Walt Whitman - Who goes there? (from Song of Myself)
Ivan M. Granger May 28th, 2008
[20] Who goes there? hankering, gross, mystical, nude; (from Song of Myself)
by Walt Whitman
Who goes there? hankering, gross, mystical, nude;
How is it I extract strength from the beef I eat?
What is a man anyhow? what am I? what are you?
All I mark as my own you shall offset it with your own,
Else it, were time lost listening to me.
I do not snivel that snivel the world over,
That months are vacuums and the ground but wallow and filth.
Whimpering and truckling fold with powders for invalids, conformity goes to the fourth-removed,
I wear my hat as I please indoors or out.
Why should I pray? why should I venerated and be ceremonious?
Having pried through the strata, analyzed to a hair, counseled with doctors and calculated close,
I find no sweeter fat than sticks to my own bones.
In all people I see myself, none more and not one a barleycorn less,
And the good or bad I say of myself I say of them.
I know I am solid and sound,
To me the converging objects of the universe perpetually flow,
All are written to me, and I must get what the writing means.
I know I am deathless,
I know this orbit of mine cannot be swept by a carpenter’s compass,
I know I shall not pass like a child’s carlacue cut with a burnt stick at night.
I know I am august,
I do not trouble my spirit to vindicate itself or be understood,
I see that the elementary laws never apologize,
(I reckon I behave no prouder than the level I plant my home by, after all.)
I exist as I am, that is enough,
If no other in the world be aware I sit content,
And if each and all be aware I sit content.
One world is aware and by far the largest to me, and that is myself,
And whether I come to my own today or in ten thousand or ten million years,
I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I can wait.
My foothold is tenoned and mortised in granite,
I laugh at what you call dissolution,
And I know the amplitude of time.
— from Song of Myself, by Walt Whitman
/ Photo by MCS_flickr /
It’s been too long since we’ve had a selection by Walt Whitman. Every time I reread Song of Myself, I am carried away by the rolling tumult of existence — and how it all finally pours into oneself.
A few lines from this section that ring in my mind:
What is a man anyhow? what am I? what are you?
I find no sweeter fat than sticks to my own bones.
In all people I see myself…
I know I am solid and sound,
To me the converging objects of the universe perpetually flow,
All are written to me, and I must get what the writing means.
I know I am deathless,
I know this orbit of mine cannot be swept by a carpenter’s compass…
I exist as I am, that is enough…
I laugh at what you call dissolution,
And I know the amplitude of time.
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Walt Whitman
US (1819 - 1892) Timeline |
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Thank you for including Whitman. He figured it out by himself–that all things in the universe are in their own way beautiful and each is part of life as it is, as we find it. We make distinctions and judgments based on such arbitrary standards.
I wonder if you have looked into the poetry of the Korean poet Ko Un. He was a Buddhist monk for many years and his poems reflect the compassion and capacity for observation and full experience that we associate with that religion. Here’s a short one for the season:
Mosquito
Bitten by a mosquito.
Thanks.
wow, I’m still alive.
Scratch. scratch.
What a wonderful poem, Ivan! Thanks a lot for remembering Walt Whitman. I loved his poems long before I knew anything of spirituality or mysticism. I would hope that my innocence of not knowing could very well be reflected by his but I doubt that! I never wrote such a magnificent poem, LOL.
He says it all with such elloquence.
Love,
Susie
Maura,
I have to admit that I haven’t heard of the Korean poet Ko Un, but there is a lot I still yearn to explore in Asian poetry. Thanks for the suggestion.
Bitten by a mosquito.
Some part of me is carried
into the summer night.
Ivan
Susie,
Guess we’ll have to let the old man whisper in our ears, but we’ll transcribe it in our own hand and style.
Whitman has influenced me for a long time but, you know, every poem I ever wrote in something like his style never felt like my own poem. And, as you said, it was never as good.
Ivan