The Complete Poems of Walt Whitman. Walt Whitman

Knowledge becomes him . . . . he likes it always . . . . he brings everything to the test of himself,

       Whatever the survey . . whatever the sea and the sail, he strikes soundings at last only here,

       Where else does he strike soundings except here?

      The man’s body is sacred and the woman’s body is sacred . . . . it is no matter who,

       Is it a slave? Is it one of the dullfaced immigrants just landed on the wharf?

      Each belongs here or anywhere just as much as the welloff . . . . just as much as you,

       Each has his or her place in the procession.

      All is a procession,

       The universe is a procession with measured and beautiful motion.

      Do you know so much that you call the slave or the dullface ignorant?

       Do you suppose you have a right to a good sight . . . and he or she has no right to a sight?

       Do you think matter has cohered together from its diffused float, and the soil is on the surface and water runs and vegetation sprouts for you . . and not for him and her?

      A slave at auction!

       I help the auctioneer . . . . the sloven does not half know his business.

      Gentlemen look on this curious creature,

       Whatever the bids of the bidders they cannot be high enough for him,

       For him the globe lay preparing quintillions of years without one animal or plant,

       For him the revolving cycles truly and steadily rolled.

      In that head the allbaffling brain,

       In it and below it the making of the attributes of heroes.

      Examine these limbs, red black or white . . . . they are very cunning in tendon and nerve;

       They shall be stript that you may see them.

      Exquisite senses, lifelit eyes, pluck, volition,

       Flakes of breastmuscle, pliant backbone and neck, flesh not flabby, goodsized arms and legs,

       And wonders within there yet.

      Within there runs his blood . . . . the same old blood . . the same red running blood;

       There swells and jets his heart . . . . There all passions and desires . . all reachings and aspirations:

       Do you think they are not there because they are not expressed in parlors and lecture-rooms?

      This is not only one man . . . . he is the father of those who shall be fathers in their turns,

       In him the start of populous states and rich republics,

       Of him countless immortal lives with countless embodiments and enjoyments.

      How do you know who shall come from the offspring of his offspring through the centuries?

       Who might you find you have come from yourself if you could trace back through the centuries?

      A woman at auction,

       She too is not only herself . . . . she is the teeming mother of mothers,

       She is the bearer of them that shall grow and be mates to the mothers.

      Her daughters or their daughters’ daughters . . who knows who shall mate with them?

       Who knows through the centuries what heroes may come from them?

      In them and of them natal love . . . . in them the divine mystery . . . . the same old beautiful mystery.

      Have you ever loved a woman?

       Your mother . . . . is she living? . . . . Have you been much with her? and has she been much with you?

       Do you not see that these are exactly the same to all in all nations and times all over the earth?

      If life and the soul are sacred the human body is sacred;

       And the glory and sweet of a man is the token of manhood untainted,

       And in man or woman a clean strong firmfibred body is beautiful as the most beautiful face.

      Have you seen the fool that corrupted his own live body? or the fool that corrupted her own live body?

       For they do not conceal themselves, and cannot conceal themselves.

      Who degrades or defiles the living human body is cursed,

       Who degrades or defiles the body of the dead is not more

       cursed.

      Faces (1855)

       Table of Contents

      Sauntering the pavement or riding the country byroad here then are faces,

       Faces of friendship, precision, caution, suavity, ideality,

       The spiritual prescient face, the always welcome common benevolent face,

       The face of the singing of music, the grand faces of natural lawyers and judges broad at the backtop,

       The faces of hunters and fishers, bulged at the brows . . . . the shaved blanched faces of orthodox citizens,

       The pure extravagant yearning questioning artist’s face,

       The welcome ugly face of some beautiful soul . . . . the handsome detested or despised face,

       The sacred faces of infants . . . . the illuminated face of the mother of many children,

       The face of an amour . . . . the face of veneration,

       The face as of a dream . . . . the face of an immobile rock,

       The face withdrawn of its good and bad . . a castrated face,

       A wild hawk . . his wings clipped by the clipper,

       A stallion that yielded at last to the thongs and knife of the gelder.

      Sauntering the pavement or crossing the ceaseless ferry, here then are faces;

       I see them and complain not and am content with all.

      Do you suppose I could be content with all if I thought them their own finale?

      This now is too lamentable a face for a man;

       Some abject louse asking leave to be . . cringing for it,

       Some milknosed maggot blessing what lets it wrig to its hole.

      This face is a dog’s snout sniffing for garbage;

       Snakes nest in that mouth . . I hear the sibilant threat.

      This face is a haze more chill than the arctic sea,

       Its sleepy and wobbling icebergs crunch as they go.

      This is a face of bitter herbs . . . . this an emetic . . . . they need no label,

       And more of the drugshelf . . laudanum, caoutchouc, or hog’s lard.

      This face is an epilepsy advertising and doing business . . . . its wordless tongue gives out the unearthly cry,

       Its veins down the neck distend . . . . its eyes roll till they show nothing but their whites,

       Its teeth grit . . the palms of the hands are cut by the turned-in nails,

       The man falls struggling and foaming to the ground while he speculates well.

      This face is bitten by vermin and worms,

       And this is some murderer’s knife with a halfpulled scabbard.

      This face owes to the sexton his dismalest fee,

       An unceasing deathbell tolls there.

      Those are really men!