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.00244Sparkles from the Wheel1871poetryhandwritten2 leaves25.5 x 20 cm; First published not in the 1860

1872prose6 leaveshandwritten; This manuscript touches on the developing "distinctive metropolitan American

Character" of Washington, including the city's status as a literary center.

Portions of this manuscript were used in Washington as a Central Winter Residence and Authors of Washington

intended as a second preface to the poem before its title revision in 1881, portions of this manuscript were

The lines were later incorporated as lines 6, 7, 8, and 9 in L. of G.'

The lines were incorporated as lines 90 and 91 in the poem Thy Mother with Thy Equal Brood, first published

Gurney and Son, 1871 Whitman dates this picture to about 1865, but Gurney & Son were at 707 Broadway

Johnston, including the 1854 Gabriel Harrison daguerreotype and the 1860 painting by Charles W.

Stereoscopes were invented before photography (the original ones used drawn landscapes), but they increased

American Feuillage. AMERICAN FEUILLAGE. AMERICA always! Always our own feuillage!

Always the prairies, pastures, forests, vast cities, trav- elers travelers , Kanada, the snows; Always

drift spooning ahead, where the ship in the tem- pest tempest dashes; On solid land, what is done in cities

sit on the gunwale, smok- ing smoking and talking; Late in the afternoon, the mocking-bird, the American

day, driving the herd of cows, and shouting to them as they loiter to browse by the road-side; The city

Do you think the great city endures? Or a teeming manufacturing state?

greatest city in the whole world. 5 The place where the great city stands is not the place of stretch'd

Where the city stands with the brawniest breed of orators and bards; Where the city stands that is beloved

city of the healthiest fathers stands; Where the city of the best-bodied mothers stands, There the great

city stands. 6 How beggarly appear arguments before a defiant deed!

You flagg'd walks of the cities! you strong curbs at the edges! You ferries!

I think heroic deeds were all conceiv'd in the open air, and all great poems also; I think I could stop

Whoever accepts me, he or she shall be blessed, and shall bless me. 6 Now if a thousand perfect men were

to which you were destin'd— you hardly settle yourself to satisfaction, before you are call'd by an

countries, habitus of far- distant far-distant dwellings, Trusters of men and women, observers of cities

Look'd toward the lower bay to notice the arriving ships, Saw their approach, saw aboard those that were

yellow light, over the tops of houses, and down into the clefts of streets. 4 These, and all else, were

I loved well those cities; I loved well the stately and rapid river; The men and women I saw were all

also; The best I had done seem'd to me blank and suspicious; My great thoughts, as I supposed them, were

as much of you —I laid in my stores in advance; I consider'd long and seriously of you before you were

that the old accounts, bibles, genealogies, are true, without exception; I assert that all past days were

what they should have been; And that they could no-how have been better than they were, And that to-day

MY MORNING'S ROMANZA. 1 Now list to my morning's romanza—I tell the signs of the Answerer; To the cities

, The best farms—others toiling and planting, and he unavoidably reaps, The noblest and costliest cities—others

things in their attitudes; He puts to-day out of himself, with plasticity and love; He places his own city

The City Dead-House. THE CITY DEAD-HOUSE.

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

American masses!

Were all educations, practical and ornamental, well dis- play'd display'd out of me, what would it amount

Were I as the head teacher, charitable proprietor, wise statesman, what would it amount to?

Were I to you as the boss employing and paying you, would that satisfy you?

Because you are greasy or pimpled, or that you were once drunk, or a thief, Or diseas'd, or rheumatic

my clothes were stolen while I was abed, Now I am thrust forth, where shall I run?

west, as they lie unclothed, The Asiatic and African are hand in hand—the Euro- pean European and American

Were you thinking that those were the words—those upright lines? those curves, angles, dots?

Were you thinking that those were the words—those delicious sounds out of your friends' mouths?

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

echo the tones of Souls, and the phrases of Souls; If they did not echo the phrases of Souls, what were

If they had not reference to you in especial, what were they then?

the scaffold;) —I would sing in my copious song your census returns of The States, The tables of population

RECEPTION JAPANESE EMBASSY, JUNE, 1860. 1 OVER the western sea, hither from Niphon come, Courteous the

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

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

Were the precedent dim ages debouching westward from Paradise so long?

Were the centuries steadily footing it that way, all the while unknown, for you, for reasons?

, And the tidy and fresh-cheek'd girls—and the barefoot negro boy and girl, And all the changes of city

noises of the night-owl and the wild cat, and the whirr of the rattlesnake; The mocking-bird, the American

Think of the time when you were not yet born; Think of times you stood at the side of the dying; Think

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

costumes of peace with indifferent hand; How your soft opera-music changed, and the drum and fife were

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

The blood of the city up—arm'd! arm'd!

you Mannahatta; Old matron of this proud, friendly, turbulent city!

sonorous voice ringing across the continent; Your masculine voice, O year, as rising amid the great cities

Over the traffic of cities—over the rumble of wheels in the streets: Are beds prepared for sleepers at

the earth and the sea never gave us; Not through the mighty woods we go, but through the mightier cities

What, to pavements and homesteads here—what were those storms of the mountains and sea?

And do you rise higher than ever yet, O days, O cities! Crash heavier, heavier yet, O storms!

prepared in the mountains, absorbs your im- mortal immortal strong nutriment; —Long had I walk'd my cities

ground before me, Continually preceding my steps, turning upon me oft, ironically hissing low; —The cities

City of Ships. CITY OF SHIPS. CITY of ships! (O the black ships! O the fierce ships!

City of the world!

city of hurried and glittering tides!

City of wharves and stores! city of tall façades of mar- ble marble and iron!

Proud and passionate city! mettlesome, mad, extrava- gant extravagant city! Spring up, O city!

not with terror; But suddenly, pouring about me here, on every side, And below there where the boys were

Twenty thousand were brought against us, A veteran force, furnish'd with good artillery.

close together, very compact, their flag flying in the middle; But O from the hills how the cannon were

day; But the night of that, mist lifting, rain ceasing, Silent as a ghost, while they thought they were

torches, hastening the embar- cation embarcation ; My General waited till the soldiers and wounded were

Smell you the buckwheat, where the bees were lately buzzing?)

soon be better. 4 Ah, now the single figure to me, Amid all teeming and wealthy Ohio, with all its cities

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 city, walking your streets, Where you hold me enchain'd a certain

I see a sad procession, And I hear the sound of coming full-key'd bugles; All the channels of the city

(Were you looking to be held together by the lawyers? Or by an agreement on a paper? or by arms?

lines—a desperate emergency; I saw a hundred and more step forth from the ranks— but two or three were

(Washington City, 1865.) SPIRIT whose work is done! spirit of dreadful hours!

(Washington City, 1865.)

TO the leaven'd soil they trod, calling, I sing, for the last; (Not cities, nor man alone, nor war, nor

back-top ; The faces of hunters and fishers, bulged at the brows —the shaved blanch'd faces of orthodox citi

I saw the rich ladies in full dress at the soiree, I heard what the singers were singing so long.

incomparable love, Plunging his seminal muscle into its merits and de- merits demerits , Making its cities

, The superior marine, free commerce, fisheries, whaling, gold-digging, Wharf-hemm'd cities, railroad

to American persons, pro- gresses progresses , cities? Chicago, Kanada, Arkansas?

I will make cities and civilizations defer to me!

while weapons were everywhere aim'd at your breast, I saw you serenely give birth to immortal children

let those that were prisoners take the keys! (Say! why might they not just as well be transposed?)

Let the Asiatic, the African, the European, the Ameri- can American , and the Australian, go armed against

Let there be wealthy and immense cities—but still through any of them, not a single poet, savior, knower

the world—politics, produce, The announcements of recognized things—science, The approved growth of cities

But I too announce solid things; Science, ships, politics, cities, factories, are not nothing —I watch

ages, that men and women like us grew up and travel'd their course, and pass'd on; What vast-built cities—what

and phrenology; What of liberty and slavery among them—what they thought of death and the soul; Who were

O I know that those men and women were not for nothing, any more than we are for nothing; I know that

Do their lives, cities, arts, rest only with us? Did they achieve nothing for good, for themselves?

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 city

ice in the river, passing along, up or down, with the flood-tide or ebb-tide; The mechanics of the city

The beautiful city, the city of hurried and sparkling waters! the city of spires and masts!

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

all—None refuse, all attend; Armies, ships, antiquities, the dead, libraries, paintings, machines, cities

sea-bird, and look down as from a height; I do not deny the precious results of peace—I see pop- ulous populous

cities, with wealth incalculable; I see numberless farms—I see the farmers working in their fields or

spacious and haughty States, (nor any five, nor ten;) Nor market nor depot are we, nor money-bank in the city

The stars themselves, some shaped, others unshaped, Wonders as of those countries—the soil, trees, cities

…of the questions of these recurring; Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill'd with the

original loins, perfectly sweet, I, chanter of Adamic songs, Through the new garden, the West, the great cities

America, and along the shores of the great lakes, and all over the prairies; I will make inseparable cities

comrade—the attraction of friend to friend, Of the well-married husband and wife—of children and parents, Of city

for city, and land for land.