AL4159,8,35

ITAS);
HARVARD
COLLEGE
LIBRARY








The Wisdom of
Walt Whitman
SELECTED AND EDITED, WITH
INTRODUCTION
BY
LAURENS MAYNARD
NEW YORK
Brentano's, Fifth Avenue
MCMXVII


AL 4159.8.35
HARVARD
UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY
Copyright, 1908, by Brentano's
PRESERVATION MASTER
AT HARVARD


Contents
INTRODUCTION, xiii-xvi
I. THE EVOLUTION OF PERSONALITY
"Ones Self I Sing," 2
To a Historian, 3
A Clue to the History of the Past, 3, 4
What is a Biography ? 4
✓ The Miracle of the Ego, 5
The Omnipotence of the Ego, 5, 6
All for You; Whoever You Are, 6
The Sacredness of the Individual, 7
Each of us Inevitable and Limitless, 8
Underneath all Individuals, 8, 9
Latent Potentialities, 9, 10
The Development of the Individual, 10-12
Personal Evolution, 12-14
The Talk of the Beginning and the End, 14, 15
The Joy of a Manly Selfhood, 15
The Immortality of the Individual, 15, 16
Everything Tallied in the Individual, 16, 17
Infinity and Eternity for Me, 17-19
Aspiration, 19
II. DEMOCRACY
A Word of the Modern, 22
The Purpose of Democracy, 23
“Earth's Résumé Entire," 24
Democratic Art, 24-26
The Influences which Stamp History, 26, 27


Contents
| II. DEMOCRACY — Continued
“The Fervid and Tremendous Idea," 27
The United States Essentially the Greatest
Poem, 27, 28
The Rôle of the United States in the Universal
Drama, 29, 30
“The Modern Composite Nation,” 30
Natal Stars, 31
The Importance of the Individual, 31
A Great City, 32
The Real Man of Divine Essence, 32, 33
The Genius of the United States, 33, 34
What Christ Appeared for, 34, 35
The Only Safe Formula, 35, 36
The People, 36
Literature Has Never Recognized the People, 37
The Mission of Government, 38
Where the Great City Stands, 38-40
America To-day a Seething Mass of Materials,
40, 41
“Land Tolerating All,” 41, 42
The Value of Politics, 42, 43
The Evil of Parties, 43
Faith in Democracy, 44
Democracy is Law, 44, 45
Solidarity, 45, 46
Centrifugal Forces, 46.
vi


Contents
II. DEMOCRACY — Continued
The Gravitation-hold of Property, 46, 47
The Brotherhood of Democracy, 47, 48
The Cement of Affection, 48
III. LOVE AND COMRADESHIP
“Camerado, I Give You My Hand,” 50
The Base of All Metaphysics, 51, 52
"I Sing the Body Electric,” 52
The Expression of the Body, 53
“This is the Female Form,” 54
“Das Ewig Weibliche,” 54, 55
“The Justified Mother of Men,” 55, 56
“The Fullspread Pride of a Man," 56
Fathers of Fathers and Mothers of Mothers, 57,
58
The Need for Perfect Women, 58
The Sacredness of the Body, 58, 59
The Meanings of Sex, 59, 60
Love the Pulse of All, 60, 61
The Madness of Love, 61, 62
The Attraction of Affinity, 62, 62
Reminiscences, 63, 64
The Safety of the Future, 64
Companionship, 64, 65
“To be with Those I Like," 65
The Adhesive Love in Democracy, 66
“For You, O Democracy!” 67
vii


Contents
III. LOVE AND COMRADESHIP— Continued
The Consolation of Affection, 68, 69
The Welding of the Nation, 69
The Yearnings of Solitude, 69, 70
Universal Brotherhood, 71
A Vital Bond in Literature, 71, 72
Invisible Communion, 72
IV. RELIGION.
Passage to Primal Thought, 74
The Religious Purpose of Leaves of Grass, 75, 76
After Reading Hegel, 76
The Emancipation of Religion, 76, 77
The Immanence of Religion, 77
The Conflict of Theology with Science, 78
A Child's Amaze, 78
The Priest of the Future, 78, 79
All-Inclusive Faith, 79
The Divine Element in all Religions, 79, 80
The Idea of God, 80
Joyousness and Health in Religion, 81
Adoration, 81
The Illumination of the Individual Soul, 81, 82
Chanting the Square Deific, 82
The Reign of Law, 82, 83
The Consolation of Affection, 83, 85
The Revolt of Evil, 85
The Fusing Spirit, 86
viii
.


Contents
IV. RELIGION -- Continued
Mystic Communion, 86, 87
The Subjectiveness of Religion, 87
The Last Ideal, 88, 89
Nirvana, 89-91
V. DEATH AND IMMORTALITY.
Life Cannot Exhibit All, 94
The Unknown Region, 95
“Whither O Mocking Life?” 96-98
The Idea of Immortality in Democracy, 98, 99
“I Know I am Deathless," 99, 100
“All, All for Immortality ? ” 101
“The Smallest Sprout Shows that there is no
Death,” 102
To See the Soul, 102, 103
The Spirituality of the Material, 104
Assurances, 104-106
The Purpose and Essence of the Known Life,
106-108
A Carol to Death, 108-110
“To Explore the Vacant Vast Surrounding,"
LIO, III
“Have You Dreaded these Earth-Beetles?" III
“Life is a Tillage," III
“Living are the Dead," 112
VI. LITERATURE AND Art.
Not to Create Only, 114


Contents
VI. LITERATURE AND ART— Continued
The Immortality of Judah and Greece, 115
The Literature of Feudalism, 115, 116
Literature and Personality, 116
The Need of a New Literature, 116
Superber Themes for Poets, 117
The Scientific Basis, 117, 118
Science Not All, 118, 119
Printed Pages Not Literature, 119
Originality an Art, 120
“Fear Not, O Muse!” 120
The English Language, 120, 121
What is Real Literature? 121-123
Our Inheritance from the Literature of the
Past, 123-126
The Mastery of the Poet, 126
Historian and Prophet, 126, 127
No Theme Small to the Poet, 127
“The Path Between Reality and the Soul,” 127
The Pride of the Soul, 127, 128
The Poet's Passion, 128, 129
The Test of the Greatest Poet, 129, 130
The Poetic Quality, 130
The Fruition of Beauty, 130
Rhyme and Rhythm, 130, 131
Simplicity in Art, 131
“The Flawless Triumph of Art,” 131


Contents
VI. LITERATURE AND Art - Continued
How to Live Poetry, 131, 132
The Final Test of Poems, 133
VII. The CONDUCT OF LIFE.
Independence, 136
The Greatness of the Present, 137
Now is Our Time, 137
No Better Minute than this, 138
The Divinity of the Ego, 138
Miracles Everywhere, 138-140
A Model for Manliness, 140, 141
The Blight of Money-Getting, 141, 142
Reticence, 142
Self-Consciousness, 142
Individuality, 142
Affirmations, 142, 143
Conviction, 143
Courage, 143, 144
To Fill One's Place is Enough, 144
Appreciation, 144, 145
Contentment, 145
Nature's Lesson, 146
Compensation, 146, 147
Prudence, 147, 148
The Joy of Living, 148, 149
The Real Economies of Life, 149, 150
Heroism, 150


Contents
VII. THE CONDUCT OF LIFE-Continued
Living Impulses-Not Duties, 150
The Superb Individual, 150
Thrift, 150
To Those who have Fail'd, 151
Self-Appreciation, 151, 152
The Influence of the Open, 152, 153
The Test of Wisdom, 153, 154
Assurance, 154
Optimism, 154
Patience, 154
Egotism, 154
xii


Intro-
duction
But as in the rich vegetation of the tropics
the most hastily gathered garland will show
beauty rich and unusual to the unfamiliar eye,
so even a haphazard choice can hardly fail
to arrest the attention and excite the interest
of the reader who has not acquainted himself
with the writings of this compelling master
of the minds of men. As the present collec-
tion is expected to appeal mainly to such
readers it has seemed best to limit the selec-
tions to certain broad topics which are most
typical of Whitman's thought. He himself
has indicated the three principal ideas which
have dominated his philosophy.
“The following chants each for its kind I bring
My Comrade!
For you to share with me two greatnesses
and a third one rising inclusive and more
resplendent,
The greatness of Love and Democracy, and
the greatness of Religion.”
Different as these topics appear they are
in Whitman's thought subtly interdependent.
xiv


Intro-
duction
Love, even in its physical expression, is filled
with the deep religious instinct, for “the soul
is not more than the body and the body is not
more than the soul”; and Love, rising above
the expression of passion becomes the ad-
hesive element binding comrades universal
into a cohesive body-politic while the impulses
toward reproduction must be refined and sanc-
tified into the purpose to produce “sons and
daughters fit for these States.”
· The sublety of Whitman's thought is such
that it is not always easy to classify excerpts.
This passage relates to Democracy, but we
find that in his ideal Democracy, Religion, an
individual mystic communion with the divine
principle, is a vital element, and the two ideas
are so delicately interwoven that the extract
would fit into place under either heading.
The saving grace of these subtleties for the
compiler is in the fact that if the reader finds
under one topic a suggestion which leads his
mind to another subject he will be equally
likely to find in that place a reciprocal thought
taking him back to the other.
In Whitman's conception of the universe
XV


Intro-
duction
everything centers upon the individual. The
evolution of one's own personality is the key-
note to his whole philosophy, and this subject
therefore stands well as the entrance porch
to any collection of his utterances. His
ideas of Literature and Art and of the Conduct
of Life are subjected always to the demands
of Democracy and the modern spirit, and are
expressed vigorously and with a facility of
phrase that is often finely epigrammatic. His
highest thought and his most original contri-
bution to literature will perhaps be found in
his attitude toward Death. Resignation to
the inevitable, a serene agnostic calm, a lean-
ing trust upon the divine mercy-all these
have been sung by other poets, but none of
these satisfies Whitman. He first approaches
the terror of dissolution with a complete con-
sciousness of continuance in a more perfect
condition of being in which personal identity
survives the ravages of the “earth beetles,”
and chants a welcome to the “Dark Mother”
in whom he finds the “loosener of the strict-
ure-knot called life.”
LAURENS MAYNARD.
xvi


I. THE EVOLUTION OF
PERSONALITY


One’s-Self I sing—a simple separate person;
Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-Masse.
Inscriptions.


Тоа
Histo-
rian
V OU who celebrate bygones!
I Who have explored the outward, the
surfaces of the races, the life that has ex-
hibited itself,
Who have treated of man as the creature of
politics, aggregates, rulers and priests;
I, habitan of the Alleghanies, treating of him
as he is in himself in his own rights,
Pressing the pulse of the life that has seldom
exhibited itself, (the great pride of man in
himself,
Chanter of Personality, outlining what is yet
to be,
I project the history of the future.
Inscriptions.
++
A Clue
to the
History
of the
Past
I WAS looking a long while for a clue to
T the history of the past for myself, and
for these chants — and now I have
found it,
It is not in those paged fables in the libraries,
(them I neither accept nor reject,)
It is no more in the legends than in all else,
It is in the present — it is this earth to-day,


It is in Democracy — (the purport and aim
of all the past),
It is the life of one man or one woman to-day
—the average man of to-day,
It is in languages, social customs, literatures,
arts,
It is in the broad show of artificial things,
ships, machinery, politics, creeds, modern
improvements, and the interchange of na-
tions,
All for the average man of to-day.
I was Looking a Long While.
tot
THEN I read the book, the biography
What is
a Biog-
raphy:
W
famous,
And is this then (said I) what the author calls
a man's life?
And so will some one when I am dead and
gone write my life?
(As if any man really knew aught of my life,
Why even I myself I often think know little
or nothing of my real life,
Only a few hints, a few diffused faint clues
and indirections
I seek for my own use to trace out here.)


The
Miracle
of the
Ego
THERE is, in sanest hours, a conscious-
I ness, a thought that rises, independent,
lifted out from all else, calm, like the stars,
shining eternal. This is the thought of Iden-
tity — yours for you, whoever you are, as
mine for me. Miracle of miracles, beyond
statement, most spiritual and vaguest of earth's
dreams, yet hardest basic fact, and only en-
trance to all facts. In such devout hours, in
the midst of the significant wonders of heaven
and earth, (significant only because of the Me
in the centre,) creeds, conventions, fall away
and become of no account before this simple
idea. Under the luminousness of real vision,
it alone takes possession, takes value. Like
the shadowy dwarf in the fable, once liberated
and look'd upon, it expands over the whole
earth, and spreads to the roof of heaven.
Democratic Vistas.
+to
N AZZLING and tremendous how quick ||
the sunrise would kill me,
If I could not now and always send sunrise
· out of me.
The
Omnip-
otence
of the
Ego


The
Sacred-
ness of
the Indi-
vidual
THE man's body is sacred, and the
I woman's body is sacred,
No matter who it is, it is sacred;
Is it a slave?-Is it one of the dull-faced
immigrants just landed on the wharf?
Each belongs here or anywhere just as much
as the well-off, just as much as you,
Each has his or her place in the procession.
(All is a procession,
The universe is a procession with measured
and perfect motion.)
Do you know so much yourself that you call
the slave or the dull-face ignorant ?
Do you suppose you have a right to a good
sight, and he or she has no right to a
sight?
Do you think matter has cohered together
from its diffuse float and the soil is on the
surface, and water runs and vegetation
sprouts,
For you only, and not for him and her?
Children of Adam.


You benighted roamer of Amazonia! you
Patagonian! you Fejee-man!
I do not prefer others so very much before you
either,
I do not say one word against you, away back
there where you stand,
(You will come forward in due time to my
side).
Salut au Monde.
The De-
velop-
ment of
the In-
dividual
CAUNTERING the pavement thus, or
w crossing the ceaseless ferry, faces and
faces and faces,
I see them and complain not, and am content
with all.
Do you suppose I could be content with all if |
I thought them their own finalé?
This now is too lamentable a face for a
man,
Some abject louse asking leave to be, cringing
for it,
Some milk-nosed maggot blessing what lets
it wrig to its hole.
IO


Faces
This face is a dog's snout sniffing for garbage,
Snakes nest in that mouth, I hear the sibilant
threat.
This face is a haze more chill than the arctic
sea,
Its sleepy and wobbling icebergs crunch as
they go.
This is a face of bitter herbs, this an emetic,
they need no label,
And more of the drug-shelf, laudanum, caout-
chouc, or hog’s-lard.
This face owes to the sexton his dismalest
fee,
An unceasing death-bell tolls there.
Features of my equals would you trick me
with your creas'd and cadaverous march?
Well, you cannot trick me.
I see your rounded never-erased flow,
I see 'neath the rims of your haggard and
mean disguises.
II


Splay and twist as you like, poke with the
tangling fores of fishes or rats,
You'll be unmuzzled, you certainly will.
I saw the face of the most smear'd and slob-
bering idiot they had at the asylum,
And I knew for my consolation what they
knew not,
I knew of the agents that emptied and broke
my brother,
The same wait to clear the rubbish from the
fallen tenement,
And I shall look again in a score or two of
ages,
And I shall meet the real landlord perfect and
unharm’d, every inch as good as myself.
Faces.
I AM an acme of things accomplish’d, and
I I an encloser of things to be.
My feet strike an apex of the apices of the stairs,
On every step bunches of ages, and larger
bunches between the steps,
All below duly travel'd, and still I mount and
mount.
Person-
al Evo-
lution
12


Person-
al Evo-
lution
Rise aiter rise bcw the phantoms behind me,
Aſar down I see the huge first Nothing, I know
I was even there,
I waited unseen and always, and slept through
the lethargic mist,
And took my time, and took no hurt from the
fetid carbon.
Long I was hugg'd close — long and long.
Immense have been the preparations for me,
Faithful and friendly the arms that have
help'd me.
Cycles ferried my cradle, rowing and rowing
like cheerful boatmen,
For room to me stars kept aside in their own
rings,
They sent influences to look after what was to
hold me.
Before I was born out of my mother genera-
tions guided me,
My embryo has never been torpid, nothing
could overlay it.
13


For it the nebula cohered to an orb,
The long slow strata piled to rest it on,
Vast vegetables gave it sustenance,
Monstrous sauroids transported it in their
mouths and deposited it with care.
All forces have been steadily employ'd to
complete and delight me,
Now on this spot I stand with my robust soul.
Song of Myself.
--tot-
The
Talk of
the Be-
ginning
and the
End
I HAVE heard what the talkers were talk-
T ing, the talk of the beginning and the
end,
But I do not talk of the beginning or the end.
There was never any more inception than
there is now,
Nor any more youth or age than there is now,
And will never be any more perfection than
there is now,
Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.
Urge and urge and urge,
Always the procreant urge of the world.
14


It is not to diffuse you that you were born of
your mother and father, it is to identify
you,
It is not that you should be undecided, but
that you should be decided,
Something long preparing and formless is
arrived and form’d in you,
You are henceforth secure, whatever comes
or goes.
To Think of Time.
**
Every-
thing
Tallied
in the
Individ-
ual
T IST close my scholars dear,
L All doctrines, all politics and civiliza-
tion exurge from you,
All sculpture and monuments and anything
inscribed anywhere are tallied in you,
The gist of histories and statistics as far back
as the records reach is in you this hour, and
myths and tales the same,
If you were not breathing and walking here,
where would they all be?
The most renown'd poems would be ashes,
orations and plays would be vacuums.
16


All architecture is what you do to it when you
look upon it,
(Did you think it was in the white or gray
stone? or the lines of the arches and cor-
nices ?)
All music is what awakes from you when you
are reminded by the instruments,
It is not the violins and the cornets, it is not
the oboe nor the beating drums, nor the
score of the baritone singer singing his sweet
romanza, nor that of the men's chorus, nor
that of the women's chorus,
It is nearer and farther than they.
A Song for Occupations.
++
I OPEN my scuttle at night and see the far-
I sprinkled systems,
And all I see multiplied as high as I can cipher
edge but the rim of the farther systems.
Infinity
and
Eternity
for Me
Wider and wider they spread, expanding,
always expanding,
Outward and outward and forever outward.
17


Infinity
and
Eternity
My sun has his sun and round him obediently
Il wheels,
He joins with his partners a group of superior
circuit,
And greater sets follow, making specks of the
greatest inside them.
There is no stoppage and never can be stop-
page,
If I, you, and the worlds, and all beneath or
upon their surfaces, were this moment re-
duced back to a pallid float, it would not
avail in the long run,
We should surely bring up again where we now
stand,
And surely go as much farther, and then far-
ther and farther.
A few quadrillions of eras, a few octillions of
cubic leagues, do not hazard the span or
make it impatient,
They are but parts, any thing is but a
part.


See ever so far, there is limitless space outside
of that,
Count ever so much, there is limitless time
around that.
My rendezvous is appointed, it is certain,
The Lord will be there and wait till I come on
perfect terms,
The great Camerado, the lover true for whom
I pine will be there.
Song of Myself.
-foot
Aspira-
tion
THIS day before dawn I ascended a hill ||
T and look'd at the crowded heaven,
And I said to my Spirit, When we become the
enfolders of those orbs, and the pleasure and
knowledge of everything in them, shall we
be fill’d and satisfied then?
And my spirit said No, we but level that lift to
pass and continue beyond.
Song of Myself.
10





II. DEMOCRACY


Endless unfolding of words of ages!
And mine a word of the modern, the word En-Masse.


ting, begetting appropriate teachers, schools,
manners, and, as its grandest result, accom-
plishing (what neither the schools nor the
churches and their clergy have hitherto ac-
complish'd, and without which this nation will
no more stand, permanently, soundly, than a
house will stand without a substratum) a
religious and moral character beneath the po-
litical and productive and intellectual bases of
the States. For know you not, dear earnest
readers, that the people of our land may all
know how to read and write, and may all pos-
sess the right to vote and yet the main things
may be entirely lacking?
Democratic Vistas.
The
Influ-
ences
which
Stamp
History
TO the ostent of the senses and eyes, I
1 know, the influences which stamp the
|| world's history are wars, uprisings or down-
falls of dynasties, changeful movements of
trade, important inventions, navigation, mili-
tary or civil governments, advent of power-
ful personalities, conquerors, etc. These of
course play their part; yet, it may be, a single
new thought, imagination, principle, even


"The
Fervid
and
Tremen-
dous
Idea"
literary style, fit for the time, put in shape by
some great literatus, and projected among
mankind, may duly cause changes, growths,
removals, greater than the longest and blood-
iest war, or the most stupendous merely polit-
ical, dynastic, or commercial overturn.
++ Democratic Vistas.
N OTHING is plainer than the need, a long
IV period to come, of a fusion of the States
into the only reliable identity, the mortal and
artistic one. For, I say, the true nationality
of the States, the genuine union, when we come
to a moral crisis, is, and is to be, after all,
neither the written law nor, (as is generally
supposed,) either self-interest, or common
pecuniary or material objects — but the fervid
and tremendous IDEA, melting everything else
with resistless heat, and solving all lesser and
definite distinctions in vast, indefinite, spiritual,
emotional power. tt Democratic Vistas.
THE Americans of all nations at any time
T upon the earth, have probably the fullest
poetical nature. The United States them-
selves are essentially the greatest poem. In
“The
United
States
Essen-
tially the
Greatest
Poem”


The
Rôle of
the
United
States
in the
Univer-
sal
Drama
A S if in some colossal drama, acted again
H like those of old under the open sun, the
Nations of our time, and all the characteristics
of Civilization, seem hurrying, stalking across,
flitting from wing to wing, gathering, closing
up, toward some long-prepar'd, most tremen-
dous dénouement. Not to conclude the in-
finite scenas of the race's life and toil and hap-
piness and sorrow but ha ply that the boards
be clear'd from oldest, worst incumbrances,
accumulations, and Man resume the eternal
play anew, and under happier, freer auspices.
To me, the United States are important be-
cause in this colossal drama they are unques-
tionably designated for the leading parts for
many a century to come. In them history and
humanity seem to culminate. Our broad
areas are even now the busy theatre of plots,
passions, interests, and suspended problems
compared to which the intrigues of the past of
Europe ... and even the development of
peoples, as hitherto, exhibit scales of meas-
urement comparatively narrow and trivial.
And on these areas of ours, as on a stage, soon-
er or later, something like an eclaircissement of


all the past civilization of Europe and Asia is
probably to be evolved.
Preface, 1872.
“The
Modern
Compos-
ite Na-
tion"
N OT to be acted, emulated here, by us
IV again, that rôle till now foremost in
history—not to become a conqueror nation, or
to achieve the glory of mere military, or diplo-
matic, or commercial superiority—but to be-
come the grand producing land of nobler
men and women-of copious races, cheerful,
healthy, tolerant, free — to become the most
friendly nation (the United States indeed) -
the modern composite nation, form’d from all,
with room for all, welcoming all immigrants —
accepting the work of our own interior de-
velopment, as the work fitly filling ages and
ages to come; — the leading nation of peace,
but neither ignorant nor incapable of being
the leading nation of war; — not the man's
nation only, but the woman's nation - a land
of splendid mothers, daughters, sisters, wives.
Preface, 1872.
301


Natal
Stars
The
Impor-
tance of
the In-
dividual
TO! where arise three peerless stars
L To be thy natal stars, my country-En-
semble — Evolution — Freedom,
Set in the sky of Law.
Thou Mother with Thy Equal Brood.
++
DUT sternly discarding, shutting our eyes
D to the glow and grandeur of the gen-
eral effect, coming down to what is of the
only real importance, Personalities, and ex-
amining minutely, we question, we ask, Are
there, indeed, men here worthy the name?
Are there athletes ? Are there perfect women,
to match the generous material luxuriance?
Is there a pervading atmosphere of beautiful
manners? Are there crops of fine youths, and
majestic old persons ? Are there arts worthy
freedom and a rich people? Is there a great
moral and religious civilization — the only
justification of a great material one?
Democratic Vistas.
toto
31


A Great
City
What do you think endures ?
Do you think a great city endures ?
Or a teeming manufacturing State ? or a pre-
pared constitution? or the best built steam-
ships?
Or hotels of granite and iron? or any chef-
d'œuvres of engineering, forts, armaments ?
Away! these are not to be cherish'd for them-
selves,
They fill their hour, the dancers dance, the
musicians play for them,
The show passes, all does well enough of
course,
All does very well till one flash of defiance.
The great city is that which has the greatest
men and women,
If it be a few ragged huts it is still the greatest
city in the whole world.
Song of the Broad-Axe.
The
Real
Man of
Divine
Essence
POR after the rest is said-after the many
T time-honor'd and really true things for
subordination, experience, rights of property,
32


swarming states, nor streets and steamships,
nor prosperous business, nor farms, nor cap-
ital, nor learning, may suffice for the ideal of
man - nor suffice the poet. No reminis-
cences may suffice either. A live nation can
always cut a deep mark, and can have the
best authority the chea pest-namely, from its
own soul. ... The pride of the United States
leaves the wealth and finesse of the cities, and
all returns of commerce and agriculture, and
all the magnitude of geography and shows of
exterior victory, to enjoy the sight and realiza-
tion of full-sized men, or one full-sized man
unconquerable and simple.
++
hot Preface, 1855.
W HAT Christ appear'd for in the moral-
V spiritual field for human-kind, namely,
that in respect to the absolute soul, there is
in the possession of such by each single indi-
vidual, something so transcendent, so inca-
pable of gradations (like life,) that, to that ex-
tent, it places all beings on a common level,
utterly regardless of the distinctions of intel-
lect, virtue, station, or any height or lowliness
“What
Christ
Appear-
ed For"
34


whatever — is tallied in like manner, in this
other field, by democracy's rule that men, the
nation, as a common aggregate of living iden-
tities, affording in each a separate and com-
plete subject for freedom, worldly thrift and
happiness, and for a fair chance for growth,
and for protection in citizenship, etc., must, to
the political extent of the suffrage or vote, if no
further, be placed, in each and in the whole, on
one broad, primary, universal, common plat-
form.
Democratic Vistas.
-
-
The
Only
Safe
Formu-
la
W E do not, (at any rate I do not,) put it
'either on the ground that the People,
the masses, even the best of them, are, in their
latent or exhibited qualities, essentially sen-
sible and good — nor on the ground of their
rights; but that good or bad, rights or no
rights, the democratic formula is the only safe
and preservative one for coming times. We
endow the masses with the suffrage for their
own sake, no doubt; then, perhaps still more,
from another point of view, for community's
sake. Leaving the rest to the sentimentalists,
we present freedom as sufficient in its scien-
35


The
People
tific aspect, cold as ice, reasoning, deductive,
clear and passionless as crystal.
Democratic Vistas.
+40
THE People! Like our huge earth itself,
I which, to ordinary scansion, is full of vul-
gar contradiction and offence, man, viewed in
the lump, displeases, and is a constant puzzle
and affront to the merely educated classes.
The rare, cosmical, artist-mind, lit with the
Infinite, alone confronts his manifold and
oceanic qualities — but taste, intelligence and
culture (so-called,) have been against the
masses, and remain so. There is plenty of
glamour about the most damnable crimes and
hoggish meannesses, special and general, of
the feudal and dynastic world over there, with
its personnel of lords and queens and courts, so
well-dress'd and so handsome. But the Peo-
ple are ungrammatical, untidy, and their sins
gaunt and ill-bred.
Democratic Vistas.
tot
36


The
Mission
of Gov-
ernment
I SAY the mission of government, hence-
T forth in civilized lands, is not repression
alone, and not authority alone, not even of
law, nor by that favorite standard of the
eminent writer, the rule of the best men, the
born heroes and captains of the race, (as if
such ever, or one time out of a hundred, get
into the big places, elective or dynastic) —
but higher than the highest arbitrary rule,
to train communities through all their grades,
beginning with individuals and ending there
again, to rule themselves.
Democratic Vistas.
-off-
Where
the
Great
City
Stands
THE place where the great city stands is
T not the place of stretch'd wharves, docks,
manufactures, deposits of produce,
Nor the place of ceaseless salutes of new-
comers or the anchor-lifters of the departing,
Nor the place of the tallest and costliest build-
ings or shops selling goods from the rest of
the earth,
Nor the place of the best libraries and schools,
nor the place where money is plentiest,
Nor the place of the most numerous population.
38


The
Great
City
Where the city stands with the brawniest
breed of orators and bards,
Where the city stands that is belov’d by these,
and loves them in return and understands
them,
Where no monuments exist to heroes but in
the common words and deeds,
Where thrift is in its place, and prudence is in
its place,
Where the men and women think lightly of
the laws,
Where the slave ceases, and the master of
slaves ceases,
Where the populace rise at once against the
never-ending audacity of elected persons,
Where fierce men and women pour forth as
the sea to the whistle of death pours its
sweeping and unript waves,
Where outside authority enters always after
the precedence of inside authority,
Where the citizen is always the head and
ideal, and President, Mayor, Governor, and
what not, are agents for pay, .
Where children are taught to be laws to them-
selves, and to depend on themselves,
39


Where equanimity is illustrated in affairs,
Where speculations on the soul are encouraged,
Where women walk in public processions in
the streets the same as the men,
Where they enter the public assembly and
take places the same as the men;
Where the city of the faithfulest friends stands,
Where the city of the cleanliness of the sexes
stands,
Where the city of the healthiest fathers stands,
Where the city of the best-bodied mothers
stands,
There the great city stands.
Song of the Broad-Axe.
America
To-day
a Seeth-
ing
Mass of
Mate-
rials
N UR America to-day I consider in many
respects as but indeed a vast seething
mass of materials, ampler, better, (worse also,)
than previously known -- eligible to be used
to carry towards its crowning stage, and build
for good, the great ideal nationality of the
future, the nation of the body and the soul, —
no limit here to land, help, opportunities,
mines, products, demands, supplies, etc.; —
SUR RAPPORT
ZZ
40


The storm shall dash thy face — the murk
of war, and worse than war, shall cover thee
all over;
The
Value of
Politics
But thou shalt face thy fortunes, thy diseases,
and surmount them all.
Thou Mother with thy Equal Brood.
**
To practically enter into politics is an
1 important part of American personal-
ism. . . . It is the fashion among dilettants and
fops to decry the whole formulation of the ac-
tive politics of America, as beyond redemption,
and to be carefully kept away from. See you
that you do not fall into this error. America,
it may be, is doing very well upon the whole,
notwithstanding these antics of the parties and
their leaders, these half-brain'd nominees, the
many ignorant ballots, and many elected fail-
ures and blatherers. It is the dilletants, and
all who shirk their duty, who are not doing
well. As for you, I advise you to enter more
strongly yet into politics. I advise every
42


The
Evil of
young man to do so. Always inform your-
self; always do the best you can; always vote.
** Democratic Vistas.
N ISENGAGE yourself from parties.
They have been useful, and to some | Parties
extent remain so; but the floating, uncom-
mitted electors, farmers, clerks, mechanics,
the masters of parties — watching aloof, in-
clining victory this side or that side — such
are the ones most needed, present and future.
For America, if eligible at all to downfall and
ruin, is eligible within herself, not without; for
I see clearly that the combined foreign world
could not beat her down. But these savage,
wolfish parties alarm me. Owning no law but
their own will, more and more combative, less
and less tolerant of the idea of ensemble and of
equal brotherhood, the perfect equality of the
States, the ever-overarching American ideas,
it behooves you to convey yourself implicitly
to no party, nor submit blindly to their dic-
tators, but steadily hold yourself judge and
master over all of them.
Democratic Vistas.
43


administer'd in favor, or at least not against it,
and that this reservation be closely construed
— that until the individual or community
show due signs, or be su minor and fractional
as not to endanger the State, the condition of
authoritative tutelage may continue, and self-
government must abide its time.) Nor is the
esthetic point, always an important one, with-
out fascination for highest aiming souls. The
common ambition strains for elevations, to
become some privileged exclusive. The mas-
ter sees greatness and health in being part
of the mass; nothing will do as well as common
ground. Would you have in yourself the
divine, vast, general law? Then merge your-
self in it.
Democratic Vistas.
Solidar-
ity
THE great master has nothing to do with ||
T miracles. He sees health for himself in
being one of the mass — he sees the hiatus in
singular eminence. To the perfect shape
comes common ground. To be under the
general law is great, for that is to correspond
with it. The master knows that he is un-
45


best kept together by the simple miracle of its
own cohesion, and the necessity, exercise and
profit thereof, so a great and varied national-
ity, occupying millions of square miles, were
firmest held and knit by the principle of the
safety and endurance of the aggregate of its
middling property owners. So that, from
another point of view, ungracious as it may
sound, and a paradox after what we have been
saying, democracy looks with suspicious, ill-
satisfied eye upon the very poor, the ignorant,
and on those out of business. She asks for
men and women with occupations, well-off,
owners of houses and acres, and with cash in
the bank — and with some cravings for liter-
ature, too; and must have them, and hastens
to make them.
Democratic Vistas.
The
Broth-
erhood
of Dem-
ocracy
AND, topping democracy, this most al-
A luring record, that it alone can bind, and
ever seeks to bind, all nations, all men, of how-
ever various and distant lands, into a brother-
hood, a family. It is the old, yet ever-modern
dream of earth, out of her eldest and her
youngest, her fond philosophers and poets.


Not that half only, individualism, which
isolates. There is another half, which is
adhesiveness or love, that fuses, ties and ag-
gregrates, making the races comrades, and
fraternizing all. Both are to be vitalized by
religion, (sole worthiest elevator of man or
State,) breathing into the proud, material
tissues the breath of life. For I say at the core
of democracy, finally, is the religious element.
All the religions, old and new, are there. Nor
may the scheme step forth, clothed in resplen-
dent beauty and command, till these, bearing
the best, the latest fruit, the spiritual, shall
fully appear.
Democratic Vistas.
foto
T DREAM'D in a dream I saw a city in-
vincible to the attacks of the whole of the
rest of the earth;
I dream'd that was the new city of Friends;
Nothing was greater there than the quality
of robust love, it led the rest;
It was seen every hour in the actions of the
men of that city,
And in all their looks and words.
Calamus.
The
Cement
of Affec-
tion
48


IHI LOVE AND COMRADESHIP


The
AND now gentlemen,
H A word I give to remain in your memo-
ries and minds,
As base and finalè too for all metaphysics.
Base of
all
Meta-
physics
(So to the students the old professor,
At the close of his crowded course.)
Having studied the new and antique, the
Greek and Germanic systems,
Kant having studied and stated, Fichte and
Schelling and Hegel,
Stated the lore of Plato, and Socrates greater
than Plato,
And greater than Socrates sought and stated,
Christ divine having studied long,
I see reminiscent to-day those Greek and Ger-
manic systems,
See the philosophies all, Christian churches
- and tenets see,
Yet underneath Socrates clearly see, and un-
derneath Christ the divine I see,
The dear love of man for his comrade, the
attraction of friend to friend,
51


The female contains all qualities, and tem-
pers them — she is in her place, and moves
with perfect balance.
As I see my soul reflected in nature;
As I see through a mist, one with inexpressible
completeness and beauty,
See the bent head, and arms folded over the
breast — the female I see.
Children of Adam.
tot
DEHOLD a woman!
D She looks out from her Quaker-cap-
her face is clearer and more beautiful than
the sky.
“The
Justified
Mother
of Men"
She sits in an arm-chair, under the shaded
porch of the farmhouse,
The sun just shines on her old white head.
Her ample gown is of cream-hued linen:
Her grandsons raised the flax and her grand-
daughters spun it with the distaff and the
wheel.
55


A MAN'S body at auction,
I help the auctioneer—the sloven does
'not half know his business.
Fathers
of
Fathers
and
Mothers
of
Mothers
Gentlemen, look on this wonder!
Whatever the bids of the bidders, they can-
not be high enough for it;
For it the globe lay preparing quintillions of
years, without one animal or plant;
For it the revolving cycles truly and steadily
roll’d.
This is not only one man, this the father of
those who shall be fathers in their turns;
In him the start of populous states and rich
republics,
Of him countless immortal lives with count-
less embodiments and enjoyments.
How do you know who shall come from the
offspring of his offspring through the cen-
turies?
(Who might you find you have come from
yourself, if you could trace back through
· the centuries ?)
57


The
Need for
Perfect
Women
A woman's body at auction,
She too is not only herself, she is the teeming
mother of mothers;
She is the bearer of them that shall grow and
be mates to the mothers.
Children of Adam.
tto
I INFOLDED out of the folds of the
woman's brain,
Come all the folds of the man's brain duly
obedient; '
Unfolded out of the justice of the woman, all
justice is unfolded;
Unfolded out of the sympathy of the woman
is all sympathy;
A man is a great thing upon the earth, and
through eternity — but every jot of the
greatness of man is unfolded out of woman.
Unfolded out of the Folds.
tto
IF anything is sacred the human body is
|| 1 sacred,
And the glory and sweet of a man is the token
of manhood untainted;
The
Sacred-
ness of
the
Body
58


All the governments, judges, gods, follow'd
persons of the earth-
These are contain'd in sex as parts of itself
and justifications of itself.
Children of Adam.
otto
PLOW again trumpeter! and for thy
Love the
Pulse of
All
D
theme
Take now the enclosing theme of all, the sol-
vent and the setting,
Love, that is pulse of all, the sustenance and
the pang,
The heart of man and woman all for love,
No other theme but love — knitting, enclos-
ing, all-diffusing love.
O how the immortal phantoms crowd around
me!
I see the vast alembic ever working, I see and
know the flames that heat the world,
The glow, the blush, the beating hearts of
lovers,
So blissful happy some, and some so silent,
dark, and nigh to death;


Love, that is all the earth to lovers — love,
that mocks time and space,
Love, that is day and night — love, that is
sun and moon and stars,
Love, that is crimson, sumptuous, sick with
perfume,
No other words but words of love, no other
thought but love.
The Mystic Trumpeter.
++
NE hour to madness and joy!
O furious! O confine me not!
(What is this that frees me so in storms?
What do my shouts amid lightnings and raging
winds mean?)
The
Mad-
ness of
Love
O something improv'd! Something in a
trance!
O madness amorous! O trembling!
O to escape utterly from others' anchors and
holds
To drive free! to love free! to dash reckless
and dangerous!
61


Behold the great rondure—the cohesion of all,
how perfect!
But as for me, for you, the irresistible sea is to
separate us,
As for an hour carrying us diverse—yet can-
not carry us diverse forever;
Be not impatient-a little space—know you, I
salute the air, the ocean, and the land
Every day, at sundown, for your dear sake,
my love.)
Children of Adam.
tot
Remi-
nis-
cences
I HEARD you solemn-sweet pipes of the
T organ as last Sunday morn I pass’d the
church;
Winds of autumn, as I walk'd the woods at
dusk I heard your long-stretch'd sighs up
above so mournful;
I heard the perfect Italian tenor singing at the
opera, I heard the soprano in the midst of
the quartet singing;
Heart of my love! you too I heard murmuring
low through one of the wrists around my
head,
03


I will write the evangel-poem of comrades and
of love,
For who but I should understand love with
all its sorrow and joy?
And who but I should be the poet of comrades ?
Starting from Paumanok.
**
I HAVE perceiv'd that to be with those I
I like is enough,
To stop in company with the rest at evening
is enough,
To be surrounded by beautiful, curious,
breathing, laughing flesh is enough,
To pass among them or touch any one, or rest
my arm ever so lightly round his or her
neck for a moment, what is this then ?
I do not ask any more delight, I swim in it as
in a sea.
“To be
with
Those I
Like"
There is something in staying close to men and
women and looking on them, and in the
contact and odor of them, that pleases the
soul well.
All things please the soul, but these please the
soul well.
Children of Adam.


The
Conso-
lation of
Affec-
tion
F the terrible doubt of appearances,
O
Of the uncertainty after all, that we may
of the
be deluded,
That may-be reliance and hope are but spec-
ulations after all,
That may-be identity beyond the grave is a
beautiful fable only,
May-be the things I perceive, the animals,
plants, men, hills, shining and flowing
waters,
The skies of day and night, colors, densities,
forms, may-be these are (as doubtless they
are) only apparitions, and the real some-
thing has yet to be known.
To me these and the like of these are curiously
answer'd by my lovers, my dear friends,
When he whom I love travels with me or sits
a long while holding me by the hand,
When the subtle air, the impalpable, the sense
that words and reason hold not, surround us
and pervade us,
Then I am charged with untold and untellable
wisdom, I am silent, I require nothing
further,
68


Solitude
And its look, rude, unbending, lusty, made
me think of myself.
But I wonder'd how it could utter joyous
leaves standing alone there without its
friend, its lover near, for I knew I could
not;
And I broke off a twig with a certain number
of leaves upon it, and twined round it a little
moss,
And brought it away; and I have placed it in
sight in my room.
It is not needed to remind me as of my own
dear friends,
(For I believe lately I think of little else than of
them,)
Yet it remains to me a curious token, it makes
me think of manly love;
For all that, and though the live-oak glistens
there in Louisiana solitary in a wide flat
space,
Uttering joyous leaves all its life without a
friend a lover near,
I know very well I could not.
Calamus.
tot
70


Uni-
versal
Broth-
erhood
M Y spirit has pass'd in compassion and
determination around the whole earth;
I have look'd for equals and lovers and found
them ready for me in all lands;
I think some divine rapport has equalized me
with them.
Salut au Monde.
-
-
Bond in
Litera-
ture
I ALSO sent out Leaves of Grass to arouse || A Vital
and set flowing in men's and women's
hearts, young and old, (my present and future
readers,) endless streams of living, pulsating
love and friendship, directly from them to my-
self, now and ever. To this terrible irre-
pressible yearning, (surely more or less down
underneath in most human souls,) — this
never-satisfied appetite for sympathy, and this
boundless offering of sympathy — this uni-
versal democratic comradeship — this old
eternal, yet ever-new interchange of adhesive-
ness, so fitly emblematic of America - I have
given in that book, undisguisedly, declaredly,
the openest expression. Poetic literature has
long been the formal and conventional tender
of art and beauty merely, and of a narrow, con-
stipated, special amativeness. I say the sub-
71


tlest, sweetest, surest tie between me and Him
or Her, who in the pages of Calamus and other
pieces realizes me — though we never see
each other, or though ages and ages hence —
must, in their way, be personal affection. And
those—be they few, or be they many—are at
any rate my readers, in a sense that belongs
not, and never can belong, to better, prouder
poems.
Preface, 1876.
++
W H EN you read these I that was visible
am become invisible.
Now it is you, compact, visible, realizing my
poems, seeking me,
Fancying how happy you were if I could be
with you and become your comrade;
Be it as if I were with you. (Be not too cer-
tain but I am now with you.)
Calamus.
Invisible
Com-
munion
72


IV. RELIGION


Passage indeed O soul to primal thought,
Not lands and seas alone, thy own clear freshness,
The young maturity of brood and bloom,
To realms of budding bibles.
Passage to India.


After
Reading
Hegel
scribably grander — Time's young but per-
fect offspring — the new theology-heir of the
West — lusty and loving and wondrous beau-
tiful. For America, and for to-day, just the
same as any day, the supreme and final science
is the science of God – what we call science
being only its minister — as Democracy is, or
shall be also.
Preface, 1872.
te
DOAMING in thought over the Universe,
N I saw the little that is Good steadily
hastening towards immortality,
And the vast all that is call’d Evil I saw has-
tening to merge itself and become lost and
dead.
Roaming in Thought.
tto
THE time has certainly come to begin to
T discharge the idea of religion ... from
mere ecclesiasticism, and from Sundays and
churches and church-going, and assign it to that
general position, chiefest, most indispensable,
most exhilarating, to which the others are to be
adjusted, inside of all human character, and
education, and affairs. . . . It must be con-
The
Eman-
cipation
of Reli-
gion


· but per-
eir of the
ous beau-
; just the
ial science
Il science
racy is, or
ace, 1872.
sign’d henceforth to democracy en masse, and
to literature. It must enter into the poems of
the nation. It must make the nation.
Preface, 1872.
toto
C ACH is not for its own sake,
L I say the whole earth and all the stars
in the sky are for religion's sake.
The
Imma-
nence of
Religion
Universe,
| steadily
saw has-
lost and
Thought.
I say no man has ever yet been half devout
enough,
None has ever yet adored or worship'd half
enough,
None has begun to think how divine he him-
self is, and how certain the future is.
begin to
. . from
Jays and
it to that
pensable,
I say that the real and permanent grandeur
of these States must be their religion,
Otherwise there is no real and permanent
grandeur;
(Nor character nor life worthy the name
without religion,
Nor land nor man or woman without reli-
Starting from Paumanok.
are to be
ter, and
be con-
gion.)
77


The
Conflict
of T..e-
ology
wit
Science
N OTE,to-day, an instructive, curious spec-
IV tacle and conflict. Science, (twin, in its
fields, of Democracy in its) -- Science, testing
absolutely all thoughts, all works, has already
burst well upon the world -- a sun, mounting,
most illuminating, most glorious — surely
never again to set. But against it, deeply en-
trench’d, holding possession, yet remains, (not
only through the churches and schools, but by
imaginative literature, and unregenerate poe-
try,) the fossil theology of the mythic-mate-
rialistic, superstitious, untaught and credulous,
fable-loving, primitive ages of humanity.
Democratic Vistas.
Child's
Amaze
CILENT and amazed even when a
w little boy,
I remember I heard the preacher every Sunday
put God in his statements,
As contending against some being or influ-
ence.
A Child's Amaze.
tot
THERE will soon be no more priests.
| Their work is done. A new order shall
arise, and they shall be the priests of man, and
The
Priest
of the
Future


every man shall be his own priest. They shall
find their inspiration in real objects to-day,
symptoms of the past and future. They shall
not deign to defend immortality or God, or the
perfection of things, or liberty, or the exquisite
beauty and reality of the soul. Preface, 1855.
Fious spec-
win, in its
ce, testing
s already
mounting,
- surely
reply en-
eins, (not
s, but by
rate poe-
ic-mate-
edulous,
All-In-
clusive
- Vistas. I
vhen a
I DO not despise you priests;
11 My faith is the greatest of faiths and the || Faith
least of faiths,
Enclosing worship ancient and modern and all
between ancient and modern.
Song of Myself.
tot
Magnifying and applying come I,
Outbidding at the start the old cautious huck-
sters,
Taking myself the exact dimensions of Je-
hovah,
Lithographing Kronos, Zeus his son, and Her-
cules his grandson,
Buying drafts of Osiris, Isis, Belus, Brahma,
Buddha,
In my portfolio placing Manito loose, Allah
on a leaf, the crucifix engraved,
The
Divine
Element
in all
Reli-
gions
Sunday
influ-
Amaze.
priests.
er shall
n, and
79


With Odin and the hideous-faced Mexitli and
every idol and image,
Taking them all for what they are worth and
not a cent more,
Admitting they were alive and did the work of
their days,
(They bore mites as for unfledg’d birds who
have now to rise and fly and sing for them-
selves,)
Accepting the rough deific sketches to fill out
better in myself, bestowing them freely on
each man and woman I see.
++ Song of Myself.
AND I say to mankind, Be not curious'
A about God,
For I who am curious about each am not cu-
rious about God,
(No array of terms can say how much I am
at peace about God and about death.)
The Idea
of God
I hear and behold God in every object, yet
understand God not in the least,
Nor do I understand who there can be more
wonderful than myself. Song of Myself.


Joyous-
ness and
Health
in Re-
ligion
A STRONG fibred joyousness and faith,
A and the sense of health al fresco, may
well enter into the preparation of future noble
American authorship. Part of the test of a
great literatus shall be the absence in him of
the idea of the covert, the lurid, the maleficent,
the devil, the grim estimates inherited from
the Puritans, hell, natural depravity, and the
like. The great literatus will be known,
among the rest, by his cheerful simplicity, his
adherence to natural standards, his limitless
faith in God, his reverence, and by the absence
in him of doubt, ennui, burlesque, persiflage, or
any strain’d and temporary fashion.
the Democratic Vistas.
AH more than any priest, O soul, we too
A believe in God,
But with the mystery of God we dare not
dally.
Passage to India.
++
THE ripeness of Religion is doubtless to be
I looked for in the field of individuality,
and is a result that no organization or church
can ever achieve. As history is poorly retain'd
Adora-
tion
The
Illumi-
nation
of the
Individ-
ual Soul
81


Old Brahm I, and I Saturnius am;
Not Time affects me — I am Time, old, mod-
ern as any,
Unpersuadable, relentless, executing righteous
judgments,
As the Earth, the Father, the brown old Kro-
nos, with laws,
Aged beyond computation, yet ever new, ever
with those mighty laws rolling,
Relentless I forgive no man — whoever sins
dies — I will have that man's life;
Therefore let none expect mercy — have the
seasons, gravitation, the appointed days,
mercy? No more have I;
But as the seasons and gravitation, and as all
the appointed days that forgive not,
I dispense from this side judgments inexor-
able without the least remorse.
2
CONSOLATOR most mild, the promis'd
one advancing,
With gentle hand extended, the mightier God
am I;
The
Conso-
lation of
Affec-
tion
83


Affec-
tion
Foretold by prophets and poets in their most
rapt prophecies and poems,
From this side, lo! the Lord Christ gazes —
lo! Hermes I — lo! mine is Hercules'
face;
All sorrow, labor, suffering, I, tallying it, ab-
sorb in myself.
Many times have I been rejected, taunted, put
in prison, and crucified, and many times
shall be again.
All the world have I given up for my dear
brothers' and sisters' sake, for the soul's
sake,
Wending my way through the homes of men,
rich or poor, with the kiss of affection:
For I am affection, I am the cheer-bringing
God, with hope and all-enclosing charity,
(Conqueror yet — for before me all the
armies and soldiers of the earth shall yet
bow—and all the weapons of war become
impotent:)
With indulgent words as to children, with
fresh and sane words, mine only,
Young and strong I pass knowing well I am
destin'd myself to an early death.
SA


The
Fusing
Spirit
CANTA SPIRITA, breather, life,
Beyond the light, lighter than light,
Beyond the flames of hell, joyous, leaping
easily above hell,
Beyond Paradise, perfumed solely with mine
own perfume,
Including all life on earth, touching, including
God, including Saviour and Satan,
Ethereal, pervading all, (for without me what
were all? what were God ?)
Essence of forms, life of the real identities, per-
manent, positive, (namely the unseen,)
Life of the great round world, the sun and
stars, and of man, I, the general soul,
Here the square finishing, the solid, I the most
solid,
Breathe my breath also through these songs.
Whispers of Heavenly Death.
++
T SHOULD say, indeed, that only in the per-
| fect uncontamination and solitariness of
individuality may the spirituality of religion
positively come forth at all. Only here, com-
Mystic
Com-
munion
86


munion with the mysteries, the eternal prob-
lems, whence? whither? Alone, and iden-
tity, and the mood — and the soul emerges,
and all statements, churches, sermons, melt
away like vapors. Alone, and silent thought
and awe, and aspiration — and then the in-
terior consciousness, like a hitherto unseen in-
scription, in magic ink, beams out its won-
drous lines to the sense. Bibles may convey,
and priests expound, but it is exclusively for
the noiseless operation of one's isolated self to
enter the pure ether of veneration, reach the
divine levels, and commune with the unut-
terable.
Democratic Vistas.
tot
The
Subjec-
tiveness
of Re-
ligion
W E consider bibles and religions divine;
w I do not say they are not divine,
I say they have all grown out of you, and may
grow out of you still.
It is not they who give the life, it is you who
give the life.
Leaves are not more shed from the trees, or
trees from the earth, than they are shed out
of you.
A Song for Occupations.
87


The.
Last
Ideal
As we have intimated, offsetting the ma-
A terial civilization of our race, our nation-
ality, its wealth, territories, factories, popula-
tion, products, trade, and military and naval
strength, and breathing breath of life into all
these, and more, must be its moral civilization
— the formulation, expression, and aidancy
whereof, is the very highest height of litera-
ture. The climax of this loftiest range of civil-
ization, rising above all the gorgeous shows and
results of wealth, intellect, power, and art, as
such — above even theology and religious
fervor — is to be its development, from the
eternal bases, and the fit expression, of ab-
solute Conscience, moral soundness, Justice.
... Even in religious fervor there is a touch
of animal heat. But moral conscientiousness,
crystalline, without flaw, not Godlike only, en-
tirely human, awes and enchants me forever.
Great is emotional love, even in the order of
the rational universe. But, if we must make
gradations, I am clear there is something
greater. Power, love, veneration, products,
genius, esthetics, tried by subtlest compari-
sons, analyses, and in serenest moods, some-
88


Nirvana
Thou moral, spiritual fountain — affection's
source — thou reservoir,
(O pensive soul of me -- O thirst unsatisfied
— waitest not there?
Waitest not haply for us somewhere there the
Comrade perfect ?)
Thou pulse -- thou motive of the stars, suns,
systems,
That, circling, move in order, safe, harmon-
ious,
Athwart the shapeless vastnesses of space,
How should I think, how breathe a single
breath, how speak, if, out of myself,
I could not launch, to those, superior uni-
verses ?
Swiftly I shrivel at the thought of God,
At Nature and its wonders, Time and Space
and Death,
But that I, turning, call to thee, O soul, thou
actual Me,
And lo, thou gently masterest the orbs,
Thou matest Time, smilest content at Death,
And fillest, swellest full the vastnesses of
Space.
90


Nirvana
Greater than stars or suns,
Bounding, O soul, thou journeyest forth;
What love than thine and ours could wider
amplify?
What aspirations, wishes, outvie thine and
ours, O soul?
What dreams of the ideal? what plans of
purity, perfection, strength?
What cheerful willingness for others' sake to
give up all ?
For others' sake to suffer all ?
Reckoning ahead, O soul, when thou, the time
achiev’d,
The seas all cross'd, weather'd the capes, the.
voyage done,
Surrounded, copest, frontest God, yieldest,
the aim attain’d,
As fill’d with friendship, love complete, the
Elder Brother found,
The Younger melts in fondness in his arms.
Passage to India.
91


V. DEATH AND IMMORTALITY


O I see now that life cannot exhibit all to me, as the
day cannot,
I see that I am to wait for what will be exhibited
by death.
Night on the Prairies.


“Whith-
er 0
Mock-
ing
Life?"
After the seas are all cross’d, (as they seem al-
ready cross’d,)
After the great captains and engineers have ||
accomplish'd their work,
After the noble inventors, after the scientists,
the chemist, the geologist, ethnologist,
Finally shall come the poet worthy that name,
The true son of God shall come singing his
songs.
Then not your deeds only ( voyagers, O
scientists and inventors, shall be justified;
All these hearts as of fretted children shall be
sooth’d;
All affection shall be fully responded to, the
secret shall be told;
All these separations and gaps shall be taken
up and hook'd and link'd together;
The whole earth, this cold, impassive, voice-
less earth, shall be completely justified;
Trinitas divine shall be gloriously accom-
plish'd and compacted by the true Son of
God, the poet,
(He shall indeed pass the straits and conquer
the mountains)
97


The Idea
of Im-
mortal-
ity in
Democ-
racy
He shall double the Cape of Good Hope to
some purpose,)
Nature and Man shall be disjoin'd and dif-
fused no more,
The true son of God shall absolutely fuse
them.
Passage to India.
tto
I AM not sure but the last inclosing subli-
mation of race or poem is, what it thinks of
death. After the rest has been comprehended
and said, even the grandest — after those con-
tributions to mightiest nationality, or to sweet-
est song, or to the best personalism, male or
female, have been glean’d from the rich and
varied themes of tangible life, and have been
fully accepted and sung, and the pervading
fact of visible existence, with the duty it de-
volves, is rounded and apparently completed,
it still remains to be really completed by suf-
fusing through the whole and several, that
other pervading invisible fact, so large a part
(is it not the largest part?) of life here, com-
bining the rest, and furnishing, for person or
State, the only permanent and unitary mean-
ing to all, even the meanest life, consistently
98


with the dignity of the universe, in Time. As
from the eligibility to this thought, and the
cheerful conquest of this fact, flash forth the
first distinctive proofs of the soul, so to me
(extending it only a little further) the ultimate
Democratic purports, the ethereal and spiritual
ones, are to concentrate here, and as fixed
stars, radiate hence. For, in my opinion, it is
no less than this idea of immortality, above all
other ideas, that is to enter into, and vivify, and
give crowning religious stamp to democracy
in the New World.
Preface, 1876.
ofte
“I know
I am
Death-
less"
I KNOW I am solid and sound:
T To me the converging objects of the uni-
verse perpetually flow;
All are written to me, and I must get what the
writing means.
I know I am deathless;
I know this orbit of mine cannot be swept by
a carpenter's compass;
I know I shall not pass like a child's carlacue
cut with a burnt stick at night.
99


for Im-
ity":
ALL, all for immortality;
“All, all
A Love like the light silently wrapping | mortal-
all,
Nature's amelioration blessing all,
The blossoms, fruits of ages, orchards divine
and certain,
Forms, objects, growths, humanities, to spir-
itual images ripening.
Give me, O God, to sing that thought;
Give me, give him or her I love this quench-
less 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.
Songs of the Universal.
tt
101


Assur-
ances
I do not doubt that the orbs and the systems
of orbs play their swift sports through the
air on purpose, and that I shall one day be
eligible to do as much as they, and more than
they;
I do not doubt that temporary affairs keep on
and on millions of years;
I do not doubt interiors have their interiors,
and exteriors have their exteriors, and that
the eyesight has another eyesight, and the
hearing another hearing, and the voice an-
other voice;
I do not doubt that the passionately wept
deaths of young men are provided for,
and that the deaths of young women and
the deaths of little children are provided
for;
(Did you think Life was so well provided for,
and Death, the purport of all Life, is not
well provided for?)
I do not doubt that wrecks at sea, no matter
what the horrors of them, no matter whose
wife, child, husband, father, lover, has gone
down, are provided for, to the minutest
points;
105


A Carol
to
Death
Then I chant it for thee, I glorify thee above |
all,
I bring thee a song that when thou must indeed
come, come unfalteringly.
Approach strong deliveress,
When it is so, when thou hast taken them I
joyously sing the dead,
Lost in the loving floating ocean of thee,
Laved in the flood of thy bliss, O death.
From me to thee glad serenades,
Dances for thee I propose saluting thee, adorn-
ments and feastings for thee,
And the sights of the open landscape and the
high-spread sky are fitting,
And life and the fields, and the huge and
thoughtful night.
The night in silence under many a star,
The ocean shore and the husky whispering
wave whose voice I know,
And the soul turning to thee, O vast and well
veil's death,
And the body gratefully nestling close to thee.
109


“Living
are the
Dead"
DENSIVE and faltering,
I The words the Dead I write,
For living are the Dead,
(Haply the only living, only real,)
And I the apparition, I the spectre.
Whispers of Heavenly Death.
II2


Printed
Pages
Not
Litera-
ture
Gentlemen, to you the first honors always!
Your facts are useful and real, and yet they
are not my dwelling,
I but enter by them to an area of my dwelling.
Song of Myself.
foto
W HAT however do we definitely mean by
VV New World Literature? Are we not
doing well enough here already? Are not the
United States this day busily using, working,
more printers' type, more presses, than any
other country? uttering and absorbing more
publications than any other? ... Many will
come under this delusion — but my purpose is
to dispel it. I say a nation may hold and cir-
culate rivers and oceans of very readable print,
journals, magazines, novels, library-books,
“poetry,” etc., such as the States to-day
possess and circulate—of unquestionable aid
and value . . . and yet, all the while the said
nation, land, strictly speaking, may possess no
literature at all.
Democratic Vistas.
foot
119


Origi-
nality
ia Art
IN the need of poems, philosophy, politics,
I mechanism, science, behavior, the craft of
art, an appropriate native grand opera, ship-
craft, or any craft, he is greatest forever and
ever who contributes the greatest original
practical example. The cleanest expression
is that which finds no sphere worthy of itself
and makes one. i Preface, 1855.
“Fear
not, o
Muse!"
LEAR not, O Muse! truly new ways and
T 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.
Song of the Exposition.
tot
THE English language befriends the grand
1 American expression - it is brawny
enough, and limber and full enough. On the
tough stock of a race who through all change
The
English
Lan-
guage
I20


of circumstance was never without the idea
of political liberty, which is the animus of all
liberty, it has attracted the terms of daintier
and gayer and subtler and more elegant
tongues. It is the powerful language of re-
sistance — it is the dialect of common sense.
It is the speech of the proud and melancholy
races, and of all who aspire. It is the chosen
tongue to express growth, faith, self-esteem,
freedom, justice, equality, friendliness, am-
plitude, prudence, decision, and courage. It
is the medium that shall well-nigh express the
inexpressible.
Preface, 1855.
DEPEATING our inquiry, what, then, do ||
N we mean by real literature? especially
the American literature of the future? Hard:
questions to meet. The clues are inferential,
and turn us to the past. At best, we can only
offer suggestions, comparisons, circuits.
It must still be reiterated, as, for the pur-
pose of these memoranda, the deep lesson of
history and time, that all else in the contribu-
tions of a nation or age, through its politics,
materials, heroic personalities, military eclat,
What is
Real
Litera-
ture?
IO
I21


Real
Litera-
ture
etc., remains crude, and defers, in any close
and thorough-going estimate, until vitalized
by national, original archetypes in literature.
They only put the nation in form, finally tell
anything — prove, complete anything — per-
petuate anything. Without doubt, some of
the richest and most powerful and populous
communities of the antique world, and some of
the grandest personalities and events, have,
to after and present times, left themselves en-
tirely unbequeath’d. Doubtless, greater than
any that have come down to us, were among
those lands, heroisms, persons, that have not
come down to us at all, even by name, date, or
location. Others have arrived safely, as from
voyages over wide, century-stretching seas.
The little ships, the miracles that have buoy'd
them, and by incredible chances safely con-
vey'd them, (or the best of them, their mean-
ing and essence), over long wastes, darkness,
lethargy, ignorance, etc., have been a few in-
scriptions — a few immortal compositions,
small in size, yet compassing what measure-
less values of reminiscence, contemporary por-
traitures, manners, idioms and beliefs, with
122


deepest inference, hint and thought, to tie and
touch forever the old, new body, and the old,
new soul! These! and still these! bearing the
freight so dear — dearer than pride — dearer
than love. All the best experience of human-
ity, folded, saved, freighted to us here. Some
of these tiny ships we call Old and New Testa-
ment, Homer, Eschylus, Plato, Juvenal, etc.
Precious minims! I think, if we were forced to
choose, rather than have you, and the likes of
you, and what belongs to, and has grown of
you, blotted out and gone, we could better
afford, appalling as that would be, to lose all
actual ships, this day fasten'd by wharf, or
floating on wave, and see them, with all their
cargoes, scuttled and sent to the bottom.
Democratic Vistas.
C ATHER'D by geniuses of city, race, or||
u age, and put by them in highest of art's
forms, namely, the literary form, the peculiar
combinations and the outshows of that city,
age, or race, its particular modes of the uni-
versal attributes and passions, its faiths,
heroes, lovers and gods, wars, traditions,
Our
Inheri-
tance
from the
Litera-
ture of
the Past
123


Our
In heri-
tance
struggles, crimes, emotions, joys, (or the subtle
spirit of these,) having been pass'd on to us to
illumine our own selfhood, and its experiences
- what they supply, indispensable and high-
est, if taken away, nothing else in all the
world's boundless storehouses could make up
to us, or ever again return.
For us, along the great highways of time,
those monuments stand — those forms of
majesty and beauty. For us those beacons
burn through all the nights. Unknown Egyp-
tians, graving hieroglyphs; Hindus, with hymn
and apothegm and endless epic; Hebrew
prophet, with spirituality, as in flashes of light-
ning, conscience like red-hot iron, plaintive
songs and screams of vengeance for tyrannies
and enslavement; Christ, with bent head,
brooding love and peace, like a dove; Greek,
creating eternal shapes of physical and esthetic
proportion; Roman, lord of satire, the sword,
and the codex; — of the figures, some far off
and veil'd, others nearer and visible; Dante,
stalking with lean form, nothing but fibre,
not a grain of superfluous flesh; Angelo, and
the great painters, architects, musicians; rich
I24


Our
Inheri-
tance
Shakspere, luxuriant as the sun, artist and
singer of feudalism in its sunset, with all the
gorgeous colors, owner thereof, and using
them at will; and so to such as German Kant
and Hegel, where they, though near us, leap-
ing over the ages, sit again, impassive, imper-
turbable, like the Egyptian gods. Of these,
and the like of these, is it too much, indeed,
to return to our favorite figure, and view them
as orbs and systems of orbs, moving in free
paths in the spaces of that other heaven, the
kosmic intellect, the soul ?
Ye powerful and resplendent ones! ye were,
in your atmospheres, grown not for America,
but rather for her foes, the feudal and the old
— while our genius is democratic and modern.
Yet could ye, indeed, but breathe your breath
of life into our New World's nostrils — not to
enslave us, as now, but, for our needs, to breed
a spirit like your own — perhaps, (dare we to
say it ?) to dominate, even destroy, what you
yourselves have left! On your plane, and no
less, but even higher and wider, must we mete
and measure for to-day and here. I demand
races of orbic bards, with unconditional un-
125


The
Mastery
of the
Poet
compromising sway. Come forth, sweet dem-
ocratic despots of the west!
* Democratic Vistas.
W H ATEVER stagnates in the flat of cus-
tom or obedience or legislation, the
great poet never stagnates. Obedience does
not master him, he masters it. High up out
of reach he stands, turning a concentrated
light -- he turns the pivot with his finger — he
baffles the swiftest runners as he stands, and
easily overtakes and envelops them. The
time straying toward infidelity and confections
and persiflage he withholds by steady faith.
Preface, 1855.
otto
JITHOUT effort and without exposing
in the least how it is done, the great-
est poet brings the spirit of any or all events
and passions and scenes and persons, some
more and some less, to bear on your individual
character as you hear or read.
Past and present and future are not dis-
join'd but join'd. The greatest poet forms
the consistence of what is to be from what
Histori-
an and
Prophet
126


-
--
Theme
Small
to the
Poet
has been and is. . . . He says to the past,
Rise and walk before me that I may realize
you. He learns the lesson — he places him-
self where the future becomes present.
Preface, 1855.
THE greatest poet hardly knows pettiness | No
or triviality. If he breathes into any-
thing that was before thought small it dilates
with the grandeur and life of the universe.
w Preface, 1855.
THE land and sea, the animals, fishes and
1 birds, the sky of heaven and the orbs,
the forests, mountains and rivers, are not small
themes — but folks expect of the poet to indi-
cate more than the beauty and dignity which
always attach to dumb real objects — they
expect him to indicate the path between reality
and their souls.
Preface, 1855.
-
«The
Path be-
tween
Reality
and the
Soul”
The
THE greatest poet does not moralize or
I make applications of morals—he knows
the soul. The soul has that measureless pride
which consists in never acknowledging any
Pride
of the
Soul
127


room ahead of himself. He is no irresolute or
suspicious lover – he is sure — he scorns in-
tervals. His experience and the showers and
thrills are not for nothing. Nothing can jar
him — suffering and darkness cannot
death and fear cannot. To him complaint
and jealousy and envy are corpses buried and
rotten in the earth — he saw them buried.
The sea is not surer of the shore, or the shore
of the sea, than he is the fruition of his love,
and of all perfection and beauty.
Preface, 1855.
.tt
The Test
of the
Greatest
Poet
THE direct trial of him who would be the
1 greatest poet is to-day. If he does not ||
flood himself with the immediate age as with
vast oceanic tides .... if he be not himself
the age transfigur’d, and if to him is not open’d
the eternity which gives similitude to all pe-
riods and locations and processes, and animate
and inanimate forms, and which is the bond
of time, and rises up from its inconceivable
vagueness and infiniteness in the swimming
shapes of to-day, and is held by the ductile
anchors of life, and makes the present spot
129


the passage from what was to what shall be,
and commits itself to the representation of
this wave of an hour, and this one of the sixty
beautiful children of the wave-let him merge
in the general run, and wait his development.
Preface, 1855.
The
Poetic
Quality
The
Fruition
of
Beauty
THE poetic quality is not marshald in
T rhyme and uniformity, or abstract ad-
dresses to things, nor in melancholy com-
plaints or good precepts, but is the life of these
and much else and is in the soul.
Preface, 1855.
tot
THE fruition of beauty is no chance of miss
T or hit-it is as inevitable as life-it is
as exact and plumb as gravitation.
Preface, 1855.
++
THE profit of rhyme is that it drops seeds
T of a sweeter and more luxuriant rhyme,
and of uniformity that it conveys itself into its
own roots in the ground out of sight. The
rhyme and uniformity of perfect poems show
Rhyme
and
Rhythm
130


VII. THE CONDUCT OF LIFE


He that by me spreads a wider breast than my own
proves the width of my own;
He most honors my style who learns under it to destroy
the teacher.
Song of Myself.


The
Great-
ness of
the
Present
AS if it were necessary to trot back genera-
A tion after generation to the eastern rec-
ords! As if the beauty and sacredness of the
demonstrable must fall behind that of the
mythical! As if men do not make their mark
out of any times! As if the opening of the
western continent by discovery, and what has
transpired in North and South America, were
less than the small theatre of the antique, or
the aimless sleep-walking of the middle ages!
First Preface.
fot
Now
is Our
Time
I KNOW that the past was great and that
I the future will be great,
And I know that both curiously conjoint in
the present time,
And that where I am or you are this present
day, there is the centre of all days, all
races,
And there is the meaning to us of all that has
ever come of races and days, or ever will
come.
With Antecedents.
-to-
II
137


No
Better
Minute
than
this
THIS minute that comes to me over the
1 past decillions,
There is no better than it and now.
Song of Myself.
ft
The
Divinity
of the
Ego
N HAT do you suppose creation is ?
VV What do you suppose will satisfy the
soul, except to walk free and own no su-
perior ?
What do you suppose I would intimate to
you in a hundred ways, but that man or
woman is as good as God?
And that there is no God any more divine than
Yourself?
And that that is what the oldest and newest
myths finally mean?
And that you or any one must approach crea-
tions through such laws ?
Laws for Creations.
tot
Miracles
Every-
where
W
HY, who makes much of a miracle ?
W As to me I know of nothing else but
miracles,
138


Miracles
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses
toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach just
in the edge of the water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with any one I love, or
sleep in the bed at night with any one I
love,
Or sit at table at dinner with the rest,
Or look at strangers opposite me, riding in the
car,
Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive of
a summer forenoon,
Or animals feeding in the fields,
Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in
the air,
Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of
stars shining so quiet and bright,
Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new
moon in spring; .....
These with the rest, one and all, are to me mir-
acles,
The whole referring, yet each distinct and in
its place.
139


To me every hour of the light and dark is a
miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is
spread with the same,
Every foot of the interior swarms with the
same.
To me the sea is a continual miracle,
The fishes that swim — the rocks — the mo-
tion of the waves — the ships with men in
them,
What stranger miracles are there?
Miracles.
-
A Model
for
Manli-
ness
I ATTEMPTING, then, however crudely,
H a basic model or portrait of personality
for general use for the manliness of the States,
(and doubtless that is most useful which is
most simple and comprehensive for all, and
toned low enough,) we should prepare the
canvas well beforehand. Parentage must
consider itself in advance. (Will the time
hasten when fatherhood and motherhood shall
become a science-and the noblest science?)
140


Reti-
cence
pent in the fable ate up all the other serpents;
and money-making is our magician's serpent,
remaining to-day sole master in the field.
++ Democratic Vistas.
I SWEAR I see what is better than to tell
I the best,
It is always to leave the best untold.
A Song of the Rolling Earth.
++
KNOW I have the best of time and space,
and was never measured and never will
be measured.
Song of Myself.
Self-
Con-
scious-
ness
-of-
Individ-
uality
L OW beggarly appear arguments before
1 a defiant deed!
How the floridness of the materials of cities
shrivels before a man's or woman's look!
Song of the Broad-Axe.
++
I HAVE said that the soul is not more than
1 the body,
And I have said that the body is not more than
the soul,
Affir-
mations
142


For we are bound where mariner has not yet
dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.
O my brave soul!
O farther, farther sail!
O daring joy, but safe! are they not all the
seas of God?
O farther, farther, farther sail!
Passage to India.
To Fill
One's
Place is
Enough
I DO not call one greater and one smaller,
That which fills its period and place is
equal to any.
Song of Myself.
Appre-
ciation
IT BELIEVE a leaf of grass is no less than
T the journey work of the stars,
And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain
of sand, and the egg of the wren,
And the tree-toad is a chef-d'ouvre for the
highest,
And the running blackberry would adorn the
parlors of heaven,
144


And the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to
scorn all machinery,
And the cow crunching with depress'd head
surpasses any statue,
And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sex-
tillions of infidels.
Song of Myself.
tt
I THINK I could turn and live with ani-
T mals, they are so placid and self-contain’d;
I stand and look at them long and long.
Con-
tent-
ment
They do not sweat and whine about their con-
dition,
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep
for their sins,
They do not make me sick discussing their
duty to God:
Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented
with the mania of owning things,
Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that
lived thousands of years ago,
Not one is respectable or unhappy over the
whole earth.
Song of Myself.
145


Nature's
Lesson
W H EN I heard the learn'd astronomer,
VV When the proofs, the figures, were
ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to
add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he
lectured with much applause in the lecture-
room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and
sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by
myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time
to time
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.
When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer.
Com-
pensa-
tion
I AM not the poet of goodness only, I do not
1 decline to be the poet of wickedness also.
What blurt is this about virtue and about vice?
Evil propels me and reform of evil propels me,
I stand indifferent;
My gait is no fault-finder's or rejecter's gait,
I moisten the roots of all that has grown.
146


Did you fear some scrofula out of the unflag-
ging pregnancy?
Did you guess the celestial laws are yet to be
work'd over and rectified ?
I find one side a balance and the antipodal side
a balance,
Soft doctrine as steady help as stable doctrine,
Thoughts and deeds of the present our rouse
and early start.
What behaved well in the past or behaves well
to-day is not such a wonder:
The wonder is always and always how there
can be a mean man or an infidel.
Song of Myself.
Pru-
[ VER the right explanation remains to be
dence
made about prudence. The prudence
of the mere wealth and respectability of the
most esteem'd life appears too faint for the eye
to observe at all, when little and large alike
drop quietly aside at the thought of the pru-
dence suitable for immortality. What is the
147


wisdom that fills the thinness of a year, or
seventy or eighty years — to the wisdom
spaced out by ages, and coming back at a cer-
tain time with strong reinforcements and rich
presents, and the clear faces of wedding guests
as far as you can look, in every direction, run-
ning gaily toward you? Preface, 1855.
toote
The Joy
of Liva
ing
I DOTE on myself; there is that lot of me
and all so luscious.
Each moment and whatever happens thrills
me with joy.
Oh, I am wonderful !
I cannot tell how my ankles bend, nor whence
the cause of my faintest wish,
Nor the cause of the friendship I emit, nor the
cause of the friendship I take again.
That I walk up my stoop, I pause to consider
if it really be;
A morning-glory at my window satisfies me
more than the metaphysics of books.
148


To behold the day-break!
The little light fades the immense and diaph-
anous shadows,
The air tastes good to my palate.
**o
Song of Myself.
The
Real
Econ-
omies of
Life
CAUTION seldom goes far enough. It
has been thought that the prudent citizen
was the citizen who applied himself to solid
gains, and did well for himself and for his
family, and completed a lawful life without
debt or crime. The greatest poet sees and
admits these economies as he sees the economies
of food and sleep, but has higher notions of
prudence than to think he gives much
when he gives a few slight attentions at the
latch of the gate. ... Beyond the inde-
pendence of a little sum laid aside for burial-
money and of a few clap-boards around and
shingles overhead on a lot of American soil
own'd, and the easy dollars that supply the
year's plain clothing and meals, the melan-
choly prudence of the abandonment of such a
great being as a man is, to the toss and pallor
of years of money-making, with all their
149


L AVE you heard that it was good to gain
11 the day?
I also say it is good to fall: battles are lost in
the same spirit in which they are won.
To those
who
have
Fail'd
Vivas to those who have fail'd!
And to those whose war-vessels sank in the
sea!
And to those themselves who sank in the
sea!
And to all generals that lost engagements, and
all overcoming heroes!
And the numberless unknown heroes equal
to the greatest heroes known.
Song of Myself.
tt
Self-
Appre-
ciation
I DO not snivel that snivel the world over,
T That months are vacuums and the
ground but wallow and filth.
That life is a luck and a sell, and nothing
remains at the end but threadbare crape
and tears.
151


Whimpering and truckling fold with powders
for invalids, conformity goes to the fourth-
remov’d;
I wear my hat as I please indoors or out.
Why should I pray? Why should I venerate
and be ceremonious ?
Having pried through the strata, analyzed to
a hair, counsel'd with doctors and calcu-
lated close,
I find no sweeter fat than sticks to my own
bones.
In all people I see myself, none more and not
one a barley-corn less,
And the good or bad I say of myself I say
of them.
Song of Myself.
++
I THINK heroic deeds were all conceiv'd
1 in the open air, and all great poems
also;
I think I could stop here myself and do mira-
cles.
The
Influ-
ence
of the
Open
152


Assur-
ance
Now I re-examine philosophies and religions:
They may prove well in lecture-rooms, yet not
prove at all under the spacious clouds and
along the landscape and flowing currents.
Song of the Open Road.
tt.
CPOTS or cracks at the window do not
disturb me;
Tall and sufficient stand behind and make
signs to me;
I read the promise and patiently wait. Faces.
tt .
I DO not know what is untried and after-
ward,
But I know it will in its turn prove sufficient,
and cannot fail.
Song of Myself.
tt
I HAVE no mockings or arguments-I
I witness and wait. Song of Myself.
Optim-
ism
Patience
Egotism
D OI contradict myself?
Very well, then, I contradict myself;
(I am large. I contain multitudes).
Song of Myself.
154


I
Index
Idea, the Fervid and Tremendous, 27
Ideal, the Last, 88, 89
Identity, the Thought of, 5
Immortality, All, All for, 101
Assurances, 104-106
the Idea of, in Democracy, 98, 99
For None More than You is, 6
I Know I Am Deathless, 99, 100
of the Individual, 15, 16
of Judah and Greece, 115
the Purpose of the Known Life, 106,
107
“Smallest Sprout Shows that there is
no Death,” 102
Independence, 136
Individual, the Development of the, 10-12
Divine in His Own Right, 33
Each of us Inevitable, 8
Everything Tallied in the, 16, 17
the Immortality of the, 15, 16
the Importance of the, 31
the Sacredness of the, 7
the Superb, 150
Underneath All, Individuals, 8, 9
Individuality, 142
Infinity and Eternity for Me, 17, 19
159


Index
Love, the Adhesive, in Democracy, 66
the Attraction of Affinity, 62
the Base of all Metaphysics, 51
the Madness of, 61, 62
the Pulse of All, 60, 61
Reminiscences of, 63
м
Man, the Real, of Divine Essence, 32, 33
Manliness, a Model for, 140, 141
Material, the Spirituality of the, 104
Metaphysics, the Base of all, 51, 52
Miracles, Everywhere, 138-140
Money-Getting, the Blight of, 141, 142
Moral Conscientiousness, 88
Mother, the Justified, of Men, 55, 56
Muse, Fear Not, O, 120
Music, 17
Mystic Communion, 86, 87
N
Nation, the Modern Composite, 30
the Welding of the, 69
Nature, the Satisfaction of, 146
the Influence of the Open, 152
Nirvana, 89–91
161


Index
Open, the Influence of the, 152, 153
Optimism, 154
Р
Parties, the Evil of, 143
Passion, the Poet's, 128, 129
Patience, 154
People, the, 36
Literature Has Never Recognized the, 137
Personality, a Basic Model of, 140, 141
the History of the Future in, 3
the Joy of, 15
Poem, United States the Greatest, 27, 28
Poems, the Final Test of, 133
Poet, the, Historian and Prophet, 126
His Passion, 128, 129
the Mastery of, 126
no Theme Small to the, 127
the Test of the Greatest, 129, 130
Poetic Quality, the, not Marshal'd in Rhyme and
Uniformity, 130
Poetry, How to Live, 131, 132
Must Vocalize the Reality of Science, 117,
318
Politics, the Value of, 42, 43
Potentialities, Latent, 9, 10
162


Index
Present, the Greatness of the, 137
No Better Minute than Now, 138
Pride, the Fullspread, of Man, 136
Priest, the, of the Future, 78, 79
Property, the Gravitation-hold of, 46, 47
Prudence, 147, 148
Religion, the Divine Element in all, 79, 80
the Emancipation of, 76, 77
the Immanence of, 77
the Religious Purpose of Leaves of Grass,
75, 76
Mystic Communion, 86
the Subjectiveness of, 87
the "Square Deific,” 82-86
Reticence, 142
Rhyme and Rhythm, 130, 131
s
Science, the Conflict of Theology with, 78
not All, 118, 119
Self-Appreciation, 151, 152
Self-Consciousness, 142
Selfhood, the Joy of a Manly, 15
Sex, the Meanings of, 59, 60
Shakespeare, 116
163


Index
Vivas for those Who Have Fail'd, 151
W
Weibliche, Das Ewig, 54, 55
Wisdom, the Test of, 153, 154
Women, the Need for Perfect, 58
Y
You, All for, Whoever You Are, 6
165