Chapter IV: Part 4

Her shape arises, She less guarded than ever, yet more guarded than ever; The gross and soiled she moves among do not make her gross and soiled; She knows the thoughts as she passes--nothing is concealed from her; She is none the less considerate or friendly therefor; She is the best beloved--it is without exception--she has no reason to fear, and she does not fear; Oaths, quarrels, hiccupped songs, smutty expressions, are idle to her as she passes; She is silent--she is possessed 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.

The main shapes arise! Shapes of Democracy, total result of centuries; Shapes, ever projecting other shapes; Shapes of a hundred Free States, begetting another hundred; Shapes of turbulent manly cities; Shapes of the women fit for these States, Shapes of the friends and home-givers of the whole earth, Shapes bracing the earth, and braced with the whole earth.

_ANTECEDENTS._

1.

With antecedents; With my fathers and mothers, and the accumulations of past ages: With all which, had it not been, I would not now be here, as I am; With Egypt, India, Phoenicia, Greece, and Rome; With the Kelt, the Scandinavian, the Alb, and the Saxon; With antique maritime ventures,--with laws, artisanship, wars, and journeys; With the poet, the skald, the saga, the myth, and the oracle; With the sale of slaves--with enthusiasts--with the troubadour, the crusader, and the monk; With those old continents whence we have come to this new continent; With the fading kingdoms and kings over there; With the fading religions and priests; With the small shores we look back to from our own large and present shores; With countless years drawing themselves onward, and arrived at these years; You and Me arrived--America arrived, and making this year; This year! sending itself ahead countless years to come.

2.

O but it is not the years--it is I--it is You; We touch all laws, and tally all antecedents; We are the skald, the oracle, the monk, and the knight--we easily include them, and more; We stand amid time, beginningless and endless--we stand amid evil and good; All swings around us--there is as much darkness as light; The very sun swings itself and its system of planets around us: Its sun, and its again, all swing around us.

3.

As for me, (torn, stormy, even as I, amid these vehement days;) I have the idea of all, and am all, and believe in all; I believe materialism is true, and spiritualism is true--I reject no part.

Have I forgotten any part? Come to me, whoever and whatever, till I give you recognition.

I respect Assyria, China, Teutonia, and the Hebrews; I adopt each theory, myth, god, and demi-god; I see that the old accounts, bibles, genealogies, are true, without exception; I assert that all past days were what they should have been; And that they could nohow have been better than they were, And that to-day is what it should be--and that America is, And that to-day and America could nohow be better than they are.

4.

In the name of these States, and in your and my name, the Past, And in the name of these States, and in your and my name, the Present time.

I know that the past was great, and the future will be great, And I know that both curiously conjoint in the present time, For the sake of him I typify--for the common average man's sake--your sake, if you are he; And that where I am, or you are, this present day, there is the centre of all days, all races, And there is the meaning, to us, of all that has ever come of races and days, or ever will come.

_SALUT AU MONDE!_

1.

O take my hand, Walt Whitman! Such gliding wonders! such sights and sounds! Such joined unended links, each hooked to the next! Each answering all--each sharing the earth with all.

What widens within you, Walt Whitman? What waves and soils exuding? What climes? what persons and lands are here? Who are the infants? some playing, some slumbering? Who are the girls? who are the married women? Who are the three old men going slowly with their arms about each others' necks? What rivers are these? what forests and fruits are these? What are the mountains called that rise so high in the mists? What myriads of dwellings are they, filled with dwellers?

2.

Within me latitude widens, longitude lengthens; Asia, Africa, Europe, are to the east--America is provided for in the west; Banding the bulge of the earth winds the hot equator, Curiously north and south turn the axis-ends; Within me is the longest day--the sun wheels in slanting rings--it does not set for months. Stretched in due time within me the midnight sun just rises above the horizon, and sinks again; Within me zones, seas, cataracts, plants, volcanoes, groups, Malaysia, Polynesia, and the great West Indian islands.

3.

What do you hear, Walt Whitman?

I hear the workman singing, and the farmer's wife singing; I hear in the distance the sounds of children, and of animals early in the day; I hear quick rifle-cracks from the riflemen of East Tennessee and Kentucky, hunting on hills; I hear emulous shouts of Australians, pursuing the wild horse; I hear the Spanish dance, with castanets, in the chestnut shade, to the rebeck and guitar; I hear continual echoes from the Thames; I hear fierce French liberty songs; I hear of the Italian boat-sculler the musical recitative of old poems; I hear the Virginian plantation chorus of negroes, of a harvest night, in the glare of pine-knots; I hear the strong barytone of the 'long-shore-men of Mannahatta; I hear the stevedores unlading the cargoes, and singing; I hear the screams of the water-fowl of solitary north-west lakes; I hear the rustling pattering of locusts, as they strike the grain and grass with the showers of their terrible clouds; I hear the Coptic refrain, toward sundown, pensively falling on the breast of the black venerable vast mother, the Nile; I hear the bugles of raft-tenders on the streams of Canada; I hear the chirp of the Mexican muleteer, and the bells of the mule; I hear the Arab muezzin, calling from the top of the mosque; I hear the Christian priests at the altars of their churches--I hear the responsive bass and soprano; I hear the wail of utter despair of the white-haired Irish grandparents, when they learn the death of their grandson; I hear the cry of the Cossack, and the sailor's voice, putting to sea at Okotsk; I hear the wheeze of the slave-coffle, as the slaves march on--as the husky gangs pass on by twos and threes, fastened together with wrist- chains and ankle-chains; I hear the entreaties of women tied up for punishment--I hear the sibilant whisk of thongs through the air; I hear the Hebrew reading his records and psalms; I hear the rhythmic myths of the Greeks, and the strong legends of the Romans; I hear the tale of the divine life and bloody death of the beautiful God, the Christ; I hear the Hindoo teaching his favourite pupil the loves, wars, adages, transmitted safely to this day from poets who wrote three thousand years ago.

4.

What do you see, Walt Whitman? Who are they you salute, and that one after another salute you?

I see a great round wonder rolling through the air: I see diminute farms, hamlets, ruins, grave-yards, jails, factories, palaces, hovels, huts of barbarians, tents of nomads, upon the surface; I see the shaded part on one side, where the sleepers are sleeping--and the sun-lit part on the other side; I see the curious silent change of the light and shade; I see distant lands, as real and near to the inhabitants of them as my land is to me.

I see plenteous waters; I see mountain-peaks--I see the sierras of Andes and Alleghanies, where they range; I see plainly the Himalayas, Chian Shahs, Altays, Ghauts; I see the Rocky Mountains, and the Peak of Winds; I see the Styrian Alps, and the Karnac Alps; I see the Pyrenees, Balks, Carpathians--and to the north the Dofrafields, and off at sea Mount Hecla; I see Vesuvius and Etna--I see the Anahuacs; I see the Mountains of the Moon, and the Snow Mountains, and the Red Mountains of Madagascar; I see the Vermont hills, and the long string of Cordilleras; I see the vast deserts of Western America; I see the Libyan, Arabian, and Asiatic deserts; I see huge dreadful Arctic and Anarctic icebergs; I see the superior oceans and the inferior ones--the Atlantic and Pacific, the sea of Mexico, the Brazilian sea, and the sea of Peru, The Japan waters, those of Hindostan, the China Sea, and the Gulf of Guinea, The spread of the Baltic, Caspian, Bothnia, the British shores, and the Bay of Biscay, The clear-sunned Mediterranean, and from one to another of its islands, The inland fresh-tasted seas of North America, The White Sea, and the sea around Greenland. I behold the mariners of the world; Some are in storms--some in the night, with the watch on the look-out; Some drifting helplessly--some with contagious diseases.

I behold the sail and steam ships of the world, some in clusters in port, some on their voyages; Some double the Cape of Storms--some Cape Verde,--others Cape Guardafui, Bon, or Bajadore; Others Dondra Head--others pass the Straits of Sunda--others Cape Lopatka-- others Behring's Straits; Others Cape Horn--others the Gulf of Mexico, or along Cuba or Hayti--others Hudson's Bay or Baffin's Bay; Others pass the Straits of Dover--others enter the Wash--others the Firth of Solway--others round Cape Clear--others the Land's End; Others traverse the Zuyder Zee, or the Scheld; Others add to the exits and entrances at Sandy Hook; Others to the comers and goers at Gibraltar, or the Dardanelles; Others sternly push their way through the northern winter-packs; Others descend or ascend the Obi or the Lena: Others the Niger or the Congo--others the Indus, the Burampooter and Cambodia; Others wait at the wharves of Manhattan, steamed up, ready to start; Wait, swift and swarthy, in the ports of Australia; Wait at Liverpool, Glasgow, Dublin, Marseilles, Lisbon, Naples, Hamburg, Bremen, Bordeaux, the Hague, Copenhagen; Wait at Valparaiso, Rio Janeiro, Panama; Wait at their moorings at Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston, New Orleans, Galveston, San Francisco.

5.

I see the tracks of the railroads of the earth; I see them welding State to State, city to city, through North America; I see them in Great Britain, I see them in Europe; I see them in Asia and in Africa.

I see the electric telegraphs of the earth; I see the filaments of the news of the wars, deaths, losses, gains, passions, of my race.

I see the long river-stripes of the earth; I see where the Mississippi flows--I see where the Columbia flows; I see the Great River, and the Falls of Niagara; I see the Amazon and the Paraguay; I see the four great rivers of China, the Amour, the Yellow River, the Yiang-tse, and the Pearl; I see where the Seine flows, and where the Loire, the Rhone, and the Guadalquivir flow; I see the windings of the Volga, the Dnieper, the Oder; I see the Tuscan going down the Arno, and the Venetian along the Po; I see the Greek seaman sailing out of Egina bay.

6.

I see the site of the old empire of Assyria, and that of Persia, and that of India; I see the falling of the Ganges over the high rim of Saukara. I see the place of the idea of the Deity incarnated by avatars in human forms; I see the spots of the successions of priests on the earth--oracles, sacrificers, brahmins, sabians, lamas, monks, muftis, exhorters; I see where druids walked the groves of Mona--I see the mistletoe and vervain; I see the temples of the deaths of the bodies of Gods--I see the old signifiers.

I see Christ once more eating the bread of His last supper, in the midst of youths and old persons: I see where the strong divine young man, the Hercules, toiled faithfully and long, and then died; I see the place of the innocent rich life and hapless fate of the beautiful nocturnal son, the full-limbed Bacchus; I see Kneph, blooming, drest in blue, with the crown of feathers on his head; I see Hermes, unsuspected, dying, well-beloved, saying to the people, _Do not weep for me, This is not my true country, I have lived banished from my true country--I now go back there, I return to the celestial sphere, where every one goes in his turn_.

7.

I see the battlefields of the earth--grass grows upon them, and blossoms and corn; I see the tracks of ancient and modern expeditions.

I see the nameless masonries, venerable messages of the unknown events, heroes, records of the earth; I see the places of the sagas; I see pine-trees and fir-frees torn by northern blasts; I see granite boulders and cliffs--I see green meadows and lakes; I see the burial-cairns of Scandinavian warriors; I see them raised high with stones, by the marge of restless oceans, that the dead men's spirits, when they wearied of their quiet graves, might rise up through the mounds, and gaze on the tossing billows, and be refreshed by storms, immensity, liberty, action.

I see the steppes of Asia; I see the tumuli of Mongolia--I see the tents of Kalmucks and Baskirs; I see the nomadic tribes, with herds of oxen and cows; I see the table-lands notched with ravines--I see the jungles and deserts; I see the camel, the wild steed, the bustard, the fat-tailed sheep, the antelope, and the burrowing-wolf.

I see the highlands of Abyssinia; I see flocks of goats feeding, and see the fig-tree, tamarind, date, And see fields of teff-wheat, and see the places of verdure and gold.

I see the Brazilian vaquero; I see the Bolivian ascending Mount Sorata; I see the Wacho crossing the plains--I see the incomparable rider of horses with his lasso on his arm; I see over the pampas the pursuit of wild cattle for their hides.

8.

I see little and large sea-dots, some inhabited, some uninhabited; I see two boats with nets, lying off the shore of Paumanok, quite still; I see ten fishermen waiting--they discover now a thick school of mossbonkers--they drop the joined sein-ends in the water, The boats separate--they diverge and row off, each on its rounding course to the beach, enclosing the mossbonkers; The net is drawn in by a windlass by those who stop ashore, Some of the fishermen lounge in their boats--others stand negligently ankle-deep in the water, poised on strong legs; The boats are partly drawn up--the water slaps against them; On the sand, in heaps and winrows, well out from the water, lie the green- backed spotted mossbonkers.

9.

I see the despondent red man in the west, lingering about the banks of
Moingo, and about Lake Pepin;
He has heard the quail and beheld the honey-bee, and sadly prepared to
depart.

I see the regions of snow and ice; I see the sharp-eyed Samoiede and the Finn; I see the seal-seeker in his boat, poising his lance; I see the Siberian on his slight-built sledge, drawn by dogs; I see the porpess-hunters--I see the whale-crews of the South Pacific and the North Atlantic; I see the cliffs, glaciers, torrents, valleys, of Switzerland--I mark the long winters, and the isolation.

I see the cities of the earth, and make myself at random a part of them; I am a real Parisian; I am a habitant of Vienna, St. Petersburg, Berlin, Constantinople; I am of Adelaide, Sidney, Melbourne; I am of London, Manchester, Bristol, Edinburgh, Limerick, I am of Madrid, Cadiz, Barcelona, Oporto, Lyons, Brussels, Berne, Frankfort, Stuttgart, Turin, Florence; I belong in Moscow, Cracow, Warsaw--or northward in Christiania or Stockholm--or in Siberian Irkutsk--or in some street in Iceland; I descend upon all those cities, and rise from them again.

10.

I see vapours exhaling from unexplored countries; I see the savage types, the bow and arrow, the poisoned splint, the fetish, and the obi.

I see African and Asiatic towns; I see Algiers, Tripoli, Derne, Mogadore, Timbuctoo, Monrovia; I see the swarms of Pekin, Canton, Benares, Delhi, Calcutta, Yedo; I see the Kruman in his hut, and the Dahoman and Ashantee-man in their huts; I see the Turk smoking opium in Aleppo; I see the picturesque crowds at the fairs of Khiva, and those of Herat; I see Teheran--I see Muscat and Medina, and the intervening sands--I see the caravans toiling onward; I see Egypt and the Egyptians--I see the pyramids and obelisks; I look on chiselled histories, songs, philosophies, cut in slabs of sandstone or on granite blocks; I see at Memphis mummy-pits, containing mummies, embalmed, swathed in linen cloth, lying there many centuries; I look on the fallen Theban, the large-balled eyes, the side-drooping neck, the hands folded across the breast.

I see the menials of the earth, labouring; I see the prisoners in the prisons; I see the defective human bodies of the earth; I see the blind, the deaf and dumb, idiots, hunchbacks, lunatics; I see the pirates, thieves, betrayers, murderers, slave-makers of the earth; I see the helpless infants, and the helpless old men and women.

I see male and female everywhere; I see the serene brotherhood of philosophs; I see the constructiveness of my race; I see the results of the perseverance and industry of my race; I see ranks, colours, barbarisms, civilisations--I go among them--I mix indiscriminately, And I salute all the inhabitants of the earth.

11.

You, where you are! You daughter or son of England! You of the mighty Slavic tribes and empires! you Russ in Russia! You dim-descended, black, divine-souled African, large, fine-headed, nobly-formed, superbly destined, on equal terms with me! You Norwegian! Swede! Dane! Icelander! you Prussian! You Spaniard of Spain! you Portuguese! You Frenchwoman and Frenchman of France! You Belge! you liberty-lover of the Netherlands! You sturdy Austrian! you Lombard! Hun! Bohemian! farmer of Styria! You neighbour of the Danube! You working-man of the Rhine, the Elbe, or the Weser! you working-woman too! You Sardinian! you Bavarian! Swabian! Saxon! Wallachian! Bulgarian! You citizen of Prague! Roman! Neapolitan! Greek! You lithe matador in the arena at Seville! You mountaineer living lawlessly on the Taurus or Caucasus! You Bokh horse-herd, watching your mares and stallions feeding! You beautiful-bodied Persian, at full speed in the saddle shooting arrows to the mark! You Chinaman and Chinawoman of China! you Tartar of Tartary! You women of the earth subordinated at your tasks! You Jew journeying in your old age through every risk, to stand once on Syrian ground! You other Jews waiting in all lands for your Messiah! You thoughtful Armenian, pondering by some stream of the Euphrates! you peering amid the ruins of Nineveh! you ascending Mount Ararat! You foot-worn pilgrim welcoming the far-away sparkle of the minarets of Mecca! You sheiks along the stretch from Suez to Babelmandeb, ruling your families and tribes! You olive-grower tending your fruit on fields of Nazareth, Damascus, or Lake Tiberias! You Thibet trader on the wide inland, or bargaining in the shops of Lassa! You Japanese man or woman! you liver in Madagascar, Ceylon, Sumatra, Borneo! All you continentals of Asia, Africa, Europe, Australia, indifferent of place! All you on the numberless islands of the archipelagoes of the sea! And you of centuries hence, when you listen to me! And you, each and everywhere, whom I specify not, but include just the same! Health to you! Goodwill to you all--from me and America sent.

Each of us inevitable; Each of us limitless--each of us with his or her right upon the earth; Each of us allowed the eternal purports of the earth: Each of us here as divinely as any is here.

12.

You Hottentot with clicking palate! You woolly-haired hordes! You owned persons, dropping sweat-drops or blood-drops! You human forms with the fathomless ever-impressive countenances of brutes! I dare not refuse you--the scope of the world, and of time and space, are upon me.

You poor koboo whom the meanest of the rest look down upon, for all your glimmering language and spirituality! You low expiring aborigines of the hills of Utah, Oregon, California! You dwarfed Kamtschatkan, Greenlander, Lap! You Austral negro, naked, red, sooty, with protrusive lip, grovelling, seeking your food! You Caffre, Berber, Soudanese! You haggard, uncouth, untutored Bedowee! You plague-swarms in Madras, Nankin, Kaubul, Cairo! You bather bathing in the Ganges! You benighted roamer of Amazonia! you Patagonian! you Fejee-man! You peon of Mexico! you slave of Carolina, Texas, Tennessee! I do not prefer others so very much before you either; I do not say one word against you, away back there, where you stand; You will come forward in due time to my side.

My spirit has passed in compassion and determination around the whole earth; I have looked for equals and lovers, and found them ready for me in all lands; I think some divine rapport has equalised me with them.

13.

O vapours! I think I have risen with you, and moved away to distant continents, and fallen down there, for reasons; I think I have blown with you, O winds; O waters, I have fingered every shore with you.

I have run through what any river or strait of the globe has run through; I have taken my stand on the bases of peninsulas, and on the highest embedded rocks, to cry thence.

_Salut au Monde!_ What cities the light or warmth penetrates, I penetrate those cities myself; All islands to which birds wing their way, I wing my way myself.

Toward all I raise high the perpendicular hand--I make the signal, To remain after me in sight for ever, For all the haunts and homes of men.

_A BROADWAY PAGEANT._

(RECEPTION OF THE JAPANESE EMBASSY, JUNE 16, 1860.)

1.

Over sea, hither from Niphon, Courteous, the Princes of Asia, swart-cheeked princes, First-comers, guests, two-sworded princes, Lesson-giving princes, leaning back in their open barouches, bare-headed, impassive, This day they ride through Manhattan.

2.

Libertad! I do not know whether others behold what I behold, In the procession, along with the Princes of Asia, the errand-bearers, Bringing up the rear, hovering above, around, or in the ranks marching; But I will sing you a song of what I behold, Libertad.

3.

When million-footed Manhattan, unpent, descends to its pavements; When the thunder-cracking guns arouse me with the proud roar I love; When the round-mouthed guns, out of the smoke and smell I love, spit their salutes; When the fire-flashing guns have fully alerted me--when heaven-clouds canopy my city with a delicate thin haze; When, gorgeous, the countless straight stems, the forests at the wharves, thicken with colours; When every ship, richly dressed, carries her flag at the peak; When pennants trail, and street-festoons hang from the windows; When Broadway is entirely given up to foot-passengers and foot-standers-- when the mass is densest; When the façades of the houses are alive with people--when eyes gaze, riveted, tens of thousands at a time; When the guests from the islands advance--when the pageant moves forward, visible; When the summons is made--when the answer, that waited thousands of years, answers; I too, arising, answering, descend to the pavements, merge with the crowd, and gaze with them.

4.

Superb-faced Manhattan! Comrade Americanos!--to us, then, at last, the Orient comes. To us, my city, Where our tall-topped marble and iron beauties range on opposite sides--to walk in the space between, To-day our Antipodes comes.

The Originatress comes, The land of Paradise--land of the Caucasus--the nest of birth, The nest of languages, the bequeather of poems, the race of eld, Florid with blood, pensive, rapt with musings, hot with passion, Sultry with perfume, with ample and flowing garments, With sunburnt visage, with intense soul and glittering eyes, The race of Brahma comes!

See, my cantabile! these, and more, are flashing to us from the procession; As it moves changing, a kaleidoscope divine it moves changing before us.

Not the errand-bearing princes, nor the tanned Japanee only; Lithe and silent, the Hindoo appears--the whole Asiatic continent itself appears--the Past, the dead, The murky night-morning of wonder and fable, inscrutable, The enveloped mysteries, the old and unknown hive-bees, The North--the sweltering South--Assyria--the Hebrews--the Ancient of ancients, Vast desolated cities--the gliding Present--all of these, and more, are in the pageant-procession.

Geography, the world, is in it; The Great Sea, the brood of islands, Polynesia, the coast beyond; The coast you henceforth are facing--you Libertad! from your Western golden shores; The countries there, with their populations--the millions _en masse_, are curiously here; The swarming market-places--the temples, with idols ranged along the sides, or at the end--bronze, brahmin, and lama; The mandarin, farmer, merchant, mechanic, and fisherman; The singing-girl and the dancing-girl--the ecstatic person--the divine Buddha; The secluded Emperors--Confucius himself--the great poets and heroes--the warriors, the castes, all, Trooping up, crowding from all directions--from the Altay mountains, From Thibet--from the four winding and far-flowing rivers of China, From the Southern peninsulas, and the demi-continental islands--from Malaysia; These, and whatever belongs to them, palpable, show forth to me, and are seized by me, And I am seized by them, and friendlily held by them, Till, as here, them all I chant, Libertad! for themselves and for you.

5.

For I too, raising my voice, join the ranks of this pageant; I am the chanter--I chant aloud over the pageant; I chant the world on my Western Sea; I chant, copious, the islands beyond, thick as stars in the sky; I chant the new empire, grander than any before--As in a vision it comes to me; I chant America, the Mistress--I chant a greater supremacy; I chant, projected, a thousand blooming cities yet, in time, on those groups of sea-islands; I chant my sail-ships and steam-ships threading the archipelagoes; I chant my stars and stripes fluttering in the wind; I chant commerce opening, the sleep of ages having done its work--races reborn, refreshed; Lives, works, resumed--The object I know not--but the old, the Asiatic, resumed, as it must be, Commencing from this day, surrounded by the world.

And you, Libertad of the world! You shall sit in the middle, well-poised, thousands of years; As to-day, from one side, the Princes of Asia come to you; As to-morrow, from the other side, the Queen of England sends her eldest son to you.

The sign is reversing, the orb is enclosed, The ring is circled, the journey is done; The box-lid is but perceptibly opened--nevertheless the perfume pours copiously out of the whole box.

6.

Young Libertad! With the venerable Asia, the all-mother, Be considerate with her, now and ever, hot Libertad--for you are all; Bend your proud neck to the long-off mother, now sending messages over the archipelagoes to you: Bend your proud neck for once, young Libertad.

7.

Were the children straying westward so long? so wide the tramping? Were the precedent dim ages debouching westward from Paradise so long? Were the centuries steadily footing it that way, all the while unknown, for you, for reasons? They are justified--they are accomplished--they shall now be turned the other way also, to travel toward you thence; They shall now also march obediently eastward, for your sake, Libertad.

_OLD IRELAND._

1.

Far hence, amid an isle of wondrous beauty, Crouching over a grave, an ancient sorrowful mother, Once a queen--now lean and tattered, seated on the ground, Her old white hair drooping dishevelled round her shoulders; At her feet fallen an unused royal harp, Long silent--she too long silent--mourning her shrouded hope and heir; Of all the earth her heart most full of sorrow, because most full of love.

2.

Yet a word, ancient mother; You need crouch there no longer on the cold ground, with forehead between your knees; O you need not sit there, veiled in your old white hair, so dishevelled; For know you, the one you mourn is not in that grave; It was an illusion--the heir, the son you love, was not really dead; The Lord is not dead--he is risen again, young and strong, in another country; Even while you wept there by your fallen harp, by the grave, What you wept for was translated, passed from the grave, The winds favoured, and the sea sailed it, And now, with rosy and new blood, Moves to-day in a new country.

_BOSTON TOWN._

1.

To get betimes in Boston town, I rose this morning early; Here's a good place at the corner--I must stand and see the show.

2.

Clear the way there, Jonathan! Way for the President's marshal! Way for the government cannon! Way for the Federal foot and dragoons--and the apparitions copiously tumbling.

I love to look on the stars and stripes--I hope the fifes will play "Yankee Doodle," How bright shine the cutlasses of the foremost troops! Every man holds his revolver, marching stiff through Boston town.

3.

A fog follows--antiques of the same come limping, Some appear wooden-legged, and some appear bandaged and bloodless.

Why this is indeed a show! It has called the dead out of the earth! The old graveyards of the hills have hurried to see! Phantoms! phantoms countless by flank and rear! Cocked hats of mothy mould! crutches made of mist! Arms in slings! old men leaning on young men's shoulders!

What troubles you, Yankee phantoms? What is all this chattering of bare
gums?
Does the ague convulse your limbs? Do you mistake your crutches for
firelocks, and level them?

If you blind your eyes with tears, you will not see the President's marshal; If you groan such groans, you might baulk the government cannon.

For shame, old maniacs! Bring down those tossed arms, and let your white hair be; Here gape your great grandsons--their wives gaze at them from the windows, See how well-dressed--see how orderly they conduct themselves.

Worse and worse! Can't you stand it? Are you retreating? Is this hour with the living too dead for you?

Retreat then! Pell-mell! To your graves! Back! back to the hills, old limpers! I do not think you belong here, anyhow.

4.

But there is one thing that belongs here--shall I tell you what it is,
gentlemen of Boston?

I will whisper it to the Mayor--He shall send a committee to England; They shall get a grant from the Parliament, go with a cart to the royal vault--haste! Dig out King George's coffin, unwrap him quick from the grave-clothes, box up his bones for a journey; Find a swift Yankee clipper--here is freight for you, black-bellied clipper, Up with your anchor! shake out your sails! steer straight toward Boston bay.

5.

Now call for the President's marshal again, bring out the government
cannon,
Fetch home the roarers from Congress,--make another procession, guard it
with foot and dragoons.

This centre-piece for them! Look, all orderly citizens! Look from the windows, women!

The committee open the box; set up the regal ribs; glue those that will not stay; Clap the skull on top of the ribs, and clap a crown on top of the skull.

You have got your revenge, old bluster! The crown is come to its own, and
more than its own.

6.

Stick your hands in your pockets, Jonathan--you are a made man from this day; You are mighty 'cute--and here is one of your bargains.

_FRANCE, THE EIGHTEENTH YEAR OF THESE STATES._[1]

1.

A great year and place; A harsh, discordant, natal scream out-sounding, to touch the mother's heart closer than any yet.

2.

I walked the shores of my Eastern Sea, Heard over the waves the little voice, Saw the divine infant, where she woke, mournfully wailing, amid the roar of cannon, curses, shouts, crash of falling buildings; Was not so sick from the blood in the gutters running--nor from the single corpses, nor those in heaps, nor those borne away in the tumbrils; Was not so desperate at the battues of death--was not so shocked at the repeated fusillades of the guns.

Pale, silent, stern, what could I say to that long-accrued retribution? Could I wish humanity different? Could I wish the people made of wood and stone? Or that there be no justice in destiny or time?

3.

O Liberty! O mate for me! Here too the blaze, the bullet, and the axe, in reserve to fetch them out in case of need, Here too, though long repressed, can never be destroyed; Here too could rise at last, murdering and ecstatic; Here too demanding full arrears of vengeance.

Hence I sign this salute over the sea, And I do not deny that terrible red birth and baptism, But remember the little voice that I heard wailing--and wait with perfect trust, no matter how long; And from to-day, sad and cogent, I maintain the bequeathed cause, as for all lands, And I send these words to Paris with my love, And I guess some _chansonniers_ there will understand them, For I guess there is latent music yet in France--floods of it. O I hear already the bustle of instruments--they will soon be drowning all that would interrupt them; O I think the east wind brings a triumphal and free march, It reaches hither--it swells me to joyful madness, I will run transpose it in words, to justify it, I will yet sing a song for you, _ma femme!_

[Footnote 1: 1793-4---The great poet of Democracy is "not so shocked" at the great European year of Democracy.]

_EUROPE, THE SEVENTY-SECOND AND SEVENTY-THIRD YEARS OF THESE STATES._[1]

1.

Suddenly, out of its stale and drowsy lair, the lair of slaves, Like lightning it leaped forth, half startled at itself, Its feet upon the ashes and the rags--its hands tight to the throats of kings.

O hope and faith! O aching close of exiled patriots' lives! O many a sickened heart! Turn back unto this day, and make yourselves afresh.

2.

And you, paid to defile the People! you liars, mark! Not for numberless agonies, murders, lusts, For court thieving in its manifold mean forms, worming from his simplicity the poor man's wages, For many a promise sworn by royal lips, and broken, and laughed at in the breaking, Then in their power, not for all these did the blows strike revenge, or the heads of the nobles fall; The People scorned the ferocity of kings.

3.

But the sweetness of mercy brewed bitter destruction, and the frightened rulers come back; Each comes in state with his train--hangman, priest, tax-gatherer, Soldier, lawyer, lord, jailer, and sycophant.

4.

Yet behind all, lowering, stealing--lo, a Shape, Vague as the night, draped interminably, head, front, and form, in scarlet folds, Whose face and eyes none may see: Out of its robes only this--the red robes, lifted by the arm-- One finger crooked, pointed high over the top, like the head of a snake appears.

5.

Meanwhile, corpses lie in new-made graves--bloody corpses of young men; The rope of the gibbet hangs heavily, the bullets of princes are flying, the creatures of power laugh aloud, And all these things bear fruits--and they are good.

Those corpses of young men, Those martyrs that hang from the gibbets--those hearts pierced by the grey lead, Cold and motionless as they seem, live elsewhere with unslaughtered vitality.

They live in other young men, O kings! They live in brothers, again ready to defy you! They were purified by death--they were taught and exalted. Not a grave of the murdered for freedom but grows seed for freedom, in its turn to bear seed, Which the winds carry afar and resow, and the rains and the snows nourish.

Not a disembodied spirit can the weapons of tyrants let loose, But it stalks invisibly over the earth, whispering, counselling, cautioning.

6.

Liberty! let others despair of you! I never despair of you.

Is the house shut? Is the master away? Nevertheless, be ready--be not weary of watching: He will soon return--his messengers come anon.

[Footnote 1: The years 1848 and 1849.]

_TO A FOILED REVOLTER OR REVOLTRESS._

1.

Courage! my brother or my sister! Keep on! Liberty is to be subserved, whatever occurs; That is nothing that is quelled by one or two failures, or any number of failures, Or by the indifference or ingratitude of the people, or by any unfaithfulness, Or the show of the tushes of power, soldiers, cannon, penal statutes.

2.

What we believe in waits latent for ever through all the continents, and
all the islands and archipelagoes of the sea.

What we believe in invites no one, promises nothing, sits in calmness and light, is positive and composed, knows no discouragement, Waiting patiently, waiting its time.

3.

The battle rages with many a loud alarm, and frequent advance and retreat, The infidel triumphs--or supposes he triumphs, The prison, scaffold, garrote, handcuffs, iron necklace and anklet, lead- balls, do their work, The named and unnamed heroes pass to other spheres, The great speakers and writers are exiled--they lie sick in distant lands, The cause is asleep--the strongest throats are still, choked with their own blood, The young men drop their eyelashes toward the ground when they meet; But, for all this, Liberty has not gone out of the place, nor the infidel entered into possession.

When Liberty goes out of a place, it is not the first to go, nor the second or third to go, It waits for all the rest to go--it is the last.

When there are no more memories of heroes and martyrs, And when all life and all the souls of men and women are discharged from any part of the earth, Then only shall Liberty be discharged from that part of the earth, And the infidel and the tyrant come into possession.

4.

Then courage! revolter! revoltress! For till all ceases neither must you cease.

5.

I do not know what you are for, (I do not know what I am for myself, nor what anything is for,) But I will search carefully for it even in being foiled, In defeat, poverty, imprisonment--for they too are great.

Did we think victory great? So it is--But now it seems to me, when it cannot be helped, that defeat is great, And that death and dismay are great.

_DRUM TAPS._

_MANHATTAN ARMING._

1.

First, O songs, for a prelude, Lightly strike on the stretched tympanum, pride and joy in my city, How she led the rest to arms--how she gave the cue, How at once with lithe limbs, unwaiting a moment, she sprang; O superb! O Manhattan, my own, my peerless! O strongest you in the hour of danger, in crisis! O truer than steel! How you sprang! how you threw off the costumes of peace with indifferent hand; How your soft opera-music changed, and the drum and fife were heard in their stead; How you led to the war, (that shall serve for our prelude, songs of soldiers,) How Manhattan drum-taps led.

2.

Forty years had I in my city seen soldiers parading; Forty years as a pageant--till unawares, the Lady of this teeming and turbulent city, Sleepless, amid her ships, her houses, her incalculable wealth, With her million children around her--suddenly, At dead of night, at news from the South, Incensed, struck with clenched hand the pavement.

A shock electric--the night sustained it; Till, with ominous hum, our hive at daybreak poured out its myriads.

From the houses then, and the workshops, and through all the doorways, Leaped they tumultuous--and lo! Manhattan arming.

3.

To the drum-taps prompt, The young men falling in and arming; The mechanics arming, the trowel, the jack-plane, the black-smith's hammer, tossed aside with precipitation; The lawyer leaving his office, and arming--the judge leaving the court; The driver deserting his waggon in the street, jumping down, throwing the reins abruptly down on the horses' backs; The salesman leaving the store--the boss, book-keeper, porter, all leaving; Squads gathering everywhere by common consent, and arming; The new recruits, even boys--the old men show them how to wear their accoutrements--they buckle the straps carefully; Outdoors arming--indoors arming--the flash of the musket-barrels; The white tents cluster in camps--the armed sentries around--the sunrise cannon, and again at sunset; Armed regiments arrive every day, pass through the city, and embark from the wharves; How good they look, as they tramp down to the river, sweaty, with their guns on their shoulders! How I love them! how I could hug them, with their brown faces, and their clothes and knapsacks covered with dust! The blood of the city up--armed! armed! the cry everywhere; The flags flung out from the steeples of churches, and from all the public buildings and stores; The tearful parting--the mother kisses her son--the son kisses his mother; Loth is the mother to part--yet not a word does she speak to detain him; The tumultuous escort--the ranks of policemen preceding, clearing the way; The unpent enthusiasm--the wild cheers of the crowd for their favourites; The artillery--the silent cannons, bright as gold, drawn along, rumble lightly over the stones; Silent cannons--soon to cease your silence, Soon, unlimbered, to begin the red business! All the mutter of preparation--all the determined arming; The hospital service--the lint, bandages, and medicines; The women volunteering for nurses--the work begun for, in earnest--no mere parade now; War! an armed race is advancing!--the welcome for battle--no turning away; War! be it weeks, months, or years--an armed race is advancing to welcome it.

4.

Mannahatta a-march!--and it's O to sing it well! It's O for a manly life in the camp!

5.

And the sturdy artillery! The guns, bright as gold--the work for giants--to serve well the guns: Unlimber them! no more, as the past forty years, for salutes for courtesies merely; Put in something else now besides powder and wadding.

6.

And you, Lady of Ships! you, Mannahatta! Old matron of the city! this proud, friendly, turbulent city! Often in peace and wealth you were pensive, or covertly frowned amid all your children; But now you smile with joy, exulting old Mannahatta!

_1861._

Armed year! year of the struggle! No dainty rhymes or sentimental love verses for you, terrible year! Not you as some pale poetling, seated at a desk, lisping cadenzas piano; But as a strong man, erect, clothed in blue clothes, advancing, carrying a rifle on your shoulder, With well-gristled body and sunburnt face and hands--with a knife in the belt at your side, As I heard you shouting loud--your sonorous voice ringing across the continent; Your masculine voice, O year, as rising amid the great cities, Amid the men of Manhattan I saw you, as one of the workmen, the dwellers in Manhattan; Or with large steps crossing the prairies out of Illinois and Indiana, Rapidly crossing the West with springy gait, and descending the Alleghanies; Or down from the great lakes, or in Pennsylvania, or on deck along the Ohio river; Or southward along the Tennessee or Cumberland rivers, or at Chattanooga on the mountain-top, Saw I your gait and saw I your sinewy limbs, clothed in blue, bearing weapons, robust year; Heard your determined voice, launched forth again and again; Year that suddenly sang by the mouths of the round-lipped cannon, I repeat you, hurrying, crashing, sad, distracted year.

_THE UPRISING._

1.

Rise, O days, from your fathomless deeps, till you loftier and fiercer sweep! Long for my soul, hungering gymnastic, I devoured what the earth gave me; Long I roamed the woods of the North--long I watched Niagara pouring; I travelled the prairies over, and slept on their breast--I crossed the Nevadas, I crossed the plateaus; I ascended the towering rocks along the Pacific, I sailed out to sea; I sailed through the storm, I was refreshed by the storm; I watched with joy the threatening maws of the waves; I marked the white combs where they careered so high, curling over; I heard the wind piping, I saw the black clouds; Saw from below what arose and mounted, (O superb! O wild as my heart, and powerful!) Heard the continuous thunder, as it bellowed after the lightning; Noted the slender and jagged threads of lightning, as sudden and fast amid the din they chased each other across the sky; --These, and such as these, I, elate, saw--saw with wonder, yet pensive and masterful; All the menacing might of the globe uprisen around me; Yet there with my soul I fed--I fed content, supercilious.

2.

'Twas well, O soul! 'twas a good preparation you gave me! Now we advance our latent and ampler hunger to fill; Now we go forth to receive what the earth and the sea never gave us; Not through the mighty woods we go, but through the mightier cities; Something for us is pouring now, more than Niagara pouring; Torrents of men, (sources and rills of the North-west, are you indeed inexhaustible?) What, to pavements and homesteads here--what were those storms of the mountains and sea? What, to passions I witness around me to-day, was the sea risen? Was the wind piping the pipe of death under the black clouds?

Lo! from deeps more unfathomable, something more deadly and savage; Manhattan, rising, advancing with menacing front--Cincinnati, Chicago, unchained; --What was that swell I saw on the ocean? behold what comes here! How it climbs with daring feet and hands! how it dashes! How the true thunder bellows after the lightning! how bright the flashes of lightning! How DEMOCRACY with desperate vengeful port strides on, shown through the dark by those flashes of lightning! Yet a mournful wail and low sob I fancied I heard through the dark, In a lull of the deafening confusion.

3.

Thunder on! stride on, Democracy! strike with vengeful stroke! And do you rise higher than ever yet, O days, O cities! Crash heavier, heavier yet, O storms! you have done me good; My soul, prepared in the mountains, absorbs your immortal strong nutriment. Long had I walked my cities, my country roads, through farms, only half satisfied; One doubt, nauseous, undulating like a snake, crawled on the ground before me, Continually preceding my steps, turning upon me oft, ironically hissing low; --The cities I loved so well I abandoned and left--I sped to the certainties suitable to me Hungering, hungering, hungering, for primal energies, and Nature's dauntlessness, I refreshed myself with it only, I could relish it only; I waited the bursting forth of the pent fire--on the water and air I waited long. --But now I no longer wait--I am fully satisfied--I am glutted; I have witnessed the true lightning--I have witnessed my cities electric; I have lived to behold man burst forth, and warlike America rise; Hence I will seek no more the food of the northern solitary wilds, No more on the mountains roam, or sail the stormy sea.

_BEAT! BEAT! DRUMS!_

1.

Beat! beat! drums!--Blow! bugles! blow! Through the windows--through doors--burst like a force of ruthless men, Into the solemn church, and scatter the congregation; Into the school where the scholar is studying: Leave not the bridegroom quiet--no happiness must he have now with his bride; Nor the peaceful farmer any peace, ploughing his field or gathering his grain; So fierce you whirr and pound, you drums--so shrill you bugles blow.

2.

Beat! beat! drums!--Blow! bugles! blow! Over the traffic of cities--over the rumble of wheels in the streets: Are beds prepared, for sleepers at night in the houses? No sleepers must sleep in those beds; No bargainers' bargains by day--no brokers or speculators--Would they continue? Would the talkers be talking? would the singer attempt to sing? Would the lawyer rise in the court to state his case before the judge? Then rattle quicker, heavier, drums--you bugles wilder blow.

3.

Beat! beat! drums!--Blow! bugles! blow! Make no parley--stop for no expostulation; Mind not the timid--mind not the weeper or prayer; Mind not the old man beseeching the young man; Let not the child's voice be heard, nor the mother's entreaties; Make even the trestles to shake the dead, where they lie awaiting the hearses, So strong you thump, O terrible drums--so loud you bugles blow.

_SONG OF THE BANNER AT DAYBREAK._

POET.

O a new song, a free song, Flapping, flapping, flapping, flapping, by sounds, by voices clearer, By the wind's voice and that of the drum, By the banner's voice, and child's voice, and sea's voice, and father's voice, Low on the ground and high in the air, On the ground where father and child stand, In the upward air where their eyes turn, Where the banner at daybreak is flapping.

Words! book-words! what are you? Words no more, for hearken and see, My song is there in the open air--and I must sing, With the banner and pennant a-flapping.

I'll weave the chord and twine in, Man's desire and babe's desire--I'll twine them in, I'll put in life; I'll put the bayonet's flashing point--I'll let bullets and slugs whizz; I'll pour the verse with streams of blood, full of volition, full of joy; Then loosen, launch forth, to go and compete, With the banner and pennant a-flapping.

BANNER AND PENNANT.

Come up here, bard, bard; Come up here, soul, soul; Come up here, dear little child, To fly in the clouds and winds with us, and play with the measureless light.

CHILD.

Father, what is that in the sky beckoning to me with long finger? And what does it say to me all the while?

FATHER.

Nothing, my babe, you see in the sky; And nothing at all to you it says. But look you, my babe, Look at these dazzling things in the houses, and see you the money-shops opening; And see you the vehicles preparing to crawl along the streets with goods: These! ah, these! how valued and toiled for, these! How envied by all the earth!

POET.

Fresh and rosy red, the sun is mounting high; On floats the sea in distant blue, careering through its channels; On floats the wind over the breast of the sea, setting in toward land; The great steady wind from west and west-by-south, Floating so buoyant, with milk-white foam on the waters.

But I am not the sea, nor the red sun; I am not the wind, with girlish laughter; Not the immense wind which strengthens--not the wind which lashes; Not the spirit that ever lashes its own body to terror and death: But I am of that which unseen comes and sings, sings, sings, Which babbles in brooks and scoots in showers on the land; Which the birds know in the woods, mornings and evenings, And the shore-sands know, and the hissing wave, and that banner and pennant, Aloft there flapping and flapping.

CHILD.

O father, it is alive--it is full of people--it has children! O now it seems to me it is talking to its children! I hear it--it talks to me--O it is wonderful! O it stretches--it spreads and runs so fast! O my father, It is so broad it covers the whole sky!

FATHER.

Cease, cease, my foolish babe, What you are saying is sorrowful to me--much it displeases me; Behold with the rest, again I say--behold not banners and pennants aloft; But the well-prepared pavements behold--and mark the solid-walled houses.

BANNER AND PENNANT.

Speak to the child, O bard, out of Manhattan; Speak to our children all, or north or south of Manhattan, Where our factory-engines hum, where our miners delve the ground, Where our hoarse Niagara rumbles, where our prairie-ploughs are ploughing; Speak, O bard! point this day, leaving all the rest, to us over all--and yet we know not why; For what are we, mere strips of cloth, profiting nothing, Only flapping in the wind?

POET.

I hear and see not strips of cloth alone; I hear the tramp of armies, I hear the challenging sentry; I hear the jubilant shouts of millions of men--I hear LIBERTY! I hear the drums beat, and the trumpets blowing; I myself move abroad, swift-rising, flying then; I use the wings of the land-bird, and use the wings of the sea-bird, and look down as from a height. I do not deny the precious results of peace--I see populous cities, with wealth incalculable; I see numberless farms--I see the farmers working in their fields or barns; I see mechanics working--I see buildings everywhere founded, going up, or finished; I see trains of cars swiftly speeding along railroad tracks, drawn by the locomotives; I see the stores, depots, of Boston, Baltimore, Charleston, New Orleans; I see far in the west the immense area of grain--I dwell a while, hovering; I pass to the lumber forests of the north, and again to the southern plantation, and again to California; Sweeping the whole, I see the countless profit, the busy gatherings, earned wages; See the identity formed out of thirty-six spacious and haughty States, (and many more to come;) See forts on the shores of harbours--see ships sailing in and out; Then over all, (aye! aye!) my little and lengthened pennant shaped like a sword Runs swiftly up, indicating war and defiance--And now the halyards have raised it, Side of my banner broad and blue--side of my starry banner, Discarding peace over all the sea and land.

BANNER AND PENNANT.