No More Learning

_REALITIES. _


1.

As I walk, solitary, unattended,
Around me I hear that _eclat_ of the world--politics, produce,
The announcements of recognised things--science,
The approved growth of cities, and the spread of inventions.

I see the ships, (they will last a few years,)
The vast factories, with their foremen and workmen,
And hear the endorsement of all, and do not object to it.


2.

But I too announce solid things;
Science, ships, politics, cities, factories, are not nothing--they serve,
They stand for realities--all is as it should be.


3.

Then my realities;
What else is so real as mine?
Libertad, and the divine Average-Freedom to every slave on the face of the
earth,
The rapt promises and _lumine_[1] of seers--the spiritual
world--these centuries-lasting songs,
And our visions, the visions of poets, the most solid announcements of any.

For we support all,
After the rest is done and gone, we remain,
There is no final reliance but upon us;
Democracy rests finally upon us, (I, my brethren, begin it,)
And our visions sweep through eternity.

[Footnote 1: I suppose Whitman gets this odd word _lumine_, by a process of
his own, out of _illuminati_, and intends it to stand for what would be
called clairvoyance, intuition. ]



_NEARING DEPARTURE. _


1.

As nearing departure,
As the time draws nigh, glooming, a cloud,
A dread beyond, of I know not what, darkens me.


2.
I shall _go_ forth,
I shall traverse the States--but I cannot tell whither or how long;
Perhaps soon, some day or night while I am singing, my voice will suddenly
cease.


3.

O book and chant! must all then amount to but this?
Must we barely arrive at this beginning of me? . . .
And yet it is enough, O soul!
O soul! we have positively appeared--that is enough.



_POETS TO COME. _


1.

Poets to come!
Not to-day is to justify me, and Democracy, and what we are for;
But you, a new brood, native, athletic, continental, greater than before
known,
You must justify me.


2.