The Sleepers

       1
  I wander all night in my vision,
  Stepping with light feet, swiftly and noiselessly stepping and stopping,
  Bending with open eyes over the shut eyes of sleepers,
  Wandering and confused, lost to myself, ill-assorted, contradictory,
  Pausing, gazing, bending, and stopping.

  How solemn they look there, stretch'd and still,
  How quiet they breathe, the little children in their cradles.

  The wretched features of ennuyes, the white features of corpses, the
      livid faces of drunkards, the sick-gray faces of onanists,
  The gash'd bodies on battle-fields, the insane in their
      strong-door'd rooms, the sacred idiots, the new-born emerging
      from gates, and the dying emerging from gates,
  The night pervades them and infolds them.

  The married couple sleep calmly in their bed, he with his palm on
      the hip of the wife, and she with her palm on the hip of the husband,
  The sisters sleep lovingly side by side in their bed,
  The men sleep lovingly side by side in theirs,
  And the mother sleeps with her little child carefully wrapt.

  The blind sleep, and the deaf and dumb sleep,
  The prisoner sleeps well in the prison, the runaway son sleeps,
  The murderer that is to be hung next day, how does he sleep?
  And the murder'd person, how does he sleep?

  The female that loves unrequited sleeps,
  And the male that loves unrequited sleeps,
  The head of the money-maker that plotted all day sleeps,
  And the enraged and treacherous dispositions, all, all sleep.

  I stand in the dark with drooping eyes by the worst-suffering and
      the most restless,
  I pass my hands soothingly to and fro a few inches from them,
  The restless sink in their beds, they fitfully sleep.

  Now I pierce the darkness, new beings appear,
  The earth recedes from me into the night,
  I saw that it was beautiful, and I see that what is not the earth is
      beautiful.

  I go from bedside to bedside, I sleep close with the other sleepers
      each in turn,
  I dream in my dream all the dreams of the other dreamers,
  And I become the other dreamers.

  I am a dance—play up there! the fit is whirling me fast!

  I am the ever-laughing—it is new moon and twilight,
  I see the hiding of douceurs, I see nimble ghosts whichever way look,
  Cache and cache again deep in the ground and sea, and where it is
      neither ground nor sea.

  Well do they do their jobs those journeymen divine,
  Only from me can they hide nothing, and would not if they could,
  I reckon I am their boss and they make me a pet besides,
  And surround me and lead me and run ahead when I walk,
  To lift their cunning covers to signify me with stretch'd arms, and
      resume the way;
  Onward we move, a gay gang of blackguards! with mirth-shouting
      music and wild-flapping pennants of joy!

  I am the actor, the actress, the voter, the politician,
  The emigrant and the exile, the criminal that stood in the box,
  He who has been famous and he who shall be famous after to-day,
  The stammerer, the well-form'd person, the wasted or feeble person.

  I am she who adorn'd herself and folded her hair expectantly,
  My truant lover has come, and it is dark.

  Double yourself and receive me darkness,
  Receive me and my lover too, he will not let me go without him.

  I roll myself upon you as upon a bed, I resign myself to the dusk.

  He whom I call answers me and takes the place of my lover,
  He rises with me silently from the bed.

  Darkness, you are gentler than my lover, his flesh was sweaty and panting,
  I feel the hot moisture yet that he left me.

  My hands are spread forth, I pass them in all directions,
  I would sound up the shadowy shore to which you are journeying.

  Be careful darkness! already what was it touch'd me?
  I thought my lover had gone, else darkness and he are one,
  I hear the heart-beat, I follow, I fade away.

       2
  I descend my western course, my sinews are flaccid,
  Perfume and youth course through me and I am their wake.

  It is my face yellow and wrinkled instead of the old woman's,
  I sit low in a straw-bottom chair and carefully darn my grandson's
      stockings.

  It is I too, the sleepless widow looking out on the winter midnight,
  I see the sparkles of starshine on the icy and pallid earth.

  A shroud I see and I am the shroud, I wrap a body and lie in the coffin,
  It is dark here under ground, it is not evil or pain here, it is
      blank here, for reasons.

  (It seems to me that every thing in the light and air ought to be happy,
  Whoever is not in his coffin and the dark grave let him know he has enough.)

       3
  I see a beautiful gigantic swimmer swimming naked through the eddies
      of the sea,
  His brown hair lies close and even to his head, he strikes out with
      courageous arms, he urges himself with his legs,
  I see his white body, I see his undaunted eyes,
  I hate the swift-running eddies that would dash him head-foremost on
      the rocks.

  What are you doing you ruffianly red-trickled waves?
  Will you kill the courageous giant? will you kill him in the prime
      of his middle age?

  Steady and long he struggles,
  He is baffled, bang'd, bruis'd, he holds out while his strength
      holds out,
  The slapping eddies are spotted with his blood, they bear him away,
      they roll him, swing him, turn him,
  His beautiful body is borne in the circling eddies, it is
      continually bruis'd on rocks,
  Swiftly and ought of sight is borne the brave corpse.

       4
  I turn but do not extricate myself,
  Confused, a past-reading, another, but with darkness yet.

  The beach is cut by the razory ice-wind, the wreck-guns sound,
  The tempest lulls, the moon comes floundering through the drifts.

  I look where the ship helplessly heads end on, I hear the burst as
      she strikes, I hear the howls of dismay, they grow fainter and fainter.

  I cannot aid with my wringing fingers,
  I can but rush to the surf and let it drench me and freeze upon me.

  I search with the crowd, not one of the company is wash'd to us alive,
  In the morning I help pick up the dead and lay them in rows in a barn.

       5
  Now of the older war-days, the defeat at Brooklyn,
  Washington stands inside the lines, he stands on the intrench'd
      hills amid a crowd of officers.
  His face is cold and damp, he cannot repress the weeping drops,
  He lifts the glass perpetually to his eyes, the color is blanch'd
      from his cheeks,
  He sees the slaughter of the southern braves confided to him by
      their parents.

  The same at last and at last when peace is declared,
  He stands in the room of the old tavern, the well-belov'd soldiers
      all pass through,
  The officers speechless and slow draw near in their turns,
  The chief encircles their necks with his arm and kisses them on the cheek,
  He kisses lightly the wet cheeks one after another, he shakes hands
      and bids good-by to the army.

       6
  Now what my mother told me one day as we sat at dinner together,
  Of when she was ............