Leaves of Grass: First and Death-Bed Editions

by Walt Whitman

Dismiss’d whatever insulted my own soul or defiled my body,

  Claim’d nothing to myself which I have not carefully claim’d for

  others on the same terms,

  Sped to the camps, and comrades found and accepted from every

  State,

  (Upon this breast has many a dying soldier lean’d to breathe his

  last,

  This arm, this hand, this voice, have nourish’d, rais‘d, restored,

  To life recalling many a prostrate form;)

  I am willing to wait to be understood by the growth of the taste of

  myself,

  Rejecting none, permitting all.

  (Say O Mother, have I not to your thought been faithful?

  Have I not through life kept you and yours before me?)

  -15-

  I swear I begin to see the meaning of these things,

  It is not the earth, it is not America who is so great,

  It is I who am great or to be great, it is You up there, or any one,

  It is to walk rapidly through civilizations, governments,

  theories,

  Through poems, pageants, shows, to form individuals.

  Underneath all, individuals,

  I swear nothing is good to me now that ignores individuals,

  The American compact is altogether with individuals,

  The only government is that which makes minute of individuals,

  The whole theory of the universe is directed unerringly to one

  single individual—namely to You.

  (Mother! with subtle sense severe, with the naked sword in your

  hand,

  I saw you at last refuse to treat but directly with individuals.)

  -16-

  Underneath all, Nativity,

  I swear I will stand by my own nativity, pious or impious so be it;

  I swear I am charm’d with nothing except nativity,

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

  Underneath all is the Expression of love for men and women,

  (I swear I have seen enough of mean and impotent modes of

  expressing love for men and women,

  After this day I take my own modes of expressing love for men

  and women.)

  I swear I will have each quality of my race in myself,

  (Talk as you like, he only suits these States whose manners favor

  the audacity and sublime turbulence of the States.)

  Underneath the lessons of things, spirits, Nature, governments,

  ownerships, I swear I perceive other lessons,

  Underneath all to me is myself, to you yourself, (the same

  monotonous old song.)

  -17-

  O I see flashing that this America is only you and me,

  Its power, weapons, testimony, are you and me,

  Its crimes, lies, thefts, defections, are you and me,

  Its Congress is you and me, the officers, capitols, armies, ships,

  are you and me,

  Its endless gestations of new States are you and me,

  The war, (that war so bloody and grim, the war I will henceforth

  forget), was you and me,

  Natural and artificial are you and me,

  Freedom, language, poems, employments, are you and me,

  Past, present, future, are you and me.

  I dare not shirk any part of myself,

  Not any part of America good or bad,

  Not to build for that which builds for mankind,

  Not to balance ranks, complexions, creeds, and the sexes,

  Not to justify science nor the march of equality,

  Nor to feed the arrogant blood of the brawn belov’d of time.

  I am for those that have never been master‘d,

  For men and women whose tempers have never been master’d,

  For those whom laws, theories, conventions, can never

  master.

  I am for those who walk abreast with the whole earth,

  Who inaugurate one to inaugurate all.

  I will not be outfaced by irrational things,

  I will penetrate what it is in them that is sarcastic upon me,

  I will make cities and civilizations defer to me,

  This is what I have learnt from America—it is the amount, and it

  I teach again.

  (Democracy, while weapons were everywhere aim’d at your

  breast,

  I saw you serenely give birth to immortal children, saw in dreams

  your dilating form,

  Saw you with spreading mantle covering the world.)

  -18-

  I will confront these shows of the day and night,

  I will know if I am to be less than they,

  I will see if I am not as majestic as they,

  I will see if I am not as subtle and real as they,

  I will see if I am to be less generous than they,

  I will see if I have no meaning, while the houses and ships have

  meaning,

  I will see if the fishes and birds are to be enough for themselves,

  and I am not to be enough for myself.

  I match my spirit against yours you orbs, growths, mountains,

  brutes,

  Copious as you are I absorb you all in myself, and become the

  master myself,

  America isolated yet embodying all, what is it finally except

  myself?

  These States, what are they except myself?

  I know now why the earth is gross, tantalizing, wicked, it is for my

  sake,

  I take you specially to be mine, you terrible, rude forms.

  (Mother, bend down, bend close to me your face,

  I know not what these plots and wars and deferments are for,

  I know not fruition’s success, but I know that through war and

  crime your work goes on, and must yet go on.)

  -19-

  Thus by blue Ontario’s shore,

  While the winds fann’d me and the waves came trooping

  toward me,

  I thrill’d with the power’s pulsations, and the charm of my theme

  was upon me,

  Till the tissues that held me parted their ties upon me.

  And I saw the free souls of poets,

  The loftiest bards of past ages strode before me,

  Strange large men, long unwaked, undisclosed, were disclosed

  to me.

  -20-

  O my rapt verse, my call, mock me not!

  Not for the bards of the past, not to invoke them have I launch’d

  you forth,

  Not to call even those lofty bards here by Ontario’s shores,

  Have I sung so capricious and loud my savage song.

  Bards for my own land only I invoke,

  (For the war the war is over, the field is clear‘d,)

  Till they strike up marches henceforth triumphant and onward,

  To cheer O Mother your boundless expectant soul.

  Bards of the great Idea! bards of the peaceful inventions! (for the

  war, the war is over!)

  Yet bards of latent armies, a million soldiers waiting ever-ready,

  Bards with songs as from burning coals or the lightning’s fork’d

  stripes!

  Ample Ohio‘s, Kanada’s bards—bards of California! inland

  bards—bards of the war!

  You by my charm I invoke.

  REVERSALS75

  Let that which stood in front go behind,

  Let that which was behind advance to the front,

  Let bigots, fools, unclean persons, offer new propositions,

  Let the old propositions be postponed,

  Let a man seek pleasure everywhere except in himself,

  Let a woman seek happiness everywhere except in herself.

  AUTUMN RIVULETS76

  AS CONSEQUENT, ETC.77

  As consequ
ent from store of summer rains,

  Or wayward rivulets in autumn flowing,

  Or many a herb-lined brook’s reticulations,

  Or subterranean sea-rills making for the sea,

  Songs of continued years I sing.

  Life’s ever-modern rapids first, (soon, soon to blend,

  With the old streams of death.)

  Some threading Ohio’s farm-fields or the woods,

  Some down Colorado’s canons from sources of perpetual snow,

  Some half-hid in Oregon, or away southward in Texas,

  Some in the north finding their way to Erie, Niagara, Ottawa,

  Some to Atlantica’s bays, and so to the great salt brine.

  In you whoe‘er you are my book perusing,

  In I myself, in all the world, these currents flowing,

  All, all toward the mystic ocean tending.

  Currents for starting a continent new,

  Overtures sent to the solid out of the liquid,

  Fusion of ocean and land, tender and pensive waves,

  (Not safe and peaceful only, waves rous’d and ominous too,

  Out of the depths the storm’s abysmic waves, who knows whence?

  Raging over the vast, with many a broken spar and tatter’d sail.)

  Or from the sea of Time, collecting vasting all, I bring,

  A windrow-drift of weeds and shells.

  O little shells, so curious-convolute, so limpid-cold and voiceless,

  Will you not little shells to the tympans of temples held,

  Murmurs and echoes still call up, eternity’s music faint and far,

  Wafted inland, sent from Atlantica’s rim, strains for the soul of the

  prairies,

  Whisper’d reverberations, chords for the ear of the West joyously

  sounding,

  Your tidings old, yet ever new and untranslatable,

  Infinitesimals out of my life, and many a life,

  (For not my life and years alone I give—all, all I give,)

  These waifs from the deep, cast high and dry,

  Wash’d on America’s shores?

  THE RETURN OF THE HEROES

  -1-

  For the lands and for these passionate days and for myself,

  Now I awhile retire to thee O soil of autumn fields,

  Reclining on thy breast, giving myself to thee,

  Answering the pulses of thy sane and equable heart,

  Tuning a verse for thee.

  O earth that hast no voice, confide to me a voice,

  O harvest of my lands—O boundless summer growths,

  O lavish brown parturient earth—O infinite teeming womb,

  A song to narrate thee.

  -2-

  Ever upon this stage,

  Is acted God’s calm annual drama,

  Gorgeous processions, songs of birds,

  Sunrise that fullest feeds and freshens most the soul,

  The heaving sea, the waves upon the shore, the musical, strong

  waves,

  The woods, the stalwart trees, the slender, tapering trees,

  The liliput countless armies of the grass,

  The heat, the showers, the measureless pasturages,

  The scenery of the snows, the winds’ free orchestra,

  The stretching light-hung roof of clouds, the clear cerulean and

  the silvery fringes,

  The high dilating stars, the placid beckoning stars,

  The moving flocks and herds, the plains and emerald meadows,

  The shows of all the varied lands and all the growths and products.

  -3-

  Fecund America—to-day,

  Thou art all over set in births and joys!

  Thou groan‘st with riches, thy wealth clothes thee as a swathing-

  garment,

  Thou laughest loud with ache of great possessions,

  A myriad twining life like interlacing vines binds all thy vast

  demesne,

  As some huge ship freighted to water’s edge thou ridest into port,

  As rain falls from the heaven and vapors rise from earth, so have

  the precious values fallen upon thee and risen out of thee;

  Thou envy of the globe! thou miracle!

  Thou, bathed, choked, swimming in plenty,

  Thou lucky Mistress of the tranquil barns,

  Thou Prairie Dame that sittest in the middle and lookest out

  upon thy world, and lookest East and lookest West,

  Dispensatress, that by a word givest a thousand miles, a million

  farms, and missest nothing,

  Thou all-acceptress—thou hospitable, (thou only art hospitable as

  God is hospitable.)

  -4-

  When late I sang sad was my voice,

  Sad were the shows around me with deafening noises of hatred

  and smoke of war;

  In the midst of the conflict, the heroes, I stood,

  Or pass’d with slow step through the wounded and dying.

  But now I sing not war,

  Nor the measur’d march of soldiers, nor the tents of camps,

  Nor the regiments hastily coming up deploying in line of

  battle;

  No more the sad, unnatural shows of war.

  Ask’d room those flush’d immortal ranks, the first forth-stepping

  armies?

  Ask room alas the ghastly ranks, the armies dread that

  follow’d.

  (Pass, pass, ye proud brigades, with your tramping sinewy legs,

  With your shoulders young and strong, with your knapsacks and

  your muskets;

  How elate I stood and watch’d you, where starting off you

  march’d.

  Pass—then rattle drums again,

  For an army heaves in sight, O another gathering army,

  Swarming, trailing on the rear, O you dread accruing army,

  O you regiments so piteous, with your mortal diarrhoea, with your

  fever,

  O my land’s maim’d darlings, with the plenteous bloody bandage

  and the crutch,

  Lo, your pallid army follows.)

  -5-

  But on these days of brightness,

  On the far-stretching beauteous landscape, the roads and

  lanes, the high-piled farm-wagons, and the fruits and

  barns,

  Should the dead intrude?

  Ah the dead to me mar not, they fit well in Nature,

  They fit very well in the landscape under the trees

  and grass,

  And along the edge of the sky in the horizon’s far margin.

  Nor do I forget you Departed,

  Nor in winter or summer my lost ones,

  But most in the open air as now when my soul is rapt and at

  peace, like pleasing phantoms,

  Your memories rising glide silently by me.

  -6-

  I saw the day the return of the heroes,

  (Yet the heroes never surpass’d shall never return,

  Them that day I saw not.)

  I saw the interminable corps, I saw the processions of armies,

  I saw them approaching, defiling by with divisions,

  Streaming northward, their work done, camping awhile in

  clusters of mighty camps.

  No holiday soldiers—youthful, yet veterans,

  Worn, swart, handsome, strong, of the stock of homestead and

  workshop,

  Harden’d of many a long campaign and sweaty march,

  Inured on many a hard-fought bloody field.

  A pause—the armies wait,

  A million flush’d embattled conquerors wait,

  The world too waits, then soft as breaking night and sure as

  dawn,

  They melt, they disappear,

  Exult O lands! victorious lands!

  Not there your victory on those red shuddering fields,

  But here and hence
your victory.

  Melt, melt away ye armies—disperse ye blue-clad soldiers,

  Resolve ye back again, give up for good your deadly arms,

  Other the arms the fields henceforth for you, or South or

  North,

  With saner wars, sweet wars, life-giving wars.

  -7-

  Loud O my throat, and clear O soul!

  The season of thanks and the voice of full-yielding,

  The chant of joy and power for boundless fertility.

  All till’d and untill’d fields expand before me,

  I see the true arenas of my race, or first or last,

  Man’s innocent and strong arenas.

  I see the heroes at other toils,

  I see well-wielded in their hands the better weapons.

  I see where the Mother of All,

  With full-spanning eye gazes forth, dwells long,

  And counts the varied gathering of the products.

  Busy the far, the sunlit panorama,

  Prairie, orchard, and yellow grain of the North,

  Cotton and rice of the South and Louisianian cane,

  Open unseeded fallows, rich fields of clover and timothy,

  Kine and horses feeding, and droves of sheep and swine,

  And many a stately river flowing and many a jocund brook,

  And healthy uplands with herby-perfumed breezes,

  And the good green grass, that delicate miracle the ever-recurring

  grass.

  -8-

  Toil on heroes! harvest the products!

  Not alone on those warlike fields the Mother of All,

  With dilated form and lambent eyes watch’d you.

  Toil on heroes! toil well! handle the weapons well!

  The Mother of All, yet here as ever she watches you.

  Well-pleased America thou beholdest,

  Over the fields of the West those crawling monsters,

  The human-divine inventions, the labor-saving implements;

  Beholdest moving in every direction imbued as with life the

  revolving hay-rakes,