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Leaves of Grass (1871-72)
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A CAROL OF HARVEST, FOR 1867.
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1 A SONG of the good green grass! |
A song no more of the city streets; |
A song of farms—a song of the soil of fields. |
2 A song of the smell of sun-dried hay, where the
nimble pitchers handle the pitch-fork;
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A song tasting of new wheat, and of fresh-husk'd maize. |
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3 For the lands, and for these passionate days, and for
myself,
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Now I awhile return to thee, O soil of Autumn fields, |
Reclining on thy breast, giving myself to thee, |
Answering the pulses of thy sane and equable heart, |
4 O Earth, that hast no voice, confide to me a voice! |
O harvest of my lands! O boundless summer growths! |
O lavish, brown, parturient earth! O infinite, teeming
womb!
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A verse to seek, to see, to narrate thee. |
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Is acted God's calm, annual drama, |
Gorgeous processions, songs of birds, |
Sunrise, that fullest feeds and freshens most the soul, |
The heaving sea, the waves upon the shore, the musical,
strong waves,
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The woods, the stalwart trees, the slender, tapering
trees,
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The flowers, the grass, the lilliput, countless armies of
the grass,
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The heat, the showers, the measureless pasturages, |
The scenery of the snows, the winds' free orchestra, |
The stretching, light-hung roof of clouds—the clear
cerulean, and the bulging, silvery fringes,
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The high dilating stars, the placid, beckoning stars, |
The moving flocks and herds, the plains and emerald
meadows,
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The shows of all the varied lands, and all the growths
and products.
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6 Fecund America! To day, |
Thou art all over set in births and joys! |
Thou groan'st with riches! thy wealth clothes thee as
with a swathing garment!
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Thou laughest loud with ache of great possessions! |
A myriad-twining life, like interlacing vines, binds all
thy vast demesne!
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As some huge ship, freighted to water's edge, thou
ridest into port!
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As rain falls from the heaven, and vapors rise from
earth, so have the precious values fallen upon
thee, and risen out of thee!
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Thou envy of the globe! thou miracle! |
Thou, bathed, choked, swimming in plenty! |
Thou lucky Mistress of the tranquil barns! |
Thou Prairie Dame that sittest in the middle, and
lookest out upon thy world, and lookest East,
and lookest West!
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Dispensatress, that by a word givest a thousand miles
—that giv'st a million farms, and missest noth-
ing,
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Thou All-Acceptress—thou Hospitable—(thou only art
hospitable, as God is hospitable.)
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7 When late I sang, sad was my voice; |
Sad were the shows around me, with deafening noises
of hatred, and smoke of conflict;
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In the midst of the armies, the Heroes, I stood, |
Or pass'd with slow step through the wounded and
dying.
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8 But now I sing not War, |
Nor the measur'd march of soldiers, nor the tents
of camps,
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Nor the regiments hastily coming up, deploying in line
of battle.
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9 No more the dead and wounded; |
No more the sad, unnatural shows of War. |
10 Ask'd room those flush'd immortal ranks? the first
forth-stepping armies?
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Ask room, alas, the ghastly ranks—the armies dread
that follow'd.
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11 (Pass—pass, ye proud brigades! |
So handsome, dress'd in blue—with your tramping,
sinewy legs;
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With your shoulders young and strong—with your
knapsacks and your muskets;
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—How elate I stood and watch'd you, where, starting
off, you march'd!
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12 Pass;—then rattle, drums, again! |
Scream, you steamers on the river, out of whistles loud
and shrill, your salutes!
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For an army heaves in sight—O another gathering
army!
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Swarming, trailing on the rear—O you dread, accruing
army!
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O you regiments so piteous, with your mortal diarrhoea!
with your fever!
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O my land's maim'd darlings! with the plenteous bloody
bandage and the crutch!
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Lo! your pallid army follow'd!) |
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13 But on these days of brightness, |
On the far-stretching beauteous landscape, the roads
and lanes, the high-piled farm-wagons, and the
fruits and barns,
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14 Ah, the dead to me mar not—they fit well in Na-
ture;
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They fit very well in the landscape, under the trees and
grass,
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And along the edge of the sky, in the horizon's far
margin.
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15 Nor do I forget you, departed; |
Nor in winter or summer, my lost ones; |
But most, in the open air, as now, when my soul is
rapt and at peace—like pleasing phantoms,
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Your dear memories, rising, glide silently by me. |
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16 I saw the day, the return of the Heroes; |
(Yet the heroes never surpass'd, shall never return; |
Them, that day, I saw not.) |
17 I saw the interminable Corps—I saw the processions
of armies,
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I saw them approaching, defiling by, with divisions, |
Streaming northward, their work done, camping awhile
in clusters of mighty camps.
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18 No holiday soldiers!—youthful, yet veterans; |
Worn, swart, handsome, strong, of the stock of home-
stead and workshop,
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Harden'd of many a long campaign and sweaty march, |
Inured on many a hard-fought, bloody field. |
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19 A pause—the armies wait; |
A million flush'd, embattled conquerors wait; |
The world, too, waits—then, soft as breaking night, and
sure as dawn,
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They melt—they disappear. |
20 Exult, indeed, O lands! victorious lands! |
Not there your victory, on those red, shuddering fields; |
But here and hence your victory. |
21 Melt, melt away ye armies! disperse, ye blue-clad
soldiers!
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Resolve ye back again—give up, for good, your deadly
arms;
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Other the arms, the fields henceforth for you, or South
or North, or East or West,
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With saner wars—sweet wars—life-giving wars. |
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22 Loud, O my throat, and clear, O soul! |
The season of thanks and the voice of full-yielding; |
The chant of joy and power for boundless fertility. |
23 All till'd and untill'd fields expand before me; |
I see the true arenas of my race—or first or last, |
Man's innocent and strong arenas. |
24 I see the Heroes at other toils; |
I see, well-wielded in their hands, the better weapons. |
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25 I see where America, Mother of All, |
Well-pleased, with full-spanning eye, gazes forth, dwells
long,
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And counts the varied gathering of the products. |
26 Busy the far, the sunlit panorama; |
Prairie, orchard, and yellow grain of the North, |
Cotton and rice of the South, and Louisianian cane; |
Open, unseeded fallows, rich fields of clover and tim-
othy,
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Kine and horses feeding, and droves of sheep and
swine,
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And many a stately river flowing, and many a jocund
brook,
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And healthy uplands with herby-perfumed breezes, |
And the good green grass—that delicate miracle, the
ever-recurring grass.
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27 Toil on Heroes! harvest the products! |
Not alone on those warlike fields, the Mother of All, |
With dilated form and lambent eyes, watch'd you. |
28 Toil on Heroes! toil well! handle the weapons
well!
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The Mother of All—yet here, as ever, she watches
you.
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29 Well-pleased, America, thou beholdest, |
Over the fields of the West, those crawling monsters, |
The human-divine inventions, the labor-saving imple-
ments:
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Beholdest, moving in every direction, imbued as with
life, the revolving hay-rakes,
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The steam-power reaping-machines and the horse-power
machines,
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The engines, thrashers of grain and cleaners of grain,
well separating the straw—the nimble work of
the patent pitchfork;
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Beholdest the newer saw-mill, the southern cotton-gin,
and the rice-cleanser.
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30 Beneath thy look, O Maternal, |
With these, and else, and with their own strong hands,
the Heroes harvest.
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31 All gather, and all harvest; |
(Yet but for thee, O Powerful! not a scythe might
swing, as now, in security;
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Not a maize-stalk dangle, as now, its silken tassels in
peace.
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32 Under thee only they harvest—even but a wisp of
hay, under thy great face, only;
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Harvest the wheat of Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin—every
barbed spear, under thee;
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Harvest the maize of Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee—
each ear in its light-green sheath,
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Gather the hay to its myriad mows, in the odorous,
tranquil barns,
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Oats to their bins—the white potato, the buckwheat of
Michigan, to theirs;
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Gather the cotton in Mississippi or Alabama—dig and
hoard the golden, the sweet potato of Georgia
and the Carolinas,
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Clip the wool of California or Pennsylvania, |
Cut the flax in the Middle States, or hemp, or tobacco
in the Borders,
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Pick the pea and the bean, or pull apples from the
trees, or bunches of grapes from the vines,
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Or aught that ripens in all These States, or North or
South,
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Under the beaming sun, and under Thee. |
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