Poems By Walt Whitman Part 33

Whichever the s.e.x, whatever the season or place, he may go freshly and gently and safely, by day or by night; He has the pa.s.s-key of hearts--to him the response of the prying of hands on the k.n.o.bs.

His welcome is universal--the flow of beauty is not more welcome or universal than he is; The person he favours by day or sleeps with at night is blessed.

Every existence has its idiom--everything has an idiom and tongue; He resolves all tongues into his own, and bestows it upon men, and any man translates, and any man translates himself also; One part does not counteract another part--he is the joiner--he sees how they join.

He says indifferently and alike, "_How are you, friend_?" to the President at his levee, And he says, "_Good-day, my brother_!" to Cudge that hoes in the sugar- field, And both understand him, and know that his speech is right.

He walks with perfect ease in the Capitol, He walks among the Congress, and one representative says to another, "_Here is our equal, appearing and new_."

4.

Then the mechanics take him for a mechanic, And the soldiers suppose him to be a soldier, and the sailors that he has followed the sea, And the authors take him for an author, and the artists for an artist, And the labourers perceive he could labour with them and love them; No matter what the work is, that he is the one to follow it, or has followed it, No matter what the nation, that he might find his brothers and sisters there.

The English believe he comes of their English stock, A Jew to the Jew he seems--a Russ to the Russ--usual and near, removed from none.

Whoever he looks at in the travellers' coffee-house claims him; The Italian or Frenchman is sure, and the German is sure, and the Spaniard is sure, and the island Cuban is sure; The engineer, the deck-hand on the great lakes, or on the Mississippi, or St. Lawrence, or Sacramento, or Hudson, or Paumanok Sound, claims him.

The gentleman of perfect blood acknowledges his perfect blood; The insulter, the prost.i.tute, the angry person, the beggar, see themselves in the ways of him--he strangely trans.m.u.tes them, They are not vile any more--they hardly know themselves, they are so grown.

_BURIAL._

1.

To think of it!

To think of time--of all that retrospection!

To think of to-day, and the ages continued henceforward!

Have you guessed you yourself would not continue?

Have you dreaded these earth-beetles?

Have you feared the future would be nothing to you?

Is to-day nothing? Is the beginningless past nothing?

If the future is nothing, they are just as surely nothing.

To think that the sun rose in the east! that men and women were flexible, real, alive! that everything was alive!

To think that you and I did not see, feel, think, nor bear our part!

To think that we are now here, and bear our part!

2.

Not a day pa.s.ses--not a minute or second, without an accouchement!

Not a day pa.s.ses-not a minute or second, without a corpse!

The dull nights go over, and the dull days also, The soreness of lying so much in bed goes over, The physician, after long putting off, gives the silent and terrible look for an answer, The children come hurried and weeping, and the brothers and sisters are sent for; Medicines stand unused on the shelf--(the camphor-smell has long pervaded the rooms,) The faithful hand of the living does not desert the hand of the dying, The twitching lips press lightly on the forehead of the dying, The breath ceases, and the pulse of the heart ceases, The corpse stretches on the bed, and the living look upon it, It is palpable as the living are palpable.

The living look upon the corpse with their eyesight, But without eyesight lingers a different living, and looks curiously on the corpse.

3.

To think that the rivers will flow, and the snow fall, and the fruits ripen, and act upon others as upon us now--yet not act upon us!

To think of all these wonders of city and country, and others taking great interest in them--and we taking--no interest in them!

To think how eager we are in building our houses!

To think others shall be just as eager, and we quite indifferent!

I see one building the house that serves him a few years, or seventy or eighty years at most, I see one building the house that serves him longer than that.

Slow-moving and black lines creep over the whole earth--they never cease-- they are the burial lines; He that was President was buried, and he that is now President shall surely be buried.

4.

Gold dash of waves at the ferry-wharf--posh and ice in the river, half- frozen mud in the streets, a grey discouraged sky overhead, the short last daylight of Twelfth-month, A hea.r.s.e and stages--other vehicles give place--the funeral of an old Broadway stage-driver, the cortege mostly drivers.

Steady the trot to the cemetery, duly rattles the death-bell, the gate is pa.s.sed, the new-dug grave is halted at, the living alight, the hea.r.s.e uncloses, The coffin is pa.s.sed out, lowered, and settled, the whip is laid on the coffin, the earth is swiftly shovelled in, The mound above is flattened with the spades--silence, A minute, no one moves or speaks--it is done, He is decently put away--is there anything more?

He was a good fellow, free-mouthed, quick-tempered, not bad-looking, able to take his own part, witty, sensitive to a slight, ready with life or death for a friend, fond of women, gambled, ate hearty, drank hearty, had known what it was to be flush, grew low-spirited toward the last, sickened, was helped by a contribution, died, aged forty- one years--and that was his funeral.

Thumb extended, finger uplifted, ap.r.o.n, cape, gloves, strap, wet-weather clothes, whip carefully chosen, boss, spotter, starter, hostler, somebody loafing on you, you loafing on somebody, headway, man before and man behind, good day's work, bad day's work, pet stock, mean stock, first out, last out, turning-in at night; To think that these are so much and so nigh to other drivers--and he there takes no interest in them!

5.

The markets, the government, the working-man's wages--to think what account they are through our nights and days!

To think that other working-men will make just as great account of them-- yet we make little or no account!

The vulgar and the refined--what you call sin, and what you call goodness-- to think how wide a difference!

To think the difference will still continue to others, yet we lie beyond the difference.

To think how much pleasure there is!

Have you pleasure from looking at the sky? have you pleasure from poems?

Do you enjoy yourself in the city? or engaged in business? or planning a nomination and election? or with your wife and family?

Or with your mother and sisters? or in womanly housework? or the beautiful maternal cares?

These also flow onward to others--you and I fly onward, But in due time you and I shall take less interest in them.

Your farm, profits, crops,--to think how engrossed you are!

To think there will still be farms, profits, crops--yet for you, of what avail?

6.

What will be will be well--for what is is well; To take interest is well, and not to take interest shall be well.

The sky continues beautiful, The pleasure of men with women shall never be sated, nor the pleasure of women with men, nor the pleasure from poems; The domestic joys, the daily housework or business, the building of houses--these are not phantasms--they have weight, form, location; Farms, profits, crops, markets, wages, government, are none of them phantasms; The difference between sin and goodness is no delusion, The earth is not an echo--man and his life, and all the things of his life, are well-considered.