Leaves of Grass

1. Elemental drifts!O I wish I could impress others as you and the waveshave just been impressing me.

2. As I ebbed with an ebb of the ocean of life,As I wended the shores I know,As I walked where the sea-ripples wash you, Paumanok,Where they rustle up, hoarse and sibilant,Where the fierce old mother endlessly cries for hercastaways,I, musing, late in the autumn day, gazing off southward,Alone, held by the eternal self of me that threatensto get the better of me, and stifle me,Was seized by the spirit that trails in the linesunderfoot,In the rim, the sediment, that stands for all the waterand all the land of the globe.

3. Fascinated, my eyes, reverting from the south,dropped, to follow those slender winrows,Chaff, straw, splinters of wood, weeds, and the sea-gluten,Scum, scales from shining rocks, leaves of salt-lettuce,left by the tide;Miles walking, the sound of breaking waves the otherside of me,Paumanok, there and then, as I thought the oldthought of likenesses,These you presented to me, you fish-shaped island,As I wended the shores I know,As I walked with that eternal self of me, seekingtypes.

4. As I wend the shores I know not,As I listen to the dirge, the voices of men and womenwrecked,As I inhale the impalpable breezes that set inupon me,As the ocean so mysterious rolls toward me closerand closer,At once I find, the least thing that belongs to me, orthat I see or touch, I know not;I, too, but signify, at the utmost, a little washed-up drift,A few sands and dead leaves to gather,Gather, and merge myself as part of the sands anddrift.

5. O baffled, balked,Bent to the very earth, here preceding what follows,Oppressed with myself that I have dared to open mymouth,

Aware now, that, amid all the blab whose echoesrecoil upon me, I have not once had the leastidea who or what I am,But that before all my insolent poems the real Mestill stands untouched, untold, altogether unreached,Withdrawn far, mocking me with mock-congratulatorysigns and bows,With peals of distant ironical laughter at every wordI have written or shall write,Striking me with insults till I fall helpless upon thesand.

6. O I perceive I have not understood anything—not asingle object—and that no man ever can.

7. I perceive Nature here, in sight of the sea, is takingadvantage of me, to dart upon me, and sting me,Because I was assuming so much,And because I have dared to open my mouth to singat all.

8. You oceans both! You tangible land! Nature!Be not too rough with me—I submit—I close withyou,These little shreds shall, indeed, stand for all.

9. You friable shore, with trails of debris!You fish-shaped island! I take what is underfoot;What is yours is mine, my father.

10. I too Paumanok,I too have bubbled up, floated the measureless float,and been washed on your shores;

I too am but a trail of drift and debris,I too leave little wrecks upon you, you fish-shapedisland.

11. I throw myself upon your breast, my father,I cling to you so that you cannot unloose me,I hold you so firm, till you answer me something.

12. Kiss me, my father,Touch me with your lips, as I touch those I love,Breathe to me, while I hold you close, the secret ofthe wondrous murmuring I envy,For I fear I shall become crazed, if I cannot emulateit, and utter myself as well as it.

13. Sea-raff! Crook-tongued waves!O, I will yet sing, some day, what you have saidto me.

14. Ebb, ocean of life, (the flow will return,)Cease not your moaning, you fierce old mother,Endlessly cry for your castaways—but fear not,deny not me,Rustle not up so hoarse and angry against my feet, asI touch you, or gather from you.

15. I mean tenderly by you,I gather for myself, and for this phantom, lookingdown where we lead, and following me andmine.

16. Me and mine!We, loose winrows, little corpses,Froth, snowy white, and bubbles,

(See! from my dead lips the ooze exuding at last!See—the prismatic colors, glistening and rolling!)Tufts of straw, sands, fragments,Buoyed hither from many moods, one contradictinganother,From the storm, the long calm, the darkness, theswell,Musing, pondering, a breath, a briny tear, a dab ofliquid or soil,Up just as much out of fathomless workings fermentedand thrown,A limp blossom or two, torn, just as much over wavesfloating, drifted at random,Just as much for us that sobbing dirge of Nature,Just as much, whence we come, that blare of thecloud-trumpets;We, capricious, brought hither, we know not whence,spread out before You, up there, walking orsitting,Whoever you are—we too lie in drifts at your feet.

2.

1. Great are the myths—I too delight in them,Great are Adam and Eve—I too look back andaccept them,Great the risen and fallen nations, and their poets,women, sages, inventors, rulers, warriors, andpriests.

2. Great is Liberty! great is Equality! I am their fol-lower,Helmsmen of nations, choose your craft! where yousail, I sail,Yours is the muscle of life or death—yours is theperfect science—in you I have absolute faith.

3. Great is To-day, and beautiful,It is good to live in this age—there never was anybetter.

4. Great are the plunges, throes, triumphs, downfalls ofDemocracy,Great the reformers, with their lapses and screams,Great the daring and venture of sailors, on new ex-plorations.

5. Great are Yourself and Myself,We are just as good and bad as the oldest and young-est or any,What the best and worst did, we could do,What they felt, do not we feel it in ourselves?What they wished, do we not wish the same?

6. Great is Youth—equally great is Old Age—greatare the Day and Night,Great is Wealth—great is Poverty—great is Ex-pression—great is Silence.

7. Youth, large, lusty, loving—Youth, full of grace,force, fascination,Do you know that Old Age may come after you, withequal grace, force, fascination?

8. Day, full-blown and splendid—Day of the immensesun, action, ambition, laughter,The Night follows close, with millions of suns, andsleep, and restoring darkness.

9. Wealth with the flush hand, fine clothes, hospitality,But then the Soul's wealth, which is candor, knowledge,pride, enfolding love;(Who goes for men and women showing Povertyricher than wealth?)

10. Expression of speech! in what is written or said, forgetnot that Silence is also expressive,That anguish as hot as the hottest, and contempt ascold as the coldest, may be without words,That the true adoration is likewise without words,and without kneeling.

11. Great is the greatest Nation—the nation of clustersof equal nations.

12. Great is the Earth, and the way it became what it is;Do you imagine it is stopped at this? the increaseabandoned?Understand then that it goes as far onward fromthis, as this is from the times when it lay incovering waters and gases, before man had appeared.

13. Great is the quality of Truth in man,The quality of truth in man supports itself throughall changes,

It is inevitably in the man—lie and it are in love,and never leave each other.

14. The truth in man is no dictum, it is vital as eyesight,If there be any Soul, there is truth—if there be manor woman, there is truth—if there be physicalor moral, there is truth,If there be equilibrium or volition, there is truth—if there be things at all upon the earth, thereis truth.

15. O truth of the earth! O truth of things! I am determinedto press my way toward you,Sound your voice! I scale mountains, or dive in thesea after you.

16. Great is Language—it is the mightiest of the sciences,It is the fulness, color, form, diversity of the earth,and of men and women, and of all qualitiesand processes,It is greater than wealth—it is greater than buildings,ships, religions, paintings, music.

17. Great is the English speech—what speech is sogreat as the English?Great is the English brood—what brood has so vasta destiny as the English?It is the mother of the brood that must rule the earthwith the new rule,The new rule shall rule as the Soul rules, and as thelove, justice, equality in the Soul, rule.

18. Great is Law—great are the old few landmarks ofthe law,They are the same in all times, and shall not bedisturbed.

19. Great are commerce, newspapers, books, free-trade,railroads, steamers, international mails, tele-graphs, exchanges.

20. Great is Justice!Justice is not settled by legislators and laws—it is inthe Soul,It cannot be varied by statutes, any more than love,pride, the attraction of gravity, can,It is immutable—it does not depend on majorities—majorities or what not come at last before thesame passionless and exact tribunal.

21. For justice are the grand natural lawyers and perfectjudges—it is in their Souls,It is well assorted—they have not studied for noth-ing—the great includes the less,They rule on the highest grounds—they oversee alleras, states, administrations.

22. The perfect judge fears nothing—he could go frontto front before God,Before the perfect judge all shall stand back—lifeand death shall stand back—heaven and hellshall stand back.

23. Great is Goodness!I do not know what it is, any more than I know whathealth is—but I know it is great.

6. He is the answerer,What can be answered he answers—and what cannotbe answered, he shows how it cannot be answered.

7. A man is a summons and challenge;(It is vain to skulk—Do you hear that mocking andlaughter? Do you hear the ironical echoes?)

8. Books, friendships, philosophers, priests, action, pleasure,pride, beat up and down, seeking to givesatisfaction,He indicates the satisfaction, and indicates them thatbeat up and down also.

9. Whichever the sex, whatever the season or place, hemay go freshly and gently and safely, by day orby night,He has the pass-key of hearts—to him the responseof the prying of hands on the knobs.

10. His welcome is universal—the flow of beauty is notmore welcome or universal than he is,The person he favors by day or sleeps with at night isblessed.

11. Every existence has its idiom—everything has anidiom and tongue,He resolves all tongues into his own, and bestows itupon men, and any man translates, and any mantranslates himself also,One part does not counteract another part—he is thejoiner—he sees how they join.

12. He says indifferently and alike, How are you, friend?to the President at his levee,

And he says, Good-day, my brother! to Cudge thathoes in the sugar-field,And both understand him, and know that his speechis right.

13. He walks with perfect ease in the capitol,He walks among the Congress, and one representativesays to another, Here is our equal, appearing andnew.

14. Then the mechanics take him for a mechanic,And the soldiers suppose him to be a captain, and thesailors that he has followed the sea,And the authors take him for an author, and theartists for an artist,And the laborers perceive he could labor with themand love them,No matter what the work is, that he is the one to followit, or has followed it,No matter what the nation, that he might find hisbrothers and sisters there.

15. The English believe he comes of their English stock,A Jew to the Jew he seems—a Russ to the Russ—usual and near, removed from none.

16. Whoever he looks at in the traveller's coffee-houseclaims him,The Italian or Frenchman is sure, and the German issure, and the Spaniard is sure, and the islandCuban is sure;The engineer, the deck-hand on the great lakes, or onthe Mississippi, or St. Lawrence, or Sacramento,or Hudson, or Paumanok Sound, claims him.

17. The gentleman of perfect blood acknowledges his perfectblood,The insulter, the prostitute, the angry person, thebeggar, see themselves in the ways of him—hestrangely transmutes them,They are not vile any more—they hardly know themselves,they are so grown.

18. Do you think it would be good to be the writer ofmelodious verses?Well, it would be good to be the writer of melodiousverses;But what are verses beyond the flowing character youcould have? or beyond beautiful manners andbehavior?Or beyond one manly or affectionate deed of an apprentice-boy?or old woman? or man that hasbeen in prison, or is likely to be in prison?

4.

1. Something startles me where I thought I was safest,I withdraw from the still woods I loved,I will not go now on the pastures to walk,I will not strip the clothes from my body to meet mylover the sea,I will not touch my flesh to the earth, as to otherflesh, to renew, me.

I do not doubt there is more in myself than I havesupposed—and more in all men and women—and more in my poems than I have supposed;I do not doubt that temporary affairs keep on and on,millions of years;I do not doubt interiors have their interiors, andexteriors have their exteriors—and that theeye-sight has another eye-sight, and the hearinganother hearing, and the voice another voice;I do not doubt that the passionately-wept deaths ofyoung men are provided for—and that thedeaths of young women, and the deaths of littlechildren, are provided for;I do not doubt that wrecks at sea, no matter what thehorrors of them—no matter whose wife, child,husband, father, lover, has gone down—are providedfor, to the minutest point;I do not doubt that shallowness, meanness, malignance,are provided for;I do not doubt that cities, you, America, the remainderof the earth, politics, freedom, degradations,are carefully provided for;I do not doubt that whatever can possibly happen,any where, at any time, is provided for, in theinherences of things.

1.What shall I give? and which are my miracles?

2.Realism is mine—my miracles—Take freely,Take without end—I offer them to you whereveryour feet can carry you, or your eyes reach.

3.Why! who makes much of a miracle?As to me, I know of nothing else but miracles,Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward thesky,Or wade with naked feet along the beach, just in theedge of the water,Or stand under trees in the woods,Or talk by day with any one I love—or sleep in thebed at night with any one I love,Or sit at the table at dinner with my mother,Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive, of a summerforenoon,Or animals feeding in the fields,Or birds—or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,Or the wonderfulness of the sun-down—or of starsshining so quiet and bright,Or the exquisite, delicate, thin curve of the new-moonin spring;Or whether I go among those I like best, and that likeme best—mechanics, boatmen, farmers,

Or among the savans—or to the soiree—or to theopera,Or stand a long while looking at the movements ofmachinery,Or behold children at their sports,Or the admirable sight of the perfect old man, or theperfect old woman,Or the sick in hospitals, or the dead carried to burial,Or my own eyes and figure in the glass,These, with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,The whole referring—yet each distinct and in itsplace.

4.To me, every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,Every inch of space is a miracle,Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spreadwith the same,Every cubic foot of the interior swarms with the same;Every spear of grass—the frames, limbs, organs, ofmen and women, and all that concerns them,All these to me are unspeakably perfect miracles.

5.To me the sea is a continual miracle,The fishes that swim—the rocks—the motion of thewaves—the ships, with men in them,What stranger miracles are there?

1There was a child went forth every day,And the first object he looked upon and receivedwith wonder, pity, love, or dread, that object hebecame,And that object became part of him for the day, or acertain part of the day, or for many years, orstretching cycles of years.

2.The early lilacs became part of this child,And grass, and white and red morning-glories, andwhite and red clover, and the song of the phœbe-bird,And the Third Month lambs, and the sow's pink-faintlitter, and the mare's foal, and the cow's calf,And the noisy brood of the barn-yard, or by the mireof the pond-side,And the fish suspending themselves so curiously belowthere—and the beautiful curious liquid,And the water-plants with their graceful flat heads—all became part of him.

3.The field-sprouts of Fourth Month and Fifth Monthbecame part of him,Winter-grain sprouts, and those of the light-yellowcorn, and the esculent roots of the garden,And the apple-trees covered with blossoms, and thefruit afterward, and wood-berries, and thecommonest weeds by the road;

And the old drunkard staggering home from the outhouseof the tavern, whence he had lately risen,And the school-mistress that passed on her way to theschool,And the friendly boys that passed—and the quarrelsomeboys,And the tidy and fresh-cheeked girls—and the bare-footnegro boy and girl,And all the changes of city and country, wherever hewent.

4.His own parents,He that had fathered him, and she that conceived himin her womb, and birthed him,They gave this child more of themselves than that,They gave him afterward every day—they and ofthem became part of him.

5.The mother at home, quietly placing the dishes on thesupper-table,The mother with mild words—clean her cap andgown, a wholesome odor falling off her personand clothes as she walks by;The father, strong, self-sufficient, manly, mean, angered,unjust,The blow, the quick loud word, the tight bargain, thecrafty lure,The family usages, the language, the company, thefurniture—the yearning and swelling heart,Affection that will not be gainsayed—the sense ofwhat is real—the thought if, after all, it shouldprove unreal,The doubts of day-time and the doubts of night-time—the curious whether and how,

Whether that which appears so is so, or is it all flashesand specks?Men and women crowding fast in the streets—if theyare not flashes and specks, what are they?The streets themselves, and the façades of houses, andgoods in the windows,Vehicles, teams, the heavy-planked wharves—thehuge crossing at the ferries,The village on the highland, seen from afar at sunset—the river between,Shadows, aureola and mist, light falling on roofs andgables of white or brown, three miles off,The schooner near by, sleepily dropping down thetide—the little boat slack-towed astern,The hurrying tumbling waves, quick-broken crests,slapping,The strata of colored clouds, the long bar of maroon-tint,away solitary by itself—the spread of purityit lies motionless in,The horizon's edge, the flying sea-crow, the fragranceof salt-marsh and shore-mud;These became part of that child who went forth everyday, and who now goes, and will always go forthevery day,And these become part of him or her that perusesthem here.

1. It is ended—I dally no more,After to-day I inure myself to run, leap, swim,wrestle, fight,To stand the cold or heat—to take good aim with agun—to sail a boat—to manage horses—tobeget superb children,To speak readily and clearly—to feel at home amongcommon people,And to hold my own in terrible positions, on landand sea.

2. Not for an embroiderer,(There will always be plenty of embroiderers—Iwelcome them also;)But for the fibre of things, and for inherent men andwomen.

3. Not to chisel ornaments,But to chisel with free stroke the heads and limbs ofplenteous Supreme Gods, that The States mayrealize them, walking and talking.

4. Let me have my own way,Let others promulge the laws—I will make no accountof the laws,Let others praise eminent men and hold up peace—I hold up agitation and conflict,I praise no eminent man—I rebuke to his face theone that was thought most worthy.

5.(Who are you? you mean devil! And what are yousecretly guilty of, all your life?Will you turn aside all your life? Will you gruband chatter all your life?)

6.(And who are you—blabbing by rote, years, pages,languages, reminiscences,Unwitting to-day that you do not know how to speaka single word?)

7.Let others finish specimens—I never finish specimens,I shower them by exhaustless laws, as nature does,fresh and modern continually.

8.I give nothing as duties,What others give as duties, I give as living impulses;(Shall I give the heart's action as a duty?)

9.Let others dispose of questions—I dispose of nothing—I arouse unanswerable questions;Who are they I see and touch, and what about them?What about these likes of myself, that draw me soclose by tender directions and indirections?

10.Let others deny the evil their enemies charge againstthem—but how can I the like?Nothing ever has been, or ever can be, charged againstme, half as bad as the evil I really am;I call to the world to distrust the accounts of myfriends, but listen to my enemies—as I myselfdo;I charge you, too, forever, reject those who wouldexpound me—for I cannot expound myself,

I charge that there be no theory or school founded outof me,I charge you to leave all free, as I have left all free.

11.After me, vista!O, I see life is not short, but immeasurably long,I henceforth tread the world, chaste, temperate, anearly riser, a gymnast, a steady grower,Every hour the semen of centuries—and still of centuries.

12.I will follow up these continual lessons of the air,water, earth,I perceive I have no time to lose.

1.Who learns my lesson complete?Boss, journeyman, apprentice—churchman and atheist,The stupid and the wise thinker—parents and offspring—merchant, clerk, porter, and customer,Editor, author, artist, and schoolboy—Draw nigh andcommence;It is no lesson—it lets down the bars to a goodlesson,And that to another, and every one to another still.

2.The great laws take and effuse without argument,I am of the same style, for I am their friend,

I love them quits and quits—I do not halt and makesalaams.

3.I lie abstracted, and hear beautiful tales of things,and the reasons of things,They are so beautiful, I nudge myself to listen.

4.I cannot say to any person what I hear—I cannotsay it to myself—it is very wonderful.

5.It is no small matter, this round and delicious globe,moving so exactly in its orbit forever and ever,without one jolt, or the untruth of a singlesecond,I do not think it was made in six days, nor in tenthousand years, nor ten billions of years,Nor planned and built one thing after another, as anarchitect plans and builds a house.

6.I do not think seventy years is the time of a man orwoman,Nor that seventy millions of years is the time of aman or woman,Nor that years will ever stop the existence of me, orany one else.

7.Is it wonderful that I should be immortal? as everyone is immortal,I know it is wonderful—but my eye-sight is equallywonderful, and how I was conceived in my mother'swomb is equally wonderful;

And how I was not palpable once, but am now—andwas born on the last day of Fifth Month, in theYear 43 of America,And passed from a babe, in the creeping trance ofthree summers and three winters, to articulateand walk—All this is equally wonderful.

8.And that I grew six feet high, and that I have becomea man thirty-six years old in the Year 79 ofAmerica—and that I am here anyhow—are allequally wonderful.

9.And that my Soul embraces you this hour, and we affecteach other without ever seeing each other,and never perhaps to see each other, is every bitas wonderful.

10.And that I can think such thoughts as these, is just aswonderful,And that I can remind you, and you think them andknow them to be true, is just as wonderful.

11.And that the moon spins round the earth, and on withthe earth, is equally wonderful,And that they balance themselves with the sun andstars, is equally wonderful.

12.Come! I should like to hear you tell me what thereis in yourself that is not just as wonderful,And I should like to hear the name of anything betweenFirst Day morning and Seventh Day nightthat is not just as wonderful.

1.This night I am happy;As I walk the beach where the old mother sways toand fro, singing her savage and husky song,As I watch the stars shining—I think a thought ofthe clef of the universes, and of the future.

2.What can the future bring me more than I have?Do you suppose I wish to enjoy life in other spheres?

3.I say distinctly I comprehend no better sphere thanthis earth,I comprehend no better life than the life of my body.

4.I do not know what follows the death of my body,But I know well that whatever it is, it is best for me,And I know well that whatever is really Me shall livejust as much as before.

5.I am not uneasy but I shall have good housing tomyself,But this is my first—how can I like the rest anybetter?Here I grew up—the studs and rafters are grownparts of me.

6.I am not uneasy but I am to be beloved by young andold men, and to love them the same,

I suppose the pink nipples of the breasts of womenwith whom I shall sleep will touch the side of myface the same,But this is the nipple of a breast of my mother, alwaysnear and always divine to me, her true child andson, whatever comes.

7.I suppose I am to be eligible to visit the stars, in mytime,I suppose I shall have myriads of new experiences—and that the experience of this earth will proveonly one out of myriads;But I believe my body and my Soul already indicatethose experiences,And I believe I shall find nothing in the stars moremajestic and beautiful than I have already foundon the earth,And I believe I have this night a clew through theuniverses,And I believe I have this night thought a thought ofthe clef of eternity.

8.A vast similitude interlocks all,All spheres, grown, ungrown, small, large, suns,moons, planets, comets, asteroids,All the substances of the same, and all that is spiritual,upon the same,All distances of place, however wide,All distances of time—all inanimate forms,All Souls—all living bodies, though they be ever sodifferent, or in different worlds,All gaseous, watery, vegetable, mineral processes—the fishes, the brutes,

All men and women—me also,All nations, colors, barbarisms, civilizations, languages,All identities that have existed, or may exist, on thisglobe or any globe,All lives and deaths—all of past, present, future,This vast similitude spans them, and always hasspanned, and shall forever span them, andcompactly hold them.

1.O bitter sprig! Confession sprig!In the bouquet I give you place also—I bind you in,Proceeding no further till, humbled publicly,I give fair warning, once for all.

2.I own that I have been sly, thievish, mean, a prevaricator,greedy, derelict,And I own that I remain so yet.

3.What foul thought but I think it—or have in me thestuff out of which it is thought?What in darkness in bed at night, alone or with acompanion?

4.You felons on trials in courts,You convicts in prison cells—you sentenced assassins,chained and handcuffed with iron,

Who am I, that I am not on trial, or in prison?Me, ruthless and devilish as any, that my wrists arenot chained with iron, or my ankles with iron?

5.You prostitutes flaunting over the trottoirs, or obscenein your rooms,Who am I, that I should call you more obscene thanmyself?

6.O culpable! O traitor!O I acknowledge—I exposé!(O admirers! praise not me! compliment not me! youmake me wince,I see what you do not—I know what you do not;)Inside these breast-bones I lie smutch'd and choked,Beneath this face that appears so impassive, hell'stides continually run,Lusts and wickedness are acceptable to me,I walk with delinquents with passionate love,I feel I am of them—I belong to those convicts andprostitutes myself,And henceforth I will not deny them—for how can Ideny myself?

Unfolded out of the folds of the woman, man comesunfolded, as is always to come unfolded,Unfolded only out of the superbest woman of theearth, is to come the superbest man of the earth,Unfolded out of the friendliest woman, is to comethe friendliest man,Unfolded only out of the perfect body of a woman,can a man be formed of perfect body,Unfolded only out of the inimitable poem of thewoman, can come the poems of man—onlythence have my poems come,Unfolded out of the strong and arrogant woman Ilove, only thence can appear the strong andarrogant man I love,Unfolded by brawny embraces from the well-muscledwoman I love, only thence come the brawnyembraces of the man,Unfolded out of the folds of the woman's brain, comeall the folds of the man's brain, duly obedient,Unfolded out of the justice of the woman, all justiceis unfolded,Unfolded out of the sympathy of the woman is allsympathy;A man is a great thing upon the earth, and througheternity—but every jot of the greatness of manis unfolded out of woman,First the man is shaped in the woman, he can then beshaped in himself.

1.Night on the Prairies;I walk by myself—I stand and look at the stars,which I think now I never realized before.

2.Now I absorb immortality and peace,I admire death and test propositions.

3.How plenteous! How spiritual! How resumé!The same Old Man and Soul—the same old aspirations,and the same content.

4.I was thinking the day most splendid, till I saw whatthe not-day exhibited,I was thinking this globe enough, till there tumbledupon me myriads of other globes.

5.Now while the great thoughts of space and eternityfill me, I will measure myself by them,And now, touched with the lives of other globes,arrived as far along as those of the earth,Or waiting to arrive, or passed on farther than thoseof the earth,I henceforth no more ignore them than I ignore myown life,Or the lives on the earth arrived as far as mine, orwaiting to arrive.

6.O how plainly I see now that life cannot exhibit all tome—as the day cannot,O I see that I am to wait for what will be exhibitedby death.

Sea-water, and all living below it,Forests at the bottom of the sea—the branches andleaves,Sea-lettuce, vast lichens, strange flowers and seeds—the thick tangle, the openings, and the pink turf,Different colors, pale gray and green, purple, white,and gold—the play of light through the water,Dumb swimmers there among the rocks—coral,gluten, grass, rushes—and the aliment of theswimmers,Sluggish existences grazing there, suspended, orslowly crawling close to the bottom,The sperm-whale at the surface, blowing air andspray, or disporting with his flukes,The leaden-eyed shark, the walrus, the turtle, thehairy sea-leopard, and the sting-ray;Passions there—wars, pursuits, tribes—sight inthose ocean-depths—breathing that thick-breathingair, as so many do,The change thence to the sight here, and to the subtleair breathed by beings like us, who walk thissphere;The change onward from ours to that of beings whowalk other spheres.

I sit and look out upon all the sorrows of the world,and upon all oppression and shame,I hear secret convulsive sobs from young men, atanguish with themselves, remorseful after deedsdone;I see, in low life, the mother misused by her children,dying, neglected, gaunt, desperate,I see the wife misused by her husband—I see thetreacherous seducer of the young woman,I mark the ranklings of jealousy and unrequited love,attempted to be hid—I see these sights on theearth,I see the workings of battle, pestilence, tyranny—Isee martyrs and prisoners,I observe a famine at sea—I observe the sailorscasting lots who shall be killed, to preserve thelives of the rest,I observe the slights and degradations cast by arrogantpersons upon laborers, the poor, and uponnegroes, and the like;All these—All the meanness and agony without end,I sitting, look out upon,See, hear, and am silent.

1.O me, man of slack faith so long!Standing aloof—denying portions so long;Me with mole's eyes, unrisen to buoyancy and vision—unfree,Only aware to-day of compact, all-diffused truth,Discovering to-day there is no lie, or form of lie,and can be none, but grows just as inevitablyupon itself as the truth does upon itself,Or as any law of the earth, or any natural productionof the earth does.

2.(This is curious, and may not be realized immediately—But it must be realized;I feel in myself that I represent falsehoods equallywith the rest,And that the universe does.)

3.Where has failed a perfect return, indifferent of liesor the truth?Is it upon the ground, or in water or fire? or in thespirit of man? or in the meat and blood?

4.Meditating among liars, and retreating sternly intomyself, I see that there are really no liars orlies after all,And that nothing fails its perfect return—And thatwhat are called lies are perfect returns,

And that each thing exactly represents itself, andwhat has preceded it,And that the truth includes all, and is compact, justas much as space is compact,And that there is no flaw or vacuum in the amountof the truth—but that all is truth without exception,And henceforth I will go celebrate anything I seeor am,And sing and laugh, and deny nothing.

Forms, qualities, lives, humanity, language, thoughts,The ones known, and the ones unknown—the oneson the stars,The stars themselves, some shaped, others unshaped,Wonders as of those countries—the soil, trees, cities,inhabitants, whatever they may be,Splendid suns, the moons and rings, the countlesscombinations and effects,Such-like, and as good as such-like, visible here oranywhere, stand provided for in a handful ofspace, which I extend my arm and half enclosewith my hand,That contains the start of each and all—the virtue,the germs of all;That is the theory as of origins.

So far, and so far, and on toward the end,Singing what is sung in this book, from the irresistibleimpulses of me;But whether I continue beyond this book, to maturity,Whether I shall dart forth the true rays, the onesthat wait unfired,(Did you think the sun was shining its brightest?No—it has not yet fully risen;)Whether I shall complete what is here started,Whether I shall attain my own height, to justify these,yet unfinished,Whether I shall make the Poem of the New World,transcending all others—depends, rich persons,upon you,Depends, whoever you are now filling the currentPresidentiad, upon you,Upon you, Governor, Mayor, Congressman,And you, contemporary America.

1.Now I make a leaf of Voices—for I have found noth-ing mightier than they are,And I have found that no word spoken, but is beau-tiful, in its place.

2.O what is it in me that makes me tremble so atvoices?

3.Surely, whoever speaks to me in the right voice, himor her I shall follow, as the waters follow themoon, silently, with fluid steps, any where aroundthe globe.

4.Now I believe that all waits for the right voices;Where is the practised and perfect organ? Where isthe developed Soul?For I see every word uttered thence has deeper,sweeter, new sounds, impossible on less terms.

5.I see brains and lips closed—I see tympans and tem-ples unstruck,Until that comes which has the quality to strike andto unclose,Until that comes which has the quality to bring forthwhat lies slumbering, forever ready, in all words.

1.What am I, after all, but a child, pleased with thesound of my own name? repeating it over andover,I cannot tell why it affects me so much, when I hearit from women's voices, and from men's voices,or from my own voice,I stand apart to hear—it never tires me.

2. To you, your name also,Did you think there was nothing but two or threepronunciations in the sound of your name?

Locations and times—what is it in me that meetsthem all, whenever and wherever, and makes meat home?Forms, colors, densities, odors—what is it in me thatcorresponds with them?What is the relation between me and them?

Lift me close to your face till I whisper,What you are holding is in reality no book, nor partof a book,It is a man, flushed and full-blooded—it is I—Solong!We must separate—Here! take from my lips thiskiss,Whoever you are, I give it especially to you;So long—and I hope we shall meet again.