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Leaves of Grass (1871-72)
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MARCHES NOW THE WAR IS
OVER.
AS I SAT ALONE BY BLUE ONTARIO'S SHORE.
1
| 1 As I sat alone, by blue Ontario's shore, |
As I mused of these mighty days, and of peace return'd,
and the dead that return no more,
|
A Phantom, gigantic, superb, with stern visage, accosted
me;
|
Chant me the poem, it said, that comes from the soul of
America—chant me the carol of victory;
|
And strike up the marches of Libertad—marches more
powerful yet;
|
And sing me before you go, the song of the throes of
Democracy .
|
2 (Democracy—the destin'd conqueror—yet treacherous
lip-smiles everywhere,
|
| And Death and infidelity at every step.) |
2
| 3 A Nation announcing itself, |
I myself make the only growth by which I can be ap-
preciated,
|
I reject none, accept all, then reproduce all in my own
forms.
|
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| 4 A breed whose proof is in time and deeds; |
What we are, we are—nativity is answer enough to
objections;
|
| We wield ourselves as a weapon is wielded, |
| We are powerful and tremendous in ourselves, |
We are executive in ourselves—We are sufficient in the
variety of ourselves,
|
| We are the most beautiful to ourselves, and in ourselves; |
We stand self-pois'd in the middle, branching thence
over the world;
|
From Missouri, Nebraska, or Kansas, laughing attacks
to scorn.
|
| 5 Nothing is sinful to us outside of ourselves, |
Whatever appears, whatever does not appear, we are
beautiful or sinful in ourselves only.
|
| 6 (O mother! O sisters dear! |
| If we are lost, no victor else has destroy'd us; |
| It is by ourselves we go down to eternal night.) |
3
7 Have you thought there could be but a single
Supreme?
|
There can be any number of Supremes—One does not
countervail another, any more than one eyesight
countervails another, or one life countervails
another.
|
| 8 All is eligible to all, |
| All is for individuals—All is for you, |
| No condition is prohibited—not God's, or any. |
9 All comes by the body—only health puts you rapport
with the universe.
|
| 10 Produce great persons, the rest follows. |
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4
| 11 America isolated I sing; |
I say that works made here in the spirit of other lands,
are so much poison in The States.
|
12 (How dare such insects as we see assume to write
poems for America?
|
For our victorious armies, and the offspring following
the armies?)
|
| 13 Piety and conformity to them that like! |
| Peace, obesity, allegiance, to them that like! |
| I am he who tauntingly compels men, women, nations, |
Crying, Leap from your seats, and contend for your
lives!
|
14 I am he who walks the States with a barb'd tongue,
questioning every one I meet;
|
Who are you, that wanted only to be told what you
knew before?
|
Who are you, that wanted only a book to join you in
your nonsense?
|
15 (With pangs and cries, as thine own, O bearer of
many children!
|
| These clamors wild, to a race of pride I give.) |
16 O lands! would you be freer than all that has ever
been before!
|
If you would be freer than all that has been before,
come listen to me.
|
| 17 Fear grace—Fear elegance, civilization, delicatesse, |
| Fear the mellow sweet, the sucking of honey-juice; |
| Beware the advancing mortal ripening of nature, |
Beware what precedes the decay of the ruggedness of
states and men.
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5
18 Ages, precedents, have long been accumulating undi-
rected materials,
|
| America brings builders, and brings its own styles. |
19 The immortal poets of Asia and Europe have done
their work, and pass'd to other spheres,
|
A work remains, the work of surpassing all they have
done.
|
20 America, curious toward foreign characters, stands
by its own at all hazards,
|
Stands removed, spacious, composite, sound—initiates
the true use of precedents,
|
Does not repel them, or the past, or what they have
produced under their forms,
|
Takes the lesson with calmness, perceives the corpse
slowly borne from the house,
|
Perceives that it waits a little while in the door—that
it was fittest for its days,
|
That its life has descended to the stalwart and well-
shaped heir who approaches,
|
| And that he shall be fittest for his days. |
| 21 Any period, one nation must lead, |
One land must be the promise and reliance of the
future.
|
| 22 These States are the amplest poem, |
Here is not merely a nation, but a teeming nation of
nations,
|
Here the doings of men correspond with the broadcast
doings of the day and night,
|
Here is what moves in magnificent masses, careless of
particulars,
|
Here are the roughs, beards, friendliness, combative-
ness, the Soul loves,
|
Here the flowing trains—here the crowds, equality,
diversity, the Soul loves.
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6
| 23 Land of lands, and bards to corroborate! |
Of them, standing among them, one lifts to the light his
west-bred face,
|
To him the hereditary countenance bequeath'd, both
mother's and father's,
|
| His first parts substances, earth, water, animals, trees, |
Built of the common stock, having room for far and
near,
|
Used to dispense with other lands, incarnating this
land,
|
Attracting it Body and Soul to himself, hanging on its
neck with incomparable love,
|
Plunging his seminal muscle into its merits and de-
merits,
|
Making its cities, beginnings, events, diversities, wars,
vocal in him,
|
| Making its rivers, lakes, bays, embouchure in him, |
Mississippi with yearly freshets and changing chutes—
Columbia, Niagara, Hudson, spending them-
selves lovingly in him,
|
If the Atlantic coast stretch, or the Pacific coast stretch,
he stretching with them north or south,
|
Spanning between them, east and west, and touching
whatever is between them,
|
Growths growing from him to offset the growth of
pine, cedar, hemlock, live-oak, locust, chestnut,
hickory, cotton-wood, orange, magnolia,
|
| Tangles as tangled in him as any cane-brake or swamp, |
He likening sides and peaks of mountains, forests
coated with northern transparent ice,
|
Off him pasturage sweet and natural as savanna, up-
land, prairie,
|
Through him flights, whirls, screams, answering those
of the fish-hawk, mocking-bird, night-heron, and
eagle;
|
His spirit surrounding his country's spirit, unclosed to
good and evil,
|
Surrounding the essences of real things, old times and
present times,
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Surrounding just found shores, islands, tribes of red
aborigines,
|
Weather-beaten vessels, landings, settlements, embryo
stature and muscle,
|
The haughty defiance of the Year 1—war, peace, the
formation of the Constitution,
|
The separate States, the simple, elastic scheme, the im-
migrants,
|
The Union, always swarming with blatherers, and
always sure and impregnable,
|
The unsurvey'd interior, log-houses, clearings, wild
animals, hunters, trappers;
|
Surrounding the multiform agriculture, mines, tem-
perature, the gestation of new States,
|
Congress convening every Twelfth-month, the mem-
bers duly coming up from the uttermost parts;
|
Surrounding the noble character of mechanics and
farmers, especially the young men,
|
Responding their manners, speech, dress, friendships—
the gait they have of persons who never knew
how it felt to stand in the presence of superiors,
|
The freshness and candor of their physiognomy, the
copiousness and decision of their phrenology,
|
The picturesque looseness of their carriage, their fierce-
ness when wrong'd,
|
The fluency of their speech, their delight in music, their
curiosity, good temper, and open-handedness—
the whole composite make,
|
The prevailing ardor and enterprise, the large amative-
ness,
|
The perfect equality of the female with the male, the
fluid movement of the population,
|
The superior marine, free commerce, fisheries, whaling,
gold-digging,
|
Wharf-hemm'd cities, railroad and steamboat lines, in-
tersecting all points,
|
Factories, mercantile life, labor-saving machinery, the
north-east, north-west, south-west,
|
Manhattan firemen, the Yankee swap, southern planta-
tion life,
|
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Slavery—the murderous, treacherous conspiracy to raise
it upon the ruins of all the rest;
|
On and on to the grapple with it—Assassin! then your
life or ours be the stake—and respite no more.
|
7
| 24 (Lo! high toward heaven, this day, |
| Libertad! from the conqueress' field return'd, |
| I mark the new aureola around your head; |
| No more of soft astral, but dazzling and fierce, |
| With war's flames, and the lambent lightnings playing, |
| And your port immovable where you stand; |
With still the inextinguishable glance, and the clench'd
and lifted fist,
|
And your foot on the neck of the menacing one, the
scorner, utterly crush'd beneath you;
|
The menacing, arrogant one, that strode and advanced
with his senseless scorn, bearing the murderous
knife;
|
—Lo! the wide swelling one, the braggart, that would
yesterday do so much!
|
To-day a carrion dead and damn'd, the despised of all
the earth!
|
| An offal rank, to the dunghill maggots spurn'd.) |
8
25 Others take finish, but the Republic is ever construc-
tive, and ever keeps vista;
|
Others adorn the past—but you, O days of the present,
I adorn you!
|
O days of the future, I believe in you! I isolate myself
for your sake;
|
O America, because you build for mankind, I build for
you!
|
O well-beloved stone-cutters! I lead them who plan with
decision and science,
|
I lead the present with friendly hand toward the fu-
ture.
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26 Bravas to all impulses sending sane children to the
next age!
|
But damn that which spends itself, with no thought of
the stain, pains, dismay, feebleness, it is be-
queathing.
|
9
| 27 I listened to the Phantom on Ontario's shore, |
| I heard the voice arising, demanding bards; |
By them all native and grand—by them alone can The
States be fused into the compact organism of a
Nation.
|
28 To hold men together by paper and seal, or by com-
pulsion, is no account;
|
That only holds men together which aggregates all in a
living principle, as the hold of the limbs of the
body, or the fibres of plants.
|
29 Of all races and eras, These States, with veins full of
poetical stuff, most need poets, and are to have
the greatest, and use them the greatest;
|
Their Presidents shall not be their common referee so
much as their poets shall.
|
| 30 Soul of love, and tongue of fire! |
| Eye to pierce the deepest deeps, and sweep the world! |
—Ah, mother! prolific and full in all besides—yet how
long barren, barren?)
|
10
| 31 Of These States, the poet is the equable man, |
Not in him, but off from him, things are grotesque,
eccentric, fail of their full returns,
|
Nothing out of its place is good, nothing in its place is
bad,
|
He bestows on every object or quality its fit proportion,
neither more nor less,
|
| He is the arbiter of the diverse, he is the key, |
| He is the equalizer of his age and land, |
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He supplies what wants supplying—he checks what
wants checking,
|
In peace, out of him speaks the spirit of peace, large,
rich, thrifty, building populous towns, encour-
aging agriculture, arts, commerce, lighting the
study of man, the Soul, health, immortality, gov-
ernment;
|
In war, he is the best backer of the war—he fetches
artillery as good as the engineer's—he can make
every word he speaks draw blood;
|
The years straying toward infidelity, he withholds by
his steady faith,
|
He is no arguer, he is judgment—(Nature accepts him
absolutely;)
|
He judges not as the judge judges, but as the sun fall-
ing round a helpless thing;
|
| As he sees the farthest, he has the most faith, |
| His thoughts are the hymns of the praise of things, |
| In the dispute on God and eternity he is silent, |
He sees eternity less like a play with a prologue and
denouement,
|
He sees eternity in men and women—he does not see
men and women as dreams or dots.
|
32 For the great Idea, the idea of perfect and free indi-
viduals,
|
For that idea the bard walks in advance, leader of
leaders,
|
The attitude of him cheers up slaves, and horrifies
foreign despots.
|
33 Without extinction is Liberty! without retrograde is
Equality!
|
They live in the feelings of young men, and the best
women;
|
Not for nothing have the indomitable heads of the earth
been always ready to fall for Liberty.
|
11
| That, O my brethren—that is the mission of Poets. |
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| 35 Songs of stern defiance, ever ready, |
| Songs of the rapid arming, and the march, |
The flag of peace quick-folded, and instead, the flag we
know,
|
| Warlike flag of the great Idea. |
| 36 (Angry cloth I saw there leaping! |
| I stand again in leaden rain, your flapping folds saluting; |
I sing you over all, flying, beckoning through the fight
—O the hard-contested fight!
|
O the cannons ope their rosy-flashing muzzles! the
hurtled balls scream!
|
The battle-front forms amid the smoke—the volleys
pour incessant from the line;
|
Hark! the ringing word, Charge! —now the tussle, and
the furious maddening yells;
|
| Now the corpses tumble curl'd upon the ground, |
| Cold, cold in death, for precious life of you, |
| Angry cloth I saw there leaping.) |
12
37 Are you he who would assume a place to teach, or be
a poet here in The States?
|
| The place is August—the terms obdurate. |
38 Who would assume to teach here, may well prepare
himself, body and mind,
|
He may well survey, ponder, arm, fortify, harden, make
lithe, himself,
|
He shall surely be question'd beforehand by me with
many and stern questions.
|
39 Who are you, indeed, who would talk or sing to
America?
|
| Have you studied out the land, its idioms and men? |
Have you learn'd the physiology, phrenology, politics,
geography, pride, freedom, friendship, of the
land? its substratums and objects?
|
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Have you consider'd the organic compact of the first day
of the first year of Independence, sign'd by the
Commissioners, ratified by The States, and
read by Washington at the head of the army?
|
| Have you possess'd yourself of the Federal Constitution? |
Do you see who have left all feudal processes and poems
behind them, and assumed the poems and pro-
cesses of Democracy?
|
Are you faithful to things? do you teach as the land
and sea, the bodies of men, womanhood, ama-
tiveness, angers, teach?
|
| Have you sped through fleeting customs, popularities? |
Can you hold your hand against all seductions, follies,
whirls, fierce contentions? are you very strong?
are you really of the whole people?
|
Are you not of some coterie? some school or mere
religion?
|
Are you done with reviews and criticisms of life? ani-
mating now to life itself?
|
Have you vivified yourself from the maternity of These
States?
|
Have you too the old, ever-fresh forbearance and im-
partiality?
|
Do you hold the like love for those hardening to ma-
turity; for the last-born? little and big? and
for the errant?
|
| 40 What is this you bring my America? |
| Is it uniform with my country? |
Is it not something that has been better told or done
before?
|
Have you not imported this, or the spirit of it, in some
ship?
|
Is it not a mere tale? a rhyme? a prettiness? is the
good old cause in it?
|
Has it not dangled long at the heels of the poets, poli
ticians, literats, of enemies' lands?
|
Does it not assume that what is notoriously gone is still
here?
|
Does it answer universal needs? will it improve man-
ners?
|
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Does it sound, with trumpet-voice, the proud victory of
the Union, in that secession war?
|
Can your performance face the open fields and the sea-
side?
|
Will it absorb into me as I absorb food, air—to appear
again in my strength, gait, face?
|
Have real employments contributed to it? original
makers—not mere amanuenses?
|
Does it meet modern discoveries, calibers, faces, face to
face?
|
What does it mean to me? to American persons, pro-
gresses, cities? Chicago, Kanada, Arkansas? the
planter, Yankee, Georgian, native, immigrant,
sailors, squatters, old States, new States?
|
Does it encompass all The States, and the unexcep-
tional rights of all the men and woman of the
earth? (the genital impulse of These States;)
|
Does it see behind the apparent custodians, the real
custodians, standing, menacing, silent—the me-
chanics, Manhattanese, western men, southerners,
significant alike in their apathy, and in the
promptness of their love?
|
Does it see what finally befalls, and has always finally
befallen, each temporizer, patcher, outsider, par-
tialist, alarmist, infidel, who has ever ask'd any-
thing of America?
|
| What mocking and scornful negligence? |
| The track strew'd with the dust of skeletons; |
| By the roadside others disdainfully toss'd. |
13
41 Rhymes and rhymers pass away—poems distill'd
from foreign poems pass away,
|
The swarms of reflectors and the polite pass, and leave
ashes;
|
Admirers, importers, obedient persons, make but the
soil of literature;
|
America justifies itself, give it time—no disguise can
deceive it, or conceal from it—it is impassive
enough,
|
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Only towards the likes of itself will it advance to meet
them,
|
If its poets appear, it will in due time advance to meet
them—there is no fear of mistake,
|
(The proof of a poet shall be sternly deferr'd, till his
country absorbs him as affectionately as he has
absorb'd it.)
|
42 He masters whose spirit masters—he tastes sweetest
who results sweetest in the long run;
|
| The blood of the brawn beloved of time is unconstraint; |
In the need of poems, philosophy, politics, manners,
engineering, an appropriate native grand-opera,
shipcraft, any craft, he or she is greatest who
contributes the greatest original practical ex-
ample.
|
43 Already a nonchalant breed, silently emerging, ap-
pears on the streets,
|
People's lips salute only doers, lovers, satisfiers, positive
knowers;
|
There will shortly be no more priests—I say their work
is done.
|
Death is without emergencies here, but life is perpet-
ual emergencies here,
|
Are your body, days, manners, superb? after death
you shall be superb;
|
Justice, health, self-esteem, clear the way with irresist-
ible power;
|
| How dare you place anything before a man? |
14
| 44 Fall behind me, States! |
| A man before all—myself, typical, before all. |
| 45 Give me the pay I have served for! |
Give me to sing the song of the great Idea! take all
the rest;
|
I have loved the earth, sun, animals—I have despised
riches,
|
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|
I have given alms to every one that ask'd, stood up for
the stupid and crazy, devoted my income and
labor to others,
|
I have hated tyrants, argued not concerning God, had
patience and indulgence toward the people,
taken off my hat to nothing known or unknown,
|
I have gone freely with powerful uneducated persons,
and with the young, and with the mothers of
families,
|
I have read these leaves to myself in the open air—I
have tried them by trees, stars, rivers,
|
I have dismiss'd whatever insulted my own Soul or
defiled my Body,
|
I have claim'd nothing to myself which I have not
carefully claim'd for others on the same terms,
|
I have sped to the camps, and comrades found and
accepted from every State;
|
(In war of you, as well as peace, my suit is good, Amer-
ica—sadly I boast;
|
Upon this breast has many a dying soldier lean'd, to
breathe his last;
|
This arm, this hand, this voice, have nourish'd, rais'd,
restored,
|
| To life recalling many a prostrate form:) |
—I am willing to wait to be understood by the growth
of the taste of myself,
|
| I reject none, I permit all. |
46 (Say, O mother! have I not to your thought been
faithful?
|
Have I not, through life, kept you and yours before
me?)
|
15
| 47 I swear I begin to see the meaning of these things! |
| It is not the earth, it is not America, who is so great, |
It is I who am great, or to be great—it is you up there,
or any one;
|
It is to walk rapidly through civilizations, governments,
theories,
|
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|
Through poems, pageants, shows, to form great indi-
viduals.
|
| 48 Underneath all, individuals! |
I swear nothing is good to me now that ignores indi-
viduals,
|
| The American compact is altogether with individuals, |
The only government is that which makes minute of
individuals,
|
The whole theory of the universe is directed to one
single individual—namely, to You.
|
49 (Mother! with subtle sense severe—with the naked
sword in your hand,
|
I saw you at last refuse to treat but directly with indi-
viduals.)
|
16
| 50 Underneath all, nativity, |
I swear I will stand by my own nativity—pious or im-
pious, so be it;
|
| I swear I am charm'd with nothing except nativity, |
Men, women, cities, nations, are only beautiful from
nativity.
|
51 Underneath all is the need of the expression of love
for men and women,
|
I swear I have seen enough of mean and impotent
modes of expressing love for men and women,
|
After this day I take my own modes of expressing love
for men and women.
|
52 I swear I will have each quality of my race in my-
self,
|
(Talk as you like, he only suits These States whose
manners favor the audacity and sublime turbu-
lence of The States.)
|
53 Underneath the lessons of things, spirits, Nature,
governments, ownerships, I swear I perceive
other lessons,
|
View Page 324
|
Underneath all, to me is myself—to you, yourself—(the
same monotonous old song.)
|
17
54 O I see now, flashing, that this America is only you
and me,
|
| Its power, weapons, testimony, are you and me |
Its crimes, lies, thefts, defections, slavery, are you and
me,
|
Its Congress is you and me—the officers, capitols, ar-
mies, ships, are you and me,
|
| Its endless gestations of new States are you and me, |
The war—that war so bloody and grim—the war I will
henceforth forget—was you and me,
|
| Natural and artificial are you and me, |
Freedom, language, poems, employments, are you and
me,
|
| Past, present, future, are you and me. |
18
| 55 I swear I dare not shirk any part of myself, |
| Not any part of America, good or bad, |
Not the promulgation of Liberty—not to cheer up slaves
and horrify foreign despots,
|
| Not to build for that which builds for mankind, |
Not to balance ranks, complexions, creeds, and the
sexes,
|
| Not to justify science, nor the march of equality, |
Nor to feed the arrogant blood of the brawn beloved
of time.
|
56 I swear I am for those that have never been mas-
ter'd!
|
For men and women whose tempers have never been
master'd,
|
For those whom laws, theories, conventions, can never
master.
|
View Page 325
|
57 I swear I am for those who walk abreast with the
whole earth!
|
| Who inaugurate one, to inaugurate all. |
| 58 I swear I will not be outfaced by irrational things! |
I will penetrate what it is in them that is sarcastic upon
me!
|
| I will make cities and civilizations defer to me! |
This is what I have learnt from America—it is the
amount—and it I teach again.
|
59 (Democracy! while weapons were everywhere aim'd
at your breast,
|
I saw you serenely give birth to immortal children—
saw in dreams your dilating form;
|
| Saw you with spreading mantle covering the world.) |
19
| 60 I will confront these shows of the day and night! |
| I will know if I am to be less than they! |
| I will see if I am not as majestic as they! |
| I will see if I am not as subtle and real as they! |
| I will see if I am to be less generous than they! |
61 I will see if I have no meaning, while the houses and
ships have meaning!
|
I will see if the fishes and birds are to be enough for
themselves, and I am not to be enough for my-
self.
|
20
62 I match my spirit against yours, you orbs, growths,
mountains, brutes,
|
Copious as you are, I absorb you all in myself, and be-
come the master myself.
|
63 America isolated, yet embodying all, what is it finally
except myself?
|
| These States—what are they except myself? |
View Page 326
|
64 I know now why the earth is gross, tantalizing,
wicked—it is for my sake,
|
I take you to be mine, you beautiful, terrible, rude
forms.
|
| 65 (Mother! bend down, bend close to me your face! |
I know not what these plots and wars, and deferments
are for;
|
I know not fruition's success—but I know that through
war and peace your work goes on, and must yet
go on.)
|
21
| 66 ………Thus, by blue Ontario's shore, |
While the winds fann'd me, and the waves came troop-
ing toward me,
|
I thrill'd with the Power's pulsations—and the charm
of my theme was upon me,
|
Till the tissues that held me, parted their ties upon
me.
|
| 67 And I saw the free Souls of poets; |
| The loftiest bards of past ages strode before me, |
Strange, large men, long unwaked, undisclosed, were
disclosed to me.
|
22
| 68 O my rapt verse, my call—mock me not! |
Not for the bards of the past—not to invoke them have
I launch'd you forth,
|
Not to call even those lofty bards here by Ontario's
shores,
|
| Have I sung, so capricious and loud, my savage song. |
| 69 Bards for my own land, only, I invoke; |
| (For the war, the war is over—the field is clear'd,) |
Till they strike up marches henceforth triumphant and
onward,
|
| To cheer, O mother, your boundless, expectant soul. |
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|
| 70 Bards grand as these days so grand! |
Bards of the great Idea! Bards of the peaceful inven-
tions! (for the war, the war is over!)
|
Yet Bards of the latent armies—a million soldiers wait-
ing ever-ready,
|
Bards towering like hills—(no more these dots, these
pigmies, these little piping straws, these gnats,
that fill the hour, to pass for poets;)
|
Bards with songs as from burning coals, or the light-
ning's fork'd stripes!
|
Ample Ohio's bards—bards for California! inland
bards—bards of the war;)
|
(As a wheel turns on its axle, so I find my chants turn-
ing finally on the war;)
|
Bards of pride! Bards tallying the ocean's roar, and
the swooping eagle's scream!
|
| You, by my charm, I invoke! |
PIONEERS! O PIONEERS!
1
| COME, my tan-faced children, |
| Follow well in order, get your weapons ready; |
Have you your pistols? have you your sharp edged
axes?
|
2
| For we cannot tarry here, |
We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt
of danger,
|
We, the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
|
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|
3
| O you youths, western youths, |
So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and
friendship,
|
Plain I see you, western youths, see you tramping with
the foremost,
|
4
| Have the elder races halted? |
Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied, over there
beyond the seas?
|
We take up the task eternal, and the burden, and the
lesson,
|
5
| All the past we leave behind; |
We debouch upon a newer, mightier world, varied
world;
|
Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labor and
the march,
|
6
| We detachments steady throwing, |
Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains
steep,
|
Conquering, holding, daring, venturing, as we go, the
unknown ways,
|
7
| We primeval forests felling, |
We the rivers stemming, vexing we, and piercing deep
the mines within;
|
We the surface broad surveying, we the virgin soil up-
heaving,
|
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|
8
From the peaks gigantic, from the great sierras and the
high plateaus,
|
From the mine and from the gully, from the hunting
trail we come,
|
9
| From Nebraska, from Arkansas, |
Central inland race are we, from Missouri, with the
continental blood intervein'd;
|
All the hands of comrades clasping, all the Southern,
all the Northern,
|
10
| O resistless, restless race! |
O beloved race in all! O my breast aches with tender
love for all!
|
| O I mourn and yet exult—I am rapt with love for all, |
11
| Raise the mighty mother mistress, |
Waving high the delicate mistress, over all the starry
mistress, (bend your heads all,)
|
Raise the fang'd and warlike mistress, stern, impassive,
weapon'd mistress,
|
12
| See, my children, resolute children, |
By those swarms upon our rear, we must never yield or
falter,
|
Ages back in ghostly millions, frowning there behind us
urging,
|
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|
13
| On and on, the compact ranks, |
With accessions ever waiting, with the places of the
dead quickly fill'd,
|
Through the battle, through defeat, moving yet and
never stopping,
|
14
Are there some of us to droop and die? has the hour
come?
|
Then upon the march we fittest die, soon and sure the
gap is fill'd,
|
15
| All the pulses of the world, |
Falling in, they beat for us, with the western move-
ment beat;
|
Holding single or together, steady moving, to the front,
all for us,
|
16
| Life's involv'd and varied pageants, |
All the forms and shows, all the workmen at their
work,
|
All the seamen and the landsmen, all the masters with
their slaves,
|
17
| All the hapless silent lovers, |
All the prisoners in the prisons, all the righteous and
the wicked,
|
All the joyous, all the sorrowing, all the living, all the
dying,
|
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|
18
| I too with my soul and body, |
| We, a curious trio, picking, wandering on our way, |
Through these shores, amid the shadows, with the ap-
paritions pressing,
|
19
| Lo! the darting bowling orb! |
Lo! the brother orbs around! all the clustering suns
and planets;
|
| All the dazzling days, all the mystic nights with dreams, |
20
| These are of us, they are with us, |
All for primal needed work, while the followers there
in embryo wait behind,
|
We to-day's procession heading, we the route for travel
clearing,
|
21
| O you daughters of the west! |
O you young and elder daughters! O you mothers and
you wives!
|
Never must you be divided, in our ranks you move
united,
|
22
| Minstrels latent on the prairies! |
(Shrouded bards of other lands! you may sleep—you
have done your work;)
|
Soon I hear you coming warbling, soon you rise and
tramp amid us,
|
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|
23
| Not for delectations sweet; |
Not the cushion and the slipper, not the peaceful and
the studious;
|
Not the riches safe and palling, not for us the tame en-
joyment,
|
24
| Do the feasters gluttonous feast? |
Do the corpulent sleepers sleep? have they lock'd and
bolted doors?
|
Still be ours the diet hard, and the blanket on the
ground,
|
25
Was the road of late so toilsome? did we stop discour-
aged, nodding on our way?
|
Yet a passing hour I yield you, in your tracks to pause
oblivious,
|
26
| Till with sound of trumpet, |
Far, far off the day-break call—hark! how loud and
clear I hear it wind;
|
Swift! to the head of the army!—swift! spring to your
places,
|
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|
RESPONDEZ!
(The war is completed—the price is paid—the title is
settled beyond recall;)
|
Let every one answer! let those who sleep be waked!
let none evade!
|
| Must we still go on with our affectations and sneaking? |
Let me bring this to a close—I pronounce openly for
a new distribution of roles;
|
Let that which stood in front go behind! and let that
which was behind advance to the front and
speak;
|
Let murderers, bigots, fools, unclean persons, offer new
propositions!
|
| Let the old propositions be postponed! |
Let faces and theories be turn'd inside out! let mean-
ings be freely criminal, as well as results!
|
Let there be no suggestion above the suggestion of
drudgery!
|
Let none be pointed toward his destination! (Say! do
you know your destination?)
|
Let men and women be mock'd with bodies and mock'd
with Souls!
|
Let the love that waits in them, wait! let it die, or pass
still-born to other spheres!
|
Let the sympathy that waits in every man, wait! or let
it also pass, a dwarf, to other spheres!
|
Let contradictions prevail! let one thing contradict
another! and let one line of my poems contra-
dict another!
|
Let the people sprawl with yearning, aimless hands!
let their tongues be broken! let their eyes be
discouraged! let none descend into their hearts
with the fresh lusciousness of love!
|
(Stifled, O days! O lands! in every public and private
corruption!
|
Smother'd in thievery, impotence, shamelessness, moun-
tain-high;
|
Brazen effrontery, scheming, rolling like ocean's waves
around and upon you, O my days! my lands!
|
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|
For not even those thunderstorms, nor fiercest light-
nings of the war, have purified the atmosphere;)
|
—Let the theory of America still be management, caste,
comparison! (Say! what other theory would
you?)
|
Let them that distrust birth and death still lead the
rest! (Say! why shall they not lead you?)
|
Let the crust of hell be near'd and trod on! let the
days be darker than the nights! let slumber bring
less slumber than waking time brings!
|
Let the world never appear to him or her for whom it
was all made!
|
Let the heart of the young man still exile itself from
the heart of the old man! and let the heart of
the old man be exiled from that of the young
man!
|
Let the sun and moon go! let scenery take the applause
of the audience! let there be apathy under the
stars!
|
Let freedom prove no man's inalienable right! every
one who can tyrannize, let him tyrannize to his
satisfaction!
|
| Let none but infidels be countenanced! |
Let the eminence of meanness, treachery, sarcasm, hate,
greed, indecency, impotence, lust, be taken for
granted above all! let writers, judges, govern-
ments, households, religions, philosophies, take
such for granted above all!
|
Let the worst men beget children out of the worst
women!
|
| Let the priest still play at immortality! |
| Let death be inaugurated! |
Let nothing remain but the ashes of teachers, artists;
moralists, lawyers, and learn'd and polite per-
sons!
|
| Let him who is without my poems be assassinated! |
Let the cow, the horse, the camel, the garden-bee—let
the mud-fish, the lobster, the mussel, eel, the
sting-ray, and the grunting pig-fish—let these,
and the like of these, be put on a perfect equality
with man and woman!
|
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|
Let churches accommodate serpents, vermin, and the
corpses of those who have died of the most
filthy of diseases!
|
Let marriage slip down among fools, and be for none
but fools!
|
Let men among themselves talk and think forever ob-
scenely of women! and let women among them-
selves talk and think obscenely of men!
|
Let us all, without missing one, be exposed in public,
naked, monthly, at the peril of our lives! let
our bodies be freely handled and examined by
whoever chooses!
|
Let nothing but copies at second hand be permitted to
exist upon the earth!
|
Let the earth desert God, nor let there ever henceforth
be mention'd the name of God!
|
Let there be money, business, imports, exports, custom,
authority, precedents, pallor, dyspepsia, smut,
ignorance, unbelief!
|
Let judges and criminals be transposed! let the prison-
keepers be put in prison! let those that were
prisoners take the keys! (Say! why might they
not just as well be transposed?)
|
| Let the slaves be masters! let the masters become slaves! |
Let the reformers descend from the stands where they
are forever bawling! let an idiot or insane
person appear on each of the stands!
|
Let the Asiatic, the African, the European, the Ameri-
can, and the Australian, go armed against the
murderous stealthiness of each other! let them
sleep armed! let none believe in good will!
|
Let there be no unfashionable wisdom! let such be
scorn'd and derided off from the earth!
|
Let a floating cloud in the sky—let a wave of the sea—
let growing mint, spinach, onions, tomatoes—
let these be exhibited as shows, at a great price for
admission!
|
Let all the men of These States stand aside for a few
smouchers! let the few seize on what they
choose! let the rest gawk, giggle, starve, obey!
|
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|
Let shadows be furnish'd with genitals! let substances
be deprived of their genitals!
|
Let there be wealthy and immense cities—but still
through any of them, not a single poet, savior,
knower, lover!
|
| Let the infidels of These States laugh all faith away! |
If one man be found who has faith, let the rest set upon
him!
|
Let them affright faith! let them destroy the power of
breeding faith!
|
Let the she-harlots and the he-harlots be prudent! let
them dance on, while seeming lasts! (O seeming!
seeming! seeming!)
|
Let the preachers recite creeds! let them still teach
only what they have been taught!
|
| Let insanity still have charge of sanity! |
| Let books take the place of trees, animals, rivers, clouds! |
| Let the daub'd portraits of heroes supersede heroes! |
| Let the manhood of man never take steps after itself! |
Let it take steps after eunuchs, and after consumptive
and genteel persons!
|
Let the white person again tread the black person
under his heel! (Say! which is trodden under
heel after all?)
|
Let the reflections of the things of the world be studied
in mirrors! let the things themselves still con-
tinue unstudied!
|
| Let a man seek pleasure everywhere except in himself! |
Let a woman seek happiness everywhere except in
herself!
|
(What real happiness have you had one single hour
through your whole life?)
|
Let the limited years of life do nothing for the limitless
years of death! (What do you suppose death
will do, then?)
|
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|
TURN, O LIBERTAD.
| TURN, O Libertad, for the war is over, |
(From it and all henceforth expanding, doubting no
more, resolute, sweeping the world,)
|
Turn from lands retrospective, recording proofs of the
past;
|
From the singers that sing the trailing glories of the
past;
|
From the chants of the feudal world—the triumphs of
kings, slavery, caste;
|
Turn to the world, the triumphs reserv'd and to come—
give up that backward world;
|
Leave to the singers of hitherto—give them the trailing
past;
|
But what remains, remains for singers for you—wars
to come are for you;
|
(Lo! how the wars of the past have duly inured to you
—and the wars of the present also inure:)
|
—Then turn, and be not alarm'd, O Libertad—turn
your undying face,
|
| To where the future, greater than all the past, |
| Is swiftly, surely preparing for you. |
ADIEU TO A SOLDIER.
| You of the rude campaigning, (which we shared,) |
| The rapid march, the life of the camp, |
The hot contention of opposing fronts—the long
manœuver,
|
Red battles with their slaughter,—the stimulus—the
strong, terrific game,
|
Spell of all brave and manly hearts—the trains of Time
through you, and like of you, all fill'd,
|
| With war, and war's expression. |
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|
| Your mission is fulfill'd—but I, more warlike, |
| Myself, and this contentious soul of mine, |
| Still on our own campaigning bound, |
Through untried roads, with ambushes, opponents
lined,
|
Through many a sharp defeat and many a crisis—often
baffled,
|
Here marching, ever marching on, a war fight out—
aye here,
|
| To fiercer, weightier battles give expression. |
As I Walk These Broad, Majestic Days.
| 1 As I walk these broad, majestic days of peace, |
(For the war, the struggle of blood finish'd, wherein, O
terrific Ideal!
|
| Against vast odds, having gloriously won, |
Now thou stridest on—yet perhaps in time toward
denser wars,
|
Perhaps to engage in time in still more dreadful con-
tests, dangers,
|
| Longer campaigns and crises, labors beyond all others;) |
| —As I walk, solitary, unattended, |
Around me I hear that eclat of the world—politics,
produce,
|
| The announcements of recognized things—science, |
The approved growth of cities, and the spread of inven-
tions.
|
| 2 I see the ships (they will last a few years,) |
| The vast factories, with their foremen and workmen, |
And hear the endorsement of all, and do not object to
it.
|
| 3 But I too announce solid things; |
Science, ships, politics, cities, factories, are not nothing
—I watch them,
|
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|
Like a grand procession, to music of distant bugles,
pouring, triumphantly moving—and grander
heaving in sight;
|
| They stand for realities—all is as it should be. |
| What else is so real as mine? |
Libertad, and the divine average—Freedom to every
slave on the face of the earth,
|
The rapt promises and luminé of seers—the spiritual
world—these centuries-lasting songs,
|
And our visions, the visions of poets, the most solid
announcements of any.
|
| 5 For we support all, fuse all, |
| After the rest is done and gone, we remain; |
| There is no final reliance but upon us; |
Democracy rests finally upon us, (I, my brethren, be-
gin it,)
|
| And our visions sweep through eternity. |
WEAVE IN, WEAVE IN, MY HARDY LIFE.
| WEAVE in! weave in, my hardy life! |
Weave yet a soldier strong and full, for great campaigns
to come;
|
Weave in red blood; weave sinews in, like ropes! the
senses, sight weave in!
|
Weave lasting sure! weave day and night the weft, the
warp, incessant weave! tire not!
|
(We know not what the use, O life! nor know the aim,
the end—nor really aught we know;
|
But know the work, the need goes on, and shall go on—
the death-envelop'd march of peace as well as
war goes on;)
|
For great campaigns of peace the same, the wiry threads
to weave;
|
| We know not why or what, yet weave, forever weave. |
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|
RACE OF VETERANS.
| RACE of veterans! Race of victors! |
Race of the soil, ready for conflict! race of the conquer-
ing march!
|
| (No more credulity's race, abiding-temper'd race;) |
| Race henceforth owning no law but the law of itself; |
| Race of passion and the storm. |
O SUN OF REAL PEACE.
| O SUN of real peace! O hastening light! |
O free and extatic! O what I here, preparing, warble
for!
|
O the sun of the world will ascend, dazzling, and take
his height—and you too, O my Ideal, will surely
ascend!
|
O so amazing and broad—up there resplendent, dart-
ing and burning!
|
O vision prophetic, stagger'd with weight of light! with
pouring glories!
|
| O lips of my soul, already becoming powerless! |
O ample and grand Presidentiads! Now the war, the
war is over!
|
| New history! new heroes! I project you! |
Visions of poets! only you really last! sweep on! sweep
on!
|
| O heights too swift and dizzy yet! |
O purged and luminous! you threaten me more than I
can stand!
|
(I must not venture—the ground under my feet men-
aces me—it will not support me:
|
O future too immense,)—O present, I return, while yet
I may, to you.
|
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