New occasions teach new duties; Time makes ancient good uncouth; They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast of Truth; Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires! we ourselves must Pilgrims be, Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly through the desperate winter sea, Nor attempt the Future's portal with the Past's bloodrusted key. RISE, O DAYS, FROM YOUR FATHOMLESS DEEPS1 WALT WHITMAN 1 RISE, O days, from your fathomless deeps, till you loftier, fiercer sweep! Long for my soul, hungering gymnastic, I devour'd what the earth gave me; Long I roam'd the woods of the north-long I watch'd Niagara pouring; I travel'd the prairies over, and slept on their breast cross'd the Nevadas, I cross'd the plateaus; I I ascended the towering rocks along the Pacific, I sail'd out to sea; I sail'd through the storm, I was refresh'd by the storm; ing over; I heard the wind piping, I saw the black clouds; Saw from below what arose and mounted (O superb! O wild as my heart, and powerful!), Heard the continuous thunder, as it bellow'd after the light ning; Noted the slender and jagged threads of lightning, as sudden and fast amid the din they chased each other across the sky; 1 Included in "Drum-Taps," Leaves of Grass. Reprinted through the generous permission of Mr. Horace Traubel. These, and such as these, I, elate, saw der, yet pensive and masterful; saw with won All the menacing might of the globe uprisen around me; Yet there with my soul I fed - I fed content, supercilious. 2 'T was well, O soul! 't was a good preparation you gave me! Now we advance our latent and ampler hunger to fill; Now we go forth to receive what the earth and the sea never gave us; Not through the mighty woods we go, but through the mightier cities; Something for us is pouring now, more than Niagara pouring; Torrents of men (sources and rills of the Northwest, are you indeed inexhaustible?), What, to pavements and homesteads here - what were those storms of the mountains and sea? What, to passions I witness around me to-day? Was the sea risen? Was the wind piping the pipe of death under the black clouds? Lo! from deeps more unfathomable, something more deadly and savage; Manhattan, rising, advancing with menacing frontCincinnati, Chicago, unchain'd; What was that swell I saw on the ocean? behold what comes here! How it climbs with daring feet and hands! how it dashes! How the true thunder bellows after the lightning! how bright the flashes of lightning! How DEMOCRACY, with desperate vengeful part strides on, shown through the dark by those flashes of lightning! (Yet a mournful wail and low sob I fancied I heard through the dark, In a lull of the deafening confusion.) 3 Thunder on stride on, Democracy! strike with vengeful stroke! And do you rise higher than ever yet, O days, O cities! Crash heavier, heavier yet, O storms! you have done me good; My soul, prepared in the mountains, absorbs your immortal strong nutriment; Long had I walk'd my cities, my country roads, through farms, only half-satisfied; One doubt, nauseous, undulating like a snake, crawl'd on the ground before me, Continually preceding my steps, turning upon me oft, ironically hissing low; -The cities I loved so well, I abandon'd and left - I sped to the certainties suitable to me; Hungering, hungering, hungering, for primal energies, and Nature's dauntlessness. I refresh'd myself with it only, I could relish it only; I waited the bursting forth of the pent fire on the water and air I waited long; I have lived to behold man burst forth, and warlike America rise; Hence I will seek no more the food of the northern solitary wilds, No more the mountains roam, or sail the stormy sea. THOU MOTHER WITH THY EQUAL BROOD1 WALT WHITMAN 1 THOU Mother with thy equal brood, Thou varied chain of different States, yet one identity only, I'd sow a seed for thee of endless Nationality, I'd fashion thy ensemble including body and soul, I'd show away ahead thy real Union, and how it may be accomplish'd. The paths to the house I seek to make, But leave to those to come the house itself. Belief I sing and preparation; As Life and Nature are not great with reference to the present only, But greater still from what is yet to come, Out of that formula for thee I sing. As a strong bird on pinions free, Joyous, the amplest spaces heavenward cleaving, 1 Reprinted from Leaves of Grass through the generous permission of Mr. Horace Traubel. |