O
longings
irrepressible!
Whitman
my South!
O quick mettle, rich blood, impulse, and love! good and evil! O all dear to
me!
O dear to me my birth-things--all moving things, and the trees where I was
born,[1] the grains, plants, rivers;
Dear to me my own slow, sluggish rivers, where they flow distant over flats
of silvery sands or through swamps;
Dear to me the Roanoke, the Savannah, the Altamahaw, the Pedee, the
Tombigbee, the Santee, the Coosa, and the Sabine--
O pensive, far away wandering, I return with my soul to haunt their banks
again.
Again in Florida I float on transparent lakes--I float on Okeechobee--I
cross
the hummock land, or through pleasant openings or dense forests.
I see the parrots in the woods, I see the papaw-tree, and the blossoming
titi.
Again, sailing in my coaster, on deck, I coast off Georgia, I coast up the
Carolinas;
I see where the live-oak is growing--I see where the yellow-pine, the
scented bay-tree, the lemon and orange, the cypress, the graceful
palmetto.
I pass rude sea-headlands, and enter Pamlico Sound through an inlet, and
dart my vision inland;
O the cotton plant! the growing fields of rice, sugar, hemp!
The cactus, guarded with thorns--the laurel-tree, with large white flowers;
The range afar--the richness and barrenness--the old woods charged with
mistletoe and trailing moss,
The piney odour and the gloom--the awful natural stillness, Here in these
dense swamps the freebooter carries his gun, and the fugitive slave
has his concealed hut;
O the strange fascination of these half-known, half-impassable swamps,
infested by reptiles, resounding with the bellow of the alligator,
the sad noises of the night-owl and the wild-cat, and the whirr of
the rattlesnake;
The mocking-bird, the American mimic, singing all the forenoon--singing
through the moon-lit night,
The humming-bird, the wild-turkey, the raccoon, the opossum;
A Tennessee corn-field--the tall, graceful, long-leaved corn--slender,
flapping, bright green, with tassels--with beautiful ears, each
well-sheathed in its husk;
An Arkansas prairie--a sleeping lake, or still bayou.
O my heart! O tender and fierce pangs--I can stand them not--I will depart!
O to be a Virginian, where I grew up! O to be a Carolinian!
O longings irrepressible! O I will go back to old Tennessee, and never
wander more!
[Footnote 1: These expressions cannot be understood in a literal
sense, for Whitman was born, not in the South, but in the State
of New York. The precise sense to be attached to them may be open
to some difference of opinion. ]
_APPEARANCES. _
Of the terrible doubt of appearances,
Of the uncertainty after all--that we may be deluded,
That maybe reliance and hope are but speculations after all,
That maybe identity beyond the grave is a beautiful fable only,
Maybe the things I perceive--the animals, plants, men, hills, shining and
flowing waters,
The skies of day and night--colours, densities, forms--Maybe these are (as
doubtless they are) only apparitions, and the real something has
yet to be known;
(How often they dart out of themselves, as if to confound me and mock me!
How often I think neither I know, nor any man knows, aught of them! )
Maybe seeming to me what they are (as doubtless they indeed but seem) as
from my present point of view--And might prove (as of course they
would) naught of what they appear, or naught anyhow, from entirely
changed points of view;
--To me, these, and the like of these, are curiously answered by my lovers,
my dear friends.
When he whom I love travels with me, or sits a long while holding me by the
hand,
When the subtle air, the impalpable, the sense that words and reason hold
not, surround us and pervade us,
Then I am charged with untold and untellable wisdom--I am silent--I require
nothing further,
I cannot answer the question of appearances, or that of identity beyond the
grave;
But I walk or sit indifferent--I am satisfied,
He ahold of my hand has completely satisfied me.
_THE FRIEND. _
Recorders ages hence!
Come, I will take you down underneath this impassive exterior--I will tell
you what to say of me;
Publish my name and hang up my picture as that of the tenderest lover,
The friend, the lover's portrait, of whom his friend, his lover, was
fondest,
Who was not proud of his songs, but of the measureless ocean of love within
him--and freely poured it forth,
Who often walked lonesome walks, thinking of his dear friends, his lovers,
Who pensive, away from one he loved, often lay sleepless and dissatisfied
at night,
Who knew too well the sick, sick dread lest the one he loved might secretly
be indifferent to him,
Whose happiest days were far away, through fields, in woods, on hills, he
and another, wandering hand in hand, they twain, apart from other
men,
Who oft, as he sauntered the streets, curved with his arm the shoulder of
his friend--while the arm of his friend rested upon him also.
_MEETING AGAIN. _
When I heard at the close of the day how my name had been received with
plaudits in the capitol, still it was not a happy night for me that
followed;
And else, when I caroused, or when my plans were accomplished, still I was
not happy.
But the day when I rose at dawn from the bed of perfect health, refreshed,
singing, inhaling the ripe breath of autumn,
When I saw the full moon in the west grow pale and disappear in the morning
light,
When I wandered alone over the beach, and undressing bathed, laughing with
the cool waters, and saw the sunrise,
And when I thought how my dear friend, my lover, was on his way coming, O
then I was happy;
O then each breath tasted sweeter--and all that day my food nourished me
more--and the beautiful day passed well,
And the next came with equal joy--and with the next, at evening, came my
friend;
And that night, while all was still, I heard the waters roll slowly
continually up the shores,
I heard the hissing rustle of the liquid and sands, as directed to me,
whispering, to congratulate me;
For the one I love most lay sleeping by me under the same cover in the cool
night,
In the stillness, in the autumn moonbeams, his face was inclined toward me,
And his arm lay lightly around my breast--and that night I was happy.
_A DREAM.
O quick mettle, rich blood, impulse, and love! good and evil! O all dear to
me!
O dear to me my birth-things--all moving things, and the trees where I was
born,[1] the grains, plants, rivers;
Dear to me my own slow, sluggish rivers, where they flow distant over flats
of silvery sands or through swamps;
Dear to me the Roanoke, the Savannah, the Altamahaw, the Pedee, the
Tombigbee, the Santee, the Coosa, and the Sabine--
O pensive, far away wandering, I return with my soul to haunt their banks
again.
Again in Florida I float on transparent lakes--I float on Okeechobee--I
cross
the hummock land, or through pleasant openings or dense forests.
I see the parrots in the woods, I see the papaw-tree, and the blossoming
titi.
Again, sailing in my coaster, on deck, I coast off Georgia, I coast up the
Carolinas;
I see where the live-oak is growing--I see where the yellow-pine, the
scented bay-tree, the lemon and orange, the cypress, the graceful
palmetto.
I pass rude sea-headlands, and enter Pamlico Sound through an inlet, and
dart my vision inland;
O the cotton plant! the growing fields of rice, sugar, hemp!
The cactus, guarded with thorns--the laurel-tree, with large white flowers;
The range afar--the richness and barrenness--the old woods charged with
mistletoe and trailing moss,
The piney odour and the gloom--the awful natural stillness, Here in these
dense swamps the freebooter carries his gun, and the fugitive slave
has his concealed hut;
O the strange fascination of these half-known, half-impassable swamps,
infested by reptiles, resounding with the bellow of the alligator,
the sad noises of the night-owl and the wild-cat, and the whirr of
the rattlesnake;
The mocking-bird, the American mimic, singing all the forenoon--singing
through the moon-lit night,
The humming-bird, the wild-turkey, the raccoon, the opossum;
A Tennessee corn-field--the tall, graceful, long-leaved corn--slender,
flapping, bright green, with tassels--with beautiful ears, each
well-sheathed in its husk;
An Arkansas prairie--a sleeping lake, or still bayou.
O my heart! O tender and fierce pangs--I can stand them not--I will depart!
O to be a Virginian, where I grew up! O to be a Carolinian!
O longings irrepressible! O I will go back to old Tennessee, and never
wander more!
[Footnote 1: These expressions cannot be understood in a literal
sense, for Whitman was born, not in the South, but in the State
of New York. The precise sense to be attached to them may be open
to some difference of opinion. ]
_APPEARANCES. _
Of the terrible doubt of appearances,
Of the uncertainty after all--that we may be deluded,
That maybe reliance and hope are but speculations after all,
That maybe identity beyond the grave is a beautiful fable only,
Maybe the things I perceive--the animals, plants, men, hills, shining and
flowing waters,
The skies of day and night--colours, densities, forms--Maybe these are (as
doubtless they are) only apparitions, and the real something has
yet to be known;
(How often they dart out of themselves, as if to confound me and mock me!
How often I think neither I know, nor any man knows, aught of them! )
Maybe seeming to me what they are (as doubtless they indeed but seem) as
from my present point of view--And might prove (as of course they
would) naught of what they appear, or naught anyhow, from entirely
changed points of view;
--To me, these, and the like of these, are curiously answered by my lovers,
my dear friends.
When he whom I love travels with me, or sits a long while holding me by the
hand,
When the subtle air, the impalpable, the sense that words and reason hold
not, surround us and pervade us,
Then I am charged with untold and untellable wisdom--I am silent--I require
nothing further,
I cannot answer the question of appearances, or that of identity beyond the
grave;
But I walk or sit indifferent--I am satisfied,
He ahold of my hand has completely satisfied me.
_THE FRIEND. _
Recorders ages hence!
Come, I will take you down underneath this impassive exterior--I will tell
you what to say of me;
Publish my name and hang up my picture as that of the tenderest lover,
The friend, the lover's portrait, of whom his friend, his lover, was
fondest,
Who was not proud of his songs, but of the measureless ocean of love within
him--and freely poured it forth,
Who often walked lonesome walks, thinking of his dear friends, his lovers,
Who pensive, away from one he loved, often lay sleepless and dissatisfied
at night,
Who knew too well the sick, sick dread lest the one he loved might secretly
be indifferent to him,
Whose happiest days were far away, through fields, in woods, on hills, he
and another, wandering hand in hand, they twain, apart from other
men,
Who oft, as he sauntered the streets, curved with his arm the shoulder of
his friend--while the arm of his friend rested upon him also.
_MEETING AGAIN. _
When I heard at the close of the day how my name had been received with
plaudits in the capitol, still it was not a happy night for me that
followed;
And else, when I caroused, or when my plans were accomplished, still I was
not happy.
But the day when I rose at dawn from the bed of perfect health, refreshed,
singing, inhaling the ripe breath of autumn,
When I saw the full moon in the west grow pale and disappear in the morning
light,
When I wandered alone over the beach, and undressing bathed, laughing with
the cool waters, and saw the sunrise,
And when I thought how my dear friend, my lover, was on his way coming, O
then I was happy;
O then each breath tasted sweeter--and all that day my food nourished me
more--and the beautiful day passed well,
And the next came with equal joy--and with the next, at evening, came my
friend;
And that night, while all was still, I heard the waters roll slowly
continually up the shores,
I heard the hissing rustle of the liquid and sands, as directed to me,
whispering, to congratulate me;
For the one I love most lay sleeping by me under the same cover in the cool
night,
In the stillness, in the autumn moonbeams, his face was inclined toward me,
And his arm lay lightly around my breast--and that night I was happy.
_A DREAM.
