The Dover Anthology of American Literature, Volume I

WALT WHITMAN

Walt Whitman (1819–1892) is America’s most famous poet. He celebrated and promoted his own vision while simultaneously celebrating America’s. He delighted in his sensations; he cultivated his perceptions and trusted his intuitions to make declarations about the nature of America and Americans. He was a journalist and, during the Civil War, was a comfort to many wounded soldiers in Washington, D. C. Whitman had originally gone there to find his brother, a wounded Union soldier, in a hospital. Whitman never married but admired and worshiped many men, among them President Lincoln, whom he met once or twice and for whom he mourned with a rawness that we see in “O Captain! My Captain!” In Whitman’s original Leaves of Grass (1855), an edition he continued adding to and editing for the rest of his life, there were no individual poem titles; all the pages of his book were his “leaves of grass.” We have included a fair portion of the first section of the original volume as well as the final section. Whitman concludes his celebration of himself, America and poetry, declaring that “Great is language . . . it is the mightiest of the sciences, / It is the fulness and color and form and diversity of the earth . . . and of men and women . . . and of all qualities and processes; / It is greater than wealth . . . it is greater than buildings or ships or religions or paintings or music.” We agree.

From Leaves of Grass (1855)

I celebrate myself,

And what I assume you shall assume,

For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul,

I lean and loafe at my ease . . . observing a spear of summer grass.

Houses and rooms are full of perfumes . . . the shelves are crowded with perfumes,

I breathe the fragrance myself, and know it and like it,

The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it.

The atmosphere is not a perfume . . . it has no taste of the distillation . . . it is odorless,

It is for my mouth forever . . . I am in love with it,

I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked,

I am mad for it to be in contact with me.

The smoke of my own breath,

Echos, ripples, and buzzed whispers . . . loveroot, silkthread, crotch and vine,

My respiration and inspiration . . . the beating of my heart . . . the passing of blood and air through my lungs,

The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the shore and dark-colored sea-rocks, and of hay in the barn,

The sound of the belched words of my voice . . . words loosed to the eddies of the wind,

A few light kisses . . . a few embraces . . . a reaching around of arms,

The play of shine and shade on the trees as the supple boughs wag,

The delight alone or in the rush of the streets, or along the fields and hillsides,

The feeling of health . . . the full-noon trill . . . the song of me rising from bed and meeting the sun.

Have you reckoned a thousand acres much? Have you reckoned the earth much?

Have you practiced so long to learn to read?

Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?

Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems,

You shall possess the good of the earth and sun . . . there are millions of suns left,

You shall no longer take things at second or third hand . . . nor look through the eyes of the dead . . . nor feed on the spectres in books,

You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,

You shall listen to all sides and filter them from yourself.

I have heard what the talkers were talking . . . 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.

Out of the dimness opposite equals advance . . . Always substance and increase,

Always a knit of identity . . . always distinction . . . always a breed of life.

To elaborate is no avail . . . Learned and unlearned feel that it is so.

Sure as the most certain sure . . . plumb in the uprights, well entretied, braced in the beams,

Stout as a horse, affectionate, haughty, electrical,

I and this mystery here we stand.

Clear and sweet is my soul . . . and clear and sweet is all that is not my soul.

Lack one lacks both . . . and the unseen is proved by the seen, Till that becomes unseen and receives proof in its turn.

Showing the best and dividing it from the worst, age vexes age,

Knowing the perfect fitness and equanimity of things, while they discuss I am silent, and go bathe and admire myself.

Welcome is every organ and attribute of me, and of any man hearty and clean,

Not an inch nor a particle of an inch is vile, and none shall be less familiar than the rest.

I am satisfied . . . I see, dance, laugh, sing;

As God comes a loving bedfellow and sleeps at my side all night and close on the peep of the day,

And leaves for me baskets covered with white towels bulging the house with their plenty,

Shall I postpone my acceptation and realization and scream at my eyes,

That they turn from gazing after and down the road,

And forthwith cipher and show me to a cent,

Exactly the contents of one, and exactly the contents of two, and which is ahead?

Trippers and askers surround me,

People I meet . . . the effect upon me of my early life . . . of the ward and city I live in . . . of the nation,

The latest news . . . discoveries, inventions, societies . . . authors old and new,

My dinner, dress, associates, looks, business, compliments, dues,

The real or fancied indifference of some man or woman I love,

The sickness of one of my folks—or of myself . . . or ill-doing . . . or loss or lack of money . . . or depressions or exaltations,

They come to me days and nights and go from me again,

But they are not the Me myself.

Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am,

Stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, unitary,

Looks down, is erect, bends an arm on an impalpable certain rest,

Looks with its sidecurved head curious what will come next,

Both in and out of the game, and watching and wondering at it.

Backward I see in my own days where I sweated through fog with linguists and contenders,

I have no mockings or arguments . . . I witness and wait.

I believe in you my soul . . . the other I am must not abase itself to you,

And you must not be abased to the other.

Loafe with me on the grass . . . loose the stop from your throat,

Not words, not music or rhyme I want . . . not custom or lecture, not even the best,

Only the lull I like, the hum of your valved voice.

I mind how we lay in June, such a transparent summer morning;

You settled your head athwart my hips and gently turned over upon me,

And parted the shirt from my bosom-bone, and plunged your tongue to my barestript heart,

And reached till you felt my beard, and reached till you held my feet.

Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and joy and knowledge that pass all the art and argument of the earth;

And I know that the hand of God is the elderhand of my own,

And I know that the spirit of God is the eldest brother of my own,

And that all the men ever born are also my brothers . . . and the women my sisters and lovers,

And that a kelson of the creation is love;

And limitless are leaves stiff or drooping in the fields,

And brown ants in the little wells beneath them,

And mossy scabs of the wormfence, and heaped stones, and elder and mullen and pokeweed.

A child said, What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;

How could I answer the child? . . . I do not know what it is any more than he.

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,

A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropped,

Bearing the owner’s name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark, and say Whose?

Or I guess the grass is itself a child . . . the produced babe of the vegetation.

Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,

And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones,

Growing among black folks as among white,

Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I receive them the same.

And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.

Tenderly will I use you curling grass,

It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men,

It may be if I had known them I would have loved them;

It may be you are from old people and from women, and from offspring taken soon out of their mothers’ laps,

And here you are the mothers’ laps.

This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers,

Darker than the colorless beards of old men,

Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths.

O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues!

And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for nothing.

I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and women,

And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring taken soon out of their laps.

What do you think has become of the young and old men?

And what do you think has become of the women and children?

They are alive and well somewhere;

The smallest sprout shows there is really no death,

And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it,

And ceased the moment life appeared.

All goes onward and outward . . . and nothing collapses,

And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.

Has any one supposed it lucky to be born?

I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die, and I know it.

I pass death with the dying, and birth with the new-washed babe . . . and am not contained between my hat and boots,

And peruse manifold objects, no two alike, and every one good, The earth good, and the stars good, and their adjuncts all good.

I am not an earth nor an adjunct of an earth,

I am the mate and companion of people, all just as immortal and fathomless as myself;

They do not know how immortal, but I know.

Every kind for itself and its own . . . for me mine male and female,

For me all that have been boys and that love women,

For me the man that is proud and feels how it stings to be slighted,

For me the sweetheart and the old maid . . . for me mothers and the mothers of mothers,

For me lips that have smiled, eyes that have shed tears,

For me children and the begetters of children.

Who need be afraid of the merge?

Undrape . . . you are not guilty to me, nor stale nor discarded,

I see through the broadcloth and gingham whether or no,

And am around, tenacious, acquisitive, tireless . . . and can never be shaken away.

The little one sleeps in its cradle,

I lift the gauze and look a long time, and silently brush away flies with my hand.

The youngster and the redfaced girl turn aside up the bushy hill,

I peeringly view them from the top.

The suicide sprawls on the bloody floor of the bedroom.

It is so . . . I witnessed the corpse . . . there the pistol had fallen.

The blab of the pave . . . the tires of carts and sluff of bootsoles and talk of the promenaders,

The heavy omnibus, the driver with his interrogating thumb, the clank of the shod horses on the granite floor,

The carnival of sleighs, the clinking and shouted jokes and pelts of snowballs;

The hurrahs for popular favorites . . . the fury of roused mobs,

The flap of the curtained litter—the sick man inside, borne to the hospital,

The meeting of enemies, the sudden oath, the blows and fall,

The excited crowd—the policeman with his star quickly working his passage to the centre of the crowd;

The impassive stones that receive and return so many echoes,

The souls moving along . . . are they invisible while the least atom of the stones is visible?

What groans of overfed or half-starved who fall on the flags sunstruck or in fits,

What exclamations of women taken suddenly, who hurry home and give birth to babes,

What living and buried speech is always vibrating here . . . what howls restrained by decorum,

Arrests of criminals, slights, adulterous offers made, acceptances, rejections with convex lips,

I mind them or the resonance of them . . . I come again and again.

The big doors of the country-barn stand open and ready

The dried grass of the harvest-time loads the slow-drawn wagon,

The clear light plays on the brown gray and green intertinged,

The armfuls are packed to the sagging mow:

I am there . . . I help . . . I came stretched atop of the load,

I felt its soft jolts . . . one leg reclined on the other,

I jump from the crossbeams, and seize the clover and timothy,

And roll head over heels, and tangle my hair full of wisps.

Alone far in the wilds and mountains I hunt,

Wandering amazed at my own lightness and glee,

In the late afternoon choosing a safe spot to pass the night,

Kindling a fire and broiling the freshkilled game,

Soundly falling asleep on the gathered leaves, my dog and gun by my side.

The Yankee clipper is under her three skysails . . . she cuts the sparkle and scud,

My eyes settle the land . . . I bend at her prow or shout joyously from the deck.

The boatmen and clamdiggers arose early and stopped for me,

I tucked my trowser-ends in my boots and went and had a good time,

You should have been with us that day round the chowder-kettle.

I saw the marriage of the trapper in the open air in the far-west . . . the bride was a red girl,

Her father and his friends sat nearby crosslegged and dumbly smoking . . . they had moccasins to their feet and large thick blankets hanging from their shoulders;

On a bank lounged the trapper . . . he was dressed mostly in skins . . . his luxuriant beard and curls protected his neck,

One hand rested on his rifle . . . the other hand held firmly the wrist of the red girl,

She had long eyelashes . . . her head was bare . . . her coarse straight locks descended upon her voluptuous limbs and reached to her feet.

The runaway slave came to my house and stopped outside,

I heard his motions crackling the twigs of the woodpile,

Through the swung half-door of the kitchen I saw him limpsey and weak,

And went where he sat on a log, and led him in and assured him,

And brought water and filled a tub for his sweated body and bruised feet,

And gave him a room that entered from my own, and gave him some coarse clean clothes,

And remember perfectly well his revolving eyes and his awkwardness,

And remember putting plasters on the galls of his neck and ankles;

He staid with me a week before he was recuperated and passed north,

I had him sit next me at table . . . my firelock leaned in the corner.

Twenty-eight young men bathe by the shore,

Twenty-eight young men, and all so friendly,

Twenty-eight years of womanly life, and all so lonesome.

She owns the fine house by the rise of the bank,

She hides handsome and richly drest aft the blinds of the window.

Which of the young men does she like the best?

Ah the homeliest of them is beautiful to her.

Where are you off to, lady? for I see you,

You splash in the water there, yet stay stock still in your room.

Dancing and laughing along the beach came the twenty-ninth bather,

The rest did not see her, but she saw them and loved them.

The beards of the young men glistened with wet, it ran from their long hair,

Little streams passed all over their bodies.

An unseen hand also passed over their bodies,

It descended tremblingly from their temples and ribs.

The young men float on their backs, their white bellies swell to the sun . . . they do not ask who seizes fast to them,

They do not know who puffs and declines with pendant and bending arch,

They do not think whom they souse with spray.

The butcher-boy puts off his killing-clothes, or sharpens his knife at the stall in the market,

I loiter enjoying his repartee and his shuffle and breakdown.

Blacksmiths with grimed and hairy chests environ the anvil,

Each has his main-sledge . . . they are all out . . . there is a great heat in the fire.

From the cinder-strewed threshold I follow their movements,

The lithe sheer of their waists plays even with their massive arms,

Overhand the hammers roll—overhand so slow—overhand so sure,

They do not hasten, each man hits in his place.

The negro holds firmly the reins of his four horses . . . the block swags underneath on its tied-over chain,

The negro that drives the huge dray of the stoneyard . . . steady and tall he stands poised on one leg on the stringpiece,

His blue shirt exposes his ample neck and breast and loosens over his hipband,

His glance is calm and commanding . . . he tosses the slouch of his hat away from his forehead,

The sun falls on his crispy hair and moustache . . . falls on the black of his polish’d and perfect limbs.

I behold the picturesque giant and love him . . . and I do not stop there,

I go with the team also.

In me the caresser of life wherever moving . . . backward as well as forward slueing,

To niches aside and junior bending.

Oxen that rattle the yoke or halt in the shade, what is that you express in your eyes?

It seems to me more than all the print I have read in my life.

My tread scares the wood-drake and wood-duck on my distant and daylong ramble,

They rise together, they slowly circle around.

. . . I believe in those winged purposes,

And acknowledge the red yellow and white playing within me,

And consider the green and violet and the tufted crown intentional;

And do not call the tortoise unworthy because she is not something else,

And the mockingbird in the swamp never studied the gamut, yet trills pretty well to me,

And the look of the bay mare shames silliness out of me.

The wild gander leads his flock through the cool night,

Ya-honk! he says, and sounds it down to me like an invitation;

The pert may suppose it meaningless, but I listen closer,

I find its purpose and place up there toward the November sky.

The sharphoofed moose of the north, the cat on the housesill, the chickadee, the prairie-dog,

The litter of the grunting sow as they tug at her teats,

The brood of the turkeyhen, and she with her halfspread wings,

I see in them and myself the same old law.

The press of my foot to the earth springs a hundred affections,

They scorn the best I can do to relate them.

I am enamoured of growing outdoors,

Of men that live among cattle or taste of the ocean or woods,

Of the builders and steerers of ships, of the wielders of axes and mauls, of the drivers of horses,

I can eat and sleep with them week in and week out.

What is commonest and cheapest and nearest and easiest is Me,

Me going in for my chances, spending for vast returns,

Adorning myself to bestow myself on the first that will take me,

Not asking the sky to come down to my goodwill,

Scattering it freely forever.

[. . .]

The city sleeps and the country sleeps,

The living sleep for their time . . . the dead sleep for their time,

The old husband sleeps by his wife and the young husband sleeps by his wife;

And these one and all tend inward to me, and I tend outward to them,

And such as it is to be of these more or less I am.

I am of old and young, of the foolish as much as the wise,

Regardless of others, ever regardful of others,

Maternal as well as paternal, a child as well as a man,

Stuffed with the stuff that is coarse, and stuffed with the stuff that is fine,

One of the great nation, the nation of many nations—the smallest the same and the largest the same,

A southerner soon as a northerner, a planter nonchalant and hospitable,

A Yankee bound my own way . . . ready for trade . . . my joints the limberest joints on earth and the sternest joints on earth,

A Kentuckian walking the vale of the Elkhorn in my deerskin leggings,

A boatman over the lakes or bays or along coasts . . . a Hoosier, a Badger, a Buckeye,

A Louisianian or Georgian, a poke-easy from sandhills and pines,

At home on Canadian snowshoes or up in the bush, or with fishermen off Newfoundland,

At home in the fleet of iceboats, sailing with the rest and tacking,

At home on the hills of Vermont or in the woods of Maine or the Texan ranch,

Comrade of Californians . . . comrade of free northwesterners, loving their big proportions,

Comrade of raftsmen and coalmen—comrade of all who shake hands and welcome to drink and meat;

A learner with the simplest, a teacher of the thoughtfulest,

A novice beginning experient of myriads of seasons,

Of every hue and trade and rank, of every caste and religion,

Not merely of the New World but of Africa Europe or Asia . . . a wandering savage,

A farmer, mechanic, or artist . . . a gentleman, sailor, lover or quaker,

A prisoner, fancy-man, rowdy, lawyer, physician or priest.

I resist anything better than my own diversity,

And breathe the air and leave plenty after me,

And am not stuck up, and am in my place.

[. . .]

This is the meal pleasantly set . . . this is the meat and drink for natural hunger,

It is for the wicked just the same as the righteous . . . I make appointments with all,

I will not have a single person slighted or left away,

The keptwoman and sponger and thief are hereby invited . . . the heavy-lipped slave is invited . . . the venerealee is invited,

There shall be no difference between them and the rest.

This is the press of a bashful hand . . . this is the float and odor of hair,

This is the touch of my lips to yours . . . this is the murmur of yearning,

This is the far-off depth and height reflecting my own face,

This is the thoughtful merge of myself and the outlet again.

Do you guess I have some intricate purpose?

Well I have . . . for the April rain has, and the mica on the side of a rock has.

Do you take it I would astonish?

Does the daylight astonish? or the early redstart twittering through the woods?

Do I astonish more than they?

This hour I tell things in confidence,

I might not tell everybody but I will tell you.

Who goes there! hankering, gross, mystical, nude?

How is it I extract strength from the beef I eat?

What is a man anyhow? What am I? and what are you?

All I mark as my own you shall offset it with your own,

Else it were time lost listening to me.

I do not snivel that snivel the world over,

That months are vacuums and the ground but wallow and filth,

That life is a suck and a sell, and nothing remains at the end but threadbare crape and tears.

Whimpering and truckling fold with powders for invalids . . . conformity goes to the fourth-removed,

I cock my hat as I please indoors or out.

Shall I pray? Shall I venerate and be ceremonious?

I have pried through the strata and analyzed to a hair,

And counselled with doctors and calculated close and found no sweeter fat than sticks to my own bones.

In all people I see myself, none more and not one a barleycorn less,

And the good or bad I say of myself I say of them.

And I know I am solid and sound,

To me the converging objects of the universe perpetually flow,

All are written to me, and I must get what the writing means.

And 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.

I know I am august,

I do not trouble my spirit to vindicate itself or be understood,

I see that the elementary laws never apologize,

I reckon I behave no prouder than the level I plant my house by after all.

I exist as I am, that is enough,

If no other in the world be aware I sit content,

And if each and all be aware I sit content.

One world is aware, and by far the largest to me, and that is myself,

And whether I come to my own today or in ten thousand or ten million years,

I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I can wait.

My foothold is tenoned and mortised in granite,

I laugh at what you call dissolution,

And I know the amplitude of time.

I am the poet of the body,

And I am the poet of the soul.

The pleasures of heaven are with me, and the pains of hell are with me,

The first I graft and increase upon myself . . . the latter I translate into a new tongue.

I am the poet of the woman the same as the man,

And I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man,

And I say there is nothing greater than the mother of men.

I chant a new chant of dilation or pride,

We have had ducking and deprecating about enough,

I show that size is only developement.

Have you outstript the rest? Are you the President?

It is a trifle . . . they will more than arrive there every one, and still pass on.

I am he that walks with the tender and growing night;

I call to the earth and sea half-held by the night.

Press close barebosomed night! Press close magnetic nourishing night!

Night of south winds! Night of the large few stars!

Still nodding night! Mad naked summer night!

Smile O voluptuous coolbreathed earth!

Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees!

Earth of departed sunset! Earth of the mountains misty-topt!

Earth of the vitreous pour of the full moon just tinged with blue!

Earth of shine and dark mottling the tide of the river!

Earth of the limpid gray of clouds brighter and clearer for my sake!

Far-swooping elbowed earth! Rich apple-blossomed earth!

Smile, for your lover comes!

Prodigal! you have given me love! . . . therefore I to you give love!

O unspeakable passionate love!

Thruster holding me tight and that I hold tight!

We hurt each other as the bridegroom and the bride hurt each other.

You sea! I resign myself to you also . . . I guess what you mean,

I behold from the beach your crooked inviting fingers,

I believe you refuse to go back without feeling of me;

We must have a turn together . . . I undress . . . hurry me out of sight of the land,

Cushion me soft . . . rock me in billowy drowse,

Dash me with amorous wet . . . I can repay you.

Sea of stretched ground-swells!

Sea breathing broad and convulsive breaths!

Sea of the brine of life! Sea of unshovelled and always-ready graves!

Howler and scooper of storms! Capricious and dainty sea!

I am integral with you . . . I too am of one phase and of all phases.

Partaker of influx and efflux . . . extoler of hate and conciliation,

Extoler of amies and those that sleep in each others’ arms.

I am he attesting sympathy;

Shall I make my list of things in the house and skip the house that supports them?

I am the poet of commonsense and of the demonstrable and of immortality;

And am not the poet of goodness only . . . I do not decline to be the poet of wickedness also.

Washes and razors for foofoos . . . for me freckles and a bristling beard.

What blurt is it about virtue and about vice?

Evil propels me, and reform of evil propels me . . . I stand indifferent,

My gait is no faultfinder’s or rejecter’s gait,

I moisten the roots of all that has grown.

[. . .]

[Final section]

Great are the myths . . . I too delight in them,

Great are Adam and Eve . . . I too look back and accept them;

Great the risen and fallen nations, and their poets, women, sages, inventors, rulers, warriors and priests.

Great is liberty! Great is equality! I am their follower,

Helmsmen of nations, choose your craft . . . where you sail I sail,

Yours is the muscle of life or death . . . yours is the perfect science . . . in you I have absolute faith.

Great is today, and beautiful,

It is good to live in this age . . . there never was any better.

Great are the plunges and throes and triumphs and falls of democracy,

Great the reformers with their lapses and screams,

Great the daring and venture of sailors on new explorations.

Great are yourself and myself,

We are just as good and bad as the oldest and youngest or any,

What the best and worst did we could do,

What they felt . . . do not we feel it in ourselves?

What they wished . . . do we not wish the same?

Great is youth, and equally great is old age . . . great are the day and night;

Great is wealth and great is poverty . . . great is expression and great is silence.

Youth large lusty and loving . . . youth full of grace and force and fascination,

Do you know that old age may come after you with equal grace and force and fascination?

Day fullblown and splendid . . . day of the immense sun, and action and ambition and laughter,

The night follows close, with millions of suns, and sleep and restoring darkness.

Wealth with the flush hand and fine clothes and hospitality:

But then the soul’s wealth—which is candor and knowledge and pride and enfolding love:

Who goes for men and women showing poverty richer than wealth?

Expression of speech . . . in what is written or said forget not that silence is also expressive,

That anguish as hot as the hottest and contempt as cold as the coldest may be without words,

That the true adoration is likewise without words and without kneeling.

Great is the greatest nation . . . the nation of clusters of equal nations.

Great is the earth, and the way it became what it is,

Do you imagine it is stopped at this? . . . and the increase abandoned?

Understand then that it goes as far onward from this as this is from the times when it lay in covering waters and gases.

Great is the quality of truth in man,

The quality of truth in man supports itself through all changes,

It is inevitably in the man . . . He and it are in love, and never leave each other.

The truth in man is no dictum . . . it is vital as eyesight,

If there be any soul there is truth . . . if there be man or woman there is truth . . . If there be physical or moral there is truth,

If there be equilibrium or volition there is truth . . . if there be things at all upon the earth there is truth.

O truth of the earth! O truth of things! I am determined to press the whole way toward you,

Sound your voice! I scale mountains or dive in the sea after you.

Great is language . . . it is the mightiest of the sciences,

It is the fulness and color and form and diversity of the earth . . . and of men and women . . . and of all qualities and processes;

It is greater than wealth . . . it is greater than buildings or ships or religions or paintings or music.

Great is the English speech . . . What speech is so great as the English?

Great is the English brood . . . What brood has so vast a destiny as the English?

It is the mother of the brood that must rule the earth with the new rule,

The new rule shall rule as the soul rules, and as the love and justice and equality that are in the soul rule.

Great is the law . . . Great are the old few landmarks of the law . . . they are the same in all times and shall not be disturbed.

Great are marriage, commerce, newspapers, books, freetrade, railroads, steamers, international mails and telegraphs and exchanges.

Great is Justice;

Justice is not settled by legislators and laws . . . it is in the soul,

It cannot be varied by statutes any more than love or pride or the attraction of gravity can,

It is immutable . . . it does not depend on majorities . . . majorities or what not come at last before the same passionless and exact tribunal.

For justice are the grand natural lawyers and perfect judges . . . it is in their souls,

It is well assorted . . . they have not studied for nothing . . . the great includes the less,

They rule on the highest grounds . . . they oversee all eras and states and administrations.

The perfect judge fears nothing . . . he could go front to front before God,

Before the perfect judge all shall stand back . . . life and death shall stand back . . . heaven and hell shall stand back.

Great is goodness;

I do not know what it is any more than I know what health is . . . but I know it is great.

Great is wickedness . . . I find I often admire it just as much as I admire goodness:

Do you call that a paradox? It certainly is a paradox.

The eternal equilibrium of things is great, and the eternal overthrow of things is great,

And there is another paradox.

Great is life . . . and real and mystical . . . wherever and whoever,

Great is death . . . Sure as life holds all parts together, death holds all parts together;

Sure as the stars return again after they merge in the light, death is great as life.

Source: Walt Whitman. Leaves of Grass: The Original 1855 Edition. Originally published by the author, Brooklyn, New York, 1855.

The Wound-Dresser (1865)

Whitman seems to have been able to catch more feeling and detail about the Civil War in his long tumbling lines than any other war-era poet. He not only described his experiences as a nurse in various Washington, D. C., hospitals, but traveled in his imagination to the soldiers on the battlegrounds and on the march. The next six poems come from his 1865 collection, Drum-Taps. One of his greatest poems describes the activities of a wound-dresser, a job in which he continually had to explain he did not actually have himself. (The original title was simply “The Dresser.” We have used the title he later gave it.) Whitman did, however, spend much time in the hospitals “among new faces,” ministering to the wounded soldiers’ hearts and souls during the Civil War.

An old man bending, I come, among new faces,

Years looking backward, resuming, in answer to children,

Come tell us, old man, as from young men and maidens that love me;

Years hence of these scenes, of these furious passions, these chances,

Of unsurpass’d heroes, (was one side so brave? the other was equally brave;)

Now be witness again—paint the mightiest armies of earth;

Of those armies so rapid, so wondrous, what saw you to tell us?

What stays with you latest and deepest? of curious panics,

Of hard-fought engagements, or sieges tremendous, what deepest remains?

O maidens and young men I love, and that love me,

What you ask of my days, those the strangest and sudden your talking recalls;

Soldier alert I arrive, after a long march, cover’d with sweat and dust;

In the nick of time I come, plunge in the fight, loudly shout in the rush of successful charge;

Enter the captur’d works . . . yet lo! like a swift-running river, they fade;

Pass and are gone, they fade—I dwell not on soldiers’ perils or soldiers’ joys;

(Both I remember well—many the hardships, few the joys, yet I was content.)

But in silence, in dreams’ projections,

While the world of gain and appearance and mirth goes on,

So soon what is over forgotten, and waves wash the imprints off the sand,

In nature’s reverie sad, with hinged knees returning, I enter the doors—(while for you up there,

Whoever you are, follow me without noise, and be of strong heart.)

Bearing the bandages, water and sponge,

Straight and swift to my wounded I go,

Where they lie on the ground, after the battle brought in;

Where their priceless blood reddens the grass, the ground;

Or to the rows of the hospital tent, or under the roof ’d hospital;

To the long rows of cots, up and down, each side, I return;

To each and all, one after another, I draw near—not one do I miss;

An attendant follows, holding a tray—he carries a refuse pail,

Soon to be fill’d with clotted rags and blood, emptied and fill’d again.

I onward go, I stop,

With hinged knees and steady hand, to dress wounds;

I am firm with each—the pangs are sharp, yet unavoidable;

One turns to me his appealing eyes—(poor boy! I never knew you,

Yet I think I could not refuse this moment to die for you, if that would save you.)

On, on I go—(open doors of time! open, hospital doors!)

The crush’d head I dress, (poor crazed hand, tear not the bandage away;)

The neck of the cavalry-man, with the bullet through and through, I examine;

Hard the breathing rattles, quite glazed already the eye, yet life struggles hard;

(Come, sweet death! be persuaded, O beautiful death!

In mercy come quickly.)

From the stump of the arm, the amputated hand,

I undo the clotted lint, remove the slough, wash off the matter and blood;

Back on his pillow the soldier bends, with curv’d neck, and side-falling head;

His eyes are closed, his face is pale, he dares not look on the bloody stump,

And has not yet look’d on it.

I dress a wound in the side, deep, deep;

But a day or two more—for see, the frame all wasted already, and sinking,

And the yellow-blue countenance see.

I dress the perforated shoulder, the foot with the bullet wound,

Cleanse the one with a gnawing and putrid gangrene, so sickening, so offensive,

While the attendant stands behind aside me, holding the tray and pail.

I am faithful, I do not give out;

The fractur’d thigh, the knee, the wound in the abdomen,

These and more I dress with impassive hand—(yet deep in my breast a fire, a burning flame.)

Thus in silence, in dream’s projections,

Returning, resuming, I thread my way through the hospitals;

The hurt and wounded I pacify with soothing hand,

I sit by the restless all the dark night—some are so young;

Some suffer so much—I recall the experience sweet and sad;

(Many a soldier’s loving arms about this neck have cross’d and rested,

Many a soldier’s kiss dwells on these bearded lips.)

Cavalry Crossing a Ford (1865)

A line in long array, where they wind betwixt green islands;

They take a serpentine course—their arms flash in the sun—Hark to the musical clank;

Behold the silvery river—in it the splashing horses, loitering, stop to drink;

Behold the brown-faced men—each group, each person, a picture—the negligent rest on the saddles;

Some emerge on the opposite bank—others are just entering the ford;

The guidon flags flutter gaily in the wind.

A March in the Ranks Hard-Prest, and the Road Unknown (1865)

A march in the ranks hard-prest, and the road unknown;

A route through a heavy wood, with muffled steps in the darkness;

Our army foil’d with loss severe, and the sullen remnant retreating;

Till after midnight glimmer upon us, the lights of a dim-lighted building;

We come to an open space in the woods, and halt by the dim-lighted building;

’Tis a large old church at the crossing roads—’tis now an impromptu hospital;

—Entering but for a minute, I see a sight beyond all the pictures and poems ever made:

Shadows of deepest, deepest black, just lit by moving candles and lamps,

And by one great pitchy torch, stationary, with wild red flame and clouds of smoke;

By these, crowds, groups of forms, vaguely I see, on the floor, some in the pews laid down;

At my feet more distinctly, a soldier, a mere lad, in danger of bleeding to death, (he is shot in the abdomen;)

I staunch the blood temporarily, (the youngster’s face is white as a lily;)

Then before I depart I sweep my eyes o’er the scene, fain to absorb it all;

Faces, varieties, postures beyond description, most in obscurity, some of them dead;

Surgeons operating, attendants holding lights, the smell of ether, the odor of blood;

The crowd, O the crowd of the bloody forms of soldiers—the yard outside also fill’d;

Some on the bare ground, some on planks or stretchers, some in the death-spasm sweating;

An occasional scream or cry, the doctor’s shouted orders or calls;

The glisten of the little steel instruments catching the glint of the torches;

These I resume as I chant—I see again the forms, I smell the odor;

Then hear outside the orders given, Fall in, my men, Fall in;

But first I bend to the dying lad—his eyes open—a half-smile gives he me;

Then the eyes close, calmly close, and I speed forth to the darkness,

Resuming, marching, ever in darkness marching, on in the ranks,

The unknown road still marching.

A Sight in Camp in the Day-Break Grey and Dim (1865)

A sight in camp in the day-break grey and dim,

As from my tent I emerge so early, sleepless,

As slow I walk in the cool fresh air, the path near by the hospital-tent,

Three forms I see on stretchers lying, brought out there, untended lying,

Over each the blanket spread, ample brownish woollen blanket, Grey and heavy blanket, folding, covering all.

Curious, I halt, and silent stand;

Then with light fingers I from the face of the nearest, the first, just lift the blanket:

Who are you, elderly man so gaunt and grim, with well-grey’d hair, and flesh all sunken about the eyes?

Who are you, my dear comrade?

Then to the second I step—And who are you, my child and darling?

Who are you, sweet boy, with cheeks yet blooming?

Then to the third—a face nor child, nor old, very calm, as of beautiful yellow-white ivory;

Young man, I think I know you—I think this face of yours is the face of the Christ himself;

Dead and divine, and brother of all, and here again he lies.

Not Youth Pertains to Me (1865)

Not youth pertains to me,

Nor delicatesse—I cannot beguile the time with talk;

Awkward in the parlor, neither a dancer nor elegant;

In the learn’d coterie sitting constrain’d and still—for learning inures not to me;

Beauty, knowledge, fortune, inure not to me—yet there are two things inure to me;

I have nourish’d the wounded, and sooth’d many a dying soldier;

And at intervals I have strung together a few songs,

Fit for war, and life of the camp.

SOURCE: Walt Whitman. Drum-Taps. New York. 1865.

O Captain! My Captain! (1865)

The last poem commemorates the life and death of President Abraham Lincoln, who was shot on April 14, 1865, and died the next morning.

O captain! my captain! our fearful trip is done;

The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won;

The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,

While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:

But O heart! heart! heart!

Leave you not the little spot,

Where on the deck my captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

O captain! my captain! rise up and hear the bells;

Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills;

For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding;

For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning; O captain! dear father!

This arm I push beneath you;

It is some dream that on the deck,

You’ve fallen cold and dead.

My captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;

My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;

But the ship, the ship is anchor’d safe, its voyage closed and done;

From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won:

Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!

But I, with silent tread,

Walk the spot my captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

SOURCE: Walt Whitman. Sequel to Drum-Taps: When Lilacs Last in the Door-Yard Bloom’d. And Other Pieces. Washington, D.C.: Gibson Brothers, 1865–1866.