1
WEAPON, shapely, naked, wan! | |
| Head from the mother’s bowels drawn! | |
| Wooded flesh and metal bone! limb only one, and lip only one! | |
| Gray-blue leaf by red-heat grown! helve produced from a little seed sown! | |
| Resting the grass amid and upon, | 5 |
| To be lean’d, and to lean on. | |
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| Strong shapes, and attributes of strong shapes—masculine trades, sights and sounds; | |
| Long varied train of an emblem, dabs of music; | |
| Fingers of the organist skipping staccato over the keys of the great organ. | |
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2
Welcome are all earth’s lands, each for its kind; | 10 |
| Welcome are lands of pine and oak; | |
| Welcome are lands of the lemon and fig; | |
| Welcome are lands of gold; | |
| Welcome are lands of wheat and maize—welcome those of the grape; | |
| Welcome are lands of sugar and rice; | 15 |
| Welcome the cotton-lands—welcome those of the white potato and sweet potato; | |
| Welcome are mountains, flats, sands, forests, prairies; | |
| Welcome the rich borders of rivers, table-lands, openings; | |
| Welcome the measureless grazing-lands—welcome the teeming soil of orchards, flax, honey, hemp; | |
| Welcome just as much the other more hard-faced lands; | 20 |
| Lands rich as lands of gold, or wheat and fruit lands; | |
| Lands of mines, lands of the manly and rugged ores; | |
| Lands of coal, copper, lead, tin, zinc; | |
| LANDS OF IRON! lands of the make of the axe! | |
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3
The log at the wood-pile, the axe supported by it; | 25 |
| The sylvan hut, the vine over the doorway, the space clear’d for a garden, | |
| The irregular tapping of rain down on the leaves, after the storm is lull’d, | |
| The wailing and moaning at intervals, the thought of the sea, | |
| The thought of ships struck in the storm, and put on their beam ends, and the cutting away of masts; | |
| The sentiment of the huge timbers of old-fashion’d houses and barns; | 30 |
| The remember’d print or narrative, the voyage at a venture of men, families, goods, | |
| The disembarkation, the founding of a new city, | |
| The voyage of those who sought a New England and found it—the outset anywhere, | |
| The settlements of the Arkansas, Colorado, Ottawa, Willamette, | |
| The slow progress, the scant fare, the axe, rifle, saddle-bags; | 35 |
| The beauty of all adventurous and daring persons, | |
| The beauty of wood-boys and wood-men, with their clear untrimm’d faces, | |
| The beauty of independence, departure, actions that rely on themselves, | |
| The American contempt for statutes and ceremonies, the boundless impatience of restraint, | |
| The loose drift of character, the inkling through random types, the solidification; | 40 |
| The butcher in the slaughter-house, the hands aboard schooners and sloops, the raftsman, the pioneer, | |
| Lumbermen in their winter camp, day-break in the woods, stripes of snow on the limbs of trees, the occasional snapping, | |
| The glad clear sound of one’s own voice, the merry song, the natural life of the woods, the strong day’s work, | |
| The blazing fire at night, the sweet taste of supper, the talk, the bed of hemlock boughs, and the bear-skin; | |
| —The house-builder at work in cities or anywhere, | 45 |
| The preparatory jointing, squaring, sawing, mortising, | |
| The hoist-up of beams, the push of them in their places, laying them regular, | |
| Setting the studs by their tenons in the mortises, according as they were prepared, | |
| The blows of mallets and hammers, the attitudes of the men, their curv’d limbs, | |
| Bending, standing, astride the beams, driving in pins, holding on by posts and braces, | 50 |
| The hook’d arm over the plate, the other arm wielding the axe, | |
| The floor-men forcing the planks close, to be nail’d, | |
| Their postures bringing their weapons downward on the bearers, | |
| The echoes resounding through the vacant building; | |
| The huge store-house carried up in the city, well under way, | 55 |
| The six framing-men, two in the middle, and two at each end, carefully bearing on their shoulders a heavy stick for a cross-beam, | |
| The crowded line of masons with trowels in their right hands, rapidly laying the long side-wall, two hundred feet from front to rear, | |
| The flexible rise and fall of backs, the continual click of the trowels striking the bricks, | |
| The bricks, one after another, each laid so workmanlike in its place, and set with a knock of the trowel-handle, | |
| The piles of materials, the mortar on the mortar-boards, and the steady replenishing by the hod-men; | 60 |
| —Spar-makers in the spar-yard, the swarming row of well-grown apprentices, | |
| The swing of their axes on the square-hew’d log, shaping it toward the shape of a mast, | |
| The brisk short crackle of the steel driven slantingly into the pine, | |
| The butter-color’d chips flying off in great flakes and slivers, | |
| The limber motion of brawny young arms and hips in easy costumes; | 65 |
| The constructor of wharves, bridges, piers, bulk-heads, floats, stays against the sea; | |
| —The city fireman—the fire that suddenly bursts forth in the close-pack’d square, | |
| The arriving engines, the hoarse shouts, the nimble stepping and daring, | |
| The strong command through the fire-trumpets, the falling in line, the rise and fall of the arms forcing the water, | |
| The slender, spasmic, blue-white jets—the bringing to bear of the hooks and ladders, and their execution, | 70 |
| The crash and cut away of connecting wood-work, or through floors, if the fire smoulders under them, | |
| The crowd with their lit faces, watching—the glare and dense shadows; | |
| —The forger at his forge-furnace, and the user of iron after him, | |
| The maker of the axe large and small, and the welder and temperer, | |
| The chooser breathing his breath on the cold steel, and trying the edge with his thumb, | 75 |
| The one who clean-shapes the handle, and sets it firmly in the socket; | |
| The shadowy processions of the portraits of the past users also, | |
| The primal patient mechanics, the architects and engineers, | |
| The far-off Assyrian edifice and Mizra edifice, | |
| The Roman lictors preceding the consuls, | 80 |
| The antique European warrior with his axe in combat, | |
| The uplifted arm, the clatter of blows on the helmeted head, | |
| The death-howl, the limpsey tumbling body, the rush of friend and foe thither, | |
| The siege of revolted lieges determin’d for liberty, | |
| The summons to surrender, the battering at castle gates, the truce and parley; | 85 |
| The sack of an old city in its time, | |
| The bursting in of mercenaries and bigots tumultuously and disorderly, | |
| Roar, flames, blood, drunkenness, madness, | |
| Goods freely rifled from houses and temples, screams of women in the gripe of brigands, | |
| Craft and thievery of camp-followers, men running, old persons despairing, | 90 |
| The hell of war, the cruelties of creeds, | |
| The list of all executive deeds and words, just or unjust, | |
| The power of personality, just or unjust. | |
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4
Muscle and pluck forever! | |
| What invigorates life, invigorates death, | 95 |
| And the dead advance as much as the living advance, | |
| And the future is no more uncertain than the present, | |
| And the roughness of the earth and of man encloses as much as the delicatesse of the earth and of man, | |
| And nothing endures but personal qualities. | |
| What do you think endures? | 100 |
| Do you think the great city endures? | |
| Or a teeming manufacturing state? or a prepared constitution? or the best-built steamships? | |
| Or hotels of granite and iron? or any chef-d’oeuvres of engineering, forts, armaments? | |
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| Away! These are not to be cherish’d for themselves; | |
| They fill their hour, the dancers dance, the musicians play for them; | 105 |
| The show passes, all does well enough of course, | |
| All does very well till one flash of defiance. | |
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| The great city is that which has the greatest man or woman; | |
| If it be a few ragged huts, it is still the greatest city in the whole world. | |
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5
The place where the great city stands is not the place of stretch’d wharves, docks, manufactures, deposits of produce, | 110 |
| Nor the place of ceaseless salutes of new comers, or the anchor-lifters of the departing, | |
| Nor the place of the tallest and costliest buildings, or shops selling goods from the rest of the earth, | |
| Nor the place of the best libraries and schools—nor the place where money is plentiest, | |
| Nor the place of the most numerous population. | |
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| Where the city stands with the brawniest breed of orators and bards; | 115 |
| Where the city stands that is beloved by these, and loves them in return, and understands them; | |
| Where no monuments exist to heroes, but in the common words and deeds; | |
| Where thrift is in its place, and prudence is in its place; | |
| Where the men and women think lightly of the laws; | |
| Where the slave ceases, and the master of slaves ceases; | 120 |
| Where the populace rise at once against the never-ending audacity of elected persons; | |
| Where fierce men and women pour forth, as the sea to the whistle of death pours its sweeping and unript waves; | |
| Where outside authority enters always after the precedence of inside authority; | |
| Where the citizen is always the head and ideal—and President, Mayor, Governor, and what not, are agents for pay; | |
| Where children are taught to be laws to themselves, and to depend on themselves; | 125 |
| Where equanimity is illustrated in affairs; | |
| Where speculations on the Soul are encouraged; | |
| Where women walk in public processions in the streets, the same as the men, | |
| Where they enter the public assembly and take places the same as the men; | |
| Where the city of the faithfulest friends stands; | 130 |
| Where the city of the cleanliness of the sexes stands; | |
| Where the city of the healthiest fathers stands; | |
| Where the city of the best-bodied mothers stands, | |
| There the great city stands. | |
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6
How beggarly appear arguments before a defiant deed! | 135 |
| How the floridness of the materials of cities shrivels before a man’s or woman’s look! | |
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| All waits, or goes by default, till a strong being appears; | |
| A strong being is the proof of the race, and of the ability of the universe; | |
| When he or she appears, materials are overaw’d, | |
| The dispute on the Soul stops, | 140 |
| The old customs and phrases are confronted, turn’d back, or laid away. | |
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| What is your money-making now? what can it do now? | |
| What is your respectability now? | |
| What are your theology, tuition, society, traditions, statute-books, now? | |
| Where are your jibes of being now? | 145 |
| Where are your cavils about the Soul now? | |
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7
A sterile landscape covers the ore—there is as good as the best, for all the forbidding appearance; | |
| There is the mine, there are the miners; | |
| The forge-furnace is there, the melt is accomplish’d; the hammers-men are at hand with their tongs and hammers; | |
| What always served, and always serves, is at hand. | 150 |
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| Than this, nothing has better served—it has served all: | |
| Served the fluent-tongued and subtle-sensed Greek, and long ere the Greek: | |
| Served in building the buildings that last longer than any; | |
| Served the Hebrew, the Persian, the most ancient Hindostanee; | |
| Served the mound-raiser on the Mississippi—served those whose relics remain in Central America; | 155 |
| Served Albic temples in woods or on plains, with unhewn pillars, and the druids; | |
| Served the artificial clefts, vast, high, silent, on the snow-cover’d hills of Scandinavia; | |
| Served those who, time out of mind, made on the granite walls rough sketches of the sun, moon, stars, ships, ocean-waves; | |
| Served the paths of the irruptions of the Goths—served the pastoral tribes and nomads; | |
| Served the long, long distant Kelt—served the hardy pirates of the Baltic; | 160 |
| Served before any of those, the venerable and harmless men of Ethiopia; | |
| Served the making of helms for the galleys of pleasure, and the making of those for war; | |
| Served all great works on land, and all great works on the sea; | |
| For the mediæval ages, and before the mediæval ages; | |
| Served not the living only, then as now, but served the dead. | 165 |
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8
I see the European headsman; | |
| He stands mask’d, clothed in red, with huge legs, and strong naked arms, | |
| And leans on a ponderous axe. | |
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| (Whom have you slaughter’d lately, European headsman? | |
| Whose is that blood upon you, so wet and sticky?) | 170 |
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| I see the clear sunsets of the martyrs; | |
| I see from the scaffolds the descending ghosts, | |
| Ghosts of dead lords, uncrown’d ladies, impeach’d ministers, rejected kings, | |
| Rivals, traitors, poisoners, disgraced chieftains, and the rest. | |
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| I see those who in any land have died for the good cause; | 175 |
| The seed is spare, nevertheless the crop shall never run out; | |
| (Mind you, O foreign kings, O priests, the crop shall never run out.) | |
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| I see the blood wash’d entirely away from the axe; | |
| Both blade and helve are clean; | |
| They spirt no more the blood of European nobles—they clasp no more the necks of queens. | 180 |
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| I see the headsman withdraw and become useless; | |
| I see the scaffold untrodden and mouldy—I see no longer any axe upon it; | |
| I see the mighty and friendly emblem of the power of my own race—the newest, largest race. | |
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9
(America! I do not vaunt my love for you; | |
| I have what I have.) | 185 |
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| The axe leaps! | |
| The solid forest gives fluid utterances; | |
| They tumble forth, they rise and form, | |
| Hut, tent, landing, survey, | |
| Flail, plough, pick, crowbar, spade, | 190 |
| Shingle, rail, prop, wainscot, jamb, lath, panel, gable, | |
| Citadel, ceiling, saloon, academy, organ, exhibition-house, library, | |
| Cornice, trellis, pilaster, balcony, window, shutter, turret, porch, | |
| Hoe, rake, pitch-fork, pencil, wagon, staff, saw, jack-plane, mallet, wedge, rounce, | |
| Chair, tub, hoop, table, wicket, vane, sash, floor, | 195 |
| Work-box, chest, string’d instrument, boat, frame, and what not, | |
| Capitols of States, and capitol of the nation of States, | |
| Long stately rows in avenues, hospitals for orphans, or for the poor or sick, | |
| Manhattan steamboats and clippers, taking the measure of all seas. | |
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| The shapes arise! | 200 |
| Shapes of the using of axes anyhow, and the users, and all that neighbors them, | |
| Cutters down of wood, and haulers of it to the Penobscot or Kennebec, | |
| Dwellers in cabins among the California mountains, or by the little lakes, or on the Columbia, | |
| Dwellers south on the banks of the Gila or Rio Grande—friendly gatherings, the characters and fun, | |
| Dwellers up north in Minnesota and by the Yellowstone river—dwellers on coasts and off coasts, | 205 |
| Seal-fishers, whalers, arctic seamen breaking passages through the ice. | |
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| The shapes arise! | |
| Shapes of factories, arsenals, foundries, markets; | |
| Shapes of the two-threaded tracks of railroads; | |
| Shapes of the sleepers of bridges, vast frameworks, girders, arches; | 210 |
| Shapes of the fleets of barges, towns, lake and canal craft, river craft. | |
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| The shapes arise! | |
| Ship-yards and dry-docks along the Eastern and Western Seas, and in many a bay and by-place, | |
| The live-oak kelsons, the pine planks, the spars, the hackmatack-roots for knees, | |
| The ships themselves on their ways, the tiers of scaffolds, the workmen busy outside and inside, | 215 |
| The tools lying around, the great auger and little auger, the adze, bolt, line, square, gouge, and bead-plane. | |
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10
The shapes arise! | |
| The shape measur’d, saw’d, jack’d, join’d, stain’d, | |
| The coffin-shape for the dead to lie within in his shroud; | |
| The shape got out in posts, in the bedstead posts, in the posts of the bride’s bed; | 220 |
| The shape of the little trough, the shape of the rockers beneath, the shape of the babe’s cradle; | |
| The shape of the floor-planks, the floor-planks for dancers’ feet; | |
| The shape of the planks of the family home, the home of the friendly parents and children, | |
| The shape of the roof of the home of the happy young man and woman—the roof over the well-married young man and woman, | |
| The roof over the supper joyously cook’d by the chaste wife, and joyously eaten by the chaste husband, content after his day’s work. | 225 |
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| The shapes arise! | |
| The shape of the prisoner’s place in the court-room, and of him or her seated in the place; | |
| The shape of the liquor-bar lean’d against by the young rum-drinker and the old rum-drinker; | |
| The shape of the shamed and angry stairs, trod by sneaking footsteps; | |
| The shape of the sly settee, and the adulterous unwholesome couple; | 230 |
| The shape of the gambling-board with its devilish winnings and losings; | |
| The shape of the step-ladder for the convicted and sentenced murderer, the murderer with haggard face and pinion’d arms, | |
| The sheriff at hand with his deputies, the silent and white-lipp’d crowd, the dangling of the rope. | |
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| The shapes arise! | |
| Shapes of doors giving many exits and entrances; | 235 |
| The door passing the dissever’d friend, flush’d and in haste; | |
| The door that admits good news and bad news; | |
| The door whence the son left home, confident and puff’d up; | |
| The door he enter’d again from a long and scandalous absence, diseas’d, broken down, without innocence, without means. | |
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11
Her shape arises, | 240 |
| She, less guarded than ever, yet more guarded than ever; | |
| The gross and soil’d she moves among do not make her gross and soil’d; | |
| She knows the thoughts as she passes—nothing is conceal’d from her; | |
| She is none the less considerate or friendly therefor; | |
| She is the best belov’d—it is without exception—she has no reason to fear, and she does not fear; | 245 |
| Oaths, quarrels, hiccupp’d songs, smutty expressions, are idle to her as she passes; | |
| She is silent—she is possess’d of herself—they do not offend her; | |
| She receives them as the laws of nature receive them—she is strong, | |
| She too is a law of nature—there is no law stronger than she is. | |
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12
The main shapes arise! | 250 |
| Shapes of Democracy, total—result of centuries; | |
| Shapes, ever projecting other shapes; | |
| Shapes of turbulent manly cities; | |
| Shapes of the friends and home-givers of the whole earth, | |
| Shapes bracing the earth, and braced with the whole earth. | 255 |