Walt Whitman - Songs of Democracy (1919)
Walt Whitman - Songs of Democracy (1919)
Walt Whitman - Songs of Democracy (1919)
By
WALT WHITMAN
THICK-SPRINKLED BUNTING
Thick-sprinkled bunting! Flag of stars!
Long yet your road, fateful flag! long yet your road, and lined with,
bloody death!
For the prize I see at issue, at last is the world!
All its ships and shores I see, interwoven with your threads, greedy banner!
Dream d again the flags of kings, highest born, to flaunt unrival d?
hasten, flag of man! with sure and steady step, passing highest flags
Walk supreme to the heavens, mighty symbol run up above them all.
PHILADELPHIA
DAVID McKAY, PUBLISHER
604-608 SOUTH WASHINGTON SQUARE
COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY
DAVID McKAY
LOAN STAGS
WM FELL CO PRINTERS
F.
PHILADELPHIA
p
THE MEMORY OF
DAVID McKAY
INTRODUCTION
who know their Whitman will no
doubt find somewhat ridiculous an enterprise
THOSE which purposes to isolate a limited number of
his poems under the title of the present volume, so
completely is his work given up to the celebration of
democracy. They will be fortified in their views,
moreover, by the consciousness that the author him
self would have shared them. Whitman saw in
Leaves of Grass an organism, something which must
be taken entire or not at all. Of the considerable
number of offered to the fearful, only
"Selections"
"I
charge that there be no theory or school founded out
of me
I charge that you leave all free as I have left all free."
10
INTRODUCTION
Literature was a secondary consideration, and, like
the sensible men they were, they took the word of
the specialists for the problems of their own field.
Unfortunately, the very conditions which under
lay the attitude of the average man made the
specialist unreliable. America furnished no excep
tion to the rule that the greatest imaginations are
normally attracted to the greatest need. The minds
undertaking to determine the present and direct the
future of her letters, compared with those under
taking to lay the foundations of her empire, were
picayune; inferior in confidence and courage, in
initiative and creative power. Far from recognizing
the significance of the tremendous processes going on
about them, they saw only the ugliness of their super
ficial manifestations. In the nature of things a small
group, isolated by their conscious refinements, they
held themselves superior to the world with which an
unkind fate identified them, and apologetic, explana
tory, they groveled at the feet of Europe. This
tendency of America s men of letters to look upon her
as an adjunct of their personalities was sometimes
subtle, as in Lowell s case, sometimes unconscious,
as in Emerson s, but it was unmistakable and persists
in our own day, when it has attained its most com
plete expression in the works of Henry James. In
Walt Whitman, with his uncompromising faith in
his own land and his own days, with his unswerving
belief in America s future and his complete repudia
tion of those who proposed to speak for her but who
spoke with the voice of Europe, such men could find
only one thing more to explain.
But gradually, as one by one we have been learning
the lessons of the concrete; as the margin of wealth
in the United States has increased, and with it
leisure and the opportunity for reading and study;
as labor has won with shorter hours and higher pay
ii
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
the extension of the public school system, and as
higher education has become more general among the
middle classes, our criticism has begun to show a
different spirit, and the cloud of ignorance and pre
judice which has obscured the value of Leaves of
Grass and militated against its being accorded its
rightful place in our literature, has begun to lift. It
is lifting very slowly, however. For though our
educational system is constantly growing and im
proving, it is still superficial, haphazard, and inade
quate. The emphasis of our courses in literature,
intermediate and collegiate, is still on the thing that
is said of a text rather than on the text itself, so that
the influence of the "merely literary" is still con
siderable.
Yet even in this quarter there has been a certain
softening. swarm of reflectors and the polite"
"The
nymede, spoke and acted, not for a class, but for a people.
It has been left for us to see to it that it shall be understood
that they spoke and acted, not for a single people only, but
for all mankind." Woodrow Wilson.
all the world s, the continents
"
ft****************
For Thee the Future.
3
Americanos! conquerors! marches humanitarian;
Foremost! century marches! Libertad! masses!
For you a programme of chants.
21
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
Chants of the prairies;
Chants of the long-running Mississippi, and down
to the Mexican sea;
Chants of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin
and Minnesota;
Chants going forth from the centre, from Kansas,
and thence, equi-distant,
Shooting in pulses of fire, ceaseless, to vivify all.
4
In the Year 80 of The States,
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form d from
this soil, this air,
Born here of parents born here, from parents the
same, and their parents the same,
I, now thirty-six years old, in perfect health, begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.
5
Take my leaves, America! take them, South, and
take them, North!
Make welcome for them everywhere, for they are
your own offspring;
Surround them, East and West ! for they would sur
round you;
And you precedents! connect lovingly with them,
for they connect lovingly with you.
22
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
I conn d old times;
I sat studying at the feet of the great masters:
Now, if eligible, O that the great masters might re
turn and study me !
The SOUL:
Forever and forever longer than soil is brown and
solid longer than water ebbs and flows.
I am
the credulous man of qualities, ages, races;
I advance from the people in their own spirit;
Here is what sings unrestricted faith.
9
What are you doing, young man?
Are you so earnest so given up to literature, science,
art, amours?
These ostensible realities, politics, points?
Your ambition or business, whatever it may be?
10
What do you seek, so pensive and silent?
What do you need, Camerado?
Dear son! do you think it is love?
26
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
Listen, dear son listen, America, daughter or son!
It is a painful thing to love a man or woman to
excess and yet it satisfies it is great;
But there is something else very great it makes the
whole coincide;
It,magnificent, beyond materials, with continuous
hands, sweeps and provides for all.
ii
Know you! solely to drop in the earth the germs of
a greater Religion,
The following chants, each for its kind, I sing.
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.
12
13
Democracy!
Near at hand to you a throat is now inflating itself
and joyfully singing.
Ma femme!
For the brood beyond us and of us,
For those who belong here, and those to Come,
I, exultant, to be ready for them, will now shake
out carols stronger and haughtier than have ever
yet been heard upon earth.
28
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
I will make the songs of passion, to give them their
way,
And your songs, outlaw d offenders for I scan you
with kindred eyes, and carry you with me the
same as any.
body,
Item hands of the corpse-
for item, it will elude the
cleaners,and pass to fitting spheres,
Carrying what has accrued to it from the moment of
birth to the moment of death.
15
Whoever you are! to you endless announcements.
19
See! steamers steaming through poems! my
See, in my poems immigrants continually coming
and landing;
See, in arriere, the wigwam, the trail, the hunter s
hut, the flat-boat, the maize-leaf, the claim, the
rude fence, and the backwoods village;
See, on the one side the Western Sea, and on the
other the Eastern Sea, how they advance and
retreat upon my poems, as upon their own shores.
20
O Camerado close!
O you and me at last and us two only.
wild!
35
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
GODS
I
2
the All!
Be thou my God.
ON As the
old mother sways her to and fro, sing
ing her husky song,
As I watch the bright stars shining I think a
thought of the clef of the universes, and of the
future.
C OME,
Sing
Sing
said the
me
me
Muse,
a song no poet yet has chanted,
the Universal.
39
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
Forth from their masks, no matter what,
From the huge, festering trunk from craft and guile
and tears,
Health to emerge, and joy joy universal.
3
Over the mountain growths, disease and sorrow,
An uncaught bird is ever hovering, hovering,
High in the purer, happier air.
4
O the blest eyes! the happy hearts!
That see that know the guiding thread so fine,
Along the mighty labyrinth!
Reality,
For these, (not for thyself,) Thou hast arrived.
40
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
Thou too surroundest all;
Embracing, carrying, welcoming all, Thou too, by
pathways broad and new,
To the Ideal tendest.
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 DEMOCRACY
THINK OF THE SOUL
of the Soul;
THINK I swear to
portions
you that body yours
your Soul somehow
to
of gives pro
to live in
other spheres;
I do not know how, but I know it is so.
4
Blow again, trumpeter! and for my sensuous eyes,
Bring the old pageants show the feudal world.
diffusing love.
MY Do
not mind because many, sounding your
name, do not understand you;
I do not sound your name, but I unders tand you,
(there are others also;)
I specify you with joy, O my
comrade, to salute you,
and to salute those who are with you, before and
since and those to come also,
That we labor together, transmitting the same
all
A SONG
STATES!
Away!
I arrive, bringing these, beyond all the forces of
courts and arms,
These! to hold you together as firmly as the earth
itself is held together.
There be innovations,
shall
There be countless linked hands namely, the
shall
Northeasterner s, and the Northwesterner s, and
the Southwesterner s, and those of the interior,
and all their brood,
These shall be masters of the world under a new
power,
They shall laugh to scorn the attacks of all the re
mainder of the world.
TO A HISTORIAN
who celebrate bygones!
Who
YOU have explored the outward, the surfaces
of the races the lifethat has exhibited 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
in himself, in his own rights,
is
THOUGHT
obedience, faith, adhesiveness;
OF As I stand aloof and look, there is to
antecedents;
3
In the name of These States, and in your and my
name, the Past,
And in the name of These States, and in your and my
name, the Present time.
I know that the past was great, and the future will be
great,
And I know that both curiously conjoint in the pres
ent time,
54
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
(For the sake of him I typify for the common aver
age man s sake your sake, if you are he;)
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.
TO FOREIGN LANDS
HEARD that you ask d for something to prove
this puzzle, the New
I And
World,
to define America, her athletic Democracy;
Therefore I send you my poems, that you behold in
them what you wanted.
55
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
AMERICA
S^fENTRE of equal daughters, equal sons,
W
I .
All, all alike endear d, grown,
old,
uncrown, young or
A cities
NEWER
tude, _
garden of creation, no primal
A
A
CALIFORNIA song!
A prophecy and indirection
palpable, to breathe, as air;
chorus of dryads, fading, departing or hama
a thought im
dryads departing;
A murmuring, fateful, giant voice, out of the earth
and sky,
Voice of a mighty dying tree in the Redwood forest
dense.
Farewell, my brethren,
Farewell, earth and sky farewell, ye neighboring
waters;
My time has ended, my term has come.
59
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
Murmuring out of its myriad leaves,
Down from its lofty top, rising two hundred feet high,
Out of its stalwart trunk and limbs out of its foot-
thick bark,
That chant of the seasons and time chant, not of
the past only, but the future.
3
You untold of me,
life
And all you venerable and innocent joys,
Perennial, hardy life of me, with joys, mid rain, and
many a summer sun,
And the white snows, and night, and the wild winds;
O the great patient, rugged joys! my soul s strong joys,
unreck d by man;
(For know I bear the soul befitting me / too have con
sciousness, identity,
And all the rocks and mountains have and all the
earth;}
Joys of the life befitting me and brothers mine,
Our time, our term has come.
62
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
66
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
THOUGHTS
Public Opinion;
TO Once
ofThe States, Resist much, obey
unquestioning obedience,
little;
once fully
enslaved;
Once fully enslaved, no nation, state, city, of this
earth, ever afterward resumes its liberty.
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
ELECTION DAY, NOVEMBER, 1884
I should need to name, O Western World, your
scene and show,
IF Twould
powerfulest
not be you, Niagara nor you, ye
limitless prairies nor your huge rifts of
canyons,
Colorado,
Nor you, Yosemite nor Yellowstone, with all its
spasmic geyserloops ascending to the skies, ap
pearing and disappearing,
Nor Oregon s white cones nor Huron s belt of
mighty lakes nor Mississippi s stream:
This seething hemisphere s humanity, as now, I d
name the still small voice vibrating America s
choosing day,
(The heart of it not in the chosen the act itself the
main, the quadriennial choosing,)
The stretch of North and South arous d sea-board
and inland Texas to Maine the Prairie States
Vermont, Virginia, California,
The final ballot-shower from East to West the
paradox and conflict,
The countless snow-flakes falling (a swordless con
flict,
Yet more than all Rome s wars of old, or modern
Napoleon s:) the peaceful choice of all,
Or good or ill humanity welcoming the darker odds,
the dross:
Foams and ferments the wine? it serves to purify
68
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
WITH ALL THY GIFTS
all thy gifts, America,
SAYS
i
3
I say man not hold property in man
shall ;
4
I say where liberty draws not the blood out of slavery,
there slavery draws the blood out of liberty,
I say theword of the good old cause in These States,
and resound it hence over the world.
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
5
I say the human shape or face is so great, it must
never be made ridiculous;
I say for ornaments nothing outre can be allowed,
And that anything is most beautiful without orna
ment,
And that exaggerations will be sternly revenged in
your own physiology, and in other persons physi
ology also;
And I say that clean-shaped children can be jetted
and conceived only where natural forms prevail
in public, and the human face and form are never
caricatured;
And I say that genius need never more be turned to
romances,
(For facts properly told, how mean appear all ro
mances.)
6
I say the word of lands fearing nothing I will have
no other land;
I say discuss all and expose all I am
for every topic
openly;
I say there can be no salvation for These States with
out innovators without free tongues, and ears
willing to hear the tongues;
And I announce as a glory of These States, that they
respectfully listen to propositions, reforms, fresh
views and doctrines, from successions of men and
women,
Each age with its own growth.
70
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
BEHAVIOR
fresh, native, copious, each one
for himself or herself,
BEHAVIOR
Nature and the Soul expressed America and
freedom expressed In it the finest art,
In it pride, cleanliness, sympathy, to have their
chance,
In it physique, intellect, faith in it just as much as
to manage an army or a city, or to write a book
perhaps more,
The youth, the laboring person, the poor person,
rivalling all the rest perhaps outdoing the rest,
The effects of the universe no greater than its;
For there is nothing in the whole universe that can
be more effective than a man s or woman s daily
behavior can be,
In any position, in any one of These States.
THOUGHTS
OF How
they pass and have pass d, through con-
vuls d pains as through parturitions;
How America illustrates birth, muscular youth, the
promise, the sure fulfillment, the Absolute Suc
cess, despite of people Illustrates evil as well as
good;
How many hold despairingly yet to the models de
parted, caste, myths, obedience, compulsion, and
to infidelity;
How few see the arrived models, the Athletes, the
Western States or see freedom or spirituality
or hold any faith in results,
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
(But I see the Athletes and I see the results of the
war glorious and inevitable and they again lead
ing to other results;)
How the great cities appear How the Democratic
masses, turbulent, wilful, as I love them;
How the whirl, the contest, the wrestle of evil with
good, the sounding and resounding, keep on and
on;
How society waits unform d, and is for awhile be
tween things ended and things begun;
How America is the continent of glories, and of the
triumph of freedom, and of the Democracies, and
of the fruits of society, and of all that is begun;
And how The States are complete in themselves
And how all triumphs and glories are complete
in themselves, to lead onward,
And how these of mine, and of The States, will in
their turn be convuls d, and serve other parturi
tions and transitions,
And how people, sights, combinations, the
all Dem
ocratic masses, too, serve and how every fact,
and war itself, with all its horrors, serves,
And how now, or at any time, each serves the ex
quisite transition of death.
73
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
LONG, TOO LONG, O LAND
too long, O land,
Traveling roads all even and peaceful, you
EN"G,
learn d from joys and prosperity only;
But now, ah now, to learn from crises of anguish
advancing, grappling with direst fate, and re
coiling not;
And now to conceive, and show to the world, what
your children en-masse really are;
(For who except myself has yet conceiv d what your
children en-masse really are?)
TO Thou
Thou
peerless, passionate, good cause!
stern, remorseless, sweet Idea!
Deathless throughout the ages, races, lands!
After a strange, sad war great war for thee,
(I think all war through time was really fought, and
ever will be really fought, for thee;)
These chants for thee the eternal march of thee.
74
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
SONG OF THE BANNER AT DAY-BREAK
POET
NEW song, a free song,
OA Flapping, flapping, flapping, flapping, by
sounds, by voices clearer,
the wind s voice and that of the drum,
By
By the banner s voice, and child s voice, and sea s
voice, and father s voice,
Low on the ground and high in the air,
On the ground where father and child stand,
In the upward air where their eyes turn,
Where the banner at day-break is flapping.
Words book- words what are you?
! !
PENNANT
Come up here, bard, bard;
Come up here, soul, soul;
Come up here, dear little child,
To fly in the clouds and winds with me, and play with
the measureless light.
75
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
CHILD
Father, what is that in the sky beckoning to me with
long finger?
And what does it say to me all the while?
FATHER
Nothing, my babe, you see in the sky;
And nothing at all to you it says. But look you, my
babe,
Look at these dazzling things in the houses, and see
you the money-shops opening;
And see you the vehicles preparing to crawl along
the streets with goods:
These! ah, these! how valued and toil d for, these!
How envied by all the earth!
POET
Fresh and rosy red, the sun is mounting high;
On floats the sea in distant blue, careering through
its
channels;
On floats the wind over the breast of the sea, setting
in toward land;
The great steady wind from west and west-by-south,
Floating so buoyant, with milk-white foam on the
waters.
CHILD
O father, it is alive it is full of people it has chil
dren!
now it seems to me it is talking to its children!
1 hear it it talks to me O it is wonderful !
FATHER
Cease, cease, my foolish babe,
What you are saying is sorrowful to me much it
displeases me;
Behold with the rest, again I say behold not ban
ners and pennants aloft;
But the well-prepared pavements behold and mark
the solid wall d houses.
POET
I hear and
see not strips of cloth alone;
I hear again the tramp of armies, I hear the chal
lenging sentry;
I hear the jubilant shouts of millions of men I hear
LIBERTY !
79
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
CHILD
O my father, I like not the houses;
They will never to me be anything nor do I like
money;
But to mount up there I would like, father dear
that banner I like;
That pennant I would be, and must be.
FATHER
Child of mine, you fill me with anguish;
To be that pennant would be too fearful;
Little you know what it is this day, and after this
day, forever;
It is to gain nothing, but risk and defy everything;
Forward to stand in front of wars and O, such
wars! what have you to do with them?
With passions of demons, slaughter, premature
death?
POET
Demons and death then I sing;
Put in all, aye all, will I sword-shaped pennant
for war, and banner so broad and blue,
And a pleasure new and extatic, and the prattled
yearning of children,
Blent with the sounds of the peaceful land, and the
liquid wash of the sea;
And the black ships, fighting on the sea, enveloped
in smoke;
And the icy cool of the far, far north, with rustling
cedars and pines;
And the whirr of drums, and the sound of soldiers
marching, and the hot sun shining south;
And the beech-waves combing over the beach on my
eastern shore, and my western shore the same;
And all between those shores, and my ever running
Mississippi, with bends and chutes;
80
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
And my Illinois fields, and my Kansas fields, and my
fields ofMissouri;
The CONTINENT devoting the whole identity, with
out reserving an atom,
Pour in! whelm that which asks, which sings, with
all, and the yield of all.
POET
(Finale)
82
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
dashes!
How the true thunder bellows after the lightning!
how bright the flashes of lightning !
84
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
3
Thunder on! stride on, Democracy! strike with venge
ful stroke!
And do you rise higher than ever yet, O days, O
cities!
Crash heavier, heavier yet, O storms! you have done
me
good;
My soul, prepared in the mountains, absorbs your
immortal strong nutriment;
Long had I walk d my cities, my country roads,
through farms, only half-satisfied;
One doubt, nauseous, undulating like a snake,
crawl d on the ground before me,
Continually preceding my steps, turning upon me
oft, ironically hissing low;
The cities I loved so well, I abandon d and left
For the lands, and for these passionate days, and for
myself,
Now I awhile return to thee, O soil of Autumn fields,
Reclining on thy breast, giving myself to thee,
Answering the pulses of thy sane and equable heart,
Tuning a verse for thee.
3
Ever upon this stage,
Is acted God s calm, annual drama,
Gorgeous processions, songs of birds,
6
(Pass pass, ye proud brigades!
So handsome, dress d in blue with your tramping,
sinewy legs;
With your shoulders young and strong with your
knapsacks and your muskets;
How elate I stood and watch d you, where, start
ing off, you march d!
7
But on these days of brightness,
On the far-stretching beauteous landscape, the roads
and lanes, the high-piled farm-wagons, and the
fruits and barns,
Shall the dead intrude?
margin.
Nor do I forget you, departed;
Nor in winter or summer, my lost ones;
But most, in the open air, as now, when my soul is
9
A pause the armies wait;
A million flush d, embattled conquerors wait;
The world, too, waits then, soft as breaking night,
and sure as dawn,
They melt they disappear.
10
Loud, O my
throat, and clear, O soul!
The season of thanks, and the voice of full-yielding;
The chant of joy and power for boundless fertility.
90
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
II
I seewhere America, Mother of All,
Well-pleased, with full-spanning eye, gazes forth,
dwells long,
And counts the varied gathering of the products.
12
Toil on, Heroes! harvest the products!
Not alone on those warlike fields, the Mother of All,
With dilated form and lambent eyes, watch d you.
peace.)
TURN, O LIBERTAD
Libertad, for the war is over,
93
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
O SUN OF REAL PEACE
of real peace! O hastening light!
war is over!
New history! new heroes! I project you!
Visions of poets! only you really last! sweep on!
sweep on!
O heights too swift and dizzy yet!
O purged and luminous you threaten me more than
!
I can stand!
(I must not venture the ground under my feet
menaces me it will not support me:
O future too immense,) O present, I return, while
yet I may, to you.
94
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
AS I SAT ALONE BY BLUE ONTARIO S
SHORE
2
A Nation announcing itself,
I myself make the only growth by which I can be
appreciated,
I reject none, accept all, then reproduce all in my own
forms.
95
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
We stand self-pois d in the middle, branching thence
over the world;
From Missouri, Nebraska, or Kansas, laughing
attacks to scorn.
3
Have you thought there could be but a single
Supreme?
There can be any number of Supremes One does
not countervail another, any more than one eye
sight countervails another, or one life countervails
another.
4
America isolated I sing;
I say that works made here in the spirit of other
lands, are so much poison in The States.
I am
he who walks the States with a barb d tongue,
questioning every one I meet;
Who are you, that wanted only to be told what you
knew before?
Who are you, that wanted only a book to join you in
your nonsense?
9
I listened to the Phantom by Ontario s shore,
I heard the voice arising,demanding bards;
By them, all native and grand by them alone can
The States be fused into the compact organism of a
Nation.
foreign despots.
Equality!
They live in the feelings of young men, and the best
women;
Not for nothing have the indomitable heads of the
earth been always ready to fall for Liberty.
ii
For the great Idea!
That, O my brethren that is the mission of Poets.
105
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
Are you not of some coterie? some school or mere
religion?
Are you done with reviews and criticisms of life?
animating now to life itself?
Have you vivified yourself from the maternity of
These States?
Have you too the old, ever-fresh forbearance and
impartiality?
Do you hold the like love for those hardening to
maturity; for the last-born? little and big? and for
the errant?
enemies lands?
politicians, literats, of
Does it not assume that what is notoriously gone is
still here?
Does answer universal needs?
it will it improve
manners?
Does itsound, with trumpet- voice, the proud victory
of the Union, in that secession war?
Can your performance face the open fields and the
seaside?
Will it absorb into me as I absorb food, air to
appear again in my strength, gait, face?
Have real employments contributed to it? original
makers not mere amanuenses?
Does it meet modern discoveries, calibers, facts face
to face?
106
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
What does it mean to me? to American persons,
progresses, cities? Chicago, Kanada, Arkansas?
the planter, Yankee, Georgian, native, immigrant,
sailors, squatters, old States, new States?
Does it encompass all The
and the unexcep
States,
tional rights of all the men and women of the
earth? (the genital impulse of These States;)
Does it see behind the apparent custodians, the
real custodians, standing, menacing, silent the
mechanics, Manhattanese, western men, southern
ers, significant alike in their apathy, and in the
promptness of their love?
Does it see what finally befalls, and has always
finally befallen, each temporizer, patcher, out
sider, partialist, alarmist, infidel, who has ever
ask d anything of America?
What mocking and scornful negligence?
The track strew d with the dust of skeletons;
By the roadside others disdainfully toss d.
13
Rhymes and rhymers pass away poems distill d
from foreign poems pass away,
The swarms of reflectors and the polite pass, and
leave ashes;
Admirers, importers, obedient persons, make but
the soil of literature;
America justifies itself, give it time no disguise can
deceive it, or conceal from it it is impassive
enough,
Only toward the likes of itself will it advance to
meet them,
If itspoets appear, it will in due time advance to
meet them there is no fear of mistake,
(The proof of a poet shall be sternly deferr d, till his
country absorbs him as affectionately as he has
absorbed it.)
107
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
He masters whose spirit masters he tastes sweetest
who results sweetest in the long run;
The blood of the brawn beloved of time is uncon-
straint;
In the need of poems, philosophy, politics, manners,
engineering, an appropriate native grand-opera,
shipcraft, any craft, he or she is greatest who con
tributes the greatest original practical example.
14
Fall behind me, States!
A man before all myself, typical before all.
16
Underneath all, nativity,
I swear I will stand by own nativity pious or
my
impious, so be it;
I swear I am charm d with nothing except nativity,
Men, women, cities, nations, are only beautiful from
nativity.
17
O I see now, flashing, that this America is only you
and me,
Its power, weapons, testimony, are you and me,
Its crimes, lies, thefts, defections, slavery, are you
and me,
Its Congress is you and me the officers, capitols,
armies, ships, are you and me,
Its endless gestations of new States are you and
me,
The war that war so bloody and grim the war I
will henceforth forget was you and me,
Natural and artificial are you and me,
18
112
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
20
I match my spirit against yours, you orbs, growths,
mountains, brutes,
Copious as you are, I absorb you all in myself, and
become the master myself.
except myself?
finally
These States what are they except myself?
21
. . .
Thus, by blue Ontario s shore,
.
114
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
others;)
As I walk solitary, unattended,
Around me I hear that eclat of the world politics,
produce,
The announcements of recognized things science,
The approved growth of cities, and the spread of in
ventions.
117
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
BROTHER OF ALL, WITH GENEROUS HAND
(G. P., BURIED FEBRUARY, 1870)
daughter, sat,
Chatting and sewing.
IIQ
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
In one, along a suite of noble rooms,
Mid plenteous books and journals, paintings on the
walls, fine statuettes,
Were groups of friendly journeymen, mechanics,
young and old,
Reading, conversing.
4
O thou within this tomb,
From thee, such scenes thou stintless, lavish Giver,
Tallying the gifts of Earth large as the Earth,
Thy name an Earth, with mountains, fields and
rivers.
PIONEERS! O PIONEERS!
Pioneers! O pioneers!
4
Have the elder races halted?
Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied, over
there beyond the seas?
We take up the task eternal, and the burden, and
the lesson,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
5
All the past we
leave behind;
We debouch upon a newer, mightier world, varied
world,
Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labor
and the march,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
6
We detachments steady throwing,
Down the edges, through the passes, up the moun
tains steep,
Conquering, holding, daring, venturing, as we go,
the unknown ways,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
7
We primeval forests felling,
We the rivers stemming, vexing we, and piercing
deep the mines within;
122
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
We the surface broad surveying, we the virgin soil
upheaving,
Pioneers! pioneers!
8
Colorado men are we,
From the peaks gigantic, from the great sierras and
the high plateaus,
From the mine and from the gully, from the hunting
trail we come,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
9
From Nebraska, from Arkansas,
Central inland race are we, from Missouri, with the
continental blood intervened;
All the hands of comrades clasping, all the Southern,
all the Northern,
Pioneers! pioneers!
10
O resistless, restless race!
O beloved race in all! O my breast aches with ten
der love for all!
ii
Raise the mighty mother mistress,
Waving high the delicate mistress, over all the starry
mistress, (bend your heads all,)
Raise the fang d and warlike mistress, stern, im
passive, weapon d mistress,
Pioneers! O
pioneers!
123
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
12
13
On and on, the compact ranks,
With accessions ever waiting, with the places of the
dead quickly fill d,
Through the battle, through defeat, moving yet and
never stopping,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
14
O to die advancing on!
Are there some of us to droop and die? has the hour
come?
Then upon the march we fittest die, soon and sure
the gap is fill d,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
IS
All the pulses of the world,
Falling in, they beat for us, with the western move
ment beat;
Holding single or together, steady moving, to the
front, all for us,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
16
Life s involv d and varied pageants,
All the forms and shows, all the workmen at their
work,
124
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
All the seamen and the landsmen, all the masters
with their slaves,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
the dying,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
18
I too with my soul and body,
We, a curious trio, picking, wandering on our way,
Through these shores, amid the shadows, with the
apparitions pressing,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
20
These are of us, they are with us,
All for primal needed work, while the followers there
in embryo wait behind,
We to-day s procession heading, we the route for
travel clearing,
Pioneers! O
pioneers!
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
21
Oyou daughters of the west!
O you young and elder daughters! O you mothers
and you wives!
Never must you be divided, in our ranks you move
united,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
22
Minstrels latent on the prairies!
(Shrouded bards of other lands you !
may sleep you
have done your work;)
Soon I hear you coming warbling, soon you rise
and tramp amid us,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
23
Not for delectations sweet;
Not the cushion and the slipper, not the peaceful
and the studious;
Not the riches safe and palling, not for us the tame
enjoyment,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
24
Do the feasters gluttonous feast?
Do the corpulent sleepers sleep? have they lock d
and bolted doors?
Still be ours the diet hard, and the blanket on the
ground,
Pioneers! pioneers!
25
Has the night descended?
Was the road of late so toilsome? did we stop dis
couraged, nodding on our way?
126
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
Yet a passing hour I yield you, in your tracks to
pause oblivious,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
26
Odysseus wanderings;
Placard "Removed" and "To Let" on the rocks of
your snowy Parnassus;
Repeat at Jerusalem place the notice high on Jaffa s
gate, and on Mount Moriah;
The same on the walls of your Gothic European
Cathedrals, and German, French and Spanish
Castles;
For know a better, fresher, busier sphere a wide,
untried domain awaits, demands you.
Yes, if
you will allow me to say so,
I, my you do not, can plainly see Her,
friends, if
9 129
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
Pass d! pass d! for us, for ever pass d! that once so
mighty World now void, inanimate, phantom
World!
Embroider d, dazzling World! with all its gorgeous
legends, myths,
Its kings and barons proud its priests, and warlike
bower,"
With "Sonnet to Matilda s Eyebrow" quite, quite
frantic ;
130
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
Smiling and pleased, with palpable intent to stay,
She s here, install d amid the kitchen ware!
4
But hold don t I forget my manners?
To introduce the Stranger (what else indeed have I
come for?) to thee, Columbia:
In Liberty s name, welcome, Immortal clasp hands, !
surround you,
(I candidly confess, a queer, queer race, of novel
fashion,)
And yet the same old human race the same within,
without,
Faces and hearts the same feelings the same
yearnings the same,
The same old love beauty and use the same.
5
We do not blame thee, Elder World nor separate
ourselves from thee:
(Would the Son separate himself from the Father?)
Looking back on thee seeing thee to thy duties,
grandeurs, through past ages bending, building,
We build to ours to-day.
6
Around a Palace,
Loftier, fairer, ampler than any yet,
Earth s modern Wonder, History s Seven outstrip
ping*
High rising tier on tier, with glass and iron facades.
hues,
Bronze, lilac, robin s-egg, marine and crimson,
Over whose golden roof shall flaunt, beneath thy
banner, Freedom,
The banners of The States, the flags of every land,
A brood of lofty, fair, but lesser Palaces shall cluster.
Somewhere within the walls of all,
Shall that forwards perfect human life be started,
all
7
and these, America,
This, this shall be your Pyra
mids and Obelisks,
Your Alexandrian Pharos, gardens of Babylon,
Your temple at Olympia.
8
Away with themes of war! away with War itself!
Hence from my shuddering sight, to never more
return, that show of blacken d, mutilated corpses !
9
To you, ye Reverent, sane Sisters,
To this resplendent day, the present scene,
These eyes and ears that like some broad parterre
bloom up around, before me,
I raise a voice for far superber themes for poets and
for Art,
134
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
To exalt the present and the real,
To teach the average man the glory of his daily walk
and trade,
To how exercise and chemical life are
sing, in songs,
never to be baffled;
Boldly to thee, America, to-day! and thee, Immortal
Muse!
To practical, manual work, for each and all to
plough, hoe, dig,
To plant and tend the tree, the berry, the vegetables,
flowers,
For every man to see to it that he really do some
thing for every woman too;
To use the hammer, and the saw, (rip or cross-cut,)
To cultivate a turn for carpentering, plastering,
painting,
To work as tailor, tailoress, nurse, hostler, porter,
To invent a little something ingenious to aid the
washing, cooking, cleaning,
And hold it no disgrace to take a hand at them them
selves.
10
And thou, high-towering One America!
Thy swarm of offspring towering high yet higher
thee, above all towering,
With Victory on thy left, and at thy right hand Law;
Thou Union, holding all fusing, absorbing, tolerat
ing all,
ii
137
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
The myriads of thy young and old mechanics!
Mark mark the spirit of invention everywhere
thy rapid patents,
Thy continual workshops, foundries, risen or rising;
See, from their chimneys, how the tall flame-fires
stream!
12
14
Now here, and these, and hence, in peace all thine,
O Flag!
And here, and hence, for thee, O universal Muse!
and thou for them !
140
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
AS A STRONG BIRD ON PINIONS FREE
i
3
Sail sail thy best, ship of Democracy!
Of value isthy freight tis not the Present only,
The Past is also stored in thee!
Thou boldest not the venture of thyself alone not
of thy western continent alone;
Earth s resume entire floats on thy keel, O ship is
steadied by thy spars;
With thee Time voyages in trust the antecedent
nations sink or swim with thee;
142
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
With all their ancient struggles, martyrs, heroes,
epics, wars, thou bear st the other continents;
Theirs, theirs as much as thine, the destination-port
triumphant:
Steer, steer with good strong hand and wary eye,
O helmsman thou carryest great companions,
Venerable, priestly Asia sails this day with thee,
And royal, feudal Europe sails with thee.
4
Beautiful World of new, superber Birth, that rises
to my eyes,
Like a limitless golden cloud, filling the western sky;
Emblem of general Maternity, lifted above all;
Sacred shape of the bearer of daughters and sons;
Out of thy teeming womb, thy giant babes in cease
less procession issuing,
5
Land tolerating all accepting all not for the good
alone all for thee;
good
Land in the realms of God to be a realm unto thyself;
Under the rule of God to be a rule unto thyself.
147
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
PRAYER OF COLUMBUS
Itwas near the close of his indomitable and pious life on his last
voyage when nearly 70 years of age that Columbus, to save his two
remaining ships from foundering in the Caribbean Sea in a terrible
storm, had to run them ashore on the Island of Jamaica where, laid
up for a long and miserable year 1503 he was taken very sick, had
several relapses, his men revolted, and death seem d daily imminent;
though he was eventually rescued, and sent home to Spain to die, un
recognized, neglected and in want It is only ask d, as prepa
ration and atmosphere for the following lines, that the bare authentic
facts be recall d and realized, and nothing contributed by the fancy.
See, the Antillean Island, with its florid skies and rich foliage and
scenery, the waves beating the solitary sands, and the hulls of the
ships in the distance. See, the figure of the great Admiral, walking the
beach, as a stage, in this sublimest tragedy- for what tragedy, what
poem, so piteous and majestic as the real scene? and hear him utter
ing as his mystical and religious soul surely utter d, the ideas follow
ing perhaps, in their equivalents, the very words.
My terminus near,
The clouds already closing in upon me,
The voyage balk d the course disputed, lost,
I yield my ships to Thee.
152
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
A BROADWAY PAGEANT
i
OVER come,
Courteous, the swart-cheek d two-sworded
envoys,
Leaning back in their open barouches, bare-headed,
impassive,
Ride to-day through Manhattan.
Libertad!
I do not know whether others behold what I behold,
In the procession, along with the nobles of Asia, the
errand-bearers,
Bringing up the rear, hovering above, around, or in
the ranks marching;
But I will sing you a song of what I behold, Libertad.
153
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
When the facades of the houses are alive with people
when eyes gaze, riveted, tens of thousands at a
time;
When the guests from the islands advance when the
pageant moves forward, visible;
When the summons is made
when the answer that
waited thousands of years, answers;
I too, arising, answering, descend to the pavements,
merge with the crowd, and gaze with them.
3
Superb-faced Manhattan!
Comrade Americanos! to us, then, at last, the
Orient comes.
To us, my city,
Where our tall-topt marble and iron beauties range
on opposite sides to walk in the space between,
To-day our Antipodes comes.
4
See, my cantabile these, ! and more, are flashing to us
from the procession;
As it moves, changing, a kaleidoscope divine it
156
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
7
The sign is reversing, the orb
is enclosed,
Young Libertad!
With the venerable Asia, the all-mother,
Be considerate with her, now and ever, hot Libertad
for you are all;
Bend your proud neck to the long-off mother, now
sending messages over the archipelagoes to you;
Bend your proud neck low for once, young Libertad.
9
Were the children straying westward so long? so
wide the tramping?
Were the precedent dim ages debouching westward
from Paradise so long?
Were the centuries steadily footing it that way, all
the while unknown, for you, for reasons?
157
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
FRANCE
A any
GREAT
A harsh,
ing, to
yet.
year and place;
discordant, natal scream out-sound
touch the mother s heart closer than
3
O Liberty! O mate for me!
Here too the blaze, the grape-shot and the axe, in
reserve, to fetch them out in case of need;
Here too, though long represt, can never be destroy d;
Here too could rise at last, murdering and extatic;
Here too demanding full arrears of vengeance.
158
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
4
Hence over the sea,
I sign this salute
And I do not deny that terrible red birth and bap
tism,
But remember the little voice that I heard wailing
and wait with perfect trust, no matter how long;
And from to-day, sad and cogent, I maintain the
bequeath d cause, as for all lands,
And I send these words to Paris with my love,
And I guess some chansonniers there will understand
them,
For i guess there is latent music yet in France
floods of it;
O I hear already the bustle of instruments they
will soon be drowning all that would interrupt
them;
I think the east wind brings a triumphal and free
march,
It reaches hither it swells me to joyful madness,
159
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
TO A FOIL D EUROPEAN REVOLUTIONAIRE
3
Then courage! European revolter! revoltress!
For, till all ceases, neither must you cease.
3
t
counseling, cautioning.
4
Liberty! let others despair of you! I never despair of
you.
Is the house shut? Is the master away?
Nevertheless, be ready be not weary of watching;
He will soon return his messengers come anon.
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
SONG FOR ALL SEAS, ALL SHIPS
164
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
Token of all brave captains, and all intrepid sailors
and mates,
And all that went down doing their duty;
Reminiscent of them twined from all intrepid cap
tains, young or old;
A pennant universal, subtly waving, all time, o er all
brave sailors,
All seas, all ships.
SPAIN, 1873-74
of the murk of heaviest clouds,
6s
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
O STAR OF FRANCE!
1870-71
of France!
The brightness of thy hope and strength and
OSTAR fame,
Like some proud ship that led the fleet so long,
Beseems to-day a wreck, driven by the gale a mast-
less hulk;
And mid its teeming, madden d, half-drown d
crowds,
Nor helm nor helmsman.
3
Star crucified by traitors sold
! !
4
O star! O ship of France, beat back and baffled long!
Bear up, O smitten orb! O ship, continue on!
my
days,
Singing the great achievements of the present,
SINGING
Singing the strong, light works of engineers,
Our modern wonders, (the antique ponderous Seven
outvied,)
In the Old World, the east, the Suez canal,
The New by its mighty railroad spann d,
The seas inlaid with eloquent, gentle wires,
I sound, to commence, the cry, with thee, O soul,
The Past! the Past! the Past!
the past?
(As a projectile, form d, impell d, passing a certain
line, still keeps on,
So the present, utterly form d, impell d by the past.)
3
Passage to India!
Lo, soul! seest thou not God s purpose from the first?
The earth to be spann d, connected by net-work,
The people tobecome brothers and sisters,
The races, neighbors, to marry and be given in
marriage,
The oceans to be cross d, the distant brought near,
The lands to be welded together.
4
Passage to India!
Lo, soul, for thee, of tableaus twain,
I see, in one, the Suez canal initiated, open d,
I see the procession of steamships, the Empress
Eugenie s leading the van;
I mark, from on deck, the strange landscape, the
pure sky, the level sand in the distance;
I pass swiftly the picturesque groups, the workmen
gather d,
The gigantic dredging machines.
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
In one, again, different, (yet thine, all thine, soul,
the same,)
I see over my own continent the Pacific Railroad,
surmounting every barrier;
I see continual trains of cars winding along the
Platte, carrying freight and passengers;
I hear the locomotives rushing and roaring, and the
shrill steam-whistle,
I hear the echoes reverberate through the grandest
scenery in the world;
I cross the Laramie plains I note the rocks in
grotesque shapes the buttes;
I see the plentiful larkspur and wild onions the
barren, colorless, sage-deserts;
I see in glimpses afar, or towering immediately
above me, the great mountains I see the Wind
River and the Wahsatch mountains;
I see the Monument mountain and the Eagle s Nest
I pass the Promontory I ascend the Nevadas;
I scan the noble Elk mountain, and wind around its
base;
I see the Humboldt range I thread the valley and
cross the river,
I see the clear waters of Lake Tahoe I see forests
of majestic pines,
Or, crossing the great desert, the alkaline plains, I
behold enchanting mirages of waters and meadows;
Marking through these, and after all, in duplicate
slender lines,
Bridging the three or four thousand miles of land
travel,
Tying the Eastern to the Western sea,
The road between Europe and Asia.
6
O, vast Rondure, swimming in space!
Cover d all over with visible power and beauty!
Alternate light and day, and the teeming, spiritual
darkness;
Unspeakable, high processions of sun and moon, and
countless stars, above;
Below, the manifold grass and waters, animals,
mountains, trees;
With inscrutable purpose some hidden, prophetic
intention ;
171
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
Wandering, yearning, curious with restless explo
rations,
With questionings, baffled, formless, feverish with
never-happy hearts,
With that sad, incessant refrain, Wherefore, unsatis
fied Soul? and Whither, O
mocking Life?
After the seas are all cross d, (as they seem already
cross d,)
After the great captains and engineers have accom-
plish 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.
7
Year at whose open d, wide-flung door I sing!
Year of the purpose accomplish d!
Year of the marriage of continents, climates and
oceans!
(No mere Doge of Venice now, wedding the Adriatic;)
I see, O year, in you, the vast terraqueous globe,
given, and giving all,
Europe to Asia, Africa join d, and they to the New
World;
The lands, geographies, dancing before you, holding
a festival garland,
As brides and bridegrooms hand in hand.
Passage to India!
Cooling airs from Caucasus far, soothing cradle of
man,
The river Euphrates flowing, the past lit up again.
173
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
(I, my shores of America walking to-day, behold,
resuming all,)
The on his warlike marches, sud
tale of Alexander,
denly dying,
On one side China, and on the other side Persia and
Arabia,
To the south the great seas, and the Bay of Bengal;
The flowing literatures, tremendous epics, religions,
castes,
Old occult Brahma, interminably far back the ten
der and junior Buddha,
Central and southern empires, and all their belong
ings, possessors,
The wars of Tamerlane, the reign of Aurungzebe,
The traders, rulers, explorers, Moslems, Venetians,
Byzantium, the Arabs, Portuguese,
The first travelers, famous yet, Marco Polo, Batouta
the Moor,
Doubts to be solv d, the map incognita, blanks to be
fill d,
The foot of man unstay d, the hands never at rest,
Thyself, O soul, that will not brook a challenge.
9
The medieval navigators rise before me,
The world of 1492, with its awaken d enterprise;
Something swelling in humanity now like the sap of
the earth in spring,
The sunset splendor of chivalry declining.
10
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.
ii
O we can wait no longer!
We too take ship, O soul!
Joyous, we too launch out on trackless seas!
Fearless, for unknown shores, on waves of extasy to
sail,
175
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
Amid the wafting winds, (thou pressing me to thee,
I thee to me, O soul,)
Caroling free singing our song of God,
Chanting our chant of pleasant exploration.
night,
Thoughts, silent thoughts, of Time, and Space, and
Death, like waters flowing,
Bear me, indeed, as through the regions infinite,
Whose air I breathe, whose ripples hear lave me
all over;
Bathe me, O God, in thee mounting to thee,
1 and my soul to range in range of thee.
O Thou transcendant!
Nameless the fibre and the breath !
13
Passage to more than India !
Passage to you!
O my brave soul !
cavil,
His name to his testament formally signs.
180
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
NOT THE PILOT
the pilot has charged himself to bring his
SO LONG!
T 1
conclude I announce what comes after me;
announce mightier offspring, orators, days,
and then, for the present, depart.
3
O thicker and faster! (So long!)
crowding too close upon me;
1 foresee too much it means more than I thought;
It appears to me I am dying.
4
My songs cease I abandon them;
From behind the screen where I hid I advance per
sonally, solely to you.
5
Dear friend,whoever you are, take this kiss,
I give it especially to you Do not forget me;
I feel like one who has done work for the day, to
retire awhile;
I receive now again of my many translations from
my avataras ascending while others doubtless
await me;
184
SONGS OF DEMOCRACY
An unknown more real than I dream d, more
sphere,
direct, dartsawakening rays about me So long!
Remember my words I may again return,
I love you I depart from materials;
I am as one disembodied, triumphant, dead.
IN FORMER SONGS
i
LESSONS
are who teach only the sweet lessons of
8 1973 7 *?
JUL 3 1Q74
f; q74 1 6
tECD QRC PBT AU6 2 l J4
?6
JUN 3 2004
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