Publisher: Poemhunter com The World's Poetry Archive

643
www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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To The Reader At Parting
NOW, dearest comrade, lift me to your face,
We must separate awhile--Here! take from my lips this kiss.
Whoever you are, I give it especially to you;
So long!--And I hope we shall meet again.
Walt Whitman
644
www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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To The States
WHY reclining, interrogating? Why myself and all drowsing?
What deepening twilight! scum floating atop of the waters!
Who are they, as bats and night-dogs, askant in the Capitol?
What a filthy Presidentiad! (O south, your torrid suns! O north, your
arctic freezings!)
Are those really Congressmen? are those the great Judges? is that the
President?
Then I will sleep awhile yet--for I see that These States sleep, for
reasons;
(With gathering murk--with muttering thunder and lambent shoots, we
all duly awake,
South, north, east, west, inland and seaboard, we will surely awake.)
Walt Whitman
645
www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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To Thee, Old Cause!
TO thee, old Cause!
Thou peerless, passionate, good cause!
Thou stern, remorseless, sweet Idea!
Deathless throughout the ages, races, lands!
After a strange, sad war--great war for thee,
(I think all war through time was really fought, and ever will be
really fought, for thee;)
These chants for thee--the eternal march of thee.
Thou orb of many orbs!
Thou seething principle! Thou well-kept, latent germ! Thou centre!
Around the idea of thee the strange sad war revolving, 10
With all its angry and vehement play of causes,
(With yet unknown results to come, for thrice a thousand years,)
These recitatives for thee--my Book and the War are one,
Merged in its spirit I and mine--as the contest hinged on thee,
As a wheel on its axis turns, this Book, unwitting to itself,
Around the Idea of thee.
Walt Whitman
646
www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive

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To Think Of Time
To think of time--of all that retrospection!
To think of to-day, and the ages continued henceforward!
Have you guess'd you yourself would not continue?
Have you dreaded these earth-beetles?
Have you fear'd the future would be nothing to you?
Is to-day nothing? Is the beginningless past nothing?
If the future is nothing, they are just as surely nothing.
To think that the sun rose in the east! that men and women were
flexible, real, alive! that everything was alive!
To think that you and I did not see, feel, think, nor bear our part!
To think that we are now here, and bear our part! 10
Not a day passes--not a minute or second, without an accouchement!
Not a day passes--not a minute or second, without a corpse!
The dull nights go over, and the dull days also,
The soreness of lying so much in bed goes over,
The physician, after long putting off, gives the silent and terrible
look for an answer,
The children come hurried and weeping, and the brothers and sisters
are sent for,
Medicines stand unused on the shelf--(the camphor-smell has long
pervaded the rooms,)
The faithful hand of the living does not desert the hand of the
dying,
The twitching lips press lightly on the forehead of the dying,
The breath ceases, and the pulse of the heart ceases, 20
The corpse stretches on the bed, and the living look upon it,
It is palpable as the living are palpable.
The living look upon the corpse with their eye-sight,
But without eye-sight lingers a different living, and looks curiously
on the corpse.