Leaves of Grass Part 44

18 I will confront these shows of the day and night, I will know if I am to be less than they, I will see if I am not as majestic as they, I will see if I am not as subtle and real as they, I will see if I am to be less generous than they, I will see if I have no meaning, while the houses and s.h.i.+ps have meaning, I will see if the fishes and birds are to be enough for themselves, and I am not to be enough for myself.

I match my spirit against yours you orbs, growths, mountains, brutes, Copious as you are I absorb you all in myself, and become the master myself, America isolated yet embodying all, what is it finally except myself?

These States, what are they except myself?

I know now why the earth is gross, tantalizing, wicked, it is for my sake, I take you specially to be mine, you terrible, rude forms.

(Mother, bend down, bend close to me your face, I know not what these plots and wars and deferments are for, I know not fruition's success, but I know that through war and crime your work goes on, and must yet go on.)

19 Thus by blue Ontario's sh.o.r.e, While the winds fann'd me and the waves came trooping toward me, I thrill'd with the power's pulsations, and the charm of my theme was upon me, Till the tissues that held me parted their ties upon me.

And I saw the free souls of poets, The loftiest bards of past ages strode before me, Strange large men, long unwaked, undisclosed, were disclosed to me.

20 O my rapt verse, my call, mock me not!

Not for the bards of the past, not to invoke them have I launch'd you forth, Not to call even those lofty bards here by Ontario's sh.o.r.es, Have I sung so capricious and loud my savage song.

Bards for my own land only I invoke, (For the war the war is over, the field is clear'd,) Till they strike up marches henceforth triumphant and onward, To cheer O Mother your boundless expectant soul.

Bards of the great Idea! bards of the peaceful inventions! (for the war, the war is over!) Yet bards of latent armies, a million soldiers waiting ever-ready, Bards with songs as from burning coals or the lightning's fork'd stripes!

Ample Ohio's, Kanada's bards-bards of California! inland bards- bards of the war!

You by my charm I invoke.

Reversals

Let that which stood in front go behind, Let that which was behind advance to the front, Let bigots, fools, unclean persons, offer new propositions, Let the old propositions be postponed, Let a man seek pleasure everywhere except in himself, Let a woman seek happiness everywhere except in herself

BOOK XXIV. AUTUMN RIVULETS

As Consequent, Etc.

As consequent from store of summer rains, Or wayward rivulets in autumn flowing, Or many a herb-lined brook's reticulations, Or subterranean sea-rills making for the sea, Songs of continued years I sing.

Life's ever-modern rapids first, (soon, soon to blend, With the old streams of death.)

Some threading Ohio's farm-fields or the woods, Some down Colorado's canons from sources of perpetual snow, Some half-hid in Oregon, or away southward in Texas, Some in the north finding their way to Erie, Niagara, Ottawa, Some to Atlantica's bays, and so to the great salt brine.

In you whoe'er you are my book perusing, In I myself, in all the world, these currents flowing, All, all toward the mystic ocean tending.

Currents for starting a continent new, Overtures sent to the solid out of the liquid, Fusion of ocean and land, tender and pensive waves, (Not safe and peaceful only, waves rous'd and ominous too, Out of the depths the storm's abysmic waves, who knows whence?

Raging over the vast, with many a broken spar and tatter'd sail.)

Or from the sea of Time, collecting vasting all, I bring, A windrow-drift of weeds and sh.e.l.ls.

O little sh.e.l.ls, so curious-convolute, so limpid-cold and voiceless, Will you not little sh.e.l.ls to the tympans of temples held, Murmurs and echoes still call up, eternity's music faint and far, Wafted inland, sent from Atlantica's rim, strains for the soul of the prairies, Whisper'd reverberations, chords for the ear of the West joyously sounding, Your tidings old, yet ever new and untranslatable, Infinitesimals out of my life, and many a life, (For not my life and years alone I give-all, all I give,) These waifs from the deep, cast high and dry, Wash'd on America's sh.o.r.es?

The Return of the Heroes

1 For the lands and for these pa.s.sionate days and for myself, Now I awhile retire to thee O soil of autumn fields, Reclining on thy breast, giving myself to thee, Answering the pulses of thy sane and equable heart, Turning a verse for thee.

O earth that hast no voice, confide to me a voice, O harvest of my lands...o...b..undless summer growths, O lavish brown parturient earth-O infinite teeming womb, A song to narrate thee.

2 Ever upon this stage, Is acted G.o.d's calm annual drama, Gorgeous processions, songs of birds, Sunrise that fullest feeds and freshens most the soul, The heaving sea, the waves upon the sh.o.r.e, the musical, strong waves, The woods, the stalwart trees, the slender, tapering trees, The liliput countless armies of the gra.s.s, The heat, the showers, the measureless pasturages, The scenery of the snows, the winds' free orchestra, The stretching light-hung roof of clouds, the clear cerulean and the silvery fringes, The high-dilating stars, the placid beckoning stars, The moving flocks and herds, the plains and emerald meadows, The shows of all the varied lands and all the growths and products.

3 Fecund America-today, Thou art all over set in births and joys!

Thou groan'st with riches, thy wealth clothes thee as a swathing-garment, Thou laughest loud with ache of great possessions, A myriad-twining life like interlacing vines binds all thy vast demesne, As some huge s.h.i.+p freighted to water's edge thou ridest into port, As rain falls from the heaven and vapors rise from earth, so have the precious values fallen upon thee and risen out of thee; Thou envy of the globe! thou miracle!

Thou, bathed, choked, swimming in plenty, Thou lucky Mistress of the tranquil barns, Thou Prairie Dame that sittest in the middle and lookest out upon thy world, and lookest East and lookest West, Dispensatress, that by a word givest a thousand miles, a million farms, and missest nothing, Thou all-acceptress-thou hospitable, (thou only art hospitable as G.o.d is hospitable.)

4 When late I sang sad was my voice, Sad were the shows around me with deafening noises of hatred and smoke of war; In the midst of the conflict, the heroes, I stood, Or pa.s.s'd with slow step through the wounded and dying.

But now I sing not war, Nor the measur'd march of soldiers, nor the tents of camps, Nor the regiments hastily coming up deploying in line of battle; No more the sad, unnatural shows of war.

Ask'd room those flush'd immortal ranks, the first forth-stepping armies?

Ask room alas the ghastly ranks, the armies dread that follow'd.

(Pa.s.s, pa.s.s, ye proud brigades, with your tramping sinewy legs, With your shoulders young and strong, with your knapsacks and your muskets; How elate I stood and watch'd you, where starting off you march'd.

Pa.s.s-then rattle drums again, For an army heaves in sight, O another gathering army, Swarming, trailing on the rear, O you dread accruing army, O you regiments so piteous, with your mortal diarrhoea, with your fever, O my land's maim'd darlings, with the plenteous b.l.o.o.d.y bandage and the crutch, Lo, your pallid army follows.)

5 But on these days of brightness, On the far-stretching beauteous landscape, the roads and lanes the high-piled farm-wagons, and the fruits and barns, Should the dead intrude?

Ah the dead to me mar not, they fit well in Nature, They fit very well in the landscape under the trees and gra.s.s, And along the edge of the sky in the horizon's far margin.

Nor do I forget you Departed, Nor in winter or summer my lost ones, But most in the open air as now when my soul is rapt and at peace, like pleasing phantoms, Your memories rising glide silently by me.

6 I saw the day the return of the heroes, (Yet the heroes never surpa.s.s'd shall never return, Them that day I saw not.)

I saw the interminable corps, I saw the processions of armies, I saw them approaching, defiling by with divisions, Streaming northward, their work done, camping awhile in cl.u.s.ters of mighty camps.

No holiday soldiers-youthful, yet veterans, Worn, swart, handsome, strong, of the stock of homestead and workshop, Harden'd of many a long campaign and sweaty march, Inured on many a hard-fought b.l.o.o.d.y field.

A pause-the armies wait, A million flush'd embattled conquerors wait, The world too waits, then soft as breaking night and sure as dawn, They melt, they disappear.

Exult O lands! victorious lands!

Not there your victory on those red shuddering fields, But here and hence your victory.

Melt, melt away ye armies-disperse ye blue-clad soldiers, Resolve ye back again, give up for good your deadly arms, Other the arms the fields henceforth for you, or South or North, With saner wars, sweet wars, life-giving wars.

7 Loud O my throat, and clear O soul!

The season of thanks and the voice of full-yielding, The chant of joy and power for boundless fertility.

All till'd and untill'd fields expand before me, I see the true arenas of my race, or first or last, Man's innocent and strong arenas.