Leaves of Grass Part 26

We consider bibles and religions divine-I do not say they are not divine, I say they have all grown out of you, and may grow out of you still, It is not they who give the life, it is you who give the life, Leaves are not more shed from the trees, or trees from the earth, than they are shed out of you.

4 The sum of all known reverence I add up in you whoever you are, The President is there in the White House for you, it is not you who are here for him, The Secretaries act in their bureaus for you, not you here for them, The Congress convenes every Twelfth-month for you, Laws, courts, the forming of States, the charters of cities, the going and coming of commerce and malls, are all for you.

List close my scholars dear, Doctrines, politics and civilization exurge from you, Sculpture and monuments and any thing inscribed anywhere are tallied in you, The gist of histories and statistics as far back as the records reach is in you this hour, and myths and tales the same, If you were not breathing and walking here, where would they all be?

The most renown'd poems would be ashes, orations and plays would be vacuums.

All architecture is what you do to it when you look upon it, (Did you think it was in the white or gray stone? or the lines of the arches and cornices?)

All music is what awakes from you when you are reminded by the instruments, It is not the violins and the cornets, it is not the oboe nor the beating drums, nor the score of the baritone singer singing his sweet romanza, nor that of the men's chorus, nor that of the women's chorus, It is nearer and farther than they.

5 Will the whole come back then?

Can each see signs of the best by a look in the looking-gla.s.s? is there nothing greater or more?

Does all sit there with you, with the mystic unseen soul?

Strange and hard that paradox true I give, Objects gross and the unseen soul are one.

House-building, measuring, sawing the boards, Blacksmithing, gla.s.s-blowing, nail-making, coopering, tin-roofing, s.h.i.+ngle-dressing, s.h.i.+p-joining, dock-building, fish-curing, flagging of sidewalks by flaggers, The pump, the pile-driver, the great derrick, the coal-kiln and brickkiln, Coal-mines and all that is down there, the lamps in the darkness, echoes, songs, what meditations, what vast native thoughts looking through s.m.u.tch'd faces, Iron-works, forge-fires in the mountains or by river-banks, men around feeling the melt with huge crowbars, lumps of ore, the due combining of ore, limestone, coal, The blast-furnace and the puddling-furnace, the loup-lump at the bottom of the melt at last, the rolling-mill, the stumpy bars of pig-iron, the strong clean-shaped Trail for railroads, Oil-works, silk-works, white-lead-works, the sugar-house, steam-saws, the great mills and factories, Stone-cutting, shapely tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs for facades or window or door-lintels, the mallet, the tooth-chisel, the jib to protect the thumb, The calking-iron, the kettle of boiling vault-cement, and the fire under the kettle, The cotton-bale, the stevedore's hook, the saw and buck of the sawyer, the mould of the moulder, the working-knife of the butcher, the ice-saw, and all the work with ice, The work and tools of the rigger, grappler, sail-maker, block-maker, Goods of gutta-percha, papier-mache, colors, brushes, brush-making, glazier's implements, The veneer and glue-pot, the confectioner's ornaments, the decanter and gla.s.ses, the shears and flat-iron, The awl and knee-strap, the pint measure and quart measure, the counter and stool, the writing-pen of quill or metal, the making of all sorts of edged tools, The brewery, brewing, the malt, the vats, every thing that is done by brewers, wine-makers, vinegar-makers, Leather-dressing, coach-making, boiler-making, rope-twisting, distilling, sign-painting, lime-burning, cotton-picking, electroplating, electrotyping, stereotyping, Stave-machines, planing-machines, reaping-machines, ploughing-machines, thras.h.i.+ng-machines, steam wagons, The cart of the carman, the omnibus, the ponderous dray, Pyrotechny, letting off color'd fireworks at night, fancy figures and jets; Beef on the butcher's stall, the slaughter-house of the butcher, the butcher in his killing-clothes, The pens of live pork, the killing-hammer, the hog-hook, the scalder's tub, gutting, the cutter's cleaver, the packer's maul, and the plenteous winterwork of pork-packing, Flour-works, grinding of wheat, rye, maize, rice, the barrels and the half and quarter barrels, the loaded barges, the high piles on wharves and levees, The men and the work of the men on ferries, railroads, coasters, fish-boats, ca.n.a.ls; The hourly routine of your own or any man's life, the shop, yard, store, or factory, These shows all near you by day and night-workman! whoever you are, your daily life!

In that and them the heft of the heaviest-in that and them far more than you estimated, (and far less also,) In them realities for you and me, in them poems for you and me, In them, not yourself-you and your soul enclose all things, regardless of estimation, In them the development good-in them all themes, hints, possibilities.

I do not affirm that what you see beyond is futile, I do not advise you to stop, I do not say leadings you thought great are not great, But I say that none lead to greater than these lead to.

6 Will you seek afar off? you surely come back at last, In things best known to you finding the best, or as good as the best, In folks nearest to you finding the sweetest, strongest, lovingest, Happiness, knowledge, not in another place but this place, not for another hour but this hour, Man in the first you see or touch, always in friend, brother, nighest neighbor-woman in mother, sister, wife, The popular tastes and employments taking precedence in poems or anywhere, You workwomen and workmen of these States having your own divine and strong life, And all else giving place to men and women like you.

When the psalm sings instead of the singer,

When the script preaches instead of the preacher, When the pulpit descends and goes instead of the carver that carved the supporting desk, When I can touch the body of books by night or by day, and when they touch my body back again, When a university course convinces like a slumbering woman and child convince, When the minted gold in the vault smiles like the night-watchman's daughter, When warrantee deeds loafe in chairs opposite and are my friendly companions, I intend to reach them my hand, and make as much of them as I do of men and women like you.

BOOK XVI

A Song of the Rolling Earth 1 A song of the rolling earth, and of words according, Were you thinking that those were the words, those upright lines?

those curves, angles, dots?

No, those are not the words, the substantial words are in the ground and sea, They are in the air, they are in you.

Were you thinking that those were the words, those delicious sounds out of your friends' mouths?

No, the real words are more delicious than they.

Human bodies are words, myriads of words, (In the best poems re-appears the body, man's or woman's, well-shaped, natural, gay, Every part able, active, receptive, without shame or the need of shame.)

Air, soil, water, fire-those are words, I myself am a word with them-my qualities interpenetrate with theirs-my name is nothing to them, Though it were told in the three thousand languages, what would air, soil, water, fire, know of my name?

A healthy presence, a friendly or commanding gesture, are words, sayings, meanings, The charms that go with the mere looks of some men and women, are sayings and meanings also.

The workmans.h.i.+p of souls is by those inaudible words of the earth, The masters know the earth's words and use them more than audible words.

Amelioration is one of the earth's words, The earth neither lags nor hastens, It has all attributes, growths, effects, latent in itself from the jump, It is not half beautiful only, defects and excrescences show just as much as perfections show.

The earth does not withhold, it is generous enough, The truths of the earth continually wait, they are not so conceal'd either, They are calm, subtle, untransmissible by print, They are imbued through all things conveying themselves willingly, Conveying a sentiment and invitation, I utter and utter, I speak not, yet if you hear me not of what avail am I to you?

To bear, to better, lacking these of what avail am I?

(Accouche! accouchez!

Will you rot your own fruit in yourself there?

Will you squat and stifle there?)

The earth does not argue, Is not pathetic, has no arrangements, Does not scream, haste, persuade, threaten, promise, Makes no discriminations, has no conceivable failures, Closes nothing, refuses nothing, shuts none out, Of all the powers, objects, states, it notifies, shuts none out.

The earth does not exhibit itself nor refuse to exhibit itself, possesses still underneath, Underneath the ostensible sounds, the august chorus of heroes, the wail of slaves, Persuasions of lovers, curses, gasps of the dying, laughter of young people, accents of bargainers, Underneath these possessing words that never fall.

To her children the words of the eloquent dumb great mother never fail, The true words do not fail, for motion does not fail and reflection does not fall, Also the day and night do not fall, and the voyage we pursue does not fall.

Of the interminable sisters, Of the ceaseless cotillons of sisters, Of the centripetal and centrifugal sisters, the elder and younger sisters, The beautiful sister we know dances on with the rest.

With her ample back towards every beholder, With the fascinations of youth and the equal fascinations of age, Sits she whom I too love like the rest, sits undisturb'd, Holding up in her hand what has the character of a mirror, while her eyes glance back from it, Glance as she sits, inviting none, denying none, Holding a mirror day and night tirelessly before her own face.

Seen at hand or seen at a distance, Duly the twenty-four appear in public every day, Duly approach and pa.s.s with their companions or a companion, Looking from no countenances of their own, but from the countenances of those who are with them, From the countenances of children or women or the manly countenance, From the open countenances of animals or from inanimate things, From the landscape or waters or from the exquisite apparition of the sky, From our countenances, mine and yours, faithfully returning them, Every day in public appearing without fall, but never twice with the same companions.

Embracing man, embracing all, proceed the three hundred and sixty-five resistlessly round the sun; Embracing all, soothing, supporting, follow close three hundred and sixty-five offsets of the first, sure and necessary as they.

Tumbling on steadily, nothing dreading, Suns.h.i.+ne, storm, cold, heat, forever withstanding, pa.s.sing, carrying, The soul's realization and determination still inheriting, The fluid vacuum around and ahead still entering and dividing, No balk r.e.t.a.r.ding, no anchor anchoring, on no rock striking, Swift, glad, content, unbereav'd, nothing losing, Of all able and ready at any time to give strict account, The divine s.h.i.+p sails the divine sea.

2 Whoever you are! motion and reflection are especially for you, The divine s.h.i.+p sails the divine sea for you.

Whoever you are! you are he or she for whom the earth is solid and liquid, You are he or she for whom the sun and moon hang in the sky, For none more than you are the present and the past, For none more than you is immortality.

Each man to himself and each woman to herself, is the word of the past and present, and the true word of immortality; No one can acquire for another-not one, Not one can grow for another-not one.

The song is to the singer, and comes back most to him, The teaching is to the teacher, and comes back most to him, The murder is to the murderer, and comes back most to him, The theft is to the thief, and comes back most to him, The love is to the lover, and comes back most to him, The gift is to the giver, and comes back most to him-it cannot fail, The oration is to the orator, the acting is to the actor and actress not to the audience, And no man understands any greatness or goodness but his own, or the indication of his own.

3 I swear the earth shall surely be complete to him or her who shall be complete, The earth remains jagged and broken only to him or her who remains jagged and broken.

I swear there is no greatness or power that does not emulate those of the earth, There can be no theory of any account unless it corroborate the theory of the earth, No politics, song, religion, behavior, or what not, is of account, unless it compare with the amplitude of the earth, Unless it face the exactness, vitality, impartiality, rect.i.tude of the earth.

I swear I begin to see love with sweeter spasms than that which responds love, It is that which contains itself, which never invites and never refuses.

I swear I begin to see little or nothing in audible words, All merges toward the presentation of the unspoken meanings of the earth, Toward him who sings the songs of the body and of the truths of the earth, Toward him who makes the dictionaries of words that print cannot touch.

I swear I see what is better than to tell the best, It is always to leave the best untold.

When I undertake to tell the best I find I cannot, My tongue is ineffectual on its pivots, My breath will not be obedient to its organs, I become a dumb man.

The best of the earth cannot be told anyhow, all or any is best, It is not what you antic.i.p.ated, it is cheaper, easier, nearer, Things are not dismiss'd from the places they held before, The earth is just as positive and direct as it was before, Facts, religions, improvements, politics, trades, are as real as before, But the soul is also real, it too is positive and direct, No reasoning, no proof has establish'd it, Undeniable growth has establish'd it.

4 These to echo the tones of souls and the phrases of souls, (If they did not echo the phrases of souls what were they then?

If they had not reference to you in especial what were they then?)

I swear I will never henceforth have to do with the faith that tells the best, I will have to do only with that faith that leaves the best untold.