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Leaves of Grass (1856)

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Leaves
of
Grass.

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK,

1856.

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Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by WALT WHITMAN, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York.

Leaves of Grass

	page
1. Poem of Walt Whitman, an American . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	5
2. Poem of Women . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	101
3. Poem of Salutation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	108
4. Poem of The Daily Work of The Workmen and Workwomen of These States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	121
5. Broad-Axe Poem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	140
6. Poem of A Few Greatnesses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	161
7. Poem of The Body . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	167
8. Poem of Many In One . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	180
9. Poem of Wonder at The Resurrection of The Wheat . . . . . . . .	202
10. Poem of You, Whoever You Are . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	206
11. Sun-Down Poem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	211
12. Poem of The Road . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	223
13. Poem of Procreation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	240
14. Poem of The Poet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	244
15. Clef Poem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	249
16. Poem of The Dead Young Men of Europe, the 72d and 73d Years of These States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	252
17. Poem of The Heart of The Son of Manhattan Island . . . . . . . .	255
18. Poem of The Last Explanation of Prudence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	257
19. Poem of The Singers, and of The Words of Poems . . . . . . . . .	262
20. Faith Poem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	265
21. Liberty Poem for Asia, Africa, Europe, America, Australia, Cuba, and the Archipelagoes of The Sea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	268
22. Poem of Apparitions in Boston, the 78th Year of These States .	271

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23. Poem of Remembrances for A Girl or A Boy of These States .	275
24. Poem of Perfect Miracles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	279
25. Poem of The Child That Went Forth, and Always Goes Forth, Forever and Forever . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	282
26. Night Poem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	286
27. Poem of Faces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	302
28. Bunch Poem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	309
29. Lesson Poem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	313
30. Poem of The Propositions of Nakedness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	316
31. Poem of The Sayers of The Words of The Earth . . . . . . . . . . . .	322
32. Burial Poem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	332

LEAVES-DROPPINGS.
Correspondence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	345
Opinions. 1855-6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	359

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LEAVES OF GRASS.

1—Poem of Walt Whitman, an American.

I CELEBRATE 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.

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,

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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, buzzed whispers, love-root, silk-
thread, crotch, 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-colored sea-rocks, and of
hay in the barn,

The sound of the belched words of my voice,
words loosed 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 reckoned a thousand acres much?
have you reckoned the earth much?

Have you practiced so long to learn to read?

Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of
poems?

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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
yourself.

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.

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To elaborate is no avail—learned and unlearned
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;

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As the hugging and loving Bed-fellow sleeps at
my side through the night, and withdraws at
the peep of the day,

And leaves for me baskets covered 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 contents of one, and exactly the con-
tents of two, and which is ahead?

Trippers and askers surround me,

People I meet—the effect upon me of my early
life, of the ward and city I live in, of the
nation,

The latest news, discoveries, inventions, societies,
authors old and new,

My dinner, dress, associates, looks, work, compli-
ments, dues,

The real or fancied indifference of some man or
woman I love,

The sickness of one of my folks, or of myself, or
ill-doing, or loss or lack of money, or depress-
ions or exaltations,

They come to me days and nights and go from
me again,

But they are not the Me myself.

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Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I
am,

Stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle,
unitary,

Looks down, is erect, bends an arm on an
impalpable certain rest,

Looks with its side-curved head, curious what will
come next,

Both in and out of the game, and watching and
wondering at it.

Backward I see in my own days where I sweated
through fog with linguists and contenders,

I have no mockings or arguments—I witness and
wait.

I believe in you, my soul—the other I am must
not abase itself to you,

And you must not be abased to the other.

Loafe with me on the grass, loose the stop from
your throat,

Not words, not music or rhyme I want—not cus-
tom or lecture, not even the best,

Only the lull I like, the hum of your valved voice.

I mind how we lay in June, such a transparent
summer morning,

You settled your head athwart my hips, and gently
turned over upon me,

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And parted the shirt from my bosom-bone, and
plunged your tongue to my bare-stript heart,

And reached till you felt my beard, and reached
till you held my feet.

Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace
and joy and knowledge that pass all the art
and argument of the earth,

And I know that the hand of God is the promise
of my own,

And I know that the spirit of God is the brother
of my own,

And that all the men ever born are also my bro-
thers, and the women my sisters and lovers,

And that a kelson of the creation is love,

And limitless are leaves, stiff or drooping in the
fields,

And brown ants in the little wells beneath them,

And mossy scabs of the worm-fence, heaped stones,
elder, mullen, pokeweed.

A child said, What is the grass? fetching it to me
with full hands;

How could I answer the child? I do not know
what it is any more than he.

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out
of hopeful green stuff woven.

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,

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A scented gift and remembrancer, designedly
dropped,

Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners,
that we may see and remark, and say Whose?

Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced
babe of the vegetation.

Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,

And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and
narrow zones,

Growing among black folks as among white,

Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give
them the same, I receive them the same.

And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair
of graves.

Tenderly will I use you, curling grass,

It may be you transpire from the breasts of young
men,

It may be if I had known them I would have loved
them,

It may be you are from old people, and from
women, and from offspring taken soon out of
their mothers' laps,

And here you are the mothers' laps.

This grass is very dark to be from the white heads
of old mothers,

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Darker than the colorless beards of old men,

Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of
mouths.

O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues!

And I perceive they do not come from the roofs
of mouths for nothing.

I wish I could translate the hints about the dead
young men and women,

And the hints about old men and mothers, and the
offspring taken soon out of their laps.

What do you think has become of the young and
old men?

And what do you think has become of the women
and children?

They are alive and well somewhere,

The smallest sprout shows there is really no
death,

And if ever there was, it led forward life, and does
not wait at the end to arrest it,

And ceased the moment life appeared.

All goes onward and outward—nothing collapses,

And to die is different from what any one sup-
posed, and luckier.

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Has any one supposed it lucky to be born?

I hasten to inform him or her, it is just as lucky to
die, and I know it.

I pass death with the dying, and birth with the
new-washed babe, and am not contained be-
tween my hat and boots,

And peruse manifold objects, no two alike, and
every one good,

The earth good, and the stars good, and their ad-
juncts all good.

I am not an earth nor an adjunct of an earth,

I am the mate and companion of people, all just
as immortal and fathomless as myself;

They do not know how immortal, but I know.

Every kind for itself and its own—for me mine,
male and female,

For me those that have been boys and that love
women,

For me the man that is proud, and feels how it
stings to be slighted,

For me the sweetheart and the old maid—for me
mothers and the mothers of mothers,

For me lips that have smiled, eyes that have shed
tears,

For me children and the begetters of children.

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Who need be afraid of the merge?

Undrape! you are not guilty to me, nor stale, nor
discarded,

I see through the broadcloth and gingham, whether
or no,

And am around, tenacious, acquisitive, tireless,
and can never be shaken away.

The little one sleeps in its cradle,

I lift the gauze and look a long time, and silently
brush away flies with my hand.

The youngster and the red-faced girl turn aside
up the bushy hill,

I peeringly view them from the top.

The suicide sprawls on the bloody floor of the
bedroom,

It is so—I witnessed the corpse—there the
pistol had fallen.

The blab of the pave, the tires of carts, sluff of
boot-soles, talk of the promenaders,

The heavy omnibus, the driver with his interrogat-
ing thumb, the clank of the shod horses on
the granite floor,

The snow-sleighs, the clinking, shouted jokes,
pelts of snow-balls,

The hurrahs for popular favorites, the fury of
roused mobs,

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The flap of the curtained litter, the sick man in-
side, borne to the hospital,

The meeting of enemies, the sudden oath, the
blows and fall,

The excited crowd, the policeman with his star,
quickly working his passage to the centre of
the crowd,

The impassive stones that receive and return so
many echoes,

The souls moving along—are they invisible,
while the least of the stones is visible?

What groans of over-fed or half-starved who fall
sun-struck, or in fits,

What exclamations of women taken suddenly, who
hurry home and give birth to babes,

What living and buried speech is always vibrating
here, what howls restrained by decorum,

Arrests of criminals, slights, adulterous offers
made, acceptances, rejections with convex lips,

I mind them or the resonance of them—I come
and I depart.

The big doors of the country-barn stand open and
ready,

The dried grass of the harvest-time loads the
slow-drawn wagon,

The clear light plays on the brown gray and green

The Walt Whitman Archive

Leaves of Grass (1856)

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK, 1856. View Page Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by WALT WHITMAN, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York.

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK,

1856.

Leaves of Grass

LEAVES OF GRASS.

1—Poem of Walt Whitman, an American.

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK,

1856.

View Page
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by WALT WHITMAN, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York.