Leaves of Grass: First and Death-Bed Editions

by Walt Whitman

The steam-power reaping-machines and the horse-power

  machines,

  The engines, thrashers of grain and cleaners of grain, well

  separating the straw, the nimble work of the patent

  pitchfork,

  Beholdest the newer saw-mill, the southern cotton-gin, and the

  rice-cleanser.

  Beneath thy look O Maternal,

  With these and else and with their own strong hands the heroes

  harvest.

  All gather and all harvest,

  Yet but for thee O Powerful, not a scythe might swing as now in

  security,

  Not a maize-stalk dangle as now its silken tassels in peace.

  Under thee only they harvest, even but a wisp of hay under thy

  great face only,

  Harvest the wheat of Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin, every barbed spear

  under thee,

  Harvest the maize of Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, each ear in

  its light-green sheath,

  Gather the hay to its myriad mows in the odorous tranquil

  barns,

  Oats to their bins, the white potato, the buckwheat of Michigan,

  to theirs;

  Gather the cotton in Mississippi or Alabama, dig and hoard

  the golden the sweet potato of Georgia and the Carolinas,

  Clip the wool of California or Pennsylvania,

  Cut the flax in the Middle States, or hemp or tobacco in the

  Borders,

  Pick the pea and the bean, or pull apples from the trees or

  bunches of grapes from the vines,

  Or aught that ripens in all these States or North or South,

  Under the beaming sun and under thee.

  THERE WAS A CHILD WENT FORTH

  There was a child went forth every day,

  And the first object he look’d upon, 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 morning-glories, and white and red

  clover, and the song of the phœbe-bird,

  And the Third-month 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 pond

  side,

  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.

  The field-sprouts of Fourth-month and Fifth-month became part

  of him,

  Winter-grain sprouts and those of the light-yellow corn, and the

  esculent roots of the garden,

  And the apple-trees cover’d with blossoms and the fruit afterward,

  and wood-berries, 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 pass’d on her way to the school,

  And the friendly boys that pass‘d, and the quarrelsome boys,

  And the tidy and fresh-cheek’d 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 father’d him and she that had

  conceiv’d him in her womb and birth’d him,

  They give this child more of themselves than that,

  They gave him afterward every day, they became part of him.

  The mother at home quietly placing the dishes on the supper-

  table,

  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, self-sufficient, manly, mean, anger‘d,

  unjust,

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

  lure,

  The family usages, the language, the company, the furniture, the

  yearning and swelling heart,

  Affection that will not be gainsay’d, the sense of what is real, the

  thought if after all it should prove unreal,

  The doubts of day-time and the doubts of night-time, the curious

  whether and how,

  Whether that which appears so is so, or is it all flashes and

  specks?

  Men and women crowding fast in the streets, if they are not

  flashes and specks what are they?

  The streets themselves and the façades of houses, and goods in

  the windows,

  Vehicles, teams, the heavy-plank’d wharves, the huge crossing at

  the ferries,

  The village on the highland seen from afar at sunset, the river

  between,

  Shadows, aureola and mist, the light falling on roofs and gables of

  white or brown two miles off,

  The schooner near by sleepily dropping down the tide, the little

  boat slack-tow’d astern,

  The hurrying tumbling waves, quick-broken crests, slapping,

  The strata of color’d clouds, the long bar of maroon-tint

  away solitary by itself, the spread of purity it lies

  motionless in,

  The horizon’s edge, the flying sea-crow, the fragrance of salt

  marsh and shore mud,

  These became part of that child who went forth every day, and

  who now goes, and will always go forth every day.

  OLD IRELAND78

  Far hence amid an isle of wondrous beauty,

  Crouching over a grave an ancient sorrowful mother,

  Once a queen, now lean and tatter’d seated on the ground,

  Her old white hair drooping dishevel’d round her shoulders,

  At her feet fallen an unused royal harp,

  Long silent, she too long silent, mourning her shrouded hope and

  heir,

  Of all the earth her heart most full of sorrow because most full

  of love.

  Yet a word ancient mother,

  You need crouch there no longer on the cold ground with

  forehead between your knees,

  O you need not sit there veil’d in your old white hair so

  dishevel‘d,

  For know you the one you mourn is not in that grave,

  It was an illusion, the son you love was not really dead,

  The Lord is not dead, he is risen again young and strong in

  another country,

  Even while you wept there by your fallen harp by the grave,

  What you wept for was translated, pass’d from the grave,

  The winds favor’d and the sea sail’d it,

  And now with rosy and new blood,

  Moves to-day in a new country.

  THE CITY DEAD-HOUSE

  By the city dead-house by the gate,

  As idly sauntering wending my way from the clangor,

  I curious pause, for lo, an outcast form, a poor dead prostitute

  brought,

  Her corpse they deposit unclaim‘d, it lies on the damp brick

  pavement,

  The divine woman, her body, I see the body, I look on it alone,

  That house once full of passion and beauty, all else I notice not,

  Nor stillness so cold, nor running water from faucet, nor odors

  morbific impress me,

  But the house alone—that wondrous house—that delicate fair

  house—that ruin!

  That immortal house more than all the rows of dwellings ever

  built!

  Or white-domed capitol with majestic figure surmounted, or all

  the old high-spi
red cathedrals,

  That little house alone more than them all—poor, desperate

  house!

  Fair, fearful wreck—tenement of a soul—itself a soul,

  Unclaim’d, avoided house—take one breath from my tremulous

  lips,

  Take one tear dropt aside as I go for thought of you,

  Dead house of love—house of madness and sin, crumbled,

  crush‘d,

  House of life, erewhile talking and laughing—but ah, poor house,

  dead even then,

  Months, years, an echoing, garnish’d house—but dead, dead,

  dead.

  THIS COMPOST

  -1-

  Something startles me where I thought I was safest,

  I withdraw from the still woods I loved,

  I will not go now on the pastures to walk,

  I will not strip the clothes from my body to meet my lover the sea,

  I will not touch my flesh to the earth as to other flesh to

  renew me.

  O how can it be that the ground itself does not sicken?

  How can you be alive you growths of spring?

  How can you furnish health you blood of herbs, roots, orchards,

  grain?

  Are they not continually putting distemper’d corpses within you?

  Is not every continent work’d over and over with sour dead?

  Where have you disposed of their carcasses?

  Those drunkards and gluttons of so many generations?

  Where have you drawn off all the foul liquid and meat?

  I do not see any of it upon you to-day, or perhaps I am deceiv‘d,

  I will run a furrow with my plough, I will press my spade through

  the sod and turn it up underneath,

  I am sure I shall expose some of the foul meat.

  -2-

  Behold this compost! behold it well!

  Perhaps every mite has once form’d part of a sick person—yet

  behold!

  The grass of spring covers the prairies,

  The bean bursts noiselessly through the mould in the garden,

  The delicate spear of the onion pierces upward,

  The apple-buds cluster together on the apple-branches,

  The resurrection of the wheat appears with pale visage out of its

  graves,

  The tinge awakes over the willow-tree and the mulberry-tree,

  The he-birds carol mornings and evenings while the she-birds sit

  on their nests,

  The young of poultry break through the hatch’d eggs,

  The new-born of animals appear, the calf is dropt from the cow,

  the colt from the mare,

  Out of its little hill faithfully rise the potato’s dark green leaves,

  Out of its hill rises the yellow maize-stalk, the lilacs bloom in the

  dooryards,

  The summer growth is innocent and disdainful above all those

  strata of sour dead.

  What chemistry!

  That the winds are really not infectious,

  That this is no cheat, this transparent green-wash of the sea which

  is so amorous after me,

  That it is safe to allow it to lick my naked body all over with its

  tongues,

  That it will not endanger me with the fevers that have deposited

  themselves in it,

  That all is clean forever and forever,

  That the cool drink from the well tastes so good,

  That blackberries are so flavorous and juicy,

  That the fruits of the apple-orchard and the orange-orchard, that

  melons, grapes, peaches, plums, will none of them poison me,

  That when I recline on the grass I do not catch any disease,

  Though probably every spear of grass rises out of what was once a

  catching disease.

  Now I am terrified at the Earth, it is that calm and patient,

  It grows such sweet things out of such corruptions,

  It turns harmless and stainless on its axis, with such endless

  successions of diseas’d corpses,

  It distills such exquisite winds out of such infused fetor,

  It renews with such unwitting looks its prodigal, annual,

  sumptuous crops,

  It gives such divine materials to men, and accepts such leavings

  from them at last.

  TO A FOIL’D EUROPEAN REVOLUTIONAIRE

  Courage yet, my brother or my sister!

  Keep on—Liberty is to be subserv’d whatever occurs;

  That is nothing that is quell’d by one or two failures, or any

  number of failures,

  Or by the indifference or ingratitude of the people, or by any

  unfaithfulness,

  Or the show of the tushes of power, soldiers, cannon, penal statutes.

  What we believe in waits latent forever through all the continents,

  Invites no one, promises nothing, sits in calmness and light, is

  positive and composed, knows no discouragement,

  Waiting patiently, waiting its time.

  (Not songs of loyalty alone are these,

  But songs of insurrection also,

  For I am the sworn poet of every dauntless rebel the world over,

  And he going with me leaves peace and routine behind him,

  And stakes his life to be lost at any moment.)

  The battle rages with many a loud alarm and frequent advance

  and retreat,

  The infidel triumphs, or supposes he triumphs,

  The prison, scaffold, garroté, handcuffs, iron necklace and lead

  balls do their work,

  The named and unnamed heroes pass to other spheres,

  The great speakers and writers are exiled, they lie sick in distant

  lands,

  The cause is asleep, the strongest throats are choked with their

  own blood,

  The young men droop their eyelashes toward the ground when

  they meet;

  But for all this Liberty has not gone out of the place, nor the

  infidel enter’d into full possession.

  When liberty goes out of a place it is not the first to go, nor the

  second or third to go,

  It waits for all the rest to go, it is the last.

  When there are no more memories of heroes and martyrs,

  And when all life and all the souls of men and women are

  discharged from any part of the earth,

  Then only shall liberty or the idea of liberty be discharged from

  that part of the earth,

  And the infidel come into full possession.

  Then courage European revolter, revoltress!

  For till all ceases neither must you cease.

  I do not know what you are for, (I do not know what I am for

  myself, nor what any thing is for,)

  But I will search carefully for it even in being foil‘d,

  In defeat, poverty, misconception, imprisonment—for they too

  are great.

  Did we think victory great?

  So it is—but now it seems to me, when it cannot be help‘d, that

  defeat is great,

  And that death and dismay are great.

  UNNAMED LANDS

  Nations ten thousand years before these States, and many times

  ten thousand years before these States,

  Garner’d clusters of ages that men and women like us grew up

  and travel’d their course and pass’d on,

  What vast-built cities, what orderly republics, what pastoral tribes

  and nomads,

  What histories, rulers, heroes, perhaps transcending all others,

  What laws, customs, wealth, arts, traditions,

  What sort of marriage, what costumes, what physiology and

  phrenology,

  What o
f liberty and slavery among them, what they thought of

  death and the soul,

  Who were witty and wise, who beautiful and poetic, who brutish

  and undevelop‘d,

  Not a mark, not a record remains—and yet all remains.

  O I know that those men and women were not for nothing, any

  more than we are for nothing,

  I know that they belong to the scheme of the world every bit as

  much as we now belong to it.

  Afar they stand, yet near to me they stand,

  Some with oval countenances learn’d and calm,

  Some naked and savage, some like huge collections of insects,

  Some in tents, herdsmen, patriarchs, tribes, horsemen,

  Some prowling through woods, some living peaceably on farms,

  laboring, reaping, filling barns,

  Some traversing paved avenues, amid temples, palaces, factories,

  libraries, shows, courts, theatres, wonderful monuments.

  Are those billions of men really gone?

  Are those women of the old experience of the earth gone?

  Do their lives, cities, arts, rest only with us?

  Did they achieve nothing for good for themselves?

  I believe of all those men and women that fill’d the unnamed

  lands, every one exists this hour here or elsewhere, invisible

  to us,

  In exact proportion to what he or she grew from in life, and out of

  what he or she did, felt, became, loved, sinn‘d, in life.

  I believe that was not the end of those nations or any person of

  them, any more than this shall be the end of my nation, or of

  me;

  Of their languages, governments, marriage, literature, products,

  games, wars, manners, crimes, prisons, slaves, heroes, poets,

  I suspect their results curiously await in the yet unseen world,

  counterparts of what accrued to them in the seen world,

  I suspect I shall meet them there,

  I suspect I shall there find each old particular of those unnamed

  lands.

  SONG OF PRUDENCE79

  Manhattan’s streets I saunter’d pondering,

  On Time, Space, Reality—on such as these, and abreast with

  them Prudence.

  The last explanation always remains to be made about