(no subject)
Selected lines from Walt Whitman's "The Sleepers"
I wander all night in my vision,
Sleeping 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, con-tradictory,
Pausing, gazing, bending, and stopping.
.............
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 sleep 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?
.............
O love of summer, you are in the dream and in me,
Autumn and winter are in the dreams, the farmer goes
with his thrift,.........
..........
Everyone that sleeps is beautiful, everything in the dim
light is beautiful,........
Peace is always beautiful,
The myth of heaven indicates peace and light.
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,..........
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 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, .........
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.
