35. In Paths Untrodden



IN paths untrodden,       
In the growth by margins of pond-waters,       
Escaped from the life that exhibits itself,       
From all the standards hitherto publish’d—from the pleasures, profits, eruditions, conformities,       
Which too long I was offering to feed my soul;            5   
Clear to me, now, standards not yet publish’d—clear to me that my Soul,       
That the Soul of the man I speak for, feeds, rejoices most in comrades;       
Here, by myself, away from the clank of the world,       
Tallying and talk’d to here by tongues aromatic,       
No longer abash’d—for in this secluded spot I can respond as I would not dare elsewhere,     10   
Strong upon me the life that does not exhibit itself, yet contains all the rest,       
Resolv’d to sing no songs to-day but those of manly attachment,       
Projecting them along that substantial life,       
Bequeathing, hence, types of athletic love,       
Afternoon, this delicious Ninth-month, in my forty-first year,     15   
I proceed, for all who are, or have been, young men,       
To tell the secret of my nights and days,       
To celebrate the need of comrades.

36. Scented Herbage of My Breast



SCENTED herbage of my breast,       
Leaves from you I yield, I write, to be perused best afterwards,       
Tomb-leaves, body-leaves, growing up above me, above death,       
Perennial roots, tall leaves—O the winter shall not freeze you, delicate leaves,       
Every year shall you bloom again—out from where you retired, you shall emerge again;            5   
O I do not know whether many, passing by, will discover you, or inhale your faint odor—but I believe a few will;       
O slender leaves! O blossoms of my blood! I permit you to tell, in your own way, of the heart that is under you;       
O burning and throbbing—surely all will one day be accomplish’d;       
O I do not know what you mean, there underneath yourselves—you are not happiness,       
You are often more bitter than I can bear—you burn and sting me,     10   
Yet you are very beautiful to me, you faint-tinged roots—you make me think of Death,       
Death is beautiful from you—(what indeed is finally beautiful, except Death and Love?)       
—O I think it is not for life I am chanting here my chant of lovers—I think it must be for Death,       
For how calm, how solemn it grows, to ascend to the atmosphere of lovers,       
Death or life I am then indifferent—my Soul declines to prefer,     15   
I am not sure but the high Soul of lovers welcomes death most;       
Indeed, O Death, I think now these leaves mean precisely the same as you mean;       
Grow up taller, sweet leaves, that I may see! grow up out of my breast!       
Spring away from the conceal’d heart there!       
Do not fold yourself so in your pink-tinged roots, timid leaves!     20   
Do not remain down there so ashamed, herbage of my breast!       
Come, I am determin’d to unbare this broad breast of mine—I have long enough stifled and choked:       
—Emblematic and capricious blade, I leave you—now you serve me not;       
Away! I will say what I have to say, by itself,       
I will escape from the sham that was proposed to me,     25   
I will sound myself and comrades only—I will never again utter a call, only their call,       
I will raise, with it, immortal reverberations through The States,       
I will give an example to lovers, to take permanent shape and will through The States;       
Through me shall the words be said to make death exhilarating;       
Give me your tone therefore, O Death, that I may accord with it,     30   
Give me yourself—for I see that you belong to me now above all, and are folded inseparably together—you Love and Death are;       
Nor will I allow you to balk me any more with what I was calling life,       
For now it is convey’d to me that you are the purports essential,       
That you hide in these shifting forms of life, for reasons—and that they are mainly for you,       
That you, beyond them, come forth, to remain, the real reality,     35   
That behind the mask of materials you patiently wait, no matter how long,       
That you will one day, perhaps, take control of all,       
That you will perhaps dissipate this entire show of appearance,       
That may-be you are what it is all for—but it does not last so very long;       
But you will last very long.

37. Whoever You are, Holding Me now in Hand



WHOEVER you are, holding me now in hand,       
Without one thing, all will be useless,       
I give you fair warning, before you attempt me further,       
I am not what you supposed, but far different.       
     
Who is he that would become my follower?            5   
Who would sign himself a candidate for my affections?       
     
The way is suspicious—the result uncertain, perhaps destructive;       
You would have to give up all else—I alone would expect to be your God, sole and exclusive,       
Your novitiate would even then be long and exhausting,       
The whole past theory of your life, and all conformity to the lives around you, would have to be abandon’d;     10   
Therefore release me now, before troubling yourself any further—Let go your hand from my shoulders,       
Put me down, and depart on your way.       
     
Or else, by stealth, in some wood, for trial,       
Or back of a rock, in the open air,       
(For in any roof’d room of a house I emerge not—nor in company,     15   
And in libraries I lie as one dumb, a gawk, or unborn, or dead,)       
But just possibly with you on a high hill—first watching lest any person, for miles around, approach unawares,       
Or possibly with you sailing at sea, or on the beach of the sea, or some quiet island,       
Here to put your lips upon mine I permit you,       
With the comrade’s long-dwelling kiss, or the new husband’s kiss,     20   
For I am the new husband, and I am the comrade.       
     
Or, if you will, thrusting me beneath your clothing,       
Where I may feel the throbs of your heart, or rest upon your hip,       
Carry me when you go forth over land or sea;       
For thus, merely touching you, is enough—is best,     25   
And thus, touching you, would I silently sleep and be carried eternally.       
     
But these leaves conning, you con at peril,       
For these leaves, and me, you will not understand,       
They will elude you at first, and still more afterward—I will certainly elude you,       
Even while you should think you had unquestionably caught me, behold!     30   
Already you see I have escaped from you.       
     
For it is not for what I have put into it that I have written this book,       
Nor is it by reading it you will acquire it,       
Nor do those know me best who admire me, and vauntingly praise me,       
Nor will the candidates for my love, (unless at most a very few,) prove victorious,     35   
Nor will my poems do good only—they will do just as much evil, perhaps more;       
For all is useless without that which you may guess at many times and not hit—that which I hinted at;       
Therefore release me, and depart on your way.

38. These, I, Singing in Spring



THESE, I, singing in spring, collect for lovers,       
(For who but I should understand lovers, and all their sorrow and joy?       
And who but I should be the poet of comrades?)       
Collecting, I traverse the garden, the world—but soon I pass the gates,       
Now along the pond-side—now wading in a little, fearing not the wet,            5   
Now by the post-and-rail fences, where the old stones thrown there, pick’d from the fields, have accumulated,       
(Wild-flowers and vines and weeds come up through the stones, and partly cover them—Beyond these I pass,)       
Far, far in the forest, before I think where I go,       
Solitary, smelling the earthy smell, stopping now and then in the silence,       
Alone I had thought—yet soon a troop gathers around me,     10   
Some walk by my side, and some behind, and some embrace my arms or neck,       
They, the spirits of dear friends, dead or alive—thicker they come, a great crowd, and I in the middle,       
Collecting, dispensing, singing in spring, there I wander with them,       
Plucking something for tokens—tossing toward whoever is near me;       
Here! lilac, with a branch of pine,     15   
Here, out of my pocket, some moss which I pull’d off a live-oak in Florida, as it hung trailing down,       
Here, some pinks and laurel leaves, and a handful of sage,       
And here what I now draw from the water, wading in the pondside,       
(O here I last saw him that tenderly loves me—and returns again, never to separate from me,       
And this, O this shall henceforth be the token of comrades—this Calamus-root shall,     20   
Interchange it, youths, with each other! Let none render it back!)       
And twigs of maple, and a bunch of wild orange, and chestnut,       
And stems of currants, and plum-blows, and the aromatic cedar:       
These, I, compass’d around by a thick cloud of spirits,       
Wandering, point to, or touch as I pass, or throw them loosely from me,     25   
Indicating to each one what he shall have—giving something to each;       
But what I drew from the water by the pond-side, that I reserve,       
I will give of it—but only to them that love, as I myself am capable of loving.

39. A Song



1

COME, I will make the continent indissoluble;       
I will make the most splendid race the sun ever yet shone upon;       
I will make divine magnetic lands,       
        With the love of comrades,       
          With the life-long love of comrades.            5   
     
2

I will plant companionship thick as trees along all the rivers of America, and along the shores of the great lakes, and all over the prairies;       
I will make inseparable cities, with their arms about each other’s necks;       
        By the love of comrades,       
          By the manly love of comrades.       
     
3

For you these, from me, O Democracy, to serve you, ma femme!     10   
For you! for you, I am trilling these songs,       
        In the love of comrades,       
          In the high-towering love of comrades.

40. Not Heaving from My Ribb’d Breast Only



NOT heaving from my ribb’d breast only;       
Not in sighs at night, in rage, dissatisfied with myself;       
Not in those long-drawn, ill-supprest sighs;       
Not in many an oath and promise broken;       
Not in my wilful and savage soul’s volition;            5   
Not in the subtle nourishment of the air;       
Not in this beating and pounding at my temples and wrists;       
Not in the curious systole and diastole within, which will one day cease;       
Not in many a hungry wish, told to the skies only;       
Not in cries, laughter, defiances, thrown from me when alone, far in the wilds;     10   
Not in husky pantings through clench’d teeth;       
Not in sounded and resounded words—chattering words, echoes, dead words;       
Not in the murmurs of my dreams while I sleep,       
Nor the other murmurs of these incredible dreams of every day;       
Nor in the limbs and senses of my body, that take you and dismiss you continually—Not there;     15   
Not in any or all of them, O adhesiveness! O pulse of my life!       
Need I that you exist and show yourself, any more than in these songs.

41. Of the Terrible Doubt of Appearances



OF the terrible doubt of appearances,       
Of the uncertainty after all—that we may be deluded,       
That may-be reliance and hope are but speculations after all,       
That may-be identity beyond the grave is a beautiful fable only,       
May-be the things I perceive—the animals, plants, men, hills, shining and flowing waters,            5   
The skies of day and night—colors, densities, forms—May-be these are, (as doubtless they are,) only apparitions, and the real something has yet to be known;       
(How often they dart out of themselves, as if to confound me and mock me!       
How often I think neither I know, nor any man knows, aught of them;)       
May-be seeming to me what they are, (as doubtless they indeed but seem,) as from my present point of view—And might prove, (as of course they would,) naught of what they appear, or naught any how, from entirely changed points of view;       
—To me, these, and the like of these, are curiously answer’d by my lovers, my dear friends;     10   
When he whom I love travels with me, or sits a long while holding me by the hand,       
When the subtle air, the impalpable, the sense that words and reason hold not, surround us and pervade us,       
Then I am charged with untold and untellable wisdom—I am silent—I require nothing further,       
I cannot answer the question of appearances, or that of identity beyond the grave;       
But I walk or sit indifferent—I am satisfied,     15   
He ahold of my hand has completely satisfied me.

42. The Base of all Metaphysics



AND now, gentlemen,       
A word I give to remain in your memories and minds,       
As base, and finale too, for all metaphysics.       
     
(So, to the students, the old professor,       
At the close of his crowded course.)            5   
     
Having studied the new and antique, the Greek and Germanic systems,       
Kant having studied and stated—Fichte and Schelling and Hegel,       
Stated the lore of Plato—and Socrates, greater than Plato,       
And greater than Socrates sought and stated—Christ divine having studied long,       
I see reminiscent to-day those Greek and Germanic systems,     10   
See the philosophies all—Christian churches and tenets see,       
Yet underneath Socrates clearly see—and underneath Christ the divine I see,       
The dear love of man for his comrade—the attraction of friend to friend,       
Of the well-married husband and wife—of children and parents,       
Of city for city, and land for land.

43. Recorders Ages Hence



RECORDERS ages hence!       
Come, I will take you down underneath this impassive exterior—I will tell you what to say of me;       
Publish my name and hang up my picture as that of the tenderest lover,       
The friend, the lover’s portrait, of whom his friend, his lover, was fondest,       
Who was not proud of his songs, but of the measureless ocean of love within him—and freely pour’d it forth,            5   
Who often walk’d lonesome walks, thinking of his dear friends, his lovers,       
Who pensive, away from one he lov’d, often lay sleepless and dissatisfied at night,       
Who knew too well the sick, sick dread lest the one he lov’d might secretly be indifferent to him,       
Whose happiest days were far away, through fields, in woods, on hills, he and another, wandering hand in hand, they twain, apart from other men,       
Who oft as he saunter’d the streets, curv’d with his arm the shoulder of his friend—while the arm of his friend rested upon him also.

44. When I heard at the Close of the Day



WHEN I heard at the close of the day how my name had been receiv’d with plaudits in the capitol, still it was not a happy night for me that follow’d;       
And else, when I carous’d, or when my plans were accomplish’d, still I was not happy;       
But the day when I rose at dawn from the bed of perfect health, refresh’d, singing, inhaling the ripe breath of autumn,       
When I saw the full moon in the west grow pale and disappear in the morning light,       
When I wander’d alone over the beach, and undressing, bathed, laughing with the cool waters, and saw the sun rise,            5   
And when I thought how my dear friend, my lover, was on his way coming, O then I was happy;       
O then each breath tasted sweeter—and all that day my food nourish’d me more—and the beautiful day pass’d well,       
And the next came with equal joy—and with the next, at evening, came my friend;       
And that night, while all was still, I heard the waters roll slowly continually up the shores,       
I heard the hissing rustle of the liquid and sands, as directed to me, whispering, to congratulate me,     10   
For the one I love most lay sleeping by me under the same cover in the cool night,       
In the stillness, in the autumn moonbeams, his face was inclined toward me,       
And his arm lay lightly around my breast—and that night I was happy.