and signed with his honor

hrine of our Lady of Mercy in Lima

mulatto

humble slave

six o’clock in the afternoon

blacks

and asked him whose skeleton that was, and whether, from its whiteness, he should not think it a white’s

Lady of Succor:

where the deponent was

Babo

Notary Public of the Holy Crusade of this Bishopric

Indian-like

But, regarding this warning as coming from one whose spirit had been crushed by misery the American did not give up his design.

desperadoes

but still Don Benito would not let go his hand.

Don Benito would not let go the hand of Captain Delano, but retained it in his, across the black’s body.

With instinctive good feeling

Providence

Jew

He descended to the cabin to bid a ceremonious, and, it may be, tacitly rebukeful adieu

“I cannot go,” was the response.

The Bachelor’s Delight

I will cheer up my poor friend, this time, thought he.

Don Benito recoiled, as if at some bland satirical touch, delivered with such adroit garnish of apparent good breeding as to present no handle for retort. He is like one flayed alive, thought Captain Delano; where may one touch him without causing a shrink? The servant moved before his master, adjusting a cushion; recalled to civility, the Spaniard stiffly replied: “you are right. The slave appears where you saw him, according to my command; which is, that if at the given hour I am below, he must take his stand and abide my coming.”

salver

Marking the servant still above

He went to see.

Captain Delano heard a voice faithfully repeating his orders. Turning, he saw Babo, now for the time acting, under the pilot, his original part of captain of the slaves.

But he is mistaken for once. I will get his ship in for him, and prove it.

But while this was being done, the American observed that, though his original offer of assistance

uncommonly intelligent fellow

and then stood behind, not his master’s chair, but Captain Delano’s

mulatto was hybrid, his physiognomy was European–classically so.

rajah-looking mulatto

But a sort of love-quarrel, after all, thought Captain Delano.

Well, well, he looks like a murderer, doesn’t he?

just then the razor drew blood, spots of which stained the creamy lather under the throat

Again Don Benito faintly shuddered.

the close sight of the gleaming steel, Don Benito nervously shuddered;

But if there be that in the negro which exempts him from the inflicted sourness of the morbid or cynical mind, how, in his most prepossessing aspects, must he appear to a benevolent one? When at ease with respect to exterior things, Captain Delano’s nature was not only benign, but familiarly and humorously so. At home, he had often taken rare satisfaction in sitting in his door, watching some free man of color at his work or play. If on a voyage he chanced to have a black sailor, invariably he was on chatty and half-gamesome terms with him. In fact, like most men of a good, blithe heart, Captain Delano took to negroes, not philanthropically, but genially, just as other men to Newfoundland dogs.

as though God had set the whole negro to some pleasant tune.

Most negroes are natural valets and hair-dressers;

cousins-german

surrounding sea

similitude

Will master go into the cuddy?

a white

“Cape Horn?–who spoke of Cape Horn?”

warped as a camel’s skeleton in the desert

pumpkins

republican impartiality as to this republican element

Yes, this is a strange craft; a strange history, too, and strange folks on board. But–nothing more.

Left to himself, the American, to while away the time till his boat should arrive, would have pleasantly accosted some one of the few Spanish seamen he saw; but recalling something that Don Benito had said touching their ill conduct, he refrained; as a shipmaster indisposed to countenance cowardice or unfaithfulness in seamen.

phantoms

Ah, ah–if, now, that was, indeed, a secret sign I saw passing between this suspicious fellow and his captain awhile since; if I could only be certain that, in my uneasiness, my senses did not deceive me, then–

Upon this, the servant looked up with a good-natured grin, but the master started as from a venomous bite.

Captain Delano thought he observed a lurking significance in it, as if silent signs, of some Freemason sort, had that instant been interchanged.

the silky paw to his fangs

invalid

Deploring this supposed misconception, yet despairing of correcting it, Captain Delano shifted the subject; but finding his companion more than ever withdrawn, as if still sourly digesting the lees of the presumed affront above-mentioned, by-and-by Captain Delano likewise became less talkative, oppressed, against his own will, by what seemed the secret vindictiveness of the morbidly sensitive Spaniard. But the good sailor, himself of a quite contrary disposition, refrained, on his part, alike from the appearance as from the feeling of resentment, and if silent, was only so from contagion.

The black was silent.

An iron collar was about his neck, from which depended a chain, thrice wound round his body; the terminating links padlocked together at a broad band of iron, his girdle.

“Yes.” “But died of the fever?” “Died of the fever. Oh, could I but–” Again quivering, the Spaniard paused.

shepherds to your flock of black sheep?”

Is it, thought Captain Delano, that this hapless man is one of those paper captains I’ve known, who by policy wink at what by power they cannot put down? I know no sadder sight than a commander who has little of command but the name.

Suddenly, one of the black boys, enraged at a word dropped by one of his white companions, seized a knife, and, though called to forbear by one of the oakum-pickers, struck the lad over the head, inflicting a gash from which blood flowed.

organ-grinders

invalid

When Don Benito returned, the American was pained to observe that his hopefulness, like the sudden kindling in his cheek, was but febrile and transient.

Such generosity was not without its effect, even upon the invalid.

invalid

However unsuitable for the time and place, at least in the blunt-thinking American’s eyes

As master and man stood before him, the black upholding the white, Captain Delano could not but bethink him of the beauty of that relationship which could present such a spectacle of fidelity on the one hand and confidence on the other. The scene was heightened by, the contrast in dress, denoting their relative positions.

“Faithful fellow!” cried Captain Delano. “Don Benito, I envy you such a friend; slave I cannot call him.”

most of whom were become invalids

His cough returned and with increased violence; this subsiding; with reddened lips

Here there was a sudden fainting attack of his cough, brought on, no doubt, by his mental distress. His servant sustained him, and drawing a cordial from his pocket placed it to his lips.

a privileged spot

Would Don Benito favor him with the whole story.

what the emigrant ship has,

The San Dominick was in the condition of a transatlantic emigrant ship,

petty underling, either a white, mulatto or black

But this the American in charity ascribed to the harassing effects of sickness, since, in former instances, he had noted that there are peculiar natures on whom prolonged physical suffering seems to cancel every social instinct of kindness; as if, forced to black bread themselves, they deemed it but equity that each person coming nigh them should, indirectly, by some slight or affront, be made to partake of their fare.

Marking the noisy indocility of the blacks in general

A prey to settled dejection, as if long mocked with hope he would not now indulge it, even when it had ceased to be a mock, the prospect of that day, or evening at furthest, lying at anchor, with plenty of water for his people, and a brother captain to counsel and befriend, seemed in no perceptible degree to encourage him. His mind appeared unstrung, if not still more seriously affected.

Struggling through the throng, the American advanced to the Spaniard, assuring him of his sympathies, and offering to render whatever assistance might be in his power.

But as if not unwilling to let nature make known her own case among his suffering charge, or else in despair of restraining it for the time, the Spanish captain, a gentlemanly, reserved-looking, and rather young man to a stranger’s eye, dressed with singular richness, but bearing plain traces of recent sleepless cares and disquietudes, stood passively by, leaning against the main-mast, at one moment casting a dreary, spiritless look upon his excited people, at the next an unhappy glance toward his visitor. By his side stood a black of small stature, in whose rude face, as occasionally, like a shepherd’s dog, he mutely turned it up into the Spaniard’s, sorrow and affection were equally blended.

barbarous din. All six, unlike the generality, had the raw aspect of unsophisticated Africans.

with the peculiar love in negroes of uniting industry with pastime

They accompanied the task with a continuous, low, monotonous, chant; droning and drilling away like so many gray-headed bag-pipers playing a funeral march.

who, in venerable contrast to the tumult below them, were couched, sphynx-like, one on the starboard cat-head, another on the larboard, and the remaining pair face to face on the opposite bulwarks above the main-chains.

, had swept off a great part of their number, more especially the Spaniards.

negro transportation-ship

hearse-like roll of the hull.

f Castile and Leon, medallioned about by groups of mythological or symbolical devices; uppermost and central of which was a dark satyr in a mask, holding his foot on the prostrate neck of a writhing figure, likewise masked.

As the whale-boat drew more and more nigh, the cause of the peculiar pipe-clayed aspect of the stranger was seen in the slovenly neglect pervading her. The spars, ropes, and great part of the bulwarks, looked woolly, from long unacquaintance with the scraper, tar, and the brush. Her keel seemed laid, her ribs put together, and she launched, from Ezekiel’s Valley of Dry Bones.

nd the true character of the vessel was plain–a Spanish merchantman of the first class, carrying negro slaves, amongst other valuable freight, from one colonial port to another.

Peering over the bulwarks were what really seemed, in the hazy distance, throngs of dark cowls; while, fitfully revealed through the open port-holes, other dark moving figures were dimly descried, as of Black Friars pacing the cloisters.

_saya-y-manta._

To Captain Delano’s surprise, the stranger, viewed through the glass, showed no colors;

waved lead

The morning was one peculiar to that coast. Everything was mute and calm; everything gray

On the second day, not long after dawn, while lying in his berth, his mate came below, informing him that a strange sail was coming into the bay. Ships were then not so plenty in those waters as now. He rose, dressed, and went on deck.

Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, Missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you.

I sound my barbaric yawp

Perhaps I might tell more. Outlines! I plead for my brothers and sisters. Do you see O my brothers and sisters? It is not chaos or death — it is form, union, plan — it is eternal life — it is Happiness.

I sleep — I sleep long

Toss to the moaning gibberish of the dry limbs.

And as to you Corpse I think you are good manure, but that does not offend me,

Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself.

My face rubs to the hunter’s face when he lies down alone in his blanket,

I know perfectly well my own egotism,

Easily written loose-finger’d chords — I feel the thrum of your climax and close. My head slues round on my neck, Music rolls, but not from the organ, Folks are around me, but they are no household of mine.

By my life-lumps! becoming already a creator,

I have embraced you, and henceforth possess you to myself, And when you rise in the morning you will find what I tell you is so.

On his right cheek I put the family kiss, And in my soul I swear I never will deny him.

I am not to be denied

Man or woman, I might tell how I like you, but cannot,

Wherever he goes men and women accept and desire him,

The friendly and flowing savage

Corpses rise, gashes heal, fastenings roll from me.

That I could look with a separate look on my own crucifixion and bloody crowning!

The hiss of the surgeon’s knife, the gnawing teeth of his saw, Wheeze, cluck, swash of falling blood, short wild scream, and long, dull, tapering groan,

White and beautiful are the faces around me,

I am the hounded slave, I wince at the bite of the dogs,

I am a free companion, I bivouac by invading watchfires, I turn the bridegroom out of bed and stay with the bride myself, I tighten her all night to my thighs and lips.

Hot toward one I hate, ready in my madness to knife him,

Where the bull advances to do his masculine work, where the

Under Niagara, the cataract falling like a veil over my countenance,

A gigantic beauty of a stallion, fresh and responsive to my caresses, Head high in the forehead, wide between the ears, Limbs glossy and supple, tail dusting the ground, Eyes full of sparkling wickedness, ears finely cut, flexibly moving. His nostrils dilate as my heels embrace him, His well-built limbs tremble with pleasure as we race around and return. I but use you a minute, then I resign you, stallion, Why do I need your paces when I myself out-gallop them? Even as I stand or sit passing faster than you.

Picking out here one that I love, and now go with him on brotherly terms.

And am stucco’d with quadrupeds

Logic and sermons never convince,

All truths wait in all things,

Landscapes projected masculine

Is this then a touch? quivering me to a new identity,

It sails me, I dab with bare feet, they are lick’d by the indolent waves,

The slow march play’d at the head of the association marching two and two, (They go to guard some corpse, the flag-tops are draped with black muslin.)

Encompass worlds, but never try to encompass me,

You my rich blood! your milky stream pale strippings of my life! Breast that presses against other breasts it shall be you! My brain it shall be your occult convolutions! Root of wash’d sweet-flag! timorous pond-snipe! nest of guarded duplicate eggs! it shall be you! Mix’d tussled hay of head, beard, brawn, it shall be you! Trickling sap of maple, fibre of manly wheat, it shall be you! Sun so generous it shall be you! Vapors lighting and shading my face it shall be you! You sweaty brooks and dews it shall be you! Winds whose soft-tickling genitals rub against me it shall be you! Broad muscular fields, branches of live oak, loving lounger in my winding paths, it shall be you! Hands I have taken, face I have kiss’d, mortal I have ever touch’d, it shall be you.

Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or am touch’d from,

Copulation is no more rank to me than death is.

Walt Whitman, a kosmos, of Manhattan the son, Turbulent, fleshy, sensual, eating, drinking and breeding.

Hurrah for positive science! long live exact demonstration! Fetch stonecrop mixt with cedar and branches of lilac,

Dash me with amorous wet, I can repay you.

I am the poet of the woman the same as the man, And I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man, And I say there is nothing greater than the mother of men.

I am the poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul,

I exist as I am, that is enough,

I know I am deathless,

I wear my hat as I please indoors or out.

I do not snivel that snivel the world over,

The heavy-lipp’d slave

Vivas to those who have fail’d! And to those whose war-vessels sank in the sea! And to those themselves who sank in the sea! And to all generals that lost engagements, and all overcome heroes! And the numberless unknown heroes equal to the greatest heroes known!

(The moth and the fish-eggs are in their place, The bright suns I see and the dark suns I cannot see are in their place, The palpable is in its place and the impalpable is in its place.)

I am of old and young, of the foolish as much as the wise, Regardless of others, ever regardful of others, Maternal as well as paternal, a child as well as a man, Stuff’d with the stuff that is coarse and stuff’d with the stuff that is fine,

The crowd laugh at her blackguard oaths, the men jeer and wink to each other,

The half-breed

The young fellow drives the express-wagon, (I love him, though I do not know him;)

The lunatic is carried at last to the asylum a confirm’d case, (He will never sleep any more as he did in the cot in his mother’s bedroom;)

Ya-honk

His blue shirt exposes his ample neck and breast and loosens over his hip-band, His glance is calm and commanding, he tosses the slouch of his hat away from his forehead, The sun falls on his crispy hair and mustache, falls on the black of his polish’d and perfect limbs.

The lithe sheer of their waists plays even with their massive arms,

Blacksmiths with grimed and hairy chests environ the anvil,

The young men float on their backs, their white bellies bulge to the sun, they do not ask who seizes fast to them, They do not know who puffs and declines with pendant and bending arch, They do not think whom they souse with spray.

She owns the fine house by the rise of the bank, She hides handsome and richly drest aft the blinds of the window.

She had long eyelashes, her head was bare, her coarse straight locks descended upon her voluptuous limbs and reach’d to her feet.

red girl,

I mind them or the show or resonance of them — I come and I depart.

The little one sleeps in its cradle, I lift the gauze and look a long time, and silently brush away flies with my hand.

What do you think has become of the young and old men? And what do you think has become of the women and children?

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,

How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he.

And that a kelson of the creation is love,

And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the women my sisters and lovers,

I mind how once we lay such a transparent summer morning, How you settled your head athwart my hips and gently turn’d over upon me, And parted the shirt from my bosom-bone, and plunged your tongue to my bare-stript heart, And reach’d till you felt my beard, and reach’d till you held my feet.

I am satisfied — I see, dance, laugh, sing; As the hugging and loving bed-fellow sleeps at my side through the night, and withdraws at the peep of the day with stealthy tread, Leaving me baskets cover’d with white towels swelling the house with their plenty, Shall I postpone my acceptation and realization and scream at my eyes, That they turn from gazing after and down the road, And forthwith cipher and show me to a cent, Exactly the value of one and exactly the value of two, and which is ahead?

Clear and sweet is my soul, and clear and sweet is all that is not my soul.

Urge and urge and urge,

And will never be any more perfection than there is now,

nor feed on the spectres in books,

You shall possess the good of the earth and sun, (there are millions of suns left,)

Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?

The atmosphere is not a perfume, it has no taste of the distillation, it is odorless, It is for my mouth forever, I am in love with it,

I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard, Nature without check with original energy.

I loafe and invite my soul, I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

Song of Myself

I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself,

Most men gamble with her, and gain all, and lose all, as her wheel rolls.

Not so, O friends! will the God deign to enter and inhabit you, but by a method precisely the reverse.

The Democrats from New Hampshire!

Columbus found the New World

For every Stoic was a Stoic; but in Christendom where is the Christian?

his libraries overload his wit

Society never advances.

Where is the master who could have taught Shakspeare? Where is the master who could have instructed Franklin, or Washington, or Bacon, or Newton? Every great man is a unique.

Ameri- cans

Swedenborgism

As men’s prayers are a disease of the will, so are their creeds a disease of the intellect.

Zoroaster

self-reliance