Walt Whitman - The Complete Works of Walt Whitman

they saw me approaching or passing,

Felt their arms on my neck as I stood, or the negligent leaning of

their flesh against me as I sat,

Saw many I loved in the street or ferry-boat or public assembly, yet

never told them a word,

Lived the same life with the rest, the same old laughing, gnawing, sleeping,

Play’d the part that still looks back on the actor or actress,

The same old role, the role that is what we make it, as great as we like,

Or as small as we like, or both great and small.

7

Closer yet I approach you,

What thought you have of me now, I had as much of you — I laid in my

stores in advance,

I consider’d long and seriously of you before you were born.

Who was to know what should come home to me?

Who knows but I am enjoying this?

Who knows, for all the distance, but I am as good as looking at you

now, for all you cannot see me?

8

Ah, what can ever be more stately and admirable to me than

mast-hemm’d Manhattan?

River and sunset and scallop-edg’d waves of flood-tide?

The sea-gulls oscillating their bodies, the hay-boat in the

twilight, and the belated lighter?

What gods can exceed these that clasp me by the hand, and with voices I

love call me promptly and loudly by my nighest name as approach?

What is more subtle than this which ties me to the woman or man that

looks in my face?

Which fuses me into you now, and pours my meaning into you?

We understand then do we not?

What I promis’d without mentioning it, have you not accepted?

What the study could not teach — what the preaching could not

accomplish is accomplish’d, is it not?

9

Flow on, river! flow with the flood-tide, and ebb with the ebb-tide!

Frolic on, crested and scallop-edg’d waves!

Gorgeous clouds of the sunset! drench with your splendor me, or the

men and women generations after me!

Cross from shore to shore, countless crowds of passengers!

Stand up, tall masts of Mannahatta! stand up, beautiful hills of Brooklyn!

Throb, baffled and curious brain! throw out questions and answers!

Suspend here and everywhere, eternal float of solution!

Gaze, loving and thirsting eyes, in the house or street or public assembly!

Sound out, voices of young men! loudly and musically call me by my

nighest name!

Live, old life! play the part that looks back on the actor or actress!

Play the old role, the role that is great or small according as one

makes it!

Consider, you who peruse me, whether I may not in unknown ways be

looking upon you;

Be firm, rail over the river, to support those who lean idly, yet

haste with the hasting current;

Fly on, sea-birds! fly sideways, or wheel in large circles high in the air;

Receive the summer sky, you water, and faithfully hold it till all

downcast eyes have time to take it from you!

Diverge, fine spokes of light, from the shape of my head, or any

one’s head, in the sunlit water!

Come on, ships from the lower bay! pass up or down, white-sail’d

schooners, sloops, lighters!

Flaunt away, flags of all nations! be duly lower’d at sunset!

Burn high your fires, foundry chimneys! cast black shadows at

nightfall! cast red and yellow light over the tops of the houses!

Appearances, now or henceforth, indicate what you are,

You necessary film, continue to envelop the soul,

About my body for me, and your body for you, be hung our divinest aromas,

Thrive, cities — bring your freight, bring your shows, ample and

sufficient rivers,

Expand, being than which none else is perhaps more spiritual,

Keep your places, objects than which none else is more lasting.

You have waited, you always wait, you dumb, beautiful ministers,

We receive you with free sense at last, and are insatiate henceforward,

Not you any more shall be able to foil us, or withhold yourselves from us,

We use you, and do not cast you aside — we plant you permanently within us,

We fathom you not — we love you — there is perfection in you also,

You furnish your parts toward eternity,

Great or small, you furnish your parts toward the soul.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

1

Now list to my morning’s romanza, I tell the signs of the Answerer,

To the cities and farms I sing as they spread in the sunshine before me.

A young man comes to me bearing a message from his brother,

How shall the young man know the whether and when of his brother?

Tell him to send me the signs. And I stand before the young man

face to face, and take his right hand in my left hand and his

left hand in my right hand,

And I answer for his brother and for men, and I answer for him that

answers for all, and send these signs.

Him all wait for, him all yield up to, his word is decisive and final,

Him they accept, in him lave, in him perceive themselves as amid light,

Him they immerse and he immerses them.

Beautiful women, the haughtiest nations, laws, the landscape,

people, animals,

The profound earth and its attributes and the unquiet ocean, (so

tell I my morning’s romanza,)

All enjoyments and properties and money, and whatever money will buy,

The best farms, others toiling and planting and he unavoidably reaps,

The noblest and costliest cities, others grading and building and he

domiciles there,

Nothing for any one but what is for him, near and far are for him,

the ships in the offing,

The perpetual shows and marches on land are for him if they are for anybody.

He puts things in their attitudes,

He puts to-day out of himself with plasticity and love,

He places his own times, reminiscences, parents, brothers and

sisters, associations, employment, politics, so that the rest

never shame them afterward, nor assume to command them.

He is the Answerer,

What can be answer’d he answers, and what cannot be answer’d he

shows how it cannot be answer’d.

A man is a summons and challenge,

(It is vain to skulk — do you hear that mocking and laughter? do you

hear the ironical echoes?)

Books, friendships, philosophers, priests, action, pleasure, pride,

beat up and down seeking to give satisfaction,

He indicates the satisfaction, and indicates them that beat up and

down also.

Whichever the sex, whatever the season or place, he may go freshly

and gently and safely by day or by night,

He has the pass-key of hearts, to him the response of the prying of

hands on the knobs.

His welcome is universal, the flow of beauty is not more welcome or

universal than he is,

The person he favors by day or sleeps with at night is blessed.

Every existence has its idiom, every thing has an idiom and tongue,

He resolves all tongues into his own and bestows it upon men, and

any man translates, and any man translates himself also,

One part does not counteract another part, he is the joiner, he sees

how they join.

He says indifferently and alike How are you friend? to the President

at his levee,

And he says Good-day my brother, to Cudge that hoes in the sugar-field,

And both understand him and know that his speech is right.

He walks with perfect ease in the capitol,

He walks among the Congress, and one Representative says to another,

Here is our equal appearing and new.

Then the mechanics take him for a mechanic,

And the soldiers suppose him to be a soldier, and the sailors that