Poems By Walt Whitman Part 13

All the mutter of preparation--all the determined arming; The hospital service--the lint, bandages, and medicines; The women volunteering for nurses--the work begun for, in earnest--no mere parade now; War! an armed race is advancing!--the welcome for battle--no turning away; War! be it weeks, months, or years--an armed race is advancing to welcome it.

4.

Mannahatta a-march!--and it's O to sing it well!

It's O for a manly life in the camp!

5.

And the st.u.r.dy artillery!

The guns, bright as gold--the work for giants--to serve well the guns: Unlimber them! no more, as the past forty years, for salutes for courtesies merely; Put in something else now besides powder and wadding.

6.

And you, Lady of s.h.i.+ps! you, Mannahatta!

Old matron of the city! this proud, friendly, turbulent city!

Often in peace and wealth you were pensive, or covertly frowned amid all your children; But now you smile with joy, exulting old Mannahatta!

_1861._

Armed year! year of the struggle!

No dainty rhymes or sentimental love verses for you, terrible year!

Not you as some pale poetling, seated at a desk, lisping cadenzas piano; But as a strong man, erect, clothed in blue clothes, advancing, carrying a rifle on your shoulder, With well-gristled body and sunburnt face and hands--with a knife in the belt at your side, As I heard you shouting loud--your sonorous voice ringing across the continent; Your masculine voice, O year, as rising amid the great cities, Amid the men of Manhattan I saw you, as one of the workmen, the dwellers in Manhattan; Or with large steps crossing the prairies out of Illinois and Indiana, Rapidly crossing the West with springy gait, and descending the Alleghanies; Or down from the great lakes, or in Pennsylvania, or on deck along the Ohio river; Or southward along the Tennessee or c.u.mberland rivers, or at Chattanooga on the mountain-top, Saw I your gait and saw I your sinewy limbs, clothed in blue, bearing weapons, robust year; Heard your determined voice, launched forth again and again; Year that suddenly sang by the mouths of the round-lipped cannon, I repeat you, hurrying, cras.h.i.+ng, sad, distracted year.

_THE UPRISING._

1.

Rise, O days, from your fathomless deeps, till you loftier and fiercer sweep!

Long for my soul, hungering gymnastic, I devoured what the earth gave me; Long I roamed the woods of the North--long I watched Niagara pouring; I travelled the prairies over, and slept on their breast--I crossed the Nevadas, I crossed the plateaus; I ascended the towering rocks along the Pacific, I sailed out to sea; I sailed through the storm, I was refreshed by the storm; I watched with joy the threatening maws of the waves; I marked the white combs where they careered so high, curling 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 bellowed after the lightning; Noted the slender and jagged threads of lightning, as sudden and fast amid the din they chased each other across the sky; --These, and such as these, I, elate, saw--saw with wonder, yet pensive and masterful; All the menacing might of the globe uprisen around me; Yet there with my soul I fed--I fed content, supercilious.

2.

'Twas well, O soul! 'twas 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 North-west, are you indeed inexhaustible?) What, to pavements and homesteads here--what were those storms of the mountains and sea?

What, to pa.s.sions 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 front--Cincinnati, Chicago, unchained; --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 port 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 walked my cities, my country roads, through farms, only half satisfied; One doubt, nauseous, undulating like a snake, crawled on the ground before me, Continually preceding my steps, turning upon me oft, ironically hissing low; --The cities I loved so well I abandoned and left--I sped to the certainties suitable to me Hungering, hungering, hungering, for primal energies, and Nature's dauntlessness, I refreshed 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.

--But now I no longer wait--I am fully satisfied--I am glutted; I have witnessed the true lightning--I have witnessed my cities electric; 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 on the mountains roam, or sail the stormy sea.

_BEAT! BEAT! DRUMS!_

1.

Beat! beat! drums!--Blow! bugles! blow!

Through the windows--through doors--burst like a force of ruthless men, Into the solemn church, and scatter the congregation; Into the school where the scholar is studying: Leave not the bridegroom quiet--no happiness must he have now with his bride; Nor the peaceful farmer any peace, ploughing his field or gathering his grain; So fierce you whirr and pound, you drums--so shrill you bugles blow.

2.

Beat! beat! drums!--Blow! bugles! blow!

Over the traffic of cities--over the rumble of wheels in the streets: Are beds prepared, for sleepers at night in the houses? No sleepers must sleep in those beds; No bargainers' bargains by day--no brokers or speculators--Would they continue?

Would the talkers be talking? would the singer attempt to sing?

Would the lawyer rise in the court to state his case before the judge?

Then rattle quicker, heavier, drums--you bugles wilder blow.

3.

Beat! beat! drums!--Blow! bugles! blow!

Make no parley--stop for no expostulation; Mind not the timid--mind not the weeper or prayer; Mind not the old man beseeching the young man; Let not the child's voice be heard, nor the mother's entreaties; Make even the trestles to shake the dead, where they lie awaiting the hea.r.s.es, So strong you thump, O terrible drums--so loud you bugles blow.

_SONG OF THE BANNER AT DAYBREAK._

POET.

O a new song, a free song, Flapping, flapping, flapping, flapping, by sounds, by voices clearer, By the wind's voice and that of the drum, By the banner's voice, and child's voice, and sea's voice, and father's voice, Low on the ground and high in the air, On the ground where father and child stand, In the upward air where their eyes turn, Where the banner at daybreak is flapping.

Words! book-words! what are you?

Words no more, for hearken and see, My song is there in the open air--and I must sing, With the banner and pennant a-flapping.