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bugle-calls, Trooping tumultuous, filling the midnight late, bending me power- less powerless , Entering my

2 Come forward O my soul, and let the rest retire, Listen, lose not, it is toward thee they tend, Parting

the midnight, entering my slumber-chamber, For thee they sing and dance O soul.

cannot tell itself.) 3 Ah from a little child, Thou knowest soul how to me all sounds became music, My

6 Then I woke softly, And pausing, questioning awhile the music of my dream, And questioning all those

PASSAGE TO INDIA. 1 SINGING my days, Singing the great achievements of the present, Singing the strong

Struggles of many a captain, tales of many a sailor dead, Over my mood stealing and spreading they come

of you strong mountains of my land! Of you O prairies! of you gray rocks! O morning red! O clouds!

the blood burns in my veins! Away O soul! hoist instantly the anchor!

O my brave soul! O farther farther sail! O daring joy, but safe! are they not all the seas of God?

Thou knowest my years entire, my life, My long and crowded life of active work, not adoration merely;

Thou knowest the prayers and vigils of my youth, Thou knowest my manhood's solemn and visionary meditations

All my emprises have been fill'd with Thee, My speculations, plans, begun and carried on in thoughts

, I yield my ships to Thee.

My hands, my limbs grow nerveless, My brain feels rack'd, bewilder'd, Let the old timbers part, I will

THE SLEEPERS. 1 I WANDER all night in my vision, Stepping with light feet, swiftly and noiselessly stepping

I stand in the dark with drooping eyes by the worst-suffering and the most restless, I pass my hands

He whom I call answers me and takes the place of my lover, He rises with me silently from the bed.

. 2 I descend my western course, my sinews are flaccid, Perfume and youth course through me and I am

darn my grandson's stockings.

dear brothers' and sisters' sake, for the soul's sake, Wending my way through the homes of men, rich

words, mine only, Young and strong I pass knowing well I am destin'd myself to an early death; But my

charity has no death—my wisdom dies not, neither early nor late, And my sweet love bequeath'd here and

of reminiscences, brooding, with many wiles, (Though it was thought I was baffled and dispel'd, and my

side, warlike, equal with any, real as any, Nor time nor change shall ever change me or my words. 4

in the room where I eat or sleep, I should be satisfied, And if the corpse of any one I love, or if my

YET, yet, ye downcast hours, I know ye also, Weights of lead, how ye clog and cling at my ankles, Earth

Despairing cries float ceaselessly toward me, The call of my nearest lover, putting forth, alarm'd, uncertain

, The sea I am quickly to sail, come tell me, Come tell me where I am speeding, tell me my destination

And you O my soul where you stand, Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space, Ceaselessly

need be form'd, till the ductile anchor hold, Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my

Softly I lay my right hand upon you, you just feel it, I do not argue, I bend my head close and half

arrive, or pass'd on farther than those of the earth, I henceforth no more ignore them than I ignore my

AS I sit with others at a great feast, suddenly while the music is playing, To my mind, (whence it comes

thee, And royal feudal Europe sails with thee. 5 Beautiful world of new superber birth that rises to my

(Lo, where arise three peerless stars, To be thy natal stars my country, Ensemble, Evolution, Freedom

my special word to thee. Hear me illustrious!

wood edge, thy touching-distant beams enough, Or man matured, or young or old, as now to thee I launch my

launch thy subtle dazzle and thy strength for these, Prepare the later afternoon of me myself—prepare my

lengthen- ing lengthening shadows, Prepare my starry nights.

This face owes to the sexton his dismalest fee, An unceasing death-bell tolls there. 3 Features of my

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

near the garden pickets, Come here she blushingly cries, Come nigh to me limber-hipp'd man, Stand at my

upon you, Fill me with albescent honey, bend down to me, Rub to me with your chafing beard, rub to my

refreshing night the walks of Paradise, I scent the grass, the moist air and the roses; Thy song expands my

and for my sensuous eyes, Bring the old pageants, show the feudal world.

the terrible tableaus. 7 O trumpeter, methinks I am myself the instrument thou playest, Thou melt'st my

heart, my brain—thou movest, drawest, chan- gest changest them at will; And now thy sullen notes send

soul, renew its languishing faith and hope, Rouse up my slow belief, give me some vision of the future

THEE for my recitative, Thee in the driving storm even as now, the snow, the winter-day declining, Thee

Roll through my chant with all thy lawless music, thy swinging lamps at night, Thy madly-whistled laughter

my South! O quick mettle, rich blood, impulse and love! good and evil! O all dear to me!

O dear to me my birth-things—all moving things and the trees where I was born—the grains, plants, rivers

, Dear to me my own slow sluggish rivers where they flow, distant, over flats of silvery sands or through

, the Tombigbee, the Santee, the Coosa and the Sabine, O pensive, far away wandering, I return with my

parrots in the woods, I see the papaw-tree and the blos- soming blossoming titi; Again, sailing in my

I WAS asking for something specific and perfect for my city, Whereupon lo!

there is in a name, a word, liquid, sane, unruly, musical, self-sufficient, I see that the word of my

my city!

EARLY in the morning, Walking forth from the bower, refreshed with sleep, Behold me where I pass—hear my

voice—approach, Touch me—touch the palm of your hand to my body as I pass, Be not afraid of my body.

You objects that call from diffusion my meanings and give them shape!

Why are there men and women that while they are nigh me, the sun-light expands my blood?

Why, when they leave me, do my pennants of joy sink flat and lank?

It is safe—I have tried it—my own feet have tried it well. Allons! Be not detained!

I give you my hand!

shame or the need of shame. 28* Air, soil, water, fire, these are words, I myself am a word with them—my

qualities inter- penetrate interpenetrate with theirs—my name is nothing to them, Though it were told

in the three thousand languages, what would air, soil, water, fire, know of my name?

When I undertake to tell the best, I find I cannot, My tongue is ineffectual on its pivots, My breath

hitherto published—from the pleasures, profits, conformities, Which too long I was offering to feed to my

Soul Clear to me now, standards not yet published— clear to me that my Soul, That the Soul of the man

substantial life, Bequeathing, hence, types of athletic love, 29* Afternoon, this delicious Ninth Month, in my

forty- first year, I proceed, for all who are, or have been, young men, To tell the secret of my nights

SCENTED herbage of my breast, Leaves from you I yield, I write, to be perused best afterwards, Tomb-leaves

O blossoms of my blood!

O I think it is not for life I am chanting here my chant of lovers—I think it must be for Death, For

Grow up out of my breast! Spring away from the concealed heart there!

Do not remain down there so ashamed, herbage of my breast!

Who is he that would become my follower?

Who would sign himself a candidate for my affec- tions affections ? Are you he?

doned abandoned ; Therefore release me now, before troubling yourself any further—Let go your hand from my

it, Nor do those know me best who admire me, and vauntingly praise me, Nor will the candidates for my

love, (unless at most a very few,) prove victorious, Nor will my poems do good only—they will do just

and then in the silence, Alone I had thought—yet soon a silent troop gathers around me, Some walk by my

side, and some behind, and some embrace my arms or neck, They, the spirits of friends, dead or alive—thicker

lilac, with a branch of pine, Here, out of my pocket, some moss which I pulled off a live-oak in Florida

There shall from me be a new friendship—It shall be called after my name, It shall circulate through

other shall be invincible, They shall finally make America completely victo- rious victorious , in my

NOT heaving from my ribbed breast only, Not in sighs at night, in rage, dissatisfied with myself, Not

in those long-drawn, ill-suppressed sighs, Not in many an oath and promise broken, Not in my wilful

savage soul's volition, Not in the subtle nourishment of the air, Not in this beating and pounding at my

sleep, Nor the other murmurs of these incredible dreams of every day, Nor in the limbs and senses of my

O pulse of my life! Need I that you exist and show yourself, any more than in these songs.

aught of them;) May-be they only seem to me what they are, (as doubtless they indeed but seem,) as from my

from entirely changed points of view; To me, these, and the like of these, are curiously answered by my

lovers, my dear friends; When he whom I love travels with me, or sits a long while holding me by the

appearances, or that of identity beyond the grave, But I walk or sit indifferent—I am satisfied, He ahold of my

Then my lands engrossed me—Lands of the prairies, Ohio's land, the southern savannas, engrossed me—For

to enclose all, it came to me to strike up the songs of the New World—And then I be- lieved believed my

knowledge, and the grandeur of The States, and the example of heroes, no more, I am indifferent to my

heavy-hearted, Hours of the dusk, when I withdraw to a lonesome and unfrequented spot, seating myself, leaning my

face in my hands; Hours sleepless, deep in the night, when I go forth, speeding swiftly the country

(I am ashamed—but it is useless—I am what I am;) Hours of my torment—I wonder if other men ever have

when you refer to me, mind not so much my poems, Nor speak of me that I prophesied of The States, and

I will take you down underneath this impassive exterior—I will tell you what to say of me: Publish my

name and hang up my picture as that of the tenderest lover, The friend, the lover's portrait, of whom

WHEN I heard at the close of the day how my name had been received with plaudits in the capitol, still

it was not a happy night for me that fol- lowed followed ; And else, when I caroused, or when my plans

ing undressing , bathed, laughing with the cool waters, and saw the sun rise, And when I thought how my

all that day my food nourished me more—And the beautiful day passed well, And the next came with equal

joy—And with the next, at evening, came my friend; And that night, while all was still, I heard the

down-balls, nor perfumes, nor the high rain-emitting clouds, are borne through the open air, Any more than my

, from me falling—drip, bleeding drops, From wounds made to free you whence you were prisoned, From my

face—from my forehead and lips, From my breast—from within where I was con- cealed concealed —Press

May-be one is now reading this who knows some wrong-doing of my past life, Or may-be a stranger is reading

this who has secretly loved me, Or may-be one who meets all my grand assumptions and egotisms with derision

in the room where I eat or sleep, I should be satisfied, And if the corpse of any one I love, or if my

CITY of my walks and joys!

nor the bright win- dows windows , with goods in them, Nor to converse with learned persons, or bear my

your fre- quent frequent and swift flash of eyes offering me love, Offering me the response of my own—these

Behold this swarthy and unrefined face—these gray eyes, This beard—the white wool, unclipt upon my neck

, My brown hands, and the silent manner of me, with- out without charm; Yet comes one, a Manhattanese

leaves upon it, and twined around it a little moss, And brought it away—and I have placed it in sight in my

room, It is not needed to remind me as of my own dear friends, (For I believe lately I think of little

or a girl with me, I ate with you, and slept with you—your body has become not yours only, nor left my

body mine only, You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as we pass—you take of my beard,

it seems to me if I could know those men better, I should become attached to them, as I do to men in my

own lands, It seems to me they are as wise, beautiful, benevolent, as any in my own lands; O I know

WHAT think you I take my pen in hand to record?

my likeness!

PRIMEVAL my love for the woman I love, O bride ! O wife !

Then separate, as disembodied, the purest born, The ethereal, the last athletic reality, my consolation

, I ascend—I float in the regions of your love, O man, O sharer of my roving life.

is certain, one way or another, Doubtless I could not have perceived the universe, or written one of my

THAT shadow, my likeness, that goes to and fro, seek- ing seeking a livelihood, chattering, chaffering

it where it flits, How often I question and doubt whether that is really me; But in these, and among my

lovers, and carolling my songs, O I never doubt whether that is really me.

I meant that you should discover me so, by my faint indirections, And I, when I meet you, mean to discover

HERE my last words, and the most baffling, Here the frailest leaves of me, and yet my strongest- lasting

, Here I shade down and hide my thoughts—I do not expose them, And yet they expose me more than all my

you read these, I, that was visible, am become invisible; Now it is you, compact, visible, realizing my

you suppose, And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence, are more to me, and more in my

walks home late at night, or as I lay in my bed, they came upon me.

, That I was, I knew was of my body—and what I should be, I knew I should be of my body.

Manhatta , My river and sun-set, and my scallop-edged waves of flood-tide, The sea-gulls oscillating

loudly and musically call me by my nighest name! Live, old life!