Walt Whitman Poetry Archive

This archive contains five volumes of Walt Whitman's poetry - Leaves of Grass, Drum Taps, Walt Whitman, Songs of Parting, and Chants Democratic.

Leaves of Grass

President Lincoln's Funeral Hymn
Leaves of Grass - Walt Whitman

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.

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!

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.

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The hermit, withdrawn to himself, avoiding the settlements,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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.)
Leaves of Grass - Walt Whitman

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.

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!

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!
Leaves of Grass - Walt Whitman

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!

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!

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!

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!

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!

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!

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!

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!

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
Leaves of Grass - Walt Whitman

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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
Leaves of Grass - Walt Whitman

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.

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
Leaves of Grass - Walt Whitman

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
Leaves of Grass - Walt Whitman

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
Leaves of Grass - Walt Whitman

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?

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
Leaves of Grass - Walt Whitman

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.

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.

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.

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
Leaves of Grass - Walt Whitman

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
Leaves of Grass - Walt Whitman

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
Leaves of Grass - Walt Whitman

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
Leaves of Grass - Walt Whitman

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.

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
Leaves of Grass - Walt Whitman

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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
Leaves of Grass - Walt Whitman

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

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.

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."

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
Leaves of Grass - Walt Whitman

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!

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.

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.

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!

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?

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!

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.

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.

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!

The Compost
Leaves of Grass - Walt Whitman

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.

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.

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.

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
Leaves of Grass - Walt Whitman

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."

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
Leaves of Grass - Walt Whitman

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
Leaves of Grass - Walt Whitman

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.

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
Leaves of Grass - Walt Whitman

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.

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?

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
Leaves of Grass - Walt Whitman

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.

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
Leaves of Grass - Walt Whitman

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: Sanctus Spiritus is correct; Santa Spirita is methodically wrong.]

Drum Taps

Manhattan Arming
Drum Taps - Walt Whitman

First, O songs, for a prelude,
Lightly strike on the stretched tympanum, pride and joy in my city,
How she led the rest to arms— how she gave the cue,
How at once with lithe limbs, unwaiting a moment, she sprang;
O superb! O Manhattan, my own, my peerless!
O strongest you in the hour of danger, in crisis! O truer than steel!
How you sprang! how you threw off the costumes of peace with indifferent hand;
How your soft opera-music changed, and the drum and fife were heard in their stead;
How you led to the war, (that shall serve for our prelude, songs of soldiers,)
How Manhattan drum-taps led.

Forty years had I in my city seen soldiers parading;
Forty years as a pageant— till unawares, the Lady of this teeming and turbulent city,
Sleepless, amid her ships, her houses, her incalculable wealth,
With her million children around her— suddenly,
At dead of night, at news from the South,
Incensed, struck with clenched hand the pavement.

A shock electric— the night sustained it;
Till, with ominous hum, our hive at daybreak poured out its myriads.

From the houses then, and the workshops, and through all the doorways,
Leaped they tumultuous— and lo! Manhattan arming.

To the drum-taps prompt,
The young men falling in and arming;
The mechanics arming, the trowel, the jack-plane, the black-smith's hammer, tossed aside with precipitation;
The lawyer leaving his office, and arming— the judge leaving the court;
The driver deserting his waggon in the street, jumping down, throwing the reins abruptly down on the horses' backs;
The salesman leaving the store— the boss, book-keeper, porter, all leaving;
Squads gathering everywhere by common consent, and arming;
The new recruits, even boys— the old men show them how to wear their accoutrements— they buckle the straps carefully;
Outdoors arming— indoors arming— the flash of the musket-barrels;
The white tents cluster in camps— the armed sentries around— the sunrise cannon, and again at sunset;
Armed regiments arrive every day, pass through the city, and embark from the wharves;
How good they look, as they tramp down to the river, sweaty, with their guns on their shoulders!
How I love them! how I could hug them, with their brown faces, and their clothes and knapsacks covered with dust!
The blood of the city up— armed! armed! the cry everywhere;
The flags flung out from the steeples of churches, and from all the public buildings and stores;
The tearful parting— the mother kisses her son— the son kisses his mother;
Loth is the mother to part— yet not a word does she speak to detain him;
The tumultuous escort— the ranks of policemen preceding, clearing the way;
The unpent enthusiasm— the wild cheers of the crowd for their favourites;
The artillery— the silent cannons, bright as gold, drawn along, rumble lightly over the stones;
Silent cannons— soon to cease your silence,
Soon, unlimbered, to begin the red business!
All the mutter of preparation— all the determined arming;
The hospital service— the lint, bandages, and medicines;
The women volunteering for nurses— the work begun for, in earnest— no mere parade now;
War! an armed race is advancing!— the welcome for battle— no turning away;
War! be it weeks, months, or years— an armed race is advancing to welcome it.

Mannahatta a-march!— and it's O to sing it well!
It's O for a manly life in the camp!

And the sturdy artillery!
The guns, bright as gold— the work for giants— to serve well the guns:
Unlimber them! no more, as the past forty years, for salutes for courtesies merely;
Put in something else now besides powder and wadding.

And you, Lady of Ships! you, Mannahatta!
Old matron of the city! this proud, friendly, turbulent city!
Often in peace and wealth you were pensive, or covertly frowned amid all your children;
But now you smile with joy, exulting old Mannahatta!

1861.

Armed year! year of the struggle!
No dainty rhymes or sentimental love verses for you, terrible year!
Not you as some pale poetling, seated at a desk, lisping cadenzas piano;
But as a strong man, erect, clothed in blue clothes, advancing, carrying a rifle on your shoulder,
With well-gristled body and sunburnt face and hands— with a knife in the belt at your side,
As I heard you shouting loud— your sonorous voice ringing across the continent;
Your masculine voice, O year, as rising amid the great cities,
Amid the men of Manhattan I saw you, as one of the workmen, the dwellers in Manhattan;
Or with large steps crossing the prairies out of Illinois and Indiana,
Rapidly crossing the West with springy gait, and descending the Alleghanies;
Or down from the great lakes, or in Pennsylvania, or on deck along the Ohio river;
Or southward along the Tennessee or Cumberland rivers, or at Chattanooga on the mountain-top,
Saw I your gait and saw I your sinewy limbs, clothed in blue, bearing weapons, robust year;
Heard your determined voice, launched forth again and again;
Year that suddenly sang by the mouths of the round-lipped cannon,
I repeat you, hurrying, crashing, sad, distracted year.

The Uprising
Drum Taps - Walt Whitman

Rise, O days, from your fathomless deeps, till you loftier and fiercer sweep!
Long for my soul, hungering gymnastic, I devoured what the earth gave me;
Long I roamed the woods of the North— long I watched Niagara pouring;
I travelled the prairies over, and slept on their breast— I crossed the Nevadas,
I crossed the plateaus;
I ascended the towering rocks along the Pacific, I sailed out to sea;
I sailed through the storm, I was refreshed by the storm;
I watched with joy the threatening maws of the waves;
I marked the white combs where they careered so high, curling over;
I heard the wind piping, I saw the black clouds;
Saw from below what arose and mounted, (O superb! O wild as my heart, and powerful!)
Heard the continuous thunder, as it bellowed after the lightning;
Noted the slender and jagged threads of lightning, as sudden and fast amid the din they chased each other across the sky;
— These, and such as these, I, elate, saw— saw with wonder, yet pensive and masterful;
All the menacing might of the globe uprisen around me;
Yet there with my soul I fed— I fed content, supercilious.

'Twas well, O soul! 'twas a good preparation you gave me!
Now we advance our latent and ampler hunger to fill;
Now we go forth to receive what the earth and the sea never gave us;
Not through the mighty woods we go, but through the mightier cities;
Something for us is pouring now, more than Niagara pouring;
Torrents of men, (sources and rills of the North-west, are you indeed inexhaustible?)
What, to pavements and homesteads here— what were those storms of the mountains and sea?
What, to passions I witness around me to-day, was the sea risen?
Was the wind piping the pipe of death under the black clouds?

Lo! from deeps more unfathomable, something more deadly and savage;
Manhattan, rising, advancing with menacing front— Cincinnati, Chicago, unchained;
— What was that swell I saw on the ocean? behold what comes here!
How it climbs with daring feet and hands! how it dashes!
How the true thunder bellows after the lightning! how bright the flashes of lightning!
How DEMOCRACY with desperate vengeful port strides on, shown through the dark by those flashes of lightning!
Yet a mournful wail and low sob I fancied I heard through the dark,
In a lull of the deafening confusion.

Thunder on! stride on, Democracy! strike with vengeful stroke!
And do you rise higher than ever yet, O days, O cities!
Crash heavier, heavier yet, O storms! you have done me good;
My soul, prepared in the mountains, absorbs your immortal strong nutriment.
Long had I walked my cities, my country roads, through farms, only half satisfied;
One doubt, nauseous, undulating like a snake, crawled on the ground before me,
Continually preceding my steps, turning upon me oft, ironically hissing low;
— The cities I loved so well I abandoned and left— I sped to the certainties suitable to me
Hungering, hungering, hungering, for primal energies, and Nature's dauntlessness,
I refreshed myself with it only, I could relish it only;
I waited the bursting forth of the pent fire— on the water and air I waited long.
— But now I no longer wait— I am fully satisfied— I am glutted;
I have witnessed the true lightning— I have witnessed my cities electric;
I have lived to behold man burst forth, and warlike America rise;
Hence I will seek no more the food of the northern solitary wilds,
No more on the mountains roam, or sail the stormy sea.

Beat! Beat! Drums!
Drum Taps - Walt Whitman

Beat! beat! drums!— Blow! bugles! blow!
Through the windows— through doors— burst like a force of ruthless men,
Into the solemn church, and scatter the congregation;
Into the school where the scholar is studying:
Leave not the bridegroom quiet— no happiness must he have now with his bride;
Nor the peaceful farmer any peace, ploughing his field or gathering his grain;
So fierce you whirr and pound, you drums— so shrill you bugles blow.

Beat! beat! drums!— Blow! bugles! blow!
Over the traffic of cities— over the rumble of wheels in the streets:
Are beds prepared, for sleepers at night in the houses? No sleepers must sleep in those beds;
No bargainers' bargains by day— no brokers or speculators— Would they continue?
Would the talkers be talking? would the singer attempt to sing?
Would the lawyer rise in the court to state his case before the judge?
Then rattle quicker, heavier, drums— you bugles wilder blow.

Beat! beat! drums!— Blow! bugles! blow!
Make no parley— stop for no expostulation;
Mind not the timid— mind not the weeper or prayer;
Mind not the old man beseeching the young man;
Let not the child's voice be heard, nor the mother's entreaties;
Make even the trestles to shake the dead, where they lie awaiting the hearses,
So strong you thump, O terrible drums— so loud you bugles blow.

Song of the Banner At Daybreak.

Poet.

O a new song, a free song,
Flapping, flapping, flapping, flapping, by sounds, by voices clearer,
By the wind's voice and that of the drum,
By the banner's voice, and child's voice, and sea's voice, and father's voice,
Low on the ground and high in the air,
On the ground where father and child stand,
In the upward air where their eyes turn,
Where the banner at daybreak is flapping.

Words! book-words! what are you?
Words no more, for hearken and see,
My song is there in the open air— and I must sing,
With the banner and pennant a-flapping.

I'll weave the chord and twine in,
Man's desire and babe's desire— I'll twine them in, I'll put in life;
I'll put the bayonet's flashing point— I'll let bullets and slugs whizz;
I'll pour the verse with streams of blood, full of volition, full of joy;
Then loosen, launch forth, to go and compete,
With the banner and pennant a-flapping.

Banner and Pennant.

Come up here, bard, bard;
Come up here, soul, soul;
Come up here, dear little child,
To fly in the clouds and winds with us, and play with the measureless light.

Child.

Father, what is that in the sky beckoning to me with long finger?
And what does it say to me all the while?

Father.

Nothing, my babe, you see in the sky;
And nothing at all to you it says. But look you, my babe,
Look at these dazzling things in the houses, and see you the money-shops opening;
And see you the vehicles preparing to crawl along the streets with goods:
These! ah, these! how valued and toiled for, these!
How envied by all the earth!

Poet.

Fresh and rosy red, the sun is mounting high;
On floats the sea in distant blue, careering through its channels;
On floats the wind over the breast of the sea, setting in toward land;
The great steady wind from west and west-by-south,
Floating so buoyant, with milk-white foam on the waters.

But I am not the sea, nor the red sun;
I am not the wind, with girlish laughter;
Not the immense wind which strengthens— not the wind which lashes;
Not the spirit that ever lashes its own body to terror and death:
But I am of that which unseen comes and sings, sings, sings,
Which babbles in brooks and scoots in showers on the land;
Which the birds know in the woods, mornings and evenings,
And the shore-sands know, and the hissing wave, and that banner and pennant,
Aloft there flapping and flapping.

Child.

O father, it is alive— it is full of people— it has children!
O now it seems to me it is talking to its children!
I hear it— it talks to me— O it is wonderful!
O it stretches— it spreads and runs so fast! O my father,
It is so broad it covers the whole sky!

Father.

Cease, cease, my foolish babe,
What you are saying is sorrowful to me— much it displeases me;
Behold with the rest, again I say— behold not banners and pennants aloft;
But the well-prepared pavements behold— and mark the solid-walled houses.

Banner and Pennant.

Speak to the child, O bard, out of Manhattan;
Speak to our children all, or north or south of Manhattan,
Where our factory-engines hum, where our miners delve the ground,
Where our hoarse Niagara rumbles, where our prairie-ploughs are ploughing;
Speak, O bard! point this day, leaving all the rest, to us over all— and yet we know not why;
For what are we, mere strips of cloth, profiting nothing,
Only flapping in the wind?

Poet.

I hear and see not strips of cloth alone;
I hear the tramp of armies, I hear the challenging sentry;
I hear the jubilant shouts of millions of men— I hear LIBERTY!
I hear the drums beat, and the trumpets blowing;
I myself move abroad, swift-rising, flying then;
I use the wings of the land-bird, and use the wings of the sea-bird, and look down as from a height.
I do not deny the precious results of peace— I see populous cities, with wealth incalculable;
I see numberless farms— I see the farmers working in their fields or barns;
I see mechanics working— I see buildings everywhere founded, going up, or finished;
I see trains of cars swiftly speeding along railroad tracks, drawn by the locomotives;
I see the stores, depots, of Boston, Baltimore, Charleston, New Orleans;
I see far in the west the immense area of grain— I dwell a while, hovering;
I pass to the lumber forests of the north, and again to the southern plantation, and again to California;
Sweeping the whole, I see the countless profit, the busy gatherings, earned wages;
See the identity formed out of thirty-six spacious and haughty States, (and many more to come;)
See forts on the shores of harbours— see ships sailing in and out;
Then over all, (aye! aye!) my little and lengthened pennant shaped like a sword
Runs swiftly up, indicating war and defiance— And now the halyards have raised it,
Side of my banner broad and blue— side of my starry banner,
Discarding peace over all the sea and land.

Banner and Pennant.

Yet louder, higher, stronger, bard! yet farther, wider cleave!
No longer let our children deem us riches and peace alone;
We can be terror and carnage also, and are so now.
Not now are we one of these spacious and haughty States, (nor any five, nor ten;)
Nor market nor depot are we, nor money-bank in the city;
But these, and all, and the brown and spreading land, and the mines below, are ours;
And the shores of the sea are ours, and the rivers great and small;
And the fields they moisten are ours, and the crops, and the fruits are ours;
Bays and channels, and ships sailing in and out, are ours— and we over all,
Over the area spread below, the three millions of square miles— the capitals,
The thirty-five millions of people— O bard! in life and death supreme,
We, even we, from this day flaunt out masterful, high up above,
Not for the present alone, for a thousand years, chanting through you
This song to the soul of one poor little child.

Child.

O my father, I like not the houses;
They will never to me be anything— nor do I like money!
But to mount up there I would like, O father dear— that banner I like;
That pennant I would be, and must be.

Father.

Child of mine, you fill me with anguish,
To be that pennant would be too fearful;
Little you know what it is this day, and henceforth for ever;
It is to gain nothing, but risk and defy everything;
Forward to stand in front of wars— and O, such wars!— what have you to do with them?
With passions of demons, slaughter, premature death?

Poet.

Demons and death then I sing;
Put in all, aye all, will I— sword-shaped pennant for war, and banner so broad and blue,
And a pleasure new and ecstatic, and the prattled yearning of children,
Blent with the sounds of the peaceful land, and the liquid wash of the sea;
And the icy cool of the far, far north, with rustling cedars and pines;
And the whirr of drums, and the sound of soldiers marching, and the hot sun shining south;
And the beach-waves combing over the beach on my eastern shore, and my western shore the same;
And all between those shores, and my ever-running Mississippi, with bends and chutes;
And my Illinois fields, and my Kansas fields, and my fields of Missouri;
The CONTINENT— devoting the whole identity, without reserving an atom,
Pour in! whelm that which asks, which sings, with all, and the yield of all.

Banner and Pennant.

Aye all! for ever, for all!
From sea to sea, north and south, east and west,
Fusing and holding, claiming, devouring the whole;
No more with tender lip, nor musical labial sound,
But out of the night emerging for good, our voice persuasive no more,
Croaking like crows here in the wind.

Poet.

My limbs, my veins dilate;
The blood of the world has filled me full— my theme is clear at last.
— Banner so broad, advancing out of the night, I sing you haughty and resolute;
I burst through where I waited long, too long, deafened and blinded;
My sight, my hearing and tongue, are come to me, (a little child taught me;)
I hear from above, O pennant of war, your ironical call and demand;
Insensate! insensate! yet I at any rate chant you, O banner!
Not houses of peace are you, nor any nor all their prosperity; if need be,
you shall have every one of those houses to destroy them;
You thought not to destroy those valuable houses, standing fast, full of comfort, built with money;
May they stand fast, then? Not an hour, unless you, above them and all, stand fast.
— O banner! not money so precious are you, nor farm produce you, nor the material good nutriment,
Nor excellent stores, nor landed on wharves from the ships;
Not the superb ships, with sail-power or steam-power, fetching and carrying cargoes,
Nor machinery, vehicles, trade, nor revenues,— But you, as henceforth I see you,
Running up out of the night, bringing your cluster of stars, ever-enlarging stars;
Divider of daybreak you, cutting the air, touched by the sun, measuring the sky,
Passionately seen and yearned for by one poor little child,
While others remain busy, or smartly talking, for ever teaching thrift, thrift;
O you up there! O pennant! where you undulate like a snake, hissing so curious,
Out of reach— an idea only— yet furiously fought for, risking bloody death— loved by me!
So loved! O you banner, leading the day, with stars brought from the night!
Valueless, object of eyes, over all and demanding all— O banner and pennant!
I too leave the rest— great as it is, it is nothing— houses, machines are nothing— I see them not;
I see but you, O warlike pennant! O banner so broad, with stripes, I sing you only,
Flapping up there in the wind.

The Bivouac's Flame
Drum Taps - Walt Whitman

By the bivouac's fitful flame,
A procession winding around me, solemn and sweet and slow;— but first I note The tents of the sleeping army, the fields' and woods' dim outline,
The darkness, lit by spots of kindled fire— the silence;
Like a phantom far or near an occasional figure moving;
The shrubs and trees, (as I lift my eyes they seem to be stealthily watching me;)
While wind in procession thoughts, O tender and wondrous thoughts,
Of life and death— of home and the past and loved, and of those that are far away;
A solemn and slow procession there as I sit on the ground,
By the bivouac's fitful flame.

Bivouac on a Mountain-side
Drum Taps - Walt Whitman

I see before me now a travelling army halting;
Below, a fertile valley spread, with barns, and the orchards of summer;
Behind, the terraced sides of a mountain, abrupt in places, rising high;
Broken with rocks, with clinging cedars, with tall shapes, dingily seen;
The numerous camp-fires scattered near and far, some away up on the mountain;
The shadowy forms of men and horses, looming, large-sized, flickering;
And over all, the sky— the sky! far, far out of reach, studded with the eternal stars.

City of Ships
Drum Taps - Walt Whitman

City of ships!
(O the black ships! O the fierce ships!
O the beautiful, sharp-bowed steam-ships and sail-ships!)
City of the world! (for all races are here;
All the lands of the earth make contributions here;)
City of the sea! city of hurried and glittering tides!
City whose gleeful tides continually rush or recede, whirling in and out, with eddies and foam!
City of wharves and stores! city of tall facades of marble and iron!
Proud and passionate city! mettlesome, mad, extravagant city!
Spring up, O city! not for peace alone, but be indeed yourself, warlike!
Fear not! submit to no models but your own, O city!
Behold me! incarnate me, as I have incarnated you!
I have rejected nothing you offered me— whom you adopted, I have adopted;
Good or bad, I never question you— I love all— I do not condemn anything;
I chant and celebrate all that is yours— yet peace no more;
In peace I chanted peace, but now the drum of war is mine;
War, red war, is my song through your streets, O city!

Vigil on the Field
Drum Taps - Walt Whitman

VIGIL strange I kept on the field one night,
When you, my son and my comrade, dropped at my side that day.
One look I but gave, which your dear eyes returned with a look I shall never forget;
One touch of your hand to mine, O boy, reached up as you lay on the ground.
Then onward I sped in the battle, the even-contested battle;
Till, late in the night relieved, to the place at last again I made my way;
Found you in death so cold, dear comrade— found your body, son of responding kisses, (never again on earth responding;)
Bared your face in the starlight— curious the scene— cool blew the moderate night-wind.
Long there and then in vigil I stood, dimly around me the battlefield spreading;
Vigil wondrous and vigil sweet, there in the fragrant silent night.
But not a tear fell, not even a long-drawn sigh— Long, long I gazed;
Then on the earth partially reclining, sat by your side, leaning my chin in my hands;
Passing sweet hours, immortal and mystic hours, with you, dearest comrade—
Not a tear, not a word;
Vigil of silence, love, and death— vigil for you, my son and my soldier,
As onward silently stars aloft, eastward new ones upward stole;
Vigil final for you, brave boy, (I could not save you, swift was your death,
I faithfully loved you and cared for you living— I think we shall surely meet again;)
Till at latest lingering of the night, indeed just as the dawn appeared,
My comrade I wrapped in his blanket, enveloped well his form,
Folded the blanket well, tucking it carefully over head, and carefully under feet;
And there and then, and bathed by the rising sun, my son in his grave, in his rude-dug grave, I deposited;
Ending my vigil strange with that— vigil of night and battlefield dim;
Vigil for boy of responding kisses, never again on earth responding;
Vigil for comrade swiftly slain, vigil I never forget— how as day brightened I rose from the chill ground, and folded my soldier well in his blanket,
And buried him where he fell.

The Flag
Drum Taps - Walt Whitman

Bathed in war's perfume— delicate flag!
O to hear you call the sailors and the soldiers! flag like a beautiful woman!
O to hear the tramp, tramp, of a million answering men! O the ships they arm with joy!
O to see you leap and beckon from the tall masts of ships!
O to see you peering down on the sailors on the decks!
Flag like the eyes of women.

The Wounded
Drum Taps - Walt Whitman

A march in the ranks hard-pressed, and the road unknown;
A route through a heavy wood, with muffled steps in the darkness;
Our army foiled with loss severe, and the sullen remnant retreating;
Till after midnight glimmer upon us the lights of a dim-lighted building;
We come to an open space in the woods, and halt by the dim-lighted building.
'Tis a large old church, at the crossing roads— 'tis now an impromptu hospital;
— Entering but for a minute, I see a sight beyond all the pictures and poems ever made:
Shadows of deepest, deepest black, just lit by moving, candles and lamps,
And by one great pitchy torch, stationary, with wild red flame, and clouds of smoke;
By these, crowds, groups of forms, vaguely I see, on the floor, some in the pews laid down;
At my feet more distinctly, a soldier, a mere lad, in danger of bleeding to death, (he is shot in the abdomen;)
I staunch the blood temporarily, (the youngster's face is white as a lily;)
Then before I depart I sweep my eyes o'er the scene, fain to absorb it all;
Faces, varieties, postures, beyond description, most in obscurity, some of them dead;
Surgeons operating, attendants holding lights, the smell of ether, the odour of blood;
The crowd, O the crowd of the bloody forms of soldiers— the yard outside also filled;
Some on the bare ground, some on planks or stretchers, some in the death- spasm sweating;
An occasional scream or cry, the doctor's shouted orders or calls;
The glisten of the little steel instruments catching the glint of the torches;
These I resume as I chant— I see again the forms, I smell the odour;
Then hear outside the orders given, Fall in, my men, Fall in.
But first I bend to the dying lad— his eyes open— a half-smile gives he me;
Then the eyes close, calmly close: and I speed forth to the darkness,
Resuming, marching, as ever in darkness marching, on in the ranks,
The unknown road still marching.

A Sight in Camp
Drum Taps - Walt Whitman

A sight in camp in the daybreak grey and dim,
As from my tent I emerge so early, sleepless,
As slow I walk in the cool fresh air the path near by the hospital tent,
Three forms I see on stretchers lying, brought out there, untended lying;
Over each the blanket spread, ample brownish woollen blanket,
Grey and heavy blanket, folding, covering all.

Curious, I halt, and silent stand;
Then with light fingers I from the face of the nearest, the first, just lift the blanket;
Who are you, elderly man, so gaunt and grim, with well-greyed hair, and flesh all sunken about the eyes?
Who are you, my dear comrade?

Then to the second I step— And who are you, my child and darling?
Who are you, sweet boy, with cheeks yet blooming?

Then to the third— a face nor child nor old, very calm, as of beautiful yellow-white ivory:
Young man, I think I know you— I think this face of yours is the face of the Christ Himself;
Dead and divine and brother of all, and here again He lies.

A Grave
Drum Taps - Walt Whitman

As toilsome I wandered Virginia's woods,
To the music of rustling leaves kicked by my feet— for 'twas autumn—
I marked at the foot of a tree the grave of a soldier;
Mortally wounded he, and buried on the retreat— easily all could I understand;
The halt of a mid-day hour— when, Up! no time to lose! Yet this sign left
On a tablet scrawled and nailed on the tree by the grave,
Bold, cautious, true, and my loving comrade.

Long, long I muse,— then on my way go wandering,
Many a changeful season to follow, and many a scene of life.
Yet at times through changeful season and scene, abrupt,— alone, or in the crowded street,—
Comes before me the unknown soldier's grave, comes the inscription rude in Virginia's woods,
Bold, cautious, true, and my loving comrade.

The Dresser
Drum Taps - Walt Whitman

An old man bending, I come among new faces,
Years, looking backward, resuming, in answer to children,
"Come tell us, old man," (as from young men and maidens that love me, Years hence) "of these scenes, of these furious passions, these chances,
Of unsurpassed heroes— (was one side so brave? the other was equally brave)
Now be witness again— paint the mightiest armies of earth;
Of those armies, so rapid, so wondrous, what saw you to tell us?
What stays with you latest and deepest? of curious panics,
Of hard-fought engagements, or sieges tremendous, what deepest remains?"

O maidens and young men I love, and that love me,
What you ask of my days, those the strangest and sudden your talking recalls,
Soldier alert I arrive, after a long march, covered with sweat and dust;
In the nick of time I come, plunge in the fight, loudly shout in the rush of successful charge;
Enter the captured works,...yet lo! like a swift-running river, they fade,
Pass, and are gone; they fade— I dwell not on soldiers' perils or soldiers' joys;
(Both I remember well— many the hardships, few the joys, yet I was content.)

But in silence, in dreams' projections,
While the world of gain and appearance and mirth goes on,
So soon what is over forgotten, and waves wash the imprints off the sand,
In nature's reverie sad, with hinged knees returning, I enter the doors— (while for you up there, Whoever you are, follow me without noise, and be of strong heart.)
Bearing the bandages, water, and sponge,
Straight and swift to my wounded I go,
Where they lie on the ground, after the battle brought in;
Where their priceless blood reddens the grass, the ground;
Or to the rows of the hospital tent, or under the roofed hospital;
To the long rows of cots, up and down, each side, I return;
To each and all, one after another, I draw near— not one do I miss;
An attendant follows, holding a tray— he carries a refuse-pail,
Soon to be filled with clotted rags and blood, emptied, and filled again.

I onward go, I stop,
With hinged knees and steady hand, to dress wounds;
I am firm with each— the pangs are sharp, yet unavoidable;
One turns to me his appealing eyes— poor boy! I never knew you,
Yet I think I could not refuse this moment to die for you if that would save you.

On, on I go— (open, doors of time! open, hospital doors!)
The crushed head I dress (poor crazed hand, tear not the bandage away;)
The neck of the cavalry-man, with the bullet through and through, I examine;
Hard the breathing rattles, quite glazed already the eye, yet life struggles hard;
Come, sweet death! be persuaded, O beautiful death!
In mercy come quickly.

From the stump of the arm, the amputated hand,
I undo the clotted lint, remove the slough, wash off the matter and blood;
Back on his pillow the soldier bends, with curved neck, and side-falling head;
His eyes are closed, his face is pale, he dares not look on the bloody stump,
And has not yet looked on it.

I dress a wound in the side, deep, deep;
But a day or two more— for see, the frame all wasted and sinking,
And the yellow-blue countenance see.

I dress the perforated shoulder, the foot with the bullet wound,
Cleanse the one with a gnawing and putrid gangrene, so sickening, so offensive,
While the attendant stands behind aside me, holding the tray and pail.

I am faithful, I do not give out;
The fractured thigh, the knee, the wound in the abdomen,
These and more I dress with impassive hand— yet deep in my breast a fire, a burning flame.

Thus in silence, in dreams' projections,
Returning, resuming, I thread my way through the hospitals;
The hurt and the wounded I pacify with soothing hand,
I sit by the restless all the dark night— some are so young,
Some suffer so much— I recall the experience sweet and sad.
Many a soldier's loving arms about this neck have crossed and rested,
Many a soldier's kiss dwells on these bearded lips.

A Letter From Camp
Drum Taps - Walt Whitman

"Come up from the fields, father, here's a letter from our Pete;
And come to the front door, mother— here's a letter from thy dear son."

Lo, 'tis autumn;
Lo, where the trees, deeper green, yellower and redder,
Cool and sweeten Ohio's villages, with leaves fluttering in the moderate wind;
Where apples ripe in the orchards hang, and grapes on the trellised vines;
Smell you the smell of the grapes on the vines?
Smell you the buckwheat, where the bees were lately buzzing?
Above all, lo, the sky, so calm, so transparent after the rain, and with wondrous clouds;
Below, too, all calm, all vital and beautiful— and the farm prospers well.

Down in the fields all prospers well;
But now from the fields come, father— come at the daughter's call;
And come to the entry, mother— to the front door come, right away.

Fast as she can she hurries— something ominous— her steps trembling;
She does not tarry to smooth her white hair, nor adjust her cap.

Open the envelope quickly;
O this is not our son's writing, yet his name is signed;
O a strange hand writes for our dear son— O stricken mother's soul!
All swims before her eyes— flashes with black— she catches the main words only;
Sentences broken— "gun-shot wound in the breast, cavalry skirmish, taken to hospital,
At present low, but will soon be better."

Ah, now the single figure to me,
Amid all teeming and wealthy Ohio, with all its cities and farms,
Sickly white in the face and dull in the head, very faint,
By the jamb of a door leans.

"Grieve not so, dear mother," the just-grown daughter speaks through her sobs;
The little sisters huddle around, speechless and dismayed;
"See, dearest mother, the letter says Pete will soon be better."

Alas! poor boy, he will never be better, (nor maybe needs to be better, that brave and simple soul;)
While they stand at home at the door, he is dead already;
The only son is dead.

But the mother needs to be better;
She, with thin form, presently dressed in black;
By day her meals untouched— then at night fitfully sleeping, often waking,
In the midnight waking, weeping, longing with one deep longing,
O that she might withdraw unnoticed— silent from life escape and withdraw,
To follow, to seek, to be with her dear dead son!

War Dreams
Drum Taps - Walt Whitman

In clouds descending, in midnight sleep, of many a face in battle,
Of the look at first of the mortally wounded, of that indescribable look,
Of the dead on their backs, with arms extended wide—
I dream, I dream, I dream.

Of scenes of nature, the fields and the mountains,
Of the skies so beauteous after the storm, and at night the moon so unearthly bright,
Shining sweetly, shining down, where we dig the trenches,
and gather the heaps—
I dream, I dream, I dream.

Long have they passed, long lapsed— faces, and trenches, and fields:
Long through the carnage I moved with a callous composure, or away from the fallen
Onward I sped at the time. But now of their faces and forms, at night,
I dream, I dream, I dream.

The Veteran's Vision
Drum Taps - Walt Whitman

While my wife at my side lies slumbering, and the wars are over long,
And my head on the pillow rests at home, and the mystic midnight passes,
And through the stillness, through the dark, I hear, just hear, the breath of my infant,
There in the room, as I wake from sleep, this vision presses upon me.
The engagement opens there and then, in my busy brain unreal;
The skirmishers begin— they crawl cautiously ahead— I hear the irregular snap! snap!
I hear the sound of the different missiles— the short t-h-t! t-h-t! of the rifle-balls;
I see the shells exploding, leaving small white clouds— I hear the great shells shrieking as they pass;
The grape, like the hum and whirr of wind through the trees, (quick, tumultuous, now the contest rages!)
All the scenes at the batteries themselves rise in detail before me again;
The crashing and smoking— the pride of the men in their pieces;
The chief gunner ranges and sights his piece, and selects a fuse of the right time;
After firing, I see him lean aside, and look eagerly off to note the effect;
— Elsewhere I hear the cry of a regiment charging— the young colonel leads himself this time, with brandished sword;
I see the gaps cut by the enemy's volleys, quickly filled up— no delay;
I breathe the suffocating smoke— then the flat clouds hover low, concealing all;
Now a strange lull comes for a few seconds, not a shot fired on either side;
Then resumed, the chaos louder than ever, with eager calls, and orders of officers;
While from some distant part of the field the wind wafts to my ears a shout of applause, (some special success;)
And ever the sound of the cannon, far or near, rousing, even in dreams, a devilish exultation, and all the old mad joy, in the depths of my soul;
And ever the hastening of infantry shifting positions— batteries, cavalry, moving hither and thither;
The falling, dying, I heed not— the wounded, dripping and red, I heed not— some to the rear are hobbling;
Grime, heat, rush— aides-de-camp galloping by, or on a full run:
With the patter of small arms, the warning s-s-t of the rifles, (these in my vision I hear or see,)
And bombs bursting in air, and at night the vari-coloured rockets.

O Tan-faced Prairie Boy
Drum Taps - Walt Whitman

O tan-faced prairie boy!
Before you came to camp came many a welcome gift;
Praises and presents came, and nourishing food— till at last, among the recruits,
You came, taciturn, with nothing to give— we but looked on each other,
When lo! more than all the gifts of the world you gave me.

Manhattan Faces
Drum Taps - Walt Whitman

Give me the splendid silent sun, with all his beams full-dazzling;
Give me juicy autumnal fruit, ripe and red from the orchard;
Give me a field where the unmowed grass grows;
Give me an arbour, give me the trellised grape;
Give me fresh corn and wheat— give me serene-moving animals, teaching content;
Give me nights perfectly quiet, as on high plateaus west of the Mississippi, and I looking up at the stars;
Give me odorous at sunrise a garden of beautiful flowers, where I can walk undisturbed;
Give me for marriage a sweet-breathed woman, of whom I should never tire;
Give me a perfect child— give me, away, aside from the noise of the world, a rural domestic life;
Give me to warble spontaneous songs, relieved, recluse by myself, for my own ears only;
Give me solitude— give me Nature— give me again, O Nature, your primal sanities!
— These, demanding to have them, tired with ceaseless excitement, and racked by the war-strife,
These to procure incessantly asking, rising in cries from my heart,
While yet incessantly asking, still I adhere to my city;
Day upon day, and year upon year, O city, walking your streets,
Where you hold me enchained a certain time, refusing to give me up,
Yet giving to make me glutted, enriched of soul— you give me for ever faces;
O I see what I sought to escape, confronting, reversing my cries;
I see my own soul trampling down what it asked for.

Keep your splendid silent sun;
Keep your woods, O Nature, and the quiet places by the woods;
Keep your fields of clover and timothy, and your cornfields and orchards;
Keep the blossoming buckwheat fields, where the ninth-month bees hum.
Give me faces and streets! give me these phantoms incessant and endless along the trottoirs!
Give me interminable eyes! give me women! give me comrades and lovers by the thousand!
Let me see new ones every day! let me hold new ones by the hand every day!
Give me such shows! give me the streets of Manhattan!
Give me Broadway, with the soldiers marching— give me the sound of the trumpets and drums!
The soldiers in companies or regiments— some starting away, flushed and reckless;
Some, their time up, returning, with thinned ranks— young, yet very old, worn, marching, noticing nothing;
— Give me the shores and the wharves heavy-fringed with the black ships!
O such for me! O an intense life! O full to repletion, and varied!
The life of the theatre, bar-room, huge hotel, for me!
The saloon of the steamer, the crowded excursion, for me! the torchlight procession!
The dense brigade, bound for the war, with high-piled military waggons following;
People, endless, streaming, with strong voices, passions, pageants;
Manhattan streets, with their powerful throbs, with the beating drums, as now;
The endless and noisy chorus, the rustle and clank of muskets, even the sight of the wounded;
Manhattan crowds, with their turbulent musical chorus— with varied chorus and light of the sparkling eyes;
Manhattan faces and eyes for ever for me!

Over the Carnage
Drum Taps - Walt Whitman

Over the carnage rose prophetic a voice,—
Be not disheartened— Affection shall solve the problems of Freedom yet;
Those who love each other shall become invincible— they shall yet make Columbia victorious.

Sons of the Mother of all! you shall yet be victorious!
You shall yet laugh to scorn the attacks of all the remainder of the earth.

No danger shall baulk Columbia's lovers;
If need be, a thousand shall sternly immolate themselves for one.

One from Massachusetts shall be a Missourian's comrade;
From Maine and from hot Carolina, and another an Oregonese, shall be friends triune,
More precious to each other than all the riches of the earth.

To Michigan, Florida perfumes shall tenderly come;
Not the perfumes of flowers, but sweeter, and wafted beyond death.

It shall be customary in the houses and streets to see manly affection;
The most dauntless and rude shall touch face to face lightly;
The dependence of Liberty shall be lovers,
The continuance of Equality shall be comrades.

These shall tie you and band you stronger than hoops of iron;
I, ecstatic, O partners! O lands! with the love of lovers tie you.

Were you looking to be held together by the lawyers?
Or by an agreement on a paper? or by arms?
— Nay— nor the world nor any living thing will so cohere.

The Mother of All
Drum Taps - Walt Whitman

Pensive, on her dead gazing, I heard the Mother of all,
Desp

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