I do not doubt I am limitless, and that the universes are limitless, in vain I try to think how limitless, I do not doubt that the orbs and the systems of orbs play their swift sports through the air on purpose, and that I shall one day be eligible to do as much as they, and more than they, I do not doubt that temporary affairs keep on and on millions of years, I do not doubt interiors have their interiors, and exteriors have their exteriors, and that the eyesight has another eyesight, 1 In the 1856 edition, with the title Faith Poem;' in 1860 as No. vii, Leaves of Grass. 2 In the 1856 edition there followed the line (omitted in 1867): I do not doubt that whatever I know at a given time, there waits for me more which I do not know. In the 1856 edition there followed the line (omitted in 1867): I do not doubt there are realizations I have no idea of, waiting for me through time and through the universes upon this earth. also and the hearing another hearing, and the voice another voice, I do not doubt that the passionately-wept deaths of young men are provided for, and that the deaths of young women and the deaths of little children are provided for, (Did you think Life was so well provided for, and Death, the purport of all Life, is not well provided for ?) I do not doubt that wrecks at sea, no matter what the horrors of them, no matter whose wife, child, husband, father, lover, has gone down, are provided for, to the minutest points, 5 I do not doubt that whatever can possibly happen anywhere at any time, is provided for in the inherences of things, I do not think Life provides for all and for Time and Space, but I believe Heavenly Death provides for all. 1856. CROSSING BROOKLYN FERRY' I 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. 5 Here followed, in 1856, the lines (omitted in 1871): I do not doubt that shallowness, meanness, malignance, are provided for; I do not doubt that cities, you, America, the remainder of the earth, politics, freedom, degradations, are carefully provided for. 6 The last line of the poem, and the fourth line from the end, in parenthesis, appeared first in the edition of 1871, where the poem was included among the Whispers of Heavenly Death. 7 Living in Brooklyn or New York city from this time forward, my life, then, and still more the following years, was curiously identified with Fulton ferry, already becoming the greatest of its sort in the world for general importance, volume, variety, rapidity, and picturesqueness. Almost daily, later ('50 to 60), I cross'd on the boats, often up in the pilot-houses where I could get a full sweep, absorbing shows, accompaniments, surroundings. What oceanic currents, eddies, underneath the great tides of humanity also, with ever-shifting movements! Indeed, I have always had a passion for ferries; to me they afford inimitable, streaming, never-failing, living poems. The river and bay scenery, all about New York island, any time of a fine day the hurrying, splashing sea-tides the changing panorama of steamers, all sizes, often a string of big ones outward bound to distant ports-the myriads of white sail'd schooners, sloops, skiffs, and the marvellously beautiful yachts-the majestic Sound boats as they rounded the Battery and came along towards 5, afternoon, eastward bound-the prospect off towards Staten Island, or down the Narrows, or the other way up the Hudson what refreshment of spirit such sights 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, Others will see the islands large and small; Fifty years hence, others will see them as they cross, the sun half an hour high, A hundred years hence, or ever so many hundred years hence, others will see them, Will enjoy the sunset, the pouring-in of the flood-tide, the falling-back to the sea of the ebb-tide. and experiences gave me years ago (and many a time since) My old pilot friends, the Balsirs, Johnny Cole, Ira Smith, William White, and my young ferry friend, Tom Gere - how well I remember them all! (WHITMAN, Specimen Days. Complete Prose Works, Small, Maynard & Co., p. 11.) In 1856 the poem was entitled Sun-down Poem,' and the first line read: Flood-tide of the river, flow on! I watch you, face to face! I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever so many generations hence, Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt, Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a crowd, Just as you are refresh'd by the gladness of the river and the bright flow, I was refresh'd, Just as you stand and lean on the rail, yet hurry with the swift current, I stood yet was hurried, Just as you look on the numberless masts of ships and the thick-stemm'd pipes of steamboats, I look'd. I too many and many a time cross'd the river of old, Watched the Twelfth-month sea-gulls, saw them high in the air floating with motionless wings, oscillating their bodies, Saw how the glistening yellow lit up parts of their bodies and left the rest in strong shadow, 30 Saw the slow-wheeling circles and the gradual edging toward the south, Saw the reflection of the summer sky in the water, Had my eyes dazzled by the shimmering track of beams, Look'd at the fine centrifugal spokes of light round the shape of my head in the sunlit water, Look'd on the haze on the hills southward and south-westward, Look'd on the vapor as it flew in fleeces tinged with violet, Look'd toward the lower bay to notice the vessels arriving, Saw their approach, saw aboard those that The scallop-edged waves in the twilight, the ladled cups, the frolicsome crests and glistening, The stretch afar growing dimmer and dimmer, the gray walls of the granite storehouses by the docks, On the river the shadowy group, the big steam-tug closely flank'd on each side by the barges, the hay-boat, the belated lighter, On the neighboring shore the fires from the foundry chimneys burning high and glaringly into the night, Casting their flicker of black contrasted with wild red and yellow light over the tops of houses, and down into the clefts of streets. The dark threw its patches down upon me also, The best I had done seem'd to me blank and suspicious, My great thoughts as I supposed them, were they not in reality meagre ? Nor is it you alone who know what it is to be evil, I am he who knew what it was to be evil, 70 I too knitted the old knot of contrariety, Blabb'd, blush'd, resented, lied, stole, grudg'd, Had guile, anger, lust, hot wishes I dared not speak, Was wayward, vain, greedy, shallow, sly, cowardly, malignant, The wolf, the snake, the hog, not wanting in me, The cheating look, the frivolous word, the adulterous wish, not wanting, Refusals, hates, postponements, meanness, laziness, none of these wanting, Was one with the rest, the days and haps of the rest,1 Was call'd by my nighest name by clear loud voices of young men as they saw me approaching or passing, Felt their arms on my neck as I stood, or the negligent leaning of their flesh against me as I sat, 80 Who knows, for all the distance, but I am as good as looking at you now, for all you cannot see me?1 8 Ah, what can ever be more stately and admirable to me than mast-hemm'd Manhattan? River and sunset and scallop-edg'd waves of flood-tide ? The sea-gulls oscillating their bodies, the hay-boat in the twilight, and the belated lighter? What gods can exceed these that clasp me by the hand, and with voices I love call me promptly and loudly by my nighest name as I approach? What is more subtle than this which ties me to the woman or man that looks in my face? Which fuses me into you now, and pours my meaning into you ? 2 We understand, then, do we not? What I promis'd without mentioning it, have you not accepted? What the study could not teach what the preaching could not accomplish is accomplish'd, is it not? 3 9 100 Flow on, river! flow with the flood-tide, and ebb with the ebb-tide! Frolic on, crested and scallop-edg'd waves! Gorgeous clouds of the sunset! drench with your splendor me, or the men and women generations after me! Cross from shore to shore, countless crowds of passengers! 1 There follow at this point in the 1856 edition two other brief paragraphs: It is not you alone, nor I alone, Not a few races, not a few generations, not a few centuries, It is that each came, or comes, or shall come, from its due emission, without fail, either now, or then, or henceforth. Everything indicates the smallest does, and the largest does, A necessary film envelops all, and envelops the soul for a proper time. These lines seem necessary to the understanding of line 121, which has been retained in all editions. 2 Remember, the book arose out of my life in Brooklyn and New York from 1838 to 1855, absorbing a million people with an intimacy, an eagerness, an abandon, probably never equalled. (WHITMAN, Bucke's Life, p. 67.) In the 1856 edition this paragraph ends with a line unhappily omitted from the latest editions: What the push of reading could not start is started by me personally, is it not? Stand up, tall masts of Mannahatta! stand up, beautiful hills of Brooklyn! Throb, baffled and curious brain! throw out questions and answers! Suspend here and everywhere, eternal float of solution! Gaze, loving and thirsting eyes, in the house or street or public assembly! Sound out, voices of young men ! loudly and musically call me by my nighest name! Live, old life! play the part that looks back on the actor or actress ! Play the old rôle, the rôle that is great or small according as one makes it! Consider, you who peruse me, whether I may not in unknown ways be looking upon you; 112 Be firm, rail over the river, to support those who lean idly, yet haste with the hasting current; Fly on, sea-birds! fly sideways, or wheel in large circles high in the air; Receive the summer sky, you water, and faithfully hold it till all downcast eyes have time to take it from you! Diverge, fine spokes of light, from the shape of my head, or any one's head, in the sunlit water! Come on, ships from the lower bay! pass up or down, white-sail'd schooners, sloops, lighters! Flaunt away, flags of all nations! be duly lower'd at sunset! Burn high your fires, foundry chimneys! cast black shadows at nightfall! cast red and yellow light over the tops of the houses! Appearances, now or henceforth, indicate what you are, 120 You necessary film, continue to envelop the soul, About my body for me, and your body for you, be hung our divinest aromas, Thrive, cities bring your freight, bring your shows, ample and sufficient rivers, Expand, being than which none else is perhaps more spiritual, Keep your places, objects than which none else is more lasting.* At this point a paragraph has been omitted from the 1881 and later editions: We descend upon you and all things, we arrest you all, We realize the soul only by you, you faithful solids and fluids, Through you color, form, location, sublimity, ideality, Through you every proof, comparison, and all the suggestions and determinations of ourselves. OUT of the cradle endlessly rocking, Out of the mocking-bird's throat, the musical shuttle, Out of the Ninth-month midnight, Over the sterile sands and the fields beyond, where the child leaving his bed wander'd alone, bareheaded, barefoot, Down from the shower'd halo, Up from the mystic play of shadows twining and twisting as if they were alive, Out from the patches of briers and blackberries, From the memories of the bird that chanted to me, From your memories sad brother, from the fitful risings and fallings I heard, From under that yellow half-moon laterisen and swollen as if with tears, From those beginning notes of yearning and love there in the mist, From the thousand responses of never to cease, my heart From the myriad thence-arous'd words, From the word stronger and more delicious than any, From such as now they start the scene revisiting, As a flock, twittering, rising, or overhead passing, 1 First published in the New York Saturday Press, December 24, 1859, with the title A Child's Reminis cence.' In 1860 it appears with the new title, A Word Out of the Sea,' for the whole poem, and with the subtitle, Reminiscences,' for the part beginning with the second paragraph. In the earlier versions, up to 1871, the first line read: Out of the rocked cradle. When the lilac-scent was in the air 2 and Fifth-month grass was growing, Up this seashore in some briers, Two feather'd guests from Alabama, two together, And their nest, and four light-green eggs spotted with brown, And every day the he-bird to and fro near at hand, And every day the she-bird crouch'd on her nest, silent, with bright eyes, And every day I, a curious boy, never too close, never disturbing them, Cautiously peering, absorbing, translating. 30 40 |