Chapter 14
Passing stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you; You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking (it comes to me, as of a dream). I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you. All is recalled as we flit by each other, fluid, affectionate, chaste, matured; You grew up with me, were a boy with me, or a girl with me; I ate with you, and slept with you--your body has become not yours only, nor left my body mine only; You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as we pass--you take of my beard, breast, hands in return; I am not to speak to you--I am to think of you when I sit alone, or wake at night alone; I am to wait--I do not doubt I am to meet you again; I am to see to it that I do not lose you.
_OTHER LANDS._
This moment yearning and thoughtful, sitting alone, It seems to me there are other men in other lands, yearning and thoughtful; It seems to me I can look over and behold them in Prussia, Italy, France, Spain--or far, far away, in China, or in Russia or India--talking other dialects; And it seems to me, if I could know those men, I should become attached to them, as I do to men in my own lands. O I know we should be brethren and lovers; I know I should be happy with them.
_ENVY._
When I peruse the conquered fame of heroes, and the victories of mighty generals, I do not envy the generals, Nor the President in his Presidency, nor the rich in his great house.
But when I read of the brotherhood of lovers, how it was with them; How through life, through dangers, odium, unchanging, long and long, Through youth, and through middle and old age, how unfaltering, how affectionate and faithful they were, Then I am pensive--I hastily put down the book, and walk away, filled with the bitterest envy.
_THE CITY OF FRIENDS._
I dreamed in a dream I saw a city invincible to the attacks of the whole of the rest of the earth; I dreamed that it was the new City of Friends; Nothing was greater there than the quality of robust love--it led the rest; It was seen every hour in the actions of the men of that city, And in all their looks and words.
_OUT OF THE CROWD._
1.
Out of the rolling ocean, the crowd, came a drop gently to me, Whispering, _I love you; before long I die: I have travelled a long way, merely to look on you, to touch you: For I could not die till I once looked on you, For I feared I might afterward lose you_.
2.
Now we have met, we have looked, we are safe; Return in peace to the ocean, my love; I too am part of that ocean, my love--we are not so much separated; Behold the great _rondure_--the cohesion of all, how perfect! But as for me, for you, the irresistible sea is to separate us, As for an hour carrying us diverse--yet cannot carry us diverse for ever; Be not impatient--a little space--know you, I salute the air, the ocean, and the land, Every day, at sundown, for your dear sake, my love.
_AMONG THE MULTITUDE._
Among the men and women, the multitude, I perceive one picking me out by secret and divine signs, Acknowledging none else--not parent, wife, husband, brother, child, any nearer than I am; Some are baffled--But that one is not--that one knows me.
Ah, lover and perfect equal! I meant that you should discover me so, by my faint indirections; And I, when I meet you, mean to discover you by the like in you.
LEAVES OF GRASS.
_PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S FUNERAL HYMN._
1.
When lilacs last in the door-yard bloomed, And the great star[1] early drooped in the western sky in the night, I mourned,...and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.
O ever-returning spring! trinity sure to me you bring; Lilac blooming perennial, and drooping star in the west, And thought of him I love.
2.
O powerful, western, fallen star! O shades of night! O moody, tearful night! O great star disappeared! O the black murk that hides the star! O cruel hands that hold me powerless! O helpless soul of me! O harsh surrounding cloud that will not free my soul!
3.
In the door-yard fronting an old farm-house, near the whitewashed palings, Stands the lilac bush, tall-growing, with heart-shaped leaves of rich green, With many a pointed blossom, rising delicate, with the perfume strong I love, With every leaf a miracle: and from this bush in the dooryard, With delicate-coloured blossoms, and heart-shaped leaves of rich green, A sprig, with its flower, I break.
4.
In the swamp, in secluded recesses, A shy and hidden bird is warbling a song.
Solitary, the thrush, The hermit, withdrawn to himself, avoiding the settlements, Sings by himself a song:
Song of the bleeding throat! Death's outlet song of life--for well, dear brother, I know, If thou wast not gifted to sing, thou wouldst surely die.
5.
Over the breast of the spring, the land, amid cities, Amid lanes, and through old woods, where lately the violets peeped from the ground, spotting the greydebris; Amid the grass in the fields each side of the lanes--passing the endless grass; Passing the yellow-speared wheat, every grain from its shroud in the dark-brown fields uprising; Passing the apple-tree blows of white and pink in the orchards; Carrying a corpse to where it shall rest in the grave, Night and day journeys a coffin.
6.
Coffin that passes through lanes and streets, Through day and night, with the great cloud darkening the land, With the pomp of the inlooped flags, with the cities draped in black, With the show of the States themselves as of crape-veiled women standing, With processions long and winding, and the flambeaus of the night, With the countless torches lit--with the silent sea of faces, and the unbared heads, With the waiting depot, the arriving coffin, and the sombre faces, With dirges through the night, with the thousand voices rising strong and solemn; With all the mournful voices of the dirges, poured around the coffin, The dim-lit churches and the shuddering organs--Where amid these you journey, With the tolling, tolling bells' perpetual clang; Here! coffin that slowly passes, I give you my sprig of lilac.
7.
Nor for you, for one, alone; Blossoms and branches green to coffins all I bring: For fresh as the morning--thus would I chant a song for you, O sane and sacred Death.
All over bouquets of roses, O Death! I cover you over with roses and early lilies; But mostly and now the lilac that blooms the first, Copious, I break, I break the sprigs from the bushes! With loaded arms I come, pouring for you, For you and the coffins all of you, O Death.
8.
O western orb, sailing the heaven! Now I know what you must have meant, as a month since we walked, As we walked up and down in the dark blue so mystic, As we walked in silence the transparent shadowy night, As I saw you had something to tell, as you bent to me night after night, As you drooped from the sky low down, as if to my side, while the other stars all looked on; As we wandered together the solemn night, for something, I know not what, kept me from sleep; As the night advanced, and I saw on the rim of the west, ere you went, how full you were of woe; As I stood on the rising ground in the breeze, in the cool transparent night, As I watched where you passed and was lost in the netherward black of the night, As my soul, in its trouble, dissatisfied, sank, as where you, sad orb, Concluded, dropped in the night, and was gone.
9.
Sing on, there in the swamp! O singer bashful and tender! I hear your notes--I hear your call; I hear--I come presently--I understand you; But a moment I linger--for the lustrous star has detained me; The star, my comrade departing, holds and detains me.
10.
O how shall I warble myself for the dead one there I loved? And how shall I deck my song for the large sweet soul that has gone? And what shall my perfume be for the grave of him I love?
Sea-winds, blown from east and west, Blown from the Eastern Sea, and blown from the Western Sea, till there on the prairies meeting: These, and with these, and the breath of my chant, I perfume the grave of him I love.
11.
O what shall I hang on the chamber walls? And what shall the pictures be that I hang on the walls, To adorn the burial-house of him I love?
Pictures of growing spring, and farms, and homes, With the Fourth-month eve at sundown, and the grey smoke lucid and bright, With floods of the yellow gold of the gorgeous, indolent sinking sun, burning, expanding the air; With the fresh sweet herbage under foot, and the pale green leaves of the trees prolific; In the distance the flowing glaze, the breast of the river, with a wind-dapple here and there; With ranging hills on the banks, with many a line against the sky, and shadows; And the city at hand, with dwellings so dense, and stacks of chimneys, And all the scenes of life, and the workshops, and the workmen homeward returning.
12.
Lo! body and soul! this land! Mighty Manhattan, with spires, and the sparkling and hurrying tides, and the ships; The varied and ample land--the South and the North in the light--Ohio's shores, and flashing Missouri, And ever the far-spreading prairies, covered with grass and corn.
Lo! the most excellent sun, so calm and haughty; The violet and purple morn, with just-felt breezes; The gentle, soft-born, measureless light; The miracle, spreading, bathing all--the fulfilled noon; The coming eve, delicious--the welcome night, and the stars, Over my cities shining all, enveloping man and land.
13.
Sing on! sing on, you grey-brown bird! Sing from the swamps, the recesses--pour your chant from the bushes; Limitless out of the dusk, out of the cedars and pines.
Sing on, dearest brother--warble your reedy song, Loud human song, with voice of uttermost woe.
O liquid, and free, and tender! O wild and loose to my soul! O wondrous singer! You only I hear,... yet the star holds me, (but will soon depart;) Yet the lilac, with mastering odour, holds me.
14.
Now while I sat in the day, and looked forth, In the close of the day, with its light, and the fields of spring, and the farmer preparing his crops, In the large unconscious scenery of my land, with its lakes and forests, In the heavenly aerial beauty, after the perturbed winds and the storms; Under the arching heavens of the afternoon swift passing, and the voices of children and women, The many-moving sea-tides,--and I saw the ships how they sailed, And the summer approaching with richness, and the fields all busy with labour, And the infinite separate houses, how they all went on, each with its meals and minutiae of daily usages; And the streets, how their throbbings throbbed, and the cities pent--lo! then and there, Falling upon them all, and among them all, enveloping me with the rest, Appeared the cloud, appeared the long black trail; And I knew Death, its thought, and the sacred knowledge of Death.
15.
And the Thought of Death close-walking the other side of me, And I in the middle, as with companions, and as holding the hands of companions, I fled forth to the hiding receiving night, that talks not, Down to the shores of the water, the path by the swamp in the dimness, To the solemn shadowy cedars, and ghostly pines so still.
And the singer so shy to the rest received me; The grey-brown bird I know received us Comrades three; And he sang what seemed the song of Death, and a verse for him I love.
From deep secluded recesses, From the fragrant cedars, and the ghostly pines so still, Came the singing of the bird.
And the charm of the singing rapt me, As I held, as if by their hands, my Comrades in the night; And the voice of my spirit tallied the song of the bird.
16.
Come, lovely and soothing Death, Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving, In the day, in the night, to all, to each, Sooner or later, delicate Death.
Praised be the fathomless universe, For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious; And for love, sweet love--But praise! O praise and praise, For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding Death.
Dark Mother, always gliding near, with soft feet, Have none chanted for thee a chant of fullest welcome? Then I chant it for thee--I glorify thee above all; I bring thee a song that, when thou must indeed come, come unfalteringly.
Approach, encompassing Death-strong deliveress! When it is so--when thou hast taken them, I joyously sing the dead, Lost in the loving, floating ocean of thee, Laved in the flood of thy bliss, O Death.
From me to thee glad serenades, Dances for thee I propose, saluting thee--adornments and feastings for thee; And the sights of the open landscape, and the high-spread sky, are fitting, And life and the fields, and the huge and thoughtful night.
The night, in silence, under many a star; The ocean shore, and the husky whispering wave, whose voice I know; And the soul turning to thee, O vast and well-veiled Death, And the body gratefully nestling close to thee.
Over the tree-tops I float thee a song! Over the rising and sinking waves--over the myriad fields, and the prairies wide; Over the dense-packed cities all, and the teeming wharves and ways, I float this carol with joy, with joy, to thee, O Death!
17.
To the tally of my soul Loud and strong kept up the grey-brown bird, With pure, deliberate notes, spreading, filling the night.
Loud in the pines and cedars dim, Clear in the freshness moist, and the swamp-perfume, And I with my Comrades there in the night.
While my sight that was bound in my eyes unclosed, As to long panoramas of visions.
18.
I saw the vision of armies; And I saw, as in noiseless dreams, hundreds of battle-flags; Borne through the smoke of the battles, and pierced with missiles, I saw them, And carried hither and yon through the smoke, and torn and bloody; And at last but a few shreds of the flags left on the staffs, (and all in silence,) And the staffs all splintered and broken.
I saw battle-corpses, myriads of them, And the white skeletons of young men--I saw them; I saw the debris and debris of all dead soldiers. But I saw they were not as was thought; They themselves were fully at rest--they suffered not; The living remained and suffered--the mother suffered, And the wife and the child, and the musing comrade suffered, And the armies that remained suffered.
19.
Passing the visions, passing the night; Passing, unloosing the hold of my Comrades' hands; Passing the song of the hermit bird, and the tallying song of my soul; Victorious song, Death's outlet song, yet varying, ever-altering song; As low and wailing, yet clear, the notes, rising and falling, flooding the night, Sadly sinking and fainting, as warning and warning, and yet again bursting with joy. Covering the earth, and filling the spread of the heaven, As that powerful psalm in the night, I heard from recesses.
20.
Must I leave thee, lilac with heart-shaped leaves? Must I leave thee there in the door-yard, blooming, returning with spring?
Must I pass from my song for thee-- From my gaze on thee in the west, fronting the west, communing with thee, O comrade lustrous, with silver face in the night?
21.
Yet each I keep, and all; The song, the wondrous chant of the grey-brown bird, And the tallying chant, the echo aroused in my soul, With the lustrous and drooping star, with the countenance full of woe; With the lilac tali, and its blossoms of mastering odour; Comrades mine, and I in the midst, and their memory ever I keep--for the dead I loved so well; For the sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and lands--and this for his dear sake; Lilac and star and bird, twined with the chant of my soul, With the holders holding my hand, nearing the call of the bird, There in the fragrant pines, and the cedars dusk and dim.
[Footnote 1: "The evening star, which, as many may remember night after night, in the early part of that eventful spring, hung low in the west with unusual and tender brightness."--JOHN BURROUGHS.]
_O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN!_ (FOR THE DEATH OF LINCOLN.)
1.
O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done! The ship has weathered every wrack, the prize we sought is won. The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring. But, O heart! heart! heart! Leave you not the little spot Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.
2.
O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells! Rise up! for you the flag is flung, for you the bugle trills: For you bouquets and ribboned wreaths; for you the shores a-crowding: For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning.
O Captain! dear father! This arm I push beneath you. It is some dream that on the deck You've fallen cold and dead!
3.
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still: My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will. But the ship, the ship is anchored safe, its voyage closed and done: From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won! Exult, O shores! and ring, O bells! But I, with silent tread, Walk the spot my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.
_PIONEERS! O PIONEERS!_
1.
Come, my tan-faced children, Follow well in order, get your weapons ready; Have you your pistols? have you your sharp-edged axes? Pioneers! O pioneers!
2.
For we cannot tarry here, We must march, my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger, We, the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend. Pioneers! O pioneers!
3.
O you youths, Western youths, So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship, Plain I see you, Western youths, see you tramping with the foremost, Pioneers! O pioneers!
4.
Have the elder races halted? Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied, over there beyond the seas? We take up the task eternal, and the burden, and the lesson, Pioneers! O pioneers!
5.
All the past we leave behind; We debouch upon a newer, mightier world, varied world; Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labour and the march, Pioneers! O pioneers!
6.
We detachments steady throwing, Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep, Conquering, holding, daring, venturing, as we go, the unknown ways, Pioneers! O pioneers!
7.
We primeval forests felling, We the rivers stemming, vexing we, and piercing deep the mines within; We the surface broad surveying, and the virgin soil upheaving, Pioneers! O pioneers!
8.
Colorado men are we, From the peaks gigantic, from the great sierras and the high plateaus, From the mine and from the gully, from the hunting trail we come, Pioneers! O pioneers!
9.
From Nebraska, from Arkansas, Central inland race are we, from Missouri, with the continental blood interveined; All the hands of comrades clasping, all the Southern, all the Northern, Pioneers! O pioneers!
10.
O resistless, restless race! O beloved race in all! O my breast aches with tender love for all! O I mourn and yet exult--I am rapt with love for all, Pioneers! O pioneers;
11.
Raise the mighty mother mistress, Waving high the delicate mistress, over all the starry mistress, (bend your heads all,) Raise the fanged and warlike mistress, stern, impassive, weaponed mistress, Pioneers! O pioneers!
12.
See, my children, resolute children, By those swarms upon our rear, we must never yield or falter, Ages back in ghostly millions, frowning there behind us urging, Pioneers! O pioneers!
13.
On and on, the compact ranks, With accessions ever waiting, with the places of the dead quickly filled, Through the battle, through defeat, moving yet and never stopping, Pioneers! O pioneers!
14.
O to die advancing on! Are there some of us to droop and die? has the hour come? Then upon the march we fittest die, soon and sure the gap is filled, Pioneers! O pioneers!
15.
All the pulses of the world, Falling in, they beat for us, with the Western movement beat; Holding single or together, steady moving, to the front, all for us, Pioneers! O pioneers!
16.
Life's involved and varied pageants, All the forms and shows, all the workmen at their work, All the seamen and the landsmen, all the masters with their slaves, Pioneers, O pioneers!
17.
All the hapless silent lovers, All the prisoners in the prisons, all the righteous and the wicked, All the joyous, all the sorrowing, all the living, all the dying, Pioneers! O pioneers!
18.
I too with my soul and body, We, a curious trio, picking, wandering on our way, Through these shores, amid the shadows, with the apparitions pressing, Pioneers! O pioneers!
19.
Lo! the darting, bowling orb! Lo! the brother orbs around! all the clustering suns and planets; All the dazzling days, all the mystic nights with dreams, Pioneers! O pioneers!
20.
These are of us, they are with us, All for primal needed work, while the followers there in embryo wait behind, We to-day's procession heading, we the route for travel clearing, Pioneers! O pioneers!
21.
O you daughters of the West! O you young and elder daughters! O you mothers and you wives! Never must you be divided, in our ranks you move united, Pioneers! O pioneers!
22.
Minstrels latent on the prairies! (Shrouded bards of other lands! you may sleep--you have done your work;) Soon I hear you coming warbling, soon you rise and tramp amid us, Pioneers! O pioneers!
23.
Not for delectations sweet; Not the cushion and the slipper, not the peaceful and the studious; Not the riches safe and palling, not for us the tame enjoyment, Pioneers! O pioneers!
24.
Do the feasters gluttonous feast? Do the corpulent sleepers sleep? have they locked and bolted doors? Still be ours the diet hard, and the blanket on the ground, Pioneers! O pioneers!
25.
Has the night descended? Was the road of late so toilsome? did we stop discouraged, nodding on our way? Yet a passing hour I yield you in your tracks to pause oblivious, Pioneers! O pioneers!
26.
Till with sound of trumpet, Far, far off the daybreak call--hark! how loud and clear I hear it wind; Swift! to the head of the army!--swift! spring to your places, Pioneers! O pioneers!
_TO THE SAYERS OF WORDS._
1.
Earth, round, rolling, compact--suns, moons, animals--all these are words to be said; Watery, vegetable, sauroid advances--beings, premonitions, lispings of the future, Behold! these are vast words to be said.
Were you thinking that those were the words--those upright lines? those curves, angles, dots? No, those are not the words--the substantial words are in the ground and sea, They are in the air--they are in you.
Were you thinking that those were the words--those delicious sounds out of your friends' mouths? No; the real words are more delicious than they.
Human bodies are words, myriads of words; In the best poems reappears the body, man's or woman's, well-shaped, natural, gay; Every part able, active, receptive, without shame or the need of shame.
Air, soil, water, fire--these are words; I myself am a word with them--my qualities interpenetrate with theirs--my name is nothing to them; Though it were told in the three thousand languages, what would air, soil, water, fire, know of my name?
A healthy presence, a friendly or commanding gesture, are words, sayings, meanings; The charms that go with the mere looks of some men and women are sayings and meanings also.
2.