} Thou Orb Aloft Full-Dazzling
Thou orb aloft full-dazzling! thou hot October noon! Flooding with sheeny light the gray beach sand, The sibilant near sea with vistas far and foam, And tawny streaks and shades and spreading blue; O sun of noon refulgent! my special word to thee.
Hear me illustrious! Thy lover me, for always I have loved thee, Even as basking babe, then happy boy alone by some wood edge, thy touching-distant beams enough, Or man matured, or young or old, as now to thee I launch my invocation.
(Thou canst not with thy dumbness me deceive, I know before the fitting man all Nature yields, Though answering not in words, the skies, trees, hear his voice--and thou O sun, As for thy throes, thy perturbations, sudden breaks and shafts of flame gigantic, I understand them, I know those flames, those perturbations well.)
Thou that with fructifying heat and light, O'er myriad farms, o'er lands and waters North and South, O'er Mississippi's endless course, o'er Texas' grassy plains, Kanada's woods, O'er all the globe that turns its face to thee shining in space, Thou that impartially enfoldest all, not only continents, seas, Thou that to grapes and weeds and little wild flowers givest so liberally, Shed, shed thyself on mine and me, with but a fleeting ray out of thy million millions, Strike through these chants.
Nor only launch thy subtle dazzle and thy strength for these, Prepare the later afternoon of me myself--prepare my lengthening shadows, Prepare my starry nights.
} Faces
1 Sauntering the pavement or riding the country by-road, faces! Faces of friendship, precision, caution, suavity, ideality, The spiritual-prescient face, the always welcome common benevolent face, The face of the singing of music, the grand faces of natural lawyers and judges broad at the back-top, The faces of hunters and fishers bulged at the brows, the shaved blanch'd faces of orthodox citizens, The pure, extravagant, yearning, questioning artist's face, The ugly face of some beautiful soul, the handsome detested or despised face, The sacred faces of infants, the illuminated face of the mother of many children, The face of an amour, the face of veneration, The face as of a dream, the face of an immobile rock, The face withdrawn of its good and bad, a castrated face, A wild hawk, his wings clipp'd by the clipper, A stallion that yielded at last to the thongs and knife of the gelder.
Sauntering the pavement thus, or crossing the ceaseless ferry, faces and faces and faces, I see them and complain not, and am content with all.
2 Do you suppose I could be content with all if I thought them their own finale?
This now is too lamentable a face for a man, Some abject louse asking leave to be, cringing for it, Some milk-nosed maggot blessing what lets it wrig to its hole.
This face is a dog's snout sniffing for garbage, Snakes nest in that mouth, I hear the sibilant threat.
This face is a haze more chill than the arctic sea, Its sleepy and wobbling icebergs crunch as they go.
This is a face of bitter herbs, this an emetic, they need no label, And more of the drug-shelf, laudanum, caoutchouc, or hog's-lard.
This face is an epilepsy, its wordless tongue gives out the unearthly cry, Its veins down the neck distend, its eyes roll till they show nothing but their whites, Its teeth grit, the palms of the hands are cut by the turn'd-in nails, The man falls struggling and foaming to the ground, while he speculates well.
This face is bitten by vermin and worms, And this is some murderer's knife with a half-pull'd scabbard.
This face owes to the sexton his dismalest fee, An unceasing death-bell tolls there.
YOU ARE READING
Leaves of Grass (Completed)
ClassicsThe use of explicit language in this text has been the reason behind attempted bannings. "Leaves of Grass is a poetry collection by the American poet Walt Whitman. This book is notable for its delight in and praise of the senses during a time when s...
