Leaves of Grass: First and Death-Bed Editions

by Walt Whitman

  inch as good as myself.

  The Lord advances and yet advances:

  Always the shadow in front .... always the reached hand bringing

  up the laggards.

  Out of this face emerge banners and horses .... O superb! .... I

  see what is coming,

  I see the high pioneercaps .... I see the staves of runners clearing

  the way,

  I hear victorious drums.

  This face is a lifeboat;

  This is the face commanding and bearded .... it asks no odds of

  the rest;

  This face is flavored 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 or

  black, all are 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 fullgrown lily’s face,

  She speaks to the limber-hip’d man near the garden pickets,

  Come here, she blushingly cries .... Come nigh to me limber

  hip’d man and give me your finger and thumb,

  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.

  The old face of the mother of many children:

  Whist! I am fully content.

  Lulled and late is the smoke of the Sabbath morning,

  It hangs low over the rows of trees by the fences,

  It hangs thin by the sassafras, the wildcherry and the catbrier

  under them.

  I saw the rich ladies in full dress at the soiree,

  I heard what the run of poets were saying 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 farm-

  house,

  The sun just shines on her old white head.

  Her ample gown is of creamhued linen,

  Her grandsons raised the flax, and her granddaughters 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!

  [Song of the Answerer]

  A YOUNG man came to me with 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 and animals,

  The profound earth and its attributes, and the unquiet ocean,

  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 any body.

  He puts things in their attitudes,

  He puts today out of himself with plasticity and love,

  He places his own city, times, reminiscences, parents, brothers and

  sisters, associations employment and 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 passkey 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 favors by day or sleeps with at night is blessed.

  Every existence has its idiom .... every thing 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 Cudgeab that hoes in the

  sugarfield;

  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 captain .... 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 laborers perceive he could labor with them and love them;

  No matter what the work is, that he is 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 traveler’s coffeehouse 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 deckhand on the great lakes or on the Mississippi or St. Lawrence or Sacramento or Hudson or Delaware 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.

  You think it wou
ld be good to be the writer of melodious verses,

  Well it would be good to be the writer of melodious verses;

  But what are verses beyond the flowing character you could

  have? .... or beyond beautiful manners and behaviour?

  Or beyond one manly or affectionate deed of an

  apprenticeboy? .... or old woman? .. or man that has been

  in prison or is likely to be in prison?

  [Europe, The 72d and 73d Years of These States]43

  SUDDENLY out of its stale and drowsy lair, the lair of slaves,

  Like lightning Europe le‘pt forth .... half startled at itself,

  Its feet upon the ashes and the rags .... Its hands tight to the

  throats of kings.

  O hope and faith! O aching close of lives! O many a sickened heart!

  Turn back unto this day, and make yourselves afresh.

  And you, paid to defile the People .... you liars mark:

  Not for numberless agonies, murders, lusts,

  For court thieving in its manifold mean forms,

  Worming from his simplicity the poor man’s wages;

  For many a promise sworn by royal lips, and broken, and laughed

  at in the breaking,

  Then in their power not for all these did the blows strike of

  personal revenge .. or the heads of the nobles fall;

  The People scorned the ferocity of kings.

  But the sweetness of mercy brewed bitter destruction, and the

  frightened rulers come back:

  Each comes in state with his train .... hangman, priest and tax

  gatherer .... soldier, lawyer, jailer and sycophant.

  Yet behind all, lo, a Shape,

  Vague as the night, draped interminably, head front and form in

  scarlet folds,

  Whose face and eyes none may see,

  Out of its robes only this .... the red robes, lifted by the arm,

  One finger pointed high over the top, like the head of a snake

  appears.

  Meanwhile corpses lie in new-made graves .... bloody corpses of

  young men:

  The rope of the gibbet hangs heavily .... the bullets of princes

  are flying .... the creatures of power laugh aloud,

  And all these things bear fruits .... and they are good.

  Those corpses of young men,

  Those martyrs that hang from the gibbets ... those hearts pierced

  by the gray lead,

  Cold and motionless as they seem .. live elsewhere with

  unslaughter’d vitality.

  They live in other young men, 0 kings,

  They live in brothers, again ready to defy you:

  They were purified by death .... they were taught and exalted.

  Not a grave of the murdered for freedom but grows seed for

  freedom .... in its turn to bear seed,

  Which the winds carry afar and re-sow, and the rains and the

  snows nourish.

  Not a disembodied spirit can the weapons of tyrants let loose,

  But it stalks invisibly over the earth .. whispering counseling

  cautioning.

  Liberty let others despair of you .... I never despair of you.

  Is the house shut? Is the master away?

  Nevertheless be ready .... be not weary of watching,

  He will soon return .... his messengers come anon.

  [A Boston Ballad]44

  CLEAR the way there Jonathan! ac

  Way for the President’s marshal! Way for the government

  cannon!

  Way for the federal foot and dragoons .... and the phantoms

  afterward.

  I rose this morning early to get betimes in Boston town;

  Here’s a good place at the corner .... I must stand and see the

  show.

  I love to look on the stars and stripes .... I hope the fifes will play Yankee Doodle.

  How bright shine the foremost with cutlasses,

  Every man holds his revolver .... marching stiff through Boston

  town.

  A fog follows .... antiques of the same come limping,

  Some appear wooden-legged and some appear bandaged and

  bloodless.

  Why this is a show! It has called the dead out of the earth,

  The old graveyards of the hills have hurried to see;

  Uncountable phantoms gather by flank and rear of it,

  Cocked hats of mothy mould and crutches made of mist,

  Arms in slings and old men leaning on young men’s shoulders.

  What troubles you, Yankee phantoms? What is all this chattering

  of bare gums?

  Does the ague convulse your limbs? Do you mistake your

  crutches for firelocks, and level them?

  If you blind your eyes with tears you will not see the President’s

  marshal,

  If you groan such groans you might balk the government

  cannon.

  For shame old maniacs! .... Bring down those tossed arms, and

  let your white hair be;

  Here gape your smart grandsons .... their wives gaze at them

  from the windows,

  See how well-dressed .... see how orderly they conduct

  themselves.

  Worse and worse .... Can’t you stand it? Are you retreating?

  Is this hour with the living too dead for you?

  Retreat then! Pell-mell! .... Back to the hills, old limpers!

  I do not think you belong here anyhow.

  But there is one thing that belongs here .... Shall I tell you what it is, gentlemen of Boston?

  I will whisper it to the Mayor .... he shall send a committee to

  England,

  They shall get a grant from the Parliament, and go with a cart to

  the royal vault.

  Dig out King George’s coffin .... unwrap him quick from the

  graveclothes .... box up his bones for a journey:

  Find a swift Yankee clipper .... here is freight for you

  blackbellied clipper,

  Up with your anchor! shake out your sails! .... steer straight

  toward Boston bay.

  Now call the President’s marshal again, and bring out the

  government cannon,

  And fetch home the roarers from Congress, and make another

  procession and guard it with foot and dragoons.

  “Out of the mines”—About 41 years old, c.1860, photo probably taken by

  J. W. Black in Boston, Massachusetts. Courtesy of the Bayley-Whitman

  Collection of Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, Ohio, and the Walt

  Whitman Birthplace Association, Huntington, New York. Saunders #2.

  Here is a centrepiece for them:

  Look! all orderly citizens .... look from the windows women.

  The committee open the box and set up the regal ribs and glue

  those that will not stay,

  And clap the skull on top of the ribs, and clap a crown on top of

  the skull.45

  You have got your revenge old buster! .... The crown is come to its own and more than its own.

  Stick your hands in your pockets Jonathan .... you are a made

  man from this day,

  You are mighty cute .... and here is one of your bargains.

  [There Was a Child Went Forth]

  THERE was a child went forth every day,

  And the first object he looked upon and received with wonder or

  pity or love or dread, that object he became,

  And that object became part of him for the day or a certain part

  of the day .... or for many years or stretching cycles of years.

  The early lilacs became part of this child,

  And grass, and white and red morningglories, and white and red

  clover, and the song of the phœbe-bird,

  And the March-
born lambs, and the sow’s pink-faint litter, and the

  mare’s foal, and the cow’s calf, and the noisy brood of the

  barnyard or by the mire of the pondside .. and the fish

  suspending themselves so curiously below there .. and the

  beautiful curious liquid .. and the water-plants with their

  graceful flat heads .. all became part of him.

  And the field-sprouts of April and May became part of him ....

  wintergrain sprouts, and those of the light-yellow corn, and of

  the esculent roots of the garden,

  And the appletrees covered with blossoms, and the fruit

  afterward .... and woodberries .. and the commonest weeds

  by the road;

  And the old drunkard staggering home from the outhouse of the

  tavern whence he had lately risen,

  And the schoolmistress that passed on her way to the school ..

  and the friendly boys that passed .. and the quarrelsome

  boys .. and the tidy and freshcheeked girls .. and the barefoot

  negro boy and girl,

  And all the changes of city and country wherever he went.

  His own parents .. he that had propelled the fatherstuff at night,

  and fathered him .. and she that conceived him in her womb

  and birthed him .... they gave this child more of themselves

  than that,

  They gave him afterward every day .... they and of them became

  part of him.

  The mother at home quietly placing the dishes on the

  suppertable,

  The mother with mild words .... clean her cap and gown .... a

  wholesome odor falling off her person and clothes as she

  walks by:

  The father, strong, selfsufficient, manly, mean, angered,

  unjust,

  The blow, the quick loud word, the tight bargain, the crafty