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Leaves of Grass (1856)

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19—Poem of The Singers, and of The Words of Poems.

PERFECT sanity shows the master among
philosophs,

Time, always without flaw, indicates itself in
parts,

What always indicates the poet, is the crowd of
the pleasant company of singers, and their
words,

The words of the singers are the hours or min-
         utes of the light or dark—but the words of
         the maker of poems are the complete light
         and dark,

The maker of poems settles justice, reality, im-
mortality,

His insight and power encircle things and the
human race,

He is the glory and extract, thus far, of things
and of the human race.

The singers do not beget—only the poet be-
gets,

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The singers are welcomed, understood, appear
         often enough—but rare has the day been,
         likewise the spot, of the birth of the maker
         of poems,

Not every century, or every five centuries, has
contained such a day, for all its names.

The singers of successive hours of centuries may
have ostensible names, but the name of each
of them is one of the singers,

The name of each is, a heart-singer, eye-singer,
         hymn-singer, law-singer, ear-singer, head-
         singer, sweet-singer, wise-singer, droll-
         singer, thrift-singer, sea-singer, wit-singer,
         echo-singer, parlor-singer, love-singer, pas-
         sion-singer, mystic-singer, weeping-singer,
         fable-singer, item-singer, or something else.

All this time, and at all times, wait the words of
poems;

The greatness of sons is the exuding of the great-
ness of mothers and fathers,

The words of poems are the tuft and final applause
of science.

Divine instinct, breadth of vision, the law of
         reason, health, rudeness of body, withdrawn-
         ness, gaiety, sun-tan, air-sweetness—such
         are the words of poems.

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The sailor and traveler underlie the maker of poems,

The builder, geometer, mathematician, astronomer,
         melodist, philosoph, chemist, anatomist,
         spiritualist, language-searcher, geologist,
         phrenologist, artist—all these underlie the
         maker of poems.

The words of poems give you more than poems,

They give you to form for yourself poems,
         religions, politics, war, peace, behaviour,
         histories, essays, romances, and every thing
         else,

They balance ranks, colors, races, creeds, and the
sexes,

They do not seek beauty, they are sought —
forever touching them, or close upon them,
follows beauty, longing, fain, love-sick;

They are not the finish, but rather the outset,

They bring none to his or her terminus, or to be
content and full,

Whom they take, they take into space, to behold
the birth of stars, to learn one of the
meanings,

To launch off with absolute faith—to sweep
through the ceaseless rings, and never be
quiet again.

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The Walt Whitman Archive

Leaves of Grass (1856)

19—Poem of The Singers, and of The Words of Poems.