 Book 34. of Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman. This Liberfox recording is in the public domain, recording by phone. Book 34. Sands at Seventy. Manahatta. My city's fit and noble name resumed. Choice aboriginal name, with marvellous beauty, meaning. A rocky found at island, shores wherever gaily dashed a coming, going, hurrying sea waves. Palmanok. Sea beauty, stretched and basking, one side by inland ocean leaving, broad with copious comers, steamers, sails, and one the Atlantic's wind caressing, fierce or gentle, mighty hulls 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 Montauk 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 and the distance, the wild unrest, the snowy curling caps, that inbound urge and urge of waves, seeking the shore forever, to those who have failed. To those who failed in aspiration fast, to unnamed soldiers fallen in front on the lead, to calm devoted engineers, to over ardent travellers, to pilots on their ships, to many a lofty song and picture without recognition, I drear 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 resume, a repetition, my lines in joy and hope continuing on the same, of ye, O God, life, nature, freedom, poetry, of you, my land, your rivers, prairies, states, you, mottled flag, I love, your aggregate retained and tire, of north, south, east and west, your items all, of me myself, the jock and heart yet beating in my breast, the body wrecked, old, poor and paralysed, the strange inertia falling pole-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, not non-pareil, bravire, bourgeois, long primer merely. These ocean waves, arousable to fury and to death, were soothed to ease and sheen-y sun and sleep, within the pallid slivers slumbering, as I sit writing here. As I sit writing here, sick and grown old, not my least burden is that dullness of the years, corillities, ungracious glooms, aches, lethargy, constipation, whimpering ennui, may filter in my dally songs, my canary bird. Did we count great, O 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, by joyous warble, filling the air, the lonesome room, the long forenoon, is it not just as great, O soul, queries to my seventieth year? Approaching, nearing, curious, thou dim and certain spectre, 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 mouldy bones, once living men, once resolute courage, aspiration, strength, the stepping stones to thee, today and here, America, 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 a dawn. The spring's first dandelion shows its trustful face, America, centre of equal daughters, equal sons, all, all alike and dear, grown, ungrown, young or old, strong, ample, fair and during, 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 and tire, with all its heroes, histories, arts, experiments, its store of songs, inventions, voyages, teachers, books, garnered for now and thee, to think of it, be erred and 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 12, 1809. Today, from each and all, a breath of prayer, a pulse of thought, to memory of him, to birth of him, out of maze 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 perfused purple or white flowers, halcyon days, not from successful love alone, nor wealth, nor honoured middle age, nor victories of politics or war, but as life wanes and all the turbulent passions calm, as gorges, vapoury, silent hues cover the evening sky, as softness, fullness, rest, suffuse the frame, like fresh air, bombier air, as the days take on a mellower light, and the apple at last hangs rarely finished and indolent ripe on the tree, then, for the teeming quietest, happiest days of all, the brooding and blissful halcyon days, fancies at knave-sink, one, the pilot in a mist, steaming the northern rapids, an old St. Lawrence reminiscence, a sudden memory flash comes back, I know not why, here, waiting for the sunrise, gazing from this hill, again, tis just that morning, a heavy haze contends with daybreak, again, the trembling, labouring vessel fears me, I press through foam-dashed rocks that almost touch me, again, I mark whereof the small, thin Indian helmsman looms in the mist with brow-y late 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 wit 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 oath or dare, three, you tides with ceaseless swell, 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 seriousness, what capellas, what 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 fluent, 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 making, smells of sedge and salt incoming, with many a half-caught voice sent up from the eddies, many a muffled confession, many a soul 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, loves unresponse, a chorus of ages complaints, popes 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 debush, 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 offsetting, blending, weaving from you, from sleep, night, death itself, the rythmus of birth eternal, six, proudly the flood comes in, proudly the flood comes in, shouting, foaming, advancing, long it holds at a high with buzzing broad out-swelling, all throbs dilates, the farms, woods, streets of cities, workmen at work, mainsails, topsails, gyms appear in the offing, steamers penance of smoke, and under the forenoon sun, freighted 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 of fumarol, the long past war, the battles, hospital sites, the wounded and dent, 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 and nothing, and happily yet some drop within God's schemes ensemble, some wave or part of 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 o' tides, the mystic human meaning, only by law of you, your swell and ebb, enclosing me the same, the brain that shapes, the voice that charms this song, Election Day, November, 1884. If I should need to name, o' western world, your powerfulest scene and show, it would not be you, Niagara, nor you, ye limitless prairies, nor your huge rift 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, this seething hemisphere's 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 quadrennial 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 Napoleons, the peaceful choice of all, or good or ill humanity, welcoming the darker odds to dross, foam and ferments to 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, oh sea, with husky haughty lips, oh sea, 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, thy 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, caprices, willfulness, great as thou art above the rest, thy many tears, a lack from all eternity in thy content, naught 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 gains'd, surely some right withheld, some voice in huge, manultinous rage, a freedom-lover pent, some vast heart like a planet's chained and chafing in those breakers, by lengthened swell and spasm and panting breath, and rhythmic rasping of thy sands and waves, and serpent hiss and savage peals 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, outsurging, muttering from thy soul's abyss, the tale of cosmic elemental passion, thou tellest to a kindred soul, death of general grant, as one by one withdraw'd a lofty actors from that great play on history's stage-etern, that lurid, partial act of war and peace, of old and new contending, full'd out through wroth, fears, darkness maze, and many a long suspense, all past and since in countless graves receding, mellowing, victors and vanquished, lingons and glies, now thou with them, man of the mighty days and equal to the days, thou from the prairies, tangled and many veined, and heart 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 blend the 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 a rifle, a half-ironical smile curving its phantom lips, like one of Ocean's ghosts lugs down, Washington's Monument, February 1885. Ah, not this marble, dead and cold, far from its base and shaft expanding, the round zones circling, comprehending. Thou, Washington, art all the worlds, the continents entire, not yours alone, America. Europe's as well, in every part, castle of lord or laborer's court, or frozen north or sultry south, the Africans, the Arabs in his tent, old Asia stared 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, proofs of the never-broken line, courage, alertness, patience, faith, the same, Ian in defeat, defeated not, the same. Wherever sails a ship, or house is built on land, or day or night, through teeming city 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 blight throat of thine, from arctic bleak and blank, I'll mind the lesson, solitary bird, let me too welcome chilling drifts, in the profoundest chill as now, a torpid pulse, a brain unnerved, old age landlocked 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's zones alone, not chance of youth or south's warm tides alone, but held by sluggish flows, packed in the northern ice, the cumulus of years, these, with gay heart, I also sing, Broadway. What hurrying human tides, or day or night, what passions, winnings, losses, ardours, 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 of demerit 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-coloured world itself, like infinite, teeming, mucking life, thou visered, 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, Joe, Homer, Escalus, 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 prize, 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 ninety, 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 armchair 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-dides and much wrong-going. At last, at nightfall, strikes debris aright, her whole luck fearing, and swiftly, bending round the cape, the darkness proudly entering, cleaving as he watches, she's free, she's on her destination. These 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 those strains distilled, how the rapt ears, the soul of me, absorbing Fernando's heart, Manrico's passionate call, Hernanes, sweet generos, I fold dense forth, or seek to fold, within my chance transmuting, freedoms and loves and fates, unloosed cantabile, 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 shift its fear, confused I bring. Ample are 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, ever the spring's invisible lull returns, with grass and flowers and summer fruits and corn. Yonondio. A song, a poem of itself, the world itself a dirge, amid the wilds, the rocks, the storm and wintery night, to me such misty, strange tableaux, the syllables calling up. Yonondio. I see, far in the west or 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 foals, no picture, poem, statement, passing them to the future. Yonondio. Yonondio. Unlimbed, 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 undiscouraged, 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, her eyes, 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 sake, ended our talk, the sum concluding all we know of old or modern learning, intuition steep, 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 one's self, 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 physiognomy 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 sees at the theme of one's self, I speak the word of the modern, the word unmasse. 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, travellers, workmen, no matter how crippled or bent, old sailors, out of many a perilous voyage, storm and wreck, old soldiers from campaigns with older wounds, defeats and scars, enough that they've survived at all, long lives unflinching ones, forth from their struggles, trials, fights, to have emerged at all, in that alone, true conquerors are all the rest, the United States, to old world critics. Here, first, the duties of today, the lessons of the 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 men's speculations, amid the changing schools, theologies, philosophies, amid the boiling presentations, new and old, the round earth's silent, vital laws, facts, modes continue, thanks in old age. Thanks in old age, thanks ere I go, 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, hardy men, who've forward sprung in freedom's help, all years, all lands, for braver, stronger, more devoted men, a special laurel ere I go, till life's war's chosen ones, the canoneers of song and thought, the great artillerists, the foremost leaders, captains of the soul, as soldier from an ended war returned, as traveller out of myriads to the long procession retrospective, thanks, joyful thanks, a soldier's traveller'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 to ours 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, impalpable, out of the land and 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 fulfilment, wandering, wrecked or unrecked, duly with love returns, soon shall the winter's foil be here, soon shall these icy ligatures unbind and melt, a little while, and air, soil, wave, suffuse 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, shall wake and fill, thou shall perceive the simple shows, the delicate miracles of earth, than the lions, clover, the emerald grass, the early scents and flowers, the arbutus 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, while not the past forgetting, while not the past forgetting, today at least, contention's sunk and tire, peace, brotherhood, a prison, for sign reciprocal are northern, southern hands, lay on the graves of all dead soldiers, north or south, nor for the past alone, for meanings to the future, wreaths 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 cast a reminiscence, likely, twill offend you, I hear 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, sharpen 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, reconnoitering, to the cannons, the grim artillery, to the galloping aides, 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 and stood aside for 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, short gold, maroon and violet, dazzling silver, emerald, foam, 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 confined, not the western sky alone, the high meridian, north, south, all, pure, luminous color fighting the silent shadows to the lost, twenty years. Down on the ancient wharf, the sand, I sit with a newcomer chatting. He, shipped as green-hand 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 a place, all the old landmarks gone, the parents dead. Yes, he comes back to lay in port for good, to settle, has a well-filled purse, no spot will do but this. The little boat that sculled him from the sloop, 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 of those twenty years? What of the future? Orange buds by mail from Florida, a lesser proof than old fault-hairs, yet greater, proof of this present time, and thee, thy broad expanse America, to my plain northern hut in outside clouds and snow, brought safely for a thousand miles o'er land and tide, some three days since on their own soil life 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 and night, oblivion, you lingering sparse leaves of me, you lingering sparse leaves of me on winter nearing boughs, and I some well-shorne tree of field or orchard-row, you token stim-nute 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 overstayed of time, yet my sole dearest leaves confirming all the rest, the faithfulest, hardiest, last, not meager, latent boughs alone. Not meager, latent boughs alone, o' songs, scaly and bare, like eagle's talons, but happily for some sunny day, you 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 was bending head and eyes, thou, too, Columbia, less for the mighty crown laid low in sorrow, less for the emperor. Thy true condolence breathest, sendest out or a many assault sea-mile, mourning 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 hill-top, like applause and glory, welcoming in fame some special veteran, hero, with rosy tinge reddening the land he'd served. So eye aloft from Manahata's ship-fringed shore, lift high a kindled brand for thee, old poet, the dismantled ship. In some unused lagoon, some nameless bay, unsluggish lonesome waters anchored near the shore, an old, dismastered, grey and battered ship, disabled, done. After free voyages to all the seas of earth, hold up at last and holzer tight, lies rusting, mouldering. 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 calls, or poets to come, or pomenok, 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 bread, and many, many more unspecified, from fibre 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 soldier's wound, of country's loss or safety. O heaven, what flash and started, endless train of all, compared indeed to that, what wretched shred, even at the best of all, an evening low, after a week of physical anguish, unrest and pain, and feverish heat, towards the ending day, a calm and lull comes on, three hours of peace and soothing rest of brain, old ages lambant peaks, the touch of flame, the illuminating fire, the loftiest look at last, or city, passion, sea, or prairie, mountain, wood, the earth itself, the airy, different, changing hues of all, in falling twilight, objects and groups, bearings, faces, reminiscences, 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, unrecked before, the lights indeed from them, old ages lambant 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 to ward off the lost 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 listening, dimmer the forthgober's visage and form, soon to be lost for eye in the darkness, loath, oh, so loath the depart, garrulous to the very lost. End of book 34, Recording by Foam. Book 35 of Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by Foam. Book 35, Goodbye, My Fancy. Sail out for good, Eidolon Yacht. Heave the anchor short, raise mainsail and chip-steer forth, oh, little white-hulled sloop, now speed on really deep waters. I will not call it our concluding voyage, but outset and sure entrance to the truest, best, maturest. Depart, depart from solid earth, no more returning to the shores. Now on for I, our infinite free venture-wending, spurning all yet tried ports, seas, haulsers, densities, gravitation. Sail out for good, Eidolon Yacht of me, lingering last drops. And whence and why, come you? We know not whence was the answer. We only know that we drift here with the rest, that we lingered and land, 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 jocund twain. My life and recitative, containing birth, youth, mid-age years, fitful as motley tongues of flame, inseparably twined and merged in one, combining all, my single soul, aims, confirmations, failures, joys. Nor single soul alone, I think of my soul, nor single soul alone, I chant my nation's crucial stage, America's happy humanities, the trial great, the victory great, a strange eclaircy small of all the masses past, the eastern world, the ancient medieval, hear, hear from wanderings, strings, lessons, wars, defeats, hear at the west a voice triumphant, justifying all, a gladsome, 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 forenoon life, and for the summer's autumn's spread, I pass to snow-white hairs the same, and give to pulses winter-cooled the same. As hear in careless trill, I and my recidatives, with faith and love, wafting to other work, to unknown songs, conditions, on, on ye juck and twain, continue on the same, my seventy-first year. After surmounting three score and ten, with older chances, changes, losses, sorrows, my parents' deaths, the vagaries of my life, the many tearing passions of me, the war of sixty-three and four, as some old broken soldier, after a long, hot, wearing march, or happily after battle, today at twilight, hobbling, answering company roll call, hear with vital voice, reporting yet, saluting yet the officer over all, apparitions, a vague mist hanging round half the pages, sometimes how strange and clear to the soul, that all 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 nails suspended, with pink, blue, yellow, all blanched, and to 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 odour exhaled, or the colours, vitalities, dead? No, while memory subtly play, the past 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, nor even pallid, an ended day. The soothing sanity and blitheness of completion, the pomp and hurried contest glare and rush are done. Now triumph, transformation, jibberlate, old age's ship and crafty deaths, from east and west across the horizon's edge, two mighty masterful vessel sailors still upon us, but we'll make race a time upon the seas, a battle contest yet, there lively there, our joys of strife and daring due 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 worth for thee, some message brief and fierce? Have I fought out and done, indeed, the battle? Is there no shot left for all thy affections, lifts, scorns, manifold silliness? Nor for myself, my own rebellious self in thee. Down, down, proud gorge, though choking thee, thy bearded throat and high-born forehead to the gutter, crouched low thy neck to elit-emotionary gifts, Shakespeare Bacon's cipher. I doubt it not, then more, far more, in each old song bequeathed, in every noble page or text, different, something unrect before, some unsuspected 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 infolded, long, long hence. After a long, long course, hundreds of years, denials, accumulations, roused love and joy and thought, hopes, wishes, aspirations, ponderings, victories, myriads of readers, coating, compassing, covering, after ages and ages and crustations, then only may these songs retruition. Bravo, Paris Exposition! Add to your show before you close it, France, with all the rest, visible, concrete, temples, towers, goods, machines, and oars. Our sentiment wafted from many million heart-throbs, ethereal, but solid. We, grandsons and great-grandsons, do not forget your grandsires. From fifty 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, hurray and harsh noises, war's grim game to sight and ear in earnest, the scout called up and forward, the general mounted and his aides around him, the new broad word, the instantaneous order issued, the rifle-crack, the cannon-thund, the rushing forth of men from their tents, the clank of cavalry, the strange celerity of forming ranks, the slender bugle note, the sound of horses hoos departing, saddles, arms, accoutrements, to the sunset breeze, ah, whispering, something again, unseen, where late this heated day, thou enterst at my window, door, thou, leaving, tempering all, cool-freshing, gently vitalizing, 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 dem, 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, distances balked, occult medicines penetrating me from head to foot, I feel the sky to prairies vast, I feel the mighty Norden lakes, I feel the ocean and the forest, somehow I feel the globe itself swift swimming in space, alone from 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 has never told and cannot tell, art thou not universal, concrete distillation, laws, all astronomy's last refinement, has thou no soul? can I not know, identify thee? old chance, an ancient song reciting, ending, once gazing toward thee, mother of all, musing, seeking themes fitted for thee, accept me, thou saidst, the elder balance, and name for me before thou goest, each ancient poet, of many deaths incalculable, happily our new world's chiefest debt is to old poems, ever 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 idols of the Nazarene, the Iliad, Odyssey, plots, doings, wanderings of Eneas, Heziot, Escalus, Suffocles, Merlin, Arthur, the Cid, Rowland, Adronses, Val, the Nibelouin, the Turbadours, Minstrels, Minnesingers, Scals, Chaucer, Dante, Flux of Singing Birds, the Border Minstrel Sea, the Bygone Ballads, Feudal Tales, Essays, Plays, Shakespeare, Schiller, Walter Scott, Tennyson, as some vast wondrous weird dream presences, the great shadowy groups gathering around, darting their mighty masterful eyes forward at thee, thou with us now thy bending neck and head, with courteous hand and word ascending, thou pausing a moment, drooping thine eyes upon them, blunt with their music, well pleased, accepting all, curiously prepared for by them, thou enterst 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 whole, let the future care for itself, where it reveals its troubles, impediments, ours, ours the present throw, 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 strain from curie 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 scarulous lips 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 unintended 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, from the measureless 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 unfiling, rising, I hear the rhythmic tramp of the armies, your million unriched names, oh, oh, you dark bequest from old war, a special verse for you, a flash of duty long neglected, your mystic rule strangely gathered here, each name recalled by me from out the darkness and death's ashes, henceforth to be deep, deep within my heart recording for many future year, your mystic rule and tire of unknown names or north or south and bombed with love in this twilight song, when the full grown poet came, when the full grown poet came, out spake please 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 happily and joyously blends them. Osciola. When his hour for death had come, he slowly raised himself from the bed on the floor, drew on his wardress, shirt, leggings and girdled debelt around his waist, cold for, for million paint, his looking gloss was held before him, painted half his face and neck, his wrists and backhands, put the scarf 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 here 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, dwelling, forge, street, iron bridge, dashed pale mel by the blow, yet ushered life continuing on, amid the rest, amid the rushing, whirling, wild debris, a suffering woman saved, a baby safely born, although I come and unannounced in horror and impang, in pouring flood and fire, and wholesale elemental crash, his 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 good, the capable, the household wrecked, the husband and the wife, the engulfed forager in his forge, the corpses in the well-ming 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, bearing the past, hear new musing, a day, a passing moment or an hour, America itself bends low, silent, resigned, submissive. War, death, cataclysm like this, America, take thee to thy proud, prosperous heart. Ian as I chant, low, out of death and out of ooze and slime, the blossoms rapidly blooming, sympathy, help, love, from west and 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 listen 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 and 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 error forget thee. For I too have forgotten, wrapped in these little potencies of progress, politics, culture, wealth, inventions, civilization, have lost my recognition of your silent, ever-swaying power he mighty elemental throws in which and upon which we float, and every one of us is buoyed. A Persian lesson. For his ore-arching and last lesson, the grey-beard Sufi, in the fresh scent of the morning in the open air, on the slope of a teeming Persian rose garden, under an ancient chestnut 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 removes, yet Allah, Allah, Allah is there, as the astray 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 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 care, the mainest lesson, less from books, less from the schools, the common day and night, the common earth and waters, your farm, 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, serpents, the ravenous sharks, liars, all salute, what is the part, the wicked and the loathsome, bear within earth's orbic 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 or in autumn, perfectly clear weather, in plain sight, camps far or near, the crowded streets of cities and the shopfronts, 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, colours and blinds, plain as could be, farms and dooryards of home, paths bordered with box, lilacs in corners, weddings in churches, Thanksgiving dinners, returns of long absent suns, glum funerals, the crepe veiled mother and the daughters, trials in courts, jury and judge, the accused in the box, contestants, battles, crowds, bridges, wars, now and then marked faces of sorrow and 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 hill tops, 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, 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 shadowy death, dogs my steps, my seated shape, and has for years, draw sometimes close to me, as face to face, the unexpressed, how dare one say it, after the cycles, poems, singers, plays, vaunted Ionias, 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 deaths, all human lives, throats, wishes, brains, all experiences, utterance, after the countless songs, or long or short, all tongues, all lands, still, something not yet told in poetry's 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 their laws, so multi-form, puzzling, evolutionary, but grand are far the unseen soul of me, comprehending and dowing all those, 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, fast, 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, and born, like babes and wounds, 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 soon the heart thud stopping. Long have we lived, joyed, caressed together. The lightful, 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, the mortal knob, really undoing, turning. So now, finally, goodbye, and hail, my fancy. End of book 35, recording by phone. End of Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman.