Chants Democratic

O mater! O fils!O brood continental!O flowers of the prairies!O space boundless! O hum of mighty products!O you teeming cities! O so invincible, turbulent,proud!O race of the future! O women!O fathers! O you men of passion and the storm!O native power only! O beauty!O yourself! O God! O divine average!O you bearded roughs! O bards! O all those slumberers!O arouse! the dawn-bird's throat sounds shrill! Doyou not hear the cock crowing?O, as I walk'd the beach, I heard the mournful notesforeboding a tempest—the low, oft-repeatedshriek of the diver, the long-lived loon;

O I heard, and yet hear, angry thunder;—O yousailors! O ships! make quick preparation!O from his masterful sweep, the warning cry of theeagle!(Give way there, all! It is useless! Give up yourspoils;)O sarcasms! Propositions! (O if the whole worldshould prove indeed a sham, a sell!)O I believe there is nothing real but America andfreedom!O to sternly reject all except Democracy!O imperator! O who dare confront you and me?O to promulgate our own! O to build for that whichbuilds for mankind!O feuillage! O North! O the slope drained by theMexican sea!O all, all inseparable—ages, ages, ages!O a curse on him that would dissever this Union forany reason whatever!O climates, labors! O good and evil! O death!O you strong with iron and wood! O Personality!O the village or place which has the greatest man orwoman! even if it be only a few ragged huts;O the city where women walk in public processions inthe streets, the same as the men;O a wan and terrible emblem, by me adopted!O shapes arising! shapes of the future centuries!O muscle and pluck forever for me!O workmen and workwomen forever for me!O farmers and sailors! O drivers of horses foreverfor me!O I will make the new bardic list of trades and tools!O you coarse and wilful! I love you!

O South! O longings for my dear home! O soft andsunny airs!O pensive! O I must return where the palm growsand the mocking-bird sings, or else I die!O equality! O organic compacts! I am come to beyour born poet!O whirl, contest, sounding and resounding! I amyour poet, because I am part of you;O days by-gone! Enthusiasts! Antecedents!O vast preparations for These States! O years!O what is now being sent forward thousands of yearsto come!O mediums! O to teach! to convey the invisible faith!To promulge real things! to journey through all TheStates!O creation! O to-day! O laws! O unmitigatedadoration!O for mightier broods of orators, artists, and singers!O for native songs! carpenter's, boatman's, plough-man's songs! shoemaker's songs!O haughtiest growth of time! O free and extatic!O what I, here, preparing, warble for!O you hastening light! O the sun of the world willascend, dazzling, and take his height—and youtoo will ascend;O so amazing and so broad! up there resplendent,darting and burning;O prophetic! O vision staggered with weight of light!with pouring glories!O copious! O hitherto unequalled!O Libertad ! O compact! O union impossible todissever!O my Soul! O lips becoming tremulous, powerless!O centuries, centuries yet ahead!

O voices of greater orators! I pause—I listen foryou!O you States! Cities! defiant of all outside authority!I spring at once into your arms! you I mostlove!O you grand Presidentiads! I wait for you!New history! New heroes! I project you!Visions of poets! only you really last! O sweep on!sweep on!O Death! O you striding there! O I cannot yet!O heights! O infinitely too swift and dizzy yet!O purged lumine! you threaten me more than I canstand!O present! I return while yet I may to you!O poets to come, I depend upon you!

1.A nation announcing itself, (many in one,)I myself make the only growth by which I can beappreciated,I reject none, accept all, reproduce all in my ownforms.

2. A breed whose testimony is behavior,What we are We Are—nativity is answer enoughto objections;We wield ourselves as a weapon is wielded,

We are powerful and tremendous in ourselves,We are executive in ourselves—We are sufficientin the variety of ourselves,We are the most beautiful to ourselves, and in ourselves,Nothing is sinful to us outside of ourselves,Whatever appears, whatever does not appear, we arebeautiful or sinful in ourselves only.

3. Have you thought there could be but a singleSupreme?There can be any number of Supremes—One doesnot countervail another, any more than one eyesightcountervails another, or one life countervailsanother.

4. All is eligible to all,All is for individuals—All is for you,No condition is prohibited, not God's or any,If one is lost, you are inevitably lost.

5. All comes by the body—only health puts you rapportwith the universe.

6. Produce great persons, the rest follows.

7. How dare a sick man, or an obedient man, writepoems for These States?Which is the theory or book that, for our purposes, isnot diseased?

8. Piety and conformity to them that like!Peace, obesity, allegiance, to them that like!

I am he who tauntingly compels men, women,nations, to leap from their seats and contendfor their lives.

9. I am he who goes through the streets with a barbedtongue, questioning every one I meet—questioningyou up there now:Who are you, that wanted only to be told what youknew before?Who are you, that wanted only a book to join you inyour nonsense?

10. Are you, or would you be, better than all that hasever been before?If you would be better than all that has ever beenbefore, come listen to me, and not otherwise.

11. Fear grace—Fear delicatesse,Fear the mellow sweet, the sucking of honey-juice,Beware the advancing mortal ripening of nature,Beware what precedes the decay of the ruggedness ofstates and men.

12. Ages, precedents, poems, have long been accumulatingundirected materials,America brings builders, and brings its own styles.

13. Mighty bards have done their work, and passed toother spheres,One work forever remains, the work of surpassing allthey have done.

14. America, curious toward foreign characters, stands byits own at all hazards,

Stands removed, spacious, composite sound,Sees itself promulger of men and women, initiatesthe true use of precedents,Does not repel them or the past, or what they haveproduced under their forms, or amid other politics,or amid the idea of castes, or the oldreligions,Takes the lesson with calmness, perceives the corpseslowly borne from the eating and sleeping roomsof the house,Perceives that it waits a little while in the door—that it was fittest for its days,That its life has descended to the stalwart and well-shapedheir who approaches,And that he shall be fittest for his days.

15. Any period, one nation must lead,One land must be the promise and reliance of thefuture.

16. These States are the amplest poem,Here is not merely a nation, but a teeming nation ofnations,Here the doings of men correspond with the broadcastdoings of the day and night,Here is what moves in magnificent masses, carelesslyfaithful of particulars,Here are the roughs, beards, friendliness, combativeness,the Soul loves,Here the flowing trains—here the crowds, equality,diversity, the Soul loves.

17. Race of races, and bards to corroborate!

Of them, standing among them, one lifts to the lighthis west-bred face,To him the hereditary countenance bequeathed, bothmother's and father's,His first parts substances, earth, water, animals, trees,Built of the common stock, having room for far andnear,Used to dispense with other lands, incarnating thisland,Attracting it body and Soul to himself, hanging on itsneck with incomparable love,Plunging his semitic muscle into its merits and demerits,Making its geography, cities, beginnings, events,glories, defections, diversities, vocal in him,Making its rivers, lakes, bays, embouchure in him,Mississippi with yearly freshets and changing chutes—Missouri, Columbia, Ohio, Niagara, Hudson,spending themselves lovingly in him,If the Atlantic coast stretch, or the Pacific coaststretch, he stretching with them north or south,Spanning between them east and west, and touchingwhatever is between them,Growths growing from him to offset the growth ofpine, cedar, hemlock, live-oak, locust, chest-nut, cypress, hickory, lime-tree, cotton-wood,tulip-tree, cactus, tamarind, orange, magnolia,persimmon,Tangles as tangled in him as any cane-brake orswamp,He likening sides and peaks of mountains, forestscoated with transparent ice, and icicles hangingfrom the boughs,

Off him pasturage sweet and natural as savanna,upland, prairie,Through him flights, songs, screams, answering thoseof the wild-pigeon, coot, fish-hawk, qua-bird,mocking-bird, condor, night-heron, eagle;His spirit surrounding his country's spirit, unclosedto good and evil,Surrounding the essences of real things, old timesand present times,Surrounding just found shores, islands, tribes of redaborigines,Weather-beaten vessels, landings, settlements, therapid stature and muscle,The haughty defiance of the Year 1—war, peace,the formation of the Constitution,The separate States, the simple, elastic scheme, theimmigrants,The Union, always swarming with blatherers, andalways calm and impregnable,The unsurveyed interior, log-houses, clearings, wildanimals, hunters, trappers;Surrounding the multiform agriculture, mines, temperature,the gestation of new States,Congress convening every Twelfth Month, the membersduly coming up from the uttermost parts;Surrounding the noble character of mechanicsand farmers, especially the young men,Responding their manners, speech, dress, friendships—the gait they have of persons who never knewhow it felt to stand in the presence of superiors,The freshness and candor of their physiognomy, thecopiousness and decision of their phrenology,

The picturesque looseness of their carriage, theirdeathless attachment to freedom, their fiercenesswhen wronged,The fluency of their speech, their delight in music,their curiosity, good temper, and open-handedness—the whole composite make,The prevailing ardor and enterprise, the large amativeness,The perfect equality of the female with the male, thefluid movement of the population,The superior marine, free commerce, fisheries,whaling, gold-digging,Wharf-hemmed cities, railroad and steamboat lines,intersecting all points,Factories, mercantile life, labor-saving machinery, thenorth-east, north-west, south-west,Manhattan firemen, the Yankee swap, southern plantationlife,Slavery, the tremulous spreading of hands to shelterit—the stern opposition to it, which ceases onlywhen it ceases.

18. For these and the like, their own voices! For these,space ahead!Others take finish, but the Republic is ever constructive,and ever keeps vista;Others adorn the past—but you, O, days of thepresent, I adorn you!O days of the future, I believe in you!O America, because you build for mankind, I buildfor you!O well-beloved stone-cutters! I lead them who planwith decision and science,

I lead the present with friendly hand toward thefuture.

19. Bravas to States whose Semitic impulses send wholesomechildren to the next age!But damn that which spends itself on flaunters anddalliers, with no thought of the stain, pains,dismay, feebleness, it is bequeathing.

20. By great bards only can series of peoples and Statesbe fused into the compact organism of onenation.

21. To hold men together by paper and seal, or by compulsion,is no account,That only holds men together which is living principles,as the hold of the limbs of the body, orthe fibres of plants.

22. Of all races and eras, These States, with veins fullof poetical stuff, most need poets, and are to havethe greatest, and use them the greatest,Their Presidents shall not be their common refereeso much as their poets shall.

23. Of mankind, the poet is the equable man,Not in him, but off from him, things are grotesque,eccentric, fail of their full returns,Nothing out of its place is good, nothing in its placeis bad,He bestows on every object or quality its fit proportions,neither more nor less,He is the arbiter of the diverse, he is the key,

He is the equalizer of his age and land,He supplies what wants supplying—he checks whatwants checking,In peace, out of him speaks the spirit of peace, large,rich, thrifty, building populous towns, encouragingagriculture, arts, commerce, lighting thestudy of man, the Soul, health, immortality,government,In war, he is the best backer of the war—he fetchesartillery as good as the engineer's—he can makeevery word he speaks draw blood;The years straying toward infidelity, he withholds byhis steady faith,He is no arguer, he is judgment,He judges not as the judge judges, but as the sunfalling round a helpless thing;As he sees the farthest he has the most faith,His thoughts are the hymns of the praise of things,In the dispute on God and eternity he is silent,He sees eternity less like a play with a prologue anddenouement,He sees eternity in men and women—he does notsee men and women as dreams or dots.

24. Of the idea of perfect and free individuals, the ideaof These States, the bard walks in advance,leader of leaders,The attitude of him cheers up slaves, and horrifiesforeign despots.

25. Without extinction is Liberty! Without retrogradeis Equality!They live in the feelings of young men, and thebest women,

Not for nothing have the indomitable heads of theearth been always ready to fall for Liberty!

26. Are you indeed for Liberty?Are you a man who would assume a place to teachhere, or lead here, or be a poet here?The place is august—the terms obdurate.

27. Who would assume to teach here, may well preparehimself, body and mind,He may well survey, ponder, arm, fortify, harden,make lithe, himself,He shall surely be questioned beforehand by me withmany and stern questions.

28. Who are you, indeed, who would talk or sing inAmerica?Have you studied out My Land, its idioms andmen?Have you learned the physiology, phrenology, politics,geography, pride, freedom, friendship, ofmy land? its substratums and objects?Have you considered the organic compact of the firstday of the first year of the independence of TheStates, signed by the Commissioners, ratified byThe States, and read by Washington at the headof the army?Have you possessed yourself of the Federal Constitution?Do you acknowledge Liberty with audible and absoluteacknowledgment, and set slavery at noughtfor life and death?Do you see who have left described processes andpoems behind them, and assumed new ones?

Are you faithful to things? Do you teach whateverthe land and sea, the bodies of men, womanhood,amativeness, angers, excesses, crimes, teach?Have you sped through customs, laws, popularities?Can you hold your hand against all seductions, follies,whirls, fierce contentions? Are you very strong?Are you of the whole people?Are you not of some coterie? some school or religion?Are you done with reviews and criticisms of life? animatingto life itself?Have you vivified yourself from the maternity ofThese States?Have you sucked the nipples of the breasts of themother of many children?Have you too the old, ever-fresh, forbearance andimpartiality?Do you hold the like love for those hardening tomaturity? for the last-born? little and big?and for the errant?

29. What is this you bring my America?Is it uniform with my country?Is it not something that has been better told or donebefore?Have you not imported this, or the spirit of it, insome ship?Is it a mere tale? a rhyme? a prettiness?Has it never dangled at the heels of the poets, politicians,literats, of enemies' lands?Does it not assume that what is notoriously gone isstill here?Does it answer universal needs? Will it improvemanners?

Can your performance face the open fields and thesea-side?Will it absorb into me as I absorb food, air, nobility,meanness—to appear again in my strength, gait,face?Have real employments contributed to it? originalmakers—not amanuenses?Does it meet modern discoveries, calibers, facts, faceto face?Does it respect me? Democracy? the Soul? to-day?What does it mean to me? to American persons,progresses, cities? Chicago, Kanada, Arkansas?the planter, Yankee, Georgian, native, immigrant,sailors, squatters, old States, new States?Does it encompass all The States, and the unexceptionalrights of all the men and women of theearth, the genital impulse of These States?Does it see behind the apparent custodians, thereal custodians, standing, menacing, silent, themechanics, Manhattanese, western men, southerners,significant alike in their apathy and inthe promptness of their love?Does it see what befalls and has always befalleneach temporizer, patcher, outsider, partialist,alarmist, infidel, who has ever asked anythingof America?What mocking and scornful negligence?The track strewed with the dust of skeletons?By the roadside others disdainfully tossed?

30.Rhymes and rhymers pass away—poems distilledfrom other poems pass away,The swarms of reflectors and the polite pass, and leave ashes;

Admirers, importers, obedient persons, make the soilof literature;America justifies itself, give it time—no disguise candeceive it, or conceal from it—it is impassiveenough,Only toward the likes of itself will it advance to meetthem,If its poets appear, it will advance to meet them—there is no fear of mistake,The proof of a poet shall be sternly deferred, till hiscountry absorbs him as affectionately as he hasabsorbed it,

31. He masters whose spirit masters—he tastes sweetestwho results sweetest in the long run,The blood of the brawn beloved of time is unconstraint,In the need of poems, philosophy, politics, manners,engineering, an appropriate native grand-opera,shipcraft, any craft, he or she is greatest whocontributes the greatest original practical example.

32. Already a nonchalant breed, silently emerging, fillsthe houses and streets,People's lips salute only doers, lovers, satisfiers,positive knowers;There will shortly be no more priests—I say theirwork is done,Death is without emergencies here, but life is perpetualemergencies here,Are your body, days, manners, superb? after deathyou shall be superb;

Friendship, self-esteem, justice, health, clear the waywith irresistible power;How dare you place anything before a man?

33. Fall behind me, States!A man, before all—myself, typical, before all.

34. Give me the pay I have served for!Give me to speak beautiful words! take all therest;I have loved the earth, sun, animals—I have despisedriches,I have given alms to every one that asked, stood upfor the stupid and crazy, devoted my incomeand labor to others,I have hated tyrants, argued not concerning God,had patience and indulgence toward the people,taken off my hat to nothing known or unknown,I have gone freely with powerful uneducated persons,and with the young, and with the mothers offamilies,I have read these leaves to myself in the open air—I have tried them by trees, stars, rivers,I have dismissed whatever insulted my own Soul ordefiled my body,I have claimed nothing to myself which I have notcarefully claimed for others on the same terms,I have studied my land, its idioms and men,I am willing to wait to be understood by the growthof the taste of myself,I reject none, I permit all,Whom I have staid with once I have found longingfor me ever afterward.

34. I swear I begin to see the meaning of these things!It is not the earth, it is not America, who is so great,It is I who am great, or to be great—it is you, orany one,It is to walk rapidly through civilizations, governments,theories, nature, poems, shows, to individuals.

35. Underneath all are individuals,I swear nothing is good to me now that ignoresindividuals!The American compact is altogether with individuals,The only government is that which makes minute ofindividuals,The whole theory of the universe is directed to onesingle individual—namely, to You.

36. Underneath all is nativity,I swear I will stand by my own nativity—pious orimpious, so be it;I swear I am charmed with nothing except nativity,Men, women, cities, nations, are only beautiful fromnativity.

37. Underneath all is the need of the expression of lovefor men and women,I swear I have had enough of mean and impotentmodes of expressing love for men and women,After this day I take my own modes of expressinglove for men and women.

38. I swear I will have each quality of my race inmyself,

Talk as you like, he only suits These States whosemanners favor the audacity and sublime turbulenceof The States.

39. Underneath the lessons of things, spirits, nature,governments, ownerships, I swear I perceiveother lessons,Underneath all to me is myself—to you, yourself,(the same monotonous old song,)If all had not kernels for you and me, what were itto you and me?

40. I see now, flashing, that this America is only youand me,Its power, weapons, testimony, are you and me,Its roughs, beards, haughtiness, ruggedness, are youand me,Its ample geography, the sierras, the prairies, Mississippi,Huron, Colorado, Boston, Toronto,Raleigh, Nashville, Havana, are you and me,Its settlements, wars, the organic compact, peace,Washington, the Federal Constitution, are youand me,Its young men's manners, speech, dress, friendships,are you and me,Its crimes, lies, thefts, defections, slavery, are youand me,Its Congress is you and me—the officers, capitols,armies, ships, are you and me,Its endless gestations of new States are you and me,Its inventions, science, schools, are you and me,Its deserts, forests, clearings, log-houses, hunters, areyou and me,

Natural and artificial are you and me,Freedom, language, poems, employments, are youand me,Failures, successes, births, deaths, are you and me,Past, present, future, are only you and me.

41. I swear I dare not shirk any part of myself,Not any part of America, good or bad,Not my body—not friendship, hospitality, procreation,Not my Soul, nor the last explanation of prudence,Not the similitude that interlocks me with all identitiesthat exist, or ever have existed,Not faith, sin, defiance, nor any disposition or dutyof myself,Not the promulgation of Liberty—not to cheer upslaves and horrify despots,Not to build for that which builds for mankind,Not to balance ranks, complexions, creeds, and thesexes,Not to justify science, nor the march of equality,Nor to feed the arrogant blood of the brawn belovedof time.

42. I swear I am for those that have never beenmastered!For men and women whose tempers have never beenmastered,For those whom laws, theories, conventions, can nevermaster.

43. I swear I am for those who walk abreast with thewhole earth!Who inaugurate one to inaugurate all.

44. I swear I will not be outfaced by irrational things!I will penetrate what it is in them that is sarcasticupon me!I will make cities and civilizations defer to me!(This is what I have learnt from America—it is theamount—and it I teach again.)

45. I will confront these shows of the day and night!I will know if I am to be less than they!I will see if I am not as majestic as they!I will see if I am not as subtle and real as they!I will see if I am to be less generous than they!

46. I will see if I have no meaning, while the houses andships have meaning!I will see if the fishes and birds are to be enoughfor themselves, and I am not to be enough formyself.

47. I match my spirit against yours, you orbs, growths,mountains, brutes,Copious as you are, I absorb you all in myself, andbecome the master myself.

48. The Many In One—what is it finally except myself?These States—what are they except myself?

49. I have learned why the earth is gross, tantalizing,wicked—it is for my sake,I take you to be mine, you beautiful, terrible, rudeforms.

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

2. 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 thekeys of the great organ.

3. 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—welcomethose of the grape,Welcome are lands of sugar and rice,Welcome the cotton-lands—welcome those of thewhite 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—welcomethe teeming soil of orchards, flax, honey, hemp,Welcome just as much the other more hard-facedlands,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!

4. The log at the wood-pile, the axe supported by it,The sylvan hut, the vine over the doorway, the spacecleared for a garden,The irregular tapping of rain down on the leaves,after the storm is lulled,The wailing and moaning at intervals, the thought ofthe sea,The thought of ships struck in the storm, and put ontheir beam-ends, and the cutting away of masts;The sentiment of the huge timbers of old-fashionedhouses and barns;The remembered print or narrative, the voyage at aventure of men, families, goods,The disembarkation, the founding of a new city,The voyage of those who sought a New England andfound it—the outset anywhere,The settlements of the Arkansas, Colorado, Ottawa,Willamette,The slow progress, the scant fare, the axe, rifle,saddle-bags;The beauty of all adventurous and daring persons,The beauty of wood-boys and wood-men, with theirclear untrimmed faces,

The beauty of independence, departure, actions thatrely on themselves,The American contempt for statutes and ceremonies,the boundless impatience of restraint,The loose drift of character, the inkling throughrandom types, the solidification;The butcher in the slaughter-house, the hands aboardschooners and sloops, the raftsman, the pioneer,Lumbermen in their winter camp, daybreak in thewoods, stripes of snow on the limbs of trees, theoccasional snapping,The glad clear sound of one's own voice, the merrysong, the natural life of the woods, the strongday's work,The blazing fire at night, the sweet taste of supper,the talk, the bed of hemlock boughs, and thebear-skin;The house-builder at work in cities or anywhere,The preparatory jointing, squaring, sawing, mortising,The hoist-up of beams, the push of them in theirplaces, laying them regular,Setting the studs by their tenons in the mortises,according as they were prepared,The blows of mallets and hammers, the attitudes ofthe men, their curved limbs,Bending, standing, astride the beams, driving in pins,holding on by posts and braces,The hooked arm over the plate, the other armwielding the axe,The floor-men forcing the planks close, to be nailed,Their postures bringing their weapons downward onthe bearers,

The echoes resounding through the vacant building;The huge store-house carried up in the city, wellunder way,The six framing-men, two in the middle and two ateach end, carefully bearing on their shoulders aheavy stick for a cross-beam,The crowded line of masons with trowels in theirright hands, rapidly laying the long side-wall,two hundred feet from front to rear,The flexible rise and fall of backs, the continual clickof the trowels striking the bricks,The bricks, one after another, each laid so workmanlikein its place, and set with a knock of thetrowel-handle,The piles of materials, the mortar on the mortarboards,and the steady replenishing by the hod-men;Spar-makers in the spar-yard, the swarming row ofwell-grown apprentices,The swing of their axes on the square-hewed log,shaping it toward the shape of a mast,The brisk short crackle of the steel driven slantinglyinto the pine,The butter-colored chips flying off in great flakes andslivers,The limber motion of brawny young arms and hipsin easy costumes;The constructor of wharves, bridges, piers, bulk-heads,floats, stays against the sea;The city fireman—the fire that suddenly bursts forthin the close-packed square,The arriving engines, the hoarse shouts, the nimblestepping and daring,

The strong command through the fire-trumpets, thefalling in line, the rise and fall of the armsforcing the water,The slender, spasmic blue-white jets—the bringingto bear of the hooks and ladders, and theirexecution,The crash and cut away of connecting wood-work, orthrough floors, if the fire smoulders under them,The crowd with their lit faces, watching—the glareand dense shadows;The forger at his forge-furnace, and the user of ironafter him,The maker of the axe large and small, and thewelder and temperer,The chooser breathing his breath on the cold steel,and trying the edge with his thumb,The one who clean-shapes the handle and sets itfirmly in the socket,The shadowy processions of the portraits of the pastusers also,The primal patient mechanics, the architects andengineers,The far-off Assyrian edifice and Mizra edifice,The Roman lictors preceding the consuls,The antique European warrior with his axe incombat,The uplifted arm, the clatter of blows on thehelmeted head,The death-howl, the limpsey tumbling body, the rushof friend and foe thither,The siege of revolted lieges determined for liberty,The summons to surrender, the battering at castlegates, the truce and parley,

The sack of an old city in its time,The bursting in of mercenaries and bigots tumultuouslyand disorderly,Roar, flames, blood, drunkenness, madness,Goods freely rifled from houses and temples, screamsof women in the gripe of brigands,Craft and thievery of camp-followers, men running,old persons despairing,The hell of war, the cruelties of creeds,The list of all executive deeds and words, just orunjust,The power of personality, just or unjust.

5. Muscle and pluck forever!What invigorates life, invigorates death,And the dead advance as much as the living advance,And the future is no more uncertain than the present,And the roughness of the earth and of man enclosesas much as the delicatesse of the earth and ofman,And nothing endures but personal qualities.

6. What do you think endures?Do you think the greatest city endures?Or a teeming manufacturing state? or a preparedconstitution? or the best built steamships?Or hotels of granite and iron? or any chef-d'œuvresof engineering, forts, armaments?

7. Away! These are not to be cherished for themselves,They fill their hour, the dancers dance, the musiciansplay for them,The show passes, all does well enough of course,All does very well till one flash of defiance.

8. The greatest city is that which has the greatest manor woman,If it be a few ragged huts, it is still the greatest cityin the whole world.

9. The place where the greatest city stands is not theplace of stretched wharves, docks, manufactures,deposits of produce,Nor the place of ceaseless salutes of new comers, orthe anchor-lifters of the departing,Nor the place of the tallest and costliest buildings,or shops selling goods from the rest of the earth,Nor the place of the best libraries and schools—northe place where money is plentiest,Nor the place of the most numerous population.

10. Where the city stands with the brawniest breed oforators and bards,Where the city stands that is beloved by these, andloves them in return, and understands them,Where these may be seen going every day in thestreets, with their arms familiar to the shouldersof their friends,Where no monuments exist to heroes, but in thecommon words and deeds,Where thrift is in its place, and prudence is in itsplace,Where behavior is the finest of the fine arts,Where the men and women think lightly of thelaws,Where the slave ceases, and the master of slavesceases,Where the populace rise at once against the never-endingaudacity of elected persons,

Where fierce men and women pour forth, as the seato the whistle of death pours its sweeping andunript waves,Where outside authority enters always after theprecedence of inside authority,Where the citizen is always the head and ideal—andPresident, Mayor, Governor, and what not, areagents for pay,Where children are taught from the jump that theyare to be laws to themselves, and to depend onthemselves,Where equanimity is illustrated in affairs,Where speculations on the Soul are encouraged,Where women walk in public processions in thestreets, the same as the men,Where they enter the public assembly and takeplaces the same as the men, and are appealedto by the orators, the same as the men,Where the city of the faithfulest friends stands,Where the city of the cleanliness of the sexes stands,Where the city of the healthiest fathers stands,Where the city of the best-bodied mothers stands,There the greatest city stands.

11. How beggarly appear poems, arguments, orations,before an electric deed!How the floridness of the materials of cities shrivelsbefore a man's or woman's look!

12. All waits, or goes by default, till a strong beingappears;A strong being is the proof of the race, and of theability of the universe,

When he or she appears, materials are overawed,The dispute on the Soul stops,The old customs and phrases are confronted, turnedback, or laid away.

13. What is your money-making now? What can it donow?What is your respectability now?What are your theology, tuition, society, traditions,statute-books now?Where are your jibes of being now?Where are your cavils about the Soul now?

14. Was that your best? Were those your vast andsolid?Riches, opinions, politics, institutions, to part obedientlyfrom the path of one man or woman!The centuries, and all authority, to be trod underthe foot-soles of one man or woman!

15. —A sterile landscape covers the ore—there is asgood as the best, for all the forbidding appearance,There is the mine, there are the miners,The forge-furnace is there, the melt is accomplished,the hammers-men are at hand with their tongsand hammers,What always served and always serves, is at hand.

16. Than this nothing has better served—it has servedall,Served the fluent-tongued and subtle-sensed Greek,and long ere the Greek,

Served in building the buildings that last longerthan any,Served the Hebrew, the Persian, the most ancientHindostanee,Served the mound-raiser on the Mississippi—servedthose whose relics remain in Central America,Served Albic temples in woods or on plains, withunhewn pillars, and the druids, and the bloodybody laid in the hollow of the great stone,Served the artificial clefts, vast, high, silent, on thesnow-covered hills of Scandinavia,Served those who, time out of mind, made on thegranite walls rough sketches of the sun, moon,stars, ships, ocean-waves,Served the paths of the irruptions of the Goths—served the pastoral tribes and nomads,Served the incalculably distant Kelt—served thehardy pirates of the Baltic,Served before any of those, the venerable and harmlessmen of Ethiopia,Served the making of helms for the galleys ofpleasure, and the making of those for war,Served all great works on land, and all great workson the sea,For the mediæval ages, and before the mediævalages,Served not the living only, then as now, but servedthe dead.

17. I see the European headsman,He stands masked, clothed in red, with huge legs,and strong naked arms,And leans on a ponderous axe.

18. Whom have you slaughtered lately, European headsman?Whose is that blood upon you, so wet and sticky?

19. I see the clear sunsets of the martyrs,I see from the scaffolds the descending ghosts,Ghosts of dead lords, uncrowned ladies, impeachedministers, rejected kings,Rivals, traitors, poisoners, disgraced chieftains, andthe rest.

20. I see those who in any land have died for the goodcause,The seed is spare, nevertheless the crop shall neverrun out,(Mind you, foreign kings, priests, the crop shallnever run out.)

21. I see the blood washed entirely away from the axe,Both blade and helve are clean,They spirt no more the blood of European noblesthey clasp no more the necks of queens.

22. I see the headsman withdraw and become useless,I see the scaffold untrodden and mouldy—I see nolonger any axe upon it,I see the mighty and friendly emblem of the power ofmy own race, the newest largest race.

23. America! I do not vaunt my love for you,I have what I have.

24. The axe leaps!The solid forest gives fluid utterances,

They tumble forth, they rise and form,Hut, tent, landing, survey,Flail, plough, pick, crowbar, spade,Shingle, rail, prop, wainscot, jamb, lath, panel, gable,Citadel, ceiling, saloon, academy, organ, exhibition-house,library,Cornice, trellis, pilaster, balcony, window, shutter,turret, porch,Hoe, rake, pitch-fork, pencil, wagon, staff, saw, jack-plane,mallet, wedge, rounce,Chair, tub, hoop, table, wicket, vane, sash, floor,Work-box, chest, stringed instrument, boat, frame,and what not,Capitols of States, and capitol of the nation of States,Long stately rows in avenues, hospitals for orphans orfor the poor or sick,Manhattan steamboats and clippers, taking the measureof all seas.

25. The shapes arise!Shapes of the using of axes anyhow, and the users,and all that neighbors them,Cutters down of wood, and haulers of it to the Penobscot,or Kennebec,Dwellers in cabins among the Californian mountains,or by the little lakes, or on the Columbia,Dwellers south on the banks of the Gila or RioGrande—friendly gatherings, the characters andfun,Dwellers up north in Minnesota and by the Yellowstoneriver—dwellers on coasts and off coasts,Seal-fishers, whalers, arctic seamen breaking passagesthrough the ice.

26. The shapes arise!Shapes of factories, arsenals, foundries, markets,Shapes of the two-threaded tracks of railroads,Shapes of the sleepers of bridges, vast frameworks,girders, arches,Shapes of the fleets of barges, tows, lake craft, rivercraft.

27. The shapes arise!Ship-yards and dry-docks along the Eastern andWestern Seas, and in many a bay and by-place,The live-oak kelsons, the pine planks, the spars, thehackmatack-roots for knees,The ships themselves on their ways, the tiers ofscaffolds, the workmen busy outside and inside,The tools lying around, the great auger and littleauger, the adze, bolt, line, square, gouge, andbead-plane.

28. The shapes arise!The shape measured, sawed, jacked, joined, stained,The coffin-shape for the dead to lie within in hisshroud;The shape got out in posts, in the bedstead posts, inthe posts of the bride's bed,The shape of the little trough, the shape of therockers beneath, the shape of the babe's cradle,The shape of the floor-planks, the floor-planks fordancers' feet,The shape of the planks of the family home, thehome of the friendly parents and children,The shape of the roof of the home of the happyyoung man and woman, the roof over the well-marriedyoung man and woman,

The roof over the supper joyously cooked by thechaste wife, and joyously eaten by the chastehusband, content after his day's work.

29. The shapes arise!The shape of the prisoner's place in the court-room,and of him or her seated in the place,The shape of the pill-box, the disgraceful ointment-box,the nauseous application, and him or herapplying it,The shape of the liquor-bar leaned against by theyoung rum-drinker and the old rum-drinker,The shape of the shamed and angry stairs, trod bysneaking footsteps,The shape of the sly settee, and the adulterousunwholesome couple,The shape of the gambling-board with its devilishwinnings and losings,The shape of the slats of the bed of a corrupted body,the bed of the corruption of gluttony or alcoholicdrinks,The shape of the step-ladder for the convicted andsentenced murderer, the murderer with haggardface and pinioned arms,The sheriff at hand with his deputies, the silent andwhite-lipped crowd, the sickening dangling ofthe rope.

30. The shapes arise!Shapes of doors giving so many exits and entrances,The door passing the dissevered friend, flushed, andin haste,

The door that admits good news and bad news,The door whence the son left home, confident andpuffed lip,The door he entered again from a long and scandalousabsence, diseased, broken down, withoutinnocence, without means.

31. Their shapes arise, above all the rest—the shapes offull-sized men,Men taciturn yet loving, used to the open air, and themanners of the open air,Saying their ardor in native forms, saying the oldresponse,Take what I have then, (saying fain,) take the payyou approached for,Take the white tears of my blood, if that is what youare after.

32. Her shape arises,She, less guarded than ever, yet more guarded thanever,The gross and soiled she moves among do not makeher gross and soiled,She knows the thoughts as she passes—nothing isconcealed from her,She is none the less considerate or friendly therefore,She is the best-beloved—it is without exception—she has no reason to fear, and she does not fear,Oaths, quarrels, hiccupped songs, proposals, smuttyexpressions, are idle to her as she passes,She is silent—she is possessed of herself—they donot offend her,

She receives them as the laws of nature receive them—she is strong,She too is a law of nature—there is no law strongerthan she is.

33. His shape arises,Arrogant, masculine, näive, rowdyish,Laugher, weeper, worker, idler, citizen, countryman,Saunterer of woods, stander upon hills, summerswimmer in rivers or by the sea,Of pure American breed, of reckless health, his bodyperfect, free from taint from top to toe, freeforever from headache and dyspepsia, clean-breathed,Ample-limbed, a good feeder, weight a hundred andeighty pounds, full-blooded, six feet high, fortyinches round the breast and back,Countenance sun-burnt, bearded, calm, unrefined,Reminder of animals, meeter of savage and gentlemanon equal terms,Attitudes lithe and erect, costume free, neck grayand open, of slow movement on foot,Passer of his right arm round the shoulders of hisfriends, companion of the street,Persuader always of people to give him their sweetesttouches, and never their meanest,A Manhattanese bred, fond of Brooklyn, fond ofBroadway, fond of the life of the wharves andthe great ferries,Enterer everywhere, welcomed everywhere, easilyunderstood after all,Never offering others, always offering himself, corroboratinghis phrenology,

Voluptuous, inhabitive, combative, conscientious,alimentive, intuitive, of copious friendship,sublimity, firmness, self-esteem, comparison,individuality, form, locality, eventuality,Avowing by life, manners, works, to contribute illustrationsof results of The States,Teacher of the unquenchable creed, namely, egotism,Inviter of others continually henceforth to try theirstrength against his.

34. The main shapes arise!Shapes of Democracy, final—result of centuries,Shapes of those that do not joke with life, but arein earnest with life,Shapes, ever projecting other shapes,Shapes of a hundred Free States, begetting anotherhundred north and south,Shapes of turbulent manly cities,Shapes of an untamed breed of young men, andnatural persons,Shapes of the women fit for These States,Shapes of the composition of all the varieties of theearth,Shapes of the friends and home-givers of the wholeearth,Shapes bracing the whole earth, and braced with thewhole earth.

1. Come closer to me,Push closer, my lovers, and take the best I possess,Yield closer and closer, and give me the best youpossess.

2. This is unfinished business with me — How is it withyou?I was chilled with the cold types, cylinder, wet paperbetween us.

3. Male and Female!I pass so poorly with paper and types, I must passwith the contact of bodies and souls.

4. American masses!I do not thank you for liking me as I am, and likingthe touch of me — I know that it is good for youto do so.

5. Workmen and Workwomen!Were all educations, practical and ornamental, welldisplayed out of me, what would it amount to?Were I as the head teacher, charitable proprietor,wise statesman, what would it amount to?

Were I to you as the boss employing and payingyou, would that satisfy you?

6. The learned, virtuous, benevolent, and the usualterms,A man like me, and never the usual terms.

7. Neither a servant nor a master am I,I take no sooner a large price than a small price—I will have my own, whoever enjoys me,I will be even with you, and you shall be evenwith me.

8. If you stand at work in a shop, I stand as nigh asthe nighest in the same shop,If you bestow gifts on your brother or dearest friend,I demand as good as your brother or dearestfriend,If your lover, husband, wife, is welcome by day ornight, I must be personally as welcome,If you become degraded, criminal, ill, then I becomeso for your sake,If you remember your foolish and outlawed deeds, doyou think I cannot remember my own foolishand outlawed deeds? plenty of them;If you carouse at the table, I carouse at the oppositeside of the table,If you meet some stranger in the streets, and lovehim or her, do I not often meet strangers in thestreet, and love them?If you see a good deal remarkable in me, I see justas much, perhaps more, in you.

9. Why, what have you thought of yourself?Is it you then that thought yourself less?Is it you that thought the President greater thanyou?Or the rich better off than you? or the educatedwiser than you?

10. Because you are greasy or pimpled, or that you wasonce drunk, or a thief, or diseased, or rheumatic,or a prostitute, or are so now, or from frivolity orimpotence, or that you are no scholar, and neversaw your name in print, do you give in that youare any less immortal?

11. Souls of men and women! it is not you I call unseen,unheard, untouchable and untouching,It is not you I go argue pro and con about, and tosettle whether you are alive or no,I own publicly who you are, if nobody else owns—I see and hear you, and what you give and take,What is there you cannot give and take?

12. I see not merely that you are polite or white-faced,married, single, citizens of old States, citizens ofnew States,Eminent in some profession, a lady or gentleman in aparlor, or dressed in the jail uniform, or pulpituniform;Grown, half-grown, and babe, of this country andevery country, indoors and outdoors, one just asmuch as the other, I see,And all else is behind or through them.

13. The wife—and she is not one jot less than thehusband,The daughter—and she is just as good as the son,The mother—and she is every bit as much as thefather.

14. Offspring of those not rich, boys apprenticed totrades,Young fellows working on farms, and old fellowsworking on farms,The näive, the simple and hardy, he going to thepolls to vote, he who has a good time, and hehas who a bad time,Mechanics, southerners, new arrivals, laborers, sailors,man-o'wars-men, merchantmen, coasters,All these I see—but nigher and farther the same Isee,None shall escape me, and none shall wish to escapeme.

15. I bring what you much need, yet always have,Not money, amours, dress, eating, but as good;I send no agent or medium, offer no representativeof value, but offer the value itself.

16. There is something that comes home to one now and ::perpetually,It is not what is printed, preached, discussed—iteludes discussion and print,It is not to be put in a book—it is not in thisbook,It is for you, whoever you are—it is no farther fromyou than your hearing and sight are from you,

It is hinted by nearest, commonest, readiest—it isnot them, though it is endlessly provoked bythem, (what is there ready and near you now ?)

17. You may read in many languages, yet read nothingabout it,You may read the President's Message, and readnothing about it there,Nothing in the reports from the State department orTreasury department, or in the daily papers orthe weekly papers,Or in the census returns, assessors' returns, pricescurrent, or any accounts of stock.

18. The sun and stars that float in the open air—theapple-shaped earth, and we upon it—surely thedrift of them is something grand!I do not know what it is, except that it is grand,and that it is happiness,And that the enclosing purport of us here is not aspeculation, or bon-mot, or reconnoissance,And that it is not something which by luck mayturn out well for us, and without luck must bea failure for us,And not something which may yet be retracted ina certain contingency.

19. The light and shade, the curious sense of bodyand identity, the greed that with perfect complaisancedevours all things, the endless prideand out-stretching of man, unspeakable joys andsorrows,The wonder every one sees in every one else he sees,and the wonders that fill each minute of time forever,and each acre of surface and space forever,

Have you reckoned them for a trade, or farm-work?or for the profits of a store? or to achieve yourselfa position? or to fill a gentleman's leisure,or a lady's leisure?

20.Have you reckoned the landscape took substance andform that it might be painted in a picture?Or men and women that they might be written of,and songs sung?Or the attraction of gravity, and the great laws andharmonious combinations, and the fluids of theair, as subjects for the savans?Or the brown land and the blue sea for maps andcharts?Or the stars to be put in constellations and namedfancy names?Or that the growth of seeds is for agricultural tables,or agriculture itself?

21.Old institutions—these arts, libraries, legends,collections, and the practice handed along in manufactures—will we rate them so high?Will we rate our cash and business high? I haveno objection,I rate them high as the highest—then a child bornof a woman and man I rate beyond all rate.

22.We thought our Union grand, and our Constitutiongrand,I do not say they are not grand and good, for theyare,I am this day just as much in love with them asyou,

Then I am in love with you, and with all my fellowsupon the earth.

23.We consider bibles and religions divine—I do notsay they are not divine,I say they have all grown out of you, and may growout of you still,It is not they who give the life—it is you who givethe life,Leaves are not more shed from the trees, or treesfrom the earth, than they are shed out of you.

24.The sum of all known reverence I add up in you,whoever you are,The President is there in the White House for you—it is not you who are here for him,The Secretaries act in their bureaus for you—notyou here for them,The Congress convenes every Twelfth Month foryou,Laws, courts, the forming of States, the charters ofcities, the going and coming of commerce andmails, are all for you.

25.All doctrines, all politics and civilization, exurge fromyou,All sculpture and monuments, and anything inscribedanywhere, are tallied in you,The gist of histories and statistics as far back as therecords reach, is in you this hour, and mythsand tales the same,If you were not breathing and walking here, wherewould they all be?

The most renowned poems would be ashes, orationsand plays would be vacuums.

26. All architecture is what you do to it when you lookupon it,Did you think it was in the white or gray stone?or the lines of the arches and cornices?

27. All music is what awakes from you, when you arereminded by the instruments,It is not the violins and the cornets—it is not theoboe nor the beating drums, nor the score of thebaritone singer singing his sweet romanza—northat of the men's chorus, nor that of the women'schorus,It is nearer and farther than they.

28. Will the whole come back then?Can each see signs of the best by a look in thelooking-glass? is there nothing greater or more?Does all sit there with you, and here with me?

29. The old, forever-new things—you foolish child! theclosest, simplest things, this moment with you,Your person, and every particle that relates to yourperson,The pulses of your brain, waiting their chance andencouragement at every deed or sight,Anything you do in public by day, and anythingyou do in secret between-days,What is called right and what is called wrong—what you behold or touch, or what causes youranger or wonder,

The ankle-chain of the slave, the bed of the bedhouse,the cards of the gambler, the plates ofthe forger,What is seen or learnt in the street, or intuitivelylearnt,What is learnt in the public school, spelling, reading,writing, ciphering, the black-board, the teacher'sdiagrams,The panes of the windows, all that appears throughthem, the going forth in the morning, the aimlessspending of the day,(What is it that you made money? What is it that yougot what you wanted?)The usual routine, the work-shop, factory, yard, office,store, desk,The jaunt of hunting or fishing, and the life of huntingor fishing,Pasture-life, foddering, milking, herding, and all thepersonnel and usages,The plum-orchard, apple-orchard, gardening, seedlings,cuttings, flowers, vines,Grains, manures, marl, clay, loam, the subsoilplough, the shovel, pick, rake, hoe, irrigation,draining,The curry-comb, the horse-cloth, the halter, bridle,bits, the very wisps of straw,The barn and barn-yard, the bins, mangers, mows,racks,Manufactures, commerce, engineering, the building ofcities, every trade carried on there, and theimplements of every trade,The anvil, tongs, hammer, the axe and wedge, thesquare, mitre, jointer, smoothing-plane,

The plumbob, trowel, level, the wall-scaffold, thework of walls and ceilings, or any mason-work,The steam-engine, lever, crank, axle, piston, shaft,air-pump, boiler, beam, pulley, hinge, flange,band, bolt, throttle, governors, up and downrods,The ship's compass, the sailor's tarpaulin, the staysand lanyards, the ground tackle for anchoring ormooring, the life-boat for wrecks,The sloop's tiller, the pilot's wheel and bell, the yachtor fish-smack—the great gay-pennanted three-hundred-footsteamboat, under full headway, withher proud fat breasts, and her delicate swift-flashingpaddles,The trail, line, hooks, sinkers, and the seine, andhauling the seine,The arsenal, small-arms, rifles, gunpowder, shot, caps,wadding, ordnance for war, and carriages;Every-day objects, house-chairs, carpet, bed, counterpaneof the bed, him or her sleeping at night,wind blowing, indefinite noises,The snow-storm or rain-storm, the tow-trowsers, thelodge-hut in the woods, the still-hunt,City and country, fire-place, candle, gas-light, heater,aqueduct,The message of the Governor, Mayor, Chief of Police—the dishes of breakfast, dinner, supper,The bunk-room, the fire-engine, the string-team, thecar or truck behind,The paper I write on or you write on, every word wewrite, every cross and twirl of the pen, and thecurious way we write what we think, yet veryfaintly,

The directory, the detector, the ledger, the books inranks on the book-shelves, the clock attached tothe wall,The ring on your finger, the lady's wristlet, the scent-powder,the druggist's vials and jars, the draughtof lager-beer,The etui of surgical instruments, the etui of oculist'sor aurist's instruments, or dentist's instruments,The permutating lock that can be turned and lockedas many different ways as there are minutes in ayear,Glass-blowing, nail-making, salt-making, tin-roofing,shingle-dressing, candle-making, lock-making andhanging,Ship-carpentering, dock-building, fish-curing, ferrying,stone-breaking, flagging of side-walks by flaggers,The pump, the pile-driver, the great derrick, the coal-kilnand brick-kiln,Coal-mines, all that is down there, the lamps in thedarkness, echoes, songs, what meditations, whatvast native thoughts looking through smutch'dfaces,Iron-works, forge-fires in the mountains, or by riverbanks,men around feeling the melt with hugecrowbars—lumps of ore, the due combining ofore, limestone, coal—the blast-furnace and thepuddling-furnace, the loup-lump at the bottom ofthe melt at last—the rolling-mill, the stumpybars of pig-iron, the strong clean-shaped T railfor railroads,Oil-works, silk-works, white-lead-works, the sugar-house,steam-saws, the great mills and factories,Lead-mines, and all that is done in lead-mines, orwith the lead afterward,

Copper-mines, the sheets of copper, and what isformed out of the sheets, and all the work informing it,Stone-cutting, shapely trimmings for facades, or windowor door lintels—the mallet, the tooth-chisel,the jib to protect the thumb,Oakum, the oakum-chisel, the caulking-iron — thekettle of boiling vault-cement, and the fire underthe kettle,The cotton-bale, the stevedore's hook, the saw andbuck of the sawyer, the screen of the coal-screener,the mould of the moulder, the working-knifeof the butcher, the ice-saw, and all thework with ice,The four-double cylinder press, the hand-press, thefrisket and tympan, the compositor's stick andrule, type-setting, making up the forms, all thework of newspaper counters, folders, carriers,news-men,The implements for daguerreotyping—the tools ofthe rigger, grappler, sail-maker, block-maker,Goods of gutta-percha, papier-mache, colors, brushes,brush-making, glazier's implements,The veneer and glue-pot, the confectioner's ornaments,the decanter and glasses, the shears andflat-iron,The awl and knee-strap, the pint measure and quartmeasure, the counter and stool, the writing-penof quill or metal—the making of all sorts ofedged tools,The ladders and hanging-ropes of the gymnasium,manly exercises, the game of base-ball, running,leaping, pitching quoits,

The designs for wall-papers, oil-cloths, carpets, thefancies for goods for women, the book-binder'sstamps,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,coopering, cotton-picking—electro-plating, electrotyping,stereotyping,Stave-machines, planing-machines, reaping-machines,ploughing-machines, thrashing-machines, steam-wagons,The cart of the carman, the omnibus, the ponderousdray,The wires of the electric telegraph stretched on land,or laid at the bottom of the sea, and then themessage in an instant from a thousand miles off,The snow-plough, and two engines pushing it—theride in the express-train of only one car, theswift go through a howling storm—the locomotive,and all that is done about a locomotive,The bear-hunt or coon-hunt—the bonfire of shavingsin the open lot in the city, and the crowd ofchildren watching,The blows of the fighting-man, the upper-cut, andone-two-three,Pyrotechny, letting off colored fire-works at night,fancy figures and jets,Shop-windows, coffins in the sexton's ware-room, fruiton the fruit-stand—beef in the butcher's stall, theslaughter-house of the butcher, the butcherin his killing-clothes,

The area of pens of live pork, the killing-hammer, thehog-hook, the scalder's tub, gutting, the cutter'scleaver, the packer's maul, and the plenteouswinter-work of pork-packing,Flour-works, grinding of wheat, rye, maize, rice—the barrels and the half and quarter barrels, theloaded barges, the high piles on wharves andlevees,Bread and cakes in the bakery, the milliner's ribbons,the dress-maker's patterns, the tea-table,the home-made sweetmeats;Cheap literature, maps, charts, lithographs, daily andweekly newspapers,The column of wants in the one-cent paper, the newsby telegraph, amusements, operas, shows,The business parts of a city, the trottoirs of a citywhen thousands of well-dressed people walk upand down,The cotton, woollen, linen you wear, the money youmake and spend,Your room and bed-room, your piano-forte, the stoveand cook-pans,The house you live in, the rent, the other tenants, thedeposit in the savings-bank, the trade at thegrocery,The pay on Seventh Day night, the going home, andthe purchases;In them the heft of the heaviest—in them far morethan you estimated, and far less also,In them realities for you and me—in them poems foryou and me,In them, not yourself—you and your Soul enclose allthings, regardless of estimation,

In them themes, hints, provokers—if not, the wholeearth has no themes, hints, provokers, and neverhad.

30. I do not affirm what you see beyond is futile—I donot advise you to stop,I do not say leadings you thought great are not great,But I say that none lead to greater, sadder, happier,than those lead to.

31. Will you seek afar off? You surely come back at last,In things best known to you, finding the best, or asgood as the best,In folks nearest to you finding also the sweetest,strongest, lovingest,Happiness, knowledge, not in another place, but thisplace—not for another hour, but this hour,Man in the first you see or touch—always in yourfriend, brother, nighest neighbor—Woman inyour mother, lover, wife,The popular tastes and occupations taking precedencein poems or any where,You workwomen and workmen of These States havingyour own divine and strong life,Looking the President always sternly in the face,unbending, nonchalant,Understanding that he is to be kept by you to shortand sharp account of himself,And all else thus far giving place to men and womenlike you.

32. O you robust, sacred!I cannot tell you how I love you;

All I love America for, is contained in men andwomen like you.

33. When the psalm sings instead of the singer,When the script preaches instead of the preacher,When the pulpit descends and goes instead of thecarver that carved the supporting-desk,When I can touch the body of books, by night or byday, and when they touch my body back again,When the holy vessels, or the bits of the eucharist,or the lath and plast, procreate as effectually asthe young silver-smiths or bakers, or the masonsin their over-alls,When a university course convinces like a slumberingwoman and child convince,When the minted gold in the vault smiles like thenight-watchman's daughter,When warrantee deeds loafe in chairs opposite, andare my friendly companions,I intend to reach them my hand, and make as muchof them as I do of men and women like you.

America always!Always me joined with you, whoever you are!Always our own feuillage!Always Florida's green peninsula! Always the pricelessdelta of Louisiana! Always the cotton-fieldsof Alabama and Texas!Always California's golden hills and hollows—andthe silver mountains of New Mexico! Alwayssoft-breath'd Cuba!Always the vast slope drained by the Southern Sea—inseparable with the slopes drained by theEastern and Western Seas,The area the Eighty-third year of These States—thethree and a half millions of square miles,The eighteen thousand miles of sea-coast and bay-coaston the main—the thirty thousand milesof river navigation,The seven millions of distinct families, and the samenumber of dwellings—Always these and more,branching forth into numberless branches;Always the free range and diversity! Always thecontinent of Democracy!Always the prairies, pastures, forests, vast cities,travellers, Kanada, the snows;

Always these compact lands—lands tied at the hipswith the belt stringing the huge oval lakes;Always the West, with strong native persons—theincreasing density there—the habitans, friendly,threatening, ironical, scorning invaders;All sights, South, North, East—all deeds, promiscuouslydone at all times,All characters, movements, growths—a few noticed,myriads unnoticed,Through Mannahatta's streets I walking, these thingsgathering;On interior rivers, by night, in the glare of pineknots, steamboats wooding up;Sunlight by day on the valley of the Susquehanna,and on the valleys of the Potomac and Rappahannock,and the valleys of the Roanoke andDelaware;In their northerly wilds beasts of prey haunting theAdirondacks, the hills—or lapping the Saginawwaters to drink;In a lonesome inlet, a sheldrake, lost from the flock,sitting on the water, rocking silently;In farmers' barns, oxen in the stable, their harvestlabor done—they rest standing—they are tootired;Afar on arctic ice, the she-walrus lying drowsily,while her cubs play around;The hawk sailing where men have not yet sailed—the farthest polar sea, ripply, crystalline, open,beyond the floes;White drift spooning ahead, where the ship in thetempest dashes;On solid land, what is done in cities, as the bells allstrike midnight together;

In primitive woods, the sounds there also sounding—the howl of the wolf, the scream of the panther,and the hoarse bellow of the elk;In winter beneath the hard blue ice of MooseheadLake—in summer visible through the clearwaters, the great trout swimming;In lower latitudes, in warmer air, in the Carolinas,the large black buzzard floating slowly highbeyond the tree-tops,Below, the red cedar, festooned with tylandria—thepines and cypresses, growing out of the whitesand that spreads far and flat;Rude boats descending the big Pedee—climbingplants, parasites, with colored flowers and berries,enveloping huge trees,The waving drapery on the live oak, trailing long andlow, noiselessly waved by the wind;The camp of Georgia wagoners, just after dark—thesupper-fires, and the cooking and eating bywhites and negroes,Thirty or forty great wagons—the mules, cattle,horses, feeding from troughs,The shadows, gleams, up under the leaves of the oldsycamore-trees—the flames—also the blacksmoke from the pitch-pine, curling and rising;Southern fishermen fishing—the sounds and inletsof North Carolina's coast—the shad-fisheryand the herring-fishery—the large sweep-seines—the windlasses on shore worked by horses—the clearing, curing, and packing houses;Deep in the forest, in the piney woods, turpentineand tar dropping from the incisions in the trees—There is the turpentine distillery,

There are the negroes at work, in good health—theground in all directions is covered with pinestraw;In Tennessee and Kentucky, slaves busy in the coalings,at the forge, by the furnace-blaze, or at thecorn-shucking;In Virginia, the planter's son returning after a longabsence, joyfully welcomed and kissed by theaged mulatto nurse;On rivers, boatmen safely moored at night-fall, in theirboats, under the shelter of high banks,Some of the younger men dance to the sound of thebanjo or fiddle—others sit on the gunwale,smoking and talking;Late in the afternoon, the mocking-bird, the Americanmimic, singing in the Great Dismal Swamp—there are the greenish waters, the resinous odor,the plenteous moss, the cypress tree, and thejuniper tree;Northward, young men of Mannahatta—the targetcompany from an excursion returning home atevening—the musket-muzzles all bear bunchesof flowers presented by women;Children at play—or on his father's lap a young boyfallen asleep, (how his lips move! how he smilesin his sleep!)The scout riding on horseback over the plains west ofthe Mississippi—he ascends a knoll and sweepshis eye around;California life—the miner, bearded, dressed in hisrude costume—the stanch California friendship—the sweet air—the graves one, in passing,meets, solitary, just aside the horse-path;

Down in Texas, the cotton-field, the negro-cabins—drivers driving mules or oxen before rude carts—cotton-bales piled on banks and wharves;Encircling all, vast-darting, up and wide, the AmericanSoul, with equal hemispheres—one Love,one Dilation or Pride;In arriere, the peace-talk with the Iroquois, theaborigines—the calumet, the pipe of good-willarbitration, and indorsement,The sachem blowing the smoke first toward the sunand then toward the earth,The drama of the scalp-dance enacted with paintedfaces and guttural exclamations,The setting out of the war-party—the long andstealthy march,The single file—the swinging hatchets—the surpriseand slaughter of enemies;All the acts, scenes, ways, persons, attitudes of TheseStates—reminiscences, all institutions,All These States, compact—Every square mile ofThese States, without excepting a particle—youalso—me also,Me pleased, rambling in lanes and country fields,Paumanok's fields,Me, observing the spiral flight of two little yellowbutterflies, shuffling between each other, ascendinghigh in the air;The darting swallow, the destroyer of insects—thefall traveller southward, but returning northwardearly in the spring;The country boy at the close of the day, driving theherd of cows, and shouting to them as they loiterto browse by the road-side;

The city wharf—Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore,Charleston, New Orleans, San Francisco,The departing ships, when the sailors heave at thecapstan;Evening—me in my room—the setting sun,The setting summer sun shining in my open window,showing me flies, suspended, balancing in theair in the centre of the room, darting athwart,up and down, casting swift shadows in specks onthe opposite wall, where the shine is;The athletic American matron speaking in public tocrowds of listeners;Males, females, immigrants, combinations—the copiousness—the individuality and sovereigntyof The States, each for itself—the money-makers;Factories, machinery, the mechanical forces—thewindlass, lever, pulley—All certainties,The certainty of space, increase, freedom, futurity,In space, the sporades, the scattered islands, the stars—on the firm earth, the lands, my lands,O lands! all so dear to me—what you are, (whateverit is,) I become a part of that, whatever it is,Southward there, I screaming, with wings slow flapping,with the myriads of gulls wintering alongthe coasts of Florida—or in Louisiana, withpelicans breeding,Otherways, there, atwixt the banks of the Arkansaw,the Rio Grande, the Nueces, the Brazos, theTombigbee, the Red River, the Saskatchawan, orthe Osage, I with the spring waters laughing andskipping and running;

Northward, on the sands, on some shallow bay ofPaumanok, I, with parties of snowy heronswading in the wet to seek worms and aquaticplants;Retreating, triumphantly twittering, the king-bird,from piercing the crow with its bill, for amusement—And I triumphantly twittering;The migrating flock of wild geese alighting in autumnto refresh themselves—the body of the flock feed—the sentinels outside move around with erectheads watching, and are from time to time relievedby other sentinels—And I feeding andtaking turns with the rest;In Kanadian forests, the moose, large as an ox, corneredby hunters, rising desperately on his hind-feet,and plunging with his fore-feet, the hoofsas sharp as knives—And I, plunging at thehunters, cornered and desperate;In the Mannahatta, streets, piers, shipping, storehouses,and the countless workmen working inthe shops,And I too of the Mannahatta, singing thereof—andno less in myself than the whole of the Mannahattain itself,Singing the song of These, my ever united lands—my body no more inevitably united, part topart, and made one identity, any more thanmy lands are inevitably united, and made oneidentity,Nativities, climates, the grass of the great PastoralPlains,Cities, labors, death, animals, products, good and evil—these me,

These affording, in all their particulars, endlessfeuillage to me and to America, how can I doless than pass the clew of the union of them, toafford the like to you?Whoever you are! how can I but offer you divineleaves, that you also be eligible as I am?How can I but, as here, chanting, invite you foryourself to collect bouquets of the incomparablefeuillage of These States?

Respondez! Respondez!Let every one answer! Let those who sleep bewaked! Let none evade—not you, any morethan others!(If it really be as is pretended, how much longer mustwe go on with our affectations and sneaking?Let me bring this to a close—I pronounce openly fora new distribution of roles,)Let that which stood in front go behind! and letthat which was behind advance to the front andspeak!Let murderers, thieves, bigots, fools, unclean persons,offer new propositions!Let the old propositions be postponed!Let faces and theories be turned inside out! Letmeanings be freely criminal, as well as results!

Let there be no suggestion above the suggestion ofdrudgery!Let none be pointed toward his destination! (Say!do you know your destination?)Let trillions of men and women be mocked withbodies and mocked with Souls!Let the love that waits in them, wait! Let it die,or pass still-born to other spheres!Let the sympathy that waits in every man, wait!or let it also pass, a dwarf, to other spheres!Let contradictions prevail! Let one thing contradictanother! and let one line of my poems contradictanother!Let the people sprawl with yearning aimless hands!Let their tongues be broken! Let their eyes bediscouraged! Let none descend into their heartswith the fresh lusciousness of love!Let the theory of America be management, caste,comparison! (Say! what other theory wouldyou?)Let them that distrust birth and death lead therest! (Say! why shall they not lead you?)Let the crust of hell be neared and trod on! Let thedays be darker than the nights! Let slumberbring less slumber than waking-time brings!Let the world never appear to him or her for whomit was all made!Let the heart of the young man exile itself from theheart of the old man ! and let the heart of theold man be exiled from that of the young man!Let the sun and moon go! Let scenery take theapplause of the audience! Let there be apathyunder the stars!

Let freedom prove no man's inalienable right! Everyone who can tyrannize, let him tyrannize to hissatisfaction!Let none but infidels be countenanced!Let the eminence of meanness, treachery, sarcasm,hate, greed, indecency, impotence, lust, be takenfor granted above all! Let writers, judges, governments,households, religions, philosophies, takesuch for granted above all!Let the worst men beget children out of the worstwomen!Let priests still play at immortality!Let Death be inaugurated!Let nothing remain upon the earth except the ashes ofteachers, artists, moralists, lawyers, and learnedand polite persons!Let him who is without my poems be assassinated!Let the cow, the horse, the camel, the garden-bee—Let the mud-fish, the lobster, the mussel, eel, thesting-ray, and the grunting pig-fish—Let these,and the like of these, be put on a perfect equalitywith man and woman!Let churches accommodate serpents, vermin, and thecorpses of those who have died of the most filthyof diseases!Let marriage slip down among fools, and be for nonebut fools!Let men among themselves talk and think obscenelyof women! and let women among themselvestalk and think obscenely of men!Let every man doubt every woman! and let everywoman trick every man!

Let us all, without missing one, be exposed in public,naked, monthly, at the peril of our lives! Letour bodies be freely handled and examined bywhoever chooses!Let nothing but copies, pictures, statues, reminiscences,elegant works, be permitted to existupon the earth!Let the earth desert God, nor let there ever henceforthbe mentioned the name of God!Let there be no God!Let there be money, business, imports, exports, custom,authority, precedents, pallor, dyspepsia,smut, ignorance, unbelief!Let judges and criminals be transposed! Let theprison-keepers be put in prison! Let those thatwere prisoners take the keys! (Say! why mightthey not just as well be transposed?)Let the slaves be masters! Let the masters becomeslaves!Let the reformers descend from the stands wherethey are forever bawling! Let an idiot or insaneperson appear on each of the stands!Let the Asiatic, the African, the European, theAmerican and the Australian, go armed againstthe murderous stealthiness of each other! Letthem sleep armed! Let none believe in good-will!Let there be no unfashionable wisdom! Let such bescorned and derided off from the earth!Let a floating cloud in the sky—Let a wave of thesea—Let one glimpse of your eye-sight upon thelandscape or grass—Let growing mint, spinach,onions, tomatoes—Let these be exhibited asshows at a great price for admission!

Let all the men of These States stand aside for afew smouchers! Let the few seize on what theychoose! Let the rest gawk, giggle, starve, obey!Let shadows be furnished with genitals! Let substancesbe deprived of their genitals!Let there be wealthy and immense cities—butthrough any of them, not a single poet, saviour,knower, lover!Let the infidels of These States laugh all faith away!If one man be found who has faith, let the restset upon him! Let them affright faith! Letthem destroy the power of breeding faith!Let the she-harlots and the he-harlots be prudent!Let them dance on, while seeming lasts! (Oseeming! seeming! seeming!)Let the preachers recite creeds! Let them teach onlywhat they have been taught!Let the preachers of creeds never dare to go meditatecandidly upon the hills, alone, by day or bynight! (If one ever once dare, he is lost!)Let insanity have charge of sanity!Let books take the place of trees, animals, rivers,clouds!Let the daubed portraits of heroes supersede heroes!Let the manhood of man never take steps after itself!Let it take steps after eunuchs, and after consumptiveand genteel persons!Let the white person tread the black person under hisheel! (Say! which is trodden under heel, afterall?)Let the reflections of the things of the world be studiedin mirrors! Let the things themselves continueunstudied!

Let a man seek pleasure everywhere except in himself!Let a woman seek happiness everywhereexcept in herself! (Say! what real happinesshave you had one single time through your wholelife?)Let the limited years of life do nothing for the limitlessyears of death! (Say! what do you supposedeath will do, then?)

1. You just maturing youth! You male or female!Remember the organic compact of These States,Remember the pledge of the Old Thirteen thenceforwardto the rights, life, liberty, equality ofman,Remember what was promulged by the founders, ratifiedby The States, signed in black and white bythe Commissioners, and read by Washington atthe head of the army,Remember the purposes of the founders,—RememberWashington;Remember the copious humanity streaming from everydirection toward America;Remember the hospitality that belongs to nations andmen; (Cursed be nation, woman, man, withouthospitality!)Remember, government is to subserve individuals,

Not any, not the President, is to have one jot morethan you or me,Not any habitan of America is to have one jot lessthan you or me.

2. Anticipate when the thirty or fifty millions, are to becomethe hundred, or two hundred millions, ofequal freemen and freewomen, amicably joined.

3. Recall ages—One age is but a part—ages are but apart;Recall the angers, bickerings, delusions, superstitions,of the idea of caste,Recall the bloody cruelties and crimes.

4. Anticipate the best women;I say an unnumbered new race of hardy and well-definedwomen are to spread through all TheseStates,I say a girl fit for These States must be free, capable,dauntless, just the same as a boy.

5. Anticipate your own life—retract with mercilesspower,Shirk nothing—retract in time—Do you see thoseerrors, diseases, weaknesses, lies, thefts?Do you see that lost character?—Do you see decay,consumption, rum-drinking, dropsy, fever,mortal cancer or inflammation?Do you see death, and the approach of death?

6. Think of the Soul;I swear to you that body of yours gives proportions toyour Soul somehow to live in other spheres,I do not know how, but I know it is so.

7. Think of loving and being loved;I swear to you, whoever you are, you can interfuseyourself with such things that everybody that seesyou shall look longingly upon you.

8. Think of the past;I warn you that in a little while, others will find theirpast in you and your times.

9. The race is never separated—nor man nor womanescapes,All is inextricable—things, spirits, nature, nations,you too—from precedents you come.

10. Recall the ever-welcome defiers, (The mothers precedethem;)Recall the sages, poets, saviours, inventors, lawgivers,of the earth,Recall Christ, brother of rejected persons—brotherof slaves, felons, idiots, and of insane and diseasedpersons.

11. Think of the time when you was not yet born,Think of times you stood at the side of the dying,Think of the time when your own body will be dying.

12. Think of spiritual results,Sure as the earth swims through the heavens, doesevery one of its objects pass into spiritual results.

13. Think of manhood, and you to be a man;Do you count manhood, and the sweet of manhood,nothing?

14. Think of womanhood, and you to be a woman;The creation is womanhood,Have I not said that womanhood involves all?Have I not told how the universe has nothing betterthan the best womanhood?

1. With antecedents,With my fathers and mothers, and the accumulationsof past ages,With all which, had it not been, I would not now behere, as I am,With Egypt, India, Phenicia, Greece, and Rome,With the Celt, the Scandinavian, the Alb, and theSaxon,With antique maritime ventures—with laws, artisanship,wars, and journeys,With the poet, the skald, the saga, the myth, and theoracle,With the sale of slaves—with enthusiasts—withthe troubadour, the crusader, and the monk,With those old continents whence we have come to thisnew continent,With the fading kingdoms and kings over there,With the fading religions and priests,With the small shores we look back to, from our ownlarge and present shores,

With countless years drawing themselves onward, andarrived at these years,You and Me arrived—America arrived, and makingthis year,This year! sending itself ahead countless years tocome.

2. O but it is not the years—it is I—it is You,We touch all laws, and tally all antecedents,We are the skald, the oracle, the monk, and theknight—we easily include them, and more,We stand amid time, beginningless and endless—westand amid evil and good,All swings around us—there is as much darkness aslight,The very sun swings itself and its system of planetsaround us,Its sun, and its again, all swing around us.

3. As for me,I have the idea of all, and am all, and believe in all;I believe materialism is true, and spiritualism is true—I reject no part.

4. Have I forgotten any part?Come to me, whoever and whatever, till I give yourecognition.

5. 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, aretrue, without exception,I assert that all past days were what they should havebeen,

And that they could no-how have been better thanthey were,And that to-day is what it should be—and thatAmerica is,And that to-day and America could no-how be betterthan they are.

6. In the name of These States, and in your and myname, the Past,And in the name of These States, and in your and myname, the Present time.

7. I know that the past was great, and the future willbe great,And I know that both curiously conjoint in the presenttime,(For the sake of him I typify—for the commonaverage 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 evercome of races and days, or ever will come.

1. Splendor of falling day, floating and filling me,Hour prophetic—hour resuming the past,Inflating my throat—you, divine average!You, Earth and Life, till the last ray gleams, I sing.

2. Open mouth of my Soul, uttering gladness,Eyes of my Soul, seeing perfection,Natural life of me, faithfully praising things,Corroborating forever the triumph of things.

3. Illustrious every one!Illustrious what we name space—sphere of unnumberedspirits,Illustrious the mystery of motion, in all beings, eventhe tiniest insect,Illustrious the attribute of speech—the senses—thebody,Illustrious the passing light! Illustrious the palereflection on the moon in the western sky!Illustrious whatever I see, or hear, or touch, to thelast.

4. Good in all,In the satisfaction and aplomb of animals,In the annual return of the seasons,In the hilarity of youth,In the strength and flush of manhood,In the grandeur and exquisiteness of old age,In the superb vistas of Death.

5. Wonderful to depart!Wonderful to be here!The heart, to jet the all-alike and innocent blood,To breathe the air, how delicious!To speak! to walk! to seize something by the hand!To prepare for sleep, for bed—to look on my rose-coloredflesh,To be conscious of my body, so amorous, so large,

To be this incredible God I am,To have gone forth among other Gods—those menand women I love.

6. Wonderful how I celebrate you and myself!How my thoughts play subtly at the spectaclesaround!How the clouds pass silently overhead!How the earth darts on and on! and how the sun,moon, stars, dart on and on!How the water sports and sings! (Surely it isalive!)How the trees rise and stand up—with strong trunks—with branches and leaves!(Surely there is something more in each of the trees—some living Soul.)

7. O amazement of things! even the least particle!O spirituality of things!O strain musical, flowing through ages and continents—now reaching me and America!I take your strong chords—I intersperse them, andcheerfully pass them forward.

8. I too carol the sun, ushered, or at noon, or setting,I too throb to the brain and beauty of the earth, andof all the growths of the earth,I too have felt the resistless call of myself.

9. As I sailed down the Mississippi,As I wandered over the prairies,As I have lived—As I have looked through mywindows, my eyes,

As I went forth in the morning—As I beheld thelight breaking in the east,As I bathed on the beach of the Eastern Sea, andagain on the beach on the Western Sea,As I roamed the streets of inland Chicago—whateverstreets I have roamed,Wherever I have been, I have charged myself withcontentment and triumph.

10. I sing the Equalities,I sing the endless finales of things,I say Nature continues—Glory continues,I praise with electric voice,For I do not see one imperfection in the universe,And I do not see one cause or result lamentable atlast in the universe.

11. O setting sun! O when the time comes,I still warble under you, if none else does, unmitigatedadoration!

A thought of what I am here for,Of these years I sing—how they pass through convulsedpains, as through parturitions;How America illustrates birth, gigantic youth, thepromise, the sure fulfilment, despite of people—Illustrates evil as well as good;

Of how many hold despairingly yet to the modelsdeparted, caste, myths, obedience, compulsion,and to infidelity;How few see the arrived models, the Athletes, TheStates—or see freedom or spirituality—or holdany faith in results,(But I see the Athletes—and I see the resultsglorious and inevitable—and they again leadingto other results;)How the great cities appear—How the Democraticmasses, turbulent, wilful, as I love them,How the whirl, the contest, the wrestle of evil withgood, the sounding and resounding, keep onand on;How society waits unformed, and is between thingsended and things begun;How America is the continent of glories, and of thetriumph of freedom, and of the Democracies, andof the fruits of society, and of all that is begun;And how The States are complete in themselves—And how all triumphs and glories are completein themselves, to lead onward,And how these of mine, and of The States, will intheir turn be convulsed, and serve other parturitionsand transitions,And how all people, sights, combinations, the Democraticmasses too, serve—and how every factserves,And how now, or at any time, each serves theexquisite transition of Death.

Historian! you who celebrate bygones!You have explored the outward, the surface of theraces—the life that has exhibited itself,You have treated man as the creature of politics,aggregates, rulers, and priests;But now I also, arriving, contribute something:I, an habitué of the Alleghanies, treat man as he is inthe influences of Nature, in himself, in his owninalienable rights,Advancing, to give the spirit and the traits of newDemocratic ages, myself, personally,(Let the future behold them all in me—Me, sopuzzling and contradictory—Me, a Manhattanese,the most loving and arrogant of men;)I do not tell the usual facts, proved by records anddocuments,What I tell, (talking to every born American,)requires no further proof than he or she whowill hear me, will furnish, by silently meditatingalone;I press the pulse of the life that has hitherto seldomexhibited itself, but has generally sought concealment,(the great pride of man, in himself,)I illuminate feelings, faults, yearnings, hopes—Ihave come at last, no more ashamed nor afraid;Chanter of Personality, outlining a history yet to be,I project the ideal man, the American of the future.

The thought of fruitage,Of Death, (the life greater)—of seeds dropping intothe ground—of birth,Of the steady concentration of America, inland,upward, to impregnable and swarming places,Of what Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio and the rest, areto be,Of what a few years will show there in Missouri,Kansas, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota and therest,Of what the feuillage of America is the preparationfor—and of what all the sights, North, South,East and West, are;Of the temporary use of materials for identity'ssake,Of departing—of the growth of a mightier racethan any yet,Of myself, soon, perhaps, closing up my songs bythese shores,Of California—of Oregon—and of me journeyinghence to live and sing there;Of the Western Sea—of the spread inland betweenit and the spinal river,Of the great pastoral area, athletic and feminine,Of all sloping down there where the fresh free-giver,the mother, the Mississippi flows—andWestward still;

Of future men and women there—of happiness inthose high plateaus, ranging three thousandmiles, warm and cold,Of cities yet unsurveyed and unsuspected, (as I amalso, and as it must be,)Of the new and good names—of the strong developments—of the inalienable homesteads,Of a free original life there—of simple diet, andclean and sweet blood,Of litheness, majestic faces, clear eyes, and perfectphysique there,Of immense spiritual results, future years, inland,spread there each side of the Anahuacs,Of these Leaves well-understood there, (being madefor that area,)Of the native scorn of grossness and gain there,(O it lurks in me night and day—What is gain,after all, to savageness and freedom?)

1. To oratists—to male or female,Vocalism, breath, measure, concentration, determination,and the divine power to use words.

2. Are you eligible?Are you full-lung'd and limber-lipp'd from long trial?from vigorous practice? from physique?

Do you move in these broad lands as broad as they?Remembering inland America, the high plateaus,stretching long?Remembering Kanada—Remembering what edgesthe vast round edge of the Mexican Sea?Come duly to the divine power to use words?

3. For only at last, after many years—after chastity, ::friendship, procreation, prudence, and nakedness,After treading ground and breasting river and lake,After a loosened throat—after absorbing eras, temperaments,races—after knowledge, freedom,crimes,After complete faith—after clarifyings, elevations,and removing obstructions,After these, and more, it is just possible there comesto a man, a woman, the divine power to usewords.

4. Then toward that man or that woman swiftly hastenall—None refuse, all attend,Armies, ships, antiquities, the dead, libraries, paintings,machines, cities, hate, despair, amity, pain,theft, murder, aspiration, form in close ranks,They debouch as they are wanted to march obedientlythrough the mouth of that man, or that woman.

5. O now I see arise orators fit for inland America,And I see it is as slow to become an orator as tobecome a man,And I see that power is folded in a great vocalism.

6. Of a great vocalism, when you hear it, the mercilesslight shall pour, and the storm rage around,

Every flash shall be a revelation, an insult,The glaring flame turned on depths, on heights, onsuns, on stars,On the interior and exterior of man or woman,On the laws of Nature—on passive materials,On what you called death—and what to you thereforewas death,As far as there can be death.

1. Laws for Creations,For strong artists and leaders—for fresh broods ofteachers, and perfect literats for America,For diverse savans, and coming musicians.

2. There shall be no subject but it shall be treated withreference to the ensemble of the world, and thecompact truth of the world—And no coward orcopyist shall be allowed;There shall be no subject too pronounced—All worksshall illustrate the divine law of indirections;There they stand—I see them already, each poisedand in its place,Statements, models, censuses, poems, dictionaries,biographies, essays, theories—How complete!How relative and interfused! No one supersedesanother;They do not seem to me like the old specimens,

They seem to me like Nature at last, (America hasgiven birth to them, and I have also;)They seem to me at last as perfect as the animals,and as the rocks and weeds—fitted to them,Fitted to the sky, to float with floating clouds—torustle among the trees with rustling leaves,To stretch with stretched and level waters, whereships silently sail in the distance.

3. What do you suppose Creation is?What do you suppose will satisfy the Soul, except towalk free and own no superior?What do you suppose I have intimated to you in ahundred ways, but that man or woman is as goodas God?And that there is no God any more divine thanYourself?And that that is what the oldest and newest mythsfinally mean?And that you or any one must approach Creationsthrough such laws?

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

2. Indeed, if it were not for you, what would I be?What is the little I have done, except to arouse you?

3. I depend on being realized, long hence, where thebroad fat prairies spread, and thence to Oregonand California inclusive,I expect that the Texan and the Arizonian, ageshence, will understand me,I expect that the future Carolinian and Georgian willunderstand me and love me,I expect that Kanadians, a hundred, and perhapsmany hundred years from now, in winter, in thesplendor of the snow and woods, or on the icylakes, will take me with them, and permanentlyenjoy themselves with me.

4. Of to-day I know I am momentary, untouched—Iam the bard of the future,I but write one or two indicative words for the future,I but advance a moment, only to wheel and hurryback in the darkness.

5. I am a man who, sauntering along, without fullystopping, turns a casual look upon you, and thenaverts his face,Leaving it to you to prove and define it,Expecting the main things from you.

Who has gone farthest? For I swear I will gofarther;And who has been just? For I would be the mostjust person of the earth;And who most cautious? For I would be morecautious;And who has been happiest? I think it is I! Ithink no one was ever happier than I;And who has lavished all? For I lavish constantlythe best I have;And who has been firmest? For I would be firmer;And who proudest? For I think I have reason to bethe proudest son alive—for I am the son of thebrawny and tall-topt city;And who has been bold and true? For I would bethe boldest and truest being of the universe;And who benevolent? For I would show more benevolencethan all the rest;And who has projected beautiful words through thelongest time? By God! I will outvie him! Iwill say such words, they shall stretch throughlonger time!And who has received the love of the most friends?For I know what it is to receive the passionatelove of many friends;And to whom has been given the sweetest fromwomen, and paid them in kind? For I willtake the like sweets and pay them in kind;

And who possesses a perfect and enamoured body?For I do not believe any one possesses a moreperfect or enamoured body than mine;And who thinks the amplest thoughts? For I willsurround those thoughts;And who has made hymns fit for the earth? For Iam mad with devouring extacy to make joyoushymns for the whole earth!

They shall arise in the States—mediums shall,They shall report Nature, laws, physiology, andhappiness,They shall illustrate Democracy and the kosmos,They shall be alimentive, amative, perceptive,They shall be complete women and men—their posebrawny and supple, their drink water, their bloodclean and clear,They shall enjoy materialism and the sight of products—they shall enjoy the sight of the beef,lumber, bread-stuffs, of Chicago, the great city,They shall train themselves to go in public to becomeoratists, (orators and oratresses,)Strong and sweet shall their tongues be—poems andmaterials of poems shall come from their lives—they shall be makers and finders,Of them, and of their works, shall emerge divineconveyers, to convey gospels,

Characters, events, retrospections, shall be conveyedin gospels—Trees, animals, waters, shall be conveyed,Death, the future, the invisible faith, shall all beconveyed.

1. Now we start hence, I with the rest, on our journeysthrough The States,We willing learners of all, teachers of all, and loversof all.

2. I have watched the seasons dispensing themselves,and passing on,And I have said, Why should not a man or womando as much as the seasons, and effuse as much?

3. We dwell a while in every city and town,We pass through Kanada, the north-east, the vastvalley of the Mississippi, and the SouthernStates,We confer on equal terms with each of The States,We make trial of ourselves, and invite men andwomen to hear,We say to ourselves, Remember, fear not, be candid,promulge the body and the Soul,Promulge real things—Never forget the equality ofhumankind, and never forget immortality;

Dwell a while, and pass on—Be copious, temperate,chaste, magnetic,And what you effuse may then return as the seasonsreturn,And may be just as much as the seasons.

Me imperturbe,Me standing at ease in Nature,Master of all, or mistress of all—aplomb in themidst of irrational things,Imbued as they—passive, receptive, silent as they,Finding my occupation, poverty, notoriety, foibles,crimes, less important than I thought;Me private, or public, or menial, or solitary allthese subordinate, (I am eternally equal withthe best—I am not subordinate;)Me toward the Mexican Sea, or in the Mannahatta,or the Tennessee, or far north, or inland,A river-man, or a man of the woods, or of any farm-lifeof These States, or of the coast, or the lakes,or Kanada,Me, wherever my life is to be lived, to be self-balancedfor contingencies!O to confront night, storms, hunger, ridicule, accidents,rebuffs, as the trees and animals do.

I was looking a long while for the history of thepast for myself, and for these Chants—and nowI have found it,It is not in those paged fables in the libraries, (themI neither accept nor reject,)It is no more in the legends than in all else,It is in the present—it is this earth to-day,It is in Democracy—in this America—the old worldalso,It is the life of one man or one woman to-day, theaverage man of to-day;It is languages, social customs, literatures, arts,It is the broad show of artificial things, ships, machinery,politics, creeds, modern improvements,and the interchanges of nations,All for the average man of to-day.

1. American mouth-songs!Those of mechanics—each one singing his, as itshould be, blithe and strong,The carpenter singing his, as he measures his plankor beam,

The mason singing his, as he makes ready for work,or leaves off work,The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat—the deck-hand singing on the steamboat deck,The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench—thehatter singing as he stands,The wood-cutter's song—the ploughboy's, on his wayin the morning, or at the noon intermission, or atsundown;The delicious singing of the mother—or of theyoung wife at work—or of the girl sewing orwashing—Each singing what belongs to her,and to none else,The day what belongs to the day—At night, theparty of young fellows, robust, friendly, clean-blooded,singing with melodious voices, melodiousthoughts.

2. Come! some of you! still be flooding The Stateswith hundreds and thousands of mouth-songs,fit for The States only.

1. As I walk, solitary, unattended,Around me I hear that eclat of the world—politics,produce,The announcements of recognized things—science,The approved growth of cities, and the spread ofinventions.

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

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

4. Then my realities,What else is so real as mine?Libertad, and the divine average—Freedom to everyslave on the face of the earth,The rapt promises and lumine of seers—the spiritualworld—these centuries-lasting songs,And our visions, the visions of poets, the most solidannouncements of any.

5. 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.