Leaves of Grass Part 49

I lie abstracted and hear beautiful tales of things and the reasons of things, They are so beautiful I nudge myself to listen.

I cannot say to any person what I hear-I cannot say it to myself- it is very wonderful.

It is no small matter, this round and delicious globe moving so exactly in its...o...b..t for ever and ever, without one jolt or the untruth of a single second, I do not think it was made in six days, nor in ten thousand years, nor ten billions of years, Nor plann'd and built one thing after another as an architect plans and builds a house.

I do not think seventy years is the time of a man or woman, Nor that seventy millions of years is the time of a man or woman, Nor that years will ever stop the existence of me, or any one else.

Is it wonderful that I should be immortal? as every one is immortal; I know it is wonderful, but my eyesight is equally wonderful, and how I was conceived in my mother's womb is equally wonderful, And pa.s.s'd from a babe in the creeping trance of a couple of summers and winters to articulate and walk-all this is equally wonderful.

And that my soul embraces you this hour, and we affect each other without ever seeing each other, and never perhaps to see each other, is every bit as wonderful.

And that I can think such thoughts as these is just as wonderful, And that I can remind you, and you think them and know them to be true, is just as wonderful.

And that the moon spins round the earth and on with the earth, is equally wonderful, And that they balance themselves with the sun and stars is equally wonderful.

Tests

All submit to them where they sit, inner, secure, unapproachable to a.n.a.lysis in the soul, Not traditions, not the outer authorities are the judges, They are the judges of outer authorities and of all traditions, They corroborate as they go only whatever corroborates themselves, and touches themselves; For all that, they have it forever in themselves to corroborate far and near without one exception.

The Torch

On my Northwest coast in the midst of the night a fishermen's group stands watching, Out on the lake that expands before them, others are spearing salmon, The canoe, a dim shadowy thing, moves across the black water, Bearing a torch ablaze at the prow.

O Star of France [1870-71]

O star of France, The brightness of thy hope and strength and fame, Like some proud s.h.i.+p that led the fleet so long, Beseems to-day a wreck driven by the gale, a mastless hulk, And 'mid its teeming madden'd half-drown'd crowds, Nor helm nor helmsman.

Dim smitten star, Orb not of France alone, pale symbol of my soul, its dearest hopes, The struggle and the daring, rage divine for liberty, Of aspirations toward the far ideal, enthusiast's dreams of brotherhood, Of terror to the tyrant and the priest.

Star crucified-by traitors sold, Star panting o'er a land of death, heroic land, Strange, pa.s.sionate, mocking, frivolous land.

Miserable! yet for thy errors, vanities, sins, I will not now rebuke thee, Thy unexampled woes and pangs have quell'd them all, And left thee sacred.

In that amid thy many faults thou ever aimedst highly, In that thou wouldst not really sell thyself however great the price, In that thou surely wakedst weeping from thy drugg'd sleep, In that alone among thy sisters thou, giantess, didst rend the ones that shamed thee, In that thou couldst not, wouldst not, wear the usual chains, This cross, thy livid face, thy pierced hands and feet, The spear thrust in thy side.

O star! O s.h.i.+p of France, beat back and baffled long!

Bear up O smitten orb! O s.h.i.+p continue on!

Sure as the s.h.i.+p of all, the Earth itself, Product of deathly fire and turbulent chaos, Forth from its spasms of fury and its poisons, Issuing at last in perfect power and beauty, Onward beneath the sun following its course, So thee O s.h.i.+p of France!

Finish'd the days, the clouds dispel'd The travail o'er, the long-sought extrication, When lo! reborn, high o'er the European world, (In gladness answering thence, as face afar to face, reflecting ours Columbia,) Again thy star O France, fair l.u.s.trous star, In heavenly peace, clearer, more bright than ever, Shall beam immortal.

The Ox-Tamer

In a far-away northern county in the placid pastoral region, Lives my farmer friend, the theme of my recitative, a famous tamer of oxen, There they bring him the three-year-olds and the four-year-olds to break them, He will take the wildest steer in the world and break him and tame him, He will go fearless without any whip where the young bullock chafes up and down the yard, The bullock's head tosses restless high in the air with raging eyes, Yet see you! how soon his rage subsides-how soon this tamer tames him; See you! on the farms hereabout a hundred oxen young and old, and he is the man who has tamed them, They all know him, all are affectionate to him; See you! some are such beautiful animals, so lofty looking; Some are buff-color'd, some mottled, one has a white line running along his back, some are brindled, Some have wide flaring horns (a good sign)-see you! the bright hides, See, the two with stars on their foreheads-see, the round bodies and broad backs, How straight and square they stand on their legs-what fine sagacious eyes!

How straight they watch their tamer-they wish him near them-how they turn to look after him!

What yearning expression! how uneasy they are when he moves away from them; Now I marvel what it can be he appears to them, (books, politics, poems, depart-all else departs,) I confess I envy only his fascination-my silent, illiterate friend, Whom a hundred oxen love there in his life on farms, In the northern county far, in the placid pastoral region.

An Old Man's Thought of School [For the Inauguration of a Public School, Camden, New Jersey, 1874]

An old man's thought of school, An old man gathering youthful memories and blooms that youth itself cannot.

Now only do I know you, O fair auroral skies-O morning dew upon the gra.s.s!

And these I see, these sparkling eyes, These stores of mystic meaning, these young lives, Building, equipping like a fleet of s.h.i.+ps, immortal s.h.i.+ps, Soon to sail out over the measureless seas, On the soul's voyage.

Only a lot of boys and girls?

Only the tiresome spelling, writing, ciphering cla.s.ses?

Only a public school?

Ah more, infinitely more; (As George Fox rais'd his warning cry, "Is it this pile of brick and mortar, these dead floors, windows, rails, you call the church?

Why this is not the church at all-the church is living, ever living souls.")

And you America, Cast you the real reckoning for your present?

The lights and shadows of your future, good or evil?

To girlhood, boyhood look, the teacher and the school.

Wandering at Morn

Wandering at morn, Emerging from the night from gloomy thoughts, thee in my thoughts, Yearning for thee harmonious Union! thee, singing bird divine!

Thee coil'd in evil times my country, with craft and black dismay, with every meanness, treason thrust upon thee, This common marvel I beheld-the parent thrush I watch'd feeding its young, The singing thrush whose tones of joy and faith ecstatic, Fail not to certify and cheer my soul.

There ponder'd, felt I, If worms, snakes, loathsome grubs, may to sweet spiritual songs be turn'd, If vermin so transposed, so used and bless'd may be, Then may I trust in you, your fortunes, days, my country; Who knows but these may be the lessons fit for you?

From these your future song may rise with joyous trills, Destin'd to fill the world.

Italian Music in Dakota ["The Seventeenth-the finest Regimental Band I ever heard."]

Through the soft evening air enwinding all, Rocks, woods, fort, cannon, pacing sentries, endless wilds, In dulcet streams, in flutes' and cornets' notes, Electric, pensive, turbulent, artificial, (Yet strangely fitting even here, meanings unknown before, Subtler than ever, more harmony, as if born here, related here, Not to the city's fresco'd rooms, not to the audience of the opera house, Sounds, echoes, wandering strains, as really here at home, Sonnambula's innocent love, trios with Norma's anguish, And thy ecstatic chorus Poliuto;) Ray'd in the limpid yellow slanting sundown, Music, Italian music in Dakota.

While Nature, sovereign of this gnarl'd realm, Lurking in hidden barbaric grim recesses, Acknowledging rapport however far remov'd, (As some old root or soil of earth its last-born flower or fruit,) Listens well pleas'd.

With All Thy Gifts