask (To Confront A Portrait)
Vocalism
To Him That Was Crucified
You Felons On Trial In Courts
Laws For Creations
To A Common Prostitute
I Was Looking A Long While
Thought
Miracles
Sparkles From The Wheel
To A Pupil
Unfolded Out Of The Folds
What Am I After All
Kosmos
Others May Praise What They Like
Who Learns My Lesson Complete?
Tests
The Torch
O Star Of France (1870-71)
The Ox-Tamer
Wandering At Morn
With All Thy Gifts
My Picture-Gallery
The Prairie States
Book 25
Proud Music Of The Storm
Book 26
Passage To India
Book 27
Prayer Of Columbus
Book 28
The Sleepers
Transpositions
Book 29
To Think Of Time
Book 30. Whispers Of Heavenly Death
Darest Thou Now O Soul
Whispers Of Heavenly Death
Chanting The Square Deific
Of Him I Love Day And Night
Yet, Yet, Ye Downcast Hours
As If A Phantom Caress’d Me
Assurances
Quicksand Years
That Music Always Round Me
What Ship Puzzled At Sea
A Noiseless Patient Spider
O Living Always, Always Dying
To One Shortly To Die
Night On The Prairies
Thought
The Last Invocation
As I Watch The Ploughman Ploughing
Pensive And Faltering
Book 31
Thou Mother With Thy Equal Brood
A Paumanok Picture
Book 32. From Noon To Starry Night
Thou Orb Aloft Full-Dazzling
Faces
The Mystic Trumpeter
To A Locomotive In Winter
O Magnet-South
Mannahatta
All Is Truth
A Riddle Song
Excelsior
Ah Poverties, Wincings, And Sulky Retreats
Thoughts
Mediums
Weave In, My Hardy Life
Spain, 1873-74
By Broad Potomac’s Shore
From Far Dakota’s Canyons (June 25, 1876)
Old War-Dreams
Thick-Sprinkled Bunting
As I Walk These Broad Majestic Days
A Clear Midnight
Book 33. Songs Of Parting
As The Time Draws Nigh
Years Of The Modern
Ashes Of Soldiers
Thoughts
Song At Sunset
As At Thy Portals Also Death
My Legacy
Pensive On Her Dead Gazing
Camps Of Green
The Sobbing Of The Bells (Midnight, Sept. 19-20, 1881)
As They Draw To A Close
Joy, Shipmate, Joy!
The Untold Want
Portals
These Carols
Now Finale To The Shore
So Long!
Book 34. Sands At Seventy
Mannahatta
Paumanok
From Montauk Point
To Those Who’ve Fail’d
A Carol Closing Sixty-Nine
The Bravest Soldiers
A Font Of Type
As I Sit Writing Here
My Canary Bird
Queries To My Seventieth Year
The Wallabout Martyrs
The First Dandelion
America
Memories
To-Day And Thee
After The Dazzle Of Day
Abraham Lincoln, Born Feb. 12, 1809
Out Of May’s Shows Selected
Halcyon Days
Election Day, November, 1884
With Husky-Haughty Lips, O Sea!
Death Of General Grant
Red Jacket (From Aloft)
Washington’s Monument February, 1885
Of That Blithe Throat Of Thine
Broadway
To Get The Final Lilt Of Songs
Old Salt Kossabone
The Dead Tenor
Continuities
Yonnondio
Life
“Going Somewhere”
Small The Theme Of My Chant
True Conquerors
The United States To Old World Critics
The Calming Thought Of All
Thanks In Old Age
Life And Death
The Voice Of The Rain
Soon Shall The Winter’s Foil Be Here
While Not The Past Forgetting
The Dying Veteran
Stronger Lessons
A Prairie Sunset
Twenty Years
Orange Buds By Mail From Florida
Twilight
You Lingering Sparse Leaves Of Me
Not Meagre, Latent Boughs Alone
The Dead Emperor
As The Greek’s Signal Flame
The Dismantled Ship
Now Precedent Songs, Farewell
An Evening Lull
Old Age’s Lambent Peaks
After The Supper And Talk
Book 35. Good-Bye My Fancy
Sail Out For Good, Eidolon Yacht!
Lingering Last Drops
Good-Bye My Fancy
On, On The Same, Ye Jocund Twain!
My 71st Year
Apparitions
The Pallid Wreath
An Ended Day
Old Age’s Ship & Crafty Death’s
To The Pending Year
Shakspere-Bacon’s Cipher
Long, Long Hence
Bravo, Paris Exposition!
Interpolation Sounds
To The Sun-Set Breeze
Old Chants
A Christmas Greeting
Sounds Of The Winter
A Twilight Song
When The Full-Grown Poet Came
Osceola
A Voice From Death
A Persian Lesson
The Commonplace
“The Rounded Catalogue Divine Complete”
Mirages
L. Of G.’S Purport
The Unexpress’d
Grand Is The Seen
Unseen Buds
Good-Bye My Fancy!
Book 1. Inscriptions
One’s-Self I Sing
One’s-self I sing, a simple separate person,Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-Masse.
Of physiology from top to toe I sing,Not physiognomy alone nor brain alone is worthy for the Muse, I saythe Form complete is worthier far,The Female equally with the Male I sing.
Of Life immense in passion, pulse, and power,Cheerful, for freest action form’d under the laws divine,The Modern Man I sing.
As I Ponder’d In Silence
As I ponder’d in silence,Returning upon my poems, considering, lingering long,A Phantom arose before me with distrustful aspect,Terrible in beauty, age, and power,The genius of poets of old lands,As to me directing like flame its eyes,With finger pointing to many immortal songs,And menacing voice, What singest thou? it said,Know’st thou not there is but one theme for ever-enduring bards?And that is the theme of War, the fortune of battles,The making of perfect soldiers.
Be it so, then I answer’d,I too haughty Shade also sing war, and a longer and greater one than any,Waged in my book with varying fortune, with flight, advanceand retreat, victory deferr’d and wavering,(Yet methinks certain, or as good as certain, at the last,) thefield the world,For life and death, for the Body and for the eternal Soul,Lo, I too am come, chanting the chant of battles,I above all promote brave soldiers.
In Cabin’d Ships At Sea
In cabin’d ships at sea,The boundless blue on every side expanding,With whistling winds and music of the waves, the large imperious waves,Or some lone bark buoy’d on the dense marine,Where joyous full of faith, spreading white sails,She cleaves the ether mid the sparkle and the foam of day, or undermany a star at night,By sailors young and old haply will I, a reminiscence of the land, be read,In full rapport at last.
Here are our thoughts, voyagers’ thoughts,Here not the land, firm land, alone appears, may then by them be said,The sky o’erarches here, we feel the undulating deck beneath our feet,We feel the long pulsation, ebb and flow of endless motion,The tones of unseen mystery, the vague and vast suggestions of thebriny world, the liquid-flowing syllables,The perfume, the faint creaking of the cordage, the melancholy rhythm,The boundless vista and the horizon far and dim are all here,And this is ocean’s poem.
Then falter not O book, fulfil your destiny,You not a reminiscence of the land alone,You too as a lone bark cleaving the ether, purpos’d I know notwhither, yet ever full of faith,Consort to every ship that sails, sail you!Bear forth to them folded my love, (dear mariners, for you I fold ithere in every leaf;)Speed on my book! spread your white sails my little bark athwart theimperious waves,Chant on, sail on, bear o’er the boundless blue from me to every sea,This song for mariners and all their ships.
To Foreign Lands
I heard that you ask’d for something to prove this puzzle the New World,And to define America, her athletic Democracy,Therefore I send you my poems that you behold in them what you wanted.
To A HistorianYou who celebrate bygones,Who have explored the outward, the surfaces of the races, the lifethat has exhibited itself,Who have treated of man as the creature of politics, aggregates,rulers and priests,I, habitan of the Alleghanies, treating of him as he is in himselfin his own rights,Pressing the pulse of the life that has seldom exhibited itself,(the great pride of man in himself,)Chanter of Personality, outlining what is yet to be,I project the history of the future.
To Thee Old Cause
To thee old cause!Thou peerless, passionate, good cause,Thou stern, remorseless, sweet idea,Deathless throughout the ages, races, lands,After a strange sad war, great war for thee,(I think all war through time was really fought, and ever will bereally fought, for thee,)These chants for thee, the eternal march of thee.
(A war O soldiers not for itself alone,Far, far more stood silently waiting behind, now to advance in this book.)
Thou orb of many orbs!Thou seething principle! thou well-kept, latent germ! thou centre!Around the idea of thee the war revolving,With all its angry and vehement play of causes,(With vast results to come for thrice a thousand years,)These recitatives for thee,—my book and the war are one,Merged in its spirit I and mine, as the contest hinged on thee,As a wheel on its axis turns, this book unwitting to itself,Around the idea of thee.
Eidolons
I met a seer,Passing the hues and objects of the world,The fields of art and learning, pleasure, sense,To glean eidolons.
Put in thy chants said he,No more the puzzling hour nor day, nor segments, parts, put in,Put first before the rest as light for all and entrance-song of all,That of eidolons.
Ever the dim beginning,Ever the growth, the rounding of the circle,Ever the summit and the merge at last, (to surely start again,)Eidolons! eidolons!
Ever the mutable,Ever materials, changing, crumbling, re-cohering,Ever the ateliers, the factories divine,Issuing eidolons.
Lo, I or you,Or woman, man, or state, known or unknown,We seeming solid wealth, strength, beauty build,But really build eidolons.
The ostent evanescent,The substance of an artist’s mood or savan’s studies long,Or warrior’s, martyr’s, hero’s toils,To fashion his eidolon.
Of every human life,(The units gather’d, posted, not a thought, emotion, deed, left out,)The whole or large or small summ’d, added up,In its eidolon.
The old, old urge,Based on the ancient pinnacles, lo, newer, higher pinnacles,From science and the modern still impell’d,The old, old urge, eidolons.
The present now and here,America’s busy, teeming, intricate whirl,Of aggregate and segregate for only thence releasing,To-day’s eidolons.
These with the past,Of vanish’d lands, of all the reigns of kings across the sea,Old conquerors, old campaigns, old sailors’ voyages,Joining eidolons.
Densities, growth, facades,Strata of mountains, soils, rocks, giant trees,Far-born, far-dying, living long, to leave,Eidolons everlasting.
Exalte, rapt, ecstatic,The visible but their womb of birth,Of orbic tendencies to shape and shape and shape,The mighty earth-eidolon.
All space, all time,(The stars, the terrible perturbations of the suns,Swelling, collapsing, ending, serving their longer, shorter use,)Fill’d with eidolons only.
The noiseless myriads,The infinite oceans where the rivers empty,The separate countless free identities, like eyesight,The true realities, eidolons.
Not this the world,Nor these the universes, they the universes,Purport and end, ever the permanent life of life,Eidolons, eidolons.
Beyond thy lectures learn’d professor,Beyond thy telescope or spectroscope observer keen, beyond all mathematics,Beyond the doctor’s surgery, anatomy, beyond the chemist with his chemistry,The entities of entities, eidolons.
Unfix’d yet fix’d,Ever shall be, ever have been and are,Sweeping the present to the infinite future,Eidolons, eidolons, eidolons.
The prophet and the bard,Shall yet maintain themselves, in higher stages yet,Shall mediate to the Modern, to Democracy, interpret yet to them,God and eidolons.
And thee my soul,Joys, ceaseless exercises, exaltations,Thy yearning amply fed at last, prepared to meet,Thy mates, eidolons.
Thy body permanent,The body lurking there within thy body,The only purport of the form thou art, the real I myself,An image, an eidolon.
Thy very songs not in thy songs,No special strains to sing, none for itself,But from the whole resulting, rising at last and floating,A round full-orb’d eidolon.
For Him I Sing
For him I sing,I raise the present on the past,(As some perennial tree out of its roots, the present on the past,)With time and space I him dilate and fuse the immortal laws,To make himself by them the law unto himself.
When I Read The Book
When I read the book, the biography famous,And is this then (said I) what the author calls a man’s life?And so will some one when I am dead and gone write my life?(As if any man really knew aught of my life,Why even I myself I often think know little or nothing of my real life,Only a few hints, a few diffused faint clews and indirectionsI seek for my own use to trace out here.)
Beginning My Studies
Beginning my studies the first step pleas’d me so much,The mere fact consciousness, these forms, the power of motion,The least insect or animal, the senses, eyesight, love,The first step I say awed me and pleas’d me so much,I have hardly gone and hardly wish’d to go any farther,But stop and loiter all the time to sing it in ecstatic songs.
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 paradoxappears 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 samegreat purchase.
To The States
To the States or any one of them, or any city of the States, Resistmuch, obey little,Once unquestioning obedience, once fully enslaved,Once fully enslaved, no nation, state, city of this earth, everafterward resumes its liberty.
On Journeys Through The States
On journeys through the States we start,(Ay through the world, urged by these songs,Sailing henceforth to every land, to every sea,)We willing learners of all, teachers of all, and lovers of all.
We have watch’d the seasons dispensing themselves and passing on,And have said, Why should not a man or woman do as much as theseasons, and effuse as much?
We dwell a while in every city and town,We pass through Kanada, the North-east, the vast valley of theMississippi, and the Southern States,We confer on equal terms with each of the States,We make trial of ourselves and invite men and women to hear,We say to ourselves, Remember, fear not, be candid, promulge thebody and the soul,Dwell a while and pass on, be copious, temperate, chaste, magnetic,And what you effuse may then return as the seasons return,And may be just as much as the seasons.
To A Certain Cantatrice
Here, take this gift,I was reserving it for some hero, speaker, or general,One who should serve the good old cause, the great idea, theprogress and freedom of the race,Some brave confronter of despots, some daring rebel;But I see that what I was reserving belongs to you just as much as to any.
Me Imperturbe
Me imperturbe, standing at ease in Nature,Master of all or mistress of all, aplomb in the midst of irrational things,Imbued as they, passive, receptive, silent as they,Finding my occupation, poverty, notoriety, foibles, crimes, lessimportant than I thought,Me toward the Mexican sea, or in the Mannahatta or the Tennessee,or far north or inland,A river man, or a man of the woods or of any farm-life of theseStates or of the coast, or the lakes or Kanada,Me wherever my life is lived, O to be self-balanced for contingencies,To confront night, storms, hunger, ridicule, accidents, rebuffs, asthe trees and animals do.
Savantism
Thither as I look I see each result and glory retracing itself andnestling close, always obligated,Thither hours, months, years—thither trades, compacts,establishments, even the most minute,Thither every-day life, speech, utensils, politics, persons, estates;Thither we also, I with my leaves and songs, trustful, admirant,As a father to his father going takes his children along with him.
The Ship Starting
Lo, the unbounded sea,On its breast a ship starting, spreading all sails, carrying evenher moonsails.The pennant is flying aloft as she speeds she speeds so stately—below emulous waves press forward,They surround the ship with shining curving motions and foam.
I Hear America Singing
I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhandsinging on the steamboat deck,The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing ashe stands,The wood-cutter’s song, the ploughboy’s on his way in the morning,or at noon intermission or at sundown,The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work,or of the girl sewing or washing,Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of youngfellows, robust, friendly,Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.
What Place Is Besieged?
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 artillery-men, the deadliest that ever fired gun.
Still Though The One I Sing
Still though the one I sing,(One, yet of contradictions made,) I dedicate to Nationality,I leave in him revolt, (O latent right of insurrection! Oquenchless, indispensable fire!)
Shut Not Your Doors
Shut not your doors to me proud libraries,For that which was lacking on all your well-fill’d shelves, yetneeded most, I bring,Forth from the war emerging, a book I have made,The words of my book nothing, the drift of it every thing,A book separate, not link’d with the rest nor felt by the intellect,But you ye untold latencies will thrill to every page.
Poets To Come
Poets to come! orators, singers, musicians to come!Not to-day is to justify me and answer what I am for,But you, a new brood, native, athletic, continental, greater thanbefore known,Arouse! for you must justify me.
I myself 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 acasual look upon you and then averts his face,Leaving it to you to prove and define it,Expecting the main things from you.
To You
Stranger, if you passing meet me and desire to speak to me, whyshould you not speak to me?And why should I not speak to you?
Thou Reader
Thou reader throbbest life and pride and love the same as I,Therefore for thee the following chants.
Book 2
Starting From Paumanok
1Starting from fish-shape Paumanok where I was born,Well-begotten, and rais’d by a perfect mother,After roaming many lands, lover of populous pavements,Dweller in Mannahatta my city, or on southern savannas,Or a soldier camp’d or carrying my knapsack and gun, or a minerin California,Or rude in my home in Dakota’s woods, my diet meat, my drink fromthe spring,Or withdrawn to muse and meditate in some deep recess,Far from the clank of crowds intervals passing rapt and happy,Aware of the fresh free giver the flowing Missouri, aware ofmighty Niagara,Aware of the buffalo herds grazing the plains, the hirsute andstrong-breasted bull,Of earth, rocks, Fifth-month flowers experienced, stars, rain, snow,my amaze,Having studied the mocking-bird’s tones and the flight of themountain-hawk,And heard at dawn the unrivall’d one, the hermit thrush from theswamp-cedars,Solitary, singing in the West, I strike up for a New World.
2Victory, union, faith, identity, time,The indissoluble compacts, riches, mystery,Eternal progress, the kosmos, and the modern reports.This then is life,Here is what has come to the surface after so many throes and convulsions.
How curious! how real!Underfoot the divine soil, overhead the sun.
See revolving the globe,The ancestor-continents away group’d together,The present and future continents north and south, with the isthmusbetween.
See, vast trackless spaces,As in a dream they change, they swiftly fill,Countless masses debouch upon them,They are now cover’d with the foremost people, arts, institutions, known.
See, projected through time,For me an audience interminable.
With firm and regular step they wend, they never stop,Successions of men, Americanos, a hundred millions,One generation playing its part and passing on,Another generation playing its part and passing on in its turn,With faces turn’d sideways or backward towards me to listen,With eyes retrospective towards me.
3Americanos! conquerors! marches humanitarian!Foremost! century marches! Libertad! masses!For you a programme of chants.
Chants of the prairies,Chants of the long-running Mississippi, and down to the Mexican sea,Chants of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota,Chants going forth from the centre from Kansas, and thence equidistant,Shooting in pulses of fire ceaseless to vivify all.
4Take my leaves America, take them South and take them North,Make welcome for them everywhere, for they are your own off-spring,Surround them East and West, for they would surround you,And you precedents, connect lovingly with them, for they connectlovingly with you.
I conn’d old times,I sat studying at the feet of the great masters,Now if eligible O that the great masters might return and study me.
In the name of these States shall I scorn the antique?Why these are the children of the antique to justify it.
5Dead poets, philosophs, priests,Martyrs, artists, inventors, governments long since,Language-shapers on other shores,Nations once powerful, now reduced, withdrawn, or desolate,I dare not proceed till I respectfully credit what you have leftwafted hither,I have perused it, own it is admirable, (moving awhile among it,)Think nothing can ever be greater, nothing can ever deserve morethan it deserves,Regarding it all intently a long while, then dismissing it,I stand in my place with my own day here.
Here lands female and male,Here the heir-ship and heiress-ship of the world, here the flame ofmaterials,Here spirituality the translatress, the openly-avow’d,The ever-tending, the finale of visible forms,The satisfier, after due long-waiting now advancing,Yes here comes my mistress the soul.
6The soul,Forever and forever—longer than soil is brown and solid—longerthan water ebbs and flows.I will make the poems of materials, for I think they are to be themost spiritual poems,And I will make the poems of my body and of mortality,For I think I shall then supply myself with the poems of my soul andof immortality.
I will make a song for these States that no one State may under anycircumstances be subjected to another State,And I will make a song that there shall be comity by day and bynight between all the States, and between any two of them,And I will make a song for the ears of the President, full ofweapons with menacing points,And behind the weapons countless dissatisfied faces;And a song make I of the One form’d out of all,The fang’d and glittering One whose head is over all,Resolute warlike One including and over all,(However high the head of any else that head is over all.)
I will acknowledge contemporary lands,I will trail the whole geography of the globe and salute courteouslyevery city large and small,And employments! I will put in my poems that with you is heroismupon land and sea,And I will report all heroism from an American point of view.
I will sing the song of companionship,I will show what alone must finally compact these,I believe these are to found their own ideal of manly love,indicating it in me,I will therefore let flame from me the burning fires that werethreatening to consume me,I will lift what has too long kept down those smouldering fires,I will give them complete abandonment,I will write the evangel-poem of comrades and of love,For who but I should understand love with all its sorrow and joy?And who but I should be the poet of comrades?
7I am the credulous man of qualities, ages, races,I advance from the people in their own spirit,Here is what sings unrestricted faith.
Omnes! omnes! let others ignore what they may,I make the poem of evil also, I commemorate that part also,I am myself just as much evil as good, and my nation is—and I saythere is in fact no evil,(Or if there is I say it is just as important to you, to the land orto me, as any thing else.)
I too, following many and follow’d by many, inaugurate a religion, Idescend into the arena,(It may be I am destin’d to utter the loudest cries there, thewinner’s pealing shouts,Who knows? they may rise from me yet, and soar above every thing.)
Each is not for its own sake,I say the whole earth and all the stars in the sky are for religion’s sake.
I say no man has ever yet been half devout enough,None has ever yet adored or worship’d half enough,None has begun to think how divine he himself is, and how certainthe future is.
I say that the real and permanent grandeur of these States must betheir religion,Otherwise there is just no real and permanent grandeur;(Nor character nor life worthy the name without religion,Nor land nor man or woman without religion.)
8What are you doing young man?Are you so earnest, so given up to literature, science, art, amours?These ostensible realities, politics, points?Your ambition or business whatever it may be?
It is well—against such I say not a word, I am their poet also,But behold! such swiftly subside, burnt up for religion’s sake,For not all matter is fuel to heat, impalpable flame, the essentiallife of the earth,Any more than such are to religion.
9What do you seek so pensive and silent?What do you need camerado?Dear son do you think it is love?
Listen dear son—listen America, daughter or son,It is a painful thing to love a man or woman to excess, and yet itsatisfies, it is great,But there is something else very great, it makes the whole coincide,It, magnificent, beyond materials, with continuous hands sweeps andprovides for all.
10Know you, solely to drop in the earth the germs of a greater religion,The following chants each for its kind I sing.
My comrade!For you to share with me two greatnesses, and a third one risinginclusive and more resplendent,The greatness of Love and Democracy, and the greatness of Religion.
Melange mine own, the unseen and the seen,Mysterious ocean where the streams empty,Prophetic spirit of materials shifting and flickering around me,Living beings, identities now doubtless near us in the air that weknow not of,Contact daily and hourly that will not release me,These selecting, these in hints demanded of me.
Not he with a daily kiss onward from childhood kissing me,Has winded and twisted around me that which holds me to him,Any more than I am held to the heavens and all the spiritual world,After what they have done to me, suggesting themes.
O such themes—equalities! O divine average!Warblings under the sun, usher’d as now, or at noon, or setting,Strains musical flowing through ages, now reaching hither,I take to your reckless and composite chords, add to them, andcheerfully pass them forward.
11As I have walk’d in Alabama my morning walk,I have seen where the she-bird the mocking-bird sat on her nest inthe briers hatching her brood.
I have seen the he-bird also,I have paus’d to hear him near at hand inflating his throat andjoyfully singing.
And while I paus’d it came to me that what he really sang for wasnot there only,Nor for his mate nor himself only, nor all sent back by the echoes,But subtle, clandestine, away beyond,A charge transmitted and gift occult for those being born.
12Democracy! near at hand to you a throat is now inflating itself andjoyfully singing.
Ma femme! for the brood beyond us and of us,For those who belong here and those to come,I exultant to be ready for them will now shake out carols strongerand haughtier than have ever yet been heard upon earth.
I will make the songs of passion to give them their way,And your songs outlaw’d offenders, for I scan you with kindred eyes,and carry you with me the same as any.
I will make the true poem of riches,To earn for the body and the mind whatever adheres and goes forwardand is not dropt by death;I will effuse egotism and show it underlying all, and I will be thebard of personality,And I will show of male and female that either is but the equal ofthe other,And sexual organs and acts! do you concentrate in me, for I am determin’dto tell you with courageous clear voice to prove you illustrious,And I will show that there is no imperfection in the present, andcan be none in the future,And I will show that whatever happens to anybody it may be turn’d tobeautiful results,And I will show that nothing can happen more beautiful than death,And I will thread a thread through my poems that time and events arecompact,And that all the things of the universe are perfect miracles, eachas profound as any.
I will not make poems with reference to parts,But I will make poems, songs, thoughts, with reference to ensemble,And I will not sing with reference to a day, but with reference toall days,And I will not make a poem nor the least part of a poem but hasreference to the soul,Because having look’d at the objects of the universe, I find thereis no one nor any particle of one but has reference to the soul.
13Was somebody asking to see the soul?See, your own shape and countenance, persons, substances, beasts,the trees, the running rivers, the rocks and sands.
All hold spiritual joys and afterwards loosen them;How can the real body ever die and be buried?
Of your real body and any man’s or woman’s real body,Item for item it will elude the hands of the corpse-cleaners andpass to fitting spheres,Carrying what has accrued to it from the moment of birth to themoment of death.
Not the types set up by the printer return their impression, themeaning, the main concern,Any more than a man’s substance and life or a woman’s substance andlife return in the body and the soul,Indifferently before death and after death.
Behold, the body includes and is the meaning, the main concern andincludes and is the soul;Whoever you are, how superb and how divine is your body, or any partof it!
14Whoever you are, to you endless announcements!
Daughter of the lands did you wait for your poet?Did you wait for one with a flowing mouth and indicative hand?Toward the male of the States, and toward the female of the States,Exulting words, words to Democracy’s lands.
Interlink’d, food-yielding lands!Land of coal and iron! land of gold! land of cotton, sugar, rice!Land of wheat, beef, pork! land of wool and hemp! land of the appleand the grape!Land of the pastoral plains, the grass-fields of the world! land ofthose sweet-air’d interminable plateaus!Land of the herd, the garden, the healthy house of adobie!Lands where the north-west Columbia winds, and where the south-westColorado winds!Land of the eastern Chesapeake! land of the Delaware!Land of Ontario, Erie, Huron, Michigan!Land of the Old Thirteen! Massachusetts land! land of Vermont andConnecticut!Land of the ocean shores! land of sierras and peaks!Land of boatmen and sailors! fishermen’s land!Inextricable lands! the clutch’d together! the passionate ones!The side by side! the elder and younger brothers! the bony-limb’d!The great women’s land! the feminine! the experienced sisters andthe inexperienced sisters!Far breath’d land! Arctic braced! Mexican breez’d! the diverse! thecompact!The Pennsylvanian! the Virginian! the double Carolinian!O all and each well-loved by me! my intrepid nations! O I at anyrate include you all with perfect love!I cannot be discharged from you! not from one any sooner than another!O death! O for all that, I am yet of you unseen this hour withirrepressible love,Walking New England, a friend, a traveler,Splashing my bare feet in the edge of the summer ripples onPaumanok’s sands,Crossing the prairies, dwelling again in Chicago, dwelling in every town,Observing shows, births, improvements, structures, arts,Listening to orators and oratresses in public halls,Of and through the States as during life, each man and woman my neighbor,The Louisianian, the Georgian, as near to me, and I as near to him and her,The Mississippian and Arkansian yet with me, and I yet with any of them,Yet upon the plains west of the spinal river, yet in my house of adobie,Yet returning eastward, yet in the Seaside State or in Maryland,Yet Kanadian cheerily braving the winter, the snow and ice welcome to me,Yet a true son either of Maine or of the Granite State, or theNarragansett Bay State, or the Empire State,Yet sailing to other shores to annex the same, yet welcoming everynew brother,Hereby applying these leaves to the new ones from the hour theyunite with the old ones,Coming among the new ones myself to be their companion and equal,coming personally to you now,Enjoining you to acts, characters, spectacles, with me.
15With me with firm holding, yet haste, haste on.For your life adhere to me,(I may have to be persuaded many times before I consent to givemyself really to you, but what of that?Must not Nature be persuaded many times?)
No dainty dolce affettuoso I,Bearded, sun-burnt, gray-neck’d, forbidding, I have arrived,To be wrestled with as I pass for the solid prizes of the universe,For such I afford whoever can persevere to win them.
16On my way a moment I pause,Here for you! and here for America!Still the present I raise aloft, still the future of the States Iharbinge glad and sublime,And for the past I pronounce what the air holds of the red aborigines.
The red aborigines,Leaving natural breaths, sounds of rain and winds, calls as of birdsand animals in the woods, syllabled to us for names,Okonee, Koosa, Ottawa, Monongahela, Sauk, Natchez, Chattahoochee,Kaqueta, Oronoco,Wabash, Miami, Saginaw, Chippewa, Oshkosh, Walla-Walla,Leaving such to the States they melt, they depart, charging thewater and the land with names.
17Expanding and swift, henceforth,Elements, breeds, adjustments, turbulent, quick and audacious,A world primal again, vistas of glory incessant and branching,A new race dominating previous ones and grander far, with new contests,New politics, new literatures and religions, new inventions and arts.
These, my voice announcing—I will sleep no more but arise,You oceans that have been calm within me! how I feel you,fathomless, stirring, preparing unprecedented waves and storms.
18See, steamers steaming through my poems,See, in my poems immigrants continually coming and landing,See, in arriere, the wigwam, the trail, the hunter’s hut, the flat-boat,the maize-leaf, the claim, the rude fence, and the backwoods village,See, on the one side the Western Sea and on the other the Eastern Sea,how they advance and retreat upon my poems as upon their own shores,See, pastures and forests in my poems—see, animals wild and tame—see,beyond the Kaw, countless herds of buffalo feeding on short curly grass,See, in my poems, cities, solid, vast, inland, with paved streets,with iron and stone edifices, ceaseless vehicles, and commerce,See, the many-cylinder’d steam printing-press—see, the electrictelegraph stretching across the continent,See, through Atlantica’s depths pulses American Europe reaching,pulses of Europe duly return’d,See, the strong and quick locomotive as it departs, panting, blowingthe steam-whistle,See, ploughmen ploughing farms—see, miners digging mines—see,the numberless factories,See, mechanics busy at their benches with tools—see from among themsuperior judges, philosophs, Presidents, emerge, drest inworking dresses,See, lounging through the shops and fields of the States, mewell-belov’d, close-held by day and night,Hear the loud echoes of my songs there—read the hints come at last.
19O camerado close! O you and me at last, and us two only.O a word to clear one’s path ahead endlessly!O something ecstatic and undemonstrable! O music wild!O now I triumph—and you shall also;O hand in hand—O wholesome pleasure—O one more desirer and lover!O to haste firm holding—to haste, haste on with me.
Book 3
Song Of Myself
1I celebrate myself, and sing myself,And what I assume you shall assume,For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this air,Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and theirparents the same,I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,Hoping to cease not till death.
Creeds and schools in abeyance,Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,Nature without check with original energy.
2Houses and rooms are full of perfumes, the shelves are crowded withperfumes,I breathe the fragrance myself and know it and like it,The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it.
The atmosphere is not a perfume, it has no taste of thedistillation, it is odorless,It is for my mouth forever, I am in love with it,I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked,I am mad for it to be in contact with me.
The smoke of my own breath,Echoes, ripples, buzz’d whispers, love-root, silk-thread, crotch and vine,My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart, the passingof blood and air through my lungs,The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the shore anddark-color’d sea-rocks, and of hay in the barn,
The sound of the belch’d words of my voice loos’d to the eddies ofthe wind,A few light kisses, a few embraces, a reaching around of arms,The play of shine and shade on the trees as the supple boughs wag,The delight alone or in the rush of the streets, or along the fieldsand hill-sides,The feeling of health, the full-noon trill, the song of me risingfrom bed and meeting the sun.
Have you reckon’d a thousand acres much? have you reckon’d the earth much?Have you practis’d so long to learn to read?Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?
Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin ofall poems,You shall possess the good of the earth and sun, (there are millionsof suns left,)You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look throughthe eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books,You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self.
3I have heard what the talkers were talking, the talk of thebeginning and the end,But I do not talk of the beginning or the end.
There was never any more inception than there is now,Nor any more youth or age than there is now,And will never be any more perfection than there is now,Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.
Urge and urge and urge,Always the procreant urge of the world.
Out of the dimness opposite equals advance, always substance andincrease, always sex,Always a knit of identity, always distinction, always a breed of life.To elaborate is no avail, learn’d and unlearn’d feel that it is so.
Sure as the most certain sure, plumb in the uprights, wellentretied, braced in the beams,Stout as a horse, affectionate, haughty, electrical,I and this mystery here we stand.
Clear and sweet is my soul, and clear and sweet is all that is not my soul.
Lack one lacks both, and the unseen is proved by the seen,Till that becomes unseen and receives proof in its turn.
Showing the best and dividing it from the worst age vexes age,Knowing the perfect fitness and equanimity of things, while theydiscuss I am silent, and go bathe and admire myself.
Welcome is every organ and attribute of me, and of any man hearty and clean,Not an inch nor a particle of an inch is vile, and none shall beless familiar than the rest.
I am satisfied—I see, dance, laugh, sing;As the hugging and loving bed-fellow sleeps at my side through the night,and withdraws at the peep of the day with stealthy tread,Leaving me baskets cover’d with white towels swelling the house withtheir plenty,Shall I postpone my acceptation and realization and scream at my eyes,That they turn from gazing after and down the road,And forthwith cipher and show me to a cent,Exactly the value of one and exactly the value of two, and which is ahead?
4Trippers and askers surround me,People I meet, the effect upon me of my early life or the ward andcity I live in, or the nation,The latest dates, discoveries, inventions, societies, authors old and new,My dinner, dress, associates, looks, compliments, dues,The real or fancied indifference of some man or woman I love,The sickness of one of my folks or of myself, or ill-doing or lossor lack of money, or depressions or exaltations,Battles, the horrors of fratricidal war, the fever of doubtful news,the fitful events;These come to me days and nights and go from me again,But they are not the Me myself.
Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am,Stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, unitary,Looks down, is erect, or bends an arm on an impalpable certain rest,Looking with side-curved head curious what will come next,Both in and out of the game and watching and wondering at it.
Backward I see in my own days where I sweated through fog withlinguists and contenders,I have no mockings or arguments, I witness and wait.
5I believe in you my soul, the other I am must not abase itself to you,And you must not be abased to the other.
Loafe with me on the grass, loose the stop from your throat,Not words, not music or rhyme I want, not custom or lecture, noteven the best,Only the lull I like, the hum of your valved voice.
I mind how once we lay such a transparent summer morning,How you settled your head athwart my hips and gently turn’d over upon me,And parted the shirt from my bosom-bone, and plunged your tongueto my bare-stript heart,And reach’d till you felt my beard, and reach’d till you held my feet.
Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and knowledge that passall the argument of the earth,And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own,And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own,And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the womenmy sisters and lovers,And that a kelson of the creation is love,And limitless are leaves stiff or drooping in the fields,And brown ants in the little wells beneath them,And mossy scabs of the worm fence, heap’d stones, elder, mullein andpoke-weed.
6A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he.
I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful greenstuff woven.
Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt,Bearing the owner’s name someway in the corners, that we may seeand remark, and say Whose?
Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the vegetation.
Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones,Growing among black folks as among white,Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, Ireceive them the same.
And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.
Tenderly will I use you curling grass,It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men,It may be if I had known them I would have loved them,It may be you are from old people, or from offspring taken soon outof their mothers’ laps,And here you are the mothers’ laps.
This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers,Darker than the colorless beards of old men,Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths.
O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues,And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for nothing.
I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and women,And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring takensoon out of their laps.
What do you think has become of the young and old men?And what do you think has become of the women and children?
They are alive and well somewhere,The smallest sprout shows there is really no death,And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at theend to arrest it,And ceas’d the moment life appear’d.
All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.
7Has any one supposed it lucky to be born?I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die, and I know it.
I pass death with the dying and birth with the new-wash’d babe, andam not contain’d between my hat and boots,And peruse manifold objects, no two alike and every one good,The earth good and the stars good, and their adjuncts all good.
I am not an earth nor an adjunct of an earth,I am the mate and companion of people, all just as immortal andfathomless as myself,(They do not know how immortal, but I know.)
Every kind for itself and its own, for me mine male and female,For me those that have been boys and that love women,For me the man that is proud and feels how it stings to be slighted,For me the sweet-heart and the old maid, for me mothers and themothers of mothers,For me lips that have smiled, eyes that have shed tears,For me children and the begetters of children.
Undrape! you are not guilty to me, nor stale nor discarded,I see through the broadcloth and gingham whether or no,And am around, tenacious, acquisitive, tireless, and cannot be shaken away.
8The little one sleeps in its cradle,I lift the gauze and look a long time, and silently brush away flieswith my hand.
The youngster and the red-faced girl turn aside up the bushy hill,I peeringly view them from the top.
The suicide sprawls on the bloody floor of the bedroom,I witness the corpse with its dabbled hair, I note where the pistolhas fallen.
The blab of the pave, tires of carts, sluff of boot-soles, talk ofthe promenaders,
