The Patriotic Poems of Walt Whitman Part 10

O magnet-South! O glistening perfumed South! my South!

O quick mettle, rich blood, impulse and love! good and evil! O all dear to me!

O dear to me my birth-things--all moving things and the trees where I was born--the grains, plants, rivers, Dear to me my own slow sluggish rivers where they flow, distant, over flats of silvery sands or through swamps, Dear to me the Roanoke, the Savannah, the Altamahaw, the Pedee, the Tombigbee, the Santee, the Coosa, and the Sabine, O pensive, far away wandering, I return with my soul to haunt their banks again, Again in Florida I float on transparent lakes, I float on the Okeechobee, I cross the hummock-land or through pleasant openings or dense forests, I see the parrots in the woods, I see the papaw-tree and the blossoming t.i.ti; Again, sailing in my coaster on deck, I coast off Georgia, I coast up the Carolinas, I see where the live-oak is growing, I see where the yellow-pine, the scented bay-tree, the lemon and orange, the cypress, the graceful palmetto, I pa.s.s rude sea-headlands and enter Pamlico sound through an inlet, and dart my vision inland; O the cotton plant! the growing fields of rice, sugar, hemp!

The cactus guarded with thorns, the laurel-tree with large white flowers, The range afar, the richness and barrenness, the old woods charged with mistletoe and trailing moss, The piney odour and the gloom, the awful natural stillness (here in these dense swamps the freebooter carries his gun, and the fugitive has his conceal'd hut); O the strange fascination of these half-known half-impa.s.sable swamps, infested by reptiles, resounding with the bellow of the alligator, the sad noises of the night-owl and the wild-cat, and the whirr of the rattlesnake, The mocking-bird, the American mimic, singing all the forenoon, singing through the moon-lit night, The humming-bird, the wild turkey, the racc.o.o.n, the opossum; A Kentucky corn-field, the tall, graceful, long-leav'd corn, slender, flapping, bright green, with ta.s.sels, with beautiful ears each well-sheath'd in its husk; O my heart! O tender and fierce pangs, I can stand them not, I will depart; O to be a Virginian where I grew up! O to be a Carolinian!

O longings irrepressible! O I will go back to old Tennessee and never wander more.

BY BROAD POTOMAC'S Sh.o.r.e

By broad Potomac's sh.o.r.e, again old tongue (Still uttering, still ejaculating, canst never cease this babble?) Again old heart so gay, again to you, your sense, the full flush spring returning, Again the freshness and the odours, again Virginia's summer sky, pellucid blue and silver, Again the forenoon purple of the hills, Again the deathless gra.s.s, so noiseless soft and green, Again the blood-red roses blooming.

Perfume this book of mine O blood-red roses!

Lave subtly with your waters every line Potomac!

Give me of you O spring, before I close, to put between its pages!

O forenoon purple of the hills, before I close, of you!

O deathless gra.s.s, of you!

OUR OLD FEUILLAGE!

Always our old feuillage!

Always Florida's green peninsula--always the priceless delta of Louisiana--always the cotton-fields of Alabama and Texas, Always California's golden hills and hollows, and the silver mountains of New Mexico--always soft-breath'd Cuba, Always the vast slope drain'd by the Southern sea, inseparable with the slopes drain'd by the Eastern and Western seas, The area the eighty-third year of these States, the three and a half millions of square miles, The eighteen thousand miles of sea-coast and bay-coast on the main, the thirty thousand miles of river navigation, The seven millions of distinct families and the same number of dwellings--always these, and more, branching forth into numberless branches, Always the free range and diversity--always the continent of Democracy; Always the prairies, pastures, forests, vast cities, travellers, Kanada, the snows; Always these compact lands tied at the hips with the belt stringing the huge oval lakes; Always the West with strong native persons, the increasing density there, the habitans, friendly, threatening, ironical, scorning invaders; All sights, South, North, East--all deeds promiscuously done at all times, All characters, movements, growths, a few noticed, myriads unnoticed, Through Mannahatta's streets I walking, these things gathering, On interior rivers by night in the glare of pine knots, steamboats wooding up, Sunlight by day on the valley of the Susquehanna, and on the valleys of the Potomac and Rappahannock, and the valleys of the Roanoke and Delaware, In their northerly wilds beasts of prey haunting the Adirondacks the hills, or lapping the Saginaw waters to drink, In a lonesome inlet a sheldrake lost from the flock, sitting on the water rocking silently, In farmers' barns oxen in the stable, their harvest labour done, they rest standing, they are too tired, Afar on arctic ice the she-walrus lying drowsily while her cubs play around, The hawk sailing where men have not yet sail'd, the farthest polar sea, ripply, crystalline, open, beyond the floes, White drift spooning ahead where the s.h.i.+p in the tempest dashes, On solid land what is done in cities as the bells strike midnight together, In primitive woods the sounds there also sounding, the howl of the wolf, the scream of the panther, and the hoa.r.s.e bellow of the elk, In winter beneath the hard blue ice of Moosehead lake, in summer visible through the clear waters, the great trout swimming, In lower lat.i.tudes in warmer air in the Carolinas the large black buzzard floating slowly high beyond the tree tops, Below, the red cedar festoon'd with tylandria, the pines and cypresses growing out of the white sand that spreads far and flat, Rude boats descending the big Pedee, climbing plants, parasites with colour'd flowers and berries enveloping huge trees, The waving drapery on the live-oak trailing long and low, noiselessly waved by the wind, The camp of Georgia wagoners just after dark, the supper-fires and the cooking and eating by whites and negroes, Thirty or forty great wagons, the mules, cattle, horses, feeding from troughs, The shadows, gleams, up under the leaves of the old sycamore-trees, the flames with the black smoke from the pitch-pine curling and rising; Southern fishermen fis.h.i.+ng, the sounds and inlets of North Carolina's coast, the shad-fishery and the herring-fishery, the large sweep-seines, the windla.s.ses on sh.o.r.e work'd by horses, the clearing, curing, and packing-houses; Deep in the forest in piney woods turpentine dropping from the incisions in the trees, there are the turpentine works, There are the negroes at work in good health, the ground in all directions is cover'd with pine straw; In Tennessee and Kentucky slaves busy in the coalings, at the forge, by the furnace-blaze, or at the corn-shucking, In Virginia, the planter's son returning after a long absence, joyfully welcom'd and kiss'd by the aged mulatto nurse, On rivers boatmen safely moor'd at nightfall in their boats under shelter of high banks, Some of the younger men dance to the sound of the banjo or fiddle, others sit on the gunwale smoking and talking; Late in the afternoon the mocking-bird, the American mimic, singing in the Great Dismal Swamp, There are the greenish waters, the resinous odour, the plenteous moss, the cypress-tree, and the juniper-tree; Northward, young men of Mannahatta, the target company from an excursion returning home at evening, the musket-muzzles all bear bunches of flowers presented by women; Children at play, or on his father's lap a young boy fallen asleep (how his lips move! how he smiles in his sleep!), The scout riding on horseback over the plains west of the Mississippi, he ascends a knoll and sweeps his eyes around; California life, the miner, bearded, dress'd in his rude costume, the stanch California friends.h.i.+p, the sweet air, the graves one in pa.s.sing meets solitary just aside the horse-path; Down in Texas the cotton-field, the negro-cabins, drivers driving mules or oxen before rude carts, cotton bales piled on banks and wharves; Encircling all, vast-darting up and wide, the American Soul, with equal hemispheres, one Love, one Dilation or Pride; In arriere the peace-talk with the Iroquois the aborigines, the calumet, the pipe of good-will, arbitration, and indors.e.m.e.nt, The sachem blowing the smoke first toward the sun and then toward the earth, The drama of the scalp-dance enacted with painted faces and guttural exclamations, The setting out of the war-party, the long and stealthy march, The single file, the swinging hatchets, the surprise and slaughter of enemies; All the acts, scenes, ways, persons, att.i.tudes of these States, reminiscences, inst.i.tutions, All these States compact, every square mile of these States without excepting a particle; Me pleas'd, rambling in lanes and country fields, Paumanok's fields, Observing the spiral flight of two little yellow b.u.t.terflies shuffling between each other, ascending high in the air, The darting swallow, the destroyer of insects, the fall traveller southward but returning northward early in the spring, The country boy at the close of the day driving the herd of cows and shouting to them as they loiter to browse by the roadside, The city wharf, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston, New Orleans, San Francisco, The departing s.h.i.+ps when the sailors heave at the capstan; Evening--me in my room--the setting sun, The setting summer sun s.h.i.+ning in my open window, showing the swarm of flies, suspended, balancing in the air in the centre of the room, darting athwart, up and down, casting swift shadows in specks on the opposite wall where the s.h.i.+ne is; The athletic American matron speaking in public to crowds of listeners, Males, females, immigrants, combinations, the copiousness, the individuality of the States, each for itself--the money-makers, Factories, machinery, the mechanical forces, the windla.s.s, lever, pulley, all certainties, The certainty of s.p.a.ce, increase, freedom, futurity, In s.p.a.ce the sporades, the scatter'd islands, the stars--on the firm earth, the lands, my lands, O lands! all so dear to me--what you are (whatever it is), I putting it at random in these songs, become a part of that, whatever it is, Southward there, I screaming, with wings slow flapping, with the myriads of gulls wintering along the coasts of Florida, Otherways there atwixt the banks of the Arkansaw, the Rio Grande, the Nueces, the Brazos, the Tombigbee, the Red River, the Saskatchewan or the Osage, I with the spring waters laughing and skipping and running, Northward, on the sands, on some shallow bay of Paumanok, I with parties of snowy herons wading in the wet to seek worms and aquatic plants, Retreating, triumphantly twittering, the king-bird, from piercing the crow with its bill, for amus.e.m.e.nt--and I triumphantly twittering, The migrating flock of wild geese alighting in autumn to refresh themselves, the body of the flock feed, the sentinels outside move around with erect heads watching, and are from time to time reliev'd by other sentinels--and I feeding and taking turns with the rest, In Kanadian forests the moose, large as an ox, corner'd by hunters, rising desperately on his hind-feet, and plunging with his fore-feet, the hoofs as sharp as knives--and I, plunging at the hunters, corner'd and desperate, In the Mannahatta, streets, piers, s.h.i.+pping, store-houses, and the countless workmen working in the shops, And I too of the Mannahatta, singing thereof--and no less in myself than the whole of the Mannahatta in itself, Singing the song of These, my ever-united lands--my body no more inevitable united, part to part, and made out of a thousand diverse contributions one ident.i.ty, any more than my lands are inevitably united and made ONE IDENt.i.tY; Nativities, climates, the gra.s.s of the great pastoral Plains, Cities, labours, death, animals, products, war, good and evil--these me, These affording, in all their particulars, the old feuillage to me and to America, how can I do less than pa.s.s the clew of the union of them, to afford the like to you?

Whoever you are! how can I but offer you divine leaves, that you also be eligible as I am?

How can I but as here chanting, invite you for yourself to collect bouquets of the incomparable feuillage of these States?

A BROADWAY PAGEANT

1

Over the Western sea hither from Niphon come, Courteous, the swart-cheek'd two-sworded envoys, Leaning back in their open barouches, bare-headed, impa.s.sive, Ride to-day through Manhattan.

Libertad! I do not know whether others behold what I behold, In the procession along with the n.o.bles of Niphon, the errand-bearers, Bringing up the rear, hovering above, around, or in the ranks marching, But I will sing you a song of what I behold Libertad.

When million-footed Manhattan unpent descends to her pavements, When the thunder-cracking guns arouse me with the proud roar I love, When the round-mouth'd guns out of the smoke and smell I love spit their salutes, When the fire-flas.h.i.+ng guns have fully alerted me, and heaven-clouds canopy my city with a delicate thin haze, When gorgeous the countless straight stems, the forests at the wharves, thicken with colours, When every s.h.i.+p richly drest carries her flag at the peak, When pennants trail and street-festoons hang from the windows, When Broadway is entirely given up to foot-pa.s.sengers and foot-standers, when the ma.s.s is densest, When the facades of the houses are alive with people, when eyes gaze riveted tens of thousands at a time, When the guests from the islands advance, when the pageant moves forward visible, When the summons is made, when the answer that waited thousands of years answers, I too arising, answering, descend to the pavements, merge with the crowd, and gaze with them.

2

Superb-faced Manhattan!

Comrade Americanos! to us, then at last the Orient comes.

To us, my city, Where our tall-topt marble and iron beauties range on opposite sides, to walk in the s.p.a.ce between, To-day our Antipodes comes.

The Originatress comes, The nest of languages, the bequeather of poems, the race of eld, Florid with blood, pensive, rapt with musings, hot with pa.s.sion, Sultry with perfume, with ample and flowing garments, With sunburnt visage, with intense soul and glittering eyes, The race of Brahma comes.

See my cantabile! these and more are flas.h.i.+ng to us from the procession, As it moves changing, a kaleidoscope divine it moves changing before us.

For not the envoys nor the tann'd j.a.panee from his island only, Lithe and silent the Hindoo appears, the Asiatic continent itself appears, the past, the dead, The murky night-morning of wonder and fable inscrutable, The envelop'd mysteries, the old and unknown hive-bees, The north, the sweltering south, eastern a.s.syria, the Hebrews, the ancient of ancients, Vast desolated cities, the gliding present, all of these and more are in the pageant-procession.

Geography, the world, is in it, The Great Sea, the brood of islands, Polynesia, the coast beyond, The coast you henceforth are facing--you Libertad! from your Western golden sh.o.r.es, The countries there with their populations, the millions en-ma.s.se are curiously here, The swarming market-places, the temples with idols ranged along the sides or at the end, bonze, brahmin, and llama, Mandarin, farmer, merchant, mechanic, and fisherman, The singing-girl and the dancing-girl, the ecstatic persons, the secluded emperors, Confucius himself, the great poets and heroes, the warriors, the castes, all, Trooping up, crowding from all directions, from the Altay mountains, From Thibet, from the four winding and far-flowing rivers of China, From the southern peninsulas and the demi-continental islands, from Malaysia, These and whatever belongs to them palpable show forth to me, and are seiz'd by me, And I am seiz'd by them, and friendlily held by them, Till as here them all I chant, Libertad! for themselves and for you.

For I too raising my voice join the ranks of this pageant, I am the chanter, I chant aloud over the pageant, I chant the world on my Western sea, I chant copious the islands beyond, thick as stars in the sky, I chant the new empire grander than any before, as in a vision it comes to me, I chant America the mistress, I chant a greater supremacy, I chant projected a thousand blooming cities yet in time on those groups of sea-islands, My sail-s.h.i.+ps and steam-s.h.i.+ps threading the archipelagoes, My stars and stripes fluttering in the wind, Commerce opening, the sleep of ages having done its work, races reborn, refresh'd, Lives, works resumed--the object I know not--but the old, the Asiatic renew'd as it must be, Commencing from this day surrounded by the world.

3

And you Libertad of the world!

You shall sit in the middle well-pois'd thousands and thousands of years, As to-day from one side the n.o.bles of Asia come to you, As to-morrow from the other side the queen of England sends her eldest son to you.

The sign is reversing, the orb is enclosed, The ring is circled, the journey is done, The box-lid is but perceptibly open'd, nevertheless the perfume pours copiously out of the whole box.

Young Libertad! with the venerable Asia, the all-mother, Be considerate with her now and ever hot Libertad, for you are all, Bend your proud neck to the long-off mother now sending messages over the archipelagoes to you, Bend your proud neck low for once, young Libertad.

Were the children straying westward so long? so wide the tramping?

Were the precedent dim ages debouching westward from Paradise so long?

Were the centuries steadily footing it that way, all the while unknown, for you, for reasons?

They are justified, they are accomplish'd, they shall now be turn'd the other way also, to travel toward you thence, They shall now also march obediently eastward for your sake Libertad.

THE PRAIRIE STATES

A newer garden of creation, no primal solitude, Dense, joyous, modern, populous millions, cities and farms, With iron interlaced, composite, tied, many in one, By all the world contributed--freedom's and law's and thrift's society, The crown and teeming paradise, so far, of time's acc.u.mulations, To justify the past.

IV

POEMS OF DEMOCRACY

TO FOREIGN LANDS