 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, and to find out how you can volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Tom Yates. TomInBKK.com Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman Book 34. Sands at 70. Manahata My city's fit and noble name resumed. Choice, aboriginal name, with marvelous beauty. Meaning, a rocky, founded island. Shores wherever gaily dash the coming, going, hurrying sea waves. Palmanok Sea beauty, stretched and basking. One side, thy inland ocean, laving, broad, with copious commerce, steamers, sails. And one, the Atlantic's wind caressing, fierce or gentle, mighty holes, dark gliding in the distance. Isle of sweet brooks of drinking water, healthy air and soil, isle of the salty shore and breeze and brine. From Matuk Point I stand as on some mighty eagle's beak, eastward the sea absorbing, viewing nothing but sea and sky, the tossing waves, the foam, the ships in the distance, the wild unrest, the snowy, curling caps that inbound urge and urge of waves, seeking the shores forever. To those who have failed, to those who have failed in aspiration vast, to unnamed soldiers fallen in front on the lead, to calm devoted engineers, to over ardent travelers, to pilots on their ships, to many a lofty song and picture without recognition, I'd rear laurel covered monument, high, high above the rest, to all cut off before their time, possessed by some strange spirit of fire, quenched by an early death. A carol closing sixty-nine, a carol closing sixty-nine, a resume, a repetition, my lines and joy and hope continuing on the same, of ye, oh God, life, nature, freedom, poetry, of you, my land, your rivers, prairies, states, you, modeled flag I love, your aggregate retained entire, of north, south, east and west, your items all, of me, myself, the jokin' heart yet beating in my breast, the body wrecked, old, poor and paralyzed, the strange inertia falling, Paul, like round me, the burning fires down in my sluggish blood, not yet extinct, the undiminished faith, the groups of loving friends, the bravest soldiers, brave, brave were the soldiers, high named today, who lived through the fight, but the bravest pressed to the front and fell, unnamed, unknown, a font of type, this latent mine, these unlaunched voices, passionate powers, wrath, argument or praise, or comic leer, or prayer devout, non-pareil, brevier, bourgeois, long primer merely, these ocean waves arousable to fury and to death, or soothed to ease and sheenie sun and sleep, within the pallid slivers slumbering. As I sit writing here, sick and grown old, not my least burden is that dullness of the years, querilities, ungracious glooms, aches, lethargy, constipation, whimpering and we, may filter in my dally songs. My canary bird, did we count great oh soul to penetrate the themes of mighty books, absorbing deep and full from thoughts, plays speculations? But now from thee to me, caged bird, to feel thy joyous warble, filling the air, the lonesome room, belong for noon, is it not just as great oh soul? Queries to my 70th year, approaching, nearing, curious, thou dim uncertain specter, bringest thou life or death, strength, weakness, blindness, more paralysis and heavier, or placid skies and sun, wilt stir the waters yet, or happily cut me short for good, or leave me here as now, dull, parrot-like and old, with cracked voice harping, screeching, the wall about martyrs, greater than memory of Achilles or Ulysses, more, more by far to thee than tomb of Alexander, those cartloads of old charnel ashes, scales and splints of moldy bones, once living men, once resolute courage, aspiration, strength, the stepping stones to thee, today, and here, America. The First Dandelion Simple and fresh and fair, from winter's clothes emerging, as if no artifice of fashion, business, politics had ever been, forth from its sunny nook of sheltered grass, innocent, golden, calm as the dawn, the spring's first dandelion shows its trustful face. America. Center of equal daughters, equal sons, all, all alike endeared, grown, ungrown, young or old, strong, ample, fair, endearing, capable, rich, perennial with the earth, with freedom, law, and love, a grand, sane, towering, seated mother, chaired in the adamant of time. Memories. How sweet the silent backward tracings, the wanderings as in dreams, the meditation of old times resumed, their loves, joys, persons, voyages. Today and thee, the appointed winners in a long-stretched game, the course of time and nations, Egypt, India, Greece, and Rome, the past entire, with all its heroes, histories, arts, experiments, its store of songs, inventions, voyages, teachers, books, garnered for now and thee, to think of it, the erudem all converged in thee. After the dazzle of day, after the dazzle of day is gone, only the dark, dark night shows to my eyes the stars. After the clanger of organ majestic, or chorus or perfect band, silent a thwart my soul, moves the symphony true. Abraham Lincoln, born February 12th, 1809. Today, from each and all, a breath of prayer, a pulse of thought, to memory of him, to birth of him, out of maize shows selected. Apple orchards, the trees all covered with blossoms, wheat fields carpeted far and near in vital emerald green, the eternal exhaustless freshness of each early morning, the yellow golden transparent haze of the warm afternoon sun, the aspiring lilac bushes with profuse purple or white flowers. Halcyon days, not from successful love alone, nor wealth, nor honored middle age, nor victories of politics or war, but as life wanes and all the turbulent passions calm, as gorgeous vapory silent hues cover the evening sky, as softness, fullness, rest infuse the frame like fresher balmy air, as the days take on a mellower light, and the apple at last hangs really finished an indolent ripe on the tree, then for the teeming quietest, happiest days of all, the brooding and blissful Halcyon days. Fancies at Navesink, one, the pilot in the mist, steaming the northern rapids, an old St. Lawrence reminisce, a sudden memory flash comes back, I know not why, here waiting for the sunrise, gazing from the hill, again tis just at morning, a heavy haze contends with daybreak, again the trembling, laboring vessel veers me, I press through foam-dashed rocks that almost touch me, again I mark where aft the small, thin Indian helmsman looms in the mist with brow elate and governing hand. Two, had I the choice, had I the choice to tally greatest bards, to limb their portraits stately, beautiful and emulate at will, Homer with all his wars and warriors, Hector, Achilles, Ajax, or Shakespeare's woe entangled, Hamlet, Lear, Othello, Tennyson's fair ladies, meter or width the best, or choice conceit to wield in perfect rhyme, the light of singers, these, these O.C., all these, I'd gladly barter, would you the undulation of one wave, its trick to me transfer, or breathe one breath of yours upon my verse, and leave its odor there. Three, you tides with ceaseless swell, you power that does this work, you unseen force, centripetal, centrifugal, through spaces spread, rapport of sun, moon, earth, and all the constellations, what are the messages by you from distant stars to us, what's serious, what capellas, what's central heart, and you the pulse vivifies all, what boundless, aggregate of all, what subtle indirection and significance in you, what clue to all in you, what fluid, vast identity holding the universe with all its parts as one, as sailing in a ship. Four, last of ebb, and daylight waning, last of ebb, and daylight waning, scented sea, cool, landward marking, smells of sedge and salt incoming, with many a half-caught voice sent up from the eddies, many a muffled confession, many a sob and whispered word, as of speakers far or hid. How they sweep down and out, how they mutter, poets unnamed, artists greatest of any, with cherished lost designs, love's unresponse, a chorus of ages complaints, hopes last words, some suicides despairing cry, away to the boundless waste and never again return. On to oblivion then, on, on, and do your part, ye burying ebbing tide, on for your time, ye furious debauch, five, and yet not you alone, and yet not you alone, twilight and burying ebb, nor you, ye lost designs alone, nor failures, aspirations, I know divine deceitful ones, your glamours seeming, duly by you, from you, the tide and light again, duly the hinges turning, duly the needed discord parts off setting, blending, weaving from you, from sleep, night, death itself, the rhythms of birth eternal. Six, proudly the flood comes in. Proudly the flood comes in, shouting, foaming, advancing, long it holds at the high, with bosom broad out swelling, all throbs dilates, the farms, woods, streets of cities, workmen at work, mansales, top sales, jibs, appear in the offing, steamers, penance of smoke, and under the forenoon sun, with human lives gaily the outward bound, gaily the inward bound, flaunting from many a spar the flag I love. Seven, by that long scan of waves, by that long scan of waves, myself called back, resumed upon myself, in every crest some undulating light or shade, some retrospect, joys, travels, studies, silent panoramas, scenes ephemeral, the long past war, the battles, hospital sights, the wounded and the dead, myself through every bygone phase, my idle youth, old age at hand, my three-score years of life summed up, and more, and past, by any grand ideal tried, intentionless, the whole a nothing, and happily yet some drop within God's schemes ensemble, some wave, or part of a wave, like one of yours, ye multitudinous ocean. Eight, then last of all, then last of all, caught from these shores, this hill, of you otides, the mystic human meaning, only by law of you, your swell and ebb, enclosing me the same, the brain that shapes, the voice that chants this song. Election Day, November 1884. If I should need to name, oh western world, your powerful a scene and show, twid not be you, Niagara, nor you ye limitless prairies, nor your huge rifts of canyons, Colorado, nor you, Yosemite, nor Yellowstone, with all its spasmic geyser loops ascending to the skies, appearing and disappearing, nor Oregon's white cones, nor Huron's belt of mighty lakes, nor Mississippi's stream. These seething hemispheres humanity, as now I'd name, the still small voice vibrating, America's choosing day. The heart of it not in the chosen, the act itself the main, the quadrinial choosing, the stretch of north and south aroused, seaboard and inland, Texas to Maine, the prairie states, Vermont, Virginia, California, the final ballot shower from east to west, the paradox and conflict, the countless snowflakes falling, a swordless conflict, yet more than all Rome's wars of old, or modern Napoleon's, the peaceful choice of all. Our good or ill humanity, welcoming the darker odds, the dross, foams and ferments the wine, it serves to purify while the heart, pants, life glows. These stormy gusts and winds, waft precious ships, swelled Washington's, Jefferson's, Lincoln's sails. With husky, haughty lips, O.C. With husky, haughty lips, O.C., where day and night I went, thy surf beat shore, imaging to my sense, thy varied strange suggestions, I see and plainly list thy talk and conference here. The troops of white-maned racers racing to the goal, thy ample smiling face dashed with the sparkling dimples of the sun, thy brooding scowl and murk, thy unloosed hurricanes, thy unsubduedness, caprice's wilfulness. Great as thou art above the rest, thy many tears, a lack from all eternity in thy content, not but the greatest struggles, wrongs, defeats, could make thee greatest, no less could make thee. Thy lonely state, something thou ever seekest and seekest, yet never gainest, surely some right withheld, some voice in huge monotonous rage, a freedom-lover pent, some vast heart, like a planets chained and chaffing in those breakers, by a lingon's swell and spasm and panting breath, and rhythmic rasping of thy sands and waves, and serpent hiss, and savage peels of laughter, and undertones of distant lion roar, sounding, appealing to the sky's deaf ear, but now, rapport for once, a phantom in the night, thy confident for once. The first and last confession of the globe, out surging, muttering from thy soul's abisms, the tale of cosmic elemental passion, thou tellest to a kindred soul death of general grant. As one by one withdraw the lofty actors from that great play on history's stage etern, that lurid partial act of war and peace of old and new contending, fought out through wrath, fears, darkness maze, and many a long suspense, all past and since in countless graves receding, mellowing, victors invanquished, linkens and lees, now thou with them, man of the mighty days, and equal to the days. Thou from the prairies, tangled, and many veined and hard has been thy part, to admiration has it been enacted. Red jacket from a loft. Upon this scene, this show, yielded today by fashion, learning, wealth, nor in caprice alone, some grains of deepest meaning. Happily, a loft, who knows, from distant sky clouds blended shapes, as some old tree or rock or cliff thrilled with its soul, product of nature's sun, stars, earth direct, a towering human form in hunting shirt of film, armed with the rifle, a half-ironical smile covering its phantom lips like one of Ossian's ghosts looks down. Washington's Monument, February 1885. Ah, not this marble, dead and cold, far from its base and shaft expanding, the round zone circling, comprehending. Thou, Washington, art all the world's continents entire, not yours alone, America, Europe's as well, in every part, castle of lord or laborer's caught, or frozen north or sultry south, the Africans, the Arabs in his tent, old Asia's there with venerable smile seated amid her ruins, greets the antique the hero knew, tis but the same, the heir legitimate continued ever, the indomitable heart and arm force of the never broken line, courage, alertness, patience, faith, the same, even in defeat, defeated not, the same. Wherever sails a ship, or houses built on land, or day or night, through teeming city's streets, indoors or out, factories or farms, now or to come or past, where patriot wills existed or exist, wherever freedom poised by toleration, swayed by law, stands or is rising, thy true monument, of that blive throat of thine, of that blive throat of thine, from arctic bleak and blank, I'll mine the lesson, solitary bird, let me too welcome chilling drifts, even the profoundest chill as now, a torpid pulse, a brain unnerved, old age land locked within its winter bay, cold, cold, oh, cold, these snowy hairs, my feeble arm, my frozen feet, for them thy faith, thy rule I take and grave it to the last, not summer zones alone, not chance of youth, or self's warm tides alone, but held by sluggish flows, packed in the northern ice, the cumulus of years, these gay heart I also sing, Broadway, what hurrying human tides or day or night, what passions, winnings, losses, arders, swim thy waters, what worlds of evil, bliss and sorrow stem thee, what curious questioning glances, glints of love, leer, envy, scorn, contempt, hope, aspiration, thou portal, thou arena, thou the myriad long drawn lines and groups, could but thy flagstones, curbs, facades, tell their inimitable tales, thy windows rich and huge hotels, thy sidewalks wide, thou of the endless sliding, mincing, shuffling feet, thou like the party-colored world itself, like infinite teeming, mocking life, thou visor'd vast, unspeakable show and lesson, to get the final lilt of songs, to get the final lilt of songs, to penetrate the inmost lore of poets, to know the mighty ones, Job, Homer, Eskilus, Dante, Shakespeare, Tennyson, Emerson, to diagnose the shifting, delicate tints of love and pride and doubt, to truly understand, to encompass these, the last keen faculty and entrance price, old age, and what it brings from all its past experiences. Old Salt Cossabone Far back, related on my mother's side, Old Salt Cossabone, I'll tell you how he died, had been a sailor all his life, was nearly nighty, lived with his married grandchild, Jenny, house on a hill with view of bay at hand and distant cape and stretch to open sea, the last of afternoons, the evening hours for many a year his regular custom, in his great arm chair by the window seated, sometimes indeed through half the day, watching the coming, going of the vessels, he mutters to himself and now the close of all. One struggling, outbound brig one day, baffled for long, cross-tides and much wrong going, at last at nightfall strikes the breezer right, her whole luck veering, and swiftly bending round the cape, the darkness proudly entering, cleaving as he watches, she's free, she's on her destination, these the last words, when Jenny came, he sat there dead, Dutch Cossabone, Old Salt, related on my mother's side, far back, the dead tenor. As down the stage again, with Spanish hat and plumes and gate inimitable, back from the fading lessons of the past, I'd call, I'd tell and own, how much from thee the revelation of the singing voice from thee, so firm, so liquid soft, again that tremulous manly timber, the perfect singing voice, deepest of all to me the lesson, trial and test of all. How through these strains distilled, how the wrapped ears, the soul of me absorbing, Fernando's heart, Manrico's passion call, Erani's sweet generos, I fold thenceforth or seek to fold, within my chance transmuting, freedoms and loves and faiths, unloose, cantible, as perfumes, colors, sunlight's correlation. From these, for these, with these, a hurried line dead tenor, a wafted autumn leaf, dropped in the closing grave, the shoveled earth, to memory of thee, continuities, nothing is ever really lost or can be lost, no birth, identity, form, no object of the world, nor life, nor force, nor any visible thing, appearance must not foil, nor shifted sphere confuse thy brain, ample our time and space, ample the fields of nature, the body sluggish, aged cold, the embers left from earlier fires, the light in the eye grown dim, shall duly flame again, the sun now low in the west rises for mornings and for noons continual, to frozen clods of the spring's invisible law returns, with grass and flowers and summer fruits and corn. Yanondio a song, a poem of itself, the word itself a dirge, amid the wilds, the rocks, the storm and wintery night, to me such misty strange tableau the syllables calling up. Yanondio, I see far in the western north, a limitless ravine with plains and mountains dark. I see swarms of stalwart chieftains, medicine men and warriors as flitting by like clouds of ghosts they pass and are gone in the twilight, race of the woods, the landscapes free and the falls, no picture, poem statement passing them to the future. Yanondio Yanondio unlime they disappear. Today gives place and fades, the cities, farms, factories fade, a muffled sonorous sound, a wailing word is born through the air for a moment, then blank and gone and still and utterly lost. Life, ever the undiscaraged, resolute struggling soul of man have former armies failed, then we send fresh armies and fresh again. Ever the grappled mystery of all Earth's ages, old or new ever the eager eyes, hurrahs, the welcome clapping hands the loud applause, ever the soul dissatisfied, curious, unconvinced at last, struggling today the same, battling the same, going somewhere. My science friend, my noblest woman friend, now buried in an English grave and this a memory leaf for her dear's sake ended our talk. The sum, concluding all we know of old or modern learning, intuitions deep, of all geologies, histories, of all astronomy, of evolution, metaphysics all, is that we all are onward, onward, speeding slowly, surely bettering, life, life an endless march, an endless army, no halt but it is duly over. The world, the race, the soul, in space and time, the universes all bound as, is befitting each, all surely going somewhere. Small the theme of my chant. Small the theme of my chant, yet the greatest, namely oneself, a simple, separate person. That, for the use of the new world I sing. Man's physiology complete from top to toe, I sing. Not physiogamy alone nor brain alone is worthy for the muse. I say the form complete is worthy or far. The female equally with the male I sing nor cease at the theme of oneself. I speak the word of the modern, the word in mass. My days I sing and the lands with interstice I knew of hapless war. Oh friend, whoever you are at last arriving hither to commence. I feel through every leaf the pressure of your hand which I return and thus upon our journey footing the road and more than once and linked together let us go. True conquerors old farmers travelers, workmen no matter how crippled or bent, old sailors out of many a perilous voyage, storm and wreck old soldiers from campaigns with all their wounds, defeats and scars enough that they've survived at all, long life's unflinching ones forth from their struggles trials, fights to have emerged at all in that alone true conquerors over all the rest the United States to old world critics here first the duties of today, the lessons of concrete, wealth, order travel, shelter products, plenty as of the building of some varied vast perpetual edifice whence to arise inevitable in time the towering roofs, the lamps the solid planted spires tall shooting to the stars the calming thought of all that coursing on whatever man's speculations amid the changing schools theologies, philosophies amid the balling presentations new and old the round earth's silent vital laws, facts modes continue thanks in old age thanks in old age thanks Iraigo for health, the midday sun the impalpable air for life, mere life for precious ever lingering memories of you my mother dear you father you brothers, sisters friends for all my days, not those of peace alone the days of war the same for gentle words caresses gifts from foreign lands for shelter, wine and meat for sweet appreciation you distant, dim, unknown or young or old countless unspecified readers beloved, we never met and never shall meet and yet our souls embrace long, close and long for beings, groups, love deeds, words, books for colors forms for all the brave, strong men devoted, hearty men who have forward sprung in freedom's help all years, all lands for braver, stronger more devoted men special laurel Iraigo to life's wars chosen ones the canineers of song and thought the great artillerist the foremost leaders, captains of the soul as soldier from an ended war returned as traveler out of myriads to the long procession retrospective thanks, joyful thanks a soldier's traveler's thanks life and death the two old, simple problems ever intertwined close home elusive, present baffled, grappled by each successive age insoluble passed on two hours today and we pass on the same the voice of the rain and who art thou said I to the soft falling shower which, strange to tell, gave me an answer as here translated I am the poem of earth said the voice of the rain eternal I rise in palpable out of the land in the bottomless sea upward to heaven, whence vaguely formed, altogether changed and yet the same I descend to lave the droughts atomies, dust layers of the globe and all that in them without me were seeds only, latent unborn and forever by day and night I give back life to my own origin and make pure and beautify it for song issuing from its birthplace after fulfillment, wandering wrecked or unrecked duly with love returns soon shall the winter's foil be here soon shall the winter's foil be here soon shall these icy ligatures unbind and melt a little while and air, soil, waves effused shall be in softness bloom and growth a thousand forms shall rise from these dead clods and chills as from low burial graves thine eyes, ears all thy best attributes all that takes cognizance of natural beauty to perceive the simple shows the delicate miracles of earth dandelions, clover the emerald grass the early scents and flowers the arbitus underfoot the willows yellow-green the blossoming plum and cherry with these the robin lark and thrush singing their songs the flitting bluebird for such the scenes the annual play brings on the past forgetting while not the past forgetting today at least contention sunk entire peace brotherhood up risen foresign reciprocal our northern southern hands lay on the graves of all dead soldiers north or south nor for the past alone for meanings to the future Reeves of roses and branches of palm the dying veteran amid these days of order ease, prosperity amid the current songs of beauty, peace, decorum I, Castor Romanis likely to will offend you I heard it in my boyhood more than a generation since a queer old savage man a fighter under Washington himself large, brave, cleanly hot-blooded, no-talker rather spiritualistic had fought in the ranks fought well had been all through the revolutionary war lay dying sons, daughters church deacons lovingly tending him sharpening their sense their ears towards his murmuring half-caught words let me return again to my war days to the sights and scenes to forming the line of battle to the scouts ahead reconaturing to the cannons, the grim artillery to the galloping aids carrying orders to the wounded the fallen the heat, the suspense the perfume strong the smoke, the deafening noise away with your life of peace your joys of peace give me my old wild battle life again stronger lessons have you learned lessons only of those who admired you and were tender with you have you not learned great lessons from those who reject you and brace themselves against you or who treat you with contempt or dispute the passage with you a prairie sunset shot gold maroon and violet dazzling silver emerald fawn the earth's whole amplitude and nature's multi-form power consigned for once to colors the light the general air possessed by them colors till now unknown no limit confine not the western sky alone the high meridian north, south, all pure, luminous color fighting the silent shadows to the last twenty years down on the ancient wharf the sand I sit with a new corner chatting he shipped as greenhand boy and sailed away took some sudden vehement notion since twenty years and more have circled round and round while he the globe was circling round and round and now returns how changed the place all the old landmarks gone the parents dead yes he comes back to lay in port for good to settle as a well-filled purse no spot will do but this I see him from this loop now held in leash I see I hear the slapping waves the restless keel the rocking in the sand I see the sailor kit the canvas bag the great box bound with brass I scan the face all berry brown and bearded the stout strong frame dressed in its russet suit of good scotch cloth then what the told out story orange buds by mail from Florida a lesser proof than old Voltaire's yet greater proof of this present time and the thy broad expanse America to my plain northern hut in outside clouds and snow brought safely for a thousand miles over land and tide some three days since on their own soil live sprouting now hear their sweetness through my room unfolding a bunch of orange buds by mail from Florida twilight the soft voluptuous opiate shades the sun just gone the eager light dispelled I too will soon be gone dispelled a haze nirvana rest in night oblivion you lingering sparse leaves of me on winter nearing boughs and I some well shorn tree of field or orchard row you tokens diminute and lorn not now the flush of May or July clover bloom no grain of August now you pallid banner staves you pennants valueless you over state of time yet my soul dearest leaves confirming all the rest the thundering leaves confirming all the rest the faithfulist hardiest last not meager latent boughs alone not meager latent boughs alone oh songs scaly and bare like eagles talons but happily for some sunny day who knows some future spring some summer bursting forth to verdant leaves or sheltering shade to nourishing fruit apples and grapes the stalwart limbs of trees emerging the fresh free open air and love and faith like scented roses blooming the dead emperor today with bending head and eyes thou too columbia less for the mighty crown laid low in sorrow less for the emperor solace breathest send this out over many assault sea mile morning a good old man a faithful shepherd patriot as the greeks signal flame as the greeks signal flame by antique records told rose from the hilltop like applause and glory welcoming in fame some special veteran hero with rosy tinge served so I aloft from manahata's ship friend shore lift a high kindled brand for thee old poet the dismantled ship in some unused lagoon some nameless bay on sluggish lonesome waters anchored near the shore an old dismantled gray and battered ship disabled done after free voyages to all the seas of earth hauled up at last and howzer tight lies rusting moldering now precedent songs farewell now precedent songs farewell by every name farewell trains of a staggering line in many a strange procession wagons from ups and downs with intervals from elder years mid-age or youth in cabin ships or the old cause or poets to come or palmonoke song of myself calamus or atom or beat beat drums or to the leaven soil they trod or captain my captain cosmos quicksand years or thoughts thou mother with thy equal brood and many many more unspecified from fiber heart of mine from throat and tongue my life's hot pulsing blood the personal urge and form for me not merely paper automatic type and ink each song of mine each utterance in the past having its long long history of life or death or a soldier's wound of country's loss or safety oh heaven what flash and startled endless train of all compared indeed to that what wretched shred even at the best of all an evening lull after a week of physical anguish unrest and pain and feverish heat toward the ending day a calm and lull comes on three hours of peace and soothing rest of brain old ages lambend peaks the touch of flame the illuminating fire the loftiest look at all or a city passion see or a prairie mountain would the earth itself the airy different changing hues of all in failing twilight objects and groups bearings faces reminisces the calmer sight the golden setting clear and broad so much in the atmosphere the points of view the situations whence we scan brought out by them alone so much perhaps the best unwrecked before the lights indeed from them old ages lambend peaks after the supper and talk after the supper and talk after the day is done as a friend from friends his final withdrawal prolonging goodbye and goodbye with emotional lips repeating so hard for his hand to release those hands no more will they meet no more for communion of sorrow and joy of old and young a far stretching journey awaits him to return no more shunning postponing severance seeking the word off the last word ever so little even at the exit door turning charges superfluous calling back even as he descends the steps something to eke out a minute additional shadows of nightfall deepening farewells messages lessening dimmer the forthgoers visage and form soon to be lost for eye in the darkness loft oh so loft to depart gargulous to be the very last end of Leaves of Grass chapter 34 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information auto-volunteer please visit LibriVox.org this reading by Chris Orange Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman book 35 goodbye my fancy sail out for good idle on yacht heave the anchor short raise the mainsail and jibe steer forth oh little white-hulled sloop now speed on really deep waters I will not call it our concluding voyage but outset and shore entrance to the truest, best maturist depart depart from solid earth no more returning to these shores now on for eye our infinite free venture wending spurning all yet tried ports seas, horses, densities, gravitation sail out for good idle on yacht of me lingering last drops and whence and why came you we know not whence was the answer we only know that we drift here with the rest that we lingered and lagged but were wafted at last and are now here to make the passing showers concluding drops goodbye my fancy goodbye my fancy I had a word to say but it is not quite the time the best of any man's word or say is when its proper place arrives and for its meaning I keep mine till the last on on the same ye jock and twain on on the same ye jock and twain my life and recitative containing birth, youth, mid-age years fitful as motley tongues of flame in separate twine and merged in one combining all my single soul aims, confirmations, failures, joys nor single soul alone I chart my nation's crucial stage America's happily humanities the trial great the victory great a strange enclarishment of all the masses past the eastern world the ancient medieval here, here from the wanderings straying, lessons, wars defeats here at the west a voiced triumphant justifying all a glad-some-peeling cry a song for once of utmost pride and satisfaction I chant from it the common bulk the general average horde the best sooner than the worst and now I chant old age my verses written first for four new life and for the summers, autumn's spread I pass to snow-white hairs the same and give to pulses winter-cooled the same as here in careless trill I and my recitatives with faith and love wafting to other work to unknown songs, conditions on, on ye jock and twain continue on the same my 71st year after surmounting three score and ten with all their chances, changes losses, sorrows my parent's death the vagaries of my life the many tearing passions of me the war of 63 and 4 as some old broken soldier after a long, hot, wearying march or happily after battle today at twilight hobbling, answering company roll call here with vital voice, reporting yet saluting yet the officer overall apparitions a vague mist hanging round half the pages sometimes how strange and clear to the soul that all of these solid things are indeed but apparitions, concepts non-realities the pallid wreath somehow I cannot let it go yet, funeral though it is let it remain back there on its nail suspended with pink, blue, yellow all blanched and the white now grey and ashy one withered rose put years ago for thee, dear friend but I do not forget thee has thou then faded is the odor exhaled are the colours vitalities dead? no while memories subtly play the part vivid as ever for but last night I woke and in that spectral ring saw thee thy smile eyes, face, calm, silent loving as ever so let the wreath hang still a while within my eye-reach it is not yet dead to me not even pallid an ended day the soothing sanity and blithe-ness of completion the pomp and hurried contest glare and rush are done now triumph transformation, jubilati old age's ship and crafty deaths from east and west across the horizon's edge two mighty mastful vessels sail as steel upon us but we'll make race a time upon the seas a battle contest yet bare lively there our joys of strife and derring do to the last put on the old ship all her power today crowd top sail top gallant and royal studding sails out challenge and defiance flags and flaunting penance added as we take to the open take to the deepest freest waters to the pending year have I no weapon word for thee some message brief and fierce have I fought out and done indeed the battle is there no shock left for all thy affections lisps scorns manifold silliness nor for myself in rebellious self in thee down, down, proud gorge though choking of thee thy bearded throat and high-born forehead to the gutter crouched low thy neck to ailum sinary gifts Shakespeare Bacon's cipher I doubt it's not then more, far more in each old song bequeathed in every noble page or text different something unrect before different author in every object, mountain, tree and star in every birth and life as part of each evolved from each meaning behind the ostent a mystic cipher waits unfolded long, long hints after a long, long course hundreds of years denials, accumulations roused love and joy and thought wishes, aspirations ponderings, victories millions of readers coating, compassing, covering after ages and ages in crustaceans then only made these songs reach fruition Bravo Paris Exposition Add to your show before you close it France with all the rest visible concrete temples, towers goods, machines and oars a sentiment wafted from many million heart throbs ethereal but solid weak grandsons and great grandsons do not forget your grandsires from 50 nations and nebulous nations compacted sent overseas today America's applause love, memories and goodwill interpolation sounds over and through the burial chant organ and solemn service sermon, bending priests to me come interpolation sounds not in the show plainly to me crowding up the aisle and from the window of sudden battles, hurry and harsh noises war's grim game to sight and air in earnest the scout called up and forward the general mounted and his aides around him the new brought word, the instantaneous order issued, the rifle crack the thud, the rushing forth of men from their tents the clank of cavalry the strange celebrity of forming ranks the slender bugle's note the sound of horses hooves departing, saddles arms, a gutter more to the sunset breeze are whispering something again unseen where late this heated day thou entrest at my window laving, temping wall cool threshing, gently vitalising me, old, alone sick, weak down, melted worn with sweat, thou nestling, folding close and firm, yet soft companion better than talk book, art thou hast own nature, elements utterance to my heart beyond the rest and this is of them so sweet thy primitive taste to breathe within, thy soothing fingers, my face and hands thou messenger magical, strange bringer to body and spirit of me distanced as balked or called medicines penetrating me from head to foot I feel the sky, the prairies vast I feel the mighty northern lakes I feel the ocean and the forest somehow I feel the globe itself swift swimming in space thou blown from the lips so loved, now gone happily from endless store God sent for thou art spiritual, godly most of all known to my sense minister to speak to me here and now what word was never told and cannot tell art thou not universal concrete distillation laws, all astronomies last refinement, has to thou no soul? can I not know, identify thee old chance an ancient song reciting ending, once gazing towards thee mother of all musing, seeking a themes fitted for thee accept me thou saidst the elder ballads and a name for me before thou ghost each ancient poet of many deaths incalculable, happily our new world's chiefest debt little old poems even so far back preluding thee America old chance Egyptian priests and those of Ethiopia the Hindu epics, the Grecian Chinese Persian, the Biblical books and prophets and deep idles of the Nazarene, the Iliad Odyssey, plots, doings wanderings of Aeneas, Hesiod Ezekles Sophocles, Merlin, Arthur the Seed, Roland at Ronskival, the Nibelugan the Troubadour, Minstrels Minnisingers, Sculls Chaucer, Dante, flocks of singing birds the Borda Minstallary the bygone ballads, feudal tales essays, plays Shakespeare, Shiller Walter Scott, Tennyson at some vast, wondrous, weird dream presences, the great shadowy groups gathering around darting their mighty masterful eyes forward at thee thou with as now thy bending neck and head with courteous hand and word ascending, thou pausing a moment drooping thine eyes upon them blent with their music well pleased, accepting all curiously prepared for by them, thou interest at thy entrance porch A Christmas greeting Welcome Brazilian brother, thy ample place is ready a loving hand a smile from the north a sunny instant hall let the future care for itself where it reveals its troubles impedimenters, ours the present at the row the democratic aim, the acceptance and the faith to thee today our reaching arm our turning neck, to thee from us the expectant eye thou cluster free, thou brilliant lustrous one, thou learning well the true lesson of a nation's light in the sky more shining than the cross, more than the crown the height to be superb humanity sounds of the winter sounds of the winter too sunshine upon the mountains many a distance terrain from cheery railroad train from nearer field barn house, the whispering air even the mute crops garnered apples, corn children's and women's tones rhythm of many a farmer and a flail an old man's gavel a slips among the rest think not we give out yet forth from these snowy hairs we keep up yet the lilt a twilight song as I sit in twilight late alone by the flickering oak flame musing on long past war scenes of the countless buried unknown soldiers of the vacant names as unindended airs and seas the unreturned the brief truce after battle with grim burial squads and the deep filled trenches of gathered from dead all America north, south, east, west whence they came up from wooded main New England's farms from fertile Pennsylvania Illinois, Ohio Mezhalos west, Virginia, the south the Carolinas, Texas even here in my room shadows and half lights in the noiseless flickering flames again I see the stalwart ranks on filling rising I hear the rhythmic tramp of the armies you million of its names all, all, you dark bequest from all your war a special verse for you a flash of duty long neglected your mystic roles strangely gathered here each name recalled by me from out the darkness and death's ashes hence forth to be deep deep within my heart recording for many future year your mystic role in tire of unknown names or north or south in barmed with love in this twilight song when the full grown poet came when the full grown poet came out spake pleased nature the round impassive globe with all its shows of day and night saying he is mine but out spake too the soul of man, proud, jealous and unreconciled, nay he is mine alone then the full grown poet stood between the two and took each by the hand and today and ever so stands as blender, uniter tightly holding hands which he will never release until he reconciles the two and wholly and joyously blends them osceola when his hour for death had come he slowly raised himself from the bed on the floor drew on his wardress shirt, leggings and girded the belt around his waist called for vermilion paint his looking glass was held before him painted half his face and neck his wrists and back hands put the scalp knife carefully in his belt then lying down resting moment rose again half sitting smiled gave in silence his extended hand to each and all sank faintly low to the floor tightly grasping the tomahawk handle fixed his look on wife and little children the last and hear a line in memory of his name and death a voice from death a voice from death solemn and strange in all his sweep and power with sudden indescribable blow towns drowned humanity by thousand slain the vaunted work of thrift goods, dwellings forged, street, iron bridge dashed, pel mel by the blow yet ushered life continuing on amid the rushing whirling wild debris a suffering woman saved safely born although I come unannounced in horror and in pang in pouring flood and fire and wholesale elemental crash this voice so solemn strange I too a minister of deity yea death we bow our faces veil our eyes to thee we mourn the old the young untimely drawn to thee the fair, the strong the capable, the household wrecked the husband and the wife the engulfed forger in his forge the corpses in the welling waters and the mud the gathered thousands to their funeral mounds and thousands never found or gathered then after burying mourning the dead faithful to them found or unfound forgetting not, burying the past he a new musing a day, a passing moment or an hour America itself bends low silent, resigned submissive war death, cataclysm like this America take deep to thy proud, prosperous heart in thy chart low, out of death and out of ooze and slime the blossoms rapidly blooming sympathy, help, love distant east from south and north and over sea its hot spurred hearts and hands humanity to human aid moves on and from within a thought and lesson yet thou ever darting globe through space and air thou waters that encompass us thou that in all the life and death of us, in action or in sleep thou laws invisible that permeate them and all thou that in all and over all through and under all incessant thou, thou the vital universal giant force resistless sleepless, calm holding humanity as in thy open hand as some ephemeral toy how ill to air forget thee for I too have forgotten wrapped in these little potencies of progress, politics culture, wealth, invention civilization have lost my recognition of your silent ever swaying power ye mightle elemental throes in which and upon which we float and every one of us is buoyed a Persian lesson for his overarching and last lesson the grey beard Sufi in the flesh scent of the morning in the open air on the slope of a teeming Persian rose garden under an ancient chestnuts tree widespreading its branches spoke to the young priests and students finally my children to envelop each word each part of the rest Allah is all, all, all imminent in every life and object may be at many and many a more moves yet Allah Allah, Allah is there has this stray wondered far is the reason why strangely hidden would you sound below the restless ocean of the entire world would you know the dissatisfaction the urgent spur of every life the something never stilled never entirely gone the invisible need of every seed it is the central urge in every atom often unconscious often evil downfallen to return to its divine source and origin however distant latent to the same in subject and in object without one exception the commonplace the commonplace I sing how cheap is health how cheap nobility abstinence no falsehood no gluttony lust the open air I sing freedom toleration take here the mainest lesson less from books less from the scrolls the common day and night the common earth and waters your work trade occupation the democratic wisdom underneath like solid ground for all the rounded catalogue divine complete the devilish and the dark the dying and diseased the countless 1920s low and evil crude and savage the crazed prisoners in jail the horrible rank malignant venom and filth the weapons the ravenous sharks liars the dissolute what is the part the wicked and the loathsome bear within earth's orbit scheme newts crawling things in slime and mud poisons the barren soil the evil men the slag and hideous rot mirages more experiences and sights stranger than you'd think for times again now mostly just after sunrise or before sunset sometimes in spring often in autumn perfectly clear weather in plain sight camps far or near the crowded streets of cities and the shop fronts account for it or not credit or not it is all true and my mate there could tell you the like we have often confabbed about it people and scenes animals trees colors and lines plain as could be farms and door yards of home paths bordered with box lilacs in corners weddings in churches thanksgiving dinners returns on long absent sons glum funerals the crepe veiled mother and daughters trialled in court jury and judge the accused in the box contestants battles crowds bridges warfs now and then marked faces of sorrow or joy I could pick them out this moment if I saw them again showed to me just to the right in the sky edge or plainly there to the left on the hilltops L of G's purport not to exclude or demarcate or pick out evils from their formidable masses even to expose them but add fuse complete extend and celebrate the immortal and the good haughty this song its words and scope to span vast realms of space and time evolution of the cumulative growths and generations begun in ripened youth and steadily pursued wandering, peering, dallying with all war peace day and night absorbing never even for one brief hour abandoning my task I ended here in sickness, poverty and old age I sing of life yet mind me well of death today's shadowy death dogs my steps my seated shape and has for years draws sometimes close to me as face to face the unexpressed how dare one say it after the cycles poems, singers plays vaunted Ioners Indias, Homer, Shakespeare the long long times thick dotted roads, areas the shining clusters and the milky ways of stars nature's pulses reaped all retrospective passions heroes, war, love, adoration all ages plummets dropped to their utmost depths all human lives throats, wishes, brains all experiences utterance after the countless songs all long or short all tongues, all lands something not yet told in posies voice or print something lacking who knows the best yet unexpressed and lacking grand is the scene grand is the scene, the light to me grand are the sky and stars grand is the earth and grand are lasting time and space and grand are their laws so multi-form puzzling evolutionary but grand are far the unseen soul of me comprehending, endowing all these lighting the light the sky and stars delving the earth sailing the sea what were all those indeed without the unseen soul of what amount without the more evolutionary vast puzzling oh my soul more multi-form far more lasting thou than they unseen buds unseen buds infinite hidden well under the snow and ice under the darkness in every square or cubic inch germinal exquisite in delicate lace microscopic unborn like babes in wombs latent folded compact sleeping billions of billions and trillions of trillions of them waiting on earth and in the sea the universe the stars there in the heavens urging slowly surely forward forming endless and waiting ever more forever more behind goodbye my fancy goodbye my fancy farewell dear mate dear love I'm going away I know not where or to what fortune or whether I may ever see you again so goodbye my fancy now for my last let me look back a moment the slower fainter ticking of the clock is in me exit nightfall and sooner the heart thud stopping long have we lived joyed caressed together delightful now separation goodbye my fancy yet let me not be too hasty long indeed have we lived slept filtered become really blended into one then if we die we die together yes we'll remain one if we go anywhere we'll go together to meet what happens maybe we'll be better off and blither and learn something maybe it is yourself now really ushering me to the true songs who knows maybe it is you little morbid really undoing turning so now finally goodbye and hail my fancy end of leaves of grass