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Leaves of Grass (1860)
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POEM OF JOYS.
| 1 O TO make a most jubilant poem! |
O full of music! Full of manhood, womanhood,
infancy!
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O full of common employments! Full of grain and
trees.
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2 O for the voices of animals! O for the swiftness and
balance of fishes!
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| O for the dropping of rain-drops in a poem! |
| O for the sunshine and motion of waves in a poem. |
3 O to be on the sea! the wind, the wide waters
around;
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| O to sail in a ship under full sail at sea. |
4 O the joy of my spirit! It is uncaged! It darts like
lightning!
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It is not enough to have this globe, or a certain time
—I will have thousands of globes, and all time.
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To hear the hiss of steam—the merry shriek—the
steam-whistle—the laughing locomotive!
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To push with resistless way, and speed off in the
distance.
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| 6 O the horseman's and horsewoman's joys! |
The saddle—the gallop—the pressure upon the seat
—the cool gurgling by the ears and hair.
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| I hear the alarm at dead of night, |
| I hear bells—shouts!—I pass the crowd—I run! |
| The sight of the flames maddens me with pleasure. |
8 O the joy of the strong-brawned fighter, towering
in the arena, in perfect condition, conscious of
power, thirsting to meet his opponent.
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9 O the joy of that vast elemental sympathy which only
the human Soul is capable of generating and
emitting in steady and limitless floods.
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The watching—the endurance—the precious love—
the anguish—the patiently yielded life.
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| 11 O the joy of increase, growth, recuperation, |
The joy of soothing and pacifying—the joy of
concord and harmony.
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| 12 O to go back to the place where I was born! |
| O to hear the birds sing once more! |
To ramble about the house and barn, and over the
fields, once more,
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And through the orchard and along the old lanes
once more.
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O the presence of women! (I swear, nothing is more
exquisite to me than the presence of women;)
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O for the girl, my mate! O for happiness with my
mate!
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O the young man as I pass! O I am sick after the
friendship of him who, I fear, is indifferent
to me.
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| 14 O the streets of cities! |
The flitting faces—the expressions, eyes, feet, cos-
tumes! O I cannot tell how welcome they are
to me;
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O of men—of women toward me as I pass—The
memory of only one look—the boy lingering
and waiting.
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15 O to have been brought up on bays, lagoons, creeks,
or along the coast!
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| O to continue and be employed there all my life! |
O the briny and damp smell—the shore—the salt
weeds exposed at low water,
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The work of fishermen—the work of the eel-fisher
and clam-fisher.
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I come with my clam-rake and spade! I come with
my eel-spear;
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Is the tide out? I join the group of clam-diggers on
the flats,
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I laugh and work with them—I joke at my work,
like a mettlesome young man.
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17 In winter I take my eel-basket and eel-spear and travel
out on foot on the ice—I have a small axe to cut
holes in the ice;
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Behold me, well-clothed, going gayly, or returning in
the afternoon—my brood of tough boys accom-
panying me,
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My brood of grown and part-grown boys, who love
to be with none else so well as they love to be
with me,
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By day to work with me, and by night to sleep with
me.
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18 Or, another time, in warm weather, out in a boat, to
lift the lobster-pots, where they are sunk with
heavy stones, (I know the buoys;)
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O the sweetness of the Fifth Month morning upon the
water, as I row, just before sunrise, toward the
buoys;
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I pull the wicker pots up slantingly—the dark green
lobsters are desperate with their claws, as I take
them out—I insert wooden pegs in the joints of
their pincers,
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I go to all the places, one after another, and then row
back to the shore,
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There, in a huge kettle of boiling water, the lobsters
shall be boiled till their color becomes scarlet.
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| 19 Or, another time, mackerel-taking, |
Voracious, mad for the hook, near the surface, they
seem to fill the water for miles;
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Or, another time, fishing for rock-fish in Chesapeake
Bay—I one of the brown-faced crew;
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Or, another time, trailing for blue-fish off Paumanok,
I stand with braced body,
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My left foot is on the gunwale—my right arm throws
the coils of slender rope,
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In sight around me the quick veering and darting of
fifty skiffs, my companions.
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| 20 O boating on the rivers! |
The voyage down the Niagara, (the St. Lawrence,)—
the superb scenery—the steamers,
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The ships sailing—the Thousand Islands—the occa-
sional timber-raft, and the raftsmen with long-
reaching sweep-oars,
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The little huts on the rafts, and the stream of smoke
when they cook supper at evening.
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| 21 O something pernicious and dread! |
| Something far away from a puny and pious life! |
| Something unproved! Something in a trance! |
Something escaped from the anchorage, and driving
free.
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| 22 O to work in mines, or forging iron! |
Foundry casting—the foundry itself—the rude high
roof—the ample and shadowed space,
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| The furnace—the hot liquid poured out and running. |
| 23 O the joys of the soldier! |
To feel the presence of a brave general! to feel his
sympathy!
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To behold his calmness! to be warmed in the rays of
his smile!
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To go to battle! to hear the bugles play, and the drums
beat!
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To hear the artillery! to see the glittering of the bay-
onets and musket-barrels in the sun!
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| To see men fall and die and not complain! |
| To taste the savage taste of blood! to be so devilish! |
| To gloat so over the wounds and deaths of the enemy. |
24 O the whaleman's joys! O I cruise my old cruise
again!
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I feel the ship's motion under me—I feel the Atlantic
breezes fanning me,
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I hear the cry again sent down from the mast-head,
There she blows,
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Again I spring up the rigging, to look with the rest—
We see—we descend, wild with excitement,
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I leap in the lowered boat—We row toward our prey,
where he lies,
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We approach, stealthy and silent—I see the moun-
tainous mass, lethargic, basking,
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I see the harpooner standing up—I see the weapon
dart from his vigorous arm;
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O swift, again, now, far out in the ocean, the wounded
whale, settling, running to windward, tows me,
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Again I see him rise to breathe—We row close
again,
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I see a lance driven through his side, pressed deep,
turned in the wound,
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Again we back off—I see him settle again—the life
is leaving him fast,
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As he rises, he spouts blood—I see him swim in cir-
cles narrower and narrower, swiftly cutting the
water—I see him die,
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He gives one convulsive leap in the centre of the cir-
cle, and then falls flat and still in the bloody
foam.
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| 25 O the old manhood of me, my joy! |
My children and grand-children—my white hair and
beard,
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My largeness, calmness, majesty, out of the long
stretch of my life.
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| 26 O the ripened joy of womanhood! |
| O perfect happiness at last! |
I am more than eighty years of age—my hair, too, is
pure white—I am the most venerable mother;
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How clear is my mind! how all people draw nigh to
me!
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What attractions are these, beyond any before? what
bloom, more than the bloom of youth?
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What beauty is this that descends upon me, and rises
out of me?
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27 O the joy of my Soul leaning poised on itself—receiv-
ing identity through materials, and loving them
—observing characters, and absorbing them;
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O my Soul, vibrated back to me, from them—from
facts, sight, hearing, touch, my phrenology,
reason, articulation, comparison, memory, and
the like;
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O the real life of my senses and flesh, transcending
my senses and flesh;
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O my body, done with materials—my sight, done
with my material eyes;
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O what is proved to me this day, beyond cavil, that it
is not my material eyes which finally see,
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Nor my material body which finally loves, walks,
laughs, shouts, embraces, procreates.
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Ohioan's, Illinoisian's, Wisconsinese', Kanadian's, Io-
wan's, Kansian's, Missourian's, Oregonese' joys,
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| To rise at peep of day, and pass forth nimbly to work, |
| To plough land in the fall for winter-sown crops, |
| To plough land in the spring for maize, |
To train orchards—to graft the trees—to gather
apples in the fall.
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| 29 O the pleasure with trees! |
The orchard—the forest—the oak, cedar, pine,
pekan-tree,
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The honey-locust, black-walnut, cottonwood, and mag-
nolia.
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O the beautiful touch of Death, soothing and benumb-
ing a few moments, for reasons;
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O that of myself, discharging my excrementitious
body, to be burned, or rendered to powder, or
buried,
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| My real body doubtless left to me for other spheres, |
My voided body, nothing more to me, returning to the
purifications, further offices, eternal uses of the
earth.
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31 O to bathe in the swimming-bath, or in a good place
along shore!
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To splash the water! to walk ankle-deep; to race
naked along the shore.
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| The plenteousness of all—that there are no bounds; |
To emerge, and be of the sky—of the sun and moon,
and the flying clouds, as one with them.
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| 33 O, while I live, to be the ruler of life—not a slave, |
| To meet life as a powerful conqueror, |
No fumes—no ennui—no more complaints or scorn-
ful criticisms.
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| 34 O me repellent and ugly! |
O to these proud laws of the air, the water, and
the ground, proving my interior Soul impreg-
nable,
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| And nothing exterior shall ever take command of me. |
| 35 O to attract by more than attraction! |
How it is I know not—yet behold! the something
which obeys none of the rest,
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It is offensive, never defensive—yet how magnetic
it draws.
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| 36 O the joy of suffering! |
To struggle against great odds! to meet enemies un-
daunted!
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To be entirely alone with them! to find how much I
can stand!
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To look strife, torture, prison, popular odium, death,
face to face!
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To mount the scaffold! to advance to the muzzles of
guns with perfect nonchalance!
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| 37 O the gleesome saunter over fields and hill-sides! |
The leaves and flowers of the commonest weeds—the
moist fresh stillness of the woods,
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The exquisite smell of the earth at day-break, and all
through the forenoon.
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| 38 O love-branches! love-root! love-apples! |
| O chaste and electric torrents! O mad-sweet drops. |
To inflate the chest—to roll the thunder of the voice
out from the ribs and throat,
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To make the people rage, weep, hate, desire, with
yourself,
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To lead America—to quell America with a great
tongue.
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| 40 O the joy of a manly self-hood! |
Personality—to be servile to none—to defer to none
—not to any tyrant, known or unknown,
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To walk with erect carriage, a step springy and
elastic,
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| To look with calm gaze, or with a flashing eye, |
To speak with a full and sonorous voice, out of a
broad chest,
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To confront with your personality all the other per-
sonalities of the earth.
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| 41 O to have my life henceforth my poem of joys! |
To dance, clap hands, exult, shout, skip, leap, roll on,
float on,
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| An athlete—full of rich words—full of joys. |
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