Walt Whitman – Fourteen Lines

Which The Bullet Could Never Kill

Wounded Civil War Soldiers Recovering at a Washington Hospital

“This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.

Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

How Solemn as One by One

by Walt Whitman
(Washington City, 1865.)

How solemn as one by one,
As the ranks returning worn and sweaty, as the men file by where I
. . . . stand,
As the faces the masks appear, as I glance at the faces studying the
. . . masks,
(As I glance upward out of this page studying you, dear friend,
. . . . whoever you are,)
How solemn the thought of my whispering soul to each in the ranks,
. . . . and to you,
I see behind each mask that wonder a kindred soul,
. O the bullet could never kill what you really are, dear friend,
. Nor the bayonet stab what you really are;
The soul! yourself I see, great as any, good as the best,
Waiting secure and content, which the bullet could never kill,
. Nor the bayonet stab O friend.

I erred in an earlier post this month when I suggested that American poetry did not evolve during the Civil War. Spending a month thinking about a war I have not given enough thought in my life, reading various articles and poems, I have come to a different frame of reference. In particular I did not give enough credence to the impact the war had on Walt Whitman’s poetry and how his free verse went on to have a huge influence on American literature in the 20th century. Having read the collected works of Whitman years ago, I was aware of his time spent in Washington hospitals and his daily ritual from January of 1863 to the end of the war of providing a human touch to wounded soldiers recuperating in Union hospitals. But I hadn’t pondered how Whitman’s civil war experience would reshape even the work he had written prior to the war, as Whitman was well known for re-writing, re-editing his poetry over and over, including the influence it had on Whitman’s most significant work, Leaves of Grass.

Whitman’s path to care-giving for Union soldiers began in December of 1862, when he left Brooklyn to search for his brother, George, whom he feared was injured in the Battle of Fredericksburg. Whitman did not find his brother in Washington, so he traveled on to Virginia, where he was relieved to find his brother only slightly wounded, at the Union army camp at Falmouth. Whitman was deeply affected by what he witnessed at the front lines and decided to support the Union cause the only way he knew how, by moving to Washington to care for sick and wounded soldiers. For the remainder of the war, he visited patients daily in hospitals located throughout the city. Whitman spent his days listening to soldiers stories, writing letters for them to family members, bringing them little gifts such as fresh oranges and licorice candy, but most important he was present at their bedside when friends and family could not.

The two poems presented today are from his volume of poetry written during this period, Drum Taps. His poem below I found particularly striking, in that it ponders the difficult question that every Civil War and genocide creates – how can countrymen and women kill each other? If we can not see our shared humanity with those that share the same citizenship then how can we relate to the rest of the planet? At a time of rising nationalism in countries around the world, it maybe time to rethink the concept of statehood, and like Whitman, reshape it from a geography to a state of mind.

Long, Too Long America

by Walt Whitman

Long, too long America,
Traveling roads all even and peaceful you learn’d from joys and
. . . prosperity only,
But now, ah now, to learn from crises of anguish, advancing,
grappling with direst fate and recoiling not,
And now to conceive and show to the world what your children en-masse
. . . really are,
(For who except myself has yet conceiv’d what your children en-masse
. . . really are?)

O Captain! My Captain

“If I am killed I can die but once, but to live in constant dread is to die over and over again.”

President Abraham Lincoln

O Captain! My Captain

by Walt Whitman

O Captain! My Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:

But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills;
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;

O captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head;
It is some dream that on the deck,
You’ve fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;

Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

Of the countless tributes written to President Lincoln following his death, one of the most moving is Walt Whitman’s poem O Captain, My Captain. Whitman had been devastated by the war, right from its very beginning. Whitman’s poetry at its best, arose from his keen observation and appreciation of his fellow citizens and human beings, and he found the savagery of the war among countrymen unimaginable.

We have enshrined Lincoln as a perfect leader, so great was his contribution and his sacrifice, but we should remember that he himself understood that he was an imperfect man. It is possible that it is only through his understanding of imperfection that he found the grace to proceed both in leading the Union through but also in elevating the moral compass of our nation to end slavery. It is now up to all of us, the beneficiaries of that sacrifice and gift to determine a path forward to end racism.

I expect to maintain this contest until successful, or till I die, or am conquered, or my term expires, or Congress or the country forsakes me…

Abraham Lincoln, 1862.

Lincoln delivered his second inaugural address on March 4, 1865, just 6 weeks prior to his assassination on April 15. Here is his speech in its entirety, as there is no better way to summarize the history of the Civil War and to encompass the generosity of this man. I believe this speech did as much to create the opportunity for a lasting peace as all the Union’s victories, as once Lincoln was dead, his words stood for his expectations of the path forward for both sides; to find a way forward in forgiveness and freedom. At a time when we are becoming more and more divided, who will become the peacemakers of our generation? Is it our responsibility as individuals more so than the government? As divides and wars, even culture wars, are not created by politicians, they arise by men and women letting go of the ties that bind us all as citizens of the United States.

President Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865

On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil-war. All dreaded it — all sought to avert it. While the inaugeral address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war — seeking to dissole the Union, and divide effects, by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came.

One eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union, even by war; while the government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war, the magnitude, or the duration, which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. “Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!” If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of those offences which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South, this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a Living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope — fervently do we pray — that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said f[our] three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether”

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan — to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.

Lincoln Is Dead

By George Moses Horton

He is gone, the strong base of the nation,

The dove to his covet has fled;

Ye heroes lament his privation,

For Lincoln is dead.

He is gone down, the sun of the Union,

Like Phoebus, that sets in the west;

The planet of peace and communion,

Forever has gone to his rest.

He is gone down from a world of commotion,

No equal succeeds in his stead;

His wonders extend with the ocean,

Whose waves murmur, Lincoln is dead.

He is gone and can ne’er be forgotten,

Whose great deeds eternal shall bloom;

When gold, pearls and diamonds are rotten,

His deeds will break forth from the tomb.

He is gone out of glory to glory,

A smile with the tear may be shed,

O, then let us tell the sweet story,

Triumphantly, Lincoln is dead.

We Will Surely Awake

“You wouldn’t let your grandparents pick your playlist. Why would you let them pick your representative who’s going to determine your future?”

Barack Obama

I don’t know if my individual vote changes anything, other than it makes me feel better. I feel better by the act of picking candidates who are more aligned with my beliefs and hopeful they will prevail. I believe today’s election is the first step on a path to a better future and by doing my civic duty and voting I have helped be part of that first step. The good thing about democracy and voting is at least you can hope things will change.

I know that on any typical day two-thirds of the approximately 200 people that visit Fourteen Lines are not Americans. The majority of the people that might read this are not personally invested in this election, regardless of its outcome. I wonder how American politics must appear to the rest of the world? Do you find this as bewildering as we do, the rhetoric so out of balance from our day to day lives?

I expect we will not know the outcome of this election for a while. I don’t anticipate that I will wake up tomorrow and the rhetoric will be less volatile, less divisive. Instead I anticipate that the specter of disunity might in the short term heighten, not lessen. But I remain hopeful that someday we will awaken to a calmer day with new leadership that views power as an obligation to not obscure the truth in search of political expediency. A President that talks honestly about difficult nuanced subjects so that we can deal with seemingly intractable problems through compromise. A day when Senators and Congressman on both sides of the isle believe in coalition building, on seeking agreement on common ground and see that process as not a failure in political strategy but as a moral obligation of principled leadership. Let’s pray today is the start of something new, something better. But given that Whitman was writing about waking up 170 years ago from the political malaise of his era, its fair to ask whether I should really expect change from politicians or like my vote, only hold myself accountable for change?

To the States

By Walt Whitman

To Identify the 16th, 17th, or 18th Presidentiad.

Why reclining, interrogating? why myself and all drowsing?
What deepening twilight—scum floating atop of the waters,
Who are they as bats and night-dogs askant in the capitol?
What a filthy Presidentiad! (O South, your torrid suns! O North, your artic freezings!)
Are those really Congressman? are those the great Judges? Is that the President?
Then I will sleep awhile yet, for I see that these States sleep, for reasons
(With gathering murk, with muttering thunder and lambent shoots we all duly awake,
South, North, East, West, inland and seaboard, we will surely awake.)

Poem in the American Manner

by Dorothy Parker

I dunno yer highfalutin’ words, but here’s th’ way it seems
When I’m peekin’ out th’ winder o’ my little House o Dreams;
I’ve been lookin’ ‘roun’ this big ol’ world, as bizzy as a hive,
An’ I want t’ tell ye, neighbor mine, it’s good t’ be alive.
I’ve ben settin’ here, a-thinkin’ hard, an’ say, it seems t’ me
That this big ol’ world is jest about as good as it kin be,
With its starvin’ little babies, an’ its battles, an’ its strikes,
An’ its profiteers, an’ hold-up men—th’ dawggone little tykes!
An’ its hungry men that fought fer us, that nobody employs.
An’ I think, “Why, shucks, we’re jest a lot o’ grown-up little boys!”
An’ I settle back, an’ light my pipe, an’ reach fer Mother’s hand,
An’ I wouldn’t swap my peace o’ mind fer nothin’ in the land;
Fer this world uv ours, that jest was made fer folks like me an’ you
Is a purty good ol’ place t’ live—say, neighbor, ain’t it true

Whoever You Are, Holding Me Now

Matthew 5:4

by Ruben Quesada

Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.

Take me. Take this. My wasted life and all
its bliss—the sea of your waking body

dawning with its warm grip on night’s wrist.
Your lips once curled into me. Your eyes

set me loose in a foggy lake. Loons call
to fill my deadened heart. To know

what loss is like you must lose everything,
you must lose even yourself, you said.

I am alone. Each night I lie and learn
to sing the dead back to life. Only they

can see what has been taken from me.
You are the bloodied cracks in my skin

so deep; I keep my hands together to hold
you in. Hear the damned prayers I reap.

Among the chaos of the 24/7 news cycle this week was this little gem: the 3M corporation raised a rainbow flag to honor Pride on Wednesday at their corporate headquarters in St. Paul, Minnesota. If we are looking for small signs of change on how we treat each other as humans across the entire spectrum of our diversity it may seem a bit trivial, but it was in my mind none the less significant. That the flag will hang there for less a week is not important. This small step is not something that would have happened 5 years ago. It sometimes takes pain to foster change and healing. 3M is in the spotlight for providing masks to the world to protect ourselves during the pandemic and with the Twin Cities metro area in the global headlines for the wrong reasons, George Floyd’s murder, it is reassuring to see one of our corporate citizens do the right thing, take a risk and acknowledge in a public way the contributions of its LGBT scientists, employees and customers. It is a modest milestone that should be saluted.

Today’s poems are excellent examples of why not to read poetry literally. When I read the poem below it is obvious its about how readers take his poetry into their conscious and subconscious. How Whitman’s words are the essence of his best self. How poetry is sublime in ways that can cross metaphysical boundaries, but in the end, no matter how conjoined you become with a poet’s words, Whitman commands his independence and asks you, the reader to do the same. Even if you have been intimately moved and changed by what you have read and considered, you stand apart from the poet. Poetry can be a penultimate act of intimacy between two human beings but it remains personal in what we give and take as writer and as reader. Poetry in my opinion is procreation with our own souls. It is part of what I would consider essential living, the fulfillment of an exciting, passionate and considered life, whether writing it or reading it.

Another milestone this week: John Prine hit the charts with his first Billboard #1 hit with the last song he recorded before his death called I Remember Everything. He recorded it in his hotel room in London while under quarantine during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Sadly isolation wasn’t enough and this insidious virus took his life. Prine’s song writing has always been a source of solace and inspiration to me. I smile that he is going out on top. Enjoy.

Whoever You Are Holding Me Now In Hand

by Walt Whitman

Whoever you are holding me now in hand,
Without one thing all will be useless,
I give you fair warning before you attempt me further,
I am not what you supposed, but far different.

Who is he that would become my follower?
Who would sign himself a candidate for my affections?

The way is suspicious, the result uncertain, perhaps destructive,
You would have to give up all else, I alone would expect to be your sole and exclusive standard,
Your novitiate would even then be long and exhausting,
The whole past theory of your life and all conformity to the lives around you would have to be abandon’d,
Therefore release me now before troubling yourself any further, let go your hand from my shoulders,
Put me down and depart on your way.

Or else by stealth in some wood for trial,
Or back of a rock in the open air,
(For in any roof’d room of a house I emerge not, nor in company,
And in libraries I lie as one dumb, a gawk, or unborn, or dead,)
But just possibly with you on a high hill, first watching lest any person for miles around approach unawares,
Or possibly with you sailing at sea, or on the beach of the sea or some quiet island,
Here to put your lips upon mine I permit you,
With the comrade’s long-dwelling kiss or the new husband’s kiss,
For I am the new husband and I am the comrade.

Or if you will, thrusting me beneath your clothing,
Where I may feel the throbs of your heart or rest upon your hip,
Carry me when you go forth over land or sea;
For thus merely touching you is enough, is best,
And thus touching you would I silently sleep and be carried eternally.

But these leaves conning you con at peril,
For these leaves and me you will not understand,
They will elude you at first and still more afterward, I will certainly elude you,
Even while you should think you had unquestionably caught me, behold!
Already you see I have escaped from you.

For it is not for what I have put into it that I have written this book,
Nor is it by reading it you will acquire it,
Nor do those know me best who admire me and vauntingly praise me,
Nor will the candidates for my love (unless at most a very few) prove victorious,
Nor will my poems do good only, they will do just as much evil, perhaps more,
For all is useless without that which you may guess at many times and not hit, that which I hinted at;

Therefore release me and depart on your way.

The Fatal Flash Catastrophe of Being

The Indications (Excerpt)

By Walt Whitman

The words of the true poems give you more than poems,
They give you to form for yourself, poems, religions, politics, war, peace, behavior, histories, essays, romances, and everything else,
The balance ranks, colors, races, creeds, and the sexes,
They do not seek beauty-they are sought,
Forever touching them, or close upon them, follows beauty, longing, fain, love-sick.

They prepare for death-yet are they not the finish, but rather the outset,
They bring none to his or her terminus, or to be content and full;
Whom they take, they take into space, to behold the birth of stars, to learn one of the meanings,
To launch off with absolute faith-to sweep through the ceaseless rings, and never be quiet again.

Poet

by Oscar Williams

He sees the world, a trek of values, ply
Its trade of waysides to a common view;
The sun and moon are blinkers to his eye;
That head on wisdom’s shoulders is askew
From watching dread dimensions crossroads lock,
Collision of directions so intense
The hands and face slip from the circled clock,
The atoms statue melts the niche of sense.

Aye, root and flower swordplay in his rhyme
And judgments parry their high blades of light –
The lightning from the bush of thunder fleeing
Kindles a home of symbols with the height –
And in his song is etched the blanch of time,
The fatal flash catastrophe of being.

Full Of Life, Now.

FULL OF LIFE, NOW.

by Walt Whitman

FULL of life, now, compact, visible,
I, forty years old the Eighty-third Year of The States,
To one a century hence, or any number of centuries
hence,
To you, yet unborn, these seeking you.

When you read these, I, that was visible, am become
invisible;
Now it is you, compact, visible, realizing my poems,
seeking me;
Fancying how happy you (are), if I could be with you,
and become your loving comrade;
Be it, as if I were with you. Be not too certain, but I
am now with you.

I admit that I deleted my first commentary on this blog post. In rereading, it felt ponderous and overbearing. Maybe the trick to discussing eternity is brevity?

The upshot of what I was trying to say is simply this: All creative acts are in of themselves a type of eternal life and resurrection for their creator. Their creativity takes its own trajectory once it comes into the world. Whitman’s poems and particularly Song of Myself have always felt to me like his gospel, his new testament. Full of Life, Now is Whitman’s call to worship and Song of Myself his parables and benediction.

Song of Myself is a daunting poem, hard to wade through and unpack because of its ferocity. But there are poignant passages of respite contained within for me, where my fullness of understanding is complete and those passages of clarity bring light to the whole of it.

The ending of Song of Myself I consider to be one of the greatest achievements in American Literature, an unfettered acceptance of life and death as ever I have read.

Do I contradict myself? Well then, I contradict myself. That’s poetry’s genius.

Song of Myself (Excerpt)

by Walt Whitman

The past and present wilt—I have fill’d them, emptied them,
And proceed to fill my next fold of the future.
Listener up there! what have you to confide to me?
Look in my face while I snuff the sidle of evening,
(Talk honestly, no one else hears you, and I stay only a minute longer.)

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

I concentrate toward them that are nigh, I wait on the door-slab.
Who has done his day’s work? who will soonest be through with his supper?
Who wishes to walk with me?

Will you speak before I am gone? will you prove already too late?

The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering.
I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.

The last scud of day holds back for me,
It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow’d wilds,
It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.

I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun,
I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.

You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.

Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.

Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself” from Leaves of Grass (: Norton, 1973)