human
Can you write me a poem about lilacs in the style of George Henry Borrow?
assistant
Sure, here's a poem about lilacs in the style of George Henry Borrow:
  Centre of equal daughters, equal sons,
All, all alike, endear'd, grown, ungrown, young or old,
Strong, ample, fair, enduring, capable, rich,
Perennial with the Earth, with Freedom, Law and Love,
A grand, sane, towering, seated Mother,
Chair'd in the adamant of Time.
_All rights reserved, including that of
translation into foreign languages,
including the Scandinavian_
This little volume of poems, selected from the complete edition
Year That Trembled and Reel'd Beneath Me
From Far Dakota's Cañons
_When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd_
_Hush'd be the Camps To-day_
Song of the Broad-axe
By Broad Potomac's Shore
Thou Mother with Thy Equal Brood
By Blue Ontario's Shore
EPILOGUE: Rise O Days from Your Fathomless Deeps
Thick-sprinkled bunting! flag of stars!
For the prize I see at issue at last is the world,
Walk supreme to the heavens mighty symbol--run up above them all,
Beat! beat! drums!--blow! bugles! blow!
Through the windows--through doors--burst like a ruthless force,
Into the solemn church, and scatter the congregation,
Into the school where the scholar is studying;
Beat! beat! drums!--blow! bugles! blow!
Would the talkers be talking? would the singer attempt to sing?
Beat! beat! drums!--blow! bugles! blow!
Make no parley--stop for no expostulation,
Mind not the timid--mind not the weeper or prayer,
Mind not the old man beseeching the young man,
Let not the child's voice be heard, nor the mother's entreaties,
So strong you thump O terrible drums--so loud you bugles blow.
City of ships!
(O the black ships! O the fierce ships!
O the beautiful sharp-bow'd steam-ships and sail-ships!)
City of the world! (for all races are here,
All the lands of the earth make contributions here);
City of the sea! city of hurried and glittering tides!
Behold me--incarnate me as I have incarnated you!
I have rejected nothing you offer'd me--whom you adopted I have
adopted,
Good or bad I never question you--I love all--I do not condemn
anything,
I chant and celebrate all that is yours--yet peace no more,
In peace I chanted peace, but now the drum of war is mine,
War, red war is my song through your streets, O city!
A march in the ranks hard-prest, and the road unknown,
A route through a heavy wood with muffled steps in the darkness,
building,
'Tis a large old church at the crossing roads, now an impromptu
hospital,
Shadows of deepest, deepest black, just lit by moving candles and
And by one great pitchy torch stationary with wild red flame and
clouds of smoke,
At my feet more distinctly a soldier, a mere lad, in danger of
bleeding to death (he is shot in the abdomen),
Faces, varieties, postures beyond description, most in obscurity,
The crowd, O the crowd of the bloody forms, the yard outside also
The unknown road still marching.
Come up from the fields father, here's a letter from our Pete,
Lo, 'tis autumn,
Lo, where the trees, deeper green, yellower and redder,
(Smell you the smell of the grapes on the vines?
Smell you the buckwheat where the bees were lately buzzing?),
Down in the fields all prospers well,
But now from the fields come father, come at the daughter's call,
Open the envelope quickly,
O this is not our son's writing, yet his name is sign'd,
At present low, but will soon be better._
Ah now the single figure to me,
Amid all teeming and wealthy Ohio with all its cities and farms,
Sickly white in the face and dull in the head, very faint,
By the jamb of a door leans.
The little sisters huddle around speechless and dismay'd),
_See, dearest mother, the letter says Pete will soon be better._
Alas poor boy, he will never be better (nor may be needs to be
better, that brave and simple soul),
While they stand at home at the door he is dead already,
The only son is dead.
But the mother needs to be better,
She with thin form presently drest in black,
In the midnight waking, weeping, longing with one deep longing,
O that she might withdraw unnoticed, silent from life escape and
withdraw,
To follow, to seek, to be with her dear dead son.
As I sit in twilight late alone by the flickering oak-flame,
Musing on long-pass'd war-scenes--of the countless buried unknown
deep-fill'd trenches
flickering flames,
Each name recall'd by me from out the darkness and death's ashes,
Your mystic roll entire of unknown names, or North or South,
Embalm'd with love in this twilight song.
A sight in camp in the daybreak gray and dim,
As from my tent I emerge so early sleepless,
Three forms I see on stretchers lying, brought out there untended
Over each the blanket spread, ample brownish woollen blanket,
Gray and heavy blanket, folding, covering all.
Curious I halt and silent stand,
Then with light fingers I from the face of the nearest the first
just lift the blanket;
Who are you elderly man so gaunt and grim, with well-gray'd hair,
Who are you my dear comrade?
Then to the second I step--and who are you my child and darling?
Who are you sweet boy with cheeks yet blooming?
Dead and divine and brother of all, and here again he lies.
Year that trembled and reel'd beneath me!
Must I change my triumphant songs? said I to myself,
Must I indeed learn to chant the cold dirges of the baffled,
And sullen hymns of defeat?
First O songs for a prelude,
How at once with lithe limbs unwaiting a moment she sprang,
(O superb! O Manhattan, my own, my peerless.
indifferent hand,
How Manhattan drum-taps led.
Forty years had I in my city seen soldiers parading,
Sleepless amid her ships, her houses, her incalculable wealth,
With her million children around her, suddenly,
At dead of night, at news from the south,
Incens'd struck with clinch'd hand the pavement.
A shock electric, the night sustain'd it,
To the drum-taps prompt,
The young men falling in and arming,
Squads gather everywhere by common consent and arm,
Outdoors arming, indoors arming, the flash of the musket-barrels,
sunrise cannon and again at sunset,
The blood of the city up--arm'd! arm'd! the cry everywhere,
The tumultuous escort, the ranks of policemen preceding, clearing
The unpent enthusiasm, the wild cheers of the crowd for their
favourites,
(Silent cannons, soon to cease your silence,
Soon unlimber'd to begin the red business);
All the mutter of preparation, all the determin'd arming,
The hospital service, the lint, bandages, and medicines,
War! be it weeks, months, or years, an arm'd race is advancing to
Mannahatta a-march--and it's O to sing it well!
It's O for a manly life in the camp.
And the sturdy artillery
courtesies merely,
Put in something now besides powder and wadding.)
And you lady of ships, you Mannahatta,
Old matron of this proud, friendly, turbulent city,
But now you smile with joy exulting old Mannahatta.
O a new song, a free song,
By the banner's voice and the child's voice and sea's voice and
father's voice,
Low on the ground and high in the air,
On the ground where father and child stand,
In the upward air where their eyes turn,
Where the banner at daybreak is flapping.
Words! book-words! what are you?
Words no more, for hearken and see,
My song is there in the open air, and I must sing,
With the banner and pennant a-flapping.
I'll weave the chord and twine in,
Then loosen, launch forth, to go and compete,
With the banner and pennant a-flapping.
Come up here, bard, bard,
Come up here, soul, soul,
Come up here, dear little child,
Father what is that in the sky beckoning to me with long finger?
And what does it say to me all the while?
Nothing my babe you see in the sky,
And nothing at all to you it says--but look you my babe,
Look at these dazzling things in the houses, and see you the
money-shops opening,
These, ah these, how valued and toil'd for these!
How envied by all the earth!
Fresh and rosy red the sun is mounting high,
On floats the sea in distant blue careering through its channels,
Floating so buoyant with milk-white foam on the waters.
But I am not the sea nor the red sun,
I am not the wind with girlish laughter,
Which babbles in brooks and scoots in showers on the land,
Which the birds know in the woods mornings and evenings,
Aloft there flapping and flapping.
O father it is alive--it is full of people--it has children,
O now it seems to me it is talking to its children,
I hear it--it talks to me--O it is wonderful!
O it stretches--it spreads and runs so fast--O my father,
It is so broad it covers the whole sky.
Cease, cease, my foolish babe,
What you are saying is sorrowful to me, much it displeases me;
Behold with the rest again I say, behold not banners and pennants
But the well-prepared pavements behold, and mark the solid-wall'd
Speak to the child O bard out of Manhattan,
To our children all, or north or south of Manhattan,
Point this day, leaving all the rest, to us over all--and yet we
know not why,
For what are we, mere strips of cloth profiting nothing,
Only flapping in the wind?
I hear and see not strips of cloth alone,
I hear the tramp of armies, I hear the challenging sentry,
I hear the jubilant shouts of millions of men, I hear Liberty!
I hear the drums beat and the trumpets blowing,
I myself move abroad swift-rising flying then,
I see the stores, depots, of Boston, Baltimore, Charleston, New
I see far in the West the immense area of grain, I dwell awhile
hovering,
Side of my banner broad and blue, side of my starry banner,
Discarding peace over all the sea and land.
Yet louder, higher, stronger, bard! yet farther, wider cleave!
No longer let our children deem us riches and peace alone,
We may be terror and carnage, and are so now,
Nor market nor depot we, nor money-bank in the city,
Over the area spread below, the three or four millions of square
miles, the capitals,
The forty millions of people--O bard! in life and death supreme,
We, even we, henceforth flaunt out masterful, high up above,
O my father I like not the houses,
They will never to me be anything, nor do I like money,
Child of mine you fill me with anguish,
To be that pennant would be too fearful,
Little you know what it is this day, and after this day, forever,
With passions of demons, slaughter, premature death?
Demons and death then I sing,
Put in all, aye all will I, sword-shaped pennant for war,
And the black ships fighting on the sea envelop'd in smoke,
And my Illinois fields, and my Kansas fields, and my fields of
Fusing and holding, claiming, devouring the whole,
No more with tender lip, nor musical labial sound,
My limbs, my veins dilate, my theme is clear at last,
I hear from above O pennant of war your ironical call and demand,
destroy them.
You thought not to destroy those valuable houses, standing fast,
full of comfort, built with money,
Nor excellent stores, nor landed on wharves from the ships,
Not the superb ships with sail-power or steam-power, fetching and
Running up out of the night, bringing your cluster of stars
(ever-enlarging stars),
Divider of daybreak you, cutting the air, touch'd by the sun,
measuring the sky,
(Passionately seen and yearn'd for by one poor little child,
Valueless, object of eyes, over all and demanding all--(absolute
owner of all)--O banner and pennant!
I too leave the rest!--great as it is, it is nothing--houses,
machines are nothing--I see them not.
Flapping up there in the wind.
(_A Long Island incident--early part of the nineteenth century._)
Amid these days of order, ease, prosperity,
Amid the current songs of beauty, peace, decorum,
I cast a reminiscence--(likely 't will offend you,
I heard it in my boyhood)--More than a generation since,
A queer old savage man, a fighter under Washington himself
Revolutionary war),
Lay dying--sons, daughters, church-deacons, lovingly tending him,
"Let me return again to my war-days,
To the sights and scenes--to forming the line of battle,
To the scouts ahead reconnoitering,
To the cannons, the grim artillery,
To the galloping aids, carrying orders,
To the wounded, the fallen, the heat, the suspense,
The perfume strong, the smoke, the deafening noise;
Away with your life of peace!--your joys of peace!
Give me my old wild battle-life again!"
An old man bending I come among new faces,
Years looking backward resuming in answer to children,
Come tell us old man, as from young men and maidens that love me
Now be witness again, paint the mightiest armies of earth,
Of those armies so rapid so wondrous what saw you to tell us?
What stays with you latest and deepest? of curious panics,
O maidens and young men I love and that love me,
soldiers' joys
But in silence, in dreams' projections,
While the world of gain and appearance and mirth goes on,
Bearing the bandages, water and sponge,
Straight and swift to my wounded I go,
Where they lie on the ground after the battle brought in,
Where their priceless blood reddens the grass, the ground,
To each and all one after another I draw near, not one do I miss,
I onward go, I stop,
With hinged knees and steady hand to dress wounds,
I am firm with each, the pangs are sharp yet unavoidable,
One turns to me his appealing eyes--poor boy! I never knew you,
On, on I go (open doors of time! open hospital doors!)
(Come sweet death! be persuaded O beautiful death!
In mercy come quickly).
From the stump of the arm, the amputated hand,
And has not yet look'd on it.
I dress a wound in the side, deep, deep,
But a day or two more, for see the frame all wasted and sinking,
And the yellow-blue countenance see.
I dress the perforated shoulder, the foot with the bullet-wound,
I am faithful, I do not give out,
The fractur'd thigh, the knee, the wound in the abdomen,
Thus in silence in dreams' projections,
Returning, resuming, I thread my way through the hospitals,
The hurt and wounded I pacify with soothing hand,
I sit by the restless all the dark night, some are so young,
Some suffer so much, I recall the experience sweet and sad
The last sunbeam
Lightly falls from the finish'd Sabbath,
On the pavement here, and there beyond it is looking
Down a new-made double grave
Lo, the moon ascending,
Up from the east the silvery round moon,
Beautiful over the house-tops, ghastly, phantom moon,
Immense and silent moon.
I see a sad procession,
And I hear the sound of coming full-key'd bugles,
All the channels of the city streets they're flooding,
As with voices and with tears.
I hear the great drums pounding,
And the small drums steady whirring,
And every blow of the great convulsive drums,
Strikes me through and through.
For the son is brought with the father
(In the foremost ranks of the fierce assault they fell,
Two veterans, son and father, dropt together,
And the double grave awaits them).
Now nearer blow the bugles,
And the drums strike more convulsive,
And the daylight over the pavement quite has faded,
And the strong dead-march enwraps me.
In the eastern sky up-buoying,
The sorrowful vast phantom moves illumin'd
('Tis some mother's large transparent face,
In heaven brighter growing).
O strong dead-march you please me!
O moon immense with your silvery face you soothe me!
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.
From far Dakota's cañons,
Haply to-day a mournful wail, haply a trumpet-note for heroes.
The battle-bulletin,
The Indian ambuscade, the craft, the fatal environment,
The cavalry companies fighting to the last in sternest heroism,
The fall of Custer and all his officers and men.
Continues yet the old, old legend of our race,
The loftiest of life upheld by death,
The ancient banner perfectly maintain'd,
O lesson opportune, O how I welcome thee!
As sitting in dark days,
Lone, sulky, through the time's thick murk looking in vain for
light, for hope,
From unsuspected parts a fierce and momentary proof
(The sun there at the centre though conceal'd,
Electric life forever at the centre),
Breaks forth a lightning flash.
Thou of the tawny flowing hair in battle,
Now ending well in death the splendid fever of thy deeds
Thou yieldest up thyself.
In midnight sleep of many a face of anguish,
Of the dead on their backs with arms extended wide,
I dream, I dream, I dream.
Of scenes of Nature, fields and mountains,
I dream, I dream, I dream.
Long have they pass'd, faces and trenches and fields,
Onward I sped at the time--but now of their forms at night,
I dream, I dream, I dream.
Delicate cluster! flag of teeming life!
Covering all my lands--all my seashores lining!
Flag cerulean--sunny flag, with the orbs of night dappled!
Ah my silvery beauty--ah my woolly white and crimson!
Ah to sing the song of you, my matron mighty!
My sacred one, my mother!
Did you ask dulcet rhymes from me?
Did you seek the civilian's peaceful and languishing rhymes?
Did you find what I sang erewhile so hard to follow?
(I have been born of the same as the war was born,
The drum-corps' rattle is ever to me sweet music, I love well the
piano-tunes,
For I lull nobody, and you will never understand me.
Adieu O soldier,
You of the rude campaigning (which we shared),
The rapid march, the life of the camp,
The hot contention of opposing fronts, the long manoeuvre,
With war and war's expression.
Adieu dear comrade,
Your mission is fulfill'd--but I, more warlike,
Myself and this contentious soul of mine,
Still on our own campaigning bound,
Through untried roads with ambushes opponents lined,
Through many a sharp defeat and many a crisis, often baffled,
Here marching, ever marching on, a war fight out--aye here,
To fiercer, weightier battles give expression.
Long, too long America,
Travelling roads all even and peaceful you learn'd from joys and
prosperity only,
But now, ah now, to learn from crises of anguish, advancing,
grappling with direst fate and recoiling not,
Weave in, weave in, my hardy life,
Weave yet a soldier strong and full for great campaigns to come,
Weave in red blood, weave sinews in like ropes, the senses, sight
But know the work, the need goes on and shall go on, the
death-envelop'd march of peace as well as war goes on),
For great campaigns of peace the same the wiry threads to weave,
We know not why or what, yet weave, forever weave.
How solemn as one by one,
(As I glance upward out of this page studying you, dear friend,
whoever you are),
I see behind each mask that wonder a kindred soul,
O the bullet could never kill what you really are, dear friend,
Nor the bayonet stab what you really are;
The soul! yourself I see, great as any, good as the best,
Waiting secure and content, which the bullet could never kill,
Nor the bayonet stab O friend.
Spirit whose work is done--spirit of dreadful hours!
Ere departing fade from my eyes your forests of bayonets;
Spirit of gloomiest fears and doubts (yet onward ever unfaltering
Now as the sound of the drum, hollow and harsh to the last,
reverberates round me,
As I look on the bayonets bristling over their shoulders,
As those slanted bayonets, whole forests of them appearing in the
Spirit of hours I knew, all hectic red one day, but pale as death
Touch my mouth ere you depart, press my lips close,
Leave me your pulses of rage--bequeath them to me--fill me with
currents convulsive,
Let them scorch and blister out of my chants when you are gone,
Let them identify you to the future in these songs.
For the lands and for these passionate days and for myself,
Now I awhile retire to thee O soil of autumn fields,
Reclining on thy breast, giving myself to thee,
Answering the pulses of thy sane and equable heart,
Tuning a verse for thee.
O earth that hast no voice, confide to me a voice,
O harvest of my lands--O boundless summer growths,
O lavish brown parturient earth--O infinite teeming womb,
A song to narrate thee.
Ever upon this stage,
Is acted God's calm annual drama,
Gorgeous processions, songs of birds,
Sunrise that fullest feeds and freshens most the soul,
The liliput countless armies of the grass,
The heat, the showers, the measureless pasturages,
The scenery of the snows, the winds' free orchestra,
The high-dilating stars, the placid beckoning stars,
The moving flocks and herds, the plains and emerald meadows,
Fecund America--to-day,
Thou art all over set in births and joys!
Thou groan'st with riches, thy wealth clothes thee as a swathing
garment,
Thou laughest loud with ache of great possessions,
A myriad-twining life like interlacing vines binds all thy vast
demesne,
thee;
Thou envy of the globe! thou miracle!
Thou, bathed, choked, swimming in plenty,
Thou lucky Mistress of the tranquil barns,
Dispensatress, that by a word givest a thousand miles, a million
farms, and missest nothing,
Thou all-acceptress--thou hospitable (thou only art hospitable as
When late I sang sad was my voice,
Sad were the shows around me with deafening noises of hatred and
smoke of war;
In the midst of the conflict, the heroes, I stood,
Or pass'd with slow step through the wounded and dying.
But now I sing not war,
Nor the measur'd march of soldiers, nor the tents of camps,
Nor the regiments hastily coming up deploying in line of battle;
No more the sad, unnatural shows of war.
Ask'd room those flush'd immortal ranks, the first forth-stepping
Ask room alas the ghastly ranks, the armies dread that follow'd.
(Pass, pass, ye proud brigades, with your tramping sinewy legs,
Pass--then rattle drums again,
For an army heaves in sight, O another gathering army,
Swarming, trailing on the rear, O you dread accruing army,
O you regiments so piteous, with your mortal diarrhoea, with your
Lo, your pallid army follows.)
But on these days of brightness,
Should the dead intrude?
Ah the dead to me mar not, they fit well in Nature,
They fit very well in the landscape under the trees and grass,
And along the edge of the sky in the horizon's far margin.
Nor do I forget you Departed,
Nor in winter or summer my lost ones,
Your memories rising glide silently by me.
I saw the day the return of the heroes,
(Yet the heroes never surpass'd shall never return,
Them that day I saw not).
I saw the interminable corps, I saw the processions of armies,
I saw them approaching, defiling by with divisions,
No holiday soldiers--youthful, yet veterans,
Inured on many a hard-fought bloody field.
A pause--the armies wait,
A million flush'd embattled conquerors wait,
Exult O lands! victorious lands!
Not there your victory on those red shuddering fields,
But here and hence your victory.
Melt, melt away ye armies--disperse ye blue-clad soldiers,
Resolve ye back again, give up for good your deadly arms,
Other the arms the fields henceforth for you, or South or North,
With saner wars, sweet wars, life-giving wars.
Loud O my throat, and clear O soul!
The season of thanks and the voice of full-yielding,
The chant of joy and power for boundless fertility.
All till'd and untill'd fields expand before me,
I see the true arenas of my race, or first or last,
Man's innocent and strong arenas.
I see the heroes at other toils,
I see well-wielded in their hands the better weapons.
I see where the Mother of All,
With full-spanning eye gazes forth, dwells long,
And counts the varied gathering of the products.
Busy the far, the sunlit panorama,
Prairie, orchard, and yellow grain of the North,
Cotton and rice of the South and Louisianian cane,
Open unseeded fallows, rich fields of clover and timothy,
Kine and horses feeding, and droves of sheep and swine,
And many a stately river flowing and many a jocund brook,
And healthy uplands with herby-perfumed breezes,
Toil on heroes! harvest the products!
Not alone on those warlike fields the Mother of All,
With dilated form and lambent eyes watch'd you.
Toil on heroes! toil well! handle the weapons well!
The Mother of All, yet here as ever she watches you.
Well-pleased America thou beholdest,
Over the fields of the West those crawling monsters,
The human-divine inventions, the labour-saving implements;
The steam-power reaping-machines and the horse-power machines,
The engines, thrashers of grain and cleaners of grain, well
separating the straw, the nimble work of the patent pitchfork,
Beholdest the newer saw-mill, the southern cotton-gin, and the
rice-cleanser.
Beneath thy look O Maternal,
All gather and all harvest,
Yet but for thee O Powerful, not a scythe might swing as now in
security,
Not a maize-stalk dangle as now its silken tassels in peace.
Gather the hay to its myriad mows in the odorous tranquil barns,
Gather the cotton in Mississippi or Alabama, dig and hoard the
golden the sweet potato of Georgia and the Carolinas,
Clip the wool of California or Pennsylvania,
Or aught that ripens in all these States or North or South,
Under the beaming sun and under thee.
When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd,
And the great star early droop'd in the western sky in the night,
Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring,
Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west,
And thought of him I love.
O powerful western fallen star!
O shades of night--O moody, tearful night!
O great star disappear'd--O the black murk that hides the star!
O cruel hands that hold me powerless--O helpless soul of me!
O harsh surrounding cloud that will not free my soul.
In the dooryard fronting an old farm-house near the white-wash'd
palings,
With every leaf a miracle--and from this bush in the door-yard,
In the swamp in secluded recesses,
A shy and hidden bird is warbling a song.
Solitary the thrush,
The hermit withdrawn to himself, avoiding the settlements,
Sings by himself a song.
Song of the bleeding throat,
Death's outlet song of life (for well dear brother I know,
If thou wast not granted to sing thou would'st surely die).
Over the breast of the spring, the land, amid cities,
Amid lanes and through old woods, where lately the violets peep'd
Amid the grass in the fields each side of the lanes, passing the
endless grass,
Passing the apple-tree blows of white and pink in the orchards,
Carrying a corpse to where it shall rest in the grave,
Night and day journeys a coffin.
Coffin that passes through lanes and streets,
Through day and night with the great cloud darkening the land,
standing,
With processions long and winding and the flambeaus of the night,
strong and solemn,
With the tolling tolling bells' perpetual clang,
Here, coffin that slowly passes,
I give you my sprig of lilac.
(Nor for you, for one alone,
Blossoms and branches green to coffins all I bring,
All over bouquets of roses,
O death, I cover you over with roses and early lilies,
But mostly and now the lilac that blooms the first,
Copious I break, I break the sprigs from the bushes,
With loaded arms I come, pouring for you,
For you and the coffins all of you O death.)
O western orb sailing the heaven,
Now I know what you must have meant as a month since I walk'd,
As I walk'd in silence the transparent shadowy night,
Sing on there in the swamp,
O singer bashful and tender, I hear your notes, I hear your call,
But a moment I linger, for the lustrous star has detain'd me,
The star my departing comrade holds and detains me.
O how shall I warble myself for the dead one there I loved?
Sea-winds blown from east and west,
Blown from the Eastern sea and blown from the Western sea, till
there on the prairies meeting,
These and with these and the breath of my chant,
I'll perfume the grave of him I love.
O what shall I hang on the chamber walls?
And what shall the pictures be that I hang on the walls,
To adorn the burial-house of him I love?
Pictures of growing spring and farms and homes,
Lo, body and soul--this land,
And ever the far-spreading prairies cover'd with grass and corn.
Lo, the most excellent sun so calm and haughty,
The violet and purple morn with just-felt breezes,
The gentle soft-born measureless light,
The miracle spreading bathing all, the fulfill'd noon,
The coming eve delicious, the welcome night and the stars,
Over my cities shining all, enveloping man and land.
Sing on, sing on you gray-brown bird,
Sing on dearest brother, warble your reedy song,
Loud human song, with voice of uttermost woe.
O liquid and free and tender!
O wild and loose to my soul--O wondrous singer!
You only I hear--yet the star holds me (but will soon depart),
Yet the lilac with mastering odour holds me.
Now while I sat in the day and look'd forth,
Under the arching heavens of the afternoon swift passing, and the
The many-moving sea-tides, and I saw the ships how they sail'd,
And the infinite separate houses, how they all went on, each with
And I knew death, its thought, and the sacred knowledge of death.
Then with the knowledge of death as walking one side of me,
And the thought of death close-walking the other side of me,
I fled forth to the hiding receiving night that talks not,
And the singer so shy to the rest receiv'd me,
The gray-brown bird I know receiv'd us comrades three,
And he sang the carol of death, and a verse for him I love.
From deep secluded recesses,
From the fragrant cedars and the ghostly pines so still,
Came the carol of the bird.
And the charm of the carol rapt me,
As I held as if by their hands my comrades in the night,
And the voice of my spirit tallied the song of the bird.
_Come lovely and soothing death,
Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving,
In the day, in the night, to all, to each,
Sooner or later delicate death._
_Prais'd be the fathomless universe,
For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious,
And for love, sweet love--but praise! praise! praise!
For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding death._
_Dark mother always gliding near with soft feet,
Have none chanted for thee a chant of fullest welcome?
Then I chant it for thee, I glorify thee above all,
I bring thee a song that when thou must indeed come, come
unfalteringly._
_Approach strong deliveress,
Laved in the flood of thy bliss O death._
_From me to thee glad serenades,
Dances for thee I propose saluting thee, adornments and feastings
And the sights of the open landscape and the high-spread sky are
fitting,
And life and the fields, and the huge and thoughtful night._
_The night in silence under many a star,
The ocean shore and the husky whispering wave whose voice I know,
And the body gratefully nestling close to thee._
_Over the tree-tops I float thee a song,
Over the rising and sinking waves, over the myriad fields and the
To the tally of my soul,
Loud and strong kept up the gray-brown bird,
With pure deliberate notes spreading filling the night.
Loud in the pines and cedars dim,
Clear in the freshness moist and the swamp-perfume,
And I with my comrades there in the night.
While my sight that was bound in my eyes unclosed,
As to long panoramas of visions.
And I saw askant the armies,
I saw as in noiseless dreams hundreds of battle-flags,
I saw battle-corpses, myriads of them,
And the white skeletons of young men, I saw them,
I saw the débris and débris of all the slain soldiers of the war,
They themselves were fully at rest, they suffer'd not,
The living remain'd and suffer'd, the mother suffer'd,
And the wife and the child and the musing comrade suffer'd,
And the armies that remain'd suffer'd.
Passing the visions, passing the night,
Passing, unloosing the hold of my comrades' hands,
flooding the night,
Sadly sinking and fainting, as warning and warning, and yet again
Covering the earth and filling the spread of the heaven,
As that powerful psalm in the night I heard from recesses,
Passing, I leave thee lilac with heart-shaped leaves,
I cease from my song for thee,
O comrade lustrous with silver face in the night.
Yet each to keep and all, retrievements out of the night,
The song, the wondrous chant of the gray-brown bird,
And the tallying chant, the echo arous'd in my soul,
Lilac and star and bird twined with the chant of my soul,
There in the fragrant pines and the cedars dusk and dim.
O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up--for you the flag is flung--for you the bugle trills,
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head!
It is some dream that on the deck,
You've fallen cold and dead.
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
But I with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
Hush'd be the camps to-day,
And soldiers let us drape our war-worn weapons,
And each with musing soul retire to celebrate,
Our dear commander's death.
No more for him life's stormy conflicts,
Nor victory, nor defeat--no more time's dark events,
Charging like ceaseless clouds across the sky.
But sing poet in our name,
As they invault the coffin there,
Sing--as they close the doors of earth upon him--one verse,
For the heavy hearts of soldiers.
Ashes of soldiers South or North,
As I muse retrospective murmuring a chant in thought,
The war resumes, again to my sense your shapes,
And again the advance of the armies.
Noiseless as mists and vapours,
From their graves in the trenches ascending,
From cemeteries all through Virginia and Tennessee,
From every point of the compass out of the countless graves,
And silently gather round me.
Now sound no note O trumpeters,
Not at the head of my cavalry parading on spirited horses,
My handsome tan-faced horsemen! what life, what joy and pride,
With all the perils were yours).
Nor you drummers, neither at reveillé at dawn,
Nothing from you this time O drummers bearing my warlike drums.
Faces so pale with wondrous eyes, very dear, gather closer yet,
Draw close, but speak not.
Phantoms of countless lost,
Invisible to the rest henceforth become my companions,
Follow me ever--desert me not while I live.
But sweet, ah sweet, are the dead with their silent eyes.
Dearest comrades, all is over and long gone,
But love is not over--and what love, O comrades!
Perfume from battlefields rising, up from the foetor arising.
Perfume therefore my chant, O love, immortal love,
Give me to bathe the memories of all dead soldiers,
Shroud them, embalm them, cover them all over with tender pride.
Perfume all--make all wholesome,
Make these ashes to nourish and blossom,
O love, solve all, fructify all with the last chemistry.
Give me exhaustless, make me a fountain,
Pensive on her dead gazing I heard the Mother of All,
sons, lose not an atom,
And you streams absorb them well, taking their dear blood,
And you trees down in your roots to bequeath to all future trees,
O years and graves! O air and soil! O my dead, an aroma sweet!
Exhale them perennial sweet death, years centuries hence.
I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,
Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.
Come my tan-faced children,
Follow well in order, get your weapons ready,
Have you your pistols? have you your sharp-edged axes?
Pioneers! O pioneers!
For we cannot tarry here,
We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger
We the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
O you youths, Western youths,
So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship,
Have the elder races halted?
Pioneers! O pioneers!
All the past we leave behind,
We debouch upon a newer mightier world, varied world,
We detachments steady throwing,
Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep,
Conquering, holding, daring, venturing as we go the unknown ways,
We primeval forests felling,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
From Nebraska, from Arkansas,
O resistless restless race!
Pioneers! O pioneers!
Raise the mighty mother mistress,
Waving high the delicate mistress, over all the starry mistress
(bend your heads all),
Raise the fang'd and warlike mistress, stern, impassive, weapon'd
Pioneers! O pioneers!
See my children, resolute children,
By those swarms upon our rear we must never yield or falter,
Ages back in ghostly millions frowning there behind us urging,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
On and on the compact ranks,
With accessions ever waiting, with the places of the dead quickly
O to die advancing on!
Are there some of us to droop and die? has the hour come?
All the pulses of the world,
Falling in they beat for us, with the Western movement beat,
Life's involv'd and varied pageants,
All the forms and shows, all the workmen at their work,
All the hapless silent lovers,
I too with my soul and body,
We, a curious trio, picking, wandering on our way,
Lo, the darting bowling orb!
Lo, the brother orbs around, all the clustering sun and planets,
All the dazzling days, all the mystic nights with dreams,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
These are of us, they are with us,
We to-day's procession heading, we the route for travel clearing,
O you daughters of the West!
O you young and elder daughters! O you mothers and you wives!
Never must you be divided, in our ranks you move united,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
Minstrels latent on the prairies!
Not for delectations sweet,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
Do the feasters gluttonous feast?
Pioneers! O pioneers!
Has the night descended?
Yet a passing hour I yield you in your tracks to pause oblivious,
Till with sound of trumpet,
Swift! to the head of the army!--swift! spring to your places,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
Weapon shapely, naked, wan,
Head from the mother's bowels drawn,
Wooded flesh and metal bone, limb only one and lip only one,
Resting the grass amid and upon,
To be lean'd and to lean on.
Long varied train of an emblem, dabs of music,
Welcome are all earth's lands, each for its kind,
Welcome are lands of pine and oak,
Welcome are lands of the lemon and fig,
Welcome are lands of gold,
Welcome are lands of wheat and maize, welcome those of the grape,
Welcome are mountains, flats, sands, forests, prairies,
Welcome the rich borders of rivers, table-lands, openings,
Welcome just as much the other more hard-faced lands,
Lands rich as lands of gold or wheat and fruit lands,
Lands of mines, lands of the manly and rugged ores,
Lands of coal, copper, lead, tin, zinc,
Lands of iron--lands of the make of the axe.
The log at the wood-pile, the axe supported by it,
The wailing and moaning at intervals, the thought of the sea,
The disembarkation, the founding of a new city,
The settlements of the Arkansas, Colorado, Ottawa, Willamette,
The slow progress, the scant fare, the axe, rifle, saddle-bags;
The beauty of all adventurous and daring persons,
impatience of restraint,
Lumbermen in their winter camp, daybreak in the woods, stripes of
The house-builder at work in cities or anywhere,
The preparatory jointing, squaring, sawing, mortising,
The blows of mallets and hammers, the attitudes of the men, their
The hook'd arm over the plate, the other arm wieldingthe axe,
The floor-men forcing the planks close to be nail'd,
Their postures bringing their weapons downward on the bearers,
The echoes resounding through the vacant building;
The huge storehouse carried up in the city well under way,
Spar-makers in the spar-yard, the swarming row of well-grown
apprentices,
The swing of their axes on the square-hew'd log shaping it toward
The city fireman, the fire that suddenly bursts forth in the
close-pack'd square,
The arriving engines, the hoarse shouts, the nimble stepping and
daring,
The primal patient mechanics, the architects and engineers,
The far-off Assyrian edifice and Mizra edifice,
The Roman lictors preceding the consuls,
The antique European warrior with his axe in combat,
The uplifted arm, the clatter of blows on the helmeted head,
The siege of revolted lieges determin'd for liberty,
The sack of an old city in its time.
Craft and thievery of camp-followers, men running, old persons
despairing,
The hell of war, the cruelties of creeds,
The list of all executive deeds and words just or unjust,
The power of personality just or unjust.
Muscle and pluck forever!
What invigorates life invigorates death,
And the dead advance as much as the living advance,
And the future is no more uncertain than the present,
For the roughness of the earth and of man encloses as much as the
And nothing endures but personal qualities.
What do you think endures?
Do you think a great city endures?
Away! these are not to be cherish'd for themselves,
All does very well till one flash of defiance.
A great city is that which has the greatest men and women,
The place where a great city stands is not the place of stretch'd
Nor the place of ceaseless salutes of new-comers or the
anchor-lifters of the departing,
Nor the place of the tallest and costliest buildings or shops
selling goods from the rest of the earth,
Nor the place of the most numerous population.
Where the men and women think lightly of the laws,
Where the slave ceases, and the master of slaves ceases,
Where equanimity is illustrated in affairs,
Where speculations on the soul are encouraged,
Where women walk in public processions in the streets the same as
Where the city of the faithfulest friends stands,
Where the city of the cleanliness of the sexes stands,
Where the city of the healthiest fathers stands,
Where the city of the best-bodied mothers stands,
There the great city stands.
How beggarly appear arguments before a defiant deed!
How the floridness of the materials of cities shrivels before a
man's or woman's look!
All waits or goes by default till a strong being appears;
A strong being is the proof of the race and of the ability of the
When he or she appears materials are overaw'd,
The dispute on the soul stops,
What is your money-making now? what can it do now?
What is your respectability now?
Where are your jibes of being now?
Where are your cavils about the soul now?
There is the mine, there are the miners,
The forge-furnace is there, the melt is accomplish'd, the
hammers-men are at hand with their tongs and hammers,
What always served and always serves is at hand.
Than this nothing has better served, it has served all,
Served in building the buildings that last longer than any,
Served the Hebrew, the Persian, the most ancient Hindustanee,
Served those who time out of mind made on the granite walls rough
making of those for war,
Served all great works on land and all great works on the sea,
For the mediæval ages and before the mediæval ages,
Served not the living only then as now, but served the dead.
I see the European headsman,
(Whom have you slaughter'd lately European headsman?
Whose is that blood upon you so wet and sticky?)
I see the clear sunsets of the martyrs,
I see from the scaffolds the descending ghosts,
Rivals, traitors, poisoners, disgraced chieftains and the rest.
I see those who in any land have died for the good cause,
The seed is spare, nevertheless the crop shall never run out
I see the blood wash'd entirely away from the axe,
Both blade and helve are clean,
I see the headsman withdraw and become useless,
I see the scaffold untrodden and mouldy, I see no longer any axe
upon it,
(America! I do not vaunt my love for you,
I have what I have.)
The axe leaps!
The solid forest gives fluid utterances,
They tumble forth, they rise and form,
Hut, tent, landing, survey,
Shingle, rail, prop, wainscot, jamb, lath, panel, gable,
Chair, tub, hoop, table, wicket, vane, sash, floor,
Work-box, chest, string'd instrument, boat frame, and what not,
Capitols of States, and capitol of the nation of States,
Manhattan steamboats and clippers taking the measure of all seas.
The shapes arise!
Shapes of the using of axes anyhow, and the users and all that
neighbours them,
Dwellers south on the banks of the Gila or Rio Grande, friendly
gatherings, the characters and fun,
The shapes arise!
Shapes of factories, arsenals, foundries, markets,
Shapes of the two-threaded tracks of railroads,
The shapes arise!
The shape measur'd, saw'd, jack'd, join'd, stain'd,
The coffin-shape for the dead to lie within in his shroud,
The shape of the little trough, the shape of the rockers beneath,
The roof over the supper joyously cook'd by the chaste wife, and
joyously eaten by the chaste husband, content after his day's
work.
The shapes arise!
murderer, the murderer with haggard face and pinion'd arms,
The shapes arise!
Shapes of doors giving many exits and entrances,
The door passing the dissever'd friend flush'd and in haste,
The door that admits good news and bad news,
The door whence the son left home confident and puff'd up,
Her shape arises,
She less guarded than ever, yet more guarded than ever,
Oaths, quarrels, hiccupp'd songs, smutty expressions, are idle to
The main shapes arise!
Shapes of Democracy total, result of centuries,
Shapes ever projecting other shapes,
Shapes of turbulent manly cities,
Shapes of the friends and home-givers of the whole earth,
Shapes bracing the earth and braced with the whole earth.
Give me the splendid silent sun with all his beams full-dazzling,
Give me a field where the unmow'd grass grows,
Give me an arbour, give me the trellis'd grape,
Give me nights perfectly quiet as on high plateaus west of the
Mississippi, and I looking up at the stars,
Give me a perfect child, give me away aside from the noise of the
Day upon day and year upon year O city, walking your streets,
Keep your splendid silent sun,
Keep your woods, O Nature, and the quiet places by the woods,
Keep your fields of clover and timothy, and your corn-fields and
orchards,
Give me interminable eyes--give me women--give me comrades and
lovers by the thousand!
Let me see new ones every day--let me hold new ones by the hand
every day!
Give me such shows--give me the streets of Manhattan!
Give me the shores and wharves heavy-fringed with black ships!
O such for me! O an intense life, full to repletion and varied!
The life of the theatre, bar-room, huge hotel, for me!
Manhattan crowds, with their turbulent musical chorus!
Manhattan faces and eyes forever for me.
The old face of the mother of many children,
Whist! I am fully content.
Lull'd and late is the smoke of the First-day morning,
It hangs low over the rows of trees by the fences,
I saw the rich ladies in full dress at the soiree,
I heard what the singers were singing so long,
Heard who sprang in crimson youth from the white froth and the
water-blue.
Behold a woman!
She looks out from her quaker cap, her face is clearer and more
beautiful than the sky.
She sits in an armchair under the shaded porch of the farmhouse,
The sun just shines on her old white head.
Her ample gown is of cream-hued linen,
The melodious character of the earth,
O magnet-South! O glistening perfumed South! my South!
Dear to me my own slow sluggish rivers where they flow, distant,
over flats of silvery sands or through swamps,
Again in Florida I float on transparent lakes, I float on the
Okeechobee, I cross the hummock-land or through pleasant
openings or dense forests,
O the cotton plant! the growing fields of rice, sugar, hemp!
The cactus guarded with thorns, the laurel-tree with large white
flowers,
fugitive has his conceal'd hut);
alligator, the sad noises of the night-owl and the wild-cat,
and the whirr of the rattlesnake,
The humming-bird, the wild turkey, the raccoon, the opossum;
well-sheath'd in its husk;
O to be a Virginian where I grew up! O to be a Carolinian!
By broad Potomac's shore, again old tongue
Again the freshness and the odours, again Virginia's summer sky,
pellucid blue and silver,
Again the forenoon purple of the hills,
Again the deathless grass, so noiseless soft and green,
Again the blood-red roses blooming.
Perfume this book of mine O blood-red roses!
Lave subtly with your waters every line Potomac!
O deathless grass, of you!
Always our old feuillage!
Always Florida's green peninsula--always the priceless delta of
Louisiana--always the cotton-fields of Alabama and Texas,
Always California's golden hills and hollows, and the silver
mountains of New Mexico--always soft-breath'd Cuba,
The seven millions of distinct families and the same number of
dwellings--always these, and more, branching forth into
numberless branches,
Kanada, the snows;
invaders;
In farmers' barns oxen in the stable, their harvest labour done,
they rest standing, they are too tired,
White drift spooning ahead where the ship in the tempest dashes,
On solid land what is done in cities as the bells strike midnight
In winter beneath the hard blue ice of Moosehead lake, in summer
visible through the clear waters, the great trout swimming,
In lower latitudes in warmer air in the Carolinas the large black
The waving drapery on the live-oak trailing long and low,
noiselessly waved by the wind,
rising;
sweep-seines, the windlasses on shore work'd by horses, the
clearing, curing, and packing-houses;
Deep in the forest in piney woods turpentine dropping from the
incisions in the trees, there are the turpentine works,
directions is cover'd with pine straw;
On rivers boatmen safely moor'd at nightfall in their boats under
There are the greenish waters, the resinous odour, the plenteous
moss, the cypress-tree, and the juniper-tree;
Northward, young men of Mannahatta, the target company from an
excursion returning home at evening, the musket-muzzles all
bear bunches of flowers presented by women;
The scout riding on horseback over the plains west of the
Mississippi, he ascends a knoll and sweeps his eyes around;
passing meets solitary just aside the horse-path;
and wharves;
In arrière the peace-talk with the Iroquois the aborigines, the
calumet, the pipe of good-will, arbitration, and indorsement,
The setting out of the war-party, the long and stealthy march,
All the acts, scenes, ways, persons, attitudes of these States,
reminiscences, institutions,
The darting swallow, the destroyer of insects, the fall traveller
The city wharf, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston, New
The departing ships when the sailors heave at the capstan;
Evening--me in my room--the setting sun,
on the opposite wall where the shine is;
individuality of the States, each for itself--the money-makers,
Factories, machinery, the mechanical forces, the windlass, lever,
The certainty of space, increase, freedom, futurity,
it is,
Southward there, I screaming, with wings slow flapping, with the
myriads of gulls wintering along the coasts of Florida,
Saskatchewan or the Osage, I with the spring waters laughing
and skipping and running,
Northward, on the sands, on some shallow bay of Paumanok, I with
parties of snowy herons wading in the wet to seek worms and
aquatic plants,
Retreating, triumphantly twittering, the king-bird, from piercing
twittering,
The migrating flock of wild geese alighting in autumn to refresh
themselves, the body of the flock feed, the sentinels outside
move around with erect heads watching, and are from time to
time reliev'd by other sentinels--and I feeding and taking
turns with the rest,
fore-feet, the hoofs as sharp as knives--and I, plunging at
the hunters, corner'd and desperate,
Singing the song of These, my ever-united lands--my body no more
inevitable united, part to part, and made out of a thousand
diverse contributions one identity, any more than my lands are
inevitably united and made ONE IDENTITY;
Nativities, climates, the grass of the great pastoral Plains,
union of them, to afford the like to you?
Whoever you are! how can I but offer you divine leaves, that you
also be eligible as I am?
Over the Western sea hither from Niphon come,
Courteous, the swart-cheek'd two-sworded envoys,
Leaning back in their open barouches, bare-headed, impassive,
Ride to-day through Manhattan.
Libertad! I do not know whether others behold what I behold,
When million-footed Manhattan unpent descends to her pavements,
When every ship richly drest carries her flag at the peak,
When pennants trail and street-festoons hang from the windows,
When Broadway is entirely given up to foot-passengers and
foot-standers, when the mass is densest,
When the guests from the islands advance, when the pageant moves
forward visible,
Superb-faced Manhattan!
Comrade Americanos! to us, then at last the Orient comes.
To us, my city,
Where our tall-topt marble and iron beauties range on opposite
sides, to walk in the space between,
To-day our Antipodes comes.
The Originatress comes,
The nest of languages, the bequeather of poems, the race of eld,
Florid with blood, pensive, rapt with musings, hot with passion,
Sultry with perfume, with ample and flowing garments,
With sunburnt visage, with intense soul and glittering eyes,
The race of Brahma comes.
See my cantabile! these and more are flashing to us from the
procession,
Lithe and silent the Hindoo appears, the Asiatic continent itself
The murky night-morning of wonder and fable inscrutable,
The envelop'd mysteries, the old and unknown hive-bees,
Vast desolated cities, the gliding present, all of these and more
Geography, the world, is in it,
The Great Sea, the brood of islands, Polynesia, the coast beyond,
Mandarin, farmer, merchant, mechanic, and fisherman,
The singing-girl and the dancing-girl, the ecstatic persons, the
secluded emperors,
Confucius himself, the great poets and heroes, the warriors, the
castes, all,
And I am seiz'd by them, and friendlily held by them,
For I too raising my voice join the ranks of this pageant,
I am the chanter, I chant aloud over the pageant,
I chant the world on my Western sea,
I chant copious the islands beyond, thick as stars in the sky,
I chant the new empire grander than any before, as in a vision it
I chant America the mistress, I chant a greater supremacy,
I chant projected a thousand blooming cities yet in time on those
My sail-ships and steam-ships threading the archipelagoes,
My stars and stripes fluttering in the wind,
Commencing from this day surrounded by the world.
And you Libertad of the world!
As to-day from one side the nobles of Asia come to you,
As to-morrow from the other side the queen of England sends her
eldest son to you.
The sign is reversing, the orb is enclosed,
The ring is circled, the journey is done,
Young Libertad! with the venerable Asia, the all-mother,
over the archipelagoes to you,
Bend your proud neck low for once, young Libertad.
unknown, for you, for reasons?
A newer garden of creation, no primal solitude,
Dense, joyous, modern, populous millions, cities and farms,
With iron interlaced, composite, tied, many in one,
To justify the past.
I heard that you ask'd for something to prove this puzzle the New
And to define America, her athletic Democracy,
To thee old cause!
Thou peerless, passionate, good cause,
Thou stern, remorseless, sweet idea,
Deathless throughout the ages, races, lands,
After a strange sad war, great war for thee
(I think all war through time was really fought, and ever will be
These chants for thee, the eternal march of thee.
(A war O soldiers not for itself alone,
Thou orb of many orbs!
With all its angry and vehement play of causes
(With vast results to come for thrice a thousand years),
These recitatives for thee,--my book and the war are one,
Merged in its spirit I and mine, as the contest hinged on thee,
As a wheel on its axis turns, this book unwitting to itself,
Around the idea of thee.
Come, I will make the continent indissoluble,
I will make the most splendid race the sun ever shone upon,
I will make divine magnetic lands,
With the love of comrades,
With the life-long love of comrades.
I will plant companionship thick as trees along all the rivers of
the prairies,
I will make inseparable cities with their arms about each other's
By the love of comrades,
By the manly love of comrades.
For you these from me, O Democracy, to serve you ma femme!
For you, for you I am trilling these songs.
Thou Mother with thy equal brood,
Thou varied chain of different States, yet one identity only,
A special song before I go I'd sing o'er all the rest,
For thee, the future.
I'd sow a seed for thee of endless Nationality,
I'd fashion thy ensemble including body and soul,
The paths to the house I seek to make,
But leave to those to come the house itself.
Belief I sing, and preparation;
Out of that formula for thee I sing.
As a strong bird on pinions free,
Joyous, the amplest spaces heavenward cleaving,
Such be the thought I'd think of thee America,
Such be the recitative I'd bring for thee.
The conceits of the poets of other lands I'd bring thee not,
Nor the compliments that have served their turn so long,
With open airs of Virginia or Georgia or Tennessee, or from Texas
Or the Saguenay's black stream, or the wide blue spread of Huron,
And for thy subtler sense subtler refrains dread Mother,
By thee fact to be justified, blended with thought,
Thought of man justified, blended with God,
Through thy idea, lo, the immortal reality!
Through thy reality, lo, the immortal idea!
Brain of the New World, what a task is thine,
To limn with absolute faith the mighty living present.
Its poems, churches, arts, unwitting to themselves, destined with
Thou but the apples, long, long, long a-growing,
The fruit of all the Old ripening to-day in thee.
Sail, sail thy best, ship of Democracy,
Of value is thy freight, 'tis not the Present only,
The Past is also stored in thee,
Thou holdest not the venture of thyself alone, not of the Western
Theirs, theirs as much as thine, the destination-port triumphant;
Venerable priestly Asia sails this day with thee,
And royal feudal Europe sails with thee.
Beautiful world of new superber birth that rises to my eyes,
Like a limitless golden cloud filling the western sky,
Emblem of general maternity lifted above all,
Sacred shape of the bearer of daughters and sons,
Out of thy teeming womb thy giant babes in ceaseless procession
issuing,
World of the real--world of the twain in one,
World of the soul, born by the world of the real alone, led to
identity, body, by it alone,
Yet in beginning only, incalculable masses of composite precious
materials,
I feel thy ominous greatness evil as well as good,
But I do not undertake to define thee, hardly to comprehend thee,
I merely thee ejaculate!
Thee in thy future,
long upon the mind of man,
(To thy immortal breasts, Mother of All, thy every daughter, son,
(Thy soaring course thee formulating, not in thy two great wars,
nor in thy century's visible growth,
Thee in thy ultimata (the preparations only now completed, the
edifice on sure foundations tied),
Thee in thy pinnacles, intellect, thought, thy topmost rational
joys, thy love and godlike aspiration,
In thy resplendent coming literati, thy full-lung'd orators, thy
sacerdotal bards, kosmic savans,
These! these in thee (certain to come), to-day I prophesy.
Land in the realms of God to be a realm unto thyself,
Under the rule of God to be a rule unto thyself.
(Lo, where arise three peerless stars,
To be thy natal stars my country, Ensemble, Evolution, Freedom,
Land of unprecedented faith, God's faith,
Thy soil, thy very subsoil, all upheav'd,
Open'd by thee to heaven's light for benefit or bale.
Not for success alone,
Not to fair-sail unintermitted always,
They each and all shall lift and pass away and cease from thee,
The soul, its destinies.
The soul, its destinies, the real real
(Purport of all these apparitions of the real);
In thee America, the soul, its destinies,
Thou globe of globes! thou wonder nebulous!
By many a throe of heat and cold convuls'd (by these thyself
solidifying),
Thou mental, moral orb--thou New, indeed new, Spiritual World!
The Present holds thee not--for such vast growth as thine,
For such unparallel'd flight as thine, such brood as thine,
The FUTURE only holds thee and can hold thee.
_To U. S. G. return'd from his World's Tour._
What best I see in thee
Is not that where thou mov'st down history's great highways,
Ever undimm'd by time shoots warlike victory's dazzle,
Those prairie sovereigns of the West, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois,
Were all so justified.
As I walk these broad majestic days of peace
(For the war, the struggle of blood finish'd, wherein, O terrific
Against vast odds erewhile having gloriously won,
Now thou stridest on, yet perhaps in time toward denser wars,
Around me I hear that éclat of the world, politics, produce,
The announcements of recognized things, science,
The approved growth of cities and the spread of inventions.
I see the ships (they will last a few years),
The vast factories with their foremen and workmen,
And hear the indorsement of all, and do not object to it.
But I too announce solid things,
Science, ships, politics, cities, factories, are not nothing,
Like a grand procession to music of distant bugles pouring,
triumphantly moving, and grander heaving in sight,
They stand for realities--all is as it should be.
Then my realities;
What else is so real as mine?
The rapt promises and luminè of seers, the spiritual world, these
Here first the duties of to-day, the lessons of the concrete,
Wealth, order, travel, shelter, products, plenty;
As of the building of some varied, vast, perpetual edifice,
Years of the modern! years of the unperform'd!
Your horizon rises, I see it parting away for more august dramas,
I see tremendous entrances and exits, new combinations, the
solidarity of races,
Years prophetical! the space ahead as I walk, as I vainly try to
pierce it, is full of phantoms,
Unborn deeds, things soon to be, project their shapes around me,
Your dreams O years, how they penetrate through me! (I know not
whether I sleep or wake.)
The perform'd America and Europe grow dim, retiring in shadow
behind me,
O star of France,
The brightness of thy hope and strength and fame,
Like some proud ship that led the fleet so long,
Beseems to-day a wreck driven by the gale, a mastless hulk,
And 'mid its teeming madden'd half-drown'd crowds,
Nor helm nor helmsman.
Dim smitten star,
Of aspirations toward the far ideal, enthusiast's dreams of
brotherhood,
Of terror to the tyrant and the priest.
Star crucified--by traitors sold,
Star panting o'er a land of death, heroic land,
Strange, passionate, mocking, frivolous land.
Thy unexampled woes and pangs have quell'd them all,
And left thee sacred.
In that amid thy many faults thou ever aimedst highly,
In that thou couldst not, wouldst not, wear the usual chains,
This cross, thy livid face, thy pierced hands and feet,
The spear thrust in thy side.
O star! O ship of France, beat back and baffled long!
Bear up O smitten orb! O ship continue on!
Sure as the ship of all, the Earth itself,
Product of deathly fire and turbulent chaos,
Forth from its spasms of fury and its poisons,
Issuing at last in perfect power and beauty,
Onward beneath the sun following its course,
So thee O ship of France!
Finish'd the days, the clouds dispel'd,
The travail o'er, the long-sought extrication,
When lo! reborn, high o'er the European world,
Again thy star O France, fair lustrous star,
In heavenly peace, clearer, more bright than ever,
Shall beam immortal.
Of these years I sing,
How they pass and have pass'd through convuls'd pains, as through
evil as well as good,
The vehement struggle so fierce for unity in one's-self;
How America is the continent of glories, and of the triumph of
freedom and of the Democracies, and of the fruits of society,
and of all that is begun,
horrors, serves,
Of seeds dropping into the ground, of births,
Of what Indiana, Kentucky, Arkansas, and the rest, are to be,
(Or afar, mounting the Northern Pacific to Sitka or Aliaska),
Of the temporary use of materials for identity's sake,
Of mighty inland cities yet unsurvey'd and unsuspected,
Of these songs, well understood there (being made for that area),
By blue Ontario's shore,
A Phantom gigantic superb, with stern visage accosted me,
And strike up the marches of Libertad, marches more powerful yet,
(Democracy, the destin'd conqueror, yet treacherous lip-smiles
everywhere,
And death and infidelity at every step.)
A Nation announcing itself,
I myself make the only growth by which I can be appreciated,
I reject none, accept all, then reproduce all in my own forms.
A breed whose proof is in time and deeds,
What we are we are, nativity is answer enough to objections,
We wield ourselves as a weapon is wielded,
We are powerful and tremendous in ourselves,
We are the most beautiful to ourselves and in ourselves,
Nothing is sinful to us outside of ourselves,
Whatever appears, whatever does not appear, we are beautiful or
sinful in ourselves only.
(O Mother--O Sisters dear!
If we are lost, no victor else has destroy'd us,
It is by ourselves we go down to eternal night.)
Have you thought there could be but a single supreme?
countervails another.
All is eligible to all,
All is for individuals, all is for you,
No condition is prohibited, not God's or any.
Produce great Persons, the rest follows.
Piety and conformity to them that like,
Peace, obesity, allegiance, to them that like,
I am he who tauntingly compels men, women, nations,
Crying, Leap from your seats and contend for your lives!
Who are you that wanted only to be told what you knew before?
Who are you that wanted only a book to join you in your nonsense?
(With pangs and cries as thine own O bearer of many children,
These clamours wild to a race of pride I give.)
O lands, would you be freer than all that has ever been before?
Fear grace, elegance, civilization, delicatesse,
Fear the mellow sweet, the sucking of honey juice,
Beware the advancing mortal ripening of Nature,
The immortal poets of Asia and Europe have done their work and
pass'd to other spheres,
A work remains, the work of surpassing all they have done.
Takes the lesson with calmness, perceives the corpse slowly borne
Perceives that it waits a little while in the door, that it was
fittest for its days,
And that he shall be fittest for his days.
Any period one nation must lead,
One land must be the promise and reliance of the future.
These States are the amplest poem,
Here is not merely a nation but a teeming Nation of nations,
Here is what moves in magnificent masses careless of particulars,
Land of lands and bards to corroborate!
father's,
His first parts substances, earth, water, animals, trees,
Built of the common stock, having room for far and near,
Used to dispense with other lands, incarnating this land,
Attracting it body and soul to himself, hanging on its neck with
incomparable love,
Plunging his seminal muscle into its merits and demerits,
If the Atlantic coast stretch or the Pacific coast stretch, he
stretching with them North or South,
Spanning between them East and West, and touching whatever is
between them,
magnolia,
Tangles as tangled in him as any canebrake or swamp,
Off him pasturage sweet and natural as savanna, upland, prairie,
The separate States, the simple elastic scheme, the immigrants,
The Union always swarming with blatherers and always sure and
impregnable,
Surrounding the multiform agriculture, mines, temperature, the
gestation of new States,
presence of superiors,
The prevailing ardour and enterprise, the large amativeness,
Manhattan firemen, the Yankee swap, southern plantation life,
(Lo, high toward heaven, this day,
Libertad, from the conqueress' field return'd,
I mark the new aureola around your head,
No more of soft astral, but dazzling and fierce,
With war's flames and the lambent lightnings playing,
And your port immovable where you stand,
An offal rank, to the dunghill maggots spurn'd.)
Lead the present with friendly hand toward the future.
(Bravas to all impulses sending sane children to the next age!
I listened to the Phantom by Ontario's shore,
I heard the voice arising demanding bards,
By them all native and grand, by them alone can these States be
fused into the compact organism of a nation.
principle, as the hold of the limbs of the body or the fibres
of plants.
the greatest,
(Soul of love and tongue of fire:
Eye to pierce the deepest deeps and sweep the world!
Ah Mother, prolific and full in all besides, yet how long barren,
Of these States the poet is the equable man,
Nothing out of its place is good, nothing in its place is bad,
He bestows on every object or quality its fit proportion, neither
He is the arbiter of the diverse, he is the key,
He is the equalizer of his age and land,
He supplies what wants supplying, he checks what wants checking,
government,
In war he is the best backer of the war, he fetches artillery as
good as the engineer's, he can make every word he speaks draw
blood,
As he sees the farthest he has the most faith,
His thoughts are the hymns of the praise of things,
In the dispute on God and eternity he is silent,
He sees eternity less like a play with a prologue and dénouement,
For the great Idea, the idea of perfect and free individuals,
For that, the bard walks in advance, leader of leaders,
Without extinction is Liberty, without retrograde is Equality,
They live in the feelings of young men and the best women
For the great Idea,
That, O my brethren, that is the mission of poets.
Songs of stern defiance ever ready,
Songs of the rapid arming and the march,
The flag of peace quick-folded, and instead the flag we know,
Warlike flag of the great Idea.
(Angry cloth I saw there leaping!
I stand again in leaden rain your flapping folds saluting,
I sing you over all, flying beckoning through the fight--O the
hard-contested fight!
Hark, the ringing word _Charge!_--now the tussle and the furious
maddening yells,
Now the corpses tumble curl'd upon the ground,
Cold, cold in death, for precious life of you,
Angry cloth I saw there leaping.)
The place is august, the terms obdurate.
Who are you indeed who would talk or sing to America?
Have you studied out the land, its idioms and men?
Have you learn'd the physiology, phrenology, politics, geography,
objects?
Have you consider'd the organic compact of the first day of the
first year of Independence, sign'd by the Commissioners,
ratified by the States, and read by Washington at the head of
the army?
Have you possess'd yourself of the Federal Constitution?
Have you sped through fleeting customs, popularities?
Are you not of some coterie? some school or mere religion?
Have you vivified yourself from the maternity of these States?
Have you too the old ever-fresh forbearance and impartiality?
What is this you bring my America?
Is it uniform with my country?
Is it not something that has been better told or done before?
Have you not imported this or the spirit of it in some ship?
Has it not dangled long at the heels of the poets, politicians,
literats, of enemies' lands?
Does it not assume that what is notoriously gone is still here?
Does it answer universal needs? will it improve manners?
Can your performance face the open fields and the seaside?
Does it meet modern discoveries, calibres, facts, face to face?
What does it mean to American persons, progresses, cities?
Does it see behind the apparent custodians the real custodians
standing, menacing, silent, the mechanics, Manhattanese,
Western men, Southerners, significant alike in their apathy,
and in the promptness of their love?
who has ever ask'd any thing of America?
What mocking and scornful negligence?
The track strew'd with the dust of skeletons,
By the roadside others disdainfully toss'd.
Only toward the likes of itself will it advance to meet them,
(The proof of a poet shall be sternly deferr'd till his country
absorbs him as affectionately as he has absorb'd it).
He masters whose spirit masters, he tastes sweetest who results
sweetest in the long run,
The blood of the brawn beloved of time is unconstraint;
Fall behind me States!
A man before all--myself, typical, before all.
Give me the pay I have served for,
Give to sing the songs of the great Idea, take all the rest,
I have loved the earth, sun, animals, I have despised riches,
Read these leaves to myself in the open air, tried them by trees,
Dismiss'd whatever insulted my own soul or defiled my body,
Claim'd nothing to myself which I have not carefully claim'd for
others on the same terms,
Rejecting none, permitting all.
(Say O Mother, have I not to your thought been faithful?
Have I not through life kept you and yours before me?)
I swear I begin to see the meaning of these things,
It is not the earth, it is not America who is so great,
Underneath all, individuals,
I swear nothing is good to me now that ignores individuals,
The American compact is altogether with individuals,
The only government is that which makes minute of individuals,
Underneath all, Nativity,
Men, women, cities, nations, are only beautiful from nativity.
Underneath all is the Expression of love for men and women
After this day I take my own modes of expressing love for men and
I swear I will have each quality of my race in myself
Underneath the lessons of things, spirits, Nature, governments,
ownerships, I swear I perceive other lessons,
O I see flashing that this America is only you and me,
Its power, weapons, testimony, are you and me,
Its crimes, lies, thefts, defections, are you and me,
Its endless gestations of new States are you and me,
The war (that war so bloody and grim, the war I will henceforth
forget) was you and me,
Natural and artificial are you and me,
Freedom, language, forms, employments, are you and me,
Past, present, future, are you and me.
I dare not shirk any part of myself,
Not any part of America good or bad,
Not to build for that which builds for mankind,
Not to balance ranks, complexions, creeds, and the sexes,
Not to justify science nor the march of equality,
Nor to feed the arrogant blood of the brawn belov'd of time.
I am for those that have never been master'd,
For men and women whose tempers have never been master'd,
For those whom laws, theories, conventions, can never master.
I am for those who walk abreast with the whole earth,
Who inaugurate one to inaugurate all.
I will not be outfaced by irrational things,
I will penetrate what it is in them that is sarcastic upon me,
I will make cities and civilizations defer to me,
(Democracy, while weapons were everywhere aim'd at your breast,
Saw you with spreading mantle covering the world.)
I will confront these shows of the day and night,
I will know if I am to be less than they,
I will see if I am not as majestic as they,
I will see if I am not as subtle and real as they,
I will see if I am to be less generous than they,
I will see if I have no meaning, while the houses and ships have
meaning,
I take you specially to be mine, you terrible, rude forms.
(Mother, bend down, bend close to me your face,
I know not what these plots and wars and deferments are for,
Thus by blue Ontario's shore,
While the winds fann'd me and the waves came trooping toward me,
I thrill'd with the power's pulsations, and the charm of my theme
Till the tissues that held me parted their ties upon me.
And I saw the free souls of poets,
The loftiest bards of past ages strode before me,
O my rapt verse, my call, mock me not!
Not to call even those lofty bards here by Ontario's shores,
Have I sung so capricious and loud my savage song.
Bards for my own land only I invoke
(For the war, the war is over, the field is clear'd),
Till they strike up marches henceforth triumphant and onward,
To cheer O Mother your boundless expectant soul.
stripes!
You by my charm I invoke.
Rise O days from your fathomless deeps, till you loftier, fiercer
I watch'd with joy the threatening maws of the waves,
Heard the continuous thunder as it bellow'd after the lightning,
All the menacing might of the globe uprisen around me,
Yet there with my soul I fed, I fed content, supercilious.
'Twas well, O soul--'twas a good preparation you gave me,
Now we advance our latent and ampler hunger to fill,
What, to passions I witness around me to-day? was the sea risen?
Was the wind piping the pipe of death under the black clouds?
What was that swell I saw on the ocean? behold what comes here,
How it climbs with daring feet and hands--how it dashes!
How the true thunder bellows after the lightning--how bright the
flashes of lightning!
Thunder on! stride on, Democracy! strike with vengeful stroke!
And do you rise higher than ever yet O days, O cities!
Crash heavier, heavier yet O storms! you have done me good,
My soul prepared in the mountains absorbs your immortal strong
nutriment,
One doubt nauseous undulating like a snake, crawl'd on the ground
The cities I loved so well I abandon'd and left, I sped to the
certainties suitable to me,
Hungering, hungering, hungering, for primal energies and Nature's
I refresh'd myself with it only, I could relish it only,
But now I no longer wait, I am fully satisfied, I am glutted,
I have witness'd the true lightning, I have witness'd my cities
electric,
I have lived to behold man burst forth and warlike America rise,