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Part of the cluster FROM NOON TO STARRY NIGHT.

FACES.

1

SAUNTERING the pavement or riding the country by-road, lo, such  
 faces!
Faces of friendship, precision, caution, suavity, ideality, The spiritual-prescient face, the always welcome common benevo- 
 lent face,
The face of the singing of music, the grand faces of natural law- 
 yers and judges broad at the back-top,
The faces of hunters and fishers bulged at the brows, the shaved  
 blanch'd faces of orthodox citizens,
The pure, extravagant, yearning, questioning artist's face, The ugly face of some beautiful soul, the handsome detested or  
 despised face,
The sacred faces of infants, the illuminated face of the mother of  
 many children,
The face of an amour, the face of veneration, The face as of a dream, the face of an immobile rock, The face withdrawn of its good and bad, a castrated face, A wild hawk, his wings clipp'd by the clipper, A stallion that yielded at last to the thongs and knife of the gelder.
Sauntering the pavement thus, or crossing the ceaseless ferry, faces  
 and faces and faces,
I see them and complain not, and am content with all.

2

Do you suppose I could be content with all if I thought them  
 their own finalè?
This now is too lamentable a face for a man, Some abject louse asking leave to be, cringing for it, Some milk-nosed maggot blessing what lets it wrig to its hole. This face is a dog's snout sniffing for garbage, Snakes nest in that mouth, I hear the sibilant threat. This face is a haze more chill than the arctic sea, Its sleepy and wabbling icebergs crunch as they go. This is a face of bitter herbs, this an emetic, they need no label, And more of the drug-shelf, laudanum, caoutchouc, or hog's-lard.   [ begin page 354 ]ppp.00707.362.jpg This face is an epilepsy, its wordless tongue gives out the unearthly  
 cry,
Its veins down the neck distend, its eyes roll till they show nothing  
 but their whites,
Its teeth grit, the palms of the hands are cut by the turn'd-in  
 nails,
The man falls struggling and foaming to the ground, while he  
 speculates well.
This face is bitten by vermin and worms, And this is some murderer's knife with a half-pull'd scabbard. This face owes to the sexton his dismalest fee, An unceasing death-bell tolls there.

3

Features of my equals would you trick me with your creas'd and  
 cadaverous march?
Well, you cannot trick me.
I see your rounded never-erased flow, I see 'neath the rims of your haggard and mean disguises. Splay and twist as you like, poke with the tangling fores of fishes  
 or rats,
You'll be unmuzzled, you certainly will.
I saw the face of the most smear'd and slobbering idiot they had  
 at the asylum,
And I knew for my consolation what they knew not, I knew of the agents that emptied and broke my brother, The same wait to clear the rubbish from the fallen tenement, And I shall look again in a score or two of ages, And I shall meet the real landlord perfect and unharm'd, every  
 inch as good as myself.

4

The Lord advances, and yet advances, Always the shadow in front, always the reach'd hand bringing up  
 the laggards.
Out of this face emerge banners and horses—O superb! I see  
 what is coming,
I see the high pioneer-caps, see staves of runners clearing the way, I hear victorious drums.
  [ begin page 355 ]ppp.00707.363.jpg This face is a life-boat, This is the face commanding and bearded, it asks no odds of the  
 rest,
This face is flavor'd fruit ready for eating, This face of a healthy honest boy is the programme of all good.
These faces bear testimony slumbering or awake, They show their descent from the Master himself. Off the word I have spoken I except not one—red, white, black,  
 are all deific,
In each house is the ovum, it comes forth after a thousand years.
Spots or cracks at the windows do not disturb me, Tall and sufficient stand behind and make signs to me, I read the promise and patiently wait. This is a full-grown lily's face, She speaks to the limber-hipp'd man near the garden pickets, Come here she blushingly cries, Come nigh to me limber-hipp'd  
  man,
Stand at my side till I lean as high as I can upon you, Fill me with albescent honey, bend down to me, Rub to me with your chafing beard, rub to my breast and  
 shoulders.

5

The old face of the mother of many children, Whist! I am fully content. Lull'd and late is the smoke of the First-day morning, It hangs low over the rows of trees by the fences, It hangs thin by the sassafras and wild-cherry and cat-brier under  
 them.
I saw the rich ladies in full dress at the soiree, I heard what the singers were singing so long, Heard who sprang in crimson youth from the white froth and the  
 water-blue.
Behold a woman! She looks out from her quaker cap, her face is clearer and more  
 beautiful than the sky.
She sits in an armchair under the shaded porch of the farmhouse, The sun just shines on her old white head.   [ begin page 356 ]ppp.00707.364.jpg Her ample gown is of cream-hued linen, Her grandsons raised the flax, and her grand-daughters spun it  
 with the distaff and the wheel.
The melodious character of the earth, The finish beyond which philosophy cannot go and does not wish  
 to go,
The justified mother of men.

Part of the cluster FROM NOON TO STARRY NIGHT.

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