Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman [books to read for 12 year olds txt] 📗

Christ 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 toil’d

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-limb’d Bacchus,

I see Kneph, blooming, drest in blue, with the crown of feathers on

his head,

I see Hermes, unsuspected, dying, well-belov’d, saying to the people

Do not weep for me,

This is not my true country, I have lived banish’d 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, grass 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-trees torn by northern blasts,

I see granite bowlders 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 refresh’d 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 notch’d with ravines, I see the jungles and deserts,

I see the camel, the wild steed, the bustard, the fat-tail’d 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 places of verdure and gold.

 

I see the Brazilian vaquero,

I see the Bolivian ascending mount Sorata,

I see the Wacho crossing the plains, I see the incomparable rider of

horses with his lasso on his arm,

I see over the pampas the pursuit of wild cattle for their hides.

 

8

I see the regions of snow and ice,

I see the sharp-eyed Samoiede and the Finn,

I see the seal-seeker in his boat poising his lance,

I see the Siberian on his slight-built sledge drawn by dogs,

I see the porpoise-hunters, I see the whale-crews of the south

Pacific and the north Atlantic,

I see the cliffs, glaciers, torrents, valleys, of Switzerland—I

mark the long winters and the isolation.

 

I see the cities of the earth and make myself at random a part of them,

I am a real Parisian,

I am a habitan of Vienna, St. Petersburg, Berlin, Constantinople,

I am of Adelaide, Sidney, Melbourne,

I am of London, Manchester, Bristol, Edinburgh, Limerick,

I am of Madrid, Cadiz, Barcelona, Oporto, Lyons, Brussels, Berne,

Frankfort, Stuttgart, Turin, Florence,

I belong in Moscow, Cracow, Warsaw, or northward in Christiania or

Stockholm, or in Siberian Irkutsk, or in some street in Iceland,

I descend upon all those cities, and rise from them again.

 

10

I see vapors exhaling from unexplored countries,

I see the savage types, the bow and arrow, the poison’d splint, the

fetich, and the obi.

I see African and Asiatic towns,

I see Algiers, Tripoli, Derne, Mogadore, Timbuctoo, Monrovia,

I see the swarms of Pekin, Canton, Benares, Delhi, Calcutta, Tokio,

I see the Kruman in his hut, and the Dahoman and Ashantee-man in their huts,

I see the Turk smoking opium in Aleppo,

I see the picturesque crowds at the fairs of Khiva and those of Herat,

I see Teheran, I see Muscat and Medina and the intervening sands,

see the caravans toiling onward,

I see Egypt and the Egyptians, I see the pyramids and obelisks.

I look on chisell’d histories, records of conquering kings,

dynasties, cut in slabs of sand-stone, or on granite-blocks,

I see at Memphis mummy-pits containing mummies embalm’d,

swathed in linen cloth, lying there many centuries,

I look on the fall’n Theban, the large-ball’d eyes, the

side-drooping neck, the hands folded across the breast.

 

I see all the menials of the earth, laboring,

I see all the prisoners in the prisons,

I see the defective human bodies of the earth,

The blind, the deaf and dumb, idiots, hunchbacks, lunatics,

The pirates, thieves, betrayers, murderers, slave-makers of the earth,

The helpless infants, and the helpless old men and women.

 

I see male and female everywhere,

I see the serene brotherhood of philosophs,

I see the constructiveness of my race,

I see the results of the perseverance and industry of my race,

I see ranks, colors, barbarisms, civilizations, I go among them, I

mix indiscriminately,

And I salute all the inhabitants of the earth.

 

11

You whoever you are!

You daughter or son of England!

You of the mighty Slavic tribes and empires! you Russ in Russia!

You dim-descended, black, divine-soul’d African, large, fine-headed,

nobly-form’d, superbly destin’d, on equal terms with me!

You Norwegian! Swede! Dane! Icelander! you Prussian!

You Spaniard of Spain! you Portuguese!

You Frenchwoman and Frenchman of France!

You Belge! you liberty-lover of the Netherlands! (you stock whence I

myself have descended;)

You sturdy Austrian! you Lombard! Hun! Bohemian! farmer of Styria!

You neighbor of the Danube!

You working-man of the Rhine, the Elbe, or the Weser! you working-woman too!

You Sardinian! you Bavarian! Swabian! Saxon! Wallachian! Bulgarian!

You Roman! Neapolitan! you Greek!

You lithe matador in the arena at Seville!

You mountaineer living lawlessly on the Taurus or Caucasus!

You Bokh horse-herd watching your mares and stallions feeding!

You beautiful-bodied Persian at full speed in the saddle shooting

arrows to the mark!

You Chinaman and Chinawoman of China! you Tartar of Tartary!

You women of the earth subordinated at your tasks!

You Jew journeying in your old age through every risk to stand once

on Syrian ground!

You other Jews waiting in all lands for your Messiah!

You thoughtful Armenian pondering by some stream of the Euphrates!

you peering amid the ruins of Nineveh! you ascending mount Ararat!

You foot-worn pilgrim welcoming the far-away sparkle of the minarets

of Mecca!

You sheiks along the stretch from Suez to Bab-el-mandeb ruling your

families and tribes!

You olive-grower tending your fruit on fields of Nazareth, Damascus,

or lake Tiberias!

You Thibet trader on the wide inland or bargaining in the shops of Lassa!

You Japanese man or woman! you liver in Madagascar, Ceylon, Sumatra, Borneo!

All you continentals of Asia, Africa, Europe, Australia, indifferent

of place!

All you on the numberless islands of the archipelagoes of the sea!

And you of centuries hence when you listen to me!

And you each and everywhere whom I specify not, but include just the same!

Health to you! good will to you all, from me and America sent!

 

Each of us inevitable,

Each of us limitless—each of us with his or her right upon the earth,

Each of us allow’d the eternal purports of the earth,

Each of us here as divinely as any is here.

 

12

You Hottentot with clicking palate! you woolly-hair’d hordes!

You own’d persons dropping sweat-drops or blood-drops!

You human forms with the fathomless ever-impressive countenances of brutes!

You poor koboo whom the meanest of the rest look down upon for all

your glimmering language and spirituality!

You dwarf’d Kamtschatkan, Greenlander, Lapp!

You Austral negro, naked, red, sooty, with protrusive lip,

groveling, seeking your food!

You Caffre, Berber, Soudanese!

You haggard, uncouth, untutor’d Bedowee!

You plague-swarms in Madras, Nankin, Kaubul, Cairo!

You benighted roamer of Amazonia! you Patagonian! you Feejeeman!

I do not prefer others so very much before you either,

I do not say one word against you, away back there where you stand,

(You will come forward in due time to my side.)

 

13

My spirit has pass’d in compassion and determination around the whole earth,

I have look’d for equals and lovers and found them ready for me in

all lands,

I think some divine rapport has equalized me with them.

 

You vapors, I think I have risen with you, moved away to distant

continents, and fallen down there, for reasons,

I think I have blown with you you winds;

You waters I have finger’d every shore with you,

I have run through what any river or strait of the globe has run through,

I have taken my stand on the bases of peninsulas and on the high

embedded rocks, to cry thence:

 

What cities the light or warmth penetrates I penetrate those cities myself,

All islands to which birds wing their way I wing my way myself.

 

Toward you all, in America’s name,

I raise high the perpendicular hand, I make the signal,

To remain after me in sight forever,

For all the haunts and homes of men.

 

[BOOK VII]

 

} Song of the Open Road

 

1

Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,

Healthy, free, the world before me,

The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.

 

Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune,

Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,

Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms,

Strong and content I travel the open road.

 

The earth, that is sufficient,

I do not want the constellations any nearer,

I know they are very well where they are,

I know they suffice for those who belong to them.

 

(Still here I carry my old delicious burdens,

I carry them, men and women, I carry them with me wherever I go,

I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them,

I am fill’d with them, and I will fill them in return.)

 

2

You road I enter upon and look around, I believe you are not all

that is here,

I believe that much unseen is also here.

 

Here the profound lesson of reception, nor preference nor denial,

The black with his woolly head, the felon, the diseas’d, the

illiterate person, are not denied;

The birth, the hasting after the physician, the beggar’s tramp, the

drunkard’s stagger, the laughing party of mechanics,

The escaped youth, the rich person’s carriage, the fop, the eloping couple,

The early market-man, the hearse, the moving of furniture into the

town, the return back from the town,

They pass, I also pass, any thing passes, none can be interdicted,

None but are accepted, none but shall be dear to me.

 

3

You air that serves me with breath to speak!

You objects that call from diffusion my meanings and give them shape!

You light that wraps me and all things in delicate equable showers!

You paths worn in the irregular hollows by the roadsides!

I believe you are latent with unseen existences, you are so dear to me.

 

You flagg’d walks of the cities! you strong curbs at the edges!

You ferries! you planks and posts of wharves! you timber-lined

side! you distant ships!

You rows of houses! you window-pierc’d facades! you roofs!

You porches and entrances! you copings and iron guards!

You windows whose transparent shells might expose so much!

You doors and ascending steps! you arches!

You gray stones of interminable pavements! you trodden crossings!

From all that has touch’d you I believe you have imparted to

yourselves, and now would impart the same secretly to me,

From the living and the dead you have peopled your impassive surfaces,

and the spirits thereof would be evident and amicable with me.

 

4

The earth expanding right hand and left hand,

The picture alive, every part in its best light,

The music falling in where it is wanted, and stopping where it is

not wanted,

The cheerful voice of the public road, the gay fresh sentiment of the road.

 

O