No More Learning

List close, my scholars dear!
All doctrines, all politics and civilisation, exsurge from you;
All sculpture and monuments, and anything inscribed anywhere, are tallied
in you;
The gist of histories and statistics, as far back as the records reach, is
in you this hour, and myths and tales the same;
If you were not breathing and walking here, where would they all be?
The most renowned poems would be ashes, orations and plays would be
vacuums.

All architecture is what you do to it when you look upon it;
Did you think it was in the white or grey stone? or the lines of the arches
and cornices?

All music is what awakes from you, when you are reminded by the
instruments;
It is not the violins and the cornets--it is not the oboe nor the beating
drums, nor the score of the baritone singer singing his sweet
romanza--nor that of the men's chorus, nor that of the women's
chorus,
It is nearer and farther than they.


6.

Will the whole come back then?
Can each see signs of the best by a look in the looking-glass? is there
nothing greater or more?
Does all sit there with you, with the mystic, unseen soul?

Strange and hard that paradox true I give;
Objects gross and the unseen Soul are one.

House-building, measuring, sawing the boards;
Blacksmithing, glass-blowing, nail-making, coopering, tin-roofing, shingle-
dressing,
Ship-joining, dock-building, fish-curing, ferrying, flagging of side-walks
by flaggers,
The pump, the pile-driver, the great derrick, the coal-kiln and brick-kiln,
Coal-mines, and all that is down there,--the lamps in the darkness, echoes,
songs, what meditations, what vast native thoughts looking through
smutched faces,
Ironworks, forge-fires in the mountains, or by the river-banks--men around
feeling the melt with huge crowbars--lumps of ore, the due
combining of ore, limestone, coal--the blast-furnace and the
puddling-furnace, the loup-lump at the bottom of the melt at last--
the rolling-mill, the stumpy bars of pig-iron, the strong, clean
shaped T-rail for railroads;
Oilworks, silkworks, white-lead-works, the sugar-house, steam-saws, the
great mills and factories;
Stone-cutting, shapely trimmings for facades, or window or door lintels--
the mallet, the tooth-chisel, the jib to protect the thumb, Oakum,
the oakum-chisel, the caulking-iron--the kettle of boiling vault-
cement, and the fire under the kettle,
The cotton-bale, the stevedore's hook, the saw and buck of the sawyer, the
mould of the moulder, the working knife of the butcher, the ice-
saw, and all the work with ice,
The implements for daguerreotyping--the tools of the rigger, grappler,
sail-maker, block-maker,
Goods of gutta-percha, papier-mache, colours, brushes, brush-making,
glaziers' implements,
The veneer and glue-pot, the confectioner's ornaments, the decanter and
glasses, the shears and flat-iron,
The awl and knee-strap, the pint measure and quart measure, the counter and
stool, the writing-pen of quill or metal--the making of all sorts
of edged tools,
The brewery, brewing, the malt, the vats, everything that is done by
brewers, also by wine-makers, also vinegar-makers,
Leather-dressing, coach-making, boiler-making, rope-twisting, distilling,
sign-painting, lime-burning, cotton-picking--electro-plating,
electrotyping, stereotyping,
Stave-machines, planing-machines, reaping-machines,
ploughing-machines, thrashing-machines, steam waggons,
The cart of the carman, the omnibus, the ponderous dray;
Pyrotechny, letting off coloured fireworks at night, fancy figures and
jets,
Beef on the butcher's stall, the slaughter-house of the butcher, the
butcher in his killing-clothes,
The pens of live pork, the killing-hammer, the hog-hook, the scalder's tub,
gutting, the cutter's cleaver, the packer's maul, and the plenteous
winter-work of pork-packing,
Flour-works, grinding of wheat, rye, maize, rice--the barrels and the half
and quarter barrels, the loaded barges, the high piles on wharves
and levees,
The men, and the work of the men, on railroads, coasters, fish-boats,
canals;
The daily routine of your own or any man's life--the shop, yard, store, or
factory;
These shows all near you by day and night-workmen! whoever you are, your
daily life!
In that and them the heft of the heaviest--in them far more than you
estimated, and far less also;
In them realities for you and me--in them poems for you and me;
In them, not yourself--you and your soul enclose all things, regardless of
estimation;
In them the development good--in them, all themes and hints.
I do not affirm what you see beyond is futile--I do not advise you to stop;
I do not say leadings you thought great are not great;
But I say that none lead to greater than those lead to.


7.

Will you seek afar off? You surely come back at last,
In things best known to you finding the best, or as good as the best,
In folks nearest to you finding the sweetest, strongest, lovingest;
Happiness, knowledge, not in another place, but this place--not for another
hour, but this hour;
Man in the first you see or touch--always in friend, brother, nighest
neighbour--Woman in mother, sister, wife;
The popular tastes and employments taking precedence in poems or anywhere,
You workwomen and workmen of these States having your own divine and strong
life,
And all else giving place to men and women like you.




_SONG OF THE BROAD-AXE. _

1.

Weapon, shapely, naked, wan;
Head from the mother's bowels drawn!
Wooded flesh and metal bone! limb only one, and lip only one!
Grey-blue leaf by red-heat grown! helve produced from a little seed sown!
Resting the grass amid and upon,
To be leaned, and to lean on.

Strong shapes, and attributes of strong shapes--masculine trades, sights
and sounds;
Long varied train of an emblem, dabs of music;
Fingers of the organist skipping staccato over the keys of the great organ.

2.

Welcome are all earth's lands, each for its kind;
Welcome are lands of pine and oak;
Welcome are lands of the lemon and fig;
Welcome are lands of gold;
Welcome are lands of wheat and maize--welcome those of the grape;
Welcome are lands of sugar and rice;
Welcome are cotton-lands--welcome those of the white potato and sweet
potato;
Welcome are mountains, flats, sands, forests, prairies;
Welcome the rich borders of rivers, table-lands, openings,
Welcome the measureless grazing-lands--welcome the teeming soil of
orchards, flax, honey, hemp;
Welcome just as much the other more hard-faced lands;
Lands rich as lands of gold, or wheat and fruit lands;
Lands of mines, lands of the manly and rugged ores;
Lands of coal, copper, lead, tin, zinc;
LANDS OF IRON! lands of the make of the axe!