by Walt Whitman
They do not know who puffs and declines with pendant and
bending arch,
They do not think whom they souse with spray.11
The butcher-boy puts off his killing-clothes, or sharpens his knife
at the stall in the market,
I loiter enjoying his repartee and his shuffle and breakdown.12
Blacksmiths with grimed and hairy chests environ the anvil,
Each has his main-sledge.... they are all out.... there is a great
heat in the fire.
From the cinder-strewed threshold I follow their movements,
The lithe sheer of their waists plays even with their massive arms,
Overhand the hammers roll—overhand so slow—overhand so sure,
They do not hasten, each man hits in his place.
The negro holds firmly the reins of his four horses.... the block
swags underneath on its tied-over chain,
The negro that drives the huge dray of the stoneyard .... steady
and tall he stands poised on one leg on the stringpiece,
His blue shirt exposes his ample neck and breast and loosens over
his hipband,
His glance is calm and commanding.... he tosses the slouch of
his hat away from his forehead,
The sun falls on his crispy hair and moustache.... falls on the
black of his polish’d and perfect limbs.
I behold the picturesque giant and love him.... and I do not
stop there,
I go with the team also.
In me the caresser of life wherever moving.... backward as well
as forward slueing,
To niches aside and junior bending.
Oxen that rattle the yoke or halt in the shade, what is that you
express in your eyes?
It seems to me more than all the print I have read in my life.
My tread scares the wood-drake and wood-duck on my distant and
daylong ramble,
They rise together, they slowly circle around.
.... I believe in those winged purposes,
And acknowledge the red yellow and white playing within me,
And consider the green and violet and the tufted crown
intentional;
And do not call the tortoise unworthy because she is not
something else,
And the mocking bird in the swamp never studied the gamut, yet
trills pretty well to me,
And the look of the bay mare shames silliness out of me.
The wild gander leads his flock through the cool night,
Ya-honk! he says, and sounds it down to me like an invitation;
The pert may suppose it meaningless, but I listen closer,
I find its purpose and place up there toward the November sky.
The sharphoofed moose of the north, the cat on the housesill,
the chickadee, the prairie-dog,
The litter of the grunting sow as they tug at her teats,
The brood of the turkeyhen, and she with her halfspread wings,
I see in them and myself the same old law.
The press of my foot to the earth springs a hundred affections,
They scorn the best I can do to relate them.
I am enamoured of growing outdoors,
Of men that live among cattle or taste of the ocean or woods,
Of the builders and steerers of ships, of the wielders of axes and
mauls, of the drivers of horses,
I can eat and sleep with them week in and week out.
What is commonest and cheapest and nearest and easiest is Me,
Me going in for my chances, spending for vast returns,
Adorning myself to bestow myself on the first that will take me,
Not asking the sky to come down to my goodwill,
Scattering it freely forever.
The pure contralto sings in the organloft,
The carpenter dresses his plank.... the tongue of his foreplane
whistles its wild ascending lisp,
The married and unmarried children ride home to their
thanksgiving dinner,
The pilot seizes the king-pin, he heaves down with a strong arm,
The mate stands braced in the whaleboat, lance and harpoon are
ready,
The duck-shooter walks by silent and cautious stretches,
The deacons are ordained with crossed hands at the altar,
The spinning-girl retreats and advances to the hum of the big
wheel,
The farmer stops by the bars of a Sunday and looks at the oats
and rye,
The lunatic is carried at last to the asylum a confirmed case,
He will never sleep any more as he did in the cot in his mother’s
bedroom;dThe jour printer with gray head and gaunt jaws works at his
case,
He turns his quid of tobacco, his eyes get blurred with the
manuscript;
The malformed limbs are tied to the anatomist’s table,
What is removed drops horribly in a pail;
The quadroon girl is sold at the stand.... the drunkard nods by
the barroom stove,
The machinist rolls up his sleeves.... the policeman travels his
beat.... the gatekeeper marks who pass,
The young fellow drives the express-wagon . . . . I love him
though I do not know him;
The half-breed straps on his light boots to compete in the race,
The western turkey-shooting draws old and young.... some lean
on their rifles, some sit on logs,
Out from the crowd steps the marksman and takes his position
and levels his piece;
The groups of newly-come immigrants cover the wharf or levee,
The woollypates hoe in the sugarfield, the overseer views them
from his saddle;
The bugle calls in the ballroom, the gentlemen run for their
partners, the dancers bow to each other;
The youth lies awake in the cedar-roofed garret and harks to the
musical rain,
The Wolverine sets traps on the creek that helps fill the Huron,
The reformer ascends the platform, he spouts with his mouth and
nose,
The company returns from its excursion, the darkey brings up the
rear and bears the well-riddled target,
The squaw wrapt in her yellow-hemmed cloth is offering
moccasins and beadbags for sale,
The connoisseur peers along the exhibition-gallery with halfshut
eyes bent sideways,
The deckhands make fast the steamboat, the plank is thrown for
the shoregoing passengers,
The young sister holds out the skein, the elder sister winds it off
in a ball and stops now and then for the knots,
The one-year wife is recovering and happy, a week ago she bore
her first child,
The cleanhaired Yankee girl works with her sewing-machine or in
the factory or mill,
The nine months’ gone is in the parturition chamber, her
faintness and pains are advancing;
The pavingman leans on his twohanded rammer—the reporter’s
lead flies swiftly over the notebook—the signpainter is
lettering with red and gold,
The canal-boy trots on the towpath—the bookkeeper counts at his
desk—the shoemaker waxes his thread,
The conductor beats time for the band and all the performers
follow him,
The child is baptised—the convert is making the first professions,
The regatta is spread on the bay.... how the white sails sparkle!
The drover watches his drove, he sings out to them that would stray,
The pedlar sweats with hi
s pack on his back—the purchaser
higgles about the odd cent,
The camera and plate are prepared, the lady must sit for her
daguerreotype,13
The bride unrumples her white dress, the minutehand of the
clock moves slowly,
The opium eater reclines with rigid head and just-opened lips,14
The prostitute draggles her shawl, her bonnet bobs on her tipsy
and pimpled neck,
The crowd laugh at her blackguard oaths, the men jeer and wink
to each other,
(Miserable! I do not laugh at your oaths nor jeer you,)
The President holds a cabinet council, he is surrounded by the
great secretaries,
On the piazza walk five friendly matrons with twined arms;
The crew of the fish-smack pack repeated layers of halibut in the
hold,
The Missourian crosses the plains toting his wares and his
cattle,
The fare-collector goes through the train—he gives notice by the
jingling of loose change,
The floormen are laying the floor—the tinners are tinning the
roof—the masons are calling for mortar,
In single file each shouldering his hod pass onward the laborers;
Seasons pursuing each other the indescribable crowd is
gathered . . . . it is the Fourth of July.... what salutes of
cannon and small arms!
Seasons pursuing each other the plougher ploughs and the
mower mows and the wintergrain falls in the ground;
Off on the lakes the pikefisher watches and waits by the hole in
the frozen surface,
The stumps stand thick round the clearing, the squatter strikes
deep with his axe,
The flatboatmen make fast toward dusk near the cottonwood or
pekantrees,
The coon-seekers go now through the regions of the Red river, or
through those drained by the Tennessee, or through those of
the Arkansas,
The torches shine in the dark that hangs on the Chattahoochee
or Altamahaw;
Patriarchs sit at supper with sons and grandsons and great
grandsons around them,
In walls of adobie, in canvas tents, rest hunters and trappers after
their day’s sport.
The city sleeps and the country sleeps,
The living sleep for their time.... the dead sleep for their time,
The old husband sleeps by his wife and the young husband sleeps
by his wife;
And those one and all tend inward to me, and I tend outward to
them,
And such as it is to be of these more or less I am.
I am of old and young, of the foolish as much as the wise,
Regardless of others, ever regardful of others,
Maternal as well as paternal, a child as well as a man,
Stuffed with the stuff that is coarse, and stuffed with the stuff that
is fine,
One of the great nations, the nation of many nations—the
smallest the same and the largest the same,
A southerner soon as a northerner, a planter nonchalant and
hospitable,
A Yankee bound my own way.... ready for trade.... my joints
the limberest joints on earth and the sternest joints on earth,
A Kentuckian walking the vale of the Elkhorn in my deerskin
leggings,
A boatman over the lakes or bays or along coasts.... a Hoosier, a
Badger, a Buckeye,eA Louisianian or Georgian, a poke-easy from sandhills and pines,
At home on Canadian snowshoes or up in the bush, or with
fishermen off Newfoundland,
At home in the fleet of iceboats, sailing with the rest and tacking,
At home on the hills of Vermont or in the woods of Maine or the
Texan ranch,
Comrade of Californians.... comrade of free northwesterners,
loving their big proportions,
Comrade of raftsmen and coalmen—comrade of all who shake
hands and welcome to drink and meat;
A learner with the simplest, a teacher of the thoughtfulest,
A novice beginning experient of myriads of seasons,
Of every hue and trade and rank, of every caste and religion,
Not merely of the New World but of Africa Europe or Asia.... a
wandering savage,
A farmer, mechanic, or artist.... a gentleman, sailor, lover or
quaker,
A prisoner, fancy-man, rowdy, lawyer, physician or priest.
I resist anything better than my own diversity,
And breathe the air and leave plenty after me,
And am not stuck up, and am in my place.
The moth and the fisheggs are in their place,
The suns I see and the suns I cannot see are in their place,
The palpable is in its place and the impalpable is in its place.
These are the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands, they are
not original with me,
If they are not yours as much as mine they are nothing or next to
nothing,
If they do not enclose everything they are next to nothing,
If they are not the riddle and the untying of the riddle they are
nothing,
If they are not just as close as they are distant they are nothing.
This is the grass that grows wherever the land is and the water is,
This is the common air that bathes the globe.
This is the breath of laws and songs and behaviour,
This is the tasteless water of souls.... this is the true
sustenance,
It is for the illiterate.... it is for the judges of the supreme
court . . . . it is for the federal capitol and the state
capitols,
It is for the admirable communes of literary men and composers
and singers and lecturers and engineers and savans,
It is for the endless races of working people and farmers and
seamen.
This is the trill of a thousand clear cornets and scream of the octave flute and strike of triangles.
I play not a march for victors only.... I play great marches for conquered and slain persons.
Have you heard that it was good to gain the day?
I also say it is good to fall.... battles are lost in the same spirit
in which they are won.
I sound triumphal drums for the dead.... I fling through my
embouchuresf the loudest and gayest music to them,
Vivas to those who have failed, and to those whose war-vessels
sank in the sea, and those themselves who sank in the sea,
And to all generals that lost engagements, and all overcome
heroes, and the numberless unknown heroes equal to the
greatest heroes known.
This is the meal pleasantly set.... this is the meat and drink for
natural hunger,
It is for the wicked just the same as the righteous.... I make
appointments with all,
I will not have a single person slighted or left away,
The keptwoman and sponger and thief are hereby invited . . . .
the heavy-lipped slave is invited.... the venerealee is invited,
There shall be no difference between them and the rest.
This is the press of a bashful hand.... this is the float and odor
of hair,
This is the touch of my lips to yours.... this is the murmur of
yearning,
This is the far-off depth and height reflecting my own face,
This is the thoughtful merge of myself and the outlet again.
Do you guess I have som
e intricate purpose?
Well I have.... for the April rain has, and the mica on the side
of a rock has.
Do you take it I would astonish?
Does the daylight astonish? or the early redstart twittering through
the woods?
Do I astonish more than they?
This hour I tell things in confidence,
I might not tell everybody but I will tell you.
Who goes there! hankering, gross, mystical, nude?
How is it I extract strength from the beef I eat?
What is a man anyhow? What am I? and what are you?
All I mark as my own you shall offset it with your own,
Else it were time lost listening to me.
I do not snivel that snivel the world over,
That months are vacuums and the ground but wallow
and filth,
That life is a suck and a sell, and nothing remains at the end but
threadbare crape and tears.
Whimpering and truckling fold with powders for invalids....
conformity goes to the fourth-removed,
I cock my hat as I please indoors or out.15
Shall I pray? Shall I venerate and be ceremonious?
I have pried through the strata and analyzed to a hair,
And counselled with doctors and calculated close and found no
sweeter fat than sticks to my own bones.
In all people I see myself, none more and not one a barleycorn
less,
And the good or bad I say of myself I say of them.
And I know I am solid and sound,
To me the converging objects of the universe perpetually flow,
All are written to me, and I must get what the writing means.
And I know I am deathless,
I know this orbit of mine cannot be swept by a carpenter’s
compass,
I know I shall not pass like a child’s carlacueg cut with a burnt
stick at night.
I know I am august,
I do not trouble my spirit to vindicate itself or be understood,
I see that the elementary laws never apologize,
I reckon I behave no prouder than the level I plant my house by
after all.
I exist as I am, that is enough,
If no other in the world be aware I sit content,