Walt Whitman - The Complete Works of Walt Whitman

O the joy of that vast elemental sympathy which only the human soul is

capable of generating and emitting in steady and limitless floods.

O the mother’s joys!

The watching, the endurance, the precious love, the anguish, the

patiently yielded life.

O the of increase, growth, recuperation,

The joy of soothing and pacifying, the joy of concord and harmony.

O to go back to the place where I was born,

To hear the birds sing once more,

To ramble about the house and barn and over the fields once more,

And through the orchard and along the old lanes once more.

O to have been brought up on bays, lagoons, creeks, or along the coast,

To continue and be employ’d there all my life,

The briny and damp smell, the shore, the salt weeds exposed at low water,

The work of fishermen, the work of the eel-fisher and clam-fisher;

I come with my clam-rake and spade, I come with my eel-spear,

Is the tide out? I Join the group of clam-diggers on the flats,

I laugh and work with them, I joke at my work like a mettlesome young man;

In winter I take my eel-basket and eel-spear and travel out on foot

on the ice — I have a small axe to cut holes in the ice,

Behold me well-clothed going gayly or returning in the afternoon,

my brood of tough boys accompanying me,

My brood of grown and part-grown boys, who love to be with no

one else so well as they love to be with me,

By day to work with me, and by night to sleep with me.

Another time in warm weather out in a boat, to lift the lobster-pots

where they are sunk with heavy stones, (I know the buoys,)

O the sweetness of the Fifth-month morning upon the water as I row

just before sunrise toward the buoys,

I pull the wicker pots up slantingly, the dark green lobsters are

desperate with their claws as I take them out, I insert

wooden pegs in the ‘oints of their pincers,

I go to all the places one after another, and then row back to the shore,

There in a huge kettle of boiling water the lobsters shall be boil’d

till their color becomes scarlet.

Another time mackerel-taking,

Voracious, mad for the hook, near the surface, they seem to fill the

water for miles;

Another time fishing for rock-fish in Chesapeake bay, I one of the

brown-faced crew;

Another time trailing for blue-fish off Paumanok, I stand with braced body,

My left foot is on the gunwale, my right arm throws far out the

coils of slender rope,

In sight around me the quick veering and darting of fifty skiffs, my

companions.

O boating on the rivers,

The voyage down the St. Lawrence, the superb scenery, the steamers,

The ships sailing, the Thousand Islands, the occasional timber-raft

and the raftsmen with long-reaching sweep-oars,

The little huts on the rafts, and the stream of smoke when they cook

supper at evening.

(O something pernicious and dread!

Something far away from a puny and pious life!

Something unproved! something in a trance!

Something escaped from the anchorage and driving free.)

O to work in mines, or forging iron,

Foundry casting, the foundry itself, the rude high roof, the ample

and shadow’d space,

The furnace, the hot liquid pour’d out and running.

O to resume the joys of the soldier!

To feel the presence of a brave commanding officer — to feel his sympathy!

To behold his calmness — to be warm’d in the rays of his smile!

To go to battle — to hear the bugles play and the drums beat!

To hear the crash of artillery — to see the glittering of the bayonets

and musket-barrels in the sun!

To see men fall and die and not complain!

To taste the savage taste of blood — to be so devilish!

To gloat so over the wounds and deaths of the enemy.

O the whaleman’s joys! O I cruise my old cruise again!

I feel the ship’s motion under me, I feel the Atlantic breezes fanning me,

I hear the cry again sent down from the mast-head, There — she blows!

Again I spring up the rigging to look with the rest — we descend,

wild with excitement,

I leap in the lower’d boat, we row toward our prey where he lies,

We approach stealthy and silent, I see the mountainous mass,

lethargic, basking,

I see the harpooneer standing up, I see the weapon dart from his

vigorous arm;

O swift again far out in the ocean the wounded whale, settling,

running to windward, tows me,

Again I see him rise to breathe, we row close again,

I see a lance driven through his side, press’d deep, turn’d in the wound,

Again we back off, I see him settle again, the life is leaving him fast,

As he rises he spouts blood, I see him swim in circles narrower and

narrower, swiftly cutting the water — I see him die,

He gives one convulsive leap in the centre of the circle, and then

falls flat and still in the bloody foam.

O the old manhood of me, my noblest joy of all!

My children and grand-children, my white hair and beard,

My largeness, calmness, majesty, out of the long stretch of my life.

O ripen’d joy of womanhood! O happiness at last!

I am more than eighty years of age, I am the most venerable mother,

How clear is my mind — how all people draw nigh to me!

What attractions are these beyond any before? what bloom more

than the bloom of youth?

What beauty is this that descends upon me and rises out of me?

O the orator’s joys!

To inflate the chest, to roll the thunder of the voice out from the

ribs and throat,

To make the people rage, weep, hate, desire, with yourself,

To lead America — to quell America with a great tongue.

O the joy of my soul leaning pois’d on itself, receiving identity through

materials and loving them, observing characters and absorbing them,

My soul vibrated back to me from them, from sight, hearing, touch,

reason, articulation, comparison, memory, and the like,

The real life of my senses and flesh transcending my senses and flesh,

My body done with materials, my sight done with my material eyes,

Proved to me this day beyond cavil that it is not my material eyes

which finally see,

Nor my material body which finally loves, walks, laughs, shouts,

embraces, procreates.

O the farmer’s joys!

Ohioan’s, Illinoisian’s, Wisconsinese’, Kanadian’s, Iowan’s,

Kansian’s, Missourian’s, Oregonese’ joys!

To rise at peep of day and pass forth nimbly to work,

To plough land in the fall for winter-sown crops,

To plough land in the spring for maize,

To train orchards, to graft the trees, to gather apples in the fall.

O to bathe in the swimming-bath, or in a good place along shore,

To splash the water! to walk ankle-deep, or race naked along the shore.

O to realize space!

The plenteousness of all, that there are no bounds,

To emerge and be of the sky, of the sun and moon and flying

clouds, as one with them.

O the joy a manly self-hood!

To be servile to none, to defer to none, not to any tyrant known or unknown,

To walk with erect carriage, a step springy and elastic,

To look with calm gaze or with a flashing eye,

To speak with a full and sonorous voice out of a broad chest,

To confront with your personality all the other personalities of the earth.

Knowist thou the excellent joys of youth?

Joys of the dear companions and of the merry word and laughing face?

Joy of the glad light-beaming day, joy of the wide-breath’d games?

Joy of sweet music, joy of the lighted ball-room and the dancers?