Poems by Walt Whitman

by Walt Whitman

Libertad!
I do not know whether others behold what I behold,
In the procession, along with the Princes of Asia, the errand-bearers,
Bringing up the rear, hovering above, around, or in the ranks marching;
But I will sing you a song of what I behold, Libertad.

3.

When million-footed Manhattan, unpent, descends to its pavements;
When the thunder-cracking guns arouse me with the proud roar I love;
When the round-mouthed guns, out of the smoke and smell I love, spit their
salutes;
When the fire-flashing guns have fully alerted me—when heaven-clouds
canopy my city with a delicate thin haze;
When, gorgeous, the countless straight stems, the forests at the wharves,
thicken with colours;
When every ship, richly dressed, carries her flag at the peak;
When pennants trail, and street-festoons hang from the windows;
When Broadway is entirely given up to foot-passengers and foot-standers—
when the mass is densest;
When the façades of the houses are alive with people—when eyes gaze,
riveted, tens of thousands at a time;
When the guests from the islands advance—when the pageant moves forward,
visible;
When the summons is made—when the answer, that waited thousands of years,
answers;
I too, arising, answering, descend to the pavements, merge with the crowd,
and gaze with them.

4.

Superb-faced Manhattan!
Comrade Americanos!—to us, then, at last, the Orient comes.
To us, my city,
Where our tall-topped marble and iron beauties range on opposite sides—to
walk in the space between,
To-day our Antipodes comes.

The Originatress comes,
The land of Paradise—land of the Caucasus—the nest of birth,
The nest of languages, the bequeather of poems, the race of eld,
Florid with blood, pensive, rapt with musings, hot with passion,
Sultry with perfume, with ample and flowing garments,
With sunburnt visage, with intense soul and glittering eyes,
The race of Brahma comes!

See, my cantabile! these, and more, are flashing to us from the procession;
As it moves changing, a kaleidoscope divine it moves changing before us.

Not the errand-bearing princes, nor the tanned Japanee only;
Lithe and silent, the Hindoo appears—the whole Asiatic continent itself
appears—the Past, the dead,
The murky night-morning of wonder and fable, inscrutable,
The enveloped mysteries, the old and unknown hive-bees,
The North—the sweltering South—Assyria—the Hebrews—the Ancient of
ancients,
Vast desolated cities—the gliding Present—all of these, and more, are in
the pageant-procession.

Geography, the world, is in it;
The Great Sea, the brood of islands, Polynesia, the coast beyond;
The coast you henceforth are facing—you Libertad! from your Western golden
shores;
The countries there, with their populations—the millions en masse, are
curiously here;
The swarming market-places—the temples, with idols ranged along the sides,
or at the end—bronze, brahmin, and lama;
The mandarin, farmer, merchant, mechanic, and fisherman;
The singing-girl and the dancing-girl—the ecstatic person—the divine
Buddha;
The secluded Emperors—Confucius himself—the great poets and heroes—the
warriors, the castes, all,
Trooping up, crowding from all directions—from the Altay mountains,
From Thibet—from the four winding and far-flowing rivers
of China,
From the Southern peninsulas, and the demi-continental islands—from
Malaysia;
These, and whatever belongs to them, palpable, show forth to me, and are
seized by me,
And I am seized by them, and friendlily held by them,
Till, as here, them all I chant, Libertad! for themselves and for you.

5.