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object:1.whitman - Carol Of Occupations
author class:Walt Whitman
subject class:Poetry
book class:Whitman - Poems
class:chapter


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.

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

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

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


This is the carol of occupations;                


In the labor of engines and trades, and the labor of fields, I find the developments,
And find the eternal meanings.

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?

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

Neither a servant nor a master am I;
I take no sooner a large price than a small priceI will have my
    own, whoever enjoys me;                  


I will be even with you, and you shall be even with me.

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 herwhy I
    often meet strangers in the street, and love them.

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?

Because you are greasy or pimpled, or that you were once drunk, or a
    thief,
Or diseas'd, or rheumatic, or a prostituteor 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?


Souls of men and women! it is not you I call unseen, 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.

Grown, half-grown, and babe, of this country and every country, in-
    doors and out-doors, one just as much as the other, I see,


And all else behind or through them.

The wifeand she is not one jot less than the husband;
The daughterand she is just as good as the son;
The motherand she is every bit as much as the father.

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 seebut nigher and farther the same I see;
None shall escape me, and none shall wish to escape me.

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.

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

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.


The sun and stars that float in the open air;
The apple-shaped earth, and we upon itsurely 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 reconnaissance,
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.

The light and shade, the curious sense of body and identity, the
    greed that with perfect complaisance 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 gentleman's leisure,
    or a lady's leisure?

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?

Old institutionsthese arts, libraries, legends, collections, and
    the practice handed along in manufactureswill we rate them so
    high?
Will we rate our cash and business high?I have no objection;


I rate them as high as the highestthen a child born of a woman and
    man I rate beyond all rate.

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.

We consider bibles and religions divineI 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 lifeit 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.


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 slumbering 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.

The sum of all known reverence I add up in you, whoever you are;
The President is there in the White House for youit is not you who
    are here for him;
The Secretaries act in their bureaus for younot 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.

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.

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?)                  




All music is what awakes from you when you are reminded by the
    instruments;
It is not the violins and the cornetsit is not the oboe nor the
    beating drums, nor the score of the baritone singer singing
    his sweet romanzanor that of the men's chorus, nor that of
    the women's chorus,
It is nearer and farther than they.


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

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

House-building, measuring, sawing the boards;
Blacksmithing, glass-blowing, nail-making, coopering, tin-roofing,
    shingle-dressing,                    



Ship-joining, dock-building, fish-curing, ferrying, flagging 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-banksmen
    around feeling the melt with huge crowbarslumps of ore, the
    due combining of ore, limestone, coalthe blast-furnace and
    the puddling-furnace, the loup-lump at the bottom of the melt
    at lastthe 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 faades, or window or door-
    lintelsthe mallet, the tooth-chisel, the jib to protect the
    thumb,
Oakum, the oakum-chisel, the caulking-ironthe kettle of boiling
    vault-cement, and the fire under 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 implements for daguerreotypingthe tools of the rigger,
    grappler, sail-maker, block-maker,
Goods of gutta-percha, papier-mach, colors, brushes, brush-making,
    glazier's implements,                  




O you robust, sacred!
I cannot tell you how I love you;
All I love America for, is contained in men and women like you.

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 metalthe
    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, ricethe 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 lifethe shop, yard,
    store, or factory;
These shows all near you by day and nightworkman! whoever you are,
    your daily life!
In that and them the heft of the heaviestin them far more than you
    estimated, and far less also;
In them realities for you and mein them poems for you and me;
In them, not yourselfyou and your Soul enclose all things,
    regardless of estimation;
In them the development goodin them, all themes and hints.

I do not affirm what you see beyond is futileI 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.    

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 placenot for
    another hour, but this hour;
Man in the first you see or touchalways in friend, brother, nighest
    neighborWoman 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.






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1.whitman - Carol Of Occupations
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