FEINBERG/WHITMAN   LITERARY FILE   POETRY FILE   "Out From Behind this Mask" (1876). Printed copy.
Box 28 Folder 25

Includes A.M.S. correction and notation.[*The wood engraving opposite*]

24 Two Rivulets.

OUT FROM BEHIND THIS MASK.
[To confront My Portrait, Illustrating 'the' Wound Dresser; in LEAVES OF 
GRASS.] 
[[*the portrait to face this*]]

1
OUT from behind this bending, rough-cut Mask,
(All straighter, liker Masks rejected--this preferr'd,)
This common curtain of the face, contain'd in me for me, in 
     you for you, in each for each,
(Tragedies, sorrows, laughter, tears—O heaven !
The passionate, teeming plays this curtain hid !)
This glaze of God's serenest, purest sky,
This film of Satan's seething pit,
This heart's geography's map—this limitless small continent—
     this soundless sea;
Out from the convolutions of this globe,
This subtler astronomic orb than sun or moon—than Jupiter, 
     Venus, Mars;
This condensation of the Universe—(nay, here the only 
     Universe,
Here the IDEA—all in this mystic handful wrapt;)
These burin'd eyes, flashing to you, to pass to future time,
To launch and spin through space revolving, sideling—from 
     these to emanate,
To You, whoe'er you are—a Look.

2

A Traveler of thoughts and years—of peace and war,
Of youth long sped, and middle age declining,
(As the first volume of a tale perused and laid away, and this 
     the second,
Songs, ventures, speculations presently to close,)
Lingering a moment, here and now, to You I opposite turn,
As on the road, or at some crevice door, by chance, or 
     open'd window,
Pausing, inclining, baring my head, You specially I greet,
To draw and clench your Soul, for once, inseparably with 
     mine,
Then travel, travel on.[*
Two Rivulets.      23

Haply the swords I know may there indeed be turn'd to reaping-tools ;
Haply the lifeless cross I know—Europe's dead cross—may bud and blossom there.

One effort more—my altar this bleak sand :
That Thou, O God, my life hast lighted,
With ray of light, steady, ineffable, vouchsafed of Thee,
(Light rare, untellable—lighting the very light !
Beyond all signs, descriptions, languages !)
For that, O God—be it my latest word—here on my knees,
Old, poor, and paralyzed—I thank Thee.

My terminus near,
The clouds already closing in upon me,
The voyage balk'd—the course disputed, lost,
I yield my ships to Thee.

26     Two Rivulets.

Thy great protruding head-light, fix'd in front ;
Thy long, pale, floating vapor-pennants, tinged with delicate purple ;
The dense and murky clouds out-belching from thy smokestack ;
Thy knitted frame—thy springs and valves—the tremulous twinkle of thy wheels ;
Thy train of cars behind, obedient, merrily-following,
Through gale or calm, now swift, now slack, yet steadily careering :
Type of the modern ! emblem of motion and power ! pulse of the continent !
For once, come serve the Muse, and merge in verse, even as here I see thee,
With storm, and buffeting gusts of wind, and falling snow ;
*]1273
1876 Out from Behind this Mask: poem (corrected). A.MS. (1p. 15½
x 13½ cm.)

Written in pencil and ink on pp. 24 and 25 clipped from Two Rivulets 
(1876), containing 'Out from Behind this Mask', pasted together 
to make a page, 9 words:

(In margin above running title): The wood engraving opposite

(Lines cancelled between title and poem—'To confront My Portrait,
illustrating the Wound Dresser, in Leaves of Grass. '—and written:)

     the portrait to face this

(This is also cancelled with diagonal strokes.)
(Line 23 reads: 'To draw and clench your Soul...' This became
'clinch' in the Osgood edition, 1881-2.)