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MY spirit to yours, dear brother; Do not mind because many, sounding your name, do not understand you

I do not sound your name, but I understand you, (there are others also;) I specify you with joy, O my

divisions, jealousies, recriminations on every side, They close peremptorily upon us, to surround us, my

A SIGHT in camp in the day-break grey and dim, As from my tent I emerge so early, sleepless, As slow

Who are you, my dear comrade? Then to the second I step—And who are you, my child and darling?

stopping now and then in the silence, Alone I had thought—yet soon a troop gathers around me, Some walk by my

side, and some behind, and some em- brace embrace my arms or neck, They, the spirits of dear friends

lilac, with a branch of pine, Here, out of my pocket, some moss which I pull'd off a live-oak in Florida

from the water by the pond-side, that I reserve, I will give of it—but only to them that love, as I my

What is this you bring my America? Is it uniform with my country?

I swear I will have each quality of my race in my- self myself , (Talk as you like, he only suits These

rapt verse, my call—mock me not!

my lands!

WEAVE IN, WEAVE IN, MY HARDY LIFE. WEAVE in! weave in, my hardy life!

indifferent , but trembling with age and your unheal'd wounds, you mounted the scaffold;) —I would sing in my

know not why, but I loved you…(and so go forth little song, Far over sea speed like an arrow, carrying my

love, and drop these lines at his feet;) —Nor forget I to sing of the wonder, the ship as she swam up my

bay, Well-shaped and stately the Great Eastern swam up my bay, she was 600 feet long, Her, moving swiftly

world, a rural domestic life; Give me to warble spontaneous songs, reliev'd, recluse by myself, for my

excitement, and rack'd by the war-strife;) These to procure, incessantly asking, rising in cries from my

heart, While yet incessantly asking, still I adhere to my city; Day upon day, and year upon year, O

enrich'd of soul—you give me forever faces; (O I see what I sought to escape, confronting, reversing my

cries; I see my own soul trampling down what it ask'd for.) 2 Keep your splendid, silent sun; Keep your

love, spit their salutes; When the fire-flashing guns have fully alerted me— when heaven-clouds canopy my

To us, my city, Where our tall-topt marble and iron beauties range on opposite sides—to walk in the space

4 See, my cantabile!

chant, projected, a thousand blooming cities yet, in time, on those groups of sea-islands; I chant my

sail-ships and steam-ships threading the archipelagoes; I chant my stars and stripes fluttering in the

My South! O quick mettle, rich blood, impulse, and love! Good and evil! O all dear to me!

the Tombigbee, the Santee, the Coosa, and the Sabine; O pensive, far away wandering, I return with my

the graceful palmetto; I pass rude sea-headlands and enter Pamlico Sound through an inlet, and dart my

Me, ruthless and devilish as any, that my wrists are not chain'd with iron, or my ankles with iron?

My girl, I appoint with you an appointment—and I charge you that you make preparation to be worthy to

the still woods I loved; I will not go now on the pastures to walk; I will not strip the clothes from my

body to meet my lover the sea; I will not touch my flesh to the earth, as to other flesh, to renew me

and meat; I do not see any of it upon you to-day—or perhaps I am deceiv'd; I will run a furrow with my

I WAS asking for something specific and perfect for my city, Whereupon, lo!

my city! The city of such women, I am mad to be with them!

That, O my brethren—that is the mission of Poets.

What is this you bring my America? Is it uniform with my country?

I swear I will have each quality of my race in my- self myself , (Talk as you like, he only suits These

rapt verse, my call—mock me not!

You, by my charm, I invoke!

Deliriate, thus prelude what is generated, offering these, offering myself, Bathing myself, bathing my

songs in Sex, Offspring of my loins.

Bear forth to them, folded, my love —(Dear mariners!

for you I fold it here, in every leaf;) Speed on, my Book!

spread your white sails, my little bark, athwart the imperious waves!

What do my shouts amid lightnings and raging winds mean?)

(I bequeath them to you, my children, I tell them to you, for reasons, O bridegroom and bride.)

To rise thither with my inebriate Soul! To be lost, if it must be so!

—Then separate, as disembodied, or another born, Ethereal, the last athletic reality, my consolation;

I ascend—I float in the regions of your love, O man, O sharer of my roving life.

BEHOLD this swarthy face—these gray eyes, This beard—the white wool, unclipt upon my neck, My brown hands

the air I breathed froze me; A thick gloom fell through the sunshine and darken'd me; Must I change my

said I to my- self myself ; Must I indeed learn to chant the cold dirges of the baf- fled baffled ?

Death and Night, inces- santly incessantly softly wash again, and ever again, this soil'd world: …For my

where he lies, white-faced and still, in the coffin —I draw near; I bend down, and touch lightly with my

Whoever you are, now I place my hand upon you, that you be my poem; I whisper with my lips close to your

O I have been dilatory and dumb; I should have made my way straight to you long ago; I should have blabb'd

paint myriads of heads, but paint no head with- out without its nimbus of gold-color'd light; From my

Whoever you are, now I place my hand upon you, that you be my poem; I whisper with my lips close to your

O I have been dilatory and dumb; I should have made my way straight to you long ago; I should have blabb'd

paint myriads of heads, but paint no head with- out without its nimbus of gold-color'd light; From my

such-like, visible here or any- where anywhere , stand provided for in a handful of space, which I extend my

arm and half enclose with my hand; That contains the start of each and all—the virtue, the germs of

I exclude you; Not till the waters refuse to glisten for you, and the leaves to rustle for you, do my

My girl, I appoint with you an appointment—and I charge you that you make preparation to be worthy to

nor the bright win- dows windows , with goods in them; Nor to converse with learn'd persons, or bear my

your frequent and swift flash of eyes offering me love, Offering response to my own—these repay me; Lovers

smoke; By these, crowds, groups of forms, vaguely I see, on the floor, some in the pews laid down; At my

staunch the blood temporarily, (the youngster's face is white as a lily;) Then before I depart I sweep my

resume as I chant—I see again the forms, I smell the odor; Then hear outside the orders given, Fall in, my

all—aplomb in the midst of irrational things, Imbued as they—passive, receptive, silent as they, Finding my

woods, or of any farm-life of These States, or of the coast, or the lakes, or Kanada, Me, wherever my

I WAS asking for something specific and perfect for my city, Whereupon, lo!

there is in a name, a word, liquid, sane, unruly, musical, self-sufficient; I see that the word of my

my city! The city of such women, I am mad to be with them!

Features of my equals, would you trick me with your creas'd and cadaverous march?

I saw the face of the most smear'd and slobbering idiot they had at the asylum; And I knew for my consolation

what they knew not; I knew of the agents that emptied and broke my brother, The same wait to clear the

pickets, Come here, she blushingly cries—Come nigh to me, lim-ber-hipp'dlimber-hipp'd man, Stand at my

upon you, Fill me with albescent honey, bend down to me, Rub to me with your chafing beard, rub to my

1 COME, my tan-faced children, Follow well in order, get your weapons ready; Have you your pistols?

2 For we cannot tarry here, We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger, We, the youthful

O my breast aches with tender love for all!

12 See, my children, resolute children, By those swarms upon our rear, we must never yield or falter,

18 I too with my soul and body, We, a curious trio, picking, wandering on our way, Through these shores

AS I PONDER'D IN SILENCE. 1 AS I ponder'd in silence, Returning upon my poems, considering, lingering

then I answer'd, I too, haughty Shade, also sing war—and a longer and greater one than any, Waged in my

with me, I ate with you, and slept with you—your body has be- come become not yours only, nor left my

body mine only, You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as we pass—you take of my beard,

DRUM-TAPS. 1 FIRST, O songs, for a prelude, Lightly strike on the stretch'd tympanum, pride and joy in my

O Manhattan, my own, my peerless! O strongest you in the hour of danger, in crisis!

for our pre- lude prelude , songs of soldiers,) How Manhattan drum-taps led. 2 Forty years had I in my

WITH ANTECEDENTS. 1 WITH antecedents; With my fathers and mothers, and the accumulations of past ages

to-day and America could no-how be better than they are. 3 In the name of These States, and in your and my

name, the Past, And in the name of These States, and in your and my name, the Present time.

I will take you down underneath this impassive exterior—I will tell you what to say of me; Publish my

name and hang up my picture as that of the tenderest lover, The friend, the lover's portrait, of whom

Me, ruthless and devilish as any, that my wrists are not chain'd with iron, or my ankles with iron?

leaves upon it, and twined around it a little moss, And brought it away—and I have placed it in sight in my

room; It is not needed to remind me as of my own dear friends, (For I believe lately I think of little

Why do you tremble, and clutch my hand so convul- sively convulsively ?

Aye, this is the ground; My blind eyes, even as I speak, behold it re-peopled from graves; The years

night of that, mist lifting, rain ceasing, Silent as a ghost, while they thought they were sure of him, my

him at the river-side, Down by the ferry, lit by torches, hastening the embar- cation embarcation ; My

But when my General pass'd me, As he stood in his boat, and look'd toward the coming sun, I saw something

2 O maidens and young men I love, and that love me, What you ask of my days, those the strangest and

without noise, and be of strong heart.) 3 Bearing the bandages, water and sponge, Straight and swift to my

knee, the wound in the abdo- men abdomen ; These and more I dress with impassive hand—(yet deep in my

a fire, a burning flame.) 5 Thus in silence, in dreams' projections, Returning, resuming, I thread my

You objects that call from diffusion my meanings, and give them shape!

Why are there men and women that while they are nigh me, the sun-light expands my blood!

Why, when they leave me, do my pennants of joy sink flat and lank?

It is safe—I have tried it—my own feet have tried it well. Allons! be not detain'd!

I give you my hand!

NOW LIST TO MY MORNING'S ROMANZA. 1 Now list to my morning's romanza—I tell the signs of the Answerer

And I stand before the young man face to face, and take his right hand in my left hand, and his left

hand in my right hand, And I answer for his brother, and for men, and I an- swer answer for him that

landscape, people, animals, The profound earth and its attributes, and the unquiet ocean, (so tell I my

to the President at his levee, And he says, Good-day, my brother!

BY the City Dead-House, by the gate, As idly sauntering, wending my way from the clangor, I curious pause—for

take one breath from my tremulous lips; Take one tear, dropt aside as I go, for thought of you, Dead

Then my realities; What else is so real as mine?

done and gone, we remain; There is no final reliance but upon us; Democracy rests finally upon us, (I, my

CAROL OF OCCUPATIONS. 1 COME closer to me; Push close, my lovers, and take the best I possess!

Neither a servant nor a master am I; I take no sooner a large price than a small price—I will have my

become so for your sake; If you remember your foolish and outlaw'd deeds, do you think I cannot remember my

are; I am this day just as much in love with them as you; Then I am in love with you, and with all my

List close, my scholars dear!

1 O TAKE my hand, Walt Whitman! Such gliding wonders! such sights and sounds!

change of the light and shade, I see distant lands, as real and near to the inhabitants of them, as my

see Hermes, unsuspected, dying, well-beloved, saying to the people, Do not weep for me, This is not my

race; I see the results of the perseverance and industry of my race; I see ranks, colors, barbarisms

I have run through what any river or strait of the globe has run through; I have taken my stand on the

Orleans, San Francisco, The departing ships, when the sailors heave at the capstan; —Evening—me in my

room—the setting sun, The setting summer sun shining in my open window, showing the swarm of flies,

, futurity, In space, the sporades, the scatter'd islands, the stars— on the firm earth, the lands, my

thereof—and no less in myself than the whole of the Mannahatta in itself, Singing the song of These, my

my lands are inevitably united, and made ONE IDENTITY; Nativities, climates, the grass of the great

indifferent , but trembling with age and your unheal'd wounds, you mounted the scaffold;) —I would sing in my

know not why, but I loved you…(and so go forth little song, Far over sea speed like an arrow, carrying my

love, and drop these lines at his feet;) —Nor forget I to sing of the wonder, the ship as she swam up my

bay, Well-shaped and stately the Great Eastern swam up my bay, she was 600 feet long, Her, moving swiftly

I walk'd the shores of my Eastern Sea, Heard over the waves the little voice, Saw the divine infant,

maintain the be- queath'd bequeath'd cause, as for all lands, And I send these words to Paris with my

shame or the need of shame. 2 Air, soil, water, fire—these are words; I myself am a word with them—my

qualities interpene- trate interpenetrate with theirs—my name is nothing to them; Though it were told

in the three thousand languages, what would air, soil, water, fire, know of my name?

When I undertake to tell the best, I find I cannot, My tongue is ineffectual on its pivots, My breath

prove this puzzle, the New World, And to define America, her athletic Democracy; Therefore I send you my

—at last I accept your terms; Bringing to practical, vulgar tests, of all my ideal dreams, And of me,

my brother or my sister! Keep on!

and let one line of my poems contra- dict contradict another!

tain-high mountain-high ; Brazen effrontery, scheming, rolling like ocean's waves around and upon you, O my

my lands!

Let him who is without my poems be assassinated!