Cluster: INSCRIPTIONS
Poets to come! orators, singers, musicians to come!
Not to-day is to justify me and answer what I am for,
But you, a new brood, native, athletic, continental, greater than
before known,
Arouse! for you must justify me.
I myself but write one or two indicative words for the future,
I but advance a moment only to wheel and hurry back in the darkness.
I am a man who, sauntering along without fully stopping, turns a
casual look upon you and then averts his face,
Leaving it to you to prove and define it,
Expecting the main things from you.
Cluster: CALAMUS
Roots and leaves themselves alone are these, Scents brought to men and women from the wild woods and pond-side, Breast-sorrel and pinks of love, fingers that wind around tighter than vines, Gushes from the throats of birds hid in the foliage of trees as the sun is risen, Breezes of land and love set from living shores to you on the living sea, to you O sailors! Frost-mellow’d berries and Third-month twigs offer’d fresh to young persons wandering out in the fields when the winter breaks up, Love-buds put before you and within you whoever you are, Buds to be unfolded on the old terms, If you bring the warmth of the sun to them they will open and bring form, color, perfume, to you, If you become the aliment and the wet they will become flowers, fruits, tall branches and trees.
Cluster: CALAMUS
Trickle drops! my blue veins leaving!
O drops of me! trickle, slow drops,
Candid from me falling, drip, bleeding drops,
From wounds made to free you whence you were prison’d,
From my face, from my forehead and lips,
From my breast, from within where I was conceal’d, press forth red
drops, confession drops,
Stain every page, stain every song I sing, every word I say, bloody drops,
Let them know your scarlet heat, let them glisten,
Saturate them with yourself all ashamed and wet,
Glow upon all I have written or shall write, bleeding drops,
Let it all be seen in your light, blushing drops.
Cluster: BY THE ROADSIDE
Only themselves understand themselves and the like of themselves, As souls only understand souls.
Cluster: BY THE ROADSIDE
Roaming in thought over the Universe, I saw the little that is Good
steadily hastening towards immortality,
And the vast all that is call’d Evil I saw hastening to merge itself
and become lost and dead.
Cluster: BY THE ROADSIDE
A mask, a perpetual natural disguiser of herself, Concealing her face, concealing her form, Changes and transformations every hour, every moment, Falling upon her even when she sleeps.
Cluster: BY THE ROADSIDE
Locations and times—what is it in me that meets them all, whenever
and wherever, and makes me at home?
Forms, colors, densities, odors—what is it in me that corresponds
with them?
Cluster: DRUM-TAPS
As toilsome I wander’d Virginia’s woods,
To the music of rustling leaves kick’d by my feet, (for ’twas autumn,)
I mark’d at the foot of a tree the grave of a soldier;
Mortally wounded he and buried on the retreat, (easily all could
understand,)
The halt of a mid-day hour, when up! no time to lose—yet this sign left,
On a tablet scrawl’d and nail’d 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.
Cluster: DRUM-TAPS
How solemn as one by one, As the ranks returning worn and sweaty, as the men file by where stand, As the faces the masks appear, as I glance at the faces studying the masks, (As I glance upward out of this page studying you, dear friend, whoever you are,) How solemn the thought of my whispering soul to each in the ranks, and to you, I see behind each mask that wonder a kindred soul, O the bullet could never kill what you really are, dear friend, Nor the bayonet stab what you really are; The soul! yourself I see, great as any, good as the best, Waiting secure and content, which the bullet could never kill, Nor the bayonet stab O friend.
Cluster: AUTUMN RIVULETS
By the city dead-house by the gate, As idly sauntering wending my way from the clangor, I curious pause, for lo, an outcast form, a poor dead prostitute brought, Her corpse they deposit unclaim’d, 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 odors 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 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, Unclaim’d, avoided house—take one breath from my tremulous lips, Take one tear dropt aside as I go for thought of you, Dead house of love—house of madness and sin, crumbled, crush’d, House of life, erewhile talking and laughing—but ah, poor house, dead even then, Months, years, an echoing, garnish’d house—but dead, dead, dead.
Cluster: AUTUMN RIVULETS
Nations ten thousand years before these States, and many times ten thousand years before these States, Garner’d clusters of ages that men and women like us grew up and travel’d their course and pass’d on, What vast-built cities, what orderly republics, what pastoral tribes and nomads, What histories, rulers, heroes, perhaps transcending all others, What laws, customs, wealth, arts, traditions, What sort of marriage, what costumes, what physiology and phrenology, What of liberty and slavery among them, what they thought of death and the soul, Who were witty and wise, who beautiful and poetic, who brutish and undevelop’d, Not a mark, not a record remains—and yet all remains.
O I know that those men and women were not for nothing, any more than we are for nothing, I know that they belong to the scheme of the world every bit as much as we now belong to it.
Afar they stand, yet near to me they stand, Some with oval countenances learn’d and calm, Some naked and savage, some like huge collections of insects, Some in tents, herdsmen, patriarchs, tribes, horsemen, Some prowling through woods, some living peaceably on farms, laboring, reaping, filling barns, Some traversing paved avenues, amid temples, palaces, factories, libraries, shows, courts, theatres, wonderful monuments. Are those billions of men really gone? Are those women of the old experience of the earth gone? Do their lives, cities, arts, rest only with us? Did they achieve nothing for good for themselves?
I believe of all those men and women that fill’d the unnamed lands, every one exists this hour here or elsewhere, invisible to us. In exact proportion to what he or she grew from in life, and out of what he or she did, felt, became, loved, sinn’d, in life.
I believe that was not the end of those nations or any person of them, any more than this shall be the end of my nation, or of me; Of their languages, governments, marriage, literature, products, games, wars, manners, crimes, prisons, slaves, heroes, poets, I suspect their results curiously await in the yet unseen world, counterparts of what accrued to them in the seen world, I suspect I shall meet them there, I suspect I shall there find each old particular of those unnamed lands.
Cluster: AUTUMN RIVULETS
Be composed—be at ease with me—I am Walt Whitman, liberal and lusty as Nature, Not till the sun excludes you do I exclude you, Not till the waters refuse to glisten for you and the leaves to rustle for you, do my words refuse to glisten and rustle for you.
My girl I appoint with you an appointment, and I charge you that you make preparation to be worthy to meet me, And I charge you that you be patient and perfect till I come.
Till then I salute you with a significant look that you do not forget me.
1 To think of time—of all that retrospection, To think of to-day, and the ages continued henceforward.
Have you guess’d you yourself would not continue? Have you dreaded these earth-beetles? Have you fear’d the future would be nothing to you?
Is to-day nothing? is the beginningless past nothing? If the future is nothing they are just as surely nothing.
To think that the sun rose in the east—that men and women were flexible, real, alive—that every thing was alive, To think that you and I did not see, feel, think, nor bear our part, To think that we are now here and bear our part.
2 Not a day passes, not a minute or second without an accouchement, Not a day passes, not a minute or second without a corpse.
The dull nights go over and the dull days also, The soreness of lying so much in bed goes over, The physician after long putting off gives the silent and terrible look for an answer, The children come hurried and weeping, and the brothers and sisters are sent for, Medicines stand unused on the shelf, (the camphor-smell has long pervaded the rooms,) The faithful hand of the living does not desert the hand of the dying, The twitching lips press lightly on the forehead of the dying, The breath ceases and the pulse of the heart ceases, The corpse stretches on the bed and the living look upon it, It is palpable as the living are palpable.
The living look upon the corpse with their eyesight, But without eyesight lingers a different living and looks curiously on the corpse.
3 To think the thought of death merged in the thought of materials, To think of all these wonders of city and country, and others taking great interest in them, and we taking no interest in them.
To think how eager we are in building our houses, To think others shall be just as eager, and we quite indifferent.
(I see one building the house that serves him a few years, or seventy or eighty years at most, I see one building the house that serves him longer than that.)
Slow-moving and black lines creep over the whole earth—they never cease—they are the burial lines, He that was President was buried, and he that is now President shall surely be buried.
4 A reminiscence of the vulgar fate, A frequent sample of the life and death of workmen, Each after his kind.
Cold dash of waves at the ferry-wharf, posh and ice in the river, half-frozen mud in the streets, A gray discouraged sky overhead, the short last daylight of December, A hearse and stages, the funeral of an old Broadway stage-driver, the cortege mostly drivers.
Steady the trot to the cemetery, duly rattles the death-bell, The gate is pass’d, the new-dug grave is halted at, the living alight, the hearse uncloses, The coffin is pass’d out, lower’d and settled, the whip is laid on the coffin, the earth is swiftly shovel’d in, The mound above is flatted with the spades—silence, A minute—no one moves or speaks—it is done, He is decently put away—is there any thing more?
He was a good fellow, free-mouth’d, quick-temper’d, not bad-looking, Ready with life or death for a friend, fond of women, gambled, ate hearty, drank hearty, Had known what it was to be flush, grew low-spirited toward the last, sicken’d, was help’d by a contribution, Died, aged forty-one years—and that was his funeral.
Thumb extended, finger uplifted, apron, cape, gloves, strap, wet-weather clothes, whip carefully chosen, Boss, spotter, starter, hostler, somebody loafing on you, you loafing on somebody, headway, man before and man behind, Good day’s work, bad day’s work, pet stock, mean stock, first out, last out, turning-in at night, To think that these are so much and so nigh to other drivers, and he there takes no interest in them.
5 The markets, the government, the working-man’s wages, to think what account they are through our nights and days, To think that other working-men will make just as great account of them, yet we make little or no account.
The vulgar and the refined, what you call sin and what you call goodness, to think how wide a difference, To think the difference will still continue to others, yet we lie beyond the difference.
To think how much pleasure there is, Do you enjoy yourself in the city? or engaged in business? or planning a nomination and election? or with your wife and family? Or with your mother and sisters? or in womanly housework? or the beautiful maternal cares? These also flow onward to others, you and I flow onward, But in due time you and I shall take less interest in them.
Your farm, profits, crops—to think how engross’d you are, To think there will still be farms, profits, crops, yet for you of what avail?
6 What will be will be well, for what is is well, To take interest is well, and not to take interest shall be well.
The domestic joys, the dally housework or business, the building of houses, are not phantasms, they have weight, form, location, Farms, profits, crops, markets, wages, government, are none of them phantasms, The difference between sin and goodness is no delusion, The earth is not an echo, man and his life and all the things of his life are well-consider’d.
You are not thrown to the winds, you gather certainly and safely around yourself, Yourself! yourself!. yourself, for ever and ever!
7 It is not to diffuse you that you were born of your mother and father, it is to identify you, It is not that you should be undecided, but that you should be decided, Something long preparing and formless is arrived and form’d in you, You are henceforth secure, whatever comes or goes.
The threads that were spun are gather’d, the wet 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, he is now housed, He is one of those who are beautiful and happy, he is one of those that to look upon and be with is enough.
The law of the past cannot be eluded, The law of the present and future cannot be eluded, The law of the living cannot be eluded, it is eternal, The law of promotion and transformation cannot be eluded, The law of heroes and good-doers cannot be eluded, The law of drunkards, informers, mean persons, not one iota thereof can be eluded.
8 Slow moving and black lines go ceaselessly over the earth, Northerner goes carried and Southerner goes carried, and they on the Atlantic side and they on the Pacific, And they between, and all through the Mississippi country, and all over the earth.
The great masters and kosmos are well as they go, the heroes and good-doers are well, The known leaders and inventors and the rich owners and pious and distinguish’d may be well, But there is more account than that, there is strict account of all.
The interminable hordes of the ignorant and wicked are not nothing, The barbarians of Africa and Asia are not nothing, The perpetual successions of shallow people are not nothing as they go.
Of and in all these things, I have dream’d that we are not to be changed so much, nor the law of us changed, I have dream’d that heroes and good-doers shall be under the present and past law, And that murderers, drunkards, liars, shall be under the present and past law, For I have dream’d that the law they are under now is enough.
And I have dream’d that the purpose and essence of the known life, the transient, Is to form and decide identity for the unknown life, the permanent.
If all came but to ashes of dung, If maggots and rats ended us, then Alarum! for we are betray’d, Then indeed suspicion of death.
Do you suspect death? if I were to suspect death I should die now, Do you think I could walk pleasantly and well-suited toward annihilation?
Pleasantly and well-suited I walk, Whither I walk I cannot define, but I know it is good, The whole universe indicates that it is good, The past and the present indicate that it is good.
How beautiful and perfect are the animals! How perfect the earth, and the minutest thing upon it! What is called good is perfect, and what is called bad is just as perfect, The vegetables and minerals are all perfect, and the imponderable fluids perfect; Slowly and surely they have pass’d on to this, and slowly and surely they yet pass on.
9 I swear I think now that every thing without exception has an eternal soul! The trees have, rooted in the ground! the weeds of the sea have! the animals!
I swear I think there is nothing but immortality! That the exquisite scheme is for it, and the nebulous float is for it, and the cohering is for it! And all preparation is for it—and identity is for it—and life and materials are altogether for it!
Cluster: WHISPERS OF HEAVENLY DEATH
Darest thou now O soul,
Walk out with me toward the unknown region,
Where neither ground is for the feet nor any path to follow?
No map there, nor guide,
Nor voice sounding, nor touch of human hand,
Nor face with blooming flesh, nor lips, nor eyes, are in that land.
I know it not O soul,
Nor dost thou, all is a blank before us,
All waits undream’d of in that region, that inaccessible land.
Till when the ties loosen,
All but the ties eternal, Time and Space,
Nor darkness, gravitation, sense, nor any bounds bounding us.
Then we burst forth, we float,
In Time and Space O soul, prepared for them,
Equal, equipt at last, (O joy! O fruit of all!) them to fulfil O soul.
Cluster: WHISPERS OF HEAVENLY DEATH
1
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, old, modern as any,
Unpersuadable, relentless, executing righteous judgments,
As the Earth, the Father, the brown old Kronos, with laws,
Aged beyond computation, yet never 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.
2
Consolator most mild, the promis’d one advancing,
With gentle hand extended, the mightier God am I,
Foretold by prophets and poets in their most rapt prophecies and poems,
From this side, lo! the Lord Christ gazes—lo! Hermes I—lo! mine is
Hercules’ face,
All sorrow, labor, 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,
Wanding 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,
With indulgent words as to children, with fresh and sane words, mine only,
Young and strong I pass knowing well I am destin’d myself to an
early death;
But my charity has no death—my wisdom dies not, neither early nor late,
And my sweet love bequeath’d here and elsewhere never dies.
3
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 dispel’d, 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.
4
Santa Spirita, 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 songs.
Cluster: WHISPERS OF HEAVENLY DEATH
A noiseless patient spider,
I mark’d where on a little promontory it stood isolated,
Mark’d how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament out of itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.
And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to
connect them,
Till the bridge you will need be form’d, till the ductile anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.
Cluster: WHISPERS OF HEAVENLY DEATH
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 ’ust 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 neighbor, I absolve you from all except yourself spiritual bodily, that is eternal, you yourself will surely escape, 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.
Cluster: WHISPERS OF HEAVENLY DEATH
At the last, tenderly,
From the walls of the powerful fortress’d house,
From the clasp of the knitted locks, from the keep of the well-closed doors,
Let me be wafted.
Let me glide noiselessly forth;
With the key of softness unlock the locks—with a whisper,
Set ope the doors O soul.
Tenderly—be not impatient,
(Strong is your hold O mortal flesh,
Strong is your hold O love.)
Cluster: FROM NOON TO STARRY NIGHT
1 Sauntering the pavement or riding the country by-road, faces! Faces of friendship, precision, caution, suavity, ideality, The spiritual-prescient face, the always welcome common benevolent face, The face of the singing of music, the grand faces of natural lawyers and judges broad at the back-top, The faces of hunters and fishers bulged at the brows, the shaved blanch’d faces of orthodox citizens, The pure, extravagant, yearning, questioning artist’s face, The ugly face of some beautiful soul, the handsome detested or despised face, The sacred faces of infants, the illuminated face of the mother of many children, The face of an amour, the face of veneration, The face as of a dream, the face of an immobile rock, The face withdrawn of its good and bad, a castrated face, A wild hawk, his wings clipp’d by the clipper, A stallion that yielded at last to the thongs and knife of the gelder.
Sauntering the pavement thus, or crossing the ceaseless ferry, faces and faces and faces, I see them and complain not, and am content with all.
2 Do you suppose I could be content with all if I thought them their own finale?
This now is too lamentable a face for a man, Some abject louse asking leave to be, cringing for it, Some milk-nosed maggot blessing what lets it wrig to its hole.
This face is a dog’s snout sniffing for garbage, Snakes nest in that mouth, I hear the sibilant threat.
This face is a haze more chill than the arctic sea, Its sleepy and wobbling icebergs crunch as they go.
This is a face of bitter herbs, this an emetic, they need no label, And more of the drug-shelf, laudanum, caoutchouc, or hog’s-lard.
This face is an epilepsy, its wordless tongue gives out the unearthly cry, Its veins down the neck distend, its eyes roll till they show nothing but their whites, Its teeth grit, the palms of the hands are cut by the turn’d-in nails, The man falls struggling and foaming to the ground, while he speculates well.
This face is bitten by vermin and worms, And this is some murderer’s knife with a half-pull’d scabbard.
This face owes to the sexton his dismalest fee, An unceasing death-bell tolls there.
3 Features of my equals would you trick me with your creas’d and cadaverous march? Well, you cannot trick me.
I see your rounded never-erased flow, I see ’neath the rims of your haggard and mean disguises.
Splay and twist as you like, poke with the tangling fores of fishes or rats, You’ll be unmuzzled, you certainly will.
I saw the face of the most smear’d and slobbering idiot they had at the asylum, And I knew for my consolation what they knew not, I knew of the agents that emptied and broke my brother, The same wait to clear the rubbish from the fallen tenement, And I shall look again in a score or two of ages, And I shall meet the real landlord perfect and unharm’d, every inch as good as myself.
4 The Lord advances, and yet advances, Always the shadow in front, always the reach’d hand bringing up the laggards.
Out of this face emerge banners and horses—O superb! I see what is coming, I see the high pioneer-caps, see staves of runners clearing the way, I hear victorious drums.
This face is a life-boat, This is the face commanding and bearded, it asks no odds of the rest, This face is flavor’d fruit ready for eating, This face of a healthy honest boy is the programme of all good.
These faces bear testimony slumbering or awake, They show their descent from the Master himself.
Off the word I have spoken I except not one—red, white, black, are all deific, In each house is the ovum, it comes forth after a thousand years.
Spots or cracks at the windows do not disturb me, Tall and sufficient stand behind and make signs to me, I read the promise and patiently wait.
This is a full-grown lily’s face, She speaks to the limber-hipp’d man near the garden pickets, Come here she blushingly cries, Come nigh to me limber-hipp’d man, Stand at my side till I lean as high as I can upon you, Fill me with albescent honey, bend down to me, Rub to me with your chafing beard, rub to my breast and shoulders.
5 The old face of the mother of many children, Whist! I am fully content.
Lull’d and late is the smoke of the First-day morning, It hangs low over the rows of trees by the fences, It hangs thin by the sassafras and wild-cherry and cat-brier under them.
I saw the rich ladies in full dress at the soiree, I heard what the singers were singing so long, Heard who sprang in crimson youth from the white froth and the water-blue.
Behold a woman! She looks out from her quaker cap, her face is clearer and more beautiful than the sky.
She sits in an armchair under the shaded porch of the farmhouse, The sun just shines on her old white head.
Her ample gown is of cream-hued linen, Her grandsons raised the flax, and her grand-daughters spun it with the distaff and the wheel.
The melodious character of the earth, The finish beyond which philosophy cannot go and does not wish to go, The justified mother of men.
Cluster: FROM NOON TO STARRY NIGHT
Ah poverties, wincings, and sulky retreats,
Ah you foes that in conflict have overcome me,
(For what is my life or any man’s life but a conflict with foes, the
old, the incessant war?)
You degradations, you tussle with passions and appetites,
You smarts from dissatisfied friendships, (ah wounds the sharpest of all!)
You toil of painful and choked articulations, you meannesses,
You shallow tongue-talks at tables, (my tongue the shallowest of any;)
You broken resolutions, you racking angers, you smother’d ennuis!
Ah think not you finally triumph, my real self has yet to come forth,
It shall yet march forth o’ermastering, till all lies beneath me,
It shall yet stand up the soldier of ultimate victory.
Cluster: FROM NOON TO STARRY NIGHT
Weave in, weave in, my hardy life,
Weave yet a soldier strong and full for great campaigns to come,
Weave in red blood, weave sinews in like ropes, the senses, sight weave in,
Weave lasting sure, weave day and night the wet, the warp, incessant
weave, tire not,
(We know not what the use O life, nor know the aim, the end, nor
really aught we know,
But know the work, the need goes on and shall go on, the
death-envelop’d march of peace as well as war goes on,)
For great campaigns of peace the same the wiry threads to weave,
We know not why or what, yet weave, forever weave.
Cluster: SONGS OF PARTING
The business man the acquirer vast, After assiduous years surveying results, preparing for departure, Devises houses and lands to his children, bequeaths stocks, goods, funds for a school or hospital, Leaves money to certain companions to buy tokens, souvenirs of gems and gold.
But I, my life surveying, closing, With nothing to show to devise from its idle years, Nor houses nor lands, nor tokens of gems or gold for my friends, Yet certain remembrances of the war for you, and after you, And little souvenirs of camps and soldiers, with my love, I bind together and bequeath in this bundle of songs.
Cluster: SONGS OF PARTING
As they draw to a close, Of what underlies the precedent songs—of my aims in them, Of the seed I have sought to plant in them, Of joy, sweet joy, through many a year, in them, (For them, for them have I lived, in them my work is done,) Of many an aspiration fond, of many a dream and plan; Through Space and Time fused in a chant, and the flowing eternal identity, To Nature encompassing these, encompassing God—to the joyous, electric all, To the sense of Death, and accepting exulting in Death in its turn the same as life, The entrance of man to sing; To compact you, ye parted, diverse lives, To put rapport the mountains and rocks and streams, And the winds of the north, and the forests of oak and pine, With you O soul.
Cluster: SONGS OF PARTING
To conclude, I announce what comes after me.
I remember I said before my leaves sprang at all, I would raise my voice jocund and strong with reference to consummations.
When America does what was promis’d, When through these States walk a hundred millions of superb persons, When the rest part away for superb persons and contribute to them, When breeds of the most perfect mothers denote America, Then to me and mine our due fruition.
I have press’d through in my own right, I have sung the body and the soul, war and peace have I sung, and the songs of life and death, And the songs of birth, and shown that there are many births.
I have offer’d my style to every one, I have journey’d with confident step; While my pleasure is yet at the full I whisper So long! And take the young woman’s hand and the young man’s hand for the last time.
I announce natural persons to arise, I announce justice triumphant, I announce uncompromising liberty and equality, I announce the justification of candor and the justification of pride.
I announce that the identity of these States is a single identity only, I announce the Union more and more compact, indissoluble, I announce splendors and majesties to make all the previous politics of the earth insignificant.
I announce adhesiveness, I say it shall be limitless, unloosen’d, I say you shall yet find the friend you were looking for.
I announce a man or woman coming, perhaps you are the one, (So long!) I announce the great individual, fluid as Nature, chaste, affectionate, compassionate, fully arm’d.
I announce a life that shall be copious, vehement, spiritual, bold, I announce an end that shall lightly and joyfully meet its translation.
I announce myriads of youths, beautiful, gigantic, sweet-blooded, I announce a race of splendid and savage old men.
O thicker and faster—(So long!) O crowding too close upon me, I foresee too much, it means more than I thought, It appears to me I am dying.
Hasten throat and sound your last, Salute me—salute the days once more. Peal the old cry once more.
Screaming electric, the atmosphere using, At random glancing, each as I notice absorbing, Swiftly on, but a little while alighting, Curious envelop’d messages delivering, Sparkles hot, seed ethereal down in the dirt dropping, Myself unknowing, my commission obeying, to question it never daring, To ages and ages yet the growth of the seed leaving, To troops out of the war arising, they the tasks I have set promulging, To women certain whispers of myself bequeathing, their affection me more clearly explaining, To young men my problems offering—no dallier I—I the muscle of their brains trying, So I pass, a little time vocal, visible, contrary, Afterward a melodious echo, passionately bent for, (death making me really undying,) The best of me then when no longer visible, for toward that I have been incessantly preparing.
What is there more, that I lag and pause and crouch extended with unshut mouth? Is there a single final farewell? My songs cease, I abandon them, From behind the screen where I hid I advance personally solely to you.
Camerado, this is no book, Who touches this touches a man, (Is it night? are we here together alone?) It is I you hold and who holds you, I spring from the pages into your arms—decease calls me forth.
O how your fingers drowse me, Your breath falls around me like dew, your pulse lulls the tympans of my ears, I feel immerged from head to foot, Delicious, enough.
Enough O deed impromptu and secret, Enough O gliding present—enough O summ’d-up past.
Dear friend whoever you are take this kiss, I give it especially to you, do not forget me, I feel like one who has done work for the day to retire awhile, I receive now again of my many translations, from my avataras ascending, while others doubtless await me, An unknown sphere more real than I dream’d, more direct, darts awakening rays about me, So long! Remember my words, I may again return, I love you, I depart from materials, I am as one disembodied, triumphant, dead.
Cluster: SANDS AT SEVENTY
This latent mine—these unlaunch’d voices—passionate powers, Wrath, argument, or praise, or comic leer, or prayer devout, (Not nonpareil, brevier, bourgeois, long primer merely,) These ocean waves arousable to fury and to death, Or sooth’d to ease and sheeny sun and sleep, Within the pallid slivers slumbering.
Cluster: SANDS AT SEVENTY
Ever the undiscouraged, resolute, struggling soul of man;
(Have former armies fail’d? then we send fresh armies—and fresh again;)
Ever the grappled mystery of all earth’s ages old or new;
Ever the eager eyes, hurrahs, the welcome-clapping hands, the loud
applause;
Ever the soul dissatisfied, curious, unconvinced at last;
Struggling to-day the same—battling the same.
“Going Somewhere”
My science-friend, my noblest woman-friend,
(Now buried in an English grave—and this a memory-leaf for her dear sake,)
Ended our talk—“The sum, concluding all we know of old or modern
learning, intuitions deep,
“Of all Geologies—Histories—of all Astronomy—of Evolution,
Metaphysics all,
“Is, that we all are onward, onward, speeding slowly, surely bettering,
“Life, life an endless march, an endless army, (no halt, but it is
duly over,)
“The world, the race, the soul—in space and time the universes,
“All bound as is befitting each—all surely going somewhere.”
Cluster: SANDS AT SEVENTY
Have you learn’d lessons only of those who admired you, and were
tender with you, and stood aside for you?
Have you not learn’d great lessons from those who reject you, and
brace themselves against you? or who treat you with contempt,
or dispute the passage with you?
Cluster: SANDS AT SEVENTY
Not meagre, latent boughs alone, O songs! (scaly and bare, like
eagles’ talons,)
But haply for some sunny day (who knows?) some future spring, some
summer—bursting forth,
To verdant leaves, or sheltering shade—to nourishing fruit,
Apples and grapes—the stalwart limbs of trees emerging—the fresh,
free, open air,
And love and faith, like scented roses blooming.
Cluster: SANDS AT SEVENTY
Now precedent songs, farewell—by every name farewell,
(Trains of a staggering line in many a strange procession, waggons,
From ups and downs—with intervals—from elder years, mid-age, or youth,)
“In Cabin’d Ships, or Thee Old Cause or Poets to Come
Or Paumanok, Song of Myself, Calamus, or Adam,
Or Beat! Beat! Drums! or To the Leaven’d Soil they Trod,
Or Captain! My Captain! Kosmos, Quicksand Years, or Thoughts,
Thou Mother with thy Equal Brood,” and many, many more unspecified,
From fibre heart of mine—from throat and tongue—(My life’s hot
pulsing blood,
The personal urge and form for me—not merely paper, automatic type
and ink,)
Each song of mine—each utterance in the past—having its long, long
history,
Of life or death, or soldier’s wound, of country’s loss or safety,
(O heaven! what flash and started endless train of all! compared
indeed to that!
What wretched shred e’en at the best of all!)
Cluster: GOOD-BYE MY FANCY
After a long, long course, hundreds of years, denials,
Accumulations, rous’d love and joy and thought,
Hopes, wishes, aspirations, ponderings, victories, myriads of readers,
Coating, compassing, covering—after ages’ and ages’ encrustations,
Then only may these songs reach fruition.
Cluster: GOOD-BYE MY FANCY
Good-bye my Fancy!
Farewell dear mate, dear love!
I’m going away, I know not where,
Or to what fortune, or whether I may ever see you again,
So Good-bye my Fancy.
Now for my last—let me look back a moment;
The slower fainter ticking of the clock is in me,
Exit, nightfall, and soon the heart-thud stopping.
Long have we lived, joy’d, caress’d together;
Delightful!—now separation—Good-bye my Fancy.
Yet let me not be too hasty,
Long indeed have we lived, slept, filter’d, become really blended
into one;
Then if we die we die together, (yes, we’ll remain one,)
If we go anywhere we’ll go together to meet what happens,
May-be we’ll be better off and blither, and learn something,
May-be it is yourself now really ushering me to the true songs, (who
knows?)
May-be it is you the mortal knob really undoing, turning—so now finally,
Good-bye—and hail! my Fancy.