This Compost
Walt Whitman
Track 195 on Leaves of Grass
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This Compost Lyrics
1
Something startles me where I thought I was safest,
I withdraw from the still woods I loved,
I will not go now on the pastures to walk,
I will not strip the clothes from my body to meet my lover the sea,
I will not touch my flesh to the earth as to other flesh to renew me.
O how can it be that the ground itself does not sicken?
How can you be alive you growths of spring?
How can you furnish health you blood of herbs, roots, orchards, grain?
Are they not continually putting distemper'd corpses within you?
Is not every continent work'd over and over with sour dead?
Where have you disposed of their carcasses?
Those drunkards and gluttons of so many generations?
Where have you drawn off all the foul liquid and meat?
I do not see any of it upon you to-day, or perhaps I am deceiv'd,
I will run a furrow with my plough, I will press my spade through
the sod and turn it up underneath,
I am sure I shall expose some of the foul meat.
2
Behold this compost! behold it well!
Perhaps every mite has once form'd part of a sick person—yet behold!
The grass of spring covers the prairies,
The bean bursts noiselessly through the mould in the garden,
The delicate spear of the onion pierces upward,
The apple-buds cluster together on the apple-branches,
The resurrection of the wheat appears with pale visage out of its graves,
The tinge awakes over the willow-tree and the mulberry-tree,
The he-birds carol mornings and evenings while the she-birds sit on
their nests,
The young of poultry break through the hatch'd eggs,
The new-born of animals appear, the calf is dropt from the cow, the
colt from the mare,
Out of its little hill faithfully rise the potato's dark green leaves,
Out of its hill rises the yellow maize-stalk, the lilacs bloom in
the dooryards,
The summer growth is innocent and disdainful above all those strata
of sour dead.
What chemistry!
That the winds are really not infectious,
That this is no cheat, this transparent green-wash of the sea which
is so amorous after me,
That it is safe to allow it to lick my naked body all over with its tongues,
That it will not endanger me with the fevers that have deposited
themselves in it,
That all is clean forever and forever,
That the cool drink from the well tastes so good,
That blackberries are so flavorous and juicy,
That the fruits of the apple-orchard and the orange-orchard, that
melons, grapes, peaches, plums, will none of them poison me,
That when I recline on the grass I do not catch any disease,
Though probably every spear of grass rises out of what was once
catching disease.
Now I am terrified at the Earth, it is that calm and patient,
It grows such sweet things out of such corruptions,
It turns harmless and stainless on its axis, with such endless
successions of diseas'd corpses,
It distills such exquisite winds out of such infused fetor,
It renews with such unwitting looks its prodigal, annual, sumptuous crops,
It gives such divine materials to men, and accepts such leavings
from them at last.
Something startles me where I thought I was safest,
I withdraw from the still woods I loved,
I will not go now on the pastures to walk,
I will not strip the clothes from my body to meet my lover the sea,
I will not touch my flesh to the earth as to other flesh to renew me.
O how can it be that the ground itself does not sicken?
How can you be alive you growths of spring?
How can you furnish health you blood of herbs, roots, orchards, grain?
Are they not continually putting distemper'd corpses within you?
Is not every continent work'd over and over with sour dead?
Where have you disposed of their carcasses?
Those drunkards and gluttons of so many generations?
Where have you drawn off all the foul liquid and meat?
I do not see any of it upon you to-day, or perhaps I am deceiv'd,
I will run a furrow with my plough, I will press my spade through
the sod and turn it up underneath,
I am sure I shall expose some of the foul meat.
2
Behold this compost! behold it well!
Perhaps every mite has once form'd part of a sick person—yet behold!
The grass of spring covers the prairies,
The bean bursts noiselessly through the mould in the garden,
The delicate spear of the onion pierces upward,
The apple-buds cluster together on the apple-branches,
The resurrection of the wheat appears with pale visage out of its graves,
The tinge awakes over the willow-tree and the mulberry-tree,
The he-birds carol mornings and evenings while the she-birds sit on
their nests,
The young of poultry break through the hatch'd eggs,
The new-born of animals appear, the calf is dropt from the cow, the
colt from the mare,
Out of its little hill faithfully rise the potato's dark green leaves,
Out of its hill rises the yellow maize-stalk, the lilacs bloom in
the dooryards,
The summer growth is innocent and disdainful above all those strata
of sour dead.
That the winds are really not infectious,
That this is no cheat, this transparent green-wash of the sea which
is so amorous after me,
That it is safe to allow it to lick my naked body all over with its tongues,
That it will not endanger me with the fevers that have deposited
themselves in it,
That all is clean forever and forever,
That the cool drink from the well tastes so good,
That blackberries are so flavorous and juicy,
That the fruits of the apple-orchard and the orange-orchard, that
melons, grapes, peaches, plums, will none of them poison me,
That when I recline on the grass I do not catch any disease,
Though probably every spear of grass rises out of what was once
catching disease.
Now I am terrified at the Earth, it is that calm and patient,
It grows such sweet things out of such corruptions,
It turns harmless and stainless on its axis, with such endless
successions of diseas'd corpses,
It distills such exquisite winds out of such infused fetor,
It renews with such unwitting looks its prodigal, annual, sumptuous crops,
It gives such divine materials to men, and accepts such leavings
from them at last.
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- 7.Eidolons
- 11.Beginners
- 12.To the States
- 15.Me Imperturbe
- 16.Savantism
- 22.Poets to Come
- 24.Thou Reader
- 26.Song of Myself
- 38.Native Moments
- 56.Trickle Drops
- 57.City of Orgies
- 60.To a Stranger
- 76.To a Western Boy
- 81.Full of Life Now
- 82.Salut au Monde!
- 87.A Song of Joys
- 96.To You II
- 98.Myself and Mine
- 100.With Antecedents
- 101.A Broadway Pageant
- 104.Tears
- 111.Patroling Barnegat
- 112.After the Sea-Ship
- 116.Gods
- 117.Germs
- 118.Thoughts
- 119.Perfections
- 121.To a President
- 122.I Sit and Look Out
- 123.To Rich Givers
- 128.The Runner
- 129.Beautiful Women
- 130.Mother and Babe
- 131.Thought
- 132.Visor’d
- 133.Thought-II
- 134.Gliding O’er all
- 136.Thought-III
- 137.To Old Age
- 138.Locations and Times
- 139.Offerings
- 142.Eighteen Sixty-One
- 143.Beat! Beat! Drums!
- 147.Virginia—The West
- 148.City of Ships
- 159.Not the Pilot
- 161.The Wound-Dresser
- 170.Race of Veterans
- 174.Reconciliation
- 181.Adieu to a Soldier
- 182.Turn O Libertad
- 189.Reversals
- 190.As Consequent, Etc.
- 193.Old Ireland
- 194.The City Dead-House
- 195.This Compost
- 197.Unnamed Land
- 198.Song of Prudence
- 203.Vocalism
- 206.Laws for Creations
- 209.Thought2
- 212.To a Pupil
- 214.What Am I After All
- 215.Kosmos
- 218.Tests
- 219.The Torch
- 221.The Ox-Tamer
- 222.Wandering at Morn
- 223.With All Thy Gifts
- 224.My Picture-Gallery
- 225.The Prairie States
- 228.Prayer of Columbus
- 230.Transpositions
- 238.Assurances
- 239.Quicksand Years
- 246.Thought-IV
- 247.The Last Invocation
- 251.A Paumanok Picture
- 253.Faces
- 254.The Mystic Trumpeter
- 256.O Magnet-South
- 258.All Is Truth
- 259.A Riddle Song
- 260.Excelsior
- 262.Thoughts-V
- 263.Mediums
- 265.Spain, 1873-74
- 268.Old War-Dreams
- 273.Years of the Modern
- 274.Ashes of Soldiers
- 275.Thoughts VI
- 276.Song at Sunset
- 278.My Legacy
- 280.Camps of Green
- 283.Joy, Shipmate, Joy!
- 285.Portals
- 286.These Carols
- 289.Mannahatta II
- 290.Paumanok
- 291.From Montauk Point
- 294.The Bravest Soldiers
- 295.A Font of Type
- 297.My Canary Bird
- 300.The First Dandelion
- 302.Memories
- 303.To-Day and Thee
- 307.Halcyon Days
- 314.Broadway
- 316.Old Salt Kossabone
- 317.The Dead Tenor
- 319.Yonnondio
- 320.Life
- 321.“Going Somewhere”
- 323.True Conquerors
- 326.Thanks in Old Age
- 327.Life and Death
- 331.The Dying Veteran
- 332.Stronger Lessons
- 333.A Prairie Sunset
- 334.Twenty Years
- 336.Twilight
- 339.The Dead Emperor
- 341.The Dismantled Ship
- 343.An Evening Lull
- 347.Lingering Last Drops
- 350.MY 71st Year
- 351.Apparitions
- 352.The Pallid Wreath
- 353.An Ended Day
- 355.To the Pending Year
- 357.Long, Long Hence
- 359.Interpolation Sounds
- 361.Old Chants
- 362.A Christmas Greeting
- 363.Sounds of the Winter
- 364.A Twilight Song
- 366.Osceola
- 367.A Voice from Death
- 368.A Persian Lesson
- 369.The Commonplace
- 371.Mirages
- 372.L. of G.’s Purport
- 373.The Unexpress’d
- 374.Grand Is the Seen
- 375.Unseen Buds
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