GEMS	1	See, projected through time,
GEMS	2	For me an audience interminable.
GEMS	3	. . . . . . . .
GEMS	4	With firm and regular step they wend, they never stop,
GEMS	5	Successions of men, Americanos, a hundred millions,
GEMS	6	One generation playing its part and passing on,
GEMS	7	Another generation playing its part and passing on in its turn,
GEMS	8	With faces turn'd sideways or backward towards me to listen,
GEMS	9	With eyes retrospective towards me.
GEMS	10	I have no mockings or arguments, I witness and wait.
GEMS	11	And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own,
GEMS	12	And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own.
GEMS	13	I do not call one greater and one smaller,
GEMS	14	That which fills its period and place is equal to any.
GEMS	15	The paths to the house I seek to make,
GEMS	16	But leave to those to come the house itself.
GEMS	17	. . . . . . . .
GEMS	18	Belief I sing, and preparation.
GEMS	19	Behold, I do not give lectures or a little charity,
GEMS	20	When I give I give myself.
GEMS	21	The prophet and the bard,
GEMS	22	Shall yet maintain themselves, in higher stages yet,
GEMS	23	Shall mediate to the Modern, to Democracy, interpret yet to them,
GEMS	24	God and eidólons.
GEMS	25	Perfume this book of mine O blood-red roses!
GEMS	26	Lave subtly with your waters every line Potomac!
GEMS	27	Give me of you O spring, before I close, to put between its pages!
GEMS	28	O forenoon purple of the hills, before I close, of you!
GEMS	29	O deathless grass, of you!
GEMS	30	O I see now that life cannot exhibit all to me, as the day cannot,
GEMS	31	I see that I am to wait for what will be exhibited by death.
GEMS	32	Immense have been the preparations for me,
GEMS	33	Faithful and friendly the arms that have help'd me.
GEMS	34	Cycles ferried my cradle, rowing and rowing like cheerful boatman,
GEMS	35	For room to me stars kept aside in their own rings,
GEMS	36	They sent influences to look after what was to hold me.
GEMS	37	My feet strike an apex of the apices of the stairs,
GEMS	38	On every step bunches of ages, and larger bunches between the steps,
GEMS	39	All below duly travel'd, and still I mount and mount.
GEMS	40	See ever so far, there is limitless space outside of that,
GEMS	41	Count ever so much, there is limitless time around that.
GEMS	42	I do not know what is untried and afterward,
GEMS	43	But I know it will in its turn prove sufficient, and cannot fail.
GEMS	44	I know I am deathless,
GEMS	45	I know this orbit of mine cannot be swept by a carpenter's compass.
GEMS	46	And whether I come to my own to-day or in ten thousand or ten million years,
GEMS	47	I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I can wait.
GEMS	48	Yet soul be sure the first intent remains, and shall be carried out.
GEMS	49	Passage indeed O soul to primal thought,
GEMS	50	Not lands and seas alone, thy own clear freshness,
GEMS	51	The young maturity of brood and bloom,
GEMS	52	To realms of budding bibles.
GEMS	53	O soul, repressless, I with thee and thou with me,
GEMS	54	Thy circumnavigation of the world begin,
GEMS	55	Of man, the voyage of his mind's return,
GEMS	56	To reason's early paradise,
GEMS	57	Back, back to wisdom's birth, to innocent intuitions,
GEMS	58	Again with fair creation.
GEMS	59	O my brave soul!
GEMS	60	O farther farther sail!
GEMS	61	O daring joy, but safe! are they not all the seas of God?
GEMS	62	O farther, farther, farther sail
GEMS	63	Ah more than any priest O soul we too believe in God,
GEMS	64	But with the mystery of God we dare not dally.
GEMS	65	O Thou transcendent,
GEMS	66	Nameless, the fibre and the breath,
GEMS	67	Light of the light, shedding forth universes, thou centre of them,
GEMS	68	Thou mightier centre of the true, the good, the loving,
GEMS	69	Thou moral, spiritual fountain—affection's source—thou reservoir,
GEMS	70	(O pensive soul of me—O thirst unsatisfied—waitest not there?
GEMS	71	Waitest not haply for us somewhere there the Comrade perfect?)
GEMS	72	Thou pulse—thou motive of the stars, suns, systems,
GEMS	73	That, circling, move in order, safe, harmonious,
GEMS	74	Athwart the shapeless vastnesses of space,
GEMS	75	How should I think, how breathe a single breath, how speak, if, out of myself,
GEMS	76	I could not launch, to those, superior universes?
GEMS	77	Swiftly I shrivel at the thought of God,
GEMS	78	At Nature and its wonders, Time and Space and Death,
GEMS	79	But that I, turning, call to thee O soul, thou actual Me,
GEMS	80	And lo, thou gently masterest the orbs,
GEMS	81	Thou matest Time, smilest content at Death,
GEMS	82	And fillest, swellest full the vastnesses of Space.
GEMS	83	Greater than stars or suns,
GEMS	84	Bounding O soul thou journeyest forth.
GEMS	85	In this broad earth of ours,
GEMS	86	Amid the measureless grossness and the slag,
GEMS	87	Enclosed and safe within its central heart.
GEMS	88	Nestles the seed perfection.
GEMS	89	Over the mountain-growths disease and sorrow,
GEMS	90	An uncaught bird is ever hovering, hovering,
GEMS	91	High in the purer, happier air.
GEMS	92	From imperfection's murkiest cloud
GEMS	93	Darts always forth one ray of perfect light,
GEMS	94	One flash of heaven's glory.
GEMS	95	To fashion's, custom's discord,
GEMS	96	To the mad Babel-din, the deafening orgies,
GEMS	97	Soothing each lull a strain is heard, just heard,
GEMS	98	From some far shore the final chorus sounding.
GEMS	99	O the blest eyes, the happy hearts,
GEMS	100	That see, that know the guiding thread so fine,
GEMS	101	Along the mighty labyrinth.
GEMS	102	Give me to hold all sounds, (I madly struggling cry,)
GEMS	103	Fill me with all the voices of the universe,
GEMS	104	Endow me with their throbbings, Nature's also,
GEMS	105	The tempests, waters, winds, operas and chants, marches and dances,
GEMS	106	Utter, pour in, for I would take them all!
GEMS	107	All, all for immortality,
GEMS	108	Love like the light silently wrapping all,
GEMS	109	Nature's amelioration blessing all,
GEMS	110	The blossoms, fruits of ages, orchards divine and certain,
GEMS	111	Forms, objects, growths, humanities, to spiritual images ripening.
GEMS	112	Give me O God to sing that thought,
GEMS	113	Give me, give him or her I love this quenchless faith,
GEMS	114	In Thy ensemble, whatever else withheld withhold not from us,
GEMS	115	Belief in plan of Thee enclosed in Time and Space,
GEMS	116	Health, peace, salvation universal.
GEMS	117	I swear I think there is nothing but immortality!
GEMS	118	That the exquisite scheme is for it, and the nebulous float is for it, and the cohering is for it!
GEMS	119	And all preparation is for it—and identity is for it—and life and materials are altogether for it!
GEMS	120	Peace is always beautiful,
GEMS	121	The myth of heaven indicates peace and night.
GEMS	122	Now while the great thoughts of space and eternity fill me I will measure myself by them.
GEMS	123	Lover divine and perfect Comrade,
GEMS	124	Waiting content, invisible yet, but certain,
GEMS	125	Be thou my God.
GEMS	126	Thou, thou, the Ideal Man,
GEMS	127	Fair, able, beautiful, content, and loving,
GEMS	128	Complete in body and dilate in spirit,
GEMS	129	Be thou my God.
GEMS	130	O Death, (for Life has served its turn,)
GEMS	131	Opener and usher to the heavenly mansion,
GEMS	132	Be thou my God.
GEMS	133	Aught, aught of mightiest, best I see, conceive, or know,
GEMS	134	(To break the stagnant tie—thee, thee to free, O soul,)
GEMS	135	Be thou my God.
GEMS	136	All great ideas, the races' aspirations,
GEMS	137	All heroisms, deeds of rapt enthusiasts,
GEMS	138	Be ye my Gods.
GEMS	139	Or Time and Space,
GEMS	140	Or shape of Earth divine and wondrous,
GEMS	141	Or some fair shape I viewing, worship,
GEMS	142	Or lustrous orb of sun or star by night,
GEMS	143	Be ye my Gods.
GEMS	144	BeckoningReckoningahead O soul, when thou, the time achiev'd,
GEMS	145	The seas all cross'd, weather'd the capes, the voyage done,
GEMS	146	Surrounded, copest, frontest God, yieldest, the aim attain'd
GEMS	147	As fill'd with friendship, love complete, the Elder Brother found,
GEMS	148	The Younger melts in fondness in his arms.
GEMS	149	My rendezvous is appointed, it is certain,
GEMS	150	The Lord will be there and wait till I come on perfect terms,
GEMS	151	The great Camerado, the lover tme for whom I pine will be there.
GEMS	152	The clock indicates the moment—but what does eternity indicate?
GEMS	153	Roaming in thought over the Universe, I saw the little that is Good steadily hastening towards immortality,
GEMS	154	And the vast all that is call'd Evil I saw hastening to merge itself and become lost and dead.
GEMS	155	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,
GEMS	156	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.
GEMS	157	Charity and personal force are the only investments worth anything.
GEMS	158	Youth, large, lusty, loving—youth full of grace, force, fascination,
GEMS	159	Do you know that Old Age may come after you with equal grace, force, fascination?
GEMS	160	Day full-blown and splendid—day of the immense sun, action, ambition, laughter,
GEMS	161	The Night, follows close with millions of suns, and sleep and restoring darkness.
GEMS	162	I see in you the estuary that enlarges and spreads itself grandly as it pours in the great sea.
GEMS	163	This is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless,
GEMS	164	Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson done,
GEMS	165	Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the themes thou lovest best,
GEMS	166	Night, sleep, death and the stars.
GEMS	167	Of the interminable sisters,
GEMS	168	Of the ceaseless cotillons of sisters,
GEMS	169	Of the centripetal and centrifugal sisters, the elder and younger sisters,
GEMS	170	The beautiful sister we know dances on with the rest.
GEMS	171	Tumbling on steadily, nothing dreading,
GEMS	172	Sunshine, storm, cold, heat, forever withstanding, passing, carrying,
GEMS	173	The soul's realization and determination still inheriting,
GEMS	174	The fluid vacuum around and ahead still entering and dividing,
GEMS	175	No balk retarding, no anchor anchoring, on no rock striking,
GEMS	176	Swift, glad, content, unbereav'd, nothing losing,
GEMS	177	Of all able and ready at any time to give strict account,
GEMS	178	The divine ship sails the divine sea.
GEMS	179	Whoever you are! motion and reflection are especially for you,
GEMS	180	The divine ship sails the divine sea for you.
GEMS	181	Why, who makes much of a miracle?
GEMS	182	As to me I know of nothing else but miracles.
GEMS	183	. . . . . . . .
GEMS	184	To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
GEMS	185	Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
GEMS	186	Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same,
GEMS	187	Every foot of the interior swarms with the same.
GEMS	188	To me the sea is a continual miracle,
GEMS	189	The fishes that swim—the rocks—the motion of the waves—the ships with men in them,
GEMS	190	What stranger miracles are there?
GEMS	191	Sea of stretch'd ground-swells,
GEMS	192	Sea breathing broad and convulsive breaths,
GEMS	193	Sea of the brine of life and of unshovell'd yet always-ready graves,
GEMS	194	Howler and scooper of storms, capricious and dainty sea,
GEMS	195	I am integral with you, I too am of one phase and of all phases.
GEMS	196	Long and long has the grass been growing,
GEMS	197	Long and long has the rain been falling,
GEMS	198	Long has the globe been rolling round.
GEMS	199	Thee for my recitative,
GEMS	200	. . . . . . . .
GEMS	201	Fierce-throated beauty!
GEMS	202	Roll through my chant with all thy lawless music, thy swinging lamps at night,
GEMS	203	Thy madly-whistled laughter, echoing, rumbling like an earthquake, rousing all,
GEMS	204	Law of thyself complete, thine own track firmly holding,
GEMS	205	(No sweetness debonair of tearful harp or glib piano thine,)
GEMS	206	Thy trills of shrieks by rocks and hills return'd,
GEMS	207	Launch'd o'er the prairies wide, across the lakes,
GEMS	208	To the free skies unpent and glad and strong.
GEMS	209	(Ah little recks the laborer,
GEMS	210	How near his work is holding him to God,
GEMS	211	The loving Laborer through space and time.)
GEMS	212	O sight of pity, shame and dole!
GEMS	213	O fearful thought—a convict soul.
GEMS	214	. . . . . . .
GEMS	215	Convict no more, nor shame, nor dole!
GEMS	216	Depart—a God-enfranchis'd soul!
GEMS	217	A child said What is the Grass? fetching it to me with full hands;
GEMS	218	How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he.
GEMS	219	I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.
GEMS	220	Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
GEMS	221	A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt,
GEMS	222	Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark, and say Whose?
GEMS	223	Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the vegetation.
GEMS	224	Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,
GEMS	225	And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones,
GEMS	226	Growing among black folks as among white.
GEMS	227	. . . . . . . .
GEMS	228	And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.
GEMS	229	Tenderly will I use you curling grass.
GEMS	230	. . . . . . . .
GEMS	231	The smallest sprout shows there is really no death,
GEMS	232	. . . . . . . .
GEMS	233	All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses.
GEMS	234	I am he that walks with the tender and growing night,
GEMS	235	I call to the earth and sea half-held by the night.
GEMS	236	Press close bare bosom'd night—press close magnetic nourishing night!
GEMS	237	Night of south winds—night of the large few stars!
GEMS	238	Still nodding night—mad naked summer night.
GEMS	239	Smile O voluptuous cool-breath'd earth!
GEMS	240	Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees!
GEMS	241	Earth of departed sunset—earth of mountains misty-topt!
GEMS	242	Earth of the virtreous pour of the full moon just tinged with blue!
GEMS	243	Earth of shine and dark mottling the tide of the river!
GEMS	244	Earth of the limpid gray of clouds brighter and clearer for my sake!
GEMS	245	Far-swooping elbow'd earth—rich apple-blossom'd earth!
GEMS	246	Smile, for your lover comes.
GEMS	247	Prodigal, you have given me love—therefore I to you give love!
GEMS	248	O unspeakable passionate love.
GEMS	249	The press of my foot to the earth springs a hundred affections,
GEMS	250	They scorn the best I can do to relate them.
GEMS	251	Come my tan-faced children,
GEMS	252	Follow well in order, get your weapons ready,
GEMS	253	Have you your pistols? have you your sharp-edged axes?
GEMS	254	Pioneers! O pioneers!
GEMS	255	For we cannot tarry here,
GEMS	256	We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger,
GEMS	257	We the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend,
GEMS	258	Pioneers! O pioneers!
GEMS	259	O you youths, Western youths,
GEMS	260	So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship,
GEMS	261	Plain I see you Western youths, see you tramping with the foremost,
GEMS	262	Pioneers! O pioneers!
GEMS	263	Have the elder races halted?
GEMS	264	Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied over there beyond the seas?
GEMS	265	We take up the task eternal, and the burden and the lesson.
GEMS	266	Pioneers! O pioneers!
GEMS	267	See my children, resolute children,
GEMS	268	By those swarms upon our rear we must never yield or falter,
GEMS	269	Ages back in ghostly millions frowning there behind us urging,
GEMS	270	Pioneers! O pioneers!
GEMS	271	All the pulses of the world,
GEMS	272	Falling in they beat for us, with the Western movement beat,
GEMS	273	Holding single or together, steady moving to the front, all for us,
GEMS	274	Pioneers! O pioneers!
GEMS	275	. . . . . . . .
GEMS	276	O you daughters of the West!
GEMS	277	O you younger and elder daughters! O you mothers and you wives!
GEMS	278	Never must you be divided, in our ranks you move united,
GEMS	279	Pioneers! O pioneers!
GEMS	280	. . . . . . . .
GEMS	281	Not for delectations sweet,
GEMS	282	Not the cushion and the slipper, not the peaceful and the studious,
GEMS	283	Not the riches safe and palling, not for us the tame enjoyment,
GEMS	284	Pioneers! O pioneers!
GEMS	285	By the city dead-house by the gate,
GEMS	286	As idly sauntering wending my way from the clangor,
GEMS	287	I curious pause, for lo, an outcast form, a poor dead prostitute brought,
GEMS	288	Her corpse they deposit unclaim'd, it lies on the damp brick pavement,
GEMS	289	The divine woman, her body, I see the body, I look on it alone,
GEMS	290	That house once full of passion and beauty, all else I notice not,
GEMS	291	Nor stillness so cold, nor running water from faucet, nor odors morbific impress me,
GEMS	292	But the house alone—that wondrous house—that delicate fair house—that ruin!
GEMS	293	That immortal house more than all the rows of dwellings ever built!
GEMS	294	Or white-domed capitol with majestic figure surmounted, or all the old high-spired cathedrals,
GEMS	295	That little house alone more than them all—poor, desperate house!
GEMS	296	Fair, fearful wreck—tenement of a soul—itself a soul,
GEMS	297	Unclaim'd, avoided house—take one breath from my tremulous lips,
GEMS	298	Take one tear dropt aside as I go for thought of you,
GEMS	299	Dead house of love—house of madness and sin, crumbled, crush'd,
GEMS	300	House of life, erewhile talking and laughing—but ah, poor house, dead even then,
GEMS	301	Months, years, an echoing, garnish'd house—but dead, dead, dead.
GEMS	302	I accept Reality and dare not question it,
GEMS	303	Materialism first and last imbuing.
GEMS	304	And now gentlemen,
GEMS	305	A word I give to remain in your memories and minds,
GEMS	306	As base and finale too for all metaphysics.
GEMS	307	(So to the students the old professor,
GEMS	308	At the close of his crowded course.)
GEMS	309	Having studied the new and antique, the Greek and Germanic systems,
GEMS	310	Kant having studied and stated, Fichte and Schelling and Hegel,
GEMS	311	Stated the lore of Plato, and Socrates greater than Plato,
GEMS	312	And greater than Socrates sought and stated, Christ divine having studied long,
GEMS	313	I see reminiscent to-day those Greek and Germanic systems,
GEMS	314	See the philosophies all, Christian churches and tenets see,
GEMS	315	Yet underneath Socrates clearly see, and underneath Christ the divine I see,
GEMS	316	The dear love of man for his comrade, the attraction of friend to friend,
GEMS	317	Of the well-married husband and wife, of children and parents,
GEMS	318	Of city for city and land for land.
GEMS	319	A great city is that which has the greatest men and women,
GEMS	320	If it be a few ragged huts it is still the greatest city in the whole world.
GEMS	321	Ah from a little child,
GEMS	322	Thou knowest soul how to me all sounds became music,
GEMS	323	My mother's voice in lullaby or hymn,
GEMS	324	(The voice, O tender voices, memory's loving voices,
GEMS	325	Last miracle of all, O dearest mother's, sister's, voices;)
GEMS	326	The rain, the growing corn, the breeze among the long-leav'd corn,
GEMS	327	The measur'd sea-surf beating on the sand,
GEMS	328	The twittering bird, the hawk's sharp scream,
GEMS	329	The wild-fowl's notes at night as flying low migrating north or south,
GEMS	330	The psalm in the country church or mid the clustering trees, the open air camp-meeting,
GEMS	331	The fiddler in the tavern, the glee, the long-strung sailor-song,
GEMS	332	The lowing cattle, bleating sheep, the crowing cock at dawn.
GEMS	333	All songs of current lands come sounding round me,
GEMS	334	The German airs of friendship, wine and love,
GEMS	335	Irish ballads, merry jigs and dances, English warbles,
GEMS	336	Chansons of France, Scotch tunes, and o'er the rest,
GEMS	337	Italia's peerless compositions.
GEMS	338	Strains musical flowing through ages, now reaching hither,
GEMS	339	I take to your reckless and composite chords, add to them, and cheerfully pass them forward.
GEMS	340	O the joy of my soul leaning pois'd on itself, receiving identity through materials and loving them, observing characters and absorbing them,
GEMS	341	My soul vibrated back to me from them, from sight, hearing, touch, reason, articulation, com-comparison parison, memory, and the like,
GEMS	342	The real life of my senses and flesh transcending my senses and flesh,
GEMS	343	My body done with materials, my sight done with my material eyes,
GEMS	344	Proved to me this day beyond cavil that it is not my material eyes which finally see,
GEMS	345	Nor my material body which finally loves, walks, laughs, shouts, embraces, procreates.
GEMS	346	. . . . . . . .
GEMS	347	For not life's joys alone I sing, repeating—the joy of death!
GEMS	348	The beautiful touch of Death, soothing and benumbing a few moments, for reasons,
GEMS	349	Myself discharging my excrementitious body to be burn'd, or render'd to powder, or buried,
GEMS	350	My real body doubtless left to me for other spheres,
GEMS	351	My voided body nothing more to me, returning to the purifications, further offices, eternal uses of the earth.
GEMS	352	O I see life is not short, but immeasurably long,
GEMS	353	I henceforth tread the world chaste, temperate, an early riser, a steady grower,
GEMS	354	Every hour the semen of centuries, and still of centuries.
GEMS	355	And I have dream'd that the purpose and essence of the known life, the transient,
GEMS	356	Is to form and decide identity for the unknown life, the permanent.
GEMS	357	With the tolling, tolling bells' perpetual clang,
GEMS	358	Here, coffin that slowly passes,
GEMS	359	I give you my sprig of lilac.
GEMS	360	O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
GEMS	361	The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won,
GEMS	362	The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
GEMS	363	While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
GEMS	364	But O heart! heart! heart!
GEMS	365	O the bleeding drops of red,
GEMS	366	Where on the deck my Captain lies,
GEMS	367	Fallen cold and dead.
GEMS	368	O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
GEMS	369	Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills,
GEMS	370	For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding,
GEMS	371	For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
GEMS	372	Here Captain! dear father!
GEMS	373	This arm beneath your head!
GEMS	374	It is some dream that on the deck,
GEMS	375	You've fallen cold and dead.
GEMS	376	My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
GEMS	377	My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
GEMS	378	The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,
GEMS	379	From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
GEMS	380	Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
GEMS	381	But I with mournful tread,
GEMS	382	Walk the deck my Captain lies,
GEMS	383	Fallen cold and dead.
GEMS	384	O how shall I warble myself for the dead one there I loved?
GEMS	385	And how shall I deck my song for the large sweet soul that has gone?
GEMS	386	And what shall my perfume be for the grave of him I love?
GEMS	387	Sea-winds blown from east and west,
GEMS	388	Blown from the Eastern sea and blown from the Western sea, till there on the prairies meeting,
GEMS	389	These and with these and the breath of my chant,
GEMS	390	I'll perfume the grave of him I love.
GEMS	391	No more for him life's stormy conflicts,
GEMS	392	Nor victory, nor defeat—no more time's dark events,
GEMS	393	Charging like ceaseless clouds across the sky.
GEMS	394	Ashes of soldiers South or North,
GEMS	395	As I muse retrospective murmuring a chant in thought,
GEMS	396	The war resumes, again to my sense your shapes,
GEMS	397	And again the advance of the armies.
GEMS	398	. . . . . . . .
GEMS	399	Phantoms of countless lost,
GEMS	400	Invisible to the rest henceforth become my companions,
GEMS	401	Follow me ever—desert me not while I live.
GEMS	402	Sweet are the blooming cheeks of the living—sweet are the musical voices sounding,
GEMS	403	But sweet, ah sweet, are the dead with their silent eyes.
GEMS	404	. . . . . . . .
GEMS	405	Perfume therefore my chant. O love, immortal love,
GEMS	406	Give me to bathe the memories of all dead soldiers,
GEMS	407	Shroud them, embalm them, cover them all over with tender pride.
GEMS	408	. . . . . . . .
GEMS	409	Give me exhaustless, make me a fountain,
GEMS	410	That I exhale love from me wherever I go like a moist perennial dew.
GEMS	411	For the ashes of all dead soldiers South or North.
GEMS	412	. . . . . . . .
GEMS	413	I chant this chant of my silent soul in the name of all dead soldiers.
GEMS	414	Each is not for its own sake,
GEMS	415	I say the whole earth and all the stars in the sky are for religion's sake.
GEMS	416	I say no man has ever yet been half devout enough,
GEMS	417	None has ever yet adored or worship'd half enough,
GEMS	418	None has begun to think how divine he himself is, and how certain the future is.
GEMS	419	I say that the real and permanent grandeur of these States must be their religion,
GEMS	420	Otherwise there is no real and permanent grandeur;
GEMS	421	(Nor character nor life worthy the name without religion,
GEMS	422	Nor land nor man or woman without religion.)
GEMS	423	. . . . . . . .
GEMS	424	My comrade!
GEMS	425	For you to share with me two greatnesses, and a third one rising inclusive and more resplendent,
GEMS	426	The greatness of Love and Democracy, and the greatness of Religion.
GEMS	427	The greater the reform needed, the greater the Personality you need to accomplish it.
GEMS	428	Produce great Persons, the rest follows.
GEMS	429	. . . . . . . .
GEMS	430	He or she is greatest who contributes the greatest original practical example.
GEMS	431	As at thy portals also death,
GEMS	432	Entering thy sovereign, dim, illimitable grounds,
GEMS	433	To memories of my mother, to the divine blending, maternity,
GEMS	434	To her, buried and gone, yet buried not, gone not from me,
GEMS	435	(I see again the calm benignant face fresh and beautiful still,
GEMS	436	I sit by the form in the coffin,
GEMS	437	I kiss and kiss convulsively again the sweet old lips, the cheeks, the closed eyes in the coffin;)
GEMS	438	To her, the ideal woman, practical, spiritual, of all of earth, life, love, to me the best,
GEMS	439	I grave a monumental line, before I go, amid these songs,
GEMS	440	And set a tombstone here.
GEMS	441	Nothing is sinful to us outside of ourselves,
GEMS	442	Whatever appears, whatever does not appear, we are beautiful or sinful in ourselves only.
GEMS	443	(O Mother—O Sisters dear!
GEMS	444	If we are lost, no victor else has destroy'd us,
GEMS	445	It is by ourselves we go down to eternal night.)
GEMS	446	This minute that comes to me over the past decillions,
GEMS	447	There is no better than it and now.
GEMS	448	By the bivouac's fitful flame,
GEMS	449	A procession winding around me, solemn and sweet and slow—but first I note,
GEMS	450	The tents of the sleeping army, the fields' and woods' dim outline,
GEMS	451	The darkness lit by spots of kindled fire, the silence,
GEMS	452	Like a phantom far or near an occasional figure moving,
GEMS	453	The shrubs and trees, (as I lift my eyes they seem to be stealthily watching me,)
GEMS	454	While wind in procession thoughts, O tender and wondrous thoughts,
GEMS	455	Of life and death, of home and the past and loved, and of those that are far away;
GEMS	456	A solemn and slow procession there as I sit on the ground,
GEMS	457	By the bivouac's fitful flame.
GEMS	458	And over all the sky—the sky! far, far out of reach, studded, breaking cut, the eternal stars.
GEMS	459	Word over all, beautiful as the sky,
GEMS	460	Beautiful that war and all its deeds of carnage must in time be utterly lost,
GEMS	461	That the hands of the sisters Death and Night incessantly softly wash again, and ever again, this soil'd world;
GEMS	462	For my enemy is dead, a man divine as myself is dead,
GEMS	463	I look where he lies white-faced and still in the coffin—I draw near,
GEMS	464	Bend down and touch lightly with my lips the white face in the coffin.
GEMS	465	What best I see in thee,
GEMS	466	Is not that where thou mov'st down history's great highways,
GEMS	467	Ever undimm'd by time shoots warlike victory's dazzle,
GEMS	468	Or that thou sat'st where Washington sat, ruling the land in peace,
GEMS	469	Or thou the man whom feudal Europe feted, venerable Asia swarm'd upon,
GEMS	470	Who walk'd with kings with even pace the round world's promenade;
GEMS	471	But that in foreign lands, in all thy walks with kings,
GEMS	472	Those prairie sovereigns of the West, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois,
GEMS	473	Ohio's, Indiana's millions, comrades, farmers, soldiers, all to the front,
GEMS	474	Invisibly with thee walking with kings with even pace the round world's promenade,
GEMS	475	Were all so justified.
GEMS	476	Over the carnage rose prophetic a voice,
GEMS	477	Be not dishearten'd, affection shall solve the problems of freedom yet,
GEMS	478	Those who love each other shall become invincible,
GEMS	479	They shall yet make Columbia victorious.
GEMS	480	. . . . . . . .
GEMS	481	The dependence of Liberty shall be lovers,
GEMS	482	The continuance of Equity shall be comrades.
GEMS	483	Thou who hast slept all night upon the storm,
GEMS	484	Waking renew'd on thy prodigious pinions,
GEMS	485	. . . . . . . .
GEMS	486	Thou born to match the gale, (thou art all wings,)
GEMS	487	To cope with heaven and earth and sea and hurricane,
GEMS	488	Thou ship of air that never ftirl'st thy sails,
GEMS	489	Days, even weeks untired and onward, through spaces, realms gyrating,
GEMS	490	At dusk that look'st on Senegal, at morn America,
GEMS	491	That sport'st amid the lightning-flash and thunder-cloud,
GEMS	492	In them, in thy experiences, had'st thou my soul,
GEMS	493	What joys! what joys were thine!
GEMS	494	As a strong bird on pinions free,
GEMS	495	Joycus, the amplest spaces heavenward cleaving,
GEMS	496	Such be the thought I'd think of thee America,
GEMS	497	Such be the recitative I'd bring for thee.
GEMS	498	. . . . . . . .
GEMS	499	The Present holds thee not—for such vast growth as thine,
GEMS	500	For such unparallel'd flight as thine, such brood as thine,
GEMS	501	The Future only holds thee and can hold thee.
GEMS	502	I give nothing as duties,
GEMS	503	What others give as duties I give as living impulses,
GEMS	504	(Shall I give the heart's action as a duty?)
GEMS	505	(Bravas to all impulses sending sane children to the next age!
GEMS	506	But damn that which spends itself with no thought of the stain, pains, dismay, feebleness, it is bequeathing.)
GEMS	507	If any thing is sacred the human body is sacred,
GEMS	508	And the glory and sweet of a man is the token of manhood untainted.
GEMS	509	I sing the body electric,
GEMS	510	I am the poet of the woman the same as the man,
GEMS	511	And I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man,
GEMS	512	And I say there is nothing greater than the mother of men.
GEMS	513	Each of us inevitable,
GEMS	514	Each of us limitless—each of us with his or her right upon the earth,
GEMS	515	Each of us allow'd the eternal purports of the earth,
GEMS	516	Each of us here as divinely as any is here.
GEMS	517	What behaved well in the past or behaves well to-day is not such a wonder,
GEMS	518	The wonder is always and always how there can be a mean man or an infidel.
GEMS	519	Ever upon this stage,
GEMS	520	Is acted God's calm annual drama,
GEMS	521	Gorgeous processions, songs of birds,
GEMS	522	Sunrise that fullest feeds and freshens most the soul,
GEMS	523	The heaving sea, the waves upon the shore, the musical, strong waves,
GEMS	524	The woods, the stalwart trees, the slender, tapering trees,
GEMS	525	The liliput countless armies of the grass,
GEMS	526	The heat, the showers, the measureless pasturages,
GEMS	527	The scenery of the snows, the winds' free orchestra,
GEMS	528	The stretching light-hung roof of clouds, the clear cerulean and the silvery fringes,
GEMS	529	The high dilating stars, the placid beckoning stars,
GEMS	530	The moving flocks and herds, the plains and emerald meadows,
GEMS	531	The shows of all the varied lands and all the growths and products.
GEMS	532	I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars,
GEMS	533	And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg of the wren,
GEMS	534	And the tree-toad is a chef-d'oeuvre for the highest,
GEMS	535	And the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven,
GEMS	536	And the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery,
GEMS	537	And the cow crunching with depress'd head surpasses any statue,
GEMS	538	And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels.
GEMS	539	For the great Idea, the idea of perfect and free individuals,
GEMS	540	For that, the bard walks in advance, leader of leaders,
GEMS	541	The attitude of him cheers up slaves and horrifies foreign despots.
GEMS	542	For the great Idea,
GEMS	543	That, O my brethren, that is the mission of poets.
GEMS	544	Underneath all, individuals.
GEMS	545	(The proof of a poet shall be sternly deferr'd till his country absorbs him as affectionately as he has absorb' d it.)
GEMS	546	Fear grace, elegance, civilization, delicatesse,
GEMS	547	Fear the mellow sweet, the sucking of honey-juice,
GEMS	548	Beware the advancing mortal ripening of Nature,
GEMS	549	Beware what precedes the decay of the ruggedness of states and men.
GEMS	550	This day before dawn I ascended a hill and look'd at the crowded heaven,
GEMS	551	And I said to my spirit When we become the enfolders of those orbs, and the pleasure and knowledge of every thing in them, shall we be fill'd and satisfied then?
GEMS	552	And my spirit said No. We but level that lift to pass and continue beyond.
GEMS	553	At the last, tenderly,
GEMS	554	From the walls of the powerful fortress'd house,
GEMS	555	From the clasp of the knitted locks, from the keep of the well-closed doors,
GEMS	556	Let me be wafted.
GEMS	557	Let me glide noiselessly forth;
GEMS	558	With the key of softness unlock the locks—with a whisper,
GEMS	559	Set ope the doors O soul.
GEMS	560	Tenderly—be not impatient,
GEMS	561	(Strong is your hold O mortal flesh,
GEMS	562	Strong is your hold O love.)
GEMS	563	Thoughts, silent thoughts, of Time and Space and Death, like waters flowing,
GEMS	564	Bear me indeed as through the regions infinite,
GEMS	565	Whose air I breathe, whose ripples hear, lave me all over
GEMS	566	Bathe me O God in thee, mounting to thee,
GEMS	567	I and my soul to range in range of thee.
GEMS	568	O soul, we have positively appear'd—that is enough.
GEMS	569	To conclude, I announce what comes after me.
GEMS	570	I announce that the identity of these States is a single identity only,
GEMS	571	I announce the Union more and more compact, indissoluble,
GEMS	572	I announce splendors and majesties to make all the previous politics of the earth insignificant.
GEMS	573	I announce the great individual, fluid as Nature, chaste, affectionate, compassionate, fully arm'd.
GEMS	574	I announce a life that shall be copious, vehement, spiritual, bold,
GEMS	575	I announce an end that shall lightly and joyfully meet its translation.
GEMS	576	Joy, shipmate, joy!
GEMS	577	(Pleas'd to my soul at death I cry,)
GEMS	578	Our life is closed, our life begins,
GEMS	579	The long, long anchorage we leave,
GEMS	580	The ship is clear at last, she leaps!
GEMS	581	She swiftly courses from the shore,
GEMS	582	Joy, shipmate, joy.
GEMS	583	The untold want by life and land ne'er granted,
GEMS	584	Now voyager sail thou forth to seek and find.
GEMS	585	Now trumpeter for thy close,
GEMS	586	Vouchsafe a higher strain than any yet,
GEMS	587	Sing to my soul, renew its languishing faith and hope,
GEMS	588	Rouse up my slow belief, give me some vision of the future,
GEMS	589	Give me for once its prophecy and joy.
GEMS	590	O glad, exulting, culminating song!
GEMS	591	A vigor more than earth's is in thy notes,
GEMS	592	Marches of victory—man disenthral'd—the conqueror at last,
GEMS	593	Hymns to the universal God from universal man—all joy!
GEMS	594	A reborn race appears—a perfect world, all joy!
GEMS	595	Women and men in wisdom innocence and health—all joy!
GEMS	596	Riotous laughing bacchanals fill'd with joy!
GEMS	597	War, sorrow, suffering gone—the rank earth purged—nothing but joy left!
GEMS	598	The ocean fill'd with joy—the atmosphere all joy!
GEMS	599	Joy! joy! in freedom, worship, love! joy in the ecstasy of life!
GEMS	600	Enough to merely be! enough to breathe!
GEMS	601	Joy! Joy! All over joy!
GEMS	602	What are those of the known but to ascend and enter the Unknown?
GEMS	603	And what are those of life but for Death?
GEMS	604	Darest thou now O soul,
GEMS	605	Walk out with me toward the unknown region,
GEMS	606	Where neither ground is for the feet nor any path to follow?
GEMS	607	No map there, nor guide,
GEMS	608	Nor voice sounding, nor touch of human hand,
GEMS	609	Nor face with blooming flesh, nor lips, nor eyes, are in that land.
GEMS	610	I know it not O soul,
GEMS	611	Nor dost thou, all is a blank before us,
GEMS	612	All waits undream'd of in that region, that inaccessible land.
GEMS	613	Till when the ties loosen,
GEMS	614	All but the ties eternal, Time and Space,
GEMS	615	Nor darkness, gravitation, sense, nor any bounds bounding us.
GEMS	616	Then we burst forth, we float,
GEMS	617	In Time and Space O soul, prepared for them,
GEMS	618	Equal, equipt at last, (O joy! O fruit of all!) them to fulfil O soul.
GEMS	619	The soft voluptuous opiate-shades,
GEMS	620	The sun just gone, the eager light dispelled—
GEMS	621	(I too will soon be gone, dispelled.)
GEMS	622	A haze—nirvana—rest and night—oblivion.