Leaves of Grass First and Death-Bed Editions (25 page)

 

Now call the President’s marshal again, and bring out the
government cannon,
And fetch home the roarers from Congress, and make another
procession and guard it with foot and dragoons.

 

“Out of the mines”—About 41 years old, c.1860, photo probably taken by
J. W. Black in Boston, Massachusetts. Courtesy of the Bayley-Whitman
Collection of Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, Ohio, and the Walt
Whitman Birthplace Association, Huntington, New York. Saunders #2.

Here is a centrepiece for them:
Look! all orderly citizens .... look from the windows women.

 

The committee open the box and set up the regal ribs and glue
those that will not stay,
And clap the skull on top of the ribs, and clap a crown on top of
the skull.
⁴⁵

 

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

 

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.

THERE was a child went forth every day,
And the first object he looked upon and received with wonder or
pity or love or dread, that object he became,
And that object became part of him for the day or a certain part
of the day .... or for many years or stretching cycles of years.

 

The early lilacs became part of this child,
And grass, and white and red morningglories, and white and red
clover, and the song of the phœbe-bird,
And the March-born lambs, and the sow’s pink-faint litter, and the
mare’s foal, and the cow’s calf, and the noisy brood of the
barnyard or by the mire of the pondside .. and the fish
suspending themselves so curiously below there .. and the
beautiful curious liquid .. and the water-plants with their
graceful flat heads .. all became part of him.

And the field-sprouts of April and May became part of him ....
wintergrain sprouts, and those of the light-yellow corn, and of
the esculent roots of the garden,
And the appletrees covered with blossoms, and the fruit
afterward .... and woodberries .. and the commonest weeds
by the road;
And the old drunkard staggering home from the outhouse of the
tavern whence he had lately risen,
And the schoolmistress that passed on her way to the school ..
and the friendly boys that passed .. and the quarrelsome
boys .. and the tidy and freshcheeked girls .. and the barefoot
negro boy and girl,
And all the changes of city and country wherever he went.

 

His own parents .. he that had propelled the fatherstuff at night,
and fathered him .. and she that conceived him in her womb
and birthed him .... they gave this child more of themselves
than that,
They gave him afterward every day .... they and of them became
part of him.

 

The mother at home quietly placing the dishes on the
suppertable,
The mother with mild words .... clean her cap and gown .... a
wholesome odor falling off her person and clothes as she
walks by:
The father, strong, selfsufficient, manly, mean, angered,
unjust,
The blow, the quick loud word, the tight bargain, the crafty
lure,
⁴⁶
The family usages, the language, the company, the furniture ....
the yearning and swelling heart,
Affection that will not be gainsayed .... The sense of what is
real .... the thought if after all it should prove unreal,
The doubts of daytime and the doubts of nighttime ... the
curious whether and how,
Whether that which appears so is so .... Or is it all flashes and
specks?

Men and women crowding fast in the streets.. if they are not
flashes and specks what are they?
The streets themselves, and the facades of houses .... the goods
in the windows,
Vehicles .. teams .. the tiered wharves, and the huge crossing at
the ferries;
The village on the highland seen from afar at sunset .... the river
between,
Shadows .. aureola and mist.. light falling on roofs and gables of
white or brown, three miles off,
The schooner near by sleepily dropping down the tide .. the little
boat slacktowed astern,
The hurrying tumbling waves and quickbroken crests and
slapping;
The strata of colored clouds .... the long bar of maroontint
away solitary by itself .... the spread of purity it lies
motionless in,
The horizon’s edge, the flying seacrow, the fragrance of saltmarsh
and shoremud;
These became part of that child who went forth every day, and
who now goes and will always go forth every day,
And these become of him or her that peruses them now.

WHO learns my lesson complete?
Boss and journeyman and apprentice? .... churchman and
atheist?
The stupid and the wise thinker .... parents and offspring ....
merchant and clerk and porter and customer .... editor,
author, artist and schoolboy?

 

Draw nigh and commence,
It is no lesson .... it lets down the bars to a good lesson,
And that to another .... and every one to another still.

The great laws take and effuse without argument,
I am of the same style, for I am their friend,
I love them quits and quits .... I do not halt and make salaams.

 

I lie abstracted and hear beautiful tales of things and the reasons
of things,
They are so beautiful I nudge myself to listen.

 

I cannot say to any person what I hear .... I cannot say it to myself .... it is very wonderful.

 

It is no little matter, this round and delicious globe, moving so
exactly in its orbit forever and ever, without one jolt or the
untruth of a single second;
I do not think it was made in six days, nor in ten thousand years,
nor ten decillions of years,
Nor planned and built one thing after another, as an architect
plans and builds a house.

 

I do not think seventy years is the time of a man or woman,
Nor that seventy millions of years is the time of a man or
woman,
Nor that years will ever stop the existence of me or any one else.

 

Is it wonderful that I should be immortal? as every one is
immortal,
I know it is wonderful .... but my eyesight is equally
wonderful .... and how I was conceived in my mother’s
womb is equally wonderful,
And how I was not palpable once but am now .... and was born
on the last day of May 1819 .... and passed from a babe in
the creeping trance of three summers and three winters to
articulate and walk .... are all equally wonderful.

 

And that I grew six feet high .... and that I have become a man
thirty-six years old in 1855
⁴⁷
.... and that I am here anyhow—
are all equally wonderful;
And that my soul embraces you this hour, and we affect each
other without ever seeing each other, and never perhaps to
see each other, is every bit as wonderful:
And that I can think such thoughts as these is just as
wonderful,
And that I can remind you, and you think them and know them
to be true is just as wonderful,
And that the moon spins round the earth and on with the earth is
equally wonderful,
And that they balance themselves with the sun and stars is equally
wonderful.

 

Come I should like to hear you tell me what there is in yourself
that is not just as wonderful,
And I should like to hear the name of anything between
Sunday morning and Saturday night that is not just as
wonderful.

GREAT are the myths .... I too delight in them,
Great are Adam and Eve .... I too look back and accept them;
Great the risen and fallen nations, and their poets, women, sages,
inventors, rulers, warriors and priests.

 

Great is liberty! Great is equality! I am their follower,
Helmsmen of nations, choose your craft .... where you sail
I sail,
Yours is the muscle of life or death .... yours is the perfect
science .... in you I have absolute faith.

 

Great is today, and beautiful,
It is good to live in this age .... there never was any better.

 

Great are the plunges and throes and triumphs and falls of
democracy,
Great the reformers with their lapses and screams,
Great the daring and venture of sailors on new explorations.

 

Great are yourself and myself,
We are just as good and bad as the oldest and youngest
or any,
What the best and worst did we could do,
What they felt .. do not we feel it in ourselves?
What they wished .. do we not wish the same?

 

Great is youth, and equally great is old age .... great are the day
and night;
Great is wealth and great is poverty .... great is expression and
great is silence.

 

Youth large lusty and loving .... youth full of grace and force and
fascination,
Do you know that old age may come after you with equal grace
and force and fascination?

 

Day fullblown and splendid .... day of the immense sun, and
action and ambition and laughter,
The night follows close, with millions of suns, and sleep and
restoring darkness.

 

Wealth with the flush hand and fine clothes and
hospitality:
But then the soul’s wealth—which is candor and knowledge and
pride and enfolding love:
Who goes for men and women showing poverty richer than
wealth?

 

Expression of speech .. in what is written or said forget not that
silence is also expressive,
That anguish as hot as the hottest and contempt as cold as the
coldest may be without words,
That the true adoration is likewise without words and without
kneeling.
Great is the greatest nation .. the nation of clusters of equal
nations.

 

Great is the earth, and the way it became what it is,
Do you imagine it is stopped at this? .... and the increase
abandoned?
Understand then that it goes as far onward from this as this is
from the times when it lay in covering waters and gases.

 

Great is the quality of truth in man,
The quality of truth in man supports itself through all
changes,
It is inevitably in the man .... He and it are in love, and never
leave each other.

 

The truth in man is no dictum .... it is vital as eyesight,
If there be any soul there is truth .... if there be man or woman
there is truth .... If there be physical or moral there is
truth,
If there be equilibrium or volition there is truth .... if there be
things at all upon the earth there is truth.

 

O truth of the earth! O truth of things! I am determined to press
the whole way toward you,
Sound your voice! I scale mountains. or dive in the sea
after you.

 

Great is language .... it is the mightiest of the sciences,
It is the fulness and color and form and diversity of the earth ....
and of men and women .... and of all qualities and
processes;
It is greater than wealth .... it is greater than buildings or ships or
religions or paintings or music.

 

Great is the English speech .... What speech is so great as the
English?
Great is the English brood .... What brood has so vast a destiny
as the English?

It is the mother of the brood that must rule the earth with the
new rule,
The new rule shall rule as the soul rules, and as the love and
justice and equality that are in the soul rule.

 

Great is the law .... Great are the old few landmarks of the law ....
they are the same in all times and shall not be disturbed.
Great are marriage, commerce, newspapers, books, freetrade,
railroads, steamers, international mails and telegraphs and
exchanges.

 

Great is Justice;
Justice is not settled by legislators and laws .... it is in the soul,
It cannot be varied by statutes any more than love or pride or the
attraction of gravity can,
It is immutable .. it does not depend on majorities .... majorities
or what not come at last before the same passionless and
exact tribunal.

 

For justice are the grand natural lawyers and perfect judges .... it
is in their souls,
It is well assorted .... they have not studied for nothing .... the
great includes the less,
They rule on the highest grounds .... they oversee all eras and
states and administrations,

 

The perfect judge fears nothing .... he could go front to front
before God,
Before the perfect judge all shall stand back .... life and death
shall stand back .... heaven and hell shall stand back.

 

Great is goodness;
I do not know what it is any more than I know what health is ....
but I know it is great.