ArnoldSometimes I forget how awesome Walt Whitman is...
"Meanwhile corpses lie in new-made graves....bloody
corpses of young men:
The rope of the gibbet hangs heavily....the bullets of
princes are flying....the creatures of power laugh aloud,
And all these things bear fruits....and they are good.
Those corpses of young men,
Those martyrs that hang from the gibbets...those hearts
pierced by the gray lead,
Cold and motionless as they seem..live elsewhere with
unslaughter'd vitality.
They live in other young men, O kings,
They live in brothers, again ready to defy you:
They were purified by death....they were taught and exalted.
Not a grave of the murdered for freedom but grows
seed for freedom....in its turn to bear seed,
Which the winds carry afar and re-sow, and the rains and
the snows nourish.
Not a disembodied spirit can the weapons of tyrants let loose.
But it stalks invisibly over the earth..whispering
counseling cautioning.
Liberty let others despair of you....I never despair of you.
Is the house shut? Is the master away?
Nevertheless be ready....be not weary of watching.
He will soon return....his messengers come anon."
from [Europe: The 72D and 73D Years of These States]
It's too easy to blow of poetry that seems classical and removed from your own time. It often seems (and is) stale and outdated, exercises, now, in nothing more than form and history. Equally, I believe, it can be too easy to accept all that is classic and canonized, and to not be willing to reject the canon for the bullshit it is. But Whitman, Whitman, I want to blow it off and then I return to it on a morning like today and I'm just taken aback. It still feels fresh (even if the form and language can be archaic at times). I had a moment with Whitman this morning, not like a Whitman/Wilde moment, but a moment nonetheless.
corpses of young men:
The rope of the gibbet hangs heavily....the bullets of
princes are flying....the creatures of power laugh aloud,
And all these things bear fruits....and they are good.
Those corpses of young men,
Those martyrs that hang from the gibbets...those hearts
pierced by the gray lead,
Cold and motionless as they seem..live elsewhere with
unslaughter'd vitality.
They live in other young men, O kings,
They live in brothers, again ready to defy you:
They were purified by death....they were taught and exalted.
Not a grave of the murdered for freedom but grows
seed for freedom....in its turn to bear seed,
Which the winds carry afar and re-sow, and the rains and
the snows nourish.
Not a disembodied spirit can the weapons of tyrants let loose.
But it stalks invisibly over the earth..whispering
counseling cautioning.
Liberty let others despair of you....I never despair of you.
Is the house shut? Is the master away?
Nevertheless be ready....be not weary of watching.
He will soon return....his messengers come anon."
from [Europe: The 72D and 73D Years of These States]
It's too easy to blow of poetry that seems classical and removed from your own time. It often seems (and is) stale and outdated, exercises, now, in nothing more than form and history. Equally, I believe, it can be too easy to accept all that is classic and canonized, and to not be willing to reject the canon for the bullshit it is. But Whitman, Whitman, I want to blow it off and then I return to it on a morning like today and I'm just taken aback. It still feels fresh (even if the form and language can be archaic at times). I had a moment with Whitman this morning, not like a Whitman/Wilde moment, but a moment nonetheless.
