Walt Whitman - Leaves of Grass

I concentrate toward them that are nigh, I wait on the door-slab.

Who has done his day’s work? who will soonest be through with his supper?
Who wishes to walk with me?

Will you speak before I am gone? will you prove already too late?

The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me—he complains of my gab and my loitering.

I too am not a bit tamed—I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.

The last scud of day holds back for me,
It flings my likeness, after the rest, and true as any, on the shadowed wilds,
It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.

I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the run-away sun,
I effuse my flash in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.

I bequeath myself to the dirt, to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again, look for me under your boot-soles.

You will hardly know who I am, or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.

Failing to fetch me at first, keep encouraged,
Missing me one place, search another,
I stop some where waiting for you.

Unfolded only out of the folds of the woman, man comes unfolded, and is always to come unfolded,
Unfolded only out of the superbest woman of the earth is to come the superbest man of the earth,
Unfolded out of the friendliest woman is to come the 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 the woman can come the poems of man—only thence have my poems come,
Unfolded out of the strong and arrogant woman I love, only thence can appear the strong and arrogant man I love,
Unfolded by brawny embraces from the well-muscled woman I love, only thence come the brawny embraces of the man,
Unfolded out of the folds of the woman’s brain, come all the folds of the man’s brain, duly obedient,
Unfolded out of the justice of the woman, all justice is unfolded,
Unfolded out of the sympathy of the woman is all sympathy;
A man is a great thing upon the earth, and through eternity—but every jot of the greatness of man is unfolded out of woman,
First the man is shaped in the woman, he can then be shaped in himself.

O take my hand, Walt Whitman!
Such gliding wonders! Such sights and sounds!
Such joined unended links, each hooked to the next!
Each answering all, each sharing the earth with all.

What widens within you, Walt Whitman?
What waves and soils exuding?
What climes? what persons and lands are here?
Who are the infants? some playing, some slumbering?
Who are the girls? Who are the married women?
Who are the three old men going slowly with their arms about each others’ necks?
What rivers are these? What forests and fruits are these?
What are the mountains called that rise so high in the mists?
What myriads of dwellings are they, filled with dwellers?

Within me latitude widens, longitude lengthens,
Asia, Africa, Europe, are to the east—America is provided for in the west,
Banding the bulge of the earth winds the hot equator,
Curiously north and south turn the axis-ends;
Within me is the longest day, the sun wheels in slanting rings, it does not set for months,
Stretched in due time within me the midnight sun just rises above the horizon, and sinks again;
Within me zones, seas, cataracts, plains, volcanoes, groups,
Oceanica, Australasia, Polynesia, and the great West Indian islands.

What do you hear, Walt Whitman?
I hear the workman singing, and the farmer’s wife singing,
I hear in the distance the sounds of children, and of animals early in the day,
I hear the inimitable music of the voices of mothers,
I hear the persuasions of lovers,
I hear quick rifle-cracks from the riflemen of East Tennessee and Kentucky, hunting on hills,
I hear emulous shouts of Australians, pursuing the wild horse,
I hear the Spanish dance with castanets, in the chestnut shade, to the rebeck and guitar,
I hear continual echoes from the Thames,
I hear fierce French liberty songs,
I hear of the Italian boat-sculler the musical recitative of old poems,
I hear the Virginia plantation chorus of negroes, of a harvest night, in the glare of pine knots,
I hear the strong baritone of the ’long-shore-men of Manahatta—I hear the stevedores unlading the cargoes, and singing,
I hear the screams of the water-fowl of solitary northwest lakes,
I hear the rustling pattering of locusts, as they strike the grain and grass with the showers of their terrible clouds,
I hear the Coptic refrain toward sun-down pensively falling on the breast of the black venerable vast mother, the Nile,
I hear the bugles of raft-tenders on the streams of Canada,
I hear the chirp of the Mexican muleteer, and the bells of the mule,
I hear the Arab muezzin, calling from the top of the mosque,
I hear Christian priests at the altars of their churches—I hear the responsive base and soprano,
I hear the wail of utter despair of the white-haired Irish grand-parents, when they learn the death of their grand-son,
I hear the cry of the Cossack, and the sailor’s voice, putting to sea at Okotsk,
I hear the wheeze of the slave-coffle, as the slaves march on, as the husky gangs pass on by twos and threes, fastened together with wrist-chains and ankle-chains,
I hear the entreaties of women tied up for punishment, I hear the sibilant whisk of thongs through the air,
I hear the appeal of the greatest orator, he that turns states by the tip of his tongue,
I hear the Hebrew reading his records and psalms,
I hear the rhythmic myths of the Greeks, and the strong legends of the Romans,
I hear the tale of the divine life and bloody death of the beautiful god, the Christ,
I hear the Hindoo teaching his favorite pupil the loves, wars, adages, transmitted safely to this day from poets who wrote three thousand years ago.

What do you see, Walt Whitman?
Who are they you salute, and that one after another salute you?

I see a great round wonder rolling through the air,
I see diminute farms, hamlets, ruins, grave-yards, jails, factories, palaces, hovels, huts of barbarians, tents of nomads, upon the surface,
I see the shaded part on one side where the sleepers are sleeping, and the sun-lit part on the other side,
I see the curious silent change of the light and shade,
I see distant lands, as real and near to the inhabitants of them as my land is to me.

I see plenteous waters,
I see mountain peaks—I see the sierras of Andes and Alleghanies, I see where they range,
I see plainly the Himmalehs, Chian Shahs, Altays, Gauts,
I see the Rocky Mountains, and the Peak of Winds,
I see the Styrian Alps and the Karnac Alps,
I see the Pyrenees, Balks, Carpathians, and to the north the Dofrafields, and off at sea Mount Hecla,
I see Vesuvius and Etna—I see the Anahuacs,
I see the Mountains of the Moon, and the Snow Mountains, and the Red Mountains of Madagascar,
I see the Vermont hills, and the long string of Cordilleras;
I see the vast deserts of Western America,
I see the Libyan, Arabian, and Asiatic deserts;
I see huge dreadful Arctic and Antarctic icebergs,
I see the superior oceans and the inferior ones—the Atlantic and Pacific, the sea of Mexico, the Brazilian sea, and the sea of Peru,
The Japan waters, those of Hindostan, the China Sea, and the Gulf of Guinea,
The spread of the Baltic, Caspian, Bothnia, the British shores, and the Bay of Biscay,
The clear-sunned Mediterranean, and from one to another of its islands,
The inland fresh-tasted seas of North America,
The White Sea, and the sea around Greenland.