Leaves of Grass First and Death-Bed Editions (79 page)

GOOD-BYE MY FANCY

Had I not better withhold (in this old age and paralysis of me) such little tags and fringe-dots (maybe specks, stains,) as follow a long dusty journey, and witness it afterward? I have probably not been enough afraid of careless touches, from the first—and am not now—nor of parrot-like repetitions—nor platitudes and the commonplace. Perhaps I am too democratic for such avoidances. Besides, is not the verse-field, as originally plann’d by my theory, now sufficiently illustrated—and full time for me to silently retire?—(indeed amid no loud call or market for my sort of poetic utterance.)

In answer, or rather defiance, to that kind of well-put interrogation, here comes this little cluster, and conclusion of my preceding clusters. Though not at all clear that, as here collated, it is worth printing (certainly I have nothing fresh to write)—I while away the hours of my 72d year—hours of forced confinement in my den—by putting in shape this small old age collation:

However that may be, I feel like improving to-day’s opportunity and wind up. During the last two years I have sent out, in the lulls of illness and exhaustion, certain chirps—lingering-dying ones probably (undoubtedly)—which now I may as well gather and put in fair type while able to see correctly—(for my eyes plainly warn me they are dimming, and my brain more and more palpably neglects or refuses, month after month, even slight tasks or revisions.)

In fact, here I am these current years 1890 and ‘91, (each successive fortnight getting stiffer and stuck deeper) much like some hard-cased dilapidated grim ancient shell-fish or time-bang’ d conch (no legs, utterly non-locomotive) cast up high and dry on the shore-sands, helpless to move anywhere—nothing left but behave myself quiet, and while away the days yet assign’d, and discover if there is anything for the said grim and time-bang’d conch to be got at last out of inherited good spirits and primal buoyant centre-pulses down there deep somewhere within his gray-blurr’d old shell ............ (Reader, you must allow a little fun here—for one reason there are too many of the following poemets about death, &c., and for another the passing hours (July 5, 1890) are so sunny-fine. And old as I am I feel to-day almost a part of some frolicsome wave, or for sporting yet like a kid or kitten—probably a streak of physical adjustment and perfection here and now. I believe I have it in me perennially anyhow.)

Then behind all, the deep-down consolation (it is a glum one, but I dare not be sorry for the fact of it in the past, nor refrain from dwelling, even vaunting here at the end) that this late-years palsied old shorn and shell-fish condition of me is the indubitable outcome and growth, now near for 20 years along, of too over-zealous, over-continued bodily and emotional excitement and action through the times of 1862, ‘3, ’4 and ‘5, visiting and waiting on wounded and sick army volunteers, both sides, in campaigns or contests, or after them, or in hospitals or fields south of Washington City, or in that place and elsewhere—those hot, sad, wrenching times—the army volunteers, all States,—or North or South—the wounded, suffering, dying—the exhausting, sweating summers, marches, battles, carnage—those trenches hurriedly heap’d by the corpse-thousands, mainly unknown—Will the America of the future—will this vast rich Union ever realize what itself cost, back there after all?—those hecatombs of battle-deaths-Those times of which, O far-off reader, this whole book is indeed finally but a reminiscent memorial from thence by me to you?

Heave the anchor short!
Raise main-sail and jib—steer forth,
O little white-hull’d sloop, now speed on really deep
waters,
(I will not call it our concluding voyage,
But outset and sure entrance to the truest, best,
maturest;)
Depart, depart from solid earth—no more returning to these
shores,
Now on for aye our infinite free venture wending,
Spurning all yet tried ports, seas, hawsers, densities,
gravitation,
Sail out for good, eidólon yacht of me!

And whence and why come you?

 

We know not whence, (was the answer,)
We only know that we drift here with the rest,
That we linger’d and lagg‘d—but were wafted at last, and are now
here,
To make the passing shower’s concluding drops.

Good-bye
^bv
my fancy—(I had a word to say,
But ‘tis not quite the time—The best of any man’s word or say,
Is when its proper place arrives—and for its meaning,
I keep mine till the last.)

On, on the same, ye jocund twain!
My life and recitative, containing birth, youth, mid-age
years,
Fitful as motley-tongues of flame, inseparably twined and merged
in one—combining all,
My single soul—aims, confirmations, failures, joys—Nor single
soul alone,
I chant my nation’s crucial stage, (America‘s, haply humanity’s)—
the trial great, the victory great,
A strange
eclaircissement
of all the masses past, the eastern world,
the ancient, medieval,
Here, here from wanderings, strayings, lessons, wars, defeats—
here at the west a voice triumphant—justifying all,
A gladsome pealing cry—a song for once of utmost pride and
satisfaction;
I chant from it the common bulk, the general average horde,
(the best no sooner than the worst)—And now I chant
old age,
(My verses, written first for forenoon life, and for the summer’s,
autumn’s spread,
I pass to snow-white hairs the same, and give to pulses winter-
cool’d the same;)
As here in careless trill, I and my recitatives, with faith and
love,
Wafting to other work, to unknown songs, conditions,
On, on, ye jocund twain! continue on the same!

After surmounting three score and ten,
With all their chances, changes, losses, sorrows,
My parents’ deaths, the vagaries of my life, the many tearing
passions of me, the war of ‘63 and ’4,
As some old broken soldier, after a long, hot, wearying march, or
haply after battle,
To-day at twilight, hobbling, answering company roll-call,
Here,
with vital voice,
Reporting yet, saluting yet the Officer over all.

A vague mist hanging ‘round half the pages:
(Sometimes how strange and clear to the soul,
That all these solid things are indeed but apparitions, concepts,
non-realities.)

Somehow I cannot let it go yet, funeral though it is,
Let it remain back there on its nail suspended,
With pink, blue, yellow, all blanch‘d, and the white now gray and
ashy,
One wither’d rose put years ago for thee, dear friend;
But I do not forget thee. Hast thou then faded?
Is the odor exhaled? Are the colors, vitalities, dead?
No, while memories subtly play—the past vivid as ever;
For but last night I woke, and in that spectral ring saw
thee,
Thy smile, eyes, face, calm, silent, loving as ever:
So let the wreath hang still awhile within my eye-reach,
It is not yet dead to me, nor even pallid.

The soothing sanity and blitheness of completion,
The pomp and hurried contest-glare and rush are done;
Now triumph! transformation! jubilate!
^bw

From east and west across the horizon’s edge,
Two mighty masterful vessels sailers steal upon us:
But we’ll make race a-time upon the seas—a battle-contest yet!
bear lively there!
(Our joys of strife and derring-do to the last!)
Put on the old ship all her power to-day!
Crowd top-sail, top-gallant and royal studding-sails,
Out challenge and defiance—flags and flaunting pennants
added,
As we take to the open—take to the deepest, freest waters.

Have I no weapon-word for thee—some message brief and fierce?
(Have I fought out and done indeed the battle?) Is there no shot
left,
For all thy affectations, lisps, scorns, manifold silliness?
Nor for myself—my own rebellious self in thee?

 

Down, down, proud gorge!—though choking thee;
Thy bearded throat and high-borne forehead to the gutter;
Crouch low thy neck to eleemosynary gifts.

I doubt it not—then more, far more;
In each old song bequeath‘d—in every noble page or text,
(Different—something unreck’d before—some unsuspected
author,)
In every object, mountain, tree, and star—in every birth and
life,
As part of each—evolv’d from each—meaning, behind the ostent,
A mystic cipher waits infolded.

After a long, long course, hundreds of years, denials,
Accumulations, rous’d love and joy and thought,
Hopes, wishes, aspirations, ponderings, victories, myriads of readers,
Coating, compassing, covering—after ages’ and ages’
encrustations,
Then only may these songs reach fruition.

Add to your show, before you close it, France,
With all the rest, visible, concrete, temples, towers, goods,
machines and ores,
Our sentiment wafted from many million heart-throbs, ethereal
but solid,
(We grand-sons and great-grand-sons do not forget your grand-sires,)
From fifty Nations and nebulous Nations, compacted, sent
oversea to-day,
America’s applause, love, memories and good-will.

Over and through the burial chant,
Organ and solemn service, sermon, bending priests,
To me come interpolation sounds not in the show—plainly to
me, crowding up the aisle and from the window,
Of sudden battle’s hurry and harsh noises—war’s grim game to
sight and ear in earnest;
The scout call’d up and forward—the general mounted and his
aides around him—the new-brought word—the
instantaneous order issued;
The rifle crack—the cannon thud—the rushing forth of men
from their tents;
The clank of cavalry—the strange celerity of forming ranks—the
slender bugle note;
The sound of horses’ hoofs departing—saddles, arms,
accoutrements.
^bx

Ah, whispering, something again, unseen,
Where late this heated day thou enterest at my window, door,
Thou, laving, tempering all, cool-freshing, gently vitalizing
Me, old, alone, sick, weak-down, melted-worn with sweat;
Thou, nestling, folding close and firm yet soft, companion better
than talk, book, art,
(Thou hast, O Nature! elements! utterance to my heart beyond
the rest—and this is of them,)
So sweet thy primitive taste to breathe within—thy soothing
fingers on my face and hands,
Thou, messenger-magical strange bringer to body and spirit of
me,
(Distances balk‘d—occult medicines penetrating me from head to
foot,)
I feel the sky, the prairies vast—I feel the mighty northern lakes,
I feel the ocean and the forest—somehow I feel the globe itself
swift-swimming in space;
Thou blown from lips so loved, now gone—haply from endless
store, God-sent,
(For thou art spiritual, Godly, most of all known to my sense,)
Minister to speak to me, here and now, what word has never told,
and cannot tell,
Art thou not universal concrete’s distillation? Law‘s, all
Astronomy’s last refinement?
Hast thou no soul? Can I not know, identify thee?

An ancient song, reciting, ending,
Once gazing toward thee, Mother of All,
Musing, seeking themes fitted for thee,
Accept for me, thou saidst, the elder ballads,
And name for me before thou goest each ancient poet.

 

(Of many debts incalculable,
Haply our New World’s chiefest debt is to old poems.)

 

Ever so far back, preluding thee, America,
Old chants, Egyptian priests, and those of Ethiopia,
The Hindu epics, the Grecian, Chinese, Persian,
The Biblic books and prophets, and deep idyls of the Nazarene,
The Iliad, Odyssey, plots, doings, wanderings of Eneas,
Hesiod, Eschylus, Sophocles, Merlin, Arthur,
The Cid, Roland at Roncesvalles, the Nibelungen,
The troubadours, minstrels, minnesingers, skalds,
Chaucer, Dante, flocks of singing birds,
The Border Minstrelsy, the bye-gone ballads, feudal tales, essays,
plays,
Shakspere, Schiller, Walter Scott, Tennyson,
As some vast wondrous weird dream-presences,
The great shadowy groups gathering around,
Darting their mighty masterful eyes forward at thee,
Thou! with as now thy bending neck and head, with courteous
hand and word, ascending,
Thou! pausing a moment, drooping thine eyes upon them, blent
with their music,
Well pleased, accepting all, curiously prepared for by them,
Thou enterest at thy entrance porch.