| I |
| Flood-tide below me ! I see you face to face ! |
Clouds of the west -
sun there half an hour high - I see you also face to face.
|
| Crowds of men and women attired in the usual
costumes, how curious you are to me ! |
| On the ferry-boats the hundreds and hundreds that
cross, returning home, are more curious to me than you suppose, |
And you that shall cross from shore to shore years
hence are more to me, and more in my meditations, than you might
suppose.
|
| II |
| The impalpable sustenance of me from all things at
all hours of the day, |
| The simple, compact, well-join’d scheme, myself
disintegrated, every one disintegrated yet part of the scheme, |
| The similitudes of the past and those of the
future, |
| The glories strung like beads on my smallest sights
and hearings, on the walk in the street and the passage over the
river, |
| The current rushing so swiftly and swimming with me
far away, |
| The others that are to follow me, the ties between
me and them, |
The certainty of others, the life, love, sight,
hearing of others.
|
| Others will enter the gates of the ferry and cross
from shore to shore, |
| Others will watch the run of the flood-tide, |
| Others will see the shipping of Manhattan north and
west, and the heights of Brooklyn to the south and east, |
| Others will see the islands large and small ; |
| Fifty years hence, others will see them as they
cross, the sun half an hour high, |
| A hundred years hence, or ever so many hundred
years hence, others will see them, |
Will enjoy the sunset, the pouring-in of the
flood-tide, the falling-back to the sea of the ebb-tide.
|
| III |
| It avails not, time nor place
- distance avails not, |
| I am with you, you men and women of a generation,
or ever so many generations hence, |
| Just as you feel when you look on the river and
sky, so I felt, |
| Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was
one of a crowd, |
| Just as you are refresh’d by the gladness of the
river and the bright flow, I was refresh’d, |
| Just as you stand and lean on the rail, yet hurry
with the swift current, I stood yet was hurried, |
Just as you look on the numberless masts of ships
and the thick-stemm’d pipes of steamboats, I look’d.
|
| I too many and many a time cross’d the river of
old, |
| Watched the Twelfth-month sea-gulls, saw them high
in the air floating with motionless wings, oscillating their bodies, |
| Saw how the glistening yellow lit up parts of their
bodies and left the rest in strong shadow, |
| Saw the slow-wheeling circles and the gradual
edging toward the south, |
| Saw the reflection of the summer sky in the water, |
| Had my eyes dazzled by the shimmering track of
beams, |
| Look’d at the fine centrifugal spokes of light
round the shape of my head in the sunlit water, |
| Look’d on the haze on the hills southward and
south-westward, |
| Look’d on the vapor as it flew in fleeces tinged
with violet, |
| Look’d toward the lower bay to notice the vessels
arriving, |
| Saw their approach, saw aboard those that were near
me, |
| Saw the white sails of schooners and sloops, saw
the ships at anchor, |
| The sailors at work in the rigging or out astride
the spars, |
| The round masts, the swinging motion of the hulls,
the slender serpentine pennants, |
| The large and small steamers in motion, the pilots
in their pilot-houses, |
| The white wake left by the passage, the quick
tremulous whirl of the wheels, |
| The flags of all nations, the falling of them at
sunset, |
| The scallop-edged waves in the twilight, the ladled
cups, the frolicsome crests and glistening, |
| The stretch afar growing dimmer and dimmer, the
gray walls of the granite storehouses by the docks, |
| On the river the shadowy group, the big steam-tug
closely flank’d on each side by the barges, the hay-boat, the
belated lighter, |
| On the neighboring shore the fires from the foundry
chimneys burning high and glaringly into the night, |
Casting their flicker of black contrasted with wild
red and yellow light over the tops of houses, and down into the
clefts of streets.
|
| IV |
| These and all else were to me the same as they are
to you, |
| I loved well those cities, loved well the stately
and rapid river, |
| The men and women I saw were all near to me, |
| Others the same -
others who look back on me because I look’d forward to them, |
(The time will come, though I stop here to-day and
to-night.)
|
| IV |
| What is it then between us ? |
What is the count of the scores or hundreds of
years between us ?
|
| Whatever it is, it avails not
- distance avails not, and place avails
not, |
| I too lived, Brooklyn of ample hills was mine, |
| I too walk’d the streets of Manhattan island, and
bathed in the waters around it, |
| I too felt the curious abrupt questionings stir
within me, |
| In the day among crowds of people sometimes they
came upon me, |
| In my walks home late at night or as I lay in my
bed they came upon me, |
| I too had been struck from the float forever held
in solution, |
| I too had receiv’d identity by my body, |
That I was I knew was of my body, and what I should
be I knew I should be of my body.
|
| VI |
| It is not upon you alone the dark patches fall, |
| The dark threw its patches down upon me also, |
| The best I had done seem’d to me blank and
suspicious, |
| My great thoughts as I supposed them, were they not
in reality meagre ? |
| Nor is it you alone who know what it is to be evil, |
| I am he who knew what it was to be evil, |
| I too knitted the old knot of contrariety, |
| Blabb’d, blush’d, resented, lied, stole, grudg’d, |
| Had guile, anger, lust, hot wishes I dared not
speak, |
| Was wayward, vain, greedy, shallow, sly, cowardly,
malignant, |
| The wolf, the snake, the hog, not wanting in me, |
| The cheating look, the frivolous word, the
adulterous wish, not wanting, |
| Refusals, hates, postponements, meanness, laziness,
none of these wanting, |
| Was one with the rest, the days and haps of the
rest, |
| Was call’d by my nighest name by clear loud voices
of young men as they saw me approaching or passing, |
| Felt their arms on my neck as I stood, or the
negligent leaning of their flesh against me as I sat, |
| Saw many I loved in the street or ferry-boat or
public assembly, yet never told them a word, |
| Lived the same life with the rest, the same old
laughing, gnawing, sleeping, |
| Play’d the part that still looks back on the actor
or actress, |
| The same old role, the role that is what we make
it, as great as we like, |
Or as small as we like, or both great and small.
|
| VII |
| Closer yet I approach you, |
| What thought you have of me now, I had as much of
you - I laid in my stores in advance, |
I consider’d long and seriously of you before you
were born.
|
| Who was to know what should come home to me ? |
| Who knows but I am enjoying this ? |
Who knows, for all the distance, but I am as good
as looking at you now, for all you cannot see me ?
|
| VIII |
| Ah, what can ever be more stately and admirable to
me than mast-hemm’d Manhattan? |
| River and sunset and scallop-edg’d waves of
flood-tide ? |
| The sea-gulls oscillating their bodies, the
hay-boat in the twilight, and the belated lighter ? |
| What gods can exceed these that clasp me by the
hand, and with voices I love call me promptly and loudly by my
nighest name as I approach ? |
| What is more subtle than this which ties me to the
woman or man that looks in my face ? |
Which fuses me into you now, and pours my meaning
into you ?
|
| We understand then do we not ? |
| What I promis’d without mentioning it, have you not
accepted ? |
What the study could not teach
- what the preaching could not
accomplish is accomplish’d, is it not ?
|
| IX |
| Flow on, river ! flow with the flood-tide, and ebb
with the ebb-tide ! |
| Frolic on, crested and scallop-edg’d waves ! |
| Gorgeous clouds of the sunset ! drench with your
splendor me, or the men and women generations after me ! |
| Cross from shore to shore, countless crowds of
passengers ! |
| Stand up, tall masts of Manhattan ! stand up,
beautiful hills of Brooklyn ! |
| Throb, baffled and curious brain ! throw out
questions and answers ! |
| Suspend here and everwhere, eternal float of
solution ! |
| Gaze, loving and thirsting eyes, in the house or
street or public assembly ! |
| Sound out, voices of young men ! loudly and
musically call me by my nighest name ! |
| Live, old life ! play the part that looks back on
the actor or actress ! |
| Play the old role, the role that is great or small
according as one makes it ! |
| Consider, you who peruse me, whether I may not in
unknown ways be looking upon you ; |
| Be firm, rail over the river, to support those who
lean idly, yet haste with the hasting current ; |
| Fly on, sea-birds ! fly sideways, or wheel in large
circles high in the air ; |
| Receive the summer sky, you water, and faithfully
hold it till all downcast eyes have time to take it from you ! |
| Diverge, fine spokes of light, from the shape of my
head, or any one’s head, in the sun-lit water ! |
| Come on, ships from the lower bay ! pass up or
down, white-sail’d schooners, sloops, lighters ! |
| Flaunt away, flags of all nations ! be duly lower’d
at sunset ! |
| Burn high your fires, foundry chimneys ! cast black
shadows at nightfall ! cast red and |
| yellow light over the tops of the houses ! |
| Appearances, now or henceforth, indicate what you
are, |
| You necessary film, continue to envelop the soul, |
| About my body for me, and your body for you, be
hung our divinest aromas, |
| Thrive, cities - bring
your freight, bring your shows, ample and sufficient rivers, |
| Expand, being than which none else is perhaps more
spiritual, |
Keep your places, objects than which none else is
more lasting.
|
| You have waited, you always wait, you dumb,
beautiful ministers |
| We receive you with free sense at last, and are
insatiate hence-forward, |
| Not you any more shall be able to foil us, or
withhold yourselves from us, |
| We use you, and do not cast you aside
- we plant you permanently within us, |
| We fathom you not - we
love you - there is perfection in you also, |
| You furnish your parts toward eternity, |
Great or small, you furnish your parts toward the
soul.
|
| Walt Whitman |
Classic Poems |
| |
|
[ Song of Myself XXIV ] [ Song of Myself LII ] [ Crossing Brooklyn Ferry ] [ When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd ] [ To a Locomotive in Winter ] |
