314. I Thought I was not Alone



I THOUGHT I was not alone, walking here by the shore,       
But the one I thought was with me, as now I walk by the shore,       
As I lean and look through the glimmering light—that one has utterly disappeared,       
And those appear that perplex me.

315. Inscription



SMALL is the theme of the following Chant, yet the greatest—namely, One’s-Self—that wondrous thing a simple, separate person. That, for the use of the New World, I sing.       
Man’s physiology complete, from top to toe, I sing. Not physiognomy alone, nor brain alone, is worthy for the muse;—I say the Form complete is worthier far. The female equal with the male, I sing,       
Nor cease at the theme of One’s-Self. I speak the word of the modern, the word En-Masse:       
My Days I sing, and the Lands—with interstice I knew of hapless War.       
     
O friend whoe’er you are, at last arriving hither to commence, I feel through every leaf the pressure of your hand, which I return. And thus upon our journey link’d together let us go.

316. Not My Enemies Ever Invade Me



NOT my enemies ever invade me—no harm to my pride from them I fear;       
But the lovers I recklessly love—lo! how they master me!       
Lo! me, ever open and helpless, bereft of my strength!       
Utterly abject, grovelling on the ground before them.

317. Great are the Myths



1

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,            5   
I weather it out with you, or sink with you.       
     
Great is Youth—equally great is Old Age—great are the Day and Night;       
Great is Wealth—great is Poverty—great is Expression—great is Silence.       
     
Youth, large, lusty, loving—Youth, full of grace, force, fascination!       
Do you know that Old Age may come after you, with equal grace, force, fascination?     10   
     
Day, full-blown and splendid—Day of the immense sun, action, ambition, laughter,       
The Night follows close, with millions of suns, and sleep, and restoring darkness.       
     
Wealth, with the flush hand, fine clothes, hospitality;       
But then the Soul’s wealth, which is candor, knowledge, pride, enfolding love;       
(Who goes for men and women showing Poverty richer than wealth?)     15   
     
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.       
     
2

Great is the Earth, and the way it became what it is;       
Do you imagine it has stopt at this? the increase abandon’d?       
Understand then that it goes as far onward from this, as this is from the times when it lay in covering waters and gases, before man had appear’d.     20   
     
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;     25   
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! I am determin’d to press my way toward you;       
Sound your voice! I scale mountains, or dive in the sea after you.       
     
3

Great is Language—it is the mightiest of the sciences,       
It is the fulness, color, form, diversity of the earth, and of men and women, and of all qualities and processes;     30   
It is greater than wealth—it is greater than buildings, ships, religions, paintings, 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, justice, equality in the Soul rule.     35   
     
Great is Law—great are the few old land-marks of the law,       
They are the same in all times, and shall not be disturb’d.       
     
4

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, pride, the attraction of gravity, can;     40   
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—is it 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, states, administrations.       
     
The perfect judge fears nothing—he could go front to front before God;     45   
Before the perfect judge all shall stand back—life and death shall stand back—heaven and hell shall stand back.       
     
5

Great is Life, real and mystical, wherever and whoever;       
Great is Death—sure as life holds all parts together, Death holds all parts together.       
     
Has Life much purport?—Ah, Death has the greatest purport.

318. Poem of Remembrance for a Girl or a Boy



YOU just maturing youth! You male or female!       
Remember the organic compact of These States,       
Remember the pledge of the Old Thirteen thenceforward to the rights, life, liberty, equality of man,       
Remember what was promulged by the founders, ratified by The States, signed in black and white by the Commissioners, and read by Washington at the head of the army,       
Remember the purposes of the founders,—Remember Washington;            5   
Remember the copious humanity streaming from every direction toward America;       
Remember the hospitality that belongs to nations and men; (Cursed be nation, woman, man, without hospitality!)       
Remember, government is to subserve individuals,       
Not any, not the President, is to have one jot more than you or me,       
Not any habitan of America is to have one jot less than you or me.     10   
     
Anticipate when the thirty or fifty millions, are to become the hundred, or two hundred millions, of equal freemen and freewomen, amicably joined.       
     
Recall ages—One age is but a part—ages are but a part;       
Recall the angers, bickerings, delusions, superstitions, of the idea of caste,       
Recall the bloody cruelties and crimes.       
     
Anticipate the best women;     15   
I say an unnumbered new race of hardy and well-defined women are to spread through all These States,       
I say a girl fit for These States must be free, capable, dauntless, just the same as a boy.       
     
Anticipate your own life—retract with merciless power,       
Shirk nothing—retract in time—Do you see those errors, diseases, weaknesses, lies, thefts?       
Do you see that lost character?—Do you see decay, consumption, rum-drinking, dropsy, fever, mortal cancer or inflammation?     20   
Do you see death, and the approach of death?

319. Think of the Soul



THINK of the Soul;       
I swear to you that body of yours gives proportions to your Soul somehow to live in other spheres;       
I do not know how, but I know it is so.       
     
Think of loving and being loved;       
I swear to you, whoever you are, you can interfuse yourself with such things that everybody that sees you shall look longingly upon you.            5   
     
Think of the past;       
I warn you that in a little while others will find their past in you and your times.       
     
The race is never separated—nor man nor woman escapes;       
All is inextricable—things, spirits, Nature, nations, you too—from precedents you come.       
     
Recall the ever-welcome defiers, (The mothers precede them;)     10   
Recall the sages, poets, saviors, inventors, lawgivers, of the earth;       
Recall Christ, brother of rejected persons—brother of slaves, felons, idiots, and of insane and diseas’d persons.       
     
Think of the time when you were not yet born;       
Think of times you stood at the side of the dying;       
Think of the time when your own body will be dying.     15   
     
Think of spiritual results,       
Sure as the earth swims through the heavens, does every one of its objects pass into spiritual results.       
     
Think of manhood, and you to be a man;       
Do you count manhood, and the sweet of manhood, nothing?       
     
Think of womanhood, and you to be a woman;     20   
The creation is womanhood;       
Have I not said that womanhood involves all?       
Have I not told how the universe has nothing better than the best womanhood?

320. Respondez!



RESPONDEZ! Respondez!       
(The war is completed—the price is paid—the title is settled beyond recall;)       
Let every one answer! let those who sleep be waked! let none evade!       
Must we still go on with our affectations and sneaking?       
Let me bring this to a close—I pronounce openly for a new distribution of roles;            5   
Let that which stood in front go behind! and let that which was behind advance to the front and speak;       
Let murderers, bigots, fools, unclean persons, offer new propositions!       
Let the old propositions be postponed!       
Let faces and theories be turn’d inside out! let meanings be freely criminal, as well as results!       
Let there be no suggestion above the suggestion of drudgery!     10   
Let none be pointed toward his destination! (Say! do you know your destination?)       
Let men and women be mock’d with bodies and mock’d with Souls!       
Let the love that waits in them, wait! let it die, or pass stillborn to other spheres!       
Let the sympathy that waits in every man, wait! or let it also pass, a dwarf, to other spheres!       
Let contradictions prevail! let one thing contradict another! and let one line of my poems contradict another!     15   
Let the people sprawl with yearning, aimless hands! let their tongues be broken! let their eyes be discouraged! let none descend into their hearts with the fresh lusciousness of love!       
(Stifled, O days! O lands! in every public and private corruption!       
Smother’d in thievery, impotence, shamelessness, mountain-high;       
Brazen effrontery, scheming, rolling like ocean’s waves around and upon you, O my days! my lands!       
For not even those thunderstorms, nor fiercest lightnings of the war, have purified the atmosphere;)     20   
—Let the theory of America still be management, caste, comparison! (Say! what other theory would you?)       
Let them that distrust birth and death still lead the rest! (Say! why shall they not lead you?)       
Let the crust of hell be neared and trod on! let the days be darker than the nights! let slumber bring less slumber than waking time brings!       
Let the world never appear to him or her for whom it was all made!       
Let the heart of the young man still exile itself from the heart of the old man! and let the heart of the old man be exiled from that of the young man!     25   
Let the sun and moon go! let scenery take the applause of the audience! let there be apathy under the stars!       
Let freedom prove no man’s inalienable right! every one who can tyrannize, let him tyrannize to his satisfaction!       
Let none but infidels be countenanced!       
Let the eminence of meanness, treachery, sarcasm, hate, greed, indecency, impotence, lust, be taken for granted above all! let writers, judges, governments, households, religions, philosophies, take such for granted above all!       
Let the worst men beget children out of the worst women!     30   
Let the priest still play at immortality!       
Let death be inaugurated!       
Let nothing remain but the ashes of teachers, artists, moralists, lawyers, and learn’d and polite persons!       
Let him who is without my poems be assassinated!       
Let the cow, the horse, the camel, the garden-bee—let the mudfish, the lobster, the mussel, eel, the sting-ray, and the grunting pig-fish—let these, and the like of these, be put on a perfect equality with man and woman!     35   
Let churches accommodate serpents, vermin, and the corpses of those who have died of the most filthy of diseases!       
Let marriage slip down among fools, and be for none but fools!       
Let men among themselves talk and think forever obscenely of women! and let women among themselves talk and think obscenely of men!       
Let us all, without missing one, be exposed in public, naked, monthly, at the peril of our lives! let our bodies be freely handled and examined by whoever chooses!       
Let nothing but copies at second hand be permitted to exist upon the earth!     40   
Let the earth desert God, nor let there ever henceforth be mention’d the name of God!       
Let there be no God!       
Let there be money, business, imports, exports, custom, authority, precedents, pallor, dyspepsia, smut, ignorance, unbelief!       
Let judges and criminals be transposed! let the prison-keepers be put in prison! let those that were prisoners take the keys! Say! why might they not just as well be transposed?)       
Let the slaves be masters! let the masters become slaves!     45   
Let the reformers descend from the stands where they are forever bawling! let an idiot or insane person appear on each of the stands!       
Let the Asiatic, the African, the European, the American, and the Australian, go armed against the murderous stealthiness of each other! let them sleep armed! let none believe in good will!       
Let there be no unfashionable wisdom! let such be scorn’d and derided off from the earth!       
Let a floating cloud in the sky—let a wave of the sea—let growing mint, spinach, onions, tomatoes—let these be exhibited as shows, at a great price for admission!       
Let all the men of These States stand aside for a few smouchers! let the few seize on what they choose! let the rest gawk, giggle, starve, obey!     50   
Let shadows be furnish’d with genitals! let substances be deprived of their genitals!       
Let there be wealthy and immense cities—but still through any of them, not a single poet, savior, knower, lover!       
Let the infidels of These States laugh all faith away!       
If one man be found who has faith, let the rest set upon him!       
Let them affright faith! let them destroy the power of breeding faith!     55   
Let the she-harlots and the he-harlots be prudent! let them dance on, while seeming lasts! (O seeming! seeming! seeming!)       
Let the preachers recite creeds! let them still teach only what they have been taught!       
Let insanity still have charge of sanity!       
Let books take the place of trees, animals, rivers, clouds!       
Let the daub’d portraits of heroes supersede heroes!     60   
Let the manhood of man never take steps after itself!       
Let it take steps after eunuchs, and after consumptive and genteel persons!       
Let the white person again tread the black person under his heel! (Say! which is trodden under heel, after all?)       
Let the reflections of the things of the world be studied in mirrors! let the things themselves still continue unstudied!       
Let a man seek pleasure everywhere except in himself!     65   
Let a woman seek happiness everywhere except in herself!       
(What real happiness have you had one single hour through your whole life?)       
Let the limited years of life do nothing for the limitless years of death! (What do you suppose death will do, then?)

321. Solid, Ironical, Rolling Orb



SOLID, ironical, rolling orb!       
Master of all, and matter of fact!—at last I accept your terms;       
Bringing to practical, vulgar tests, of all my ideal dreams,       
And of me, as lover and hero.

322. Bathed in War’s Perfume



BATHED in war’s perfume—delicate flag!       
(Should the days needing armies, needing fleets, come again,)       
O to hear you call the sailors and the soldiers! flag like a beautiful woman!       
O to hear the tramp, tramp, of a million answering men! O the ships they arm with joy!       
O to see you leap and beckon from the tall masts of ships!            5   
O to see you peering down on the sailors on the decks!       
Flag like the eyes of women.

323. Thought



OF what I write from myself—As if that were not the resumé;       
Of Histories—As if such, however complete, were not less complete than the preceding poems;       
As if those shreds, the records of nations, could possibly be as lasting as the preceding poems;       
As if here were not the amount of all nations, and of all the lives of heroes.