Unit 5: American Literature

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Supplementary Readings

Song of Myself (excerpts)

Walt Whitman

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　1
I celebrate myself, and sing 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.

My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this soil, this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their
　parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.

Creeds and schools in abeyance,
Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,
I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,
Nature without check with original energy.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　6
A child said What is the grass? Fetching it to me with full hands;
How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more
　than he.
I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green
　stuff woven.

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt,
Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we may see
　and remark, and say Whose?

Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the
　vegetation.
Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,

And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones,
Growing among black folks as among white,
Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I
　receive them the same.

And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.
Tenderly will I use you curling grass,
It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men,
It may be if I had known them I would have loved them,
It may be you are from old people, or from offspring taken soon out
　of their mothers' laps,
And here you are the mothers' laps.

This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mother.
Darker than the colorless beards of old men,
Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths.

O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues,
And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for
　nothing.

I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and
　women,
And the hits about old men and mothers, and the offspring taken
　soon out of their laps.

What do you think has become of the young and old men?
And what do you think has become of the women and children?

They are alive and well somewhere,
The smallest sprout shows there is really no death,
And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the
　end to arrest it,
And ceas'd the moment life appear'd.

All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　20
Who does there? Hankering, gross, mystical, nude,
How is it I extract strength from the beef I eat?

What is a man anyhow? what am I? what are you?

All I mark as my own you shall offset it with your own,
Else it were lost listening to me.

I do not snivel that snivel the world over,
That months are vacuums and the ground but wallow and filth.

···
In all people I see myself, none more and not one a barley-corn less,
And the good or bad I say of myself I say of them.

I know I am solid and sound,
To me the converging objects of the universe perpetually flow,
All are written to me, and I must get what the writing means.

I know I am deathless,
I know this orbit of mine cannot be swept by a carpenter's compass,
I know I shall not pass like a child's carlacue cut with burnt
　stick at night.

···
I exist as I am, that is enough,
If no other in the world be aware I sit content,
And if each and all be aware I sit content.

One world is aware and by far the largest to me, and that is myself,
And whether I come to my own today or in ten thousand or ten
　million years,
I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I can wait.
···

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　21
I am the poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul,
The pleasures of heaven are with me the pains of hell are
　with me,
The first I graft and increase upon myself, the latter I translate
　into a new tongue.

I am the poet of the woman the same as the man,
And I say it is as great to be woman as to be a man,
And I say there is nothing greater than the mother of men.

I chant the chant of dilation or pride,
We have had ducking and deprecating about enough,
I show that size is only development.

Have you outstript the rest? are you the President?
It is a trifle, they will more than arrive there every one, and still
　pass on.

I am he that walks with the tender and growing night,
I call to the earth and sea half-held by the night.

Press close bare-bosom'd night-press close magnetic nourishing
　night!
Night of sound winds-night of the large few stars!
Still nodding night-mad naked summer night.

···
Prodigal, you have given me love-therefore I to you give love!
O unspeakable passionate love.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　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.

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,
I 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.

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your bootsoles.

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.

Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.

Emily Dickison

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　585
I like to see it lap the Miles-
And lick the Valleys up-
And stop to feed itself at Tanks
And then-prodigious step

Around a Pile of Mountains-
And supercilious peer
In Shanties-by the siedes of Roads-
And then a Quarry pare

To fit its Ribs
And crawl between
Complaining all the while
In horrid-hooting stanza-
Then chase itself down Hill-

And neigh like Boanerges-
Then-punctual as a Star
Stop-docile and omnipotent
At its own stable door-
Notes:
1. In the first line the word "it" refers to iron-horse, namely, train.
2. Boanerges: In Hebrew it means "sons of thunder," a term used to describe loud-voiced preachers and orators.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　712
Because I could not stop for Death-
He kindly stopped for me-
The Carriage held but just Ourselves-
And Immortality.

We slowly drove-He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility-
We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess-in the Ring
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain-
We passed the Setting Sun-

Or rather-He passed Us-
The Dews drew quivering and chill-
For only Gossamer, My Gown-
My Tippet-only Tulle-

We passed before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground-
The Roof was scarcely visible-
The Cornice-in the Ground-

Since then-'tis Centuries-and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses' heads
Were toward Eternity-

Notes:
1. Tippet: A cape or a scarf.
2. Tulle: Thin net.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　986
A narrow Fellow in the Grass
Occasionally rides-You may have met Him-did you not
His notice sudden is-

The Grass divides as with a Comb-
A spotted shaft is seen-
And then it closes at your feet
And opens further on-

He likes a Boggy Acre
A Floor too cool for Corm-
Yet when a Boy, and Barefoot-
I more than once at Noon
Have passed, I thought, a Whip lash
Unbraiding in the Sun
When stooping to secure it
It wrinkled, and was gone-

Several of Nature's People
I know, and they know me-
I feel for them a transport
Of Cordiality-

But never met this Fellow
Attended, or alone
Without a tighter breathing
And Zero at the Bone--

Note:
A narrow fellow: A snake

Ezra Pound

In a Station of the Metro
　The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
　Petals on a wet, back bouth.

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