Leaves of Grass First and Death-Bed Editions (75 page)

 

How the great cities appear—how the Democratic masses,
turbulent, wilful, as I love them,
How the whirl, the contest, the wrestle of evil with good, the
sounding and resounding, keep on and on,
How society waits unform‘d, and is for a while between things
ended and things begun,
How America is the continent of glories, and of the triumph of
freedom and of the Democracies, and of the fruits of society,
and of all that is begun,
And how the States are complete in themselves—and how all
triumphs and glories are complete in themselves, to lead
onward,
And how these of mine and of the States will in their turn be
convuls’d, and serve other parturitions and transitions,
And how all people, sights, combinations, the democratic masses
too, serve—and how every fact, and war itself, with all its
horrors, serves,
And how now or at any time each serves the exquisite transition of
death.

Of seeds dropping into the ground, of births,
Of the steady concentration of America, inland, upward, to
impregnable and swarming places,
Of what Indiana, Kentucky, Arkansas, and the rest, are to be,
Of what a few years will show there in Nebraska, Colorado,
Nevada, and the rest,
(Or afar, mounting the Northern Pacific to Sitka or Aliaska,)
Of what the feuillage of America is the preparation for—and of
what all sights, North, South, East and West, are,
Of this Union welded in blood, of the solemn price paid, of the
unnamed lost ever present in my mind;
Of the temporary use of materials for identity’s sake,
Of the present, passing, departing—of the growth of completer
men than any yet,
Of all sloping down there where the fresh free giver the mother,
the Mississippi flows,
Of mighty inland cities yet unsurvey’d and unsuspected,
Of the new and good names, of the modern developments, of
inalienable homesteads,
Of a free and original life there, of simple diet and clean and
sweet blood,
Of litheness, majestic faces, clear eyes, and perfect physique there,
Of immense spiritual results future years far West, each side of
the Anahuacs,
Of these songs, well understood there, (being made for that area,)
Of the native scorn of grossness and gain there,
(O it lurks in me night and day—what is gain after all to
savageness and freedom?)

Splendor of ended day floating and filling me,
Hour prophetic, hour resuming the past,
Inflating my throat, you divine average,
You earth and life till the last ray gleams I sing.

 

Open mouth of my soul uttering gladness,
Eyes of my soul seeing perfection,
Natural life of me faithfully praising things,
Corroborating forever the triumph of things.

 

Illustrious every one!
Illustrious what we name space, sphere of unnumber’d spirits,
Illustrious the mystery of motion in all beings, even the tiniest
insect,
Illustrious the attribute of speech, the senses, the body,
Illustrious the passing light—illustrious the pale reflection on the
new moon in the western sky,
Illustrious whatever I see or hear or touch, to the last.

 

Good in all,
In the satisfaction and aplomb of animals,
In the annual return of the seasons,
In the hilarity of youth,
In the strength and flush of manhood,
In the grandeur and exquisiteness of old age,
In the superb vistas of death.

 

Wonderful to depart!
Wonderful to be here!
The heart, to jet the all-alike and innocent blood!
To breathe the air, how delicious!
To speak—to walk—to seize something by the hand!
To prepare for sleep, for bed, to look on my rose-color’d flesh!
To be conscious of my body, so satisfied, so large!
To be this incredible God I am!
To have gone forth among other Gods, these men and women
I love.

 

Wonderful how I celebrate you and myself!
How my thoughts play subtly at the spectacles around!
How the clouds pass silently overhead!
How the earth darts on and on! and how the sun, moon, stars,
dart on and on!
How the water sports and sings! (surely it is alive!)
How the trees rise and stand up, with strong trunks, with branches
and leaves!
(Surely there is something more in each of the trees, some living
soul.)

 

O amazement of things—even the least particle!
O spirituality of things!
O strain musical flowing through ages and continents, now
reaching me and America!
I take your strong chords, intersperse them, and cheerfully pass
them forward.

 

I too carol the sun, usher’d or at noon, or as now, setting,
I too throb to the brain and beauty of the earth and of all the
growths of the earth,
I too have felt the resistless call of myself.

 

As I steam’d down the Mississippi,
As I wander’d over the prairies,
As I have lived, as I have look’d through my windows my eyes,
As I went forth in the morning, as I beheld the light breaking in
the east,
As I bathed on the beach of the Eastern Sea, and again on the
beach of the Western Sea,
As I roam’d the streets of inland Chicago, whatever streets I have
roam‘d,
Or cities or silent woods, or even amid the sights of war,
Wherever I have been I have charged myself with contentment
and triumph.

 

I sing to the last the equalities modern or old,
I sing the endless finales of things,
I say Nature continues, glory continues,
I praise with electric voice,
For I do not see one imperfection in the universe,
And I do not see one cause or result lamentable at last in the
universe.

 

O setting sun! though the time has come,
I still warble under you, if none else does, unmitigated adoration.

As at thy portals also death,
Entering thy sovereign, dim, illimitable grounds,
To memories of my mother, to the divine blending, maternity,
To her, buried and gone, yet buried not, gone not from me,
(I see again the calm benignant face fresh and beautiful still,
I sit by the form in the coffin,
I kiss and kiss convulsively again the sweet old lips, the cheeks,
the closed eyes in the coffin;)
To her, the ideal woman, practical, spiritual, of all of earth, life,
love, to me the best,
I grave a monumental line, before I go, amid these songs,
And set a tombstone here.

The business man the acquirer vast,
After assiduous years surveying results, preparing for departure,
Devises houses and lands to his children, bequeaths stocks, goods,
funds for a school or hospital,
Leaves money to certain companions to buy tokens, souvenirs of
gems and gold.

 

But I, my life surveying, closing,
With nothing to show to devise from its idle years,
Nor houses nor lands, nor tokens of gems or gold for my friends,
Yet certain remembrances of the war for you, and after you,
And little souvenirs of camps and soldiers, with my love,
I bind together and bequeath in this bundle of songs.

Pensive on her dead gazing I heard the Mother of All,
Desperate on the torn bodies, on the forms covering the
battlefields gazing,
(As the last gun ceased, but the scent of the powder-smoke
linger‘d,)
As she call’d to her earth with mournful voice while she stalk’d,
Absorb them well O my earth, she cried, I charge you lose not my
sons, lose not an atom,
And you streams absorb them well, taking their dear blood,
And you local spots, and you airs that swim above lightly
impalpable,
And all you essences of soil and growth, and you my rivers’
depths,
And you mountain sides, and the woods where my dear children’s
blood trickling redden‘d,
And you trees down in your roots to bequeath to all future trees,
My dead absorb or South or North—my young men’s bodies
absorb, and their precious precious blood,
Which holding in trust for me faithfully back again give me many
a year hence,
In unseen essence and odor of surface and grass, centuries hence,
In blowing airs from the fields back again give me my darlings,
give my immortal heroes,
Exhale me them centuries hence, breathe me their breath, let not
an atom be lost,
O years and graves! O air and soil! O my dead, an aroma sweet!
Exhale them perennial sweet death, years, centuries hence.

Not alone those camps of white, old comrades of the wars,
When as order’d forward, after a long march,
Footsore and weary, soon as the light lessens we halt for the
night,
Some of us so fatigued carrying the gun and knapsack, dropping
asleep in our tracks,
Others pitching the little tents, and the fires lit up begin to
sparkle,
Outposts of pickets posted surrounding alert through the dark,
And a word provided for countersign, careful for safety,
Till to the call of the drummers at daybreak loudly beating the
drums,
We rise up refresh‘d, the night and sleep pass’d over, and resume
our journey,
Or proceed to battle.

Lo, the camps of the tents of green,
Which the days of peace keep filling, and the days of war keep
filling,
With a mystic army, (is it too order’d forward? is it too only
halting awhile,
Till night and sleep pass over?)

 

Now in those camps of green, in their tents dotting the world,
In the parents, children, husbands, wives, in them, in the old and
young,
Sleeping under the sunlight, sleeping under the moonlight,
content and silent there at last,
Behold the mighty bivouac-field and waiting-camp of all,
Of the corps and generals all, and the President over the corps
and generals all,
And of each of us O soldiers, and of each and all in the ranks we
fought,
(There without hatred we all, all meet.)

 

For presently O soldiers, we too camp in our place in the bivouac-
camps of green,
But we need not provide for outposts, nor word for the countersign,
Nor drummer to beat the morning drum.

(
Midnight, Sept. 19-20, 1881)

 

The sobbing of the bells, the sudden death-news everywhere,
The slumberers rouse, the rapport of the People,
(Full well they know that message in the darkness,
Full well return, respond within their breasts, their brains, the sad
reverberations,)
The passionate toll and clang—city to city, joining, sounding,
passing,
Those heart-beats of a Nation in the night.

As they draw to a close,
Of what underlies the precedent songs—of my aims in
them,
Of the seed I have sought to plant in them,
Of joy, sweet joy, through many a year, in them,
(For them, for them have I lived, in them my work is done,)
Of many an aspiration fond, of many a dream and plan;
Through Space and Time fused in a chant, and the flowing
eternal identity,
To Nature encompassing these, encompassing God—to the
joyous, electric all,
To the sense of Death, and accepting exulting in Death in its turn
the same as life,
The entrance of man to sing;
To compact you, ye parted, diverse lives,
To put rapport the mountains and rocks and streams,
And the winds of the north, and the forests of oak and pine,
With you O soul.

Joy, shipmate, joy!
(Pleas’d to my soul at death I cry,)
Our life is closed, our life begins,
The long, long anchorage we leave,
The ship is clear at last, she leaps!
She swiftly courses from the shore,
Joy, shipmate, joy.

The untold want by life and land ne‘er granted,
Now voyager sail thou forth to seek and find.

What are those of the known but to ascend and enter the
Unknown?
And what are those of life but for Death?

These carols sung to cheer my passage through the world I see, For completion I dedicate to the Invisible World.

Now finale to the shore,
Now land and life finale and farewell,
Now Voyager depart, (much, much for thee is yet in store,)
Often enough hast thou adventur’d o‘er the seas,
Cautiously cruising, studying the charts,
Duly again to port and hawser’s tie returning;
But now obey thy cherish’d secret wish,
Embrace thy friends, leave all in order,
To port and hawser’s tie no more returning,
Depart upon thy endless cruise old Sailor.

To conclude, I announce what comes after me.

 

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 promis‘d,
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 and mine our due fruition.

 

 

I have press’d through in my own right,
I have sung the body and the soul, war and peace have I sung,
and the songs of life and death,
And the songs of birth, and shown that there are many births.

 

I have offer’d my style to every one, I have journey’d 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 last time.

 

 

I announce natural persons to arise,
I announce justice triumphant,
I announce uncompromising liberty and equality,
I announce the justification of candor and the justification of
pride.

 

I announce that the identity of these States is a single identity
only,
I announce the Union more and more compact, indissoluble,
I announce splendors and majesties to make all the previous
politics of the earth insignificant.