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Leaves of Grass (1860)
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CHANTS DEMOCRATIC.
2.
| 1 BROAD-AXE, shapely, naked, wan! |
| Head from the mother's bowels drawn! |
Wooded flesh and metal bone! limb only one and
lip only one!
|
Gray-blue leaf by red-heat grown! helve produced
from a little seed sown!
|
| Resting the grass amid and upon, |
| To be leaned, and to lean on. |
2 Strong shapes, and attributes of strong shapes—
masculine trades, sights and sounds,
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| Long varied train of an emblem, dabs of music, |
Fingers of the organist skipping staccato over the
keys of the great organ.
|
| 3 Welcome are all earth's lands, each for its kind, |
| Welcome are lands of pine and oak, |
| Welcome are lands of the lemon and fig, |
| Welcome are lands of gold, |
Welcome are lands of wheat and maize—welcome
those of the grape,
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| Welcome are lands of sugar and rice, |
Welcome the cotton-lands—welcome those of the
white potato and sweet potato,
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| Welcome are mountains, flats, sands, forests, prairies, |
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Welcome the rich borders of rivers, table-lands,
openings,
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Welcome the measureless grazing lands—welcome
the teeming soil of orchards, flax, honey, hemp,
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Welcome just as much the other more hard-faced
lands,
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| Lands rich as lands of gold, or wheat and fruit lands, |
| Lands of mines, lands of the manly and rugged ores, |
| Lands of coal, copper, lead, tin, zinc, |
| LANDS OF IRON! lands of the make of the axe! |
| 4 The log at the wood-pile, the axe supported by it, |
The sylvan hut, the vine over the doorway, the space
cleared for a garden,
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The irregular tapping of rain down on the leaves,
after the storm is lulled,
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The wailing and moaning at intervals, the thought of
the sea,
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The thought of ships struck in the storm, and put on
their beam-ends, and the cutting away of masts;
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The sentiment of the huge timbers of old-fashioned
houses and barns;
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The remembered print or narrative, the voyage at a
venture of men, families, goods,
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| The disembarkation, the founding of a new city, |
The voyage of those who sought a New England and
found it—the outset anywhere,
|
The settlements of the Arkansas, Colorado, Ottawa,
Willamette,
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The slow progress, the scant fare, the axe, rifle,
saddle-bags;
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| The beauty of all adventurous and daring persons, |
The beauty of wood-boys and wood-men, with their
clear untrimmed faces,
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The beauty of independence, departure, actions that
rely on themselves,
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The American contempt for statutes and ceremonies,
the boundless impatience of restraint,
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The loose drift of character, the inkling through
random types, the solidification;
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The butcher in the slaughter-house, the hands aboard
schooners and sloops, the raftsman, the pioneer,
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Lumbermen in their winter camp, daybreak in the
woods, stripes of snow on the limbs of trees, the
occasional snapping,
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The glad clear sound of one's own voice, the merry
song, the natural life of the woods, the strong
day's work,
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The blazing fire at night, the sweet taste of supper,
the talk, the bed of hemlock boughs, and the
bear-skin;
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| The house-builder at work in cities or anywhere, |
The preparatory jointing, squaring, sawing, mor-
tising,
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The hoist-up of beams, the push of them in their
places, laying them regular,
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Setting the studs by their tenons in the mortises,
according as they were prepared,
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The blows of mallets and hammers, the attitudes of
the men, their curved limbs,
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Bending, standing, astride the beams, driving in pins,
holding on by posts and braces,
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The hooked arm over the plate, the other arm
wielding the axe,
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| The floor-men forcing the planks close, to be nailed, |
Their postures bringing their weapons downward on
the bearers,
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| The echoes resounding through the vacant building; |
The huge store-house carried up in the city, well
under way,
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The six framing-men, two in the middle and two at
each end, carefully bearing on their shoulders a
heavy stick for a cross-beam,
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The crowded line of masons with trowels in their
right hands, rapidly laying the long side-wall,
two hundred feet from front to rear,
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The flexible rise and fall of backs, the continual click
of the trowels striking the bricks,
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The bricks, one after another, each laid so workman-
like in its place, and set with a knock of the
trowel-handle,
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The piles of materials, the mortar on the mortar-
boards, and the steady replenishing by the hod-
men;
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Spar-makers in the spar-yard, the swarming row of
well-grown apprentices,
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The swing of their axes on the square-hewed log,
shaping it toward the shape of a mast,
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The brisk short crackle of the steel driven slantingly
into the pine,
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The butter-colored chips flying off in great flakes and
slivers,
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The limber motion of brawny young arms and hips
in easy costumes;
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The constructor of wharves, bridges, piers, bulk-heads,
floats, stays against the sea;
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The city fireman—the fire that suddenly bursts forth
in the close-packed square,
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The arriving engines, the hoarse shouts, the nimble
stepping and daring,
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The strong command through the fire-trumpets, the
falling in line, the rise and fall of the arms
forcing the water,
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The slender, spasmic blue-white jets—the bringing
to bear of the hooks and ladders, and their
execution,
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The crash and cut away of connecting wood-work, or
through floors, if the fire smoulders under them,
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The crowd with their lit faces, watching—the glare
and dense shadows;
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The forger at his forge-furnace, and the user of iron
after him,
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The maker of the axe large and small, and the
welder and temperer,
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The chooser breathing his breath on the cold steel,
and trying the edge with his thumb,
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The one who clean-shapes the handle and sets it
firmly in the socket,
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The shadowy processions of the portraits of the past
users also,
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The primal patient mechanics, the architects and
engineers,
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| The far-off Assyrian edifice and Mizra edifice, |
| The Roman lictors preceding the consuls, |
The antique European warrior with his axe in
combat,
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The uplifted arm, the clatter, of blows on the
helmeted head,
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The death-howl, the limpsey tumbling body, the rush
of friend and foe thither,
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| The siege of revolted lieges determined for liberty, |
The summons to surrender, the battering at castle
gates, the truce and parley,
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| The sack of an old city in its time, |
The bursting in of mercenaries and bigots tumul-
tuously and disorderly,
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| Roar, flames, blood, drunkenness, madness, |
Goods freely rifled from houses and temples, screams
of women in the gripe of brigands,
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Craft and thievery of camp-followers, men running,
old persons despairing,
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| The hell of war, the cruelties of creeds, |
The list of all executive deeds and words, just or
unjust,
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| The power of personality, just or unjust. |
| 5 Muscle and pluck forever! |
| What invigorates life, invigorates death, |
| And the dead advance as much as the living advance, |
| And the future is no more uncertain than the present, |
And the roughness of the earth and of man encloses
as much as the delicatesse of the earth and of
man,
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| And nothing endures but personal qualities. |
| 6 What do you think endures? |
| Do you think the greatest city endures? |
Or a teeming manufacturing state? or a prepared
constitution? or the best built steamships?
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Or hotels of granite and iron? or any chef-d'œuvres
of engineering, forts, armaments?
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| 7 Away! These are not to be cherished for themselves, |
They fill their hour, the dancers dance, the musicians
play for them,
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| The show passes, all does well enough of course, |
| All does very well till one flash of defiance. |
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8 The greatest city is that which has the greatest man
or woman,
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If it be a few ragged huts, it is still the greatest city
in the whole world.
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9 The place where the greatest city stands is not the
place of stretched wharves, docks, manufactures,
deposits of produce,
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Nor the place of ceaseless salutes of new comers, or
the anchor-lifters of the departing,
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Nor the place of the tallest and costliest buildings,
or shops selling goods from the rest of the earth,
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Nor the place of the best libraries and schools—nor
the place where money is plentiest,
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| Nor the place of the most numerous population. |
10 Where the city stands with the brawniest breed of
orators and bards,
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Where the city stands that is beloved by these, and
loves them in return, and understands them,
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Where these may be seen going every day in the
streets, with their arms familiar to the shoulders
of their friends,
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Where no monuments exist to heroes, but in the
common words and deeds,
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Where thrift is in its place, and prudence is in its
place,
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| Where behavior is the finest of the fine arts, |
Where the men and women think lightly of the
laws,
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Where the slave ceases, and the master of slaves
ceases,
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Where the populace rise at once against the never-
ending audacity of elected persons,
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Where fierce men and women pour forth, as the sea
to the whistle of death pours its sweeping and
unript waves,
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Where outside authority enters always after the
precedence of inside authority,
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Where the citizen is always the head and ideal—and
President, Mayor, Governor, and what not, are
agents for pay,
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Where children are taught from the jump that they
are to be laws to themselves, and to depend on
themselves,
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| Where equanimity is illustrated in affairs, |
| Where speculations on the Soul are encouraged, |
Where women walk in public processions in the
streets, the same as the men,
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Where they enter the public assembly and take
places the same as the men, and are appealed
to by the orators, the same as the men,
|
| Where the city of the faithfulest friends stands, |
| Where the city of the cleanliness of the sexes stands, |
| Where the city of the healthiest fathers stands, |
| Where the city of the best-bodied mothers stands, |
| There the greatest city stands. |
11 How beggarly appear poems, arguments, orations,
before an electric deed!
|
How the floridness of the materials of cities shrivels
before a man's or woman's look!
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12 All waits, or goes by default, till a strong being
appears;
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A strong being is the proof of the race, and of the
ability of the universe,
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| When he or she appears, materials are overawed, |
| The dispute on the Soul stops, |
The old customs and phrases are confronted, turned
back, or laid away.
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13 What is your money-making now? What can it do
now?
|
| What is your respectability now? |
What are your theology, tuition, society, traditions,
statute-books now?
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| Where are your jibes of being now? |
| Where are your cavils about the Soul now? |
14 Was that your best? Were those your vast and
solid?
|
Riches, opinions, politics, institutions, to part obe-
diently from the path of one man or woman!
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The centuries, and all authority, to be trod under
the foot-soles of one man or woman!
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15 —A sterile landscape covers the ore—there is as
good as the best, for all the forbidding appear-
ance,
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| There is the mine, there are the miners, |
The forge-furnace is there, the melt is accomplished,
the hammers-men are at hand with their tongs
and hammers,
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| What always served and always serves, is at hand. |
16 Than this nothing has better served—it has served
all,
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Served the fluent-tongued and subtle-sensed Greek,
and long ere the Greek,
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Served in building the buildings that last longer
than any,
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Served the Hebrew, the Persian, the most ancient
Hindostanee,
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Served the mound-raiser on the Mississippi—served
those whose relics remain in Central America,
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Served Albic temples in woods or on plains, with
unhewn pillars, and the druids, and the bloody
body laid in the hollow of the great stone,
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Served the artificial clefts, vast, high, silent, on the
snow-covered hills of Scandinavia,
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Served those who, time out of mind, made on the
granite walls rough sketches of the sun, moon,
stars, ships, ocean-waves,
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Served the paths of the irruptions of the Goths—
served the pastoral tribes and nomads,
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Served the incalculably distant Kelt—served the
hardy pirates of the Baltic,
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Served before any of those, the venerable and harm-
less men of Ethiopia,
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Served the making of helms for the galleys of
pleasure, and the making of those for war,
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Served all great works on land, and all great works
on the sea,
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For the medival ages, and before the mediæval
ages,
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Served not the living only, then as now, but served
the dead.
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| 17 I see the European headsman, |
He stands masked, clothed in red, with huge legs,
and strong naked arms,
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| And leans on a ponderous axe. |
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18 Whom have you slaughtered lately, European heads-
man?
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| Whose is that blood upon you, so wet and sticky? |
| 19 I see the clear sunsets of the martyrs, |
| I see from the scaffolds the descending ghosts, |
Ghosts of dead lords, uncrowned ladies, impeached
ministers, rejected kings,
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Rivals, traitors, poisoners, disgraced chieftains, and
the rest.
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20 I see those who in any land have died for the good
cause,
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The seed is spare, nevertheless the crop shall never
run out,
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(Mind you, O foreign kings, O priests, the crop shall
never run out.)
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| 21 I see the blood washed entirely away from the axe, |
| Both blade and helve are clean, |
They spirt no more the blood of European nobles—
they clasp no more the necks of queens.
|
| 22 I see the headsman withdraw and become useless, |
I see the scaffold untrodden and mouldy—I see no
longer any axe upon it,
|
I see the mighty and friendly emblem of the power of
my own race, the newest largest race.
|
| 23 America! I do not vaunt my love for you, |
| The solid forest gives fluid utterances, |
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| They tumble forth, they rise and form, |
| Hut, tent, landing, survey, |
| Flail, plough, pick, crowbar, spade, |
| Shingle, rail, prop, wainscot, jamb, lath, panel, gable, |
Citadel, ceiling, saloon, academy, organ, exhibition-
house, library,
|
Cornice, trellis, pilaster, balcony, window, shutter,
turret, porch,
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Hoe, rake, pitch-fork, pencil, wagon, staff, saw, jack-
plane, mallet, wedge, rounce,
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| Chair, tub, hoop, table, wicket, vane, sash, floor, |
Work-box, chest, stringed instrument, boat, frame,
and what not,
|
| Capitols of States, and capitol of the nation of States, |
Long stately rows in avenues, hospitals for orphans or
for the poor or sick,
|
Manhattan steamboats and clippers, taking the meas-
ure of all seas.
|
Shapes of the using of axes anyhow, and the users,
and all that neighbors them,
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Cutters down of wood, and haulers of it to the Pe-
nobscot, or Kennebec,
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Dwellers in cabins among the Californian mountains,
or by the little lakes, or on the Columbia,
|
Dwellers south on the banks of the Gila or Rio
Grande—friendly gatherings, the characters and
fun,
|
Dwellers up north in Minnesota and by the Yellow-
stone river—dwellers on coasts and off coasts,
|
Seal-fishers, whalers, arctic seamen breaking passages
through the ice.
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| Shapes of factories, arsenals, foundries, markets, |
| Shapes of the two-threaded tracks of railroads, |
Shapes of the sleepers of bridges, vast frameworks,
girders, arches,
|
Shapes of the fleets of barges, tows, lake craft, river
craft.
|
Ship-yards and dry-docks along the Eastern and
Western Seas, and in many a bay and by-place,
|
The live-oak kelsons, the pine planks, the spars, the
hackmatack-roots for knees,
|
The ships themselves on their ways, the tiers of
scaffolds, the workmen busy outside and inside,
|
The tools lying around, the great auger and little
auger, the adze, bolt, line, square, gouge, and
bead-plane.
|
| The shape measured, sawed, jacked, joined, stained, |
The coffin-shape for the dead to lie within in his
shroud;
|
The shape got out in posts, in the bedstead posts, in
the posts of the bride's bed,
|
The shape of the little trough, the shape of the
rockers beneath, the shape of the babe's cradle,
|
The shape of the floor-planks, the floor-planks for
dancers' feet,
|
The shape of the planks of the family home, the
home of the friendly parents and children,
|
The shape of the roof of the home of the happy
young man and woman, the roof over the well-
married young man and woman,
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The roof over the supper joyously cooked by the
chaste wife, and joyously eaten by the chaste
husband, content after his day's work.
|
The shape of the prisoner's place in the court-room,
and of him or her seated in the place,
|
The shape of the pill-box, the disgraceful ointment-
box, the nauseous application, and him or her
applying it,
|
The shape of the liquor-bar leaned against by the
young rum-drinker and the old rum-drinker,
|
The shape of the shamed and angry stairs, trod by
sneaking footsteps,
|
The shape of the sly settee, and the adulterous
unwholesome couple,
|
The shape of the gambling-board with its devilish
winnings and losings,
|
The shape of the slats of the bed of a corrupted body,
the bed of the corruption of gluttony or alcoholic
drinks,
|
The shape of the step-ladder for the convicted and
sentenced murderer, the murderer with haggard
face and pinioned arms,
|
The sheriff at hand with his deputies, the silent and
white-lipped crowd, the sickening dangling of
the rope.
|
Shapes of doors giving so many exits and en-
trances,
|
The door passing the dissevered friend, flushed, and
in haste,
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| The door that admits good news and bad news, |
The door whence the son left home, confident and
puffed up,
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The door he entered again from a long and scan-
dalous absence, diseased, broken down, without
innocence, without means.
|
31 Their shapes arise, above all the rest—the shapes of
full-sized men,
|
Men taciturn yet loving, used to the open air, and the
manners of the open air,
|
Saying their ardor in native forms, saying the old
response,
|
Take what I have then, (saying fain,) take the pay
you approached for,
|
Take the white tears of my blood, if that is what you
are after.
|
She, less guarded than ever, yet more guarded than
ever,
|
The gross and soiled she moves among do not make
her gross and soiled,
|
She knows the thoughts as she passes—nothing is
concealed from her,
|
| She is none the less considerate or friendly therefore, |
She is the best-beloved—it is without exception—
she has no reason to fear, and she does not fear,
|
Oaths, quarrels, hiccupped songs, proposals, smutty
expressions, are idle to her as she passes,
|
She is silent—she is possessed of herself—they do
not offend her,
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She receives them as the laws of nature receive them
—she is strong,
|
She too is a law of nature—there is no law stronger
than she is.
|
| Arrogant, masculine, näive, rowdyish, |
| Laugher, weeper, worker, idler, citizen, countryman, |
Saunterer of woods, stander upon hills, summer
swimmer in rivers or by the sea,
|
Of pure American breed, of reckless health, his body
perfect, free from taint from top to toe, free
forever from headache and dyspepsia, clean-
breathed,
|
Ample-limbed, a good feeder, weight a hundred and
eighty pounds, full-blooded, six feet high, forty
inches round the breast and back,
|
| Countenance sun-burnt, bearded, calm, unrefined, |
Reminder of animals, meeter of savage and gentleman
on equal terms,
|
Attitudes lithe and erect, costume free, neck gray
and open, of slow movement on foot,
|
Passer of his right arm round the shoulders of his
friends, companion of the street,
|
Persuader always of people to give him their sweetest
touches, and never their meanest,
|
A Manhattanese bred, fond of Brooklyn, fond of
Broadway, fond of the life of the wharves and
the great ferries,
|
Enterer everywhere, welcomed everywhere, easily
understood after all,
|
Never offering others, always offering himself, corrob-
orating his phrenology,
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Voluptuous, inhabitive, combative, conscientious,
alimentive, intuitive, of copious friendship,
sublimity, firmness, self-esteem, comparison,
individuality, form, locality, eventuality,
|
Avowing by life, manners, works, to contribute illus-
trations of results of The States,
|
| Teacher of the unquenchable creed, namely, egotism, |
Inviter of others continually henceforth to try their
strength against his.
|
| 34 The main shapes arise! |
| Shapes of Democracy, final—result of centuries, |
Shapes of those that do not joke with life, but are
in earnest with life,
|
| Shapes, ever projecting other shapes, |
Shapes of a hundred Free States, begetting another
hundred north and south,
|
| Shapes of turbulent manly cities, |
Shapes of an untamed breed of young men, and
natural persons,
|
| Shapes of the women fit for These States, |
Shapes of the composition of all the varieties of the
earth,
|
Shapes of the friends and home-givers of the whole
earth,
|
Shapes bracing the whole earth, and braced with the
whole earth.
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