PUNCTUATION 

 

— the entrenchments.

(behind me he rides at the drape of the day,)

(He will never sleep any more as he did in the cot in his

(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

(I am less the jolly one there, and more the silent one with

(I reckon I behave no prouder than the level I plant my house

(I tell not the fall of Alamo,

(It is you talking just as much as myself, I act as the tongue of

(loving their big proportions,)

(Miserable! I do not laugh at your oaths nor jeer you;)

(No array of terms can say how much I am at peace about

(No doubt I have died myself ten thousand times before.)

(Only what proves itself to every man and woman is so,

(Round and round we go, all of us, and ever come back

(Shall I make my list of things in the house and skip the house

(Talk honestly, no one else hears you, and I stay only a

(The moth and the fish-eggs are in their place,

(They bore mites as for unfledg’d birds who have now to rise

(They do not know how immortal, but I know.)

(They go to guard some corpse, the flag-tops are draped with

(This day I am jetting the stuff of far more arrogant

(What have I to do with lamentation?)

(What is less or more than a touch?)

 

 

A

 

A boatman over lakes or bays or along coasts, a Hoosier,

A call in the midst of the crowd,

A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full

A farmer, mechanic, artist, gentleman, sailor, quaker,

A few fell at once, shot in the temple or heart, the living and

A few idly owning, and they the wheat continually claiming.

A few large stars overhead, silent and mournful shining,

A few light kisses, a few embraces, a reaching around of arms,

A few quadrillions of eras, a few octillions of cubic leagues,

A gigantic beauty of a stallion, fresh and responsive to my

A Kentuckian walking the vale of the Elkhorn in my deer-skin

A learner with the simplest, a teacher of the thoughtfullest,

A minute and a drop of me settle my brain,

A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the

A novice beginning yet experient of myriads of seasons,

A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt,

A Southerner soon as a Northerner, a planter nonchalant

A tenor large and fresh as the creation fills me,

A word of the faith that never balks,

A Yankee bound my own way ready for trade, my joints the

A youth not seventeen years old seiz’d his assassin till two

about me, and not filling the square rod then,

 

 

 

FOR

 

For after we start we never lie by again.

for conquer’d and slain persons.

For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

For I who am curious about each am not curious about

For it the nebula cohered to an orb,

For me children and the begetters of children.

For me lips that have smiled, eyes that have shed tears,

For me the keepers of convicts shoulder their carbines and

For me the man that is proud and feels how it stings to be

For me the sweet-heart and the old maid, for me mothers and

For me those that have been boys and that love women,

for nothing.

 

 

PRONOUNS

 

I.

I am a free companion, I bivouac by invading watchfires,

I am afoot with my vision.

I am an acme of things accomplish’d, and I an encloser of

I am an old artillerist, I tell of my fort’s bombardment,

I am aware who they are, (they are positively not worms or

I am cut by bitter and angry hail, I lose my breath,

I am enamour’d of growing out-doors,

I am given up by traitors,

I am he attesting sympathy,

I am he bringing help for the sick as they pant on their backs,

I am he that walks with the tender and growing night,

I am integral with you, I too am of one phase and of all phases.

I am mad for it to be in contact with me.

I am not an earth nor an adjunct of an earth,

I am not the poet of goodness only, I do not decline to be the

I am not to be denied, I compel, I have stores plenty and to

I am of old and young, of the foolish as much as the wise,

I am satisfied — I see, dance, laugh, sing;

I am sorry for you, they are not murderous or jealous upon me,

I am the hounded slave, I wince at the bite of the dogs,

I am the man, I suffer’d, I was there.

I am the mash’d fireman with breast-bone broken,

I am the mate and companion of people, all just as immortal

I am the poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul,

I am the poet of the woman the same as the man,

I am the teacher of athletes,

I am there again.

I am there, I help, I came stretch’d atop of the load,

 

II.

You are also asking me questions and I hear you,

You can do nothing and be nothing but what I will infold

you is so.

You laggards there on guard! look to your arms!

You light surfaces only, I force surfaces and depths also.

You must habit yourself to the dazzle of the light and of

You must travel it for yourself.

You my rich blood! your milky stream pale strippings of my

You sea! I resign myself to you also — I guess what you mean,

You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self.

You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor

You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things

You shall possess the good of the earth and sun, (there are

You should have been with us that day round the chowder-kettle.

You splash in the water there, yet stay stock still in your room.

You sweaty brooks and dews it shall be you!

You there, impotent, loose in the knees,

You villain touch! what are you doing? my breath is tight in

You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,

you!

you,

you.

you.

young men.

Your facts are useful, and yet they are not my dwelling,

zones,

 

III.

We also ascend dazzling and tremendous as the sun,

We are approaching some great battle-field in which we are

we are sinking.

We closed with him, the yards entangled, the cannon touch’d,

We found our own O my soul in the calm and cool of the

We had receiv’d some eighteen pound shots under the water,

We have had ducking and deprecating about enough,

We have not struck, he composedly cries, we have just begun

We have thus far exhausted trillions of winters and summers,

We must have a turn together, I undress, hurry me out of

We pass the colossal outposts of the encampment, we pass

We sail the arctic sea, it is plenty light enough,

We should surely bring up again where we now stand,

 

 

 

IT

 

I.

It is a trifle, they will more than arrive there every one, and

It is for my mouth forever, I am in love with it,

It is for the wicked just the same as the righteous, I make

It is I let out in the morning and barr’d at night.

It is middling well as far as it goes — but is that all?

It is not chaos or death — it is form, union, plan — it is eternal

It is not far, it is within reach,

It is not in any dictionary, utterance, symbol.

It is time to explain myself — let us stand up.

 

II.

It may be if I had known them I would have loved them,

It may be you are from old people, or from offspring taken

It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men,

it myself and looking composedly down,)

 

 

 

O

 

O despairer, here is my neck,

O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues,

O manhood, balanced, florid and full.

O span of youth! ever-push’d elasticity!

O suns — O grass of graves — O perpetual transfers and

O unspeakable passionate love.

 

 

 

THIS

 

this air,

This day before dawn I ascended a hill and look’d at the

This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old

This head more than churches, bibles, and all the creeds.

This hour I tell things in confidence,

This is the city and I am one of the citizens,

This is the geologist, this works with the scalpel, and this is a

This is the grass that grows wherever the land is and the

This is the lexicographer, this the chemist, this made a

This is the meal equally set, this the meat for natural hunger,

This is the press of a bashful hand, this the float and odor of

This minute that comes to me over the past decillions,

This printed and bound book — but the printer and the

This the common air that bathes the globe.

This the far-off depth and height reflecting my own face,

This the thoughtful merge of myself, and the outlet again.

This the touch of my lips to yours, this the murmur of yearning,

 

 

 

WHAT

 

What behaved well in the past or behaves well to-day is not

What blurt is this about virtue and about vice?

What do you think has become of the young and old men?

What exclamations of women taken suddenly who hurry

What groans of over-fed or half-starv’d who fall sunstruck or

What I do and say the same waits for them,

What I guess’d when I loaf’d on the grass,

What I guess’d while I lay alone in my bed,

What is a man anyhow? what am I? what are you?

What is commonest, cheapest, nearest, easiest, is Me,

What is known I strip away,

What is removed drops horribly in a pail;

what is that you express in your eyes?

What living and buried speech is always vibrating here, what

What was strewn in the amplest strewing the square rod

Whatever goes to the tilth of me it shall be you!

 

 

 

WHERE

 

here are you off to, lady? for I see you,

Where band-neck’d partridges roost in a ring on the ground

Where bee-hives range on a gray bench in the garden half hid

Where burial coaches enter the arch’d gates of a cemetery,

Where cattle stand and shake away flies with the tremulous

Where herds of buffalo make a crawling spread of the square

Where shells grow to her slimy deck, where the dead are

Where sun-down shadows lengthen over the limitless and

Where the alligator in his tough pimples sleeps by the bayou,

Where the bat flies in the Seventh-month eve, where the great

Where the black bear is searching for roots or honey, where

Where the brook puts out of the roots of the old tree and

Where the bull advances to do his masculine work, where the

Where the cheese-cloth hangs in the kitchen, where andirons

Where the dense-starr’d flag is borne at the head of the

Where the fin of the shark cuts like a black chip out of the water,

Where the half-burn’d brig is riding on unknown currents,

Where the hay-rick stands in the barn-yard, where the dry-stalks

Where the heifers browse, where geese nip their food with

Where the human heart beats with terrible throes under its

Where the humming-bird shimmers, where the neck of the

Where the katy-did works her chromatic reed on the

Where the laughing-gull scoots by the shore, where she laughs

Where the life-car is drawn on the slip-noose, where the heat

Where the mocking-bird sounds his delicious gurgles, cackles,

Where the panther walks to and fro on a limb overhead, where

Where the pear-shaped balloon is floating aloft, (floating in

Where the quail is whistling betwixt the woods and the

Where the rattlesnake suns his flabby length on a rock, where

Where the she-whale swims with her calf and never forsakes it,

Where the splash of swimmers and divers cools the warm

Where the steam-ship trails hind-ways its long pennant of smoke,

Where the yellow-crown’d heron comes to the edge of the

where they are,

Where trip-hammers crash, where the press is whirling its

Where winter wolves bark amid wastes of snow and icicled

Wherever he goes men and women accept and desire him,

which is ahead?