Faces
Walt Whitman 1819 (West Hills) – 1892 (Camden)
SAUNTERING the pavement, or riding the country by-road--lo! such
faces!
Faces of friendship, precision, caution, suavity, ideality;
The spiritual, prescient face--the always welcome, common, benevolent
face,
The face of the singing of music--the grand faces of natural lawyers
and judges, broad at the back-top;
The faces of hunters and fishers, bulged at the brows--the shaved
blanch'd faces of orthodox citizens;
The pure, extravagant, yearning, questioning artist's face;
The ugly face of some beautiful Soul, the handsome detested or
despised face;
The sacred faces of infants, the illuminated face of the mother of
many children;
The face of an amour, the face of veneration;
The face as of a dream, the face of an immobile rock; 10
The face withdrawn of its good and bad, a castrated face;
A wild hawk, his wings clipp'd by the clipper;
A stallion that yielded at last to the thongs and knife of the
gelder.
Sauntering the pavement, thus, or crossing the ceaseless ferry,
faces, and faces, and faces:
I see them, and complain not, and am content with all.
Do you suppose I could be content with all, if I thought them their
own finale?
This now is too lamentable a face for a man;
Some abject louse, asking leave to be--cringing for it;
Some milk-nosed maggot, blessing what lets it wrig to its hole.
This face is a dog's snout, sniffing for garbage; 20
Snakes nest in that mouth--I hear the sibilant threat.
This face is a haze more chill than the arctic sea;
Its sleepy and wobbling icebergs crunch as they go.
This is a face of bitter herbs--this an emetic--they need no label;
And more of the drug-shelf, laudanum, caoutchouc, or hog's-lard.
This face is an epilepsy, its wordless tongue gives out the unearthly
cry,
Its veins down the neck distended, its eyes roll till they show
nothing but their whites,
Its teeth grit, the palms of the hands are cut by the turn'd-in
nails,
The man falls struggling and foaming to the ground while he
speculates well.
This face is bitten by vermin and worms, 30
And this is some murderer's knife, with a half-pull'd scabbard.
This face owes to the sexton his dismalest fee;
An unceasing death-bell tolls there.
Those then are really men--the bosses and tufts of the great round
globe!
Features of my equals, would you trick me with your creas'd and
cadaverous march?
Well, you cannot trick me.
I see your rounded, never-erased flow;
I see neath the rims of your haggard and mean disguises.
Splay and twist as you like--poke with the tangling fores of fishes
or rats;
You'll be unmuzzled, you certainly will. 40
I saw the face of the most smear'd and slobbering idiot they had at
the asylum;
And I knew for my consolation what they knew not;
I knew of the agents that emptied and broke my brother,
The same wait to clear the rubbish from the fallen tenement;
And I shall look again in a score or two of ages,
And I shall meet the real landlord, perfect and unharm'd, every inch
as good as myself.
The Lord advances, and yet advances;
Always the shadow in front--always the reach'd hand bringing up the
laggards.
Out of this face emerge banners and horses--O superb! I see what is
coming;
I see the high pioneer-caps--I see the staves of runners clearing the
way, 50
I hear victorious drums.
This face is a life-boat;
This is the face commanding and bearded, it asks no odds of the rest;
This face is flavor'd fruit, ready for eating;
This face of a healthy honest boy is the programme of all good.
These faces bear testimony, slumbering or awake;
They show their descent from the Master himself.
Off the word I have spoken, I except not one--red, white, black, are
all deific;
In each house is the ovum--it comes forth after a thousand years.
Spots or cracks at the windows do not disturb me; 60
Tall and sufficient stand behind, and make signs to me;
I read the promise, and patiently wait.
This is a full-grown lily's face,
She spea
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 27, 2023
- 3:29 min read
- 1,433 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | XABBCXDBXCXCXEEFCGHG IAX JI XBX XB IK XB IXKXXXIX XB IJ BX BXI KL AXX BXBGBAXM AHX LNHXX BBNB XM XFX IIB CD |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 4,340 |
Words | 684 |
Stanzas | 22 |
Stanza Lengths | 20, 3, 2, 3, 2, 2, 2, 8, 2, 2, 2, 3, 2, 3, 8, 3, 5, 4, 2, 3, 3, 2 |
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"Faces" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 13 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/38007/faces>.
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