Leaves of Grass First and Death-Bed Editions (70 page)

 

The guest that was coming, he waited long, he is now
housed,
He is one of those who are beautiful and happy, he is one of those
that to look upon and be with is enough.

 

The law of the past cannot be eluded,
The law of the present and future cannot be eluded,
The law of the living cannot be eluded, it is eternal,
The law of promotion and transformation cannot be eluded,
The law of heroes and good-doers cannot be eluded,
The law of drunkards, informers, mean persons, not one iota
thereof can be eluded.

Slow moving and black lines go ceaselessly over the earth,
Northerner goes carried and Southerner goes carried, and they on
the Atlantic side and they on the Pacific,
And they between, and all through the Mississippi country, and
all over the earth.

 

The great masters and kosmos are well as they go, the heroes and
good-doers are well,
The known leaders and inventors and the rich owners and pious
and distinguish’d may be well,
But there is more account than that, there is strict account
of all.

 

The interminable hordes of the ignorant and wicked are not
nothing,
The barbarians of Africa and Asia are not nothing,
The perpetual successions of shallow people are not nothing as
they go.

 

Of and in all these things,
I have dream’d that we are not to be changed so much, nor the
law of us changed,
I have dream’d that heroes and good-doers shall be under the
present and past law,
And that murderers, drunkards, liars, shall be under the present
and past law,
For I have dream’d that the law they are under now is enough.

 

And I have dream’d that the purpose and essence of the known
life, the transient,
Is to form and decide identity for the unknown life, the permanent.

 

If all came but to ashes of dung,
If maggots and rats ended us, then Alarum! for we are betray‘d,
Then indeed suspicion of death.

Do you suspect death? if I were to suspect death I should die now,
Do you think I could walk pleasantly and well-suited toward
annihilation?

 

 

Pleasantly and well-suited I walk,
Whither I walk I cannot define, but I know it is good,
The whole universe indicates that it is good,
The past and the present indicate that it is good.

 

How beautiful and perfect are the animals!
How perfect the earth, and the minutest thing upon it!
What is called good is perfect, and what is called bad is just as
perfect,
The vegetables and minerals are all perfect, and the
imponderable fluids perfect;
Slowly and surely they have pass’d on to this, and slowly and
surely they yet pass on.

I swear I think now that every thing without exception has an
eternal soul!
The trees have, rooted in the ground! the weeds of the sea have!
the animals!

 

I swear I think there is nothing but immortality!
That the exquisite scheme is for it, and the nebulous float is for it,
and the cohering is for it!
And all preparation is for it—and identity is for it—and life and
materials are altogether for it!

Darest thou now O soul,
Walk out with me toward the unknown region,
Where neither ground is for the feet nor any path to follow?

 

No map there, nor guide,
Nor voice sounding, nor touch of human hand,
Nor face with blooming flesh, nor lips, nor eyes, are in that land.

 

I know it not O soul,
Nor dost thou, all is a blank before us,
All waits undream’d of in that region, that inaccessible land.

 

Till when the ties loosen,
All but the ties eternal, Time and Space,
Nor darkness, gravitation, sense, nor any bounds bounding us.

 

Then we burst forth, we float,
In Time and Space O soul, prepared for them,
Equal, equipt at last, (O joy! O fruit of all!) them to fulfil O soul.

Whispers of heavenly death murmur’d I hear,
Labial gossip of night, sibilant chorals,
Footsteps gently ascending, mystical breezes wafted soft and low,
Ripples of unseen rivers, tides of a current flowing, forever
flowing,
(Or is it the plashing of tears? the measureless waters of human
tears?)

 

I see, just see skyward, great cloud masses,
Mournfully slowly they roll, silently swelling and mixing,
With at times a half-dimm’d sadden’d far-off star,
Appearing and disappearing.

 

(Some parturition rather, some solemn immortal birth;
On the frontiers to eyes impenetrable,
Some soul is passing over.)

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, old, 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’s life;
Therefore let none expect mercy—have the seasons, gravitation,
the appointed days, mercy? no more have I,
But as the seasons and gravitation, and as all the appointed days
that forgive not,
I dispense from this side judgments inexorable without the least
remorse.

Consolator most mild, the promis’d one advancing,
With gentle hand extended, the mightier God am I,
Foretold by prophets and poets in their most rapt prophecies and
poems,
From this side, lo! the Lord Christ gazes—lo! Hermes I—lo!
mine is Hercules’ face,
All sorrow, labor, suffering, I, tallying it, absorb in myself,
Many times have I been rejected, taunted, put in prison, and
crucified, and many times shall be again,
All the world have I given up for my dear brothers’ and sisters’
sake, for the soul’s sake,
Wending my way through the homes of men, rich or poor, with
the kiss of affection,
For I am affection, I am the cheer-bringing God, with hope and
all-enclosing charity,
With indulgent words as to children, with fresh and sane words,
mine only,
Young and strong I pass knowing well I am destin’d myself to an
early death;
But my charity has no death—my wisdom dies not, neither early
nor late,
And my sweet love bequeath’d 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, proud as 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 dispel‘d, and my wiles
done, but that 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, 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 and Satan,
Ethereal, pervading all, (for without me what were all? what were
God?)
Essence of forms, life of the real identities, permanent, positive,
(namely the unseen,)
Life of the great round world, the sun and stars, and of man, I,
the general soul,
Here the square finishing, the solid, I the most solid,
Breathe my breath also through these songs.

Of him I love day and night I dream’d I heard he was
dead,
And I dream’d I went where they had buried him I love, but he
was not in that place,
And I dream’d I wander’d searching among burial-places to find
him,
And I found that every place was a burial-place;
The houses full of life were equally full of death, (this house is
now,)

The streets, the shipping, the places of amusement, the Chicago,
Boston, Philadelphia, the Mannahatta, were as full of the
dead as of the living,
And fuller, O vastly fuller of the dead than of the living;
And what I dream’d I will henceforth tell to every person and age,
And I stand henceforth bound to what I dream‘d,
And now I am willing to disregard burial-places and dispense with
them,
And if the memorials of the dead were put up indifferently
everywhere, even in the room where I eat or sleep, I should
be satisfied,
And if the corpse of any one I love, or if my own corpse, be
duly render’d to powder and pour’d in the sea, I shall be
satisfied,
Or if it be distributed to the winds I shall be satisfied.

Yet, yet, ye downcast hours, I know ye also,
Weights of lead, how ye clog and cling at my ankles,
Earth to a chamber of mourning turns—I hear the o‘erweening,
mocking voice,
Matter is conqueror—matter, triumphant only, continues onward.

 

Despairing cries float ceaselessly toward me,
The call of my nearest lover, putting forth, alarm‘d, uncertain,
The sea I am quickly to sail, come tell me,
Come tell me where I am speeding, tell me my destination.

 

I understand your anguish, but I cannot help you,
I approach, hear, behold, the sad mouth, the look out of the eyes,
your mute inquiry,
Whither I go from the bed I recline on, come tell me;
Old age, alarm‘d, uncertain—a young woman’s voice, appealing
to me for comfort;
A young man’s voice,
Shall I not escape?

As if a phantom caress’d me,
I thought I was not alone walking here by the shore;
But the one I thought was with me as now I walk by the shore,
the one I loved that caress’d me,
As I lean and look through the glimmering light, that one has
utterly disappear‘d,
And those appear that are hateful to me and mock me.

I need no assurances, I am a man who is pre-occupied of his own
soul;
I do not doubt that from under the feet and beside the hands and
face I am cognizant of, are now looking faces I am not
cognizant of, calm and actual faces,
I do not doubt but the majesty and beauty of the world are latent
in any iota of the world,
I do not doubt I am limitless, and that the universes are limitless,
in vain I try to think how limitless,
I do not doubt that the orbs and the systems of orbs play their swift
sports through the air on purpose, and that I shall one day be
eligible to do as much as they, and more than they,
I do not doubt that temporary affairs keep on and on millions of
years,
I do not doubt interiors have their interiors, and exteriors have
their exteriors, and that the eyesight has another eyesight, and
the hearing another hearing, and the voice another voice,
I do not doubt that the passionately-wept deaths of young men are
provided for, and that the deaths of young women and the
deaths of little children are provided for,
(Did you think Life was so well provided for, and Death, the
purport of all Life, is not well provided for?)
I do not doubt that wrecks at sea, no matter what the horrors of
them, no matter whose wife, child, husband, father, lover, has
gone down, are provided for, to the minutest points,
I do not doubt that whatever can possibly happen anywhere at
any time, is provided for in the inherences of things,
I do not think Life provides for all and for Time and Space, but I
believe Heavenly Death provides for all.

Quicksand years that whirl me I know not whither,
Your schemes, politics, fail, lines give way, substances mock and
elude me,
Only the theme I sing, the great and strong possess’d soul, eludes
not,
One‘s-self must never give way—that is the final substance—that
out of all is sure,
Out of politics, triumphs, battles, life, what at last finally
remains?
When shows break up what but One’s-Self is sure?

That music always round me, unceasing, unbeginning, yet long
untaught I did not hear,
But now the chorus I hear and am elated,
A tenor, strong, ascending with power and health, with glad notes
of daybreak I hear,
A soprano at intervals sailing buoyantly over the tops of immense
waves,
A transparent base shuddering lusciously under and through the
universe,
The triumphant tutti, the funeral wailings with sweet flutes and
violins, all these I fill myself with,
I hear not the volumes of sound merely, I am moved by the
exquisite meanings,
I listen to the different voices winding in and out, striving,
contending with fiery vehemence to excel each other
in emotion;
I do not think the performers know themselves—but now I think I
begin to know them.