house of madness and sin,
crumbled!
Whitman
_DESPAIRING CRIES. _
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 prostitute 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 passion 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 excrementitious.
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 clusters of ages, that men and women like us grew up and travelled
their course, and passed 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.
