take one breath from my
tremulous
lips;
Take one tear, dropped aside as I go, for thought of you,
Dead house of love!
Take one tear, dropped aside as I go, for thought of you,
Dead house of love!
Whitman
it is that calm and patient,
It grows such sweet things out of such corruptions,
It turns harmless and stainless on its axis, with such endless successions
of diseased corpses,
It distils such exquisite winds out of such infused fetor,
It renews with such unwitting looks its prodigal, annual, sumptuous crops,
It gives such divine materials to men, and accepts such leavings from them
at last.
_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.
It grows such sweet things out of such corruptions,
It turns harmless and stainless on its axis, with such endless successions
of diseased corpses,
It distils such exquisite winds out of such infused fetor,
It renews with such unwitting looks its prodigal, annual, sumptuous crops,
It gives such divine materials to men, and accepts such leavings from them
at last.
_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.
