 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information on how to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This reading by Gordon Mackenzie. Leaves of Grass By Walt Whitman Introduction Come, said my soul, such verses for my body let us write, for we are one, that should I after return, or long, long hants in other spheres, there to some group of mates the chance resuming, tallying earth's soil, trees, winds, tumultuous waves, ever with pleased smile I may keep on, ever and ever, yet the verses owning, as first I hear now, signing for soul and body, set to them my name. Walt Whitman Book 1. Inscriptions. One's self I sing. One's self I sing. A simple, separate person. Yet utter the word democratic, the word en masse. A physiology from top to toe I sing. Not physiognomy alone, nor brain alone is worthy for the muse. I say the form complete is worthier far. The female equally with the male I sing. Of life immense in passion, pulse and power. Cheerful, or freest action formed under the law's divine. The modern man I sing. As I pondered in silence. As I pondered in silence, returning upon my poems, considering, lingering long, a phantom arose before me with distrustful aspect, terrible in beauty, age and power. The genius of poets of old lands, as to me directing like flame its eyes, with finger pointing to many immortal songs, and menacing voice. What singest thou, it said? Noest thou not there is hot one theme for ever-enduring bards, and that is the theme of war, the fortune of battles, the making of perfect soldiers. Be it so, then I answered. I too haughty shade, also sing war, and a longer and greater one than any, waged in my book, with varying fortune, with flight, advance and retreat, victory deferred and wavering. Yet me thinks, certain, nor as good as certain at the last, the field the world, for life and death, for the body and for the eternal soul, lo, I too am come, chanting the chant of battles. I above all promote brave soldiers. In cabined ships at sea, in cabined ships at sea, the boundless blue on every side expanding, with whistling winds and music of the waves, the large imperious waves, or some lone bark buoyed on the dense marine, where joyous full of faith, spreading white sails, she cleaves the ether, mid the sparkle in the foam of day, or under many a star at night, by sailors, young and old, happily will I, a reminiscence of the land, be read, in full rapport at last. Here are our thoughts, voyagers' thoughts. Here not the land, firm land alone appears, may then by them be said, the sky or arches here. We feel the undulating deck beneath our feet. We feel the long pulsation, ebb and flow of endless motion. The tones of unseen mystery, the vague and vast suggestions of the briny world, the liquid flowing syllables, the perfume, the faint creaking of the cordage, the melancholy rhythm, the boundless vista and the horizon far and dim are all here, and this is Ocean's poem. Then falter not, O book, fulfill your destiny, you not a reminiscence of the land alone, you too as a lone bark cleaving the ether, purposed I know not wither, yet ever full of faith, consort to every ship that sails, sail you. Bare forth to them folded my love. Bare mariners, for you I folded here in every leaf. Speed on, my book, spread your white sails, my little bark a-thwart the imperious waves. Chant on, sail on, bear o'er the boundless blue from me to every sea, this song for mariners and all their ships, to foreign lands. I heard that you asked for something to prove this puzzle the New World and to define America, her athletic democracy. Therefore, I send you my poems, that you behold in them what you wanted. To a historian, you who celebrate bygones, who have explored the outward, the surfaces of the races, the life that has exhibited itself, who have treated of man as the creature of politics, aggregates, rulers, and priests. I, habitant of the Alleghenes, treating of him as he is in himself in his own rights, pressing the pulse of the life that has seldom exhibited itself, the great pride of man in himself, chanter of personality, outlining what is yet to be. I project the history of the future. To thee, old cause, to thee, old cause, thou peerless, passionate good cause, thou stern, remorseless, sweet idea, deathless throughout the ages, races, lands, after a strange, sad war, great war for thee. I think all war through time was really fought, and ever will be really fought, for thee. These chants, for thee, the eternal march of thee, a war, oh soldiers, not for itself alone, far, far more stood silently waiting behind, now to advance, in this book, thou orb of many orbs, thou seething principle, thou well-kept latent germ, thou center, around the idea of thee the war revolving, with all its angry and vehement play of causes, with vast results to come for thrice a thousand years. These recitatives for thee, my book and the war are one, merged in its spirit, I and mine, as the contest hinged on thee, as a wheel on its axis turns, this book unwitting to itself, around the idea of thee. I, Delons, I met a seer, passing the hues and objects of the world, the field of art and learning, pleasure, sense, to glean I Delons. Put in thy chants, said he, no more the puzzling hour nor day nor segments parts put in. Put first before the rest as light, for all an entrance song of all that of I Delons. Ever the dim beginning, ever the growth, the rounding of the circle, ever the summit and the merge at last, to surely start again, I Delons, I Delons, ever the mutable, ever materials changing, crumbling, recoheering, ever the ateliers, the factories, divine, issuing I Delons. Lo, I or you, or woman, man, or state, known or unknown, we seeming solid wealth, strength, beauty build, but really build I Delons. The ostent evanescent, the substance of an artist's mood, or Savon's studies long, or warriors, martyrs, heroes, toils, to fashion his I Delon, of every human life. The units gathered, posted, not a thought, a motion deed left out, the whole or large or small summed added up in its I Delon. The old, old urge, based on the ancient pinnacles, lo, newer, higher pinnacles, from science and the modern still impelled, the old, old urge, I Delons. The present, now and here, America's busy, teeming, intricate world of aggregate and segregate for only thence releasing today's I Delons. These with the past, of vanished lands, of all the reigns of kings across the sea, old conquerors, old campaigns, old sailors voyages, joining I Delons. Densities, growth, facades, strata of mountains, soils, rocks, giant trees, farborn, far dying, living long, to leave I Delons everlasting. Exalt, wrapped, ecstatic, the visible but their womb of birth, of orbic tendencies to shape and shape and shape, the mighty earth of I Delon. All space, all time, the stars, the terrible perturbations of the suns, swelling, collapsing, ending, serving their longer, shorter use, filled with I Delons only. The noiseless myriads, the infinite oceans where the river's empty, the separate countless free identities like eyesight, the true realities, I Delons. Not this world, nor these the universes, they the universes, purport and end ever the permanent life of life, I Delons, I Delons. Beyond thy lectures learned, professor, beyond thy telescope or spectroscope observer king, beyond all mathematics, beyond the doctor's surgery, anatomy, beyond the chemist with his chemistry, the entities of entities, I Delons. Unfixed, yet fixed, ever shall be, ever have been and are sweeping the present to the infinite future, I Delons, I Delons, I Delons. The prophet and the bard shall yet maintain themselves in higher stages yet, shall mediate to the modern, to democracy, interpret yet to them God and I Delons. And thee, my soul, joys, ceaseless exercises, exultations, thy yearning, amply fed at last prepared to meet thy mates, I Delons. Thy body, permanent, the body lurking there within thy body, the only purport of the form thou art, the real I, myself, an image, an I Delon. Thy very songs, not in thy songs, no special strains to sing, none for itself, but from the whole resulting, rising at last and floating, a round, full-orbed I Delon. For him I sing, for him I sing, I raise the present on the past, as some perennial tree out of its roots, the present on the past, with time and space I him dilate and fuse the immortal laws to make himself by them the law unto himself. When I read the book, when I read the book, the biography, famous, and is this then, said I, what the author calls a man's life, and so will some one, when I am dead and gone, write my life, as if any man really knew ought of my life, why, even I, myself, I often think no little or nothing of my real life, only a few hints, a few diffused faint clues, and in directions, I seek for my own use to trace out here. Beginning my studies, beginning my studies, the first step pleased me so much, the mere fact consciousness, these forms, the power of motion, the least insect or animal, the senses, eyesight, love, the first step I say, odd me, and pleased me so much, I have hardly gone and hardly wished to go any farther, but stop and loiter all the time to sing it in ecstatic songs. Beginners, how they are provided for upon the earth, appearing at intervals, how dear and dreadful they are to the earth, how they inure to themselves as much as to any, what a paradox appears their age, how people respond to them, yet know them not, how there is something relentless in their fate, all times, how all times mischoose the objects of their adulation and reward, and how the same inexorable price must still be paid for the same great purchase. To the states, to the states, or any one of them, or any city of the states, all resist much, obey little, once unquestioning obedience, once fully enslaved, once fully enslaved no nation, state, city of this earth ever afterward, resumes its liberty. On journeys through the states, on journeys through the states we start, I through the world, urged by these songs, sailing henceforth to every land, to every sea, we willing learners of all, teachers of all, and lovers of all. We have watched the seasons dispensing themselves and passing on, and have said, why should not a man or woman do as much as the seasons and effuse as much? We dwell a while in every city and town. We pass through Canada, the northeast, the vast valley of the Mississippi, and the southern states. We confer on equal terms with each of the states. We make trial of ourselves and invite men and women to hear. We say to ourselves, remember, fear not, be candid, promulge the body and the soul, dwell a while and pass on, be copious, temperate, chaste, magnetic, and what you effuse may then return as the seasons return, and may be just as much as the seasons. To a certain cantotriche, here, take this gift. I was reserving it for some hero, speaker, or general, one who should serve the good old cause, the great idea, the progress and freedom of the race, some brave confronter of despots, some daring rebel. But I see that what I was reserving belongs to you, just as much to any. Me in perturbe, me in perturbe, standing at ease in nature, master of all or mistress of all, aplomb in the midst of a rational things, imbued as they, passive, receptive, silent as they, finding my occupation, poverty, notoriety, foibles, crimes less important than I thought. Me toward the Mexican sea, or in the Manhattan, or the Tennessee, or far north or inland, a river man, or a man of the woods, or of any farm life of these states or of the coast, or the lakes or Canada. Me wherever my life is lived, oh, to be self-balanced for contingencies, to confront night, storms, hunger, ridicule, accidents, rebuffs, as the trees and animals do. Savantism. Thither as I look, I see each result and glory retracing itself, and nestling close always obligated. Thither hours, months, years. Thither trades, compacts, establishments, even the most minute. Thither everyday life, speech, utensils, politics, persons, estates. Thither we also. I with my leaves and songs, trustful, admirant, as a father to his father going takes his children along with him. The ship starting. Low the unbounded sea, on its breast, a ship starting, spreading all sails, carrying even her moon sails. The penant is flying aloft as she speeds, she speeds so stately. Below, emulous waves press forward. They surround the ship with shining, curving motions. The penant is flying aloft as she speeds, she and foam. I hear America singing. I hear America singing. The varied carols I hear. Those of mechanics. Everyone singing his as it should be, blithe and strong. The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam. The mason singing his as he makes ready for work or leaves off work. The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat. The deck hand singing on the steamboat deck. The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench. The hatter singing as he stands. The woodcutter's song. The plow-boys on his way in the morning or at noon, intermission or at sundown. The delicious singing of the mother or of the young wife at work or of the girls sewing or washing. Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else. The day what belongs to the day. At night the party of young fellows robust, friendly, singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs. What place is besieged? What place is besieged? And vainly tries to raise the siege. Lo I send to that place a commander, swift, brave, immortal, and with him horse and foot and parks of artillery, and artillery men, the deadliest that ever fired gun. Still though the one I sing. Still though the one I sing. One, yet of contradictions made. I dedicate to nationality. I leave in him revolt. O latent right of insurrection. O quenchless, indispensable fire. Shut not your doors. Shut not your doors to me, proud libraries. For that which was lacking on all the well-filled shelves, yet needed most. I bring forth from the war emerging a book I have made. The words of my book nothing, the drift of it, everything. A book separate, not linked with the rest nor felt by the intellect, but you ye untold latencies will thrill to ever every page. Poets to come. Poets to come. Orators, singers, musicians to come. Not today is to justify me and answer what I am for, but you. A new brood, native, athletic, continental, greater than before known, arouse, for you must justify me. I myself but write one or two indicative words for the future. I but advance a moment only to wheel and hurry back in the darkness. I am a man who, sauntering along without fully stopping, turns a casual look upon you, and then averts his face, leaving it to you to prove and define it. Expecting the main things from you. To you, stranger, if you passing meet me in desire to speak to me, why should you not speak to me, and why should I not speak to you? Thou reader. Thou reader, throbst life and pride and love the same as I. Therefore, for thee the following chance. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For information see LibriVox.blogsum.com. Recording by Hugh McGuire. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman. Book two. Starting from Palmanok. One. Starting from fish shaped Palmanok where I was born, well begotten and raised by a perfect mother. After roaming many lands, lover of populous pavements, dweller in Manhattan my city, or on southern savannas, or a soldier camped or carrying my knapsack and a gun, or a miner in California. Or rude in my home in Dakota's woods my diet meat my drink from the spring. Or withdrawn to muse and meditate in some deep recess, far from the clank of crowds, intervals passing wrapped and happy. Aware of the fresh free giver, the flowing Missouri. Aware of mighty Niagara. Aware of the buffalo herds grazing the plains, the herstute and strong breasted bull, of earth, rocks, fifth month flowers experienced, stars, rain, snow, my amaze. Having studied the mockingbirds tones in the flight of the mountain hawk, and heard a dawn the unrivaled one. The hermit thrush from the swamp cedars, solitary. Singing in the west, I strike up for a new world. Two. Victory. Union. Faith. Identity. Deception. Time. The indissoluble compacts. Riches. Mystery. Eternal progress. The cosmos. And the modern reports. This then is life. Here is what has come to the surface after so many throws and convulsions. How curious. How real. Underfoot the divine soil. Overhead the sun. Sea revolving the globe. The ancestor continents away grouped together. The present and future continents north and south with the isthmith between sea vast trackless spaces. As in a dream they change, they swiftly fill countless masses debauch upon them. They are now covered with the foremost people, arts, institution known. Sea. Projected through time. For me an audience interminable. With firm and regular step they wend, they never stop. Successions of men. Americanos. A hundred million. One generation playing its part and passing on. Another generation playing its part and passing on in its turn. With faces turned sideways or backwards towards me to listen. With eyes retrospective towards me. Three. Americanos. Conquerors. Marches humanitarian. Foremost. Century marches, libertad, masses. For you a program of chance. Chance of the prairies. Chance of the long running Mississippi and down to the Mexican sea. Chance of Ohio. Indiana. Illinois. Iowa. Wisconsin and Minnesota. Chance going forth from the center from Kansas and thence equidistant. Shooting in pulses of fire ceaseless to vivify all. Four. Take my leaves America. Take them south and take them north. Make welcome for them everywhere. For they are your own offspring. Surround them east and west. For they would surround you. And you precedents connect lovingly with them. For they connect lovingly with you. I condoled times. I sat studying at the feet of the great masters. Now if eligible, oh that great masters might return and study me. In the name of these states shall I scorn the antique? Why the these are the children of the antique to justify it. Five. Dead poets, philosophes, priests, martyrs, artists, inventors, governments long since. Language shapers on other shores, nations once powerful now reduced, withdrawn or desolate. I dare not proceed till I respectfully credit what you have left. Wofted. Hit her. I have perused it. Own it. It's admirable. Moving a while among it. Think nothing can ever be greater. Nothing can ever deserve more than it deserves. Regarding it all intently a long while then dismissing it I stand in my place with my own day here. Here lands female and male. Here the airship and heiress ship of the world. Here the flame of materials. Here spirituality. The translatress. The openly avowed. The ever tending. The finale of visible forms. The satisfier after due long waiting now advancing. Yes. Here comes my mistress, the soul. Six. The soul. Forever and forever. Longer than soil is brown and solid. Longer than water. Ebs and flows. I will make the poems of materials. For I think they are to be the most spiritual poems. And I will make the poems of my body and of mortality. And I think I shall then supply myself with the poems of my soul and of immortality. I will make a song for these states that no one state may under any circumstances be subjected to another state. And I will make a song that there shall be comity by day and by night between all the states and between any two of them. And I will make a song for the ears of the president full of weapons with menacing points and behind the weapons countless dissatisfied faces. And a song make I of the one formed out of all. The fanged and glittering one whose head is over all. Resolute war like one. Including and over all. However high the head of any else that head is over all. I will acknowledge contemporary lands. I will trail the whole geography of the globe and salute courteously every city large and small. And employments I will put in my poems that with you is heroism upon land and sea. And I will report all heroism from an American point of view. I will sing the songs of companionship. I will show what alone must finally compact these. I believe these are to found their own ideal of manly love indicating it in me. I will therefore let flame from me the burning fires that were threatening to consume me. I will lift what has too long kept down those smoldering fires. I will give them complete abandonment. I will write the evangelical poem of comrades and of love for who but I should understand love with all its sorrow and joy. And who but I should be the poet of comrades. Seven, I am the credulous man of qualities, ages, races. I advance from the people in their own spirit. Here is what sings unrestricted faith. Oms, ohms, let others ignore that they may. I make the poem of evil also. I commemorate that part also. I am myself just as much evil as good and my nation is and I say there is in fact no evil. Or if there is I say it is just as important to you to the land or to me as anything else. I too following many and followed by many inaugurate a religion. I descend into the arena. It may be I am destined to utter the loudest cries there. The winners peeling shouts, who knows. They may rise for me yet and soar above everything. Each is not for its own sake. I say the whole earth and all the stars in the sky are for religion's sake. I say no man has ever yet been half devout enough. None has ever yet adored or worshipped half enough. None has begun to think how divine he himself is and how certain the future is. I say that the real and permanent grandeur of these states must be their religion. Otherwise there is no just, no real, no permanent grandeur. Nor character nor life worthy the name without religion. Nor land nor man or woman without religion. Eight. What are you doing young man? Are you so earnest? So given up to literature, science, art and mores. These ostensible realities, politics, points. Your ambition or business, whatever it may be. It is well. Against such I say not a word. I am their poet also. But behold, such swiftly subside. Burnt up for religion's sake. For not all matters heal to heat, impalpable flame, the essential life of the earth. And more than such are to religion. Nine. What do you seek so pensive and silent? What do you need, camarado? Dear son, do you think it is love? Listen, dear son, listen America, daughter or son. It is a painful thing to love a man or woman to excess. And yet it satisfies. It is great. But there is something else very great. It makes the whole coincide. It magnificent beyond materials. With continuous hand sweeps and provides for all. Ten. Know you solely to drop in the earth the germs of a greater religion. Following chants each for its kind I sing. My comrade, for you to share with me two greatnesses and a third one rising inclusive and more resplendent, the greatness of love and democracy and the greatness of religion. And the greatness of religion. Melange mine own. The unseen and the seen. Mysterious ocean. Where the streams empty. Prophetic spirit of materials shifting and flickering around me. Living beings, identities now doubtless near us in the air. That we know not of. Contact daily and hourly that will not release me. These selecting these hints demanded of me. Not he with a daily kiss onward from the childhood kissing me has winded and twisted around me that which holds me to him. Any more than I am held to the heavens and all the spiritual world. After what they have done to me suggesting themes. Oh such themes. Equalities. Oh divine average. Warblings under the sun. Ushered as now or at noon or setting. Strains musical flowing through ages. Now reaching hither. I take to your reckless and composite chords add to them and cheerfully pass them forward. Eleven. As I have walked in Alabama my morning walk. I've seen where the she-bird. The mockingbird sat on her nest in the briars hatching her brood. I've seen the he-bird also. I have paused to hear him near at hand inflating his throat and joyfully singing. And while I paused it came to me. That what he really sang for was not there only. Nor for his mate nor himself only. Nor all sent back by the echoes but subtle clandestine. Away beyond. A charge transmitted and gift occult for those being born. Twelve. Democracy. Near at hand to you a throat is now inflating itself and joyfully singing. Mafam. For the brood beyond us and of us. For those who belong here and those to come. I exultant to be ready for them and will now shake out Carol's stronger and haughtier than ever have yet been heard upon earth. I will make the songs of passion to give them their way. And your songs outlawed offenders. For I scan you with kindred eyes and carry you with me the same as any. I will make the true poem of riches. To earn for the body and the mind whatever adheres and goes forward and is not dropped by death. I will effuse egotism and show it underlying all. And I will be the bard of personality. And I will show of male and female that either is but the equal of the other and sexual organs and acts. Do you concentrate in me for I am determined to tell you with courageous clear voice. To prove you illustrious. And I will show that there is no imperfection in the present. And can be none in the future. And I will show that whatever happens to anybody it may be turned to beautiful results. And I will show that nothing can happen more beautiful than death. And I will thread a thread through my poems that time and events are compact. And I will show that all the things of the universe are perfect miracles each as profound as any. I will not make poems with reference to parts. But I will make poems songs thoughts with reference to ensemble. And I will not sing with reference to a day. But with reference to all days. And I will not make a poem nor the least part of a poem. But as reference to the soul because having looked at the objects of the universe I find there is no one nor any particle of one. But as reference to the soul 13 was somebody asking to see the soul. See your own shape and continents person substances beasts the trees the running rivers the rocks and sands all hold spiritual joys and afterwards loosen them how can the real body ever die and be buried of your real body and any man's or woman's real body item for item it will elude the hands of the corpse cleaners and pass to fitting spheres carrying what is accrued to it from the moment of birth to the moment of death not the type set up by the printer return their impression the meaning the main concern any more than a mad substance and life or a woman substance and life return in the body in the soul in differently before death and after death behold the body includes and is the meaning the main concern and includes and is the soul whoever you are how superb and how divine is your body or any part of it 14 whoever you are to you endless announcements daughter of the lands did you wait for your poet did you wait for one with a flowering mouth an indicative hand toward the male of the states and toward the female of the states exalting words words to democracies lands interlinked food yielding lands land of coal and iron land of gold land of cotton sugar rice land of wheat beef pork land of wool and hemp land of the apple and the grape land of the pastoral plains and the grass fields of the world land of those sweet terred interminable plateaus land of the herd the garden the healthy house of adobe land where the northwest columbia winds where the southwest color colorado winds land of the eastern chesapeake land of the delaware land of ontario eerie here on michigan land of the old 13 massachusetts land land of vermont and land of connecticut land of the ocean shores land of sierra's and peaks land of boatmen and sailors fisherman's land in extricable lands the clutched together the passionate ones the side by side the elder and younger brothers the bony lind the great womans land the feminine the experienced sisters and the inexperienced sisters farbreath land arctic braced mexican breeze the diverse land of the world arctic braced mexican breeze the diverse the compact the pennsylvania the virginian the double carolinian oh all and each well loved by me my intrepid nations oh i at any rate include you all with perfect love i cannot be discharged from you not from one any sooner than another oh death oh for all that i'm yet to view unseen this hour with irrepressible love walking new england a friend a traveler splashing my bare feet in the edge of the summer ripples on palmanac sands crossing the prairies dwelling again in chicago dwelling in every town observing shows births improvements structures arts listening to orators and oratresses in public halls oven through the states as during life each man and woman my neighbor the louisianan the georgian as near to me and as near to him and her the missus sipean and the arkansian yet with me and i yet with any of them yet upon the plains west of the spinal river yet in my house of adobe yet returning eastward yet in the seaside state or in maryland yet canadian cheerly braving the winter the snow and ice welcome to me yet a true son either of main or the granite state or the narragansett bay state or the empire state yet sailing to other shores to annex the same yet welcoming every new brother hereby applying these leaves to the new ones from the hour they unite with the old ones coming among the new ones to be their companion and equal coming personally to you now in joining you to acts characters spectacles with me fifteen with me with firm holding yet haste haste on for your life it here to me i may have to be persuaded many times before i consent to give myself really to you but what of that must not nature be persuaded many times no dainty dolce effettuoso i bearded sunburnt grey necked forbidding i have arrived to be wrestled with as i pass for the solid prizes of the universe for such i afford whoever can preserve to win them sixteen on my way a moment i pause here for you and here for america still the present i raise aloft still the future of the states i harbinge glad and sublime and for the past i pronounce what the air holds of the red aborigines the red aborigines living natural breaths sound of rain and winds calls as of the birds and animals in the woods syllables to us for names okoni kusa otawa mano gahela sauk natchez chatahuchi kaketa oranoko wabash mayami saigeno chipewa oshkosh wala wala leaving such two states they melt they depart charging the water and the land with names seventeen expanding and swift henceforth elements breeds adjustments turbulent quick and audacious a world primal again vistas of glory incessant and branching a new race dominating previous ones and grander far with new contests new politics new literatures and religions new inventions and art these my voice announcing i will sleep no more but arise you oceans that have been calm within me how i feel you fathomless stirring preparing unprecedented waves and storms eighteen sea steamers steaming through my homes sea in my poems immigrants continually coming and landing see in arriere the wigwam the trail the hunter's hut the flat boat the maze leaf the claim the rude fence and the backwoods village see on the one side the western sea and on the other the eastern sea how they advance and retreat upon my poems as upon their own shores see pastures and forests in my poems see animals wild and tame see beyond the car countless herds of buffalo feeding on short curly grass see in my poems cities solid vast inland with pain paved streets with iron and stone edifices ceaseless vehicles and commerce see the many cylindered steam printing press see the electric telegraph stretching across the continent see through atlantic as depths pulses American Europe reaching pulses of Europe duly returned see the strong and quick locomotive as it departs panting blowing the steam whistle see plowmen plowing farms see minors digging mine see the numberless factories see mechanics busy at their benches with tools see from among them superior judges philosophs presidents emerge dressed in working dresses see lounging through the shops and fields of the states me well beloved close held by day and night hear the loud echoes of my songs there read the hints come at last 19 oh camarado close oh you and me at last and us two only oh a word to clear one's path ahead endlessly oh something ecstatic and undemonstrable oh music wild oh now I triumph and you shall also oh hand in hand oh wholesome pleasure oh one more desirer and lover oh to haste firm holding to haste haste on with me and a book to this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information on how to volunteer please visit LibriVox dot org this reading by Gordon McKenzie Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman book three song of myself one I celebrate myself and sing myself and what I assume you shall assume for every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you I loaf and invite my soul I lean and loaf at my ease observing a spear of summer grass my tongue every atom of my blood formed from this soil this air born here of parents born here from parents the same and their parents the same I now 37 years old in perfect health begin hoping to cease not till death creeds and schools and abeyance retiring back a while sufficed at what they are but never forgotten I harbor for good or bad I permit to speak at every hazard nature without check with original energy to houses and rooms are full of perfumes the shells are crowded with perfumes I breathe the fragrance myself and know it and like it the distillation would intoxicate me also but I shall not let it the atmosphere is not a perfume it has no taste of the distillation it is odorless it is for my mouth for ever I am in love with it I will go to the bank by the wooden become undisguised and naked I am mad for it to be in contact with me the smoke of my own breath echoes ripples buzzed whispers love root silk thread crotch and vine my respiration and inspiration the beating of my heart the passing of blood and air through my lungs the sniff of green leaves and dry leaves and of the shore and dark colored sea rocks and of hay in the barn the sound of the belched words of my voice loosed to the eddies of the wind a few light kisses a few embraces a reaching around of arms the play of shine and shade on the trees is the supple bow's wag the delight alone or in the rush of the streets or along the fields and hillsides the feeling of health the full noon trill the sound of me rising from bed and meeting the sun have you reckoned a thousand acres much have you reckoned the earth much have you practiced so long to learn to read have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems you shall possess the good of the earth and sun there are millions of suns left you shall no longer take things at second or third hand nor look through the eyes of the dead nor feed on the specters in books you shall not look through my eyes either nor take things from me you shall listen to all sides and filter them from yourself three I have heard what the talkers are talking the talk of the beginning and the end but I do not talk of the beginning or the end there was never any more inception than there is now nor any more youth or age than there is now and will never be any more perfection than there is now nor any more heaven or hell than there is now and urge and urge always the procreant urge of the world out of the dimness opposite equals advance always substance and increase always sex always a knit of identity always distinction always a breed of life to elaborate is no avail learned and unlearned feel that it is so sure as the most certain sure plum in the uprights well entreated braced in the beams stout as a horse affectionate haughty electrical I and this mystery here we stand clear and sweet is my soul and clear and sweet is all that is not my soul lack one lacks both and the unseen is proved by the scene till that becomes unseen and receives proof in its turn showing the best and dividing it from the worst age vexes age knowing the perfect fitness and equanimity of things while they discuss I am silent and go bathe and admire myself welcome is every organ and attribute of me and of any man hearty and clean not an inch nor a particle of an inch is vile and none shall be less familiar than the rest I am satisfied I see dance laugh sing as the hugging and loving bedfellow sleeps at my side through the night and withdraws at the peep of the day with stealthy tread leaving me baskets covered with white towels swelling the house with their plenty shall I postpone my acceptation and realization and scream at my eyes that they turn from gazing after and down the road and forthwith cipher and show me to ascent exactly the value of one and exactly the value of two and which is ahead for trippers and askers surround me people I meet the effect upon me of my early life or the ward and city I live in or the nation the latest dates discoveries invention societies authors old and new my dinner dress associates looks compliments dues the real or fancied indifference of some man or woman I love the sickness of one of my folks or of myself or ill doing or loss or lack of money or depressions or exaltations battles the horrors of fratricidal war the fever of doubtful news the fitful events these come to me days and nights and go from me again but they are not the me myself apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am stands amused complacent compassionating idle unitary looks down is erect or bends an arm on an impalpable certain rest looking with side curved head curious what will come next both in and out of the game and watching and wondering at it backward I see in my own days where I sweated through fog with linguists and contenders I have no mockings or arguments I witness and wait five I believe in you my soul the other I am must not abase itself to you and you must not be abased to the other loaf with me on the grass loose the stop from your throat not words not music or rhyme I want not custom or lecture not even the best only the lull I like the hum of your valve voice I mind how once we lay such a transparent summer morning how you settled your head to thwart my hips and gently turned over upon me and parted the shirt from my bosom bone and plunged your tongue to my bare stripped heart and reached to you felt my beard and reached to you held my feet swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and knowledge that pass all the argument of the earth and I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own and I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own and that all the men ever born are also my brothers and the women my sisters and lovers and that a kelson of the creation is love and limitless our leaves stiff or drooping in the fields and brown ants and the little wells beneath them and mossy scabs of the worm fence heaped stones elder mullin and pokeweed six a child said what is the grass fetching it to me with full hands how could I answer the child I do not know what it is any more than he I guess it must be the flag of my disposition out of hopeful green stuff woven or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord a scented gift and Remembrancer decidedly dropped bearing the owner's name some way in the corners that we may see in remark and say who's or I guess the grass is itself a child the produced babe of the vegetation or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic and it means sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones growing among black folks as among white canuck tuk-a-hoo congressman cuff I give them the same I receive them the same and now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves tenderly will I use you curling grass it may be you transpire from the breasts of young men it may be if I had known them I would have loved them it may be you are from old people or from offspring taken soon out of their mother's laps and here you are the mother's laps this grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers darker than the colorless beards of old men dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths oh I perceive after all so many uttering tongues and I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for nothing I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and women and the hints about old men and mothers and the offspring taken soon out of their laps what do you think has become of the young and old men and what do you think has become of the women and children they are alive and well somewhere the smallest sprout shows there is really no death and if ever there was it led forward life and does not wait at the end to arrest it and ceased the moment life appeared all goes onward and outward nothing collapses and to die is different from what anyone supposed and luckier seven has anyone supposed it lucky to be born I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die and I know it I pass death with the dying and birth with the new washed babe and I'm not contained between my hat and boots and peruse manifold objects no two alike and every one good the earth good and the stars good and their adjuncts all good I am not an earth nor an adjunct of an earth I am the mate and companion of people all just as immortal and fathomless as myself they do not know how immortal I know every kind for itself and its own for me mine male and female for me those that have been boys and that love women for me the man that is proud and feels how it stings to be slighted for me the sweetheart and the old maid for me mothers and the mothers of mothers for me lips that have smiled eyes that have shed tears for me children and the begetters of children undraped you are not guilty to me nor stale nor discarded I see through the broadcloth and gingham whether or no and am around tenacious acquisitive tireless and cannot be shaken away eight the little one sleeps in its cradle I lift the gauze and look a long time and silently brush away flies with my hand the youngster and the red-faced girl turn aside up the bushy hill I peeringly view them from the top the suicide sprawls on the bloody floor of the bedroom I witness the corpse with its dabbled hair I note where the pistol has fallen the blab of the pave tires of carts slough of boot soles talk of the promenaders the heavy omnibus the driver with his interrogating thumb the clank of the shod horses on the granite floor the snow sleighs clinking shouted jokes pelts of snowballs the hurrahs for popular favorites the fury of roused mobs the flap of the curtain litter a sick man inside born to the hospital the meeting of enemies the sudden oath the blows and fall the excited crowd the policeman with his star quickly working his passage to the center of the crowd the impassive stones that receive and return so many echoes what groans of overfed or half-starved who fall sun-struck or in fits what exclamations of women taken suddenly who hurry home and give birth to babes what living and buried speech is always vibrating here what howls restrained by decorum arrests of criminals slights adulterous offers made acceptances rejections with convex lips I mind them or the show or resonance of them I come and I depart the big doors of the country barn stand open and ready the dried grass of the harvest time loads the slow drawn wagon the clear light plays on the brown gray and green intertinged the armfuls are packed to the sagging moe I am there I help I came stretched to top of the load I felt it soft jolts one leg reclined on the other I jump from the crossbeams and sees the clover and Timothy and roll head over heels and tangle my hair full of wisps 10 alone far in the wilds and mountains I hunt wandering amazed at my own lightness and glee in the late afternoon choosing a safe spot to pass the night kindling a fire and broiling the fresh killed game falling asleep on the gathered leaves with my dog and gun by my side the Yankee Clipper is under her sky sails she cuts the sparkle and scud my eyes settle the land I bend at her prow or shout joyously from the deck the boatman and clam diggers arose early and stopped for me I tucked my trouser ends in my boots and went and had a good time you should have been with us that day round the chowder kettle I saw the marriage of the trapper in the open air in the far west the bride was a red girl her father and his friends sat near cross-legged and dumbly smoking they had moccasins to their feet and large thick blankets hanging from their shoulders on a bank lounged at the trapper he was dressed mostly in skins his luxuriant beard and curls protected his neck he held his bride by the hand she had long eyelashes her head was bare her coarse straight locks descended upon her voluptuous limbs and reached to her feet the runaway slave came to my house and stopped outside I heard his motions crackling the twigs of the woodpile through the swung half-door of the kitchen I saw him limp see and weak and went where he sat on a log and led him in and assured him and brought water and filled a tub for his sweated body and bruised feet and gave him a room that entered from my own and gave him some coarse clean clothes and remember perfectly well his revolving eyes and his awkwardness and remember putting plasters on the galls of his neck and ankles he stayed with me a week before he was recuperated and passed north I had him sit next to me at table my firelock leaned in the corner eleven twenty-eight young men bathed by the shore twenty-eight young men and all so friendly twenty-eight years of womanly life and all so lonesome she owns the fine house by the rise of the bank she hides handsome and richly dressed after the blinds of the window which of the young men does she like the best ah the homelest of them is beautiful to her where are you off to lady for I see you you splash in the water there it stays stuck still in your room dancing and laughing along the beach came the twenty-ninth be there the rest did not see her but she saw them and loved them the beards of the young men glistened with wet it ran from their long hair little streams passed all over their bodies an unseen hand also passed over their bodies it descended tremblingly from their temples and ribs the young men float on their backs their white bellies bulge to the sun they do not ask who seizes fast to them they do not know who puffs and declines with pendant and bending arch they do not think whom they sows with spray twelve the butcher boy puts off his killing clothes or sharpens his knife at the stall in the market I loiter enjoying his repartee and his shuffle and breakdown blacksmiths with grime and hairy chests and viral the anvil each has his main sledge they are all out there is a great heat in the fire from the cinder strewed threshold I follow their movements the live sheer of their wastes plays even with their massive arms overhand the hammers swing overhand so slow overhand so sure they do not hasten each man hits in his place 13 the negro holds firmly the reins of his four horses the block swags underneath on its tide over chain the negro that drives the long tray of the stone yard steady and tall he stands poised on one leg on the string piece his blue shirt exposes his ample neck and breast and loosens over his hip band his glance is calm and commanding he tosses the slouch of his hat away from his forehead the sun falls on his crispy hair and moustache falls on the black of his polished and perfect limbs I behold the picturesque giant and love him I do not stop there I go with the team also in me the caressor of life wherever moving backward as well as forward sluying to niches aside and junior bending not a person or object missing absorbing all to myself and for this song oxen that rattled the yoke and chain or halt in the leafy shade what is that you express in your eyes seems to me more than all the print I have read in my life I tread scares the wood drake and wood duck on my distant and day long ramble they rise together they slowly circle around I believe in those winged purposes and acknowledge red yellow white playing within me and consider green and violet and the tufted crown intentional and do not call the tortoise unworthy because she is not something else and the in the woods never studied the gamut yet trills pretty well to me and the look of the bay mare shame silliness out of me