• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

I announce splendors and majesties to make all the previous politics

of the earth insignificant.

I announce adhesiveness, I say it shall be limitless, unloosen'd,

I say you shall yet find the friend you were looking for.

I announce a man or woman coming, perhaps you are the one, (So long!)

I announce the great individual, fluid as Nature, chaste,

affectionate, compassionate, fully arm'd.

I announce a life that shall be copious, vehement, spiritual, bold,

I announce an end that shall lightly and joyfully meet its translation.

I announce myriads of youths, beautiful, gigantic, sweet-blooded,

I announce a race of splendid and savage old men.

O thicker and faster—(So long!)

O crowding too close upon me,

I foresee too much, it means more than I thought,

It appears to me I am dying.

Hasten throat and sound your last,

Salute me—salute the days once more. Peal the old cry once more.

Screaming electric, the atmosphere using,

At random glancing, each as I notice absorbing,

Swiftly on, but a little while alighting,

Curious envelop'd messages delivering,

Sparkles hot, seed ethereal down in the dirt dropping,

Myself unknowing, my commission obeying, to question it never daring,

To ages and ages yet the growth of the seed leaving,

To troops out of the war arising, they the tasks I have set

promulging,

To women certain whispers of myself bequeathing, their affection

me more clearly explaining,

To young men my problems offering—no dallier I—I the muscle of

their brains trying,

So I pass, a little time vocal, visible, contrary,

Afterward a melodious echo, passionately bent for, (death making

me really undying,)

The best of me then when no longer visible, for toward that I have

been incessantly preparing.

What is there more, that I lag and pause and crouch extended with

unshut mouth?

Is there a single final farewell?

My songs cease, I abandon them,

From behind the screen where I hid I advance personally solely to you.

Camerado, this is no book,

Who touches this touches a man,

(Is it night? are we here together alone?)

It is I you hold and who holds you,

I spring from the pages into your arms—decease calls me forth.

O how your fingers drowse me,

Your breath falls around me like dew, your pulse lulls the tympans

of my ears,

I feel immerged from head to foot,

Delicious, enough.

Enough O deed impromptu and secret,

Enough O gliding present—enough O summ'd-up past.

Dear friend whoever you are take this kiss,

I give it especially to you, do not forget me,

I feel like one who has done work for the day to retire awhile,

I receive now again of my many translations, from my avataras

ascending, while others doubtless await me,

An unknown sphere more real than I dream'd, more direct, darts

awakening rays about me, So long!

Remember my words, I may again return,

I love you, I depart from materials,

I am as one disembodied, triumphant, dead.

BOOK XXXIV. SANDS AT SEVENTY

Mannahatta

My city's fit and noble name resumed,

Choice aboriginal name, with marvellous beauty, meaning,

A rocky founded island—shores where ever gayly dash the coming,

going, hurrying sea waves.

Paumanok

Sea-beauty! stretch'd and basking!

One side thy inland ocean laving, broad, with copious commerce,

steamers, sails,

And one the Atlantic's wind caressing, fierce or gentle—mighty hulls

dark-gliding in the distance.

Isle of sweet brooks of drinking-water—healthy air and soil!

Isle of the salty shore and breeze and brine!

From Montauk Point

I stand as on some mighty eagle's beak,

Eastward the sea absorbing, viewing, (nothing but sea and sky,)

The tossing waves, the foam, the ships in the distance,

The wild unrest, the snowy, curling caps—that inbound urge and urge

of waves,

Seeking the shores forever.

To Those Who've Fail'd

To those who've fail'd, in aspiration vast,

To unnam'd soldiers fallen in front on the lead,

To calm, devoted engineers—to over-ardent travelers—to pilots on

their ships,

To many a lofty song and picture