All about Walt Whitman

5 CONCLUSION (Part 16)

The next section is a book, “Birds of Passage”, published in 1881, although it is made up of poems that had previously appeared in other clusters. As the title indicates, these poems are about movement, change, expansion, future, evolution, and search for identity. We supply here two excerpts, one from “Song of the Universal” and two stanzas from “Pioneers! Oh Pioneers!” The first one shows what Whitman considers to be universal: only what is good. The second part, the verses from “Pioneers!…” sing the will to travel westward and the conquest of new lands with the courage and determination to create a new nation, even at the cost of their own lives (see the more regular cadence of “Pioneers!…”).

WHITMAN:

2

Out of the bulk, the morbid and the shallow,
Out of the bad majority, the varied countless frauds of men and states,
Electric, antiseptic yet, cleaving, suffusing all,
Only the good is universal.
.

OUR RE-CREATION:

Canto do Universal

2

Da massa, do mórbido e do raso,

Da maioria ruim, as variadas fraudes incontáveis de homens e estados,

Elétrico, porém anti-séptico, rachando, inundando tudo,

Só o bem é universal.

.

WHITMAN:

Have the elder races halted?
Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied over there beyond the seas?
We take up the task eternal, and the burden and the lesson,

Pioneers! O pioneers!

.

All the past we leave behind,
We debouch upon a newer mightier world, varied world,
Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labor and the march,         Pioneers! O pioneers!

.

OUR RE-CREATION:

Pioneiros! Oh Pioneiros!

.

Cessaram as raças mais velhas?

Elas se curvam e findam a lição, exaustas lá além dos mares?

Nós pegamos a eterna tarefa, e o fardo e a lição,

Pioneiros! Oh pioneiros!

.

Todo o passado deixamos pra trás,

Emergimos num mundo mais novo e pujante, variado mundo,

Novo e forte o mundo que apreendemos, mundo de labor e da marcha,

Pioneiros! Oh pioneiros!

***

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