Poem by Walt Whitman

Leaves of Grass. 17. Birds of Passage. 4. France [the 18th Year of these States]

A great year and place
A harsh discordant natal scream out-sounding, to touch the mother's
      heart closer than any yet.

I walk'd the shores of my Eastern sea,
Heard over the waves the little voice,
Saw the divine infant where she woke mournfully wailing, amid the
      roar of cannon, curses, shouts, crash of falling buildings,
Was not so sick from the blood in the gutters running, nor from the single
      corpses, nor those in heaps, nor those borne away in the tumbrils,
Was not so desperate at the battues of death—was not so shock'd at
      the repeated fusillades of the guns.

Pale, silent, stern, what could I say to that long-accrued retribution?
Could I wish humanity different?
Could I wish the people made of wood and stone?
Or that there be no justice in destiny or time?

O Liberty! O mate for me!
Here too the blaze, the grape-shot and the axe, in reserve, to fetch
      them out in case of need,
Here too, though long represt, can never be destroy'd,
Here too could rise at last murdering and ecstatic,
Here too demanding full arrears of vengeance.

Hence I sign this salute over the sea,
And I do not deny that terrible red birth and baptism,
But remember the little voice that I heard wailing, and wait with
      perfect trust, no matter how long,
And from to-day sad and cogent I maintain the bequeath'd cause, as
      for all lands,
And I send these words to Paris with my love,
And I guess some chansonniers there will understand them,
For I guess there is latent music yet in France, floods of it,
O I hear already the bustle of instruments, they will soon be
      drowning all that would interrupt them,
O I think the east wind brings a triumphal and free march,
It reaches hither, it swells me to Joyful madness,
I will run transpose it in words, to justify
I will yet sing a song for you ma femme.

1. Leaves of Grass. 34. Sands at Seventy. 14. Memories
2. Leaves of Grass. 34. Sands at Seventy. 15. To-Day and Thee
3. Leaves of Grass. 34. Sands at Seventy. 33. “Going Somewhere”
4. Leaves of Grass. 20. By the Roadside. 28. Offerings
5. Leaves of Grass. 30. Whispers of Heavenly Death. 5. Yet, Yet, Ye Downcast Hours

Print

1658 Views

Last Poems

To Russian version