Leaves of Grass: First and Death-Bed Editions

by Walt Whitman

  April, 1843 PAUMANOK

  THE HOUSE OF FRIENDS6

  “And one shall say unto him, What are those wounds in thy hands? Then he shall answer, Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.”—Zachariah, xiii. 6.

  If thou art balked, O Freedom,

  The victory is not to thy manlier foes;

  From the house of thy friends comes the death stab.

  Vaunters of the Free,

  Why do you strain your lungs off southward?

  Why be going to Alabama?

  Sweep first before your own door;

  Stop this squalling and this scorn

  Over the mote there in the distance;

  Look well to your own eye, Massachusetts—

  Yours, New-York and Pennsylvania;

  —I would say yours too, Michigan,

  But all the salve, all the surgery

  Of the great wide world were powerless there.

  Virginia, mother of greatness,

  Blush not for being also mother of slaves.

  You might have borne deeper slaves—

  Doughfaces, Crawlers, Lice of Humanity—

  Terrific screamers of Freedom,

  Who roar and bawl, and get hot i’ the face,

  But, were they not incapable of august crime,

  Would quench the hopes of ages for a drink—

  Muck-worms, creeping flat to the ground,

  A dollar dearer to them than Christ’s blessing;

  All loves, all hopes, less than the thought of gain;

  In life walking in that as in a shroud:

  Men whom the throes of heroes,

  Great deeds at which the gods might stand appalled

  The shriek of a drowned world, the appeal of women,

  The exulting laugh of untied empires,

  Would touch them never in the heart,

  But only in the pocket.

  Hot-headed Carolina,

  Well may you curl your lip;

  With all your bondsmen, bless the destiny

  Which brings you no such breed as this.

  Arise, young North!

  Our elder blood flows in the veins of cowards—

  The gray-haired sneak, the blanched poltroon,

  The feigned or real shiverer at tongues

  That nursing babes need hardly cry the less for—

  Are they to be our tokens always?

  Fight on, band braver than warriors,

  Faithful and few as Spartans;

  But fear not most the angriest, loudest malice—

  Fear most the still and forked fang

  That starts from the grass at your feet.

  RESURGEMUS7

  Suddenly, out of its stale and drowsy lair, the lair of

  slaves,

  Like lightning Europe le‘pt forth,

  Sombre, superb and terrible,

  As Ahimoth, brother of Death.

  God, ‘twas delicious!

  That brief, tight, glorious grip

  Upon the throats of kings.

  You liars paid to defile the People,

  Mark you now:

  Not for numberless agonies, murders, lusts,

  For court thieving in its manifold mean forms,

  Worming from his simplicity the poor man’s wages;

  For many a promise sworn by royal lips

  And broken, and laughed at in the breaking;

  Then, in their power, not for all these,

  Did a blow fall in personal revenge,

  Or a hair draggle in blood:

  The People scorned the ferocity of kings.

  But the sweetness of mercy brewed bitter destruction,

  And frightened rulers come back:

  Each comes in state, with his train,

  Hangman, priest, and tax-gatherer,

  Soldier, lawyer, and sycophant;

  An appalling procession of locusts,

  And the king struts grandly again.

  Yet behind all, lo, a Shape

  Vague as the night, draped interminably,

  Head, front and form, in scarlet folds;

  Whose face and eyes none may see,

  Out of its robes only this,

  The red robes, lifted by the arm,

  One finger pointed high over the top,

  Like the head of a snake appears.

  Meanwhile, corpses lie in new-made graves,

  Bloody corpses of young men;

  The rope of the gibbet hangs heavily,

  The bullets of tyrants are flying,

  The creatures of power laugh aloud:

  And all these things bear fruits, and they are good.

  Those corpses of young men,

  Those martyrs that hang from the gibbets,

  Those hearts pierced by the grey lead,

  Cold and motionless as they seem,

  Live elsewhere with undying vitality;

  They live in other young men, O, kings,

  They live in brothers, again ready to defy you;

  They were purified by death,

  They were taught and exalted.

  Not a grave of those slaughtered ones,

  But is growing its seed of freedom,

  In its turn to bear seed,

  Which the winds shall carry afar and resow,

  And the rain nourish.

  Not a disembodied spirit

  Can the weapon of tyrants let loose,

  But it shall stalk invisibly over the earth,

  Whispering, counseling, cautioning.

  Liberty, let others despair of thee,

  But I will never despair of thee:

  Is the house shut? Is the master away?

  Nevertheless, be ready, be not weary of watching,

  He will surely return; his messengers come anon.

  POEMS EXCLUDED FROM THE “DEATH-BED” EDITION (1891-1892) 8

  GREAT ARE THE MYTHS

  -1-

  Great are the myths—I too delight in them;

  Great are Adam and Eve—I too look back and accept them;

  Great the risen and fallen nations, and their poets, women, sages,

  inventors, rulers, warriors, and priests.

  Great is Liberty! great is Equality! I am their follower;

  Helmsmen of nations, choose your craft! where you sail, I sail,

  I weather it out with you, or sink with you.

  Great is Youth—equally great is Old Age—great are the Day and

  Night;

  Great is Wealth—great is Poverty—great is Expression—great is

  Silence.

  Youth, large, lusty, loving—Youth, full of grace, force,

  fascination!

  Do you know that Old Age may come after you, with equal grace,

  force, fascination?

  Day, full-blown and splendid—Day of the immense sun, action,

  ambition, laughter,

  The Night follows close, with millions of suns, and sleep, and

  restoring darkness.

  Wealth, with the flush hand, fine clothes, hospitality;

  But then the Soul’s wealth, which is candor, knowledge, pride,

  enfolding love;

  (Who goes for men and women showing Poverty richer than

  wealth?)

  Expression of speech! in what is written or said, forget not that

  Silence is also expressive,

  That anguish as hot as the hottest, and contempt as cold as the

  coldest, may be without words.

  -2-

  Great is the Earth, and the way it became what it is;

  Do you imagine it has stopt at this? the increase

  abandon’d?

  Understand then that it goes as far onward from this, as this is

  from the times when it lay in covering waters and gases,

  before man had appear’d.

  Great is the quality of Truth in man;

  The quality of truth in man supports itself through all

  changes,

 
; It is inevitably in the man—he and it are in love, and never leave

  each other.

  The truth in man is no dictum, it is vital as eyesight;

  If there be any Soul, there is truth—if there be man or

  woman there is truth—if there be physical or moral,

  there is truth;

  If there be equilibrium or volition, there is truth—if there be

  things at all upon the earth, there is truth.

  O truth of the earth! I am determin’d to press my way toward

  you;

  Sound your voice! I scale mountains, or dive in the sea after

  you.

  -3-

  Great is Language—it is the mightiest of the sciences,

  It is the fulness, color, form, diversity of the earth, and of men

  and women, and of all qualities and processes;

  It is greater than wealth—it is greater than buildings, ships,

  religions, paintings, music.

  Great is the English speech—what speech is so great as the English?

  Great is the English brood—what brood has so vast a destiny as

  the English?

  It is the mother of the brood that must rule the earth with the

  new rule;

  The new rule shall rule as the Soul rules, and as the love, justice,

  equality in the Soul rule.

  Great is Law—great are the few old land-marks of the law,

  They are the same in all times, and shall not be disturb’d.

  -4-

  Great is Justice!

  Justice is not settled by legislators and laws—it is in the Soul;

  It cannot be varied by statutes, any more than love, pride, the

  attraction of gravity, can;

  It is immutable—it does not depend on majorities—majorities or

  what not, come at last before the same passionless and exact

  tribunal.

  For justice are the grand natural lawyers, and perfect judges—is it

  in their Souls;

  It is well assorted—they have not studied for nothing—the great

  includes the less;

  They rule on the highest grounds—they oversee all eras, states,

  administrations.

  The perfect judge fears nothing—he could go front to front

  before God;

  Before the perfect judge all shall stand back—life and death shall

  stand back—heaven and hell shall stand back.

  -5-

  Great is Life, real and mystical, wherever and whoever;

  Great is Death—sure as life holds all parts together, Death holds

  all parts together.

  Has Life much purport?—Ah, Death has the greatest purport.

  CHANTS DEMOCRATIC. 6

  You just maturing youth! You male or female!

  Remember the organic compact of These States,

  Remember the pledge of the Old Thirteen thenceforward to the

  rights, life, liberty, equality of man,

  Remember what was promulged by the founders, ratified by The

  States, signed in black and white by the Commissioners, and

  read by Washington at the head of the army,

  Remember the purposes of the founders,—Remember

  Washington;

  Remember the copious humanity streaming from every direction

  toward America;

  Remember the hospitality that belongs to nations and

  men; (Cursed be nation, woman, man, without

  hospitality!)

  Remember, government is to subserve individuals,

  Not any, not the President, is to have one jot more than you or

  me,

  Not any habitan of America is to have one jot less than you

  or me.

  Anticipate when the thirty or fifty millions, are to become the

  hundred, or two hundred millions, of equal freemen and

  freewomen, amicably joined.

  Recall ages—One age is but a part—ages are but a part;

  Recall the angers, bickerings, delusions, superstitions, of the idea

  of caste,

  Recall the bloody cruelties and crimes.

  Anticipate the best women;

  I say an unnumbered new race of hardy and well-defined women

  are to spread through all These States,

  I say a girl fit for These States must be free, capable, dauntless,

  just the same as a boy.

  Anticipate your own life—retract with merciless power,

  Shirk nothing—retract in time—Do you see those errors, diseases,

  weaknesses, lies, thefts?

  Do you see that lost character?—Do you see decay, consumption,

  rum-drinking, dropsy, fever, mortal cancer or inflammation?

  Do you see death, and the approach of death?

  THINK OF THE SOUL

  Think of the Soul;

  I swear to you that body of yours gives proportions to your Soul

  somehow to live in other spheres;

  I do not know how, but I know it is so.

  Think of loving and being loved;

  I swear to you, whoever you are, you can interfuse yourself with

  such things that everybody that sees you shall look longingly

  upon you.

  Think of the past;

  I warn you that in a little while others will find their past in you

  and your times.

  The race is never separated—nor man nor woman escapes;

  All is inextricable—things, spirits, Nature, nations, you too—from

  precedents you come.

  Recall the ever-welcome defiers, (The mothers precede them;)

  Recall the sages, poets, saviors, inventors, lawgivers, of the earth;

  Recall Christ, brother of rejected persons—brother of slaves,

  felons, idiots, and of insane and diseas’d persons.

  Think of the time when you were not yet born;

  Think of times you stood at the side of the dying;

  Think of the time when your own body will be dying.

  Think of spiritual results,

  Sure as the earth swims through the heavens, does every one of its

  objects pass into spiritual results.

  Think of manhood, and you to be a man;

  Do you count manhood, and the sweet of manhood, nothing?

  Think of womanhood, and you to be a woman;

  The creation is womanhood;

  Have I not said that womanhood involves all?

  Have I not told how the universe has nothing better than the best

  womanhood?

  RESPONDEZ!

  Respondez! Respondez!

  (The war is completed—the price is paid—the title is settled

  beyond recall;)

  Let every one answer! let those who sleep be waked! let none

  evade!

  Must we still go on with our affectations and sneaking?

  Let me bring this to a close—I pronounce openly for a new

  distribution of roles;

  Let that which stood in front go behind! and let that which was

  behind advance to the front and speak;

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

  propositions!

  Let the old propositions be postponed!

  Let faces and theories be turn’d inside out! let meanings be freely

  criminal, as well as results!

  Let there be no suggestion above the suggestion of drudgery!

  Let none be pointed toward his destination! (Say! do you know

  your destination?)

  Let men and women be mock’d with bodies and mock’d with

  Souls!

  Let the love that waits in them, wait! let it die, or pass still-born to

  other spheres!

  Let the sympathy that waits in every man, wait! or let it a
lso pass,

  a dwarf, to other spheres!

  Let contradictions prevail! let one thing contradict another! and

  let one line of my poems contradict another!

  Let the people sprawl with yearning, aimless hands! let their

  tongues be broken! let their eyes be discouraged! let none

  descend into their hearts with the fresh lusciousness of love!

  (Stifled, O days! O lands! in every public and private

  corruption!

  Smother’d in thievery, impotence, shamelessness,

  mountain-high;

  Brazen effrontery, scheming, rolling like ocean’s waves around

  and upon you, O my days! my lands!

  For not even those thunderstorms, nor fiercest lightnings of the

  war, have purified the atmosphere;)

  —Let the theory of America still be management, caste,

  comparison! (Say! what other theory would you?)

  Let them that distrust birth and death still lead the rest! (Say! why

  shall they not lead you?)

  Let the crust of hell be neared and trod on! let the days be darker

  than the nights! let slumber bring less slumber than waking

  time brings!

  Let the world never appear to him or her for whom it was all

  made!

  Let the heart of the young man still exile itself from the heart of

  the old man! and let the heart of the old man be exiled from

  that of the young man!

  Let the sun and moon go! let scenery take the applause of the

  audience! let there be apathy under the stars!

  Let freedom prove no man’s inalienable right! every one who can

  tyrannize, let him tyrannize to his satisfaction!

  Let none but infidels be countenanced!

  Let the eminence of meanness, treachery, sarcasm, hate, greed,

  indecency, impotence, lust, be taken for granted above all! let

  writers, judges, governments, households, religions,

  philosophies, take such for granted above all!