1
GIVE me the splendid silent sun, with all his beams full-dazzling;
Give me juicy autumnal fruit, ripe and red from the orchard;
Give me a field where the unmowd grass grows;
Give me an arbor, give me the trellisd grape;
Give me fresh corn and wheatgive me serene-moving animals, teaching content;
Give me nights perfectly quiet, as on high plateaus west of the Mississippi, and I looking
up
at the
stars;
Give me odorous at sunrise a garden of beautiful flowers, where I can walk
undisturbd;
Give me for marriage a sweet-breathd woman, of whom I should never tire;
Give me a perfect childgive me, away, aside from the noise of the world, a rural,
domestic
life;
Give me to warble spontaneous songs, relievd, recluse by myself, for my own ears
only;
Give me solitudegive me Naturegive me again, O Nature, your primal sanities!
These, demanding to have them, (tired with ceaseless excitement, and rackd by
the
war-strife;)
These to procure, incessantly asking, rising in cries from my heart,
While yet incessantly asking, still I adhere to my city;
Day upon day, and year upon year, O city, walking your streets,
Where you hold me enchaind a certain time, refusing to give me up;
Yet giving to make me glutted, enrichd of soulyou give me forever faces;
(O I see what I sought to escape, confronting, reversing my cries;
I see my own soul trampling down what it askd for.)
2
Keep your splendid, silent sun;
Keep your woods, O Nature, and the quiet places by the woods;
Keep your fields of clover and timothy, and your corn-fields and orchards;
Keep the blossoming buckwheat fields, where the Ninth-month bees hum;
Give me faces and streets! give me these phantoms incessant and endless along the
trottoirs!
Give me interminable eyes! give me women! give me comrades and lovers by the thousand!
Let me see new ones every day! let me hold new ones by the hand every day!
Give me such shows! give me the streets of Manhattan!
Give me Broadway, with the soldiers marchinggive me the sound of the trumpets and
drums!
(The soldiers in companies or regimentssome, starting away, flushd and
reckless;
Some, their time up, returning, with thinnd ranksyoung, yet very old, worn,
marching,
noticing nothing;)
Give me the shores and the wharves heavy-fringed with the black ships!
O such for me! O an intense life! O full to repletion, and varied!
The life of the theatre, bar-room, huge hotel, for me!
The saloon of the steamer! the crowded excursion for me! the torch-light procession!
The dense brigade, bound for the war, with high piled military wagons following;
People, endless, streaming, with strong voices, passions, pageants;
Manhattan streets, with their powerful throbs, with the beating drums, as now;
The endless and noisy chorus, the rustle and clank of muskets, (even the sight of the
wounded;)
Manhattan crowds, with their turbulent musical choruswith varied chorus, and light
of the
sparkling eyes;
Manhattan faces and eyes forever for me.
Give me the Splendid, Silent Sun.
written byWalt Whitman
© Walt Whitman