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have communed together, Mine too such wild arrays, for reasons of their own; Was't charged against my

Then my realities; What else is so real as mine?

States awhile, but I cannot tell whither or how long, Perhaps soon some day or night while I am singing my

soldiers South or North, As I muse retrospective murmuring a chant in thought, The war resumes, again to my

Now sound no note O trumpeters, Not at the head of my cavalry parading on spirited horses, With sabres

drawn and glistening, and carbines by their thighs, (ah my brave horsemen!

My handsome tan-faced horsemen! what life, what joy and pride, With all the perils were yours.)

Perfume therefore my chant, O love, immortal love, Give me to bathe the memories of all dead soldiers

, are, Of this Union welded in blood, of the solemn price paid, of the unnamed lost ever present in my

SPLENDOR of ended day floating and filling me, Hour prophetic, hour resuming the past, Inflating my throat

Open mouth of my soul uttering gladness, Eyes of my soul seeing perfection, Natural life of me faithfully

To prepare for sleep, for bed, to look on my rose-color'd flesh!

To be conscious of my body, so satisfied, so large! To be this incredible God I am!

How my thoughts play subtly at the spectacles around! How the clouds pass silently overhead!

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 to myself at the winter-close, before my leaves sprang at all, that I would become

a candid and unloosed summer-poet, I said I would raise my voice jocund and strong, with reference to

what was promised, When each part is peopled with free people, When there is no city on earth to lead my

I have pressed through in my own right, I have offered my style to every one—I have jour- neyed journeyed

Remember my words—I love you—I depart from materials, I am as one disembodied, triumphant, dead.

my Soul!

We closed with him—the yards entangled—the cannon touched, My captain lashed fast with his own hands.

I laughed content when I heard the voice of my little captain, We have not struck, he composedly cried

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

my brother or my sister! Keep on!

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

and which are my miracles?

friends, but listen to my enemies—as I my- self myself do; I charge you, too, forever, reject those

WHO learns my lesson complete?

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

O MY children! O mates!

O my body!

, Or that touches my face, or leans against me.)

songs in sex, Offspring of my loins. 13.

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

O blossoms of my blood!

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

CITY of my walks and joys!

my likeness!

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

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

it harmed 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

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

alarmed, uncertain, This sea I am quickly to sail, come tell me, Come tell me where I am speeding—tell me my

home in Kanuck woods, Or wandering and hunting, my drink water, my diet meat, Or withdrawn to muse and

In the Year 80 of The States, My tongue, every atom of my blood, formed from this soil, this air, Born

Take my leaves, America!

My comrade!

steamers steaming through my poems!

, My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart, the passing of blood and air through my lungs

my bare-stript heart, And reached till you felt my beard, and reached till you held my feet.

my Soul!

We closed with him—the yards entangled—the cannon touched, My captain lashed fast with his own hands.

I laughed content when I heard the voice of my little captain, We have not struck, he composedly cried

O longings for my dear home! O soft and sunny airs! O pensive!

O my Soul! O lips becoming tremulous, powerless! O centuries, centuries yet ahead!

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

Have you studied out MY LAND, its idioms and men?

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

Will it absorb into me as I absorb food, air, nobility, meanness—to appear again in my strength, gait

own Soul or defiled my body, I have claimed nothing to myself which I have not carefully claimed for

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!

response, Take what I have then, (saying fain,) take the pay you approached for, Take the white tears of my

COME closer to me, Push closer, my lovers, and take the best I possess, Yield closer and closer, and

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 outlawed 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

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

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 me flies, suspended,

, 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

ever united lands —my body no more inevitably united, part to part, and made one identity, any more

and let one line of my poems contradict another! Let the people sprawl with yearning aimless hands!

Let him who is without my poems be assassinated!

WITH antecedents, With my fathers and mothers, and the accumulations of past ages, With all which, had

In the name of These States, and in your and my name, the Past, And in the name of These States, and

in your and my name, the Present time.

SPLENDOR of falling day, floating and filling me, Hour prophetic—hour resuming the past, Inflating my

Open mouth of my Soul, uttering gladness, Eyes of my Soul, seeing perfection, Natural life of me, faithfully

To prepare for sleep, for bed—to look on my rose- colored flesh, To be conscious of my body, so amorous

How my thoughts play subtly at the spectacles around! How the clouds pass silently overhead!

sailed down the Mississippi, As I wandered over the prairies, As I have lived—As I have looked through my

sake, Of departing—of the growth of a mightier race than any yet, Of myself, soon, perhaps, closing up my

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

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

Then my realities, What else is so real as mine?

done and gone, we remain, There is no final reliance but upon us, Democracy rests finally upon us, (I, my

Fascinated, my eyes, reverting from the south, dropped, to follow those slender winrows, Chaff, straw

Bent to the very earth, here preceding what follows, Oppressed with myself that I have dared to open my

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!)

I am de- termined determined to press my way toward you, Sound your voice!

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 answered for his brother, and for men, and I answered for THE POET, and

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

Then the mechanics take him for a mechanic, And the soldiers suppose him to be a captain, and the sailors

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 deceived, I will run a furrow with my plough—I

will press my spade through the sod, and turn it up un- derneath 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 day I have walked the city, and talked with my friends, and thought of prudence, Of time, space,

do not doubt there is more in myself than I have supposed—and more in all men and women— and more in my

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

beget superb children, To speak readily and clearly—to feel at home among common people, And to hold my

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

charged against me, half as bad as the evil I really am; I call to the world to distrust the accounts of my

friends, but listen to my enemies—as I my- self myself do; I charge you, too, forever, reject those

WHO learns my lesson complete?

as every one is immortal, I know it is wonderful—but my eye-sight is equally wonderful, and how I was

conceived in my moth- er's mother's womb is equally wonderful; And how I was not palpable once, but

And that my Soul embraces you this hour, and we af- fect affect each other without ever seeing each other

distinctly I comprehend no better sphere than this earth, I comprehend no better life than the life of my

I do not know what follows the death of my body, But I know well that whatever it is, it is best for

I am not uneasy but I shall have good housing to myself, But this is my first—how can I like the rest

face the same, But this is the nipple of a breast of my mother, always near and always divine to me,

— and that the experience of this earth will prove only one out of myriads; But I believe my body and

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

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

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

good as such-like, visible here or anywhere, stand provided for in a handful of space, which I extend my

arm and half enclose with my hand, That contains the start of each and all—the virtue, the germs of

No—it has not yet fully risen ;) Whether I shall complete what is here started, Whether I shall attain my

WHAT am I, after all, but a child, pleased with the sound of my own name?

tell why it affects me so much, when I hear it from women's voices, and from men's voices, or from my

take from my lips this kiss, Whoever you are, I give it especially to you; So long—and I hope we shall