Leaves of Grass: First and Death-Bed Editions

by Walt Whitman

  By the mechanic’s wife with her babe at her nipple interceding

  for every person born,

  Three scythes at harvest whizzing in a row from three lusty angels

  with shirts bagg’d out at their waists,

  The snag-tooth’d hostler with red hair redeeming sins past and to

  come,

  Selling all he possesses, traveling on foot to fee lawyers for his

  brother and sit by him while he is tried for forgery;

  What was strewn in the amplest strewing the square rod about

  me, and not filling the square rod then,

  The bull and the bug never worshipp’d half enough,

  Dung and dirt more admirable than was dream’d,

  The supernatural of no account, myself waiting my time to be

  one of the supremes,

  The day getting ready for me when I shall do as much good as the

  best, and be as prodigious;

  By my life-lumps! becoming already a creator,

  Putting myself here and now to the ambush’d womb of the

  shadows.

  -42-

  A call in the midst of the crowd,

  My own voice, orotund sweeping and final.

  Come my children,

  Come my boys and girls, my women, household and intimates,

  Now the performer launches his nerve, he has pass’d his prelude

  on the reeds within.

  Easily written loose finger’d chords—I feel the thrum of your climax and close.

  My head slues round on my neck,

  Music rolls, but not from the organ,

  Folks are around me, but they are no household of mine.

  Ever the hard unsunk ground,

  Ever the eaters and drinkers, ever the upward and downward sun,

  ever the air and the ceaseless tides,

  Ever myself and my neighbors, refreshing, wicked, real,

  Ever the old inexplicable query, ever that thorn’d thumb, that

  breath of itches and thirsts,

  Ever the vexer’s hoot! hoot! till we find where the sly one hides

  and bring him forth,

  Ever love, ever the sobbing liquid of life,

  Ever the bandage under the chin, ever the trestles of death.

  Here and there with dimes on the eyes walking,

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

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

  going,

  Many sweating, ploughing, 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, wars, markets,

  newspapers, schools,

  The mayor and councils, banks, tariffs, steamships, factories,

  stocks, stores, real estate and personal estate.

  The little plentiful manikins skipping around in collars and tail’d

  coats,

  I am aware who they are, (they are positively not worms or

  fleas,)

  I acknowledge the duplicates of myself, 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,

  Know my omnivorous lines and must not write any less,

  And would fetch you whoever you are flush with myself.

  Not words of routine this song of mine,

  But abruptly to question, to leap beyond yet nearer bring;

  This printed and bound book—but the printer and the printing-

  office boy?

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

  solid in your arms?

  The black ship mail’d with iron, her mighty guns in her turrets—

  but the pluck of the captain and engineers?

  In the houses 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, creeds, theology—but the fathomless human

  brain,

  And what is reason? and what is love? and what is life?

  —43—

  I do not despise you priests, all time, the world over,

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

  Enclosing 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 fetich of the first rock or stump, powowing with sticks

  in the circle of obis,

  Helping the llama 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,

  Drinking mead from the skull-cup, to Shastas 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 or the puritan’s prayer rising, or sitting

  patiently in a pew,

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

  my spirit arouses me,

  Looking forth on pavement and land, or 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, dishearten‘d,

  atheistical,

  I know every one of you, I know the sea of torment, doubt,

  despair and unbelief.

  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, me, all, precisely the same,

  And what is yet untried and afterward is for you, me, all, precisely

  the same.

  I do not know what is untried and afterward,

  But I know it will in its turn prove sufficient, and cannot fail.

  Each who passes is consider‘d, each who stops is consider’d, 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 peep’d 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 poor house tubercled by rum and the bad disorder,

  Nor the numberless slaughter’d and wreck‘d, nor the brutish

  koboo call’d 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 the myriads of

  myriads that inhabit them.

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

  —44—

  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?

  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, 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 accomplish‘d, 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 travel‘d, and still I mount and mount.

  Rise after rise bow the phantoms behind me,

  Afar down I see the huge first Nothing, I know I was even there,

  I waited unseen and always, and slept through the lethargic mist,

  And took my time, and took no hurt from the fetid carbon.

  Long I was hugg’d close—long and long.

  Immense have been the preparations for me,

  Faithful and friendly the arms that have help’d me.

  Cycles ferried my cradle, rowing and rowing like cheerful

  boatmen,

  For room to me stars 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 employ’d to complete and delight me,

  Now on this spot I stand with my robust soul.

  —45—

  O span of youth! ever-push’d elasticity!

  O manhood, balanced, florid and full.

  My lovers suffocate me,

  Crowding my lips, 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 flower-beds, vines, tangled underbrush,

  Lighting on every moment of my life,

  Bussing my body with soft balsamic busses,

  Noiselessly passing handfuls out of their hearts and giving them to

  be mine.

  Old age superbly rising! 0 welcome, 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, 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, you, and the worlds, and all beneath or upon their surfaces,

  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 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, anything 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.

  My rendezvous is appointed, it is certain,

  The Lord will be there and wait till I come on perfect terms,

  The great Camerado, the lover true for whom I pine will be there.13

  ―46―

  I know I have the best of time and space, and was never measured and never will be measured.

  I tramp a perpetual journey, (come listen all!)

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

  the woods,

  No friend of mine takes his ease in my chair,

  I have no chair, no church, no philosophy,

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

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

  My left hand hooking you round the waist,

  My right hand pointing to landscapes of continents and the

  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 everywhere on water and on land.

  Shoulder your duds dear son, 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 look’d 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 fill’d and satisfied then?

  And my spirit said No, we but 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 a while dear son,

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

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

  kiss you with a good-by kiss and open the gate for your egress

  hence.

  Long enough have you dream’d 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, rise again, nod to me, shout,

  and laughingly dash with your hair.

  47

  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 sharp steel

  cuts,<
br />
  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 the beard and faces pitted with small-pox

  over all latherers,

  And those well-tann’d to 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,

  Tied in your mouth, in mine it begins to be loosen’d.)

  I swear I will never again mention love or death inside a

  house,

  And I swear I will never 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 motion of waves

  a key,

  The maul, the oar, the hand-saw, second my words.

  No shutter’d 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 well,

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

  with him all day,

  The farm-boy ploughing in the field feels good at the sound of

  my voice,

  In vessels that sail my words sail, I go with fishermen and seamen

  and love them.

  The soldier camp’d or upon the march is mine,

  On the night ere the pending battle many seek me, and I do not

  fail them,

  On that solemn night (it may be their last) those that know me

  seek me.