Walt Whitman - The Complete Works of Walt Whitman

expression,

Out from her evolutions hither come, ended the strata of her former themes,

Hidden and cover’d by to-day’s, foundation of to-day’s,

Ended, deceas’d through time, her voice by Castaly’s fountain,

Silent the broken-lipp’d Sphynx in Egypt, silent all those century-

baffling tombs,

Ended for aye the epics of Asia’s, Europe’s helmeted warriors, ended

the primitive call of the muses,

Calliope’s call forever closed, Clio, Melpomene, Thalia dead,

Ended the stately rhythmus of Una and Oriana, ended the quest of the

holy Graal,

Jerusalem a handful of ashes blown by the wind, extinct,

The Crusaders’ streams of shadowy midnight troops sped with the sunrise,

Amadis, Tancred, utterly gone, Charlemagne, Roland, Oliver gone,

Palmerin, ogre, departed, vanish’d the turrets that Usk from its

waters reflected,

Arthur vanish’d with all his knights, Merlin and Lancelot and

Galahad, all gone, dissolv’d utterly like an exhalation;

Pass’d! pass’d! for us, forever pass’d, that once so mighty world,

now void, inanimate, phantom world,

Embroider’d, dazzling, foreign world, with all its gorgeous legends, myths,

Its kings and castles proud, its priests and warlike lords and

courtly dames,

Pass’d to its charnel vault, coffin’d with crown and armor on,

Blazon’d with Shakspere’s purple page,

And dirged by Tennyson’s sweet sad rhyme.

I say I see, my friends, if you do not, the illustrious emigre, (having it

is true in her day, although the same, changed, journey’d considerable,)

Making directly for this rendezvous, vigorously clearing a path for

herself, striding through the confusion,

By thud of machinery and shrill steam-whistle undismay’d,

Bluff’d not a bit by drain-pipe, gasometers, artificial fertilizers,

Smiling and pleas’d with palpable intent to stay,

She’s here, install’d amid the kitchen ware!

4

But hold — don’t I forget my manners?

To introduce the stranger, (what else indeed do I live to chant

for?) to thee Columbia;

In liberty’s name welcome immortal! clasp hands,

And ever henceforth sisters dear be both.

Fear not O Muse! truly new ways and days receive, surround you,

I candidly confess a queer, queer race, of novel fashion,

And yet the same old human race, the same within, without,

Faces and hearts the same, feelings the same, yearnings the same,

The same old love, beauty and use the same.

5

We do not blame thee elder World, nor really separate ourselves from thee,

(Would the son separate himself from the father?)

Looking back on thee, seeing thee to thy duties, grandeurs, through

past ages bending, building,

We build to ours to-day.

Mightier than Egypt’s tombs,

Fairer than Grecia’s, Roma’s temples,

Prouder than Milan’s statued, spired cathedral,

More picturesque than Rhenish castle-keeps,

We plan even now to raise, beyond them all,

Thy great cathedral sacred industry, no tomb,

A keep for life for practical invention.

As in a waking vision,

E’en while I chant I see it rise, I scan and prophesy outside and in,

Its manifold ensemble.

Around a palace, loftier, fairer, ampler than any yet,

Earth’s modern wonder, history’s seven outstripping,

High rising tier on tier with glass and iron facades,

Gladdening the sun and sky, enhued in cheerfulest hues,

Bronze, lilac, robin’s-egg, marine and crimson,

Over whose golden roof shall flaunt, beneath thy banner Freedom,

The banners of the States and flags of every land,

A brood of lofty, fair, but lesser palaces shall cluster.

Somewhere within their walls shall all that forwards perfect human

life be started,

Tried, taught, advanced, visibly exhibited.

Not only all the world of works, trade, products,

But all the workmen of the world here to be represented.

Here shall you trace in flowing operation,

In every state of practical, busy movement, the rills of civilization,

Materials here under your eye shall change their shape as if by magic,

The cotton shall be pick’d almost in the very field,

Shall be dried, clean’d, ginn’d, baled, spun into thread and cloth

before you,

You shall see hands at work at all the old processes and all the new ones,

You shall see the various grains and how flour is made and then

bread baked by the bakers,

You shall see the crude ores of California and Nevada passing on and

on till they become bullion,

You shall watch how the printer sets type, and learn what a

composing-stick is,

You shall mark in amazement the Hoe press whirling its cylinders,

shedding the printed leaves steady and fast,

The photograph, model, watch, pin, nail, shall be created before you.

In large calm halls, a stately museum shall teach you the infinite

lessons of minerals,

In another, woods, plants, vegetation shall be illustrated — in

another animals, animal life and development.

One stately house shall be the music house,

Others for other arts — learning, the sciences, shall all be here,

None shall be slighted, none but shall here be honor’d, help’d, exampled.

6

(This, this and these, America, shall be your pyramids and obelisks,

Your Alexandrian Pharos, gardens of Babylon,

Your temple at Olympia.)

The male and female many laboring not,

Shall ever here confront the laboring many,

With precious benefits to both, glory to all,

To thee America, and thee eternal Muse.

And here shall ye inhabit powerful Matrons!

In your vast state vaster than all the old,

Echoed through long, long centuries to come,

To sound of different, prouder songs, with stronger themes,

Practical, peaceful life, the people’s life, the People themselves,

Lifted, illumin’d, bathed in peace — elate, secure in peace.

7

Away with themes of war! away with war itself!

Hence from my shuddering sight to never more return that show of

blacken’d, mutilated corpses!

That hell unpent and raid of blood, fit for wild tigers or for

lop-tongued wolves, not reasoning men,

And in its stead speed industry’s campaigns,

With thy undaunted armies, engineering,

Thy pennants labor, loosen’d to the breeze,

Thy bugles sounding loud and clear.

Away with old romance!

Away with novels, plots and plays of foreign courts,

Away with love-verses sugar’d in rhyme, the intrigues, amours of idlers,

Fitted for only banquets of the night where dancers to late music slide,

The unhealthy pleasures, extravagant dissipations of the few,

With perfumes, heat and wine, beneath the dazzling chandeliers.

To you ye reverent sane sisters,

I raise a voice for far superber themes for poets and for art,

To exalt the present and the real,

To teach the average man the glory of his daily walk and trade,

To sing in songs how exercise and chemical life are never to be baffled,

To manual work for each and all, to plough, hoe, dig,

To plant and tend the tree, the berry, vegetables, flowers,

For every man to see to it that he really do something, for every woman too;

To use the hammer and the saw, (rip, or cross-cut,)

To cultivate a turn for carpentering, plastering, painting,

To work as tailor, tailoress, nurse, hostler, porter,

To invent a little, something ingenious, to aid the washing, cooking,

cleaning,

And hold it no disgrace to take a hand at them themselves.

I say I bring thee Muse to-day and here,