diff --git "a/leaves-of-grass-cleaned.txt" "b/leaves-of-grass-cleaned.txt" --- "a/leaves-of-grass-cleaned.txt" +++ "b/leaves-of-grass-cleaned.txt" @@ -9,16 +9,6 @@ There to some group of mates the chants resuming, Ever with pleas’d smile I may keep on, Ever and ever yet the verses owning--as, first, I here and now Signing for Soul and Body, set to them my name, - - - - - - - - - - One’s-Self I Sing One’s-self I sing, a simple separate person, @@ -32,10 +22,6 @@ 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. - - - - As I Ponder’d in Silence As I ponder’d in silence, @@ -59,10 +45,6 @@ Waged in my book with varying fortune, with flight, advance For life and death, for the Body and for the eternal Soul, Lo, I too am come, chanting the chant of battles, I above all promote brave soldiers. - - - - In Cabin’d Ships at Sea In cabin’d ships at sea, @@ -96,19 +78,11 @@ Speed on my book! spread your white sails my little bark athwart the imperious waves, Chant on, sail on, bear o’er the boundless blue from me to every sea, This song for mariners and all their ships. - - - - 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 a Historian You who celebrate bygones, @@ -122,10 +96,6 @@ 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 Thee Old Cause To thee old cause! @@ -149,10 +119,6 @@ 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. - - - - Eidolons I met a seer, @@ -259,10 +225,6 @@ The only purport of the form thou art, the real I myself, No special strains to sing, none for itself, But from the whole resulting, rising at last and floating, A round full-orb’d eidolon. - - - - For Him I Sing For him I sing, @@ -270,10 +232,6 @@ I raise the present on the past, (As some perennial tree out of its roots, the present on the past,) With time and space I him dilate and fuse the immortal laws, To make himself by them the law unto himself. - - - - When I Read the Book When I read the book, the biography famous, @@ -283,10 +241,6 @@ And so will some one when I am dead and gone write 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 clews and indirections I seek for my own use to trace out here.) - - - - Beginning My Studies Beginning my studies the first step pleas’d me so much, @@ -295,10 +249,6 @@ The least insect or animal, the senses, eyesight, love, The first step I say awed me and pleas’d me so much, I have hardly gone and hardly wish’d to go any farther, But stop and loiter all the time to sing it in ecstatic songs. - - - - Beginners How they are provided for upon the earth, (appearing at intervals,) @@ -310,10 +260,6 @@ How there is something relentless in their fate all times, How all times mischoose the objects of their adulation and reward, And how the same inexorable price must still be paid for the same great purchase. - - - - To the States To the States or any one of them, or any city of the States, Resist @@ -321,10 +267,6 @@ To the States or any one of them, or any city of the States, Resist Once unquestioning obedience, once fully enslaved, Once fully enslaved, no nation, state, city of this earth, ever afterward resumes its liberty. - - - - On Journeys Through the States On journeys through the States we start, @@ -346,10 +288,6 @@ We say to ourselves, Remember, fear not, be candid, promulge the 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. - - - - To a Certain Cantatrice Here, take this gift, @@ -358,10 +296,6 @@ 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. - - - - Me Imperturbe Me imperturbe, standing at ease in Nature, @@ -376,10 +310,6 @@ A river man, or a man of the woods or of any farm-life of these Me wherever my life is lived, O to be self-balanced for contingencies, To confront night, storms, hunger, ridicule, accidents, rebuffs, as the trees and animals do. - - - - Savantism Thither as I look I see each result and glory retracing itself and @@ -389,10 +319,6 @@ Thither hours, months, years--thither trades, compacts, 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. - - - - The Ship Starting Lo, the unbounded sea, @@ -401,10 +327,6 @@ On its breast a ship starting, spreading all sails, carrying even 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. - - - - I Hear America Singing I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear, @@ -423,30 +345,18 @@ Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else, The day what belongs to the day--at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly, Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs. - - - - 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. - - - - 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!) - - - - Shut Not Your Doors Shut not your doors to me proud libraries, @@ -456,10 +366,6 @@ Forth from the war emerging, a book I have made, The words of my book nothing, the drift of it every thing, A book separate, not link’d with the rest nor felt by the intellect, But you ye untold latencies will thrill to every page. - - - - Poets to Come Poets to come! orators, singers, musicians to come! @@ -475,27 +381,15 @@ 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. - - - - 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? - - - - Thou Reader Thou reader throbbest life and pride and love the same as I, Therefore for thee the following chants. - - - - Starting from Paumanok Starting from fish-shape Paumanok where I was born, @@ -913,10 +807,6 @@ O something ecstatic 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. - - - - Song of Myself I celebrate myself, and sing myself, @@ -2484,8 +2374,6 @@ The day getting ready for me when I shall do as much good as the best, and be as prodigious; By my life-lumps! becoming already a creator, Putting myself here and now to the ambush’d womb of the shadows. - - A call in the midst of the crowd, My own voice, orotund sweeping and final. @@ -2664,8 +2552,6 @@ Monstrous sauroids transported it in their mouths and deposited it All forces have been steadily employ’d to complete and delight me, Now on this spot I stand with my robust soul. - - O span of youth! ever-push’d elasticity! O manhood, balanced, florid and full. @@ -2934,12 +2820,6 @@ And filter and fibre your blood. Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, Missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you. - - - - - - To the Garden the World To the garden the world anew ascending, @@ -2954,10 +2834,6 @@ 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. - - - - From Pent-Up Aching Rivers From pent-up aching rivers, @@ -3028,10 +2904,6 @@ From the hour of shining stars and dropping dews, From the night a moment I emerging flitting out, Celebrate you act divine and you children prepared for, And you stalwart loins. - - - - I Sing the Body Electric I sing the body electric, @@ -3295,10 +3167,6 @@ The thin red jellies within you or within me, the bones and the The exquisite realization of health; O I say these are not the parts and poems of the body only, but of the soul, O I say now these are the soul! - - - - A Woman Waits for Me A woman waits for me, she contains all, nothing is lacking, @@ -3359,10 +3227,6 @@ I shall count on the fruits of the gushing showers of them, as I count on the fruits of the gushing showers I give now, I shall look for loving crops from the birth, life, death, immortality, I plant so lovingly now. - - - - Spontaneous Me Spontaneous me, Nature, @@ -3435,10 +3299,6 @@ The greed that eats me day and night with hungry gnaw, till I saturate The wholesome relief, repose, content, And this bunch pluck’d at random from myself, It has done its work--I toss it carelessly to fall where it may. - - - - One Hour to Madness and Joy One hour to madness and joy! O furious! O confine me not! @@ -3472,10 +3332,6 @@ 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. - - - - Out of the Rolling Ocean the Crowd Out of the rolling ocean the crowd came a drop gently to me, @@ -3493,10 +3349,6 @@ As for an hour carrying us diverse, yet cannot carry us diverse forever; 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. - - - - Ages and Ages Returning at Intervals Ages and ages returning at intervals, @@ -3507,10 +3359,6 @@ Through the new garden the West, the great cities calling, Deliriate, thus prelude what is generated, offering these, offering myself, Bathing myself, bathing my songs in Sex, Offspring of my loins. - - - - We Two, How Long We Were Fool’d We two, how long we were fool’d, @@ -3536,10 +3384,6 @@ 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, We have voided all but freedom and all but our own joy. - - - - O Hymen! O Hymenee! O hymen! O hymenee! why do you tantalize me thus? @@ -3547,19 +3391,11 @@ 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? - - - - I Am He That Aches with Love I am he that aches with amorous love; Does the earth gravitate? does not all matter, aching, attract all matter? So the body of me to all I meet or know. - - - - Native Moments Native moments--when you come upon me--ah you are here now, @@ -3577,10 +3413,6 @@ 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. - - - - Once I Pass’d Through a Populous City Once I pass’d through a populous city imprinting my brain for future @@ -3593,10 +3425,6 @@ 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. - - - - I Heard You Solemn-Sweet Pipes of the Organ I heard you solemn-sweet pipes of the organ as last Sunday morn I @@ -3609,10 +3437,6 @@ Heart of my love! you too I heard murmuring low through one of the wrists around my head, Heard the pulse of you when all was still ringing little bells last night under my ear. - - - - Facing West from California’s Shores Facing west from California’s shores, @@ -3627,10 +3451,6 @@ Long having wander’d since, round the earth having wander’d, Now I face home again, very pleas’d and joyous, (But where is what I started for so long ago? And why is it yet unfound?) - - - - As Adam Early in the Morning As Adam early in the morning, @@ -3638,12 +3458,6 @@ Walking forth from the bower refresh’d with sleep, Behold me where I pass, hear my voice, approach, Touch me, touch the palm of your hand to my body as I pass, Be not afraid of my body. - - - - - - In Paths Untrodden In paths untrodden, @@ -3667,10 +3481,6 @@ Afternoon this delicious Ninth-month in my forty-first year, I proceed for all who are or have been young men, To tell the secret my nights and days, To celebrate the need of comrades. - - - - Scented Herbage of My Breast Scented herbage of my breast, @@ -3725,10 +3535,6 @@ 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. - - - - Whoever You Are Holding Me Now in Hand Whoever you are holding me now in hand, @@ -3784,10 +3590,6 @@ Nor will my poems do good only, they will do just as much evil, 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. - - - - For You, O Democracy Come, I will make the continent indissoluble, @@ -3804,10 +3606,6 @@ I will make inseparable cities with their arms about each other’s necks, For you these from me, O Democracy, to serve you ma femme! For you, for you I am trilling these songs. - - - - These I Singing in Spring These I singing in spring collect for lovers, @@ -3846,10 +3644,6 @@ 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. - - - - Not Heaving from My Ribb’d Breast Only Not heaving from my ribb’d breast only, @@ -3871,10 +3665,6 @@ 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. - - - - Of the Terrible Doubt of Appearances Of the terrible doubt of appearances, @@ -3904,10 +3694,6 @@ 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. - - - - The Base of All Metaphysics And now gentlemen, @@ -3928,10 +3714,6 @@ 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. - - - - Recorders Ages Hence Recorders ages hence, @@ -3950,10 +3732,6 @@ 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. - - - - 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 @@ -3981,10 +3759,6 @@ 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. - - - - Are You the New Person Drawn Toward Me? Are you the new person drawn toward me? @@ -3997,10 +3771,6 @@ Do you see no further than this facade, this smooth and tolerant manner of me? Do you suppose yourself advancing on real ground toward a real heroic man? Have you no thought O dreamer that it may be all maya, illusion? - - - - Roots and Leaves Themselves Alone Roots and leaves themselves alone are these, @@ -4019,10 +3789,6 @@ 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 branches and trees. - - - - Not Heat Flames Up and Consumes Not heat flames up and consumes, @@ -4038,10 +3804,6 @@ 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. - - - - Trickle Drops Trickle drops! my blue veins leaving! @@ -4056,10 +3818,6 @@ 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. - - - - City of Orgies City of orgies, walks and joys, @@ -4075,10 +3833,6 @@ Not those, but as I pass O Manhattan, your frequent and swift flash of eyes offering me love, Offering response to my own--these repay me, Lovers, continual lovers, only repay me. - - - - Behold This Swarthy Face Behold this swarthy face, these gray eyes, @@ -4090,10 +3844,6 @@ And I on the crossing of the street or on the ship’s deck give a kiss in return, We observe that salute of American comrades land and sea, We are those two natural and nonchalant persons. - - - - I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing I saw in Louisiana a live-oak growing, @@ -4112,10 +3862,6 @@ For all that, and though the live-oak glistens there in Louisiana solitary in a wide in a wide flat space, Uttering joyous leaves all its life without a friend a lover near, I know very well I could not. - - - - To a Stranger Passing stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you, @@ -4133,11 +3879,7 @@ 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. - - - - -This Moment Yearning and Thoughtful +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, @@ -4148,10 +3890,6 @@ 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. - - - - I Hear It Was Charged Against Me I hear it was charged against me that I sought to destroy institutions, @@ -4164,10 +3902,6 @@ And in the fields and woods, and above every keel little or large that dents the water, Without edifices or rules or trustees or any argument, The institution of the dear love of comrades. - - - - The Prairie-Grass Dividing The prairie-grass dividing, its special odor breathing, @@ -4183,10 +3917,6 @@ 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. - - - - When I Peruse the Conquer’d Fame When I peruse the conquer’d fame of heroes and the victories of @@ -4198,10 +3928,6 @@ How together through life, through dangers, odium, unchanging, 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. - - - - We Two Boys Together Clinging We two boys together clinging, @@ -4215,10 +3941,6 @@ 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. - - - - A Promise to California A promise to California, @@ -4228,19 +3950,11 @@ Sojourning east a while longer, soon I travel toward you, to remain, For I know very well that I and robust love belong among you, inland, and along the Western sea; For these States tend inland and toward the Western sea, and I will also. - - - - Here the Frailest Leaves of Me Here the frailest leaves of me and yet my strongest lasting, Here I shade and hide my thoughts, I myself do not expose them, And yet they expose me more than all my other poems. - - - - No Labor-Saving Machine No labor-saving machine, @@ -4251,10 +3965,6 @@ Nor reminiscence of any deed of courage for America, Nor literary success nor intellect; nor book for the book-shelf, But a few carols vibrating through the air I leave, For comrades and lovers. - - - - A Glimpse A glimpse through an interstice caught, @@ -4266,10 +3976,6 @@ A long while amid the noises of coming and going, of drinking and oath and smutty jest, There we two, content, happy in being together, speaking little, perhaps not a word. - - - - A Leaf for Hand in Hand A leaf for hand in hand; @@ -4280,10 +3986,6 @@ You friendly boatmen and mechanics! you roughs! You twain! and all processions moving along the streets! I wish to infuse myself among you till I see it common for you to walk hand in hand. - - - - Earth, My Likeness Earth, my likeness, @@ -4294,10 +3996,6 @@ For an athlete is enamour’d of me, and I of him, But toward him there is something fierce and terrible in me eligible to burst forth, I dare not tell it in words, not even in these songs. - - - - I Dream’d in a Dream I dream’d in a dream I saw a city invincible to the attacks of the @@ -4306,10 +4004,6 @@ I dream’d that was the new city of Friends, Nothing was greater there than the quality of robust love, it led the rest, It was seen every hour in the actions of the men of that city, And in all their looks and words. - - - - What Think You I Take My Pen in Hand? What think you I take my pen in hand to record? @@ -4322,10 +4016,6 @@ But merely 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. - - - - To the East and to the West To the East and to the West, @@ -4335,10 +4025,6 @@ 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, exalte, previously unknown, Because I perceive it waits, and has been always waiting, latent in all men. - - - - Sometimes with One I Love Sometimes with one I love I fill myself with rage for fear I effuse @@ -4347,20 +4033,12 @@ 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.) - - - - To a Western Boy 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? - - - - Fast Anchor’d Eternal O Love! Fast-anchor’d eternal O love! O woman I love! @@ -4369,10 +4047,6 @@ Then separate, as disembodied or another born, 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. - - - - Among the Multitude Among the men and women the multitude, @@ -4384,20 +4058,12 @@ Some are baffled, but that one is not--that one knows me. Ah lover and perfect equal, I meant that you should discover me so by faint indirections, And I when I meet you mean to discover you by the like in you. - - - - 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. - - - - That Shadow My Likeness That shadow my likeness that goes to and fro seeking a livelihood, @@ -4406,10 +4072,6 @@ 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 among my lovers and caroling these songs, O I never doubt whether that is really me. - - - - Full of Life Now Full of life now, compact, visible, @@ -4421,12 +4083,6 @@ When you read these I that was visible am become invisible, Now it is you, compact, visible, realizing my poems, seeking me, Fancying how happy you were if I could be with you and become your comrade; Be it as if I were with you. (Be not too certain but I am now with you.) - - - - - - Salut au Monde! O take my hand Walt Whitman! @@ -4761,12 +4417,6 @@ Toward you all, in America’s name, 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. - - - - - - Song of the Open Road Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road, @@ -5109,12 +4759,6 @@ 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? - - - - - - Crossing Brooklyn Ferry Flood-tide below me! I see you face to face! @@ -5311,12 +4955,6 @@ We use you, and do not cast you aside--we plant you permanently within us, We fathom you not--we love you--there is perfection in you also, You furnish your parts toward eternity, Great or small, you furnish your parts toward the soul. - - - - - - Song of the Answerer Now list to my morning’s romanza, I tell the signs of the Answerer, @@ -5467,12 +5105,6 @@ 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. - - - - - - Our Old Feuillage Always our old feuillage! @@ -5642,12 +5274,6 @@ Whoever you are! how can I but offer you divine leaves, that you also be eligible as I am? How can I but as here chanting, invite you for yourself to collect bouquets of the incomparable feuillage of these States? - - - - - - A Song of Joys O to make the most jubilant song! @@ -5894,12 +5520,6 @@ 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. - - - - - - Song of the Broad-Axe Weapon shapely, naked, wan, @@ -6263,12 +5883,6 @@ 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 (Ah little recks the laborer, @@ -6589,12 +6203,6 @@ Think not our chant, our show, merely for products gross or lucre-- it is for thee, the soul in thee, 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 Redwood-Tree A California song, @@ -6739,12 +6347,6 @@ 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. - - - - - - A Song for Occupations A song for occupations! @@ -7007,12 +6609,6 @@ When warrantee deeds loafe in chairs opposite and are my friendly companions, I intend to reach them my hand, and make as much of them as I do of men and women like you. - - - - - - A Song of the Rolling Earth A song of the rolling earth, and of words according, @@ -7207,10 +6803,6 @@ The greatest among them shall be he who best knows you, and encloses He and the rest shall not forget you, they shall perceive that you are not an iota less than they, You shall be fully glorified in them. - - - - Youth, Day, Old Age and Night Youth, large, lusty, loving--youth full of grace, force, fascination, @@ -7221,12 +6813,6 @@ Day full-blown and splendid-day of the immense sun, action, ambition, laughter, The Night follows close with millions of suns, and sleep and restoring darkness. - - - - - - Song of the Universal Come said the Muse, @@ -7312,10 +6898,6 @@ 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. - - - - Pioneers! O Pioneers! Come my tan-faced children, @@ -7450,10 +7032,6 @@ Yet a passing hour I yield you in your tracks to pause oblivious, Far, far off the daybreak 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! - - - - To You Whoever you are, I fear you are walking the walks of dreams, @@ -7535,10 +7113,6 @@ Through birth, life, death, burial, the means are provided, nothing is scanted, Through angers, losses, ambition, ignorance, ennui, what you are picks its way. - - - - France [the 18th Year of these States A great year and place @@ -7581,10 +7155,6 @@ O I think the east wind brings a triumphal and free march, It reaches hither, it swells me to Joyful madness, I will run transpose it in words, to justify I will yet sing a song for you ma femme. - - - - Myself and Mine Myself and mine gymnastic ever, @@ -7643,10 +7213,6 @@ Every hour the semen of centuries, and still of centuries. I must follow up these continual lessons of the air, water, earth, I perceive I have no time to lose. - - - - Year of Meteors [1859-60 Year of meteors! brooding year! @@ -7686,10 +7252,6 @@ 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 chant, What am I myself but one of your meteors? - - - - With Antecedents With antecedents, @@ -7745,12 +7307,6 @@ 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. - - - - - - A Broadway Pageant Over the Western sea hither from Niphon come, @@ -7800,8 +7356,6 @@ The race of Brahma comes. See my cantabile! these and more are flashing to us from the procession, As it moves changing, a kaleidoscope divine it moves changing before us. - - For not the envoys nor the tann’d Japanee from his island only, Lithe and silent the Hindoo appears, the Asiatic continent itself appears, the past, the dead, @@ -7876,12 +7430,6 @@ Were the centuries steadily footing it that way, all the while They are justified, they are accomplish’d, they shall now be turn’d the other way also, to travel toward you thence, They shall now also march obediently eastward for your sake Libertad. - - - - - - Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking Out of the cradle endlessly rocking, @@ -8111,10 +7659,6 @@ That strong and delicious word which, creeping to my feet, (Or like some old crone rocking the cradle, swathed in sweet garments, bending aside,) The sea whisper’d me. - - - - As I Ebb’d with the Ocean of Life As I ebb’d with the ocean of life, @@ -8210,10 +7754,6 @@ Just as much whence we come that blare of the cloud-trumpets, We, capricious, brought hither we know not whence, spread out before you, You up there walking or sitting, Whoever you are, we too lie in drifts at your feet. - - - - Tears Tears! tears! tears! @@ -8230,10 +7770,6 @@ 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! - - - - To the Man-of-War-Bird Thou who hast slept all night upon the storm, @@ -8259,10 +7795,6 @@ At dusk that lookist on Senegal, at morn America, That sport’st amid the lightning-flash and thunder-cloud, In them, in thy experiences, had’st thou my soul, What joys! what joys were thine! - - - - Aboard at a Ship’s Helm Aboard at a ship’s helm, @@ -8281,10 +7813,6 @@ The beautiful and noble ship with all her precious wealth speeds But O the ship, the immortal ship! O ship aboard the ship! Ship of the body, ship of the soul, voyaging, voyaging, voyaging. - - - - On the Beach at Night On the beach at night, @@ -8328,10 +7856,6 @@ Something there is more immortal even than the stars, Something that shall endure longer even than lustrous Jupiter Longer than sun or any revolving satellite, Or the radiant sisters the Pleiades. - - - - The World below the Brine The world below the brine, @@ -8353,10 +7877,6 @@ Passions there, wars, pursuits, tribes, sight in those ocean-depths, 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. - - - - On the Beach at Night Alone On the beach at night alone, @@ -8376,10 +7896,6 @@ 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 and enclose them. - - - - Song for All Seas, All Ships To-day a rude brief recitative, @@ -8412,10 +7928,6 @@ 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. - - - - Patroling Barnegat Wild, wild the storm, and the sea high running, @@ -8432,10 +7944,6 @@ 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. - - - - After the Sea-Ship After the sea-ship, after the whistling winds, @@ -8451,12 +7959,6 @@ The wake of the sea-ship after she passes, flashing and frolicsome under the sun, A motley procession with many a fleck of foam and many fragments, Following the stately and rapid ship, in the wake following. - - - - - - A Boston Ballad [1854] To get betimes in Boston town I rose this morning early, @@ -8529,10 +8031,6 @@ You have got your revenge, old buster--the crown is come to its own, Stick your hands in your pockets, Jonathan--you are a made man from this day, You are mighty cute--and here is one of your bargains. - - - - Europe [The 72d and 73d Years of These States] Suddenly out of its stale and drowsy lair, the lair of slaves, @@ -8594,10 +8092,6 @@ Liberty, let others despair of you--I never despair of you. Is the house shut? is the master away? Nevertheless, be ready, be not weary of watching, He will soon return, his messengers come anon. - - - - A Hand-Mirror Hold it up sternly--see this it sends back, (who is it? is it you?) @@ -8612,10 +8106,6 @@ Words babble, hearing and touch callous, No brain, no heart left, no magnetism of sex; Such from one look in this looking-glass ere you go hence, Such a result so soon--and from such a beginning! - - - - Gods Lover divine and perfect Comrade, @@ -8644,10 +8134,6 @@ Or shape of Earth divine and wondrous, Or some fair shape I viewing, worship, Or lustrous orb of sun or star by night, Be ye my Gods. - - - - Germs Forms, qualities, lives, humanity, language, thoughts, @@ -8660,10 +8146,6 @@ Such-like, and as good as such-like, visible here or anywhere, stand provided for a handful of space, which I extend my arm and half enclose with my hand, That containing the start of each and all, the virtue, the germs of all. - - - - Thoughts Of ownership--as if one fit to own things could not at pleasure enter @@ -8675,9 +8157,6 @@ 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 its main purport in what will yet be supplied. - - - When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer When I heard the learn’d astronomer, @@ -8689,18 +8168,10 @@ 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. - - - - Perfections Only themselves understand themselves and the like of themselves, As souls only understand souls. - - - - O Me! O Life! O me! O life! of the questions of these recurring, @@ -8717,10 +8188,6 @@ 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 may contribute a verse. - - - - To a President All you are doing and saying is to America dangled mirages, @@ -8729,10 +8196,6 @@ You have not learn’d of Nature--of the politics of Nature you have 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. - - - - I Sit and Look Out I sit and look out upon all the sorrows of the world, and upon all @@ -8753,10 +8216,6 @@ I observe the slights and degradations cast by arrogant persons upon laborers, the poor, and upon negroes, and the like; All these--all the meanness and agony without end I sitting look out upon, See, hear, and am silent. - - - - To Rich Givers What you give me I cheerfully accept, @@ -8767,10 +8226,6 @@ A traveler’s lodging and breakfast as journey through the States,-- 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. - - - - The Dalliance of the Eagles Skirting the river road, (my forenoon walk, my rest,) @@ -8783,93 +8238,53 @@ 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. - - - - Roaming in Thought [After reading Hegel] 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. - - - - A Farm Picture Through the ample open door of the peaceful country barn, A sunlit pasture field with cattle and horses feeding, And haze and vista, and the far horizon fading away. - - - - A Child’s Amaze Silent and amazed even when a little boy, I remember I heard the preacher every Sunday put God in his statements, As contending against some being or influence. - - - - 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. - - - - Beautiful Women Women sit or move to and fro, some old, some young, The young are beautiful--but the old are more beautiful than the young. - - - - 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. - - - - 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. - - - - 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. - - - - Thought Of justice--as If could be any thing but the same ample law, expounded by natural judges and saviors, As if it might be this thing or that thing, according to decisions. - - - - Gliding O’er all Gliding o’er all, through all, @@ -8877,10 +8292,6 @@ Through Nature, Time, and Space, As a ship on the waters advancing, The voyage of the soul--not life alone, Death, many deaths I’ll sing. - - - - Hast Never Come to Thee an Hour Hast never come to thee an hour, @@ -8888,46 +8299,26 @@ A sudden gleam divine, precipitating, bursting all these bubbles, fashions, wealth? These eager business aims--books, politics, art, amours, To utter nothingness? - - - - 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. - - - - To Old Age I see in you the estuary that enlarges and spreads itself grandly as it pours in the great sea. - - - - Locations and Times Locations and times--what is it in me that meets them all, whenever and wherever, and makes me at home? Forms, colors, densities, odors--what is it in me that corresponds with them? - - - - Offerings A thousand perfect men and women appear, Around each gathers a cluster of friends, and gay children and youths, with offerings. - - - - To The States [To Identify the 16th, 17th, or 18th Presidentiad] Why reclining, interrogating? why myself and all drowsing? @@ -8942,12 +8333,6 @@ Then I will sleep awhile yet, for I see that these States sleep, for (With gathering murk, with muttering thunder and lambent shoots we all duly awake, South, North, East, West, inland and seaboard, we will surely awake.) - - - - - - First O Songs for a Prelude First O songs for a prelude, @@ -9031,10 +8416,6 @@ Old matron of this proud, friendly, turbulent city, Often in peace and wealth you were pensive or covertly frown’d amid all your children, But now you smile with joy exulting old Mannahatta. - - - - Eighteen Sixty-One Arm’d year--year of the struggle, @@ -9060,10 +8441,6 @@ Saw I your gait and saw I your sinewy limbs clothed in blue, bearing Heard your determin’d voice launch’d forth again and again, Year that suddenly sang by the mouths of the round-lipp’d cannon, I repeat you, hurrying, crashing, sad, distracted year. - - - - Beat! Beat! Drums! Beat! beat! drums!--blow! bugles! blow! @@ -9094,10 +8471,6 @@ Let not the child’s voice be heard, nor the mother’s entreaties, Make even the trestles to shake the dead where they lie awaiting the hearses, So strong you thump O terrible drums--so loud you bugles blow. - - - - From Paumanok Starting I Fly Like a Bird From Paumanok starting I fly like a bird, @@ -9112,10 +8485,6 @@ To Texas and so along up toward California, to roam accepted everywhere; To sing first, (to the tap of the war-drum if need be,) The idea of all, of the Western world one and inseparable, And then the song of each member of these States. - - - - Song of the Banner at Daybreak Poet: @@ -9198,9 +8567,7 @@ 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: +Poet: I hear and see not strips of cloth alone, I hear the tramp of armies, I hear the challenging sentry, I hear the jubilant shouts of millions of men, I hear Liberty! @@ -9326,10 +8693,6 @@ I too leave the rest--great as it is, it is nothing--houses, machines I see but you, O warlike pennant! O banner so broad, with stripes, sing you only, Flapping up there in the wind. - - - - Rise O Days from Your Fathomless Deeps Rise O days from your fathomless deeps, till you loftier, fiercer sweep, @@ -9396,10 +8759,6 @@ 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 the mountains roam or sail the stormy sea. - - - - Virginia--The West The noble sire fallen on evil days, @@ -9417,10 +8776,6 @@ As to you Rebellious, (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. - - - - City of Ships City of ships! @@ -9441,10 +8796,6 @@ Good or bad I never question you--I love all--I do not condemn any thing, I chant and celebrate all that is yours--yet peace no more, In peace I chanted peace, but now the drum of war is mine, War, red war is my song through your streets, O city! - - - - The Centenarian’s Story [Volunteer of 1861-2, at Washington Park, Brooklyn, assisting @@ -9609,10 +8960,6 @@ Ah, hills and slopes of Brooklyn! I perceive you are more valuable than your owners supposed; In the midst of you stands an encampment very old, Stands forever the camp of that dead brigade. - - - - Cavalry Crossing a Ford A line in long array where they wind betwixt green islands, @@ -9625,10 +8972,6 @@ Behold the brown-faced men, each group, each person a picture, the Some emerge on the opposite bank, others are just entering the ford--while, Scarlet and blue and snowy white, The guidon flags flutter gayly in the wind. - - - - Bivouac on a Mountain Side I see before me now a traveling army halting, @@ -9640,10 +8983,6 @@ The numerous camp-fires scatter’d near and far, some away up on the 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. - - - - An Army Corps on the March With its cloud of skirmishers in advance, @@ -9654,10 +8993,6 @@ Glittering dimly, toiling under the sun--the dust-cover’d men, In columns rise and fall to the undulations of the ground, With artillery interspers’d--the wheels rumble, the horses sweat, As the army corps advances. - - - - By the Bivouac’s Fitful Flame By the bivouac’s fitful flame, @@ -9673,10 +9008,6 @@ Of life and death, of home and the past and loved, and of those that are far away; A solemn and slow procession there as I sit on the ground, By the bivouac’s fitful flame. - - - - Come Up from the Fields Father Come up from the fields father, here’s a letter from our Pete, @@ -9731,10 +9062,6 @@ By day her meals untouch’d, then at night fitfully sleeping, often waking, In the midnight waking, weeping, longing with one deep longing, O that she might withdraw unnoticed, silent from life escape and withdraw, To follow, to seek, to be with her dear dead son. - - - - Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night Vigil strange I kept on the field one night; @@ -9773,10 +9100,6 @@ 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. - - - - A March in the Ranks Hard-Prest, and the Road Unknown A march in the ranks hard-prest, and the road unknown, @@ -9812,10 +9135,6 @@ But first I bend to the dying lad, his eyes open, a half-smile gives he me, Then the eyes close, calmly close, and I speed forth to the darkness, Resuming, marching, ever in darkness marching, on in the ranks, The unknown road still marching. - - - - A Sight in Camp in the Daybreak Gray and Dim A sight in camp in the daybreak gray and dim, @@ -9838,10 +9157,6 @@ Then to the third--a face nor child nor old, very calm, as of Young man I think I know you--I think this face is the face of the Christ himself, Dead and divine and brother of all, and here again he lies. - - - - As Toilsome I Wander’d Virginia’s Woods As toilsome I wander’d Virginia’s woods, @@ -9860,10 +9175,6 @@ Yet at times through changeful season and scene, abrupt, alone, or Comes before me the unknown soldier’s grave, comes the inscription rude in Virginia’s woods, Bold, cautious, true, and my loving comrade. - - - - Not the Pilot Not the pilot has charged himself to bring his ship into port, @@ -9874,10 +9185,6 @@ By deserts parch’d, snows chill’d, rivers wet, perseveres till he More than I have charged myself, heeded or unheeded, to compose march for these States, For a battle-call, rousing to arms if need be, years, centuries hence. - - - - Year That Trembled and Reel’d Beneath Me Year that trembled and reel’d beneath me! @@ -9886,10 +9193,6 @@ 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? - - - - The Wound-Dresser An old man bending I come among new faces, @@ -9974,10 +9277,6 @@ 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.) - - - - Long, Too Long America Long, too long America, @@ -9989,10 +9288,6 @@ And now to conceive and show to the world what your children en-masse really are, (For who except myself has yet conceiv’d what your children en-masse really are?) - - - - Give Me the Splendid Silent Sun Give me the splendid silent sun with all his beams full-dazzling, @@ -10051,10 +9346,6 @@ The endless and noisy chorus, the rustle and clank of muskets, (even the sight of the wounded,) Manhattan crowds, with their turbulent musical chorus! Manhattan faces and eyes forever for me. - - - - Dirge for Two Veterans The last sunbeam @@ -10101,10 +9392,6 @@ O my soldiers twain! O my veterans passing to burial! And the bugles and the drums give you music, And my heart, O my soldiers, my veterans, My heart gives you love. - - - - Over the Carnage Rose Prophetic a Voice Over the carnage rose prophetic a voice, @@ -10137,10 +9424,6 @@ I, ecstatic, O partners! O lands! with the love of lovers tie you. (Were you looking to be held together by lawyers? Or by an agreement on a paper? or by arms? Nay, nor the world, nor any living thing, will so cohere.) - - - - I Saw Old General at Bay I saw old General at bay, @@ -10152,10 +9435,6 @@ I saw a hundred and more step forth from the ranks, but two or three I saw them receive their orders aside, they listen’d with care, the adjutant was very grave, I saw them depart with cheerfulness, freely risking their lives. - - - - The Artilleryman’s Vision While my wife at my side lies slumbering, and the wars are over long, @@ -10198,10 +9477,6 @@ Grime, heat, rush, aide-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 bursting in air, and at night the vari-color’d rockets. - - - - Ethiopia Saluting the Colors Who are you dusky woman, so ancient hardly human, @@ -10223,10 +9498,6 @@ And courtesies to the regiments, the guidons moving by. What is it fateful woman, so blear, hardly human? Why wag your head with turban bound, yellow, red and green? Are the things so strange and marvelous you see or have seen? - - - - Not Youth Pertains to Me Not youth pertains to me, @@ -10239,10 +9510,6 @@ Beauty, knowledge, inure not to me--yet there are two or three things 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. - - - - Race of Veterans Race of veterans--race of victors! @@ -10250,10 +9517,6 @@ 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. - - - - World Take Good Notice World take good notice, silver stars fading, @@ -10261,10 +9524,6 @@ Milky hue ript, wet of white detaching, Coals thirty-eight, baleful and burning, Scarlet, significant, hands off warning, Now and henceforth flaunt from these shores. - - - - O Tan-Faced Prairie-Boy O tan-faced prairie-boy, @@ -10273,20 +9532,12 @@ 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. - - - - Look Down Fair Moon Look down fair moon and bathe this scene, Pour softly down night’s nimbus floods on faces ghastly, swollen, purple, On the dead on their backs with arms toss’d wide, Pour down your unstinted nimbus sacred moon. - - - - Reconciliation Word over all, beautiful as the sky, @@ -10297,10 +9548,6 @@ That the hands of the sisters Death and Night incessantly softly 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, Bend down and touch lightly with my lips the white face in the coffin. - - - - How Solemn As One by One [Washington City, 1865] How solemn as one by one, @@ -10316,10 +9563,6 @@ Nor the bayonet stab what you really are; The soul! yourself I see, great as any, good as the best, Waiting secure and content, which the bullet could never kill, Nor the bayonet stab O friend. - - - - As I Lay with My Head in Your Lap Camerado As I lay with my head in your lap camerado, @@ -10338,10 +9581,6 @@ And the lure of what is call’d heaven is little or nothing to me; Dear camerado! I confess I have urged you onward with me, and still urge you, without the least idea what is our destination, Or whether we shall be victorious, or utterly quell’d and defeated. - - - - Delicate Cluster Delicate cluster! flag of teeming life! @@ -10352,10 +9591,6 @@ Flag cerulean--sunny flag, with the orbs of night dappled! Ah my silvery beauty--ah my woolly white and crimson! Ah to sing the song of you, my matron mighty! My sacred one, my mother. - - - - To a Certain Civilian Did you ask dulcet rhymes from me? @@ -10370,10 +9605,6 @@ 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. - - - - Lo, Victress on the Peaks Lo, Victress on the peaks, @@ -10386,10 +9617,6 @@ Flauntest now unharm’d in immortal soundness and bloom--lo, in No poem proud, I chanting bring to thee, nor mastery’s rapturous verse, But a cluster containing night’s darkness and blood-dripping wounds, And psalms of the dead. - - - - Spirit Whose Work Is Done [Washington City, 1865] Spirit whose work is done--spirit of dreadful hours! @@ -10415,10 +9642,6 @@ 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. - - - - Adieu to a Soldier Adieu O soldier, @@ -10438,10 +9661,6 @@ Through untried roads with ambushes opponents lined, Through many a sharp defeat and many a crisis, often baffled, Here marching, ever marching on, a war fight out--aye here, To fiercer, weightier battles give expression. - - - - Turn O Libertad Turn O Libertad, for the war is over, @@ -10459,10 +9678,6 @@ But what remains remains for singers for you--wars to come are for you, 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. - - - - To the Leaven’d Soil They Trod To the leaven’d soil they trod calling I sing for the last, @@ -10481,12 +9696,6 @@ 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 fully ripen my songs. - - - - - - When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d, @@ -10502,8 +9711,6 @@ 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 dooryard 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, @@ -10766,10 +9973,6 @@ 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. - - - - O Captain! My Captain! O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done, @@ -10798,10 +10001,6 @@ From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won; But I with mournful tread, Walk the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead. - - - - Hush’d Be the Camps To-Day [May 4, 1865 Hush’d be the camps to-day, @@ -10819,22 +10018,12 @@ Sing of the love we bore him--because you, dweller in camps, know it truly. As they invault the coffin there, Sing--as they close the doors of earth upon him--one verse, For the heavy hearts of soldiers. - - - - 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. - - - - - - By Blue Ontario’s Shore By blue Ontario’s shore, @@ -11305,8 +10494,6 @@ These States, what are they except myself? I know now why the earth is gross, tantalizing, wicked, it is for my sake, I take you specially to be mine, you terrible, rude forms. - - (Mother, bend down, bend close to me your face, I know not what these plots and wars and deferments are for, I know not fruition’s success, but I know that through war and crime @@ -11340,10 +10527,6 @@ Bards with songs as from burning coals or the lightning’s fork’d stripes! Ample Ohio’s, Kanada’s bards--bards of California! inland bards-- bards of the war! You by my charm I invoke. - - - - Reversals Let that which stood in front go behind, @@ -11352,12 +10535,6 @@ Let bigots, fools, unclean persons, offer new propositions, Let the old propositions be postponed, Let a man seek pleasure everywhere except in himself, Let a woman seek happiness everywhere except in herself - - - - - - As Consequent, Etc. As consequent from store of summer rains, @@ -11400,10 +10577,6 @@ Infinitesimals out of my life, and many a life, (For not my life and years alone I give--all, all I give,) These waifs from the deep, cast high and dry, Wash’d on America’s shores? - - - - The Return of the Heroes For the lands and for these passionate days and for myself, @@ -11584,10 +10757,6 @@ Pick the pea and the bean, or pull apples from the trees or bunches of grapes from the vines, Or aught that ripens in all these States or North or South, Under the beaming sun and under thee. - - - - There Was a Child Went Forth There was a child went forth every day, @@ -11651,10 +10820,6 @@ 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. - - - - Old Ireland Far hence amid an isle of wondrous beauty, @@ -11677,10 +10842,6 @@ 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. - - - - The City Dead-House By the city dead-house by the gate, @@ -11704,10 +10865,6 @@ 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. - - - - This Compost Something startles me where I thought I was safest, @@ -11773,10 +10930,6 @@ It distills 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. - - - - To a Foil’d European Revolutionaire Courage yet, my brother or my sister! @@ -11832,10 +10985,6 @@ 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. - - - - Unnamed Land Nations ten thousand years before these States, and many times ten @@ -11884,10 +11033,6 @@ 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. - - - - Song of Prudence Manhattan’s streets I saunter’d pondering, @@ -11986,10 +11131,6 @@ 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 nor avoids death. - - - - The Singer in the Prison O sight of pity, shame and dole! @@ -12059,10 +11200,6 @@ The wailing melody again, the singer in the prison sings, O sight of pity, shame and dole! O fearful thought--a convict soul. - - - - Warble for Lilac-Time Warble me now for joy of lilac-time, (returning in reminiscence,) @@ -12095,10 +11232,6 @@ Wood-violets, the little delicate pale blossoms called innocence, Samples and sorts not for themselves alone, but for their atmosphere, To grace the bush I love--to sing with the birds, A warble for joy of returning in reminiscence. - - - - Outlines for a Tomb [G. P., Buried 1870] What may we chant, O thou within this tomb? @@ -12162,10 +11295,6 @@ By you and all your teeming life old Thames, By you Potomac laving the ground Washington trod, by you Patapsco, You Hudson, you endless Mississippi--nor you alone, But to the high seas launch, my thought, his memory. - - - - Out from Behind This Mask [To Confront a Portrait] Out from behind this bending rough-cut mask, @@ -12195,10 +11324,6 @@ 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 clinch your soul for once inseparably with mine, Then travel travel on. - - - - Vocalism Vocalism, measure, concentration, determination, and the divine @@ -12238,10 +11363,6 @@ 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. - - - - To Him That Was Crucified My spirit to yours dear brother, @@ -12262,10 +11383,6 @@ 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. - - - - You Felons on Trial in Courts You felons on trial in courts, @@ -12288,10 +11405,6 @@ Lusts and wickedness are acceptable to me, I walk with delinquents with passionate love, I feel I am of them--I belong to those convicts and prostitutes myself, And henceforth I will not deny them--for how can I deny myself? - - - - Laws for Creations Laws for creations, @@ -12311,10 +11424,6 @@ What do you suppose I would intimate to you in a hundred ways, but And that there is no God any more divine than Yourself? And that that is what the oldest and newest myths finally mean? And that you or any one must approach creations through such laws? - - - - To a Common Prostitute Be composed--be at ease with me--I am Walt Whitman, liberal and @@ -12328,10 +11437,6 @@ My girl I appoint with you an appointment, and I charge you that you 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. - - - - I Was Looking a Long While I was looking a long while for Intentions, @@ -12347,10 +11452,6 @@ It is in languages, social customs, literatures, arts, It is in the broad show of artificial things, ships, machinery, politics, creeds, modern improvements, and the interchange of nations, All for the modern--all for the average man of to-day. - - - - Thought Of persons arrived at high positions, ceremonies, wealth, @@ -12366,10 +11467,6 @@ And often to me those men and women pass unwittingly the true 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.) - - - - Miracles Why, who makes much of a miracle? @@ -12399,10 +11496,6 @@ 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? - - - - Sparkles from the Wheel Where the city’s ceaseless crowd moves on the livelong day, @@ -12426,10 +11519,6 @@ 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. - - - - To a Pupil Is reform needed? is it through you? @@ -12447,10 +11536,6 @@ 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. - - - - Unfolded out of the Folds Unfolded out of the folds of the woman man comes unfolded, and is @@ -12473,10 +11558,6 @@ 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 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. - - - - What Am I After All What am I after all but a child, pleas’d with the sound of my own @@ -12486,10 +11567,6 @@ 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? - - - - Kosmos Who includes diversity and is Nature, @@ -12509,10 +11586,6 @@ Who believes not only in our globe with its sun and moon, but in Who, constructing the house of himself or herself, not for a day but for all time, sees races, eras, dates, generations, The past, the future, dwelling there, like space, inseparable together. - - - - Others May Praise What They Like Others may praise what they like; @@ -12521,10 +11594,6 @@ But I, from the banks of the running Missouri, praise nothing in art Till it has well inhaled the atmosphere of this river, also the western prairie-scent, And exudes it all again. - - - - Who Learns My Lesson Complete? Who learns my lesson complete? @@ -12577,10 +11646,6 @@ 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. - - - - Tests All submit to them where they sit, inner, secure, unapproachable to @@ -12591,10 +11656,6 @@ 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. - - - - The Torch On my Northwest coast in the midst of the night a fishermen’s group @@ -12602,10 +11663,6 @@ On my Northwest coast in the midst of the night a fishermen’s group 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 ablaze at the prow. - - - - O Star of France [1870-71] O star of France, @@ -12656,10 +11713,6 @@ When lo! reborn, high o’er the European world, Again thy star O France, fair lustrous star, In heavenly peace, clearer, more bright than ever, Shall beam immortal. - - - - The Ox-Tamer In a far-away northern county in the placid pastoral region, @@ -12689,10 +11742,6 @@ Now I marvel what it can be he appears to them, (books, politics, 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. - - - - An Old Man’s Thought of School [For the Inauguration of a Public School, Camden, New Jersey, 1874] @@ -12722,10 +11771,6 @@ 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. - - - - Wandering at Morn Wandering at morn, @@ -12744,10 +11789,6 @@ Then may I trust in you, your fortunes, days, my country; Who knows but these may be the lessons fit for you? From these your future song may rise with joyous trills, Destin’d to fill the world. - - - - Italian Music in Dakota [“The Seventeenth--the finest Regimental Band I ever heard.”] @@ -12769,10 +11810,6 @@ Lurking in hidden barbaric grim recesses, Acknowledging rapport however far remov’d, (As some old root or soil of earth its last-born flower or fruit,) Listens well pleas’d. - - - - With All Thy Gifts With all thy gifts America, @@ -12784,10 +11821,6 @@ The gift of perfect women fit for thee--what if that gift of gifts thou lackest? The towering feminine of thee? the beauty, health, completion, fit for thee? The mothers fit for thee? - - - - My Picture-Gallery In a little house keep I pictures suspended, it is not a fix’d house, @@ -12796,10 +11829,6 @@ 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. - - - - The Prairie States A newer garden of creation, no primal solitude, @@ -12808,12 +11837,6 @@ 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. - - - - - - Proud Music of the Storm Proud music of the storm, @@ -12829,8 +11852,6 @@ 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, @@ -13022,12 +12043,6 @@ 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. - - - - - - Passage to India Singing my days, @@ -13325,8 +12340,6 @@ 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! @@ -13347,12 +12360,6 @@ 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! - - - - - - Prayer of Columbus A batter’d, wreck’d old man, @@ -13433,12 +12440,6 @@ 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. - - - - - - The Sleepers I wander all night in my vision, @@ -13738,10 +12739,6 @@ I know not how I came of you and I know not where I go with you, but 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. - - - - Transpositions Let the reformers descend from the stands where they are forever @@ -13749,12 +12746,6 @@ Let the reformers descend from the stands where they are forever Let judges and criminals be transposed--let the prison-keepers be put in prison--let those that were prisoners take the keys; Let them that distrust birth and death lead the rest. - - - - - - To Think of Time To think of time--of all that retrospection, @@ -13808,8 +12799,6 @@ 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. @@ -13965,12 +12954,6 @@ 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! - - - - - - Darest Thou Now O Soul Darest thou now O soul, @@ -13992,10 +12975,6 @@ Nor darkness, gravitation, sense, nor any bounds bounding us. Then we burst forth, we float, In Time and Space O soul, prepared for them, Equal, equipt at last, (O joy! O fruit of all!) them to fulfil O soul. - - - - Whispers of Heavenly Death Whispers of heavenly death murmur’d I hear, @@ -14012,10 +12991,6 @@ Appearing and disappearing. (Some parturition rather, some solemn immortal birth; On the frontiers to eyes impenetrable, Some soul is passing over.) - - - - Chanting the Square Deific Chanting the square deific, out of the One advancing, out of the sides, @@ -14080,10 +13055,6 @@ Life of the great round world, the sun and stars, and of man, I, the general soul, Here the square finishing, the solid, I the most solid, Breathe my breath also through these songs. - - - - Of Him I Love Day and Night Of him I love day and night I dream’d I heard he was dead, @@ -14104,10 +13075,6 @@ And if the memorials of the dead were put up indifferently everywhere, 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. - - - - Yet, Yet, Ye Downcast Hours Yet, yet, ye downcast hours, I know ye also, @@ -14128,10 +13095,6 @@ 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? - - - - As If a Phantom Caress’d Me As if a phantom caress’d me, @@ -14141,10 +13104,6 @@ But the one I thought was with me as now I walk by the shore, the As I lean and look through the glimmering light, that one has utterly disappear’d. And those appear that are hateful to me and mock me. - - - - Assurances I need no assurances, I am a man who is preoccupied of his own soul; @@ -14174,10 +13133,6 @@ I do not doubt that whatever can possibly happen anywhere at any time, is provided for in the inherences of things, I do not think Life provides for all and for Time and Space, but I believe Heavenly Death provides for all. - - - - Quicksand Years Quicksand years that whirl me I know not whither, @@ -14187,10 +13142,6 @@ 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? - - - - That Music Always Round Me That music always round me, unceasing, unbeginning, yet long @@ -14208,10 +13159,6 @@ 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 begin to know them. - - - - What Ship Puzzled at Sea What ship puzzled at sea, cons for the true reckoning? @@ -14219,10 +13166,6 @@ Or coming in, to avoid the bars and follow the channel a perfect pilot needs? Here, sailor! here, ship! take aboard the most perfect pilot, Whom, in a little boat, putting off and rowing, I hailing you offer. - - - - A Noiseless Patient Spider A noiseless patient spider, @@ -14237,10 +13180,6 @@ Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them, Till the bridge you will need be form’d, till the ductile anchor hold, Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul. - - - - O Living Always, Always Dying O living always, always dying! @@ -14250,10 +13189,6 @@ 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. - - - - To One Shortly to Die From all the rest I single out you, having a message for you, @@ -14275,10 +13210,6 @@ 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. - - - - Night on the Prairies Night on the prairies, @@ -14307,10 +13238,6 @@ 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. - - - - Thought As I sit with others at a great feast, suddenly while the music is playing, @@ -14331,10 +13258,6 @@ 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? - - - - The Last Invocation At the last, tenderly, @@ -14349,20 +13272,12 @@ Set ope the doors O soul. Tenderly--be not impatient, (Strong is your hold O mortal flesh, Strong is your hold O love.) - - - - As I Watch the Ploughman Ploughing As I watch’d the ploughman ploughing, Or the sower sowing in the fields, or the harvester harvesting, I saw there too, O life and death, your analogies; (Life, life is the tillage, and Death is the harvest according.) - - - - Pensive and Faltering Pensive and faltering, @@ -14370,12 +13285,6 @@ The words the Dead I write, For living are the Dead, (Haply the only living, only real, And I the apparition, I the spectre.) - - - - - - Thou Mother with Thy Equal Brood Thou Mother with thy equal brood, @@ -14564,10 +13473,6 @@ Thou mental, moral orb--thou New, indeed new, Spiritual World! The Present holds thee not--for such vast growth as thine, For such unparallel’d flight as thine, such brood as thine, The FUTURE only holds thee and can hold thee. - - - - A Paumanok Picture Two boats with nets lying off the sea-beach, quite still, @@ -14581,12 +13486,6 @@ Some of the fishermen lounge in their boats, others stand The boats partly drawn up, the water slapping against them, Strew’d on the sand in heaps and windrows, well out from the water, the green-back’d spotted mossbonkers. - - - - - - Thou Orb Aloft Full-Dazzling Thou orb aloft full-dazzling! thou hot October noon! @@ -14623,10 +13522,6 @@ 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. - - - - Faces Sauntering the pavement or riding the country by-road, faces! @@ -14755,10 +13650,6 @@ Her grandsons raised the flax, and her grand-daughters spun it with The melodious character of the earth, The finish beyond which philosophy cannot go and does not wish to go, The justified mother of men. - - - - The Mystic Trumpeter Hark, some wild trumpeter, some strange musician, @@ -14841,8 +13732,6 @@ Mine too the revenges of humanity, the wrongs of ages, baffled feuds 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, @@ -14861,10 +13750,6 @@ The ocean fill’d with joy--the atmosphere all joy! Joy! joy! in freedom, worship, love! joy in the ecstasy of life! Enough to merely be! enough to breathe! Joy! joy! all over joy! - - - - To a Locomotive in Winter Thee for my recitative, @@ -14897,10 +13782,6 @@ Law of thyself complete, thine own track firmly holding, 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. - - - - O Magnet-South O magnet-south! O glistening perfumed South! my South! @@ -14947,10 +13828,6 @@ O my heart! O tender and fierce pangs, I can stand them not, I will depart; O to be a Virginian where I grew up! O to be a Carolinian! O longings irrepressible! O I will go back to old Tennessee and never wander more. - - - - Mannahatta I was asking for something specific and perfect for my city, @@ -14984,10 +13861,6 @@ A million people--manners free and superb--open voices--hospitality-- the most courageous and friendly young men, City of hurried and sparkling waters! city of spires and masts! City nested in bays! my city! - - - - All Is Truth O me, man of slack faith so long, @@ -15017,10 +13890,6 @@ And that there is no flaw or vacuum in the amount of the truth--but that all is truth without exception; And henceforth I will go celebrate any thing I see or am, And sing and laugh and deny nothing. - - - - A Riddle Song That which eludes this verse and any verse, @@ -15067,10 +13936,6 @@ Or midnight’s silent glowing northern lights unreachable. Haply God’s riddle it, so vague and yet so certain, The soul for it, and all the visible universe for it, And heaven at last for it. - - - - Excelsior Who has gone farthest? for I would go farther, @@ -15091,10 +13956,6 @@ And who possesses a perfect and enamour’d body? for I do not believe And who thinks the amplest thoughts? for I would surround those thoughts, And who has made hymns fit for the earth? for I am mad with devouring ecstasy to make joyous hymns for the whole earth. - - - - Ah Poverties, Wincings, and Sulky Retreats Ah poverties, wincings, and sulky retreats, @@ -15109,10 +13970,6 @@ You broken resolutions, you racking angers, you smother’d ennuis! Ah think not you finally triumph, my real self has yet to come forth, It shall yet march forth o’ermastering, till all lies beneath me, It shall yet stand up the soldier of ultimate victory. - - - - Thoughts Of public opinion, @@ -15131,10 +13988,6 @@ Of the true New World--of the Democracies resplendent en-masse, Of the conformity of politics, armies, navies, to them, Of the shining sun by them--of the inherent light, greater than the rest, Of the envelopment of all by them, and the effusion of all from them. - - - - Mediums They shall arise in the States, @@ -15154,10 +14007,6 @@ 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. - - - - Weave in, My Hardy Life Weave in, weave in, my hardy life, @@ -15171,10 +14020,6 @@ 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. - - - - Spain, 1873-74 Out of the murk of heaviest clouds, @@ -15192,10 +14037,6 @@ 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. - - - - By Broad Potomac’s Shore By broad Potomac’s shore, again old tongue, @@ -15213,10 +14054,6 @@ Lave subtly with your waters every line Potomac! Give me of you O spring, before I close, to put between its pages! O forenoon purple of the hills, before I close, of you! O deathless grass, of you! - - - - From Far Dakota’s Canyons [June 25, 1876] From far Dakota’s canyons, @@ -15253,10 +14090,6 @@ Desperate and glorious, aye in defeat most desperate, most glorious, After thy many battles in which never yielding up a gun or a color, Leaving behind thee a memory sweet to soldiers, Thou yieldest up thyself. - - - - Old War-Dreams In midnight sleep of many a face of anguish, @@ -15276,10 +14109,6 @@ Where through the carnage I moved with a callous composure, or away from the fallen, Onward I sped at the time--but now of their forms at night, I dream, I dream, I dream. - - - - Thick-Sprinkled Bunting Thick-sprinkled bunting! flag of stars! @@ -15292,10 +14121,6 @@ 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! - - - - What Best I See in Thee [To U. S. G. return’d from his World’s Tour] @@ -15311,10 +14136,6 @@ 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, Were all so justified. - - - - Spirit That Form’d This Scene [Written in Platte Canyon, Colorado] @@ -15331,10 +14152,6 @@ 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. - - - - As I Walk These Broad Majestic Days As I walk these broad majestic days of peace, @@ -15365,10 +14182,6 @@ The rapt promises and lumine of seers, the spiritual world, these centuries-lasting songs, And our visions, the visions of poets, the most solid announcements of any. - - - - A Clear Midnight This is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless, @@ -15376,12 +14189,6 @@ Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson done, Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the themes thou lovest best, Night, sleep, death and the stars. - - - - - - As the Time Draws Nigh As the time draws nigh glooming a cloud, @@ -15396,10 +14203,6 @@ O book, O chants! must all then amount to but this? Must we barely arrive at this beginning of us? --and yet it is enough, O soul; O soul, we have positively appear’d--that is enough. - - - - Years of the Modern Years of the modern! years of the unperform’d! @@ -15443,10 +14246,6 @@ Your dreams O years, 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. - - - - Ashes of Soldiers Ashes of soldiers South or North, @@ -15504,10 +14303,6 @@ O love, solve all, fructify all with the last chemistry. Give me exhaustless, make me a fountain, That I exhale love from me wherever I go like a moist perennial dew, For the ashes of all dead soldiers South or North. - - - - Thoughts Of these years I sing, @@ -15570,10 +14365,6 @@ Of these songs, 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?) - - - - Song at Sunset Splendor of ended day floating and filling me, @@ -15652,10 +14443,6 @@ 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. - - - - As at Thy Portals Also Death As at thy portals also death, @@ -15670,10 +14457,6 @@ To her, the ideal woman, practical, spiritual, of all of earth, life, love, to me the best, I grave a monumental line, before I go, amid these songs, And set a tombstone here. - - - - My Legacy The business man the acquirer vast, @@ -15689,10 +14472,6 @@ Nor houses nor lands, nor tokens of gems or gold for my friends, Yet certain remembrances of the war for you, and after you, And little souvenirs of camps and soldiers, with my love, I bind together and bequeath in this bundle of songs. - - - - Pensive on Her Dead Gazing Pensive on her dead gazing I heard the Mother of All, @@ -15718,10 +14497,6 @@ 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. - - - - Camps of Green Nor alone those camps of white, old comrades of the wars, @@ -15757,10 +14532,6 @@ For presently O soldiers, we too camp in our place in the bivouac-camps of green, But we need not provide for outposts, nor word for the countersign, Nor drummer to beat the morning drum. - - - - The Sobbing of the Bells [Midnight, Sept. 19-20, 1881] The sobbing of the bells, the sudden death-news everywhere, @@ -15770,10 +14541,6 @@ 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. - - - - As They Draw to a Close As they draw to a close, @@ -15792,10 +14559,6 @@ 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. - - - - Joy, Shipmate, Joy! Joy, shipmate, Joy! @@ -15805,34 +14568,18 @@ The long, long anchorage we leave, The ship is clear at last, she leaps! She swiftly courses from the shore, Joy, shipmate, joy. - - - - The Untold Want The untold want by life and land ne’er granted, Now voyager sail thou forth to seek and find. - - - - Portals What are those of the known but to ascend and enter the Unknown? And what are those of life but for Death? - - - - These Carols These carols sung to cheer my passage through the world I see, For completion I dedicate to the Invisible World. - - - - Now Finale to the Shore Now finale to the shore, @@ -15845,10 +14592,6 @@ 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. - - - - So Long! To conclude, I announce what comes after me. @@ -15952,22 +14695,12 @@ An unknown sphere more real than I dream’d, more direct, darts Remember my words, I may again return, I love you, I depart from materials, I am as one disembodied, triumphant, dead. - - - - - - Mannahatta My city’s fit and noble name resumed, Choice aboriginal name, with marvellous beauty, meaning, A rocky founded island--shores where ever gayly dash the coming, going, hurrying sea waves. - - - - Paumanok Sea-beauty! stretch’d and basking! @@ -15977,10 +14710,6 @@ And one the Atlantic’s wind caressing, fierce or gentle--mighty hulls dark-gliding in the distance. Isle of sweet brooks of drinking-water--healthy air and soil! Isle of the salty shore and breeze and brine! - - - - From Montauk Point I stand as on some mighty eagle’s beak, @@ -15989,10 +14718,6 @@ The tossing waves, the foam, the ships in the distance, The wild unrest, the snowy, curling caps--that inbound urge and urge of waves, Seeking the shores forever. - - - - To Those Who’ve Fail’d To those who’ve fail’d, in aspiration vast, @@ -16004,11 +14729,7 @@ To many a lofty song and picture without recognition--I’d rear High, high above the rest--To all cut off before their time, Possess’d by some strange spirit of fire, Quench’d by an early death. - - - - -A Carol Closing Sixty-Nine +A Carol Closing Sixty-Nine A carol closing sixty-nine--a resume--a repetition, My lines in joy and hope continuing on the same, @@ -16021,19 +14742,11 @@ The body wreck’d, old, poor and paralyzed--the strange inertia falling pall-like round me, The burning fires down in my sluggish blood not yet extinct, The undiminish’d faith--the groups of loving friends. - - - - The Bravest Soldiers Brave, brave were the soldiers (high named to-day) who lived through the fight; But the bravest press’d to the front and fell, unnamed, unknown. - - - - A Font of Type This latent mine--these unlaunch’d voices--passionate powers, @@ -16042,20 +14755,12 @@ Wrath, argument, or praise, or comic leer, or prayer devout, These ocean waves arousable to fury and to death, Or sooth’d to ease and sheeny sun and sleep, Within the pallid slivers slumbering. - - - - As I Sit Writing Here As I sit writing here, sick and grown old, Not my least burden is that dulness of the years, querilities, Ungracious glooms, aches, lethargy, constipation, whimpering ennui, May filter in my dally songs. - - - - My Canary Bird Did we count great, O soul, to penetrate the themes of mighty books, @@ -16063,10 +14768,6 @@ Absorbing deep and full from thoughts, plays, speculations? But now from thee to me, caged bird, to feel thy joyous warble, Filling the air, the lonesome room, the long forenoon, Is it not just as great, O soul? - - - - Queries to My Seventieth Year Approaching, nearing, curious, @@ -16075,10 +14776,6 @@ Strength, weakness, blindness, more paralysis and heavier? Or placid skies and sun? Wilt stir the waters yet? Or haply cut me short for good? Or leave me here as now, Dull, parrot-like and old, with crack’d voice harping, screeching? - - - - The Wallabout Martyrs Greater than memory of Achilles or Ulysses, @@ -16086,10 +14783,6 @@ More, more by far to thee than tomb of Alexander, Those cart loads of old charnel ashes, scales and splints of mouldy bones, Once living men--once resolute courage, aspiration, strength, The stepping stones to thee to-day and here, America. - - - - The First Dandelion Simple and fresh and fair from winter’s close emerging, @@ -16097,10 +14790,6 @@ As if no artifice of fashion, business, politics, had ever been, Forth from its sunny nook of shelter’d grass--innocent, golden, calm as the dawn, The spring’s first dandelion shows its trustful face. - - - - America Centre of equal daughters, equal sons, @@ -16109,19 +14798,11 @@ Strong, ample, fair, enduring, capable, rich, Perennial with the Earth, with Freedom, Law and Love, A grand, sane, towering, seated Mother, Chair’d in the adamant of Time. - - - - Memories How sweet the silent backward tracings! The wanderings as in dreams--the meditation of old times resumed --their loves, joys, persons, voyages. - - - - To-Day and Thee The appointed winners in a long-stretch’d game; @@ -16130,28 +14811,16 @@ The past entire, with all its heroes, histories, arts, experiments, Its store of songs, inventions, voyages, teachers, books, Garner’d for now and thee--To think of it! The heirdom all converged in thee! - - - - After the Dazzle of Day After the dazzle of day is gone, Only the dark, dark night shows to my eyes the stars; After the clangor of organ majestic, or chorus, or perfect band, Silent, athwart my soul, moves the symphony true. - - - - Abraham Lincoln, Born Feb. 12, 1809 To-day, from each and all, a breath of prayer--a pulse of thought, To memory of Him--to birth of Him. - - - - Out of May’s Shows Selected Apple orchards, the trees all cover’d with blossoms; @@ -16159,10 +14828,6 @@ Wheat fields carpeted far and near in vital emerald green; The eternal, exhaustless freshness of each early morning; The yellow, golden, transparent haze of the warm afternoon sun; The aspiring lilac bushes with profuse purple or white flowers. - - - - Halcyon Days Not from successful love alone, @@ -16174,9 +14839,6 @@ As the days take on a mellower light, and the apple at last hangs really finish’d and indolent-ripe on the tree, Then for the teeming quietest, happiest days of all! The brooding and blissful halcyon days! - - - FANCIES AT NAVESINK [I] The Pilot in the Mist @@ -16189,9 +14851,6 @@ Again the trembling, laboring vessel veers me--I press through foam-dash’d rocks that almost touch me, Again I mark where aft the small thin Indian helmsman Looms in the mist, with brow elate and governing hand. - - - [II] Had I the Choice Had I the choice to tally greatest bards, @@ -16204,9 +14863,6 @@ These, these, O sea, all these I’d gladly barter, Would you the undulation of one wave, its trick to me transfer, Or breathe one breath of yours upon my verse, And leave its odor there. - - - [III] You Tides with Ceaseless Swell You tides with ceaseless swell! you power that does this work! @@ -16219,9 +14875,6 @@ What central heart--and you the pulse--vivifies all? what boundless What subtle indirection and significance in you? what clue to all in you? what fluid, vast identity, Holding the universe with all its parts as one--as sailing in a ship? - - - [IV] Last of Ebb, and Daylight Waning Last of ebb, and daylight waning, @@ -16239,9 +14892,6 @@ Some suicide’s despairing cry, Away to the boundless waste, and On to oblivion then! On, on, and do your part, ye burying, ebbing tide! On for your time, ye furious debouche! - - - [V] And Yet Not You Alone And yet not you alone, twilight and burying ebb, @@ -16251,9 +14901,6 @@ Duly by you, from you, the tide and light again--duly the hinges turning, Duly the needed discord-parts offsetting, blending, Weaving from you, from Sleep, Night, Death itself, The rhythmus of Birth eternal. - - - [VI] Proudly the Flood Comes In Proudly the flood comes in, shouting, foaming, advancing, @@ -16264,9 +14911,6 @@ Mainsails, topsails, jibs, appear in the offing--steamers’ pennants Freighted with human lives, gaily the outward bound, gaily the inward bound, Flaunting from many a spar the flag I love. - - - [VII] By That Long Scan of Waves By that long scan of waves, myself call’d back, resumed upon myself, @@ -16279,19 +14923,12 @@ By any grand ideal tried, intentionless, the whole a nothing, And haply yet some drop within God’s scheme’s ensemble--some wave, or part of wave, Like one of yours, ye multitudinous ocean. - - - [VIII] Then Last Of All Then last of all, caught from these shores, this hill, Of you O tides, the mystic human meaning: Only by law of you, your swell and ebb, enclosing me the same, The brain that shapes, the voice that chants this song. - - - - Election Day, November, 1884 If I should need to name, O Western World, your powerfulest scene and show, @@ -16316,10 +14953,6 @@ Or good or ill humanity--welcoming the darker odds, the dross: pants, life glows: These stormy gusts and winds waft precious ships, Swell’d Washington’s, Jefferson’s, Lincoln’s sails. - - - - With Husky-Haughty Lips, O Sea! With husky-haughty lips, O sea! @@ -16349,10 +14982,6 @@ The first and last confession of the globe, Outsurging, muttering from thy soul’s abysms, The tale of cosmic elemental passion, Thou tellest to a kindred soul. - - - - Death of General Grant As one by one withdraw the lofty actors, @@ -16364,10 +14993,6 @@ Victor’s and vanquish’d--Lincoln’s and Lee’s--now thou with them, Man of the mighty days--and equal to the days! Thou from the prairies!--tangled and many-vein’d and hard has been thy part, To admiration has it been enacted! - - - - Red Jacket (From Aloft) Upon this scene, this show, @@ -16379,10 +15004,6 @@ Product of Nature’s sun, stars, earth direct--a towering human form, In hunting-shirt of film, arm’d with the rifle, a half-ironical smile curving its phantom lips, Like one of Ossian’s ghosts looks down. - - - - Washington’s Monument February, 1885 Ah, not this marble, dead and cold: @@ -16403,10 +15024,6 @@ Through teeming cities’ streets, indoors or out, factories or farms, Now, or to come, or past--where patriot wills existed or exist, Wherever Freedom, pois’d by Toleration, sway’d by Law, Stands or is rising thy true monument. - - - - Of That Blithe Throat of Thine Of that blithe throat of thine from arctic bleak and blank, @@ -16419,10 +15036,6 @@ Not summer’s zones alone--not chants of youth, or south’s warm tides alone, But held by sluggish floes, pack’d in the northern ice, the cumulus of years, These with gay heart I also sing. - - - - Broadway What hurrying human tides, or day or night! @@ -16437,10 +15050,6 @@ Thou of the endless sliding, mincing, shuffling feet! Thou, like the parti-colored world itself--like infinite, teeming, mocking life! Thou visor’d, vast, unspeakable show and lesson! - - - - To Get the Final Lilt of Songs To get the final lilt of songs, @@ -16450,10 +15059,6 @@ To diagnose the shifting-delicate tints of love and pride and doubt-- to truly understand, To encompass these, the last keen faculty and entrance-price, Old age, and what it brings from all its past experiences. - - - - Old Salt Kossabone Far back, related on my mother’s side, @@ -16476,10 +15081,6 @@ And swiftly bending round the cape, the darkness proudly entering, “She’s free--she’s on her destination”--these the last words--when Jenny came, he sat there dead, Dutch Kossabone, Old Salt, related on my mother’s side, far back. - - - - The Dead Tenor As down the stage again, @@ -16498,10 +15099,6 @@ Freedom’s and Love’s and Faith’s unloos’d cantabile, From these, for these, with these, a hurried line, dead tenor, A wafted autumn leaf, dropt in the closing grave, the shovel’d earth, To memory of thee. - - - - Continuities Nothing is ever really lost, or can be lost, @@ -16514,10 +15111,6 @@ The light in the eye grown dim, shall duly flame again; The sun now low in the west rises for mornings and for noons continual; To frozen clods ever the spring’s invisible law returns, With grass and flowers and summer fruits and corn. - - - - Yonnondio A song, a poem of itself--the word itself a dirge, @@ -16535,10 +15128,6 @@ To-day gives place, and fades--the cities, farms, factories fade; A muffled sonorous sound, a wailing word is borne through the air for a moment, Then blank and gone and still, and utterly lost. - - - - Life Ever the undiscouraged, resolute, struggling soul of man; @@ -16548,10 +15137,6 @@ Ever the eager eyes, hurrahs, the welcome-clapping hands, the loud applause; Ever the soul dissatisfied, curious, unconvinced at last; Struggling to-day the same--battling the same. - - - - “Going Somewhere” My science-friend, my noblest woman-friend, @@ -16565,10 +15150,6 @@ Ended our talk--“The sum, concluding all we know of old or modern duly over,) “The world, the race, the soul--in space and time the universes, “All bound as is befitting each--all surely going somewhere.” - - - - Small the Theme of My Chant Small the theme of my Chant, yet the greatest--namely, One’s-Self-- @@ -16583,10 +15164,6 @@ My Days I sing, and the Lands--with interstice I knew of hapless War. feel through every leaf the pressure of your hand, which I return. And thus upon our journey, footing the road, and more than once, and link’d together let us go.) - - - - True Conquerors Old farmers, travelers, workmen (no matter how crippled or bent,) @@ -16596,10 +15173,6 @@ Enough that they’ve survived at all--long life’s unflinching ones! Forth from their struggles, trials, fights, to have emerged at all-- in that alone, True conquerors o’er all the rest. - - - - The United States to Old World Critics Here first the duties of to-day, the lessons of the concrete, @@ -16607,20 +15180,12 @@ Wealth, order, travel, shelter, products, plenty; As of the building of some varied, vast, perpetual edifice, Whence to arise inevitable in time, the towering roofs, the lamps, The solid-planted spires tall shooting to the stars. - - - - The Calming Thought of All That coursing on, whate’er men’s speculations, Amid the changing schools, theologies, philosophies, Amid the bawling presentations new and old, The round earth’s silent vital laws, facts, modes continue. - - - - Thanks in Old Age Thanks in old age--thanks ere I go, @@ -16644,20 +15209,12 @@ The cannoneers of song and thought--the great artillerists--the As soldier from an ended war return’d--As traveler out of myriads, to the long procession retrospective, Thanks--joyful thanks!--a soldier’s, traveler’s thanks. - - - - Life and Death The two old, simple problems ever intertwined, Close home, elusive, present, baffled, grappled. By each successive age insoluble, pass’d on, To ours to-day--and we pass on the same. - - - - The Voice of the Rain And who art thou? said I to the soft-falling shower, @@ -16672,10 +15229,6 @@ And forever, by day and night, I give back life to my own origin, and make pure and beautify it; (For song, issuing from its birth-place, after fulfilment, wandering, Reck’d or unreck’d, duly with love returns.) - - - - Soon Shall the Winter’s Foil Be Here Soon shall the winter’s foil be here; @@ -16694,10 +15247,6 @@ The arbutus under foot, the willow’s yellow-green, the blossoming With these the robin, lark and thrush, singing their songs--the flitting bluebird; For such the scenes the annual play brings on. - - - - While Not the Past Forgetting While not the past forgetting, @@ -16706,10 +15255,6 @@ For sign reciprocal our Northern, Southern hands, Lay on the graves of all dead soldiers, North or South, (Nor for the past alone--for meanings to the future,) Wreaths of roses and branches of palm. - - - - The Dying Veteran Amid these days of order, ease, prosperity, @@ -16731,10 +15276,6 @@ To the wounded, the fallen, the heat, the suspense, The perfume strong, the smoke, the deafening noise; Away with your life of peace!--your joys of peace! Give me my old wild battle-life again!” - - - - Stronger Lessons Have you learn’d lessons only of those who admired you, and were @@ -16742,10 +15283,6 @@ Have you learn’d lessons only of those who admired you, and were Have you not learn’d great lessons from those who reject you, and brace themselves against you? or who treat you with contempt, or dispute the passage with you? - - - - A Prairie Sunset Shot gold, maroon and violet, dazzling silver, emerald, fawn, @@ -16755,10 +15292,6 @@ The light, the general air possess’d by them--colors till now unknown, No limit, confine--not the Western sky alone--the high meridian-- North, South, all, Pure luminous color fighting the silent shadows to the last. - - - - Twenty Years Down on the ancient wharf, the sand, I sit, with a new-comer chatting: @@ -16775,10 +15308,6 @@ I see the sailor kit, the canvas bag, the great box bound with brass, I scan the face all berry-brown and bearded--the stout-strong frame, Dress’d in its russet suit of good Scotch cloth: (Then what the told-out story of those twenty years? What of the future?) - - - - Orange Buds by Mail from Florida A lesser proof than old Voltaire’s, yet greater, @@ -16788,20 +15317,12 @@ Brought safely for a thousand miles o’er land and tide, Some three days since on their own soil live-sprouting, Now here their sweetness through my room unfolding, A bunch of orange buds by mall from Florida. - - - - Twilight The soft voluptuous opiate shades, The sun just gone, the eager light dispell’d--(I too will soon be gone, dispell’d,) A haze--nirwana--rest and night--oblivion. - - - - You Lingering Sparse Leaves of Me You lingering sparse leaves of me on winter-nearing boughs, @@ -16811,10 +15332,6 @@ You tokens diminute and lorn--(not now the flush of May, or July You pallid banner-staves--you pennants valueless--you overstay’d of time, Yet my soul-dearest leaves confirming all the rest, The faithfulest--hardiest--last. - - - - Not Meagre, Latent Boughs Alone Not meagre, latent boughs alone, O songs! (scaly and bare, like @@ -16825,20 +15342,12 @@ To verdant leaves, or sheltering shade--to nourishing fruit, Apples and grapes--the stalwart limbs of trees emerging--the fresh, free, open air, And love and faith, like scented roses blooming. - - - - The Dead Emperor To-day, with bending head and eyes, thou, too, Columbia, Less for the mighty crown laid low in sorrow--less for the Emperor, Thy true condolence breathest, sendest out o’er many a salt sea mile, Mourning a good old man--a faithful shepherd, patriot. - - - - As the Greek’s Signal Flame As the Greek’s signal flame, by antique records told, @@ -16847,10 +15356,6 @@ Welcoming in fame some special veteran, hero, With rosy tinge reddening the land he’d served, So I aloft from Mannahatta’s ship-fringed shore, Lift high a kindled brand for thee, Old Poet. - - - - The Dismantled Ship In some unused lagoon, some nameless bay, @@ -16859,10 +15364,6 @@ An old, dismasted, gray and batter’d ship, disabled, done, After free voyages to all the seas of earth, haul’d up at last and hawser’d tight, Lies rusting, mouldering. - - - - Now Precedent Songs, Farewell Now precedent songs, farewell--by every name farewell, @@ -16883,20 +15384,12 @@ Of life or death, or soldier’s wound, of country’s loss or safety, (O heaven! what flash and started endless train of all! compared indeed to that! What wretched shred e’en at the best of all!) - - - - An Evening Lull After a week of physical anguish, Unrest and pain, and feverish heat, Toward the ending day a calm and lull comes on, Three hours of peace and soothing rest of brain. - - - - Old Age’s Lambent Peaks The touch of flame--the illuminating fire--the loftiest look at last, @@ -16908,10 +15401,6 @@ So much i’ the atmosphere, the points of view, the situations whence we scan, Bro’t out by them alone--so much (perhaps the best) unreck’d before; The lights indeed from them--old age’s lambent peaks. - - - - After the Supper and Talk After the supper and talk--after the day is done, @@ -16928,12 +15417,6 @@ Something to eke out a minute additional--shadows of nightfall deepening, Farewells, messages lessening--dimmer the forthgoer’s visage and form, Soon to be lost for aye in the darkness--loth, O so loth to depart! Garrulous to the very last. - - - - - - Sail out for Good, Eidolon Yacht! Heave the anchor short! @@ -16945,10 +15428,6 @@ Depart, depart from solid earth--no more returning to these shores, Now on for aye our infinite free venture wending, Spurning all yet tried ports, seas, hawsers, densities, gravitation, Sail out for good, eidolon yacht of me! - - - - Lingering Last Drops And whence and why come you? @@ -16957,20 +15436,12 @@ We know not whence, (was the answer,) We only know that we drift here with the rest, That we linger’d and lagg’d--but were wafted at last, and are now here, To make the passing shower’s concluding drops. - - - - Good-Bye My Fancy Good-bye my fancy--(I had a word to say, But ’tis not quite the time--The best of any man’s word or say, Is when its proper place arrives--and for its meaning, I keep mine till the last.) - - - - On, on the Same, Ye Jocund Twain! On, on the same, ye jocund twain! @@ -16994,10 +15465,6 @@ I pass to snow-white hairs the same, and give to pulses As here in careless trill, I and my recitatives, with faith and love, wafting to other work, to unknown songs, conditions, On, on ye jocund twain! continue on the same! - - - - MY 71st Year After surmounting three-score and ten, @@ -17009,20 +15476,12 @@ As some old broken soldier, after a long, hot, wearying march, or To-day at twilight, hobbling, answering company roll-call, Here, with vital voice, Reporting yet, saluting yet the Officer over all. - - - - Apparitions A vague mist hanging ’round half the pages: (Sometimes how strange and clear to the soul, That all these solid things are indeed but apparitions, concepts, non-realities.) - - - - The Pallid Wreath Somehow I cannot let it go yet, funeral though it is, @@ -17036,19 +15495,11 @@ For but last night I woke, and in that spectral ring saw thee, Thy smile, eyes, face, calm, silent, loving as ever: So let the wreath hang still awhile within my eye-reach, It is not yet dead to me, nor even pallid. - - - - An Ended Day The soothing sanity and blitheness of completion, The pomp and hurried contest-glare and rush are done; Now triumph! transformation! jubilate! - - - - Old Age’s Ship & Crafty Death’s From east and west across the horizon’s edge, @@ -17060,10 +15511,6 @@ Put on the old ship all her power to-day! Crowd top-sail, top-gallant and royal studding-sails, Out challenge and defiance--flags and flaunting pennants added, As we take to the open--take to the deepest, freest waters. - - - - To the Pending Year Have I no weapon-word for thee--some message brief and fierce? @@ -17074,10 +15521,6 @@ Nor for myself--my own rebellious self in thee? Down, down, proud gorge!--though choking thee; Thy bearded throat and high-borne forehead to the gutter; Crouch low thy neck to eleemosynary gifts. - - - - Shakspere-Bacon’s Cipher I doubt it not--then more, far more; @@ -17086,10 +15529,6 @@ In each old song bequeath’d--in every noble page or text, In every object, mountain, tree, and star--in every birth and life, As part of each--evolv’d from each--meaning, behind the ostent, A mystic cipher waits infolded. - - - - Long, Long Hence After a long, long course, hundreds of years, denials, @@ -17097,10 +15536,6 @@ Accumulations, rous’d love and joy and thought, Hopes, wishes, aspirations, ponderings, victories, myriads of readers, Coating, compassing, covering--after ages’ and ages’ encrustations, Then only may these songs reach fruition. - - - - Bravo, Paris Exposition! Add to your show, before you close it, France, @@ -17110,10 +15545,6 @@ Our sentiment wafted from many million heart-throbs, ethereal but solid, (We grand-sons and great-grandsons do not forget your grandsires,) From fifty Nations and nebulous Nations, compacted, sent oversea to-day, America’s applause, love, memories and good-will. - - - - Interpolation Sounds Over and through the burial chant, @@ -17129,10 +15560,6 @@ The rifle crack--the cannon thud--the rushing forth of men from their The clank of cavalry--the strange celerity of forming ranks--the slender bugle note; The sound of horses’ hoofs departing--saddles, arms, accoutrements. - - - - To the Sun-Set Breeze Ah, whispering, something again, unseen, @@ -17158,10 +15585,6 @@ Minister to speak to me, here and now, what word has never told, and Art thou not universal concrete’s distillation? Law’s, all Astronomy’s last refinement? Hast thou no soul? Can I not know, identify thee? - - - - Old Chants An ancient song, reciting, ending, @@ -17193,10 +15616,6 @@ Thou! pausing a moment, drooping thine eyes upon them, blent with their music, Well pleased, accepting all, curiously prepared for by them, Thou enterest at thy entrance porch. - - - - A Christmas Greeting Welcome, Brazilian brother--thy ample place is ready; @@ -17211,10 +15630,6 @@ Thou cluster free! thou brilliant lustrous one! thou, learning well, The true lesson of a nation’s light in the sky, (More shining than the Cross, more than the Crown,) The height to be superb humanity. - - - - Sounds of the Winter Sounds of the winter too, @@ -17224,10 +15639,6 @@ The whispering air--even the mute crops, garner’d apples, corn, Children’s and women’s tones--rhythm of many a farmer and of flail, An old man’s garrulous lips among the rest, Think not we give out yet, Forth from these snowy hairs we keep up yet the lilt. - - - - A Twilight Song As I sit in twilight late alone by the flickering oak-flame, @@ -17253,10 +15664,6 @@ Henceforth to be, deep, deep within my heart recording, for many future year, Your mystic roll entire of unknown names, or North or South, Embalm’d with love in this twilight song. - - - - When the Full-Grown Poet Came When the full-grown poet came, @@ -17269,10 +15676,6 @@ But out spake too the Soul of man, proud, jealous and unreconciled, And to-day and ever so stands, as blender, uniter, tightly holding hands, Which he will never release until he reconciles the two, And wholly and joyously blends them. - - - - Osceola When his hour for death had come, @@ -17289,10 +15692,6 @@ Sank faintly low to the floor (tightly grasping the tomahawk handle,) Fix’d his look on wife and little children--the last: (And here a line in memory of his name and death.) - - - - A Voice from Death A voice from Death, solemn and strange, in all his sweep and power, @@ -17347,10 +15746,6 @@ For I too have forgotten, Have lost my recognition of your silent ever-swaying power, ye mighty, elemental throes, In which and upon which we float, and every one of us is buoy’d. - - - - A Persian Lesson For his o’erarching and last lesson the greybeard sufi, @@ -17373,10 +15768,6 @@ The something never still’d--never entirely gone? the invisible need (Often unconscious, often evil, downfallen,) To return to its divine source and origin, however distant, Latent the same in subject and in object, without one exception.” - - - - The Commonplace The commonplace I sing; @@ -17387,10 +15778,6 @@ The open air I sing, freedom, toleration, The common day and night--the common earth and waters, Your farm--your work, trade, occupation, The democratic wisdom underneath, like solid ground for all. - - - - “The Rounded Catalogue Divine Complete” The devilish and the dark, the dying and diseas’d, @@ -17401,10 +15788,6 @@ Venom and filth, serpents, the ravenous sharks, liars, the dissolute; orbic scheme?) Newts, crawling things in slime and mud, poisons, The barren soil, the evil men, the slag and hideous rot. - - - - Mirages More experiences and sights, stranger, than you’d think for; @@ -17425,10 +15808,6 @@ Now and then mark’d faces of sorrow or joy, (I could pick them out this moment if I saw them again,) Show’d to me--just to the right in the sky-edge, Or plainly there to the left on the hill-tops. - - - - L. of G.’s Purport Not to exclude or demarcate, or pick out evils from their formidable @@ -17447,10 +15826,6 @@ I end it here in sickness, poverty, and old age. I sing of life, yet mind me well of death: To-day shadowy Death dogs my steps, my seated shape, and has for years-- Draws sometimes close to me, as face to face. - - - - The Unexpress’d How dare one say it? @@ -17464,10 +15839,6 @@ All human lives, throats, wishes, brains--all experiences’ utterance; After the countless songs, or long or short, all tongues, all lands, Still something not yet told in poesy’s voice or print--something lacking, (Who knows? the best yet unexpress’d and lacking.) - - - - Grand Is the Seen Grand is the seen, the light, to me--grand are the sky and stars, @@ -17480,10 +15851,6 @@ Lighting the light, the sky and stars, delving the earth, sailing amount without thee?) More evolutionary, vast, puzzling, O my soul! More multiform far--more lasting thou than they. - - - - Unseen Buds Unseen buds, infinite, hidden well, @@ -17495,10 +15862,6 @@ Billions of billions, and trillions of trillions of them waiting, heavens,) Urging slowly, surely forward, forming endless, And waiting ever more, forever more behind. - - - - Good-Bye My Fancy! Good-bye my Fancy!