Poems By Walt Whitman Part 35

1.

Despairing cries float ceaselessly toward me, day and night, The sad voice of Death--the call of my nearest lover, putting forth, alarmed, uncertain, "_The Sea I am quickly to sail: come tell me, Come tell me where I am speeding--tell me my destination_."

2.

I understand your anguish, but I cannot help you; I approach, hear, behold--the sad mouth, the look out of the eyes, your mute inquiry, "_Whither I go from the bed I recline on, come tell me_."

Old age, alarmed, uncertain--A young woman's voice, appealing to me for comfort; A young man's voice, "_Shall I not escape_?"

_THE CITY DEAD-HOUSE_

By the City Dead-House, by the gate, As idly sauntering, wending my way from the clangour, I curious pause--for lo! an outcast form, a poor dead prost.i.tute brought; Her corpse they deposit unclaimed, it lies on the damp brick pavement.

The divine woman, her body--I see the body--I look on it alone, That house once full of pa.s.sion and beauty--all else I notice not; Nor stillness so cold, nor running water from faucet, nor odours morbific impress me; But the house alone--that wondrous house--that delicate fair house--that ruin!

That immortal house, more than all the rows of dwellings ever built, Or white-domed Capitol itself, with majestic figure surmounted--or all the old high-spired cathedrals, That little house alone, more than them all--poor, desperate house!

Fair, fearful wreck! tenement of a Soul! itself a Soul!

Unclaimed, avoided house! take one breath from my tremulous lips; Take one tear, dropped aside as I go, for thought of you, Dead house of love! house of madness and sin, crumbled! crushed!

House of life--erewhile talking and laughing--but ah, poor house! dead even then; Months, years, an echoing, garnished house-but dead, dead, dead!

_TO ONE SHORTLY TO DIE._

1.

From all the rest I single out you, having a message for you: You are to die--Let others tell you what they please, I cannot prevaricate, I am exact and merciless, but I love you--There is no escape for you.

2.

Softly I lay my right hand upon you--you just feel it; I do not argue--I bend my head close, and half envelop it, I sit quietly by--I remain faithful, I am more than nurse, more than parent or neighbour, I absolve you from all except yourself, spiritual, bodily--that is eternal,-- The corpse you will leave will be but excrement.i.tious.

The sun bursts through in unlooked-for directions!

Strong thoughts fill you, and confidence--you smile!

You forget you are sick, as I forget you are sick, You do not see the medicines--you do not mind the weeping friends--I am with you, I exclude others from you--there is nothing to be commiserated, I do not commiserate--I congratulate you.

_UNNAMED LANDS._

1.

Nations, ten thousand years before these States, and many times ten thousand years before these States; Garnered cl.u.s.ters of ages, that men and women like us grew up and travelled their course, and pa.s.sed on; What vast-built cities--what orderly republics--what pastoral tribes and nomads; What histories, rulers, heroes, perhaps transcending all others; What laws, customs, wealth, arts, traditions; What sort of marriage--what costumes--what physiology and phrenology; What of liberty and slavery among them--what they thought of death and the soul; Who were witty and wise--who beautiful and poetic--who brutish and undeveloped; Not a mark, not a record remains,--And yet all remains.

2.

O I know that those men and women were not for nothing, any more than we are for nothing; I know that they belong to the scheme of the world every bit as much as we now belong to it, and as all will henceforth belong to it.

Afar they stand--yet near to me they stand, Some with oval countenances, learned and calm, Some naked and savage--Some like huge collections of insects, Some in tents--herdsmen, patriarchs, tribes, hors.e.m.e.n, Some prowling through woods--Some living peaceably on farms, labouring, reaping, filling barns, Some traversing paved avenues, amid temples, palaces, factories, libraries, shows, courts, theatres, wonderful monuments.

Are those billions of men really gone?

Are those women of the old experience of the earth gone?

Do their lives, cities, arts, rest only with us?

Did they achieve nothing for good, for themselves?

3.

I believe, of all those billions of men and women that filled the unnamed lands, every one exists this hour, here or elsewhere, invisible to us, in exact proportion to what he or she grew from in life, and out of what he or she did, felt, became, loved, sinned, in life.

I believe that was not the end of those nations, or any person of them, any more than this shall be the end of my nation, or of me; Of their languages, governments, marriage, literature, products, games, wars, manners, crimes, prisons, slaves, heroes, poets, I suspect their results curiously await in the yet unseen world--counterparts of what accrued to them in the seen world; I suspect I shall meet them there, I suspect I shall there find each old particular of those unnamed lands.

_SIMILITUDE._

1.

On the beach at night alone, As the old Mother sways her to and fro, singing her savage and husky song, As I watch the bright stars s.h.i.+ning--I think a thought of the clef of the universes, and of the future.

2.

A VAST SIMILITUDE interlocks all, All spheres, grown, ungrown, small, large, suns, moons, planets, comets, asteroids, All the substances of the same, and all that is spiritual upon the same, All distances of place, however wide, All distances of time--all inanimate forms, All Souls--all living bodies, though they be ever so different, or in different worlds, All gaseous, watery, vegetable, mineral processes--the fishes, the brutes, All men and women--me also; All nations, colours, barbarisms, civilisations, languages; All ident.i.ties that have existed, or may exist, on this globe, or any globe; All lives and deaths--all of the past, present, future; This vast similitude spans them, and always has spanned, and shall for ever span them, and compactly hold them.

_THE SQUARE DEIFIC._

G.o.d.

Chanting the Square Deific, out of the One advancing, out of the sides; Out of the old and new--out of the square entirely divine, Solid, four-sided, (all the sides needed)--From this side JEHOVAH am I, Old Brahm I, and I Saturnius am; Not Time affects me--I am Time, modern as any; Unpersuadable, relentless, executing righteous judgments; As the Earth, the Father, the brown old Kronos, with laws, Aged beyond computation--yet ever new--ever with those mighty laws rolling, Relentless, I forgive no man--whoever sins dies--I will have that man's life; Therefore let none expect mercy--Have the seasons, gravitation, the appointed days, mercy?--No more have I; But as the seasons, and gravitation--and as all the appointed days, that forgive not, I dispense from this side judgments inexorable, without the least remorse.

SAVIOUR.

Consolator most mild, the promised one advancing, With gentle hand extended, the mightier G.o.d am I, Foretold by prophets and poets, in their most wrapt prophecies and poems; From this side, lo! the Lord CHRIST gazes--lo! Hermes I--lo! mine is Hercules' face; All sorrow, labour, suffering, I, tallying it, absorb in myself; Many times have I been rejected, taunted, put in prison, and crucified--and many times shall be again; All the world have I given up for my dear brothers' and sisters' sake--for the soul's sake; Wending my way through the homes of men, rich or poor, with the kiss of affection; For I am affection--I am the cheer-bringing G.o.d, with hope, and all- enclosing charity; Conqueror yet--for before me all the armies and soldiers of the earth shall yet bow--and all the weapons of war become impotent: With indulgent words, as to children--with fresh and sane words, mine only; Young and strong I pa.s.s, knowing well I am destined myself to an early death: But my Charity has no death--my Wisdom dies not, neither early nor late, And my sweet Love, bequeathed here and elsewhere, never dies.

SATAN.