The Complete Poetry of Walt Whitman. Walt Whitman

Where the life-car is drawn on the slipnoose . . . . where the heat hatches pale-green eggs in the dented sand,

       Where the she-whale swims with her calves and never forsakes them,

       Where the steamship trails hindways its long pennant of smoke,

       Where the ground-shark’s fin cuts like a black chip out of the water,

       Where the half-burned brig is riding on unknown currents,

       Where shells grow to her slimy deck, and the dead are corrupting below;

       Where the striped and starred flag is borne at the head of the regiments;

       Approaching Manhattan, up by the long-stretching island,

      Under Niagara, the cataract falling like a veil over my countenance;

       Upon a door-step . . . . upon the horse-block of hard wood outside,

       Upon the race-course, or enjoying pic-nics or jigs or a good game of base-ball,

       At he-festivals with blackguard jibes and ironical license and bull-dances and drinking and laughter,

       At the cider-mill, tasting the sweet of the brown sqush . . . . sucking the juice through a straw,

       At apple-pealings, wanting kisses for all the red fruit I find,

       At musters and beach-parties and friendly bees and huskings and house-raisings;

       Where the mockingbird sounds his delicious gurgles, and cackles and screams and weeps,

       Where the hay-rick stands in the barnyard, and the dry-stalks are scattered, and the brood cow waits in the hovel,

       Where the bull advances to do his masculine work, and the stud to the mare, and the cock is treading the hen,

       Where the heifers browse, and the geese nip their food with short jerks;

       Where the sundown shadows lengthen over the limitless and lonesome prairie,

       Where the herds of buffalo make a crawling spread of the square miles far and near;

       Where the hummingbird shimmers . . . . where the neck of the longlived swan is curving and winding;

       Where the laughing-gull scoots by the slappy shore and laughs her near-human laugh;

       Where beehives range on a gray bench in the garden half-hid by the high weeds;

       Where the band-necked partridges roost in a ring on the ground with their heads out;

       Where burial coaches enter the arched gates of a cemetery;

       Where winter wolves bark amid wastes of snow and icicled trees;

       Where the yellow-crowned heron comes to the edge of the marsh at night and feeds upon small crabs;

       Where the splash of swimmers and divers cools the warm noon;

      Where the katydid works her chromatic reed on the walnut-tree over the well;

       Through patches of citrons and cucumbers with silver-wired leaves,

       Through the salt-lick or orange glade . . . . or under conical firs;

       Through the gymnasium . . . . through the curtained saloon . . . . through the office or public hall;

       Pleased with the native and pleased with the foreign . . . . pleased with the new and old,

       Pleased with women, the homely as well as the handsome,

       Pleased with the quakeress as she puts off her bonnet and talks melodiously,

       Pleased with the primitive tunes of the choir of the whitewashed church,

       Pleased with the earnest words of the sweating Methodist preacher, or any preacher . . . . looking seriously at the camp-meeting;

       Looking in at the shop-windows in Broadway the whole forenoon . . . . pressing the flesh of my nose to the thick plate-glass,

       Wandering the same afternoon with my face turned up to the clouds;

       My right and left arms round the sides of two friends and I in the middle;

       Coming home with the bearded and dark-cheeked bush-boy . . . . riding behind him at the drape of the day;

       Far from the settlements studying the print of animals’ feet, or the moccasin print;

       By the cot in the hospital reaching lemonade to a feverish patient,

       By the coffined corpse when all is still, examining with a candle;

       Voyaging to every port to dicker and adventure;

       Hurrying with the modern crowd, as eager and fickle as any,

       Hot toward one I hate, ready in my madness to knife him;

       Solitary at midnight in my back yard, my thoughts gone from me a long while,

       Walking the old hills of Judea with the beautiful gentle god by my side;

      Speeding through space . . . . speeding through heaven and the stars,

       Speeding amid the seven satellites and the broad ring and the diameter of eighty thousand miles,

       Speeding with tailed meteors . . . . throwing fire-balls like the rest,

       Carrying the crescent child that carries its own full mother in its belly;

       Storming enjoying planning loving cautioning,

       Backing and filling, appearing and disappearing,

       I tread day and night such roads.

      I visit the orchards of God and look at the spheric product,

       And look at quintillions ripened, and look at quintillions green.

      I fly the flight of the fluid and swallowing soul,

       My course runs below the soundings of plummets.

      I help myself to material and immaterial,

       No guard can shut me off, no law can prevent me.

      I anchor my ship for a little while only,

       My messengers continually cruise away or bring their returns to me.

       I go hunting polar furs and the seal . . . . leaping chasms with a pike-pointed staff . . . . clinging to topples of brittle and blue.

      I ascend to the foretruck . . . . I take my place late at night in the crow’s nest . . . . we sail through the arctic sea . . . . it is plenty light enough,

       Through the clear atmosphere I stretch around on the wonderful beauty,

       The enormous masses of ice pass me and I pass them . . . . the scenery is plain in all directions,

       The white-topped mountains point up in the distance . . . . I fling out my fancies toward them;

      We are about approaching some great battlefield in which we are soon to be engaged,

       We pass the colossal outposts of the encampments . . . . we pass with still feet and caution;

       Or we are entering by the suburbs some vast and ruined city . . . . the blocks and fallen architecture more than all the living cities of the globe.

      I am a free companion . . . . I bivouac by invading watchfires.

      I turn the bridegroom out of bed and stay with the bride myself,

       And tighten her all night to my thighs and lips.

      My voice is the wife’s voice, the screech by the rail of the stairs,

       They fetch my man’s body up dripping and drowned.

      I understand the large hearts of heroes,

       The courage of present times and all times;

       How the skipper saw the crowded and rudderless wreck of the steamship, and death chasing it up and down the storm,

       How he knuckled tight and gave not back one inch, and was faithful of days and faithful of nights,

       And chalked in large letters on a board, Be of good cheer, We will