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

and weeper, the dancer, the midnight widow, the red squaw,

The consumptive, the erysipalite, the idiot, he that is wrong’d,

The antipodes, and every one between this and them in the dark,

I swear they are averaged now—one is no better than the other,

The night and sleep have liken’d them and restored them.

 

I swear they are all beautiful,

Every one that sleeps is beautiful, every thing in the dim light is

beautiful,

The wildest and bloodiest is over, and all is peace.

 

Peace is always beautiful,

The myth of heaven indicates peace and night.

 

The myth of heaven indicates the soul,

The soul is always beautiful, it appears more or it appears less, it

comes or it lags behind,

It comes from its embower’d garden and looks pleasantly on itself

and encloses the world,

Perfect and clean the genitals previously jetting,and perfect and

clean the womb cohering,

The head well-grown proportion’d and plumb, and the bowels and

joints proportion’d and plumb.

 

The soul is always beautiful,

The universe is duly in order, every thing is in its place,

What has arrived is in its place and what waits shall be in its place,

The twisted skull waits, the watery or rotten blood waits,

The child of the glutton or venerealee waits long, and the child of

the drunkard waits long, and the drunkard himself waits long,

The sleepers that lived and died wait, the far advanced are to go on

in their turns, and the far behind are to come on in their turns,

The diverse shall be no less diverse, but they shall flow and unite—

they unite now.

 

8

The sleepers are very beautiful as they lie unclothed,

They flow hand in hand over the whole earth from east to west as

they lie unclothed,

The Asiatic and African are hand in hand, the European and American

are hand in hand,

Learn’d and unlearn’d are hand in hand, and male and female are hand

in hand,

The bare arm of the girl crosses the bare breast of her lover, they

press close without lust, his lips press her neck,

The father holds his grown or ungrown son in his arms with

measureless love, and the son holds the father in his arms with

measureless love,

The white hair of the mother shines on the white wrist of the daughter,

The breath of the boy goes with the breath of the man, friend is

inarm’d by friend,

The scholar kisses the teacher and the teacher kisses the scholar,

the wrong ‘d made right,

The call of the slave is one with the master’s call, and the master

salutes the slave,

The felon steps forth from the prison, the insane becomes sane, the

suffering of sick persons is reliev’d,

The sweatings and fevers stop, the throat that was unsound is sound,

the lungs of the consumptive are resumed, the poor distress’d

head is free,

The joints of the rheumatic move as smoothly as ever, and smoother

than ever,

Stiflings and passages open, the paralyzed become supple,

The swell’d and convuls’d and congested awake to themselves in condition,

They pass the invigoration of the night and the chemistry of the

night, and awake.

 

I too pass from the night,

I stay a while away O night, but I return to you again and love you.

 

Why should I be afraid to trust myself to you?

I am not afraid, I have been well brought forward by you,

I love the rich running day, but I do not desert her in whom I lay so long,

I know not how I came of you and I know not where I go with you, but

I know I came well and shall go well.

 

I will stop only a time with the night, and rise betimes,

I will duly pass the day O my mother, and duly return to you.

 

} Transpositions

 

Let the reformers descend from the stands where they are forever

bawling—let an idiot or insane person appear on each of the stands;

Let judges and criminals be transposed—let the prison-keepers be

put in prison—let those that were prisoners take the keys;

Let them that distrust birth and death lead the rest.

 

[BOOK XXIX]

 

} To Think of Time

 

1

To think of time—of all that retrospection,

To think of to-day, and the ages continued henceforward.

 

Have you guess’d you yourself would not continue?

Have you dreaded these earth-beetles?

Have you fear’d the future would be nothing to you?

 

Is to-day nothing? is the beginningless past nothing?

If the future is nothing they are just as surely nothing.

 

To think that the sun rose in the east—that men and women were

flexible, real, alive—that every thing was alive,

To think that you and I did not see, feel, think, nor bear our part,

To think that we are now here and bear our part.

 

2

Not a day passes, not a minute or second without an accouchement,

Not a day passes, not a minute or second without a corpse.

 

The dull nights go over and the dull days also,

The soreness of lying so much in bed goes over,

The physician after long putting off gives the silent and terrible

look for an answer,

The children come hurried and weeping, and the brothers and sisters

are sent for,

Medicines stand unused on the shelf, (the camphor-smell has long

pervaded the rooms,)

The faithful hand of the living does not desert the hand of the dying,

The twitching lips press lightly on the forehead of the dying,

The breath ceases and the pulse of the heart ceases,

The corpse stretches on the bed and the living look upon it,

It is palpable as the living are palpable.

 

The living look upon the corpse with their eyesight,

But without eyesight lingers a different living and looks curiously

on the corpse.

 

3

To think the thought of death merged in the thought of materials,

To think of all these wonders of city and country, and others taking

great interest in them, and we taking no interest in them.

 

To think how eager we are in building our houses,

To think others shall be just as eager, and we quite indifferent.

 

(I see one building the house that serves him a few years, or

seventy or eighty years at most,

I see one building the house that serves him longer than that.)

 

Slow-moving and black lines creep over the whole earth—they never

cease—they are the burial lines,

He that was President was buried, and he that is now President shall

surely be buried.

 

4

A reminiscence of the vulgar fate,

A frequent sample of the life and death of workmen,

Each after his kind.

 

Cold dash of waves at the ferry-wharf, posh and ice in the river,

half-frozen mud in the streets,

A gray discouraged sky overhead, the short last daylight of December,

A hearse and stages, the funeral of an old Broadway stage-driver,

the cortege mostly drivers.

 

Steady the trot to the cemetery, duly rattles the death-bell,

The gate is pass’d, the new-dug grave is halted at, the living

alight, the hearse uncloses,

The coffin is pass’d out, lower’d and settled, the whip is laid on

the coffin, the earth is swiftly shovel’d in,

The mound above is flatted with the spades—silence,

A minute—no one moves or speaks—it is done,

He is decently put away—is there any thing more?

 

He was a good fellow, free-mouth’d, quick-temper’d, not bad-looking,

Ready with life or death for a friend, fond of women, gambled, ate

hearty, drank hearty,

Had known what it was to be flush, grew low-spirited toward the

last, sicken’d, was help’d by a contribution,

Died, aged forty-one years—and that was his funeral.

 

Thumb extended, finger uplifted, apron, cape, gloves, strap,

wet-weather clothes, whip carefully chosen,

Boss, spotter, starter, hostler, somebody loafing on you, you

loafing on somebody, headway, man before and man behind,

Good day’s work, bad day’s work, pet stock, mean stock, first out,

last out, turning-in at night,

To think that these are so much and so nigh to other drivers, and he

there takes no interest in them.

 

5

The markets, the government, the working-man’s wages, to think what

account they are through our nights and days,

To think that other working-men will make just as great account of

them, yet we make little or no account.

 

The vulgar and the refined, what you call sin and what you call

goodness, to think how wide a difference,

To think the difference will still continue to others, yet we lie

beyond the difference.

 

To think how much pleasure there is,

Do you enjoy yourself in the city? or engaged in business? or

planning a nomination and election? or with your wife and family?

Or with your mother and sisters? or in womanly housework? or the

beautiful maternal cares?

These also flow onward to others, you and I flow onward,

But in due time you and I shall take less interest in them.

 

Your farm, profits, crops—to think how engross’d you are,

To think there will still be farms, profits, crops, yet for you of

what avail?

 

6

What will be will be well, for what is is well,

To take interest is well, and not to take interest shall be well.

 

The domestic joys, the dally housework or business, the building of

houses, are not phantasms, they have weight, form, location,

Farms, profits, crops, markets, wages, government, are none of them

phantasms,

The difference between sin and goodness is no delusion,

The earth is not an echo, man and his life and all the things of his

life are well-consider’d.

 

You are not thrown to the winds, you gather certainly and safely

around yourself,

Yourself! yourself!. yourself, for ever and ever!

 

7

It is not to diffuse you that you were born of your mother and

father, it is to identify you,

It is not that you should be undecided, but that you should be decided,

Something long preparing and formless is arrived and form’d in you,

You are henceforth secure, whatever comes or goes.

 

The threads that were spun are gather’d, the wet crosses the warp,

the pattern is systematic.

 

The preparations have every one been justified,

The orchestra have sufficiently tuned their instruments, the baton

has given the signal.

 

The guest that was coming, he waited long, he is now housed,

He is one of those who are beautiful and happy, he is one of those

that to look upon and be with is enough.

 

The law of the past cannot be eluded,

The law of the present and future cannot be eluded,

The law of the living cannot be eluded, it is eternal,

The law of promotion and transformation cannot be eluded,

The law of heroes and good-doers cannot be eluded,

The law of drunkards, informers, mean persons, not one iota thereof

can be eluded.

 

8

Slow moving and black lines go ceaselessly over the earth,

Northerner goes carried and Southerner goes carried, and they on the

Atlantic side and they on the Pacific,

And they between, and all through the Mississippi country, and all

over the earth.

 

The great masters and kosmos are well as they go, the heroes and

good-doers are well,

The known leaders and inventors and the rich owners and pious and

distinguish’d may be well,

But there is more account than that, there is strict account of all.

 

The interminable hordes of the ignorant and wicked are not nothing,

The barbarians of Africa and Asia are not nothing,

The perpetual successions of shallow people are not nothing as they go.

 

Of and in all these things,

I have dream’d that we are not to be changed so much, nor