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[Table of Contents]THOU orb full-dazzling! thou hot October noon!
Flooding with sheeny light the gray beach sand,
The sibilant near sea with vistas far and foam,
And tawny streaks and shades and spreading blue;
O sun of noon refulgent! my special word to thee.
Hear me illustrious!
Thy lover me, for always I have loved thee,
Even as basking babe, then happy boy alone by some
wood edge, thy touching-distant beams enough,
Or man matured, or young or old, as now to thee I
launch my invocation.
(Thou canst not with thy dumbness me deceive,
I know before the fitting man all Nature yields,
Though answering not in words, the skies, trees,
hear his voice&emdash;and thou O sun,
As for thy throes, thy perturbations, sudden breaks
and shafts of flame gigantic,
I understand them, I know those flames, those
perturbations well.)
Thou that with fructifying heat and light,
O'er myriad farms, o'er lands and waters North
and South,
O'er Mississippi's endless course, o'er Texas'
grassy plains, Kanada's woods,
O'er all the globe that turns its face to thee shining
in space,
Thou that impartially infoldest all, not only continents,
seas,
Thou that to grapes and weeds and little wild
flowers givest so liberally,
Shed, shed thyself on mine and me, with but a fleeting
ray out of thy million millions,
Strike though these chants.
Nor only launch thy subtle dazzle and thy strength
for these,
Prepare the later afternoon of me myself&emdash;
prepare my lengthening shadows,
Prepare my starry nights.
1881 1881
1
SAUNTERING the pavement or riding the country by-road,
lo, such faces!
Faces of friendship, precision, caution, sauvity, ideality,
The spiritual-prescient face, the always welcome common
benevolent face,
The face of the singing of music, the grand faces of
natural lawyers and judges broad at the back-top,
The faces of hunters and fishers bulged at the brows,
the shaved blanch'd faces of orthodox citizens,
The pure, extravagant, yearning, questioning artist's face,
The ugly face of some beautiful soul, the handsome
detested or despised face,
The sacred faces of infants, the illuminated face of the
mother of many children,
The face of an amour, the face of veneration,
The face as of a dream, the face of an immobile rock,
The face withdrawn of its good and bad, a castrated
face,
A wild hawk, his wings clipp'd by the clipper,
A stallion that yielded at last to the thongs and knife
of the gelder.
Sauntering the pavement thus, or crossing the
ceaseless ferry, faces and faces and faces,
I see them and complain not, and am content with all.
2
Do you suppose I could be content with all if I
thought them their own finalč?
This now is too lamentable a face for a man,
Some abject louse asking leave to be, cringing for
it,
Some milk-nosed maggot blessing what lets it wrig
to its hole.
This face is a dog's snout sniffing for garbage,
Snakes nest in that mouth, I hear the sibilant threat.
This face is a haze more chill than the arctic sea,
Its sleepy and wabbling icebergs crunch as they go.
This is a face of bitter herbs, this an emetic, they
need no label,
And more of the drug-shelf, laudanum, caoutchouc,
or hog'slard.
This face is an epilepsy, its wordless tongue gives
out the earthly cry,
Its veins down the neck distend, its eyes roll till
they show nothing but their whites,
Its teeth grit, the palms of the hands are cut by the
turn'd-in nails,
The man falls struggling and foaming to the ground,
while he speculates well.
This face is bitten by vermin and worms,
And this is some murderer's knife with a half-pull'd
scabbard.
This face owes to the sexton his dismalest fee,
An unceasing death-bell tolls there.
3
Features of my equals would you trick me with your
creas'd and cadaverous march?
Well, you cannot trick me.
I see your rounded never-erased flow,
I see 'neath the rims of your haggard and mean
disguises.
Splay and twist as you like, poke with the tangling
fores of fishes or rats,
You'll be unmuzzled, you certainly will.
I saw the face of the most smear'd and slobbering
idiot they had at the asylum,
And I knew for my consolation what they knew not,
I knew of the agents that emptied and broke my
brother,
The same wait to clear the rubbish from the fallen
tenement,
And I shall look again in a score or two of ages,
And I shall meet the real landlord perfect and
unharm'd, every inch as good as myself.
4
The Lord advances, and yet advances,
Always the shadow in front, always the reach'd
hand bringing up the laggards.
Out of this face emerge banners and horses&emdash;
O superb! I see what is coming,
I see the high pioneer-caps, see staves of runners
clearing the way,
I hear victorious drums.
This face is a life-boat,
This is the face commanding and bearded, it asks no
odds of the rest,
This face is flavor'd fruit ready for eating,
This face of a healthy honest boy is the programme
of all good.
These faces bear testimony slumbering or awake,
They show their descent from the Master himself.
Off the word I have spoken I except not one&emdash;
red, white, black, are all deific,
In each house is the ovum, it comes forth after a
thousand years.
Spots or cracks at the windows do not disturb me,
Tall and sufficient stand behind and make signs to me,
I read the promise and patiently wait.
This is a full-grown lily's face,
She speaks to the limber-hipp'd man near the
garden pickets,
Come here she blushingly cries, Come night
to me limberhipp'd man,
Stand at my side till I lean as high as I can
upon you,
Fill me with albescent honey, bend down to me,
Rub to me with your chafing beard, rub to my
breast and shoulders.
5
The old face of the mother of many children,
Whist! I am fully content.
Lull'd and late is the smoke of the First-day morning,
It hangs low over the rows of trees by the fences,
It hangs thin by the sassafras and wild-cherry and
cat-brier under them.
I saw the rich ladies in full dress at the soiree,
I heard what the singers were singing so long,
Heard who sprang in crimson youth from the white
froth and the water-blue.
Behold a woman!
She looks out from her quaker cap, her face is
clearer and more beautiful than the sky.
She sits in an armchair under the shaded porch
of the farmhouse,
The sun just shines on her old white head.
Her ample gown is of cream-hued linen,
Her grandsons raised the flax, and her grand-
daughters spin it with the distaff and the wheel.
The melodious character of the earth,
The finish beyond which philosophy cannot go
and does not wish to go,
The justified mother of men.
1855 1881
1
HARK, some wild trumpeter, some strange musician,
Hovering unseen in air, vibrates capricious tunes
to-night.
I hear thee trumpeter, listening alert I catch thy
notes,
Now pouring, whirling like a tempest round me,
Now low, subdued, now in the distance lost.
2
Come nearer bodiless one, haply in thee resounds
Some dead composer, haply thy pensive life
Was fill'd with aspirations high, unform'd ideals,
Waves, oceans musical, chaotically surging,
That now ecstatic ghost, close to me bending,
thy cornet echoing, pealing,
Gives out to no one's ears but mine, but freely
gives to mine,
That I may thee translate.
3
Blow trumpeter free and clear, I follow thee,
While at thy liquid prelude, glad, serene,
The fretting world, the streets, the noisy hours of
day withdraw,
A holy calm descends like dew upon me,
I walk in cool refreshing night the walks of Paradise,
I scent the grass, the moist air and the roses;
Thy song expands my numb'd imbonded spirit,
thou freest, launchest me,
Floating and basking upon heaven's lake.
4
Blow again trumpeter! and for my sensuous eyes,
Bring the old pageants, show the feudal world.
What charm thy music works! thou makest pass
before me,
Ladies and cavaliers long dead, barons are in
their castle halls, the troubadours are singing,
Arm'd knights go forth to redress wrongs, some
in quest of the holy Graal;
I see the tournament, I see the contestants incased
in heavy armor seated on stately champing horses,
I hear the shouts, the sounds of blows and smiting
steel;
I see the Crusaders' tumultuous armies&emdash;hark,
how the cymbals clang,
Lo, where the monks walk in advance, bearing the
cross on high.
5
Blow again trumpeter! and for thy theme,
Take now the enclosing theme of all, the solvent
and the setting,
Love, that is pulse of all, the sustenance and
the pang,
The heart of man and woman all for love,
No other theme but love&emdash;knitting,
enclosing, all-diffusing love.
O how the immortal phantoms crowd around me!
I see the vast alembic ever working, I see and
know the flames that heat the world,
The glow, the blush, the beating hearts of lovers,
So blissful happy some, and some so silent, dark,
and nigh to death;
Love, that is all the earth to lovers&emdash;love,
that mocks time and space,
Love, that is day and night&emdash;love, that is
sun and moon and stars,
Love, that is crimson, sumptuous, sick with perfume,
No other words but words of love, no other thought
but love.
6
Blow again trumpeter&emdash;conjure war's alarums.
Swift to thy spell a shuddering hum like distant
thunder rolls,
Lo, where the arm'd men hasten&emdash;lo, mid the
clouds of dust the glint of bayonets,
I see the grime-faced cannoneers, I mark the rosy flash
amid the smoke, I hear the cracking of the guns;
Nor war alone&emdash;thy fearful music-song, wild
prayer, brings every sight of fear,
The deeds of ruthless brigands, rapine, murder&emdash;
I hear the cries for help!
I see ships foundering at sea, I behold on deck and
below deck the terrible tableaus.
7
O trumpeter, methinks I am myself the instrument
thou playest,
Thou melt'st my heart, my brain&emdash;thou movest,
drawest, changest them at will;
And now thy sullen notes send darkness through me,
Thou takest away all cheering light, all hope,
I see the enslaved, the overthrown, the hurt, the
opprest of the whole earth,
I feel the measureless shame and humiliation of
my race, it becomes all mine,
Mine too the revenges of humanity, the wrongs of
ages, baffled feuds and hatreds,
Utter defeat upon me weighs&emdash;all lost&emdash;
the foe victorious,
(Yet 'mid the ruins Pride colossal stands unshaken to
the last,
Endurance, resolution to the last.)
8
Now trumpeter for thy close,
Vouchsafe a higher strain than any yet,
Sing to my soul, renew its languishing faith and
hope,
Rouse up my slow belief, give me some vision of
the future,
Give me for once its prophecy and joy.
O glad, exulting, culminating song!
A vigor more than earth's is in thy notes,
Marches of victory&emdash;man disenthral'd
&emdash;the conqueror at last,
Hymns to the universal God from universal man
&emdash;all joy!
A reborn race appears&emdash;a perfect world,
all joy!
Women and men in wisdom innocence and health
&emdash;all joy!
Riotous laughing bacchanals fill'd with joy!
War, sorrow, suffering gone&emdash;the rank earth
purged&emdash;nothing but joy left!
The ocean fill'd with joy&emdash;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!
1872 1881
THEE for my recitative,
Thee in the driving storm even as now, the snow,
the winterday declining,
Thee in thy panoply, thy measur'd dual throbbing
and thy beat convulsive,
Thy black cylindric body, golden brass and
silvery steel,
Thy ponderous side-bars, parallel and connecting
rods, gyrating, shuttling at thy sides,
Thy metrical, now swelling pant and roar, now
tapering in the distance,
Thy great protruding head-light fix'd in front,
Thy long, pale, floating vapor-pennants, tinged
with delicate purple,
The dense and murky clouds out-belching from thy
smoke-stack,
Thy knitted frame, thy springs and valves, the
tremulous twinkle of thy wheels,
Thy train of cars behind, obedient, merrily following,
Through gale or calm, now swift, now slack, yet
steadily careering;
Type of the modern&emdash;emblem of motion and
power&emdash;pulse of the continent,
For once come serve the Muse and merge in verse,
even as here I see thee,
With storm and buffeting gusts of wind and falling
snow,
By day thy warning ringing bell to sound its notes,
By night thy silent signal lamps to swing.
Fierce-throated beauty!
Roll through my chant with all thy lawless music, thy
swinging lamps at night,
Thy madly-whistled laughter, echoing, rumbling like
an earthquake, rousing all,
Law of thyself complete, thine own track firmly
holding,
(No sweetness debonair of tearful harp or glib
piano thine,)
Thy trills of shrieks by rocks and hills return'd,
Launch'd o'er the prairies wide, across the lakes,
To the free skies unpent and glad and strong.
1876 1881
O MAGNET-SOUTH! O glistening perfumed
South!
my South!
O quick mettle, rich blood, impulse and love! good
and evil! O all dear to me!
O dear to me my birth-things&emdash;all moving
things and the trees where I was born&emdash;
the grains, plants, rivers,
Dear to me my own slow sluggish rivers where they
flow, distant, over flats of silvery sands or through
swamps,
Dear to me the Roanoke, the Savannah, the Altamahaw,
the Pedee, the Tombigbee, the Santee, the Coosa,
and the Sabine,
O pensive, far away wandering, I return with my soul
to haunt their banks again,
Again in Florida I float on transparent lakes, I float
on the Okeechobee, I cross the hummock-land or
through pleasant openings or dense forests,
I see the parrots in the woods, I see the papaw-tree
and the blossoming titi;
Again, sailing in my coaster on deck, I coast off
Georgia, I coast up the Carolinas,
I see where the live-oak is growing, I see where the
yellowpine, the scented bay-tree, the lemon and
orange, the cypress, the graceful palmetto,
I pass rude sea-headlands and enter Pamlico sound
through an inlet, and dart my vision inland;
O the cotton plant! the growing fields of rice, sugar,
hemp!
The cactus guarded with thorns, the laurel-tree with
large white flowers,
The range afar, the richness and barrenness, the old
woods charged with mistletoe and trailing moss,
The piney odor and the gloom, the awful natural
stillness, (here in these dense swamps the free-
booter carries his gun, and the fugitive has his
conceal'd hut;)
O the strange fascination of these half-known half-
impassable swamps, infested by reptiles,
resounding with the bellow of the alligator, the
sad noises of the night-owl and the wild-cat,
and the whirr of the rattlesnake,
The mocking-bird, the American mimic, singing all
the forenoon, singing through the moon-lit night,
The humming-bird, the wild turkey, the raccoon, the
opossum;
A Kentucky corn-field, the tall, graceful, long-leav'd
corn, slender, flapping, bright green, with tassels,
with beautiful ears each well-sheath'd in its husk;
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.
1860 1881
I WAS asking for something specific and perfect
for my city,
Whereupon lo! upsprang the aboriginal name.
Now I see what there is in a name, a word, liquid,
sane, unruly, musical, self-sufficient,
I see that the word of my city is that word from
of old,
Because I see that word nested in nests of water-
bays, superb,
Rich, hemm'd thick all around with sailships and
steamships, an island sixteen miles long, solid-
founded,
Numberless crowded streets, high growths of iron,
slender, strong, light, splendidly uprising toward
clear skies,
Tides swift and ample, well-loved by me, toward
sundown,
The flowing sea-currents, the little islands, larger
adjoining islands, the heights, the villas,
The countless masts, the white shore-steamers, the
lighters, the ferry-boats, the black sea-steamers
well-model'd,
The down-town streets, the jobbers' houses of
business, the houses of business of the ship-
merchants and money-brokers, the river-streets,
Immigrants arriving, fifteen or twenty thousand in a
week,
The carts hauling goods, the manly race of drivers
of horses, the brown-faced sailors,
The summer air, the bright sun shining, and the
sailing clouds aloft,
The winter snows, the sleigh-bells, the broken ice
in the river, passing along up or down with the
flood-tide or ebb-tide,
The mechanics of the city, the masters, well-form'd,
beautiful-faced, looking you straight in the eyes,
Trottoirs throng'd, vehicles, Broadway, the women,
the shops and shows,
A million people&emdash;manners free and superb
&emdash;open voices&emdash;hospitality
&emdash;the most courageous and friendly young
men,
City of hurried and sparkling waters! city of spires
and masts!
City nested in bays! my city!
1860 1881
O ME, man of slack faith so long,
Standing aloof, denying portions so long,
Only aware to-day of compact all-diffused truth,
Discovering to-day there is no lie or form of lie,
and can be none, but grows as inevitably upon
itself as the truth does upon itself,
Or as any law of the earth or any natural production
of the earth does.
(This is curious and may not be realized immediately,
but it must be realized,
I feel in myself that I represent falsehoods equally
with the rest,
And that the universe does.)
Where has fail'd a perfect return indifferent of lies
or the truth?
Is it upon the ground, or in water or fire? or in the
spirit of man? or in the meat and blood?
Meditating among liars and retreating sternly into
myself, I see that there are really no liars or
lies after all,
And that nothing fails its perfect return, and that
what are called lies are perfect returns,
And that each thing exactly represents itself and
what has preceded it,
And that the truth includes all, and is compact just
as much as space is compact,
And that there is no flaw or vacuum in the amount
of the truth&emdash;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.
1860 1871
THAT which eludes this verse and any verse,
Unheard by sharpest ear, unform'd in clearest eye
or cunningest mind,
Nor lore nor fame, nor happiness nor wealth,
And yet the pulse of every heart and life throughout
the world incessantly,
Which you and I and all pursuing ever ever miss,
Open but still a secret, the real of the real, an
illusion,
Costless, vouchsafed to each, yet never man the
owner,
Which poets vainly seek to put in rhyme, historians
in prose,
Which sculptor never chisel'd yet, not painter painted,
Which vocalist never sung, nor orator nor actor ever
utter'd,
Invoking here and how I challenge for my song.
Indifferently, 'mid public, private haunts, in solitude,
Behind the mountain and the wood,
Companion of the city's busiest streets, through
the assemblage,
It and its radiations constantly glide.
In looks of fair unconscious babes,
Or strangely in the coffin'd dead,
Or show of breaking dawn or stars by night,
As some dissolving delicate film of dreams,
Hiding yet lingering.
Two little breaths of words comprising it,
Two words, yet all from first to last comprised
in it.
How ardently for it!
How many ships have sail'd and sunk for it!
How many travelers started from their homes and
ne'er return'd!
How much of genius boldly staked and lost for it!
What countless stores of beauty, love, ventur'd
for it!
How all superbest deeds since Time began are
traceable to it&emdash;and shall be to the end!
How all heroic martyrdoms to it!
How, justified by it, the horrors, evils, battles of
the earth!
How the bright fascinating lambent flames of it, in
every age and land, have drawn men's eyes,
Rich as a sunset on the Norway coast, the sky, the
islands, and the cliffs,
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.
1881 1881
WHO has gone farthest? for I would go farther,
And who has been just? for I would be the most just
person of the earth,
And who most cautious? for I would be more cautious,
And who has been happiest? O I think it is I&emdash;I
think no one was ever happier than I,
And who has lavish'd all? for I lavish constantly the
best I have,
And who proudest? for I think I have reason to be the
proudest son alive&emdash;for I am the son of the
brawny and tall-topt city,
And who has been bold and true? for I would be the
boldest and truest being of the universe,
And who benevolent? for I would show more benevolence
than all the rest,
And who has receiv'd the love of the most friends? for
I know what it is to receive the passionate love
of many friends,
And who possesses a perfect and enamour'd body? for I
do not believe any one possesses a more perfect or
enamour'd body than mine,
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 you foes that in conflict have overcome me,
(For what is my life or any man's life but a conflict
with foes, the old, the incessant war?)
You degradations, you tussle with passions and
appetites,
You smarts from dissatisfied friendships, (ah wounds
the sharpest of all!)
You toil of painful and choked articulations, you
meannesses,
You shallow tongue-talks at tables, (my tongue the
shallowest of any;)
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.
1865-6 1881
OF public opinion,
Of a calm and cool fiat sooner or later, (how
impassive! how certain and final!)
Of the President with pale face asking secretly to
himself, What will the people say at last?
Of the frivolous Judge&emdash;of the corrupt
Congressman, Governor, Mayor&emdash;of
such as these standing helpless and exposed,
Of the mumbling and screaming priest, (soon, soon
deserted,)
Of the lessening year by year of venerableness, and
of the dicta of officers, statutes, pulpits, schools,
Of the rising forever taller and stronger and broader
of the intuitions of men and women, and of Self-
esteem and Personality;
Of the true New World&emdash;of the Democracies
resplendent enmasse,
Of the conformity of politics, armies, navies, to them,
Of the shining sun by them&emdash;of the inherent
light, greater than the rest,
Of the envelopment of all by them, and the effusion
of all from them.
1860 1881
THEY shall arise in the States,
They shall report Nature, laws, physiology, and
happiness,
They shall illustrate Democracy and the kosmos,
They shall be alimentive, amative, perceptive,
They shall be complete women and men, their pose
brawny and supple, their drink water, their
blood clean and clear,
They shall fully enjoy materialism and the sight of
products, they shall enjoy the sight of the beef,
lumber, breadstuffs, of Chicago the great city,
They shall train themselves to go in public to become
orators and oratresses,
Strong and sweet shall their tongues be, poems and
materials of poems shall come from their lives,
they shall be makers and finders,
Of them and of their works shall emerge divine
conveyers, to convey gospels,
Characters, events, retrospections, shall be convey'd
in gospels, trees, animals, waters, shall be convey'd,
Death, the future, the invisible faith, shall all
be convey'd.
1860 1871
WEAVE in, weave in, my hardy life,
Weave yet a soldier strong and full for great campaigns
to come,
Weave in red blood, weave sinews in like ropes, the
senses, sight weave in,
Weave lasting sure, weave day and night the weft, the
warp, incessant weave, tire not,
(We know not what the use O life, nor know the aim,
the end, nor really aught we know,
But know the work, the need goes on and shall go on,
the death-envelop'd march of peace as well as
war goes on,)
For great campaigns of peace the same the wiry
threads to weave,
We know not why or what, yet weave, forever weave.
1865 1881
OUT of the murk of heaviest clouds,
Out of the feudal wrecks and heap'd-up skeletons
of kings,
Out of that old entire European debris, the shatter'd
mummeries,
Ruin'd cathedrals, crumble of palaces, tombs of
priests,
Lo, Freedom's features fresh undimm'd look forth
&emdash;the same immortal face looks forth;
(A glimpse as of thy Mother's face Columbia,
A flash significant as of a sword,
Beaming towards thee.)
Nor think we forget thee maternal;
Lag'd'st thou so long? shall the clouds close
again upon thee?
Ah, but thou hast thyself now appear'd to us
&emdash; we know thee,
Thou hast given us a sure proof, the glimpse of
thyself,
Thou waitest there as everywhere thy time.
1873 1881
BY broad Potomac's shore, again old tongue,
(Still uttering, still ejaculating, canst never cease
this babble?)
Again old heart so gay, again to you, your sense,
the full flush spring returning,
Again the freshness and the odors, again Virginia's
summer sky, pellucid blue and silver,
Again the forenoon purple of the hills,
Again the deathless grass, so noiseless soft and
green,
Again the blood-red roses blooming.
Perfume this book of mine O blood-red roses!
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!
1876 1881
June 25, 1876
FROM far Dakota's caņons,
Lands of the wild ravine, the dusky Sioux, the
lonesome stretch, the silence,
Haply to-day a mournful wail, haply a trumpet-
note for heroes.
The battle-bulletin,
The Indian ambuscade, the craft, the fatal
environment,
The cavalry companies fighting to the last in
sternest heroism,
In the midst of their little circle, with their
slaughter'd horses for breastworks,
The fall of Custer and all his officers and men.
Continues yet the old, old legend of our race,
The loftiest of life upheld by death,
The ancient banner perfectly maintain'd,
O lesson opportune, O how I welcome thee!
As sitting in dark days,
Lone, sulky, through the time's thick murk
looking in vain for light, for hope,
From unsuspected parts a fierce and momentary
proof,
(The sun there at the centre though conceal'd,
Electric life forever at the centre,)
Breaks forth a lightning flash.
Thou of the tawny flowing hair in battle,
I erewhile saw, with erect head, pressing ever
in front, bearing a birth sword in thy hand,
Now ending well in death the splendid fever of
thy deeds,
(I bring no dirge for it or thee, I bring a glad
triumphal sonnet,)
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.
1876 1881
IN midnight sleep of many a face of anguish,
Of the look at first of the mortally wounded, (of
that indescribable look,)
Of the dead on their backs with arms extended
wide,
I dream, I dream, I dream.
Of scenes of Nature, fields and mountains,
Of skies so beauteous after a storm, and at night
the moon so unearthly bright,
Shining sweetly, shining down, where we dig the
trenches and gather the heaps,
I dream, I dream, I dream.
Long have they pass'd, faces and trenches and fields,
Where through the carnage I moved with a callous
composure, or away from the fallen,
Onward I sped at the time&emdash;but now of
their forms at night, I dream, I dream, I dream.
1865-6 1881
THICK-SPRINKLED bunting! flag of stars!
Long yet your road, fateful flag&emdash;long
yet your road, and lined with bloody death,
For the prize I see at issue at last is the world,
All its ships and shores I see interwoven with
your threads greedy banner;
Dream'd again the flags of kings, highest borne,
to flaunt unrival'd?
O hasten flag of man&emdash;O with sure and
steady step, passing highest flags of kings,
Walk supreme to the heavens mighty symbol
&emdash;run up above them all,
Flag of stars! thick-sprinkled bunting!
1865 1871
To U. S. G. return'd from his World's Tour
WHAT best I see in thee,
Is not that where thou mov'st down history's great
highways,
Ever undimm'd by time shoots warlike victory's dazzle,
Or that thou sat'st where Washington sat, ruling the
land in peace,
Or thou the man whom feudal Europe fęted,
venerable Asia swarm'd upon,
Who walk'd with kings with even pace the round
world's promenade;
But that in foreign lands, in all thy walks with kings,
Those prairie sovereigns of the West, Kansas,
Missouri, Illinois,
Ohio's, Indiana's millions, comrades, farmers,
soldiers, all to the front,
Invisibly with thee walking with kings with even
pace the round world's promenade,
Were all so justified.
(1879?) 1881
Written in Platte Caņon, Colorado
SPIRIT that form'd this scene,
These tumbled rock-piles grim and red,
These reckless heaven-ambitious peaks,
These gorges, turbulent-clear streams, this naked
freshness,
These formless wild arrays, for reasons of their own,
I know thee, savage spirit&emdash;we have
communed together,
Mine too such wild arrays, for reasons of their own;
Was't charged against my chants they had forgotten
art?
To fuse within themselves its rules precise and
delicatesse?
The lyrist's measur'd beat, the wrought-out temple's
grace&emdash;column and polish'd arch forgot?
But thou that revelest here&emdash;spirit that form'd
this scene,
They have remember'd thee.
1881 1881
AS I walk these broad majestic days of peace,
(For the war, the struggle of blood finish'd, wherein,
O terrific Ideal,
Against vast odds erewhile having gloriously won,
Now thou stridest on, yet perhaps in time toward
denser wars,
Perhaps to engage in time in still more dreadful
contests, dangers,
Longer campaigns and crises, labors beyond all
others,)
Around me I hear that eclat of the world, politics,
produce,
The announcements of recognized things, science,
The approved growth of cities and the spread of
inventions.
I see the ships, (they will last a few years,)
The vast factories with their foremen and workmen,
And hear the indorsement of all, and do not object
to it.
But I too announce solid things,
Science, ships, politics, cities, factories, are not
nothing,
Like a grand procession to music of distant bugles
pouring, triumphantly moving, and grander
heaving in sight,
They stand for realities&emdash;all is as it should be.
Then my realities;
What else is so real as mine?
Libertad and the divine average, freedom to every
slave on the face of the earth,
The rapt promises and luminč of seers, the spiritual
world, these centuries-lasting songs,
And our visions, the visions of poets, the most
solid announcements of any.
1860 1881
THIS is thy hour O soul, thy free flight into the wordless,
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.
1881 1881