Leaves of Grass: First and Death-Bed Editions

by Walt Whitman

They do not need the obstetric forceps of the surgeon,

  The insignificant is as big to me as any,

  What is less or more than a touch?

  Logic and sermons never convince,

  The damp of the night drives deeper into my soul.

  Only what proves itself to every man and woman is so,

  Only what nobody denies is so.

  A minute and a drop of me settle my brain;

  I believe the soggy clods shall become lovers and lamps,

  And a compend of compends is the meat of a man or

  woman,

  And a summit and flower there is the feeling they have for each

  other,

  And they are to branch boundlessly out of that lesson until it

  becomes omnific,

  And until every one shall delight us, and we them.

  I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journeywork of the stars,

  And the pismirep is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the

  egg of the wren,

  And the tree-toad is a chef-d’ œuvre for the highest,

  And the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven,

  And the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery,

  And the cow crunching with depressed head surpasses any statue,

  And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels,

  And I could come every afternoon of my life to look at the

  farmer’s girl boiling her iron tea-kettle and baking shortcake.

  I find I incorporate gneiss and coal and long-threaded moss and

  fruits and grains and esculent roots,

  And am stucco’d with quadrupeds and birds all over,

  And have distanced what is behind me for good reasons,

  And call any thing close again when I desire it.

  In vain the speeding or shyness,

  In vain the plutonic rocks send their old heat against my approach,

  In vain the mastodon retreats beneath its own powdered bones,

  In vain objects stand leagues off and assume manifold shapes,

  In vain the ocean settling in hollows and the great monsters lying

  low,

  In vain the buzzard houses herself with the sky,

  In vain the snake slides through the creepers and logs,

  In vain the elk takes to the inner passes of the woods,

  In vain the razorbilled auk sails far north to Labrador,

  I follow quickly.... I ascend to the nest in the fissure of the cliff.

  I think I could turn and live awhile with the animals.... they are

  so placid and self-contained,

  I stand and look at them sometimes half the day long.

  They do not sweat and whine about their condition,

  They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,

  They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,

  Not one is dissatisfied.... not one is demented with the mania of

  owning things,

  Not one kneels to another nor to his kind that lived thousands of

  years ago,

  Not one is respectable or industrious over the whole earth.

  So they show their relations to me and I accept them;

  They bring me tokens of myself.... they evince them plainly in

  their possession.

  I do not know where they got those tokens,

  I must have passed that way untold times ago and negligently

  dropt them,

  Myself moving forward then and now and forever,

  Gathering and showing more always and with velocity,

  Infinite and omnigenous and the like of these among them;

  Not too exclusive toward the reachers of my remembrancers,

  Picking out here one that shall be my amie,

  Choosing to go with him on brotherly terms.

  A gigantic beauty of a stallion, fresh and responsive to my

  caresses,

  Head high in the forehead and wide between the ears,

  Limbs glossy and supple, tail dusting the ground,

  Eyes well apart and full of sparkling wickedness.... ears finely

  cut and flexibly moving.

  His nostrils dilate.... my heels embrace him.... his well built limbs tremble with pleasure.... we speed around and return.

  I but use you a moment and then I resign you stallion . . . . and

  do not need your paces, and outgallop them,

  And myself as I stand or sit pass faster than you.

  Swift wind! Space! My Soul! Now I know it is true what I

  guessed at;

  What I guessed when I loafed on the grass,

  What I guessed while I lay alone in my bed .... and again

  as I walked the beach under the paling stars of the

  morning.

  My ties and ballasts leave me .... I travel .... I sail .... my

  elbows rest in the sea-gaps,

  I skirt the sierras .... my palms cover continents,

  I am afoot with my vision.

  By the city’s quadrangular houses .... in log-huts, or camping

  with lumbermen,

  Along the ruts of the turnpike .... along the dry gulch and rivulet

  bed,

  Hoeing my onion-patch, and rows of carrots and parsnips ....

  crossing savannas .... trailing in forests,

  Prospecting .... gold-digging .... girdling the trees of a new

  purchase,

  Scorched ankle-deep by the hot sand .... hauling my boat down

  the shallow river;

  Where the panther walks to and fro on a limb overhead ....

  where the buck turns furiously at the hunter,

  Where the rattlesnake suns his flabby length on a rock .... where

  the otter is feeding on fish,

  Where the alligator in his tough pimples sleeps by the bayou,

  Where the black bear is searching for roots or honey .... where

  the beaver pats the mud with his paddle-tail;

  Over the growing sugar .... over the cottonplant .... over the

  rice in its low moist field;

  Over the sharp-peaked farmhouse with its scalloped scum and

  slender shoots from the gutters;

  Over the western persimmon .... over the longleaved corn and

  the delicate blue-flowered flax;

  Over the white and brown buckwheat, a hummer and a buzzer

  there with the rest,

  Over the dusky green of the rye as it ripples and shades in the

  breeze;

  Scaling mountains .... pulling myself cautiously up .... holding

  on by low scragged limbs,

  Walking the path worn in the grass and beat through the leaves of

  the brush;

  Where the quail is whistling betwixt the woods and the wheatlot,

  Where the bat flies in the July eve .... where the great goldbug

  drops through the dark;

  Where the flails keep time on the barn floor,

  Where the brook puts out of the roots of the old tree and flows to

  the meadow,

  Where cattle stand and shake away flies with the tremulous

  shuddering of their hides,

  Where the cheese-cloth hangs in the kitchen, and andirons straddle

  the hearth-slab, and cobwebs fall in festoons from the rafters;

  Where triphammers crash .... where the press is whirling its

  cylinders;20

  Wherever the human heart beats with terrible throes out of

  its ribs;

  Where the pear-shaped balloon is floating aloft .... floating in it

  myself and looking composedly down;

  Where the life-car is drawn on the slipnoose .... where the heat

  hatches pale-green eggs in the dented sand,

  Where the she-whale swims with her calves and never forsakes

&nbs
p; them,

  Where the steamship trails hindways its long pennant of smoke,

  Where the ground-shark’s fin cuts like a black chip out of the

  water,

  Where the half-burned brig is riding on unknown currents,

  Where shells grow to her slimy deck, and the dead are corrupting

  below;

  Where the striped and starred flag is borne at the head of the

  regiments;

  Approaching Manhattan, up by the long-stretching island,

  Under Niagara, the cataract falling like a veil over my countenance;

  Upon a door-step .... upon the horse-block of hard wood

  outside,

  Upon the race-course, or enjoying pic-nics or jigs or a good game

  of base-ball,21

  At he-festivals with blackguard jibes and ironical license and

  bull-dances and drinking and laughter,

  At the cider-mill, tasting the sweet of the brown sqush ....

  sucking the juice through a straw,

  At apple-peelings, wanting kisses for all the red fruit I find,

  At musters and beach-parties and friendly bees and huskings and

  house-raisings;

  Where the mockingbird sounds his delicious gurgles, and cackles

  and screams and weeps,

  Where the hay-rick stands in the barnyard, and the dry-stalks are

  scattered, and the brood cow waits in the hovel,

  Where the bull advances to do his masculine work, and the stud

  to the mare, and the cock is treading the hen,

  Where the heifers browse, and the geese nip their food with short

  jerks;

  Where the sundown shadows lengthen over the limitless and

  lonesome prairie,

  Where the herds of buffalo make a crawling spread of the square

  miles far and near;

  Where the hummingbird shimmers .... where the neck of the

  longlived swan is curving and winding;

  Where the laughing-gull scoots by the slappy shore and laughs

  her near-human laugh;

  Where beehives range on a gray bench in the garden half-hid by

  the high weeds;

  Where the band-necked partridges roost in a ring on the ground

  with their heads out;

  Where burial coaches enter the arched gates of a cemetery;

  Where winter wolves bark amid wastes of snow and icicled trees;

  Where the yellow-crowned heron comes to the edge of the marsh

  at night and feeds upon small crabs;

  Where the splash of swimmers and divers cools the warm noon;

  Where the katydid works her chromatic reed on the walnut-tree

  over the well;

  Through patches of citrons and cucumbers with silver-wired leaves,

  Through the salt-lick or orange glade .... or under conical firs;

  Through the gymnasium .... through the curtained saloon ....

  through the office or public hall;

  Pleased with the native and pleased with the foreign .... pleased

  with the new and old,

  Pleased with women, the homely as well as the handsome,

  Pleased with the quakeress as she puts off her bonnet and talks

  melodiously,

  Pleased with the primitive tunes of the choir of the whitewashed

  church,

  Pleased with the earnest words of the sweating Methodist

  preacher, or any preacher .... looking seriously at the camp

  meeting;

  Looking in at the shop-windows in Broadway the whole

  forenoon .... pressing the flesh of my nose to the thick plate

  glass,

  Wandering the same afternoon with my face turned up to the

  clouds;

  My right and left arms round the sides of two friends and I in the

  middle;

  Coming home with the bearded and dark-cheeked bush-boy ....

  riding behind him at the drape of the day;

  Far from the settlements studying the print of animals’ feet, or the

  moccasin print;

  By the cot in the hospital reaching lemonade to a feverish patient,

  By the coffined corpse when all is still, examining with a candle;

  Voyaging to every port to dicker and adventure;

  Hurrying with the modern crowd, as eager and fickle as any,

  Hot toward one I hate, ready in my madness to knife him;

  Solitary at midnight in my back yard, my thoughts gone from me

  a long while,

  Walking the old hills of Judea with the beautiful gentle god by my

  side;

  Speeding through space .... speeding through heaven and the

  stars,

  Speeding amid the seven satellites and the broad ring and the

  diameter of eighty thousand miles,

  Speeding with tailed meteors .... throwing fire-balls like the rest,

  Carrying the crescent child that carries its own full mother in its

  belly:

  Storming enjoying planning loving cautioning,

  Backing and filling, appearing and disappearing,

  I tread day and night such roads.

  I visit the orchards of God and look at the spheric product,

  And look at quintillions ripened, and look at quintillions green.

  I fly the flight of the fluid and swallowing soul,

  My course runs below the soundings of plummets.

  I help myself to material and immaterial,

  No guard can shut me off, no law can prevent me.

  I anchor my ship for a little while only,

  My messengers continually cruise away or bring their returns to me.

  I go hunting polar furs and the seal .... leaping chasms with a pike-pointed staff .... clinging to topples of brittle and blue.

  I ascend to the foretruck .... I take my place late at night in the

  crow’s nest .... we sail through the arctic sea .... it is plenty

  light enough,

  Through the clear atmosphere I stretch around on the wonderful

  beauty,

  The enormous masses of ice pass me and I pass them .... the

  scenery is plain in all directions,

  The white-topped mountains point up in the distance .... I fling

  out my fancies toward them;

  We are about approaching some great battlefield in which we are

  soon to be engaged,

  We pass the colossal outposts of the encampment .... we pass

  with still feet and caution;

  Or we are entering by the suburbs some vast and ruined city ....

  the blocks and fallen architecture more than all the living

  cities of the globe.

  I am a free companion .... I bivouacqby invading watchfires.

  I turn the bridegroom out of bed and stay with the bride myself,

  And tighten her all night to my thighs and lips.

  My voice is the wife’s voice, the screech by the rail of the stairs,

  They fetch my man’s body up dripping and drowned.

  I understand the large hearts of heroes,

  The courage of present times and all times;

  How the skipper saw the crowded and rudderless wreck of

  the steamship, and death chasing it up and down the

  storm,22

  How he knuckled tight and gave not back one inch, and was

  faithful of days and faithful of nights,

  And chalked in large letters on a board, Be of good cheer, We will

  not desert you;

  How he saved the drifting company at last,

  How the lank loose-gowned women looked when boated from the

  side of their prepared graves,

  How the silent old-faced infants, and the lifted sick, and the

  sharp-lipped unshaved men;

 
All this I swallow and it tastes good .... I like it well, and it

  becomes mine,

  I am the man .... I suffered .... I was there.

  The disdain and calmness of martyrs,

  The mother condemned for a witch and burnt with dry wood,

  and her children gazing on;

  The hounded slave that flags in the race and leans by the fence,

  blowing and covered with sweat,

  The twinges that sting like needles his legs and neck,

  The murderous buckshot and the bullets,

  All these I feel or am.

  I am the hounded slave .... I wince at the bite of the dogs,

  Hell and despair are upon me .... crack and again crack the

  marksmen,

  I clutch the rails of the fence .... my gore dribs thinned with the

  ooze of my skin,

  I fall on the weeds and stones,

  The riders spur their unwilling horses and haul close,

  They taunt my dizzy ears .... they beat me violently over the

  head with their whip-stocks.

  Agonies are one of my changes of garments;

  I do not ask the wounded person how he feels .... I myself

  become the wounded person,

  My hurt turns livid upon me as I lean on a cane and observe.

  I am the mashed fireman with breastbone broken23 .... tumbling

  walls buried me in their debris,

  Heat and smoke I inspired .... I heard the yelling shouts of my

  comrades,

  I heard the distant click of their picks and shovels;

  They have cleared the beams away .... they tenderly lift me forth.

  I lie in the night air in my red shirt .... the pervading hush is for

  my sake,

  Painless after all I lie, exhausted but not so unhappy,

  White and beautiful are the faces around me .... the heads are

  bared of their fire-caps,

  The kneeling crowd fades with the light of the torches.

  Distant and dead resuscitate,

  They show as the dial or move as the hands of me .... and I am

  the clock myself.

  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,