Walt Whitman

“ 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. ”

“ Never more the cries of unsatisfied love be absent
from me,
Never again leave me to be the peaceful child I was
before what there, in the night,
By the sea, under the yellow and sagging moon,
The dusky demon aroused—the fire, the sweet hell
within,
The unknown want, the destiny of me.
31.O give me some clew!
O if I am to have so much, let me have more!
O a word! O what is my destination?
O I fear it is henceforth chaos!
O how joys, dreads, convolutions, human shapes, and
all shapes, spring as from graves around me!
O phantoms! you cover all the land, and all the sea! ”

“ The continual good will I have met—the curious
attachment of young men to me,
My reflections alone—the absorption into me from
the landscape, stars, animals, thunder, rain,
and snow, in my wanderings alone,
The words of my mouth, rude, ignorant, arrogant—
my many faults and derelictions,
The light touches, on my lips, of the lips of my comrades,
at parting,
The tracks which I leave, upon the side-walks and
fields,
May but arrive at this beginning of me,
This beginning of me—and yet it is enough, O Soul,
O Soul, we have positively appeared—that is enough. ”

“ And here and hence O Union, all the work and workmen thine! None separate from thee—henceforth One only, we and thou, (For the blood of the children, what is it, only the blood maternal? And lives and works, what are they all at last, except the roads to faith and death?) While we rehearse our measureless wealth, it is for thee, dear Mother, We own it all and several to-day indissoluble in thee; Think not our chant, our show, merely for products gross or lucre— it is for thee, the soul in thee, electric, spiritual! Our farms, inventions, crops, we own in thee! cities and States in thee! ”

“ Words no more, for hearken and see, My song is there in the open air, and I must sing, With the banner and pennant a-flapping. I’ll weave the chord and twine in, Man’s desire and babe’s desire, I’ll twine them in, I’ll put in life, I’ll put the bayonet’s flashing point, I’ll let bullets and slugs whizz, (As one carrying a symbol and menace far into the future, Crying with trumpet voice, Arouse and beware! Beware and arouse!) I’ll pour the verse with streams of blood, full of volition, full of joy, Then loosen, launch forth, to go and compete, With the banner and pennant a-flapping. ”

“ As I held as if by their hands my comrades in the night,
And the voice of my spirit tallied the song of the bird.
Come lovely and soothing death,
Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving,
In the day, in the night, to all, to each,
Sooner or later delicate death.
Prais'd be the fathomless universe,
For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious,
And for love, sweet love—but praise! praise! praise!
For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding death.
Dark mother always gliding near with soft feet,
Have none chanted for thee a chant of fullest welcome? ”

“ War, death, cataclysm like this, America, Take deep to thy proud prosperous heart. E’en as I chant, lo! out of death, and out of ooze and slime, The blossoms rapidly blooming, sympathy, help, love, From West and East, from South and North and over sea, Its hot-spurr’d hearts and hands humanity to human aid moves on; And from within a thought and lesson yet. Thou ever-darting Globe! through Space and Air! Thou waters that encompass us! Thou that in all the life and death of us, in action or in sleep! ”

“ Shalt soar toward the fulfilment of the future, the spirit of the body and the mind, The soul, its destinies. The soul, its destinies, the real real, (Purport of all these apparitions of the real;) In thee America, the soul, its destinies, Thou globe of globes! thou wonder nebulous! By many a throe of heat and cold convuls’d, (by these thyself solidifying,) Thou mental, moral orb—thou New, indeed new, Spiritual World! The Present holds thee not—for such vast growth as thine, For such unparallel’d flight as thine, such brood as thine, The FUTURE only holds thee and can hold thee. ”

“ O I think it is I—I think no one was ever happier than I, And who has lavish’d all? for I lavish constantly the best I have, And who proudest? for I think I have reason to be the proudest son alive—for I am the son of the brawny and tall-topt city, And who has been bold and true? for I would be the boldest and truest being of the universe, And who benevolent? for I would show more benevolence than all the rest, And who has receiv’d the love of the most friends? for I know what it is to receive the passionate love of many friends, And who possesses a perfect and enamour’d body? ”

“ Thy lover me, for always I have loved thee,
Even as basking babe, then happy boy alone by some wood edge, thy touching-distant beams enough,
Or man matured, or young or old, as now to thee I launch my invocation.
(Thou canst not with thy dumbness me deceive,
I know before the fitting man all Nature yields,
Though answering not in words, the skies, trees, hear his voice—and thou O sun,
As for thy throes, thy perturbations, sudden breaks and shafts of flame gigantic,
I understand them, I know those flames, those perturbations well.) ”

“ Illustrious what we name space, sphere of unnumber’d spirits, Illustrious the mystery of motion in all beings, even the tiniest insect, Illustrious the attribute of speech, the senses, the body, Illustrious the passing light—illustrious the pale reflection on the new moon in the western sky, Illustrious whatever I see or hear or touch, to the last. Good in all, In the satisfaction and aplomb of animals, In the annual return of the seasons, In the hilarity of youth, In the strength and flush of manhood, In the grandeur and exquisiteness of old age, In the superb vistas of death. ”

“ A novice beginning yet experient 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.) ”

“ Each is not for its own sake, I say the whole earth and all the stars in the sky are for religion’s sake. I say no man has ever yet been half devout enough, None has ever yet adored or worship’d half enough, None has begun to think how divine he himself is, and how certain the future is. I say that the real and permanent grandeur of these States must be their religion, Otherwise there is just no real and permanent grandeur; (Nor character nor life worthy the name without religion, Nor land nor man or woman without religion.) ”

“ Who believes not only in our globe with its sun and moon, but in other globes with their suns and moons, Who, constructing the house of himself or herself, not for a day but for all time, sees races, eras, dates, generations, The past, the future, dwelling there, like space, inseparable together.
Others May Praise What They Like Others may praise what they like; But I, from the banks of the running Missouri, praise nothing in art or aught else, Till it has well inhaled the atmosphere of this river, also the western prairie-scent, And exudes it all again. ”

“ O my father I like not the houses,
They will never to me be any thing, nor do I like money,
But to mount up there I would like, O father dear, that banner I like,
That pennant I would be and must be.
Father.
Child of mine you fill me with anguish,
To be that pennant would be too fearful,
Little you know what it is this day, and after this day, forever,
It is to gain nothing, but risk and defy every thing,
Forward to stand in front of wars—and O, such wars!—what have you to do with them?
With passions of demons, slaughter, premature death?
Banner. ”

“ 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? ”

“ Joys of the thought of Death, the great spheres Time and Space?
Prophetic joys of better, loftier love's ideals, the divine wife, the sweet, eternal, perfect comrade?
Joys all thine own undying one, joys worthy thee O soul.
O while I live to be the ruler of life, not a slave,
To meet life as a powerful conqueror,
No fumes, no ennui, no more complaints or scornful criticisms,
To these proud laws of the air, the water and the ground, proving my interior soul impregnable,
And nothing exterior shall ever take command of me.
For not life's joys alone I sing, repeating—the joy of death! ”

“ Forth from their masks, no matter what, From the huge festering trunk, from craft and guile and tears, Health to emerge and joy, joy universal. Out of the bulk, the morbid and the shallow, Out of the bad majority, the varied countless frauds of men and states, Electric, antiseptic yet, cleaving, suffusing all, Only the good is universal. 3 Over the mountain-growths disease and sorrow, An uncaught bird is ever hovering, hovering, High in the purer, happier air. From imperfection’s murkiest cloud, Darts always forth one ray of perfect light, One flash of heaven’s glory. ”

“ My foothold is tenon’d and mortis’d in granite, I laugh at what you call dissolution, And I know the amplitude of time. 21 I am the poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul, The pleasures of heaven are with me and the pains of hell are with me, The first I graft and increase upon myself, the latter I translate into new tongue. I am the poet of the woman the same as the man, And I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man, And I say there is nothing greater than the mother of men. ”