sunrise ever on
this stage is acted God’s calm,
annual drama
Ever upon this stage,
Is acted God’s calm, annual drama,
Gorgeous processions, songs of birds,
Sunrise, that fullest feeds and freshens most the soul,
The heaving sea, the waves upon the shore, the musical, strong waves,
The woods, the stalwart trees, the slender, tapering trees,
The flowers, the grass, the lilliput, countless armies of the grass,
The heat, the showers, the measureless pasturages,
The scenery of the snows, the winds’ free orchestra,
The stretching, light-hung roof of clouds—the clear cerulean, and the bulging,
silvery
fringes,
The high dilating stars, the placid, beckoning stars,
The moving flocks and herds, the plains and emerald meadows,
The shows of all the varied lands, and all the growths and products.
From A Carol of Harvest for 1867 by Walt Whitman as published in The Galaxy, an American monthly magazine founded by William Conant Church and his brother Francis P. Church in 1866, according to Wikipedia.
Also according to WIkipedia, Whitman’s position as a Galaxy author was important to his personal fortunes and his literary reputation. The Galaxy was respectable, it was popular, and it paid generously. It also provided a venue where Whitman could join with other writers in exploring the meaning of literary nationalism and cultural democracy for the new era.
Paid generously may be the most important two words in the lives of too many poets, artists and writers through all of history.
As Jim Harrison said once, “Just like all the writers’ schools have created less variety—there’s a sameness. I said once that the lowa Writers School on a yearly basis outproduces the English romantic movement. It’s all a delusion. What are you going to do with four thousand M.F.A.’s? It’s ludicrous.”
But the sunrise’s everyday in the God’s annual drama
Gorgeous processions, songs of birds.
Sunrise, that fullest feeds and freshens most the soul.
Generous, too, God, is.
No Haiku For You 