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[Table of Contents]As consequent from store of summer rains,
Or wayward rivulets in autumn flowing,
Or many a herb-lined brook's reticulations,
Or subterranean sea-rills making for the sea,
Songs of continued years I sing.
Life's ever-modern rapids first, (soon, soon to blend,
With the old streams of death.)
Some threading Ohio's farm-fields or the woods,
Some down Colorado's ca\dt\nons from sources of perpetual snow,
Some half-hid in Oregon, or away southward in Texas,
Some in the north finding their way to Erie, Niagara, Ottawa,
Some to Atlantica's bays, and so to the great salt brine.
In you whoe'er you are my book perusing,
In I myself, in all the world, these currents flowing,
All, all toward the mystic ocean tending.
Currents for starting a continent new,
Overtures sent to the solid out of the liquid,
Fusion of ocean and land, tender and pensive waves,
(Not safe and peaceful only, waves rous'd and ominous too,
Out of the depths the storm's abysmic waves, who knows
whence?
Raging over the vast, with many a broken spar and tatter'd
sail.)
Or from the sea of Time, collecting vasting all, I bring,
A windrow-drift of weeds and shells.
O little shells, so curious-convolute, so limpid-cold and
voiceless,
Will you not little shells to the tympans of temples held,
Murmurs and echoes still call up, eternity's music faint and
far,
Wafted inland, sent from Atlantica's rim, strains for the soul
of the prairies,
Whisper'd reverberations, chords for the ear of the West
joyously sounding,
Your tidings old, yet ever new and untranslatable,
Infinitesimals out of my life, and many a life,
(For not my life and yours alone I give&emdash;all, all I give,)
These waifs from the deep, cast high and dry,
Wash'd on America's shores?
1881 1881
1 For the lands and for these passionate days and
for myself,
Now I awhile retire to thee O soil of autumn fields,
Reclining on thy breast, giving myself to thee,
Answering the pulses of thy sane and equable heart,
Tuning a verse for thee.
O earth that hast no voice, confide to me a voice,
O harvest of my lands&emdash;O boundless summer growths,
O lavish brown parturient earth&emdash;O infinite teeming womb,
A song to narrate thee.
2 Ever upon this stage,
Is acted God's calm annual drama,
Gorgeous procession, songs of birds,
Sunrise that fullest feeds and freshens most the soul,
The heaving sea, the waves upon the shore, the musical,
strong waves,
The woods, the stalwart trees, the slender, tapering trees,
The liliput countless armies of the grass,
The heat, the showers, the measureless pasturages,
The scenery of the snows, the winds' free orchestra,
The stretching light-hung roof of clouds, the clear cerulean
and the silvery fringes,
The high dilating stars, the placid beckoning stars,
The moving flocks and herds, the plains and emerald meadows,
The shows of all the varied lands and all the growths and
products.
3 Fecund America&emdash;to-day,
Thou art all over set in births and joys!
Thou groan'st with riches, thy wealth clothes thee as a
swathing-garment,
Thou laughest loud with ache of great possessions,
A myriad-twining life like interlacing vines binds all thy vast
demesne,
As some huge ship freighted to water's edge thou ridest
into port,
As rain falls from the heaven and vapors rise from earth, so
have the precious values fallen upon thee and risen out
of thee;
Thou envy of the globe! thou miracle!
Thou, bathed, choked, swimming in plenty,
Thou lucky Mistress of the tranquil barns,
Thou Prairie Dame that sittest in the middle and lookest out
upon thy world, and lookest East and lookest West,
Dispensatress, that by a word givest a thousand miles,
a million farms, and missest nothing,
Thou all-acceptress&emdash;thou hospitable, (thou only art hospitable
as God is hospitable.)
4 When late I sang sad was my voice,
Sad were the shows around me with deafening noises of
hatred and smoke of war;
In the midst of the conflict, the heroes, I stood,
Or pass'd with slow step through the wounded and dying.
But now I sing not war,
Nor the measur'd march of soldiers, nor the tents of camps,
Nor the regiments hastily coming up deploying in line of
battle;
No more the sad, unnatural shows of war.
Ask'd room those flush'd immortal ranks, the first forth-
stepping armies?
Ask room alas the ghastly ranks, the armies dread that
follow'd.
(Pass, pass, ye proud brigades, with your tramping sinewy
legs,
With your shoulders young and strong, with your knapsacks
and your muskets;
How elate I stood and watch'd you, where starting off you
march'd.
Pass&emdash;then rattle drums again,
For an army heaves in sight, O another gathering army,
Swarming, trailing on the rear, O you dread accruing army,
O you regiments so piteous, with your mortal diarrhoea, with
your fever,
O my land's maim'd darlings, with the plenteous bloody
bandage and the crutch,
Lo, your pallid army follows.)
5 But on these days of brightness,
On the far-stretching beauteous landscape, the roads and
lanes, the high-piled farm-wagons, and the fruits and
barns,
Should the dead intrude?
Ah the dead to me mar not, they fit well in Nature,
They fit very well in the landscape under the trees and grass,
And along the edge of the sky in the horizon's far margin.
Nor do I forget you Departed,
Nor in winter or summer my lost ones,
But most in the open air as now when my soul is rapt and
at peace, like pleasing phantoms,
Your memories rising glide silently by me.
6 I saw the day the return of the heroes,
(Yet the heroes never surpass'd shall never return,
Them that day I saw not.)
I saw the interminable corps, I saw the processions of armies,
I saw them approaching, defiling by with divisions,
Streaming northward, their work done, camping awhile in
clusters of mighty camps.
No holiday soldiers&emdash;youthful, yet veterans,
Worn, swart, handsome, strong, of the stock of homestead
and workshop,
Harden'd of many a long campaign and sweaty march,
Inured on many a hard-fought bloody field.
A pause&emdash;the armies wait,
A million flush'd embattled conquerors wait,
The world too waits, then soft as breaking night and sure as
dawn,
They melt, they disappear.
Exult O lands! victorious lands!
Not there your victory on those red shuddering fields,
But here and hence your victory.
Melt, melt away ye armies&emdash;disperse ye blue-clad soldiers,
Resolve ye back again, give up for good your deadly arms,
Other the arms the fields henceforth for you, or South or
North,
With saner wars, sweet wars, life-giving wars.
7 Loud O my throat, and clear O soul!
The season of thanks and the voice of full-yielding,
The chant of joy and power for boundless fertility.
All till'd and untill'd fields expand before me,
I see the true arenas of my race, or first or last,
Man's innocent and strong arenas.
I see the heroes at other toils,
I see well-wielded in their hands the better weapons.
I see where the Mother of All,
With full-spanning eye gazes forth, dwells long,
And counts the varied gathering of the products.
Busy the far, the sunlit panorama,
Prairie, orchard, and yellow grain of the North,
Cotton and rice of the South and Louisianian cane,
Open unseeded fallows, rich fields of clover and timothy,
Kine and horses feeding, and droves of sheep and swine,
And many a stately river flowing and many a jocund brook,
And healthy uplands with herby-perfumed breezes,
And the good green grass, that delicate miracle the ever-
recurring grass.
8 Toil on heroes! harvest the products!
Not alone on those warlike fields the Mother of All,
With dilated form and lambent eyes watch'd you.
Toil on heroes! toil well! handle the weapons well!
The Mother of All, yet here as ever she watches you.
Well-pleased America thou beholdest,
Over the fields of the West those crawling monsters,
The human-divine inventions, the labor-saving implements;
Beholdest moving in every direction imbued as with life the
revolving hay-rakes,
The steam-power reaping-machines and the horse-power
machines,
The engines, thrashers of grain and cleaners of grain, well
separating the straw, the nimble work of the patent
pitchfork,
Beholdest the newer saw-mill, the southern cotton-gin,
and the rice-cleanser.
Beneath thy look O Maternal,
With these and else and with their own strong hands the
heroes harvest.
All gather and all harvest,
Yet but for thee O Powerful, not a scythe might swing as now
in security,
Not a maize-stalk dangle as now its silken tassels in peace.
Under thee only they harvest, even but a wisp of hay under
thy great face only,
Harvest the wheat of Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin, every barbed
spear under thee,
Harvest the maize of Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, each
ear in its light-green sheath,
Gather the hay to its myriad mows in the odorous tranquil
barns,
Oats to their bins, the white potato, the buckwheat of Michigan,
to theirs;
Gather the cotton in Mississippi or Alabama, dig and hoard
the golden the sweet potato of Georgia and the Carolinas,
Clip the wool of California or Pennsylvania,
Cut the flax in the Middle States, or hemp or tobacco in the
Borders,
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.
1867 1881
There was a child went forth every day,
And the first object he look'd upon, that object he became,
And that object became part of him for the day or a certain
part of the day,
Or for many years or stretching cycles of years.
The early lilacs became part of this child,
And grass and white and red morning-glories, and white and
red clover, and the song of the phoebe-bird,
And the Third-month lambs and the sow's pink-faint litter,
and the mare's foal and the cow's calf,
And the noisy brood of the barnyard or by the mire of the
pond-side,
And the fish suspending themselves so curiously below there,
and the beautiful curious liquid,
And the water-plants with their graceful flat heads, all became
part of him.
The field-sprouts of Fourth-month and Fifth-month became
part of him,
Winter-grain sprouts and those of the light-yellow corn, and
the esculent roots of the garden,
And the apple-trees cover'd with blossoms and the fruit afterward,
and wood-berries, and the commonest weeds by the road,
And the old drunkard staggering home from the outhouse of
the tavern whence he had lately risen,
And the schoolmistress that pass'd on her way to the school,
And the friendly boys that pass'd, and the quarrelsome boys,
And the tidy and fresh-cheek'd girls, and the barefoot negro
boy and girl,
And all the changes of city and country wherever he went.
His own parents, he that had father'd him and she that had
conceiv'd him in her womb and birth'd him,
They gave this child more of themselves than that,
They gave him afterward every day, they became part of him,
The mother at home quietly placing the dishes on the supper-
table,
The mother with mild words, clean her cap and gown,
a wholesome odor falling off her person and clothes as she
walks by,
The father, strong, self-sufficient, manly, mean, anger'd,
unjust,
The blow, the quick loud word, the tight bargain, the crafty
lure,
The family usages, the language, the company, the furniture,
the yearning and swelling heart,
Affection that will not be gainsay'd, the sense of what is real,
the thought if after all it should prove unreal,
The doubts of day-time and the doubts of night-time, the
curious whether and how,
Whether that which appears so is so, or is it all flashes and
specks?
Men and women crowding fast in the streets, if they are not
flashes and specks what are they?
The streets themselves and the fa\de\cades of houses, and goods
in the windows,
Vehicles, teams, the heavy-plank'd wharves, the huge crossing at
the ferries,
The village on the highland seen from afar at sunset, the
river between,
Shadows, aureola and mist, the light falling on roofs and
gables of white or brown two miles off,
The schooner near by sleepily dropping down the tide, the
little boat slack-tow'd astern,
The hurrying tumbling waves, quick-broken crests, slapping,
The strata of color'd clouds, the long bar of maroon-tint
away solitary by itself, the spread of purity it lies
motionless in,
The horizon's edge, the flying sea-crow, the fragrance of salt
marsh and shore mud,
These became part of that child who went forth every day,
and who now goes, and will always go forth every
day.
1855 1871
Far hence amid an isle of wondrous beauty,
Crouching over a grave an ancient sorrowful mother,
Once a queen, now lean and tatter'd seated on the ground,
Her old white hair drooping dishevel'd round her shoulders,
At her feet fallen an unused royal harp,
Long silent, she too long silent, mourning her shrouded hope
and heir,
Of all the earth her heart most full of sorrow because most
full of love.
Yet a word ancient mother,
You need crouch there no longer on the cold ground with
forehead between your knees,
O you need not sit there veil'd in your old white hair so
dishevel'd,
For know you the one you mourn is not in that grave,
It was an illusion, the son you love was not really dead,
The Lord is not dead, he is risen again young and strong in
another country,
Even while you wept there by your fallen harp by the grave,
What you wept for was translated, pass'd from the grave,
The winds favor'd and the sea sail'd it,
And now with rosy and new blood,
Moves to-day in a new country.
1861 1867
By the city dead-house by the gate,
As idly sauntering wending my way from the clangor,
I curious pause, for lo, an outcast form, a poor dead
prostitute brought,
Her corpse they deposit unclaim'd, it lies on the damp brick
pavement,
The divine woman, her body, I see the body, I look on it
alone,
That house once full of passion and beauty, all else I notice
not,
Nor stillness so cold, nor running water from faucet, nor
odors morbific impress me,
But the house alone&emdash;that wondrous house&emdash;that delicate
fair house&emdash;that ruin!
That immortal house more than all the rows of dwellings
ever built!
Or white-domed capital with majestic figure surmounted, or
all the old high-spired cathedrals,
That little house alone more than them all&emdash;poor, desperate
house!
Fair, fearful wreck&emdash;tenement of a soul&emdash;itself a soul,
Unclaim'd, avoided house&emdash;take one breath from my
tremulous lips,
Take one tear dropt aside as I go for thought of you,
Dead house of love&emdash;house of madness and sin, crumbled,
crush'd,
House of life, erewhile talking and laughing&emdash;but ah, poor
house, dead even then,
Months, years, an echoing, garnish'd house&emdash;but dead, dead,
dead.
1867 1867
1 Something startles me where I thought I was
safest,
I withdraw from the still woods I loved,
I will not go now on the pastures to walk,
I will not strip the clothes from my body to meet my lover
the sea,
I will not touch my flesh to the earth as to other flesh to
renew me.
O how can it be that the ground itself does not sicken?
How can you be alive you growths of spring?
How can you furnish health you blood of herbs, roots,
orchards, grain?
Are they not continually putting distemper'd corpses within
you?
Is not every continent work'd over and over with sour dead?
Where have you disposed of their carcasses?
Those drunkards and gluttons of so many generations?
Where have you drawn off all the foul liquid and meat?
I do not see any of it upon you to-day, or perhaps I am
deceiv'd,
I will run a furrow with my plough, I will press my spade
through the sod and turn it up underneath,
I am sure I shall expose some of the foul meat.
2 Behold this compost! behold it well!
Perhaps every mite has once form'd part of a sick person&emdash;
yet behold!
The grass of spring covers the prairies,
The bean bursts noiselessly through the mould in the garden,
The delicate spear of the onion pierces upward,
The apple-buds cluster together on the apple-branches,
The resurrection of the wheat appears with pale visage out of
its graves,
The tinge awakes over the willow-tree and the mulberry-tree,m
The he-birds carol mornings and evenings while the she-birds
sit on their nests,
The young of poultry break through the hatch'd eggs,
The new-born of animals appear, the calf is dropt from the cow,
the colt from the mare,
Out of its little hill faithfully rise the potato's dark green
leaves,
Out of its hill rises the yellow maize-stalk, the lilacs bloom in
the door-yards,
The summer growth is innocent and disdainful above all
those strata of sour dead.
What chemistry!
That the winds are really not infectious,
That this is no cheat, this transparent green-wash of the sea
which is so amorous after me,
That it is safe to allow it to lick my naked body all over with
its tongues,
That it will not endanger me with the fevers that have deposited
themselves in it,
That all is clean forever and forever,
That the cool drink from the well tastes so good,
That blackberries are so flavorous and juicy,
That the fruits of the apple-orchard and the orange-orchard,
that melons, grapes, peaches, plums, will none of them
poison me,
That when I recline on the grass I do not catch any disease,
Though probably every spear of grass rises out of what was
once a catching disease.
Now I am terrified at the Earth, it is that calm and patient,
It grows such sweet things out of such corruptions,
It turns harmless and stainless on its axis, with such endless
successions of diseas'd corpses,
It 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.
1856 1881
Courage yet, my brother or my sister!
Keep on&emdash;Liberty is to be subserv'd whatever occurs;
That is nothing that is quell'd by one or two failures, or any
number of failures,
Or by the indifference or ingratitude of the people, or by any
unfaithfulness,
Or the show of the tushes of power, soldiers, cannon, penal
statutes.
What we believe in waits latent forever through all the
continents,
Invites no one, promises nothing, sits in calmness and light,
is positive and composed, knows no discouragement,
Waiting patiently, waiting its time.
(Not songs of loyalty alone are these,
But songs of insurrection also,
For I am the sworn poet of every dauntless rebel the world
over,
And he going with me leaves peace and routine behind him,
And stakes his life to be lost at any moment.)
The battle rages with many a loud alarm and frequent
advance and retreat,
The infidel triumphs, or supposes he triumphs,
The prison, scaffold, garrote, handcuffs, iron necklace and
lead-balls do their work,
The named and unnamed heroes pass to other spheres,
The great speakers and writers are exiled, they lie sick in
distant lands,
The cause is asleep, the strongest throats are choked with
their own blood,
The young men droop their eyelashes toward the ground
when they meet;
But for all this Liberty has not gone out of the place, nor the
infidel enter'd into full possession.
When Liberty goes out of a place it is not the first to go, nor
the second or third to go,
It waits for all the rest to go, it is the last.
When there are no more memories of heroes and martyrs,
And when all life and all the souls of men and women are
discharged from any part of the earth,
Then only shall liberty or the idea of liberty be discharged
from that part of the earth,
And the infidel come into full possession.
Then courage European revolter, revoltress!
For till all ceases neither must you cease.
I do not know what you are for, (I do not know what I am
for myself, nor what any thing is for,)
But I will search carefully for it even in being foil'd,
In defeat, poverty, misconception, imprisonment&emdash;for they
too are great.
Did we think victory great?
So it is&emdash;but now it seems to me, when it cannot be help'd,
that defeat is great,
And that death and dismay are great.
1856 1881
Nations ten thousand years before these States,
and
many times ten thousand years before these States,
Garner'd clusters of ages that men and women like us grew
up and travel'd their course and pass'd on,
What vast-built cities, what orderly republics, what pastoral
tribes and nomads,
What histories, rulers, heroes, perhaps transcending all
others,
What laws, customs, wealth, arts, traditions,
What sort of marriage, what costumes, what physiology and
phrenology,
What of liberty and slavery among them, what they thought
of death and the soul,
Who were witty and wise, who beautiful and poetic, who
brutish and undevelop'd,
Not a mark, not a record remains&emdash;and yet all remains.
O I know that those men and women were not for nothing,
any more than we are for nothing,
I know that they belong to the scheme of the world every bit
as much as we now belong to it.
Afar they stand, yet near to me they stand,
Some with oval countenances learn'd and calm,
Some naked and savage, some like huge collections of
insects,
Some in tents, herdsmen, patriarchs, tribes, horsemen,
Some prowling through woods, some living peaceably on farms,
laboring, reaping, filling barns,
Some traversing paved avenues, amid temples, palaces, factories,
libraries, shows, courts, theatres, wonderful
monuments.
Are those billions of men really gone?
Are those women of the old experience of the earth gone?
Do their lives, cities, arts, rest only with us?
Did they achieve nothing for good for themselves?
I believe of all those men and women that fill'd the unnamed lands,
every one exists this hour here or elsewhere,
invisible to us,
In exact proportion to what he or she grew from in life,
and out of what he or she did, felt, became, loved, sinn'd, in
life.
I believe that was not the end of those nations or any person
of them, any more than this shall be the end of my nation,
or of me;
Of their languages, governments, marriage, literature, products,
games, wars, manners, crimes, prisons, slaves,
heroes, poets,
I suspect their results curiously await in the yet unseen world,
counterparts of what accrued to them in the seen world,
I suspect I shall meet them there,
I suspect I shall there find each old particular of those
unnamed lands.
1860 1881
SONG OF PRUDENCE
Manhattan's streets I saunter'd, pondering
On Time, Space, Reality&emdash;on such as these, and abreast with
them Prudence.
The last explanation always remains to be made about
prudence,
Little and large alike drop quietly aside from the prudence
that suits immortality.
The soul is of itself,
All verges to it, all has reference to what ensues,
All that a person does, says, thinks, is of consequence,
Not a move can a man or woman make, that affects him or
her in a day, month, any part of the direct lifetime,
or the hour of death,
But the same affects him or her onward afterward through the
indirect lifetime.
The indirect is just as much as the direct,
The spirit receives from the body just as much as it gives to
the body, if not more.
Not one word or deed, not venereal sore, discoloration,
privacy of the onanist,
Putridity of gluttons or rum-drinkers, peculation, cunning,
betrayal, murder, seduction, prostitution,
But has results beyond death as really as before death.
Charity and personal force are the only investments worth
any thing.
No specification is necessary, all that a male or female does,
that is vigorous, benevolent, clean, is so much profit to
him or her,
In the unshakable order of the universe and through
the whole scope of it forever.
Who has been wise receives interest,
Savage, felon, President, judge, farmer, sailor, mechanic,
literat, young, old, it is the same,
The interest will come round&emdash;all will come round.
Singly, wholly, to affect now, affected their time, will forever
affect, all of the past and all of the present and all of the
future,
All the brave actions of war and peace,
All help given to relatives, strangers, the poor, old, sorrowful,
young children, widows, the sick, and to shunn'd
persons,
All self-denial that stood steady and aloof on wrecks, and saw
others fill the seats of the boats,
All offering of substance or life for the good old cause, or for
a friend's sake, or opinion's sake,
All pains of enthusiasts scoff'd at by their neighbors,
All the limitless sweet love and precious suffering of mothers,
All honest men baffled in strifes recorded or unrecorded,
All the grandeur and good of ancient nations whose fragments
we inherit,
All the good of the dozens of ancient nations unknown to us
by name, date, location,
All that was ever manfully begun, whether it succeeded or no,
All suggestions of the divine mind of man or the divinity of
his mouth, or the shaping of his great hands,
All that is well thought or said this day on any part of the globe,
or on any of the wandering stars, or on any of the fix'd stars,
by those there as we are here,
All that is henceforth to be thought or done by you whoever
you are, or by any one,
These inure, have inured, shall inure, to the identities from
which they sprang, or shall spring.
Did you guess any thing lived only its moment?
The world does not so exist, no parts palpable or impalpable
so exist,
No consummation exists without being from some long previous
consummation, and that from some other,
Without the farthest conceivable one coming a bit nearer the
beginning than any.
Whatever satisfies souls is true;
Prudence entirely satisfies the craving and glut of souls,
Itself only finally satisfies the soul,
The soul has that measureless pride which revolts from every
lesson but its own.
Now I breathe the word of the prudence that walks abreast
with time, space, reality,
That answers the pride which refuses every lesson but its own.
What is prudence is indivisible,
Declines to separate one part of life from every part,
Divides not the righteous from the unrighteous or the living
from the dead,
Matches every thought or act by its correlative,
Knows no possible forgiveness or deputed atonement,
Knows that the young man who composedly peril'd his life
and lost it has done exceedingly well for
himself without doubt,
That he who never peril'd his life, but retains it to old age in
riches and ease, has probably achiev'd nothing for
himself worth mentioning,
Knows that only that person has really learn'd who has
learn'd to prefer results,
Who favors body and soul the same,
Who perceives the indirect assuredly following the direct,
Who in his spirit in any emergency whatever neither hurries
nor avoids death.
1856 1881
THE SINGER IN THE PRISON
1 O sight of pity, shame and dole!
O fearful thought&emdash;a convict soul.
Rang the refrain along the hall, the prison,
Rose to the roof, the vaults of heaven above,
Pouring in floods of melody in tones so pensive sweet and
strong the like whereof was never heard,
Reaching the far-off sentry and the armed guards, who
ceas'd their pacing,
Making the hearer's pulses stop for ecstasy and awe.
2 The sun was low in the west one winter day,
When down a narrow aisle amid the thieves and outlaws of
the land,
(There by the hundreds seated, sear-faced murderers, wily
counterfeiters,
Gather'd to Sunday church in prison walls, the keepers
round,
Plenteous, well-armed, watching with vigilant eyes,)
Calmly a lady walk'd holding a little innocent child by either
hand,
Whom seating on their stools beside her on the platform,
She, first preluding with the instrument a low and musical
prelude,
In voice surpassing all, sang forth a quaint old hymn.
A soul confined by bars and bands,
Cries, help! O help! and wrings her hands,
Blinded her eyes, bleeding her breast,
Nor pardon finds, nor balm of rest.
Ceaseless she paces to and fro,
O heart-sick days! O nights of woe!
Nor hand of friend, nor loving face,
Nor favor comes, nor word of grace.
It was not I that sinn'd the sin,
The ruthless body dragg'd me in;
Though long I strove courageously,
The body was too much for me.
Dear prison'd soul bear up a space,
For soon or late the certain grace;
To set thee free and bear thee home,
The heavenly pardoner death shall come.
Convict no more, nor shame, nor dole!
Depart&emdash;a God-enfranchis'd soul!
3 The singer ceas'd,
One glance swept from her clear calm eyes o'er all those
upturn'd faces,
Strange sea of prison faces, a thousand varied, crafty, brutal,
seam'd and beauteous faces,
Then rising, passing back along the narrow aisle between
them,
While her gown touch'd them rustling in the silence,
She vanish'd with her children in the dusk.
While upon all, convicts and armed keepers ere they
stirr'd,
(Convict forgetting prison, keeper his loaded pistol,)
A hush and pause fell down a wondrous minute,
With deep half-stifled sobs and sound of bad men bow'd and
moved to weeping,
And youth's convulsive breathings, memories of home,
The mother's voice in lullaby, the sister's care, the happy
childhood,
The long-pent spirit rous'd to reminiscence;
A wondrous minute then&emdash;but after in the solitary night, to
many, many there,
Years after, even in the hour of death, the sad refrain, the
tune, the voice, the words,
Resumed, the large calm lady walks the narrow aisle,
The wailing melody again, the singer in the prison sings,
O sight of pity, shame and dole!
O fearful thought&emdash;a convict soul.
1869 1881
WARBLE FOR LILAC-TIME
Warble me now for joy of lilac-time, (returning
in
reminiscence,)
Sort me O tongue and lips for Nature's sake, souvenirs of
earliest summer,
Gather the welcome signs, (as children with pebbles or
stringing shells,)
Put in April and May, the hylas croaking in the ponds, the
elastic air,
Bees, butterflies, the sparrow with its simple notes,
Blue-bird and darting swallow, nor forget the high-hole
flashing his golden wings,
The tranquil sunny haze, the clinging smoke, the vapor,
Shimmer of waters with fish in them, the cerulean above,
All that is jocund and sparkling, the brooks running,
The maple woods, the crisp February days and the sugar
making,
The robin where he hops, bright-eyed, brown-breasted,
With musical clear call at sunrise, and again at sunset,
Or flitting among the trees of the apple-orchard, building the
nest of his mate,
The melted snow of March, the willow sending forth its
yellow-green sprouts,
For spring-time is here! the summer is here! and what is this
in it and from it?
Thou, soul, unloosen'd&emdash;the restlessness after I know not
what;
Come, let us lag here no longer, let us be up and away!
O if one could but fly like a bird!
O to escape, to sail forth as in a ship!
To glide with thee O soul, o'er all, in all, as a ship o'er the
waters;
Gathering these hints, the preludes, the blue sky, the grass,
the morning drops of dew,
The lilac-scent, the bushes with dark green heart-shaped
leaves,
Wood-violets, the little delicate pale blossoms called
innocence,
Samples and sorts not for themselves alone, but for their
atmosphere,
To grace the bush I love&emdash;to sing with the birds,
A warble for joy of lilac-time, returning in reminiscence.
1870 1881
OUTLINES FOR A TOMB
(G. P., Buried 1870)
1 What may we chant, O thou within this tomb?
What tablets, outlines, hang for thee, O millionaire?
The life thou lived'st we know not,
But that thou walk'dst thy years in barter, 'mid the haunts of
brokers,
Nor heroism thine, nor war, nor glory.
2 Silent, my soul,
With drooping lids, as waiting, ponder'd,
Turning from all the samples, monuments of heroes.
While through the interior vistas,
Noiseless uprose, phantasmic, (as by night Auroras of the
north,)
Lambent tableaus, prophetic, bodiless scenes,
Spiritual projections.
In one, among the city streets a laborer's home appear'd,
After his day's work done, cleanly, sweet-air'd, the gaslight
burning,
The carpet swept and a fire in the cheerful stove.
In one, the sacred parturition scene,
A happy painless mother birth'd a perfect child.
In one, at a bounteous morning meal,
Sat peaceful parents with contented sons.
In one, by twos and threes, young people,
Hundreds concentring, walk'd the paths and streets and
roads,
Toward a tall-domed school.
In one a trio beautiful,
Grandmother, loving daughter, loving daughter's daughter,
sat,
Chatting and sewing.
In one, along a suite of noble rooms,
'Mid plenteous books and journals, paintings on the walls,
fine statuettes,
Were groups of friendly journeymen, mechanics young and
old,
Reading, conversing.
All, all the shows of laboring life,
City and country, women's, men's and children's,
Their wants provided for, hued in the sun and tinged for once
with joy,
Marriage, the street, the factory, farm, the house-room,
lodging-room,
Labor and toil, the bath, gymnasium, playground, library,
college,
The student, boy or girl, led forward to be taught,
The sick cared for, the shoeless shod, the orphan father'd and
mother'd,
The hungry fed, the houseless housed;
(The intentions perfect and divine,
The workings, details, haply human.)
3 O thou within this tomb,
From thee such scenes, thou stintless, lavish giver,
Tallying the gifts of earth, large as the earth,
Thy name an earth, with mountains, fields and tides.
Nor by your streams alone, you rivers,
By you, your banks Connecticut,
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&emdash;nor you alone,
But to the high seas launch, my thought, his memory.
1870 1881
OUT FROM BEHIND THIS MASK
(To Confront a Portrait)
1 Out from behind this bending rough-cut mask,
These lights and shades, this drama of the whole,
This common curtain of the face contain'd in me for me, in
you for you, in each for each,
(Tragedies, sorrows, laughter, tears&emdash;O heaven!
The passionate teeming plays this curtain hid!)
This glaze of God's serenest purest sky,
This film of Satan's seething pit,
This heart's geography's map, this limitless small continent,
this soundless sea;
Out from the convolutions of this globe,
This subtler astronomic orb than sun or moon, than Jupiter,
Venus, Mars,
This condensation of the universe, (nay here the only universe,
Here the idea, all in this mystic handful wrapt;)
These burin'd eyes, flashing to you to pass to future time,
To launch and spin through space revolving sideling, from
these to emanate,
To you whoe'er you are&emdash;a look.
2 A traveler of thoughts and years, of peace and war,
Of youth long sped and middle age declining,
(As the first volume of a tale perused and laid away, and this
the second,
Songs, ventures, speculations, presently to close,)
Lingering a moment here and now, to you I opposite turn,
As on the road or at some crevice door by chance, or open'd
window,
Pausing, inclining, baring my head, you specially I greet,
To draw and clinch your soul for once inseparably with mine,
Then travel travel on.
1876 1881
VOCALISM
1 Vocalism, measure, concentration,
determination, and the
divine power to speak words;
Are you full-lung'd and limber-lipp'd from long trial? from
vigorous practice? from physique?
Do you move in these broad lands as broad as they?
Come duly to the divine power to speak words?
For only at last after many years, after chastity, friendship,
procreation, prudence, and nakedness,
After treading ground and breasting river and lake,
After a loosen'd throat, after absorbing eras, temperaments,
races, after knowledge, freedom, crimes,
After complete faith, after clarifyings, elevations, and removing
obstructions,
After these and more, it is just possible there comes to a man,
a woman, the divine power to speak words;
Then toward that man or that woman swiftly hasten all&emdash;
none refuse, all attend,
Armies, ships, antiquities, libraries, paintings, machines,
cities, hate, despair, amity, pain, theft, murder, aspiration,
form in close ranks,
They debouch as they are wanted to march obediently
through the mouth of that man or that woman.
2 O what is it in me that makes me tremble so at voices?
Surely whoever speaks to me in the right voice, him or her I
shall follow,
As the water follows the moon, silently, with fluid steps, anywhere
around the globe.
All waits for the right voices;
Where is the practis'd and perfect organ? where is the develop'd
soul?
For I see every word utter'd thence has deeper, sweeter, new
sounds, impossible on less terms.
I see brains and lips closed, tympans and temples unstruck,
Until that comes which has the quality to strike and to
unclose,
Until that comes which has the quality to bring forth what
lies slumbering forever ready in all words.
1860 1881
TO HIM THAT WAS CRUCIFIED
My spirit to yours dear brother,
Do not mind because many sounding your name do not
understand you,
I do not sound your name, but I understand you,
I specify you with joy O my comrade to salute you, and to
salute those who are with you, before and since, and
those to come also,
That we all labor together transmitting the same charge and
succession,
We few equals indifferent of lands, indifferent of times,
We, enclosers of all continents, all castes, allowers of all
theologies,
Compassionaters, perceivers, rapport of men,
We walk silent among disputes and assertions, but reject
not the disputers nor any thing that is asserted,
We hear the bawling and din, we are reach'd at by divisions,
jealousies, recriminations on every side,
They close peremptorily upon us to surround us, my comrade,
Yet we walk unheld, free, the whole earth over, journeying
up and down till we make our ineffaceable mark upon
time and the diverse eras,
Till we saturate time and eras, that the men and women of
races, ages to come, may prove brethren and lovers as
we are.
1860 1881
YOU FELONS ON TRIAL IN COURTS
You felons on trial in courts,
You convicts in prison-cells, you sentenced assassins chain'd
and hand-cuff'd with iron,
Who am I too that I am not on trial or in prison?
Me ruthless and devilish as any, that my wrists are not
chain'd with iron, or my ankles with iron?
You prostitutes flaunting over the trottoirs or obscene in
your rooms,
Who am I that I should call you more obscene than myself?
O culpable! I acknowledge&emdash;I expos\da\e!
(O admirers, praise not me&emdash;compliment not me&emdash;you make
me wince,
I see what you do not&emdash;I know what you do not.)
Inside these breast-bones I lie smutch'd and choked,
Beneath this face that appears so impassive hell's tides
continually run,
Lusts and wickedness are acceptable to me,
I walk with delinquents with passionate love,
I feel I am of them&emdash;I belong to those convicts and prostitutes
myself,
And henceforth I will not deny them&emdash;for how can I deny
myself?
1860 1867
LAWS FOR CREATIONS
Laws for creations,
For strong artists and leaders, for fresh broods of teachers
and perfect literats for America,
For noble savans and coming musicians.
All must have reference to the ensemble of the world, and the
compact truth of the world,
There shall be no subject too pronounced&emdash;all works shall
illustrate the divine law of indirections.
What do you suppose creation is?
What do you suppose will satisfy the soul, except to walk
free and own no superior?
What do you suppose I would intimate to you in a hundred
ways, but that man or woman is as good as God?
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?
1860 1871
TO A COMMON PROSTITUTE
Be composed&emdash;be at ease with
me&emdash;I am Walt Whitman,
liberal and lusty as Nature,
Not till the sun excludes you do I exclude you,
Not till the waters refuse to glisten for you and the leaves to
rustle for you, do my words refuse to glisten and
rustle for you.
My girl I appoint with you an appointment, and I charge you
that you make preparation to be worthy to meet me,
And I charge you that you be patient and perfect till I come.
Till then I salute you with a significant look that you do not
forget me.
1860 1860
I WAS LOOKING A LONG WHILE
I was looking a long while for Intentions,
For a clew to the history of the past for myself, and for these
chants&emdash;and now I have found it,
It is not in those paged fables in the libraries, (them I neither
accept nor reject,)
It is no more in the legends than in all else,
It is in the present&emdash;it is this earth to-day,
It is in Democracy&emdash;(the purport and aim of all the past,)
It is the life of one man or one woman to-day&emdash;the average
man of to-day,
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&emdash;all for the average man of to-day.
1860 1881
THOUGHT
Of persons arrived at high positions, ceremonies,
wealth,
scholarships, and the like;
(To me all that those persons have arrived at sinks away
from them, except as it results to their bodies and souls,
So that often to me they appear gaunt and naked,
And often to me each one mocks the others, and mocks himself
or herself,
And of each one the core of life, namely happiness, is full of
the rotten excrement of maggots,
And often to me those men and women pass unwittingly the
true realities of life, and go toward false realities,
And often to me they are alive after what custom has served
them, but nothing more,
And often to me they are sad, hasty, unwaked sonnambules
walking the dusk.)
1860 1871
MIRACLES
Why, who makes much of a miracle?
As to me I know of nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of
the water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with any one I love, or sleep in the bed at night
with any one I love,
Or sit at table at dinner with the rest,
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,
Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive of a summer
forenoon,
Or animals feeding in the fields,
Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,
Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining so
quiet and bright,
Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in
spring;
These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,
The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place.
To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with
the same,
Every foot of the interior swarms with the same.
To me the sea is a continual miracle,
The fishes that swim&emdash;the rocks&emdash;the motion of the waves&emdash;
the ships with men in them,
What stranger miracles are there?
1856 1881
SPARKLES FROM THE WHEEL
Where the city's ceaseless crowd moves on the
livelong day,
Withdrawn I join a group of children watching, I pause
aside with them.
By the curb toward the edge of the flagging,
A knife-grinder works at his wheel sharpening a great knife,
Bending over he carefully holds it to the stone, by foot and
knee,
With measur'd tread he turns rapidly, as he presses with light
but firm hand,
Forth issue then in copious golden jets,
Sparkles from the wheel.
The scene and all its belongings, how they seize and affect me,
The sad sharp-chinn'd old man with worn clothes and broad
shoulder-band of leather,
Myself effusing and fluid, a phantom curiously floating, now
here absorb'd and arrested,
The group, (an unminded point set in a vast surrounding,)
The attentive, quiet children, the loud, proud, restive base of
the streets,
The low hoarse purr of the whirling stone, the light-press'd
blade,
Diffusing, dropping, sideways-darting, in tiny showers of
gold,
Sparkles from the wheel.
1871 1871
TO A PUPIL
Is reform needed? is it through you?
The greater the reform needed, the greater the Personality
you need to accomplish it.
You! do you not see how it would serve to have eyes, blood,
complexion, clean and sweet?
Do you not see how it would serve to have such a body and
soul that when you enter the crowd an atmosphere of
desire and command enters with you, and every one is
impress'd with your Personality?
O the magnet! the flesh over and over!
Go, dear friend, if need be give up all else, and commence
to-day to inure yourself to pluck, reality, self-esteem,
definiteness, elevatedness,
Rest not till you rivet and publish yourself of your own
Personality.
1860 1860
UNFOLDED OUT OF THE FOLDS
Unfolded out of the folds of the woman man comes
unfolded, and is always to come unfolded,
Unfolded only out of the superbest woman of the earth is to
come the superbest man of the earth,
Unfolded out of the friendliest woman is to come the
friendliest man,
Unfolded only out of the perfect body of a woman can a man
be form'd of perfect body,
Unfolded only out of the inimitable poems of woman can
come the poems of man, (only thence have my poems
come;)
Unfolded out of the strong and arrogant woman I love, only
thence can appear the strong and arrogant man I love,
Unfolded by brawny embraces from the well-muscled woman
I love, only thence come the brawny embraces of the
man,
Unfolded out of the folds of the woman's brain come all the
folds of the man's brain, duly obedient,
Unfolded out of the justice of the woman all justice is
unfolded,
Unfolded out of the sympathy of the woman is all sympathy;
A man is a great thing upon the earth and through eternity,
but every jot of the greatness of man is unfolded out of
woman;
First the man is shaped in the woman, he can then be shaped
in himself.
1856 1871
WHAT AM I AFTER ALL
What am I after all but a child, pleas'd with the
sound of my
own name? repeating it over and over;
I stand apart to hear&emdash;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?
1860 1867
KOSMOS
Who includes diversity and is Nature,
Who is the amplitude of the earth, and the coarseness and
sexuality of the earth, and the great charity of the earth,
and the equilibrium also,
Who has not look'd forth from the windows the eyes for
nothing, or whose brain held audience with messengers
for nothing,
Who contains believers and disbelievers, who is the most
majestic lover,
Who holds duly his or her triune proportion of realism,
spiritualism, and of the aesthetic or intellectual,
Who having consider'd the body finds all its organs and parts
good,
Who, out of the theory of the earth and of his or her body
understands by subtle anaogies all other theories,
The theory of a city, a poem, and of the large politics of these
States;
Who believes not only in our globe with its sun and moon,
but in other globes with their suns and moons,
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.
1860 1867
OTHERS MAY PRAISE WHAT THEY LIKE
Others may praise what they like;
But I, from the banks of the running Missouri, praise nothing
in art or aught else,
Till it has well inhaled the atmosphere of this river, also the
western prairie-scent,
And exudes it all again.
1865 1881
WHO LEARNS MY LESSON COMPLETE?
Who learns my lesson complete?
Boss, journeyman, apprentice, churchman and atheist,
The stupid and the wise thinker, parents and offspring, merchant,
clerk, porter and customer,
Editor, author, artist, and schoolboy&emdash;draw nigh and
commence;
It is no lesson&emdash;it lets down the bars to a good lesson,
And that to another, and every one to another still.
The great laws take and effuse without argument,
I am of the same style, for I am their friend,
I love them quits and quits, I do not halt and make salaams.
I lie abstracted and hear beautiful tales of things and the
reasons of things,
They are so beautiful I nudge myself to listen.
I cannot say to any person what I hear&emdash;I cannot say it to
myself&emdash;it is very wonderful.
It is no small matter, this round and delicious globe moving
so exactly in its orbit for ever and ever, without one jolt
or the untruth of a single second,
I do not think it was made in six days, nor in ten thousand years,
nor ten billions of years,
Nor plann'd and built one thing after another as an architect
plans and builds a house.
I do not think seventy years is the time of a man or woman,
Nor that seventy millions of years is the time of a man or
woman,
Nor that years will ever stop the existence of me, or any one
else.
Is it wonderful that I should be immortal? as every one is
immortal;
I know it is wonderful, but my eyesight is equally wonderful,
and how I was conceived in my mother's womb is
equally wonderful,
And pass'd from a babe in the creeping trance of a couple of
summers and winters to articulate and walk&emdash;all this is
equally wonderful.
And that my soul embraces you this hour, and we affect each
other without ever seeing each other, and never perhaps
to see each other, is every bit as wonderful.
And that I can think such thoughts as these is just as wonderful,
And that I can remind you, and you think them and know
them to be true, is just as wonderful.
And that the moon spins round the earth and on with the
earth, is equally wonderful,
And that they balance themselves with the sun and stars is
equally wonderful.
1855 1867
TESTS
All submit to them where they sit, inner, secure,
unapproachable to analysis in the soul,
Not traditions, not the outer authorities are the judges,
They are the judges of outer authorities and of all traditions,
They corroborate as they go only whatever corroborates themselves,
and touches themselves;
For all that, they have it forever in themselves to corroborate
far and near without one exception.
1860 1860
THE TORCH
On my Northwest coast in the midst of the night a
fishermen's
group stands watching,
Out on the lake that expands before them, others are
spearing salmon,
The canoe, a dim shadowy thing, moves across the black water,
Bearing a torch ablaze at the prow.
1865 1867
O STAR OF FRANCE
1870-71
O star of France,
The brightness of thy hope and strength and fame,
Like some proud ship that led the fleet so long,
Beseems to-day a wreck driven by the gale, a mastless hulk,
And 'mid its teeming madden'd half-drown'd crowds,
Nor helm nor helmsman.
Dim smitten star,
Orb not of France alone, pale symbol of my soul, its dearest
hopes,
The struggle and the daring, rage divine for liberty,
Of aspirations toward the far ideal, enthusiast's dreams of
brotherhood,
Of terror to the tyrant and the priest.
Star crucified&emdash;by traitors sold,
Star panting o'er a land of death, heroic land,
Strange, passionate, mocking, frivolous land.
Miserable! yet for thy errors, vanities, sins, I will not now
rebuke thee,
Thy unexampled woes and pangs have quell'd them all,
And left thee sacred.
In that amid thy many faults thou ever aimedst highly,
In that thou wouldst not really sell thyself however great the price,
In that thou surely wakedst weeping from thy drugg'd sleep,
In that alone among thy sisters thou, giantess, didst rend the
ones that shamed thee,
In that thou couldst not, wouldst not, wear the usual chains,
This cross, thy livid face, thy pierced hands and feet,
The spear thrust in thy side.
O star! O ship of France, beat back and baffled long!
Bear up O smitten orb! O ship continue on!
Sure as the ship of all, the Earth itself,
Product of deathly fire and turbulent chaos,
Forth from its spasms of fury and its poisons,
Issuing at last in perfect power and beauty,
Onward beneath the sun following its course,
So thee O ship of France!
Finish'd the days, the clouds dispel'd,
The travail o'er, the long-sought extrication,
When lo! reborn, high o'er the European world,
(In gladness answering thence, as face afar to face, reflecting
ours Columbia,)
Again thy star O France, fair lustrous star,
In heavenly peace, clearer, more bright than ever,
Shall beam immortal.
1871 1881
In a far-away northern county in the placid
pastoral region,
Lives my farmer friend, the theme of my recitative, a famous
tamer of oxen,
There they bring him the three-year-olds and the four-year-olds
to break them,
He will take the wildest steer in the world and break him and
tame him,
He will go fearless without any whip where the young bullock
chafes up and down the yard,
The bullock's head tosses restless high in the air with raging
eyes,
Yet see you! how soon his rage subsides &emdash; how soon this
tamer tames him;
See you! on the farms hereabouts a hundred oxen young and old,
and he is the man who has tamed them,
They all know him, all are affectionate to him;
See you! some are such beautiful animals, so lofty looking;
Some are buff-color'd, some mottled, one has a white line
running along his back, some are brindled,
Some have wide flaring horns (a good sign) &emdash; see you! the
bright hides,
See, the two with stars on their foreheads &emdash; see, the round
bodies and broad backs,
How straight and square they stand on their legs &emdash; what fine
sagacious eyes!
How they watch their tamer &emdash; they wish him near them &emdash;
how they turn to look after him!
What yearning expression! how uneasy they are when he
moves away from them;
Now I marvel what it can be he appears to them, (books,
politics, poems, depart &emdash; all else departs,)
I confess I envy only his fascination &emdash; my silent, illiterate
friend,
Whom a hundred oxen love there in his life on farms,
In the northern country far, in the placid pastoral region.
1874 1881
For the Inauguration of a Public School, Camden, New Jersey, 1874
An old man's thought of school,
An old man gathering youthful memories and blooms that
youth itself cannot.
Now only do I know you,
O fair auroral skies &emdash; O morning dew upon the grass!
And these I see, these sparkling eyes,
These stores of mystic meaning, these young lives,
Building, equipping like a fleet of ships, immortal ships,
Soon to sail out over the measureless seas,
On the soul's voyage.
Only a lot of boys and girls?
Only the tiresome spelling, writing, ciphering classes?
Only a public school?
Ah more, infinitely more;
(As George Fox rais'd his warning cry,
brick and mortar, these dead floors, windows, rails, you
call the church?
Why this is not the church at all &emdash; the church is living, ever
living souls.
And you America,
Cast you the real reckoning for your present?
The lights and shadows of your future, good or evil?
To girlhood, boyhood look, the teacher and the school.
1874 1881
Wandering at morn,
Emerging from the night from gloomy thoughts, thee in my
thoughts,
Yearning for thee harmonious Union! thee, singing bird
divine!
Thee coil'd in evil times my country, with craft and black
dismay, with every meanness, treason thrust upon thee,
This common marvel I beheld&emdash;the parent thrush I watch'd
feeding its young,
The singing thrush whose tones of joy and faith ecstatic,
Fail not to certify and cheer my soul.
There ponder'd, felt I,
If worms, snakes, loathsome grubs, may to sweet spiritual
songs be turn'd,
If vermin so transposed, so used and bless'd may be,
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.
1873 1881
(
Through the soft evening air enwinding all,
Rocks, woods, fort, cannon, pacing sentries, endless wilds,
In dulcet streams, in flutes' and cornets' notes,
Electric, pensive, turbulent, artificial,
(Yet strangely fitting even here, meanings unknown before,
Subtler than ever, more harmony, as if born here, related
here,
Not to the city's fresco'd rooms, not to the audience of the opera house,
Sounds, echoes, wandering strains, as really here at home,
Sonnambula's innocent love, trios with Norma's anguish,
And thy ecstatic chorus Poliuto;)
Ray'd in the limpid yellow slanting sundown,
Music, Italian music in Dakota.
While Nature, sovereign of this gnarl'd realm,
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.
1881 1881
With all thy gifts America,
Standing secure, rapidly tending, overlooking the world,
Power, wealth, extent, vouchsafed to thee&emdash;with these and
like of these vouchsafed to thee,
What if one gift thou lackest? (the ultimate human problem
never solving,)
The gift of perfect women fit for thee&emdash;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?
1876 1881
In a little house keep I pictures suspended, it
is not a fix'd
house,
It is round, it is only a few inches from one side to the other;
Yet behold, it has room for all the shows of the world, all
memories!
Here the tableaus of life, and here the groupings of death;
Here, do you know this? this is cicerone himself,
With finger rais'd he points to the prodigal pictures.
1880 1881
A never garden of creation, no primal solitude,
Dense, joyous, modern, populous millions, cities and farms,
With iron interlaced, composite, tied, many in one,
By all the world contributed&emdash;freedom's and law's and
thrift's society,
The crown and teeming paradise, so far, of time's
accumulations,
To justify the past.
1880 1881