Walt Whitman

To Workingmen

1

 
COME closer to me;
Push close, my lovers, and take the best I possess;
Yield closer and closer, and give me the best you
        possess.
 

2

 
This is unfinish’d business with me—How is it with
        you?
(I was chill’d with the cold types, cylinder, wet paper
        between us.)
 

3

 
Male and Female!
I pass so poorly with paper and types, I must pass
        with the contact of bodies and souls.
 

4

 
American masses!
I do not thank you for liking me as I am, and liking
        the touch of me—I know that it is good for you
        to do so.
 

5

 
This is the poem of occupations;
In the labor of engines and trades, and the labor of
        fields, I find the developments,
And find the eternal meanings.
 

6

 
Workmen and Workwomen!
Were all educations, practical and ornamental, well
        display’d out of me, what would it amount to?
Were I as the head teacher, charitable proprietor,
        wise statesman, what would it amount to?
Were I to you as the boss employing and paying you,
        would that satisfy you?
 

7

 
The learn’d, virtuous, benevolent, and the usual
        terms;
A man like me, and never the usual terms.
 

8

 
Neither a servant nor a master am I;
I take no sooner a large price than a small price—I
        will have my own, whoever enjoys me;
I will be even with you, and you shall be even with
        me.
 

9

 
If you stand at work in a shop, I stand as nigh as
        the nighest in the same shop;
If you bestow gifts on your brother or dearest friend,
        I demand as good as your brother or dearest
        friend;
If your lover, husband, wife, is welcome by day or
        night, I must be personally as welcome;
If you become degraded, criminal, ill, then I become
        so for your sake;
If you remember your foolish and outlaw’d deeds, do
        you think I cannot remember my own foolish
        and outlaw’d deeds?
If you carouse at the table, I carouse at the opposite
        side of the table;
If you meet some stranger in the streets, and love
        him or her—why I often meet strangers in the
        street, and love them.
 
10  Why, what have you thought of yourself?
Is it you then that thought yourself less?
Is it you that thought the President greater than
        you?
Or the rich better off than you? or the educated
        wiser than you?
 

11

 
Because you are greasy or pimpled, or that you was
        once drunk, or a thief,
Or diseas’d, or rheumatic, or a prostitute, or are so
        now;
Or from frivolity or impotence, or that you are no
        scholar, and never saw your name in print,
Do you give in that you are any less immortal?
 

12

 
Souls of men and women! it is not you I call un–
        seen, unheard, untouchable and untouching;
It is not you I go argue pro and con about, and to
        settle whether you are alive or no;
I own publicly who you are, if nobody else owns.
 

13

 
Grown, half-grown, and babe, of this country and
        every country, indoors and outdoors, one just
        as much as the other, I see,
And all else behind or through them.
 

14

 
The wife—and she is not one jot less than the
        husband;
The daughter—and she is just as good as the son;
The mother—and she is every bit as much as the
        father.
 

15

 
Offspring of ignorant and poor, boys apprenticed to
        trades,
Young fellows working on farms, and old fellows
        working on farms,
Sailor-men, merchant-men, coasters, immigrants,
All these I see—but nigher and farther the same I
        see;
None shall escape me, and none shall wish to escape
        me.
 

16

 
I bring what you much need, yet always have,
Not money, amours, dress, eating, but as good;
I send no agent or medium, offer no representative of
        value, but offer the value itself.
 

17

 
There is something that comes home to one now
        and perpetually;
It is not what is printed, preach’d, discuss’d—it eludes
        discussion and print;
It is not to be put in a book—it is not in this book;
It is for you, whoever you are—it is no farther from
        you than your hearing and sight are from you;
It is hinted by nearest, commonest; readiest—it is
        ever provoked by them.
 

18

 
You may read in many languages, yet read nothing
        about it;
You may read the President’s Message, and read
        nothing about it there;
Nothing in the reports from the State department or
        Treasury department, or in the daily papers or
        the weekly papers,
Or in the census or revenue returns, prices current,
        or any accounts of stock.
 

19

 
The sun and stars that float in the open air;
The apple-shaped earth, and we upon it—surely the
        drift of them is something grand!
I do not know what it is, except that it is grand, and
        that it is happiness,
And that the enclosing purport of us here is not a
        speculation, or bon-mot, or reconnoissance,
And that it is not something which by luck may turn
        out well for us, and without luck must be a
        failure for us,
And not something which may yet be retracted in a
        certain contingency.
 

20

 
The light and shade, the curious sense of body and
        identity, the greed that with perfect complais–
        ance devours all things, the endless pride and
        out-stretching of man, unspeakable joys and
        sorrows,
The wonder every one sees in every one else he sees,
        and the wonders that fill each minute of time
        forever,
What have you reckon’d them for, camerado?
Have you reckon’d them for a trade, or farm-work?
        or for the profits of a store?
Or to achieve yourself a position? or to fill a gentle–
        man’s leisure, or a lady’s leisure?
 

21

 
Have you reckon’d the landscape took substance and
        form that it might be painted in a picture?
Or men and women that they might be written of,
        and songs sung?
Or the attraction of gravity, and the great laws and
        harmonious combinations, and the fluids of the
        air, as subjects for the savans?
Or the brown land and the blue sea for maps and
        charts?
Or the stars to be put in constellations and named
        fancy names?
Or that the growth of seeds is for agricultural tables,
        or agriculture itself?
 

22

 
Old institutions—these arts, libraries, legends, col–
        lections, and the practice handed along in man–
        ufactures—will we rate them so high?
Will we rate our cash and business high?—I have no
        objection;
I rate them as high as the highest—then a child born
        of a woman and man I rate beyond all rate.
 

23

 
We thought our Union grand, and our Constitution
        grand;
I do not say they are not grand and good, for they
        are;
I am this day just as much in love with them as you;
Then I am in love with you, and with all my fellows
        upon the earth.
 

24

 
We consider bibles and religions divine—I do not
        say they are not divine;
I say they have all grown out of you, and may grow
        out of you still;
It is not they who give the life—it is you who give
        the life;
Leaves are not more shed from the trees, or trees
        from the earth, than they are shed out of you.
 

25

 
When the psalm sings instead of the singer;
When the script preaches, instead of the preacher;
When the pulpit descends and goes, instead of the
        carver that carved the supporting desk;
When I can touch the body of books, by night or by
        day, and when they touch my body back again;
When a university course convinces, like a slumber–
        ing woman and child convince;
When the minted gold in the vault smiles like the
        night-watchman’s daughter;
When warrantee deeds loafe in chairs opposite, and
        are my friendly companions;
I intend to reach them my hand, and make as much
        of them as I do of men and women like you.
 

26

 
The sum of all known reverence I add up in you,
        whoever you are;
The President is there in the White House for you—
        it is not you who are here for him;
The Secretaries act in their bureaus for you—not you
        here for them;
The Congress convenes every Twelfth-month for you;
Laws, courts, the forming of States, the charters of
        cities, the going and coming of commerce and
        mails, are all for you.
 

27

 
List close, my scholars dear!
All doctrines, all politics and civilization, exurge from
        you;
All sculpture and monuments, and anything inscribed
        anywhere, are tallied in you;
The gist of histories and statistics as far back as the
        records reach, is in you this hour, and myths
        and tales the same;
If you were not breathing and walking here, where
        would they all be?
The most renown’d poems would be ashes, orations
        and plays would be vacuums.
 

28

 
All architecture is what you do to it when you look
        upon it;
(Did you think it was in the white or gray stone? or
        the lines of the arches and cornices?)
 

29

 
All music is what awakes from you, when you are
        reminded by the instruments;
It is not the violins and the cornets—it is not the oboe
        nor the beating drums, nor the score of the
        baritone singer singing his sweet romanza—nor
        that of the men’s chorus, nor that of the wo–
        men’s chorus,
It is nearer and farther than they.
 

30

 
Will the whole come back then?
Can each see signs of the best by a look in the look–
        ing-glass? is there nothing greater or more?
Does all sit there with you, with the mystic, unseen
        Soul?
 

31

 
Strange and hard that paradox true I give;
Objects gross and the unseen Soul are one.
 

32

 
House-building, measuring, sawing the boards;
Blacksmithing, glass-blowing, nail-making, coopering,
        tin-rooting, shingle-dressing,
Ship-joining, dock-building, fish—curing, ferrying, flag—
        ging of side-walks by flaggers,
The pump, the pile—driver, the great derrick, the coal—
        kiln and brick-kiln,
Coal-mines, and all that is down there,—the lamps in
        the darkness, echoes, songs, what meditations,
        what vast native thoughts looking through
        smutch’d faces,
Iron-works, forge-fires in the mountains, or by the
        river-banks—men around feeling the melt with
        huge crowbars—lumps of ore, the due com–
        bining of ore, limestone, coal—the blast—fur—
        nace and the puddling-furnace, the loup-lump
        at the bottom of the melt at last—the rolling–
        mill, the stumpy bars of pig-iron, the strong,
        clean-shaped T-rail for railroads;
Oil-works, silk-works, white-lead—works, the sugar—
        house, steam-saws, the great mills and factories;
Stone-cutting, shapely trimmings, for façades, or win–
        dow or door-lintels—the mallet, the tooth–
        chisel, the jib to protect the thumb,
Oakum, the oakum-chisel, the caulking-iron—the
        kettle of boiling vault—cement, and the fire un—
        der the kettle,
The cotton-bale, the stevedore’s hook, the saw and
        buck of the sawyer, the mould of the moulder,
        the working-knife of the butcher, the ice-saw,
        and all the work with ice,
The implemements for daguerreotyping—the tools of
        the rigger, grappler, sail-maker, block-maker,
Goods of gutta-percha, papier-mache, colors, brushes,
        brush-making, glazier’s implements,
The veneer and glue-pot, the confectioner’s ornaments,
        the decanter and glasses, the shears and flat-iron,
The awl and knee-strap, the pint measure and quart
        measure, the counter and stool, the writing–
        pen of quill or metal—the making of all sorts
        of edged tools,
The brewery, brewing, the malt, the vats, every thing
        that is done by brewers, also by wine-makers,
        also vinegar-makers,
Leather-dressing, coach-making, boiler—making, rope—
        twisting, distilling, sign-painting, lime-burning,
        cotton-picking—electro-plating, electrotyping,
        stereotyping,
Stave-machines, planing-machines, reaping-machines,
        ploughing-machines, thrashing-machines, steam
        wagons,
The cart of the carman, the omnibus, the ponderous
        dray;
Pyrotechny, letting off color’d fire-works at night,
        fancy figures and jets,
Beef on the butcher’s stall, the slaughter-house of
        the butcher, the butcher in his killing-clothes,
The pens of live pork, the killing—hammer, the hog—
        hook, the scalder’s tub, gutting, the cutter’s
        cleaver, the packer’s maul, and the plenteous
        winter-work of pork-packing,
Flour-works, grinding of wheat, rye, maize, rice—the
        barrels and the half and quarter barrels, the
        loaded barges, the high piles on wharves and
        levees,
The men, and the work of the men, on railroads,
        coasters, fish-boats, canals;
The daily routine of your own or any man’s life—the
        shop, yard, store, or factory;
These shows all near you by day and night—work–
        men! whoever you are, your daily life!
In that and them the heft of the heaviest—in them
        far more than you estimated, and far less also;
In them realities for you and me—in them poems for
        you and me;
In them, not yourself—you and your Soul enclose all
        things, regardless of estimation;
In them the development good—in them, all themes
        and hints.
 

33

 
I do not affirm what you see beyond is futile—I do
        not advise you to stop;
I do not say leadings you thought great are not great;
But I say that none lead to greater, than those lead to.
 

34

 
Will you seek afar off? You surely come back at last,
In things best known to you, finding the best, or as
        good as the best,
In folks nearest to you finding the sweetest, strongest,
        lovingest;
Happiness, knowledge, not in another place, but this
        place—not for another hour, but this hour;
Man in the first you see or touch—always in friend,
        brother, nighest neighbor—Woman in mother,
        lover, wife;
The popular tastes and employments taking precedence
        in poems or any where,
You workwomen and workmen of these States having
        your own divine and strong life,
And all else giving place to men and women like you.

Leaves of Grass

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