Walt Whitman Poems : Unnamed Land

Nations ten thousand years before these States, and many times ten
thousand years before these States,
Garner'd clusters of ages that men and women like us grew up and
travel'd their course and pass'd on,
What vast-built cities, what orderly republics, what pastoral tribes
and nomads,
What histories, rulers, heroes, perhaps transcending all others,
What laws, customs, wealth, arts, traditions,
What sort of marriage, what costumes, what physiology and phrenology,
What of liberty and slavery among them, what they thought of death
and the soul,
Who were witty and wise, who beautiful and poetic, who brutish and
undevelop'd,
Not a mark, not a record remains--and yet all remains.

 

O I know that those men and women were not for nothing, any more
than we are for nothing,
I know that they belong to the scheme of the world every bit as much
as we now belong to it.

 

Afar they stand, yet near to me they stand,
Some with oval countenances learn'd and calm,
Some naked and savage, some like huge collections of insects,
Some in tents, herdsmen, patriarchs, tribes, horsemen,
Some prowling through woods, some living peaceably on farms,
laboring, reaping, filling barns,
Some traversing paved avenues, amid temples, palaces, factories,
libraries, shows, courts, theatres, wonderful monuments.
Are those billions of men really gone?
Are those women of the old experience of the earth gone?
Do their lives, cities, arts, rest only with us?
Did they achieve nothing for good for themselves?

 

I believe of all those men and women that fill'd the unnamed lands,
every one exists this hour here or elsewhere, invisible to us.
In exact proportion to what he or she grew from in life, and out of
what he or she did, felt, became, loved, sinn'd, in life.

 

I believe that was not the end of those nations or any person of
them, any more than this shall be the end of my nation, or of me;
Of their languages, governments, marriage, literature, products,
games, wars, manners, crimes, prisons, slaves, heroes, poets,
I suspect their results curiously await in the yet unseen world,
counterparts of what accrued to them in the seen world,
I suspect I shall meet them there,
I suspect I shall there find each old particular of those unnamed lands.

Submited by

Wednesday, April 13, 2011 - 00:56

Poesia Consagrada :

No votes yet

Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman's picture
Offline
Title: Membro
Last seen: 12 years 51 weeks ago
Joined: 04/08/2011
Posts:
Points: 849

Add comment

Login to post comments

other contents of Walt Whitman

Topic Title Replies Views Last Postsort icon Language
Poesia Consagrada/Biography Walt Whitman Biography 0 4.485 04/13/2011 - 17:13 English
Poesia Consagrada/Biography Walt Whitman Biografia 0 7.171 04/13/2011 - 17:10 Spanish
Poesia Consagrada/Biography Walt Whitman Biografia 0 9.528 04/13/2011 - 17:05 Portuguese
Poesia Consagrada/General Walt Whitman Poems : Youth, Day, Old Age and Night 0 4.304 04/13/2011 - 17:03 English
Poesia Consagrada/General Walt Whitman Poems : You Felons on Trial in Courts 0 4.381 04/13/2011 - 17:01 English
Poesia Consagrada/General Walt Whitman Poems : Yonnondio 0 4.796 04/13/2011 - 17:00 English
Poesia Consagrada/General Walt Whitman Poems : Yet, Yet Ye Downcast Hours 0 5.000 04/13/2011 - 16:59 English
Poesia Consagrada/General Walt Whitman Poems : Years of the Modern 0 4.510 04/13/2011 - 16:59 English
Poesia Consagrada/General Walt Whitman Poems : Year of Meteors [1859-60] 0 4.893 04/13/2011 - 16:57 English
Poesia Consagrada/General Walt Whitman Poems : The Wound-Dresser 0 5.739 04/13/2011 - 16:56 English
Poesia Consagrada/General Walt Whitman Poems : The World Below the Brine 0 4.745 04/13/2011 - 16:55 English
Poesia Consagrada/General Walt Whitman Poems : A Woman Waits for Me 0 5.116 04/13/2011 - 16:53 English
Poesia Consagrada/General Walt Whitman Poems : With Husky-Haughty Lips, O Sea! 0 5.183 04/13/2011 - 16:52 English
Poesia Consagrada/General Walt Whitman Poems : With Antecedents 0 5.491 04/13/2011 - 16:51 English
Poesia Consagrada/General Walt Whitman Poems : Who Learns My Lesson Complete? 0 4.394 04/13/2011 - 16:50 English
Poesia Consagrada/General Walt Whitman Poems : Whoever You Are Holding Me Now in Hand 0 4.305 04/13/2011 - 16:48 English
Poesia Consagrada/General Walt Whitman Poems : Whispers of Heavenly Death 0 3.854 04/13/2011 - 16:47 English
Poesia Consagrada/General Walt Whitman Poems : When the Full-Grown Poet Came 0 4.953 04/13/2011 - 16:46 English
Poesia Consagrada/General Walt Whitman Poems : When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd 0 4.737 04/13/2011 - 16:45 English
Poesia Consagrada/General Walt Whitman Poems : When I Read the Book 0 4.203 04/13/2011 - 16:43 English
Poesia Consagrada/General Walt Whitman Poems : When I Peruse the Conquer'd Fame 0 6.465 04/13/2011 - 16:42 English
Poesia Consagrada/General Walt Whitman Poems : When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer 0 4.262 04/13/2011 - 16:41 English
Poesia Consagrada/General Walt Whitman Poems : When I Heard at the Close of the Day 0 4.041 04/13/2011 - 16:40 English
Poesia Consagrada/General Walt Whitman Poems : What Think You I Take My Pen in Hand? 0 4.139 04/13/2011 - 16:38 English
Poesia Consagrada/General Walt Whitman Poems : What Ship Puzzled at Sea 0 4.503 04/13/2011 - 16:37 English