Who is he that would become my
follower?
Whitman
3.
All this time, and at all times, wait the words of poems;
The greatness of sons is the exuding of the greatness of mothers and
fathers;
The words of poems are the tuft and final applause of science.
Divine instinct, breadth of vision, the law of reason, health, rudeness of
body, withdrawnness, gaiety, sun-tan, air-sweetness--such are some
of the words of poems.
4.
The sailor and traveller underlie the maker of poems,
The builder, geometer, chemist, anatomist, phrenologist, artist--all these
underlie the maker of poems.
5.
The words of the true poems give you more than poems,
They give you, to form for yourself, poems, religions, politics, war,
peace, behaviour, histories, essays, romances, and everything else,
They balance ranks, colours, races, creeds, and the sexes,
They do not seek beauty--they are sought,
For ever touching them, or close upon them, follows beauty, longing, fain,
love-sick.
They prepare for death--yet are they not the finish, but rather the outset,
They bring none to his or her terminus, or to be content and full;
Whom they take, they take into space, to behold the birth of stars, to
learn one of the meanings,
To launch off with absolute faith--to sweep through the ceaseless rings,
and never be quiet again.
_TO A HISTORIAN. _
You who celebrate bygones:
Who have explored the outward, the surfaces of the races--the life that has
exhibited itself;
Who have treated of man as the creature of politics, aggregates, rulers,
and priests.
I, habitue of the Alleghanies, treating man as he is in himself, in his own
rights,
Pressing the pulse of the life that has seldom exhibited itself, the great
pride of man in himself;
Chanter of Personality, outlining what is yet to be;
I project the history of the future.
_FIT AUDIENCE. _
1.
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.
2.
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 God,
sole and exclusive;
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 open 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.
3.
But these leaves conning, you con at peril,
For these leaves, and me, you will not understand,
They will elude you at first, and still more afterward--I will certainly
elude 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.
_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, 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 silent troop gathers around me;
Some walk by my side, and some behind, and some embrace my arms or neck,
They, the spirits of friends, dead or alive--thicker they come, a great
crowd, and I in the middle,
Collecting, dispensing, singing in spring, 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 pond-side,
(O here I last saw him that tenderly loves me--and returns again, never to
separate from me,
And this, O this shall henceforth be the token of comrades--this Calamus-
root[1] shall,
Interchange it, 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 plum-blows, and the aromatic cedar,
These I, compassed around by a thick cloud of spirits,
Wandering, point to, or touch as I pass, or throw them loosely from me,
Indicating to each one what he shall have--giving something to each.
