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A poem by Walt Whitman |
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A Riddle Song |
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Title: A Riddle Song Author: Walt Whitman [More Titles by Whitman] That which eludes this verse and any verse, Unheard by sharpest ear, unform'd in clearest eye or cunningest mind, Nor lore nor fame, nor happiness nor wealth, And yet the pulse of every heart and life throughout the world incessantly, Which you and I and all pursuing ever ever miss, Open but still a secret, the real of the real, an illusion, Costless, vouchsafed to each, yet never man the owner, Which poets vainly seek to put in rhyme, historians in prose, Which sculptor never chisel'd yet, nor painter painted, Which vocalist never sung, nor orator nor actor ever utter'd, Invoking here and now I challenge for my song.
Behind the mountain and the wood, Companion of the city's busiest streets, through the assemblage, It and its radiations constantly glide.
Or strangely in the coffin'd dead, Or show of breaking dawn or stars by night, As some dissolving delicate film of dreams, Hiding yet lingering.
Two words, yet all from first to last comprised in it.
How many ships have sail'd and sunk for it!
How much of genius boldly staked and lost for it! What countless stores of beauty, love, ventur'd for it! How all superbest deeds since Time began are traceable to it--and shall be to the end! How, justified by it, the horrors, evils, battles of the earth! How the bright fascinating lambent flames of it, in every age and land, have drawn men's eyes, Rich as a sunset on the Norway coast, the sky, the islands, and the cliffs, Or midnight's silent glowing northern lights unreachable.
The soul for it, and all the visible universe for it, And heaven at last for it. [The end] GO TO TOP OF SCREEN |