LG1891	1	ONE'S-SELF I sing, a simple separate person,
LG1891	2	Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-Masse.
LG1891	3	Of physiology from top to toe I sing,
LG1891	4	Not physiognomy alone nor brain alone is worthy for the Muse, I say the Form complete is worthier far,
LG1891	5	The Female equally with the Male I sing.
LG1891	6	Of Life immense in passion, pulse, and power,
LG1891	7	Cheerful, for freest action form'd under the laws divine,
LG1891	8	The Modern Man I sing.
LG1891	9	As I ponder'd in silence,
LG1891	10	Returning upon my poems, considering, lingering long,
LG1891	11	A Phantom arose before me with distrustful aspect,
LG1891	12	Terrible in beauty, age, and power,
LG1891	13	The genius of poets of old lands,
LG1891	14	As to me directing like flame its eyes,
LG1891	15	With finger pointing to many immortal songs,
LG1891	16	And menacing voice, What singest thou? it said,
LG1891	17	Know'st thou not there is but one theme for ever-enduring bards?
LG1891	18	And that is the theme of War, the fortune of battles,
LG1891	19	The making of perfect soldiers.
LG1891	20	Be it so, then I answer'd,
LG1891	21	I too haughty Shade also sing war, and a longer and greater one than any,
LG1891	22	Waged in my book with varying fortune, with flight, advance and retreat, victory deferr'd and wavering,
LG1891	23	(Yet methinks certain, or as good as certain, at the last,) the field the world,
LG1891	24	For life and death, for the Body and for the eternal Soul,
LG1891	25	Lo, I too am come, chanting the chant of battles,
LG1891	26	I above all promote brave soldiers.
LG1891	27	IN cabin'd ships at sea,
LG1891	28	The boundless blue on every side expanding,
LG1891	29	With whistling winds and music of the waves, the large imperious waves,
LG1891	30	Or some lone bark buoy'd on the dense marine,
LG1891	31	Where joyous full of faith, spreading white sails,
LG1891	32	She cleaves the ether mid the sparkle and the foam of day, or under many a star at night,
LG1891	33	By sailors young and old haply will I, a reminiscence of the land,be read,
LG1891	34	In full rapport at last.
LG1891	35	Here are our thoughts, voyagers' thoughts,
LG1891	36	Here not the land, firm land, alone appears, may then by them be said,
LG1891	37	The sky o'erarches here, we feel the undulating deck beneath our feet,
LG1891	38	We feel the long pulsation, ebb and flow of endless motion,
LG1891	39	The tones of unseen mystery, the vague and vast suggestions of the briny world, the liquid-flowing syllables,
LG1891	40	The perfume, the faint creaking of the cordage, the melancholy rhythm,
LG1891	41	The boundless vista and the horizon far and dim are all here,
LG1891	42	And this is ocean's poem.
LG1891	43	Then falter not O book, fulfilfulfill your destiny,
LG1891	44	You not a reminiscence of the land alone,
LG1891	45	You too as a lone bark cleaving the ether, purpos'd I know not whither, yet ever full of faith,
LG1891	46	Consort to every ship that sails, sail you!
LG1891	47	Bear forth to them folded my love, (dear mariners, for you I fold it here in every leaf;)
LG1891	48	Speed on my book! spread your white sails my little bark athwart the imperious waves,
LG1891	49	Chant on, sail on, bear o'er the boundless blue from me to every sea,
LG1891	50	This song for mariners and all their ships.
LG1891	51	I HEARD that you ask'd for something to prove this puzzle the New World,
LG1891	52	And to define America, her athletic Democracy,
LG1891	53	Therefore I send you my poems that you behold in them what you wanted.
LG1891	54	YOU who celebrate bygones,
LG1891	55	Who have explored the outward, the surfaces of the races, the life that has exhibited itself,
LG1891	56	Who have treated of man as the creature of politics, aggregates, rulers and priests,
LG1891	57	I, habitan of the Alleghanies, treating of him as he is in himself in his own rights,
LG1891	58	Pressing the pulse of the life that has seldom exhibited itself, (the great pride of man in himself,)
LG1891	59	Chanter of Personality, outlining what is yet to be,
LG1891	60	I project the history of the future.
LG1891	61	TO thee old cause!
LG1891	62	Thou peerless, passionate, good cause,
LG1891	63	Thou stern, remorseless, sweet idea,
LG1891	64	Deathless throughout the ages, races, lands,
LG1891	65	After a strange sad war, great war for thee,
LG1891	66	(I think all war through time was really fought, and ever will be really fought, for thee,)
LG1891	67	These chants for thee, the eternal march of thee.
LG1891	68	(A war O soldiers not for itself alone,
LG1891	69	Far, far more stood silently waiting behind, now to advance in this book.)
LG1891	70	Thou orb of many orbs!
LG1891	71	Thou seething principle! thou well-kept, latent germ! thou centre!
LG1891	72	Around the idea of thee the war revolving,
LG1891	73	With all its angry and vehement play of causes,
LG1891	74	(With vast results to come for thrice a thousand years,)
LG1891	75	These recitatives for thee,—my book and the war are one,
LG1891	76	Merged in its spirit I and mine, as the contest hinged on thee,
LG1891	77	As a wheel on its axis turns, this book unwitting to itself,
LG1891	78	Around the idea of thee.
LG1891	79	I MET a seer,
LG1891	80	Passing the hues and objects of the world,
LG1891	81	The fields of art and learning, pleasure, sense,
LG1891	82	To glean eidólons.
LG1891	83	Put in thy chants said he,
LG1891	84	No more the puzzling hour nor day, nor segments, parts, put in,
LG1891	85	Put first before the rest as light for all and entrance-song of all,
LG1891	86	That of eidólons.
LG1891	87	Ever the dim beginning,
LG1891	88	Ever the growth, the rounding of the circle,
LG1891	89	Ever the summit and the merge at last, (to surely start again,)
LG1891	90	Eidólons! eidólons!
LG1891	91	Ever the mutable,
LG1891	92	Ever materials, changing, crumbling, re-cohering,
LG1891	93	Ever the ateliers, the factories divine,
LG1891	94	Issuing eidólons.
LG1891	95	Lo, I or you,
LG1891	96	Or woman, man, or state, known or unknown,
LG1891	97	We seeming solid wealth, strength, beauty build,
LG1891	98	But really build eidólons.
LG1891	99	The ostent evanescent,
LG1891	100	The substance of an artist's mood or savan's studies long,
LG1891	101	Or warrior's, martyr's, hero's toils,
LG1891	102	To fashion his eidólon.
LG1891	103	Of every human life,
LG1891	104	(The units gather'd, posted, not a thought, emotion, deed, left out,)
LG1891	105	The whole or large or small summ'd, added up,
LG1891	106	In its eidólon.
LG1891	107	The old, old urge,
LG1891	108	Based on the ancient pinnacles, lo, newer, higher pinnacles,
LG1891	109	From science and the modern still impell'd,
LG1891	110	The old, old urge, eidólons.
LG1891	111	The present now and here,
LG1891	112	America's busy, teeming, intricate whirl,
LG1891	113	Of aggregate and segregate for only thence releasing,
LG1891	114	To-day's eidólons.
LG1891	115	These with the past,
LG1891	116	Of vanish'd lands, of all the reigns of kings across the sea,
LG1891	117	Old conquerors, old campaigns, old sailors' voyages,
LG1891	118	Joining eidólons.
LG1891	119	Densities, growth, façades,
LG1891	120	Strata of mountains, soils, rocks, giant trees,
LG1891	121	Far-born, far-dying, living long, to leave,
LG1891	122	Eidólons everlasting.
LG1891	123	Exaltè, rapt, ecstatic,
LG1891	124	The visible but their womb of birth,
LG1891	125	Of orbic tendencies to shape and shape and shape,
LG1891	126	The mighty earth-eidólon.
LG1891	127	All space, all time,
LG1891	128	(The stars, the terrible perturbations of the suns,
LG1891	129	Swelling, collapsing, ending, serving their longer, shorter use,)
LG1891	130	Fill'd with eidólons only.
LG1891	131	The noiseless myriads,
LG1891	132	The infinite oceans where the rivers empty,
LG1891	133	The separate countless free identities, like eyesight,
LG1891	134	The true realities, eidólons.
LG1891	135	Not this the world,
LG1891	136	Nor these the universes, they the universes,
LG1891	137	Purport and end, ever the permanent life of life,
LG1891	138	Eidólons, eidólons.
LG1891	139	Beyond thy lectures learn'd professor,
LG1891	140	Beyond thy telescope or spectroscope observer keen, beyond all mathematics,
LG1891	141	Beyond the doctor's surgery, anatomy, beyond the chemist with his chemistry,
LG1891	142	The entities of entities, eidólons.
LG1891	143	Unfix'd yet fix'd,
LG1891	144	Ever shall be, ever have been and are,
LG1891	145	Sweeping the present to the infinite future,
LG1891	146	Eidólons, eidólons, eidólons.
LG1891	147	The prophet and the bard,
LG1891	148	Shall yet maintain themselves, in higher stages yet,
LG1891	149	Shall mediate to the Modern, to Democracy, interpret yet to them,
LG1891	150	God and eidólons.
LG1891	151	And thee my soul,
LG1891	152	Joys, ceaseless exercises, exaltations,
LG1891	153	Thy yearning amply fed at last, prepared to meet,
LG1891	154	Thy mates, eidólons.
LG1891	155	Thy body permanent,
LG1891	156	The body lurking there within thy body,
LG1891	157	The only purport of the form thou art, the real I myself,
LG1891	158	An image, an eidólon.
LG1891	159	Thy very songs not in thy songs,
LG1891	160	No special strains to sing, none for itself,
LG1891	161	But from the whole resulting, rising at last and floating,
LG1891	162	A round full-orb'd eidólon.
LG1891	163	FOR him I sing,
LG1891	164	I raise the present on the past,
LG1891	165	(As some perennial tree out of its roots, the present on the past,)
LG1891	166	With time and space I him dilate and fuse the immortal laws,
LG1891	167	To make himself by them the law unto himself.
LG1891	168	WHEN I read the book, the biography famous,
LG1891	169	And is this then (said I) what the author calls a man's life?
LG1891	170	And so will some one when I am dead and gone write my life?
LG1891	171	(As if any man really knew aught of my life,
LG1891	172	Why even I myself I often think know little or nothing of my real life,
LG1891	173	Only a few hints, a few diffused faint clews and indirections
LG1891	174	I seek for my own use to trace out here.)
LG1891	175	BEGINNING my studies the first step pleas'd me so much,
LG1891	176	The mere fact consciousness, these forms, the power of motion,
LG1891	177	The least insect or animal, the senses, eyesight, love,
LG1891	178	The first step I say awed me and pleas'd me so much,
LG1891	179	I have hardly gone and hardly wish'd to go any farther,
LG1891	180	But stop and loiter all the time to sing it in ecstatic songs.
LG1891	181	HOW they are provided for upon the earth, (appearing at inter-valsintervals,)
LG1891	182	How dear and dreadful they are to the earth,
LG1891	183	How they inure to themselves as much as to any—what a paradox appears their age,
LG1891	184	How people respond to them, yet know them not,
LG1891	185	How there is something relentless in their fate all times,
LG1891	186	How all times mischoose the objects of their adulation and re-wardreward,
LG1891	187	And how the same inexorable price must still be paid for the same great purchase.
LG1891	188	TO the States or any one of them, or any city of the States, Resist much, obey little,
LG1891	189	Once unquestioning obedience, once fully enslaved,
LG1891	190	Once fully enslaved, no nation, state, city of this earth, ever after-wardafterward resumes its liberty.
LG1891	191	ON journeys through the States we start,
LG1891	192	(Ay through the world, urged by these songs,
LG1891	193	Sailing henceforth to every land, to every sea,)
LG1891	194	We willing learners of all, teachers of all, and lovers of all.
LG1891	195	We have watch'd the seasons dispensing themselves and passing on,
LG1891	196	And have said, Why should not a man or woman do as much as the seasons, and effuse as much?
LG1891	197	We dwell a while in every city and town,
LG1891	198	We pass through KanadaCanada, the North-east, the vast valley of the Mississippi, and the Southern States,
LG1891	199	We confer on equal terms with each of the States,
LG1891	200	We make trial of ourselves and invite men and women to hear,
LG1891	201	We say to ourselves, Remember, fear not, be candid, promulge the body and the soul,
LG1891	202	Dwell a while and pass on, be copious, temperate, chaste, mag-neticmagnetic,
LG1891	203	And what you effuse may then return as the seasons return,
LG1891	204	And may be just as much as the seasons.
LG1891	205	HERE, take this gift,
LG1891	206	I was reserving it for some hero, speaker, or general,
LG1891	207	One who should serve the good old cause, the great idea, the prog-ressprogress and freedom of the race,
LG1891	208	Some brave confronter of despots, some daring rebel;
LG1891	209	But I see that what I was reserving belongs to you just as much as to any.
LG1891	210	ME imperturbe, standing at ease in Nature,
LG1891	211	Master of all or mistress of all, aplomb in the midst of irrational things,
LG1891	212	Imbued as they, passive, receptive, silent as they,
LG1891	213	Finding my occupation, poverty, notoriety, foibles, crimes, less im-portantimportant than I thought,
LG1891	214	Me toward the Mexican sea, or in the Mannahatta or the Tennes-seeTennessee, or far north or inland,
LG1891	215	A river man, or a man of the woods or of any farm-life of these States or of the coast, or the lakes or KanadaCanada,
LG1891	216	Me wherever my life is lived, O to be self-balanced for contingen-ciescontingencies,
LG1891	217	To confront night, storms, hunger, ridicule, accidents, rebuffs, as the trees and animals do.
LG1891	218	THITHER as I look I see each result and glory retracing itself and nestling close, always obligated,
LG1891	219	Thither hours, months, years—thither trades, compacts, establish-mentsestablishments, even the most minute,
LG1891	220	Thither every-day life, speech, utensils, politics, persons, estates;
LG1891	221	Thither we also, I with my leaves and songs, trustful, admirant,
LG1891	222	As a father to his father going takes his children along with him.
LG1891	223	LO, the unbounded sea,
LG1891	224	On its breast a ship starting, spreading all sails, carrying even her moonsails,
LG1891	225	The pennant is flying aloft as she speeds she speeds so stately—below emulous waves press forward,
LG1891	226	They surround the ship with shining curving motions and foam.
LG1891	227	I HEAR America singing, the varied carols I hear,
LG1891	228	Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,
LG1891	229	The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
LG1891	230	The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,
LG1891	231	The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deck-handdeckhand singing on the steamboat deck,
LG1891	232	The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands,
LG1891	233	The wood-cutter's song, the ploughboy's on his way in the morn-ingmorning, or at noon intermission or at sundown,
LG1891	234	The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work,or of the girl sewing or washing,
LG1891	235	Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,
LG1891	236	The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,
LG1891	237	Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.
LG1891	238	WHAT place is besieged, and vainly tries to raise the siege?
LG1891	239	Lo, I send to that place a commander, swift, brave, immortal,
LG1891	240	And with him horse and foot, and parks of artillery,
LG1891	241	And artillery-men, the deadliest that ever fired gun.
LG1891	242	STILL though the one I sing,
LG1891	243	(One, yet of contradictions made,) I dedicate to Nationality,
LG1891	244	I leave in him revolt, (O latent right of insurrection! O quench-lessquenchless, indispensable fire!)
LG1891	245	SHUT not your doors to me proud libraries,
LG1891	246	For that which was lacking on all your well-fill'd shelves, yet needed most, I bring,
LG1891	247	Forth from the war emerging, a book I have made,
LG1891	248	The words of my book nothing, the drift of it every thing,
LG1891	249	A book separate, not link'd with the rest nor felt by the intellect,
LG1891	250	But you ye untold latencies will thrill to every page.
LG1891	251	POETS to come! orators, singers, musicians to come!
LG1891	252	Not to-day is to justify me and answer what I am for,
LG1891	253	But you, a new brood, native, athletic, continental, greater than before known,
LG1891	254	Arouse! for you must justify me.
LG1891	255	I myself but write one or two indicative words for the future,
LG1891	256	I but advance a moment only to wheel and hurry back in the darkness.
LG1891	257	I am a man who, sauntering along without fully stopping, turns a casual look upon you and then averts his face,
LG1891	258	Leaving it to you to prove and define it,
LG1891	259	Expecting the main things from you.
LG1891	260	STRANGER, if you passing meet me and desire to speak to me, why should you not speak to me?
LG1891	261	And why should I not speak to you?
LG1891	262	THOU reader throbbest life and pride and love the same as I,
LG1891	263	Therefore for thee the following chants.
LG1891	264	STARTING from fish-shape Paumanok where I was born,
LG1891	265	Well-begotten, and rais'd by a perfect mother,
LG1891	266	After roaming many lands, lover of populous pavements,
LG1891	267	Dweller in Mannahatta my city, or on southern savannas,
LG1891	268	Or a soldier camp'd or carrying my knapsack and gun, or a miner in California,
LG1891	269	Or rude in my home in Dakota's woods, my diet meat, my drink from the spring,
LG1891	270	Or withdrawn to muse and meditate in some deep recess,
LG1891	271	Far from the clank of crowds intervals passing rapt and happy,
LG1891	272	Aware of the fresh free giver the flowing Missouri, aware of mighty Niagara,
LG1891	273	Aware of the buffalo herds grazing the plains, the hirsute and strong-breasted bull,
LG1891	274	Of earth, rocks, Fifth-month flowers experienced, stars, rain, snow,my amaze,
LG1891	275	Having studied the mocking-bird's tones and the flight of the mountain-hawk,
LG1891	276	And heard at dawn the unrivall'd one, the hermit thrush from the swamp-cedars,
LG1891	277	Solitary, singing in the West, I strike up for a New World.
LG1891	278	Victory, union, faith, identity, time,
LG1891	279	The indissoluble compacts, riches, mystery,
LG1891	280	Eternal progress, the kosmos, and the modern reports.
LG1891	281	This then is life,
LG1891	282	Here is what has come to the surface after so many throes and convulsions.
LG1891	283	How curious! how real!
LG1891	284	Underfoot the divine soil, overhead the sun.
LG1891	285	See revolving the globe,
LG1891	286	The ancestor-continents away group'd together,
LG1891	287	The present and future continents north and south, with the isthmus between.
LG1891	288	See, vast trackless spaces,
LG1891	289	As in a dream they change, they swiftly fill,
LG1891	290	Countless masses debouch upon them,
LG1891	291	They are now cover'd with the foremost people, arts, institutions,known.
LG1891	292	See, projected through time,
LG1891	293	For me an audience interminable.
LG1891	294	With firm and regular step they wend, they never stop,
LG1891	295	Successions of men, Americanos, a hundred millions,
LG1891	296	One generation playing its part and passing on,
LG1891	297	Another generation playing its part and passing on in its turn,
LG1891	298	With faces turn'd sideways or backward towards me to listen,
LG1891	299	With eyes retrospective towards me.
LG1891	300	Americanos! conquerors! marches humanitarian!
LG1891	301	Foremost! century marches! Libertad! masses!
LG1891	302	For you a programme of chants.
LG1891	303	Chants of the prairies,
LG1891	304	Chants of the long-running Mississippi, and down to the Mexican sea,
LG1891	305	Chants of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota,
LG1891	306	Chants going forth from the centre from Kansas, and thence equi-distantequidistant,
LG1891	307	Shooting in pulses of fire ceaseless to vivify all.
LG1891	308	Take my leaves America, take them South and take them North,
LG1891	309	Make welcome for them everywhere, for they are your own off-springoffspring,
LG1891	310	Surround them East and West, for they would surround you,
LG1891	311	And you precedents, connect lovingly with them, for they connect lovingly with you.
LG1891	312	I conn'd old times,
LG1891	313	I sat studying at the feet of the great masters,
LG1891	314	Now if eligible O that the great masters might return and study me.
LG1891	315	In the name of these States shall I scorn the antique?
LG1891	316	Why these are the children of the antique to justify it.
LG1891	317	Dead poets, philosophs, priests,
LG1891	318	Martyrs, artists, inventors, governments long since,
LG1891	319	Language-shapers on other shores,
LG1891	320	Nations once powerful, now reduced, withdrawn, or desolate,
LG1891	321	I dare not proceed till I respectfully credit what you have left wafted hither,
LG1891	322	I have perused it, own it is admirable, (moving awhile among it,)
LG1891	323	Think nothing can ever be greater, nothing can ever deserve more than it deserves,
LG1891	324	Regarding it all intently a long while, then dismissing it,
LG1891	325	I stand in my place with my own day here.
LG1891	326	Here lands female and male,
LG1891	327	Here the heir-ship and heiress-ship of the world, here the flame of materials,
LG1891	328	Here spirituality the translatress, the openly-avow'd,
LG1891	329	The ever-tending, the finalè of visible forms,
LG1891	330	The satisfier, after due long-waiting now advancing,
LG1891	331	Yes here comes my mistress the soul.
LG1891	332	The soul,
LG1891	333	Forever and forever—longer than soil is brown and solid—longer than water ebbs and flows.
LG1891	334	I will make the poems of materials, for I think they are to be the most spiritual poems,
LG1891	335	And I will make the poems of my body and of mortality,
LG1891	336	For I think I shall then supply myself with the poems of my soul and of immortality.
LG1891	337	I will make a song for these States that no one State may under any circumstances be subjected to another State,
LG1891	338	And I will make a song that there shall be comity by day and by night between all the States, and between any two of them,
LG1891	339	And I will make a song for the ears of the President, full of weap-onsweapons with menacing points,
LG1891	340	And behind the weapons countless dissatisfied faces;
LG1891	341	And a song make I of the One form'd out of all,
LG1891	342	The fang'd and glittering One whose head is over all,
LG1891	343	Resolute warlike One including and over all,
LG1891	344	(However high the head of any else that head is over all.)
LG1891	345	I will acknowledge contemporary lands,
LG1891	346	I will trail the whole geography of the globe and salute courte-ouslycourteously every city large and small,
LG1891	347	And employments! I will put in my poems that with you is hero-ismheroism upon land and sea,
LG1891	348	And I will report all heroism from an American point of view.
LG1891	349	I will sing the song of companionship,
LG1891	350	I will show what alone must finally compact these,
LG1891	351	I believe these are to found their own ideal of manly love, indi-catingindicating it in me,
LG1891	352	I will therefore let flame from me the burning fires that were threatening to consume me,
LG1891	353	I will lift what has too long kept down those smouldering fires,
LG1891	354	I will give them complete abandonment,
LG1891	355	I will write the evangel-poem of comrades and of love,
LG1891	356	For who but I should understand love with all its sorrow and joy?
LG1891	357	And who but I should be the poet of comrades?
LG1891	358	I am the credulous man of qualities, ages, races,
LG1891	359	I advance from the people in their own spirit,
LG1891	360	Here is what sings unrestricted faith.
LG1891	361	Omnes! omnes! let others ignore what they may,
LG1891	362	I make the poem of evil also, I commemorate that part also,
LG1891	363	I am myself just as much evil as good, and my nation is—and I say there is in fact no evil,
LG1891	364	(Or if there is I say it is just as important to you, to the land or to me, as any thing else.)
LG1891	365	I too, following many and follow'd by many, inaugurate a religion,I descend into the arena,
LG1891	366	(It may be I am destin'd to utter the loudest cries there, the win-ner'swinner's pealing shouts,
LG1891	367	Who knows? they may rise from me yet, and soar above every thing.)
LG1891	368	Each is not for its own sake,
LG1891	369	I say the whole earth and all the stars in the sky are for religion's sake.
LG1891	370	I say no man has ever yet been half devout enough,
LG1891	371	None has ever yet adored or worship'd half enough,
LG1891	372	None has begun to think how divine he himself is, and how cer-taincertain the future is.
LG1891	373	I say that the real and permanent grandeur of these States must be their religion,
LG1891	374	Otherwise there is no real and permanent grandeur;
LG1891	375	(Nor character nor life worthy the name without religion,
LG1891	376	Nor land nor man or woman without religion.)
LG1891	377	What are you doing young man?
LG1891	378	Are you so earnest, so given up to literature, science, art, amours?
LG1891	379	These ostensible realities, politics, points?
LG1891	380	Your ambition or business whatever it may be?
LG1891	381	It is well—against such I say not a word, I am their poet also,
LG1891	382	But behold! such swiftly subside, burnt up for religion's sake,
LG1891	383	For not all matter is fuel to heat, impalpable flame, the essential life of the earth,
LG1891	384	Any more than such are to religion.
LG1891	385	What do you seek so pensive and silent?
LG1891	386	What do you need camerado?
LG1891	387	Dear son do you think it is love?
LG1891	388	Listen dear son—listen America, daughter or son,
LG1891	389	It is a painful thing to love a man or woman to excess, and yet it satisfies, it is great,
LG1891	390	But there is something else very great, it makes the whole coin-cidecoincide,
LG1891	391	It, magnificent, beyond materials, with continuous hands sweeps and provides for all.
LG1891	392	Know you, solely to drop in the earth the germs of a greater religion,
LG1891	393	The following chants each for its kind I sing.
LG1891	394	My comrade!
LG1891	395	For you to share with me two greatnesses, and a third one rising inclusive and more resplendent,
LG1891	396	The greatness of Love and Democracy, and the greatness of Reli-gionReligion.
LG1891	397	Melange mine own, the unseen and the seen,
LG1891	398	Mysterious ocean where the streams empty,
LG1891	399	Prophetic spirit of materials shifting and flickering around me,
LG1891	400	Living beings, identities now doubtless near us in the air that we know not of,
LG1891	401	Contact daily and hourly that will not release me,
LG1891	402	These selecting, these in hints demanded of me.
LG1891	403	Not he with a daily kiss onward from childhood kissing me,
LG1891	404	Has winded and twisted around me that which holds me to him,
LG1891	405	Any more than I am held to the heavens and all the spiritual world,
LG1891	406	After what they have done to me, suggesting themes.
LG1891	407	O such themes—equalities! O divine average!
LG1891	408	Warblings under the sun, usher'd as now, or at noon, or set-ingsetting,
LG1891	409	Strains musical flowing through ages, now reaching hither,
LG1891	410	I take to your reckless and composite chords, add to them, and cheerfully pass them forward.
LG1891	411	As I have walk'd in Alabama my morning walk,
LG1891	412	I have seen where the she-bird the mocking-bird sat on her nest in the briers hatching her brood.
LG1891	413	I have seen the he-bird also,
LG1891	414	I have paus'd to hear him near at hand inflating his throat and joyfully singing.
LG1891	415	And while I paus'd it came to me that what he really sang for was not there only,
LG1891	416	Nor for his mate nor himself only, nor all sent back by the echoes,
LG1891	417	But subtle, clandestine, away beyond,
LG1891	418	A charge transmitted and gift occult for those being born.
LG1891	419	Democracy! near at hand to you a throat is now inflating itself and joyfully singing.
LG1891	420	Ma femme! for the brood beyond us and of us,
LG1891	421	For those who belong here and those to come,
LG1891	422	I exultant to be ready for them will now shake out carols stronger and haughtier than have ever yet been heard upon earth.
LG1891	423	I will make the songs of passion to give them their way,
LG1891	424	And your songs outlaw'd offenders, for I scan you with kindred eyes, and carry you with me the same as any.
LG1891	425	I will make the true poem of riches,
LG1891	426	To earn for the body and the mind whatever adheres and goes forward and is not dropt by death;
LG1891	427	I will effuse egotism and show it underlying all, and I will be the bard of personality,
LG1891	428	And I will show of male and female that either is but the equal of the other,
LG1891	429	And sexual organs and acts! do you concentrate in me, for I am determin'd to tell you with courageous clear voice to prove you illustrious,
LG1891	430	And I will show that there is no imperfection in the present, and can be none in the future,
LG1891	431	And I will show that whatever happens to anybody it may be turn'd to beautiful results,
LG1891	432	And I will show that nothing can happen more beautiful than death,
LG1891	433	And I will thread a thread through my poems that time and events are compact,
LG1891	434	And that all the things of the universe are perfect miracles, each as profound as any.
LG1891	435	I will not make poems with reference to parts,
LG1891	436	But I will make poems, songs, thoughts, with reference to ensemble,
LG1891	437	And I will not sing with reference to a day, but with reference to all days,
LG1891	438	And I will not make a poem nor the least part of a poem but has reference to the soul,
LG1891	439	Because having look'd at the objects of the universe, I find there is no one nor any particle of one but has reference to the soul.
LG1891	440	Was somebody asking to see the soul?
LG1891	441	See, your own shape and countenance, persons, substances, beasts,the trees, the running rivers, the rocks and sands.
LG1891	442	All hold spiritual joys and afterwards loosen them;
LG1891	443	How can the real body ever die and be buried?
LG1891	444	Of your real body and any man's or woman's real body,
LG1891	445	Item for item it will elude the hands of the corpse-cleaners and pass to fitting spheres,
LG1891	446	Carrying what has accrued to it from the moment of birth to the moment of death.
LG1891	447	Not the types set up by the printer return their impression, the meaning, the main concern,
LG1891	448	Any more than a man's substance and life or a woman's substance and life return in the body and the soul,
LG1891	449	Indifferently before death and after death.
LG1891	450	Behold, the body includes and is the meaning, the main concern,and includes and is the soul;
LG1891	451	Whoever you are, how superb and how divine is your body, or any part of it!
LG1891	452	Whoever you are, to you endless announcements!
LG1891	453	Daughter of the lands did you wait for your poet?
LG1891	454	Did you wait for one with a flowing mouth and indicative hand?
LG1891	455	Toward the male of the States, and toward the female of the States,
LG1891	456	Exulting words, words to Democracy's lands.
LG1891	457	Interlink'd, food-yielding lands!
LG1891	458	Land of coal and iron! land of gold! land of cotton, sugar, rice!
LG1891	459	Land of wheat, beef, pork! land of wool and hemp! land of the apple and the grape!
LG1891	460	Land of the pastoral plains, the grass-fields of the world! land of those sweet-air'd interminable plateaus!
LG1891	461	Land of the herd, the garden, the healthy house of adobie!
LG1891	462	Lands where the north-west Columbia winds, and where the south-westsouth-west Colorado winds!
LG1891	463	Land of the eastern Chesapeake! land of the Delaware!
LG1891	464	Land of Ontario, Erie, Huron, Michigan!
LG1891	465	Land of the Old Thirteen! Massachusetts land! land of Vermont and Connecticut!
LG1891	466	Land of the ocean shores! land of sierras and peaks!
LG1891	467	Land of boatmen and sailors! fishermen's land!
LG1891	468	Inextricable lands! the clutch'd together! the passionate ones!
LG1891	469	The side by side! the elder and younger brothers! the bony-limb'dbony-limb'd!
LG1891	470	The great women's land! the feminine! the experienced sisters and the inexperienced sisters!
LG1891	471	Far breath'd land! Arctic braced! Mexican breez'd! the diverse!the compact!
LG1891	472	The Pennsylvanian! the Virginian! the double Carolinian!
LG1891	473	O all and each well-loved by me! my intrepid nations! O I at any rate include you all with perfect love!
LG1891	474	I cannot be discharged from you! not from one any sooner than another!
LG1891	475	O death! O for all that, I am yet of you unseen this hour with irrepressible love,
LG1891	476	Walking New England, a friend, a traveler,
LG1891	477	Splashing my bare feet in the edge of the summer ripples on Pau-manok'sPaumanok's sands,
LG1891	478	Crossing the prairies, dwelling again in Chicago, dwelling in every town,
LG1891	479	Observing shows, births, improvements, structures, arts,
LG1891	480	Listening to orators and oratresses in public halls,
LG1891	481	Of and through the States as during life, each man and woman my neighbor,
LG1891	482	The Louisianian, the Georgian, as near to me, and I as near to him and her,
LG1891	483	The Mississippian and Arkansian yet with me, and I yet with any of them,
LG1891	484	Yet upon the plains west of the spinal river, yet in my house of adobie,
LG1891	485	Yet returning eastward, yet in the Seaside State or in Maryland,
LG1891	486	Yet Kanadian cheerily braving the winter, the snow and ice wel-comewelcome to me,
LG1891	487	Yet a true son either of Maine or of the Granite State, or the Narragansett Bay State, or the Empire State,
LG1891	488	Yet sailing to other shores to annex the same, yet welcoming every new brother,
LG1891	489	Hereby applying these leaves to the new ones from the hour they unite with the old ones,
LG1891	490	Coming among the new ones myself to be their companion and equal, coming personally to you now,
LG1891	491	Enjoining you to acts, characters, spectacles, with me.
LG1891	492	With me with firm holding, yet haste, haste on.
LG1891	493	For your life adhere to me,
LG1891	494	(I may have to be persuaded many times before I consent to give myself really to you, but what of that?
LG1891	495	Must not Nature be persuaded many times?)
LG1891	496	No dainty dolce affettuoso I,
LG1891	497	Bearded, sun-burnt, gray-neck'd, forbidding, I have arrived,
LG1891	498	To be wrestled with as I pass for the solid prizes of the universe,
LG1891	499	For such I afford whoever can persevere to win them.
LG1891	500	On my way a moment I pause,
LG1891	501	Here for you! and here for America!
LG1891	502	Still the present I raise aloft, still the future of the States I harbinge glad and sublime,
LG1891	503	And for the past I pronounce what the air holds of the red aborigines.
LG1891	504	The red aborigines,
LG1891	505	Leaving natural breaths, sounds of rain and winds, calls as of birds and animals in the woods, syllabled to us for names,
LG1891	506	Okonee, Koosa, Ottawa, Monongahela, Sauk, Natchez, Chatta-hoocheeChattahoochee, Kaqueta, Oronoco,
LG1891	507	Wabash, Miami, Saginaw, Chippewa, Oshkosh, Walla-Walla,
LG1891	508	Leaving such to the States they melt, they depart, charging the water and the land with names.
LG1891	509	Expanding and swift, henceforth,
LG1891	510	Elements, breeds, adjustments, turbulent, quick and audacious,
LG1891	511	A world primal again, vistas of glory incessant and branching,
LG1891	512	A new race dominating previous ones and grander far, with new contests,
LG1891	513	New politics, new literatures and religions, new inventions and arts.
LG1891	514	These, my voice announcing—I will sleep no more but arise,
LG1891	515	You oceans that have been calm within me! how I feel you, fathom-lessfathomless, stirring, preparing unprecedented waves and storms.
LG1891	516	See, steamers steaming through my poems,
LG1891	517	See, in my poems immigrants continually coming and landing,
LG1891	518	See, in arriere, the wigwam, the trail, the hunter's hut, the flat-boat,the maize-leaf, the claim, the rude fence, and the backwoods village,
LG1891	519	See, on the one side the Western Sea and on the other the Eastern Sea, how they advance and retreat upon my poems as upon their own shores,
LG1891	520	See, pastures and forests in my poems—see, animals wild and tame—see, beyond the Kaw, countless herds of buffalo feeding on short curly grass,
LG1891	521	See, in my poems, cities, solid, vast, inland, with paved streets,with iron and stone edifices, ceaseless vehicles, and com-mercecommerce,
LG1891	522	See, the many-cylinder'd steam printing-press—see, the electric telegraph stretching across the continent,
LG1891	523	See, through Atlantica's depths pulses American Europe reaching,pulses of Europe duly return'd,
LG1891	524	See, the strong and quick locomotive as it departs, panting, blowing the steam-whistle,
LG1891	525	See, ploughmen ploughing farms—see, miners digging mines—see, the numberless factories,
LG1891	526	See, mechanics busy at their benches with tools—see from among them superior judges, philosophs, Presidents, emerge, drest in working dresses,
LG1891	527	See, lounging through the shops and fields of the States, me well-belov'dwell-belov'd, close-held by day and night,
LG1891	528	Hear the loud echoes of my songs there—read the hints come at last.
LG1891	529	O camerado close! O you and me at last, and us two only.
LG1891	530	O a word to clear one's path ahead endlessly!
LG1891	531	O something ecstatic and undemonstrable! O music wild!
LG1891	532	O now I triumph—and you shall also;
LG1891	533	O hand in hand—O wholesome pleasure—O one more desirer and lover!
LG1891	534	O to haste firm holding—to haste, haste on with me.
LG1891	535	I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself,
LG1891	536	And what I assume you shall assume,
LG1891	537	For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
LG1891	538	I loafe and invite my soul,
LG1891	539	I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
LG1891	540	My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this soil, this air,
LG1891	541	Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same,
LG1891	542	I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
LG1891	543	Hoping to cease not till death.
LG1891	544	Creeds and schools in abeyance,
LG1891	545	Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,
LG1891	546	I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,
LG1891	547	Nature without check with original energy.
LG1891	548	Houses and rooms are full of perfumes, the shelves are crowded with perfumes,
LG1891	549	I breathe the fragrance myself and know it and like it,
LG1891	550	The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it.
LG1891	551	The atmosphere is not a perfume, it has no taste of the distillation,it is odorless,
LG1891	552	It is for my mouth forever, I am in love with it,
LG1891	553	I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked,
LG1891	554	I am mad for it to be in contact with me.
LG1891	555	The smoke of my own breath,
LG1891	556	Echoes, ripples, buzz'd whispers, love-root, silk-thread, crotch and vine,
LG1891	557	My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart, the pass-ingpassing of blood and air through my lungs,
LG1891	558	The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the shore and dark-color'd sea-rocks, and of hay in the barn,
LG1891	559	The sound of the belch'd words of my voice loos'd to the eddies of the wind,
LG1891	560	A few light kisses, a few embraces, a reaching around of arms,
LG1891	561	The play of shine and shade on the trees as the supple boughs wag,
LG1891	562	The delight alone or in the rush of the streets, or along the fields and hill-sides,
LG1891	563	The feeling of health, the full-noon trill, the song of me rising from bed and meeting the sun.
LG1891	564	Have you reckon'd a thousand acres much? have you reckon'd the earth much?
LG1891	565	Have you practis'd so long to learn to read?
LG1891	566	Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?
LG1891	567	Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems,
LG1891	568	You shall possess the good of the earth and sun, (there are millions of suns left,)
LG1891	569	You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books,
LG1891	570	You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,
LG1891	571	You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self.
LG1891	572	I have heard what the talkers were talking, the talk of the begin-ningbeginning and the end,
LG1891	573	But I do not talk of the beginning or the end.
LG1891	574	There was never any more inception than there is now,
LG1891	575	Nor any more youth or age than there is now,
LG1891	576	And will never be any more perfection than there is now,
LG1891	577	Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.
LG1891	578	Urge and urge and urge,
LG1891	579	Always the procreant urge of the world.
LG1891	580	Out of the dimness opposite equals advance, always substance and increase, always sex,
LG1891	581	Always a knit of identity, always distinction, always a breed of life.
LG1891	582	To elaborate is no avail, learn'd and unlearn'd feel that it is so.
LG1891	583	Sure as the most certain sure, plumb in the uprights, well entretied,braced in the beams,
LG1891	584	Stout as a horse, affectionate, haughty, electrical,
LG1891	585	I and this mystery here we stand.
LG1891	586	Clear and sweet is my soul, and clear and sweet is all that is not my soul.
LG1891	587	Lack one lacks both, and the unseen is proved by the seen,
LG1891	588	Till that becomes unseen and receives proof in its turn.
LG1891	589	Showing the best and dividing it from the worst age vexes age,
LG1891	590	Knowing the perfect fitness and equanimity of things, while they discuss I am silent, and go bathe and admire myself.
LG1891	591	Welcome is every organ and attribute of me, and of any man hearty and clean,
LG1891	592	Not an inch nor a particle of an inch is vile, and none shall be less familiar than the rest.
LG1891	593	I am satisfied—I see, dance, laugh, sing;
LG1891	594	As the hugging and loving bed-fellow sleeps at my side through the night, and withdraws at the peep of the day with stealthy tread,
LG1891	595	Leaving me baskets cover'd with white towels swelling the house with their plenty,
LG1891	596	Shall I postpone my acceptation and realization and scream at my eyes,
LG1891	597	That they turn from gazing after and down the road,
LG1891	598	And forthwith cipher and show me to a cent,
LG1891	599	Exactly the value of one and exactly the value of two, and which is ahead?
LG1891	600	Trippers and askers surround me,
LG1891	601	People I meet, the effect upon me of my early life or the ward and city I live in, or the nation,
LG1891	602	The latest dates, discoveries, inventions, societies, authors old and new,
LG1891	603	My dinner, dress, associates, looks, compliments, dues,
LG1891	604	The real or fancied indifference of some man or woman I love,
LG1891	605	The sickness of one of my folks or of myself, or ill-doing or loss or lack of money, or depressions or exaltations,
LG1891	606	Battles, the horrors of fratricidal war, the fever of doubtful news,the fitful events;
LG1891	607	These come to me days and nights and go from me again,
LG1891	608	But they are not the Me myself.
LG1891	609	Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am,
LG1891	610	Stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, unitary,
LG1891	611	Looks down, is erect, or bends an arm on an impalpable certain rest,
LG1891	612	Looking with side-curved head curious what will come next,
LG1891	613	Both in and out of the game and watching and wondering at it.
LG1891	614	Backward I see in my own days where I sweated through fog with linguists and contenders,
LG1891	615	I have no mockings or arguments, I witness and wait.
LG1891	616	I believe in you my soul, the other I am must not abase itself to you,
LG1891	617	And you must not be abased to the other.
LG1891	618	Loafe with me on the grass, loose the stop from your throat,
LG1891	619	Not words, not music or rhyme I want, not custom or lecture, not even the best,
LG1891	620	Only the lull I like, the hum of your valvèd voice.
LG1891	621	I mind how once we lay such a transparent summer morning,
LG1891	622	How you settled your head athwart my hips and gently turn'd over upon me,
LG1891	623	And parted the shirt from my bosom-bone, and plunged your tongue to my bare-stript heart,
LG1891	624	And reach'd till you felt my beard, and reach'd till you held my feet.
LG1891	625	Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and knowledge that pass all the argument of the earth,
LG1891	626	And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own,
LG1891	627	And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own,
LG1891	628	And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the women my sisters and lovers,
LG1891	629	And that a kelson of the creation is love,
LG1891	630	And limitless are leaves stiff or drooping in the fields,
LG1891	631	And brown ants in the little wells beneath them,
LG1891	632	And mossy scabs of the worm fence, heap'd stones, elder, mullein and poke-weed.
LG1891	633	A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;
LG1891	634	How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he.
LG1891	635	I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.
LG1891	636	Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
LG1891	637	A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt,
LG1891	638	Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark, and say Whose?
LG1891	639	Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the vegetation.
LG1891	640	Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,
LG1891	641	And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones,
LG1891	642	Growing among black folks as among white,
LG1891	643	Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I receive them the same.
LG1891	644	And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.
LG1891	645	Tenderly will I use you curling grass,
LG1891	646	It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men,
LG1891	647	It may be if I had known them I would have loved them,
LG1891	648	It may be you are from old people, or from offspring taken soon out of their mothers' laps,
LG1891	649	And here you are the mothers' laps.
LG1891	650	This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers,
LG1891	651	Darker than the colorless beards of old men,
LG1891	652	Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths.
LG1891	653	O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues,
LG1891	654	And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for nothing.
LG1891	655	I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and women,
LG1891	656	And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring taken soon out of their laps.
LG1891	657	What do you think has become of the young and old men?
LG1891	658	And what do you think has become of the women and chil-drenchildren?
LG1891	659	They are alive and well somewhere,
LG1891	660	The smallest sprout shows there is really no death,
LG1891	661	And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it,
LG1891	662	And ceas'd the moment life appear'd.
LG1891	663	All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,
LG1891	664	And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.
LG1891	665	Has any one supposed it lucky to be born?
LG1891	666	I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die, and I know it.
LG1891	667	I pass death with the dying and birth with the new-wash'd babe,and am not contain'd between my hat and boots,
LG1891	668	And peruse manifold objects, no two alike and every one good,
LG1891	669	The earth good and the stars good, and their adjuncts all good.
LG1891	670	I am not an earth nor an adjunct of an earth,
LG1891	671	I am the mate and companion of people, all just as immortal and fathomless as myself,
LG1891	672	(They do not know how immortal, but I know.)
LG1891	673	Every kind for itself and its own, for me mine male and female,
LG1891	674	For me those that have been boys and that love women,
LG1891	675	For me the man that is proud and feels how it stings to be slighted,
LG1891	676	For me the sweet-heart and the old maid, for me mothers and the mothers of mothers,
LG1891	677	For me lips that have smiled, eyes that have shed tears,
LG1891	678	For me children and the begetters of children.
LG1891	679	Undrape! you are not guilty to me, nor stale nor discarded,
LG1891	680	I see through the broadcloth and gingham whether or no,
LG1891	681	And am around, tenacious, acquisitive, tireless, and cannot be shaken away.
LG1891	682	The little one sleeps in its cradle,
LG1891	683	I lift the gauze and look a long time, and silently brush away flies with my hand.
LG1891	684	The youngster and the red-faced girl turn aside up the bushy hill,
LG1891	685	I peeringly view them from the top.
LG1891	686	The suicide sprawls on the bloody floor of the bedroom,
LG1891	687	I witness the corpse with its dabbled hair, I note where the pistol has fallen.
LG1891	688	The blab of the pave, tires of carts, sluff of boot-soles, talk of the promenaders,
LG1891	689	The heavy omnibus, the driver with his interrogating thumb, the clank of the shod horses on the granite floor,
LG1891	690	The snow-sleighs, clinking, shouted jokes, pelts of snow-balls,
LG1891	691	The hurrahs for popular favorites, the fury of rous'd mobs,
LG1891	692	The flap of the curtain'd litter, a sick man inside borne to the hospital,
LG1891	693	The meeting of enemies, the sudden oath, the blows and fall,
LG1891	694	The excited crowd, the policeman with his star quickly working his passage to the centre of the crowd,
LG1891	695	The impassive stones that receive and return so many echoes,
LG1891	696	What groans of over-fed or half-starv'd who fall sunstruck or in fits,
LG1891	697	What exclamations of women taken suddenly who hurry home and give birth to babes,
LG1891	698	What living and buried speech is always vibrating here, what howls restrain'd by decorum,
LG1891	699	Arrests of criminals, slights, adulterous offers made, acceptances,rejections with convex lips,
LG1891	700	I mind them or the show or resonance of them—I come and I depart.
LG1891	701	The big doors of the country barn stand open and ready,
LG1891	702	The dried grass of the harvest-time loads the slow-drawn wagon,
LG1891	703	The clear light plays on the brown gray and green intertinged,
LG1891	704	The armfuls are pack'd to the sagging mow.
LG1891	705	I am there, I help, I came stretch'd atop of the load,
LG1891	706	I felt its soft jolts, one leg reclined on the other,
LG1891	707	I jump from the cross-beams and seize the clover and timothy,
LG1891	708	And roll head over heels and tangle my hair full of wisps.
LG1891	709	Alone far in the wilds and mountains I hunt,
LG1891	710	Wandering amazed at my own lightness and glee,
LG1891	711	In the late afternoon choosing a safe spot to pass the night,
LG1891	712	Kindling a fire and broiling the fresh-kill'd game,
LG1891	713	Falling asleep on the gather'd leaves with my dog and gun by my side.
LG1891	714	The Yankee clipper is under her sky-sails, she cuts the sparkle and scud,
LG1891	715	My eyes settle the land, I bend at her prow or shout joyously from the deck.
LG1891	716	The boatmen and clam-diggers arose early and stopt for me,
LG1891	717	I tuck'd my trowser-ends in my boots and went and had a good time;
LG1891	718	You should have been with us that day round the chowder-kettle.
LG1891	719	I saw the marriage of the trapper in the open air in the far west,the bride was a red girl,
LG1891	720	Her father and his friends sat near cross-legged and dumbly smoking, they had moccasins to their feet and large thick blankets hanging from their shoulders,
LG1891	721	On a bank lounged the trapper, he was drest mostly in skins, his luxuriant beard and curls protected his neck, he held his bride by the hand,
LG1891	722	She had long eyelashes, her head was bare, her coarse straight locks descended upon her voluptuous limbs and reach'd to her feet.
LG1891	723	The runaway slave came to my house and stopt outside,
LG1891	724	I heard his motions crackling the twigs of the woodpile,
LG1891	725	Through the swung half-door of the kitchen I saw him limpsy and weak,
LG1891	726	And went where he sat on a log and led him in and assured him,
LG1891	727	And brought water and fill'd a tub for his sweated body and bruis'd feet,
LG1891	728	And gave him a room that enter'd from my own, and gave him some coarse clean clothes,
LG1891	729	And remember perfectly well his revolving eyes and his awkwardness,
LG1891	730	And remember putting plasters on the galls of his neck and ankles;
LG1891	731	He staid with me a week before he was recuperated and pass'd north,
LG1891	732	I had him sit next me at table, my fire-lock lean'd in the corner.
LG1891	733	Twenty-eight young men bathe by the shore,
LG1891	734	Twenty-eight young men and all so friendly;
LG1891	735	Twenty-eight years of womanly life and all so lonesome.
LG1891	736	She owns the fine house by the rise of the bank,
LG1891	737	She hides handsome and richly drest aft the blinds of the window.
LG1891	738	Which of the young men does she like the best?
LG1891	739	Ah the homeliest of them is beautiful to her.
LG1891	740	Where are you off to, lady? for I see you,
LG1891	741	You splash in the water there, yet stay stock still in your room.
LG1891	742	Dancing and laughing along the beach came the twenty-ninth bather,
LG1891	743	The rest did not see her, but she saw them and loved them.
LG1891	744	The beards of the young men glisten'd with wet, it ran from their long hair,
LG1891	745	Little streams pass'd all over their bodies.
LG1891	746	An unseen hand also pass'd over their bodies,
LG1891	747	It descended tremblingly from their temples and ribs.
LG1891	748	The young men float on their backs, their white bellies bulge to the sun, they do not ask who seizes fast to them,
LG1891	749	They do not know who puffs and declines with pendant and bend-ingbending arch,
LG1891	750	They do not think whom they souse with spray.
LG1891	751	The butcher-boy puts off his killing-clothes, or sharpens his knife at the stall in the market,
LG1891	752	I loiter enjoying his repartee and his shuffle and break-down.
LG1891	753	Blacksmiths with grimed and hairy chests environ the anvil,
LG1891	754	Each has his main-sledge, they are all out, there is a great heat in the fire.
LG1891	755	From the cinder-strew'd threshold I follow their movements,
LG1891	756	The lithe sheer of their waists plays even with their massive arms,
LG1891	757	Overhand the hammers swing, overhand so slow, overhand so sure,
LG1891	758	They do not hasten, each man hits in his place.
LG1891	759	The negro holds firmly the reins of his four horses, the block swags underneath on its tied-over chain,
LG1891	760	The negro that drives the long dray of the stone-yard, steady and tall he stands pois'd on one leg on the string-piece,
LG1891	761	His blue shirt exposes his ample neck and breast and loosens over his hip-band,
LG1891	762	His glance is calm and commanding, he tosses the slouch of his hat away from his forehead,
LG1891	763	The sun falls on his crispy hair and mustache, falls on the black of his polish'd and perfect limbs.
LG1891	764	I behold the picturesque giant and love him, and I do not stop there,
LG1891	765	I go with the team also.
LG1891	766	In me the caresser of life wherever moving, backward as well as forward sluing,
LG1891	767	To niches aside and junior bending, not a person or object miss-ingmissing,
LG1891	768	Absorbing all to myself and for this song.
LG1891	769	Oxen that rattle the yoke and chain or halt in the leafy shade,what is that you express in your eyes?
LG1891	770	It seems to me more than all the print I have read in my life.
LG1891	771	My tread scares the wood-drake and wood-duck on my distant and day-long ramble,
LG1891	772	They rise together, they slowly circle around.
LG1891	773	I believe in those wing'd purposes,
LG1891	774	And acknowledge red, yellow, white, playing within me,
LG1891	775	And consider green and violet and the tufted crown intentional,
LG1891	776	And do not call the tortoise unworthy because she is not something else,
LG1891	777	And the jay in the woods never studied the gamut, yet trills pretty well to me,
LG1891	778	And the look of the bay mare shames silliness out of me.
LG1891	779	The wild gander leads his flock through the cool night,
LG1891	780	Ya-honk he says, and sounds it down to me like an invitation,
LG1891	781	The pert may suppose it meaningless, but I listening close,
LG1891	782	Find its purpose and place up there toward the wintry sky.
LG1891	783	The sharp-hoof'd moose of the north, the cat on the house-sill,the chickadee, the prairie-dog,
LG1891	784	The litter of the grunting sow as they tug at her teats,
LG1891	785	The brood of the turkey-hen and she with her half-spread wings,
LG1891	786	I see in them and myself the same old law.
LG1891	787	The press of my foot to the earth springs a hundred affections,
LG1891	788	They scorn the best I can do to relate them.
LG1891	789	I am enamour'd of growing out-doors,
LG1891	790	Of men that live among cattle or taste of the ocean or woods,
LG1891	791	Of the builders and steerers of ships and the wielders of axes and mauls, and the drivers of horses,
LG1891	792	I can eat and sleep with them week in and week out.
LG1891	793	What is commonest, cheapest, nearest, easiest, is Me,
LG1891	794	Me going in for my chances, spending for vast returns,
LG1891	795	Adorning myself to bestow myself on the first that will take me,
LG1891	796	Not asking the sky to come down to my good will,
LG1891	797	Scattering it freely forever.
LG1891	798	The pure contralto sings in the organ loft,
LG1891	799	The carpenter dresses his plank, the tongue of his foreplane whistles its wild ascending lisp,
LG1891	800	The married and unmarried children ride home to their Thanks-givingThanksgiving dinner,
LG1891	801	The pilot seizes the king-pin, he heaves down with a strong arm,
LG1891	802	The mate stands braced in the whale-boat, lance and harpoon are ready,
LG1891	803	The duck-shooter walks by silent and cautious stretches,
LG1891	804	The deacons are ordain'd with cross'd hands at the altar,
LG1891	805	The spinning-girl retreats and advances to the hum of the big wheel,
LG1891	806	The farmer stops by the bars as he walks on a First-day loafe and looks at the oats and rye,
LG1891	807	The lunatic is carried at last to the asylum a confirm'd case,
LG1891	808	(He will never sleep any more as he did in the cot in his mother's bed-room;)
LG1891	809	The jour printer with gray head and gaunt jaws works at his case,
LG1891	810	He turns his quid of tobacco while his eyes blurr with the manu-scriptmanuscript;
LG1891	811	The malform'd limbs are tied to the surgeon's table,
LG1891	812	What is removed drops horribly in a pail;
LG1891	813	The quadroon girl is sold at the auction-stand, the drunkard nods by the bar-room stove,
LG1891	814	The machinist rolls up his sleeves, the policeman travels his beat,the gate-keeper marks who pass,
LG1891	815	The young fellow drives the express-wagon, (I love him, though I do not know him;)
LG1891	816	The half-breed straps on his light boots to compete in the race,
LG1891	817	The western turkey-shooting draws old and young, some lean on their rifles, some sit on logs,
LG1891	818	Out from the crowd steps the marksman, takes his position, levels his piece;
LG1891	819	The groups of newly-come immigrants cover the wharf or levee,
LG1891	820	As the woolly-pates hoe in the sugar-field, the overseer views them from his saddle,
LG1891	821	The bugle calls in the ball-room, the gentlemen run for their part-nerspartners, the dancers bow to each other,
LG1891	822	The youth lies awake in the cedar-roof'd garret and harks to the musical rain,
LG1891	823	The Wolverine sets traps on the creek that helps fill the Huron,
LG1891	824	The squaw wrapt in her yellow-hemm'd cloth is offering moccasins and bead-bags for sale,
LG1891	825	The connoisseur peers along the exhibition-gallery with half-shut eyes bent sideways,
LG1891	826	As the deck-hands make fast the steamboat the plank is thrown for the shore-going passengers,
LG1891	827	The young sister holds out the skein while the elder sister winds it off in a ball, and stops now and then for the knots,
LG1891	828	The one-year wife is recovering and happy having a week ago borne her first child,
LG1891	829	The clean-hair'd Yankee girl works with her sewing-machine or in the factory or mill,
LG1891	830	The paving-man leans on his two-handed rammer, the reporter's lead flies swiftly over the note-book, the sign-painter is lettering with blue and gold,
LG1891	831	The canal boy trots on the tow-path, the book-keeper counts at his desk, the shoemaker waxes his thread,
LG1891	832	The conductor beats time for the band and all the performers follow him,
LG1891	833	The child is baptized, the convert is making his first professions,
LG1891	834	The regatta is spread on the bay, the race is begun, (how the white sails sparkle!)
LG1891	835	The drover watching his drove sings out to them that would stray,
LG1891	836	The pedler sweats with his pack on his back, (the purchaser hig-glinghiggling about the odd cent;)
LG1891	837	The bride unrumples her white dress, the minute-hand of the clock moves slowly,
LG1891	838	The opium-eater reclines with rigid head and just-open'd lips,
LG1891	839	The prostitute draggles her shawl, her bonnet bobs on her tipsy and pimpled neck,
LG1891	840	The crowd laugh at her blackguard oaths, the men jeer and wink to each other,
LG1891	841	(Miserable! I do not laugh at your oaths nor jeer you;)
LG1891	842	The President holding a cabinet council is surrounded by the great Secretaries,
LG1891	843	On the piazza walk three matrons stately and friendly with twined arms,
LG1891	844	The crew of the fish-smack pack repeated layers of halibut in the hold,
LG1891	845	The Missourian crosses the plains toting his wares and his cattle,
LG1891	846	As the fare-collector goes through the train he gives notice by the jingling of loose change,
LG1891	847	The floor-men are laying the floor, the tinners are tinning the roof,the masons are calling for mortar,
LG1891	848	In single file each shouldering his hod pass onward the laborers;
LG1891	849	Seasons pursuing each other the indescribable crowd is gather'd,it is the fourth of Seventh-month, (what salutes of cannon and small arms!)
LG1891	850	Seasons pursuing each other the plougher ploughs, the mower mows, and the winter-grain falls in the ground;
LG1891	851	Off on the lakes the pike-fisher watches and waits by the hole in the frozen surface,
LG1891	852	The stumps stand thick round the clearing, the squatter strikes deep with his axe,
LG1891	853	Flatboatmen make fast towards dusk near the cotton-wood or pecan-trees,
LG1891	854	Coon-seekers go through the regions of the Red river or through those drain'd by the Tennessee, or through those of the Arkansas,
LG1891	855	Torches shine in the dark that hangs on the Chattahooche or Altamahaw,
LG1891	856	Patriarchs sit at supper with sons and grandsons and great-grand-sonsgreat-grandsons around them,
LG1891	857	In walls of adobie, in canvas tents, rest hunters and trappers after their day's sport,
LG1891	858	The city sleeps and the country sleeps,
LG1891	859	The living sleep for their time, the dead sleep for their time,
LG1891	860	The old husband sleeps by his wife and the young husband sleeps by his wife;
LG1891	861	And these tend inward to me, and I tend outward to them,
LG1891	862	And such as it is to be of these more or less I am,
LG1891	863	And of these one and all I weave the song of myself.
LG1891	864	I am of old and young, of the foolish as much as the wise,
LG1891	865	Regardless of others, ever regardful of others,
LG1891	866	Maternal as well as paternal, a child as well as a man,
LG1891	867	Stuff'd with the stuff that is coarse and stuff'd with the stuff that is fine,
LG1891	868	One of the Nation of many nations, the smallest the same and the largest the same,
LG1891	869	A Southerner soon as a Northerner, a planter nonchalant and hospitable down by the Oconee I live,
LG1891	870	A Yankee bound my own way ready for trade, my joints the limberest joints on earth and the sternest joints on earth,
LG1891	871	A Kentuckian walking the vale of the Elkhorn in my deer-skin leggings, a Louisianian or Georgian,
LG1891	872	A boatman over lakes or bays or along coasts, a Hoosier, Badger,Buckeye;
LG1891	873	At home on Kanadian snow-shoes or up in the bush, or with fishermen off Newfoundland,
LG1891	874	At home in the fleet of ice-boats, sailing with the rest and tack-ingtacking,
LG1891	875	At home on the hills of Vermont or in the woods of Maine, or the Texan ranch,
LG1891	876	Comrade of Californians, comrade of free North-Westerners, (lov-ingloving their big proportions,)
LG1891	877	Comrade of raftsmen and coalmen, comrade of all who shake hands and welcome to drink and meat,
LG1891	878	A learner with the simplest, a teacher of the thoughtfullest,
LG1891	879	A novice beginning yet experient of myriads of seasons,
LG1891	880	Of every hue and caste am I, of every rank and religion,
LG1891	881	A farmer, mechanic, artist, gentleman, sailor, quaker,
LG1891	882	Prisoner, fancy-man, rowdy, lawyer, physician, priest.
LG1891	883	I resist any thing better than my own diversity,
LG1891	884	Breathe the air but leave plenty after me,
LG1891	885	And am not stuck up, and am in my place.
LG1891	886	(The moth and the fish-eggs are in their place,
LG1891	887	The bright suns I see and the dark suns I cannot see are in their place,
LG1891	888	The palpable is in its place and the impalpable is in its place.)
LG1891	889	These are really the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands, they are not original with me,
LG1891	890	If they are not yours as much as mine they are nothing, or next to nothing,
LG1891	891	If they are not the riddle and the untying of the riddle they are nothing,
LG1891	892	If they are not just as close as they are distant they are nothing.
LG1891	893	This is the grass that grows wherever the land is and the water is,
LG1891	894	This the common air that bathes the globe.
LG1891	895	With music strong I come, with my cornets and my drums,
LG1891	896	I play not marches for accepted victors only, I play marches for conquer'd and slain persons.
LG1891	897	Have you heard that it was good to gain the day?
LG1891	898	I also say it is good to fall, battles are lost in the same spirit in which they are won.
LG1891	899	I beat and pound for the dead,
LG1891	900	I blow through my embouchures my loudest and gayest for them.
LG1891	901	Vivas to those who have fail'd!
LG1891	902	And to those whose war-vessels sank in the sea!
LG1891	903	And to those themselves who sank in the sea!
LG1891	904	And to all generals that lost engagements, and all overcome heroes!
LG1891	905	And the numberless unknown heroes equal to the greatest heroes known!
LG1891	906	This is the meal equally set, this the meat for natural hunger,
LG1891	907	It is for the wicked just the same as the righteous, I make appoint-mentsappointments with all,
LG1891	908	I will not have a single person slighted or left away,
LG1891	909	The kept-woman, sponger, thief, are hereby invited,
LG1891	910	The heavy-lipp'd slave is invited, the venerealee is invited;
LG1891	911	There shall be no difference between them and the rest.
LG1891	912	This is the press of a bashful hand, this the float and odor of hair,
LG1891	913	This the touch of my lips to yours, this the murmur of yearning,
LG1891	914	This the far-off depth and height reflecting my own face,
LG1891	915	This the thoughtful merge of myself, and the outlet again.
LG1891	916	Do you guess I have some intricate purpose?
LG1891	917	Well I have, for the Fourth-month showers have, and the mica on the side of a rock has.
LG1891	918	Do you take it I would astonish?
LG1891	919	Does the daylight astonish? does the early redstart twittering through the woods?
LG1891	920	Do I astonish more than they?
LG1891	921	This hour I tell things in confidence,
LG1891	922	I might not tell everybody, but I will tell you.
LG1891	923	Who goes there? hankering, gross, mystical, nude;
LG1891	924	How is it I extract strength from the beef I eat?
LG1891	925	What is a man anyhow? what am I? what are you?
LG1891	926	All I mark as my own you shall offset it with your own,
LG1891	927	Else it were time lost listening to me.
LG1891	928	I do not snivel that snivel the world over,
LG1891	929	That months are vacuums and the ground but wallow and filth.
LG1891	930	Whimpering and truckling fold with powders for invalids, con-formityconformity goes to the fourth-remov'd,
LG1891	931	I wear my hat as I please indoors or out.
LG1891	932	Why should I pray? why should I venerate and be ceremonious?
LG1891	933	Having pried through the strata, analyzed to a hair, counsel'd with doctors and calculated close,
LG1891	934	I find no sweeter fat than sticks to my own bones.
LG1891	935	In all people I see myself, none more and not one a barley-corn less,
LG1891	936	And the good or bad I say of myself I say of them.
LG1891	937	I know I am solid and sound,
LG1891	938	To me the converging objects of the universe perpetually flow,
LG1891	939	All are written to me, and I must get what the writing means.
LG1891	940	I know I am deathless,
LG1891	941	I know this orbit of mine cannot be swept by a carpenter's compass,
LG1891	942	I know I shall not pass like a child's carlacue cut with a burnt stick at night.
LG1891	943	I know I am august,
LG1891	944	I do not trouble my spirit to vindicate itself or be understood,
LG1891	945	I see that the elementary laws never apologize,
LG1891	946	(I reckon I behave no prouder than the level I plant my house by,after all.)
LG1891	947	I exist as I am, that is enough,
LG1891	948	If no other in the world be aware I sit content,
LG1891	949	And if each and all be aware I sit content.
LG1891	950	One world is aware and by far the largest to me, and that is my-selfmyself,
LG1891	951	And whether I come to my own to-day or in ten thousand or ten million years,
LG1891	952	I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I can wait.
LG1891	953	My foothold is tenon'd and mortis'd in granite,
LG1891	954	I laugh at what you call dissolution,
LG1891	955	And I know the amplitude of time.
LG1891	956	I am the poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul,
LG1891	957	The pleasures of heaven are with me and the pains of hell are with me,
LG1891	958	The first I graft and increase upon myself, the latter I translate into a new tongue.
LG1891	959	I am the poet of the woman the same as the man,
LG1891	960	And I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man,
LG1891	961	And I say there is nothing greater than the mother of men.
LG1891	962	I chant the chant of dilation or pride,
LG1891	963	We have had ducking and deprecating about enough,
LG1891	964	I show that size is only development.
LG1891	965	Have you outstript the rest? are you the President?
LG1891	966	It is a trifle, they will more than arrive there every one, and still pass on.
LG1891	967	I am he that walks with the tender and growing night,
LG1891	968	I call to the earth and sea half-held by the night.
LG1891	969	Press close bare-bosom'd night—press close magnetic nourishing night!
LG1891	970	Night of south winds—night of the large few stars!
LG1891	971	Still nodding night—mad naked summer night.
LG1891	972	Smile O voluptuous cool-breath'd earth!
LG1891	973	Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees!
LG1891	974	Earth of departed sunset—earth of the mountains misty-topt!
LG1891	975	Earth of the vitreous pour of the full moon just tinged with blue!
LG1891	976	Earth of shine and dark mottling the tide of the river!
LG1891	977	Earth of the limpid gray of clouds brighter and clearer for my sake!
LG1891	978	Far-swooping elbow'd earth—rich apple-blossom'd earth!
LG1891	979	Smile, for your lover comes.
LG1891	980	Prodigal, you have given me love—therefore I to you give love!
LG1891	981	O unspeakable passionate love.
LG1891	982	You sea! I resign myself to you also—I guess what you mean,
LG1891	983	I behold from the beach your crooked inviting fingers,
LG1891	984	I believe you refuse to go back without feeling of me,
LG1891	985	We must have a turn together, I undress, hurry me out of sight of the land,
LG1891	986	Cushion me soft, rock me in billowy drowse,
LG1891	987	Dash me with amorous wet, I can repay you.
LG1891	988	Sea of stretch'd ground-swells,
LG1891	989	Sea breathing broad and convulsive breaths,
LG1891	990	Sea of the brine of life and of unshovell'd yet always-ready graves,
LG1891	991	Howler and scooper of storms, capricious and dainty sea,
LG1891	992	I am integral with you, I too am of one phase and of all phases.
LG1891	993	Partaker of influx and efflux I, extoller of hate and conciliation,
LG1891	994	Extoller of amies and those that sleep in each others' arms.
LG1891	995	I am he attesting sympathy,
LG1891	996	(Shall I make my list of things in the house and skip the house that supports them?)
LG1891	997	I am not the poet of goodness only, I do not decline to be the poet of wickedness also.
LG1891	998	What blurt is this about virtue and about vice?
LG1891	999	Evil propels me and reform of evil propels me, I stand indifferent,
LG1891	1000	My gait is no fault-finder's or rejecter's gait,
LG1891	1001	I moisten the roots of all that has grown.
LG1891	1002	Did you fear some scrofula out of the unflagging pregnancy?
LG1891	1003	Did you guess the celestial laws are yet to be work'd over and rectified?
LG1891	1004	I find one side a balance and the antipodal side a balance,
LG1891	1005	Soft doctrine as steady help as stable doctrine,
LG1891	1006	Thoughts and deeds of the present our rouse and early start.
LG1891	1007	This minute that comes to me over the past decillions,
LG1891	1008	There is no better than it and now.
LG1891	1009	What behaved well in the past or behaves well to-day is not such a wonder,
LG1891	1010	The wonder is always and always how there can be a mean man or an infidel.
LG1891	1011	Endless unfolding of words of ages!
LG1891	1012	And mine a word of the modern, the word En-Masse.
LG1891	1013	A word of the faith that never balks,
LG1891	1014	Here or henceforward it is all the same to me, I accept Time abso-lutelyabsolutely.
LG1891	1015	It alone is without flaw, it alone rounds and completes all,
LG1891	1016	That mystic baffling wonder alone completes all.
LG1891	1017	I accept Reality and dare not question it,
LG1891	1018	Materialism first and last imbuing.
LG1891	1019	Hurrah for positive science! long live exact demonstration!
LG1891	1020	Fetch stonecrop mixt with cedar and branches of lilac,
LG1891	1021	This is the lexicographer, this the chemist, this made a grammar of the old cartouches,
LG1891	1022	These mariners put the ship through dangerous unknown seas.
LG1891	1023	This is the geologist, this works with the scalpel, and this is a mathematician.
LG1891	1024	Gentlemen, to you the first honors always!
LG1891	1025	Your facts are useful, and yet they are not my dwelling,
LG1891	1026	I but enter by them to an area of my dwelling.
LG1891	1027	Less the reminders of properties told my words,
LG1891	1028	And more the reminders they of life untold, and of freedom and extrication,
LG1891	1029	And make short account of neuters and geldings, and favor men and women fully equipt,
LG1891	1030	And beat the gong of revolt, and stop with fugitives and them that plot and conspire.
LG1891	1031	Walt Whitman, a kosmos, of Manhattan the son,
LG1891	1032	Turbulent, fleshy, sensual, eating, drinking and breeding,
LG1891	1033	No sentimentalist, no stander above men and women or apart from them,
LG1891	1034	No more modest than immodest.
LG1891	1035	Unscrew the locks from the doors!
LG1891	1036	Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs!
LG1891	1037	Whoever degrades another degrades me,
LG1891	1038	And whatever is done or said returns at last to me.
LG1891	1039	Through me the afflatus surging and surging, through me the cur-rentcurrent and index.
LG1891	1040	I speak the pass-word primeval, I give the sign of democracy,
LG1891	1041	By God! I will accept nothing which all cannot have their coun-terpartcounterpart of on the same terms.
LG1891	1042	Through me many long dumb voices,
LG1891	1043	Voices of the interminable generations of prisoners and slaves,
LG1891	1044	Voices of the diseas'd and despairing and of thieves and dwarfs,
LG1891	1045	Voices of cycles of preparation and accretion,
LG1891	1046	And of the threads that connect the stars, and of wombs and of the father-stuff,
LG1891	1047	And of the rights of them the others are down upon,
LG1891	1048	Of the deform'd, trivial, flat, foolish, despised,
LG1891	1049	Fog in the air, beetles rolling balls of dung.
LG1891	1050	Through me forbidden voices,
LG1891	1051	Voices of sexes and lusts, voices veil'd and I remove the veil,
LG1891	1052	Voices indecent by me clarified and transfigur'd.
LG1891	1053	I do not press my fingers across my mouth,
LG1891	1054	I keep as delicate around the bowels as around the head and heart,
LG1891	1055	Copulation is no more rank to me than death is.
LG1891	1056	I believe in the flesh and the appetites,
LG1891	1057	Seeing, hearing, feeling, are miracles, and each part and tag of me is a miracle.
LG1891	1058	Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or am touch'd from,
LG1891	1059	The scent of these arm-pits aroma finer than prayer,
LG1891	1060	This head more than churches, bibles, and all the creeds.
LG1891	1061	If I worship one thing more than another it shall be the spread of my own body, or any part of it,
LG1891	1062	Translucent mould of me it shall be you!
LG1891	1063	Shaded ledges and rests it shall be you!
LG1891	1064	Firm masculine colter it shall be you!
LG1891	1065	Whatever goes to the tilth of me it shall be you!
LG1891	1066	You my rich blood! your milky stream pale strippings of my life!
LG1891	1067	Breast that presses against other breasts it shall be you!
LG1891	1068	My brain it shall be your occult convolutions!
LG1891	1069	Root of wash'd sweet-flag! timorous pond-snipe! nest of guarded duplicate eggs! it shall be you!
LG1891	1070	Mix'd tussled hay of head, beard, brawn, it shall be you!
LG1891	1071	Trickling sap of maple, fibre of manly wheat, it shall be you!
LG1891	1072	Sun so generous it shall be you!
LG1891	1073	Vapors lighting and shading my face it shall be you!
LG1891	1074	You sweaty brooks and dews it shall be you!
LG1891	1075	Winds whose soft-tickling genitals rub against me it shall be you!
LG1891	1076	Broad muscular fields, branches of live oak, loving lounger in my winding paths, it shall be you!
LG1891	1077	Hands I have taken, face I have kiss'd, mortal I have ever touch'd, it shall be you.
LG1891	1078	I dote on myself, there is that lot of me and all so luscious,
LG1891	1079	Each moment and whatever happens thrills me with joy,
LG1891	1080	I cannot tell how my ankles bend, nor whence the cause of my faintest wish,
LG1891	1081	Nor the cause of the friendship I emit, nor the cause of the friend-shipfriendship I take again.
LG1891	1082	That I walk up my stoop, I pause to consider if it really be,
LG1891	1083	A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the meta-physicsmetaphysics of books.
LG1891	1084	To behold the day-break!
LG1891	1085	The little light fades the immense and diaphanous shadows,
LG1891	1086	The air tastes good to my palate.
LG1891	1087	Hefts of the moving world at innocent gambols silently rising freshly exuding,
LG1891	1088	Scooting obliquely high and low.
LG1891	1089	Something I cannot see puts upward libidinous prongs,
LG1891	1090	Seas of bright juice suffuse heaven.
LG1891	1091	The earth by the sky staid with, the daily close of their junction,
LG1891	1092	The heav'd challenge from the east that moment over my head,
LG1891	1093	The mocking taunt, See then whether you shall be master!
LG1891	1094	Dazzling and tremendous how quick the sun-rise would kill me,
LG1891	1095	If I could not now and always send sun-rise out of me.
LG1891	1096	We also ascend dazzling and tremendous as the sun,
LG1891	1097	We found our own O my soul in the calm and cool of the day-breakdaybreak.
LG1891	1098	My voice goes after what my eyes cannot reach,
LG1891	1099	With the twirl of my tongue I encompass worlds and volumes of worlds.
LG1891	1100	Speech is the twin of my vision, it is unequal to measure itself,
LG1891	1101	It provokes me forever, it says sarcastically,
LG1891	1102	Walt you contain enough, why don't you let it out then?
LG1891	1103	Come now I will not be tantalized, you conceive too much of articulation,
LG1891	1104	Do you not know O speech how the buds beneath you are folded?
LG1891	1105	Waiting in gloom, protected by frost,
LG1891	1106	The dirt receding before my prophetical screams,
LG1891	1107	I underlying causes to balance them at last,
LG1891	1108	My knowledge my live parts, it keeping tally with the meaning of all things,
LG1891	1109	Happiness, (which whoever hears me let him or her set out in search of this day.)
LG1891	1110	My final merit I refuse you, I refuse putting from me what I really am,
LG1891	1111	Encompass worlds, but never try to encompass me,
LG1891	1112	I crowd your sleekest and best by simply looking toward you.
LG1891	1113	Writing and talk do not prove me,
LG1891	1114	I carry the plenum of proof and every thing else in my face,
LG1891	1115	With the hush of my lips I wholly confound the skeptic.
LG1891	1116	Now I will do nothing but listen,
LG1891	1117	To accrue what I hear into this song, to let sounds contribute toward it.
LG1891	1118	I hear bravuras of birds, bustle of growing wheat, gossip of flames,clack of sticks cooking my meals,
LG1891	1119	I hear the sound I love, the sound of the human voice,
LG1891	1120	I hear all sounds running together, combined, fused or following,
LG1891	1121	Sounds of the city and sounds out of the city, sounds of the day and night,
LG1891	1122	Talkative young ones to those that like them, the loud laugh of work-people at their meals,
LG1891	1123	The angry base of disjointed friendship, the faint tones of the sick,
LG1891	1124	The judge with hands tight to the desk, his pallid lips pronoun-cingpronouncing a death-sentence,
LG1891	1125	The heave'e'yo of stevedores unlading ships by the wharves, the refrain of the anchor-lifters,
LG1891	1126	The ring of alarm-bells, the cry of fire, the whirr of swift-streak-ingswift-streaking engines and hose-carts with premonitory tinkles and color'd lights,
LG1891	1127	The steam-whistle, the solid roll of the train of approaching cars,
LG1891	1128	The slow march play'd at the head of the association marching two and two,
LG1891	1129	(They go to guard some corpse, the flag-tops are draped with black muslin.)
LG1891	1130	I hear the violoncello, ('tis the young man's heart's complaint,)
LG1891	1131	I hear the key'd cornet, it glides quickly in through my ears,
LG1891	1132	It shakes mad-sweet pangs through my belly and breast.
LG1891	1133	I hear the chorus, it is a grand opera,
LG1891	1134	Ah this indeed is music—this suits me.
LG1891	1135	A tenor large and fresh as the creation fills me,
LG1891	1136	The orbic flex of his mouth is pouring and filling me full.
LG1891	1137	I hear the train'd soprano (what work with hers is this?)
LG1891	1138	The orchestra whirls me wider than Uranus flies,
LG1891	1139	It wrenches such ardors from me I did not know I possess'd them,
LG1891	1140	It sails me, I dab with bare feet, they are lick'd by the indolent waves,
LG1891	1141	I am cut by bitter and angry hail, I lose my breath,
LG1891	1142	Steep'd amid honey'd morphine, my windpipe throttled in fakes of death,
LG1891	1143	At length let up again to feel the puzzle of puzzles,
LG1891	1144	And that we call Being.
LG1891	1145	To be in any form, what is that?
LG1891	1146	(Round and round we go, all of us, and ever come back thither,)
LG1891	1147	If nothing lay more develop'd the quahaug in its callous shell were enough.
LG1891	1148	Mine is no callous shell,
LG1891	1149	I have instant conductors all over me whether I pass or stop,
LG1891	1150	They seize every object and lead it harmlessly through me.
LG1891	1151	I merely stir, press, feel with my fingers, and am happy,
LG1891	1152	To touch my person to some one else's is about as much as I can stand.
LG1891	1153	Is this then a touch? quivering me to a new identity,
LG1891	1154	Flames and ether making a rush for my veins,
LG1891	1155	Treacherous tip of me reaching and crowding to help them,
LG1891	1156	My flesh and blood playing out lightning to strike what is hardly different from myself,
LG1891	1157	On all sides prurient provokers stiffening my limbs,
LG1891	1158	Straining the udder of my heart for its withheld drip,
LG1891	1159	Behaving licentious toward me, taking no denial,
LG1891	1160	Depriving me of my best as for a purpose,
LG1891	1161	Unbuttoning my clothes, holding me by the bare waist,
LG1891	1162	Deluding my confusion with the calm of the sunlight and pasture-fieldspasture-fields,
LG1891	1163	Immodestly sliding the fellow-senses away,
LG1891	1164	They bribed to swap off with touch and go and graze at the edges of me,
LG1891	1165	No consideration, no regard for my draining strength or my anger,
LG1891	1166	Fetching the rest of the herd around to enjoy them a while,
LG1891	1167	Then all uniting to stand on a headland and worry me.
LG1891	1168	The sentries desert every other part of me,
LG1891	1169	They have left me helpless to a red marauder,
LG1891	1170	They all come to the headland to witness and assist against me.
LG1891	1171	I am given up by traitors,
LG1891	1172	I talk wildly, I have lost my wits, I and nobody else am the greatest traitor,
LG1891	1173	I went myself first to the headland, my own hands carried me there.
LG1891	1174	You villain touch! what are you doing? my breath is tight in its throat,
LG1891	1175	Unclench your floodgates, you are too much for me.
LG1891	1176	Blind loving wrestling touch, sheath'd hooded sharp-tooth'd touch!
LG1891	1177	Did it make you ache so, leaving me?
LG1891	1178	Parting track'd by arriving, perpetual payment of perpetual loan,
LG1891	1179	Rich showering rain, and recompense richer afterward.
LG1891	1180	Sprouts take and accumulate, stand by the curb prolific and vital,
LG1891	1181	Landscapes projected masculine, full-sized and golden.
LG1891	1182	All truths wait in all things,
LG1891	1183	They neither hasten their own delivery nor resist it,
LG1891	1184	They do not need the obstetric forceps of the surgeon,
LG1891	1185	The insignificant is as big to me as any,
LG1891	1186	(What is less or more than a touch?)
LG1891	1187	Logic and sermons never convince,
LG1891	1188	The damp of the night drives deeper into my soul.
LG1891	1189	(Only what proves itself to every man and woman is so,
LG1891	1190	Only what nobody denies is so.)
LG1891	1191	A minute and a drop of me settle my brain,
LG1891	1192	I believe the soggy clods shall become lovers and lamps,
LG1891	1193	And a compend of compends is the meat of a man or woman,
LG1891	1194	And a summit and flower there is the feeling they have for each other,
LG1891	1195	And they are to branch boundlessly out of that lesson until it becomes omnific,
LG1891	1196	And until one and all shall delight us, and we them.
LG1891	1197	I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars,
LG1891	1198	And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg of the wren,
LG1891	1199	And the tree-toad is a chef-d'oeuvre for the highest,
LG1891	1200	And the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven,
LG1891	1201	And the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery,
LG1891	1202	And the cow crunching with depress'd head surpasses any statue,
LG1891	1203	And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels.
LG1891	1204	I find I incorporate gneiss, coal, long-threaded moss, fruits, grains,esculent roots,
LG1891	1205	And am stucco'd with quadrupeds and birds all over,
LG1891	1206	And have distanced what is behind me for good reasons,
LG1891	1207	But call any thing back again when I desire it.
LG1891	1208	In vain the speeding or shyness,
LG1891	1209	In vain the plutonic rocks send their old heat against my approach,
LG1891	1210	In vain the mastodon retreats beneath its own powder'd bones,
LG1891	1211	In vain objects stand leagues off and assume manifold shapes,
LG1891	1212	In vain the ocean settling in hollows and the great monsters lying low,
LG1891	1213	In vain the buzzard houses herself with the sky,
LG1891	1214	In vain the snake slides through the creepers and logs,
LG1891	1215	In vain the elk takes to the inner passes of the woods,
LG1891	1216	In vain the razor-bill'd auk sails far north to Labrador,
LG1891	1217	I follow quickly, I ascend to the nest in the fissure of the cliff.
LG1891	1218	I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contain'd,
LG1891	1219	I stand and look at them long and long.
LG1891	1220	They do not sweat and whine about their condition,
LG1891	1221	They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
LG1891	1222	They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,
LG1891	1223	Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things,
LG1891	1224	Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago,
LG1891	1225	Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.
LG1891	1226	So they show their relations to me and I accept them,
LG1891	1227	They bring me tokens of myself, they evince them plainly in their possession.
LG1891	1228	I wonder where they get those tokens,
LG1891	1229	Did I pass that way huge times ago and negligently drop them?
LG1891	1230	Myself moving forward then and now and forever,
LG1891	1231	Gathering and showing more always and with velocity,
LG1891	1232	Infinite and omnigenous, and the like of these among them,
LG1891	1233	Not too exclusive toward the reachers of my remembrancers,
LG1891	1234	Picking out here one that I love, and now go with him on brotherly terms.
LG1891	1235	A gigantic beauty of a stallion, fresh and responsive to my caresses,
LG1891	1236	Head high in the forehead, wide between the ears,
LG1891	1237	Limbs glossy and supple, tail dusting the ground,
LG1891	1238	Eyes full of sparkling wickedness, ears finely cut, flexibly moving.
LG1891	1239	His nostrils dilate as my heels embrace him,
LG1891	1240	His well-built limbs tremble with pleasure as we race around and return.
LG1891	1241	I but use you a minute, then I resign you, stallion,
LG1891	1242	Why do I need your paces when I myself out-gallop them?
LG1891	1243	Even as I stand or sit passing faster than you.
LG1891	1244	Space and Time! now I see it is true, what I guess'd at,
LG1891	1245	What I guess'd when I loaf'd on the grass,
LG1891	1246	What I guess'd while I lay alone in my bed,
LG1891	1247	And again as I walk'd the beach under the paling stars of the morning.
LG1891	1248	My ties and ballasts leave me, my elbows rest in sea-gaps,
LG1891	1249	I skirt sierras, my palms cover continents,
LG1891	1250	I am afoot with my vision.
LG1891	1251	By the city's quadrangular houses—in log huts, camping with lumbermen,
LG1891	1252	Along the ruts of the turnpike, along the dry gulch and rivulet bed,
LG1891	1253	Weeding my onion-patch or hoeing rows of carrots and parsnips,crossing savannas, trailing in forests,
LG1891	1254	Prospecting, gold-digging, girdling the trees of a new purchase,
LG1891	1255	Scorch'd ankle-deep by the hot sand, hauling my boat down the shallow river,
LG1891	1256	Where the panther walks to and fro on a limb overhead, where the buck turns furiously at the hunter,
LG1891	1257	Where the rattlesnake suns his flabby length on a rock, where the otter is feeding on fish,
LG1891	1258	Where the alligator in his tough pimples sleeps by the bayou,
LG1891	1259	Where the black bear is searching for roots or honey, where the beaver pats the mud with his paddle-shaped tail;
LG1891	1260	Over the growing sugar, over the yellow-flower'd cotton plant, over the rice in its low moist field,
LG1891	1261	Over the sharp-peak'd farm house, with its scallop'd scum and slender shoots from the gutters,
LG1891	1262	Over the western persimmon, over the long-leav'd corn, over the delicate blue-flower flax,
LG1891	1263	Over the white and brown buckwheat, a hummer and buzzer there with the rest,
LG1891	1264	Over the dusky green of the rye as it ripples and shades in the breeze;
LG1891	1265	Scaling mountains, pulling myself cautiously up, holding on by low scragged limbs,
LG1891	1266	Walking the path worn in the grass and beat through the leaves of the brush,
LG1891	1267	Where the quail is whistling betwixt the woods and the wheat-lot,
LG1891	1268	Where the bat flies in the Seventh-month eve, where the great gold-buggoldbug drops through the dark,
LG1891	1269	Where the brook puts out of the roots of the old tree and flows to the meadow,
LG1891	1270	Where cattle stand and shake away flies with the tremulous shud-deringshuddering of their hides,
LG1891	1271	Where the cheese-cloth hangs in the kitchen, where andirons straddle the hearth-slab, where cobwebs fall in festoons from the rafters;
LG1891	1272	Where trip-hammers crash, where the press is whirling its cylinders,
LG1891	1273	Wherever the human heart beats with terrible throes under its ribs,
LG1891	1274	Where the pear-shaped balloon is floating aloft, (floating in it my-selfmyself and looking composedly down,)
LG1891	1275	Where the life-car is drawn on the slip-noose, where the heat hatches pale-green eggs in the dented sand,
LG1891	1276	Where the she-whale swims with her calf and never forsakes it,
LG1891	1277	Where the steam-ship trails hind-ways its long pennant of smoke,
LG1891	1278	Where the fin of the shark cuts like a black chip out of the water,
LG1891	1279	Where the half-burn'd brig is riding on unknown currents,
LG1891	1280	Where shells grow to her slimy deck, where the dead are corrupt-ingcorrupting below;
LG1891	1281	Where the dense-starr'd flag is borne at the head of the regiments,
LG1891	1282	Approaching Manhattan up by the long-stretching island,
LG1891	1283	Under Niagara, the cataract falling like a veil over my countenance,
LG1891	1284	Upon a door-step, upon the horse-block of hard wood outside,
LG1891	1285	Upon the race-course, or enjoying picnics or jigs or a good game of base-ball,
LG1891	1286	At he-festivals, with blackguard gibes, ironical license, bull-dances,drinking, laughter,
LG1891	1287	At the cider-mill tasting the sweets of the brown mash, sucking the juice through a straw,
LG1891	1288	At apple-peelings wanting kisses for all the red fruit I find,
LG1891	1289	At musters, beach-parties, friendly bees, huskings, house-raisings;
LG1891	1290	Where the mocking-bird sounds his delicious gurgles, cackles,screams, weeps,
LG1891	1291	Where the hay-rick stands in the barn-yard, where the dry-stalks are scatter'd, where the brood-cow waits in the hovel,
LG1891	1292	Where the bull advances to do his masculine work, where the stud to the mare, where the cock is treading the hen,
LG1891	1293	Where the heifers browse, where geese nip their food with short jerks,
LG1891	1294	Where sun-down shadows lengthen over the limitless and lonesome prairie,
LG1891	1295	Where herds of buffalo make a crawling spread of the square miles far and near,
LG1891	1296	Where the humming-bird shimmers, where the neck of the long-livedlong-lived swan is curving and winding,
LG1891	1297	Where the laughing-gull scoots by the shore, where she laughs her near-human laugh,
LG1891	1298	Where bee-hives range on a gray bench in the garden half hid by the high weeds,
LG1891	1299	Where band-neck'd partridges roost in a ring on the ground with their heads out,
LG1891	1300	Where burial coaches enter the arch'd gates of a cemetery,
LG1891	1301	Where winter wolves bark amid wastes of snow and icicled trees,
LG1891	1302	Where the yellow-crown'd heron comes to the edge of the marsh at night and feeds upon small crabs,
LG1891	1303	Where the splash of swimmers and divers cools the warm noon,
LG1891	1304	Where the katy-did works her chromatic reed on the walnut-tree over the well,
LG1891	1305	Through patches of citrons and cucumbers with silver-wired leaves,
LG1891	1306	Through the salt-lick or orange glade, or under conical firs,
LG1891	1307	Through the gymnasium, through the curtain'd saloon, through the office or public hall;
LG1891	1308	Pleas'd with the native and pleas'd with the foreign, pleas'd with the new and old,
LG1891	1309	Pleas'd with the homely woman as well as the handsome,
LG1891	1310	Pleas'd with the quakeress as she puts off her bonnet and talks melodiously,
LG1891	1311	Pleas'd with the tune of the choir of the whitewash'd church,
LG1891	1312	Pleas'd with the earnest words of the sweating Methodist preach-erpreacher, impress'd seriously at the camp-meeting;
LG1891	1313	Looking in at the shop-windows of Broadway the whole forenoon,flatting the flesh of my nose on the thick plate glass,
LG1891	1314	Wandering the same afternoon with my face turn'd up to the clouds, or down a lane or along the beach,
LG1891	1315	My right and left arms round the sides of two friends, and I in the middle;
LG1891	1316	Coming home with the silent and dark-cheek'd bush-boy, (behind me he rides at the drape of the day,)
LG1891	1317	Far from the settlements studying the print of animals' feet, or the moccasin print,
LG1891	1318	By the cot in the hospital reaching lemonade to a feverish patient,
LG1891	1319	Nigh the coffin'd corpse when all is still, examining with a candle;
LG1891	1320	Voyaging to every port to dicker and adventure,
LG1891	1321	Hurrying with the modern crowd as eager and fickle as any,
LG1891	1322	Hot toward one I hate, ready in my madness to knife him,
LG1891	1323	Solitary at midnight in my back yard, my thoughts gone from me a long while,
LG1891	1324	Walking the old hills of Judaea with the beautiful gentle God by my side,
LG1891	1325	Speeding through space, speeding through heaven and the stars,
LG1891	1326	Speeding amid the seven satellites and the broad ring, and the diameter of eighty thousand miles,
LG1891	1327	Speeding with tail'd meteors, throwing fire-balls like the rest,
LG1891	1328	Carrying the crescent child that carries its own full mother in its belly,
LG1891	1329	Storming, enjoying, planning, loving, cautioning,
LG1891	1330	Backing and filling, appearing and disappearing,
LG1891	1331	I tread day and night such roads.
LG1891	1332	I visit the orchards of spheres and look at the product,
LG1891	1333	And look at quintillions ripen'd and look at quintillions green.
LG1891	1334	I fly those flights of a fluid and swallowing soul,
LG1891	1335	My course runs below the soundings of plummets.
LG1891	1336	I help myself to material and immaterial,
LG1891	1337	No guard can shut me off, no law prevent me.
LG1891	1338	I anchor my ship for a little while only,
LG1891	1339	My messengers continually cruise away or bring their returns to me.
LG1891	1340	I go hunting polar furs and the seal, leaping chasms with a pike-pointedpike-pointing staff, clinging to topples of brittle and blue.
LG1891	1341	I ascend to the foretruck,
LG1891	1342	I take my place late at night in the crow's-nest,
LG1891	1343	We sail the arctic sea, it is plenty light enough,
LG1891	1344	Through the clear atmosphere I stretch around on the wonderful beauty,
LG1891	1345	The enormous masses of ice pass me and I pass them, the scenery is plain in all directions,
LG1891	1346	The white-topt mountains show in the distance, I fling out my fancies toward them,
LG1891	1347	We are approaching some great battle-field in which we are soon to be engaged,
LG1891	1348	We pass the colossal outposts of the encampment, we pass with still feet and caution,
LG1891	1349	Or we are entering by the suburbs some vast and ruin'd city,
LG1891	1350	The blocks and fallen architecture more than all the living cities of the globe.
LG1891	1351	I am a free companion, I bivouac by invading watchfires,
LG1891	1352	I turn the bridegroom out of bed and stay with the bride myself,
LG1891	1353	I tighten her all night to my thighs and lips.
LG1891	1354	My voice is the wife's voice, the screech by the rail of the stairs,
LG1891	1355	They fetch my man's body up dripping and drown'd.
LG1891	1356	I understand the large hearts of heroes,
LG1891	1357	The courage of present times and all times,
LG1891	1358	How the skipper saw the crowded and rudderless wreck of the steam-ship, and Death chasing it up and down the storm,
LG1891	1359	How he knuckled tight and gave not back an inch, and was faith ful of days and faithful of nights,
LG1891	1360	And chalk'd in large letters on a board, Be of good cheer, we will not desert you;
LG1891	1361	How he follow'd with them and tack'd with them three days and would not give it up,
LG1891	1362	How he saved the drifting company at last,
LG1891	1363	How the lank loose-gown'd women look'd when boated from the side of their prepared graves,
LG1891	1364	How the silent old-faced infants and the lifted sick, and the sharp-lipp'dsharp-lipp'd unshaved men;
LG1891	1365	All this I swallow, it tastes good, I like it well, it becomes mine,
LG1891	1366	I am the man, I suffer'd, I was there.
LG1891	1367	The disdain and calmness of martyrs,
LG1891	1368	The mother of old, condemn'd for a witch, burnt with dry wood,her children gazing on,
LG1891	1369	The hounded slave that flags in the race, leans by the fence, blow-ingblowing, cover'd with sweat,
LG1891	1370	The twinges that sting like needles his legs and neck, the mur-derousmurderous buckshot and the bullets,
LG1891	1371	All these I feel or am.
LG1891	1372	I am the hounded slave, I wince at the bite of the dogs,
LG1891	1373	Hell and despair are upon me, crack and again crack the marks-menmarksmen,
LG1891	1374	I clutch the rails of the fence, my gore dribs, thinn'd with the ooze of my skin,
LG1891	1375	I fall on the weeds and stones,
LG1891	1376	The riders spur their unwilling horses, haul close,
LG1891	1377	Taunt my dizzy ears and beat me violently over the head with whip-stocks.
LG1891	1378	Agonies are one of my changes of garments,
LG1891	1379	I do not ask the wounded person how he feels, I myself become the wounded person,
LG1891	1380	My hurts turn livid upon me as I lean on a cane and observe.
LG1891	1381	I am the mash'd fireman with breast-bone broken,
LG1891	1382	Tumbling walls buried me in their debris,
LG1891	1383	Heat and smoke I inspired, I heard the yelling shouts of my com-radescomrades,
LG1891	1384	I heard the distant click of their picks and shovels,
LG1891	1385	They have clear'd the beams away, they tenderly lift me forth.
LG1891	1386	I lie in the night air in my red shirt, the pervading hush is for my sake,
LG1891	1387	Painless after all I lie exhausted but not so unhappy,
LG1891	1388	White and beautiful are the faces around me, the heads are bared of their fire-caps,
LG1891	1389	The kneeling crowd fades with the light of the torches.
LG1891	1390	Distant and dead resuscitate,
LG1891	1391	They show as the dial or move as the hands of me, I am the clock myself.
LG1891	1392	I am an old artillerist, I tell of my fort's bombardment,
LG1891	1393	I am there again.
LG1891	1394	Again the long roll of the drummers,
LG1891	1395	Again the attacking cannon, mortars,
LG1891	1396	Again to my listening ears the cannon responsive.
LG1891	1397	I take part, I see and hear the whole,
LG1891	1398	The cries, curses, roar, the plaudits for well-aim'd shots,
LG1891	1399	The ambulanza slowly passing trailing its red drip,
LG1891	1400	Workmen searching after damages, making indispensable repairs,
LG1891	1401	The fall of grenades through the rent roof, the fan-shaped explo-sion,
LG1891	1402	The whizz of limbs, heads, stone, wood, iron, high in the air.
LG1891	1403	Again gurgles the mouth of my dying general, he furiously waves with his hand,
LG1891	1404	He gasps through the clot Mind not me—mind—the entrench- ments.
LG1891	1405	Now I tell what I knew in Texas in my early youth,
LG1891	1406	(I tell not the fall of Alamo,
LG1891	1407	Not one escaped to tell the fall of Alamo,
LG1891	1408	The hundred and fifty are dumb yet at Alamo,)
LG1891	1409	'Tis the tale of the murder in cold blood of four hundred and twelve young men.
LG1891	1410	Retreating they had form'd in a hollow square with their baggage for breastworks,
LG1891	1411	Nine hundred lives out of the surrounding enemy's, nine times their number, was the price they took in advance,
LG1891	1412	Their colonel was wounded and their ammunition gone,
LG1891	1413	They treated for an honorable capitulation, receiv'd writing and seal, gave up their arms and march'd back prisoners of war.
LG1891	1414	They were the glory of the race of rangers,
LG1891	1415	Matchless with horse, rifle, song, supper, courtship,
LG1891	1416	Large, turbulent, generous, handsome, proud, and affectionate,
LG1891	1417	Bearded, sunburnt, drest in the free costume of hunters,
LG1891	1418	Not a single one over thirty years of age.
LG1891	1419	The second First-day morning they were brought out in squads and massacred, it was beautiful early summer,
LG1891	1420	The work commenced about five o'clock and was over by eight.
LG1891	1421	None obey'd the command to kneel,
LG1891	1422	Some made a mad and helpless rush, some stood stark and straight,
LG1891	1423	A few fell at once, shot in the temple or heart, the living and dead lay together,
LG1891	1424	The maim'd and mangled dug in the dirt, the new-comers saw hem there,
LG1891	1425	Some half-kill'd attempted to crawl away,
LG1891	1426	These were despatch'd with bayonets or batter'd with the blunts of muskets,
LG1891	1427	A youth not seventeen years old seiz'd his assassin till two more came to release him,
LG1891	1428	The three were all torn and cover'd with the boy's blood.
LG1891	1429	At eleven o'clock began the burning of the bodies;
LG1891	1430	That is the tale of the murder of the four hundred and twelve young men.
LG1891	1431	Would you hear of an old-time sea-fight?
LG1891	1432	Would you learn who won by the light of the moon and stars?
LG1891	1433	List to the yarn, as my grandmother's father the sailor told it to me.
LG1891	1434	Our foe was no skulk in his ship I tell you, (said he,)
LG1891	1435	His was the surly English pluck, and there is no tougher or truer,and never was, and never will be;
LG1891	1436	Along the lower'd eve he came horribly raking us.
LG1891	1437	We closed with him, the yards entangled, the cannon touch'd,
LG1891	1438	My captain lash'd fast with his own hands.
LG1891	1439	We had receiv'd some eighteen pound shots under the water,
LG1891	1440	On our lower-gun-deck two large pieces had burst at the first fire,killing all around and blowing up overhead.
LG1891	1441	Fighting at sun-down, fighting at dark,
LG1891	1442	Ten o'clock at night, the full moon well up, our leaks on the gain,and five feet of water reported,
LG1891	1443	The master-at-arms loosing the prisoners confined in the after-hold to give them a chance for themselves.
LG1891	1444	The transit to and from the magazine is now stopt by the sentinels,
LG1891	1445	They see so many strange faces they do not know whom to trust.
LG1891	1446	Our frigate takes fire,
LG1891	1447	The other asks if we demand quarter?
LG1891	1448	If our colors are struck and the fighting done?
LG1891	1449	Now I laugh content, for I hear the voice of my little captain,
LG1891	1450	We have not struck, he composedly cries, we have just begun our part of the fighting.
LG1891	1451	Only three guns are in use,
LG1891	1452	One is directed by the captain himself against the enemy's main-mastmain-mast,
LG1891	1453	Two well serv'd with grape and canister silence his musketry and clear his decks.
LG1891	1454	The tops alone second the fire of this little battery, especially the main-top,
LG1891	1455	They hold out bravely during the whole of the action.
LG1891	1456	Not a moment's cease,
LG1891	1457	The leaks gain fast on the pumps, the fire eats toward the powder-magazinepower-magazine.
LG1891	1458	One of the pumps has been shot away, it is generally thought we are sinking.
LG1891	1459	Serene stands the little captain,
LG1891	1460	He is not hurried, his voice is neither high nor low,
LG1891	1461	His eyes give more light to us than our battle-lanterns.
LG1891	1462	Toward twelve there in the beams of the moon they surrender to us.
LG1891	1463	Stretch'd and still lies the midnight,
LG1891	1464	Two great hulls motionless on the breast of the darkness,
LG1891	1465	Our vessel riddled and slowly sinking, preparations to pass to the one we have conquer'd,
LG1891	1466	The captain on the quarter-deck coldly giving his orders through a countenance white as a sheet,
LG1891	1467	Near by the corpse of the child that serv'd in the cabin,
LG1891	1468	The dead face of an old salt with long white hair and carefully curl'd whiskers,
LG1891	1469	The flames spite of all that can be done flickering aloft and below,
LG1891	1470	The husky voices of the two or three officers yet fit for duty,
LG1891	1471	Formless stacks of bodies and bodies by themselves, dabs of flesh upon the masts and spars,
LG1891	1472	Cut of cordage, dangle of rigging, slight shock of the soothe of waves,
LG1891	1473	Black and impassive guns, litter of powder-parcels, strong scent,
LG1891	1474	A few large stars overhead, silent and mournful shining,
LG1891	1475	Delicate sniffs of sea-breeze, smells of sedgy grass and fields by the shore, death-messages given in charge to survivors,
LG1891	1476	The hiss of the surgeon's knife, the gnawing teeth of his saw,
LG1891	1477	Wheeze, cluck, swash of falling blood, short wild scream, and long,dull, tapering groan,
LG1891	1478	These so, these irretrievable.
LG1891	1479	You laggards there on guard! look to your arms!
LG1891	1480	In at the conquer'd doors they crowd! I am possess'd!
LG1891	1481	Embody all presences outlaw'd or suffering,
LG1891	1482	See myself in prison shaped like another man,
LG1891	1483	And feel the dull unintermitted pain.
LG1891	1484	For me the keepers of convicts shoulder their carbines and keep watch,
LG1891	1485	It is I let out in the morning and barr'd at night.
LG1891	1486	Not a mutineer walks handcuff'd to jail but I am handcuff'd to him and walk by his side,
LG1891	1487	(I am less the jolly one there, and more the silent one with sweat on my twitching lips.)
LG1891	1488	Not a youngster is taken for larceny but I go up too, and am tried and sentenced.
LG1891	1489	Not a cholera patient lies at the last gasp but I also lie at the last gasp,
LG1891	1490	My face is ash-color'd, my sinews gnarl, away from me people retreat.
LG1891	1491	Askers embody themselves in me and I am embodied in them,
LG1891	1492	I project my hat, sit shame-faced, and beg.
LG1891	1493	Enough! enough! enough!
LG1891	1494	Somehow I have been stunn'd. Stand back!
LG1891	1495	Give me a little time beyond my cuff'd head, slumbers, dreams,gaping,
LG1891	1496	I discover myself on the verge of a usual mistake.
LG1891	1497	That I could forget the mockers and insults!
LG1891	1498	That I could forget the trickling tears and the blows of the bludg-eonsbludgeons and hammers!
LG1891	1499	That I could look with a separate look on my own crucifixion and bloody crowning.
LG1891	1500	I remember now,
LG1891	1501	I resume the overstaid fraction,
LG1891	1502	The grave of rock multiplies what has been confided to it, or to any graves,
LG1891	1503	Corpses rise, gashes heal, fastenings roll from me.
LG1891	1504	I troop forth replenish'd with supreme power, one of an average unending procession,
LG1891	1505	Inland and sea-coast we go, and pass all boundary lines,
LG1891	1506	Our swift ordinances on their way over the whole earth,
LG1891	1507	The blossoms we wear in our hats the growth of thousands of years.
LG1891	1508	Eleves, I salute you! come forward!
LG1891	1509	Continue your annotations, continue your questionings.
LG1891	1510	The friendly and flowing savage, who is he?
LG1891	1511	Is he waiting for civilization, or past it and mastering it?
LG1891	1512	Is he some Southwesterner rais'd out-doors? is he KanadianCanadian?
LG1891	1513	Is he from the Mississippi country? Iowa, Oregon, California?
LG1891	1514	The mountains? prairie-life, bush-life? or sailor from the sea?
LG1891	1515	Wherever he goes men and women accept and desire him,
LG1891	1516	They desire he should like them, touch them, speak to them, stay with them.
LG1891	1517	Behavior lawless as snow-flakes, words simple as grass, uncomb'd head, laughter, and naivetè,
LG1891	1518	Slow-stepping feet, common features, common modes and ema-nationsemanations,
LG1891	1519	They descend in new forms from the tips of his fingers,
LG1891	1520	They are wafted with the odor of his body or breath, they fly out of the glance of his eyes.
LG1891	1521	Flaunt of the sunshine I need not your bask—lie over!
LG1891	1522	You light surfaces only, I force surfaces and depths also.
LG1891	1523	Earth! you seem to look for something at my hands,
LG1891	1524	Say, old top-knot, what do you want?
LG1891	1525	Man or woman, I might tell how I like you, but cannot,
LG1891	1526	And might tell what it is in me and what it is in you, but cannot,
LG1891	1527	And might tell that pining I have, that pulse of my nights and days.
LG1891	1528	Behold, I do not give lectures or a little charity,
LG1891	1529	When I give I give myself.
LG1891	1530	You there, impotent, loose in the knees,
LG1891	1531	Open your scarf'd chops till I blow grit within you,
LG1891	1532	Spread your palms and lift the flaps of your pockets,
LG1891	1533	I am not to be denied, I compel, I have stores plenty and to spare,
LG1891	1534	And any thing I have I bestow.
LG1891	1535	I do not ask who you are, that is not important to me,
LG1891	1536	You can do nothing and be nothing but what I will infold you.
LG1891	1537	To cotton-field drudge or cleaner of privies I lean,
LG1891	1538	On his right cheek I put the family kiss,
LG1891	1539	And in my soul I swear I never will deny him.
LG1891	1540	On women fit for conception I start bigger and nimbler babes,
LG1891	1541	(This day I am jetting the stuff of far more arrogant republics.)
LG1891	1542	To any one dying, thither I speed and twist the knob of the door,
LG1891	1543	Turn the bed-clothes toward the foot of the bed,
LG1891	1544	Let the physician and the priest go home.
LG1891	1545	I seize the descending man and raise him with resistless will,
LG1891	1546	O despairer, here is my neck,
LG1891	1547	By God, you shall not go down! hang your whole weight upon me.
LG1891	1548	I dilate you with tremendous breath, I buoy you up,
LG1891	1549	Every room of the house do I fill with an arm'd force,
LG1891	1550	Lovers of me, bafflers of graves.
LG1891	1551	Sleep—I and they keep guard all night,
LG1891	1552	Not doubt, not decease shall dare to lay finger upon you,
LG1891	1553	I have embraced you, and henceforth possess you to myself,
LG1891	1554	And when you rise in the morning you will find what I tell you is so.
LG1891	1555	I am he bringing help for the sick as they pant on their backs,
LG1891	1556	And for strong upright men I bring yet more needed help.
LG1891	1557	I heard what was said of the universe,
LG1891	1558	Heard it and heard it of several thousand years;
LG1891	1559	It is middling well as far as it goes—but is that all?
LG1891	1560	Magnifying and applying come I,
LG1891	1561	Outbidding at the start the old cautious hucksters,
LG1891	1562	Taking myself the exact dimensions of Jehovah,
LG1891	1563	Lithographing Kronos, Zeus his son, and Hercules his grandson,
LG1891	1564	Buying drafts of Osiris, Isis, Belus, Brahma, Buddha,
LG1891	1565	In my portfolio placing Manito loose, Allah on a leaf, the crucifix engraved,
LG1891	1566	With Odin and the hideous-faced Mexitli and every idol and image,
LG1891	1567	Taking them all for what they are worth and not a cent more,
LG1891	1568	Admitting they were alive and did the work of their days,
LG1891	1569	(They bore mites as for unfledg'd birds who have now to rise and fly and sing for themselves,)
LG1891	1570	Accepting the rough deific sketches to fill out better in myself,bestowing them freely on each man and woman I see,
LG1891	1571	Discovering as much or more in a framer framing a house,
LG1891	1572	Putting higher claims for him there with his roll'd-up sleeves driving the mallet and chisel,
LG1891	1573	Not objecting to special revelations, considering a curl of smoke or a hair on the back of my hand just as curious as any revelation,
LG1891	1574	Lads ahold of fire-engines and hook-and-ladder ropes no less to me than the gods of the antique wars,
LG1891	1575	Minding their voices peal through the crash of destruction,
LG1891	1576	Their brawny limbs passing safe over charr'd laths, their white foreheads whole and unhurt out of the flames;
LG1891	1577	By the mechanic's wife with her babe at her nipple interceding for every person born,
LG1891	1578	Three scythes at harvest whizzing in a row from three lusty angels with shirts bagg'd out at their waists,
LG1891	1579	The snag-tooth'd hostler with red hair redeeming sins past and to come,
LG1891	1580	Selling all he possesses, traveling on foot to fee lawyers for his brother and sit by him while he is tried for forgery;
LG1891	1581	What was strewn in the amplest strewing the square rod about me, and not filling the square rod then,
LG1891	1582	The bull and the bug never worshipp'd half enough,
LG1891	1583	Dung and dirt more admirable than was dream'd,
LG1891	1584	The supernatural of no account, myself waiting my time to be one of the supremes,
LG1891	1585	The day getting ready for me when I shall do as much good as the best, and be as prodigious;
LG1891	1586	By my life-lumps! becoming already a creator,
LG1891	1587	Putting myself here and now to the ambush'd womb of the shadows.
LG1891	1588	A call in the midst of the crowd,
LG1891	1589	My own voice, orotund sweeping and final.
LG1891	1590	Come my children,
LG1891	1591	Come my boys and girls, my women, household and intimates,
LG1891	1592	Now the performer launches his nerve, he has pass'd his prelude on the reeds within.
LG1891	1593	Easily written loose-finger'd chords—I feel the thrum of your climax and close.
LG1891	1594	My head slues round on my neck,
LG1891	1595	Music rolls, but not from the organ,
LG1891	1596	Folks are around me, but they are no household of mine.
LG1891	1597	Ever the hard unsunk ground,
LG1891	1598	Ever the eaters and drinkers, ever the upward and downward sun,ever the air and the ceaseless tides,
LG1891	1599	Ever myself and my neighbors, refreshing, wicked, real,
LG1891	1600	Ever the old inexplicable query, ever that thorn'd thumb, that breath of itches and thirsts,
LG1891	1601	Ever the vexer's hoot! hoot! till we find where the sly one hides and bring him forth,
LG1891	1602	Ever love, ever the sobbing liquid of life,
LG1891	1603	Ever the bandage under the chin, ever the trestles of death.
LG1891	1604	Here and there with dimes on the eyes walking,
LG1891	1605	To feed the greed of the belly the brains liberally spooning,
LG1891	1606	Tickets buying, taking, selling, but in to the feast never once going.
LG1891	1607	Many sweating, ploughing, thrashing, and then the chaff for pay-mentpayment receiving,
LG1891	1608	A few idly owning, and they the wheat continually claiming.
LG1891	1609	This is the city and I am one of the citizens,
LG1891	1610	Whatever interests the rest interests me, politics, wars, markets,newspapers, schools,
LG1891	1611	The mayor and councils, banks, tariffs, steamships, factories, stocks,stores, real estate and personal estate.
LG1891	1612	The little plentiful manikins skipping around in collars and tail'd coats,
LG1891	1613	I am aware who they are, (they are positively not worms or fleas,)
LG1891	1614	I acknowledge the duplicates of myself, the weakest and shallowest is deathless with me,
LG1891	1615	What I do and say the same waits for them,
LG1891	1616	Every thought that flounders in me the same flounders in them.
LG1891	1617	I know perfectly well my own egotism,
LG1891	1618	Know my omnivorous lines and must not write any less,
LG1891	1619	And would fetch you whoever you are flush with myself.
LG1891	1620	Not words of routine this song of mine,
LG1891	1621	But abruptly to question, to leap beyond yet nearer bring;
LG1891	1622	This printed and bound book—but the printer and the printing-officeprinting-office boy?
LG1891	1623	The well-taken photographs—but your wife or friend close and solid in your arms?
LG1891	1624	The black ship mail'd with iron, her mighty guns in her turrets—but the pluck of the captain and engineers?
LG1891	1625	In the houses the dishes and fare and furniture—but the host and hostess, and the look out of their eyes?
LG1891	1626	The sky up there—yet here or next door, or across the way?
LG1891	1627	The saints and sages in history—but you yourself?
LG1891	1628	Sermons, creeds, theology—but the fathomless human brain,
LG1891	1629	And what is reason? and what is love? and what is life?
LG1891	1630	I do not despise you priests, all time, the world over,
LG1891	1631	My faith is the greatest of faiths and the least of faiths,
LG1891	1632	Enclosing worship ancient and modern and all between ancient and modern,
LG1891	1633	Believing I shall come again upon the earth after five thousand years,
LG1891	1634	Waiting responses from oracles, honoring the gods, saluting the sun,
LG1891	1635	Making a fetich of the first rock or stump, powowing with sticks in the circle of obis,
LG1891	1636	Helping the llama or brahmin as he trims the lamps of the idols,
LG1891	1637	Dancing yet through the streets in a phallic procession, rapt and austere in the woods a gymnosophist,
LG1891	1638	Drinking mead from the skull-cup, to Shastas and Vedas admirant,minding the Koran,
LG1891	1639	Walking the teokallis, spotted with gore from the stone and knife,beating the serpent-skin drum,
LG1891	1640	Accepting the Gospels, accepting him that was crucified, knowing assuredly that he is divine,
LG1891	1641	To the mass kneeling or the puritan's prayer rising, or sitting patiently in a pew,
LG1891	1642	Ranting and frothing in my insane crisis, or waiting dead-like till my spirit arouses me,
LG1891	1643	Looking forth on pavement and land, or outside of pavement and land,
LG1891	1644	Belonging to the winders of the circuit of circuits.
LG1891	1645	One of that centripetal and centrifugal gang I turn and talk like a man leaving charges before a journey.
LG1891	1646	Down-hearted doubters dull and excluded,
LG1891	1647	Frivolous, sullen, moping, angry, affected, dishearten'd, atheistical,
LG1891	1648	I know every one of you, I know the sea of torment, doubt,despair and unbelief.
LG1891	1649	How the flukes splash!
LG1891	1650	How they contort rapid as lightning, with spasms and spouts of blood!
LG1891	1651	Be at peace bloody flukes of doubters and sullen mopers,
LG1891	1652	I take my place among you as much as among any,
LG1891	1653	The past is the push of you, me, all, precisely the same,
LG1891	1654	And what is yet untried and afterward is for you, me, all, precisely the same.
LG1891	1655	I do not know what is untried and afterward,
LG1891	1656	But I know it will in its turn prove sufficient, and cannot fail.
LG1891	1657	Each who passes is consider'd, each who stops is consider'd, not a single one can it fail.
LG1891	1658	It cannot fail the young man who died and was buried,
LG1891	1659	Nor the young woman who died and was put by his side,
LG1891	1660	Nor the little child that peep'd in at the door, and then drew back and was never seen again,
LG1891	1661	Nor the old man who has lived without purpose, and feels it with bitterness worse than gall,
LG1891	1662	Nor him in the poor house tubercled by rum and the bad dis-orderdisorder,
LG1891	1663	Nor the numberless slaughter'd and wreck'd, nor the brutish koboo call'd the ordure of humanity,
LG1891	1664	Nor the sacs merely floating with open mouths for food to slip in,
LG1891	1665	Nor any thing in the earth, or down in the oldest graves of the earth,
LG1891	1666	Nor any thing in the myriads of spheres, nor the myriads of myriads that inhabit them,
LG1891	1667	Nor the present, nor the least wisp that is known.
LG1891	1668	It is time to explain myself—let us stand up.
LG1891	1669	What is known I strip away,
LG1891	1670	I launch all men and women forward with me into the Unknown.
LG1891	1671	The clock indicates the moment—but what does eternity indicate?
LG1891	1672	We have thus far exhausted trillions of winters and summers,
LG1891	1673	There are trillions ahead, and trillions ahead of them.
LG1891	1674	Births have brought us richness and variety,
LG1891	1675	And other births will bring us richness and variety.
LG1891	1676	I do not call one greater and one smaller,
LG1891	1677	That which fills its period and place is equal to any.
LG1891	1678	Were mankind murderous or jealous upon you, my brother, my sister?
LG1891	1679	I am sorry for you, they are not murderous or jealous upon me,
LG1891	1680	All has been gentle with me, I keep no account with lamentation,
LG1891	1681	(What have I to do with lamentation?)
LG1891	1682	I am an acme of things accomplish'd, and I an encloser of things to be.
LG1891	1683	My feet strike an apex of the apices of the stairs,
LG1891	1684	On every step bunches of ages, and larger bunches between the steps,
LG1891	1685	All below duly travel'd, and still I mount and mount.
LG1891	1686	Rise after rise bow the phantoms behind me,
LG1891	1687	Afar down I see the huge first Nothing, I know I was even there,
LG1891	1688	I waited unseen and always, and slept through the lethargic mist,
LG1891	1689	And took my time, and took no hurt from the fetid carbon.
LG1891	1690	Long I was hugg'd close—long and long.
LG1891	1691	Immense have been the preparations for me,
LG1891	1692	Faithful and friendly the arms that have help'd me.
LG1891	1693	Cycles ferried my cradle, rowing and rowing like cheerful boatmen,
LG1891	1694	For room to me stars kept aside in their own rings,
LG1891	1695	They sent influences to look after what was to hold me.
LG1891	1696	Before I was born out of my mother generations guided me,
LG1891	1697	My embryo has never been torpid, nothing could overlay it.
LG1891	1698	For it the nebula cohered to an orb,
LG1891	1699	The long slow strata piled to rest it on,
LG1891	1700	Vast vegetables gave it sustenance,
LG1891	1701	Monstrous sauroids transported it in their mouths and deposited it with care.
LG1891	1702	All forces have been steadily employ'd to complete and delight me,
LG1891	1703	Now on this spot I stand with my robust soul.
LG1891	1704	O span of youth! ever-push'd elasticity!
LG1891	1705	O manhood, balanced, florid and full.
LG1891	1706	My lovers suffocate me,
LG1891	1707	Crowding my lips, thick in the pores of my skin,
LG1891	1708	Jostling me through streets and public halls, coming naked to me at night,
LG1891	1709	Crying by day Ahoy! from the rocks of the river, swinging and chirping over my head,
LG1891	1710	Calling my name from flower-beds, vines, tangled underbrush,
LG1891	1711	Lighting on every moment of my life,
LG1891	1712	Bussing my body with soft balsamic busses,
LG1891	1713	Noiselessly passing handfuls out of their hearts and giving them to be mine.
LG1891	1714	Old age superbly rising! O welcome, ineffable grace of dying days!
LG1891	1715	Every condition promulges not only itself, it promulges what grows after and out of itself,
LG1891	1716	And the dark hush promulges as much as any.
LG1891	1717	I open my scuttle at night and see the far-sprinkled systems,
LG1891	1718	And all I see multiplied as high as I can cipher edge but the rim of the farther systems.
LG1891	1719	Wider and wider they spread, expanding, always expanding,
LG1891	1720	Outward and outward and forever outward.
LG1891	1721	My sun has his sun and round him obediently wheels,
LG1891	1722	He joins with his partners a group of superior circuit,
LG1891	1723	And greater sets follow, making specks of the greatest inside them.
LG1891	1724	There is no stoppage and never can be stoppage,
LG1891	1725	If I, you, and the worlds, and all beneath or upon their surfaces,were this moment reduced back to a pallid float, it would not avail in the long run,
LG1891	1726	We should surely bring up again where we now stand,
LG1891	1727	And surely go as much farther, and then farther and farther.
LG1891	1728	A few quadrillions of eras, a few octillions of cubic leagues, do not hazard the span or make it impatient,
LG1891	1729	They are but parts, any thing is but a part.
LG1891	1730	See ever so far, there is limitless space outside of that,
LG1891	1731	Count ever so much, there is limitless time around that.
LG1891	1732	My rendezvous is appointed, it is certain,
LG1891	1733	The Lord will be there and wait till I come on perfect terms,
LG1891	1734	The great Camerado, the lover true for whom I pine will be there.
LG1891	1735	I know I have the best of time and space, and was never measured and never will be measured.
LG1891	1736	I tramp a perpetual journey, (come listen all!)
LG1891	1737	My signs are a rain-proof coat, good shoes, and a staff cut from the woods,
LG1891	1738	No friend of mine takes his ease in my chair,
LG1891	1739	I have no chair, no church, no philosophy,
LG1891	1740	I lead no man to a dinner-table, library, exchange,
LG1891	1741	But each man and each woman of you I lead upon a knoll,
LG1891	1742	My left hand hooking you round the waist,
LG1891	1743	My right hand pointing to landscapes of continents and the public road.
LG1891	1744	Not I, not any one else can travel that road for you,
LG1891	1745	You must travel it for yourself.
LG1891	1746	It is not far, it is within reach,
LG1891	1747	Perhaps you have been on it since you were born and did not know,
LG1891	1748	Perhaps it is everywhere on water and on land.
LG1891	1749	Shoulder your duds dear son, and I will mine, and let us hasten forth,
LG1891	1750	Wonderful cities and free nations we shall fetch as we go.
LG1891	1751	If you tire, give me both burdens, and rest the chuff of your hand on my hip,
LG1891	1752	And in due time you shall repay the same service to me,
LG1891	1753	For after we start we never lie by again.
LG1891	1754	This day before dawn I ascended a hill and look'd at the crowded heaven,
LG1891	1755	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?
LG1891	1756	And my spirit said No, we but level that lift to pass and continue beyond.
LG1891	1757	You are also asking me questions and I hear you,
LG1891	1758	I answer that I cannot answer, you must find out for yourself.
LG1891	1759	Sit a while dear son,
LG1891	1760	Here are biscuits to eat and here is milk to drink,
LG1891	1761	But as soon as you sleep and renew yourself in sweet clothes, I kiss you with a good-by kiss and open the gate for your egress hence.
LG1891	1762	Long enough have you dream'd contemptible dreams,
LG1891	1763	Now I wash the gum from your eyes,
LG1891	1764	You must habit yourself to the dazzle of the light and of every moment of your life.
LG1891	1765	Long have you timidly waded holding a plank by the shore,
LG1891	1766	Now I will you to be a bold swimmer,
LG1891	1767	To jump off in the midst of the sea, rise again, nod to me, shout,and laughingly dash with your hair.
LG1891	1768	I am the teacher of athletes,
LG1891	1769	He that by me spreads a wider breast than my own proves the width of my own,
LG1891	1770	He most honors my style who learns under it to destroy the teacher.
LG1891	1771	The boy I love, the same becomes a man not through derived power, but in his own right,
LG1891	1772	Wicked rather than virtuous out of conformity or fear,
LG1891	1773	Fond of his sweetheart, relishing well his steak,
LG1891	1774	Unrequited love or a slight cutting him worse than sharp steel cuts,
LG1891	1775	First-rate to ride, to fight, to hit the bull's eye, to sail a skiff, to sing a song or play on the banjo,
LG1891	1776	Preferring scars and the beard and faces pitted with small-pox over all latherers,
LG1891	1777	And those well-tann'd to those that keep out of the sun.
LG1891	1778	I teach straying from me, yet who can stray from me?
LG1891	1779	I follow you whoever you are from the present hour,
LG1891	1780	My words itch at your ears till you understand them.
LG1891	1781	I do not say these things for a dollar or to fill up the time while I wait for a boat,
LG1891	1782	(It is you talking just as much as myself, I act as the tongue of you,
LG1891	1783	Tied in your mouth, in mine it begins to be loosen'd.)
LG1891	1784	I swear I will never again mention love or death inside a house,
LG1891	1785	And I swear I will never translate myself at all, only to him or her who privately stays with me in the open air.
LG1891	1786	If you would understand me go to the heights or water-shore,
LG1891	1787	The nearest gnat is an explanation, and a drop or motion of waves a key,
LG1891	1788	The maul, the oar, the hand-saw, second my words.
LG1891	1789	No shutter'd room or school can commune with me,
LG1891	1790	But roughs and little children better than they.
LG1891	1791	The young mechanic is closest to me, he knows me well,
LG1891	1792	The woodman that takes his axe and jug with him shall take me with him all day,
LG1891	1793	The farm-boy ploughing in the field feels good at the sound of my voice,
LG1891	1794	In vessels that sail my words sail, I go with fishermen and seamen and love them.
LG1891	1795	The soldier camp'd or upon the march is mine,
LG1891	1796	On the night ere the pending battle many seek me, and I do not fail them,
LG1891	1797	On that solemn night (it may be their last) those that know me seek me.
LG1891	1798	My face rubs to the hunter's face when he lies down alone in his blanket,
LG1891	1799	The driver thinking of me does not mind the jolt of his wagon,
LG1891	1800	The young mother and old mother comprehend me,
LG1891	1801	The girl and the wife rest the needle a moment and forget where they are,
LG1891	1802	They and all would resume what I have told them.
LG1891	1803	I have said that the soul is not more than the body,
LG1891	1804	And I have said that the body is not more than the soul,
LG1891	1805	And nothing, not God, is greater to one than one's self is,
LG1891	1806	And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own funeral drest in his shroud,
LG1891	1807	And I or you pocketless of a dime may purchase the pick of the earth,
LG1891	1808	And to glance with an eye or show a bean in its pod confounds the learning of all times,
LG1891	1809	And there is no trade or employment but the young man following it may become a hero,
LG1891	1810	And there is no object so soft but it makes a hub for the wheel'd universe,
LG1891	1811	And I say to any man or woman, Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes.
LG1891	1812	And I say to mankind, Be not curious about God,
LG1891	1813	For I who am curious about each am not curious about God,
LG1891	1814	(No array of terms can say how much I am at peace about God and about death.)
LG1891	1815	I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least,
LG1891	1816	Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself.
LG1891	1817	Why should I wish to see God better than this day?
LG1891	1818	I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each moment then,
LG1891	1819	In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass,
LG1891	1820	I find letters from God dropt in the street, and every one is sign'd by God's name,
LG1891	1821	And I leave them where they are, for I know that wheresoe'er I go,
LG1891	1822	Others will punctually come for ever and ever.
LG1891	1823	And as to you Death, and you bitter hug of mortality, it is idle to try to alarm me.
LG1891	1824	To his work without flinching the accoucheur comes,
LG1891	1825	I see the elder-hand pressing receiving supporting,
LG1891	1826	I recline by the sills of the exquisite flexible doors,
LG1891	1827	And mark the outlet, and mark the relief and escape.
LG1891	1828	And as to you Corpse I think you are good manure, but that does not offend me,
LG1891	1829	I smell the white roses sweet-scented and growing,
LG1891	1830	I reach to the leafy lips, I reach to the polish'd breasts of melons.
LG1891	1831	And as to you Life I reckon you are the leavings of many deaths,
LG1891	1832	(No doubt I have died myself ten thousand times before.)
LG1891	1833	I hear you whispering there O stars of heaven,
LG1891	1834	O suns—O grass of graves—O perpetual transfers and pro-motionspromotions,
LG1891	1835	If you do not say any thing how can I say any thing?
LG1891	1836	Of the turbid pool that lies in the autumn forest,
LG1891	1837	Of the moon that descends the steeps of the soughing twilight,
LG1891	1838	Toss, sparkles of day and dusk—toss on the black stems that decay in the muck,
LG1891	1839	Toss to the moaning gibberish of the dry limbs.
LG1891	1840	I ascend from the moon, I ascend from the night,
LG1891	1841	I perceive that the ghastly glimmer is noonday sunbeams reflected,
LG1891	1842	And debouch to the steady and central from the offspring great or small.
LG1891	1843	There is that in me—I do not know what it is—but I know it is in me.
LG1891	1844	Wrench'd and sweaty—calm and cool then my body becomes,
LG1891	1845	I sleep—I sleep long.
LG1891	1846	I do not know it—it is without name—it is a word unsaid,
LG1891	1847	It is not in any dictionary, utterance, symbol.
LG1891	1848	Something it swings on more than the earth I swing on,
LG1891	1849	To it the creation is the friend whose embracing awakes me.
LG1891	1850	Perhaps I might tell more. Outlines! I plead for my brothers and sisters.
LG1891	1851	Do you see O my brothers and sisters?
LG1891	1852	It is not chaos or death—it is form, union, plan—it is eternal life—it is Happiness.
LG1891	1853	The past and present wilt—I have fill'd them, emptied them.
LG1891	1854	And proceed to fill my next fold of the future.
LG1891	1855	Listener up there! what have you to confide to me?
LG1891	1856	Look in my face while I snuff the sidle of evening,
LG1891	1857	(Talk honestly, no one else hears you, and I stay only a minute longer.)
LG1891	1858	Do I contradict myself?
LG1891	1859	Very well then I contradict myself,
LG1891	1860	(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
LG1891	1861	I concentrate toward them that are nigh, I wait on the door-slab.
LG1891	1862	Who has done his day's work? who will soonest be through with his supper?
LG1891	1863	Who wishes to walk with me?
LG1891	1864	Will you speak before I am gone? will you prove already too late?
LG1891	1865	The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering.
LG1891	1866	I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,
LG1891	1867	I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.
LG1891	1868	The last scud of day holds back for me,
LG1891	1869	It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow'd wilds,
LG1891	1870	It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.
LG1891	1871	I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun,
LG1891	1872	I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.
LG1891	1873	I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
LG1891	1874	If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.
LG1891	1875	You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
LG1891	1876	But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
LG1891	1877	And filter and fibre your blood.
LG1891	1878	Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
LG1891	1879	Missing me one place search another,
LG1891	1880	I stop somewhere waiting for you.
LG1891	1881	TO the garden the world anew ascending,
LG1891	1882	Potent mates, daughters, sons, preluding,
LG1891	1883	The love, the life of their bodies, meaning and being,
LG1891	1884	Curious here behold my resurrection after slumber,
LG1891	1885	The revolving cycles in their wide sweep having brought me again,
LG1891	1886	Amorous, mature, all beautiful to me, all wondrous,
LG1891	1887	My limbs and the quivering fire that ever plays through them, for reasons, most wondrous,
LG1891	1888	Existing I peer and penetrate still,
LG1891	1889	Content with the present, content with the past,
LG1891	1890	By my side or back of me Eve following,
LG1891	1891	Or in front, and I following her just the same.
LG1891	1892	FROM pent-up aching rivers,
LG1891	1893	From that of myself without which I were nothing,
LG1891	1894	From what I am determin'd to make illustrious, even if I stand sole among men,
LG1891	1895	From my own voice resonant, singing the phallus,
LG1891	1896	Singing the song of procreation,
LG1891	1897	Singing the need of superb children and therein superb grown people,
LG1891	1898	Singing the muscular urge and the blending,
LG1891	1899	Singing the bedfellow's song, (O resistless yearning!
LG1891	1900	O for any and each the body correlative attracting!
LG1891	1901	O for you whoever you are your correlative body! O it, more than all else, you delighting!)
LG1891	1902	From the hungry gnaw that eats me night and day,
LG1891	1903	From native moments, from bashful pains, singing them,
LG1891	1904	Seeking something yet unfound though I have diligently sought it many a long year,
LG1891	1905	Singing the true song of the soul fitful at random,
LG1891	1906	Renascent with grossest Nature or among animals,
LG1891	1907	Of that, of them and what goes with them my poems informing,
LG1891	1908	Of the smell of apples and lemons, of the pairing of birds,
LG1891	1909	Of the wet of woods, of the lapping of waves,
LG1891	1910	Of the mad pushes of waves upon the land, I them chanting,
LG1891	1911	The overture lightly sounding, the strain anticipating,
LG1891	1912	The welcome nearness, the sight of the perfect body,
LG1891	1913	The swimmer swimming naked in the bath, or motionless on his back lying and floating,
LG1891	1914	The female form approaching, I pensive, love-flesh tremulous aching,
LG1891	1915	The divine list for myself or you or for any one making,
LG1891	1916	The face, the limbs, the index from head to foot, and what it arouses,
LG1891	1917	The mystic deliria, the madness amorous, the utter abandonment,
LG1891	1918	(Hark close and still what I now whisper to you,
LG1891	1919	I love you, O you entirely possess me,
LG1891	1920	O that you and I escape from the rest and go utterly off, free and lawless,
LG1891	1921	Two hawks in the air, two fishes swimming in the sea not more lawless than we;)
LG1891	1922	The furious storm through me careering, I passionately trembling.
LG1891	1923	The oath of the inseparableness of two together, of the woman that loves me and whom I love more than my life, that oath swearing,
LG1891	1924	(O I willingly stake all for you,
LG1891	1925	O let me be lost if it must be so!
LG1891	1926	O you and I! what is it to us what the rest do or think?
LG1891	1927	What is all else to us? only that we enjoy each other and exhaust each other if it must be so;)
LG1891	1928	From the master, the pilot I yield the vessel to,
LG1891	1929	The general commanding me, commanding all, from him permis-sionpermission taking,
LG1891	1930	From time the programme hastening, (I have loiter'd too long as it is,)
LG1891	1931	From sex, from the warp and from the woof,
LG1891	1932	From privacy, from frequent repinings alone,
LG1891	1933	From plenty of persons near and yet the right person not near,
LG1891	1934	From the soft sliding of hands over me and thrusting of fingers through my hair and beard,
LG1891	1935	From the long sustain'd kiss upon the mouth or bosom,
LG1891	1936	From the close pressure that makes me or any man drunk, fainting with excess,
LG1891	1937	From what the divine husband knows, from the work of fatherhood,
LG1891	1938	From exultation, victory and relief, from the bedfellow's embrace in the night,
LG1891	1939	From the act-poems of eyes, hands, hips and bosoms,
LG1891	1940	From the cling of the trembling arm,
LG1891	1941	From the bending curve and the clinch,
LG1891	1942	From side by side the pliant coverlet off-throwing,
LG1891	1943	From the one so unwilling to have me leave, and me just as un-willingunwilling to leave,
LG1891	1944	(Yet a moment O tender waiter, and I return,)
LG1891	1945	From the hour of shining stars and dropping dews,
LG1891	1946	From the night a moment I emerging flitting out,
LG1891	1947	Celebrate you act divine and you children prepared for,
LG1891	1948	And you stalwart loins.
LG1891	1949	I SING the body electric,
LG1891	1950	The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them,
LG1891	1951	They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,
LG1891	1952	And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul.
LG1891	1953	Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal themselves?
LG1891	1954	And if those who defile the living are as bad as they who defile the dead?
LG1891	1955	And if the body does not do fully as much as the soul?
LG1891	1956	And if the body were not the soul, what is the soul?
LG1891	1957	The love of the body of man or woman balks account, the body itself balks account,
LG1891	1958	That of the male is perfect, and that of the female is perfect.
LG1891	1959	The expression of the face balks account,
LG1891	1960	But the expression of a well-made man appears not only in his face,
LG1891	1961	It is in his limbs and joints also, it is curiously in the joints of his hips and wrists,
LG1891	1962	It is in his walk, the carriage of his neck, the flex of his waist and knees, dress does not hide him,
LG1891	1963	The strong sweet quality he has strikes through the cotton and broadcloth,
LG1891	1964	To see him pass conveys as much as the best poem, perhaps more,
LG1891	1965	You linger to see his back, and the back of his neck and shoul-dershoulder-side-side.
LG1891	1966	The sprawl and fulness of babes, the bosoms and heads of women, the folds of their dress, their style as we pass in the street, the contour of their shape downwards,
LG1891	1967	The swimmer naked in the swimming-bath, seen as he swims through the transparent green-shine, or lies with his face up and rolls silently to and fro in the heave of the water,
LG1891	1968	The bending forward and backward of rowers in row-boats, the horseman in his saddle,
LG1891	1969	Girls, mothers, house-keepers, in all their performances,
LG1891	1970	The group of laborers seated at noon-time with their open dinner-kettlesdinner-kettles, and their wives waiting,
LG1891	1971	The female soothing a child, the farmer's daughter in the garden or cow-yard,
LG1891	1972	The young fellow hoeing corn, the sleigh-driver driving his six horses through the crowd,
LG1891	1973	The wrestle of wrestlers, two apprentice-boys, quite grown, lusty, good-natured, native-born, out on the vacant lot at sun-downsundown after work,
LG1891	1974	The coats and caps thrown down, the embrace of love and resistance,
LG1891	1975	The upper-hold and under-hold, the hair rumpled over and blind-ingblinding the eyes;
LG1891	1976	The march of firemen in their own costumes, the play of mascu-linemasculine muscle through clean-setting trowsers and waist-straps,
LG1891	1977	The slow return from the fire, the pause when the bell strikes suddenly again, and the listening on the alert,
LG1891	1978	The natural, perfect, varied attitudes, the bent head, the curv'd neck and the counting;
LG1891	1979	Such-like I love—I loosen myself, pass freely, am at the mother's breast with the little child,
LG1891	1980	Swim with the swimmers, wrestle with wrestlers, march in line with the firemen, and pause, listen, count.
LG1891	1981	I knew a man, a common farmer, the father of five sons,
LG1891	1982	And in them the fathers of sons, and in them the fathers of sons.
LG1891	1983	This man was of wonderful vigor, calmness, beauty of person,
LG1891	1984	The shape of his head, the pale yellow and white of his hair and beard, the immeasurable meaning of his black eyes, the richness and breadth of his manners,
LG1891	1985	These I used to go and visit him to see, he was wise also,
LG1891	1986	He was six feet tall, he was over eighty years old, his sons were massive, clean, bearded, tan-faced, handsome,
LG1891	1987	They and his daughters loved him, all who saw him loved him,
LG1891	1988	They did not love him by allowance, they loved him with personal love,
LG1891	1989	He drank water only, the blood show'd like scarlet through the clear-brown skin of his face,
LG1891	1990	He was a frequent gunner and fisher, he sail'd his boat himself, he had a fine one presented to him by a ship-joiner, he had fowling-pieces presented to him by men that loved him,
LG1891	1991	When he went with his five sons and many grand-sons to hunt or fish, you would pick him out as the most beautiful and vigorous of the gang,
LG1891	1992	You would wish long and long to be with him, you would wish to sit by him in the boat that you and he might touch each other.
LG1891	1993	I have perceiv'd that to be with those I like is enough,
LG1891	1994	To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough,
LG1891	1995	To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough,
LG1891	1996	To pass among them or touch any one, or rest my arm ever so lightly round his or her neck for a moment, what is this then?
LG1891	1997	I do not ask any more delight, I swim in it as in a sea.
LG1891	1998	There is something in staying close to men and women and look-inglooking on them, and in the contact and odor of them, that pleases the soul well,
LG1891	1999	All things please the soul, but these please the soul well.
LG1891	2000	This is the female form,
LG1891	2001	A divine nimbus exhales from it from head to foot,
LG1891	2002	It attracts with fierce undeniable attraction,
LG1891	2003	I am drawn by its breath as if I were no more than a helpless vapor, all falls aside but myself and it,
LG1891	2004	Books, art, religion, time, the visible and solid earth, and what was expected of heaven or fear'd of hell, are now consumed,
LG1891	2005	Mad filaments, ungovernable shoots play out of it, the response likewise ungovernable,
LG1891	2006	Hair, bosom, hips, bend of legs, negligent falling hands all dif fused, mine too diffused,
LG1891	2007	Ebb stung by the flow and flow stung by the ebb, love-flesh swell-ingswelling and deliciously aching,
LG1891	2008	Limitless limpid jets of love hot and enormous, quivering jelly of love, white-blow and delirious juice,
LG1891	2009	Bridegroom night of love working surely and softly into the pros-trateprostrate dawn,
LG1891	2010	Undulating into the willing and yielding day,
LG1891	2011	Lost in the cleave of the clasping and sweet-flesh'd day.
LG1891	2012	This the nucleus—after the child is born of woman, man is born of woman,
LG1891	2013	This the bath of birth, this the merge of small and large, and the outlet again.
LG1891	2014	Be not ashamed women, your privilege encloses the rest, and is the exit of the rest,
LG1891	2015	You are the gates of the body, and you are the gates of the soul.
LG1891	2016	The female contains all qualities and tempers them,
LG1891	2017	She is in her place and moves with perfect balance,
LG1891	2018	She is all things duly veil'd, she is both passive and active,
LG1891	2019	She is to conceive daughters as well as sons, and sons as well as daughters.
LG1891	2020	As I see my soul reflected in Nature,
LG1891	2021	As I see through a mist, One with inexpressible completeness, sanity, beauty,
LG1891	2022	See the bent head and arms folded over the breast, the Female I see.
LG1891	2023	The male is not less the soul nor more, he too is in his place,
LG1891	2024	He too is all qualities, he is action and power,
LG1891	2025	The flush of the known universe is in him,
LG1891	2026	Scorn becomes him well, and appetite and defiance become him well,
LG1891	2027	The wildest largest passions, bliss that is utmost, sorrow that is utmost become him well, pride is for him,
LG1891	2028	The full-spread pride of man is calming and excellent to the soul,
LG1891	2029	Knowledge becomes him, he likes it always, he brings every thing to the test of himself,
LG1891	2030	Whatever the survey, whatever the sea and the sail he strikes soundings at last only here,
LG1891	2031	(Where else does he strike soundings except here?)
LG1891	2032	The man's body is sacred and the woman's body is sacred,
LG1891	2033	No matter who it is, it is sacred—is it the meanest one in the laborers' gang?
LG1891	2034	Is it one of the dull-faced immigrants just landed on the wharf?
LG1891	2035	Each belongs here or anywhere just as much as the well-off, just as much as you,
LG1891	2036	Each has his or her place in the procession.
LG1891	2037	(All is a procession,
LG1891	2038	The universe is a procession with measured and perfect motion.)
LG1891	2039	Do you know so much yourself that you call the meanest ignorant?
LG1891	2040	Do you suppose you have a right to a good sight, and he or she has no right to a sight?
LG1891	2041	Do you think matter has cohered together from its diffuse float, and the soil is on the surface, and water runs and vegeta-tionvegetation sprouts,
LG1891	2042	For you only, and not for him and her?
LG1891	2043	A man's body at auction,
LG1891	2044	(For before the war I often go to the slave-mart and watch the sale,)
LG1891	2045	I help the auctioneer, the sloven does not half know his business.
LG1891	2046	Gentlemen look on this wonder,
LG1891	2047	Whatever the bids of the bidders they cannot be high enough for it,
LG1891	2048	For it the globe lay preparing quintillions of years without one animal or plant,
LG1891	2049	For it the revolving cycles truly and steadily roll'd.
LG1891	2050	In this head the all-baffling brain,
LG1891	2051	In it and below it the makings of heroes.
LG1891	2052	Examine these limbs, red, black, or white, they are cunning in tendon and nerve,
LG1891	2053	They shall be stript that you may see them.
LG1891	2054	Exquisite senses, life-lit eyes, pluck, volition,
LG1891	2055	Flakes of breast-muscle, pliant backbone and neck, flesh not flabby, good-sized arms and legs,
LG1891	2056	And wonders within there yet.
LG1891	2057	Within there runs blood,
LG1891	2058	The same old blood! the same red-running blood!
LG1891	2059	There swells and jets a heart, there all passions, desires, reachings, aspirations,
LG1891	2060	(Do you think they are not there because they are not express'd in parlors and lecture-rooms?)
LG1891	2061	This is not only one man, this the father of those who shall be fathers in their turns,
LG1891	2062	In him the start of populous states and rich republics,
LG1891	2063	Of him countless immortal lives with countless embodiments and enjoyments.
LG1891	2064	How do you know who shall come from the offspring of his off-springoffspring through the centuries?
LG1891	2065	(Who might you find you have come from yourself, if you could trace back through the centuries?)
LG1891	2066	A woman's body at auction,
LG1891	2067	She too is not only herself, she is the teeming mother of mothers,
LG1891	2068	She is the bearer of them that shall grow and be mates to the mothers.
LG1891	2069	Have you ever loved the body of a woman?
LG1891	2070	Have you ever loved the body of a man?
LG1891	2071	Do you not see that these are exactly the same to all in all nations and times all over the earth?
LG1891	2072	If any thing is sacred the human body is sacred,
LG1891	2073	And the glory and sweet of a man is the token of manhood untainted,
LG1891	2074	And in man or woman a clean, strong, firm-fibred body, is more beautiful than the most beautiful face.
LG1891	2075	Have you seen the fool that corrupted his own live body? or the fool that corrupted her own live body?
LG1891	2076	For they do not conceal themselves, and cannot conceal themselves.
LG1891	2077	O my body! I dare not desert the likes of you in other men and women, nor the likes of the parts of you,
LG1891	2078	I believe the likes of you are to stand or fall with the likes of the soul, (and that they are the soul,)
LG1891	2079	I believe the likes of you shall stand or fall with my poems, and that they are my poems,
LG1891	2080	Man's, woman's, child's, youth's, wife's, husband's, mother's, father's, young man's, young woman's poems,
LG1891	2081	Head, neck, hair, ears, drop and tympan of the ears,
LG1891	2082	Eyes, eye-fringes, iris of the eye, eyebrows, and the waking or sleeping of the lids,
LG1891	2083	Mouth, tongue, lips, teeth, roof of the mouth, jaws, and the jaw-hingesjaw-hinges,
LG1891	2084	Nose, nostrils of the nose, and the partition,
LG1891	2085	Cheeks, temples, forehead, chin, throat, back of the neck, neck-slueneckslue,
LG1891	2086	Strong shoulders, manly beard, scapula, hind-shoulders, and the ample side-round of the chest,
LG1891	2087	Upper-arm, armpit, elbow-socket, lower-arm, arm-sinews, arm-bonesarm-bones,
LG1891	2088	Wrist and wrist-joints, hand, palm, knuckles, thumb, forefinger, finger-joints, finger-nails,
LG1891	2089	Broad breast-front, curling hair of the breast, breast-bone, breast-sidebreast-side,
LG1891	2090	Ribs, belly, backbone, joints of the backbone,
LG1891	2091	Hips, hip-sockets, hip-strength, inward and outward round, man-ballsman-balls, man-root,
LG1891	2092	Strong set of thighs, well carrying the trunk above,
LG1891	2093	Leg-fibres, knee, knee-pan, upper-leg, under-leg,
LG1891	2094	Ankles, instep, foot-ball, toes, toe-joints, the heel;
LG1891	2095	All attitudes, all the shapeliness, all the belongings of my or your body or of any one's body, male or female,
LG1891	2096	The lung-sponges, the stomach-sac, the bowels sweet and clean,
LG1891	2097	The brain in its folds inside the skull-frame,
LG1891	2098	Sympathies, heart-valves, palate-valves, sexuality, maternity,
LG1891	2099	Womanhood, and all that is a woman, and the man that comes from woman,
LG1891	2100	The womb, the teats, nipples, breast-milk, tears, laughter, weeping, love-looks, love-perturbations and risings,
LG1891	2101	The voice, articulation, language, whispering, shouting aloud,
LG1891	2102	Food, drink, pulse, digestion, sweat, sleep, walking, swimming,
LG1891	2103	Poise on the hips, leaping, reclining, embracing, arm-curving and tightening,
LG1891	2104	The continual changes of the flex of the mouth, and around the eyes,
LG1891	2105	The skin, the sunburnt shade, freckles, hair,
LG1891	2106	The curious sympathy one feels when feeling with the hand the naked meat of the body,
LG1891	2107	The circling rivers the breath, and breathing it in and out,
LG1891	2108	The beauty of the waist, and thence of the hips, and thence down-warddownward toward the knees,
LG1891	2109	The thin red jellies within you or within me, the bones and the marrow in the bones,
LG1891	2110	The exquisite realization of health;
LG1891	2111	O I say these are not the parts and poems of the body only, but of the soul,
LG1891	2112	O I say now these are the soul!
LG1891	2113	A WOMAN waits for me, she contains all, nothing is lacking,
LG1891	2114	Yet all were lacking if sex were lacking, or if the moisture of the right man were lacking.
LG1891	2115	Sex contains all, bodies, souls,
LG1891	2116	Meanings, proofs, purities, delicacies, results, promulgations,
LG1891	2117	Songs, commands, health, pride, the maternal mystery, the seminal milk,
LG1891	2118	All hopes, benefactions, bestowals, all the passions, loves, beauties,delights of the earth,
LG1891	2119	All the governments, judges, gods, follow'd persons of the earth,
LG1891	2120	These are contain'd in sex as parts of itself and justifications of itself.
LG1891	2121	Without shame the man I like knows and avows the deliciousness of his sex,
LG1891	2122	Without shame the woman I like knows and avows hers.
LG1891	2123	Now I will dismiss myself from impassive women,
LG1891	2124	I will go stay with her who waits for me, and with those women that are warm-blooded and sufficient for me,
LG1891	2125	I see that they understand me and do not deny me,
LG1891	2126	I see that they are worthy of me, I will be the robust husband of those women.
LG1891	2127	They are not one jot less than I am,
LG1891	2128	They are tann'd in the face by shining suns and blowing winds,
LG1891	2129	Their flesh has the old divine suppleness and strength,
LG1891	2130	They know how to swim, row, ride, wrestle, shoot, run, strike,retreat, advance, resist, defend themselves,
LG1891	2131	They are ultimate in their own right—they are calm, clear, well-possess'dwell-possess'd of themselves.
LG1891	2132	I draw you close to me, you women,
LG1891	2133	I cannot let you go, I would do you good,
LG1891	2134	I am for you, and you are for me, not only for our own sake, but for others' sakes,
LG1891	2135	Envelop'd in you sleep greater heroes and bards,
LG1891	2136	They refuse to awake at the touch of any man but me.
LG1891	2137	It is I, you women, I make my way,
LG1891	2138	I am stern, acrid, large, undissuadable, but I love you,
LG1891	2139	I do not hurt you any more than is necessary for you,
LG1891	2140	I pour the stuff to start sons and daughters fit for these States, I press with slow rude muscle,
LG1891	2141	I brace myself effectually, I listen to no entreaties,
LG1891	2142	I dare not withdraw till I deposit what has so long accumulated within me.
LG1891	2143	Through you I drain the pent-up rivers of myself,
LG1891	2144	In you I wrap a thousand onward years,
LG1891	2145	On you I graft the grafts of the best-beloved of me and America,
LG1891	2146	The drops I distil upon you shall grow fierce and athletic girls,new artists, musicians, and singers,
LG1891	2147	The babes I beget upon you are to beget babes in their turn,
LG1891	2148	I shall demand perfect men and women out of my love-spendings,
LG1891	2149	I shall expect them to interpenetrate with others, as I and you interpenetrate now,
LG1891	2150	I shall count on the fruits of the gushing showers of them, as I count on the fruits of the gushing showers I give now,
LG1891	2151	I shall look for loving crops from the birth, life, death, immortality,I plant so lovingly now.
LG1891	2152	SPONTANEOUS me, Nature,
LG1891	2153	The loving day, the mounting sun, the friend I am happy with,
LG1891	2154	The arm of my friend hanging idly over my shoulder,
LG1891	2155	The hillside whiten'd with blossoms of the mountain ash,
LG1891	2156	The same late in autumn, the hues of red, yellow, drab, purple,and light and dark green,
LG1891	2157	The rich coverlet of the grass, animals and birds, the private untrimm'd bank, the primitive apples, the pebble-stones,
LG1891	2158	Beautiful dripping fragments, the negligent list of one after an-otheranother as I happen to call them to me or think of them,
LG1891	2159	The real poems, (what we call poems being merely pictures,)
LG1891	2160	The poems of the privacy of the night, and of men like me,
LG1891	2161	This poem drooping shy and unseen that I always carry, and that all men carry,
LG1891	2162	(Know once for all, avow'd on purpose, wherever are men like me, are our lusty lurking masculine poems,)
LG1891	2163	Love-thoughts, love-juice, love-odor, love-yielding, love-climbers,and the climbing sap,
LG1891	2164	Arms and hands of love, lips of love, phallic thumb of love, breasts of love, bellies press'd and glued together with love,
LG1891	2165	Earth of chaste love, life that is only life after love,
LG1891	2166	The body of my love, the body of the woman I love, the body of the man, the body of the earth,
LG1891	2167	Soft forenoon airs that blow from the south-west,
LG1891	2168	The hairy wild-bee that murmurs and hankers up and down, that gripes the full-grown lady-flower, curves upon her with amorous firm legs, takes his will of her, and holds himself tremulous and tight till he is satisfied;
LG1891	2169	The wet of woods through the early hours,
LG1891	2170	Two sleepers at night lying close together as they sleep, one with an arm slanting down across and below the waist of the other,
LG1891	2171	The smell of apples, aromas from crush'd sage-plant, mint, birch-barkbirchbark,
LG1891	2172	The boy's longings, the glow and pressure as he confides to me what he was dreaming,
LG1891	2173	The dead leaf whirling its spiral whirl and falling still and content to the ground,
LG1891	2174	The no-form'd stings that sights, people, objects, sting me with,
LG1891	2175	The hubb'd sting of myself, stinging me as much as it ever can any one,
LG1891	2176	The sensitive, orbic, underlapp'd brothers, that only privileged feelers may be intimate where they are,
LG1891	2177	The curious roamer the hand roaming all over the body, the bashful withdrawing of flesh where the fingers soothingly pause and edge themselves,
LG1891	2178	The limpid liquid within the young man,
LG1891	2179	The vex'd corrosion so pensive and so painful,
LG1891	2180	The torment, the irritable tide that will not be at rest,
LG1891	2181	The like of the same I feel, the like of the same in others,
LG1891	2182	The young man that flushes and flushes, and the young woman that flushes and flushes,
LG1891	2183	The young man that wakes deep at night, the hot hand seeking to repress what would master him,
LG1891	2184	The mystic amorous night, the strange half-welcome pangs, visions,sweats,
LG1891	2185	The pulse pounding through palms and trembling encircling fingers, the young man all color'd, red, ashamed, angry;
LG1891	2186	The souse upon me of my lover the sea, as I lie willing and naked,
LG1891	2187	The merriment of the twin babes that crawl over the grass in the sun, the mother never turning her vigilant eyes from them,
LG1891	2188	The walnut-trunk, the walnut-husks, and the ripening or ripen'd long-round walnuts,
LG1891	2189	The continence of vegetables, birds, animals,
LG1891	2190	The consequent meanness of me should I skulk or find myself indecent, while birds and animals never once skulk or find themselves indecent,
LG1891	2191	The great chastity of paternity, to match the great chastity of maternity,
LG1891	2192	The oath of procreation I have sworn, my Adamic and fresh daughters,
LG1891	2193	The greed that eats me day and night with hungry gnaw, till I saturate what shall produce boys to fill my place when I am through,
LG1891	2194	The wholesome relief, repose, content,
LG1891	2195	And this bunch pluck'd at random from myself,
LG1891	2196	It has done its work—I toss it carelessly to fall where it may.
LG1891	2197	ONE hour to madness and joy! O furious! O confine me not!
LG1891	2198	(What is this that frees me so in storms?
LG1891	2199	What do my shouts amid lightnings and raging winds mean?)
LG1891	2200	O to drink the mystic deliria deeper than any other man!
LG1891	2201	O savage and tender achings! (I bequeath them to you my children,
LG1891	2202	I tell them to you, for reasons, O bridegroom and bride.)
LG1891	2203	O to be yielded to you whoever you are, and you to be yielded to me in defiance of the world!
LG1891	2204	O to return to Paradise! O bashful and feminine!
LG1891	2205	O to draw you to me, to plant on you for the first time the lips of a determin'd man.
LG1891	2206	O the puzzle, the thrice-tied knot, the deep and dark pool, all untied and illumin'd!
LG1891	2207	O to speed where there is space enough and air enough at last!
LG1891	2208	To be absolv'd from previous ties and conventions, I from mine and you from yours!
LG1891	2209	To find a new unthought-of nonchalance with the best of Nature!
LG1891	2210	To have the gag remov'd from one's mouth!
LG1891	2211	To have the feeling to-day or any day I am sufficient as I am.
LG1891	2212	O something unprov'd! something in a trance!
LG1891	2213	To escape utterly from others' anchors and holds!
LG1891	2214	To drive free! to love free! to dash reckless and dangerous!
LG1891	2215	To court destruction with taunts, with invitations!
LG1891	2216	To ascend, to leap to the heavens of the love indicated to me!
LG1891	2217	To rise thither with my inebriate soul!
LG1891	2218	To be lost if it must be so!
LG1891	2219	To feed the remainder of life with one hour of fulness and freedom!
LG1891	2220	With one brief hour of madness and joy.
LG1891	2221	OUT of the rolling ocean the crowd came a drop gently to me,
LG1891	2222	Whispering I love you, before long I die,
LG1891	2223	I have travel'd a long way merely to look on you to touch you,
LG1891	2224	For I could not die till I once look'd on you,
LG1891	2225	For I fear'd I might afterward lose you.
LG1891	2226	Now we have met, we have look'd, we are safe,
LG1891	2227	Return in peace to the ocean my love,
LG1891	2228	I too am part of that ocean my love, we are not so much sepa-ratedseparated,
LG1891	2229	Behold the great rondure, the cohesion of all, how perfect!
LG1891	2230	But as for me, for you, the irresistible sea is to separate us,
LG1891	2231	As for an hour carrying us diverse, yet cannot carry us diverse for-everforever;
LG1891	2232	Be not impatient—a little space—know you I salute the air, the ocean and the land,
LG1891	2233	Every day at sundown for your dear sake my love.
LG1891	2234	AGES and ages returning at intervals,
LG1891	2235	Undestroy'd, wandering immortal,
LG1891	2236	Lusty, phallic, with the potent original loins, perfectly sweet,
LG1891	2237	I, chanter of Adamic songs,
LG1891	2238	Through the new garden the West, the great cities calling,
LG1891	2239	Deliriate, thus prelude what is generated, offering these, offering myself,
LG1891	2240	Bathing myself, bathing my songs in Sex,
LG1891	2241	Offspring of my loins.
LG1891	2242	WE two, how long we were fool'd,
LG1891	2243	Now transmuted, we swiftly escape as Nature escapes,
LG1891	2244	We are Nature, long have we been absent, but now we return,
LG1891	2245	We become plants, trunks, foliage, roots, bark,
LG1891	2246	We are bedded in the ground, we are rocks,
LG1891	2247	We are oaks, we grow in the openings side by side,
LG1891	2248	We browse, we are two among the wild herds spontaneous as any,
LG1891	2249	We are two fishes swimming in the sea together,
LG1891	2250	We are what locust blossoms are, we drop scent around lanes mornings and evenings,
LG1891	2251	We are also the coarse smut of beasts, vegetables, minerals,
LG1891	2252	We are two predatory hawks, we soar above and look down,
LG1891	2253	We are two resplendent suns, we it is who balance ourselves orbic and stellar, we are as two comets,
LG1891	2254	We prowl fang'd and four-footed in the woods, we spring on prey,
LG1891	2255	We are two clouds forenoons and afternoons driving overhead,
LG1891	2256	We are seas mingling, we are two of those cheerful waves rolling over each other and interwetting each other,
LG1891	2257	We are what the atmosphere is, transparent, receptive, pervious,impervious,
LG1891	2258	We are snow, rain, cold, darkness, we are each product and influence of the globe,
LG1891	2259	We have circled and circled till we have arrived home again, we two,
LG1891	2260	We have voided all but freedom and all but our own joy.
LG1891	2261	O HYMEN! O hymenee! why do you tantalize me thus?
LG1891	2262	O why sting me for a swift moment only?
LG1891	2263	Why can you not continue? O why do you now cease?
LG1891	2264	Is it because if you continued beyond the swift moment you would soon certainly kill me?
LG1891	2265	I AM he that aches with amorous love;
LG1891	2266	Does the earth gravitate? does not all matter, aching, attract all matter?
LG1891	2267	So the body of me to all I meet or know.
LG1891	2268	NATIVE moments—when you come upon me—ah you are here now,
LG1891	2269	Give me now libidinous joys only,
LG1891	2270	Give me the drench of my passions, give me life coarse and rank,
LG1891	2271	To-day I go consort with Nature's darlings, to-night too,
LG1891	2272	I am for those who believe in loose delights, I share the midnight orgies of young men,
LG1891	2273	I dance with the dancers and drink with the drinkers,
LG1891	2274	The echoes ring with our indecent calls, I pick out some low person for my dearest friend,
LG1891	2275	He shall be lawless, rude, illiterate, he shall be one condemn'd by others for deeds done,
LG1891	2276	I will play a part no longer, why should I exile myself from my companions?
LG1891	2277	O you shunn'd persons, I at least do not shun you,
LG1891	2278	I come forthwith in your midst, I will be your poet,
LG1891	2279	I will be more to you than to any of the rest.
LG1891	2280	ONCE I pass'd through a populous city imprinting my brain for future use with its shows, architecture, customs, traditions,
LG1891	2281	Yet now of all that city I remember only a woman I casually met there who detain'd me for love of me,
LG1891	2282	Day by day and night by night we were together—all else has long been forgotten by me,
LG1891	2283	I remember I say only that woman who passionately clung to me,
LG1891	2284	Again we wander, we love, we separate again,
LG1891	2285	Again she holds me by the hand, I must not go,
LG1891	2286	I see her close beside me with silent lips sad and tremulous.
LG1891	2287	I HEARD you solemn-sweet pipes of the organ as last Sunday morn I pass'd the church,
LG1891	2288	Winds of autumn, as I walk'd the woods at dusk I heard your long-stretch'd sighs up above so mournful,
LG1891	2289	I heard the perfect Italian tenor singing at the opera, I heard the soprano in the midst of the quartet singing;
LG1891	2290	Heart of my love! you too I heard murmuring low through one of the wrists around my head,
LG1891	2291	Heard the pulse of you when all was still ringing little bells last night under my ear.
LG1891	2292	FACING west from California's shores,
LG1891	2293	Inquiring, tireless, seeking what is yet unfound,
LG1891	2294	I, a child, very old, over waves, towards the house of maternity,the land of migrations, look afar,
LG1891	2295	Look off the shores of my Western sea, the circle almost circled;
LG1891	2296	For starting westward from Hindustan, from the vales of Kash-mereKashmere,
LG1891	2297	From Asia, from the north, from the God, the sage, and the hero,
LG1891	2298	From the south, from the flowery peninsulas and the spice islands,
LG1891	2299	Long having wander'd since, round the earth having wander'd,
LG1891	2300	Now I face home again, very pleas'd and joyous,
LG1891	2301	(But where is what I started for so long ago?
LG1891	2302	And why is it yet unfound?)
LG1891	2303	AS Adam early in the morning,
LG1891	2304	Walking forth from the bower refresh'd with sleep,
LG1891	2305	Behold me where I pass, hear my voice, approach,
LG1891	2306	Touch me, touch the palm of your hand to my body as I pass,
LG1891	2307	Be not afraid of my body.
LG1891	2308	IN paths untrodden,
LG1891	2309	In the growth by margins of pond-waters,
LG1891	2310	Escaped from the life that exhibits itself,
LG1891	2311	From all the standards hitherto publish'd, from the pleasures,profits, conformities,
LG1891	2312	Which too long I was offering to feed my soul,
LG1891	2313	Clear to me now standards not yet publish'd, clear to me that my soul,
LG1891	2314	That the soul of the man I speak for rejoices in comrades,
LG1891	2315	Here by myself away from the clank of the world,
LG1891	2316	Tallying and talk'd to here by tongues aromatic,
LG1891	2317	No longer abash'd, (for in this secluded spot I can respond as I would not dare elsewhere,)
LG1891	2318	Strong upon me the life that does not exhibit itself, yet contains all the rest,
LG1891	2319	Resolv'd to sing no songs to-day but those of manly attachment,
LG1891	2320	Projecting them along that substantial life,
LG1891	2321	Bequeathing hence types of athletic love,
LG1891	2322	Afternoon this delicious Ninth-month in my forty-first year,
LG1891	2323	I proceed for all who are or have been young men,
LG1891	2324	To tell the secret of my nights and days,
LG1891	2325	To celebrate the need of comrades.
LG1891	2326	SCENTED herbage of my breast,
LG1891	2327	Leaves from you I glean, I write, to be perused best afterwards,
LG1891	2328	Tomb-leaves, body-leaves growing up above me above death,
LG1891	2329	Perennial roots, tall leaves, O the winter shall not freeze you delicate leaves,
LG1891	2330	Every year shall you bloom again, out from where you retired you shall emerge again;
LG1891	2331	O I do not know whether many passing by will discover you or inhale your faint odor, but I believe a few will;
LG1891	2332	O slender leaves! O blossoms of my blood! I permit you to tell in your own way of the heart that is under you,
LG1891	2333	O I do not know what you mean there underneath yourselves, you are not happiness,
LG1891	2334	You are often more bitter than I can bear, you burn and sting me,
LG1891	2335	Yet you are beautiful to me you faint tinged roots, you make me think of death,
LG1891	2336	Death is beautiful from you, (what indeed is finally beautiful except death and love?)
LG1891	2337	O I think it is not for life I am chanting here my chant of lovers,I think it must be for death,
LG1891	2338	For how calm, how solemn it grows to ascend to the atmosphere of lovers,
LG1891	2339	Death or life I am then indifferent, my soul declines to prefer,
LG1891	2340	(I am not sure but the high soul of lovers welcomes death most,)
LG1891	2341	Indeed O death, I think now these leaves mean precisely the same as you mean,
LG1891	2342	Grow up taller sweet leaves that I may see! grow up out of my breast!
LG1891	2343	Spring away from the conceal'd heart there!
LG1891	2344	Do not fold yourself so in your pink-tinged roots timid leaves!
LG1891	2345	Do not remain down there so ashamed, herbage of my breast!
LG1891	2346	Come I am determin'd to unbare this broad breast of mine, I have long enough stifled and choked;
LG1891	2347	Emblematic and capricious blades I leave you, now you serve me not,
LG1891	2348	I will say what I have to say by itself,
LG1891	2349	I will sound myself and comrades only, I will never again utter a call only their call,
LG1891	2350	I will raise with it immortal reverberations through the States,
LG1891	2351	I will give an example to lovers to take permanent shape and will through the States,
LG1891	2352	Through me shall the words be said to make death exhilarating,
LG1891	2353	Give me your tone therefore O death, that I may accord with it,
LG1891	2354	Give me yourself, for I see that you belong to me now above all,and are folded inseparably together, you love and death are,
LG1891	2355	Nor will I allow you to balk me any more with what I was calling life,
LG1891	2356	For now it is convey'd to me that you are the purports essential,
LG1891	2357	That you hide in these shifting forms of life, for reasons, and that they are mainly for you,
LG1891	2358	That you beyond them come forth to remain, the real reality,
LG1891	2359	That behind the mask of materials you patiently wait, no matter how long,
LG1891	2360	That you will one day perhaps take control of all,
LG1891	2361	That you will perhaps dissipate this entire show of appearance,
LG1891	2362	That may-be you are what it is all for, but it does not last so very long,
LG1891	2363	But you will last very long.
LG1891	2364	WHOEVER you are holding me now in hand,
LG1891	2365	Without one thing all will be useless,
LG1891	2366	I give you fair warning before you attempt me further,
LG1891	2367	I am not what you supposed, but far different.
LG1891	2368	Who is he that would become my follower?
LG1891	2369	Who would sign himself a candidate for my affections?
LG1891	2370	The way is suspicious, the result uncertain, perhaps destructive,
LG1891	2371	You would have to give up all else, I alone would expect to be your sole and exclusive standard,
LG1891	2372	Your novitiate would even then be long and exhausting,
LG1891	2373	The whole past theory of your life and all conformity to the lives around you would have to be abandon'd,
LG1891	2374	Therefore release me now before troubling yourself any further, let go your hand from my shoulders,
LG1891	2375	Put me down and depart on your way.
LG1891	2376	Or else by stealth in some wood for trial,
LG1891	2377	Or back of a rock in the open air,
LG1891	2378	(For in any roof'd room of a house I emerge not, nor in com-panycompany,
LG1891	2379	And in libraries I lie as one dumb, a gawk, or unborn, or dead,)
LG1891	2380	But just possibly with you on a high hill, first watching lest any person for miles around approach unawares,
LG1891	2381	Or possibly with you sailing at sea, or on the beach of the sea or some quiet island,
LG1891	2382	Here to put your lips upon mine I permit you,
LG1891	2383	With the comrade's long-dwelling kiss or the new husband's kiss,
LG1891	2384	For I am the new husband and I am the comrade.
LG1891	2385	Or if you will, thrusting me beneath your clothing,
LG1891	2386	Where I may feel the throbs of your heart or rest upon your hip,
LG1891	2387	Carry me when you go forth over land or sea;
LG1891	2388	For thus merely touching you is enough, is best,
LG1891	2389	And thus touching you would I silently sleep and be carried eternally.
LG1891	2390	But these leaves conning you con at peril,
LG1891	2391	For these leaves and me you will not understand,
LG1891	2392	They will elude you at first and still more afterward, I will certainly elude you,
LG1891	2393	Even while you should think you had unquestionably caught me, behold!
LG1891	2394	Already you see I have escaped from you.
LG1891	2395	For it is not for what I have put into it that I have written this book,
LG1891	2396	Nor is it by reading it you will acquire it,
LG1891	2397	Nor do those know me best who admire me and vauntingly praise me,
LG1891	2398	Nor will the candidates for my love (unless at most a very few)prove victorious,
LG1891	2399	Nor will my poems do good only, they will do just as much evil,perhaps more,
LG1891	2400	For all is useless without that which you may guess at many times and not hit, that which I hinted at;
LG1891	2401	Therefore release me and depart on your way.
LG1891	2402	COME, I will make the continent indissoluble,
LG1891	2403	I will make the most splendid race the sun ever shone upon,
LG1891	2404	I will make divine magnetic lands,With the love of comrades,With the life-long love of comrades.
LG1891	2405	I will plant companionship thick as trees along all the rivers of America, and along the shores of the great lakes, and all over the prairies,
LG1891	2406	I will make inseparable cities with their arms about each other's necks,By the love of comrades,By the manly love of comrades.
LG1891	2407	For you these from me, O Democracy, to serve you ma femme!
LG1891	2408	For you, for you I am trilling these songs.
LG1891	2409	THESE I singing in spring collect for lovers,
LG1891	2410	(For who but I should understand lovers and all their sorrow and joy?
LG1891	2411	And who but I should be the poet of comrades?)
LG1891	2412	Collecting I traverse the garden the world, but soon I pass the gates,
LG1891	2413	Now along the pond-side, now wading in a little, fearing not the wet,
LG1891	2414	Now by the post-and-rail fences where the old stones thrown there,pick'd from the fields, have accumulated,
LG1891	2415	(Wild-flowers and vines and weeds come up through the stones and partly cover them, beyond these I pass,)
LG1891	2416	Far, far in the forest, or sauntering later in summer, before I think where I go,
LG1891	2417	Solitary, smelling the earthy smell, stopping now and then in the silence,
LG1891	2418	Alone I had thought, yet soon a troop gathers around me,
LG1891	2419	Some walk by my side and some behind, and some embrace my arms or neck,
LG1891	2420	They the spirits of dear friends dead or alive, thicker they come,a great crowd, and I in the middle,
LG1891	2421	Collecting, dispensing, singing, there I wander with them,
LG1891	2422	Plucking something for tokens, tossing toward whoever is near me,
LG1891	2423	Here, lilac, with a branch of pine,
LG1891	2424	Here, out of my pocket, some moss which I pull'd off a live-oak in Florida as it hung trailing down,
LG1891	2425	Here, some pinks and laurel leaves, and a handful of sage,
LG1891	2426	And here what I now draw from the water, wading in the pond-sidepondside,
LG1891	2427	(O here I last saw him that tenderly loves me, and returns again never to separate from me,
LG1891	2428	And this, O this shall henceforth be the token of comrades, this calamus-root shall,
LG1891	2429	Interchange it youths with each other! let none render it back!)
LG1891	2430	And twigs of maple and a bunch of wild orange and chestnut,
LG1891	2431	And stems of currants and plum-blows, and the aromatic cedar,
LG1891	2432	These I compass'd around by a thick cloud of spirits,
LG1891	2433	Wandering, point to or touch as I pass, or throw them loosely from me,
LG1891	2434	Indicating to each one what he shall have, giving something to each;
LG1891	2435	But what I drew from the water by the pond-side, that I reserve,
LG1891	2436	I will give of it, but only to them that love as I myself am capable of loving.
LG1891	2437	NOT heaving from my ribb'd breast only,
LG1891	2438	Not in sighs at night in rage dissatisfied with myself,
LG1891	2439	Not in those long-drawn, ill-supprest sighs,
LG1891	2440	Not in many an oath and promise broken,
LG1891	2441	Not in my wilful and savage soul's volition,
LG1891	2442	Not in the subtle nourishment of the air,
LG1891	2443	Not in this beating and pounding at my temples and wrists,
LG1891	2444	Not in the curious systole and diastole within which will one day cease,
LG1891	2445	Not in many a hungry wish told to the skies only,
LG1891	2446	Not in cries, laughter, defiances, thrown from me when alone far in the wilds,
LG1891	2447	Not in husky pantings through clinch'd teeth,
LG1891	2448	Not in sounded and resounded words, chattering words, echoes,dead words,
LG1891	2449	Not in the murmurs of my dreams while I sleep,
LG1891	2450	Nor the other murmurs of these incredible dreams of every day,
LG1891	2451	Nor in the limbs and senses of my body that take you and dismiss you continually—not there,
LG1891	2452	Not in any or all of them O adhesiveness! O pulse of my life!
LG1891	2453	Need I that you exist and show yourself any more than in these songs.
LG1891	2454	OF the terrible doubt of appearances,
LG1891	2455	Of the uncertainty after all, that we may be deluded,
LG1891	2456	That may-be reliance and hope are but speculations after all,
LG1891	2457	That may-be identity beyond the grave is a beautiful fable only,
LG1891	2458	May-be the things I perceive, the animals, plants, men, hills,shining and flowing waters,
LG1891	2459	The skies of day and night, colors, densities, forms, may-be these are (as doubtless they are) only apparitions, and the real something has yet to be known,
LG1891	2460	(How often they dart out of themselves as if to confound me and mock me!
LG1891	2461	How often I think neither I know, nor any man knows, aught of them,)
LG1891	2462	May-be seeming to me what they are (as doubtless they indeed but seem) as from my present point of view, and might prove (as of course they would) nought of what they appear, or nought anyhow, from entirely changed points of view;
LG1891	2463	To me these and the like of these are curiously answer'd by my lovers, my dear friends,
LG1891	2464	When he whom I love travels with me or sits a long while holding me by the hand,
LG1891	2465	When the subtle air, the impalpable, the sense that words and reason hold not, surround us and pervade us,
LG1891	2466	Then I am charged with untold and untellable wisdom, I am silent, I require nothing further,
LG1891	2467	I cannot answer the question of appearances or that of identity beyond the grave,
LG1891	2468	But I walk or sit indifferent, I am satisfied,
LG1891	2469	He ahold of my hand has completely satisfied me.
LG1891	2470	AND now gentlemen,
LG1891	2471	A word I give to remain in your memories and minds,
LG1891	2472	As base and finalè too for all metaphysics.
LG1891	2473	(So to the students the old professor,
LG1891	2474	At the close of his crowded course.)
LG1891	2475	Having studied the new and antique, the Greek and Germanic systems,
LG1891	2476	Kant having studied and stated, Fichte and Schelling and Hegel,
LG1891	2477	Stated the lore of Plato, and Socrates greater than Plato,
LG1891	2478	And greater than Socrates sought and stated, Christ divine having studied long,
LG1891	2479	I see reminiscent to-day those Greek and Germanic systems,
LG1891	2480	See the philosophies all, Christian churches and tenets see,
LG1891	2481	Yet underneath Socrates clearly see, and underneath Christ the divine I see,
LG1891	2482	The dear love of man for his comrade, the attraction of friend to friend,
LG1891	2483	Of the well-married husband and wife, of children and parents,
LG1891	2484	Of city for city and land for land.
LG1891	2485	RECORDERS ages hence,
LG1891	2486	Come, I will take you down underneath this impassive exterior, I will tell you what to say of me,
LG1891	2487	Publish my name and hang up my picture as that of the tenderest lover,
LG1891	2488	The friend the lover's portrait, of whom his friend his lover was fondest,
LG1891	2489	Who was not proud of his songs, but of the measureless ocean of love within him, and freely pour'd it forth,
LG1891	2490	Who often walk'd lonesome walks thinking of his dear friends, his lovers,
LG1891	2491	Who pensive away from one he lov'd often lay sleepless and dissat-isfieddissatisfied at night,
LG1891	2492	Who knew too well the sick, sick dread lest the one he lov'd might secretly be indifferent to him,
LG1891	2493	Whose happiest days were far away through fields, in woods, on hills, he and another wandering hand in hand, they twain apart from other men,
LG1891	2494	Who oft as he saunter'd the streets curv'd with his arm the shoul-dershoulder of his friend, while the arm of his friend rested upon him also.
LG1891	2495	WHEN I heard at the close of the day how my name had been receiv'd with plaudits in the capitol, still it was not a happy night for me that follow'd,
LG1891	2496	And else when I carous'd, or when my plans were accomplish'd,still I was not happy,
LG1891	2497	But the day when I rose at dawn from the bed of perfect health,refresh'd, singing, inhaling the ripe breath of autumn,
LG1891	2498	When I saw the full moon in the west grow pale and disappear in the morning light,
LG1891	2499	When I wander'd alone over the beach, and undressing bathed,laughing with the cool waters, and saw the sun rise,
LG1891	2500	And when I thought how my dear friend my lover was on his way coming, O then I was happy,
LG1891	2501	O then each breath tasted sweeter, and all that day my food nourish'd me more, and the beautiful day pass'd well,
LG1891	2502	And the next came with equal joy, and with the next at evening came my friend,
LG1891	2503	And that night while all was still I heard the waters roll slowly continually up the shores,
LG1891	2504	I heard the hissing rustle of the liquid and sands as directed to me whispering to congratulate me,
LG1891	2505	For the one I love most lay sleeping by me under the same cover in the cool night,
LG1891	2506	In the stillness in the autumn moonbeams his face was inclined toward me,
LG1891	2507	And his arm lay lightly around my breast—and that night I was happy.
LG1891	2508	ARE you the new person drawn toward me?
LG1891	2509	To begin with take warning, I am surely far different from what you suppose;
LG1891	2510	Do you suppose you will find in me your ideal?
LG1891	2511	Do you think it so easy to have me become your lover?
LG1891	2512	Do you think the friendship of me would be unalloy'd satisfaction?
LG1891	2513	Do you think I am trusty and faithful?
LG1891	2514	Do you see no further than this façade, this smooth and tolerant manner of me?
LG1891	2515	Do you suppose yourself advancing on real ground toward a real heroic man?
LG1891	2516	Have you no thought O dreamer that it may be all maya, illusion?
LG1891	2517	ROOTS and leaves themselves alone are these,
LG1891	2518	Scents brought to men and women from the wild woods and pond-side,
LG1891	2519	Breast-sorrel and pinks of love, fingers that wind around tighter than vines,
LG1891	2520	Gushes from the throats of birds hid in the foliage of trees as the sun is risen,
LG1891	2521	Breezes of land and love set from living shores to you on the living sea, to you O sailors!
LG1891	2522	Frost-mellow'd berries and Third-month twigs offer'd fresh to young persons wandering out in the fields when the winter breaks up,
LG1891	2523	Love-buds put before you and within you whoever you are,
LG1891	2524	Buds to be unfolded on the old terms,
LG1891	2525	If you bring the warmth of the sun to them they will open and bring form, color, perfume, to you,
LG1891	2526	If you become the aliment and the wet they will become flowers,fruits, tall branches and trees.
LG1891	2527	NOT heat flames up and consumes,
LG1891	2528	Not sea-waves hurry in and out,
LG1891	2529	Not the air delicious and dry, the air of ripe summer, bears lightly along white down-balls of myriads of seeds,
LG1891	2530	Wafted, sailing gracefully, to drop where they may;
LG1891	2531	Not these, O none of these more than the flames of me, consum-ingconsuming, burning for his love whom I love,
LG1891	2532	O none more than I hurrying in and out;
LG1891	2533	Does the tide hurry, seeking something, and never give up? O I the same,
LG1891	2534	O nor down-balls nor perfumes, nor the high rain-emitting clouds,are borne through the open air,
LG1891	2535	Any more than my soul is borne through the open air,
LG1891	2536	Wafted in all directions O love, for friendship, for you.
LG1891	2537	TRICKLE drops! my blue veins leaving!
LG1891	2538	O drops of me! trickle, slow drops,
LG1891	2539	Candid from me falling, drip, bleeding drops,
LG1891	2540	From wounds made to free you whence you were prison'd,
LG1891	2541	From my face, from my forehead and lips,
LG1891	2542	From my breast, from within where I was conceal'd, press forth red drops, confession drops,
LG1891	2543	Stain every page, stain every song I sing, every word I say, bloody drops,
LG1891	2544	Let them know your scarlet heat, let them glisten,
LG1891	2545	Saturate them with yourself all ashamed and wet,
LG1891	2546	Glow upon all I have written or shall write, bleeding drops,
LG1891	2547	Let it all be seen in your light, blushing drops.
LG1891	2548	CITY of orgies, walks and joys,
LG1891	2549	City whom that I have lived and sung in your midst will one day make you illustrious,
LG1891	2550	Not the pageants of you, not your shifting tableaus, your specta-clesspectacles, repay me,
LG1891	2551	Not the interminable rows of your houses, nor the ships at the wharves,
LG1891	2552	Nor the processions in the streets, nor the bright windows with goods in them,
LG1891	2553	Nor to converse with learn'd persons, or bear my share in the soiree or feast;
LG1891	2554	Not those, but as I pass O Manhattan, your frequent and swift flash of eyes offering me love,
LG1891	2555	Offering response to my own—these repay me,
LG1891	2556	Lovers, continual lovers, only repay me.
LG1891	2557	BEHOLD this swarthy face, these gray eyes,
LG1891	2558	This beard, the white wool unclipt upon my neck,
LG1891	2559	My brown hands and the silent manner of me without charm;
LG1891	2560	Yet comes one a Manhattanese and ever at parting kisses me lightly on the lips with robust love,
LG1891	2561	And I on the crossing of the street or on the ship's deck give a kiss in return,
LG1891	2562	We observe that salute of American comrades land and sea,
LG1891	2563	We are those two natural and nonchalant persons.
LG1891	2564	I SAW in Louisiana a live-oak growing,
LG1891	2565	All alone stood it and the moss hung down from the branches,
LG1891	2566	Without any companion it grew there uttering joyous leaves of dark green,
LG1891	2567	And its look, rude, unbending, lusty, made me think of myself,
LG1891	2568	But I wonder'd how it could utter joyous leaves standing alone there without its friend near, for I knew I could not,
LG1891	2569	And I broke off a twig with a certain number of leaves upon it,and twined around it a little moss,
LG1891	2570	And brought it away, and I have placed it in sight in my room,
LG1891	2571	It is not needed to remind me as of my own dear friends,
LG1891	2572	(For I believe lately I think of little else than of them,)
LG1891	2573	Yet it remains to me a curious token, it makes me think of manly love;
LG1891	2574	For all that, and though the live-oak glistens there in Louisiana solitary in a wide flat space,
LG1891	2575	Uttering joyous leaves all its life without a friend a lover near,
LG1891	2576	I know very well I could not.
LG1891	2577	PASSING stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you,
LG1891	2578	You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking, (it comes to me as of a dream,)
LG1891	2579	I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you,
LG1891	2580	All is recall'd as we flit by each other, fluid, affectionate, chaste,matured,
LG1891	2581	You grew up with me, were a boy with me or a girl with me,
LG1891	2582	I ate with you and slept with you, your body has become not yours only nor left my body mine only,
LG1891	2583	You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as we pass, you take of my beard, breast, hands, in return,
LG1891	2584	I am not to speak to you, I am to think of you when I sit alone or wake at night alone,
LG1891	2585	I am to wait, I do not doubt I am to meet you again,
LG1891	2586	I am to see to it that I do not lose you.
LG1891	2587	THIS moment yearning and thoughtful sitting alone,
LG1891	2588	It seems to me there are other men in other lands yearning and thoughtful,
LG1891	2589	It seems to me I can look over and behold them in Germany,Italy, France, Spain,
LG1891	2590	Or far, far away, in China, or in Russia or Japan, talking other dialects,
LG1891	2591	And it seems to me if I could know those men I should become attached to them as I do to men in my own lands,
LG1891	2592	O I know we should be brethren and lovers,
LG1891	2593	I know I should be happy with them.
LG1891	2594	I HEAR it was charged against me that I sought to destroy institu-tionsinstitutions,
LG1891	2595	But really I am neither for nor against institutions,
LG1891	2596	(What indeed have I in common with them? or what with the destruction of them?)
LG1891	2597	Only I will establish in the Mannahatta and in every city of these States inland and seaboard,
LG1891	2598	And in the fields and woods, and above every keel little or large that dents the water,
LG1891	2599	Without edifices or rules or trustees or any argument,
LG1891	2600	The institution of the dear love of comrades.
LG1891	2601	THE prairie-grass dividing, its special odor breathing,
LG1891	2602	I demand of it the spiritual corresponding,
LG1891	2603	Demand the most copious and close companionship of men,
LG1891	2604	Demand the blades to rise of words, acts, beings,
LG1891	2605	Those of the open atmosphere, coarse, sunlit, fresh, nutritious,
LG1891	2606	Those that go their own gait, erect, stepping with freedom and command, leading not following,
LG1891	2607	Those with a never-quell'd audacity, those with sweet and lusty flesh clear of taint,
LG1891	2608	Those that look carelessly in the faces of Presidents and governors,as to say Who are you?
LG1891	2609	Those of earth-born passion, simple, never constrain'd, never obedient,
LG1891	2610	Those of inland America.
LG1891	2611	WHEN I peruse the conquer'd fame of heroes and the victories of mighty generals, I do not envy the generals,
LG1891	2612	Nor the President in his Presidency, nor the rich in his great house,
LG1891	2613	But when I hear of the brotherhood of lovers, how it was with them,
LG1891	2614	How together through life, through dangers, odium, unchanging, long and long,
LG1891	2615	Through youth and through middle and old age, how unfaltering, how affectionate and faithful they were,
LG1891	2616	Then I am pensive—I hastily walk away fill'd with the bitterest envy.
LG1891	2617	WE two boys together clinging,
LG1891	2618	One the other never leaving,
LG1891	2619	Up and down the roads going, North and South excursions making,
LG1891	2620	Power enjoying, elbows stretching, fingers clutching,
LG1891	2621	Arm'd and fearless, eating, drinking, sleeping, loving,
LG1891	2622	No law less than ourselves owning, sailing, soldiering, thieving,threatening,
LG1891	2623	Misers, menials, priests alarming, air breathing, water drinking, on the turf or the sea-beach dancing,
LG1891	2624	Cities wrenching, ease scorning, statutes mocking, feebleness chas-ingchasing,
LG1891	2625	Fulfilling our foray.
LG1891	2626	A PROMISE to California,
LG1891	2627	Or inland to the great pastoral Plains, and on to Puget sound and Oregon;
LG1891	2628	Sojourning east a while longer, soon I travel toward you, to remain,to teach robust American love,
LG1891	2629	For I know very well that I and robust love belong among you,inland, and along the Western sea;
LG1891	2630	For these States tend inland and toward the Western sea, and I will also.
LG1891	2631	HERE the frailest leaves of me and yet my strongest lasting,
LG1891	2632	Here I shade and hide my thoughts, I myself do not expose them,
LG1891	2633	And yet they expose me more than all my other poems.
LG1891	2634	NO labor-saving machine,
LG1891	2635	Nor discovery have I made,
LG1891	2636	Nor will I be able to leave behind me any wealthy bequest to found a hospital or library,
LG1891	2637	Nor reminiscence of any deed of courage for America,
LG1891	2638	Nor literary success nor intellect, nor book for the book-shelf,
LG1891	2639	But a few carols vibrating through the air I leave,
LG1891	2640	For comrades and lovers.
LG1891	2641	A GLIMPSE through an interstice caught,
LG1891	2642	Of a crowd of workmen and drivers in a bar-room around the stove late of a winter night, and I unremark'd seated in a corner,
LG1891	2643	Of a youth who loves me and whom I love, silently approaching and seating himself near, that he may hold me by the hand,
LG1891	2644	A long while amid the noises of coming and going, of drinking and oath and smutty jest,
LG1891	2645	There we two, content, happy in being together, speaking little,perhaps not a word.
LG1891	2646	A LEAF for hand in hand;
LG1891	2647	You natural persons old and young!
LG1891	2648	You on the Mississippi and on all the branches and bayous of the Mississippi!
LG1891	2649	You friendly boatmen and mechanics! you roughs!
LG1891	2650	You twain! and all processions moving along the streets!
LG1891	2651	I wish to infuse myself among you till I see it common for you to walk hand in hand.
LG1891	2652	EARTH, my likeness,
LG1891	2653	Though you look so impassive, ample and spheric there,
LG1891	2654	I now suspect that is not all;
LG1891	2655	I now suspect there is something fierce in you eligible to burst forth,
LG1891	2656	For an athlete is enamour'd of me, and I of him,
LG1891	2657	But toward him there is something fierce and terrible in me eligi-bleeligible to burst forth,
LG1891	2658	I dare not tell it in words, not even in these songs.
LG1891	2659	I DREAM'D in a dream I saw a city invincible to the attacks of the whole of the rest of the earth,
LG1891	2660	I dream'd that was the new city of Friends,
LG1891	2661	Nothing was greater there than the quality of robust love, it led the rest,
LG1891	2662	It was seen every hour in the actions of the men of that city,
LG1891	2663	And in all their looks and words.
LG1891	2664	WHAT think you I take my pen in hand to record?
LG1891	2665	The battle-ship, perfect-model'd, majestic, that I saw pass the offing to-day under full sail?
LG1891	2666	The splendors of the past day? or the splendor of the night that envelops me?
LG1891	2667	Or the vaunted glory and growth of the great city spread around me?—no;
LG1891	2668	But merely of two simple men I saw to-day on the pier in the midst of the crowd, parting the parting of dear friends,
LG1891	2669	The one to remain hung on the other's neck and passionately kiss'd him,
LG1891	2670	While the one to depart tightly prest the one to remain in his arms.
LG1891	2671	TO the East and to the West,
LG1891	2672	To the man of the Seaside State and of Pennsylvania,
LG1891	2673	To the KanadianCanadian of the north, to the Southerner I love,
LG1891	2674	These with perfect trust to depict you as myself, the germs are in all men,
LG1891	2675	I believe the main purport of these States is to found a superb friendship, exaltè, previously unknown,
LG1891	2676	Because I perceive it waits, and has been always waiting, latent in all men.
LG1891	2677	SOMETIMES with one I love I fill myself with rage for fear I effuse unreturn'd love,
LG1891	2678	But now I think there is no unreturn'd love, the pay is certain one way or another,
LG1891	2679	(I loved a certain person ardently and my love was not return'd,
LG1891	2680	Yet out of that I have written these songs.)
LG1891	2681	MANY things to absorb I teach to help you become eleve of mine;
LG1891	2682	Yet if blood like mine circle not in your veins,
LG1891	2683	If you be not silently selected by lovers and do not silently select lovers,
LG1891	2684	Of what use is it that you seek to become eleve of mine?
LG1891	2685	FAST-ANCHOR'D eternal O love! O woman I love!
LG1891	2686	O bride! O wife! more resistless than I can tell, the thought of you!
LG1891	2687	Then separate, as disembodied or another born,
LG1891	2688	Ethereal, the last athletic reality, my consolation,
LG1891	2689	I ascend, I float in the regions of your love O man,
LG1891	2690	O sharer of my roving life.
LG1891	2691	AMONG the men and women the multitude,
LG1891	2692	I perceive one picking me out by secret and divine signs,
LG1891	2693	Acknowledging none else, not parent, wife, husband, brother,child, any nearer than I am,
LG1891	2694	Some are baffled, but that one is not—that one knows me.
LG1891	2695	Ah lover and perfect equal,
LG1891	2696	I meant that you should discover me so by faint indirections,
LG1891	2697	And I when I meet you mean to discover you by the like in you.
LG1891	2698	O YOU whom I often and silently come where you are that I may be with you,
LG1891	2699	As I walk by your side or sit near, or remain in the same room with you,
LG1891	2700	Little you know the subtle electric fire that for your sake is play-ingplaying within me.
LG1891	2701	THAT shadow my likeness that goes to and fro seeking a liveli-hoodlivelihood, chattering, chaffering,
LG1891	2702	How often I find myself standing and looking at it where it flits,
LG1891	2703	How often I question and doubt whether that is really me;
LG1891	2704	But among my lovers and caroling these songs,
LG1891	2705	O I never doubt whether that is really me.
LG1891	2706	FULL of life now, compact, visible,
LG1891	2707	I, forty years old the eighty-third year of the States,
LG1891	2708	To one a century hence or any number of centuries hence,
LG1891	2709	To you yet unborn these, seeking you.
LG1891	2710	When you read these I that was visible am become invisible,
LG1891	2711	Now it is you, compact, visible, realizing my poems, seeking me,
LG1891	2712	Fancying how happy you were if I could be with you and become your comrade;
LG1891	2713	Be it as if I were with you. (Be not too certain but I am now with you.)
LG1891	2714	O TAKE my hand Walt Whitman!
LG1891	2715	Such gliding wonders! such sights and sounds!
LG1891	2716	Such join'd unended links, each hook'd to the next,
LG1891	2717	Each answering all, each sharing the earth with all.
LG1891	2718	What widens within you Walt Whitman?
LG1891	2719	What waves and soils exuding?
LG1891	2720	What climes? what persons and cities are here?
LG1891	2721	Who are the infants, some playing, some slumbering?
LG1891	2722	Who are the girls? who are the married women?
LG1891	2723	Who are the groups of old men going slowly with their arms about each other's necks?
LG1891	2724	What rivers are these? what forests and fruits are these?
LG1891	2725	What are the mountains call'd that rise so high in the mists?
LG1891	2726	What myriads of dwellings are they fill'd with dwellers?
LG1891	2727	Within me latitude widens, longitude lengthens,
LG1891	2728	Asia, Africa, Europe, are to the east—America is provided for in the west,
LG1891	2729	Banding the bulge of the earth winds the hot equator,
LG1891	2730	Curiously north and south turn the axis-ends,
LG1891	2731	Within me is the longest day, the sun wheels in slanting rings, it does not set for months,
LG1891	2732	Stretch'd in due time within me the midnight sun just rises above the horizon and sinks again,
LG1891	2733	Within me zones, seas, cataracts, forests, volcanoes, groups,
LG1891	2734	Malaysia, Polynesia, and the great West Indian islands.
LG1891	2735	What do you hear Walt Whitman?
LG1891	2736	I hear the workman singing and the farmer's wife singing,
LG1891	2737	I hear in the distance the sounds of children and of animals early in the day,
LG1891	2738	I hear emulous shouts of Australians pursuing the wild horse,
LG1891	2739	I hear the Spanish dance with castanets in the chestnut shade, to the rebeck and guitar,
LG1891	2740	I hear continual echoes from the Thames,
LG1891	2741	I hear fierce French liberty songs,
LG1891	2742	I hear of the Italian boat-sculler the musical recitative of old poems,
LG1891	2743	I hear the locusts in Syria as they strike the grain and grass with the showers of their terrible clouds,
LG1891	2744	I hear the Coptic refrain toward sundown, pensively falling on the breast of the black venerable vast mother the Nile,
LG1891	2745	I hear the chirp of the Mexican muleteer, and the bells of the mule,
LG1891	2746	I hear the Arab muezzin calling from the top of the mosque,
LG1891	2747	I hear the Christian priests at the altars of their churches, I hear the responsive base and soprano,
LG1891	2748	I hear the cry of the Cossack, and the sailor's voice putting to sea at Okotsk,
LG1891	2749	I hear the wheeze of the slave-coffle as the slaves march on, as the husky gangs pass on by twos and threes, fasten'd together with wrist-chains and ankle-chains,
LG1891	2750	I hear the Hebrew reading his records and psalms,
LG1891	2751	I hear the rhythmic myths of the Greeks, and the strong legends of the Romans,
LG1891	2752	I hear the tale of the divine life and bloody death of the beautiful God the Christ,
LG1891	2753	I hear the Hindoo teaching his favorite pupil the loves, wars,adages, transmitted safely to this day from poets who wrote three thousand years ago.
LG1891	2754	What do you see Walt Whitman?
LG1891	2755	Who are they you salute, and that one after another salute you?
LG1891	2756	I see a great round wonder rolling through space,
LG1891	2757	I see diminute farms, hamlets, ruins, graveyards, jails, factories,palaces, hovels, huts of barbarians, tents of nomads upon the surface,
LG1891	2758	I see the shaded part on one side where the sleepers are sleeping,and the sunlit part on the other side,
LG1891	2759	I see the curious rapid change of the light and shade,
LG1891	2760	I see distant lands, as real and near to the inhabitants of them as my land is to me.
LG1891	2761	I see plenteous waters,
LG1891	2762	I see mountain peaks, I see the sierras of Andes where they range,
LG1891	2763	I see plainly the Himalayas, Chian Shahs, Altays, Ghauts,
LG1891	2764	I see the giant pinnacles of Elbruz, Kazbek, Bazardjusi,
LG1891	2765	I see the Styrian Alps, and the Karnac Alps,
LG1891	2766	I see the Pyrenees, Balks, Carpathians, and to the north the Dofrafields, and off at sea mount Hecla,
LG1891	2767	I see Vesuvius and Etna, the mountains of the Moon, and the Red mountains of Madagascar,
LG1891	2768	I see the Lybian, Arabian, and Asiatic deserts,
LG1891	2769	I see huge dreadful Arctic and Antarctic icebergs,
LG1891	2770	I see the superior oceans and the inferior ones, the Atlantic and Pacific, the sea of Mexico, the Brazilian sea, and the sea of Peru,
LG1891	2771	The waters of Hindustan, the China sea, and the gulf of Guinea,
LG1891	2772	The Japan waters, the beautiful bay of Nagasaki land-lock'd in its mountains,
LG1891	2773	The spread of the Baltic, Caspian, Bothnia, the British shores, and the bay of Biscay,
LG1891	2774	The clear-sunn'd Mediterranean, and from one to another of its islands,
LG1891	2775	The White sea, and the sea around Greenland.
LG1891	2776	I behold the mariners of the world,
LG1891	2777	Some are in storms, some in the night with the watch on the look-outlookout,
LG1891	2778	Some drifting helplessly, some with contagious diseases.
LG1891	2779	I behold the sail and steamships of the world, some in clusters in port, some on their voyages,
LG1891	2780	Some double the cape of Storms, some cape Verde, others capes Guardafui, Bon, or Bajadore,
LG1891	2781	Others Dondra head, others pass the straits of Sunda, others cape Lopatka, others Behring's straits,
LG1891	2782	Others cape Horn, others sail the gulf of Mexico or along Cuba or Hayti, others Hudson's bay or Baffin's bay,
LG1891	2783	Others pass the straits of Dover, others enter the Wash, others the firth of Solway, others round cape Clear, others the Land's End,
LG1891	2784	Others traverse the Zuyder Zee or the Scheld,
LG1891	2785	Others as comers and goers at Gibraltar or the Dardanelles,
LG1891	2786	Others sternly push their way through the northern winter-packs,
LG1891	2787	Others descend or ascend the Obi or the Lena,
LG1891	2788	Others the Niger or the Congo, others the Indus, the Burampooter and Cambodia,
LG1891	2789	Others wait steam'd up ready to start in the ports of Australia,
LG1891	2790	Wait at Liverpool, Glasgow, Dublin, Marseilles, Lisbon, Naples,Hamburg, Bremen, Bordeaux, the Hague, Copenhagen,
LG1891	2791	Wait at Valparaiso, Rio Janeiro, Panama.
LG1891	2792	I see the tracks of the railroads of the earth,
LG1891	2793	I see them in Great Britain, I see them in Europe,
LG1891	2794	I see them in Asia and in Africa.
LG1891	2795	I see the electric telegraphs of the earth,
LG1891	2796	I see the filaments of the news of the wars, deaths, losses, gains,passions, of my race.
LG1891	2797	I see the long river-stripes of the earth,
LG1891	2798	I see the Amazon and the Paraguay,
LG1891	2799	I see the four great rivers of China, the Amour, the Yellow River,the Yiang-tse, and the Pearl,
LG1891	2800	I see where the Seine flows, and where the Danube, the Loire, the Rhone, and the Guadalquiver flow,
LG1891	2801	I see the windings of the Volga, the Dnieper, the Oder,
LG1891	2802	I see the Tuscan going down the Arno, and the Venetian along the Po,
LG1891	2803	I see the Greek seaman sailing out of Egina bay.
LG1891	2804	I see the site of the old empire of Assyria, and that of Persia, and that of India,
LG1891	2805	I see the falling of the Ganges over the high rim of Saukara.
LG1891	2806	I see the place of the idea of the Deity incarnated by avatars in human forms,
LG1891	2807	I see the spots of the successions of priests on the earth, oracles,sacrificers, brahmins, sabians, llamas, monks, muftis, ex-hortersexhorters,
LG1891	2808	I see where druids walk'd the groves of Mona, I see the mistletoe and vervain,
LG1891	2809	I see the temples of the deaths of the bodies of Gods, I see the old signifiers.
LG1891	2810	I see Christ eating the bread of his last supper in the midst of youths and old persons,
LG1891	2811	I see where the strong divine young man the Hercules toil'd faith-fullyfaithfully and long and then died,
LG1891	2812	I see the place of the innocent rich life and hapless fate of the beautiful nocturnal son, the full-limb'd Bacchus,
LG1891	2813	I see Kneph, blooming, drest in blue, with the crown of feathers on his head,
LG1891	2814	I see Hermes, unsuspected, dying, well-belov'd, saying to the people Do not weep for me,
LG1891	2815	This is not my true country, I have lived banish'd from my true country, I now go back there,
LG1891	2816	I return to the celestial sphere where every one goes in his turn.
LG1891	2817	I see the battle-fields of the earth, grass grows upon them and blossoms and corn,
LG1891	2818	I see the tracks of ancient and modern expeditions.
LG1891	2819	I see the nameless masonries, venerable messages of the unknown events, heroes, records of the earth.
LG1891	2820	I see the places of the sagas,
LG1891	2821	I see pine-trees and fir-trees torn by northern blasts,
LG1891	2822	I see granite bowlders and cliffs, I see green meadows and lakes,
LG1891	2823	I see the burial-cairns of Scandinavian warriors,
LG1891	2824	I see them raised high with stones by the marge of restless oceans,that the dead men's spirits when they wearied of their quiet graves might rise up through the mounds and gaze on the tossing billows, and be refresh'd by storms, immensity,liberty, action.
LG1891	2825	I see the steppes of Asia,
LG1891	2826	I see the tumuli of Mongolia, I see the tents of Kalmucks and Baskirs,
LG1891	2827	I see the nomadic tribes with herds of oxen and cows,
LG1891	2828	I see the table-lands notch'd with ravines, I see the jungles and deserts,
LG1891	2829	I see the camel, the wild steed, the bustard, the fat-tail'd sheep,the antelope, and the burrowing wolf.
LG1891	2830	I see the highlands of Abyssinia,
LG1891	2831	I see flocks of goats feeding, and see the fig-tree, tamarind, date,
LG1891	2832	And see fields of teff-wheat and places of verdure and gold.
LG1891	2833	I see the Brazilian vaquero,
LG1891	2834	I see the Bolivian ascending mount Sorata,
LG1891	2835	I see the Wacho crossing the plains, I see the incomparable rider of horses with his lasso on his arm,
LG1891	2836	I see over the pampas the pursuit of wild cattle for their hides.
LG1891	2837	I see the regions of snow and ice,
LG1891	2838	I see the sharp- eyed Samoiede and the Finn,
LG1891	2839	I see the seal-seeker in his boat poising his lance,
LG1891	2840	I see the Siberian on his slight-built sledge drawn by dogs,
LG1891	2841	I see the porpoise-hunters, I see the whale-crews of the south Pa-cificPacific and the north Atlantic,
LG1891	2842	I see the cliffs, glaciers, torrents, valleys, of Switzerland—I mark the long winters and the isolation.
LG1891	2843	I see the cities of the earth and make myself at random a part of them,
LG1891	2844	I am a real Parisian,
LG1891	2845	I am a habitan of Vienna, St. Petersburg, Berlin, Constantinople,
LG1891	2846	I am of Adelaide, Sidney, Melbourne,
LG1891	2847	I am of London, Manchester, Bristol, Edinburgh, Limerick,
LG1891	2848	I am of Madrid, Cadiz, Barcelona, Oporto, Lyons, Brussels, Berne,Frankfort, Stuttgart, Turin, Florence,
LG1891	2849	I belong in Moscow, Cracow, Warsaw, or northward in Christiania or Stockholm, or in Siberian Irkutsk, or in some street in Iceland,
LG1891	2850	I descend upon all those cities, and rise from them again.
LG1891	2851	I see vapors exhaling from unexplored countries,
LG1891	2852	I see the savage types, the bow and arrow, the poison'd splint, the fetich, and the obi.
LG1891	2853	I see African and Asiatic towns,
LG1891	2854	I see Algiers, Tripoli, Derne, Mogadore, Timbuctoo, Monrovia,
LG1891	2855	I see the swarms of Pekin, Canton, Benares, Delhi, Calcutta, TokioTokyo,
LG1891	2856	I see the Kruman in his hut, and the Dahoman and Ashantee-man in their huts,
LG1891	2857	I see the Turk smoking opium in Aleppo,
LG1891	2858	I see the picturesque crowds at the fairs of Khiva and those of Herat,
LG1891	2859	I see Teheran, I see Muscat and Medina and the intervening sands,I see the caravans toiling onward,
LG1891	2860	I see Egypt and the Egyptians, I see the pyramids and obelisks,
LG1891	2861	I look on chisell'd histories, records of conquering kings, dynasties,cut in slabs of sand-stone, or on granite-blocks,
LG1891	2862	I see at Memphis mummy-pits containing mummies embalm'd,swathed in linen cloth, lying there many centuries,
LG1891	2863	I look on the fall'n Theban, the large-ball'd eyes, the side-drooping neck, the hands folded across the breast.
LG1891	2864	I see all the menials of the earth, laboring,
LG1891	2865	I see all the prisoners in the prisons,
LG1891	2866	I see the defective human bodies of the earth,
LG1891	2867	The blind, the deaf and dumb, idiots, hunchbacks, lunatics,
LG1891	2868	The pirates, thieves, betrayers, murderers, slave-makers of the earth,
LG1891	2869	The helpless infants, and the helpless old men and women.
LG1891	2870	I see male and female everywhere,
LG1891	2871	I see the serene brotherhood of philosophs,
LG1891	2872	I see the constructiveness of my race,
LG1891	2873	I see the results of the perseverance and industry of my race,
LG1891	2874	I see ranks, colors, barbarisms, civilizations, I go among them, I mix indiscriminately,
LG1891	2875	And I salute all the inhabitants of the earth.
LG1891	2876	You whoever you are!
LG1891	2877	You daughter or son of England!
LG1891	2878	You of the mighty Slavic tribes and empires! you Russ in Russia!
LG1891	2879	You dim-descended, black, divine-soul'd African, large, fine-headedfine-headed, nobly-form'd, superbly destin'd, on equal terms with me!
LG1891	2880	You Norwegian! Swede! Dane! Icelander! you Prussian!
LG1891	2881	You Spaniard of Spain! you Portuguese!
LG1891	2882	You Frenchwoman and Frenchman of France!
LG1891	2883	You Belge! you liberty-lover of the Netherlands! (you stock whence I myself have descended;)
LG1891	2884	You sturdy Austrian! you Lombard! Hun! Bohemian! farmer of Styria!
LG1891	2885	You neighbor of the Danube!
LG1891	2886	You working-man of the Rhine, the Elbe, or the Weser! you working-woman too!
LG1891	2887	You Sardinian! you Bavarian! Swabian! Saxon! Wallachian!Bulgarian!
LG1891	2888	You Roman! Neapolitan! you Greek!
LG1891	2889	You lithe matador in the arena at Seville!
LG1891	2890	You mountaineer living lawlessly on the Taurus or Caucasus!
LG1891	2891	You Bokh horse-herd watching your mares and stallions feeding!
LG1891	2892	You beautiful-bodied Persian at full speed in the saddle shooting arrows to the mark!
LG1891	2893	You Chinaman and Chinawoman of China! You Tartar of Tartary!
LG1891	2894	You women of the earth subordinated at your tasks!
LG1891	2895	You Jew journeying in your old age through every risk to stand once on Syrian ground!
LG1891	2896	You other Jews waiting in all lands for your Messiah!
LG1891	2897	You thoughtful Armenian pondering by some stream of the Eu-phratesEuphrates! you peering amid the ruins of Nineveh! you ascending mount Ararat!
LG1891	2898	You foot-worn pilgrim welcoming the far-away sparkle of the minarets of Mecca!
LG1891	2899	You sheiks along the stretch from Suez to Bab-el-mandeb ruling your families and tribes!
LG1891	2900	You olive-grower tending your fruit on fields of Nazareth, Damas-cusDamascus, or lake Tiberias!
LG1891	2901	You Thibet trader on the wide inland or bargaining in the shops of Lassa!
LG1891	2902	You Japanese man or woman! you liver in Madagascar, Ceylon,Sumatra, Borneo!
LG1891	2903	All you continentals of Asia, Africa, Europe, Australia, indifferent of place!
LG1891	2904	All you on the numberless islands of the archipelagoes of the sea!
LG1891	2905	And you of centuries hence when you listen to me!
LG1891	2906	And you each and everywhere whom I specify not, but include just the same!
LG1891	2907	Health to you! good will to you all, from me and America sent!
LG1891	2908	Each of us inevitable,
LG1891	2909	Each of us limitless—each of us with his or her right upon the earth,
LG1891	2910	Each of us allow'd the eternal purports of the earth,
LG1891	2911	Each of us here as divinely as any is here.
LG1891	2912	You Hottentot with clicking palate! you woolly-hair'd hordes!
LG1891	2913	You own'd persons dropping sweat-drops or blood-drops!
LG1891	2914	You human forms with the fathomless ever-impressive counte-nancescountenances of brutes!
LG1891	2915	You poor koboo whom the meanest of the rest look down upon for all your glimmering language and spirituality!
LG1891	2916	You dwarf'd Kamtschatkan, Greenlander, Lapp!
LG1891	2917	You Austral negro, naked, red, sooty, with protrusive lip, groveling,seeking your food!
LG1891	2918	You Caffre, Berber, Soudanese!
LG1891	2919	You haggard, uncouth, untutor'd Bedowee!
LG1891	2920	You plague-swarms in Madras, Nankin, Kaubul, Cairo!
LG1891	2921	You benighted roamer of Amazonia! you Patagonian! you Feejee-manFeejeeman!
LG1891	2922	I do not prefer others so very much before you either,
LG1891	2923	I do not say one word against you, away back there where you stand,
LG1891	2924	(You will come forward in due time to my side.)
LG1891	2925	My spirit has pass'd in compassion and determination around the whole earth,
LG1891	2926	I have look'd for equals and lovers and found them ready for me in all lands,
LG1891	2927	I think some divine rapport has equalized me with them.
LG1891	2928	You vapors, I think I have risen with you, moved away to distant continents, and fallen down there, for reasons,
LG1891	2929	I think I have blown with you you winds;
LG1891	2930	You waters I have finger'd every shore with you,
LG1891	2931	I have run through what any river or strait of the globe has run through,
LG1891	2932	I have taken my stand on the bases of peninsulas and on the high embedded rocks, to cry thence:
LG1891	2933	Salut au monde!
LG1891	2934	What cities the light or warmth penetrates I penetrate those cities myself,
LG1891	2935	All islands to which birds wing their way I wing my way myself.
LG1891	2936	Toward you all, in America's name,
LG1891	2937	I raise high the perpendicular hand, I make the signal,
LG1891	2938	To remain after me in sight forever,
LG1891	2939	For all the haunts and homes of men.
LG1891	2940	AFOOT and light-hearted I take to the open road,
LG1891	2941	Healthy, free, the world before me,
LG1891	2942	The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.
LG1891	2943	Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune,
LG1891	2944	Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,
LG1891	2945	Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms,
LG1891	2946	Strong and content I travel the open road.
LG1891	2947	The earth, that is sufficient,
LG1891	2948	I do not want the constellations any nearer,
LG1891	2949	I know they are very well where they are,
LG1891	2950	I know they suffice for those who belong to them.
LG1891	2951	(Still here I carry my old delicious burdens,
LG1891	2952	I carry them, men and women, I carry them with me wherever I go,
LG1891	2953	I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them,
LG1891	2954	I am fill'd with them, and I will fill them in return.)
LG1891	2955	You road I enter upon and look around, I believe you are not all that is here,
LG1891	2956	I believe that much unseen is also here.
LG1891	2957	Here the profound lesson of reception, nor preference nor denial,
LG1891	2958	The black with his woolly head, the felon, the diseas'd, the illiterate person, are not denied;
LG1891	2959	The birth, the hasting after the physician, the beggar's tramp, the drunkard's stagger, the laughing party of mechanics,
LG1891	2960	The escaped youth, the rich person's carriage, the fop, the eloping couple,
LG1891	2961	The early market-man, the hearse, the moving of furniture into the town, the return back from the town,
LG1891	2962	They pass, I also pass, any thing passes, none can be interdicted,
LG1891	2963	None but are accepted, none but shall be dear to me.
LG1891	2964	You air that serves me with breath to speak!
LG1891	2965	You objects that call from diffusion my meanings and give them shape!
LG1891	2966	You light that wraps me and all things in delicate equable showers!
LG1891	2967	You paths worn in the irregular hollows by the roadsides!
LG1891	2968	I believe you are latent with unseen existences, you are so dear to me.
LG1891	2969	You flagg'd walks of the cities! you strong curbs at the edges!
LG1891	2970	You ferries! you planks and posts of wharves! you timber-lined sides! you distant ships!
LG1891	2971	You rows of houses! you window-pierc'd façades! you roofs!
LG1891	2972	You porches and entrances! you copings and iron guards!
LG1891	2973	You windows whose transparent shells might expose so much!
LG1891	2974	You doors and ascending steps! you arches!
LG1891	2975	You gray stones of interminable pavements! you trodden crossings!
LG1891	2976	From all that has touch'd you I believe you have imparted to yourselves, and now would impart the same secretly to me,
LG1891	2977	From the living and the dead you have peopled your impassive surfaces, and the spirits thereof would be evident and amicable with me.
LG1891	2978	The earth expanding right hand and left hand,
LG1891	2979	The picture alive, every part in its best light,
LG1891	2980	The music falling in where it is wanted, and stopping where it is not wanted,
LG1891	2981	The cheerful voice of the public road, the gay fresh sentiment of the road.
LG1891	2982	O highway I travel, do you say to me Do not leave me?
LG1891	2983	Do you say Venture not—if you leave me you are lost?
LG1891	2984	Do you say I am already prepared, I am well-beaten and un-deniedundenied, adhere to me?
LG1891	2985	O public road, I say back I am not afraid to leave you, yet I love you,
LG1891	2986	You express me better than I can express myself,
LG1891	2987	You shall be more to me than my poem.
LG1891	2988	I think heroic deeds were all conceiv'd in the open air, and all free poems also,
LG1891	2989	I think I could stop here myself and do miracles,
LG1891	2990	I think whatever I shall meet on the road I shall like, and who-everwhoever beholds me shall like me,
LG1891	2991	I think whoever I see must be happy.
LG1891	2992	From this hour I ordain myself loos'd of limits and imaginary lines,
LG1891	2993	Going where I list, my own master total and absolute,
LG1891	2994	Listening to others, considering well what they say,
LG1891	2995	Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating,
LG1891	2996	Gently, but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds that would hold me.
LG1891	2997	I inhale great draughts of space,
LG1891	2998	The east and the west are mine, and the north and the south are mine.
LG1891	2999	I am larger, better than I thought,
LG1891	3000	I did not know I held so much goodness.
LG1891	3001	All seems beautiful to me,
LG1891	3002	I can repeat over to men and women You have done such good to me I would do the same to you,
LG1891	3003	I will recruit for myself and you as I go,
LG1891	3004	I will scatter myself among men and women as I go,
LG1891	3005	I will toss a new gladness and roughness among them,
LG1891	3006	Whoever denies me it shall not trouble me,
LG1891	3007	Whoever accepts me he or she shall be blessed and shall bless me.
LG1891	3008	Now if a thousand perfect men were to appear it would not amaze me,
LG1891	3009	Now if a thousand beautiful forms of women appear'd it would not astonish me.
LG1891	3010	Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons,
LG1891	3011	It is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth.
LG1891	3012	Here a great personal deed has room,
LG1891	3013	(Such a deed seizes upon the hearts of the whole race of men,
LG1891	3014	Its effusion of strength and will overwhelms law and mocks all authority and all argument against it.)
LG1891	3015	Here is the test of wisdom,
LG1891	3016	Wisdom is not finally tested in schools,
LG1891	3017	Wisdom cannot be pass'd from one having it to another not having it,
LG1891	3018	Wisdom is of the soul, is not susceptible of proof, is its own proof,
LG1891	3019	Applies to all stages and objects and qualities and is content,
LG1891	3020	Is the certainty of the reality and immortality of things, and the excellence of things;
LG1891	3021	Something there is in the float of the sight of things that provokes it out of the soul.
LG1891	3022	Now I re-examine philosophies and religions,
LG1891	3023	They may prove well in lecture-rooms, yet not prove at all under the spacious clouds and along the landscape and flowing currents.
LG1891	3024	Here is realization,
LG1891	3025	Here is a man tallied—he realizes here what he has in him,
LG1891	3026	The past, the future, majesty, love—if they are vacant of you,you are vacant of them.
LG1891	3027	Only the kernel of every object nourishes;
LG1891	3028	Where is he who tears off the husks for you and me?
LG1891	3029	Where is he that undoes stratagems and envelopes for you and me?
LG1891	3030	Here is adhesiveness, it is not previously fashion'd, it is apropos;
LG1891	3031	Do you know what it is as you pass to be loved by strangers?
LG1891	3032	Do you know the talk of those turning eye-balls?
LG1891	3033	Here is the efflux of the soul,
LG1891	3034	The efflux of the soul comes from within through embower'd gates, ever provoking questions,
LG1891	3035	These yearnings why are they? these thoughts in the darkness why are they?
LG1891	3036	Why are there men and women that while they are nigh me the sunlight expands my blood?
LG1891	3037	Why when they leave me do my pennants of joy sink flat and lank?
LG1891	3038	Why are there trees I never walk under but large and melodious thoughts descend upon me?
LG1891	3039	(I think they hang there winter and summer on those trees and always drop fruit as I pass;)
LG1891	3040	What is it I interchange so suddenly with strangers?
LG1891	3041	What with some driver as I ride on the seat by his side?
LG1891	3042	What with some fisherman drawing his seine by the shore as I walk by and pause?
LG1891	3043	What gives me to be free to a woman's and man's good-will?what gives them to be free to mine?
LG1891	3044	The efflux of the soul is happiness, here is happiness,
LG1891	3045	I think it pervades the open air, waiting at all times,
LG1891	3046	Now it flows unto us, we are rightly charged.
LG1891	3047	Here rises the fluid and attaching character,
LG1891	3048	The fluid and attaching character is the freshness and sweetness of man and woman,
LG1891	3049	(The herbs of the morning sprout no fresher and sweeter every day out of the roots of themselves, than it sprouts fresh and sweet continually out of itself.)
LG1891	3050	Toward the fluid and attaching character exudes the sweat of the love of young and old,
LG1891	3051	From it falls distill'd the charm that mocks beauty and attainments,
LG1891	3052	Toward it heaves the shuddering longing ache of contact.
LG1891	3053	Allons! whoever you are come travel with me!
LG1891	3054	Traveling with me you find what never tires.
LG1891	3055	The earth never tires,
LG1891	3056	The earth is rude, silent, incomprehensible at first, Nature is rude and incomprehensible at first,
LG1891	3057	Be not discouraged, keep on, there are divine things well envelop'd,
LG1891	3058	I swear to you there are divine things more beautiful than words can tell.
LG1891	3059	Allons! we must not stop here,
LG1891	3060	However sweet these laid-up stores, however convenient this dwell-ingdwelling we cannot remain here,
LG1891	3061	However shelter'd this port and however calm these waters we must not anchor here,
LG1891	3062	However welcome the hospitality that surrounds us we are per-mittedpermitted to receive it but a little while.
LG1891	3063	Allons! the inducements shall be greater,
LG1891	3064	We will sail pathless and wild seas,
LG1891	3065	We will go where winds blow, waves dash, and the Yankee clipper speeds by under full sail.
LG1891	3066	Allons! with power, liberty, the earth, the elements,
LG1891	3067	Health, defiance, gayety, self-esteem, curiosity;
LG1891	3068	Allons! from all formules!
LG1891	3069	From your formules, O bat-eyed and materialistic priests.
LG1891	3070	The stale cadaver blocks up the passage—the burial waits no longer.
LG1891	3071	Allons! yet take warning!
LG1891	3072	He traveling with me needs the best blood, thews, endurance,
LG1891	3073	None may come to the trial till he or she bring courage and health,
LG1891	3074	Come not here if you have already spent the best of yourself,
LG1891	3075	Only those may come who come in sweet and determin'd bodies,
LG1891	3076	No diseas'd person, no rum-drinker or venereal taint is permitted here.
LG1891	3077	(I and mine do not convince by arguments, similes, rhymes,
LG1891	3078	We convince by our presence.)
LG1891	3079	Listen! I will be honest with you,
LG1891	3080	I do not offer the old smooth prizes, but offer rough new prizes,
LG1891	3081	These are the days that must happen to you:
LG1891	3082	You shall not heap up what is call'd riches,
LG1891	3083	You shall scatter with lavish hand all that you earn or achieve,
LG1891	3084	You but arrive at the city to which you were destin'd, you hardly settle yourself to satisfaction before you are call'd by an irresistible call to depart,
LG1891	3085	You shall be treated to the ironical smiles and mockings of those who remain behind you,
LG1891	3086	What beckonings of love you receive you shall only answer with passionate kisses of parting,
LG1891	3087	You shall not allow the hold of those who spread their reach'd hands toward you.
LG1891	3088	Allons! after the great Companions, and to belong to them!
LG1891	3089	They too are on the road—they are the swift and majestic men—they are the greatest women,
LG1891	3090	Enjoyers of calms of seas and storms of seas,
LG1891	3091	Sailors of many a ship, walkers of many a mile of land,
LG1891	3092	Habituès of many distant countries, habituès of far-distant dwellings,
LG1891	3093	Trusters of men and women, observers of cities, solitary toilers,
LG1891	3094	Pausers and contemplators of tufts, blossoms, shells of the shore,
LG1891	3095	Dancers at wedding-dances, kissers of brides, tender helpers of children, bearers of children,
LG1891	3096	Soldiers of revolts, standers by gaping graves, lowerers-down of coffins,
LG1891	3097	Journeyers over consecutive seasons, over the years, the curious years each emerging from that which preceded it,
LG1891	3098	Journeyers as with companions, namely their own diverse phases,
LG1891	3099	Forth-steppers from the latent unrealized baby-days,
LG1891	3100	Journeyers gayly with their own youth, journeyers with their bearded and well-grain'd manhood,
LG1891	3101	Journeyers with their womanhood, ample, unsurpass'd, content,
LG1891	3102	Journeyers with their own sublime old age of manhood or woman-hoodwomanhood,
LG1891	3103	Old age, calm, expanded, broad with the haughty breadth of the universe,
LG1891	3104	Old age, flowing free with the delicious near-by freedom of death.
LG1891	3105	Allons! to that which is endless as it was beginningless,
LG1891	3106	To undergo much, tramps of days, rests of nights,
LG1891	3107	To merge all in the travel they tend to, and the days and nights they tend to,
LG1891	3108	Again to merge them in the start of superior journeys,
LG1891	3109	To see nothing anywhere but what you may reach it and pass it,
LG1891	3110	To conceive no time, however distant, but what you may reach it and pass it,
LG1891	3111	To look up or down no road but it stretches and waits for you,however long but it stretches and waits for you,
LG1891	3112	To see no being, not God's or any, but you also go thither,
LG1891	3113	To see no possession, but you may possess it, enjoying all without labor or purchase, abstracting the feast yet not abstracting one particle of it,
LG1891	3114	To take the best of the farmer's farm and the rich man's elegant villa, and the chaste blessings of the well-married couple,and the fruits of orchards and flowers of gardens,
LG1891	3115	To take to your use out of the compact cities as you pass through,
LG1891	3116	To carry buildings and streets with you afterward wherever you go,
LG1891	3117	To gather the minds of men out of their brains as you encounter them, to gather the love out of their hearts,
LG1891	3118	To take your lovers on the road with you, for all that you leave them behind you,
LG1891	3119	To know the universe itself as a road, as many roads, as roads for traveling souls.
LG1891	3120	All parts away for the progress of souls,
LG1891	3121	All religion, all solid things, arts, governments—all that was or is apparent upon this globe or any globe, falls into niches and corners before the procession of souls along the grand roads of the universe.
LG1891	3122	Of the progress of the souls of men and women along the grand roads of the universe, all other progress is the needed emblem and sustenance.
LG1891	3123	Forever alive, forever forward,
LG1891	3124	Stately, solemn, sad, withdrawn, baffled, mad, turbulent, feeble,dissatisfied,
LG1891	3125	Desperate, proud, fond, sick, accepted by men, rejected by men,
LG1891	3126	They go! they go! I know that they go, but I know not where they go,
LG1891	3127	But I know that they go toward the best—toward something great.
LG1891	3128	Whoever you are, come forth! or man or woman come forth!
LG1891	3129	You must not stay sleeping and dallying there in the house,though you built it, or though it has been built for you.
LG1891	3130	Out of the dark confinement! out from behind the screen!
LG1891	3131	It is useless to protest, I know all and expose it.
LG1891	3132	Behold through you as bad as the rest,
LG1891	3133	Through the laughter, dancing, dining, supping, of people,
LG1891	3134	Inside of dresses and ornaments, inside of those wash'd and trimm'd faces,
LG1891	3135	Behold a secret silent loathing and despair.
LG1891	3136	No husband, no wife, no friend, trusted to hear the confession,
LG1891	3137	Another self, a duplicate of every one, skulking and hiding it goes,
LG1891	3138	Formless and wordless through the streets of the cities, polite and bland in the parlors,
LG1891	3139	In the cars of railroads, in steamboats, in the public assembly,
LG1891	3140	Home to the houses of men and women, at the table, in the bed-roombedroom, everywhere,
LG1891	3141	Smartly attired, countenance smiling, form upright, death under the breast-bones, hell under the skull-bones,
LG1891	3142	Under the broadcloth and gloves, under the ribbons and artificial flowers,
LG1891	3143	Keeping fair with the customs, speaking not a syllable of itself,
LG1891	3144	Speaking of any thing else but never of itself.
LG1891	3145	Allons! through struggles and wars!
LG1891	3146	The goal that was named cannot be countermanded.
LG1891	3147	Have the past struggles succeeded?
LG1891	3148	What has succeeded? yourself? your nation? Nature?
LG1891	3149	Now understand me well—it is provided in the essence of things that from any fruition of success, no matter what, shall come forth something to make a greater struggle necessary.
LG1891	3150	My call is the call of battle, I nourish active rebellion,
LG1891	3151	He going with me must go well arm'd,
LG1891	3152	He going with me goes often with spare diet, poverty, angry enemies, desertions.
LG1891	3153	Allons! the road is before us!
LG1891	3154	It is safe—I have tried it—my own feet have tried it well—be not detain'd!
LG1891	3155	Let the paper remain on the desk unwritten, and the book on the shelf unopen'd!
LG1891	3156	Let the tools remain in the workshop! let the money remain unearn'd!
LG1891	3157	Let the school stand! mind not the cry of the teacher!
LG1891	3158	Let the preacher preach in his pulpit! let the lawyer plead in the court, and the judge expound the law.
LG1891	3159	Camerado, I give you my hand!
LG1891	3160	I give you my love more precious than money,
LG1891	3161	I give you myself before preaching or law;
LG1891	3162	Will you give me yourself? will you come travel with me?
LG1891	3163	Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?
LG1891	3164	FLOOD-TIDE below me! I see you face to face!
LG1891	3165	Clouds of the west—sun there half an hour high—I see you also face to face.
LG1891	3166	Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes, how curious you are to me!
LG1891	3167	On the ferry-boats the hundreds and hundreds that cross, return-ingreturning home, are more curious to me than you suppose,
LG1891	3168	And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence are more to me, and more in my meditations, than you might suppose.
LG1891	3169	The impalpable sustenance of me from all things at all hours of the day,
LG1891	3170	The simple, compact, well-join'd scheme, myself disintegrated,every one disintegrated yet part of the scheme,
LG1891	3171	The similitudes of the past and those of the future,
LG1891	3172	The glories strung like beads on my smallest sights and hearings,on the walk in the street and the passage over the river,
LG1891	3173	The current rushing so swiftly and swimming with me far away,
LG1891	3174	The others that are to follow me, the ties between me and them,
LG1891	3175	The certainty of others, the life, love, sight, hearing of others.
LG1891	3176	Others will enter the gates of the ferry and cross from shore to shore,
LG1891	3177	Others will watch the run of the flood-tide,
LG1891	3178	Others will see the shipping of Manhattan north and west, and the heights of Brooklyn to the south and east,
LG1891	3179	Others will see the islands large and small;
LG1891	3180	Fifty years hence, others will see them as they cross, the sun half an hour high,
LG1891	3181	A hundred years hence, or ever so many hundred years hence,others will see them,
LG1891	3182	Will enjoy the sunset, the pouring-in of the flood-tide, the falling-backfalling-back to the sea of the ebb-tide.
LG1891	3183	It avails not, time nor place—distance avails not,
LG1891	3184	I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever so many generations hence,
LG1891	3185	Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt,
LG1891	3186	Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a crowd,
LG1891	3187	Just as you are refresh'd by the gladness of the river and the bright flow, I was refresh'd,
LG1891	3188	Just as you stand and lean on the rail, yet hurry with the swift current, I stood yet was hurried,
LG1891	3189	Just as you look on the numberless masts of ships and the thick-stemm'dthick-stemm'd pipes of steamboats, I look'd.
LG1891	3190	I too many and many a time cross'd the river of old,
LG1891	3191	Watched the Twelfth-month sea-gulls, saw them high in the air floating with motionless wings, oscillating their bodies,
LG1891	3192	Saw how the glistening yellow lit up parts of their bodies and left the rest in strong shadow,
LG1891	3193	Saw the slow-wheeling circles and the gradual edging toward the south,
LG1891	3194	Saw the reflection of the summer sky in the water,
LG1891	3195	Had my eyes dazzled by the shimmering track of beams,
LG1891	3196	Look'd at the fine centrifugal spokes of light round the shape of my head in the sunlit water,
LG1891	3197	Look'd on the haze on the hills southward and south-westward,
LG1891	3198	Look'd on the vapor as it flew in fleeces tinged with violet,
LG1891	3199	Look'd toward the lower bay to notice the vessels arriving,
LG1891	3200	Saw their approach, saw aboard those that were near me,
LG1891	3201	Saw the white sails of schooners and sloops, saw the ships at anchor,
LG1891	3202	The sailors at work in the rigging or out astride the spars,
LG1891	3203	The round masts, the swinging motion of the hulls, the slender serpentine pennants,
LG1891	3204	The large and small steamers in motion, the pilots in their pilot-housespilot-houses,
LG1891	3205	The white wake left by the passage, the quick tremulous whirl of the wheels,
LG1891	3206	The flags of all nations, the falling of them at sunset,
LG1891	3207	The scallop-edged waves in the twilight, the ladled cups, the frolicsome crests and glistening,
LG1891	3208	The stretch afar growing dimmer and dimmer, the gray walls of the granite storehouses by the docks,
LG1891	3209	On the river the shadowy group, the big steam-tug closely flank'd on each side by the barges, the hay-boat, the belated lighter,
LG1891	3210	On the neighboring shore the fires from the foundry chimneys burning high and glaringly into the night,
LG1891	3211	Casting their flicker of black contrasted with wild red and yellow light over the tops of houses, and down into the clefts of streets.
LG1891	3212	These and all else were to me the same as they are to you,
LG1891	3213	I loved well those cities, loved well the stately and rapid river,
LG1891	3214	The men and women I saw were all near to me,
LG1891	3215	Others the same—others who look back on me because I look'd forward to them,
LG1891	3216	(The time will come, though I stop here to-day and to-night.)
LG1891	3217	What is it then between us?
LG1891	3218	What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us?
LG1891	3219	Whatever it is, it avails not—distance avails not, and place avails not,
LG1891	3220	I too lived, Brooklyn of ample hills was mine,
LG1891	3221	I too walk'd the streets of Manhattan island, and bathed in the waters around it,
LG1891	3222	I too felt the curious abrupt questionings stir within me,
LG1891	3223	In the day among crowds of people sometimes they came upon me,
LG1891	3224	In my walks home late at night or as I lay in my bed they came upon me,
LG1891	3225	I too had been struck from the float forever held in solution,
LG1891	3226	I too had receiv'd identity by my body,
LG1891	3227	That I was I knew was of my body, and what I should be I knew I should be of my body.
LG1891	3228	It is not upon you alone the dark patches fall,
LG1891	3229	The dark threw its patches down upon me also,
LG1891	3230	The best I had done seem'd to me blank and suspicious,
LG1891	3231	My great thoughts as I supposed them, were they not in reality meagre?
LG1891	3232	Nor is it you alone who know what it is to be evil,
LG1891	3233	I am he who knew what it was to be evil,
LG1891	3234	I too knitted the old knot of contrariety,
LG1891	3235	Blabb'd, blush'd, resented, lied, stole, grudg'd,
LG1891	3236	Had guile, anger, lust, hot wishes I dared not speak,
LG1891	3237	Was wayward, vain, greedy, shallow, sly, cowardly, malignant,
LG1891	3238	The wolf, the snake, the hog, not wanting in me,
LG1891	3239	The cheating look, the frivolous word, the adulterous wish, not wanting,
LG1891	3240	Refusals, hates, postponements, meanness, laziness, none of these wanting,
LG1891	3241	Was one with the rest, the days and haps of the rest,
LG1891	3242	Was call'd by my nighest name by clear loud voices of young men as they saw me approaching or passing,
LG1891	3243	Felt their arms on my neck as I stood, or the negligent leaning of their flesh against me as I sat,
LG1891	3244	Saw many I loved in the street or ferry-boat or public assembly,yet never told them a word,
LG1891	3245	Lived the same life with the rest, the same old laughing, gnawing,sleeping,
LG1891	3246	Play'd the part that still looks back on the actor or actress,
LG1891	3247	The same old role, the role that is what we make it, as great as we like,
LG1891	3248	Or as small as we like, or both great and small.
LG1891	3249	Closer yet I approach you,
LG1891	3250	What thought you have of me now, I had as much of you—I laid in my stores in advance,
LG1891	3251	I consider'd long and seriously of you before you were born.
LG1891	3252	Who was to know what should come home to me?
LG1891	3253	Who knows but I am enjoying this?
LG1891	3254	Who knows, for all the distance, but I am as good as looking at you now, for all you cannot see me?
LG1891	3255	Ah, what can ever be more stately and admirable to me than mast-hemm'dmast-hemm'd Manhattan?
LG1891	3256	River and sunset and scallop-edg'd waves of flood-tide?
LG1891	3257	The sea-gulls oscillating their bodies, the hay-boat in the twilight,and the belated lighter?
LG1891	3258	What gods can exceed these that clasp me by the hand, and with voices I love call me promptly and loudly by my nighest name as I approach?
LG1891	3259	What is more subtle than this which ties me to the woman or man that looks in my face?
LG1891	3260	Which fuses me into you now, and pours my meaning into you?
LG1891	3261	We understand then do we not?
LG1891	3262	What I promis'd without mentioning it, have you not accepted?
LG1891	3263	What the study could not teach—what the preaching could not accomplish is accomplish'd, is it not?
LG1891	3264	Flow on, river! flow with the flood-tide, and ebb with the ebb-tideebbtide!
LG1891	3265	Frolic on, crested and scallop-edg'd waves!
LG1891	3266	Gorgeous clouds of the sunset! drench with your splendor me, or the men and women generations after me!
LG1891	3267	Cross from shore to shore, countless crowds of passengers!
LG1891	3268	Stand up, tall masts of Mannahatta! stand up, beautiful hills of Brooklyn!
LG1891	3269	Throb, baffled and curious brain! throw out questions and answers!
LG1891	3270	Suspend here and everywhere, eternal float of solution!
LG1891	3271	Gaze, loving and thirsting eyes, in the house or street or public assembly!
LG1891	3272	Sound out, voices of young men! loudly and musically call me by my nighest name!
LG1891	3273	Live, old life! play the part that looks back on the actor or actress!
LG1891	3274	Play the old role, the role that is great or small according as one makes it!
LG1891	3275	Consider, you who peruse me, whether I may not in unknown ways be looking upon you;
LG1891	3276	Be firm, rail over the river, to support those who lean idly, yet haste with the hasting current;
LG1891	3277	Fly on, sea-birds! fly sideways, or wheel in large circles high in the air;
LG1891	3278	Receive the summer sky, you water, and faithfully hold it till all downcast eyes have time to take it from you!
LG1891	3279	Diverge, fine spokes of light, from the shape of my head, or any one's head, in the sunlit water!
LG1891	3280	Come on, ships from the lower bay! pass up or down, white-sail'd schooners, sloops, lighters!
LG1891	3281	Flaunt away, flags of all nations! be duly lower'd at sunset!
LG1891	3282	Burn high your fires, foundry chimneys! cast black shadows at nightfall! cast red and yellow light over the tops of the houses!
LG1891	3283	Appearances, now or henceforth, indicate what you are,
LG1891	3284	You necessary film, continue to envelop the soul,
LG1891	3285	About my body for me, and your body for you, be hung our divinest aromas,
LG1891	3286	Thrive, cities—bring your freight, bring your shows, ample and sufficient rivers,
LG1891	3287	Expand, being than which none else is perhaps more spiritual,
LG1891	3288	Keep your places, objects than which none else is more lasting.
LG1891	3289	You have waited, you always wait, you dumb, beautiful ministers,
LG1891	3290	We receive you with free sense at last, and are insatiate hence-forwardhenceforward,
LG1891	3291	Not you any more shall be able to foil us, or withhold yourselves from us,
LG1891	3292	We use you, and do not cast you aside—we plant you perma-nentlypermanently within us,
LG1891	3293	We fathom you not—we love you—there is perfection in you also,
LG1891	3294	You furnish your parts toward eternity,
LG1891	3295	Great or small, you furnish your parts toward the soul.
LG1891	3296	NOW list to my morning's romanza, I tell the signs of the Answerer,
LG1891	3297	To the cities and farms I sing as they spread in the sunshine before me.
LG1891	3298	A young man comes to me bearing a message from his brother,
LG1891	3299	How shall the young man know the whether and when of his brother?
LG1891	3300	Tell him to send me the signs.
LG1891	3301	And I stand before the young man face to face, and take his right hand in my left hand and his left hand in my right hand,
LG1891	3302	And I answer for his brother and for men, and I answer for him that answers for all, and send these signs.
LG1891	3303	Him all wait for, him all yield up to, his word is decisive and final,
LG1891	3304	Him they accept, in him lave, in him perceive themselves as amid light,
LG1891	3305	Him they immerse and he immerses them.
LG1891	3306	Beautiful women, the haughtiest nations, laws, the landscape,people, animals,
LG1891	3307	The profound earth and its attributes and the unquiet ocean, (so tell I my morning's romanza,)
LG1891	3308	All enjoyments and properties and money, and whatever money will buy,
LG1891	3309	The best farms, others toiling and planting and he unavoidably reaps,
LG1891	3310	The noblest and costliest cities, others grading and building and he domiciles there,
LG1891	3311	Nothing for any one but what is for him, near and far are for him,the ships in the offing,
LG1891	3312	The perpetual shows and marches on land are for him if they are for anybody.
LG1891	3313	He puts things in their attitudes,
LG1891	3314	He puts to-day out of himself with plasticity and love,
LG1891	3315	He places his own times, reminiscences, parents, brothers and sisters, associations, employment, politics, so that the rest never shame them afterward, nor assume to command them.
LG1891	3316	He is the Answerer,
LG1891	3317	What can be answer'd he answers, and what cannot be answer'd he shows how it cannot be answer'd.
LG1891	3318	A man is a summons and challenge,
LG1891	3319	(It is vain to skulk—do you hear that mocking and laughter? do you hear the ironical echoes?)
LG1891	3320	Books, friendships, philosophers, priests, action, pleasure, pride,beat up and down seeking to give satisfaction,
LG1891	3321	He indicates the satisfaction, and indicates them that beat up and down also.
LG1891	3322	Whichever the sex, whatever the season or place, he may go freshly and gently and safely by day or by night,
LG1891	3323	He has the pass-key of hearts, to him the response of the prying of hands on the knobs.
LG1891	3324	His welcome is universal, the flow of beauty is not more welcome or universal than he is,
LG1891	3325	The person he favors by day or sleeps with at night is blessed.
LG1891	3326	Every existence has its idiom, every thing has an idiom and tongue,
LG1891	3327	He resolves all tongues into his own and bestows it upon men, and any man translates, and any man translates himself also,
LG1891	3328	One part does not counteract another part, he is the joiner, he sees how they join.
LG1891	3329	He says indifferently and alike How are you friend? to the President at his levee,
LG1891	3330	And he says Good-day my brother, to Cudge that hoes in the sugar-field,
LG1891	3331	And both understand him and know that his speech is right.
LG1891	3332	He walks with perfect ease in the capitol,
LG1891	3333	He walks among the Congress, and one Representative says to another, Here is our equal appearing and new.
LG1891	3334	Then the mechanics take him for a mechanic,
LG1891	3335	And the soldiers suppose him to be a soldier, and the sailors that he has follow'd the sea,
LG1891	3336	And the authors take him for an author, and the artists for an artist,
LG1891	3337	And the laborers perceive he could labor with them and love them,
LG1891	3338	No matter what the work is, that he is the one to follow it or has follow'd it,
LG1891	3339	No matter what the nation, that he might find his brothers and sisters there.
LG1891	3340	The English believe he comes of their English stock,
LG1891	3341	A Jew to the Jew he seems, a Russ to the Russ, usual and near,removed from none.
LG1891	3342	Whoever he looks at in the traveler's coffee-house claims him,
LG1891	3343	The Italian or Frenchman is sure, the German is sure, the Spaniard is sure, and the island Cuban is sure,
LG1891	3344	The engineer, the deck-hand on the great lakes, or on the Missis-sippi or St. Lawrence or Sacramento, or Hudson or Pau-manokPaumanok sound, claims him.
LG1891	3345	The gentleman of perfect blood acknowledges his perfect blood,
LG1891	3346	The insulter, the prostitute, the angry person, the beggar, see themselves in the ways of him, he strangely transmutes them,
LG1891	3347	They are not vile any more, they hardly know themselves they are so grown.
LG1891	3348	The indications and tally of time,
LG1891	3349	Perfect sanity shows the master among philosophs,
LG1891	3350	Time, always without break, indicates itself in parts,
LG1891	3351	What always indicates the poet is the crowd of the pleasant com-panycompany of singers, and their words,
LG1891	3352	The words of the singers are the hours or minutes of the light or dark, but the words of the maker of poems are the general light and dark,
LG1891	3353	The maker of poems settles justice, reality, immortality,
LG1891	3354	His insight and power encircle things and the human race,
LG1891	3355	He is the glory and extract thus far of things and of the human race.
LG1891	3356	The singers do not beget, only the Poet begets,
LG1891	3357	The singers are welcom'd, understood, appear often enough, but rare has the day been, likewise the spot, of the birth of the maker of poems, the Answerer,
LG1891	3358	(Not every century nor every five centuries has contain'd such a day, for all its names.)
LG1891	3359	The singers of successive hours of centuries may have ostensible names, but the name of each of them is one of the singers,
LG1891	3360	The name of each is, eye-singer, ear-singer, head-singer, sweet-singersweet-singer, night-singer, parlor-singer, love-singer, weird-singer,or something else.
LG1891	3361	All this time and at all times wait the words of true poems,
LG1891	3362	The words of true poems do not merely please,
LG1891	3363	The true poets are not followers of beauty but the august masters of beauty;
LG1891	3364	The greatness of sons is the exuding of the greatness of mothers and fathers,
LG1891	3365	The words of true poems are the tuft and final applause of science.
LG1891	3366	Divine instinct, breadth of vision, the law of reason, health, rudeness of body, withdrawnness,
LG1891	3367	Gayety, sun-tan, air-sweetness, such are some of the words of poems.
LG1891	3368	The sailor and traveler underlie the makers of poems, the Answerer,
LG1891	3369	The builder, geometer, chemist, anatomist, phrenologist, artist, all these underlie the maker of poems, the Answerer.
LG1891	3370	The words of the true poems give you more than poems,
LG1891	3371	They give you to form for yourself poems, religions, politics, war,peace, behavior, histories, essays, daily life, and every thing else,
LG1891	3372	They balance ranks, colors, races, creeds, and the sexes,
LG1891	3373	They do not seek beauty, they are sought,
LG1891	3374	Forever touching them or close upon them follows beauty, longing,fain, love-sick.
LG1891	3375	They prepare for death, yet are they not the finish, but rather the outset,
LG1891	3376	They bring none to his or her terminus or to be content and full,
LG1891	3377	Whom they take they take into space to behold the birth of stars,to learn one of the meanings,
LG1891	3378	To launch off with absolute faith, to sweep through the ceaseless rings and never be quiet again.
LG1891	3379	ALWAYS our old feuillage!
LG1891	3380	Always Florida's green peninsula—always the priceless delta of Louisiana—always the cotton-fields of Alabama and Texas,
LG1891	3381	Always California's golden hills and hollows, and the silver moun-tainsmountains of New Mexico—always soft-breath'd Cuba,
LG1891	3382	Always the vast slope drain'd by the Southern sea, inseparable with the slopes drain'd by the Eastern and Western seas,
LG1891	3383	The area the eighty-third year of these States, the three and a half millions of square miles,
LG1891	3384	The eighteen thousand miles of sea-coast and bay-coast on the main, the thirty thousand miles of river navigation,
LG1891	3385	The seven millions of distinct families and the same number of dwellings—always these, and more, branching forth into numberless branches,
LG1891	3386	Always the free range and diversity—always the continent of Democracy;
LG1891	3387	Always the prairies, pastures, forests, vast cities, travelers, KanadaCanada, the snows;
LG1891	3388	Always these compact lands tied at the hips with the belt stringing the huge oval lakes;
LG1891	3389	Always the West with strong native persons, the increasing density there, the habitans, friendly, threatening, ironical, scorning invaders;
LG1891	3390	All sights, South, North, East—all deeds, promiscuously done at all times,
LG1891	3391	All characters, movements, growths, a few noticed, myriads unno-ticedunnoticed,
LG1891	3392	Through Mannahatta's streets I walking, these things gathering,
LG1891	3393	On interior rivers by night in the glare of pine knots, steamboats wooding up,
LG1891	3394	Sunlight by day on the valley of the Susquehanna, and on the valleys of the Potomac and Rappahannock, and the valleys of the Roanoke and Delaware,
LG1891	3395	In their northerly wilds beasts of prey haunting the Adirondacks the hills, or lapping the Saginaw waters to drink,
LG1891	3396	In a lonesome inlet a sheldrake lost from the flock, sitting on the water rocking silently,
LG1891	3397	In farmers' barns oxen in the stable, their harvest labor done, they rest standing, they are too tired,
LG1891	3398	Afar on arctic ice the she-walrus lying drowsily while her cubs play around,
LG1891	3399	The hawk sailing where men have not yet sail'd, the farthest polar sea, ripply, crystalline, open, beyond the floes,
LG1891	3400	White drift spooning ahead where the ship in the tempest dashes,
LG1891	3401	On solid land what is done in cities as the bells strike midnight together,
LG1891	3402	In primitive woods the sounds there also sounding, the howl of the wolf, the scream of the panther, and the hoarse bellow of the elk,
LG1891	3403	In winter beneath the hard blue ice of Moosehead lake, in summer visible through the clear waters, the great trout swimming,
LG1891	3404	In lower latitudes in warmer air in the Carolinas the large black buzzard floating slowly high beyond the tree tops,
LG1891	3405	Below, the red cedar festoon'd with tylandria, the pines and cypresses growing out of the white sand that spreads far and flat,
LG1891	3406	Rude boats descending the big Pedee, climbing plants, parasites with color'd flowers and berries enveloping huge trees,
LG1891	3407	The waving drapery on the live-oak trailing long and low, noise-lesslynoiselessly waved by the wind,
LG1891	3408	The camp of Georgia wagoners just after dark, the supper-fires and the cooking and eating by whites and negroes,
LG1891	3409	Thirty or forty great wagons, the mules, cattle, horses, feeding from troughs,
LG1891	3410	The shadows, gleams, up under the leaves of the old sycamore-treessycamore-trees, the flames with the black smoke from the pitch-pine curling and rising;
LG1891	3411	Southern fishermen fishing, the sounds and inlets of North Caro-lina'sCarolina's coast, the shad-fishery and the herring-fishery, the large sweep-seines, the windlasses on shore work'd by horses, the clearing, curing, and packing-houses;
LG1891	3412	Deep in the forest in piney woods turpentine dropping from the incisions in the trees, there are the turpentine works,
LG1891	3413	There are the negroes at work in good health, the ground in all directions is cover'd with pine straw;
LG1891	3414	In Tennessee and Kentucky slaves busy in the coalings, at the forge, by the furnace-blaze, or at the corn-shucking,
LG1891	3415	In Virginia, the planter's son returning after a long absence, joy-fullyjoyfully welcom'd and kiss'd by the aged mulatto nurse,
LG1891	3416	On rivers boatmen safely moor'd at nightfall in their boats under shelter of high banks,
LG1891	3417	Some of the younger men dance to the sound of the banjo or fiddle, others sit on the gunwale smoking and talking;
LG1891	3418	Late in the afternoon the mocking-bird, the American mimic, singing in the Great Dismal Swamp,
LG1891	3419	There are the greenish waters, the resinous odor, the plenteous moss, the cypress-tree, and the juniper-tree;
LG1891	3420	Northward, young men of Mannahatta, the target company from an excursion returning home at evening, the musket-muz-zlesmusket-muzzles all bear bunches of flowers presented by women;
LG1891	3421	Children at play, or on his father's lap a young boy fallen asleep, (how his lips move! how he smiles in his sleep!)
LG1891	3422	The scout riding on horseback over the plains west of the Missis-sippiMississippi, he ascends a knoll and sweeps his eyes around;
LG1891	3423	California life, the miner, bearded, dress'd in his rude costume, the stanch California friendship, the sweet air, the graves one in passing meets solitary just aside the horse-path;
LG1891	3424	Down in Texas the cotton-field, the negro-cabins, drivers driving mules or oxen before rude carts, cotton bales piled on banks and wharves;
LG1891	3425	Encircling all, vast-darting up and wide, the American Soul, with equal hemispheres, one Love, one Dilation or Pride;
LG1891	3426	In arriere the peace-talk with the Iroquois the aborigines, the calumet, the pipe of good-will, arbitration, and indorse-mentindorsement,
LG1891	3427	The sachem blowing the smoke first toward the sun and then toward the earth,
LG1891	3428	The drama of the scalp-dance enacted with painted faces and guttural exclamations,
LG1891	3429	The setting out of the war-party, the long and stealthy march,
LG1891	3430	The single file, the swinging hatchets, the surprise and slaughter of enemies;
LG1891	3431	All the acts, scenes, ways, persons, attitudes of these States, reminiscences, institutions,
LG1891	3432	All these States compact, every square mile of these States without excepting a particle;
LG1891	3433	Me pleas'd, rambling in lanes and country fields, Paumanok's fields,
LG1891	3434	Observing the spiral flight of two little yellow butterflies shuffling between each other, ascending high in the air,
LG1891	3435	The darting swallow, the destroyer of insects, the fall traveler southward but returning northward early in the spring,
LG1891	3436	The country boy at the close of the day driving the herd of cows and shouting to them as they loiter to browse by the road-sideroadside,
LG1891	3437	The city wharf, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston, New Orleans, San Francisco,
LG1891	3438	The departing ships when the sailors heave at the capstan;
LG1891	3439	Evening—me in my room—the setting sun,
LG1891	3440	The setting summer sun shining in my open window, showing the swarm of flies, suspended, balancing in the air in the centre of the room, darting athwart, up and down, casting swift shadows in specks on the opposite wall where the shine is;
LG1891	3441	The athletic American matron speaking in public to crowds of listeners,
LG1891	3442	Males, females, immigrants, combinations, the copiousness, the individuality of the States, each for itself—the money-makersmoneymakers,
LG1891	3443	Factories, machinery, the mechanical forces, the windlass, lever, pulley, all certainties,
LG1891	3444	The certainty of space, increase, freedom, futurity,
LG1891	3445	In space the sporades, the scatter'd islands, the stars—on the firm earth, the lands, my lands,
LG1891	3446	O lands! all so dear to me—what you are, (whatever it is,) I putting it at random in these songs, become a part of that, whatever it is,
LG1891	3447	Southward there, I screaming, with wings slow flapping, with the myriads of gulls wintering along the coasts of Florida,
LG1891	3448	Otherways there atwixt the banks of the Arkansaw, the Rio Grande, the Nueces, the Brazos, the Tombigbee, the Red River, the Saskatchawan or the Osage, I with the spring waters laughing and skipping and running,
LG1891	3449	Northward, on the sands, on some shallow bay of Paumanok, I with parties of snowy herons wading in the wet to seek worms and aquatic plants,
LG1891	3450	Retreating, triumphantly twittering, the king-bird, from piercing the crow with its bill, for amusement—and I triumphantly twittering,
LG1891	3451	The migrating flock of wild geese alighting in autumn to refresh themselves, the body of the flock feed, the sentinels out-sideoutside move around with erect heads watching, and are from time to time reliev'd by other sentinels—and I feeding and taking turns with the rest,
LG1891	3452	In KanadianCanadian forests the moose, large as an ox, corner'd by hunters, rising desperately on his hind-feet, and plunging with his fore-feet, the hoofs as sharp as knives—and I, plunging at the hunters, corner'd and desperate,
LG1891	3453	In the Mannahatta, streets, piers, shipping, store-houses, and the countless workmen working in the shops,
LG1891	3454	And I too of the Mannahatta, singing thereof—and no less in myself than the whole of the Mannahatta in itself,
LG1891	3455	Singing the song of These, my ever-united lands—my body no more inevitably united, part to part, and made out of a thousand diverse contributions one identity, any more than my lands are inevitably united and made ONE IDENTITY;
LG1891	3456	Nativities, climates, the grass of the great pastoral Plains,
LG1891	3457	Cities, labors, death, animals, products, war, good and evil—these me,
LG1891	3458	These affording, in all their particulars, the old feuillage to me and to America, how can I do less than pass the clew of the union of them, to afford the like to you?
LG1891	3459	Whoever you are! how can I but offer you divine leaves, that you also be eligible as I am?
LG1891	3460	How can I but as here chanting, invite you for yourself to collect bouquets of the incomparable feuillage of these States?
LG1891	3461	O TO make the most jubilant song!
LG1891	3462	Full of music—full of manhood, womanhood, infancy!
LG1891	3463	Full of common employments—full of grain and trees.
LG1891	3464	O for the voices of animals—O for the swiftness and balance of fishes!
LG1891	3465	O for the dropping of raindrops in a song!
LG1891	3466	O for the sunshine and motion of waves in a song!
LG1891	3467	O the joy of my spirit—it is uncaged—it darts like lightning!
LG1891	3468	It is not enough to have this globe or a certain time,
LG1891	3469	I will have thousands of globes and all time.
LG1891	3470	O the engineer's joys! to go with a locomotive!
LG1891	3471	To hear the hiss of steam, the merry shriek, the steam-whistle, the laughing locomotive!
LG1891	3472	To push with resistless way and speed off in the distance.
LG1891	3473	O the gleesome saunter over fields and hillsides!
LG1891	3474	The leaves and flowers of the commonest weeds, the moist fresh stillness of the woods,
LG1891	3475	The exquisite smell of the earth at daybreak, and all through the forenoon.
LG1891	3476	O the horseman's and horsewoman's joys!
LG1891	3477	The saddle, the gallop, the pressure upon the seat, the cool gurgling by the ears and hair.
LG1891	3478	O the fireman's joys!
LG1891	3479	I hear the alarm at dead of night,
LG1891	3480	I hear bells, shouts! I pass the crowd, I run!
LG1891	3481	The sight of the flames maddens me with pleasure.
LG1891	3482	O the joy of the strong-brawn'd fighter, towering in the arena in perfect condition, conscious of power, thirsting to meet his opponent.
LG1891	3483	O the joy of that vast elemental sympathy which only the human soul is capable of generating and emitting in steady and limitless floods.
LG1891	3484	O the mother's joys!
LG1891	3485	The watching, the endurance, the precious love, the anguish, the patiently yielded life.
LG1891	3486	O the joy of increase, growth, recuperation,
LG1891	3487	The joy of soothing and pacifying, the joy of concord and harmony.
LG1891	3488	O to go back to the place where I was born,
LG1891	3489	To hear the birds sing once more,
LG1891	3490	To ramble about the house and barn and over the fields once more,
LG1891	3491	And through the orchard and along the old lanes once more.
LG1891	3492	O to have been brought up on bays, lagoons, creeks, or along the coast,
LG1891	3493	To continue and be employ'd there all my life,
LG1891	3494	The briny and damp smell, the shore, the salt weeds exposed at low water,
LG1891	3495	The work of fishermen, the work of the eel-fisher and clam-fisher;
LG1891	3496	I come with my clam-rake and spade, I come with my eel-spear,
LG1891	3497	Is the tide out? I join the group of clam-diggers on the flats,
LG1891	3498	I laugh and work with them, I joke at my work like a mettlesome young man;
LG1891	3499	In winter I take my eel-basket and eel-spear and travel out on foot on the ice—I have a small axe to cut holes in the ice,
LG1891	3500	Behold me well-clothed going gayly or returning in the afternoon, my brood of tough boys accompanying me,
LG1891	3501	My brood of grown and part-grown boys, who love to be with no one else so well as they love to be with me,
LG1891	3502	By day to work with me, and by night to sleep with me.
LG1891	3503	Another time in warm weather out in a boat, to lift the lobster-pots where they are sunk with heavy stones, (I know the buoys,)
LG1891	3504	O the sweetness of the Fifth-month morning upon the water as I row just before sunrise toward the buoys,
LG1891	3505	I pull the wicker pots up slantingly, the dark green lobsters are desperate with their claws as I take them out, I insert wooden pegs in the joints of their pincers,
LG1891	3506	I go to all the places one after another, and then row back to the shore,
LG1891	3507	There in a huge kettle of boiling water the lobsters shall be boil'd till their color becomes scarlet.
LG1891	3508	Another time mackerel-taking,
LG1891	3509	Voracious, mad for the hook, near the surface, they seem to fill the water for miles;
LG1891	3510	Another time fishing for rock-fish in Chesapeake bay, I one of the brown-faced crew;
LG1891	3511	Another time trailing for blue-fish off Paumanok, I stand with braced body,
LG1891	3512	My left foot is on the gunwale, my right arm throws far out the coils of slender rope,
LG1891	3513	In sight around me the quick veering and darting of fifty skiffs, my companions.
LG1891	3514	O boating on the rivers,
LG1891	3515	The voyage down the St. Lawrence, the superb scenery, the steamers,
LG1891	3516	The ships sailing, the Thousand Islands, the occasional timber-raft and the raftsmen with long-reaching sweep-oars,
LG1891	3517	The little huts on the rafts, and the stream of smoke when they cook supper at evening.
LG1891	3518	(O something pernicious and dread!
LG1891	3519	Something far away from a puny and pious life!
LG1891	3520	Something unproved! something in a trance!
LG1891	3521	Something escaped from the anchorage and driving free.)
LG1891	3522	O to work in mines, or forging iron,
LG1891	3523	Foundry casting, the foundry itself, the rude high roof, the ample and shadow'd space,
LG1891	3524	The furnace, the hot liquid pour'd out and running.
LG1891	3525	O to resume the joys of the soldier!
LG1891	3526	To feel the presence of a brave commanding officer—to feel his sympathy!
LG1891	3527	To behold his calmness—to be warm'd in the rays of his smile!
LG1891	3528	To go to battle—to hear the bugles play and the drums beat!
LG1891	3529	To hear the crash of artillery—to see the glittering of the bayonets and musket-barrels in the sun!
LG1891	3530	To see men fall and die and not complain!
LG1891	3531	To taste the savage taste of blood—to be so devilish!
LG1891	3532	To gloat so over the wounds and deaths of the enemy.
LG1891	3533	O the whaleman's joys! O I cruise my old cruise again!
LG1891	3534	I feel the ship's motion under me, I feel the Atlantic breezes fan-ningfanning me,
LG1891	3535	I hear the cry again sent down from the mast-head, There—she blows!
LG1891	3536	Again I spring up the rigging to look with the rest—we descend, wild with excitement,
LG1891	3537	I leap in the lower'd boat, we row toward our prey where he lies,
LG1891	3538	We approach stealthy and silent, I see the mountainous mass, lethargic, basking,
LG1891	3539	I see the harpooneer standing up, I see the weapon dart from his vigorous arm;
LG1891	3540	O swift again far out in the ocean the wounded whale, settling, running to windward, tows me,
LG1891	3541	Again I see him rise to breathe, we row close again,
LG1891	3542	I see a lance driven through his side, press'd deep, turn'd in the wound,
LG1891	3543	Again we back off, I see him settle again, the life is leaving him fast,
LG1891	3544	As he rises he spouts blood, I see him swim in circles narrower and narrower, swiftly cutting the water—I see him die,
LG1891	3545	He gives one convulsive leap in the centre of the circle, and then falls flat and still in the bloody foam.
LG1891	3546	O the old manhood of me, my noblest joy of all!
LG1891	3547	My children and grand-children, my white hair and beard,
LG1891	3548	My largeness, calmness, majesty, out of the long stretch of my life.
LG1891	3549	O ripen'd joy of womanhood! O happiness at last!
LG1891	3550	I am more than eighty years of age, I am the most venerable mother,
LG1891	3551	How clear is my mind—how all people draw nigh to me!
LG1891	3552	What attractions are these beyond any before? what bloom more than the bloom of youth?
LG1891	3553	What beauty is this that descends upon me and rises out of me?
LG1891	3554	O the orator's joys!
LG1891	3555	To inflate the chest, to roll the thunder of the voice out from the ribs and throat,
LG1891	3556	To make the people rage, weep, hate, desire, with yourself,
LG1891	3557	To lead America—to quell America with a great tongue.
LG1891	3558	O the joy of my soul leaning pois'd on itself, receiving identity through materials and loving them, observing characters and absorbing them,
LG1891	3559	My soul vibrated back to me from them, from sight, hearing, touch, reason, articulation, comparison, memory, and the like,
LG1891	3560	The real life of my senses and flesh transcending my senses and flesh,
LG1891	3561	My body done with materials, my sight done with my material eyes,
LG1891	3562	Proved to me this day beyond cavil that it is not my material eyes which finally see,
LG1891	3563	Nor my material body which finally loves, walks, laughs, shouts, embraces, procreates.
LG1891	3564	O the farmer's joys!
LG1891	3565	Ohioan's, Illinoisian's, Wisconsinese', Kanadian'sCanadian's, Iowan's, Kan-sian'sKansian's, Missourian's, Oregonese' joys!
LG1891	3566	To rise at peep of day and pass forth nimbly to work,
LG1891	3567	To plough land in the fall for winter-sown crops,
LG1891	3568	To plough land in the spring for maize,
LG1891	3569	To train orchards, to graft the trees, to gather apples in the fall.
LG1891	3570	O to bathe in the swimming-bath, or in a good place along shore,
LG1891	3571	To splash the water! to walk ankle-deep, or race naked along the shore.
LG1891	3572	O to realize space!
LG1891	3573	The plenteousness of all, that there are no bounds,
LG1891	3574	To emerge and be of the sky, of the sun and moon and flying clouds, as one with them.
LG1891	3575	O the joy of a manly self-hood!
LG1891	3576	To be servile to none, to defer to none, not to any tyrant known or unknown,
LG1891	3577	To walk with erect carriage, a step springy and elastic,
LG1891	3578	To look with calm gaze or with a flashing eye,
LG1891	3579	To speak with a full and sonorous voice out of a broad chest,
LG1891	3580	To confront with your personality all the other personalities of the earth.
LG1891	3581	Know'st thou the excellent joys of youth?
LG1891	3582	Joys of the dear companions and of the merry word and laughing face?
LG1891	3583	Joy of the glad light-beaming day, joy of the wide-breath'd games?
LG1891	3584	Joy of sweet music, joy of the lighted ball-room and the dancers?
LG1891	3585	Joy of the plenteous dinner, strong carouse and drinking?
LG1891	3586	Yet O my soul supreme!
LG1891	3587	Know'st thou the joys of pensive thought?
LG1891	3588	Joys of the free and lonesome heart, the tender, gloomy heart?
LG1891	3589	Joys of the solitary walk, the spirit bow'd yet proud, the suffering and the struggle?
LG1891	3590	The agonistic throes, the ecstasies, joys of the solemn musings day or night?
LG1891	3591	Joys of the thought of Death, the great spheres Time and Space?
LG1891	3592	Prophetic joys of better, loftier love's ideals, the divine wife, the sweet, eternal, perfect comrade?
LG1891	3593	Joys all thine own undying one, joys worthy thee O soul.
LG1891	3594	O while I live to be the ruler of life, not a slave,
LG1891	3595	To meet life as a powerful conqueror,
LG1891	3596	No fumes, no ennui, no more complaints or scornful criticisms,
LG1891	3597	To these proud laws of the air, the water and the ground, proving my interior soul impregnable,
LG1891	3598	And nothing exterior shall ever take command of me.
LG1891	3599	For not life's joys alone I sing, repeating—the joy of death!
LG1891	3600	The beautiful touch of Death, soothing and benumbing a few moments, for reasons,
LG1891	3601	Myself discharging my excrementitious body to be burn'd, or render'd to powder, or buried,
LG1891	3602	My real body doubtless left to me for other spheres,
LG1891	3603	My voided body nothing more to me, returning to the purifications, further offices, eternal uses of the earth.
LG1891	3604	O to attract by more than attraction!
LG1891	3605	How it is I know not—yet behold! the something which obeys none of the rest,
LG1891	3606	It is offensive, never defensive—yet how magnetic it draws.
LG1891	3607	O to struggle against great odds, to meet enemies undaunted!
LG1891	3608	To be entirely alone with them, to find how much one can stand!
LG1891	3609	To look strife, torture, prison, popular odium, face to face!
LG1891	3610	To mount the scaffold, to advance to the muzzles of guns with perfect nonchalance!
LG1891	3611	To be indeed a God!
LG1891	3612	O to sail to sea in a ship!
LG1891	3613	To leave this steady unendurable land,
LG1891	3614	To leave the tiresome sameness of the streets, the sidewalks and the houses,
LG1891	3615	To leave you O you solid motionless land, and entering a ship,
LG1891	3616	To sail and sail and sail!
LG1891	3617	O to have life henceforth a poem of new joys!
LG1891	3618	To dance, clap hands, exult, shout, skip, leap, roll on, float on!
LG1891	3619	To be a sailor of the world bound for all ports,
LG1891	3620	A ship itself, (see indeed these sails I spread to the sun and air,)
LG1891	3621	A swift and swelling ship full of rich words, full of joys.
LG1891	3622	WEAPON shapely, naked, wan,
LG1891	3623	Head from the mother's bowels drawn,
LG1891	3624	Wooded flesh and metal bone, limb only one and lip only one,
LG1891	3625	Gray-blue leaf by red-heat grown, helve produced from a little seed sown,
LG1891	3626	Resting the grass amid and upon,
LG1891	3627	To be lean'd and to lean on.
LG1891	3628	Strong shapes and attributes of strong shapes, masculine trades,sights and sounds,
LG1891	3629	Long varied train of an emblem, dabs of music,
LG1891	3630	Fingers of the organist skipping staccato over the keys of the great organ.
LG1891	3631	Welcome are all earth's lands, each for its kind,
LG1891	3632	Welcome are lands of pine and oak,
LG1891	3633	Welcome are lands of the lemon and fig,
LG1891	3634	Welcome are lands of gold,
LG1891	3635	Welcome are lands of wheat and maize, welcome those of the grape,
LG1891	3636	Welcome are lands of sugar and rice,
LG1891	3637	Welcome the cotton-lands, welcome those of the white potato and sweet potato,
LG1891	3638	Welcome are mountains, flats, sands, forests, prairies,
LG1891	3639	Welcome the rich borders of rivers, table-lands, openings,
LG1891	3640	Welcome the measureless grazing-lands, welcome the teeming soil of orchards, flax, honey, hemp;
LG1891	3641	Welcome just as much the other more hard-faced lands,
LG1891	3642	Lands rich as lands of gold or wheat and fruit lands,
LG1891	3643	Lands of mines, lands of the manly and rugged ores,
LG1891	3644	Lands of coal, copper, lead, tin, zinc,
LG1891	3645	Lands of iron—lands of the make of the axe.
LG1891	3646	The log at the wood-pile, the axe supported by it,
LG1891	3647	The sylvan hut, the vine over the doorway, the space clear'd for a garden,
LG1891	3648	The irregular tapping of rain down on the leaves after the storm is lull'd,
LG1891	3649	The wailing and moaning at intervals, the thought of the sea,
LG1891	3650	The thought of ships struck in the storm and put on their beam ends, and the cutting away of masts,
LG1891	3651	The sentiment of the huge timbers of old-fashion'd houses and barns,
LG1891	3652	The remember'd print or narrative, the voyage at a venture of men, families, goods,
LG1891	3653	The disembarkation, the founding of a new city,
LG1891	3654	The voyage of those who sought a New England and found it, the outset anywhere,
LG1891	3655	The settlements of the Arkansas, Colorado, Ottawa, Willamette,
LG1891	3656	The slow progress, the scant fare, the axe, rifle, saddle-bags;
LG1891	3657	The beauty of all adventurous and daring persons,
LG1891	3658	The beauty of wood-boys and wood-men with their clear un-trimm'duntrimm'd faces,
LG1891	3659	The beauty of independence, departure, actions that rely on themselves,
LG1891	3660	The American contempt for statutes and ceremonies, the bound-lessboundless impatience of restraint,
LG1891	3661	The loose drift of character, the inkling through random types,the solidification;
LG1891	3662	The butcher in the slaughter-house, the hands aboard schooners and sloops, the raftsman, the pioneer,
LG1891	3663	Lumbermen in their winter camp, daybreak in the woods, stripes of snow on the limbs of trees, the occasional snapping,
LG1891	3664	The glad clear sound of one's own voice, the merry song, the natural life of the woods, the strong day's work,
LG1891	3665	The blazing fire at night, the sweet taste of supper, the talk, the bed of hemlock-boughs and the bear-skin;
LG1891	3666	The house-builder at work in cities or anywhere,
LG1891	3667	The preparatory jointing, squaring, sawing, mortising,
LG1891	3668	The hoist-up of beams, the push of them in their places, laying them regular,
LG1891	3669	Setting the studs by their tenons in the mortises according as they were prepared,
LG1891	3670	The blows of mallets and hammers, the attitudes of the men,their curv'd limbs,
LG1891	3671	Bending, standing, astride the beams, driving in pins, holding on by posts and braces,
LG1891	3672	The hook'd arm over the plate, the other arm wielding the axe,
LG1891	3673	The floor-men forcing the planks close to be nail'd,
LG1891	3674	Their postures bringing their weapons downward on the bearers,
LG1891	3675	The echoes resounding through the vacant building;
LG1891	3676	The huge storehouse carried up in the city well under way,
LG1891	3677	The six framing-men, two in the middle and two at each end,carefully bearing on their shoulders a heavy stick for a cross-beam,
LG1891	3678	The crowded line of masons with trowels in their right hands rapidly laying the long side-wall, two hundred feet from front to rear,
LG1891	3679	The flexible rise and fall of backs, the continual click of the trowels striking the bricks,
LG1891	3680	The bricks one after another each laid so workmanlike in its place, and set with a knock of the trowel-handle,
LG1891	3681	The piles of materials, the mortar on the mortar-boards, and the steady replenishing by the hod-men;
LG1891	3682	Spar-makers in the spar-yard, the swarming row of well-grown apprentices,
LG1891	3683	The swing of their axes on the square-hew'd log shaping it toward the shape of a mast,
LG1891	3684	The brisk short crackle of the steel driven slantingly into the pine,
LG1891	3685	The butter-color'd chips flying off in great flakes and slivers,
LG1891	3686	The limber motion of brawny young arms and hips in easy cos-tumescostumes,
LG1891	3687	The constructor of wharves, bridges, piers, bulk-heads, floats,stays against the sea;
LG1891	3688	The city fireman, the fire that suddenly bursts forth in the close-pack'dclose-pack'd square,
LG1891	3689	The arriving engines, the hoarse shouts, the nimble stepping and daring,
LG1891	3690	The strong command through the fire-trumpets, the falling in line,the rise and fall of the arms forcing the water,
LG1891	3691	The slender, spasmic, blue-white jets, the bringing to bear of the hooks and ladders and their execution,
LG1891	3692	The crash and cut away of connecting wood-work, or through floors if the fire smoulders under them,
LG1891	3693	The crowd with their lit faces watching, the glare and dense shadows;
LG1891	3694	The forger at his forge-furnace and the user of iron after him,
LG1891	3695	The maker of the axe large and small, and the welder and tem-perertemperer,
LG1891	3696	The chooser breathing his breath on the cold steel and trying the edge with his thumb,
LG1891	3697	The one who clean-shapes the handle and sets it firmly in the socket;
LG1891	3698	The shadowy processions of the portraits of the past users also,
LG1891	3699	The primal patient mechanics, the architects and engineers,
LG1891	3700	The far-off Assyrian edifice and Mizra edifice,
LG1891	3701	The Roman lictors preceding the consuls,
LG1891	3702	The antique European warrior with his axe in combat,
LG1891	3703	The uplifted arm, the clatter of blows on the helmeted head,
LG1891	3704	The death-howl, the limpsy tumbling body, the rush of friend and foe thither,
LG1891	3705	The siege of revolted lieges determin'd for liberty,
LG1891	3706	The summons to surrender, the battering at castle gates, the truce and parley,
LG1891	3707	The sack of an old city in its time,
LG1891	3708	The bursting in of mercenaries and bigots tumultuously and disorderly,
LG1891	3709	Roar, flames, blood, drunkenness, madness,
LG1891	3710	Goods freely rifled from houses and temples, screams of women in the gripe of brigands,
LG1891	3711	Craft and thievery of camp-followers, men running, old persons despairing,
LG1891	3712	The hell of war, the cruelties of creeds,
LG1891	3713	The list of all executive deeds and words just or unjust,
LG1891	3714	The power of personality just or unjust.
LG1891	3715	Muscle and pluck forever!
LG1891	3716	What invigorates life invigorates death,
LG1891	3717	And the dead advance as much as the living advance,
LG1891	3718	And the future is no more uncertain than the present,
LG1891	3719	For the roughness of the earth and of man encloses as much as the delicatesse of the earth and of man,
LG1891	3720	And nothing endures but personal qualities.
LG1891	3721	What do you think endures?
LG1891	3722	Do you think a great city endures?
LG1891	3723	Or a teeming manufacturing state? or a prepared constitution? or the best built steamships?
LG1891	3724	Or hotels of granite and iron? or any chef-d'oeuvres of engineering,forts, armaments?
LG1891	3725	Away! these are not to be cherish'd for themselves,
LG1891	3726	They fill their hour, the dancers dance, the musicians play for them,
LG1891	3727	The show passes, all does well enough of course,
LG1891	3728	All does very well till one flash of defiance.
LG1891	3729	A great city is that which has the greatest men and women,
LG1891	3730	If it be a few ragged huts it is still the greatest city in the whole world.
LG1891	3731	The place where a great city stands is not the place of stretch'd wharves, docks, manufactures, deposits of produce merely,
LG1891	3732	Nor the place of ceaseless salutes of new-comers or the anchor-liftersanchor-lifters of the departing,
LG1891	3733	Nor the place of the tallest and costliest buildings or shops selling goods from the rest of the earth,
LG1891	3734	Nor the place of the best libraries and schools, nor the place where money is plentiest,
LG1891	3735	Nor the place of the most numerous population.
LG1891	3736	Where the city stands with the brawniest breed of orators and bards,
LG1891	3737	Where the city stands that is belov'd by these, and loves them in return and understands them,
LG1891	3738	Where no monuments exist to heroes but in the common words and deeds,
LG1891	3739	Where thrift is in its place, and prudence is in its place,
LG1891	3740	Where the men and women think lightly of the laws,
LG1891	3741	Where the slave ceases, and the master of slaves ceases,
LG1891	3742	Where the populace rise at once against the never-ending audacity of elected persons,
LG1891	3743	Where fierce men and women pour forth as the sea to the whistle of death pours its sweeping and unript waves,
LG1891	3744	Where outside authority enters always after the precedence of inside authority,
LG1891	3745	Where the citizen is always the head and ideal, and President,Mayor, Governor and what not, are agents for pay,
LG1891	3746	Where children are taught to be laws to themselves, and to depend on themselves,
LG1891	3747	Where equanimity is illustrated in affairs,
LG1891	3748	Where speculations on the soul are encouraged,
LG1891	3749	Where women walk in public processions in the streets the same as the men,
LG1891	3750	Where they enter the public assembly and take places the same as the men;
LG1891	3751	Where the city of the faithfulest friends stands,
LG1891	3752	Where the city of the cleanliness of the sexes stands,
LG1891	3753	Where the city of the healthiest fathers stands,
LG1891	3754	Where the city of the best-bodied mothers stands,
LG1891	3755	There the great city stands.
LG1891	3756	How beggarly appear arguments before a defiant deed!
LG1891	3757	How the floridness of the materials of cities shrivels before a man's or woman's look!
LG1891	3758	All waits or goes by default till a strong being appears;
LG1891	3759	A strong being is the proof of the race and of the ability of the universe,
LG1891	3760	When he or she appears materials are overaw'd,
LG1891	3761	The dispute on the soul stops,
LG1891	3762	The old customs and phrases are confronted, turn'd back, or laid away.
LG1891	3763	What is your money-making now? what can it do now?
LG1891	3764	What is your respectability now?
LG1891	3765	What are your theology, tuition, society, traditions, statute-books,now?
LG1891	3766	Where are your jibes of being now?
LG1891	3767	Where are your cavils about the soul now?
LG1891	3768	A sterile landscape covers the ore, there is as good as the best for all the forbidding appearance,
LG1891	3769	There is the mine, there are the miners,
LG1891	3770	The forge-furnace is there, the melt is accomplish'd, the hammers-menhammersmen are at hand with their tongs and hammers,
LG1891	3771	What always served and always serves is at hand.
LG1891	3772	Than this nothing has better served, it has served all,
LG1891	3773	Served the fluent-tongued and subtle-sensed Greek, and long ere the Greek,
LG1891	3774	Served in building the buildings that last longer than any,
LG1891	3775	Served the Hebrew, the Persian, the most ancient Hindustanee,
LG1891	3776	Served the mound-raiser on the Mississippi, served those whose relics remain in Central America,
LG1891	3777	Served Albic temples in woods or on plains, with unhewn pillars and the druids,
LG1891	3778	Served the artificial clefts, vast, high, silent, on the snow-cover'd hills of Scandinavia,
LG1891	3779	Served those who time out of mind made on the granite walls rough sketches of the sun, moon, stars, ships, ocean waves,
LG1891	3780	Served the paths of the irruptions of the Goths, served the pas-toralpastoral tribes and nomads,
LG1891	3781	Served the long distant Kelt, served the hardy pirates of the Baltic,
LG1891	3782	Served before any of those the venerable and harmless men of Ethiopia,
LG1891	3783	Served the making of helms for the galleys of pleasure and the making of those for war,
LG1891	3784	Served all great works on land and all great works on the sea,
LG1891	3785	For the mediaeval ages and before the mediaeval ages,
LG1891	3786	Served not the living only then as now, but served the dead.
LG1891	3787	I see the European headsman,
LG1891	3788	He stands mask'd, clothed in red, with huge legs and strong naked arms,
LG1891	3789	And leans on a ponderous axe.
LG1891	3790	(Whom have you slaughter'd lately European headsman?
LG1891	3791	Whose is that blood upon you so wet and sticky?)
LG1891	3792	I see the clear sunsets of the martyrs,
LG1891	3793	I see from the scaffolds the descending ghosts,
LG1891	3794	Ghosts of dead lords, uncrown'd ladies, impeach'd ministers,rejected kings,
LG1891	3795	Rivals, traitors, poisoners, disgraced chieftains and the rest.
LG1891	3796	I see those who in any land have died for the good cause,
LG1891	3797	The seed is spare, nevertheless the crop shall never run out,
LG1891	3798	(Mind you O foreign kings, O priests, the crop shall never run out.)
LG1891	3799	I see the blood wash'd entirely away from the axe,
LG1891	3800	Both blade and helve are clean,
LG1891	3801	They spirt no more the blood of European nobles, they clasp no more the necks of queens.
LG1891	3802	I see the headsman withdraw and become useless,
LG1891	3803	I see the scaffold untrodden and mouldy, I see no longer any axe upon it,
LG1891	3804	I see the mighty and friendly emblem of the power of my own race, the newest, largest race.
LG1891	3805	(America! I do not vaunt my love for you,
LG1891	3806	I have what I have.)
LG1891	3807	The axe leaps!
LG1891	3808	The solid forest gives fluid utterances,
LG1891	3809	They tumble forth, they rise and form,
LG1891	3810	Hut, tent, landing, survey,
LG1891	3811	Flail, plough, pick, crowbar, spade,
LG1891	3812	Shingle, rail, prop, wainscot, jamb, lath, panel, gable,
LG1891	3813	Citadel, ceiling, saloon, academy, organ, exhibition-house, li-brarylibrary,
LG1891	3814	Cornice, trellis, pilaster, balcony, window, turret, porch,
LG1891	3815	Hoe, rake, pitchfork, pencil, wagon, staff, saw, jack-plane, mallet,wedge, rounce,
LG1891	3816	Chair, tub, hoop, table, wicket, vane, sash, floor,
LG1891	3817	Work-box, chest, string'd instrument, boat, frame, and what not,
LG1891	3818	Capitols of States, and capitol of the nation of States,
LG1891	3819	Long stately rows in avenues, hospitals for orphans or for the poor or sick,
LG1891	3820	Manhattan steamboats and clippers taking the measure of all seas.
LG1891	3821	The shapes arise!
LG1891	3822	Shapes of the using of axes anyhow, and the users and all that neighbors them,
LG1891	3823	Cutters down of wood and haulers of it to the Penobscot or Ken-nebecKennebec,
LG1891	3824	Dwellers in cabins among the Californian mountains or by the little lakes, or on the Columbia,
LG1891	3825	Dwellers south on the banks of the Gila or Rio Grande, friendly gatherings, the characters and fun,
LG1891	3826	Dwellers along the St. Lawrence, or north in KanadaCanada, or down by the Yellowstone, dwellers on coasts and off coasts,
LG1891	3827	Seal-fishers, whalers, arctic seamen breaking passages through the ice.
LG1891	3828	The shapes arise!
LG1891	3829	Shapes of factories, arsenals, foundries, markets,
LG1891	3830	Shapes of the two-threaded tracks of railroads,
LG1891	3831	Shapes of the sleepers of bridges, vast frameworks, girders, arches,
LG1891	3832	Shapes of the fleets of barges, tows, lake and canal craft, river craft,
LG1891	3833	Ship-yards and dry-docks along the Eastern and Western seas, and in many a bay and by-place,
LG1891	3834	The live-oak kelsons, the pine planks, the spars, the hackmatack-rootshackmatack-roots for knees,
LG1891	3835	The ships themselves on their ways, the tiers of scaffolds, the workmen busy outside and inside,
LG1891	3836	The tools lying around, the great auger and little auger, the adze,bolt, line, square, gouge, and bead-plane.
LG1891	3837	The shapes arise!
LG1891	3838	The shape measur'd, saw'd, jack'd, join'd, stain'd,
LG1891	3839	The coffin-shape for the dead to lie within in his shroud,
LG1891	3840	The shape got out in posts, in the bedstead posts, in the posts of the bride's bed,
LG1891	3841	The shape of the little trough, the shape of the rockers beneath,the shape of the babe's cradle,
LG1891	3842	The shape of the floor-planks, the floor-planks for dancers' feet,
LG1891	3843	The shape of the planks of the family home, the home of the friendly parents and children,
LG1891	3844	The shape of the roof of the home of the happy young man and woman, the roof over the well-married young man and woman,
LG1891	3845	The roof over the supper joyously cook'd by the chaste wife, and joyously eaten by the chaste husband, content after his day's work.
LG1891	3846	The shapes arise!
LG1891	3847	The shape of the prisoner's place in the court-room, and of him or her seated in the place,
LG1891	3848	The shape of the liquor-bar lean'd against by the young rum-drinkerrum-drinker and the old rum-drinker,
LG1891	3849	The shape of the shamed and angry stairs trod by sneaking foot-stepsfootsteps,
LG1891	3850	The shape of the sly settee, and the adulterous unwholesome couple,
LG1891	3851	The shape of the gambling-board with its devilish winnings and losings,
LG1891	3852	The shape of the step-ladder for the convicted and sentenced murderer, the murderer with haggard face and pinion'd arms,
LG1891	3853	The sheriff at hand with his deputies, the silent and white-lipp'd crowd, the dangling of the rope.
LG1891	3854	The shapes arise!
LG1891	3855	Shapes of doors giving many exits and entrances,
LG1891	3856	The door passing the dissever'd friend flush'd and in haste,
LG1891	3857	The door that admits good news and bad news,
LG1891	3858	The door whence the son left home confident and puff'd up,
LG1891	3859	The door he enter'd again from a long and scandalous absence,diseas'd, broken down, without innocence, without means.
LG1891	3860	Her shape arises,
LG1891	3861	She less guarded than ever, yet more guarded than ever,
LG1891	3862	The gross and soil'd she moves among do not make her gross and soil'd,
LG1891	3863	She knows the thoughts as she passes, nothing is conceal'd from her,
LG1891	3864	She is none the less considerate or friendly therefor,
LG1891	3865	She is the best belov'd, it is without exception, she has no reason to fear and she does not fear,
LG1891	3866	Oaths, quarrels, hiccupp'd songs, smutty expressions, are idle to her as she passes,
LG1891	3867	She is silent, she is possess'd of herself, they do not offend her,
LG1891	3868	She receives them as the laws of Nature receive them, she is strong,
LG1891	3869	She too is a law of Nature—there is no law stronger than she is.
LG1891	3870	The main shapes arise!
LG1891	3871	Shapes of Democracy total, result of centuries,
LG1891	3872	Shapes ever projecting other shapes,
LG1891	3873	Shapes of turbulent manly cities,
LG1891	3874	Shapes of the friends and home-givers of the whole earth,
LG1891	3875	Shapes bracing the earth and braced with the whole earth.
LG1891	3876	(AH little recks the laborer,
LG1891	3877	How near his work is holding him to God,
LG1891	3878	The loving Laborer through space and time.)
LG1891	3879	After all not to create only, or found only,
LG1891	3880	But to bring perhaps from afar what is already founded,
LG1891	3881	To give it our own identity, average, limitless, free,
LG1891	3882	To fill the gross the torpid bulk with vital religious fire,
LG1891	3883	Not to repel or destroy so much as accept, fuse, rehabilitate,
LG1891	3884	To obey as well as command, to follow more than to lead,
LG1891	3885	These also are the lessons of our New World;
LG1891	3886	While how little the New after all, how much the Old, Old World!
LG1891	3887	Long and long has the grass been growing,
LG1891	3888	Long and long has the rain been falling,
LG1891	3889	Long has the globe been rolling round.
LG1891	3890	Come Muse migrate from Greece and Ionia,
LG1891	3891	Cross out please those immensely overpaid accounts,
LG1891	3892	That matter of Troy and Achilles' wrath, and Aeneas', Odysseus'wanderings,
LG1891	3893	Placard "Removed" and "To Let" on the rocks of your snowy Parnassus,
LG1891	3894	Repeat at Jerusalem, place the notice high on Jaffa's gate and on Mount Moriah,
LG1891	3895	The same on the walls of your German, French and Spanish castles, and Italian collections,
LG1891	3896	For know a better, fresher, busier sphere, a wide, untried domain awaits, demands you.
LG1891	3897	Responsive to our summons,
LG1891	3898	Or rather to her long-nurs'd inclination,
LG1891	3899	Join'd with an irresistible, natural gravitation,
LG1891	3900	She comes! I hear the rustling of her gown,
LG1891	3901	I scent the odor of her breath's delicious fragrance,
LG1891	3902	I mark her step divine, her curious eyes a-turning, rolling,
LG1891	3903	Upon this very scene.
LG1891	3904	The dame of dames! can I believe then,
LG1891	3905	Those ancient temples, sculptures classic, could none of them retain her?
LG1891	3906	Nor shades of Virgil and Dante, nor myriad memories, poems,old associations, magnetize and hold on to her?
LG1891	3907	But that she's left them all—and here?
LG1891	3908	Yes, if you will allow me to say so,
LG1891	3909	I, my friends, if you do not, can plainly see her,
LG1891	3910	The same undying soul of earth's, activity's, beauty's, heroism's expression,
LG1891	3911	Out from her evolutions hither come, ended the strata of her former themes,
LG1891	3912	Hidden and cover'd by to-day's, foundation of to-day's,
LG1891	3913	Ended, deceas'd through time, her voice by Castaly's fountain,
LG1891	3914	Silent the broken-lipp'd Sphynx in Egypt, silent all those century-bafflingcentury-baffling tombs,
LG1891	3915	Ended for aye the epics of Asia's, Europe's helmeted warriors,ended the primitive call of the muses,
LG1891	3916	Calliope's call forever closed, Clio, Melpomene, Thalia dead,
LG1891	3917	Ended the stately rhythmus of Una and Oriana, ended the quest of the holy Graal,
LG1891	3918	Jerusalem a handful of ashes blown by the wind, extinct,
LG1891	3919	The Crusaders' streams of shadowy midnight troops sped with the sunrise,
LG1891	3920	Amadis, Tancred, utterly gone, Charlemagne, Roland, Oliver gone,
LG1891	3921	Palmerin, ogre, departed, vanish'd the turrets that Usk from its waters reflected,
LG1891	3922	Arthur vanish'd with all his knights, Merlin and Lancelot and Galahad, all gone, dissolv'd utterly like an exhalation;
LG1891	3923	Pass'd! pass'd! for us, forever pass'd, that once so mighty world,now void, inanimate, phantom world,
LG1891	3924	Embroider'd, dazzling, foreign world, with all its gorgeous legends,myths,
LG1891	3925	Its kings and castles proud, its priests and warlike lords and courtly dames,
LG1891	3926	Pass'd to its charnel vault, coffin'd with crown and armor on,
LG1891	3927	Blazon'd with Shakspere'sShakespeare's purple page,
LG1891	3928	And dirged by Tennyson's sweet sad rhyme.
LG1891	3929	I say I see, my friends, if you do not, the illustrious emigré,(having it is true in her day, although the same, changed,journey'd considerable,)
LG1891	3930	Making directly for this rendezvous, vigorously clearing a path for herself, striding through the confusion,
LG1891	3931	By thud of machinery and shrill steam-whistle undismay'd,
LG1891	3932	Bluff'd not a bit by drain-pipe, gasometers, artificial fertilizers,
LG1891	3933	Smiling and pleas'd with palpable intent to stay,
LG1891	3934	She's here, install'd amid the kitchen ware!
LG1891	3935	But hold—don't I forget my manners?
LG1891	3936	To introduce the stranger, (what else indeed do I live to chant for?) to thee Columbia;
LG1891	3937	In liberty's name welcome immortal! clasp hands,
LG1891	3938	And ever henceforth sisters dear be both.
LG1891	3939	Fear not O Muse! truly new ways and days receive, surround you,
LG1891	3940	I candidly confess a queer, queer race, of novel fashion,
LG1891	3941	And yet the same old human race, the same within, without,
LG1891	3942	Faces and hearts the same, feelings the same, yearnings the same,
LG1891	3943	The same old love, beauty and use the same.
LG1891	3944	We do not blame thee elder World, nor really separate ourselves from thee,
LG1891	3945	(Would the son separate himself from the father?)
LG1891	3946	Looking back on thee, seeing thee to thy duties, grandeurs,through past ages bending, building,
LG1891	3947	We build to ours to-day.
LG1891	3948	Mightier than Egypt's tombs,
LG1891	3949	Fairer than Grecia's, Roma's temples,
LG1891	3950	Prouder than Milan's statued, spired cathedral,
LG1891	3951	More picturesque than Rhenish castle-keeps,
LG1891	3952	We plan even now to raise, beyond them all,
LG1891	3953	Thy great cathedral sacred industry, no tomb,
LG1891	3954	A keep for life for practical invention.
LG1891	3955	As in a waking vision,
LG1891	3956	E'en while I chant I see it rise, I scan and prophesy outside and in,
LG1891	3957	Its manifold ensemble.
LG1891	3958	Around a palace, loftier, fairer, ampler than any yet,
LG1891	3959	Earth's modern wonder, history's seven outstripping,
LG1891	3960	High rising tier on tier with glass and iron façades,
LG1891	3961	Gladdening the sun and sky, enhued in cheerfulest hues,
LG1891	3962	Bronze, lilac, robin's-egg, marine and crimson,
LG1891	3963	Over whose golden roof shall flaunt, beneath thy banner Freedom,
LG1891	3964	The banners of the States and flags of every land,
LG1891	3965	A brood of lofty, fair, but lesser palaces shall cluster.
LG1891	3966	Somewhere within their walls shall all that forwards perfect human life be started,
LG1891	3967	Tried, taught, advanced, visibly exhibited.
LG1891	3968	Not only all the world of works, trade, products,
LG1891	3969	But all the workmen of the world here to be represented.
LG1891	3970	Here shall you trace in flowing operation,
LG1891	3971	In every state of practical, busy movement, the rills of civilization,
LG1891	3972	Materials here under your eye shall change their shape as if by magic,
LG1891	3973	The cotton shall be pick'd almost in the very field,
LG1891	3974	Shall be dried, clean'd, ginn'd, baled, spun into thread and cloth before you,
LG1891	3975	You shall see hands at work at all the old processes and all the new ones,
LG1891	3976	You shall see the various grains and how flour is made and then bread baked by the bakers,
LG1891	3977	You shall see the crude ores of California and Nevada passing on and on till they become bullion,
LG1891	3978	You shall watch how the printer sets type, and learn what a com-posingcomposing-stick-stick is,
LG1891	3979	You shall mark in amazement the Hoe press whirling its cylinders,shedding the printed leaves steady and fast,
LG1891	3980	The photograph, model, watch, pin, nail, shall be created before you.
LG1891	3981	In large calm halls, a stately museum shall teach you the infinite lessons of minerals,
LG1891	3982	In another, woods, plants, vegetation shall be illustrated—in another animals, animal life and development.
LG1891	3983	One stately house shall be the music house,
LG1891	3984	Others for other arts—learning, the sciences, shall all be here,
LG1891	3985	None shall be slighted, none but shall here be honor'd, help'd,exampled.
LG1891	3986	(This, this and these, America, shall be your pyramids and obelisks,
LG1891	3987	Your Alexandrian Pharos, gardens of Babylon,
LG1891	3988	Your temple at Olympia.)
LG1891	3989	The male and female many laboring not,
LG1891	3990	Shall ever here confront the laboring many,
LG1891	3991	With precious benefits to both, glory to all,
LG1891	3992	To thee America, and thee eternal Muse.
LG1891	3993	And here shall ye inhabit powerful Matrons!
LG1891	3994	In your vast state vaster than all the old,
LG1891	3995	Echoed through long, long centuries to come,
LG1891	3996	To sound of different, prouder songs, with stronger themes,
LG1891	3997	Practical, peaceful life, the people's life, the People themselves,
LG1891	3998	Lifted, illumin'd, bathed in peace—elate, secure in peace.
LG1891	3999	Away with themes of war! away with war itself!
LG1891	4000	Hence from my shuddering sight to never more return that show of blacken'd, mutilated corpses!
LG1891	4001	That hell unpent and raid of blood, fit for wild tigers or for lop-tonguedlop-tongued wolves, not reasoning men,
LG1891	4002	And in its stead speed industry's campaigns,
LG1891	4003	With thy undaunted armies, engineering,
LG1891	4004	Thy pennants labor, loosen'd to the breeze,
LG1891	4005	Thy bugles sounding loud and clear.
LG1891	4006	Away with old romance!
LG1891	4007	Away with novels, plots and plays of foreign courts,
LG1891	4008	Away with love-verses sugar'd in rhyme, the intrigues, amours of idlers,
LG1891	4009	Fitted for only banquets of the night where dancers to late music slide,
LG1891	4010	The unhealthy pleasures, extravagant dissipations of the few,
LG1891	4011	With perfumes, heat and wine, beneath the dazzling chandeliers.
LG1891	4012	To you ye reverent sane sisters,
LG1891	4013	I raise a voice for far superber themes for poets and for art,
LG1891	4014	To exalt the present and the real,
LG1891	4015	To teach the average man the glory of his daily walk and trade,
LG1891	4016	To sing in songs how exercise and chemical life are never to be baffled,
LG1891	4017	To manual work for each and all, to plough, hoe, dig,
LG1891	4018	To plant and tend the tree, the berry, vegetables, flowers,
LG1891	4019	For every man to see to it that he really do something, for every woman too;
LG1891	4020	To use the hammer and the saw, (rip, or cross-cut,)
LG1891	4021	To cultivate a turn for carpentering, plastering, painting,
LG1891	4022	To work as tailor, tailoress, nurse, hostler, porter,
LG1891	4023	To invent a little, something ingenious, to aid the washing, cook-ingcooking, cleaning,
LG1891	4024	And hold it no disgrace to take a hand at them themselves.
LG1891	4025	I say I bring thee Muse to-day and here,
LG1891	4026	All occupations, duties broad and close,
LG1891	4027	Toil, healthy toil and sweat, endless, without cessation,
LG1891	4028	The old, old practical burdens, interests, joys,
LG1891	4029	The family, parentage, childhood, husband and wife,
LG1891	4030	The house-comforts, the house itself and all its belongings,
LG1891	4031	Food and its preservation, chemistry applied to it,
LG1891	4032	Whatever forms the average, strong, complete, sweet-blooded man or woman, the perfect longeve personality,
LG1891	4033	And helps its present life to health and happiness, and shapes its soul,
LG1891	4034	For the eternal real life to come.
LG1891	4035	With latest connections, works, the inter-transportation of the world,
LG1891	4036	Steam-power, the great express lines, gas, petroleum,
LG1891	4037	These triumphs of our time, the Atlantic's delicate cable,
LG1891	4038	The Pacific railroad, the Suez canal, the Mont Cenis and Gothard and Hoosac tunnels, the Brooklyn bridge,
LG1891	4039	This earth all spann'd with iron rails, with lines of steamships threading every sea,
LG1891	4040	Our own rondure, the current globe I bring.
LG1891	4041	And thou America,
LG1891	4042	Thy offspring towering e'er so high, yet higher Thee above all towering,
LG1891	4043	With Victory on thy left, and at thy right hand Law;
LG1891	4044	Thou Union holding all, fusing, absorbing, tolerating all,
LG1891	4045	Thee, ever thee, I sing.
LG1891	4046	Thou, also thou, a World,
LG1891	4047	With all thy wide geographies, manifold, different, distant,
LG1891	4048	Rounded by thee in one—one common orbic language,
LG1891	4049	One common indivisible destiny for All.
LG1891	4050	And by the spells which ye vouchsafe to those your ministers in earnest,
LG1891	4051	I here personify and call my themes, to make them pass before ye.
LG1891	4052	Behold, America! (and thou, ineffable guest and sister!)
LG1891	4053	For thee come trooping up thy waters and thy lands;
LG1891	4054	Behold! thy fields and farms, thy far-off woods and mountains,
LG1891	4055	As in procession coming.
LG1891	4056	Behold, the sea itself,
LG1891	4057	And on its limitless, heaving breast, the ships;
LG1891	4058	See, where their white sails, bellying in the wind, speckle the green and blue,
LG1891	4059	See, the steamers coming and going, steaming in or out of port,
LG1891	4060	See, dusky and undulating, the long pennants of smoke.
LG1891	4061	Behold, in Oregon, far in the north and west,
LG1891	4062	Or in Maine, far in the north and east, thy cheerful axemen,
LG1891	4063	Wielding all day their axes.
LG1891	4064	Behold, on the lakes, thy pilots at their wheels, thy oarsmen,
LG1891	4065	How the ash writhes under those muscular arms!
LG1891	4066	There by the furnace, and there by the anvil,
LG1891	4067	Behold thy sturdy blacksmiths swinging their sledges,
LG1891	4068	Overhand so steady, overhand they turn and fall with joyous clank,
LG1891	4069	Like a tumult of laughter.
LG1891	4070	Mark the spirit of invention everywhere, thy rapid patents,
LG1891	4071	Thy continual workshops, foundries, risen or rising,
LG1891	4072	See, from their chimneys how the tall flame-fires stream.
LG1891	4073	Mark, thy interminable farms, North, South,
LG1891	4074	Thy wealthy daughter-states, Eastern and Western,
LG1891	4075	The varied products of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Georgia,Texas, and the rest,
LG1891	4076	Thy limitless crops, grass, wheat, sugar, oil, corn, rice, hemp, hops,
LG1891	4077	Thy barns all fill'd, the endless freight-train and the bulging storehouse,
LG1891	4078	The grapes that ripen on thy vines, the apples in thy orchards,
LG1891	4079	Thy incalculable lumber, beef, pork, potatoes, thy coal, thy gold and silver,
LG1891	4080	The inexhaustible iron in thy mines.
LG1891	4081	All thine O sacred Union!
LG1891	4082	Ships, farms, shops, barns, factories, mines,
LG1891	4083	City and State, North, South, item and aggregate,
LG1891	4084	We dedicate, dread Mother, all to thee!
LG1891	4085	Protectress absolute, thou! bulwark of all!
LG1891	4086	For well we know that while thou givest each and all,(generous as God,)
LG1891	4087	Without thee neither all nor each, nor land, home,
LG1891	4088	Nor ship, nor mine, nor any here this day secure,
LG1891	4089	Nor aught, nor any day secure.
LG1891	4090	And thou, the Emblem waving over all!
LG1891	4091	Delicate beauty, a word to thee, (it may be salutary,)
LG1891	4092	Remember thou hast not always been as here to-day so comfortably ensovereign'd,
LG1891	4093	In other scenes than these have I observ'd thee flag,
LG1891	4094	Not quite so trim and whole and freshly blooming in folds of stain-lessstainless silk,
LG1891	4095	But I have seen thee bunting, to tatters torn upon thy splinter'd staff,
LG1891	4096	Or clutch'd to some young color-bearer's breast with desperate hands,
LG1891	4097	Savagely struggled for, for life or death, fought over long,
LG1891	4098	'Mid cannons' thunder-crash and many a curse and groan and yell,and rifle-volleys cracking sharp,
LG1891	4099	And moving masses as wild demons surging, and lives as nothing risk'd,
LG1891	4100	For thy mere remnant grimed with dirt and smoke and sopp'd in blood,
LG1891	4101	For sake of that, my beauty, and that thou might'st dally as now secure up there,
LG1891	4102	Many a good man have I seen go under.
LG1891	4103	Now here and these and hence in peace, all thine O Flag!
LG1891	4104	And here and hence for thee, O universal Muse! and thou for them!
LG1891	4105	And here and hence O Union, all the work and workmen thine!
LG1891	4106	None separate from thee—henceforth One only, we and thou,
LG1891	4107	(For the blood of the children, what is it, only the blood maternal?
LG1891	4108	And lives and works, what are they all at last, except the roads to faith and death?)
LG1891	4109	While we rehearse our measureless wealth, it is for thee, dear Mother,
LG1891	4110	We own it all and several to-day indissoluble in thee;
LG1891	4111	Think not our chant, our show, merely for products gross or lucre —it is for thee, the soul in thee, electric, spiritual!
LG1891	4112	Our farms, inventions, crops, we own in thee! cities and States in thee!
LG1891	4113	Our freedom all in thee! our very lives in thee!
LG1891	4114	A CALIFORNIA song,
LG1891	4115	A prophecy and indirection, a thought impalpable to breathe as air,
LG1891	4116	A chorus of dryads, fading, departing, or hamadryads departing,
LG1891	4117	A murmuring, fateful, giant voice, out of the earth and sky,
LG1891	4118	Voice of a mighty dying tree in the redwood forest dense.
LG1891	4119	Farewell my brethren,
LG1891	4120	Farewell O earth and sky, farewell ye neighboring waters,
LG1891	4121	My time has ended, my term has come.
LG1891	4122	Along the northern coast,
LG1891	4123	Just back from the rock-bound shore and the caves,
LG1891	4124	In the saline air from the sea in the Mendocino country,
LG1891	4125	With the surge for base and accompaniment low and hoarse,
LG1891	4126	With crackling blows of axes sounding musically driven by strong arms,
LG1891	4127	Riven deep by the sharp tongues of the axes, there in the redwood forest dense,
LG1891	4128	I heard the mighty tree its death-chant chanting.
LG1891	4129	The choppers heard not, the camp shanties echoed not,
LG1891	4130	The quick-ear'd teamsters and chain and jack-screw men heard not,
LG1891	4131	As the wood-spirits came from their haunts of a thousand years to join the refrain,
LG1891	4132	But in my soul I plainly heard.
LG1891	4133	Murmuring out of its myriad leaves,
LG1891	4134	Down from its lofty top rising two hundred feet high,
LG1891	4135	Out of its stalwart trunk and limbs, out of its foot-thick bark,
LG1891	4136	That chant of the seasons and time, chant not of the past only but the future.
LG1891	4137	You untold life of me,
LG1891	4138	And all you venerable and innocent joys,
LG1891	4139	Perennial hardy life of me with joys 'mid rain and many a summer sun,
LG1891	4140	And the white snows and night and the wild winds;
LG1891	4141	O the great patient rugged joys, my soul's strong joys unreck'd by man,
LG1891	4142	(For know I bear the soul befitting me, I too have consciousness, identity,
LG1891	4143	And all the rocks and mountains have, and all the earth,)
LG1891	4144	Joys of the life befitting me and brothers mine,
LG1891	4145	Our time, our term has come.
LG1891	4146	Nor yield we mournfully majestic brothers,
LG1891	4147	We who have grandly fill'd our time;
LG1891	4148	With Nature's calm content, with tacit huge delight,
LG1891	4149	We welcome what we wrought for through the past,
LG1891	4150	And leave the field for them.
LG1891	4151	For them predicted long,
LG1891	4152	For a superber race, they too to grandly fill their time,
LG1891	4153	For them we abdicate, in them ourselves ye forest kings!
LG1891	4154	In them these skies and airs, these mountain peaks, Shasta, Nevadas,
LG1891	4155	These huge precipitous cliffs, this amplitude, these valleys, far Yosemite,
LG1891	4156	To be in them absorb'd, assimilated.
LG1891	4157	Then to a loftier strain,
LG1891	4158	Still prouder, more ecstatic rose the chant,
LG1891	4159	As if the heirs, the deities of the West,
LG1891	4160	Joining with master-tongue bore part.
LG1891	4161	Not wan from Asia's fetiches,
LG1891	4162	Nor red from Europe's old dynastic slaughter-house,
LG1891	4163	(Area of murder-plots of thrones, with scent left yet of wars and scaffolds everywhere,)
LG1891	4164	But come from Nature's long and harmless throes, peacefully builded thence,
LG1891	4165	These virgin lands, lands of the Western shore,
LG1891	4166	To the new culminating man, to you, the empire new,
LG1891	4167	You promis'd long, we pledge, we dedicate.
LG1891	4168	You occult deep volitions,
LG1891	4169	You average spiritual manhood, purpose of all, pois'd on yourself, giving not taking law,
LG1891	4170	You womanhood divine, mistress and source of all, whence life and love and aught that comes from life and love,
LG1891	4171	You unseen moral essence of all the vast materials of America, (age upon age working in death the same as life,)
LG1891	4172	You that, sometimes known, oftener unknown, really shape and mould the New World, adjusting it to Time and Space,
LG1891	4173	You hidden national will lying in your abysms, conceal'd but ever alert,
LG1891	4174	You past and present purposes tenaciously pursued, may-be uncon-sciousunconscious of yourselves,
LG1891	4175	Unswerv'd by all the passing errors, perturbations of the surface;
LG1891	4176	You vital, universal, deathless germs, beneath all creeds, arts, statutes, literatures,
LG1891	4177	Here build your homes for good, establish here, these areas entire, lands of the Western shore,
LG1891	4178	We pledge, we dedicate to you.
LG1891	4179	For man of you, your characteristic race,
LG1891	4180	Here may he hardy, sweet, gigantic grow, here tower proportion-ateproportionate to Nature,
LG1891	4181	Here climb the vast pure spaces unconfined, uncheck'd by wall or roof,
LG1891	4182	Here laugh with storm or sun, here joy, here patiently inure,
LG1891	4183	Here heed himself, unfold himself, (not others' formulas heed,) here fill his time,
LG1891	4184	To duly fall, to aid, unreck'd at last,
LG1891	4185	To disappear, to serve.
LG1891	4186	Thus on the northern coast,
LG1891	4187	In the echo of teamsters' calls and the clinking chains, and the music of choppers' axes,
LG1891	4188	The falling trunk and limbs, the crash, the muffled shriek, the groan,
LG1891	4189	Such words combined from the redwood-tree, as of voices ecstatic,ancient and rustling,
LG1891	4190	The century-lasting, unseen dryads, singing, withdrawing,
LG1891	4191	All their recesses of forests and mountains leaving,
LG1891	4192	From the Cascade range to the Wahsatch, or Idaho far, or Utah,
LG1891	4193	To the deities of the modern henceforth yielding,
LG1891	4194	The chorus and indications, the vistas of coming humanity, the settlements, features all,
LG1891	4195	In the Mendocino woods I caught.
LG1891	4196	The flashing and golden pageant of California,
LG1891	4197	The sudden and gorgeous drama, the sunny and ample lands,
LG1891	4198	The long and varied stretch from Puget sound to Colorado south,
LG1891	4199	Lands bathed in sweeter, rarer, healthier air, valleys and mountain cliffs,
LG1891	4200	The fields of Nature long prepared and fallow, the silent, cyclic chemistry,
LG1891	4201	The slow and steady ages plodding, the unoccupied surface ripen-ingripening, the rich ores forming beneath;
LG1891	4202	At last the New arriving, assuming, taking possession,
LG1891	4203	A swarming and busy race settling and organizing everywhere,
LG1891	4204	Ships coming in from the whole round world, and going out to the whole world,
LG1891	4205	To India and China and Australia and the thousand island para-disesparadises of the Pacific,
LG1891	4206	Populous cities, the latest inventions, the steamers on the rivers,the railroads, with many a thrifty farm, with machinery,
LG1891	4207	And wool and wheat and the grape, and diggings of yellow gold.
LG1891	4208	But more in you than these, lands of the Western shore,
LG1891	4209	(These but the means, the implements, the standing-ground,)
LG1891	4210	I see in you, certain to come, the promise of thousands of years,till now deferr'd,
LG1891	4211	Promis'd to be fulfill'd, our common kind, the race.
LG1891	4212	The new society at last, proportionate to Nature,
LG1891	4213	In man of you, more than your mountain peaks or stalwart trees imperial,
LG1891	4214	In woman more, far more, than all your gold or vines, or even vital air.
LG1891	4215	Fresh come, to a new world indeed, yet long prepared,
LG1891	4216	I see the genius of the modern, child of the real and ideal,
LG1891	4217	Clearing the ground for broad humanity, the true America, heir of the past so grand,
LG1891	4218	To build a grander future.
LG1891	4219	A SONG for occupations!
LG1891	4220	In the labor of engines and trades and the labor of fields I find the developments,
LG1891	4221	And find the eternal meanings.
LG1891	4222	Workmen and Workwomen!
LG1891	4223	Were all educations practical and ornamental well display'd out of me, what would it amount to?
LG1891	4224	Were I as the head teacher, charitable proprietor, wise statesman,what would it amount to?
LG1891	4225	Were I to you as the boss employing and paying you, would that satisfy you?
LG1891	4226	The learn'd, virtuous, benevolent, and the usual terms,
LG1891	4227	A man like me and never the usual terms.
LG1891	4228	Neither a servant nor a master I,
LG1891	4229	I take no sooner a large price than a small price, I will have my own whoever enjoys me,
LG1891	4230	I will be even with you and you shall be even with me.
LG1891	4231	If you stand at work in a shop I stand as nigh as the nighest in the same shop,
LG1891	4232	If you bestow gifts on your brother or dearest friend I demand as good as your brother or dearest friend,
LG1891	4233	If your lover, husband, wife, is welcome by day or night, I must be personally as welcome,
LG1891	4234	If you become degraded, criminal, ill, then I become so for your sake,
LG1891	4235	If you remember your foolish and outlaw'd deeds, do you think I cannot remember my own foolish and outlaw'd deeds?
LG1891	4236	If you carouse at the table I carouse at the opposite side of the table,
LG1891	4237	If you meet some stranger in the streets and love him or her, why I often meet strangers in the street and love them.
LG1891	4238	Why what have you thought of yourself?
LG1891	4239	Is it you then that thought yourself less?
LG1891	4240	Is it you that thought the President greater than you?
LG1891	4241	Or the rich better off than you? or the educated wiser than you?
LG1891	4242	(Because you are greasy or pimpled, or were once drunk, or a thief,
LG1891	4243	Or that you are diseas'd, or rheumatic, or a prostitute,
LG1891	4244	Or from frivolity or impotence, or that you are no scholar and never saw your name in print,
LG1891	4245	Do you give in that you are any less immortal?)
LG1891	4246	Souls of men and women! it is not you I call unseen, unheard,untouchable and untouching,
LG1891	4247	It is not you I go argue pro and con about, and to settle whether you are alive or no,
LG1891	4248	I own publicly who you are, if nobody else owns.
LG1891	4249	Grown, half-grown and babe, of this country and every country, in-doorsindoors and out-doors, one just as much as the other, I see,
LG1891	4250	And all else behind or through them.
LG1891	4251	The wife, and she is not one jot less than the husband,
LG1891	4252	The daughter, and she is just as good as the son,
LG1891	4253	The mother, and she is every bit as much as the father.
LG1891	4254	Offspring of ignorant and poor, boys apprenticed to trades,
LG1891	4255	Young fellows working on farms and old fellows working on farms,
LG1891	4256	Sailor-men, merchant-men, coasters, immigrants,
LG1891	4257	All these I see, but nigher and farther the same I see,
LG1891	4258	None shall escape me and none shall wish to escape me.
LG1891	4259	I bring what you much need yet always have,
LG1891	4260	Not money, amours, dress, eating, erudition, but as good,
LG1891	4261	I send no agent or medium, offer no representative of value, but offer the value itself.
LG1891	4262	There is something that comes to one now and perpetually,
LG1891	4263	It is not what is printed, preach'd, discussed, it eludes discussion and print,
LG1891	4264	It is not to be put in a book, it is not in this book,
LG1891	4265	It is for you whoever you are, it is no farther from you than your hearing and sight are from you,
LG1891	4266	It is hinted by nearest, commonest, readiest, it is ever provoked by them.
LG1891	4267	You may read in many languages, yet read nothing about it,
LG1891	4268	You may read the President's message and read nothing about it there,
LG1891	4269	Nothing in the reports from the State department or Treasury department, or in the daily papers or weekly papers,
LG1891	4270	Or in the census or revenue returns, prices current, or any accounts of stock.
LG1891	4271	The sun and stars that float in the open air,
LG1891	4272	The apple-shaped earth and we upon it, surely the drift of them is something grand,
LG1891	4273	I do not know what it is except that it is grand, and that it is happiness,
LG1891	4274	And that the enclosing purport of us here is not a speculation or bon-mot or reconnoissance,
LG1891	4275	And that it is not something which by luck may turn out well for us, and without luck must be a failure for us,
LG1891	4276	And not something which may yet be retracted in a certain contingency.
LG1891	4277	The light and shade, the curious sense of body and identity, the greed that with perfect complaisance devours all things,
LG1891	4278	The endless pride and outstretching of man, unspeakable joys and sorrows,
LG1891	4279	The wonder every one sees in every one else he sees, and the wonders that fill each minute of time forever,
LG1891	4280	What have you reckon'd them for, camerado?
LG1891	4281	Have you reckon'd them for your trade or farm-work? or for the profits of your store?
LG1891	4282	Or to achieve yourself a position? or to fill a gentleman's leisure,or a lady's leisure?
LG1891	4283	Have you reckon'd that the landscape took substance and form that it might be painted in a picture?
LG1891	4284	Or men and women that they might be written of, and songs sung?
LG1891	4285	Or the attraction of gravity, and the great laws and harmonious combinations and the fluids of the air, as subjects for the savans?
LG1891	4286	Or the brown land and the blue sea for maps and charts?
LG1891	4287	Or the stars to be put in constellations and named fancy names?
LG1891	4288	Or that the growth of seeds is for agricultural tables, or agricul-tureagriculture itself?
LG1891	4289	Old institutions, these arts, libraries, legends, collections, and the practice handed along in manufactures, will we rate them so high?
LG1891	4290	Will we rate our cash and business high? I have no objection,
LG1891	4291	I rate them as high as the highest—then a child born of a woman and man I rate beyond all rate.
LG1891	4292	We thought our Union grand, and our Constitution grand,
LG1891	4293	I do not say they are not grand and good, for they are,
LG1891	4294	I am this day just as much in love with them as you,
LG1891	4295	Then I am in love with You, and with all my fellows upon the earth.
LG1891	4296	We consider bibles and religions divine—I do not say they are not divine,
LG1891	4297	I say they have all grown out of you, and may grow out of you still,
LG1891	4298	It is not they who give the life, it is you who give the life,
LG1891	4299	Leaves are not more shed from the trees, or trees from the earth,than they are shed out of you.
LG1891	4300	The sum of all known reverence I add up in you whoever you are,
LG1891	4301	The President is there in the White House for you, it is not you who are here for him,
LG1891	4302	The Secretaries act in their bureaus for you, not you here for them,
LG1891	4303	The Congress convenes every Twelfth-month for you,
LG1891	4304	Laws, courts, the forming of States, the charters of cities, the going and coming of commerce and mails, are all for you.
LG1891	4305	List close my scholars dear,
LG1891	4306	Doctrines, politics and civilization exurge from you,
LG1891	4307	Sculpture and monuments and any thing inscribed anywhere are tallied in you,
LG1891	4308	The gist of histories and statistics as far back as the records reach is in you this hour, and myths and tales the same,
LG1891	4309	If you were not breathing and walking here, where would they all be?
LG1891	4310	The most renown'd poems would be ashes, orations and plays would be vacuums.
LG1891	4311	All architecture is what you do to it when you look upon it,
LG1891	4312	(Did you think it was in the white or gray stone? or the lines of the arches and cornices?)
LG1891	4313	All music is what awakes from you when you are reminded by the instruments,
LG1891	4314	It is not the violins and the cornets, it is not the oboe nor the beating drums, nor the score of the baritone singer singing his sweet romanza, nor that of the men's chorus, nor that of the women's chorus,
LG1891	4315	It is nearer and farther than they.
LG1891	4316	Will the whole come back then?
LG1891	4317	Can each see signs of the best by a look in the looking-glass? is there nothing greater or more?
LG1891	4318	Does all sit there with you, with the mystic unseen soul?
LG1891	4319	Strange and hard that paradox true I give,
LG1891	4320	Objects gross and the unseen soul are one.
LG1891	4321	House-building, measuring, sawing the boards,
LG1891	4322	Blacksmithing, glass-blowing, nail-making, coopering, tin-roofing,shingle-dressing,
LG1891	4323	Ship-joining, dock-building, fish-curing, flagging of sidewalks by flaggers,
LG1891	4324	The pump, the pile-driver, the great derrick, the coal-kiln and brick-kiln,
LG1891	4325	Coal-mines and all that is down there, the lamps in the darkness,echoes, songs, what meditations, what vast native thoughts looking through smutch'd faces,
LG1891	4326	Iron-works, forge-fires in the mountains or by river-banks, men around feeling the melt with huge crowbars, lumps of ore,the due combining of ore, limestone, coal,
LG1891	4327	The blast-furnace and the puddling-furnace, the loup-lump at the bottom of the melt at last, the rolling-mill, the stumpy bars of pig-iron, the strong clean-shaped T-rail for rail-roadsrailroads,
LG1891	4328	Oil-works, silk-works, white-lead-works, the sugar-house, steam-sawssteam-saws, the great mills and factories,
LG1891	4329	Stone-cutting, shapely trimmings for façades or window or door-lintelsdoor-lintels, the mallet, the tooth-chisel, the jib to protect the thumb,
LG1891	4330	The calking-iron, the kettle of boiling vault-cement, and the fire under the kettle,
LG1891	4331	The cotton-bale, the stevedore's hook, the saw and buck of the sawyer, the mould of the moulder, the working-knife of the butcher, the ice-saw, and all the work with ice,
LG1891	4332	The work and tools of the rigger, grappler, sail-maker, block-makerblock-maker,
LG1891	4333	Goods of gutta-percha, papier-maché, colors, brushes, brush-makingbrush-making, glazier's implements,
LG1891	4334	The veneer and glue-pot, the confectioner's ornaments, the decanter and glasses, the shears and flat-iron,
LG1891	4335	The awl and knee-strap, the pint measure and quart measure, the counter and stool, the writing-pen of quill or metal, the making of all sorts of edged tools,
LG1891	4336	The brewery, brewing, the malt, the vats, every thing that is done by brewers, wine-makers, vinegar-makers,
LG1891	4337	Leather-dressing, coach-making, boiler-making, rope-twisting, dis-tillingdistilling, sign-painting, lime-burning, cotton-picking, electro-platingelectroplating, electrotyping, stereotyping,
LG1891	4338	Stave-machines, planing-machines, reaping-machines, ploughing-machinesploughing-machines, thrashing-machines, steam wagons,
LG1891	4339	The cart of the carman, the omnibus, the ponderous dray,
LG1891	4340	Pyrotechny, letting off color'd fireworks at night, fancy figures and jets;
LG1891	4341	Beef on the butcher's stall, the slaughter-house of the butcher, the butcher in his killing-clothes,
LG1891	4342	The pens of live pork, the killing-hammer, the hog-hook, the scalder's tub, gutting, the cutter's cleaver, the packer's maul,and the plenteous winterwork of pork-packing,
LG1891	4343	Flour-works, grinding of wheat, rye, maize, rice, the barrels and the half and quarter barrels, the loaded barges, the high piles on wharves and levees,
LG1891	4344	The men and the work of the men on ferries, railroads, coasters,fish-boats, canals;
LG1891	4345	The hourly routine of your own or any man's life, the shop, yard,store, or factory,
LG1891	4346	These shows all near you by day and night—workman! whoever you are, your daily life!
LG1891	4347	In that and them the heft of the heaviest—in that and them far more than you estimated, (and far less also,)
LG1891	4348	In them realities for you and me, in them poems for you and me,
LG1891	4349	In them, not yourself—you and your soul enclose all things, re-gardlessregardless of estimation,
LG1891	4350	In them the development good—in them all themes, hints, possi-bilitiespossibilities.
LG1891	4351	I do not affirm that what you see beyond is futile, I do not advise you to stop,
LG1891	4352	I do not say leadings you thought great are not great,
LG1891	4353	But I say that none lead to greater than these lead to.
LG1891	4354	Will you seek afar off? you surely come back at last,
LG1891	4355	In things best known to you finding the best, or as good as the best,
LG1891	4356	In folks nearest to you finding the sweetest, strongest, lovingest,
LG1891	4357	Happiness, knowledge, not in another place but this place, not for another hour but this hour,
LG1891	4358	Man in the first you see or touch, always in friend, brother,nighest neighbor—woman in mother, sister, wife,
LG1891	4359	The popular tastes and employments taking precedence in poems or anywhere,
LG1891	4360	You workwomen and workmen of these States having your own divine and strong life,
LG1891	4361	And all else giving place to men and women like you.
LG1891	4362	When the psalm sings instead of the singer,
LG1891	4363	When the script preaches instead of the preacher,
LG1891	4364	When the pulpit descends and goes instead of the carver that carved the supporting desk,
LG1891	4365	When I can touch the body of books by night or by day, and when they touch my body back again,
LG1891	4366	When a university course convinces like a slumbering woman and child convince,
LG1891	4367	When the minted gold in the vault smiles like the night-watchman's daughter,
LG1891	4368	When warrantee deeds loafe in chairs opposite and are my friendly companions,
LG1891	4369	I intend to reach them my hand, and make as much of them as I do of men and women like you.
LG1891	4370	A SONG of the rolling earth, and of words according,
LG1891	4371	Were you thinking that those were the words, those upright lines?those curves, angles, dots?
LG1891	4372	No, those are not the words, the substantial words are in the ground and sea,
LG1891	4373	They are in the air, they are in you.
LG1891	4374	Were you thinking that those were the words, those delicious sounds out of your friends' mouths?
LG1891	4375	No, the real words are more delicious than they.
LG1891	4376	Human bodies are words, myriads of words,
LG1891	4377	(In the best poems re-appears the body, man's or woman's, well-shapedwell-shaped, natural, gay,
LG1891	4378	Every part able, active, receptive, without shame or the need of shame.)
LG1891	4379	Air, soil, water, fire—those are words,
LG1891	4380	I myself am a word with them—my qualities interpenetrate with theirs—my name is nothing to them,
LG1891	4381	Though it were told in the three thousand languages, what would air, soil, water, fire, know of my name?
LG1891	4382	A healthy presence, a friendly or commanding gesture, are words,sayings, meanings,
LG1891	4383	The charms that go with the mere looks of some men and women,are sayings and meanings also.
LG1891	4384	The workmanship of souls is by those inaudible words of the earth,
LG1891	4385	The masters know the earth's words and use them more than audible words.
LG1891	4386	Amelioration is one of the earth's words,
LG1891	4387	The earth neither lags nor hastens,
LG1891	4388	It has all attributes, growths, effects, latent in itself from the jump,
LG1891	4389	It is not half beautiful only, defects and excrescences show just as much as perfections show.
LG1891	4390	The earth does not withhold, it is generous enough,
LG1891	4391	The truths of the earth continually wait, they are not so conceal'd either,
LG1891	4392	They are calm, subtle, untransmissible by print,
LG1891	4393	They are imbued through all things conveying themselves willingly,
LG1891	4394	Conveying a sentiment and invitation, I utter and utter,
LG1891	4395	I speak not, yet if you hear me not of what avail am I to you?
LG1891	4396	To bear, to better, lacking these of what avail am I?
LG1891	4397	(Accouche! accouchez!
LG1891	4398	Will you rot your own fruit in yourself there?
LG1891	4399	Will you squat and stifle there?)
LG1891	4400	The earth does not argue,
LG1891	4401	Is not pathetic, has no arrangements,
LG1891	4402	Does not scream, haste, persuade, threaten, promise,
LG1891	4403	Makes no discriminations, has no conceivable failures,
LG1891	4404	Closes nothing, refuses nothing, shuts none out,
LG1891	4405	Of all the powers, objects, states, it notifies, shuts none out.
LG1891	4406	The earth does not exhibit itself nor refuse to exhibit itself, pos-sessespossesses still underneath,
LG1891	4407	Underneath the ostensible sounds, the august chorus of heroes, the wail of slaves,
LG1891	4408	Persuasions of lovers, curses, gasps of the dying, laughter of young people, accents of bargainers,
LG1891	4409	Underneath these possessing words that never fail.
LG1891	4410	To her children the words of the eloquent dumb great mother never fail,
LG1891	4411	The true words do not fail, for motion does not fail and reflection does not fail,
LG1891	4412	Also the day and night do not fail, and the voyage we pursue does not fail.
LG1891	4413	Of the interminable sisters,
LG1891	4414	Of the ceaseless cotillons of sisters,
LG1891	4415	Of the centripetal and centrifugal sisters, the elder and younger sisters,
LG1891	4416	The beautiful sister we know dances on with the rest.
LG1891	4417	With her ample back towards every beholder,
LG1891	4418	With the fascinations of youth and the equal fascinations of age,
LG1891	4419	Sits she whom I too love like the rest, sits undisturb'd,
LG1891	4420	Holding up in her hand what has the character of a mirror, while her eyes glance back from it,
LG1891	4421	Glance as she sits, inviting none, denying none,
LG1891	4422	Holding a mirror day and night tirelessly before her own face.
LG1891	4423	Seen at hand or seen at a distance,
LG1891	4424	Duly the twenty-four appear in public every day,
LG1891	4425	Duly approach and pass with their companions or a companion,
LG1891	4426	Looking from no countenances of their own, but from the counte-nancescountenances of those who are with them,
LG1891	4427	From the countenances of children or women or the manly coun-tenancecountenance,
LG1891	4428	From the open countenances of animals or from inanimate things,
LG1891	4429	From the landscape or waters or from the exquisite apparition of the sky,
LG1891	4430	From our countenances, mine and yours, faithfully returning them,
LG1891	4431	Every day in public appearing without fail, but never twice with the same companions.
LG1891	4432	Embracing man, embracing all, proceed the three hundred and sixty-five resistlessly round the sun;
LG1891	4433	Embracing all, soothing, supporting, follow close three hundred and sixty-five offsets of the first, sure and necessary as they.
LG1891	4434	Tumbling on steadily, nothing dreading,
LG1891	4435	Sunshine, storm, cold, heat, forever withstanding, passing, carrying,
LG1891	4436	The soul's realization and determination still inheriting,
LG1891	4437	The fluid vacuum around and ahead still entering and dividing,
LG1891	4438	No balk retarding, no anchor anchoring, on no rock striking,
LG1891	4439	Swift, glad, content, unbereav'd, nothing losing,
LG1891	4440	Of all able and ready at any time to give strict account,
LG1891	4441	The divine ship sails the divine sea.
LG1891	4442	Whoever you are! motion and reflection are especially for you,
LG1891	4443	The divine ship sails the divine sea for you.
LG1891	4444	Whoever you are! you are he or she for whom the earth is solid and liquid,
LG1891	4445	You are he or she for whom the sun and moon hang in the sky,
LG1891	4446	For none more than you are the present and the past,
LG1891	4447	For none more than you is immortality.
LG1891	4448	Each man to himself and each woman to herself, is the word of the past and present, and the true word of immortality;
LG1891	4449	No one can acquire for another—not one,
LG1891	4450	Not one can grow for another—not one.
LG1891	4451	The song is to the singer, and comes back most to him,
LG1891	4452	The teaching is to the teacher, and comes back most to him,
LG1891	4453	The murder is to the murderer, and comes back most to him,
LG1891	4454	The theft is to the thief, and comes back most to him,
LG1891	4455	The love is to the lover, and comes back most to him,
LG1891	4456	The gift is to the giver, and comes back most to him—it cannot fail,
LG1891	4457	The oration is to the orator, the acting is to the actor and actress not to the audience,
LG1891	4458	And no man understands any greatness or goodness but his own,or the indication of his own.
LG1891	4459	I swear the earth shall surely be complete to him or her who shall be complete,
LG1891	4460	The earth remains jagged and broken only to him or her who remains jagged and broken.
LG1891	4461	I swear there is no greatness or power that does not emulate those of the earth,
LG1891	4462	There can be no theory of any account unless it corroborate the theory of the earth,
LG1891	4463	No politics, song, religion, behavior, or what not, is of account,unless it compare with the amplitude of the earth,
LG1891	4464	Unless it face the exactness, vitality, impartiality, rectitude of the earth.
LG1891	4465	I swear I begin to see love with sweeter spasms than that which responds love,
LG1891	4466	It is that which contains itself, which never invites and never refuses.
LG1891	4467	I swear I begin to see little or nothing in audible words,
LG1891	4468	All merges toward the presentation of the unspoken meanings of the earth,
LG1891	4469	Toward him who sings the songs of the body and of the truths of the earth,
LG1891	4470	Toward him who makes the dictionaries of words that print can-notcannot touch.
LG1891	4471	I swear I see what is better than to tell the best,
LG1891	4472	It is always to leave the best untold.
LG1891	4473	When I undertake to tell the best I find I cannot,
LG1891	4474	My tongue is ineffectual on its pivots,
LG1891	4475	My breath will not be obedient to its organs,
LG1891	4476	I become a dumb man.
LG1891	4477	The best of the earth cannot be told anyhow, all or any is best,
LG1891	4478	It is not what you anticipated, it is cheaper, easier, nearer,
LG1891	4479	Things are not dismiss'd from the places they held before,
LG1891	4480	The earth is just as positive and direct as it was before,
LG1891	4481	Facts, religions, improvements, politics, trades, are as real as before,
LG1891	4482	But the soul is also real, it too is positive and direct,
LG1891	4483	No reasoning, no proof has establish'd it,
LG1891	4484	Undeniable growth has establish'd it.
LG1891	4485	These to echo the tones of souls and the phrases of souls,
LG1891	4486	(If they did not echo the phrases of souls what were they then?
LG1891	4487	If they had not reference to you in especial what were they then?)
LG1891	4488	I swear I will never henceforth have to do with the faith that tells the best,
LG1891	4489	I will have to do only with that faith that leaves the best untold.
LG1891	4490	Say on, sayers! sing on, singers!
LG1891	4491	Delve! mould! pile the words of the earth!
LG1891	4492	Work on, age after age, nothing is to be lost,
LG1891	4493	It may have to wait long, but it will certainly come in use,
LG1891	4494	When the materials are all prepared and ready, the architects shall appear.
LG1891	4495	I swear to you the architects shall appear without fail,
LG1891	4496	I swear to you they will understand you and justify you,
LG1891	4497	The greatest among them shall be he who best knows you, and encloses all and is faithful to all,
LG1891	4498	He and the rest shall not forget you, they shall perceive that you are not an iota less than they,
LG1891	4499	You shall be fully glorified in them.
LG1891	4500	YOUTH, large, lusty, loving—youth full of grace, force, fascination,
LG1891	4501	Do you know that Old Age may come after you with equal grace, force, fascination?
LG1891	4502	Day full-blown and splendid—day of the immense sun, action, ambition, laughter,
LG1891	4503	The Night follows close with millions of suns, and sleep and restoring darkness.
LG1891	4504	COME said the Muse,
LG1891	4505	Sing me a song no poet yet has chanted,
LG1891	4506	Sing me the universal.
LG1891	4507	In this broad earth of ours,
LG1891	4508	Amid the measureless grossness and the slag,
LG1891	4509	Enclosed and safe within its central heart,
LG1891	4510	Nestles the seed perfection.
LG1891	4511	By every life a share or more or less,
LG1891	4512	None born but it is born, conceal'd or unconceal'd the seed is waiting.
LG1891	4513	Lo! keen-eyed towering science,
LG1891	4514	As from tall peaks the modern overlooking,
LG1891	4515	Successive absolute fiats issuing.
LG1891	4516	Yet again, lo! the soul, above all science,
LG1891	4517	For it has history gather'd like husks around the globe,
LG1891	4518	For it the entire star-myriads roll through the sky.
LG1891	4519	In spiral routes by long detours,
LG1891	4520	(As a much-tacking ship upon the sea,)
LG1891	4521	For it the partial to the permanent flowing,
LG1891	4522	For it the real to the ideal tends.
LG1891	4523	For it the mystic evolution,
LG1891	4524	Not the right only justified, what we call evil also justified.
LG1891	4525	Forth from their masks, no matter what,
LG1891	4526	From the huge festering trunk, from craft and guile and tears,
LG1891	4527	Health to emerge and joy, joy universal.
LG1891	4528	Out of the bulk, the morbid and the shallow,
LG1891	4529	Out of the bad majority, the varied countless frauds of men and states,
LG1891	4530	Electric, antiseptic yet, cleaving, suffusing all,
LG1891	4531	Only the good is universal.
LG1891	4532	Over the mountain-growths disease and sorrow,
LG1891	4533	An uncaught bird is ever hovering, hovering,
LG1891	4534	High in the purer, happier air.
LG1891	4535	From imperfection's murkiest cloud,
LG1891	4536	Darts always forth one ray of perfect light,
LG1891	4537	One flash of heaven's glory.
LG1891	4538	To fashion's, custom's discord,
LG1891	4539	To the mad Babel-din, the deafening orgies,
LG1891	4540	Soothing each lull a strain is heard, just heard,
LG1891	4541	From some far shore the final chorus sounding.
LG1891	4542	O the blest eyes, the happy hearts,
LG1891	4543	That see, that know the guiding thread so fine,
LG1891	4544	Along the mighty labyrinth.
LG1891	4545	And thou America,
LG1891	4546	For the scheme's culmination, its thought and its reality,
LG1891	4547	For these (not for thyself) thou hast arrived.
LG1891	4548	Thou too surroundest all,
LG1891	4549	Embracing carrying welcoming all, thou too by pathways broad and new,
LG1891	4550	To the ideal tendest.
LG1891	4551	The measur'd faiths of other lands, the grandeurs of the past,
LG1891	4552	Are not for thee, but grandeurs of thine own,
LG1891	4553	Deific faiths and amplitudes, absorbing, comprehending all,
LG1891	4554	All eligible to all.
LG1891	4555	All, all for immortality,
LG1891	4556	Love like the light silently wrapping all,
LG1891	4557	Nature's amelioration blessing all,
LG1891	4558	The blossoms, fruits of ages, orchards divine and certain,
LG1891	4559	Forms, objects, growths, humanities, to spiritual images ripening.
LG1891	4560	Give me O God to sing that thought,
LG1891	4561	Give me, give him or her I love this quenchless faith,
LG1891	4562	In Thy ensemble, whatever else withheld withhold not from us,
LG1891	4563	Belief in plan of Thee enclosed in Time and Space,
LG1891	4564	Health, peace, salvation universal.
LG1891	4565	Is it a dream?
LG1891	4566	Nay but the lack of it the dream,
LG1891	4567	And failing it life's lore and wealth a dream,
LG1891	4568	And all the world a dream.
LG1891	4569	COME my tan-faced children,
LG1891	4570	Follow well in order, get your weapons ready,
LG1891	4571	Have you your pistols? have you your sharp-edged axes?
LG1891	4572	Pioneers! O pioneers!
LG1891	4573	For we cannot tarry here,
LG1891	4574	We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger,
LG1891	4575	We the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend,
LG1891	4576	Pioneers! O pioneers!
LG1891	4577	O you youths, Western youths,
LG1891	4578	So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship,
LG1891	4579	Plain I see you Western youths, see you tramping with the fore-mostforemost,
LG1891	4580	Pioneers! O pioneers!
LG1891	4581	Have the elder races halted?
LG1891	4582	Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied over there beyond the seas?
LG1891	4583	We take up the task eternal, and the burden and the lesson,
LG1891	4584	Pioneers! O pioneers!
LG1891	4585	All the past we leave behind,
LG1891	4586	We debouch upon a newer mightier world, varied world,
LG1891	4587	Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labor and the march,
LG1891	4588	Pioneers! O pioneers!
LG1891	4589	We detachments steady throwing,
LG1891	4590	Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep,
LG1891	4591	Conquering, holding, daring, venturing as we go the unknown ways,
LG1891	4592	Pioneers! O pioneers!
LG1891	4593	We primeval forests felling,
LG1891	4594	We the rivers stemming, vexing we and piercing deep the mines within,
LG1891	4595	We the surface broad surveying, we the virgin soil upheaving,
LG1891	4596	Pioneers! O pioneers!
LG1891	4597	Colorado men are we,
LG1891	4598	From the peaks gigantic, from the great sierras and the high plateaus,
LG1891	4599	From the mine and from the gully, from the hunting trail we come,
LG1891	4600	Pioneers! O pioneers!
LG1891	4601	From Nebraska, from Arkansas,
LG1891	4602	Central inland race are we, from Missouri, with the continental blood intervein'd,
LG1891	4603	All the hands of comrades clasping, all the Southern, all the Northern,
LG1891	4604	Pioneers! O pioneers!
LG1891	4605	O resistless restless race!
LG1891	4606	O beloved race in all! O my breast aches with tender love for all!
LG1891	4607	O I mourn and yet exult, I am rapt with love for all,
LG1891	4608	Pioneers! O pioneers!
LG1891	4609	Raise the mighty mother mistress,
LG1891	4610	Waving high the delicate mistress, over all the starry mistress,(bend your heads all,)
LG1891	4611	Raise the fang'd and warlike mistress, stern, impassive, weapon'd mistress,
LG1891	4612	Pioneers! O pioneers!
LG1891	4613	See my children, resolute children,
LG1891	4614	By those swarms upon our rear we must never yield or falter,
LG1891	4615	Ages back in ghostly millions frowning there behind us urging,
LG1891	4616	Pioneers! O pioneers!
LG1891	4617	On and on the compact ranks,
LG1891	4618	With accessions ever waiting, with the places of the dead quickly fill'd,
LG1891	4619	Through the battle, through defeat, moving yet and never stopping,
LG1891	4620	Pioneers! O pioneers!
LG1891	4621	O to die advancing on!
LG1891	4622	Are there some of us to droop and die? has the hour come?
LG1891	4623	Then upon the march we fittest die, soon and sure the gap is fill'd,
LG1891	4624	Pioneers! O pioneers!
LG1891	4625	All the pulses of the world,
LG1891	4626	Falling in they beat for us, with the Western movement beat,
LG1891	4627	Holding single or together, steady moving to the front, all for us,
LG1891	4628	Pioneers! O pioneers!
LG1891	4629	Life's involv'd and varied pageants,
LG1891	4630	All the forms and shows, all the workmen at their work,
LG1891	4631	All the seamen and the landsmen, all the masters with their slaves,
LG1891	4632	Pioneers! O pioneers!
LG1891	4633	All the hapless silent lovers,
LG1891	4634	All the prisoners in the prisons, all the righteous and the wicked,
LG1891	4635	All the joyous, all the sorrowing, all the living, all the dying,
LG1891	4636	Pioneers! O pioneers!
LG1891	4637	I too with my soul and body,
LG1891	4638	We, a curious trio, picking, wandering on our way,
LG1891	4639	Through these shores amid the shadows, with the apparitions pressing,
LG1891	4640	Pioneers! O pioneers!
LG1891	4641	Lo, the darting bowling orb!
LG1891	4642	Lo, the brother orbs around, all the clustering suns and planets,
LG1891	4643	All the dazzling days, all the mystic nights with dreams,
LG1891	4644	Pioneers! O pioneers!
LG1891	4645	These are of us, they are with us,
LG1891	4646	All for primal needed work, while the followers there in embryo wait behind,
LG1891	4647	We to-day's procession heading, we the route for travel clearing,
LG1891	4648	Pioneers! O pioneers!
LG1891	4649	O you daughters of the West!
LG1891	4650	O you young and elder daughters! O you mothers and you wives!
LG1891	4651	Never must you be divided, in our ranks you move united,
LG1891	4652	Pioneers! O pioneers!
LG1891	4653	Minstrels latent on the prairies!
LG1891	4654	(Shrouded bards of other lands, you may rest, you have done your work,)
LG1891	4655	Soon I hear you coming warbling, soon you rise and tramp amid us,
LG1891	4656	Pioneers! O pioneers!
LG1891	4657	Not for delectations sweet,
LG1891	4658	Not the cushion and the slipper, not the peaceful and the studious,
LG1891	4659	Not the riches safe and palling, not for us the tame enjoyment,Pioneers! O pioneers!
LG1891	4660	Do the feasters gluttonous feast?
LG1891	4661	Do the corpulent sleepers sleep? have they lock'd and bolted doors?
LG1891	4662	Still be ours the diet hard, and the blanket on the ground,
LG1891	4663	Pioneers! O pioneers!
LG1891	4664	Has the night descended?
LG1891	4665	Was the road of late so toilsome? did we stop discouraged nodding on our way?
LG1891	4666	Yet a passing hour I yield you in your tracks to pause oblivious,
LG1891	4667	Pioneers! O pioneers!
LG1891	4668	Till with sound of trumpet,
LG1891	4669	Far, far off the daybreak call—hark! how loud and clear I hear it wind,
LG1891	4670	Swift! to the head of the army!—swift! spring to your places,
LG1891	4671	Pioneers! O pioneers!
LG1891	4672	WHOEVER you are, I fear you are walking the walks of dreams,
LG1891	4673	I fear these supposed realities are to melt from under your feet and hands,
LG1891	4674	Even now your features, joys, speech, house, trade, manners,troubles, follies, costume, crimes, dissipate away from you,
LG1891	4675	Your true soul and body appear before me,
LG1891	4676	They stand forth out of affairs, out of commerce, shops, work,farms, clothes, the house, buying, selling, eating, drinking,suffering, dying.
LG1891	4677	Whoever you are, now I place my hand upon you, that you be my poem,
LG1891	4678	I whisper with my lips close to your ear,
LG1891	4679	I have loved many women and men, but I love none better than you.
LG1891	4680	O I have been dilatory and dumb,
LG1891	4681	I should have made my way straight to you long ago,
LG1891	4682	I should have blabb'd nothing but you, I should have chanted nothing but you.
LG1891	4683	I will leave all and come and make the hymns of you,
LG1891	4684	None has understood you, but I understand you,
LG1891	4685	None has done justice to you, you have not done justice to your-selfyourself,
LG1891	4686	None but has found you imperfect, I only find no imperfection in you,
LG1891	4687	None but would subordinate you, I only am he who will never consent to subordinate you,
LG1891	4688	I only am he who places over you no master, owner, better, God,beyond what waits intrinsically in yourself.
LG1891	4689	Painters have painted their swarming groups and the centre-figure of all,
LG1891	4690	From the head of the centre-figure spreading a nimbus of gold-color'dgold-color'd light,
LG1891	4691	But I paint myriads of heads, but paint no head without its nim-busnimbus of gold-color'd light,
LG1891	4692	From my hand from the brain of every man and woman it streams,effulgently flowing forever.
LG1891	4693	O I could sing such grandeurs and glories about you!
LG1891	4694	You have not known what you are, you have slumber'd upon yourself all your life,
LG1891	4695	Your eyelids have been the same as closed most of the time,
LG1891	4696	What you have done returns already in mockeries,
LG1891	4697	(Your thrift, knowledge, prayers, if they do not return in mock-eriesmockeries, what is their return?)
LG1891	4698	The mockeries are not you,
LG1891	4699	Underneath them and within them I see you lurk,
LG1891	4700	I pursue you where none else has pursued you,
LG1891	4701	Silence, the desk, the flippant expression, the night, the accustom'd routine, if these conceal you from others or from yourself,they do not conceal you from me,
LG1891	4702	The shaved face, the unsteady eye, the impure complexion, if these balk others they do not balk me,
LG1891	4703	The pert apparel, the deform'd attitude, drunkenness, greed, pre-maturepremature death, all these I part aside.
LG1891	4704	There is no endowment in man or woman that is not tallied in you,
LG1891	4705	There is no virtue, no beauty in man or woman, but as good is in you,
LG1891	4706	No pluck, no endurance in others, but as good is in you,
LG1891	4707	No pleasure waiting for others, but an equal pleasure waits for you.
LG1891	4708	As for me, I give nothing to any one except I give the like care-fullycarefully to you,
LG1891	4709	I sing the songs of the glory of none, not God, sooner than I sing the songs of the glory of you.
LG1891	4710	Whoever you are! claim your own at any hazard!
LG1891	4711	These shows of the East and West are tame compared to you,
LG1891	4712	These immense meadows, these interminable rivers, you are immense and interminable as they,
LG1891	4713	These furies, elements, storms, motions of Nature, throes of appar-entapparent dissolution, you are he or she who is master or mistress over them,
LG1891	4714	Master or mistress in your own right over Nature, elements, pain,passion, dissolution.
LG1891	4715	The hopples fall from your ankles, you find an unfailing sufficiency,
LG1891	4716	Old or young, male or female, rude, low, rejected by the rest,whatever you are promulges itself,
LG1891	4717	Through birth, life, death, burial, the means are provided, nothing is scanted,
LG1891	4718	Through angers, losses, ambition, ignorance, ennui, what you are picks its way.
LG1891	4719	A GREAT year and place,
LG1891	4720	A harsh discordant natal scream out-sounding, to touch the mother's heart closer than any yet.
LG1891	4721	I walk'd the shores of my Eastern sea,
LG1891	4722	Heard over the waves the little voice,
LG1891	4723	Saw the divine infant where she woke mournfully wailing, amid the roar of cannon, curses, shouts, crash of falling buildings,
LG1891	4724	Was not so sick from the blood in the gutters running, nor from the single corpses, nor those in heaps, nor those borne away in the tumbrils,
LG1891	4725	Was not so desperate at the battues of death—was not so shock'd at the repeated fusillades of the guns.
LG1891	4726	Pale, silent, stern, what could I say to that long-accrued retribu-tionretribution?
LG1891	4727	Could I wish humanity different?
LG1891	4728	Could I wish the people made of wood and stone?
LG1891	4729	Or that there be no justice in destiny or time?
LG1891	4730	O Liberty! O mate for me!
LG1891	4731	Here too the blaze, the grape-shot and the axe, in reserve, to fetch them out in case of need,
LG1891	4732	Here too, though long represt, can never be destroy'd,
LG1891	4733	Here too could rise at last murdering and ecstatic,
LG1891	4734	Here too demanding full arrears of vengeance.
LG1891	4735	Hence I sign this salute over the sea,
LG1891	4736	And I do not deny that terrible red birth and baptism,
LG1891	4737	But remember the little voice that I heard wailing, and wait with perfect trust, no matter how long,
LG1891	4738	And from to-day sad and cogent I maintain the bequeath'd cause,as for all lands,
LG1891	4739	And I send these words to Paris with my love,
LG1891	4740	And I guess some chansonniers there will understand them,
LG1891	4741	For I guess there is latent music yet in France, floods of it,
LG1891	4742	O I hear already the bustle of instruments, they will soon be drowning all that would interrupt them,
LG1891	4743	O I think the east wind brings a triumphal and free march,
LG1891	4744	It reaches hither, it swells me to joyful madness,
LG1891	4745	I will run transpose it in words, to justify it,
LG1891	4746	I will yet sing a song for you ma femme.
LG1891	4747	MYSELF and mine gymnastic ever,
LG1891	4748	To stand the cold or heat, to take good aim with a gun, to sail a boat, to manage horses, to beget superb children,
LG1891	4749	To speak readily and clearly, to feel at home among common people,
LG1891	4750	And to hold our own in terrible positions on land and sea.
LG1891	4751	Not for an embroiderer,
LG1891	4752	(There will always be plenty of embroiderers, I welcome them also,)
LG1891	4753	But for the fibre of things and for inherent men and women.
LG1891	4754	Not to chisel ornaments,
LG1891	4755	But to chisel with free stroke the heads and limbs of plenteous supreme Gods, that the States may realize them walking and talking.
LG1891	4756	Let me have my own way,
LG1891	4757	Let others promulge the laws, I will make no account of the laws,
LG1891	4758	Let others praise eminent men and hold up peace, I hold up agitation and conflict,
LG1891	4759	I praise no eminent man, I rebuke to his face the one that was thought most worthy.
LG1891	4760	(Who are you? and what are you secretly guilty of all your life?
LG1891	4761	Will you turn aside all your life? will you grub and chatter all your life?
LG1891	4762	And who are you, blabbing by rote, years, pages, languages,reminiscences,
LG1891	4763	Unwitting to-day that you do not know how to speak properly a single word?)
LG1891	4764	Let others finish specimens, I never finish specimens,
LG1891	4765	I start them by exhaustless laws as Nature does, fresh and modern continually.
LG1891	4766	I give nothing as duties,
LG1891	4767	What others give as duties I give as living impulses,
LG1891	4768	(Shall I give the heart's action as a duty?)
LG1891	4769	Let others dispose of questions, I dispose of nothing, I arouse unanswerable questions,
LG1891	4770	Who are they I see and touch, and what about them?
LG1891	4771	What about these likes of myself that draw me so close by tender directions and indirections?
LG1891	4772	I call to the world to distrust the accounts of my friends, but listen to my enemies, as I myself do,
LG1891	4773	I charge you forever reject those who would expound me, for I cannot expound myself,
LG1891	4774	I charge that there be no theory or school founded out of me,
LG1891	4775	I charge you to leave all free, as I have left all free.
LG1891	4776	After me, vista!
LG1891	4777	O I see life is not short, but immeasurably long,
LG1891	4778	I henceforth tread the world chaste, temperate, an early riser, a steady grower,
LG1891	4779	Every hour the semen of centuries, and still of centuries.
LG1891	4780	I must follow up these continual lessons of the air, water, earth,
LG1891	4781	I perceive I have no time to lose.
LG1891	4782	YEAR of meteors! brooding year!
LG1891	4783	I would bind in words retrospective some of your deeds and signs,
LG1891	4784	I would sing your contest for the 19th Presidentiad,
LG1891	4785	I would sing how an old man, tall, with white hair, mounted the scaffold in Virginia,
LG1891	4786	(I was at hand, silent I stood with teeth shut close, I watch'd,
LG1891	4787	I stood very near you old man when cool and indifferent, but trembling with age and your unheal'd wounds you mounted the scaffold;)
LG1891	4788	I would sing in my copious song your census returns of the States,
LG1891	4789	The tables of population and products, I would sing of your ships and their cargoes,
LG1891	4790	The proud black ships of Manhattan arriving, some fill'd with immigrants, some from the isthmus with cargoes of gold,
LG1891	4791	Songs thereof would I sing, to all that hitherward comes would I welcome give,
LG1891	4792	And you would I sing, fair stripling! welcome to you from me,young prince of England!
LG1891	4793	(Remember you surging Manhattan's crowds as you pass'd with your cortege of nobles?
LG1891	4794	There in the crowds stood I, and singled you out with attachment;)
LG1891	4795	Nor forget I to sing of the wonder, the ship as she swam up my bay,
LG1891	4796	Well-shaped and stately the Great Eastern swam up my bay, she was 600 feet long,
LG1891	4797	Her moving swiftly surrounded by myriads of small craft I forget not to sing;
LG1891	4798	Nor the comet that came unannounced out of the north flaring in heaven,
LG1891	4799	Nor the strange huge meteor-procession dazzling and clear shoot-ingshooting over our heads,
LG1891	4800	(A moment, a moment long it sail'd its balls of unearthly light over our heads,
LG1891	4801	Then departed, dropt in the night, and was gone;)
LG1891	4802	Of such, and fitful as they, I sing—with gleams from them would I gleam and patch these chants,
LG1891	4803	Your chants, O year all mottled with evil and good—year of forebodings!
LG1891	4804	Year of comets and meteors transient and strange—lo! even here one equally transient and strange!
LG1891	4805	As I flit through you hastily, soon to fall and be gone, what is this chant,
LG1891	4806	What am I myself but one of your meteors?
LG1891	4807	WITH antecedents,
LG1891	4808	With my fathers and mothers and the accumulations of past ages,
LG1891	4809	With all which, had it not been, I would not now be here, as I am,
LG1891	4810	With Egypt, India, Phenicia, Greece and Rome,
LG1891	4811	With the Kelt, the Scandinavian, the Alb and the Saxon,
LG1891	4812	With antique maritime ventures, laws, artisanship, wars and jour-neysjourneys,
LG1891	4813	With the poet, the skald, the saga, the myth, and the oracle,
LG1891	4814	With the sale of slaves, with enthusiasts, with the troubadour, the crusader, and the monk,
LG1891	4815	With those old continents whence we have come to this new continent,
LG1891	4816	With the fading kingdoms and kings over there,
LG1891	4817	With the fading religions and priests,
LG1891	4818	With the small shores we look back to from our own large and present shores,
LG1891	4819	With countless years drawing themselves onward and arrived at these years,
LG1891	4820	You and me arrived—America arrived and making this year,
LG1891	4821	This year! sending itself ahead countless years to come.
LG1891	4822	O but it is not the years—it is I, it is You,
LG1891	4823	We touch all laws and tally all antecedents,
LG1891	4824	We are the skald, the oracle, the monk and the knight, we easily include them and more,
LG1891	4825	We stand amid time beginningless and endless, we stand amid evil and good,
LG1891	4826	All swings around us, there is as much darkness as light,
LG1891	4827	The very sun swings itself and its system of planets around us,
LG1891	4828	Its sun, and its again, all swing around us.
LG1891	4829	As for me, (torn, stormy, amid these vehement days,)
LG1891	4830	I have the idea of all, and am all and believe in all,
LG1891	4831	I believe materialism is true and spiritualism is true, I reject no part.
LG1891	4832	(Have I forgotten any part? any thing in the past?
LG1891	4833	Come to me whoever and whatever, till I give you recogni-tionrecognition.)
LG1891	4834	I respect Assyria, China, Teutonia, and the Hebrews,
LG1891	4835	I adopt each theory, myth, god, and demi-god,
LG1891	4836	I see that the old accounts, bibles, genealogies, are true, without exception,
LG1891	4837	I assert that all past days were what they must have been,
LG1891	4838	And that they could no-how have been better than they were,
LG1891	4839	And that to-day is what it must be, and that America is,
LG1891	4840	And that to-day and America could no-how be better than they are.
LG1891	4841	In the name of these States and in your and my name, the Past,
LG1891	4842	And in the name of these States and in your and my name, the Present time.
LG1891	4843	I know that the past was great and the future will be great,
LG1891	4844	And I know that both curiously conjoint in the present time,
LG1891	4845	(For the sake of him I typify, for the common average man's sake, your sake if you are he,)
LG1891	4846	And that where I am or you are this present day, there is the centre of all days, all races,
LG1891	4847	And there is the meaning to us of all that has ever come of races and days, or ever will come.
LG1891	4848	OVER the Western sea hither from Niphon come,
LG1891	4849	Courteous, the swart-cheek'd two-sworded envoys,
LG1891	4850	Leaning back in their open barouches, bare-headed, impassive,
LG1891	4851	Ride to-day through Manhattan.
LG1891	4852	Libertad! I do not know whether others behold what I behold,
LG1891	4853	In the procession along with the nobles of Niphon, the errand-bearerserrand-bearers,
LG1891	4854	Bringing up the rear, hovering above, around, or in the ranks marching,
LG1891	4855	But I will sing you a song of what I behold Libertad.
LG1891	4856	When million-footed Manhattan unpent descends to her pavements,
LG1891	4857	When the thunder-cracking guns arouse me with the proud roar I love,
LG1891	4858	When the round-mouth'd guns out of the smoke and smell I love spit their salutes,
LG1891	4859	When the fire-flashing guns have fully alerted me, and heaven-cloudsheaven-clouds canopy my city with a delicate thin haze,
LG1891	4860	When gorgeous the countless straight stems, the forests at the wharves, thicken with colors,
LG1891	4861	When every ship richly drest carries her flag at the peak,
LG1891	4862	When pennants trail and street-festoons hang from the windows,
LG1891	4863	When Broadway is entirely given up to foot-passengers and foot-standersfootstanders, when the mass is densest,
LG1891	4864	When the façades of the houses are alive with people, when eyes gaze riveted tens of thousands at a time,
LG1891	4865	When the guests from the islands advance, when the pageant moves forward visible,
LG1891	4866	When the summons is made, when the answer that waited thou-sandsthousands of years answers,
LG1891	4867	I too arising, answering, descend to the pavements, merge with the crowd, and gaze with them.
LG1891	4868	Superb-faced Manhattan!
LG1891	4869	Comrade Americanos! to us, then at last the Orient comes.
LG1891	4870	To us, my city,
LG1891	4871	Where our tall-topt marble and iron beauties range on opposite sides, to walk in the space between,
LG1891	4872	To-day our Antipodes comes.
LG1891	4873	The Originatress comes,
LG1891	4874	The nest of languages, the bequeather of poems, the race of eld,
LG1891	4875	Florid with blood, pensive, rapt with musings, hot with passion,
LG1891	4876	Sultry with perfume, with ample and flowing garments,
LG1891	4877	With sunburnt visage, with intense soul and glittering eyes,
LG1891	4878	The race of Brahma comes.
LG1891	4879	See my cantabile! these and more are flashing to us from the procession,
LG1891	4880	As it moves changing, a kaleidoscope divine it moves changing before us.
LG1891	4881	For not the envoys nor the tann'd Japanee from his island only,
LG1891	4882	Lithe and silent the Hindoo appears, the Asiatic continent itself appears, the past, the dead,
LG1891	4883	The murky night-morning of wonder and fable inscrutable,
LG1891	4884	The envelop'd mysteries, the old and unknown hive-bees,
LG1891	4885	The north, the sweltering south, eastern Assyria, the Hebrews, the ancient of ancients,
LG1891	4886	Vast desolated cities, the gliding present, all of these and more are in the pageant-procession.
LG1891	4887	Geography, the world, is in it,
LG1891	4888	The Great Sea, the brood of islands, Polynesia, the coast beyond,
LG1891	4889	The coast you henceforth are facing—you Libertad! from your Western golden shores,
LG1891	4890	The countries there with their populations, the millions en-masse are curiously here,
LG1891	4891	The swarming market-places, the temples with idols ranged along the sides or at the end, bonze, brahmin, and llama,
LG1891	4892	Mandarin, farmer, merchant, mechanic, and fisherman,
LG1891	4893	The singing-girl and the dancing-girl, the ecstatic persons, the secluded emperors,
LG1891	4894	Confucius himself, the great poets and heroes, the warriors, the castes, all,
LG1891	4895	Trooping up, crowding from all directions, from the Altay moun-tainsmountains,
LG1891	4896	From ThibetTibet, from the four winding and far-flowing rivers of China,
LG1891	4897	From the southern peninsulas and the demi-continental islands,from Malaysia,
LG1891	4898	These and whatever belongs to them palpable show forth to me,and are seiz'd by me,
LG1891	4899	And I am seiz'd by them, and friendlily held by them,
LG1891	4900	Till as here them all I chant, Libertad! for themselves and for you.
LG1891	4901	For I too raising my voice join the ranks of this pageant,
LG1891	4902	I am the chanter, I chant aloud over the pageant,
LG1891	4903	I chant the world on my Western sea,
LG1891	4904	I chant copious the islands beyond, thick as stars in the sky,
LG1891	4905	I chant the new empire grander than any before, as in a vision it comes to me,
LG1891	4906	I chant America the mistress, I chant a greater supremacy,
LG1891	4907	I chant projected a thousand blooming cities yet in time on those groups of sea-islands,
LG1891	4908	My sail-ships and steam-ships threading the archipelagoes,
LG1891	4909	My stars and stripes fluttering in the wind,
LG1891	4910	Commerce opening, the sleep of ages having done its work, races reborn, refresh'd,
LG1891	4911	Lives, works resumed—the object I know not—but the old, the Asiatic renew'd as it must be,
LG1891	4912	Commencing from this day surrounded by the world.
LG1891	4913	And you Libertad of the world!
LG1891	4914	You shall sit in the middle well-pois'd thousands and thousands of years,
LG1891	4915	As to-day from one side the nobles of Asia come to you,
LG1891	4916	As to-morrow from the other side the queen of England sends her eldest son to you.
LG1891	4917	The sign is reversing, the orb is enclosed,
LG1891	4918	The ring is circled, the journey is done,
LG1891	4919	The box-lid is but perceptibly open'd, nevertheless the perfume pours copiously out of the whole box.
LG1891	4920	Young Libertad! with the venerable Asia, the all-mother,
LG1891	4921	Be considerate with her now and ever hot Libertad, for you are all,
LG1891	4922	Bend your proud neck to the long-off mother now sending mes-sagesmessages over the archipelagoes to you,
LG1891	4923	Bend your proud neck low for once, young Libertad.
LG1891	4924	Were the children straying westward so long? so wide the tramping?
LG1891	4925	Were the precedent dim ages debouching westward from Paradise so long?
LG1891	4926	Were the centuries steadily footing it that way, all the while unknown, for you, for reasons?
LG1891	4927	They are justified, they are accomplish'd, they shall now be turn'd the other way also, to travel toward you thence,
LG1891	4928	They shall now also march obediently eastward for your sake Libertad.
LG1891	4929	OUT of the cradle endlessly rocking,
LG1891	4930	Out of the mocking-bird's throat, the musical shuttle,
LG1891	4931	Out of the Ninth-month midnight,
LG1891	4932	Over the sterile sands and the fields beyond, where the child leaving his bed wander'd alone, bareheaded, barefoot,
LG1891	4933	Down from the shower'd halo,
LG1891	4934	Up from the mystic play of shadows twining and twisting as if they were alive,
LG1891	4935	Out from the patches of briers and blackberries,
LG1891	4936	From the memories of the bird that chanted to me,
LG1891	4937	From your memories sad brother, from the fitful risings and fall-ingsfallings I heard,
LG1891	4938	From under that yellow half-moon late-risen and swollen as if with tears,
LG1891	4939	From those beginning notes of yearning and love there in the mist,
LG1891	4940	From the thousand responses of my heart never to cease,
LG1891	4941	From the myriad thence-arous'd words,
LG1891	4942	From the word stronger and more delicious than any,
LG1891	4943	From such as now they start the scene revisiting,
LG1891	4944	As a flock, twittering, rising, or overhead passing,
LG1891	4945	Borne hither, ere all eludes me, hurriedly,
LG1891	4946	A man, yet by these tears a little boy again,
LG1891	4947	Throwing myself on the sand, confronting the waves,
LG1891	4948	I, chanter of pains and joys, uniter of here and hereafter,
LG1891	4949	Taking all hints to use them, but swiftly leaping beyond them,
LG1891	4950	A reminiscence sing.
LG1891	4951	Once Paumanok,
LG1891	4952	When the lilac-scent was in the air and Fifth-month grass was growing,
LG1891	4953	Up this seashore in some briers,
LG1891	4954	Two feather'd guests from Alabama, two together,
LG1891	4955	And their nest, and four light-green eggs spotted with brown,
LG1891	4956	And every day the he-bird to and fro near at hand,
LG1891	4957	And every day the she-bird crouch'd on her nest, silent, with bright eyes,
LG1891	4958	And every day I, a curious boy, never too close, never disturbing them,
LG1891	4959	Cautiously peering, absorbing, translating.
LG1891	4960	Shine! shine! shine!
LG1891	4961	Pour down your warmth, great sun!
LG1891	4962	While we bask, we two together.
LG1891	4963	Two together!
LG1891	4964	Winds blow south, or winds blow north,
LG1891	4965	Day come white, or night come black,
LG1891	4966	Home, or rivers and mountains from home,
LG1891	4967	Singing all time, minding no time,
LG1891	4968	While we two keep together.
LG1891	4969	Till of a sudden,
LG1891	4970	May-be kill'd, unknown to her mate,
LG1891	4971	One forenoon the she-bird crouch'd not on the nest,
LG1891	4972	Nor return'd that afternoon, nor the next,
LG1891	4973	Nor ever appear'd again.
LG1891	4974	And thenceforward all summer in the sound of the sea,
LG1891	4975	And at night under the full of the moon in calmer weather,
LG1891	4976	Over the hoarse surging of the sea,
LG1891	4977	Or flitting from brier to brier by day,
LG1891	4978	I saw, I heard at intervals the remaining one, the he-bird,
LG1891	4979	The solitary guest from Alabama.
LG1891	4980	Blow! blow! blow!
LG1891	4981	Blow up sea-winds along Paumanok's shore;
LG1891	4982	I wait and I wait till you blow my mate to me.
LG1891	4983	Yes, when the stars glisten'd,
LG1891	4984	All night long on the prong of a moss-scallop'd stake,
LG1891	4985	Down almost amid the slapping waves,
LG1891	4986	Sat the lone singer wonderful causing tears.
LG1891	4987	He call'd on his mate,
LG1891	4988	He pour'd forth the meanings which I of all men know.
LG1891	4989	Yes my brother I know,
LG1891	4990	The rest might not, but I have treasur'd every note,
LG1891	4991	For more than once dimly down to the beach gliding,
LG1891	4992	Silent, avoiding the moonbeams, blending myself with the shadows,
LG1891	4993	Recalling now the obscure shapes, the echoes, the sounds and sights after their sorts,
LG1891	4994	The white arms out in the breakers tirelessly tossing,
LG1891	4995	I, with bare feet, a child, the wind wafting my hair,
LG1891	4996	Listen'd long and long.
LG1891	4997	Listen'd to keep, to sing, now translating the notes,
LG1891	4998	Following you my brother.
LG1891	4999	Soothe! soothe! soothe!
LG1891	5000	Close on its wave soothes the wave behind,
LG1891	5001	And again another behind embracing and lapping, every one close,
LG1891	5002	But my love soothes not me, not me.
LG1891	5003	Low hangs the moon, it rose late,
LG1891	5004	It is lagging—O I think it is heavy with love, with love.
LG1891	5005	O madly the sea pushes upon the land,
LG1891	5006	With love, with love.
LG1891	5007	O night! do I not see my love fluttering out among the breakers?
LG1891	5008	What is that little black thing I see there in the white?
LG1891	5009	Loud! loud! loud!
LG1891	5010	Loud I call to you, my love!
LG1891	5011	High and clear I shoot my voice over the waves,
LG1891	5012	Surely you must know who is here, is here,
LG1891	5013	You must know who I am, my love.
LG1891	5014	Low-hanging moon!
LG1891	5015	What is that dusky spot in your brown yellow?
LG1891	5016	O it is the shape, the shape of my mate!
LG1891	5017	O moon do not keep her from me any longer.
LG1891	5018	Land! land! O land!
LG1891	5019	Whichever way I turn, O I think you could give me my mate back again if you only would,
LG1891	5020	For I am almost sure I see her dimly whichever way I look.
LG1891	5021	O rising stars!
LG1891	5022	Perhaps the one I want so much will rise, will rise with some of you.
LG1891	5023	O throat! O trembling throat!
LG1891	5024	Sound clearer through the atmosphere!
LG1891	5025	Pierce the woods, the earth,
LG1891	5026	Somewhere listening to catch you must be the one I want.
LG1891	5027	Shake out carols!
LG1891	5028	Solitary here, the night's carols!
LG1891	5029	Carols of lonesome love! death's carols!
LG1891	5030	Carols under that lagging, yellow, waning moon!
LG1891	5031	O under that moon where she droops almost down into the sea!
LG1891	5032	O reckless despairing carols.
LG1891	5033	But soft! sink low!
LG1891	5034	Soft! let me just murmur,
LG1891	5035	And do you wait a moment you husky-nois'd sea,
LG1891	5036	For somewhere I believe I heard my mate responding to me,
LG1891	5037	So faint, I must be still, be still to listen,
LG1891	5038	But not altogether still, for then she might not come immediately to me.
LG1891	5039	Hither my love!
LG1891	5040	Here I am! here!
LG1891	5041	With this just-sustain'd note I announce myself to you,
LG1891	5042	This gentle call is for you my love, for you.
LG1891	5043	Do not be decoy'd elsewhere,
LG1891	5044	That is the whistle of the wind, it is not my voice,
LG1891	5045	That is the fluttering, the fluttering of the spray,
LG1891	5046	Those are the shadows of leaves.
LG1891	5047	O darkness! O in vain!
LG1891	5048	O I am very sick and sorrowful.
LG1891	5049	O brown halo in the sky near the moon, drooping upon the sea!
LG1891	5050	O troubled reflection in the sea!
LG1891	5051	O throat! O throbbing heart!
LG1891	5052	And I singing uselessly, uselessly all the night.
LG1891	5053	O past! O happy life! O songs of joy!
LG1891	5054	In the air, in the woods, over fields,
LG1891	5055	Loved! loved! loved! loved! loved!
LG1891	5056	But my mate no more, no more with me!
LG1891	5057	We two together no more.
LG1891	5058	The aria sinking,
LG1891	5059	All else continuing, the stars shining,
LG1891	5060	The winds blowing, the notes of the bird continuous echoing,
LG1891	5061	With angry moans the fierce old mother incessantly moaning,
LG1891	5062	On the sands of Paumanok's shore gray and rustling,
LG1891	5063	The yellow half-moon enlarged, sagging down, drooping, the face of the sea almost touching,
LG1891	5064	The boy ecstatic, with his bare feet the waves, with his hair the atmosphere dallying,
LG1891	5065	The love in the heart long pent, now loose, now at last tumultu-ouslytumultuously bursting,
LG1891	5066	The aria's meaning, the ears, the soul, swiftly depositing,
LG1891	5067	The strange tears down the cheeks coursing,
LG1891	5068	The colloquy there, the trio, each uttering,
LG1891	5069	The undertone, the savage old mother incessantly crying,
LG1891	5070	To the boy's soul's questions sullenly timing, some drown'd secret hissing,
LG1891	5071	To the outsetting bard.
LG1891	5072	Demon or bird! (said the boy's soul,)
LG1891	5073	Is it indeed toward your mate you sing? or is it really to me?
LG1891	5074	For I, that was a child, my tongue's use sleeping, now I have heard you,
LG1891	5075	Now in a moment I know what I am for, I awake,
LG1891	5076	And already a thousand singers, a thousand songs, clearer, louder and more sorrowful than yours,
LG1891	5077	A thousand warbling echoes have started to life within me, never to die.
LG1891	5078	O you singer solitary, singing by yourself, projecting me,
LG1891	5079	O solitary me listening, never more shall I cease perpetuating you,
LG1891	5080	Never more shall I escape, never more the reverberations,
LG1891	5081	Never more the cries of unsatisfied love be absent from me,
LG1891	5082	Never again leave me to be the peaceful child I was before what there in the night,
LG1891	5083	By the sea under the yellow and sagging moon,
LG1891	5084	The messenger there arous'd, the fire, the sweet hell within,
LG1891	5085	The unknown want, the destiny of me.
LG1891	5086	O give me the clew! (it lurks in the night here somewhere,)
LG1891	5087	O if I am to have so much, let me have more!
LG1891	5088	A word then, (for I will conquer it,)
LG1891	5089	The word final, superior to all,
LG1891	5090	Subtle, sent up—what is it?—I listen;
LG1891	5091	Are you whispering it, and have been all the time, you sea-wavessea-waves?
LG1891	5092	Is that it from your liquid rims and wet sands?
LG1891	5093	Whereto answering, the sea,
LG1891	5094	Delaying not, hurrying not,
LG1891	5095	Whisper'd me through the night, and very plainly before day-breakdaybreak,
LG1891	5096	Lisp'd to me the low and delicious word death,
LG1891	5097	And again death, death, death, death,
LG1891	5098	Hissing melodious, neither like the bird nor like my arous'd child's heart,
LG1891	5099	But edging near as privately for me rustling at my feet,
LG1891	5100	Creeping thence steadily up to my ears and laving me softly all over,
LG1891	5101	Death, death, death, death, death.
LG1891	5102	Which I do not forget,
LG1891	5103	But fuse the song of my dusky demon and brother,
LG1891	5104	That he sang to me in the moonlight on Paumanok's gray beach,
LG1891	5105	With the thousand responsive songs at random,
LG1891	5106	My own songs awaked from that hour,
LG1891	5107	And with them the key, the word up from the waves,
LG1891	5108	The word of the sweetest song and all songs,
LG1891	5109	That strong and delicious word which, creeping to my feet,
LG1891	5110	(Or like some old crone rocking the cradle, swathed in sweet garments, bending aside,)
LG1891	5111	The sea whisper'd me.
LG1891	5112	AS I ebb'd with the ocean of life,
LG1891	5113	As I wended the shores I know,
LG1891	5114	As I walk'd where the ripples continually wash you Paumanok,
LG1891	5115	Where they rustle up hoarse and sibilant,
LG1891	5116	Where the fierce old mother endlessly cries for her castaways,
LG1891	5117	I musing late in the autumn day, gazing off southward,
LG1891	5118	Held by this electric self out of the pride of which I utter poems,
LG1891	5119	Was seiz'd by the spirit that trails in the lines underfoot,
LG1891	5120	The rim, the sediment that stands for all the water and all the land of the globe.
LG1891	5121	Fascinated, my eyes reverting from the south, dropt, to follow those slender windrows,
LG1891	5122	Chaff, straw, splinters of wood, weeds, and the sea-gluten,
LG1891	5123	Scum, scales from shining rocks, leaves of salt-lettuce, left by the tide,
LG1891	5124	Miles walking, the sound of breaking waves the other side of me,
LG1891	5125	Paumanok there and then as I thought the old thought of likenesses,
LG1891	5126	These you presented to me you fish-shaped island,
LG1891	5127	As I wended the shores I know,
LG1891	5128	As I walk'd with that electric self seeking types.
LG1891	5129	As I wend to the shores I know not,
LG1891	5130	As I list to the dirge, the voices of men and women wreck'd,
LG1891	5131	As I inhale the impalpable breezes that set in upon me,
LG1891	5132	As the ocean so mysterious rolls toward me closer and closer,
LG1891	5133	I too but signify at the utmost a little wash'd-up drift,
LG1891	5134	A few sands and dead leaves to gather,
LG1891	5135	Gather, and merge myself as part of the sands and drift.
LG1891	5136	O baffled, balk'd, bent to the very earth,
LG1891	5137	Oppress'd with myself that I have dared to open my mouth,
LG1891	5138	Aware now that amid all that blab whose echoes recoil upon me I have not once had the least idea who or what I am,
LG1891	5139	But that before all my arrogant poems the real Me stands yet untouch'd, untold, altogether unreach'd,
LG1891	5140	Withdrawn far, mocking me with mock-congratulatory signs and bows,
LG1891	5141	With peals of distant ironical laughter at every word I have written,
LG1891	5142	Pointing in silence to these songs, and then to the sand beneath.
LG1891	5143	I perceive I have not really understood any thing, not a single object, and that no man ever can,
LG1891	5144	Nature here in sight of the sea taking advantage of me to dart upon me and sting me,
LG1891	5145	Because I have dared to open my mouth to sing at all.
LG1891	5146	You oceans both, I close with you,
LG1891	5147	We murmur alike reproachfully rolling sands and drift, knowing not why,
LG1891	5148	These little shreds indeed standing for you and me and all.
LG1891	5149	You friable shore with trails of debris,
LG1891	5150	You fish-shaped island, I take what is underfoot,
LG1891	5151	What is yours is mine my father.
LG1891	5152	I too Paumanok,
LG1891	5153	I too have bubbled up, floated the measureless float, and been wash'd on your shores,
LG1891	5154	I too am but a trail of drift and debris,
LG1891	5155	I too leave little wrecks upon you, you fish-shaped island.
LG1891	5156	I throw myself upon your breast my father,
LG1891	5157	I cling to you so that you cannot unloose me,
LG1891	5158	I hold you so firm till you answer me something.
LG1891	5159	Kiss me my father,
LG1891	5160	Touch me with your lips as I touch those I love,
LG1891	5161	Breathe to me while I hold you close the secret of the murmuring I envy.
LG1891	5162	Ebb, ocean of life, (the flow will return,)
LG1891	5163	Cease not your moaning you fierce old mother,
LG1891	5164	Endlessly cry for your castaways, but fear not, deny not me,
LG1891	5165	Rustle not up so hoarse and angry against my feet as I touch you or gather from you.
LG1891	5166	I mean tenderly by you and all,
LG1891	5167	I gather for myself and for this phantom looking down where we lead, and following me and mine.
LG1891	5168	Me and mine, loose windrows, little corpses,
LG1891	5169	Froth, snowy white, and bubbles,
LG1891	5170	(See, from my dead lips the ooze exuding at last,
LG1891	5171	See, the prismatic colors glistening and rolling,)
LG1891	5172	Tufts of straw, sands, fragments,
LG1891	5173	Buoy'd hither from many moods, one contradicting another,
LG1891	5174	From the storm, the long calm, the darkness, the swell,
LG1891	5175	Musing, pondering, a breath, a briny tear, a dab of liquid or soil,
LG1891	5176	Up just as much out of fathomless workings fermented and thrown,
LG1891	5177	A limp blossom or two, torn, just as much over waves floating, drifted at random,
LG1891	5178	Just as much for us that sobbing dirge of Nature,
LG1891	5179	Just as much whence we come that blare of the cloud-trumpets,
LG1891	5180	We, capricious, brought hither we know not whence, spread out before you,
LG1891	5181	You up there walking or sitting,
LG1891	5182	Whoever you are, we too lie in drifts at your feet.
LG1891	5183	TEARS! tears! tears!
LG1891	5184	In the night, in solitude, tears,
LG1891	5185	On the white shore dripping, dripping, suck'd in by the sand,
LG1891	5186	Tears, not a star shining, all dark and desolate,
LG1891	5187	Moist tears from the eyes of a muffled head;
LG1891	5188	O who is that ghost? that form in the dark, with tears?
LG1891	5189	What shapeless lump is that, bent, crouch'd there on the sand?
LG1891	5190	Streaming tears, sobbing tears, throes, choked with wild cries;
LG1891	5191	O storm, embodied, rising, careering with swift steps along the beach!
LG1891	5192	O wild and dismal night storm, with wind—O belching and des-peratedesperate!
LG1891	5193	O shade so sedate and decorous by day, with calm countenance and regulated pace,
LG1891	5194	But away at night as you fly, none looking—O then the unloosen'd ocean,
LG1891	5195	Of tears! tears! tears!
LG1891	5196	THOU who hast slept all night upon the storm,
LG1891	5197	Waking renew'd on thy prodigious pinions,
LG1891	5198	(Burst the wild storm? above it thou ascended'st,
LG1891	5199	And rested on the sky, thy slave that cradled thee,)
LG1891	5200	Now a blue point, far, far in heaven floating,
LG1891	5201	As to the light emerging here on deck I watch thee,
LG1891	5202	(Myself a speck, a point on the world's floating vast.)
LG1891	5203	Far, far at sea,
LG1891	5204	After the night's fierce drifts have strewn the shore with wrecks,
LG1891	5205	With re-appearing day as now so happy and serene,
LG1891	5206	The rosy and elastic dawn, the flashing sun,
LG1891	5207	The limpid spread of air cerulean,
LG1891	5208	Thou also re-appearest.
LG1891	5209	Thou born to match the gale, (thou art all wings,)
LG1891	5210	To cope with heaven and earth and sea and hurricane,
LG1891	5211	Thou ship of air that never furl'st thy sails,
LG1891	5212	Days, even weeks untired and onward, through spaces, realms gyrating,
LG1891	5213	At dusk that look'st on Senegal, at morn America,
LG1891	5214	That sport'st amid the lightning-flash and thunder-cloud,
LG1891	5215	In them, in thy experiences, had'st thou my soul,
LG1891	5216	What joys! what joys were thine!
LG1891	5217	ABOARD at a ship's helm,
LG1891	5218	A young steersman steering with care.
LG1891	5219	Through fog on a sea-coast dolefully ringing,
LG1891	5220	An ocean-bell—O a warning bell, rock'd by the waves.
LG1891	5221	O you give good notice indeed, you bell by the sea-reefs ringing,
LG1891	5222	Ringing, ringing, to warn the ship from its wreck-place.
LG1891	5223	For as on the alert O steersman, you mind the loud admonition,
LG1891	5224	The bows turn, the freighted ship tacking speeds away under her gray sails,
LG1891	5225	The beautiful and noble ship with all her precious wealth speeds away gayly and safe.
LG1891	5226	But O the ship, the immortal ship! O ship aboard the ship!
LG1891	5227	Ship of the body, ship of the soul, voyaging, voyaging, voyaging.
LG1891	5228	ON the beach at night,
LG1891	5229	Stands a child with her father,
LG1891	5230	Watching the east, the autumn sky.
LG1891	5231	Up through the darkness,
LG1891	5232	While ravening clouds, the burial clouds, in black masses spreading,
LG1891	5233	Lower sullen and fast athwart and down the sky,
LG1891	5234	Amid a transparent clear belt of ether yet left in the east,
LG1891	5235	Ascends large and calm the lord-star Jupiter,
LG1891	5236	And nigh at hand, only a very little above,
LG1891	5237	Swim the delicate sisters the Pleiades.
LG1891	5238	From the beach the child holding the hand of her father,
LG1891	5239	Those burial-clouds that lower victorious soon to devour all,
LG1891	5240	Watching, silently weeps.
LG1891	5241	Weep not, child,
LG1891	5242	Weep not, my darling,
LG1891	5243	With these kisses let me remove your tears,
LG1891	5244	The ravening clouds shall not long be victorious,
LG1891	5245	They shall not long possess the sky, they devour the stars only in apparition,
LG1891	5246	Jupiter shall emerge, be patient, watch again another night, the Pleiades shall emerge,
LG1891	5247	They are immortal, all those stars both silvery and golden shall shine out again,
LG1891	5248	The great stars and the little ones shall shine out again, they endure,
LG1891	5249	The vast immortal suns and the long-enduring pensive moons shall again shine.
LG1891	5250	Then dearest child mournest thou only for Jupiter?
LG1891	5251	Considerest thou alone the burial of the stars?
LG1891	5252	Something there is,
LG1891	5253	(With my lips soothing thee, adding I whisper,
LG1891	5254	I give thee the first suggestion, the problem and indirection,)
LG1891	5255	Something there is more immortal even than the stars,
LG1891	5256	(Many the burials, many the days and nights, passing away,)
LG1891	5257	Something that shall endure longer even than lustrous Jupiter,
LG1891	5258	Longer than sun or any revolving satellite,
LG1891	5259	Or the radiant sisters the Pleiades.
LG1891	5260	THE world below the brine,
LG1891	5261	Forests at the bottom of the sea, the branches and leaves,
LG1891	5262	Sea-lettuce, vast lichens, strange flowers and seeds, the thick tangle,openings, and pink turf,
LG1891	5263	Different colors, pale gray and green, purple, white, and gold, the play of light through the water,
LG1891	5264	Dumb swimmers there among the rocks, coral, gluten, grass, rushes,and the aliment of the swimmers,
LG1891	5265	Sluggish existences grazing there suspended, or slowly crawling close to the bottom,
LG1891	5266	The sperm-whale at the surface blowing air and spray, or disporting with his flukes,
LG1891	5267	The leaden-eyed shark, the walrus, the turtle, the hairy sea-leopard,and the sting-ray,
LG1891	5268	Passions there, wars, pursuits, tribes, sight in those ocean-depths,breathing that thick-breathing air, as so many do,
LG1891	5269	The change thence to the sight here, and to the subtle air breathed by beings like us who walk this sphere,
LG1891	5270	The change onward from ours to that of beings who walk other spheres.
LG1891	5271	ON the beach at night alone,
LG1891	5272	As the old mother sways her to and fro singing her husky song,
LG1891	5273	As I watch the bright stars shining, I think a thought of the clef of the universes and of the future.
LG1891	5274	A vast similitude interlocks all,
LG1891	5275	All spheres, grown, ungrown, small, large, suns, moons, planets,
LG1891	5276	All distances of place however wide,
LG1891	5277	All distances of time, all inanimate forms,
LG1891	5278	All souls, all living bodies though they be ever so different, or in different worlds,
LG1891	5279	All gaseous, watery, vegetable, mineral processes, the fishes, the brutes,
LG1891	5280	All nations, colors, barbarisms, civilizations, languages,
LG1891	5281	All identities that have existed or may exist on this globe, or any globe,
LG1891	5282	All lives and deaths, all of the past, present, future,
LG1891	5283	This vast similitude spans them, and always has spann'd,
LG1891	5284	And shall forever span them and compactly hold and enclose them.
LG1891	5285	TO-DAY a rude brief recitative,
LG1891	5286	Of ships sailing the seas, each with its special flag or ship-signal,
LG1891	5287	Of unnamed heroes in the ships—of waves spreading and spread-ingspreading far as the eye can reach,
LG1891	5288	Of dashing spray, and the winds piping and blowing,
LG1891	5289	And out of these a chant for the sailors of all nations,
LG1891	5290	Fitful, like a surge.
LG1891	5291	Of sea-captains young or old, and the mates, and of all intrepid sailors,
LG1891	5292	Of the few, very choice, taciturn, whom fate can never surprise nor death dismay,
LG1891	5293	Pick'd sparingly without noise by thee old ocean, chosen by thee,
LG1891	5294	Thou sea that pickest and cullest the race in time, and unitest nations,
LG1891	5295	Suckled by thee, old husky nurse, embodying thee,
LG1891	5296	Indomitable, untamed as thee.
LG1891	5297	(Ever the heroes on water or on land, by ones or twos appearing,
LG1891	5298	Ever the stock preserv'd and never lost, though rare, enough for seed preserv'd.)
LG1891	5299	Flaunt out O sea your separate flags of nations!
LG1891	5300	Flaunt out visible as ever the various ship-signals!
LG1891	5301	But do you reserve especially for yourself and for the soul of man one flag above all the rest,
LG1891	5302	A spiritual woven signal for all nations, emblem of man elate above death,
LG1891	5303	Token of all brave captains and all intrepid sailors and mates,
LG1891	5304	And all that went down doing their duty,
LG1891	5305	Reminiscent of them, twined from all intrepid captains young or old,
LG1891	5306	A pennant universal, subtly waving all time, o'er all brave sailors,
LG1891	5307	All seas, all ships.
LG1891	5308	WILD, wild the storm, and the sea high running,
LG1891	5309	Steady the roar of the gale, with incessant undertone muttering,
LG1891	5310	Shouts of demoniac laughter fitfully piercing and pealing,
LG1891	5311	Waves, air, midnight, their savagest trinity lashing,
LG1891	5312	Out in the shadows there milk-white combs careering,
LG1891	5313	On beachy slush and sand spirts of snow fierce slanting,
LG1891	5314	Where through the murk the easterly death-wind breasting,
LG1891	5315	Through cutting swirl and spray watchful and firm advancing,
LG1891	5316	(That in the distance! is that a wreck? is the red signal flaring?)
LG1891	5317	Slush and sand of the beach tireless till daylight wending,
LG1891	5318	Steadily, slowly, through hoarse roar never remitting,
LG1891	5319	Along the midnight edge by those milk-white combs careering,
LG1891	5320	A group of dim, weird forms, struggling, the night confronting,
LG1891	5321	That savage trinity warily watching.
LG1891	5322	AFTER the sea-ship, after the whistling winds,
LG1891	5323	After the white-gray sails taut to their spars and ropes,
LG1891	5324	Below, a myriad myriad waves hastening, lifting up their necks,
LG1891	5325	Tending in ceaseless flow toward the track of the ship,
LG1891	5326	Waves of the ocean bubbling and gurgling, blithely prying,
LG1891	5327	Waves, undulating waves, liquid, uneven, emulous waves,
LG1891	5328	Toward that whirling current, laughing and buoyant, with curves,
LG1891	5329	Where the great vessel sailing and tacking displaced the surface,
LG1891	5330	Larger and smaller waves in the spread of the ocean yearnfully flowing,
LG1891	5331	The wake of the sea-ship after she passes, flashing and frolicsome under the sun,
LG1891	5332	A motley procession with many a fleck of foam and many fragments,
LG1891	5333	Following the stately and rapid ship, in the wake following.
LG1891	5334	TO get betimes in Boston town I rose this morning early,
LG1891	5335	Here's a good place at the corner, I must stand and see the show.
LG1891	5336	Clear the way there Jonathan!
LG1891	5337	Way for the President's marshal—way for the government cannon!
LG1891	5338	Way for the Federal foot and dragoons, (and the apparitions copiously tumbling.)
LG1891	5339	I love to look on the Stars and Stripes, I hope the fifes will play Yankee Doodle.
LG1891	5340	How bright shine the cutlasses of the foremost troops!
LG1891	5341	Every man holds his revolver, marching stiff through Boston town.
LG1891	5342	A fog follows, antiques of the same come limping,
LG1891	5343	Some appear wooden-legged, and some appear bandaged and bloodless.
LG1891	5344	Why this is indeed a show—it has called the dead out of the earth!
LG1891	5345	The old graveyards of the hills have hurried to see!
LG1891	5346	Phantoms! phantoms countless by flank and rear!
LG1891	5347	Cock'd hats of mothy mould—crutches made of mist!
LG1891	5348	Arms in slings—old men leaning on young men's shoulders.
LG1891	5349	What troubles you Yankee phantoms? what is all this chattering of bare gums?
LG1891	5350	Does the ague convulse your limbs? do you mistake your crutches for firelocks and level them?
LG1891	5351	If you blind your eyes with tears you will not see the President's marshal,
LG1891	5352	If you groan such groans you might balk the government cannon.
LG1891	5353	For shame old maniacs—bring down those toss'd arms, and let your white hair be,
LG1891	5354	Here gape your great grandsons, their wives gaze at them from the windows,
LG1891	5355	See how well dress'd, see how orderly they conduct themselves.
LG1891	5356	Worse and worse—can't you stand it? are you retreating?
LG1891	5357	Is this hour with the living too dead for you?
LG1891	5358	Retreat then—pell-mell!
LG1891	5359	To your graves—back—back to the hills old limpers!
LG1891	5360	I do not think you belong here anyhow.
LG1891	5361	But there is one thing that belongs here—shall I tell you what it is, gentlemen of Boston?
LG1891	5362	I will whisper it to the Mayor, he shall send a committee to England,
LG1891	5363	They shall get a grant from the Parliament, go with a cart to the royal vault,
LG1891	5364	Dig out King George's coffin, unwrap him quick from the grave-clothesgraveclothes, box up his bones for a journey,
LG1891	5365	Find a swift Yankee clipper—here is freight for you, black-bellied clipper,
LG1891	5366	Up with your anchor—shake out your sails—steer straight toward Boston bay.
LG1891	5367	Now call for the President's marshal again, bring out the govern-mentgovernment cannon,
LG1891	5368	Fetch home the roarers from Congress, make another procession,guard it with foot and dragoons.
LG1891	5369	This centre-piece for them;
LG1891	5370	Look, all orderly citizens—look from the windows, women!
LG1891	5371	The committee open the box, set up the regal ribs, glue those that will not stay,
LG1891	5372	Clap the skull on top of the ribs, and clap a crown on top of the skull.
LG1891	5373	You have got your revenge, old buster—the crown is come to its own, and more than its own.
LG1891	5374	Stick your hands in your pockets, Jonathan—you are a made man from this day,
LG1891	5375	You are mighty cute—and here is one of your bargains.
LG1891	5376	SUDDENLY out of its stale and drowsy lair, the lair of slaves,
LG1891	5377	Like lightning it le'pt forth half startled at itself,
LG1891	5378	Its feet upon the ashes and the rags, its hands tight to the throats of kings.
LG1891	5379	O hope and faith!
LG1891	5380	O aching close of exiled patriots' lives!
LG1891	5381	O many a sicken'd heart!
LG1891	5382	Turn back unto this day and make yourselves afresh.
LG1891	5383	And you, paid to defile the People—you liars, mark!
LG1891	5384	Not for numberless agonies, murders, lusts,
LG1891	5385	For court thieving in its manifold mean forms, worming from his simplicity the poor man's wages,
LG1891	5386	For many a promise sworn by royal lips and broken and laugh'd at in the breaking,
LG1891	5387	Then in their power not for all these did the blows strike revenge,or the heads of the nobles fall;
LG1891	5388	The People scorn'd the ferocity of kings.
LG1891	5389	But the sweetness of mercy brew'd bitter destruction, and the frighten'd monarchs come back,
LG1891	5390	Each comes in state with his train, hangman, priest, tax-gatherer,
LG1891	5391	Soldier, lawyer, lord, jailer, and sycophant.
LG1891	5392	Yet behind all lowering stealing, lo, a shape,
LG1891	5393	Vague as the night, draped interminably, head, front and form, in scarlet folds,
LG1891	5394	Whose face and eyes none may see,
LG1891	5395	Out of its robes only this, the red robes lifted by the arm,
LG1891	5396	One finger crook'd pointed high over the top, like the head of a snake appears.
LG1891	5397	Meanwhile corpses lie in new-made graves, bloody corpses of young men,
LG1891	5398	The rope of the gibbet hangs heavily, the bullets of princes are flying, the creatures of power laugh aloud,
LG1891	5399	And all these things bear fruits, and they are good.
LG1891	5400	Those corpses of young men,
LG1891	5401	Those martyrs that hang from the gibbets, those hearts pierc'd by the gray lead,
LG1891	5402	Cold and motionless as they seem live elsewhere with unslaugh-ter'dunslaughter'd vitality.
LG1891	5403	They live in other young men O kings!
LG1891	5404	They live in brothers again ready to defy you,
LG1891	5405	They were purified by death, they were taught and exalted.
LG1891	5406	Not a grave of the murder'd for freedom but grows seed for free-domfreedom, in its turn to bear seed,
LG1891	5407	Which the winds carry afar and re-sow, and the rains and the snows nourish.
LG1891	5408	Not a disembodied spirit can the weapons of tyrants let loose,
LG1891	5409	But it stalks invisibly over the earth, whispering, counseling,cautioning.
LG1891	5410	Liberty, let others despair of you—I never despair of you.
LG1891	5411	Is the house shut? is the master away?
LG1891	5412	Nevertheless, be ready, be not weary of watching,
LG1891	5413	He will soon return, his messengers come anon.
LG1891	5414	HOLD it up sternly—see this it sends back, (who is it? is it you?)
LG1891	5415	Outside fair costume, within ashes and filth,
LG1891	5416	No more a flashing eye, no more a sonorous voice or springy step,
LG1891	5417	Now some slave's eye, voice, hands, step,
LG1891	5418	A drunkard's breath, unwholesome eater's face, venerealee's flesh,
LG1891	5419	Lungs rotting away piecemeal, stomach sour and cankerous,
LG1891	5420	Joints rheumatic, bowels clogged with abomination,
LG1891	5421	Blood circulating dark and poisonous streams,
LG1891	5422	Words babble, hearing and touch callous,
LG1891	5423	No brain, no heart left, no magnetism of sex;
LG1891	5424	Such from one look in this looking-glass ere you go hence,
LG1891	5425	Such a result so soon—and from such a beginning!
LG1891	5426	LOVER divine and perfect Comrade,
LG1891	5427	Waiting content, invisible yet, but certain,
LG1891	5428	Be thou my God.
LG1891	5429	Thou, thou, the Ideal Man,
LG1891	5430	Fair, able, beautiful, content, and loving,
LG1891	5431	Complete in body and dilate in spirit,
LG1891	5432	Be thou my God.
LG1891	5433	O Death, (for Life has served its turn,)
LG1891	5434	Opener and usher to the heavenly mansion,
LG1891	5435	Be thou my God.
LG1891	5436	Aught, aught of mightiest, best I see, conceive, or know,
LG1891	5437	(To break the stagnant tie—thee, thee to free, O soul,)
LG1891	5438	Be thou my God.
LG1891	5439	All great ideas, the races' aspirations,
LG1891	5440	All heroisms, deeds of rapt enthusiasts,
LG1891	5441	Be ye my Gods.
LG1891	5442	Or Time and Space,
LG1891	5443	Or shape of Earth divine and wondrous,
LG1891	5444	Or some fair shape I viewing, worship,
LG1891	5445	Or lustrous orb of sun or star by night,
LG1891	5446	Be ye my Gods.
LG1891	5447	FORMS, qualities, lives, humanity, language, thoughts,
LG1891	5448	The ones known, and the ones unknown, the ones on the stars,
LG1891	5449	The stars themselves, some shaped, others unshaped,
LG1891	5450	Wonders as of those countries, the soil, trees, cities, inhabitants,whatever they may be,
LG1891	5451	Splendid suns, the moons and rings, the countless combinations and effects,
LG1891	5452	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,
LG1891	5453	That containing the start of each and all, the virtue, the germs of all.
LG1891	5454	OF ownership—as if one fit to own things could not at pleasure enter upon all, and incorporate them into himself or herself;
LG1891	5455	Of vista—suppose some sight in arriere through the formative chaos, presuming the growth, fulness, life, now attain'd on the journey,
LG1891	5456	(But I see the road continued, and the journey ever continued;)
LG1891	5457	Of what was once lacking on earth, and in due time has become supplied—and of what will yet be supplied,
LG1891	5458	Because all I see and know I believe to have its main purport in what will yet be supplied.
LG1891	5459	WHEN I heard the learn'd astronomer,
LG1891	5460	When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
LG1891	5461	When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
LG1891	5462	When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
LG1891	5463	How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
LG1891	5464	Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself,
LG1891	5465	In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
LG1891	5466	Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.
LG1891	5467	ONLY themselves understand themselves and the like of themselves,
LG1891	5468	As souls only understand souls.
LG1891	5469	O ME! O life! of the questions of these recurring,
LG1891	5470	Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill'd with the foolish,
LG1891	5471	Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
LG1891	5472	Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew'd,
LG1891	5473	Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,
LG1891	5474	Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me inter-twinedintertwined,
LG1891	5475	The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these,O me, O life?
LG1891	5476	That you are here—that life exists and identity,
LG1891	5477	That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.
LG1891	5478	ALL you are doing and saying is to America dangled mirages,
LG1891	5479	You have not learn'd of Nature—of the politics of Nature you have not learn'd the great amplitude, rectitude, impartiality,
LG1891	5480	You have not seen that only such as they are for these States,
LG1891	5481	And that what is less than they must sooner or later lift off from these States.
LG1891	5482	I SIT and look out upon all the sorrows of the world, and upon all oppression and shame,
LG1891	5483	I hear secret convulsive sobs from young men at anguish with themselves, remorseful after deeds done,
LG1891	5484	I see in low life the mother misused by her children, dying,neglected, gaunt, desperate,
LG1891	5485	I see the wife misused by her husband, I see the treacherous seducer of young women,
LG1891	5486	I mark the ranklings of jealousy and unrequited love attempted to be hid, I see these sights on the earth,
LG1891	5487	I see the workings of battle, pestilence, tyranny, I see martyrs and prisoners,
LG1891	5488	I observe a famine at sea, I observe the sailors casting lots who shall be kill'd to preserve the lives of the rest,
LG1891	5489	I observe the slights and degradations cast by arrogant persons upon laborers, the poor, and upon negroes, and the like;
LG1891	5490	All these—all the meanness and agony without end I sitting look out upon,
LG1891	5491	See, hear, and am silent.
LG1891	5492	WHAT you give me I cheerfully accept,
LG1891	5493	A little sustenance, a hut and garden, a little money, as I rendez-vousrendezvous with my poems,
LG1891	5494	A traveler's lodging and breakfast as I journey through the States,—why should I be ashamed to own such gifts? why to advertise for them?
LG1891	5495	For I myself am not one who bestows nothing upon man and woman,
LG1891	5496	For I bestow upon any man or woman the entrance to all the gifts of the universe.
LG1891	5497	SKIRTING the river road, (my forenoon walk, my rest,)
LG1891	5498	Skyward in air a sudden muffled sound, the dalliance of the eagles,
LG1891	5499	The rushing amorous contact high in space together,
LG1891	5500	The clinching interlocking claws, a living, fierce, gyrating wheel,
LG1891	5501	Four beating wings, two beaks, a swirling mass tight grappling,
LG1891	5502	In tumbling turning clustering loops, straight downward falling,
LG1891	5503	Till o'er the river pois'd, the twain yet one, a moment's lull,
LG1891	5504	A motionless still balance in the air, then parting, talons loosing,
LG1891	5505	Upward again on slow-firm pinions slanting, their separate diverse flight,
LG1891	5506	She hers, he his, pursuing.
LG1891	5507	Roaming in thought over the Universe, I saw the little that is Good steadily hastening towards immortality,
LG1891	5508	And the vast all that is call'd Evil I saw hastening to merge itself and become lost and dead.
LG1891	5509	THROUGH the ample open door of the peaceful country barn,
LG1891	5510	A sunlit pasture field with cattle and horses feeding,
LG1891	5511	And haze and vista, and the far horizon fading away.
LG1891	5512	SILENT and amazed even when a little boy,
LG1891	5513	I remember I heard the preacher every Sunday put God in his statements,
LG1891	5514	As contending against some being or influence.
LG1891	5515	ON a flat road runs the well-train'd runner,
LG1891	5516	He is lean and sinewy with muscular legs,
LG1891	5517	He is thinly clothed, he leans forward as he runs,
LG1891	5518	With lightly closed fists and arms partially rais'd.
LG1891	5519	WOMEN sit or move to and fro, some old, some young,
LG1891	5520	The young are beautiful—but the old are more beautiful than the young.
LG1891	5521	I SEE the sleeping babe nestling the breast of its mother,
LG1891	5522	The sleeping mother and babe—hush'd, I study them long and long.
LG1891	5523	OF obedience, faith, adhesiveness;
LG1891	5524	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.
LG1891	5525	A MASK, a perpetual natural disguiser of herself,
LG1891	5526	Concealing her face, concealing her form,
LG1891	5527	Changes and transformations every hour, every moment,
LG1891	5528	Falling upon her even when she sleeps.
LG1891	5529	OF Justice—as if Justice could be any thing but the same ample law, expounded by natural judges and saviors,
LG1891	5530	As if it might be this thing or that thing, according to decisions.
LG1891	5531	GLIDING o'er all, through all,
LG1891	5532	Through Nature, Time, and Space,
LG1891	5533	As a ship on the waters advancing,
LG1891	5534	The voyage of the soul—not life alone,
LG1891	5535	Death, many deaths I'll sing.
LG1891	5536	HAST never come to thee an hour,
LG1891	5537	A sudden gleam divine, precipitating, bursting all these bubbles,fashions, wealth?
LG1891	5538	These eager business aims—books, politics, art, amours,
LG1891	5539	To utter nothingness?
LG1891	5540	OF Equality—as if it harm'd me, giving others the same chances and rights as myself—as if it were not indispensable to my own rights that others possess the same.
LG1891	5541	I SEE in you the estuary that enlarges and spreads itself grandly as it pours in the great sea.
LG1891	5542	LOCATIONS and times—what is it in me that meets them all, when-everwhenever and wherever, and makes me at home?
LG1891	5543	Forms, colors, densities, odors—what is it in me that corresponds with them?
LG1891	5544	A THOUSAND perfect men and women appear,
LG1891	5545	Around each gathers a cluster of friends, and gay children and youths, with offerings.
LG1891	5546	WHY reclining, interrogating? why myself and all drowsing?
LG1891	5547	What deepening twilight—scum floating atop of the waters,
LG1891	5548	Who are they as bats and night-dogs askant in the capitol?
LG1891	5549	What a filthy Presidentiad! (O South, your torrid suns! O North,your arctic freezings!)
LG1891	5550	Are those really Congressmen? are those the great Judges? is that the President?
LG1891	5551	Then I will sleep awhile yet, for I see that these States sleep, for reasons;
LG1891	5552	(With gathering murk, with muttering thunder and lambent shoots we all duly awake,
LG1891	5553	South, North, East, West, inland and seaboard, we will surely awake.)
LG1891	5554	FIRST O songs for a prelude,
LG1891	5555	Lightly strike on the stretch'd tympanum pride and joy in my city,
LG1891	5556	How she led the rest to arms, how she gave the cue,
LG1891	5557	How at once with lithe limbs unwaiting a moment she sprang,
LG1891	5558	(O superb! O Manhattan, my own, my peerless!
LG1891	5559	O strongest you in the hour of danger, in crisis! O truer than steel!)
LG1891	5560	How you sprang—how you threw off the costumes of peace with indifferent hand,
LG1891	5561	How your soft opera-music changed, and the drum and fife were heard in their stead,
LG1891	5562	How you led to the war, (that shall serve for our prelude, songs of soldiers,)
LG1891	5563	How Manhattan drum-taps led.
LG1891	5564	Forty years had I in my city seen soldiers parading,
LG1891	5565	Forty years as a pageant, till unawares the lady of this teeming and turbulent city,
LG1891	5566	Sleepless amid her ships, her houses, her incalculable wealth,
LG1891	5567	With her million children around her, suddenly,
LG1891	5568	At dead of night, at news from the south,
LG1891	5569	Incens'd struck with clinch'd hand the pavement.
LG1891	5570	A shock electric, the night sustain'd it,
LG1891	5571	Till with ominous hum our hive at daybreak pour'd out its myriads.
LG1891	5572	From the houses then and the workshops, and through all the doorways,
LG1891	5573	Leapt they tumultuous, and lo! Manhattan arming.
LG1891	5574	To the drum-taps prompt,
LG1891	5575	The young men falling in and arming,
LG1891	5576	The mechanics arming, (the trowel, the jack-plane, the black-smith'sblacksmith's hammer, tost aside with precipitation,)
LG1891	5577	The lawyer leaving his office and arming, the judge leaving the court,
LG1891	5578	The driver deserting his wagon in the street, jumping down,throwing the reins abruptly down on the horses' backs,
LG1891	5579	The salesman leaving the store, the boss, book-keeper, porter, all leaving;
LG1891	5580	Squads gather everywhere by common consent and arm,
LG1891	5581	The new recruits, even boys, the old men show them how to wear their accoutrements, they buckle the straps carefully,
LG1891	5582	Outdoors arming, indoors arming, the flash of the musket-barrels,
LG1891	5583	The white tents cluster in camps, the arm'd sentries around, the sunrise cannon and again at sunset,
LG1891	5584	Arm'd regiments arrive every day, pass through the city, and embark from the wharves,
LG1891	5585	(How good they look as they tramp down to the river, sweaty,with their guns on their shoulders!
LG1891	5586	How I love them! how I could hug them, with their brown faces and their clothes and knapsacks cover'd with dust!)
LG1891	5587	The blood of the city up—arm'd! arm'd! the cry everywhere,
LG1891	5588	The flags flung out from the steeples of churches and from all the public buildings and stores,
LG1891	5589	The tearful parting, the mother kisses her son, the son kisses his mother,
LG1891	5590	(Loth is the mother to part, yet not a word does she speak to detain him,)
LG1891	5591	The tumultuous escort, the ranks of policemen preceding, clearing the way,
LG1891	5592	The unpent enthusiasm, the wild cheers of the crowd for their favorites,
LG1891	5593	The artillery, the silent cannons bright as gold, drawn along,rumble lightly over the stones,
LG1891	5594	(Silent cannons, soon to cease your silence,
LG1891	5595	Soon unlimber'd to begin the red business;)
LG1891	5596	All the mutter of preparation, all the determin'd arming,
LG1891	5597	The hospital service, the lint, bandages and medicines,
LG1891	5598	The women volunteering for nurses, the work begun for in earnest,no mere parade now;
LG1891	5599	War! an arm'd race is advancing! the welcome for battle, no turning away;
LG1891	5600	War! be it weeks, months, or years, an arm'd race is advancing to welcome it.
LG1891	5601	Mannahatta a-march—and it's O to sing it well!
LG1891	5602	It's O for a manly life in the camp.
LG1891	5603	And the sturdy artillery,
LG1891	5604	The guns bright as gold, the work for giants, to serve well the guns,
LG1891	5605	Unlimber them! (no more as the past forty years for salutes for courtesies merely,
LG1891	5606	Put in something now besides powder and wadding.)
LG1891	5607	And you lady of ships, you Mannahatta,
LG1891	5608	Old matron of this proud, friendly, turbulent city,
LG1891	5609	Often in peace and wealth you were pensive or covertly frown'd amid all your children,
LG1891	5610	But now you smile with joy exulting old Mannahatta.
LG1891	5611	ARM'D year—year of the struggle,
LG1891	5612	No dainty rhymes or sentimental love verses for you terrible year,
LG1891	5613	Not you as some pale poetling seated at a desk lisping cadenzas piano,
LG1891	5614	But as a strong man erect, clothed in blue clothes, advancing,carrying a rifle on your shoulder,
LG1891	5615	With well-gristled body and sunburnt face and hands, with a knife in the belt at your side,
LG1891	5616	As I heard you shouting loud, your sonorous voice ringing across the continent,
LG1891	5617	Your masculine voice O year, as rising amid the great cities,
LG1891	5618	Amid the men of Manhattan I saw you as one of the workmen,the dwellers in Manhattan,
LG1891	5619	Or with large steps crossing the prairies out of Illinois and Indiana,
LG1891	5620	Rapidly crossing the West with springy gait and descending the Alleghanies,
LG1891	5621	Or down from the great lakes or in Pennsylvania, or on deck along the Ohio river,
LG1891	5622	Or southward along the Tennessee or Cumberland rivers, or at Chattanooga on the mountain top,
LG1891	5623	Saw I your gait and saw I your sinewy limbs clothed in blue,bearing weapons, robust year,
LG1891	5624	Heard your determin'd voice launch'd forth again and again,
LG1891	5625	Year that suddenly sang by the mouths of the round-lipp'd cannon,
LG1891	5626	I repeat you, hurrying, crashing, sad, distracted year.
LG1891	5627	BEAT! beat! drums!—blow! bugles! blow!
LG1891	5628	Through the windows—through doors—burst like a ruthless force,
LG1891	5629	Into the solemn church, and scatter the congregation,
LG1891	5630	Into the school where the scholar is studying;
LG1891	5631	Leave not the bridegroom quiet—no happiness must he have now with his bride,
LG1891	5632	Nor the peaceful farmer any peace, ploughing his field or gathering his grain,
LG1891	5633	So fierce you whirr and pound you drums—so shrill you bugles blow.
LG1891	5634	Beat! beat! drums!—blow! bugles! blow!
LG1891	5635	Over the traffic of cities—over the rumble of wheels in the streets;
LG1891	5636	Are beds prepared for sleepers at night in the houses? no sleepers must sleep in those beds,
LG1891	5637	No bargainers' bargains by day—no brokers or speculators—would they continue?
LG1891	5638	Would the talkers be talking? would the singer attempt to sing?
LG1891	5639	Would the lawyer rise in the court to state his case before the judge?
LG1891	5640	Then rattle quicker, heavier drums—you bugles wilder blow.
LG1891	5641	Beat! beat! drums!—blow! bugles! blow!
LG1891	5642	Make no parley—stop for no expostulation,
LG1891	5643	Mind not the timid—mind not the weeper or prayer,
LG1891	5644	Mind not the old man beseeching the young man,
LG1891	5645	Let not the child's voice be heard, nor the mother's entreaties,
LG1891	5646	Make even the trestles to shake the dead where they lie awaiting the hearses,
LG1891	5647	So strong you thump O terrible drums—so loud you bugles blow.
LG1891	5648	FROM Paumanok starting I fly like a bird,
LG1891	5649	Around and around to soar to sing the idea of all,
LG1891	5650	To the north betaking myself to sing there arctic songs,
LG1891	5651	To KanadaCanada till I absorb KanadaCanada in myself, to Michigan then,
LG1891	5652	To Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, to sing their songs, (they are inimitable;)
LG1891	5653	Then to Ohio and Indiana to sing theirs, to Missouri and Kansas and Arkansas to sing theirs,
LG1891	5654	To Tennessee and Kentucky, to the Carolinas and Georgia to sing theirs,
LG1891	5655	To Texas and so along up toward California, to roam accepted everywhere;
LG1891	5656	To sing first, (to the tap of the war-drum if need be,)
LG1891	5657	The idea of all, of the Western world one and inseparable,
LG1891	5658	And then the song of each member of these States.
LG1891	5659	O A new song, a free song,
LG1891	5660	Flapping, flapping, flapping, flapping, by sounds, by voices clearer,
LG1891	5661	By the wind's voice and that of the drum,
LG1891	5662	By the banner's voice and child's voice and sea's voice and father's voice,
LG1891	5663	Low on the ground and high in the air,
LG1891	5664	On the ground where father and child stand,
LG1891	5665	In the upward air where their eyes turn,
LG1891	5666	Where the banner at daybreak is flapping.
LG1891	5667	Words! book-words! what are you?
LG1891	5668	Words no more, for hearken and see,
LG1891	5669	My song is there in the open air, and I must sing,
LG1891	5670	With the banner and pennant a-flapping.
LG1891	5671	I'll weave the chord and twine in,
LG1891	5672	Man's desire and babe's desire, I'll twine them in, I'll put in life,
LG1891	5673	I'll put the bayonet's flashing point, I'll let bullets and slugs whizz,
LG1891	5674	(As one carrying a symbol and menace far into the future,
LG1891	5675	Crying with trumpet voice, Arouse and beware! Beware and arouse!)
LG1891	5676	I'll pour the verse with streams of blood, full of volition, full of joy,
LG1891	5677	Then loosen, launch forth, to go and compete,
LG1891	5678	With the banner and pennant a-flapping.
LG1891	5679	Come up here, bard, bard,
LG1891	5680	Come up here, soul, soul,
LG1891	5681	Come up here, dear little child,
LG1891	5682	To fly in the clouds and winds with me, and play with the measure-lessmeasureless light.
LG1891	5683	Father what is that in the sky beckoning to me with long finger?
LG1891	5684	And what does it say to me all the while?
LG1891	5685	Nothing my babe you see in the sky,
LG1891	5686	And nothing at all to you it says—but look you my babe,
LG1891	5687	Look at these dazzling things in the houses, and see you the money-shops opening,
LG1891	5688	And see you the vehicles preparing to crawl along the streets with goods;
LG1891	5689	These, ah these, how valued and toil'd for these!
LG1891	5690	How envied by all the earth.
LG1891	5691	Fresh and rosy red the sun is mounting high,
LG1891	5692	On floats the sea in distant blue careering through its channels,
LG1891	5693	On floats the wind over the breast of the sea setting in toward land,
LG1891	5694	The great steady wind from west or west-by-south,
LG1891	5695	Floating so buoyant with milk-white foam on the waters.
LG1891	5696	But I am not the sea nor the red sun,
LG1891	5697	I am not the wind with girlish laughter,
LG1891	5698	Not the immense wind which strengthens, not the wind which lashes,
LG1891	5699	Not the spirit that ever lashes its own body to terror and death,
LG1891	5700	But I am that which unseen comes and sings, sings, sings,
LG1891	5701	Which babbles in brooks and scoots in showers on the land,
LG1891	5702	Which the birds know in the woods mornings and evenings,
LG1891	5703	And the shore-sands know and the hissing wave, and that banner and pennant,
LG1891	5704	Aloft there flapping and flapping.
LG1891	5705	O father it is alive—it is full of people—it has children,
LG1891	5706	O now it seems to me it is talking to its children,
LG1891	5707	I hear it—it talks to me—O it is wonderful!
LG1891	5708	O it stretches—it spreads and runs so fast—O my father,
LG1891	5709	It is so broad it covers the whole sky.
LG1891	5710	Cease, cease, my foolish babe,
LG1891	5711	What you are saying is sorrowful to me, much it displeases me;
LG1891	5712	Behold with the rest again I say, behold not banners and pennants aloft,
LG1891	5713	But the well-prepared pavements behold, and mark the solid-wall'd houses.
LG1891	5714	Speak to the child O bard out of Manhattan,
LG1891	5715	To our children all, or north or south of Manhattan,
LG1891	5716	Point this day, leaving all the rest, to us over all—and yet we know not why,
LG1891	5717	For what are we, mere strips of cloth profiting nothing,
LG1891	5718	Only flapping in the wind?
LG1891	5719	I hear and see not strips of cloth alone,
LG1891	5720	I hear the tramp of armies, I hear the challenging sentry,
LG1891	5721	I hear the jubilant shouts of millions of men, I hear Liberty!
LG1891	5722	I hear the drums beat and the trumpets blowing,
LG1891	5723	I myself move abroad swift-rising flying then,
LG1891	5724	I use the wings of the land-bird and use the wings of the sea-bird, and look down as from a height,
LG1891	5725	I do not deny the precious results of peace, I see populous cities with wealth incalculable,
LG1891	5726	I see numberless farms, I see the farmers working in their fields or barns,
LG1891	5727	I see mechanics working, I see buildings everywhere founded, going up, or finish'd,
LG1891	5728	I see trains of cars swiftly speeding along railroad tracks drawn by the locomotives,
LG1891	5729	I see the stores, depots, of Boston, Baltimore, Charleston, New Orleans,
LG1891	5730	I see far in the West the immense area of grain, I dwell awhile hovering,
LG1891	5731	I pass to the lumber forests of the North, and again to the South-ernSouthern plantation, and again to California;
LG1891	5732	Sweeping the whole I see the countless profit, the busy gatherings, earn'd wages,
LG1891	5733	See the Identity formed out of thirty-eight spacious and haughty States, (and many more to come,)
LG1891	5734	See forts on the shores of harbors, see ships sailing in and out;
LG1891	5735	Then over all, (aye! aye!) my little and lengthen'd pennant shaped like a sword,
LG1891	5736	Runs swiftly up indicating war and defiance—and now the hal-yardshalyards have rais'd it,
LG1891	5737	Side of my banner broad and blue, side of my starry banner,
LG1891	5738	Discarding peace over all the sea and land.
LG1891	5739	Yet louder, higher, stronger, bard! yet farther, wider cleave!
LG1891	5740	No longer let our children deem us riches and peace alone,
LG1891	5741	We may be terror and carnage, and are so now,
LG1891	5742	Not now are we any one of these spacious and haughty States, (nor any five, nor ten,)
LG1891	5743	Nor market nor depot we, nor money-bank in the city,
LG1891	5744	But these and all, and the brown and spreading land, and the mines below, are ours,
LG1891	5745	And the shores of the sea are ours, and the rivers great and small,
LG1891	5746	And the fields they moisten, and the crops and the fruits are ours,
LG1891	5747	Bays and channels and ships sailing in and out are ours—while we over all,
LG1891	5748	Over the area spread below, the three or four millions of square miles, the capitals,
LG1891	5749	The forty millions of people,—O bard! in life and death supreme,
LG1891	5750	We, even we, henceforth flaunt out masterful, high up above,
LG1891	5751	Not for the present alone, for a thousand years chanting through you,
LG1891	5752	This song to the soul of one poor little child.
LG1891	5753	O my father I like not the houses,
LG1891	5754	They will never to me be any thing, nor do I like money,
LG1891	5755	But to mount up there I would like, O father dear, that banner I like,
LG1891	5756	That pennant I would be and must be.
LG1891	5757	Child of mine you fill me with anguish,
LG1891	5758	To be that pennant would be too fearful,
LG1891	5759	Little you know what it is this day, and after this day, forever,
LG1891	5760	It is to gain nothing, but risk and defy every thing,
LG1891	5761	Forward to stand in front of wars—and O, such wars!—what have you to do with them?
LG1891	5762	With passions of demons, slaughter, premature death?
LG1891	5763	Demons and death then I sing,
LG1891	5764	Put in all, aye all will I, sword-shaped pennant for war,
LG1891	5765	And a pleasure new and ecstatic, and the prattled yearning of children,
LG1891	5766	Blent with the sounds of the peaceful land and the liquid wash of the sea,
LG1891	5767	And the black ships fighting on the sea envelop'd in smoke,
LG1891	5768	And the icy cool of the far, far north, with rustling cedars and pines,
LG1891	5769	And the whirr of drums and the sound of soldiers marching, and the hot sun shining south,
LG1891	5770	And the beach-waves combing over the beach on my Eastern shore, and my Western shore the same,
LG1891	5771	And all between those shores, and my ever running Mississippi with bends and chutes,
LG1891	5772	And my Illinois fields, and my Kansas fields, and my fields of Missouri,
LG1891	5773	The Continent, devoting the whole identity without reserving an atom,
LG1891	5774	Pour in! whelm that which asks, which sings, with all and the yield of all,
LG1891	5775	Fusing and holding, claiming, devouring the whole,
LG1891	5776	No more with tender lip, nor musical labial sound,
LG1891	5777	But out of the night emerging for good, our voice persuasive no more,
LG1891	5778	Croaking like crows here in the wind.
LG1891	5779	My limbs, my veins dilate, my theme is clear at last,
LG1891	5780	Banner so broad advancing out of the night, I sing you haughty and resolute,
LG1891	5781	I burst through where I waited long, too long, deafen'd and blinded,
LG1891	5782	My hearing and tongue are come to me, (a little child taught me,)
LG1891	5783	I hear from above O pennant of war your ironical call and demand,
LG1891	5784	Insensate! insensate! (yet I at any rate chant you,) O banner!
LG1891	5785	Not houses of peace indeed are you, nor any nor all their pros-perityprosperity, (if need be, you shall again have every one of those houses to destroy them,
LG1891	5786	You thought not to destroy those valuable houses, standing fast, full of comfort, built with money,
LG1891	5787	May they stand fast, then? not an hour except you above them and all stand fast;)
LG1891	5788	O banner, not money so precious are you, not farm produce you, nor the material good nutriment,
LG1891	5789	Nor excellent stores, nor landed on wharves from the ships,
LG1891	5790	Not the superb ships with sail-power or steam-power, fetching and carrying cargoes,
LG1891	5791	Nor machinery, vehicles, trade, nor revenues—but you as hence-forthhenceforth I see you,
LG1891	5792	Running up out of the night, bringing your cluster of stars, (ever-enlargingever-enlarging stars,)
LG1891	5793	Divider of daybreak you, cutting the air, touch'd by the sun, measuring the sky,
LG1891	5794	(Passionately seen and yearn'd for by one poor little child,
LG1891	5795	While others remain busy or smartly talking, forever teaching thrift, thrift;)
LG1891	5796	O you up there! O pennant! where you undulate like a snake hissing so curious,
LG1891	5797	Out of reach, an idea only, yet furiously fought for, risking bloody death, loved by me,
LG1891	5798	So loved—O you banner leading the day with stars brought from the night!
LG1891	5799	Valueless, object of eyes, over all and demanding all—(absolute owner of all)—O banner and pennant!
LG1891	5800	I too leave the rest—great as it is, it is nothing—houses, machines are nothing—I see them not,
LG1891	5801	I see but you, O warlike pennant! O banner so broad, with stripes, I sing you only,
LG1891	5802	Flapping up there in the wind.
LG1891	5803	RISE O days from your fathomless deeps, till you loftier, fiercer sweep,
LG1891	5804	Long for my soul hungering gymnastic I devour'd what the earth gave me,
LG1891	5805	Long I roam'd the woods of the north, long I watch'd Niagara pouring,
LG1891	5806	I travel'd the prairies over and slept on their breast, I cross'd the Nevadas, I cross'd the plateaus,
LG1891	5807	I ascended the towering rocks along the Pacific, I sail'd out to sea,
LG1891	5808	I sail'd through the storm, I was refresh'd by the storm,
LG1891	5809	I watch'd with joy the threatening maws of the waves,
LG1891	5810	I mark'd the white combs where they career'd so high, curling over,
LG1891	5811	I heard the wind piping, I saw the black clouds,
LG1891	5812	Saw from below what arose and mounted, (O superb! O wild as my heart, and powerful!)
LG1891	5813	Heard the continuous thunder as it bellow'd after the lightning,
LG1891	5814	Noted the slender and jagged threads of lightning as sudden and fast amid the din they chased each other across the sky;
LG1891	5815	These, and such as these, I, elate, saw—saw with wonder, yet pensive and masterful,
LG1891	5816	All the menacing might of the globe uprisen around me,
LG1891	5817	Yet there with my soul I fed, I fed content, supercilious.
LG1891	5818	'Twas well, O soul—'twas a good preparation you gave me,
LG1891	5819	Now we advance our latent and ampler hunger to fill,
LG1891	5820	Now we go forth to receive what the earth and the sea never gave us,
LG1891	5821	Not through the mighty woods we go, but through the mightier cities,
LG1891	5822	Something for us is pouring now more than Niagara pouring,
LG1891	5823	Torrents of men, (sources and rills of the Northwest are you indeed inexhaustible?)
LG1891	5824	What, to pavements and homesteads here, what were those storms of the mountains and sea?
LG1891	5825	What, to passions I witness around me to-day? was the sea risen?
LG1891	5826	Was the wind piping the pipe of death under the black clouds?
LG1891	5827	Lo! from deeps more unfathomable, something more deadly and savage,
LG1891	5828	Manhattan rising, advancing with menacing front—Cincinnati, Chicago, unchain'd;
LG1891	5829	What was that swell I saw on the ocean? behold what comes here,
LG1891	5830	How it climbs with daring feet and hands—how it dashes!
LG1891	5831	How the true thunder bellows after the lightning—how bright the flashes of lightning!
LG1891	5832	How Democracy with desperate vengeful port strides on, shown through the dark by those flashes of lightning!
LG1891	5833	(Yet a mournful wail and low sob I fancied I heard through the dark,
LG1891	5834	In a lull of the deafening confusion.)
LG1891	5835	Thunder on! stride on, Democracy! strike with vengeful stroke!
LG1891	5836	And do you rise higher than ever yet O days, O cities!
LG1891	5837	Crash heavier, heavier yet O storms! you have done me good,
LG1891	5838	My soul prepared in the mountains absorbs your immortal strong nutriment,
LG1891	5839	Long had I walk'd my cities, my country roads through farms, only half satisfied,
LG1891	5840	One doubt nauseous undulating like a snake, crawl'd on the ground before me,
LG1891	5841	Continually preceding my steps, turning upon me oft, ironically hissing low;
LG1891	5842	The cities I loved so well I abandon'd and left, I sped to the certainties suitable to me,
LG1891	5843	Hungering, hungering, hungering, for primal energies and Nature's dauntlessness,
LG1891	5844	I refresh'd myself with it only, I could relish it only,
LG1891	5845	I waited the bursting forth of the pent fire—on the water and air I waited long;
LG1891	5846	But now I no longer wait, I am fully satisfied, I am glutted,
LG1891	5847	I have witness'd the true lightning, I have witness'd my cities electric,
LG1891	5848	I have lived to behold man burst forth and warlike America rise,
LG1891	5849	Hence I will seek no more the food of the northern solitary wilds,
LG1891	5850	No more the mountains roam or sail the stormy sea.
LG1891	5851	THE noble sire fallen on evil days,
LG1891	5852	I saw with hand uplifted, menacing, brandishing,
LG1891	5853	(Memories of old in abeyance, love and faith in abeyance,)
LG1891	5854	The insane knife toward the Mother of All.
LG1891	5855	The noble son on sinewy feet advancing,
LG1891	5856	I saw, out of the land of prairies, land of Ohio's waters and of Indiana,
LG1891	5857	To the rescue the stalwart giant hurry his plenteous offspring,
LG1891	5858	Drest in blue, bearing their trusty rifles on their shoulders.
LG1891	5859	Then the Mother of All with calm voice speaking,
LG1891	5860	As to you Rebellious, (I seemed to hear her say,) why strive against me, and why seek my life?
LG1891	5861	When you yourself forever provide to defend me?
LG1891	5862	For you provided me Washington—and now these also.
LG1891	5863	CITY of ships!
LG1891	5864	(O the black ships! O the fierce ships!
LG1891	5865	O the beautiful sharp-bow'd steam-ships and sail-ships!)
LG1891	5866	City of the world! (for all races are here,
LG1891	5867	All the lands of the earth make contributions here;)
LG1891	5868	City of the sea! city of hurried and glittering tides!
LG1891	5869	City whose gleeful tides continually rush or recede, whirling in and out with eddies and foam!
LG1891	5870	City of wharves and stores—city of tall façades of marble and iron!
LG1891	5871	Proud and passionate city—mettlesome, mad, extravagant city!
LG1891	5872	Spring up O city—not for peace alone, but be indeed yourself,warlike!
LG1891	5873	Fear not—submit to no models but your own O city!
LG1891	5874	Behold me—incarnate me as I have incarnated you!
LG1891	5875	I have rejected nothing you offer'd me—whom you adopted I have adopted,
LG1891	5876	Good or bad I never question you—I love all—I do not con-demncondemn any thing,
LG1891	5877	I chant and celebrate all that is yours—yet peace no more,
LG1891	5878	In peace I chanted peace, but now the drum of war is mine,
LG1891	5879	War, red war is my song through your streets, O city!
LG1891	5880	GIVE me your hand old Revolutionary,
LG1891	5881	The hill-top is nigh, but a few steps, (make room gentlemen,)
LG1891	5882	Up the path you have follow'd me well, spite of your hundred and extra years,
LG1891	5883	You can walk old man, though your eyes are almost done,
LG1891	5884	Your faculties serve you, and presently I must have them serve me.
LG1891	5885	Rest, while I tell what the crowd around us means,
LG1891	5886	On the plain below recruits are drilling and exercising,
LG1891	5887	There is the camp, one regiment departs to-morrow,
LG1891	5888	Do you hear the officers giving their orders?
LG1891	5889	Do you hear the clank of the muskets?
LG1891	5890	Why what comes over you now old man?
LG1891	5891	Why do you tremble and clutch my hand so convulsively?
LG1891	5892	The troops are but drilling, they are yet surrounded with smiles,
LG1891	5893	Around them at hand the well-drest friends and the women,
LG1891	5894	While splendid and warm the afternoon sun shines down,
LG1891	5895	Green the midsummer verdure and fresh blows the dallying breeze,
LG1891	5896	O'er proud and peaceful cities and arm of the sea between.
LG1891	5897	But drill and parade are over, they march back to quarters,
LG1891	5898	Only hear that approval of hands! hear what a clapping!
LG1891	5899	As wending the crowds now part and disperse—but we old man,
LG1891	5900	Not for nothing have I brought you hither—we must remain,
LG1891	5901	You to speak in your turn, and I to listen and tell.
LG1891	5902	When I clutch'd your hand it was not with terror,
LG1891	5903	But suddenly pouring about me here on every side,
LG1891	5904	And below there where the boys were drilling, and up the slopes they ran,
LG1891	5905	And where tents are pitch'd, and wherever you see south and south-east and south-west,
LG1891	5906	Over hills, across lowlands, and in the skirts of woods,
LG1891	5907	And along the shores, in mire (now fill'd over) came again and suddenly raged,
LG1891	5908	As eighty-five years a-gone no mere parade receiv'd with applause of friends,
LG1891	5909	But a battle which I took part in myself—aye, long ago as it is, I took part in it,
LG1891	5910	Walking then this hilltop, this same ground.
LG1891	5911	Aye, this is the ground,
LG1891	5912	My blind eyes even as I speak behold it re-peopled from graves,
LG1891	5913	The years recede, pavements and stately houses disappear,
LG1891	5914	Rude forts appear again, the old hoop'd guns are mounted,
LG1891	5915	I see the lines of rais'd earth stretching from river to bay,
LG1891	5916	I mark the vista of waters, I mark the uplands and slopes;
LG1891	5917	Here we lay encamp'd, it was this time in summer also.
LG1891	5918	As I talk I remember all, I remember the Declaration,
LG1891	5919	It was read here, the whole army paraded, it was read to us here,
LG1891	5920	By his staff surrounded the General stood in the middle, he held up his unsheath'd sword,
LG1891	5921	It glitter'd in the sun in full sight of the army.
LG1891	5922	'Twas a bold act then—the English war-ships had just arrived,
LG1891	5923	We could watch down the lower bay where they lay at anchor,
LG1891	5924	And the transports swarming with soldiers.
LG1891	5925	A few days more and they landed, and then the battle.
LG1891	5926	Twenty thousand were brought against us,
LG1891	5927	A veteran force furnish'd with good artillery.
LG1891	5928	I tell not now the whole of the battle,
LG1891	5929	But one brigade early in the forenoon order'd forward to engage the red-coats,
LG1891	5930	Of that brigade I tell, and how steadily it march'd,
LG1891	5931	And how long and well it stood confronting death.
LG1891	5932	Who do you think that was marching steadily sternly confronting death?
LG1891	5933	It was the brigade of the youngest men, two thousand strong,
LG1891	5934	Rais'd in Virginia and Maryland, and most of them known per-sonallypersonally to the General.
LG1891	5935	Jauntily forward they went with quick step toward Gowanus' waters,
LG1891	5936	Till of a sudden unlook'd for by defiles through the woods, gain'd at night,
LG1891	5937	The British advancing, rounding in from the east, fiercely playing their guns,
LG1891	5938	That brigade of the youngest was cut off and at the enemy's mercy.
LG1891	5939	The General watch'd them from this hill,
LG1891	5940	They made repeated desperate attempts to burst their environment,
LG1891	5941	Then drew close together, very compact, their flag flying in the middle,
LG1891	5942	But O from the hills how the cannon were thinning and thinning them!
LG1891	5943	It sickens me yet, that slaughter!
LG1891	5944	I saw the moisture gather in drops on the face of the General.
LG1891	5945	I saw how he wrung his hands in anguish.
LG1891	5946	Meanwhile the British manoeuvr'd to draw us out for a pitch'd battle,
LG1891	5947	But we dared not trust the chances of a pitch'd battle.
LG1891	5948	We fought the fight in detachments,
LG1891	5949	Sallying forth we fought at several points, but in each the luck was against us,
LG1891	5950	Our foe advancing, steadily getting the best of it, push'd us back to the works on this hill,
LG1891	5951	Till we turn'd menacing here, and then he left us.
LG1891	5952	That was the going out of the brigade of the youngest men, two thousand strong,
LG1891	5953	Few return'd, nearly all remain in Brooklyn.
LG1891	5954	That and here my General's first battle,
LG1891	5955	No women looking on nor sunshine to bask in, it did not conclude with applause,
LG1891	5956	Nobody clapp'd hands here then.
LG1891	5957	But in darkness in mist on the ground under a chill rain,
LG1891	5958	Wearied that night we lay foil'd and sullen,
LG1891	5959	While scornfully laugh'd many an arrogant lord off against us encamp'd,
LG1891	5960	Quite within hearing, feasting, clinking wineglasses together over their victory.
LG1891	5961	So dull and damp and another day,
LG1891	5962	But the night of that, mist lifting, rain ceasing,
LG1891	5963	Silent as a ghost while they thought they were sure of him, my General retreated.
LG1891	5964	I saw him at the river-side,
LG1891	5965	Down by the ferry lit by torches, hastening the embarcation;
LG1891	5966	My General waited till the soldiers and wounded were all pass'd over,
LG1891	5967	And then, (it was just ere sunrise,) these eyes rested on him for the last time.
LG1891	5968	Every one else seem'd fill'd with gloom,
LG1891	5969	Many no doubt thought of capitulation.
LG1891	5970	But when my General pass'd me,
LG1891	5971	As he stood in his boat and look'd toward the coming sun,
LG1891	5972	I saw something different from capitulation.
LG1891	5973	Enough, the Centenarian's story ends,
LG1891	5974	The two, the past and present, have interchanged,
LG1891	5975	I myself as connecter, as chansonnier of a great future, am now speaking.
LG1891	5976	And is this the ground Washington trod?
LG1891	5977	And these waters I listlessly daily cross, are these the waters he cross'd,
LG1891	5978	As resolute in defeat as other generals in their proudest triumphs?
LG1891	5979	I must copy the story, and send it eastward and westward,
LG1891	5980	I must preserve that look as it beam'd on you rivers of Brooklyn.
LG1891	5981	See—as the annual round returns the phantoms return,
LG1891	5982	It is the 27th of August and the British have landed,
LG1891	5983	The battle begins and goes against us, behold through the smoke Washington's face,
LG1891	5984	The brigade of Virginia and Maryland have march'd forth to inter-ceptintercept the enemy,
LG1891	5985	They are cut off, murderous artillery from the hills plays upon them,
LG1891	5986	Rank after rank falls, while over them silently droops the flag,
LG1891	5987	Baptized that day in many a young man's bloody wounds,
LG1891	5988	In death, defeat, and sisters', mothers' tears.
LG1891	5989	Ah, hills and slopes of Brooklyn! I perceive you are more valuable than your owners supposed;
LG1891	5990	In the midst of you stands an encampment very old,
LG1891	5991	Stands forever the camp of that dead brigade.
LG1891	5992	A LINE in long array where they wind betwixt green islands,
LG1891	5993	They take a serpentine course, their arms flash in the sun—hark to the musical clank,
LG1891	5994	Behold the silvery river, in it the splashing horses loitering stop to drink,
LG1891	5995	Behold the brown-faced men, each group, each person a picture,the negligent rest on the saddles,
LG1891	5996	Some emerge on the opposite bank, others are just entering the ford—while,
LG1891	5997	Scarlet and blue and snowy white,
LG1891	5998	The guidon flags flutter gayly in the wind.
LG1891	5999	I SEE before me now a traveling army halting,
LG1891	6000	Below a fertile valley spread, with barns and the orchards of summer,
LG1891	6001	Behind, the terraced sides of a mountain, abrupt, in places rising high,
LG1891	6002	Broken, with rocks, with clinging cedars, with tall shapes dingily seen,
LG1891	6003	The numerous camp-fires scatter'd near and far, some away up on the mountain,
LG1891	6004	The shadowy forms of men and horses, looming, large-sized,flickering,
LG1891	6005	And over all the sky—the sky! far, far out of reach, studded,breaking out, the eternal stars.
LG1891	6006	WITH its cloud of skirmishers in advance,
LG1891	6007	With now the sound of a single shot snapping like a whip, and now an irregular volley,
LG1891	6008	The swarming ranks press on and on, the dense brigades press on,
LG1891	6009	Glittering dimly, toiling under the sun—the dust-cover'd men,
LG1891	6010	In columns rise and fall to the undulations of the ground,
LG1891	6011	With artillery interspers'd—the wheels rumble, the horses sweat,
LG1891	6012	As the army corps advances.
LG1891	6013	BY the bivouac's fitful flame,
LG1891	6014	A procession winding around me, solemn and sweet and slow—but first I note,
LG1891	6015	The tents of the sleeping army, the fields' and woods' dim outline,
LG1891	6016	The darkness lit by spots of kindled fire, the silence,
LG1891	6017	Like a phantom far or near an occasional figure moving,
LG1891	6018	The shrubs and trees, (as I lift my eyes they seem to be stealthily watching me,)
LG1891	6019	While wind in procession thoughts, O tender and wondrous thoughts,
LG1891	6020	Of life and death, of home and the past and loved, and of those that are far away;
LG1891	6021	A solemn and slow procession there as I sit on the ground,
LG1891	6022	By the bivouac's fitful flame.
LG1891	6023	COME up from the fields father, here's a letter from our Pete,
LG1891	6024	And come to the front door mother, here's a letter from thy dear son.
LG1891	6025	Lo, 'tis autumn,
LG1891	6026	Lo, where the trees, deeper green, yellower and redder,
LG1891	6027	Cool and sweeten Ohio's villages with leaves fluttering in the moderate wind,
LG1891	6028	Where apples ripe in the orchards hang and grapes on the trellis'd vines,
LG1891	6029	(Smell you the smell of the grapes on the vines?
LG1891	6030	Smell you the buckwheat where the bees were lately buzzing?)
LG1891	6031	Above all, lo, the sky so calm, so transparent after the rain, and with wondrous clouds,
LG1891	6032	Below too, all calm, all vital and beautiful, and the farm prospers well.
LG1891	6033	Down in the fields all prospers well,
LG1891	6034	But now from the fields come father, come at the daughter's call,
LG1891	6035	And come to the entry mother, to the front door come right away.
LG1891	6036	Fast as she can she hurries, something ominous, her steps trembling,
LG1891	6037	She does not tarry to smooth her hair nor adjust her cap.
LG1891	6038	Open the envelope quickly,
LG1891	6039	O this is not our son's writing, yet his name is sign'd,
LG1891	6040	O a strange hand writes for our dear son, O stricken mother's soul!
LG1891	6041	All swims before her eyes, flashes with black, she catches the main words only,
LG1891	6042	Sentences broken, gunshot wound in the breast, cavalry skirmish, taken to hospital,
LG1891	6043	At present low, but will soon be better.
LG1891	6044	Ah now the single figure to me,
LG1891	6045	Amid all teeming and wealthy Ohio with all its cities and farms,
LG1891	6046	Sickly white in the face and dull in the head, very faint,
LG1891	6047	By the jamb of a door leans.
LG1891	6048	Grieve not so, dear mother, (the just-grown daughter speaks through her sobs,
LG1891	6049	The little sisters huddle around speechless and dismay'd,)
LG1891	6050	See, dearest mother, the letter says Pete will soon be better.
LG1891	6051	Alas poor boy, he will never be better, (nor may-be needs to be better, that brave and simple soul,)
LG1891	6052	While they stand at home at the door he is dead already,
LG1891	6053	The only son is dead.
LG1891	6054	But the mother needs to be better,
LG1891	6055	She with thin form presently drest in black,
LG1891	6056	By day her meals untouch'd, then at night fitfully sleeping, often waking,
LG1891	6057	In the midnight waking, weeping, longing with one deep longing,
LG1891	6058	O that she might withdraw unnoticed, silent from life escape and withdraw,
LG1891	6059	To follow, to seek, to be with her dear dead son.
LG1891	6060	VIGIL strange I kept on the field one night;
LG1891	6061	When you my son and my comrade dropt at my side that day,
LG1891	6062	One look I but gave which your dear eyes return'd with a look I shall never forget,
LG1891	6063	One touch of your hand to mine O boy, reach'd up as you lay on the ground,
LG1891	6064	Then onward I sped in the battle, the even-contested battle,
LG1891	6065	Till late in the night reliev'd to the place at last again I made my way,
LG1891	6066	Found you in death so cold dear comrade, found your body son of responding kisses, (never again on earth responding,)
LG1891	6067	Bared your face in the starlight, curious the scene, cool blew the moderate night-wind,
LG1891	6068	Long there and then in vigil I stood, dimly around me the battle-fieldbattlefield spreading,
LG1891	6069	Vigil wondrous and vigil sweet there in the fragrant silent night,
LG1891	6070	But not a tear fell, not even a long-drawn sigh, long, long I gazed,
LG1891	6071	Then on the earth partially reclining sat by your side leaning my chin in my hands,
LG1891	6072	Passing sweet hours, immortal and mystic hours with you dearest comrade—not a tear, not a word,
LG1891	6073	Vigil of silence, love and death, vigil for you my son and my soldier,
LG1891	6074	As onward silently stars aloft, eastward new ones upward stole,
LG1891	6075	Vigil final for you brave boy, (I could not save you, swift was your death,
LG1891	6076	I faithfully loved you and cared for you living, I think we shall surely meet again,)
LG1891	6077	Till at latest lingering of the night, indeed just as the dawn appear'd,
LG1891	6078	My comrade I wrapt in his blanket, envelop'd well his form,
LG1891	6079	Folded the blanket well, tucking it carefully over head and care-fullycarefully under feet,
LG1891	6080	And there and then and bathed by the rising sun, my son in his grave, in his rude-dug grave I deposited,
LG1891	6081	Ending my vigil strange with that, vigil of night and battle-field dim,
LG1891	6082	Vigil for boy of responding kisses, (never again on earth responding,)
LG1891	6083	Vigil for comrade swiftly slain, vigil I never forget, how as day brighten'd,
LG1891	6084	I rose from the chill ground and folded my soldier well in his blanket,
LG1891	6085	And buried him where he fell.
LG1891	6086	A MARCH in the ranks hard-prest, and the road unknown,
LG1891	6087	A route through a heavy wood with muffled steps in the darkness,
LG1891	6088	Our army foil'd with loss severe, and the sullen remnant retreating,
LG1891	6089	Till after midnight glimmer upon us the lights of a dim-lighted building,
LG1891	6090	We come to an open space in the woods, and halt by the dim-lighteddim-lighted building,
LG1891	6091	'Tis a large old church at the crossing roads, now an impromptu hospital,
LG1891	6092	Entering but for a minute I see a sight beyond all the pictures and poems ever made,
LG1891	6093	Shadows of deepest, deepest black, just lit by moving candles and lamps,
LG1891	6094	And by one great pitchy torch stationary with wild red flame and clouds of smoke,
LG1891	6095	By these, crowds, groups of forms vaguely I see on the floor, some in the pews laid down,
LG1891	6096	At my feet more distinctly a soldier, a mere lad, in danger of bleeding to death, (he is shot in the abdomen,)
LG1891	6097	I stanch the blood temporarily, (the youngster's face is white as a lily,)
LG1891	6098	Then before I depart I sweep my eyes o'er the scene fain to absorb it all,
LG1891	6099	Faces, varieties, postures beyond description, most in obscurity,some of them dead,
LG1891	6100	Surgeons operating, attendants holding lights, the smell of ether,the odor of blood,
LG1891	6101	The crowd, O the crowd of the bloody forms, the yard outside also fill'd,
LG1891	6102	Some on the bare ground, some on planks or stretchers, some in the death-spasm sweating,
LG1891	6103	An occasional scream or cry, the doctor's shouted orders or calls,
LG1891	6104	The glisten of the little steel instruments catching the glint of the torches,
LG1891	6105	These I resume as I chant, I see again the forms, I smell the odor,
LG1891	6106	Then hear outside the orders given, Fall in, my men, fall in;
LG1891	6107	But first I bend to the dying lad, his eyes open, a half-smile gives he me,
LG1891	6108	Then the eyes close, calmly close, and I speed forth to the darkness,
LG1891	6109	Resuming, marching, ever in darkness marching, on in the ranks,
LG1891	6110	The unknown road still marching.
LG1891	6111	A SIGHT in camp in the daybreak gray and dim,
LG1891	6112	As from my tent I emerge so early sleepless,
LG1891	6113	As slow I walk in the cool fresh air the path near by the hospital tent,
LG1891	6114	Three forms I see on stretchers lying, brought out there untended lying,
LG1891	6115	Over each the blanket spread, ample brownish woolen blanket,
LG1891	6116	Gray and heavy blanket, folding, covering all.
LG1891	6117	Curious I halt and silent stand,
LG1891	6118	Then with light fingers I from the face of the nearest the first just lift the blanket;
LG1891	6119	Who are you elderly man so gaunt and grim, with well-gray'd hair, and flesh all sunken about the eyes?
LG1891	6120	Who are you my dear comrade?
LG1891	6121	Then to the second I step—and who are you my child and darling?
LG1891	6122	Who are you sweet boy with cheeks yet blooming?
LG1891	6123	Then to the third—a face nor child nor old, very calm, as of beautiful yellow-white ivory;
LG1891	6124	Young man I think I know you—I think this face is the face of the Christ himself,
LG1891	6125	Dead and divine and brother of all, and here again he lies.
LG1891	6126	AS toilsome I wander'd Virginia's woods,
LG1891	6127	To the music of rustling leaves kick'd by my feet, (for 'twas autumn,)
LG1891	6128	I mark'd at the foot of a tree the grave of a soldier;
LG1891	6129	Mortally wounded he and buried on the retreat, (easily all could I understand,)
LG1891	6130	The halt of a mid-day hour, when up! no time to lose—yet this sign left,
LG1891	6131	On a tablet scrawl'd and nail'd on the tree by the grave,
LG1891	6132	Bold, cautious, true, and my loving comrade.
LG1891	6133	Long, long I muse, then on my way go wandering,
LG1891	6134	Many a changeful season to follow, and many a scene of life,
LG1891	6135	Yet at times through changeful season and scene, abrupt, alone,or in the crowded street,
LG1891	6136	Comes before me the unknown soldier's grave, comes the inscrip-tioninscription rude in Virginia's woods,
LG1891	6137	Bold, cautious, true, and my loving comrade.
LG1891	6138	NOT the pilot has charged himself to bring his ship into port,though beaten back and many times baffled;
LG1891	6139	Not the pathfinder penetrating inland weary and long,
LG1891	6140	By deserts parch'd, snows chill'd, rivers wet, perseveres till he reaches his destination,
LG1891	6141	More than I have charged myself, heeded or unheeded, to com-posecompose a march for these States,
LG1891	6142	For a battle-call, rousing to arms if need be, years, centuries hence.
LG1891	6143	YEAR that trembled and reel'd beneath me!
LG1891	6144	Your summer wind was warm enough, yet the air I breathed froze me,
LG1891	6145	A thick gloom fell through the sunshine and darken'd me,
LG1891	6146	Must I change my triumphant songs? said I to myself,
LG1891	6147	Must I indeed learn to chant the cold dirges of the baffled?
LG1891	6148	And sullen hymns of defeat?
LG1891	6149	AN old man bending I come among new faces,
LG1891	6150	Years looking backward resuming in answer to children,
LG1891	6151	Come tell us old man, as from young men and maidens that love me,
LG1891	6152	(Arous'd and angry, I'd thought to beat the alarum, and urge relentless war,
LG1891	6153	But soon my fingers fail'd me, my face droop'd and I resign'd myself,
LG1891	6154	To sit by the wounded and soothe them, or silently watch the dead;)
LG1891	6155	Years hence of these scenes, of these furious passions, these chances,
LG1891	6156	Of unsurpass'd heroes, (was one side so brave? the other was equally brave;)
LG1891	6157	Now be witness again, paint the mightiest armies of earth,
LG1891	6158	Of those armies so rapid so wondrous what saw you to tell us?
LG1891	6159	What stays with you latest and deepest? of curious panics,
LG1891	6160	Of hard-fought engagements or sieges tremendous what deepest remains?
LG1891	6161	O maidens and young men I love and that love me,
LG1891	6162	What you ask of my days those the strangest and sudden your talking recalls,
LG1891	6163	Soldier alert I arrive after a long march cover'd with sweat and dust,
LG1891	6164	In the nick of time I come, plunge in the fight, loudly shout in the rush of successful charge,
LG1891	6165	Enter the captur'd works—yet lo, like a swift-running river they fade,
LG1891	6166	Pass and are gone they fade—I dwell not on soldiers' perils or soldiers' joys,
LG1891	6167	(Both I remember well—many the hardships, few the joys, yet I was content.)
LG1891	6168	But in silence, in dreams' projections,
LG1891	6169	While the world of gain and appearance and mirth goes on,
LG1891	6170	So soon what is over forgotten, and waves wash the imprints off the sand,
LG1891	6171	With hinged knees returning I enter the doors, (while for you up there,
LG1891	6172	Whoever you are, follow without noise and be of strong heart.)
LG1891	6173	Bearing the bandages, water and sponge,
LG1891	6174	Straight and swift to my wounded I go,
LG1891	6175	Where they lie on the ground after the battle brought in,
LG1891	6176	Where their priceless blood reddens the grass the ground,
LG1891	6177	Or to the rows of the hospital tent, or under the roof'd hospital,
LG1891	6178	To the long rows of cots up and down each side I return,
LG1891	6179	To each and all one after another I draw near, not one do I miss,
LG1891	6180	An attendant follows holding a tray, he carries a refuse pail,
LG1891	6181	Soon to be fill'd with clotted rags and blood, emptied, and fill'd again.
LG1891	6182	I onward go, I stop,
LG1891	6183	With hinged knees and steady hand to dress wounds,
LG1891	6184	I am firm with each, the pangs are sharp yet unavoidable,
LG1891	6185	One turns to me his appealing eyes—poor boy! I never knew you,
LG1891	6186	Yet I think I could not refuse this moment to die for you, if that would save you.
LG1891	6187	On, on I go, (open doors of time! open hospital doors!)
LG1891	6188	The crush'd head I dress, (poor crazed hand tear not the bandage away,)
LG1891	6189	The neck of the cavalry-man with the bullet through and through I examine,
LG1891	6190	Hard the breathing rattles, quite glazed already the eye, yet life struggles hard,
LG1891	6191	(Come sweet death! be persuaded O beautiful death!
LG1891	6192	In mercy come quickly.)
LG1891	6193	From the stump of the arm, the amputated hand,
LG1891	6194	I undo the clotted lint, remove the slough, wash off the matter and blood,
LG1891	6195	Back on his pillow the soldier bends with curv'd neck and side-fallingsidefalling head,
LG1891	6196	His eyes are closed, his face is pale, he dares not look on the bloody stump,
LG1891	6197	And has not yet look'd on it.
LG1891	6198	I dress a wound in the side, deep, deep,
LG1891	6199	But a day or two more, for see the frame all wasted and sinking,
LG1891	6200	And the yellow-blue countenance see.
LG1891	6201	I dress the perforated shoulder, the foot with the bullet-wound,
LG1891	6202	Cleanse the one with a gnawing and putrid gangrene, so sicken-ingsickening, so offensive,
LG1891	6203	While the attendant stands behind aside me holding the tray and pail.
LG1891	6204	I am faithful, I do not give out,
LG1891	6205	The fractur'd thigh, the knee, the wound in the abdomen,
LG1891	6206	These and more I dress with impassive hand, (yet deep in my breast a fire, a burning flame.)
LG1891	6207	Thus in silence in dreams' projections,
LG1891	6208	Returning, resuming, I thread my way through the hospitals,
LG1891	6209	The hurt and wounded I pacify with soothing hand,
LG1891	6210	I sit by the restless all the dark night, some are so young,
LG1891	6211	Some suffer so much, I recall the experience sweet and sad,
LG1891	6212	(Many a soldier's loving arms about this neck have cross'd and rested,
LG1891	6213	Many a soldier's kiss dwells on these bearded lips.)
LG1891	6214	LONG, too long America,
LG1891	6215	Traveling roads all even and peaceful you learn'd from joys and prosperity only,
LG1891	6216	But now, ah now, to learn from crises of anguish, advancing, grap-plinggrappling with direst fate and recoiling not,
LG1891	6217	And now to conceive and show to the world what your children en-masse really are,
LG1891	6218	(For who except myself has yet conceiv'd what your children en-masse really are?)
LG1891	6219	GIVE me the splendid silent sun with all his beams full-dazzling,
LG1891	6220	Give me juicy autumnal fruit ripe and red from the orchard,
LG1891	6221	Give me a field where the unmow'd grass grows,
LG1891	6222	Give me an arbor, give me the trellis'd grape,
LG1891	6223	Give me fresh corn and wheat, give me serene-moving animals teaching content,
LG1891	6224	Give me nights perfectly quiet as on high plateaus west of the Mississippi, and I looking up at the stars,
LG1891	6225	Give me odorous at sunrise a garden of beautiful flowers where I can walk undisturb'd,
LG1891	6226	Give me for marriage a sweet-breath'd woman of whom I should never tire,
LG1891	6227	Give me a perfect child, give me away aside from the noise of the world a rural domestic life,
LG1891	6228	Give me to warble spontaneous songs recluse by myself, for my own ears only,
LG1891	6229	Give me solitude, give me Nature, give me again O Nature your primal sanities!
LG1891	6230	These demanding to have them, (tired with ceaseless excitement, and rack'd by the war-strife,)
LG1891	6231	These to procure incessantly asking, rising in cries from my heart,
LG1891	6232	While yet incessantly asking still I adhere to my city,
LG1891	6233	Day upon day and year upon year O city, walking your streets,
LG1891	6234	Where you hold me enchain'd a certain time refusing to give me up,
LG1891	6235	Yet giving to make me glutted, enrich'd of soul, you give me forever faces;
LG1891	6236	(O I see what I sought to escape, confronting, reversing my cries,
LG1891	6237	I see my own soul trampling down what it ask'd for.)
LG1891	6238	Keep your splendid silent sun,
LG1891	6239	Keep your woods O Nature, and the quiet places by the woods,
LG1891	6240	Keep your fields of clover and timothy, and your corn-fields and orchards,
LG1891	6241	Keep the blossoming buckwheat fields where the Ninth-month bees hum;
LG1891	6242	Give me faces and streets—give me these phantoms incessant and endless along the trottoirs!
LG1891	6243	Give me interminable eyes—give me women—give me comrades and lovers by the thousand!
LG1891	6244	Let me see new ones every day—let me hold new ones by the hand every day!
LG1891	6245	Give me such shows—give me the streets of Manhattan!
LG1891	6246	Give me Broadway, with the soldiers marching—give me the sound of the trumpets and drums!
LG1891	6247	(The soldiers in companies or regiments—some starting away, flush'd and reckless,
LG1891	6248	Some, their time up, returning with thinn'd ranks, young, yet very old, worn, marching, noticing nothing;)
LG1891	6249	Give me the shores and wharves heavy-fringed with black ships!
LG1891	6250	O such for me! O an intense life, full to repletion and varied!
LG1891	6251	The life of the theatre, bar-room, huge hotel, for me!
LG1891	6252	The saloon of the steamer! the crowded excursion for me! the torchlight procession!
LG1891	6253	The dense brigade bound for the war, with high piled military wagons following;
LG1891	6254	People, endless, streaming, with strong voices, passions, pageants,
LG1891	6255	Manhattan streets with their powerful throbs, with beating drums as now,
LG1891	6256	The endless and noisy chorus, the rustle and clank of muskets, (even the sight of the wounded,)
LG1891	6257	Manhattan crowds, with their turbulent musical chorus!
LG1891	6258	Manhattan faces and eyes forever for me.
LG1891	6259	THE last sunbeam
LG1891	6260	Lightly falls from the finish'd Sabbath,
LG1891	6261	On the pavement here, and there beyond it is looking,
LG1891	6262	Down a new-made double grave.
LG1891	6263	LO, the moon ascending,
LG1891	6264	Up from the east the silvery round moon,
LG1891	6265	Beautiful over the house-tops, ghastly, phantom moon,
LG1891	6266	Immense and silent moon.
LG1891	6267	I see a sad procession,
LG1891	6268	And I hear the sound of coming full-key'd bugles,
LG1891	6269	All the channels of the city streets they're flooding,
LG1891	6270	As with voices and with tears.
LG1891	6271	I hear the great drums pounding,
LG1891	6272	And the small drums steady whirring,
LG1891	6273	And every blow of the great convulsive drums,
LG1891	6274	Strikes me through and through.
LG1891	6275	For the son is brought with the father,
LG1891	6276	(In the foremost ranks of the fierce assault they fell,
LG1891	6277	Two veterans son and father dropt together,
LG1891	6278	And the double grave awaits them.)
LG1891	6279	Now nearer blow the bugles,
LG1891	6280	And the drums strike more convulsive,
LG1891	6281	And the daylight o'er the pavement quite has faded,
LG1891	6282	And the strong dead-march enwraps me.
LG1891	6283	In the eastern sky up-buoying,
LG1891	6284	The sorrowful vast phantom moves illumin'd,
LG1891	6285	('Tis some mother's large transparent face,
LG1891	6286	In heaven brighter growing.)
LG1891	6287	O strong dead-march you please me!
LG1891	6288	O moon immense with your silvery face you soothe me!
LG1891	6289	O my soldiers twain! O my veterans passing to burial!
LG1891	6290	What I have I also give you.
LG1891	6291	The moon gives you light,
LG1891	6292	And the bugles and the drums give you music,
LG1891	6293	And my heart, O my soldiers, my veterans,
LG1891	6294	My heart gives you love.
LG1891	6295	OVER the carnage rose prophetic a voice,
LG1891	6296	Be not dishearten'd, affection shall solve the problems of freedom yet,
LG1891	6297	Those who love each other shall become invincible,
LG1891	6298	They shall yet make Columbia victorious.
LG1891	6299	Sons of the Mother of All, you shall yet be victorious,
LG1891	6300	You shall yet laugh to scorn the attacks of all the remainder of the earth.
LG1891	6301	No danger shall balk Columbia's lovers,
LG1891	6302	If need be a thousand shall sternly immolate themselves for one.
LG1891	6303	One from Massachusetts shall be a Missourian's comrade,
LG1891	6304	From Maine and from hot Carolina, and another an Oregonese,shall be friends triune,
LG1891	6305	More precious to each other than all the riches of the earth.
LG1891	6306	To Michigan, Florida perfumes shall tenderly come,
LG1891	6307	Not the perfumes of flowers, but sweeter, and wafted beyond death.
LG1891	6308	It shall be customary in the houses and streets to see manly affection,
LG1891	6309	The most dauntless and rude shall touch face to face lightly,
LG1891	6310	The dependence of Liberty shall be lovers,
LG1891	6311	The continuance of Equality shall be comrades.
LG1891	6312	These shall tie you and band you stronger than hoops of iron,
LG1891	6313	I, ecstatic, O partners! O lands! with the love of lovers tie you.
LG1891	6314	(Were you looking to be held together by lawyers?
LG1891	6315	Or by an agreement on a paper? or by arms?
LG1891	6316	Nay, nor the world, nor any living thing, will so cohere.)
LG1891	6317	I SAW old General at bay,
LG1891	6318	(Old as he was, his gray eyes yet shone out in battle like stars,)
LG1891	6319	His small force was now completely hemm'd in, in his works,
LG1891	6320	He call'd for volunteers to run the enemy's lines, a desperate emergency,
LG1891	6321	I saw a hundred and more step forth from the ranks, but two or three were selected,
LG1891	6322	I saw them receive their orders aside, they listen'd with care, the adjutant was very grave,
LG1891	6323	I saw them depart with cheerfulness, freely risking their lives.
LG1891	6324	WHILE my wife at my side lies slumbering, and the wars are over long,
LG1891	6325	And my head on the pillow rests at home, and the vacant mid-nightmidnight passes,
LG1891	6326	And through the stillness, through the dark, I hear, just hear, the breath of my infant,
LG1891	6327	There in the room as I wake from sleep this vision presses upon me;
LG1891	6328	The engagement opens there and then in fantasy unreal,
LG1891	6329	The skirmishers begin, they crawl cautiously ahead, I hear the irregular snap! snap!
LG1891	6330	I hear the sounds of the different missiles, the short t-h-t! t-h-t! of the rifle-balls,
LG1891	6331	I see the shells exploding leaving small white clouds, I hear the great shells shrieking as they pass,
LG1891	6332	The grape like the hum and whirr of wind through the trees,(tumultuous now the contest rages,)
LG1891	6333	All the scenes at the batteries rise in detail before me again,
LG1891	6334	The crashing and smoking, the pride of the men in their pieces,
LG1891	6335	The chief-gunner ranges and sights his piece and selects a fuse of the right time,
LG1891	6336	After firing I see him lean aside and look eagerly off to note the effect;
LG1891	6337	Elsewhere I hear the cry of a regiment charging, (the young colonel leads himself this time with brandish'd sword,)
LG1891	6338	I see the gaps cut by the enemy's volleys, (quickly fill'd up, no delay,)
LG1891	6339	I breathe the suffocating smoke, then the flat clouds hover low concealing all;
LG1891	6340	Now a strange lull for a few seconds, not a shot fired on either side,
LG1891	6341	Then resumed the chaos louder than ever, with eager calls and orders of officers,
LG1891	6342	While from some distant part of the field the wind wafts to my ears a shout of applause, (some special success,)
LG1891	6343	And ever the sound of the cannon far or near, (rousing even in dreams a devilish exultation and all the old mad joy in the depths of my soul,)
LG1891	6344	And ever the hastening of infantry shifting positions, batteries,cavalry, moving hither and thither,
LG1891	6345	(The falling, dying, I heed not, the wounded dripping and red I heed not, some to the rear are hobbling,)
LG1891	6346	Grime, heat, rush, aide-de-camps galloping by or on a full run,
LG1891	6347	With the patter of small arms, the warning s-s-t of the rifles, (these in my vision I hear or see,)
LG1891	6348	And bombs bursting in air, and at night the vari-color'd rockets.
LG1891	6349	WHO are you dusky woman, so ancient hardly human,
LG1891	6350	With your woolly-white and turban'd head, and bare bony feet?
LG1891	6351	Why rising by the roadside here, do you the colors greet?
LG1891	6352	('Tis while our army lines Carolina's sands and pines,
LG1891	6353	Forth from thy hovel door thou Ethiopia com'st to me,
LG1891	6354	As under doughty Sherman I march toward the sea.)
LG1891	6355	Me master years a hundred since from my parents sunder'd,
LG1891	6356	A little child, they caught me as the savage beast is caught,
LG1891	6357	Then hither me across the sea the cruel slaver brought.
LG1891	6358	No further does she say, but lingering all the day,
LG1891	6359	Her high-borne turban'd head she wags, and rolls her darkling eye,
LG1891	6360	And courtesies to the regiments, the guidons moving by.
LG1891	6361	What is it fateful woman, so blear, hardly human?
LG1891	6362	Why wag your head with turban bound, yellow, red and green?
LG1891	6363	Are the things so strange and marvelous you see or have seen?
LG1891	6364	NOT youth pertains to me,
LG1891	6365	Nor delicatesse, I cannot beguile the time with talk,
LG1891	6366	Awkward in the parlor, neither a dancer nor elegant,
LG1891	6367	In the learn'd coterie sitting constrain'd and still, for learning inures not to me,
LG1891	6368	Beauty, knowledge, inure not to me—yet there are two or three things inure to me,
LG1891	6369	I have nourish'd the wounded and sooth'd many a dying soldier,
LG1891	6370	And at intervals waiting or in the midst of camp,
LG1891	6371	Composed these songs.
LG1891	6372	RACE of veterans—race of victors!
LG1891	6373	Race of the soil, ready for conflict—race of the conquering march!
LG1891	6374	(No more credulity's race, abiding-temper'd race,)
LG1891	6375	Race henceforth owning no law but the law of itself,
LG1891	6376	Race of passion and the storm.
LG1891	6377	WORLD take good notice, silver stars fading,
LG1891	6378	Milky hue ript, weft of white detaching,
LG1891	6379	Coals thirty-eight, baleful and burning,
LG1891	6380	Scarlet, significant, hands off warning,
LG1891	6381	Now and henceforth flaunt from these shores.
LG1891	6382	O TAN-FACED prairie-boy,
LG1891	6383	Before you came to camp came many a welcome gift,
LG1891	6384	Praises and presents came and nourishing food, till at last among the recruits,
LG1891	6385	You came, taciturn, with nothing to give—we but look'd on each other,
LG1891	6386	When lo! more than all the gifts of the world you gave me.
LG1891	6387	LOOK down fair moon and bathe this scene,
LG1891	6388	Pour softly down night's nimbus floods on faces ghastly, swollen,purple,
LG1891	6389	On the dead on their backs with arms toss'd wide,
LG1891	6390	Pour down your unstinted nimbus sacred moon.
LG1891	6391	WORD over all, beautiful as the sky,
LG1891	6392	Beautiful that war and all its deeds of carnage must in time be utterly lost,
LG1891	6393	That the hands of the sisters Death and Night incessantly softly wash again, and ever again, this soil'd world;
LG1891	6394	For my enemy is dead, a man divine as myself is dead,
LG1891	6395	I look where he lies white-faced and still in the coffin—I draw near,
LG1891	6396	Bend down and touch lightly with my lips the white face in the coffin.
LG1891	6397	HOW solemn as one by one,
LG1891	6398	As the ranks returning worn and sweaty, as the men file by where I stand,
LG1891	6399	As the faces the masks appear, as I glance at the faces studying the masks,
LG1891	6400	(As I glance upward out of this page studying you, dear friend,whoever you are,)
LG1891	6401	How solemn the thought of my whispering soul to each in the ranks, and to you,
LG1891	6402	I see behind each mask that wonder a kindred soul,
LG1891	6403	O the bullet could never kill what you really are, dear friend,
LG1891	6404	Nor the bayonet stab what you really are;
LG1891	6405	The soul! yourself I see, great as any, good as the best,
LG1891	6406	Waiting secure and content, which the bullet could never kill,
LG1891	6407	Nor the bayonet stab O friend.
LG1891	6408	AS I lay with my head in your lap camerado,
LG1891	6409	The confession I made I resume, what I said to you and the open air I resume,
LG1891	6410	I know I am restless and make others so,
LG1891	6411	I know my words are weapons full of danger, full of death,
LG1891	6412	For I confront peace, security, and all the settled laws, to unsettle them,
LG1891	6413	I am more resolute because all have denied me than I could ever have been had all accepted me,
LG1891	6414	I heed not and have never heeded either experience, cautions,majorities, nor ridicule,
LG1891	6415	And the threat of what is call'd hell is little or nothing to me,
LG1891	6416	And the lure of what is call'd heaven is little or nothing to me;
LG1891	6417	Dear camerado! I confess I have urged you onward with me, and still urge you, without the least idea what is our destination,
LG1891	6418	Or whether we shall be victorious, or utterly quell'd and defeated.
LG1891	6419	DELICATE cluster! flag of teeming life!
LG1891	6420	Covering all my lands—all my seashores lining!
LG1891	6421	Flag of death! (how I watch'd you through the smoke of battle pressing!
LG1891	6422	How I heard you flap and rustle, cloth defiant!)
LG1891	6423	Flag cerulean—sunny flag, with the orbs of night dappled!
LG1891	6424	Ah my silvery beauty—ah my woolly white and crimson!
LG1891	6425	Ah to sing the song of you, my matron mighty!
LG1891	6426	My sacred one, my mother.
LG1891	6427	DID you ask dulcet rhymes from me?
LG1891	6428	Did you seek the civilian's peaceful and languishing rhymes?
LG1891	6429	Did you find what I sang erewhile so hard to follow?
LG1891	6430	Why I was not singing erewhile for you to follow, to understand—nor am I now;
LG1891	6431	(I have been born of the same as the war was born,
LG1891	6432	The drum-corps' rattle is ever to me sweet music, I love well the martial dirge,
LG1891	6433	With slow wail and convulsive throb leading the officer's funeral;)
LG1891	6434	What to such as you anyhow such a poet as I? therefore leave my works,
LG1891	6435	And go lull yourself with what you can understand, and with piano-tunespiano-tunes,
LG1891	6436	For I lull nobody, and you will never understand me.
LG1891	6437	LO, Victress on the peaks,
LG1891	6438	Where thou with mighty brow regarding the world,
LG1891	6439	(The world O Libertad, that vainly conspired against thee,)
LG1891	6440	Out of its countless beleaguering toils, after thwarting them all,
LG1891	6441	Dominant, with the dazzling sun around thee,
LG1891	6442	Flauntest now unharm'd in immortal soundness and bloom—lo, in these hours supreme,
LG1891	6443	No poem proud, I chanting bring to thee, nor mastery's rapturous verse,
LG1891	6444	But a cluster containing night's darkness and blood-dripping wounds,
LG1891	6445	And psalms of the dead.
LG1891	6446	SPIRIT whose work is done—spirit of dreadful hours!
LG1891	6447	Ere departing fade from my eyes your forests of bayonets;
LG1891	6448	Spirit of gloomiest fears and doubts, (yet onward ever unfaltering pressing,)
LG1891	6449	Spirit of many a solemn day and many a savage scene—electric spirit,
LG1891	6450	That with muttering voice through the war now closed, like a tire-lesstireless phantom flitted,
LG1891	6451	Rousing the land with breath of flame, while you beat and beat the drum,
LG1891	6452	Now as the sound of the drum, hollow and harsh to the last,reverberates round me,
LG1891	6453	As your ranks, your immortal ranks, return, return from the battles,
LG1891	6454	As the muskets of the young men yet lean over their shoulders,
LG1891	6455	As I look on the bayonets bristling over their shoulders,
LG1891	6456	As those slanted bayonets, whole forests of them appearing in the distance, approach and pass on, returning homeward,
LG1891	6457	Moving with steady motion, swaying to and fro to the right and left,
LG1891	6458	Evenly lightly rising and falling while the steps keep time;
LG1891	6459	Spirit of hours I knew, all hectic red one day, but pale as death next day,
LG1891	6460	Touch my mouth ere you depart, press my lips close,
LG1891	6461	Leave me your pulses of rage—bequeath them to me—fill me with currents convulsive,
LG1891	6462	Let them scorch and blister out of my chants when you are gone,
LG1891	6463	Let them identify you to the future in these songs.
LG1891	6464	ADIEU O soldier,
LG1891	6465	You of the rude campaigning, (which we shared,)
LG1891	6466	The rapid march, the life of the camp,
LG1891	6467	The hot contention of opposing fronts, the long manoeuvre,
LG1891	6468	Red battles with their slaughter, the stimulus, the strong terrific game,
LG1891	6469	Spell of all brave and manly hearts, the trains of time through you and like of you all fill'd,
LG1891	6470	With war and war's expression.
LG1891	6471	Adieu dear comrade,
LG1891	6472	Your mission is fulfill'd—but I, more warlike,
LG1891	6473	Myself and this contentious soul of mine,
LG1891	6474	Still on our own campaigning bound,
LG1891	6475	Through untried roads with ambushes opponents lined,
LG1891	6476	Through many a sharp defeat and many a crisis, often baffled,
LG1891	6477	Here marching, ever marching on, a war fight out—aye here,
LG1891	6478	To fiercer, weightier battles give expression.
LG1891	6479	TURN O Libertad, for the war is over,
LG1891	6480	From it and all henceforth expanding, doubting no more, resolute,sweeping the world,
LG1891	6481	Turn from lands retrospective recording proofs of the past,
LG1891	6482	From the singers that sing the trailing glories of the past,
LG1891	6483	From the chants of the feudal world, the triumphs of kings, slavery,caste,
LG1891	6484	Turn to the world, the triumphs reserv'd and to come—give up that backward world,
LG1891	6485	Leave to the singers of hitherto, give them the trailing past,
LG1891	6486	But what remains remains for singers for you—wars to come are for you,
LG1891	6487	(Lo, how the wars of the past have duly inured to you, and the wars of the present also inure;)
LG1891	6488	Then turn, and be not alarm'd O Libertad—turn your undying face,
LG1891	6489	To where the future, greater than all the past,
LG1891	6490	Is swiftly, surely preparing for you.
LG1891	6491	TO the leaven'd soil they trod calling I sing for the last,
LG1891	6492	(Forth from my tent emerging for good, loosing, untying the tent-ropestent-ropes,)
LG1891	6493	In the freshness the forenoon air, in the far-stretching circuits and vistas again to peace restored,
LG1891	6494	To the fiery fields emanative and the endless vistas beyond, to the South and the North,
LG1891	6495	To the leaven'd soil of the general Western world to attest my songs,
LG1891	6496	To the Alleghanian hills and the tireless Mississippi,
LG1891	6497	To the rocks I calling sing, and all the trees in the woods,
LG1891	6498	To the plains of the poems of heroes, to the prairies spreading wide,
LG1891	6499	To the far-off sea and the unseen winds, and the sane impalpable air;
LG1891	6500	And responding they answer all, (but not in words,)
LG1891	6501	The average earth, the witness of war and peace, acknowledges mutely,
LG1891	6502	The prairie draws me close, as the father to bosom broad the son,
LG1891	6503	The Northern ice and rain that began me nourish me to the end,
LG1891	6504	But the hot sun of the South is to fully ripen my songs.
LG1891	6505	WHEN lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd,
LG1891	6506	And the great star early droop'd in the western sky in the night,
LG1891	6507	I mourn'd, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.
LG1891	6508	Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring,
LG1891	6509	Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west,
LG1891	6510	And thought of him I love.
LG1891	6511	O powerful western fallen star!
LG1891	6512	O shades of night—O moody, tearful night!
LG1891	6513	O great star disappear'd—O the black murk that hides the star!
LG1891	6514	O cruel hands that hold me powerless—O helpless soul of me!
LG1891	6515	O harsh surrounding cloud that will not free my soul.
LG1891	6516	In the dooryard fronting an old farm-house near the white-wash'd palings,
LG1891	6517	Stands the lilac-bush tall-growing with heart-shaped leaves of rich green,
LG1891	6518	With many a pointed blossom rising delicate, with the perfume strong I love,
LG1891	6519	With every leaf a miracle—and from this bush in the dooryard,
LG1891	6520	With delicate-color'd blossoms and heart-shaped leaves of rich green,
LG1891	6521	A sprig with its flower I break.
LG1891	6522	In the swamp in secluded recesses,
LG1891	6523	A shy and hidden bird is warbling a song.
LG1891	6524	Solitary the thrush,
LG1891	6525	The hermit withdrawn to himself, avoiding the settlements,
LG1891	6526	Sings by himself a song.
LG1891	6527	Song of the bleeding throat,
LG1891	6528	Death's outlet song of life, (for well dear brother I know,
LG1891	6529	If thou wast not granted to sing thou would'st surely die.)
LG1891	6530	Over the breast of the spring, the land, amid cities,
LG1891	6531	Amid lanes and through old woods, where lately the violets peep'd from the ground, spotting the gray debris,
LG1891	6532	Amid the grass in the fields each side of the lanes, passing the endless grass,
LG1891	6533	Passing the yellow-spear'd wheat, every grain from its shroud in the dark-brown fields uprisen,
LG1891	6534	Passing the apple-tree blows of white and pink in the orchards,
LG1891	6535	Carrying a corpse to where it shall rest in the grave,
LG1891	6536	Night and day journeys a coffin.
LG1891	6537	Coffin that passes through lanes and streets,
LG1891	6538	Through day and night with the great cloud darkening the land,
LG1891	6539	With the pomp of the inloop'd flags with the cities draped in black,
LG1891	6540	With the show of the States themselves as of crape-veil'd women standing,
LG1891	6541	With processions long and winding and the flambeaus of the night,
LG1891	6542	With the countless torches lit, with the silent sea of faces and the unbared heads,
LG1891	6543	With the waiting depot, the arriving coffin, and the sombre faces,
LG1891	6544	With dirges through the night, with the thousand voices rising strong and solemn,
LG1891	6545	With all the mournful voices of the dirges pour'd around the coffin,
LG1891	6546	The dim-lit churches and the shuddering organs—where amid these you journey,
LG1891	6547	With the tolling tolling bells' perpetual clang,
LG1891	6548	Here, coffin that slowly passes,
LG1891	6549	I give you my sprig of lilac.
LG1891	6550	(Nor for you, for one alone,
LG1891	6551	Blossoms and branches green to coffins all I bring,
LG1891	6552	For fresh as the morning, thus would I chant a song for you O sane and sacred death.
LG1891	6553	All over bouquets of roses,
LG1891	6554	O death, I cover you over with roses and early lilies,
LG1891	6555	But mostly and now the lilac that blooms the first,
LG1891	6556	Copious I break, I break the sprigs from the bushes,
LG1891	6557	With loaded arms I come, pouring for you,
LG1891	6558	For you and the coffins all of you O death.)
LG1891	6559	O western orb sailing the heaven,
LG1891	6560	Now I know what you must have meant as a month since I walk'd,
LG1891	6561	As I walk'd in silence the transparent shadowy night,
LG1891	6562	As I saw you had something to tell as you bent to me night after night,
LG1891	6563	As you droop'd from the sky low down as if to my side, (while the other stars all look'd on,)
LG1891	6564	As we wander'd together the solemn night, (for something I know not what kept me from sleep,)
LG1891	6565	As the night advanced, and I saw on the rim of the west how full you were of woe,
LG1891	6566	As I stood on the rising ground in the breeze in the cool trans-parenttransparent night,
LG1891	6567	As I watch'd where you pass'd and was lost in the netherward black of the night,
LG1891	6568	As my soul in its trouble dissatisfied sank, as where you sad orb,
LG1891	6569	Concluded, dropt in the night, and was gone.
LG1891	6570	Sing on there in the swamp,
LG1891	6571	O singer bashful and tender, I hear your notes, I hear your call,
LG1891	6572	I hear, I come presently, I understand you,
LG1891	6573	But a moment I linger, for the lustrous star has detain'd me,
LG1891	6574	The star my departing comrade holds and detains me.
LG1891	6575	O how shall I warble myself for the dead one there I loved?
LG1891	6576	And how shall I deck my song for the large sweet soul that has gone?
LG1891	6577	And what shall my perfume be for the grave of him I love?
LG1891	6578	Sea-winds blown from east and west,
LG1891	6579	Blown from the Eastern sea and blown from the Western sea, till there on the prairies meeting,
LG1891	6580	These and with these and the breath of my chant,
LG1891	6581	I'll perfume the grave of him I love.
LG1891	6582	O what shall I hang on the chamber walls?
LG1891	6583	And what shall the pictures be that I hang on the walls,
LG1891	6584	To adorn the burial-house of him I love?
LG1891	6585	Pictures of growing spring and farms and homes,
LG1891	6586	With the Fourth-month eve at sundown, and the gray smoke lucid and bright,
LG1891	6587	With floods of the yellow gold of the gorgeous, indolent, sinking sun, burning, expanding the air,
LG1891	6588	With the fresh sweet herbage under foot, and the pale green leaves of the trees prolific,
LG1891	6589	In the distance the flowing glaze, the breast of the river, with a wind-dapple here and there,
LG1891	6590	With ranging hills on the banks, with many a line against the sky, and shadows,
LG1891	6591	And the city at hand with dwellings so dense, and stacks of chim-neyschimneys,
LG1891	6592	And all the scenes of life and the workshops, and the workmen homeward returning.
LG1891	6593	Lo, body and soul—this land,
LG1891	6594	My own Manhattan with spires, and the sparkling and hurrying tides, and the ships,
LG1891	6595	The varied and ample land, the South and the North in the light, Ohio's shores and flashing Missouri,
LG1891	6596	And ever the far-spreading prairies cover'd with grass and corn.
LG1891	6597	Lo, the most excellent sun so calm and haughty,
LG1891	6598	The violet and purple morn with just-felt breezes,
LG1891	6599	The gentle soft-born measureless light,
LG1891	6600	The miracle spreading bathing all, the fulfill'd noon,
LG1891	6601	The coming eve delicious, the welcome night and the stars,
LG1891	6602	Over my cities shining all, enveloping man and land.
LG1891	6603	Sing on, sing on you gray-brown bird,
LG1891	6604	Sing from the swamps, the recesses, pour your chant from the bushes,
LG1891	6605	Limitless out of the dusk, out of the cedars and pines.
LG1891	6606	Sing on dearest brother, warble your reedy song,
LG1891	6607	Loud human song, with voice of uttermost woe.
LG1891	6608	O liquid and free and tender!
LG1891	6609	O wild and loose to my soul—O wondrous singer!
LG1891	6610	You only I hear—yet the star holds me, (but will soon depart,)
LG1891	6611	Yet the lilac with mastering odor holds me.
LG1891	6612	Now while I sat in the day and look'd forth,
LG1891	6613	In the close of the day with its light and the fields of spring, and the farmers preparing their crops,
LG1891	6614	In the large unconscious scenery of my land with its lakes and forests,
LG1891	6615	In the heavenly aerial beauty, (after the perturb'd winds and the storms,)
LG1891	6616	Under the arching heavens of the afternoon swift passing, and the voices of children and women,
LG1891	6617	The many-moving sea-tides, and I saw the ships how they sail'd,
LG1891	6618	And the summer approaching with richness, and the fields all busy with labor,
LG1891	6619	And the infinite separate houses, how they all went on, each with its meals and minutia of daily usages,
LG1891	6620	And the streets how their throbbings throbb'd, and the cities pent —lo, then and there,
LG1891	6621	Falling upon them all and among them all, enveloping me with the rest,
LG1891	6622	Appear'd the cloud, appear'd the long black trail,
LG1891	6623	And I knew death, its thought, and the sacred knowledge of death.
LG1891	6624	Then with the knowledge of death as walking one side of me,
LG1891	6625	And the thought of death close-walking the other side of me,
LG1891	6626	And I in the middle as with companions, and as holding the hands of companions,
LG1891	6627	I fled forth to the hiding receiving night that talks not,
LG1891	6628	Down to the shores of the water, the path by the swamp in the dimness,
LG1891	6629	To the solemn shadowy cedars and ghostly pines so still.
LG1891	6630	And the singer so shy to the rest receiv'd me,
LG1891	6631	The gray-brown bird I know receiv'd us comrades three,
LG1891	6632	And he sang the carol of death, and a verse for him I love.
LG1891	6633	From deep secluded recesses,
LG1891	6634	From the fragrant cedars and the ghostly pines so still,
LG1891	6635	Came the carol of the bird.
LG1891	6636	And the charm of the carol rapt me,
LG1891	6637	As I held as if by their hands my comrades in the night,
LG1891	6638	And the voice of my spirit tallied the song of the bird.
LG1891	6639	Come lovely and soothing death,
LG1891	6640	Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving,
LG1891	6641	In the day, in the night, to all, to each,
LG1891	6642	Sooner or later delicate death.
LG1891	6643	Prais'd be the fathomless universe,
LG1891	6644	For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious,
LG1891	6645	And for love, sweet love—but praise! praise! praise!
LG1891	6646	For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding death.
LG1891	6647	Dark mother always gliding near with soft feet,
LG1891	6648	Have none chanted for thee a chant of fullest welcome?
LG1891	6649	Then I chant it for thee, I glorify thee above all,
LG1891	6650	I bring thee a song that when thou must indeed come, come unfal-teringlyunfalteringly.
LG1891	6651	Approach strong deliveress,
LG1891	6652	When it is so, when thou hast taken them I joyously sing the dead,
LG1891	6653	Lost in the loving floating ocean of thee,
LG1891	6654	Laved in the flood of thy bliss O death.
LG1891	6655	From me to thee glad serenades,
LG1891	6656	Dances for thee I propose saluting thee, adornments and feast-ingsfeastings for thee,
LG1891	6657	And the sights of the open landscape and the high-spread sky are fitting,
LG1891	6658	And life and the fields, and the huge and thoughtful night.
LG1891	6659	The night in silence under many a star,
LG1891	6660	The ocean shore and the husky whispering wave whose voice I know,
LG1891	6661	And the soul turning to thee O vast and well-veil'd death,
LG1891	6662	And the body gratefully nestling close to thee.
LG1891	6663	Over the tree-tops I float thee a song,
LG1891	6664	Over the rising and sinking waves, over the myriad fields and the prairies wide,
LG1891	6665	Over the dense-pack'd cities all and the teeming wharves and ways,
LG1891	6666	I float this carol with joy, with joy to thee O death.
LG1891	6667	To the tally of my soul,
LG1891	6668	Loud and strong kept up the gray-brown bird,
LG1891	6669	With pure deliberate notes spreading filling the night.
LG1891	6670	Loud in the pines and cedars dim,
LG1891	6671	Clear in the freshness moist and the swamp-perfume,
LG1891	6672	And I with my comrades there in the night.
LG1891	6673	While my sight that was bound in my eyes unclosed,
LG1891	6674	As to long panoramas of visions.
LG1891	6675	And I saw askant the armies,
LG1891	6676	I saw as in noiseless dreams hundreds of battle-flags,
LG1891	6677	Borne through the smoke of the battles and pierc'd with missiles I saw them,
LG1891	6678	And carried hither and yon through the smoke, and torn and bloody,
LG1891	6679	And at last but a few shreds left on the staffs, (and all in silence,)
LG1891	6680	And the staffs all splinter'd and broken.
LG1891	6681	I saw battle-corpses, myriads of them,
LG1891	6682	And the white skeletons of young men, I saw them,
LG1891	6683	I saw the debris and debris of all the slain soldiers of the war,
LG1891	6684	But I saw they were not as was thought,
LG1891	6685	They themselves were fully at rest, they suffer'd not,
LG1891	6686	The living remain'd and suffer'd, the mother suffer'd,
LG1891	6687	And the wife and the child and the musing comrade suffer'd,
LG1891	6688	And the armies that remain'd suffer'd.
LG1891	6689	Passing the visions, passing the night,
LG1891	6690	Passing, unloosing the hold of my comrades' hands,
LG1891	6691	Passing the song of the hermit bird and the tallying song of my soul,
LG1891	6692	Victorious song, death's outlet song, yet varying ever-altering song,
LG1891	6693	As low and wailing, yet clear the notes, rising and falling, flooding the night,
LG1891	6694	Sadly sinking and fainting, as warning and warning, and yet again bursting with joy,
LG1891	6695	Covering the earth and filling the spread of the heaven,
LG1891	6696	As that powerful psalm in the night I heard from recesses,
LG1891	6697	Passing, I leave thee lilac with heart-shaped leaves,
LG1891	6698	I leave thee there in the door-yard, blooming, returning with spring.
LG1891	6699	I cease from my song for thee,
LG1891	6700	From my gaze on thee in the west, fronting the west, communing with thee,
LG1891	6701	O comrade lustrous with silver face in the night.
LG1891	6702	Yet each to keep and all, retrievements out of the night,
LG1891	6703	The song, the wondrous chant of the gray-brown bird,
LG1891	6704	And the tallying chant, the echo arous'd in my soul,
LG1891	6705	With the lustrous and drooping star with the countenance full of woe,
LG1891	6706	With the holders holding my hand nearing the call of the bird,
LG1891	6707	Comrades mine and I in the midst, and their memory ever to keep, for the dead I loved so well,
LG1891	6708	For the sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and lands—and this for his dear sake,
LG1891	6709	Lilac and star and bird twined with the chant of my soul,
LG1891	6710	There in the fragrant pines and the cedars dusk and dim.
LG1891	6711	O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
LG1891	6712	The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won,
LG1891	6713	The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
LG1891	6714	While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
LG1891	6715	But O heart! heart! heart!
LG1891	6716	O the bleeding drops of red,
LG1891	6717	Where on the deck my Captain lies,
LG1891	6718	Fallen cold and dead.
LG1891	6719	O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
LG1891	6720	Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills,
LG1891	6721	For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding,
LG1891	6722	For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
LG1891	6723	Here Captain! dear father!
LG1891	6724	This arm beneath your head!
LG1891	6725	It is some dream that on the deck,
LG1891	6726	You've fallen cold and dead.
LG1891	6727	My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
LG1891	6728	My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
LG1891	6729	The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,
LG1891	6730	From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
LG1891	6731	Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
LG1891	6732	But I with mournful tread,
LG1891	6733	Walk the deck my Captain lies,
LG1891	6734	Fallen cold and dead.
LG1891	6735	HUSH'D be the camps to-day,
LG1891	6736	And soldiers let us drape our war-worn weapons,
LG1891	6737	And each with musing soul retire to celebrate,
LG1891	6738	Our dear commander's death.
LG1891	6739	No more for him life's stormy conflicts,
LG1891	6740	Nor victory, nor defeat—no more time's dark events,
LG1891	6741	Charging like ceaseless clouds across the sky.
LG1891	6742	But sing poet in our name,
LG1891	6743	Sing of the love we bore him—because you, dweller in camps,know it truly.
LG1891	6744	As they invault the coffin there,
LG1891	6745	Sing—as they close the doors of earth upon him—one verse,
LG1891	6746	For the heavy hearts of soldiers.
LG1891	6747	THIS dust was once the man,
LG1891	6748	Gentle, plain, just and resolute, under whose cautious hand,
LG1891	6749	Against the foulest crime in history known in any land or age,
LG1891	6750	Was saved the Union of these States.
LG1891	6751	BY blue Ontario's shore,
LG1891	6752	As I mused of these warlike days and of peace return'd, and the dead that return no more,
LG1891	6753	A Phantom gigantic superb, with stern visage accosted me,
LG1891	6754	Chant me the poem, it said, that comes from the soul of America, chant me the carol of victory,
LG1891	6755	And strike up the marches of Libertad, marches more powerful yet,
LG1891	6756	And sing me before you go the song of the throes of Democracy.
LG1891	6757	(Democracy, the destin'd conqueror, yet treacherous lip-smiles everywhere,
LG1891	6758	And death and infidelity at every step.)
LG1891	6759	A Nation announcing itself,
LG1891	6760	I myself make the only growth by which I can be appreciated,
LG1891	6761	I reject none, accept all, then reproduce all in my own forms.
LG1891	6762	A breed whose proof is in time and deeds,
LG1891	6763	What we are we are, nativity is answer enough to objections,
LG1891	6764	We wield ourselves as a weapon is wielded,
LG1891	6765	We are powerful and tremendous in ourselves,
LG1891	6766	We are executive in ourselves, we are sufficient in the variety of ourselves,
LG1891	6767	We are the most beautiful to ourselves and in ourselves,
LG1891	6768	We stand self-pois'd in the middle, branching thence over the world,
LG1891	6769	From Missouri, Nebraska, or Kansas, laughing attacks to scorn.
LG1891	6770	Nothing is sinful to us outside of ourselves,
LG1891	6771	Whatever appears, whatever does not appear, we are beautiful or sinful in ourselves only.
LG1891	6772	(O Mother—O Sisters dear!
LG1891	6773	If we are lost, no victor else has destroy'd us,
LG1891	6774	It is by ourselves we go down to eternal night.)
LG1891	6775	Have you thought there could be but a single supreme?
LG1891	6776	There can be any number of supremes—one does not counter-vailcountervail another any more than one eyesight countervails another, or one life countervails another.
LG1891	6777	All is eligible to all,
LG1891	6778	All is for individuals, all is for you,
LG1891	6779	No condition is prohibited, not God's or any.
LG1891	6780	All comes by the body, only health puts you rapport with the universe.
LG1891	6781	Produce great Persons, the rest follows.
LG1891	6782	Piety and conformity to them that like,
LG1891	6783	Peace, obesity, allegiance, to them that like,
LG1891	6784	I am he who tauntingly compels men, women, nations,
LG1891	6785	Crying, Leap from your seats and contend for your lives!
LG1891	6786	I am he who walks the States with a barb'd tongue, questioning every one I meet,
LG1891	6787	Who are you that wanted only to be told what you knew before?
LG1891	6788	Who are you that wanted only a book to join you in your nonsense?
LG1891	6789	(With pangs and cries as thine own O bearer of many children,
LG1891	6790	These clamors wild to a race of pride I give.)
LG1891	6791	O lands, would you be freer than all that has ever been before?
LG1891	6792	If you would be freer than all that has been before, come listen to me.
LG1891	6793	Fear grace, elegance, civilization, delicatesse,
LG1891	6794	Fear the mellow sweet, the sucking of honey-juice,
LG1891	6795	Beware the advancing mortal ripening of Nature,
LG1891	6796	Beware what precedes the decay of the ruggedness of states and men.
LG1891	6797	Ages, precedents, have long been accumulating undirected materials,
LG1891	6798	America brings builders, and brings its own styles.
LG1891	6799	The immortal poets of Asia and Europe have done their work and pass'd to other spheres,
LG1891	6800	A work remains, the work of surpassing all they have done.
LG1891	6801	America, curious toward foreign characters, stands by its own at all hazards,
LG1891	6802	Stands removed, spacious, composite, sound, initiates the true use of precedents,
LG1891	6803	Does not repel them or the past or what they have produced under their forms,
LG1891	6804	Takes the lesson with calmness, perceives the corpse slowly borne from the house,
LG1891	6805	Perceives that it waits a little while in the door, that it was fittest for its days,
LG1891	6806	That its life has descended to the stalwart and well-shaped heir who approaches,
LG1891	6807	And that he shall be fittest for his days.
LG1891	6808	Any period one nation must lead,
LG1891	6809	One land must be the promise and reliance of the future.
LG1891	6810	These States are the amplest poem,
LG1891	6811	Here is not merely a nation but a teeming Nation of nations,
LG1891	6812	Here the doings of men correspond with the broadcast doings of the day and night,
LG1891	6813	Here is what moves in magnificent masses careless of particulars,
LG1891	6814	Here are the roughs, beards, friendliness, combativeness, the soul loves,
LG1891	6815	Here the flowing trains, here the crowds, equality, diversity, the soul loves.
LG1891	6816	Land of lands and bards to corroborate!
LG1891	6817	Of them standing among them, one lifts to the light a west-bred face,
LG1891	6818	To him the hereditary countenance bequeath'd both mother's and father's,
LG1891	6819	His first parts substances, earth, water, animals, trees,
LG1891	6820	Built of the common stock, having room for far and near,
LG1891	6821	Used to dispense with other lands, incarnating this land,
LG1891	6822	Attracting it body and soul to himself, hanging on its neck with incomparable love,
LG1891	6823	Plunging his seminal muscle into its merits and demerits,
LG1891	6824	Making its cities, beginnings, events, diversities, wars, vocal in him,
LG1891	6825	Making its rivers, lakes, bays, embouchure in him,
LG1891	6826	Mississippi with yearly freshets and changing chutes, Columbia,Niagara, Hudson, spending themselves lovingly in him,
LG1891	6827	If the Atlantic coast stretch or the Pacific coast stretch, he stretch-ingstretching with them North or South,
LG1891	6828	Spanning between them East and West, and touching whatever is between them,
LG1891	6829	Growths growing from him to offset the growths of pine, cedar,hemlock, live-oak, locust, chestnut, hickory, cottonwood,orange, magnolia,
LG1891	6830	Tangles as tangled in him as any canebrake or swamp,
LG1891	6831	He likening sides and peaks of mountains, forests coated with northern transparent ice,
LG1891	6832	Off him pasturage sweet and natural as savanna, upland, prairie,
LG1891	6833	Through him flights, whirls, screams, answering those of the fish-hawkfish-hawk, mocking-bird, night-heron, and eagle,
LG1891	6834	His spirit surrounding his country's spirit, unclosed to good and evil,
LG1891	6835	Surrounding the essences of real things, old times and present times,
LG1891	6836	Surrounding just found shores, islands, tribes of red aborigines,
LG1891	6837	Weather-beaten vessels, landings, settlements, embryo stature and muscle,
LG1891	6838	The haughty defiance of the Year One, war, peace, the formation of the Constitution,
LG1891	6839	The separate States, the simple elastic scheme, the immigrants,
LG1891	6840	The Union always swarming with blatherers and always sure and impregnable,
LG1891	6841	The unsurvey'd interior, log-houses, clearings, wild animals, hunt-ershunters, trappers,
LG1891	6842	Surrounding the multiform agriculture, mines, temperature, the gestation of new States,
LG1891	6843	Congress convening every Twelfth-month, the members duly coming up from the uttermost parts,
LG1891	6844	Surrounding the noble character of mechanics and farmers, espe-ciallyespecially the young men,
LG1891	6845	Responding their manners, speech, dress, friendships, the gait they have of persons who never knew how it felt to stand in the presence of superiors,
LG1891	6846	The freshness and candor of their physiognomy, the copiousness and decision of their phrenology,
LG1891	6847	The picturesque looseness of their carriage, their fierceness when wrong'd,
LG1891	6848	The fluency of their speech, their delight in music, their curiosity,good temper and open-handedness, the whole composite make,
LG1891	6849	The prevailing ardor and enterprise, the large amativeness,
LG1891	6850	The perfect equality of the female with the male, the fluid move-mentmovement of the population,
LG1891	6851	The superior marine, free commerce, fisheries, whaling, gold-dig-ginggold-digging,
LG1891	6852	Wharf-hemm'd cities, railroad and steamboat lines intersecting all points,
LG1891	6853	Factories, mercantile life, labor-saving machinery, the Northeast,Northwest, Southwest,
LG1891	6854	Manhattan firemen, the Yankee swap, southern plantation life,
LG1891	6855	Slavery—the murderous, treacherous conspiracy to raise it upon the ruins of all the rest,
LG1891	6856	On and on to the grapple with it—Assassin! then your life or ours be the stake, and respite no more.
LG1891	6857	(Lo, high toward heaven, this day,
LG1891	6858	Libertad, from the conqueress' field return'd,
LG1891	6859	I mark the new aureola around your head,
LG1891	6860	No more of soft astral, but dazzling and fierce,
LG1891	6861	With war's flames and the lambent lightnings playing,
LG1891	6862	And your port immovable where you stand,
LG1891	6863	With still the inextinguishable glance and the clinch'd and lifted fist,
LG1891	6864	And your foot on the neck of the menacing one, the scorner utterly crush'd beneath you,
LG1891	6865	The menacing arrogant one that strode and advanced with his senseless scorn, bearing the murderous knife,
LG1891	6866	The wide-swelling one, the braggart that would yesterday do so much,
LG1891	6867	To-day a carrion dead and damn'd, the despised of all the earth,
LG1891	6868	An offal rank, to the dunghill maggots spurn'd.)
LG1891	6869	Others take finish, but the Republic is ever constructive and ever keeps vista,
LG1891	6870	Others adorn the past, but you O days of the present, I adorn you,
LG1891	6871	O days of the future I believe in you—I isolate myself for your sake,
LG1891	6872	O America because you build for mankind I build for you,
LG1891	6873	O well-beloved stone-cutters, I lead them who plan with decision and science,
LG1891	6874	Lead the present with friendly hand toward the future.
LG1891	6875	(Bravas to all impulses sending sane children to the next age!
LG1891	6876	But damn that which spends itself with no thought of the stain,pains, dismay, feebleness, it is bequeathing.)
LG1891	6877	I listened to the Phantom by Ontario's shore,
LG1891	6878	I heard the voice arising demanding bards,
LG1891	6879	By them all native and grand, by them alone can these States be fused into the compact organism of a Nation.
LG1891	6880	To hold men together by paper and seal or by compulsion is no account,
LG1891	6881	That only holds men together which aggregates all in a living principle, as the hold of the limbs of the body or the fibres of plants.
LG1891	6882	Of all races and eras these States with veins full of poetical stuff most need poets, and are to have the greatest, and use them the greatest,
LG1891	6883	Their Presidents shall not be their common referee so much as their poets shall.
LG1891	6884	(Soul of love and tongue of fire!
LG1891	6885	Eye to pierce the deepest deeps and sweep the world!
LG1891	6886	Ah Mother, prolific and full in all besides, yet how long barren,barren?)
LG1891	6887	Of these States the poet is the equable man,
LG1891	6888	Not in him but off from him things are grotesque, eccentric, fail of their full returns,
LG1891	6889	Nothing out of its place is good, nothing in its place is bad,
LG1891	6890	He bestows on every object or quality its fit proportion, neither more nor less,
LG1891	6891	He is the arbiter of the diverse, he is the key,
LG1891	6892	He is the equalizer of his age and land,
LG1891	6893	He supplies what wants supplying, he checks what wants checking,
LG1891	6894	In peace out of him speaks the spirit of peace, large, rich, thrifty,building populous towns, encouraging agriculture, arts,commerce, lighting the study of man, the soul, health,immortality, government,
LG1891	6895	In war he is the best backer of the war, he fetches artillery as good as the engineer's, he can make every word he speaks draw blood,
LG1891	6896	The years straying toward infidelity he withholds by his steady faith,
LG1891	6897	He is no arguer, he is judgment, (Nature accepts him absolutely,)
LG1891	6898	He judges not as the judge judges but as the sun falling round a helpless thing,
LG1891	6899	As he sees the farthest he has the most faith,
LG1891	6900	His thoughts are the hymns of the praise of things,
LG1891	6901	In the dispute on God and eternity he is silent,
LG1891	6902	He sees eternity less like a play with a prologue and denouement,
LG1891	6903	He sees eternity in men and women, he does not see men and women as dreams or dots.
LG1891	6904	For the great Idea, the idea of perfect and free individuals,
LG1891	6905	For that, the bard walks in advance, leader of leaders,
LG1891	6906	The attitude of him cheers up slaves and horrifies foreign despots.
LG1891	6907	Without extinction is Liberty, without retrograde is Equality,
LG1891	6908	They live in the feelings of young men and the best women,
LG1891	6909	(Not for nothing have the indomitable heads of the earth been always ready to fall for Liberty.)
LG1891	6910	For the great Idea,
LG1891	6911	That, O my brethren, that is the mission of poets.
LG1891	6912	Songs of stern defiance ever ready,
LG1891	6913	Songs of the rapid arming and the march,
LG1891	6914	The flag of peace quick-folded, and instead the flag we know,
LG1891	6915	Warlike flag of the great Idea.
LG1891	6916	(Angry cloth I saw there leaping!
LG1891	6917	I stand again in leaden rain your flapping folds saluting,
LG1891	6918	I sing you over all, flying beckoning through the fight—O the hard-contested fight!
LG1891	6919	The cannons ope their rosy-flashing muzzles—the hurtled balls scream,
LG1891	6920	The battle-front forms amid the smoke—the volleys pour incessant from the line,
LG1891	6921	Hark, the ringing word Charge!—now the tussle and the furious maddening yells,
LG1891	6922	Now the corpses tumble curl'd upon the ground,
LG1891	6923	Cold, cold in death, for precious life of you,
LG1891	6924	Angry cloth I saw there leaping.)
LG1891	6925	Are you he who would assume a place to teach or be a poet here in the States?
LG1891	6926	The place is august, the terms obdurate.
LG1891	6927	Who would assume to teach here may well prepare himself body and mind,
LG1891	6928	He may well survey, ponder, arm, fortify, harden, make lithe him-selfhimself,
LG1891	6929	He shall surely be question'd beforehand by me with many and stern questions.
LG1891	6930	Who are you indeed who would talk or sing to America?
LG1891	6931	Have you studied out the land, its idioms and men?
LG1891	6932	Have you learn'd the physiology, phrenology, politics, geography,pride, freedom, friendship of the land? its substratums and objects?
LG1891	6933	Have you consider'd the organic compact of the first day of the first year of Independence, sign'd by the Commissioners,ratified by the States, and read by Washington at the head of the army?
LG1891	6934	Have you possess'd yourself of the Federal Constitution?
LG1891	6935	Do you see who have left all feudal processes and poems behind them, and assumed the poems and processes of Democracy?
LG1891	6936	Are you faithful to things? do you teach what the land and sea,the bodies of men, womanhood, amativeness, heroic angers,teach?
LG1891	6937	Have you sped through fleeting customs, popularities?
LG1891	6938	Can you hold your hand against all seductions, follies, whirls, fierce contentions? are you very strong? are you really of the whole People?
LG1891	6939	Are you not of some coterie? some school or mere religion?
LG1891	6940	Are you done with reviews and criticisms of life? animating now to life itself?
LG1891	6941	Have you vivified yourself from the maternity of these States?
LG1891	6942	Have you too the old ever-fresh forbearance and impartiality?
LG1891	6943	Do you hold the like love for those hardening to maturity? for the last-born? little and big? and for the errant?
LG1891	6944	What is this you bring my America?
LG1891	6945	Is it uniform with my country?
LG1891	6946	Is it not something that has been better told or done before?
LG1891	6947	Have you not imported this or the spirit of it in some ship?
LG1891	6948	Is it not a mere tale? a rhyme? a prettiness?—is the good old cause in it?
LG1891	6949	Has it not dangled long at the heels of the poets, politicians,literats, of enemies' lands?
LG1891	6950	Does it not assume that what is notoriously gone is still here?
LG1891	6951	Does it answer universal needs? will it improve manners?
LG1891	6952	Does it sound with trumpet-voice the proud victory of the Union in that secession war?
LG1891	6953	Can your performance face the open fields and the seaside?
LG1891	6954	Will it absorb into me as I absorb food, air, to appear again in my strength, gait, face?
LG1891	6955	Have real employments contributed to it? original makers, not mere amanuenses?
LG1891	6956	Does it meet modern discoveries, calibres, facts, face to face?
LG1891	6957	What does it mean to American persons, progresses, cities? Chi-cagoChicago, KanadaCanada, Arkansas?
LG1891	6958	Does it see behind the apparent custodians the real custodians standing, menacing, silent, the mechanics, Manhattanese,Western men, Southerners, significant alike in their apathy,and in the promptness of their love?
LG1891	6959	Does it see what finally befalls, and has always finally befallen, each temporizer, patcher, outsider, partialist, alarmist, infidel,who has ever ask'd any thing of America?
LG1891	6960	What mocking and scornful negligence?
LG1891	6961	The track strew'd with the dust of skeletons,
LG1891	6962	By the roadside others disdainfully toss'd.
LG1891	6963	Rhymes and rhymers pass away, poems distill'd from poems pass away,
LG1891	6964	The swarms of reflectors and the polite pass, and leave ashes,
LG1891	6965	Admirers, importers, obedient persons, make but the soil of litera-tureliterature,
LG1891	6966	America justifies itself, give it time, no disguise can deceive it or conceal from it, it is impassive enough,
LG1891	6967	Only toward the likes of itself will it advance to meet them,
LG1891	6968	If its poets appear it will in due time advance to meet them,there is no fear of mistake,
LG1891	6969	(The proof of a poet shall be sternly deferr'd till his country absorbs him as affectionately as he has absorb'd it.)
LG1891	6970	He masters whose spirit masters, he tastes sweetest who results sweetest in the long run,
LG1891	6971	The blood of the brawn beloved of time is unconstraint;
LG1891	6972	In the need of songs, philosophy, an appropriate native grand-operagrand-opera, shipcraft, any craft,
LG1891	6973	He or she is greatest who contributes the greatest original prac-ticalpractical example.
LG1891	6974	Already a nonchalant breed, silently emerging, appears on the streets,
LG1891	6975	People's lips salute only doers, lovers, satisfiers, positive knowers,
LG1891	6976	There will shortly be no more priests, I say their work is done,
LG1891	6977	Death is without emergencies here, but life is perpetual emer-genciesemergencies here,
LG1891	6978	Are your body, days, manners, superb? after death you shall be superb,
LG1891	6979	Justice, health, self-esteem, clear the way with irresistible power;
LG1891	6980	How dare you place any thing before a man?
LG1891	6981	Fall behind me States!
LG1891	6982	A man before all—myself, typical, before all.
LG1891	6983	Give me the pay I have served for,
LG1891	6984	Give me to sing the songs of the great Idea, take all the rest,
LG1891	6985	I have loved the earth, sun, animals, I have despised riches,
LG1891	6986	I have given alms to every one that ask'd, stood up for the stupid and crazy, devoted my income and labor to others,
LG1891	6987	Hated tyrants, argued not concerning God, had patience and indulgence toward the people, taken off my hat to nothing known or unknown,
LG1891	6988	Gone freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young,and with the mothers of families,
LG1891	6989	Read these leaves to myself in the open air, tried them by trees,stars, rivers,
LG1891	6990	Dismiss'd whatever insulted my own soul or defiled my body,
LG1891	6991	Claim'd nothing to myself which I have not carefully claim'd for others on the same terms,
LG1891	6992	Sped to the camps, and comrades found and accepted from every State,
LG1891	6993	(Upon this breast has many a dying soldier lean'd to breathe his last,
LG1891	6994	This arm, this hand, this voice, have nourish'd, rais'd, restored,
LG1891	6995	To life recalling many a prostrate form;)
LG1891	6996	I am willing to wait to be understood by the growth of the taste of myself,
LG1891	6997	Rejecting none, permitting all.
LG1891	6998	(Say O Mother, have I not to your thought been faithful?
LG1891	6999	Have I not through life kept you and yours before me?)
LG1891	7000	I swear I begin to see the meaning of these things,
LG1891	7001	It is not the earth, it is not America who is so great,
LG1891	7002	It is I who am great or to be great, it is You up there, or any one,
LG1891	7003	It is to walk rapidly through civilizations, governments, theories,
LG1891	7004	Through poems, pageants, shows, to form individuals.
LG1891	7005	Underneath all, individuals,
LG1891	7006	I swear nothing is good to me now that ignores individuals,
LG1891	7007	The American compact is altogether with individuals,
LG1891	7008	The only government is that which makes minute of individuals,
LG1891	7009	The whole theory of the universe is directed unerringly to one single individual—namely to You.
LG1891	7010	(Mother! with subtle sense severe, with the naked sword in your hand,
LG1891	7011	I saw you at last refuse to treat but directly with individuals.)
LG1891	7012	Underneath all, Nativity,
LG1891	7013	I swear I will stand by my own nativity, pious or impious so be it;
LG1891	7014	I swear I am charm'd with nothing except nativity,
LG1891	7015	Men, women, cities, nations, are only beautiful from nativity.
LG1891	7016	Underneath all is the Expression of love for men and women,
LG1891	7017	(I swear I have seen enough of mean and impotent modes of expressing love for men and women,
LG1891	7018	After this day I take my own modes of expressing love for men and women.)
LG1891	7019	I swear I will have each quality of my race in myself,
LG1891	7020	(Talk as you like, he only suits these States whose manners favor the audacity and sublime turbulence of the States.)
LG1891	7021	Underneath the lessons of things, spirits, Nature, governments,ownerships, I swear I perceive other lessons,
LG1891	7022	Underneath all to me is myself, to you yourself, (the same monoto-nousmonotonous old song.)
LG1891	7023	O I see flashing that this America is only you and me,
LG1891	7024	Its power, weapons, testimony, are you and me,
LG1891	7025	Its crimes, lies, thefts, defections, are you and me,
LG1891	7026	Its Congress is you and me, the officers, capitols, armies, ships, are you and me,
LG1891	7027	Its endless gestations of new States are you and me,
LG1891	7028	The war, (that war so bloody and grim, the war I will henceforth forget), was you and me,
LG1891	7029	Natural and artificial are you and me,
LG1891	7030	Freedom, language, poems, employments, are you and me,
LG1891	7031	Past, present, future, are you and me.
LG1891	7032	I dare not shirk any part of myself,
LG1891	7033	Not any part of America good or bad,
LG1891	7034	Not to build for that which builds for mankind,
LG1891	7035	Not to balance ranks, complexions, creeds, and the sexes,
LG1891	7036	Not to justify science nor the march of equality,
LG1891	7037	Nor to feed the arrogant blood of the brawn belov'd of time.
LG1891	7038	I am for those that have never been master'd,
LG1891	7039	For men and women whose tempers have never been master'd,
LG1891	7040	For those whom laws, theories, conventions, can never master.
LG1891	7041	I am for those who walk abreast with the whole earth,
LG1891	7042	Who inaugurate one to inaugurate all.
LG1891	7043	I will not be outfaced by irrational things,
LG1891	7044	I will penetrate what it is in them that is sarcastic upon me,
LG1891	7045	I will make cities and civilizations defer to me,
LG1891	7046	This is what I have learnt from America—it is the amount, and it I teach again.
LG1891	7047	(Democracy, while weapons were everywhere aim'd at your breast,
LG1891	7048	I saw you serenely give birth to immortal children, saw in dreams your dilating form,
LG1891	7049	Saw you with spreading mantle covering the world.)
LG1891	7050	I will confront these shows of the day and night,
LG1891	7051	I will know if I am to be less than they,
LG1891	7052	I will see if I am not as majestic as they,
LG1891	7053	I will see if I am not as subtle and real as they,
LG1891	7054	I will see if I am to be less generous than they,
LG1891	7055	I will see if I have no meaning, while the houses and ships have meaning,
LG1891	7056	I will see if the fishes and birds are to be enough for themselves,and I am not to be enough for myself.
LG1891	7057	I match my spirit against yours you orbs, growths, mountains,brutes,
LG1891	7058	Copious as you are I absorb you all in myself, and become the master myself,
LG1891	7059	America isolated yet embodying all, what is it finally except myself?
LG1891	7060	These States, what are they except myself?
LG1891	7061	I know now why the earth is gross, tantalizing, wicked, it is for my sake,
LG1891	7062	I take you specially to be mine, you terrible, rude forms.
LG1891	7063	(Mother, bend down, bend close to me your face,
LG1891	7064	I know not what these plots and wars and deferments are for,
LG1891	7065	I know not fruition's success, but I know that through war and crime your work goes on, and must yet go on.)
LG1891	7066	Thus by blue Ontario's shore,
LG1891	7067	While the winds fann'd me and the waves came trooping toward me,
LG1891	7068	I thrill'd with the power's pulsations, and the charm of my theme was upon me,
LG1891	7069	Till the tissues that held me parted their ties upon me.
LG1891	7070	And I saw the free souls of poets,
LG1891	7071	The loftiest bards of past ages strode before me,
LG1891	7072	Strange large men, long unwaked, undisclosed, were disclosed to me.
LG1891	7073	O my rapt verse, my call, mock me not!
LG1891	7074	Not for the bards of the past, not to invoke them have I launch'd you forth,
LG1891	7075	Not to call even those lofty bards here by Ontario's shores,
LG1891	7076	Have I sung so capricious and loud my savage song.
LG1891	7077	Bards for my own land only I invoke,
LG1891	7078	(For the war the war is over, the field is clear'd,)
LG1891	7079	Till they strike up marches henceforth triumphant and onward,
LG1891	7080	To cheer O Mother your boundless expectant soul.
LG1891	7081	Bards of the great Idea! bards of the peaceful inventions! (for the war, the war is over!)
LG1891	7082	Yet bards of latent armies, a million soldiers waiting ever-ready,
LG1891	7083	Bards with songs as from burning coals or the lightning's fork'd stripes!
LG1891	7084	Ample Ohio's, Kanada'sCanada's bards—bards of California! inland bards—bards of the war!
LG1891	7085	You by my charm I invoke.
LG1891	7086	LET that which stood in front go behind,
LG1891	7087	Let that which was behind advance to the front,
LG1891	7088	Let bigots, fools, unclean persons, offer new propositions,
LG1891	7089	Let the old propositions be postponed,
LG1891	7090	Let a man seek pleasure everywhere except in himself,
LG1891	7091	Let a woman seek happiness everywhere except in herself.
LG1891	7092	AS consequent from store of summer rains,
LG1891	7093	Or wayward rivulets in autumn flowing,
LG1891	7094	Or many a herb-lined brook's reticulations,
LG1891	7095	Or subterranean sea-rills making for the sea,
LG1891	7096	Songs of continued years I sing.
LG1891	7097	Life's ever-modern rapids first, (soon, soon to blend,
LG1891	7098	With the old streams of death.)
LG1891	7099	Some threading Ohio's farm-fields or the woods,
LG1891	7100	Some down Colorado's cañons from sources of perpetual snow,
LG1891	7101	Some half-hid in Oregon, or away southward in Texas,
LG1891	7102	Some in the north finding their way to Erie, Niagara, Ottawa,
LG1891	7103	Some to Atlantica's bays, and so to the great salt brine.
LG1891	7104	In you whoe'er you are my book perusing,
LG1891	7105	In I myself, in all the world, these currents flowing,
LG1891	7106	All, all toward the mystic ocean tending.
LG1891	7107	Currents for starting a continent new,
LG1891	7108	Overtures sent to the solid out of the liquid,
LG1891	7109	Fusion of ocean and land, tender and pensive waves,
LG1891	7110	(Not safe and peaceful only, waves rous'd and ominous too,
LG1891	7111	Out of the depths the storm's abysmic waves, who knows whence?
LG1891	7112	Raging over the vast, with many a broken spar and tatter'd sail.)
LG1891	7113	Or from the sea of Time, collecting vasting all, I bring,
LG1891	7114	A windrow-drift of weeds and shells.
LG1891	7115	O little shells, so curious-convolute, so limpid-cold and voiceless,
LG1891	7116	Will you not little shells to the tympans of temples held,
LG1891	7117	Murmurs and echoes still call up, eternity's music faint and far,
LG1891	7118	Wafted inland, sent from Atlantica's rim, strains for the soul of the prairies,
LG1891	7119	Whisper'd reverberations, chords for the ear of the West joyously sounding,
LG1891	7120	Your tidings old, yet ever new and untranslatable,
LG1891	7121	Infinitesimals out of my life, and many a life,
LG1891	7122	(For not my life and years alone I give—all, all I give,)
LG1891	7123	These waifs from the deep, cast high and dry,
LG1891	7124	Wash'd on America's shores?
LG1891	7125	FOR the lands and for these passionate days and for myself,
LG1891	7126	Now I awhile retire to thee O soil of autumn fields,
LG1891	7127	Reclining on thy breast, giving myself to thee,
LG1891	7128	Answering the pulses of thy sane and equable heart,
LG1891	7129	Tuning a verse for thee.
LG1891	7130	O earth that hast no voice, confide to me a voice,
LG1891	7131	O harvest of my lands—O boundless summer growths,
LG1891	7132	O lavish brown parturient earth—O infinite teeming womb,
LG1891	7133	A song to narrate thee.
LG1891	7134	Ever upon this stage,
LG1891	7135	Is acted God's calm annual drama,
LG1891	7136	Gorgeous processions, songs of birds,
LG1891	7137	Sunrise that fullest feeds and freshens most the soul,
LG1891	7138	The heaving sea, the waves upon the shore, the musical, strong waves,
LG1891	7139	The woods, the stalwart trees, the slender, tapering trees,
LG1891	7140	The liliput countless armies of the grass,
LG1891	7141	The heat, the showers, the measureless pasturages,
LG1891	7142	The scenery of the snows, the winds' free orchestra,
LG1891	7143	The stretching light-hung roof of clouds, the clear cerulean and the silvery fringes,
LG1891	7144	The high dilating stars, the placid beckoning stars,
LG1891	7145	The moving flocks and herds, the plains and emerald meadows,
LG1891	7146	The shows of all the varied lands and all the growths and products.
LG1891	7147	Fecund America—to-day,
LG1891	7148	Thou art all over set in births and joys!
LG1891	7149	Thou groan'st with riches, thy wealth clothes thee as a swathing-garmentswathing-garment,
LG1891	7150	Thou laughest loud with ache of great possessions,
LG1891	7151	A myriad-twining life like interlacing vines binds all thy vast demesne,
LG1891	7152	As some huge ship freighted to water's edge thou ridest into port,
LG1891	7153	As rain falls from the heaven and vapors rise from earth, so have the precious values fallen upon thee and risen out of thee;
LG1891	7154	Thou envy of the globe! thou miracle!
LG1891	7155	Thou, bathed, choked, swimming in plenty,
LG1891	7156	Thou lucky Mistress of the tranquil barns,
LG1891	7157	Thou Prairie Dame that sittest in the middle and lookest out upon thy world, and lookest East and lookest West,
LG1891	7158	Dispensatress, that by a word givest a thousand miles, a million farms, and missest nothing,
LG1891	7159	Thou all-acceptress—thou hospitable, (thou only art hospitable as God is hospitable.)
LG1891	7160	When late I sang sad was my voice,
LG1891	7161	Sad were the shows around me with deafening noises of hatred and smoke of war;
LG1891	7162	In the midst of the conflict, the heroes, I stood,
LG1891	7163	Or pass'd with slow step through the wounded and dying.
LG1891	7164	But now I sing not war,
LG1891	7165	Nor the measur'd march of soldiers, nor the tents of camps,
LG1891	7166	Nor the regiments hastily coming up deploying in line of battle;
LG1891	7167	No more the sad, unnatural shows of war.
LG1891	7168	Ask'd room those flush'd immortal ranks, the first forth-stepping armies?
LG1891	7169	Ask room alas the ghastly ranks, the armies dread that follow'd.
LG1891	7170	(Pass, pass, ye proud brigades, with your tramping sinewy legs,
LG1891	7171	With your shoulders young and strong, with your knapsacks and your muskets;
LG1891	7172	How elate I stood and watch'd you, where starting off you march'd.
LG1891	7173	Pass—then rattle drums again,
LG1891	7174	For an army heaves in sight, O another gathering army,
LG1891	7175	Swarming, trailing on the rear, O you dread accruing army,
LG1891	7176	O you regiments so piteous, with your mortal diarrhoea, with your fever,
LG1891	7177	O my land's maim'd darlings, with the plenteous bloody bandage and the crutch,
LG1891	7178	Lo, your pallid army follows.)
LG1891	7179	But on these days of brightness,
LG1891	7180	On the far-stretching beauteous landscape, the roads and lanes, the high-piled farm-wagons, and the fruits and barns,
LG1891	7181	Should the dead intrude?
LG1891	7182	Ah the dead to me mar not, they fit well in Nature,
LG1891	7183	They fit very well in the landscape under the trees and grass,
LG1891	7184	And along the edge of the sky in the horizon's far margin.
LG1891	7185	Nor do I forget you Departed,
LG1891	7186	Nor in winter or summer my lost ones,
LG1891	7187	But most in the open air as now when my soul is rapt and at peace, like pleasing phantoms,
LG1891	7188	Your memories rising glide silently by me.
LG1891	7189	I saw the day the return of the heroes,
LG1891	7190	(Yet the heroes never surpass'd shall never return,
LG1891	7191	Them that day I saw not.)
LG1891	7192	I saw the interminable corps, I saw the processions of armies,
LG1891	7193	I saw them approaching, defiling by with divisions,
LG1891	7194	Streaming northward, their work done, camping awhile in clusters of mighty camps.
LG1891	7195	No holiday soldiers—youthful, yet veterans,
LG1891	7196	Worn, swart, handsome, strong, of the stock of homestead and workshop,
LG1891	7197	Harden'd of many a long campaign and sweaty march,
LG1891	7198	Inured on many a hard-fought bloody field.
LG1891	7199	A pause—the armies wait,
LG1891	7200	A million flush'd embattled conquerors wait,
LG1891	7201	The world too waits, then soft as breaking night and sure as dawn,
LG1891	7202	They melt, they disappear.
LG1891	7203	Exult O lands! victorious lands!
LG1891	7204	Not there your victory on those red shuddering fields,
LG1891	7205	But here and hence your victory.
LG1891	7206	Melt, melt away ye armies—disperse ye blue-clad soldiers,
LG1891	7207	Resolve ye back again, give up for good your deadly arms,
LG1891	7208	Other the arms the fields henceforth for you, or South or North,
LG1891	7209	With saner wars, sweet wars, life-giving wars.
LG1891	7210	Loud O my throat, and clear O soul!
LG1891	7211	The season of thanks and the voice of full-yielding,
LG1891	7212	The chant of joy and power for boundless fertility.
LG1891	7213	All till'd and untill'd fields expand before me,
LG1891	7214	I see the true arenas of my race, or first or last,
LG1891	7215	Man's innocent and strong arenas.
LG1891	7216	I see the heroes at other toils,
LG1891	7217	I see well-wielded in their hands the better weapons.
LG1891	7218	I see where the Mother of All,
LG1891	7219	With full-spanning eye gazes forth, dwells long,
LG1891	7220	And counts the varied gathering of the products.
LG1891	7221	Busy the far, the sunlit panorama,
LG1891	7222	Prairie, orchard, and yellow grain of the North,
LG1891	7223	Cotton and rice of the South and Louisianian cane,
LG1891	7224	Open unseeded fallows, rich fields of clover and timothy,
LG1891	7225	Kine and horses feeding, and droves of sheep and swine,
LG1891	7226	And many a stately river flowing and many a jocund brook,
LG1891	7227	And healthy uplands with herby-perfumed breezes,
LG1891	7228	And the good green grass, that delicate miracle the ever-recurring grass.
LG1891	7229	Toil on heroes! harvest the products!
LG1891	7230	Not alone on those warlike fields the Mother of All,
LG1891	7231	With dilated form and lambent eyes watch'd you.
LG1891	7232	Toil on heroes! toil well! handle the weapons well!
LG1891	7233	The Mother of All, yet here as ever she watches you.
LG1891	7234	Well-pleased America thou beholdest,
LG1891	7235	Over the fields of the West those crawling monsters,
LG1891	7236	The human-divine inventions, the labor-saving implements;
LG1891	7237	Beholdest moving in every direction imbued as with life the revolving hay-rakes,
LG1891	7238	The steam-power reaping-machines and the horse-power machines,
LG1891	7239	The engines, thrashers of grain and cleaners of grain, well sepa-ratingseparating the straw, the nimble work of the patent pitchfork,
LG1891	7240	Beholdest the newer saw-mill, the southern cotton-gin, and the rice-cleanser.
LG1891	7241	Beneath thy look O Maternal,
LG1891	7242	With these and else and with their own strong hands the heroes harvest.
LG1891	7243	All gather and all harvest,
LG1891	7244	Yet but for thee O Powerful, not a scythe might swing as now in security,
LG1891	7245	Not a maize-stalk dangle as now its silken tassels in peace.
LG1891	7246	Under thee only they harvest, even but a wisp of hay under thy great face only,
LG1891	7247	Harvest the wheat of Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin, every barbed spear under thee,
LG1891	7248	Harvest the maize of Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, each ear in its light-green sheath,
LG1891	7249	Gather the hay to its myriad mows in the odorous tranquil barns,
LG1891	7250	Oats to their bins, the white potato, the buckwheat of Michigan, to theirs;
LG1891	7251	Gather the cotton in Mississippi or Alabama, dig and hoard the golden the sweet potato of Georgia and the Carolinas,
LG1891	7252	Clip the wool of California or Pennsylvania,
LG1891	7253	Cut the flax in the Middle States, or hemp or tobacco in the Borders,
LG1891	7254	Pick the pea and the bean, or pull apples from the trees or bunches of grapes from the vines,
LG1891	7255	Or aught that ripens in all these States or North or South,
LG1891	7256	Under the beaming sun and under thee.
LG1891	7257	THERE was a child went forth every day,
LG1891	7258	And the first object he look'd upon, that object he became,
LG1891	7259	And that object became part of him for the day or a certain part of the day,
LG1891	7260	Or for many years or stretching cycles of years.
LG1891	7261	The early lilacs became part of this child,
LG1891	7262	And grass and white and red morning-glories, and white and red clover, and the song of the phoebe-bird,
LG1891	7263	And the Third-month lambs and the sow's pink-faint litter, and the mare's foal and the cow's calf,
LG1891	7264	And the noisy brood of the barnyard or by the mire of the pond-sidepondside,
LG1891	7265	And the fish suspending themselves so curiously below there, and the beautiful curious liquid,
LG1891	7266	And the water-plants with their graceful flat heads, all became part of him.
LG1891	7267	The field-sprouts of Fourth-month and Fifth-month became part of him,
LG1891	7268	Winter-grain sprouts and those of the light-yellow corn, and the esculent roots of the garden,
LG1891	7269	And the apple-trees cover'd with blossoms and the fruit afterward,and wood-berries, and the commonest weeds by the road,
LG1891	7270	And the old drunkard staggering home from the outhouse of the tavern whence he had lately risen,
LG1891	7271	And the schoolmistress that pass'd on her way to the school,
LG1891	7272	And the friendly boys that pass'd, and the quarrelsome boys,
LG1891	7273	And the tidy and fresh-cheek'd girls, and the barefoot negro boy and girl,
LG1891	7274	And all the changes of city and country wherever he went.
LG1891	7275	His own parents, he that had father'd him and she that had con-ceiv'dconceiv'd him in her womb and birth'd him,
LG1891	7276	They gave this child more of themselves than that,
LG1891	7277	They gave him afterward every day, they became part of him.
LG1891	7278	The mother at home quietly placing the dishes on the supper-tablesuppertable,
LG1891	7279	The mother with mild words, clean her cap and gown, a whole-somewholesome odor falling off her person and clothes as she walks by,
LG1891	7280	The father, strong, self-sufficient, manly, mean, anger'd, unjust,
LG1891	7281	The blow, the quick loud word, the tight bargain, the crafty lure,
LG1891	7282	The family usages, the language, the company, the furniture, the yearning and swelling heart,
LG1891	7283	Affection that will not be gainsay'd, the sense of what is real, the thought if after all it should prove unreal,
LG1891	7284	The doubts of day-time and the doubts of night-time, the curious whether and how,
LG1891	7285	Whether that which appears so is so, or is it all flashes and specks?
LG1891	7286	Men and women crowding fast in the streets, if they are not flashes and specks what are they?
LG1891	7287	The streets themselves and the façades of houses, and goods in the windows,
LG1891	7288	Vehicles, teams, the heavy-plank'd wharves, the huge crossing at the ferries,
LG1891	7289	The village on the highland seen from afar at sunset, the river between,
LG1891	7290	Shadows, aureola and mist, the light falling on roofs and gables of white or brown two miles off,
LG1891	7291	The schooner near by sleepily dropping down the tide, the little boat slack-tow'd astern,
LG1891	7292	The hurrying tumbling waves, quick-broken crests, slapping,
LG1891	7293	The strata of color'd clouds, the long bar of maroon-tint away solitary by itself, the spread of purity it lies motionless in,
LG1891	7294	The horizon's edge, the flying sea-crow, the fragrance of salt marsh and shore mud,
LG1891	7295	These became part of that child who went forth every day, and who now goes, and will always go forth every day.
LG1891	7296	FAR hence amid an isle of wondrous beauty,
LG1891	7297	Crouching over a grave an ancient sorrowful mother,
LG1891	7298	Once a queen, now lean and tatter'd seated on the ground,
LG1891	7299	Her old white hair drooping dishevel'd round her shoulders,
LG1891	7300	At her feet fallen an unused royal harp,
LG1891	7301	Long silent, she too long silent, mourning her shrouded hope and heir,
LG1891	7302	Of all the earth her heart most full of sorrow because most full of love.
LG1891	7303	Yet a word ancient mother,
LG1891	7304	You need crouch there no longer on the cold ground with fore-headforehead between your knees,
LG1891	7305	O you need not sit there veil'd in your old white hair so dishevel'd,
LG1891	7306	For know you the one you mourn is not in that grave,
LG1891	7307	It was an illusion, the son you love was not really dead,
LG1891	7308	The Lord is not dead, he is risen again young and strong in another country,
LG1891	7309	Even while you wept there by your fallen harp by the grave,
LG1891	7310	What you wept for was translated, pass'd from the grave,
LG1891	7311	The winds favor'd and the sea sail'd it,
LG1891	7312	And now with rosy and new blood,
LG1891	7313	Moves to-day in a new country.
LG1891	7314	BY the city dead-house by the gate,
LG1891	7315	As idly sauntering wending my way from the clangor,
LG1891	7316	I curious pause, for lo, an outcast form, a poor dead prostitute brought,
LG1891	7317	Her corpse they deposit unclaim'd, it lies on the damp brick pavement,
LG1891	7318	The divine woman, her body, I see the body, I look on it alone,
LG1891	7319	That house once full of passion and beauty, all else I notice not,
LG1891	7320	Nor stillness so cold, nor running water from faucet, nor odors morbific impress me,
LG1891	7321	But the house alone—that wondrous house—that delicate fair house—that ruin!
LG1891	7322	That immortal house more than all the rows of dwellings ever built!
LG1891	7323	Or white-domed capitol with majestic figure surmounted, or all the old high-spired cathedrals,
LG1891	7324	That little house alone more than them all—poor, desperate house!
LG1891	7325	Fair, fearful wreck—tenement of a soul—itself a soul,
LG1891	7326	Unclaim'd, avoided house—take one breath from my tremulous lips,
LG1891	7327	Take one tear dropt aside as I go for thought of you,
LG1891	7328	Dead house of love—house of madness and sin, crumbled,crush'd,
LG1891	7329	House of life, erewhile talking and laughing—but ah, poor house,dead even then,
LG1891	7330	Months, years, an echoing, garnish'd house—but dead, dead,dead.
LG1891	7331	SOMETHING startles me where I thought I was safest,
LG1891	7332	I withdraw from the still woods I loved,
LG1891	7333	I will not go now on the pastures to walk,
LG1891	7334	I will not strip the clothes from my body to meet my lover the sea,
LG1891	7335	I will not touch my flesh to the earth as to other flesh to renew me.
LG1891	7336	O how can it be that the ground itself does not sicken?
LG1891	7337	How can you be alive you growths of spring?
LG1891	7338	How can you furnish health you blood of herbs, roots, orchards, grain?
LG1891	7339	Are they not continually putting distemper'd corpses within you?
LG1891	7340	Is not every continent work'd over and over with sour dead?
LG1891	7341	Where have you disposed of their carcasses?
LG1891	7342	Those drunkards and gluttons of so many generations?
LG1891	7343	Where have you drawn off all the foul liquid and meat?
LG1891	7344	I do not see any of it upon you to-day, or perhaps I am deceiv'd,
LG1891	7345	I will run a furrow with my plough, I will press my spade through the sod and turn it up underneath,
LG1891	7346	I am sure I shall expose some of the foul meat.
LG1891	7347	Behold this compost! behold it well!
LG1891	7348	Perhaps every mite has once form'd part of a sick person—yet behold!
LG1891	7349	The grass of spring covers the prairies,
LG1891	7350	The bean bursts noiselessly through the mould in the garden,
LG1891	7351	The delicate spear of the onion pierces upward,
LG1891	7352	The apple-buds cluster together on the apple-branches,
LG1891	7353	The resurrection of the wheat appears with pale visage out of its graves,
LG1891	7354	The tinge awakes over the willow-tree and the mulberry-tree,
LG1891	7355	The he-birds carol mornings and evenings while the she-birds sit on their nests,
LG1891	7356	The young of poultry break through the hatch'd eggs,
LG1891	7357	The new-born of animals appear, the calf is dropt from the cow, the colt from the mare,
LG1891	7358	Out of its little hill faithfully rise the potato's dark green leaves,
LG1891	7359	Out of its hill rises the yellow maize-stalk, the lilacs bloom in the dooryards,
LG1891	7360	The summer growth is innocent and disdainful above all those strata of sour dead.
LG1891	7361	What chemistry!
LG1891	7362	That the winds are really not infectious,
LG1891	7363	That this is no cheat, this transparent green-wash of the sea which is so amorous after me,
LG1891	7364	That it is safe to allow it to lick my naked body all over with its tongues,
LG1891	7365	That it will not endanger me with the fevers that have deposited themselves in it,
LG1891	7366	That all is clean forever and forever,
LG1891	7367	That the cool drink from the well tastes so good,
LG1891	7368	That blackberries are so flavorous and juicy,
LG1891	7369	That the fruits of the apple-orchard and the orange-orchard, that melons, grapes, peaches, plums, will none of them poison me,
LG1891	7370	That when I recline on the grass I do not catch any disease,
LG1891	7371	Though probably every spear of grass rises out of what was once a catching disease.
LG1891	7372	Now I am terrified at the Earth, it is that calm and patient,
LG1891	7373	It grows such sweet things out of such corruptions,
LG1891	7374	It turns harmless and stainless on its axis, with such endless successions of diseas'd corpses,
LG1891	7375	It distills such exquisite winds out of such infused fetor,
LG1891	7376	It renews with such unwitting looks its prodigal, annual, sumptu-oussumptuous crops,
LG1891	7377	It gives such divine materials to men, and accepts such leavings from them at last.
LG1891	7378	COURAGE yet, my brother or my sister!
LG1891	7379	Keep on—Liberty is to be subserv'd whatever occurs;
LG1891	7380	That is nothing that is quell'd by one or two failures, or any num-bernumber of failures,
LG1891	7381	Or by the indifference or ingratitude of the people, or by any unfaithfulness,
LG1891	7382	Or the show of the tushes of power, soldiers, cannon, penal statutes.
LG1891	7383	What we believe in waits latent forever through all the continents,
LG1891	7384	Invites no one, promises nothing, sits in calmness and light, is positive and composed, knows no discouragement,
LG1891	7385	Waiting patiently, waiting its time.
LG1891	7386	(Not songs of loyalty alone are these,
LG1891	7387	But songs of insurrection also,
LG1891	7388	For I am the sworn poet of every dauntless rebel the world over,
LG1891	7389	And he going with me leaves peace and routine behind him,
LG1891	7390	And stakes his life to be lost at any moment.)
LG1891	7391	The battle rages with many a loud alarm and frequent advance and retreat,
LG1891	7392	The infidel triumphs, or supposes he triumphs,
LG1891	7393	The prison, scaffold, garroté, handcuffs, iron necklace and lead-ballsleadballs do their work,
LG1891	7394	The named and unnamed heroes pass to other spheres,
LG1891	7395	The great speakers and writers are exiled, they lie sick in distant lands,
LG1891	7396	The cause is asleep, the strongest throats are choked with their own blood,
LG1891	7397	The young men droop their eyelashes toward the ground when they meet;
LG1891	7398	But for all this Liberty has not gone out of the place, nor the infidel enter'd into full possession.
LG1891	7399	When liberty goes out of a place it is not the first to go, nor the second or third to go,
LG1891	7400	It waits for all the rest to go, it is the last.
LG1891	7401	When there are no more memories of heroes and martyrs,
LG1891	7402	And when all life and all the souls of men and women are dis-chargeddischarged from any part of the earth,
LG1891	7403	Then only shall liberty or the idea of liberty be discharged from that part of the earth,
LG1891	7404	And the infidel come into full possession.
LG1891	7405	Then courage European revolter, revoltress!
LG1891	7406	For till all ceases neither must you cease.
LG1891	7407	I do not know what you are for, (I do not know what I am for myself, nor what any thing is for,)
LG1891	7408	But I will search carefully for it even in being foil'd,
LG1891	7409	In defeat, poverty, misconception, imprisonment—for they too are great.
LG1891	7410	Did we think victory great?
LG1891	7411	So it is—but now it seems to me, when it cannot be help'd, that defeat is great,
LG1891	7412	And that death and dismay are great.
LG1891	7413	NATIONS ten thousand years before these States, and many times ten thousand years before these States,
LG1891	7414	Garner'd clusters of ages that men and women like us grew up and travel'd their course and pass'd on,
LG1891	7415	What vast-built cities, what orderly republics, what pastoral tribes and nomads,
LG1891	7416	What histories, rulers, heroes, perhaps transcending all others,
LG1891	7417	What laws, customs, wealth, arts, traditions,
LG1891	7418	What sort of marriage, what costumes, what physiology and phrenology,
LG1891	7419	What of liberty and slavery among them, what they thought of death and the soul,
LG1891	7420	Who were witty and wise, who beautiful and poetic, who brutish and undevelop'd,
LG1891	7421	Not a mark, not a record remains—and yet all remains.
LG1891	7422	O I know that those men and women were not for nothing, any more than we are for nothing,
LG1891	7423	I know that they belong to the scheme of the world every bit as much as we now belong to it.
LG1891	7424	Afar they stand, yet near to me they stand,
LG1891	7425	Some with oval countenances learn'd and calm,
LG1891	7426	Some naked and savage, some like huge collections of insects,
LG1891	7427	Some in tents, herdsmen, patriarchs, tribes, horsemen,
LG1891	7428	Some prowling through woods, some living peaceably on farms,laboring, reaping, filling barns,
LG1891	7429	Some traversing paved avenues, amid temples, palaces, factories,libraries, shows, courts, theatres, wonderful monuments.
LG1891	7430	Are those billions of men really gone?
LG1891	7431	Are those women of the old experience of the earth gone?
LG1891	7432	Do their lives, cities, arts, rest only with us?
LG1891	7433	Did they achieve nothing for good for themselves?
LG1891	7434	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,
LG1891	7435	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.
LG1891	7436	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;
LG1891	7437	Of their languages, governments, marriage, literature, products,games, wars, manners, crimes, prisons, slaves, heroes, poets,
LG1891	7438	I suspect their results curiously await in the yet unseen world,counterparts of what accrued to them in the seen world,
LG1891	7439	I suspect I shall meet them there,
LG1891	7440	I suspect I shall there find each old particular of those unnamed lands.
LG1891	7441	MANHATTAN'S streets I saunter'd pondering,
LG1891	7442	On Time, Space, Reality—on such as these, and abreast with them Prudence.
LG1891	7443	The last explanation always remains to be made about prudence,
LG1891	7444	Little and large alike drop quietly aside from the prudence that suits immortality.
LG1891	7445	The soul is of itself,
LG1891	7446	All verges to it, all has reference to what ensues,
LG1891	7447	All that a person does, says, thinks, is of consequence,
LG1891	7448	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,
LG1891	7449	But the same affects him or her onward afterward through the indirect lifetime.
LG1891	7450	The indirect is just as much as the direct,
LG1891	7451	The spirit receives from the body just as much as it gives to the body, if not more.
LG1891	7452	Not one word or deed, not venereal sore, discoloration, privacy of the onanist,
LG1891	7453	Putridity of gluttons or rum-drinkers, peculation, cunning, betrayal,murder, seduction, prostitution,
LG1891	7454	But has results beyond death as really as before death.
LG1891	7455	Charity and personal force are the only investments worth any thing.
LG1891	7456	No specification is necessary, all that a male or female does, that is vigorous, benevolent, clean, is so much profit to him or her,
LG1891	7457	In the unshakable order of the universe and through the whole scope of it forever.
LG1891	7458	Who has been wise receives interest,
LG1891	7459	Savage, felon, President, judge, farmer, sailor, mechanic, literat,young, old, it is the same,
LG1891	7460	The interest will come round—all will come round.
LG1891	7461	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,
LG1891	7462	All the brave actions of war and peace,
LG1891	7463	All help given to relatives, strangers, the poor, old, sorrowful, young children, widows, the sick, and to shunn'd persons,
LG1891	7464	All self-denial that stood steady and aloof on wrecks, and saw others fill the seats of the boats,
LG1891	7465	All offering of substance or life for the good old cause, or for a friend's sake, or opinion's sake,
LG1891	7466	All pains of enthusiasts scoff'd at by their neighbors,
LG1891	7467	All the limitless sweet love and precious suffering of mothers,
LG1891	7468	All honest men baffled in strifes recorded or unrecorded,
LG1891	7469	All the grandeur and good of ancient nations whose fragments we inherit,
LG1891	7470	All the good of the dozens of ancient nations unknown to us by name, date, location,
LG1891	7471	All that was ever manfully begun, whether it succeeded or no,
LG1891	7472	All suggestions of the divine mind of man or the divinity of his mouth, or the shaping of his great hands,
LG1891	7473	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,
LG1891	7474	All that is henceforth to be thought or done by you whoever you are, or by any one,
LG1891	7475	These inure, have inured, shall inure, to the identities from which they sprang, or shall spring.
LG1891	7476	Did you guess any thing lived only its moment?
LG1891	7477	The world does not so exist, no parts palpable or impalpable so exist,
LG1891	7478	No consummation exists without being from some long previous consummation, and that from some other,
LG1891	7479	Without the farthest conceivable one coming a bit nearer the beginning than any.
LG1891	7480	Whatever satisfies souls is true;
LG1891	7481	Prudence entirely satisfies the craving and glut of souls,
LG1891	7482	Itself only finally satisfies the soul,
LG1891	7483	The soul has that measureless pride which revolts from every lesson but its own.
LG1891	7484	Now I breathe the word of the prudence that walks abreast with time, space, reality,
LG1891	7485	That answers the pride which refuses every lesson but its own.
LG1891	7486	What is prudence is indivisible,
LG1891	7487	Declines to separate one part of life from every part,
LG1891	7488	Divides not the righteous from the unrighteous or the living from the dead,
LG1891	7489	Matches every thought or act by its correlative,
LG1891	7490	Knows no possible forgiveness or deputed atonement,
LG1891	7491	Knows that the young man who composedly peril'd his life and lost it has done exceedingly well for himself without doubt,
LG1891	7492	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,
LG1891	7493	Knows that only that person has really learn'd who has learn'd to prefer results,
LG1891	7494	Who favors body and soul the same,
LG1891	7495	Who perceives the indirect assuredly following the direct,
LG1891	7496	Who in his spirit in any emergency whatever neither hurries nor avoids death.
LG1891	7497	O sight of pity, shame and dole!
LG1891	7498	O fearful thought—a convict soul.
LG1891	7499	RANG the refrain along the hall, the prison,
LG1891	7500	Rose to the roof, the vaults of heaven above,
LG1891	7501	Pouring in floods of melody in tones so pensive sweet and strong the like whereof was never heard,
LG1891	7502	Reaching the far-off sentry and the armed guards, who ceas'd their pacing,
LG1891	7503	Making the hearer's pulses stop for ecstasy and awe.
LG1891	7504	The sun was low in the west one winter day,
LG1891	7505	When down a narrow aisle amid the thieves and outlaws of the land,
LG1891	7506	(There by the hundreds seated, sear-faced murderers, wily counter-feiterscounterfeiters,
LG1891	7507	Gather'd to Sunday church in prison walls, the keepers round,
LG1891	7508	Plenteous, well-armed, watching with vigilant eyes,)
LG1891	7509	Calmly a lady walk'd holding a little innocent child by either hand,
LG1891	7510	Whom seating on their stools beside her on the platform,
LG1891	7511	She, first preluding with the instrument a low and musical prelude,
LG1891	7512	In voice surpassing all, sang forth a quaint old hymn.
LG1891	7513	A soul confined by bars and bands,
LG1891	7514	Cries, help! O help! and wrings her hands,
LG1891	7515	Blinded her eyes, bleeding her breast,
LG1891	7516	Nor pardon finds, nor balm of rest.
LG1891	7517	Ceaseless she paces to and fro,
LG1891	7518	O heart-sick days! O nights of woe!
LG1891	7519	Nor hand of friend, nor loving face,
LG1891	7520	Nor favor comes, nor word of grace.
LG1891	7521	It was not I that sinn'd the sin,
LG1891	7522	The ruthless body dragg'd me in;
LG1891	7523	Though long I strove courageously,
LG1891	7524	The body was too much for me.
LG1891	7525	Dear prison'd soul bear up a space,
LG1891	7526	For soon or late the certain grace;
LG1891	7527	To set thee free and bear thee home,
LG1891	7528	The heavenly pardoner death shall come.
LG1891	7529	Convict no more, nor shame, nor dole!
LG1891	7530	Depart—a God-enfranchis'd soul!
LG1891	7531	The singer ceas'd,
LG1891	7532	One glance swept from her clear calm eyes o'er all those upturn'd faces,
LG1891	7533	Strange sea of prison faces, a thousand varied, crafty, brutal, seam'd and beauteous faces,
LG1891	7534	Then rising, passing back along the narrow aisle between them,
LG1891	7535	While her gown touch'd them rustling in the silence,
LG1891	7536	She vanish'd with her children in the dusk.
LG1891	7537	While upon all, convicts and armed keepers ere they stirr'd,
LG1891	7538	(Convict forgetting prison, keeper his loaded pistol,)
LG1891	7539	A hush and pause fell down a wondrous minute,
LG1891	7540	With deep half-stifled sobs and sound of bad men bow'd and moved to weeping,
LG1891	7541	And youth's convulsive breathings, memories of home,
LG1891	7542	The mother's voice in lullaby, the sister's care, the happy childhood,
LG1891	7543	The long-pent spirit rous'd to reminiscence;
LG1891	7544	A wondrous minute then—but after in the solitary night, to many, many there,
LG1891	7545	Years after, even in the hour of death, the sad refrain, the tune, the voice, the words,
LG1891	7546	Resumed, the large calm lady walks the narrow aisle,
LG1891	7547	The wailing melody again, the singer in the prison sings,
LG1891	7548	O sight of pity, shame and dole!
LG1891	7549	O fearful thought—a convict soul.
LG1891	7550	WARBLE me now for joy of lilac-time, (returning in reminiscence,)
LG1891	7551	Sort me O tongue and lips for Nature's sake, souvenirs of earliest summer,
LG1891	7552	Gather the welcome signs, (as children with pebbles or stringing shells,)
LG1891	7553	Put in April and May, the hylas croaking in the ponds, the elastic air,
LG1891	7554	Bees, butterflies, the sparrow with its simple notes,
LG1891	7555	Blue-bird and darting swallow, nor forget the high-hole flashing his golden wings,
LG1891	7556	The tranquil sunny haze, the clinging smoke, the vapor,
LG1891	7557	Shimmer of waters with fish in them, the cerulean above,
LG1891	7558	All that is jocund and sparkling, the brooks running,
LG1891	7559	The maple woods, the crisp February days and the sugar-making,
LG1891	7560	The robin where he hops, bright-eyed, brown-breasted,
LG1891	7561	With musical clear call at sunrise, and again at sunset,
LG1891	7562	Or flitting among the trees of the apple-orchard, building the nest of his mate,
LG1891	7563	The melted snow of March, the willow sending forth its yellow-greenyellow-green sprouts,
LG1891	7564	For spring-time is here! the summer is here! and what is this in it and from it?
LG1891	7565	Thou, soul, unloosen'd—the restlessness after I know not what;
LG1891	7566	Come, let us lag here no longer, let us be up and away!
LG1891	7567	O if one could but fly like a bird!
LG1891	7568	O to escape, to sail forth as in a ship!
LG1891	7569	To glide with thee O soul, o'er all, in all, as a ship o'er the waters;
LG1891	7570	Gathering these hints, the preludes, the blue sky, the grass, the morning drops of dew,
LG1891	7571	The lilac-scent, the bushes with dark green heart-shaped leaves,
LG1891	7572	Wood-violets, the little delicate pale blossoms called innocence,
LG1891	7573	Samples and sorts not for themselves alone, but for their atmos-phereatmosphere,
LG1891	7574	To grace the bush I love—to sing with the birds,
LG1891	7575	A warble for joy of lilac-time, returning in reminiscence.
LG1891	7576	WHAT may we chant, O thou within this tomb?
LG1891	7577	What tablets, outlines, hang for thee, O millionnaire?
LG1891	7578	The life thou lived'st we know not,
LG1891	7579	But that thou walk'dst thy years in barter, 'mid the haunts of brokers,
LG1891	7580	Nor heroism thine, nor war, nor glory.
LG1891	7581	Silent, my soul,
LG1891	7582	With drooping lids, as waiting, ponder'd,
LG1891	7583	Turning from all the samples, monuments of heroes.
LG1891	7584	While through the interior vistas,
LG1891	7585	Noiseless uprose, phantasmic, (as by night Auroras of the north,)
LG1891	7586	Lambent tableaus, prophetic, bodiless scenes,
LG1891	7587	Spiritual projections.
LG1891	7588	In one, among the city streets a laborer's home appear'd,
LG1891	7589	After his day's work done, cleanly, sweet-air'd, the gaslight burning,
LG1891	7590	The carpet swept and a fire in the cheerful stove.
LG1891	7591	In one, the sacred parturition scene,
LG1891	7592	A happy painless mother birth'd a perfect child.
LG1891	7593	In one, at a bounteous morning meal,
LG1891	7594	Sat peaceful parents with contented sons.
LG1891	7595	In one, by twos and threes, young people,
LG1891	7596	Hundreds concentring, walk'd the paths and streets and roads,
LG1891	7597	Toward a tall-domed school.
LG1891	7598	In one a trio beautiful,
LG1891	7599	Grandmother, loving daughter, loving daughter's daughter, sat,
LG1891	7600	Chatting and sewing.
LG1891	7601	In one, along a suite of noble rooms,
LG1891	7602	'Mid plenteous books and journals, paintings on the walls, fine statuettes,
LG1891	7603	Were groups of friendly journeymen, mechanics young and old,
LG1891	7604	Reading, conversing.
LG1891	7605	All, all the shows of laboring life,
LG1891	7606	City and country, women's, men's and children's,
LG1891	7607	Their wants provided for, hued in the sun and tinged for once with joy,
LG1891	7608	Marriage, the street, the factory, farm, the house-room, lodging-roomlodging-room,
LG1891	7609	Labor and toil, the bath, gymnasium, playground, library, college,
LG1891	7610	The student, boy or girl, led forward to be taught,
LG1891	7611	The sick cared for, the shoeless shod, the orphan father'd and mother'd,
LG1891	7612	The hungry fed, the houseless housed;
LG1891	7613	(The intentions perfect and divine,
LG1891	7614	The workings, details, haply human.)
LG1891	7615	O thou within this tomb,
LG1891	7616	From thee such scenes, thou stintless, lavish giver,
LG1891	7617	Tallying the gifts of earth, large as the earth,
LG1891	7618	Thy name an earth, with mountains, fields and tides.
LG1891	7619	Nor by your streams alone, you rivers,
LG1891	7620	By you, your banks Connecticut,
LG1891	7621	By you and all your teeming life old Thames,
LG1891	7622	By you Potomac laving the ground Washington trod, by you Patapsco,
LG1891	7623	You Hudson, you endless Mississippi—nor you alone,
LG1891	7624	But to the high seas launch, my thought, his memory.
LG1891	7625	OUT from behind this bending rough-cut mask,
LG1891	7626	These lights and shades, this drama of the whole,
LG1891	7627	This common curtain of the face contain'd in me for me, in you for you, in each for each,
LG1891	7628	(Tragedies, sorrows, laughter, tears—O heaven!
LG1891	7629	The passionate teeming plays this curtain hid!)
LG1891	7630	This glaze of God's serenest purest sky,
LG1891	7631	This film of Satan's seething pit,
LG1891	7632	This heart's geography's map, this limitless small continent, this soundless sea;
LG1891	7633	Out from the convolutions of this globe,
LG1891	7634	This subtler astronomic orb than sun or moon, than Jupiter, Venus, Mars,
LG1891	7635	This condensation of the universe, (nay here the only universe,
LG1891	7636	Here the idea, all in this mystic handful wrapt;)
LG1891	7637	These burin'd eyes, flashing to you to pass to future time,
LG1891	7638	To launch and spin through space revolving sideling, from these to emanate,
LG1891	7639	To you whoe'er you are—a look.
LG1891	7640	A traveler of thoughts and years, of peace and war,
LG1891	7641	Of youth long sped and middle age declining,
LG1891	7642	(As the first volume of a tale perused and laid away, and this the second,
LG1891	7643	Songs, ventures, speculations, presently to close,)
LG1891	7644	Lingering a moment here and now, to you I opposite turn,
LG1891	7645	As on the road or at some crevice door by chance, or open'd win-dowwindow,
LG1891	7646	Pausing, inclining, baring my head, you specially I greet,
LG1891	7647	To draw and clinch your soul for once inseparably with mine,
LG1891	7648	Then travel travel on.
LG1891	7649	VOCALISM, measure, concentration, determination, and the divine power to speak words;
LG1891	7650	Are you full-lung'd and limber-lipp'd from long trial? from vigor-ousvigorous practice? from physique?
LG1891	7651	Do you move in these broad lands as broad as they?
LG1891	7652	Come duly to the divine power to speak words?
LG1891	7653	For only at last after many years, after chastity, friendship, procrea-tionprocreation, prudence, and nakedness,
LG1891	7654	After treading ground and breasting river and lake,
LG1891	7655	After a loosen'd throat, after absorbing eras, temperaments, races, after knowledge, freedom, crimes,
LG1891	7656	After complete faith, after clarifyings, elevations, and removing obstructions,
LG1891	7657	After these and more, it is just possible there comes to a man, a woman, the divine power to speak words;
LG1891	7658	Then toward that man or that woman swiftly hasten all—none refuse, all attend,
LG1891	7659	Armies, ships, antiquities, libraries, paintings, machines, cities, hate, despair, amity, pain, theft, murder, aspiration, form in close ranks,
LG1891	7660	They debouch as they are wanted to march obediently through the mouth of that man or that woman.
LG1891	7661	O what is it in me that makes me tremble so at voices?
LG1891	7662	Surely whoever speaks to me in the right voice, him or her I shall follow,
LG1891	7663	As the water follows the moon, silently, with fluid steps, anywhere around the globe.
LG1891	7664	All waits for the right voices;
LG1891	7665	Where is the practis'd and perfect organ? where is the develop'd soul?
LG1891	7666	For I see every word utter'd thence has deeper, sweeter, new sounds, impossible on less terms.
LG1891	7667	I see brains and lips closed, tympans and temples unstruck,
LG1891	7668	Until that comes which has the quality to strike and to unclose,
LG1891	7669	Until that comes which has the quality to bring forth what lies slumbering forever ready in all words.
LG1891	7670	MY spirit to yours dear brother,
LG1891	7671	Do not mind because many sounding your name do not under-standunderstand you,
LG1891	7672	I do not sound your name, but I understand you,
LG1891	7673	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,
LG1891	7674	That we all labor together transmitting the same charge and suc-cessionsuccession,
LG1891	7675	We few equals indifferent of lands, indifferent of times,
LG1891	7676	We, enclosers of all continents, all castes, allowers of all theologies,
LG1891	7677	Compassionaters, perceivers, rapport of men,
LG1891	7678	We walk silent among disputes and assertions, but reject not the disputers nor any thing that is asserted,
LG1891	7679	We hear the bawling and din, we are reach'd at by divisions, jeal-ousiesjealousies, recriminations on every side,
LG1891	7680	They close peremptorily upon us to surround us, my comrade,
LG1891	7681	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,
LG1891	7682	Till we saturate time and eras, that the men and women of races,ages to come, may prove brethren and lovers as we are.
LG1891	7683	YOU felons on trial in courts,
LG1891	7684	You convicts in prison-cells, you sentenced assassins chain'd and handcuff'd with iron,
LG1891	7685	Who am I too that I am not on trial or in prison?
LG1891	7686	Me ruthless and devilish as any, that my wrists are not chain'd with iron, or my ankles with iron?
LG1891	7687	You prostitutes flaunting over the trottoirs or obscene in your rooms,
LG1891	7688	Who am I that I should call you more obscene than myself?
LG1891	7689	O culpable! I acknowledge—I exposé!
LG1891	7690	(O admirers, praise not me—compliment not me—you make me wince,
LG1891	7691	I see what you do not—I know what you do not.)
LG1891	7692	Inside these breast-bones I lie smutch'd and choked,
LG1891	7693	Beneath this face that appears so impassive hell's tides continually run,
LG1891	7694	Lusts and wickedness are acceptable to me,
LG1891	7695	I walk with delinquents with passionate love,
LG1891	7696	I feel I am of them—I belong to those convicts and prostitutes myself,
LG1891	7697	And henceforth I will not deny them—for how can I deny myself?
LG1891	7698	LAWS for creations,
LG1891	7699	For strong artists and leaders, for fresh broods of teachers and perfect literats for America,
LG1891	7700	For noble savans and coming musicians.
LG1891	7701	All must have reference to the ensemble of the world, and the compact truth of the world,
LG1891	7702	There shall be no subject too pronounced—all works shall illus-trateillustrate the divine law of indirections.
LG1891	7703	What do you suppose creation is?
LG1891	7704	What do you suppose will satisfy the soul, except to walk free and own no superior?
LG1891	7705	What do you suppose I would intimate to you in a hundred ways,but that man or woman is as good as God?
LG1891	7706	And that there is no God any more divine than Yourself?
LG1891	7707	And that that is what the oldest and newest myths finally mean?
LG1891	7708	And that you or any one must approach creations through such laws?
LG1891	7709	BE composed—be at ease with me—I am Walt Whitman, liberal and lusty as Nature,
LG1891	7710	Not till the sun excludes you do I exclude you,
LG1891	7711	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.
LG1891	7712	My girl I appoint with you an appointment, and I charge you that you make preparation to be worthy to meet me,
LG1891	7713	And I charge you that you be patient and perfect till I come.
LG1891	7714	Till then I salute you with a significant look that you do not forget me.
LG1891	7715	I WAS looking a long while for Intentions,
LG1891	7716	For a clew to the history of the past for myself, and for these chants—and now I have found it,
LG1891	7717	It is not in those paged fables in the libraries, (them I neither accept nor reject,)
LG1891	7718	It is no more in the legends than in all else,
LG1891	7719	It is in the present—it is this earth to-day,
LG1891	7720	It is in Democracy—(the purport and aim of all the past,)
LG1891	7721	It is the life of one man or one woman to-day—the average man of to-day,
LG1891	7722	It is in languages, social customs, literatures, arts,
LG1891	7723	It is in the broad show of artificial things, ships, machinery, poli-ticspolitics, creeds, modern improvements, and the interchange of nations,
LG1891	7724	All for the modern—all for the average man of to-day.
LG1891	7725	OF persons arrived at high positions, ceremonies, wealth, scholar-shipsscholarships, and the like;
LG1891	7726	(To me all that those persons have arrived at sinks away from them, except as it results to their bodies and souls,
LG1891	7727	So that often to me they appear gaunt and naked,
LG1891	7728	And often to me each one mocks the others, and mocks himself or herself,
LG1891	7729	And of each one the core of life, namely happiness, is full of the rotten excrement of maggots,
LG1891	7730	And often to me those men and women pass unwittingly the true realities of life, and go toward false realities,
LG1891	7731	And often to me they are alive after what custom has served them,but nothing more,
LG1891	7732	And often to me they are sad, hasty, unwaked sonnambules walk-ingwalking the dusk.)
LG1891	7733	WHY, who makes much of a miracle?
LG1891	7734	As to me I know of nothing else but miracles,
LG1891	7735	Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
LG1891	7736	Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
LG1891	7737	Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of the water,
LG1891	7738	Or stand under trees in the woods,
LG1891	7739	Or talk by day with any one I love, or sleep in the bed at night with any one I love,
LG1891	7740	Or sit at table at dinner with the rest,
LG1891	7741	Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,
LG1891	7742	Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive of a summer forenoon,
LG1891	7743	Or animals feeding in the fields,
LG1891	7744	Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,
LG1891	7745	Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining so quiet and bright,
LG1891	7746	Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring;
LG1891	7747	These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,
LG1891	7748	The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place.
LG1891	7749	To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
LG1891	7750	Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
LG1891	7751	Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same,
LG1891	7752	Every foot of the interior swarms with the same.
LG1891	7753	To me the sea is a continual miracle,
LG1891	7754	The fishes that swim—the rocks—the motion of the waves—the ships with men in them,
LG1891	7755	What stranger miracles are there?
LG1891	7756	WHERE the city's ceaseless crowd moves on the livelong day,
LG1891	7757	Withdrawn I join a group of children watching, I pause aside with them.
LG1891	7758	By the curb toward the edge of the flagging,
LG1891	7759	A knife-grinder works at his wheel sharpening a great knife,
LG1891	7760	Bending over he carefully holds it to the stone, by foot and knee,
LG1891	7761	With measur'd tread he turns rapidly, as he presses with light but firm hand,
LG1891	7762	Forth issue then in copious golden jets,
LG1891	7763	Sparkles from the wheel.
LG1891	7764	The scene and all its belongings, how they seize and affect me,
LG1891	7765	The sad sharp-chinn'd old man with worn clothes and broad shoulder-band of leather,
LG1891	7766	Myself effusing and fluid, a phantom curiously floating, now here absorb'd and arrested,
LG1891	7767	The group, (an unminded point set in a vast surrounding,)
LG1891	7768	The attentive, quiet children, the loud, proud, restive base of the streets,
LG1891	7769	The low hoarse purr of the whirling stone, the light-press'd blade,
LG1891	7770	Diffusing, dropping, sideways-darting, in tiny showers of gold,
LG1891	7771	Sparkles from the wheel.
LG1891	7772	IS reform needed? is it through you?
LG1891	7773	The greater the reform needed, the greater the Personality you need to accomplish it.
LG1891	7774	You! do you not see how it would serve to have eyes, blood,complexion, clean and sweet?
LG1891	7775	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?
LG1891	7776	O the magnet! the flesh over and over!
LG1891	7777	Go, dear friend, if need be give up all else, and commence to-day to inure yourself to pluck, reality, self-esteem, definiteness,elevatedness,
LG1891	7778	Rest not till you rivet and publish yourself of your own Personality.
LG1891	7779	UNFOLDED out of the folds of the woman man comes unfolded,and is always to come unfolded,
LG1891	7780	Unfolded only out of the superbest woman of the earth is to come the superbest man of the earth,
LG1891	7781	Unfolded out of the friendliest woman is to come the friendliest man,
LG1891	7782	Unfolded only out of the perfect body of a woman can a man be form'd of perfect body,
LG1891	7783	Unfolded only out of the inimitable poems of woman can come the poems of man, (only thence have my poems come;)
LG1891	7784	Unfolded out of the strong and arrogant woman I love, only thence can appear the strong and arrogant man I love,
LG1891	7785	Unfolded by brawny embraces from the well-muscled woman I love, only thence come the brawny embraces of the man,
LG1891	7786	Unfolded out of the folds of the woman's brain come all the folds of the man's brain, duly obedient,
LG1891	7787	Unfolded out of the justice of the woman all justice is unfolded,
LG1891	7788	Unfolded out of the sympathy of the woman is all sympathy;
LG1891	7789	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;
LG1891	7790	First the man is shaped in the woman, he can then be shaped in himself.
LG1891	7791	WHAT am I after all but a child, pleas'd with the sound of my own name? repeating it over and over;
LG1891	7792	I stand apart to hear—it never tires me.
LG1891	7793	To you your name also;
LG1891	7794	Did you think there was nothing but two or three pronunciations in the sound of your name?
LG1891	7795	WHO includes diversity and is Nature,
LG1891	7796	Who is the amplitude of the earth, and the coarseness and sex-ualitysexuality of the earth, and the great charity of the earth, and the equilibrium also,
LG1891	7797	Who has not look'd forth from the windows the eyes for nothing,or whose brain held audience with messengers for nothing,
LG1891	7798	Who contains believers and disbelievers, who is the most majestic lover,
LG1891	7799	Who holds duly his or her triune proportion of realism, spiritualism,and of the aesthetic or intellectual,
LG1891	7800	Who having consider'd the body finds all its organs and parts good,
LG1891	7801	Who, out of the theory of the earth and of his or her body under-standsunderstands by subtle analogies all other theories,
LG1891	7802	The theory of a city, a poem, and of the large politics of these States;
LG1891	7803	Who believes not only in our globe with its sun and moon, but in other globes with their suns and moons,
LG1891	7804	Who, constructing the house of himself or herself, not for a day but for all time, sees races, eras, dates, generations,
LG1891	7805	The past, the future, dwelling there, like space, inseparable to-gethertogether.
LG1891	7806	OTHERS may praise what they like;
LG1891	7807	But I, from the banks of the running Missouri, praise nothing in art or aught else,
LG1891	7808	Till it has well inhaled the atmosphere of this river, also the western prairie-scent,
LG1891	7809	And exudes it all again.
LG1891	7810	WHO learns my lesson complete?
LG1891	7811	Boss, journeyman, apprentice, churchman and atheist,
LG1891	7812	The stupid and the wise thinker, parents and offspring, merchant,clerk, porter and customer,
LG1891	7813	Editor, author, artist, and schoolboy—draw nigh and commence;
LG1891	7814	It is no lesson—it lets down the bars to a good lesson,
LG1891	7815	And that to another, and every one to another still.
LG1891	7816	The great laws take and effuse without argument,
LG1891	7817	I am of the same style, for I am their friend,
LG1891	7818	I love them quits and quits, I do not halt and make salaams.
LG1891	7819	I lie abstracted and hear beautiful tales of things and the reasons of things,
LG1891	7820	They are so beautiful I nudge myself to listen.
LG1891	7821	I cannot say to any person what I hear—I cannot say it to myself —it is very wonderful.
LG1891	7822	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,
LG1891	7823	I do not think it was made in six days, nor in ten thousand years,nor ten billions of years,
LG1891	7824	Nor plann'd and built one thing after another as an architect plans and builds a house.
LG1891	7825	I do not think seventy years is the time of a man or woman,
LG1891	7826	Nor that seventy millions of years is the time of a man or woman,
LG1891	7827	Nor that years will ever stop the existence of me, or any one else.
LG1891	7828	Is it wonderful that I should be immortal? as every one is im-mortalimmortal;
LG1891	7829	I know it is wonderful, but my eyesight is equally wonderful, and how I was conceived in my mother's womb is equally wonderful,
LG1891	7830	And pass'd from a babe in the creeping trance of a couple of summers and winters to articulate and walk—all this is equally wonderful.
LG1891	7831	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.
LG1891	7832	And that I can think such thoughts as these is just as wonderful,
LG1891	7833	And that I can remind you, and you think them and know them to be true, is just as wonderful.
LG1891	7834	And that the moon spins round the earth and on with the earth, is equally wonderful,
LG1891	7835	And that they balance themselves with the sun and stars is equally wonderful.
LG1891	7836	ALL submit to them where they sit, inner, secure, unapproachable to analysis in the soul,
LG1891	7837	Not traditions, not the outer authorities are the judges,
LG1891	7838	They are the judges of outer authorities and of all traditions,
LG1891	7839	They corroborate as they go only whatever corroborates them-selvesthemselves, and touches themselves;
LG1891	7840	For all that, they have it forever in themselves to corroborate far and near without one exception.
LG1891	7841	ON my Northwest coast in the midst of the night a fishermen's group stands watching,
LG1891	7842	Out on the lake that expands before them, others are spearing salmon,
LG1891	7843	The canoe, a dim shadowy thing, moves across the black water,
LG1891	7844	Bearing a torch ablaze at the prow.
LG1891	7845	O STAR of France,
LG1891	7846	The brightness of thy hope and strength and fame,
LG1891	7847	Like some proud ship that led the fleet so long,
LG1891	7848	Beseems to-day a wreck driven by the gale, a mastless hulk,
LG1891	7849	And 'mid its teeming madden'd half-drown'd crowds,
LG1891	7850	Nor helm nor helmsman.
LG1891	7851	Dim smitten star,
LG1891	7852	Orb not of France alone, pale symbol of my soul, its dearest hopes,
LG1891	7853	The struggle and the daring, rage divine for liberty,
LG1891	7854	Of aspirations toward the far ideal, enthusiast's dreams of brother-hoodbrotherhood,
LG1891	7855	Of terror to the tyrant and the priest.
LG1891	7856	Star crucified—by traitors sold,
LG1891	7857	Star panting o'er a land of death, heroic land,
LG1891	7858	Strange, passionate, mocking, frivolous land.
LG1891	7859	Miserable! yet for thy errors, vanities, sins, I will not now rebuke thee,
LG1891	7860	Thy unexampled woes and pangs have quell'd them all,
LG1891	7861	And left thee sacred.
LG1891	7862	In that amid thy many faults thou ever aimedst highly,
LG1891	7863	In that thou wouldst not really sell thyself however great the price,
LG1891	7864	In that thou surely wakedst weeping from thy drugg'd sleep,
LG1891	7865	In that alone among thy sisters thou, giantess, didst rend the ones that shamed thee,
LG1891	7866	In that thou couldst not, wouldst not, wear the usual chains,
LG1891	7867	This cross, thy livid face, thy pierced hands and feet,
LG1891	7868	The spear thrust in thy side.
LG1891	7869	O star! O ship of France, beat back and baffled long!
LG1891	7870	Bear up O smitten orb! O ship continue on!
LG1891	7871	Sure as the ship of all, the Earth itself,
LG1891	7872	Product of deathly fire and turbulent chaos,
LG1891	7873	Forth from its spasms of fury and its poisons,
LG1891	7874	Issuing at last in perfect power and beauty,
LG1891	7875	Onward beneath the sun following its course,
LG1891	7876	So thee O ship of France!
LG1891	7877	Finish'd the days, the clouds dispel'd,
LG1891	7878	The travail o'er, the long-sought extrication,
LG1891	7879	When lo! reborn, high o'er the European world,
LG1891	7880	(In gladness answering thence, as face afar to face, reflecting ours Columbia,)
LG1891	7881	Again thy star O France, fair lustrous star,
LG1891	7882	In heavenly peace, clearer, more bright than ever,
LG1891	7883	Shall beam immortal.
LG1891	7884	IN a far-away northern county in the placid pastoral region,
LG1891	7885	Lives my farmer friend, the theme of my recitative, a famous tamer of oxen,
LG1891	7886	There they bring him the three-year-olds and the four-year-olds to break them,
LG1891	7887	He will take the wildest steer in the world and break him and tame him,
LG1891	7888	He will go fearless without any whip where the young bullock chafes up and down the yard,
LG1891	7889	The bullock's head tosses restless high in the air with raging eyes,
LG1891	7890	Yet see you! how soon his rage subsides—how soon this tamer tames him;
LG1891	7891	See you! on the farms hereabout a hundred oxen young and old,and he is the man who has tamed them,
LG1891	7892	They all know him, all are affectionate to him;
LG1891	7893	See you! some are such beautiful animals, so lofty looking;
LG1891	7894	Some are buff-color'd, some mottled, one has a white line running along his back, some are brindled,
LG1891	7895	Some have wide flaring horns (a good sign)—see you! the bright hides,
LG1891	7896	See, the two with stars on their foreheads—see, the round bodies and broad backs,
LG1891	7897	How straight and square they stand on their legs—what fine sagacious eyes!
LG1891	7898	How they watch their tamer—they wish him near them—how they turn to look after him!
LG1891	7899	What yearning expression! how uneasy they are when he moves away from them;
LG1891	7900	Now I marvel what it can be he appears to them, (books, politics,poems, depart—all else departs,)
LG1891	7901	I confess I envy only his fascination—my silent, illiterate friend,
LG1891	7902	Whom a hundred oxen love there in his life on farms,
LG1891	7903	In the northern county far, in the placid pastoral region.
LG1891	7904	AN old man's thought of school,
LG1891	7905	An old man gathering youthful memories and blooms that youth itself cannot.
LG1891	7906	Now only do I know you,
LG1891	7907	O fair auroral skies—O morning dew upon the grass!
LG1891	7908	And these I see, these sparkling eyes,
LG1891	7909	These stores of mystic meaning, these young lives,
LG1891	7910	Building, equipping like a fleet of ships, immortal ships,
LG1891	7911	Soon to sail out over the measureless seas,
LG1891	7912	On the soul's voyage.
LG1891	7913	Only a lot of boys and girls?
LG1891	7914	Only the tiresome spelling, writing, ciphering classes?
LG1891	7915	Only a public school?
LG1891	7916	Ah more, infinitely more;
LG1891	7917	(As George Fox rais'd his warning cry, "Is it this pile of brick and mortar, these dead floors, windows, rails, you call the church?
LG1891	7918	Why this is not the church at all—the church is living, ever living souls.")
LG1891	7919	And you America,
LG1891	7920	Cast you the real reckoning for your present?
LG1891	7921	The lights and shadows of your future, good or evil?
LG1891	7922	To girlhood, boyhood look, the teacher and the school.
LG1891	7923	WANDERING at morn,
LG1891	7924	Emerging from the night from gloomy thoughts, thee in my thoughts,
LG1891	7925	Yearning for thee harmonious Union! thee, singing bird divine!
LG1891	7926	Thee coil'd in evil times my country, with craft and black dismay,with every meanness, treason thrust upon thee,
LG1891	7927	This common marvel I beheld—the parent thrush I watch'd feed-ingfeeding its young,
LG1891	7928	The singing thrush whose tones of joy and faith ecstatic,
LG1891	7929	Fail not to certify and cheer my soul.
LG1891	7930	There ponder'd, felt I,
LG1891	7931	If worms, snakes, loathsome grubs, may to sweet spiritual songs be turn'd,
LG1891	7932	If vermin so transposed, so used and bless'd may be,
LG1891	7933	Then may I trust in you, your fortunes, days, my country;
LG1891	7934	Who knows but these may be the lessons fit for you?
LG1891	7935	From these your future song may rise with joyous trills,
LG1891	7936	Destin'd to fill the world.
LG1891	7937	THROUGH the soft evening air enwinding all,
LG1891	7938	Rocks, woods, fort, cannon, pacing sentries, endless wilds,
LG1891	7939	In dulcet streams, in flutes' and cornets' notes,
LG1891	7940	Electric, pensive, turbulent, artificial,
LG1891	7941	(Yet strangely fitting even here, meanings unknown before,
LG1891	7942	Subtler than ever, more harmony, as if born here, related here,
LG1891	7943	Not to the city's fresco'd rooms, not to the audience of the opera house,
LG1891	7944	Sounds, echoes, wandering strains, as really here at home,
LG1891	7945	Sonnambula's innocent love, trios with Norma's anguish,
LG1891	7946	And thy ecstatic chorus Poliuto;)
LG1891	7947	Ray'd in the limpid yellow slanting sundown,
LG1891	7948	Music, Italian music in Dakota.
LG1891	7949	While Nature, sovereign of this gnarl'd realm,
LG1891	7950	Lurking in hidden barbaric grim recesses,
LG1891	7951	Acknowledging rapport however far remov'd,
LG1891	7952	(As some old root or soil of earth its last-born flower or fruit,)
LG1891	7953	Listens well pleas'd.
LG1891	7954	WITH all thy gifts America,
LG1891	7955	Standing secure, rapidly tending, overlooking the world,
LG1891	7956	Power, wealth, extent, vouchsafed to thee—with these and like of these vouchsafed to thee,
LG1891	7957	What if one gift thou lackest? (the ultimate human problem never solving,)
LG1891	7958	The gift of perfect women fit for thee—what if that gift of gifts thou lackest?
LG1891	7959	The towering feminine of thee? the beauty, health, completion,fit for thee?
LG1891	7960	The mothers fit for thee?
LG1891	7961	IN a little house keep I pictures suspended, it is not a fix'd house,
LG1891	7962	It is round, it is only a few inches from one side to the other;
LG1891	7963	Yet behold, it has room for all the shows of the world, all memo-riesmemories!
LG1891	7964	Here the tableaus of life, and here the groupings of death;
LG1891	7965	Here, do you know this? this is cicerone himself,
LG1891	7966	With finger rais'd he points to the prodigal pictures.
LG1891	7967	A NEWER garden of creation, no primal solitude,
LG1891	7968	Dense, joyous, modern, populous millions, cities and farms,
LG1891	7969	With iron interlaced, composite, tied, many in one,
LG1891	7970	By all the world contributed—freedom's and law's and thrift's society,
LG1891	7971	The crown and teeming paradise, so far, of time's accumulations,
LG1891	7972	To justify the past.
LG1891	7973	PROUD music of the storm,
LG1891	7974	Blast that careers so free, whistling across the prairies,
LG1891	7975	Strong hum of forest tree-tops—wind of the mountains,
LG1891	7976	Personified dim shapes—you hidden orchestras,
LG1891	7977	You serenades of phantoms with instruments alert,
LG1891	7978	Blending with Nature's rhythmus all the tongues of nations;
LG1891	7979	You chords left as by vast composers—you choruses,
LG1891	7980	You formless, free, religious dances—you from the Orient,
LG1891	7981	You undertone of rivers, roar of pouring cataracts,
LG1891	7982	You sounds from distant guns with galloping cavalry,
LG1891	7983	Echoes of camps with all the different bugle-calls,
LG1891	7984	Trooping tumultuous, filling the midnight late, bending me power-lesspowerless,
LG1891	7985	Entering my lonesome slumber-chamber, why have you seiz'd me?
LG1891	7986	Come forward O my soul, and let the rest retire,
LG1891	7987	Listen, lose not, it is toward thee they tend,
LG1891	7988	Parting the midnight, entering my slumber-chamber,
LG1891	7989	For thee they sing and dance O soul.
LG1891	7990	A festival song,
LG1891	7991	The duet of the bridegroom and the bride, a marriage-march,
LG1891	7992	With lips of love, and hearts of lovers fill'd to the brim with love,
LG1891	7993	The red-flush'd cheeks and perfumes, the cortege swarming full of friendly faces young and old,
LG1891	7994	To flutes' clear notes and sounding harps' cantabile.
LG1891	7995	Now loud approaching drums,
LG1891	7996	Victoria! see'st thou in powder-smoke the banners torn but flying?the rout of the baffled?
LG1891	7997	Hearest those shouts of a conquering army?
LG1891	7998	(Ah soul, the sobs of women, the wounded groaning in agony,
LG1891	7999	The hiss and crackle of flames, the blacken'd ruins, the embers of cities,
LG1891	8000	The dirge and desolation of mankind.)
LG1891	8001	Now airs antique and mediaeval fill me,
LG1891	8002	I see and hear old harpers with their harps at Welsh festivals,
LG1891	8003	I hear the minnesingers singing their lays of love,
LG1891	8004	I hear the minstrels, gleemen, troubadours, of the middle ages.
LG1891	8005	Now the great organ sounds,
LG1891	8006	Tremulous, while underneath, (as the hid footholds of the earth,
LG1891	8007	On which arising rest, and leaping forth depend,
LG1891	8008	All shapes of beauty, grace and strength, all hues we know,
LG1891	8009	Green blades of grass and warbling birds, children that gambol and play, the clouds of heaven above,)
LG1891	8010	The strong base stands, and its pulsations intermits not,
LG1891	8011	Bathing, supporting, merging all the rest, maternity of all the rest,
LG1891	8012	And with it every instrument in multitudes,
LG1891	8013	The players playing, all the world's musicians,
LG1891	8014	The solemn hymns and masses rousing adoration,
LG1891	8015	All passionate heart-chants, sorrowful appeals,
LG1891	8016	The measureless sweet vocalists of ages,
LG1891	8017	And for their solvent setting earth's own diapason,
LG1891	8018	Of winds and woods and mighty ocean waves,
LG1891	8019	A new composite orchestra, binder of years and climes, ten-fold renewer,
LG1891	8020	As of the far-back days the poets tell, the Paradiso,
LG1891	8021	The straying thence, the separation long, but now the wandering done,
LG1891	8022	The journey done, the journeyman come home,
LG1891	8023	And man and art with Nature fused again.
LG1891	8024	Tutti! for earth and heaven;
LG1891	8025	(The Almighty leader now for once has signal'd with his wand.)
LG1891	8026	The manly strophe of the husbands of the world,
LG1891	8027	And all the wives responding.
LG1891	8028	The tongues of violins,
LG1891	8029	(I think O tongues ye tell this heart, that cannot tell itself,
LG1891	8030	This brooding yearning heart, that cannot tell itself.)
LG1891	8031	Ah from a little child,
LG1891	8032	Thou knowest soul how to me all sounds became music,
LG1891	8033	My mother's voice in lullaby or hymn,
LG1891	8034	(The voice, O tender voices, memory's loving voices,
LG1891	8035	Last miracle of all, O dearest mother's, sister's, voices;)
LG1891	8036	The rain, the growing corn, the breeze among the long-leav'd corn,
LG1891	8037	The measur'd sea-surf beating on the sand,
LG1891	8038	The twittering bird, the hawk's sharp scream,
LG1891	8039	The wild-fowl's notes at night as flying low migrating north or south,
LG1891	8040	The psalm in the country church or mid the clustering trees, the open air camp-meeting,
LG1891	8041	The fiddler in the tavern, the glee, the long-strung sailor-song,
LG1891	8042	The lowing cattle, bleating sheep, the crowing cock at dawn.
LG1891	8043	All songs of current lands come sounding round me,
LG1891	8044	The German airs of friendship, wine and love,
LG1891	8045	Irish ballads, merry jigs and dances, English warbles,
LG1891	8046	Chansons of France, Scotch tunes, and o'er the rest,
LG1891	8047	Italia's peerless compositions.
LG1891	8048	Across the stage with pallor on her face, yet lurid passion,
LG1891	8049	Stalks Norma brandishing the dagger in her hand.
LG1891	8050	I see poor crazed Lucia's eyes' unnatural gleam,
LG1891	8051	Her hair down her back falls loose and dishevel'd.
LG1891	8052	I see where Ernani walking the bridal garden,
LG1891	8053	Amid the scent of night-roses, radiant, holding his bride by the hand,
LG1891	8054	Hears the infernal call, the death-pledge of the horn.
LG1891	8055	To crossing swords and gray hairs bared to heaven,
LG1891	8056	The clear electric base and baritone of the world,
LG1891	8057	The trombone duo, Libertad forever!
LG1891	8058	From Spanish chestnut trees' dense shade,
LG1891	8059	By old and heavy convent walls a wailing song,
LG1891	8060	Song of lost love, the torch of youth and life quench'd in despair,
LG1891	8061	Song of the dying swan, Fernando's heart is breaking.
LG1891	8062	Awaking from her woes at last retriev'd Amina sings,
LG1891	8063	Copious as stars and glad as morning light the torrents of her joy.
LG1891	8064	(The teeming lady comes,
LG1891	8065	The lustrious orb, Venus contralto, the blooming mother,
LG1891	8066	Sister of loftiest gods, Alboni's self I hear.)
LG1891	8067	I hear those odes, symphonies, operas,
LG1891	8068	I hear in the William Tell the music of an arous'd and angry people,
LG1891	8069	I hear Meyerbeer's Huguenots, the Prophet, or Robert,
LG1891	8070	Gounod's Faust, or Mozart's Don Juan.
LG1891	8071	I hear the dance-music of all nations,
LG1891	8072	The waltz, some delicious measure, lapsing, bathing me in bliss,
LG1891	8073	The bolero to tinkling guitars and clattering castanets.
LG1891	8074	I see religious dances old and new,
LG1891	8075	I hear the sound of the Hebrew lyre,
LG1891	8076	I see the crusaders marching bearing the cross on high, to the martial clang of cymbals,
LG1891	8077	I hear dervishes monotonously chanting, interspers'd with frantic shouts, as they spin around turning always towards Mecca,
LG1891	8078	I see the rapt religious dances of the Persians and the Arabs,
LG1891	8079	Again, at Eleusis, home of Ceres, I see the modern Greeks dancing,
LG1891	8080	I hear them clapping their hands as they bend their bodies,
LG1891	8081	I hear the metrical shuffling of their feet.
LG1891	8082	I see again the wild old Corybantian dance, the performers wounding each other,
LG1891	8083	I see the Roman youth to the shrill sound of flageolets throwing and catching their weapons,
LG1891	8084	As they fall on their knees and rise again.
LG1891	8085	I hear from the Mussulman mosque the muezzin calling,
LG1891	8086	I see the worshippers within, nor form nor sermon, argument nor word,
LG1891	8087	But silent, strange, devout, rais'd, glowing heads, ecstatic faces.
LG1891	8088	I hear the Egyptian harp of many strings,
LG1891	8089	The primitive chants of the Nile boatmen,
LG1891	8090	The sacred imperial hymns of China,
LG1891	8091	To the delicate sounds of the king, (the stricken wood and stone,)
LG1891	8092	Or to Hindu flutes and the fretting twang of the vina,
LG1891	8093	A band of bayaderes.
LG1891	8094	Now Asia, Africa leave me, Europe seizing inflates me,
LG1891	8095	To organs huge and bands I hear as from vast concourses of voices,
LG1891	8096	Luther's strong hymn, Eine feste Burg ist unser Gott,
LG1891	8097	Rossini's Stabat Mater dolorosa,
LG1891	8098	Or floating in some high cathedral dim with gorgeous color'd windows,
LG1891	8099	The passionate Agnus Dei or Gloria in Excelsis.
LG1891	8100	Composers! mighty maestros!
LG1891	8101	And you, sweet singers of old lands, soprani, tenori, bassi!
LG1891	8102	To you a new bard caroling in the West,
LG1891	8103	Obeisant sends his love.
LG1891	8104	(Such led to thee O soul,
LG1891	8105	All senses, shows and objects, lead to thee,
LG1891	8106	But now it seems to me sound leads o'er all the rest.)
LG1891	8107	I hear the annual singing of the children in St. Paul's cathedral,
LG1891	8108	Or, under the high roof of some colossal hall, the symphonies,oratorios of Beethoven, Handel, or Haydn,
LG1891	8109	The Creation in billows of godhood laves me.
LG1891	8110	Give me to hold all sounds, (I madly struggling cry,)
LG1891	8111	Fill me with all the voices of the universe,
LG1891	8112	Endow me with their throbbings, Nature's also,
LG1891	8113	The tempests, waters, winds, operas and chants, marches and dances,
LG1891	8114	Utter, pour in, for I would take them all!
LG1891	8115	Then I woke softly,
LG1891	8116	And pausing, questioning awhile the music of my dream,
LG1891	8117	And questioning all those reminiscences, the tempest in its fury,
LG1891	8118	And all the songs of sopranos and tenors,
LG1891	8119	And those rapt oriental dances of religious fervor,
LG1891	8120	And the sweet varied instruments, and the diapason of organs,
LG1891	8121	And all the artless plaints of love and grief and death,
LG1891	8122	I said to my silent curious soul out of the bed of the slumber-chamberslumber-chamber,
LG1891	8123	Come, for I have found the clew I sought so long,
LG1891	8124	Let us go forth refresh'd amid the day,
LG1891	8125	Cheerfully tallying life, walking the world, the real,
LG1891	8126	Nourish'd henceforth by our celestial dream.
LG1891	8127	And I said, moreover,
LG1891	8128	Haply what thou hast heard O soul was not the sound of winds,
LG1891	8129	Nor dream of raging storm, nor sea-hawk's flapping wings nor harsh scream,
LG1891	8130	Nor vocalism of sun-bright Italy,
LG1891	8131	Nor German organ majestic, nor vast concourse of voices, nor layers of harmonies,
LG1891	8132	Nor strophes of husbands and wives, nor sound of marching soldiers,
LG1891	8133	Nor flutes, nor harps, nor the bugle-calls of camps,
LG1891	8134	But to a new rhythmus fitted for thee,
LG1891	8135	Poems bridging the way from Life to Death, vaguely wafted in night air, uncaught, unwritten,
LG1891	8136	Which let us go forth in the bold day and write.
LG1891	8137	SINGING my days,
LG1891	8138	Singing the great achievements of the present,
LG1891	8139	Singing the strong light works of engineers,
LG1891	8140	Our modern wonders, (the antique ponderous Seven outvied,)
LG1891	8141	In the Old World the east the Suez canal,
LG1891	8142	The New by its mighty railroad spann'd,
LG1891	8143	The seas inlaid with eloquent gentle wires;
LG1891	8144	Yet first to sound, and ever sound, the cry with thee O soul,
LG1891	8145	The Past! the Past! the Past!
LG1891	8146	The Past—the dark unfathom'd retrospect!
LG1891	8147	The teeming gulf—the sleepers and the shadows!
LG1891	8148	The past—the infinite greatness of the past!
LG1891	8149	For what is the present after all but a growth out of the past?
LG1891	8150	(As a projectile form'd, impell'd, passing a certain line, still keeps on,
LG1891	8151	So the present, utterly form'd, impell'd by the past.)
LG1891	8152	Passage O soul to India!
LG1891	8153	Eclaircise the myths Asiatic, the primitive fables.
LG1891	8154	Not you alone proud truths of the world,
LG1891	8155	Nor you alone ye facts of modern science,
LG1891	8156	But myths and fables of eld, Asia's, Africa's fables,
LG1891	8157	The far-darting beams of the spirit, the unloos'd dreams,
LG1891	8158	The deep diving bibles and legends,
LG1891	8159	The daring plots of the poets, the elder religions;
LG1891	8160	O you temples fairer than lilies pour'd over by the rising sun!
LG1891	8161	O you fables spurning the known, eluding the hold of the known,mounting to heaven!
LG1891	8162	You lofty and dazzling towers, pinnacled, red as roses, burnish'd with gold!
LG1891	8163	Towers of fables immortal fashion'd from mortal dreams!
LG1891	8164	You too I welcome and fully the same as the rest!
LG1891	8165	You too with joy I sing.
LG1891	8166	Passage to India!
LG1891	8167	Lo, soul, seest thou not God's purpose from the first?
LG1891	8168	The earth to be spann'd, connected by network,
LG1891	8169	The races, neighbors, to marry and be given in marriage,
LG1891	8170	The oceans to be cross'd, the distant brought near,
LG1891	8171	The lands to be welded together.
LG1891	8172	A worship new I sing,
LG1891	8173	You captains, voyagers, explorers, yours,
LG1891	8174	You engineers, you architects, machinists, yours,
LG1891	8175	You, not for trade or transportation only,
LG1891	8176	But in God's name, and for thy sake O soul.
LG1891	8177	Passage to India!
LG1891	8178	Lo soul for thee of tableaus twain,
LG1891	8179	I see in one the Suez canal initiated, open'd,
LG1891	8180	I see the procession of steamships, the Empress Eugenie's leading the van,
LG1891	8181	I mark from on deck the strange landscape, the pure sky, the level sand in the distance,
LG1891	8182	I pass swiftly the picturesque groups, the workmen gather'd,
LG1891	8183	The gigantic dredging machines.
LG1891	8184	In one again, different, (yet thine, all thine, O soul, the same,)
LG1891	8185	I see over my own continent the Pacific railroad surmounting every barrier,
LG1891	8186	I see continual trains of cars winding along the Platte carrying freight and passengers,
LG1891	8187	I hear the locomotives rushing and roaring, and the shrill steam-whistlesteamwhistle,
LG1891	8188	I hear the echoes reverberate through the grandest scenery in the world,
LG1891	8189	I cross the Laramie plains, I note the rocks in grotesque shapes,the buttes,
LG1891	8190	I see the plentiful larkspur and wild onions, the barren, colorless,sage-deserts,
LG1891	8191	I see in glimpses afar or towering immediately above me the great mountains, I see the Wind river and the Wahsatch mountains,
LG1891	8192	I see the Monument mountain and the Eagle's Nest, I pass the Promontory, I ascend the Nevadas,
LG1891	8193	I scan the noble Elk mountain and wind around its base,
LG1891	8194	I see the Humboldt range, I thread the valley and cross the river,
LG1891	8195	I see the clear waters of lake Tahoe, I see forests of majestic pines,
LG1891	8196	Or crossing the great desert, the alkaline plains, I behold enchant-ingenchanting mirages of waters and meadows,
LG1891	8197	Marking through these and after all, in duplicate slender lines,
LG1891	8198	Bridging the three or four thousand miles of land travel,
LG1891	8199	Tying the Eastern to the Western sea,
LG1891	8200	The road between Europe and Asia.
LG1891	8201	(Ah Genoese thy dream! thy dream!
LG1891	8202	Centuries after thou art laid in thy grave,
LG1891	8203	The shore thou foundest verifies thy dream.)
LG1891	8204	Passage to India!
LG1891	8205	Struggles of many a captain, tales of many a sailor dead,
LG1891	8206	Over my mood stealing and spreading they come,
LG1891	8207	Like clouds and cloudlets in the unreach'd sky.
LG1891	8208	Along all history, down the slopes,
LG1891	8209	As a rivulet running, sinking now, and now again to the surface rising,
LG1891	8210	A ceaseless thought, a varied train—lo, soul, to thee, thy sight,they rise,
LG1891	8211	The plans, the voyages again, the expeditions;
LG1891	8212	Again Vasco de Gama sails forth,
LG1891	8213	Again the knowledge gain'd, the mariner's compass,
LG1891	8214	Lands found and nations born, thou born America,
LG1891	8215	For purpose vast, man's long probation fill'd,
LG1891	8216	Thou rondure of the world at last accomplish'd.
LG1891	8217	O vast Rondure, swimming in space,
LG1891	8218	Cover'd all over with visible power and beauty,
LG1891	8219	Alternate light and day and the teeming spiritual darkness,
LG1891	8220	Unspeakable high processions of sun and moon and countless stars above,
LG1891	8221	Below, the manifold grass and waters, animals, mountains, trees,
LG1891	8222	With inscrutable purpose, some hidden prophetic intention,
LG1891	8223	Now first it seems my thought begins to span thee.
LG1891	8224	Down from the gardens of Asia descending radiating,
LG1891	8225	Adam and Eve appear, then their myriad progeny after them,
LG1891	8226	Wandering, yearning, curious, with restless explorations,
LG1891	8227	With questionings, baffled, formless, feverish, with never-happy hearts,
LG1891	8228	With that sad incessant refrain, Wherefore unsatisfied soul? and Whither O mocking life?
LG1891	8229	Ah who shall soothe these feverish children?
LG1891	8230	Who justify these restless explorations?
LG1891	8231	Who speak the secret of impassive earth?
LG1891	8232	Who bind it to us? what is this separate Nature so unnatural?
LG1891	8233	What is this earth to our affections? (unloving earth, without a throb to answer ours,
LG1891	8234	Cold earth, the place of graves.)
LG1891	8235	Yet soul be sure the first intent remains, and shall be carried out,
LG1891	8236	Perhaps even now the time has arrived.
LG1891	8237	After the seas are all cross'd, (as they seem already cross'd,)
LG1891	8238	After the great captains and engineers have accomplish'd their work,
LG1891	8239	After the noble inventors, after the scientists, the chemist, the geologist, ethnologist,
LG1891	8240	Finally shall come the poet worthy that name,
LG1891	8241	The true son of God shall come singing his songs.
LG1891	8242	Then not your deeds only O voyagers, O scientists and inventors,shall be justified,
LG1891	8243	All these hearts as of fretted children shall be sooth'd,
LG1891	8244	All affection shall be fully responded to, the secret shall be told,
LG1891	8245	All these separations and gaps shall be taken up and hook'd and link'd together,
LG1891	8246	The whole earth, this cold, impassive, voiceless earth, shall be completely justified,
LG1891	8247	Trinitas divine shall be gloriously accomplish'd and compacted by the true son of God, the poet,
LG1891	8248	(He shall indeed pass the straits and conquer the mountains,
LG1891	8249	He shall double the cape of Good Hope to some purpose,)
LG1891	8250	Nature and Man shall be disjoin'd and diffused no more,
LG1891	8251	The true son of God shall absolutely fuse them.
LG1891	8252	Year at whose wide-flung door I sing!
LG1891	8253	Year of the purpose accomplish'd!
LG1891	8254	Year of the marriage of continents, climates and oceans!
LG1891	8255	(No mere doge of Venice now wedding the Adriatic,)
LG1891	8256	I see O year in you the vast terraqueous globe given and giving all,
LG1891	8257	Europe to Asia, Africa join'd, and they to the New World,
LG1891	8258	The lands, geographies, dancing before you, holding a festival garland,
LG1891	8259	As brides and bridegrooms hand in hand.
LG1891	8260	Passage to India!
LG1891	8261	Cooling airs from Caucasus far, soothing cradle of man,
LG1891	8262	The river Euphrates flowing, the past lit up again.
LG1891	8263	Lo soul, the retrospect brought forward,
LG1891	8264	The old, most populous, wealthiest of earth's lands,
LG1891	8265	The streams of the Indus and the Ganges and their many af-fluentsaffluents,
LG1891	8266	(I my shores of America walking to-day behold, resuming all,)
LG1891	8267	The tale of Alexander on his warlike marches suddenly dying,
LG1891	8268	On one side China and on the other side Persia and Arabia,
LG1891	8269	To the south the great seas and the bay of Bengal,
LG1891	8270	The flowing literatures, tremendous epics, religions, castes,
LG1891	8271	Old occult Brahma interminably far back, the tender and junior Buddha,
LG1891	8272	Central and southern empires and all their belongings, possessors,
LG1891	8273	The wars of Tamerlane, the reign of Aurungzebe,
LG1891	8274	The traders, rulers, explorers, Moslems, Venetians, Byzantium, the Arabs, Portuguese,
LG1891	8275	The first travelers famous yet, Marco Polo, Batouta the Moor,
LG1891	8276	Doubts to be solv'd, the map incognita, blanks to be fill'd,
LG1891	8277	The foot of man unstay'd, the hands never at rest,
LG1891	8278	Thyself O soul that will not brook a challenge.
LG1891	8279	The mediaeval navigators rise before me,
LG1891	8280	The world of 1492, with its awaken'd enterprise,
LG1891	8281	Something swelling in humanity now like the sap of the earth in spring,
LG1891	8282	The sunset splendor of chivalry declining.
LG1891	8283	And who art thou sad shade?
LG1891	8284	Gigantic, visionary, thyself a visionary,
LG1891	8285	With majestic limbs and pious beaming eyes,
LG1891	8286	Spreading around with every look of thine a golden world,
LG1891	8287	Enhuing it with gorgeous hues.
LG1891	8288	As the chief histrion,
LG1891	8289	Down to the footlights walks in some great scena,
LG1891	8290	Dominating the rest I see the Admiral himself,
LG1891	8291	(History's type of courage, action, faith,)
LG1891	8292	Behold him sail from Palos leading his little fleet,
LG1891	8293	His voyage behold, his return, his great fame,
LG1891	8294	His misfortunes, calumniators, behold him a prisoner, chain'd,
LG1891	8295	Behold his dejection, poverty, death.
LG1891	8296	(Curious in time I stand, noting the efforts of heroes,
LG1891	8297	Is the deferment long? bitter the slander, poverty, death?
LG1891	8298	Lies the seed unreck'd for centuries in the ground? lo, to God's due occasion,
LG1891	8299	Uprising in the night, it sprouts, blooms,
LG1891	8300	And fills the earth with use and beauty.)
LG1891	8301	Passage indeed O soul to primal thought,
LG1891	8302	Not lands and seas alone, thy own clear freshness,
LG1891	8303	The young maturity of brood and bloom,
LG1891	8304	To realms of budding bibles.
LG1891	8305	O soul, repressless, I with thee and thou with me,
LG1891	8306	Thy circumnavigation of the world begin,
LG1891	8307	Of man, the voyage of his mind's return,
LG1891	8308	To reason's early paradise,
LG1891	8309	Back, back to wisdom's birth, to innocent intuitions,
LG1891	8310	Again with fair creation.
LG1891	8311	O we can wait no longer,
LG1891	8312	We too take ship O soul,
LG1891	8313	Joyous we too launch out on trackless seas,
LG1891	8314	Fearless for unknown shores on waves of ecstasy to sail,
LG1891	8315	Amid the wafting winds, (thou pressing me to thee, I thee to me,O soul,)
LG1891	8316	Caroling free, singing our song of God,
LG1891	8317	Chanting our chant of pleasant exploration.
LG1891	8318	With laugh and many a kiss,
LG1891	8319	(Let others deprecate, let others weep for sin, remorse, humilia-tionhumiliation,)
LG1891	8320	O soul thou pleasest me, I thee.
LG1891	8321	Ah more than any priest O soul we too believe in God,
LG1891	8322	But with the mystery of God we dare not dally.
LG1891	8323	O soul thou pleasest me, I thee,
LG1891	8324	Sailing these seas or on the hills, or waking in the night,
LG1891	8325	Thoughts, silent thoughts, of Time and Space and Death, like waters flowing,
LG1891	8326	Bear me indeed as through the regions infinite,
LG1891	8327	Whose air I breathe, whose ripples hear, lave me all over,
LG1891	8328	Bathe me O God in thee, mounting to thee,
LG1891	8329	I and my soul to range in range of thee.
LG1891	8330	O Thou transcendent,
LG1891	8331	Nameless, the fibre and the breath,
LG1891	8332	Light of the light, shedding forth universes, thou centre of them,
LG1891	8333	Thou mightier centre of the true, the good, the loving,
LG1891	8334	Thou moral, spiritual fountain—affection's source—thou reser-voirreservoir,
LG1891	8335	(O pensive soul of me—O thirst unsatisfied—waitest not there?
LG1891	8336	Waitest not haply for us somewhere there the Comrade perfect?)
LG1891	8337	Thou pulse—thou motive of the stars, suns, systems,
LG1891	8338	That, circling, move in order, safe, harmonious,
LG1891	8339	Athwart the shapeless vastnesses of space,
LG1891	8340	How should I think, how breathe a single breath, how speak, if,out of myself,
LG1891	8341	I could not launch, to those, superior universes?
LG1891	8342	Swiftly I shrivel at the thought of God,
LG1891	8343	At Nature and its wonders, Time and Space and Death,
LG1891	8344	But that I, turning, call to thee O soul, thou actual Me,
LG1891	8345	And lo, thou gently masterest the orbs,
LG1891	8346	Thou matest Time, smilest content at Death,
LG1891	8347	And fillest, swellest full the vastnesses of Space.
LG1891	8348	Greater than stars or suns,
LG1891	8349	Bounding O soul thou journeyest forth;
LG1891	8350	What love than thine and ours could wider amplify?
LG1891	8351	What aspirations, wishes, outvie thine and ours O soul?
LG1891	8352	What dreams of the ideal? what plans of purity, perfection,strength?
LG1891	8353	What cheerful willingness for others' sake to give up all?
LG1891	8354	For others' sake to suffer all?
LG1891	8355	Reckoning ahead O soul, when thou, the time achiev'd,
LG1891	8356	The seas all cross'd, weather'd the capes, the voyage done,
LG1891	8357	Surrounded, copest, frontest God, yieldest, the aim attain'd,
LG1891	8358	As fill'd with friendship, love complete, the Elder Brother found,
LG1891	8359	The Younger melts in fondness in his arms.
LG1891	8360	Passage to more than India!
LG1891	8361	Are thy wings plumed indeed for such far flights?
LG1891	8362	O soul, voyagest thou indeed on voyages like those?
LG1891	8363	Disportest thou on waters such as those?
LG1891	8364	Soundest below the Sanscrit and the Vedas?
LG1891	8365	Then have thy bent unleash'd.
LG1891	8366	Passage to you, your shores, ye aged fierce enigmas!
LG1891	8367	Passage to you, to mastership of you, ye strangling problems!
LG1891	8368	You, strew'd with the wrecks of skeletons, that, living, never reach'd you.
LG1891	8369	Passage to more than India!
LG1891	8370	O secret of the earth and sky!
LG1891	8371	Of you O waters of the sea! O winding creeks and rivers!
LG1891	8372	Of you O woods and fields! of you strong mountains of my land!
LG1891	8373	Of you O prairies! of you gray rocks!
LG1891	8374	O morning red! O clouds! O rain and snows!
LG1891	8375	O day and night, passage to you!
LG1891	8376	O sun and moon and all you stars! Sirius and Jupiter!
LG1891	8377	Passage to you!
LG1891	8378	Passage, immediate passage! the blood burns in my veins!
LG1891	8379	Away O soul! hoist instantly the anchor!
LG1891	8380	Cut the hawsers—haul out—shake out every sail!
LG1891	8381	Have we not stood here like trees in the ground long enough?
LG1891	8382	Have we not grovel'd here long enough, eating and drinking like mere brutes?
LG1891	8383	Have we not darken'd and dazed ourselves with books long enough?
LG1891	8384	Sail forth—steer for the deep waters only,
LG1891	8385	Reckless O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me,
LG1891	8386	For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
LG1891	8387	And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.
LG1891	8388	O my brave soul!
LG1891	8389	O farther farther sail!
LG1891	8390	O daring joy, but safe! are they not all the seas of God?
LG1891	8391	O farther, farther, farther sail!
LG1891	8392	A BATTER'D, wreck'd old man,
LG1891	8393	Thrown on this savage shore, far, far from home,
LG1891	8394	Pent by the sea and dark rebellious brows, twelve dreary months,
LG1891	8395	Sore, stiff with many toils, sicken'd and nigh to death,
LG1891	8396	I take my way along the island's edge,
LG1891	8397	Venting a heavy heart.
LG1891	8398	I am too full of woe!
LG1891	8399	Haply I may not live another day;
LG1891	8400	I cannot rest O God, I cannot eat or drink or sleep,
LG1891	8401	Till I put forth myself, my prayer, once more to Thee,
LG1891	8402	Breathe, bathe myself once more in Thee, commune with Thee,
LG1891	8403	Report myself once more to Thee.
LG1891	8404	Thou knowest my years entire, my life,
LG1891	8405	My long and crowded life of active work, not adoration merely;
LG1891	8406	Thou knowest the prayers and vigils of my youth,
LG1891	8407	Thou knowest my manhood's solemn and visionary meditations,
LG1891	8408	Thou knowest how before I commenced I devoted all to come to Thee,
LG1891	8409	Thou knowest I have in age ratified all those vows and strictly kept them,
LG1891	8410	Thou knowest I have not once lost nor faith nor ecstasy in Thee,
LG1891	8411	In shackles, prison'd, in disgrace, repining not,
LG1891	8412	Accepting all from Thee, as duly come from Thee.
LG1891	8413	All my emprises have been fill'd with Thee,
LG1891	8414	My speculations, plans, begun and carried on in thoughts of Thee,
LG1891	8415	Sailing the deep or journeying the land for Thee;
LG1891	8416	Intentions, purports, aspirations mine, leaving results to Thee.
LG1891	8417	O I am sure they really came from Thee,
LG1891	8418	The urge, the ardor, the unconquerable will,
LG1891	8419	The potent, felt, interior command, stronger than words,
LG1891	8420	A message from the Heavens whispering to me even in sleep,
LG1891	8421	These sped me on.
LG1891	8422	By me and these the work so far accomplish'd,
LG1891	8423	By me earth's elder cloy'd and stifled lands uncloy'd, unloos'd,
LG1891	8424	By me the hemispheres rounded and tied, the unknown to the known.
LG1891	8425	The end I know not, it is all in Thee,
LG1891	8426	Or small or great I know not—haply what broad fields, what lands,
LG1891	8427	Haply the brutish measureless human undergrowth I know,
LG1891	8428	Transplanted there may rise to stature, knowledge worthy Thee,
LG1891	8429	Haply the swords I know may there indeed be turn'd to reaping-toolsreaping-tools,
LG1891	8430	Haply the lifeless cross I know, Europe's dead cross, may bud and blossom there.
LG1891	8431	One effort more, my altar this bleak sand;
LG1891	8432	That Thou O God my life hast lighted,
LG1891	8433	With ray of light, steady, ineffable, vouchsafed of Thee,
LG1891	8434	Light rare untellable, lighting the very light,
LG1891	8435	Beyond all signs, descriptions, languages;
LG1891	8436	For that O God, be it my latest word, here on my knees,
LG1891	8437	Old, poor, and paralyzed, I thank Thee.
LG1891	8438	My terminus near,
LG1891	8439	The clouds already closing in upon me,
LG1891	8440	The voyage balk'd, the course disputed, lost,
LG1891	8441	I yield my ships to Thee.
LG1891	8442	My hands, my limbs grow nerveless,
LG1891	8443	My brain feels rack'd, bewilder'd,
LG1891	8444	Let the old timbers part, I will not part,
LG1891	8445	I will cling fast to Thee, O God, though the waves buffet me,
LG1891	8446	Thee, Thee at least I know.
LG1891	8447	Is it the prophet's thought I speak, or am I raving?
LG1891	8448	What do I know of life? what of myself?
LG1891	8449	I know not even my own work past or present,
LG1891	8450	Dim ever-shifting guesses of it spread before me,
LG1891	8451	Of newer better worlds, their mighty parturition,
LG1891	8452	Mocking, perplexing me.
LG1891	8453	And these things I see suddenly, what mean they?
LG1891	8454	As if some miracle, some hand divine unseal'd my eyes,
LG1891	8455	Shadowy vast shapes smile through the air and sky,
LG1891	8456	And on the distant waves sail countless ships,
LG1891	8457	And anthems in new tongues I hear saluting me.
LG1891	8458	I WANDER all night in my vision,
LG1891	8459	Stepping with light feet, swiftly and noiselessly stepping and stopping,
LG1891	8460	Bending with open eyes over the shut eyes of sleepers,
LG1891	8461	Wandering and confused, lost to myself, ill-assorted, contradic-torycontradictory,
LG1891	8462	Pausing, gazing, bending, and stopping.
LG1891	8463	How solemn they look there, stretch'd and still,
LG1891	8464	How quiet they breathe, the little children in their cradles.
LG1891	8465	The wretched features of ennuyés, the white features of corpses,the livid faces of drunkards, the sick-gray faces of onanists,
LG1891	8466	The gash'd bodies on battle-fields, the insane in their strong-door'd rooms, the sacred idiots, the new-born emerging from gates, and the dying emerging from gates,
LG1891	8467	The night pervades them and infolds them.
LG1891	8468	The married couple sleep calmly in their bed, he with his palm on the hip of the wife, and she with her palm on the hip of the husband,
LG1891	8469	The sisters sleep lovingly side by side in their bed,
LG1891	8470	The men sleep lovingly side by side in theirs,
LG1891	8471	And the mother sleeps with her little child carefully wrapt.
LG1891	8472	The blind sleep, and the deaf and dumb sleep,
LG1891	8473	The prisoner sleeps well in the prison, the runaway son sleeps,
LG1891	8474	The murderer that is to be hung next day, how does he sleep?
LG1891	8475	And the murder'd person, how does he sleep?
LG1891	8476	The female that loves unrequited sleeps,
LG1891	8477	And the male that loves unrequited sleeps,
LG1891	8478	The head of the money-maker that plotted all day sleeps,
LG1891	8479	And the enraged and treacherous dispositions, all, all sleep.
LG1891	8480	I stand in the dark with drooping eyes by the worst-suffering and the most restless,
LG1891	8481	I pass my hands soothingly to and fro a few inches from them,
LG1891	8482	The restless sink in their beds, they fitfully sleep.
LG1891	8483	Now I pierce the darkness, new beings appear,
LG1891	8484	The earth recedes from me into the night,
LG1891	8485	I saw that it was beautiful, and I see that what is not the earth is beautiful.
LG1891	8486	I go from bedside to bedside, I sleep close with the other sleepers each in turn,
LG1891	8487	I dream in my dream all the dreams of the other dreamers,
LG1891	8488	And I become the other dreamers.
LG1891	8489	I am a dance—play up there! the fit is whirling me fast!
LG1891	8490	I am the ever-laughing—it is new moon and twilight,
LG1891	8491	I see the hiding of douceurs, I see nimble ghosts whichever way I look,
LG1891	8492	Cache and cache again deep in the ground and sea, and where it is neither ground nor sea.
LG1891	8493	Well do they do their jobs those journeymen divine,
LG1891	8494	Only from me can they hide nothing, and would not if they could,
LG1891	8495	I reckon I am their boss and they make me a pet besides,
LG1891	8496	And surround me and lead me and run ahead when I walk,
LG1891	8497	To lift their cunning covers to signify me with stretch'd arms, and resume the way;
LG1891	8498	Onward we move, a gay gang of blackguards! with mirth-shouting music and wild-flapping pennants of joy!
LG1891	8499	I am the actor, the actress, the voter, the politician,
LG1891	8500	The emigrant and the exile, the criminal that stood in the box,
LG1891	8501	He who has been famous and he who shall be famous after to-day,
LG1891	8502	The stammerer, the well-form'd person, the wasted or feeble person.
LG1891	8503	I am she who adorn'd herself and folded her hair expectantly,
LG1891	8504	My truant lover has come, and it is dark.
LG1891	8505	Double yourself and receive me darkness,
LG1891	8506	Receive me and my lover too, he will not let me go without him.
LG1891	8507	I roll myself upon you as upon a bed, I resign myself to the dusk.
LG1891	8508	He whom I call answers me and takes the place of my lover,
LG1891	8509	He rises with me silently from the bed.
LG1891	8510	Darkness, you are gentler than my lover, his flesh was sweaty and panting,
LG1891	8511	I feel the hot moisture yet that he left me.
LG1891	8512	My hands are spread forth, I pass them in all directions,
LG1891	8513	I would sound up the shadowy shore to which you are journeying.
LG1891	8514	Be careful darkness! already what was it touch'd me?
LG1891	8515	I thought my lover had gone, else darkness and he are one,
LG1891	8516	I hear the heart-beat, I follow, I fade away.
LG1891	8517	I descend my western course, my sinews are flaccid,
LG1891	8518	Perfume and youth course through me and I am their wake.
LG1891	8519	It is my face yellow and wrinkled instead of the old woman's,
LG1891	8520	I sit low in a straw-bottom chair and carefully darn my grandson's stockings.
LG1891	8521	It is I too, the sleepless widow looking out on the winter mid-nightmidnight,
LG1891	8522	I see the sparkles of starshine on the icy and pallid earth.
LG1891	8523	A shroud I see and I am the shroud, I wrap a body and lie in the coffin,
LG1891	8524	It is dark here under ground, it is not evil or pain here, it is blank here, for reasons.
LG1891	8525	(It seems to me that every thing in the light and air ought to be happy,
LG1891	8526	Whoever is not in his coffin and the dark grave let him know he has enough.)
LG1891	8527	I see a beautiful gigantic swimmer swimming naked through the eddies of the sea,
LG1891	8528	His brown hair lies close and even to his head, he strikes out with courageous arms, he urges himself with his legs,
LG1891	8529	I see his white body, I see his undaunted eyes,
LG1891	8530	I hate the swift-running eddies that would dash him head-fore-mosthead-foremost on the rocks.
LG1891	8531	What are you doing you ruffianly red-trickled waves?
LG1891	8532	Will you kill the courageous giant? will you kill him in the prime of his middle age?
LG1891	8533	Steady and long he struggles,
LG1891	8534	He is baffled, bang'd, bruis'd, he holds out while his strength holds out,
LG1891	8535	The slapping eddies are spotted with his blood, they bear him away, they roll him, swing him, turn him,
LG1891	8536	His beautiful body is borne in the circling eddies, it is continually bruis'd on rocks,
LG1891	8537	Swiftly and out of sight is borne the brave corpse.
LG1891	8538	I turn but do not extricate myself,
LG1891	8539	Confused, a past-reading, another, but with darkness yet.
LG1891	8540	The beach is cut by the razory ice-wind, the wreck-guns sound,
LG1891	8541	The tempest lulls, the moon comes floundering through the drifts.
LG1891	8542	I look where the ship helplessly heads end on, I hear the burst as she strikes, I hear the howls of dismay, they grow fainter and fainter.
LG1891	8543	I cannot aid with my wringing fingers,
LG1891	8544	I can but rush to the surf and let it drench me and freeze upon me.
LG1891	8545	I search with the crowd, not one of the company is wash'd to us alive,
LG1891	8546	In the morning I help pick up the dead and lay them in rows in a barn.
LG1891	8547	Now of the older war-days, the defeat at Brooklyn,
LG1891	8548	Washington stands inside the lines, he stands on the intrench'd hills amid a crowd of officers,
LG1891	8549	His face is cold and damp, he cannot repress the weeping drops,
LG1891	8550	He lifts the glass perpetually to his eyes, the color is blanch'd from his cheeks,
LG1891	8551	He sees the slaughter of the southern braves confided to him by their parents.
LG1891	8552	The same at last and at last when peace is declared,
LG1891	8553	He stands in the room of the old tavern, the well-belov'd soldiers all pass through,
LG1891	8554	The officers speechless and slow draw near in their turns,
LG1891	8555	The chief encircles their necks with his arm and kisses them on the cheek,
LG1891	8556	He kisses lightly the wet cheeks one after another, he shakes hands and bids good-by to the army.
LG1891	8557	Now what my mother told me one day as we sat at dinner together,
LG1891	8558	Of when she was a nearly grown girl living home with her parents on the old homestead.
LG1891	8559	A red squaw came one breakfast-time to the old homestead,
LG1891	8560	On her back she carried a bundle of rushes for rush-bottoming chairs,
LG1891	8561	Her hair, straight, shiny, coarse, black, profuse, half-envelop'd her face,
LG1891	8562	Her step was free and elastic, and her voice sounded exquisitely as she spoke.
LG1891	8563	My mother look'd in delight and amazement at the stranger,
LG1891	8564	She look'd at the freshness of her tall-borne face and full and pliant limbs,
LG1891	8565	The more she look'd upon her she loved her,
LG1891	8566	Never before had she seen such wonderful beauty and purity,
LG1891	8567	She made her sit on a bench by the jamb of the fireplace, she cook'd food for her,
LG1891	8568	She had no work to give her, but she gave her remembrance and fondness.
LG1891	8569	The red squaw staid all the forenoon, and toward the middle of the afternoon she went away,
LG1891	8570	O my mother was loth to have her go away,
LG1891	8571	All the week she thought of her, she watch'd for her many a month,
LG1891	8572	She remember'd her many a winter and many a summer,
LG1891	8573	But the red squaw never came nor was heard of there again.
LG1891	8574	A show of the summer softness—a contact of something unseen —an amour of the light and air,
LG1891	8575	I am jealous and overwhelm'd with friendliness,
LG1891	8576	And will go gallivant with the light and air myself.
LG1891	8577	O love and summer, you are in the dreams and in me,
LG1891	8578	Autumn and winter are in the dreams, the farmer goes with his thrift,
LG1891	8579	The droves and crops increase, the barns are well-fill'd.
LG1891	8580	Elements merge in the night, ships make tacks in the dreams,
LG1891	8581	The sailor sails, the exile returns home,
LG1891	8582	The fugitive returns unharm'd, the immigrant is back beyond months and years,
LG1891	8583	The poor Irishman lives in the simple house of his childhood with the well-known neighbors and faces,
LG1891	8584	They warmly welcome him, he is barefoot again, he forgets he is well off,
LG1891	8585	The Dutchman voyages home, and the Scotchman and Welshman voyage home, and the native of the Mediterranean voy-agesvoyages home,
LG1891	8586	To every port of England, France, Spain, enter well-fill'd ships,
LG1891	8587	The Swiss foots it toward his hills, the Prussian goes his way, the Hungarian his way, and the Pole his way,
LG1891	8588	The Swede returns, and the Dane and Norwegian return.
LG1891	8589	The homeward bound and the outward bound,
LG1891	8590	The beautiful lost swimmer, the ennuyé, the onanist, the female that loves unrequited, the money-maker,
LG1891	8591	The actor and actress, those through with their parts and those waiting to commence,
LG1891	8592	The affectionate boy, the husband and wife, the voter, the nominee that is chosen and the nominee that has fail'd,
LG1891	8593	The great already known and the great any time after to-day,
LG1891	8594	The stammerer, the sick, the perfect-form'd, the homely,
LG1891	8595	The criminal that stood in the box, the judge that sat and sen-tencedsentenced him, the fluent lawyers, the jury, the audience,
LG1891	8596	The laugher and weeper, the dancer, the midnight widow, the red squaw,
LG1891	8597	The consumptive, the erysipalite, the idiot, he that is wrong'd,
LG1891	8598	The antipodes, and every one between this and them in the dark,
LG1891	8599	I swear they are averaged now—one is no better than the other,
LG1891	8600	The night and sleep have liken'd them and restored them.
LG1891	8601	I swear they are all beautiful,
LG1891	8602	Every one that sleeps is beautiful, every thing in the dim light is beautiful,
LG1891	8603	The wildest and bloodiest is over, and all is peace.
LG1891	8604	Peace is always beautiful,
LG1891	8605	The myth of heaven indicates peace and night.
LG1891	8606	The myth of heaven indicates the soul,
LG1891	8607	The soul is always beautiful, it appears more or it appears less, it comes or it lags behind,
LG1891	8608	It comes from its embower'd garden and looks pleasantly on itself and encloses the world,
LG1891	8609	Perfect and clean the genitals previously jetting, and perfect and clean the womb cohering,
LG1891	8610	The head well-grown proportion'd and plumb, and the bowels and joints proportion'd and plumb.
LG1891	8611	The soul is always beautiful,
LG1891	8612	The universe is duly in order, every thing is in its place,
LG1891	8613	What has arrived is in its place and what waits shall be in its place,
LG1891	8614	The twisted skull waits, the watery or rotten blood waits,
LG1891	8615	The child of the glutton or venerealee waits long, and the child of the drunkard waits long, and the drunkard himself waits long,
LG1891	8616	The sleepers that lived and died wait, the far advanced are to go on in their turns, and the far behind are to come on in their turns,
LG1891	8617	The diverse shall be no less diverse, but they shall flow and unite —they unite now.
LG1891	8618	The sleepers are very beautiful as they lie unclothed,
LG1891	8619	They flow hand in hand over the whole earth from east to west as they lie unclothed,
LG1891	8620	The Asiatic and African are hand in hand, the European and American are hand in hand,
LG1891	8621	Learn'd and unlearn'd are hand in hand, and male and female are hand in hand,
LG1891	8622	The bare arm of the girl crosses the bare breast of her lover, they press close without lust, his lips press her neck,
LG1891	8623	The father holds his grown or ungrown son in his arms with meas-urelessmeasureless love, and the son holds the father in his arms with measureless love,
LG1891	8624	The white hair of the mother shines on the white wrist of the daughter,
LG1891	8625	The breath of the boy goes with the breath of the man, friend is inarm'd by friend,
LG1891	8626	The scholar kisses the teacher and the teacher kisses the scholar,the wrong'd is made right,
LG1891	8627	The call of the slave is one with the master's call, and the master salutes the slave,
LG1891	8628	The felon steps forth from the prison, the insane becomes sane,the suffering of sick persons is reliev'd,
LG1891	8629	The sweatings and fevers stop, the throat that was unsound is sound, the lungs of the consumptive are resumed, the poor distress'd head is free,
LG1891	8630	The joints of the rheumatic move as smoothly as ever, and smoother than ever,
LG1891	8631	Stiflings and passages open, the paralyzed become supple,
LG1891	8632	The swell'd and convuls'd and congested awake to themselves in condition,
LG1891	8633	They pass the invigoration of the night and the chemistry of the night, and awake.
LG1891	8634	I too pass from the night,
LG1891	8635	I stay a while away O night, but I return to you again and love you.
LG1891	8636	Why should I be afraid to trust myself to you?
LG1891	8637	I am not afraid, I have been well brought forward by you,
LG1891	8638	I love the rich running day, but I do not desert her in whom I lay so long,
LG1891	8639	I know not how I came of you and I know not where I go with you, but I know I came well and shall go well.
LG1891	8640	I will stop only a time with the night, and rise betimes,
LG1891	8641	I will duly pass the day O my mother, and duly return to you.
LG1891	8642	LET the reformers descend from the stands where they are forever bawling—let an idiot or insane person appear on each of the stands;
LG1891	8643	Let judges and criminals be transposed—let the prison-keepers be put in prison—let those that were prisoners take the keys;
LG1891	8644	Let them that distrust birth and death lead the rest.
LG1891	8645	TO think of time—of all that retrospection,
LG1891	8646	To think of to-day, and the ages continued henceforward.
LG1891	8647	Have you guess'd you yourself would not continue?
LG1891	8648	Have you dreaded these earth-beetles?
LG1891	8649	Have you fear'd the future would be nothing to you?
LG1891	8650	Is to-day nothing? is the beginningless past nothing?
LG1891	8651	If the future is nothing they are just as surely nothing.
LG1891	8652	To think that the sun rose in the east—that men and women were flexible, real, alive—that every thing was alive,
LG1891	8653	To think that you and I did not see, feel, think, nor bear our part,
LG1891	8654	To think that we are now here and bear our part.
LG1891	8655	Not a day passes, not a minute or second without an accouche-mentaccouchement,
LG1891	8656	Not a day passes, not a minute or second without a corpse.
LG1891	8657	The dull nights go over and the dull days also,
LG1891	8658	The soreness of lying so much in bed goes over,
LG1891	8659	The physician after long putting off gives the silent and terrible look for an answer,
LG1891	8660	The children come hurried and weeping, and the brothers and sisters are sent for,
LG1891	8661	Medicines stand unused on the shelf, (the camphor-smell has long pervaded the rooms,)
LG1891	8662	The faithful hand of the living does not desert the hand of the dying,
LG1891	8663	The twitching lips press lightly on the forehead of the dying,
LG1891	8664	The breath ceases and the pulse of the heart ceases,
LG1891	8665	The corpse stretches on the bed and the living look upon it,
LG1891	8666	It is palpable as the living are palpable.
LG1891	8667	The living look upon the corpse with their eyesight,
LG1891	8668	But without eyesight lingers a different living and looks curiously on the corpse.
LG1891	8669	To think the thought of death merged in the thought of materials,
LG1891	8670	To think of all these wonders of city and country, and others taking great interest in them, and we taking no interest in them.
LG1891	8671	To think how eager we are in building our houses,
LG1891	8672	To think others shall be just as eager, and we quite indifferent.
LG1891	8673	(I see one building the house that serves him a few years, or seventy or eighty years at most,
LG1891	8674	I see one building the house that serves him longer than that.)
LG1891	8675	Slow-moving and black lines creep over the whole earth—they never cease—they are the burial lines,
LG1891	8676	He that was President was buried, and he that is now President shall surely be buried.
LG1891	8677	A reminiscence of the vulgar fate,
LG1891	8678	A frequent sample of the life and death of workmen,
LG1891	8679	Each after his kind.
LG1891	8680	Cold dash of waves at the ferry-wharf, posh and ice in the river,half-frozen mud in the streets,
LG1891	8681	A gray discouraged sky overhead, the short last daylight of December,
LG1891	8682	A hearse and stages, the funeral of an old Broadway stage-driver,the cortege mostly drivers.
LG1891	8683	Steady the trot to the cemetery, duly rattles the death-bell,
LG1891	8684	The gate is pass'd, the new-dug grave is halted at, the living alight,the hearse uncloses,
LG1891	8685	The coffin is pass'd out, lower'd and settled, the whip is laid on the coffin, the earth is swiftly shovel'd in,
LG1891	8686	The mound above is flatted with the spades—silence,
LG1891	8687	A minute—no one moves or speaks—it is done,
LG1891	8688	He is decently put away—is there any thing more?
LG1891	8689	He was a good fellow, free-mouth'd, quick-temper'd, not bad-lookingbadlooking,
LG1891	8690	Ready with life or death for a friend, fond of women, gambled,ate hearty, drank hearty,
LG1891	8691	Had known what it was to be flush, grew low-spirited toward the last, sicken'd, was help'd by a contribution,
LG1891	8692	Died, aged forty-one years—and that was his funeral.
LG1891	8693	Thumb extended, finger uplifted, apron, cape, gloves, strap, wet-weather clothes, whip carefully chosen,
LG1891	8694	Boss, spotter, starter, hostler, somebody loafing on you, you loafing on somebody, headway, man before and man behind,
LG1891	8695	Good day's work, bad day's work, pet stock, mean stock, first out,last out, turning-in at night,
LG1891	8696	To think that these are so much and so nigh to other drivers, and he there takes no interest in them.
LG1891	8697	The markets, the government, the working-man's wages, to think what account they are through our nights and days,
LG1891	8698	To think that other working-men will make just as great account of them, yet we make little or no account.
LG1891	8699	The vulgar and the refined, what you call sin and what you call goodness, to think how wide a difference,
LG1891	8700	To think the difference will still continue to others, yet we lie beyond the difference.
LG1891	8701	To think how much pleasure there is,
LG1891	8702	Do you enjoy yourself in the city? or engaged in business? or planning a nomination and election? or with your wife and family?
LG1891	8703	Or with your mother and sisters? or in womanly housework? or the beautiful maternal cares?
LG1891	8704	These also flow onward to others, you and I flow onward,
LG1891	8705	But in due time you and I shall take less interest in them.
LG1891	8706	Your farm, profits, crops—to think how engross'd you are,
LG1891	8707	To think there will still be farms, profits, crops, yet for you of what avail?
LG1891	8708	What will be will be well, for what is is well,
LG1891	8709	To take interest is well, and not to take interest shall be well.
LG1891	8710	The domestic joys, the daily housework or business, the building of houses, are not phantasms, they have weight, form,location,
LG1891	8711	Farms, profits, crops, markets, wages, government, are none of them phantasms,
LG1891	8712	The difference between sin and goodness is no delusion,
LG1891	8713	The earth is not an echo, man and his life and all the things of his life are well-consider'd.
LG1891	8714	You are not thrown to the winds, you gather certainly and safely around yourself,
LG1891	8715	Yourself! yourself! yourself, for ever and ever!
LG1891	8716	It is not to diffuse you that you were born of your mother and father, it is to identify you,
LG1891	8717	It is not that you should be undecided, but that you should be decided,
LG1891	8718	Something long preparing and formless is arrived and form'd in you,
LG1891	8719	You are henceforth secure, whatever comes or goes.
LG1891	8720	The threads that were spun are gather'd, the weft crosses the warp,the pattern is systematic.
LG1891	8721	The preparations have every one been justified,
LG1891	8722	The orchestra have sufficiently tuned their instruments, the baton has given the signal.
LG1891	8723	The guest that was coming, he waited long, he is now housed,
LG1891	8724	He is one of those who are beautiful and happy, he is one of those that to look upon and be with is enough.
LG1891	8725	The law of the past cannot be eluded,
LG1891	8726	The law of the present and future cannot be eluded,
LG1891	8727	The law of the living cannot be eluded, it is eternal,
LG1891	8728	The law of promotion and transformation cannot be eluded,
LG1891	8729	The law of heroes and good-doers cannot be eluded,
LG1891	8730	The law of drunkards, informers, mean persons, not one iota thereof can be eluded.
LG1891	8731	Slow moving and black lines go ceaselessly over the earth,
LG1891	8732	Northerner goes carried and Southerner goes carried, and they on the Atlantic side and they on the Pacific,
LG1891	8733	And they between, and all through the Mississippi country, and all over the earth.
LG1891	8734	The great masters and kosmos are well as they go, the heroes and good-doers are well,
LG1891	8735	The known leaders and inventors and the rich owners and pious and distinguish'd may be well,
LG1891	8736	But there is more account than that, there is strict account of all.
LG1891	8737	The interminable hordes of the ignorant and wicked are not nothing,
LG1891	8738	The barbarians of Africa and Asia are not nothing,
LG1891	8739	The perpetual successions of shallow people are not nothing as they go.
LG1891	8740	Of and in all these things,
LG1891	8741	I have dream'd that we are not to be changed so much, nor the law of us changed,
LG1891	8742	I have dream'd that heroes and good-doers shall be under the present and past law,
LG1891	8743	And that murderers, drunkards, liars, shall be under the present and past law,
LG1891	8744	For I have dream'd that the law they are under now is enough.
LG1891	8745	And I have dream'd that the purpose and essence of the known life, the transient,
LG1891	8746	Is to form and decide identity for the unknown life, the permanent.
LG1891	8747	If all came but to ashes of dung,
LG1891	8748	If maggots and rats ended us, then Alarum! for we are betray'd,
LG1891	8749	Then indeed suspicion of death.
LG1891	8750	Do you suspect death? if I were to suspect death I should die now,
LG1891	8751	Do you think I could walk pleasantly and well-suited toward annihilation?
LG1891	8752	Pleasantly and well-suited I walk,
LG1891	8753	Whither I walk I cannot define, but I know it is good,
LG1891	8754	The whole universe indicates that it is good,
LG1891	8755	The past and the present indicate that it is good.
LG1891	8756	How beautiful and perfect are the animals!
LG1891	8757	How perfect the earth, and the minutest thing upon it!
LG1891	8758	What is called good is perfect, and what is called bad is just as perfect,
LG1891	8759	The vegetables and minerals are all perfect, and the imponderable fluids perfect;
LG1891	8760	Slowly and surely they have pass'd on to this, and slowly and surely they yet pass on.
LG1891	8761	I swear I think now that every thing without exception has an eternal soul!
LG1891	8762	The trees have, rooted in the ground! the weeds of the sea have!the animals!
LG1891	8763	I swear I think there is nothing but immortality!
LG1891	8764	That the exquisite scheme is for it, and the nebulous float is for it,and the cohering is for it!
LG1891	8765	And all preparation is for it—and identity is for it—and life and materials are altogether for it!
LG1891	8766	DAREST thou now O soul,
LG1891	8767	Walk out with me toward the unknown region,
LG1891	8768	Where neither ground is for the feet nor any path to follow?
LG1891	8769	No map there, nor guide,
LG1891	8770	Nor voice sounding, nor touch of human hand,
LG1891	8771	Nor face with blooming flesh, nor lips, nor eyes, are in that land.
LG1891	8772	I know it not O soul,
LG1891	8773	Nor dost thou, all is a blank before us,
LG1891	8774	All waits undream'd of in that region, that inaccessible land.
LG1891	8775	Till when the ties loosen,
LG1891	8776	All but the ties eternal, Time and Space,
LG1891	8777	Nor darkness, gravitation, sense, nor any bounds bounding us.
LG1891	8778	Then we burst forth, we float,
LG1891	8779	In Time and Space O soul, prepared for them,
LG1891	8780	Equal, equipt at last, (O joy! O fruit of all!) them to fulfil O soul.
LG1891	8781	WHISPERS of heavenly death murmur'd I hear,
LG1891	8782	Labial gossip of night, sibilant chorals,
LG1891	8783	Footsteps gently ascending, mystical breezes wafted soft and low,
LG1891	8784	Ripples of unseen rivers, tides of a current flowing, forever flowing,
LG1891	8785	(Or is it the plashing of tears? the measureless waters of human tears?)
LG1891	8786	I see, just see skyward, great cloud-masses,
LG1891	8787	Mournfully slowly they roll, silently swelling and mixing,
LG1891	8788	With at times a half-dimm'd sadden'd far-off star,
LG1891	8789	Appearing and disappearing.
LG1891	8790	(Some parturition rather, some solemn immortal birth;
LG1891	8791	On the frontiers to eyes impenetrable,
LG1891	8792	Some soul is passing over.)
LG1891	8793	CHANTING the square deific, out of the One advancing, out of the sides,
LG1891	8794	Out of the old and new, out of the square entirely divine,
LG1891	8795	Solid, four-sided, (all the sides needed,) from this side Jehovah am I,
LG1891	8796	Old Brahm I, and I Saturnius am;
LG1891	8797	Not Time affects me—I am Time, old, modern as any,
LG1891	8798	Unpersuadable, relentless, executing righteous judgments,
LG1891	8799	As the Earth, the Father, the brown old Kronos, with laws,
LG1891	8800	Aged beyond computation, yet ever new, ever with those mighty laws rolling,
LG1891	8801	Relentless I forgive no man—whoever sins dies—I will have that man's life;
LG1891	8802	Therefore let none expect mercy—have the seasons, gravitation, the appointed days, mercy? no more have I,
LG1891	8803	But as the seasons and gravitation, and as all the appointed days that forgive not,
LG1891	8804	I dispense from this side judgments inexorable without the least remorse.
LG1891	8805	Consolator most mild, the promis'd one advancing,
LG1891	8806	With gentle hand extended, the mightier God am I,
LG1891	8807	Foretold by prophets and poets in their most rapt prophecies and poems,
LG1891	8808	From this side, lo! the Lord Christ gazes—lo! Hermes I—lo! mine is Hercules' face,
LG1891	8809	All sorrow, labor, suffering, I, tallying it, absorb in myself,
LG1891	8810	Many times have I been rejected, taunted, put in prison, and crucified, and many times shall be again,
LG1891	8811	All the world have I given up for my dear brothers' and sisters' sake, for the soul's sake,
LG1891	8812	Wending my way through the homes of men, rich or poor, with the kiss of affection,
LG1891	8813	For I am affection, I am the cheer-bringing God, with hope and all-enclosing charity,
LG1891	8814	With indulgent words as to children, with fresh and sane words, mine only,
LG1891	8815	Young and strong I pass knowing well I am destin'd myself to an early death;
LG1891	8816	But my charity has no death—my wisdom dies not, neither early nor late,
LG1891	8817	And my sweet love bequeath'd here and elsewhere never dies.
LG1891	8818	Aloof, dissatisfied, plotting revolt,
LG1891	8819	Comrade of criminals, brother of slaves,
LG1891	8820	Crafty, despised, a drudge, ignorant,
LG1891	8821	With sudra face and worn brow, black, but in the depths of my heart, proud as any,
LG1891	8822	Lifted now and always against whoever scorning assumes to rule me,
LG1891	8823	Morose, full of guile, full of reminiscences, brooding, with many wiles,
LG1891	8824	(Though it was thought I was baffled and dispel'd, and my wiles done, but that will never be,)
LG1891	8825	Defiant, I, Satan, still live, still utter words, in new lands duly appearing, (and old ones also,)
LG1891	8826	Permanent here from my side, warlike, equal with any, real as any,
LG1891	8827	Nor time nor change shall ever change me or my words.
LG1891	8828	Santa Spirita, breather, life,
LG1891	8829	Beyond the light, lighter than light,
LG1891	8830	Beyond the flames of hell, joyous, leaping easily above hell,
LG1891	8831	Beyond Paradise, perfumed solely with mine own perfume,
LG1891	8832	Including all life on earth, touching, including God, including Saviour and Satan,
LG1891	8833	Ethereal, pervading all, (for without me what were all? what were God?)
LG1891	8834	Essence of forms, life of the real identities, permanent, positive, (namely the unseen,)
LG1891	8835	Life of the great round world, the sun and stars, and of man, I, the general soul,
LG1891	8836	Here the square finishing, the solid, I the most solid,
LG1891	8837	Breathe my breath also through these songs.
LG1891	8838	OF him I love day and night I dream'd I heard he was dead,
LG1891	8839	And I dream'd I went where they had buried him I love, but he was not in that place,
LG1891	8840	And I dream'd I wander'd searching among burial-places to find him,
LG1891	8841	And I found that every place was a burial-place;
LG1891	8842	The houses full of life were equally full of death, (this house is now,)
LG1891	8843	The streets, the shipping, the places of amusement, the Chicago,Boston, Philadelphia, the Mannahatta, were as full of the dead as of the living,
LG1891	8844	And fuller, O vastly fuller of the dead than of the living;
LG1891	8845	And what I dream'd I will henceforth tell to every person and age,
LG1891	8846	And I stand henceforth bound to what I dream'd,
LG1891	8847	And now I am willing to disregard burial-places and dispense with them,
LG1891	8848	And if the memorials of the dead were put up indifferently every-whereeverywhere, even in the room where I eat or sleep, I should be satisfied,
LG1891	8849	And if the corpse of any one I love, or if my own corpse, be duly render'd to powder and pour'd in the sea, I shall be satisfied,
LG1891	8850	Or if it be distributed to the winds I shall be satisfied.
LG1891	8851	YET, yet, ye downcast hours, I know ye also,
LG1891	8852	Weights of lead, how ye clog and cling at my ankles,
LG1891	8853	Earth to a chamber of mourning turns—I hear the o'erweening,mocking voice,
LG1891	8854	Matter is conqueror—matter, triumphant only, continues onward.
LG1891	8855	Despairing cries float ceaselessly toward me,
LG1891	8856	The call of my nearest lover, putting forth, alarm'd, uncertain,
LG1891	8857	The sea I am quickly to sail, come tell me,
LG1891	8858	Come tell me where I am speeding, tell me my destination.
LG1891	8859	I understand your anguish, but I cannot help you,
LG1891	8860	I approach, hear, behold, the sad mouth, the look out of the eyes,your mute inquiry,
LG1891	8861	Whither I go from the bed I recline on, come tell me;
LG1891	8862	Old age, alarm'd, uncertain—a young woman's voice, appealing to me for comfort;
LG1891	8863	A young man's voice, Shall I not escape?
LG1891	8864	AS if a phantom caress'd me,
LG1891	8865	I thought I was not alone walking here by the shore;
LG1891	8866	But the one I thought was with me as now I walk by the shore,the one I loved that caress'd me,
LG1891	8867	As I lean and look through the glimmering light, that one has utterly disappear'd,
LG1891	8868	And those appear that are hateful to me and mock me.
LG1891	8869	I NEED no assurances, I am a man who is pre-occupied of his own soul;
LG1891	8870	I do not doubt that from under the feet and beside the hands and face I am cognizant of, are now looking faces I am not cognizant of, calm and actual faces,
LG1891	8871	I do not doubt but the majesty and beauty of the world are latent in any iota of the world,
LG1891	8872	I do not doubt I am limitless, and that the universes are limitless,in vain I try to think how limitless,
LG1891	8873	I do not doubt that the orbs and the systems of orbs play their swift sports through the air on purpose, and that I shall one day be eligible to do as much as they, and more than they,
LG1891	8874	I do not doubt that temporary affairs keep on and on millions of years,
LG1891	8875	I do not doubt interiors have their interiors, and exteriors have their exteriors, and that the eyesight has another eyesight,and the hearing another hearing, and the voice another voice,
LG1891	8876	I do not doubt that the passionately-wept deaths of young men are provided for, and that the deaths of young women and the deaths of little children are provided for,
LG1891	8877	(Did you think Life was so well provided for, and Death, the pur-portpurport of all Life, is not well provided for?)
LG1891	8878	I do not doubt that wrecks at sea, no matter what the horrors of them, no matter whose wife, child, husband, father, lover,has gone down, are provided for, to the minutest points,
LG1891	8879	I do not doubt that whatever can possibly happen anywhere at any time, is provided for in the inherences of things,
LG1891	8880	I do not think Life provides for all and for Time and Space, but I believe Heavenly Death provides for all.
LG1891	8881	QUICKSAND years that whirl me I know not whither,
LG1891	8882	Your schemes, politics, fail, lines give way, substances mock and elude me,
LG1891	8883	Only the theme I sing, the great and strong-possess'd soul, eludes not,
LG1891	8884	One's-self must never give way—that is the final substance—that out of all is sure,
LG1891	8885	Out of politics, triumphs, battles, life, what at last finally remains?
LG1891	8886	When shows break up what but One's-Self is sure?
LG1891	8887	THAT music always round me, unceasing, unbeginning, yet long untaught I did not hear,
LG1891	8888	But now the chorus I hear and am elated,
LG1891	8889	A tenor, strong, ascending with power and health, with glad notes of daybreak I hear,
LG1891	8890	A soprano at intervals sailing buoyantly over the tops of immense waves,
LG1891	8891	A transparent base shuddering lusciously under and through the universe,
LG1891	8892	The triumphant tutti, the funeral wailings with sweet flutes and violins, all these I fill myself with,
LG1891	8893	I hear not the volumes of sound merely, I am moved by the exquisite meanings,
LG1891	8894	I listen to the different voices winding in and out, striving, contend-ingcontending with fiery vehemence to excel each other in emotion;
LG1891	8895	I do not think the performers know themselves—but now I think I begin to know them.
LG1891	8896	WHAT ship puzzled at sea, cons for the true reckoning?
LG1891	8897	Or coming in, to avoid the bars and follow the channel a perfect pilot needs?
LG1891	8898	Here, sailor! here, ship! take aboard the most perfect pilot,
LG1891	8899	Whom, in a little boat, putting off and rowing, I hailing you offer.
LG1891	8900	A NOISELESS patient spider,
LG1891	8901	I mark'd where on a little promontory it stood isolated,
LG1891	8902	Mark'd how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
LG1891	8903	It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,
LG1891	8904	Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.
LG1891	8905	And you O my soul where you stand,
LG1891	8906	Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
LG1891	8907	Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,
LG1891	8908	Till the bridge you will need be form'd, till the ductile anchor hold,
LG1891	8909	Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.
LG1891	8910	O LIVING always, always dying!
LG1891	8911	O the burials of me past and present,
LG1891	8912	O me while I stride ahead, material, visible, imperious as ever;
LG1891	8913	O me, what I was for years, now dead, (I lament not, I am content;)
LG1891	8914	O to disengage myself from those corpses of me, which I turn and look at where I cast them,
LG1891	8915	To pass on, (O living! always living!) and leave the corpses behind.
LG1891	8916	FROM all the rest I single out you, having a message for you,
LG1891	8917	You are to die—let others tell you what they please, I cannot prevaricate,
LG1891	8918	I am exact and merciless, but I love you—there is no escape for you.
LG1891	8919	Softly I lay my right hand upon you, you just feel it,
LG1891	8920	I do not argue, I bend my head close and half envelop it,
LG1891	8921	I sit quietly by, I remain faithful,
LG1891	8922	I am more than nurse, more than parent or neighbor,
LG1891	8923	I absolve you from all except yourself spiritual bodily, that is eter-naleternal, you yourself will surely escape,
LG1891	8924	The corpse you will leave will be but excrementitious.
LG1891	8925	The sun bursts through in unlooked-for directions,
LG1891	8926	Strong thoughts fill you and confidence, you smile,
LG1891	8927	You forget you are sick, as I forget you are sick,
LG1891	8928	You do not see the medicines, you do not mind the weeping friends, I am with you,
LG1891	8929	I exclude others from you, there is nothing to be commiserated,
LG1891	8930	I do not commiserate, I congratulate you.
LG1891	8931	NIGHT on the prairies,
LG1891	8932	The supper is over, the fire on the ground burns low,
LG1891	8933	The wearied emigrants sleep, wrapt in their blankets;
LG1891	8934	I walk by myself—I stand and look at the stars, which I think now I never realized before.
LG1891	8935	Now I absorb immortality and peace,
LG1891	8936	I admire death and test propositions.
LG1891	8937	How plenteous! how spiritual! how resumé!
LG1891	8938	The same old man and soul—the same old aspirations, and the same content.
LG1891	8939	I was thinking the day most splendid till I saw what the not-day exhibited,
LG1891	8940	I was thinking this globe enough till there sprang out so noiseless around me myriads of other globes.
LG1891	8941	Now while the great thoughts of space and eternity fill me I will measure myself by them,
LG1891	8942	And now touch'd with the lives of other globes arrived as far along as those of the earth,
LG1891	8943	Or waiting to arrive, or pass'd on farther than those of the earth,
LG1891	8944	I henceforth no more ignore them than I ignore my own life,
LG1891	8945	Or the lives of the earth arrived as far as mine, or waiting to arrive.
LG1891	8946	O I see now that life cannot exhibit all to me, as the day cannot,
LG1891	8947	I see that I am to wait for what will be exhibited by death.
LG1891	8948	AS I sit with others at a great feast, suddenly while the music is playing,
LG1891	8949	To my mind, (whence it comes I know not,) spectral in mist of a wreck at sea,
LG1891	8950	Of certain ships, how they sail from port with flying streamers and wafted kisses, and that is the last of them,
LG1891	8951	Of the solemn and murky mystery about the fate of the President,
LG1891	8952	Of the flower of the marine science of fifty generations founder'd off the Northeast coast and going down—of the steamship Arctic going down,
LG1891	8953	Of the veil'd tableau—women gather'd together on deck, pale,heroic, waiting the moment that draws so close—O the moment!
LG1891	8954	A huge sob—a few bubbles—the white foam spirting up—and then the women gone,
LG1891	8955	Sinking there while the passionless wet flows on—and I now pondering, Are those women indeed gone?
LG1891	8956	Are souls drown'd and destroy'd so?
LG1891	8957	Is only matter triumphant?
LG1891	8958	AT the last, tenderly,
LG1891	8959	From the walls of the powerful fortress'd house,
LG1891	8960	From the clasp of the knitted locks, from the keep of the well-closedwell-closed doors,
LG1891	8961	Let me be wafted.
LG1891	8962	Let me glide noiselessly forth;
LG1891	8963	With the key of softness unlock the locks—with a whisper,
LG1891	8964	Set ope the doors O soul.
LG1891	8965	Tenderly—be not impatient,
LG1891	8966	(Strong is your hold O mortal flesh,
LG1891	8967	Strong is your hold O love.)
LG1891	8968	AS I watch'd the ploughman ploughing,
LG1891	8969	Or the sower sowing in the fields, or the harvester harvesting,
LG1891	8970	I saw there too, O life and death, your analogies;
LG1891	8971	(Life, life is the tillage, and Death is the harvest according.)
LG1891	8972	PENSIVE and faltering,
LG1891	8973	The words the Dead I write,
LG1891	8974	For living are the Dead,
LG1891	8975	(Haply the only living, only real,
LG1891	8976	And I the apparition, I the spectre.)
LG1891	8977	THOU Mother with thy equal brood,
LG1891	8978	Thou varied chain of different States, yet one identity only,
LG1891	8979	A special song before I go I'd sing o'er all the rest,
LG1891	8980	For thee, the future.
LG1891	8981	I'd sow a seed for thee of endless Nationality,
LG1891	8982	I'd fashion thy ensemble including body and soul,
LG1891	8983	I'd show away ahead thy real Union, and how it may be accom-plish'daccomplish'd.
LG1891	8984	The paths to the house I seek to make,
LG1891	8985	But leave to those to come the house itself.
LG1891	8986	Belief I sing, and preparation;
LG1891	8987	As Life and Nature are not great with reference to the present only,
LG1891	8988	But greater still from what is yet to come,
LG1891	8989	Out of that formula for thee I sing.
LG1891	8990	As a strong bird on pinions free,
LG1891	8991	Joyous, the amplest spaces heavenward cleaving,
LG1891	8992	Such be the thought I'd think of thee America,
LG1891	8993	Such be the recitative I'd bring for thee.
LG1891	8994	The conceits of the poets of other lands I'd bring thee not,
LG1891	8995	Nor the compliments that have served their turn so long,
LG1891	8996	Nor rhyme, nor the classics, nor perfume of foreign court or indoor library;
LG1891	8997	But an odor I'd bring as from forests of pine in Maine, or breath of an Illinois prairie,
LG1891	8998	With open airs of Virginia or Georgia or Tennessee, or from Texas uplands, or Florida's glades,
LG1891	8999	Or the Saguenay's black stream, or the wide blue spread of Huron,
LG1891	9000	With presentment of Yellowstone's scenes, or Yosemite,
LG1891	9001	And murmuring under, pervading all, I'd bring the rustling sea-soundsea-sound,
LG1891	9002	That endlessly sounds from the two Great Seas of the world.
LG1891	9003	And for thy subtler sense subtler refrains dread Mother,
LG1891	9004	Preludes of intellect tallying these and thee, mind-formulas fitted for thee, real and sane and large as these and thee,
LG1891	9005	Thou! mounting higher, diving deeper than we knew, thou transcendental Union!
LG1891	9006	By thee fact to be justified, blended with thought,
LG1891	9007	Thought of man justified, blended with God,
LG1891	9008	Through thy idea, lo, the immortal reality!
LG1891	9009	Through thy reality, lo, the immortal idea!
LG1891	9010	Brain of the New World, what a task is thine,
LG1891	9011	To formulate the Modern—out of the peerless grandeur of the modern,
LG1891	9012	Out of thyself, comprising science, to recast poems, churches, art,
LG1891	9013	(Recast, may-be discard them, end them—may-be their work is done, who knows?)
LG1891	9014	By vision, hand, conception, on the background of the mighty past, the dead,
LG1891	9015	To limn with absolute faith the mighty living present.
LG1891	9016	And yet thou living present brain, heir of the dead, the Old World brain,
LG1891	9017	Thou that lay folded like an unborn babe within its folds so long,
LG1891	9018	Thou carefully prepared by it so long—haply thou but unfoldest it, only maturest it,
LG1891	9019	It to eventuate in thee—the essence of the by-gone time contain'd in thee,
LG1891	9020	Its poems, churches, arts, unwitting to themselves, destined with reference to thee;
LG1891	9021	Thou but the apples, long, long, long a-growing,
LG1891	9022	The fruit of all the Old ripening to-day in thee.
LG1891	9023	Sail, sail thy best, ship of Democracy,
LG1891	9024	Of value is thy freight, 'tis not the Present only,
LG1891	9025	The Past is also stored in thee,
LG1891	9026	Thou holdest not the venture of thyself alone, not of the Western continent alone,
LG1891	9027	Earth's résumé entire floats on thy keel O ship, is steadied by thy spars,
LG1891	9028	With thee Time voyages in trust, the antecedent nations sink or swim with thee,
LG1891	9029	With all their ancient struggles, martyrs, heroes, epics, wars, thou bear'st the other continents,
LG1891	9030	Theirs, theirs as much as thine, the destination-port triumphant;
LG1891	9031	Steer then with good strong hand and wary eye O helmsman, thou carriest great companions,
LG1891	9032	Venerable priestly Asia sails this day with thee,
LG1891	9033	And royal feudal Europe sails with thee.
LG1891	9034	Beautiful world of new superber birth that rises to my eyes,
LG1891	9035	Like a limitless golden cloud filling the western sky,
LG1891	9036	Emblem of general maternity lifted above all,
LG1891	9037	Sacred shape of the bearer of daughters and sons,
LG1891	9038	Out of thy teeming womb thy giant babes in ceaseless procession issuing,
LG1891	9039	Acceding from such gestation, taking and giving continual strength and life,
LG1891	9040	World of the real—world of the twain in one,
LG1891	9041	World of the soul, born by the world of the real alone, led to identity, body, by it alone,
LG1891	9042	Yet in beginning only, incalculable masses of composite precious materials,
LG1891	9043	By history's cycles forwarded, by every nation, language, hither sent,
LG1891	9044	Ready, collected here, a freer, vast, electric world, to be con-structedconstructed here,
LG1891	9045	(The true New World, the world of orbic science, morals, litera-turesliteratures to come,)
LG1891	9046	Thou wonder world yet undefined, unform'd, neither do I define thee,
LG1891	9047	How can I pierce the impenetrable blank of the future?
LG1891	9048	I feel thy ominous greatness evil as well as good,
LG1891	9049	I watch thee advancing, absorbing the present, transcending the past,
LG1891	9050	I see thy light lighting, and thy shadow shadowing, as if the entire globe,
LG1891	9051	But I do not undertake to define thee, hardly to comprehend thee,
LG1891	9052	I but thee name, thee prophesy, as now,
LG1891	9053	I merely thee ejaculate!
LG1891	9054	Thee in thy future,
LG1891	9055	Thee in thy only permanent life, career, thy own unloosen'd mind,thy soaring spirit,
LG1891	9056	Thee as another equally needed sun, radiant, ablaze, swift-moving,fructifying all,
LG1891	9057	Thee risen in potent cheerfulness and joy, in endless great hilarity,
LG1891	9058	Scattering for good the cloud that hung so long, that weigh'd so long upon the mind of man,
LG1891	9059	The doubt, suspicion, dread, of gradual, certain decadence of man;
LG1891	9060	Thee in thy larger, saner brood of female, male—thee in thy athletes, moral, spiritual, South, North, West, East,
LG1891	9061	(To thy immortal breasts, Mother of All, thy every daughter, son,endear'd alike, forever equal,)
LG1891	9062	Thee in thy own musicians, singers, artists, unborn yet, but cer-taincertain,
LG1891	9063	Thee in thy moral wealth and civilization, (until which thy proud-estproudest material civilization must remain in vain,)
LG1891	9064	Thee in thy all-supplying, all-enclosing worship—thee in no single bible, saviour, merely,
LG1891	9065	Thy saviours countless, latent within thyself, thy bibles incessant within thyself, equal to any, divine as any,
LG1891	9066	(Thy soaring course thee formulating, not in thy two great wars,nor in thy century's visible growth,
LG1891	9067	But far more in these leaves and chants, thy chants, great Mother!)
LG1891	9068	Thee in an education grown of thee, in teachers, studies, students,born of thee,
LG1891	9069	Thee in thy democratic fêtes en-masse, thy high original festivals,operas, lecturers, preachers,
LG1891	9070	Thee in thy ultimata, (the preparations only now completed, the edifice on sure foundations tied,)
LG1891	9071	Thee in thy pinnacles, intellect, thought, thy topmost rational joys,thy love and godlike aspiration,
LG1891	9072	In thy resplendent coming literati, thy full-lung'd orators, thy sacerdotal bards, kosmic savans,
LG1891	9073	These! these in thee, (certain to come,) to-day I prophesy.
LG1891	9074	Land tolerating all, accepting all, not for the good alone, all good for thee,
LG1891	9075	Land in the realms of God to be a realm unto thyself,
LG1891	9076	Under the rule of God to be a rule unto thyself.
LG1891	9077	(Lo, where arise three peerless stars,
LG1891	9078	To be thy natal stars my country, Ensemble, Evolution, Freedom,
LG1891	9079	Set in the sky of Law.)
LG1891	9080	Land of unprecedented faith, God's faith,
LG1891	9081	Thy soil, thy very subsoil, all upheav'd,
LG1891	9082	The general inner earth so long so sedulously draped over, now hence for what it is boldly laid bare,
LG1891	9083	Open'd by thee to heaven's light for benefit or bale.
LG1891	9084	Not for success alone,
LG1891	9085	Not to fair-sail unintermitted always,
LG1891	9086	The storm shall dash thy face, the murk of war and worse than war shall cover thee all over,
LG1891	9087	(Wert capable of war, its tug and trials? be capable of peace, its trials,
LG1891	9088	For the tug and mortal strain of nations come at last in prosper-ousprosperous peace, not war;)
LG1891	9089	In many a smiling mask death shall approach beguiling thee, thou in disease shalt swelter,
LG1891	9090	The livid cancer spread its hideous claws, clinging upon thy breasts, seeking to strike thee deep within,
LG1891	9091	Consumption of the worst, moral consumption, shall rouge thy face with hectic,
LG1891	9092	But thou shalt face thy fortunes, thy diseases, and surmount them all,
LG1891	9093	Whatever they are to-day and whatever through time they may be,
LG1891	9094	They each and all shall lift and pass away and cease from thee,
LG1891	9095	While thou, Time's spirals rounding, out of thyself, thyself still extricating, fusing,
LG1891	9096	Equable, natural, mystical Union thou, (the mortal with immortal blent,)
LG1891	9097	Shalt soar toward the fulfilment of the future, the spirit of the body and the mind,
LG1891	9098	The soul, its destinies.
LG1891	9099	The soul, its destinies, the real real,
LG1891	9100	(Purport of all these apparitions of the real;)
LG1891	9101	In thee America, the soul, its destinies,
LG1891	9102	Thou globe of globes! thou wonder nebulous!
LG1891	9103	By many a throe of heat and cold convuls'd, (by these thyself solidifying,)
LG1891	9104	Thou mental, moral orb—thou New, indeed new, Spiritual World!
LG1891	9105	The Present holds thee not—for such vast growth as thine,
LG1891	9106	For such unparallel'd flight as thine, such brood as thine,
LG1891	9107	The FUTURE only holds thee and can hold thee.
LG1891	9108	TWO boats with nets lying off the sea-beach, quite still,
LG1891	9109	Ten fishermen waiting—they discover a thick school of moss-bonkersmossbonkers—they drop the join'd seine-ends in the water,
LG1891	9110	The boats separate and row off, each on its rounding course to the beach, enclosing the mossbonkers,
LG1891	9111	The net is drawn in by a windlass by those who stop ashore,
LG1891	9112	Some of the fishermen lounge in their boats, others stand ankle-deepankle-deep in the water, pois'd on strong legs,
LG1891	9113	The boats partly drawn up, the water slapping against them,
LG1891	9114	Strew'd on the sand in heaps and windrows, well out from the water, the green-back'd spotted mossbonkers.
LG1891	9115	THOU orb aloft full-dazzling! thou hot October noon!
LG1891	9116	Flooding with sheeny light the gray beach sand,
LG1891	9117	The sibilant near sea with vistas far and foam,
LG1891	9118	And tawny streaks and shades and spreading blue;
LG1891	9119	O sun of noon refulgent! my special word to thee.
LG1891	9120	Hear me illustrious!
LG1891	9121	Thy lover me, for always I have loved thee,
LG1891	9122	Even as basking babe, then happy boy alone by some wood edge,thy touching-distant beams enough,
LG1891	9123	Or man matured, or young or old, as now to thee I launch my invocation.
LG1891	9124	(Thou canst not with thy dumbness me deceive,
LG1891	9125	I know before the fitting man all Nature yields,
LG1891	9126	Though answering not in words, the skies, trees, hear his voice—and thou O sun,
LG1891	9127	As for thy throes, thy perturbations, sudden breaks and shafts of flame gigantic,
LG1891	9128	I understand them, I know those flames, those perturbations well.)
LG1891	9129	Thou that with fructifying heat and light,
LG1891	9130	O'er myriad farms, o'er lands and waters North and South,
LG1891	9131	O'er Mississippi's endless course, o'er Texas' grassy plains, Kana-da'sCanada's woods,
LG1891	9132	O'er all the globe that turns its face to thee shining in space,
LG1891	9133	Thou that impartially infoldest all, not only continents, seas,
LG1891	9134	Thou that to grapes and weeds and little wild flowers givest so liberally,
LG1891	9135	Shed, shed thyself on mine and me, with but a fleeting ray out of thy million millions,
LG1891	9136	Strike through these chants.
LG1891	9137	Nor only launch thy subtle dazzle and thy strength for these,
LG1891	9138	Prepare the later afternoon of me myself—prepare my lengthen-inglengthening shadows,
LG1891	9139	Prepare my starry nights.
LG1891	9140	SAUNTERING the pavement or riding the country by-road, lo, such faces!
LG1891	9141	Faces of friendship, precision, caution, suavity, ideality,
LG1891	9142	The spiritual-prescient face, the always welcome common benevo-lentbenevolent face,
LG1891	9143	The face of the singing of music, the grand faces of natural law-yerslawyers and judges broad at the back-top,
LG1891	9144	The faces of hunters and fishers bulged at the brows, the shaved blanch'd faces of orthodox citizens,
LG1891	9145	The pure, extravagant, yearning, questioning artist's face,
LG1891	9146	The ugly face of some beautiful soul, the handsome detested or despised face,
LG1891	9147	The sacred faces of infants, the illuminated face of the mother of many children,
LG1891	9148	The face of an amour, the face of veneration,
LG1891	9149	The face as of a dream, the face of an immobile rock,
LG1891	9150	The face withdrawn of its good and bad, a castrated face,
LG1891	9151	A wild hawk, his wings clipp'd by the clipper,
LG1891	9152	A stallion that yielded at last to the thongs and knife of the gelder.
LG1891	9153	Sauntering the pavement thus, or crossing the ceaseless ferry, faces and faces and faces,
LG1891	9154	I see them and complain not, and am content with all.
LG1891	9155	Do you suppose I could be content with all if I thought them their own finalè?
LG1891	9156	This now is too lamentable a face for a man,
LG1891	9157	Some abject louse asking leave to be, cringing for it,
LG1891	9158	Some milk-nosed maggot blessing what lets it wrig to its hole.
LG1891	9159	This face is a dog's snout sniffing for garbage,
LG1891	9160	Snakes nest in that mouth, I hear the sibilant threat.
LG1891	9161	This face is a haze more chill than the arctic sea,
LG1891	9162	Its sleepy and wabbling icebergs crunch as they go.
LG1891	9163	This is a face of bitter herbs, this an emetic, they need no label,
LG1891	9164	And more of the drug-shelf, laudanum, caoutchouc, or hog's-lard.
LG1891	9165	This face is an epilepsy, its wordless tongue gives out the unearthly cry,
LG1891	9166	Its veins down the neck distend, its eyes roll till they show nothing but their whites,
LG1891	9167	Its teeth grit, the palms of the hands are cut by the turn'd-in nails,
LG1891	9168	The man falls struggling and foaming to the ground, while he speculates well.
LG1891	9169	This face is bitten by vermin and worms,
LG1891	9170	And this is some murderer's knife with a half-pull'd scabbard.
LG1891	9171	This face owes to the sexton his dismalest fee,
LG1891	9172	An unceasing death-bell tolls there.
LG1891	9173	Features of my equals would you trick me with your creas'd and cadaverous march?
LG1891	9174	Well, you cannot trick me.
LG1891	9175	I see your rounded never-erased flow,
LG1891	9176	I see 'neath the rims of your haggard and mean disguises.
LG1891	9177	Splay and twist as you like, poke with the tangling fores of fishes or rats,
LG1891	9178	You'll be unmuzzled, you certainly will.
LG1891	9179	I saw the face of the most smear'd and slobbering idiot they had at the asylum,
LG1891	9180	And I knew for my consolation what they knew not,
LG1891	9181	I knew of the agents that emptied and broke my brother,
LG1891	9182	The same wait to clear the rubbish from the fallen tenement,
LG1891	9183	And I shall look again in a score or two of ages,
LG1891	9184	And I shall meet the real landlord perfect and unharm'd, every inch as good as myself.
LG1891	9185	The Lord advances, and yet advances,
LG1891	9186	Always the shadow in front, always the reach'd hand bringing up the laggards.
LG1891	9187	Out of this face emerge banners and horses—O superb! I see what is coming,
LG1891	9188	I see the high pioneer-caps, see staves of runners clearing the way,
LG1891	9189	I hear victorious drums.
LG1891	9190	This face is a life-boat,
LG1891	9191	This is the face commanding and bearded, it asks no odds of the rest,
LG1891	9192	This face is flavor'd fruit ready for eating,
LG1891	9193	This face of a healthy honest boy is the programme of all good.
LG1891	9194	These faces bear testimony slumbering or awake,
LG1891	9195	They show their descent from the Master himself.
LG1891	9196	Off the word I have spoken I except not one—red, white, black, are all deific,
LG1891	9197	In each house is the ovum, it comes forth after a thousand years.
LG1891	9198	Spots or cracks at the windows do not disturb me,
LG1891	9199	Tall and sufficient stand behind and make signs to me,
LG1891	9200	I read the promise and patiently wait.
LG1891	9201	This is a full-grown lily's face,
LG1891	9202	She speaks to the limber-hipp'd man near the garden pickets,
LG1891	9203	Come here she blushingly cries, Come nigh to me limber-hipp'd man,
LG1891	9204	Stand at my side till I lean as high as I can upon you,
LG1891	9205	Fill me with albescent honey, bend down to me,
LG1891	9206	Rub to me with your chafing beard, rub to my breast and shoulders.
LG1891	9207	The old face of the mother of many children,
LG1891	9208	Whist! I am fully content.
LG1891	9209	Lull'd and late is the smoke of the First-day morning,
LG1891	9210	It hangs low over the rows of trees by the fences,
LG1891	9211	It hangs thin by the sassafras and wild-cherry and cat-brier under them.
LG1891	9212	I saw the rich ladies in full dress at the soiree,
LG1891	9213	I heard what the singers were singing so long,
LG1891	9214	Heard who sprang in crimson youth from the white froth and the water-blue.
LG1891	9215	Behold a woman!
LG1891	9216	She looks out from her quaker cap, her face is clearer and more beautiful than the sky.
LG1891	9217	She sits in an armchair under the shaded porch of the farmhouse,
LG1891	9218	The sun just shines on her old white head.
LG1891	9219	Her ample gown is of cream-hued linen,
LG1891	9220	Her grandsons raised the flax, and her grand-daughters spun it with the distaff and the wheel.
LG1891	9221	The melodious character of the earth,
LG1891	9222	The finish beyond which philosophy cannot go and does not wish to go,
LG1891	9223	The justified mother of men.
LG1891	9224	HARK, some wild trumpeter, some strange musician,
LG1891	9225	Hovering unseen in air, vibrates capricious tunes to-night.
LG1891	9226	I hear thee trumpeter, listening alert I catch thy notes,
LG1891	9227	Now pouring, whirling like a tempest round me,
LG1891	9228	Now low, subdued, now in the distance lost.
LG1891	9229	Come nearer bodiless one, haply in thee resounds
LG1891	9230	Some dead composer, haply thy pensive life
LG1891	9231	Was fill'd with aspirations high, unform'd ideals,
LG1891	9232	Waves, oceans musical, chaotically surging,
LG1891	9233	That now ecstatic ghost, close to me bending, thy cornet echoing, pealing,
LG1891	9234	Gives out to no one's ears but mine, but freely gives to mine,
LG1891	9235	That I may thee translate.
LG1891	9236	Blow trumpeter free and clear, I follow thee,
LG1891	9237	While at thy liquid prelude, glad, serene,
LG1891	9238	The fretting world, the streets, the noisy hours of day withdraw,
LG1891	9239	A holy calm descends like dew upon me,
LG1891	9240	I walk in cool refreshing night the walks of Paradise,
LG1891	9241	I scent the grass, the moist air and the roses;
LG1891	9242	Thy song expands my numb'd imbonded spirit, thou freest, launchest me,
LG1891	9243	Floating and basking upon heaven's lake.
LG1891	9244	Blow again trumpeter! and for my sensuous eyes,
LG1891	9245	Bring the old pageants, show the feudal world.
LG1891	9246	What charm thy music works! thou makest pass before me,
LG1891	9247	Ladies and cavaliers long dead, barons are in their castle halls, the troubadours are singing,
LG1891	9248	Arm'd knights go forth to redress wrongs, some in quest of the holy Graal;
LG1891	9249	I see the tournament, I see the contestants incased in heavy armor seated on stately champing horses,
LG1891	9250	I hear the shouts, the sounds of blows and smiting steel;
LG1891	9251	I see the Crusaders' tumultuous armies—hark, how the cymbals clang,
LG1891	9252	Lo, where the monks walk in advance, bearing the cross on high.
LG1891	9253	Blow again trumpeter! and for thy theme,
LG1891	9254	Take now the enclosing theme of all, the solvent and the setting,
LG1891	9255	Love, that is pulse of all, the sustenance and the pang,
LG1891	9256	The heart of man and woman all for love,
LG1891	9257	No other theme but love—knitting, enclosing, all-diffusing love.
LG1891	9258	O how the immortal phantoms crowd around me!
LG1891	9259	I see the vast alembic ever working, I see and know the flames that heat the world,
LG1891	9260	The glow, the blush, the beating hearts of lovers,
LG1891	9261	So blissful happy some, and some so silent, dark, and nigh to death;
LG1891	9262	Love, that is all the earth to lovers—love, that mocks time and space,
LG1891	9263	Love, that is day and night—love, that is sun and moon and stars,
LG1891	9264	Love, that is crimson, sumptuous, sick with perfume,
LG1891	9265	No other words but words of love, no other thought but love.
LG1891	9266	Blow again trumpeter—conjure war's alarums.
LG1891	9267	Swift to thy spell a shuddering hum like distant thunder rolls,
LG1891	9268	Lo, where the arm'd men hasten—lo, mid the clouds of dust the glint of bayonets,
LG1891	9269	I see the grime-faced cannoneers, I mark the rosy flash amid the smoke, I hear the cracking of the guns;
LG1891	9270	Nor war alone—thy fearful music-song, wild player, brings every sight of fear,
LG1891	9271	The deeds of ruthless brigands, rapine, murder—I hear the cries for help!
LG1891	9272	I see ships foundering at sea, I behold on deck and below deck the terrible tableaus.
LG1891	9273	O trumpeter, methinks I am myself the instrument thou playest,
LG1891	9274	Thou melt'st my heart, my brain—thou movest, drawest, chan-gestchangest them at will;
LG1891	9275	And now thy sullen notes send darkness through me,
LG1891	9276	Thou takest away all cheering light, all hope,
LG1891	9277	I see the enslaved, the overthrown, the hurt, the opprest of the whole earth,
LG1891	9278	I feel the measureless shame and humiliation of my race, it becomes all mine,
LG1891	9279	Mine too the revenges of humanity, the wrongs of ages, baffled feuds and hatreds,
LG1891	9280	Utter defeat upon me weighs—all lost—the foe victorious,
LG1891	9281	(Yet 'mid the ruins Pride colossal stands unshaken to the last,
LG1891	9282	Endurance, resolution to the last.)
LG1891	9283	Now trumpeter for thy close,
LG1891	9284	Vouchsafe a higher strain than any yet,
LG1891	9285	Sing to my soul, renew its languishing faith and hope,
LG1891	9286	Rouse up my slow belief, give me some vision of the future,
LG1891	9287	Give me for once its prophecy and joy.
LG1891	9288	O glad, exulting, culminating song!
LG1891	9289	A vigor more than earth's is in thy notes,
LG1891	9290	Marches of victory—man disenthral'd—the conqueror at last,
LG1891	9291	Hymns to the universal God from universal man—all joy!
LG1891	9292	A reborn race appears—a perfect world, all joy!
LG1891	9293	Women and men in wisdom innocence and health—all joy!
LG1891	9294	Riotous laughing bacchanals fill'd with joy!
LG1891	9295	War, sorrow, suffering gone—the rank earth purged—nothing but joy left!
LG1891	9296	The ocean fill'd with joy—the atmosphere all joy!
LG1891	9297	Joy! joy! in freedom, worship, love! joy in the ecstasy of life!
LG1891	9298	Enough to merely be! enough to breathe!
LG1891	9299	Joy! joy! all over joy!
LG1891	9300	THEE for my recitative,
LG1891	9301	Thee in the driving storm even as now, the snow, the winter-day declining,
LG1891	9302	Thee in thy panoply, thy measur'd dual throbbing and thy beat convulsive,
LG1891	9303	Thy black cylindric body, golden brass and silvery steel,
LG1891	9304	Thy ponderous side-bars, parallel and connecting rods, gyrating,shuttling at thy sides,
LG1891	9305	Thy metrical, now swelling pant and roar, now tapering in the distance,
LG1891	9306	Thy great protruding head-light fix'd in front,
LG1891	9307	Thy long, pale, floating vapor-pennants, tinged with delicate purple,
LG1891	9308	The dense and murky clouds out-belching from thy smoke-stack,
LG1891	9309	Thy knitted frame, thy springs and valves, the tremulous twinkle of thy wheels,
LG1891	9310	Thy train of cars behind, obedient, merrily following,
LG1891	9311	Through gale or calm, now swift, now slack, yet steadily careering;
LG1891	9312	Type of the modern—emblem of motion and power—pulse of the continent,
LG1891	9313	For once come serve the Muse and merge in verse, even as here I see thee,
LG1891	9314	With storm and buffeting gusts of wind and falling snow,
LG1891	9315	By day thy warning ringing bell to sound its notes,
LG1891	9316	By night thy silent signal lamps to swing.
LG1891	9317	Fierce-throated beauty!
LG1891	9318	Roll through my chant with all thy lawless music, thy swinging lamps at night,
LG1891	9319	Thy madly-whistled laughter, echoing, rumbling like an earth-quakeearthquake, rousing all,
LG1891	9320	Law of thyself complete, thine own track firmly holding,
LG1891	9321	(No sweetness debonair of tearful harp or glib piano thine,)
LG1891	9322	Thy trills of shrieks by rocks and hills return'd,
LG1891	9323	Launch'd o'er the prairies wide, across the lakes,
LG1891	9324	To the free skies unpent and glad and strong.
LG1891	9325	O MAGNET-SOUTH! O glistening perfumed South! my South!
LG1891	9326	O quick mettle, rich blood, impulse and love! good and evil! O all dear to me!
LG1891	9327	O dear to me my birth-things—all moving things and the trees where I was born—the grains, plants, rivers,
LG1891	9328	Dear to me my own slow sluggish rivers where they flow, distant,over flats of silvery sands or through swamps,
LG1891	9329	Dear to me the Roanoke, the Savannah, the Altamahaw, the Pedee, the Tombigbee, the Santee, the Coosa and the Sabine,
LG1891	9330	O pensive, far away wandering, I return with my soul to haunt their banks again,
LG1891	9331	Again in Florida I float on transparent lakes, I float on the Okee-chobeeOkeechobee, I cross the hummock-land or through pleasant openings or dense forests,
LG1891	9332	I see the parrots in the woods, I see the papaw-tree and the blos-somingblossoming titi;
LG1891	9333	Again, sailing in my coaster on deck, I coast off Georgia, I coast up the Carolinas,
LG1891	9334	I see where the live-oak is growing, I see where the yellow-pine,the scented bay-tree, the lemon and orange, the cypress,the graceful palmetto,
LG1891	9335	I pass rude sea-headlands and enter Pamlico sound through an inlet, and dart my vision inland;
LG1891	9336	O the cotton plant! the growing fields of rice, sugar, hemp!
LG1891	9337	The cactus guarded with thorns, the laurel-tree with large white flowers,
LG1891	9338	The range afar, the richness and barrenness, the old woods charged with mistletoe and trailing moss,
LG1891	9339	The piney odor and the gloom, the awful natural stillness, (here in these dense swamps the freebooter carries his gun, and the fugitive has his conceal'd hut;)
LG1891	9340	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,
LG1891	9341	The mocking-bird, the American mimic, singing all the forenoon,singing through the moon-lit night,
LG1891	9342	The humming-bird, the wild turkey, the raccoon, the opossum;
LG1891	9343	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;
LG1891	9344	O my heart! O tender and fierce pangs, I can stand them not, I will depart;
LG1891	9345	O to be a Virginian where I grew up! O to be a Carolinian!
LG1891	9346	O longings irrepressible! O I will go back to old Tennessee and never wander more.
LG1891	9347	I WAS asking for something specific and perfect for my city,
LG1891	9348	Whereupon lo! upsprang the aboriginal name.
LG1891	9349	Now I see what there is in a name, a word, liquid, sane, unruly,musical, self-sufficient,
LG1891	9350	I see that the word of my city is that word from of old,
LG1891	9351	Because I see that word nested in nests of water-bays, superb,
LG1891	9352	Rich, hemm'd thick all around with sailships and steamships, an island sixteen miles long, solid-founded,
LG1891	9353	Numberless crowded streets, high growths of iron, slender, strong,light, splendidly uprising toward clear skies,
LG1891	9354	Tides swift and ample, well-loved by me, toward sundown,
LG1891	9355	The flowing sea-currents, the little islands, larger adjoining islands,the heights, the villas,
LG1891	9356	The countless masts, the white shore-steamers, the lighters, the ferry-boats, the black sea-steamers well-model'd,
LG1891	9357	The down-town streets, the jobbers' houses of business, the houses of business of the ship-merchants and money-brokers, the river-streets,
LG1891	9358	Immigrants arriving, fifteen or twenty thousand in a week,
LG1891	9359	The carts hauling goods, the manly race of drivers of horses, the brown-faced sailors,
LG1891	9360	The summer air, the bright sun shining, and the sailing clouds aloft,
LG1891	9361	The winter snows, the sleigh-bells, the broken ice in the river,passing along up or down with the flood-tide or ebb-tide,
LG1891	9362	The mechanics of the city, the masters, well-form'd, beautiful-facedbeautiful-faced, looking you straight in the eyes,
LG1891	9363	Trottoirs throng'd, vehicles, Broadway, the women, the shops and shows,
LG1891	9364	A million people—manners free and superb—open voices—hospitality—the most courageous and friendly young men,
LG1891	9365	City of hurried and sparkling waters! city of spires and masts!
LG1891	9366	City nested in bays! my city!
LG1891	9367	O ME, man of slack faith so long,
LG1891	9368	Standing aloof, denying portions so long,
LG1891	9369	Only aware to-day of compact all-diffused truth,
LG1891	9370	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,
LG1891	9371	Or as any law of the earth or any natural production of the earth does.
LG1891	9372	(This is curious and may not be realized immediately, but it must be realized,
LG1891	9373	I feel in myself that I represent falsehoods equally with the rest,
LG1891	9374	And that the universe does.)
LG1891	9375	Where has fail'd a perfect return indifferent of lies or the truth?
LG1891	9376	Is it upon the ground, or in water or fire? or in the spirit of man?or in the meat and blood?
LG1891	9377	Meditating among liars and retreating sternly into myself, I see that there are really no liars or lies after all,
LG1891	9378	And that nothing fails its perfect return, and that what are called lies are perfect returns,
LG1891	9379	And that each thing exactly represents itself and what has pre-cededpreceded it,
LG1891	9380	And that the truth includes all, and is compact just as much as space is compact,
LG1891	9381	And that there is no flaw or vacuum in the amount of the truth—but that all is truth without exception;
LG1891	9382	And henceforth I will go celebrate any thing I see or am,
LG1891	9383	And sing and laugh and deny nothing.
LG1891	9384	THAT which eludes this verse and any verse,
LG1891	9385	Unheard by sharpest ear, unform'd in clearest eye or cunningest mind,
LG1891	9386	Nor lore nor fame, nor happiness nor wealth,
LG1891	9387	And yet the pulse of every heart and life throughout the world incessantly,
LG1891	9388	Which you and I and all pursuing ever ever miss,
LG1891	9389	Open but still a secret, the real of the real, an illusion,
LG1891	9390	Costless, vouchsafed to each, yet never man the owner,
LG1891	9391	Which poets vainly seek to put in rhyme, historians in prose,
LG1891	9392	Which sculptor never chisel'd yet, nor painter painted,
LG1891	9393	Which vocalist never sung, nor orator nor actor ever utter'd,
LG1891	9394	Invoking here and now I challenge for my song.
LG1891	9395	Indifferently, 'mid public, private haunts, in solitude,
LG1891	9396	Behind the mountain and the wood,
LG1891	9397	Companion of the city's busiest streets, through the assemblage,
LG1891	9398	It and its radiations constantly glide.
LG1891	9399	In looks of fair unconscious babes,
LG1891	9400	Or strangely in the coffin'd dead,
LG1891	9401	Or show of breaking dawn or stars by night,
LG1891	9402	As some dissolving delicate film of dreams,
LG1891	9403	Hiding yet lingering.
LG1891	9404	Two little breaths of words comprising it,
LG1891	9405	Two words, yet all from first to last comprised in it.
LG1891	9406	How ardently for it!
LG1891	9407	How many ships have sail'd and sunk for it!
LG1891	9408	How many travelers started from their homes and ne'er return'd!
LG1891	9409	How much of genius boldly staked and lost for it!
LG1891	9410	What countless stores of beauty, love, ventur'd for it!
LG1891	9411	How all superbest deeds since Time began are traceable to it—and shall be to the end!
LG1891	9412	How all heroic martyrdoms to it!
LG1891	9413	How, justified by it, the horrors, evils, battles of the earth!
LG1891	9414	How the bright fascinating lambent flames of it, in every age and land, have drawn men's eyes,
LG1891	9415	Rich as a sunset on the Norway coast, the sky, the islands, and the cliffs,
LG1891	9416	Or midnight's silent glowing northern lights unreachable.
LG1891	9417	Haply God's riddle it, so vague and yet so certain,
LG1891	9418	The soul for it, and all the visible universe for it,
LG1891	9419	And heaven at last for it.
LG1891	9420	WHO has gone farthest? for I would go farther,
LG1891	9421	And who has been just? for I would be the most just person of the earth,
LG1891	9422	And who most cautious? for I would be more cautious,
LG1891	9423	And who has been happiest? O I think it is I—I think no one was ever happier than I,
LG1891	9424	And who has lavish'd all? for I lavish constantly the best I have,
LG1891	9425	And who proudest? for I think I have reason to be the proudest son alive—for I am the son of the brawny and tall-topt city,
LG1891	9426	And who has been bold and true? for I would be the boldest and truest being of the universe,
LG1891	9427	And who benevolent? for I would show more benevolence than all the rest,
LG1891	9428	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,
LG1891	9429	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,
LG1891	9430	And who thinks the amplest thoughts? for I would surround those thoughts,
LG1891	9431	And who has made hymns fit for the earth? for I am mad with de-vouringdevouring ecstasy to make joyous hymns for the whole earth.
LG1891	9432	AH poverties, wincings, and sulky retreats,
LG1891	9433	Ah you foes that in conflict have overcome me,
LG1891	9434	(For what is my life or any man's life but a conflict with foes, the old, the incessant war?)
LG1891	9435	You degradations, you tussle with passions and appetites,
LG1891	9436	You smarts from dissatisfied friendships, (ah wounds the sharpest of all!)
LG1891	9437	You toil of painful and choked articulations, you meannesses,
LG1891	9438	You shallow tongue-talks at tables, (my tongue the shallowest of any;)
LG1891	9439	You broken resolutions, you racking angers, you smother'd ennuis!
LG1891	9440	Ah think not you finally triumph, my real self has yet to come forth,
LG1891	9441	It shall yet march forth o'ermastering, till all lies beneath me,
LG1891	9442	It shall yet stand up the soldier of ultimate victory.
LG1891	9443	OF public opinion,
LG1891	9444	Of a calm and cool fiat sooner or later, (how impassive! how certain and final!)
LG1891	9445	Of the President with pale face asking secretly to himself, What will the people say at last?
LG1891	9446	Of the frivolous Judge—of the corrupt Congressman, Governor,Mayor—of such as these standing helpless and exposed,
LG1891	9447	Of the mumbling and screaming priest, (soon, soon deserted,)
LG1891	9448	Of the lessening year by year of venerableness, and of the dicta of officers, statutes, pulpits, schools,
LG1891	9449	Of the rising forever taller and stronger and broader of the intui-tionsintuitions of men and women, and of Self-esteem and Per-sonalityPersonality;
LG1891	9450	Of the true New World—of the Democracies resplendent en-masseen-masse,
LG1891	9451	Of the conformity of politics, armies, navies, to them,
LG1891	9452	Of the shining sun by them—of the inherent light, greater than the rest,
LG1891	9453	Of the envelopment of all by them, and the effusion of all from them.
LG1891	9454	THEY shall arise in the States,
LG1891	9455	They shall report Nature, laws, physiology, and happiness,
LG1891	9456	They shall illustrate Democracy and the kosmos,
LG1891	9457	They shall be alimentive, amative, perceptive,
LG1891	9458	They shall be complete women and men, their pose brawny and supple, their drink water, their blood clean and clear,
LG1891	9459	They shall fully enjoy materialism and the sight of products, they shall enjoy the sight of the beef, lumber, bread-stuffs, of Chicago the great city,
LG1891	9460	They shall train themselves to go in public to become orators and oratresses,
LG1891	9461	Strong and sweet shall their tongues be, poems and materials of poems shall come from their lives, they shall be makers and finders,
LG1891	9462	Of them and of their works shall emerge divine conveyers, to convey gospels,
LG1891	9463	Characters, events, retrospections, shall be convey'd in gospels,trees, animals, waters, shall be convey'd,
LG1891	9464	Death, the future, the invisible faith, shall all be convey'd.
LG1891	9465	WEAVE in, weave in, my hardy life,
LG1891	9466	Weave yet a soldier strong and full for great campaigns to come,
LG1891	9467	Weave in red blood, weave sinews in like ropes, the senses, sight weave in,
LG1891	9468	Weave lasting sure, weave day and night the weft, the warp,incessant weave, tire not,
LG1891	9469	(We know not what the use O life, nor know the aim, the end,nor really aught we know,
LG1891	9470	But know the work, the need goes on and shall go on, the death-envelop'ddeath-envelop'd march of peace as well as war goes on,)
LG1891	9471	For great campaigns of peace the same the wiry threads to weave,
LG1891	9472	We know not why or what, yet weave, forever weave.
LG1891	9473	OUT of the murk of heaviest clouds,
LG1891	9474	Out of the feudal wrecks and heap'd-up skeletons of kings,
LG1891	9475	Out of that old entire European debris, the shatter'd mummeries,
LG1891	9476	Ruin'd cathedrals, crumble of palaces, tombs of priests,
LG1891	9477	Lo, Freedom's features fresh undimm'd look forth—the same immortal face looks forth;
LG1891	9478	(A glimpse as of thy Mother's face Columbia,
LG1891	9479	A flash significant as of a sword,
LG1891	9480	Beaming towards thee.)
LG1891	9481	Nor think we forget thee maternal;
LG1891	9482	Lag'd'st thou so long? shall the clouds close again upon thee?
LG1891	9483	Ah, but thou hast thyself now appear'd to us—we know thee,
LG1891	9484	Thou hast given us a sure proof, the glimpse of thyself,
LG1891	9485	Thou waitest there as everywhere thy time.
LG1891	9486	BY broad Potomac's shore, again old tongue,
LG1891	9487	(Still uttering, still ejaculating, canst never cease this babble?)
LG1891	9488	Again old heart so gay, again to you, your sense, the full flush spring returning,
LG1891	9489	Again the freshness and the odors, again Virginia's summer sky,pellucid blue and silver,
LG1891	9490	Again the forenoon purple of the hills,
LG1891	9491	Again the deathless grass, so noiseless soft and green,
LG1891	9492	Again the blood-red roses blooming.
LG1891	9493	Perfume this book of mine O blood-red roses!
LG1891	9494	Lave subtly with your waters every line Potomac!
LG1891	9495	Give me of you O spring, before I close, to put between its pages!
LG1891	9496	O forenoon purple of the hills, before I close, of you!
LG1891	9497	O deathless grass, of you!
LG1891	9498	FROM far Dakota's cañons,
LG1891	9499	Lands of the wild ravine, the dusky Sioux, the lonesome stretch,the silence,
LG1891	9500	Haply to-day a mournful wail, haply a trumpet-note for heroes.
LG1891	9501	The battle-bulletin,
LG1891	9502	The Indian ambuscade, the craft, the fatal environment,
LG1891	9503	The cavalry companies fighting to the last in sternest heroism,
LG1891	9504	In the midst of their little circle, with their slaughter'd horses for breastworks,
LG1891	9505	The fall of Custer and all his officers and men.
LG1891	9506	Continues yet the old, old legend of our race,
LG1891	9507	The loftiest of life upheld by death,
LG1891	9508	The ancient banner perfectly maintain'd,
LG1891	9509	O lesson opportune, O how I welcome thee!
LG1891	9510	As sitting in dark days,
LG1891	9511	Lone, sulky, through the time's thick murk looking in vain for light,for hope,
LG1891	9512	From unsuspected parts a fierce and momentary proof,
LG1891	9513	(The sun there at the centre though conceal'd,
LG1891	9514	Electric life forever at the centre,)
LG1891	9515	Breaks forth a lightning flash.
LG1891	9516	Thou of the tawny flowing hair in battle,
LG1891	9517	I erewhile saw, with erect head, pressing ever in front, bearing a bright sword in thy hand,
LG1891	9518	Now ending well in death the splendid fever of thy deeds,
LG1891	9519	(I bring no dirge for it or thee, I bring a glad triumphal sonnet,)
LG1891	9520	Desperate and glorious, aye in defeat most desperate, most glorious,
LG1891	9521	After thy many battles in which never yielding up a gun or a color,
LG1891	9522	Leaving behind thee a memory sweet to soldiers,
LG1891	9523	Thou yieldest up thyself.
LG1891	9524	IN midnight sleep of many a face of anguish,
LG1891	9525	Of the look at first of the mortally wounded, (of that indescribable look,)
LG1891	9526	Of the dead on their backs with arms extended wide,
LG1891	9527	I dream, I dream, I dream.
LG1891	9528	Of scenes of Nature, fields and mountains,
LG1891	9529	Of skies so beauteous after a storm, and at night the moon so unearthly bright,
LG1891	9530	Shining sweetly, shining down, where we dig the trenches and gather the heaps,
LG1891	9531	I dream, I dream, I dream.
LG1891	9532	Long have they pass'd, faces and trenches and fields,
LG1891	9533	Where through the carnage I moved with a callous composure,or away from the fallen,
LG1891	9534	Onward I sped at the time—but now of their forms at night,
LG1891	9535	I dream, I dream, I dream.
LG1891	9536	THICK-SPRINKLED bunting! flag of stars!
LG1891	9537	Long yet your road, fateful flag—long yet your road, and lined with bloody death,
LG1891	9538	For the prize I see at issue at last is the world,
LG1891	9539	All its ships and shores I see interwoven with your threads greedy banner;
LG1891	9540	Dream'd again the flags of kings, highest borne, to flaunt unrival'd?
LG1891	9541	O hasten flag of man—O with sure and steady step, passing highest flags of kings,
LG1891	9542	Walk supreme to the heavens mighty symbol—run up above them all,
LG1891	9543	Flag of stars! thick-sprinkled bunting!
LG1891	9544	WHAT best I see in thee,
LG1891	9545	Is not that where thou mov'st down history's great highways,
LG1891	9546	Ever undimm'd by time shoots warlike victory's dazzle,
LG1891	9547	Or that thou sat'st where Washington sat, ruling the land in peace,
LG1891	9548	Or thou the man whom feudal Europe feted, venerable Asia swarm'd upon,
LG1891	9549	Who walk'd with kings with even pace the round world's prome-nadepromenade;
LG1891	9550	But that in foreign lands, in all thy walks with kings,
LG1891	9551	Those prairie sovereigns of the West, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois,
LG1891	9552	Ohio's, Indiana's millions, comrades, farmers, soldiers, all to the front,
LG1891	9553	Invisibly with thee walking with kings with even pace the round world's promenade,
LG1891	9554	Were all so justified.
LG1891	9555	SPIRIT that form'd this scene,
LG1891	9556	These tumbled rock-piles grim and red,
LG1891	9557	These reckless heaven-ambitious peaks,
LG1891	9558	These gorges, turbulent-clear streams, this naked freshness,
LG1891	9559	These formless wild arrays, for reasons of their own,
LG1891	9560	I know thee, savage spirit—we have communed together,
LG1891	9561	Mine too such wild arrays, for reasons of their own;
LG1891	9562	Was't charged against my chants they had forgotten art?
LG1891	9563	To fuse within themselves its rules precise and delicatesse?
LG1891	9564	The lyrist's measur'd beat, the wrought-out temple's grace—column and polish'd arch forgot?
LG1891	9565	But thou that revelest here—spirit that form'd this scene,
LG1891	9566	They have remember'd thee.
LG1891	9567	AS I walk these broad majestic days of peace,
LG1891	9568	(For the war, the struggle of blood finish'd, wherein, O terrific Ideal,
LG1891	9569	Against vast odds erewhile having gloriously won,
LG1891	9570	Now thou stridest on, yet perhaps in time toward denser wars,
LG1891	9571	Perhaps to engage in time in still more dreadful contests, dangers,
LG1891	9572	Longer campaigns and crises, labors beyond all others,)
LG1891	9573	Around me I hear that eclat of the world, politics, produce,
LG1891	9574	The announcements of recognized things, science,
LG1891	9575	The approved growth of cities and the spread of inventions.
LG1891	9576	I see the ships, (they will last a few years,)
LG1891	9577	The vast factories with their foremen and workmen,
LG1891	9578	And hear the indorsement of all, and do not object to it.
LG1891	9579	But I too announce solid things,
LG1891	9580	Science, ships, politics, cities, factories, are not nothing,
LG1891	9581	Like a grand procession to music of distant bugles pouring,triumphantly moving, and grander heaving in sight,
LG1891	9582	They stand for realities—all is as it should be.
LG1891	9583	Then my realities;
LG1891	9584	What else is so real as mine?
LG1891	9585	Libertad and the divine average, freedom to every slave on the face of the earth,
LG1891	9586	The rapt promises and luminè of seers, the spiritual world, these centuries-lasting songs,
LG1891	9587	And our visions, the visions of poets, the most solid announce-mentsannouncements of any.
LG1891	9588	THIS is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless,
LG1891	9589	Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson done,
LG1891	9590	Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the themes thou lovest best,
LG1891	9591	Night, sleep, death and the stars.
LG1891	9592	AS the time draws nigh glooming a cloud,
LG1891	9593	A dread beyond of I know not what darkens me.
LG1891	9594	I shall go forth,
LG1891	9595	I shall traverse the States awhile, but I cannot tell whither or how long,
LG1891	9596	Perhaps soon some day or night while I am singing my voice will suddenly cease.
LG1891	9597	O book, O chants! must all then amount to but this?
LG1891	9598	Must we barely arrive at this beginning of us?—and yet it is enough, O soul;
LG1891	9599	O soul, we have positively appear'd—that is enough.
LG1891	9600	YEARS of the modern! years of the unperform'd!
LG1891	9601	Your horizon rises, I see it parting away for more august dramas,
LG1891	9602	I see not America only, not only Liberty's nation but other nations preparing,
LG1891	9603	I see tremendous entrances and exits, new combinations, the soli-daritysolidarity of races,
LG1891	9604	I see that force advancing with irresistible power on the world's stage,
LG1891	9605	(Have the old forces, the old wars, played their parts? are the acts suitable to them closed?)
LG1891	9606	I see Freedom, completely arm'd and victorious and very haughty,with Law on one side and Peace on the other,
LG1891	9607	A stupendous trio all issuing forth against the idea of caste;
LG1891	9608	What historic denouements are these we so rapidly approach?
LG1891	9609	I see men marching and countermarching by swift millions,
LG1891	9610	I see the frontiers and boundaries of the old aristocracies broken,
LG1891	9611	I see the landmarks of European kings removed,
LG1891	9612	I see this day the People beginning their landmarks, (all others give way;)
LG1891	9613	Never were such sharp questions ask'd as this day,
LG1891	9614	Never was average man, his soul, more energetic, more like a God,
LG1891	9615	Lo, how he urges and urges, leaving the masses no rest!
LG1891	9616	His daring foot is on land and sea everywhere, he colonizes the Pacific, the archipelagoes,
LG1891	9617	With the steamship, the electric telegraph, the newspaper, the wholesale engines of war,
LG1891	9618	With these and the world-spreading factories he interlinks all geography, all lands;
LG1891	9619	What whispers are these O lands, running ahead of you, passing under the seas?
LG1891	9620	Are all nations communing? is there going to be but one heart to the globe?
LG1891	9621	Is humanity forming en-masse? for lo, tyrants tremble, crowns grow dim,
LG1891	9622	The earth, restive, confronts a new era, perhaps a general divine war,
LG1891	9623	No one knows what will happen next, such portents fill the days and nights;
LG1891	9624	Years prophetical! the space ahead as I walk, as I vainly try to pierce it, is full of phantoms,
LG1891	9625	Unborn deeds, things soon to be, project their shapes around me,
LG1891	9626	This incredible rush and heat, this strange ecstatic fever of dreams O years!
LG1891	9627	Your dreams O years, how they penetrate through me! (I know not whether I sleep or wake;)
LG1891	9628	The perform'd America and Europe grow dim, retiring in shadow behind me,
LG1891	9629	The unperform'd, more gigantic than ever, advance, advance upon me.
LG1891	9630	ASHES of soldiers South or North,
LG1891	9631	As I muse retrospective murmuring a chant in thought,
LG1891	9632	The war resumes, again to my sense your shapes,
LG1891	9633	And again the advance of the armies.
LG1891	9634	Noiseless as mists and vapors,
LG1891	9635	From their graves in the trenches ascending,
LG1891	9636	From cemeteries all through Virginia and Tennessee,
LG1891	9637	From every point of the compass out of the countless graves,
LG1891	9638	In wafted clouds, in myriads large, or squads of twos or threes or single ones they come,
LG1891	9639	And silently gather round me.
LG1891	9640	Now sound no note O trumpeters,
LG1891	9641	Not at the head of my cavalry parading on spirited horses,
LG1891	9642	With sabres drawn and glistening, and carbines by their thighs, (ah my brave horsemen!
LG1891	9643	My handsome tan-faced horsemen! what life, what joy and pride,
LG1891	9644	With all the perils were yours.)
LG1891	9645	Nor you drummers, neither at reveillé at dawn,
LG1891	9646	Nor the long roll alarming the camp, nor even the muffled beat for a burial,
LG1891	9647	Nothing from you this time O drummers bearing my warlike drums.
LG1891	9648	But aside from these and the marts of wealth and the crowded promenade,
LG1891	9649	Admitting around me comrades close unseen by the rest and voiceless,
LG1891	9650	The slain elate and alive again, the dust and debris alive,
LG1891	9651	I chant this chant of my silent soul in the name of all dead soldiers.
LG1891	9652	Faces so pale with wondrous eyes, very dear, gather closer yet,
LG1891	9653	Draw close, but speak not.
LG1891	9654	Phantoms of countless lost,
LG1891	9655	Invisible to the rest henceforth become my companions,
LG1891	9656	Follow me ever—desert me not while I live.
LG1891	9657	Sweet are the blooming cheeks of the living—sweet are the musi-calmusical voices sounding,
LG1891	9658	But sweet, ah sweet, are the dead with their silent eyes.
LG1891	9659	Dearest comrades, all is over and long gone,
LG1891	9660	But love is not over—and what love, O comrades!
LG1891	9661	Perfume from battle-fields rising, up from the foetor arising.
LG1891	9662	Perfume therefore my chant, O love, immortal love,
LG1891	9663	Give me to bathe the memories of all dead soldiers,
LG1891	9664	Shroud them, embalm them, cover them all over with tender pride.
LG1891	9665	Perfume all—make all wholesome,
LG1891	9666	Make these ashes to nourish and blossom,
LG1891	9667	O love, solve all, fructify all with the last chemistry.
LG1891	9668	Give me exhaustless, make me a fountain,
LG1891	9669	That I exhale love from me wherever I go like a moist perennial dew,
LG1891	9670	For the ashes of all dead soldiers South or North.
LG1891	9671	OF these years I sing,
LG1891	9672	How they pass and have pass'd through convuls'd pains, as through parturitions,
LG1891	9673	How America illustrates birth, muscular youth, the promise, the sure fulfilment, the absolute success, despite of people— illustrates evil as well as good,
LG1891	9674	The vehement struggle so fierce for unity in one's-self;
LG1891	9675	How many hold despairingly yet to the models departed, caste, myths, obedience, compulsion, and to infidelity,
LG1891	9676	How few see the arrived models, the athletes, the Western States, or see freedom or spirituality, or hold any faith in results,
LG1891	9677	(But I see the athletes, and I see the results of the war glorious and inevitable, and they again leading to other results.)
LG1891	9678	How the great cities appear—how the Democratic masses, turbu-lentturbulent, wilful, as I love them,
LG1891	9679	How the whirl, the contest, the wrestle of evil with good, the sounding and resounding, keep on and on,
LG1891	9680	How society waits unform'd, and is for a while between things ended and things begun,
LG1891	9681	How America is the continent of glories, and of the triumph of freedom and of the Democracies, and of the fruits of so-cietysociety, and of all that is begun,
LG1891	9682	And how the States are complete in themselves—and how all triumphs and glories are complete in themselves, to lead onward,
LG1891	9683	And how these of mine and of the States will in their turn be con-vuls'dconvuls'd, and serve other parturitions and transitions,
LG1891	9684	And how all people, sights, combinations, the democratic masses too, serve—and how every fact, and war itself, with all its horrors, serves,
LG1891	9685	And how now or at any time each serves the exquisite transition of death.
LG1891	9686	Of seeds dropping into the ground, of births,
LG1891	9687	Of the steady concentration of America, inland, upward, to im-pregnableimpregnable and swarming places,
LG1891	9688	Of what Indiana, Kentucky, Arkansas, and the rest, are to be,
LG1891	9689	Of what a few years will show there in Nebraska, Colorado, Nevada, and the rest,
LG1891	9690	(Or afar, mounting the Northern Pacific to Sitka or AliaskaAlaska,)
LG1891	9691	Of what the feuillage of America is the preparation for—and of what all sights, North, South, East and West, are,
LG1891	9692	Of this Union welded in blood, of the solemn price paid, of the unnamed lost ever present in my mind;
LG1891	9693	Of the temporary use of materials for identity's sake,
LG1891	9694	Of the present, passing, departing—of the growth of completer men than any yet,
LG1891	9695	Of all sloping down there where the fresh free giver the mother, the Mississippi flows,
LG1891	9696	Of mighty inland cities yet unsurvey'd and unsuspected,
LG1891	9697	Of the new and good names, of the modern developments, of inalienable homesteads,
LG1891	9698	Of a free and original life there, of simple diet and clean and sweet blood,
LG1891	9699	Of litheness, majestic faces, clear eyes, and perfect physique there,
LG1891	9700	Of immense spiritual results future years far West, each side of the Anahuacs,
LG1891	9701	Of these songs, well understood there, (being made for that area,)
LG1891	9702	Of the native scorn of grossness and gain there,
LG1891	9703	(O it lurks in me night and day—what is gain after all to savage-nesssavageness and freedom?)
LG1891	9704	SPLENDOR of ended day floating and filling me,
LG1891	9705	Hour prophetic, hour resuming the past,
LG1891	9706	Inflating my throat, you divine average,
LG1891	9707	You earth and life till the last ray gleams I sing.
LG1891	9708	Open mouth of my soul uttering gladness,
LG1891	9709	Eyes of my soul seeing perfection,
LG1891	9710	Natural life of me faithfully praising things,
LG1891	9711	Corroborating forever the triumph of things.
LG1891	9712	Illustrious every one!
LG1891	9713	Illustrious what we name space, sphere of unnumber'd spirits,
LG1891	9714	Illustrious the mystery of motion in all beings, even the tiniest insect,
LG1891	9715	Illustrious the attribute of speech, the senses, the body,
LG1891	9716	Illustrious the passing light—illustrious the pale reflection on the new moon in the western sky,
LG1891	9717	Illustrious whatever I see or hear or touch, to the last.
LG1891	9718	Good in all,
LG1891	9719	In the satisfaction and aplomb of animals,
LG1891	9720	In the annual return of the seasons,
LG1891	9721	In the hilarity of youth,
LG1891	9722	In the strength and flush of manhood,
LG1891	9723	In the grandeur and exquisiteness of old age,
LG1891	9724	In the superb vistas of death.
LG1891	9725	Wonderful to depart!
LG1891	9726	Wonderful to be here!
LG1891	9727	The heart, to jet the all-alike and innocent blood!
LG1891	9728	To breathe the air, how delicious!
LG1891	9729	To speak—to walk—to seize something by the hand!
LG1891	9730	To prepare for sleep, for bed, to look on my rose-color'd flesh!
LG1891	9731	To be conscious of my body, so satisfied, so large!
LG1891	9732	To be this incredible God I am!
LG1891	9733	To have gone forth among other Gods, these men and women I love.
LG1891	9734	Wonderful how I celebrate you and myself!
LG1891	9735	How my thoughts play subtly at the spectacles around!
LG1891	9736	How the clouds pass silently overhead!
LG1891	9737	How the earth darts on and on! and how the sun, moon, stars,dart on and on!
LG1891	9738	How the water sports and sings! (surely it is alive!)
LG1891	9739	How the trees rise and stand up, with strong trunks, with branches and leaves!
LG1891	9740	(Surely there is something more in each of the trees, some living soul.)
LG1891	9741	O amazement of things—even the least particle!
LG1891	9742	O spirituality of things!
LG1891	9743	O strain musical flowing through ages and continents, now reaching me and America!
LG1891	9744	I take your strong chords, intersperse them, and cheerfully pass them forward.
LG1891	9745	I too carol the sun, usher'd or at noon, or as now, setting,
LG1891	9746	I too throb to the brain and beauty of the earth and of all the growths of the earth,
LG1891	9747	I too have felt the resistless call of myself.
LG1891	9748	As I steam'd down the Mississippi,
LG1891	9749	As I wander'd over the prairies,
LG1891	9750	As I have lived, as I have look'd through my windows my eyes,
LG1891	9751	As I went forth in the morning, as I beheld the light breaking in the east,
LG1891	9752	As I bathed on the beach of the Eastern Sea, and again on the beach of the Western Sea,
LG1891	9753	As I roam'd the streets of inland Chicago, whatever streets I have roam'd,
LG1891	9754	Or cities or silent woods, or even amid the sights of war,
LG1891	9755	Wherever I have been I have charged myself with contentment and triumph.
LG1891	9756	I sing to the last the equalities modern or old,
LG1891	9757	I sing the endless finalés of things,
LG1891	9758	I say Nature continues, glory continues,
LG1891	9759	I praise with electric voice,
LG1891	9760	For I do not see one imperfection in the universe,
LG1891	9761	And I do not see one cause or result lamentable at last in the universe.
LG1891	9762	O setting sun! though the time has come,
LG1891	9763	I still warble under you, if none else does, unmitigated adoration.
LG1891	9764	AS at thy portals also death,
LG1891	9765	Entering thy sovereign, dim, illimitable grounds,
LG1891	9766	To memories of my mother, to the divine blending, maternity,
LG1891	9767	To her, buried and gone, yet buried not, gone not from me,
LG1891	9768	(I see again the calm benignant face fresh and beautiful still,
LG1891	9769	I sit by the form in the coffin,
LG1891	9770	I kiss and kiss convulsively again the sweet old lips, the cheeks,the closed eyes in the coffin;)
LG1891	9771	To her, the ideal woman, practical, spiritual, of all of earth, life,love, to me the best,
LG1891	9772	I grave a monumental line, before I go, amid these songs,
LG1891	9773	And set a tombstone here.
LG1891	9774	THE business man the acquirer vast,
LG1891	9775	After assiduous years surveying results, preparing for departure,
LG1891	9776	Devises houses and lands to his children, bequeaths stocks, goods,funds for a school or hospital,
LG1891	9777	Leaves money to certain companions to buy tokens, souvenirs of gems and gold.
LG1891	9778	But I, my life surveying, closing,
LG1891	9779	With nothing to show to devise from its idle years,
LG1891	9780	Nor houses nor lands, nor tokens of gems or gold for my friends,
LG1891	9781	Yet certain remembrances of the war for you, and after you,
LG1891	9782	And little souvenirs of camps and soldiers, with my love,
LG1891	9783	I bind together and bequeath in this bundle of songs.
LG1891	9784	PENSIVE on her dead gazing I heard the Mother of All,
LG1891	9785	Desperate on the torn bodies, on the forms covering the battle-fieldsbattlefields gazing,
LG1891	9786	(As the last gun ceased, but the scent of the powder-smoke linger'd,)
LG1891	9787	As she call'd to her earth with mournful voice while she stalk'd,
LG1891	9788	Absorb them well O my earth, she cried, I charge you lose not my sons, lose not an atom,
LG1891	9789	And you streams absorb them well, taking their dear blood,
LG1891	9790	And you local spots, and you airs that swim above lightly impalpable,
LG1891	9791	And all you essences of soil and growth, and you my rivers' depths,
LG1891	9792	And you mountain sides, and the woods where my dear children's blood trickling redden'd,
LG1891	9793	And you trees down in your roots to bequeath to all future trees,
LG1891	9794	My dead absorb or South or North—my young men's bodies absorb, and their precious precious blood,
LG1891	9795	Which holding in trust for me faithfully back again give me many a year hence,
LG1891	9796	In unseen essence and odor of surface and grass, centuries hence,
LG1891	9797	In blowing airs from the fields back again give me my darlings,give my immortal heroes,
LG1891	9798	Exhale me them centuries hence, breathe me their breath, let not an atom be lost,
LG1891	9799	O years and graves! O air and soil! O my dead, an aroma sweet!
LG1891	9800	Exhale them perennial sweet death, years, centuries hence.
LG1891	9801	NOT alone those camps of white, old comrades of the wars,
LG1891	9802	When as order'd forward, after a long march,
LG1891	9803	Footsore and weary, soon as the light lessens we halt for the night,
LG1891	9804	Some of us so fatigued carrying the gun and knapsack, dropping asleep in our tracks,
LG1891	9805	Others pitching the little tents, and the fires lit up begin to sparkle,
LG1891	9806	Outposts of pickets posted surrounding alert through the dark,
LG1891	9807	And a word provided for countersign, careful for safety,
LG1891	9808	Till to the call of the drummers at daybreak loudly beating the drums,
LG1891	9809	We rise up refresh'd, the night and sleep pass'd over, and resume our journey,
LG1891	9810	Or proceed to battle.
LG1891	9811	Lo, the camps of the tents of green,
LG1891	9812	Which the days of peace keep filling, and the days of war keep filling,
LG1891	9813	With a mystic army, (is it too order'd forward? is it too only halt ing awhile,
LG1891	9814	Till night and sleep pass over?)
LG1891	9815	Now in those camps of green, in their tents dotting the world,
LG1891	9816	In the parents, children, husbands, wives, in them, in the old and young,
LG1891	9817	Sleeping under the sunlight, sleeping under the moonlight, content and silent there at last,
LG1891	9818	Behold the mighty bivouac-field and waiting-camp of all,
LG1891	9819	Of the corps and generals all, and the President over the corps and generals all,
LG1891	9820	And of each of us O soldiers, and of each and all in the ranks we fought,
LG1891	9821	(There without hatred we all, all meet.)
LG1891	9822	For presently O soldiers, we too camp in our place in the bivouac-campsbivouccamps of green,
LG1891	9823	But we need not provide for outposts, nor word for the counter-signcountersign,
LG1891	9824	Nor drummer to beat the morning drum.
LG1891	9825	THE sobbing of the bells, the sudden death-news everywhere,
LG1891	9826	The slumberers rouse, the rapport of the People,
LG1891	9827	(Full well they know that message in the darkness,
LG1891	9828	Full well return, respond within their breasts, their brains, the sad reverberations,)
LG1891	9829	The passionate toll and clang—city to city, joining, sounding,passing,
LG1891	9830	Those heart-beats of a Nation in the night.
LG1891	9831	AS they draw to a close,
LG1891	9832	Of what underlies the precedent songs—of my aims in them,
LG1891	9833	Of the seed I have sought to plant in them,
LG1891	9834	Of joy, sweet joy, through many a year, in them,
LG1891	9835	(For them, for them have I lived, in them my work is done,)
LG1891	9836	Of many an aspiration fond, of many a dream and plan;
LG1891	9837	Through Space and Time fused in a chant, and the flowing eternal identity,
LG1891	9838	To Nature encompassing these, encompassing God—to the joy-ousjoyous, electric all,
LG1891	9839	To the sense of Death, and accepting exulting in Death in its turn the same as life,
LG1891	9840	The entrance of man to sing;
LG1891	9841	To compact you, ye parted, diverse lives,
LG1891	9842	To put rapport the mountains and rocks and streams,
LG1891	9843	And the winds of the north, and the forests of oak and pine,
LG1891	9844	With you O soul.
LG1891	9845	JOY, shipmate, joy!
LG1891	9846	(Pleas'd to my soul at death I cry,)
LG1891	9847	Our life is closed, our life begins,
LG1891	9848	The long, long anchorage we leave,
LG1891	9849	The ship is clear at last, she leaps!
LG1891	9850	She swiftly courses from the shore,
LG1891	9851	Joy, shipmate, joy.
LG1891	9852	THE untold want by life and land ne'er granted,
LG1891	9853	Now voyager sail thou forth to seek and find.
LG1891	9854	WHAT are those of the known but to ascend and enter the Unknown?
LG1891	9855	And what are those of life but for Death?
LG1891	9856	THESE carols sung to cheer my passage through the world I see,
LG1891	9857	For completion I dedicate to the Invisible World.
LG1891	9858	NOW finalè to the shore,
LG1891	9859	Now land and life finalè and farewell,
LG1891	9860	Now Voyager depart, (much, much for thee is yet in store,)
LG1891	9861	Often enough hast thou adventur'd o'er the seas,
LG1891	9862	Cautiously cruising, studying the charts,
LG1891	9863	Duly again to port and hawser's tie returning;
LG1891	9864	But now obey thy cherish'd secret wish,
LG1891	9865	Embrace thy friends, leave all in order,
LG1891	9866	To port and hawser's tie no more returning,
LG1891	9867	Depart upon thy endless cruise old Sailor.
LG1891	9868	TO conclude, I announce what comes after me.
LG1891	9869	I remember I said before my leaves sprang at all,
LG1891	9870	I would raise my voice jocund and strong with reference to con-summationsconsummations.
LG1891	9871	When America does what was promis'd,
LG1891	9872	When through these States walk a hundred millions of superb persons,
LG1891	9873	When the rest part away for superb persons and contribute to them,
LG1891	9874	When breeds of the most perfect mothers denote America,
LG1891	9875	Then to me and mine our due fruition.
LG1891	9876	I have press'd through in my own right,
LG1891	9877	I have sung the body and the soul, war and peace have I sung,and the songs of life and death,
LG1891	9878	And the songs of birth, and shown that there are many births.
LG1891	9879	I have offer'd my style to every one, I have journey'd with confi-dentconfident step;
LG1891	9880	While my pleasure is yet at the full I whisper So long!
LG1891	9881	And take the young woman's hand and the young man's hand for the last time.
LG1891	9882	I announce natural persons to arise,
LG1891	9883	I announce justice triumphant,
LG1891	9884	I announce uncompromising liberty and equality,
LG1891	9885	I announce the justification of candor and the justification of pride.
LG1891	9886	I announce that the identity of these States is a single identity only,
LG1891	9887	I announce the Union more and more compact, indissoluble,
LG1891	9888	I announce splendors and majesties to make all the previous poli-ticspolitics of the earth insignificant.
LG1891	9889	I announce adhesiveness, I say it shall be limitless, unloosen'd,
LG1891	9890	I say you shall yet find the friend you were looking for.
LG1891	9891	I announce a man or woman coming, perhaps you are the one, (So long!)
LG1891	9892	I announce the great individual, fluid as Nature, chaste, affection-ateaffectionate, compassionate, fully arm'd.
LG1891	9893	I announce a life that shall be copious, vehement, spiritual, bold,
LG1891	9894	I announce an end that shall lightly and joyfully meet its transla-tiontranslation.
LG1891	9895	I announce myriads of youths, beautiful, gigantic, sweet-blooded,
LG1891	9896	I announce a race of splendid and savage old men.
LG1891	9897	O thicker and faster—(So long!)
LG1891	9898	O crowding too close upon me,
LG1891	9899	I foresee too much, it means more than I thought,
LG1891	9900	It appears to me I am dying.
LG1891	9901	Hasten throat and sound your last,
LG1891	9902	Salute me—salute the days once more. Peal the old cry once more.
LG1891	9903	Screaming electric, the atmosphere using,
LG1891	9904	At random glancing, each as I notice absorbing,
LG1891	9905	Swiftly on, but a little while alighting,
LG1891	9906	Curious envelop'd messages delivering,
LG1891	9907	Sparkles hot, seed ethereal down in the dirt dropping,
LG1891	9908	Myself unknowing, my commission obeying, to question it never daring,
LG1891	9909	To ages and ages yet the growth of the seed leaving,
LG1891	9910	To troops out of the war arising, they the tasks I have set promul-gingpromulging,
LG1891	9911	To women certain whispers of myself bequeathing, their affection me more clearly explaining,
LG1891	9912	To young men my problems offering—no dallier I—I the mus- cle of their brains trying,
LG1891	9913	So I pass, a little time vocal, visible, contrary,
LG1891	9914	Afterward a melodious echo, passionately bent for, (death making me really undying,)
LG1891	9915	The best of me then when no longer visible, for toward that I have been incessantly preparing.
LG1891	9916	What is there more, that I lag and pause and crouch extended with unshut mouth?
LG1891	9917	Is there a single final farewell?
LG1891	9918	My songs cease, I abandon them,
LG1891	9919	From behind the screen where I hid I advance personally solely to you.
LG1891	9920	Camerado, this is no book,
LG1891	9921	Who touches this touches a man,
LG1891	9922	(Is it night? are we here together alone?)
LG1891	9923	It is I you hold and who holds you,
LG1891	9924	I spring from the pages into your arms—decease calls me forth.
LG1891	9925	O how your fingers drowse me,
LG1891	9926	Your breath falls around me like dew, your pulse lulls the tympans of my ears,
LG1891	9927	I feel immerged from head to foot,
LG1891	9928	Delicious, enough.
LG1891	9929	Enough O deed impromptu and secret,
LG1891	9930	Enough O gliding present—enough O summ'd-up past.
LG1891	9931	Dear friend whoever you are take this kiss,
LG1891	9932	I give it especially to you, do not forget me,
LG1891	9933	I feel like one who has done work for the day to retire awhile,
LG1891	9934	I receive now again of my many translations, from my avataras as-cendingascending, while others doubtless await me,
LG1891	9935	An unknown sphere more real than I dream'd, more direct, darts awakening rays about me, So long!
LG1891	9936	Remember my words, I may again return,
LG1891	9937	I love you, I depart from materials,
LG1891	9938	I am as one disembodied, triumphant, dead.