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Leaves of Grass (1891-92)
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FROM NOON TO STARRY NIGHT.
THOU ORB ALOFT FULL-DAZZLING.
THOU orb aloft full-dazzling! thou hot October noon! |
Flooding with sheeny light the gray beach sand, |
The sibilant near sea with vistas far and foam, |
And tawny streaks and shades and spreading blue; |
O sun of noon refulgent! my special word to thee. |
Thy lover me, for always I have loved thee, |
Even as basking babe, then happy boy alone by some wood edge,
thy touching-distant beams enough,
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Or man matured, or young or old, as now to thee I launch my
invocation.
|
(Thou canst not with thy dumbness me deceive, |
I know before the fitting man all Nature yields, |
Though answering not in words, the skies, trees, hear his voice—
and thou O sun,
|
As for thy throes, thy perturbations, sudden breaks and shafts of
flame gigantic,
|
I understand them, I know those flames, those perturbations well.) |
Thou that with fructifying heat and light, |
O'er myriad farms, o'er lands and waters North and South, |
O'er Mississippi's endless course, o'er Texas' grassy plains, Kana-
da's woods,
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O'er all the globe that turns its face to thee shining in space, |
Thou that impartially infoldest all, not only continents, seas, |
Thou that to grapes and weeds and little wild flowers givest so
liberally,
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Shed, shed thyself on mine and me, with but a fleeting ray out of
thy million millions,
|
Strike through these chants. |
Nor only launch thy subtle dazzle and thy strength for these, |
Prepare the later afternoon of me myself—prepare my lengthen-
ing shadows,
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Prepare my starry nights. |
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FACES.
1
SAUNTERING the pavement or riding the country by-road, lo, such
faces!
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Faces of friendship, precision, caution, suavity, ideality, |
The spiritual-prescient face, the always welcome common benevo-
lent face,
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The face of the singing of music, the grand faces of natural law-
yers and judges broad at the back-top,
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The faces of hunters and fishers bulged at the brows, the shaved
blanch'd faces of orthodox citizens,
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The pure, extravagant, yearning, questioning artist's face, |
The ugly face of some beautiful soul, the handsome detested or
despised face,
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The sacred faces of infants, the illuminated face of the mother of
many children,
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The face of an amour, the face of veneration, |
The face as of a dream, the face of an immobile rock, |
The face withdrawn of its good and bad, a castrated face, |
A wild hawk, his wings clipp'd by the clipper, |
A stallion that yielded at last to the thongs and knife of the gelder. |
Sauntering the pavement thus, or crossing the ceaseless ferry, faces
and faces and faces,
|
I see them and complain not, and am content with all. |
2
Do you suppose I could be content with all if I thought them
their own finalè?
|
This now is too lamentable a face for a man, |
Some abject louse asking leave to be, cringing for it, |
Some milk-nosed maggot blessing what lets it wrig to its hole. |
This face is a dog's snout sniffing for garbage, |
Snakes nest in that mouth, I hear the sibilant threat. |
This face is a haze more chill than the arctic sea, |
Its sleepy and wabbling icebergs crunch as they go. |
This is a face of bitter herbs, this an emetic, they need no label, |
And more of the drug-shelf, laudanum, caoutchouc, or hog's-lard. |
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This face is an epilepsy, its wordless tongue gives out the unearthly
cry,
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Its veins down the neck distend, its eyes roll till they show nothing
but their whites,
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Its teeth grit, the palms of the hands are cut by the turn'd-in
nails,
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The man falls struggling and foaming to the ground, while he
speculates well.
|
This face is bitten by vermin and worms, |
And this is some murderer's knife with a half-pull'd scabbard. |
This face owes to the sexton his dismalest fee, |
An unceasing death-bell tolls there. |
3
Features of my equals would you trick me with your creas'd and
cadaverous march?
|
Well, you cannot trick me. |
I see your rounded never-erased flow, |
I see 'neath the rims of your haggard and mean disguises. |
Splay and twist as you like, poke with the tangling fores of fishes
or rats,
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You'll be unmuzzled, you certainly will. |
I saw the face of the most
smear'd and slobbering idiot they had
at the asylum,
|
And I knew for my consolation what they knew not, |
I knew of the agents that emptied and broke my brother, |
The same wait to clear the rubbish from the fallen tenement, |
And I shall look again in a score or two of ages, |
And I shall meet the real landlord perfect and unharm'd, every
inch as good as myself.
|
4
The Lord advances, and yet advances, |
Always the shadow in front, always the reach'd hand bringing up
the laggards.
|
Out of this face emerge banners and horses—O superb! I see
what is coming,
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I see the high pioneer-caps, see staves of runners clearing the way, |
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This face is a life-boat, |
This is the face commanding and bearded, it asks no odds of the
rest,
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This face is flavor'd fruit ready for eating, |
This face of a healthy honest boy is the programme of all good. |
These faces bear testimony slumbering or awake, |
They show their descent from the Master himself. |
Off the word I have spoken I except not one—red, white, black,
are all deific,
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In each house is the ovum, it comes forth after a thousand years. |
Spots or cracks at the windows do not disturb me, |
Tall and sufficient stand behind and make signs to me, |
I read the promise and patiently wait. |
This is a full-grown lily's face, |
She speaks to the limber-hipp'd man near the garden pickets, |
Come here she blushingly cries, Come nigh to me limber-hipp'd
man,
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Stand at my side till I lean as high as I can upon you, |
Fill me with albescent honey, bend down to me, |
Rub to me with your chafing beard, rub to my breast and
shoulders.
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5
The old face of the mother of many children, |
Whist! I am fully content. |
Lull'd and late is the smoke of the First-day morning, |
It hangs low over the rows of trees by the fences, |
It hangs thin by the sassafras and wild-cherry and cat-brier under
them.
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I saw the rich ladies in full dress at the soiree, |
I heard what the singers were singing so long, |
Heard who sprang in crimson youth from the white froth and the
water-blue.
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She looks out from her quaker cap, her face is clearer and more
beautiful than the sky.
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She sits in an armchair under the shaded porch of the farmhouse, |
The sun just shines on her old white head. |
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Her ample gown is of cream-hued linen, |
Her grandsons raised the flax, and her grand-daughters spun it
with the distaff and the wheel.
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The melodious character of the earth, |
The finish beyond which philosophy cannot go and does not wish
to go,
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The justified mother of men. |
THE MYSTIC TRUMPETER.
1
HARK, some wild trumpeter, some strange musician, |
Hovering unseen in air, vibrates capricious tunes to-night. |
I hear thee trumpeter, listening alert I catch thy notes, |
Now pouring, whirling like a tempest round me, |
Now low, subdued, now in the distance lost. |
2
Come nearer bodiless one, haply in thee resounds |
Some dead composer, haply thy pensive life |
Was fill'd with aspirations high, unform'd ideals, |
Waves, oceans musical, chaotically surging, |
That now ecstatic ghost, close to me bending, thy cornet echoing,
pealing,
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Gives out to no one's ears but mine, but freely gives to mine, |
That I may thee translate. |
3
Blow trumpeter free and clear, I follow thee, |
While at thy liquid prelude, glad, serene, |
The fretting world, the streets, the noisy hours of day withdraw, |
A holy calm descends like dew upon me, |
I walk in cool refreshing night the walks of Paradise, |
I scent the grass, the moist air and the roses; |
Thy song expands my numb'd imbonded spirit, thou freest,
launchest me,
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Floating and basking upon heaven's lake. |
4
Blow again trumpeter! and for my sensuous eyes, |
Bring the old pageants, show the feudal world. |
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What charm thy music works! thou makest pass before me, |
Ladies and cavaliers long dead, barons are in their castle halls, the
troubadours are singing,
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Arm'd knights go forth to redress wrongs, some in quest of the
holy Graal;
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I see the tournament, I see the contestants incased in heavy
armor seated on stately champing horses,
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I hear the shouts, the sounds of blows and smiting steel; |
I see the Crusaders' tumultuous armies—hark, how the cymbals
clang,
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Lo, where the monks walk in advance, bearing the cross on high. |
5
Blow again trumpeter! and for thy theme, |
Take now the enclosing theme of all, the solvent and the setting, |
Love, that is pulse of all, the sustenance and the pang, |
The heart of man and woman all for love, |
No other theme but love—knitting, enclosing, all-diffusing love. |
O how the immortal phantoms crowd around me! |
I see the vast alembic ever working, I see and know the flames
that heat the world,
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The glow, the blush, the beating hearts of lovers, |
So blissful happy some, and some so silent, dark, and nigh to
death;
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Love, that is all the earth to lovers—love, that mocks time and
space,
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Love, that is day and night—love, that is sun and moon and stars, |
Love, that is crimson, sumptuous, sick with perfume, |
No other words but words of love, no other thought but love. |
6
Blow again trumpeter—conjure war's alarums. |
Swift to thy spell a shuddering hum like distant thunder rolls, |
Lo, where the arm'd men hasten—lo, mid the clouds of dust the
glint of bayonets,
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I see the grime-faced cannoneers, I mark the rosy flash amid the
smoke, I hear the cracking of the guns;
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Nor war alone—thy fearful music-song, wild player, brings every
sight of fear,
|
The deeds of ruthless brigands, rapine, murder—I hear the cries
for help!
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I see ships foundering at sea, I behold on deck and below deck
the terrible tableaus.
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7
O trumpeter, methinks I am myself the instrument thou playest, |
Thou melt'st my heart, my brain—thou movest, drawest, chan-
gest them at will;
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And now thy sullen notes send darkness through me, |
Thou takest away all cheering light, all hope, |
I see the enslaved, the overthrown, the hurt, the opprest of the
whole earth,
|
I feel the measureless shame and humiliation of my race, it
becomes all mine,
|
Mine too the revenges of humanity, the wrongs of ages, baffled
feuds and hatreds,
|
Utter defeat upon me weighs—all lost—the foe victorious, |
(Yet 'mid the ruins Pride colossal stands unshaken to the last, |
Endurance, resolution to the last.) |
8
Now trumpeter for thy close, |
Vouchsafe a higher strain than any yet, |
Sing to my soul, renew its languishing faith and hope, |
Rouse up my slow belief, give me some vision of the future, |
Give me for once its prophecy and joy. |
O glad, exulting, culminating song! |
A vigor more than earth's is in thy notes, |
Marches of victory—man disenthral'd—the conqueror at last, |
Hymns to the universal God from universal man—all joy! |
A reborn race appears—a perfect world, all joy! |
Women and men in wisdom innocence and health—all joy! |
Riotous laughing bacchanals fill'd with joy! |
War, sorrow, suffering gone—the rank earth purged—nothing
but joy left!
|
The ocean fill'd with joy—the atmosphere all joy! |
Joy! joy! in freedom, worship, love! joy in the ecstasy of life! |
Enough to merely be! enough to breathe! |
TO A LOCOMOTIVE IN WINTER.
Thee in the driving storm even as now, the snow, the winter-day
declining,
|
Thee in thy panoply, thy measur'd dual throbbing and thy beat
convulsive,
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Thy black cylindric body, golden brass and silvery steel, |
Thy ponderous side-bars, parallel and connecting rods, gyrating,
shuttling at thy sides,
|
Thy metrical, now swelling pant and roar, now tapering in the
distance,
|
Thy great protruding head-light fix'd in front, |
Thy long, pale, floating vapor-pennants, tinged with delicate
purple,
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The dense and murky clouds out-belching from thy smoke-stack, |
Thy knitted frame, thy springs and valves, the tremulous twinkle
of thy wheels,
|
Thy train of cars behind, obedient, merrily following, |
Through gale or calm, now swift, now slack, yet steadily careering; |
Type of the modern—emblem of motion and power—pulse of
the continent,
|
For once come serve the Muse and merge in verse, even as here
I see thee,
|
With storm and buffeting gusts of wind and falling snow, |
By day thy warning ringing bell to sound its notes, |
By night thy silent signal lamps to swing. |
Roll through my chant with all thy lawless music, thy swinging
lamps at night,
|
Thy madly-whistled laughter, echoing, rumbling like an earth-
quake, rousing all,
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Law of thyself complete, thine own track firmly holding, |
(No sweetness debonair of tearful harp or glib piano thine,) |
Thy trills of shrieks by rocks and hills return'd, |
Launch'd o'er the prairies wide, across the lakes, |
To the free skies unpent and glad and strong. |
O MAGNET-SOUTH.
O MAGNET-SOUTH! O glistening perfumed South! my South! |
O quick mettle, rich blood, impulse and love! good and evil! O
all dear to me!
|
O dear to me my birth-things—all moving things and the trees
where I was born—the grains, plants, rivers,
|
Dear to me my own slow sluggish rivers where they flow, distant,
over flats of silvery sands or through swamps,
|
Dear to me the Roanoke, the Savannah, the Altamahaw, the
Pedee, the Tombigbee, the Santee, the Coosa and the
Sabine,
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O pensive, far away wandering, I return with my soul to haunt
their banks again,
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Again in Florida I float on transparent lakes, I float on the Okee-
chobee, I cross the hummock-land or through pleasant
openings or dense forests,
|
I see the parrots in the woods, I see the papaw-tree and the blos-
soming titi;
|
Again, sailing in my coaster on deck, I coast off Georgia, I coast
up the Carolinas,
|
I see where the live-oak is growing, I see where the yellow-pine,
the scented bay-tree, the lemon and orange, the cypress,
the graceful palmetto,
|
I pass rude sea-headlands and enter Pamlico sound through an
inlet, and dart my vision inland;
|
O the cotton plant! the growing fields of rice, sugar, hemp! |
The cactus guarded with thorns, the laurel-tree with large white
flowers,
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The range afar, the richness and barrenness, the old woods
charged with mistletoe and trailing moss,
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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;)
|
O the strange fascination of these half-known half-impassable
swamps, infested by reptiles, resounding with the bellow
of the alligator, the sad noises of the night-owl and the
wild-cat, and the whirr of the rattlesnake,
|
The mocking-bird, the American mimic, singing all the forenoon,
singing through the moon-lit night,
|
The humming-bird, the wild turkey, the raccoon, the opossum; |
A Kentucky corn-field, the tall, graceful, long-leav'd corn, slender,
flapping, bright green, with tassels, with beautiful ears each
well-sheath'd in its husk;
|
O my heart! O tender and fierce pangs, I can stand them not, I
will depart;
|
O to be a Virginian where I grew up! O to be a Carolinian! |
O longings irrepressible! O I will go back to old Tennessee and
never wander more.
|
MANNAHATTA.
I WAS asking for something specific and perfect for my city, |
Whereupon lo! upsprang the aboriginal name. |
Now I see what there is in a name, a word, liquid, sane, unruly,
musical, self-sufficient,
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I see that the word of my city is that word from of old, |
Because I see that word nested in nests of water-bays, superb, |
Rich, hemm'd thick all around with sailships and steamships, an
island sixteen miles long, solid-founded,
|
Numberless crowded streets, high growths of iron, slender, strong,
light, splendidly uprising toward clear skies,
|
Tides swift and ample, well-loved by me, toward sundown, |
The flowing sea-currents, the little islands, larger adjoining islands,
the heights, the villas,
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The countless masts, the white shore-steamers, the lighters, the
ferry-boats, the black sea-steamers well-model'd,
|
The down-town streets, the jobbers' houses of business, the houses
of business of the ship-merchants and money-brokers, the
river-streets,
|
Immigrants arriving, fifteen or twenty thousand in a week, |
The carts hauling goods, the manly race of drivers of horses, the
brown-faced sailors,
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The summer air, the bright sun shining, and the sailing clouds
aloft,
|
The winter snows, the sleigh-bells, the broken ice in the river,
passing along up or down with the flood-tide or ebb-tide,
|
The mechanics of the city, the masters, well-form'd, beautiful-
faced, looking you straight in the eyes,
|
Trottoirs throng'd, vehicles, Broadway, the women, the shops and
shows,
|
A million people—manners free and superb—open voices—
hospitality—the most courageous and friendly young men,
|
City of hurried and sparkling waters! city of spires and masts! |
City nested in bays! my city! |
ALL IS TRUTH.
O ME, man of slack faith so long, |
Standing aloof, denying portions so long, |
Only aware to-day of compact all-diffused truth, |
Discovering to-day there is no lie or form of lie, and can be none,
but grows as inevitably upon itself as the truth does upon
itself,
|
Or as any law of the earth or any natural production of the earth
does.
|
(This is curious and may not be realized immediately, but it must
be realized,
|
I feel in myself that I represent falsehoods equally with the rest, |
And that the universe does.) |
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Where has fail'd a perfect return indifferent of lies or the truth? |
Is it upon the ground, or in water or fire? or in the spirit of man?
or in the meat and blood?
|
Meditating among liars and retreating sternly into myself, I see
that there are really no liars or lies after all,
|
And that nothing fails its perfect return, and that what are called
lies are perfect returns,
|
And that each thing exactly represents itself and what has pre-
ceded it,
|
And that the truth includes all, and is compact just as much as
space is compact,
|
And that there is no flaw or vacuum in the amount of the truth—
but that all is truth without exception;
|
And henceforth I will go celebrate any thing I see or am, |
And sing and laugh and deny nothing. |
A RIDDLE SONG.
THAT which eludes this verse and any verse, |
Unheard by sharpest ear, unform'd in clearest eye or cunningest
mind,
|
Nor lore nor fame, nor happiness nor wealth, |
And yet the pulse of every heart and life throughout the world
incessantly,
|
Which you and I and all pursuing ever ever miss, |
Open but still a secret, the real of the real, an illusion, |
Costless, vouchsafed to each, yet never man the owner, |
Which poets vainly seek to put in rhyme, historians in prose, |
Which sculptor never chisel'd yet, nor painter painted, |
Which vocalist never sung, nor orator nor actor ever utter'd, |
Invoking here and now I challenge for my song. |
Indifferently, 'mid public, private haunts, in solitude, |
Behind the mountain and the wood, |
Companion of the city's busiest streets, through the assemblage, |
It and its radiations constantly glide. |
In looks of fair unconscious babes, |
Or strangely in the coffin'd dead, |
Or show of breaking dawn or stars by night, |
As some dissolving delicate film of dreams, |
Two little breaths of words comprising it, |
Two words, yet all from first to last comprised in it. |
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How many ships have sail'd and sunk for it! |
How many travelers started from their homes and ne'er return'd! |
How much of genius boldly staked and lost for it! |
What countless stores of beauty, love, ventur'd for it! |
How all superbest deeds since Time began are traceable to it—
and shall be to the end!
|
How all heroic martyrdoms to it! |
How, justified by it, the horrors, evils, battles of the earth! |
How the bright fascinating lambent flames of it, in every age and
land, have drawn men's eyes,
|
Rich as a sunset on the Norway coast, the sky, the islands, and the
cliffs,
|
Or midnight's silent glowing northern lights unreachable. |
Haply God's riddle it, so vague and yet so certain, |
The soul for it, and all the visible universe for it, |
And heaven at last for it. |
EXCELSIOR.
WHO has gone farthest? for I would go farther, |
And who has been just? for I would be the most just person of
the earth,
|
And who most cautious? for I would be more cautious, |
And who has been happiest? O I think it is I—I think no one
was ever happier than I,
|
And who has lavish'd all? for I lavish constantly the best I have, |
And who proudest? for I think I have reason to be the proudest
son alive—for I am the son of the brawny and tall-topt
city,
|
And who has been bold and true? for I would be the boldest and
truest being of the universe,
|
And who benevolent? for I would show more benevolence than
all the rest,
|
And who has receiv'd the love of the most friends? for I know
what it is to receive the passionate love of many friends,
|
And who possesses a perfect and enamour'd body? for I do not
believe any one possesses a more perfect or enamour'd
body than mine,
|
And who thinks the amplest thoughts? for I would surround those
thoughts,
|
And who has made hymns fit for the earth? for I am mad with de-
vouring ecstasy to make joyous hymns for the whole earth.
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AH POVERTIES, WINCINGS, AND SULKY RETREATS.
AH poverties, wincings, and sulky retreats, |
Ah you foes that in conflict have overcome me, |
(For what is my life or any man's life but a conflict with foes, the
old, the incessant war?)
|
You degradations, you tussle with passions and appetites, |
You smarts from dissatisfied friendships, (ah wounds the sharpest
of all!)
|
You toil of painful and choked articulations, you meannesses, |
You shallow tongue-talks at tables, (my tongue the shallowest of
any;)
|
You broken resolutions, you racking angers, you smother'd ennuis! |
Ah think not you finally triumph, my real self has yet to come
forth,
|
It shall yet march forth o'ermastering, till all lies beneath me, |
It shall yet stand up the soldier of ultimate victory. |
THOUGHTS.
Of a calm and cool fiat sooner or later, (how impassive! how
certain and final!)
|
Of the President with pale face asking secretly to himself, What
will the people say at last?
|
Of the frivolous Judge—of the corrupt Congressman, Governor,
Mayor—of such as these standing helpless and exposed,
|
Of the mumbling and screaming priest, (soon, soon deserted,) |
Of the lessening year by year of venerableness, and of the dicta
of officers, statutes, pulpits, schools,
|
Of the rising forever taller and stronger and broader of the intui-
tions of men and women, and of Self-esteem and Per-
sonality;
|
Of the true New World—of the Democracies resplendent en-
masse,
|
Of the conformity of politics, armies, navies, to them, |
Of the shining sun by them—of the inherent light, greater than
the rest,
|
Of the envelopment of all by them, and the effusion of all from
them.
|
MEDIUMS.
THEY shall arise in the States, |
They shall report Nature, laws, physiology, and happiness, |
They shall illustrate Democracy and the kosmos, |
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They shall be alimentive, amative, perceptive, |
They shall be complete women and men, their pose brawny and
supple, their drink water, their blood clean and clear,
|
They shall fully enjoy materialism and the sight of products, they
shall enjoy the sight of the beef, lumber, bread-stuffs, of
Chicago the great city,
|
They shall train themselves to go in public to become orators and
oratresses,
|
Strong and sweet shall their tongues be, poems and materials of
poems shall come from their lives, they shall be makers
and finders,
|
Of them and of their works shall emerge divine conveyers, to
convey gospels,
|
Characters, events, retrospections, shall be convey'd in gospels,
trees, animals, waters, shall be convey'd,
|
Death, the future, the invisible faith, shall all be convey'd. |
WEAVE IN, MY HARDY LIFE.
WEAVE in, weave in, my hardy life, |
Weave yet a soldier strong and full for great campaigns to come, |
Weave in red blood, weave sinews in like ropes, the senses, sight
weave in,
|
Weave lasting sure, weave day and night the weft, the warp,
incessant weave, tire not,
|
(We know not what the use O life, nor know the aim, the end,
nor really aught we know,
|
But know the work, the need goes on and shall go on, the death-
envelop'd march of peace as well as war goes on,)
|
For great campaigns of peace the same the wiry threads to weave, |
We know not why or what, yet weave, forever weave. |
SPAIN, 1873-74
OUT of the murk of heaviest clouds, |
Out of the feudal wrecks and heap'd-up skeletons of kings, |
Out of that old entire European debris, the shatter'd mummeries, |
Ruin'd cathedrals, crumble of palaces, tombs of priests, |
Lo, Freedom's features fresh undimm'd look forth—the same
immortal face looks forth;
|
(A glimpse as of thy Mother's face Columbia, |
A flash significant as of a sword, |
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Nor think we forget thee maternal; |
Lag'd'st thou so long? shall the clouds close again upon thee? |
Ah, but thou hast thyself now appear'd to us—we know thee, |
Thou hast given us a sure proof, the glimpse of thyself, |
Thou waitest there as everywhere thy time. |
BY BROAD POTOMAC'S SHORE.
BY broad Potomac's shore, again old tongue, |
(Still uttering, still ejaculating, canst never cease this babble?) |
Again old heart so gay, again to you, your sense, the full flush
spring returning,
|
Again the freshness and the odors, again Virginia's summer sky,
pellucid blue and silver,
|
Again the forenoon purple of the hills, |
Again the deathless grass, so noiseless soft and green, |
Again the blood-red roses blooming. |
Perfume this book of mine O blood-red roses! |
Lave subtly with your waters every line Potomac! |
Give me of you O spring, before I close, to put between its
pages!
|
O forenoon purple of the hills, before I close, of you! |
O deathless grass, of you! |
FROM FAR DAKOTA'S CAÑONS.
June 25, 1876.
FROM far Dakota's cañons, |
Lands of the wild ravine, the dusky Sioux, the lonesome stretch,
the silence,
|
Haply to-day a mournful wail, haply a trumpet-note for heroes. |
The Indian ambuscade, the craft, the fatal environment, |
The cavalry companies fighting to the last in sternest heroism, |
In the midst of their little circle, with their slaughter'd horses for
breastworks,
|
The fall of Custer and all his officers and men. |
Continues yet the old, old legend of our race, |
The loftiest of life upheld by death, |
The ancient banner perfectly maintain'd, |
O lesson opportune, O how I welcome thee! |
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Lone, sulky, through the time's thick murk looking in vain for light,
for hope,
|
From unsuspected parts a fierce and momentary proof, |
(The sun there at the centre though conceal'd, |
Electric life forever at the centre,) |
Breaks forth a lightning flash. |
Thou of the tawny flowing hair in battle, |
I erewhile saw, with erect head, pressing ever in front, bearing a
bright sword in thy hand,
|
Now ending well in death the splendid fever of thy deeds, |
(I bring no dirge for it or thee, I bring a glad triumphal sonnet,) |
Desperate and glorious, aye in defeat most desperate, most glorious, |
After thy many battles in which never yielding up a gun or a color, |
Leaving behind thee a memory sweet to soldiers, |
Thou yieldest up thyself. |
OLD WAR-DREAMS.
IN midnight sleep of many a face of anguish, |
Of the look at first of the mortally wounded, (of that indescribable
look,)
|
Of the dead on their backs with arms extended wide, |
I dream, I dream, I dream. |
Of scenes of Nature, fields and mountains, |
Of skies so beauteous after a storm, and at night the moon so
unearthly bright,
|
Shining sweetly, shining down, where we dig the trenches and
gather the heaps,
|
I dream, I dream, I dream. |
Long have they pass'd, faces and trenches and fields, |
Where through the carnage I moved with a callous composure,
or away from the fallen,
|
Onward I sped at the time—but now of their forms at night, |
I dream, I dream, I dream. |
THICK-SPRINKLED BUNTING.
THICK-SPRINKLED bunting! flag of stars! |
Long yet your road, fateful flag—long yet your road, and lined
with bloody death,
|
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For the prize I see at issue at last is the world, |
All its ships and shores I see interwoven with your threads greedy
banner;
|
Dream'd again the flags of kings, highest borne, to flaunt unrival'd? |
O hasten flag of man—O with sure and steady step, passing
highest flags of kings,
|
Walk supreme to the heavens mighty symbol—run up above
them all,
|
Flag of stars! thick-sprinkled bunting! |
WHAT BEST I SEE IN THEE.
To U. S. G. return'd from his World's Tour.
Is not that where thou mov'st down history's great highways, |
Ever undimm'd by time shoots warlike victory's dazzle, |
Or that thou sat'st where Washington sat, ruling the land in peace, |
Or thou the man whom feudal Europe feted, venerable Asia
swarm'd upon,
|
Who walk'd with kings with even pace the round world's prome-
nade;
|
But that in foreign lands, in all thy walks with kings, |
Those prairie sovereigns of the West, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, |
Ohio's, Indiana's millions, comrades, farmers, soldiers, all to the
front,
|
Invisibly with thee walking with kings with even pace the round
world's promenade,
|
SPIRIT THAT FORM'D THIS SCENE.
Written in Platte Cañon, Colorado.
SPIRIT that form'd this scene, |
These tumbled rock-piles grim and red, |
These reckless heaven-ambitious peaks, |
These gorges, turbulent-clear streams, this naked freshness, |
These formless wild arrays, for reasons of their own, |
I know thee, savage spirit—we have communed together, |
Mine too such wild arrays, for reasons of their own; |
Was't charged against my chants they had forgotten art? |
To fuse within themselves its rules precise and delicatesse? |
The lyrist's measur'd beat, the wrought-out temple's grace—
column and polish'd arch forgot?
|
But thou that revelest here—spirit that form'd this scene, |
They have remember'd thee. |
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AS I WALK THESE BROAD MAJESTIC DAYS.
AS I walk these broad majestic days of peace, |
(For the war, the struggle of blood finish'd, wherein, O terrific
Ideal,
|
Against vast odds erewhile having gloriously won, |
Now thou stridest on, yet perhaps in time toward denser wars, |
Perhaps to engage in time in still more dreadful contests, dangers, |
Longer campaigns and crises, labors beyond all others,) |
Around me I hear that eclat of the world, politics, produce, |
The announcements of recognized things, science, |
The approved growth of cities and the spread of inventions. |
I see the ships, (they will last a few years,) |
The vast factories with their foremen and workmen, |
And hear the indorsement of all, and do not object to it. |
But I too announce solid things, |
Science, ships, politics, cities, factories, are not nothing, |
Like a grand procession to music of distant bugles pouring,
triumphantly moving, and grander heaving in sight,
|
They stand for realities—all is as it should be. |
What else is so real as mine? |
Libertad and the divine average, freedom to every slave on the
face of the earth,
|
The rapt promises and luminè of seers, the spiritual world, these
centuries-lasting songs,
|
And our visions, the visions of poets, the most solid announce-
ments of any.
|
A CLEAR MIDNIGHT.
THIS is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless, |
Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson done, |
Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the themes
thou lovest best,
|
Night, sleep, death and the stars. |
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