Written by
Walt Whitman |
MYSELF and mine gymnastic ever,
To stand the cold or heat—to take good aim with a gun—to sail a boat—to
manage
horses—to beget superb children,
To speak readily and clearly—to feel at home among common people,
And to hold our own in terrible positions, on land and sea.
Not for an embroiderer;
(There will always be plenty of embroiderers—I welcome them also;)
But for the fibre of things, and for inherent men and women.
Not to chisel ornaments,
But to chisel with free stroke the heads and limbs of plenteous Supreme Gods, that The
States
may realize them, walking and talking.
Let me have my own way;
Let others promulge the laws—I will make no account of the laws;
Let others praise eminent men and hold up peace—I hold up agitation and conflict;
I praise no eminent man—I rebuke to his face the one that was thought most worthy.
(Who are you? you mean devil! And what are you secretly guilty of, all your life?
Will you turn aside all your life? Will you grub and chatter all your life?)
(And who are you—blabbing by rote, years, pages, languages, reminiscences,
Unwitting to-day that you do not know how to speak a single word?)
Let others finish specimens—I never finish specimens;
I shower them by exhaustless laws, as Nature does, fresh and modern continually.
I give nothing as duties;
What others give as duties, I give as living impulses;
(Shall I give the heart’s action as a duty?)
Let others dispose of questions—I dispose of nothing—I arouse unanswerable
questions;
Who are they I see and touch, and what about them?
What about these likes of myself, that draw me so close by tender directions and
indirections?
I call to the world to distrust the accounts of my friends, but listen to my
enemies—as I
myself do;
I charge you, too, forever, reject those who would expound me—for I cannot expound
myself;
I charge that there be no theory or school founded out of me;
I charge you to leave all free, as I have left all free.
After me, vista!
O, I see life is not short, but immeasurably long;
I henceforth tread the world, chaste, temperate, an early riser, a steady grower,
Every hour the semen of centuries—and still of centuries.
I will follow up these continual lessons of the air, water, earth;
I perceive I have no time to lose.
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Written by
Ben Jonson |
XIII. — EPISTLE TO KATHARINE LADY AUBIGNY. As what they have lost t' expect, they dare deride. So both the prais'd and praisers suffer ; yet, For others ill ought none their good forget. I therefore, who profess myself in love With every virtue, wheresoe'er it move, And howsoever ; as I am at feudBy arts, and practice of the vicious, Such as suspect themselves, and think it fit, For their own capital crimes, to indict my wit ; I that have suffer'd this ; and though forsook Of fortune, have not alter'd yet my look, Or so myself abandon'd, as because Men are not just, or keep no holy laws Of nature and society, I should faint ;If it may stand with your soft blush, to hear Yourself but told unto yourself, and see In my character what your features be, You will not from the paper slightly pass : No lady, but at some time loves her glass. And this shall be no false one, but as much Remov'd, as you from need to have it such. Look then, and see your self — I will not sayIt perfect, proper, pure, and natural, Not taken up o' the doctors, but as well As I, can say and see it doth excel ; That asks but to be censured by the eyes : And in those outward forms, all fools are wise. Nor that your beauty wanted not a dower, Do I reflect. Some alderman has power, Or cozening farmer of the customs, soAnd raise not virtue ; they may vice enhance. My mirror is more subtle, clear, refined, And.takes and gives the beauties of the mind ; Though it reject not those of fortune : such As blood, and match. Wherein, how more than much Are you engaged to your happy fate, For such a lot ! that mixt you with a state Of so great title, birth, but virtue most,For he that once is good, is ever great. Wherewith then, madam, can you better pay This blessing of your stars, than by that way Of virtue, which you tread ? What if alone, Without companions ? 'tis safe to have none. In single paths dangers with ease are watch'd ; Contagion in the press is soonest catch'd. This makes, that wisely you decline your lifeNot looking by, or back, like those that wait Times and occasions, to start forth, and seem. Which though the turning world may disesteem, Because that studies spectacles and shows, And after varied, as fresh objects, goes, Giddy with change, and therefore cannot see Right, the right way ; yet must your comfort be Your conscience, and not wonder if none asksMaintain their liegers forth for foreign wires, Melt down their husbands land, to pour away On the close groom and page, on new-year's day, And almost all days after, while they live ; They find it both so witty, and safe to give. Let them on powders, oils, and paintings spend, Till that no usurer, nor his bawds dare lend Them or their officers ; and no man know,When their own parasites laugh at their fall, May they have nothing left, whereof they can Boast, but how oft they have gone wrong to man, And call it their brave sin : for such there be That do sin only for the infamy ; And never think, how vice doth every hour Eat on her clients, and some one devour. You, madam, young have learn'd to shun these shelves,Into your harbor, and all passage shut 'Gainst storms or pirates, that might charge your peace ; For which you worthy are the glad increase Of your blest womb, made fruitful from above, To pay your lord the pledges of chaste love ; And raise a noble stem, to give the fame To Clifton's blood, that is denied their name. Grow, grow, fair tree ! and as thy branches shoot,Before the moons have fill'd their triple trine, To crown the burden which you go withal, It shall a ripe and timely issue fall, T' expect the honors of great AUBIGNY ; And greater rites, yet writ in mystery, But which the fates forbid me to reveal. Only thus much out of a ravish'd zeal Unto your name, and goodness of your life,What your tried manners are, what theirs should be ; How you love one, and him you should, how still You are depending on his word and will ; Not fashion'd for the court, or strangers' eyes ; But to please him, who is the dearer prize Unto himself, by being so dear to you. This makes, that your affections still be new, And that your souls conspire, as they were goneMadam, be bold to use this truest glass ; Wherein your form you still the same shall find ; Because nor it can change, nor such a mind.
Of any good mind, now ; there are so few. The bad, by number, are so fortified, As what they have lost t' expect, they dare deride. So both the prais'd and praisers suffer ; yet, For others ill ought none their good forget. I therefore, who profess myself in love With every virtue, wheresoe'er it move, And howsoever ; as I am at feud
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Written by
Friedrich von Schiller |
Laura! a sunrise seems to break
Where'er thy happy looks may glow.
Joy sheds its roses o'er thy cheek,
Thy tears themselves do but bespeak
The rapture whence they flow;
Blest youth to whom those tears are given--
The tears that change his earth to heaven;
His best reward those melting eyes--
For him new suns are in the skies!
Thy soul--a crystal river passing,
Silver-clear, and sunbeam-glassing,
Mays into bloom sad Autumn by thee;
Night and desert, if they spy thee,
To gardens laugh--with daylight shine,
Lit by those happy smiles of thine!
Dark with cloud the future far
Goldens itself beneath thy star.
Smilest thou to see the harmony
Of charm the laws of Nature keep?
Alas! to me the harmony
Brings only cause to weep!
Holds not Hades its domain
Underneath this earth of ours?
Under palace, under fame,
Underneath the cloud-capped towers?
Stately cities soar and spread
O'er your mouldering bones, ye dead!
From corruption, from decay,
Springs yon clove-pink's fragrant bloom;
Yon gay waters wind their way
From the hollows of a tomb.
From the planets thou mayest know
All the change that shifts below,
Fled--beneath that zone of rays,
Fled to night a thousand Mays;
Thrones a thousand--rising--sinking,
Earth from thousand slaughters drinking
Blood profusely poured as water;--
Of the sceptre--of the slaughter--
Wouldst thou know what trace remaineth?
Seek them where the dark king reigneth!
Scarce thine eye can ope and close
Ere life's dying sunset glows;
Sinking sudden from its pride
Into death--the Lethe tide.
Ask'st thou whence thy beauties rise?
Boastest thou those radiant eyes?--
Or that cheek in roses dyed?
All their beauty (thought of sorrow!)
From the brittle mould they borrow.
Heavy interest in the tomb
For the brief loan of the bloom,
For the beauty of the day,
Death the usurer, thou must pay,
In the long to-morrow!
Maiden!--Death's too strong for scorn;
In the cheek the fairest, He
But the fairest throne doth see
Though the roses of the morn
Weave the veil by beauty worn--
Aye, beneath that broidered curtain,
Stands the Archer stern and certain!
Maid--thy Visionary hear--
Trust the wild one as the sear,
When he tells thee that thine eye,
While it beckons to the wooer,
Only lureth yet more nigh
Death, the dark undoer!
Every ray shed from thy beauty
Wastes the life-lamp while it beams,
And the pulse's playful duty,
And the blue veins' merry streams,
Sport and run into the pall--
Creatures of the Tyrant, all!
As the wind the rainbow shatters,
Death thy bright smiles rends and scatters,
Smile and rainbow leave no traces;--
From the spring-time's laughing graces,
From all life, as from its germ,
Grows the revel of the worm!
Woe, I see the wild wind wreak
Its wrath upon thy rosy bloom,
Winter plough thy rounded cheek,
Cloud and darkness close in gloom;
Blackening over, and forever,
Youth's serene and silver river!
Love alike and beauty o'er,
Lovely and beloved no more!
Maiden, an oak that soars on high,
And scorns the whirlwind's breath
Behold thy Poet's youth defy
The blunted dart of Death!
His gaze as ardent as the light
That shoots athwart the heaven,
His soul yet fiercer than the light
In the eternal heaven,
Of Him, in whom as in an ocean-surge
Creation ebbs and flows--and worlds arise and merge!
Through Nature steers the poet's thought to find
No fear but this--one barrier to the mind?
And dost thou glory so to think?
And heaves thy bosom?--Woe!
This cup, which lures him to the brink,
As if divinity to drink--
Has poison in its flow!
Wretched, oh, wretched, they who trust
To strike the God-spark from the dust!
The mightiest tone the music knows,
But breaks the harp-string with the sound;
And genius, still the more it glows,
But wastes the lamp whose life bestows
The light it sheds around.
Soon from existence dragged away,
The watchful jailer grasps his prey:
Vowed on the altar of the abused fire,
The spirits I raised against myself conspire!
Let--yes, I feel it two short springs away
Pass on their rapid flight;
And life's faint spark shall, fleeting from the clay,
Merge in the Fount of Light!
And weep'st thou, Laura?--be thy tears forbid;
Would'st thou my lot, life's dreariest years amid,
Protract and doom?--No: sinner, dry thy tears:
Would'st thou, whose eyes beheld the eagle wing
Of my bold youth through air's dominion spring,
Mark my sad age (life's tale of glory done)--
Crawl on the sod and tremble in the sun?
Hear the dull frozen heart condemn the flame
That as from heaven to youth's blithe bosom came;
And see the blind eyes loathing turn from all
The lovely sins age curses to recall?
Let me die young!--sweet sinner, dry thy tears!
Yes, let the flower be gathered in its bloom!
And thou, young genius, with the brows of gloom,
Quench thou life's torch, while yet the flame is strong!
Even as the curtain falls; while still the scene
Most thrills the hearts which have its audience been;
As fleet the shadows from the stage--and long
When all is o'er, lingers the breathless throng!
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Written by
Walt Whitman |
TO oratists—to male or female,
Vocalism, measure, concentration, determination, and the divine power to use words.
Are you full-lung’d and limber-lipp’d from long trial? from vigorous practice?
from
physique?
Do you move in these broad lands as broad as they?
Come duly to the divine power to use words?
For only at last, after many years—after chastity, friendship, procreation, prudence,
and
nakedness;
After treading ground and breasting river and lake;
After a loosen’d throat—after absorbing eras, temperaments, races—after
knowledge, freedom, crimes;
After complete faith—after clarifyings, elevations, and removing obstructions;
After these, and more, it is just possible there comes to a man, a woman, the divine power
to
use words.
Then toward that man or that woman, swiftly hasten all—None refuse, all attend;
Armies, ships, antiquities, the dead, libraries, paintings, machines, cities, hate,
despair,
amity, pain, theft, murder, aspiration, form in close ranks;
They debouch as they are wanted to march obediently through the mouth of that man, or that
woman.
.... O I see arise orators fit for inland America;
And I see it is as slow to become an orator as to become a man;
And I see that all power is folded in a great vocalism.
Of a great vocalism, the merciless light thereof shall pour, and the storm rage,
Every flash shall be a revelation, an insult,
The glaring flame on depths, on heights, on suns, on stars,
On the interior and exterior of man or woman,
On the laws of Nature—on passive materials,
On what you called death—(and what to you therefore was death,
As far as there can be death.)
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