I heard you, solemn-sweet pipes of the organ, as last Sunday morn I passed
the church;
Winds of autumn!—as I walked the woods at dusk, I heard your
long-stretched sighs, up above, so mournful;
I heard the perfect Italian tenor, singing at the opera—I heard the
soprano in the midst of the quartette singing.
—Heart of my love! you too I heard, murmuring low, through one of the
wrists around my head;
Heard the pulse of you, when all was still, ringing little bells last night
under my ear.

WHEREFORE?

O me! O life!—of the questions of these recurring;
Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities filled with the foolish;
Of myself for ever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and
who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light—of the objects mean—of the struggle
ever renewed;
Of the poor results of all—of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around
me;
Of the empty and useless years of the rest—with the rest me intertwined;
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?

ANSWER.

That you are here—that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.

QUESTIONABLE.

As I lay with my head in your lap, camerado,
The confession I made I resume—what I said to you and the open air I
resume.
I know I am restless, and make others so;
I know my words are weapons, full of danger, full of death;
(Indeed I am myself the real soldier;
It is not he, there, with his bayonet, and not the red-striped
artilleryman;)
For I confront peace, security, and all the settled laws, to unsettle them;
I am more resolute because all have denied me than I could ever have been
had all accepted me;
I heed not, and have never heeded, either experience, cautions, majorities,
nor ridicule;
And the threat of what is called hell is little or nothing to me;
And the lure of what is called heaven is little or nothing to me.
—Dear camerado! I confess I have urged you onward with me, and still urge
you, without the least idea what is our destination,
Or whether we shall be victorious, or utterly quelled and defeated.

SONG AT SUNSET.

1.

Splendour of ended day, floating and filling me!
Hour prophetic—hour resuming the past:
Inflating my throat—you, divine Average!
You, Earth and Life, till the last ray gleams, I sing.

2.

Open mouth of my soul, uttering gladness,
Eyes of my soul, seeing perfection,
Natural life of me, faithfully praising things;
Corroborating for ever the triumph of things.

3.

Illustrious every one!
Illustrious what we name space—sphere of unnumbered spirits;
Illustrious the mystery of motion, in all beings, even the tiniest insect;
Illustrious the attribute of speech—the senses—the body;
Illustrious the passing light! Illustrious the pale reflection on the new
moon in the western sky!
Illustrious whatever I see, or hear, or touch, to the last.

Good in all,
In the satisfaction and aplomb of animals,
In the annual return of the seasons,
In the hilarity of youth,
In the strength and flush of manhood,
In the grandeur and exquisiteness of old age,
In the superb vistas of Death.

Wonderful to depart;
Wonderful to be here!
The heart, to jet the all-alike and innocent blood,
To breathe the air, how delicious!
To speak! to walk! to seize something by the hand!
To prepare for sleep, for bed—to look on my rose-coloured flesh,
To be conscious of my body, so happy, so large,
To be this incredible God I am,
To have gone forth among other Gods—those men and women I love.

Wonderful how I celebrate you and myself!
How my thoughts play subtly at the spectacles around!
How the clouds pass silently overhead!

How the earth darts on and on! and how the sun, moon, stars, dart on and
on!
How the water sports and sings! (Surely it is alive!)
How the trees rise and stand up—with strong trunks—with branches and
leaves!
Surely there is something more in each of the trees—some living soul.

O amazement of things! even the least particle!
O spirituality of things!
O strain musical, flowing through ages and continents—now reaching me and
America!
I take your strong chords—I intersperse them, and cheerfully pass them
forward.

I too carol the sun, ushered, or at noon, or, as now, setting,
I too throb to the brain and beauty of the earth, and of all the growths of
the earth,
I too have felt the resistless call of myself.

As I sailed down the Mississippi,
As I wandered over the prairies,
As I have lived—As I have looked through my windows, my eyes,
As I went forth in the morning—As I beheld the light breaking in the east;
As I bathed on the beach of the Eastern Sea, and again on the beach of the
Western Sea;
As I roamed the streets of inland Chicago-whatever streets I have roamed;
Wherever I have been, I have charged myself with contentment and triumph.

I sing the Equalities;
I sing the endless finales of things;
I say Nature continues—Glory continues;
I praise with electric voice:
For I do not see one imperfection in the universe;
And I do not see one cause or result lamentable at last in the universe.

O setting sun! though the time has come,
I still warble under you unmitigated adoration.

LONGINGS FOR HOME.

O Magnet South! O glistening, perfumed South! my South! O quick mettle, rich blood, impulse, and love! good and evil! O all dear to me! O dear to me my birth-things—all moving things, and the trees where I was born,[1] the grains, plants, rivers; Dear to me my own slow, sluggish rivers, where they flow distant over flats of silvery sands or through swamps; Dear to me the Roanoke, the Savannah, the Altamahaw, the Pedee, the Tombigbee, the Santee, the Coosa, and the Sabine— O pensive, far away wandering, I return with my soul to haunt their banks again. Again in Florida I float on transparent lakes—I float on Okeechobee—I cross the hummock land, or through pleasant openings or dense forests. I see the parrots in the woods, I see the papaw-tree, and the blossoming titi. Again, sailing in my coaster, on deck, I coast off Georgia, I coast up the Carolinas; I see where the live-oak is growing—I see where the yellow-pine, the scented bay-tree, the lemon and orange, the cypress, the graceful palmetto. I pass rude sea-headlands, and enter Pamlico Sound through an inlet, and dart my vision inland; O the cotton plant! the growing fields of rice, sugar, hemp! The cactus, guarded with thorns—the laurel-tree, with large white flowers; The range afar—the richness and barrenness—the old woods charged with mistletoe and trailing moss, The piney odour and the gloom—the awful natural stillness, Here in these dense swamps the freebooter carries his gun, and the fugitive slave has his concealed hut; O the strange fascination of these half-known, half-impassable swamps, infested by reptiles, resounding with the bellow of the alligator, the sad noises of the night-owl and the wild-cat, and the whirr of the rattlesnake; The mocking-bird, the American mimic, singing all the forenoon—singing through the moon-lit night, The humming-bird, the wild-turkey, the raccoon, the opossum; A Tennessee corn-field—the tall, graceful, long-leaved corn—slender, flapping, bright green, with tassels—with beautiful ears, each well-sheathed in its husk; An Arkansas prairie—a sleeping lake, or still bayou. O my heart! O tender and fierce pangs—I can stand them not—I will depart! O to be a Virginian, where I grew up! O to be a Carolinian! O longings irrepressible! O I will go back to old Tennessee, and never wander more!

[Footnote 1: These expressions cannot be understood in a literal sense, for Whitman was born, not in the South, but in the State of New York. The precise sense to be attached to them may be open to some difference of opinion.]

APPEARANCES.

Of the terrible doubt of appearances,
Of the uncertainty after all—that we may be deluded,
That maybe reliance and hope are but speculations after all,
That maybe identity beyond the grave is a beautiful fable only,
Maybe the things I perceive—the animals, plants, men, hills, shining and
flowing waters,
The skies of day and night—colours, densities, forms—Maybe these are (as
doubtless they are) only apparitions, and the real something has
yet to be known;
(How often they dart out of themselves, as if to confound me and mock me!
How often I think neither I know, nor any man knows, aught of them!)
Maybe seeming to me what they are (as doubtless they indeed but seem) as
from my present point of view—And might prove (as of course they
would) naught of what they appear, or naught anyhow, from entirely
changed points of view;
—To me, these, and the like of these, are curiously answered by my lovers,
my dear friends.
When he whom I love travels with me, or sits a long while holding me by the
hand,
When the subtle air, the impalpable, the sense that words and reason hold
not, surround us and pervade us,
Then I am charged with untold and untellable wisdom—I am silent—I require
nothing further,
I cannot answer the question of appearances, or that of identity beyond the
grave;
But I walk or sit indifferent—I am satisfied,
He ahold of my hand has completely satisfied me.

THE FRIEND.

Recorders ages hence! Come, I will take you down underneath this impassive exterior—I will tell you what to say of me; Publish my name and hang up my picture as that of the tenderest lover, The friend, the lover's portrait, of whom his friend, his lover, was fondest, Who was not proud of his songs, but of the measureless ocean of love within him—and freely poured it forth, Who often walked lonesome walks, thinking of his dear friends, his lovers, Who pensive, away from one he loved, often lay sleepless and dissatisfied at night, Who knew too well the sick, sick dread lest the one he loved might secretly be indifferent to him, Whose happiest days were far away, through fields, in woods, on hills, he and another, wandering hand in hand, they twain, apart from other men, Who oft, as he sauntered the streets, curved with his arm the shoulder of his friend—while the arm of his friend rested upon him also.

MEETING AGAIN.

When I heard at the close of the day how my name had been received with
plaudits in the capitol, still it was not a happy night for me that
followed;
And else, when I caroused, or when my plans were accomplished, still I was
not happy.
But the day when I rose at dawn from the bed of perfect health, refreshed,
singing, inhaling the ripe breath of autumn,
When I saw the full moon in the west grow pale and disappear in the morning
light,
When I wandered alone over the beach, and undressing bathed, laughing with
the cool waters, and saw the sunrise,
And when I thought how my dear friend, my lover, was on his way coming, O
then I was happy;
O then each breath tasted sweeter—and all that day my food nourished me
more—and the beautiful day passed well,
And the next came with equal joy—and with the next, at evening, came my
friend;
And that night, while all was still, I heard the waters roll slowly
continually up the shores,
I heard the hissing rustle of the liquid and sands, as directed to me,
whispering, to congratulate me;
For the one I love most lay sleeping by me under the same cover in the cool
night,
In the stillness, in the autumn moonbeams, his face was inclined toward me,
And his arm lay lightly around my breast—and that night I was happy.

A DREAM.

Of him I love day and night, I dreamed I heard he was dead;
And I dreamed I went where they had buried him I love—but he was not in
that place;
And I dreamed I wandered, searching among burial-places, to find him;
And I found that every place was a burial-place;
The houses full of life were equally full of death, (this house is now;)
The streets, the shipping, the places of amusement, the Chicago, Boston,
Philadelphia, the Mannahatta, were as full of the dead as of the living,
And fuller, O vastly fuller, of the dead than of the living.
—And what I dreamed I will henceforth tell to every person and age,
And I stand henceforth bound to what I dreamed;
And now I am willing to disregard burial-places, and dispense with them;
And if the memorials of the dead were put up indifferently everywhere, even
in the room where I eat or sleep, I should be satisfied;
And if the corpse of any one I love, or if my own corpse, be duly rendered
to powder, and poured in the sea, I shall be satisfied;
Or if it be distributed to the winds, I shall be satisfied.

PARTING FRIENDS.

What think you I take my pen in hand to record?
The battle-ship, perfect-modelled, majestic, that I saw pass the offing to-
day under full sail?
The splendours of the past day? Or the splendour of the night that envelops
me?
Or the vaunted glory and growth of the great city spread around me?—No;
But I record of two simple men I saw to-day, on the pier, in the midst of
the crowd, parting the parting of dear friends;
The one to remain hung on the other's neck, and passionately kissed him,
While the one to depart tightly pressed the one to remain in his arms.

TO A STRANGER.

Passing stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you;
You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking (it comes to me, as of a
dream).
I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you.
All is recalled as we flit by each other, fluid, affectionate, chaste,
matured;
You grew up with me, were a boy with me, or a girl with me;
I ate with you, and slept with you—your body has become not yours only,
nor left my body mine only;
You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as we pass—you take of
my beard, breast, hands in return;
I am not to speak to you—I am to think of you when I sit alone, or wake at
night alone;
I am to wait—I do not doubt I am to meet you again;
I am to see to it that I do not lose you.

OTHER LANDS.

This moment yearning and thoughtful, sitting alone,
It seems to me there are other men in other lands, yearning and thoughtful;
It seems to me I can look over and behold them in Prussia, Italy, France,
Spain—or far, far away, in China, or in Russia or India—talking
other dialects;
And it seems to me, if I could know those men, I should become attached to
them, as I do to men in my own lands.
O I know we should be brethren and lovers;
I know I should be happy with them.

ENVY.

When I peruse the conquered fame of heroes, and the victories of mighty generals, I do not envy the generals, Nor the President in his Presidency, nor the rich in his great house.

But when I read of the brotherhood of lovers, how it was with them; How through life, through dangers, odium, unchanging, long and long, Through youth, and through middle and old age, how unfaltering, how affectionate and faithful they were, Then I am pensive—I hastily put down the book, and walk away, filled with the bitterest envy.

THE CITY OF FRIENDS.

I dreamed in a dream I saw a city invincible to the attacks of the whole of
the rest of the earth;
I dreamed that it was the new City of Friends;
Nothing was greater there than the quality of robust love—it led the rest;
It was seen every hour in the actions of the men of that city,
And in all their looks and words.

OUT OF THE CROWD.

1.

Out of the rolling ocean, the crowd, came a drop gently to me,
Whispering, I love you; before long I die:
I have travelled a long way, merely to look on you, to touch you:
For I could not die till I once looked on you,
For I feared I might afterward lose you.

2.

Now we have met, we have looked, we are safe;
Return in peace to the ocean, my love;
I too am part of that ocean, my love—we are not so much separated;
Behold the great rondure—the cohesion of all, how perfect!
But as for me, for you, the irresistible sea is to separate us,
As for an hour carrying us diverse—yet cannot carry us diverse for ever;
Be not impatient—a little space—know you, I salute the air, the ocean,
and the land,
Every day, at sundown, for your dear sake, my love.

AMONG THE MULTITUDE.

Among the men and women, the multitude,
I perceive one picking me out by secret and divine signs,
Acknowledging none else—not parent, wife, husband, brother, child, any
nearer than I am;
Some are baffled—But that one is not—that one knows me.

Ah, lover and perfect equal!
I meant that you should discover me so, by my faint indirections;
And I, when I meet you, mean to discover you by the like in you.