Leaves of Grass: First and Death-Bed Editions

by Walt Whitman

  Here and there with dimes on the eyes walking,27

  To feed the greed of the belly the brains liberally spooning,

  Tickets buying or taking or selling, but in to the feast never once

  going;

  Many sweating and ploughing and thrashing, and then the chaff

  for payment receiving,

  A few idly owning, and they the wheat continually claiming.

  This is the city .... and I am one of the citizens;

  Whatever interests the rest interests me .... politics, churches,

  newspapers, schools,

  Benevolent societies, improvements, banks, tariffs, steamships,

  factories, markets,

  Stocks and stores and real estate and personal estate.

  They who piddle and patter here in collars and tailed coats ....

  I am aware who they are .... and that they are not worms or

  fleas,

  I acknowledge the duplicates of myself under all the scrape-lipped

  and pipe-legged concealments.

  The weakest and shallowest is deathless with me,

  What I do and say the same waits for them,

  Every thought that flounders in me the same flounders in them.

  I know perfectly well my own egotism,

  And know my omnivorous words, and cannot say any less,

  And would fetch you whoever you are flush with myself.

  My words are words of a questioning, and to indicate reality;

  This printed and bound book .... but the printer and the

  printing-office boy?

  The marriage estate and settlement .... but the body and mind

  of the bridegroom? also those of the bride?

  The panorama of the sea .... but the sea itself?

  The well-taken photographs .... but your wife or friend close and

  solid in your arms?

  The fleet of ships of the line and all the modern

  improvements .... but the craft and pluck of the admiral?

  The dishes and fare and furniture .... but the host and hostess,

  and the look out of their eyes?

  The sky up there .... yet here or next door or across the way?

  The saints and sages in history .... but you yourself?

  Sermons and creeds and theology .... but the human brain, and

  what is called reason, and what is called love, and what is

  called life?

  I do not despise you priests;

  My faith is the greatest of faiths and the least of faiths,

  Enclosing all worship ancient and modern, and all between

  ancient and modern,

  Believing I shall come again upon the earth after five thousand

  years,

  Waiting responses from oracles .... honoring the gods ....

  saluting the sun,

  Making a fetish of the first rock or stump .... powowing with

  sticks in the circle of obiss,Helping the lama or brahmin as he trims the lamps of the

  idols,

  Dancing yet through the streets in a phallic procession .... rapt

  and austere in the woods, a gymnosophist,t

  Drinking mead from the skull-cup .... to shasta and vedas

  admirant .... minding the koran,‡

  Walking the teokallis,§ spotted with gore from the stone and

  knife—beating the serpent-skin drum;

  Accepting the gospels, accepting him that was crucified, knowing

  assuredly that he is divine,

  To the mass kneeling—to the puritan’s prayer rising—sitting

  patiently in a pew,

  Ranting and frothing in my insane crisis—waiting dead-like till

  my spirit arouses me;

  Looking forth on pavement and land, and outside of pavement

  and land,

  Belonging to the winders of the circuit of circuits.

  One of that centripetal and centrifugal gang,

  I turn and talk like a man leaving charges before a journey.

  Down-hearted doubters, dull and excluded,

  Frivolous sullen moping angry affected disheartened atheistical,

  I know every one of you, and know the unspoken interrogatories,

  By experience I know them.

  How the flukes splash!

  How they contort rapid as lightning, with spasms and spouts of

  blood!

  Be at peace bloody flukes of doubters and sullen mopers,

  I take my place among you as much as among any;

  The past is the push of you and me and all precisely the same,

  And the day and night are for you and me and all,

  And what is yet untried and afterward is for you and me and all.

  I do not know what is untried and afterward,

  But I know it is sure and alive and sufficient.

  Each who passes is considered, and each who stops is considered, and not a single one can it fail.

  It cannot fail the young man who died and was buried,

  Nor the young woman who died and was put by his side,

  Nor the little child that peeped in at the door and then drew back

  and was never seen again,

  Nor the old man who has lived without purpose, and feels it with

  bitterness worse than gall,

  Nor him in the poorhouse tubercled by rum and the bad disorder,

  Nor the numberless slaughtered and wrecked .... nor the brutish

  koboou,called the ordure of humanity,

  Nor the sacs merely floating with open mouths for food to slip in,

  Nor any thing in the earth, or down in the oldest graves of the earth,

  Nor any thing in the myriads of spheres, nor one of the myriads of

  myriads that inhabit them,

  Nor the present, nor the least wisp that is known.

  It is time to explain myself .... let us stand up.

  What is known I strip away .... I launch all men and women forward with me into the unknown.

  The clock indicates the moment .... but what does eternity

  indicate?

  Eternity lies in bottomless reservoirs .... its buckets are rising

  forever and ever,

  They pour and they pour and they exhale away.

  We have thus far exhausted trillions of winters and summers;

  There are trillions ahead, and trillions ahead of them.

  Births have brought us richness and variety,

  And other births will bring us richness and variety.

  I do not call one greater and one smaller,

  That which fills its period and place is equal to any.

  Were mankind murderous or jealous upon you my brother or my

  sister?

  I am sorry for you .... they are not murderous or jealous upon me;

  All has been gentle with me .... I keep no account with

  lamentation;

  What have I to do with lamentation?

  I am an acme of things accomplished, and I an encloser of things to be.

  My feet strike an apex of the apices of the stairs,

  On every step bunches of ages, and larger bunches between the

  steps,

  All below duly traveled—and still I mount and mount.

  Rise after rise bow the phantoms behind me,

  Afar down I see the huge first Nothing, the vapor from the nostrils

  of death,

  I know I was even there .... I waited unseen and always,

  And slept while God carried me through the lethargic mist,

  And took my time .... and took no hurt from the foetid

  carbon.28

  Long I was hugged close .... long and long.

  Immense have been the preparations for me,

  Faithful and friendly the arms that have helped me.

  Cycles ferried my cradle, rowing and rowing like cheerful

  boatmen;

  For room to me st
ars kept aside in their own rings,

  They sent influences to look after what was to hold me.

  Before I was born out of my mother generations guided me,

  My embryo has never been torpid .... nothing could overlay it;

  For it the nebula cohered to an orb .... the long slow strata piled

  to rest it on .... vast vegetables gave it sustenance,

  Monstrous sauroids transported it in their mouths and deposited it

  with care.

  All forces have been steadily employed to complete and delight me,

  Now I stand on this spot with my soul.

  Span of youth! Ever-pushed elasticity! Manhood balanced and florid and full!

  My lovers suffocate me!

  Crowding my lips, and thick in the pores of my skin,

  Jostling me through streets and public halls .... coming naked to

  me at night,

  Crying by day Ahoy from the rocks of the river .... swinging and

  chirping over my head,

  Calling my name from flowerbeds or vines or tangled underbrush,

  Or while I swim in the bath .... or drink from the pump at the

  corner .... or the curtain is down at the opera .... or I

  glimpse at a woman’s face in the railroad car;

  Lighting on every moment of my life,

  Bussing my body with soft and balsamic busses,

  Noiselessly passing handfuls out of their hearts and giving them to

  be mine.

  Old age superbly rising! Ineffable grace of dying days!

  Every condition promulges not only itself .... it promulges what

  grows after and out of itself,

  And the dark hush promulges as much as any.

  I open my scuttle at night and see the far-sprinkled systems,

  And all I see, multiplied as high as I can cipher, edge but the rim

  of the farther systems.

  Wider and wider they spread, expanding and always expanding,

  Outward and outward and forever outward.

  My sun has his sun, and round him obediently wheels,

  He joins with his partners a group of superior circuit,

  And greater sets follow, making specks of the greatest inside them.

  There is no stoppage, and never can be stoppage;

  If I and you and the worlds and all beneath or upon their

  surfaces, and all the palpable life, were this moment reduced

  back to a pallid float, it would not avail in the long run,

  We should surely bring up again where we now stand,

  And as surely go as much farther, and then farther and farther.

  A few quadrillions of eras, a few octillions of cubic leagues, do

  not hazard the span, or make it impatient,

  They are but parts .... any thing is but a part.

  See ever so far .... there is limitless space outside of that,

  Count ever so much .... there is limitless time around that.

  Our rendezvous is fitly appointed .... God will be there and wait

  till we come.

  I know I have the best of time and space—and that I was never

  measured, and never will be measured.

  I tramp a perpetual journey,

  My signs are a rain-proof coat and good shoes and a staff cut from

  the woods;

  No friend of mine takes his ease in my chair,

  I have no chair, nor church nor philosophy;

  I lead no man to a dinner-table or library or exchange,

  But each man and each woman of you I lead upon a

  knoll,

  My left hand hooks you round the waist,

  My right hand points to landscapes of continents, and a plain

  public road.

  Not I, not any one else can travel that road for you,

  You must travel it for yourself.

  It is not far .... it is within reach,

  Perhaps you have been on it since you were born, and did not

  know,

  Perhaps it is every where on water and on land.

  Shoulder your duds, and I will mine, and let us hasten forth;

  Wonderful cities and free nations we shall fetch as we go.

  If you tire, give me both burdens, and rest the chuff of your hand

  on my hip,

  And in due time you shall repay the same service to me;

  For after we start we never lie by again.

  This day before dawn I ascended a hill and looked at the crowded

  heaven,

  And I said to my spirit, When we become the enfolders of those

  orbs and the pleasure and knowledge of every thing in them,

  shall we be filled and satisfied then?

  And my spirit said No, we level that lift to pass and continue

  beyond.

  You are also asking me questions, and I hear you;

  I answer that I cannot answer .... you must find out for yourself.

  Sit awhile wayfarer,

  Here are biscuits to eat and here is milk to drink,

  But as soon as you sleep and renew yourself in sweet clothes I will

  certainly kiss you with my goodbye kiss and open the gate for

  your egress hence.

  Long enough have you dreamed contemptible dreams,

  Now I wash the gum from your eyes,

  You must habit yourself to the dazzle of the light and of every

  moment of your life.

  Long have you timidly waded, holding a plank by the shore,

  Now I will you to be a bold swimmer,

  To jump off in the midst of the sea, and rise again and nod to me

  and shout, and laughingly dash with your hair.

  I am the teacher of athletes,

  He that by me spreads a wider breast than my own proves the

  width of my own,

  He most honors my style who learns under it to destroy the

  teacher.

  The boy I love, the same becomes a man not through derived

  power but in his own right,

  Wicked, rather than virtuous out of conformity or fear,

  Fond of his sweetheart, relishing well his steak,

  Unrequited love or a slight cutting him worse than a wound cuts,

  First rate to ride, to fight, to hit the bull’s eye, to sail a skiff, to

  sing a song or play on the banjo,

  Preferring scars and faces pitted with smallpox over all latherers

  and those that keep out of the sun.

  I teach straying from me, yet who can stray from me?

  I follow you whoever you are from the present hour;

  My words itch at your ears till you understand them.

  I do not say these things for a dollar, or to fill up the time while I

  wait for a boat;

  It is you talking just as much as myself .... I act as the tongue

  of you,

  It was tied in your mouth .... in mine it begins to be loosened.

  I swear I will never mention love or death inside a house,

  And I swear I never will translate myself at all, only to him or her

  who privately stays with me in the open air.

  If you would understand me go to the heights or water-shore,

  The nearest gnat is an explanation and a drop or the motion of

  waves a key,

  The maul the oar and the handsaw second my words.

  No shuttered room or school can commune with me,

  But roughs and little children better than they.

  The young mechanic is closest to me .... he knows me pretty well,

  The woodman that takes his axe and jug with him shall take me

  with him all day,

  The farmboy ploughing in the field feels good at the sound of my

  voice,

  In vessels that sail my words must sail .... I go with fishermen

  and seamen, and love the
m,

  My face rubs to the hunter’s face when he lies down alone in his

  blanket,

  The driver thinking of me does not mind the jolt of his wagon,

  The young mother and old mother shall comprehend me,

  The girl and the wife rest the needle a moment and forget where

  they are,

  They and all would resume what I have told them.

  I have said that the soul is not more than the body,

  And I have said that the body is not more than the soul,

  And nothing, not God, is greater to one than one‘s-self is,

  And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own

  funeral, dressed in his shroud,

  And I or you pocketless of a dime may purchase the pick of the

  earth,

  And to glance with an eye or show a bean in its pod confounds

  the learning of all times,

  And there is no trade or employment but the young man

  following it may become a hero,

  And there is no object so soft but it makes a hub for the wheeled

  universe,

  And any man or woman shall stand cool and supercilious before

  a million universes.

  And I call to mankind, Be not curious about God,

  For I who am curious about each am not curious about God,

  No array of terms can say how much I am at peace about God

  and about death.

  I hear and behold God in every object, yet I understand God not

  in the least,

  Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself.

  Why should I wish to see God better than this day?

  I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each

  moment then,

  In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in

  the glass;

  I find letters from God dropped in the street, and every one is

  signed by God’s name,

  And I leave them where they are, for I know that others will