Walt Whitman - The Complete Works of Walt Whitman

I see the blood wash’d entirely away from the axe,

Both blade and helve are clean,

They spirt no more the blood of European nobles, they clasp no more

the necks of queens.

I see the headsman withdraw and become useless,

I see the scaffold untrodden and mouldy, I see no longer any axe upon it,

I see the mighty and friendly emblem of the power of my own race,

the newest, largest race.

9

(America! I do not vaunt my love for you,

I have what I have.)

The axe leaps!

The solid forest gives fluid utterances,

They tumble forth, they rise and form,

Hut, tent, landing, survey,

Flail, plough, pick, crowbar, spade,

Shingle, rail, prop, wainscot, lamb, lath, panel, gable,

Citadel, ceiling, saloon, academy, organ, exhibition-house, library,

Cornice, trellis, pilaster, balcony, window, turret, porch,

Hoe, rake, pitchfork, pencil, wagon, staff, saw, jack-plane, mallet,

wedge, rounce,

Chair, tub, hoop, table, wicket, vane, sash, floor,

Work-box, chest, string’d instrument, boat, frame, and what not,

Capitols of States, and capitol of the nation of States,

Long stately rows in avenues, hospitals for orphans or for the poor or sick,

Manhattan steamboats and clippers taking the measure of all seas.

The shapes arise!

Shapes of the using of axes anyhow, and the users and all that

neighbors them,

Cutters down of wood and haulers of it to the Penobscot or Kenebec,

Dwellers in cabins among the Californian mountains or by the little

lakes, or on the Columbia,

Dwellers south on the banks of the Gila or Rio Grande, friendly

gatherings, the characters and fun,

Dwellers along the St. Lawrence, or north in Kanada, or down by the

Yellowstone, dwellers on coasts and off coasts,

Seal-fishers, whalers, arctic seamen breaking passages through the ice.

The shapes arise!

Shapes of factories, arsenals, foundries, markets,

Shapes of the two-threaded tracks of railroads,

Shapes of the sleepers of bridges, vast frameworks, girders, arches,

Shapes of the fleets of barges, tows, lake and canal craft, river craft,

Ship-yards and dry-docks along the Eastern and Western seas, and in

many a bay and by-place,

The live-oak kelsons, the pine planks, the spars, the

hackmatack-roots for knees,

The ships themselves on their ways, the tiers of scaffolds, the

workmen busy outside and inside,

The tools lying around, the great auger and little auger, the adze,

bolt, line, square, gouge, and bead-plane.

10

The shapes arise!

The shape measur’d, saw’d, jack’d, join’d, stain’d,

The coffin-shape for the dead to lie within in his shroud,

The shape got out in posts, in the bedstead posts, in the posts of

the bride’s bed,

The shape of the little trough, the shape of the rockers beneath,

the shape of the babe’s cradle,

The shape of the floor-planks, the floor-planks for dancers’ feet,

The shape of the planks of the family home, the home of the friendly

parents and children,

The shape of the roof of the home of the happy young man and

woman, the roof over the well-married young man and woman,

The roof over the supper joyously cook’d by the chaste wife, and joyously

eaten by the chaste husband, content after his day’s work.

The shapes arise!

The shape of the prisoner’s place in the court-room, and of him or

her seated in the place,

The shape of the liquor-bar lean’d against by the young rum-drinker

and the old rum-drinker,

The shape of the shamed and angry stairs trod by sneaking foot- steps,

The shape of the sly settee, and the adulterous unwholesome couple,

The shape of the gambling-board with its devilish winnings and losings,

The shape of the step-ladder for the convicted and sentenced

murderer, the murderer with haggard face and pinion’d arms,

The sheriff at hand with his deputies, the silent and white-lipp’d

crowd, the dangling of the rope.

The shapes arise!

Shapes of doors giving many exits and entrances,

The door passing the dissever’d friend flush’d and in haste,

The door that admits good news and bad news,

The door whence the son left home confident and puff’d up,

The door he enter’d again from a long and scandalous absence,

diseas’d, broken down, without innocence, without means.

11

Her shape arises,

She less guarded than ever, yet more guarded than ever,

The gross and soil’d she moves among do not make her gross and soil’d,

She knows the thoughts as she passes, nothing is conceal’d from her,

She is none the less considerate or friendly therefor,

She is the best belov’d, it is without exception, she has no reason

to fear and she does not fear,

Oaths, quarrels, hiccupp’d songs, smutty expressions, are idle to

her as she passes,

She is silent, she is possess’d of herself, they do not offend her,

She receives them as the laws of Nature receive them, she is strong,

She too is a law of Nature — there is no law stronger than she is.

12

The main shapes arise!

Shapes of Democracy total, result of centuries,

Shapes ever projecting other shapes,

Shapes of turbulent manly cities,

Shapes of the friends and home-givers of the whole earth,

Shapes bracing the earth and braced with the whole earth.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

1

(Ah little recks the laborer,

How near his work is holding him to God,

The loving Laborer through space and time.)

After all not to create only, or found only,

But to bring perhaps from afar what is already founded,

To give it our own identity, average, limitless, free,

To fill the gross the torpid bulk with vital religious fire,

Not to repel or destroy so much as accept, fuse, rehabilitate,

To obey as well as command, to follow more than to lead,

These also are the lessons of our New World;

While how little the New after all, how much the Old, Old World!

Long and long has the grass been growing,

Long and long has the rain been falling,

Long has the globe been rolling round.

2

Come Muse migrate from Greece and Ionia,

Cross out please those immensely overpaid accounts,

That matter of Troy and Achilles’ wrath, and AEneas’, Odysseus’ wanderings,

Placard “Removed” and “To Let” on the rocks of your snowy Parnassus,

Repeat at Jerusalem, place the notice high on jaffa’s gate and on

Mount Moriah,

The same on the walls of your German, French and Spanish castles,

and Italian collections,

For know a better, fresher, busier sphere, a wide, untried domain

awaits, demands you.

3

Responsive to our summons,

Or rather to her long-nurs’d inclination,

Join’d with an irresistible, natural gravitation,

She comes! I hear the rustling of her gown,

I scent the odor of her breath’s delicious fragrance,

I mark her step divine, her curious eyes a-turning, rolling,

Upon this very scene.

The dame of dames! can I believe then,

Those ancient temples, sculptures classic, could none of them retain her?

Nor shades of Virgil and Dante, nor myriad memories, poems, old

associations, magnetize and hold on to her?

But that she’s left them all — and here?

Yes, if you will allow me to say so,

I, my friends, if you do not, can plainly see her,

The same undying soul of earth’s, activity’s, beauty’s, heroism’s