The Complete Works of Walt Whitman. Walt Whitman

It is in languages, social customs, literatures, arts,

       It is in the broad show of artificial things, ships, machinery,

       politics, creeds, modern improvements, and the interchange of nations,

       All for the modern — all for the average man of to-day.

Thought

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      Of persons arrived at high positions, ceremonies, wealth,

       scholarships, and the like;

       (To me all that those persons have arrived at sinks away from them,

       except as it results to their bodies and souls,

       So that often to me they appear gaunt and naked,

       And often to me each one mocks the others, and mocks himself or herself,

       And of each one the core of life, namely happiness, is full of the

       rotten excrement of maggots,

       And often to me those men and women pass unwittingly the true

       realities of life, and go toward false realities,

       And often to me they are alive after what custom has served them,

       but nothing more,

       And often to me they are sad, hasty, unwaked sonnambules walking the dusk.)

Miracles

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      Why, who makes much of a miracle?

       As to me I know of nothing else but miracles,

       Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,

       Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,

       Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of the water,

       Or stand under trees in the woods,

       Or talk by day with any one I love, or sleep in the bed at night

       with any one I love,

       Or sit at table at dinner with the rest,

       Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,

       Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive of a summer forenoon,

       Or animals feeding in the fields,

       Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,

       Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining so quiet

       and bright,

       Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring;

       These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,

       The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place.

      To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,

       Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,

       Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same,

       Every foot of the interior swarms with the same.

       To me the sea is a continual miracle,

       The fishes that swim — the rocks — the motion of the waves — the

       ships with men in them,

       What stranger miracles are there?

Sparkles from the Wheel

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      Where the city’s ceaseless crowd moves on the livelong day,

       Withdrawn I join a group of children watching, I pause aside with them.

      By the curb toward the edge of the flagging,

       A knife-grinder works at his wheel sharpening a great knife,

       Bending over he carefully holds it to the stone, by foot and knee,

       With measur’d tread he turns rapidly, as he presses with light but

       firm hand,

       Forth issue then in copious golden jets,

       Sparkles from the wheel.

      The scene and all its belongings, how they seize and affect me,

       The sad sharp-chinn’d old man with worn clothes and broad

       shoulder-band of leather,

       Myself effusing and fluid, a phantom curiously floating, now here

       absorb’d and arrested,

       The group, (an unminded point set in a vast surrounding,)

       The attentive, quiet children, the loud, proud, restive base of the streets,

       The low hoarse purr of the whirling stone, the light-press’d blade,

       Diffusing, dropping, sideways-darting, in tiny showers of gold,

       Sparkles from the wheel.

To a Pupil

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      Is reform needed? is it through you?

       The greater the reform needed, the greater the Personality you need

       to accomplish it.

      You! do you not see how it would serve to have eyes, blood,

       complexion, clean and sweet?

       Do you not see how it would serve to have such a body and soul that

       when you enter the crowd an atmosphere of desire and command

       enters with you, and every one is impress’d with your Personality?

      O the magnet! the flesh over and over!

       Go, dear friend, if need be give up all else, and commence to-day to

       inure yourself to pluck, reality, self-esteem, definiteness,

       elevatedness,

       Rest not till you rivet and publish yourself of your own Personality.

Unfolded out of the Folds

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      Unfolded out of the folds of the woman man comes unfolded, and is

       always to come unfolded,

       Unfolded only out of the superbest woman of the earth is to come the

       superbest man of the earth,

       Unfolded out of the friendliest woman is to come the friendliest man,

       Unfolded only out of the perfect body of a woman can a man be

       form’d of perfect body,

       Unfolded only out of the inimitable poems of woman can come the

       poems of man, (only thence have my poems come;)

       Unfolded out of the strong and arrogant woman I love, only thence

       can appear the strong and arrogant man I love,

       Unfolded by brawny embraces from the well-muscled woman

       love, only thence come the brawny embraces of the man,

       Unfolded out of the folds of the woman’s brain come all the folds

       of the man’s