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

Автор: Walt Whitman
Издательство: Bookwire
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Жанр произведения: Языкознание
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isbn: 4064066395636
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It is not they who give the life, it is you who give the life,

       Leaves are not more shed from the trees, or trees from the earth,

       than they are shed out of you.

      4

       The sum of all known reverence I add up in you whoever you are,

       The President is there in the White House for you, it is not you who

       are here for him,

       The Secretaries act in their bureaus for you, not you here for them,

       The Congress convenes every Twelfth-month for you,

       Laws, courts, the forming of States, the charters of cities, the

       going and coming of commerce and malls, are all for you.

      List close my scholars dear,

       Doctrines, politics and civilization exurge from you,

       Sculpture and monuments and any thing inscribed anywhere are tallied in you,

       The gist of histories and statistics as far back as the records

       reach is in you this hour, and myths and tales the same,

       If you were not breathing and walking here, where would they all be?

       The most renown’d poems would be ashes, orations and plays would

       be vacuums.

      All architecture is what you do to it when you look upon it,

       (Did you think it was in the white or gray stone? or the lines of

       the arches and cornices?)

      All music is what awakes from you when you are reminded by the instruments,

       It is not the violins and the cornets, it is not the oboe nor the

       beating drums, nor the score of the baritone singer singing his

       sweet romanza, nor that of the men’s chorus, nor that of the

       women’s chorus,

       It is nearer and farther than they.

      5

       Will the whole come back then?

       Can each see signs of the best by a look in the looking-glass? is

       there nothing greater or more?

       Does all sit there with you, with the mystic unseen soul?

      Strange and hard that paradox true I give,

       Objects gross and the unseen soul are one.

      House-building, measuring, sawing the boards,

       Blacksmithing, glass-blowing, nail-making, coopering, tin-roofing,

       shingle-dressing,

       Ship-joining, dock-building, fish-curing, flagging of sidewalks by flaggers,

       The pump, the pile-driver, the great derrick, the coal-kiln and brickkiln,

       Coal-mines and all that is down there, the lamps in the darkness,

       echoes, songs, what meditations, what vast native thoughts

       looking through smutch’d faces,

       Iron-works, forge-fires in the mountains or by river-banks, men

       around feeling the melt with huge crowbars, lumps of ore, the

       due combining of ore, limestone, coal,

       The blast-furnace and the puddling-furnace, the loup-lump at the

       bottom of the melt at last, the rolling-mill, the stumpy bars

       of pig-iron, the strong clean-shaped Trail for railroads,

       Oil-works, silk-works, white-lead-works, the sugar-house,

       steam-saws, the great mills and factories,

       Stone-cutting, shapely trimmings for facades or window or door-lintels,

       the mallet, the tooth-chisel, the jib to protect the thumb,

       The calking-iron, the kettle of boiling vault-cement, and the fire

       under the kettle,

       The cotton-bale, the stevedore’s hook, the saw and buck of the

       sawyer, the mould of the moulder, the working-knife of the

       butcher, the ice-saw, and all the work with ice,

       The work and tools of the rigger, grappler, sail-maker, block-maker,

       Goods of gutta-percha, papier-mache, colors, brushes, brush-making,

       glazier’s implements,

       The veneer and glue-pot, the confectioner’s ornaments, the decanter

       and glasses, the shears and flat-iron,

       The awl and knee-strap, the pint measure and quart measure, the

       counter and stool, the writing-pen of quill or metal, the making

       of all sorts of edged tools,

       The brewery, brewing, the malt, the vats, every thing that is done

       by brewers, wine-makers, vinegar-makers,

       Leather-dressing, coach-making, boiler-making, rope-twisting,

       distilling, sign-painting, lime-burning, cotton-picking,

       electroplating, electrotyping, stereotyping,

       Stave-machines, planing-machines, reaping-machines,

       ploughing-machines, thrashing-machines, steam wagons,

       The cart of the carman, the omnibus, the ponderous dray,

       Pyrotechny, letting off color’d fireworks at night, fancy figures and jets;

       Beef on the butcher’s stall, the slaughter-house of the butcher, the

       butcher in his killing-clothes,

       The pens of live pork, the killing-hammer, the hog-hook, the

       scalder’s tub, gutting, the cutter’s cleaver, the packer’s maul,

       and the plenteous winterwork of pork-packing,

       Flour-works, grinding of wheat, rye, maize, rice, the barrels and

       the half and quarter barrels, the loaded barges, the high piles

       on wharves and levees,

       The men and the work of the men on ferries, railroads, coasters,

       fish-boats, canals;

       The hourly routine of your own or any man’s life, the shop, yard,

       store, or factory,

       These shows all near you by day and night — workman! whoever you

       are, your daily life!

      In that and them the heft of the heaviest — in that and them far more

       than you estimated, (and far less also,)

       In them realities for you and me, in them poems for you and me,

       In them, not yourself-you and your soul enclose all things,

       regardless of estimation,

       In them the development good — in them all themes, hints, possibilities.

      I do not affirm that what you see beyond is futile, I do not advise

       you to stop,

       I do not say leadings you thought great are not great,

       But I say that none lead to greater than these lead to.

      6

       Will you seek afar off? you surely come back at last,

       In things best known to you finding the best, or as good as the best,

       In folks nearest to you finding the sweetest, strongest, lovingest,

       Happiness, knowledge, not in another place but this place, not for