The Complete Works of Walt Whitman. Walt Whitman

Who were witty and wise, who beautiful and poetic, who brutish and

       undevelop’d,

       Not a mark, not a record remains — and yet all remains.

      O I know that those men and women were not for nothing, any more

       than we are for nothing,

       I know that they belong to the scheme of the world every bit as much

       as we now belong to it.

      Afar they stand, yet near to me they stand,

       Some with oval countenances learn’d and calm,

       Some naked and savage, some like huge collections of insects,

       Some in tents, herdsmen, patriarchs, tribes, horsemen,

       Some prowling through woods, some living peaceably on farms,

       laboring, reaping, filling barns,

       Some traversing paved avenues, amid temples, palaces, factories,

       libraries, shows, courts, theatres, wonderful monuments.

       Are those billions of men really gone?

       Are those women of the old experience of the earth gone?

       Do their lives, cities, arts, rest only with us?

       Did they achieve nothing for good for themselves?

      I believe of all those men and women that fill’d the unnamed lands,

       every one exists this hour here or elsewhere, invisible to us.

       In exact proportion to what he or she grew from in life, and out of

       what he or she did, felt, became, loved, sinn’d, in life.

      I believe that was not the end of those nations or any person of

       them, any more than this shall be the end of my nation, or of me;

       Of their languages, governments, marriage, literature, products,

       games, wars, manners, crimes, prisons, slaves, heroes, poets,

       I suspect their results curiously await in the yet unseen world,

       counterparts of what accrued to them in the seen world,

       I suspect I shall meet them there,

       I suspect I shall there find each old particular of those unnamed lands.

Song of Prudence

       Table of Contents

      Manhattan’s streets I saunter’d pondering,

       On Time, Space, Reality — on such as these, and abreast with them Prudence.

      The last explanation always remains to be made about prudence,

       Little and large alike drop quietly aside from the prudence that

       suits immortality.

      The soul is of itself,

       All verges to it, all has reference to what ensues,

       All that a person does, says, thinks, is of consequence,

       Not a move can a man or woman make, that affects him or her in a day,

       month, any part of the direct lifetime, or the hour of death,

       But the same affects him or her onward afterward through the

       indirect lifetime.

      The indirect is just as much as the direct,

       The spirit receives from the body just as much as it gives to the

       body, if not more.

      Not one word or deed, not venereal sore, discoloration, privacy of

       the onanist,

       Putridity of gluttons or rum-drinkers, peculation, cunning,

       betrayal, murder, seduction, prostitution,

       But has results beyond death as really as before death.

      Charity and personal force are the only investments worth any thing.

      No specification is necessary, all that a male or female does, that

       is vigorous, benevolent, clean, is so much profit to him or her,

       In the unshakable order of the universe and through the whole scope

       of it forever.

      Who has been wise receives interest,

       Savage, felon, President, judge, farmer, sailor, mechanic, literat,

       young, old, it is the same,

       The interest will come round — all will come round.

      Singly, wholly, to affect now, affected their time, will forever affect,

       all of the past and all of the present and all of the future,

       All the brave actions of war and peace,

       All help given to relatives, strangers, the poor, old, sorrowful,

       young children, widows, the sick, and to shunn’d persons,

       All self-denial that stood steady and aloof on wrecks, and saw

       others fill the seats of the boats,

       All offering of substance or life for the good old cause, or for a

       friend’s sake, or opinion’s sake,

       All pains of enthusiasts scoff’d at by their neighbors,

       All the limitless sweet love and precious suffering of mothers,

       All honest men baffled in strifes recorded or unrecorded,

       All the grandeur and good of ancient nations whose fragments we inherit,

       All the good of the dozens of ancient nations unknown to us by name,

       date, location,

       All that was ever manfully begun, whether it succeeded or no,

       All suggestions of the divine mind of man or the divinity of his

       mouth, or the shaping of his great hands,

       All that is well thought or said this day on any part of the globe,

       or on any of the wandering stars, or on any of the fix’d stars,

       by those there as we are here,

       All that is henceforth to be thought or done by you whoever you are,

       or by any one,

       These inure, have inured, shall inure, to the identities from which

       they sprang, or shall spring.

      Did you guess any thing lived only its moment?

       The world does not so exist, no parts palpable or impalpable so exist,

       No consummation exists without being from some long previous

       consummation, and that from some other,

       Without the farthest conceivable one coming a bit nearer the

       beginning than any.

      Whatever satisfies souls is true;

       Prudence entirely satisfies the craving and glut of souls,

       Itself only finally satisfies the soul,

       The soul has that measureless pride which revolts from every lesson

       but its own.

      Now I breathe the word of the prudence that walks abreast with time,

       space, reality,

       That answers the pride which refuses every lesson but its own.

      What is prudence is indivisible,

       Declines to separate one part of life from every part,