The red
aborigines!
Whitman
my intrepid nations!
O I at any rate
include you all with perfect love!
I cannot be discharged from you--not from one, any sooner than another!
O Death! O! --for all that, I am yet of you unseen, this hour, with
irrepressible love,
Walking New England, a friend, a traveller,
Splashing my bare feet in the edge of the summer ripples, on Paumanok's
sands,
Crossing the prairies--dwelling again in Chicago--dwelling in every town,
Observing shows, births, improvements, structures, arts,
Listening to the orators and the oratresses in public halls,
Of and through the States, as during life[4]--each man and woman my
neighbour,
The Louisianian, the Georgian, as near to me, and I as near to him and her,
The Mississippian and Arkansian yet with me--and I yet with any of them;
Yet upon the plains west of the spinal river--yet in my house of adobie,
Yet returning eastward--yet in the Sea-Side State, or in Maryland,
Yet Canadian cheerily braving the winter--the snow and ice welcome to me,
or mounting the Northern Pacific, to Sitka, to Aliaska;
Yet a true son either of Maine, or of the Granite State,[5] or of the
Narragansett Bay State, or of the Empire State;[6]
Yet sailing to other shores to annex the same--yet welcoming every new
brother;
Hereby applying these leaves to the new ones, from the hour they unite with
the old ones;
Coming among the new ones myself, to be their companion and equal--coming
personally to you now;
Enjoining you to acts, characters, spectacles, with me.
16.
With me, with firm holding--yet haste, haste on.
For your life, adhere to me;
Of all the men of the earth, I only can unloose you and toughen you;
I may have to be persuaded many times before I consent to give myself to
you--but what of that?
Must not Nature be persuaded many times?
No dainty _dolce affettuoso_ I;
Bearded, sunburnt, gray-necked, forbidding, I have arrived,
To be wrestled with as I pass, for the solid prizes of the universe;
For such I afford whoever can persevere to win them.
17.
On my way a moment I pause;
Here for you! and here for America!
Still the Present I raise aloft--still the Future of the States I harbinge,
glad and sublime;
And for the Past, I pronounce what the air holds of the red aborigines.
The red aborigines!
Leaving natural breaths, sounds of rain and winds, calls as of birds and
animals in the woods, syllabled to us for names;
Okonee, Koosa, Ottawa, Monongahela, Sauk, Natchez, Chattahoochee, Kaqueta,
Oronoco, Wabash, Miami, Saginaw, Chippewa, Oshkosh, Walla-Walla;
Leaving such to the States, they melt, they depart, charging the water and
the land with names.
18.
O expanding and swift! O henceforth,
Elements, breeds, adjustments, turbulent, quick, and audacious;
A world primal again--vistas of glory, incessant and branching;
A new race, dominating previous ones, and grander far, with new contests,
New politics, new literatures and religions, new inventions and arts.
These my voice announcing--I will sleep no more, but arise;
You oceans that have been calm within me! how I feel you, fathomless,
stirring, preparing unprecedented waves and storms.
19.
See! steamers steaming through my poems!
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 Kanzas, countless herds 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-cylindered steam printing-press--See the electric telegraph,
stretching across the Continent, from the Western Sea to Manhattan;
See, through Atlantica's depths, pulses American, Europe reaching--pulses
of Europe, duly returned;
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 mechanics, busy at their benches, with tools--See, from among them,
superior judges, philosophs, Presidents, emerge, dressed in working
dresses;
See, lounging through the shops and fields of the States, me, well-beloved,
close-held by day and night;
Hear the loud echoes of my songs there! Read the hints come at last.
20.
O Camerado close!
O you and me at last--and us two only.
O a word to clear one's path ahead endlessly!
include you all with perfect love!
I cannot be discharged from you--not from one, any sooner than another!
O Death! O! --for all that, I am yet of you unseen, this hour, with
irrepressible love,
Walking New England, a friend, a traveller,
Splashing my bare feet in the edge of the summer ripples, on Paumanok's
sands,
Crossing the prairies--dwelling again in Chicago--dwelling in every town,
Observing shows, births, improvements, structures, arts,
Listening to the orators and the oratresses in public halls,
Of and through the States, as during life[4]--each man and woman my
neighbour,
The Louisianian, the Georgian, as near to me, and I as near to him and her,
The Mississippian and Arkansian yet with me--and I yet with any of them;
Yet upon the plains west of the spinal river--yet in my house of adobie,
Yet returning eastward--yet in the Sea-Side State, or in Maryland,
Yet Canadian cheerily braving the winter--the snow and ice welcome to me,
or mounting the Northern Pacific, to Sitka, to Aliaska;
Yet a true son either of Maine, or of the Granite State,[5] or of the
Narragansett Bay State, or of the Empire State;[6]
Yet sailing to other shores to annex the same--yet welcoming every new
brother;
Hereby applying these leaves to the new ones, from the hour they unite with
the old ones;
Coming among the new ones myself, to be their companion and equal--coming
personally to you now;
Enjoining you to acts, characters, spectacles, with me.
16.
With me, with firm holding--yet haste, haste on.
For your life, adhere to me;
Of all the men of the earth, I only can unloose you and toughen you;
I may have to be persuaded many times before I consent to give myself to
you--but what of that?
Must not Nature be persuaded many times?
No dainty _dolce affettuoso_ I;
Bearded, sunburnt, gray-necked, forbidding, I have arrived,
To be wrestled with as I pass, for the solid prizes of the universe;
For such I afford whoever can persevere to win them.
17.
On my way a moment I pause;
Here for you! and here for America!
Still the Present I raise aloft--still the Future of the States I harbinge,
glad and sublime;
And for the Past, I pronounce what the air holds of the red aborigines.
The red aborigines!
Leaving natural breaths, sounds of rain and winds, calls as of birds and
animals in the woods, syllabled to us for names;
Okonee, Koosa, Ottawa, Monongahela, Sauk, Natchez, Chattahoochee, Kaqueta,
Oronoco, Wabash, Miami, Saginaw, Chippewa, Oshkosh, Walla-Walla;
Leaving such to the States, they melt, they depart, charging the water and
the land with names.
18.
O expanding and swift! O henceforth,
Elements, breeds, adjustments, turbulent, quick, and audacious;
A world primal again--vistas of glory, incessant and branching;
A new race, dominating previous ones, and grander far, with new contests,
New politics, new literatures and religions, new inventions and arts.
These my voice announcing--I will sleep no more, but arise;
You oceans that have been calm within me! how I feel you, fathomless,
stirring, preparing unprecedented waves and storms.
19.
See! steamers steaming through my poems!
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 Kanzas, countless herds 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-cylindered steam printing-press--See the electric telegraph,
stretching across the Continent, from the Western Sea to Manhattan;
See, through Atlantica's depths, pulses American, Europe reaching--pulses
of Europe, duly returned;
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 mechanics, busy at their benches, with tools--See, from among them,
superior judges, philosophs, Presidents, emerge, dressed in working
dresses;
See, lounging through the shops and fields of the States, me, well-beloved,
close-held by day and night;
Hear the loud echoes of my songs there! Read the hints come at last.
20.
O Camerado close!
O you and me at last--and us two only.
O a word to clear one's path ahead endlessly!
