All 47 Uses of
cease
in
Leaves of Grass
- And thee my soul, Joys, ceaseless exercises, exaltations, Thy yearning amply fed at last, prepared to meet, Thy mates, eidolons.†
Chpt 1
- Chants of the prairies, Chants of the long-running Mississippi, and down to the Mexican sea, Chants of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota, Chants going forth from the centre from Kansas, and thence equidistant, Shooting in pulses of fire ceaseless to vivify all.†
Chpt 2
- …See, pastures and forests in my poems—see, animals wild and tame—see, beyond the Kaw, countless herds of buffalo feeding on short curly grass, See, in my poems, cities, solid, vast, inland, with paved streets, with iron and stone edifices, ceaseless vehicles, and commerce, See, the many-cylinder'd steam printing-press—see, the electric telegraph stretching across the continent, See, through Atlantica's depths pulses American Europe reaching, pulses of Europe duly return'd, See, the…†
Chpt 2
- My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this soil, this air, Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same, I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin, Hoping to cease not till death.†
Chpt 3
- Not a moment's cease, The leaks gain fast on the pumps, the fire eats toward the powder-magazine.†
Chpt 3 *
- Ever the hard unsunk ground, Ever the eaters and drinkers, ever the upward and downward sun, ever the air and the ceaseless tides, Ever myself and my neighbors, refreshing, wicked, real, Ever the old inexplicable query, ever that thorn'd thumb, that breath of itches and thirsts, Ever the vexer's hoot! hoot! till we find where the sly one hides and bring him forth, Ever love, ever the sobbing liquid of life, Ever the bandage under the chin, ever the trestles of death.†
Chpt 3
- O why do you now cease?†
Chpt 4
- …many an oath and promise broken, Not in my wilful and savage soul's volition, Not in the subtle nourishment of the air, Not in this beating and pounding at my temples and wrists, Not in the curious systole and diastole within which will one day cease, Not in many a hungry wish told to the skies only, Not in cries, laughter, defiancies, thrown from me when alone far in the wilds, Not in husky pantings through clinch'd teeth, Not in sounded and resounded words, chattering words, echoes,…†
Chpt 5
- They prepare for death, yet are they not the finish, but rather the outset, They bring none to his or her terminus or to be content and full, Whom they take they take into space to behold the birth of stars, to learn one of the meanings, To launch off with absolute faith, to sweep through the ceaseless rings and never be quiet again.†
Chpt 9
- 5 The place where a great city stands is not the place of stretch'd wharves, docks, manufactures, deposits of produce merely, Nor the place of ceaseless salutes of new-comers or the anchor-lifters of the departing, Nor the place of the tallest and costliest buildings or shops selling goods from the rest of the earth, Nor the place of the best libraries and schools, nor the place where money is plentiest, Nor the place of the most numerous population.†
Chpt 12
- …and loves them in return and understands them, Where no monuments exist to heroes but in the common words and deeds, Where thrift is in its place, and prudence is in its place, Where the men and women think lightly of the laws, Where the slave ceases, and the master of slaves ceases, Where the populace rise at once against the never-ending audacity of elected persons, Where fierce men and women pour forth as the sea to the whistle of death pours its sweeping and unript waves, Where…†
Chpt 12
- …them, Where no monuments exist to heroes but in the common words and deeds, Where thrift is in its place, and prudence is in its place, Where the men and women think lightly of the laws, Where the slave ceases, and the master of slaves ceases, Where the populace rise at once against the never-ending audacity of elected persons, Where fierce men and women pour forth as the sea to the whistle of death pours its sweeping and unript waves, Where outside authority enters always after…†
Chpt 12
- Of the interminable sisters, Of the ceaseless cotillons of sisters, Of the centripetal and centrifugal sisters, the elder and younger sisters, The beautiful sister we know dances on with the rest.†
Chpt 16
- …brother, from the fitful risings and fallings I heard, From under that yellow half-moon late-risen and swollen as if with tears, From those beginning notes of yearning and love there in the mist, From the thousand responses of my heart never to cease, From the myriad thence-arous'd words, From the word stronger and more delicious than any, From such as now they start the scene revisiting, As a flock, twittering, rising, or overhead passing, Borne hither, ere all eludes me, hurriedly, A…†
Chpt 19
- O you singer solitary, singing by yourself, projecting me, O solitary me listening, never more shall I cease perpetuating you, Never more shall I escape, never more the reverberations, Never more the cries of unsatisfied love be absent from me, Never again leave me to be the peaceful child I was before what there in the night, By the sea under the yellow and sagging moon, The messenger there arous'd, the fire, the sweet hell within, The unknown want, the destiny of me.†
Chpt 19
- 4 Ebb, ocean of life, (the flow will return,) Cease not your moaning you fierce old mother, Endlessly cry for your castaways, but fear not, deny not me, Rustle not up so hoarse and angry against my feet as I touch you or gather from you.†
Chpt 19
- After the Sea-Ship After the sea-ship, after the whistling winds, After the white-gray sails taut to their spars and ropes, Below, a myriad myriad waves hastening, lifting up their necks, Tending in ceaseless flow toward the track of the ship, Waves of the ocean bubbling and gurgling, blithely prying, Waves, undulating waves, liquid, uneven, emulous waves, Toward that whirling current, laughing and buoyant, with curves, Where the great vessel sailing and tacking displaced the surface,…†
Chpt 19
- …ranks of policemen preceding, clearing the way, The unpent enthusiasm, the wild cheers of the crowd for their favorites, The artillery, the silent cannons bright as gold, drawn along, rumble lightly over the stones, (Silent cannons, soon to cease your silence, Soon unlimber'd to begin the red business;) All the mutter of preparation, all the determin'd arming, The hospital service, the lint, bandages and medicines, The women volunteering for nurses, the work begun for in earnest, no…†
Chpt 21
- Father: Cease, cease, my foolish babe, What you are saying is sorrowful to me, much 't displeases me; Behold with the rest again I say, behold not banners and pennants aloft, But the well-prepared pavements behold, and mark the solid-wall'd houses.†
Chpt 21
- Father: Cease, cease, my foolish babe, What you are saying is sorrowful to me, much 't displeases me; Behold with the rest again I say, behold not banners and pennants aloft, But the well-prepared pavements behold, and mark the solid-wall'd houses.†
Chpt 21
- So dull and damp and another day, But the night of that, mist lifting, rain ceasing, Silent as a ghost while they thought they were sure of him, my General retreated.†
Chpt 21
- These demanding to have them, (tired with ceaseless excitement, and rack'd by the war-strife,) These to procure incessantly asking, rising in cries from my heart, While yet incessantly asking still I adhere to my city, Day upon day and year upon year O city, walking your streets, Where you hold me enchain'd a certain time refusing to give me up, Yet giving to make me glutted, enrich'd of soul, you give me forever faces; (O I see what I sought to escape, confronting, reversing my cries,…†
Chpt 21
- I cease from my song for thee, From my gaze on thee in the west, fronting the west, communing with thee, O comrade lustrous with silver face in the night.†
Chpt 22
- No more for him life's stormy conflicts, Nor victory, nor defeat—no more time's dark events, Charging like ceaseless clouds across the sky.†
Chpt 22
- For till all ceases neither must you cease.†
Chpt 24
- For till all ceases neither must you cease.†
Chpt 24
- Ceaseless she paces to and fro, O heart-sick days!†
Chpt 24
- Sparkles from the Wheel Where the city's ceaseless crowd moves on the livelong day, Withdrawn I join a group of children watching, I pause aside with them.†
Chpt 24
- Along all history, down the slopes, As a rivulet running, sinking now, and now again to the surface rising, A ceaseless thought, a varied train—lo, soul, to thee, thy sight, they rise, The plans, the voyages again, the expeditions; Again Vasco de Gama sails forth, Again the knowledge gain'd, the mariner's compass, Lands found and nations born, thou born America, For purpose vast, man's long probation fill'd, Thou rondure of the world at last accomplish'd.†
Chpt 26
- …terrible look for an answer, The children come hurried and weeping, and the brothers and sisters are sent for, Medicines stand unused on the shelf, (the camphor-smell has long pervaded the rooms,) The faithful hand of the living does not desert the hand of the dying, The twitching lips press lightly on the forehead of the dying, The breath ceases and the pulse of the heart ceases, The corpse stretches on the bed and the living look upon it, It is palpable as the living are palpable.†
Chpt 29
- …terrible look for an answer, The children come hurried and weeping, and the brothers and sisters are sent for, Medicines stand unused on the shelf, (the camphor-smell has long pervaded the rooms,) The faithful hand of the living does not desert the hand of the dying, The twitching lips press lightly on the forehead of the dying, The breath ceases and the pulse of the heart ceases, The corpse stretches on the bed and the living look upon it, It is palpable as the living are palpable.†
Chpt 29
- Slow-moving and black lines creep over the whole earth—they never cease—they are the burial lines, He that was President was buried, and he that is now President shall surely be buried.†
Chpt 29
- 8 Slow moving and black lines go ceaselessly over the earth, Northerner goes carried and Southerner goes carried, and they on the Atlantic side and they on the Pacific, And they between, and all through the Mississippi country, and all over the earth.†
Chpt 29
- Despairing cries float ceaselessly toward me, The call of my nearest lover, putting forth, alarm'd, uncertain, The sea I am quickly to sail, come tell me, Come tell me where I am speeding, tell me my destination.†
Chpt 30
- That Music Always Round Me That music always round me, unceasing, unbeginning, yet long untaught I did not hear, But now the chorus I hear and am elated, A tenor, strong, ascending with power and health, with glad notes of daybreak I hear, A soprano at intervals sailing buoyantly over the tops of immense waves, A transparent base shuddering lusciously under and through the universe, The triumphant tutti, the funeral wailings with sweet flutes and violins, all these I fill myself with,…†
Chpt 30
- And you O my soul where you stand, Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space, Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them, Till the bridge you will need be form'd, till the ductile anchor hold, Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.†
Chpt 30
- …of new superber birth that rises to my eyes, Like a limitless golden cloud filling the westernr sky, Emblem of general maternity lifted above all, Sacred shape of the bearer of daughters and sons, Out of thy teeming womb thy giant babes in ceaseless procession issuing, Acceding from such gestation, taking and giving continual strength and life, World of the real—world of the twain in one, World of the soul, born by the world of the real alone, led to identity, body, by it alone, Yet…†
Chpt 31
- …worst, moral consumption, shall rouge thy face with hectic, But thou shalt face thy fortunes, thy diseases, and surmount them all, Whatever they are to-day and whatever through time they may be, They each and all shall lift and pass away and cease from thee, While thou, Time's spirals rounding, out of thyself, thyself still extricating, fusing, Equable, natural, mystical Union thou, (the mortal with immortal blent,) Shalt soar toward the fulfilment of the future, the spirit of the body…†
Chpt 31
- Sauntering the pavement thus, or crossing the ceaseless ferry, faces and faces and faces, I see them and complain not, and am content with all.†
Chpt 32
- This face owes to the sexton his dismalest fee, An unceasing death-bell tolls there.†
Chpt 32
- By Broad Potomac's Shore By broad Potomac's shore, again old tongue, (Still uttering, still ejaculating, canst never cease this babble?†
Chpt 32
- I shall go forth, I shall traverse the States awhile, but I cannot tell whither or how long, Perhaps soon some day or night while I am singing my voice will suddenly cease.†
Chpt 33
- Pensive on Her Dead Gazing Pensive on her dead gazing I heard the Mother of All, Desperate on the torn bodies, on the forms covering the battlefields gazing, (As the last gun ceased, but the scent of the powder-smoke linger'd,) As she call'd to her earth with mournful voice while she stalk'd, Absorb them well O my earth, she cried, I charge you lose not my sons, lose not an atom, And you streams absorb them well, taking their dear blood, And you local spots, and you airs that swim…†
Chpt 33
- My songs cease, I abandon them, From behind the screen where I hid I advance personally solely to you.†
Chpt 33
- [III] You Tides with Ceaseless Swell You tides with ceaseless swell! you power that does this work!†
Chpt 34
- [III] You Tides with Ceaseless Swell You tides with ceaseless swell! you power that does this work!†
Chpt 34
- Nor cease at the theme of One's-Self.†
Chpt 34
Definition:
-
(cease) to stop or discontinue