Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman

Leaves of Grass (1860)

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SLEEP-CHASINGS.

¹ I WANDER all night in my vision,

Stepping with light feet, swiftly and noiselessly step-
ping and stopping,

Bending with open eyes over the shut eyes of
sleepers,

Wandering and confused, lost to myself, ill-assorted,
contradictory,

Pausing, gazing, bending, and stopping.

² How solemn they look there, stretched and still!

How quiet they breathe, the little children in their
cradles!

³ The wretched features of ennuyés, the white features
of corpses, the livid faces of drunkards, the sick-
gray faces of onanists,

The gashed bodies on battle-fields, the insane in their
         strong-doored rooms, the sacred idiots, the new-
         born emerging from gates, and the dying emer-
         ging from gates,

The night pervades them and infolds them.

⁴ The married couple sleep calmly in their bed—he
with his palm on the hip of the wife, and she
with her palm on the hip of the husband,

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The sisters sleep lovingly side by side in their bed,

The men sleep lovingly side by side in theirs,

And the mother sleeps, with her little child carefully
wrapped.

⁵ The blind sleep, and the deaf and dumb sleep,

The prisoner sleeps well in the prison—the run-
away son sleeps,

The murderer that is to be hung next day—how
does he sleep?

And the murdered person—how does he sleep?

⁶ The female that loves unrequited sleeps,

And the male that loves unrequited sleeps,

The head of the money-maker that plotted all day
sleeps,

And the enraged and treacherous dispositions—
all, all sleep.

⁷ I stand in the dark with drooping eyes by the worst-
suffering and the most restless,

I pass my hands soothingly to and fro a few inches
from them,

The restless sink in their beds—they fitfully sleep.

⁸ Now I pierce the darkness—new beings appear,

The earth recedes from me into the night,

I saw that it was beautiful, and I see that what is not
the earth is beautiful.

⁹ I go from bedside to bedside—I sleep close with
the other sleepers, each in turn,

I dream in my dream all the dreams of the other
dreamers,

And I become the other dreamers.

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¹⁰ I am a dance—Play up, there! the fit is whirling
me fast!

¹¹ I am the ever-laughing—it is new moon and twilight,

I see the hiding of douceurs—I see nimble ghosts
whichever way I look,

Cache, and cache again, deep in the ground and sea,
and where it is neither ground or sea.

¹² Well do they do their jobs, those journeymen divine,

Only from me can they hide nothing, and would not
if they could,

I reckon I am their boss, and they make me a pet
besides,

And surround me and lead me, and run ahead when
I walk,

To lift their cunning covers, to signify me with
stretched arms, and resume the way;

Onward we move! a gay gang of blackguards! with
mirth-shouting music and wild-flapping pennants
of joy!

¹³ I am the actor, the actress, the voter, the politician,

The emigrant and the exile, the criminal that stood
in the box,

He who has been famous, and he who shall be famous
after to-day,

The stammerer, the well-formed person, the wasted
or feeble person.

¹⁴ I am she who adorned herself and folded her hair
expectantly,

My truant lover has come, and it is dark.

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¹⁵ Double yourself and receive me, darkness!

Receive me and my lover too—he will not let me go
without him.

¹⁶ I roll myself upon you, as upon a bed—I resign
myself to the dusk.

¹⁷ He whom I call answers me and takes the place of
my lover,

He rises with me silently from the bed.

¹⁸ Darkness! you are gentler than my lover—his flesh
was sweaty and panting,

I feel the hot moisture yet that he left me.

¹⁹ My hands are spread forth, I pass them in all
directions,

I would sound up the shadowy shore to which you
are journeying.

²⁰ Be careful, darkness! already, what was it touched
me?

I thought my lover had gone, else darkness and he
are one,

I hear the heart-beat—I follow, I fade away.

²¹ O hot-cheeked and blushing! O foolish hectic!

O for pity's sake, no one must see me now! my
clothes were stolen while I was abed,

Now I am thrust forth, where shall I run?

²² Pier that I saw dimly last night, when I looked from
the windows!

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Pier out from the main, let me catch myself with you
and stay—I will not chafe you,

I feel ashamed to go naked about the world.

²³ I am curious to know where my feet stand—and
         what this is flooding me, childhood or manhood
         —and the hunger that crosses the bridge
         between.

²⁴ The cloth laps a first sweet eating and drinking,

Laps life-swelling yolks—laps ear of rose-corn, milky
and just ripened;

The white teeth stay, and the boss-tooth advances in
darkness,

And liquor is spilled on lips and bosoms by touching
glasses, and the best liquor afterward.

²⁵ I descend my western course, my sinews are flaccid,

Perfume and youth course through me, and I am
their wake.

²⁶ It is my face yellow and wrinkled, instead of the
old woman's,

I sit low in a straw-bottom chair, and carefully darn
my grandson's stockings.

²⁷ It is I too, the sleepless widow looking out on the
winter midnight,

I see the sparkles of starshine on the icy and pallid
earth.

²⁸ A shroud I see, and I am the shroud—I wrap a body
and lie in the coffin,

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It is dark here under ground—it is not evil or pain
here—it is blank here, for reasons.

²⁹ It seems to me that everything in the light and air
ought to be happy,

Whoever is not in his coffin and the dark grave, let
him know he has enough.

³⁰ I see a beautiful gigantic swimmer swimming naked
through the eddies of the sea,

His brown hair lies close and even to his head—
he strikes out with courageous arms—he urges
himself with his legs,

I see his white body—I see his undaunted eyes,

I hate the swift-running eddies that would dash him
head-foremost on the rocks.

³¹ What are you doing, you ruffianly red-trickled waves?

Will you kill the courageous giant? Will you kill
him in the prime of his middle age?

³² Steady and long he struggles,

He is baffled, banged, bruised—he holds out while
his strength holds out,

The slapping eddies are spotted with his blood—
they bear him away—they roll him, swing him,
turn him,

His beautiful body is borne in the circling eddies,
it is continually bruised on rocks,

Swiftly and out of sight is borne the brave corpse.

³³ I turn, but do not extricate myself,

Confused, a past-reading, another, but with darkness
yet.

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³⁴ The beach is cut by the razory ice-wind—the wreck-
guns sound,

The tempest lulls—the moon comes floundering
through the drifts.

³⁵ I look where the ship helplessly heads end on—I
hear the burst as she strikes—I hear the howls
of dismay—they grow fainter and fainter.

³⁶ I cannot aid with my wringing fingers,

I can but rush to the surf, and let it drench me and
freeze upon me.

³⁷ I search with the crowd—not one of the company is
washed to us alive;

In the morning I help pick up the dead and lay them
in rows in a barn.

³⁸ Now of the old war-days, the defeat at Brooklyn,

Washington stands inside the lines—he stands on the
intrenched hills, amid a crowd of officers,

His face is cold and damp—he cannot repress the
weeping drops,

He lifts the glass perpetually to his eyes—the color
is blanched from his cheeks,

He sees the slaughter of the southern braves confided
to him by their parents.

³⁹ The same, at last and at last, when peace is declared,

He stands in the room of the old tavern—the well-
beloved soldiers all pass through,

The officers speechless and slow draw near in their
turns,

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The chief encircles their necks with his arm, and
kisses them on the cheek,

He kisses lightly the wet cheeks one after another—
he shakes hands, and bids good-by to the army.

⁴⁰ Now I tell what my mother told me to-day as we sat
at dinner together,

Of when she was a nearly grown girl, living home
with her parents on the old homestead.

⁴¹ A red squaw came one breakfast-time to the old
homestead,

On her back she carried a bundle of rushes for
rush-bottoming chairs,

Her hair, straight, shiny, coarse, black, profuse, half-
enveloped her face,

Her step was free and elastic, and her voice sounded
exquisitely as she spoke.

⁴² My mother looked in delight and amazement at the
stranger,

She looked at the freshness of her tall-borne face, and
full and pliant limbs,

The more she looked upon her she loved her,

Never before had she seen such wonderful beauty and
purity,

She made her sit on a bench by the jamb of the fire-
place—she cooked food for her,

She had no work to give her, but she gave her
remembrance and fondness.

⁴³ The red squaw staid all the forenoon, and toward the
middle of the afternoon she went away,

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O my mother was loth to have her go away!

All the week she thought of her—she watched for
her many a month,

She remembered her many a winter and many a
summer,

But the red squaw never came, nor was heard of
there again.

⁴⁴ Now Lucifer was not dead—or if he was, I am his
sorrowful terrible heir,

I have been wronged—I am oppressed—I hate him
that oppresses me,

I will either destroy him, or he shall release me.

⁴⁵ Damn him! how he does defile me!

How he informs against my brother and sister, and
takes pay for their blood!

How he laughs when I look down the bend, after the
steamboat that carries away my woman!

⁴⁶ Now the vast dusk bulk that is the whale's bulk, it
seems mine,

Warily, sportsman! though I lie so sleepy and slug-
gish, my tap is death.

⁴⁷ A show of the summer softness! a contact of some-
thing unseen! an amour of the light and air!

I am jealous, and overwhelmed with friendliness,

And will go gallivant with the light and air myself,

And have an unseen something to be in contact with
them also.

⁴⁸ O love and summer! you are in the dreams, and
in me!

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Autumn and winter are in the dreams—the farmer
goes with his thrift,

The droves and crops increase, and the barns are well-
filled.

⁴⁹ Elements merge in the night—ships make tacks in
the dreams,

The sailor sails—the exile returns home,

The fugitive returns unharmed—the immigrant is
back beyond months and years,

The poor Irishman lives in the simple house of his
childhood, with the well-known neighbors and
faces,

They warmly welcome him—he is barefoot again, he
forgets he is well off;

The Dutchman voyages home, and the Scotchman
and Welshman voyage home, and the native of
the Mediterranean voyages home,

To every port of England, France, Spain, enter well-
filled ships,

The Swiss foots it toward his hills—the Prussian goes
his way, the Hungarian his way, and the Pole
his way,

The Swede returns, and the Dane and Norwegian
return.

⁵⁰ The homeward bound, and the outward bound,

The beautiful lost swimmer, the ennuyé, the onanist,
the female that loves unrequited, the money-
maker,

The actor and actress, those through with their parts,
and those waiting to commence,

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The affectionate boy, the husband and wife, the voter,
the nominee that is chosen, and the nominee that
has failed,

The great already known, and the great any time
after to-day,

The stammerer, the sick, the perfect-formed, the
homely,

The criminal that stood in the box, the judge that
sat and sentenced him, the fluent lawyers, the
jury, the audience,

The laugher and weeper, the dancer, the midnight
widow, the red squaw,

The consumptive, the erysipelite, the idiot, he that
is wronged,

The antipodes, and every one between this and them
in the dark,

I swear they are averaged now—one is no better
than the other,

The night and sleep have likened them and restored
them.

⁵¹ I swear they are all beautiful!

Every one that sleeps is beautiful—everything in
the dim light is beautiful,

The wildest and bloodiest is over, and all is peace.

⁵² Peace is always beautiful,

The myth of heaven indicates peace and night.

⁵³ The myth of heaven indicates the Soul;

The Soul is always beautiful—it appears more or it
appears less—it comes, or it lags behind,

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It comes from its embowered garden, and looks
pleasantly on itself, and encloses the world,

Perfect and clean the genitals previously jetting, and
perfect and clean the womb cohering,

The head well-grown, proportioned and plumb, and
the bowels and joints proportioned and plumb.

⁵⁴ The Soul is always beautiful,

The universe is duly in order, everything is in its
place,

What is arrived is in its place, and what waits is
in its place;

The twisted skull waits, the watery or rotten blood
waits,

The child of the glutton or venerealee waits long, and
the child of the drunkard waits long, and the
drunkard himself waits long,

The sleepers that lived and died wait—the far
advanced are to go on in their turns, and the
far behind are to go on in their turns,

The diverse shall be no less diverse, but they shall
flow and unite—they unite now.

⁵⁵ The sleepers are very beautiful as they lie unclothed,

They flow hand in hand over the whole earth, from
east to west, as they lie unclothed,

The Asiatic and African are hand in hand—the
European and American are hand in hand,

Learned and unlearned are hand in hand, and male
and female are hand in hand,

The bare arm of the girl crosses the bare breast of
her lover—they press close without lust—his
lips press her neck,

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The father holds his grown or ungrown son in his
arms with measureless love, and the son holds
the father in his arms with measureless love,

The white hair of the mother shines on the white
wrist of the daughter,

The breath of the boy goes with the breath of the
man, friend is inarmed by friend,

The scholar kisses the teacher, and the teacher kisses
the scholar—the wronged is made right,

The call of the slave is one with the master's call, and
the master salutes the slave,

The felon steps forth from the prison—the insane
becomes sane—the suffering of sick persons is
relieved,

The sweatings and fevers stop—the throat that was
unsound is sound—the lungs of the consumptive
are resumed—the poor distressed head is free,

The joints of the rheumatic move as smoothly as ever,
and smoother than ever,

Stiflings and passages open—the paralyzed become
supple,

The swelled and convulsed and congested awake to
themselves in condition,

They pass the invigoration of the night, and the
chemistry of the night, and awake.

⁵⁶ I too pass from the night,

I stay a while away O night, but I return to you
again, and love you.

⁵⁷ Why should I be afraid to trust myself to you?

I am not afraid—I have been well brought forward
by you,

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I love the rich running day, but I do not desert her
in whom I lay so long,

I know not how I came of you, and I know not where
I go with you—but I know I came well, and
shall go well.

⁵⁸ I will stop only a time with the night, and rise
betimes,

I will duly pass the day, O my mother, and duly
return to you.

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