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Leaves of Grass (1871-72)
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PROUD MUSIC OF THE STORM.
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1 PROUD music of the storm! |
Blast that careers so free, whistling across the prairies! |
Strong hum of forest tree-tops! Wind of the moun-
tains!
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Personified dim shapes! you hidden orchestras! |
You serenades of phantoms with instruments alert, |
Blending with Nature's rhythmus, all the tongues of
nations;
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You chords left as by vast composers! you choruses! |
You formless, free, religious dances! you from the
Orient!
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You undertone of rivers, roar of pouring cataracts; |
You sounds from distant guns, with galloping cavalry! |
Echoes of camps with all the different bugle-calls! |
Trooping tumultuous, filling the midnight late, bending
me powerless,
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Entering my lonesome slumber-chamber—Why have
you seiz'd me?
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2 Come forward O my soul, and let the rest retire; |
Listen—lose not—it is toward thee they tend; |
Parting the midnight, entering my slumber-chamber, |
For thee they sing and dance, O soul. |
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The duet of the bridegroom and the bride—a marriage-
march,
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With lips of love, and hearts of lovers, fill'd to the brim
with love;
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The red-flush'd cheeks and perfumes—the cortege
swarming full of friendly faces young and old,
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To flutes' clear notes and sounding harps' cantabile. |
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4 Now loud approaching drums! |
Victoria! see'st thou in powder-smoke the banners torn
but flying? the rout of the baffled?
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Hearest those shouts of a conquering army? |
5 (Ah, Soul, the sobs of women—the wounded groaning
in agony,
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The hiss and crackle of flames—the blacken'd ruins—
the embers of cities,
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The dirge and desolation of mankind.) |
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6 Now airs antique and medieval fill me! |
I see and hear old harpers with their harps, at Welsh
festivals:
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I hear the minnesingers, singing their lays of love, |
I hear the minstrels, gleemen, troubadours, of the feudal
ages.
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7 Now the great organ sounds, |
Tremulous—while underneath, (as the hid footholds of
the earth,
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On which arising, rest, and leaping forth, depend, |
All shapes of beauty, grace and strength, all hues we
know,
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Green blades of grass, and warbling birds—children
that gambol and play—the clouds of heaven
above,)
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The strong base stands, and its pulsations intermits
not,
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Bathing, supporting, merging all the rest—maternity
of all the rest;
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And with it every instrument in multitudes, |
The players playing—all the world's musicians, |
The solemn hymns and masses rousing adoration, |
All passionate heart-chants, sorrowful appeals, |
The measureless sweet vocalists of ages, |
And for their solvent setting, Earth's own diapason, |
Of winds and woods and mighty ocean waves; |
A new composite orchestra—binder of years and climes
—ten-fold renewer,
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As of the far-back days the poets tell—the Paradiso, |
The straying thence, the separation long, but now the
wandering done,
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The journey done, the journeyman come home, |
And Man and Art, with Nature fused again. |
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8 Tutti! for Earth and Heaven! |
The Almighty Leader now for me, for once, has signal'd
with his wand.
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9 The manly strophe of the husbands of the world, |
And all the wives responding. |
10 The tongues of violins! |
(I think, O tongues, ye tell this heart, that cannot tell
itself;
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This brooding yearning heart, that cannot tell itself.) |
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11 Ah from a little child, |
Thou knowest, Soul, how to me all sounds became
music,
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My mother's voice in lullaby or hymn; |
(The voice—O tender voices—memory's loving voices! |
Last miracle of all—O dearest mother's, sister's, voices;) |
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The rain, the growing corn, the breeze among the
long-leav'd corn,
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The measur'd sea-surf beating on the sand, |
The twittering bird, the hawk's sharp scream, |
The wild-fowl's notes at night, as flying low, migrating
north or south,
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The psalm in the country church, or mid the clustering
trees, the open air camp-meeting,
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The fiddler in the tavern—the glee, the long-strung
sailor-song,
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The lowing cattle, bleating sheep, the crowing cock at
dawn.
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12 All songs of current lands come sounding 'round me, |
The German airs of friendship, wine and love, |
Irish ballads, merry jigs and dances—English warbles, |
Chansons of France, Scotch tunes—and o'er the rest, |
Italia's peerless compositions. |
13 Across the stage, with pallor on her face, yet lurid
passion,
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Stalks Norma, brandishing the dagger in her hand. |
14 I see poor crazed Lucia's eyes' unnatural gleam; |
Her hair down her back falls loose and dishevel'd. |
15 I see where Ernani, walking the bridal garden, |
Amid the scent of night-roses, radiant, holding his
bride by the hand,
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Hears the infernal call, the death-pledge of the horn. |
16 To crossing swords, and gray hairs bared to heaven, |
The clear, electric base and baritone of the world, |
The trombone duo—Libertad forever! |
17 From Spanish chestnut trees' dense shade, |
By old and heavy convent walls, a wailing song, |
Song of lost love—the torch of youth and life quench'd
in despair,
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Song of the dying swan—Fernando's heart is breaking.
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18 Awaking from her woes at last, retriev'd Amina
sings;
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Copious as stars, and glad as morning light, the tor-
rents of her joy.
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19 (The teeming lady comes! |
The lustrious orb—Venus contralto—the blooming
mother,
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Sister of loftiest gods—Alboni's self I hear.) |
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20 I hear those odes, symphonies, operas; |
I hear in the William Tell the music of an arous'd and
angry people;
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I hear Meyerbeer's Huguenots, the Prophet, or Robert ;
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Gounod's Faust, or Mozart's Don Juan. |
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21 I hear the dance-music of all nations, |
The waltz, (some delicious measure, lapsing, bathing me
in bliss;)
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The bolero, to tinkling guitars and clattering castanets. |
22 I see religious dances old and new, |
I hear the sound of the Hebrew lyre, |
I see the Crusaders marching, bearing the cross on
high, to the martial clang of cymbals;
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I hear dervishes monotonously chanting, interspers'd
with frantic shouts, as they spin around, turning
always towards Mecca;
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I see the rapt religious dances of the Persians and the
Arabs;
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Again, at Eleusis, home of Ceres, I see the modern
Greeks dancing,
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I hear them clapping their hands, as they bend their
bodies,
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I hear the metrical shuffling of their feet. |
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23 I see again the wild old Corybantian dance, the per-
formers wounding each other;
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I see the Roman youth to the shrill sound of flageolets
throwing and catching their weapons,
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As they fall on their knees, and rise again. |
24 I hear from the Mussulman mosque the muezzin
calling;
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I see the worshippers within, (nor form, nor sermon,
argument nor word,
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But silent, strange, devout—rais'd, glowing heads—
ecstatic faces.)
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11 I hear the Egyptian harp of many strings, |
The primitive chants of the Nile boatmen; |
The sacred imperial hymns of China, |
To the delicate sounds of the king, (the stricken wood
and stone,)
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Or to Hindu flutes, and the fretting twang of the vina, |
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26 Now Asia, Africa leave me—Europe, seizing, inflates
me;
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To organs huge, and bands, I hear as from vast con-
courses of voices,
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Luther's strong hymn, Eine feste Burg ist unser Gott, |
Rossini's Stabat Mater dolorosa, |
Or, floating in some high cathedral dim, with gorgeous
color'd windows,
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The passionate Agnus Dei or Gloria in Excelsis. |
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27 Composers! mighty maestros! |
And you, sweet singers of old lands—Soprani! Tenori!
Bassi!
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To you a new bard, carolling in the west, |
Obeisant, sends his love. |
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28 (Such led to thee O soul, |
All senses, shows and objects, lead to thee, |
But now, it seems to me, sound leads o'er all the
rest.)
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29 I hear the annual singing of the children in St. Paul's
Cathedral;
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Or, under the high roof of some colossal hall, the sym-
phonies, oratorios of Beethoven, Handel, or
Haydn,
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The Creation in billows of godhood laves me. |
30 Give me to hold all sounds, (I madly struggling,
cry,)
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Fill me with all the voices of the universe, |
Endow me with their throbbings—Nature's also, |
The tempests, waters, winds—operas and chants—
marches and dances,
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Utter—pour in—for I would take them all. |
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And pausing, questioning awhile the music of my
dream,
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And questioning all those reminiscences—the tempest
in its fury,
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And all the songs of sopranos and tenors,
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And those rapt oriental dances of religious fervor,
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And the sweet varied instruments, and the diapason of
organs,
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And all the artless plaints of love, and grief and
death,
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I said to my silent, curious Soul out of the bed of the
slumber-chamber,
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Come, for I have found the clew I sought so long, |
Let us go forth refresh'd amid the day, |
Cheerfully tallying life, walking the world, the real, |
Nourish'd henceforth by our celestial dream. |
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Haply, what thou hast heard, O Soul, was not the sound
of winds,
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Nor dream of raging storm, nor sea-hawk's flapping
wings nor harsh scream,
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Nor vocalism of sun-bright Italy, |
Nor German organ majestic—nor vast concourse of
voices—nor layers of harmonies;
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Nor strophes of husbands and wives—nor sound of
marching soldiers,
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Nor flutes, nor harps, nor the bugle-calls of camps; |
But, to a new rhythmus fitted for thee, |
Poems, bridging the way from Life to Death, vaguely
wafted in night air, uncaught, unwritten,
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Which, let us go forth in the bold day, and write. |
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