Leaves of Grass Page #13

Leaves of Grass is a poetry collection by the American poet Walt Whitman (1819–1892). Although the first edition was published in 1855, Whitman spent most of his professional life writing and re-writing Leaves of Grass, revising it multiple times until his death. This resulted in vastly different editions over four decades—the first, a small book of twelve poems and the last, a compilation of over 400.

• Poetry

								

  Over the growing sugar, over the yellow-flower'd cotton plant, over
      the rice in its low moist field,
  Over the sharp-peak'd farm house, with its scallop'd scum and
      slender shoots from the gutters,
  Over the western persimmon, over the long-leav'd corn, over the
      delicate blue-flower flax,
  Over the white and brown buckwheat, a hummer and buzzer there with
      the rest,
  Over the dusky green of the rye as it ripples and shades in the breeze;
  Scaling mountains, pulling myself cautiously up, holding on by low
      scragged limbs,
  Walking the path worn in the grass and beat through the leaves of the brush,
  Where the quail is whistling betwixt the woods and the wheat-lot,
  Where the bat flies in the Seventh-month eve, where the great
      goldbug drops through the dark,
  Where the brook puts out of the roots of the old tree and flows to
      the meadow,
  Where cattle stand and shake away flies with the tremulous
      shuddering of their hides,
  Where the cheese-cloth hangs in the kitchen, where andirons straddle
      the hearth-slab, where cobwebs fall in festoons from the rafters;
  Where trip-hammers crash, where the press is whirling its cylinders,
  Wherever the human heart beats with terrible throes under its ribs,
  Where the pear-shaped balloon is floating aloft, (floating in it
      myself and looking composedly down,)
  Where the life-car is drawn on the slip-noose, where the heat
      hatches pale-green eggs in the dented sand,
  Where the she-whale swims with her calf and never forsakes it,
  Where the steam-ship trails hind-ways its long pennant of smoke,
  Where the fin of the shark cuts like a black chip out of the water,
  Where the half-burn'd brig is riding on unknown currents,
  Where shells grow to her slimy deck, where the dead are corrupting below;
  Where the dense-starr'd 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 picnics or jigs or a good game of
      base-ball,
  At he-festivals, with blackguard gibes, ironical license,
      bull-dances, drinking, laughter,
  At the cider-mill tasting the sweets of the brown mash, sucking the
      juice through a straw,
  At apple-peelings wanting kisses for all the red fruit I find,
  At musters, beach-parties, friendly bees, huskings, house-raisings;
  Where the mocking-bird sounds his delicious gurgles, cackles,
      screams, weeps,
  Where the hay-rick stands in the barn-yard, where the dry-stalks are
      scatter'd, where the brood-cow waits in the hovel,
  Where the bull advances to do his masculine work, where the stud to
      the mare, where the cock is treading the hen,
  Where the heifers browse, where geese nip their food with short jerks,
  Where sun-down shadows lengthen over the limitless and lonesome prairie,
  Where herds of buffalo make a crawling spread of the square miles
      far and near,
  Where the humming-bird shimmers, where the neck of the long-lived
      swan is curving and winding,
  Where the laughing-gull scoots by the shore, where she laughs her
      near-human laugh,
  Where bee-hives range on a gray bench in the garden half hid by the
      high weeds,
  Where band-neck'd partridges roost in a ring on the ground with
      their heads out,
  Where burial coaches enter the arch'd gates of a cemetery,
  Where winter wolves bark amid wastes of snow and icicled trees,
  Where the yellow-crown'd 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 katy-did 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 curtain'd saloon, through the
      office or public hall;
  Pleas'd with the native and pleas'd with the foreign, pleas'd with
      the new and old,
  Pleas'd with the homely woman as well as the handsome,
  Pleas'd with the quakeress as she puts off her bonnet and talks melodiously,
  Pleas'd with the tune of the choir of the whitewash'd church,
  Pleas'd with the earnest words of the sweating Methodist preacher,
      impress'd seriously at the camp-meeting;
  Looking in at the shop-windows of Broadway the whole forenoon,
      flatting the flesh of my nose on the thick plate glass,
  Wandering the same afternoon with my face turn'd up to the clouds,
      or down a lane or along the beach,
  My right and left arms round the sides of two friends, and I in the middle;
  Coming home with the silent and dark-cheek'd bush-boy, (behind me
      he rides 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,
  Nigh the coffin'd 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 Judaea 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 tail'd 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 spheres and look at the product,
  And look at quintillions ripen'd and look at quintillions green.

  I fly those flights of a 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 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 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-topt mountains show in the distance, I fling out my
      fancies toward them,
  We are approaching some great battle-field in which we are soon to
      be engaged,
  We pass the colossal outposts of the encampment, we pass with still
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