When the memories of the old
martyrs are faded utterly away--when the large names of patriots are
laughed at in the public halls from the lips of the orators--when the boys
are no more christened after the same, but christened after tyrants and
traitors instead--when the laws of the free are grudgingly permitted, and
laws for informers and blood-money are sweet to the taste of the people--
when I and you walk abroad upon the earth, stung with compassion at the
sight of numberless brothers answering our equal friendship, and calling no
man master--and when we are elated with noble joy at the sight of slaves--
when the soul retires in the cool communion of the night, and surveys its
experience, and has much ecstasy over the word and deed that put back a
helpless
innocent
person into the gripe of the gripers or into any cruel
inferiority--when those in all parts of these states who could easier
realise the true American character, but do not yet[1]--when the swarms of
cringers, suckers, doughfaces, lice of politics, planners of sly
involutions for their own preferment to city offices or state legislatures
or the judiciary or Congress or the Presidency, obtain a response of love
and natural deference from the people, whether they get the offices or no--
when it is better to be a bound booby and rogue in office at a high salary
than the poorest free mechanic or farmer, with his hat unmoved from his
head, and firm eyes, and a candid and generous heart--and when servility by
town or state or the federal government, or any oppression on a large scale
or small scale, can be tried on without its own punishment following duly
after in exact proportion, against the smallest chance of escape--or rather
when all life and all the souls of men and women are discharged from any
part of the earth--then only shall the instinct of liberty be discharged
from that part of the earth.
Whitman
Liberty takes the adherence of heroes wherever men and women
exist; but never takes any adherence or welcome from the rest more than
from poets. They are the voice and exposition of liberty. They out of ages
are worthy the grand idea,--to them it is confided, and they must sustain
it. Nothing has precedence of it, and nothing can warp or degrade it. The
attitude of great poets is to cheer up slaves and horrify despots. The turn
of their necks, the sound of their feet, the motions of their wrists, are
full of hazard to the one and hope to the other. Come nigh them a while,
and, though they neither speak nor advise, you shall learn the faithful
American lesson. Liberty is poorly served by men whose good intent is
quelled from one failure or two failures or any number of failures, or from
the casual indifference or ingratitude of the people, or from the sharp
show of the tushes of power, or the bringing to bear soldiers and cannon or
any penal statutes. Liberty relies upon itself, invites no one, promises
nothing, sits in calmness and light, is positive and composed, and knows no
discouragement. The battle rages with many a loud alarm and frequent
advance and retreat--the enemy triumphs--the prison, the handcuffs, the
iron necklace and anklet, the scaffold, garrote, and lead-balls, do their
work--the cause is asleep--the strong throats are choked with their own
blood--the young men drop their eyelashes toward the ground when they pass
each other ... and is liberty gone out of that place? No, never. When
liberty goes, it is not the first to go, nor the second or third to go: it
waits for all the rest to go--it is the last.
When the memories of the old
martyrs are faded utterly away--when the large names of patriots are
laughed at in the public halls from the lips of the orators--when the boys
are no more christened after the same, but christened after tyrants and
traitors instead--when the laws of the free are grudgingly permitted, and
laws for informers and blood-money are sweet to the taste of the people--
when I and you walk abroad upon the earth, stung with compassion at the
sight of numberless brothers answering our equal friendship, and calling no
man master--and when we are elated with noble joy at the sight of slaves--
when the soul retires in the cool communion of the night, and surveys its
experience, and has much ecstasy over the word and deed that put back a
helpless
innocent
person into the gripe of the gripers or into any cruel
inferiority--when those in all parts of these states who could easier
realise the true American character, but do not yet[1]--when the swarms of
cringers, suckers, doughfaces, lice of politics, planners of sly
involutions for their own preferment to city offices or state legislatures
or the judiciary or Congress or the Presidency, obtain a response of love
and natural deference from the people, whether they get the offices or no--
when it is better to be a bound booby and rogue in office at a high salary
than the poorest free mechanic or farmer, with his hat unmoved from his
head, and firm eyes, and a candid and generous heart--and when servility by
town or state or the federal government, or any oppression on a large scale
or small scale, can be tried on without its own punishment following duly
after in exact proportion, against the smallest chance of escape--or rather
when all life and all the souls of men and women are discharged from any
part of the earth--then only shall the instinct of liberty be discharged
from that part of the earth.
[Footnote 1: This clause is obviously imperfect in some respect: it is here
reproduced _verbatim_ from the American edition.]
As the attributes of the poets of the kosmos concentre in the real body and
soul and in the pleasure of things, they possess the superiority of
genuineness over all fiction and romance. As they emit themselves, facts
are showered over with light--the daylight is lit with more volatile
light--also the deep between the setting and rising sun goes deeper many-
fold. Each precise object or condition or combination or process exhibits a
beauty: the multiplication-table its--old age its--the carpenter's trade
its--the grand opera its: the huge-hulled clean-shaped New York clipper at
sea under steam or full sail gleams with unmatched beauty--the American
circles and large harmonies of government gleam with theirs, and the
commonest definite intentions and actions with theirs. The poets of the
kosmos advance through all interpositions and coverings and turmoils and
stratagems to first principles. They are of use--they dissolve poverty from
its need, and riches from its conceit. You large proprietor, they say,
shall not realise or perceive more than any one else. The owner of the
library is not he who holds a legal title to it, having bought and paid for
it. Any one and every one is owner of the library who can read the same
through all the varieties of tongues and subjects and styles, and in whom
they enter with ease, and take residence and force toward paternity and
maternity, and make supple and powerful and rich and large. These American
states, strong and healthy and accomplished, shall receive no pleasure from
violations of natural models, and must not permit them. In paintings or
mouldings or carvings in mineral or wood, or in the illustrations of books
or newspapers, or in any comic or tragic prints, or in the patterns of
woven stuffs, or anything to beautify rooms or furniture or costumes, or to
put upon cornices or monuments or on the prows or sterns of ships, or to
put anywhere before the human eye indoors or out, that which distorts
honest shapes, or which creates unearthly beings or places or
contingencies, is a nuisance and revolt. Of the human form especially, it
is so great it must never be made ridiculous. Of ornaments to a work,
nothing _outre_ can be allowed; but those ornaments can be allowed that
conform to the perfect facts of the open air, and that flow out of the
nature of the work, and come irrepressibly from it, and are necessary to
the completion of the work. Most works are most beautiful without ornament.
Exaggerations will be revenged in human physiology.
