[Previous Chapter]
[Table of Contents]By the Roadside
A BOSTON BALLAD
(1854)
To get betimes in Boston town I rose this morning early,
Here's a good place at the corner, I must stand and see the show.
Clear the way there Jonathan!
Way for the President's marshal&emdash;way for the government cannon!
Way for the Federal foot and dragoons, (and the apparitions copiously tumbling.)
I love to look on the Stars and Stripes, I hope the fifes will play Yankee Doodle.
How bright shine the cutlasses of the foremost troops!
Every man holds his revolver, marching stiff through Boston town.
A fog follows, antiques of the same come limping,
Some appear wooden-legged, and some appear bandaged and bloodless.
Why this is indeed a show&emdash;it has called the dead out of the earth!
The old graveyards of the hills have hurried to see!
Phantoms! phantoms countless by flank and rear!
Cock'd hats of mothy mould&emdash;crutches made of mist!
Arms in slings&emdash;old men leaning on young men's shoulders.
What troubles you Yankee phantoms? what is all this chattering of bare gums?
Does the ague convulse your limbs? do you mistake your crutches for firelocks and level them?
If you blind your eyes with tears you will not see the President's marshal,
If you groan such groans you might balk the government cannon.
For shame old maniacs&emdash;bring down those toss'd arms, and let your white hair
be,
Here gape your great-grandsons, their wives gaze at them from the windows,
See how well dress'd, see how orderly they conduct themselves.
Worse and worse&emdash;can't you stand it? are you retreating?
Is this hour with the living too dead for you?
Retreat then&emdash;pell-mell!
To your graves&emdash;back&emdash;back to the hills old limpers!
I do not think you belong here anyhow.
But there is one thing that belongs here&emdash;shall I tell you what it is, gentlemen of Boston?
I will whisper it to the Mayor, he shall send a committee to England,
They shall get a grant from the Parliament, go with a cart to the royal vault,
Dig out King George's coffin, unwrap him quick from the grave-clothes, box up his bones
for a journey,
Find a swift Yankee clipper&emdash;here is freight for you, blackbellied clipper,
Up with your anchor&emdash;shake out your sails&emdash;steer straight toward
Boston bay.
Now call for the President's marshal again, bring out the government cannon,
Fetch home the roarers from Congress, make another procession, guard it with foot and
dragoons.
This centre-piece for them;
Look, all orderly citizens&emdash;look from the windows, women!
The committee open the box, set up the regal ribs, glue those that will not stay,
Clap the skull on top of the ribs, and clap a crown on top of the skull.
You have got your revenge, old buster&emdash;the crown is come to its own, and more than its own.
Stick your hands in your pockets, Jonathan&emdash;you are a made man from this day,
You are mighty cute&emdash;and here is one of your bargains.
(1854?) 1871
EUROPE
The 72d and 73d Years of These States
S
Like lightning it le'pt forth half startled at itself,
Its feet upon the ashes and the rags, its hand tight to the throats of kings.
O hope and faith!
O aching close of exiled patriots' lives!
O many a sicken'd heart!
Turn back unto this day and make yourselves afresh.
And you, paid to defile the People&emdash;you liars, mark!
Not for numberless agonies, murders, lusts,
For court thieving in its manifold mean forms, worming from his simplicity the poor man's
wages,
For many a promise sworn by royal lips and broken and laugh'd at in the breaking,
Then in their power not for all these did the blows strike revenge, or the heads of the
nobles fall;
The People scorn'd the ferocity of kings.
But the sweetness of mercy brew'd bitter destruction, and the frighten'd monarchs come
back,
Each comes in state with his train, hangman, priest, taxgatherer,
Soldier, lawyer, lord, jailer, and sycophant.
Yet behind all lowering stealing, lo, a shape,
Vague as the night, draped interminably, head, front and form, in scarlet folds,
Whose face and eyes none may see,
Out of its robes only this, the red robes lifted by the arm,
One finger crook'd pointed high over the top, like the head of a snake appears.
Meanwhile corpses lie in new-made graves, bloody corpses of young men,
The rope of the gibbet hangs heavily, the bullets of princes are flying, the creatures of
power laugh aloud,
And all these things bear fruits, and they are good.
Those corpses of young men,
Those martyrs that hang from the gibbets, those hearts pierc'd by the gray lead,
Cold and motionless as they seem live elsewhere with unslaughter'd vitality.
They live in other young men O kings!
They live in brothers again ready to defy you,
They were purified by death, they were taught and exalted.
Not a grave of the murder'd for freedom but grows seed for freedom, in its turn to bear
seed,
Which the winds carry afar and re-sow, and the rains and the snows nourish.
Not a disembodied spirit can the weapons of tyrants let loose,
But it stalks invisibly over the earth, whispering, counseling, cautioning.
Liberty, let others despair of you&emdash;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.
1850 1860
A HAND-MIRROR
H
Outside fair costume, within ashes and filth,
No more a flashing eye, no more a sonorous voice or springy step,
Now some slave's eye, voice, hands, step,
A drunkard's breath, unwholesome eater's face, venerealee's flesh,
Lungs rotting away piecemeal, stomach sour and cankerous,
Joints rheumatic, bowels clogged with abomination,
Blood circulating dark and poisonous streams,
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&emdash;and from such a beginning!
1860 1860
GODS
L
Waiting content, invisible yet, but certain,
Be thou my God.
Thou, thou, the Ideal Man,
Fair, able, beautiful, content, and loving,
Complete in body and dilate in spirit,
Be thou my God.
O Death, (for Life has served its turn,)
Opener and usher to the heavenly mansion,
Be thou my God.
Aught, aught of mightiest, best I see, conceive, or know,
(To break the stagnant tie&emdash;thee, thee to free, O soul,)
Be thou my God.
All great ideas, the races' aspirations,
All heroisms, deeds of rapt enthusiasts,
Be ye my Gods.
Or Time and Space,
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.
1870 1881
GERMS
F
The ones known, and the ones unknown, the ones on the stars,
The stars themselves, some shaped, others unshaped,
Wonders as of those countries, the soil, trees, cities, inhabitants, whatever they may be,
Splendid suns, the moons and rings, the countless combinations and effects,
Such-like, and as good as such-like, visible here or anywhere, stand provided for in 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.
1860 1871
THOUGHTS
O
Of vista&emdash;suppose some sight in arriere through the formative chaos, presuming
the growth, fulness, life, now attain'd on the journey,
(But I see the road continued, and the journey ever continued;)
Of what was once lacking on earth, and in due time has become supplied&emdash;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.
1860 1881
WHEN I HEARD THE LEARN'D ASTRONOMER
W
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the
lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.
1865 1867
PERFECTIONS
O
As souls only understand souls.
1860 1860
O ME! O LIFE!
O
Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill'd with the foolish,
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more
faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew'd,
Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,
Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined,
The question, O me! so sad, recurring&emdash;What good amid these, O me, O life?
Answer
That you are here&emdash;that life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.
1865-6 1867
TO A PRESIDENT
A
You have not learn'd of Nature&emdash;of the politics of Nature you have not learn'd
the great amplitude, rectitude, impartiality,
You have not seen that only such as they are for these States,
And that what is less than they must sooner or later lift off from these States.
1860 1860
I SIT AND LOOK OUT
I
I hear secret convulsive sobs from young men at anguish with themselves, remorseful after
deeds done,
I see in low life the mother misused by her children, dying, neglected, gaunt, desperate,
I see the wife misused by her husband, I see the treacherous seducer of young women,
I mark the ranklings of jealousy and unrequited love attempted to be hid, I see these
sights on the earth,
I see the workings of battle, pestilence, tyranny, I see martyrs and prisoners,
I observe a famine at sea, I observe the sailors casting lots who shall be kill'd to
preserve the lives of the rest,
I observe the slights and degradations cast by arrogant persons upon laborers, the poor,
and upon negroes, and the like;
All these&emdash;all the meanness and agony without end I sitting look out upon,
See, hear, and am silent.
1860 1860
TO RICH GIVERS
W
A little sustenance, a hut and garden, a little money, as I rendezvous with my poems,
A traveler's lodging and breakfast as I journey through the States,&emdash;why
should I be ashamed to own such gifts? why to advertise for them?
For I myself am not one who bestows nothing upon man and woman,
For I bestow upon any man or woman the entrance to all the gifts of the universe.
1860 1867
THE DALLIANCE OF THE EAGLES
S
Skyward in air a sudden muffled sound, the dalliance of the eagles,
The rushing amorous contact high in space together,
The clinching interlocking claws, a living, fierce, gyrating wheel,
Four beating wings, two beaks, a swirling mass tight grappling,
In tumbling turning clustering loops, straight downward falling,
Till o'er the river pois'd, the twain yet one, a moment's lull,
A motionless still balance in the air, then parting, talons loosing,
Upward again on slow-firm pinions slanting, their separate diverse flight,
She hers, he his, pursuing.
1880 1881
ROAMING IN THOUGHT
(After reading H
R
And the vast all that is call'd Evil I saw hastening to merge itself and become lost and
dead.
1881 1881
A FARM PICTURE
T
A sunlit pasture field with cattle and horses feeding,
And haze and vista, and the far horizon fading away.
1865 1871
A CHILD'S AMAZE
S
I remember I heard the preacher every Sunday put God in his statements,
As contending against some being or influence.
1865 1867
THE RUNNER
O
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.
1867 1867
BEAUTIFUL WOMEN
W
The young are beautiful&emdash;but the old are more beautiful than the young.
1860 1860
MOTHER AND BABE
I
The sleeping mother and babe&emdash;hush'd, I study them long and long.
1865 1867
THOUGHT
O
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.
1860 1860
VISOR'D
A
Concealing her face, concealing her form,
Changes and transformations every hour, every moment,
Falling upon her even when she sleeps.
1860 1867
THOUGHT
O
As if it might be this thing or that thing, according to decisions.
1860 1860
GLIDING O'ER ALL
G
Through Nature, Time, and Space,
As a ship on the waters advancing,
The voyage of the soul&emdash;not life alone,
Death, many deaths I'll sing.
1871 1871
HAST NEVER COME TO THEE AN HOUR
H
A sudden gleam divine, precipitating, bursting all these bubbles, fashions, wealth?
These eager business aims&emdash;books, politics, art, amours,
To utter nothingness?
1881 1881
THOUGHT
O
1860 1860
TO OLD AGE
I
1860 1860
LOCATIONS AND TIMES
L
Forms, colors, densities, odors&emdash;what is it in me that corresponds with them?
1860 1871
OFFERINGS
A
Around each gathers a cluster of friends, and gay children and youths, with offerings.
1860 1871
TO THE STATES
To Identify the 16th, 17th, or 18th Presidentiad
W
What deepening twilight&emdash;scum floating atop of the waters,
Who are they as bats and night-dogs askant in the capitol?
What a filthy Presidentiad! (O South, your torrid suns! O North, your arctic freezings!)
Are those really Congressmen? are those the great Judges? is that the President?
Then I will sleep awhile yet, for I see that these States sleep, for reasons;
(With gathering murk, with muttering thunder and lambent shoots we all duly awake,
South, North, East, West, inland and seaboard, we will surely awake.)
1860 1860