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Walt Whitman's Works

WALT WHITMAN'S WORKS.

James R. Osgood & Co. have published a new and enlarged edition of Walt Whitman's poems. It contains all the old ones and many new, including 383 in all, and is embellished with two portraits of the author. The following are selections from the volume:

TEARS.

Tears! tears! tears! In the night, in solitude, tears, On the white shore dripping, dripping, suck'd in by the  
 sand,
Tears, not a star shining, all dark and desolate, Moist tears from the eyes of a muffled head; O who is that ghost? that form in the dark, with tears? What shapeless hump is that, bent, crouch'd there on the  
 sand?
Screaming tears, sobbing tears, throes choked with wild  
 cries;
O storm, embodied, rising, careering with swift steps  
 along the beach!
O wild and dismal night storm, with wind—O belching  
 and desperate!
O shade so sedate and decorous by day, with calm counte- 
 nance and regulated pace.
But away at night as you fly, none looking—O then the  
 unloosen'd ocean
Of tears! tears! tears!

ITALIAN MUSIC IN DAKOTA.

"The Seventeenth—the finest Regimental Band I ever heard." Through the soft evening air enwinding all, Rocks, woods, fort, cannon, pacing sentries endless wilds, In dulcet streams, in flutes' and cornets' notes, Electric, pensive, turbulent, artificial, (Yet strangely fitting even here, meaning unknown be- 
 fore,
Subtler than ever, more harmony, as if born here, related  
 here,
Not to the city's fresco'd rooms, not to the audience of the  
 opera house,
Sounds, echoes, wandering strains, as really bare at home, Sonnambula's innocent love, trios with Norma's anguish, And thy ecstatic chorus Poliuto;) Ray'd in the limpid yellow slanting sundown, Music, Italian music in Dakota.
While Nature, sovereign of this gnarl'd realm, Lurking in hidden barbaric grim recesses, Acknowledging rapport however far remov'd, (As some old root of soil its best-born flower or  
 fruit)
Listens well pleas'd.

WITH ALL THY GIFTS.

With all thy gifts America, Standing secure, rapidly tending, overlooking the world, Power, wealth, extent, vouchsafed to thee—with these and  
 like of these vouchsafed to thee
What if one gift thou lackest (the ultimate human  
 problem never solving,)
The gift of perfect women fit for thee—what if that gift  
 of gifts thou lackest?
The towering feminine of thee? the beauty, health, com- 
 pletion fit for thee?
The mother's fit for thee?

WHAT BEST I SEE IN THEE.

To U.S.G. return'd from his World's Tour. What best I see in thee, Is not that where thou mov'st down history's great highways, Ever undimm'd by time shoots warlike victory's dazzle, Or that thou sat'st where Washington sat, ruling the land in peace, Or thou the man whom feudal Europe feted, venerable Asia  
 swarm'd upon,
Who walk'd with kings with even pace the round world's prome- 
 nade;
But that in foreign lands, in all thy walks with kings, Those prairie sovereigns of the West, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Ohio's, Indiana's millions, comrades, farmers, soldiers, all to the  
 front,
Invisibly with thee walking with kings with even pace the round  
 world's promenade,
Were all so justified.
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