Leaves of Grass Page #7

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

								


  I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green
      stuff woven.

  Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
  A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt,
  Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we may see
      and remark, and say Whose?

  Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the vegetation.

  Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,
  And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones,
  Growing among black folks as among white,
  Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I
      receive them the same.

  And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.

  Tenderly will I use you curling grass,
  It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men,
  It may be if I had known them I would have loved them,
  It may be you are from old people, or from offspring taken soon out
      of their mothers' laps,
  And here you are the mothers' laps.

  This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers,
  Darker than the colorless beards of old men,
  Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths.

  O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues,
  And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for nothing.

  I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and women,
  And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring taken
      soon out of their laps.

  What do you think has become of the young and old men?
  And what do you think has become of the women and children?

  They are alive and well somewhere,
  The smallest sprout shows there is really no death,
  And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the
      end to arrest it,
  And ceas'd the moment life appear'd.

  All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,
  And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.

       7
  Has any one supposed it lucky to be born?
  I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die, and I know it.

  I pass death with the dying and birth with the new-wash'd babe, and
      am not contain'd between my hat and boots,
  And peruse manifold objects, no two alike and every one good,
  The earth good and the stars good, and their adjuncts all good.

  I am not an earth nor an adjunct of an earth,
  I am the mate and companion of people, all just as immortal and
      fathomless as myself,
  (They do not know how immortal, but I know.)

  Every kind for itself and its own, for me mine male and female,
  For me those that have been boys and that love women,
  For me the man that is proud and feels how it stings to be slighted,
  For me the sweet-heart and the old maid, for me mothers and the
      mothers of mothers,
  For me lips that have smiled, eyes that have shed tears,
  For me children and the begetters of children.

  Undrape! you are not guilty to me, nor stale nor discarded,
  I see through the broadcloth and gingham whether or no,
  And am around, tenacious, acquisitive, tireless, and cannot be shaken away.

       8
  The little one sleeps in its cradle,
  I lift the gauze and look a long time, and silently brush away flies
      with my hand.

  The youngster and the red-faced girl turn aside up the bushy hill,
  I peeringly view them from the top.

  The suicide sprawls on the bloody floor of the bedroom,
  I witness the corpse with its dabbled hair, I note where the pistol
      has fallen.

  The blab of the pave, tires of carts, sluff of boot-soles, talk of
      the promenaders,
  The heavy omnibus, the driver with his interrogating thumb, the
      clank of the shod horses on the granite floor,
  The snow-sleighs, clinking, shouted jokes, pelts of snow-balls,
  The hurrahs for popular favorites, the fury of rous'd mobs,
  The flap of the curtain'd litter, a sick man inside borne to the hospital,
  The meeting of enemies, the sudden oath, the blows and fall,
  The excited crowd, the policeman with his star quickly working his
      passage to the centre of the crowd,
  The impassive stones that receive and return so many echoes,
  What groans of over-fed or half-starv'd who fall sunstruck or in fits,
  What exclamations of women taken suddenly who hurry home and
      give birth to babes,
  What living and buried speech is always vibrating here, what howls
      restrain'd by decorum,
  Arrests of criminals, slights, adulterous offers made, acceptances,
      rejections with convex lips,
  I mind them or the show or resonance of them--I come and I depart.

       9
  The big doors of the country barn stand open and ready,
  The dried grass of the harvest-time loads the slow-drawn wagon,
  The clear light plays on the brown gray and green intertinged,
  The armfuls are pack'd to the sagging mow.

  I am there, I help, I came stretch'd atop of the load,
  I felt its soft jolts, one leg reclined on the other,
  I jump from the cross-beams and seize the clover and timothy,
  And roll head over heels and tangle my hair full of wisps.

       10
  Alone far in the wilds and mountains I hunt,
  Wandering amazed at my own lightness and glee,
  In the late afternoon choosing a safe spot to pass the night,
  Kindling a fire and broiling the fresh-kill'd game,
  Falling asleep on the gather'd leaves with my dog and gun by my side.

  The Yankee clipper is under her sky-sails, she cuts the sparkle and scud,
  My eyes settle the land, I bend at her prow or shout joyously from the deck.

  The boatmen and clam-diggers arose early and stopt for me,
  I tuck'd my trowser-ends in my boots and went and had a good time;
  You should have been with us that day round the chowder-kettle.

  I saw the marriage of the trapper in the open air in the far west,
      the bride was a red girl,
  Her father and his friends sat near cross-legged and dumbly smoking,
      they had moccasins to their feet and large thick blankets
      hanging from their shoulders,
  On a bank lounged the trapper, he was drest mostly in skins, his luxuriant
      beard and curls protected his neck, he held his bride by the hand,
  She had long eyelashes, her head was bare, her coarse straight locks
      descended upon her voluptuous limbs and reach'd to her feet.

  The runaway slave came to my house and stopt outside,
  I heard his motions crackling the twigs of the woodpile,
  Through the swung half-door of the kitchen I saw him limpsy and weak,
  And went where he sat on a log and led him in and assured him,
  And brought water and fill'd a tub for his sweated body and bruis'd feet,
  And gave him a room that enter'd from my own, and gave him some
      coarse clean clothes,
  And remember perfectly well his revolving eyes and his awkwardness,
  And remember putting plasters on the galls of his neck and ankles;
  He staid with me a week before he was recuperated and pass'd north,
  I had him sit next me at table, my fire-lock lean'd in the corner.

       11
  Twenty-eight young men bathe by the shore,
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