pallas_athena: (Default)
pallas_athena ([personal profile] pallas_athena) wrote2009-05-17 01:45 am
Entry tags:

Poem of the day

From Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman

Allons! whoever you are! come forth!
You must not stay sleeping and dallying there in the house, though you built it, or though it has been built for you.

Allons! out of the dark confinement!
It is useless to protest—I know all, and expose it.

Behold, through you as bad as the rest,
Through the laughter, dancing, dining, supping, of people,
Inside of dresses and ornaments, inside of those wash’d and trimm’d faces,
Behold a secret silent loathing and despair.

No husband, no wife, no friend, trusted to hear the confession;
Another self, a duplicate of every one, skulking and hiding it goes,
Formless and wordless through the streets of the cities, polite and bland in the parlors,
In the cars of rail-roads, in steamboats, in the public assembly,
Home to the houses of men and women, at the table, in the bed-room, everywhere,
Smartly attired, countenance smiling, form upright, death under the breast-bones, hell under the skull-bones,
Under the broadcloth and gloves, under the ribbons and artificial flowers,
Keeping fair with the customs, speaking not a syllable of itself,
Speaking of anything else, but never of itself.

[identity profile] wolfinthewood.livejournal.com 2009-05-17 07:59 am (UTC)(link)
Whew. I must reread Whitman. It has been a long, long time.

[identity profile] artnouveauho.livejournal.com 2009-05-17 10:34 pm (UTC)(link)
When I recently opened a book of Whitman for the first time in years, it fell open to this poem. Yeah, thanks, Walt.

[identity profile] breltard95.livejournal.com 2009-05-17 02:22 pm (UTC)(link)
There are four authors I ALWAYS give a free pass on wordiness to, because they've proven they can handle the responsibility. Whitman is one of them.

This is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless,
Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson done,
Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the themes thou lovest best.
Night, sleep, and the stars.

[identity profile] artnouveauho.livejournal.com 2009-05-17 10:35 pm (UTC)(link)
Just lovely!

[identity profile] larissa-00.livejournal.com 2009-05-18 11:21 am (UTC)(link)
Ah, my fave part of Leaves of Grass is

I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self contain'd,
I stand and look at them long and long.

They do not sweat and whine about their condition,
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,
Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things,
Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago,
Not one is respectable or unhappy over the earth.


Neurosis use it on the awesome Souls at Zero.