Leaves of Grass | Page 6

my book nothing, the drift of it every thing,
A book separate, not link'd with the rest nor
felt by the intellect, But you ye untold latencies will thrill to every page.
} Poets to Come
Poets to come! orators, singers, musicians to come!
Not to-day is to justify me and
answer what I am for,
But you, a new brood, native, athletic, continental, greater than
before known,
Arouse! for you must justify me.
I myself but write one or two indicative words for the future, I but advance a moment
only to wheel and hurry back in the darkness.
I am a man who, sauntering along without fully stopping, turns a
casual look upon you and then averts his face,
Leaving it to you to prove and define it,

Expecting the main things from you.
} To You
Stranger, if you passing meet me and desire to speak to me, why
should you not speak to me?
And why should I not speak to you?
} Thou Reader
Thou reader throbbest life and pride and love the same as I, Therefore for thee the
following chants.
[BOOK II]
} Starting from Paumanok
1
Starting from fish-shape Paumanok where I was born,
Well-begotten, and rais'd by
a perfect mother,
After roaming many lands, lover of populous pavements,
Dweller in
Mannahatta my city, or on southern savannas,
Or a soldier camp'd or carrying my
knapsack and gun, or a miner
in California,
Or rude in my home in Dakota's woods, my diet meat, my drink from
the spring,
Or withdrawn to muse and meditate in some deep recess,
Far from the

clank of crowds intervals passing rapt and happy, Aware of the fresh free giver the
flowing Missouri, aware of
mighty Niagara,
Aware of the buffalo herds grazing the plains, the hirsute and
strong-breasted bull,
Of earth, rocks, Fifth-month flowers experienced, stars, rain,
snow,
my amaze,
Having studied the mocking-bird's tones and the flight of the
mountain-hawk,
And heard at dawn the unrivall'd one, the hermit thrush from the
swamp-cedars,
Solitary, singing in the West, I strike up for a New World.
2
Victory, union, faith, identity, time,
The indissoluble compacts, riches, mystery,

Eternal progress, the kosmos, and the modern reports.
This then is life,
Here is what
has come to the surface after so many throes and convulsions.
How curious! how real!
Underfoot the divine soil, overhead the sun.
See revolving the globe,
The ancestor-continents away group'd together,
The present
and future continents north and south, with the isthmus
between.
See, vast trackless spaces,
As in a dream they change, they swiftly fill,
Countless
masses debouch upon them,
They are now cover'd with the foremost people, arts,
institutions, known.
See, projected through time,
For me an audience interminable.
With firm and regular step they wend, they never stop,
Successions of men,
Americanos, a hundred millions,
One generation playing its part and passing on,

Another generation playing its part and passing on in its turn, With faces turn'd sideways
or backward towards me to listen, With eyes retrospective towards me.
3
Americanos! conquerors! marches humanitarian!
Foremost! century marches!
Libertad! masses!
For you a programme of chants.
Chants of the prairies,
Chants of the long-running Mississippi, and down to the
Mexican sea, Chants of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota, Chants
going forth from the centre from Kansas, and thence equidistant, Shooting in pulses of
fire ceaseless to vivify all.
4
Take my leaves America, take them South and take them North, Make welcome for
them everywhere, for they are your own off-spring, Surround them East and West, for

they would surround you,
And you precedents, connect lovingly with them, for they
connect
lovingly with you.
I conn'd old times,
I sat studying at the feet of the great masters,
Now if eligible O
that the great masters might return and study me.
In the name of these States shall I scorn the antique?
Why these are the children of the
antique to justify it.
5
Dead poets, philosophs, priests,
Martyrs, artists, inventors, governments long since,

Language-shapers on other shores,
Nations once powerful, now reduced, withdrawn,
or desolate, I dare not proceed till I respectfully credit what you have left
wafted hither,
I have perused it, own it is admirable, (moving awhile among it,) Think
nothing can ever be greater, nothing can ever deserve more
than it deserves,
Regarding it all intently a long while, then dismissing it, I stand in my
place with my own day here.
Here lands female and male,
Here the heir-ship and heiress-ship of the world, here the
flame of
materials,
Here spirituality the translatress, the openly-avow'd,
The ever-tending, the
finale of visible forms,
The satisfier, after due long-waiting now advancing,
Yes here
comes my mistress the soul.
6
The soul,
Forever and forever--longer than soil is brown and solid--longer
than water ebbs and flows.
I will make the poems of materials, for I think they are to be
the
most spiritual poems,
And I will make the poems of my body and of mortality,
For I
think I shall then supply myself with the poems of my soul and
of immortality.
I will make a song for