LEAVES OF GRASS.

FACES.

First published in 1855. In 1856 under title of Poem of Faces." In 1860 '67 under title of Leaf of Faces,"

I

SAUNTERING the pavement, or riding the country by-road-lo! such faces!1

Faces of friendship, precision, caution, suavity, ideality;

The spiritual, prescient face-the always welcome, common, benevolent face,

The face of the singing of music-the grand faces of natural lawyers and judges, broad at the back-top;

The faces of hunters and fishers, bulged at the brows--the shaved blanch'd faces of orthodox citizens;

The pure, extravagant, yearning, questioning artist's face; The ugly face of some beautiful Soul, the handsome detested or despised face;

The sacred faces of infants, the illuminated face of the mother of many children;

The face of an amour, the face of veneration;

The face as of a dream, the face of an immobile rock;

ΙΟ

The face withdrawn of its good and bad, a castrated face;

A wild hawk, his wings clipp'd by the clipper;

A stallion that yielded at last to the thongs and knife of the gelder.

Sauntering the pavement, thus, or crossing the ceaseless ferry, faces, and faces, and faces:

3

I see them, and complain not, and am content with all.

2

Do you suppose I could be content with all, if I thought them their own finale?

1 1855 '56 '60. For "lo! such faces!" read "here then are faces!"'

2 1855 reads "The welcome ugly face."

3 1855 '56 '60 read "Sauntering the pavement or crossing the ceaseless ferry, here then are faces."

This now is too lamentable a face for a man;

Some abject louse, asking leave to be-cringing for it;

Some milk-nosed maggot, blessing what lets it wrig to its hole.

This face is a dog's snout, sniffing for garbage;
Snakes nest in that mouth-I hear the sibilant threat.

This face is a haze more chill than the arctic sea;
Its sleepy and wobbling icebergs crunch as they go.

20

This is a face of bitter herbs-this an emetic-they need no label;

And more of the drug-shelf, laudanum, caoutchouc, or hog's

lard.

This face is an epilepsy,' its wordless tongue gives out the unearthly cry,

Its veins down the neck distended, its eyes roll till they show nothing but their whites,

Its teeth grit, the palms of the hands are cut by the turn'd-in

nails,

The man falls struggling and foaming to the ground while he speculates well.

This face is bitten by vermin and worms,

And this is some murderer's knife, with a half-pull'd scabbard.

30

This face owes to the sexton his dismalest fee;
An unceasing death-bell tolls there.

3

Those then are really men-the bosses and tufts of the great round globe!

Features of my equals, would you trick me with your creas'd and cadaverous march?

Well, you cannot trick me.

1 1855 adds “advertising and doing business.”

2

"then" added in 1856.

3 1855 reads "well then," etc.

I see your rounded, never-erased flow;

I see neath the rims of your haggard and mean disguises.

Splay and twist as you like-poke with the tangling fores of fishes or rats;

You'll be unmuzzled, you certainly will.

40

I saw the face of the most smear'd and slobbering idiot they had at the asylum;

And I knew for my consolation what they knew not;

I knew of the agents that emptied and broke my brother,

The same wait to clear the rubbish from the fallen tenement ; And I shall look again in a score or two of ages,

And I shall meet the real landlord, perfect and unharm'd, every inch as good as myself.

4

The Lord advances, and yet advances;

Always the shadow in front—always the reach'd hand bringing up the laggards.

Out of this face emerge banners and horses-O superb! I see what is coming;

I see the high pioneer-caps-I see the staves of runners clearing

the way,

I hear victorious drums.

This face is a life-boat;

50

This is the face commanding and bearded, it asks no odds of

the rest;

This face is flavor'd fruit, ready for eating;

This face of a healthy honest boy is the programme of all good.

These faces bear testimony, slumbering or awake;

They show their descent from the Master himself.

Off the word I have spoken, I except not one-red, white, black, are all deific ;

In each house is the ovum-it comes forth after a thousand

years.

Spots or cracks at the windows do not disturb me;

Tall and sufficient stand behind, and make signs to me;
I read the promise, and patiently wait.

60

This is a full-grown lily's face,

She speaks to the limber-hipp'd man near the garden pickets, Come here, she blushingly cries-Come nigh to me, limber-hipp'd

man,'

Stand at my side till I lean as high as I can upon you,

Fill me with albescent honey, bend down to me,

Rub to me with your chafing beard, rub to my breast and shoulders.

5

The old face of the mother of many children!

Whist! I am fully content.

Lull'd and late is the smoke of the First-day morning,

It hangs low over the rows of trees by the fences,

70

It hangs thin by the sassafras, the wild-cherry, and the cat-brier under them.

I saw the rich ladies in full dress at the soiree,

I heard what the singers were singing so long,3

Heard who sprang in crimson youth from the white froth and the water-blue,

Behold a woman!

She looks out from her quaker cap-her face is clearer and more beautiful than the sky.

She sits in an arm-chair, under the shaded porch of the farm

house,

The sun just shines on her old white head.

Her ample gown is of cream-hued linen,

80

Her grandsons raised the flax, and her granddaughters spun it with the distaff and the wheel.

The melodious character of the earth,

The finish beyond which philosophy cannot go, and does not

wish to go,

The justified mother of men.

1 1855 '56 '60 add "and give me your finger and thumb."

2

1855'56. For "First-day" read "Sabbath."

3 1855 reads "I heard what the run of the poets were saying so long."

MANHATTAN'S STREETS I SAUNTER'D, PONDERING. First published in 1856 under title of Poem of the Last Explanation of Prudence." I

MANHATTAN'S streets I saunter'd, pondering,'

On time, space, reality-on such as these, and abreast with them, prudence.

2

After all, the last explanation remains to be made about pru

dence;

Little and large alike drop quietly aside from the prudence that suits immortality.

The Soul is of itself;

All verges to it-all has reference to what ensues;

All that a person does, says, thinks, is of consequence;

Not a move can a man or woman make, that affects him or her in a day, month, any part of the direct life-time, or the hour of death, but the same affects him or her onward afterward through the indirect life-time.

3

The indirect is just as much as the direct,

The spirit receives from the body just as much as it gives to the body, if not more.

10

Not one word or deed-not venereal sore, discoloration, privacy of the onanist, putridity of gluttons or rum-drinkers, peculation, cunning, betrayal, murder, seduction, prostitution, but has results beyond death, as really as before death.

4

Charity and personal force are the only investments worth anything.

No specification is necessary—all that a male or female does, that is vigorous, benevolent, clean, is so much profit to him or her, in the unshakable order of the universe, and through the whole scope of it forever.

1 1856 '60 read "All day I have walked the city, and talked with my friends and thought of prudence."

2 1856 '60. For "just as much as" read "more than."