To A Foil'd European Revolutionaire
COURAGE yet! my brother or my sister!
Keep on! Liberty is to be subserv'd, whatever occurs;
That is nothing, that is quell'd by one or two failures, or any
number of failures,
Or by the indifference or ingratitude of the people, or by any
unfaithfulness,
Or the show of the tushes of power, soldiers, cannon, penal statutes.
Revolt! and still revolt! revolt!
What we believe in waits latent forever through all the continents,
and all the islands and archipelagos of the sea;
What we believe in invites no one, promises nothing, sits in calmness
and light, is positive and composed, knows no discouragement,
Waiting patiently, waiting its time.
(Not songs of loyalty alone are these, 10
But songs of insurrection also;
For I am the sworn poet of every dauntless rebel, the world over,
And he going with me leaves peace and routine behind him,
And stakes his life, to be lost at any moment.)
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poem by Walt Whitman
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The Indications
THE indications, and tally of time;
Perfect sanity shows the master among philosophs;
Time, always without flaw, indicates itself in parts;
What always indicates the poet, is the crowd of the pleasant company
of singers, and their words;
The words of the singers are the hours or minutes of the light or
dark--but the words of the maker of poems are the general light
and dark;
The maker of poems settles justice, reality, immortality,
His insight and power encircle things and the human race,
He is the glory and extract thus far, of things, and of the human
race.
The singers do not beget--only the POET begets;
The singers are welcom'd, understood, appear often enough--but rare
has the day been, likewise the spot, of the birth of the maker
of poems, the Answerer, 10
(Not every century, or every five centuries, has contain'd such a
day, for all its names.)
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poem by Walt Whitman
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With Antecedents
WITH antecedents;
With my fathers and mothers, and the accumulations of past ages;
With all which, had it not been, I would not now be here, as I am:
With Egypt, India, Phenicia, Greece and Rome;
With the Kelt, the Scandinavian, the Alb, and the Saxon;
With antique maritime ventures,--with laws, artizanship, wars and
journeys;
With the poet, the skald, the saga, the myth, and the oracle;
With the sale of slaves--with enthusiasts--with the troubadour, the
crusader, and the monk;
With those old continents whence we have come to this new continent;
With the fading kingdoms and kings over there; 10
With the fading religions and priests;
With the small shores we look back to from our own large and present
shores;
With countless years drawing themselves onward, and arrived at these
years;
You and Me arrived--America arrived, and making this year;
This year! sending itself ahead countless years to come.
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poem by Walt Whitman
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A Woman Waits For Me
A WOMAN waits for me--she contains all, nothing is lacking,
Yet all were lacking, if sex were lacking, or if the moisture of the
right man were lacking.
Sex contains all,
Bodies, Souls, meanings, proofs, purities, delicacies, results,
promulgations,
Songs, commands, health, pride, the maternal mystery, the seminal
milk;
All hopes, benefactions, bestowals,
All the passions, loves, beauties, delights of the earth,
All the governments, judges, gods, follow'd persons of the earth,
These are contain'd in sex, as parts of itself, and justifications of
itself.
Without shame the man I like knows and avows the deliciousness of his
sex, 10
Without shame the woman I like knows and avows hers.
Now I will dismiss myself from impassive women,
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poem by Walt Whitman
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Song Of The Universal
COME, said the Muse,
Sing me a song no poet yet has chanted,
Sing me the Universal.
In this broad Earth of ours,
Amid the measureless grossness and the slag,
Enclosed and safe within its central heart,
Nestles the seed Perfection.
By every life a share, or more or less,
None born but it is born--conceal'd or unconceal'd, the seed is
waiting.
Lo! keen-eyed, towering Science! 10
As from tall peaks the Modern overlooking,
Successive, absolute fiats issuing.
Yet again, lo! the Soul--above all science;
For it, has History gather'd like a husk around the globe;
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poem by Walt Whitman
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A Boston Ballad, 1854
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. 10
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!
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poem by Walt Whitman
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Scented Herbage Of My Breast
SCENTED herbage of my breast,
Leaves from you I yield, I write, to be perused best afterwards,
Tomb-leaves, body-leaves, growing up above me, above death,
Perennial roots, tall leaves--O the winter shall not freeze you,
delicate leaves,
Every year shall you bloom again--out from where you retired, you
shall emerge again;
O I do not know whether many, passing by, will discover you, or
inhale your faint odor--but I believe a few will;
O slender leaves! O blossoms of my blood! I permit you to tell, in
your own way, of the heart that is under you;
O burning and throbbing--surely all will one day be accomplish'd;
O I do not know what you mean, there underneath yourselves--you are
not happiness,
You are often more bitter than I can bear--you burn and sting me, 10
Yet you are very beautiful to me, you faint-tinged roots--you make me
think of Death,
Death is beautiful from you--(what indeed is finally beautiful,
except Death and Love?)
--O I think it is not for life I am chanting here my chant of
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poem by Walt Whitman
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Give Me The Splendid, Silent Sun
GIVE me the splendid silent sun, with all his beams full-dazzling;
Give me juicy autumnal fruit, ripe and red from the orchard;
Give me a field where the unmow'd grass grows;
Give me an arbor, give me the trellis'd grape;
Give me fresh corn and wheat--give me serene-moving animals, teaching
content;
Give me nights perfectly quiet, as on high plateaus west of the
Mississippi, and I looking up at the stars;
Give me odorous at sunrise a garden of beautiful flowers, where I can
walk undisturb'd;
Give me for marriage a sweet-breath'd woman, of whom I should never
tire;
Give me a perfect child--give me, away, aside from the noise of the
world, a rural, domestic life;
Give me to warble spontaneous songs, reliev'd, recluse by myself, for
my own ears only; 10
Give me solitude--give me Nature--give me again, O Nature, your
primal sanities!
--These, demanding to have them, (tired with ceaseless excitement,
and rack'd by the war-strife;)
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poem by Walt Whitman
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This Compost
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 my lover the sea;
I will not touch my flesh to the earth, as to other flesh, to renew
me.
O how can it be that the ground does not sicken?
How can you be alive, you growths of spring?
How can you furnish health, you blood of herbs, roots, orchards,
grain?
Are they not continually putting distemper'd corpses within you?
Is not every continent work'd over and over with sour dead? 10
Where have you disposed of their carcasses?
Those drunkards and gluttons of so many generations;
Where have you drawn off all the foul liquid and meat?
I do not see any of it upon you to-day--or perhaps I am deceiv'd;
I will run a furrow with my plough--I will press my spade through the
sod, and turn it up underneath;
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poem by Walt Whitman
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The Singer In The Prison
O sight of shame, and pain, and dole!
O fearful thought--a convict Soul!
RANG the refrain along the hall, the prison,
Rose to the roof, the vaults of heaven above,
Pouring in floods of melody, in tones so pensive, sweet and strong,
the like whereof was never heard,
Reaching the far-off sentry, and the armed guards, who ceas'd their
pacing,
Making the hearer's pulses stop for extasy and awe.
O sight of pity, gloom, and dole!
O pardon me, a hapless Soul!
The sun was low in the west one winter day, 10
When down a narrow aisle, amid the thieves and outlaws of the land,
(There by the hundreds seated, sear-faced murderers, wily
counterfeiters,
Gather'd to Sunday church in prison walls--the keepers round,
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poem by Walt Whitman
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