Publisher: Poemhunter com The World's Poetry Archive

44
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Envelop'd in you sleep greater heroes and bards,
They refuse to awake at the touch of any man but me.
It is I, you women--I make my way,
I am stern, acrid, large, undissuadable--but I love you,
I do not hurt you any more than is necessary for you,
I pour the stuff to start sons and daughters fit for These States--I
press with slow rude muscle,
I brace myself effectually--I listen to no entreaties, 30
I dare not withdraw till I deposit what has so long accumulated
within me.
Through you I drain the pent-up rivers of myself,
In you I wrap a thousand onward years,
On you I graft the grafts of the best-beloved of me and America,
The drops I distil upon you shall grow fierce and athletic girls, new
artists, musicians, and singers,
The babes I beget upon you are to beget babes in their turn,
I shall demand perfect men and women out of my love-spendings,
I shall expect them to interpenetrate with others, as I and you
interpenetrate now,
I shall count on the fruits of the gushing showers of them, as I
count on the fruits of the gushing showers I give now,
I shall look for loving crops from the birth, life, death,
immortality, I plant so lovingly now. 40
Walt Whitman
45
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Aboard At A Ship's Helm
ABOARD, at a ship's helm,
A young steersman, steering with care.
A bell through fog on a sea-coast dolefully ringing,
An ocean-bell--O a warning bell, rock'd by the waves.
O you give good notice indeed, you bell by the sea-reefs ringing,
Ringing, ringing, to warn the ship from its wreck-place.
For, as on the alert, O steersman, you mind the bell's admonition,
The bows turn,--the freighted ship, tacking, speeds away under her
gray sails,
The beautiful and noble ship, with all her precious wealth, speeds
away gaily and safe.
But O the ship, the immortal ship! O ship aboard the ship! 10
O ship of the body--ship of the soul--voyaging, voyaging, voyaging.
Walt Whitman
46
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Adieu To A Soldier
ADIEU, O soldier!
You of the rude campaigning, (which we shared,)
The rapid march, the life of the camp,
The hot contention of opposing fronts- the long manoeuver,
Red battles with their slaughter,- the stimulus- the strong, terrific
game,
Spell of all brave and manly hearts- the trains of Time through you,
and like of you, all fill'd,
With war, and war's expression.
Adieu, dear comrade!
Your mission is fulfill'd- but I, more warlike,
Myself, and this contentious soul of mine, 10
Still on our own campaigning bound,
Through untried roads, with ambushes, opponents lined,
Through many a sharp defeat and many a crisis- often baffled,
Here marching, ever marching on, a war fight out- aye here,
To fiercer, weightier battles give expression.
Walt Whitman
47
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After The Sea-Ship
AFTER the Sea-Ship--after the whistling winds;
After the white-gray sails, taut to their spars and ropes,
Below, a myriad, myriad waves, hastening, lifting up their necks,
Tending in ceaseless flow toward the track of the ship:
Waves of the ocean, bubbling and gurgling, blithely prying,
Waves, undulating waves--liquid, uneven, emulous waves,
Toward that whirling current, laughing and buoyant, with curves,
Where the great Vessel, sailing and tacking, displaced the surface;
Larger and smaller waves, in the spread of the ocean, yearnfully
flowing;
The wake of the Sea-Ship, after she passes--flashing and frolicsome,
under the sun, 10
A motley procession, with many a fleck of foam, and many fragments,
Following the stately and rapid Ship--in the wake following.
Walt Whitman