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WALT WHITMAN'S
AMERICAN INSTITUTE
POEM.
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2011 with funding from
Princeton Theological Seminary Library
http://www.archive.org/details/afterallnottocreOOwhit
/ oku03Wi
AFTER ALL, NOT TO CREATE ONLY.
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Recited by Walt Whitman, on Invitation of Managers American Institute, on Opening their \oth Annual Exhibition, New York, noon, September 7, 187 1.
BOSTON:
ROBERTS BROTHERS.
1S71.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by
WALT WHITMAN,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at "Washington.
CAMBRIDGE: PRESS OF JOHN WILSON AND SON.
American Institute,
New York, Aug. 1, 1871. Walt Whitman, Esq.
Dear Sir, — Aware of the kindly and generous interest you take in the welfare and progress of the American Institute, the Board of Managers of the 40th National Industrial Exhibition have instructed us to solicit of you the honor of a Poem on the occasion of its Opening, Sept. 7, 1871 — with the privilege of furnishing proofs of the same to the metropolitan press for publication with the other proceedings.
With profound respect,
George Peyton, Chas. E. Burd, James B. Young,
Committee on Invitations.
The invitation as above was promptly accepted.
It may be proper to say that the American Institute, organized about forty years ago, for developing, perfecting, and exemplifying Mechanical, Farming, Inventive, Scientific, and Art interests in the United States, holds every fall a National Exhibition, or Pair, in New York, where the results of its labors in these departments are collected, and are visited and examined by many thousands of people. It was to formally inaugurate the 40th of these Fairs, that "After all, Not to Create only," was recited. The actual scene is emi- nently practical, modern, and comprehensive. Engines, machinery, and apparatus of all kinds, musical and philosophical instruments, sculpture, casts, minerals, woollen, cotton and linen goods, fertilizers, the latest farm and household implements, and all improved products of the soil, form but a part of one of these Exhibitions, and of the basis afforded by it to the Philosopher, the Political Economist, or the Poet.
VI
The fact, however, in connection with the Institute, at present most interesting and important to the public throughout the United States — and the spinal part of the Poem ensuing — is the noble plan to soon build, or commence to build, a Structure, or group of struc- tures, for a vast permanent Universal Exhibition and Rendezvous of specimens of all the Products, Manufactures, Trades, Machinery, both land and sea, of the New "World — and for Science and Art. An official statement of the Managers, lately printed, says : —
"It is the intention of the Institute as soon as a proper site can he obtained, either in Central Park or sonic other suitable locality, to commence the erection upon it of a costly and imposing edifice at an expense of -cine $2,000,000, which shall entirely eclipse any industrial palace that has ever been built in any part of the world, whether as to the elegance of architect- ural design, the immensity of its proportions, or the beauty, utility and durability of the materials used in its construction. The uses to which it will be put are these: The palace will be divided into various departments. One of these will contain a perpetual exhibition of the finest examples of American workmanship and ingenuity in competition with each other, grouped geographically, so as to illustrate the comparative material progress and position of each State and Territory of the Union. Another great feat- ure will be a department of contrasts', wherein may be seen the obsolete mechanisms of a century ago in juxtaposition with the marvellous machin- ery of to-day, together with such as would indicate the intermediate steps by Avhich the present degree of perfection has been reached — than which nothing could be more graphically illustrative of our national growth in the mechanical arts during the century. Another Avill be the department of models, very similar to that at the Patent Office, Washington, which, owing to its distance from the great centre of population, industry, manufactures, commerce and trade, is of little practical benefit to inventors compared with what it would be were it placed here.
"Another, and perhaps most interesting of all, will be the department of the American Workshop, where the interesting movements by which Ameri- can industry works out her multifarious results from the raw material to the finished product, may be both seen and understood: and where either the boy or the man may learn almost at a glance that which years of patient book-toil might not teach.
•■ Still another department will comprehend a museum of American min- erals, so arranged, classified and ticketed as not only to awaken admiration and curiosity, but also to convey to the observer some practical idea of the wealth, expenditures of time, ingenuity, labor and money, and the losses and gains they represent in mine-working ; and a museum of American geology, to teach the lessons of the rocks, touching the structure of this con- tinent; together with a collection of fossiliferous remain-, arranged in such wise as to illustrate the progressive growths, through the ages, of vegetable and animated nature. Another branch will be devoted to such of the 1 (ranches of natural history as have no especial department. Another will be given to the fine arts; and this, besides its general features, will em- brace a permanent gallery of American paintings, a great hall of Ameri- can statuary, and a vast Musical Conservatory — constructed with special reference to the principles of acoustics — wherein multitudes may daih assemble and listen to the choicest American compositions sung by American voices and played by American performers upon American instruments; or where, by way of comparison and change, the finest conceptions of the Euro-
Vll
pean masters might be rendered by monster choirs and orchestras of all musical nationalities upon a scale befitting their grandeur and the vastness of the audiences. Another department will be given over to horticulture and agriculture; another to commerce; another to American antiquities gathered from all parts of this continent as a permanent accessible record of the past histories of the various races which at different periods have inhabited it.
"Another portion of the enormous edifice will be consecrated to learning. Here will be the great Lecture Hall, in which the ablest professors will give to listening throngs such glimpses of the sciences as shall make them long for and seek to gain more thorough and exact knowledge, and thus science shall be truly popularized. Here also will be the halls where the various scientific sections, not alone the agricultural, horticultural, photographical and polytechnic sections of to-day, but the projected sections — geographical, chemical, historical, astronomical, geological, botanical, microscopical and others — will meet and discuss, before freely admitted audiences, problems, the solutions of which would enhance the fame and -the power of our country. Here, too, will be situated the great scientific library of the Institute, which already numbers over 10,000 valuable volumes; and here the chemical labo- ratory and workshops, in which the faculty of the Institute may labor, and perchance assist the struggling inventor to a practical success which his own unaided efforts or scant resources might for ever preclude. Here the philos- opher may teach and the student learn the wonders of science in its varied relations to earth, fire, water and air; and here may the now impenetrable veil be torn from many a mystery."
It was in view of the. scheme thus projected — in the midst, as it were, of the vast Laboring, Mechanical, and Farming objects and life of the country — to suggest that artists and poets in the United States may best give up old-time and old-world themes, and betake themselves to convey the power, beauty and nutriment of Humanity here, with current; Inventions, Science, Patriotism — and to make Labor ideal as well as material — that the following Recitation had its delivery.
After all, Not to Create only.
l.
A FTER all, not to create only, or found only, ■**• But to bring, perhaps from afar, what is
already founded, To give it our own identity, average, limitless,
free ; To fill the gross, the torpid bulk with vital re
ligious fire ; Not to repel or destroy, so much as accept, fuse,
rehabilitate ; To obey, as well as command — to follow, more
than to lead ; These also are the lessons of our New World ; — While how little the New, after all — how , much the Old, Old World!
Long, long, long, has the grass been growing, Long and long has the rain been falling, Long has the globe been rolling round.
Come, Muse, migrate from Greece and Ionia ; Cross out, please, those immensely overpaid ac- counts,
10 WALT WHITMAN'S
That matter of Troy, and Achilles' wrath, and Eneas', Odysseus1 wanderings ;
Placard "Removed" and " To Let" on the rocks of your snowy Parnassus ;
Repeat at Jerusalem — place the notice high on Jaffa's gate, and on Mount Moriah ;
The same on the walls of your Gothic European Cathedrals, and German, French and Span- ish Castles ;
For know a better, fresher, busier sphere — a wide, untried domain awaits, demands you
3.
Responsive to our summons, Or rather to her long-nurs'd inclination, Join'd with an irresistible, natural gravitation, She comes ! this famous Female — as was indeed
to be expected ; (For who, so ever-youthful, 'cute and handsome, would wish to stay in mansions such as those, When offer d quarters with all the modern im- provements, With all the fun that's going — and all the best society 1)
She comes ! I hear the rustling of her gown ;
I scent the odor of her breath's delicious fra- grance ;
I mark her step divine — her curious eyes a- turning, rolling,
Upon this very scene.
AMERICAN INSTITUTE POEM. 11
The Dame of Dames! can I believe, then,
Those ancient temples classic, and castles strong and fendalistic, could none of them restrain her?
Nor shades of Virgil and Dante — nor myriad memories, poems, old associations, magnet- ize and hold on to her?
But that she 's left them all — and here?
Yes, if you will allow me to say so,
I, my friends, if you do not, can plainly see Her,
The same Undying Soul of Earth's, activity's,
beauty's, heroism's Expression, Out from her evolutions hither come — sub- merged the strata of her former themes, Hidden and cover'd by to-day's — foundation of
to-day's ; Ended, deceas'd, through time, her voice by Cas-
taly's fountain ; Silent through time the broken-lipp'd Sphynx in
Egypt — silent those century-baffling tombs ; Closed for aye the epics of Asia's, Europe's hel-
meted warriors ; Calliope's call for ever closed — Clio, Melpomene,
Thalia closed and dead ; Seal'd the stately rhythmus of Una and Oriana
— ended the quest of the Holy Graal ; Jerusalem a handful of ashes blown by the wind
— extinct ;
The Crusaders' streams of shadowy, midnight
troops, sped with the sunrise ; A^madis, Tancred, utterly gone — Charlemagne,
Roland, Oliver gone,
12 WALT WHITMAN'S
Palmerin, ogre, departed — vanish'd the turrets that Usk reflected,
Arthur vanish'd with all his knights — Merlin and Lancelot and Galahad — all gone — dissolv'd utterly, like an exhalation ;
Pass'd ! pass'd ! for us, for ever pass'd ! that once so mighty World — now void, inanimate, phantom World !
Embroider'd, dazzling World ! with all its gor- geous legends, myths,
Its kings and barons proud — its priests, and warlike lords, and courtly dames ;
Pass'd to its charnel vault — laid on the shelf — coffin'd, with Crown and Armor on,
Blazon'd with Shakspeare's purple page,
And dirgecl by Tennyson's sweet sad rhyme.
I say I see, my friends, if you do not, the Ani- mus of all that World, Escaped, bequeath'd, vital, fugacious as ever,
leaving those dead remains, and now this
spot approaching, filling ; — And I can hear what maybe you do not — a
terrible aesthetical commotion, With howling desperate gulp of "flower" and
" bower," With " Sonnet to Matilda's Eyebrow " quite,
quite frantic ; With gushing, sentimental reading circles turn'd
to ice or stone ; With many a squeak, (in metre choice.) from
Boston, New York, Philadelphia, London ;
AMERICAN INSTITUTE POEM. 13
As she, the illustrious Emigre, (having, it is true, in her day, although the same, changed, journey'd considerable,)
Making directly for this rendezvous — vigor- ously clearing a path for herself — striding through the confusion,
By thud of machinery and shrill steam-whistle undismay'd,
Bluff 'd not a bit by drain-pipe, gasometers, arti- ficial fertilizers,
Smiling and pleased, with palpable intent to stay,
She 's here, install'd amid the kitchen ware !
But hold — don't I forget my manners ]
To introduce the Stranger (what else indeed
have I come for ?) to thee, Columbia : In Liberty's name, welcome, Immortal ! clasp
hands, And ever henceforth Sisters dear be both.
Fear not, O Muse ! truly new ways and days
receive, surround you, (I candidly confess, a queer, queer race, of novel
fashion.) And yet the same old human race — the same
within, without, Faces and hearts the same — feelings the same
— yearnings the same, The same old love — beauty and use the same.
14 WALT WHITMAN'S
5.
We do not blame thee, Elder World — nor sep- arate ourselves from thee :
(Would the Son separate himself from the Fa- ther?)
Looking back on thee — seeing thee to thy du- ties, grandeurs, through past ages bending, building,
We build to ours to-day.
Mightier than Egypt's tombs,
Fairer than Grecia's, Roma's temples,
Prouder than Milan's statued, spired Cathedral.
More picturesque than Rhenish castle-keeps,
We plan, even now, to raise, beyond them all,
Thy great Cathedral, sacred Industry — no
tomb, A Keep for life for practical Invention.
As in a waking vision,
E'en while I chant, I see it rise — I scan and
prophesy outside and in, Its manifold ensemble.
6. Around a Palace,
Loftier, fairer, ampler than any yet, Earth's modern Wonder, History's Seven out- stripping, High rising tier on tier, with glass and iron fa-
cades,
AMERICAN INSTITUTE POEM. 15
Gladdening the sun and sky — enliued in cheer-
fulest hues, Bronze, lilac, robin s-egg. marine and crimson, Over whose golden roof shall flaunt, beneath thy
banner, Freedom, The banners of The States, the flags of every
land, A brood of lofty, fair, but lesser Palaces shall
cluster.
Somewhere within the walls of all,
Shall all that forwards perfect human life be
started, Tried, taught, advanced, visibly exhibited.
Here shall you trace in flowing operation, In every state of practical, busy movement, The rills of Civilization.
Materials here, under your eye, shall change
their shape, as if by magic ; The cotton shall be pick'd almost in the very
field, Shall be dried, clean'd, ginn'd, baled, spun into
thread and cloth, before you: You shall see hands at work at all the old pro- cesses, and all the new ones ; You shall see the various grains, and how flour
is made, and then bread baked by the
bakers ; You shall see the crude ores of California and
Nevada passing on and on till they become
bullion ;
16 WALT WHITMAN'S
You shall watch how the printer sets type, and
learn what a composing stick is ; You shall mark, in amazement, the Hoe press
whirling its cylinders, shedding the printed
leaves steady and fast : The photograph, model, watch, pin, nail, shall
be created before you.
In large calm halls, a stately Museum shall teach you the infinite, solemn lessons of Minerals ;
In another, woods, plants, Vegetation shall be illustrated — in another Animals, animal life and development.
One stately house shall be the Music House ; Others for other Arts — Learning, the Sciences,
shall all be here ; None shall be slighted — none but shall here be
honor'd, help'cl, exampled.
7.
This, this and these, America, shall be your
Pyramids and Obelisks, Yonr Alexandrian Pharos, gardens of Babylon, Your temple at Olympia. '
The male and female many laboring not, Shall ever here confront the laboring many, With precious benefits to both — glory to all, To thee, America — and thee, Eternal Muse.
AMERICAN INSTITUTE POEM. 17
And here shall ye inhabit, Powerful Matrons ! In your vast state, vaster than all the old ; Echoed through long, long centuries to come, To sound of different, prouder songs, with
stronger themes, Practical, peaceful life — the people's life — the
People themselves, Lifted, illumin'd, bathed in peace — elate, secure
in peace.
8.
Away with themes of war ! away with War
itself! Hence from my shuddering sight, to never more
return, that show of blacken'd, mutilated
corpses ! That hell unpent, and raid of blood — fit for
wild tigers, or for lop-tongued wolves —
not reasoning men ! And in its stead speed Industry's campaigns ! With thy undaunted armies, Engineering ! Thy pennants, Labor, loosen'd to the breeze ! Thy bugles sounding loud and clear !
Away with old romance !
Away with novels, plots, and plays of foreign
courts ! Away with love-verses, sugar'd in rhyme — the
intrigues, amours of idlers, Fitted for only banquets of the night, Avhere
dancers to late music slide ;
18 WALT WHITMAN'S
The unhealthy pleasures, extravagant dissipa- tions of the few,
With perfumes, heat and wine, beneath the dazzling chandeliers.
9.
To yen. ye Reverent, sane Sisters,
To this resplendent day. the present scene.
These eyes and ears that like some broad par terre bloom up around, before me,
I raise a voice for far superber themes for poets and for Art.
To exalt the present and the real.
To teach the average man the glory of his daily walk and trade.
To sing, in songs, how exercise and chemical life are never to be baffled ;
Boldly to thee. America, to-day ! and thee, Im- mortal Muse !
To practical, manual work, for each and all — to plough, hoe. dig.
To plant and tend the tree, the berry, vegetables, flowers,
For every man to see to it that he really do something — for every woman too;
To use the hammer, and the saw, (rip or cross- cut.)
To cultivate a turn for carpentering, plastering, painting.
To work as tailor, tailoress, nurse, hostler, porter,
To invent a little — something ingenious — to aid the washing, cooking, cleaning.
AMERICAN INSTITUTE POEM. 19
And hold it no disgrace to take a hand at them themselves.
I say I bring thee, "Muse, to-day and here,
All occupations, duties broad and close,
Toil, healthy toil and sweat, endless, without
cessation, The old, old general burdens, interests, joys, The family, parentage, childhood, husband and
wife, The house-comforts — the house itself, and all
its belongings, Food and its preservations-?— chemistry applied
to it; Whatever forms the average, strong, complete.
sweet-blooded Man or Woman — the per- fect, longeve Personality, And helps its present life to health and happi
ness — and shapes its Soul, For the eternal Real Life to come.
With latest materials, works,
Steam-power, the great Express lines, gas, petro- leum,
These triumphs of our time, the Atlantic's deli- cate cable,
The Pacific Railroad, the Suez canal, the Mont Cenis tunnel ;
Science advanced, in grandeur and reality, ana- lyzing every thins:.
This world all spann'd with iron rails — with lines of steamships threading every sea,
Our own Rondure, the current globe I bring.
20 WALT WHITMAN'S
10.
And thou, high-towering One — America !
Thy swarm of offspring towering high — yet
higher thee, above all towering, With Victory on thy left, and at thy right hand
Law ; Thou Union, holding all — fusing, absorbing.
tolerating all. Thee, ever thee, I bring.
Thou — also thou, a world !
With all thy wide geographies, manifold, differ- ent, distant,
Rounding by thee in One — one common orbic language,
One common indivisible destinv and Union.
11.
And by the. spells which ye vouchsafe, To those, your ministers in earnest, I here personify and call my themes, To make them pass before ye.
Behold, America ! (And thou, ineffable Guest
and Sister!) For thee come trooping up thy waters and thy
lands : Behold ! thy fields and farms, thy far-off wToods
and mountains, As in procession coming.
AMERICAN INSTITUTE POEM. 21
Behold ! the sea itself !
And on its limitless, heaving breast, thy ships :
See ! where their white sails, bellying in the
wind, speckle the green and bine ! See ! thy steamers coming and going, steaming
in or out of port ! See! dusky and undulating, their long pennants
of smoke !
Behold, in Oregon, far in the north and west, Or in Maine, far in the north and east, thy
cheerful axemen, Wielding all day their axes !
Behold, on the lakes, thy pilots at their wheels — thy oarsmen !
Behold how the ash writhes under those muscu- lar arms !
There by the furnace, and there by the anvil, Behold thy sturdy blacksmiths, swinging their
sledges ; Overhand so steady — overhand they turn and
fall, with joyous clank, Like a tumult of laughter.
Behold ! (for still the procession moves,) Behold, Mother of All, thy countless sailors,
boatmen, coasters ! The myriads of thy young and old mechanics !
22 WALT WHITMAN'S
Mark — mark the spirit of invention every- where — thy rapid patents,
Thy continual workshops, foundries, risen or rising ;
See, from their chimneys, how the tall name- fires stream !
Mark, thy interminable farms, North, South, Thy wealthy Daughter-States, Eastern and
Western, The varied products of Ohio, Pennsylvania,
Missouri, Georgia, Texas, and the rest; Thy limitless crops — grass, wheat, sugar, corn,
rice, hemp, hops, Thy barns all fill'd — thy endless freight-trains,
and thy bulging store-houses, The grapes that ripen on thy vines — the apples
in thy orchards, Thy incalculable lumber, beef, pork, potatoes —
thv coal — thy gold and silver, The inexhaustible iron in thy mines.
12.
All thine, O sacred Union ! Ship, farm, shop, barns, factories, mines, City and State — Xorth, South, item and aggre- gate, We dedicate, dread Mother, all to thee !
Protectress absolute, thou ! Bulwark of all ! For well we know that while thou givest each and all, (generous as God,)
AMERICAN INSTITUTE POEM. 23
Without thee, neither all nor each, nor land. home,
Ship, nor mine — nor any here, this day, se- cure,
Nor aught, nor any day, secure.
13.
And thou, thy Emblem, waving over all !
Delicate beauty ! a word to thee, (it may be salutary ;)
Kemember, thou hast not always been, as here to-day, so comfortably ensovereign'd ;
In other scenes than these have I observ'd thee, nag;
Not quite so trim and whole, and freshly bloom- ing, in folds of stainless silk ;
But I have seen thee, bunting, to tatters torn, upon thy splinter'd staff,
Or clutch'd to some young color-bearer's breast, with desperate hands,
Savagely struggled for, for life or death — fought over lonor
'Mid cannon's thunder-crash, and many a curse, and groan and. yell — and rifle-volleys crack- ing sharp,
And moving masses, as wild demons surging - — and lives as nothing risk'd.
For thy mere remnant, grimed with dirt and smoke, and sopp'd in blood ;
For sake of that, my beauty — and that thou might'st dally, as now, secure up there,
Many a good man have I seen go under.
24: WALT WHITMAN'S A. INSTITUTE POEM.
14.
Now here, and these, and hence, in peace, all
thine, O Flag! And here, and hence, for thee, O universal
Muse ! and thou for them ! And here and hence, O Union, all the work and
workmen thine ! The poets, women, sailors, soldiers, farmers,
miners, students thine ! None separate from Thee — henceforth one
only, we and Thou ; (For the blood of the children — what is it only
the blood Maternal ] And lives and works — what are they all at last
except the roads to Faith and Death V)
While we rehearse our measureless wealth, it is
for thee, dear Mother ! We own it all and several to-day indissoluble in
Thee; — Think not our chant, our show, merely for
products gross, or lucre — it is for Thee,
the Soul, electric, spiritual ! Our farms, inventions, crops, we own in Thee !
Cities and States in Thee ! Our freedom all in Thee ! our very lives in
Thee !
From the Washington Chronicle, Sept. 11.
A letter from New York, of September 9, contains the following :
"Imagine yourself inside a huge barn-like edifice of a couple of acres, spanned by immense arches, like the ribs of some leviathan ship, (whose skel- eton hull inverted the structure might be said to resemble,) and this building, crowded and crammed with incipient displays of goods and machinery — every thing that grows and is made — and a thousand men actively at work, in their shirt-sleeves, putting the said goods and machinery in order — all with a noise, movement, and variety as if a good-sized city was in process of being built. In the middle of this, to an audience of perhaps two or three thousand people, with a fringe on the outside of five or six hundred partially- hushed workmen, carpenters, machinists, and the like, with saws, wrenches, or hammers in their hands, Walt Whitman, last Thursday, gave his already celebrated poem before the American Institute. His manner was at first sight coldly quiet, but you soon felt a magnetism and felt stirred. His great figure was clothed in gray, with white vest, no necktie, and his beard was unshorn as ever. His voice is magnificent, and is to be mentioned with Nature's oceans and the music of forests and hills. His gestures are few, but significant. Sometimes he stands with his hands in his breast pockets; once or twice he walked a few steps to and fro. He did not mind the distant noises and the litter and machinery, but doubtless rather enjoyed them. He was perfectly self-possessed. His apostrophe to the Stars and Stripes which floated above him, describing them in far different scenes in battle, was most impassioned. Also, his ' Away with War itself ! ' and his scornful ' Away with novels, plots, and plays of foreign courts ! ' A few allusions of his poem were in a playful tone, but the main impression was markedly serious, animated, aud earnest. He was applauded as he advanced to read, besides several times throughout, and at the close. He did not respond in the usual way by bowing. All the directors and officers of the Institute crowded around him and heartily thanked him. He extricated himself, regained his old Panama hat and stick, and, without waiting for the rest of the exercises, made a quiet exit by the steps at the back of the stand.
"The real audience of this chant of peace, invention, and labor, how- ever, was to follow. Of the New York and. Brooklyn evening and morning dailies, twelve out of seventeen published the poem "in full the same evening or the next morning."
Office, of the Secretary of the Board of Managers 40th Annual Exhibition,
American Institute.
New York, Sept. 11th, 1871.
* * * At a meeting of the Board of Managers of the American Insti- tute National Exhibition held this evening, the following Resolution was unanimously adopted : —
Resolved, That the Board of Managers of the American Institute re- spectfully tender their earnest thanks to Walt Whitman for the magnificent original "Poem with which he favored them at the opening of their National Industrial Exhibition in New York, Sept. 7th, 1871.
John W. Chambers, Secretary.