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In you whoe'er you are my book perusing, In I myself, in all the world, these currents flowing, All,

the West joyously sounding, Your tidings old, yet ever new and untranslatable, Infinitesimals out of my

life, and many a life, (For not my life and years alone I give—all, all I give,) These waifs from the

O earth that hast no voice, confide to me a voice, O harvest of my lands—O boundless summer growths,

you dread accruing army, O you regiments so piteous, with your mortal diarrhoea, with your fever, O my

Nor do I forget you Departed, Nor in winter or summer my lost ones, But most in the open air as now when

my soul is rapt and at peace, like pleasing phantoms, Your memories rising glide silently by me. 6 I

All till'd and untill'd fields expand before me, I see the true arenas of my race, or first or last,

BY the city dead-house by the gate, As idly sauntering wending my way from the clangor, I curious pause

Fair, fearful wreck—tenement of a soul—itself a soul, Unclaim'd, avoided house—take one breath from my

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!

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

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 blabbed

paint myriads of heads, but paint no head with- out without its nimbus of gold-colored light, From my

my brother or my sister! Keep on!

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-

I exclude you, Not till the waters refuse to glisten for you, and the leaves to rustle for you, do my

My girl, I appoint with you an appointment—and I charge you that you make preparation to be worthy to

cheerfully accept, A little sustenance, a hut and garden, a little money —these as I rendezvous with my

who should serve the good old cause, the prog- ress progress and freedom of the race, the cause of my

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

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

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 walked the shores of my Eastern Sea, Heard over the waves the little voice, Saw the divine infant,

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

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

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

Nothing my babe you see in the sky, And nothing at all to you it says—but look you my babe, Look at these

now the hal- yards halyards have rais'd it, Side of my banner broad and blue, side of my starry banner

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, my theme is clear at last, Banner so broad advancing out of the night, I sing

FATHOMLESS DEEPS. 1 RISE O days from your fathomless deeps, till you loftier, fiercer sweep, Long for my

O wild as my heart, and powerful!)

you have done me good, My soul prepared in the mountains absorbs your immortal strong nutriment, Long

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

like a snake, crawl'd on the ground before me, Continually preceding my steps, turning upon me oft,

voice speaking, As to you Rebellious, (I seemed to hear her say,) why strive against me, and why seek my

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

Why do you tremble and clutch my hand so convulsively?

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

That and here my General's first battle, No women looking on nor sunshine to bask in, it did not conclude

I saw him at the river-side, Down by the ferry lit by torches, hastening the embarcation; My General

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

the silence, Like a phantom far or near an occasional figure moving, The shrubs and trees, (as I lift 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

stanch 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 daybreak gray and dim, As from my tent I emerge so early sleepless, As slow I

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

AS toilsome I wander'd Virginia's woods, To the music of rustling leaves kick'd by my feet, (for 'twas

this sign left, On a tablet scrawl'd and nail'd on the tree by the grave, Bold, cautious, true, and my

Long, long I muse, then on my way go wandering, Many a changeful season to follow, and many a scene of

soldier's grave, comes the inscrip- tion inscription rude in Virginia's woods, Bold, cautious, true, and my

the air I breathed froze me, A thick gloom fell through the sunshine and darken'd me, Must I change my

that love me, (Arous'd and angry, I'd thought to beat the alarum, and urge relentless war, But soon my

fingers fail'd me, my face droop'd and I resign'd myself, To sit by the wounded and soothe them, or

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

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

thigh, the knee, the wound in the abdomen, These and more I dress with impassive hand, (yet deep in my

noise of the world a rural domestic life, Give me to warble spontaneous songs 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 city

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

O my soldiers twain! O my veterans passing to burial! What I have I also give you.

The moon gives you light, And the bugles and the drums give you music, And my heart, O my soldiers, my

veterans, My heart gives you love.

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,