Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman

Leaves of Grass (1871-72)

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LEAVES OF GRASS.

A CAROL OF HARVEST, FOR 1867.

1

¹ A SONG of the good green grass!

A song no more of the city streets;

A song of farms—a song of the soil of fields.

² A song of the smell of sun-dried hay, where the
nimble pitchers handle the pitch-fork;

A song tasting of new wheat, and of fresh-husk'd maize.

2

³ For the lands, and for these passionate days, and for
myself,

Now I awhile return to thee, O soil of Autumn fields,

Reclining on thy breast, giving myself to thee,

Answering the pulses of thy sane and equable heart,

Tuning a verse for thee.

⁴ O Earth, that hast no voice, confide to me a voice!

O harvest of my lands! O boundless summer growths!

O lavish, brown, parturient earth! O infinite, teeming
womb!

A verse to seek, to see, to narrate thee.

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3

⁵ Ever upon this stage,

Is acted God's calm, annual drama,

Gorgeous processions, songs of birds,

Sunrise, that fullest feeds and freshens most the soul,

The heaving sea, the waves upon the shore, the musical,
strong waves,

The woods, the stalwart trees, the slender, tapering
trees,

The flowers, the grass, the lilliput, countless armies of
the grass,

The heat, the showers, the measureless pasturages,

The scenery of the snows, the winds' free orchestra,

The stretching, light-hung roof of clouds—the clear
cerulean, and the bulging, silvery fringes,

The high dilating stars, the placid, beckoning stars,

The moving flocks and herds, the plains and emerald
meadows,

The shows of all the varied lands, and all the growths
and products.

4

⁶ Fecund America! To day,

Thou art all over set in births and joys!

Thou groan'st with riches! thy wealth clothes thee as
with a swathing garment!

Thou laughest loud with ache of great possessions!

A myriad-twining life, like interlacing vines, binds all
thy vast demesne!

As some huge ship, freighted to water's edge, thou
ridest into port!

As rain falls from the heaven, and vapors rise from
earth, so have the precious values fallen upon
thee, and risen out of thee!

Thou envy of the globe! thou miracle!

Thou, bathed, choked, swimming in plenty!

Thou lucky Mistress of the tranquil barns!

Thou Prairie Dame that sittest in the middle, and
lookest out upon thy world, and lookest East,
and lookest West!

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Dispensatress, that by a word givest a thousand miles
—that giv'st a million farms, and missest noth-
ing,

Thou All-Acceptress—thou Hospitable—(thou only art
hospitable, as God is hospitable.)

5

⁷ When late I sang, sad was my voice;

Sad were the shows around me, with deafening noises
of hatred, and smoke of conflict;

In the midst of the armies, the Heroes, I stood,

Or pass'd with slow step through the wounded and
dying.

⁸ But now I sing not War,

Nor the measur'd march of soldiers, nor the tents
of camps,

Nor the regiments hastily coming up, deploying in line
of battle.

⁹ No more the dead and wounded;

No more the sad, unnatural shows of War.

¹⁰ Ask'd room those flush'd immortal ranks? the first
forth-stepping armies?

Ask room, alas, the ghastly ranks—the armies dread
that follow'd.

6

¹¹ (Pass—pass, ye proud brigades!

So handsome, dress'd in blue—with your tramping,
sinewy legs;

With your shoulders young and strong—with your
knapsacks and your muskets;

—How elate I stood and watch'd you, where, starting
off, you march'd!

¹² Pass;—then rattle, drums, again!

Scream, you steamers on the river, out of whistles loud
and shrill, your salutes!

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For an army heaves in sight—O another gathering
army!

Swarming, trailing on the rear—O you dread, accruing
army!

O you regiments so piteous, with your mortal diarrhoea!
with your fever!

O my land's maim'd darlings! with the plenteous bloody
bandage and the crutch!

Lo! your pallid army follow'd!)

7

¹³ But on these days of brightness,

On the far-stretching beauteous landscape, the roads
and lanes, the high-piled farm-wagons, and the
fruits and barns,

Should the dead intrude?

¹⁴ Ah, the dead to me mar not—they fit well in Na-
ture;

They fit very well in the landscape, under the trees and
grass,

And along the edge of the sky, in the horizon's far
margin.

¹⁵ Nor do I forget you, departed;

Nor in winter or summer, my lost ones;

But most, in the open air, as now, when my soul is
rapt and at peace—like pleasing phantoms,

Your dear memories, rising, glide silently by me.

8

¹⁶ I saw the day, the return of the Heroes;

(Yet the heroes never surpass'd, shall never return;

Them, that day, I saw not.)

¹⁷ I saw the interminable Corps—I saw the processions
of armies,

I saw them approaching, defiling by, with divisions,

Streaming northward, their work done, camping awhile
in clusters of mighty camps.

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¹⁸ No holiday soldiers!—youthful, yet veterans;

Worn, swart, handsome, strong, of the stock of home-
stead and workshop,

Harden'd of many a long campaign and sweaty march,

Inured on many a hard-fought, bloody field.

9

¹⁹ A pause—the armies wait;

A million flush'd, embattled conquerors wait;

The world, too, waits—then, soft as breaking night, and
sure as dawn,

They melt—they disappear.

²⁰ Exult, indeed, O lands! victorious lands!

Not there your victory, on those red, shuddering fields;

But here and hence your victory.

²¹ Melt, melt away ye armies! disperse, ye blue-clad
soldiers!

Resolve ye back again—give up, for good, your deadly
arms;

Other the arms, the fields henceforth for you, or South
or North, or East or West,

With saner wars—sweet wars—life-giving wars.

10

²² Loud, O my throat, and clear, O soul!

The season of thanks and the voice of full-yielding;

The chant of joy and power for boundless fertility.

²³ All till'd and untill'd fields expand before me;

I see the true arenas of my race—or first or last,

Man's innocent and strong arenas.

²⁴ I see the Heroes at other toils;

I see, well-wielded in their hands, the better weapons.

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²⁵ I see where America, Mother of All,

Well-pleased, with full-spanning eye, gazes forth, dwells
long,

And counts the varied gathering of the products.

²⁶ Busy the far, the sunlit panorama;

Prairie, orchard, and yellow grain of the North,

Cotton and rice of the South, and Louisianian cane;

Open, unseeded fallows, rich fields of clover and tim-
othy,

Kine and horses feeding, and droves of sheep and
swine,

And many a stately river flowing, and many a jocund
brook,

And healthy uplands with herby-perfumed breezes,

And the good green grass—that delicate miracle, the
ever-recurring grass.

12

²⁷ Toil on Heroes! harvest the products!

Not alone on those warlike fields, the Mother of All,

With dilated form and lambent eyes, watch'd you.

²⁸ Toil on Heroes! toil well! handle the weapons
well!

The Mother of All—yet here, as ever, she watches
you.

²⁹ Well-pleased, America, thou beholdest,

Over the fields of the West, those crawling monsters,

The human-divine inventions, the labor-saving imple-
ments:

Beholdest, moving in every direction, imbued as with
life, the revolving hay-rakes,

The steam-power reaping-machines and the horse-power
machines,

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The engines, thrashers of grain and cleaners of grain,
well separating the straw—the nimble work of
the patent pitchfork;

Beholdest the newer saw-mill, the southern cotton-gin,
and the rice-cleanser.

³⁰ Beneath thy look, O Maternal,

With these, and else, and with their own strong hands,
the Heroes harvest.

³¹ All gather, and all harvest;

(Yet but for thee, O Powerful! not a scythe might
swing, as now, in security;

Not a maize-stalk dangle, as now, its silken tassels in
peace.

14

³² Under thee only they harvest—even but a wisp of
hay, under thy great face, only;

Harvest the wheat of Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin—every
barbed spear, under thee;

Harvest the maize of Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee—
each ear in its light-green sheath,

Gather the hay to its myriad mows, in the odorous,
tranquil barns,

Oats to their bins—the white potato, the buckwheat of
Michigan, to theirs;

Gather the cotton in Mississippi or Alabama—dig and
hoard the golden, the sweet potato of Georgia
and the Carolinas,

Clip the wool of California or Pennsylvania,

Cut the flax in the Middle States, or hemp, or tobacco
in the Borders,

Pick the pea and the bean, or pull apples from the
trees, or bunches of grapes from the vines,

Or aught that ripens in all These States, or North or
South,

Under the beaming sun, and under Thee.

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THE SINGER IN THE PRISON.

1

O sight of shame, and pain, and dole!

O fearful thought—a convict Soul!

RANG the refrain along the hall, the prison,

Rose to the roof, the vaults of heaven above,

Pouring in floods of melody, in tones so pensive, sweet
and strong, the like whereof was never heard,

Reaching the far-off sentry, and the armed guards, who
ceas'd their pacing,

Making the hearer's pulses stop for extasy and awe.

2

O sight of pity, gloom, and dole!

O pardon me, a hapless Soul!

The sun was low in the west one winter day,

When down a narrow aisle amid the thieves and out-
laws of the land,

(There by the hundreds seated, sear-faced murderers,
wily counterfeiters,

Gather'd to Sunday church in prison walls—the keep-
ers round,

Plenteous, well-arm'd, watching, with vigilant eyes,)

Calmly a lady walk'd, holding a little innocent child
by either hand,

Whom, seating on their stools beside her on the plat-
form,

She, first preluding with the instrument, a low and
musical prelude,

In voice surpassing all, sang forth a quaint old
hymn.

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3 THE HYMN.

A Soul, confined by bars and bands,

Cries, Help! O help! and wrings her hands;

Blinded her eyes—bleeding her breast,

Nor pardon finds, nor balm of rest.

O sight of shame, and pain, and dole!

O fearful thought—a convict Soul!

Ceaseless, she paces to and fro;

O heart-sick days! O nights of wo!

Nor hand of friend, nor loving face;

Nor favor comes, nor word of grace,

O sight of pity, gloom, and dole!

O pardon me, a hapless Soul!

It was not I that sinn'd the sin,

The ruthless Body dragg'd me in;

Though long I strove courageously,

The Body was too much for me.

O Life! no life, but bitter dole!

O burning, beaten, baffled Soul!

(Dear prison'd soul, bear up a space,

For soon or late the certain grace;

To set thee free, and bear thee home,

The Heavenly Pardoner, Death shall come.

Convict no more—nor shame, nor dole!

Depart! A God-enfranchis'd Soul!)

4

The singer ceas'd;

One glance swept from her clear, calm eyes, o'er all
those upturn'd faces;

Strange sea of prison faces—a thousand varied, crafty,
brutal, seam'd and beauteous faces;

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Then rising, passing back along the narrow aisle be-
tween them,

While her gown touch'd them, rustling in the silence,

She vanish'd with her children in the dusk.

5

While upon all, convicts and armed keepers, ere they
stirr'd,

(Convict forgetting prison, keeper his loaded pistol,)

A hush and pause fell down, a wondrous minute,

With deep, half-stifled sobs and sound of bad men
bow'd, and moved to weeping,

And youth's convulsive breathings, memories of home,

The mother's voice in lullaby, the sister's care, the
happy childhood,

The long-pent spirit rous'd to reminiscence;

—A wondrous minute then—But after, in the solitary
night, to many, many there,

Years after—even in the hour of death—the sad refrain
—the tune, the voice, the words,

Resumed—the large, calm Lady walks the narrow aisle,

The wailing melody again—the singer in the prison
sings:

O sight of shame, and pain, and dole!

O fearful thought—a convict Soul!

WARBLE FOR LILAC TIME.

WARBLE me now, for joy of Lilac-time,

Sort me, O tongue and lips, for Nature's sake, and
sweet life's sake—and death's the same as life's,

Souvenirs of earliest summer—the birds' eggs, and the first
berries;

Gather the welcome signs, (as children, with pebbles, or
stringing shells,)

Put in April and May—the hylas croaking in the ponds
—the elastic air,

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Bees, butterflies, the sparrow with its simple notes,

Blue-bird, and darting swallow—nor forget the high-
hole flashing his golden wings,

The tranquil sunny haze, the clinging smoke, the vapor,

Spiritual, airy insects, humming on gossamer wings,

Shimmer of waters, with fish in them—the cerulean
above;

All that is jocund and sparkling—the brooks running,

The maple woods, the crisp February days, and the
sugar-making;

The robin, where he hops, bright-eyed, brown-breasted,

With musical clear call at sunrise, and again at sunset,

Or flitting among the trees of the apple-orchard, build-
-ing the nest of his mate;

The melted snow of March—the willow sending forth
its yellow-green sprouts;

—For spring-time is here! the summer is here! and
what is this in it and from it?

Thou, Soul, unloosen'd—the restlessness after I know
not what;

Come! let us lag here no longer—let us be up and
away!

O for another world! O if one could but fly like a
bird!

O to escape—to sail forth, as in a ship!

To glide with thee, O soul, o'er all, in all, as a ship o'er
the waters!

—Gathering these hints, the preludes—the blue sky,
the grass, the morning drops of dew;

(With additional songs—every spring will I now strike
up additonal songs,

Nor ever again forget, these tender days, the chants of
Death as well as Life;)

The lilac-scent, the bushes, and the dark green heart-
shaped leaves,

Wood-violets, the little delicate pale blossoms called
innocence,

Samples and sorts not for themselves alone, but for
their atmosphere,

To tally, drench'd with them, tested by them,

Cities and artificial life, and all their sights and scenes

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My mind henceforth, and all its meditations—my reci-
tatives,

My land, my age, my race, for one to serve in songs,

(Sprouts, tokens ever of death indeed the same as life,)

To grace the bush I love—to sing with the birds,

A warble for joy of Lilac-time.

WHO LEARNS MY LESSON COMPLETE?

¹ WHO learns my lesson complete?

Boss, journeyman, apprentice—churchman and atheist,

The stupid and the wise thinker—parents and offspring
—merchant, clerk, porter and customer,

Editor, author, artist, and schoolboy—draw nigh and
commence;

It is no lesson—it lets down the bars to a good lesson,

And that to another, and every one to another still.

² The great laws take and effuse without argument;

I am of the same style, for I am their friend,

I love them quits and quits, I do not halt, and make
salaams.

³ I lie abstracted, and hear beautiful tales of things,
and the reasons of things;

They are so beautiful, I nudge myself to listen.

⁴ I cannot say to any person what I hear—I cannot say
it to myself—it is very wonderful.

⁵ It is no small matter, this round and delicious globe,
         moving so exactly in its orbit for ever and ever,
         without one jolt, or the untruth of a single
         second;

I do not think it was made in six days, nor in ten
thousand years, nor ten billions of years,

Nor plann'd and built one thing after another, as an
architect plans and builds a house.

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⁶ I do not think seventy years is the time of a man or
woman,

Nor that seventy millions of years is the time of a man
or woman,

Nor that years will ever stop the existence of me, or
any one else.

⁷ Is it wonderful that I should be immortal? as every
one is immortal;

I know it is wonderful, but my eyesight is equally won-
derful, and how I was conceived in my mother's
womb is equally wonderful;

And pass'd from a babe, in the creeping trance of a
couple of summers and winters, to articulate and
walk—All this is equally wonderful.

⁸ And that my soul embraces you this hour, and we
         affect each other without ever seeing each other,
         and never perhaps to see each other, is every bit
         as wonderful.

⁹ And that I can think such thoughts as these, is just
as wonderful;

And that I can remind you, and you think them, and
know them to be true, is just as wonderful.

¹⁰ And that the moon spins round the earth, and on
with the earth, is equally wonderful,

And that they balance themselves with the sun and
stars, is equally wonderful.

THOUGHT.

OF JUSTICE—As if Justice could be any thing but the
same ample law, expounded by natural judges
and saviors,

As if it might be this thing or that thing, according to
decisions.

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MYSELF AND MINE.

¹ MYSELF and mine gymnastic ever,

To stand the cold or heat—to take good aim with a
gun—to sail a boat—to manage horses—to be-
get superb children,

To speak readily and clearly—to feel at home among
common people,

And to hold our own in terrible positions on land and
sea.

² Not for an embroiderer;

(There will always be plenty of embroiderers, I wel-
come them also;)

But for the fibre of things, and for inherent men and
women.

³ Not to chisel ornaments,

But to chisel with free stroke the heads and limbs of
plenteous Supreme Gods, that the States may
realize them, walking and talking.

⁴ Let me have my own way;

Let others promulge the laws—I will make no account
of the laws;

Let others praise eminent men and hold up peace—I
hold up agitation and conflict;

I praise no eminent man—I rebuke to his face the one
that was thought most worthy.

⁵ (Who are you? you mean devil! Amd what are you
secretly guilty of, all your life?

Will you turn aside all your life? Will you grub and
chatter all your life?)

⁶ (And who are you—blabbing by rote, years, pages,
languages, reminiscences,

Unwitting to-day that you do not know how to speak a
single word?)

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⁷ Let others finish specimens—I never finish specimens;

I shower them by exhaustless laws, as Nature does,
fresh and modern continually.

⁸ I give nothing as duties;

What others give as duties, I give as living impulses;

(Shall I give the heart's action as a duty?)

⁹ Let others dispose of questions—I dispose of nothing
—I arouse unanswerable questions;

Who are they I see and touch, and what about them?

What about these likes of myself, that draw me so close
by tender directions and indirections?

¹⁰ I call to the world to distrust the accounts of my
friends, but listen to my enemies—as I myself
do;

I charge you, too, forever, reject those who would ex-
pound me—for I cannot expound myself;

I charge that there be no theory or school founded out
of me;

I charge you to leave all free, as I have left all free.

¹¹ After me, vista!

O, I see life is not short, but immeasurably long;

I henceforth tread the world, chaste, temperate, an
early riser, a steady grower,

Every hour the semen of centuries—and still of centu-
ries.

¹² I will follow up these continual lessons of the air,
water, earth;

I perceive I have no time to lose.

TO OLD AGE.

I SEE in you the estuary that enlarges and spreads itself
grandly as it pours in the great Sea.

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MIRACLES.

¹ WHY! who makes much of a miracle?

As to me, I know of nothing else but miracles,

Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,

Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the
sky,

Or wade with naked feet along the beach, just in the
edge of the water,

Or stand under trees in the woods,

Or talk by day with any one I love—or sleep in the bed
at night with any one I love,

Or sit at table at dinner with my mother,

Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,

Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive, of a sum-
mer forenoon,

Or animals feeding in the fields,

Or birds—or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,

Or the wonderfulness of the sundown—or of stars
shining so quiet and bright,

Or the exquisite, delicate, thin curve of the new moon
in spring;

Or whether I go among those I like best, and that like
me best—mechanics, boatmen, farmers,

Or among the savans—or to the soiree—or to the
opera,

Or stand a long while looking at the movements of
machinery,

Or behold children at their sports,

Or the admirable sight of the perfect old man, or the
perfect old woman,

Or the sick in hospitals, or the dead carried to burial,

Or my own eyes and figure in the glass;

These, with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,

The whole referring—yet each distinct, and in its
place.

² To me, every hour of the light and dark is a mir-
acle,

Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,

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Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread
with the same,

Every foot of the interior swarms with the same;

Every spear of grass—the frames, limbs, organs, of men
and women, and all that concerns them,

All these to me are unspeakably perfect miracles.

³ To me the sea is a continual miracle;

The fishes that swim—the rocks—the motion of the
waves—the ships, with men in them,

What stranger miracles are there?

SPARKLES FROM THE WHEEL.

1

WHERE the city's ceaseless crowd moves on, the live-
long day,

Withdrawn, I join a group of children watching—I
pause aside withthem.

By the curb, toward the edge of the flagging,

A knife-grinder works at his wheel, sharpening a great
knife;

Bending over, he carefully holds it to the stone—by
foot and knee,

With measur'd tread, he turns rapidly—As he presses
with light but firm hand,

Forth issue, then, in copious golden jets,

Sparkles from the wheel.

2

The scene and all its belongings—how they seize and
affect me!

The sad, sharp-chinn'd old man, with worn clothes, and
broad shoulder-band of leather;

Myself, effusing and fluid—a phantom curiously float-
ing—now here absorb'd and arrested;

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The group, (an unminded point, set in a vast surround-
ing;)

The attentive, quiet children—the loud, proud, restive
base of the streets;

The low, hoarse purr of the whirling stone—the light-
press'd blade,

Diffusing, dropping, sideways-darting, in tiny showers
of gold,

Sparkles from the wheel.

EXCELSIOR.

WHO has gone farthest? For lo! have not I gone far-
ther?

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 cau-
tious;

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 has been firmest? For I would be firmer;

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 benevo-
lence than all the rest;

And how has projected beautiful words through the
         longest time? Have I not outvied him? have I
         not said the words that shall stretch through
         longer time?

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;

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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 will sur-
round those thoughts;

And who has made hymns fit for the earth? For I am
mad with devouring extasy to make joyous hymns
for the whole earth!

MEDIUMS.

THEY shall arise in the States

They shall report Nature, laws, physiology, and happi-
ness;

They shall illustrate Democracy and the kosmos;

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 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 con-
veyers, to convey gospels;

Characters, events, retrospections, shall be convey'd in
gospels—Trees, animals, waters, shall be con-
vey'd,

Death, the future, the invisible faith, shall all be con-
vey'd.

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KOSMOS.

WHO includes diversity and is Nature,

Who is the amplitude of the earth, and the coarseness
and sexuality of the earth, and the great charity
of the earth, and the equilibrium also,

Who has not look'd forth from the windows, the eyes,
for nothing, or whose brain held audience with
messengers for nothing;

Who contains believers and disbelievers—Who is the
most majestic lover;

Who holds duly his or her triune proportion of real-
ism, spiritualism, and of the aesthetic, or intel-
lectual,

Who, having consider'd the Body, finds all its organs
and parts good;

Who, out of the theory of the earth, and of his or her
body, understands by subtle analogies all other
theories,

The theory of a city, a poem, and of the large politics
of These States;

Who believes not only in our globe, with its sun and
moon, but in other globes, with their suns and
moons;

Who, constructing the house of himself or herself, not
for a day, but for all time, sees races, eras, dates,
generations,

The past, the future, dwelling there, like space, insep-
arable gether.

TO A PUPIL.

¹ IS reform needed? Is it through you?

The greater the reform needed, the greater the person-
ality you need to accomplish it.

² You! do you not see how it would serve to have eyes,
blood, complexion, clean and sweet?

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Do you not see how it would serve to have such a Body
         and Soul, that when you enter the crowd, an
         atmosphere of desire and command enters with
         you, everyone is impress'd with your per-
         sonality?

³ O the magnet! the flesh over and over!

Go, dear friend! if need be, give up all else, and com-
mence to-day to inure yourself to pluck, reality,
self-esteem, definiteness, elevatedness;

Rest not, till you rivet and publish yourself of your
own personality.

WHAT AM I, AFTER ALL.

¹ WHAT am I, after all, but a child, pleas'd with the
sound of my own name? repeating it over and
over;

I stand apart to hear—it never tires me.

² To you, your name also;

Did you think there was nothing but two or three pro-
nunciations in the sound of your name?

OTHERS MAY PRAISE WHAT THEY LIKE.

OTHERS may praise what they like;

But I, from the banks of the running Missouri, praise
nothing, in art, or aught else,

Till it has well inhaled the atmosphere of this river—
also the western prairie-scent,

And fully exudes it again.

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BROTHER OF ALL, WITH GENEROUS HAND.

( G. P., Buried 1870. )

1

¹ BROTHER of all, with generous hand,

Of thee, pondering on thee, as o'er thy tomb, I and my
Soul,

A thought to launch in memory of thee,

A burial verse for thee.

² What may we chant, O thou within this tomb?

What tablets, pictures, hang for thee, O millionaire?

—The life thou lived'st, we know not,

But that thou walk'dst thy years in barter, 'mid the
haunts of brokers;

Nor heroism thine, nor war, nor glory.

³ Yet lingering, yearning, joining soul with thine,

If not thy past we chant, we chant the future,

Select, adorn the future.

2

⁴ Lo, Soul, the graves of heroes!

The pride of lands—the gratitudes of men,

The statues of the manifold famous dead, Old World
and New,

The kings, inventors, generals, poets, (stretch wide thy
vision, Soul,)

The excellent rulers of the races, great discoverers,
sailors,

Marble and brass select from them, with pictures,
scenes,

(The histories of the lands, the races, bodied there,

In what they've built for, graced and graved,

Monuments to their heroes.)

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3

⁵ Silent, my Soul,

With drooping lids, as waiting, ponder'd,

Turning from all the samples, all the monuments of
heroes.

⁶ While through the interior vistas,

Noiseless uprose, phantasmic, (as, by night, Auroras of
the North,)

Lambent tableaux, prophetic, bodiless scenes,

Spiritual projections.

⁷ In one, among the city streets, a laborer's home ap-
pear'd,

After his day's work done, cleanly, sweet-air'd, the gas-
light burning,

The carpet swept, and a fire in the cheerful stove.

⁸ In one, the sacred parturition scene,

A happy, painless mother birth'd a perfect child.

⁹ In one, at a bounteous morning meal,

Sat peaceful parents, with contented sons.

¹⁰ In one, by twos and threes, young people,

Hundreds concentring, walk'd the paths and streets
and roads,

Toward a tall-domed school.

¹¹ In one a trio, beautiful,

Grandmother, loving daughter, loving daughter's
daughter, sat,

Chatting and sewing.

¹² In one, along a suite of noble rooms,

'Mid plenteous books and journals, paintings on the
walls, fine statuettes,

Were groups of friendly journeymen, mechanics, young
and old,

Reading, conversing.

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¹³ All, all the shows of laboring life,

City and country, women's, men's and children's,

Their wants provided for, hued in the sun, and tinged
for once with joy,

Marriage, the street, the factory, farm, the house-room,
lodging-room,

Labor and toil, the bath, gymnasium, playground,
library, college,

The student, boy or girl, led forward to be taught;

The sick cared for, the shoeless shod—the orphan
father'd and mother'd,

The hungry fed, the houseless housed;

(The intentions perfect and divine,

The workings, details, haply human.)

4

¹⁴ O thou within this tomb,

From thee, such scenes—thou stintless, lavish Giver,

Tallying the gifts of Earth—large as the Earth,

Thy name an Earth, with mountains, fields and rivers.

¹⁵ Nor by your streams alone, you rivers,

By you, your banks, Connecticut,

By you, and all your teeming lif old Thames,

By you, Potomac, laving the ground Washington trod
—by you Patapsco,

You, Hudson—you, endless Mississippi—not by you
alone,

But to the high seas launch, my thought, his memory.

5

¹⁶ Lo, Soul, by this tomb's lambency,

The darkness of the arrogant standards of the world,

With all its flaunting aims, ambitions, pleasures.

¹⁷ (Old, commonplace, and rust saws,

The rich, the gay, the supercilious, smiled at long,

Now, piercing to the marrow in my bones,

Fused with each drop my heart's blood jets

Swim in ineffable meaning.)

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¹⁸ Lo, Soul, the sphere requireth, portioneth,

To each his share, his measure,

The moderate to the moderate, the ample to the
ample.

¹⁹ Lo, Soul, see'st thou not, plain as the sun,

The only real wealth of wealth in generosity,

The only life of life in goodness?

NIGHT ON THE PRAIRIES.

¹ NIGHT on the prairies;

The supper is over—the fire on the ground burns low;

The wearied emigrants sleep, wrapt in their blankets:

I walk by myself—I stand and look at the stars, which
I think now I never realized before.

² Now I absorb immortality and peace,

I admire death, and test propositions.

³ How plenteous! How spiritual! How resumé!

The same Old Man and Soul—the same old aspirations,
and the same content.

⁴ I was thinking the day most splendid, till I saw what
the not-day exhibited,

I was thinking this globe enough, till there sprang out
so noiseless around me myriads of other globes.

⁵ Now, while the great thoughts of space and eternity
fill me, I will measure myself by them;

And now, touch'd with the lives of other globes, arrived
as far along as those of the earth,

Or waiting to arrive, or pass'd on farther than those of
the earth,

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I henceforth no more ignore them, than I ignore my
own life,

Or the lives of the earth arrived as far as mine, or
waiting to arrive.

⁶ O I see now that life cannot exhibit all to me—as the
day cannot,

I see that I am to wait for what will be exhibited by
death.

ON JOURNEYS THROUGH THE STATES.

¹ ON journeys through the States we start,

(Ay through the world—urged by these songs,

Sailing henceforth to every land—to every sea;)

We, willing learners of all, teachers of all, and lovers
of all.

² We have watch'd the seasons dispensing themselves,
and passing on,

We have said, Why should not a man or woman do as
much as the seasons, and effuse as much?

³ We dwell a while in every city and town,

We pass through Kanada, the north-east, the vast valley
of the Mississippi, and the Southern States;

We confer on equal terms with each of The States,

We make trial of ourselves, and invite men and women
to hear;

We say to ourselves, Remember, fear not, be candid,
promulge the body and the Soul;

Dwell a while and pass on—Se copious, temperate,
chaste, magnetic,

And what you effuse may then return as the seasons
return,

And may be just as much as the seasons.

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SAVANTISM.

Thither, as I look, I see each result and glory retracing
itself and nestling close, always obligated;

Thither hours, months, years—thither trades, compacts,
establishments, even the most minute;

Thither every-day life, speech, utensils, politics, per-
sons, estates;

Thither we also, I with my leaves and songs, trustful,
admirant,

As a father, to his father going, takes his children
along with him.

LOCATIONS AND TIMES.

LOCATIONS and times—what is it in me that meets them
all, whenever and wherever, and makes me at
home?

Forms, colors, densities, odors—what is it in me that
corresponds with them?

THOUGHT.

OF EQUALITY—As if it harm'd me, giving others the
         same chances and rights as myself—As if it
         were not indispensable my own rights that
         others possess the same.

OFFERINGS.

A THOUSAND perfect men and women appear,

Around each gathers a cluster of friends, and gay chil-
dren and youths, with offerings.

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TESTS.

ALL submit to them, where they sit, inner, secure,
unapproachable to analysis, in the Soul;

Not traditions—not the outer authorities are the judges

—they are the judges of outer authorities, and
of all traditions;

They corroborate as they go, only whatever corrobo-
rates themselves, and touches themselves;

For all that, they have it forever in themselves to cor-
roborate far and near, without one exception.

THE TORCH.

ON my northwest coast in the midst of the night, a
fishermen's group stands watching;

Out on the lake, that expands before them, others are
spearing salmon;

The canoe, a dim shadowy thing, moves across the
black water,

Bearing a Torch ablaze at the prow.

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