"The bride unrumples her white dress, the minute-hand of the clock moves slowly,
The opium-eater reclines with rigid head and just-open'd lips,
The prostitute draggles her shawl, her bonnet bobs on her tipsy and pimpled neck,
The crowd laugh at her blackguard oaths, the men jeer and wink to each other,
(Miserable! I do not laugh at your oaths nor jeer you;)
The President holding a cabinet council is surrounded by the great Secretaries,
On the piazza walk three matrons stately and friendly with twined arms..."
In just a few words, each of these people emerges as worthy of our attention. Some of these lines (those about the bride, for instance) operate like like bits of flash fiction. Note that he gives three lines to the prostitute, for whom he feels deep compassion. Note how, even in 1855, Whitman sees the drug addict and finds him worthy of inclusion. And right after this collection--bride, drug addict, sex-worker--he moves to the President--and then moves on just as quickly to describe three older women, bonded by friendship. All are here. All are worthy. All of them (and us) matter. This is democracy rendered (aspirationally) through poetry.
And then he explains it better than I ever could:
"And these tend inward to me, and I tend outward to them,
And such as it is to be of these more or less I am,
And of these one and all I weave the song of myself."
Happy birthday, Walt.
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