--Poet--
O a new song, a free song,
Flapping,
flapping, flapping, flapping, by sounds, by voices clearer,
By the wind's voice and that of the drum,
By the banner's
voice and the child's voice and sea's voice and
father's
voice,
Low on the ground and high in the air,
On the
ground where father and child stand,
In the upward air
where their eyes turn,
Where the banner at daybreak is
flapping.
Words! book-words! what are you?
Words
no more, for hearken and see,
My song is there in the
open air, and I must sing,
With the banner and pennant
a-flapping.
I'll weave the chord and twine in,
Man's desire and babe's desire, I'll twine them in, I'll put
in life,
I'll put the bayonet's flashing point, I'll let
bullets and slugs whizz
(As one carrying a symbol and
menace far into the future,
Crying with trumpet voice,
"Arouse and beware! Beware and arouse!")
I'll pour the
verse with streams of blood, full of volition, full of
joy,
Then loosen, launch forth, to go and compete,
With the banner and pennant a-flapping.
--Pennant--
Come up here, bard, bard,
Come up here, soul, soul,
Come up here, dear little child,
To fly in the clouds and
winds with me, and play with the measureless
light.
--Child--
Father what is that in the sky
beckoning to me with long finger?
And what does it say to
me all the while?
--Father--
Nothing my babe
you see in the sky,
And nothing at all to you it
says--but look you my babe,
Look at these dazzling things
in the houses, and see you the
money-shops opening,
And see you the vehicles preparing to crawl along the
streets with
goods;
These, ah these, how valued and
toil'd for these!
How envied by all the earth!
--Poet--
Fresh and rosy red the sun is mounting high,
On floats the sea in distant blue careering through its
channels,
On floats the wind over the breast of the sea
setting in toward land,
The great steady wind from west
to west-by-south.
Floating so buoyant with milk-white
foam on the waters.
But I am not the sea nor the red sun,
I am not the wind with girlish laughter,
Not the immense
wind which strengthens, not the wind which lashes,
Not
the spirit that ever lashes its own body to terror and
death,
But I am that which unseen comes and sings, sings,
sings,
Which babbles in brooks and scoots in showers on
the land,
Which the birds know in the woods mornings and
evenings,
And the shore-sands know and the hissing wave,
and that banner and
pennant,
Aloft there flapping and
flapping.
--Child--
O father it is alive--it
is full of people--it has children,
O now it seems to me
it is talking to its children,
I hear it--it talks to
me--O it is wonderful!
O it stretches--it spreads and
runs so fast--O my father,
It is so broad it covers the
whole sky.
--Father--
Cease, cease, my foolish
babe,
What you are saying is sorrowful to me, much it
displeases me;
Behold with the rest again I say, behold
not banners and pennants
aloft,
But the well-prepared
pavements behold, and mark the solid-wall'd
houses.
--Banner and Pennant--
Speak to the child O bard
out of Manhattan,
To our children all, or north or south
of Manhattan,
Point this day, leaving all the rest, to us
over all--and yet we
know not why,
For what are we,
mere strips of cloth profiting nothing,
Only flapping in
the wind?
--Poet--
I hear and see not strips
of cloth alone,
I hear the tramp of armies, I hear the
challenging sentry,
I hear the jubilant shouts of
millions of men, I hear Liberty!
I hear the drums beat
and the trumpets blowing,
I myself move abroad
swift-rising flying then,
I use the wings of the
land-bird and use the wings of the sea-bird, and
look
down as from a height,
I do not deny the precious results
of peace, I see populous cities with
wealth incalculable,
I see numberless farms, I see the farmers working in their
fields or
barns,
I see mechanics working, I see
buildings everywhere founded, going
up, or finish'd,
I
see trains of cars swiftly speeding along railroad tracks
drawn by
the locomotives,
I see the stores, depots, of
Boston, Baltimore, Charleston, New
Orleans,
I see far
in the West the immense area of grain, I dwell awhile
hovering,
I pass to the lumber forests of the North, and
again to the Southern
plantation, and again to
California;
Sweeping the whole I see the countless
profit, the busy gatherings,
earn'd wages,
See the
Identity formed out of thirty-eight spacious and haughty
States
(and many more to come),
See forts on the
shores of harbours, see ships sailing in and out;
Then
over all (aye! aye!) my little and lengthen'd pennant shaped
like a sword,
Runs swiftly up indicating war and
defiance--and now the halyards have
rais'd it,
Side of
my banner broad and blue, side of my starry banner,
Discarding peace over all the sea and land.
--Banner
and Pennant--
Yet louder, higher, stronger, bard! yet
farther, wider cleave!
No longer let our children deem us
riches and peace alone,
We may be terror and carnage, and
are so now,
Not now are we any one of these spacious and
haughty States (nor any
five, nor ten),
Nor market nor
depot we, nor money-bank in the city,
But these and all,
and the brown and spreading land, and the mines
below,
are ours,
And the shores of the sea are ours, and the
rivers great and small,
And the fields they moisten, and
the crops and the fruits are ours,
Bays and channels and
ships sailing in and out are ours--while we
over all,
Over the area spread below, the three or four millions of
square
miles, the capitals,
The forty millions of
people--O bard! in life and death supreme,
We, even we,
henceforth flaunt out masterful, high up above,
Not for
the present alone, for a thousand years chanting through
you,
This song to the soul of one poor little child.
--Child--
O my father I like not the houses,
They will never to me be anything, nor do I like money,
But to mount up there I would like, O father dear, that
banner I like,
That pennant I would be and must be.
--Father--
Child of mine you fill me with
anguish,
To be that pennant would be too fearful,
Little you know what it is this day, and after this day,
forever,
It is to gain nothing, but risk and defy
everything,
Forward to stand in front of wars--and O,
such wars!--what have you
to do with them?
With
passions of demons, slaughter, premature death?
--Banner--
Demons and death then I sing,
Put in
all, aye all will I, sword-shaped pennant for war,
And a
pleasure new and ecstatic, and the prattled yearning of
children,
Blent with the sounds of the peaceful land and
the liquid wash of
the sea,
And the black ships
fighting on the sea envelop'd in smoke,
And the icy cool
of the far, far north, with rustling cedars and pines,
And the whirr of drums and the sound of soldiers marching,
and the
hot sun shining south,
And the beach-waves
combing over the beach on my Eastern shore, and my
Western shore the same,
And all between those shores, and
my ever running Mississippi with
bends and chutes,
And
my Illinois fields, and my Kansas fields, and my fields of
Missouri,
The Continent, devoting the whole identity
without reserving an atom,
Pour in! whelm that which
asks, which sings, with all and the yield
of all,
Fusing and holding, claiming, devouring the whole,
No
more with tender lip, nor musical labial sound,
But out
of the night emerging for food, our voice persuasive no
more,
Croaking like crows here in the wind.
--Poet--
My limbs, my veins dilate, my theme is clear
at last,
Banner so broad advancing out of the night, I
sing you haughty and
resolute,
I burst through where I
waited long, too long, deafen'd and blinded,
My hearing
and tongue are come to me (a little child taught me),
I
hear from above O pennant of war your ironical call and
demand,
Insensate! insensate (yet I at any rate chant
you), O banner!
Not houses of peace indeed are you, nor
any nor all their prosperity
(if need be, you shall again
have every one of those houses to
destroy them.
You
thought not to destroy those valuable houses, standing fast,
full of comfort, built with money,
May they stand fast,
then? not an hour except you above them and all
stand
fast);
O banner, not money so precious are you, not farm
produce you, nor the
material good nutriment,
Nor
excellent stores, nor landed on wharves from the ships,
Not the superb ships with sail-power or steam-power,
fetching and
carrying cargoes,
Nor machinery,
vehicles, trade, nor revenues--but you as henceforth
I
see you,
Running up out of the night, bringing your
cluster of stars
(ever-enlarging stars),
Divider of
daybreak you, cutting the air, touch'd by the sun,
measuring the sky,
(Passionately seen and yearn'd for by
one poor little child,
While others remain busy or
smartly talking, forever teaching thrift,
thrift);
O
you up there! O pennant! where you undulate like a snake
hissing so
curious,
Out of reach, an idea only, yet
furiously fought for, risking bloody
death, loved by me,
So loved--O you banner leading the day with stars brought
from the
night!
Valueless, object of eyes, over all
and demanding all--(absolute
owner of all)--O banner and
pennant!
I too leave the rest!--great as it is, it is
nothing--houses,
machines are nothing--I see them not.
I see but you, O warlike pennant! O banner so broad, with
stripes, I
sing you only,
Flapping up there in the
wind. |
