Leaves of Grass: First and Death-Bed Editions

by Walt Whitman

  Swim the delicate sisters the Pleiades.

  From the beach the child holding the hand of her father,

  Those burial-clouds that lower victorious soon to devour all,

  Watching, silently weeps.

  Weep not, child,

  Weep not, my darling,

  With these kisses let me remove your tears,

  The ravening clouds shall not long be victorious,

  They shall not long possess the sky, they devour the stars only in

  apparition,

  Jupiter shall emerge, be patient, watch again another night, the

  Pleiades shall emerge,

  They are immortal, all those stars both silvery and golden shall

  shine out again,

  The great stars and the little ones shall shine out again, they

  endure,

  The vast immortal suns and the long-enduring pensive moons

  shall again shine.

  Then dearest child mournest thou only for Jupiter?

  Considerest thou alone the burial of the stars?

  Something there is,

  (With my lips soothing thee, adding I whisper,

  I give thee the first suggestion, the problem and indirection,)

  Something there is more immortal even than the stars,

  (Many the burials, many the days and nights, passing away,)

  Something that shall endure longer even than lustrous Jupiter,

  Longer than sun or any revolving satellite,

  Or the radiant sisters the Pleiades.

  THE WORLD BELOW THE BRINE

  The world below the brine,

  Forests at the bottom of the sea, the branches and leaves,

  Sea-lettuce, vast lichens, strange flowers and seeds, the thick

  tangle, openings, and pink turf,

  Different colors, pale gray and green, purple, white, and gold, the

  play of light through the water,

  Dumb swimmers there among the rocks, coral, gluten, grass,

  rushes, and the aliment of the swimmers,

  Sluggish existences grazing there suspended, or slowly crawling

  close to the bottom,

  The sperm-whale at the surface blowing air and spray, or

  disporting with his flukes,

  The leaden-eyed shark, the walrus, the turtle, the hairy sea

  leopard, and the sting-ray,

  Passions there, wars, pursuits, tribes, sight in those ocean-depths,

  breathing that thick-breathing air, as so many do,

  The change thence to the sight here, and to the subtle air

  breathed by beings like us who walk this sphere,

  The change onward from ours to that of beings who walk other

  spheres.

  ON THE BEACH AT NIGHT ALONE

  On the beach at night alone,

  As the old mother sways her to and fro singing her husky song,

  As I watch the bright stars shining, I think a thought of the clef of

  the universes and of the future.53

  A vast similitude interlocks all,

  All spheres, grown, ungrown, small, large, suns, moons, planets,

  All distances of place however wide,

  All distances of time, all inanimate forms,

  All souls, all living bodies though they be ever so different, or in

  different worlds,

  All gaseous, watery, vegetable, mineral processes, the fishes, the

  brutes,

  All nations, colors, barbarisms, civilizations, languages,

  All identities that have existed or may exist on this globe, or any

  globe,

  All lives and deaths, all of the past, present, future,

  This vast similitude spans them, and always has spann‘d,

  And shall forever span them and compactly hold and enclose

  them.

  SONG FOR ALL SEAS, ALL SHIPS

  -1-

  To-day a rude brief recitative,

  Of ships sailing the seas, each with its special flag or ship-signal,

  Of unnamed heroes in the ships-of waves spreading and

  spreading far as the eye can reach,

  Of dashing spray, and the winds piping and blowing,

  And out of these a chant for the sailors of all nations,

  Fitful, like a surge.

  Of sea-captains young or old, and the mates, and of all intrepid

  sailors,

  Of the few, very choice, taciturn, whom fate can never surprise

  nor death dismay,

  Pick’d sparingly without noise by thee old ocean, chosen by thee,

  Thou sea that pickest and cullest the race in time, and unitest

  nations,

  Suckled by thee, old husky nurse, embodying thee,

  Indomitable, untamed as thee.

  (Ever the heroes on water or on land, by ones or twos appearing,

  Ever the stock preserv’d and never lost, though rare, enough for

  seed preserv’d.)

  -2-

  Flaunt out O sea your separate flags of nations!

  Flaunt out visible as ever the various ship-signals!

  But do you reserve especially for yourself and for the soul of man

  one flag above all the rest,

  A spiritual woven signal for all nations, emblem of man elate

  above death,

  Token of all brave captains and all intrepid sailors and mates,

  And all that went down doing their duty,

  Reminiscent of them, twined from all intrepid captains young

  or old,

  A pennant universal, subtly waving all time, o‘er all brave sailors,

  All seas, all ships.

  PATROLING BARNEGATbm

  Wild, wild the storm, and the sea high running,

  Steady the roar of the gale, with incessant undertone muttering,

  Shouts of demoniac laughter fitfully piercing and pealing,

  Waves, air, midnight, their savagest trinity lashing,

  Out in the shadows there milk-white combs careering,

  On beachy slush and sand spirts of snow fierce slanting,

  Where through the murk the easterly death-wind breasting,

  Through cutting swirl and spray watchful and firm advancing,

  (That in the distance! is that a wreck? is the red signal flaring?)

  Slush and sand of the beach tireless till daylight wending,

  Steadily, slowly, through hoarse roar never remitting,

  Along the midnight edge by those milk-white combs careering,

  A group of dim, weird forms, struggling, the night confronting,

  That savage trinity warily watching.

  AFTER THE SEA-SHIP

  After the sea-ship, after the whistling winds,

  After the white-gray sails taut to their spars and ropes,

  Below, a myriad myriad waves hastening, lifting up their necks,

  Tending in ceaseless flow toward the track of the ship,

  Waves of the ocean bubbling and gurgling, blithely prying,

  Waves, undulating waves, liquid, uneven, emulous waves,

  Toward that whirling current, laughing and buoyant, with curves,

  Where the great vessel sailing and tacking displaced the surface,

  Larger and smaller waves in the spread of the ocean yearnfully

  flowing,

  The wake of the sea-ship after she passes, flashing and frolicsome

  under the sun,

  A motley procession with many a fleck of foam and many

  fragments,

  Following the stately and rapid ship, in the wake following.

  BY THE ROADSIDE

  A BOSTON BALLAD (1854)54

  To get betimes in Boston town I rose this morning early,

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

  Clear the way there Jonathan!

  Way for the President’s marshal—way for the government


  cannon!

  Way for the Federal foot and dragoons, (and the apparitions

  copiously tumbling.)

  I love to look on the Stars and Stripes, I hope the fifes will play

  Yankee Doodle.

  How bright shine the cutlasses of the foremost troops!

  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 indeed a show—it has called the dead out of the earth!

  The old graveyards of the hills have hurried to see!

  Phantoms! phantoms countless by flank and rear!

  Cock’d hats of mothy mould—crutches made of mist!

  Arms in slings—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 toss’d arms, and let

  your white hair be,

  Here gape your great grandsons, their wives gaze at them from the

  windows,

  See how well dress‘d, 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!

  To your graves—back—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, go with a cart to the

  royal vault,

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

  clothes, box up his bones for a journey,

  Find a swift Yankee clipper—here is freight for you, black-bellied

  clipper,

  Up with your anchor—shake out your sails—steer straight toward

  Boston bay.

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

  government cannon,

  Fetch home the roarers from Congress, make another procession,

  guard it with foot and dragoons.

  This centre-piece for them;

  Look, all orderly citizens—look from the windows, women!

  The committee open the box, set up the regal ribs, glue those that

  will not stay,

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

  skull.

  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.

  EUROPE, THE 72D AND 73D YEARS OF THESE STATES55

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

  Like lightning it 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 dose of exiled patriots’ lives!

  O many a sicken’d 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 laugh’d at

  in the breaking,

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

  or the heads of the nobles fall;

  The People scorn’d the ferocity of kings.

  But the sweetness of mercy brew’d bitter destruction, and the

  frighten’d monarchs come back,

  Each comes in state with his train, hangman, priest, tax-

  gatherer,

  Soldier, lawyer, lord, jailer, and sycophant.

  Yet behind all lowering stealing, 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 crook’d 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 pierc’d 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 murder’d 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 HAND-MIRROR56

  Hold it up sternly-see this it sends back, (who is it? is it you?)

  Outside fair costume, within ashes and filth,

  No more a flashing eye, no more a sonorous voice or springy step,

  Now some slave’s eye, voice, hands, step,

  A drunkard’s breath, unwholesome eater’s face, venerealee’s

  flesh,

  Lungs rotting away piecemeal, stomach sour and cankerous,

  Joints rheumatic, bowels clogged with abomination,

  Blood circulating dark and poisonous streams,

  Words babble, hearing and touch callous,

  No brain, no heart left, no magnetism of sex;

  Such from one look in this looking-glass ere you go hence,

  Such a result so soon—and from such a beginning!

  GODS57

  Lover divine and perfect Comrade,

  Waiting content, invisible yet, but certain,

  Be thou my God.

  Thou, thou, the Ideal Man,

  Fair, able, beautiful, content, and loving,

  Complete in body and dilate in spirit,

  Be thou my God.

  O Death, (for Life has served its turn,)

  Opener and usher to the heavenly mansion,

  Be thou my God.

  Aught, aught of mightiest, best I see, conceive, or know,

  (To break the stagnant tie—thee, thee to free, O soul,)

  Be thou my God.

  All great ideas, the races’ aspirations,

  All heroisms, deeds of rapt enthusiasts,

  Be ye my Gods.

  Or Time and Space,

  Or shap
e of Earth divine and wondrous,

  Or some fair shape I viewing, worship,

  Or lustrous orb of sun or star by night,

  Be ye my Gods.

  GERMS

  Forms, qualities, lives, humanity, language, thoughts,

  The ones known, and the ones unknown, the ones on the stars,

  The stars themselves, some shaped, others unshaped,

  Wonders as of those countries, the soil, trees, cities, inhabitants,

  whatever they may be,

  Splendid suns, the moons and rings, the countless combinations

  and effects,

  Such-like, and as good as such-like, visible here or anywhere,

  stand provided for in a handful of space, which I extend my

  arm and half enclose with my hand,

  That containing the start of each and all, the virtue, the germs

  of all.

  THOUGHTS

  Of ownership—as if one fit to own things could not at pleasure

  enter upon all, and incorporate them into himself or herself;

  Of vista—suppose some sight in arriere through the formative

  chaos, presuming the growth, fulness, life, now attain’d on

  the journey,

  (But I see the road continued, and the journey ever continued;)

  Of what was once lacking on earth, and in due time has become

  supplied—and of what will yet be supplied,

  Because all I see and know I believe to have its main purport in

  what will vet be supplied.

  WHEN I HEARD THE LEARN’D ASTRONOMER

  When I heard the learn’d astronomer,

  When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns

  before me,

  When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and

  measure them,

  When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with

  much applause in the lecture-room,