Starting from Paumanok
18 - See, steamers steaming through my poems
Song of Myself
2 - Houses and rooms are full of perfumes, the shelves are crowded with perfumes
3 - I have heard what the talkers were talking, the talk of the beginning and the end
11 - Twenty-eight young men bathe by the shore
17 - These are really the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands, they are not original with me
Here, take this gift,
I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
See, steamers steaming through my poems,
Houses and rooms are full of perfumes, the shelves are crowded with perfumes,
The atmosphere is not a perfume, it has no taste of the distillation, it is odorless,
The smoke of my own breath,
Have you reckon'd a thousand acres much? have you reckon'd the earth much?
Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems,
I have heard what the talkers were talking, the talk of the beginning and the end,
There was never any more inception than there is now,
Urge and urge and urge,
Out of the dimness opposite equals advance, always substance and increase, always sex,
To elaborate is no avail, learn'd and unlearn'd feel that it is so.
Sure as the most certain sure, plumb in the uprights, well entretied, braced in the beams,
Clear and sweet is my soul, and clear and sweet is all that is not my soul.
Lack one lacks both, and the unseen is proved by the seen,
Showing the best and dividing it from the worst age vexes age,
Welcome is every organ and attribute of me, and of every man hearty and clean,
I am satisfied—I see, dance, laugh, sing; Inscriptions
To a Certain Cantatrice
I was reserving it for some hero, speaker, or general,
One who should serve the good old cause, the great idea, the progress and freedom of the race,
Some brave confronter of despots, some daring rebel;
But I see that what I was reserving belongs to you just as much as to any. I Hear America Singing
Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,
The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck,
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands,
The wood-cutter's song, the ploughboy's on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown,
The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing,
Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,
The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,
Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.
Starting from Paumanok
18
See, in my poems immigrants continually coming and landing,
See, in arriere, the wigwam, the trail, the hunter's hut, the flat-boat, the maize-leaf, the claim, the rude fence, and the
backwoods village,
See, on the one side the Western Sea and on the other the Eastern Sea, how they advance and retreat upon my poems
as upon their own shores,
See, pastures and forests in my poems—see, animals wild and tame—see, beyond the Kaw, countless heards of buffalo
feeding on short curly grass,
See, in my poems, cities, solid, vast, inland, with paved streets, with iron and stone edifices, ceaseless vehicles, and
commerce,
See, the many-cilinder'd steam printing-press—see, the electric telegraph stretching across the continent,
See, through Atlantica's depths pulses American Europe reaching, pulses of Europe duly return'd,
See, the strong and quick locomotive as it departs, panting, blowing the steam-whistle,
See, ploughmen ploughing farms—see, miners digging mines—see, the numberless factories,
See, machanics busy at their benches with tools—see from among them superior judges, philosophs, Presidents, emerge,
drest in working dresses,
See, lounging through the shops and fields of the States, me well-belov'd, close-held by day and night,
Hear the loud echoes of my songs there—read the hints come at last.
Song of Myself
2
I breathe the fragance myself and know it and like it,
The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it.
It is for my mouth forever, I am in love with it,
I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked,
I am mad for it to be in contact with me.
Echoes, ripples, buzz'd whispers, love-root, silk-thread, crotch and vine,
My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart, the passing of blood and air through my lungs,
The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the shore and dark-color'd sea-rocks, and of hay in the barn,
The sound of the belch'd words of my voice loos'd to the eddies of the wind,
A few light kisses, a few embraces, a reaching around of arms,
The play of shine and shade on the trees as the supple boughs wag,
The delight alone or in the rush of the streets, or along the fields and hill-sides,
The feeling of health, the full-noon trill, the song of me rising from bed and meeting the sun.
Have you practis'd so long to learn to read?
Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?
You shall possess the good of the earth and sun, (there are millions of suns left,)
You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books,
You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,
You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self. 3
But I do not talk of the beginning or the end.
Nor any more youth or age than there is now,
And will never be any more perfection than there is now,
Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.
Always the procreant urge of the world.
Always a knit of identity, always distinction, always a breed of life.
Stout as a horse, affectionate, haughty, electrical,
I and this mystery here we stand.
Till that becomes unseen and receives proof in its turn.
Knowing the perfect fitness and equanimity of things, while they discuss I am silent, and go bathe and admire myself.
Not an inch nor a particle of an inch is vile, and none shall be less familiar than the rest.
As the hugging and loving bed-fellow sleeps at my side through the night, and withdraws at the peep of the day with stealthy tread,
Leaving me baskets cover'd with white towels swelling the house with their plenty,
Shall I postpone my acceptation and realization and scream at my eyes,
That they turn from gazing after and down the road,
And forthwith cipher and show me to a cent,
Exactly the value of one and exactly the value of two, and which is ahead?
