By Whitman, Biweekly! March 23rd

By Whitman, Biweekly!
Tuesday March 23rd,  4pm SLT
Caledon Library, on the Hub in Victoria City
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Caledon%20Victoria%20City/160/117/23

A Discussion led by Dame Kghia Gherardi of the works of Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass is one of the works at the foundations of American poetry. Its expansive attempt to capture the spirit and landscape of the 19th century United States has influenced an entire culture's self-concept, and its rich language continues to inspire readers today as it has for the century and a half of its existence.

"By Whitman, BI-Weekly" will provide an opportunity to look closely at this beloved work. Each time we'll spend an hour discussing its context and examining the poetry of the 1855 first edition.

The series will also give those who love Leaves of Grass, and those who would like to learn more, an opportunity to explore Whitman's vigorous and heartfelt poetry together.

Below is the text we'll discuss this week:

CLEAR the way there Jonathan!
Way for the President's marshal! Way for the government cannon!
Way for the federal foot and dragoons . . . . and the phantoms afterward.

I rose this morning early to get betimes in Boston town;
Here's a good place at the corner . . . . I must stand and see the show.

I love to look on the stars and stripes . . . . I hope the fifes will play Yankee Doodle.

How bright shine the foremost with cutlasses,
Every man holds his revolver . . . . marching stiff through Boston town.

A fog follows . . . . antiques of the same come limping,
Some appear wooden-legged and some appear bandaged and bloodless.

Why this is a show! It has called the dead out of the earth,
The old graveyards of the hills have hurried to see;
Uncountable phantoms gather by flank and rear of it,
Cocked hats of mothy mould and crutches made of mist,
Arms in slings and old men leaning on young men's shoulders.

What troubles you, Yankee phantoms? What is all this chattering of bare gums?
Does the ague convulse your limbs? Do you mistake your crutches for firelocks,
         and level them?

If you blind your eyes with tears you will not see the President's marshal,
If you groan such groans you might balk the government cannon.

For shame old maniacs! . . . . Bring down those tossed arms, and let your white
         hair be;
Here gape your smart grandsons . . . . their wives gaze at them from the windows,
See how well-dressed . . . . see how orderly they conduct themselves.

Worse and worse . . . . Can't you stand it? Are you retreating?
Is this hour with the living too dead for you?

Retreat then! Pell-mell! . . . . Back to the hills, old limpers!
I do not think you belong here anyhow.
But there is one thing that belongs here . . . . Shall I tell you what it is, gentlemen of
         Boston?

I will whisper it to the Mayor . . . . he shall send a committee to England,
They shall get a grant from the Parliament, and go with a cart to the royal vault,
Dig out King George's coffin . . . . unwrap him quick from the graveclothes . . . .
         box up his bones for a journey:
Find a swift Yankee clipper . . . . here is freight for you blackbellied clipper,
Up with your anchor! shake out your sails! . . . . steer straight toward Boston bay.

Now call the President's marshal again, and bring out the government cannon,
And fetch home the roarers from Congress, and make another procession and guard
         it with foot and dragoons.

Here is a centrepiece for them:
Look! all orderly citizens . . . . look from the windows women.

The committee open the box and set up the regal ribs and glue those that will not
         stay,
And clap the skull on top of the ribs, and clap a crown on top of the skull.

You have got your revenge old buster! . . . . The crown is come to its own and more
         than its own.

Stick your hands in your pockets Jonathan . . . . you are a made man from this day,
You are mighty cute . . . . and here is one of your bargains.
THERE was a child went forth every day,
And the first object he looked upon and received with wonder or pity or love
         or dread, that object he became,
And that object became part of him for the day or a certain part of the day . . . . or
         for many years or stretching cycles of years.

The early lilacs became part of this child,
And grass, and white and red morningglories, and white and red clover, and the song
         of the phoebe-bird,
And the March-born lambs, and the sow's pink-faint litter, and the mare's foal, and
         the cow's calf, and the noisy brood of the barnyard or by the mire of the pond-
         side . . and the fish suspending themselves so curiously below there . . and the
         beautiful curious liquid . . and the water-plants with their graceful flat heads . .
         all became part of him.

And the field-sprouts of April and May became part of him  . . . . wintergrain sprouts,
         and those of the light-yellow corn, and of the esculent roots of the garden,
And the appletrees covered with blossoms, and the fruit afterward . . . . and wood-
         berries . . and the commonest weeds by the road;
And the old drunkard staggering home from the outhouse of the tavern whence he
         had lately risen,
And the schoolmistress that passed on her way to the school . . and the friendly boys
         that passed . . and the quarrelsome boys . . and the tidy and freshcheeked girls . .
         and the barefoot negro boy and girl,
And all the changes of city and country wherever he went.

His own parents . . he that had propelled the fatherstuff at night, and fathered him . .
         and she that conceived him in her womb and birthed him . . . . they gave this
         child more of themselves than that,
They gave him afterward every day . . . . they and of them became part of him.
The mother at home quietly placing the dishes on the suppertable,
The mother with mild words . . . . clean her cap and gown  . . . . a wholesome odor
         falling off her person and clothes as she walks by:
The father, strong, selfsufficient, manly, mean, angered, unjust,
The blow, the quick loud word, the tight bargain, the crafty lure,
The family usages, the language, the company, the furniture . . . . the yearning and
         swelling heart,
Affection that will not be gainsayed . . . . The sense of what is real . . . . the thought
         if after all it should prove unreal,
The doubts of daytime and the doubts of nighttime . . .  the curious whether and how,
Whether that which appears so is so . . . . Or is it all flashes and specks?
Men and women crowding fast in the streets . . if they are not flashes and specks
         what are they?
The streets themselves, and the facades of houses . . . . the goods in the windows,
Vehicles . . teams . . the tiered wharves, and the huge crossing at the ferries;
The village on the highland seen from afar at sunset . . . . the river between,
Shadows . . aureola and mist . . light falling on roofs and gables of white or brown,
         three miles off,
The schooner near by sleepily dropping down the tide . .  the little boat slacktowed
         astern,
The hurrying tumbling waves and quickbroken crests and slapping;
The strata of colored clouds . . . . the long bar of maroontint away solitary by
         itself . . . . the spread of purity it lies motionless in,
The horizon's edge, the flying seacrow, the fragrance of saltmarsh and shoremud;
These became part of that child who went forth every day, and who now goes and
         will always go forth every day,
And these become of him or her that peruses them now.