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(Were you looking to be held together by 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.)

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

wast not granted to sing thou would'st surely die.) 5 Over the breast of the spring, the land, amid cities

day and night with the great cloud darkening the land, With the pomp of the inloop'd flags with the cities

not what kept me from sleep,) As the night advanced, and I saw on the rim of the west how full you were

and there, With ranging hills on the banks, with many a line against the sky, and shadows, And the city

men, I saw them, I saw the debris and debris of all the slain soldiers of the war, But I saw they were

neck with incomparable love, Plunging his seminal muscle into its merits and demerits, Making its cities

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

What does it mean to American persons, progresses, cities?

Underneath all, individuals, I swear nothing is good to me now that ignores individuals, The American

by irrational things, I will penetrate what it is in them that is sarcastic upon me, I will make cities

hospitable, (thou only art hospitable as God is hospitable.) 4 When late I sang sad was my voice, Sad were

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

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

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?

In one, among the city streets a laborer's home appear'd, After his day's work done, cleanly, sweet-air'd

suite of noble rooms, 'Mid plenteous books and journals, paintings on the walls, fine statuettes, Were

All, all the shows of laboring life, City and country, women's, men's and children's, Their wants provided

swiftly hasten all—none refuse, all attend, Armies, ships, antiquities, libraries, paintings, machines, cities

WHERE the city's ceaseless crowd moves on the livelong day, Withdrawn I join a group of children watching

They live in brothers again ready to defy you, They were purified by death, they were taught and exalted

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

WHEN I heard the learn'd astronomer, When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,

of the questions of these recurring, Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill'd with the

OF Equality—as if it harm'd me, giving others the same chances and rights as myself—as if it were not

FIRST O songs for a prelude, Lightly strike on the stretch'd tympanum pride and joy in my city, How she

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

Forty years had I in my city seen soldiers parading, Forty years as a pageant, till unawares the lady

of this teeming and turbulent city, Sleepless amid her ships, her houses, her incalculable wealth, With

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

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 sea-bird, and look down as from a height, I do not deny the precious results of peace, I see 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 we, nor money-bank in the city

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!

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

wait, I am fully satisfied, I am glutted, I have witness'd the true lightning, I have witness'd my 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 marble and iron!

Proud and passionate city—mettlesome, mad, extravagant city!

shines down, Green the midsummer verdure and fresh blows the dallying breeze, O'er proud and peaceful cities

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

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

Ah now the single figure to me, Amid all teeming and wealthy Ohio with all its cities and farms, Sickly

city stands.

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

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

They were purified by death—they were taught and exalted.

From the American Phrenological Journal. AN ENGLISH AND AN AMERICAN POET. LEAVES OF GRASS.

seemed the sterile and stingy nature, as if too much handiwork, or too much lymph in the temperament, were

I rubbed my eyes a little, to see if this sunbeam were no illusion; but the solid sense of the book is

have set for myself to do, to meet people and The States face to face, to confront them with an American

Their shadows are projected in employments, in books, in the cities, in trade; their feet are on the

The instincts of the American people are all perfect, and tend to make heroes.

First-rate American persons are to be supplied.

There are Thirty-Two States sketched—the population thirty millions.

WE have before us one of the most extraordinary specimens of Yankee intelligence and American eccentricity

indelibly fix it and publish it, not for a model but an illustration, for the present and future of American

letters and American young men, for the south the same as the north, and for the Pacific and Mississippi

Of pure American breed, large and lusty—age thirty-six years, (1855,)—never once using medicine—never

, had fulfilled their tasks and gone to other spheres; and all that remained, with few exceptions, were

They stand, as it were, on clear mountains of intellectual elevation, and with keenest perception discern

He wears his strange garb, cut and made by himself, as gracefully as a South American cavalier his poncho

A portion of that thought, which broods over the American nation, is here seized and bodied forth by

does not prevail throughout the volume, for we learn on p. 29, that our poet is "Walt Whitman, an American

That he was an American, we knew before, for, aside from America, there is no quarter of the universe

he was one of the roughs was also tolerably plain; but that he was a kosmos, is a piece of news we were

Leaves of Grass (1856) From the American Phrenological Journal. AN ENGLISH AND AN AMERICAN POET.

Thus what very properly fits a subject of the British crown may fit very ill an American freeman.

Sure as the heavens envelop the earth, if the Americans want a race of bards worthy of 1855, and of the

Poetry, to Tennyson and his British and American eleves, is a gentleman of the first degree, boating,

Do you think city and country are to fall before the vehement egotism of your recitative of yourself?

the name of this erratic and newest wonder; but at page 29 we find that he is — Walt Whitman, an American

The words "an American" are a surplusage, "one of the roughs" too painfully apparent; but what is intended

unless it means a man who thinks that the fine essence of poetry consists in writing a book which an American

The chance of this might be formidable were it not ridiculous.

The American critics are, in the main, pleased with this man because he is self-reliant, and because

Emerson in the printed letter sent to us—"I rubbed my eyes a little, to see if this sunbeam were no illusion

No illusion truly is Walt Whitman, the new American prodigy, who, as he is himself candid enough to intimate

On the other hand, according to an American review that flatters Walt Whitman, this kosmos is "a compound

maddened by this course of reading, and fancying himself not only an Emerson but a Carlyle and an American

Does he mention the American country, he feels bound thereupon to draw up a list of barns, waggons, wilds

Here our latter-day poets are apt to whine over the times, as if heaven were perpetually betraying the

the most amazing, one of the most startling, one of the most perplexing creations of the modern American

We were attracted by the very singular title of the work, to seek the work itself, and what we thought

Criterion says: "It is impossible to imagine how any man's fancy could have conceived it, unless he were

Poem of Walt Whitman, an American. 1 — Poem of Walt Whitman, an American.

I have heard what the talkers were talking, the talk of the beginning and the end, But I do not talk

If nothing lay more developed, the quahaug in its callous shell were enough.

if our colors were struck and the fighting done?

Were mankind murderous or jealous upon you, my brother, my sister?

see the tracks of the rail-roads of the earth, I see them welding state to state, county to county, city

to city, through North America, I see them in Great Britain, I see them in Eu- rope Europe , I see them

I see the cities of the earth, and make myself a part of them, I am a real Londoner, Parisian, Viennese

ward northward in Christiana or Stockholm—or in some street in Iceland, I descend upon all those cities

What cities the light or warmth penetrates, I penetrate those cities myself, All islands to which birds

Were all educations practical and ornamental well displayed out of me, what would it amount to?

6 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?

, the bins, mangers, mows, racks, Manufactures, commerce, engineering, the build- ing building of cities

, the trottoirs of a city when thousands of well-dressed people walk up and down, The cotton, woolen,

the greatest city in the whole world.

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 greatest

city stands.

Were those your vast and solid?

And if the body were not the soul, what is the soul?

I knew a man, he was a common farmer, he was the father of five sons, and in them were the fathers of

sons, and in them were the fathers of sons.

and visit him to see—he was wise also, He was six feet tall, he was over eighty years old—his sons were

from head to foot, It attracts with fierce undeniable attraction, I am drawn by its breath as if I were

incomparable love, Plunging his semitic muscle into its merits and demerits, Making its geography, cities

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

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

Men, women, cities, nations, are only beautiful from nativity.

I will make cities and civilizations defer to me! I will confront these shows of the day and night!

These and all else were to me the same as they are to you, I project myself a moment to tell you—also

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

I had done seemed to me blank and sus- picious suspicious , My great thoughts, as I supposed them, were

had as much of you—I laid in my stores in advance, I considered long and seriously of you before you were

Thrive, cities! Bring your freight, bring your shows, ample and sufficient rivers!

You flagged walks of the cities! you strong curbs at the edges! You ferries!

I think heroic deeds were all conceived in the open air, I think I could stop here myself, and do miracles

Now if a thousand perfect men were to appear, it would not amaze me, Now if a thousand beautiful forms

to which you were destined—you hardly settle yourself to satis- faction satisfaction , before you are

To take to your use out of the compact cities as you pass through!

A WOMAN waits for me—she contains all, nothing is lacking, Yet all were lacking, if sex were lacking,

or if the moisture of the right man were lacking.

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

things in their attitudes, He puts today out of himself, with plasticity and love, He places his own city

They were purified by death—they were taught and exalted.

For I think I have reason to be the proudest son alive—for I am the son of the brawny and tall-topt city