In the heavenly aerial beauty (after the perturb'd winds and the storms), Under the arching heavens of the afternoon swift passing, and the voices of children and women, The many-moving sea-tides, and I saw the ships how they sail'd, And the summer approaching with richness, and the fields all busy with labor, And the infinite separate houses, how they all went on, each with its meals and minutia of daily usages, And the streets how their throbbings throbb'd, and the cities pent—lo, then and there, Falling upon them all and among them all, enveloping me with the rest, Appear'd the cloud, appear'd the long black trail, And I knew death, its thought, and the sacred knowledge of death. Of scenes of Nature, fields and mountains, Of skies so beauteous after a storm, and at night the moon so unearthly bright, Shining sweetly, shining down, where we dig the trenches and gather the heaps, I dream, I dream, I dream. Long have they pass'd, faces and trenches and fields, Where through the carnage I moved with a callous composure, or away from the fallen, Onward I sped at the time-but now of their forms at night, I dream, I dream, I dream. 1865. 1 In the original version, 1865, these two lines read: Sing, to the lower'd coffin there; Sing, with the shovel'd clods that fill the grave - a verse,. . . The change was made in the edition of 1881. In the original version, 1865, the first line of the poem read: In clouds descending, in midnight sleep, of many a face of anguish, and the first half of this line was used as title for the poem. RECONCILIATION WORD Over all, beautiful as the sky, Beautiful that war and all its deeds of carnage must in time be utterly lost, That the hands of the sisters Death and Night incessantly softly wash again, and ever again, this soil'd world; For my enemy is dead, a man divine as myself is dead, I look where he lies white-faced and still in the coffin-I draw near, Bend down and touch lightly with my lips the white face in the coffin. 1865. AS I LAY WITH MY HEAD IN YOUR LAP CAMERADO As I lay with my head in your lap camerado, The confession I made I resume, what I said to you and the open air I resume, I know I am restless and make others so, I know my words are weapons full of danger, full of death, For I confront peace, security, and all the settled laws, to unsettle them, I am more resolute because all have denied me than I could ever have been had all accepted me, I heed not and have never heeded either experience, cautions, majorities, nor ridicule, And the threat of what is call'd hell is little or nothing to me, And the lure of what is call'd heaven is little or nothing to me; Dear camerado! I confess I have urged you onward with me, and still urge you, without the least idea what is our destination, Or whether we shall be victorious, or utterly quell'd and defeated. 1865. ABOARD AT A SHIP'S HELM ABOARD at a ship's helm, A young steersman steering with care. 3 In the original edition there followed here two lines since omitted: (Indeed I am myself the real soldier; It is not he, there, with his bayonet, and not the red-striped artilleryman); NOT THE PILOT1 1867. NOT the pilot has charged himself to bring his ship into port, though beaten back and many times baffled; Not the pathfinder penetrating inland weary and long, By deserts parch'd, snows chill'd, rivers wet, perseveres till he reaches his destination, More than I have charged myself, heeded 'or unheeded, to compose a march for these States, For a battle-call, rousing to arms if need be, years, centuries hence. 1867. 1 Compare Whitman's Democratic Vistas, in the Complete Prose Works, pp. 197-250; especially pp. 199, 200, 202, 203: ... Our fundamental want to-day in the United States, with closest, amplest reference to present conditions, and to the future, is of a class, and the clear idea of a class, of native authors, ... fit to cope with our occasions, lands, permeating the whole mass of American mentality, taste, belief, breathing into it a new breath of life, giving it decision. . . . For, I say, the true nationality of the States, the genuine union, when we come to a moral crisis, is, and is to be, after all, neither the' written law nor, (as is generally supposed), either self-interest, or common pecuniary or material objects -but the fervid and tremendous Idea, melting everything else with resistless heat, and solving all lesser and definite distinctions in vast, indefinite, spiritual, emotional power. TEARS TEARS! tears! tears! In the night, in solitude, tears, On the white shore dripping, dripping, suck'd in by the sand, Tears, not a star shining, all dark and desolate, Moist tears from the eyes of a muffled head; O who is that ghost? that form in the dark, with tears? What shapeless lump is that, bent, crouch'd there on the sand? Streaming tears, sobbing tears, throes, choked with wild cries; O storm, embodied, rising, careering with swift steps along the beach! 2 This poem is now placed first in the standard editions of Whitman's Poems. In its original form, as the Inscription of the 1867 edition, it read: SMALL is the theme of the following Chant, yet the greatest -namely, ONE'S-SELF-that wondrous thing, a simple, separate person. That, for the use of the New World, I sing. Man's physiology complete, from top to toe, I sing. Not physiognomy alone, nor brain alone, is worthy for the muse; I say the Form complete is worthier far. The female equally with the male, I sing Nor cease at the theme of One's-Self. I speak the word of the modern, the word EN-MASSE. My Days I sing, and the Lands-with interstice I knew of hapless War. O friend, whoe'er you are, at last arriving hither to commence, I feel through every leaf the pressure of your hand, which I return. And thus upon our journey link'd together let us go. This version, in a slightly revised form, beginning 'Small the theme of my chant,' is now printed as a separate poem in the final edition of Leaves of Grass, p. 397. WHISPERS of heavenly death murmur'd I hear, Labial gossip of night, sibilant chorals, Footsteps gently ascending, mystical breezes wafted soft and low, Ripples of unseen rivers, tides of a current flowing, forever flowing, (Or is it the plashing of tears? the measureless waters of human tears ? ) I see, just see skyward, great cloud-masses, Mournfully slowly they roll, silently swelling and mixing, With at times a half-dimm'd sadden'd faroff star, Appearing and disappearing. (Some parturition rather, some solemn immortal birth; On the frontiers to eyes impenetrable, 1868. (1871.) THE SINGER IN THE PRISON I O sight of pity, shame and dole!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. 22 10 (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, 3 Ceaseless she paces to and fro, O heart-sick days! O nights of woe! It was not I that sinn'd the sin, Convict no more, nor shame, nor dole! The singer ceas'd, 3 20 30 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, The sun was low in the west one winter day, She vanish'd with her children in the dusk. When down a narrow aisle amid the thieves and outlaws of the land, 10 sight of shame, and pain, and dole! (1869, 1871.) 2 In the early editions this section begins: O sight of pity, gloom, and dole! O pardon me, a hapless Soul! 3 In the early editions these stanzas have a sub-title The Hymn,' and each stanza is followed by a refrain, in italics: after the first stanza, the same as at the beginning of Section 1; after the second stanza, the same as at the beginning of Section 2; after the third stanza: O life! no life, but bitter dole! O burning, beaten, baffled Soul! |