Leaves of Grass (Vintage Classics)

by Walt Whitman

Leaves of Grass [1891–92] COME, said my Soul, Such verses for my Body let us write, (for we are one,) That should I after death invisibly return, Or, long, long hence, in other spheres, There to some group of mates the chants resuming, (Tallying Earth’s soil, trees, winds, tumultuous waves,) Ever with pleas’d smile I may keep on, Ever and ever yet the verses owning—as, first, I here and now, Signing for Soul and Body, set to them my name,

I Hear America Singing I HEAR America singing, the varied carols I hear, Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong, The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam, The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work, The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck, The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands, The wood-cutter’s song, the ploughboy’s on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown, The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing, Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else, The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly, Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.

Poets to Come POETS to come! orators, singers, musicians to come! Not to-day is to justify me and answer what I am for, But you, a new brood, native, athletic, continental, greater than before known, Arouse! for you must justify me. I myself but write one or two indicative words for the future, I but advance a moment only to wheel and hurry back in the darkness. I am a man who, sauntering along without fully stopping, turns a casual look upon you and then averts his face, Leaving it to you to prove and define it, Expecting the main things from you.

Thou Reader THOU reader throbbest life and pride and love the same as I, Therefore for thee the following chants.

I say no man has ever yet been half devout enough, None has ever yet adored or worship’d half enough,

And I will show that there is no imperfection in the present, and can be none in the future, And I will show that whatever happens to anybody it may be turn’d to beautiful results, And I will show that nothing can happen more beautiful than death,

The sickness of one of my folks or of myself, or ill-doing or loss or lack of money, or depressions or exaltations, Battles, the horrors of fratricidal war, the fever of doubtful news, the fitful events; These come to me days and nights and go from me again, But they are not the Me myself.

Backward I see in my own days where I sweated through fog with linguists and contenders, I have no mockings or arguments, I witness and wait.

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 dropt, Bearing the owner’s name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark, and say Whose? Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the vegetation. Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic, And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones, Growing among black folks as among white, Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I receive them the same. And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.

All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses, And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.

I exist as I am, that is enough, If no other in the world be aware I sit content, And if each and all be aware I sit content.

All this I swallow, it tastes good, I like it well, it becomes mine, I am the man, I suffer’d, I was there.

I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least, Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself.

Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)

Once I Pass’d through a Populous City ONCE I pass’d through a populous city imprinting my brain for future use with its shows, architecture, customs, traditions, Yet now of all that city I remember only a woman I casually met there who detain’d me for love of me, Day by day and night by night we were together—all else has long been forgotten by me, I remember I say only that woman who passionately clung to me, Again we wander, we love, we separate again, Again she holds me by the hand, I must not go, I see her close beside me with silent lips sad and tremulous.

For You O Democracy COME, I will make the continent indissoluble, I will make the most splendid race the sun ever shone upon, I will make divine magnetic lands, With the love of comrades, With the life-long love of comrades. I will plant companionship thick as trees along all the rivers of America, and along the shores of the great lakes, and all over the prairies, I will make inseparable cities with their arms about each other’s necks, By the love of comrades, By the manly love of comrades. For you these from me, O Democracy, to serve you ma femme! For you, for you I am trilling these songs.

The Base of All Metaphysics AND now gentlemen, A word I give to remain in your memories and minds, As base and finalè too for all metaphysics. (So to the students the old professor, At the close of his crowded course.) Having studied the new and antique, the Greek and Germanic systems, Kant having studied and stated, Fichte and Schelling and Hegel, Stated the lore of Plato, and Socrates greater than Plato, And greater than Socrates sought and stated, Christ divine having studied long, I see reminiscent to-day those Greek and Germanic systems, See the philosophies all, Christian churches and tenets see, Yet underneath Socrates clearly see, and underneath Christ the divine I see, The dear love of man for his 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.

A Promise to California A PROMISE to California, Or inland to the great pastoral Plains, and on to Puget sound and Oregon; Sojourning east a while longer, soon I travel toward you, to remain, to teach robust American love, For I know very well that I and robust love belong among you, inland, and along the Western sea; For these States tend inland and toward the Western sea, and I will also.

Full of Life Now FULL of life now, compact, visible, I, forty years old the eighty-third year of the States, To one a century hence or any number of centuries hence, To you yet unborn these, seeking you. When you read these I that was visible am become invisible, Now it is you, compact, visible, realizing my poems, seeking me, Fancying how happy you were if I could be with you and become your comrade; Be it as if I were with you. (Be not too certain but I am now with you.)

The wife, and she is not one jot less than the husband, The daughter, and she is just as good as the son, The mother, and she is every bit as much as the father. Offspring of ignorant and poor, boys apprenticed to trades, Young fellows working on farms and old fellows working on farms, Sailor-men, merchant-men, coasters, immigrants, All these I see, but nigher and farther the same I see, None shall escape me and none shall wish to escape me. I bring what you much need yet always have, Not money, amours, dress, eating, erudition, but as good, I send no agent or medium, offer no representative of value, but offer the value itself.

You workwomen and workmen of these States having your own divine and strong life, And all else giving place to men and women like you.

Perfections ONLY themselves understand themselves and the like of themselves, As souls only understand souls.

Long, Too Long America LONG, too long America, Traveling roads all even and peaceful you learn’d from joys and prosperity only, But now, ah now, to learn from crises of anguish, advancing, grappling with direst fate and recoiling not, And now to conceive and show to the world what your children en-masse really are, (For who except myself has yet conceiv’d what your children en-masse really are?)

O Captain! My Captain! O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done, The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won, The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring; But O heart! heart! heart! O the bleeding drops of red, Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead. O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells; Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills, For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding, For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning; Here Captain! dear father! This arm beneath your head! It is some dream that on the deck, You’ve fallen cold and dead. My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still, My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will, The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done, From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won; Exult O shores, and ring O bells! But I with mournful tread, Walk the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.

This Dust Was Once the Man THIS dust was once the man, Gentle, plain, just and resolute, under whose cautious hand, Against the foulest crime in history known in any land or age, Was saved the Union of these States.

To Him That Was Crucified 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, I specify you with joy O my comrade to salute you, and to salute those who are with you, before and since, and those to come also, That we all labor together transmitting the same charge and succession, We few equals indifferent of lands, indifferent of times, We, enclosers of all continents, all castes, allowers of all theologies, Compassionaters, perceivers, rapport of men, We walk silent among disputes and assertions, but reject not the disputers nor any thing that is asserted, We hear the bawling and din, we are reach’d at by divisions, jealousies, recriminations on every side, They close peremptorily upon us to surround us, my comrade, Yet we walk unheld, free, the whole earth over, journeying up and down till we make our ineffaceable mark upon time and the diverse eras, Till we saturate time and eras, that the men and women of races, ages to come, may prove brethren and lovers as we are.

What Am I After All WHAT am I after all but a child, pleas’d with the sound of my own name? repeating it over and over; I stand apart to hear—it never tires me. To you your name also; Did you think there was nothing but two or three pronunciations in the sound of your name?

Kosmos WHO includes diversity and is Nature, Who is the amplitude of the earth, and the coarseness and sexuality of the earth, and the great charity of the earth, and the equilibrium also, Who has not look’d forth from the windows the eyes for nothing, or whose brain held audience with messengers for nothing, Who contains believers and disbelievers, who is the most majestic lover, Who holds duly his or her triune proportion of realism, spiritualism, and of the aesthetic or intellectual, Who having consider’d the body finds all its organs and parts good, Who, out of the theory of the earth and of his or her body understands by subtle analogies all other theories, The theory of a city, a poem, and of the large politics of these States; Who believes not only in our globe with its sun and moon, but in other globes with their suns and moons, Who, constructing the house of himself or herself, not for a day but for all time, sees races, eras, dates, generations, The past, the future, dwelling there, like space, inseparable together.

Pensive and Paltering PENSIVE and faltering, The words the Dead I write, For living are the Dead, (Haply the only living, only real, And I the apparition, I the spectre.)

A Clear Midnight THIS is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless, Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson done, Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the themes thou lovest best, Night, sleep, death and the stars.

As at Thy Portals Also Death AS at thy portals also death, Entering thy sovereign, dim, illimitable grounds, To memories of my mother, to the divine blending, maternity, To her, buried and gone, yet buried not, gone not from me, (I see again the calm benignant face fresh and beautiful still, I sit by the form in the coffin, I kiss and kiss convulsively again the sweet old lips, the cheeks, the closed eyes in the coffin;) To her, the ideal woman, practical, spiritual, of all of earth, life, love, to me the best, I grave a monumental line, before I go, amid these songs, And set a tombstone here.

First Annex: Sands at Seventy Mannahatta My city’s fit and noble name resumed, Choice aboriginal name, with marvellous beauty, meaning, A rocky founded island—shores where ever gayly dash the coming, going, hurrying sea waves.

To Those Who’ve Fail’d To those who’ve fail’d, in aspiration vast, To unnam’d soldiers fallen in front on the lead, To calm, devoted engineers—to over-ardent travelers—to pilots on their ships, To many a lofty song and picture without recognition—I’d rear a laurel-cover’d monument, High, high above the rest—To all cut off before their time, Possess’d by some strange spirit of fire, Quench’d by an early death.

The Bravest Soldiers Brave, brave were the soldiers (high named to-day) who lived through the fight; But the bravest press’d to the front and fell, unnamed, unknown.

America Centre of equal daughters, equal sons, All, all alike endear’d, grown, ungrown, young or old, Strong, ample, fair, enduring, capable, rich, Perennial with the Earth, with Freedom, Law and Love, A grand, sane, towering, seated Mother, Chair’d in the adamant of Time.

Abraham Lincoln, Born Feb. 12, 1809 To-day, from each and all, a breath of prayer—a pulse of thought, To memory of Him—to birth of Him. Publish’d Feb. 12, 1888.

Broadway What hurrying human tides, or day or night! What passions, winnings, losses, ardors, swim thy waters! What whirls of evil, bliss and sorrow, stem thee! What curious questioning glances—glints of love! Leer, envy, scorn, contempt, hope, aspiration! Thou portal—thou arena—thou of the myriad long-drawn lines and groups! (Could but thy flagstones, curbs, façades, tell their inimitable tales; Thy windows rich, and huge hotels—thy side-walks wide;) Thou of the endless sliding, mincing, shuffling feet! Thou, like the parti-colored world itself—like infinite, teeming, mocking life! Thou visor’d, vast, unspeakable show and lesson!

Life EVER the undiscouraged, resolute, struggling soul of man; (Have former armies fail’d? then we send fresh armies—and fresh again;) Ever the grappled mystery of all earth’s ages old or new; Ever the eager eyes, hurrahs, the welcome-clapping hands, the loud applause; Ever the soul dissatisfied, curious, unconvinced at last; Struggling to-day the same—battling the same.

The United States to Old World Critics Here first the duties of to-day, the lessons of the concrete, Wealth, order, travel, shelter, products, plenty; As of the building of some varied, vast, perpetual edifice, Whence to arise inevitable in time, the towering roofs, the lamps, The solid-planted spires tall shooting to the stars.

The Calming Thought of All That coursing on, whate’er men’s speculations, Amid the changing schools, theologies, philosophies, Amid the bawling presentations new and old, The round earth’s silent vital laws, facts, modes continue.

Life and Death The two old, simple problems ever intertwined, Close home, elusive, present, baffled, grappled. By each successive age insoluble, pass’d on, To ours to-day—and we pass on the same.

My 71st Year AFTER surmounting three-score and ten, With all their chances, changes, losses, sorrows, My parents’ deaths, the vagaries of my life, the many tearing passions of me, the war of ’63 and ’4, As some old broken soldier, after a long, hot, wearying march, or haply after battle, To-day at twilight, hobbling, answering company roll-call, Here, with vital voice, Reporting yet, saluting yet the Officer over all.

Long, Long Hence AFTER a long, long course, hundreds of years, denials, Accumulations, rous’d love and joy and thought, Hopes, wishes, aspirations, ponderings, victories, myriads of readers, Coating, compassing, covering—after ages’ and ages’ encrustations, Then only may these songs reach fruition.