Leaves of Grass: The Original 1855 Unabridged and Complete Edition (A Walt Whitman Classics)

by Walt Whitman

A child said, What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands; How could I answer the child? . . . . I do not know what it is any more than he. I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven. Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord, A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropped, Bearing the owner’s name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark, and say Whose?

I hear the sound of the human voice . . . . a sound I love, I hear all sounds as they are tuned to their uses . . . .sounds of the city and sounds out of the city . . . . sounds of the day and night; Talkative young ones to those that like them . . . . the recitative of fish-pedlars and fruit pedlars . . . . the loud laugh of workpeople at their meals, The angry base of disjointed friendship . . . . the faint tones of the sick, The judge with hands tight to the desk, his shaky lips pronouncing a death-sentence, The heave’e’yo of stevedores unlading ships by the wharves . . . . the refrain of the anchor-lifters; The ring of alarm-bells . . . . the cry of fire . . . . the whirr of swift-streaking engines and hose-carts with premonitory tinkles and colored lights, The steam-whistle . . . . the solid roll of the train of approaching cars; The slow-march played at night at the head of the association, They go to guard some corpse . . . . the flag-tops are draped with black muslin.hear the violoncello or man’s heart’s complaint, And hear the keyed cornet or else the echo of sunset. I hear the chorus . . . . it is a grand-opera . . . . this indeed is music! A tenor large and fresh as the creation fills me, The orbic flex of his mouth is pouring and filling me full. I hear the trained soprano . . . . she convulses me like the climax of my love-grip; The orchestra whirls me wider than Uranus flies, It wrenches unnamable ardors from my breast, It throbs me to gulps of the farthest d...

I am an old artillerist, and tell of some fort’s bombardment . . . . and am there again. Again the reveille of drummers . . . . again the attacking cannon and mortars and howitzers, Again the attacked send their cannon responsive. I take part . . . . I see and hear the whole, The cries and curses and roar . . . . the plaudits for well aimed shots, The ambulanza slowly passing and trailing its red drip, Workmen searching after damages and to make indispensible repairs, The fall of grenades through the rent roof . . . . the fan-shaped explosion, The whizz of limbs heads stone wood and iron high in the air. Again gurgles the mouth of my dying general . . . . he furiously waves with his hand, He gasps through the clot . . . . Mind not me . . . . mind . . . . the entrenchments. I tell not the fall of Alamo . . . . not one escaped to tell the fall of Alamo, The hundred and fifty are dumb yet at Alamo. Hear now the tale of a jetblack sunrise, Hear of the murder in cold blood of four hundred and twelve young men. Retreating they had formed in a hollow square with their baggage for breastworks, Nine hundred lives out of the surrounding enemy’s nine times their number was the price they took in advance, Their colonel was wounded and their ammunition gone, They treated for an honorable capitulation, received writing and seal, gave up their arms, and marched back prisoners of war. They were the glory of the race of rangers, Matchless with a horse, a rifle, a song, a supper or a courts...

I do not despise you priests; My faith is the greatest of faiths and the least of faiths, Enclosing all worship ancient and modern, and all between ancient and modern, Believing I shall come again upon the earth after five thousand years, Waiting responses from oracles . . . . honoring the gods . . . . saluting the sun, Making a fetish of the first rock or stump . . . . powowing with sticks in the circle of obis, Helping the lama or brahmin as he trims the lamps of the idols, Dancing yet through the streets in a phallic procession . . . . rapt and austere in the woods, a gymnosophist, Drinking mead from the skull-cup . . . . to shasta and vedas admirant . . . . minding the koran, Walking the teokallis, spotted with gore from the stone and knife—beating the serpent-skin drum; Accepting the gospels, accepting him that was crucified, knowing assuredly that he is divine, To the mass kneeling—to the puritan’s prayer rising—sitting patiently in a pew, Ranting and frothing in my insane crisis—waiting dead-like till my spirit arouses me; Looking forth on pavement and land, and outside of pavement and land, Belonging to the winders of the circuit of circuits. One of that centripetal and centrifugal gang, I turn and talk like a man leaving charges before a journey. Down-hearted doubters, dull and excluded, Frivolous sullen moping angry affected disheartened atheistical, I know every one of you, and know the unspoken interrogatories, By experience I know them.

Old age superbly rising! Ineffable grace of dying days! Every condition promulges not only itself . . . . it promulges what grows after and out of itself, And the dark hush promulges as much as any. I open my scuttle at night and see the far-sprinkled systems, And all I see, multiplied as high as I can cipher, edge but the rim of the farther systems. Wider and wider they spread, expanding and always expanding, Outward and outward and forever outward. My sun has his sun, and round him obediently wheels, He joins with his partners a group of superior circuit, And greater sets follow, making specks of the greatest inside them. There is no stoppage, and never can be stoppage; If I and you and the worlds and all beneath or upon their surfaces, and all the palpable life, were this moment reduced back to a pallid float, it would not avail in the long run, We should surely bring up again where we now stand, And as surely go as much farther, and then farther and farther.

You are not thrown to the winds . . you gather certainly and safely around yourself, Yourself! Yourself! Yourself forever and ever! It is not to diffuse you that you were born of your mother and father—it is to identify you, It is not that you should be undecided, but that you should be decided; Something long preparing and formless is arrived and formed in you, You are thenceforth secure, whatever comes or goes.

Not a grave of the murdered for freedom but grows seed for freedom . . . . in its turn to bear seed, Which the winds carry afar and re-sow, and the rains and the snows nourish. Not a disembodied spirit can the weapons of tyrants let loose, But it stalks invisibly over the earth . . whispering counseling cautioning. Liberty let others despair of you . . . . I never despair of you. Is the house shut? Is the master away? Nevertheless be ready . . . . be not weary of watching, He will soon return . . . . his messengers come anon.

O truth of the earth! O truth of things! I am determined to press the whole way toward you, Sound your voice! I scale mountains or dive in the sea after you.