Published Works Manuscripts Biography & Correspondence Criticism Resources Pictures & Sound About the Archive

Leaves of Grass (1871-72)

contents | previous | next

SONG OF THE BROAD-AXE.

1

¹ WEAPON, shapely, naked, wan!

Head from the mother's bowels drawn!

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

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

Resting the grass amid and upon,

To be lean'd, and to lean on.

² Strong shapes, and attributes of strong shapes—mas-
culine 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.

2

³ 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 the cotton-lands—welcome those of the white
potato and sweet potato;

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

View Page 166

Welcome the rich borders of rivers, table-lands, open-
ings;

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!

3

⁴ The log at the wood-pile, the axe supported by it;

The sylvan hut, the vine over the doorway, the space
clear'd for a garden,

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

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-fashion'd
houses and barns;

The remember'd 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 untrimm'd 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 ran-
dom types, the solidification;

View Page 167

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

Lumbermen in their winter camp, day-break 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 bear-
skin;

—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, accord-
ing as they were prepared,

The blows of mallets and hammers, the attitudes of the
men, their curv'd limbs,

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

The hook'd arm over the plate, the other arm wielding
the axe,

The floor-men forcing the planks close, to be nail'd,

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 workman-
like in its place, and set with a knock of the
trowel-handle,

View Page 168

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-hew'd log,
shaping it toward the shape of a mast,

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

The butter-color'd 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-pack'd 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 wood-work, 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 en-
gineers,

The far-off Assyrian edifice and Mizra edifice,

View Page 169
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 determin'd 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.

4

⁵ Muscle and pluck forever!

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.

⁶ What do you think endures?

Do you think the great city endures?

Or a teeming manufacturing state? or a prepared con-
stitution? or the best built steamships?

Or hotels of granite and iron? or any chef-d'uvres of
engineering, forts, armaments?

⁷ Away! These are not to be cherish'd for themselves;

They fill their hour, the dancers dance, the musicians
play for them;

View Page 170

The show passes, all does well enough of course,

All does very well till one flash of defiance.

⁸ 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.

5

⁹ The place where the great city stands is not the
place of stretch'd 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.

¹⁰ 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 com-
mon 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 un-
ript waves;

Where outside authority enters always after the preced-
ence 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;

View Page 171
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 faithfulest 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.

6

¹¹ 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!

¹² All waits, or goes by default, till a strong being ap-
pears;

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

When he or she appears, materials are overaw'd,

The dispute on the Soul stops,

The old customs and phrases are confronted, turn'd
back, or laid away.

¹³ 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?

7

¹⁴ 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 accomplish'd;
the hammers-men are at hand with their tongs
and hammers;

What always served, and always serves, is at hand.

View Page 172

¹⁵ 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 Hin-
dostanee;

Served the mound-raiser on the Mississippi—served
those whose relics remain in Central America;

Served Albic temples in woods or on plains, with un-
hewn pillars, and the druids;

Served the artificial clefts, vast, high, silent, on the
snow-cover'd hills of Scandinavia;

Served those who, time out of mind, made on the gran-
ite 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 medival ages, and before the medival ages;

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

8

¹⁶ I see the European headsman;

He stands mask'd, clothed in red, with huge legs, and
strong naked arms,

And leans on a ponderous axe.

¹⁷ (Whom have you slaughter'd lately, European heads-
man?

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

¹⁸ I see the clear sunsets of the martyrs;

View Page 173

I see from the scaffolds the descending ghosts,

Ghosts of dead lords, uncrown'd ladies, impeach'd min-
isters, rejected kings,

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

¹⁹ 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.)

²⁰ I see the blood wash'd 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.

²¹ 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.

9

²² (America! I do not vaunt my love for you;

I have what I have.)

²³ 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, tur-
ret, porch,

Hoe, rake, pitch-fork, pencil, wagon, staff, saw, jack-
plane, mallet, wedge, rounce,

View Page 174

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

Work-box, chest, string'd 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.

²⁴ The shapes arise!

Shapes of the using of axes anyhow, and the users, and
all that neighbors them,

Cutters down of wood, and haulers of it to the Penob-
scot 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.

²⁵ 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 and canal craft,
river craft.

²⁶ The shapes arise!

Ship-yards and dry-docks along the Eastern and West-
ern 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 scaf-
folds, 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.

View Page 175

10

²⁷ The shapes arise!

The shape measur'd, saw'd, jack'd, join'd, stain'd,

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 cook'd by the chaste
wife, and joyously eaten by the chaste husband,
content after his day's work.

²⁸ 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 lean'd 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 un-
wholesome couple;

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

The shape of the step-ladder for the convicted and sen-
tenced murderer, the murderer with haggard
face and pinion'd arms,

The sheriff at hand with his deputies, the silent and
white-lipp'd crowd, the dangling of the rope.

²⁹ The shapes arise!

Shapes of doors giving many exits and entrances;

The door passing the dissever'd friend, flush'd and in
haste;

The door that admits good news and bad news;

View Page 176

The door whence the son left home, confident and
puff'd up;

The door he enter'd again from a long and scandalous
absence, diseas'd, broken down, without inno-
cence, without means.

11

³⁰ Her shape arises,

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

The gross and soil'd she moves among do not make her
gross and soil'd;

She knows the thoughts as she passes—nothing is con-
ceal'd from her;

She is none the less considerate or friendly therefor;

She is the best belov'd—it is without exception—she
has no reason to fear, and she does not fear;

Oaths, quarrels, hiccupp'd songs, smutty expressions,
are idle to her as she passes;

She is silent—she is possess'd 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

³¹ The main shapes arise!

Shapes of Democracy, total—result of centuries;

Shapes, ever projecting other shapes;

Shapes of turbulent manly cities;

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

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

contents | previous | next

Comments?

Support the Archive | About the Archive

The Walt Whitman Archive

Leaves of Grass (1871-72)

SONG OF THE BROAD-AXE.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12