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And what shall my perfume be for the grave of him I love?

O wild and loose to my soul—O wondrous singer!

voice of my spirit tallied the song of the bird.

While my sight that was bound in my eyes unclosed, As to long panoramas of visions.

I cease from my song for thee, From my gaze on thee in the west, fronting the west, communing with thee

O Captain! My Captain! O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN! O CAPTAIN! my Captain!

O the bleeding drops of red, Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead. O Captain!

my Captain!

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still, My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse

But I with mournful tread, Walk the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.

make the only growth by which I can be appreciated, I reject none, accept all, then reproduce all in my

What is this you bring my America? Is it uniform with my country?

Will it absorb into me as I absorb food, air, to appear again in my strength, gait, face?

rapt verse, my call, mock me not!

You by my charm I invoke.

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

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.

, Manrico's passionate call, Ernani's, sweet Gennaro's, I fold thenceforth, or seek to fold, within my

My science-friend, my noblest woman-friend, (Now buried in an English grave—and this a memory-leaf for

Small the Theme of My Chant. From the 1867 edition L. of G. SMALL THE THEME OF MY CHANT.

Small the theme of my Chant, yet the greatest—namely, One's- Self One's-Self —a simple, separate person

My Days I sing, and the Lands—with interstice I knew of hap- less hapless War.

the midday sun, the impalpable air—for life, mere life, For precious ever-lingering memories, (of you my

mother dear —you, father—you, brothers, sisters, friends,) For all my days—not those of peace alone—the

war's chosen ones, The cannoneers of song and thought—the great artillerists—the foremost leaders, captains

them without me were seeds only, latent, unborn; And forever, by day and night, I give back life to my

current songs of beauty, peace, decorum, I cast a reminiscence—(likely 'twill offend you, I heard it in my

their sense, their ears, towards his murmuring, half- caught half-caught words: "Let me return again to my

Give me my old wild battle-life again!"

than old Voltaire's, yet greater, Proof of this present time, and thee, thy broad expanse, America, To my

and tide, Some three days since on their own soil live-sprouting, Now here their sweetness through my

August now;) You pallid banner-staves—you pennants valueless—you over- stay'd overstay'd of time, Yet 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.

My Canary Bird. MY CANARY BIRD.

Queries to My Seventieth Year. QUERIES TO MY SEVENTIETH YEAR.

After the dazzle of day is gone, Only the dark, dark night shows to my eyes the stars; After the clangor

of organ majestic, or chorus, or perfect band, Silent, athwart my soul, moves the symphony true.

Would you the undulation of one wave, its trick to me transfer, Or breathe one breath of yours upon my

past war, the battles, hospital sights, the wounded and the dead, Myself through every by-gone phase—my

idle youth—old age at hand, My three-score years of life summ'd up, and more, and past, By any grand