1.
Is reform needed? Is it through you? The greater the reform needed, the greater the PERSONALITY you need to accomplish it.
You! do you not see how it would serve to have eyes, blood, complexion,
clean and sweet?
Do you not see how it would serve to have such a Body and Soul that, when
you enter the crowd, an atmosphere of desire and command enters
with you, and every one is impressed with your personality?
2.
O the magnet! the flesh over and over!
Go, dear friend! if need be, give up all else, and commence to-day to inure
yourself to pluck, reality, self-esteem, definiteness,
elevatedness;
Rest not, till you rivet and publish yourself of your own personality.
LINKS.
1.
Think of the Soul;
I swear to you that body of yours gives proportions to your Soul somehow to
live in other spheres;
I do not know how, but I know it is so.
2.
Think of loving and being loved; I swear to you, whoever you are, you can interfuse yourself with such things that everybody that sees you shall look longingly upon you.
3.
Think of the past; I warn you that, in a little while, others will find their past in you and your times.
The race is never separated—nor man nor woman escapes; All is inextricable—things, spirits, nature, nations, you too—from precedents you come.
Recall the ever-welcome defiers (the mothers precede them);
Recall the sages, poets, saviours, inventors, lawgivers, of the earth;
Recall Christ, brother of rejected persons—brother of slaves, felons,
idiots, and of insane and diseased persons.
4.
Think of the time when you was not yet born;
Think of times you stood at the side of the dying;
Think of the time when your own body will be dying.
Think of spiritual results: Sure as the earth swims through the heavens, does every one of its objects pass into spiritual results.
Think of manhood, and you to be a man;
Do you count manhood, and the sweet of manhood, nothing?
Think of womanhood, and you to be a woman;
The creation is womanhood;
Have I not said that womanhood involves all?
Have I not told how the universe has nothing better than the best
womanhood?
THE WATERS.
The world below the brine. Forests at the bottom of the sea—the branches and leaves, Sea-lettuce, vast lichens, strange flowers and seeds—the thick tangle, the openings, and the pink turf, Different colours, pale grey and green, purple, white, and gold—the play of light through the water, Dumb swimmers there among the rocks—coral, gluten, grass, rushes—and the aliment of the swimmers, Sluggish existences grazing there, suspended, or slowly crawling close to the bottom: The sperm-whale at the surface, blowing air and spray, or disporting with his flukes, The leaden-eyed shark, the walrus, the turtle, the hairy sea-leopard, and the sting-ray. Passions there, wars, pursuits, tribes—sight in those ocean-depths— breathing that thick breathing air, as so many do. The change thence to the sight here, and to the subtle air breathed by beings like us, who walk this sphere: The change onward from ours to that of beings who walk other spheres.
TO THE STATES.
TO IDENTIFY THE SIXTEENTH, SEVENTEENTH, OR EIGHTEENTH PRESIDENTIAD.[1]
Why reclining, interrogating? Why myself and all drowsing?
What deepening twilight! Scum floating atop of the waters!
Who are they, as bats and night-dogs, askant in the Capitol?
What a filthy Presidentiad! (O South, your torrid suns! O North, your
Arctic freezings!)
Are those really Congressmen? Are those the great Judges? Is that the
President?
Then I will sleep a while yet—for I see that these States sleep, for
reasons.
With gathering murk—with muttering thunder and lambent shoots, we all duly
awake, South, North, East, West, inland and seaboard, we will
surely awake.
[Footnote 1: These were the three Presidentships of Polk; of Taylor, succeeded by Fillmore; and of Pierce;—1845 to 1857.]
TEARS.
Tears! tears! tears!
In the night, in solitude, tears;
On the white shore dripping, dripping, sucked in by the sand;
Tears—not a star shining—all dark and desolate;
Moist tears from the eyes of a muffled head:
—O who is that ghost?—that form in the dark, with tears?
What shapeless lump is that, bent, crouched there on the sand?
Streaming tears—sobbing tears—throes, choked with wild cries;
O storm, embodied, rising, careering, with swift steps along the beach;
O wild and dismal night-storm, with wind! O belching and desperate!
O shade, so sedate and decorous by day, with calm countenance and regulated
pace;
But away, at night, as you fly, none looking—O then the unloosened ocean
Of tears! tears! tears!
A SHIP.
1.
Aboard, at the ship's helm,
A young steersman, steering with care.
A bell through fog on a sea-coast dolefully ringing,
An ocean-bell—O a warning bell, rocked by the waves.
O you give good notice indeed, you bell by the sea-reefs ringing,
Ringing, ringing, to warn the ship from its wreck-place.
For, as on the alert, O steersman, you mind the bell's admonition,
The bows turn,—the freighted ship, tacking, speeds away under her grey
sails;
The beautiful and noble ship, with all her precious wealth, speeds away
gaily and safe.
2.
But O the ship, the immortal ship! O ship aboard the ship!
O ship of the body—ship of the soul—voyaging, voyaging, voyaging.
GREATNESS.
1.
Great are the myths—I too delight in them;
Great are Adam and Eve—I too look back and accept them;
Great the risen and fallen nations, and their poets, women, sages,
inventors, rulers, warriors, and priests.
Great is Liberty! great is Equality! I am their follower;
Helmsmen of nations, choose your craft! where you sail, I sail,
I weather it out with you, or sink with you.
Great is Youth—equally great is Old Age—great are the Day and Night;
Great is Wealth—great is Poverty—great is Expression—great is Silence.
2.
Youth, large, lusty, loving—Youth, full of grace, force, fascination! Do you know that Old Age may come after you, with equal grace, force, fascination?
Day, full-blown and splendid—Day of the immense sun, action, ambition,
laughter,
The Night follows close, with millions of suns, and sleep, and restoring
darkness.
Wealth, with the flush hand, fine clothes, hospitality;
But then the soul's wealth, which is candour, knowledge, pride, enfolding
love;
Who goes for men and women showing Poverty richer than wealth?
Expression of speech! in what is written or said, forget not that Silence
is also expressive;
That anguish as hot as the hottest, and contempt as cold as the coldest,
may be without words.
3.
Great is the Earth, and the way it became what it is: Do you imagine it has stopped at this? the increase abandoned? Understand then that it goes as far onward from this as this is from the times when it lay in covering waters and gases, before man had appeared.
4.
Great is the quality of Truth in man;
The quality of truth in man supports itself through all changes;
It is inevitably in the man—he and it are in love, and never leave each
other.
The truth in man is no dictum, it is vital as eyesight; If there be any Soul, there is truth—if there be man or woman, there is truth—if there be physical or moral, there is truth; If there be equilibrium or volition, there is truth—if there be things at all upon the earth, there is truth.
O truth of the earth! O truth of things! I am determined to press my way
toward you;
Sound your voice! I scale mountains, or dive in the sea, after you.
5.
Great is Language—it is the mightiest of the sciences, It is the fulness, colour, form, diversity of the earth, and of men and women, and of all qualities and processes; It is greater than wealth, it is greater than buildings, ships, religions, paintings, music.
Great is the English speech—what speech is so great as the English?
Great is the English brood—what brood has so vast a destiny as the
English?
It is the mother of the brood that must rule the earth with the new rule;
The new rule shall rule as the Soul rules, and as the love, justice,
equality in the Soul rule.
6.
Great is Law—great are the old few landmarks of the law,
They are the same in all times, and shall not be disturbed.
Great is Justice!
Justice is not settled by legislators and laws—it is in the Soul;
It cannot be varied by statutes, any more than love, pride, the attraction
of gravity, can;
It is immutable—it does not depend on majorities—majorities or what not
come at last before the same passionless and exact tribunal.
For justice are the grand natural lawyers, and perfect judges—it is in
their souls;
It is well assorted—they have not studied for nothing—the great includes
the less;
They rule on the highest grounds—they oversee all eras, states,
administrations.
The perfect judge fears nothing—he could go front to front before God; Before the perfect judge all shall stand back—life and death shall stand back—heaven and hell shall stand back.
7.
Great is Life, real and mystical, wherever and whoever; Great is Death—sure as Life holds all parts together, Death holds all parts together.
Has Life much purport?—Ah! Death has the greatest purport.
THE POET.
1.
Now list to my morning's romanza;
To the cities and farms I sing, as they spread in the sunshine before me.
2.
A young man came to me bearing a message from his brother;
How should the young man know the whether and when of his brother?
Tell him to send me the signs.
And I stood before the young man face to face, and took his right hand in
my left hand, and his left hand in my right hand,
And I answered for his brother, and for men, and I answered for THE POET,
and sent these signs.
Him all wait for—him all yield up to—his word is decisive and final,
Him they accept, in him lave, in him perceive themselves, as amid light,
Him they immerse, and he immerses them.
Beautiful women, the haughtiest nations, laws, the landscape, people,
animals,
The profound earth and its attributes, and the unquiet ocean (so tell I my
morning's romanza),
All enjoyments and properties, and money, and whatever money will buy,
The best farms—others toiling and planting, and he unavoidably reaps,
The noblest and costliest cities—others grading and building, and he
domiciles there,
Nothing for any one but what is for him—near and far are for him,—the
ships in the offing,
The perpetual shows and marches on land, are for him, if they are for
anybody.
He puts things in their attitudes; He puts to-day out of himself, with plasticity and love; He places his own city, times, reminiscences, parents, brothers and sisters, associations, employment, politics, so that the rest never shame them afterward, nor assume to command them.
He is the answerer; What can be answered he answers—and what cannot be answered, he shows how it cannot be answered.
3.
A man is a summons and challenge; (It is vain to skulk—Do you hear that mocking and laughter? Do you hear the ironical echoes?)
Books, friendships, philosophers, priests, action, pleasure, pride, beat up
and down, seeking to give satisfaction;
He indicates the satisfaction, and indicates them that beat up and down
also.
Whichever the sex, whatever the season or place, he may go freshly and
gently and safely, by day or by night;
He has the pass-key of hearts—to him the response of the prying of hands
on the knobs.
His welcome is universal—the flow of beauty is not more welcome or universal than he is; The person he favours by day or sleeps with at night is blessed.
Every existence has its idiom—everything has an idiom and tongue; He resolves all tongues into his own, and bestows it upon men, and any man translates, and any man translates himself also; One part does not counteract another part—he is the joiner—he sees how they join.
He says indifferently and alike, "How are you, friend?" to the President
at his levee,
And he says, "Good-day, my brother!" to Cudge that hoes in the sugar-
field,
And both understand him, and know that his speech is right.
He walks with perfect ease in the Capitol, He walks among the Congress, and one representative says to another, "Here is our equal, appearing and new."
4.
Then the mechanics take him for a mechanic,
And the soldiers suppose him to be a soldier, and the sailors that he has
followed the sea,
And the authors take him for an author, and the artists for an artist,
And the labourers perceive he could labour with them and love them;
No matter what the work is, that he is the one to follow it, or has
followed it,
No matter what the nation, that he might find his brothers and sisters
there.
The English believe he comes of their English stock, A Jew to the Jew he seems—a Russ to the Russ—usual and near, removed from none.
Whoever he looks at in the travellers' coffee-house claims him;
The Italian or Frenchman is sure, and the German is sure, and the Spaniard
is sure, and the island Cuban is sure;
The engineer, the deck-hand on the great lakes, or on the Mississippi, or
St. Lawrence, or Sacramento, or Hudson, or Paumanok Sound, claims him.
The gentleman of perfect blood acknowledges his perfect blood;
The insulter, the prostitute, the angry person, the beggar, see themselves
in the ways of him—he strangely transmutes them,
They are not vile any more—they hardly know themselves, they are so grown.
BURIAL.
1.
To think of it!
To think of time—of all that retrospection!
To think of to-day, and the ages continued henceforward!
Have you guessed you yourself would not continue?
Have you dreaded these earth-beetles?
Have you feared 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 everything 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 that the rivers will flow, and the snow fall, and the fruits
ripen, and act upon others as upon us now—yet not act upon us!
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.
Gold dash of waves at the ferry-wharf—posh and ice in the river, half- frozen mud in the streets, a grey discouraged sky overhead, the short last daylight of Twelfth-month, A hearse and stages—other vehicles give place—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
passed, the new-dug grave is halted at, the living alight, the
hearse uncloses,
The coffin is passed out, lowered, and settled, the whip is laid on the
coffin, the earth is swiftly shovelled in,
The mound above is flattened with the spades—silence,
A minute, no one moves or speaks—it is done,
He is decently put away—is there anything more?
He was a good fellow, free-mouthed, quick-tempered, not bad-looking, able to take his own part, witty, sensitive to a slight, 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, sickened, was helped 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!
Have you pleasure from looking at the sky? have you pleasure from poems?
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 fly onward,
But in due time you and I shall take less interest in them.
Your farm, profits, crops,—to think how engrossed 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 sky continues beautiful, The pleasure of men with women shall never be sated, nor the pleasure of women with men, nor the pleasure from poems; The domestic joys, the daily housework or business, the building of houses—these 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-considered.
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 formed in you,
You are henceforth secure, whatever comes or goes.
The threads that were spun are gathered, the weft 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, for reasons—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
distinguished, 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 common people of Europe are not nothing—the American aborigines are
not nothing,
The infected in the immigrant hospital are not nothing—the murderer or
mean person is not nothing,
The perpetual successions of shallow people are not nothing as they go,
The lowest prostitute is not nothing—the mocker of religion is not nothing
as he goes.
9.
I shall go with the rest—we have satisfaction,
I have dreamed that we are not to be changed so much, nor the law of us
changed,
I have dreamed that heroes and good-doers shall be under the present and
past law,
And that murderers, drunkards, liars, shall be under the present and past
law,
For I have dreamed that the law they are under now is enough.
And I have dreamed that the satisfaction is not so much changed, and that there is no life without satisfaction; What is the earth? what are Body and Soul without satisfaction?
I shall go with the rest,
We cannot be stopped at a given point—that is no satisfaction,
To show us a good thing, or a few good things, for a space of time—that is
no satisfaction,
We must have the indestructible breed of the best, regardless of time.
If otherwise, all these things came but to ashes of dung,
If maggots and rats ended us, then alarum! for we are betrayed!
Then indeed suspicion of death.
Do you suspect death? If I were to suspect death, I should die now:
Do you think I could walk pleasantly and well-suited toward annihilation?
10.
Pleasantly and well-suited I walk:
Whither I walk I cannot define, but I know it is good;
The whole universe indicates that it is good,
The past and the present indicate that it is good.
How beautiful and perfect are the animals! How perfect is my Soul!
How perfect the earth, and the minutest thing upon it!
What is called good is perfect, and what is called bad is just as perfect,
The vegetables and minerals are all perfect, and the imponderable fluids
are perfect;
Slowly and surely they have passed on to this, and slowly and surely they
yet pass on.
My Soul! if I realise you, I have satisfaction;
Animals and vegetables! if I realise you, I have satisfaction;
Laws of the earth and air! if I realise you, I have satisfaction.
I cannot define my satisfaction, yet it is so;
I cannot define my life, yet it is so.
11.
It comes to me now!
I swear I think now that everything without exception has an eternal soul!
The trees have, rooted in the ground! the weeds of the sea have! the
animals!
I swear I think there is nothing but immortality! That the exquisite scheme is for it, and the nebulous float is for it, and the cohering is for it; And all preparation is for it! and identity is for it! and life and death are altogether for it!
THIS COMPOST.
1.
Something startles me where I thought I was safest;
I withdraw from the still woods I loved;
I will not go now on the pastures to walk;
I will not strip the clothes from my body to meet my lover the sea;
I will not touch my flesh to the earth, as to other flesh, to renew me.
2.
O how can the ground not sicken?
How can you be alive, you growths of spring?
How can you furnish health, you blood of herbs, roots, orchards, grain?
Are they not continually putting distempered corpses in you?
Is not every continent worked over and over with sour dead?
Where have you disposed of their carcasses?
Those drunkards and gluttons of so many generations;
Where have you drawn off all the foul liquid and meat?
I do not see any of it upon you to-day—or perhaps I am deceived;
I will run a furrow with my plough—I will press my spade through the sod,
and turn it up underneath;
I am sure I shall expose some of the foul meat.
3.
Behold this compost! behold it well!
Perhaps every mite has once formed part of a sick person—Yet behold!
The grass covers the prairies,
The bean bursts noiselessly through the mould in the garden,
The delicate spear of the onion pierces upward,
The apple-buds cluster together on the apple branches,
The resurrection of the wheat appears with pale visage out of its graves,
The tinge awakes over the willow-tree and the mulberry-tree,
The he-birds carol mornings and evenings, while the she-birds sit on their
nests,
The young of poultry break through the hatched eggs,
The new-born of animals appear—the calf is dropped from the cow, the colt
from the mare,
Out of its little hill faithfully rise the potato's dark-green leaves,
Out of its hill rises the yellow maize-stalk;
The summer growth is innocent and disdainful above all those strata of sour
dead.
What chemistry!
That the winds are really not infectious,
That this is no cheat, this transparent green-wash of the sea, which is so
amorous after me;
That it is safe to allow it to lick my naked body all over with its
tongues,
That it will not endanger me with the fevers that have deposited themselves
in it,
That all is clean for ever and for ever,
That the cool drink from the well tastes so good,
That blackberries are so flavorous and juicy,
That the fruits of the apple-orchard, and of the orange-orchard—that
melons, grapes, peaches, plums, will none of them poison me,
That when I recline on the grass I do not catch any disease,
Though probably every sphere of grass rises out of what was once a catching
disease.
4.
Now I am terrified at the Earth! it is that calm and patient,
It grows such sweet things out of such corruptions,
It turns harmless and stainless on its axis, with such endless successions
of diseased corpses,
It distils such exquisite winds out of such infused fetor,
It renews with such unwitting looks its prodigal, annual, sumptuous crops,
It gives such divine materials to men, and accepts such leavings from them
at last.
