Section 7

I hear the violoncello (’tis the young man’s heart’s complaint ;”) I hear the key’d cornet*—it glides quickly in through my ears ; It shakes mad-sweet pangs through my belly and breast.
I hear the chorus—it is a grand opera ;* Ah, this indeed is music! This suits me.
A tenor large and fresh as the creation fills me ; The orbic flex of his mouth is pouring and filling me full.
I hear the train’d soprano’°—(what work, with hers, is this?) 600
The orchestra whirls me wider than Uranus flies ;
It wrenches such ardors from me, I did not know I possess’d them ;°
It sails me—I dab with bare feet lent waves ;
I am exposed, cut by bitter and angry’ hail—I lose my breath,®
Steep’d amid honey’d morphine, my windpipe throttled’ in fakes of death ;
At length” let up again to feel the puzzle of puzzles,
And that we call BEING.
they are lick’d by the indo-
1 ‘marching two and two’’ added in 1860.
2 1855 756’6o read ‘‘ or man’s heart complaint.’’
3 1855 reads ‘I hear the keyed cornet or else the echoes of sunset.’? ‘Tt glides,’’ etc., and line 595 added in 1356.
# 1855 ’56 add ‘‘this‘indeed is music,”’
5 1855 75660 read ‘‘she convulses me like the climax of my love-grip,”’
6 1855 reads ‘‘It wrenches unnamable ardors from my breast ; It throbs me to gulps of the farthest down horror.”’
1856 ’60 767 read ‘The orchestra wrenches,’’ etc.
7 1855 756 ’60 read ‘* poisoned hail.’’
8 «
9 1855756. For ‘‘throttled’’ read ‘‘ squeezed.”’
10 «¢ At length” added in 1860,
60 LEAVES OF GRASS
27 To be, in any form—what is that ? (Round and round we go, all of us, and ever come back
thither ; )' If nothing lay more develop’d, the quahaug in its callous shell were enough. 610
Mine is no callous shell ; I have instant conductors all over me, whether I pass or stop ; They seize every object and lead it harmlessly through me.
I merely stir, press, feel with my fingers, and am happy ; To touch my person to some one else’s is about as much as I can stand. 28
Is this then a touch ? quivering me to a new identity,
Flames and ether making a rush for my veins,
Treacherous tip of me reaching and crowding to help ther,
My flesh and blood playing out lightning to strike what is hardly different from myself ;
On all sides prurient provokers stiffening my limbs, 620
Straining the udder of my heart for its withheld drip,
Behaving licentious toward me, taking no denial,
Depriving me of my best, as for a purpose,
Unbuttoning my clothes, holding me by the bare waist,
Deluding my confusion with the calm of the sunlight and pasture- fields,
Immodestly sliding the fellow-senses away,
They bribed to swap off with touch, and go and graze at the edges of me ;
No consideration, no regard for my draining strength or my anger ;
Fetching the rest of the herd around to enjoy them a while,
Then all uniting to stand on a headland and worry me. 630
The sentries desert every other part of me; They have left me helpless to a red marauder ; They all come to the headland, to witness and assist against me.
I am given up by traitors ;
1 Line 609 added in 1860.
WALT WHITMAN 61
I talk wildly—I have lost my wits—I and nobody else am the greatest traitor ;
I went myself first to the headland—my own hands carried me there.
You villian touch! what are you doing? My breath is tight in its throat ; Unclench your floodgates !_ you are too much for me.
29 Blind, loving, wrestling touch ! sheath’d, hooded, sharp-tooth’d touch ! Did it make you ache so, leaving me? 640
Parting, track’d by arriving—perpetual payment of perpetual loan ; Rich, showering rain, and recompense richer afterward.
Sprouts take and accumulate—stand by the curb prolific and vital : Landscapes, projected, masculine, full-sized and golden.
30 All truths wait in all things ;
They neither hasten their own delivery, nor resist it ; They do not need the obstetric forceps of the surgeon ; The insignificant is as big to me as any ;
(What is less or more than a touch?)
Logic and sermons never convince ; 650 The damp of the night drives deeper into my soul.
Only what proves itself to every man and woman is so ; Only what nobody denies is so.
A minute and a drop of me settle my brain ;
I believe the soggy clods shall become lovers and lamps,
And a compend of compends is the meat of a man or woman,
And a summit and flower there is the feeling they have for each other,
And they are to branch boundlessly out of that lesson until it becomes omnific,
And until every one shall delight us, and we them.
62 LEAVES OF GRASS
31
I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars, 660
And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg of the wren,
And the tree-toad is a chef-d’ceuvre for the highest,
And the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven,
And the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery,
And the cow crunching with depress’d head surpasses any statue,
And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels,
And I could come every afternoon of my life to look at the farmer’s girl boiling her iron tea-kettle and baking short- cake.
I find I incorporate gneiss, coal, long-threaded moss, fruits, grains, esculent roots,
And am stucco’d with quadrupeds and birds all over,
And have distanced what is behind me for good reasons, 670
And call anything close again, when I desire it.
In vain the speeding or shyness ;
In vain the plutonic rocks send their old heat against my ap- proach ;
In vain the mastodon retreats beneath its own powder’d bones ;
In vain objects stand leagues off, and assume manifold shapes ;
In vain the ocean settling in hollows, and the great monsters lying low ;
In vain the buzzard houses herself with the sky ;
In vain the snake slides through the creepers and logs ;
In vain the elk takes to the inner passes of the woods ;
In vain the razor-bill’d auk sails far north to Labrador ; 680
I follow quickly, I ascend to the nest in the fissure of the cliff.
q
o)
I think I could turn and live with animals,’ they are so placid and self-contain’d ;
I stand and look at them long and long.’
1 1855 reads “live awhile with the animals,”’ ? 1855 756 read ‘‘I stand and look at them sometimes half the day long.”? 1860 reads “J stand and look at them sometimes an hour at a stretch,’?
WALT WHITMAN 63
They do not sweat and whine about their condition ;
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins ;
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God ;
Not one is dissatisfied—not one is demented with the mania of owning things ;
Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago;
Not one is respectable or industrious over the whole earth
So they show their relations to me, “and I accept them ; 690 They bring me tokens of myself—they evince them plainly in their possession.
I wonder where they get those tokens :?
Did I pass that way’ huge times ago, and negligently drop them ?
Myself moving forward then and now and forever,
Gathering and showing more always and with velocity,
Infinite and omnigenous, and the like of these among them ;
Not too exclusive toward the reachers of my remembrancers ;
Picking out here one’® that I love, and now go with him on brotherly terms.
A gigantic beauty of a stallion, fresh and responsive to my caresses,
Head high in the forehead, wide between the ears, . 700
Limbs glossy and supple, tail dusting the ground,
Eyes‘ full of sparkling wickedness—ears finely cut, flexibly
moving.
His nostrils dilate, as° my heels embrace him ; His well-built limbs tremble with pleasure, as we race® around
and return.
1 4855 756 read ‘‘I do not know where they got those tokens,’? 1860 reads “
2 1855 756760 read ‘I must have passed that way,’’ etc.
8 1855 reads ‘‘ Picking out here one that shall be my amie, chosing to go with him on brotherly terms.’? 1856 reads ‘‘ Picking out here one that I love, chosing to go with on brotherly terms.” 1860 reads ‘‘ Picking out here one that I love, chosing to go with on brotherly terms.’’
4 1855 °56 ’60 67 read ‘‘ Eyes well apart, full,’’ etc.
5 as”? added in 1860,
6 1855 75660 67 read ‘‘ speed,”
64 LEAVES OF GRASS
I but use you a moment, then I resign you, stallion ; Why do I need your paces, when I myself out-gallop them?’ / Even, as I stand or sit, passing faster than you.?
33
O swift wind! O space and time! now I see it is true, what I guessed at ;° What I guess’d when I loaf’d on the grass ;
What I guess’d while I lay alone in my bed, 710 And again as I walk’d the beach under the paling stars of the morning.
My ties and ballasts leave me—I travel—I sail—my elbows rest in the sea-gaps ;
I skirt the sierras—my palms cover continents ;
I am afoot with my vision.
By the city’s quadrangular houses—in log huts—camping with lumbermen ;
Along the ruts of the turnpike—along the dry gulch and rivulet bed ;
Weeding my onion-patch,* or hoeing rows of carrots and pars- nips—crossing savannas—trailing in forests ;
Prospecting—gold-digging—girdling the trees of a new pur- chase ;
Scorch’d ankle-deep by the hot sand—hauling my boat down the shallow river ;
Where the panther walks to and fro on a limb overhead—where the buck turns furiously at the hunter ; 720
Where the rattlesnake suns his flabby length on a rock—where the otter is feeding on fish ;
Where the alligator in his tough pimples sleeps by the bayou ; Where the black bear is searching for roots or honey—where the beaver pats the mud with his paddle-shaped? tail ;
Over the growing sugar—over the yellow-flower’d® cotton plant —over the rice in its low moist field ;
1 1855 reads ‘‘ And do not need your paces, and out-gallop them,”
? 1855 reads ‘‘ And myself as I stand or sit pass faster than you.” 1856 reads ‘‘ Myself as I stand or sit passing faster than you.”’
8 1855 756 60 read ‘* Swift wind! Space! My Soul! Now I know it is true what I guessed at.”
4 1855 reads '‘‘ Hoeing my onion-patch, and rows of carrots,” etc,
5
6 « yellow-flowered’’ added in 1867,
WALT WHITMAN 65
Over the sharp-peak’d farm house, with its scallop’ d scum and slender shoots from the gutters ;
Over the western persimmon—over the long-leav’d corn—over the delicate blue-flower flax ;
Over the white and brown buckwheat, a hummer and buzzer there with the rest ;
Over the dusky green of the rye as it ripples and shades in the breeze ;
Scaling mountains, pulling myself cautiously up, holding on by low scragged limbs ;
Walking the path worn in the grass, and beat through the leaves
of the brush ; 730 Where the quail is whistling betwixt the woods and the wheat- lot ;
Where the bat flies in the Seventh-month! eve—where the great gold-bug drops through the dark ;
Where flails keep time on the barn floor :
Where the brook puts out of the roots of the old tree and flows to the meadow ;
Where cattle stand and shake away flies with the tremulous shuddering of their hides ;
Where the cheese-cloth hangs in the kitchen—where andirons straddle the hearth-slab—where cobwebs fall in festoons from the rafters ;
Where trip-hammers crash—where the press is whirling its cyl- inders ;
Wherever the human heart beats with terrible throes under its ribs ;?
Where the pear-shaped balloon is floating aloft, (floating in it myself, and looking composedly down ;)
Where the life-car is drawn on the slip-noose—where the heat hatches pale-green eggs in the dented sand ; 740
Where the she-whale swims with her calf, and never forsakes it ;
Where the steam-ship trails hind-ways its long pennant of smoke ;
Where the fin of the shark: cuts’ like a black chip out of the water ;
Where the half- burn’d brig is riding on unknown currents,
Where shells grow to her ‘slimy deck—where the dead are cor- rupting below ;
11855 756 read ‘‘ July eve.’ ? 1855 oy 60 ’67 read ¢¢ out oo its ribs.” 3 1855 756 read ‘* Where the ground-shark’s fin cuts,”’ etc. 5
66 LEAVES OF GRASS
Where the dense-starr’d! flag is borne at the head of the regi- ments ;
Approaching Manhattan, up by the long-stretching island ;
Under Niagara, the cataract falling like a veil over my counte- nance ;
Upon a door-step—upon the horse-block of hard wood outside ;
Upon the race-course, or enjoying picnics or jigs, or a good game of base-ball ; 750
At he-festivals, with blackguard jibes, ironical license, bull- dances, drinking, laughter ;
At the cider-mill, tasting the sweets of the brown mash,’ sucking the juice through a straw ;
At apple-peelings, wanting kisses for all the red fruit I find ;
At musters, beach-parties, friendly bees, huskings, house-raisings :
Where the mocking-bird sounds his delicious gurgles, cackles, screams, Weeps ;
Where the hay-rick stands in the barn-yard—where the dry-stalks are scattered—where the brood-cow waits in the hovel;
Where the bull advances to do his masculine work—where the stud to the mare—where the cock is treading the hen ;
Where the heifers browse—where geese nip their food with short jerks ;
Where sun-down shadows lengthen over the limitless and lone- some prairie ;
Where herds of buffalo make a crawling spread of the square miles far and near ; 760
Where the humming-bird shimmers—where the neck of the long- lived swan is curving and winding ;
Where the laughing-gull scoots by the® shore, where she laughs her near-human laugh ;
Where bee-hives range on a gray bench in the garden, half hid by the high weeds ;
Where band-neck’d partridges roost in a ring on the ground with their heads out ;
Where burial coaches enter the arch’d gates of a cemetery ;
Where winter wolves bark amid wastes of snow and icicled trees :
Where the yellow-crown’d heron comes to the edge of the marsh at night and feeds upon small crabs ;
Where the splash of swimmers and divers cools the warm noon ;
1 1855 ’56 ’60 read ‘‘ Where the striped and starred flag,”’ etc. 2 1855 756 ’60 read ‘*squash.”’ * 1855 reads ‘by the slappy shore and laughs,’’ etc.
=
ke WALT WHITMAN 67
Where the katy-did works her chromatic reed on the walnut-tree over the well ;
Through patches of citrons and cucumbers with silver-wired leaves ; 770
Through the salt-lick or orange glade, or under conical firs ;
Through the gymnasium—through the curtain’d saloon—through the office or public hall ;
Pleas’d with the native, and pleas’d with the foreign—pleas’d with the new and old;
Pleas’d with women, the homely as well as the handsome ;
Pleas’d with the quakeress as she puts off her bonnet and talks melodiously ;
Pleas’d with the’ tune of the choir of the white-wash’d church ;
Pleas’ d with the earnest words of the sweating Methodist preacher, or any preacher—impress’d’ seriously at the camp-meet- ing:
Looking in at the shop-windows of Broadway the whole forenoon —flatting® the flesh of my nose on the thick plate-glass ;
Wandering the same afternoon with my face turn’d up to the
clouds, My right and left arms round the sides of two friends, and I in the middle: 780
Coming home with the silent* and dark-cheek’d bush-boy—(be- hind me he rides at the drape of the day ;)
Far from the settlements, studying the print of animals’ feet, or the moccasin print ;
By the cot in the hospital, reaching lemonade to a feverish patient ;
Nigh’ the coffin’d corpse when all is still, examining with a candle :
Voyaging to every port, to dicker and adventure ;
Hurrying with the modern crowd, as eager and fickle as any ;
Hot toward one I hate, | ready in my madness to knife him;
Solitary at midnight in my back yard, my thoughts gone "from
oo . me a long while ;
f "Walking the old hills of Judea, with the beautiful gentle God
by my side ; Speeding through space—speeding through heaven and the stars ; 790°
1 1855 reads ‘‘ primitive tunes.’ Sg 2 1855 ’56 read ‘looking seriously,” {
o
1855 756 read ‘‘pressing.”’ 4 1855 756 read “bearded.” 5 1855 756 ’60 read ‘ By the coffin’d,”’ etc.
her ahd LEAVES OF GRASS
Speeding amid the seven satellites, and the broad ring, and the diameter of eighty thousand miles ;
Speeding with tail’d meteors—throwing fire-balls like the rest ;
Carrying the crescent child that carries its own full mother in its belly ;
Storming, enjoying, planning, loving, cautioning,
Backing and filling, appearing and disappearing ;
I tread day and night such roads.
( I visit the orchards of spheres,’ and look at the product : “And look at quintillions ripen’d, and look at quintillions green.
I fly the flight of the fluid and swallowing soul ; My course runs below the soundings of plummets. 800