THE SLEEPERS

                        1

I wander all night in my vision,

Stepping with light feet, swiftly and noiselessly stepping and

        stopping,

Bending with open eyes over the shut eyes of sleepers,

Wandering  and confused, lost to myself, ill-assorted,

        contradictory,

Pausing, gazing, bending, and stopping.

How solemn they look there, stretch'd and still,

How quiet they breathe, the little children in their cradles.

The wretched features of ennuy‚s, the white features of

        corpses, the livid faces of drunkards, the sick-gray faces

        of onanists,

The gash'd bodies on battle-fields, the insane in their strong-door'd

        rooms, the sacred idiots, the new-born emerging

        from gates, and the dying emerging from gates,

The night pervades them and infolds them.

The married couple sleep calmly in their bed, he with his

        palm on the hip of the wife, and she with her palm on

        the hip of the husband,

The sisters sleep lovingly side by side in their bed,

The men sleep lovingly side by side in theirs,

And the mother sleeps with her little child carefully wrapt.

The blind sleep, and the deaf and dumb sleep,

The prisoner sleeps well in the prison, the runaway son sleeps,

The murderer that is to be hung next day, how does he sleep?

And the murder'd person, how does he sleep?

The female that loves unrequited sleeps,

And the male that loves unrequited sleeps,

The head of the money-maker that plotted all day sleeps,

And the enraged and treacherous dispositions, all, all sleep.

I stand in the dark with drooping eyes by the worst-suffering

        and the most restless,

I pass my hands soothingly to and fro a few inches from them,

The restless sink in their beds, they fitfully sleep.

Now I pierce the darkness, new beings appear,

The earth recedes from me into the night,

I saw that it was beautiful, and I see that what is not the

        earth is beautiful.

I go from bedside to bedside, I sleep close with the other

        sleepers each in turn,

I dream in my dream all the dreams of the other dreamers,

And I become the other dreamers.

I am a dance -- play up there! the fit is whirling me fast!

I am the ever-laughing -- it is new moon and twilight,

I see the hiding of douceurs, I see nimble ghosts whichever

        way I look,

Cache and cache again deep in the ground and sea, and

        where it is neither ground nor sea.

Well do they do their jobs those journeymen divine,

Only from me can they hide nothing, and would not if they

        could,

I reckon I am their boss and they make me a pet besides,

And surround me and lead me and run ahead when I walk,

To lift their cunning covers to signify me with stretch'd

        arms, and resume the way;

Onward we move, a gay gang of blackguards! with mirth-shouting

        music and wild-flapping pennants of joy!

I am the actor, the actress, the voter, the politician,

The emigrant and the exile, the criminal that stood in the box,

He who has been famous and he who shall be famous after

        to-day,

The stammerer, the well-form'd person, the wasted or feeble

        person.

I am she who adorn'd herself and folded her hair expectantly,

My truant lover has come, and it is dark.

Double yourself and receive me darkness,

Receive me and my lover too, he will not let me go without

        him.

I roll myself upon you as upon a bed, I resign myself to the

        dusk.

He whom I call answers me and takes the place of my lover,

He rises with me silently from the bed.

Darkness, you are gentler than my lover, his flesh was

        sweaty and panting,

I feel the hot moisture yet that he left me.

My hands are spread forth, I pass them in all directions,

I would sound up the shadowy shore to which you are

        journeying.

Be careful darkness! already what was it touch'd me?

I thought my lover had gone, else darkness and he are one,

I hear the heart-beat, I follow, I fade away.

                        2

I descend my western course, my sinews are flaccid,

Perfume and youth course through me and I am their wake.

It is my face yellow and wrinkled instead of the old woman's,

I sit low in a straw-bottom chair and carefully darn my

        grandson's stockings.

It is I too, the sleepless widow looking out on the winter

        midnight,

I see the sparkles of starshine on the icy and pallid earth.

A shroud I see and I am the shroud, I wrap a body and lie

        in the coffin,

It is dark here under ground, it is not evil or pain here, it is

        blank here, for reasons.

(It seems to me that every thing in the light and air ought

        to be happy,

Whoever is not in his coffin and the dark grave let him

        know he has enough.)

                        3

I see a beautiful gigantic swimmer swimming naked through

        the eddies of the sea,

His brown hair lies close and even to his head, he strikes out

        with courageous arms, he urges himself with his legs,

I see his white body, I see his undaunted eyes,

I hate the swift-running eddies that would dash him head-foremost

        on the rocks.

What are you doing you ruffianly red-trickled waves?

Will you kill the courageous giant? will you kill him in the

        prime of his middle age?

Steady and long he struggles,

He is baffled, bang'd, bruis'd, he holds out while his

        strength holds out,

The slapping eddies are spotted with his blood, they bear

        him away, they roll him, swing him, turn him,

His beautiful body is borne in the circling eddies, it is

        continually bruis'd on rocks,

Swiftly and out of sight is borne the brave corpse.

                        4

I turn but do not extricate myself,

Confused, a past-reading, another, but with darkness yet.

The beach is cut by the razory ice-wind, the wreck-guns

        sound,

The tempest lulls, the moon comes floundering through the

        drifts.

I look where the ship helplessly heads end on, I hear the

        burst as she strikes, I hear the howls of dismay, they

        grow fainter and fainter.

I cannot aid with my wringing fingers,

I can but rush to the surf and let it drench me and freeze

        upon me.

I search with the crowd, not one of the company is wash'd

        to us alive,

In the morning I help pick up the dead and lay them in

        rows in a barn.

                        5

Now of the older war-days, the defeat at Brooklyn,

Washington stands inside the lines, he stands on the

        intrench'd hills amid a crowd of officers,

His face is cold and damp, he cannot repress the weeping

        drops,

He lifts the glass perpetually to his eyes, the color is

        blanch'd from his cheeks,

He sees the slaughter of the southern braves confided to him

        by their parents.

The same at last and at last when peace is declared,

He stands in the room of the old tavern, the well-belov'd

        soldiers all pass through,

The officers speechless and slow draw near in their turns,

The chief encircles their necks with his arm and kisses them

        on the cheek,

He kisses lightly the wet cheeks one after another, he shakes

        hands and bids good-by to the army.

                        6

Now what my mother told me one day as we sat at dinner

        together,

Of when she was a nearly grown girl living home with her

        parents on the old homestead.

A red squaw came one breakfast-time to the old homestead,

On her back she carried a bundle of rushes for rush-bottoming

        chairs,

Her hair, straight, shiny, coarse, black, profuse, half-envelop'd

        her face,

Her step was free and elastic, and her voice sounded

        exquisitely as she spoke.

My mother look'd in delight and amazement at the stranger,

She look'd at the freshness of her tall-borne face and full and

        pliant limbs,

The more she look'd upon her she loved her,

Never before had she seen such wonderful beauty and

        purity,

She made her sit on a bench by the jamb of the fireplace,

        she cook'd food for her,

She had no work to give her, but she gave her remembrance

        and fondness.

The red squaw staid all the forenoon, and toward the middle

        of the afternoon she went away,

O my mother was loth to have her go away,

All the week she thought of her, she watch'd for her many a

        month,

She remember'd her many a winter and many a summer,

But the red squaw never came nor was heard of there again.

                        7

A show of the summer softness -- a contact of something

        unseen -- an amour of the light and air,

I am jealous and overwhelm'd with friendliness,

And will go gallivant with the light and air myself.

O love and summer, you are in the dreams and in me,

Autumn and winter are in the dreams, the farmer goes with

        his thrift,

The droves and crops increase, the barns are well-fill'd.

Elements merge in the night, ships make tacks in the dreams,

The sailor sails, the exile returns home,

The fugitive returns unharm'd, the immigrant is back

        beyond months and years,

The poor Irishman lives in the simple house of his

        childhood with the well-known neighbors and faces,

They warmly welcome him, he is barefoot again, he forgets

        he is well off,

The Dutchman voyages home, and the Scotchman and

        Welshman voyage home, and the native of the

        Mediterranean voyages home,

To every port of England, France, Spain, enter well-fill'd ships,

The Swiss foots it toward his hills, the Prussian goes his

        way, the Hungarian his way, and the Pole his way,

The Swede returns, and the Dane and Norwegian return.

The homeward bound and the outward bound,

The beautiful lost swimmer, the ennuy‚, the onanist, the

        female that loves unrequited, the money-maker,

The actor and actress, those through with their parts and

        those waiting to commence,

The affectionate boy, the husband and wife, the voter, the

        nominee that is chosen and the nominee that has fail'd,

The great already known and the great any time after to-day,

The stammerer, the sick, the perfect-form'd, the homely,

The criminal that stood in the box, the judge that sat and

        sentenced him, the fluent lawyers, the jury, the audience,

The laugher and weeper, the dancer, the midnight widow,

        the red squaw,

The consumptive, the erysipalite, the idiot, he that is wrong'd,

The antipodes, and every one between this and them in the

        dark,

I swear they are averaged now -- one is no better than the

        other,

The night and sleep have liken'd them and restored them.

I swear they are all beautiful,

Every one that sleeps is beautiful, every thing in the dim

        light is beautiful,

The wildest and bloodiest is over, and all is peace.

Peace is always beautiful,

The myth of heaven indicates peace and night.

The myth of heaven indicates the soul,

The soul is always beautiful, it appears more or it appears

        less, it comes or it lags behind,

It comes from its embower'd garden and looks pleasantly on

        itself and encloses the world,

Perfect and clean the genitals previously jetting, and perfect

        and clean the womb cohering,

The head well-grown proportion'd and plumb, and the

        bowels and joints proportion'd and plumb.

The soul is always beautiful,

The universe is duly in order, every thing is in its place,

What has arrived is in its place and what waits shall be in its

        place,

The twisted skull waits, the watery or rotten blood waits,

The child of the glutton or venerealee waits long, and the

        child of the drunkard waits long, and the drunkard

        himself waits long,

The sleepers that lived and died wait, the far advanced are to

        go on in their turns, and the far behind are to come on

        in their turns,

The diverse shall be no less diverse, but they shall flow and

        unite -- they unite now.

                        8

The sleepers are very beautiful as they lie unclothed,

They flow hand in hand over the whole earth from east to

        west as they lie unclothed,

The Asiatic and African are hand in hand, the European and

        American are hand in hand,

Learn'd and unlearn'd are hand in hand, and male and

        female are hand in hand,

The bare arm of the girl crosses the bare breast of her lover,

        they press close without lust, his lips press her neck,

The father holds his grown or ungrown son in his arms with

        measureless love, and the son holds the father in his

        arms with measureless love,

The white hair of the mother shines on the white wrist of

        the daughter,

The breath of the boy goes with the breath of the man,

        friend is inarm'd by friend,

The scholar kisses the teacher and the teacher kisses the

        scholar, the wrong'd is made right,

The call of the slave is one with the master's call, and the

        master salutes the slave,

The felon steps forth from the prison, the insane becomes

        sane, the suffering of sick persons is reliev'd,

The sweatings and fevers stop, the throat that was unsound

        is sound, the lungs of the consumptive are resumed, the

        poor distress'd head is free,

The joints of the rheumatic move as smoothly as ever, and

        smoother than ever,

Stiflings and passages open, the paralyzed become supple,

The swell'd and convuls'd and congested awake to

        themselves in condition,

They pass the invigoration of the night and the chemistry of

        the night, and awake.

I too pass from the night,

I stay a while away O night, but I return to you again and

        love you.

Why should I be afraid to trust myself to you?

I am not afraid, I have been well brought forward by you,

I love the rich running day, but I do not desert her in

        whom I lay so long,

I know not how I came of you and I know not where I go

        with you, but I know I came well and shall go well.

I will stop only a time with the night, and rise betimes,

I will duly pass the day O my mother, and duly return to you.

1855 VERSION

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