De Amerikaanse dichter Walt Whitman werd geboren op 31 mei 1819 in Westhills, Long Island, New York. Zie ook alle tags voor Whalt Whitman op dit blog.
Zang van mezelf
1
Ik vier mezelf, en zing mezelf,
En wat ik me aanmatig zul jij je aanmatigen,
Want elk atoom dat mij toebehoort, behoort jou net zozeer toe.
Ik slenter en roep mijn ziel op,
Ik leun en slenter in alle rust en neem een spriet zomergras waar.
Mijn tong, elk atoom van mijn bloed, gevormd uit deze grond en deze lucht,
Ik, hier geboren uit ouders, hier geboren uit ook hier geboren ouders, net als hún ouders,
Zevenendertig jaar oud nu en volmaakt gezond, begin,
En hoop door te gaan tot aan mijn dood.
Nu geloven en scholen, in onbruik,
Even terugweken, zichzelf genoeg maar nooit vergeten,
Koester ik ten goede of ten kwade, laat ik tot iedere prijs spreken,
De onbelemmerde natuur met haar oorspronkelijke kracht.
Vertaald door Jabik Veenbaas
On The Beach At Night Alone
On the beach at night alone,
As the old mother sways her to and fro singing her husky song,
As I watch the bright stars shining, I think a thought of
the clef of the universe and of the future.
A vast similtude interlocks all,
All spheres grown, ungrown, small, large, suns, moons, planets,
All distances of place hoever wilde,
All distances of time, all inanimate forms,
All souls, all living, bodies though the be ever so different
or in different worlds,
All gaseous, watery, vegetable, mineral processes, the fishes, the brutes,
All nations colours, barbarisms, civilisations, languages,
All identities that have existed or many exist on this globe or any globe,”
All lives and deaths, all of the past, presnt, future,
This vast similitude spans hem, and always has spann’d.
And shall for ever san them and compactly hold and enclose them.
Calamus Poems
10.
YOU bards of ages hence! when you refer to me, mind
not so much my poems,
Nor speak of me that I prophesied of The States, and
led them the way of their glories;
But come, I will take you down underneath this
impassive exterior—I will tell you what to say
of me:
Publish my name and hang up my picture as that of
the tenderest lover,
The friend, the lover’s portrait, of whom his friend, his
lover, was fondest,
Who was not proud of his songs, but of the measure-
less ocean of love within him—and freely poured
it forth,
Who often walked lonesome walks, thinking of his
dear friends, his lovers,
Who pensive, away from one he loved, often lay sleep-
less and dissatisfied at night,
Who knew too well the sick, sick dread lest the one
he loved might secretly be indifferent to him,
Whose happiest days were far away, through fields, in
woods, on hills, he and another, wandering hand
in hand, they twain, apart from other men,
Who oft as he sauntered the streets, curved with his
arm the shoulder of his friend—while the arm of
his friend rested upon him also.
Walt Whitman (31 mei 1819 – 26 maart 1893)
Miguel Tio: Leaves of Grass (Homage to Walt Whitman), 2005
