Poems By Walt Whitman Part 8

With antecedents; With my fathers and mothers, and the acc.u.mulations of past ages: With all which, had it not been, I would not now be here, as I am; With Egypt, India, Phoenicia, Greece, and Rome; With the Kelt, the Scandinavian, the Alb, and the Saxon; With antique maritime ventures,--with laws, artisanship, wars, and journeys; With the poet, the skald, the saga, the myth, and the oracle; With the sale of slaves--with enthusiasts--with the troubadour, the crusader, and the monk; With those old continents whence we have come to this new continent; With the fading kingdoms and kings over there; With the fading religions and priests; With the small sh.o.r.es we look back to from our own large and present sh.o.r.es; With countless years drawing themselves onward, and arrived at these years; You and Me arrived--America arrived, and making this year; This year! sending itself ahead countless years to come.

2.

O but it is not the years--it is I--it is You; We touch all laws, and tally all antecedents; We are the skald, the oracle, the monk, and the knight--we easily include them, and more; We stand amid time, beginningless and endless--we stand amid evil and good; All swings around us--there is as much darkness as light; The very sun swings itself and its system of planets around us: Its sun, and its again, all swing around us.

3.

As for me, (torn, stormy, even as I, amid these vehement days;) I have the idea of all, and am all, and believe in all; I believe materialism is true, and spiritualism is true--I reject no part.

Have I forgotten any part?

Come to me, whoever and whatever, till I give you recognition.

I respect a.s.syria, China, Teutonia, and the Hebrews; I adopt each theory, myth, G.o.d, and demi-G.o.d; I see that the old accounts, bibles, genealogies, are true, without exception; I a.s.sert that all past days were what they should have been; And that they could nohow have been better than they were, And that to-day is what it should be--and that America is, And that to-day and America could nohow be better than they are.

4.

In the name of these States, and in your and my name, the Past, And in the name of these States, and in your and my name, the Present time.

I know that the past was great, and the future will be great, And I know that both curiously conjoint in the present time, For the sake of him I typify--for the common average man's sake--your sake, if you are he; And that where I am, or you are, this present day, there is the centre of all days, all races, And there is the meaning, to us, of all that has ever come of races and days, or ever will come.

_SALUT AU MONDE!_

1.

O take my hand, Walt Whitman!

Such gliding wonders! such sights and sounds!

Such joined unended links, each hooked to the next!

Each answering all--each sharing the earth with all.

What widens within you, Walt Whitman?

What waves and soils exuding?

What climes? what persons and lands are here?

Who are the infants? some playing, some slumbering?

Who are the girls? who are the married women?

Who are the three old men going slowly with their arms about each others'

necks?

What rivers are these? what forests and fruits are these?

What are the mountains called that rise so high in the mists?

What myriads of dwellings are they, filled with dwellers?

2.

Within me lat.i.tude widens, longitude lengthens; Asia, Africa, Europe, are to the east--America is provided for in the west; Banding the bulge of the earth winds the hot equator, Curiously north and south turn the axis-ends; Within me is the longest day--the sun wheels in slanting rings--it does not set for months.

Stretched in due time within me the midnight sun just rises above the horizon, and sinks again; Within me zones, seas, cataracts, plants, volcanoes, groups, Malaysia, Polynesia, and the great West Indian islands.

3.

What do you hear, Walt Whitman?

I hear the workman singing, and the farmer's wife singing; I hear in the distance the sounds of children, and of animals early in the day; I hear quick rifle-cracks from the riflemen of East Tennessee and Kentucky, hunting on hills; I hear emulous shouts of Australians, pursuing the wild horse; I hear the Spanish dance, with castanets, in the chestnut shade, to the rebeck and guitar; I hear continual echoes from the Thames; I hear fierce French liberty songs; I hear of the Italian boat-sculler the musical recitative of old poems; I hear the Virginian plantation chorus of negroes, of a harvest night, in the glare of pine-knots; I hear the strong barytone of the 'long-sh.o.r.e-men of Mannahatta; I hear the stevedores unlading the cargoes, and singing; I hear the screams of the water-fowl of solitary north-west lakes; I hear the rustling pattering of locusts, as they strike the grain and gra.s.s with the showers of their terrible clouds; I hear the Coptic refrain, toward sundown, pensively falling on the breast of the black venerable vast mother, the Nile; I hear the bugles of raft-tenders on the streams of Canada; I hear the chirp of the Mexican muleteer, and the bells of the mule; I hear the Arab muezzin, calling from the top of the mosque; I hear the Christian priests at the altars of their churches--I hear the responsive ba.s.s and soprano; I hear the wail of utter despair of the white-haired Irish grandparents, when they learn the death of their grandson; I hear the cry of the Cossack, and the sailor's voice, putting to sea at Okotsk; I hear the wheeze of the slave-coffle, as the slaves march on--as the husky gangs pa.s.s on by twos and threes, fastened together with wrist- chains and ankle-chains; I hear the entreaties of women tied up for punishment--I hear the sibilant whisk of thongs through the air; I hear the Hebrew reading his records and psalms; I hear the rhythmic myths of the Greeks, and the strong legends of the Romans; I hear the tale of the divine life and b.l.o.o.d.y death of the beautiful G.o.d, the Christ; I hear the Hindoo teaching his favourite pupil the loves, wars, adages, transmitted safely to this day from poets who wrote three thousand years ago.

4.

What do you see, Walt Whitman?

Who are they you salute, and that one after another salute you?

I see a great round wonder rolling through the air: I see diminute farms, hamlets, ruins, grave-yards, jails, factories, palaces, hovels, huts of barbarians, tents of nomads, upon the surface; I see the shaded part on one side, where the sleepers are sleeping--and the sun-lit part on the other side; I see the curious silent change of the light and shade; I see distant lands, as real and near to the inhabitants of them as my land is to me.

I see plenteous waters; I see mountain-peaks--I see the sierras of Andes and Alleghanies, where they range; I see plainly the Himalayas, Chian Shahs, Altays, Ghauts; I see the Rocky Mountains, and the Peak of Winds; I see the Styrian Alps, and the Karnac Alps; I see the Pyrenees, Balks, Carpathians--and to the north the Dofrafields, and off at sea Mount Hecla; I see Vesuvius and Etna--I see the Anahuacs; I see the Mountains of the Moon, and the Snow Mountains, and the Red Mountains of Madagascar; I see the Vermont hills, and the long string of Cordilleras; I see the vast deserts of Western America; I see the Libyan, Arabian, and Asiatic deserts; I see huge dreadful Arctic and Anarctic icebergs; I see the superior oceans and the inferior ones--the Atlantic and Pacific, the sea of Mexico, the Brazilian sea, and the sea of Peru, The j.a.pan waters, those of Hindostan, the China Sea, and the Gulf of Guinea, The spread of the Baltic, Caspian, Bothnia, the British sh.o.r.es, and the Bay of Biscay, The clear-sunned Mediterranean, and from one to another of its islands, The inland fresh-tasted seas of North America, The White Sea, and the sea around Greenland.

I behold the mariners of the world; Some are in storms--some in the night, with the watch on the look-out; Some drifting helplessly--some with contagious diseases.

I behold the sail and steam ships of the world, some in cl.u.s.ters in port, some on their voyages; Some double the Cape of Storms--some Cape Verde,--others Cape Guardafui, Bon, or Bajadore; Others Dondra Head--others pa.s.s the Straits of Sunda--others Cape Lopatka-- others Behring's Straits; Others Cape Horn--others the Gulf of Mexico, or along Cuba or Hayti--others Hudson's Bay or Baffin's Bay; Others pa.s.s the Straits of Dover--others enter the Wash--others the Firth of Solway--others round Cape Clear--others the Land's End; Others traverse the Zuyder Zee, or the Scheld; Others add to the exits and entrances at Sandy Hook; Others to the comers and goers at Gibraltar, or the Dardanelles; Others sternly push their way through the northern winter-packs; Others descend or ascend the Obi or the Lena: Others the Niger or the Congo--others the Indus, the Burampooter and Cambodia; Others wait at the wharves of Manhattan, steamed up, ready to start; Wait, swift and swarthy, in the ports of Australia; Wait at Liverpool, Glasgow, Dublin, Ma.r.s.eilles, Lisbon, Naples, Hamburg, Bremen, Bordeaux, the Hague, Copenhagen; Wait at Valparaiso, Rio Janeiro, Panama; Wait at their moorings at Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston, New Orleans, Galveston, San Francisco.

5.

I see the tracks of the railroads of the earth; I see them welding State to State, city to city, through North America; I see them in Great Britain, I see them in Europe; I see them in Asia and in Africa.

I see the electric telegraphs of the earth; I see the filaments of the news of the wars, deaths, losses, gains, pa.s.sions, of my race.

I see the long river-stripes of the earth; I see where the Mississippi flows--I see where the Columbia flows; I see the Great River, and the Falls of Niagara; I see the Amazon and the Paraguay; I see the four great rivers of China, the Amour, the Yellow River, the Yiang-tse, and the Pearl; I see where the Seine flows, and where the Loire, the Rhone, and the Guadalquivir flow; I see the windings of the Volga, the Dnieper, the Oder; I see the Tuscan going down the Arno, and the Venetian along the Po; I see the Greek seaman sailing out of Egina bay.

6.

I see the site of the old empire of a.s.syria, and that of Persia, and that of India; I see the falling of the Ganges over the high rim of Saukara.

I see the place of the idea of the Deity incarnated by avatars in human forms; I see the spots of the successions of priests on the earth--oracles, sacrificers, brahmins, sabians, lamas, monks, muftis, exhorters; I see where druids walked the groves of Mona--I see the mistletoe and vervain; I see the temples of the deaths of the bodies of G.o.ds--I see the old signifiers.

I see Christ once more eating the bread of His last supper, in the midst of youths and old persons: I see where the strong divine young man, the Hercules, toiled faithfully and long, and then died; I see the place of the innocent rich life and hapless fate of the beautiful nocturnal son, the full-limbed Bacchus; I see Kneph, blooming, drest in blue, with the crown of feathers on his head; I see Hermes, unsuspected, dying, well-beloved, saying to the people, _Do not weep for me, This is not my true country, I have lived banished from my true country--I now go back there, I return to the celestial sphere, where every one goes in his turn_.

7.

I see the battlefields of the earth--gra.s.s grows upon them, and blossoms and corn; I see the tracks of ancient and modern expeditions.

I see the nameless masonries, venerable messages of the unknown events, heroes, records of the earth; I see the places of the sagas; I see pine-trees and fir-frees torn by northern blasts; I see granite boulders and cliffs--I see green meadows and lakes; I see the burial-cairns of Scandinavian warriors; I see them raised high with stones, by the marge of restless oceans, that the dead men's spirits, when they wearied of their quiet graves, might rise up through the mounds, and gaze on the tossing billows, and be refreshed by storms, immensity, liberty, action.

I see the steppes of Asia; I see the tumuli of Mongolia--I see the tents of Kalmucks and Baskirs; I see the nomadic tribes, with herds of oxen and cows; I see the table-lands notched with ravines--I see the jungles and deserts; I see the camel, the wild steed, the bustard, the fat-tailed sheep, the antelope, and the burrowing-wolf.

I see the highlands of Abyssinia; I see flocks of goats feeding, and see the fig-tree, tamarind, date, And see fields of teff-wheat, and see the places of verdure and gold.