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Features of my equals, would you trick me with your creas'd and cadaverous march?

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

pickets, Come here, she blushingly cries—Come nigh to me, lim-ber-hipp'dlimber-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

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

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

the graceful palmetto; I pass rude sea-headlands and enter Pamlico Sound through an inlet, and dart my

for something to repre- sent represent the new race, our self-poised Democracy, Therefore I send you my

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

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

My call is the call of battle—I nourish active re- bellion rebellion ?

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

I give you my hand!

To Workingmen TO WORKINGMEN. 1 COME closer to me; Push close, my lovers, and take the best I possess;

Neither a servant nor a master am I; I take no sooner a large price than a small price—I will have my

become so for your sake; If you remember your foolish and outlaw'd deeds, do you think I cannot remember my

are; I am this day just as much in love with them as you; Then I am in love with you, and with all my

List close, my scholars dear!

O lips of my soul, already becoming powerless! O ample and grand Presidentiads! New history!

(I must not venture—the ground under my feet men- aces menaces me—it will not support me;) O present!

New Orleans, San Francisco, The departing ships, when the sailors heave at the capstan; Evening—me in my

room—the setting sun, The setting summer sun shining in my open window, showing the swarm of flies,

, futurity, In space, the sporades, the scattered islands, the stars —on the firm earth, the lands, my

less in myself than the whole of the Manna- hatta Mannahatta in itself, Singing the song of These, my

my lands are inevitably united, and made ONE IDENTITY; Nativities, climates, the grass of the great

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! The city of such women, I am mad to be with them!

I walk'd the shores of my Eastern Sea, Heard over the waves the little voice, Saw the divine infant,

I maintain the be- queath bequeath'd cause, as for all lands, And I send these words to Paris with my

it harm'd me, giving others the same chances and rights as myself—As if it were not indispensable to my

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

if that were not the resumé; Of Histories—As if such, however complete, were not less complete than my

poems; As if the shreds, the records of nations, could possibly be as lasting as my poems; As if here

MY spirit to yours, dear brother; Do not mind because many, sounding your name, do not understand you

I do not sound your name, but I understand you, (there are others also;) I specify you with joy, O my

divisions, jealousies, recriminations on every side, They close peremptorily upon us, to surround us, my

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

that was not the end of those nations, or any person of them, any more than this shall be the end of my

And so will some one, when I am dead and gone, write my life?

(As if any man really knew aught of my life; As if you, O cunning Soul, did not keep your secret well

. 1 DESPAIRING cries float ceaselessly toward me, day and night, The sad voice of Death—the call of my

alarm'd, uncertain, The Sea I am quickly to sail, come tell me, Come tell me where I am speeding—tell me my

My children and grand-children—my white hair and beard, My largeness, calmness, majesty, out of the long

stretch of my life.

is my mind!

O the real life of my senses and flesh, transcending my senses and flesh; O my body, done with materials—my

O to have my life henceforth my poem of joys!

and let one line of my poems contra- dict contradict another!

Let him who is without my poems be assassinated!

BY the City Dead-House, by the gate, As idly sauntering, wending my way from the clangor, I curious pause—for

take one breath from my tremulous lips; Take one tear, dropt aside as I go, for thought of you, Dead

only out of the inimitable poem of the wo- man woman , can come the poems of man—(only thence have my

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

I am de- termin determin'd to press my way toward you; Sound your voice!

Now List to My Morning's Romanza NOW LIST TO MY MORNING'S ROMANZA.

NOW list to my morning's romanza; To the cities and farms I sing, as they spread in the sunshine before

And I stood before the young man face to face, and took his right hand in my left hand, and his left

hand in my right hand, And I answer'd for his brother, and for men, and I answer'd for THE POET, and

to the President at his levee, And he says, Good-day, my brother!

How perfect is my Soul! How perfect the earth, and the minutest thing upon it!

My Soul! if I realize you, I have satisfaction, Animals and vegetables!

I cannot define my satisfaction, yet it is so, I cannot define my life, yet it is so. 11 It comes to

the still woods I loved; I will not go now on the pastures to walk; I will not strip the clothes from my

body to meet my lover the sea; I will not touch my flesh to the earth, as to other flesh, to renew me

I do not see any of it upon you to-day—or perhaps I am deceiv'd; I will run a furrow with my plough—I

will press my spade through the sod, and turn it up under- neath underneath ; I am sure I shall expose

transparent green-wash of the sea, which is so amorous after me, That it is safe to allow it to lick my

all—aplomb in the midst of irrational things, Imbued as they—passive, receptive, silent as they, Finding my

of any farm- life farm-life of These States, or of the coast, or the lakes, or Kanada, Me, wherever my

Sleep-Chasings SLEEP-CHASINGS. 1 I WANDER all night in my vision, Stepping with light feet, swiftly and

Receive me and my lover too—he will not let me go without him.

my clothes were stolen while I was abed, Now I am thrust forth, where shall I run?

carefully darn my grandson's stockings.

How he informs against my brother and sister, and takes pay for their blood!

- ward southward , Alone, held by this eternal self of me, out of the pride of which I have utter'd my

Fascinated, my eyes, reverting from the south, drop't, to follow those slender winrows, Chaff, straw,

I take what is underfoot; What is yours is mine, my father.

I throw myself upon your breast, my father, I cling to you so that you cannot unloose me, I hold you

from my dead lips the ooze exuding at last! See—the prismatic colors, glistening and rolling!)

and which are my miracles?

Realism is mine—my miracles—Take freely, Take without end—I offer them to you wherever your feet can

As to me, I know of nothing else but miracles, Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan, Or dart my sight

any one I love—or sleep in the bed at night with any one I love, Or sit at the table at dinner with my

perfect old man, or the perfect old woman, Or the sick in hospitals, or the dead carried to burial, Or my

Me, ruthless and devilish as any, that my wrists are not chain'd with iron, or my ankles with iron?

take from my lips this kiss; Whoever you are, I give it especially to you; So long!

FIRST, O songs, for a prelude, Lightly strike on the stretch'd tympanum, pride and joy in my city, How

O Manhattan, my own, my peerless! O strongest you in the hour of danger, in crisis!

Forty years had I in my city seen soldiers parading; Forty years as a pageant—till unawares, the Lady

for your dear sake, O soldiers, And for you, O soul of man, and you, love of comrades; The words of my

O my father, It is so broad, it covers the whole sky! FATHER.

now the halyards have rais'd it, Side of my banner broad and blue—side of my starry banner, Discarding

eastern shore, and my western shore the same; And all between those shores, and my ever running Mississippi

, with bends and chutes; And my Illinois fields, and my Kansas fields, and my fields of Missouri; The

My limbs, my veins dilate; The blood of the world has fill'd me full—my theme is clear at last : —Banner

fire—the silence; Like a phantom far or near an occasional figure moving; The shrubs and trees, (as I left my

Beginning My Studies BEGINNING MY STUDIES.

BEGINNING my studies, the first step pleas'd me so much, The mere fact, consciousness—these forms—the

pleas'd me so much, I have never gone, and never wish'd to go, any farther, But stop and loiter all my

Why do you tremble, and clutch my hand so convul- sively convulsively ?

Aye, this is the ground; My blind eyes, even as I speak, behold it re-peopled from graves: The years

night of that, mist lifting, rain ceasing, Silent as a ghost, while they thought they were sure of him, my

him at the river-side, Down by the ferry, lit by torches, hastening the embar- cation embarcation ; My

But when my General pass'd me, As he stood in his boat, and look'd toward the coming sun, I saw something

1 COME, my tan-faced children, Follow well in order, get your weapons ready; Have you your pistols?

2 For we cannot tarry here, We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger, We, the youthful

O my breast aches with tender love for all!

12 See, my children, resolute children, By those swarms upon our rear, we must never yield or falter,

18 I too with my soul and body, We, a curious trio, picking, wandering on our way, Through these shores

O maidens and young men I love, and that love me, What you ask of my days, those the strangest and sud

Bearing the bandages, water and sponge, Straight and swift to my wounded I go, Where they lie on the

knee, the wound in the abdo- men abdomen , These and more I dress with impassive hand—(yet deep in my

Thus in silence, in dream's projections, Returning, resuming, I thread my way through the hos- pitals

Long for my soul, hungering gymnastic, I devour'd what the earth gave me; Long I roam'd the woods of

O wild as my heart, and powerful!)

wonder, yet pensive and masterful; All the menacing might of the globe uprisen around me; Yet there with my

; Long had I walk'd my cities, my country roads, through farms, only half satisfied; One doubt, nauseous

longer wait—I am fully satisfied—I am glutted; I have witness'd the true lighting—I have witness'd my

yours—yet peace no more; In peace I chanted peace, but now the drum of war is mine; War, red war, is my

VIGIL strange I kept on the field one night, When you, my son and my comrade, dropt at my side that day

battle, the even-contested battle; Till late in the night reliev'd, to the place at last again I made my

long-drawn sigh—Long, long I gazed; Then on the earth partially reclining, sat by your side, leaning my

chin in my hands; Passing sweet hours, immortal and mystic hours with you, dearest comrade—Not a tear

, not a word; Vigil of silence, love and death—vigil for you, my son and my soldier, As onward silently

smoke; By these, crowds, groups of forms, vaguely I see, on the floor, some in the pews laid down; At my

staunch the blood temporarily, (the youngster's face is white as a lily;) Then before I depart I sweep my

resume as I chant—I see again the forms, I smell the odor; Then hear outside the orders given, Fall in, my

A SIGHT in camp in the day-break grey and dim, As from my tent I emerge so early, sleepless, As slow

Who are you, my dear comrade? Then to the second I step—And who are you, my child and darling?

world, a rural domestic life; Give me to warble spontaneous songs, reliev'd, recluse by myself, for my

excitement, and rack'd by the war-strife;) These to procure, incessantly asking, rising in cries from my

heart, While yet incessantly asking, still I adhere to my city; Day upon day, and year upon year, O

enrich'd of soul—you give me forever faces; (O I see what I sought to escape, confronting, reversing my

cries; I see my own soul trampling down what it ask'd for.) 2 Keep your splendid silent sun; Keep your

—therefore leave my works, And go lull yourself with what you can understand; For I lull nobody—and you

indifferent , but trembling with age and your unheal'd wounds, you mounted the scaffold;) I would sing in my

know not why, but I loved you…(and so go forth little song, Far over sea speed like an arrow, carrying my

love, and drop these lines at his feet;) —Nor forget I to sing of the wonder, the ship as she swam up my

bay, Well-shaped and stately the Great Eastern swam up my bay, she was 600 feet long, Her moving swiftly

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