Walt Whitman (वाल्ट व्हिटमैन)

PRIMEVAL my love for the woman I love,O bride! O wife! more resistless, more enduring than I can tell, the thought of you!.

Then separate, as disembodied, the purest born,The ethereal, the last athletic reality, my consolation.

I ascend—I float in the regions of your love, O man,O sharer of my roving life.

O MAGNET-SOUTH! O glistening, perfumed South! My South!,O quick mettle, rich blood, impulse, and love! Good and evil! O all dear to me!.

O dear to me my birth-things—All moving things, and the trees where I was,born—the.

grains,plants, rivers.

Dear to me my own slow sluggish rivers where they flow, distant, over flats of silvery,sands.

Dear to me the Roanoke, the Savannah, the Altamahaw, the Pedee, the Tombigbee, the Santee,the.

Coosa, and the Sabine,O pensive, far away wandering, I return with my Soul to haunt their banks again.

Again in Florida I float on transparent lakes—I float on the Okeechobee—I cross,the.

hummock land, or through pleasant openings, or dense forests,I see the parrots in the woods—I see the papaw tree and the blossoming titi.

Again, sailing in my coaster, on deck, I coast off Georgia—I coast up the Carolinas,I see where the live-oak is growing—I see where the yellow-pine, the scented.

bay-tree, the,lemon and orange, the cypress, the graceful palmetto.

I pass rude sea-headlands and enter Pamlico Sound through an inlet, and dart my vision,inland.

O the cotton plant! the growing fields of rice, sugar, hemp!,The cactus, guarded with thorns—the laurel-tree, with large white flowers.

The range afar—the richness and barrenness—the old woods charged with mistletoe,and.

trailing moss,The piney odor and the gloom—the awful natural stillness, (Here in these dense swamps.

the,freebooter carries his gun, and the fugitive slave has his conceal’d hut;).

O the strange fascination of these half-known, half-impassable swamps, infested by,reptiles.

resounding with the bellow of the alligator, the sad noises of the night-owl and the,wild-cat.

and,the whirr of the rattlesnake.

The mocking-bird, the American mimic, singing all the forenoon—singing through the,moon-lit.

night,The humming-bird, the wild turkey, the raccoon, the opossum.

A Tennessee corn-field—the tall, graceful, long-leav’d corn—slender,flapping.

bright,green with tassels—with beautiful ears, each well-sheath’d in its husk.

An Arkansas prairie—a sleeping lake, or still bayou,O my heart! O tender and fierce pangs—I can stand them not—I will depart.

O to be a Virginian, where I grew up! O to be a Carolinian!,O longings irrepressible! O I will go back to old Tennessee, and never wander more!.

1,AFOOT and light-hearted, I take to the open road.

Healthy, free, the world before me,The long brown path before me, leading wherever I choose.

Henceforth I ask not good-fortune—I myself am good fortune,Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing.

Strong and content, I travel the open road,The earth—that is sufficient.

I do not want the constellations any nearer,I know they are very well where they are.

I know they suffice for those who belong to them,(Still here I carry my old delicious burdens.

I carry them, men and women—I carry them with me wherever I go,I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them.

I am fill’d with them, and I will fill them in return.),2.

You road I enter upon and look around! I believe you are not all that is here,I believe that much unseen is also here.

Here the profound lesson of reception, neither preference or denial,The black with his woolly head, the felon, the diseas’d, the illiterate person, are not.

denied,The birth, the hasting after the physician, the beggar’s tramp, the drunkard’s stagger.

the,laughing party of mechanics.

The escaped youth, the rich person’s carriage, the fop, the eloping couple,The early market-man, the hearse, the moving of furniture into the town, the return back.

town,They pass—I also pass—anything passes—none can be interdicted.

None but are accepted—none but are dear to me,3.

You air that serves me with breath to speak!,You objects that call from diffusion my meanings, and give them shape!.

You light that wraps me and all things in delicate equable showers!,You paths worn in the irregular hollows by the roadsides!.

I think you are latent with unseen existences—you are so dear to me,You flagg’d walks of the cities! you strong curbs at the edges!.

You ferries! you planks and posts of wharves! you timber-lined sides! you distant ships!,You rows of houses! you window-pierc’d façades! you roofs!.

You porches and entrances! you copings and iron guards!,You windows whose transparent shells might expose so much!.

You doors and ascending steps! you arches!,You gray stones of interminable pavements! you trodden crossings!.

From all that has been near you, I believe you have imparted to yourselves, and now would,impart the.

same secretly to me,From the living and the dead I think you have peopled your impassive surfaces, and the.

spirits,thereof would be evident and amicable with me.

4,The earth expanding right hand and left hand.

The picture alive, every part in its best light,The music falling in where it is wanted, and stopping where it is not wanted.

The cheerful voice of the public road—the gay fresh sentiment of the road,O highway I travel! O public road! do you say to me, Do not leave me?.

Do you say, Venture not? If you leave me, you are lost?,Do you say, I am already prepared—I am well-beaten and undenied—adhere to me?.

O public road! I say back, I am not afraid to leave you—yet I love you,You express me better than I can express myself.

You shall be more to me than my poem,I think heroic deeds were all conceiv’d in the open air, and all great poems also.

I think I could stop here myself, and do miracles,(My judgments, thoughts, I henceforth try by the open air, the road;).

I think whatever I shall meet on the road I shall like, and whoever beholds me shall like,me.

I think whoever I see must be happy,5.

From this hour, freedom!,From this hour I ordain myself loos’d of limits and imaginary lines.

Going where I list, my own master, total and absolute,Listening to others, and considering well what they say.

Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating,Gently, but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds that would hold me.

I inhale great draughts of space,The east and the west are mine, and the north and the south are mine.

I am larger, better than I thought,I did not know I held so much goodness.

All seems beautiful to me,I can repeat over to men and women, You have done such good to me, I would do the same to.

you,I will recruit for myself and you as I go.

I will scatter myself among men and women as I go,I will toss the new gladness and roughness among them.

Whoever denies me, it shall not trouble me,Whoever accepts me, he or she shall be blessed, and shall bless me.

6,Now if a thousand perfect men were to appear, it would not amaze me.

Now if a thousand beautiful forms of women appear’d, it would not astonish me,Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons.

It is to grow in the open air, and to eat and sleep with the earth,Here a great personal deed has room.

A great deed seizes upon the hearts of the whole race of men,Its effusion of strength and will overwhelms law, and mocks all authority and all argument.

Here is the test of wisdom,Wisdom is not finally tested in schools.

Wisdom cannot be pass’d from one having it, to another not having it,Wisdom is of the Soul, is not susceptible of proof, is its own proof.

Applies to all stages and objects and qualities, and is content,Is the certainty of the reality and immortality of things, and the excellence of things.

Something there is in the float of the sight of things that provokes it out of the Soul,Now I reëxamine philosophies and religions.

They may prove well in lecture-rooms, yet not prove at all under the spacious clouds, and,along.

the,landscape and flowing currents.

Here is realization,Here is a man tallied—he realizes here what he has in him.

The past, the future, majesty, love—if they are vacant of you, you are vacant of them,Only the kernel of every object nourishes.

Where is he who tears off the husks for you and me?,Where is he that undoes stratagems and envelopes for you and me?.

Here is adhesiveness—it is not previously fashion’d—it is apropos,Do you know what it is, as you pass, to be loved by strangers?.

Do you know the talk of those turning eye-balls?,7.

Here is the efflux of the Soul,The efflux of the Soul comes from within, through embower’d gates, ever provoking.

questions,These yearnings, why are they? These thoughts in the darkness, why are they?.

Why are there men and women that while they are nigh me, the sun-light expands my blood?,Why, when they leave me, do my pennants of joy sink flat and lank?.

Why are there trees I never walk under, but large and melodious thoughts descend upon me?,(I think they hang there winter and summer on those trees, and always drop fruit as I.

pass;),What is it I interchange so suddenly with strangers?.

What with some driver, as I ride on the seat by his side?,What with some fisherman, drawing his seine by the shore, as I walk by, and pause?.

What gives me to be free to a woman’s or man’s good-will? What gives them to be free to,mine?.

8,The efflux of the Soul is happiness—here is happiness.

I think it pervades the open air, waiting at all times,Now it flows unto us—we are rightly charged.

Here rises the fluid and attaching character,The fluid and attaching character is the freshness and sweetness of man and woman.

(The herbs of the morning sprout no fresher and sweeter every day out of the roots of,themselves.

than it sprouts fresh and sweet continually out of itself.),Toward the fluid and attaching character exudes the sweat of the love of young and old.

From it falls distill’d the charm that mocks beauty and attainments,Toward it heaves the shuddering longing ache of contact.

9,Allons! whoever you are, come travel with me!.

Traveling with me, you find what never tires,The earth never tires.

The earth is rude, silent, incomprehensible at first—Nature is rude and incomprehensible,at.

first,Be not discouraged—keep on—there are divine things, well envelop’d.