But a sort of love-quarrel, after all, thought Captain Delano.

yet

grayness of everything,

“do you see what is going on there? Look!”

The slave there carries the padlock, but master here carries the key.”

merely the sport of the lad.

“Faithful fellow!” cried Captain Delano. “Don Benito, I envy you such a friend; slave I cannot call him.”

Babo is nothing; what Babo has done was but duty.”

Viewing

whom prolonged physical suffering seems to cancel every social instinct of kindness;

whom a master need be on no stiffly superior terms with, but may treat with familiar trust; less a servant than a devoted companion.

, biting his lip, biting his finger-nail, flushing, paling, twitching his beard, with other symptoms of an absent or moody mind.

converse with some freedom in their native tongue.

They each had bits of unstranded old junk in their hands,

Whether the ship had a figure-head,

the true character of the vessel was plain–a Spanish merchantman of the first class, carrying negro slaves, amongst other valuable freight, from one colonial port to another.

white-washed monastery

the stranger might have been long off soundings, the good captain put several baskets of the fish, for presents, into his boat, and so pulled away.

and, at the least, pilot her in.

she wanted, or what she was about.

her

. Whether, in view of what humanity is capable, such a trait implies, along with a benevolent heart, more than ordinary quickness and accuracy of intellectual perception, may be left to the wise to determine.

showed no colors;

strange sail

valuable cargo,

If you do not say any thing how can I say any thing?

(No doubt I have died myself ten thousand times before.)

Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself.

I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least,

My face rubs to the hunter’s face when he lies down alone in his blanket,

I do not say these things for a dollar or to fill up the time while I wait for a boat, (It is you talking just as much as myself, I act as the tongue of you, Tied in your mouth, in mine it begins to be loosen’d.)

My words itch at your ears till you understand them.

I kiss you with a good-by kiss and open the gate for your egress hence.

My lovers suffocate me, Crowding my lips, thick in the pores of my skin, Jostling me through streets and public halls, coming naked to me at night, Crying by day Ahoy! from the rocks of the river, swinging and chirping over my head, Calling my name from flower-beds, vines, tangled underbrush, Lighting on every moment of my life, Bussing my body with soft balsamic busses, Noiselessly passing handfuls out of their hearts and giving them to be mine.

I know perfectly well my own egotism,

That I could look with a separate look on my own crucifixion and bloody crowning!

I tighten her all night to my thighs and lips.

They do not sweat and whine about their condition, They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins, They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God, Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things, Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago, Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.

All truths wait in all things,

I hear the sound I love

Now I will do nothing but listen,

Walt Whitman, a kosmos, of Manhattan the son, Turbulent, fleshy, sensual, eating, drinking and breeding.

I am the poet of the woman the same as the man, And I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man, And I say there is nothing greater than the mother of men.

If no other in the world be aware I sit content, And if each and all be aware I sit content.

I exist as I am, that is enough,

I know I am solid and sound,

What is a man anyhow? what am I? what are you?

touch of my lips to yours, this the murmur of yearning,

I am of old and young, of the foolish as much as the wise, Regardless of others, ever regardful of others, Maternal as well as paternal, a child as well as a man, Stuff’d with the stuff that is coarse and stuff’d with the stuff that is fine,

Twenty-eight years of womanly life and all so lonesome.

bride was a red girl,

9

The suicide sprawls on the bloody floor of the bedroom, I witness the corpse with its dabbled hair, I note where the pistol has fallen.

silently brush away flies with my hand.

Growing among black folks as among white, Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I receive them the same.

How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he.

And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own,

I mind how once we lay such a transparent summer morning, How you settled your head athwart my hips and gently turn’d over upon me, And parted the shirt from my bosom-bone, and plunged your tongue to my bare-stript heart, And reach’d till you felt my beard, and reach’d till you held my feet.

I believe in you my soul, the other I am must not abase itself to you, And you must not be abased to the other.

The sickness of one of my folks or of myself, or ill-doing or loss or lack of money, or depressions or exaltations, Battles, the horrors of fratricidal war, the fever of doubtful news, the fitful events; These come to me days and nights and go from me again, But they are not the Me myself.

As the hugging and loving bed-fellow sleeps at my side

I am satisfied — I see, dance, laugh, sing;

Welcome is every organ and attribute of me, and of any man hearty and clean, Not an inch nor a particle of an inch is vile, and none shall be less familiar than the rest.

Urge and urge and urge,

But I do not talk of the beginning or the end.

You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books, You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me, You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self.

You shall possess the good of the earth and sun, (there are millions of suns left,)

undisguised

Song of Myself

Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same,

I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you

Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.

Most men gamble with her,

Columbus found the New World

Society never advances.

Insist on yourself; never imitate.

Ameri- cans

They cannot imagine how you aliens have any right to see, — how you can see; ‘It must be somehow that you stole the light from us.’

as a girl

Every new mind is a new classification.

The gods love him because men hated him.

it is infirmity of will. Regret calamities, if you can thereby help the sufferer; if not, attend your own work, and already the evil begins to be repaired.

The prayer of the farmer kneeling in his field to weed it,

As soon as the man is at one with God, he will not beg. He will then see prayer in all action.

In what prayers do men allow themselves!

for he does not postpone his life, but lives already

men and women

godlike in him

I will seek my own

I must be myself. I cannot break myself any longer for you, or you. If you can love me for what I am, we shall be the happier. If you cannot, I will still seek to deserve that you should. I will not hide my tastes or aversions.

The power men possess to annoy me

All men have my blood, and I have all men’s.

I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching

But now we are a mob.

divine fact

the Supreme Cause,

To talk of reliance is a poor external way of speaking. Speak rather of that which relies, because it works and is.

Truth and Right

But man postpones or remembers; he does not live in the present, but with reverted eye laments the past, or, heedless of the riches that surround him, stands on tiptoe to foresee the future. He cannot be happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above time.

It must be that when God speaketh he should communicate, not one thing, but all things; should fill the world with his voice; should scatter forth light, nature, time, souls, from the centre of the present thought; and new date and new create the whole.

If I see a trait, my children will see it after me,

Who is the Trustee?

in the world which exists for him

all history resolves itself very easily into the biography of a few stout and earnest persons.

Every true man is a cause, a country, and an age;

Ordinarily, every body in society reminds us of somewhat else, or of some other person.

a true man belongs to no other time or place, but is the centre of things. Where he is, there is nature.

a true man belongs to no other time or place, but is the centre of things. Where he is, there is nature.

I do not wish to please him; I wish that he should wish to please me.

America

Your genuine action will explain itself, and will explain your other genuine actions.

though they should clothe God with shape and color

feminine rage

Do your work, and you shall reinforce yourself.

but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own

What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think

My life is for itself and not for a spectacle

Are they my poor?

sympathy or the hatred of hundreds

A boy

Do not think the youth has no force, because he cannot speak to you and me.

Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for you,

God will not have his work made manifest by cowards

We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents.

none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.

abide by our spontaneous impression with good-humored inflexibility then most when the whole cry of voices is on the other side.

Great works of art have no more affecting lesson for us than this.

In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.

and spoke not what men but what they thought. A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages

trumpets of the Last Judgment.

To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, — that is genius.

“Man is his own star; and the soul that can Render an honest and a perfect man, Commands all light, all influence, all fate; Nothing to him falls early or too late.

the ditto of himself,

“I am your father!”

Rip had but one question more to ask; but he put it with a faltering voice:

“Oh, Rip Van Winkle!” exclaimed two or three, “oh, to be sure! that’s Rip Van Winkle yonder, leaning against the tree.”

eighteen years!

“A tory! a tory! a spy! a refugee! hustle him! away with him!”

“I am a poor, quiet man, a native of the place, and a loyal subject of the king, God bless him!”

and an army of women and children at his heels

General Washington.

a tall, naked pole, with something on the top that looked like a red nightcap, and from it was fluttering a flag,

He found the house gone to decay—the roof fallen in, the windows shattered, and the doors off the hinges. A half-starved dog that looked like Wolf was skulking about it. Rip called him by name, but the cur snarled, showed his teeth, and passed on. This was an unkind cut indeed. “My very dog,” sighed Rip, “has forgotten me!”

he found his beard had grown a foot long!

but none whom he knew, which somewhat surprised him, for he had thought himself acquainted with every one in the country round. Their dress, too, was of a different fashion from that to which he was accustomed

He grieved to give up his dog and gun; he dreaded to meet his wife; but it would not do to starve among the mountains. He shook his head, shouldered the rusty firelock, and, with a heart full of trouble and anxiety, turned his steps homeward.

As he rose to walk, he found himself stiff in the joints

Wolf, too, had disappeared,

By degrees Rip’s awe and apprehension subsided. He even ventured, when no eye was fixed upon him, to taste the beverage, which he found had much of the flavor of excellent Hollands. He was naturally a thirsty soul, and was soon tempted to repeat the draught. One taste provoked another; and he repeated his visits to the flagon so often that at length his senses were overpowered, his eyes swam in his head, his head gradually declined, and he fell into a deep sleep.

the most melancholy party of pleasure he had ever witnessed.

They all had beards, of various shapes and colors.

new objects of wonder presented themselves

“thy mistress leads thee a dog’s life of it; but never mind, my lad, whilst I live thou shalt never want a friend to stand by thee.”

was to take gun in hand and stroll away into the woods.

the unlucky Rip was at length routed by his vtermagant wife, who would suddenly break in upon the tranquility of the assemblage

he was observed to smoke his pipe vehemently, and to send forth short, frequent, and angry puffs; but, when pleased, he would inhale the smoke slowly and tranquilly, and emit it in light and placid clouds,

just moving sufficiently to avoid the sun, and keep in the shade of a large tree; so that the neighbors could tell the hour by his movements as accurately as by a sun-dial. It is true, he was rarely heard to speak, but smoked his pipe incessantly.

casting many a sidelong glance at Dame Van Winkle, and at the least flourish of a broomstick or ladle he would fly to the door with yelping precipitation.

but what courage can withstand the ever-enduring and all-besetting terrors of a woman’s tongue?

her tongue was incessantly going, and everything he said or did was sure to produce a torrent of household eloquence.

If left to himself, he would have whistled life away in perfect contentment; but his wife kept continually dinning in his ear about his idleness, his carelessness, and the ruin he was bringing on his family

promised to inherit the habits, with the old clothes, of his father.

His children, too, were as ragged and wild as if they belonged to nobody.

In a word, Rip was ready to attend to anybody’s business but his own; but as to doing family duty, and keeping his farm in order, he found it impossible.

to do such little odd jobs as their less obliging husbands would not do for them.

was a strong dislike of all kinds of profitable labor.

Whenever he went dodging about the village, he was surrounded by a troop of them, hanging on his skirts, clambering on his back, and playing a thousand tricks on him; and not a dog would bark at him throughout the neighborhood.

Indians.

henpecked husband

I have observed

vchivalrous

may he rest in peace!

Dutch colonists

At the foot of these fairy mountains the traveler may have seen the light smoke curling up from a village, whose shingle roofs gleam among the trees, just where the blue tints of the upland melt away into the fresh green of the nearer landscape.

Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord” (Exodus 14.13).

It was but the other day that if I had had the world, I would have given it for my freedom, or to have been a servant to a Christian. I have learned to look beyond present and smaller troubles, and to be quieted under them. As Moses said, “Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord” (Exodus 14.13). Finis.

midst of tender-hearted and compassionate Christians.

The Indians often said that I should never have her under twenty pounds. But now the Lord hath brought her in upon free-cost, and given her to me the second time.

they desired my husband to preach the thanksgiving for them

tender-hearted and compassionate Christians

my own children amongst the rest, to enjoy that deliverance that I had now received, and I did not know whether ever I should see them again.

but I speak it in the presence of God

I have been in the midst of those roaring lions, and savage bears, that feared neither God, nor man, nor the devil, by night and day,

O the wonderful power of God that I have seen, and the experience that I have had.

I told him no: I was not willing to run away, but desired to wait God’s time, that I might go home quietly, and without fear.

Now the heathen begins to think all is their own, and the poor Christians’ hopes to fail (as to man) and now their eyes are more to God, and their hearts sigh heaven-ward; and to say in good earnest,

inhumane, and many times devilish cruelty to the English

(with their black faces)

Another thing that I would observe is the strange providence of God, in turning things about when the Indians was at the highest, and the English at the lowest.

God seemed to leave his People to themselves, and order all things for His own holy ends.

Then I took it of the child, and eat it myself, and savory it was to my taste.

and one of them my own sister’s

So like were these barbarous creatures to him who was a liar from the beginning.

By which I certainly understood (though I suspected it before) that whatsoever the Indians told me respecting him was vanity and lies. Some of them told me he was dead, and they had killed him; some said he was married again,

I asked him about the welfare of my husband.

where they had killed three Englishmen, and brought one captive with them, viz

Then also I took my Bible to read, but I found no comfort here neither, which many times I was wont to find.

But I knew that He laid upon me less than I deserved

“Have pity upon me, O ye my Friends, for the Hand of the Lord has touched me.”