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Walt Whitman
 ny modern American poet
who has ever written a poem owes a debt of gratitude to Walt Whitman. Before
the publication of Leaves of Grass in 1855, writing poetry in free
verse was virtually unheard of in this country.
Whitman was, in many ways, the archetypal bohemian who was ahead of his
times; a poet who celebrated both himself and the uniqueness of the
individual while helping to forge a uniquely American literary identity. He
also gave voice to the pleasure inherent in human sexuality and encouraged
equality for both African-Americans and women.
In his 1844 essay, The Poet, Ralph Waldo Emerson called upon the
United States to produce an "American Bard." Emerson’s essay was not wasted
on Whitman. In fact, upon reading Leaves of Grass, in a letter he
wrote to Whitman, Emerson said, “I find it the most extraordinary piece of
wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed…I greet you at the beginning
of a great career.”
Though he would prove to be one of the foremost poets in American
literature, there was nothing obvious about the young Walt Whitman that
would indicate his impending achievement.
Born on Long Island in 1891, the second of nine children, Whitman’s
formal education lasted all of five years. When Whitman was twelve, his
father, a carpenter and farmer, had moved the family to Brooklyn. Around the
same time, Whitman left school to work as an apprentice printer for the Long
Island Patriot and later for the Long Island Star.
In his youth, Whitman drifted through a series of jobs including printer,
reporter, and journalist. Despite Whitman’s lack of a formal education, he
worked as an elementary school teacher for almost five years on Long Island.
In 1838, Whitman also created and published his own short-lived newspaper,
The Long Islander.
In 1842, the editor of The New World asked Whitman to write a novel in
support of the growing temperance movement. The resulting work, Franklin
Evans, was a hastily and sloppily written novel, the plot of which often
completely disregards the evils of alcohol. Nevertheless, it proved to be
the greatest commercial success experienced by Whitman during his lifetime,
selling over twenty thousand copies. By many accounts, Whitman, who
dismissed Franklin Evans as “rot,” claimed to have written the novel
over the course of a three-day drinking binge.
Throughout this period in his life, Whitman (often using a nom de plume)
continued to write a plethora of articles, short stories, editorials, and
poems that appeared in several New York City newspapers and magazines.
Though he longed to be known as “America’s Bard,” there was - judging by his
early, conventional poems - little reason to expect that Whitman would ever
be awarded such a title.
 Until 1855, that is.
During the early summer of that year, Whitman published, at his own expense
and by his own hand, the initial edition of Leaves of Grass. It was a
slim, ninety-five page “language experiment,” composed of twelve untitled,
free-verse poems. It was unlike anything that had ever been published
before. Whitman spent the rest of his life revising and expanding Leaves
of Grass. By 1881, Leaves of Grass contained 293 poems on 382
pages. Arguably, the most profound of Whitman's Leaves of Grass poems, is "Song
Of Myself," in which the poet sees the spectrum of humanity reflected in
himself.
Discussing the significance of "Song Of Myself" in their Poetry
Anthology, X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia Write, “…Song Of Myself...was an
inclusive and often incantatory text in which the author offered himself as
a representative of all humanity, especially, the humanity that inhabited
the America whose cities and people he lovingly catalogued, identifying not
only with the lowly and the downcast, the impoverished and the enslaved, but
with criminals and prostitutes as well. The poet declared himself for the
equality of women, and his descriptions of swimmers and workingmen in what
he termed ‘the manly love of comrades’ revealed to sophisticated readers, as
subsequent editions of the book would do even more overtly, a strong
homoerotic impulse. He also posited the oneness of humanity with all natural
creation, hence the title of the volume, affirming a sort of immortality
based not on the traditional notion of the spiritual survival of the
individual personality, but rather on the individual’s resumption into a
general oversoul.”
In addition to "Song Of Myself," other great poems of Whitman's
include "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry," "Out of the Cradle Endlessly
Rocking," a poignant reminiscence of Whitman's first experience with
death and grieving, and "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd,"
an elegy for Abraham Lincoln that first appeared in Whitman's volume of
Civil War poems, Drum Taps.
As a gay man living in nineteenth century America, Whitman was surprising
candid about his sexuality and this is reflected in his poetry. Whitman's "Calamus"
poems - in particular, "To A Stranger," "City of Orgies," "Behold
This Swarthy Face," and "We Two Boys Together Clinging" - are
overtly homoerotic. But Whitman did pay a price for his forthright nature.
Living in Washington in 1865, Whitman, who was working as a clerk in the
Bureau of Indian Affairs, was fired from his job after Interior Secretary
John Harlan discovered Whitman was the author of "obscene" poetry. That same
year, Whitman entered into a relationship with Peter Doyle, an eighteen
year-old railway conductor, that proved to be one of the most satisfying
unions of his life, lasting several years.
In 1881, Whitman (and his poetry) was publicly condemned by the Society
for the Suppression of Vice. Many literary historians believe the various
rumors that Whitman fathered a host of illegitimate children were started by
the poet himself in order to abate public speculation of his sexuality.
 Kennedy
and Gioia write, "Whitman is without question one of the most important
writers in the history of American literature, and perhaps the single most
important poet. His affirmation of the democratic ideal, his spiritual
dimension, his technical experimentation, his sexual frankness, his attempts
to capture the sights and the soul of his nation...have been defined by
various commentators as quintessentially American characteristics, and he
has inspired members of every generation of poets since his own time,
including writers as different from one another, and Whitman himself, as
Carl Sandburg and Allen Ginsberg. In poem after poem, he has given us a rich
portrait of his times and his places and above all, as the title of central
text proclaims, himself, fully justifying his famous assertion, 'Who touches
this book touches a man.'"
In 1873, Whitman began to have paralytic strokes, from which he was
eventually incapacitated. By 1882, Leaves of Grass had generated
enough income that Whitman was able to purchase a small house in Camden, New
Jersey. There, he was visited by a stream of loyal admirers, including Oscar
Wilde. Whitman died on March 26, 1892. He was seventy-two years old.
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.
When Lilacs Last in the Door-Yard
Bloom'd
When lilacs last in the door-yard bloom'd,
And the great star early droop'd in the
western sky in the night,
I mourn'd, and yet shall mourn with
ever-returning spring.
Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you
bring,
Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in
the west,
And thought of him I love.
2
O powerful western fallen star!
O shades of night - O moody, tearful night!
O great star disappear'd - O the black murk
that hides the star!
O cruel hands that hold me powerless - O
helpless soul of me!
O harsh surrounding cloud that will not free
my soul!
3
In the dooryard fronting an old farm-house
near the white-wash'd
palings,
Stands the lilac-bush tall-growing with
heart-shaped leaves of rich
green,
With many a pointed blossom rising delicate,
with the perfume strong
I love,
With every leaf a miracle - and from this bush
in the dooryard,
With delicate-color'd blossoms, and
heart-shaped leaves of rich green,
A sprig with its flower I break.
4
In the swamp, in secluded recesses,
A shy and hidden bird is warbling a song.
Solitary the thrush,
The hermit withdrawn to himself, avoiding the
settlements,
Sings by himself a song.
Song of the bleeding throat,
Death's outlet song of life, (for well dear
brother I know,
If thou wast not gifted to sing thou would'st
surely die.)
5
Over the breast of the spring, the land, amid
cities,
Amid lanes and through old woods, where lately
the violets peep'd from
the ground, spotting the gray debris,
Amid the grass in the fields each side of the
lanes, passing the endless
grass,
Passing the yellow-spear'd wheat, every grain
from its shroud in the
dark-brown fields uprisen,
Passing the apple-tree blows of white and pink
in the orchards,
Carrying a corpse to where it shall rest in
the grave,
Night and day journeys a coffin.
6
Coffin that passes through lanes and streets,
Through day and night with the great cloud
darkening the land,
With the pomp of the inloop'd flags with the
cities draped in black,
With the show of the States themselves as of
crape-veil'd women
standing,
With processions long and winding and the
flambeaus of the night,
With the countless torches lit, with the
silent sea of faces and the
unbared heads,
With the waiting depot, the arriving coffin,
and the sombre faces,
With dirges through the night, with the
thousand voices rising strong
and solemn,
With all the mournful voices of the dirges
pour'd around the coffin,
The dim-lit churches and the shuddering organs
- where amid these
you journey,
With the tolling, tolling bells' perpetual
clang,
Here, coffin that slowly passes,
I give you my sprig of lilac.
7
(Nor for you, for one, alone,
Blossoms and branches green to coffins all I
bring,
For fresh as the morning, thus would I carol a
song for you O sane
and sacred death.
All over bouquets of roses,
O death, I cover you over with roses and early
lilies,
But mostly and now the lilac that blooms the
first,
Copious I break, I break the sprigs from the
bushes,
With loaded arms I come, pouring for you,
For you, and the coffins all of you O death.)
8
O western orb sailing the heaven,
Now I know what you must have meant as a month
since I walk'd,
As I walk'd in silence the transparent shadowy
night,
As I saw you had something to tell, as you
bent to me night after
night,
As you droop'd from the sky low down, as if to
my side, (while the
other stars all look'd on,)
As we wander'd together the solemn night, (for
something I know not
what kept me from sleep,)
As the night advanced, and I saw on the rim of
the west how full you
were of woe,
As I stood on the rising ground in the breeze
in the cool transparent
night,
As I watch'd where you pass'd and was lost in
the netherward black of
the night,
As my soul in its trouble dissatisfied sank,
as where you sad orb,
Concluded, dropt in the night, and was gone.
9
Sing on there in the swamp,
O singer bashful and tender, I hear your
notes, I hear your call,
I hear, I come presently, I understand you,
But a moment I linger, for the lustrous star
has detain'd me,
The star my departing comrade holds and
detains me.
10
O how shall I warble myself for the dead one
there I loved?
And how shall I deck my song for the large
sweet soul that has gone?
And what shall my perfume be, for the grave of
him I love?
Sea-winds blown from east and west,
Blown from the eastern sea and blown from the
western sea, till there
on the prairies meeting,
These and with these and the breath of my
chant,
I'll perfume the grave of him I love.
11
O what shall I hang on the chamber walls?
And what shall the pictures be that I hang on
the walls,
To adorn the burial-house of him I love?
Pictures of growing spring and farms and
homes,
With the Fourth-month eve at sundown, and the
gray smoke lucid and
bright,
With floods of the yellow gold of the
gorgeous, indolent, sinking sun,
burning, expanding the air,
With the fresh sweet herbage under foot, and
the pale green leaves of
the trees prolific,
In the distance the flowing glaze, the breast
of the river, with a wind-
dapple here and there,
With ranging hills on the banks, with many a
line against the sky, and
shadows,
And the city at hand with dwellings so dense,
and stacks of chimneys,
And all the scenes of life and the workshops,
and the workmen
homeward returning.
12
Lo, body and soul - this land,
My own Manhattan with spires, and the
sparkling and hurrying tides,
and the ships,
The varied and ample land, the South and the
North in the light, Ohio's
shore and flashing Missouri,
And ever the far-spreading prairies cover'd
with grass and corn.
Lo, the most excellent sun so calm and
haughty,
The violet and purple morn with just-felt
breezes,
The gentle soft-born measureless light,
The miracle spreading bathing all, the
fulfill'd noon,
The coming eve delicious, the welcome night
and the stars,
Over my cities shining all, enveloping man and
land.
13
Sing on, song on you gray-brown bird,
Sing from the swamps, the recesses, pour your
chant from the bushes,
Limitless out of the dusk, out of the cedars
and pines.
Sing on dearest brother, warble your reedy
song,
Loud human song, with voice of uttermost woe.
O liquid and free and tender!
O wild and loose to my soul - O wondrous
singer!
You only I hear - yet the star holds me, (but
will soon depart,)
Yet the lilac with mastering odor holds me.
City of Orgies
City of orgies, walks and joys,
City whom that I have lived and sung in your midst will one day make
Not the pageants of you, not your shifting tableaus, your
spectacles, repay me,
Not the interminable rows of your houses, nor the ships at the wharves,
Nor the processions in the streets, nor the bright windows with
goods in them,
Nor to converse with learn'd persons, or bear my share in the soiree
or feast;
Not those, but as I pass O Manhattan, your frequent and swift flash
of eyes offering me love,
Offering response to my own--these repay me,
Lovers, continual lovers, only repay me.
Behold This Swarthy Face
Behold this swarthy face, these gray eyes,
This beard, the white wool unclipt upon my neck,
My brown hands and the silent manner of me without charm;
Yet comes one a Manhattanese and ever at parting kisses me lightly
on the lips with robust love,
And I on the crossing of the street or on the ship's deck give a
kiss in return,
We observe that salute of American comrades land and sea,
We are those two natural and nonchalant persons.
To a Stranger
Passing stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you,
You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking, (it comes to me
as of a dream,)
I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you,
All is recall'd as we flit by each other, fluid, affectionate,
chaste, matured,
You grew up with me, were a boy with me or a girl with me,
I ate with you and slept with you, your body has become not yours
only nor left my body mine only,
You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as we pass, you
take of my beard, breast, hands, in return,
I am not to speak to you, I am to think of you when I sit alone or
wake at night alone,
I am to wait, I do not doubt I am to meet you again,
I am to see to it that I do not lose you.
(selections from) Crossing
Brooklyn Ferry
1
Flood-tide below me! I see you face to face!
Clouds of the west--sun there half an hour high--I see you also
face to face.
Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes, how,
curious you are to me!
On the ferry-boats the hundreds and hundreds that cross, returning home,
are more curious to me than you suppose,
And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence are more
to me, and more in my meditations, than you might suppose.
2
The impalpable sustenance of me from all things at all hours of the
day
The simple, compact, well-join'd scheme, myself disintegrated,
every one disintegrated yet part of the scheme,
The similitudes of the past and those of the future,
The glories strung like beads on my smallest sights and hearings,
on the walk in the street and the passage over the river,
The current rushing so swiftly and swimming with me far away,
The others that are to follow me the ties between me and them,
The certainty of others, the life, love, sight, hearing of others.
Others will enter the gates of the ferry and cross from shore to
shore,
Others will watch the run of the flood-tide,
Others will see the shipping of Manhattan north and west, and
the heights of Brooklyn to the south and east,
Others will see the islands large and small;
Fifty years hence, others will see them as they cross, the sun half
an hour high,
A hundred years hence, or ever so many hundred years hence,
others will see them,
Will enjoy the sunset, the pouring-in of the flood-tide, the falling
back to the sea of the ebb-tide.
5
What is it then between us?
What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us?
Whatever it is, it avails not--distance avails not, and place avails
not,
I too lived, Brooklyn of ample hills was mine,
I too walk'd the streets of Manhattan island, and bathed in the
waters around it,
I too felt the curious abrupt questionings stir within me,
In the day among crowds of people sometimes they came upon me,
In my walks home late at night or as I lay in my bed they came
upon me,
I too had been struck from the float forever held in solution,
I too had receiv'd identity by my body,
That I was I knew was of my body, and what I should be I knew I
should be of my body.
9
Flow on, river! flow with the flood-tide, and ebb with the ebb-
tide!
Frolic on, crested and scallop-edg'd waves!
Gorgeous clouds of the sunset! drench with your splendor me, or
the men and women generations after me!
Cross from shore to shore, countless crowds of passengers!
Stand up, tall masts of Mannahatta! stand up, beautiful hills of
Brooklyn!
Throb, baffled and curious brain! throw out questions and answers!
Suspend here and everywhere, eternal float of solution!
Gaze, loving and thirsting eyes, in the house or street or public assembly!
Sound out, voices of young men! loudly and musically call me by
my nighest name!
Live, old life! play the part that looks back on the actor or actress!
Play the old role, the role that is great or small according as one
makes it!
Consider, you who peruse me, whether I may not in unknown
ways be looking upon you;
Be firm, rail over the river, to support those who lean idly, yet
haste with the hasting current;
Fly on, sea-birds! fly sideways, or wheel in large circles high in the air;
Receive the summer sky, you water, and faithfully hold it till all
downcast eyes have time to take it from you!
Diverge, fine spokes of light, from the shape of my head, or any
one's head, in the sunlit water!
Come on, ships from the lower bay! pass up or down, white-sail'd
schooners, sloops, lighters!
Flaunt away, flags of all nations! be duly lower'd at sunset!
Burn high your fires, foundry chimneys! cast black shadows at
nightfall! cast red and yellow light over the tops of the houses!
Appearances, now or henceforth, indicate what you are,
You necessary film, continue to envelop the soul,
About my body for me, and your body for you, be hung
our divinest aromas,
Thrive, cities--bring your freight, bring your shows, ample and
sufficient rivers,
Expand, being than which none else is perhaps more spiritual,
Keep your places, objects than which none else is more lasting.
You have waited, you always wait, you dumb, beautiful ministers,
We receive you with free sense at last, and are insatiate hence-
forward,
Not you any more shall be able to foil us, or withhold yourselves
from us,
We use you, and do not cast you aside--we plant you
permanently within us,
We fathom you not--we love you--there is perfection in you also,
You furnish your parts toward eternity,
Great or small, you furnish your parts toward the soul.
(selections from)
Song Of Myself
1
I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to
you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of
summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this
soil, this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the
same, and their
parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health
begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.
Creeds and schools in abeyance,
Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but
never forgotten,
I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every
hazard,
Nature without check with original energy.
2
Houses and rooms are full of perfumes, the shelves
are crowded with
perfumes,
I breathe the fragrance myself and know it and like
it,
The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I
shall not let it.
The atmosphere is not a perfume, it has no taste of
the
distillation, it is odorless,
It is for my mouth forever, I am in love with it,
I will go to the bank by the wood and become
undisguised and naked,
I am mad for it to be in contact with me.
The smoke of my own breath,
Echoes, ripples, buzz'd whispers, love-root,
silk-thread, crotch and
vine,
My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my
heart, the passing
of blood and air through my lungs,
The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the
shore and
dark-color'd sea-rocks, and of hay in the barn,
The sound of the belch'd words of my voice loos'd to
the eddies of
the wind,
A few light kisses, a few embraces, a reaching
around of arms,
The play of shine and shade on the trees as the
supple boughs wag,
The delight alone or in the rush of the streets, or
along the fields
and hill-sides,
The feeling of health, the full-noon trill, the song
of me rising
from bed and meeting the sun.
Have you reckon'd a thousand acres much? have you
reckon'd the
earth much?
Have you practis'd so long to learn to read?
Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of
poems?
Stop this day and night with me and you shall
possess the origin of
all poems,
You shall possess the good of the earth and sun,
(there are millions
of suns left,)
You shall no longer take things at second or third
hand, nor look
through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the
spectres in
books,
You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take
things from me,
You shall listen to all sides and filter them from
your self.
3
I have heard what the talkers were talking, the talk
of the
beginning and the end,
But I do not talk of the beginning or the end.
There was never any more inception than there is
now,
Nor any more youth or age than there is now,
And will never be any more perfection than there is
now,
Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.
Urge and urge and urge,
Always the procreant urge of the world.
Out of the dimness opposite equals advance, always
substance and
increase, always sex,
Always a knit of identity, always distinction,
always a breed of
life.
To elaborate is no avail, learn'd and unlearn'd feel
that it is so.
Sure as the most certain sure, plumb in the
uprights, well
entretied, braced in the beams,
Stout as a horse, affectionate, haughty, electrical,
I and this mystery here we stand.
Clear and sweet is my soul, and clear and sweet is
all that is not
my soul.
Lack one lacks both, and the unseen is proved by the
seen,
Till that becomes unseen and receives proof in its
turn.
Showing the best and dividing it from the worst age
vexes age,
Knowing the perfect fitness and equanimity of
things, while they
discuss I am silent, and go bathe and admire
myself.
Welcome is every organ and attribute of me, and of
any man hearty
and clean,
Not an inch nor a particle of an inch is vile, and
none shall be
less familiar than the rest.
I am satisfied- I see, dance, laugh, sing;
As the hugging and loving bed-fellow sleeps at my
side through the
night, and withdraws at the peep of the day with
stealthy
tread,
Leaving me baskets cover'd with white towels
swelling the house with
their plenty,
Shall I postpone my acceptation and realization and
scream at my
eyes,
That they turn from gazing after and down the road,
And forthwith cipher and show me to a cent,
Exactly the value of one and exactly the value of
two, and which is
ahead?
12
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
break-down.
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-strew'd threshold I follow their
movements,
The lithe sheer of their waists plays even with
their massive arms,
Overhand the hammers swing, overhand so slow,
overhand so sure,
They do not hasten, each man hits in his place.
13
The negro holds firmly the reins of his four horses,
the block swags
underneath on its tied-over chain,
The negro that drives the long dray of the
stone-yard, steady and
tall he stands pois'd on one leg on the
string-piece,
His blue shirt exposes his ample neck and breast and
loosens over
his hip-band,
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 mustache, 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 sluing,
To niches aside and junior bending, not a person or
object missing,
Absorbing all to myself and for this song.
Oxen that rattle the yoke and chain or halt in the
leafy 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
day-long ramble,
They rise together, they slowly circle around.
I believe in those wing'd purposes,
And acknowledge red, yellow, white, playing within
me,
And consider green and violet and the tufted crown
intentional,
And do not call the tortoise unworthy because she is
not something
else,
And the in the woods never studied the gamut, yet
trills pretty well
to me,
And the look of the bay mare shames silliness out of
me.
14
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 listening
close,
Find its purpose and place up there toward the
wintry sky.
The sharp-hoof'd moose of the north, the cat on the
house-sill, the
chickadee, the prairie-dog,
The litter of the grunting sow as they tug at her
teats,
The brood of the turkey-hen and she with her
half-spread 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 enamour'd of growing out-doors,
Of men that live among cattle or taste of the ocean
or woods,
Of the builders and steerers of ships and the
wielders of axes and
mauls, and the drivers of horses,
I can eat and sleep with them week in and week out.
What is commonest, cheapest, nearest, 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 good will,
Scattering it freely forever.
15
The pure contralto sings in the organ loft,
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 whale-boat, lance and
harpoon are
ready,
The duck-shooter walks by silent and cautious
stretches,
The deacons are ordain'd with cross'd hands at the
altar,
The spinning-girl retreats and advances to the hum
of the big wheel,
The farmer stops by the bars as he walks on a
First-day loafe and
looks at the oats and rye,
The lunatic is carried at last to the asylum a
confirm'd case,
(He will never sleep any more as he did in the cot
in his mother's
bed-room;)
The jour printer with gray head and gaunt jaws works
at his case,
He turns his quid of tobacco while his eyes blurr
with the
manuscript;
The malform'd limbs are tied to the surgeon's table,
What is removed drops horribly in a pail;
The quadroon girl is sold at the auction-stand, the
drunkard nods by
the bar-room stove,
The machinist rolls up his sleeves, the policeman
travels his beat,
the gate-keeper 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, takes his
position, levels
his piece;
The groups of newly-come immigrants cover the wharf
or levee,
As the woolly-pates hoe in the sugar-field, the
overseer views them
from his saddle,
The bugle calls in the ball-room, the gentlemen run
for their
partners, the dancers bow to each other,
The youth lies awake in the cedar-roof'd garret and
harks to the
musical rain,
The Wolverine sets traps on the creek that helps
fill the Huron,
The squaw wrapt in her yellow-hemm'd cloth is
offering moccasins and
bead-bags for sale,
The connoisseur peers along the exhibition-gallery
with half-shut
eyes bent sideways,
As the deck-hands make fast the steamboat the plank
is thrown for
the shore-going passengers,
The young sister holds out the skein while 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 having a
week ago borne
her first child,
The clean-hair'd Yankee girl works with her
sewing-machine or in the
factory or mill,
The paving-man leans on his two-handed rammer, the
reporter's lead
flies swiftly over the note-book, the
sign-painter is lettering
with blue and gold,
The canal boy trots on the tow-path, the book-keeper
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 baptized, the convert is making his
first professions,
The regatta is spread on the bay, the race is begun,
(how the white
sails sparkle!)
The drover watching his drove sings out to them that
would stray,
The peddler sweats with his pack on his back, (the
purchaser haggling
about the odd cent;)
The bride unrumples her white dress, the minute-hand
of the clock
moves slowly,
The opium-eater reclines with rigid head and
just-open'd lips,
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 holding a cabinet council is
surrounded by the great
Secretaries,
On the piazza walk three matrons stately and
friendly 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,
As the fare-collector goes through the train he
gives notice by the
jingling of loose change,
The floor-men 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 gather'd, it
is the fourth of Seventh-month, (what salutes of
cannon and
small arms!)
Seasons pursuing each other the plougher ploughs,
the mower mows,
and the winter-grain falls in the ground;
Off on the lakes the pike-fisher watches and waits
by the hole in
the frozen surface,
The stumps stand thick round the clearing, the
squatter strikes deep
with his axe,
Flatboatmen make fast towards dusk near the
cotton-wood or
pecan-trees,
Coon-seekers go through the regions of the Red river
or through
those drain'd by the Tennessee, or through those
of the Arkansas,
Torches shine in the dark that hangs on the
Chattahooche 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 these tend inward to me, and I tend outward to
them,
And such as it is to be of these more or less I am,
And of these one and all I weave the song of myself.
16
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,
Stuff'd with the stuff that is coarse and stuff'd
with the stuff
that is fine,
One of 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 down by the Oconee I live,
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
deer-skin
leggings, a Louisianian or Georgian,
A boatman over lakes or bays or along coasts, a
Hoosier, Badger,
Buckeye;
At home on Kanadian snow-shoes or up in the bush, or
with fishermen
off Newfoundland,
At home in the fleet of ice-boats, 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
North-Westerners, (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
thoughtfullest,
A novice beginning yet experienced of myriads of
seasons,
Of every hue and caste am I, of every rank and
religion,
A farmer, mechanic, artist, gentleman, sailor,
quaker,
Prisoner, fancy-man, rowdy, lawyer, physician,
priest.
I resist any thing better than my own diversity,
Breathe the air but leave plenty after me,
And am not stuck up, and am in my place.
(The moth and the fish-eggs are in their place,
The bright suns I see and the dark suns I cannot see
are in their
place,
The palpable is in its place and the impalpable is
in its place.)
24
Walt Whitman, a kosmos, of Manhattan the son,
Turbulent, fleshy, sensual, eating, drinking and
breeding,
No sentimentalist, no stander above men and women or
apart from
them,
No more modest than immodest.
Unscrew the locks from the doors!
Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs!
Whoever degrades another degrades me,
And whatever is done or said returns at last to me.
Through me the afflatus surging and surging, through
me the current
and index.
I speak the pass-word primeval, I give the sign of
democracy,
By God! I will accept nothing which all cannot have
their
counterpart of on the same terms.
Through me many long dumb voices,
Voices of the interminable generations of prisoners
and slaves,
Voices of the diseas'd and despairing and of thieves
and dwarfs,
Voices of cycles of preparation and accretion,
And of the threads that connect the stars, and of
wombs and of the
father-stuff,
And of the rights of them the others are down upon,
Of the deform'd, trivial, flat, foolish, despised,
Fog in the air, beetles rolling balls of dung.
Through me forbidden voices,
Voices of sexes and lusts, voices veil'd and I
remove the veil,
Voices indecent by me clarified and transfigur'd.
I do not press my fingers across my mouth,
I keep as delicate around the bowels as around the
head and
heart,
Copulation is no more rank to me than death is.
I believe in the flesh and the appetites,
Seeing, hearing, feeling, are miracles, and each
part and tag of me
is a miracle.
Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever
I touch or am
touch'd from,
The scent of these arm-pits aroma finer than prayer,
This head more than churches, bibles, and all the
creeds.
If I worship one thing more than another it shall be
the spread of
my own body, or any part of it,
Translucent mould of me it shall be you!
Shaded ledges and rests it shall be you!
Firm masculine colter it shall be you!
Whatever goes to the tilth of me it shall be you!
You my rich blood! your milky stream pale strippings
of my life!
Breast that presses against other breasts it shall
be you!
My brain it shall be your occult convolutions!
Root of wash'd sweet-flag! timorous pond-snipe! nest
of guarded
duplicate eggs! it shall be you!
Mix'd tussled hay of head, beard, brawn, it shall be
you!
Trickling sap of maple, fibre of manly wheat, it
shall be you!
Sun so generous it shall be you!
Vapors lighting and shading my face it shall be you!
You sweaty brooks and dews it shall be you!
Winds whose soft-tickling genitals rub against me it
shall be you!
Broad muscular fields, branches of live oak, loving
lounger in my
winding paths, it shall be you!
Hands I have taken, face I have kiss'd, mortal I
have ever touch'd,
it shall be you.
I dote on myself, there is that lot of me and all so
luscious,
Each moment and whatever happens thrills me with
joy,
I cannot tell how my ankles bend, nor whence the
cause of my
faintest wish,
Nor the cause of the friendship I emit, nor the
cause of the
friendship I take again.
That I walk up my stoop, I pause to consider if it
really be,
A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than
the metaphysics
of books.
To behold the day-break!
The little light fades the immense and diaphanous
shadows,
The air tastes good to my palate.
Hefts of the moving world at innocent gambols
silently rising
freshly exuding,
Scooting obliquely high and low.
Something I cannot see puts upward libidinous
prongs,
Seas of bright juice suffuse heaven.
The earth by the sky staid with, the daily close of
their junction,
The heav'd challenge from the east that moment over
my head,
The mocking taunt, See then whether you shall be
master!
30
All truths wait in all things,
They neither hasten their own delivery nor resist
it,
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 one and all shall delight us, and we them.
31
I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the
journey work of the
stars,
And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of
sand, and the egg
of the wren,
And the tree-toad is a chef-d'oeuvre 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 depress'd head surpasses
any statue,
And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions
of infidels.
I find I incorporate gneiss, coal, long-threaded
moss, fruits,
grains, esculent roots,
And am stucco'd with quadrupeds and birds all over,
And have distanced what is behind me for good
reasons,
But call any thing back 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
powder'd 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 razor-bill'd auk sails far north to
Labrador,
I follow quickly, I ascend to the nest in the
fissure of the cliff.
32
I think I could turn and live with animals, they are
so placid and
self-contain'd,
I stand and look at them long and 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 unhappy 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 wonder where they get those tokens,
Did I pass that way huge times ago and negligently
drop 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 I love, and now go with
him on brotherly
terms.
A gigantic beauty of a stallion, fresh and
responsive to my
caresses,
Head high in the forehead, wide between the ears,
Limbs glossy and supple, tail dusting the ground,
Eyes full of sparkling wickedness, ears finely cut,
flexibly moving.
His nostrils dilate as my heels embrace him,
His well-built limbs tremble with pleasure as we
race around and
return.
I but use you a minute, then I resign you, stallion,
Why do I need your paces when I myself out-gallop
them?
Even as I stand or sit passing faster than you.
49
And as to you Death, and you bitter hug of
mortality, it is idle to
try to alarm me.
To his work without flinching the accoucheur comes,
I see the elder-hand pressing receiving supporting,
I recline by the sills of the exquisite flexible
doors,
And mark the outlet, and mark the relief and escape.
And as to you Corpse I think you are good manure,
but that does not
offend me,
I smell the white roses sweet-scented and growing,
I reach to the leafy lips, I reach to the polish'd
breasts of
melons.
And as to you Life I reckon you are the leavings of
many deaths,
(No doubt I have died myself ten thousand times
before.)
I hear you whispering there O stars of heaven,
O suns- O grass of graves- O perpetual transfers and
promotions,
If you do not say any thing how can I say any thing?
Of the turbid pool that lies in the autumn forest,
Of the moon that descends the steeps of the soughing
twilight,
Toss, sparkles of day and dusk- toss on the black
stems that decay
in the muck,
Toss to the moaning gibberish of the dry limbs.
I ascend from the moon, I ascend from the night,
I perceive that the ghastly glimmer is noonday
sunbeams reflected,
And debouch to the steady and central from the
offspring great or
small.
50
There is that in me- I do not know what it is- but I
know it is in
me.
Wrench'd and sweaty- calm and cool then my body
becomes,
I sleep- I sleep long.
I do not know it- it is without name- it is a word
unsaid,
It is not in any dictionary, utterance, symbol.
Something it swings on more than the earth I swing
on,
To it the creation is the friend whose embracing
awakes me.
Perhaps I might tell more. Outlines! I plead for my
brothers
and sisters.
Do you see O my brothers and sisters?
It is not chaos or death- it is form, union, plan-
it is eternal
life- it is Happiness.
51
The past and present wilt- I have fill'd them,
emptied them.
And proceed to fill my next fold of the future.
Listener up there! what have you to confide to me?
Look in my face while I snuff the sidle of evening,
(Talk honestly, no one else hears you, and I stay
only a minute
longer.)
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
I concentrate toward them that are nigh, I wait on
the door-slab.
Who has done his day's work? who will soonest be
through with his
supper?
Who wishes to walk with me?
Will you speak before I am gone? will you prove
already too late?
52
The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he
complains of my gab
and my loitering.
I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the
world.
The last scud of day holds back for me,
It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any
on the shadow'd
wilds,
It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.
I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the
runaway sun,
I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy
jags.
I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass
I love,
If you want me again look for me under your
boot-soles.
You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.
Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.
all poems written by Walt Whitman. Essay by Will Elliott
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