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Leaves of Grass (1867)

LEAVES
OF
GRASS.

New-York.

1867.

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ENTERED according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by WALT WHITMAN, in the Clerk's Office of the United States District Court of the Southern District of New York.

CONTENTS.

Inscription.......................	5
Starting from Paumanok............	8
Walt Whitman......................	23
CHILDREN OF ADAM
To the Garden, the World..........	95
From Pent-Up Aching Rivers........	—
I Sing the Body Electric..........	98
A Woman Waits for Me..............	108
Spontaneous Me....................	110
One Hour to Madness and Joy.......	112
We Two, how long we were fool'd...	114
Native Moments....................	115
Once I Pass'd through a Populous City	—
Facing West from California's Shores	116
Ages and Ages, Returning at Intervals	—
O Hymen! O Hymenee!...............	117
I am He that Aches with Love......	—
As Adam, Early in the Morning.....	—
Excelsior.........................	118
CALAMUS.
In Paths Untrodden................	119
Scented Herbage of my Breast......	120
Whoever you are Holding Me now in Hand	122
These, I, Singing in Spring.......	124
A Song............................	125
Not Heaving from my Ribb'd Breast only	126
Of the Terrible Doubt of Appearances	127
Recorders Ages Hence..............	128
When I Heard at the Close of the day	—
Are you the New Person Drawn Toward me?	129
Roots and Leaves Themselves Alone.	130
Not Heat Flames up and Consumes..	131
Trickle, Drops....................	—
Of Him I love Day and Night.......	132
City of Orgies....................	133
Behold this Swarthy Face..........	—
I saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing....	134
That Music Always Round Me........	—
To a Stranger.....................	135
This Moment, Yearning and Thoughtful	136
I Hear it was Charged Against Me..	136
The Prairie-Grass Dividing........	137
We Two Boys Together Clinging.....	—
O Living Always—Always Dying......	138
When I Peruse the Conquer'd Fame.......	—
A Glimpse.........................	—
A Promise to California...........	139
Here, Sailor !....................	—
Here the Frailest Leaves of Me....	140
What Think you, I take my Pen in Hand	—
No Labor-Saving Machine...........	—
I Dream'd in a Dream..............	141
To the East and to the West.......	—
Earth, my Likeness................	—
A Leaf for Hand in Hand...........	142
Fast Anchor'd, Eternal............	—
Sometimes, with One I Love........	—
That Shadow, my Likeness..........	143
Among the Multitude...............	—
To a Western Boy..................	—
O You whom I often and Silently Come	144
Full of Life, Now................	.—
Salut au Monde....................	145
What Place is Besieged ?..........	158
LEAVES OF GRASS.
"There was a child went forth"....	159
"Myself and mine gymnastic ever"..	161
"Who learns my lesson complete!"..	163
"Whoever you are, I fear," &c.....	165
Beginners.........................	168
Tests.............................	—
Perfections.......................	—
Song of the Broad-Axe.............	169
With Antecedents..................	182
Savantism.........................	184
Crossing Brooklyn Ferry...........	185
To a Foil'd Revolter or Revoltress	193
To get Betimes in Boston Town.....	195
To a Common Prostitute............	197
To a Pupil........................	198
To Rich Givers....................	—
A Word Out of the Sea.............	199
A Leaf of Faces...................	207
Stronger Lessons..................	211
Europe, the 72d and 73d years of These States......................	212
Thought...........................	214

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The Runner......................	214
To the Sayers of Words..........	215
Longings for Home...............	222
To a President..................	224
Walt Whitman's Caution..........	—
To Other Lands..................	—
Song of the Open Road...........	225
To the States, to Identify the 16th,17th, or 18th Presidentiad	238
To a Certain Cantatrice.........	—
To Workingmen...................	239
Debris..........................	248
LEAVES OF GRASS.
"O hastening light!"............	249
"Tears! tears! tears!"..........	—
"Aboard at a ship's helm,"......	250
American Feuillage..............	251
Mannahatta......................	257
To You..........................	258
France, the 18th Year of These States..........................	259
A Hand-Mirror...................	260
THOUGHTS.
"Of the visages of things"......	261
"Of waters, forests, hills".....	—
"Of persons arrived at high positions,".....................	262
"Of ownership.".................	—
"As I sit with others, at a great feast"........................	—
"Of what I write from myself"...	263
"Of obedience, faith, adhesiveness"	—
To Him that was Crucified.......	264
To Old Age......................	—
To One Shortly to Die...........	265
To You..........................	—
Unnamed Lands...................	266
Kosmos..........................	267
When I read the Book............	268
Says............................	269
Despairing Cries................	270
Picture.........................	—
Poems of Joy....................	271
Respondez!......................	280
The City Dead-House.............	284
Leaflets........................	—
LEAVES OF GRASS.
"Think of the Soul".............	285
"Unfolded out of the folds of the woman".....................	286
"Night on the prairies".........	287
"The world below the brine".....	288
"I sit and look out upon all the sorrows of the world"..........	289
Visor'd.........................	—
Not the Pilot...................	290
As if a Phantom Caress'd Me.....	—
Great are the Myths.............	291
Morning Romanza.................	294
Burial..........................	298
This Compost!...................	306
I hear America Singing..........	308
Manhattan's streets I saunter'd.	309
I was Looking a Long While......	312
The Indications.................	313
LEAVES OF GRASS.
"On the beach at night alone"...	315
"To oratists—to male and female"........................	—
"Laws for Creations"............	317
"Poets to come!"................	—
Me Imperturbe...................	318
Sleep-Chasings..................	319
Elemental Drifts................	331
Miracles........................	335
You Felons on Trial in Courts...	336
Mediums.........................	337
Now Lift me Close...............	338

DRUM-TAPS. .

See Table of Contents prefixed.

SONGS BEFORE PARTING. .

See Table of Contents prefixed.

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INSCRIPTION.

SMALL is the theme of the following Chant, yet the
          greatest—namely, ONE'S-SELF— that wondrous
          thing, a simple, separate person. That, for the
          use of the New World, I sing .

Man's physiology complete, from top to toe, I sing. Not
          physiognomy alone, nor brain alone, is worthy for
          the muse;—I say the Form complete is worthier
          far. The female equally with the male, I sing .

Nor cease at the theme of One's-Self. I speak the word
of the modern, the word EN-MASSE.

My Days I sing, and the Lands—with interstice I knew
of hapless War .

O friend, whoe'er you are, at last arriving hither to com-
          mence, I feel through every leaf the pressure of
          your hand, which I return. And thus upon our
          journey link'd together let us go .

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STARTING FROM PAUMANOK.

1

¹ STARTING from fish-shape Paumanok, where I was
born,

Well-begotten, and rais'd by a perfect mother;

After roaming many lands—lover of populous pave-
ments;

Dweller in Mannahatta, city of ships, my city—or on
southern savannas;

Or a soldier camp'd, or carrying my knapsack and gun
—or a miner in California;

Or rude in my home in Dakotah's woods, my diet
meat, my drink from the spring;

Or withdrawn to muse and meditate in some deep
recess,

Far from the clank of crowds, intervals passing, rapt
and happy;

Aware of the fresh free giver, the flowing Missouri—
aware of mighty Niagara;

Aware of the buffalo herds, grazing the plains—the
hirsute and strong-breasted bull;

Of earths, rocks, Fifth-month flowers, experienced—
stars, rain, snow, my amaze;

Having studied the mocking-bird's tones, and the
mountain hawk's,

And heard at dusk the unrival'd one, the hermit
thrush from the swamp-cedars,

Solitary, singing in the West, I strike up for a New
World.

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2

² Victory, union, faith, identity, time,

Yourself, the present and future lands, the indissolu-
ble compacts, riches, mystery,

Eternal progress, the kosmos, and the modern reports.

³ This, then, is life;

Here is what has come to the surface after so many
throes and convulsions.

⁴ How curious! how real!

Under foot the divine soil—over head the sun.

⁵ See, revolving, the globe;

The ancestor-continents, away, group'd together;

The present and future continents, north and south,
with the isthmus between.

⁶ See, vast, trackless spaces;

As in a dream, they change, they swiftly fill;

Countless masses debouch upon them;

They are now cover'd with the foremost people, arts,
institutions, known.

⁷ See, projected, through time,

For me, an audience interminable.

⁸ With firm and regular step they wend—they never
stop,

Successions of men, Americanos, a hundred millions;

One generation playing its part, and passing on,

Another generation playing its part, and passing on in
its turn,

With faces turn'd sideways or backward towards me,
to listen,

With eyes retrospective towards me.

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3

⁹ Americanos! Conquerors! marches humanitarian;

Foremost! century marches! Libertad! masses!

For you a programme of chants.

¹⁰ Chants of the prairies;

Chants of the long-running Mississippi, and down to
the Mexican sea;

Chants of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin and
Minnesota;

Chants going forth from the centre, from Kansas, and
thence, equi-distant,

Shooting in pulses of fire, ceaseless, to vivify all.

4

¹¹ In the Year 80 of The States,

My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this
soil, this air,

Born here of parents born here, from parents the same,
and their parents the same,

I, now thirty-six years old, in perfect health, begin,

Hoping to cease not till death.

¹² Creeds and schools in abeyance,

(Retiring back a while, sufficed at what they are, but
never forgotten,)

I harbor, for good or bad—I permit to speak, at every
hazard,

Nature now without check, with original energy.

5

¹³ Take my leaves, America! take them South, and
take them North!

Make welcome for them everywhere, for they are your
own offspring;

Surround them, East and West! for they would sur-
round you;

And you precedents! connect lovingly with them, for
they connect lovingly with you.

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¹⁴ I conn'd old times;

I sat studying at the feet of the great masters:

Now, if eligible, O that the great masters might re-
turn and study me!

¹⁵ In the name of These States, shall I scorn the
antique?

Why these are the children of the antique, to jus-
tify it.

6

¹⁶ Dead poets, philosophs, priests,

Martyrs, artists, inventors, governments long since,

Language-shapers, on other shores,

Nations once powerful, now reduced, withdrawn, or
desolate,

I dare not proceed till I respectfully credit what you
have left, wafted hither :

I have perused it—own it is admirable, (moving
awhile among it;)

Think nothing can ever be greater—nothing can ever
deserve more than it deserves;

Regarding it all intently a long while, then dismiss-
ing it,

I stand in my place, with my own day, here.

¹⁷ Here lands female and male;

Here the heirship and heiress-ship of the world—here
the flame of materials;

Here Spirituality, the translatress, the openly-avow'd,

The ever-tending, the finale of visible forms;

The satisfier, after due long-waiting, now advancing,

Yes, here comes my mistress, the Soul.

7

¹⁸ The SOUL!

Forever and forever—longer than soil is brown and
solid—longer than water ebbs and flows.

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¹⁹ I will make the poems of materials, for I think they
are to be the most spiritual poems;

And I will make the poems of my body and of mor-
tality,

For I think I shall then supply myself with the poems
of my Soul, and of immortality.

²⁰ I will make a song for These States, that no one
State may under any circumstances be sub-
jected to another State;

And I will make a song that there shall be comity by
day and by night between all The States, and
between any two of them;

And I will make a song for the ears of the President,
full of weapons with menacing points,

And behind the weapons countless dissatisfied faces :

And a song make I, of the One form'd out of all;

The fang'd and glittering One whose head is over all;

Resolute, warlike One, including and over all;

(However high the head of any else, that head is over all.)

²¹ I will acknowledge contemporary lands;

I will trail the whole geography of the globe, and sa-
lute courteously every city large and small;

And employments! I will put in my poems, that with
         you is heroism, upon land and sea—And I will
         report all heroism from an American point of
         view;

And sexual organs and acts! do you concentrate in
me—for I am determin'd to tell you with cour-
ageous clear voice, to prove you illustrious.

²² I will sing the song of companionship;

I will show what alone must finally compact These;

I believe These are to found their own ideal of
manly love, indicating it in me;

I will therefore let flame from me the burning fires
that were threatening to consume me;

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I will lift what has too long kept down those smoul-
dering fires;

I will give them complete abandonment;

I will write the evangel-poem of comrades and of

love;

(For who but I should understand love, with all its

sorrow and joy?

And who but I should be the poet of comrades?)

8

²³ I am the credulous man of qualities, ages, races;

I advance from the people en-masse in their own
spirit;

Here is what sings unrestricted faith.

²⁴ Omnes! Omnes! let others ignore what they may;

I make the poem of evil also—I commemorate that
part also;

I am myself just as much evil as good, and my nation
is—And I say there is in fact no evil,

(Or if there is, I say it is just as important to you, to
the land, or to me, as anything else.)

²⁵ I too, following many, and follow'd by many, inau-
gurate a Religion—I too go to the wars;

(It may be I am destin'd to utter the loudest cries
thereof, the winner's pealing shouts;

Who knows? they may rise from me yet, and soar
above every thing.)

²⁶ Each is not for its own sake;

I say the whole earth, and all the stars in the sky, are
for Religion's sake.

²⁷ I say no man has ever yet been half devout enough

None has ever yet adored or worship'd half enough;

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None has begun to think how divine he himself is, and
how certain the future is.

²⁸ I say that the real and permanent grandeur of
These States must be their religion;

Otherwise there is no real and permanent grandeur;

(Nor character, nor life worthy the name, without Re-
ligion;

Nor land, nor man or woman, without Religion.)

9

²⁹ What are you doing, young man?

Are you so earnest—so given up to literature, science,
art, amours?

These ostensible realities, politics, points?

Your ambition or business, whatever it may be?

³⁰ It is well—Against such I say not a word—I am
their poet also;

But behold! such swiftly subside—burnt up for Re-
ligion's sake;

For not all matter is fuel to heat, impalpable flame,
the essential life of the earth,

Any more than such are to Religion.

10

³¹ What do you seek, so pensive and silent?

What do you need, Camerado?

Dear son! do you think it is love?

³² Listen, dear son—listen, America, daughter or son!

It is a painful thing to love a man or woman to ex-
cess—and yet it satisfies—it is great;

But there is something else very great—it makes the
whole coincide;

It, magnificent, beyond materials, with continuous
hands, sweeps and provides for all.

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11

³³ Know you! to drop in the earth the germs of a
greater Religion,

The following chants, each for its kind, I sing.

³⁴ My comrade!

For you, to share with me, two greatnesses—and a
third one, rising inclusive and more resplen-
dent,

The greatness of Love and Democracy—and the
greatness of Religion.

³⁵ Melange mine own! the unseen and the seen;

Mysterious ocean where the streams empty;

Prophetic spirit of materials shifting and flickering
around me;

Living beings, identities, now doubtless near us, in

the air, that we know not of;

Contact daily and hourly that will not release me;

These selecting—these, in hints, demanded of me.

³⁶ Not he, with a daily kiss, onward from childhood
kissing me,

Has winded and twisted around me that which holds
me to him,

Any more than I am held to the heavens, to the spir-
itual world,

And to the identities of the Gods, my lovers, faithful
and true,

After what they have done to me, suggesting themes.

³⁷ O such themes! Equalities!

O amazement of things! O divine average!

O warblings under the sun—usher'd, as now, or at
noon, or setting!

O strain, musical, flowing through ages—now reach-
ing hither,

I take to your reckless and composite chords—I add
to them, and cheerfully pass them forward.

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12

³⁸ As I have walk'd in Alabama my morning walk,

I have seen where the she-bird, the mocking-bird
on her nest in the briers, hatching her brood.

³⁹ I have seen the he-bird also;

I have paused to hear him, near at hand, inflating his
throat, and joyfully singing.

⁴⁰ And while I paused, it came to me that what he
really sang for was not there only,

Nor for his mate nor himself only, nor all sent back
by the echoes;

But subtle, clandestine, away beyond,

A charge transmitted, and gift occult, for those being
born.

13

⁴¹ Democracy!

Near at hand to you a throat is now inflating itself

and joyfully singing.

⁴² Ma femme!

For the brood beyond us and of us,

For those who belong here, and those to come,

I, exultant, to be ready for them, will now shake out
carols stronger and haughtier than have ever
yet been heard upon earth.

⁴³ I will make the songs of passion, to give them their
way,

And your songs, outlaw'd offenders—for I scan you
with kindred eyes, and carry you with me the
same as any.

⁴⁴ I will make the true poem of riches,

To earn for the body and the mind, whatever adheres,
and goes forward, and is not dropt by death.

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⁴⁵ I will effuse egotism, and show it underlying all—
and I will be the bard of personality;

And I will show of male and female that either is but
the equal of the other;

And I will show that there is no imperfection in the
present—and can be none in the future;

And I will show that whatever happens to anybody, it
         may be turn'd to beautiful results—and I will
         show that nothing can happen more beautiful
         than death;

And I will thread a thread through my poems that
time and events are compact,

And that all the things of the universe are perfect
miracles, each as profound as any.

⁴⁶ I will not make poems with reference to parts;

But I will make leaves, poems, poemets, songs, says,
thoughts, with reference to ensemble:

And I will not sing with reference to a day, but with
reference to all days;

And I will not make a poem, nor the least part of a
poem, but has reference to the Soul;

(Because, having look'd at the objects of the universe,
I find there is no one, nor any particle of one,
but has reference to the Soul.)

14

⁴⁷ Was somebody asking to see the Soul?

See! your own shape and countenance—persons, sub-
stances, beasts, the trees, the running rivers, the
rocks and sands. All hold spiritual joys, and afterwards loosen them:

How can the real body ever die, and be buried?

⁴⁹ Of your real body, and any man's or woman's real
body,

Item for item, it will elude the hands of the corpse-
cleaners, and pass to fitting spheres,

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Carrying what has accrued to it from the moment of
birth to the moment of death.

⁵⁰ Not the types set up by the printer return their im-
pression, the meaning, the main concern,

Any more than a man's substance and life, or a wo-
man's substance and life, return in the body
and the Soul,

Indifferently before death and after death.

⁵¹

The Walt Whitman Archive

Leaves of Grass (1867)

New-York. 1867. View Page ii ENTERED according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by WALT WHITMAN, in the Clerk's Office of the United States District Court of the Southern District of New York.

New-York.

1867.

CONTENTS.

INSCRIPTION.

STARTING FROM PAUMANOK.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

New-York.

1867.

View Page ii
ENTERED according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by WALT WHITMAN, in the Clerk's Office of the United States District Court of the Southern District of New York.