Among the Multitude.

AMONG the men and women the multitude,

I perceive one picking me out by secret and divine signs, Acknowledging none else, not parent, wife, husband, brother, child, any nearer than I am,

Some are baffled, but that one is not—that one knows me.

Ah lover and perfect equal,

I meant that you should discover me so by faint indirections,
And I when I meet you mean to discover you by the like in you.

You Whom I Often and Silently Come.

O YOU whom I often and silently come where you are that I may be with you,

As I walk by your side or sit near, or remain in the same room

with you,

Little you know the subtle electric fire that for your sake is playing within me.

That Shadow Dy Likeness.

THAT shadow my likeness that goes to and fro seeking a liveli

hood, chattering, chaffering,

[flits,

How often I find myself standing and looking at it where it
How often I question and doubt whether that is really me;
But among my lovers and caroling these songs,

OI never doubt whether that is really me.

11

Full of Life Now.

FULL of life now, compact, visible,

I, forty years old the eighty-third year of the States,
To one a century hence or any number of centuries hence,
To you yet unborn these, seeking you.

When you read these I that was visible am become invisible,
Now it is you, compact, visible, realizing my poems, seeking me,
Fancying how happy you were if I could be with you and be-
come your comrade;

Be it as if I were with you. (Be not too certain but I am now with you.)

Salut au Monde !

O TAKE my hand Walt Whitman !

Such gliding wonders! such sights and sounds!
Such join'd unended links, each hook'd to the next,
Each answering all, each sharing the earth with all.

What widens within you Walt Whitman?
What waves and soils exuding?

What climes? what persons and cities are here?

Who are the infants, some playing, some slumbering?

Who are the girls? who are the married women?

Who are the groups of old men going slowly with their arms

about each other's necks?

What rivers are these? what forests and fruits are these?

What are the mountains call'd that rise so high in the mists?
What myriads of dwellings are they fill'd with dwellers?

2

Within me latitude widens, longitude lengthens,

Asia, Africa, Europe, are to the east-America is provided for

in the west,

Banding the bulge of the earth winds the hot equator,

Curiously north and south turn the axis-ends,

Within me is the longest day, the sun wheels in slanting rings, it

does not set for months,

Stretch'd in due time within me the midnight sun just rises above

the horizon and sinks again,

Within me zones, seas, cataracts, forests, volcanoes, groups, Malaysia, Polynesia, and the great West Indian islands.

3

What do you hear Walt Whitman ?

I hear the workman singing and the farmer's wife singing,

I hear in the distance the sounds of children and of animals early

in the day,

I hear emulous shouts of Australians pursuing the wild horse,

I hear the Spanish dance with castanets in the chestnut shade, to

the rebeck and guitar,

I hear continual echoes from the Thames,

(I hear fierce French liberty songs,

I hear of the Italian boat-sculler the musical recitative of old

poems,

I hear the locusts in Syria as they strike the grain and grass with

the showers of their terrible clouds,

I hear the Coptic refrain toward sundown, pensively falling on the breast of the black venerable vast mother the Nile,)

I hear the chirp of the Mexican muleteer, and the bells of the

mule,

I hear the Arab muezzin calling from the top of the mosque,

I hear the Christian priests at the altars of their churches, I hear the responsive base and soprano,

I hear the cry of the Cossack, and the sailor's voice putting to sea

at Okotsk,

I hear the wheeze of the slave-coffle as the slaves march on, as the husky gangs pass on by twos and threes, fasten'd

together with wrist-chains and ankle-chains,

I hear the Hebrew reading his records and psalms,

I hear the rhythmic myths of the Greeks, and the strong legends

of the Romans,

I hear the tale of the divine life and bloody death of the beautiful God the Christ,

I hear the Hindoo teaching his favorite pupil the loves, wars, adages, transmitted safely to this day from poets who wrote three thousand years ago.

4

What do you see Walt Whitman ?

Who are they you salute, and that one after another salute you?

I see a great round wonder rolling through space,

I see diminute farms, hamlets, ruins, graveyards, jails, factories, palaces, hovels, huts of barbarians, tents of nomads upon

the surface,

I see the shaded part on one side where the sleepers are sleeping,

and the sunlit part on the other side,

I see the curious rapid change of the light and shade,

I see distant lands, as real and near to the inhabitants of them as

my land is to me.