 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit www.librivox.org. Today's reading is by Chris Mitchell. The Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman. Book 5. Calimus in Paths Untrodden In Paths Untrodden, in the growth by margins of pond waters, escaped from the life that exhibits itself, from all the standards hitherto published, from the pleasures, profits, conformities, which too long I was offering to feed my soul, clear to me now standards not yet published, clear to me that my soul, that the soul of the man I speak for, rejoices in comrades, here by myself away from the clank of the world, tallying and talked to here by tongues aromatic, no longer abashed, for in this secluded spot I can respond as I would not dare elsewhere. Strong upon me the life that does not exhibit itself, yet contains all the rest. Resolve to sing no songs today, but those of manly attachment. Projecting them along that substantial life, bequeathing hence types of athletic love, afternoon this delicious ninth month in my forty-first year, I proceed for all who are or have been young men, to tell the secret my nights and days, to celebrate the need of comrades. Scented Herbage of My Breast Scented Herbage of My Breast, leaves from you I glean, I write, to be perused best afterwards, tuned leaves, body leaves, growing up above me, above death, perennial roots, tall leaves, oh, the winter shall not freeze you, delicate leaves. Every year shall you bloom again, out from where you retired you shall emerge again. Oh, I do not know whether many passing by will discover you or inhale your faint odor, but I believe a few will. Oh, slender leaves, oh blossoms of my blood, I permit you to tell in your own way of the heart that is under you. Oh, I do not know what you mean there underneath yourselves, you are not happiness. You are often more bitter than I can bear, you burn and sting me, yet you are beautiful to me, you faint-tinged roots, you make me think of death. Death is beautiful from you, what indeed is finally beautiful except death and love. Oh, I think it is not for life I am chanting here my chant of lovers, I think it must be for death. For how calm, how solemn it grows to ascend to the atmosphere of lovers, death or life I am then indifferent, my soul declines to prefer. I am not sure, but the high soul of lovers welcomes death most. Indeed, oh death, I think now these leaves mean precisely the same as you mean. Grow up taller, sweet leaves that I may see, grow up out of my breast, spring away from the concealed heart there. Do not fold yourself so in your pink-tinged roots, timid leaves. Do not remain down there so ashamed, herbage of my breast. Come I am determined to unbear this broad breast of mine, I have long enough stifled and choked. Emblematic and capricious blades I leave you, now you serve me not. I will say what I have to say by itself. I will sound myself and comrades only. I will never again utter a call, only their call. I will raise with it immortal reverberations through the states. I will give an example to lovers to take permanent shape and will through the states. Through me shall the words be said to make death exhilarating. Give me your tone, therefore, oh death, that I may accord with it. Give me yourself, for I see that you belong to me now above all, and are folded inseparably together, you, love, and death are. Nor will I allow you to balk me any more with what I was calling life. For now it is conveyed to me that you are the purports essential, that you hide in these shifting forms of life for reasons and that they are mainly for you. That you beyond them come forth to remain the real reality, that behind the mask of materials you patiently wait, no matter how long, that you will one day perhaps take control of all, that you will perhaps dissipate this entire show of appearance. That may be you are what it is all for, but it does not last so very long, but you will last very long. Whoever you are holding me now in hand. Whoever you are holding me now in hand, without one thing all will be useless. I give you fair warning before you attempt me further. I am not what you supposed, but far different. Who is he that would become my follower? Who would sign himself a candidate for my affections? The way is suspicious, the result uncertain, perhaps destructive. You would have to give up all else. I alone would expect to be your soul and exclusive standard. Your novitiate would even then be long and exhausting. The whole past theory of your life and all conformity to the lives around you would have to be abandoned. Therefore, release me now before troubling yourself any further. Let go your hand from my shoulders. Put me down and depart on your way. Or else by stealth in some wood for trial, or back of a rock in the opened air, for in any roofed room of a house I emerge not, nor in company, and in libraries I lie as one dumb, a gawk, or unborn or dead. But just possibly with you on a high hill, first watching lest any person for miles around approach unawares, or possibly with you sailing at sea, or on the beach of the sea or some quiet island. Here to put your lips upon mine I permit you, with the comrade's long-dwelling kiss or the new husband's kiss, for I am the new husband and I am the comrade. Or if you will, thrusting me beneath your clothing, where I may feel the throbs of your heart or rest upon your hip, carry me when you go forth over land or sea, for thus merely touching you is enough, is best, and thus touching you would I silently sleep and be carried eternally. But these leaves conning you con at peril, for these leaves and me you will not understand, they will allude you at first, and still more afterward, I will certainly allude you. Even while you should think you had unquestionably caught me, behold, already you see I have escaped from you. For it is not for what I have put into it that I have written this book, nor is it by reading it you will acquire it, nor do those know me best who admire me and vauntingly praise me, nor will the candidates for my love, unless at most a very few, prove victorious, nor will my poems do good only, they will do just as much evil perhaps more, for all is useless without that which you may guess at many times and not hit that which I hinted at, therefore release me and depart on your way. For you, O democracy! Come, I will make the continent indissoluble, I will make the most splendid race the sun ever shown upon, I will make divine magnetic lands, with the love of comrades, with the lifelong love of comrades, I will plant companionship thick as trees along all the rivers of America, and along the shores of the great lakes and all over the prairies, I will make inseparable cities with their arms about each other's necks, by the love of comrades, by the manly love of comrades. For you these from me, O democracy, to serve you mahfem, for you, for you I am trilling these songs, these I singing in spring, these I singing in spring collect for lovers, for who but I should understand lovers and all their sorrow and joy, and who but I should be the poet of comrades. Collecting I traverse the garden, the world, but soon I pass the gates, now along the pond side, now wading in a little, fearing not the wet, now by the post and rail fences, where the old stones thrown there, picked from the fields, have accumulated. Wild flowers and vines and weeds come up through the stones and partly cover them, beyond these I pass. Far, far in the forest, or sauntering later in summer, before I think where I go, solitary, smelling the earthy smell, stopping now and then in the silence, alone I had thought, yet soon a troop gathers around me, some walk by my side and some behind, and some embrace my arms or neck. They, the spirits of dear friends dead or alive, thicker they come, a great crowd, and I in the middle. Collecting, dispensing, singing, there I wander with them, plucking something for tokens, tossing toward whoever is near me. Here, lilac, with a branch of pine, here, out of my pocket, some moss which I pulled off a live oak in Florida as it hung trailing down. Here, some pinks and laurel leaves, and a handful of sage, and here what I now draw from the water, wading in the pondside. Oh, here I last saw him that tenderly loves me, and returns again never to separate from me. And this, oh, this shall henceforth be the token of comrades, this callimous root shall interchange at youths with each other, let none render it back. And twigs of maple and a bunch of wild orange and chestnut, and stems of currants and plumblos, and the aromatic cedar, these I compassed around by a thick cloud of spirits, wandering point to or touch as I pass, or throwing them loosely from me, indicating to each one what he shall have, giving something to each. But what I drew from the water by the pondside that I reserve, I will give of it, but only to them that love as I myself am capable of loving, not heaving from my ribbed breast only, not heaving from my ribbed breast only, not in size at night enraged dissatisfied with myself, not in those long-drawn, ill-suppressed sighs, not in many an oath and promise broken, not in my willful and savage soul's volition, not in the subtle nourishment of the air, not in this beating and pounding at my temples and wrists, not in the curious systole and diastole within which will one day cease, not in many a hungry wish told to the skies only, not in cries, laughter, defiances, thrown from me when alone far in the wilds, not in husky pantings through clenched teeth, not in sounded and resounded words, chattering words, echoes, dead words, not in the murmurs of my dreams while I sleep, nor the other murmurs of these incredible dreams of every day, nor in the limbs and senses of my body that take you and dismiss you continually, not there, not in any or all of them, oh adhesiveness, oh pulse of my life, need I that you exist and show yourself any more than in these songs. Of the terrible doubt of appearances, of the terrible doubt of appearances, of the uncertainty after all that we may be deluded, that may be reliance and hope are but speculations after all, that may be identity beyond the grave is a beautiful fable only, may be the things I perceive, the animals, plants, men, hills, shining and flowing waters, the skies of day and night, colors, densities, forms, may be these are, as doubtless they are, only apparitions, and the real something has yet to be known, how often they dart out of themselves as if to confound me and mock me, how often I think neither I know nor any man knows ought of them, may be seeming to me what they are as doubtless they indeed but seem, as from my present point of view and might prove, as of course they would, not of what they appear or not anyhow, from entirely changed points of view. To me these and the like of these are curiously answered by my lovers, my dear friends, when he whom I love travels with me or sits along while holding me by the hand, when the subtle air, the impalpable, the sense that words and reason hold not surround us and pervade us, then I am charged with untold and untellable wisdom, I am silent, I require nothing further. I cannot answer the question of appearances or that of identity beyond the grave, but I walk or sit indifferent, I am satisfied, he a hold of my hand has completely satisfied me, the base of all metaphysics. And now, gentlemen, as a word I give to remain in your memories and minds, as base and finale too for all metaphysics, so to the students the old professor at the close of his corroded course. Having studied the new and antique, the Greek and Germanic systems, Kant having studied and stated, Fichte and Schelling and Hegel stated the lore of Plato and Socrates greater than Plato, and greater than Socrates sought and stated, Christ divine having studied long. I see reminiscent today those Greek and Germanic systems, see the philosophies all, Christian churches and tenets see, yet underneath Socrates clearly see, and underneath Christ the divine I see. The dear love of man for his comrade, the attraction of friend to friend, of the well-married husband and wife, of children and parents, of city for city and land for land. Recorders Ages Hence Recorders Ages Hence, come, I will take you down underneath this impassive exterior. I will tell you what to say of me, publish my name and hang up my picture as that of the tenderest lover, the friend, the lover's portrait, of whom his friend, his lover, was fondest. Who was not proud of his songs, but of the measureless ocean of love within him, and freely poured it forth? Who often walked lonesome walks thinking of his dear friends, his lovers? Who, pensive away from one he loved often, lay sleepless and dissatisfied at night? Who knew too well the sick, sick dread lest the one he loved might secretly be indifferent to him? Whose happiest days were far away through fields, in woods, on hills, he and another, wandering hand in hand, they twain, apart from other men. Who, oft as he sauntered the streets curved with his arm the shoulder of his friend, while the arm of his friend rested upon him also? When I Heard At The Close Of The Day When I heard at the close of the day how my name had been received with plaudits in the capital, still it was not a happy night for me that followed. And else when I corroused or when my plans were accomplished, still I was not happy. But the day when I rose at dawn from the bed of perfect health, refreshed, singing, inhaling the ripe breath of autumn, when I saw the full moon in the west grow pale and disappear in the morning light, when I wandered alone over the beach and undressing, bathed, laughing with the cool waters, and saw the sun rise. And when I thought how my dear friend, my lover, was on his way coming, oh, then I was happy. Oh, then each breath tasted sweeter, and all that day my food nourished me more, and the beautiful day passed well. And the next came with equal joy, and with the next at evening came my friend. And that night, while all was still, I heard the waters roll slowly, continually up the shores. I heard the hissing rustle of the liquid and sands as directed to me whispering to congratulate me. For the one I loved most lay sleeping by me under the same cover in the cool night. In the stillness, in the autumn moon beams, his face was inclined toward me, and his arm lay lightly around my breast, and that night I was happy. Are you the new person drawn toward me? Are you the new person drawn toward me? To begin with, take warning, I am surely far different from what you suppose. Do you suppose you will find in me your ideal? Do you think it's so easy to have me become your lover? Do you think the friendship of me would be unalloyed satisfaction? Do you think I am trusty and faithful? Do you see no further than this facade, this smooth and tolerant manner of me? Do you suppose yourself advancing on real ground toward a real heroic man? Have you no thought, O dreamer, that it may be all my illusion? Roots and leaves themselves alone. Roots and leaves themselves alone are these, sense brought to men and women, from the wild woods and pondside, breast-soral and pinks of love, fingers that wind around tighter than vines, gushes from the throats of birds hid in the foliage of trees as the sun is risen, breezes of land and love set from living shores to you on the living sea to you o' sailors, frost-melod berries and third-month twigs offered fresh to young persons, wandering out in the fields when the winter breaks up. Love buds put before you and within you, whoever you are, buds to be unfolded on the old terms. If you bring the warmth of the sun to them, they will open and bring form, color, perfume to you. If you become the element and the wet they will become flowers, fruits, tall branches, and trees. Not heat flames up and consumes. Not heat flames up and consumes. Not sea waves hurry in and out. Not the air delicious and dry. The air of ripe summer bears lightly along white down-balls of myriads of seeds. Weighted, sailing gracefully, to drop where they may. Not these, o' none of these more than the flames of me consuming, burning for his love whom I love. O' none more than I hurrying in and out. Does the tide hurry, seeking something and never give up? O' I the same, o' nor down-balls nor perfumes, nor the high rain emitting clouds are born through the open air, any more than my soul is born through the open air. Wofted in all directions, o' love, for friendship, for you. Trickle drops. Trickle drops, my blue veins leaving. O' drops of me, trickle, slow drops, candid from me falling, drip, bleeding drops, from wounds made to free you once you were prisoned, from my face, from my forehead, and lips, from my breast, from within where I was concealed, press forth red drops, confession drops. Stain every page, stain every song I sing, every word I say, bloody drops, let them know your scarlet heat, let them glisten, saturate them with yourself all ashamed and wet. Glow upon all I have written or shall write, bleeding drops, let it all be seen in your light, blushing drops. City of orgies. City of orgies, walks and joys, city whom that I have lived and sung in your midst will one day make, not the pageants of you, not your shifting tableaus, your spectacles, repay me. Not the interminable rows of your houses, nor the ships at the wharves, nor the processions in the streets, nor the bright windows with goods in them, nor to converse with learned persons or bear my share in the soiree or feast. Not those, but as I pass, oh Manhattan, your frequent and swift flash of eyes offering me love, offering response to my own, these repay me, lovers, continual lovers, only repay me. Behold this swarthy face. Behold this swarthy face, these gray eyes, this beard, the white wool unclipped upon my neck, my brown hands in the silent manner of me without charm. Yet comes one, a Manhattanese, and Everett parting kisses me lightly on the lips with robust love, and I on the crossing of the street, or on the ship's deck give a kiss in return. We observe that salute of American comrades, land and sea, we are those too natural and nonchalant persons. I saw in Louisiana a live oak growing. I saw in Louisiana a live oak growing, all alone stood it, and the moss hung down from the branches, without any companion it grew there uttering joyous of dark green, and its look, rude, unbending, lusty, made me think of myself. But I wondered how it could utter joyous leaves standing alone there without its friend near, for I knew I could not. And I broke off a twig with a certain number of leaves upon it, and twined around it a little moss, and brought it away, and I have placed it in sight in my room. It is not needed to remind me as of my own dear friends, for I believe lately I think of little else than of them. Yet it remains to me a curious token. It makes me think of manly love. For all that and though the live oak glistens there in Louisiana solitary in a wide flat space, uttering joyous leaves all its life without a friend, a lover near, I know very well I could not. To a stranger. Passing stranger, you do not know how longingly I look upon you. You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking. It comes to me as of a dream. I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you. All is recalled as we flit by each other, fluid, affectionate, chaste, matured. You grew up with me, were a boy with me or a girl with me. I ate with you and I slept with you. Your body has become not yours only, nor left my body mine only. You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh as we pass. You take of my beard, breast, hands in return. I am not to speak to you. I am to think of you when I sit alone, or wake at night alone. I am to wait. I do not doubt I am to meet you again. I am to see to it that I do not lose you. This moment yearning and thoughtful. This moment yearning and thoughtful sitting alone. It seems to me there are other men in other lands yearning and thoughtful. It seems to me I can look over and behold them in Germany, Italy, France, Spain, or far, far away, in China, or in Russia, or talking other dialects. And it seems to me if I could know those men, I should become attached to them, as I do to men in my own lands. Oh, I know we should be brethren and lovers. I know I should be happy with them. I hear it was charged against me. I hear it was charged against me that I sought to destroy institutions. But really, I am neither for nor against institutions. What indeed have I in common with them, or what with the destruction of them? Only I will establish in the Manhattan and in every city of these states inland and seaboard, and in the fields and woods, and above every keel little or large that dents the water, without edifices or rules or trustees or any argument, the institution of the dear love of comrades. The Prairie Grass Dividing The Prairie Grass Dividing, its special odor breathing, I demand of it the spiritual corresponding, demand the most copious and close companionship of men, demand the blades to rise of words, acts, beings, those of the open atmosphere, course, sunlit, fresh, nutritious, those that go their own gate, erect, stepping with freedom in command, leading, not following, those with a never quelled audacity, those with sweet and lusty flesh clear of paint, those that look carelessly in the faces of presidents and governors, as to say, Who are you? Those of earth-born passion, simple, never constrained, never obedient, those of inland America. When I peruse the conquered fame, When I peruse the conquered fame of heroes and the victories of mighty generals, I do not envy the generals, nor the president in his presidency, nor the rich in his great house. But when I hear of the brotherhood of lovers, how it was with them, how together through life, through dangers, odium, unchanging, long and long, through youth and through middle and old age, how unfaltering, how affectionate and faithful they were. Then I am pensive, I hastily walk away filled with the bitterest envy. We two boys together clinging. We two boys together clinging, one the other never leaving, up and down the roads going, north and south excursions making, power enjoying, elbows stretching, fingers clutching, armed and fearless, eating, drinking, sleeping, loving. No law less than ourselves owning, sailing, soldiering, thieving, threatening. Misers, menials, priests alarming, air breathing, water drinking, on the turf or the sea beach dancing, cities wrenching, ease scarning, statues mocking, feebleness chasing, fulfilling our foray. A Promise to California A promise to California or inland to the great pastoral plains and on to Puget Sound and Oregon, so journeying east awhile longer, soon I travel toward you, to remain, to teach robust American love, for I know very well what I and robust love belong among you, inland and along the western sea. For these states tend inland and toward the western sea, and I will also. Here the frailest leaves of me Here the frailest leaves of me and yet my strongest lasting. Here I shade and hide my thoughts, I myself do not expose them, and yet they expose me more than all my other poems. No Labor-Saving Machine No Labor-Saving Machine nor Discovery have I made, nor will I be able to leave behind me any wealthy bequest to found hospital or library, nor reminiscence of any deed of courage for America, nor literary success nor intellect, nor book for the bookshelf, but a few carols vibrating through the air I leave for comrades and lovers. A Glimps A glimpse through an interstice-caught, of a crowd of workmen and drivers in a bar room around the stove late of a winter night, and I unremarked seated in a corner, of a youth who loves me and whom I love, silently approaching and seating himself near, that he may hold me by the hand. A long while, amid the noises of coming and going, of drinking and oath and smutty jest, there we too, content, happy, and being together, speaking little, perhaps not a word. A Leaf for Hand in Hand A leaf for hand in hand, you natural persons old and young, you on the Mississippi and on all the branches and bayous of the Mississippi, you friendly boatmen and mechanics, you roughs, you twain, and all processions moving along the streets. I wish to infuse myself among you till I see it common for you to walk hand in hand. Earth, my likeness Earth, my likeness, though you look so impassive, ample, and spheric there, I now suspect that is not all, I now suspect there is something fierce in you eligible to burst forth, for an athlete is enamored of me and I of him, but toward him there is something fierce and terrible in me eligible to burst forth. I dare not tell it in words, not even in these songs. I dreamed in a dream. I dreamed in a dream I saw a city invincible to the attacks of the whole of the rest of the earth. I dreamed that was the new city of friends. Nothing was greater there than the quality of robust love. It led the rest. It was seen every hour in the actions of the men of that city, and in all their looks and words. What think you I take my pen in hand? What think you I take my pen in hand to record? The battleship, perfect modelled, majestic, that I saw past the offing to-day under full sail? The splendours of the past day, or the splendour of the night that envelops me? Or the vaunted glory and growth of the great city spread around me? No. But merely of two simple men I saw today on the pier in the midst of the crowd, parting the parting of dear friends. The one to remain hung on the other's neck and passionately kissed him, while the one to depart tightly pressed the one to remain in his arms. To the east and to the west, to the east and to the west, to the man of the seaside state and of Pennsylvania, to the Canadian of the north, to the southerner I love, these with perfect trust to depict you as myself, the germs are in all men. I believe the main purport of these states is to found a superb friendship, exalté, previously unknown. Because I perceive it waits, and has been always waiting, latent in all men. Sometimes with one I love. Sometimes with one I love I fill myself with rage, for fear I effuse unreturned love. But now I think there is no unreturned love. The pay is certain one way or another. I loved a certain person ardently, and my love was not returned. Yet out of that I have written these songs. To a western boy. Many things to absorb by teach, to help you become eleve of mine. Yet if blood like mine circle not in your veins, if you be not silently selected by lovers, and do not silently select lovers, of what use is it that you seek to become eleve of mine? Fast Anchored Eternal O Love Fast Anchored Eternal O Love, O Woman I Love, O Bride, O Wife, more resistless than I can tell the thought of you. Then separate, as disembodied or another born, ethereal, the last athletic reality, my consolation, I ascend, I float in the regions of your love, O man, O shareer of my roving life. Among the multitude Among the men and women the multitude, I perceive one picking me out by secret and divine signs, acknowledging none else, not parent, wife, husband, brother, child, any nearer than I am. Some are baffled, but that one is not. That one knows me. Ah, lover, and perfect equal, I meant that you should discover me so by faint indirections, and I, when I meet you, mean to discover you by the like in you. O you whom I often and silently come, O you whom I often and silently come, where you are, that I may be with you. As I walk by your side or sit near, or remain in the same room with you, little you know the subtle electric fire that for your sake is playing within me. That shadow my likeness That shadow my likeness that goes to and fro seeking a livelihood, chattering, chaffering, how often I find myself standing and looking at it where it flits, how often I question and doubt whether that is really me. But among my lovers and caroling these songs, O I never doubt whether that is really me. Full of life now, full of life now, compact, visible, I, forty years old, the eighty-third year of the states, to one a century hence or any number of centuries hence, to you yet unborn these seeking you. When you read these, I, that was visible and become invisible, now it is you, compact, visible, realizing my poems, seeking me, fancying how happy you were if I could be with you and become your comrade. Be it as if I were you, be not too certain, but I am now with you. Here ends Book 5 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit www.librivox.org. Today's reading is by Chris Mitchell. The Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman Book 6 Salut un monde. 1. Oh, take my hand, Walt Whitman. Such gliding wonders, such sights and sounds, such joined unended links, each hooked to the next, each answering all, each sharing the earth with all. What widens within you, Walt Whitman? What waves and soils exuding? What climbs? What persons and cities are here? Who are the infants, some playing, some slumbering? Who are the girls? Who are the married women? Who are the groups of old men going slowly with their arms about each other's necks? What rivers are these? What forests and fruits are these? What are the mountains called that rise so high in the midst? What myriads of dwellings are they, filled with dwellers? 2. Within me latitude widens, longitude lengthens, Asia, Africa, Europe, are to the east, America is provided for in the west, banding the bulge of the earth winds the hot equator, curiously north and south turn the axis ends. Within me is the longest day, the sun wheels in slanting rings, it does not set for months. Stretched in due time within me the midnight sun just rises above the horizon and sinks again. Within me zones, seas, cataracts, forests, volcanoes, groups, Malaysia, Polynesia, and the great West Indian islands. 3. What do you hear, Walt Whitman? I hear the workmen singing and the farmer's wife singing. I hear in the distance the sounds of children and of animals early in the day. I hear emulous shouts of Australians pursuing the wild horse. I hear the Spanish dance with castanets in the chestnut shade to the rebeck and guitar. I hear continual echoes from the Thames. I hear fierce French liberty songs. I hear of the Italian boat sculler in the musical recitative of old poems. I hear the locusts in Syria as they strike the grain and grass with the showers of their terrible clouds. I hear the Coptic refrain towards sundown, pensively falling on the breast of the black venerable, vast mother, the Nile. I hear the chirp of the Mexican mulleteer and the bells of the mule. I hear the Arab moizine calling from the top of the mosque. I hear the Christian priests at the altars of their churches. I hear the responsive base and soprano. I hear the cry of the Cossack and the sailor's voice putting to sea at a Kotsk. I hear the wheeze of the slave coffle as the slaves march on as the husky gangs pass on by twos and threes fastened together with wrist chains and ankle chains. I hear the Hebrew reading his records and Psalms. I hear the rhythmic myths of the Greeks and the strong legends of the Romans. I hear the tale of the divine life and bloody death of the beautiful God the Christ. I hear the Hindu teaching his favorite pupil the loves wars adages transmitted safely to this day from poets who wrote three thousand years ago. 4. What do you see, Walt Whitman, who are they you salute and that one after another salute you? I see a great round wonder rolling through space. I see diminutive farms, hamlets, ruins, graveyards, jails, factories, palaces, hovels, huts of barbarians, tents of nomads upon the surface. I see the shaded part on one side where the sleepers are sleeping and the sunlit part on the other side. I see the curious rapid change of the light and shade. I see distant lands as real and near to the inhabitants of them as my land is to me. I see plenty of waters. I see mountain peaks. I see the Sierras of Andes where they range. I see plainly the Himalayas, Kianshachs, Altes, Gaots. I see the giant pinnacles of Elbrus, Cosbeck, Vazarjusi. I see the Styrian Alps and the Karnak Alps. I see the Pyrenees, Balks, Carpathians, and to the north the Dofrafields and off at sea Mount Hecla. I see Vesuvius and Etna, the mountains of the moon and the red mountains of Madagascar. I see the Libyan, Arabian, and Asiatic deserts. I see huge dreadful Arctic and Antarctic icebergs. I see the superior oceans and the inferior ones, the Atlantic and Pacific, the Sea of Mexico, the Brazilian Sea, and the Sea of Peru, the waters of Hindustan, the China Sea, and the Gulf of Guinea, the Japan waters, the beautiful bay of Nagasaki landlocked in its mountains, the spread of the Baltic, Caspian, Bothnia, the British shores, and the Bay of Biscay, the clear-sund Mediterranean, and from one to another of its islands, the White Sea, and the Sea around Greenland. I behold the mariners of the world, some are in storms, some in the night with the watch on the lookout, some drifting helplessly, some with contagious diseases. I behold the sail and steamships of the world, some in clusters in port, some on their voyages. Some double the Cape of Storms, some Cape Verde, others Cape Squarda Fui, Pón, or Bajadoré, others Dondra Head, others past the Straits of Sunda, others Cape Lopatka, others Bering Straits, others Cape Horn, others sail the Gulf of Mexico or along Cuba or Haiti, others Hudson's Bay or Baffin's Bay, others past the Straits of Dover, others enter the Wash, others the Firth of Solway, others round Cape Clear, others the Land's End, others traverse the Zydersey or the Sheld, others as comers and goers at Gibraltar or the Dardanelles, others sternly push their way through the northern winter packs, others descend or ascend the Obi or the Lena, others the Niger or the Congo, others the Indus, the Bermaputa and Cambodia, others wait steamed up ready to start in the ports of Australia, wait at Liverpool, Glasgow, Dublin, Marseille, Lisbon, Naples, Hamburg, Bremen, Bordeaux, the Hague, Copenhagen, wait at Valpariso, Rio de Janeiro, Panama. 5. I see the tracks of the railroads of the earth, I see them in Great Britain, I see them in Europe, I see them in Asia and in Africa. I see the electric telegraphs of the earth, I see the filaments of the news of the wars, deaths, losses, gains, passions of my race. I see the long river stripes of the earth, I see the Amazon and the Paraguay. I see the four great rivers of China, the Amur, the Yellow River, the Yangtzee and the Pearl. I see where the Sen flows and where the Danube, the Loire, the Roan and the Guadalquivar flow. I see the windings of the Volga, the Dnieper, the Oder. I see the Tuscan going down the Arno and the Venetian along the Po. I see the Greek seamen sailing out to Vigina Bay. 6. I see the site of the old empire of Assyria and that of Persia and that of India. I see the falling of the Ganges over the high rim of Salkara. 6. I see the place of the idea of the deity incarnated by avatars and human forms. I see the spots of the successions of priests on the earth, oracles, sacrifices, brahmins, sabians, llamas, monks, muftis, exorters. I see where druids walked the groves of Mona. I see the mistletoe and the verveian. I see the temples of the deaths of the bodies of gods. I see the old signifiers. I see Christ eating the bread of his last supper in the midst of youths and old persons. I see where the strong, divine, young man, the Hercules, toiled faithfully and long and then died. I see the place of the innocent, rich life and hapless fate of the beautiful nocturnal sun, the full-limbed Bacchus. I see Neph blooming, dressed in blue, with the crown of feathers on his head. I see Hermes, unsuspected, dying, well-beloved, saying to the people, do not weep for me. This is not my true country. I have lived banished from my true country. I now go back there. I return to the celestial sphere where everyone goes in his turn. I see the battlefields of the earth. Grass grows upon them and blossoms in corn. I see the tracks of ancient and modern expeditions. I see the nameless masonries, venerable messages of the unknown events, heroes, records of the earth. I see the places of the sagas. I see pine trees and fir trees torn by northern blasts. I see granite boulders and cliffs. I see green meadows and lakes. I see the burial cairns of Scandinavian warriors. I see them raised high with stones by the marge of restless oceans, that the dead men's spirits, when they wearied of their quiet graves, might rise up through the mounds and gaze on the tossing billows, and be refreshed by storms, immensity, liberty, action. I see the steps of Asia. I see the tumuli of Mongolia. I see the tents of kalmaks and bosquiers. I see the nomadic tribes with herds of oxen and cows. I see the table-lands notched with ravines. I see the jungles and deserts. I see the camel, the wild steed, the bustard, the fat-tailed sheep, the antelope, and the burrowing wolf. I see the highlands of Abyssinia. I see flocks of goats feeding, and see the fig tree, tamarind, date, and see fields of teff wheat, and places of verdure and gold. I see the Brazilian vaquero. I see the Bolivian ascending Mount Sorata. I see the Waco crossing the plains. I see the incomparable rider of horses with his lasso on his arm. I see over the Pampas the pursuit of wild cattle for their hides. Eight. I see the regions of snow and ice. I see the sharp-eyed Samoyed and the Fin. I see the seal-seeker in his boat, poisoning his lance. I see the Siberian on his slight-built sledge drawn by dogs. I see the porpoise hunters. I see the whale-cruise of the South Pacific and the North Atlantic. I see the cliffs, glaciers, torrents, valleys of Switzerland. I mark the long winters and the isolation. I see the cities of the earth and make myself at random a part of them. I am a real Parisian. I am a habitant of Vienna, St. Petersburg, Berlin, Constantinople. I am of Adelaide, Sydney, Melbourne. I am of London, Manchester, Bristol, Edinburgh, Limerick. I am of Madrid, Cadiz, Barcelona, Oporto, Lyon, Brussels, Bern, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Turin, Florence. I belong in Moscow, Krakow, Warsaw, or northward in Christiania or Stockholm, or in Siberia near Kutsk or in some street in Iceland. I descend upon all those cities and rise from them again. 10. I see vapors exhaling from unexplored countries. I see the savage types, the bow and arrow, the poisoned splint, the fetish and the obi. I see African and Asiatic towns. I see Algiers, Tripoli, Dern, Mogadore, Timbuktu, Monrovia. I see the swarms of Peking, Canton, Benares, Delhi, Calcutta, Tokyo. I see the Cruman in his hut and the Dahaman and the Ashanti man in their huts. I see the Turk smoking opium in the lepo. I see the picturesque crowds at the fairs of Kiva and those of Harat. I see Tehran, I see Muscat and Medina, and the intervening sands. See the caravans toiling onward. I see Egypt and the Egyptians. I see the pyramids and obelisks. I look on chiseled histories, records of conquering kings, dynasties, cut in slabs of sandstone or on granite blocks. I see at Memphis mummy pits containing mummies embalmed, swathed in linen cloth lying their many centuries. I look on the fallen Theban, the large bald eyes, the side drooping neck, the hands folded across the breast. I see all the menials of the earth, laboring. I see all the prisoners in the prisons. I see the defective human bodies of the earth, the blind, the deaf and dumb, idiots, hunchbacks, lunatics, the pirates, thieves, betrayers, murderers, slave makers of the earth, the helpless infants and the helpless old men and women. I see male and female everywhere. I see the serene brotherhood of the philisophs. I see the constructiveness of my race. I see the results of the perseverance and industry of my race. I see ranks, colors, barbarisms, civilizations. I go among them. I mix indiscriminately. I mix indiscriminately. And I salute all the inhabitants of the earth. 11. You, whoever you are, you daughter or son of England, you of the mighty Slavic tribes and empires, you roosts in Russia, you dim-descended, black, divine-sold African, large, fine-headed, nobly formed, superbly destined, on equal terms with me. You, Norwegian, Swede, Dane, Icelander, you Prussian, you Spaniard of Spain, you Portuguese, you Frenchwoman and Frenchman of France, you Belga, you liberty-lover of the Netherlands, you Stock-Wensai, myself have descended, you Sturdy Austrian, you Lombard, Hun, Bohemian, farmer of Styria, you neighbor of the Danube, you working man of the Rhine, the Elba, or the Vesser, you working woman too, you Sardinian, you Bavarian, Swabian, Saxon, Wallachian, Bulgarian, you Roman, Neapolitan, you Greek, you Leith Matador in the arena at Seville, you Mountaineer, living lawlessly on the Taurus or Caucasus, you Bach horse-herd, watching your mares and stallions feeding, you beautiful bodied Persian at full speed in the saddle shooting arrows to the mark, you Chinaman and China woman of China, you Tarter of Tartary, you women of the earth subordinated at your tasks, you Jew journeying in your old age through every risk to stand once on Syrian ground, you other Jews waiting in all lands for your messiah, you thoughtful Armenian pondering by some stream of the Euphrates, you peering amid the ruins of Nineveh, you ascending Mount Ararat, you foot-worn pilgrim welcoming the faraway sparkle of the minarets of Mecca, you sheiks along the stretch from Suez to Bob El Monteb, ruling your families and tribes, you olive grower tending your fruit on fields of Nazareth, Damascus or Lake Tiberius, you Tibet trader on the wide inland or bargaining in the shops of Lhasa, you Japanese man or woman, you liver in Madagascar, Ceylon, Sumatra, Borneo, all you continentals of Asia, Africa, Europe, Australia indifferent of place, all you on the numberless islands of the archipelagos of the sea, and you of centuries hence when you listen to me, and you each and everywhere whom I specify not but include just the same, health to you, goodwill to you all from me and America sent, each of us inevitable, each of us limitless, each of us with his or her right upon the earth, each of us allow the eternal purports of the earth, each of us here as divinely as any is here, twelve, you hot and taut with clicking pallet, you woolly-haired hordes, you owned persons dropping sweat drops or blood drops, you human forms with the fathomless ever impressive countenances of brutes, you poor cobu whom the meanest of the rest look down upon for all your glimmering language and spirituality, you dwarfed Cumshotkin, Greenlander, Lap, you austral negro, naked, red, sooty, with protrusive lip, groveling, seeking your food, you Kafra, Berber, Sudanese, you haggard uncouth untutored Bedway, you plague swarms in Madras, Nankin, Kabul, Cairo, you benighted Romer of Amazonia, you Patagonian, you Fiji man, I do not prefer others so very much before you either, I do not say one word against you, a way back there where you stand, you will come forward in due time to my side, thirteen, my spirit has passed in compassion and determination around the whole earth, I have looked for equals and lovers and found them ready for me in all lands, I think some divine report has equalized me with them, you vapors, I think I have risen with you, moved away to distant continents and fallen down there, for reasons, I think I have blown with you, you winds, you waters, I have fingered every shore with you, I have run through what any river or strait of the globe has run through, I have taken my stand on the bases of peninsulas and on the high embedded rocks to cry thence, what cities the light or warmth penetrates, I penetrate those cities myself, all islands to which birds wing their way, I wing my way myself, toward you all in America's name, I raise high the perpendicular hand, I make the signal to remain after me in sight forever, for all the haunts and homes of men, here ends book six, book seven, song of the open road, one, a foot and light hearted I take to the open road, healthy, free, the world before me, the long brown path before me leading wherever I choose, henceforth I ask not good fortune, I myself am good fortune, henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing, done with indoor complaints, libraries, quarrelous criticisms, strong and content I travel the open road, the earth that is sufficient, I do not want the constellations any nearer, I know they are very well where they are, I know they suffice for those who belong to them, still here I carry my old delicious burdens, I carry them, men and women, I carry them with me wherever I go, I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them, I am filled with them and I will fill them in return, too, you road I enter upon and look around, I believe you are not all that is here, I believe that much unseen is also here, here the profound lesson of reception, nor preference nor denial, the black with his woolly head, the felon, the diseased, the illiterate person are not denied, the birth, the hasting after the physician, the beggar's tramp, the drunkard's stagger, the laughing party of mechanics, the escaped youth, the rich person's carriage, the fop, the eloping couple, the early market man, the hearse, the moving of furniture into the town, the return back from the town, they pass, I also pass, anything passes, none can be interdicted, none but are accepted, none but shall be dear to me, three, you heir that serves me with breath to speak, you objects that call from diffusion my meanings and give them shape, you light that wraps me and all things in delicate equable showers, you paths worn in the irregular hollows by the roadsides, I believe you are latent with unseen existences, you are so dear to me, you flagged walks of the cities, you strong curbs at the edges, you fairies, you planks and posts of wharves, you timberline side, you distant ships, you rows of houses, you window pierced facades, you roofs, you porches and entrances, you copings and iron guards, you windows whose transparent shells might expose so much, you doors and ascending steps, you arches, you gray stones of interminable pavements, you trodden crossings, from all that has touched you I believe you have imparted to yourselves and now would impart the same secretly to me, from the living and the dead you have peopled your impassive surfaces and the spirits thereof would be evident and amicable with me, for the earth expanding right hand and left hand, the picture alive every part in its best light, the music falling in where it is wanted and stopping where it is not wanted, the cheerful voice of the public road, the gay fresh sentiment of the road, oh highway I travel, do you say to me do not leave me, do you say venture not if you leave me you are lost, do you say I am already prepared, I am well beaten and undenied, adhere to me, oh public road I say back I am not afraid to leave you yet I love you, you express me better than I can express myself, you shall be more to me than my poem. I think heroic deeds were all conceived in the open air and all free poems also, I think I could stop here myself and do miracles, I think whatever I shall meet on the road I shall like and whoever beholds me shall like me, I think whoever I see must be happy, five. From this hour I ordain myself loosed of limits and imaginary lines, going where I list my own master total and absolute, listening to others considering well what they say, pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating, gently but with undeniable will divesting myself of the holds that would hold me. I inhale great drafts of space, the east and the west are mine and the north and the south are mine. I am larger better than I thought, I did not know I held so much goodness. All seems beautiful to me, can repeat over to men and women, you have done such good to me I would do the same to you. I will recruit for myself and you as I go, I will scatter myself among men and women as I go, I will toss a new gladness and roughness among them, whoever denies me it shall not trouble me, whoever accepts me he or she shall be blessed and shall bless me. 6. Now if a thousand perfect men were to appear it would not amaze me, now if a thousand beautiful forms of women appeared it would not astonish me. Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons, it is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth. Here a great personal deed has room, such a deed seizes upon the hearts of the whole race of men, it's a fusion of strength and will overwhelms law and mocks all authority and all argument against it. Here is the test of wisdom, wisdom is not finally tested in schools, wisdom cannot be passed from one having it to another not having it, wisdom is of the soul, is not susceptible of proof, is its own proof, applies to all stages and objects and qualities and is content, is the certainty of the reality and immorality of things and the excellence of things, something there is in the float of the sight of things that provokes it out of the soul. Now I re-examine philosophies and religions, they may prove well in lecture rooms, yet not prove at all under the spacious clouds and along the landscape and flowing currents. Here is realization, here is a man tallied, he realizes here what he has in him, the past, the future, majesty, love, if they are vacant of you, you are vacant of them. Only the kernel of every object nourishes, where is he who tears off the husks for you and me, where is he that undoes stratagems and envelopes for you and me. Here is adhesiveness, it is not previously fashioned, it is apropos, do you know what it is as you pass to be loved by strangers, do you know the talk of those turning eyeballs. Here is the efflux of the soul, the efflux of the soul comes from within through empowered gates, ever provoking questions, these yearnings why are they, these thoughts in the darkness why are they, why are there men and women that while they are nigh me the sunlight expands my blood, why when they leave me do my penance of joy sink flat in lank, why are there trees I never walk under but large and melodious thoughts descend upon me, I think they hang there winter and summer on those trees and always drop fruit as I pass. What is it I interchange so suddenly with strangers, what with some driver as I ride on the seat by his side, what with some fisherman drawing his sane by the shore as I walk by and pause, what gives me to be free to a woman's and man's good will, what gives them to be free to mine, eight. The efflux of the soul is happiness, here is happiness, I think it pervades the open air waiting at all times, now it flows unto us, we are rightly charged. Here rises the fluid and attaching character, the fluid and attaching character is the freshness and sweetness of man and woman, the herbs of the morning sprout no fresher and sweeter every day out of the roots of themselves than it sprouts fresh and sweet continually out of itself. Toward the fluid and attaching character exudes the sweat of the love of young and old, from it falls distilled the charm that mocks beauty and attainments, toward it heaves the shuddering longing ache of contact. Nine. Alone, whoever you are come travel with me, traveling with me you find what never tires, the earth never tires, the earth is rude, silent, incomprehensible at first, nature is rude and incomprehensible at first, be not discouraged, keep on, there are divine things well enveloped, I swear to you there are divine things more beautiful than words can tell. Alone, we must not stop here, however sweet these laid up stores, however convenient this dwelling we cannot remain here, however sheltered this port and however calm these waters we must not anchor here, however welcome the hospitality that surrounds us we are permitted to receive it but a little while. Ten. Alone, the inducements shall be greater, we will sail pathless and wild seas, we will go where winds blow, waves dash and the Yankee clippers speeds by under full sail. Alone, with power, liberty, the earth, the elements, health, defiance, gaiety, self-esteem, curiosity, alone from all formules, from your formules, oh bat-eyed and materialistic priests, the stale cadaver blocks up the passage, the burial waits no longer. Alone, yet take warning, he traveling with me needs the best blood, fuse, endurance, none may come to the trial till he or she bring courage and health. Come not here if you have already spent the best of yourself, only those may come who come in sweet and determined bodies, no diseased person, no rum drinker, or venereal taint is permitted here. I and mine do not convince by arguments, similes, rhymes, we convince by our presence. Listen, I will be honest with you. I do not offer the old smooth prizes, but offer rough new prizes. These are the days that must happen to you. You shall not heap up what is called riches. You shall scatter with lavish hand all that you earn or achieve. You but arrive at the city to which you were destined. You hardly settle yourself to satisfaction before you are called by an irresistible call to depart. You shall be treated to the ironical smiles and mockings of those who remain behind you. What beckonings of love you receive, you shall only answer with passionate kisses of parting. You shall not allow the hold of those who spread their reached hands toward you. 12. Alon, after the great companions and to belong to them. They too are on the road. They are the swift and majestic men. They are the greatest women. Enjoyers of calms of seas and storms of seas. Sailors of many a ship, walkers of many a mile of land. Habitues of many distant countries. Habitues of far distant dwellings. Trusters of men and women. Observers of cities. Solitary toilers. Pausers and contemplators of tufts, blossoms, shells of the shore. Dancers at wedding dances, kissers of brides, tender helpers of children, bearers of children. Soldiers of revolts, standards by gaping graves, lowers down of coffins. Journeys over consecutive seasons, over the years, the curious years, each emerging from that which preceded it. Journeys as with companions, namely their own diverse phases. Fourth steppers from the latent unrealized baby days. Journeys gaily with their own youth. Journeys with their bearded and well-grained manhood. Journeys with their womanhood ample unsurpassed content. Journeys with their own sublime old age of manhood or womanhood. Old age, calm, expanded, broad with the haughty breadth of the universe. Old age, flowing free with the delicious nearby freedom of death. Thirteen. Alon, to that which is endless as it was beginningless. To undergo much, tramps of days, rests of nights, to merge all in the travel they tend to, and the days and nights they tend to. Again to merge them in the start of superior journeys, to see nothing anywhere but what you may reach it and pass it. To conceive no time, however distant, but what you may reach it and pass it. To look up or down no road, but it stretches and waits for you. However long, but it stretches and waits for you. To see no being, not gods or any, but you also go thither. To see no possession, but you may possess it, enjoying all without labour or purchase, abstracting the feast yet not abstracting one particle of it. To take the best of the farmer's farm and the rich man's elegant villa, and the chaste blessings of the well-married couple, and the fruits of orchards and flowers of gardens. To take to your use out of the compact cities as you pass through. To carry buildings and streets with you afterward wherever you go. To gather the minds of men out of their brains as you encounter them. To gather the love out of their hearts. To take your lovers on the road with you, for all that you leave them behind you. To know the universe itself as a road, as many roads, as roads for traveling souls. All parts away for the progress of souls. All religion, all solid things, arts, governments, all that was or is apparent upon this globe or any globe falls into niches and corners before the procession of souls along the grand roads of the universe. Of the progress of the souls of men and women along the grand roads of the universe, all other progress is the needed emblem and sustenance. Forever alive, forever forward, stately, solemn, sad, withdrawn, baffled, mad, turbulent, feeble, dissatisfied, desperate, proud, fond, sick, accepted by men, rejected by men. They go, they go, I know that they go, but I know not where they go, but I know that they go toward the best, toward something great. Whoever you are, come forth, or man or woman come forth. You must not stay sleeping and dallying there in the house, though you built it, or though it has been built for you. Out of the dark confinement, out from behind the screen, it is useless to protest. I know all and expose it. Behold, through you is bad as the rest, through the laughter, dancing, dining, supping of people, inside of dresses and ornaments, inside of those washed and trimmed faces. Behold, a secret silent loathing and despair. No husband, no wife, no friend, trusted to hear the confession, another self, a duplicate of every one, skulking and hiding it goes, formless and wordless through the streets of the cities, polite and bland in the parlours. In the cars of railroads, in steamboats, in the public assembly, home to the houses of men and women, at the table, in the bedroom, everywhere. Smartly attired, countenance smiling, form upright, death under the breastbones, hell under the skullbones, under the broad cloth and gloves, under the ribbons and artificial flowers, keeping fair with the customs, speaking not a syllable of itself, speaking of anything else, but never of itself. 14. Alone, through struggles and wars, the goal that was named cannot be countermanded. Have the past struggles succeeded? What has succeeded, yourself, your nation, nature? Now understand me well, it is provided in the essence of things that from any fruition of success, no matter what, shall come forth something to make a greater struggle necessary. My call is the call of battle, I nourish active rebellion. He going with me must go well armed. He going with me goes often with spare diet, poverty, angry enemies, desertions. 15. Alone, the road is before us. It is safe, I have tried it, my own feet have tried it well. Be not detained. Let the paper remain on the desk unwritten, and the book on the shelf unopened. Let the tools remain in the workshop. Let the money remain unearned. Let the school stand, mind not the cry of the teacher. Let the preacher preach in his pulpit. Let the lawyer plead in the court, and the judge expound the law. 16. Camarado, I give you my hand. I give you my love more precious than money. I give you myself before preaching or law. Will you give me yourself? Will you come travel with me? Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?