Complete Works. Walt Whitman. Читать онлайн. Newlib. NEWLIB.NET

Автор: Walt Whitman
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possess it, enjoying all without

       labor or purchase, abstracting the feast yet not abstracting one

       particle of it,

       To take the best of the farmer’s farm and the rich man’s elegant

       villa, and the chaste blessings of the well-married couple, and

       the fruits of orchards and flowers of gardens,

       To take to your use out of the compact cities as you pass through,

       To carry buildings and streets with you afterward wherever you go,

       To gather the minds of men out of their brains as you encounter

       them, to gather the love out of their hearts,

       To take your lovers on the road with you, for all that you leave

       them behind you,

       To know the universe itself as a road, as many roads, as roads for

       traveling souls.

      All parts away for the progress of souls,

       All religion, all solid things, arts, governments — all that was or is

       apparent upon this globe or any globe, falls into niches and corners

       before the procession of souls along the grand roads of the universe.

      Of the progress of the souls of men and women along the grand roads of

       the universe, all other progress is the needed emblem and sustenance.

      Forever alive, forever forward,

       Stately, solemn, sad, withdrawn, baffled, mad, turbulent, feeble,

       dissatisfied,

       Desperate, proud, fond, sick, accepted by men, rejected by men,

       They go! they go! I know that they go, but I know not where they go,

       But I know that they go toward the best — toward something great.

      Whoever you are, come forth! or man or woman come forth!

       You must not stay sleeping and dallying there in the house, though

       you built it, or though it has been built for you.

      Out of the dark confinement! out from behind the screen!

       It is useless to protest, I know all and expose it.

      Behold through you as bad as the rest,

       Through the laughter, dancing, dining, supping, of people,

       Inside of dresses and ornaments, inside of those wash’d and trimm’d faces,

       Behold a secret silent loathing and despair.

      No husband, no wife, no friend, trusted to hear the confession,

       Another self, a duplicate of every one, skulking and hiding it goes,

       Formless and wordless through the streets of the cities, polite and

       bland in the parlors,

       In the cars of railroads, in steamboats, in the public assembly,

       Home to the houses of men and women, at the table, in the bedroom,

       everywhere,

       Smartly attired, countenance smiling, form upright, death under the

       breast-bones, hell under the skull-bones,

       Under the broadcloth and gloves, under the ribbons and artificial flowers,

       Keeping fair with the customs, speaking not a syllable of itself,

       Speaking of any thing else but never of itself.

      14

       Allons! through struggles and wars!

       The goal that was named cannot be countermanded.

      Have the past struggles succeeded?

       What has succeeded? yourself? your nation? Nature?

       Now understand me well — it is provided in the essence of things that

       from any fruition of success, no matter what, shall come forth

       something to make a greater struggle necessary.

      My call is the call of battle, I nourish active rebellion,

       He going with me must go well arm’d,

       He going with me goes often with spare diet, poverty, angry enemies,

       desertions.

      15

       Allons! the road is before us!

       It is safe — I have tried it — my own feet have tried it well — be not

       detain’d!

       Let the paper remain on the desk unwritten, and the book on the

       shelf unopen’d!

       Let the tools remain in the workshop! let the money remain unearn’d!

       Let the school stand! mind not the cry of the teacher!

       Let the preacher preach in his pulpit! let the lawyer plead in the

       court, and the judge expound the law.

      Camerado, I give you my hand!

       I give you my love more precious than money,

       I give you myself before preaching or law;

       Will you give me yourself? will you come travel with me?

       Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?

      BOOK VIII

       Table of Contents

       Table of Contents

      1

      Flood-tide below me! I see you face to face!

       Clouds of the west — sun there half an hour high — I see you also face

       to face.

      Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes, how curious

       you are to me!

       On the ferry-boats the hundreds and hundreds that cross, returning

       home, are more curious to me than you suppose,

       And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence are more

       to me, and more in my meditations, than you might suppose.

      2

       The impalpable sustenance of me from all things at all hours of the day,

       The simple, compact, well-join’d scheme, myself disintegrated, every

       one disintegrated yet part of the scheme,

       The similitudes of the past and those of the future,

       The glories strung like beads on my smallest sights and hearings, on

       the walk in the street and the passage over the river,

       The current rushing so swiftly and swimming with me far away,

       The others that are to follow me, the ties between me and them,

       The certainty of others, the life, love, sight, hearing of others.

      Others will enter the gates of the ferry and cross from shore to shore,

       Others will watch the run of the flood-tide,

       Others will see the shipping of Manhattan north and west, and the

       heights of Brooklyn to the south and east,