Leaves of Grass First and Death-Bed Editions (24 page)

 

This face is an epilepsy advertising and doing business .... its
wordless tongue gives out the unearthly cry,
Its veins down the neck distend .... its eyes roll till they show
nothing but their whites,
Its teeth grit .. the palms of the hands are cut by the turned-in
nails,
The man falls struggling and foaming to the ground while he
speculates well.

 

This face is bitten by vermin and worms,
And this is some murderer’s knife with a halfpulled scabbard.

 

This face owes to the sexton his dismalest fee,
An unceasing deathbell tolls there.

 

Those are really men! .... the bosses and tufts of the great round
globe!
Features of my equals, would you trick me with your creased and
cadaverous march?
Well then you cannot trick me.

 

I see your rounded never-erased flow,
I see neath the rims of your haggard and mean disguises.

 

Splay and twist as you like .... poke with the tangling fores of
fishes or rats,
You’ll be unmuzzled .... you certainly will.

 

I saw the face of the most smeared and slobbering idiot they had
at the asylum,
And I knew for my consolation what they knew not;
I knew of the agents that emptied and broke my brother,
⁴²
The same wait to clear the rubbish from the fallen tenement;
And I shall look again in a score or two of ages,
And I shall meet the real landlord perfect and unharmed, every
inch as good as myself.

 

The Lord advances and yet advances:
Always the shadow in front .... always the reached hand bringing
up the laggards.

 

Out of this face emerge banners and horses .... O superb! .... I
see what is coming,
I see the high pioneercaps .... I see the staves of runners clearing
the way,
I hear victorious drums.

 

This face is a lifeboat;
This is the face commanding and bearded .... it asks no odds of
the rest;
This face is flavored fruit ready for eating;
This face of a healthy honest boy is the programme of all good.

These faces bear testimony slumbering or awake,
They show their descent from the Master himself.
Off the word I have spoken I except not one .... red white or
black, all are deific,
In each house is the ovum .... it comes forth after a thousand
years.

 

Spots or cracks at the windows do not disturb me,
Tall and sufficient stand behind and make signs to me;
I read the promise and patiently wait.

 

This is a fullgrown lily’s face,
She speaks to the limber-hip’d man near the garden pickets,
Come here, she blushingly cries .... Come nigh to me limber
hip’d man and give me your finger and thumb,
Stand at my side till I lean as high as I can upon you,
Fill me with albescent honey .... bend down to me,
Rub to me with your chafing beard .. rub to my breast and
shoulders.

 

The old face of the mother of many children:
Whist! I am fully content.

 

Lulled and late is the smoke of the Sabbath morning,
It hangs low over the rows of trees by the fences,
It hangs thin by the sassafras, the wildcherry and the catbrier
under them.

 

I saw the rich ladies in full dress at the soiree,
I heard what the run of poets were saying so long,
Heard who sprang in crimson youth from the white froth and the
water-blue.

 

Behold a woman!
She looks out from her quaker cap .... her face is clearer and
more beautiful than the sky.

 

She sits in an armchair under the shaded porch of the farm-
house,
The sun just shines on her old white head.

Her ample gown is of creamhued linen,
Her grandsons raised the flax, and her granddaughters spun it
with the distaff and the wheel.

 

The melodious character of the earth!
The finish beyond which philosophy cannot go and does not wish
to go!
The justified mother of men!

A YOUNG man came to me with a message from his brother,
How should the young man know the whether and when of his
brother?
Tell him to send me the signs.

 

And I stood before the young man face to face, and took his right
hand in my left hand and his left hand in my right hand,
And I answered for his brother and for men .... and I answered
for the poet, and sent these signs.

 

Him all wait for .... him all yield up to .... his word is decisive
and final,
Him they accept .... in him lave .... in him perceive
themselves as amid light,
Him they immerse, and he immerses them.

 

Beautiful women, the haughtiest nations, laws, the landscape,
people and animals,
The profound earth and its attributes, and the unquiet ocean,
All enjoyments and properties, and money, and whatever money
will buy,
The best farms .... others toiling and planting, and he
unavoidably reaps,
The noblest and costliest cities .... others grading and building,
and he domiciles there;

Nothing for any one but what is for him .... near and far are
for him,
The ships in the offing .... the perpetual shows and marches on
land are for him if they are for any body.

 

He puts things in their attitudes,
He puts today out of himself with plasticity and love,
He places his own city, times, reminiscences, parents, brothers and
sisters, associations employment and politics, so that the rest
never shame them afterward, nor assume to command them.

 

He is the answerer,
What can be answered he answers, and what cannot be answered
he shows how it cannot be answered.

 

A man is a summons and challenge,
It is vain to skulk .... Do you hear that mocking and laughter?
Do you hear the ironical echoes?

 

Books friendships philosophers priests action pleasure pride beat
up and down seeking to give satisfaction;
He indicates the satisfaction, and indicates them that beat up and
down also.

 

Whichever the sex ... whatever the season or place he may go
freshly and gently and safely by day or by night,
He has the passkey of hearts .... to him the response of the
prying of hands on the knobs.

His welcome is universal .... the flow of beauty is not more
welcome or universal than he is,
The person he favors by day or sleeps with at night is blessed.

Every existence has its idiom .... every thing has an idiom and
tongue;
He resolves all tongues into his own, and bestows it upon men ..
and any man translates .. and any man translates himself
also:
One part does not counteract another part .... He is the joiner ..
he sees how they join.

 

He says indifferently and alike, How are you friend? to the
President at his levee,
And he says Good day my brother, to Cudge
^ab
that hoes in the
sugarfield;
And both understand him and know that his speech is right.

 

He walks with perfect ease in the capitol,
He walks among the Congress .... and one representative says to
another, Here is our equal appearing and new.

 

Then the mechanics take him for a mechanic,
And the soldiers suppose him to be a captain .... and the sailors
that he has followed the sea,
And the authors take him for an author .... and the artists for an
artist,
And the laborers perceive he could labor with them and love them;
No matter what the work is, that he is one to follow it or has
followed it,
No matter what the nation, that he might find his brothers and
sisters there.

 

The English believe he comes of their English stock,
A Jew to the Jew he seems .... a Russ to the Russ .... usual and
near .. removed from none.

 

Whoever he looks at in the traveler’s coffeehouse claims him,
The Italian or Frenchman is sure, and the German is sure, and
the Spaniard is sure .... and the island Cuban is sure.

 

The engineer, the deckhand on the great lakes or on the Mississippi or St. Lawrence or Sacramento or Hudson or Delaware claims him.

The gentleman of perfect blood acknowledges his perfect blood,
The insulter, the prostitute, the angry person, the beggar, see
themselves in the ways of him .... he strangely transmutes
them,
They are not vile any more .... they hardly know themselves,
they are so grown.

 

You think it would be good to be the writer of melodious verses,
Well it would be good to be the writer of melodious verses;
But what are verses beyond the flowing character you could
have? .... or beyond beautiful manners and behaviour?
Or beyond one manly or affectionate deed of an
apprenticeboy? .... or old woman? .. or man that has been
in prison or is likely to be in prison?

SUDDENLY out of its stale and drowsy lair, the lair of slaves,
Like lightning Europe le‘pt 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 lives! O many a sickened heart!
Turn back unto this day, and make yourselves afresh.

 

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 of
personal revenge .. or the heads of the nobles fall;
The People scorned the ferocity of kings.

 

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

 

Yet behind all, 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 pointed high over the top, like the head of a snake
appears.

 

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 gray lead,
Cold and motionless as they seem .. live elsewhere with
unslaughter’d vitality.

 

They live in other young men, 0 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 re-sow, 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 counseling
cautioning.

 

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.

CLEAR the way there Jonathan!
^ac
Way for the President’s marshal! Way for the government
cannon!
Way for the federal foot and dragoons .... and the phantoms
afterward.

 

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

 

I love to look on the stars and stripes .... I hope the fifes will play Yankee Doodle.

 

How bright shine the foremost with cutlasses,
Every man holds his revolver .... marching stiff through Boston
town.

 

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

 

Why this is a show! It has called the dead out of the earth,
The old graveyards of the hills have hurried to see;
Uncountable phantoms gather by flank and rear of it,
Cocked hats of mothy mould and crutches made of mist,
Arms in slings and 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 balk the government
cannon.

 

For shame old maniacs! .... Bring down those tossed arms, and
let your white hair be;
Here gape your smart 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! .... Back to the hills, old limpers!
I do not think you belong here anyhow.

 

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, and go with a cart to
the royal vault.
Dig out King George’s coffin .... unwrap him quick from the
graveclothes .... box up his bones for a journey:
Find a swift Yankee clipper .... here is freight for you
blackbellied clipper,
Up with your anchor! shake out your sails! .... steer straight
toward Boston bay.