Poems By Walt Whitman Part 9

I see the Brazilian vaquero; I see the Bolivian ascending Mount Sorata; I see the Wacho crossing the plains--I see the incomparable rider of horses with his la.s.so on his arm; I see over the pampas the pursuit of wild cattle for their hides.

8.

I see little and large sea-dots, some inhabited, some uninhabited; I see two boats with nets, lying off the sh.o.r.e of Paumanok, quite still; I see ten fishermen waiting--they discover now a thick school of mossbonkers--they drop the joined sein-ends in the water, The boats separate--they diverge and row off, each on its rounding course to the beach, enclosing the mossbonkers; The net is drawn in by a windla.s.s by those who stop ash.o.r.e, Some of the fishermen lounge in their boats--others stand negligently ankle-deep in the water, poised on strong legs; The boats are partly drawn up--the water slaps against them; On the sand, in heaps and winrows, well out from the water, lie the green- backed spotted mossbonkers.

9.

I see the despondent red man in the west, lingering about the banks of Moingo, and about Lake Pepin; He has heard the quail and beheld the honey-bee, and sadly prepared to depart.

I see the regions of snow and ice; I see the sharp-eyed Samoiede and the Finn; I see the seal-seeker in his boat, poising his lance; I see the Siberian on his slight-built sledge, drawn by dogs; I see the porpess-hunters--I see the whale-crews of the South Pacific and the North Atlantic; I see the cliffs, glaciers, torrents, valleys, of Switzerland--I mark the long winters, and the isolation.

I see the cities of the earth, and make myself at random a part of them; I am a real Parisian; I am a habitant of Vienna, St. Petersburg, Berlin, Constantinople; I am of Adelaide, Sidney, Melbourne; I am of London, Manchester, Bristol, Edinburgh, Limerick, I am of Madrid, Cadiz, Barcelona, Oporto, Lyons, Brussels, Berne, Frankfort, Stuttgart, Turin, Florence; I belong in Moscow, Cracow, Warsaw--or northward in Christiania or Stockholm--or in Siberian Irkutsk--or in some street in Iceland; I descend upon all those cities, and rise from them again.

10.

I see vapours exhaling from unexplored countries; I see the savage types, the bow and arrow, the poisoned splint, the fetish, and the obi.

I see African and Asiatic towns; I see Algiers, Tripoli, Derne, Mogadore, Timbuctoo, Monrovia; I see the swarms of Pekin, Canton, Benares, Delhi, Calcutta, Yedo; I see the Kruman in his hut, and the Dahoman and Ashantee-man in their huts; I see the Turk smoking opium in Aleppo; I see the picturesque crowds at the fairs of Khiva, and those of Herat; I see Teheran--I see Muscat and Medina, and the intervening sands--I see the caravans toiling onward; I see Egypt and the Egyptians--I see the pyramids and obelisks; I look on chiselled histories, songs, philosophies, cut in slabs of sandstone or on granite blocks; I see at Memphis mummy-pits, containing mummies, embalmed, swathed in linen cloth, lying there many centuries; I look on the fallen Theban, the large-balled eyes, the side-drooping neck, the hands folded across the breast.

I see the menials of the earth, labouring; I see the prisoners in the prisons; I see the defective human bodies of the earth; I see the blind, the deaf and dumb, idiots, hunchbacks, lunatics; I see the pirates, thieves, betrayers, murderers, slave-makers of the earth; I see the helpless infants, and the helpless old men and women.

I see male and female everywhere; I see the serene brotherhood of philosophs; I see the constructiveness of my race; I see the results of the perseverance and industry of my race; I see ranks, colours, barbarisms, civilisations--I go among them--I mix indiscriminately, And I salute all the inhabitants of the earth.

11.

You, where you are!

You daughter or son of England!

You of the mighty Slavic tribes and empires! you Russ in Russia!

You dim-descended, black, divine-souled African, large, fine-headed, n.o.bly-formed, superbly destined, on equal terms with me!

You Norwegian! Swede! Dane! Icelander! you Prussian!

You Spaniard of Spain! you Portuguese!

You Frenchwoman and Frenchman of France!

You Belge! you liberty-lover of the Netherlands!

You st.u.r.dy Austrian! you Lombard! Hun! Bohemian! farmer of Styria!

You neighbour of the Danube!

You working-man of the Rhine, the Elbe, or the Weser! you working-woman too!

You Sardinian! you Bavarian! Swabian! Saxon! Wallachian! Bulgarian!

You citizen of Prague! Roman! Neapolitan! Greek!

You lithe matador in the arena at Seville!

You mountaineer living lawlessly on the Taurus or Caucasus!

You Bokh horse-herd, watching your mares and stallions feeding!

You beautiful-bodied Persian, at full speed in the saddle shooting arrows to the mark!

You Chinaman and Chinawoman of China! you Tartar of Tartary!

You women of the earth subordinated at your tasks!

You Jew journeying in your old age through every risk, to stand once on Syrian ground!

You other Jews waiting in all lands for your Messiah!

You thoughtful Armenian, pondering by some stream of the Euphrates! you peering amid the ruins of Nineveh! you ascending Mount Ararat!

You foot-worn pilgrim welcoming the far-away sparkle of the minarets of Mecca!

You sheiks along the stretch from Suez to Babelmandeb, ruling your families and tribes!

You olive-grower tending your fruit on fields of Nazareth, Damascus, or Lake Tiberias!

You Thibet trader on the wide inland, or bargaining in the shops of La.s.sa!

You j.a.panese man or woman! you liver in Madagascar, Ceylon, Sumatra, Borneo!

All you continentals of Asia, Africa, Europe, Australia, indifferent of place!

All you on the numberless islands of the archipelagoes of the sea!

And you of centuries hence, when you listen to me!

And you, each and everywhere, whom I specify not, but include just the same!

Health to you! Goodwill to you all--from me and America sent.

Each of us inevitable; Each of us limitless--each of us with his or her right upon the earth; Each of us allowed the eternal purports of the earth: Each of us here as divinely as any is here.

12.

You Hottentot with clicking palate! You woolly-haired hordes!

You owned persons, dropping sweat-drops or blood-drops!

You human forms with the fathomless ever-impressive countenances of brutes!

I dare not refuse you--the scope of the world, and of time and s.p.a.ce, are upon me.

You poor koboo whom the meanest of the rest look down upon, for all your glimmering language and spirituality!

You low expiring aborigines of the hills of Utah, Oregon, California!

You dwarfed Kamtschatkan, Greenlander, Lap!

You Austral negro, naked, red, sooty, with protrusive lip, grovelling, seeking your food!

You Caffre, Berber, Soudanese!

You haggard, uncouth, untutored Bedowee!

You plague-swarms in Madras, Nankin, Kaubul, Cairo!

You bather bathing in the Ganges!

You benighted roamer of Amazonia! you Patagonian! you Fejee-man!

You peon of Mexico! you slave of Carolina, Texas, Tennessee!

I do not prefer others so very much before you either; I do not say one word against you, away back there, where you stand; You will come forward in due time to my side.

My spirit has pa.s.sed in compa.s.sion and determination around the whole earth; I have looked for equals and lovers, and found them ready for me in all lands; I think some divine rapport has equalised me with them.

13.

O vapours! I think I have risen with you, and moved away to distant continents, and fallen down there, for reasons; I think I have blown with you, O winds; O waters, I have fingered every sh.o.r.e with you.

I have run through what any river or strait of the globe has run through; I have taken my stand on the bases of peninsulas, and on the highest embedded rocks, to cry thence.

_Salut au Monde!_ What cities the light or warmth penetrates, I penetrate those cities myself; All islands to which birds wing their way, I wing my way myself.

Toward all I raise high the perpendicular hand--I make the signal, To remain after me in sight for ever, For all the haunts and homes of men.