Walt Whitman - The Complete Works of Walt Whitman

Whoever you are! you are he or she for whom the earth is solid and liquid,

You are he or she for whom the sun and moon hang in the sky,

For none more than you are the present and the past,

For none more than you is immortality.

Each man to himself and each woman to herself, is the word of the

past and present, and the true word of immortality;

No one can acquire for another — not one,

Not one can grow for another — not one.

The song is to the singer, and comes back most to him,

The teaching is to the teacher, and comes back most to him,

The murder is to the murderer, and comes back most to him,

The theft is to the thief, and comes back most to him,

The love is to the lover, and comes back most to him,

The gift is to the giver, and comes back most to him — it cannot fail,

The oration is to the orator, the acting is to the actor and actress

not to the audience,

And no man understands any greatness or goodness but his own, or

the indication of his own.

3

I swear the earth shall surely be complete to him or her who shall

be complete,

The earth remains jagged and broken only to him or her who remains

jagged and broken.

I swear there is no greatness or power that does not emulate those

of the earth,

There can be no theory of any account unless it corroborate the

theory of the earth,

No politics, song, religion, behavior, or what not, is of account,

unless it compare with the amplitude of the earth,

Unless it face the exactness, vitality, impartiality, rectitude of

the earth.

I swear I begin to see love with sweeter spasms than that which

responds love,

It is that which contains itself, which never invites and never refuses.

I swear I begin to see little or nothing in audible words,

All merges toward the presentation of the unspoken meanings of the earth,

Toward him who sings the songs of the body and of the truths of the earth,

Toward him who makes the dictionaries of words that print cannot touch.

I swear I see what is better than to tell the best,

It is always to leave the best untold.

When I undertake to tell the best I find I cannot,

My tongue is ineffectual on its pivots,

My breath will not be obedient to its organs,

I become a dumb man.

The best of the earth cannot be told anyhow, all or any is best,

It is not what you anticipated, it is cheaper, easier, nearer,

Things are not dismiss’d from the places they held before,

The earth is just as positive and direct as it was before,

Facts, religions, improvements, politics, trades, are as real as before,

But the soul is also real, it too is positive and direct,

No reasoning, no proof has establish’d it,

Undeniable growth has establish’d it.

4

These to echo the tones of souls and the phrases of souls,

(If they did not echo the phrases of souls what were they then?

If they had not reference to you in especial what were they then?)

I swear I will never henceforth have to do with the faith that tells

the best,

I will have to do only with that faith that leaves the best untold.

Say on, sayers! sing on, singers!

Delve! mould! pile the words of the earth!

Work on, age after age, nothing is to be lost,

It may have to wait long, but it will certainly come in use,

When the materials are all prepared and ready, the architects shall appear.

I swear to you the architects shall appear without fall,

I swear to you they will understand you and justify you,

The greatest among them shall be he who best knows you, and encloses

all and is faithful to all,

He and the rest shall not forget you, they shall perceive that you

are not an iota less than they,

You shall be fully glorified in them.

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Youth, large, lusty, loving — youth full of grace, force, fascination,

Do you know that Old Age may come after you with equal grace,

force, fascination?

Day full-blown and splendid-day of the immense sun, action,

ambition, laughter,

The Night follows close with millions of suns, and sleep and

restoring darkness.

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1

Come said the Muse,

Sing me a song no poet yet has chanted,

Sing me the universal.

In this broad earth of ours,

Amid the measureless grossness and the slag,

Enclosed and safe within its central heart,

Nestles the seed perfection.

By every life a share or more or less,

None born but it is born, conceal’d or unconceal’d the seed is waiting.

2

Lo! keen-eyed towering science,

As from tall peaks the modern overlooking,

Successive absolute fiats issuing.

Yet again, lo! the soul, above all science,

For it has history gather’d like husks around the globe,

For it the entire star-myriads roll through the sky.

In spiral routes by long detours,

(As a much-tacking ship upon the sea,)

For it the partial to the permanent flowing,

For it the real to the ideal tends.

For it the mystic evolution,

Not the right only justified, what we call evil also justified.

Forth from their masks, no matter what,

From the huge festering trunk, from craft and guile and tears,

Health to emerge and joy, joy universal.

Out of the bulk, the morbid and the shallow,

Out of the bad majority, the varied countless frauds of men and states,

Electric, antiseptic yet, cleaving, suffusing all,

Only the good is universal.

3

Over the mountain-growths disease and sorrow,

An uncaught bird is ever hovering, hovering,

High in the purer, happier air.

From imperfection’s murkiest cloud,

Darts always forth one ray of perfect light,

One flash of heaven’s glory.

To fashion’s, custom’s discord,

To the mad Babel-din, the deafening orgies,

Soothing each lull a strain is heard, just heard,

From some far shore the final chorus sounding.

O the blest eyes, the happy hearts,

That see, that know the guiding thread so fine,

Along the mighty labyrinth.

4

And thou America,

For the scheme’s culmination, its thought and its reality,

For these (not for thyself) thou hast arrived.

Thou too surroundest all,

Embracing carrying welcoming all, thou too by pathways broad and new,

To the ideal tendest.

The measure’d faiths of other lands, the grandeurs of the past,

Are not for thee, but grandeurs of thine own,

Deific faiths and amplitudes, absorbing, comprehending all,

All eligible to all.

All, all for immortality,

Love like the light silently wrapping all,

Nature’s amelioration blessing all,

The blossoms, fruits of ages, orchards divine and certain,

Forms, objects, growths, humanities, to spiritual images ripening.

Give me O God to sing that thought,

Give me, give him or her I love this quenchless faith,

In Thy ensemble, whatever else withheld withhold not from us,

Belief in plan of Thee enclosed in Time and Space,

Health, peace, salvation universal.

Is it a dream?

Nay but the lack of it the dream,

And failing it life’s lore and wealth a dream,

And all the world a dream.

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Come my tan-faced children,

Follow well in order, get your weapons ready,

Have you your pistols? have you your sharp-edged axes?