Poetry Page - Walt Whitman (M-Z)

Manhattan Streets I Saunter'd, Pondering

Manhattan's streets I saunter'd, pondering,
On time, space, reality--on such as these, and abreast with them,
prudence.

After all, the last explanation remains to be made about prudence;
Little and large alike drop quietly aside from the prudence that
suits immortality.

The Soul is of itself;
All verges to it--all has reference to what ensues;
All that a person does, says, thinks, is of consequence;
Not a move can a man or woman make, that affects him or her in a day,
month, any part of the direct life-time, or the hour of death,
but the same affects him or her onward afterward through the
indirect life-time.

The indirect is just as much as the direct,
The spirit receives from the body just as much as it gives to the
body, if not more.

Not one word or deed--not venereal sore, discoloration, privacy of
the onanist, putridity of gluttons or rum-drinkers, peculation,
cunning, betrayal, murder, seduction, prostitution, but has
results beyond death, as really as before death.

Charity and personal force are the only investments worth anything.

No specification is necessary--all that a male or female does, that
is vigorous, benevolent, clean, is so much profit to him or
her, in the unshakable order of the universe, and through the
whole scope of it forever.

Who has been wise, receives interest,
Savage, felon, President, judge, farmer, sailor, mechanic, literat,
young, old, it is the same,
The interest will come round--all will come round.

Singly, wholly, to affect now, affected their time, will forever
affect all of the past, and all of the present, and all of the
future,
All the brave actions of war and peace,
All help given to relatives, strangers, the poor, old, sorrowful,
young children, widows, the sick, and to shunn'd persons,
All furtherance of fugitives, and of the escape of slaves,
All self-denial that stood steady and aloof on wrecks, and saw others
fill the seats of the boats,
All offering of substance or life for the good old cause, or for a
friend's sake, or opinion's sake,
All pains of enthusiasts, scoff'd at by their neighbors,
All the limitless sweet love and precious suffering of mothers,
All honest men baffled in strifes recorded or unrecorded,
All the grandeur and good of ancient nations whose fragments we
inherit,
All the good of the dozens of ancient nations unknown to us by name,
date, location,
All that was ever manfully begun, whether it succeeded or no,
All suggestions of the divine mind of man, or the divinity of his
mouth, or the shaping of his great hands;
All that is well thought or said this day on any part of the globe--
or on any of the wandering stars, or on any of the fix'd stars,
by those there as we are here;
All that is henceforth to be thought or done by you, whoever you are,
or by any one;
These inure, have inured, shall inure, to the identities from which
they sprang, or shall spring.

Did you guess anything lived only its moment?
The world does not so exist--no parts palpable or impalpable so
exist;
No consummation exists without being from some long previous
consummation--and that from some other,
Without the farthest conceivable one coming a bit nearer the
beginning than any.

Whatever satisfies Souls is true;
Prudence entirely satisfies the craving and glut of Souls;
Itself only finally satisfies the Soul;
The Soul has that measureless pride which revolts from every lesson
but its own.

Now I give you an inkling;
Now I breathe the word of the prudence that walks abreast with time,
space, reality,
That answers the pride which refuses every lesson but its own.

What is prudence, is indivisible,
Declines to separate one part of life from every part,
Divides not the righteous from the unrighteous, or the living from
the dead,
Matches every thought or act by its correlative,
Knows no possible forgiveness, or deputed atonement,
Knows that the young man who composedly peril'd his life and lost it,
has done exceedingly well for himself without doubt,
That he who never peril'd his life, but retains it to old age in
riches and ease, has probably achiev'd nothing for himself
worth mentioning;
Knows that only that person has really learn'd, who has learn'd to
prefer results,
Who favors Body and Soul the same,
Who perceives the indirect assuredly following the direct,
Who in his spirit in any emergency whatever neither hurries or,
avoids death.

Mannahatta

I was asking for something specific and perfect for my city,
Whereupon, lo! upsprang the aboriginal name!

Now I see what there is in a name, a word, liquid, sane, unruly,
musical, self-sufficient;
I see that the word of my city is that word up there,
Because I see that word nested in nests of water-bays, superb, with
tall and wonderful spires,
Rich, hemm'd thick all around with sailships and steamships--an
island sixteen miles long, solid-founded,
Numberless crowded streets--high growths of iron, slender, strong,
light, splendidly uprising toward clear skies;
Tide swift and ample, well-loved by me, toward sundown,
The flowing sea-currents, the little islands, larger adjoining
islands, the heights, the villas,
The countless masts, the white shore-steamers, the lighters, the
ferry-boats, the black sea-steamers well-model'd;
The down-town streets, the jobbers' houses of business--the houses of
business of the ship-merchants, and money-brokers--the river-
streets;
Immigrants arriving, fifteen or twenty thousand in a week;
The carts hauling goods--the manly race of drivers of horses--the
brown-faced sailors;
The summer air, the bright sun shining, and the sailing clouds aloft;
The winter snows, the sleigh-bells--the broken ice in the river,
passing along, up or down, with the flood tide or ebb-tide;
The mechanics of the city, the masters, well-form'd, beautiful-faced,
looking you straight in the eyes;
Trottoirs throng'd--vehicles--Broadway--the women--the shops and
shows,
The parades, processions, bugles playing, flags flying, drums
beating;
A million people--manners free and superb--open voices--hospitality--
the most courageous and friendly young men;
The free city! no slaves! no owners of slaves!
The beautiful city, the city of hurried and sparkling waters! the
city of spires and masts!
The city nested in bays! my city!
The city of such women, I am mad to be with them! I will return after
death to be with them!
The city of such young men, I swear I cannot live happy, without I
often go talk, walk, eat, drink, sleep, with them!

Me Imperturbe

Me imperturbe, standing at ease in Nature,
Master of all, or mistress of all--aplomb in the midst of irrational
things,
Imbued as they--passive, receptive, silent as they,
Finding my occupation, poverty, notoriety, foibles, crimes, less
important than I thought;
Me private, or public, or menial, or solitary--all these subordinate,
(I am eternally equal with the best--I am not subordinate;)
Me toward the Mexican Sea, or in the Mannahatta, or the Tennessee, or
far north, or inland,
A river man, or a man of the woods, or of any farm-life in These
States, or of the coast, or the lakes, or Kanada,
Me, wherever my life is lived, O to be
self-balanced for
contingencies!
O to confront night, storms, hunger, ridicule, accidents, rebuffs, as
the trees and animals do.

Mediums

They shall arise in the States,
They shall report Nature, laws, physiology, and happiness;
They shall illustrate Democracy and the kosmos;
They shall be alimentive, amative, perceptive;
They shall be complete women and men--their pose brawny and supple,
their drink water, their blood clean and clear;
They shall enjoy materialism and the sight of products--they shall
enjoy the sight of the beef, lumber, bread-stuffs, of Chicago,
the great city;
They shall train themselves to go in public to become orators and
oratresses;
Strong and sweet shall their tongues be--poems and materials of poems
shall come from their lives--they shall be makers and finders;
Of them, and of their works, shall emerge divine conveyers, to convey
gospels;
Characters, events, retrospections, shall be convey'd in gospels
--Trees, animals, waters, shall be convey'd,
Death, the future, the invisible faith, shall all be convey'd.

Miracles

Why! who makes much of a miracle?
As to me, I know of nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach, just in the edge of the
water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with any one I love--or sleep in the bed at night with
any one I love,
Or sit at table at dinner with my mother,
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,
Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive, of a summer forenoon,
Or animals feeding in the fields,
Or birds--or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,
Or the wonderfulness of the sun-down--or of stars shining so quiet
and bright,
Or the exquisite, delicate, thin curve of the new moon in spring;
Or whether I go among those I like best, and that like me best--
mechanics, boatmen, farmers,
Or among the savans--or to the soiree--or to the opera,
Or stand a long while looking at the movements of machinery,
Or behold children at their sports,
Or the admirable sight of the perfect old man, or the perfect old
woman,
Or the sick in hospitals, or the dead carried to burial,
Or my own eyes and figure in the glass;
These, with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,
The whole referring--yet each distinct, and in its place.

To me, every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the
same,
Every foot of the interior swarms with the same;
Every spear of grass--the frames, limbs, organs, of men and women,
and all that concerns them,
All these to me are unspeakably perfect miracles.

To me the sea is a continual miracle;
The fishes that swim--the rocks--the motion of the waves--the ships,
with men in them,
What stranger miracles are there?

Mother And Babe

I see the sleeping babe, nestling the breast of its mother;
The sleeping mother and babe--hush'd, I study them long and long.

My Picture-Gallery

In a little house keep I pictures suspended, it is not a fix'd house,
It is round, it is only a few inches from one side to the other;
Yet behold, it has room for all the shows of the world, all memories?
Here the tableaus of life, and here the groupings of death;
Here, do you know this? this is cicerone himself,
With finger rais'd he points to the prodigal pictures.

Myself And Mine

Myself and mine gymnastic ever,
To stand the cold or heat--to take good aim with a gun--to sail a
boat--to manage horses--to beget superb children,
To speak readily and clearly--to feel at home among common people,
And to hold our own in terrible positions, on land and sea.

Not for an embroiderer;
(There will always be plenty of embroiderers--I welcome them also;)
But for the fibre of things, and for inherent men and women.

Not to chisel ornaments,
But to chisel with free stroke the heads and limbs of plenteous
Supreme Gods, that The States may realize them, walking and
talking.

Let me have my own way;
Let others promulge the laws--I will make no account of the laws;
Let others praise eminent men and hold up peace--I hold up agitation
and conflict;
I praise no eminent man--I rebuke to his face the one that was
thought most worthy.

(Who are you? you mean devil! And what are you secretly guilty of,
all your life?
Will you turn aside all your life? Will you grub and chatter all your
life?)

(And who are you--blabbing by rote, years, pages, languages,
reminiscences,
Unwitting to-day that you do not know how to speak a single word?)

Let others finish specimens--I never finish specimens;
I shower them by exhaustless laws, as Nature does, fresh and modern
continually.

I give nothing as duties;
What others give as duties, I give as living impulses;
(Shall I give the heart's action as a duty?)

Let others dispose of questions--I dispose of nothing--I arouse
unanswerable questions;
Who are they I see and touch, and what about them?
What about these likes of myself, that draw me so close by tender
directions and indirections?

I call to the world to distrust the accounts of my friends, but
listen to my enemies--as I myself do;
I charge you, too, forever, reject those who would expound me--for I
cannot expound myself;
I charge that there be no theory or school founded out of me;
I charge you to leave all free, as I have left all free.

After me, vista!
O, I see life is not short, but immeasurably long;
I henceforth tread the world, chaste, temperate, an early riser, a
steady grower,
Every hour the semen of centuries--and still of centuries.

I will follow up these continual lessons of the air, water, earth;
I perceive I have no time to lose.

Native Moments

Native moments! when you come upon me--Ah you are here now! Give me now
libidinous joys only! Give me the drench of my passions! Give me life
coarse and rank! To-day, I go consort with nature's darlings--to-night too;
I am for those who believe in loose delights--I share the midnight orgies
of young men; I dance with the dancers, and drink with the drinkers; The
echoes ring with our indecent calls; I take for my love some prostitute--I
pick out some low person for my dearest friend, He shall be lawless, rude,
illiterate--he shall be one condemn'd by others for deeds done; I will play
a part no longer--Why should I exile myself from my companions? O you
shunn'd persons! I at least do not shun you, I come forthwith in your
midst--I will be your poet, I will be more to you than to any of the rest.

Night On The Prairies

Night on the prairies;
The supper is over--the fire on the ground burns low;
The wearied emigrants sleep, wrapt in their blankets:
I walk by myself--I stand and look at the stars, which I think now I
never realized before.

Now I absorb immortality and peace,
I admire death, and test propositions.

How plenteous! How spiritual! How resum�!
The same Old Man and Soul--the same old aspirations, and the same
content.

I was thinking the day most splendid, till I saw what the not-day
exhibited,
I was thinking this globe enough, till there sprang out so noiseless
around me myriads of other globes.

Now, while the great thoughts of space and eternity fill me, I will
measure myself by them;
And now, touch'd with the lives of other globes, arrived as far along
as those of the earth,
Or waiting to arrive, or pass'd on farther than those of the earth,
I henceforth no more ignore them, than I ignore my own life,
Or the lives of the earth arrived as far as mine, or waiting to
arrive.

O I see now that life cannot exhibit all to me--as the day cannot,
I see that I am to wait for what will be exhibited by death.

No Labor-Saving Machine

No labor-saving machine,
Nor discovery have I made;
Nor will I be able to leave behind me any wealthy bequest to found a
hospital or library,
Nor reminiscence of any deed of courage, for America,
Nor literary success, nor intellect--nor book for the book-shelf;
Only a few carols, vibrating through the air, I leave,
For comrades and lovers.

Not Heat Flames Up And Consumes

Not heat flames up and consumes,
Not sea-waves hurry in and out,
Not the air, delicious and dry, the air of the ripe summer, bears
lightly along white down-balls of myriads of seeds,
Wafted, sailing gracefully, to drop where they may;
Not these--O none of these, more than the flames of me, consuming,
burning for his love whom I love!
O none, more than I, hurrying in and out:
--Does the tide hurry, seeking something, and never give up? O I the
same;
O nor down-balls, nor perfumes, nor the high, rain-emitting clouds,
are borne through the open air,
Any more than my Soul is borne through the open air,
Wafted in all directions, O love, for friendship, for you.

Not Heaving From My Ribb'd Breast Only

Not heaving from my ribb'd breast only;
Not in sighs at night, in rage, dissatisfied with myself;
Not in those long-drawn, ill-supprest sighs;
Not in 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, defiances, thrown from me when alone, far in
the wilds;
Not in husky pantings through clench'd teeth;
Not in sounded and resounded words--chattering words, echoes, dead
words;
Not in the murmurs of my dreams while I sleep,
Nor the other murmurs of these incredible dreams of every day;
Nor in the limbs and senses of my body, that take you and dismiss you
continually--Not there;
Not in any or all of them, O adhesiveness! O pulse of my life!
Need I that you exist and show yourself, any more than in these
songs.

Not My Enemies Ever Invade Me

Not my enemies ever invade me--no harm to my pride from them I fear;
But the lovers I recklessly love--lo! how they master me!
Lo! me, ever open and helpless, bereft of my strength!
Utterly abject, grovelling on the ground before them.

Not The Pilot

Not the pilot has charged himself to bring his ship into port, though
beaten back, and many times baffled;
Not the path-finder, penetrating inland, weary and long,
By deserts parch'd, snows-chill'd, rivers wet, perseveres till he
reaches his destination,
More than I have charged myself, heeded or unheeded, to compose a
free march for These States,
To be exhilarating music to them--a battle-call, rousing to arms, if
need be--years, centuries hence.

Not Youth Pertains To Me

Not youth pertains to me,
Nor delicatesse--I cannot beguile the time with talk;
Awkward in the parlor, neither a dancer nor elegant;
In the learn'd coterie sitting constrain'd and still--for learning.
inures not to me;
Beauty, knowledge, inure not to me--yet there are two or three things
inure to me;
I have nourish'd the wounded, and sooth'd many a dying soldier,
And at intervals, waiting, or in the midst of camp,
Composed these songs.

Now Finale To The Shore

Now finale to the shore!
Now, land and life, finale, and farewell!
Now Voyager depart! (much, much for thee is yet in store;)
Often enough hast thou adventur'd o'er the seas,
Cautiously cruising, studying the charts,
Duly again to port, and hawser's tie, returning:
--But now obey, thy cherish'd, secret wish,
Embrace thy friends--leave all in order;
To port, and hawser's tie, no more returning,
Depart upon thy endless cruise, old Sailor!

Now List To My Morning's Romanza

Now list to my morning's romanza--I tell the signs of the Answerer;
To the cities and farms I sing, as they spread in the sunshine before
me.

A young man comes to me bearing a message from his brother;
How shall the young man know the whether and when of his brother?
Tell him to send me the signs.

And I stand before the young man face to face, and take his right
hand in my left hand, and his left hand in my right hand,
And I answer for his brother, and for men, and I answer for him that
answers for all, and send these signs.

Him all wait for--him all yield up to--his word is decisive and
final,
Him they accept, in him lave, in him perceive themselves, as amid
light,
Him they immerse, and he immerses them.

Beautiful women, the haughtiest nations, laws, the landscape, people,
animals,
The profound earth and its attributes, and the unquiet ocean, (so
tell I my morning's romanza;)
All enjoyments and properties, and money, and whatever money will
buy,
The best farms--others toiling and planting, and he unavoidably
reaps,
The noblest and costliest cities--others grading and building, and he
domiciles there;
Nothing for any one, but what is for him--near and far are for him,
the ships in the offing,
The perpetual shows and marches on land, are for him, if they are for
any body.

He puts things in their attitudes;
He puts to-day out of himself, with plasticity and love;
He places his own city, times, reminiscences, parents, brothers and
sisters, associations, employment, politics, so that the rest
never shame them afterward, nor assume to command them.

He is the answerer:
What can be answer'd he answers--and what cannot be answer'd, he
shows how it cannot be answer'd.

A man is a summons and challenge;
(It is vain to skulk--Do you hear that mocking and laughter? Do you
hear the ironical echoes?)

Books, friendships, philosophers, priests, action, pleasure, pride,
beat up and down, seeking to give satisfaction;
He indicates the satisfaction, and indicates them that beat up and
down also.

Whichever the sex, whatever the season or place, he may go freshly
and gently and safely, by day or by night;
He has the pass-key of hearts--to him the response of the prying of
hands on the knobs.

His welcome is universal--the flow of beauty is not more welcome or
universal than he is;
The person he favors by day, or sleeps with at night, is blessed.

Every existence has its idiom--everything has an idiom and tongue;
He resolves all tongues into his own, and bestows it upon men, and
any man translates, and any man translates himself also;
One part does not counteract another part--he is the joiner--he sees
how they join.

He says indifferently and alike, How are you, friend? to the
President at his levee,
And he says, Good-day, my brother! to Cudge that hoes in the sugar-
field,
And both understand him, and know that his speech is right.

He walks with perfect ease in the Capitol,
He walks among the Congress, and one Representative says to another,
Here is our equal, appearing and new.

Then the mechanics take him for a mechanic,
And the soldiers suppose him to be a soldier, and the sailors that he
has follow'd the sea,
And the authors take him for an author, and the artists for an
artist,
And the laborers perceive he could labor with them and love them;
No matter what the work is, that he is the one to follow it, or has
follow'd it,
No matter what the nation, that he might find his brothers and
sisters there.

The English believe he comes of their English stock,
A Jew to the Jew he seems--a Russ to the Russ--usual and near,
removed from none.

Whoever he looks at in the traveler's coffee-house claims him,
The Italian or Frenchman is sure, and the German is sure, and the
Spaniard is sure, and the island Cuban is sure;
The engineer, the deck-hand on the great lakes, or on the
Mississippi, or St. Lawrence, or Sacramento, or Hudson, or
Paumanok Sound, claims him.

The gentleman of perfect blood acknowledges his perfect blood;
The insulter, the prostitute, the angry person, the beggar, see
themselves in the ways of him--he strangely transmutes them,
They are not vile any more--they hardly know themselves, they are so
grown.

O Bitter Sprig! Confession Sprig!

O bitter sprig! Confession sprig!
In the bouquet I give you place also--I bind you in,
Proceeding no further till, humbled publicly,
I give fair warning, once for all.

I own that I have been sly, thievish, mean, a prevaricator, greedy,
derelict,
And I own that I remain so yet.

What foul thought but I think it--or have in me the stuff out of
which it is thought?
What in darkness in bed at night, alone or with a companion?

O Captain! My Captain!

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up--for you the flag is flung--for you the bugle trills;
For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths--for you the shores a-crowding;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head;
It is some dream that on the deck,
You've fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;
Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

O Hymen! O Hymenee!

O hymen! O hymenee!
Why do you tantalize me thus?
O why sting me for a swift moment only?
Why can you not continue? O why do you now cease?
Is it because, if you continued beyond the swift moment, you would
soon certainly kill me?

O Living Always--Always Dying

O living always--always dying!
O the burials of me, past and present!
O me, while I stride ahead, material, visible, imperious as ever!
O me, what I was for years, now dead, (I lament not--I am content;)
O to disengage myself from those corpses of me, which I turn and look
at, where I cast them!
To pass on, (O living! always living!) and leave the corpses behind!

O Me! O Life!

O me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring;
Of the endless trains of the faithless--of cities fill'd with the
foolish;
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I,
and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light--of the objects mean--of the
struggle ever renew'd;
Of the poor results of all--of the plodding and sordid crowds I see
around me;
Of the empty and useless years of the rest--with the rest me
intertwined;
The question, O me! so sad, recurring--What good amid these, O me, O
life?

Answer.

That you are here--that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.

O Star Of France

O Star of France!
The brightness of thy hope and strength and fame,
Like some proud ship that led the fleet so long,
Beseems to-day a wreck, driven by the gale--a mastless hulk;
And 'mid its teeming, madden'd, half-drown'd crowds,
Nor helm nor helmsman.

Dim, smitten star!
Orb not of France alone--pale symbol of my soul, its dearest hopes,
The struggle and the daring--rage divine for liberty,
Of aspirations toward the far ideal--enthusiast's dreams of
brotherhood,
Of terror to the tyrant and the priest.

Star crucified! by traitors sold!
Star panting o'er a land of death--heroic land!
Strange, passionate, mocking, frivolous land.

Miserable! yet for thy errors, vanities, sins, I will not now rebuke
thee;
Thy unexampled woes and pangs have quell'd them all,
And left thee sacred.

In that amid thy many faults, thou ever aimedest highly,
In that thou wouldst not really sell thyself, however great the
price,
In that thou surely wakedst weeping from thy drugg'd sleep,
In that alone, among thy sisters, thou, Giantess, didst rend the ones
that shamed thee,
In that thou couldst not, wouldst not, wear the usual chains,
This cross, thy livid face, thy pierced hands and feet,
The spear thrust in thy side.

O star! O ship of France, beat back and baffled long!
Bear up, O smitten orb! O ship, continue on!

Sure, as the ship of all, the Earth itself,
Product of deathly fire and turbulent chaos,
Forth from its spasms of fury and its poisons,
Issuing at last in perfect power and beauty,
Onward, beneath the sun, following its course,
So thee, O ship of France!

Finish'd the days, the clouds dispell'd,
The travail o'er, the long-sought extrication,
When lo! reborn, high o'er the European world,
(In gladness, answering thence, as face afar to face, reflecting
ours, Columbia,)
Again thy star, O France--fair, lustrous star,
In heavenly peace, clearer, more bright than ever,
Shall beam immortal.

O Sun Of Real Peace

O Sun of real peace! O hastening light!
O free and extatic! O what I here, preparing, warble for!
O the sun of the world will ascend, dazzling, and take his height--
and you too, O my Ideal, will surely ascend!
O so amazing and broad--up there resplendent, darting and burning!
O vision prophetic, stagger'd with weight of light! with pouring
glories!
O lips of my soul, already becoming powerless!
O ample and grand Presidentiads! Now the war, the war is over!
New history! new heroes! I project you!
Visions of poets! only you really last! sweep on! sweep on!
O heights too swift and dizzy yet!
O purged and luminous! you threaten me more than I can stand!
(I must not venture--the ground under my feet menaces me--it will not
support me:
O future too immense,)--O present, I return, while yet I may, to you.

O Tan-Faced Prairie Boy

O tan-faced prairie-boy!
Before you came to camp, came many a welcome gift;
Praises and presents came, and nourishing food--till at last, among
the recruits,
You came, taciturn, with nothing to give--we but look'd on each
other,
When lo! more than all the gifts of the world, you gave me.

O You Whom I Often And Silently Come

O you whom I often and silently come where you are, that I may be
with you;
As I walk by your side, or sit near, or remain in the same room with
you,
Little you know the subtle electric fire that for your sake is
playing within me.

Of Him I Love Day And Night

Of him I love day and night, I dream'd I heard he was dead;
And I dream'd I went where they had buried him I love--but he was not
in that place;
And I dream'd I wander'd, searching among burial-places, to find him;
And I found that every place was a burial-place;
The houses full of life were equally full of death, (this house is
now;)
The streets, the shipping, the places of amusement, the Chicago,
Boston, Philadelphia, the Mannahatta, were as full of the dead
as of the living,
And fuller, O vastly fuller, of the dead than of the living;
--And what I dream'd I will henceforth tell to every person and age,
And I stand henceforth bound to what I dream'd;
And now I am willing to disregard burial-places, and dispense with
them;
And if the memorials of the dead were put up indifferently
everywhere, even in the room where I eat or sleep, I should be
satisfied;
And if the corpse of any one I love, or if my own corpse, be duly
render'd to powder, and pour'd in the sea, I shall be
satisfied;
Or if it be distributed to the winds, I shall be satisfied.

Of The Terrible Doubt Of Appearances

Of the terrible doubt of appearances,
Of the uncertainty after all--that we may be deluded,
That may-be reliance and hope are but speculations after all,
That may-be identity beyond the grave is a beautiful fable only,
May-be the things I perceive--the animals, plants, men, hills,
shining and flowing waters,
The skies of day and night--colors, densities, forms--May-be these
are, (as doubtless they are,) only apparitions, and the real
something has yet to be known;
(How often they dart out of themselves, as if to confound me and mock
me!
How often I think neither I know, nor any man knows, aught of them;)
May-be seeming to me what they are, (as doubtless they indeed but
seem,) as from my present point of view--And might prove, (as
of course they would,) naught of what they appear, or naught
any how, from entirely changed points of view;
--To me, these, and the like of these, are curiously answer'd by my
lovers, my dear friends;
When he whom I love travels with me, or sits a long while holding me
by the hand,
When the subtle air, the impalpable, the sense that words and reason
hold not, surround us and pervade us,
Then I am charged with untold and untellable wisdom--I am silent--I
require nothing further,
I cannot answer the question of appearances, or that of identity
beyond the grave;
But I walk or sit indifferent--I am satisfied,
He ahold of my hand has completely satisfied me.

Of The Visage Of Things

Of the visages of things--And of piercing through to the accepted
hells beneath;
Of ugliness--To me there is just as much in it as there is in
beauty--And now the ugliness of human beings is acceptable to
me;
Of detected persons--To me, detected persons are not, in any respect,
worse than undetected persons--and are not in any respect worse
than I am myself;
Of criminals--To me, any judge, or any juror, is equally criminal--
and any reputable person is also--and the President is also.

Offerings

A thousand perfect men and women appear,
Around each gathers a cluster of friends, and gay children and
youths, with offerings.

Old Ireland

Far hence, amid an isle of wondrous beauty,
Crouching over a grave, an ancient, sorrowful mother,
Once a queen--now lean and tatter'd, seated on the ground,
Her old white hair drooping dishevel'd round her shoulders;
At her feet fallen an unused royal harp,
Long silent--she too long silent--mourning her shrouded hope and
heir;
Of all the earth her heart most full of sorrow, because most full of
love.

Yet a word, ancient mother;
You need crouch there no longer on the cold ground, with forehead
between your knees;
O you need not sit there, veil'd in your old white hair, so
dishevel'd;
For know you, the one you mourn is not in that grave;
It was an illusion--the heir, the son you love, was not really dead;
The Lord is not dead--he is risen again, young and strong, in another
country;
Even while you wept there by your fallen harp, by the grave,
What you wept for, was translated, pass'd from the grave,
The winds favor'd, and the sea sail'd it,
And now with rosy and new blood,
Moves to-day in a new country.

On Journeys Through The States

On journeys through the States we start,
(Ay, through the world--urged by these songs,
Sailing henceforth to every land--to every sea;)
We, willing learners of all, teachers of all, and lovers of all.

We have watch'd the seasons dispensing themselves, and passing on,
We have said, Why should not a man or woman do as much as the
seasons, and effuse as much?

We dwell a while in every city and town;
We pass through Kanada, the north-east, the vast valley of the
Mississippi, and the Southern States;
We confer on equal terms with each of The States,
We make trial of ourselves, and invite men and women to hear;
We say to ourselves, Remember, fear not, be candid, promulge the body
and the Soul;
Dwell a while and pass on--Be copious, temperate, chaste, magnetic,
And what you effuse may then return as the seasons return,
And may be just as much as the seasons.

On Old Man's Thought Of School

An old man's thought of School;
An old man, gathering youthful memories and blooms, that youth itself
cannot.

Now only do I know you!
O fair auroral skies! O morning dew upon the grass!

And these I see--these sparkling eyes,
These stores of mystic meaning--these young lives,
Building, equipping, like a fleet of ships--immortal ships!
Soon to sail out over the measureless seas,
On the Soul's voyage.

Only a lot of boys and girls?
Only the tiresome spelling, writing, ciphering classes?
Only a Public School?

Ah more--infinitely more;
(As George Fox rais'd his warning cry, "Is it this pile of brick and
mortar--these dead floors, windows, rails--you call the church?
Why this is not the church at all--the Church is living, ever living
Souls.")

And you, America,
Cast you the real reckoning for your present?
The lights and shadows of your future--good or evil?
To girlhood, boyhood look--the Teacher and the School.

On The Beach At Night

On the beach, at night,
Stands a child, with her father,
Watching the east, the autumn sky.

Up through the darkness,
While ravening clouds, the burial clouds, in black masses spreading,
Lower, sullen and fast, athwart and down the sky,
Amid a transparent clear belt of ether yet left in the east,
Ascends, large and calm, the lord-star Jupiter;
And nigh at hand, only a very little above,
Swim the delicate brothers, the Pleiades.

From the beach, the child, holding the hand of her father,
Those burial-clouds that lower, victorious, soon to devour all,
Watching, silently weeps.

Weep not, child,
Weep not, my darling,
With these kisses let me remove your tears;
The ravening clouds shall not long be victorious,
They shall not long possess the sky--shall devour the stars only in
apparition:
Jupiter shall emerge--be patient--watch again another night--the
Pleiades shall emerge,
They are immortal--all those stars, both silvery and golden, shall
shine out again,
The great stars and the little ones shall shine out again--they
endure;
The vast immortal suns, and the long-enduring pensive moons, shall
again shine.

Then, dearest child, mournest thou only for Jupiter?
Considerest thou alone the burial of the stars?

Something there is,
(With my lips soothing thee, adding, I whisper,
I give thee the first suggestion, the problem and indirection,)
Something there is more immortal even than the stars,
(Many the burials, many the days and nights, passing away,)
Something that shall endure longer even than lustrous Jupiter,
Longer than sun, or any revolving satellite,
Or the radiant brothers, the Pleiades.

On The Beach At Night, Alone

On the beach at night alone,
As the old mother sways her to and fro, singing her husky song,
As I watch the bright stars shining--I think a thought of the clef of
the universes, and of the future.

A vast similtude interlocks all,
All spheres, grown, ungrown, small, large, suns, moons, planets,
comets, asteroids,
All the substances of the same, and all that is spiritual upon the
same,
All distances of place, however wide,
All distances of time--all inanimate forms,
All Souls--all living bodies, though they be ever so different, or in
different worlds,
All gaseous, watery, vegetable, mineral processes--the fishes, the
brutes,
All men and women--me also;
All nations, colors, barbarisms, civilizations, languages;
All identities that have existed, or may exist, on this globe, or any
globe;
All lives and deaths--all of the past, present, future;
This vast similitude spans them, and always has spann'd, and shall
forever span them, and compactly hold them, and enclose them.

Once I Pass'd Through A Populous City

Once I pass'd through a populous city, imprinting my brain, for
future use, with its shows, architecture, customs, and
traditions;
Yet now, of all that city, I remember only a woman I casually met
there, who detain'd me for love of me;
Day by day and night by night we were together,--All else has long
been forgotten by me;
I remember, I say, only that woman who passionately clung to me;
Again we wander--we love--we separate again;
Again she holds me by the hand--I must not go!
I see her close beside me, with silent lips, sad and tremulous.

One Hour To Madness And Joy

One hour to madness and joy!
O furious! O confine me not!
(What is this that frees me so in storms?
What do my shouts amid lightnings and raging winds mean?)

O to drink the mystic deliria deeper than any other man!
O savage and tender achings!
(I bequeath them to you, my children,
I tell them to you, for reasons, O bridegroom and bride.)

O to be yielded to you, whoever you are, and you to be yielded to me,
in defiance of the world!
O to return to Paradise! O bashful and feminine!
O to draw you to me--to plant on you for the first time the lips of a
determin'd man!

O the puzzle--the thrice-tied knot--the deep and dark pool! O all
untied and illumin'd!
O to speed where there is space enough and air enough at last!
O to be absolv'd from previous ties and conventions--I from mine, and
you from yours!
O to find a new unthought-of nonchalance with the best of nature!
O to have the gag remov'd from one's mouth!
O to have the feeling, to-day or any day, I am sufficient as I am!

O something unprov'd! something in a trance!
O madness amorous! O trembling!
O to escape utterly from others' anchors and holds!
To drive free! to love free! to dash reckless and dangerous!
To court destruction with taunts--with invitations!
To ascend--to leap to the heavens of the love indicated to me!
To rise thither with my inebriate Soul!
To be lost, if it must be so!
To feed the remainder of life with one hour of fulness and freedom!
With one brief hour of madness and joy.

One Song, America, Before I Go

One song, America, before I go,
I'd sing, o'er all the rest, with trumpet sound,
For thee--the Future.

I'd sow a seed for thee of endless Nationality;
I'd fashion thy Ensemble, including Body and Soul;
I'd show, away ahead, thy real Union, and how it may be accomplish'd.

(The paths to the House I seek to make,
But leave to those to come, the House itself.)

Belief I sing--and Preparation;
As Life and Nature are not great with reference to the Present
only,
But greater still from what is yet to come,
Out of that formula for Thee I sing.

One Sweeps By

One sweeps by, attended by an immense train,
All emblematic of peace--not a soldier or menial among them.

One sweeps by, old, with black eyes, and profuse white hair,
He has the simple magnificence of health and strength,
His face strikes as with flashes of lightning whoever it turns
toward.

Three old men slowly pass, followed by three others, and they by
three others,
They are beautiful--the one in the middle of each group holds his
companions by the hand,
As they walk, they give out perfume wherever they walk.

One's Self I Sing

One's-self I sing--a simple, separate Person;
Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-masse.

Of Physiology from top to toe I sing;
Not physiognomy alone, nor brain alone, is worthy for the muse--I say
the Form complete is worthier far;
The Female equally with the male I sing.

Of Life immense in passion, pulse, and power,
Cheerful--for freest action form'd, under the laws divine,
The Modern Man I sing.

Or From That Sea Of Time

Or, from that Sea of Time,
Spray, blown by the wind--a double winrow-drift of weeds and shells;
(O little shells, so curious-convolute! so limpid-cold and voiceless!
Yet will you not, to the tympans of temples held,
Murmurs and echoes still bring up--Eternity's music, faint and far,
Wafted inland, sent from Atlantica's rim--strains for the Soul of the
Prairies,
Whisper'd reverberations--chords for the ear of the West, joyously
sounding
Your tidings old, yet ever new and untranslatable;)
Infinitessimals out of my life, and many a life,
(For not my life and years alone I give--all, all I give;)
These thoughts and Songs--waifs from the deep--here, cast high and
dry,
Wash'd on America's shores.

Currents of starting a Continent new,
Overtures sent to the solid out of the liquid,
Fusion of ocean and land--tender and pensive waves,
(Not safe and peaceful only--waves rous'd and ominous too.
Out of the depths, the storm's abysms--Who knows whence? Death's
waves,
Raging over the vast, with many a broken spar and tatter'd sail.)

Others May Praise What They Like

Others may praise what they like;
But I, from the banks of the running Missouri, praise nothing, in
art, or aught else,
Till it has well inhaled the atmosphere of this river--also the
western prairie-scent,
And fully exudes it again.

Out From Behind His Mask

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.

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.

Out of the Rolling Ocean, The Crowd

Out of the rolling ocean, the crowd, came a drop gently to me,
Whispering, I love you, before long I die,
I have travel'd a long way, merely to look on you, to touch you,
For I could not die till I once look'd on you,
For I fear'd I might afterward lose you.

(Now we have met, we have look'd, we are safe;
Return in peace to the ocean, my love;
I too am part of that ocean, my love--we are not so much separated;
Behold the great rondure--the cohesion of all, how perfect!
But as for me, for you, the irresistible sea is to separate us,
As for an hour, carrying us diverse--yet cannot carry us diverse for
ever;
Be not impatient--a little space--Know you, I salute the air, the
ocean and the land,
Every day, at sundown, for your dear sake, my love.)

Over The Carnage

Over the carnage rose prophetic a voice,
Be not dishearten'd--Affection shall solve the problems of Freedom
yet;
Those who love each other shall become invincible--they shall yet
make Columbia victorious.

Sons of the Mother of All! you shall yet be victorious!
You shall yet laugh to scorn the attacks of all the remainder of the
earth.

No danger shall balk Columbia's lovers;
If need be, a thousand shall sternly immolate themselves for one.

One from Massachusetts shall be a Missourian's comrade;
From Maine and from hot Carolina, and another, an Oregonese, shall be
friends triune,
More precious to each other than all the riches of the earth.

To Michigan, Florida perfumes shall tenderly come;
Not the perfumes of flowers, but sweeter, and wafted beyond death.

It shall be customary in the houses and streets to see manly
affection;
The most dauntless and rude shall touch face to face lightly;
The dependence of Liberty shall be lovers,
The continuance of Equality shall be comrades.

These shall tie you and band you stronger than hoops of iron;
I, extatic, O partners! O lands! with the love of lovers tie you.

(Were you looking to be held together by the lawyers?
Or by an agreement on a paper? or by arms?
--Nay--nor the world, nor any living thing, will so cohere.)

Passage To India

Singing my days,
Singing the great achievements of the present,
Singing the strong, light works of engineers,
Our modern wonders, (the antique ponderous Seven outvied,)
In the Old World, the east, the Suez canal,
The New by its mighty railroad spann'd,
The seas inlaid with eloquent, gentle wires,
I sound, to commence, the cry, with thee, O soul,
The Past! the Past! the Past!

The Past! the dark, unfathom'd retrospect!
The teeming gulf! the sleepers and the shadows!
The past! the infinite greatness of the past!
For what is the present, after all, but a growth out of the past?
(As a projectile, form'd, impell'd, passing a certain line, still
keeps on,
So the present, utterly form'd, impell'd by the past.)

Passage, O soul, to India!
Eclaircise the myths Asiatic--the primitive fables.

Not you alone, proud truths of the world!
Nor you alone, ye facts of modern science!
But myths and fables of eld--Asia's, Africa's fables!
The far-darting beams of the spirit!--the unloos'd dreams!
The deep diving bibles and legends;
The daring plots of the poets--the elder religions;
--O you temples fairer than lilies, pour'd over by the rising sun!
O you fables, spurning the known, eluding the hold of the known,
mounting to heaven!
You lofty and dazzling towers, pinnacled, red as roses, burnish'd
with gold!
Towers of fables immortal, fashion'd from mortal dreams!
You too I welcome, and fully, the same as the rest;
You too with joy I sing.

Passage to India!
Lo, soul! seest thou not God's purpose from the first?
The earth to be spann'd, connected by net-work,
The people to become brothers and sisters,
The races, neighbors, to marry and be given in marriage,
The oceans to be cross'd, the distant brought near,
The lands to be welded together.

(A worship new, I sing;
You captains, voyagers, explorers, yours!
You engineers! you architects, machinists, your!
You, not for trade or transportation only,
But in God's name, and for thy sake, O soul.)

Passage to India!
Lo, soul, for thee, of tableaus twain,
I see, in one, the Suez canal initiated, open'd,
I see the procession of steamships, the Empress Eugenie's leading the
van;
I mark, from on deck, the strange landscape, the pure sky, the level
sand in the distance;
I pass swiftly the picturesque groups, the workmen gather'd,
The gigantic dredging machines.

In one, again, different, (yet thine, all thine, O soul, the same,)
I see over my own continent the Pacific Railroad, surmounting every
barrier;
I see continual trains of cars winding along the Platte, carrying
freight and passengers;
I hear the locomotives rushing and roaring, and the shrill steam-
whistle,
I hear the echoes reverberate through the grandest scenery in the
world;
I cross the Laramie plains--I note the rocks in grotesque shapes--the
buttes;
I see the plentiful larkspur and wild onions--the barren, colorless,
sage-deserts;
I see in glimpses afar, or towering immediately above me, the great
mountains--I see the Wind River and the Wahsatch mountains;
I see the Monument mountain and the Eagle's Nest--I pass the
Promontory--I ascend the Nevadas;
I scan the noble Elk mountain, and wind around its base;
I see the Humboldt range--I thread the valley and cross the river,
I see the clear waters of Lake Tahoe--I see forests of majestic
pines,
Or, crossing the great desert, the alkaline plains, I behold
enchanting mirages of waters and meadows;
Marking through these, and after all, in duplicate slender lines,
Bridging the three or four thousand miles of land travel,
Tying the Eastern to the Western sea,
The road between Europe and Asia.

(Ah Genoese, thy dream! thy dream!
Centuries after thou art laid in thy grave,
The shore thou foundest verifies thy dream!)

Passage to India!
Struggles of many a captain--tales of many a sailor dead!
Over my mood, stealing and spreading they come,
Like clouds and cloudlets in the unreach'd sky.

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, (a hemisphere
unborn,)
For purpose vast, man's long probation fill'd,
Thou, rondure of the world, at last accomplish'd.

O, vast Rondure, swimming in space!
Cover'd all over with visible power and beauty
Alternate light and day, and the teeming, spiritual darkness;
Unspeakable, high processions of sun and moon, and countless stars,
above;
Below, the manifold grass and waters, animals, mountains, trees;
With inscrutable purpose--some hidden, prophetic intention;
Now, first, it seems, my thought begins to span thee.

Down from the gardens of Asia, descending, radiating,
Adam and Eve appear, then their myriad progeny after them,
Wandering, yearning, curious--with restless explorations,
With questionings, baffled, formless, feverish--with never-happy
hearts,
With that sad, incessant refrain, Wherefore, unsatisfied Soul? and
Whither, O mocking Life?

Ah, who shall soothe these feverish children?
Who justify these restless explorations?
Who speak the secret of impassive Earth?
Who bind it to us? What is this separate Nature, so unnatural?
What is this Earth, to our affections? (unloving earth, without a
throb to answer ours;
Cold earth, the place of graves.)

Yet, soul, be sure the first intent remains--and shall be carried
out;
(Perhaps even now the time has arrived.)

After the seas are all cross'd, (as they seem already cross'd,)
After the great captains and engineers have accomplish'd their work,
After the noble inventors--after the scientists, the chemist, the
geologist, ethnologist,
Finally shall come the Poet, worthy that name;
The true Son of God shall come, singing his songs.

Then, not your deeds only, O voyagers, O scientists and inventors,
shall be justified,
All these hearts, as of fretted children, shall be sooth'd,
All affection shall be fully responded to--the secret shall be told;
All these separations and gaps shall be taken up, and hook'd and
link'd together;
The whole Earth--this cold, impassive, voiceless Earth, shall be
completely justified;
Trinitas divine shall be gloriously accomplish'd and compacted by the
the Son of God, the poet,
(He shall indeed pass the straits and conquer the mountains,
He shall double the Cape of Good Hope to some purpose;)
Nature and Man shall be disjoin'd and diffused no more,
The true Son of God shall absolutely fuse them.

Year at whose open'd, wide-flung door I sing!
Year of the purpose accomplish'd!
Year of the marriage of continents, climates and oceans!
(No mere Doge of Venice now, wedding the Adriatic;)
I see, O year, in you, the vast terraqueous globe, given, and giving
all,
Europe to Asia, Africa join'd, and they to the New World;
The lands, geographies, dancing before you, holding a festival
garland,
As brides and bridegrooms hand in hand.

Passage to India!
Cooling airs from Caucasus far, soothing cradle of man,
The river Euphrates flowing, the past lit up again.

Lo, soul, the retrospect, brought forward;
The old, most populous, wealthiest of Earth's lands,
The streams of the Indus and the Ganges, and their many
affluents;
(I, my shores of America walking to-day, behold, resuming all,)
The tale of Alexander, on his warlike marches, suddenly dying,
On one side China, and on the other side Persia and Arabia,
To the south the great seas, and the Bay of Bengal;
The flowing literatures, tremendous epics, religions, castes,
Old occult Brahma, interminably far back--the tender and junior
Buddha,
Central and southern empires, and all their belongings, possessors,
The wars of Tamerlane, the reign of Aurungzebe,
The traders, rulers, explorers, Moslems, Venetians, Byzantium, the
Arabs, Portuguese,
The first travelers, famous yet, Marco Polo, Batouta the Moor,
Doubts to be solv'd, the map incognita, blanks to be fill'd,
The foot of man unstay'd, the hands never at rest,
Thyself, O soul, that will not brook a challenge.

The medieval navigators rise before me,
The world of 1492, with its awaken'd enterprise;
Something swelling in humanity now like the sap of the earth in
spring,
The sunset splendor of chivalry declining.

And who art thou, sad shade?
Gigantic, visionary, thyself a visionary,
With majestic limbs, and pious, beaming eyes,
Spreading around, with every look of thine, a golden world,
Enhuing it with gorgeous hues.

As the chief histrion,
Down to the footlights walks, in some great scena,
Dominating the rest, I see the Admiral himself,
(History's type of courage, action, faith;)
Behold him sail from Palos, leading his little fleet;
His voyage behold--his return--his great fame,
His misfortunes, calumniators--behold him a prisoner, chain'd,
Behold his dejection, poverty, death.

(Curious, in time, I stand, noting the efforts of heroes;
Is the deferment long? bitter the slander, poverty, death?
Lies the seed unreck'd for centuries in the ground? Lo! to God's due
occasion,
Uprising in the night, it sprouts, blooms,
And fills the earth with use and beauty.)

Passage indeed, O soul, to primal thought!
Not lands and seas alone--thy own clear freshness,
The young maturity of brood and bloom;
To realms of budding bibles.

O soul, repressless, I with thee, and thou with me,
Thy circumnavigation of the world begin;
Of man, the voyage of his mind's return,
To reason's early paradise,
Back, back to wisdom's birth, to innocent intuitions,
Again with fair Creation.

O we can wait no longer!
We too take ship, O soul!
Joyous, we too launch out on trackless seas!
Fearless, for unknown shores, on waves of extasy to sail,
Amid the wafting winds, (thou pressing me to thee, I thee to me, O
soul,)
Caroling free--singing our song of God,
Chanting our chant of pleasant exploration.

With laugh, and many a kiss,
(Let others deprecate--let others weep for sin, remorse,
humiliation;)
O soul, thou pleasest me--I thee.

Ah, more than any priest, O soul, we too believe in God;
But with the mystery of God we dare not dally.

O soul, thou pleasest me--I thee;
Sailing these seas, or on the hills, or waking in the night,
Thoughts, silent thoughts, of Time, and Space, and Death, like waters
flowing,
Bear me, indeed, as through the regions infinite,
Whose air I breathe, whose ripples hear--lave me all over;
Bathe me, O God, in thee--mounting to thee,
I and my soul to range in range of thee.

O Thou transcendant!
Nameless--the fibre and the breath!
Light of the light--shedding forth universes--thou centre of them!
Thou mightier centre of the true, the good, the loving!
Thou moral, spiritual fountain! affection's source! thou reservoir!
(O pensive soul of me! O thirst unsatisfied! waitest not there?
Waitest not haply for us, somewhere there, the Comrade perfect?)
Thou pulse! thou motive of the stars, suns, systems,
That, circling, move in order, safe, harmonious,
Athwart the shapeless vastnesses of space!

How should I think--how breathe a single breath--how speak--if, out
of myself,
I could not launch, to those, superior universes?

Swiftly I shrivel at the thought of God,
At Nature and its wonders, Time and Space and Death,
But that I, turning, call to thee, O soul, thou actual Me,
And lo! thou gently masterest the orbs,
Thou matest Time, smilest content at Death,
And fillest, swellest full, the vastnesses of Space.

Greater than stars or suns,
Bounding, O soul, thou journeyest forth;
--What love, than thine and ours could wider amplify?
What aspirations, wishes, outvie thine and ours, O soul?
What dreams of the ideal? what plans of purity, perfection, strength?
What cheerful willingness, for others' sake, to give up all?
For others' sake to suffer all?

Reckoning ahead, O soul, when thou, the time achiev'd,
(The seas all cross'd, weather'd the capes, the voyage done,)
Surrounded, copest, frontest God, yieldest, the aim attain'd,
As, fill'd with friendship, love complete, the Elder Brother found,
The Younger melts in fondness in his arms.

Passage to more than India!
Are thy wings plumed indeed for such far flights?
O Soul, voyagest thou indeed on voyages like these?
Disportest thou on waters such as these?
Soundest below the Sanscrit and the Vedas?
Then have thy bent unleash'd.

Passage to you, your shores, ye aged fierce enigmas!
Passage to you, to mastership of you, ye strangling problems!
You, strew'd with the wrecks of skeletons, that, living, never
reach'd you.

Passage to more than India!
O secret of the earth and sky!
Of you, O waters of the sea! O winding creeks and rivers!
Of you, O woods and fields! Of you, strong mountains of my land!
Of you, O prairies! Of you, gray rocks!
O morning red! O clouds! O rain and snows!
O day and night, passage to you!

O sun and moon, and all you stars! Sirius and Jupiter!
Passage to you!

Passage--immediate passage! the blood burns in my veins!
Away, O soul! hoist instantly the anchor!
Cut the hawsers--haul out--shake out every sail!
Have we not stood here like trees in the ground long enough?
Have we not grovell'd here long enough, eating and drinking like mere
brutes?
Have we not darken'd and dazed ourselves with books long enough?

Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

O my brave soul!
O farther, farther sail!
O daring joy, but safe! Are they not all the seas of God?
O farther, farther, farther sail!

Patroling Barnegat

Wild, wild the storm, and the sea high running,
Steady the roar of the gale, with incessant undertone muttering,
Shouts of demoniac laughter fitfully piercing and pealing,
Waves, air, midnight, their savagest trinity lashing,
Out in the shadows there milk-white combs careering,
On beachy slush and sand spirts of snow fierce slanting,
Where through the murk the easterly death-wind breasting,
Through cutting swirl and spray watchful and firm advancing,
(That in the distance! is that a wreck? is the red signal flaring?)
Slush and sand of the beach tireless till daylight wending,
Steadily, slowly, through hoarse roar never remitting,
Along the midnight edge by those milk-white combs careering,
A group of dim, weird forms, struggling, the night confronting,
That savage trinity warily watching.

Pensive And Faltering

Pensive and faltering,
The words, the dead, I write;
For living are the Dead;
(Haply the only living, only real,
And I the apparition--I the spectre.)

Pensive On Her Dead Gazing, I Heard The Mother Of All

Pensive, on her dead gazing, I heard the Mother of All,
Desperate, on the torn bodies, on the forms covering the battle-
fields 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 above lightly,
And all you essences of soil and growth--and you, my rivers' depths;
And you, mountain sides--and the woods where my dear children's
blood, trickling, redden'd;
And you trees, down in your roots, to bequeath to all future
trees,
My dead absorb--my young men's beautiful bodies absorb--and their
precious, precious, precious blood;
Which holding in trust for me, faithfully back again give me, many a
year hence,
In unseen essence and odor of surface and grass, centuries hence;
In blowing airs from the fields, back again give me my darlings--give
my immortal heroes;
Exhale me them centuries hence--breathe me their breath--let not an
atom be lost;
O years and graves! O air and soil! O my dead, an aroma sweet!
Exhale them perennial, sweet death, years, centuries hence.

Perfections

Only themselves understand themselves, and the like of themselves,
As Souls only understand Souls.

Pioneers! O Pioneers!

Come, my tan-faced children,
Follow well in order, get your weapons ready;
Have you your pistols? have you your sharp edged axes?
Pioneers! O pioneers!

For we cannot tarry here,
We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger,
We, the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

O you youths, western youths,
So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship,
Plain I see you, western youths, see you tramping with the foremost,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

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!

We detachments steady throwing,
Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep,
Conquering, holding, daring, venturing, as we go, the unknown ways,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

We primeval forests felling,
We the rivers stemming, vexing we, and piercing deep the mines
within;
We the surface broad surveying, we the virgin soil upheaving,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Colorado men are we,
From the peaks gigantic, from the great sierras and the high
plateaus,
From the mine and from the gully, from the hunting trail we come,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

From Nebraska, from Arkansas,
Central inland race are we, from Missouri, with the continental blood
intervein'd;
All the hands of comrades clasping, all the Southern, all the
Northern,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

O resistless, restless race!
O beloved race in all! O my breast aches with tender love for all!
O I mourn and yet exult--I am rapt with love for all,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Raise the mighty mother mistress,
Waving high the delicate mistress, over all the starry mistress,
(bend your heads all,)
Raise the fang'd and warlike mistress, stern, impassive, weapon'd
mistress,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

See, my children, resolute children,
By those swarms upon our rear, we must never yield or falter,
Ages back in ghostly millions, frowning there behind us urging,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

On and on, the compact ranks,
With accessions ever waiting, with the places of the dead quickly
fill'd,
Through the battle, through defeat, moving yet and never stopping,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

O to die advancing on!
Are there some of us to droop and die? has the hour come?
Then upon the march we fittest die, soon and sure the gap is fill'd,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

All the pulses of the world,
Falling in, they beat for us, with the western movement beat;
Holding single or together, steady moving, to the front, all for us,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Life's involv'd and varied pageants,
All the forms and shows, all the workmen at their work,
All the seamen and the landsmen, all the masters with their slaves,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

All the hapless silent lovers,
All the prisoners in the prisons, all the righteous and the wicked,
All the joyous, all the sorrowing, all the living, all the dying,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

I too with my soul and body,
We, a curious trio, picking, wandering on our way,
Through these shores, amid the shadows, with the apparitions
pressing,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Lo! the darting bowling orb!
Lo! the brother orbs around! all the clustering suns and planets,
All the dazzling days, all the mystic nights with dreams,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

These are of us, they are with us,
All for primal needed work, while the followers there in embryo wait
behind,
We to-day's procession heading, we the route for travel clearing,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

O you daughters of the west!
O you young and elder daughters! O you mothers and you wives!
Never must you be divided, in our ranks you move united,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Minstrels latent on the prairies!
(Shrouded bards of other lands! you may sleep--you have done your
work;)
Soon I hear you coming warbling, soon you rise and tramp amid us,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Not for delectations sweet;
Not the cushion and the slipper, not the peaceful and the
studious;
Not the riches safe and palling, not for us the tame enjoyment,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Do the feasters gluttonous feast?
Do the corpulent sleepers sleep? have they lock'd and bolted doors?
Still be ours the diet hard, and the blanket on the ground,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Has the night descended?
Was the road of late so toilsome? did we stop discouraged, nodding on
our way?
Yet a passing hour I yield you, in your tracks to pause oblivious,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Till with sound of trumpet,
Far, far off the day-break call--hark! how loud and clear I hear it
wind;
Swift! to the head of the army!--swift! spring to your places,
Pioneers! O pioneers.

Poem Of Remembrance For A Girl Or A Boy

You just maturing youth! You male or female!
Remember the organic compact of These States,
Remember the pledge of the Old Thirteen thenceforward to the rights,
life, liberty, equality of man,
Remember what was promulged by the founders, ratified by The States,
signed in black and white by the Commissioners, and read by
Washington at the head of the army,
Remember the purposes of the founders,--Remember Washington;
Remember the copious humanity streaming from every direction toward
America;
Remember the hospitality that belongs to nations and men; (Cursed be
nation, woman, man, without hospitality!)
Remember, government is to subserve individuals,
Not any, not the President, is to have one jot more than you or me,
Not any habitan of America is to have one jot less than you or me.

Anticipate when the thirty or fifty millions, are to become the
hundred, or two hundred millions, of equal freemen and
freewomen, amicably joined.

Recall ages--One age is but a part--ages are but a part;

The eternal equilibrium of things is great, and the eternal overthrow
of things is great,
And there is another paradox.

Recall the angers, bickerings, delusions, superstitions, of the idea
of caste,
Recall the bloody cruelties and crimes.

Anticipate the best women;
I say an unnumbered new race of hardy and well-defined women are to
spread through all These States,
I say a girl fit for These States must be free, capable, dauntless,
just the same as a boy.

Anticipate your own life--retract with merciless power,
Shirk nothing--retract in time--Do you see those errors, diseases,
weaknesses, lies, thefts?
Do you see that lost character?--Do you see decay, consumption, rum-
drinking, dropsy, fever, mortal cancer or inflammation?
Do you see death, and the approach of death?

Poems Of Joys

O to make the most jubilant poem!
Even to set off these, and merge with these, the carols of Death.
O full of music! full of manhood, womanhood, infancy!
Full of common employments! full of grain and trees.

O for the voices of animals! O for the swiftness and balance of
fishes!
O for the dropping of rain-drops in a poem!
O for the sunshine, and motion of waves in a poem.

O the joy of my spirit! it is uncaged! it darts like lightning!
It is not enough to have this globe, or a certain time--I will have
thousands of globes, and all time.

O the engineer's joys!
To go with a locomotive!
To hear the hiss of steam--the merry shriek--the steam-whistle--the
laughing locomotive!
To push with resistless way, and speed off in the distance.

O the gleesome saunter over fields and hill-sides!
The leaves and flowers of the commonest weeds--the moist fresh
stillness of the woods,
The exquisite smell of the earth at day-break, and all through the
forenoon.

O the horseman's and horsewoman's joys!
The saddle--the gallop--the pressure upon the seat--the cool gurgling
by the ears and hair.

O the fireman's joys!
I hear the alarm at dead of night,
I hear bells--shouts!--I pass the crowd--I run!
The sight of the flames maddens me with pleasure.

O the joy of the strong-brawn'd fighter, towering in the arena, in
perfect condition, conscious of power, thirsting to meet his
opponent.

O the joy of that vast elemental sympathy which only the human Soul
is capable of generating and emitting in steady and limitless
floods.

O the mother's joys!
The watching--the endurance--the precious love--the anguish--the
patiently yielded life.

O the joy of increase, growth, recuperation;
The joy of soothing and pacifying--the joy of concord and harmony.

O to go back to the place where I was born!
To hear the birds sing once more!
To ramble about the house and barn, and over the fields, once more,
And through the orchard and along the old lanes once more.

O male and female!
O the presence of women! (I swear there is nothing more exquisite to
me than the mere presence of women;)
O for the girl, my mate! O for the happiness with my mate!
O the young man as I pass! O I am sick after the friendship of him
who, I fear, is indifferent to me.

O the streets of cities!
The flitting faces--the expressions, eyes, feet, costumes! O I cannot
tell how welcome they are to me.

O to have been brought up on bays, lagoons, creeks, or along the
coast!
O to continue and be employ'd there all my life!
O the briny and damp smell--the shore--the salt weeds exposed at low
water,
The work of fishermen--the work of the eel-fisher and clam-fisher.

O it is I!
I come with my clam-rake and spade! I come with my eel-spear;
Is the tide out? I join the group of clam-diggers on the flats,
I laugh and work with them--I joke at my work, like a mettlesome
young man.

In winter I take my eel-basket and eel-spear and travel out on foot
on the ice--I have a small axe to cut holes in the ice;
Behold me, well-clothed, going gaily, or returning in the afternoon--
my brood of tough boys accompaning me,
My brood of grown and part-grown boys, who love to be with no one
else so well as they love to be with me,
By day to work with me, and by night to sleep with me.

Or, another time, in warm weather, out in a boat, to lift the
lobster-pots, where they are sunk with heavy stones, (I know
the buoys;)
O the sweetness of the Fifth-month morning upon the water, as I row,
just before sunrise, toward the buoys;
I pull the wicker pots up slantingly--the dark-green lobsters are
desperate with their claws, as I take them out--I insert wooden
pegs in the joints of their pincers,
I go to all the places, one after another, and then row back to the
shore,
There, in a huge kettle of boiling water, the lobsters shall be
boil'd till their color becomes scarlet.

Or, another time, mackerel-taking,
Voracious, mad for the hook, near the surface, they seem to fill the
water for miles:
Or, another time, fishing for rock-fish, in Chesapeake Bay--I one of
the brown-faced crew:
Or, another time, trailing for blue-fish off Paumanok, I stand with
braced body,
My left foot is on the gunwale--my right arm throws the coils of
slender rope,
In sight around me the quick veering and darting of fifty skiffs, my
companions.

O boating on the rivers!
The voyage down the Niagara, (the St. Lawrence,)--the superb
scenery--the steamers,
The ships sailing--the Thousand Islands--the occasional timber-raft,
and the raftsmen with long-reaching sweep-oars,
The little huts on the rafts, and the stream of smoke when they cook
their supper at evening.

O something pernicious and dread!
Something far away from a puny and pious life!
Something unproved! Something in a trance!
Something escaped from the anchorage, and driving free.

O to work in mines, or forging iron!
Foundry casting--the foundry itself--the rude high roof--the ample
and shadow'd space,
The furnace--the hot liquid pour'd out and running.

O to resume the joys of the soldier:
To feel the presence of a brave general! to feel his sympathy!
To behold his calmness! to be warm'd in the rays of his smile!
To go to battle! to hear the bugles play, and the drums beat!
To hear the crash of artillery! to see the glittering of the bayonets
and musket-barrels in the sun!
To see men fall and die, and not complain!
To taste the savage taste of blood! to be so devilish!
To gloat so over the wounds and deaths of the enemy.

O the whaleman's joys! O I cruise my old cruise again!
I feel the ship's motion under me--I feel the Atlantic breezes
fanning me,
I hear the cry again sent down from the mast-head--There--she blows!
--Again I spring up the rigging, to look with the rest--We see--we
descend, wild with excitement,
I leap in the lower'd boat--We row toward our prey, where he lies,
We approach, stealthy and silent--I see the mountainous mass,
lethargic, basking,
I see the harpooneer standing up--I see the weapon dart from his
vigorous arm:
O swift, again, now, far out in the ocean, the wounded whale,
settling, running to windward, tows me;
--Again I see him rise to breathe--We row close again,
I see a lance driven through his side, press'd deep, turn'd in the
wound,
Again we back off--I see him settle again--the life is leaving him
fast,
As he rises, he spouts blood--I see him swim in circles narrower and
narrower, swiftly cutting the water--I see him die;
He gives one convulsive leap in the centre of the circle, and then
falls flat and still in the bloody foam.

O the old manhood of me, my joy!
My children and grand-children--my white hair and beard,
My largeness, calmness, majesty, out of the long stretch of my life.

O the ripen'd joy of womanhood!
O perfect happiness at last!
I am more than eighty years of age--my hair, too, is pure white--I am
the most venerable mother;
How clear is my mind! how all people draw nigh to me!
What attractions are these, beyond any before? what bloom, more than
the bloom of youth?
What beauty is this that descends upon me, and rises out of me?

O the orator's joys!
To inflate the chest--to roll the thunder of the voice out from the
ribs and throat,
To make the people rage, weep, hate, desire, with yourself,
To lead America--to quell America with a great tongue.

O the joy of my soul leaning pois'd on itself--receiving identity
through materials, and loving them--observing characters, and
absorbing them;
O my soul, vibrated back to me, from them--from facts, sight,
hearing, touch, my phrenology, reason, articulation,
comparison, memory, and the like;
The real life of my senses and flesh, transcending my senses and
flesh;
My body, done with materials--my sight, done with my material
eyes;
Proved to me this day, beyond cavil, that it is not my material
eyes which finally see,
Nor my material body which finally loves, walks, laughs, shouts,
embraces, procreates.

O the farmer's joys!
Ohioan's, Illinoisian's, Wisconsinese', Kanadian's, Iowan's,
Kansian's, Missourian's, Oregonese' joys;
To rise at peep of day, and pass forth nimbly to work,
To plow land in the fall for winter-sown crops,
To plough land in the spring for maize,
To train orchards--to graft the trees--to gather apples in the fall.

O the pleasure with trees!
The orchard--the forest--the oak, cedar, pine, pekan-tree,
The honey-locust, black-walnut, cottonwood, and magnolia.

O Death! the voyage of Death!
The beautiful touch of Death, soothing and benumbing a few moments,
for reasons;
Myself, discharging my excrementitious body, to be burn'd, or
render'd to powder, or buried,
My real body doubtless left to me for other spheres,
My voided body, nothing more to me, returning to the purifications,
further offices, eternal uses of the earth.

O to bathe in the swimming-bath, or in a good place along shore!
To splash the water! to walk ankle-deep--to race naked along the
shore.

O to realize space!
The plenteousness of all--that there are no bounds;
To emerge, and be of the sky--of the sun and moon, and the flying
clouds, as one with them.

O the joy of a manly self-hood!
Personality--to be servile to none--to defer to none--not to any
tyrant, known or unknown,
To walk with erect carriage, a step springy and elastic,
To look with calm gaze, or with a flashing eye,
To speak with a full and sonorous voice, out of a broad chest,
To confront with your personality all the other personalities of the
earth.

Know'st thou the excellent joys of youth?
Joys of the dear companions, and of the merry word, and laughing
face?
Joys of the glad, light-beaming day--joy of the wide-breath'd
games?
Joy of sweet music--joy of the lighted ball-room, and the dancers?
Joy of the friendly, plenteous dinner--the strong carouse, and
drinking?

Yet, O my soul supreme!
Know'st thou the joys of pensive thought?
Joys of the free and lonesome heart--the tender, gloomy heart?
Joy of the solitary walk--the spirit bowed yet proud--the suffering
and the struggle?
The agonistic throes, the extasies--joys of the solemn musings, day
or night?
Joys of the thought of Death--the great spheres Time and Space?
Prophetic joys of better, loftier love's ideals--the Divine Wife--the
sweet, eternal, perfect Comrade?
Joys all thine own, undying one--joys worthy thee, O Soul.

O, while I live, to be the ruler of life--not a slave,
To meet life as a powerful conqueror,
No fumes--no ennui--no more complaints, or scornful criticisms.

O me repellent and ugly!
To these proud laws of the air, the water, and the ground, proving my
interior Soul impregnable,
And nothing exterior shall ever take command of me.

O to attract by more than attraction!
How it is I know not--yet behold! the something which obeys none of
the rest,
It is offensive, never defensive--yet how magnetic it draws.

O joy of suffering!
To struggle against great odds! to meet enemies undaunted!
To be entirely alone with them! to find how much one can stand!
To look strife, torture, prison, popular odium, death, face to face!
To mount the scaffold! to advance to the muzzles of guns with perfect
nonchalance!
To be indeed a God!

O, to sail to sea in a ship!
To leave this steady, unendurable land!
To leave the tiresome sameness of the streets, the sidewalks and the
houses;
To leave you, O you solid motionless land, and entering a ship,
To sail, and sail, and sail!

O to have my life henceforth a poem of new joys!
To dance, clap hands, exult, shout, skip, leap, roll on, float on,
To be a sailor of the world, bound for all ports,
A ship itself, (see indeed these sails I spread to the sun and air,)
A swift and swelling ship, full of rich words--full of joys.

Poets to Come

Poets to come! orators, singers, musicians to come!
Not to-day is to justify me, and answer what I am for;
But you, a new brood, native, athletic, continental, greater than
before known,
Arouse! Arouse--for you must justify me--you must answer.

I myself but write one or two indicative words for the future,
I but advance a moment, only to wheel and hurry back in the darkness.

I am a man who, sauntering along, without fully stopping, turns a
casual look upon you, and then averts his face,
Leaving it to you to prove and define it,
Expecting the main things from you.

Portals

What are those of the known, but to ascend and enter the Unknown?
And what are those of life, but for Death?

Prayer Of Columbus

It was near the close of his indomitable and pious life--on his last voyage
when nearly 70 years of age--that Columbus, to save his two remaining ships
from foundering in the Caribbean Sea in a terrible storm, had to run them
ashore on the Island of Jamaica--where, laid up for a long and miserable
year--1503--he was taken very sick, had several relapses, his men revolted,
and death seem'd daily imminent; though he was eventually rescued, and sent
home to Spain to die, unrecognized, neglected and in want......It is only
ask'd, as preparation and atmosphere for the following lines, that the bare
authentic facts be recall'd and realized, and nothing contributed by the
fancy. See, the Antillean Island, with its florid skies and rich foliage
and scenery, the waves beating the solitary sands, and the hulls of the
ships in the distance. See, the figure of the great Admiral, walking the
beach, as a stage, in this sublimest tragedy--for what tragedy, what poem,
so piteous and majestic as the real scene?--and hear him uttering--as his
mystical and religious soul surely utter'd, the ideas following--perhaps,
in their equivalents, the very words.

A batter'd, wreck'd old man,
Thrown on this savage shore, far, far from home,
Pent by the sea, and dark rebellious brows, twelve dreary months,
Sore, stiff with many toils, sicken'd, and nigh to death,
I take my way along the island's edge,
Venting a heavy heart.

I am too full of woe!
Haply, I may not live another day;
I can not rest, O God--I can not eat or drink or sleep,
Till I put forth myself, my prayer, once more to Thee,
Breathe, bathe myself once more in Thee--commune with Thee,
Report myself once more to Thee.

Thou knowest my years entire, my life,
(My long and crowded life of active work--not adoration merely;)
Thou knowest the prayers and vigils of my youth;
Thou knowest my manhood's solemn and visionary meditations;
Thou knowest how, before I commenced, I devoted all to come to Thee;
Thou knowest I have in age ratified all those vows, and strictly kept
them;
Thou knowest I have not once lost nor faith nor ecstasy in Thee;
(In shackles, prison'd, in disgrace, repining not,
Accepting all from Thee--as duly come from Thee.)

All my emprises have been fill'd with Thee,
My speculations, plans, begun and carried on in thoughts of Thee,
Sailing the deep, or journeying the land for Thee;
Intentions, purports, aspirations mine--leaving results to Thee.

O I am sure they really come from Thee!
The urge, the ardor, the unconquerable will,
The potent, felt, interior command, stronger than words,
A message from the Heavens, whispering to me even in sleep,
These sped me on.

By me, and these, the work so far accomplish'd (for what has been,
has been;)
By me Earth's elder, cloy'd and stifled lands, uncloy'd, unloos'd;
By me the hemispheres rounded and tied--the unknown to the known.

The end I know not--it is all in Thee;
Or small, or great, I know not--haply, what broad fields, what lands;
Haply, the brutish, measureless human undergrowth I know,
Transplanted there, may rise to stature, knowledge worthy Thee;
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.

Steersman unseen! henceforth the helms are Thine;
Take Thou command--(what to my petty skill Thy navigation?)
My hands, my limbs grow nerveless;
My brain feels rack'd, bewilder'd; Let the old timbers part--I will
not part!
I will cling fast to Thee, O God, though the waves buffet me;
Thee, Thee, at least, I know.

Is it the prophet's thought I speak, or am I raving?
What do I know of life? what of myself?
I know not even my own work, past or present;
Dim, ever-shifting guesses of it spread before me,
Of newer, better worlds, their mighty parturition,
Mocking, perplexing me.

And these things I see suddenly--what mean they?
As if some miracle, some hand divine unseal'd my eyes,
Shadowy, vast shapes, smile through the air and sky,
And on the distant waves sail countless ships,
And anthems in new tongues I hear saluting me.

President Lincoln's Burial Hymn

When Lilacs Last in the Door-yard Bloom'd

WHEN lilacs last in the door-yard bloom'd,
And the great star early droop'd in the western sky in the night,
I mourn'd--and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.

O ever-returning spring! trinity sure to me you bring;
Lilac blooming perennial, and drooping star in the west,
And thought of him I love.

O powerful, western, fallen star!
O shades of night! O moody, tearful night!
O great star disappear'd! O the black murk that hides the star!
O cruel hands that hold me powerless! O helpless soul of me!
O harsh surrounding cloud, that will not free my soul!

In the door-yard fronting an old farm-house, near the white-wash'd
palings,
Stands the lilac bush, tall-growing, with heart-shaped leaves of rich
green,
With many a pointed blossom, rising, delicate, with the perfume
strong I love,
With every leaf a miracle......and from this bush in the door-yard,
With delicate-color'd blossoms, and heart-shaped leaves of rich
green,
A sprig, with its flower, I break.

In the swamp, in secluded recesses,
A shy and hidden bird is warbling a song.

Solitary, the thrush,
The hermit, withdrawn to himself, avoiding the settlements,
Sings by himself a song.

Song of the bleeding throat!
Death's outlet song of life--(for well, dear brother, I know
If thou wast not gifted to sing, thou would'st surely die.)

Over the breast of the spring, the land, amid cities,
Amid lanes, and through old woods, (where lately the violets peep'd
from the ground, spotting the gray debris;)
Amid the grass in the fields each side of the lanes--passing the
endless grass;
Passing the yellow-spear'd wheat, every grain from its shroud in the
dark-brown fields uprising;
Passing the apple-tree blows of white and pink in the orchards;
Carrying a corpse to where it shall rest in the grave,
Night and day journeys a coffin.

Coffin that passes through lanes and streets,
Through day and night, with the great cloud darkening the land,
With the pomp of the inloop'd flags, with the cities draped in black,
With the show of the States themselves, as of crape-veil'd women,
standing,
With processions long and winding, and the flambeaus of the night,
With the countless torches lit--with the silent sea of faces, and the
unbared heads,
With the waiting depot, the arriving coffin, and the sombre faces,
With dirges through the night, with the thousand voices rising strong
and solemn;
With all the mournful voices of the dirges, pour'd around the coffin,
The dim-lit churches and the shuddering organs--Where amid these you
journey,
With the tolling, tolling bells' perpetual clang;
Here! coffin that slowly passes,
I give you my sprig of lilac.

(Nor for you, for one, alone;
Blossoms and branches green to coffins all I bring:
For fresh as the morning--thus would I carol a song for you, O sane
and sacred death.

All over bouquets of roses,
O death! I cover you over with roses and early lilies;
But mostly and now the lilac that blooms the first,
Copious, I break, I break the sprigs from the bushes;
With loaded arms I come, pouring for you,
For you, and the coffins all of you, O death.)

O western orb, sailing the heaven!
Now I know what you must have meant, as a month since we walk'd,
As we walk'd up and down in the dark blue so mystic,
As we walk'd in silence the transparent shadowy night,
As I saw you had something to tell, as you bent to me night after
night,
As you droop'd from the sky low down, as if to my side, (while the
other stars all look'd on;)
As we wander'd together the solemn night, (for something, I know not
what, kept me from sleep;)
As the night advanced, and I saw on the rim of the west, ere you
went, how full you were of woe;
As I stood on the rising ground in the breeze, in the cold
transparent night,
As I watch'd where you pass'd and was lost in the netherward black of
the night,
As my soul, in its trouble, dissatisfied, sank, as where you, sad
orb,
Concluded, dropt in the night, and was gone.

Sing on, there in the swamp!
O singer bashful and tender! I hear your notes--I hear your call;
I hear--I come presently--I understand you;
But a moment I linger--for the lustrous star has detain'd me;
The star, my departing comrade, holds and detains me.

O how shall I warble myself for the dead one there I loved?
And how shall I deck my song for the large sweet soul that has gone?
And what shall my perfume be, for the grave of him I love?

Sea-winds, blown from east and west,
Blown from the eastern sea, and blown from the western sea, till
there on the prairies meeting:
These, and with these, and the breath of my chant,
I perfume the grave of him I love.

O what shall I hang on the chamber walls?
And what shall the pictures be that I hang on the walls,
To adorn the burial-house of him I love?

Pictures of growing spring, and farms, and homes,
With the Fourth-month eve at sundown, and the gray smoke lucid and
bright,
With floods of the yellow gold of the gorgeous, indolent, sinking
sun, burning, expanding the air;
With the fresh sweet herbage under foot, and the pale green leaves of
the trees prolific;
In the distance the flowing glaze, the breast of the river, with a
wind-dapple here and there;
With ranging hills on the banks, with many a line against the sky,
and shadows;
And the city at hand, with dwellings so dense, and stacks of
chimneys,
And all the scenes of life, and the workshops, and the workmen
homeward returning.

Lo! body and soul! this land!
Mighty Manhattan, with spires, and the sparkling and hurrying tides,
and the ships;
The varied and ample land--the South and the North in the light--
Ohio's shores, and flashing Missouri,
And ever the far-spreading prairies, cover'd with grass and corn.

Lo! the most excellent sun, so calm and haughty;
The violet and purple morn, with just-felt breezes;
The gentle, soft-born, measureless light;
The miracle, spreading, bathing all--the fulfill'd noon;
The coming eve, delicious--the welcome night, and the stars,
Over my cities shining all, enveloping man and land.

Sing on! sing on, you gray-brown bird!
Sing from the swamps, the recesses--pour your chant from the bushes;
Limitless out of the dusk, out of the cedars and pines.

Sing on, dearest brother--warble your reedy song;
Loud human song, with voice of uttermost woe.

O liquid, and free, and tender!
O wild and loose to my soul! O wondrous singer!
You only I hear......yet the star holds me, (but will soon depart;)
Yet the lilac, with mastering odor, holds me.

Now while I sat in the day, and look'd forth,
In the close of the day, with its light, and the fields of spring,
and the farmer preparing his crops,
In the large unconscious scenery of my land, with its lakes and
forests,
In the heavenly aerial beauty, (after the perturb'd winds, and the
storms;)
Under the arching heavens of the afternoon swift passing, and the
voices of children and women,
The many-moving sea-tides,--and I saw the ships how they sail'd,
And the summer approaching with richness, and the fields all busy
with labor,
And the infinite separate houses, how they all went on, each with its
meals and minutia of daily usages;
And the streets, how their throbbings throbb'd, and the cities pent--
lo! then and there,
Falling upon them all, and among them all, enveloping me with the
rest,
Appear'd the cloud, appear'd the long black trail;
And I knew Death, its thought, and the sacred knowledge of death.

Then with the knowledge of death as walking one side of me,
And the thought of death close-walking the other side of me,
And I in the middle, as with companions, and as holding the hands of
companions,
I fled forth to the hiding receiving night, that talks not,
Down to the shores of the water, the path by the swamp in the
dimness,
To the solemn shadowy cedars, and ghostly pines so still.

And the singer so shy to the rest receiv'd me;
The gray-brown bird I know, receiv'd us comrades three;
And he sang what seem'd the carol of death, and a verse for him I
love.

From deep secluded recesses,
From the fragrant cedars, and the ghostly pines so still,
Came the carol of the bird.

And the charm of the carol rapt me,
As I held, as if by their hands, my comrades in the night;
And the voice of my spirit tallied the song of the bird.

DEATH CAROL.

Come, lovely and soothing Death,
Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving,
In the day, in the night, to all, to each,
Sooner or later, delicate Death.

Prais'd be the fathomless universe,
For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious;
And for love, sweet love--But praise! praise! praise!
For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding Death.

Dark Mother, always gliding near, with soft feet,
Have none chanted for thee a chant of fullest welcome?

Then I chant it for thee--I glorify thee above all;
I bring thee a song that when thou must indeed come, come
unfalteringly.

Approach, strong Deliveress!
When it is so--when thou hast taken them, I joyously sing the dead,
Lost in the loving, floating ocean of thee,
Laved in the flood of thy bliss, O Death.

From me to thee glad serenades,
Dances for thee I propose, saluting thee--adornments and feastings
for thee;
And the sights of the open landscape, and the high-spread sky, are
fitting,
And life and the fields, and the huge and thoughtful night.

The night, in silence, under many a star;
The ocean shore, and the husky whispering wave, whose voice I know;
And the soul turning to thee, O vast and well-veil'd Death,
And the body gratefully nestling close to thee.

Over the tree-tops I float thee a song!
Over the rising and sinking waves--over the myriad fields, and the
prairies wide;
Over the dense-pack'd cities all, and the teeming wharves and ways,
I float this carol with joy, with joy to thee, O Death!

To the tally of my soul,
Loud and strong kept up the gray-brown bird,
With pure, deliberate notes, spreading, filling the night.

Loud in the pines and cedars dim,
Clear in the freshness moist, and the swamp-perfume;
And I with my comrades there in the night.

While my sight that was bound in my eyes unclosed,
As to long panoramas of visions.

I saw askant the armies;
And I saw, as in noiseless dreams, hundreds of battle-flags;
Borne through the smoke of the battles, and pierc'd with missiles, I
saw them,
And carried hither and yon through the smoke, and torn and bloody;
And at last but a few shreds left on the staffs, (and all in
silence,)
And the staffs all splinter'd and broken.

I saw battle-corpses, myriads of them,
And the white skeletons of young men--I saw them;
I saw the debris and debris of all the dead soldiers of the war;
But I saw they were not as was thought;
They themselves were fully at rest--they suffer'd not;
The living remain'd and suffer'd--the mother suffer'd,
And the wife and the child, and the musing comrade suffer'd,
And the armies that remain'd suffer'd.

Passing the visions, passing the night;
Passing, unloosing the hold of my comrades' hands;
Passing the song of the hermit bird, and the tallying song of my
soul,
(Victorious song, death's outlet song, yet varying, ever-altering
song,
As low and wailing, yet clear the notes, rising and falling, flooding
the night,
Sadly sinking and fainting, as warning and warning, and yet again
bursting with joy,
Covering the earth, and filling the spread of the heaven,
As that powerful psalm in the night I heard from recesses,)
Passing, I leave thee, lilac with heart-shaped leaves;
I leave thee there in the door-yard, blooming, returning with spring,
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.

Yet each I keep, and all, retrievements out of the night;
The song, the wondrous chant of the gray-brown bird,
And the tallying chant, the echo arous'd in my soul,
With the lustrous and drooping star, with the countenance full of
woe,
With the lilac tall, and its blossoms of mastering odor;
With the holders holding my hand, nearing the call of the bird,
Comrades mine, and I in the midst, and their memory ever I keep--for
the dead I loved so well;
For the sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and lands...and this for
his dear sake;
Lilac and star and bird, twined with the chant of my soul,
There in the fragrant pines, and the cedars dusk and dim.

Primeval My Love For The Woman I Love

Primeval my love for the woman I love,
O bride! O wife! more resistless, more enduring than I can tell, the
thought of you!
Then separate, as disembodied, the purest born,
The ethereal, the last athletic reality, my consolation,
I ascend--I float in the regions of your love, O man,
O sharer of my roving life.

Proud Music Of The Storm

Proud music of the storm!
Blast that careers so free, whistling across the prairies!
Strong hum of forest tree-tops! Wind of the mountains!
Personified dim shapes! you hidden orchestras!
You serenades of phantoms, with instruments alert,
Blending, with Nature's rhythmus, all the tongues of nations;
You chords left us by vast composers! you choruses!
You formless, free, religious dances! you from the Orient!
You undertone of rivers, roar of pouring cataracts;
You sounds from distant guns, with galloping cavalry!
Echoes of camps, with all the different bugle-calls!
Trooping tumultuous, filling the midnight late, bending me powerless,
Entering my lonesome slumber-chamber--Why have you seiz'd me?

Come forward, O my Soul, and let the rest retire;
Listen--lose not--it is toward thee they tend;
Parting the midnight, entering my slumber-chamber,
For thee they sing and dance, O Soul.

A festival song!
The duet of the bridegroom and the bride--a marriage-march,
With lips of love, and hearts of lovers, fill'd to the brim with
love;
The red-flush'd cheeks, and perfumes--the cortege swarming, full of
friendly faces, young and old,
To flutes' clear notes, and sounding harps' cantabile.

Now loud approaching drums!
Victoria! see'st thou in powder-smoke the banners torn but flying?
the rout of the baffled?
Hearest those shouts of a conquering army?

(Ah, Soul, the sobs of women--the wounded groaning in agony,
The hiss and crackle of flames--the blacken'd ruins--the embers of
cities,
The dirge and desolation of mankind.)

Now airs antique and medieval fill me!
I see and hear old harpers with their harps, at Welsh festivals:
I hear the minnesingers, singing their lays of love,
I hear the minstrels, gleemen, troubadours, of the feudal ages.

Now the great organ sounds,
Tremulous--while underneath, (as the hid footholds of the earth,
On which arising, rest, and leaping forth, depend,
All shapes of beauty, grace and strength--all hues we know,
Green blades of grass, and warbling birds--children that gambol and
play--the clouds of heaven above,)
The strong base stands, and its pulsations intermits not,
Bathing, supporting, merging all the rest--maternity of all the rest;
And with it every instrument in multitudes,
The players playing--all the world's musicians,
The solemn hymns and masses, rousing adoration,
All passionate heart-chants, sorrowful appeals,
The measureless sweet vocalists of ages,
And for their solvent setting, Earth's own diapason,
Of winds and woods and mighty ocean waves;
A new composite orchestra--binder of years and climes--ten-fold
renewer,
As of the far-back days the poets tell--the Paradiso,
The straying thence, the separation long, but now the wandering done,
The journey done, the Journeyman come home,
And Man and Art, with Nature fused again.

Tutti! for Earth and Heaven!
The Almighty Leader now for me, for once has signal'd with his wand.

The manly strophe of the husbands of the world,
And all the wives responding.

The tongues of violins!
(I think, O tongues, ye tell this heart, that cannot tell itself;
This brooding, yearning heart, that cannot tell itself.)

Ah, from a little child,
Thou knowest, Soul, how to me all sounds became music;
My mother's voice, in lullaby or hymn;
(The voice--O tender voices--memory's loving voices!
Last miracle of all--O dearest mother's, sister's, voices;)
The rain, the growing corn, the breeze among the long-leav'd corn,
The measur'd sea-surf, beating on the sand,
The twittering bird, the hawk's sharp scream,
The wild-fowl's notes at night, as flying low, migrating north or
south,
The psalm in the country church, or mid the clustering trees, the
open air camp-meeting,
The fiddler in the tavern--the glee, the long-strung sailor-song,
The lowing cattle, bleating sheep--the crowing cock at dawn.

All songs of current lands come sounding 'round me,
The German airs of friendship, wine and love,
Irish ballads, merry jigs and dances--English warbles,
Chansons of France, Scotch tunes--and o'er the rest,
Italia's peerless compositions.

Across the stage, with pallor on her face, yet lurid passion,
Stalks Norma, brandishing the dagger in her hand.

I see poor crazed Lucia's eyes' unnatural gleam;
Her hair down her back falls loose and dishevell'd.

I see where Ernani, walking the bridal garden,
Amid the scent of night-roses, radiant, holding his bride by the
hand,
Hears the infernal call, the death-pledge of the horn.

To crossing swords, and grey hairs bared to heaven,
The clear, electric base and baritone of the world,
The trombone duo--Libertad forever!

From Spanish chestnut trees' dense shade,
By old and heavy convent walls, a wailing song,
Song of lost love--the torch of youth and life quench'd in despair,
Song of the dying swan--Fernando's heart is breaking.

Awaking from her woes at last, retriev'd Amina sings;
Copious as stars, and glad as morning light, the torrents of her joy.

(The teeming lady comes!
The lustrious orb--Venus contralto--the blooming mother,
Sister of loftiest gods--Alboni's self I hear.)

I hear those odes, symphonies, operas;
I hear in the William Tell, the music of an arous'd and angry people;
I hear Meyerbeer's Huguenots, the Prophet, or Robert;
Gounod's Faust, or Mozart's Don Juan.

] I hear the dance-music of all nations,
The waltz, (some delicious measure, lapsing, bathing me in
bliss;)
The bolero, to tinkling guitars and clattering castanets.

I see religious dances old and new,
I hear the sound of the Hebrew lyre,
I see the Crusaders marching, bearing the cross on high, to the
martial clang of cymbals;
I hear dervishes monotonously chanting, interspers'd with frantic
shouts, as they spin around, turning always towards Mecca;
I see the rapt religious dances of the Persians and the Arabs;
Again, at Eleusis, home of Ceres, I see the modern Greeks dancing,
I hear them clapping their hands, as they bend their bodies,
I hear the metrical shuffling of their feet.

I see again the wild old Corybantian dance, the performers wounding
each other;
I see the Roman youth, to the shrill sound of flageolets, throwing
and catching their weapons,
As they fall on their knees, and rise again.

I hear from the Mussulman mosque the muezzin calling;
I see the worshippers within, (nor form, nor sermon, argument, nor
word,
But silent, strange, devout--rais'd, glowing heads--extatic faces.)

I hear the Egyptian harp of many strings,
The primitive chants of the Nile boatmen;
The sacred imperial hymns of China,
To the delicate sounds of the king, (the stricken wood and stone;)
Or to Hindu flutes, and the fretting twang of the vina,
A band of bayaderes.

Now Asia, Africa leave me--Europe, seizing, inflates me;
To organs huge, and bands, I hear as from vast concourses of voices,
Luther's strong hymn, Eine feste Burg ist unser Gott;
Rossini's Stabat Mater dolorosa;
Or, floating in some high cathedral dim, with gorgeous color'd
windows,
The passionate Agnus Dei, or Gloria in Excelsis.

Composers! mighty maestros!
And you, sweet singers of old lands--Soprani! Tenori! Bassi!
To you a new bard, carolling free in the west,
Obeisant, sends his love.

(Such led to thee, O Soul!
All senses, shows and objects, lead to thee,
But now, it seems to me, sound leads o'er all the rest.)

I hear the annual singing of the children in St. Paul's Cathedral;
Or, under the high roof of some colossal hall, the symphonies,
oratorios of Beethoven, Handel, or Haydn;
The Creation, in billows of godhood laves me.

Give me to hold all sounds, (I, madly struggling, cry,)
Fill me with all the voices of the universe,
Endow me with their throbbings--Nature's also,
The tempests, waters, winds--operas and chants--marches and
dances,
Utter--pour in--for I would take them all.

Then I woke softly,
And pausing, questioning awhile the music of my dream,
And questioning all those reminiscences--the tempest in its fury,
And all the songs of sopranos and tenors,
And those rapt oriental dances, of religious fervor,
And the sweet varied instruments, and the diapason of organs,
And all the artless plaints of love, and grief and death,
I said to my silent, curious Soul, out of the bed of the slumber-
chamber,
Come, for I have found the clue I sought so long,
Let us go forth refresh'd amid the day,
Cheerfully tallying life, walking the world, the real,
Nourish'd henceforth by our celestial dream.

And I said, moreover,
Haply, what thou hast heard, O Soul, was not the sound of winds,
Nor dream of raging storm, nor sea-hawk's flapping wings, nor harsh
scream,
Nor vocalism of sun-bright Italy,
Nor German organ majestic--nor vast concourse of voices--nor layers
of harmonies;
Nor strophes of husbands and wives--nor sound of marching soldiers,
Nor flutes, nor harps, nor the bugle-calls of camps;
But, to a new rhythmus fitted for thee,
Poems, bridging the way from Life to Death, vaguely wafted in night
air, uncaught, unwritten,
Which, let us go forth in the bold day, and write.

Quicksand Years

Quicksand years that whirl me I know not whither,
Your schemes, politics, fail--lines give way--substances mock and
elude me;
Only the theme I sing, the great and strong-possess'd Soul, eludes
not;
One's-self must never give way--that is the final substance--that out
of all is sure;
Out of politics, triumphs, battles, life--what at last finally
remains?
When shows break up, what but One's-Self is sure?

Race Of Veterans

Race of veterans! Race of victors!
Race of the soil, ready for conflict! race of the conquering march!
(No more credulity's race, abiding-temper'd race;)
Race henceforth owning no law but the law of itself;
Race of passion and the storm.

Reconciliation

Word over all, beautiful as the sky!
Beautiful that war, and all its deeds of carnage, must in time be
utterly lost;
That the hands of the sisters Death and Night, incessantly softly
wash again, and ever again, this soil'd world:
... For my enemy is dead--a man divine as myself is dead;
I look where he lies, white-faced and still, in the coffin--I draw
near;
I bend down, and touch lightly with my lips the white face in the
coffin.

Recorders Ages Hence

Recorders ages hence!
Come, I will take you down underneath this impassive exterior--I will
tell you what to say of me;
Publish my name and hang up my picture as that of the tenderest
lover,
The friend, the lover's portrait, of whom his friend, his lover, was
fondest,
Who was not proud of his songs, but of the measureless ocean of love
within him--and freely pour'd it forth,
Who often walk'd lonesome walks, thinking of his dear friends, his
lovers,
Who pensive, away from one he lov'd, often lay sleepless and
dissatisfied at night,
Who knew too well the sick, sick dread lest the one he lov'd might
secretly be indifferent to him,
Whose happiest days were far away, through fields, in woods, on
hills, he and another, wandering hand in hand, they twain,
apart from other men,
Who oft as he saunter'd the streets, curv'd with his arm the shoulder
of his friend--while the arm of his friend rested upon him
also.

Respondez!

Respondez! Respondez!
(The war is completed--the price is paid--the title is settled beyond
recall;)
Let every one answer! let those who sleep be waked! let none evade!
Must we still go on with our affectations and sneaking?
Let me bring this to a close--I pronounce openly for a new
distribution of roles;
Let that which stood in front go behind! and let that which was
behind advance to the front and speak;
Let murderers, bigots, fools, unclean persons, offer new
propositions!
Let the old propositions be postponed!
Let faces and theories be turn'd inside out! let meanings be freely
criminal, as well as results!
Let there be no suggestion above the suggestion of drudgery!
Let none be pointed toward his destination! (Say! do you know your
destination?)
Let men and women be mock'd with bodies and mock'd with Souls!
Let the love that waits in them, wait! let it die, or pass stillborn
to other spheres!
Let the sympathy that waits in every man, wait! or let it also pass,
a dwarf, to other spheres!
Let contradictions prevail! let one thing contradict another! and let
one line of my poems contradict another!
Let the people sprawl with yearning, aimless hands! let their tongues
be broken! let their eyes be discouraged! let none descend into
their hearts with the fresh lusciousness of love!
(Stifled, O days! O lands! in every public and private corruption!
Smother'd in thievery, impotence, shamelessness, mountain-high;
Brazen effrontery, scheming, rolling like ocean's waves around and
upon you, O my days! my lands!
For not even those thunderstorms, nor fiercest lightnings of the war,
have purified the atmosphere;)
--Let the theory of America still be management, caste, comparison!
(Say! what other theory would you?)
Let them that distrust birth and death still lead the rest! (Say! why
shall they not lead you?)
Let the crust of hell be neared and trod on! let the days be darker
than the nights! let slumber bring less slumber than waking
time brings!
Let the world never appear to him or her for whom it was all made!
Let the heart of the young man still exile itself from the heart of
the old man! and let the heart of the old man be exiled from
that of the young man!
Let the sun and moon go! let scenery take the applause of the
audience! let there be apathy under the stars!
Let freedom prove no man's inalienable right! every one who can
tyrannize, let him tyrannize to his satisfaction!
Let none but infidels be countenanced!
Let the eminence of meanness, treachery, sarcasm, hate, greed,
indecency, impotence, lust, be taken for granted above all! let
writers, judges, governments, households, religions,
philosophies, take such for granted above all!
Let the worst men beget children out of the worst women!
Let the priest still play at immortality!
Let death be inaugurated!
Let nothing remain but the ashes of teachers, artists, moralists,
lawyers, and learn'd and polite persons!
Let him who is without my poems be assassinated!
Let the cow, the horse, the camel, the garden-bee--let the mudfish,
the lobster, the mussel, eel, the sting-ray, and the grunting
pig-fish--let these, and the like of these, be put on a perfect
equality with man and woman!
Let churches accommodate serpents, vermin, and the corpses of those
who have died of the most filthy of diseases!
Let marriage slip down among fools, and be for none but fools!
Let men among themselves talk and think forever obscenely of women!
and let women among themselves talk and think obscenely of men!
Let us all, without missing one, be exposed in public, naked,
monthly, at the peril of our lives! let our bodies be freely
handled and examined by whoever chooses!
Let nothing but copies at second hand be permitted to exist upon the
earth!
Let the earth desert God, nor let there ever henceforth be mention'd
the name of God!
Let there be no God!
Let there be money, business, imports, exports, custom, authority,
precedents, pallor, dyspepsia, smut, ignorance, unbelief!
Let judges and criminals be transposed! let the prison-keepers be put
in prison! let those that were prisoners take the keys! Say!
why might they not just as well be transposed?)
Let the slaves be masters! let the masters become slaves!
Let the reformers descend from the stands where they are forever
bawling! let an idiot or insane person appear on each of the
stands!
Let the Asiatic, the African, the European, the American, and the
Australian, go armed against the murderous stealthiness of each
other! let them sleep armed! let none believe in good will!
Let there be no unfashionable wisdom! let such be scorn'd and derided
off from the earth!
Let a floating cloud in the sky--let a wave of the sea--let growing
mint, spinach, onions, tomatoes--let these be exhibited as
shows, at a great price for admission!
Let all the men of These States stand aside for a few smouchers! let
the few seize on what they choose! let the rest gawk, giggle,
starve, obey!
Let shadows be furnish'd with genitals! let substances be deprived of
their genitals!
Let there be wealthy and immense cities--but still through any of
them, not a single poet, savior, knower, lover!
Let the infidels of These States laugh all faith away!
If one man be found who has faith, let the rest set upon him!
Let them affright faith! let them destroy the power of breeding
faith!
Let the she-harlots and the he-harlots be prudent! let them dance on,
while seeming lasts! (O seeming! seeming! seeming!)
Let the preachers recite creeds! let them still teach only what they
have been taught!
Let insanity still have charge of sanity!
Let books take the place of trees, animals, rivers, clouds!
Let the daub'd portraits of heroes supersede heroes!
Let the manhood of man never take steps after itself!
Let it take steps after eunuchs, and after consumptive and genteel
persons!
Let the white person again tread the black person under his heel!
(Say! which is trodden under heel, after all?)
Let the reflections of the things of the world be studied in mirrors!
let the things themselves still continue unstudied!
Let a man seek pleasure everywhere except in himself!
Let a woman seek happiness everywhere except in herself!
(What real happiness have you had one single hour through your whole
life?)
Let the limited years of life do nothing for the limitless years of
death! (What do you suppose death will do, then?)

Rise, O Days

Rise, O days, from your fathomless deeps, till you loftier, fiercer
sweep!
Long for my soul, hungering gymnastic, I devour'd what the earth gave
me;
Long I roam'd the woods of the north--long I watch'd Niagara pouring;
I travel'd the prairies over, and slept on their breast--I cross'd
the Nevadas, I cross'd the plateaus;
I ascended the towering rocks along the Pacific, I sail'd out to sea;
I sail'd through the storm, I was refresh'd by the storm;
I watch'd with joy the threatening maws of the waves;
I mark'd the white combs where they career'd so high, curling over;
I heard the wind piping, I saw the black clouds;
Saw from below what arose and mounted, (O superb! O wild as my heart,
and powerful!)
Heard the continuous thunder, as it bellow'd after the lightning;
Noted the slender and jagged threads of lightning, as sudden and fast
amid the din they chased each other across the sky;
--These, and such as these, I, elate, saw--saw with wonder, yet
pensive and masterful;
All the menacing might of the globe uprisen around me;
Yet there with my soul I fed--I fed content, supercilious.

'Twas well, O soul! 'twas a good preparation you gave me!
Now we advance our latent and ampler hunger to fill;
Now we go forth to receive what the earth and the sea never gave us;
Not through the mighty woods we go, but through the mightier cities;
Something for us is pouring now, more than Niagara pouring;
Torrents of men, (sources and rills of the Northwest, are you indeed
inexhaustible?)
What, to pavements and homesteads here--what were those storms of the
mountains and sea?
What, to passions I witness around me to-day? Was the sea risen?
Was the wind piping the pipe of death under the black clouds?
Lo! from deeps more unfathomable, something more deadly and savage;
Manhattan, rising, advancing with menacing front--Cincinnati,
Chicago, unchain'd;
--What was that swell I saw on the ocean? behold what comes here!
How it climbs with daring feet and hands! how it dashes!
How the true thunder bellows after the lightning! how bright the
flashes of lightning!
How DEMOCRACY, with desperate vengeful port strides on, shown through
the dark by those flashes of lightning!
(Yet a mournful wail and low sob I fancied I heard through the dark,
In a lull of the deafening confusion.)

Thunder on! stride on, Democracy! strike with vengeful stroke!
And do you rise higher than ever yet, O days, O cities!
Crash heavier, heavier yet, O storms! you have done me good;
My soul, prepared in the mountains, absorbs your immortal strong
nutriment;
--Long had I walk'd my cities, my country roads, through farms, only
half-satisfied;
One doubt, nauseous, undulating like a snake, crawl'd on the ground
before me,
Continually preceding my steps, turning upon me oft, ironically
hissing low;
--The cities I loved so well, I abandon'd and left--I sped to the
certainties suitable to me;
Hungering, hungering, hungering, for primal energies, and Nature's
dauntlessness,
I refresh'd myself with it only, I could relish it only;
I waited the bursting forth of the pent fire--on the water and air I
waited long;
--But now I no longer wait--I am fully satisfied--I am glutted;
I have witness'd the true lightning--I have witness'd my cities
electric;
I have lived to behold man burst forth, and warlike America rise;
Hence I will seek no more the food of the northern solitary wilds,
No more on the mountains roam, or sail the stormy sea.

Roaming In Thought

Roaming in thought over the Universe, I saw the little that is Good
steadily hastening towards immortality,
And the vast all that is call'd Evil I saw hastening to merge itself
and become lost and dead.

Roots And Leaves Themselves Alone

Roots and leaves themselves alone are these;
Scents brought to men and women from the wild woods, and from the
pond-side,
Breast-sorrel and pinks of love--fingers that wind around tighter
than vines,
Gushes from the throats of birds, hid in the foliage of trees, as the
sun is risen;
Breezes of land and love--breezes set from living shores out to you
on the living sea--to you, O sailors!
Frost-mellow'd berries, and Third-month twigs, offer'd fresh to young
persons wandering out in the fields when the winter breaks up,
Love-buds, put before you and within you, whoever you are,
Buds to be unfolded on the old terms;
If you bring the warmth of the sun to them, they will open, and bring
form, color, perfume, to you;
If you become the aliment and the wet, they will become flowers,
fruits, tall blanches and trees.

Salut Au Monde

O take my hand, Walt Whitman!
Such gliding wonders! such sights and sounds!
Such join'd unended links, each hook'd to the next!
Each answering all--each sharing the earth with all.

What widens within you, Walt Whitman?
What waves and soils exuding?
What climes? what persons and lands are here?
Who are the infants? some playing, some slumbering?
Who are the girls? who are the married women?
Who are the groups of old men going slowly with their arms about each
other's necks?
What rivers are these? what forests and fruits are these?
What are the mountains call'd that rise so high in the mists?
What myriads of dwellings are they, fill'd with dwellers?

Within me latitude widens, longitude lengthens;
Asia, Africa, Europe, are to the east--America is provided for in the
west;
Banding the bulge of the earth winds the hot equator,
Curiously north and south turn the axis-ends;
Within me is the longest day--the sun wheels in slanting rings--it
does not set for months;
Stretch'd in due time within me the midnight sun just rises above the
horizon, and sinks again;
Within me zones, seas, cataracts, plants, volcanoes, groups,
Malaysia, Polynesia, and the great West Indian islands.

What do you hear, Walt Whitman?
I hear the workman singing, and the farmer's wife singing;
I hear in the distance the sounds of children, and of animals early
in the day;
I hear quick rifle-cracks from the riflemen of East Tennessee and
Kentucky, hunting on hills;
I hear emulous shouts of Australians, pursuing the wild horse;
I hear the Spanish dance, with castanets, in the chestnut shade, to
the rebeck and guitar;
I hear continual echoes from the Thames;
I hear fierce French liberty songs;
I hear of the Italian boat-sculler the musical recitative of old
poems;
I hear the Virginia plantation-chorus of negroes, of a harvest night,
in the glare of pine-knots;
I hear the strong baritone of the 'long-shore-men of Mannahatta;
I hear the stevedores unlading the cargoes, and singing;
I hear the screams of the water-fowl of solitary north-west lakes;
I hear the rustling pattering of locusts, as they strike the grain
and grass with the showers of their terrible clouds;
I hear the Coptic refrain, toward sundown, pensively falling on the
breast of the black venerable vast mother, the Nile;
I hear the bugles of raft-tenders on the streams of Kanada;
I hear the chirp of the Mexican muleteer, and the bells of the mule;
I hear the Arab muezzin, calling from the top of the mosque;
I hear the Christian priests at the altars of their churches--I hear
the responsive bass and soprano;
I hear the wail of utter despair of the white-hair'd Irish
grandparents, when they learn the death of their grandson;
I hear the cry of the Cossack, and the sailor's voice, putting to sea
at Okotsk;
I hear the wheeze of the slave-coffle, as the slaves march on--as the
husky gangs pass on by twos and threes, fasten'd together with
wrist-chains and ankle-chains;
I hear the entreaties of women tied up for punishment--I hear the
sibilant whisk of thongs through the air;
I hear the Hebrew reading his records and psalms;
I hear the rhythmic myths of the Greeks, and the strong legends of
the Romans;
I hear the tale of the divine life and bloody death of the beautiful
God--the Christ;
I hear the Hindoo teaching his favorite pupil the loves, wars,
adages, transmitted safely to this day, from poets who wrote
three thousand years ago.

What do you see, Walt Whitman?
Who are they you salute, and that one after another salute you?

I see a great round wonder rolling through the air;
I see diminute farms, hamlets, ruins, grave-yards, jails, factories,
palaces, hovels, huts of barbarians, tents of nomads, upon the
surface;
I see the shaded part on one side, where the sleepers are sleeping--
and the sun-lit part on the other side,
I see the curious silent change of the light and shade,
I see distant lands, as real and near to the inhabitants of them, as
my land is to me.

I see plenteous waters;
I see mountain peaks--I see the sierras of Andes and Alleghanies,
where they range;
I see plainly the Himalayas, Chian Shahs, Altays, Ghauts;
I see the giant pinnacles of Elbruz, Kazbek, Bazardjusi,
I see the Rocky Mountains, and the Peak of Winds;
I see the Styrian Alps, and the Karnac Alps;
I see the Pyrenees, Balks, Carpathians--and to the north the
Dofrafields, and off at sea Mount Hecla;
I see Vesuvius and Etna--I see the Anahuacs;
I see the Mountains of the Moon, and the Snow Mountains, and the Red
Mountains of Madagascar;
I see the Vermont hills, and the long string of Cordilleras;
I see the vast deserts of Western America;
I see the Lybian, Arabian, and Asiatic deserts;
I see huge dreadful Arctic and Antarctic icebergs;
I see the superior oceans and the inferior ones--the Atlantic and
Pacific, the sea of Mexico, the Brazilian sea, and the sea of
Peru,
The Japan waters, those of Hindostan, the China Sea, and the Gulf of
Guinea,
The spread of the Baltic, Caspian, Bothnia, the British shores, and
the Bay of Biscay,
The clear-sunn'd Mediterranean, and from one to another of its
islands,
The inland fresh-tasted seas of North America,
The White Sea, and the sea around Greenland.

I behold the mariners of the world;
Some are in storms--some in the night, with the watch on the look-
out;
Some drifting helplessly--some with contagious diseases.

I behold the sail and steamships of the world, some in clusters in
port, some on their voyages;
Some double the Cape of Storms--some Cape Verde,--others Cape
Guardafui, Bon, or Bajadore;
Others Dondra Head--others pass the Straits of Sunda--others Cape
Lopatka--others Behring's Straits;
Others Cape Horn--others sail the Gulf of Mexico, or along Cuba or
Hayti--others Hudson's Bay or Baffin's Bay;
Others pass the Straits of Dover--others enter the Wash--others the
Firth of Solway--others round Cape Clear--others the Land's
End;
Others traverse the Zuyder Zee, or the Scheld;
Others add to the exits and entrances at Sandy Hook;
Others to the comers and goers at Gibraltar, or the Dardanelles;
Others sternly push their way through the northern winter-packs;
Others descend or ascend the Obi or the Lena;
Others the Niger or the Congo--others the Indus, the Burampooter and
Cambodia;
Others wait at the wharves of Manhattan, steam'd up, ready to start;
Wait, swift and swarthy, in the ports of Australia;
Wait at Liverpool, Glasgow, Dublin, Marseilles, Lisbon, Naples,
Hamburg, Bremen, Bordeaux, the Hague, Copenhagen;
Wait at Valparaiso, Rio Janeiro, Panama;
Wait at their moorings at Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore,
Charleston, New Orleans, Galveston, San Francisco.

I see the tracks of the rail-roads of the earth;
I see them welding State to State, city to city, through North
America;
I see them in Great Britain, I see them in Europe;
I see them in Asia and in Africa.

I see the electric telegraphs of the earth;
I see the filaments of the news of the wars, deaths, losses, gains,
passions, of my race.

I see the long river-stripes of the earth;
I see where the Mississippi flows--I see where the Columbia flows;
I see the Great River and the Falls of Niagara;
I see the Amazon and the Paraguay;
I see the four great rivers of China, the Amour, the Yellow River,
the Yiang-tse, and the Pearl;
I see where the Seine flows, and where the Danube, the Loire, the
Rhone, and the Guadalquiver flow;
I see the windings of the Volga, the Dnieper, the Oder;
I see the Tuscan going down the Arno, and the Venetian along the Po;
I see the Greek seaman sailing out of Egina bay.

I see the site of the old empire of
Assyria, and that of Persia, and
that of India;
I see the falling of the Ganges over the high rim of Saukara.

I see the place of the idea of the Deity incarnated by avatars in
human forms;
I see the spots of the successions of priests on the earth--oracles,
sacrificers, brahmins, sabians, lamas, monks, muftis,
exhorters;
I see where druids walked the groves of Mona--I see the mistletoe and
vervain;
I see the temples of the deaths of the bodies of Gods--I see the old
signifiers.

I see Christ once more eating the bread of his last supper, in the
midst of youths and old persons;
I see where the strong divine young man, the Hercules, toil'd
faithfully and long, and then died;
I see the place of the innocent rich life and hapless fate of the
beautiful nocturnal son, the full-limb'd Bacchus;
I see Kneph, blooming, drest in blue, with the crown of feathers on
his head;
I see Hermes, unsuspected, dying, well-beloved, saying to the people,
Do not weep for me,
This is not my true country, I have lived banish'd from my true
country--I now go back there,
I return to the celestial sphere, where every one goes in his
turn.

I see the battle-fields of the earth--grass grows upon them, and
blossoms and corn;
I see the tracks of ancient and modern expeditions.

I see the nameless masonries, venerable messages of the unknown
events, heroes, records of the earth.

I see the places of the sagas;
I see pine-trees and fir-trees torn by northern blasts;
I see granite boulders and cliffs--I see green meadows and lakes;
I see the burial-cairns of Scandinavian warriors;
I see them raised high with stones, by the marge of restless oceans,
that the dead men's spirits, when they wearied of their quiet
graves, might rise up through the mounds, and gaze on the
tossing billows, and be refresh'd by storms, immensity,
liberty, action.
I see the steppes of Asia;
I see the tumuli of Mongolia--I see the tents of Kalmucks and
Baskirs;
I see the nomadic tribes, with herds of oxen and cows;
I see the table-lands notch'd with ravines--I see the jungles and
deserts;
I see the camel, the wild steed, the bustard, the fat-tail'd sheep,
the antelope, and the burrowing wolf.

I see the high-lands of Abyssinia;
I see flocks of goats feeding, and see the fig-tree, tamarind, date,
And see fields of teff-wheat, and see the places of verdure and gold.

I see the Brazilian vaquero;
I see the Bolivian ascending Mount Sorata;
I see the Wacho crossing the plains--I see the incomparable rider of
horses with his lasso on his arm;
I see over the pampas the pursuit of wild cattle for their hides.

I see little and large sea-dots, some inhabited, some uninhabited;
I see two boats with nets, lying off the shore of Paumanok, quite
still;
I see ten fishermen waiting--they discover now a thick school of
mossbonkers--they drop the join'd seine-ends in the water,
The boats separate--they diverge and row off, each on its rounding
course to the beach, enclosing the mossbonkers;
The net is drawn in by a windlass by those who stop ashore,
Some of the fishermen lounge in their boats--others stand negligently
ankle-deep in the water, pois'd on strong legs;
The boats are partly drawn up--the water slaps against them;
On the sand, in heaps and winrows, well out from the water, lie the
green-back'd spotted mossbonkers.

I see the despondent red man in the west, lingering about the banks
of Moingo, and about Lake Pepin;
He has heard the quail and beheld the honey-bee, and sadly prepared
to depart.

I see the regions of snow and ice;
I see the sharp-eyed Samoiede and the Finn;
I see the seal-seeker in his boat, poising his lance;
I see the Siberian on his slight-built sledge, drawn by dogs;
I see the porpoise-hunters--I see the whale-crews of the South
Pacific and the North Atlantic;
I see the cliffs, glaciers, torrents, valleys, of Switzerland--I mark
the long winters, and the isolation.

I see the cities of the earth, and make myself at random a part of
them;
I am a real Parisian;
I am a habitan of Vienna, St. Petersburg, Berlin, Constantinople;
I am of Adelaide, Sidney, Melbourne;
I am of London, Manchester, Bristol, Edinburgh, Limerick;
I am of Madrid, Cadiz, Barcelona, Oporto, Lyons, Brussels, Berne,
Frankfort, Stuttgart, Turin, Florence;
I belong in Moscow, Cracow, Warsaw--or northward in Christiania or
Stockholm--or in Siberian Irkutsk--or in some street in
Iceland;
I descend upon all those cities, and rise from them again.

I see vapors exhaling from unexplored countries;
I see the savage types, the bow and arrow, the poison'd splint, the
fetish, and the obi.

I see African and Asiatic towns;
I see Algiers, Tripoli, Derne, Mogadore, Timbuctoo, Monrovia;
I see the swarms of Pekin, Canton, Benares, Delhi, Calcutta,
Yedo;
I see the Kruman in his hut, and the Dahoman and Ashanteeman in their
huts;
I see the Turk smoking opium in Aleppo;
I see the picturesque crowds at the fairs of Khiva, and those of
Herat;
I see Teheran--I see Muscat and Medina, and the intervening sands--I

see the caravans toiling onward;
I see Egypt and the Egyptians--I see the pyramids and obelisks;
I look on chisel'd histories, songs, philosophies, cut in slabs of
sand-stone, or on granite-blocks;
I see at Memphis mummy-pits, containing mummies, embalm'd, swathed in
linen cloth, lying there many centuries;
I look on the fall'n Theban, the large-ball'd eyes, the side-drooping
neck, the hands folded across the breast.

I see the menials of the earth, laboring;
I see the prisoners in the prisons;
I see the defective human bodies of the earth;
I see the blind, the deaf and dumb, idiots, hunchbacks, lunatics;
I see the pirates, thieves, betrayers, murderers, slave-makers of the
earth;
I see the helpless infants, and the helpless old men and women.

I see male and female everywhere;
I see the serene brotherhood of philosophs;
I see the constructiveness of my race;
I see the results of the perseverance and industry of my race;
I see ranks, colors, barbarisms, civilizations--I go among them--I
mix indiscriminately,
And I salute all the inhabitants of the earth.

You, whoever you are!
You daughter or son of England!
You of the mighty Slavic tribes and empires! you Russ in Russia!
You dim-descended, black, divine-soul'd African, large, fine-headed,
nobly-form'd, superbly destin'd, on equal terms with me!
You Norwegian! Swede! Dane! Icelander! you Prussian!
You Spaniard of Spain! you Portuguese!
You Frenchwoman and Frenchman of France!
You Belge! you liberty-lover of the Netherlands!
You sturdy Austrian! you Lombard! Hun! Bohemian! farmer of Styria!
You neighbor of the Danube!
You working-man of the Rhine, the Elbe, or the Weser! you working-
woman too!
You Sardinian! you Bavarian! Swabian! Saxon! Wallachian! Bulgarian!
You citizen of Prague! Roman! Neapolitan! Greek!
You lithe matador in the arena at Seville!
You mountaineer living lawlessly on the Taurus or Caucasus!
You Bokh horse-herd, watching your mares and stallions feeding!
You beautiful-bodied Persian, at full speed in the saddle, shooting
arrows to the mark!
You Chinaman and Chinawoman of China! you Tartar of Tartary!
You women of the earth subordinated at your tasks!
You Jew journeying in your old age through every risk, to stand once
on Syrian ground!
You other Jews waiting in all lands for your Messiah!
You thoughtful Armenian, pondering by some stream of the Euphrates!
you peering amid the ruins of Nineveh! you ascending Mount
Ararat!
You foot-worn pilgrim welcoming the far-away sparkle of the minarets
of Mecca!
You sheiks along the stretch from Suez to Bab-el-mandeb, ruling your
families and tribes!
You olive-grower tending your fruit on fields of Nazareth, Damascus,
or Lake Tiberias!
You Thibet trader on the wide inland, or bargaining in the shops of
Lassa!
You Japanese man or woman! you liver in Madagascar, Ceylon, Sumatra,
Borneo!
All you continentals of Asia, Africa, Europe, Australia, indifferent
of place!
All you on the numberless islands of the archipelagoes of the sea!
And you of centuries hence, when you listen to me!
And you, each and everywhere, whom I specify not, but include just
the same!
Health to you! Good will to you all--from me and America sent.

Each of us inevitable;
Each of us limitless--each of us with his or her right upon the
earth;
Each of us allow'd the eternal purports of the earth;
Each of us here as divinely as any is here.

You Hottentot with clicking palate! You woolly-hair'd hordes!
You own'd persons, dropping sweat-drops or blood-drops!
You human forms with the fathomless ever-impressive countenances of
brutes!
I dare not refuse you--the scope of the world, and of time and space,
are upon me.

You poor koboo whom the meanest of the rest look down upon, for all
your glimmering language and spirituality!
You low expiring aborigines of the hills of Utah, Oregon, California!
You dwarf'd Kamtschatkan, Greenlander, Lapp!
You Austral negro, naked, red, sooty, with protrusive lip,
grovelling, seeking your food!
You Caffre, Berber, Soudanese!
You haggard, uncouth, untutor'd, Bedowee!
You plague-swarms in Madras, Nankin, Kaubul, Cairo!
You bather bathing in the Ganges!
You benighted roamer of Amazonia! you Patagonian! you Fejee-man!
You peon of Mexico! you slave of Carolina, Texas, Tennessee!
I do not prefer others so very much before you either;
I do not say one word against you, away back there, where you stand;
(You will come forward in due time to my side.)

My spirit has pass'd in compassion and determination around the whole
earth;
I have look'd for equals and lovers, and found them ready for me in
all lands;
I think some divine rapport has equalized me with them.

O vapors! I think I have risen with you, and moved away to distant
continents, and fallen down there, for reasons;
I think I have blown with you, O winds;
O waters, I have finger'd every shore with you.

I have run through what any river or strait of the globe has run
through;
I have taken my stand on the bases of peninsulas, and on the high
embedded rocks, to cry thence.

Salut au monde!
What cities the light or warmth penetrates, I penetrate those cities
myself;
All islands to which birds wing their way, I wing my way myself.

Toward all,
I raise high the perpendicular hand--I make the signal,
To remain after me in sight forever,
For all the haunts and homes of men.

Savantism

Thither, as I look, I see each result and glory retracing itself and
nestling close, always obligated;
Thither hours, months, years--thither trades, compacts,
establishments, even the most minute;
Thither every-day life, speech, utensils, politics, persons, estates;
Thither we also, I with my leaves and songs, trustful, admirant,
As a father, to his father going, takes his children along with him.

Says

I say whatever tastes sweet to the most perfect person, that is
finally right.

I say nourish a great intellect, a great brain;
If I have said anything to the contrary, I hereby retract it.

I say man shall not hold property in man;
I say the least developed person on earth is just as important and
sacred to himself or herself, as the most developed person is
to himself or herself.

I say where liberty draws not the blood out of slavery, there slavery
draws the blood out of liberty,
I say the word of the good old cause in These States, and resound it
hence over the world.

I say the human shape or face is so great, it must never be made
ridiculous;
I say for ornaments nothing outre can be allowed,
And that anything is most beautiful without ornament,
And that exaggerations will be sternly revenged in your own
physiology, and in other persons' physiology also;
And I say that clean-shaped children can be jetted and conceived only
where natural forms prevail in public, and the human face and
form are never caricatured;
And I say that genius need never more be turned to romances,
(For facts properly told, how mean appear all romances.)

I say the word of lands fearing nothing--I will have no other land;
I say discuss all and expose all--I am for every topic openly;
I say there can be no salvation for These States without innovators--
without free tongues, and ears willing to hear the tongues;
And I announce as a glory of These States, that they respectfully
listen to propositions, reforms, fresh views and doctrines,
from successions of men and women,
Each age with its own growth.

I have said many times that materials and the Soul are great, and
that all depends on physique;
Now I reverse what I said, and affirm that all depends on the
�sthetic or intellectual,
And that criticism is great--and that refinement is greatest of all;
And I affirm now that the mind governs--and that all depends on the
mind.

With one man or woman--(no matter which one--I even pick out the
lowest,)
With him or her I now illustrate the whole law;
I say that every right, in politics or what-not, shall be eligible to
that one man or woman, on the same terms as any.

Scented Herbage Of My Breast

Scented herbage of my breast,
Leaves from you I yield, I write, to be perused best afterwards,
Tomb-leaves, body-leaves, growing up above me, above death,
Perennial roots, tall leaves--O the winter shall not freeze you,
delicate leaves,
Every year shall you bloom again--out from where you retired, you
shall emerge again;
O I do not know whether many, passing by, will discover you, or
inhale your faint odor--but I believe a few will;
O slender leaves! O blossoms of my blood! I permit you to tell, in
your own way, of the heart that is under you;
O burning and throbbing--surely all will one day be accomplish'd;
O I do not know what you mean, there underneath yourselves--you are
not happiness,
You are often more bitter than I can bear--you burn and sting me,
Yet you are very beautiful to me, you faint-tinged roots--you make me
think of Death,
Death is beautiful from you--(what indeed is finally beautiful,
except Death and Love?)
--O I think it is not for life I am chanting here my chant of
lovers--I think it must be for Death,
For how calm, how solemn it grows, to ascend to the atmosphere of
lovers,
Death or life I am then indifferent--my Soul declines to prefer,
I am not sure but the high Soul of lovers welcomes death most;
Indeed, O Death, I think now these leaves mean precisely the same as
you mean;
Grow up taller, sweet leaves, that I may see! grow up out of my
breast!
Spring away from the conceal'd heart there!
Do not fold yourself so in your pink-tinged roots, timid leaves!
Do not remain down there so ashamed, herbage of my breast!
Come, I am determin'd to unbare this broad breast of mine--I have
long enough stifled and choked:
--Emblematic and capricious blade, I leave you--now you serve me not;
Away! I will say what I have to say, by itself,
I will escape from the sham that was proposed to me,
I will sound myself and comrades only--I will never again utter a
call, only their call,
I will raise, with it, immortal reverberations through The States,
I will give an example to lovers, to take permanent shape and will
through The States;
Through me shall the words be said to make death exhilarating;
Give me your tone therefore, O Death, that I may accord with it,
Give me yourself--for I see that you belong to me now above all, and
are folded inseparably together--you Love and Death are;
Nor will I allow you to balk me any more with what I was calling
life,
For now it is convey'd to me that you are the purports essential,
That you hide in these shifting forms of life, for reasons--and that
they are mainly for you,
That you, beyond them, come forth, to remain, the real reality,
That behind the mask of materials you patiently wait, no matter how
long,
That you will one day, perhaps, take control of all,
That you will perhaps dissipate this entire show of appearance,
That may-be you are what it is all for--but it does not last so very
long;
But you will last very long.

Sea-Shore Memories

Out of the cradle endlessly rocking,
Out of the mocking-bird's throat, the musical shuttle,
Out of the Ninth-month midnight,
Over the sterile sands, and the fields beyond, where the child,
leaving his bed, wander'd alone, bare-headed, barefoot,
Down from the shower'd halo,
Up from the mystic play of shadows, twining and twisting as if they
were alive,
Out from the patches of briers and blackberries,
From the memories of the bird that chanted to me,
From your memories, sad 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 sickness and love, there in the
transparent 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 man--yet by these tears a little boy again,
Throwing myself on the sand, confronting the waves,
I, chanter of pains and joys, uniter of here and hereafter,
Taking all hints to use them--but swiftly leaping beyond them,
A reminiscence sing.

Once, Paumanok,
When the snows had melted--when the lilac-scent was in the air, and
the Fifth-month grass was growing,
Up this sea-shore, in some briers,
Two guests from Alabama--two together,
And their nest, and four light-green eggs, spotted with brown,
And every day the he-bird, to and fro, near at hand,
And every day the she-bird, crouch'd on her nest, silent, with bright
eyes,
And every day I, a curious boy, never too close, never disturbing
them,
Cautiously peering, absorbing, translating.

Shine! shine! shine!
Pour down your warmth, great Sun!
While we bask--we two together.

Two together!
Winds blow South, or winds blow North,
Day come white, or night come black,
Home, or rivers and mountains from home,
Singing all time, minding no time,
While we two keep together.

Till of a sudden,
May-be kill'd, unknown to her mate,
One forenoon the she-bird crouch'd not on the nest,
Nor return'd that afternoon, nor the next,
Nor ever appear'd again.

And thenceforward, all summer, in the sound of the sea,
And at night, under the full of the moon, in calmer weather,
Over the hoarse surging of the sea,
Or flitting from brier to brier by day,
I saw, I heard at intervals, the remaining one, the he-bird,
The solitary guest from Alabama.

Blow! blow! blow!
Blow up, sea-winds, along Paumanok's shore!
I wait and I wait, till you blow my mate to me.

Yes, when the stars glisten'd,
All night long, on the prong of a moss-scallop'd stake,
Down, almost amid the slapping waves,
Sat the lone singer, wonderful, causing tears.

He call'd on his mate;
He pour'd forth the meanings which I, of all men, know.

Yes, my brother, I know;
The rest might not--but I have treasur'd every note;
For once, and more than once, dimly, down to the beach gliding,
Silent, avoiding the moonbeams, blending myself with the shadows,
Recalling now the obscure shapes, the echoes, the sounds and sights
after their sorts,
The white arms out in the breakers tirelessly tossing,
I, with bare feet, a child, the wind wafting my hair,
Listen'd long and long.

Listen'd, to keep, to sing--now translating the notes,
Following you, my brother.

Soothe! soothe! soothe!
Close on its wave soothes the wave behind,
And again another behind, embracing and lapping, every one close,
But my love soothes not me, not me.

Low hangs the moon--it rose late;
O it is lagging--O I think it is heavy with love, with love.

O madly the sea pushes, pushes upon the land,
With love--with love.

O night! do I not see my love fluttering out there among the
breakers?
What is that little black thing I see there in the white?

Loud! loud! loud!
Loud I call to you, my love!

High and clear I shoot my voice over the waves;
Surely you must know who is here, is here;
You must know who I am, my love.

Low-hanging moon!
What is that dusky spot in your brown yellow?
O it is the shape, the shape of my mate!
O moon, do not keep her from me any longer.

Land! land! O land!
Whichever way I turn, O I think you could give me my mate back again,
if you only would;
For I am almost sure I see her dimly whichever way I look.

O rising stars!
Perhaps the one I want so much will rise, will rise with some of you.

O throat! O trembling throat!
Sound clearer through the atmosphere!
Pierce the woods, the earth;
Somewhere listening to catch you, must be the one I want.

Shake out, carols!
Solitary here--the night's carols!
Carols of lonesome love! Death's carols!
Carols under that lagging, yellow, waning moon!
O, under that moon, where she droops almost down into the sea!
O reckless, despairing carols.

But soft! sink low;
Soft! let me just murmur;
And do you wait a moment, you husky-noised sea;
For somewhere I believe I heard my mate responding to me,
So faint--I must be still, be still to listen;
But not altogether still, for then she might not come immediately to
me.

Hither, my love!
Here I am! Here!
With this just-sustain'd note I announce myself to you;
This gentle call is for you, my love, for you.

Do not be decoy'd elsewhere!
That is the whistle of the wind--it is not my voice;
That is the fluttering, the fluttering of the spray;
Those are the shadows of leaves.

O darkness! O in vain!
O I am very sick and sorrowful.

O brown halo in the sky, near the moon, drooping upon the sea!
O troubled reflection in the sea!
O throat! O throbbing heart!
O all--and I singing uselessly, uselessly all the night.

Yet I murmur, murmur on!
O murmurs--you yourselves make me continue to sing, I know not why.

O past! O life! O songs of joy!
In the air--in the woods--over fields;
Loved! loved! loved! loved! loved!
But my love no more, no more with me!
We two together no more.

The aria sinking;
All else continuing--the stars shining,
The winds blowing--the notes of the bird continuous echoing,
With angry moans the fierce old mother incessantly moaning,
On the sands of Paumanok's shore, gray and rustling;
The yellow half-moon enlarged, sagging down, drooping, the face of
the sea almost touching;
The boy extatic--with his bare feet the waves, with his hair the
atmosphere dallying,
The love in the heart long pent, now loose, now at last tumultuously
bursting,
The aria's meaning, the ears, the Soul, swiftly depositing,
The strange tears down the cheeks coursing,
The colloquy there--the trio--each uttering,
The undertone--the savage old mother, incessantly crying,
To the boy's Soul's questions sullenly timing--some drown'd secret
hissing,
To the outsetting bard of love.

Demon or bird! (said the boy's soul,)
Is it indeed toward your mate you sing? or is it mostly to me?
For I, that was a child, my tongue's use sleeping,
Now I have heard you,
Now in a moment I know what I am for--I awake,
And already a thousand singers--a thousand songs, clearer, louder and
more sorrowful than yours,
A thousand warbling echoes have started to life within me,
Never to die.

O you singer, solitary, singing by yourself--projecting me;
O solitary me, listening--nevermore 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.

O give me the clew! (it lurks in the night here somewhere;)
O if I am to have so much, let me have more!
O a word! O what is my destination? (I fear it is henceforth chaos;)
O how joys, dreads, convolutions, human shapes, and all shapes,
spring as from graves around me!
O phantoms! you cover all the land and all the sea!
O I cannot see in the dimness whether you smile or frown upon me;
O vapor, a look, a word! O well-beloved!
O you dear women's and men's phantoms!

A word then, (for I will conquer it,)
The word final, superior to all,
Subtle, sent up--what is it?--I listen;
Are you whispering it, and have been all the time, you sea-waves?
Is that it from your liquid rims and wet sands?

Whereto answering, the sea,
Delaying not, hurrying not,
Whisper'd me through the night, and very plainly before day-break,
Lisp'd to me the low and delicious word DEATH;
And again Death--ever Death, Death, Death,
Hissing melodious, neither like the bird, nor like my arous'd child's
heart,
But edging near, as privately for me, rustling at my feet,
Creeping thence steadily up to my ears, and laving me softly all
over,
Death, Death, Death, Death, Death.

Which I do not forget,
But fuse the song of my dusky demon and brother,
That he sang to me in the moonlight on Paumanok's gray beach,
With the thousand responsive songs, at random,
My own songs, awaked from that hour;
And with them the key, the word up from the waves,
The word of the sweetest song, and all songs,
That strong and delicious word which, creeping to my feet,
The sea whisper'd me.

Shut Not Your Doors, &c.

Shut not your doors to me, proud libraries,
For that which was lacking on all your well-fill'd shelves, yet
needed most, I bring;
Forth from the army, the war emerging--a book I have made,
The words of my book nothing--the drift of it everything;
A book separate, not link'd with the rest, nor felt by the intellect,
But you, ye untold latencies, will thrill to every page;
Through Space and Time fused in a chant, and the flowing, eternal
Identity,
To Nature, encompassing these, encompassing God--to the joyous,
electric All,
To the sense of Death--and accepting, exulting in Death, in its turn,
the same as life,
The entrance of Man I sing.

Sing Of The Banner At Day-Break

POET.

O A new song, a free song,
Flapping, flapping, flapping, flapping, by sounds, by voices clearer,
By the wind's voice and that of the drum,
By the banner's voice, and child's voice, and sea's voice, and
father's voice,
Low on the ground and high in the air,
On the ground where father and child stand,
In the upward air where their eyes turn,
Where the banner at day-break is flapping.

Words! book-words! what are you?
Words no more, for hearken and see,
My song is there in the open air--and I must sing,
With the banner and pennant a-flapping.

I'll weave the chord and twine in,
Man's desire and babe's desire--I'll twine them in, I'll put in life;
I'll put the bayonet's flashing point--I'll let bullets and slugs
whizz;
(As one carrying a symbol and menace, far into the future,
Crying with trumpet voice, Arouse and beware! Beware and arouse!)
I'll pour the verse with streams of blood, full of volition, full of
joy;
Then loosen, launch forth, to go and compete,
With the banner and pennant a-flapping.

PENNANT.

Come up here, bard, bard;
Come up here, soul, soul;
Come up here, dear little child,
To fly in the clouds and winds with me, and play with the measureless
light.

CHILD.

Father, what is that in the sky beckoning to me with long finger?
And what does it say to me all the while?

FATHER.

Nothing, my babe, you see in the sky;
And nothing at all to you it says. But look you, my babe,
Look at these dazzling things in the houses, and see you the money-
shops opening;
And see you the vehicles preparing to crawl along the streets with
goods:
These! ah, these! how valued and toil'd for, these!
How envied by all the earth!

POET.

Fresh and rosy red, the sun is mounting high;
On floats the sea in distant blue, careering through its channels;
On floats the wind over the breast of the sea, setting in toward
land;
The great steady wind from west and west-by-south,
Floating so buoyant, with milk-white foam on the waters.

But I am not the sea, nor the red sun;
I am not the wind, with girlish laughter;
Not the immense wind which strengthens--not the wind which lashes;
Not the spirit that ever lashes its own body to terror and death;
But I am that which unseen comes and sings, sings, sings,
Which babbles in brooks and scoots in showers on the land,
Which the birds know in the woods, mornings and evenings,
And the shore-sands know, and the hissing wave, and that banner and
pennant,
Aloft there flapping and flapping.

CHILD.

O father, it is alive--it is full of people--it has children!
O now it seems to me it is talking to its children!
I hear it--it talks to me--O it is wonderful!
O it stretches--it spreads and runs so fast! O my father,
It is so broad, it covers the whole sky!

FATHER.

Cease, cease, my foolish babe,
What you are saying is sorrowful to me--much it 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.

BANNER AND PENNANT.

Speak to the child, O bard, out of Manhattan;
(The war is over--yet never over.... out of it, we are born to real
life and identity;)
Speak to our children all, or north or south of Manhattan,
Where our factory-engines hum, where our miners delve the ground,
Where our hoarse Niagara rumbles, where our prairie-plows are
plowing;
Speak, O bard! point this day, leaving all the rest, to us over all--
and yet we know not why;
For what are we, mere strips of cloth, profiting nothing,
Only flapping in the wind?

POET.

I hear and see not strips of cloth alone;
I hear again the tramp of armies, I hear the challenging sentry;
I hear the jubilant shouts of millions of men--I hear LIBERTY!
I hear the drums beat, and the trumpets yet blowing;
I myself move abroad, swift-rising, flying then;
I use the wings of the land-bird, and use the wings of the sea-bird,
and look down as from a height;
I do not deny the precious results of peace--I see populous cities,
with wealth incalculable;
I see numberless farms--I see the farmers working in their fields or
barns;
I see mechanics working--I see buildings everywhere founded, going
up, or finish'd;
I see trains of cars swiftly speeding along railroad tracks, drawn by
the locomotives;
I see the stores, depots, of Boston, Baltimore, Charleston, New
Orleans;
I see far in the west the immense area of grain--I dwell awhile,
hovering;
I pass to the lumber forests of the north, and again to the southern
plantation, and again to California;
Sweeping the whole, I see the countless profit, the busy gatherings,
earned wages;
See the identity formed out of thirty-eight spacious and haughty
States (and many more to come;)
See forts on the shores of harbors--see ships sailing in and out;
Then over all, (aye! aye!) my little and lengthen'd pennant, shaped
like a sword,
Runs swiftly up, indicating war and defiance--And now the halyards
have rais'd it,
Side of my banner broad and blue--side of my starry banner,
Discarding peace over all the sea and land.

BANNER AND PENNANT.

Yet louder, higher, stronger, bard! yet farther, wider cleave!
No longer let our children deem us riches and peace alone;
We may be terror and carnage, and are so now;
Not now are we any one of these spacious and haughty States, (nor any
five, nor ten;)
Nor market nor depot are we, nor money-bank in the city;
But these, and all, and the brown and spreading land, and the mines
below, are ours;
And the shores of the sea are ours, and the rivers, great and
small;
And the fields they moisten are ours, and the crops and the fruits
are ours;
Bays and channels, and ships sailing in and out, are ours--and we
over all,
Over the area spread below, the three or four millions of square
miles--the capitals,
The forty millions of people--O bard! in life and death supreme,
We, even we, henceforth flaunt out masterful, high up above,
Not for the present alone, for a thousand years, chanting through
you,
This song to the soul of one poor little child.

CHILD.

O my father, I like not the houses;
They will never to me be anything--nor do I like money;
But to mount up there I would like, O father dear--that banner I
like;
That pennant I would be, and must be.

FATHER.

Child of mine, you fill me with anguish;
To be that pennant would be too fearful;
Little you know what it is this day, and after this day, forever;
It is to gain nothing, but risk and defy everything;
Forward to stand in front of wars--and O, such wars!--what have you
to do with them?
With passions of demons, slaughter, premature death?> POET.

Demons and death then I sing;
Put in all, aye all, will I--sword-shaped pennant for war, and banner
so broad and blue,
And a pleasure new and extatic, and the prattled yearning of
children,
Blent with the sounds of the peaceful land, and the liquid wash of
the sea;
And the black ships, fighting on the sea, enveloped in smoke;
And the icy cool of the far, far north, with rustling cedars and
pines;
And the whirr of drums, and the sound of soldiers marching, and the
hot sun shining south;
And the beech-waves combing over the beach on my eastern shore, and
my western shore the same;
And all between those shores, and my ever running Mississippi, with
bends and chutes;
And my Illinois fields, and my Kansas fields, and my fields of
Missouri;
The CONTINENT--devoting the whole identity, without reserving an
atom,
Pour in! whelm that which asks, which sings, with all, and the yield
of all.

BANNER AND PENNANT.

Aye all! for ever, for all!
From sea to sea, north and south, east and west,
(The war is completed, the price is paid, the title is settled beyond
recall;)
Fusing and holding, claiming, devouring the whole;
No more with tender lip, nor musical labial sound,
But, out of the night emerging for good, our voice persuasive no
more,
Croaking like crows here in the wind.

POET.
(Finale.)

My limbs, my veins dilate;
The blood of the world has fill'd me full--my theme is clear at last:
--Banner so broad, advancing out of the night, I sing you haughty and
resolute;
I burst through where I waited long, too long, deafen'd and
blinded;
My sight, my hearing and tongue, are come to me, (a little child
taught me;)
I hear from above, O pennant of war, your ironical call and demand;
Insensate! insensate! (yet I at any rate chant you,) O banner!
Not houses of peace indeed are you, nor any nor all their prosperity,
(if need be, you shall again have every one of those houses to
destroy them;
You thought not to destroy those valuable houses, standing fast, full
of comfort, built with money;
May they stand fast, then? Not an hour, except you, above them and
all, stand fast;)
--O banner! not money so precious are you, not farm produce you, nor
the material good nutriment,
Nor excellent stores, nor landed on wharves from the ships;
Not the superb ships, with sail-power or steam-power, fetching and
carrying cargoes,
Nor machinery, vehicles, trade, nor revenues,--But you, as henceforth
I see you,
Running up out of the night, bringing your cluster of stars, (ever-
enlarging stars;)
Divider of day-break you, cutting the air, touch'd by the sun,
measuring the sky,
(Passionately seen and yearn'd for by one poor little child,
While others remain busy, or smartly talking, forever teaching
thrift, thrift;)
O you up there! O pennant! where you undulate like a snake, hissing
so curious,
Out of reach--an idea only--yet furiously fought for, risking bloody
death--loved by me!
So loved! O you banner leading the day, with stars brought from the
night!
Valueless, object of eyes, over all and demanding all--(absolute
owner of ALL)--O banner and pennant!
I too leave the rest--great as it is, it is nothing--houses, machines
are nothing--I see them not;
I see but you, O warlike pennant! O banner so broad, with stripes, I
sing you only,
Flapping up there in the wind.

So Far And So Far, And On Toward The End

So far, and so far, and on toward the end,
Singing what is sung in this book, from the irresistible impulses of
me;
But whether I continue beyond this book, to maturity,
Whether I shall dart forth the true rays, the ones that wait unfired,
(Did you think the sun was shining its brightest?
No--it has not yet fully risen;)
Whether I shall complete what is here started,
Whether I shall attain my own height, to justify these, yet
unfinished,
Whether I shall make THE POEM OF THE NEW WORLD, transcending all
others--depends, rich persons, upon you,
Depends, whoever you are now filling the current Presidentiad, upon
you,
Upon you, Governor, Mayor, Congressman,
And you, contemporary America.

So Long

To conclude--I announce what comes after me;
I announce mightier offspring, orators, days, and then, for the
present, depart.

I remember I said, before my leaves sprang at all,
I would raise my voice jocund and strong, with reference to
consummations.

When America does what was promis'd,
When there are plentiful athletic bards, inland and seaboard,
When through These States walk a hundred millions of superb persons,
When the rest part away for superb persons, and contribute to them,
When breeds of the most perfect mothers denote America,
Then to me and mine our due fruition.

I have press'd through in my own right,
I have sung the Body and the Soul--War and Peace have I sung,
And the songs of Life and of Birth--and shown that there are many
births:
I have offer'd my style to everyone--I have journey'd with confident
step;
While my pleasure is yet at the full, I whisper, So long!
And take the young woman's hand, and the young man's hand, for the
last time.

I announce natural persons to arise;
I announce justice triumphant;
I announce uncompromising liberty and equality;
I announce the justification of candor, and the justification of
pride.

I announce that the identity of These States is a single identity
only;
I announce the Union more and more compact, indissoluble;
I announce splendors and majesties to make all the previous politics
of the earth insignificant.

I announce adhesiveness--I say it shall be limitless, unloosen'd;
I say you shall yet find the friend you were looking for.

I announce a man or woman coming--perhaps you are the one, (So long!)
I announce the great individual, fluid as Nature, chaste,
affectionate, compassionate, fully armed.

I announce a life that shall be copious, vehement, spiritual, bold;
I announce an end that shall lightly and joyfully meet its
translation;
I announce myriads of youths, beautiful, gigantic, sweet-blooded;
I announce a race of splendid and savage old men.

O thicker and faster! (So long!)
O crowding too close upon me;
I foresee too much--it means more than I thought;
It appears to me I am dying.

Hasten throat, and sound your last!
Salute me--salute the days once more. Peal the old cry once more.

Screaming electric, the atmosphere using,
At random glancing, each as I notice absorbing,
Swiftly on, but a little while alighting,
Curious envelop'd messages delivering,
Sparkles hot, seed ethereal, down in the dirt dropping,
Myself unknowing, my commission obeying, to question it never daring,
To ages, and ages yet, the growth of the seed leaving,
To troops out of me, out of the army, the war arising--they the tasks
I have set promulging,
To women certain whispers of myself bequeathing--their affection me
more clearly explaining,
To young men my problems offering--no dallier I--I the muscle of
their brains trying,
So I pass--a little time vocal, visible, contrary;
Afterward, a melodious echo, passionately bent for--(death making me
really undying;)
The best of me then when no longer visible--for toward that I have
been incessantly preparing.

What is there more, that I lag and pause, and crouch extended with
unshut mouth?
Is there a single final farewell?

My songs cease--I abandon them;
From behind the screen where I hid I advance personally, solely to
you.

Camerado! This is no book;
Who touches this, touches a man;
(Is it night? Are we here alone?)
It is I you hold, and who holds you;
I spring from the pages into your arms--decease calls me forth.

O how your fingers drowse me!
Your breath falls around me like dew--your pulse lulls the tympans of
my ears;
I feel immerged from head to foot;
Delicious--enough.

Enough, O deed impromptu and secret!
Enough, O gliding present! Enough, O summ'd-up past!

Dear friend, whoever you are, take this kiss,
I give it especially to you--Do not forget me;
I feel like one who has done work for the day, to retire awhile;
I receive now again of my many translations--from my avataras
ascending--while others doubtless await me;
An unknown sphere, more real than I dream'd, more direct, darts
awakening rays about me--So long!
Remember my words--I may again return,
I love you--I depart from materials;
I am as one disembodied, triumphant, dead.

Solid, Ironical, Rolling Orb

Solid, ironical, rolling orb!
Master of all, and matter of fact!--at last I accept your terms;
Bringing to practical, vulgar tests, of all my ideal dreams,
And of me, as lover and hero.

Sometimes With One I Love

Sometimes with one I love, I fill myself with rage, for fear I effuse
unreturn'd love;
But now I think there is no unreturn'd love--the pay is certain, one
way or another;
(I loved a certain person ardently, and my love was not return'd;
Yet out of that, I have written these songs.)

Song At Sunset

Splendor of ended day, floating and filling me!
Hour prophetic--hour resuming the past!
Inflating my throat--you, divine average!
You, Earth and Life, till the last ray gleams, I sing.

Open mouth of my Soul, uttering gladness,
Eyes of my Soul, seeing perfection,
Natural life of me, faithfully praising things;
Corroborating forever the triumph of things.

Illustrious every one!
Illustrious what we name space--sphere of unnumber'd spirits;
Illustrious the mystery of motion, in all beings, even the tiniest
insect;
Illustrious the attribute of speech--the senses--the body;
Illustrious the passing light! Illustrious the pale reflection on the
new moon in the western sky!
Illustrious whatever I see, or hear, or touch, to the last.

Good in all,
In the satisfaction and aplomb of animals,
In the annual return of the seasons,
In the hilarity of youth,
In the strength and flush of manhood,
In the grandeur and exquisiteness of old age,
In the superb vistas of Death.
Wonderful to depart;
p Wonderful to be here!
The heart, to jet the all-alike and innocent blood!
To breathe the air, how delicious!
To speak! to walk! to seize something by the hand!
To prepare for sleep, for bed--to look on my rose-color'd flesh;
To be conscious of my body, so satisfied, so large;
To be this incredible God I am;
To have gone forth among other Gods--these men and women I love.

Wonderful how I celebrate you and myself!
How my thoughts play subtly at the spectacles around!
How the clouds pass silently overhead!
How the earth darts on and on! and how the sun, moon, stars, dart on
and on!
How the water sports and sings! (Surely it is alive!)
How the trees rise and stand up--with strong trunks--with branches
and leaves!
(Surely there is something more in each of the tree--some living
Soul.)

O amazement of things! even the least particle!
O spirituality of things!
O strain musical, flowing through ages and continents--now reaching
me and America!
I take your strong chords--I intersperse them, and cheerfully pass
them forward.

I too carol the sun, usher'd, or at noon, or, as now, setting,
I too throb to the brain and beauty of the earth, and of all the
growths of the earth,
I too have felt the resistless call of myself.

As I sail'd down the Mississippi,
As I wander'd over the prairies,
As I have lived--As I have look'd through my windows, my eyes,
As I went forth in the morning--As I beheld the light breaking in the
east;
As I bathed on the beach of the Eastern Sea, and again on the beach
of the Western Sea;
As I roam'd the streets of inland Chicago--whatever streets I have
roam'd;
Or cities, or silent woods, or peace, or even amid the sights of war;
Wherever I have been, I have charged myself with contentment and
triumph.

I sing the Equalities, modern or old,
I sing the endless finales of things;
I say Nature continues--Glory continues;
I praise with electric voice;
For I do not see one imperfection in the universe;
And I do not see one cause or result lamentable at last in the
universe.

O setting sun! though the time has come,
I still warble under you, if none else does, unmitigated
adoration.

Song For All Seas, All Ships

To-day a rude brief recitative,
Of ships sailing the Seas, each with its special flag or ship-signal;
Of unnamed heroes in the ships--Of waves spreading and spreading, far
as the eye can reach;
Of dashing spray, and the winds piping and blowing;
And out of these a chant, for the sailors of all nations,
Fitful, like a surge.

Of Sea-Captains young or old, and the Mates--and of all intrepid
Sailors;
Of the few, very choice, taciturn, whom fate can never surprise, nor
death dismay,
Pick'd sparingly, without noise, by thee, old Ocean--chosen by
thee,
Thou Sea, that pickest and cullest the race, in Time, and unitest
Nations!
Suckled by thee, old husky Nurse--embodying thee!
Indomitable, untamed as thee.

(Ever the heroes, on water or on land, by ones or twos appearing,
Ever the stock preserv'd, and never lost, though rare--enough for
seed preserv'd.)

Flaunt out O Sea, your separate flags of nations!
Flaunt out, visible as ever, the various ship-signals!
But do you reserve especially for yourself, and for the soul of man,
one flag above all the rest,
A spiritual woven Signal, for all nations, emblem of man elate above
death,
Token of all brave captains, and all intrepid sailors and mates,
And all that went down doing their duty;
Reminiscent of them--twined from all intrepid captains, young or old;
A pennant universal, subtly waving, all time, o'er all brave sailors,
All seas, all ships.

Song Of The Broad-Axe

Weapon, shapely, naked, wan!
Head from the mother's bowels drawn!
Wooded flesh and metal bone! limb only one, and lip only one!
Gray-blue leaf by red-heat grown! helve produced from a little seed
sown!
Resting the grass amid and upon,
To be lean'd, and to lean on.

Strong shapes, and attributes of strong shapes--masculine trades,
sights and sounds;
Long varied train of an emblem, dabs of music;
Fingers of the organist skipping staccato over the keys of the great
organ.

Welcome are all earth's lands, each for its kind;
Welcome are lands of pine and oak;
Welcome are lands of the lemon and fig;
Welcome are lands of gold;
Welcome are lands of wheat and maize--welcome those of the grape;
Welcome are lands of sugar and rice;
Welcome the cotton-lands--welcome those of the white potato and sweet
potato;
Welcome are mountains, flats, sands, forests, prairies;
Welcome the rich borders of rivers, table-lands, openings;
Welcome the measureless grazing-lands--welcome the teeming soil of
orchards, flax, honey, hemp;
Welcome just as much the other more hard-faced lands;
Lands rich as lands of gold, or wheat and fruit lands;
Lands of mines, lands of the manly and rugged ores;
Lands of coal, copper, lead, tin, zinc;
LANDS OF IRON! lands of the make of the axe!

The log at the wood-pile, the axe supported by it;
The sylvan hut, the vine over the doorway, the space clear'd for a
garden,
The irregular tapping of rain down on the leaves, after the storm is
lull'd,
The wailing and moaning at intervals, the thought of the sea,
The thought of ships struck in the storm, and put on their beam ends,
and the cutting away of masts;
The sentiment of the huge timbers of old-fashion'd houses and
barns;
The remember'd print or narrative, the voyage at a venture of men,
families, goods,
The disembarkation, the founding of a new city,
The voyage of those who sought a New England and found it--the outset
anywhere,
The settlements of the Arkansas, Colorado, Ottawa, Willamette,
The slow progress, the scant fare, the axe, rifle, saddle-bags;
The beauty of all adventurous and daring persons,
The beauty of wood-boys and wood-men, with their clear untrimm'd
faces,
The beauty of independence, departure, actions that rely on
themselves,
The American contempt for statutes and ceremonies, the boundless
impatience of restraint,
The loose drift of character, the inkling through random types, the
solidification;
The butcher in the slaughter-house, the hands aboard schooners and
sloops, the raftsman, the pioneer,
Lumbermen in their winter camp, day-break in the woods, stripes of
snow on the limbs of trees, the occasional snapping,
The glad clear sound of one's own voice, the merry song, the natural
life of the woods, the strong day's work,
The blazing fire at night, the sweet taste of supper, the talk, the
bed of hemlock boughs, and the bear-skin;
--The house-builder at work in cities or anywhere,
The preparatory jointing, squaring, sawing, mortising,
The hoist-up of beams, the push of them in their places, laying them
regular,
Setting the studs by their tenons in the mortises, according as they
were prepared,
The blows of mallets and hammers, the attitudes of the men, their
curv'd limbs,
Bending, standing, astride the beams, driving in pins, holding on by
posts and braces,
The hook'd arm over the plate, the other arm wielding the axe,
The floor-men forcing the planks close, to be nail'd,
Their postures bringing their weapons downward on the bearers,
The echoes resounding through the vacant building;
The huge store-house carried up in the city, well under way,
The six framing-men, two in the middle, and two at each end,
carefully bearing on their shoulders a heavy stick for a cross-
beam,
The crowded line of masons with trowels in their right hands, rapidly
laying the long side-wall, two hundred feet from front to rear,
The flexible rise and fall of backs, the continual click of the
trowels striking the bricks,
The bricks, one after another, each laid so workmanlike in its place,
and set with a knock of the trowel-handle,
The piles of materials, the mortar on the mortar-boards, and the
steady replenishing by the hod-men;
--Spar-makers in the spar-yard, the swarming row of well-grown
apprentices,
The swing of their axes on the square-hew'd log, shaping it toward
the shape of a mast,
The brisk short crackle of the steel driven slantingly into the pine,
The butter-color'd chips flying off in great flakes and slivers,
The limber motion of brawny young arms and hips in easy costumes;
The constructor of wharves, bridges, piers, bulk-heads, floats, stays
against the sea;
--The city fireman--the fire that suddenly bursts forth in the close-
pack'd square,
The arriving engines, the hoarse shouts, the nimble stepping and
daring,
The strong command through the fire-trumpets, the falling in line,
the rise and fall of the arms forcing the water,
The slender, spasmic, blue-white jets--the bringing to bear of the
hooks and ladders, and their execution,
The crash and cut away of connecting wood-work, or through floors, if
the fire smoulders under them,
The crowd with their lit faces, watching--the glare and dense
shadows;
--The forger at his forge-furnace, and the user of iron after him,
The maker of the axe large and small, and the welder and temperer,
The chooser breathing his breath on the cold steel, and trying the
edge with his thumb,
The one who clean-shapes the handle, and sets it firmly in the
socket;
The shadowy processions of the portraits of the past users also,
The primal patient mechanics, the architects and engineers,
The far-off Assyrian edifice and Mizra edifice,
The Roman lictors preceding the consuls,
The antique European warrior with his axe in combat,
The uplifted arm, the clatter of blows on the helmeted head,
The death-howl, the limpsey tumbling body, the rush of friend and foe
thither,
The siege of revolted lieges determin'd for liberty,
The summons to surrender, the battering at castle gates, the truce
and parley;
The sack of an old city in its time,
The bursting in of mercenaries and bigots tumultuously and
disorderly,
Roar, flames, blood, drunkenness, madness,
Goods freely rifled from houses and temples, screams of women in the
gripe of brigands,
Craft and thievery of camp-followers, men running, old persons
despairing,
The hell of war, the cruelties of creeds,
The list of all executive deeds and words, just or unjust,
The power of personality, just or unjust.

Muscle and pluck forever!
What invigorates life, invigorates death,
And the dead advance as much as the living advance,
And the future is no more uncertain than the present,
And the roughness of the earth and of man encloses as much as the
delicatesse of the earth and of man,
And nothing endures but personal qualities.
What do you think endures?
Do you think the great city endures?
Or a teeming manufacturing state? or a prepared constitution? or the
best-built steamships?
Or hotels of granite and iron? or any chef-d'oeuvres of engineering,
forts, armaments?

Away! These are not to be cherish'd for themselves;
They fill their hour, the dancers dance, the musicians play for them;
The show passes, all does well enough of course,
All does very well till one flash of defiance.

The great city is that which has the greatest man or woman;
If it be a few ragged huts, it is still the greatest city in the
whole world.

The place where the great city stands is not the place of stretch'd
wharves, docks, manufactures, deposits of produce,
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.

Where the city stands with the brawniest breed of orators and bards;
Where the city stands that is beloved by these, 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 outside authority enters always after the precedence of inside
authority;
Where the citizen is always the head and ideal--and President, Mayor,
Governor, and what not, are agents for pay;
Where children are taught to be laws to themselves, and to depend on
themselves;
Where equanimity is illustrated in affairs;
Where speculations on the Soul are encouraged;
Where women walk in public processions in the streets, the same as
the men,
Where they enter the public assembly and take places the same as the
men;
Where the city of the faithfulest friends stands;
Where the city of the cleanliness of the sexes stands;
Where the city of the healthiest fathers stands;
Where the city of the best-bodied mothers stands,
There the great city stands.

How beggarly appear arguments before a defiant deed!
How the floridness of the materials of cities shrivels before a man's
or woman's look!

All waits, or goes by default, till a strong being appears;
A strong being is the proof of the race, and of the ability of the
universe;
When he or she appears, materials are overaw'd,
The dispute on the Soul stops,
The old customs and phrases are confronted, turn'd back, or laid
away.

What is your money-making now? what can it do now?
What is your respectability now?
What are your theology, tuition, society, traditions, statute-books,
now?
Where are your jibes of being now?
Where are your cavils about the Soul now?

A sterile landscape covers the ore--there is as good as the best, for
all the forbidding appearance;
There is the mine, there are the miners;
The forge-furnace is there, the melt is accomplish'd; the hammers-men
are at hand with their tongs and hammers;
What always served, and always serves, is at hand.

Than this, nothing has better served--it has served all:
Served the fluent-tongued and subtle-sensed Greek, and long ere the
Greek:
Served in building the buildings that last longer than any;
Served the Hebrew, the Persian, the most ancient Hindostanee;
Served the mound-raiser on the Mississippi--served those whose relics
remain in Central America;
Served Albic temples in woods or on plains, with unhewn pillars, and
the druids;
Served the artificial clefts, vast, high, silent, on the snow-cover'd
hills of Scandinavia;
Served those who, time out of mind, made on the granite walls rough
sketches of the sun, moon, stars, ships, ocean-waves;
Served the paths of the irruptions of the Goths--served the pastoral
tribes and nomads;
Served the long, long distant Kelt--served the hardy pirates of the
Baltic;
Served before any of those, the venerable and harmless men of
Ethiopia;
Served the making of helms for the galleys of pleasure, and the
making of those for war;
Served all great works on land, and all great works on the sea;
For the medi�val ages, and before the medi�val ages;
Served not the living only, then as now, but served the dead.

I see the European headsman;
He stands mask'd, clothed in red, with huge legs, and strong naked
arms,
And leans on a ponderous axe.

(Whom have you slaughter'd lately, European headsman?
Whose is that blood upon you, so wet and sticky?)

I see the clear sunsets of the martyrs;
I see from the scaffolds the descending ghosts,
Ghosts of dead lords, uncrown'd ladies, impeach'd ministers, rejected
kings,
Rivals, traitors, poisoners, disgraced chieftains, and the rest.

I see those who in any land have died for the good cause;
The seed is spare, nevertheless the crop shall never run out;
(Mind you, O foreign kings, O priests, the crop shall never run out.)

I see the blood wash'd entirely away from the axe;
Both blade and helve are clean;
They spirt no more the blood of European nobles--they clasp no more
the necks of queens.

I see the headsman withdraw and become useless;
I see the scaffold untrodden and mouldy--I see no longer any axe upon
it;
I see the mighty and friendly emblem of the power of my own race--the
newest, largest race.

(America! I do not vaunt my love for you;
I have what I have.)

The axe leaps!
The solid forest gives fluid utterances;
They tumble forth, they rise and form,
Hut, tent, landing, survey,
Flail, plough, pick, crowbar, spade,
Shingle, rail, prop, wainscot, jamb, lath, panel, gable,
Citadel, ceiling, saloon, academy, organ, exhibition-house, library,
Cornice, trellis, pilaster, balcony, window, shutter, turret, porch,
Hoe, rake, pitch-fork, pencil, wagon, staff, saw, jack-plane, mallet,
wedge, rounce,
Chair, tub, hoop, table, wicket, vane, sash, floor,
Work-box, chest, string'd instrument, boat, frame, and what not,
Capitols of States, and capitol of the nation of States,
Long stately rows in avenues, hospitals for orphans, or for the poor
or sick,
Manhattan steamboats and clippers, taking the measure of all seas.

The shapes arise!
Shapes of the using of axes anyhow, and the users, and all that
neighbors them,
Cutters down of wood, and haulers of it to the Penobscot or
Kennebec,
Dwellers in cabins among the California mountains, or by the little
lakes, or on the Columbia,
Dwellers south on the banks of the Gila or Rio Grande--friendly
gatherings, the characters and fun,
Dwellers up north in Minnesota and by the Yellowstone river--dwellers
on coasts and off coasts,
Seal-fishers, whalers, arctic seamen breaking passages through the
ice.

The shapes arise!
Shapes of factories, arsenals, foundries, markets;
Shapes of the two-threaded tracks of railroads;
Shapes of the sleepers of bridges, vast frameworks, girders,
arches;
Shapes of the fleets of barges, towns, lake and canal craft, river
craft.

The shapes arise!
Ship-yards and dry-docks along the Eastern and Western Seas, and in
many a bay and by-place,
The live-oak kelsons, the pine planks, the spars, the hackmatack-
roots for knees,
The ships themselves on their ways, the tiers of scaffolds, the
workmen busy outside and inside,
The tools lying around, the great auger and little auger, the adze,
bolt, line, square, gouge, and bead-plane.

The shapes arise!
The shape measur'd, saw'd, jack'd, join'd, stain'd,
The coffin-shape for the dead to lie within in his shroud;
The shape got out in posts, in the bedstead posts, in the posts of
the bride's bed;
The shape of the little trough, the shape of the rockers beneath, the
shape of the babe's cradle;
The shape of the floor-planks, the floor-planks for dancers' feet;
The shape of the planks of the family home, the home of the friendly
parents and children,
The shape of the roof of the home of the happy young man and woman--
the roof over the well-married young man and woman,
The roof over the supper joyously cook'd by the chaste wife, and
joyously eaten by the chaste husband, content after his day's
work.

The shapes arise!
The shape of the prisoner's place in the court-room, and of him or
her seated in the place;
The shape of the liquor-bar lean'd against by the young rum-drinker
and the old rum-drinker;
The shape of the shamed and angry stairs, trod by sneaking footsteps;
The shape of the sly settee, and the adulterous unwholesome
couple;
The shape of the gambling-board with its devilish winnings and
losings;
The shape of the step-ladder for the convicted and sentenced
murderer, the murderer with haggard face and pinion'd arms,
The sheriff at hand with his deputies, the silent and white-lipp'd
crowd, the dangling of the rope.

The shapes arise!
Shapes of doors giving many exits and entrances;
The door passing the dissever'd friend, flush'd and in haste;
The door that admits good news and bad news;
The door whence the son left home, confident and puff'd up;
The door he enter'd again from a long and scandalous absence,
diseas'd, broken down, without innocence, without means.

Her shape arises,
She, less guarded than ever, yet more guarded than ever;
The gross and soil'd she moves among do not make her gross and
soil'd;
She knows the thoughts as she passes--nothing is conceal'd from her;
She is none the less considerate or friendly therefor;
She is the best belov'd--it is without exception--she has no reason
to fear, and she does not fear;
Oaths, quarrels, hiccupp'd songs, smutty expressions, are idle to her
as she passes;
She is silent--she is possess'd of herself--they do not offend her;
She receives them as the laws of nature receive them--she is strong,
She too is a law of nature--there is no law stronger than she is.

The main shapes arise!
Shapes of Democracy, total--result of centuries;
Shapes, ever projecting other shapes;
Shapes of turbulent manly cities;
Shapes of the friends and home-givers of the whole earth,
Shapes bracing the earth, and braced with the whole earth.

Song Of The Exposition

After all, not to create only, or found only,
But to bring, perhaps from afar, what is already founded,
To give it our own identity, average, limitless, free;
To fill the gross, the torpid bulk with vital religious fire;
Not to repel or destroy, so much as accept, fuse, rehabilitate;
To obey, as well as command--to follow, more than to lead;
These also are the lessons of our New World;
--While how little the New, after all--how much the Old, Old World!

Long, long, long, has the grass been growing,
Long and long has the rain been falling,
Long has the globe been rolling round.

Come, Muse, migrate from Greece and Ionia;
Cross out, please, those immensely overpaid accounts,
That matter of Troy, and Achilles' wrath, and Eneas', Odysseus'
wanderings;
Placard "Removed" and "To Let" on the rocks of your snowy Parnassus;
Repeat at Jerusalem--place the notice high on Jaffa's gate, and on
Mount Moriah;
The same on the walls of your Gothic European Cathedrals, and German,
French and Spanish Castles;
For know a better, fresher, busier sphere--a wide, untried domain
awaits, demands you.

Responsive to our summons,
Or rather to her long-nurs'd inclination,
Join'd with an irresistible, natural gravitation,

She comes! this famous Female--as was indeed to be expected;
(For who, so-ever youthful, 'cute and handsome, would wish to stay in
mansions such as those,
When offer'd quarters with all the modern improvements,
With all the fun that 's going--and all the best society?)

She comes! I hear the rustling of her gown;
I scent the odor of her breath's delicious fragrance;
I mark her step divine--her curious eyes a-turning, rolling,
Upon this very scene.

The Dame of Dames! can I believe, then,
Those ancient temples classic, and castles strong and feudalistic,
could none of them restrain her?
Nor shades of Virgil and Dante--nor myriad memories, poems, old
associations, magnetize and hold on to her?
But that she 's left them all--and here?

Yes, if you will allow me to say so,
I, my friends, if you do not, can plainly see Her,
The same Undying Soul of Earth's, activity's, beauty's, heroism's
Expression,
Out from her evolutions hither come--submerged the strata of her
former themes,
Hidden and cover'd by to-day's--foundation of to-day's;
Ended, deceas'd, through time, her voice by Castaly's fountain;
Silent through time the broken-lipp'd Sphynx in Egypt--silent those
century-baffling tombs;
Closed for aye the epics of Asia's, Europe's helmeted warriors;
Calliope's call for ever closed--Clio, Melpomene, Thalia closed and
dead;
Seal'd the stately rhythmus of Una and Oriana--ended the quest of the
Holy Graal;
Jerusalem a handful of ashes blown by the wind--extinct;
The Crusaders' streams of shadowy, midnight troops, sped with the
sunrise;
Amadis, Tancred, utterly gone--Charlemagne, Roland, Oliver gone,
Palmerin, ogre, departed--vanish'd the turrets that Usk reflected,
Arthur vanish'd with all his knights--Merlin and Lancelot and
Galahad--all gone--dissolv'd utterly, like an exhalation;
Pass'd! pass'd! for us, for ever pass'd! that once so mighty World--
now void, inanimate, phantom World!

Embroider'd, dazzling World! with all its gorgeous legends, myths,
Its kings and barons proud--its priests, and warlike lords, and
courtly dames;
Pass'd to its charnel vault--laid on the shelf--coffin'd, with Crown
and Armor on,
Blazon'd with Shakspeare's purple page,
And dirged by Tennyson's sweet sad rhyme.

I say I see, my friends, if you do not, the Animus of all that World,
Escaped, bequeath'd, vital, fugacious as ever, leaving those dead
remains, and now this spot approaching, filling;
--And I can hear what maybe you do not--a terrible aesthetical
commotion,
With howling, desperate gulp of "flower" and "bower,"
With "Sonnet to Matilda's Eyebrow" quite, quite frantic;
With gushing, sentimental reading circles turn'd to ice or stone;
With many a squeak, (in metre choice,) from Boston, New York,
Philadelphia, London;
As she, the illustrious Emigr�, (having, it is true, in her day,
although the same, changed, journey'd considerable,)
Making directly for this rendezvous--vigorously clearing a path for
herself--striding through the confusion,
By thud of machinery and shrill steam-whistle undismay'd,
Bluff'd not a bit by drain-pipe, gasometers, artificial fertilizers,
Smiling and pleased, with palpable intent to stay,
She 's here, install'd amid the kitchen ware!

But hold--don't I forget my manners?
To introduce the Stranger (what else indeed have I come for?) to
thee, Columbia:
In Liberty's name, welcome, Immortal! clasp hands,
And ever henceforth Sisters dear be both.

Fear not, O Muse! truly new ways and days receive, surround you,
(I candidly confess, a queer, queer race, of novel fashion,)
And yet the same old human race--the same within, without,
Faces and hearts the same--feelings the same--yearnings the same,
The same old love--beauty and use the same.

We do not blame thee, Elder World--nor separate ourselves from thee:
(Would the Son separate himself from the Father?)
Looking back on thee--seeing thee to thy duties, grandeurs, through
past ages bending, building,
We build to ours to-day.

Mightier than Egypt's tombs,
Fairer than Grecia's, Roma's temples,
Prouder than Milan's statued, spired Cathedral,
More picturesque than Rhenish castle-keeps,
We plan, even now, to raise, beyond them all,
Thy great Cathedral, sacred Industry--no tomb,
A Keep for life for practical Invention.

As in a waking vision,
E'en while I chant, I see it rise--I scan and prophesy outside and
in,
Its manifold ensemble.

Around a Palace,
Loftier, fairer, ampler than any yet,
Earth's modern Wonder, History's Seven outstripping,
High rising tier on tier, with glass and iron fa�ades.

Gladdening the sun and sky--enhued in cheerfulest hues,
Bronze, lilac, robin's-egg, marine and crimson,
Over whose golden roof shall flaunt, beneath thy banner, Freedom,
The banners of The States, the flags of every land,
A brood of lofty, fair, but lesser Palaces shall cluster.

Somewhere within the walls of all,
Shall all that forwards perfect human life be started,
Tried, taught, advanced, visibly exhibited.

Here shall you trace in flowing operation,
In every state of practical, busy movement,
The rills of Civilization.

Materials here, under your eye, shall change their shape, as if by
magic;
The cotton shall be pick'd almost in the very field,
Shall be dried, clean'd, ginn'd, baled, spun into thread and cloth,
before you:
You shall see hands at work at all the old processes, and all the new
ones;
You shall see the various grains, and how flour is made, and then
bread baked by the bakers;
You shall see the crude ores of California and Nevada passing on and
on till they become bullion;
You shall watch how the printer sets type, and learn what a composing
stick is;
You shall mark, in amazement, the Hoe press whirling its cylinders,
shedding the printed leaves steady and fast:
The photograph, model, watch, pin, nail, shall be created before you.

In large calm halls, a stately Museum shall teach you the infinite,
solemn lessons of Minerals;
In another, woods, plants, Vegetation shall be illustrated--in
another Animals, animal life and development.

One stately house shall be the Music House;
Others for other Arts--Learning, the Sciences, shall all be here;
None shall be slighted--none but shall here be honor'd, help'd,
exampled.

This, this and these, America, shall be your Pyramids and
Obelisks,
Your Alexandrian Pharos, gardens of Babylon,
Your temple at Olympia.

The male and female many laboring not,
Shall ever here confront the laboring many,
With precious benefits to both--glory to all,
To thee, America--and thee, Eternal Muse.

And here shall ye inhabit, Powerful Matrons!
In your vast state, vaster than all the old;
Echoed through long, long centuries to come,
To sound of different, prouder songs, with stronger themes,
Practical, peaceful life--the people's life--the People themselves,
Lifted, illumin'd, bathed in peace--elate, secure in peace.

Away with themes of war! away with War itself!
Hence from my shuddering sight, to never more return, that show of
blacken'd, mutilated corpses!
That hell unpent, and raid of blood--fit for wild tigers, or for lop-
tongued wolves--not reasoning men!
And in its stead speed Industry's campaigns!
With thy undaunted armies, Engineering!
Thy pennants, Labor, loosen'd to the breeze!
Thy bugles sounding loud and clear!

Away with old romance!
Away with novels, plots, and plays of foreign courts!
Away with love-verses, sugar'd in rhyme--the intrigues, amours of
idlers,
Fitted for only banquets of the night, where dancers to late music
slide;
The unhealthy pleasures, extravagant dissipations of the few,
With perfumes, heat and wine, beneath the dazzling chandeliers.

To you, ye Reverent, sane Sisters,
To this resplendent day, the present scene,
These eyes and ears that like some broad parterre bloom up around,
before me,
I raise a voice for far superber themes for poets and for Art,
To exalt the present and the real,
To teach the average man the glory of his daily walk and trade,
To sing, in songs, how exercise and chemical life are never to be
baffled;
Boldly to thee, America, to-day! and thee, Immortal Muse!
To practical, manual work, for each and all--to plough, hoe, dig,
To plant and tend the tree, the berry, the vegetables, flowers,
For every man to see to it that he really do something--for every
woman too;
To use the hammer, and the saw, (rip or cross-cut,)
To cultivate a turn for carpentering, plastering, painting,
To work as tailor, tailoress, nurse, hostler, porter,
To invent a little--something ingenious--to aid the washing, cooking,
cleaning,
And hold it no disgrace to take a hand at them themselves.

I say I bring thee, Muse, to-day and here,
All occupations, duties broad and close,
Toil, healthy toil and sweat, endless, without cessation,
The old, old general burdens, interests, joys,
The family, parentage, childhood, husband and wife,
The house-comforts--the house itself, and all its belongings,
Food and its preservations--chemistry applied to it;
Whatever forms the average, strong, complete, sweet-blooded Man or
Woman--the perfect, longeve Personality,
And helps its present life to health and happiness--and shapes its
Soul,
For the eternal Real Life to come.

With latest materials, works,
Steam-power, the great Express lines, gas, petroleum,
These triumphs of our time, the Atlantic's delicate cable,
The Pacific Railroad, the Suez canal, the Mont Cenis tunnel;
Science advanced, in grandeur and reality, analyzing every thing,
This world all spann'd with iron rails--with lines of steamships
threading every sea,
Our own Rondure, the current globe I bring.

And thou, high-towering One--America!
Thy swarm of offspring towering high--yet higher thee, above all
towering,
With Victory on thy left, and at thy right hand Law;
Thou Union, holding all--fusing, absorbing, tolerating all,
Thee, ever thee, I bring.

Thou--also thou, a world!
With all thy wide geographies, manifold, different, distant,
Rounding by thee in One--one common orbic language,
One common indivisible destiny and Union.

And by the spells which ye vouchsafe,
To those, your ministers in earnest,
I here personify and call my themes,
To make them pass before ye.

Behold, America! (And thou, ineffable Guest and Sister!)
For thee come trooping up thy waters and thy lands:
Behold! thy fields and farms, thy far-off woods and mountains,
As in procession coming.

Behold! the sea itself!
And on its limitless, heaving breast, thy ships:
See! where their white sails, bellying in the wind, speckle the green
and blue!
See! thy steamers coming and going, steaming in or out of port!
See! dusky and undulating, their long pennants of smoke!

Behold, in Oregon, far in the north and west,
Or in Maine, far in the north and east, thy cheerful axemen,
Wielding all day their axes!

Behold, on the lakes, thy pilots at their wheels--thy oarsmen!
Behold how the ash writhes under those muscular arms!

There by the furnace, and there by the anvil,
Behold thy sturdy blacksmiths, swinging their sledges;
Overhand so steady--overhand they turn and fall, with joyous clank,
Like a tumult of laughter.

Behold! (for still the procession moves,)
Behold, Mother of All, thy countless sailors, boatmen, coasters!
The myriads of thy young and old mechanics!
Mark--mark the spirit of invention everywhere--thy rapid patents,
Thy continual workshops, foundries, risen or rising;
See, from their chimneys, how the tall flame-fires stream!

Mark, thy interminable farms, North, South,
Thy wealthy Daughter-States, Eastern, and Western,
The varied products of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Georgia, Texas,
and the rest;
Thy limitless crops--grass, wheat, sugar, corn, rice, hemp, hops,
Thy barns all fill'd--thy endless freight-trains, and thy bulging
store-houses,
The grapes that ripen on thy vines--the apples in thy orchards,
Thy incalculable lumber, beef, pork, potatoes--thy coal--thy gold and
silver,
The inexhaustible iron in thy mines.

All thine, O sacred Union!
Ship, farm, shop, barns, factories, mines,
City and State--North, South, item and aggregate,
We dedicate, dread Mother, all to thee!

Protectress absolute, thou! Bulwark of all!
For well we know that while thou givest each and all, (generous as
God,)
Without thee, neither all nor each, nor land, home,
Ship, nor mine--nor any here, this day, secure,
Nor aught, nor any day secure.

And thou, thy Emblem, waving over all!
Delicate beauty! a word to thee, (it may be salutary;)
Remember, thou hast not always been, as here to-day, so comfortably
ensovereign'd;
In other scenes than these have I observ'd thee, flag;
Not quite so trim and whole, and freshly blooming, in folds of
stainless silk;
But I have seen thee, bunting, to tatters torn, upon thy splinter'd
staff,
Or clutch'd to some young color-bearer's breast, with desperate
hands,
Savagely struggled for, for life or death--fought over long,
'Mid cannon's thunder-crash, and many a curse, and groan and yell--
and rifle-volleys cracking sharp,
And moving masses, as wild demons surging--and lives as nothing
risk'd,
For thy mere remnant, grimed with dirt and smoke, and sopp'd in
blood;
For sake of that, my beauty--and that thou might'st dally, as now,
secure up there,
Many a good man have I seen go under.

Now here, and these, and hence, in peace all thine, O Flag!
And here, and hence, for thee, O universal Muse! and thou for them!
And here and hence, O Union, all the work and workmen thine!
The poets, women, sailors, soldiers, farmers, miners, students thine!
None separate from Thee--henceforth one only, we and Thou;
(For the blood of the children--what is it only the blood Maternal?
And lives and works--what are they all at last except the roads to
Faith and Death?)

While we rehearse our measureless wealth, it is for thee, dear
Mother!
We own it all and several to-day indissoluble in Thee;
--Think not our chant, our show, merely for products gross, or
lucre--it is for Thee, the Soul, electric, spiritual!
Our farms, inventions, crops, we own in Thee! Cities and States in
Thee!
Our freedom all in Thee! our very lives in Thee!

Song Of The Open Road

Afoot and light-hearted, I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me, leading wherever I choose.

Henceforth I ask not good-fortune--I myself am good fortune;
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,
Strong and content, I travel the open road.

The earth--that is sufficient;
I do not want the constellations any nearer;
I know they are very well where they are;
I know they suffice for those who belong to them.

(Still here I carry my old delicious burdens;
I carry them, men and women--I carry them with me wherever I go;
I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them;
I am fill'd with them, and I will fill them in return.)

You road I enter upon and look around! I believe you are not all that
is here;
I believe that much unseen is also here.

Here the profound lesson of reception, neither preference or denial;
The black with his woolly head, the felon, the diseas'd, the
illiterate person, are not denied;
The birth, the hasting after the physician, the beggar's tramp, the
drunkard's stagger, the laughing party of mechanics,
The escaped youth, the rich person's carriage, the fop, the eloping
couple,
The early market-man, the hearse, the moving of furniture into the
town, the return back from the town,
They pass--I also pass--anything passes--none can be interdicted;
None but are accepted--none but are dear to me.

You air that serves me with breath to speak!
You objects that call from diffusion my meanings, and give them
shape!
You light that wraps me and all things in delicate equable showers!
You paths worn in the irregular hollows by the roadsides!
I think you are latent with unseen existences--you are so dear to me.

You flagg'd walks of the cities! you strong curbs at the edges!
You ferries! you planks and posts of wharves! you timber-lined sides!
you distant ships!
You rows of houses! you window-pierc'd fa�ades! you roofs!
You porches and entrances! you copings and iron guards!
You windows whose transparent shells might expose so much!
You doors and ascending steps! you arches!
You gray stones of interminable pavements! you trodden crossings!
From all that has been near you, I believe you have imparted to
yourselves, and now would impart the same secretly to me;
From the living and the dead I think you have peopled your impassive
surfaces, and the spirits thereof would be evident and amicable
with me.

The earth expanding right hand and left hand,
The picture alive, every part in its best light,
The music falling in where it is wanted, and stopping where it is not
wanted,
The cheerful voice of the public road--the gay fresh sentiment of the
road.

O highway I travel! O public road! do you say to me, Do not leave me?
adhere to me?

O public road! I say back, I am not afraid to leave you--yet I love
you;
You express me better than I can express myself;
You shall be more to me than my poem.

I think heroic deeds were all conceiv'd in the open air, and all
great poems also;
I think I could stop here myself, and do miracles;
(My judgments, thoughts, I henceforth try by the open air, the
road;)
I think whatever I shall meet on the road I shall like, and whoever
beholds me shall like me;
I think whoever I see must be happy.

From this hour, freedom!
From this hour I ordain myself loos'd of limits and imaginary lines,
Going where I list, my own master, total and absolute,
Listening to others, and considering well what they say,
Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating,
Gently, but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds that
would hold me.

I inhale great draughts of space;
The east and the west are mine, and the north and the south are
mine.

I am larger, better than I thought;
I did not know I held so much goodness.

All seems beautiful to me;
I can repeat over to men and women, You have done such good to me, I
would do the same to you.

I will recruit for myself and you as I go;
I will scatter myself among men and women as I go;
I will toss the new gladness and roughness among them;
Whoever denies me, it shall not trouble me;
Whoever accepts me, he or she shall be blessed, and shall bless me.

Now if a thousand perfect men were to appear, it would not amaze
me;
Now if a thousand beautiful forms of women appear'd, it would not
astonish me.

Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons,
It is to grow in the open air, and to eat and sleep with the earth.

Here a great personal deed has room;
A great deed seizes upon the hearts of the whole race of men,
Its effusion of strength and will overwhelms law, and mocks all
authority and all argument against it.

Here is the test of wisdom;
Wisdom is not finally tested in schools;
Wisdom cannot be pass'd from one having it, to another not having it;
Wisdom is of the Soul, is not susceptible of proof, is its own
proof,
Applies to all stages and objects and qualities, and is content,
Is the certainty of the reality and immortality of things, and the
excellence of things;
Something there is in the float of the sight of things that provokes
it out of the Soul.

Now I re�xamine philosophies and religions,
They may prove well in lecture-rooms, yet not prove at all under the
spacious clouds, and along the landscape and flowing currents.

Here is realization;
Here is a man tallied--he realizes here what he has in him;
The past, the future, majesty, love--if they are vacant of you, you
are vacant of them.

Only the kernel of every object nourishes;
Where is he who tears off the husks for you and me?
Where is he that undoes stratagems and envelopes for you and me?

Here is adhesiveness--it is not previously fashion'd--it is apropos;
Do you know what it is, as you pass, to be loved by strangers?
Do you know the talk of those turning eye-balls?

Here is the efflux of the Soul;
The efflux of the Soul comes from within, through embower'd gates,
ever provoking questions:
These yearnings, why are they? These thoughts in the darkness, why
are they?
Why are there men and women that while they are nigh me, the sun-
light expands my blood?
Why, when they leave me, do my pennants of joy sink flat and lank?
Why are there trees I never walk under, but large and melodious
thoughts descend upon me?
(I think they hang there winter and summer on those trees, and always
drop fruit as I pass;)
What is it I interchange so suddenly with strangers?
What with some driver, as I ride on the seat by his side?
What with some fisherman, drawing his seine by the shore, as I walk
by, and pause?
What gives me to be free to a woman's or man's good-will? What gives
them to be free to mine?

The efflux of the Soul is happiness--here is happiness;
I think it pervades the open air, waiting at all times;
Now it flows unto us--we are rightly charged.

Here rises the fluid and attaching character;
The fluid and attaching character is the freshness and sweetness of
man and woman;
(The herbs of the morning sprout no fresher and sweeter every day out
of the roots of themselves, than it sprouts fresh and sweet
continually out of itself.)

Toward the fluid and attaching character exudes the sweat of the love
of young and old;
From it falls distill'd the charm that mocks beauty and attainments;
Toward it heaves the shuddering longing ache of contact.

Allons! whoever you are, come travel with me!
Traveling with me, you find what never tires.

The earth never tires;
The earth is rude, silent, incomprehensible at first--Nature is rude
and incomprehensible at first;
Be not discouraged--keep on--there are divine things, well envelop'd;
I swear to you there are divine things more beautiful than words can
tell.

Allons! we must not stop here!
However sweet these laid-up stores--however convenient this dwelling,
we cannot remain here;
However shelter'd this port, and however calm these waters, we must
not anchor here;
However welcome the hospitality that surrounds us, we are permitted
to receive it but a little while.

Allons! the inducements shall be greater;
We will sail pathless and wild seas;
We will go where winds blow, waves dash, and the Yankee clipper
speeds by under full sail.

Allons! with power, liberty, the earth, the elements!
Health, defiance, gayety, self-esteem, curiosity;
Allons! from all formules!
From your formules, O bat-eyed and materialistic priests!

The stale cadaver blocks up the passage--the burial waits no longer.

Allons! yet take warning!
He traveling with me needs the best blood, thews, endurance;
None may come to the trial, till he or she bring courage and health.

Come not here if you have already spent the best of yourself;
Only those may come, who come in sweet and determin'd bodies;
No diseas'd person--no rum-drinker or venereal taint is permitted
here.

I and mine do not convince by arguments, similes, rhymes;
We convince by our presence.

Listen! I will be honest with you;
I do not offer the old smooth prizes, but offer rough new prizes;
These are the days that must happen to you:

You shall not heap up what is call'd riches,
You shall scatter with lavish hand all that you earn or achieve,
You but arrive at the city to which you were destin'd--you hardly
settle yourself to satisfaction, before you are call'd by an
irresistible call to depart,
You shall be treated to the ironical smiles and mockings of those who
remain behind you;
What beckonings of love you receive, you shall only answer with
passionate kisses of parting,
You shall not allow the hold of those who spread their reach'd hands
toward you.

Allons! after the GREAT COMPANIONS! and to belong to them!
They too are on the road! they are the swift and majestic men; they
are the greatest women.
Over that which hinder'd them--over that which retarded--passing
impediments large or small,
Committers of crimes, committers of many beautiful virtues,
Enjoyers of calms of seas, and storms of seas,
Sailors of many a ship, walkers of many a mile of land,
Habitu�s of many distant countries, habitu�s of far-distant dwellings,
Trusters of men and women, observers of cities, solitary toilers,
Pausers and contemplators of tufts, blossoms, shells of the shore,
Dancers at wedding-dances, kissers of brides, tender helpers of
children, bearers of children,
Soldiers of revolts, standers by gaping graves, lowerers down of
coffins,
Journeyers over consecutive seasons, over the years--the curious
years, each emerging from that which preceded it,
Journeyers as with companions, namely, their own diverse phases,
Forth-steppers from the latent unrealized baby-days,
Journeyers gayly with their own youth--Journeyers with their bearded
and well-grain'd manhood,
Journeyers with their womanhood, ample, unsurpass'd, content,
Journeyers with their own sublime old age of manhood or womanhood,
Old age, calm, expanded, broad with the haughty breadth of the
universe,
Old age, flowing free with the delicious near-by freedom of death.

Allons! to that which is endless, as it was beginningless,
To undergo much, tramps of days, rests of nights,
To merge all in the travel they tend to, and the days and nights they
tend to,
Again to merge them in the start of superior journeys;
To see nothing anywhere but what you may reach it and pass it,
To conceive no time, however distant, but what you may reach it and
pass it,
To look up or down no road but it stretches and waits for you--
however long, but it stretches and waits for you;
To see no being, not God's or any, but you also go thither,
To see no possession but you may possess it--enjoying all without
labor or purchase--abstracting the feast, yet not abstracting
one particle of it;
To take the best of the farmer's farm and the rich man's elegant
villa, and the chaste blessings of the well-married couple, and
the fruits of orchards and flowers of gardens,
To take to your use out of the compact cities as you pass through,
To carry buildings and streets with you afterward wherever you
go,
To gather the minds of men out of their brains as you encounter
them--to gather the love out of their hearts,
To take your lovers on the road with you, for all that you leave them
behind you,
To know the universe itself as a road--as many roads--as roads for
traveling souls.

The Soul travels;
The body does not travel as much as the soul;
The body has just as great a work as the soul, and parts away at last
for the journeys of the soul.

All parts away for the progress of souls;
All religion, all solid things, arts, governments,--all that was or
is apparent upon this globe or any globe, falls into niches and
corners before the procession of Souls along the grand roads of
the universe.

Of the progress of the souls of men and women along the grand roads
of the universe, all other progress is the needed emblem and
sustenance.

Forever alive, forever forward,
Stately, solemn, sad, withdrawn, baffled, mad, turbulent, feeble,
dissatisfied,
Desperate, proud, fond, sick, accepted by men, rejected by men,
They go! they go! I know that they go, but I know not where they go;
But I know that they go toward the best--toward something great.

Allons! whoever you are! come forth!
You must not stay sleeping and dallying there in the house, though
you built it, or though it has been built for you.

Allons! out of the dark confinement!
It is useless to protest--I know all, and expose it.

Behold, through you as bad as the rest,
Through the laughter, dancing, dining, supping, of people,

Inside of dresses and ornaments, inside of those wash'd and trimm'd
faces,
Behold a secret silent loathing and despair.

No husband, no wife, no friend, trusted to hear the confession;
Another self, a duplicate of every one, skulking and hiding it goes,
Formless and wordless through the streets of the cities, polite and
bland in the parlors,
In the cars of rail-roads, in steamboats, in the public assembly,
Home to the houses of men and women, at the table, in the bed-room,
everywhere,
Smartly attired, countenance smiling, form upright, death under the
breast-bones, hell under the skull-bones,
Under the broadcloth and gloves, under the ribbons and artificial
flowers,
Keeping fair with the customs, speaking not a syllable of itself,
Speaking of anything else, but never of itself.

Allons! through struggles and wars!
The goal that was named cannot be countermanded.

Have the past struggles succeeded?
What has succeeded? yourself? your nation? nature?
Now understand me well--It is provided in the essence of things, that
from any fruition of success, no matter what, shall come forth
something to make a greater struggle necessary.

My call is the call of battle--I nourish active rebellion;
He going with me must go well arm'd;
He going with me goes often with spare diet, poverty, angry enemies,
desertions.

Allons! the road is before us!
It is safe--I have tried it--my own feet have tried it well.

Allons! be not detain'd!
Let the paper remain on the desk unwritten, and the book on the shelf unopen'd!
Let the tools remain in the workshop! let the money remain unearn'd!
Let the school stand! mind not the cry of the teacher!
Let the preacher preach in his pulpit! let the lawyer plead in the court, and the judge expound the law.

Mon enfant! I give you my hand!
I give you my love, more precious than money,
I give you myself, before preaching or law;
Will you give me yourself? will you come travel with me?
Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?

Song Of The Redwood-Tree

A California song!
A prophecy and indirection--a thought impalpable, to breathe, as air;
A chorus of dryads, fading, departing--or hamadryads departing;
A murmuring, fateful, giant voice, out of the earth and sky,
Voice of a mighty dying tree in the Redwood forest dense.

Farewell, my brethren,
Farewell, O earth and sky--farewell, ye neighboring waters;
My time has ended, my term has come.

Along the northern coast,
Just back from the rock-bound shore, and the caves,
In the saline air from the sea, in the Mendocino country,
With the surge for bass and accompaniment low and hoarse,
With crackling blows of axes, sounding musically, driven by strong
arms,
Riven deep by the sharp tongues of the axes--there in the Redwood
forest dense,
I heard the mighty tree its death-chant chanting.

The choppers heard not--the camp shanties echoed not;
The quick-ear'd teamsters, and chain and jack-screw men, heard not,
As the wood-spirits came from their haunts of a thousand years, to
join the refrain;
But in my soul I plainly heard.

Murmuring out of its myriad leaves,
Down from its lofty top, rising two hundred feet high,
Out of its stalwart trunk and limbs--out of its foot-thick bark,
That chant of the seasons and time--chant, not of the past only, but
the future.

You untold life of me,
And all you venerable and innocent joys,
Perennial, hardy life of me, with joys, 'mid rain, and many a summer
sun,
And the white snows, and night, and the wild winds;
O the great patient, rugged joys! my soul's strong joys, unreck'd by
man;
(For know I bear the soul befitting me--I too have consciousness,
identity,
And all the rocks and mountains have--and all the earth;)
Joys of the life befitting me and brothers mine,
Our time, our term has come.

Nor yield we mournfully, majestic brothers,
We who have grandly fill'd our time;
With Nature's calm content, and tacit, huge delight,
We welcome what we wrought for through the past,
And leave the field for them.

For them predicted long,
For a superber Race--they too to grandly fill their time,
For them we abdicate--in them ourselves, ye forest kings!
In them these skies and airs--these mountain peaks--Shasta--Nevadas,
These huge, precipitous cliffs--this amplitude--these valleys grand--
Yosemite,
To be in them absorb'd, assimilated.

Then to a loftier strain,
Still prouder, more ecstatic, rose the chant,
As if the heirs, the Deities of the West,
Joining, with master-tongue, bore part.

Not wan from Asia's fetishes,
Nor red from Europe's old dynastic slaughter-house,
(Area of murder-plots of thrones, with scent left yet of wars and
scaffolds every where,)
But come from Nature's long and harmless throes--peacefully builded
thence,
These virgin lands--Lands of the Western Shore,
To the new Culminating Man--to you, the Empire New,
You, promis'd long, we pledge, we dedicate.

You occult, deep volitions,
You average Spiritual Manhood, purpose of all, pois'd on yourself--
giving, not taking law,
You Womanhood divine, mistress and source of all, whence life and
love, and aught that comes from life and love,
You unseen Moral Essence of all the vast materials of America, (age
upon age, working in Death the same as Life,)
You that, sometimes known, oftener unknown, really shape and mould
the New World, adjusting it to Time and Space,
You hidden National Will, lying in your abysms, conceal'd, but ever
alert,
You past and present purposes, tenaciously pursued, may-be
unconscious of yourselves,
Unswerv'd by all the passing errors, perturbations of the surface;
You vital, universal, deathless germs, beneath all creeds, arts,
statutes, literatures,
Here build your homes for good--establish here--These areas entire,
Lands of the Western Shore,
We pledge, we dedicate to you.

For man of you--your characteristic Race,
Here may be hardy, sweet, gigantic grow--here tower, proportionate to
Nature,
Here climb the vast, pure spaces, unconfined, uncheck'd by wall or
roof,
Here laugh with storm or sun--here joy--here patiently inure,
Here heed himself, unfold himself (not others' formulas heed)--here
fill his time,
To duly fall, to aid, unreck'd at last,
To disappear, to serve.

Thus, on the northern coast,
In the echo of teamsters' calls, and the clinking chains, and the
music of choppers' axes,
The falling trunk and limbs, the crash, the muffled shriek, the
groan,
Such words combined from the Redwood-tree--as of wood-spirits' voices
ecstatic, ancient and rustling,
The century-lasting, unseen dryads, singing, withdrawing,
All their recesses of forests and mountains leaving,
From the Cascade range to the Wasatch--or Idaho far, or Utah,
To the deities of the Modern henceforth yielding,
The chorus and indications, the vistas of coming humanity--the
settlements, features all,
In the Mendocino woods I caught.

The flashing and golden pageant of California!
The sudden and gorgeous drama--the sunny and ample lands;
The long and varied stretch from Puget Sound to Colorado south;
Lands bathed in sweeter, rarer, healthier air--valleys and mountain
cliffs;
The fields of Nature long prepared and fallow--the silent, cyclic
chemistry;
The slow and steady ages plodding--the unoccupied surface ripening--
the rich ores forming beneath;
At last the New arriving, assuming, taking possession,
A swarming and busy race settling and organizing every where;
Ships coming in from the whole round world, and going out to the
whole world,
To India and China and Australia, and the thousand island paradises
of the Pacific;
Populous cities--the latest inventions--the steamers on the rivers--
the railroads--with many a thrifty farm, with machinery,
And wool, and wheat, and the grape--and diggings of yellow gold.

But more in you than these, Lands of the Western Shore!
(These but the means, the implements, the standing-ground,)
I see in you, certain to come, the promise of thousands of years,
till now deferr'd,
Promis'd, to be fulfill'd, our common kind, the Race.

The New Society at last, proportionate to Nature,
In Man of you, more than your mountain peaks, or stalwart trees
imperial,
In Woman more, far more, than all your gold, or vines, or even vital
air.

Fresh come, to a New World indeed, yet long prepared,
I see the Genius of the Modern, child of the Real and Ideal,
Clearing the ground for broad humanity, the true America, heir of the
past so grand,
To build a grander future.

Song Of The Universal

Come, said the Muse,
Sing me a song no poet yet has chanted,
Sing me the Universal.

In this broad Earth of ours,
Amid the measureless grossness and the slag,
Enclosed and safe within its central heart,
Nestles the seed Perfection.

By every life a share, or more or less,
None born but it is born--conceal'd or unconceal'd, the seed is
waiting.

Lo! keen-eyed, towering Science!
As from tall peaks the Modern overlooking,
Successive, absolute fiats issuing.

Yet again, lo! the Soul--above all science;
For it, has History gather'd like a husk around the globe;
For it, the entire star-myriads roll through the sky.

In spiral roads, by long detours,
(As a much-tacking ship upon the sea,)
For it, the partial to the permanent flowing,
For it, the Real to the Ideal tends.

For it, the mystic evolution;
Not the right only justified--what we call evil also justified.

Forth from their masks, no matter what,
From the huge, festering trunk--from craft and guile and tears,
Health to emerge, and joy--joy universal.

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.

Over the mountain growths, disease and sorrow,
An uncaught bird is ever hovering, hovering,
High in the purer, happier air.

From imperfection's murkiest cloud,
Darts always forth one ray of perfect light,
One flash of Heaven's glory.

To fashion's, custom's discord,
To the mad Babel-din, the deafening orgies,
Soothing each lull, a strain is heard, just heard,
From some far shore, the final chorus sounding.

O the blest eyes! the happy hearts!
That see--that know the guiding thread so fine,
Along the mighty labyrinth!

And thou, America!
For the Scheme's culmination--its Thought, and its Reality,
For these, (not for thyself,) Thou hast arrived.

Thou too surroundest all;
Embracing, carrying, welcoming all, Thou too, by pathways broad and
new,
To the Ideal tendest.

The measur'd faiths of other lands--the grandeurs of the past,
Are not for Thee--but grandeurs of Thine own;
Deific faiths and amplitudes, absorbing, comprehending all,
All eligible to all.

All, all for Immortality!
Love, like the light, silently wrapping all!
Nature's amelioration blessing all!
The blossoms, fruits of ages--orchards divine and certain;
Forms, objects, growths, humanities, to spiritual Images ripening.

Give me, O God, to sing that thought!
Give me--give him or her I love, this quenchless faith
In Thy ensemble. Whatever else withheld, withhold not from us,
Belief in plan of Thee enclosed in Time and Space;
Health, peace, salvation universal.

Is it a dream?
Nay, but the lack of it the dream,
And, failing it, life's lore and wealth a dream,
And all the world a dream.

Souvenirs Of Democracy

The business man, the acquirer vast,
After assiduous years, surveying results, preparing for departure,
Devises houses and lands to his children--bequeaths stocks, goods--
funds for a school or hospital,
Leaves money to certain companions to buy tokens, souvenirs of gems
and gold;
Parceling out with care--And then, to prevent all cavil,
His name to his testament formally signs.

But I, my life surveying,
With nothing to show, to devise, from its idle years,
Nor houses, nor lands--nor tokens of gems or gold for my friends,
Only these Souvenirs of Democracy--In them--in all my songs--behind
me leaving,
To You, who ever you are, (bathing, leavening this leaf especially
with my breath--pressing on it a moment with my own hands;
--Here! feel how the pulse beats in my wrists!--how my heart's-blood
is swelling, contracting!)
I will You, in all, Myself, with promise to never desert you,
To which I sign my name.

Spain 1873-'74

Out of the murk of heaviest clouds,
Out of the feudal wrecks, and heap'd-up skeletons of kings,
Out of that old entire European debris--the shatter'd mummeries,
Ruin'd cathedrals, crumble of palaces, tombs of priests,
Lo! Freedom's features, fresh, undimm'd, look forth--the same
immortal face looks forth;
(A glimpse as of thy mother's face, Columbia,
A flash significant as of a sword,
Beaming towards thee.)

Nor think we forget thee, Maternal;
Lag'd'st thou so long? Shall the clouds close again upon thee?
Ah, but thou hast Thyself now appear'd to us--we know thee;
Thou hast given us a sure proof, the glimpse of Thyself;
Thou waitest there, as everywhere, thy time.

Sparkles From The Wheel

Where the city's ceaseless crowd moves on, the live-long day,
Withdrawn, I join a group of children watching--I pause aside with
them.

By the curb, toward the edge of the flagging,
A knife-grinder works at his wheel, sharpening a great knife;
Bending over, he carefully holds it to the stone--by foot and knee,
With measur'd tread, he turns rapidly--As he presses with light but
firm hand,
Forth issue, then, in copious golden jets,
Sparkles from the wheel.

The scene, and all its belongings--how they seize and affect me!
The sad, sharp-chinn'd old man, with worn clothes, and broad
shoulder-band of leather;
Myself, effusing and fluid--a phantom curiously floating--now here
absorb'd and arrested;

The group, (an unminded point, set in a vast surrounding;)
The attentive, quiet children--the loud, proud, restive base of the
streets;
The low, hoarse purr of the whirling stone--the light-press'd blade,
Diffusing, dropping, sideways-darting, in tiny showers of gold,
Sparkles from the wheel.

Spirit That Form'd This Scene

Spirit that form'd this scene,
These tumbled rock-piles grim and red,
These reckless heaven-ambitious peaks,
These gorges, turbulent-clear streams, this naked freshness,
These formless wild arrays, for reasons of their own,
I know thee, savage spirit--we have communed together,
Mine too such wild arrays, for reasons of their own;
Was't charged against my chants they had forgotten art?
To fuse within themselves its rules precise and delicatesse?
The lyrist's measur'd beat, the wrought-out temple's grace--column
and polish'd arch forgot?
But thou that revelest here--spirit that form'd this scene,
They have remember'd thee.

Spirit Whose Work Is Done

Spirit whose work is done! spirit of dreadful hours!
Ere, departing, fade from my eyes your forests of bayonets;
Spirit of gloomiest fears and doubts, (yet onward ever unfaltering
pressing;)
Spirit of many a solemn day, and many a savage scene! Electric
spirit!
That with muttering voice, through the war now closed, like a
tireless phantom flitted,
Rousing the land with breath of flame, while you beat and beat the
drum;
--Now, as the sound of the drum, hollow and harsh to the last,
reverberates round me;
As your ranks, your immortal ranks, return, return from the battles;
While the muskets of the young men yet lean over their shoulders;
While I look on the bayonets bristling over their shoulders;
While those slanted bayonets, whole forests of them, appearing in the
distance, approach and pass on, returning homeward,
Moving with steady motion, swaying to and fro, to the right and left,
Evenly, lightly rising and falling, as the steps keep time;
--Spirit of hours I knew, all hectic red one day, but pale as death
next day;
Touch my mouth, ere you depart--press my lips close!
Leave me your pulses of rage! bequeath them to me! fill me with
currents convulsive!
Let them scorch and blister out of my chants, when you are gone;
Let them identify you to the future, in these songs.

Spontaneous Me

Spontaneous me, Nature,
The loving day, the mounting sun, the friend I am happy with,
The arm of my friend hanging idly over my shoulder,
The hill-side whiten'd with blossoms of the mountain ash,
The same, late in autumn--the hues of red, yellow, drab, purple, and
light and dark green,
The rich coverlid of the grass--animals and birds--the private
untrimm'd bank--the primitive apples--the pebble-stones,
Beautiful dripping fragments--the negligent list of one after
another, as I happen to call them to me, or think of them,
The real poems, (what we call poems being merely pictures,)
The poems of the privacy of the night, and of men like me,
This poem, drooping shy and unseen, that I always carry, and that all
men carry,
(Know, once for all, avow'd on purpose, wherever are men like me, are
our lusty, lurking, masculine poems;)
Love-thoughts, love-juice, love-odor, love-yielding, love-climbers,
and the climbing sap,
Arms and hands of love--lips of love--phallic thumb of love--breasts
of love--bellies press'd and glued together with love,
Earth of chaste love--life that is only life after love,
The body of my love--the body of the woman I love--the body of the
man--the body of the earth,
Soft forenoon airs that blow from the south-west,
The hairy wild-bee that murmurs and hankers up and down--that gripes
the full-grown lady-flower, curves upon her with amorous firm
legs, takes his will of her, and holds himself tremulous and
tight till he is satisfied,
The wet of woods through the early hours,
Two sleepers at night lying close together as they sleep, one with an
arm slanting down across and below the waist of the other,
The smell of apples, aromas from crush'd sage-plant, mint, birch-
bark,
The boy's longings, the glow and pressure as he confides to me what
he was dreaming,
The dead leaf whirling its spiral whirl, and falling still and
content to the ground,
The no-form'd stings that sights, people, objects, sting me with,
The hubb'd sting of myself, stinging me as much as it ever can any
one,
The sensitive, orbic, underlapp'd brothers, that only privileged
feelers may be intimate where they are,
The curious roamer, the hand, roaming all over the body--the bashful
withdrawing of flesh where the fingers soothingly pause and
edge themselves,
The limpid liquid within the young man,
The vexed corrosion, so pensive and so painful,
The torment--the irritable tide that will not be at rest,
The like of the same I feel--the like of the same in others,
The young man that flushes and flushes, and the young woman that
flushes and flushes,
The young man that wakes, deep at night, the hot hand seeking to
repress what would master him;
The mystic amorous night--the strange half-welcome pangs, visions,
sweats,
The pulse pounding through palms and trembling encircling fingers--
the young man all color'd, red, ashamed, angry;
The souse upon me of my lover the sea, as I lie willing and naked,
The merriment of the twin-babes that crawl over the grass in the sun,
the mother never turning her vigilant eyes from them,
The walnut-trunk, the walnut-husks, and the ripening or ripen'd long-
round walnuts;
The continence of vegetables, birds, animals,
The consequent meanness of me should I skulk or find myself indecent,
while birds and animals never once skulk or find themselves
indecent;
The great chastity of paternity, to match the great chastity of
maternity,
The oath of procreation I have sworn--my Adamic and fresh daughters,
The greed that eats me day and night with hungry gnaw, till I
saturate what shall produce boys to fill my place when I am
through,
The wholesome relief, repose, content;
And this bunch, pluck'd at random from myself;
It has done its work--I tossed it carelessly to fall where it may.

Starting From Paumanok

Starting from fish-shape Paumanok, where I was born,
Well-begotten, and rais'd by a perfect mother;
After roaming many lands--lover of populous pavements;
Dweller in Mannahatta, my city--or on
southern savannas;
Or a soldier camp'd, or carrying my knapsack and gun--or a miner in
California;
Or rude in my home in Dakota's woods, my diet meat, my drink from the
spring;
Or withdrawn to muse and meditate in some deep recess,
Far from the clank of crowds, intervals passing, rapt and happy;
Aware of the fresh free giver, the flowing Missouri--aware of mighty
Niagara;
Aware of the buffalo herds, grazing the plains--the hirsute and
strong-breasted bull;
Of earth, rocks, Fifth-month flowers, experienced--stars, rain, snow,
my amaze;
Having studied the mocking-bird's tones, and the mountainhawk's,
And heard at dusk the unrival'd one, the hermit thrush from the
swamp-cedars,
Solitary, singing in the West, I strike up for a New World.

Victory, union, faith, identity, time,
The indissoluble compacts, riches, mystery,
Eternal progress, the kosmos, and the modern reports.

This, then, is life;
Here is what has come to the surface after so many throes and
convulsions.

How curious! how real!
Underfoot the divine soil--overhead the sun.

See, revolving, the globe;
The ancestor-continents, away, group'd together;
The present and future continents, north and south, with the isthmus
between.

See, vast, trackless spaces;
As in a dream, they change, they swiftly fill;
Countless masses debouch upon them;
They are now cover'd with the foremost people, arts, institutions,
known.

See, projected, through time,
For me, an audience interminable.

With firm and regular step they wend--they never stop,
Successions of men, Americanos, a hundred millions;
One generation playing its part, and passing on;
Another generation playing its part, and passing on in its turn,
With faces turn'd sideways or backward towards me, to listen,
With eyes retrospective towards me,

Americanos! conquerors! marches humanitarian;
Foremost! century marches! Libertad! masses!
For you a programme of chants.

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, equi-
distant,
Shooting in pulses of fire, ceaseless, to vivify all.

In the Year 80 of The States,
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-six years old, in perfect health, begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.

Creeds and schools in abeyance,
(Retiring back a while, sufficed at what they are, but never
forgotten,)
I harbor, for good or bad--I permit to speak, at every hazard,
Nature now without check, with original energy.

Take my leaves, America! take them, South, and take them, North!
Make welcome for them everywhere, for they are your own offspring;
Surround them, East and West! for they would surround you;
And you precedents! connect lovingly with them, for they connect
lovingly with you.

I conn'd old times;
I sat studying at the feet of the great masters:
Now, if eligible, O that the great masters might return and study
me!

In the name of These States, shall I scorn the antique?
Why These are the children of the antique, to justify it.

Dead poets, philosophs, priests,
Martyrs, artists, inventors, governments long since,
Language-shapers, on other shores,
Nations once powerful, now reduced, withdrawn, or desolate,
I dare not proceed till I respectfully credit what you have left,
wafted hither:
I have perused it--own it is admirable,
(moving awhile among it;)
Think nothing can ever be greater--nothing can ever deserve more than
it deserves;
Regarding it all intently a long while--then dismissing it,
I stand in my place, with my own day, here.

Here lands female and male;
Here the heir-ship and heiress-ship of the world--here the flame of
materials;
Here Spirituality, the translatress, the openly-avow'd,
The ever-tending, the finale of visible forms;
The satisfier, after due long-waiting, now advancing,
Yes, here comes my mistress, the Soul.

The SOUL:
Forever and forever--longer than soil is brown and solid--longer than
water ebbs and flows.

I will make the poems of materials, for I think they are to be the
most spiritual poems;
And I will make the poems of my body and of mortality,
For I think I shall then supply myself with the poems of my Soul, and
of immortality.

I will make a song for These States, that no-one State may under any
circumstances be subjected to another State;
And I will make a song that there shall be comity by day and by night
between all The States, and between any two of them:
And I will make a song for the ears of the President, full of weapons
with menacing points,
And behind the weapons countless dissatisfied faces:
--And a song make I, of the One form'd out of all;
The fang'd and glittering One whose head is over all;
Resolute, warlike One, including and over all;
(However high the head of any else, that head is over all.)

I will acknowledge contemporary lands;
I will trail the whole geography of the globe, and salute courteously
every city large and small;
And employments! I will put in my poems, that with you is heroism,
upon land and sea;
And I will report all heroism from an American point of view.

I will sing the song of companionship;
I will show what alone must finally compact These;
I believe These are to found their own ideal of manly love,
indicating it in me;
I will therefore let flame from me the burning fires that were
threatening to consume me;
I will lift what has too long kept down those smouldering fires;
I will give them complete abandonment;
I will write the evangel-poem of comrades, and of love;
(For who but I should understand love, with all its sorrow and joy?
And who but I should be the poet of comrades?)

I am the credulous man of qualities, ages, races;
I advance from the people in their own spirit;
Here is what sings unrestricted faith.

Omnes! Omnes! let others ignore what they may;
I make the poem of evil also--I commemorate that part also;
I am myself just as much evil as good, and my nation is--And I say
there is in fact no evil;
(Or if there is, I say it is just as important to you, to the land,
or to me, as anything else.)

I too, following many, and follow'd by many, inaugurate a Religion--I
descend into the arena;
(It may be I am destin'd to utter the loudest cries there, the
winner's pealing shouts;
Who knows? they may rise from me yet, and soar above every thing.)

Each is not for its own sake;
I say the whole earth, and all the stars in the sky, are for
Religion's sake.

I say no man has ever yet been half devout enough;
None has ever yet adored or worship'd half enough;
None has begun to think how divine he himself is, and how certain the
future is.

I say that the real and permanent grandeur of These States must be
their Religion;
Otherwise there is no real and permanent grandeur:
(Nor character, nor life worthy the name, without Religion;
Nor land, nor man or woman, without Religion.)

What are you doing, young man?
Are you so earnest--so given up to literature, science, art, amours?
These ostensible realities, politics, points?
Your ambition or business, whatever it may be?

It is well--Against such I say not a word--I am their poet also;
But behold! such swiftly subside--burnt up for Religion's sake;
For not all matter is fuel to heat, impalpable flame, the essential
life of the earth,
Any more than such are to Religion.

What do you seek, so pensive and silent?
What do you need, Camerado?
Dear son! do you think it is love?

Listen, dear son--listen, America, daughter or son!
It is a painful thing to love a man or woman to excess--and yet it
satisfies--it is great;
But there is something else very great--it makes the whole coincide;
It, magnificent, beyond materials, with continuous hands, sweeps and
provides for all.

Know you! solely to drop in the earth the germs of a greater
Religion,
The following chants, each for its kind, I sing.

My comrade!
For you, to share with me, two greatnesses--and a third one, rising
inclusive and more resplendent,
The greatness of Love and Democracy--and the greatness of Religion.

Melange mine own! the unseen and the seen;
Mysterious ocean where the streams empty;
Prophetic spirit of materials shifting and flickering around me;
Living beings, identities, now doubtless near us, in the air, that we
know not of;
Contact daily and hourly that will not release me;
These selecting--these, in hints, demanded of me.

Not he, with a daily kiss, onward from childhood kissing me,
Has winded and twisted around me that which holds me to him,
Any more than I am held to the heavens, to the spiritual world,
And to the identities of the Gods, my lovers, faithful and true,
After what they have done to me, suggesting themes.

O such themes! Equalities!
O amazement of things! O divine average!
O warblings under the sun--usher'd, as now, or at noon, or setting!
O strain, musical, flowing through ages--now reaching hither!
I take to your reckless and composite chords--I add to them, and
cheerfully pass them forward.

As I have walk'd in Alabama my morning walk,
I have seen where the she-bird, the mocking-bird, sat on her nest in
the briers, hatching her brood.

I have seen the he-bird also;
I have paused to hear him, near at hand, inflating his throat, and
joyfully singing.

And while I paused, it came to me that what he really sang for was
not there only,
Nor for his mate, nor himself only, nor all sent back by the echoes;
But subtle, clandestine, away beyond,
A charge transmitted, and gift occult, for those being born.

Democracy!
Near at hand to you a throat is now inflating itself and joyfully
singing.

Ma femme!
For the brood beyond us and of us,
For those who belong here, and those to come,
I, exultant, to be ready for them, will now shake out carols stronger
and haughtier than have ever yet been heard upon earth.

I will make the songs of passion, to give them their way,
And your songs, outlaw'd offenders--for I scan you with kindred eyes,
and carry you with me the same as any.

I will make the true poem of riches,
To earn for the body and the mind whatever adheres, and goes forward,
and is not dropt by death.

I will effuse egotism, and show it underlying all--and I will be the
bard of personality;
And I will show of male and female that either is but the equal of
the other;
And sexual organs and acts! do you concentrate in me--for I am
determin'd to tell you with courageous clear voice, to prove
you illustrious;
And I will show that there is no imperfection in the present--and can
be none in the future;
And I will show that whatever happens to anybody, it may be turn'd to
beautiful results--and I will show that nothing can happen more
beautiful than death;
And I will thread a thread through my poems that time and events are
compact,
And that all the things of the universe are perfect miracles, each as
profound as any.

I will not make poems with reference to parts;
But I will make leaves, poems, poemets, songs, says, thoughts with
reference to ensemble:
And I will not sing with reference to a day, but with reference to
all days;
And I will not make a poem, nor the least part of a poem, but has
reference to the Soul;
(Because, having look'd at the objects of the universe, I find there
is no one, nor any particle of one, but has reference to the
Soul.)

Was somebody asking to see the Soul?
See! your own shape and countenance--persons, substances, beasts, the
trees, the running rivers, the rocks and sands.

All hold spiritual joys, and afterwards loosen them:
How can the real body ever die, and be buried?

Of your real body, and any man's or woman's real body,
Item for item, it will elude the hands of the corpse-cleaners, and
pass to fitting spheres,
Carrying what has accrued to it from the moment of birth to the
moment of death.

Not the types set up by the printer return their impression, the
meaning, the main concern,
Any more than a man's substance and life, or a woman's substance and
life, return in the body and the Soul,
Indifferently before death and after death.

Behold! the body includes and is the meaning, the main concern--and
includes and is the Soul;
Whoever you are! how superb and how divine is your body, or any part
of it.

Whoever you are! to you endless announcements.

Daughter of the lands, did you wait for your poet?
Did you wait for one with a flowing mouth and indicative hand?

Toward the male of The States, and toward the female of The States,
Live words--words to the lands.

O the lands! interlink'd, food-yielding lands!
Land of coal and iron! Land of gold! Lands of cotton, sugar, rice!
Land of wheat, beef, pork! Land of wool and hemp! Land of the apple
and grape!
Land of the pastoral plains, the grass-fields of the world! Land of
those sweet-air'd interminable plateaus!
Land of the herd, the garden, the healthy house of adobie!
Lands where the northwest Columbia winds, and where the southwest
Colorado winds!
Land of the eastern Chesapeake! Land of the Delaware!
Land of Ontario, Erie, Huron, Michigan!
Land of the Old Thirteen! Massachusetts land! Land of Vermont and
Connecticut!
Land of the ocean shores! Land of sierras and peaks!
Land of boatmen and sailors! Fishermen's land!
Inextricable lands! the clutch'd together! the passionate ones!
The side by side! the elder and younger brothers! the bony-limb'd!
The great women's land! the feminine! the experienced sisters and the
inexperienced sisters!
Far breath'd land! Arctic braced! Mexican breez'd! the diverse! the
compact!
The Pennsylvanian! the Virginian! the double Carolinian!
O all and each well-loved by me! my intrepid nations! O I at any rate
include you all with perfect love!
I cannot be discharged from you! not from one, any sooner than
another!
O Death! O for all that, I am yet of you, unseen, this hour, with
irrepressible love,
Walking New England, a friend, a traveler,
Splashing my bare feet in the edge of the summer ripples, on
Paumanok's sands,
Crossing the prairies--dwelling again in Chicago--dwelling in every
town,
Observing shows, births, improvements, structures, arts,
Listening to the orators and the oratresses in public halls,
Of and through The States, as during life--each man and woman my
neighbor,
The Louisianian, the Georgian, as near to me, and I as near to him
and her,
The Mississippian and Arkansian yet with me--and I yet with any of
them;
Yet upon the plains west of the spinal river--yet in my house of
adobie,
Yet returning eastward--yet in the Sea-Side State, or in Maryland,
Yet Kanadian, cheerily braving the winter--the snow and ice welcome
to me,
Yet a true son either of Maine, or of the Granite State, or of the
Narragansett Bay State, or of the Empire State;
Yet sailing to other shores to annex the same--yet welcoming every
new brother;
Hereby applying these leaves to the new ones, from the hour they
unite with the old ones;
Coming among the new ones myself, to be their companion and equal--
coming personally to you now;
Enjoining you to acts, characters, spectacles, with me.

With me, with firm holding--yet haste, haste on.

For your life, adhere to me!
Of all the men of the earth, I only can unloose you and toughen you;
I may have to be persuaded many times before I consent to give myself
really to you--but what of that?
Must not Nature be persuaded many times?

No dainty dolce affettuoso I;
Bearded, sun-burnt, gray-neck'd, forbidding, I have arrived,
To be wrestled with as I pass, for the solid prizes of the universe;
For such I afford whoever can persevere to win them.

On my way a moment I pause;
Here for you! and here for America!
Still the Present I raise aloft--Still the Future of The States I
harbinge, glad and sublime;
And for the Past, I pronounce what the air holds of the red
aborigines.

The red aborigines!
Leaving natural breaths, sounds of rain and winds, calls as of birds
and animals in the woods, syllabled to us for names;
Okonee, Koosa, Ottawa, Monongahela, Sauk, Natchez, Chattahoochee,
Kaqueta, Oronoco,
Wabash, Miami, Saginaw, Chippewa, Oshkosh, Walla-Walla;
Leaving such to The States, they melt, they depart, charging the
water and the land with names.

O expanding and swift! O henceforth,
Elements, breeds, adjustments, turbulent, quick, and audacious;
A world primal again--Vistas of glory, incessant and branching;
A new race, dominating previous ones, and grander far--with new
contests,
New politics, new literatures and religions, new inventions and arts.

These! my voice announcing--I will sleep no more, but arise;
You oceans that have been calm within me! how I feel you, fathomless,
stirring, preparing unprecedented waves and storms.

See! steamers steaming through my poems!
See, in my poems immigrants continually coming and landing;
See, in arriere, the wigwam, the trail, the hunter's hut, the
flatboat, the maize-leaf, the claim, the rude fence, and the
backwoods village;
See, on the one side the Western Sea, and on the other the Eastern
Sea, how they advance and retreat upon my poems, as upon their
own shores.

See, pastures and forests in my poems--See, animals, wild and tame--
See, beyond the Kanzas, 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, from the Western
Sea to Manhattan;
See, through Atlantica's depths, pulses American, Europe reaching--
pulses of Europe, duly return'd;
See, the strong and quick locomotive, as it departs, panting, blowing
the steam-whistle;
See, ploughmen, ploughing farms--See, miners, digging mines--See, the
numberless factories;
See, mechanics, busy at their benches, with tools--See from among
them, superior judges, philosophs, Presidents, emerge, drest in
working dresses;
See, lounging through the shops and fields of The States, me, well-
belov'd, close-held by day and night;
Hear the loud echoes of my songs there! Read the hints come at last.

O Camerado close!
O you and me at last--and us two only.

O a word to clear one's path ahead endlessly!
O something extatic and undemonstrable! O music wild!

O now I triumph--and you shall also;
O hand in hand--O wholesome pleasure--O one more desirer and lover!
O to haste, firm holding--to haste, haste on with me.

States!

States!
Were you looking to be held together by the lawyers?
By an agreement on a paper? Or by arms?

Away!
I arrive, bringing these, beyond all the forces of courts and arms,
These! to hold you together as firmly as the earth itself is held
together.

The old breath of life, ever new,
Here! I pass it by contact to you, America.

O mother! have you done much for me?
Behold, there shall from me be much done for you.

There shall from me be a new friendship--It shall be called after my
name,
It shall circulate through The States, indifferent of place,
It shall twist and intertwist them through and around each other--
Compact shall they be, showing new signs,
Affection shall solve every one of the problems of freedom,
Those who love each other shall be invincible,
They shall finally make America completely victorious, in my name.

One from Massachusetts shall be comrade to a Missourian,
One from Maine or Vermont, and a Carolinian and an Oregonese, shall
be friends triune, more precious to each other than all the
riches of the earth.

To Michigan shall be wafted perfume from Florida,
To the Mannahatta from Cuba or Mexico,
Not the perfume of flowers, but sweeter, and wafted beyond death.

No danger shall balk Columbia's lovers,
If need be, a thousand shall sternly immolate themselves for one,
The Kanuck shall be willing to lay down his life for the Kansian, and
the Kansian for the Kanuck, on due need.

It shall be customary in all directions, in the houses and streets,
to see manly affection,
The departing brother or friend shall salute the remaining brother or
friend with a kiss.

There shall be innovations,
There shall be countless linked hands--namely, the Northeasterner's,
and the Northwesterner's, and the Southwesterner's, and those
of the interior, and all their brood,
These shall be masters of the world under a new power,
They shall laugh to scorn the attacks of all the remainder of the
world.

The most dauntless and rude shall touch face to face lightly,
The dependence of Liberty shall be lovers,
The continuance of Equality shall be comrades.

These shall tie and band stronger than hoops of iron,
I, extatic, O partners! O lands! henceforth with the love of lovers
tie you.

Still, Though The One I Sing

Still, though the one I sing,
(One, yet of contradictions made,) I dedicate to Nationality,
I leave in him Revolt, (O latent right of insurrection! O quenchless,
indispensable fire!)

Tears

Tears! tears! tears!
In the night, in solitude, tears;
On the white shore dripping, dripping, suck'd in by the sand;
Tears--not a star shining--all dark and desolate;
Moist tears from the eyes of a muffled head:
--O who is that ghost?--that form in the dark, with tears?
What shapeless lump is that, bent, crouch'd there on the sand?
Streaming tears--sobbing tears--throes, choked with wild cries;
O storm, embodied, rising, careering, with swift steps along the
beach;
O wild and dismal night storm, with wind! O belching and
desperate!
O shade, so sedate and decorous by day, with calm countenance and
regulated pace;
But away, at night, as you fly, none looking--O then the unloosen'd
ocean,
Of tears! tears! tears!

Tests

All submit to them, where they sit, inner, secure, unapproachable to
analysis, in the Soul;
Not traditions--not the outer authorities are the judges--they are
the judges of outer authorities, and of all traditions;
They corroborate as they go, only whatever corroborates themselves,
and touches themselves;
For all that, they have it forever in themselves to corroborate far
and near, without one exception.

That Last Invocation

At the last, tenderly,
From the walls of the powerful, fortress'd house,
From the clasp of the knitted locks--from the keep of the well-closed
doors,
Let me be wafted.

Let me glide noiselessly forth;
With the key of softness unlock the locks--with a whisper,
Set ope the doors, O Soul!

Tenderly! be not impatient!
(Strong is your hold, O mortal flesh!
Strong is your hold, O love.)

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
day-break I hear,
A soprano, at intervals, sailing buoyantly over the tops of immense
waves,
A transparent bass, shuddering lusciously under and through the
universe,
The triumphant tutti--the funeral wailings, with sweet flutes and
violins--all these I fill myself with;
I hear not the volumes of sound merely--I am moved by the exquisite
meanings,
I listen to the different voices winding in and out, striving,
contending with fiery vehemence to excel each other in emotion;
I do not think the performers know themselves--but now I think I
begin to know them.

That Shadow, My Likeness

That shadow, my likeness, that goes to and fro, seeking a livelihood,
chattering, chaffering;
How often I find myself standing and looking at it where it flits;
How often I question and doubt whether that is really me;
--But in these, and among my lovers, and caroling my songs,
O I never doubt whether that is really me.

The Artilleryman's Vision

While my wife at my side lies slumbering, and the wars are over long,
And my head on the pillow rests at home, and the vacant midnight
passes,
And through the stillness, through the dark, I hear, just hear, the
breath of my infant,
There in the room, as I wake from sleep, this vision presses upon me:
The engagement opens there and then, in fantasy unreal;
The skirmishers begin--they crawl cautiously ahead--I hear the
irregular snap! snap!
I hear the sounds of the different missiles--the short t-h-t! t-h-t!
of the rifle balls;
I see the shells exploding, leaving small white clouds--I hear the
great shells shrieking as they pass;
The grape, like the hum and whirr of wind through the trees, (quick,
tumultuous, now the contest rages!)
All the scenes at the batteries themselves rise in detail before me
again;
The crashing and smoking--the pride of the men in their pieces;
The chief gunner ranges and sights his piece, and selects a fuse of
the right time;
After firing, I see him lean aside, and look eagerly off to note the
effect;
--Elsewhere I hear the cry of a regiment charging--(the young colonel
leads himself this time, with brandish'd sword;)
I see the gaps cut by the enemy's volleys, (quickly fill'd up, no
delay;)
I breathe the suffocating smoke--then the flat clouds hover low,
concealing all;
Now a strange lull comes for a few seconds, not a shot fired on
either side;
Then resumed, the chaos louder than ever, with eager calls, and
orders of officers;
While from some distant part of the field the wind wafts to my ears a
shout of applause, (some special success;)
And ever the sound of the cannon, far or near, (rousing, even in
dreams, a devilish exultation, and all the old mad joy, in the
depths of my soul;)
And ever the hastening of infantry shifting positions--batteries,
cavalry, moving hither and thither;
(The falling, dying, I heed not--the wounded, dripping and red, I
heed not--some to the rear are hobbling;)
Grime, heat, rush--aid-de-camps galloping by, or on a full run;
With the patter of small arms, the warning s-s-t of the rifles,
(these in my vision I hear or see,)
And bombs busting in air, and at night the vari-color'd rockets.

The Base Of All Metaphysics

And now, gentlemen,
A word I give to remain in your memories and minds,
As base, and finale too, for all metaphysics.

(So, to the students, the old professor,
At the close of his crowded course.)

Having studied the new and antique, the Greek and Germanic systems,
Kant having studied and stated--Fichte and Schelling and Hegel,
Stated the lore of Plato--and Socrates, greater than Plato,
And greater than Socrates sought and stated--Christ divine having
studied long,
I see reminiscent to-day those Greek and Germanic systems,
See the philosophies all--Christian churches and tenets see,
Yet underneath Socrates clearly see--and underneath Christ the divine
I see,
The dear love of man for his comrade--the attraction of friend to
friend,
Of the well-married husband and wife--of children and parents,
Of city for city, and land for land.

The Centerarian's Story

Give me your hand, old Revolutionary;
The hill-top is nigh--but a few steps, (make room, gentlemen;)
Up the path you have follow'd me well, spite of your hundred and
extra years;
You can walk, old man, though your eyes are almost done;
Your faculties serve you, and presently I must have them serve me.

Rest, while I tell what the crowd around us means;
On the plain below, recruits are drilling and exercising;
There is the camp--one regiment departs to-morrow;
Do you hear the officers giving the orders?
Do you hear the clank of the muskets?

Why, what comes over you now, old man?
Why do you tremble, and clutch my hand so convulsively?
The troops are but drilling--they are yet surrounded with smiles;
Around them, at hand, the well-drest friends, and the women;
While splendid and warm the afternoon sun shines down;
Green the midsummer verdure, and fresh blows the dallying breeze,
O'er proud and peaceful cities, and arm of the sea between.
But drill and parade are over--they march back to quarters;
Only hear that approval of hands! hear what a clapping!

As wending, the crowds now part and disperse--but we, old man,
Not for nothing have I brought you hither--we must remain;
You to speak in your turn, and I to listen and tell.

THE CENTENARIAN.

When I clutch'd your hand, it was not with terror;
But suddenly, pouring about me here, on every side,
And below there where the boys were drilling, and up the slopes they
ran,
And where tents are pitch'd, and wherever you see, south and south-
east and west
Over hills, across lowlands, and in the skirts of woods,
And along the shores, in mire (now fill'd over), came again, and
suddenly raged,
As eighty-five years agone, no mere parade receiv'd with applause of
friends,
But a battle, which I took part in myself--aye, long ago as it is, I
took part in it,
Walking then this hill-top, this same ground.

Aye, this is the ground;
My blind eyes, even as I speak, behold it re-peopled from graves;
The years recede, pavements and stately houses disappear;
Rude forts appear again, the old hoop'd guns are mounted;
I see the lines of rais'd earth stretching from river to bay;
I mark the vista of waters, I mark the uplands and slopes:
Here we lay encamp'd--it was this time in summer also.

As I talk, I remember all--I remember the Declaration;
It was read here--the whole army paraded--it was read to us here;
By his staff surrounded, the General stood in the middle--he held up
his unsheath'd sword,
It glitter'd in the sun in full sight of the army.

'Twas a bold act then;
The English war-ships had just arrived--the king had sent them from
over the sea;
We could watch down the lower bay where they lay at anchor,
And the transports, swarming with soldiers.

A few days more, and they landed--and then the battle.

Twenty thousand were brought against us,
A veteran force, furnish'd with good artillery.

I tell not now the whole of the battle;
But one brigade, early in the forenoon, order'd forward to engage the
red-coats;
Of that brigade I tell, and how steadily it march'd,
And how long and how well it stood, confronting death.

Who do you think that was, marching steadily, sternly confronting
death?
It was the brigade of the youngest men, two thousand strong,
Rais'd in Virginia and Maryland, and many of them known personally to
the General.

Jauntily forward they went with quick step toward Gowanus' waters;
Till of a sudden, unlook'd for, by defiles through the woods, gain'd
at night,
The British advancing, wedging in from the east, fiercely playing
their guns,
That brigade of the youngest was cut off, and at the enemy's
mercy.

The General watch'd them from this hill;
They made repeated desperate attempts to burst their environment;
Then drew close together, very compact, their flag flying in the
middle;
But O from the hills how the cannon were thinning and thinning them!

It sickens me yet, that slaughter!
I saw the moisture gather in drops on the face of the General;
I saw how he wrung his hands in anguish.

Meanwhile the British maneuver'd to draw us out for a pitch'd battle;
But we dared not trust the chances of a pitch'd battle.

We fought the fight in detachments;
Sallying forth, we fought at several points--but in each the luck was
against us;
Our foe advancing, steadily getting the best of it, push'd us back to
the works on this hill;
Till we turn'd, menacing, here, and then he left us.

That was the going out of the brigade of the youngest men, two
thousand strong;
Few return'd--nearly all remain in Brooklyn.

That, and here, my General's first battle;
No women looking on, nor sunshine to bask in--it did not conclude
with applause;
Nobody clapp'd hands here then.

But in darkness, in mist, on the ground, under a chill rain,
Wearied that night we lay, foil'd and sullen;
While scornfully laugh'd many an arrogant lord, off against us
encamp'd,
Quite within hearing, feasting, klinking wine-glasses together over
their victory.

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.

I saw him at the river-side,
Down by the ferry, lit by torches, hastening the embarcation;
My General waited till the soldiers and wounded were all pass'd over;
And then, (it was just ere sunrise,) these eyes rested on him for the
last time.

Every one else seem'd fill'd with gloom;
Many no doubt thought of capitulation.

But when my General pass'd me,
As he stood in his boat, and look'd toward the coming sun,
I saw something different from capitulation.

TERMINUS.

Enough--the Centenarian's story ends;
The two, the past and present, have interchanged;
I myself, as connecter, as chansonnier of a great future, am now
speaking.

And is this the ground Washington trod?
And these waters I listlessly daily cross, are these the waters he
cross'd,
As resolute in defeat, as other generals in their proudest
triumphs?

It is well--a lesson like that, always comes good;
I must copy the story, and send it eastward and westward;
I must preserve that look, as it beam'd on you, rivers of Brooklyn.

See! as the annual round returns, the phantoms return;
It is the 27th of August, and the British have landed;
The battle begins, and goes against us--behold! through the smoke,
Washington's face;
The brigade of Virginia and Maryland have march'd forth to intercept
the enemy;
They are cut off--murderous artillery from the hills plays upon them;
Rank after rank falls, while over them silently droops the flag,
Baptized that day in many a young man's bloody wounds,
In death, defeat, and sisters', mothers' tears.

Ah, hills and slopes of Brooklyn! I perceive you are more valuable
than your owners supposed;
Ah, river! henceforth you will be illumin'd to me at sunrise with
something besides the sun.

Encampments new! in the midst of you stands an encampment very old;
Stands forever the camp of the dead brigade.

The City Dead-House

By the City Dead-House, by the gate,
As idly sauntering, wending my way from the clangor,
I curious pause--for lo! an outcast form, a poor dead prostitute
brought;
Her corpse they deposit unclaim'd--it lies on the damp brick
pavement;
The divine woman, her body--I see the Body--I look on it alone,
That house once full of passion and beauty--all else I notice not;
Nor stillness so cold, nor running water from faucet, nor odors
morbific impress me;
But the house alone--that wondrous house--that delicate fair house--
that ruin!
That immortal house, more than all the rows of dwellings ever built!
Or white-domed Capitol itself, with majestic figure surmounted--or
all the old high-spired cathedrals;
That little house alone, more than them all--poor, desperate house!
Fair, fearful wreck! tenement of a Soul! itself a Soul!
Unclaim'd, avoided house! take one breath from my tremulous lips;
Take one tear, dropt aside as I go, for thought of you,
Dead house of love! house of madness and sin, crumbled! crush'd!
House of life--erewhile talking and laughing--but ah, poor house!
dead, even then;
Months, years, an echoing, garnish'd house--but dead, dead, dead.

The Dalliance Of The Eagles

Skirting the river road, (my forenoon walk, my rest,)
Skyward in air a sudden muffled sound, the dalliance of the eagles,
The rushing amorous contact high in space together,
The clinching interlocking claws, a living, fierce, gyrating wheel,
Four beating wings, two beaks, a swirling mass tight grappling,
In tumbling turning clustering loops, straight downward falling,
Till o'er the river pois'd, the twain yet one, a moment's lull,
A motionless still balance in the air, then parting, talons loosing,
Upward again on slow-firm pinions slanting, their separate diverse
flight,
She hers, he his, pursuing.

The Dresser

An old man bending, I come, among new faces,
Years looking backward, resuming, in answer to children,
Come tell us, old man, as from young men and maidens that love me;
Years hence of these scenes, of these furious passions, these
chances,
Of unsurpass'd heroes, (was one side so brave? the other was equally
brave;)
Now be witness again--paint the mightiest armies of earth;
Of those armies so rapid, so wondrous, what saw you to tell us?
What stays with you latest and deepest? of curious panics,
Of hard-fought engagements, or sieges tremendous, what deepest
remains?
O maidens and young men I love, and that love me,
What you ask of my days, those the strangest and sudden your talking
recalls;
Soldier alert I arrive, after a long march, cover'd with sweat and
dust;
In the nick of time I come, plunge in the fight, loudly shout in the
rush of successful charge;
Enter the captur'd works.... yet lo! like a swift-running river, they
fade;
Pass and are gone, they fade--I dwell not on soldiers' perils or
soldiers' joys;
(Both I remember well--many the hardships, few the joys, yet I was
content.)
But in silence, in dreams' projections,
While the world of gain and appearance and mirth goes on,
So soon what is over forgotten, and waves wash the imprints off the
sand,
In nature's reverie sad, with hinged knees returning, I enter the
doors--(while for you up there,
Whoever you are, follow me without noise, and be of strong heart.)

Bearing the bandages, water and sponge,
Straight and swift to my wounded I go,
Where they lie on the ground, after the battle brought in;
Where their priceless blood reddens the grass, the ground;
Or to the rows of the hospital tent, or under the roof'd hospital;
To the long rows of cots, up and down, each side, I return;
To each and all, one after another, I draw near--not one do I miss;
An attendant follows, holding a tray--he carries a refuse pail,
Soon to be fill'd with clotted rags and blood, emptied and fill'd
again.

I onward go, I stop,
With hinged knees and steady hand, to dress wounds;
I am firm with each--the pangs are sharp, yet unavoidable;
One turns to me his appealing eyes--(poor boy! I never knew you,
Yet I think I could not refuse this moment to die for you, if that
would save you.)

On, on I go!--(open doors of time! open hospital doors!)
The crush'd head I dress, (poor crazed hand, tear not the bandage
away;)
The neck of the cavalry-man, with the bullet through and through, I
examine;
Hard the breathing rattles, quite glazed already the eye, yet life
struggles hard;
(Come, sweet death! be persuaded, O beautiful death!
In mercy come quickly.)

From the stump of the arm, the amputated hand,
I undo the clotted lint, remove the slough, wash off the matter and
blood;
Back on his pillow the soldier bends, with curv'd neck, and side-
falling head;
His eyes are closed, his face is pale, (he dares not look on the
bloody stump,
And has not yet look'd on it.)

I dress a wound in the side, deep, deep;
But a day or two more--for see, the frame all wasted already, and
sinking,
And the yellow-blue countenance see.

I dress the perforated shoulder, the foot with the bullet wound,
Cleanse the one with a gnawing and putrid gangrene, so sickening, so
offensive,
While the attendant stands behind aside me, holding the tray and
pail.

I am faithful, I do not give out;
The fractur'd thigh, the knee, the wound in the abdomen,
These and more I dress with impassive hand--(yet deep in my breast a
fire, a burning flame.)

Thus in silence, in dreams' projections,
Returning, resuming, I thread my way through the hospitals;
The hurt and wounded I pacify with soothing hand,
I sit by the restless all the dark night--some are so young;
Some suffer so much--I recall the experience sweet and sad;
(Many a soldier's loving arms about this neck have cross'd and
rested,
Many a soldier's kiss dwells on these bearded lips.)

The Indications

The indications, and tally of time;
Perfect sanity shows the master among philosophs;
Time, always without flaw, indicates itself in parts;
What always indicates the poet, is the crowd of the pleasant company
of singers, and their words;
The words of the singers are the hours or minutes of the light or
dark--but the words of the maker of poems are the general light
and dark;
The maker of poems settles justice, reality, immortality,
His insight and power encircle things and the human race,
He is the glory and extract thus far, of things, and of the human
race.

The singers do not beget--only the POET begets;
The singers are welcom'd, understood, appear often enough--but rare
has the day been, likewise the spot, of the birth of the maker
of poems, the Answerer,
(Not every century, or every five centuries, has contain'd such a
day, for all its names.)

The singers of successive hours of centuries may have ostensible
names, but the name of each of them is one of the singers,
The name of each is, eye-singer, ear-singer, head-singer, sweet-
singer, echo-singer, parlor-singer, love-singer, or something
else.

All this time, and at all times, wait the words of true poems;
The words of true poems do not merely please,
The true poets are not followers of beauty, but the august masters of
beauty;
The greatness of sons is the exuding of the greatness of mothers and
fathers,
The words of poems are the tuft and final applause of science.

Divine instinct, breadth of vision, the law of reason, health,
rudeness of body, withdrawnness,
Gayety, sun-tan, air-sweetness--such are some of the words of
poems.

The sailor and traveler underlie the maker of poems, the answerer;
The builder, geometer, chemist, anatomist, phrenologist, artist--all
these underlie the maker of poems, the answerer.

The words of the true poems give you more than poems,
They give you to form for yourself, poems, religions, politics, war,
peace, behavior, histories, essays, romances, and everything
else,
They balance ranks, colors, races, creeds, and the sexes,
They do not seek beauty--they are sought,
Forever touching them, or close upon them, follows beauty, longing,
fain, love-sick.

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.

The Mystic Trumpeter

Hark! some wild trumpeter--some strange musician,
Hovering unseen in air, vibrates capricious tunes to-night.

I hear thee, trumpeter--listening, alert, I catch thy notes,
Now pouring, whirling like a tempest round me,
Now low, subdued--now in the distance lost.

Come nearer, bodiless one--haply, in thee resounds
Some dead composer--haply thy pensive life
Was fill'd with aspirations high--unform'd ideals,
Waves, oceans musical, chaotically surging,
That now, ecstatic ghost, close to me bending, thy cornet echoing,
pealing,
Gives out to no one's ears but mine--but freely gives to mine,
That I may thee translate.

Blow, trumpeter, free and clear--I follow thee,
While at thy liquid prelude, glad, serene,
The fretting world, the streets, the noisy hours of day, withdraw;
A holy calm descends, like dew, upon me,
I walk, in cool refreshing night, the walks of Paradise,
I scent the grass, the moist air, and the roses;
Thy song expands my numb'd, imbonded spirit--thou freest, launchest
me,
Floating and basking upon Heaven's lake.

Blow again, trumpeter! and for my sensuous eyes,
Bring the old pageants--show the feudal world.

What charm thy music works!--thou makest pass before me,
Ladies and cavaliers long dead--barons are in their castle halls--the
troubadours are singing;
Arm'd knights go forth to redress wrongs--some in quest of the Holy
Grail:
I see the tournament--I see the contestants, encased in heavy armor,
seated on stately, champing horses;
I hear the shouts--the sounds of blows and smiting steel:
I see the Crusaders' tumultuous armies--Hark! how the cymbals clang!
Lo! where the monks walk in advance, bearing the cross on high!

Blow again, trumpeter! and for thy theme,
Take now the enclosing theme of all--the solvent and the setting;
Love, that is pulse of all--the sustenace and the pang;
The heart of man and woman all for love;
No other theme but love--knitting, enclosing, all-diffusing love.

O, how the immortal phantoms crowd around me!
I see the vast alembic ever working--I see and know the flames that
heat the world;
The glow, the blush, the beating hearts of lovers,
So blissful happy some--and some so silent, dark, and nigh to death:
Love, that is all the earth to lovers--Love, that mocks time and
space;
Love, that is day and night--Love, that is sun and moon and stars;
Love, that is crimson, sumptuous, sick with perfume;
No other words, but words of love--no other thought but Love.

Blow again, trumpeter--conjure war's Wild alarums.
Swift to thy spell, a shuddering hum like distant thunder rolls;
Lo! where the arm'd men hasten--Lo! mid the clouds of dust, the glint
of bayonets;
I see the grime-faced cannoniers--I mark the rosy flash amid the
smoke--I hear the cracking of the guns:
--Nor war alone--thy fearful music-song, wild player, brings every
sight of fear,
The deeds of ruthless brigands--rapine, murder--I hear the cries for
help!
I see ships foundering at sea--I behold on deck, and below deck, the
terrible tableaux.

O trumpeter! methinks I am myself the instrument thou playest!
Thou melt'st my heart, my brain--thou movest, drawest, changest them,
at will:
And now thy sullen notes send darkness through me;
Thou takest away all cheering light--all hope:
I see the enslaved, the overthrown, the hurt, the opprest of the
whole earth;
I feel the measureless shame and humiliation of my race--it becomes
all mine;
Mine too the revenges of humanity--the wrongs of ages--baffled feuds
and hatreds;
Utter defeat upon me weighs--all lost! the foe victorious!
(Yet 'mid the ruins Pride colossal stands, unshaken to the last;
Endurance, resolution, to the last.)

Now, trumpeter, for thy close,
Vouchsafe a higher strain than any yet;
Sing to my soul--renew its languishing faith and hope;
Rouse up my slow belief--give me some vision of the future;
Give me, for once, its prophecy and joy.

O glad, exulting, culminating song!
A vigor more than earth's is in thy notes!
Marches of victory--man disenthrall'd--the conqueror at last!
Hymns to the universal God, from universal Man--all joy!
A reborn race appears--a perfect World, all joy!
Women and Men, in wisdom, innocence and health--all joy!
Riotous, laughing bacchanals, fill'd with joy!

War, sorrow, suffering gone--The rank earth purged--nothing but joy
left!
The ocean fill'd with joy--the atmosphere all joy!
Joy! Joy! in freedom, worship, love! Joy in the ecstacy of life!
Enough to merely be! Enough to breathe!
Joy! Joy! all over Joy!

The Ox Tamer

In a faraway northern county, in the placid, pastoral region,
Lives my farmer friend, the theme of my recitative, a famous Tamer of
Oxen:
There they bring him the three-year-olds and the four-year-olds, to
break them;
He will take the wildest steer in the world, and break him and tame
him;
He will go, fearless, without any whip, where the young bullock
chafes up and down the yard;
The bullock's head tosses restless high in the air, with raging eyes;
Yet, see you! how soon his rage subsides--how soon this Tamer tames
him:
See you! on the farms hereabout, a hundred oxen, young and old--and
he is the man who has tamed them;
They all know him--all are affectionate to him;
See you! some are such beautiful animals--so lofty looking!
Some are buff color'd--some mottled--one has a white line running
along his back--some are brindled,
Some have wide flaring horns (a good sign)--See you! the bright
hides;
See, the two with stars on their foreheads--See, the round bodies and
broad backs;
See, how straight and square they stand on their legs--See, what
fine, sagacious eyes;
See, how they watch their Tamer--they wish him near them--how they
turn to look after him!
What yearning expression! how uneasy they are when he moves away from
them:
--Now I marvel what it can be he appears to them, (books, politics,
poems depart--all else departs;)
I confess I envy only his fascination--my silent, illiterate friend,
Whom a hundred oxen love, there in his life on farms,
In the northern county far, in the placid, pastoral region.

The Prairie States

A newer garden of creation, no primal solitude,
Dense, joyous, modern, populous millions, cities and farms,
With iron interlaced, composite, tied, many in one,
By all the world contributed--freedom's and law's and thrift's
society,
The crown and teeming paradise, so far, of time's accumulations,
To justify the past.

The Prairie-Grass Dividing

The prairie-grass dividing--its special odor breathing,
I demand of it the spiritual corresponding,
Demand the most copious and close companionship of men,
Demand the blades to rise of words, acts, beings,
Those of the open atmosphere, coarse, sunlit, fresh, nutritious,
Those that go their own gait, erect, stepping with freedom and
command--leading, not following,
Those with a never-quell'd audacity--those with sweet and lusty
flesh, clear of taint,
Those that look carelessly in the faces of Presidents and Governors,
as to say, Who are you?
Those of earth-born passion, simple, never-constrain'd, never
obedient,
Those of inland America.

The Runner

On a flat road runs the well-train'd runner;
He is lean and sinewy, with muscular legs;
He is thinly clothed--he leans forward as he runs,
With lightly closed fists, and arms partially rais'd.

The Ship Starting

Lo! The unbounded sea!
On its breast a Ship starting, spreading all her sails--an ample
Ship, carrying even her moonsails;
The pennant is flying aloft, as she speeds, she speeds so stately--
below, emulous waves press forward,
They surround the Ship, with shining curving motions, and foam.

The Singer In The Prison

O sight of shame, and pain, and dole!
O fearful thought--a convict Soul!

RANG the refrain along the hall, the prison,
Rose to the roof, the vaults of heaven above,
Pouring in floods of melody, in tones so pensive, sweet and strong,
the like whereof was never heard,
Reaching the far-off sentry, and the armed guards, who ceas'd their
pacing,
Making the hearer's pulses stop for extasy and awe.

O sight of pity, gloom, and dole!
O pardon me, a hapless Soul!

The sun was low in the west one winter day,
When down a narrow aisle, amid the thieves and outlaws of the land,
(There by the hundreds seated, sear-faced murderers, wily
counterfeiters,
Gather'd to Sunday church in prison walls--the keepers round,
Plenteous, well-arm'd, watching, with vigilant eyes,)
All that dark, cankerous blotch, a nation's criminal mass,
Calmly a Lady walk'd, holding a little innocent child by either hand,
Whom, seating on their stools beside her on the platform,
She, first preluding with the instrument, a low and musical prelude,
In voice surpassing all, sang forth a quaint old hymn.

THE HYMN.

A Soul, confined by bars and bands,
Cries, Help! O help! and wrings her hands;
Blinded her eyes--bleeding her breast,
Nor pardon finds, nor balm of rest.

O sight of shame, and pain, and dole!
O fearful thought--a convict Soul!

Ceaseless, she paces to and fro;
O heart-sick days! O nights of wo!
Nor hand of friend, nor loving face;
Nor favor comes, nor word of grace.

O sight of pity, gloom, and dole!
O pardon me, a hapless Soul!

It was not I that sinn'd the sin,
The ruthless Body dragg'd me in;
Though long I strove courageously,
The Body was too much for me.

O Life! no life, but bitter dole!
O burning, beaten, baffled Soul!
(Dear prison'd Soul, bear up a space,
For soon or late the certain grace;
To set thee free, and bear thee home,
The Heavenly Pardoner, Death shall come.

Convict no more--nor shame, nor dole!
Depart! a God-enfranchis'd Soul!)

The singer ceas'd;
One glance swept from her clear, calm eyes, o'er all those upturn'd
faces;
Strange sea of prison faces--a thousand varied, crafty, brutal,
seam'd and beauteous faces;
Then rising, passing back along the narrow aisle between them,
While her gown touch'd them, rustling in the silence,
She vanish'd with her children in the dusk.

While upon all, convicts and armed keepers, ere they stirr'd,
(Convict forgetting prison, keeper his loaded pistol,)
A hush and pause fell down, a wondrous minute,
With deep, half-stifled sobs, and sound of bad men bow'd, and moved
to weeping,
And youth's convulsive breathings, memories of home,
The mother's voice in lullaby, the sister's care, the happy
childhood,
The long-pent spirit rous'd to reminiscence;
--A wondrous minute then--But after, in the solitary night, to many,
many there,
Years after--even in the hour of death--the sad refrain--the tune,
the voice, the words,
Resumed--the large, calm Lady walks the narrow aisle,
The wailing melody again--the singer in the prison sings:

O sight of shame, and pain, and dole!
O fearful thought--a convict Soul!

The Sleepers

I wander all night in my vision,
Stepping with light feet, swiftly and noiselessly stepping and
stopping,
Bending with open eyes over the shut eyes of sleepers,
Wandering and confused, lost to myself, ill-assorted, contradictory,
Pausing, gazing, bending, and stopping.

How solemn they look there, stretch'd and still!
How quiet they breathe, the little children in their cradles!

The wretched features of ennuy�s, the white features of
corpses, the livid faces of drunkards, the sick-gray faces of
onanists,
The gash'd bodies on battle-fields, the insane in their strong-door'd
rooms, the sacred idiots, the new-born emerging from gates, and
the dying emerging from gates,
The night pervades them and infolds them.

The married couple sleep calmly in their bed--he with his palm on the
hip of the wife, and she with her palm on the hip of the
husband,
The sisters sleep lovingly side by side in their bed,
The men sleep lovingly side by side in theirs,
And the mother sleeps, with her little child carefully wrapt.

The blind sleep, and the deaf and dumb sleep,
The prisoner sleeps well in the prison--the run-away son sleeps;
The murderer that is to be hung next day--how does he sleep?
And the murder'd person--how does he sleep?

The female that loves unrequited sleeps,
And the male that loves unrequited sleeps,
The head of the money-maker that plotted all day sleeps,
And the enraged and treacherous dispositions--all, all sleep.

I stand in the dark with drooping eyes by the worst-suffering and the
most restless,
I pass my hands soothingly to and fro a few inches from them,
The restless sink in their beds--they fitfully sleep.

Now I pierce the darkness--new beings appear,
The earth recedes from me into the night,
I saw that it was beautiful, and I see that what is not the earth is
beautiful.

I go from bedside to bedside--I sleep close with the other sleepers,
each in turn,
I dream in my dream all the dreams of the other dreamers,
And I become the other dreamers.

I am a dance--Play up, there! the fit is whirling me fast!
I am the ever-laughing--it is new moon and twilight,
I see the hiding of douceurs--I see nimble ghosts whichever way I
look,
Cache, and cache again, deep in the ground and sea, and where it is
neither ground or sea.

Well do they do their jobs, those journeymen divine,
Only from me can they hide nothing, and would not if they could,
I reckon I am their boss, and they make me a pet besides,
And surround me and lead me, and run ahead when I walk,
To lift their cunning covers, to signify me with stretch'd arms, and
resume the way;
Onward we move! a gay gang of blackguards! with mirth-shouting music,
and wild-flapping pennants of joy!

I am the actor, the actress, the voter, the politician;
The emigrant and the exile, the criminal that stood in the box,
He who has been famous, and he who shall be famous after to-day,
The stammerer, the well-form'd person, the wasted or feeble person.

I am she who adorn'd herself and folded her hair expectantly,
My truant lover has come, and it is dark.

Double yourself and receive me, darkness!
Receive me and my lover too--he will not let me go without him.

I roll myself upon you, as upon a bed--I resign myself to the
dusk.

He whom I call answers me, and takes the place of my lover,
He rises with me silently from the bed.

Darkness! you are gentler than my lover--his flesh was sweaty and
panting,
I feel the hot moisture yet that he left me.

My hands are spread forth, I pass them in all directions,
I would sound up the shadowy shore to which you are journeying.

Be careful, darkness! already, what was it touch'd me?
I thought my lover had gone, else darkness and he are one,
I hear the heart-beat--I follow, I fade away.

O hot-cheek'd and blushing! O foolish hectic!
O for pity's sake, no one must see me now! my clothes were stolen
while I was abed,
Now I am thrust forth, where shall I run?

Pier that I saw dimly last night, when I look'd from the windows!
Pier out from the main, let me catch myself with you, and stay--I
will not chafe you,
I feel ashamed to go naked about the world.

I am curious to know where my feet stand--and what this is flooding
me, childhood or manhood--and the hunger that crosses the
bridge between.

The cloth laps a first sweet eating and drinking,
Laps life-swelling yolks--laps ear of rose-corn, milky and just
ripen'd;
The white teeth stay, and the boss-tooth advances in darkness,
And liquor is spill'd on lips and bosoms by touching glasses, and the
best liquor afterward.

I descend my western course, my sinews are flaccid,
Perfume and youth course through me, and I am their wake.

It is my face yellow and wrinkled, instead of the old woman's,
I sit low in a straw-bottom chair, and carefully darn my grandson's
stockings.

It is I too, the sleepless widow, looking out on the winter midnight,
I see the sparkles of starshine on the icy and pallid earth.

A shroud I see, and I am the shroud--I wrap a body, and lie in the
coffin,
It is dark here under ground--it is not evil or pain here--it is
blank here, for reasons.

It seems to me that everything in the light and air ought to be
happy,
Whoever is not in his coffin and the dark grave, let him know he has
enough.

I see a beautiful gigantic swimmer, swimming naked through the eddies
of the sea,
His brown hair lies close and even to his head--he strikes out with
courageous arms--he urges himself with his legs,
I see his white body--I see his undaunted eyes,
I hate the swift-running eddies that would dash him head-foremost on
the rocks.

What are you doing, you ruffianly red-trickled waves?
Will you kill the courageous giant? Will you kill him in the prime of
his middle age?

Steady and long he struggles,
He is baffled, bang'd, bruis'd--he holds out while his strength holds
out,
The slapping eddies are spotted with his blood--they bear him away--
they roll him, swing him, turn him,
His beautiful body is borne in the circling eddies, it is continually
bruis'd on rocks,
Swiftly and out of sight is borne the brave corpse.

I turn, but do not extricate myself,
Confused, a past-reading, another, but with darkness yet.

The beach is cut by the razory ice-wind--the wreck-guns sound,
The tempest lulls--the moon comes floundering through the drifts.

I look where the ship helplessly heads end on--I hear the burst as
she strikes--I hear the howls of dismay--they grow fainter and
fainter.

I cannot aid with my wringing fingers,
I can but rush to the surf, and let it drench me and freeze upon me.

I search with the crowd--not one of the company is wash'd to us
alive;
In the morning I help pick up the dead and lay them in rows in a
barn.

Now of the older war-days, the defeat at Brooklyn,
Washington stands inside the lines--he stands on the intrench'd
hills, amid a crowd of officers,
His face is cold and damp--he cannot repress the weeping drops,
He lifts the glass perpetually to his eyes--the color is blanch'd
from his cheeks,
He sees the slaughter of the southern braves confided to him by their
parents.

The same, at last and at last, when peace is declared,
He stands in the room of the old tavern--the well-belov'd soldiers
all pass through,
The officers speechless and slow draw near in their turns,
The chief encircles their necks with his arm, and kisses them on the
cheek,
He kisses lightly the wet cheeks one after another--he shakes hands,
and bids good-by to the army.

Now I tell what my mother told me to-day as we sat at dinner
together,
Of when she was a nearly grown girl, living home with her parents on
the old homestead.

A red squaw came one breakfast time to the old homestead,
On her back she carried a bundle of rushes for rush-bottoming chairs,
Her hair, straight, shiny, coarse, black, profuse, half-envelop'd her
face,
Her step was free and elastic, and her voice sounded exquisitely as
she spoke.

My mother look'd in delight and amazement at the stranger,
She look'd at the freshness of her tall-borne face, and full and
pliant limbs,
The more she look'd upon her, she loved her,
Never before had she seen such wonderful beauty and purity,
She made her sit on a bench by the jamb of the fireplace--she cook'd
food for her,
She had no work to give her, but she gave her remembrance and
fondness.

The red squaw staid all the forenoon, and toward the middle of the
afternoon she went away,
O my mother was loth to have her go away!
All the week she thought of her--she watch'd for her many a month,
She remember'd her many a winter and many a summer,
But the red squaw never came, nor was heard of there again.

Now Lucifer was not dead--or if he was, I am his sorrowful terrible
heir;
I have been wrong'd--I am oppress'd--I hate him that oppresses me,
I will either destroy him, or he shall release me.

Damn him! how he does defile me!
How he informs against my brother and sister, and takes pay for their
blood!
How he laughs when I look down the bend, after the steamboat that
carries away my woman!

Now the vast dusk bulk that is the whale's bulk, it seems mine;
Warily, sportsman! though I lie so sleepy and sluggish, the tap of my
flukes is death.

A show of the summer softness! a contact of something unseen! an
amour of the light and air!
I am jealous, and overwhelm'd with friendliness,
And will go gallivant with the light and air myself,
And have an unseen something to be in contact with them also.

O love and summer! you are in the dreams, and in me!
Autumn and winter are in the dreams--the farmer goes with his thrift,
The droves and crops increase, and the barns are well-fill'd.

Elements merge in the night--ships make tacks in the dreams,
The sailor sails--the exile returns home,
The fugitive returns unharm'd--the immigrant is back beyond months
and years,
The poor Irishman lives in the simple house of his childhood, with
the well-known neighbors and faces,
They warmly welcome him--he is barefoot again, he forgets he is well
off;
The Dutchman voyages home, and the Scotchman and Welshman voyage
home, and the native of the Mediterranean voyages home,
To every port of England, France, Spain, enter well-fill'd ships,
The Swiss foots it toward his hills--the Prussian goes his way, the
Hungarian his way, and the Pole his way,
The Swede returns, and the Dane and Norwegian return.

The homeward bound, and the outward bound,
The beautiful lost swimmer, the ennuy�, the onanist, the
female that loves unrequited, the pony-maker,
The actor and actress, those through with their parts, and those
waiting to commence,
The affectionate boy, the husband and wife, the voter, the nominee
that is chosen, and the nominee that has fail'd,
The great already known, and the great any time after to-day,
The stammerer, the sick, the perfect-form'd, the homely,
The criminal that stood in the box, the judge that sat and sentenced
him, the fluent lawyers, the jury, the audience,
The laugher and weeper, the dancer, the midnight widow, the red
squaw,
The consumptive, the erysipelite, the idiot, he that is wrong'd,
The antipodes, and every one between this and them in the dark,
I swear they are averaged now--one is no better than the other,
The night and sleep have liken'd them and restored them.

I swear they are all beautiful;
Every one that sleeps is beautiful--everything in the dim light is
beautiful,
The wildest and bloodiest is over, and all is peace.

Peace is always beautiful, The myth of heaven indicates peace and
night.

The myth of heaven indicates the Soul;
The Soul is always beautiful--it appears more or it appears less--it
comes, or it lags behind,
It comes from its embower'd garden, and looks pleasantly on itself,
and encloses the world,
Perfect and clean the genitals previously jetting, and perfect and
clean the womb cohering,
The head well-grown, proportion'd and plumb, and the bowels and
joints proportion'd and plumb.

The Soul is always beautiful,
The universe is duly in order, everything is in its place,
What has arrived is in its place, and what waits is in its place;
The twisted skull waits, the watery or rotten blood waits,
The child of the glutton or venerealee waits long, and the child of
the drunkard waits long, and the drunkard himself waits long,
The sleepers that lived and died wait--the far advanced are to go on
in their turns, and the far behind are to come on in their
turns,
The diverse shall be no less diverse, but they shall flow and unite--
they unite now.

The sleepers are very beautiful as they lie unclothed,
They flow hand in hand over the whole earth, from east to west, as
they lie unclothed,
The Asiatic and African are hand in hand--the European and American
are hand in hand,
Learn'd and unlearn'd are hand in hand, and male and female are hand
in hand,
The bare arm of the girl crosses the bare breast of her lover--they
press close without lust--his lips press her neck,
The father holds his grown or ungrown son in his arms with
measureless love, and the son holds the father in his arms with
measureless love,
The white hair of the mother shines on the white wrist of the
daughter,
The breath of the boy goes with the breath of the man, friend is
inarm'd by friend,
The scholar kisses the teacher, and the teacher kisses the scholar--
the wrong'd is made right,
The call of the slave is one with the master's call, and the master
salutes the slave,
The felon steps forth from the prison--the insane becomes sane--the
suffering of sick persons is reliev'd,
The sweatings and fevers stop--the throat that was unsound is sound--
the lungs of the consumptive are resumed--the poor distress'd
head is free,
The joints of the rheumatic move as smoothly as ever, and smoother
than ever,
Stiflings and passages open--the paralyzed become supple,
The swell'd and convuls'd and congested awake to themselves in
condition,
They pass the invigoration of the night, and the chemistry of the
night, and awake.

I too pass from the night,
I stay a while away, O night, but I return to you again, and love
you.

Why should I be afraid to trust myself to you?
I am not afraid--I have been well brought forward by you;
I love the rich running day, but I do not desert her in whom I lay so
long,
I know not how I came of you, and I know not where I go with you--but
I know I came well, and shall go well.

I will stop only a time with the night, and rise betimes;
I will duly pass the day, O my mother, and duly return to you.

The Sobbing Of The Bells

The sobbing of the bells, the sudden death-news everywhere,
The slumberers rouse, the rapport of the People,
(Full well they know that message in the darkness,
Full well return, respond within their breasts, their brains, the sad
reverberations,)
The passionate toll and clang--city to city, joining, sounding,
passing,
Those heart-beats of a Nation in the night.

The Torch

On my northwest coast in the midst of the night, a fishermen's group
stands watching;
Out on the lake, that expands before them, others are spearing
salmon;
The canoe, a dim shadowy thing, moves across the black water,
Bearing a Torch a-blaze at the prow.

The Untold Want

The untold want, by life and land ne'er granted,
Now, Voyager, sail thou forth, to seek and find.

The World Below The Brine

The world below the brine;
Forests at the bottom of the sea--the branches and leaves,
Sea-lettuce, vast lichens, strange flowers and seeds--the thick
tangle, the openings, and the pink turf,
Different colors, pale gray and green, purple, white, and gold--the
play of light through the water,
Dumb swimmers there among the rocks--coral, gluten, grass, rushes--
and the aliment of the swimmers,
Sluggish existences grazing there, suspended, or slowly crawling
close to the bottom,
The sperm-whale at the surface, blowing air and spray, or disporting
with his flukes,
The leaden-eyed shark, the walrus, the turtle, the hairy sea-leopard,
and the sting-ray;
Passions there--wars, pursuits, tribes--sight in those ocean-depths--
breathing that thick-breathing air, as so many do;
The change thence to the sight here, and to the subtle air breathed
by beings like us, who walk this sphere;
The change onward from ours, to that of beings who walk other
spheres.

There Was A Child Went Forth

There was a child went forth every day;
And the first object he look'd upon, that object he became;
And that object became part of him for the day, or a certain part of
the day, or for many years, or stretching cycles of years.

The early lilacs became part of this child,
And grass, and white and red morning-glories, and white and red
clover, and the song of the phoebe-bird,
And the Third-month lambs, and the sow's pink-faint litter, and the
mare's foal, and the cow's calf,
And the noisy brood of the barn-yard, or by the mire of the pond-
side,
And the fish suspending themselves so curiously below there--and the
beautiful curious liquid,
And the water-plants with their graceful flat heads--all became part
of him.

The field-sprouts of Fourth-month and Fifth-month became part of
him;
Winter-grain sprouts, and those of the light-yellow corn, and the
esculent roots of the garden,
And the apple-trees cover'd with blossoms, and the fruit afterward,
and wood-berries, and the commonest weeds by the road;
And the old drunkard staggering home from the out-house of the
tavern, whence he had lately risen,
And the school-mistress that pass'd on her way to the school,
And the friendly boys that pass'd--and the quarrelsome boys,
And the tidy and fresh-cheek'd girls--and the barefoot negro boy and
girl,
And all the changes of city and country, wherever he went.

His own parents,
He that had father'd him, and she that had conceiv'd him in her womb,
and birth'd him,
They gave this child more of themselves than that;
They gave him afterward every day--they became part of him.

The mother at home, quietly placing the dishes on the supper-table;
The mother with mild words--clean her cap and gown, a wholesome odor
falling off her person and clothes as she walks by;
The father, strong, self-sufficient, manly, mean, anger'd, unjust;
The blow, the quick loud word, the tight bargain, the crafty lure,
The family usages, the language, the company, the furniture--the
yearning and swelling heart,
Affection that will not be gainsay'd--the sense of what is real--the
thought if, after all, it should prove unreal,
The doubts of day-time and the doubts of night-time--the curious
whether and how,
Whether that which appears so is so, or is it all flashes and specks?
Men and women crowding fast in the streets--if they are not flashes
and specks, what are they?
The streets themselves, and the fa�ades of houses, and goods in the
windows,
Vehicles, teams, the heavy-plank'd wharves--the huge crossing at the
ferries,
The village on the highland, seen from afar at sunset--the river
between,
Shadows, aureola and mist, the light falling on roofs and gables of
white or brown, three miles off,
The schooner near by, sleepily dropping down the tide--the little
boat slack-tow'd astern,
The hurrying tumbling waves, quick-broken crests, slapping,
The strata of color'd clouds, the long bar of maroon-tint, away
solitary by itself--the spread of purity it lies motionless in,
The horizon's edge, the flying sea-crow, the fragrance of salt marsh
and shore mud;
These became part of that child who went forth every day, and who now
goes, and will always go forth every day.

These Carols

These Carols, sung to cheer my passage through the world I see,
For completion, I dedicate to the Invisible World.

These, I, Singing In Spring

These, I, singing in spring, collect for lovers,
(For who but I should understand lovers, and all their sorrow and
joy?
And who but I should be the poet of comrades?)
Collecting, I traverse the garden, the world--but soon I pass the
gates,
Now along the pond-side--now wading in a little, fearing not the wet,
Now by the post-and-rail fences, where the old stones thrown there,
pick'd from the fields, have accumulated,
(Wild-flowers and vines and weeds come up through the stones, and
partly cover them--Beyond these I pass,)
Far, far in the forest, before I think where I go,
Solitary, smelling the earthy smell, stopping now and then in the
silence,
Alone I had thought--yet soon a troop gathers around me,
Some walk by my side, and some behind, and some embrace my arms or
neck,
They, the spirits of dear friends, dead or alive--thicker they come,
a great crowd, and I in the middle,
Collecting, dispensing, singing in spring, there I wander with them,
Plucking something for tokens--tossing toward whoever is near me;
Here! lilac, with a branch of pine,
Here, out of my pocket, some moss which I pull'd off a live-oak in
Florida, as it hung trailing down,
Here, some pinks and laurel leaves, and a handful of sage,
And here what I now draw from the water, wading in the pondside,
(O here I last saw him that tenderly loves me--and returns again,
never to separate from me,
And this, O this shall henceforth be the token of comrades--this
Calamus-root shall,
Interchange it, youths, with each other! Let none render it back!)
And twigs of maple, and a bunch of wild orange, and chestnut,
And stems of currants, and plum-blows, and the aromatic cedar:
These, I, compass'd around by a thick cloud of spirits,
Wandering, point to, or touch as I pass, or throw them loosely from
me,
Indicating to each one what he shall have--giving something to each;
But what I drew from the water by the pond-side, that I reserve,
I will give of it--but only to them that love, as I myself am capable
of loving.

Thick-Sprinkled Bunting

Thick-sprinkled bunting! Flag of stars!
Long yet your road, fateful flag!--long yet your road, and lined with
bloody death!
For the prize I see at issue, at last is the world!
All its ships and shores I see, interwoven with your threads, greedy
banner!
--Dream'd again the flags of kings, highest born, to flaunt
unrival'd?
O hasten, flag of man! O with sure and steady step, passing highest
flags of kings,
Walk supreme to the heavens, mighty symbol--run up above them all,
Flag of stars! thick-sprinkled bunting!

Think Of The Soul

Think of the Soul;
I swear to you that body of yours gives proportions to your Soul
somehow to live in other spheres;
I do not know how, but I know it is so.

Think of loving and being loved;
I swear to you, whoever you are, you can interfuse yourself with such
things that everybody that sees you shall look longingly upon
you.

Think of the past;
I warn you that in a little while others will find their past in you
and your times.

The race is never separated--nor man nor woman escapes;
All is inextricable--things, spirits, Nature, nations, you too--from
precedents you come.

Recall the ever-welcome defiers, (The mothers precede them;)
Recall the sages, poets, saviors, inventors, lawgivers, of the earth;
Recall Christ, brother of rejected persons--brother of slaves,
felons, idiots, and of insane and diseas'd persons.

Think of the time when you were not yet born;
Think of times you stood at the side of the dying;
Think of the time when your own body will be dying.

Think of spiritual results,
Sure as the earth swims through the heavens, does every one of its
objects pass into spiritual results.

Think of manhood, and you to be a man;
Do you count manhood, and the sweet of manhood, nothing?

Think of womanhood, and you to be a woman;
The creation is womanhood;
Have I not said that womanhood involves all?
Have I not told how the universe has nothing better than the best
womanhood?

This Compost

Something startles me where I thought I was safest;
I withdraw from the still woods I loved;
I will not go now on the pastures to walk;
I will not strip the clothes from my body to meet my lover the sea;
I will not touch my flesh to the earth, as to other flesh, to renew
me.

O how can it be that the ground does not sicken?
How can you be alive, you growths of spring?
How can you furnish health, you blood of herbs, roots, orchards,
grain?
Are they not continually putting distemper'd corpses within you?
Is not every continent work'd over and over with sour dead?

Where have you disposed of their carcasses?
Those drunkards and gluttons of so many generations;
Where have you drawn off all the foul liquid and meat?
I do not see any of it upon you to-day--or perhaps I am deceiv'd;
I will run a furrow with my plough--I will press my spade through the
sod, and turn it up underneath;
I am sure I shall expose some of the foul meat.

Behold this compost! behold it well!
Perhaps every mite has once form'd part of a sick person--Yet behold!
The grass of spring covers the prairies,
The bean bursts noislessly through the mould in the garden,
The delicate spear of the onion pierces upward,
The apple-buds cluster together on the apple-branches,
The resurrection of the wheat appears with pale visage out of its
graves,
The tinge awakes over the willow-tree and the mulberry-tree,
The he-birds carol mornings and evenings, while the she-birds sit on
their nests,
The young of poultry break through the hatch'd eggs,
The new-born of animals appear--the calf is dropt from the cow, the
colt from the mare,
Out of its little hill faithfully rise the potato's dark green
leaves,
Out of its hill rises the yellow maize-stalk--the lilacs bloom in the
door-yards;
The summer growth is innocent and disdainful above all those strata
of sour dead.

What chemistry!
That the winds are really not infectious,
That this is no cheat, this transparent green-wash of the sea, which
is so amorous after me,
That it is safe to allow it to lick my naked body all over with its
tongues,
That it will not endanger me with the fevers that have deposited
themselves in it,
That all is clean forever and forever.
That the cool drink from the well tastes so good,
That blackberries are so flavorous and juicy,
That the fruits of the apple-orchard, and of the orange-orchard--that
melons, grapes, peaches, plums, will none of them poison me,
That when I recline on the grass I do not catch any disease,
Though probably every spear of grass rises out of what was once a
catching disease.

Now I am terrified at the Earth! it is that calm and patient,
It grows such sweet things out of such corruptions,
It turns harmless and stainless on its axis, with such endless
successions of diseas'd corpses,
It distils such exquisite winds out of such infused fetor,
It renews with such unwitting looks, its prodigal, annual, sumptuous
crops,
It gives such divine materials to men, and accepts such leavings from
them at last.

This Day, O Soul

This day, O Soul, I give you a wondrous mirror;
Long in the dark, in tarnish and cloud it lay--But the cloud has
pass'd, and the tarnish gone;
... Behold, O Soul! it is now a clean and bright mirror,
Faithfully showing you all the things of the world.

This Dust Was Once The Man

This dust was once the Man,
Gentle, plain, just and resolute--under whose cautious hand,
Against the foulest crime in history known in any land or age,
Was saved the Union of These States.

This Moment, Yearning And Thoughtful

This moment yearning and thoughtful, sitting alone,
It seems to me there are other men in other lands, yearning and
thoughtful;
It seems to me I can look over and behold them, in Germany, Italy,
France, Spain--or far, far away, in China, or in Russia or
India--talking other dialects;
And it seems to me if I could know those men, I should become
attached to them, as I do to men in my own lands;
O I know we should be brethren and lovers,
I know I should be happy with them.

Thou Orb Aloft Full-Dazzling

Thou orb aloft full-dazzling! thou hot October noon!
Flooding with sheeny light the gray beach sand,
The sibilant near sea with vistas far and foam,
And tawny streaks and shades and spreading blue;
O sun of noon rufulgent! my special word to thee.

Hear me illustrious!
Thy lover me, for always I have loved thee,
Even as basking babe, then happy boy alone by some wood edge, thy
touching-distant beams enough,
Or man matured, or young or old, as now to thee I launch my
invocation.

(Thou canst not with thy dumbness me deceive,
I know before the fitting man all Nature yields,
Though answering not in words, the skies, trees, hear his voice--and
thou O sun,
As for thy throes, thy perturbations, sudden breaks and shafts of
flame gigantic,
I understand them, I know those flames, those perturbations well.)

Thou that with fructifying heat and light,
O'er myriad farms, o'er lands and waters North and South,
O'er Mississippi's endless course, o'er Texas' grassy plains,
Kanada's woods,
O'er all the globe that turns its face to thee shining in space,
Thou that impartially infoldest all, not only continents, seas,
Thou that to grapes and weeds and little wild flowers givest so
liberally,
Shed, shed thyself on mine and me, with but a fleeting ray out of thy
million millions,
Strike through these chants.

Nor only launch thy subtle dazzle and thy strength for these,
Prepare the later afternoon of me myself--prepare my lengthening
shadows,
Prepare my starry nights.

Thou Reader

Thou reader throbbest life and pride and love the same as I,
Therefore for thee the following chants.

Thought

As they draw to a close,
Of what underlies the precedent songs--of my aims in them;
Of the seed I have sought to plant in them;
Of joy, sweet joy, through many a year, in them;
(For them--for them have I lived--In them my work is done;)
Of many an aspiration fond--of many a dream and plan,
Of you, O mystery great!--to place on record faith in you, O death!
--To compact you, ye parted, diverse lives!
To put rapport the mountains, and rocks, and streams,
And the winds of the north, and the forests of oak and pine,
With you, O soul of man.

Thought

Of what I write from myself--As if that were not the resum�;
Of Histories--As if such, however complete, were not less complete
than the preceding poems;
As if those shreds, the records of nations, could possibly be as
lasting as the preceding poems;
As if here were not the amount of all nations, and of all the lives
of heroes.

Thought

Of Equality--As if it harm'd me, giving others the same chances and
rights as myself--As if it were not indispensable to my own
rights that others possess the same.

Thought

Of Justice--As if Justice could be anything but the same ample law,
expounded by natural judges and saviors,
As if it might be this thing or that thing, according to decisions.

Thought

As I sit with others, at a great feast, suddenly, while the music is
playing,
To my mind, (whence it comes I know not,) spectral, in mist, of a
wreck at sea;
Of certain ships--how they sail from port with flying streamers, and
wafted kisses--and that is the last of them!
Of the solemn and murky mystery about the fate of the President;
Of the flower of the marine science of fifty generations, founder'd
off the Northeast coast, and going down--Of the steamship
Arctic going down,
Of the veil'd tableau--Women gather'd together on deck, pale, heroic,
waiting the moment that draws so close--O the moment!
A huge sob--A few bubbles--the white foam spirting up--And then the
women gone,
Sinking there, while the passionless wet flows on--And I now
pondering, Are those women indeed gone?
Are Souls drown'd and destroy'd so?
Is only matter triumphant?

Thought

Of persons arrived at high positions, ceremonies, wealth,
scholarships, and the like;
To me, all that those persons have arrived at, sinks away from them,
except as it results to their Bodies and Souls,
So that often to me they appear gaunt and naked;
And often, to me, each one mocks the others, and mocks himself or
herself,
And of each one, the core of life, namely happiness, is full of the
rotten excrement of maggots,
And often, to me, those men and women pass unwittingly the true
realities of life, and go toward false realities,
And often, to me, they are alive after what custom has served them,
but nothing more,
And often, to me, they are sad, hasty, unwaked sonnambules, walking
the dusk.

Thought

Of obedience, faith, adhesiveness;
As I stand aloof and look, there is to me something profoundly
affecting in large masses of men, following the lead of those
who do not believe in men.

Thoughts

Of these years I sing,
How they pass and have pass'd, through convuls'd pains as through
parturitions;
How America illustrates birth, muscular youth, the promise, the sure
fulfillment, the Absolute Success, despite of people--
Illustrates evil as well as good;
How many hold despairingly yet to the models departed, caste, myths,
obedience, compulsion, and to infidelity;
How few see the arrived models, the Athletes, the Western States--or
see freedom or spirituality--or hold any faith in results,
(But I see the Athletes--and I see the results of the war glorious
and inevitable--and they again leading to other results;)
How the great cities appear--How the Democratic masses, turbulent,
wilful, as I love them;
How the whirl, the contest, the wrestle of evil with good, the
sounding and resounding, keep on and on;
How society waits unform'd, and is for awhile between things ended
and things begun;
How America is the continent of glories, and of the triumph of
freedom, and of the Democracies, and of the fruits of society,
and of all that is begun;
And how The States are complete in themselves--And how all triumphs
and glories are complete in themselves, to lead onward,
And how these of mine, and of The States, will in their turn be
convuls'd, and serve other parturitions and transitions,
And how all people, sights, combinations, the Democratic masses, too,
serve--and how every fact, and war itself, with all its
horrors, serves,
And how now, or at any time, each serves the exquisite transition of
death.

OF seeds dropping into the ground--of birth,
Of the steady concentration of America, inland, upward, to
impregnable and swarming places,
Of what Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio and the rest, are to be,
Of what a few years will show there in Nebraska, Colorado, Nevada,
and the rest;
(Or afar, mounting the Northern Pacific to Sitka or Aliaska;)
Of what the feuillage of America is the preparation for--and of what
all sights, North, South, East and West, are;
Of This Union, soak'd, welded in blood--of the solemn price paid--of
the unnamed lost, ever present in my mind;
--Of the temporary use of materials, for identity's sake,
Of the present, passing, departing--of the growth of completer men
than any yet,
Of myself, soon, perhaps, closing up my songs by these shores,
Of California, of Oregon--and of me journeying to live and sing
there;
Of the Western Sea--of the spread inland between it and the spinal
river,
Of the great pastoral area, athletic and feminine,
of all sloping down there where the fresh free giver, the mother, the
Mississippi flows,
Of future women there--of happiness in those high plateaus, ranging
three thousand miles, warm and cold;
Of mighty inland cities yet unsurvey'd and unsuspected, (as I am
also, and as it must be;)
Of the new and good names--of the modern developments--of inalienable
homesteads;
Of a free and original life there--of simple diet and clean and sweet
blood;
Of litheness, majestic faces, clear eyes, and perfect physique there;
Of immense spiritual results, future years, far west, each side of
the Anahuacs;
Of these leaves, well understood there, (being made for that area;)
Of the native scorn of grossness and gain there;
(O it lurks in me night and day--What is gain, after all, to
savageness and freedom?)

Thoughts

Of Public Opinion;
Of a calm and cool fiat, sooner or later, (How impassive! How certain
and final!)
Of the President with pale face, asking secretly to himself, What
will the people say at last?
Of the frivolous Judge--Of the corrupt Congressman, Governor, Mayor--
Of such as these, standing helpless and exposed;
Of the mumbling and screaming priest--(soon, soon deserted;)
Of the lessening, year by year, of venerableness, and of the dicta of
officers, statutes, pulpits, schools;
Of the rising forever taller and stronger and broader, of the
intuitions of men and women, and of self-esteem, and of
personality;
--Of the New World--Of the Democracies, resplendent, en-masse;
Of the conformity of politics, armies, navies, to them and to me,
Of the shining sun by them--Of the inherent light, greater than the
rest,
Of the envelopment of all by them, and of the effusion of all from
them.

Thoughts

Of ownership--As if one fit to own things could not at pleasure enter
upon all, and incorporate them into himself or herself.

Of waters, forests, hills;
Of the earth at large, whispering through medium of me;
Of vista--Suppose some sight in arriere, through the formative chaos,
presuming the growth, fulness, life, now attain'd on the
journey;
(But I see the road continued, and the journey ever continued;)
--Of what was once lacking on earth, and in due time has become
supplied--And of what will yet be supplied,
Because all I see and know, I believe to have purport in what will
yet be supplied.

To A Certain Cantatrice

Here, take this gift!
I was reserving it for some hero, speaker, or General,
One who should serve the good old cause, the great Idea, the progress
and freedom of the race;
Some brave confronter of despots--some daring rebel;
--But I see that what I was reserving, belongs to you just as much as
to any.

To A Certain Civilian

Did you ask dulcet rhymes from me?
Did you seek the civilian's peaceful and languishing rhymes?
Did you find what I sang erewhile so hard to follow?
Why I was not singing erewhile for you to follow, to understand--nor
am I now;
(I have been born of the same as the war was born;
The drum-corps' harsh rattle is to me sweet music--I love well the
martial dirge,
With slow wail, and convulsive throb, leading the officer's funeral:)
--What to such as you, anyhow, such a poet as I?--therefore leave my
works,
And go lull yourself with what you can understand--and with piano-
tunes;
For I lull nobody--and you will never understand me.

To A Common Prostitute

To a Common Prostitute

Be composed--be at ease with me--I am Walt Whitman, liberal and lusty
as Nature;
Not till the sun excludes you, do I exclude you;
Not till the waters refuse to glisten for you, and the leaves to
rustle for you, do my words refuse to glisten and rustle for
you.

My girl, I appoint with you an appointment--and I charge you that you
make preparation to be worthy to meet me,
And I charge you that you be patient and perfect till I come.

Till then, I salute you with a significant look, that you do not
forget me.

To A Foil'd European Revolutionaire

Courage yet! my brother or my sister!
Keep on! Liberty is to be subserv'd, whatever occurs;
That is nothing, that is quell'd by one or two failures, or any
number of failures,
Or by the indifference or ingratitude of the people, or by any
unfaithfulness,
Or the show of the tushes of power, soldiers, cannon, penal statutes.

Revolt! and still revolt! revolt!
What we believe in waits latent forever through all the continents,
and all the islands and archipelagos of the sea;
What we believe in invites no one, promises nothing, sits in calmness
and light, is positive and composed, knows no discouragement,
Waiting patiently, waiting its time.

(Not songs of loyalty alone are these,
But songs of insurrection also;
For I am the sworn poet of every dauntless rebel, the world over,
And he going with me leaves peace and routine behind him,
And stakes his life, to be lost at any moment.)

Revolt! and the downfall of tyrants!
The battle rages with many a loud alarm, and frequent advance and
retreat,
The infidel triumphs--or supposes he triumphs,
Then the prison, scaffold, garrote, hand-cuffs, iron necklace and
anklet, lead-balls, do their work,
The named and unnamed heroes pass to other spheres,
The great speakers and writers are exiled--they lie sick in distant
lands,
The cause is asleep--the strongest throats are still, choked with
their own blood,
The young men droop their eyelashes toward the ground when they meet;
--But for all this, liberty has not gone out of the place, nor the
infidel enter'd into full possession.

When liberty goes out of a place, it is not the first to go, nor the
second or third to go,
It waits for all the rest to go--it is the last.

When there are no more memories of heroes and martyrs,
And when all life, and all the souls of men and women are discharged
from any part of the earth,
Then only shall liberty, or the idea of liberty, be discharged from
that part of the earth,
And the infidel come into full possession.

Then courage! European revolter! revoltress!
For, till all ceases, neither must you cease.

I do not know what you are for, (I do not know what I am for myself,
nor what anything is for,)
But I will search carefully for it even in being foil'd,
In defeat, poverty, misconception, imprisonment--for they too are
great.

Revolt! and the bullet for tyrants!
Did we think victory great?
So it is--But now it seems to me, when it cannot be help'd, that
defeat is great,
And that death and dismay are great.

To A Historian

You who celebrate bygones!
Who have explored the outward, the surfaces of the races--the life
that has exhibited itself;
Who have treated of man as the creature of politics, aggregates,
rulers and priests;
I, habitan of the Alleghanies, treating of him as he is in himself,
in his own rights,
Pressing the pulse of the life that has seldom exhibited itself, (the
great pride of man in himself;)
Chanter of Personality, outlining what is yet to be,
I project the history of the future.

To A Locomotive In Winter

Thee for my recitative!
Thee in the driving storm, even as now--the snow--the winter-day
declining;
Thee in thy panoply, thy measured dual throbbing, and thy beat
convulsive;
Thy black cylindric body, golden brass, and silvery steel;
Thy ponderous side-bars, parallel and connecting rods, gyrating,
shuttling at thy sides;
Thy metrical, now swelling pant and roar--now tapering in the
distance;
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 smoke-stack;
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;
By day, thy warning, ringing bell to sound its notes,
By night, thy silent signal lamps to swing.

Fierce-throated beauty!
Roll through my chant, with all thy lawless music! thy swinging lamps
at night;
Thy piercing, madly-whistled laughter! thy echoes, rumbling like an
earthquake, rousing all!
Law of thyself complete, thine own track firmly holding;
(No sweetness debonair of tearful harp or glib piano thine,)
Thy trills of shrieks by rocks and hills return'd,
Launch'd o'er the prairies wide--across the lakes,
To the free skies, unpent, and glad, and strong.

To A President

All you are doing and saying is to America dangled mirages,
You have not learn'd of Nature--of the politics of Nature, you have
not learn'd the great amplitude, rectitude, impartiality;
You have not seen that only such as they are for These States,
And that what is less than they, must sooner or later lift off from
These States.

To A Pupil

Is reform needed? Is it through you?
The greater the reform needed, the greater the personality you need
to accomplish it.

You! do you not see how it would serve to have eyes, blood,
complexion, clean and sweet?
Do you not see how it would serve to have such a Body and Soul, that
when you enter the crowd, an atmosphere of desire and command
enters with you, and every one is impress'd with your
personality?

O the magnet! the flesh over and over!
Go, dear friend! if need be, give up all else, and commence to-day to
inure yourself to pluck, reality, self-esteem, definiteness,
elevatedness;
Rest not, till you rivet and publish yourself of your own
personality.

To A Stranger

Passing stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you,
You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking, (it comes to me,
as of a dream,
I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you,
All is recall'd as we flit by each other, fluid, affectionate,
chaste, matured,
You grew up with me, were a boy with me, or a girl with me,
I ate with you, and slept with you--your body has become not yours
only, nor left my body mine only,
You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as we pass--you
take of my beard, breast, hands, in return,
I am not to speak to you--I am to think of you when I sit alone, or
wake at night alone,
I am to wait--I do not doubt I am to meet you again,
I am to see to it that I do not lose you.

To A Western Boy

O boy of the West!
To you many things to absorb, I teach, to help you become eleve of
mine:
Yet if blood like mine circle not in your veins;
If you be not silently selected by lovers, and do not silently select
lovers,
Of what use is it that you seek to become eleve of mine?

To Foreign Lands

I heard that you ask'd for something to prove this puzzle, the New
World,
And to define America, her athletic Democracy;
Therefore I send you my poems, that you behold in them what you
wanted.

To Him That Was Crucified

My spirit to yours, dear brother;
Do not mind because many, sounding your name, do not understand you;
I do not sound your name, but I understand you, (there are others
also;)
I specify you with joy, O my comrade, to salute you, and to salute
those who are with you, before and since--and those to come
also,
That we all labor together, transmitting the same charge and
succession;
We few, equals, indifferent of lands, indifferent of times;
We, enclosers of all continents, all castes--allowers of all
theologies,
Compassionaters, perceivers, rapport of men,
We walk silent among disputes and assertions, but reject not the
disputers, nor any thing that is asserted;
We hear the bawling and din--we are reach'd at by divisions,
jealousies, recriminations on every side,
They close peremptorily upon us, to surround us, my comrade,
Yet we walk unheld, free, the whole earth over, journeying up and
down, till we make our ineffaceable mark upon time and the
diverse eras,
Till we saturate time and eras, that the men and women of races, ages
to come, may prove brethren and lovers, as we are.

To Old Age

I see in you the estuary that enlarges and spreads itself grandly as
it pours in the great Sea.

To One Shortly To Die

From all the rest I single out you, having a message for you:
You are to die--Let others tell you what they please, I cannot
prevaricate,
I am exact and merciless, but I love you--There is no escape for you.

Softly I lay my right hand upon you--you just feel it,
I do not argue--I bend my head close, and half envelope it,
I sit quietly by--I remain faithful,
I am more than nurse, more than parent or neighbor,
I absolve you from all except yourself, spiritual, bodily--that is
eternal--you yourself will surely escape,
The corpse you will leave will be but excrementitious.

The sun bursts through in unlooked-for directions!
Strong thoughts fill you, and confidence--you smile!
You forget you are sick, as I forget you are sick,
You do not see the medicines--you do not mind the weeping friends--I
am with you,
I exclude others from you--there is nothing to be commiserated,
I do not commiserate--I congratulate you.

To Oratists

To oratists--to male or female,
Vocalism, measure, concentration, determination, and the divine power
to use words.
Are you full-lung'd and limber-lipp'd from long trial? from vigorous
practice? from physique?
Do you move in these broad lands as broad as they?
Come duly to the divine power to use words?

For only at last, after many years--after chastity, friendship,
procreation, prudence, and nakedness;
After treading ground and breasting river and lake;
After a loosen'd throat--after absorbing eras, temperaments, races--
after knowledge, freedom, crimes;
After complete faith--after clarifyings, elevations, and removing
obstructions;
After these, and more, it is just possible there comes to a man, a
woman, the divine power to use words.

Then toward that man or that woman, swiftly hasten all--None refuse,
all attend;
Armies, ships, antiquities, the dead, libraries, paintings, machines,
cities, hate, despair, amity, pain, theft, murder, aspiration,
form in close ranks;
They debouch as they are wanted to march obediently through the mouth
of that man, or that woman.

.... O I see arise orators fit for inland America;
And I see it is as slow to become an orator as to become a man;
And I see that all power is folded in a great vocalism.

Of a great vocalism, the merciless light thereof shall pour, and the
storm rage,
Every flash shall be a revelation, an insult,
The glaring flame on depths, on heights, on suns, on stars,
On the interior and exterior of man or woman,
On the laws of Nature--on passive materials,
On what you called death--(and what to you therefore was death,
As far as there can be death.)

To Rich Givers

What you give me, I cheerfully accept,
A little sustenance, a hut and garden, a little money--these, as I
rendezvous with my poems;
A traveler's lodging and breakfast as I journey through The States--
Why should I be ashamed to own such gifts? Why to advertise for
them?
For I myself am not one who bestows nothing upon man and woman;
For I bestow upon any man or woman the entrance to all the gifts of
the universe.

To The East And To The West

To the East and to the West;
To the man of the Seaside State, and of Pennsylvania,
To the Kanadian of the North--to the Southerner I love;
These, with perfect trust, to depict you as myself--the germs are in
all men;
I believe the main purport of These States is to found a superb
friendship, exalt�, previously unknown,
Because I perceive it waits, and has been always waiting, latent in
all men.

To The Garden The World

To the garden, the world, anew ascending,
Potent mates, daughters, sons, preluding,
The love, the life of their bodies, meaning and being,
Curious, here behold my resurrection, after slumber;
The revolving cycles, in their wide sweep, have brought me again,
Amorous, mature--all beautiful to me--all wondrous;
My limbs, and the quivering fire that ever plays through them, for
reasons, most wondrous;
Existing, I peer and penetrate still,
Content with the present--content with the past,
By my side, or back of me, Eve following,
Or in front, and I following her just the same.

To The Leaven'd Soil They Trod

To the leaven'd soil they trod, calling, I sing, for the last;
(Not cities, nor man alone, nor war, nor the dead,
But forth from my tent emerging for good--loosing, untying the tent-
ropes;)
In the freshness, the forenoon air, in the far-stretching circuits
and vistas, again to peace restored,
To the fiery fields emanative, and the endless vistas beyond--to the
south and the north;
To the leaven'd soil of the general western world, to attest my
songs,
(To the average earth, the wordless earth, witness of war and peace,)
To the Alleghanian hills, and the tireless Mississippi,
To the rocks I, calling, sing, and all the trees in the woods,
To the plain of the poems of heroes, to the prairie spreading
wide,
To the far-off sea, and the unseen winds, and the same impalpable
air;
... And responding, they answer all, (but not in words,)
The average earth, the witness of war and peace, acknowledges mutely;
The prairie draws me close, as the father, to bosom broad, the son;
The Northern ice and rain, that began me, nourish me to the end;
But the hot sun of the South is to ripen my songs.

To The Man-of-War-Bird

Thou who hast slept all night upon the storm,
Waking renew'd on thy prodigious pinions,
(Burst the wild storm? above it thou ascended'st,
And rested on the sky, thy slave that cradled thee,)
Now a blue point, far, far in heaven floating,
As to the light emerging here on deck I watch thee,
(Myself a speck, a point on the world's floating vast.)

Far, far at sea,
After the night's fierce drifts have strewn the shores with wrecks,
With re-appearing day as now so happy and serene,
The rosy and elastic dawn, the flashing sun,
The limpid spread of air cerulean,
Thou also re-appearest.

Thou born to match the gale, (thou art all wings,)
To cope with heaven and earth and sea and hurricane,
Thou ship of air that never furl'st thy sails,
Days, even weeks untired and onward, through spaces, realms gyrating,
At dusk that look'st on Senegal, at morn America,
That sport'st amid the lightning-flash and thunder-cloud,
In them, in thy experience, had'st thou my soul,
What joys! what joys were thine!

To The Reader At Parting

Now, dearest comrade, lift me to your face,
We must separate awhile--Here! take from my lips this kiss.
Whoever you are, I give it especially to you;
So long!--And I hope we shall meet again.

To The States

Why reclining, interrogating? Why myself and all drowsing?
What deepening twilight! scum floating atop of the waters!
Who are they, as bats and night-dogs, askant in the Capitol?
What a filthy Presidentiad! (O south, your torrid suns! O north, your
arctic freezings!)
Are those really Congressmen? are those the great Judges? is that the
President?
Then I will sleep awhile yet--for I see that These States sleep, for
reasons;
(With gathering murk--with muttering thunder and lambent shoots, we
all duly awake,
South, north, east, west, inland and seaboard, we will surely awake.)

To Thee, Old Cause!

To thee, old Cause!
Thou peerless, passionate, good cause!
Thou stern, remorseless, sweet Idea!
Deathless throughout the ages, races, lands!
After a strange, sad war--great war for thee,
(I think all war through time was really fought, and ever will be
really fought, for thee;)
These chants for thee--the eternal march of thee.

Thou orb of many orbs!
Thou seething principle! Thou well-kept, latent germ! Thou centre!
Around the idea of thee the strange sad war revolving,
With all its angry and vehement play of causes,
(With yet unknown results to come, for thrice a thousand years,)
These recitatives for thee--my Book and the War are one,
Merged in its spirit I and mine--as the contest hinged on thee,
As a wheel on its axis turns, this Book, unwitting to itself,
Around the Idea of thee.

To Think Of Time

To think of time--of all that retrospection!
To think of to-day, and the ages continued henceforward!

Have you guess'd you yourself would not continue?
Have you dreaded these earth-beetles?
Have you fear'd the future would be nothing to you?

Is to-day nothing? Is the beginningless past nothing?
If the future is nothing, they are just as surely nothing.

To think that the sun rose in the east! that men and women were
flexible, real, alive! that everything was alive!
To think that you and I did not see, feel, think, nor bear our part!
To think that we are now here, and bear our part!

Not a day passes--not a minute or second, without an accouchement!
Not a day passes--not a minute or second, without a corpse!

The dull nights go over, and the dull days also,
The soreness of lying so much in bed goes over,
The physician, after long putting off, gives the silent and 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.

The living look upon the corpse with their eye-sight,
But without eye-sight lingers a different living, and looks curiously
on the corpse.

To think the thought of Death, merged in the thought of materials!
To think that the rivers will flow, and the snow fall, and fruits
ripen, and act upon others as upon us now--yet not act upon us!
To think of all these wonders of city and country, and others taking
great interest in them--and we taking no interest in them!

To think how eager we are in building our houses!
To think others shall be just as eager, and we quite indifferent!

(I see one building the house that serves him a few years, or seventy
or eighty years at most,
I see one building the house that serves him longer than that.)

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.

A reminiscence of the vulgar fate,
A frequent sample of the life and death of workmen,
Each after his kind:
Cold dash of waves at the ferry-wharf--posh and ice in the river,
half-frozen mud in the streets, a gray, discouraged sky
overhead, the short, last daylight of Twelfth-month,
A hearse and stages--other vehicles give place--the funeral of an old
Broadway stage-driver, the cortege mostly drivers.

Steady the trot to the cemetery, duly rattles the death-bell, the
gate is pass'd, the new-dug grave is halted at, the living
alight, the hearse uncloses,
The coffin is pass'd out, lower'd and settled, the whip is laid on
the coffin, the earth is swiftly shovel'd in,
The mound above is flatted with the spades--silence,
A minute--no one moves or speaks--it is done,
He is decently put away--is there anything more?

He was a good fellow, free-mouth'd, quick-temper'd, not bad-looking,
able to take his own part, witty, sensitive to a slight, ready
with life or death for a friend, fond of women, gambled, ate
hearty, drank hearty, had known what it was to be flush, grew
low-spirited toward the last, sicken'd, was help'd by a
contribution, died, aged forty-one years--and that was his
funeral.

Thumb extended, finger uplifted, apron, cape, gloves, strap, wet-
weather clothes, whip carefully chosen, boss, spotter, starter,
hostler, somebody loafing on you, you loafing on somebody,
headway, man before and man behind, good day's work, bad day's
work, pet stock, mean stock, first out, last out, turning-in at
night;
To think that these are so much and so nigh to other drivers--and he
there takes no interest in them!

The markets, the government, the working-man's wages--to think what
account they are through our nights and days!
To think that other working-men will make just as great account of
them--yet we make little or no account!

The vulgar and the refined--what you call sin, and what you call
goodness--to think how wide a difference!
To think the difference will still continue to others, yet we lie
beyond the difference.

To think how much pleasure there is!
Have you pleasure from looking at the sky? have you pleasure from
poems?
Do you enjoy yourself in the city? or engaged in business? or
planning a nomination and election? or with your wife and
family?
Or with your mother and sisters? or in womanly housework? or the
beautiful maternal cares?
--These also flow onward to others--you and I flow onward,
But in due time, you and I shall take less interest in them.

Your farm, profits, crops,--to think how engross'd you are!
To think there will still be farms, profits, crops--yet for you, of
what avail?

What will be, will be well--for what is, is well,
To take interest is well, and not to take interest shall be well.

The sky continues beautiful,
The pleasure of men with women shall never be sated, nor the pleasure
of women with men, nor the pleasure from poems,
The domestic joys, the daily housework or business, the building of
houses--these are not phantasms--they have weight, form,
location;
Farms, profits, crops, markets, wages, government, are none of them
phantasms,
The difference between sin and goodness is no delusion,
The earth is not an echo--man and his life, and all the things of his
life, are well-consider'd.

You are not thrown to the winds--you gather certainly and safely
around yourself;
Yourself! Yourself! Yourself, forever and ever!

It is not to diffuse you that you were born of your mother and
father--it is to identify you;
It is not that you should be undecided, but that you should be
decided;
Something long preparing and formless is arrived and form'd in you,
You are henceforth secure, whatever comes or goes.

The threads that were spun are gather'd, the weft crosses the warp,
the pattern is systematic.

The preparations have every one been justified,
The orchestra have sufficiently tuned their instruments--the baton
has given the signal.

The guest that was coming--he waited long, for reasons--he is now
housed,
He is one of those who are beautiful and happy--he is one of those
that to look upon and be with is enough.

The law of the past cannot be eluded,
The law of the present and future cannot be eluded,
The law of the living cannot be eluded--it is eternal,
The law of promotion and transformation cannot be eluded,
The law of heroes and good-doers cannot be eluded,
The law of drunkards, informers, mean persons--not one iota thereof
can be eluded.

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.

The great masters and kosmos are well as they go--the heroes and
good-doers are well,
The known leaders and inventors, and the rich owners and pious and
distinguish'd, may be well,
But there is more account than that--there is strict account of all.

The interminable hordes of the ignorant and wicked are not nothing,
The barbarians of Africa and Asia are not nothing,
The common people of Europe are not nothing--the American aborigines
are not nothing,
The infected in the immigrant hospital are not nothing--the murderer
or mean person is not nothing,
The perpetual successions of shallow people are not nothing as they
go,
The lowest prostitute is not nothing--the mocker of religion is not
nothing as he goes.

Of and in all these things,
I have dream'd that we are not to be changed so much, nor the law of
us changed,
I have dream'd that heroes and good-doers shall be under the present
and past law,
And that murderers, drunkards, liars, shall be under the present and
past law,
For I have dream'd that the law they are under now is enough.

If otherwise, all came but to ashes of dung,
If maggots and rats ended us, then Alarum! for we are betray'd!
Then indeed suspicion of death.

Do you suspect death? If I were to suspect death, I should die now,
Do you think I could walk pleasantly and well-suited toward
annihilation?

Pleasantly and well-suited I walk,
Whither I walk I cannot define, but I know it is good,
The whole universe indicates that it is good,
The past and the present indicate that it is good.

How beautiful and perfect are the animals!
How perfect the earth, and the minutest thing upon it!

What is called good is perfect, and what is called bad is just as
perfect,
The vegetables and minerals are all perfect, and the imponderable
fluids are perfect;
Slowly and surely they have pass'd on to this, and slowly and surely
they yet pass on.

I swear I think now that everything without exception has an eternal Soul!
The trees have, rooted in the ground! the weeds of the sea have! the
animals!

I swear I think there is nothing but immortality!
That the exquisite scheme is for it, and the nebulous float is for
it, and the cohering is for it;
And all preparation is for it! and identity is for it! and life and
materials are altogether for it!

To You

Let us twain walk aside from the rest;
Now we are together privately, do you discard ceremony,
Come! vouchsafe to me what has yet been vouchsafed to none--Tell me
the whole story,
Tell me what you would not tell your brother, wife, husband, or
physician.

To You

Whoever you are, I fear you are walking the walks of dreams,
I fear these supposed realities are to melt from under your feet and
hands;
Even now, your features, joys, speech, house, trade, manners,
troubles, follies, costume, crimes, dissipate away from you,
Your true Soul and Body appear before me,
They stand forth out of affairs--out of commerce, shops, law,
science, work, forms, clothes, the house, medicine, print,
buying, selling, eating, drinking, suffering, dying.

Whoever you are, now I place my hand upon you, that you be my poem;
I whisper with my lips close to your ear,
I have loved many women and men, but I love none better than you.

O I have been dilatory and dumb;
I should have made my way straight to you long ago;
I should have blabb'd nothing but you, I should have chanted nothing
but you.

I will leave all, and come and make the hymns of you;
None have understood you, but I understand you;
None have done justice to you--you have not done justice to yourself;
None but have found you imperfect--I only find no imperfection in
you;
None but would subordinate you--I only am he who will never consent
to subordinate you;
I only am he who places over you no master, owner, better, God,
beyond what waits intrinsically in yourself.

Painters have painted their swarming groups, and the centre figure of
all;
From the head of the centre figure spreading a nimbus of gold-color'd
light;
But I paint myriads of heads, but paint no head without its nimbus of
gold-color'd light;
From my hand, from the brain of every man and woman it streams,
effulgently flowing forever.

O I could sing such grandeurs and glories about you!
You have not known what you are--you have slumber'd upon yourself all
your life;
Your eye-lids have been the same as closed most of the time;
What you have done returns already in mockeries;
(Your thrift, knowledge, prayers, if they do not return in mockeries,
what is their return?)

The mockeries are not you;
Underneath them, and within them, I see you lurk;
I pursue you where none else has pursued you;
Silence, the desk, the flippant expression, the night, the accustom'd
routine, if these conceal you from others, or from yourself,
they do not conceal you from me;
The shaved face, the unsteady eye, the impure complexion, if these
balk others, they do not balk me,
The pert apparel, the deform'd attitude, drunkenness, greed,
premature death, all these I part aside.

There is no endowment in man or woman that is not tallied in you;
There is no virtue, no beauty, in man or woman, but as good is in
you;
No pluck, no endurance in others, but as good is in you;
No pleasure waiting for others, but an equal pleasure waits for you.

As for me, I give nothing to any one, except I give the like
carefully to you;
I sing the songs of the glory of none, not God, sooner than I sing
the songs of the glory of you.

Whoever you are! claim your own at any hazard!
These shows of the east and west are tame, compared to you;
These immense meadows--these interminable rivers--you are immense and
interminable as they;
These furies, elements, storms, motions of Nature, throes of apparent
dissolution--you are he or she who is master or mistress over
them,
Master or mistress in your own right over Nature, elements, pain,
passion, dissolution.

The hopples fall from your ankles--you find an unfailing sufficiency;
Old or young, male or female, rude, low, rejected by the rest,
whatever you are promulges itself;
Through birth, life, death, burial, the means are provided, nothing
is scanted;
Through angers, losses, ambition, ignorance, ennui, what you are
picks its way.

To You

Stranger! if you, passing, meet me, and desire to speak to me, why
should you not speak to me?
And why should I not speak to you?

Trinckle, Drops

Trickle, drops! my blue veins leaving!
O drops of me! trickle, slow drops,
Candid, from me falling--drip, bleeding drops,
From wounds made to free you whence you were prison'd,
From my face--from my forehead and lips,
From my breast--from within where I was conceal'd--press forth, red
drops--confession drops;
Stain every page--stain every song I sing, every word I say, bloody
drops;
Let them know your scarlet heat--let them glisten;
Saturate them with yourself, all ashamed and wet;
Glow upon all I have written, or shall write, bleeding drops;
Let it all be seen in your light, blushing drops.

Turn, O Libertad

Turn, O Libertad, for the war is over,
(From it and all henceforth expanding, doubting no more, resolute,
sweeping the world,)
Turn from lands retrospective, recording proofs of the past;
From the singers that sing the trailing glories of the past;
From the chants of the feudal world--the triumphs of kings, slavery,
caste;
Turn to the world, the triumphs reserv'd and to come--give up that
backward world;
Leave to the singers of hitherto--give them the trailing past;
But what remains, remains for singers for you--wars to come are for
you;
(Lo! how the wars of the past have duly inured to you--and the wars
of the present also inure:)
--Then turn, and be not alarm'd, O Libertad--turn your undying
face,
To where the future, greater than all the past,
Is swiftly, surely preparing for you.

Two Rivulets

Two Rivulets side by side,
Two blended, parallel, strolling tides,
Companions, travelers, gossiping as they journey.

For the Eternal Ocean bound,
These ripples, passing surges, streams of Death and Life,
Object and Subject hurrying, whirling by,
The Real and Ideal,

Alternate ebb and flow the Days and Nights,
(Strands of a Trio twining, Present, Future, Past.)

In You, whoe'er you are, my book perusing,
In I myself--in all the World--these ripples flow,
All, all, toward the mystic Ocean tending.

(O yearnful waves! the kisses of your lips!
Your breast so broad, with open arms, O firm, expanded shore!)

Unfolded Out Of The Folds

Unfolded out of the folds of the woman, man comes unfolded, and is
always to come unfolded;
Unfolded only out of the superbest woman of the earth, is to come the
superbest man of the earth;
Unfolded out of the friendliest woman, is to come the friendliest
man;
Unfolded only out of the perfect body of a woman, can a man be form'd
of perfect body;
Unfolded only out of the inimitable poem of the woman, can come the
poems of man--(only thence have my poems come;)
Unfolded out of the strong and arrogant woman I love, only thence can
appear the strong and arrogant man I love;
Unfolded by brawny embraces from the well-muscled woman I love, only
thence come the brawny embraces of the man;
Unfolded out of the folds of the woman's brain, come all the folds of
the man's brain, duly obedient;
Unfolded out of the justice of the woman, all justice is unfolded;
Unfolded out of the sympathy of the woman is all sympathy:
A man is a great thing upon the earth, and through eternity--but
every jot of the greatness of man is unfolded out of woman,
First the man is shaped in the woman, he can then be shaped in
himself.

Unnamed Lands

Nations ten thousand years before These States, and many times ten
thousand years before These States;
Garner'd clusters of ages, that men and women like us grew up and
travel'd their course, and pass'd on;
What vast-built cities--what orderly republics--what pastoral tribes
and nomads;
What histories, rulers, heroes, perhaps transcending all others;
What laws, customs, wealth, arts, traditions;
What sort of marriage--what costumes--what physiology and phrenology;
What of liberty and slavery among them--what they thought of death
and the soul;
Who were witty and wise--who beautiful and poetic--who brutish and
undevelop'd;
Not a mark, not a record remains--And yet all remains.

O I know that those men and women were not for nothing, any more than
we are for nothing;
I know that they belong to the scheme of the world every bit as much
as we now belong to it, and as all will henceforth belong to
it.

Afar they stand--yet near to me they stand,
Some with oval countenances, learn'd and calm,
Some naked and savage--Some like huge collections of insects,
Some in tents--herdsmen, patriarchs, tribes, horsemen,
Some prowling through woods--Some living peaceably on farms,
laboring, reaping, filling barns,
Some traversing paved avenues, amid temples, palaces, factories,
libraries, shows, courts, theatres, wonderful monuments.

Are those billions of men really gone?
Are those women of the old experience of the earth gone?
Do their lives, cities, arts, rest only with us?
Did they achieve nothing for good, for themselves?

I believe of all those billions of men and women that fill'd the
unnamed lands, every one exists this hour, here or elsewhere,
invisible to us, in exact proportion to what he or she grew
from in life, and out of what he or she did, felt, became,
loved, sinn'd, in life.

I believe that was not the end of those nations, or any person of
them, any more than this shall be the end of my nation, or of
me;
Of their languages, governments, marriage, literature, products,
games, wars, manners, crimes, prisons, slaves, heroes, poets,
I suspect their results curiously await in the yet unseen
world--counterparts of what accrued to them in the seen world.
I suspect I shall meet them there,
I suspect I shall there find each old particular of those unnamed
lands.

Vicouac On A Mountain Side

I see before me now, a traveling army halting;
Below, a fertile valley spread, with barns, and the orchards of
summer;
Behind, the terraced sides of a mountain, abrupt in places, rising
high;
Broken, with rocks, with clinging cedars, with tall shapes, dingily
seen;
The numerous camp-fires scatter'd near and far, some away up on the
mountain;
The shadowy forms of men and horses, looming, large-sized flickering;
And over all, the sky--the sky! far, far out of reach, studded,
breaking out, the eternal stars.

Vigil Strange I Kept On The Field

Vigil strange I kept on the field one night:
When you, my son and my comrade, dropt at my side that day,
One look I but gave, which your dear eyes return'd, with a look I
shall never forget;
One touch of your hand to mine, O boy, reach'd up as you lay on the
ground;
Then onward I sped in the battle, the even-contested battle;
Till late in the night reliev'd, to the place at last again I made my
way;
Found you in death so cold, dear comrade--found your body, son of
responding kisses, (never again on earth responding;)
Bared your face in the starlight--curious the scene--cool blew the
moderate night-wind;
Long there and then in vigil I stood, dimly around me the battlefield
spreading;
Vigil wondrous and vigil sweet, there in the fragrant silent
night;
But not a tear fell, not even a long-drawn sigh--Long, long I gazed;
Then on the earth partially reclining, sat by your side, leaning my
chin in my hands;
Passing sweet hours, immortal and mystic hours with you, dearest
comrade--Not a tear, not a word;
Vigil of silence, love and death--vigil for you my son and my
soldier,
As onward silently stars aloft, eastward new ones upward stole;
Vigil final for you, brave boy, (I could not save you, swift was your
death,
I faithfully loved you and cared for you living--I think we shall
surely meet again;)
Till at latest lingering of the night, indeed just as the dawn
appear'd,
My comrade I wrapt in his blanket, envelop'd well his form,
Folded the blanket well, tucking it carefully over head, and
carefully under feet;
And there and then, and bathed by the rising sun, my son in his
grave, in his rude-dug grave I deposited;
Ending my vigil strange with that--vigil of night and battlefield
dim;
Vigil for boy of responding kisses, (never again on earth
responding;)
Vigil for comrade swiftly slain--vigil I never forget, how as day
brighten'd,
I rose from the chill ground, and folded my soldier well in his
blanket,
And buried him where he fell.

Virginia--The West

The noble Sire, fallen on evil days,
I saw, with hand uplifted, menacing, brandishing,
(Memories of old in abeyance--love and faith in abeyance,)
The insane knife toward the Mother of All.

The noble Son, on sinewy feet advancing,
I saw--out of the land of prairies--land of Ohio's waters, and of
Indiana,
To the rescue, the stalwart giant, hurry his plenteous offspring,
Drest in blue, bearing their trusty rifles on their shoulders.

Then the Mother of All, with calm voice speaking,
As to you, Virginia, (I seemed to hear her say,) why strive against
me--and why seek my life?
When you yourself forever provide to defend me?
For you provided me Washington--and now these also.

Visor'd

A mask--a perpetual natural disguiser of herself,
Concealing her face, concealing her form,
Changes and transformations every hour, every moment,
Falling upon her even when she sleeps.

Voices

Now I make a leaf of Voices--for I have found nothing mightier than
they are,
And I have found that no word spoken, but is beautiful, in its place.

O what is it in me that makes me tremble so at voices?
Surely, whoever speaks to me in the right voice, him or her I shall
follow,
As the water follows the moon, silently, with fluid steps, anywhere
around the globe.

All waits for the right voices;
Where is the practis'd and perfect organ? Where is the develop'd
Soul?
For I see every word utter'd thence, has deeper, sweeter, new sounds,
impossible on less terms.

I see brains and lips closed--tympans and temples unstruck,
Until that comes which has the quality to strike and to unclose,
Until that comes which has the quality to bring forth what lies
slumbering, forever ready, in all words.

Walt Whitman's Caution

To The States, or any one of them, or any city of The States,
Resist much, obey little;
Once unquestioning obedience, once fully enslaved;
Once fully enslaved, no nation, state, city, of this earth, ever
afterward resumes its liberty.

Wandering At Morn

Wandering at morn,
Emerging from the night, from gloomy thoughts--thee in my thoughts,
Yearning for thee, harmonious Union! thee, Singing Bird divine!
Thee, seated coil'd in evil times, my Country, with craft and black
dismay--with every meanness, treason thrust upon thee;
--Wandering--this common marvel I beheld--the parent thrush I
watch'd, feeding its young,
(The singing thrush, whose tones of joy and faith ecstatic,
Fail not to certify and cheer my soul.)

There ponder'd, felt I,
If worms, snakes, loathsome grubs, may to sweet spiritual songs be
turn'd,
If vermin so transposed, so used, so bless'd may be,
Then may I trust in you, your fortunes, days, my country;
--Who knows that these may be the lessons fit for you?
From these your future Song may rise, with joyous trills,
Destin'd to fill the world.

Warble Of Lilac-Time

Warble me now, for joy of Lilac-time,
Sort me, O tongue and lips, for Nature's sake, and sweet life's
sake--and death's the same as life's,
Souvenirs of earliest summer--birds' eggs, and the first berries;
Gather the welcome signs, (as children, with pebbles, or stringing
shells;)
Put in April and May--the hylas croaking in the ponds--the elastic
air,
Bees, butterflies, the sparrow with its simple notes,
Blue-bird, and darting swallow--nor forget the high-hole flashing his
golden wings,
The tranquil sunny haze, the clinging smoke, the vapor,
Spiritual, airy insects, humming on gossamer wings,
Shimmer of waters, with fish in them--the cerulean above;
All that is jocund and sparkling--the brooks running,
The maple woods, the crisp February days, and the sugar-making;
The robin, where he hops, bright-eyed, brown-breasted,
With musical clear call at sunrise, and again at sunset,
Or flitting among the trees of the apple-orchard, building the nest
of his mate;
The melted snow of March--the willow sending forth its yellow-green
sprouts;
--For spring-time is here! the summer is here! and what is this in it
and from it?
Thou, Soul, unloosen'd--the restlessness after I know not what;
Come! let us lag here no longer--let us be up and away!
O for another world! O if one could but fly like a bird!
O to escape--to sail forth, as in a ship!
To glide with thee, O Soul, o'er all, in all, as a ship o'er the
waters!
--Gathering these hints, these preludes--the blue sky, the grass, the
morning drops of dew;
(With additional songs--every spring will I now strike up additional
songs,
Nor ever again forget, these tender days, the chants of Death as well
as Life;)
The lilac-scent, the bushes, and the dark green, heart-shaped leaves,
Wood violets, the little delicate pale blossoms called innocence,
Samples and sorts not for themselves alone, but for their atmosphere,
To tally, drench'd with them, tested by them,
Cities and artificial life, and all their sights and scenes,
My mind henceforth, and all its meditations--my recitatives,
My land, my age, my race, for once to serve in songs,
(Sprouts, tokens ever of death indeed the same as life,)
To grace the bush I love--to sing with the birds,
A warble for joy of Lilac-time.

We Two Boys Together Clinging

We two boys together clinging,
One the other never leaving,
Up and down the roads going--North and South excursions making,
Power enjoying--elbows stretching--fingers clutching,
Arm'd and fearless--eating, drinking, sleeping, loving,
No law less than ourselves owning--sailing, soldiering, thieving,
threatening,
Misers, menials, priests alarming--air breathing, water drinking, on
the turf or the sea-beach dancing,
Cities wrenching, ease scorning, statutes mocking, feebleness
chasing,
Fulfilling our foray.

We Two-How Long We Were Fool'd

We two--how long we were fool'd!
Now transmuted, we swiftly escape, as Nature escapes;
We are Nature--long have we been absent, but now we return;
We become plants, leaves, foliage, roots, bark;
We are bedded in the ground--we are rocks;
We are oaks--we grow in the openings side by side;
We browse--we are two among the wild herds, spontaneous as any;
We are two fishes swimming in the sea together;
We are what the locust blossoms are--we drop scent around the lanes,
mornings and evenings;
We are also the coarse smut of beasts, vegetables, minerals;
We are two predatory hawks--we soar above, and look down;
We are two resplendent suns--we it is who balance ourselves, orbic
and stellar--we are as two comets;
We prowl fang'd and four-footed in the woods--we spring on prey;
We are two clouds, forenoons and afternoons, driving overhead;
We are seas mingling--we are two of those cheerful waves, rolling
over each other, and interwetting each other;
We are what the atmosphere is, transparent, receptive, pervious,
impervious:
We are snow, rain, cold, darkness--we are each product and influence
of the globe;
We have circled and circled till we have arrived home again--we two
have;
We have voided all but freedom, and all but our own joy.

Weave In, Weave In, My Hardy Life

Weave in! weave in, my hardy life!
Weave yet a soldier strong and full, for great campaigns to come;
Weave in red blood! weave sinews in, like ropes! the senses, sight
weave in!
Weave lasting sure! weave day and night the weft, the warp, incessant
weave! tire not!
(We know not what the use, O life! nor know the aim, the end--nor
really aught we know;
But know the work, the need goes on, and shall go on--the death-
envelop'd march of peace as well as war goes on;)
For great campaigns of peace the same, the wiry threads to weave;
We know not why or what, yet weave, forever weave.

What Am I, After All?

What am I, after all, but a child, pleas'd with the sound of my own
name? repeating it over and over;
I stand apart to hear--it never tires me.

To you, your name also;
Did you think there was nothing but two or three pronunciations in
the sound of your name?

What Best I See In Thee

What best I see in thee,
Is not that where thou mov'st down history's great highways,
Ever undimm'd by time shoots warlike victory's dazzle,
Or that thou sat'st where Washington sat, ruling the land in peace,
Or thou the man whom feudal Europe feted, venerable Asia, swarm'd
upon,
Who walk'd with kings with even pace the round world's promenade;
But that in foreign lands, in all thy walks with kings,
Those prairie sovereigns of the West, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois,
Ohio's, Indiana's millions, comrades, farmers, soldiers, all to the
front,
Invisibly with thee walking with kings with even pace the round
world's promenade,
We all so justified.

What General Has A Good Army

What General has a good army in himself, has a good army;
He happy in himself, or she happy in herself, is happy,
But I tell you you cannot be happy by others, any more than you can
beget or conceive a child by others.

What Place Is Besieged?

What place is besieged, and vainly tries to raise the siege?
Lo! I send to that place a commander, swift, brave, immortal;
And with him horse and foot--and parks of artillery,
And artillery-men, the deadliest that ever fired gun.

What Think You I Take My Pen In Hand?

What think you I take my pen in hand to record?
The battle-ship, perfect-model'd, majestic, that I saw pass the
offing to-day under full sail?
The splendors of the past day? Or the splendor of the night that
envelopes me?
Or the vaunted glory and growth of the great city spread around me?--
No;
But I record of two simple men I saw to-day, on the pier, in the
midst of the crowd, parting the parting of dear friends;
The one to remain hung on the other's neck, and passionately kiss'd
him,
While the one to depart, tightly prest the one to remain in his arms.

What Weeping Face

What weeping face is that looking from the window?
Why does it stream those sorrowful tears?
Is it for some burial place, vast and dry?
Is it to wet the soil of graves?

When I Heard At The Close Of The Day

When I heard at the close of the day how my name had been receiv'd
with plaudits in the capitol, still it was not a happy night
for me that follow'd;
And else, when I carous'd, or when my plans were accomplish'd, still
I was not happy;
But the day when I rose at dawn from the bed of perfect health,
refresh'd, singing, inhaling the ripe breath of autumn,
When I saw the full moon in the west grow pale and disappear in the
morning light,
When I wander'd alone over the beach, and undressing, bathed,
laughing with the cool waters, and saw the sun rise,
And when I thought how my dear friend, my lover, was on his way
coming, O then I was happy;
O then each breath tasted sweeter--and all that day my food nourish'd
me more--and the beautiful day pass'd well,
And the next came with equal joy--and with the next, at evening, came
my friend;
And that night, while all was still, I heard the waters roll slowly
continually up the shores,
I heard the hissing rustle of the liquid and sands, as directed to
me, whispering, to congratulate me,
For the one I love most lay sleeping by me under the same cover in
the cool night,
In the stillness, in the autumn moonbeams, his face was inclined
toward me,
And his arm lay lightly around my breast--and that night I was happy.

When I Heard The Learn'd Astronomer

When I heard the learn'd astronomer;
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;
When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and
measure them;
When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much
applause in the lecture-room,
How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;
Till rising and gliding out, I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.

When I Peruse The Conquer'd Fame

When I peruse the conquer'd fame of heroes, and the victories of
mighty generals, I do not envy the generals,
Nor the President in his Presidency, nor the rich in his great house;
But when I hear of the brotherhood of lovers, how it was with them,
How through life, through dangers, odium, unchanging, long and long,
Through youth, and through middle and old age, how unfaltering, how
affectionate and faithful they were,
Then I am pensive--I hastily walk away, fill'd with the bitterest
envy.

When I Read The Book

When I read the book, the biography famous,
And is this, then, (said I,) what the author calls a man's life?
And so will some one, when I am dead and gone, write my life?
(As if any man really knew aught of my life;
Why, even I myself, I often think, know little or nothing of my real
life;
Only a few hints--a few diffused, faint clues and indirections,
I seek, for my own use, to trace out here.)

Whispers Of Heavenly Death

Whispers of heavenly death, murmur'd I hear;
Labial gossip of night--sibilant chorals;
Footsteps gently ascending--mystical breezes, wafted soft and low;
Ripples of unseen rivers--tides of a current, flowing, forever
flowing;
(Or is it the plashing of tears? the measureless waters of human
tears?)

I see, just see, skyward, great cloud-masses;
Mournfully, slowly they roll, silently swelling and mixing;
With, at times, a half-dimm'd, sadden'd, far-off star,
Appearing and disappearing.

(Some parturition, rather--some solemn, immortal birth:
On the frontiers, to eyes impenetrable,
Some Soul is passing over.)

Who Is Now Reading This?

May-be one is now reading this who knows some wrong-doing of my past
life,
Or may-be a stranger is reading this who has secretly loved me,
Or may-be one who meets all my grand assumptions and egotisms with
derision,
Or may-be one who is puzzled at me.

As if I were not puzzled at myself!
Or as if I never deride myself! (O conscience-struck! O self-
convicted!)
Or as if I do not secretly love strangers! (O tenderly, a long time,
and never avow it;)
Or as if I did not see, perfectly well, interior in myself, the stuff
of wrong-doing,
Or as if it could cease transpiring from me until it must cease.

Who Learns My Lesson Complete?

Who learns my lesson complete?
Boss, journeyman, apprentice--churchman and atheist,
The stupid and the wise thinker--parents and offspring--merchant,
clerk, porter and customer,
Editor, author, artist, and schoolboy--Draw nigh and commence;
It is no lesson--it lets down the bars to a good lesson,
And that to another, and every one to another still.

The great laws take and effuse without argument;
I am of the same style, for I am their friend,
I love them quits and quits--I do not halt, and make salaams.

I lie abstracted, and hear beautiful tales of things, and the reasons
of things;
They are so beautiful, I nudge myself to listen.

I cannot say to any person what I hear--I cannot say it to myself--it
is very wonderful.

It is no small matter, this round and delicious globe, moving so
exactly in its orbit forever and ever, without one jolt, or the
untruth of a single second;
I do not think it was made in six days, nor in ten thousand years,
nor ten billions of years,
Nor plann'd and built one thing after another, as an architect plans
and builds a house.

I do not think seventy years is the time of a man or woman,
Nor that seventy millions of years is the time of a man or woman,
Nor that years will ever stop the existence of me, or any one else.

Is it wonderful that I should be immortal? as every one is immortal;
I know it is wonderful, but my eyesight is equally wonderful, and how
I was conceived in my mother's womb is equally wonderful;
And pass'd from a babe, in the creeping trance of a couple of summers
and winters, to articulate and walk--All this is equally
wonderful.

And that my Soul embraces you this hour, and we affect each other
without ever seeing each other, and never perhaps to see each
other, is every bit as wonderful.

And that I can think such thoughts as these, is just as wonderful;
And that I can remind you, and you think them, and know them to be
true, is just as wonderful.

And that the moon spins round the earth, and on with the earth, is
equally wonderful,
And that they balance themselves with the sun and stars, is equally
wonderful.

Whoever You Are, Holding Me Now In Hand

Whoever you are, holding me now in hand,
Without one thing, all will be useless,
I give you fair warning, before you attempt me further,
I am not what you supposed, but far different.

Who is he that would become my follower?
Who would sign himself a candidate for my affections?

The way is suspicious--the result uncertain, perhaps destructive;
You would have to give up all else--I alone would expect to be your
God, sole and exclusive,
Your novitiate would even then be long and exhausting,
The whole past theory of your life, and all conformity to the lives
around you, would have to be abandon'd;
Therefore release me now, before troubling yourself any further--Let
go your hand from my shoulders,
Put me down, and depart on your way.

Or else, by stealth, in some wood, for trial,
Or back of a rock, in the open air,
(For in any roof'd room of a house I emerge not--nor in company,
And in libraries I lie as one dumb, a gawk, or unborn, or dead,)
But just possibly with you on a high hill--first watching lest any
person, for miles around, approach unawares,
Or possibly with you sailing at sea, or on the beach of the sea, or
some quiet island,
Here to put your lips upon mine I permit you,
With the comrade's long-dwelling kiss, or the new husband's kiss,
For I am the new husband, and I am the comrade.

Or, if you will, thrusting me beneath your clothing,
Where I may feel the throbs of your heart, or rest upon your hip,
Carry me when you go forth over land or sea;
For thus, merely touching you, is enough--is best,
And thus, touching you, would I silently sleep and be carried
eternally.

But these leaves conning, you con at peril,
For these leaves, and me, you will not understand,
They will elude you at first, and still more afterward--I will
certainly elude you,
Even while you should think you had unquestionably caught me,
behold!
Already you see I have escaped from you.

For it is not for what I have put into it that I have written this
book,
Nor is it by reading it you will acquire it,
Nor do those know me best who admire me, and vauntingly praise me,
Nor will the candidates for my love, (unless at most a very few,)
prove victorious,
Nor will my poems do good only--they will do just as much evil,
perhaps more;
For all is useless without that which you may guess at many times and
not hit--that which I hinted at;
Therefore release me, and depart on your way.

With All Thy Gifts

With all thy gifts, America,
(Standing secure, rapidly tending, overlooking the world,)
Power, wealth, extent, vouchsafed to thee--With these, and like of
these, vouchsafed to thee,
What if one gift thou lackest? (the ultimate human problem never
solving;)
The gift of Perfect Women fit for thee--What of that gift of gifts
thou lackest?
The towering Feminine of thee? the beauty, health, completion, fit
for thee?
The Mothers fit for thee?

With Antecedents

With antecedents;
With my fathers and mothers, and the accumulations of past ages;
With all which, had it not been, I would not now be here, as I am:
With Egypt, India, Phenicia, Greece and Rome;
With the Kelt, the Scandinavian, the Alb, and the Saxon;
With antique maritime ventures,--with laws, artizanship, wars and
journeys;
With the poet, the skald, the saga, the myth, and the oracle;
With the sale of slaves--with enthusiasts--with the troubadour, the
crusader, and the monk;
With those old continents whence we have come to this new continent;
With the fading kingdoms and kings over there;
With the fading religions and priests;
With the small shores we look back to from our own large and present
shores;
With countless years drawing themselves onward, and arrived at these
years;
You and Me arrived--America arrived, and making this year;
This year! sending itself ahead countless years to come.

O but it is not the years--it is I--it is You;
We touch all laws, and tally all antecedents;
We are the skald, the oracle, the monk, and the knight--we easily
include them, and more;
We stand amid time, beginningless and endless--we stand amid evil and
good;
All swings around us--there is as much darkness as light;
The very sun swings itself and its system of planets around us;
Its sun, and its again, all swing around us.
As for me, (torn, stormy, even as I, amid these vehement days,)
I have the idea of all, and am all, and believe in all;
I believe materialism is true, and spiritualism is true--I reject no
part.

Have I forgotten any part?
Come to me, whoever and whatever, till I give you recognition.

I respect Assyria, China, Teutonia, and the Hebrews;
I adopt each theory, myth, god, and demi-god;
I see that the old accounts, bibles, genealogies, are true, without
exception;
I assert that all past days were what they should have been;
And that they could no-how have been better than they were,
And that to-day is what it should be--and that America is,
And that to-day and America could no-how be better than they are.

In the name of These States, and in your and my name, the Past,
And in the name of These States, and in your and my name, the Present
time.

I know that the past was great, and the future will be great,
And I know that both curiously conjoint in the present time,
(For the sake of him I typify--for the common average man's sake--
your sake, if you are he;)
And that where I am, or you are, this present day, there is the
centre of all days, all races,
And there is the meaning, to us, of all that has ever come of races
and days, or ever will come.

World, Take Good Notice

World, take good notice, silver stars fading,
Milky hue ript, weft of white detaching,
Coals thirty-eight, baleful and burning,
Scarlet, significant, hands off warning,
Now and henceforth flaunt from these shores.

Year Of Meteors, 1859 '60

Year of meteors! brooding year!
I would bind in words retrospective, some of your deeds and signs;
I would sing your contest for the 19th Presidentiad;
I would sing how an old man, tall, with white hair, mounted the
scaffold in Virginia;
(I was at hand--silent I stood, with teeth shut close--I watch'd;
I stood very near you, old man, when cool and indifferent, but
trembling with age and your unheal'd wounds, you mounted the
scaffold;)
--I would sing in my copious song your census returns of The States,
The tables of population and products--I would sing of your ships and
their cargoes,
The proud black ships of Manhattan, arriving, some fill'd with
immigrants, some from the isthmus with cargoes of gold;
Songs thereof would I sing--to all that hitherward comes would I
welcome give;
And you would I sing, fair stripling! welcome to you from me, sweet
boy of England!
Remember you surging Manhattan's crowds, as you pass'd with your
cortege of nobles?
There in the crowds stood I, and singled you out with attachment;
I know not why, but I loved you... (and so go forth little song,
Far over sea speed like an arrow, carrying my love all folded,
And find in his palace the youth I love, and drop these lines at his
feet;)
--Nor forget I to sing of the wonder, the ship as she swam up my bay,
Well-shaped and stately the Great Eastern swam up my bay, she was 600
feet long,
Her, moving swiftly, surrounded by myriads of small craft, I forget
not to sing;
--Nor the comet that came unannounced out of the north, flaring in
heaven;
Nor the strange huge meteor procession, dazzling and clear, shooting
over our heads,
(A moment, a moment long, it sail'd its balls of unearthly light over
our heads,
Then departed, dropt in the night, and was gone;)
--Of such, and fitful as they, I sing--with gleams from them would I
gleam and patch these chants;
Your chants, O year all mottled with evil and good! year of
forebodings! year of the youth I love!
Year of comets and meteors transient and strange!--lo! even here, one
equally transient and strange!
As I flit through you hastily, soon to fall and be gone, what is this
book,
What am I myself but one of your meteors?

Year That Trembled

Year that trembled and reel'd beneath me!
Your summer wind was warm enough--yet the air I breathed froze me;
A thick gloom fell through the sunshine and darken'd me;
Must I change my triumphant songs? said I to myself;
Must I indeed learn to chant the cold dirges of the baffled?
And sullen hymns of defeat?

Years Of The Modern

Years of the modern! years of the unperform'd!
Your horizon rises--I see it parting away for more august dramas;
I see not America only--I see not only Liberty's nation, but other
nations preparing;
I see tremendous entrances and exits--I see new combinations--I see
the solidarity of races;
I see that force advancing with irresistible power on the world's
stage;
(Have the old forces, the old wars, played their parts? are the acts
suitable to them closed?)
I see Freedom, completely arm'd, and victorious, and very haughty,
with Law on one side, and Peace on the other,
A stupendous Trio, all issuing forth against the idea of caste;
--What historic denouements are these we so rapidly approach?
I see men marching and countermarching by swift millions;
I see the frontiers and boundaries of the old aristocracies broken;
I see the landmarks of European kings removed;
I see this day the People beginning their landmarks, (all others give
way;)
--Never were such sharp questions ask'd as this day;
Never was average man, his soul, more energetic, more like a God;
Lo! how he urges and urges, leaving the masses no rest;
His daring foot is on land and sea everywhere--he colonizes the
Pacific, the archipelagoes;
With the steam-ship, the electric telegraph, the newspaper, the
wholesale engines of war,
With these, and the world-spreading factories, he interlinks all
geography, all lands;
--What whispers are these, O lands, running ahead of you, passing
under the seas?
Are all nations communing? is there going to be but one heart to the
globe?
Is humanity forming, en-masse?--for lo! tyrants tremble, crowns grow
dim;
The earth, restive, confronts a new era, perhaps a general divine
war;
No one knows what will happen next--such portents fill the days and
nights;
Years prophetical! the space ahead as I walk, as I vainly try to
pierce it, is full of phantoms;
Unborn deeds, things soon to be, project their shapes around me;
This incredible rush and heat--this strange extatic fever of dreams,
O years!
Your dreams, O year, how they penetrate through me! (I know not
whether I sleep or wake!)
The perform'd America and Europe grow dim, retiring in shadow behind
me,
The unperform'd, more gigantic than ever, advance, advance upon
me.

Yet, Yet, Ye Downcast Hours

Yet, yet, ye downcast hours, I know ye also;
Weights of lead, how ye clog and cling at my ankles!
Earth to a chamber of mourning turns--I hear the o'erweening, mocking
voice,
Matter is conqueror--matter, triumphant only, continues onward.

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.

I understand your anguish, but I cannot help you,
I approach, hear, behold--the sad mouth, the look out of the eyes,
your mute inquiry,
Whither I go from the bed I recline on, come tell me:
Old age, alarm'd, uncertain--A young woman's voice, appealing to me
for comfort;
A young man's voice, Shall I not escape?

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