The Essential Works of Walt Whitman. Walt Whitman

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,

       Divides not the righteous from the unrighteous or the living from the dead,

       Matches every thought or act by its correlative,

       Knows no possible forgiveness or deputed atonement,

       Knows that the young man who composedly peril’d his life and lost it

       has done exceedingly well for himself without doubt,

       That he who never peril’d his life, but retains it to old age in

       riches and ease, has probably achiev’d nothing for himself worth

       mentioning,

       Knows that only that person has really learn’d who has learn’d to

       prefer results,

       Who favors body and soul the same,

       Who perceives the indirect assuredly following the direct,

       Who in his spirit in any emergency whatever neither hurries nor

       avoids death.

The Singer in the Prison

       Table of Contents

      O sight of pity, shame and dole!

       O fearful thought — a convict soul.

      1

       Rang the refrain along the hall, the prison,

       Rose to the roof, the vaults of heaven above,

       Pouring in floods of melody in tones so pensive sweet and strong the

       like whereof was never heard,

       Reaching the far-off sentry and the armed guards, who ceas’d their pacing,

       Making the hearer’s pulses stop for ecstasy and awe.

      2

       The sun was low in the west one winter day,

       When down a narrow aisle amid the thieves and outlaws of the land,

       (There by the hundreds seated, sear-faced murderers, wily counterfeiters,

       Gather’d to Sunday church in prison walls, the keepers round,

       Plenteous, well-armed, watching with vigilant eyes,)

       Calmly a lady walk’d holding a little innocent child by either hand,

       Whom seating on their stools beside her on the platform,

       She, first preluding with the instrument a low and musical prelude,

       In voice surpassing all, sang forth a quaint old hymn.

      A soul confined by bars and bands,

       Cries, help! O help! and wrings her hands,

       Blinded her eyes, bleeding her breast,

       Nor pardon finds, nor balm of rest.

      Ceaseless she paces to and fro,

       O heart-sick days! O nights of woe!

       Nor hand of friend, nor loving face,

       Nor favor comes, nor word of grace.

      It was not I that sinn’d the sin,

       The ruthless body dragg’d me in;

       Though long I strove courageously,

       The body was too much for me.

      Dear prison’d soul bear up a space,

       For soon or late the certain grace;

       To set thee free and bear thee home,

       The heavenly pardoner death shall come.

      Convict no more, nor shame, nor dole!

       Depart — a God-enfranchis’d soul!

      3

       The singer ceas’d,

       One glance swept from her clear calm eyes o’er all those upturn’d faces,

       Strange sea of prison faces, a thousand varied, crafty, brutal,

       seam’d and beauteous faces,

       Then rising, passing back along the narrow aisle between them,

       While her gown touch’d them rustling in the silence,

       She vanish’d with her children in the dusk.

      While upon all, convicts and armed keepers ere they stirr’d,

       (Convict forgetting prison, keeper his loaded pistol,)

       A hush and pause fell down a wondrous minute,

       With deep half-stifled sobs and sound of bad men bow’d and moved to weeping,

       And youth’s convulsive breathings, memories of home,

       The mother’s voice in lullaby, the sister’s care, the happy childhood,

       The long-pent spirit rous’d to reminiscence;

       A wondrous minute then — but after in the solitary night, to many,

       many there,

       Years after, even in the hour of death, the sad refrain, the tune,

       the voice, the words,

       Resumed, the large calm lady walks the narrow aisle,

       The wailing melody again, the singer in the prison sings,

      O sight of pity, shame and dole!

       O fearful thought — a convict soul.

Warble for Lilac-Time

       Table of Contents

      Warble me now for joy of lilac-time, (returning in reminiscence,)

       Sort me O tongue and lips for Nature’s sake, souvenirs of earliest summer,

       Gather the welcome signs, (as children with pebbles or stringing shells,)

       Put in April and May, the hylas croaking in the ponds, the elastic air,

       Bees, butterflies, the sparrow with its simple notes,

       Blue-bird and darting swallow, nor forget the high-hole flashing his

       golden wings,

       The tranquil sunny haze, the clinging smoke, the vapor,

       Shimmer of waters with fish in them, the cerulean above,

       All that is jocund and sparkling, the brooks running,

       The maple woods, the crisp February days and the sugar-making,

       The robin where he hops, bright-eyed, brown-breasted,

       With musical clear call at sunrise, and again at sunset,

       Or flitting among the trees of the apple-orchard,