Publisher: Poemhunter com The World's Poetry Archive

259
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Native Moments
NATIVE moments! when you come upon me--Ah you are here now! Give me now
libidinous joys only! Give me the drench of my passions! Give me life
coarse and rank! To-day, I go consort with nature's darlings--to-night too;
I am for those who believe in loose delights--I share the midnight orgies
of young men; I dance with the dancers, and drink with the drinkers; The
echoes ring with our indecent calls; I take for my love some prostitute--I
pick out some low person for my dearest friend, He shall be lawless, rude,
illiterate--he shall be one condemn'd by others for deeds done; I will play
a part no longer--Why should I exile myself from my companions? 10 O you
shunn'd persons! I at least do not shun you, I come forthwith in your
midst--I will be your poet, I will be more to you than to any of the rest.
Walt Whitman
260
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Night On The Prairies
NIGHT on the prairies;
The supper is over--the fire on the ground burns low;
The wearied emigrants sleep, wrapt in their blankets:
I walk by myself--I stand and look at the stars, which I think now I
never realized before.
Now I absorb immortality and peace,
I admire death, and test propositions.
How plenteous! How spiritual! How resumé!
The same Old Man and Soul--the same old aspirations, and the same
content.
I was thinking the day most splendid, till I saw what the not-day
exhibited,
I was thinking this globe enough, till there sprang out so noiseless
around me myriads of other globes. 10
Now, while the great thoughts of space and eternity fill me, I will
measure myself by them;
And now, touch'd with the lives of other globes, arrived as far along
as those of the earth,
Or waiting to arrive, or pass'd on farther than those of the earth,
I henceforth no more ignore them, than I ignore my own life,
Or the lives of the earth arrived as far as mine, or waiting to
arrive.
O I see now that life cannot exhibit all to me--as the day cannot,
I see that I am to wait for what will be exhibited by death.
Walt Whitman
261
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No Labor-Saving Machine
NO labor-saving machine,
Nor discovery have I made;
Nor will I be able to leave behind me any wealthy bequest to found a
hospital or library,
Nor reminiscence of any deed of courage, for America,
Nor literary success, nor intellect--nor book for the book-shelf;
Only a few carols, vibrating through the air, I leave,
For comrades and lovers.
Walt Whitman
262
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Not Heat Flames Up And Consumes
NOT heat flames up and consumes,
Not sea-waves hurry in and out,
Not the air, delicious and dry, the air of the ripe summer, bears
lightly along white down-balls of myriads of seeds,
Wafted, sailing gracefully, to drop where they may;
Not these--O none of these, more than the flames of me, consuming,
burning for his love whom I love!
O none, more than I, hurrying in and out:
--Does the tide hurry, seeking something, and never give up? O I the
same;
O nor down-balls, nor perfumes, nor the high, rain-emitting clouds,
are borne through the open air,
Any more than my Soul is borne through the open air,
Wafted in all directions, O love, for friendship, for you. 10
Walt Whitman