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Leaves of Grass (1871-72)
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LEAVES OF GRASS.
THERE WAS A CHILD WENT FORTH.
1 THERE was a child went forth every day; |
And the first object he look'd upon, that object he
became;
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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.
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2 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 phoebe-
bird,
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And the Third-month lambs, and the sow's pink-faint
litter, and the mare's foal, and the cow's calf,
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And the noisy brood of the barn-yard, or by the mire
of the pond-side,
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And the fish suspending themselves so curiously below
there—and the beautiful curious liquid,
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And the water-plants with their graceful flat heads—all
became part of him.
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3 The field-sprouts of Fourth-month and Fifth-month
became part of him;
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Winter-grain sprouts, and those of the light-yellow
corn, and the esculent roots of the garden,
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And the apple-trees cover'd with blossoms, and the fruit
afterward, and wood-berries, and the commonest
weeds by the road;
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And the old drunkard staggering home from the out-
house of the tavern, whence he had lately risen,
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And the school-mistress that pass'd on her way to the
school,
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And the friendly boys that pass'd—and the quarrelsome
boys,
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And the tidy and fresh-cheek'd girls—and the barefoot
negro boy and girl,
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And all the changes of city and country, wherever he
went.
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He that had father'd him, and she had conceiv'd
him in her womb, and birth'd him,
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They gave this child more of themselves than that; |
They gave him afterward every day—they became part
of him.
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5 The mother at home, quietly placing the dishes on
the supper-table;
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The mother with mild words—clean her cap and gown,
a wholesome odor falling off her person and
clothes as she walks by;
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The father, strong, self-sufficient, manly, mean, anger'd,
unjust;
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The blow, the quick loud word, the tight bargain, the
crafty lure,
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The family usages, the language, the company, the fur-
niture—the yearning and swelling heart,
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Affection that will not be gainsay'd—the sense of what
is real—the thought if, after all, it should prove
unreal,
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The doubts of day-time and the doubts of night-time—
the curious whether and how,
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Whether that which appears so is so, or is it all flashes
and specks?
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Men and women crowding fast in the streets—if they
are not flashes and specks, what are they?
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The streets themselves, and the faades of houses, and
goods in the windows,
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Vehicles, teams, the heavy-plank'd wharves—the huge
crossing at the ferries,
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The village on the highland, seen from afar at sunset—
the river between,
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Shadows, aureola and mist, the light falling on roofs
and gables of white or brown, three miles off,
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The schooner near by, sleepily dropping down the tide
—the little boat slack-tow'd astern,
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The hurrying tumbling waves, quick-broken crests,
slapping,
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The strata of color'd clouds, the long bar of maroon-
tint, away solitary by itself—the spread of purity
it lies motionless in,
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The horizon's edge, the flying sea-crow, the fragrance
of salt marsh and shore mud;
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These became part of that child who went forth every
day, and who now goes, and will always go forth
every day.
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LONGINGS FOR HOME.
O MAGNET-SOUTH! O glistening, perfumed South! My
South!
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O quick mettle, rich blood, impulse, and love! Good
and evil! O all dear to me!
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O dear to me my birth-things—All moving things, and
the trees where I was born—the grains, plants,
rivers;
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Dear to me my own slow sluggish rivers where they
flow, distant, over flats of silvery sands, or
through swamps;
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Dear to me the Roanoke, the Savannah, the Altamahaw,
the Pedee, the Tombigbee, the Santee, the Coosa,
and the Sabine;
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O pensive, far away wandering, I return with my Soul
to haunt their banks again;
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Again in Florida I float on transparent lakes—I float
on the Okeechobee—I cross the hummock land,
or through pleasant openings, or dense forests;
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I see the parrots in the woods—I see the papaw tree
and the blossoming titi;
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Again, sailing in my coaster, on deck, I coast off
Georgia—I coast up the Carolinas,
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I see where the live-oak is growing—I see where the
yellow-pine, the scented bay-tree, the lemon and
orange, the cypress, the graceful palmetto;
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I pass rude sea-headlands and enter Pamlico Sound
through an inlet, and dart my vision inland;
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O the cotton plant! the growing fields of rice, sugar,
hemp!
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The cactus, guarded with thorns—the laurel-tree, with
large white flowers;
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The range afar—the richness and barrenness—the old
woods charged with mistletoe and trailing moss,
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The piney odor and the gloom—the awful natural still-
ness, (Here in these dense swamps the freebooter
carries his gun, and the fugitive slave has his
conceal'd hut;)
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O the strange fascination of these half-known, half-
impassable swamps, infested by reptiles, resound-
ing with the bellow of the alligator, the sad
noises of the night-owl and the wild cat, and the
whirr of the rattlesnake;
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The mocking-bird, the American mimic, singing all the
forenoon—singing through the moon-lit night,
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The humming-bird, the wild turkey, the raccoon, the
opossum;
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A Tennessee corn-field—the tall, graceful, long-leav'd
corn—slender, flapping, bright green, with tas-
sels—with beautiful ears, each well-sheath'd in
its husk;
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An Arkansas prairie—a sleeping lake, or still bayou; |
O my heart! O tender and fierce pangs—I can stand
them not—I will depart;
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O to be a Virginian, where I grew up! O to be a Caro-
linian!
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O longings irrepressible! O I will go back to old Ten-
nessee, and never wander more!
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THINK OF THE SOUL.
I swear to you that body of yours gives proportions to
your Soul somehow to live in other spheres;
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I do not know how, but I know it is so. |
2 Think of loving and being loved; |
I swear to you, whoever you are, you can interfuse your-
self with such things that everybody that sees
you shall look longingly upon you.
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I warn you that in a little while others will find their
past in you and your times.
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4 The race is never separated—nor man nor woman
escapes;
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All is inextricable—things, spirits, Nature, nations, you
too—from precedents you come.
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5 Recall the ever-welcome defiers, (The mothers pre-
cede them;)
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Recall the sages, poets, saviors, inventors, lawgivers, of
the earth;
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Recall Christ, brother of rejected persons—brother of
slaves, felons, idiots, and of insane and diseas'd
persons.
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6 Think of the time when you were not yet born; |
Think of times you stood at the side of the dying; |
Think of the time when your own body will be dying. |
7 Think of spiritual results, |
Sure as the earth swims through the heavens, does every
one of its objects pass into spiritual results.
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8 Think of manhood, and you to be a man; |
Do you count manhood, and the sweet of manhood,
nothing?
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Think of womanhood, and you to be a woman; |
The creation is womanhood; |
Have I not said that womanhood involves all? |
Have I not told how the universe has nothing better
than the best womanhood?
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You Felons on Trial in Courts.
1 YOU felons on trial in courts; |
You convicts in prison-cells—you sentenced assassins,
chain'd and hand-cuff'd with iron;
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Who am I, too, that I am not on trial, or in prison? |
Me, ruthless and devilish as any, that my wrists are not
chain'd with iron, or my ankles with iron?
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2 You prostitutes flaunting over the trottoirs, or ob-
scene in your rooms,
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Who am I, that I should call you more obscene than
myself?
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(O admirers! praise not me! compliment not me! you
make me wince,
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I see what you do not—I know what you do not.) |
4 Inside these breast-bones I lie smutch'd and choked; |
Beneath this face that appears so impassive, hell's tides
continually run;
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Lusts and wickedness are acceptable to me; |
I walk with delinquents with passionate love; |
I feel I am of them—I belong to those convicts and
prostitutes myself,
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And henceforth I will not deny them—for how can I
deny myself?
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To a Common Prostitute.
1 BE composed—be at ease with me—I am Walt Whit-
man, liberal and lusty as Nature;
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Not till the sun excludes you, do I exclude you; |
Not till the waters refuse to glisten for you, and the
leaves to rustle for you, do my words refuse to
glisten and rustle for you.
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2 My girl, I appoint with you an appointment—and I
charge you that you make preparation to be
worthy to meet me,
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And I charge you that you be patient and perfect till I
come.
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3 Till then, I salute you with a significant look, that
you do not forget me.
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I was Looking a Long While.
I WAS looking a long while for a clue to the history of
the past for myself, and for these chants—and
now I have found it;
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It is not in those paged fables in the libraries, (them I
neither accept nor reject;)
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It is no more in the legends than in all else; |
It is in the present—it is this earth to-day; |
It is in Democracy—(the purport and aim of all the
past;)
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It is the life of one man or one woman to-day—the av-
erage man of to-day;
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It is in languages, social customs, literatures, arts; |
It is in the broad show of artificial things, ships, ma-
chinery, politics, creeds, modern improvements,
and the interchange of nations,
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All for the average man of to-day. |
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To a President.
ALL you are doing and saying is to America dangled
mirages;
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You have not learn'd of Nature—of the politics of Na-
ture, you have not learn'd the great amplitude,
rectitude, impartiality;
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You have not seen that only such as they are for These
States,
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And that what is less than they, must sooner or later
lift off from These States.
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TO THE STATES,
To Identify the 16th, 17th, or 18th Presidentiad.
WHY reclining, interrogating? Why myself and all
drowsing?
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What deepening twilight! scum floating atop of the
waters!
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Who are they, as bats and night-dogs, askant in the
Capitol?
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What a filthy Presidentiad! (O south, your torrid suns!
O north, your arctic freezings!)
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Are those really Congressmen? are those the great
Judges? is that the President?
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Then I will sleep awhile yet—for I see that These States
sleep, for reasons;
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(With gathering murk—with muttering thunder and
lambent shoots, we all duly awake,
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South, north, east, west, inland and seaboard, we will
surely awake.)
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