1
I WANDER all night in my vision, | |
| Stepping with light feet, swiftly and noiselessly stepping and stopping, | |
| Bending with open eyes over the shut eyes of sleepers, | |
| Wandering and confused, lost to myself, ill-assorted, contradictory, | |
| Pausing, gazing, bending, and stopping. | 5 |
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| How solemn they look there, stretch’d and still! | |
| How quiet they breathe, the little children in their cradles! | |
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| The wretched features of ennuyés, the white features of corpses, the livid faces of drunkards, the sick-gray faces of onanists, | |
| The gash’d bodies on battle-fields, the insane in their strong-door’d rooms, the sacred idiots, the new-born emerging from gates, and the dying emerging from gates, | |
| The night pervades them and infolds them. | 10 |
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| The married couple sleep calmly in their bed—he with his palm on the hip of the wife, and she with her palm on the hip of the husband, | |
| The sisters sleep lovingly side by side in their bed, | |
| The men sleep lovingly side by side in theirs, | |
| And the mother sleeps, with her little child carefully wrapt. | |
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| The blind sleep, and the deaf and dumb sleep, | 15 |
| The prisoner sleeps well in the prison—the run-away son sleeps; | |
| The murderer that is to be hung next day—how does he sleep? | |
| And the murder’d person—how does he sleep? | |
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| The female that loves unrequited sleeps, | |
| And the male that loves unrequited sleeps, | 20 |
| The head of the money-maker that plotted all day sleeps, | |
| And the enraged and treacherous dispositions—all, all sleep. | |
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2
I stand in the dark with drooping eyes by the worst-suffering and the most restless, | |
| I pass my hands soothingly to and fro a few inches from them, | |
| The restless sink in their beds—they fitfully sleep. | 25 |
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| Now I pierce the darkness—new beings appear, | |
| The earth recedes from me into the night, | |
| I saw that it was beautiful, and I see that what is not the earth is beautiful. | |
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| I go from bedside to bedside—I sleep close with the other sleepers, each in turn, | |
| I dream in my dream all the dreams of the other dreamers, | 30 |
| And I become the other dreamers. | |
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3
I am a dance—Play up, there! the fit is whirling me fast! | |
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| I am the ever-laughing—it is new moon and twilight, | |
| I see the hiding of douceurs—I see nimble ghosts whichever way I look, | |
| Cache, and cache again, deep in the ground and sea, and where it is neither ground or sea. | 35 |
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| Well do they do their jobs, those journeymen divine, | |
| Only from me can they hide nothing, and would not if they could, | |
| I reckon I am their boss, and they make me a pet besides, | |
| And surround me and lead me, and run ahead when I walk, | |
| To lift their cunning covers, to signify me with stretch’d arms, and resume the way; | 40 |
| Onward we move! a gay gang of blackguards! with mirth-shouting music, and wild-flapping pennants of joy! | |
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4
I am the actor, the actress, the voter, the politician; | |
| The emigrant and the exile, the criminal that stood in the box, | |
| He who has been famous, and he who shall be famous after to-day, | |
| The stammerer, the well-form’d person, the wasted or feeble person. | 45 |
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5
I am she who adorn’d herself and folded her hair expectantly, | |
| My truant lover has come, and it is dark. | |
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| Double yourself and receive me, darkness! | |
| Receive me and my lover too—he will not let me go without him. | |
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| I roll myself upon you, as upon a bed—I resign myself to the dusk. | 50 |
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6
He whom I call answers me, and takes the place of my lover, | |
| He rises with me silently from the bed. | |
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| Darkness! you are gentler than my lover—his flesh was sweaty and panting, | |
| I feel the hot moisture yet that he left me. | |
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| My hands are spread forth, I pass them in all directions, | 55 |
| I would sound up the shadowy shore to which you are journeying. | |
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| Be careful, darkness! already, what was it touch’d me? | |
| I thought my lover had gone, else darkness and he are one, | |
| I hear the heart-beat—I follow, I fade away. | |
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7
O hot-cheek’d and blushing! O foolish hectic! | 60 |
| O for pity’s sake, no one must see me now! my clothes were stolen while I was abed, | |
| Now I am thrust forth, where shall I run? | |
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| Pier that I saw dimly last night, when I look’d from the windows! | |
| Pier out from the main, let me catch myself with you, and stay—I will not chafe you, | |
| I feel ashamed to go naked about the world. | 65 |
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| I am curious to know where my feet stand—and what this is flooding me, childhood or manhood—and the hunger that crosses the bridge between. | |
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8
The cloth laps a first sweet eating and drinking, | |
| Laps life-swelling yolks—laps ear of rose-corn, milky and just ripen’d; | |
| The white teeth stay, and the boss-tooth advances in darkness, | |
| And liquor is spill’d on lips and bosoms by touching glasses, and the best liquor afterward. | 70 |
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9
I descend my western course, my sinews are flaccid, | |
| Perfume and youth course through me, and I am their wake. | |
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| It is my face yellow and wrinkled, instead of the old woman’s, | |
| I sit low in a straw-bottom chair, and carefully darn my grandson’s stockings. | |
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| It is I too, the sleepless widow, looking out on the winter midnight, | 75 |
| I see the sparkles of starshine on the icy and pallid earth. | |
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| A shroud I see, and I am the shroud—I wrap a body, and lie in the coffin, | |
| It is dark here under ground—it is not evil or pain here—it is blank here, for reasons. | |
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| It seems to me that everything in the light and air ought to be happy, | |
| Whoever is not in his coffin and the dark grave, let him know he has enough. | 80 |
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10
I see a beautiful gigantic swimmer, swimming naked through the eddies of the sea, | |
| His brown hair lies close and even to his head—he strikes out with courageous arms—he urges himself with his legs, | |
| I see his white body—I see his undaunted eyes, | |
| I hate the swift-running eddies that would dash him head-foremost on the rocks. | |
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| What are you doing, you ruffianly red-trickled waves? | 85 |
| Will you kill the courageous giant? Will you kill him in the prime of his middle age? | |
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| Steady and long he struggles, | |
| He is baffled, bang’d, bruis’d—he holds out while his strength holds out, | |
| The slapping eddies are spotted with his blood—they bear him away—they roll him, swing him, turn him, | |
| His beautiful body is borne in the circling eddies, it is continually bruis’d on rocks, | 90 |
| Swiftly and out of sight is borne the brave corpse. | |
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11
I turn, but do not extricate myself, | |
| Confused, a past-reading, another, but with darkness yet. | |
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| The beach is cut by the razory ice-wind—the wreck-guns sound, | |
| The tempest lulls—the moon comes floundering through the drifts. | 95 |
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| I look where the ship helplessly heads end on—I hear the burst as she strikes—I hear the howls of dismay—they grow fainter and fainter. | |
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| I cannot aid with my wringing fingers, | |
| I can but rush to the surf, and let it drench me and freeze upon me. | |
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| I search with the crowd—not one of the company is wash’d to us alive; | |
| In the morning I help pick up the dead and lay them in rows in a barn. | 100 |
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12
Now of the older war-days, the defeat at Brooklyn, | |
| Washington stands inside the lines—he stands on the intrench’d hills, amid a crowd of officers, | |
| His face is cold and damp—he cannot repress the weeping drops, | |
| He lifts the glass perpetually to his eyes—the color is blanch’d from his cheeks, | |
| He sees the slaughter of the southern braves confided to him by their parents. | 105 |
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| The same, at last and at last, when peace is declared, | |
| He stands in the room of the old tavern—the well-belov’d soldiers all pass through, | |
| The officers speechless and slow draw near in their turns, | |
| The chief encircles their necks with his arm, and kisses them on the cheek, | |
| He kisses lightly the wet cheeks one after another—he shakes hands, and bids good-by to the army. | 110 |
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13
Now I tell what my mother told me to-day as we sat at dinner together, | |
| Of when she was a nearly grown girl, living home with her parents on the old homestead. | |
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| A red squaw came one breakfast time to the old homestead, | |
| On her back she carried a bundle of rushes for rush-bottoming chairs, | |
| Her hair, straight, shiny, coarse, black, profuse, half-envelop’d her face, | 115 |
| Her step was free and elastic, and her voice sounded exquisitely as she spoke. | |
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| My mother look’d in delight and amazement at the stranger, | |
| She look’d at the freshness of her tall-borne face, and full and pliant limbs, | |
| The more she look’d upon her, she loved her, | |
| Never before had she seen such wonderful beauty and purity, | 120 |
| She made her sit on a bench by the jamb of the fireplace—she cook’d food for her, | |
| She had no work to give her, but she gave her remembrance and fondness. | |
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| The red squaw staid all the forenoon, and toward the middle of the afternoon she went away, | |
| O my mother was loth to have her go away! | |
| All the week she thought of her—she watch’d for her many a month, | 125 |
| She remember’d her many a winter and many a summer, | |
| But the red squaw never came, nor was heard of there again. | |
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14
Now Lucifer was not dead—or if he was, I am his sorrowful terrible heir; | |
| I have been wrong’d—I am oppress’d—I hate him that oppresses me, | |
| I will either destroy him, or he shall release me. | 130 |
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| Damn him! how he does defile me! | |
| How he informs against my brother and sister, and takes pay for their blood! | |
| How he laughs when I look down the bend, after the steamboat that carries away my woman! | |
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| Now the vast dusk bulk that is the whale’s bulk, it seems mine; | |
| Warily, sportsman! though I lie so sleepy and sluggish, the tap of my flukes is death. | 135 |
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15
A show of the summer softness! a contact of something unseen! an amour of the light and air! | |
| I am jealous, and overwhelm’d with friendliness, | |
| And will go gallivant with the light and air myself, | |
| And have an unseen something to be in contact with them also. | |
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| O love and summer! you are in the dreams, and in me! | 140 |
| Autumn and winter are in the dreams—the farmer goes with his thrift, | |
| The droves and crops increase, and the barns are well-fill’d. | |
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16
Elements merge in the night—ships make tacks in the dreams, | |
| The sailor sails—the exile returns home, | |
| The fugitive returns unharm’d—the immigrant is back beyond months and years, | 145 |
| The poor Irishman lives in the simple house of his childhood, with the well-known neighbors and faces, | |
| They warmly welcome him—he is barefoot again, he forgets he is well off; | |
| The Dutchman voyages home, and the Scotchman and Welshman voyage home, and the native of the Mediterranean voyages home, | |
| To every port of England, France, Spain, enter well-fill’d ships, | |
| The Swiss foots it toward his hills—the Prussian goes his way, the Hungarian his way, and the Pole his way, | 150 |
| The Swede returns, and the Dane and Norwegian return. | |
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17
The homeward bound, and the outward bound, | |
| The beautiful lost swimmer, the ennuyé, the onanist, the female that loves unrequited, the money-maker, | |
| The actor and actress, those through with their parts, and those waiting to commence, | |
| The affectionate boy, the husband and wife, the voter, the nominee that is chosen, and the nominee that has fail’d, | 155 |
| The great already known, and the great any time after to-day, | |
| The stammerer, the sick, the perfect-form’d, the homely, | |
| The criminal that stood in the box, the judge that sat and sentenced him, the fluent lawyers, the jury, the audience, | |
| The laugher and weeper, the dancer, the midnight widow, the red squaw, | |
| The consumptive, the erysipelite, the idiot, he that is wrong’d, | 160 |
| The antipodes, and every one between this and them in the dark, | |
| I swear they are averaged now—one is no better than the other, | |
| The night and sleep have liken’d them and restored them. | |
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| I swear they are all beautiful; | |
| Every one that sleeps is beautiful—everything in the dim light is beautiful, | 165 |
| The wildest and bloodiest is over, and all is peace. | |
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18
Peace is always beautiful, | |
| The myth of heaven indicates peace and night. | |
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| The myth of heaven indicates the Soul; | |
| The Soul is always beautiful—it appears more or it appears less—it comes, or it lags behind, | 170 |
| It comes from its embower’d garden, and looks pleasantly on itself, and encloses the world, | |
| Perfect and clean the genitals previously jetting, and perfect and clean the womb cohering, | |
| The head well-grown, proportion’d and plumb, and the bowels and joints proportion’d and plumb. | |
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19
The Soul is always beautiful, | |
| The universe is duly in order, everything is in its place, | 175 |
| What has arrived is in its place, and what waits is in its place; | |
| The twisted skull waits, the watery or rotten blood waits, | |
| The child of the glutton or venerealee waits long, and the child of the drunkard waits long, and the drunkard himself waits long, | |
| The sleepers that lived and died wait—the far advanced are to go on in their turns, and the far behind are to come on in their turns, | |
| The diverse shall be no less diverse, but they shall flow and unite—they unite now. | 180 |
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20
The sleepers are very beautiful as they lie unclothed, | |
| They flow hand in hand over the whole earth, from east to west, as they lie unclothed, | |
| The Asiatic and African are hand in hand—the European and American are hand in hand, | |
| Learn’d and unlearn’d are hand in hand, and male and female are hand in hand, | |
| The bare arm of the girl crosses the bare breast of her lover—they press close without lust—his lips press her neck, | 185 |
| The father holds his grown or ungrown son in his arms with measureless love, and the son holds the father in his arms with measureless love, | |
| The white hair of the mother shines on the white wrist of the daughter, | |
| The breath of the boy goes with the breath of the man, friend is inarm’d by friend, | |
| The scholar kisses the teacher, and the teacher kisses the scholar—the wrong’d is made right, | |
| The call of the slave is one with the master’s call, and the master salutes the slave, | 190 |
| The felon steps forth from the prison—the insane becomes sane—the suffering of sick persons is reliev’d, | |
| The sweatings and fevers stop—the throat that was unsound is sound—the lungs of the consumptive are resumed—the poor distress’d head is free, | |
| The joints of the rheumatic move as smoothly as ever, and smoother than ever, | |
| Stiflings and passages open—the paralyzed become supple, | |
| The swell’d and convuls’d and congested awake to themselves in condition, | 195 |
| They pass the invigoration of the night, and the chemistry of the night, and awake. | |
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21
I too pass from the night, | |
| I stay a while away, O night, but I return to you again, and love you. | |
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| Why should I be afraid to trust myself to you? | |
| I am not afraid—I have been well brought forward by you; | 200 |
| I love the rich running day, but I do not desert her in whom I lay so long, | |
| I know not how I came of you, and I know not where I go with you—but I know I came well, and shall go well. | |
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| I will stop only a time with the night, and rise betimes; | |
| I will duly pass the day, O my mother, and duly return to you. | |
