Poems By Walt Whitman Part 6

The wife--and she is not one jot less than the husband; The daughter--and she is just as good as the son; The mother--and she is every bit as much as the father.

Offspring of ignorant and poor, boys apprenticed to trades, Young fellows working on farms, and old fellows working on farms, Sailor-men, merchant-men, coasters, immigrants, All these I see--but nigher and farther the same I see; None shall escape me, and none shall wish to escape me.

I bring what you much need, yet always have, Not money, amours, dress, eating, but as good; I send no agent or medium, offer no representative of value, but offer the value itself.

There is something that comes home to one now and perpetually; It is not what is printed, preached, discussed--it eludes discussion and print; It is not to be put in a book--it is not in this book; It is for you, whoever you are--it is no farther from you than your hearing and sight are from you; It is hinted by nearest, commonest, readiest--it is ever provoked by them.

You may read in many languages, yet read nothing about it; You may read the President's Message, and read nothing about it there; Nothing in the reports from the State department or Treasury department, or in the daily papers or the weekly papers, Or in the census or revenue returns, prices current, or any accounts of stock.

4.

The sun and stars that float in the open air; The apple-shaped earth, and we upon it--surely the drift of them is something grand!

I do not know what it is, except that it is grand, and that it is happiness, And that the enclosing purport of us here is not a speculation, or bon-mot, or reconnoissance, And that it is not something which by luck may turn out well for us, and without luck must be a failure for us, And not something which may yet be retracted in a certain contingency.

The light and shade, the curious sense of body and ident.i.ty, the greed that with perfect complaisance devours all things, the endless pride and outstretching of man, unspeakable joys and sorrows, The wonder every one sees in every one else he sees, and the wonders that fill each minute of time for ever, What have you reckoned them for, camerado?

Have you reckoned them for a trade, or farm-work? or for the profits of a store?

Or to achieve yourself a position? or to fill a gentleman's leisure, or a lady's leisure?

Have you reckoned the landscape took substance and form that it might be painted in a picture?

Or men and women that they might be written of, and songs sung?

Or the attraction of gravity, and the great laws and harmonious combinations, and the fluids of the air, as subjects for the savans?

Or the brown land and the blue sea for maps and charts?

Or the stars to be put in constellations and named fancy names?

Or that the growth of seeds is for agricultural tables, or agriculture itself?

Old inst.i.tutions--these arts, libraries, legends, collections, and the practice handed along in manufactures--will we rate them so high?

Will we rate our cash and business high?--I have no objection; I rate them as high as the highest--then a child born of a woman and man I rate beyond all rate.

We thought our Union grand, and our Const.i.tution grand; I do not say they are not grand and good, for they are; I am this day just as much in love with them as you; Then I am in love with you, and with all my fellows upon the earth.

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.

5.

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.

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 mails, are all for you.

List close, my scholars dear!

All doctrines, all politics and civilisation, exsurge from you; All sculpture and monuments, and anything 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 renowned 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 grey 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.

6.

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, shingle- dressing, Ship-joining, dock-building, fish-curing, ferrying, flagging of side-walks by flaggers, The pump, the pile-driver, the great derrick, the coal-kiln and brick-kiln, 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.tched faces, Ironworks, forge-fires in the mountains, or by the 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 T-rail for railroads; Oilworks, silkworks, 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, Oak.u.m, the oak.u.m-chisel, the caulking-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 implements for daguerreotyping--the tools of the rigger, grappler, sail-maker, block-maker, Goods of gutta-percha, papier-mache, colours, brushes, brush-making, glaziers' 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, everything that is done by brewers, also by wine-makers, also vinegar-makers, Leather-dressing, coach-making, boiler-making, rope-twisting, distilling, sign-painting, lime-burning, cotton-picking--electro-plating, electrotyping, stereotyping, Stave-machines, planing-machines, reaping-machines, ploughing-machines, thrashing-machines, steam waggons, The cart of the carman, the omnibus, the ponderous dray; Pyrotechny, letting off coloured 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 winter-work 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 railroads, coasters, fish-boats, ca.n.a.ls; The daily routine of your own or any man's life--the shop, yard, store, or factory; These shows all near you by day and night-workmen! whoever you are, your daily life!

In that and them the heft of the heaviest--in 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 and hints.

I do not affirm 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 those lead to.

7.

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 neighbour--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.

_SONG OF THE BROAD-AXE._

1.

Weapon, shapely, naked, wan; Head from the mother's bowels drawn!

Wooded flesh and metal bone! limb only one, and lip only one!

Grey-blue leaf by red-heat grown! helve produced from a little seed sown!

Resting the gra.s.s amid and upon, To be leaned, and to lean on.

Strong shapes, and attributes of strong shapes--masculine trades, sights and sounds; Long varied train of an emblem, dabs of music; Fingers of the organist skipping staccato over the keys of the great organ.

2.

Welcome are all earth's lands, each for its kind; Welcome are lands of pine and oak; Welcome are lands of the lemon and fig; Welcome are lands of gold; Welcome are lands of wheat and maize--welcome those of the grape; Welcome are lands of sugar and rice; Welcome are cotton-lands--welcome those of the white potato and sweet potato; Welcome are mountains, flats, sands, forests, prairies; Welcome the rich borders of rivers, table-lands, openings, Welcome the measureless grazing-lands--welcome the teeming soil of orchards, flax, honey, hemp; Welcome just as much the other more hard-faced lands; Lands rich as lands of gold, or wheat and fruit lands; Lands of mines, lands of the manly and rugged ores; Lands of coal, copper, lead, tin, zinc; LANDS OF IRON! lands of the make of the axe!

3.

The log at the wood-pile, the axe supported by it; The sylvan hut, the vine over the doorway, the s.p.a.ce cleared for a garden, The irregular tapping of rain down on the leaves, after the storm is lulled, The wailing and moaning at intervals, the thought of the sea, The thought of ships struck in the storm, and put on their beam-ends, and the cutting away of masts; The sentiment of the huge timbers of old-fashioned houses and barns; The remembered print or narrative, the voyage at a venture of men, families, goods, The disembarkation, the founding of a new city, The voyage of those who sought a New England and found it--the outset anywhere, The settlements of the Arkansas, Colorado, Ottawa, Willamette, The slow progress, the scant fare, the axe, rifle, saddle-bags; The beauty of all adventurous and daring persons, The beauty of wood-boys and wood-men, with their clear untrimmed faces, The beauty of independence, departure, actions that rely on themselves, The American contempt for statutes and ceremonies, the boundless impatience of restraint, The loose drift of character, the inkling through random types, the solidification; The butcher in the slaughter-house, the hands aboard schooners and sloops, the raftsman, the pioneer, Lumbermen in their winter camp, daybreak in the woods, stripes of snow on the limbs of trees, the occasional snapping, The glad clear sound of one's own voice, the merry song, the natural life of the woods, the strong day's work, The blazing fire at night, the sweet taste of supper, the talk, the bed of hemlock boughs, and the bearskin; --The house-builder at work in cities or anywhere, The preparatory jointing, squaring, sawing, mortising, The hoist-up of beams, the push of them in their places, laying them regular, Setting the studs by their tenons in the mortises, according as they were prepared, The blows of mallets and hammers, the att.i.tudes of the men, their curved limbs, Bending, standing, astride the beams, driving in pins, holding on by posts and braces, The hooked arm over the plate, the other arm wielding the axe, The floor-men forcing the planks close, to be nailed, Their postures bringing their weapons downward on the bearers, The echoes resounding through the vacant building; The huge store-house carried up in the city, well under way, The six framing men, two in the middle, and two at each end, carefully bearing on their shoulders a heavy stick for a cross-beam, The crowded line of masons with trowels in their right hands, rapidly laying the long side-wall, two hundred feet from front to rear, The flexible rise and fall of backs, the continual click of the trowels striking the bricks, The bricks, one after another, each laid so workmanlike in its place, and set with a knock of the trowel-handle, The piles of materials, the mortar on the mortar-boards, and the steady replenishing by the hod-men; --Spar-makers in the spar-yard, the swarming row of well-grown apprentices, The swing of their axes on the square-hewed log, shaping it toward the shape of a mast, The brisk short crackle of the steel driven slantingly into the pine, The b.u.t.ter-coloured chips flying off in great flakes and slivers, The limber motion of brawny young arms and hips in easy costumes; The constructor of wharves, bridges, piers, bulk-heads, floats, stays against the sea; --The city fireman--the fire that suddenly bursts forth in the close-packed square, The arriving engines, the hoa.r.s.e shouts, the nimble stepping and daring, The strong command through the fire-trumpets, the falling in line, the rise and fall of the arms forcing the water, The slender, spasmic blue-white jets--the bringing to bear of the hooks and ladders, and their execution, The crash and cut-away of connecting woodwork, or through floors, if the fire smoulders under them, The crowd with their lit faces, watching--the glare and dense shadows; --The forger at his forge-furnace, and the user of iron after him, The maker of the axe large and small, and the welder and temperer, The chooser breathing his breath on the cold steel, and trying the edge with his thumb, The one who clean-shapes the handle and sets it firmly in the socket; The shadowy processions of the portraits of the past users also, The primal patient mechanics, the architects and engineers, The far-off a.s.syrian edifice and Mizra edifice, The Roman lictors preceding the consuls, The antique European warrior with his axe in combat, The uplifted arm, the clatter of blows on the helmeted head, The death-howl, the limpsey tumbling body, the rush of friend and foe thither, The siege of revolted lieges determined for liberty, The summons to surrender, the battering at castle-gates, the truce and parley; The sack of an old city in its time, The bursting in of mercenaries and bigots tumultuously and disorderly, Roar, flames, blood, drunkenness, madness, Goods freely rifled from houses and temples, screams of women in the gripe of brigands, Craft and thievery of camp-followers, men running, old persons despairing, The h.e.l.l of war, the cruelties of creeds, The list of all executive deeds and words, just or unjust, The power of personality, just or unjust.

4.

Muscle and pluck for ever!

What invigorates life invigorates death, And the dead advance as much as the living advance, And the future is no more uncertain than the present, And the roughness of the earth and of man encloses as much as the _delicatesse_ of the earth and of man, And nothing endures but personal qualities.

What do you think endures?

Do you think the great city endures?

Or a teeming manufacturing state? or a prepared const.i.tution? or the best- built steamships?

Or hotels of granite and iron? or any _chefs-d'oeuvre_ of engineering, forts, armaments?