Walt Whitman（沃尔特 惠特曼）

Walt Whitman（沃尔特·惠特曼） Aboard at a Ship's Helm   by: Walt Whitman (1819-1892) Aboard at a ship's helm, A young steersman steering with care.   Through fog on a sea-coast dolefully ringing, An ocean-bell--O a warning bell, rock'd by the waves.   O you give good notice indeed, you bell by the sea-reefs ringing, Ringing, ringing, to warn the ship from its wreck-place.   For as on the alert O steersman, you mind the loud admonition, The bows turn, the freighted ship tacking speeds away under her gray sails, The beautiful and noble ship with all her precious wealth speeds away gayly and safe.   But O the ship, the immortal ship! O ship aboard the ship! Ship of the body, ship of the soul, voyaging, voyaging, voyaging. Adieu to a Soldier   by: Walt Whitman (1819-1892) Adieu O soldier, You of the rude campaigning, (which we shared,) The rapid march, the life of the camp, The hot contention of opposing fronts, the long manoeuvre, Red battles with their slaughter, the stimulus, the strong terrific game, Spell of all brave and manly hearts, the trains of time through you and like of you all fill'd, With war and war's expression.   Adieu dear comrade, Your mission is fulfill'd--but I, more warlike, Myself and this contentious soul of mine, Still on our own campaigning bound, Through untried roads with ambushes opponents lined, Through many a sharp defeat and many a crisis, often baffled, Here marching, ever marching on, a war fight out--aye here, To fiercer, weightier battles give expression. After the Sea-Ship   by: Walt Whitman (1819-1892) After the sea-ship, after the whistling winds, After the white-gray sails taut to their spars and ropes, Below, a myriad myriad waves hastening, lifting up their necks, Tending in ceaseless flow toward the track of the ship, Waves of the ocean bubbling and gurgling, blithely prying, Waves, undulating waves, liquid, uneven, emulous waves, Toward that whirling current, laughing and buoyant, with curves, Where the great vessel sailing and tacking displaced the surface, Larger and smaller waves in the spread of the ocean yearnfully flowing, The wake of the sea-ship after she passes, flashing and frolicsome under the sun, A motley procession with many a fleck of foam and many fragments, Following the stately and rapid ship, in the wake following. After the Supper and Talk   by: Walt Whitman (1819-1892) After the supper and talk--after the day is done, As a friend from friends his final withdrawal prolonging, Good-bye and Good-bye with emotional lips repeating, (So hard for his hand to release those hands--no more will they meet, No more for communion of sorrow and joy, of old and young, A far-stretching journey awaits him, to return no more,) Shunning, postponing severance--seeking to ward off the last word ever so little, E'en at the exit-door turning--charges superfluous calling back-- e'en as he descends the steps, Something to eke out a minute additional--shadows of nightfall deepening, Farewells, messages lessening--dimmer the forthgoer's visage and form, Soon to be lost for aye in the darkness--loth, O so loth to depart! Garrulous to the very last Ages and Ages Returning at Intervals   by: Walt Whitman (1819-1892) Ages and ages returning at intervals, Undestroy'd, wandering immortal, Lusty, phallic, with the potent original loins, perfectly sweet, I, chanter of Adamic songs, Through the new garden the West, the great cities calling, Deliriate, thus prelude what is generated, offering these, offering myself, Bathing myself, bathing my songs in Sex, Offspring of my loins. Ah Poverties, Wincings, and Sulky Retreats   by: Walt Whitman (1819-1892) Ah poverties, wincings, and sulky retreats, Ah you foes that in conflict have overcome me, (For what is my life or any man's life but a conflict with foes, the old, the incessant war?) You degradations, you tussle with passions and appetites, You smarts from dissatisfied friendships, (ah wounds the sharpest of all!) You toil of painful and choked articulations, you meannesses, You shallow tongue-talks at tables, (my tongue the shallowest of any;) You broken resolutions, you racking angers, you smother'd ennuis! Ah think not you finally triumph, my real self has yet to come forth, It shall yet march forth o'ermastering, till all lies beneath me, It shall yet stand up the soldier of ultimate victory. All Is Truth   by: Walt Whitman (1819-1892) O me, man of slack faith so long, Standing aloof, denying portions so long, Only aware to-day of compact all-diffused truth, Discovering to-day there is no lie or form of lie, and can be none, but grows as inevitably upon itself as the truth does upon itself, Or as any law of the earth or any natural production of the earth does.   (This is curious and may not be realized immediately, but it must be realized, I feel in myself that I represent falsehoods equally with the rest, And that the universe does.)   Where has fail'd a perfect return indifferent of lies or the truth? Is it upon the ground, or in water or fire? or in the spirit of man? or in the meat and blood?   Meditating among liars and retreating sternly into myself, I see that there are really no liars or lies after all, And that nothing fails its perfect return, and that what are called lies are perfect returns, And that each thing exactly represents itself and what has preceded it, And that the truth includes all, and is compact just as much as space is compact, And that there is no flaw or vacuum in the amount of the truth--but that all is truth without exception; And henceforth I will go celebrate any thing I see or am, And sing and laugh and deny nothing. Among the Multitude   by: Walt Whitman (1819-1892) Among the men and women the multitude, I perceive one picking me out by secret and divine signs, Acknowledging none else, not parent, wife, husband, brother, child, any nearer than I am, Some are baffled, but that one is not--that one knows me.   Ah lover and perfect equal, I meant that you should discover me so by faint indirections, And I when I meet you mean to discover you by the like in you Are You the New Person Drawn Toward Me?   by: Walt Whitman (1819-1892) Are you the new person drawn toward me? To begin with take warning, I am surely far different from what you suppose; Do you suppose you will find in me your ideal? Do you think it so easy to have me become your lover? Do you think the friendship of me would be unalloy'd satisfaction? Do you think I am trusty and faithful? Do you see no further than this facade, this smooth and tolerant manner of me? Do you suppose yourself advancing on real ground toward a real heroic man? Have you no thought O dreamer that it may be all maya, illusion? An Army Corps on the March   by: Walt Whitman (1819-1892) With its cloud of skirmishers in advance, With now the sound of a single shot snapping like a whip, and now an irregular volley, The swarming ranks press on and on, the dense brigades press on, Glittering dimly, toiling under the sun--the dust-cover'd men, In columns rise and fall to the undulations of the ground, With artillery interspers'd--the wheels rumble, the horses sweat, As the army corps advances. The Artilleryman's Vision   by: Walt Whitman (1819-1892) While my wife at my side lies slumbering, and the wars are over long, And my head on the pillow rests at home, and the vacant midnight passes, And through the stillness, through the dark, I hear, just hear, the breath of my infant, There in the room as I wake from sleep this vision presses upon me; The engagement opens there and then in fantasy unreal, The skirmishers begin, they crawl cautiously ahead, I hear the irregular snap! snap! I hear the sounds of the different missiles, the short t-h-t! t-h-t! of the rifle-balls, I see the shells exploding leaving small white clouds, I hear the great shells shrieking as they pass, The grape like the hum and whirr of wind through the trees, (tumultuous now the contest rages,) All the scenes at the batteries rise in detail before me again, The crashing and smoking, the pride of the men in their pieces, The chief-gunner ranges and sights his piece and selects a fuse of the right time, After firing I see him lean aside and look eagerly off to note the effect; Elsewhere I hear the cry of a regiment charging, (the young colonel leads himself this time with brandish'd sword,) I see the gaps cut by the enemy's volleys, (quickly fill'd up, no delay,) I breathe the suffocating smoke, then the flat clouds hover low concealing all; Now a strange lull for a few seconds, not a shot fired on either side, Then resumed the chaos louder than ever, with eager calls and orders of officers, While from some distant part of the field the wind wafts to my ears a shout of applause, (some special success,) And ever the sound of the cannon far or near, (rousing even in dreams a devilish exultation and all the old mad joy in the depths of my soul,) And ever the hastening of infantry shifting positions, batteries, cavalry, moving hither and thither, (The falling, dying, I heed not, the wounded dripping and red heed not, some to the rear are hobbling,) Grime, heat, rush, aide-de-camps galloping by or on a full run, With the patter of small arms, the warning s-s-t of the rifles, (these in my vision I hear or see,) And bombs bursting in air, and at night the vari-color'd rockets As at Thy Portals Also Death   by: Walt Whitman (1819-1892) As at thy portals also death, Entering thy sovereign, dim, illimitable grounds, To memories of my mother, to the divine blending, maternity, To her, buried and gone, yet buried not, gone not from me, (I see again the calm benignant face fresh and beautiful still, I sit by the form in the coffin, I kiss and kiss convulsively again the sweet old lips, the cheeks, the closed eyes in the coffin;) To her, the ideal woman, practical, spiritual, of all of earth, life, love, to me the best, I grave a monumental line, before I go, amid these songs, And set a tombstone here As Consequent, Etc.   by: Walt Whitman (1819-1892) As consequent from store of summer rains, Or wayward rivulets in autumn flowing, Or many a herb-lined brook's reticulations, Or subterranean sea-rills making for the sea, Songs of continued years I sing.   Life's ever-modern rapids first, (soon, soon to blend, With the old streams of death.)   Some threading Ohio's farm-fields or the woods, Some down Colorado's canons from sources of perpetual snow, Some half-hid in Oregon, or away southward in Texas, Some in the north finding their way to Erie, Niagara, Ottawa, Some to Atlantica's bays, and so to the great salt brine.   In you whoe'er you are my book perusing, In I myself, in all the world, these currents flowing, All, all toward the mystic ocean tending.   Currents for starting a continent new, Overtures sent to the solid out of the liquid, Fusion of ocean and land, tender and pensive waves, (Not safe and peaceful only, waves rous'd and ominous too, Out of the depths the storm's abysmic waves, who knows whence? Raging over the vast, with many a broken spar and tatter'd sail.)   Or from the sea of Time, collecting vasting all, I bring, A windrow-drift of weeds and shells.   O little shells, so curious-convolute, so limpid-cold and voiceless, Will you not little shells to the tympans of temples held, Murmurs and echoes still call up, eternity's music faint and far, Wafted inland, sent from Atlantica's rim, strains for the soul of the prairies, Whisper'd reverberations, chords for the ear of the West joyously sounding, Your tidings old, yet ever new and untranslatable, Infinitesimals out of my life, and many a life, (For not my life and years alone I give--all, all I give,) These waifs from the deep, cast high and dry, Wash'd on America's shores? Ashes of Soldiers   by: Walt Whitman (1819-1892) Ashes of soldiers South or North, As I muse retrospective murmuring a chant in thought, The war resumes, again to my sense your shapes, And again the advance of the armies.   Noiseless as mists and vapors, From their graves in the trenches ascending, From cemeteries all through Virginia and Tennessee, From every point of the compass out of the countless graves, In wafted clouds, in myriads large, or squads of twos or threes or single ones they come, And silently gather round me.   Now sound no note O trumpeters, Not at the head of my cavalry parading on spirited horses, With sabres drawn and glistening, and carbines by their thighs, (ah my brave horsemen! My handsome tan-faced horsemen! what life, what joy and pride, With all the perils were yours.)   Nor you drummers, neither at reveille at dawn, Nor the long roll alarming the camp, nor even the muffled beat for burial, Nothing from you this time O drummers bearing my warlike drums.   But aside from these and the marts of wealth and the crowded promenade, Admitting around me comrades close unseen by the rest and voiceless, The slain elate and alive again, the dust and debris alive, I chant this chant of my silent soul in the name of all dead soldiers.   Faces so pale with wondrous eyes, very dear, gather closer yet, Draw close, but speak not.   Phantoms of countless lost, Invisible to the rest henceforth become my companions, Follow me ever--desert me not while I live.   Sweet are the blooming cheeks of the living--sweet are the musical voices sounding, But sweet, ah sweet, are the dead with their silent eyes.   Dearest comrades, all is over and long gone, But love is not over--and what love, O comrades! Perfume from battle-fields rising, up from the foetor arising.   Perfume therefore my chant, O love, immortal love, Give me to bathe the memories of all dead soldiers, Shroud them, embalm them, cover them all over with tender pride.   Perfume all--make all wholesome, Make these ashes to nourish and blossom, O love, solve all, fructify all with the last chemistry.   Give me exhaustless, make me a fountain, That I exhale love from me wherever I go like a moist perennial dew, For the ashes of all dead soldiers South or North As I Ebb'd with the Ocean of Life   by: Walt Whitman (1819-1892) 1 As I ebb'd with the ocean of life, As I wended the shores I know, As I walk'd where the ripples continually wash you Paumanok, Where they rustle up hoarse and sibilant, Where the fierce old mother endlessly cries for her castaways, I musing late in the autumn day, gazing off southward, Held by this electric self out of the pride of which I utter poems, Was seiz'd by the spirit that trails in the lines underfoot, The rim, the sediment that stands for all the water and all the land of the globe.   Fascinated, my eyes reverting from the south, dropt, to follow those slender windrows, Chaff, straw, splinters of wood, weeds, and the sea-gluten, Scum, scales from shining rocks, leaves of salt-lettuce, left by the tide, Miles walking, the sound of breaking waves the other side of me, Paumanok there and then as I thought the old thought of likenesses, These you presented to me you fish-shaped island, As I wended the shores I know, As I walk'd with that electric self seeking types. 2 As I wend to the shores I know not, As I list to the dirge, the voices of men and women wreck'd, As I inhale the impalpable breezes that set in upon me, As the ocean so mysterious rolls toward me closer and closer, I too but signify at the utmost a little wash'd-up drift, A few sands and dead leaves to gather, Gather, and merge myself as part of the sands and drift.   O baffled, balk'd, bent to the very earth, Oppress'd with myself that I have dared to open my mouth, Aware now that amid all that blab whose echoes recoil upon me I have not once had the least idea who or what I am, But that before all my arrogant poems the real Me stands yet untouch'd, untold, altogether unreach'd, Withdrawn far, mocking me with mock-congratulatory signs and bows, With peals of distant ironical laughter at every word I have written, Pointing in silence to these songs, and then to the sand beneath.   I perceive I have not really understood any thing, not a single object, and that no man ever can, Nature here in sight of the sea taking advantage of me to dart upon me and sting me, Because I have dared to open my mouth to sing at all. 3 You oceans both, I close with you, We murmur alike reproachfully rolling sands and drift, knowing not why, These little shreds indeed standing for you and me and all.   You friable shore with trails of debris, You fish-shaped island, I take what is underfoot, What is yours is mine my father.   I too Paumanok, I too have bubbled up, floated the measureless float, and been wash'd on your shores, I too am but a trail of drift and debris, I too leave little wrecks upon you, you fish-shaped island.   I throw myself upon your breast my father, I cling to you so that you cannot unloose me, I hold you so firm till you answer me something.   Kiss me my father, Touch me with your lips as I touch those I love, Breathe to me while I hold you close the secret of the murmuring I envy. 4 Ebb, ocean of life, (the flow will return,) Cease not your moaning you fierce old mother, Endlessly cry for your castaways, but fear not, deny not me, Rustle not up so hoarse and angry against my feet as I touch you or gather from you.   I mean tenderly by you and all, I gather for myself and for this phantom looking down where we lead, and following me and mine.   Me and mine, loose windrows, little corpses, Froth, snowy white, and bubbles, (See, from my dead lips the ooze exuding at last, See, the prismatic colors glistening and rolling,) Tufts of straw, sands, fragments, Buoy'd hither from many moods, one contradicting another, From the storm, the long calm, the darkness, the swell, Musing, pondering, a breath, a briny tear, a dab of liquid or soil, Up just as much out of fathomless workings fermented and thrown, A limp blossom or two, torn, just as much over waves floating, drifted at random, Just as much for us that sobbing dirge of Nature, Just as much whence we come that blare of the cloud-trumpets, We, capricious, brought hither we know not whence, spread out before you, You up there walking or sitting, Whoever you are, we too lie in drifts at your feet. As If a Phantom Caress'd Me   by: Walt Whitman (1819-1892) As if a phantom caress'd me, I thought I was not alone walking here by the shore; But the one I thought was with me as now I walk by the shore, the one I loved that caress'd me, As I lean and look through the glimmering light, that one has utterly disappear'd. And those appear that are hateful to me and mock me. As I Lay with My Head in Your Lap Camerado   by: Walt Whitman (1819-1892) As I lay with my head in your lap camerado, The confession I made I resume, what I said to you and the open air I resume, I know I am restless and make others so, I know my words are weapons full of danger, full of death, For I confront peace, security, and all the settled laws, to unsettle them, I am more resolute because all have denied me than I could ever have been had all accepted me, I heed not and have never heeded either experience, cautions, majorities, nor ridicule, And the threat of what is call'd hell is little or nothing to me, And the lure of what is call'd heaven is little or nothing to me; Dear camerado! I confess I have urged you onward with me, and still urge you, without the least idea what is our destination, Or whether we shall be victorious, or utterly quell'd and defeated As I Ponder'd in Silence   by: Walt Whitman (1819-1892) As I ponder'd in silence, Returning upon my poems, considering, lingering long, A Phantom arose before me with distrustful aspect, Terrible in beauty, age, and power, The genius of poets of old lands, As to me directing like flame its eyes, With finger pointing to many immortal songs, And menacing voice, What singest thou? it said, Know'st thou not there is but one theme for ever-enduring b