Consider, you who peruse me, whether I may not in unknown ways be looking upon you; Be firm, rail over the river, to support those who lean idly, yet haste with the hasting current; Fly on, sea-birds! fly sideways, or wheel in large circles high in the air; Receive the summer sky, you water, and faithfully hold it till all downcast eyes have time to take it from you! Diverge, fine spokes of light, from the shape of my head, or any one's head, in the sunlit water! Come on, ships from the lower bay! pass up or down, white-sailed schooners, sloops, lighters! Flaunt away, flags of all nations! be duly lowered at sunset! Burn high your fires, foundry chimneys! cast black shadows at night-fall! cast red and yellow light over the tops of the houses! Appearances, now or henceforth, indicate what you are, You necessary film, continue to envelop the soul, About my body for me, and your body for you, be hung our divinest aromas, Thrive, cities bring your freight, bring your shows, ample and sufficient rivers, You have waited, you always wait, you dumb, beautiful ministers, 120 We receive you with free sense at last, and are insatiate henceforward, Not you any more shall be able to foil us, or withhold yourselves from us, 130 You furnish your parts toward eternity, Great or small, you furnish your parts toward the soul. PIONEERS! O PIONEERS! 1 COME my tan-faced children, Follow well in order, get your weapons ready, Have you your pistols? have you your sharp-edged axes? For we cannot tarry here, We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger, O you youths, Western youths, So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship, Have the elder races halted? Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied over there beyond the seas? Pioneers! O pioneers! 1 First published 1865 (L. G., 1881). This is one of a group of poems with the general title, Birds of Passage. In a passage in Specimen Days (written, however, in 1879 or later, "after traveling Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, and Colorado") Whitman says: "Grand as the thought that doubtless the child is already born who will see a hundred millions of people the most prosperous and advanced of the world, inhabiting these Prairies, the great Plains, and the valley of the Mississippi, I could not help thinking it would be grander still to see all those inimitable American areas fused in the alembic of a perfect poem, or other æsthetic work, entirely western, fresh and limitless-altogether our own, without a trace or taste of Europe's soil, reminiscence, technical letter or spirit. My days and nights, as I travel here-what an exhilaration!-not the air alone, and the sense of vastness, but every local sight and feature." All the past we leave behind, We debouch upon a newer mightier world, varied world, Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labor and the march, We detachments steady throwing, Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep, We primeval forests felling, We the rivers stemming, vexing we and piercing deep the mines within, Pioneers! O pioneers! Colorado men are we, From the peaks gigantic, from the great sierras and the high plateaus, Pioneers! O pioneers! From Nebraska, from Arkansas, Central inland race are we, from Missouri, with the continental blood interveined, Pioneers! O pioneers! O resistless restless race! O beloved race in all! O my breast aches with tender love for all! O I mourn and yet exult, I am rapt with love for all, Pioneers! O pioneers! Raise the mighty mother mistress, Waving high the delicate mistress, over all the starry mistress (bend your heads all), See my children, resolute children, By those swarms upon our rear we must never yield or falter, Pioneers! O pioneers! On and on the compact ranks, With accessions ever waiting, with the places of the dead quickly filled, Pioneers! O pioneers! O to die advancing on! Are there some of us to droop and die? has the hour come? All the pulses of the world, Falling in they beat for us, with the Western movement beat, Pioneers! O pioneers! 50 60 Life's involved and varied pageants, All the forms and shows, all the workmen at their work, All the seamen and the landsmen, all the masters with their slaves, All the hapless silent lovers, All the prisoners in the prisons, all the righteous and the wicked, I too with my soul and body, We, a curious trio, picking, wandering on our way, Through these shores amid the shadows, with the apparitions pressing, Lo, the darting bowling orb! Lo, the brother orbs around, all the clustering suns and planets, Pioneers! O pioneers! These are of us, they are with us, All for primal needed work, while the followers there in embryo wait behind, Pioneers! O pioneers! O you daughters of the West! O you young and elder daughters! O you mothers and you Minstrels latent on the prairies! wives! (Shrouded bards of other lands, you may rest, you have done your work) Soon I hear you coming warbling, soon you rise and tramp amid us, Pioneers! O pioneers! Not for delectations sweet, Not the cushion and the slipper, not the peaceful and the studious, Do the feasters gluttonous feast? Do the corpulent sleepers sleep? have they locked and bolted doors? Pioneers! O pioneers! Has the night descended? Was the road of late so toilsome? did we stop discouraged nodding on our way? Pioneers! O pioneers! Till with sound of trumpet, Far, far off the daybreak call-hark! how loud and clear I hear it wind, Pioneers! O pioneers! 70 80 90 100 OUT OF THE CRADLE ENDLESSLY ROCKING 1 OUT of the cradle endlessly rocking, Out of the mocking-bird's throat, the musical shuttle, Out of the Ninth-month midnight, Over the sterile sands and the fields beyond, where the child leaving his bed wandered alone, bareheaded, barefoot, Down from the showered halo, Up from the mystic play of shadows twining and twisting as if they were alive, Out from the patches of briers and blackberries, From the memories of the bird that chanted to me, From your memories sad brother, from the fitful risings and fallings I heard, From under that yellow half-moon late-risen and swollen as if with tears, From the myriad thence-aroused words, From the word stronger and more delicious than any, From such as now they start the scene revisiting, As a flock, twittering, rising, or overhead passing, A man, yet by these tears a little boy again, Throwing myself on the sand, confronting the waves, I, chanter of pains and joys, uniter of here and hereafter, Taking all hints to use them, but swiftly leaping beyond them, A reminiscence sing. Once Paumanok, When the lilac-scent was in the air and Fifth-month grass was growing, Two feathered guests from Alabama, two together, And their nest, and four light-green eggs spotted with brown, And every day the he-bird to and fro near at hand, And every day the she-bird crouched on her nest, silent, with bright eyes, Shine! shine! shine! Pour down your warmth, great sun! While we bask, we two together, 1 First published 1859 (L. G., 1881). This and the two following poems are taken from the group entitled Sea-Drift. "In so far as Whitman is a great stylist, it is not his daring unconventionalities that make him se, though these in themselves are such as to argue greatness of a kind. He is great because, having chosen his method, he takes the consequences of his choice with consummate pliability and responsiveness. He has been reflecting on the uses of language, and has struck out a line of his own for the use of it. In spite of this his writing is free from the taint of theory, has none of the rigidity of conscious rebellion, is not the less easy because he has determined to make it so. He takes no word or phrase as having the weight, meaning, or implication he has decided shall attach to it; he does not dictate to language, but faithfully allows it to dictate to him, quite undisturbed by its fluidity, ready to interweave together and present as one the remotest aspects of his theme. The crowning example of his power in this is the song of the mocking-bird in Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking. The bird, like his poet, counts over the natural objects which surround him, apostrophizing the sea, the breakers, the moon, the shore, the stars, the wind. But the items of the list, passing under the spell of personal passion, become as it were the instruments of an orchestra; each plays its individual part in a lyrical symphony, and each is in turn identified with the central motive of the whole.... Years before 'futurism' was heard or thought of, the core of aspiration in its incoherencies has been felt and rendered." (B. de Sélincourt.) Two together! Winds blow south, or winds blow north, Day come white, or night come black, Home, or rivers and mountains from home, Till of a sudden, May-be killed, unknown to her mate, One forenoon the she-bird crouched not on the nest, Nor ever appeared again. And thenceforward all summer in the sound of the sea, Or flitting from brier to brier by day, I saw, I heard at intervals the remaining one, the he-bird, Blow! blow! blow! Blow up sea-winds along Paumanok's shore; I wait and I wait till you blow my mate to me. Yes, when the stars glistened, All night long on the prong of a moss-scalloped stake, Down almost amid the slapping waves, Sat the lone singer wonderful causing tears. He called on his mate, He poured forth the meanings which I of all men know. Yes my brother I know, The rest might not, but I have treasured every note, For more than once dimly down to the beach gliding, Silent, avoiding the moonbeams, blending myself with the shadows, Recalling now the obscure shapes, the echoes, the sounds and sights after their sorts, The white arms out in the breakers tirelessly tossing, I, with bare feet, a child, the wind wafting my hair, Listened long and long. Listened to keep, to sing, now translating the notes, Soothe! soothe! soothe! Close on its wave soothes the wave behind, And again another behind embracing and lapping, every one close, But my love soothes not me, not me. Low hangs the moon, it rose late, It is lagging-0 I think it is heavy with love, with love. O madly the sea pushes upon the land, With love, with love. 40 50 60 70 |