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Leaves of Grass (1891-92)
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WHEN LILACS LAST IN THE DOORYARD BLOOM'D.
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WHEN lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd, |
And the great star early droop'd in the western sky in the night, |
I mourn'd, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring. |
Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring, |
Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west, |
And thought of him I love. |
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O powerful western fallen star! |
O shades of night—O moody, tearful night! |
O great star disappear'd—O the black murk that hides the star! |
O cruel hands that hold me powerless—O helpless soul of me! |
O harsh surrounding cloud that will not free my soul. |
3
In the dooryard fronting an old farm-house near the white-wash'd
palings,
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Stands the lilac-bush tall-growing with heart-shaped leaves of rich
green,
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With many a pointed blossom rising delicate, with the perfume
strong I love,
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With every leaf a miracle—and from this bush in the dooryard, |
With delicate-color'd blossoms and heart-shaped leaves of rich
green,
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A sprig with its flower I break. |
4
In the swamp in secluded recesses, |
A shy and hidden bird is warbling a song. |
The hermit withdrawn to himself, avoiding the settlements, |
Song of the bleeding throat, |
Death's outlet song of life, (for well dear brother I know, |
If thou wast not granted to sing thou would'st surely die.) |
5
Over the breast of the spring, the land, amid cities, |
Amid lanes and through old woods, where lately the violets peep'd
from the ground, spotting the gray debris,
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Amid the grass in the fields each side of the lanes, passing the
endless grass,
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Passing the yellow-spear'd wheat, every grain from its shroud in
the dark-brown fields uprisen,
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Passing the apple-tree blows of white and pink in the orchards, |
Carrying a corpse to where it shall rest in the grave, |
Night and day journeys a coffin. |
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Coffin that passes through lanes and streets, |
Through day and night with the great cloud darkening the land, |
With the pomp of the inloop'd flags with the cities draped in black, |
With the show of the States themselves as of crape-veil'd women
standing,
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With processions long and winding and the flambeaus of the night, |
With the countless torches lit, with the silent sea of faces and the
unbared heads,
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With the waiting depot, the arriving coffin, and the sombre faces, |
With dirges through the night, with the thousand voices rising
strong and solemn,
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With all the mournful voices of the dirges pour'd around the coffin, |
The dim-lit churches and the shuddering organs—where amid
these you journey,
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With the tolling tolling bells' perpetual clang, |
Here, coffin that slowly passes, |
I give you my sprig of lilac. |
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(Nor for you, for one alone, |
Blossoms and branches green to coffins all I bring, |
For fresh as the morning, thus would I chant a song for you O
sane and sacred death.
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All over bouquets of roses, |
O death, I cover you over with roses and early lilies, |
But mostly and now the lilac that blooms the first, |
Copious I break, I break the sprigs from the bushes, |
With loaded arms I come, pouring for you, |
For you and the coffins all of you O death.) |
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O western orb sailing the heaven, |
Now I know what you must have meant as a month since I
walk'd,
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As I walk'd in silence the transparent shadowy night, |
As I saw you had something to tell as you bent to me night after
night,
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As you droop'd from the sky low down as if to my side, (while
the other stars all look'd on,)
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As we wander'd together the solemn night, (for something I know
not what kept me from sleep,)
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As the night advanced, and I saw on the rim of the west how full
you were of woe,
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As I stood on the rising ground in the breeze in the cool trans-
parent night,
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As I watch'd where you pass'd and was lost in the netherward
black of the night,
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As my soul in its trouble dissatisfied sank, as where you sad orb, |
Concluded, dropt in the night, and was gone. |
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Sing on there in the swamp, |
O singer bashful and tender, I hear your notes, I hear your call, |
I hear, I come presently, I understand you, |
But a moment I linger, for the lustrous star has detain'd me, |
The star my departing comrade holds and detains me. |
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O how shall I warble myself for the dead one there I loved? |
And how shall I deck my song for the large sweet soul that has
gone?
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And what shall my perfume be for the grave of him I love? |
Sea-winds blown from east and west, |
Blown from the Eastern sea and blown from the Western sea, till
there on the prairies meeting,
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These and with these and the breath of my chant, |
I'll perfume the grave of him I love. |
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O what shall I hang on the chamber walls? |
And what shall the pictures be that I hang on the walls, |
To adorn the burial-house of him I love? |
Pictures of growing spring and farms and homes, |
With the Fourth-month eve at sundown, and the gray smoke lucid
and bright,
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With floods of the yellow gold of the gorgeous, indolent, sinking
sun, burning, expanding the air,
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With the fresh sweet herbage under foot, and the pale green leaves
of the trees prolific,
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In the distance the flowing glaze, the breast of the river, with a
wind-dapple here and there,
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With ranging hills on the banks, with many a line against the sky,
and shadows,
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And the city at hand with dwellings so dense, and stacks of chim-
neys,
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And all the scenes of life and the workshops, and the workmen
homeward returning.
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12
Lo, body and soul—this land, |
My own Manhattan with spires, and the sparkling and hurrying
tides, and the ships,
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The varied and ample land, the South and the North in the light,
Ohio's shores and flashing Missouri,
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And ever the far-spreading prairies cover'd with grass and corn. |
Lo, the most excellent sun so calm and haughty, |
The violet and purple morn with just-felt breezes, |
The gentle soft-born measureless light, |
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The miracle spreading bathing all, the fulfill'd noon, |
The coming eve delicious, the welcome night and the stars, |
Over my cities shining all, enveloping man and land. |
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Sing on, sing on you gray-brown bird, |
Sing from the swamps, the recesses, pour your chant from the
bushes,
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Limitless out of the dusk, out of the cedars and pines. |
Sing on dearest brother, warble your reedy song, |
Loud human song, with voice of uttermost woe. |
O liquid and free and tender! |
O wild and loose to my soul—O wondrous singer! |
You only I hear—yet the star holds me, (but will soon depart,) |
Yet the lilac with mastering odor holds me. |
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Now while I sat in the day and look'd forth, |
In the close of the day with its light and the fields of spring, and
the farmers preparing their crops,
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In the large unconscious scenery of my land with its lakes and
forests,
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In the heavenly aerial beauty, (after the perturb'd winds and the
storms,)
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Under the arching heavens of the afternoon swift passing, and the
voices of children and women,
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The many-moving sea-tides, and I saw the ships how they
sail'd,
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And the summer approaching with richness, and the fields all busy
with labor,
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And the infinite separate houses, how they all went on, each with
its meals and minutia of daily usages,
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And the streets how their throbbings throbb'd, and the cities pent
—lo, then and there,
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Falling upon them all and among them all, enveloping me with the
rest,
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Appear'd the cloud, appear'd the long black trail, |
And I knew death, its thought, and the sacred knowledge of
death.
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Then with the knowledge of death as walking one side of me, |
And the thought of death close-walking the other side of me, |
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And I in the middle as with companions, and as holding the
hands of companions,
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I fled forth to the hiding receiving night that talks not, |
Down to the shores of the water, the path by the swamp in the
dimness,
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To the solemn shadowy cedars and ghostly pines so still. |
And the singer so shy to the rest receiv'd me, |
The gray-brown bird I know receiv'd us comrades three, |
And he sang the carol of death, and a verse for him I love. |
From deep secluded recesses, |
From the fragrant cedars and the ghostly pines so still, |
Came the carol of the bird. |
And the charm of the carol rapt me, |
As I held as if by their hands my comrades in the night, |
And the voice of my spirit tallied the song of the bird. |
Come lovely and soothing death, |
Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving, |
In the day, in the night, to all, to each, |
Sooner or later delicate death. |
Prais'd be the fathomless universe, |
For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious, |
And for love, sweet love—but praise! praise! praise! |
For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding death. |
Dark mother always gliding near with soft feet, |
Have none chanted for thee a chant of fullest welcome? |
Then I chant it for thee, I glorify thee above all, |
I bring thee a song that when thou must indeed come, come unfal-
teringly.
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Approach strong deliveress, |
When it is so, when thou hast taken them I joyously sing the dead, |
Lost in the loving floating ocean of thee, |
Laved in the flood of thy bliss O death. |
From me to thee glad serenades, |
Dances for thee I propose saluting thee, adornments and feast-
ings for thee,
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And the sights of the open landscape and the high-spread sky are
fitting,
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And life and the fields, and the huge and thoughtful night. |
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The night in silence under many a star, |
The ocean shore and the husky whispering wave whose voice I
know,
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And the soul turning to thee O vast and well-veil'd death, |
And the body gratefully nestling close to thee. |
Over the tree-tops I float thee a song, |
Over the rising and sinking waves, over the myriad fields and the
prairies wide,
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Over the dense-pack'd cities all and the teeming wharves and ways, |
I float this carol with joy, with joy to thee O death. |
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Loud and strong kept up the gray-brown bird, |
With pure deliberate notes spreading filling the night. |
Loud in the pines and cedars dim, |
Clear in the freshness moist and the swamp-perfume, |
And I with my comrades there in the night. |
While my sight that was bound in my eyes unclosed, |
As to long panoramas of visions. |
And I saw askant the armies, |
I saw as in noiseless dreams hundreds of battle-flags, |
Borne through the smoke of the battles and pierc'd with missiles
I saw them,
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And carried hither and yon through the smoke, and torn and
bloody,
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And at last but a few shreds left on the staffs, (and all in silence,) |
And the staffs all splinter'd and broken. |
I saw battle-corpses, myriads of them, |
And the white skeletons of young men, I saw them, |
I saw the debris and debris of all the slain soldiers of the war, |
But I saw they were not as was thought, |
They themselves were fully at rest, they suffer'd not, |
The living remain'd and suffer'd, the mother suffer'd, |
And the wife and the child and the musing comrade suffer'd, |
And the armies that remain'd suffer'd. |
Passing the visions, passing the night, |
Passing, unloosing the hold of my comrades' hands, |
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Passing the song of the hermit bird and the tallying song of my
soul,
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Victorious song, death's outlet song, yet varying ever-altering song, |
As low and wailing, yet clear the notes, rising and falling, flooding
the night,
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Sadly sinking and fainting, as warning and warning, and yet again
bursting with joy,
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Covering the earth and filling the spread of the heaven, |
As that powerful psalm in the night I heard from recesses, |
Passing, I leave thee lilac with heart-shaped leaves, |
I leave thee there in the door-yard, blooming, returning with
spring.
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I cease from my song for thee, |
From my gaze on thee in the west, fronting the west, communing
with thee,
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O comrade lustrous with silver face in the night. |
Yet each to keep and all, retrievements out of the night, |
The song, the wondrous chant of the gray-brown bird, |
And the tallying chant, the echo arous'd in my soul, |
With the lustrous and drooping star with the countenance full
of woe,
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With the holders holding my hand nearing the call of the bird, |
Comrades mine and I in the midst, and their memory ever to
keep, for the dead I loved so well,
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For the sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and lands—and this
for his dear sake,
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Lilac and star and bird twined with the chant of my soul, |
There in the fragrant pines and the cedars dusk and dim. |
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