Poems By Walt Whitman Part 11

Why this is indeed a show! It has called the dead out of the earth!

The old graveyards of the hills have hurried to see!

Phantoms! phantoms countless by flank and rear!

c.o.c.ked hats of mothy mould! crutches made of mist!

Arms in slings! old men leaning on young men's shoulders!

What troubles you, Yankee phantoms? What is all this chattering of bare gums?

Does the ague convulse your limbs? Do you mistake your crutches for firelocks, and level them?

If you blind your eyes with tears, you will not see the President's marshal; If you groan such groans, you might baulk the government cannon.

For shame, old maniacs! Bring down those tossed arms, and let your white hair be; Here gape your great grandsons--their wives gaze at them from the windows, See how well-dressed--see how orderly they conduct themselves.

Worse and worse! Can't you stand it? Are you retreating?

Is this hour with the living too dead for you?

Retreat then! Pell-mell!

To your graves! Back! back to the hills, old limpers!

I do not think you belong here, anyhow.

4.

But there is one thing that belongs here--shall I tell you what it is, gentlemen of Boston?

I will whisper it to the Mayor--He shall send a committee to England; They shall get a grant from the Parliament, go with a cart to the royal vault--haste!

Dig out King George's coffin, unwrap him quick from the grave-clothes, box up his bones for a journey; Find a swift Yankee clipper--here is freight for you, black-bellied clipper, Up with your anchor! shake out your sails! steer straight toward Boston bay.

5.

Now call for the President's marshal again, bring out the government cannon, Fetch home the roarers from Congress,--make another procession, guard it with foot and dragoons.

This centre-piece for them!

Look, all orderly citizens! Look from the windows, women!

The committee open the box; set up the regal ribs; glue those that will not stay; Clap the skull on top of the ribs, and clap a crown on top of the skull.

You have got your revenge, old bl.u.s.ter! The crown is come to its own, and more than its own.

6.

Stick your hands in your pockets, Jonathan--you are a made man from this day; You are mighty 'cute--and here is one of your bargains.

_FRANCE, THE EIGHTEENTH YEAR OF THESE STATES._[1]

1.

A great year and place; A harsh, discordant, natal scream out-sounding, to touch the mother's heart closer than any yet.

2.

I walked the sh.o.r.es of my Eastern Sea, Heard over the waves the little voice, Saw the divine infant, where she woke, mournfully wailing, amid the roar of cannon, curses, shouts, crash of falling buildings; Was not so sick from the blood in the gutters running--nor from the single corpses, nor those in heaps, nor those borne away in the tumbrils; Was not so desperate at the battues of death--was not so shocked at the repeated fusillades of the guns.

Pale, silent, stern, what could I say to that long-accrued retribution?

Could I wish humanity different?

Could I wish the people made of wood and stone?

Or that there be no justice in destiny or time?

3.

O Liberty! O mate for me!

Here too the blaze, the bullet, and the axe, in reserve to fetch them out in case of need, Here too, though long repressed, can never be destroyed; Here too could rise at last, murdering and ecstatic; Here too demanding full arrears of vengeance.

Hence I sign this salute over the sea, And I do not deny that terrible red birth and baptism, But remember the little voice that I heard wailing--and wait with perfect trust, no matter how long; And from to-day, sad and cogent, I maintain the bequeathed cause, as for all lands, And I send these words to Paris with my love, And I guess some _chansonniers_ there will understand them, For I guess there is latent music yet in France--floods of it.

O I hear already the bustle of instruments--they will soon be drowning all that would interrupt them; O I think the east wind brings a triumphal and free march, It reaches. .h.i.ther--it swells me to joyful madness, I will run transpose it in words, to justify it, I will yet sing a song for you, _ma femme!_

[Footnote 1: 1793-4---The great poet of Democracy is "not so shocked" at the great European year of Democracy.]

_EUROPE, THE SEVENTY-SECOND AND SEVENTY-THIRD YEARS OF THESE STATES._[1]

1.

Suddenly, out of its stale and drowsy lair, the lair of slaves, Like lightning it leaped forth, half startled at itself, Its feet upon the ashes and the rags--its hands tight to the throats of kings.

O hope and faith!

O aching close of exiled patriots' lives!

O many a sickened heart!

Turn back unto this day, and make yourselves afresh.

2.

And you, paid to defile the People! you liars, mark!

Not for numberless agonies, murders, l.u.s.ts, For court thieving in its manifold mean forms, worming from his simplicity the poor man's wages, For many a promise sworn by royal lips, and broken, and laughed at in the breaking, Then in their power, not for all these did the blows strike revenge, or the heads of the n.o.bles fall; The People scorned the ferocity of kings.

3.

But the sweetness of mercy brewed bitter destruction, and the frightened rulers come back; Each comes in state with his train--hangman, priest, tax-gatherer, Soldier, lawyer, lord, jailer, and sycophant.