Leaves of Grass: First and Death-Bed Editions

by Walt Whitman

  Toward the fluid and attaching character exudes the sweat of the

  love of young and old,

  From it falls distill’d the charm that mocks beauty and

  attainments,

  Toward it heaves the shuddering longing ache of contact.

  -9-

  Allons! whoever you are come travel with me!

  Traveling with me you find what never tires.

  The earth never tires,

  The earth is rude, silent, incomprehensible at first, Nature is rude

  and incomprehensible at first,

  Be not discouraged, keep on, there are divine things well envelop‘d,

  I swear to you there are divine things more beautiful than words

  can tell.

  Allons! we must not stop here,

  However sweet these laid-up stores, however convenient this

  dwelling we cannot remain here,

  However shelter’d this port and however calm these waters we

  must not anchor here,

  However welcome the hospitality that surrounds us we are

  permitted to receive it but a little while.

  -10 -

  Allons ! the inducements shall be greater,

  We will sail pathless and wild seas,

  We will go where winds blow, waves dash, and the Yankee clipper

  speeds by under full sail.

  Allons! with power, liberty, the earth, the elements,

  Health, defiance, gayety, self-esteem, curiosity;

  Allons! from all formules!

  From your formules, O bat-eyed and materialistic priests.

  The stale cadaver blocks up the passage—the burial waits no longer.

  Allons! yet take warning!

  He traveling with me needs the best blood, thews, endurance,

  None may come to the trial till he or she bring courage and

  health,

  Come not here if you have already spent the best of yourself,

  Only those may come who come in sweet and determin’d bodies,

  No diseas’d person, no rum-drinker or venereal taint is permitted

  here.

  (I and mine do not convince by arguments, similes, rhymes,

  We convince by our presence.)

  -11-

  Listen ! I will be honest with you,

  I do not offer the old smooth prizes, but offer rough new prizes,

  These are the days that must happen to you:

  You shall not heap up what is call’d riches,

  You shall scatter with lavish hand all that you earn or achieve,

  You but arrive at the city to which you were destin‘d, you hardly

  settle yourself to satisfaction before you are call’d by an

  irresistible call to depart,

  You shall be treated to the ironical smiles and mockings of those

  who remain behind you,

  What beckonings of love you receive you shall only answer with

  passionate kisses of parting,

  You shall not allow the hold of those who spread their reach’d

  hands toward you.

  —12—

  Allons! after the great Companions, and to belong to them!

  They too are on the road—they are the swift and majestic men—

  they are the greatest women,

  Enjoyers of calms of seas and storms of seas,

  Sailors of many a ship, walkers of many a mile of land,

  Habitués of many distant countries, habitués of far-distant

  dwellings,

  Trusters of men and women, observers of cities, solitary toilers,

  Pausers and contemplators of tufts, blossoms, shells of the shore,

  Dancers at wedding-dances, kissers of brides, tender helpers of

  children, bearers of children,

  Soldiers of revolts, standers by gaping graves, lowerers-down of

  coffins,

  Journeyers over consecutive seasons, over the years, the curious

  years each emerging from that which preceded it,

  Journeyers as with companions, namely their own diverse phases,

  Forth-steppers from the latent unrealized baby-days,

  Journeyers gayly with their own youth, journeyers with their

  bearded and well-grain’d manhood,

  Journeyers with their womanhood, ample, unsurpass‘d, content,

  Journeyers with their own sublime old age of manhood or

  womanhood,

  Old age, calm, expanded, broad with the haughty breadth of the

  universe,

  Old age, flowing free with the delicious near-by freedom of

  death.

  -13-

  Allons ! to that which is endless as it was beginningless,

  To undergo much, tramps of days, rests of nights,

  To merge all in the travel they tend to, and the days and nights

  they tend to,

  Again to merge them in the start of superior journeys,

  To see nothing anywhere but what you may reach it and

  pass it,

  To conceive no time, however distant, but what you may reach it

  and pass it,

  To look up or down no road but it stretches and waits for you,

  however long but it stretches and waits for you,

  To see no being, not God’s or any, but you also go thither,

  To see no possession but you may possess it, enjoying all without

  labor or purchase, abstracting the feast yet not abstracting one

  particle of it,

  To take the best of the farmer’s farm and the rich man’s elegant

  villa, and the chaste blessings of the well-married couple, and

  the fruits of orchards and flowers of gardens,

  To take to your use out of the compact cities as you pass

  through,

  To carry buildings and streets with you afterward wherever

  you go,

  To gather the minds of men out of their brains as you encounter

  them, to gather the love out of their hearts,

  To take your lovers on the road with you, for all that you leave

  them behind you,

  To know the universe itself as a road, as many roads, as roads for

  traveling souls.

  All parts away for the progress of souls,

  All religion, all solid things, arts, governments—all that was or is

  apparent upon this globe or any globe, falls into niches and

  corners before the procession of souls along the grand roads

  of the universe.

  Of the progress of the souls of men and women along the grand roads of the universe, all other progress is the needed emblem and sustenance.

  Forever alive, forever forward,

  Stately, solemn, sad, withdrawn, baffled, mad, turbulent, feeble,

  dissatisfied,

  Desperate, proud, fond, sick, accepted by men, rejected by

  men,

  They go! they go! I know that they go, but I know not where

  they go,

  But I know that they go toward the best—toward something great.

  Whoever you are, come forth! or man or woman come forth!

  You must not stay sleeping and dallying there in the house,

  though you built it, or though it has been built for you.

  Out of the dark confinement! out from behind the screen!

  It is useless to protest, I know all and expose it.

  Behold through you as bad as the rest,

  Through the laughter, dancing, dining, supping, of people,

  Inside of dresses and ornaments, inside of those wash’d and

  trimm’d faces,

  Behold a secret silent loathing and despair.

  No husband, no wife, no friend, trusted to hear the confession,

  Another self, a duplicate of every one, skulking and hiding it

  goes,

  Form
less and wordless through the streets of the cities, polite and

  bland in the parlors,

  In the cars of railroads, in steamboats, in the public assembly,

  Home to the houses of men and women, at the table, in the

  bedroom, everywhere,

  Smartly attired, countenance smiling, form upright, death under

  the breast-bones, hell under the skull-bones,

  Under the broadcloth and gloves, under the ribbons and artificial

  flowers,

  Keeping fair with the customs, speaking not a syllable of itself,

  Speaking of any thing else but never of itself.

  —14—

  Allons! through struggles and wars!

  The goal that was named cannot be countermanded.

  Have the past struggles succeeded?

  What has succeeded? yourself? your nation? Nature?

  Now understand me well—it is provided in the essence of

  things that from any fruition of success, no matter what,

  shall come forth something to make a greater struggle

  necessary.

  My call is the call of battle, I nourish active rebellion,

  He going with me must go well arm‘d,

  He going with me goes often with spare diet, poverty, angry

  enemies, desertions.

  —15—

  Allons ! the road is before us!

  It is safe—I have tried it—my own feet have tried it well—be not

  detain‘d!

  Let the paper remain on the desk unwritten, and the book on the

  shelf unopen’d!

  Let the tools remain in the workshop! let the money remain

  unearn‘d!

  Let the school stand! mind not the cry of the teacher!

  Let the preacher preach in his pulpit! let the lawyer plead in the

  court, and the judge expound the law.

  Camerado, I give you my hand!

  I give you my love more precious than money,

  I give you myself before preaching or law;

  Will you give me yourself? will you come travel with me?

  Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?

  CROSSING BROOKLYN FERRY34

  - 1 -

  Flood-tide below me! I see‘you face to face!

  Clouds of the west—sun there half an hour highaq—I see you also

  face to face.

  Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes, how

  curious you are to me!

  On the ferry-boats the hundreds and hundreds that cross,

  returning home, are more curious to me than you suppose,

  And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence are

  more to me, and more in my meditations, than you might

  suppose.

  - 2 -

  The impalpable sustenance of me from all things at all hours of

  the day,

  The simple, compact, well-join’d scheme, myself disintegrated,

  every one disintegrated yet part of the scheme,

  The similitudes of the past and those of the future,

  The glories strung like beads on my smallest sights and hearings,

  on the walk in the street and the passage over the river,

  The current rushing so swiftly and swimming with me far away,

  The others that are to follow me, the ties between me and them,

  The certainty of others, the life, love, sight, hearing of others.

  Others will enter the gates of the ferry and cross from shore to shore,

  Others will watch the run of the flood-tide,

  Others will see the shipping of Manhattan north and west, and

  the heights of Brooklyn to the south and east,

  Others will see the islands large and small;

  Fifty years hence, others will see them as they cross, the sun half

  an hour high,

  A hundred years hence, or ever so many hundred years hence,

  others will see them,

  Will enjoy the sunset, the pouring in of the flood-tide, the falling-

  back to the sea of the ebb-tide.

  —3—

  It avails not, time nor place-distance avails not,

  I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever so

  many generations hence,

  Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt,

  Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a crowd,

  Just as you are refresh’d by the gladness of the river and the bright

  flow, I was refresh‘d,

  Just as you stand and lean on the rail, yet hurry with the swift

  current, I stood yet was hurried,

  Just as you look on the numberless masts of ships and the thick-

  stemm’d pipes of steamboats, I look’d.

  I too many and many a time cross’d the river of old,

  Watched the Twelfth-month sea-gulls, saw them high in the air

  floating with motionless wings, oscillating their bodies,

  Saw how the glistening yellow lit up parts of their bodies and left

  the rest in strong shadow,

  Saw the slow-wheeling circles and the gradual edging toward the

  south,

  Saw the reflection of the summer sky in the water,

  Had my eyes dazzled by the shimmering track of beams,

  Look’d at the fine centrifugal spokes of light round the shape of

  my head in the sunlit water,ar

  Look’d on the haze on the hills southward and south-westward,

  Look’d on the vapor as it flew in fleeces tinged with violet,

  Look’d toward the lower bay to notice the vessels arriving,

  Saw their approach, saw aboard those that were near me,

  Saw the white sails of schooners and sloops, saw the ships at anchor,

  The sailors at work in the rigging or out astride the spars,

  The round masts, the swinging motion of the hulls, the slender

  serpentine pennants,

  The large and small steamers in motion, the pilots in their pilot-

  houses,

  The white wake left by the passage, the quick tremulous whirl of

  the wheels,

  The flags of all nations, the falling of them at sunset,

  The scallop-edged waves in the twilight, the ladled cups, the

  frolicsome crests and glistening,

  The stretch afar growing dimmer and dimmer, the gray walls of

  the granite storehouses by the docks,

  On the river the shadowy group, the big steam-tug closely flank’d

  on each side by the barges, the hay-boat, the belated lighter,

  On the neighboring shore the fires from the foundry chimneys

  burning high and glaringly into the night,

  Casting their flicker of black contrasted with wild red and yellow

  light over the tops of houses, and down into the clefts of streets.

  -4-

  These and all else were to me the same as they are to you,

  I loved well those cities, loved well the stately and rapid river,

  The men and women I saw were all near to me,

  Others the same—others who look back on me because I look’d

  forward to them,

  (The time will come, though I stop here to-day and to-night.)

  —5—

  What is it then between us?

  What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us?

  Whatever it is, it avails not—distance avails not, and place avails not,

  I too lived, Brooklyn of ample hills was mine,

  I too walk’d the streets of Manhattan island, and bathed in the

  waters around it,

  I too felt the curious abrupt questionings stir within me,

  In the day among crowds of people sometimes they came upon

  m
e,

  In my walks home late at night or as I lay in my bed they came

  upon me,

  I too had been struck from the float forever held in solution,

  I too had receiv’d identity by my body,

  That I was I knew was of my body, and what I should be I knew I

  should be of my body.

  -6-

  It is not upon you alone the dark patches fall,35

  The dark threw its patches down upon me also,

  The best I had done seem’d to me blank and suspicious,

  My great thoughts as I supposed them, were they not in reality

  meagre?

  Nor is it you alone who know what it is to be evil,

  I am he who knew what it was to be evil,

  I too knitted the old knot of contrariety,

  Blabb‘d, blush’d, resented, lied, stole, grudg‘d,

  Had guile, anger, lust, hot wishes I dared not speak,

  Was wayward, vain, greedy, shallow, sly, cowardly, malignant,

  The wolf, the snake, the hog, not wanting in me,

  The cheating look, the frivolous word, the adulterous wish, not

  wanting,

  Refusals, hates, postponements, meanness, laziness, none of these

  wanting,

  Was one with the rest, the days and haps of the rest,

  Was call’d by my nighest name by clear loud voices of young men

  as they saw me approaching or passing,

  Felt their arms on my neck as I stood, or the negligent leaning of

  their flesh against me as I sat,

  Saw many I loved in the street or ferry-boat or public assembly,

  yet never told them a word,

  Lived the same life with the rest, the same old laughing, gnawing,

  sleeping,

  Play’d the part that still looks back on the actor or actress,

  The same old role, the role that is what we make it, as great as

  we like,

  Or as small as we like, or both great and small.

  —7—

  Closer yet I approach you,

  What thought you have of me now, I had as much of you—I laid

  in my stores in advance,

  I consider’d long and seriously of you before you were born.

  Who was to know what should come home to me?

  Who knows but I am enjoying this?