Walt Whitman

I SEE the sleeping babe, nestling the breast of its mother; The sleeping mother and babe—hush’d, I study them long and long.

PRIMEVAL my love for the woman I love, O bride! O wife! more resistless, more enduring than I can tell, the thought of you! Then separate, as disembodied, the purest born, The ethereal, the last athletic reality, my consolation, I ascend—I float in the regions of your love, O man, O sharer of my roving life.

TO get betimes in Boston town, I rose this morning early; Here’s a good place at the corner—I must stand and see the show.

Clear the way there, Jonathan! Way for the President’s marshal! Way for the government cannon! Way for the Federal foot and dragoons—and the apparitions copiously tumbling.

I love to look on the stars and stripes—I hope the fifes will play Yankee Doodle.

How bright shine the cutlasses of the foremost troops! Every man holds his revolver, marching stiff through Boston town.

A fog follows—antiques of the same come limping, Some appear wooden-legged, and some appear bandaged and bloodless.

Why this is indeed a show! It has called the dead out of the earth! The old grave-yards of the hills have hurried to see! Phantoms! phantoms countless by flank and rear! Cock’d hats of mothy mould! crutches made of mist! Arms in slings! old men leaning on young men’s shoulders!

What troubles you, Yankee phantoms? What is all this chattering of bare gums? Does the ague convulse your limbs? Do you mistake your crutches for fire-locks, and level them?

If you blind your eyes with tears, you will not see the President’s marshal; If you groan such groans, you might balk the government cannon.

For shame, old maniacs! Bring down those toss’d arms, and let your white hair be; Here gape your great grand-sons—their wives gaze at them from the windows, See how well dress’d—see how orderly they conduct themselves.

Worse and worse! Can’t you stand it? Are you retreating? Is this hour with the living too dead for you?

Retreat then! Pell-mell! To your graves! Back! back to the hills, old limpers! I do not think you belong here, anyhow.

But there is one thing that belongs here—shall I tell you what it is, gentlemen of Boston?

I will whisper it to the Mayor—he shall send a committee to England; They shall get a grant from the Parliament, go with a cart to the royal vault—haste!

Dig out King George’s coffin, unwrap him quick from the grave-clothes, box up his bones for a journey; Find a swift Yankee clipper—here is freight for you, black-bellied clipper, Up with your anchor! shake out your sails! steer straight toward Boston bay.

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

This centre-piece for them: Look! all orderly citizens—look from the windows, women!

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

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.

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.)

OUT of the murk of heaviest clouds, Out of the feudal wrecks, and heap’d-up skeletons of kings, Out of that old entire European debris—the shatter’d mummeries, Ruin’d cathedrals, crumble of palaces, tombs of priests, Lo! Freedom’s features, fresh, undimm’d, look forth—the same immortal face looks forth; (A glimpse as of thy mother’s face, Columbia, A flash significant as of a sword, Beaming towards thee.)

Nor think we forget thee, Maternal; Lag’d’st thou so long? Shall the clouds close again upon thee? Ah, but thou hast Thyself now appear’d to us—we know thee; Thou hast given us a sure proof, the glimpse of Thyself; Thou waitest there, as everywhere, thy time.

WHAT General has a good army in himself, has a good army; He happy in himself, or she happy in herself, is happy, But I tell you you cannot be happy by others, any more than you can beget or conceive a child by others.

O SUN of real peace! O hastening light! O free and extatic! O what I here, preparing, warble for! O the sun of the world will ascend, dazzling, and take his height—and you too, O my Ideal, will surely ascend! O so amazing and broad—up there resplendent, darting and burning! O vision prophetic, stagger’d with weight of light! with pouring glories! O lips of my soul, already becoming powerless! O ample and grand Presidentiads! Now the war, the war is over! New history! new heroes! I project you! Visions of poets! only you really last! sweep on! sweep on! O heights too swift and dizzy yet! O purged and luminous! you threaten me more than I can stand! (I must not venture—the ground under my feet menaces me—it will not support me: O future too immense,)—O present, I return, while yet I may, to you.

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 Germany, 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.