Difference(s) between text #47843 and text #47842

Go to the Instructions

11O, a new song, a free song,<I>Poet</I>:
22Flapping, flapping, flapping, flapping, by sounds, by voices clearer, O A new song, a free song,
33By the wind's voice, Flapping, flapping, flapping, flapping, by sounds, by voices clearer,
44By the banner's voice, and child's voice, and sea's voice, and father's voice, By the wind's voice and that of the drum,
55Low on the ground and high in the air, By the banner's voice and child's voice and sea's voice and father's voice,
66Where the banner at daybreak is flapping. Low on the ground and high in the air,
7 On the ground where father and child stand,
8 In the upward air where their eyes turn,
9 Where the banner at daybreak is flapping.
710
811We hear and see not strips of cloth alone; Words! book-words! what are you?
912We hear again the tramp of armies, Words no more, for hearken and see,
1013We hear the drums beat, and the trumpets blowing, My song is there in the open air, and I must sing,
1114We hear the jubilant shouts of millions of men, With the banner and pennant a-flapping.
1215We hear liberty.
16 I'll weave the chord and twine in,
17 Man's desire and babe's desire, I'll twine them in, I'll put in life,
18 I'll put the bayonet's flashing point, I'll let bullets and slugs whizz,
19 (As one carrying a symbol and menace far into the future,
20 Crying with trumpet voice, Arouse and beware! Beware and arouse!)
21 I'll pour the verse with streams of blood, full of volition, full of joy,
22 Then loosen, launch forth, to go and compete,
23 With the banner and pennant a-flapping.
24
25<I>Pennant</I>:
26 Come up here, bard, bard,
27 Come up here, soul, soul,
28 Come up here, dear little child,
29 To fly in the clouds and winds with me, and play with the measureless light.
30
31<I>Child</I>:
32 Father what is that in the sky beckoning to me with long finger?
33 And what does it say to me all the while?
34
35<I>Father</I>:
36 Nothing my babe you see in the sky,
37 And nothing at all to you it says -- but look you my babe,
38 Look at these dazzling things in the houses, and see you the money-
39 shops opening,
40 And see you the vehicles preparing to crawl along the streets with goods;
41 These, ah these, how valued and toil'd for these!
42 How envied by all the earth.
43
44<I>Poet</I>:
45 Fresh and rosy red the sun is mounting high,
46 On floats the sea in distant blue careering through its channels,
47 On floats the wind over the breast of the sea setting in toward land,
48 The great steady wind from west or west-by-south,
49 Floating so buoyant with milk-white foam on the waters.
50
51 But I am not the sea nor the red sun,
52 I am not the wind with girlish laughter,
53 Not the immense wind which strengthens, not the wind which lashes,
54 Not the spirit that ever lashes its own body to terror and death,
55 But I am that which unseen comes and sings, sings, sings,
56 Which babbles in brooks and scoots in showers on the land,
57 Which the birds know in the woods mornings and evenings,
58 And the shore-sands know and the hissing wave, and that banner and pennant,
59 Aloft there flapping and flapping.
60
61<I>Child</I>:
62 O father it is alive -- it is full of people -- it has children,
63 O now it seems to me it is talking to its children,
64 I hear it -- it talks to me -- O it is wonderful!
65 O it stretches -- it spreads and runs so fast -- O my father,
66 It is so broad it covers the whole sky.
67
68<I>Father</I>:
69 Cease, cease, my foolish babe,
70 What you are saying is sorrowful to me, much 't displeases me;
71 Behold with the rest again I say, behold not banners and pennants aloft,
72 But the well-prepared pavements behold, and mark the solid-wall'd houses.
73
74<I>Banner and Pennant</I>:
75 Speak to the child O bard out of Manhattan,
76 To our children all, or north or south of Manhattan,
77 Point this day, leaving all the rest, to us over all -- and yet we know not why,
78 For what are we, mere strips of cloth profiting nothing,
79 Only flapping in the wind?
80
81<I>Poet</I>:
82 I hear and see not strips of cloth alone,
83 I hear the tramp of armies, I hear the challenging sentry,
84 I hear the jubilant shouts of millions of men, I hear Liberty!
85 I hear the drums beat and the trumpets blowing,
86 I myself move abroad swift-rising flying then,
87 I use the wings of the land-bird and use the wings of the sea-bird, and look down as from a height,
88 I do not deny the precious results of peace, I see populous cities with wealth incalculable,
89 I see numberless farms, I see the farmers working in their fields or barns,
90 I see mechanics working, I see buildings everywhere founded, going up, or finish'd,
91 I see trains of cars swiftly speeding along railroad tracks drawn by the locomotives,
92 I see the stores, depots, of Boston, Baltimore, Charleston, New Orleans,
93 I see far in the West the immense area of grain, I dwell awhile hovering,
94 I pass to the lumber forests of the North, and again to the Southern plantation, and again to California;
95 Sweeping the whole I see the countless profit, the busy gatherings, earn'd wages,
96 See the Identity formed out of thirty-eight spacious and haughty States, (and many more to come,)
97 See forts on the shores of harbors, see ships sailing in and out;
98 Then over all, (aye! aye!) my little and lengthen'd pennant shaped like a sword,
99 Runs swiftly up indicating war and defiance -- and now the halyards have rais'd it,
100 Side of my banner broad and blue, side of my starry banner,
101 Discarding peace over all the sea and land.
102
103<I>Banner and Pennant</I>:
104 Yet louder, higher, stronger, bard! yet farther, wider cleave!
105 No longer let our children deem us riches and peace alone,
106 We may be terror and carnage, and are so now,
107 Not now are we any one of these spacious and haughty States, (nor any five, nor ten,)
108 Nor market nor depot we, nor money-bank in the city,
109 But these and all, and the brown and spreading land, and the mines below, are ours,
110 And the shores of the sea are ours, and the rivers great and small,
111 And the fields they moisten, and the crops and the fruits are ours,
112 Bays and channels and ships sailing in and out are ours -- while we over all,
113 Over the area spread below, the three or four millions of square miles, the capitals,
114 The forty millions of people, -- O bard! in life and death supreme,
115 We, even we, henceforth flaunt out masterful, high up above,
116 Not for the present alone, for a thousand years chanting through you,
117 This song to the soul of one poor little child.
118
119<I>Child</I>:
120 O my father I like not the houses,
121 They will never to me be any thing, nor do I like money,
122 But to mount up there I would like, O father dear, that banner I like,
123 That pennant I would be and must be.
124
125<I>Father</I>:
126 Child of mine you fill me with anguish,
127 To be that pennant would be too fearful,
128 Little you know what it is this day, and after this day, forever,
129 It is to gain nothing, but risk and defy every thing,
130 Forward to stand in front of wars -- and O, such wars! -- what have you
131 to do with them?
132 With passions of demons, slaughter, premature death?
133
134<I>Banner</I>:
135 Demons and death then I sing,
136 Put in all, aye all will I, sword-shaped pennant for war,
137 And a pleasure new and ecstatic, and the prattled yearning of children,
138 Blent with the sounds of the peaceful land and the liquid wash of the sea,
139 And the black ships fighting on the sea envelop'd in smoke,
140 And the icy cool of the far, far north, with rustling cedars and pines,
141 And the whirr of drums and the sound of soldiers marching, and the hot sun shining south,
142 And the beach-waves combing over the beach on my Eastern shore, and my Western shore the same,
143 And all between those shores, and my ever running Mississippi with bends and chutes,
144 And my Illinois fields, and my Kansas fields, and my fields of Missouri,
145 The Continent, devoting the whole identity without reserving an atom,
146 Pour in! whelm that which asks, which sings, with all and the yield of all,
147 Fusing and holding, claiming, devouring the whole,
148 No more with tender lip, nor musical labial sound,
149 But out of the night emerging for good, our voice persuasive no more,
150 Croaking like crows here in the wind.
151
152<I>Poet</I>:
153 My limbs, my veins dilate, my theme is clear at last,
154 Banner so broad advancing out of the night, I sing you haughty and resolute,
155 I burst through where I waited long, too long, deafen'd and blinded,
156 My hearing and tongue are come to me, (a little child taught me,)
157 I hear from above O pennant of war your ironical call and demand,
158 Insensate! insensate! (yet I at any rate chant you,) O banner!
159 Not houses of peace indeed are you, nor any nor all their prosperity,
160 (if need be, you shall again have every one of those houses to destroy them,
161 You thought not to destroy those valuable houses, standing fast, full of comfort, built with money,
162 May they stand fast, then? not an hour except you above them and all stand fast;)
163 O banner, not money so precious are you, not farm produce you, nor the material good nutriment,
164 Nor excellent stores, nor landed on wharves from the ships,
165 Not the superb ships with sail-power or steam-power, fetching and carrying cargoes,
166 Nor machinery, vehicles, trade, nor revenues -- but you as henceforth I see you,
167 Running up out of the night, bringing your cluster of stars, (ever-enlarging stars,)
168 Divider of daybreak you, cutting the air, touch'd by the sun, measuring the sky,
169 (Passionately seen and yearn'd for by one poor little child,
170 While others remain busy or smartly talking, forever teaching thrift, thrift;)
171 O you up there! O pennant! where you undulate like a snake hissing so curious,
172 Out of reach, an idea only, yet furiously fought for, risking bloody death, loved by me,
173 So loved -- O you banner leading the day with stars brought from the night!
174 Valueless, object of eyes, over all and demanding all -- (absolute owner of all) -- O banner and pennant!
175 I too leave the rest -- great as it is, it is nothing -- houses, machines are nothing -- I see them not,
176 I see but you, O warlike pennant! O banner so broad, with stripes, sing you only,
177 Flapping up there in the wind.

Instructions

To select texts manually for this utility, click on the link at the top of each of the two texts you wish to compare, and then return to this page and reload it. The text ids are stored as cookies.