168. Beginners



HOW they are provided for upon the earth, (appearing at intervals;)       
How dear and dreadful they are to the earth;       
How they inure to themselves as much as to any—What a paradox appears their age;       
How people respond to them, yet know them not;       
How there is something relentless in their fate, all times;            5   
How all times mischoose the objects of their adulation and reward,       
And how the same inexorable price must still be paid for the same great purchase.   

169. Still, though the One I Sing



STILL, though the one I sing,       
(One, yet of contradictions made,) I dedicate to Nationality,       
I leave in him Revolt, (O latent right of insurrection! O quenchless, indispensable fire!

170. To a foil’d European Revolutionaire



1

COURAGE yet! my brother or my sister!       
Keep on! Liberty is to be subserv’d, whatever occurs;       
That is nothing, that is quell’d by one or two failures, or any number of failures,       
Or by the indifference or ingratitude of the people, or by any unfaithfulness,       
Or the show of the tushes of power, soldiers, cannon, penal statutes.            5   
     
Revolt! and still revolt! revolt!       
What we believe in waits latent forever through all the continents, and all the islands and archipelagos of the sea;       
What we believe in invites no one, promises nothing, sits in calmness and light, is positive and composed, knows no discouragement,       
Waiting patiently, waiting its time.       
     
(Not songs of loyalty alone are these,     10   
But songs of insurrection also;       
For I am the sworn poet of every dauntless rebel, the world over,       
And he going with me leaves peace and routine behind him,       
And stakes his life, to be lost at any moment.)       
     
2

Revolt! and the downfall of tyrants!     15   
The battle rages with many a loud alarm, and frequent advance and retreat,       
The infidel triumphs—or supposes he triumphs,       
Then the prison, scaffold, garrote, hand-cuffs, iron necklace and anklet, lead-balls, do their work,       
The named and unnamed heroes pass to other spheres,       
The great speakers and writers are exiled—they lie sick in distant lands,     20   
The cause is asleep—the strongest throats are still, choked with their own blood,       
The young men droop their eyelashes toward the ground when they meet;       
—But for all this, liberty has not gone out of the place, nor the infidel enter’d into full possession.       
     
When liberty goes out of a place, it is not the first to go, nor the second or third to go,       
It waits for all the rest to go—it is the last.     25   
     
When there are no more memories of heroes and martyrs,       
And when all life, and all the souls of men and women are discharged from any part of the earth,       
Then only shall liberty, or the idea of liberty, be discharged from that part of the earth,       
And the infidel come into full possession.       
     
3

Then courage! European revolter! revoltress!     30   
For, till all ceases, neither must you cease.       
     
I do not know what you are for, (I do not know what I am for myself, nor what anything is for,)       
But I will search carefully for it even in being foil’d,       
In defeat, poverty, misconception, imprisonment—for they too are great.       
     
Revolt! and the bullet for tyrants!     35   
Did we think victory great?       
So it is—But now it seems to me, when it cannot be help’d, that defeat is great,       
And that death and dismay are great.

171. France, the 18th year of These States



1

A GREAT year and place;       
A harsh, discordant, natal scream out-sounding, to touch the mother’s heart closer than any yet.       
     
I walk’d the shores of my Eastern Sea,       
Heard over the waves the little voice,       
Saw the divine infant, where she woke, mournfully wailing, amid the roar of cannon, curses, shouts, crash of falling buildings;            5   
Was not so sick from the blood in the gutters running—nor from the single corpses, nor those in heaps, nor those borne away in the tumbrils;       
Was not so desperate at the battues of death—was not so shock’d at the repeated fusillades of the guns.       
     
2

Pale, silent, stern, what could I say to that long-accrued retribution?       
Could I wish humanity different?       
Could I wish the people made of wood and stone?     10   
Or that there be no justice in destiny or time?       
     
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;     15   
Here too demanding full arrears of vengeance.       
     
4

Hence I sign this salute over the sea,       
And I do not deny that terrible red birth and baptism,       
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,     20   
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;       
O I think the east wind brings a triumphal and free march,     25   
It reaches hither—it swells me to joyful madness,       
I will run transpose it in words, to justify it,       
I will yet sing a song for you, MA FEMME.

172. Europe, the 72d and 73d years of These States



1

SUDDENLY, out of its stale and drowsy lair, the lair of slaves,       
Like lightning it le’pt forth, half startled at itself,       
Its feet upon the ashes and the rags—its hands tight to the throats of kings.       
     
O hope and faith!       
O aching close of exiled patriots’ lives!            5   
O many a sicken’d heart!       
Turn back unto this day, and make yourselves afresh.       
     
And you, paid to defile the People! you liars, mark!       
Not for numberless agonies, murders, lusts,       
For court thieving in its manifold mean forms, worming from his simplicity the poor man’s wages,     10   
For many a promise sworn by royal lips, and broken, and laugh’d at in the breaking,       
Then in their power, not for all these, did the blows strike revenge, or the heads of the nobles fall;       
The People scorn’d the ferocity of kings.       
     
2

But the sweetness of mercy brew’d bitter destruction, and the frighten’d monarchs come back;       
Each comes in state, with his train—hangman, priest, tax-gatherer,     15   
Soldier, lawyer, lord, jailer, and sycophant.       
     
Yet behind all, lowering, stealing—lo, a Shape,       
Vague as the night, draped interminably, head, front and form, in scarlet folds,       
Whose face and eyes none may see,       
Out of its robes only this—the red robes, lifted by the arm,     20   
One finger, crook’d, pointed high over the top, like the head of a snake appears.       
     
3

Meanwhile, corpses lie in new-made graves—bloody corpses of young men;       
The rope of the gibbet hangs heavily, the bullets of princes are flying, the creatures of power laugh aloud,       
And all these things bear fruits—and they are good.       
     
Those corpses of young men,     25   
Those martyrs that hang from the gibbets—those hearts pierc’d by the gray lead,       
Cold and motionless as they seem, live elsewhere with unslaughter’d vitality.       
     
They live in other young men, O kings!       
They live in brothers, again ready to defy you!       
They were purified by death—they were taught and exalted.     30   
     
Not a grave of the murder’d for freedom, but grows seed for freedom, in its turn to bear seed,       
Which the winds carry afar and re-sow, and the rains and the snows nourish.       
     
Not a disembodied spirit can the weapons of tyrants let loose,       
But it stalks invisibly over the earth, whispering, counseling, cautioning.       
     
4

Liberty! let others despair of you! I never despair of you.     35   
     
Is the house shut? Is the master away?       
Nevertheless, be ready—be not weary of watching;       
He will soon return—his messengers come anon.

173. Walt Whitman’s Caution



TO The States, or any one of them, or any city of The States, Resist much, obey little;       
Once unquestioning obedience, once fully enslaved;       
Once fully enslaved, no nation, state, city, of this earth, ever afterward resumes its liberty.

174. To a Certain Cantatrice



HERE, take this gift!       
I was reserving it for some hero, speaker, or General,       
One who should serve the good old cause, the great Idea, the progress and freedom of the race;       
Some brave confronter of despots—some daring rebel;       
—But I see that what I was reserving, belongs to you just as much as to any.

175. To You



WHOEVER you are, I fear you are walking the walks of dreams,       
I fear these supposed realities are to melt from under your feet and hands;       
Even now, your features, joys, speech, house, trade, manners, troubles, follies, costume, crimes, dissipate away from you,       
Your true Soul and Body appear before me,       
They stand forth out of affairs—out of commerce, shops, law, science, work, forms, clothes, the house, medicine, print, buying, selling, eating, drinking, suffering, dying.            5   
     
Whoever you are, now I place my hand upon you, that you be my poem;       
I whisper with my lips close to your ear,       
I have loved many women and men, but I love none better than you.       
     
O I have been dilatory and dumb;       
I should have made my way straight to you long ago;     10   
I should have blabb’d nothing but you, I should have chanted nothing but you.       
     
I will leave all, and come and make the hymns of you;       
None have understood you, but I understand you;       
None have done justice to you—you have not done justice to yourself;       
None but have found you imperfect—I only find no imperfection in you;     15   
None but would subordinate you—I only am he who will never consent to subordinate you;       
I only am he who places over you no master, owner, better, God, beyond what waits intrinsically in yourself.       
     
Painters have painted their swarming groups, and the centre figure of all;       
From the head of the centre figure spreading a nimbus of gold-color’d light;       
But I paint myriads of heads, but paint no head without its nimbus of gold-color’d light;     20   
From my hand, from the brain of every man and woman it streams, effulgently flowing forever.       
     
O I could sing such grandeurs and glories about you!       
You have not known what you are—you have slumber’d upon yourself all your life;       
Your eye-lids have been the same as closed most of the time;       
What you have done returns already in mockeries;     25   
(Your thrift, knowledge, prayers, if they do not return in mockeries, what is their return?)       
     
The mockeries are not you;       
Underneath them, and within them, I see you lurk;       
I pursue you where none else has pursued you;       
Silence, the desk, the flippant expression, the night, the accustom’d routine, if these conceal you from others, or from yourself, they do not conceal you from me;     30   
The shaved face, the unsteady eye, the impure complexion, if these balk others, they do not balk me,       
The pert apparel, the deform’d attitude, drunkenness, greed, premature death, all these I part aside.       
     
There is no endowment in man or woman that is not tallied in you;       
There is no virtue, no beauty, in man or woman, but as good is in you;       
No pluck, no endurance in others, but as good is in you;     35   
No pleasure waiting for others, but an equal pleasure waits for you.       
     
As for me, I give nothing to any one, except I give the like carefully to you;       
I sing the songs of the glory of none, not God, sooner than I sing the songs of the glory of you.       
     
Whoever you are! claim your own at any hazard!       
These shows of the east and west are tame, compared to you;     40   
These immense meadows—these interminable rivers—you are immense and interminable as they;       
These furies, elements, storms, motions of Nature, throes of apparent dissolution—you are he or she who is master or mistress over them,       
Master or mistress in your own right over Nature, elements, pain, passion, dissolution.       
     
The hopples fall from your ankles—you find an unfailing sufficiency;       
Old or young, male or female, rude, low, rejected by the rest, whatever you are promulges itself;     45   
Through birth, life, death, burial, the means are provided, nothing is scanted;       
Through angers, losses, ambition, ignorance, ennui, what you are picks its way.

176. As the Time Draws Nigh



1

AS the time draws nigh, glooming, a cloud,       
A dread beyond, of I know not what, darkens me.       
     
I shall go forth,       
I shall traverse The States awhile—but I cannot tell whither or how long;       
Perhaps soon, some day or night while I am singing, my voice will suddenly cease.            5   
     
2

O book, O chants! must all then amount to but this?       
Must we barely arrive at this beginning of us?... And yet it is enough, O soul!       
O soul! we have positively appear’d—that is enough.

177. Years of the Modern



YEARS of the modern! years of the unperform’d!       
Your horizon rises—I see it parting away for more august dramas;       
I see not America only—I see not only Liberty’s nation, but other nations preparing;       
I see tremendous entrances and exits—I see new combinations—I see the solidarity of races;       
I see that force advancing with irresistible power on the world’s stage;            5   
(Have the old forces, the old wars, played their parts? are the acts suitable to them closed?)       
I see Freedom, completely arm’d, and victorious, and very haughty, with Law on one side, and Peace on the other,       
A stupendous Trio, all issuing forth against the idea of caste;       
—What historic denouements are these we so rapidly approach?       
I see men marching and countermarching by swift millions;     10   
I see the frontiers and boundaries of the old aristocracies broken;       
I see the landmarks of European kings removed;       
I see this day the People beginning their landmarks, (all others give way;)       
—Never were such sharp questions ask’d as this day;       
Never was average man, his soul, more energetic, more like a God;     15   
Lo! how he urges and urges, leaving the masses no rest;       
His daring foot is on land and sea everywhere—he colonizes the Pacific, the archipelagoes;       
With the steam-ship, the electric telegraph, the newspaper, the wholesale engines of war,       
With these, and the world-spreading factories, he interlinks all geography, all lands;       
—What whispers are these, O lands, running ahead of you, passing under the seas?     20   
Are all nations communing? is there going to be but one heart to the globe?       
Is humanity forming, en-masse?—for lo! tyrants tremble, crowns grow dim;       
The earth, restive, confronts a new era, perhaps a general divine war;       
No one knows what will happen next—such portents fill the days and nights;       
Years prophetical! the space ahead as I walk, as I vainly try to pierce it, is full of phantoms;     25   
Unborn deeds, things soon to be, project their shapes around me;       
This incredible rush and heat—this strange extatic fever of dreams, O years!       
Your dreams, O year, how they penetrate through me! (I know not whether I sleep or wake!)       
The perform’d America and Europe grow dim, retiring in shadow behind me,       
The unperform’d, more gigantic than ever, advance, advance upon me.     30