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AS at thy portals also death, Entering thy sovereign, dim, illimitable grounds, To memories of my mother

My Legacy. MY LEGACY.

But I, my life surveying, closing, With nothing to show to devise from its idle years, Nor houses nor

lands, nor tokens of gems or gold for my friends, Yet certain remembrances of the war for you, and after

you, And little souvenirs of camps and soldiers, with my love, I bind together and bequeath in this

earth, she cried, I charge you lose not my sons, lose not an atom, And you streams absorb them well,

, and you airs that swim above lightly impalpable, And all you essences of soil and growth, and you my

, And you trees down in your roots to bequeath to all future trees, My dead absorb or South or North—my

darlings, give my immortal heroes, Exhale me them centuries hence, breathe me their breath, let not

O my dead, an aroma sweet! Exhale them perennial sweet death, years, centuries hence.

AS they draw to a close, Of what underlies the precedent songs—of my aims in them, Of the seed I have

in them, Of joy, sweet joy, through many a year, in them, (For them, for them have I lived, in them my

(Pleas'd to my soul at death I cry,) Our life is closed, our life begins, The long, long anchorage we

THESE carols sung to cheer my passage through the world I see, For completion I dedicate to the Invisible

I remember I said before my leaves sprang at all, I would raise my voice jocund and strong with reference

I have press'd through in my own right, I have sung the body and the soul, war and peace have I sung,

I have offer'd my style to every one, I have journey'd with confi- dent confident step; While my pleasure

My songs cease, I abandon them, From behind the screen where I hid I advance personally solely to you

Remember my words, I may again return, I love you, I depart from materials, I am as one disembodied,

My city's fit and noble name resumed, Choice aboriginal name, with marvellous beauty, meaning, A rocky

A carol closing sixty-nine—a résumé—a repetition, My lines in joy and hope continuing on the same, Of

ye, O God, Life, Nature, Freedom, Poetry; Of you, my Land—your rivers, prairies, States—you, mottled

entire—Of north, south, east and west, your items all; Of me myself—the jocund heart yet beating in my

, old, poor and paralyzed—the strange inertia falling pall-like round me, The burning fires down in my

or "To the Leaven'd Soil they Trod," Or "Captain! My Captain!"

thy Equal Brood," and many, many more unspecified, From fibre heart of mine—from throat and tongue—(My

. * *The two songs on this page are eked out during an afternoon, June, 1888, in my seventieth year,

Good-Bye My Fancy. GOOD-BYE MY FANCY.

GOOD-BYE * my fancy—(I had a word to say, But 'tis not quite the time—The best of any man's word or say

My life and recitative, containing birth, youth, mid-age years, Fitful as motley-tongues of flame, inseparably

twined and merged in one—combining all, My single soul—aims, confirmations, failures, joys—Nor single

soul alone, I chant my nation's crucial stage, (America's, haply humanity's) —the trial great, the victory

common bulk, the general average horde, (the best no sooner than the worst)—And now I chant old age, (My

snow-white hairs the same, and give to pulses winter- cool'd the same;) As here in careless trill, I and my

My 71st Year. MY 71ST YEAR.

AFTER surmounting three-score and ten, With all their chances, changes, losses, sorrows, My parents'

deaths, the vagaries of my life, the many tearing passions of me, the war of '63 and '4, As some old

thee, Thy smile, eyes, face, calm, silent, loving as ever: So let the wreath hang still awhile within my

—In my rambles and explorations I found a woody place near the creek, where for some reason the birds

Nor for myself—my own rebellious self in thee? Down, down, proud gorge!

One consideration rising out of the now dead soldier's example as it passes my mind, is worth taking

If the war had continued any long time these States, in my opinion, would have shown and proved the most

AH, whispering, something again, unseen, Where late this heated day thou enterest at my window, door,

utterance to my heart beyond the rest—and this is of them,) So sweet thy primitive taste to breathe within—thy

soothing fingers on my face and hands, Thou, messenger-magical strange bringer to body and spirit of

, now gone—haply from endless store, God-sent, (For thou art spiritual, Godly, most of all known to my

Illinois, Ohio, From the measureless West, Virginia, the South, the Carolinas, Texas, (Even here in my

Each name recall'd by me from out the darkness and death's ashes, Henceforth to be, deep, deep within my

these little potencies of progress, politics, culture, wealth, inventions, civilization,) Have lost my

"Finally my children, to envelop each word, each part of the rest, Allah is all, all, all—is immanent

of cities and the shop- fronts shopfronts , (Account for it or not—credit or not—it is all true, And my

peering, dallying with all—war, peace, day and night absorbing, Never even for one brief hour abandoning my

I sing of life, yet mind me well of death: To-day shadowy Death dogs my steps, my seated shape, and has

More evolutionary, vast, puzzling, O my soul! More multiform far—more lasting thou than they.

Good-Bye My Fancy! GOOD-BYE MY FANCY! GOOD-BYE my Fancy! Farewell dear mate, dear love!

going away, I know not where, Or to what fortune, or whether I may ever see you again, So Good-bye my

Now for my last—let me look back a moment; The slower fainter ticking of the clock is in me, Exit, nightfall

—now separation—Good-bye my Fancy.

my Fancy.

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

HERE the frailest leaves of me and yet my strongest lasting, Here I shade and hide my thoughts, I myself

do not expose them, And yet they expose me more than all my other poems.

Earth, My Likeness. EARTH, MY LIKENESS.

EARTH, my likeness, Though you look so impassive, ample and spheric there, I now suspect that is not

What Think You I Take My Pen in Hand? WHAT THINK YOU I TAKE MY PEN IN HAND?

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

is no unreturn'd love, the pay is certain one way or another, (I loved a certain person ardently and my

Then separate, as disembodied or another born, 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.

That Shadow My Likeness. THAT SHADOW MY LIKENESS.

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

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

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

1 O TAKE my hand Walt Whitman! Such gliding wonders! such sights and sounds!

change of the light and shade, I see distant lands, as real and near to the inhabitants of them as my

see Hermes, unsuspected, dying, well-belov'd, saying to the people Do not weep for me, This is not my

race, I see the results of the perseverance and industry of my race, I see ranks, colors, barbarisms

side.) 13 My spirit has pass'd in compassion and determination around the whole earth, I have look'd

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 sunlight 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—be not detain'd!

Camerado, I give you my hand!

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

forever held in solution, I too had receiv'd identity by my body, That I was I knew was of my body,

What is more subtle than this which ties me to the woman or man that looks in my face?

Which fuses me into you now, and pours my meaning into you? We understand then do we not?

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

SONG OF THE ANSWERER. 1 NOW list to my morning's romanza, I tell the signs of the Answerer, To the cities

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

in my right hand, And I answer for his brother and for men, and I answer for him that answers for all

landscape, people, animals, The profound earth and its attributes and the unquiet ocean, (so tell I my

to the President at his levee, And he says Good-day my brother, to Cudge that hoes in the sugar-field

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,

freedom, futurity, In space the sporades, the scatter'd islands, the stars—on the firm earth, the lands, my

thereof—and no less in myself than the whole of the Mannahatta in itself, Singing the song of These, my

ever-united lands—my body no more inevitably united, part to part, and made out of a thousand diverse

O I cruise my old cruise again!

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

long stretch of my life.

my senses and flesh, My body done with materials, my sight done with my material eyes, Proved to me

this day beyond cavil that it is not my material eyes which finally see, Nor my material body which finally

untrodden and mouldy, I see no longer any axe upon it, I see the mighty and friendly emblem of the power of my

I do not vaunt my love for you, I have what I have.) The axe leaps!

Yes, if you will allow me to say so, I, my friends, if you do not, can plainly see her, The same undying

I say I see, my friends, if you do not, the illustrious emigré, (having it is true in her day, although

4 But hold—don't I forget my manners?

Hence from my shuddering sight to never more return that show of blacken'd, mutilated corpses!

And by the spells which ye vouchsafe to those your ministers in earnest, I here personify and call my

Farewell my brethren, Farewell O earth and sky, farewell ye neighboring waters, My time has ended, my

heard not, As the wood-spirits came from their haunts of a thousand years to join the refrain, But in my

many a summer sun, And the white snows and night and the wild winds; O the great patient rugged joys, my

Neither a servant nor a master I, I take no sooner a large price than a small price, I will have my own

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, Doctrines, politics and civilization exurge from you, Sculpture and monuments

friendly companions, I intend to reach them my hand, and make as much of them as I do of men and women

Air, soil, water, fire—those are words, I myself am a word with them—my qualities 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

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

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!

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

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

Whoever you are, now I place my hand upon you, that you be my poem, I whisper with my lips close to your

O I have been dilatory and dumb, I should have made my way straight to you long ago, I should have blabb'd

I paint myriads of heads, but paint no head without its nim- bus nimbus of gold-color'd light, From my

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

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

Let me have my own way, Let others promulge the laws, I will make no account of the laws, Let others

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

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

, and singled you out with attachment;) 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