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Leaves of Grass (1856)
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9—Poem of Wonder at The Resurrection of The Wheat.
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SOMETHING startles me where I thought I
was safest, |
| I withdraw from the still woods I loved, |
| I will not go now on the pastures to walk, |
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I will not strip my clothes from my body to meet
my lover the sea, |
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I will not touch my flesh to the earth, as to other
flesh, to renew me. |
| How can the ground not sicken of men? |
| How can you be alive, you growths of spring? |
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How can you furnish health, you blood of herbs,
roots, orchards, grain? |
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Are they not continually putting distempered
corpses in the earth? |
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Is not every continent worked over and over with
sour dead? |
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Where have you disposed of those carcasses of
the drunkards and gluttons of so many gen- erations? |
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Where have you drawn off all the foul liquid and
meat? |
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I do not see any of it upon you today—or per-
haps I am deceived, |
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I will run a furrow with my plough—I will press
my spade through the sod, and turn it up underneath, |
| I am sure I shall expose some of the foul meat. |
| Behold! |
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This is the compost of billions of premature
corpses, |
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Perhaps every mite has once formed part of a
sick person, |
| Yet Behold! |
| The grass covers the prairies, |
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The bean bursts noiselessly through the mould in
the garden, |
| The delicate spear of the onion pierces upward, |
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The apple-buds cluster together on the apple-
branches, |
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The resurrection of the wheat appears with pale
visage out of its graves, |
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The tinge awakes over the willow-tree and the
mulberry-tree, |
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The he-birds carol mornings and evenings, while
the she-birds sit on their nests, |
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The young of poultry break through the hatched
eggs, |
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The new-born of animals appear, the calf is
dropt from the cow, the colt from the mare, |
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Out of its little hill faithfully rise the potato's
dark green leaves, |
| Out of its hill rises the yellow maize-stalk; |
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The summer growth is innocent and disdainful
above all those strata of sour dead. |
| What chemistry! |
| That the winds are really not infectious! |
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That this is no cheat, this transparent green-wash
of the sea, which is so amorous after me! |
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That it is safe to allow it to lick my naked
body all over with its tongues! |
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That it will not endanger me with the fevers that
have deposited themselves in it! |
| That all is clean, forever and forever! |
| That the cool drink from the well tastes so good! |
| That blackberries are so flavorous and juicy! |
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That the fruits of the apple-orchard, and of the
orange-orchard—that melons, grapes, peaches, plums, will none of them poison me! |
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That when I recline on the grass I do not catch
any disease! |
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Though probably every spear of grass rises out
of what was once a catching disease. |
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Now I am terrified at the earth! it is that calm
and patient, |
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It grows such sweet things out of such corrup-
tions, |
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It turns harmless and stainless on its axis, with
such endless successions of diseased corpses, |
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It distils such exquisite winds out of such infused
fetor, |
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It renews with such unwitting looks, its prodigal,
annual, sumptuous crops, |
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It gives such divine materials to men, and accepts
such leavings from them at last. |