There Was a Poet Celia Loved

There was a poet Celia loved, who hearing, all around.
The multitudinous tread
Of common majesty,
Made of the gathering insurgent sound
Another continent of poetry.
His name is writ in his blood, mine and yours.
. . . "And when he celebrates
These States,"
She said, "how can Americans worth their salt
But listen to the wavesong on their shores.
The waves and Walt,
And hear the windsong over rock and wood.
The winds and Walt,
And let the mansong enter at their gates
And know that it is good!"
Walt Whitman, by his perfect friendliness
Has let me guess
That into Celia, into me.
He and unnumbered dead have come
To be our intimates.
To make of us their home.
Commingling earth and heaven . . .
That by our true and mutual deeds
We shall at last be shriven
Of these hypocrisies and jealous creeds
And petty separate fates—
That I in every man and he in me.
Together making God, are gradually creating whole
The single soul . . .
Somebody called Walt Whitman—
Dead!
He is alive instead.
Alive as I am. When I lift my head.
His head is lifted. When his brave mouth speaks.
My lips contain his word. And when his rocker creaks
Ghostly in Camden, there I sit in it and watch my hand
grow old
And take upon my constant lips the kiss of younger truth . . .
It is my joy to tell and to be told
That he, in all the world and me.
Cannot be dead.
That I, in all the world and him, youth after youth
Shall lift my head.