By the City Dead-House, by the gate,As idly sauntering, wending my way from the clangour,I curious pause—for lo! an outcast form, a poor dead prostitute brought;Her corpse they deposit unclaimed, it lies on the damp brick pavement.The divine woman, her body—I see the body—I look on it alone,That house once full of passion and beauty—all else I notice not;Nor stillness so cold, nor running water from faucet, nor odours morbificimpress me;But the house alone—that wondrous house—that delicate fair house—thatruin!That immortal house, more than all the rows of dwellings ever built,Or white-domed Capitol itself, with majestic figure surmounted—or all theold high-spired cathedrals,That little house alone, more than them all—poor, desperate house!Fair, fearful wreck! tenement of a Soul! itself a Soul!Unclaimed, avoided house! take one breath from my tremulous lips;Take one tear, dropped aside as I go, for thought of you,Dead house of love! house of madness and sin, crumbled! crushed!House of life—erewhile talking and laughing—but ah, poor house! dead eventhen;Months, years, an echoing, garnished house-but dead, dead, dead!
1.
From all the rest I single out you, having a message for you:You are to die—Let others tell you what they please, I cannot prevaricate,I am exact and merciless, but I love you—There is no escape for you.
2.
Softly I lay my right hand upon you—you just feel it;I do not argue—I bend my head close, and half envelop it,I sit quietly by—I remain faithful,I am more than nurse, more than parent or neighbour,I absolve you from all except yourself, spiritual, bodily—that iseternal,—The corpse you will leave will be but excrementitious.
The sun bursts through in unlooked-for directions!Strong thoughts fill you, and confidence—you smile!You forget you are sick, as I forget you are sick,You do not see the medicines—you do not mind the weeping friends—I amwith you,I exclude others from you—there is nothing to be commiserated,I do not commiserate—I congratulate you.
1.
Nations, ten thousand years before these States, and many times tenthousand years before these States;Garnered clusters of ages, that men and women like us grew up and travelledtheir course, and passed on;What vast-built cities—what orderly republics—what pastoral tribes andnomads;What histories, rulers, heroes, perhaps transcending all others;What laws, customs, wealth, arts, traditions;What sort of marriage—what costumes—what physiology and phrenology;What of liberty and slavery among them—what they thought of death and thesoul;Who were witty and wise—who beautiful and poetic—who brutish andundeveloped;Not a mark, not a record remains,—And yet all remains.
2.
O I know that those men and women were not for nothing, any more than weare for nothing;I know that they belong to the scheme of the world every bit as much as wenow belong to it, and as all will henceforth belong to it.
Afar they stand—yet near to me they stand,Some with oval countenances, learned and calm,Some naked and savage—Some like huge collections of insects,Some in tents—herdsmen, patriarchs, tribes, horsemen,Some prowling through woods—Some living peaceably on farms, labouring,reaping, filling barns,Some traversing paved avenues, amid temples, palaces, factories, libraries,shows, courts, theatres, wonderful monuments.
Are those billions of men really gone?Are those women of the old experience of the earth gone?Do their lives, cities, arts, rest only with us?Did they achieve nothing for good, for themselves?
3.
I believe, of all those billions of men and women that filled the unnamed lands, every one exists this hour, here or elsewhere, invisible to us, in exact proportion to what he or she grew from in life, and out of what he or she did, felt, became, loved, sinned, in life.
I believe that was not the end of those nations, or any person of them, anymore than this shall be the end of my nation, or of me;Of their languages, governments, marriage, literature, products, games,wars, manners, crimes, prisons, slaves, heroes, poets, I suspecttheir results curiously await in the yet unseen world—counterpartsof what accrued to them in the seen world;I suspect I shall meet them there,I suspect I shall there find each old particular of those unnamed lands.
1.
On the beach at night alone,As the old Mother sways her to and fro, singing her savage and husky song,As I watch the bright stars shining—I think a thought of the clef of theuniverses, and of the future.
2.
A VAST SIMILITUDE interlocks all,All spheres, grown, ungrown, small, large, suns, moons, planets, comets,asteroids,All the substances of the same, and all that is spiritual upon the same,All distances of place, however wide,All distances of time—all inanimate forms,All Souls—all living bodies, though they be ever so different, or indifferent worlds,All gaseous, watery, vegetable, mineral processes—the fishes, the brutes,All men and women—me also;All nations, colours, barbarisms, civilisations, languages;All identities that have existed, or may exist, on this globe, or anyglobe;All lives and deaths—all of the past, present, future;This vast similitude spans them, and always has spanned, and shall for everspan them, and compactly hold them.
Chanting the Square Deific, out of the One advancing, out of the sides;Out of the old and new—out of the square entirely divine,Solid, four-sided, (all the sides needed)—From this side JEHOVAH am I,Old Brahm I, and I Saturnius am;Not Time affects me—I am Time, modern as any;Unpersuadable, relentless, executing righteous judgments;As the Earth, the Father, the brown old Kronos, with laws,Aged beyond computation—yet ever new—ever with those mighty laws rolling,Relentless, I forgive no man—whoever sins dies—I will have that man'slife;Therefore let none expect mercy—Have the seasons, gravitation, theappointed days, mercy?—No more have I;But as the seasons, and gravitation—and as all the appointed days, thatforgive not,I dispense from this side judgments inexorable, without the least remorse.
Consolator most mild, the promised one advancing,With gentle hand extended, the mightier God am I,Foretold by prophets and poets, in their most wrapt prophecies and poems;From this side, lo! the Lord CHRIST gazes—lo! Hermes I—lo! mine isHercules' face;All sorrow, labour, suffering, I, tallying it, absorb in myself;Many times have I been rejected, taunted, put in prison, and crucified—andmany times shall be again;All the world have I given up for my dear brothers' and sisters' sake—forthe soul's sake;Wending my way through the homes of men, rich or poor, with the kiss ofaffection;For I am affection—I am the cheer-bringing God, with hope, and all-enclosing charity;Conqueror yet—for before me all the armies and soldiers of the earth shallyet bow—and all the weapons of war become impotent:With indulgent words, as to children—with fresh and sane words, mine only;Young and strong I pass, knowing well I am destined myself to an earlydeath:But my Charity has no death—my Wisdom dies not, neither early nor late,And my sweet Love, bequeathed here and elsewhere, never dies.
Aloof, dissatisfied, plotting revolt,Comrade of criminals, brother of slaves,Crafty, despised, a drudge, ignorant,With sudra face and worn brow—black, but in the depths of my heart proudas any;Lifted, now and always, against whoever, scorning, assumes to rule me;Morose, full of guile, full of reminiscences, brooding, with many wiles,Though it was thought I was baffled and dispelled, and my wiles done—butthat will never be;Defiant I SATAN still live—still utter words—in new lands duly appearing,and old ones also;Permanent here, from my side, warlike, equal with any, real as any,Nor time, nor change, shall ever change me or my words.
Santa SPIRITA,[1] breather, life,Beyond the light, lighter than light,Beyond the flames of hell—joyous, leaping easily above hell;Beyond Paradise—perfumed solely with mine own perfume;Including all life on earth—touching, including God—including Saviour andSatan;Ethereal, pervading all—for, without me, what were all? what were God?Essence of forms—life of the real identities, permanent, positive, namelythe unseen,Life of the great round world, the sun and stars, and of man—I, theGeneral Soul,Here the Square finishing, the solid, I the most solid,Breathe my breath also through these little songs.
[Footnote 1: The reader will share my wish that Whitman had writtensanctus spiritus, which is right, instead ofsanta spirita, which is methodically wrong.]
1.
The indications and tally of time;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 ofsingers, and their words;The words of the singers are the hours or minutes of the light or dark—butthe words of the maker of poems are the general light and dark;The maker of poems settles justice, reality, immortality,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.
2.
The singers do not beget—only the POET begets; 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 eye-singer, ear-singer, head-singer, sweet-singer, echo-singer, parlour-singer, love-singer, or something else.
3.
All this time, and at all times, wait the words of poems;The greatness of sons is the exuding of the greatness of mothers andfathers;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, withdrawnness, gaiety, sun-tan, air-sweetness—such are some of the words of poems.
4.
The sailor and traveller underlie the maker of poems, The builder, geometer, chemist, anatomist, phrenologist, artist—all these underlie the maker of poems.
5.
The words of the true poems give you more than poems,They give you, to form for yourself, poems, religions, politics, war,peace, behaviour, histories, essays, romances, and everything else,They balance ranks, colours, races, creeds, and the sexes,They do not seek beauty—they are sought,For ever touching them, or close upon them, follows beauty, longing, fain,love-sick.They prepare for death—yet are they 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, tolearn one of the meanings,To launch off with absolute faith—to sweep through the ceaseless rings,and never be quiet again.
You who celebrate bygones:Who have explored the outward, the surfaces of the races—the life that hasexhibited itself;Who have treated of man as the creature of politics, aggregates, rulers,and priests.I, habitué of the Alleghanies, treating man as he is in himself, in his ownrights,Pressing the pulse of the life that has seldom exhibited itself, the greatpride of man in himself;Chanter of Personality, outlining what is yet to be;I project the history of the future.
1.
Whoever you are, holding me now in hand,Without one thing, all will be useless:I give you fair warning, before you attempt me further,I am not what you supposed, but far different.
2.
Who is he that would become my follower?Who would sign himself a candidate for my affections?
The way is suspicious—the result uncertain, perhaps destructive;You would have to give up all else—I alone would expect to be your God,sole and exclusive;Your novitiate would even then be long and exhausting,The whole past theory of your life, and all conformity to the lives aroundyou, would have to be abandoned;Therefore release me now, before troubling yourself any further—Let goyour hand from my shoulders,Put me down, and depart on your way.
Or else, by stealth, in some wood, for trial,Or back of a rock, in the open air,(For in any roofed room of a house I emerge not—nor in company,And in libraries I lie as one dumb, a gawk, or unborn, or dead,)But just possibly with you on a high hill—first watching lest any person,for miles around, approach unawares—Or possibly with you sailing at sea, or on the beach of the sea, or somequiet island,Here to put your lips upon mine I permit you,With the comrade's long-dwelling kiss, or the new husband's kiss,For I am the new husband, and I am the comrade.
Or, if you will, thrusting me beneath your clothing,Where I may feel the throbs of your heart, or rest upon your hip,Carry me when you go forth over land or sea;For thus, merely touching you, is enough—is best,And thus, touching you, would I silently sleep, and be carried eternally.
3.
But these leaves conning, you con at peril,For these leaves, and me, you will not understand,They will elude you at first, and still more afterward—I will certainlyelude you,Even while you should think you had unquestionably caught me, behold!Already you see I have escaped from you.
For it is not for what I have put into it that I have written this book,Nor is it by reading it you will acquire it,Nor do those know me best who admire me, and vauntingly praise me,Nor will the candidates for my love (unless at most a very few) provevictorious,Nor will my poems do good only—they will do just as much evil, perhapsmore;For all is useless without that which you may guess at many times and nothit—that which I hinted at;Therefore release me, and depart on your way.
These I, singing in spring, collect for lovers:For who but I should understand lovers, and all their sorrow and joy?And who but I should be the poet of comrades?Collecting, I traverse the garden, the world—but soon I pass the gates,Now along the pond-side—now wading in a little, fearing not the wet,Now by the post-and-rail fences, where the old stones thrown there, pickedfrom the fields, have accumulated,Wild flowers and vines and weeds come up through the stones, and partlycover them—Beyond these I pass,Far, far in the forest, before I think where I go,Solitary, smelling the earthy smell, stopping now and then in the silence;Alone, I had thought—yet soon a silent troop gathers around me;Some walk by my side, and some behind, and some embrace my arms or neck,They, the spirits of friends, dead or alive—thicker they come, a greatcrowd, and I in the middle,Collecting, dispensing, singing in spring, there I wander with them,Plucking something for tokens—tossing toward whoever is near me.Here lilac, with a branch of pine,Here, out of my pocket, some moss which I pulled off a live-oak in Florida,as it hung trailing down,Here some pinks and laurel leaves, and a handful of sage,And here what I now draw from the water, wading in the pond-side,(O here I last saw him that tenderly loves me—and returns again, never toseparate from me,And this, O this shall henceforth be the token of comrades—this Calamus-root[1] shall,Interchange it, youths, with each other! Let none render it back!)And twigs of maple, and a bunch of wild orange, and chestnut,And stems of currants, and plum-blows, and the aromatic cedar,These I, compassed around by a thick cloud of spirits,Wandering, point to, or touch as I pass, or throw them loosely from me,Indicating to each one what he shall have—giving something to each.But what I drew from the water by the pond-side, that I reserve;I will give of it—but only to them that love as I myself am capable ofloving.
[Footnote 1: I am favoured with the following indication, from Mr Whitman himself, of the relation in which this word Calamus is to be understood:—"Calamus is the very large and aromatic grass or rush growing about water-ponds in the valleys—spears about three feet high; often called Sweet Flag; grows all over the Northern and Middle States. Therecherchéor ethereal sense of the term, as used in my book, arises probably from the actual Calamus presenting the biggest and hardiest kind of spears of grass, and their fresh, aquatic, pungentbouquet."]
1.
Come, I will make the continent indissoluble;I will make the most splendid race the sun ever yet shone upon!I will make divine magnetic lands,With the love of comrades,With the life-long love of comrades.
2.
I will plant companionship thick as trees along all the rivers of America,and along the shores of the great lakes, and all over the prairies;I will make inseparable cities, with their arms about each other's necks;By the love of comrades,By the manly love of comrades.
3.
For you these, from me, O Democracy, to serve you,ma femme!For you! for you, I am trilling these songs,In the love of comrades,In the high-towering love of comrades.
Not heaving from my ribbed breast only;Not in sighs at night, in rage, dissatisfied with myself;Not in those long-drawn, ill-suppressed sighs;Not in many an oath and promise broken;Not in my wilful and savage soul's volition;Not in the subtle nourishment of the air;Not in this beating and pounding at my temples and wrists;Not in the curious systole and diastole within, which will one day cease;Not in many a hungry wish, told to the skies only;Not in cries, laughter, defiances, thrown from me when alone, far in thewilds;Not in husky pantings through clenched teeth;Not in sounded and resounded words—chattering words, echoes, dead words;Not in the murmurs of my dreams while I sleep,Nor the other murmurs of these incredible dreams of every day;Nor in the limbs and senses of my body, that take you and dismiss youcontinually—Not there;Not in any or all of them, O Adhesiveness! O pulse of my life!Need I that you exist and show yourself, any more than in these songs.
WHAT place is besieged, and vainly tries to raise the siege?Lo! I send to that place a commander, swift, brave, immortal;And with him horse and foot, and parks of artillery,And artillerymen, the deadliest that ever fired gun.
1.
As I walk, solitary, unattended,Around me I hear thatéclatof the world—politics, produce,The announcements of recognised things—science,The approved growth of cities, and the spread of inventions.
I see the ships, (they will last a few years,)The vast factories, with their foremen and workmen,And hear the endorsement of all, and do not object to it.
2.
But I too announce solid things;Science, ships, politics, cities, factories, are not nothing—they serve,They stand for realities—all is as it should be.
3.
Then my realities;What else is so real as mine?Libertad, and the divine Average-Freedom to every slave on the face of theearth,The rapt promises andluminé[1] of seers—the spiritualworld—these centuries-lasting songs,And our visions, the visions of poets, the most solid announcements of any.
For we support all,After the rest is done and gone, we remain,There is no final reliance but upon us;Democracy rests finally upon us, (I, my brethren, begin it,)And our visions sweep through eternity.
[Footnote 1: I suppose Whitman gets this odd wordluminé, by a process of his own, out ofilluminati, and intends it to stand for what would be called clairvoyance, intuition.]
1.
As nearing departure,As the time draws nigh, glooming, a cloud,A dread beyond, of I know not what, darkens me.
2.
I shallgoforth,I shall traverse the States—but I cannot tell whither or how long;Perhaps soon, some day or night while I am singing, my voice will suddenlycease.
3.
O book and chant! must all then amount to but this?Must we barely arrive at this beginning of me?…And yet it is enough, O soul!O soul! we have positively appeared—that is enough.
1.
Poets to come!Not to-day is to justify me, and Democracy, and what we are for;But you, a new brood, native, athletic, continental, greater than beforeknown,You must justify me.
2.
I but write one or two indicative words for the future,I but advance a moment, only to wheel and hurry back in the darkness.
I am a man who, sauntering along, without fully stopping, turns a casuallook upon you, and then averts his face,Leaving it to you to prove and define it,Expecting the main things from you.
Full of life now, compact, visible,I, forty years old the eighty-third year of the States,To one a century hence, or any number of centuries hence,To you, yet unborn, these seeking you.
When you read these, I, that was visible, am become invisible;Now it is you, compact, visible, realising my poems, seeking me;Fancying how happy you were, if I could be with you, and become your lovingcomrade;Be it as if I were with you. Be not too certain but I am now with you.
1.
To conclude—I announce what comes after me;I announce mightier offspring, orators, days, and then depart,
I remember I said, before my leaves sprang at all,I would raise my voice jocund and strong, with reference to consummations.
When America does what was promised,When there are plentiful athletic bards, inland and sea-board,When through these States walk a hundred millions of superb persons,When the rest part away for superb persons, and contribute to them,When breeds of the most perfect mothers denote America,Then to me my due fruition.
I have pressed through in my own right,I have offered my style to every one—I have journeyed with confident step.While my pleasure is yet at the full, I whisper,So long!And take the young woman's hand, and the young man's hand for the lasttime.
2.
I announce natural persons to arise,I announce justice triumphant,I announce uncompromising liberty and equality,I announce the justification of candour, and the justification of pride.
I announce that the identity of these States is a single identity only,I announce the Union, out of all its struggles and wars, more and morecompact,I announce splendours and majesties to make all the previous politics ofthe earth insignificant.
I announce a man or woman coming—perhaps you are the one (So long!) I announce the great individual, fluid as Nature, chaste, affectionate, compassionate, fully armed. I announce a life that shall be copious, vehement, spiritual, bold, And I announce an old age that shall lightly and joyfully meet its translation.
3.
O thicker and faster! (So long!)O crowding too close upon me;I foresee too much—it means more than I thought,It appears to me I am dying.
Hasten throat, and sound your last!Salute me—salute the days once more. Peal the old cry once more.
Screaming electric, the atmosphere using,At random glancing, each as I notice absorbing,Swiftly on, but a little while alighting,Curious enveloped messages delivering,Sparkles hot, seed ethereal, down in the dirt dropping,Myself unknowing, my commission obeying, to question it never daring,To ages, and ages yet, the growth of the seed leaving,To troops out of me rising—they the tasks I have set promulging,To women certain whispers of myself bequeathing—their affection me moreclearly explaining,To young men my problems offering—no dallier I—I the muscle of theirbrains trying,So I pass—a little time vocal, visible, contrary,Afterward, a melodious echo, passionately bent for—death making me reallyundying,—The best of me then when no longer visible—for toward that I have beenincessantly preparing.
What is there more, that I lag and pause, and crouch extended with unshutmouth?Is there a single final farewell?
4.
My songs cease—I abandon them,From behind the screen where I hid, I advance personally, solely to you.
Camerado! This is no book;Who touches this touches a man.(Is it night? Are we here alone?)It is I you hold, and who holds you,I spring from the pages into your arms—decease calls me forth.
O how your fingers drowse me!Your breath falls around me like dew—your pulse lulls the tympans of myears,I feel immerged from head to foot,Delicious—enough.
Enough, O deed impromptu and secret!Enough, O gliding present! Enough, O summed-up past!
5.
Dear friend, whoever you are, here, take this kiss,I give it especially to you—Do not forget me,
I feel like one who has done his work—I progress on,—(long enough have I dallied with Life,) The unknown sphere, more real than I dreamed, more direct, awakening rays about me—So long! Remember my words—I love you—I depart from materials, I am as one disembodied, triumphant, dead.
While this Selection was passing through the press, it has been my privilege to receive two letters from Mr. Whitman, besides another communicated to me through a friend. I find my experience to be the same as that of some previous writers: that, if one admires Whitman in reading his books, one loves him on coming into any personal relation with him—even the comparatively distant relation of letter-writing.
The more I have to thank the poet for the substance and tone of his letters, and some particular expressions in them, the more does it become incumbent upon me to guard against any misapprehension. He has had nothing whatever to do with this Selection, as to either prompting, guiding, or even ratifying it: except only that he did not prohibit my making two or three verbal omissions in theProse Preface to the Leaves of Grass, and he has supplied his own title,President Lincoln's Funeral Hymn, to a poem which, in my Prefatory Notice, is named (by myself)Nocturn for the Death of Lincoln. All admirers of his poetry will rejoice to learn that there is no longer any doubt of his adding to his next edition "a brief cluster of pieces born of thoughts on the deep themes of Death and Immortality." A new American edition will be dear to many: a complete English edition ought to be an early demand of English poetic readers, and would be the right and crowning result of the present Selection.
W. M. R. 1868.