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1. BOOK XXXIV. SANDS AT SEVENTY
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1.1. Mannahatta
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My city's fit and noble name resumed,
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Choice aboriginal name, with marvellous beauty, meaning,
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A rocky founded island—shores where ever gayly dash the coming,
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going, hurrying sea waves.
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1.2. Paumanok
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Sea-beauty! stretch'd and basking!
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One side thy inland ocean laving, broad, with copious commerce,
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steamers, sails,
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And one the Atlantic's wind caressing, fierce or gentle—mighty hulls
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dark-gliding in the distance.
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Isle of sweet brooks of drinking-water—healthy air and soil!
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Isle of the salty shore and breeze and brine!
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1.3. From Montauk Point
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I stand as on some mighty eagle's beak,
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Eastward the sea absorbing, viewing, (nothing but sea and sky,)
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The tossing waves, the foam, the ships in the distance,
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The wild unrest, the snowy, curling caps—that inbound urge and urge
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of waves,
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Seeking the shores forever.
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1.4. To Those Who've Fail'd
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To those who've fail'd, in aspiration vast,
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To unnam'd soldiers fallen in front on the lead,
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To calm, devoted engineers—to over-ardent travelers—to pilots on
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their ships,
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To many a lofty song and picture without recognition—I'd rear
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laurel-cover'd monument,
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High, high above the rest—To all cut off before their time,
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Possess'd by some strange spirit of fire,
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Quench'd by an early death.
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1.5. A Carol Closing Sixty-Nine
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A carol closing sixty-nine—a resume—a repetition,
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My lines in joy and hope continuing on the same,
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Of ye, O God, Life, Nature, Freedom, Poetry;
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Of you, my Land—your rivers, prairies, States—you, mottled Flag I love,
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Your aggregate retain'd entire—Of north, south, east and west, your
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items all;
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Of me myself—the jocund heart yet beating in my breast,
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The body wreck'd, old, poor and paralyzed—the strange inertia
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falling pall-like round me,
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The burning fires down in my sluggish blood not yet extinct,
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The undiminish'd faith—the groups of loving friends.
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1.6. The Bravest Soldiers
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Brave, brave were the soldiers (high named to-day) who lived through
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the fight;
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But the bravest press'd to the front and fell, unnamed, unknown.
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1.7. A Font of Type
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This latent mine—these unlaunch'd voices—passionate powers,
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Wrath, argument, or praise, or comic leer, or prayer devout,
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(Not nonpareil, brevier, bourgeois, long primer merely,)
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These ocean waves arousable to fury and to death,
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Or sooth'd to ease and sheeny sun and sleep,
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Within the pallid slivers slumbering.
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1.8. As I Sit Writing Here
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As I sit writing here, sick and grown old,
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Not my least burden is that dulness of the years, querilities,
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Ungracious glooms, aches, lethargy, constipation, whimpering ennui,
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May filter in my dally songs.
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1.9. My Canary Bird
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Did we count great, O soul, to penetrate the themes of mighty books,
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Absorbing deep and full from thoughts, plays, speculations?
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But now from thee to me, caged bird, to feel thy joyous warble,
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Filling the air, the lonesome room, the long forenoon,
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Is it not just as great, O soul?
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1.10. Queries to My Seventieth Year
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Approaching, nearing, curious,
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Thou dim, uncertain spectre—bringest thou life or death?
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Strength, weakness, blindness, more paralysis and heavier?
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Or placid skies and sun? Wilt stir the waters yet?
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Or haply cut me short for good? Or leave me here as now,
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Dull, parrot-like and old, with crack'd voice harping, screeching?
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1.11. The Wallabout Martyrs
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Greater than memory of Achilles or Ulysses,
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More, more by far to thee than tomb of Alexander,
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Those cart loads of old charnel ashes, scales and splints of mouldy bones,
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Once living men—once resolute courage, aspiration, strength,
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The stepping stones to thee to-day and here, America.
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1.12. The First Dandelion
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Simple and fresh and fair from winter's close emerging,
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As if no artifice of fashion, business, politics, had ever been,
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Forth from its sunny nook of shelter'd grass—innocent, golden, calm
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as the dawn,
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The spring's first dandelion shows its trustful face.
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1.13. America
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Centre of equal daughters, equal sons,
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All, all alike endear'd, grown, ungrown, young or old,
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Strong, ample, fair, enduring, capable, rich,
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Perennial with the Earth, with Freedom, Law and Love,
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A grand, sane, towering, seated Mother,
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Chair'd in the adamant of Time.
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1.14. Memories
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How sweet the silent backward tracings!
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The wanderings as in dreams—the meditation of old times resumed
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—their loves, joys, persons, voyages.
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1.15. To-Day and Thee
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The appointed winners in a long-stretch'd game;
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The course of Time and nations—Egypt, India, Greece and Rome;
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The past entire, with all its heroes, histories, arts, experiments,
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Its store of songs, inventions, voyages, teachers, books,
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Garner'd for now and thee—To think of it!
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The heirdom all converged in thee!
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1.16. After the Dazzle of Day
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After the dazzle of day is gone,
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Only the dark, dark night shows to my eyes the stars;
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After the clangor of organ majestic, or chorus, or perfect band,
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Silent, athwart my soul, moves the symphony true.
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1.17. Abraham Lincoln, Born Feb. 12, 1809
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To-day, from each and all, a breath of prayer—a pulse of thought,
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To memory of Him—to birth of Him.
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1.18. Out of May's Shows Selected
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Apple orchards, the trees all cover'd with blossoms;
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Wheat fields carpeted far and near in vital emerald green;
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The eternal, exhaustless freshness of each early morning;
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The yellow, golden, transparent haze of the warm afternoon sun;
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The aspiring lilac bushes with profuse purple or white flowers.
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1.19. Halcyon Days
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Not from successful love alone,
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Nor wealth, nor honor'd middle age, nor victories of politics or war;
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But as life wanes, and all the turbulent passions calm,
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As gorgeous, vapory, silent hues cover the evening sky,
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As softness, fulness, rest, suffuse the frame, like freshier, balmier air,
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As the days take on a mellower light, and the apple at last hangs
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really finish'd and indolent-ripe on the tree,
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Then for the teeming quietest, happiest days of all!
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The brooding and blissful halcyon days!
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1.20. FANCIES AT NAVESINK
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1.20.1. [I] The Pilot in the Mist
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Steaming the northern rapids—(an old St. Lawrence reminiscence,
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A sudden memory-flash comes back, I know not why,
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Here waiting for the sunrise, gazing from this hill;)
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Again 'tis just at morning—a heavy haze contends with daybreak,
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Again the trembling, laboring vessel veers me—I press through
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foam-dash'd rocks that almost touch me,
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Again I mark where aft the small thin Indian helmsman
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Looms in the mist, with brow elate and governing hand.
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1.20.2. [II] Had I the Choice
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Had I the choice to tally greatest bards,
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To limn their portraits, stately, beautiful, and emulate at will,
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Homer with all his wars and warriors—Hector, Achilles, Ajax,
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Or Shakspere's woe-entangled Hamlet, Lear, Othello—Tennyson's fair ladies,
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Metre or wit the best, or choice conceit to wield in perfect rhyme,
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delight of singers;
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These, these, O sea, all these I'd gladly barter,
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Would you the undulation of one wave, its trick to me transfer,
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Or breathe one breath of yours upon my verse,
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And leave its odor there.
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1.20.3. [III] You Tides with Ceaseless Swell
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You tides with ceaseless swell! you power that does this work!
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You unseen force, centripetal, centrifugal, through space's spread,
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Rapport of sun, moon, earth, and all the constellations,
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What are the messages by you from distant stars to us? what Sirius'?
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what Capella's?
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What central heart—and you the pulse—vivifies all? what boundless
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aggregate of all?
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What subtle indirection and significance in you? what clue to all in
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you? what fluid, vast identity,
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Holding the universe with all its parts as one—as sailing in a ship?
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1.20.4. [IV] Last of Ebb, and Daylight Waning
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Last of ebb, and daylight waning,
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Scented sea-cool landward making, smells of sedge and salt incoming,
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With many a half-caught voice sent up from the eddies,
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Many a muffled confession—many a sob and whisper'd word,
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As of speakers far or hid.
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How they sweep down and out! how they mutter!
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Poets unnamed—artists greatest of any, with cherish'd lost designs,
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Love's unresponse—a chorus of age's complaints—hope's last words,
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Some suicide's despairing cry, Away to the boundless waste, and
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never again return.
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On to oblivion then!
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On, on, and do your part, ye burying, ebbing tide!
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On for your time, ye furious debouche!
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1.20.5. [V] And Yet Not You Alone
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And yet not you alone, twilight and burying ebb,
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Nor you, ye lost designs alone—nor failures, aspirations;
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I know, divine deceitful ones, your glamour's seeming;
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Duly by you, from you, the tide and light again—duly the hinges turning,
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Duly the needed discord-parts offsetting, blending,
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Weaving from you, from Sleep, Night, Death itself,
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The rhythmus of Birth eternal.
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1.20.6. [VI] Proudly the Flood Comes In
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Proudly the flood comes in, shouting, foaming, advancing,
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Long it holds at the high, with bosom broad outswelling,
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All throbs, dilates—the farms, woods, streets of cities—workmen at work,
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Mainsails, topsails, jibs, appear in the offing—steamers' pennants
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of smoke—and under the forenoon sun,
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Freighted with human lives, gaily the outward bound, gaily the
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inward bound,
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Flaunting from many a spar the flag I love.
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1.20.7. [VII] By That Long Scan of Waves
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By that long scan of waves, myself call'd back, resumed upon myself,
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In every crest some undulating light or shade—some retrospect,
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Joys, travels, studies, silent panoramas—scenes ephemeral,
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The long past war, the battles, hospital sights, the wounded and the dead,
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Myself through every by-gone phase—my idle youth—old age at hand,
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My three-score years of life summ'd up, and more, and past,
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By any grand ideal tried, intentionless, the whole a nothing,
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And haply yet some drop within God's scheme's ensemble—some
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wave, or part of wave,
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Like one of yours, ye multitudinous ocean.
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1.20.8. [VIII] Then Last Of All
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Then last of all, caught from these shores, this hill,
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Of you O tides, the mystic human meaning:
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Only by law of you, your swell and ebb, enclosing me the same,
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The brain that shapes, the voice that chants this song.
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1.21. Election Day, November, 1884
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If I should need to name, O Western World, your powerfulest scene and show,
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'Twould not be you, Niagara—nor you, ye limitless prairies—nor
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your huge rifts of canyons, Colorado,
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Nor you, Yosemite—nor Yellowstone, with all its spasmic
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geyser-loops ascending to the skies, appearing and disappearing,
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Nor Oregon's white cones—nor Huron's belt of mighty lakes—nor
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Mississippi's stream:
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—This seething hemisphere's humanity, as now, I'd name—the still
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small voice vibrating—America's choosing day,
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(The heart of it not in the chosen—the act itself the main, the
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quadriennial choosing,)
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The stretch of North and South arous'd—sea-board and inland—
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Texas to Maine—the Prairie States—Vermont, Virginia, California,
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The final ballot-shower from East to West—the paradox and conflict,
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The countless snow-flakes falling—(a swordless conflict,
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Yet more than all Rome's wars of old, or modern Napoleon's:) the
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peaceful choice of all,
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Or good or ill humanity—welcoming the darker odds, the dross:
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—Foams and ferments the wine? it serves to purify—while the heart
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pants, life glows:
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These stormy gusts and winds waft precious ships,
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Swell'd Washington's, Jefferson's, Lincoln's sails.
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1.22. With Husky-Haughty Lips, O Sea!
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With husky-haughty lips, O sea!
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Where day and night I wend thy surf-beat shore,
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Imaging to my sense thy varied strange suggestions,
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(I see and plainly list thy talk and conference here,)
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Thy troops of white-maned racers racing to the goal,
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Thy ample, smiling face, dash'd with the sparkling dimples of the sun,
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Thy brooding scowl and murk—thy unloos'd hurricanes,
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Thy unsubduedness, caprices, wilfulness;
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Great as thou art above the rest, thy many tears—a lack from all
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eternity in thy content,
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(Naught but the greatest struggles, wrongs, defeats, could make thee
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greatest—no less could make thee,)
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Thy lonely state—something thou ever seek'st and seek'st, yet
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never gain'st,
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Surely some right withheld—some voice, in huge monotonous rage, of
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freedom-lover pent,
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Some vast heart, like a planet's, chain'd and chafing in those breakers,
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By lengthen'd swell, and spasm, and panting breath,
|
|
18
|
|
|
And rhythmic rasping of thy sands and waves,
|
|
19
|
|
|
And serpent hiss, and savage peals of laughter,
|
|
20
|
|
|
And undertones of distant lion roar,
|
|
21
|
|
|
(Sounding, appealing to the sky's deaf ear—but now, rapport for once,
|
|
22
|
|
|
A phantom in the night thy confidant for once,)
|
|
23
|
|
|
The first and last confession of the globe,
|
|
24
|
|
|
Outsurging, muttering from thy soul's abysms,
|
|
25
|
|
|
The tale of cosmic elemental passion,
|
|
26
|
|
|
Thou tellest to a kindred soul.
|
| |
| |
|
|
1.23. Death of General Grant
|
|
0
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|
|
As one by one withdraw the lofty actors,
|
|
1
|
|
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From that great play on history's stage eterne,
|
|
2
|
|
|
That lurid, partial act of war and peace—of old and new contending,
|
|
3
|
|
|
Fought out through wrath, fears, dark dismays, and many a long suspense;
|
|
4
|
|
|
All past—and since, in countless graves receding, mellowing,
|
|
5
|
|
|
Victor's and vanquish'd—Lincoln's and Lee's—now thou with them,
|
|
6
|
|
|
Man of the mighty days—and equal to the days!
|
|
7
|
|
|
Thou from the prairies!—tangled and many-vein'd and hard has been thy part,
|
|
8
|
|
|
To admiration has it been enacted!
|
| |
| |
|
|
1.24. Red Jacket (From Aloft)
|
|
0
|
|
|
Upon this scene, this show,
|
|
1
|
|
|
Yielded to-day by fashion, learning, wealth,
|
|
2
|
|
|
(Nor in caprice alone—some grains of deepest meaning,)
|
|
3
|
|
|
Haply, aloft, (who knows?) from distant sky-clouds' blended shapes,
|
|
4
|
|
|
As some old tree, or rock or cliff, thrill'd with its soul,
|
|
5
|
|
|
Product of Nature's sun, stars, earth direct—a towering human form,
|
|
6
|
|
|
In hunting-shirt of film, arm'd with the rifle, a half-ironical
|
|
7
|
|
|
smile curving its phantom lips,
|
|
8
|
|
|
Like one of Ossian's ghosts looks down.
|
| |
| |
|
|
1.25. Washington's Monument February, 1885
|
|
0
|
|
|
Ah, not this marble, dead and cold:
|
|
1
|
|
|
Far from its base and shaft expanding—the round zones circling,
|
|
2
|
|
|
comprehending,
|
|
3
|
|
|
Thou, Washington, art all the world's, the continents' entire—not
|
|
4
|
|
|
yours alone, America,
|
|
5
|
|
|
Europe's as well, in every part, castle of lord or laborer's cot,
|
|
6
|
|
|
Or frozen North, or sultry South—the African's—the Arab's in his tent,
|
|
7
|
|
|
Old Asia's there with venerable smile, seated amid her ruins;
|
|
8
|
|
|
(Greets the antique the hero new? 'tis but the same—the heir
|
|
9
|
|
|
legitimate, continued ever,
|
|
10
|
|
|
The indomitable heart and arm—proofs of the never-broken line,
|
|
11
|
|
|
Courage, alertness, patience, faith, the same—e'en in defeat
|
|
12
|
|
|
defeated not, the same:)
|
|
13
|
|
|
Wherever sails a ship, or house is built on land, or day or night,
|
|
14
|
|
|
Through teeming cities' streets, indoors or out, factories or farms,
|
|
15
|
|
|
Now, or to come, or past—where patriot wills existed or exist,
|
|
16
|
|
|
Wherever Freedom, pois'd by Toleration, sway'd by Law,
|
|
17
|
|
|
Stands or is rising thy true monument.
|
| |
| |
|
|
1.26. Of That Blithe Throat of Thine
|
|
0
|
|
|
Of that blithe throat of thine from arctic bleak and blank,
|
|
1
|
|
|
I'll mind the lesson, solitary bird—let me too welcome chilling drifts,
|
|
2
|
|
|
E'en the profoundest chill, as now—a torpid pulse, a brain unnerv'd,
|
|
3
|
|
|
Old age land-lock'd within its winter bay—(cold, cold, O cold!)
|
|
4
|
|
|
These snowy hairs, my feeble arm, my frozen feet,
|
|
5
|
|
|
For them thy faith, thy rule I take, and grave it to the last;
|
|
6
|
|
|
Not summer's zones alone—not chants of youth, or south's warm tides alone,
|
|
7
|
|
|
But held by sluggish floes, pack'd in the northern ice, the cumulus
|
|
8
|
|
|
of years,
|
|
9
|
|
|
These with gay heart I also sing.
|
| |
| |
|
|
1.27. Broadway
|
|
0
|
|
|
What hurrying human tides, or day or night!
|
|
1
|
|
|
What passions, winnings, losses, ardors, swim thy waters!
|
|
2
|
|
|
What whirls of evil, bliss and sorrow, stem thee!
|
|
3
|
|
|
What curious questioning glances—glints of love!
|
|
4
|
|
|
Leer, envy, scorn, contempt, hope, aspiration!
|
|
5
|
|
|
Thou portal—thou arena—thou of the myriad long-drawn lines and groups!
|
|
6
|
|
|
(Could but thy flagstones, curbs, facades, tell their inimitable tales;
|
|
7
|
|
|
Thy windows rich, and huge hotels—thy side-walks wide;)
|
|
8
|
|
|
Thou of the endless sliding, mincing, shuffling feet!
|
|
9
|
|
|
Thou, like the parti-colored world itself—like infinite, teeming,
|
|
10
|
|
|
mocking life!
|
|
11
|
|
|
Thou visor'd, vast, unspeakable show and lesson!
|
| |
| |
|
|
1.28. To Get the Final Lilt of Songs
|
|
0
|
|
|
To get the final lilt of songs,
|
|
1
|
|
|
To penetrate the inmost lore of poets—to know the mighty ones,
|
|
2
|
|
|
Job, Homer, Eschylus, Dante, Shakespere, Tennyson, Emerson;
|
|
3
|
|
|
To diagnose the shifting-delicate tints of love and pride and doubt—
|
|
4
|
|
|
to truly understand,
|
|
5
|
|
|
To encompass these, the last keen faculty and entrance-price,
|
|
6
|
|
|
Old age, and what it brings from all its past experiences.
|
| |
| |
|
|
1.29. Old Salt Kossabone
|
|
0
|
|
|
Far back, related on my mother's side,
|
|
1
|
|
|
Old Salt Kossabone, I'll tell you how he died:
|
|
2
|
|
|
(Had been a sailor all his life—was nearly 90—lived with his
|
|
3
|
|
|
married grandchild, Jenny;
|
|
4
|
|
|
House on a hill, with view of bay at hand, and distant cape, and
|
|
5
|
|
|
stretch to open sea;)
|
|
6
|
|
|
The last of afternoons, the evening hours, for many a year his
|
|
7
|
|
|
regular custom,
|
|
8
|
|
|
In his great arm chair by the window seated,
|
|
9
|
|
|
(Sometimes, indeed, through half the day,)
|
|
10
|
|
|
Watching the coming, going of the vessels, he mutters to himself—
|
|
11
|
|
|
And now the close of all:
|
|
12
|
|
|
One struggling outbound brig, one day, baffled for long—cross-tides
|
|
13
|
|
|
and much wrong going,
|
|
14
|
|
|
At last at nightfall strikes the breeze aright, her whole luck veering,
|
|
15
|
|
|
And swiftly bending round the cape, the darkness proudly entering,
|
|
16
|
|
|
cleaving, as he watches,
|
|
17
|
|
|
"She's free—she's on her destination"—these the last words—when
|
|
18
|
|
|
Jenny came, he sat there dead,
|
|
19
|
|
|
Dutch Kossabone, Old Salt, related on my mother's side, far back.
|
| |
| |
|
|
1.30. The Dead Tenor
|
|
0
|
|
|
As down the stage again,
|
|
1
|
|
|
With Spanish hat and plumes, and gait inimitable,
|
|
2
|
|
|
Back from the fading lessons of the past, I'd call, I'd tell and own,
|
|
3
|
|
|
How much from thee! the revelation of the singing voice from thee!
|
|
4
|
|
|
(So firm—so liquid-soft—again that tremulous, manly timbre!
|
|
5
|
|
|
The perfect singing voice—deepest of all to me the lesson—trial
|
|
6
|
|
|
and test of all:)
|
|
7
|
|
|
How through those strains distill'd—how the rapt ears, the soul of
|
|
8
|
|
|
me, absorbing
|
|
9
|
|
|
Fernando's heart, Manrico's passionate call, Ernani's, sweet Gennaro's,
|
|
10
|
|
|
I fold thenceforth, or seek to fold, within my chants transmuting,
|
|
11
|
|
|
Freedom's and Love's and Faith's unloos'd cantabile,
|
|
12
|
|
|
(As perfume's, color's, sunlight's correlation:)
|
|
13
|
|
|
From these, for these, with these, a hurried line, dead tenor,
|
|
14
|
|
|
A wafted autumn leaf, dropt in the closing grave, the shovel'd earth,
|
|
15
|
|
|
To memory of thee.
|
| |
| |
|
|
1.31. Continuities
|
|
0
|
|
|
Nothing is ever really lost, or can be lost,
|
|
1
|
|
|
No birth, identity, form—no object of the world.
|
|
2
|
|
|
Nor life, nor force, nor any visible thing;
|
|
3
|
|
|
Appearance must not foil, nor shifted sphere confuse thy brain.
|
|
4
|
|
|
Ample are time and space—ample the fields of Nature.
|
|
5
|
|
|
The body, sluggish, aged, cold—the embers left from earlier fires,
|
|
6
|
|
|
The light in the eye grown dim, shall duly flame again;
|
|
7
|
|
|
The sun now low in the west rises for mornings and for noons continual;
|
|
8
|
|
|
To frozen clods ever the spring's invisible law returns,
|
|
9
|
|
|
With grass and flowers and summer fruits and corn.
|
| |
| |
|
|
1.32. Yonnondio
|
|
0
|
|
|
A song, a poem of itself—the word itself a dirge,
|
|
1
|
|
|
Amid the wilds, the rocks, the storm and wintry night,
|
|
2
|
|
|
To me such misty, strange tableaux the syllables calling up;
|
|
3
|
|
|
Yonnondio—I see, far in the west or north, a limitless ravine, with
|
|
4
|
|
|
plains and mountains dark,
|
|
5
|
|
|
I see swarms of stalwart chieftains, medicine-men, and warriors,
|
|
6
|
|
|
As flitting by like clouds of ghosts, they pass and are gone in the
|
|
7
|
|
|
twilight,
|
|
8
|
|
|
(Race of the woods, the landscapes free, and the falls!
|
|
9
|
|
|
No picture, poem, statement, passing them to the future:)
|
|
10
|
|
|
Yonnondio! Yonnondio!—unlimn'd they disappear;
|
|
11
|
|
|
To-day gives place, and fades—the cities, farms, factories fade;
|
|
12
|
|
|
A muffled sonorous sound, a wailing word is borne through the air
|
|
13
|
|
|
for a moment,
|
|
14
|
|
|
Then blank and gone and still, and utterly lost.
|
| |
| |
|
|
1.33. Life
|
|
0
|
|
|
Ever the undiscouraged, resolute, struggling soul of man;
|
|
1
|
|
|
(Have former armies fail'd? then we send fresh armies—and fresh again;)
|
|
2
|
|
|
Ever the grappled mystery of all earth's ages old or new;
|
|
3
|
|
|
Ever the eager eyes, hurrahs, the welcome-clapping hands, the loud
|
|
4
|
|
|
applause;
|
|
5
|
|
|
Ever the soul dissatisfied, curious, unconvinced at last;
|
|
6
|
|
|
Struggling to-day the same—battling the same.
|
| |
| |
|
|
1.34. "Going Somewhere"
|
|
0
|
|
|
My science-friend, my noblest woman-friend,
|
|
1
|
|
|
(Now buried in an English grave—and this a memory-leaf for her dear sake,)
|
|
2
|
|
|
Ended our talk—"The sum, concluding all we know of old or modern
|
|
3
|
|
|
learning, intuitions deep,
|
|
4
|
|
|
"Of all Geologies—Histories—of all Astronomy—of Evolution,
|
|
5
|
|
|
Metaphysics all,
|
|
6
|
|
|
"Is, that we all are onward, onward, speeding slowly, surely bettering,
|
|
7
|
|
|
"Life, life an endless march, an endless army, (no halt, but it is
|
|
8
|
|
|
duly over,)
|
|
9
|
|
|
"The world, the race, the soul—in space and time the universes,
|
|
10
|
|
|
"All bound as is befitting each—all surely going somewhere."
|
| |
| |
|
|
1.35. Small the Theme of My Chant
|
|
0
|
|
|
Small the theme of my Chant, yet the greatest—namely, One's-Self—
|
|
1
|
|
|
a simple, separate person. That, for the use of the New World, I sing.
|
|
2
|
|
|
Man's physiology complete, from top to toe, I sing. Not physiognomy alone,
|
|
3
|
|
|
nor brain alone, is worthy for the Muse;—I say the Form complete
|
|
4
|
|
|
is worthier far. The Female equally with the Male, I sing.
|
|
5
|
|
|
Nor cease at the theme of One's-Self. I speak the word of the
|
|
6
|
|
|
modern, the word En-Masse.
|
|
7
|
|
|
My Days I sing, and the Lands—with interstice I knew of hapless War.
|
|
8
|
|
|
(O friend, whoe'er you are, at last arriving hither to commence, I
|
|
9
|
|
|
feel through every leaf the pressure of your hand, which I return.
|
|
10
|
|
|
And thus upon our journey, footing the road, and more than once, and
|
|
11
|
|
|
link'd together let us go.)
|
| |
| |
|
|
1.36. True Conquerors
|
|
0
|
|
|
Old farmers, travelers, workmen (no matter how crippled or bent,)
|
|
1
|
|
|
Old sailors, out of many a perilous voyage, storm and wreck,
|
|
2
|
|
|
Old soldiers from campaigns, with all their wounds, defeats and scars;
|
|
3
|
|
|
Enough that they've survived at all—long life's unflinching ones!
|
|
4
|
|
|
Forth from their struggles, trials, fights, to have emerged at all—
|
|
5
|
|
|
in that alone,
|
|
6
|
|
|
True conquerors o'er all the rest.
|
| |
| |
|
|
1.37. The United States to Old World Critics
|
|
0
|
|
|
Here first the duties of to-day, the lessons of the concrete,
|
|
1
|
|
|
Wealth, order, travel, shelter, products, plenty;
|
|
2
|
|
|
As of the building of some varied, vast, perpetual edifice,
|
|
3
|
|
|
Whence to arise inevitable in time, the towering roofs, the lamps,
|
|
4
|
|
|
The solid-planted spires tall shooting to the stars.
|
| |
| |
|
|
1.38. The Calming Thought of All
|
|
0
|
|
|
That coursing on, whate'er men's speculations,
|
|
1
|
|
|
Amid the changing schools, theologies, philosophies,
|
|
2
|
|
|
Amid the bawling presentations new and old,
|
|
3
|
|
|
The round earth's silent vital laws, facts, modes continue.
|
| |
| |
|
|
1.39. Thanks in Old Age
|
|
0
|
|
|
Thanks in old age—thanks ere I go,
|
|
1
|
|
|
For health, the midday sun, the impalpable air—for life, mere life,
|
|
2
|
|
|
For precious ever-lingering memories, (of you my mother dear—you,
|
|
3
|
|
|
father—you, brothers, sisters, friends,)
|
|
4
|
|
|
For all my days—not those of peace alone—the days of war the same,
|
|
5
|
|
|
For gentle words, caresses, gifts from foreign lands,
|
|
6
|
|
|
For shelter, wine and meat—for sweet appreciation,
|
|
7
|
|
|
(You distant, dim unknown—or young or old—countless, unspecified,
|
|
8
|
|
|
readers belov'd,
|
|
9
|
|
|
We never met, and neer shall meet—and yet our souls embrace, long,
|
|
10
|
|
|
close and long;)
|
|
11
|
|
|
For beings, groups, love, deeds, words, books—for colors, forms,
|
|
12
|
|
|
For all the brave strong men—devoted, hardy men—who've forward
|
|
13
|
|
|
sprung in freedom's help, all years, all lands
|
|
14
|
|
|
For braver, stronger, more devoted men—(a special laurel ere I go,
|
|
15
|
|
|
to life's war's chosen ones,
|
|
16
|
|
|
The cannoneers of song and thought—the great artillerists—the
|
|
17
|
|
|
foremost leaders, captains of the soul:)
|
|
18
|
|
|
As soldier from an ended war return'd—As traveler out of myriads,
|
|
19
|
|
|
to the long procession retrospective,
|
|
20
|
|
|
Thanks—joyful thanks!—a soldier's, traveler's thanks.
|
| |
| |
|
|
1.40. Life and Death
|
|
0
|
|
|
The two old, simple problems ever intertwined,
|
|
1
|
|
|
Close home, elusive, present, baffled, grappled.
|
|
2
|
|
|
By each successive age insoluble, pass'd on,
|
|
3
|
|
|
To ours to-day—and we pass on the same.
|
| |
| |
|
|
1.41. The Voice of the Rain
|
|
0
|
|
|
And who art thou? said I to the soft-falling shower,
|
|
1
|
|
|
Which, strange to tell, gave me an answer, as here translated:
|
|
2
|
|
|
I am the Poem of Earth, said the voice of the rain,
|
|
3
|
|
|
Eternal I rise impalpable out of the land and the bottomless sea,
|
|
4
|
|
|
Upward to heaven, whence, vaguely form'd, altogether changed, and
|
|
5
|
|
|
yet the same,
|
|
6
|
|
|
I descend to lave the drouths, atomies, dust-layers of the globe,
|
|
7
|
|
|
And all that in them without me were seeds only, latent, unborn;
|
|
8
|
|
|
And forever, by day and night, I give back life to my own origin,
|
|
9
|
|
|
and make pure and beautify it;
|
|
10
|
|
|
(For song, issuing from its birth-place, after fulfilment, wandering,
|
|
11
|
|
|
Reck'd or unreck'd, duly with love returns.)
|
| |
| |
|
|
1.42. Soon Shall the Winter's Foil Be Here
|
|
0
|
|
|
Soon shall the winter's foil be here;
|
|
1
|
|
|
Soon shall these icy ligatures unbind and melt—A little while,
|
|
2
|
|
|
And air, soil, wave, suffused shall be in softness, bloom and
|
|
3
|
|
|
growth—a thousand forms shall rise
|
|
4
|
|
|
From these dead clods and chills as from low burial graves.
|
| |
|
5
|
|
|
Thine eyes, ears—all thy best attributes—all that takes cognizance
|
|
6
|
|
|
of natural beauty,
|
|
7
|
|
|
Shall wake and fill. Thou shalt perceive the simple shows, the
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8
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delicate miracles of earth,
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9
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Dandelions, clover, the emerald grass, the early scents and flowers,
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10
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The arbutus under foot, the willow's yellow-green, the blossoming
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11
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plum and cherry;
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12
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With these the robin, lark and thrush, singing their songs—the
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13
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flitting bluebird;
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14
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For such the scenes the annual play brings on.
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1.43. While Not the Past Forgetting
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0
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While not the past forgetting,
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1
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To-day, at least, contention sunk entire—peace, brotherhood uprisen;
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2
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For sign reciprocal our Northern, Southern hands,
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3
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Lay on the graves of all dead soldiers, North or South,
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4
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(Nor for the past alone—for meanings to the future,)
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5
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Wreaths of roses and branches of palm.
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1.44. The Dying Veteran
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0
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Amid these days of order, ease, prosperity,
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1
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Amid the current songs of beauty, peace, decorum,
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2
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I cast a reminiscence—(likely 'twill offend you,
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3
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I heard it in my boyhood;)—More than a generation since,
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4
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A queer old savage man, a fighter under Washington himself,
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5
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(Large, brave, cleanly, hot-blooded, no talker, rather spiritualistic,
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Had fought in the ranks—fought well—had been all through the
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Revolutionary war,)
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Lay dying—sons, daughters, church-deacons, lovingly tending him,
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9
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Sharping their sense, their ears, towards his murmuring, half-caught words:
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10
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"Let me return again to my war-days,
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To the sights and scenes—to forming the line of battle,
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To the scouts ahead reconnoitering,
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To the cannons, the grim artillery,
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To the galloping aides, carrying orders,
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15
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To the wounded, the fallen, the heat, the suspense,
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16
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The perfume strong, the smoke, the deafening noise;
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17
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Away with your life of peace!—your joys of peace!
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18
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Give me my old wild battle-life again!"
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1.45. Stronger Lessons
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0
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Have you learn'd lessons only of those who admired you, and were
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1
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tender with you, and stood aside for you?
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2
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Have you not learn'd great lessons from those who reject you, and
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3
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brace themselves against you? or who treat you with contempt,
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4
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or dispute the passage with you?
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1.46. A Prairie Sunset
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0
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Shot gold, maroon and violet, dazzling silver, emerald, fawn,
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1
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The earth's whole amplitude and Nature's multiform power consign'd
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2
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for once to colors;
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3
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The light, the general air possess'd by them—colors till now unknown,
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4
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No limit, confine—not the Western sky alone—the high meridian—
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5
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North, South, all,
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6
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Pure luminous color fighting the silent shadows to the last.
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1.47. Twenty Years
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0
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Down on the ancient wharf, the sand, I sit, with a new-comer chatting:
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1
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He shipp'd as green-hand boy, and sail'd away, (took some sudden,
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2
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vehement notion;)
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3
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Since, twenty years and more have circled round and round,
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4
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While he the globe was circling round and round, —and now returns:
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5
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How changed the place—all the old land-marks gone—the parents dead;
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6
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(Yes, he comes back to lay in port for good—to settle—has a
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7
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well-fill'd purse—no spot will do but this;)
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8
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The little boat that scull'd him from the sloop, now held in leash I see,
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9
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I hear the slapping waves, the restless keel, the rocking in the sand,
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10
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I see the sailor kit, the canvas bag, the great box bound with brass,
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11
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I scan the face all berry-brown and bearded—the stout-strong frame,
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12
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Dress'd in its russet suit of good Scotch cloth:
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13
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(Then what the told-out story of those twenty years? What of the future?)
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1.48. Orange Buds by Mail from Florida
|
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0
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A lesser proof than old Voltaire's, yet greater,
|
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1
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Proof of this present time, and thee, thy broad expanse, America,
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2
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To my plain Northern hut, in outside clouds and snow,
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3
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Brought safely for a thousand miles o'er land and tide,
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4
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Some three days since on their own soil live-sprouting,
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5
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Now here their sweetness through my room unfolding,
|
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6
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A bunch of orange buds by mall from Florida.
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1.49. Twilight
|
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0
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The soft voluptuous opiate shades,
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1
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The sun just gone, the eager light dispell'd—(I too will soon be
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2
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gone, dispell'd,)
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3
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A haze—nirwana—rest and night—oblivion.
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1.50. You Lingering Sparse Leaves of Me
|
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0
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You lingering sparse leaves of me on winter-nearing boughs,
|
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1
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And I some well-shorn tree of field or orchard-row;
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2
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You tokens diminute and lorn—(not now the flush of May, or July
|
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3
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clover-bloom—no grain of August now;)
|
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4
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You pallid banner-staves—you pennants valueless—you overstay'd of time,
|
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5
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Yet my soul-dearest leaves confirming all the rest,
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6
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The faithfulest—hardiest—last.
|
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1.51. Not Meagre, Latent Boughs Alone
|
|
0
|
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|
Not meagre, latent boughs alone, O songs! (scaly and bare, like
|
|
1
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eagles' talons,)
|
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2
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But haply for some sunny day (who knows?) some future spring, some
|
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3
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summer—bursting forth,
|
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4
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To verdant leaves, or sheltering shade—to nourishing fruit,
|
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5
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Apples and grapes—the stalwart limbs of trees emerging—the fresh,
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6
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free, open air,
|
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7
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And love and faith, like scented roses blooming.
|
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1.52. The Dead Emperor
|
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0
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|
To-day, with bending head and eyes, thou, too, Columbia,
|
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1
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Less for the mighty crown laid low in sorrow—less for the Emperor,
|
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2
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Thy true condolence breathest, sendest out o'er many a salt sea mile,
|
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3
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Mourning a good old man—a faithful shepherd, patriot.
|
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| |
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1.53. As the Greek's Signal Flame
|
|
0
|
|
|
As the Greek's signal flame, by antique records told,
|
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1
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Rose from the hill-top, like applause and glory,
|
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2
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Welcoming in fame some special veteran, hero,
|
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3
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With rosy tinge reddening the land he'd served,
|
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4
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So I aloft from Mannahatta's ship-fringed shore,
|
|
5
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|
Lift high a kindled brand for thee, Old Poet.
|
| |
| |
|
|
1.54. The Dismantled Ship
|
|
0
|
|
|
In some unused lagoon, some nameless bay,
|
|
1
|
|
|
On sluggish, lonesome waters, anchor'd near the shore,
|
|
2
|
|
|
An old, dismasted, gray and batter'd ship, disabled, done,
|
|
3
|
|
|
After free voyages to all the seas of earth, haul'd up at last and
|
|
4
|
|
|
hawser'd tight,
|
|
5
|
|
|
Lies rusting, mouldering.
|
| |
| |
|
|
1.55. Now Precedent Songs, Farewell
|
|
0
|
|
|
Now precedent songs, farewell—by every name farewell,
|
|
1
|
|
|
(Trains of a staggering line in many a strange procession, waggons,
|
|
2
|
|
|
From ups and downs—with intervals—from elder years, mid-age, or youth,)
|
|
3
|
|
|
"In Cabin'd Ships, or Thee Old Cause or Poets to Come
|
|
4
|
|
|
Or Paumanok, Song of Myself, Calamus, or Adam,
|
|
5
|
|
|
Or Beat! Beat! Drums! or To the Leaven'd Soil they Trod,
|
|
6
|
|
|
Or Captain! My Captain! Kosmos, Quicksand Years, or Thoughts,
|
|
7
|
|
|
Thou Mother with thy Equal Brood," and many, many more unspecified,
|
|
8
|
|
|
From fibre heart of mine—from throat and tongue—(My life's hot
|
|
9
|
|
|
pulsing blood,
|
|
10
|
|
|
The personal urge and form for me—not merely paper, automatic type
|
|
11
|
|
|
and ink,)
|
|
12
|
|
|
Each song of mine—each utterance in the past—having its long, long
|
|
13
|
|
|
history,
|
|
14
|
|
|
Of life or death, or soldier's wound, of country's loss or safety,
|
|
15
|
|
|
(O heaven! what flash and started endless train of all! compared
|
|
16
|
|
|
indeed to that!
|
|
17
|
|
|
What wretched shred e'en at the best of all!)
|
| |
| |
|
|
1.56. An Evening Lull
|
|
0
|
|
|
After a week of physical anguish,
|
|
1
|
|
|
Unrest and pain, and feverish heat,
|
|
2
|
|
|
Toward the ending day a calm and lull comes on,
|
|
3
|
|
|
Three hours of peace and soothing rest of brain.
|
| |
| |
|
|
1.57. Old Age's Lambent Peaks
|
|
0
|
|
|
The touch of flame—the illuminating fire—the loftiest look at last,
|
|
1
|
|
|
O'er city, passion, sea—o'er prairie, mountain, wood—the earth itself,
|
|
2
|
|
|
The airy, different, changing hues of all, in failing twilight,
|
|
3
|
|
|
Objects and groups, bearings, faces, reminiscences;
|
|
4
|
|
|
The calmer sight—the golden setting, clear and broad:
|
|
5
|
|
|
So much i' the atmosphere, the points of view, the situations whence
|
|
6
|
|
|
we scan,
|
|
7
|
|
|
Bro't out by them alone—so much (perhaps the best) unreck'd before;
|
|
8
|
|
|
The lights indeed from them—old age's lambent peaks.
|
| |
| |
|
|
1.58. After the Supper and Talk
|
|
0
|
|
|
After the supper and talk—after the day is done,
|
|
1
|
|
|
As a friend from friends his final withdrawal prolonging,
|
|
2
|
|
|
Good-bye and Good-bye with emotional lips repeating,
|
|
3
|
|
|
(So hard for his hand to release those hands—no more will they meet,
|
|
4
|
|
|
No more for communion of sorrow and joy, of old and young,
|
|
5
|
|
|
A far-stretching journey awaits him, to return no more,)
|
|
6
|
|
|
Shunning, postponing severance—seeking to ward off the last word
|
|
7
|
|
|
ever so little,
|
|
8
|
|
|
E'en at the exit-door turning—charges superfluous calling back—
|
|
9
|
|
|
e'en as he descends the steps,
|
|
10
|
|
|
Something to eke out a minute additional—shadows of nightfall deepening,
|
|
11
|
|
|
Farewells, messages lessening—dimmer the forthgoer's visage and form,
|
|
12
|
|
|
Soon to be lost for aye in the darkness—loth, O so loth to depart!
|
