A NOISELESS, PATIENT SPIDER

by: Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

A NOISELESS, patient spider,

I mark'd, where, on a little promontory, it stood, isolated;

Mark'd how, to explore the vacant, vast surrounding,

It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself;

Ever unreeling them--ever tirelessly speeding them.

 

And you, O my Soul, where you stand,

Surrounded, surrounded, in measureless oceans of space,

Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing,--seeking the spheres, to connect them;

Till the bridge you will need, be form'd--till the ductile anchor hold;

Till the gossamer thread you fling, catch somewhere, O my Soul.

 

I SAW IN LOUISIANA A LIVE-OAK GROWING

by: Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

I SAW in Louisiana a live-oak growing,

All alone stood it, and the moss hung down from the branches;

Without any companion it grew there, uttering joyous leaves of dark green,

And its look, rude, unbending, lusty, made me think of myself;

But I wonder'd how it could utter joyous leaves, standing alone there, without its friend, its lover near--for I knew I could not;

And broke off a twig with a certain number of leaves upon it, and twined around it a little moss,

And brought it away--and I have placed it in sight in my room;

It is not needed to remind me as of my own dear friends,

(For I believe lately I think of little else than them:)

Yet it remains to me a curious token--it makes me think of manly love;

For all that, and though the live-oak glistens there in Louisiana, solitary, in a wide flat space,

Uttering joyous leaves all its life, without a friend, a lover, near,

I know very well I could not.


 

WHEN I HEARD THE LEARN'D ASTRONOMER

by: Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

WHEN I heard the learn'd astronomer,

When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,

When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,

When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,

How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,

Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself,

In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,

Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.

 

 

 

This Compost

By Walt Whitman

1819-1892


1

Something startles me where I thought I was safest,
I withdraw from the still woods I loved,
I will not go now on the pastures to walk,
I will not strip the clothes from my body to meet my lover the sea,
I will not touch my flesh to the earth as to other flesh to renew me.

O how can it be that the ground itself does not sicken?
How can you be alive you growths of spring?
How can you furnish health you blood of herbs, roots, orchards, grain?
Are they not continually putting distemper'd corpses within you?
Is not every continent work'd over and over with sour dead?

Where have you disposed of their carcasses?
Those drunkards and gluttons of so many generations?
Where have you drawn off all the foul liquid and meat?
I do not see any of it upon you to-day, or perhaps I am deceiv'd,
I will run a furrow with my plough, I will press my spade through
the sod and turn it up underneath,
I am sure I shall expose some of the foul meat.

2

Behold this compost! behold it well!
Perhaps every mite has once form'd part of a sick person--yet behold!
The grass of spring covers the prairies,
The bean bursts noiselessly through the mould in the garden,
The delicate spear of the onion pierces upward,
The apple-buds cluster together on the apple-branches,
The resurrection of the wheat appears with pale visage out of its graves,
The tinge awakes over the willow-tree and the mulberry-tree,
The he-birds carol mornings and evenings while the she-birds sit on
their nests,
The young of poultry break through the hatch'd eggs,
The new-born of animals appear, the calf is dropt from the cow, the
colt from the mare,
Out of its little hill faithfully rise the potato's dark green leaves,
Out of its hill rises the yellow maize-stalk, the lilacs bloom in
the dooryards,
The summer growth is innocent and disdainful above all those strata
of sour dead.

What chemistry!
That the winds are really not infectious,
That this is no cheat, this transparent green-wash of the sea which
is so amorous after me,
That it is safe to allow it to lick my naked body all over with its tongues,
That it will not endanger me with the fevers that have deposited
themselves in it,
That all is clean forever and forever,
That the cool drink from the well tastes so good,
That blackberries are so flavorous and juicy,
That the fruits of the apple-orchard and the orange-orchard, that
melons, grapes, peaches, plums, will none of them poison me,
That when I recline on the grass I do not catch any disease,
Though probably every spear of grass rises out of what was once
catching disease.

Now I am terrified at the Earth, it is that calm and patient,
It grows such sweet things out of such corruptions,
It turns harmless and stainless on its axis, with such endless
successions of diseas'd corpses,
It distills such exquisite winds out of such infused fetor,
It renews with such unwitting looks its prodigal, annual, sumptuous crops,
It gives such divine materials to men, and accepts such leavings
from them at last.

 

 

From Leaves of Grass

 

1


I CELEBRATE myself;

 

And what I assume you shall assume;

 

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

 

  

I loafe and invite my Soul;

 

I lean and loafe at my ease, observing a spear of summer grass.

         5

  

Houses and rooms are full of perfumes—the shelves are crowded with perfumes;

 

I breathe the fragrance myself, and know it and like it;

 

The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it.

 

  

The atmosphere is not a perfume—it has no taste of the distillation—it is odorless;

 

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

  10

I will go to the bank by the wood, and become undisguised and naked;

 

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

 

 

 

2


The smoke of my own breath;

 

Echoes, ripples, buzz’d whispers, love-root, silk-thread, crotch and vine;

 

My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart, the passing of blood and air through my lungs;

  15

The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the shore, and dark-color’d sea-rocks, and of hay in the barn;

 

The sound of the belch’d words of my voice, words loos’d to the eddies of the wind;

 

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

 

The play of shine and shade on the trees as the supple boughs wag;

 

The delight alone, or in the rush of the streets, or along the fields and hill-sides;

  20

The feeling of health, the full-noon trill, the song of me rising from bed and meeting the sun.

 

  

Have you reckon’d a thousand acres much? have you reckon’d the earth much?

 

Have you practis’d so long to learn to read?

 

Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?

 

  

Stop this day and night with me, and you shall possess the origin of all poems;

  25

You shall possess the good of the earth and sun—(there are millions of suns left;)

 

You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books;

 

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

 

You shall listen to all sides, and filter them from yourself.

 

  

 

50


There is that in me—I do not know what it is—but I know it is in me.

 

  

Wrench’d and sweaty—calm and cool then my body becomes;

 

I sleep—I sleep long.

 

  

I do not know it—it is without name—it is a word unsaid;

 

It is not in any dictionary, utterance, symbol.

1310

  

Something it swings on more than the earth I swing on;

 

To it the creation is the friend whose embracing awakes me.

 

  

Perhaps I might tell more. Outlines! I plead for my brothers and sisters.

 

  

Do you see, O my brothers and sisters?

 

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

1315

 

 

  

51


The past and present wilt—I have fill’d them, emptied them,

 

And proceed to fill my next fold of the future.

 

  

Listener up there! Here, you! What have you to confide to me?

 

Look in my face, while I snuff the sidle of evening;

 

Talk honestly—no one else hears you, and I stay only a minute longer.

1320

  

Do I contradict myself?

 

Very well, then, I contradict myself;

 

(I am large—I contain multitudes.)

 

  

I concentrate toward them that are nigh—I wait on the door-slab.

 

  

Who has done his day’s work? Who will soonest be through with his supper?

1325

Who wishes to walk with me?

 

  

Will you speak before I am gone? Will you prove already too late?

 

 

 

 

 

52


The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me—he complains of my gab and my loitering.

 

  

I too am not a bit tamed—I too am untranslatable;

 

I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.

1330

  

The last scud of day holds back for me;

 

It flings my likeness after the rest, and true as any, on the shadow’d wilds;

 

It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.

 

  

I depart as air—I shake my white locks at the runaway sun;

 

I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.

1335

  

I bequeathe myself to the dirt, to grow from the grass I love;

 

If you want me again, look for me under your boot-soles.

 

  

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

 

But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,

 

And filter and fibre your blood.

1340

  

Failing to fetch me at first, keep encouraged;

 

Missing me one place, search another;

 

I stop somewhere, waiting for you.