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WALT WHITMAN

[The selections from Whitman are printed by the kind permission of Messrs. Small, Maynard & Co., the authorized publishers of his works; and of Messrs. Horace L. Traubel and Thomas B. Harned, his literary executors.]

THERE WAS A CHILD WENT

FORTH 1

THERE was a child went forth every day,

And the first object he look'd upon, that object he became,

And that object became part of him for the day or a certain part of the day, Or for many years or stretching cycles of years.

The early lilacs became part of this child, And grass and white and red morningglories, and white and red clover, and the song of the phœbe-bird,

And the Third-month lambs and the sow's pink-faint litter, and the mare's foal and the cow's calf,

And the noisy brood of the barnyard or by the mire of the pond-side,

And the fish suspending themselves so curiously below there, and the beautiful curious liquid,

And the water-plants with their graceful flat heads, all became part of him.

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The field-sprouts of Fourth-month and Fifth-month became part of him, Winter-grain sprouts and those of the light-yellow corn, and the esculent roots of the garden,

And the apple-trees cover'd with blossoms and the fruit afterward, and wood-berries, and the commonest weeds by the road,

And the old drunkard staggering home from the outhouse of the tavern whence he had lately risen,

And the schoolmistress that pass'd on her way to the school,

1 In the first edition, 1855, without title. In the second edition, 1856, called 'Poem of The Child That Went Forth and Always Goes Forth Forever and Forever.'

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The mother at home quietly placing the dishes on the supper-table,

The mother with mild words, clean her cap and gown, a wholesome odor falling off her person and clothes as she walks by, The father, strong, self-sufficient, manly, mean, anger'd, unjust,

The blow, the quick loud word, the tight bargain, the crafty lure,

The family usages, the language, the company, the furniture, the yearning and swelling heart,

Affection that will not be gainsay'd, the

sense of what is real, the thought if after all it should prove unreal,

The doubts of day-time and the doubts of night-time, the curious whether and how, Whether that which appears so is so, or is it all flashes and specks?

Men and women crowding fast in the streets if they are not flashes and specks what are they?

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The streets themselves and the façades of houses, and goods in the windows, Vehicles, teams, the heavy-plank’d wharves, the huge crossing at the ferries, The village on the highland seen from afar at sunset, the river between, Shadows, aureola and mist, the light falling on roofs and gables of white or brown two miles off,

The schooner near by sleepily dropping down the tide, the little boat slack-tow'd astern,

The hurrying tumbling waves, quick-broken crests, slapping,

The strata of color'd clouds, the long bar of maroon-tint away solitary by itself, the spread of purity it lies motionless in, The horizon's edge, the flying sea-crow, the fragrance of salt marsh and shore mud, These became part of that child who went forth every day, and who now goes, and will always go forth every day.1

SONG OF MYSELF 2

I

1855.

I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good
belongs to you.

1 In the early editions, the following line was added at the end of the poem:

And these become part of him or her that peruses them now.

In 1855, without title. In 1856, as the 'Poem of Walt Whitman, an American.' In the third edition, 1860, with the title, Walt Whitman,' and so in the following editions until 1881, when the present title was first used.

The sections were first numbered in 1867.

It must be noted from the beginning that Whitman celebrates himself not as an isolated individual, but as the type of all individual selves, claiming for them all absolute equality. Compare the poem beginning: One's-self I sing, a simple separate person,

Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-Masse. One of Whitman's early fragments (Notes and Fragments, p. 36, no. 112) reads:

I celebrate myself to celebrate you;

I say the same word for every man and woman living. Compare also Whitman's Preface to the 1876 edition of Leaves of Grass: Then I meant "Leaves of Grass," as published, to be the Poem of average Identity (of yours, whoever you are, now reading these lines). All serves, helps-but in the centre of all, absorbing all, giving, for your purpose, the only meaning and vitality to all, master or mistress of all, under the law, stands Yourself. To sing the Song of that law of average Identity, and of Yourself, consistently with the divine law of the universal, is a main intention of these "Leaves.""

In his myself' he means to picture the typical democratic self. It was both by temperament, and also with a definite purpose in view, that he chose to speak in the first person. One of his early fragmentary notes reads: Ego-style. First-person-style. Style of composition an animated ego-style-"I do not think" "I perceive" or something involving self-esteem, decision, authority as opposed to the current third son style, essayism, didactic, removed from animation, stating general truths in a didactic, well-smoothed . . (Notes and Fragments, p. 179.)

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I saw the marriage of the trapper in the open air in the far west, the bride was a red girl,

Her father and her friends sat near crosslegged and dumbly smoking, they had moccasins to their feet and large thick blankets hanging from their shoulders, On a bank. lounged the trapper, he was drest mostly in skins, his luxuriant beard and curls protected his neck, he held his bride by the hand,

She had long eyelashes, her head was bare,

her coarse straight locks descended upon her voluptuous limbs and reach'd to her feet.

The runaway slave came to my house and stopt outside,

I heard his motions crackling the twigs of 'the woodpile,

Through the swung half-door of the kitchen I saw him limpsy and weak,

And went where he sat on a log and led him in and assured him,

And brought water and fill'd a tub for his sweated body and bruis'd feet,

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The wild gander leads his flock through the cool night,

Ya-honk he says, and sounds it down to me like an invitation,

The pert may suppose it meaningless, but I, listening close,

Find its purpose and place up there toward the wintry sky.

The sharp-hoof'd moose of the north, the cat on the house-sill, the chickadee, the prairie-dog,

The litter of the grunting sow as they tug at her teats,

The brood of the turkey-hen and she with her half-spread wings,

I see in them and myself the same old law.

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same,

A Southerner soon as a Northerner, a planter nonchalant and hospitable down by the Oconee I live,

A Yankee bound my own way ready for trade, my joints the limberest joints on earth and the sternest joints on earth, A Kentuckian walking the vale of the Elkhorn in my deer-skin leggings, a Louisianian or Georgian,

A boatman over lakes or bays or along coasts, a Hoosier, Badger, Buckeye; At home on Kanadian snow-shoes or up in the bush, or with fishermen off Newfoundland,

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At home in the fleet of ice-boats, sailing with the rest and tacking,

At home on the hills of Vermont or in the woods of Maine, or the Texan ranch, Comrade of Californians, comrade of free North-Westerners (loving their big proportions),

Comrade of raftsmen and coalmen, comrade of all who shake hands and welcome to drink and meat,

A learner with the simplest, a teacher of the thoughtfullest,

A novice beginning yet experient of myriads

of seasons,

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The bright suns I see and the dark suns 1 cannot see are in their place,

The palpable is in its place and the impalpable is in its place.)

17

These are really the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands, they are not original with me,

If they are not yours as much as mine they are nothing, or next to nothing, If they are not the riddle and the untying of the riddle they are nothing,

If they are not just as close as they are distant they are nothing.

This is the grass that grows wherever the land is and the water is,

This the common air that bathes the globe.

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I beat and pound for the dead,

I blow through my embouchures my loudest and gayest for them.2

Vivas to those who have fail'd!

And to those whose war-vessels sank in the sea!

And to those themselves who sank in the sea!

1 Instead of these two lines, the original edition has: This is the breath of laws and songs and behaviour, This is the tasteless water of souls. . . this is the true sustenance,

It is for the illiterate. . . it is for the judges of the supreme court... it is for the federal capitol and the state capitols, It is for the admirable communes of literary men and composers and singers and lecturers and engineers and savans, It is for the endless races of working people and farmers and

seamen.

This is the trill of a thousand clear cornets and scream of the octave flute and strike of triangles.

I play not a march for victors only... for conquered and slain persons.

2 I sound triumphal drums for the dead.

I play great marches

I fling through my embouchures the loudest and gayest music to them. (1855.)

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