House-building, measuring, sawing the bo_Poems by Walt Whitman

Blacksmithing, glass-blowing, nail-making, coopering, tin-roofing, shingle-

dressing,

Ship-joining, dock-building, fish-curing, ferrying, flagging of side-walks

by flaggers,

The pump, the pile-driver, the great derrick, the coal-kiln and brick-kiln,

Coal-mines, and all that is down there,--the lamps in the darkness, echoes,

songs, what meditations, what vast native thoughts looking through

smutched faces,

Ironworks, forge-fires in the mountains, or by the river-banks--men around

feeling the melt with huge crowbars--lumps of ore, the due

combining of ore, limestone, coal--the blast-furnace and the

puddling-furnace, the loup-lump at the bottom of the melt at last--

the rolling-mill, the stumpy bars of pig-iron, the strong, clean

shaped T-rail for railroads;

Oilworks, silkworks, white-lead-works, the sugar-house, steam-saws, the

great mills and factories;

Stone-cutting, shapely trimmings for façades, or window or door lintels--

the mallet, the tooth-chisel, the jib to protect the thumb, Oakum,

the oakum-chisel, the caulking-iron--the kettle of boiling vault-

cement, and the fire under the kettle,

The cotton-bale, the stevedore's hook, the saw and buck of the sawyer, the

mould of the moulder, the working knife of the butcher, the ice-

saw, and all the work with ice,

The implements for daguerreotyping--the tools of the rigger, grappler,

sail-maker, block-maker,

Goods of gutta-percha, papier-mâché, colours, brushes, brush-making,

glaziers' implements,

The veneer and glue-pot, the confectioner's ornaments, the decanter and

glasses, the shears and flat-iron,

The awl and knee-strap, the pint measure and quart measure, the counter and

stool, the writing-pen of quill or metal--the making of all sorts

of edged tools,

The brewery, brewing, the malt, the vats, everything that is done by

brewers, also by wine-makers, also vinegar-makers,

Leather-dressing, coach-making, boiler-making, rope-twisting, distilling,

sign-painting, lime-burning, cotton-picking--electro-plating,

electrotyping, stereotyping,

Stave-machines, planing-machines, reaping-machines,

ploughing-machines, thrashing-machines, steam waggons,

The cart of the carman, the omnibus, the ponderous dray;

Pyrotechny, letting off coloured fireworks at night, fancy figures and

jets,

Beef on the butcher's stall, the slaughter-house of the butcher, the

butcher in his killing-clothes,

The pens of live pork, the killing-hammer, the hog-hook, the scalder's tub,

gutting, the cutter's cleaver, the packer's maul, and the plenteous

winter-work of pork-packing,

Flour-works, grinding of wheat, rye, maize, rice--the barrels and the half

and quarter barrels, the loaded barges, the high piles on wharves

and levees,

The men, and the work of the men, on railroads, coasters, fish-boats,

canals;

The daily routine of your own or any man's life--the shop, yard, store, or

factory;

These shows all near you by day and night-workmen! whoever you are, your

daily life!

In that and them the heft of the heaviest--in them far more than you

estimated, and far less also;

In them realities for you and me--in them poems for you and me;

In them, not yourself--you and your soul enclose all things, regardless of

estimation;

In them the development good--in them, all themes and hints.

I do not affirm what you see beyond is futile--I do not advise you to stop;

I do not say leadings you thought great are not great;

But I say that none lead to greater than those lead to.

Will you seek afar off? You surely come back at last,

In things best known to you finding the best, or as good as the best,

In folks nearest to you finding the sweetest, strongest, lovingest;

Happiness, knowledge, not in another place, but this place--not for another

hour, but this hour;

Man in the first you see or touch--always in friend, brother, nighest

neighbour--Woman in mother, sister, wife;

The popular tastes and employments taking precedence in poems or anywhere,

You workwomen and workmen of these States having your own divine and strong

life,

And all else giving place to men and women like you.

_SONG OF THE BROAD-AXE._

Weapon, shapely, naked, wan;

Head from the mother's bowels drawn!

Wooded flesh and metal bone! limb only one, and lip only one!

Grey-blue leaf by red-heat grown! helve produced from a little seed sown!

Resting the grass amid and upon,

To be leaned, and to lean on.

Strong shapes, and attributes of strong shapes--masculine trades, sights

and sounds;

Long varied train of an emblem, dabs of music;

Fingers of the organist skipping staccato over the keys of the great organ.

Welcome are all earth's lands, each for its kind;

Welcome are lands of pine and oak;

Welcome are lands of the lemon and fig;

Welcome are lands of gold;

Welcome are lands of wheat and maize--welcome those of the grape;

Welcome are lands of sugar and rice;

Welcome are cotton-lands--welcome those of the white potato and sweet

potato;

Welcome are mountains, flats, sands, forests, prairies;

Welcome the rich borders of rivers, table-lands, openings,

Welcome the measureless grazing-lands--welcome the teeming soil of

orchards, flax, honey, hemp;

Welcome just as much the other more hard-faced lands;

Lands rich as lands of gold, or wheat and fruit lands;

Lands of mines, lands of the manly and rugged ores;

Lands of coal, copper, lead, tin, zinc;

LANDS OF IRON! lands of the make of the axe!

The log at the wood-pile, the axe supported by it;

The sylvan hut, the vine over the doorway, the space cleared for a garden,

The irregular tapping of rain down on the leaves, after the storm is

lulled,

The wailing and moaning at intervals, the thought of the sea,

The thought of ships struck in the storm, and put on their beam-ends, and

the cutting away of masts;

The sentiment of the huge timbers of old-fashioned houses and barns;

The remembered print or narrative, the voyage at a venture of men,

families, goods,

The disembarkation, the founding of a new city,

The voyage of those who sought a New England and found it--the outset

anywhere,

The settlements of the Arkansas, Colorado, Ottawa, Willamette,

The slow progress, the scant fare, the axe, rifle, saddle-bags;

The beauty of all adventurous and daring persons,

The beauty of wood-boys and wood-men, with their clear untrimmed faces,

The beauty of independence, departure, actions that rely on themselves,

The American contempt for statutes and ceremonies, the boundless impatience

of restraint,

The loose drift of character, the inkling through random types, the

solidification;

The butcher in the slaughter-house, the hands aboard schooners and sloops,

the raftsman, the pioneer,

Lumbermen in their winter camp, daybreak in the woods, stripes of snow on

the limbs of trees, the occasional snapping,

The glad clear sound of one's own voice, the merry song, the natural life

of the woods, the strong day's work,

The blazing fire at night, the sweet taste of supper, the talk, the bed of

hemlock boughs, and the bearskin;

--The house-builder at work in cities or anywhere,

The preparatory jointing, squaring, sawing, mortising,

The hoist-up of beams, the push of them in their places, laying them

regular, Setting the studs by their tenons in the mortises,

according as they were prepared,

The blows of mallets and hammers, the attitudes of the men, their curved

limbs,

Bending, standing, astride the beams, driving in pins, holding on by posts

and braces,

The hooked arm over the plate, the other arm wielding the axe,

The floor-men forcing the planks close, to be nailed,

Their postures bringing their weapons downward on the bearers,

The echoes resounding through the vacant building;

The huge store-house carried up in the city, well under way,

The six framing men, two in the middle, and two at each end, carefully

bearing on their shoulders a heavy stick for a cross-beam,

The crowded line of masons with trowels in their right hands, rapidly

laying the long side-wall, two hundred feet from front to rear,

The flexible rise and fall of backs, the continual click of the trowels

striking the bricks,

The bricks, one after another, each laid so workmanlike in its place, and

set with a knock of the trowel-handle,

The piles of materials, the mortar on the mortar-boards, and the steady

replenishing by the hod-men;

--Spar-makers in the spar-yard, the swarming row of well-grown apprentices,

The swing of their axes on the square-hewed log, shaping it toward the

shape of a mast,

The brisk short crackle of the steel driven slantingly into the pine,

The butter-coloured chips flying off in great flakes and slivers,

The limber motion of brawny young arms and hips in easy costumes;

The constructor of wharves, bridges, piers, bulk-heads, floats, stays

against the sea;

--The city fireman--the fire that suddenly bursts forth in the close-packed

square,

The arriving engines, the hoarse shouts, the nimble stepping and daring,

The strong command through the fire-trumpets, the falling in line, the rise

and fall of the arms forcing the water,

The slender, spasmic blue-white jets--the bringing to bear of the hooks and

ladders, and their execution,

The crash and cut-away of connecting woodwork, or through floors, if the

fire smoulders under them,

The crowd with their lit faces, watching--the glare and dense shadows;

--The forger at his forge-furnace, and the user of iron after him,

The maker of the axe large and small, and the welder and temperer,

The chooser breathing his breath on the cold steel, and trying the edge

with his thumb,

The one who clean-shapes the handle and sets it firmly in the socket;

The shadowy processions of the portraits of the past users also,

The primal patient mechanics, the architects and engineers,

The far-off Assyrian edifice and Mizra edifice,

The Roman lictors preceding the consuls,

The antique European warrior with his axe in combat,

The uplifted arm, the clatter of blows on the helmeted head,

The death-howl, the limpsey tumbling body, the rush of friend and foe

thither,

The siege of revolted lieges determined for liberty,

The summons to surrender, the battering at castle-gates, the truce and

parley;

The sack of an old city in its time,

The bursting in of mercenaries and bigots tumultuously and disorderly,

Roar, flames, blood, drunkenness, madness,

Goods freely rifled from houses and temples, screams of women in the gripe

of brigands,

Craft and thievery of camp-followers, men running, old persons despairing,

The hell of war, the cruelties of creeds,

The list of all executive deeds and words, just or unjust,

The power of personality, just or unjust.

Muscle and pluck for ever!

What invigorates life invigorates death,

And the dead advance as much as the living advance,

And the future is no more uncertain than the present,

And the roughness of the earth and of man encloses as

much as the _delicatesse_ of the earth and of man,

And nothing endures but personal qualities.

What do you think endures?

Do you think the great city endures?

Or a teeming manufacturing state? or a prepared constitution? or the best-

built steamships?

Or hotels of granite and iron? or any _chefs-d'oeuvre_ of engineering,

forts, armaments?

Away! These are not to be cherished for themselves;

They fill their hour, the dancers dance, the musicians play

for them;

The show passes, all does well enough of course,

All does very well till one flash of defiance.

The great city is that which has the greatest man or woman;

If it be a few ragged huts, it is still the greatest city in the

whole world.

The place where the great city stands is not the place of

stretched wharves, docks, manufactures, deposits of produce,

Nor the place of ceaseless salutes of new-comers, or the

anchor-lifters of the departing,

Nor the place of the tallest and costliest buildings, or shops

selling goods from the rest of the earth,

Nor the place of the best libraries and schools--nor the place where money

is plentiest,

Nor the place of the most numerous population.

Where the city stands with the brawniest breed of orators and bards;

Where the city stands that is beloved by these, and loves them in return,

and understands them;

Where no monuments exist to heroes but in the common words and deeds;

Where thrift is in its place, and prudence is in its place;

Where the men and women think lightly of the laws;

Where the slave ceases, and the master of slaves ceases;

Where the populace rise at once against the never-ending audacity of

elected persons;

Where fierce men and women pour forth, as the sea to the whistle of death

pours its sweeping and unripped waves;

Where outside authority enters always after the precedence of inside

authority;

Where the citizen is always the head and ideal--and President, Mayor,

Governor, and what not, are agents for pay;

Where children are taught to be laws to themselves, and to depend on

themselves;

Where equanimity is illustrated in affairs;

Where speculations on the Soul are encouraged;

Where women walk in public processions in the streets, the same as the men;

Where they enter the public assembly and take places the same as the men;

Where the city of the faithfullest friends stands;

Where the city of the cleanliness of the sexes stands;

Where the city of the healthiest fathers stands;

Where the city of the best-bodied mothers stands,--

There the great city stands.

How beggarly appear arguments before a defiant deed!

How the floridness of the materials of cities shrivels before a man's or

woman's look!

All waits, or goes by default, till a strong being appears;

A strong being is the proof of the race, and of the ability of the

universe;

When he or she appears, materials are overawed,

The dispute on the Soul stops,

The old customs and phrases are confronted, turned back, or laid away.

What is your money-making now? What can it do now?

What is your respectability now?

What are your theology, tuition, society, traditions, statute-books, now?

Where are your jibes of being now?

Where are your cavils about the Soul now?

Was that your best? Were those your vast and solid?

Riches, opinions, politics, institutions, to part obediently from the path

of one man or woman!

The centuries, and all authority, to be trod under the foot-soles of one

man or woman!

A sterile landscape covers the ore--there is as good as the best, for all

the forbidding appearance;

There is the mine, there are the miners;

The forge-furnace is there, the melt is accomplished; the hammersmen are at

hand with their tongs and hammers;

What always served and always serves is at hand.

Than this nothing has better served--it has served all:

Served the fluent-tongued and subtle-sensed Greek, and long ere the Greek;

Served in building the buildings that last longer than any;

Served the Hebrew, the Persian, the most ancient Hindostanee;

Served the mound-raiser on the Mississippi--served those whose relics

remain in Central America;

Served Albic temples in woods or on plains, with unhewn pillars, and the

druids;

Served the artificial clefts, vast, high, silent, on the snow-covered hills

of Scandinavia;

Served those who, time out of mind, made on the granite walls rough

sketches of the sun, moon, stars, ships, ocean-waves;

Served the paths of the irruptions of the Goths--served the pastoral tribes

and nomads;

Served the long long distant Kelt--served the hardy pirates of the Baltic;

Served, before any of those, the venerable and harmless men of Ethiopia;

Served the making of helms for the galleys of pleasure, and the making of

those for war;

Served all great works on land, and all great works on the sea;

For the mediaeval ages, and before the mediaeval ages;

Served not the living only, then as now, but served the dead.

I see the European headsman;

He stands masked, clothed in red, with huge legs and strong naked arms,

And leans on a ponderous axe.

Whom have you slaughtered lately, European headsman?

Whose is that blood upon you, so wet and sticky?

I see the clear sunsets of the martyrs;

I see from the scaffolds the descending ghosts,

Ghosts of dead lords, uncrowned ladies, impeached ministers, rejected

kings,

Rivals, traitors, poisoners, disgraced chieftains, and the rest.

I see those who in any land have died for the good cause;

The seed is spare, nevertheless the crop shall never run out;

(Mind you, O foreign kings, O priests, the crop shall never run out.)

I see the blood washed entirely away from the axe;

Both blade and helve are clean;

They spirt no more the blood of European nobles--they clasp no more the

necks of queens.

I see the headsman withdraw and become useless;

I see the scaffold untrodden and mouldy--I see no longer any axe upon it;

I see the mighty and friendly emblem of the power of my own race--the

newest, largest race.

America! I do not vaunt my love for you;

I have what I have.

The axe leaps!

The solid forest gives fluid utterances;

They tumble forth, they rise and form,

Hut, tent, landing, survey,

Flail, plough, pick, crowbar, spade,

Shingle, rail, prop, wainscot, jamb, lath, panel, gable,

Citadel, ceiling, saloon, academy, organ, exhibition house, library,

Cornice, trellis, pilaster, balcony, window, shutter, turret, porch,

Hoe, rake, pitchfork, pencil, waggon, staff, saw, jack-plane, mallet,

wedge, rounce,

Chair, tub, hoop, table, wicket, vane, sash, floor,

Work-box, chest, stringed instrument, boat, frame, and what not,

Capitols of States, and capitol of the nation of States,

Long stately rows in avenues, hospitals for orphans, or for the poor or

sick,

Manhattan steamboats and clippers, taking the measure of all seas.

The shapes arise!

Shapes of the using of axes anyhow, and the users, and all that neighbours

them,

Cutters-down of wood, and haulers of it to the Penobscot or Kennebec,

Dwellers in cabins among the Californian mountains, or by the little lakes,

or on the Columbia,

Dwellers south on the banks of the Gila or Rio Grande--friendly gatherings,

the characters and fun,

Dwellers up north in Minnesota and by the Yellowstone river--dwellers on

coasts and off coasts,

Seal-fishers, whalers, arctic seamen breaking passages through the ice.

The shapes arise!

Shapes of factories, arsenals, foundries, markets;

Shapes of the two-threaded tracks of railroads;

Shapes of the sleepers of bridges, vast frameworks, girders, arches;

Shapes of the fleets of barges, tows, lake craft, river craft.

The shapes arise!

Shipyards and dry-docks along the Eastern and Western Seas, and in many a

bay and by-place,

The live-oak kelsons, the pine-planks, the spars, the hackmatack-roots for

knees,

The ships themselves on their ways, the tiers of scaffolds, the workmen

busy outside and inside,

The tools lying around, the great auger and little auger, the adze, bolt,

line, square, gouge, and bead-plane.

10.

The shapes arise!

The shape measured, sawed, jacked, joined, stained,

The coffin-shape for the dead to lie within in his shroud;

The shape got out in posts, in the bedstead posts, in the posts of the

bride's bed;

The shape of the little trough, the shape of the rockers beneath, the shape

of the babe's cradle;

The shape of the floor-planks, the floor-planks for dancers' feet;

The shape of the planks of the family home, the home of the friendly

parents and children,

The shape of the roof of the home of the happy young man and woman, the

roof over the well-married young man and woman,

The roof over the supper joyously cooked by the chaste wife, and joyously

eaten by the chaste husband, content after his day's work.

The shapes arise!

The shape of the prisoner's place in the court-room, and of him or her

seated in the place;

The shape of the liquor-bar leaned against by the young rum-drinker and the

old rum-drinker;

The shape of the shamed and angry stairs, trod, by sneaking footsteps;

The shape of the sly settee, and the adulterous unwholesome couple;

The shape of the gambling-board with its devilish winnings and losings;

The shape of the step-ladder for the convicted and sentenced murderer, the

murderer with haggard face and pinioned arms,

The sheriff at hand with his deputies, the silent and white-lipped crowd,

the sickening dangling of the rope.

The shapes arise!

Shapes of doors giving many exits and entrances;

The door passing the dissevered friend, flushed and in haste;

The door that admits good news and bad news;

The door whence the son left home, confident and puffed up;

The door he entered again from a long and scandalous absence, diseased,

broken down, without innocence, without means.

11.

Her shape arises,

She less guarded than ever, yet more guarded than ever;

The gross and soiled she moves among do not make her gross and soiled;

She knows the thoughts as she passes--nothing is concealed from her;

She is none the less considerate or friendly therefor;

She is the best beloved--it is without exception--she has no reason to

fear, and she does not fear;

Oaths, quarrels, hiccupped songs, smutty expressions, are idle to her as

she passes;

She is silent--she is possessed of herself--they do not offend her;

She receives them as the laws of nature receive them--she is strong,

She too is a law of nature--there is no law stronger than she is.

12.

The main shapes arise!

Shapes of Democracy, total result of centuries;

Shapes, ever projecting other shapes;

Shapes of a hundred Free States, begetting another hundred;

Shapes of turbulent manly cities;

Shapes of the women fit for these States,

Shapes of the friends and home-givers of the whole earth,

Shapes bracing the earth, and braced with the whole earth.

_ANTECEDENTS._

With antecedents;

With my fathers and mothers, and the accumulations of past ages:

With all which, had it not been, I would not now be here, as I am;

With Egypt, India, Phoenicia, Greece, and Rome;

With the Kelt, the Scandinavian, the Alb, and the Saxon;

With antique maritime ventures,--with laws, artisanship, wars, and

journeys;

With the poet, the skald, the saga, the myth, and the oracle;

With the sale of slaves--with enthusiasts--with the troubadour, the

crusader, and the monk;

With those old continents whence we have come to this new continent;

With the fading kingdoms and kings over there;

With the fading religions and priests;

With the small shores we look back to from our own large and present

shores;

With countless years drawing themselves onward, and arrived at these years;

You and Me arrived--America arrived, and making this year;

This year! sending itself ahead countless years to come.

O but it is not the years--it is I--it is You;

We touch all laws, and tally all antecedents;

We are the skald, the oracle, the monk, and the knight--we easily include

them, and more;

We stand amid time, beginningless and endless--we stand amid evil and good;

All swings around us--there is as much darkness as light;

The very sun swings itself and its system of planets around us:

Its sun, and its again, all swing around us.

As for me, (torn, stormy, even as I, amid these vehement days;)

I have the idea of all, and am all, and believe in all;

I believe materialism is true, and spiritualism is true--I reject no part.

Have I forgotten any part?

Come to me, whoever and whatever, till I give you recognition.

I respect Assyria, China, Teutonia, and the Hebrews;

I adopt each theory, myth, god, and demi-god;

I see that the old accounts, bibles, genealogies, are true, without

exception;

I assert that all past days were what they should have been;

And that they could nohow have been better than they were,

And that to-day is what it should be--and that America is,

And that to-day and America could nohow be better than they are.

In the name of these States, and in your and my name, the Past,

And in the name of these States, and in your and my name, the Present time.

I know that the past was great, and the future will be great,

And I know that both curiously conjoint in the present time,

For the sake of him I typify--for the common average man's sake--your sake,

if you are he;

And that where I am, or you are, this present day, there is the centre of

all days, all races,

And there is the meaning, to us, of all that has ever come of races and

days, or ever will come.

_SALUT AU MONDE!_

O take my hand, Walt Whitman!

Such gliding wonders! such sights and sounds!

Such joined unended links, each hooked to the next!

Each answering all--each sharing the earth with all.

What widens within you, Walt Whitman?

What waves and soils exuding?

What climes? what persons and lands are here?

Who are the infants? some playing, some slumbering?

Who are the girls? who are the married women?

Who are the three old men going slowly with their arms about each others'

necks?

What rivers are these? what forests and fruits are these?

What are the mountains called that rise so high in the mists?

What myriads of dwellings are they, filled with dwellers?

Within me latitude widens, longitude lengthens;

Asia, Africa, Europe, are to the east--America is provided for in the west;

Banding the bulge of the earth winds the hot equator,

Curiously north and south turn the axis-ends;

Within me is the longest day--the sun wheels in slanting rings--it does not

set for months.

Stretched in due time within me the midnight sun just rises above the

horizon, and sinks again;

Within me zones, seas, cataracts, plants, volcanoes, groups,

Malaysia, Polynesia, and the great West Indian islands.

What do you hear, Walt Whitman?

I hear the workman singing, and the farmer's wife singing;

I hear in the distance the sounds of children, and of animals early in the

day;

I hear quick rifle-cracks from the riflemen of East Tennessee and Kentucky,

hunting on hills;

I hear emulous shouts of Australians, pursuing the wild horse;

I hear the Spanish dance, with castanets, in the chestnut shade, to the

rebeck and guitar;

I hear continual echoes from the Thames;

I hear fierce French liberty songs;

I hear of the Italian boat-sculler the musical recitative of old poems;

I hear the Virginian plantation chorus of negroes, of a harvest night, in

the glare of pine-knots;

I hear the strong barytone of the 'long-shore-men of Mannahatta;

I hear the stevedores unlading the cargoes, and singing;

I hear the screams of the water-fowl of solitary north-west lakes;

I hear the rustling pattering of locusts, as they strike the grain and

grass with the showers of their terrible clouds;

I hear the Coptic refrain, toward sundown, pensively falling on the breast

of the black venerable vast mother, the Nile;

I hear the bugles of raft-tenders on the streams of Canada;

I hear the chirp of the Mexican muleteer, and the bells of the mule;

I hear the Arab muezzin, calling from the top of the mosque;

I hear the Christian priests at the altars of their churches--I hear the

responsive bass and soprano;

I hear the wail of utter despair of the white-haired Irish grandparents,

when they learn the death of their grandson;

I hear the cry of the Cossack, and the sailor's voice, putting to sea at

Okotsk;

I hear the wheeze of the slave-coffle, as the slaves march on--as the husky

gangs pass on by twos and threes, fastened together with wrist-

chains and ankle-chains;

I hear the entreaties of women tied up for punishment--I hear the sibilant

whisk of thongs through the air;

I hear the Hebrew reading his records and psalms;

I hear the rhythmic myths of the Greeks, and the strong legends of the

Romans;

I hear the tale of the divine life and bloody death of the beautiful God,

the Christ;

I hear the Hindoo teaching his favourite pupil the loves, wars, adages,

transmitted safely to this day from poets who wrote three thousand

years ago.

What do you see, Walt Whitman?

Who are they you salute, and that one after another salute you?

I see a great round wonder rolling through the air:

I see diminute farms, hamlets, ruins, grave-yards, jails, factories,

palaces, hovels, huts of barbarians, tents of nomads, upon the

surface;

I see the shaded part on one side, where the sleepers are sleeping--and the

sun-lit part on the other side;

I see the curious silent change of the light and shade;

I see distant lands, as real and near to the inhabitants of them as my land

is to me.

I see plenteous waters;

I see mountain-peaks--I see the sierras of Andes and Alleghanies, where

they range;

I see plainly the Himalayas, Chian Shahs, Altays, Ghauts;

I see the Rocky Mountains, and the Peak of Winds;

I see the Styrian Alps, and the Karnac Alps;

I see the Pyrenees, Balks, Carpathians--and to the north the Dofrafields,

and off at sea Mount Hecla;

I see Vesuvius and Etna--I see the Anahuacs;

I see the Mountains of the Moon, and the Snow Mountains, and the Red

Mountains of Madagascar;

I see the Vermont hills, and the long string of Cordilleras;

I see the vast deserts of Western America;

I see the Libyan, Arabian, and Asiatic deserts;

I see huge dreadful Arctic and Anarctic icebergs;

I see the superior oceans and the inferior ones--the Atlantic and Pacific,

the sea of Mexico, the Brazilian sea, and the sea of Peru,

The Japan waters, those of Hindostan, the China Sea, and the Gulf of

Guinea,

The spread of the Baltic, Caspian, Bothnia, the British shores, and the Bay

of Biscay,

The clear-sunned Mediterranean, and from one to another of its islands,

The inland fresh-tasted seas of North America,

The White Sea, and the sea around Greenland.

I behold the mariners of the world;

Some are in storms--some in the night, with the watch on the look-out;

Some drifting helplessly--some with contagious diseases.

I behold the sail and steam ships of the world, some in clusters in port,

some on their voyages;

Some double the Cape of Storms--some Cape Verde,--others Cape Guardafui,

Bon, or Bajadore;

Others Dondra Head--others pass the Straits of Sunda--others Cape Lopatka--

others Behring's Straits;

Others Cape Horn--others the Gulf of Mexico, or along Cuba or Hayti--others

Hudson's Bay or Baffin's Bay;

Others pass the Straits of Dover--others enter the Wash--others the Firth

of Solway--others round Cape Clear--others the Land's End;

Others traverse the Zuyder Zee, or the Scheld;

Others add to the exits and entrances at Sandy Hook;

Others to the comers and goers at Gibraltar, or the Dardanelles;

Others sternly push their way through the northern winter-packs;

Others descend or ascend the Obi or the Lena:

Others the Niger or the Congo--others the Indus, the Burampooter and

Cambodia;

Others wait at the wharves of Manhattan, steamed up, ready to start;

Wait, swift and swarthy, in the ports of Australia;

Wait at Liverpool, Glasgow, Dublin, Marseilles, Lisbon, Naples, Hamburg,

Bremen, Bordeaux, the Hague, Copenhagen;

Wait at Valparaiso, Rio Janeiro, Panama;

Wait at their moorings at Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston, New

Orleans, Galveston, San Francisco.

I see the tracks of the railroads of the earth;

I see them welding State to State, city to city, through North America;

I see them in Great Britain, I see them in Europe;

I see them in Asia and in Africa.

I see the electric telegraphs of the earth;

I see the filaments of the news of the wars, deaths, losses, gains,

passions, of my race.

I see the long river-stripes of the earth;

I see where the Mississippi flows--I see where the Columbia flows;

I see the Great River, and the Falls of Niagara;

I see the Amazon and the Paraguay;

I see the four great rivers of China, the Amour, the Yellow River, the

Yiang-tse, and the Pearl;

I see where the Seine flows, and where the Loire, the Rhone, and the

Guadalquivir flow;

I see the windings of the Volga, the Dnieper, the Oder;

I see the Tuscan going down the Arno, and the Venetian along the Po;

I see the Greek seaman sailing out of Egina bay.

I see the site of the old empire of Assyria, and that of Persia, and that

of India;

I see the falling of the Ganges over the high rim of Saukara.

I see the place of the idea of the Deity incarnated by avatars in human

forms;

I see the spots of the successions of priests on the earth--oracles,

sacrificers, brahmins, sabians, lamas, monks, muftis, exhorters;

I see where druids walked the groves of Mona--I see the mistletoe and

vervain;

I see the temples of the deaths of the bodies of Gods--I see the old

signifiers.

I see Christ once more eating the bread of His last supper, in the midst of

youths and old persons:

I see where the strong divine young man, the Hercules, toiled faithfully

and long, and then died;

I see the place of the innocent rich life and hapless fate of the beautiful

nocturnal son, the full-limbed Bacchus;

I see Kneph, blooming, drest in blue, with the crown of feathers on his

head;

I see Hermes, unsuspected, dying, well-beloved, saying to the people, _Do

not weep for me,

This is not my true country, I have lived banished from my true country--I

now go back there,

I return to the celestial sphere, where every one goes in his turn_.

I see the battlefields of the earth--grass grows upon them, and blossoms

and corn;

I see the tracks of ancient and modern expeditions.

I see the nameless masonries, venerable messages of the unknown events,

heroes, records of the earth;

I see the places of the sagas;

I see pine-trees and fir-frees torn by northern blasts;

I see granite boulders and cliffs--I see green meadows and lakes;

I see the burial-cairns of Scandinavian warriors;

I see them raised high with stones, by the marge of restless oceans, that

the dead men's spirits, when they wearied of their quiet graves,

might rise up through the mounds, and gaze on the tossing billows,

and be refreshed by storms, immensity, liberty, action.

I see the steppes of Asia;

I see the tumuli of Mongolia--I see the tents of Kalmucks and Baskirs;

I see the nomadic tribes, with herds of oxen and cows;

I see the table-lands notched with ravines--I see the jungles and deserts;

I see the camel, the wild steed, the bustard, the fat-tailed sheep, the

antelope, and the burrowing-wolf.

I see the highlands of Abyssinia;

I see flocks of goats feeding, and see the fig-tree, tamarind, date,

And see fields of teff-wheat, and see the places of verdure and gold.

I see the Brazilian vaquero;

I see the Bolivian ascending Mount Sorata;

I see the Wacho crossing the plains--I see the incomparable rider of horses

with his lasso on his arm;

I see over the pampas the pursuit of wild cattle for their hides.

I see little and large sea-dots, some inhabited, some uninhabited;

I see two boats with nets, lying off the shore of Paumanok, quite still;

I see ten fishermen waiting--they discover now a thick school of

mossbonkers--they drop the joined sein-ends in the water,

The boats separate--they diverge and row off, each on its rounding course

to the beach, enclosing the mossbonkers;

The net is drawn in by a windlass by those who stop ashore,

Some of the fishermen lounge in their boats--others stand negligently

ankle-deep in the water, poised on strong legs;

The boats are partly drawn up--the water slaps against them;

On the sand, in heaps and winrows, well out from the water, lie the green-

backed spotted mossbonkers.

I see the despondent red man in the west, lingering about the banks of

Moingo, and about Lake Pepin;

He has heard the quail and beheld the honey-bee, and sadly prepared to

depart.

I see the regions of snow and ice;

I see the sharp-eyed Samoiede and the Finn;

I see the seal-seeker in his boat, poising his lance;

I see the Siberian on his slight-built sledge, drawn by dogs;

I see the porpess-hunters--I see the whale-crews of the South Pacific and

the North Atlantic;

I see the cliffs, glaciers, torrents, valleys, of Switzerland--I mark the

long winters, and the isolation.

I see the cities of the earth, and make myself at random a part of them;

I am a real Parisian;

I am a habitant of Vienna, St. Petersburg, Berlin, Constantinople;

I am of Adelaide, Sidney, Melbourne;

I am of London, Manchester, Bristol, Edinburgh, Limerick,

I am of Madrid, Cadiz, Barcelona, Oporto, Lyons, Brussels, Berne,

Frankfort, Stuttgart, Turin, Florence;

I belong in Moscow, Cracow, Warsaw--or northward in Christiania or

Stockholm--or in Siberian Irkutsk--or in some street in Iceland;

I descend upon all those cities, and rise from them again.

10.

I see vapours exhaling from unexplored countries;

I see the savage types, the bow and arrow, the poisoned splint, the fetish,

and the obi.

I see African and Asiatic towns;

I see Algiers, Tripoli, Derne, Mogadore, Timbuctoo, Monrovia;

I see the swarms of Pekin, Canton, Benares, Delhi, Calcutta, Yedo;

I see the Kruman in his hut, and the Dahoman and Ashantee-man in their

huts;

I see the Turk smoking opium in Aleppo;

I see the picturesque crowds at the fairs of Khiva, and those of Herat;

I see Teheran--I see Muscat and Medina, and the intervening sands--I see

the caravans toiling onward;

I see Egypt and the Egyptians--I see the pyramids and obelisks;

I look on chiselled histories, songs, philosophies, cut in slabs of

sandstone or on granite blocks;

I see at Memphis mummy-pits, containing mummies, embalmed, swathed in linen

cloth, lying there many centuries;

I look on the fallen Theban, the large-balled eyes, the side-drooping neck,

the hands folded across the breast.

I see the menials of the earth, labouring;

I see the prisoners in the prisons;

I see the defective human bodies of the earth;

I see the blind, the deaf and dumb, idiots, hunchbacks, lunatics;

I see the pirates, thieves, betrayers, murderers, slave-makers of the

earth;

I see the helpless infants, and the helpless old men and women.

I see male and female everywhere;

I see the serene brotherhood of philosophs;

I see the constructiveness of my race;

I see the results of the perseverance and industry of my race;

I see ranks, colours, barbarisms, civilisations--I go among them--I mix

indiscriminately,

And I salute all the inhabitants of the earth.

11.

You, where you are!

You daughter or son of England!

You of the mighty Slavic tribes and empires! you Russ in Russia!

You dim-descended, black, divine-souled African, large, fine-headed,

nobly-formed, superbly destined, on equal terms with me!

You Norwegian! Swede! Dane! Icelander! you Prussian!

You Spaniard of Spain! you Portuguese!

You Frenchwoman and Frenchman of France!

You Belge! you liberty-lover of the Netherlands!

You sturdy Austrian! you Lombard! Hun! Bohemian! farmer of Styria!

You neighbour of the Danube!

You working-man of the Rhine, the Elbe, or the Weser! you working-woman

too!

You Sardinian! you Bavarian! Swabian! Saxon! Wallachian! Bulgarian!

You citizen of Prague! Roman! Neapolitan! Greek!

You lithe matador in the arena at Seville!

You mountaineer living lawlessly on the Taurus or Caucasus!

You Bokh horse-herd, watching your mares and stallions feeding!

You beautiful-bodied Persian, at full speed in the saddle shooting arrows

to the mark!

You Chinaman and Chinawoman of China! you Tartar of Tartary!

You women of the earth subordinated at your tasks!

You Jew journeying in your old age through every risk, to stand once on

Syrian ground!

You other Jews waiting in all lands for your Messiah!

You thoughtful Armenian, pondering by some stream of the Euphrates! you

peering amid the ruins of Nineveh! you ascending Mount Ararat!

You foot-worn pilgrim welcoming the far-away sparkle of the minarets of

Mecca!

You sheiks along the stretch from Suez to Babelmandeb, ruling your families

and tribes!

You olive-grower tending your fruit on fields of Nazareth, Damascus, or

Lake Tiberias!

You Thibet trader on the wide inland, or bargaining in the shops of Lassa!

You Japanese man or woman! you liver in Madagascar, Ceylon, Sumatra,

Borneo!

All you continentals of Asia, Africa, Europe, Australia, indifferent of

place!

All you on the numberless islands of the archipelagoes of the sea!

And you of centuries hence, when you listen to me!

And you, each and everywhere, whom I specify not, but include just the

same!

Health to you! Goodwill to you all--from me and America sent.

Each of us inevitable;

Each of us limitless--each of us with his or her right upon the earth;

Each of us allowed the eternal purports of the earth:

Each of us here as divinely as any is here.

12.

You Hottentot with clicking palate! You woolly-haired hordes!

You owned persons, dropping sweat-drops or blood-drops!

You human forms with the fathomless ever-impressive countenances of brutes!

I dare not refuse you--the scope of the world, and of time and space, are

upon me.

You poor koboo whom the meanest of the rest look down upon, for all your

glimmering language and spirituality!

You low expiring aborigines of the hills of Utah, Oregon, California!

You dwarfed Kamtschatkan, Greenlander, Lap!

You Austral negro, naked, red, sooty, with protrusive lip, grovelling,

seeking your food!

You Caffre, Berber, Soudanese!

You haggard, uncouth, untutored Bedowee!

You plague-swarms in Madras, Nankin, Kaubul, Cairo!

You bather bathing in the Ganges!

You benighted roamer of Amazonia! you Patagonian! you Fejee-man!

You peon of Mexico! you slave of Carolina, Texas, Tennessee!

I do not prefer others so very much before you either;

I do not say one word against you, away back there, where you stand;

You will come forward in due time to my side.

My spirit has passed in compassion and determination around the whole

earth;

I have looked for equals and lovers, and found them ready for me in all

lands;

I think some divine rapport has equalised me with them.

13.

O vapours! I think I have risen with you, and moved away to distant

continents, and fallen down there, for reasons;

I think I have blown with you, O winds;

O waters, I have fingered every shore with you.

I have run through what any river or strait of the globe has run through;

I have taken my stand on the bases of peninsulas, and on the highest

embedded rocks, to cry thence.

_Salut au Monde!_

What cities the light or warmth penetrates, I penetrate those cities

myself;

All islands to which birds wing their way, I wing my way myself.

Toward all

I raise high the perpendicular hand--I make the signal,

To remain after me in sight for ever,

For all the haunts and homes of men.

_A BROADWAY PAGEANT._

(RECEPTION OF THE JAPANESE EMBASSY, JUNE 16, 1860.)

Over sea, hither from Niphon,

Courteous, the Princes of Asia, swart-cheeked princes,

First-comers, guests, two-sworded princes,

Lesson-giving princes, leaning back in their open barouches, bare-headed,

impassive,

This day they ride through Manhattan.

Libertad!

I do not know whether others behold what I behold,

In the procession, along with the Princes of Asia, the errand-bearers,

Bringing up the rear, hovering above, around, or in the ranks marching;

But I will sing you a song of what I behold, Libertad.

When million-footed Manhattan, unpent, descends to its pavements;

When the thunder-cracking guns arouse me with the proud roar I love;

When the round-mouthed guns, out of the smoke and smell I love, spit their

salutes;

When the fire-flashing guns have fully alerted me--when heaven-clouds

canopy my city with a delicate thin haze;

When, gorgeous, the countless straight stems, the forests at the wharves,

thicken with colours;

When every ship, richly dressed, carries her flag at the peak;

When pennants trail, and street-festoons hang from the windows;

When Broadway is entirely given up to foot-passengers and foot-standers--

when the mass is densest;

When the façades of the houses are alive with people--when eyes gaze,

riveted, tens of thousands at a time;

When the guests from the islands advance--when the pageant moves forward,

visible;

When the summons is made--when the answer, that waited thousands of years,

answers;

I too, arising, answering, descend to the pavements, merge with the crowd,

and gaze with them.

Superb-faced Manhattan!

Comrade Americanos!--to us, then, at last, the Orient comes.

To us, my city,

Where our tall-topped marble and iron beauties range on opposite sides--to

walk in the space between,

To-day our Antipodes comes.

The Originatress comes,

The land of Paradise--land of the Caucasus--the nest of birth,

The nest of languages, the bequeather of poems, the race of eld,

Florid with blood, pensive, rapt with musings, hot with passion,

Sultry with perfume, with ample and flowing garments,

With sunburnt visage, with intense soul and glittering eyes,

The race of Brahma comes!

See, my cantabile! these, and more, are flashing to us from the procession;

As it moves changing, a kaleidoscope divine it moves changing before us.

Not the errand-bearing princes, nor the tanned Japanee only;

Lithe and silent, the Hindoo appears--the whole Asiatic continent itself

appears--the Past, the dead,

The murky night-morning of wonder and fable, inscrutable,

The enveloped mysteries, the old and unknown hive-bees,

The North--the sweltering South--Assyria--the Hebrews--the Ancient of

ancients,

Vast desolated cities--the gliding Present--all of these, and more, are in

the pageant-procession.

Geography, the world, is in it;

The Great Sea, the brood of islands, Polynesia, the coast beyond;

The coast you henceforth are facing--you Libertad! from your Western golden

shores;

The countries there, with their populations--the millions _en masse_, are

curiously here;

The swarming market-places--the temples, with idols ranged along the sides,

or at the end--bronze, brahmin, and lama;

The mandarin, farmer, merchant, mechanic, and fisherman;

The singing-girl and the dancing-girl--the ecstatic person--the divine

Buddha;

The secluded Emperors--Confucius himself--the great poets and heroes--the

warriors, the castes, all,

Trooping up, crowding from all directions--from the Altay mountains,

From Thibet--from the four winding and far-flowing rivers

of China,

From the Southern peninsulas, and the demi-continental islands--from

Malaysia;

These, and whatever belongs to them, palpable, show forth to me, and are

seized by me,

And I am seized by them, and friendlily held by them,

Till, as here, them all I chant, Libertad! for themselves and for you.

For I too, raising my voice, join the ranks of this pageant;

I am the chanter--I chant aloud over the pageant;

I chant the world on my Western Sea;

I chant, copious, the islands beyond, thick as stars in the sky;

I chant the new empire, grander than any before--As in a vision it comes to

me;

I chant America, the Mistress--I chant a greater supremacy;

I chant, projected, a thousand blooming cities yet, in time, on those

groups of sea-islands;

I chant my sail-ships and steam-ships threading the archipelagoes;

I chant my stars and stripes fluttering in the wind;

I chant commerce opening, the sleep of ages having done its work--races

reborn, refreshed;

Lives, works, resumed--The object I know not--but the old, the Asiatic,

resumed, as it must be,

Commencing from this day, surrounded by the world.

And you, Libertad of the world!

You shall sit in the middle, well-poised, thousands of years;

As to-day, from one side, the Princes of Asia come to you;

As to-morrow, from the other side, the Queen of England sends her eldest

son to you.

The sign is reversing, the orb is enclosed,

The ring is circled, the journey is done;

The box-lid is but perceptibly opened--nevertheless the perfume pours

copiously out of the whole box.

Young Libertad!

With the venerable Asia, the all-mother,

Be considerate with her, now and ever, hot Libertad--for you are all;

Bend your proud neck to the long-off mother, now sending messages over the

archipelagoes to you:

Bend your proud neck for once, young Libertad.

Were the children straying westward so long? so wide the tramping?

Were the precedent dim ages debouching westward from Paradise so long?

Were the centuries steadily footing it that way, all the while unknown, for

you, for reasons?

They are justified--they are accomplished--they shall now be turned the

other way also, to travel toward you thence;

They shall now also march obediently eastward, for your sake, Libertad.

_OLD IRELAND._

Far hence, amid an isle of wondrous beauty,

Crouching over a grave, an ancient sorrowful mother,

Once a queen--now lean and tattered, seated on the ground,

Her old white hair drooping dishevelled round her shoulders;

At her feet fallen an unused royal harp,

Long silent--she too long silent--mourning her shrouded hope and heir;

Of all the earth her heart most full of sorrow, because most full of love.

Yet a word, ancient mother;

You need crouch there no longer on the cold ground, with forehead between

your knees;

O you need not sit there, veiled in your old white hair, so dishevelled;

For know you, the one you mourn is not in that grave;

It was an illusion--the heir, the son you love, was not really dead;

The Lord is not dead--he is risen again, young and strong, in another

country;

Even while you wept there by your fallen harp, by the grave,

What you wept for was translated, passed from the grave,

The winds favoured, and the sea sailed it,

And now, with rosy and new blood,

Moves to-day in a new country.

_BOSTON TOWN._

To get betimes in Boston town, I rose this morning early;

Here's a good place at the corner--I must stand and see the show.

Clear the way there, Jonathan!

Way for the President's marshal! Way for the government cannon!

Way for the Federal foot and dragoons--and the apparitions copiously

tumbling.

I love to look on the stars and stripes--I hope the fifes will play "Yankee

Doodle,"

How bright shine the cutlasses of the foremost troops!

Every man holds his revolver, marching stiff through Boston town.

A fog follows--antiques of the same come limping,

Some appear wooden-legged, and some appear bandaged and bloodless.

Why this is indeed a show! It has called the dead out of the earth!

The old graveyards of the hills have hurried to see!

Phantoms! phantoms countless by flank and rear!

Cocked hats of mothy mould! crutches made of mist!

Arms in slings! old men leaning on young men's shoulders!

What troubles you, Yankee phantoms? What is all this chattering of bare

gums?

Does the ague convulse your limbs? Do you mistake your crutches for

firelocks, and level them?

If you blind your eyes with tears, you will not see the President's

marshal;

If you groan such groans, you might baulk the government cannon.

For shame, old maniacs! Bring down those tossed arms, and let your white

hair be;

Here gape your great grandsons--their wives gaze at them from the windows,

See how well-dressed--see how orderly they conduct themselves.

Worse and worse! Can't you stand it? Are you retreating?

Is this hour with the living too dead for you?

Retreat then! Pell-mell!

To your graves! Back! back to the hills, old limpers!

I do not think you belong here, anyhow.

But there is one thing that belongs here--shall I tell you what it is,

gentlemen of Boston?

I will whisper it to the Mayor--He shall send a committee to England;

They shall get a grant from the Parliament, go with a cart to the royal

vault--haste!

Dig out King George's coffin, unwrap him quick from the grave-clothes, box

up his bones for a journey;

Find a swift Yankee clipper--here is freight for you, black-bellied

clipper,

Up with your anchor! shake out your sails! steer straight toward Boston

bay.

Now call for the President's marshal again, bring out the government

cannon,

Fetch home the roarers from Congress,--make another procession, guard it

with foot and dragoons.

This centre-piece for them!

Look, all orderly citizens! Look from the windows, women!

The committee open the box; set up the regal ribs; glue those that will not

stay;

Clap the skull on top of the ribs, and clap a crown on top of the skull.

You have got your revenge, old bluster! The crown is come to its own, and

more than its own.

Stick your hands in your pockets, Jonathan--you are a made man from this

day;

You are mighty 'cute--and here is one of your bargains.

_FRANCE, THE EIGHTEENTH YEAR OF THESE STATES._[1]

A great year and place;

A harsh, discordant, natal scream out-sounding, to touch the mother's heart

closer than any yet.

I walked the shores of my Eastern Sea,

Heard over the waves the little voice,

Saw the divine infant, where she woke, mournfully wailing, amid the roar of

cannon, curses, shouts, crash of falling buildings;

Was not so sick from the blood in the gutters running--nor from the single

corpses, nor those in heaps, nor those borne away in the tumbrils;

Was not so desperate at the battues of death--was not so shocked at the

repeated fusillades of the guns.

Pale, silent, stern, what could I say to that long-accrued retribution?

Could I wish humanity different?

Could I wish the people made of wood and stone?

Or that there be no justice in destiny or time?

O Liberty! O mate for me!

Here too the blaze, the bullet, and the axe, in reserve to fetch them out

in case of need,

Here too, though long repressed, can never be destroyed;

Here too could rise at last, murdering and ecstatic;

Here too demanding full arrears of vengeance.

Hence I sign this salute over the sea,

And I do not deny that terrible red birth and baptism,

But remember the little voice that I heard wailing--and wait with perfect

trust, no matter how long;

And from to-day, sad and cogent, I maintain the bequeathed cause, as for

all lands,

And I send these words to Paris with my love,

And I guess some _chansonniers_ there will understand them,

For I guess there is latent music yet in France--floods of it.

O I hear already the bustle of instruments--they will soon be drowning all

that would interrupt them;

O I think the east wind brings a triumphal and free march,

It reaches hither--it swells me to joyful madness,

I will run transpose it in words, to justify it,

I will yet sing a song for you, _ma femme!_

[Footnote 1: 1793-4---The great poet of Democracy is "not so shocked" at

the great European year of Democracy.]

_EUROPE, THE SEVENTY-SECOND AND SEVENTY-THIRD YEARS OF THESE STATES._[1]

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

Like lightning it leaped forth, half startled at itself,

Its feet upon the ashes and the rags--its hands tight to the throats of

kings.

O hope and faith!

O aching close of exiled patriots' lives!

O many a sickened heart!

Turn back unto this day, and make yourselves afresh.

And you, paid to defile the People! you liars, mark!

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 the blows strike revenge, or the

heads of the nobles fall;

The People scorned the ferocity of kings.

But the sweetness of mercy brewed bitter destruction, and the frightened

rulers come back;

Each comes in state with his train--hangman, priest, tax-gatherer,

Soldier, lawyer, lord, jailer, and sycophant.

Yet behind all, lowering, stealing--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 crooked, 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 princes 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 unslaughtered

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 the murdered for freedom but grows seed for freedom, in its

turn to bear seed,

Which the winds carry afar and resow, and the rains and the snows nourish.

Not a disembodied spirit can the weapons of tyrants let loose,

But it stalks invisibly over the earth, whispering, counselling,

cautioning.

Liberty! let others despair of you! I never despair of you.

Is the house shut? Is the master away?

Nevertheless, be ready--be not weary of watching:

He will soon return--his messengers come anon.

[Footnote 1: The years 1848 and 1849.]

_TO A FOILED REVOLTER OR REVOLTRESS._

Courage! my brother or my sister!

Keep on! Liberty is to be subserved, whatever occurs;

That is nothing that is quelled by one or two failures, or any number of

failures,

Or by the indifference or ingratitude of the people, or by any

unfaithfulness,

Or the show of the tushes of power, soldiers, cannon, penal statutes.

What we believe in waits latent for ever through all the continents, and

all the islands and archipelagoes of the sea.

What we believe in invites no one, promises nothing, sits in calmness and

light, is positive and composed, knows no discouragement,

Waiting patiently, waiting its time.

The battle rages with many a loud alarm, and frequent advance and retreat,

The infidel triumphs--or supposes he triumphs,

The prison, scaffold, garrote, handcuffs, iron necklace and anklet, lead-

balls, do their work,

The named and unnamed heroes pass to other spheres,

The great speakers and writers are exiled--they lie sick in distant lands,

The cause is asleep--the strongest throats are still, choked

with their own blood,

The young men drop their eyelashes toward the ground when they meet;

But, for all this, Liberty has not gone out of the place, nor the infidel

entered into possession.

When Liberty goes out of a place, it is not the first to go, nor the second

or third to go,

It waits for all the rest to go--it is the last.

When there are no more memories of heroes and martyrs,

And when all life and all the souls of men and women are discharged from

any part of the earth,

Then only shall Liberty be discharged from that part of the earth,

And the infidel and the tyrant come into possession.

Then courage! revolter! revoltress!

For till all ceases neither must you cease.

I do not know what you are for, (I do not know what I am for myself, nor

what anything is for,)

But I will search carefully for it even in being foiled,

In defeat, poverty, imprisonment--for they too are great.

Did we think victory great?

So it is--But now it seems to me, when it cannot be helped, that defeat is

great,

And that death and dismay are great.

_DRUM TAPS._

_MANHATTAN ARMING._

First, O songs, for a prelude,

Lightly strike on the stretched tympanum, pride and joy in my city,

How she led the rest to arms--how she gave the cue,

How at once with lithe limbs, unwaiting a moment, she sprang;

O superb! O Manhattan, my own, my peerless!

O strongest you in the hour of danger, in crisis! O truer than steel!

How you sprang! how you threw off the costumes of peace with indifferent

hand;

How your soft opera-music changed, and the drum and fife were heard in

their stead;

How you led to the war, (that shall serve for our prelude, songs of

soldiers,)

How Manhattan drum-taps led.

Forty years had I in my city seen soldiers parading;

Forty years as a pageant--till unawares, the Lady of this teeming and

turbulent city,

Sleepless, amid her ships, her houses, her incalculable wealth,

With her million children around her--suddenly,

At dead of night, at news from the South,

Incensed, struck with clenched hand the pavement.

A shock electric--the night sustained it;

Till, with ominous hum, our hive at daybreak poured out its myriads.

From the houses then, and the workshops, and through all the doorways,

Leaped they tumultuous--and lo! Manhattan arming.

To the drum-taps prompt,

The young men falling in and arming;

The mechanics arming, the trowel, the jack-plane, the black-smith's hammer,

tossed aside with precipitation;

The lawyer leaving his office, and arming--the judge leaving the court;

The driver deserting his waggon in the street, jumping down, throwing the

reins abruptly down on the horses' backs;

The salesman leaving the store--the boss, book-keeper, porter, all leaving;

Squads gathering everywhere by common consent, and arming;

The new recruits, even boys--the old men show them how to wear their

accoutrements--they buckle the straps carefully;

Outdoors arming--indoors arming--the flash of the musket-barrels;

The white tents cluster in camps--the armed sentries around--the sunrise

cannon, and again at sunset;

Armed regiments arrive every day, pass through the city, and embark from

the wharves;

How good they look, as they tramp down to the river, sweaty, with their

guns on their shoulders!

How I love them! how I could hug them, with their brown faces, and their

clothes and knapsacks covered with dust!

The blood of the city up--armed! armed! the cry everywhere;

The flags flung out from the steeples of churches, and from all the public

buildings and stores;

The tearful parting--the mother kisses her son--the son kisses his mother;

Loth is the mother to part--yet not a word does she speak to detain him;

The tumultuous escort--the ranks of policemen preceding, clearing the way;

The unpent enthusiasm--the wild cheers of the crowd for their favourites;

The artillery--the silent cannons, bright as gold, drawn along, rumble

lightly over the stones;

Silent cannons--soon to cease your silence,

Soon, unlimbered, to begin the red business!

All the mutter of preparation--all the determined arming;

The hospital service--the lint, bandages, and medicines;

The women volunteering for nurses--the work begun for, in earnest--no mere

parade now;

War! an armed race is advancing!--the welcome for battle--no turning away;

War! be it weeks, months, or years--an armed race is advancing to welcome

it.

Mannahatta a-march!--and it's O to sing it well!

It's O for a manly life in the camp!

And the sturdy artillery!

The guns, bright as gold--the work for giants--to serve well the guns:

Unlimber them! no more, as the past forty years, for salutes for courtesies

merely;

Put in something else now besides powder and wadding.

And you, Lady of Ships! you, Mannahatta!

Old matron of the city! this proud, friendly, turbulent city!

Often in peace and wealth you were pensive, or covertly frowned amid all

your children;

But now you smile with joy, exulting old Mannahatta!

_1861._

Armed year! year of the struggle!

No dainty rhymes or sentimental love verses for you, terrible year!

Not you as some pale poetling, seated at a desk, lisping cadenzas piano;

But as a strong man, erect, clothed in blue clothes, advancing, carrying a

rifle on your shoulder,

With well-gristled body and sunburnt face and hands--with a knife in the

belt at your side,

As I heard you shouting loud--your sonorous voice ringing across the

continent;

Your masculine voice, O year, as rising amid the great cities,

Amid the men of Manhattan I saw you, as one of the workmen, the dwellers in

Manhattan;

Or with large steps crossing the prairies out of Illinois and Indiana,

Rapidly crossing the West with springy gait, and descending the

Alleghanies;

Or down from the great lakes, or in Pennsylvania, or on deck along the Ohio

river;

Or southward along the Tennessee or Cumberland rivers, or at Chattanooga on

the mountain-top,

Saw I your gait and saw I your sinewy limbs, clothed in blue, bearing

weapons, robust year;

Heard your determined voice, launched forth again and again;

Year that suddenly sang by the mouths of the round-lipped cannon,

I repeat you, hurrying, crashing, sad, distracted year.

_THE UPRISING._

Rise, O days, from your fathomless deeps, till you loftier and fiercer

sweep!

Long for my soul, hungering gymnastic, I devoured what the earth gave me;

Long I roamed the woods of the North--long I watched Niagara pouring;

I travelled the prairies over, and slept on their breast--I crossed the

Nevadas,

I crossed the plateaus;

I ascended the towering rocks along the Pacific, I sailed out to sea;

I sailed through the storm, I was refreshed by the storm;

I watched with joy the threatening maws of the waves;

I marked the white combs where they careered so high, curling over;

I heard the wind piping, I saw the black clouds;

Saw from below what arose and mounted, (O superb! O wild as my heart, and

powerful!)

Heard the continuous thunder, as it bellowed after the lightning;

Noted the slender and jagged threads of lightning, as sudden and fast amid

the din they chased each other across the sky;

--These, and such as these, I, elate, saw--saw with wonder, yet pensive and

masterful;

All the menacing might of the globe uprisen around me;

Yet there with my soul I fed--I fed content, supercilious.

'Twas well, O soul! 'twas a good preparation you gave me!

Now we advance our latent and ampler hunger to fill;

Now we go forth to receive what the earth and the sea never gave us;

Not through the mighty woods we go, but through the mightier cities;

Something for us is pouring now, more than Niagara pouring;

Torrents of men, (sources and rills of the North-west, are you indeed

inexhaustible?)

What, to pavements and homesteads here--what were those storms of the

mountains and sea?

What, to passions I witness around me to-day, was the sea risen?

Was the wind piping the pipe of death under the black clouds?

Lo! from deeps more unfathomable, something more deadly and savage;

Manhattan, rising, advancing with menacing front--Cincinnati, Chicago,

unchained;

--What was that swell I saw on the ocean? behold what comes here!

How it climbs with daring feet and hands! how it dashes!

How the true thunder bellows after the lightning! how bright the flashes of

lightning!

How DEMOCRACY with desperate vengeful port strides on, shown through the

dark by those flashes of lightning!

Yet a mournful wail and low sob I fancied I heard through the dark,

In a lull of the deafening confusion.

Thunder on! stride on, Democracy! strike with vengeful stroke!

And do you rise higher than ever yet, O days, O cities!

Crash heavier, heavier yet, O storms! you have done me good;

My soul, prepared in the mountains, absorbs your immortal strong nutriment.

Long had I walked my cities, my country roads, through farms, only half

satisfied;

One doubt, nauseous, undulating like a snake, crawled on the ground before

me,

Continually preceding my steps, turning upon me oft, ironically hissing

low;

--The cities I loved so well I abandoned and left--I sped to the

certainties suitable to me

Hungering, hungering, hungering, for primal energies, and Nature's

dauntlessness,

I refreshed myself with it only, I could relish it only;

I waited the bursting forth of the pent fire--on the water and air I waited

long.

--But now I no longer wait--I am fully satisfied--I am glutted;

I have witnessed the true lightning--I have witnessed my cities electric;

I have lived to behold man burst forth, and warlike America rise;

Hence I will seek no more the food of the northern solitary wilds,

No more on the mountains roam, or sail the stormy sea.

_BEAT! BEAT! DRUMS!_

Beat! beat! drums!--Blow! bugles! blow!

Through the windows--through doors--burst like a force of ruthless men,

Into the solemn church, and scatter the congregation;

Into the school where the scholar is studying:

Leave not the bridegroom quiet--no happiness must he have now with his

bride;

Nor the peaceful farmer any peace, ploughing his field or gathering his

grain;

So fierce you whirr and pound, you drums--so shrill you bugles blow.

Beat! beat! drums!--Blow! bugles! blow!

Over the traffic of cities--over the rumble of wheels in the streets:

Are beds prepared, for sleepers at night in the houses? No sleepers must

sleep in those beds;

No bargainers' bargains by day--no brokers or speculators--Would they

continue?

Would the talkers be talking? would the singer attempt to sing?

Would the lawyer rise in the court to state his case before the judge?

Then rattle quicker, heavier, drums--you bugles wilder blow.

Beat! beat! drums!--Blow! bugles! blow!

Make no parley--stop for no expostulation;

Mind not the timid--mind not the weeper or prayer;

Mind not the old man beseeching the young man;

Let not the child's voice be heard, nor the mother's entreaties;

Make even the trestles to shake the dead, where they lie awaiting the

hearses,

So strong you thump, O terrible drums--so loud you bugles blow.

_SONG OF THE BANNER AT DAYBREAK._

House-building, measuring, sawing the boards;