Who are the
infants?
Whitman
I respect Assyria, China, Teutonia, and the Hebrews;
I adopt each theory, myth, god, and demi-god;
I see that the old accounts, bibles, genealogies, are true, without
exception;
I assert that all past days were what they should have been;
And that they could nohow have been better than they were,
And that to-day is what it should be--and that America is,
And that to-day and America could nohow be better than they are.
4.
In the name of these States, and in your and my name, the Past,
And in the name of these States, and in your and my name, the Present time.
I know that the past was great, and the future will be great,
And I know that both curiously conjoint in the present time,
For the sake of him I typify--for the common average man's sake--your sake,
if you are he;
And that where I am, or you are, this present day, there is the centre of
all days, all races,
And there is the meaning, to us, of all that has ever come of races and
days, or ever will come.
_SALUT AU MONDE! _
1.
O take my hand, Walt Whitman!
Such gliding wonders! such sights and sounds!
Such joined unended links, each hooked to the next!
Each answering all--each sharing the earth with all.
What widens within you, Walt Whitman?
What waves and soils exuding?
What climes? what persons and lands are here?
Who are the infants? some playing, some slumbering?
Who are the girls? who are the married women?
Who are the three old men going slowly with their arms about each others'
necks?
What rivers are these? what forests and fruits are these?
What are the mountains called that rise so high in the mists?
What myriads of dwellings are they, filled with dwellers?
2.
Within me latitude widens, longitude lengthens;
Asia, Africa, Europe, are to the east--America is provided for in the west;
Banding the bulge of the earth winds the hot equator,
Curiously north and south turn the axis-ends;
Within me is the longest day--the sun wheels in slanting rings--it does not
set for months.
Stretched in due time within me the midnight sun just rises above the
horizon, and sinks again;
Within me zones, seas, cataracts, plants, volcanoes, groups,
Malaysia, Polynesia, and the great West Indian islands.
3.
What do you hear, Walt Whitman?
I hear the workman singing, and the farmer's wife singing;
I hear in the distance the sounds of children, and of animals early in the
day;
I hear quick rifle-cracks from the riflemen of East Tennessee and Kentucky,
hunting on hills;
I hear emulous shouts of Australians, pursuing the wild horse;
I hear the Spanish dance, with castanets, in the chestnut shade, to the
rebeck and guitar;
I hear continual echoes from the Thames;
I hear fierce French liberty songs;
I hear of the Italian boat-sculler the musical recitative of old poems;
I hear the Virginian plantation chorus of negroes, of a harvest night, in
the glare of pine-knots;
I hear the strong barytone of the 'long-shore-men of Mannahatta;
I hear the stevedores unlading the cargoes, and singing;
I hear the screams of the water-fowl of solitary north-west lakes;
I hear the rustling pattering of locusts, as they strike the grain and
grass with the showers of their terrible clouds;
I hear the Coptic refrain, toward sundown, pensively falling on the breast
of the black venerable vast mother, the Nile;
I hear the bugles of raft-tenders on the streams of Canada;
I hear the chirp of the Mexican muleteer, and the bells of the mule;
I hear the Arab muezzin, calling from the top of the mosque;
I hear the Christian priests at the altars of their churches--I hear the
responsive bass and soprano;
I hear the wail of utter despair of the white-haired Irish grandparents,
when they learn the death of their grandson;
I hear the cry of the Cossack, and the sailor's voice, putting to sea at
Okotsk;
I hear the wheeze of the slave-coffle, as the slaves march on--as the husky
gangs pass on by twos and threes, fastened together with wrist-
chains and ankle-chains;
I hear the entreaties of women tied up for punishment--I hear the sibilant
whisk of thongs through the air;
I hear the Hebrew reading his records and psalms;
I hear the rhythmic myths of the Greeks, and the strong legends of the
Romans;
I hear the tale of the divine life and bloody death of the beautiful God,
the Christ;
I hear the Hindoo teaching his favourite pupil the loves, wars, adages,
transmitted safely to this day from poets who wrote three thousand
years ago.
4.
