Poems By Walt Whitman Part 34

You are not thrown to the winds--you gather certainly and safely around yourself; Yourself! Yourself! Yourself, for ever and ever!

7.

It is not to diffuse you that you were born of your mother and father--it is to identify you; It is not that you should be undecided, but that you should be decided; Something long preparing and formless is arrived and formed in you, You are henceforth secure, whatever comes or goes.

The threads that were spun are gathered, the weft crosses the warp, the pattern is systematic.

The preparations have every one been justified, The orchestra have sufficiently tuned their instruments--the baton has given the signal.

The guest that was coming--he waited long, for reasons--he is now housed; He is one of those who are beautiful and happy--he is one of those that to look upon and be with is enough.

The law of the past cannot be eluded, The law of the present and future cannot be eluded, The law of the living cannot be eluded--it is eternal; The law of promotion and transformation cannot be eluded, The law of heroes and good-doers cannot be eluded, The law of drunkards, informers, mean persons--not one iota thereof can be eluded.

8.

Slow-moving and black lines go ceaselessly over the earth, Northerner goes carried, and Southerner goes carried, and they on the Atlantic side, and they on the Pacific, and they between, and all through the Mississippi country, and all over the earth.

The great masters and kosmos are well as they go--the heroes and good-doers are well, The known leaders and inventors, and the rich owners and pious and distinguished, may be well, But there is more account than that--there is strict account of all.

The interminable hordes of the ignorant and wicked are not nothing, The barbarians of Africa and Asia are not nothing, The common people of Europe are not nothing--the American aborigines are not nothing, The infected in the immigrant hospital are not nothing--the murderer or mean person is not nothing, The perpetual successions of shallow people are not nothing as they go, The lowest prost.i.tute is not nothing--the mocker of religion is not nothing as he goes.

9.

I shall go with the rest--we have satisfaction, I have dreamed that we are not to be changed so much, nor the law of us changed, I have dreamed that heroes and good-doers shall be under the present and past law, And that murderers, drunkards, liars, shall be under the present and past law, For I have dreamed that the law they are under now is enough.

And I have dreamed that the satisfaction is not so much changed, and that there is no life without satisfaction; What is the earth? what are Body and Soul without satisfaction?

I shall go with the rest, We cannot be stopped at a given point--that is no satisfaction, To show us a good thing, or a few good things, for a s.p.a.ce of time--that is no satisfaction, We must have the indestructible breed of the best, regardless of time.

If otherwise, all these things came but to ashes of dung, If maggots and rats ended us, then alarum! for we are betrayed!

Then indeed suspicion of death.

Do you suspect death? If I were to suspect death, I should die now: Do you think I could walk pleasantly and well-suited toward annihilation?

10.

Pleasantly and well-suited I walk: Whither I walk I cannot define, but I know it is good; The whole universe indicates that it is good, The past and the present indicate that it is good.

How beautiful and perfect are the animals! How perfect is my Soul!

How perfect the earth, and the minutest thing upon it!

What is called good is perfect, and what is called bad is just as perfect, The vegetables and minerals are all perfect, and the imponderable fluids are perfect; Slowly and surely they have pa.s.sed on to this, and slowly and surely they yet pa.s.s on.

My Soul! if I realise you, I have satisfaction; Animals and vegetables! if I realise you, I have satisfaction; Laws of the earth and air! if I realise you, I have satisfaction.

I cannot define my satisfaction, yet it is so; I cannot define my life, yet it is so.

11.

It comes to me now!

I swear I think now that everything without exception has an eternal soul!

The trees have, rooted in the ground! the weeds of the sea have! the animals!

I swear I think there is nothing but immortality!

That the exquisite scheme is for it, and the nebulous float is for it, and the cohering is for it; And all preparation is for it! and ident.i.ty is for it! and life and death are altogether for it!

_THIS COMPOST._

1.

Something startles me where I thought I was safest; I withdraw from the still woods I loved; I will not go now on the pastures to walk; I will not strip the clothes from my body to meet my lover the sea; I will not touch my flesh to the earth, as to other flesh, to renew me.

2.

O how can the ground not sicken?

How can you be alive, you growths of spring?

How can you furnish health, you blood of herbs, roots, orchards, grain?

Are they not continually putting distempered corpses in you?

Is not every continent worked over and over with sour dead?

Where have you disposed of their carca.s.ses?

Those drunkards and gluttons of so many generations; Where have you drawn off all the foul liquid and meat?

I do not see any of it upon you to-day--or perhaps I am deceived; I will run a furrow with my plough--I will press my spade through the sod, and turn it up underneath; I am sure I shall expose some of the foul meat.

3.

Behold this compost! behold it well!

Perhaps every mite has once formed part of a sick person--Yet behold!

The gra.s.s covers the prairies, The bean bursts noiselessly through the mould in the garden, The delicate spear of the onion pierces upward, The apple-buds cl.u.s.ter together on the apple branches, The resurrection of the wheat appears with pale visage out of its graves, The tinge awakes over the willow-tree and the mulberry-tree, The he-birds carol mornings and evenings, while the she-birds sit on their nests, The young of poultry break through the hatched eggs, The new-born of animals appear--the calf is dropped from the cow, the colt from the mare, Out of its little hill faithfully rise the potato's dark-green leaves, Out of its hill rises the yellow maize-stalk; The summer growth is innocent and disdainful above all those strata of sour dead.

What chemistry!

That the winds are really not infectious, That this is no cheat, this transparent green-wash of the sea, which is so amorous after me; That it is safe to allow it to lick my naked body all over with its tongues, That it will not endanger me with the fevers that have deposited themselves in it, That all is clean for ever and for ever, That the cool drink from the well tastes so good, That blackberries are so flavorous and juicy, That the fruits of the apple-orchard, and of the orange-orchard--that melons, grapes, peaches, plums, will none of them poison me, That when I recline on the gra.s.s I do not catch any disease, Though probably every sphere of gra.s.s rises out of what was once a catching disease.

4.

Now I am terrified at the Earth! it is that calm and patient, It grows such sweet things out of such corruptions, It turns harmless and stainless on its axis, with such endless successions of diseased corpses, It distils such exquisite winds out of such infused fetor, It renews with such unwitting looks its prodigal, annual, sumptuous crops, It gives such divine materials to men, and accepts such leavings from them at last.

_DESPAIRING CRIES._