Uncollected and Rejected Poems

 "O, many a panting, noble heart
Cherishes in its deep recess
The hope to win renown o'er earth
From Glory's prized caress.

 "And some will win that envied goal,
And have their deeds known far and wide;
And some &emdash; by far the most &emdash; will sink
Down in oblivion's tide.

 "But thou, who visions bright dost cull
From the imagination's store,
With dreams, such as the youthful dream
Of grandeur, love, and power,

 "Fanciest that thou shalt build a name
And come to have the nations know
What conscious might dwells in the brain
That throbs beneath that brow?

 "And see thick countless ranks of men
Fix upon thee their reverent gaze &emdash;
And listen to the plaudits loud
To thee that thousands raise?

 "Weak, childish soul! the very place
That pride has made for folly's rest;
What thoughts, with vanity all rife,
Fill up thy heaving breast!

 "At night, go view the solemn stars
Those wheeling worlds through time the same &emdash;
How puny seem the widest power,
The proudest mortal name!

 "Think too, that all, lowly and rich,
Dull idiot mind and teeming sense,
Alike must sleep the endless sleep,
A hundred seasons hence.

 "So, frail one, never more repine,
Though thou livest on obscure, unknown;
Though after death unsought may be
Thy markless resting stone."

 And as these accents dropped in the youth's ears,
He felt him sick at heart; for many a month
His fancy had amused and charmed itself
With lofty aspirations, visions fair
Of what he might be. And it pierced him sore
To have his airy castles thus dashed down.

1842

Of olden time, when it came to pass
That the beautiful god, Jesus, should finish his work on earth
Then went Judas, and sold the divine youth,
And took pay for his body.

 Curs'd was the deed, even before the sweat of the clutching
     hand grew dry;
And darkness frown'd upon the seller of the like of God,
Where, as though earth lifted her breast to throw him from
    her, and heaven refused him,
He hung in the air, self-slaughter'd.

 The cycles, with their long shadows, have stalk'd silently
    forward,
Since those ancient days &emdash; many a pouch enwrapping mean
    while
Its fee, like that paid for the son of Mary.

 And still goes one, saying,
"What will ye give me, and I will deliver this man unto
    you?"
And they make the covenant, and pay the pieces of silver.

Look forth, deliverer,
Look forth, first-born of the dead,
Over the tree-tops of Paradise;
See thyself in yet continued bonds,
Toilsome and poor, thou bear'st man's form again,
Thou art reviled, scourged, put into prison,
Hunted from the arrogant equality of the rest;
With staves and swords throng the willing servants of
    authority,
Again they surround thee, mad with devilish spite;
Toward thee stretch the hands of a multitude, like vultures'
    talons,
The meanest spit in thy face, they smite thee with their
    palms;
Bruised, bloody, and pinion'd is thy body,
More sorrowful than death is thy soul.

 Witness of anguish, brother of slaves,
Not with thy price closed the price of thine image:
And still Iscariot plies his trade.

1850

 Mark you now:
Not for numberless agonies, murders, lusts,
For court thieving in its manifold mean forms,
Worming from his simplicity the poor man's wages;
For many a promise sworn by royal lips
And broken, and laughed at in the breaking;
Then, in their power, not for all these,
Did a blow fall in personal revenge,
Or a hair draggle in blood:
The People scorned the ferocity of kings.

 But the sweetness of mercy brewed bitter destruction,
And frightened rulers come back:
Each comes in state, with his train,
Hangman, priest, and tax-gatherer,
Soldier, lawyer, and sycophant;
As appalling procession of locusts,
And the king struts grandly again.

 Yet behind all, lo, a Shape
Vague as the night, draped interminably,
Head, front and form, in scarlet folds,
Whose face and eyes none may see,
Out of its robes only this,
The red robes, lifted by the arm,
One finger pointed high over the top,
Like the head of a snake appears.

 Meanwhile, corpses lie in new-made graves,
Bloody corpses of young men;
The rope of the gibbet hangs heavily,
The bullets of tyrants are flying,
The creatures of power laugh aloud:
And all these things bear fruits, and they are good.

 Those corpses of young men,
Those martyrs that hang from the gibbets,
Those hearts pierced by the grey lead,
Cold and motionless as they seem,
Live elsewhere with undying vitality;
They live in other young men, O, kings,
They live in brothers, again ready to defy you;
They were purified by death,
They were taught and exalted.
Not a grave of those slaughtered ones,
But is growing its seed of freedom,
In its turn to bear seed,
Which the winds shall carry afar and resow,
And the rain nourish.
Not a disembodied spirit
Can the weapon of tyrants let loose,
But it shall stalk invisibly over the earth,
Whispering, counselling, cautioning.

 Liberty, let others despair of thee,
But I will never despair of thee:
Is the house shut? Is the master away?
Nevertheless, be ready, be not weary of watching,
He will surely return; his messengers come anon.

1850

Great are the myths &emdash; I too delight in them;
Great are Adam and Eve &emdash; I too look back and accept them;
Great the risen and fallen nations, and their poets, women,
    sages, inventors, rulers, warriors, and priests.

 Great is Liberty! great is Equality! I am their follower;
Helmsmen of nations, choose your craft! where you sail, I sail,
I weather it out with you, or sink with you.

 Great is Youth &emdash; equally great is Old Age &emdash; great are the Day
    and Night;
Great is Wealth &emdash; great is Poverty &emdash; great is Expression &emdash;
    great is Silence.

 Youth, large, lusty, loving &emdash; Youth, full of grace, force,
    fascination!
Do you know that Old Age may come after you, with equal
    grace, force, fascination?

 Day, full-blown and splendid &emdash; Day of the immense sun,
    action, ambition, laughter,
The Night follows close, with millions of suns, and sleep, and
    restoring darkness.

 Wealth, with the flush hand, fine clothes, hospitality;
But then the Soul's wealth, which is candor, knowledge,
    pride, enfolding love;
(Who goes for men and women showing Poverty richer than
    wealth?)

 Expression of speech! in what is written or said, forget not
    that Silence is also expressive,
That anguish as hot as the hottest, and contempt as cold as
    the coldest, may be without words.

Great is the Earth, and the way it became what it is;
Do you imagine it has stopt at this? the increase aban
    don'd?
Understand then that it goes as far onward from this, as this
    is from the times when it lay in covering waters and
    gases, before man had appear'd.

 Great is the quality of Truth in man;
The quality of truth in man supports itself through all
    changes,
It is inevitably in the man &emdash; he and it are in love, and never
    leave each other.

 The truth in man is no dictum, it is vital as eyesight;
If there be any Soul, there is truth &emdash; if there be man or woman
    there is truth &emdash; if there be physical or moral, there is
    truth;
If there be equilibrium or volition, there is truth &emdash; if there be
    things at all upon the earth, there is truth.

 O truth of the earth! I am determin'd to press my way
    toward you;
Sound your voice! I scale mountains, or dive in the sea after
    you.

Great is Language &emdash; it is the mightiest of the sciences,
It is the fulness, color, form, diversity of the earth, and of
    men and women, and of all qualities and processes;
It is greater than wealth &emdash; it is greater than buildings, ships,
    religions, paintings, music.

 Great is the English speech &emdash; what speech is so great as the
    English?
Great is the English brood &emdash; what brood has so vast a
    destiny as the English?
It is the mother of the brood that must rule the earth with the
    new rule;
The new rule shall rule as the Soul rules, and as the love,
    justice, equality in the Soul rule.

 Great is Law &emdash; great are the few old land-marks of the law,
They are the same in all times, and shall not be disturb'd.

Great is Justice!
Justice is not settled by legislators and laws &emdash; it is in the Soul;
It cannot be varied by statutes, any more than love, pride,
    the attraction of gravity, can;
It is immutable &emdash; it does not depend on majorities &emdash;
    majorities or what not, come at last before the same passionless
    and exact tribunal.

 For justice are the grand natural lawyers, and perfect judges &emdash;
    it is in their Souls;
It is well assorted &emdash; they have not studied for nothing &emdash; the
    great includes the less;
They rule on the highest grounds &emdash; they oversee all eras,
    states, administrations.

 The perfect judge fears nothing &emdash; he could go front to front
    before God;
Before the perfect judge all shall stand back &emdash; life and death
    shall stand back &emdash; heaven and hell shall stand back.

Great is Life, real and mystical, wherever and whoever;
Great is Death &emdash; sure as life holds all parts together, Death
    holds all parts together.

 Has Life much purport? &emdash; Ah, Death has the greatest
    purport.

1855

 Not any, not the President, is to have one jot more than you
    or me,
Not any habitan of America is to have one jot less than you
    or me.

 Anticipate when the thirty or fifty millions, are to become the
    hundred or two hundred millions, of equal freemen and
    freewomen, amicably joined.

 Recall ages &emdash; One age is but a part &emdash; ages are but a part;
Recall the angers, bickerings, delusions, superstitions, of the
    idea of caste,
Recall the bloody cruelties and crimes.

 Anticipate the best women;
I say an unnumbered new race of hardy and well-defined
    women are to spread through all These States,
I say a girl fit for These States must be free, capable,
    dauntless, just the same as a boy.

 Anticipate your own life &emdash; retract with merciless power,
Shirk nothing &emdash; retract in time &emdash; Do you see those errors,
    diseases, weaknesses, lies, thefts?
Do you see that lost character? &emdash; Do you see decay,
    consumption, rum-drinking, dropsy, fever, mortal cancer or
    inflammation?
Do you see death, and the approach of death?

1856

 Think of loving and being loved;
I swear to you, whoever you are, you can interfuse yourself
    with such things that everybody that sees you shall look
    longingly upon you.
Think of the past;
I warn you that in a little while others will find their past in
    you and your times.

 The race is never separated &emdash; nor man nor woman escapes;
All is inextricable &emdash; things, spirits, Nature, nations, you too &emdash;
    from precedents you come.

 Recall the ever-welcome defiers, (The mothers precede them;)
Recall the sages, poets, saviors, inventors, lawgivers, of the
    earth;
Recall Christ, brother of rejected persons &emdash; brother of slaves,
    felons, idiots, and of insane and diseas'd persons.

 Think of the time when you were not yet born;
Think of times you stood at the side of the dying;
Think of the time when your own body will be dying.

 Think of spiritual results,
Sure as the earth swims through the heavens, does every one
    of its objects pass into spiritual results.

 Think of manhood, and you to be a man;
Do you count manhood, and the sweet of manhood, nothing?

 Think of womanhood, and you to be a woman;
The creation is womanhood;
Have I not said that womanhood involves all?
Have I not told how the universe has nothing better than the
    best womanhood?

1856

 Let me bring this to a close &emdash; I pronounce openly for a new
    distribution of roles;
Let that which stood in front go behind! and let that which
    was behind advance to the front and speak;
Let murderers, bigots, fools, unclean persons, offer new
    propositions!
Let the old propositions be postponed!
Let faces and theories be turn'd inside out! let meanings be
    freely criminal, as well as results!
Let there be no suggestion above the suggestion of
    drudgery!
Let none be pointed toward his destination! (Say! do you
    know your destination?)
Let men and women be mock'd with bodies and mock'd with
    Souls!
Let the love that waits in them, wait! let it die, or pass still-
    born to other spheres!
Let the sympathy that waits in every man, wait! or let it also
    pass, a dwarf, to other spheres!
Let contradictions prevail! let one thing contradict another!
    and let one line of my poems contradict another!
Let the people sprawl with yearning, aimless hands! let their
    tongues be broken! let their eyes be discouraged! let
    none descend into their hearts with the fresh
    lusciousness of love!
(Stifled, O days! O lands! in every public and private
    corruption!
Smother'd in thievery, impotence, shamelessness, mountain-
    high;
Brazen effrontery, scheming, rolling like ocean's waves
    around and upon you, O my days! my lands!
For not even those thunderstorms, nor fiercest lightnings of
    the war, have purified the atmosphere;)
&emdash; Let the theory of America still be management, caste,
    comparison! (Say! what other theory would you?)
Let them that distrust birth and death still lead the rest! (Say!
    why shall they not lead you?)
Let the crust of hell be neared and trod on! let the days be
    darker than the nights! let slumber bring less slumber
    than waking time brings!

 Let the world never appear to him or her for whom it was all
    made!
Let the heart of the young man still exile itself from the heart
    of the old man! and let the heart of the old man be exiled
    from that of the young man!
Let the sun and moon go! let scenery take the applause of
    the audience! let there be apathy under the stars!
Let freedom prove no man's inalienable right! every one who
    can tyrannize, let him tyrannize to his satisfaction!
Let none but infidels be countenanced!
Let the eminence of meanness, treachery, sarcasm, hate,
    greed, indecency, impotence, lust, be taken for granted
    above all! let writers, judges, governments, households,
    religions, philosophies, take such for granted above
    all!
Let the worst men beget children out of the worst women!
Let the priest still play at immortality!
Let death be inaugurated!
Let nothing remain but the ashes of teachers, artists,
    moralists, lawyers, and learn'd and polite persons!
Let him who is without my poems be assassinated!
Let the cow, the horse, the camel, the garden-bee &emdash; let the
    mud-fish, the lobster, the mussel, eel, the sting-ray, and
    the grunting pig-fish &emdash; let these, and the like of these, be
    put on a perfect equality with man and woman!
Let churches accommodate serpents, vermin, and the corpses
    of those who have died of the most filthy of diseases!
Let marriage slip down among fools, and be for none but
    fools!
Let men among themselves talk and think forever obscenely
    of women! and let women among themselves talk and
    think obscenely of men!
Let us all, without missing one, be exposed in public, naked,
    monthly, at the peril of our lives! let our bodies be freely
    handled and examined by whoever chooses!
Let nothing but copies at second hand be permitted to exist
    upon the earth!
Let the earth desert God, nor let there ever henceforth be
    mention'd the name of God!
Let there be no God!

 Let there be money, business, imports, exports, custom,
    authority, precedents, pallor, dyspepsia, smut, ignorance,
    unbelief!
Let judges and criminals be transposed! let the prison-
    keepers be put in prison! let those that were prisoners
    take the keys! (Say! why might they not just as well be
    transposed?)
Let the slaves be masters! let the masters become slaves!
Let the reformers descend from the stands where they are
    forever bawling! let an idiot or insane person appear on
    each of the stands!
Let the Asiatic, the African, the European, the American,
    and the Australian, go armed against the murderous
    stealthiness of each other! let them sleep armed! let none
    believe in good will!
Let there be no unfashionable wisdom! let such be scorn'd
    and derided off from the earth!
Let a floating cloud in the sky &emdash; let a wave of the sea &emdash; let
    growing mint, spinach, onions, tomatoes &emdash; let these be
    exhibited as shows, at a great price for admission!
Let all the men of These States stand aside for a few
    smouchers! let the few seize on what they choose! let the rest
    gawk, giggle, starve, obey!
Let shadows be furnish'd with genitals! let substances be
    deprived of their genitals!
Let there be wealthy and immense cities &emdash; but still through
    any of them, not a single poet, savior, knower, lover!
Let the infidels of These States laugh all faith away!
If one man be found who has faith, let the rest set upon him!
Let them affright faith! let them destroy the power of breeding
    faith!
Let the she-harlots and the he-harlots be prudent! let them
    dance on, while seeming lasts! (O seeming! seeming!
    seeming!)
Let the preachers recite creeds! let them still teach only what
    they have been taught!
Let insanity still have charge of sanity!
Let books take the place of trees, animals, rivers, clouds!
Let the daub'd portraits of heroes supersede heroes!
Let the manhood of man never take steps after itself!

 Let it take steps after eunuchs, and after consumptive and
    genteel persons!
Let the white person again tread the black person under his
    heel! (Say! which is trodden under heel, after all?)
Let the reflections of the things of the world be studied in
    mirrors! let the things themselves still continue
    unstudied!
Let a man seek pleasure everywhere except in himself!
Let a woman seek happiness everywhere except in herself!
(What real happiness have you had one single hour through
    your whole life?)
Let the limited years of life do nothing for the limitless years
    of death! (What do you suppose death will do, then?)

1856

 O to promulgate our own! O to build for that which build
    for mankind!
O feuillage! O North! O the slope drained by the Mexican
    sea!
O all, all inseparable &emdash; ages, ages, ages!
O a curse on him that would dissever this Union for any
    reason whatever!
O climate, labors! O good and evil! O death!
O you strong with iron and wood! O Personality!
O the village or place which has the greatest man or woman!
    even if it be only a few ragged huts;
O the city where women walk in public processions in the
    streets, the same as the men;
O a wan and terrible emblem, by me adopted!
O shapes arising! shapes of the future centuries!
O muscle and pluck forever for me!
O workmen and workwomen forever for me!
O farmers and sailors! O drivers of horses forever for me!
O I will make the new bardic list of trades and tools!
O you coarse and wilful! I love you!
O South! O longings for my dear home! O soft and sunny
    airs!
O pensive! O I must return where the palm grows and the
    mocking bird sings, or else I die!
O equality! O organic compacts! I am come to be your born
    poet!
O whirl, contest, sounding and resounding! I am your poet,
    because I am part of you;
O days by-gone! Enthusiasts! Antecedents!
O vast preparations for These States! O years!
O what is now being sent forward thousands of years to
    come!
O mediums! O to teach! to convey the invisible faith!
To promulge real things! to journey through all The States!
O creation! O to-day! O laws! O unmitigated adoration!
O for mightier broods of orators, artists, and singers!
O for native songs! carpenter's, boatman's, ploughman's
    songs! shoemaker's songs!
O haughtiest growth of time! O free and extatic!
O what I, here, preparing, warble for!

 O you hastening light! O the sun of the world will ascend,
    dazzling, and take his height &emdash; and you too will ascend;
O so amazing and so broad! up there resplendent, darting
    and burning;
O prophetic! O vision staggered with weight of light! with
    pouring glories!
O copious! O hitherto unequalled!
O Libertad! O compact! O union impossible to dissever!
O my Soul! O lips becoming tremulous, powerless!
O centuries, centuries yet ahead!
O voices of greater orators! I pause &emdash; I listen for you!
O you States! Cities! defiant of all outside authority! I
    spring at once into your arms! you I most love!
O you grand Presidentiads! I wait for you!
New history! New heroes! I project you!
Visions of poets! only you really last! O sweep on! sweep on!
O Death! O you striding there! O I cannot yet!
O heights! O infinitely too swift and dizzy yet!
O purged lumine! you threaten me more than I can stand!
O present! I return while yet I may to you!
O poets to come, I depend upon you!

1860

1860

1860

 For the future, with determined will, I seek &emdash; the woman of
    the future,
You, born years, centuries after me, I seek.

1860

 Away!
I arrive, bringing these, beyond all the forces of courts and
    arms,
These! to hold you together as firmly as the earth itself is
    held together.

 The old breath of life, ever new,
Here! I pass it by contact to you, America.

 O mother! have you done much for me?
Behold, there shall from me be much done for you.

 There shall from me be a new friendship &emdash; It shall be called
    after my name,
It shall circulate through The States, indifferent of place,
It shall twist and intertwist them through and around each
    other &emdash; Compact shall they be, showing new signs,
Affection shall solve every one of the problems of freedom,
Those who love each other shall be invincible,
They shall finally make America completely victorious, in
    my name.

 One from Massachusetts shall be a comrade to a Missourian,
One from Maine or Vermont, and a Carolinian and an Ore
    gonese, shall be friends triune, more precious to each
    other than all the riches of the earth.

 To Michigan shall be wafted perfume from Florida,
To the Mannahatta from Cuba or Mexico,
Not the perfume of flowers, but sweeter, and wafted beyond
    death.

 No danger shall balk Columbia's lovers,
If need be, a thousand shall sternly immolate themselves for
    one,
The Kanuck shall be willing to lay down his life for the
    Kansian, and the Kansian for the Kanuck, on due need.

 It shall be customary in all directions, in the houses and
    streets, to see manly affection,
The departing brother or friend shall salute the remaining
    brother or friend with a kiss.

 There shall be innovations,
There shall be countless linked hands &emdash; namely, the North-
    easterner's, and the Northwesterner's, and the South-
    westerner's, and those of the interior, and all their
    brood,
These shall be masters of the world under a new power,
They shall laugh to scorn the attacks of all the remainder of
    the world.

 The most dauntless and rude shall touch face to face lightly,
The dependence of Liberty shall be lovers,
The continuance of Equality shall be comrades.

 These shall tie and band stronger than hoops of iron,
I, extatic, O partners! O lands! henceforth with the love of
    lovers tie you.

1860

1860

 Is there even one other like me&emdash;distracted&emdash;his friend, his
    lover, lost to him?
Is he too as I am now? Does he still rise in the morning,
    dejected, thinking who is lost to him? and at night,
    awaking, think who is lost?
Does he too harbor his friendship silent and endless? harbor
    his anguish and passion?
Does some stray reminder, or the casual mention of a name,
    bring the fit back upon him, taciturn and deprest?
Does he see himself reflected in me? In these hours, does he
    see the face of his hours reflected?

1860

 May-be one is now reading this who knows some wrongdoing
    of my past life,
Or may-be a stranger is reading this who has secretly loved me,
Or may-be one who meets all my grand assumptions and
    egotisms with derision,
Or may-be one who is puzzled at me.

 As if I were not puzzled at myself!
Or as if I never deride myself! (O conscience-struck! O self-
    convicted!)
Or as if I do not secretly love strangers! (O tenderly, a long
    time, and never avow it;)
Or as if I did not see, perfectly well, interior in myself, the
    stuff of wrong-doing,
Or as if it could cease transpiring from me until it must cease.

1860

1860

1860

I say whatever tastes sweet to the most perfect person, that is
    finally right.

I say nourish a great intellect, a great brain;
If I have said anything to the contrary, I hereby retract it.

I say man shall not hold property in man;
I say the least developed person on earth is just as important
    and sacred to himself or herself, as the most developed
    person is to himself or herself.

I say where liberty draws not the blood out of
    slavery, there slavery draws the blood out of liberty,
I say the word of the good old cause in These States, and
    resound it hence over the world.

I say the human shape or face is so great, it must never be
    made ridiculous;
I say for ornaments nothing outre can be allowed,

 And that anything is most beautiful without ornament,
And that exaggerations will be sternly revenged in your own
    physiology, and in other persons' physiology also;
And I say that clean-shaped children can be jetted and
    conceived only where natural forms prevail in public, and
    the human face and form are never caricatured;
And I say that genius need never more be turned to romances,
(For facts properly told, how mean appear all romances.)

I say the word of lands fearing nothing&emdash;I will have no other
     land;
I say discuss all and expose all&emdash;I am for every topic openly;
I say there can be no salvation for These States without
    innovators&emdash;without free tongues, and ears willing to hear
    the tongues;
And I announce as a glory of These States, that they
    respectfully listen to propositions, reforms, fresh views and
    doctrines, from successions of men and women,
Each age with its own growth.

I have said many times that materials and the Soul are great,
    and that all depends on physique;
Now I reverse what I said, and affirm that all depends on the
    æsthetic or intellectual,
And that criticism is great&emdash;and that refinement is greatest of
    all;
And I affirm now that the mind governs&emdash;and that all
    depends on the mind.

With one man or woman&emdash;(no matter which one&emdash;I even
    pick out the lowest,)
With him or her I now illustrate the whole law;
I say that every right, in politics or what-not, shall be
    eligible to that one man or woman, on the same terms as any.

1860

 Any thing is as good as established, when that is established
    that will produce and continue it.

 What General has a good army in himself, has a good army;
He happy in himself, or she happy in herself, is happy,
But I tell you you cannot be happy by others, any more than
    you can beget or conceive a child by others.

 One sweeps by, attended by an immense train,
All emblematic of peace&emdash;not a soldier or menial among
    them.

 One sweeps by, old, with black eyes, and profuse white hair,
He has the simple magnificence of health and strength,
His face strikes as with flashes of lightning whoever it turns
    toward.

 Three old men slowly pass, followed by three others, and
    they by three others,
They are beautiful&emdash;the one in the middle of each group
    holds his companions by the hand,
As they walk, they give out perfume wherever they walk.

 What weeping face is that looking from the window?
Why does it stream those sorrowful tears?
Is it for some burial place, vast and dry?
Is it to wet the soil of graves?

 I will take an egg out of the robin's nest in the orchard,
I will take a branch of gooseberries from the old bush in the
    garden, and go and preach to the world;
You shall see I will not meet a single heretic or scorner,
You shall see how I stump clergymen, and confound them,
You shall see me showing a scarlet tomato, and a white
    pebble from the beach.

 Behavior&emdash;fresh, native, copious, each one for himself or
    herself,
Nature and the Soul expressed&emdash;America and freedom expressed
    &emdash;in it the finest art,
In it pride, cleanliness, sympathy, to have their chance,
In it physique, intellect, faith&emdash;in it just as much as to
    manage an army or a city, or to write a book&emdash;perhaps more,
The youth, the laboring person, the poor person, rivalling all
    the rest&emdash;perhaps outdoing the rest,
The effects of the universe no greater than its;
For there is nothing in the whole universe that can be more
    effective than a man's or a woman's daily behavior can
    be,
In any position, in any one of These States.

 I thought I was not alone, walking here by the shore,
But the one I thought was with me, as now I walk by the
    shore,
As I lean and look through the glimmering light&emdash;that one
    has utterly disappeared,
And those appear that perplex me.

1860

1860

1865

1865

1865-6

1865-6

1871

 I'd sow a seed for thee of endless Nationality;
I'd fashion thy Ensemble, including Body, and Soul;
I'd show, away ahead, the real Union, and how it may be
    accomplish'd.

 (The paths to the House I seek to make,
But leave to those to come, the House itself.)

 Belief I sing&emdash;and Preparation;
As Life and Nature are not great with reference to the
    Present only,
But greater still from what is to come,
Out of that formula for Thee I sing.

1872

(Nov. 22, 1875, midnight&emdash;Saturn and Mars in conjunction)

 After an interval, reading, here in the midnight,
With the great stars looking on&emdash;all the stars of Orion looking,
And the silent Pleiades&emdash;and the duo looking of Saturn and
    ruddy Mars;
Pondering, reading my own songs, after a long interval,
    (sorrow and death familiar now,)
Ere closing the book, what pride! what joy! to find them,
Standing so well the test of death and night!
And the duo of Saturn and Mars!

1875

1876

 For the Eternal Ocean bound,
These ripples, passing surges, streams of Death and Life,
Object and Subject hurrying, whirling by,
The Real and Ideal,

 Alternate ebb and flow the Days and Nights,
(Strands of a Trio twining, Present, Future, Past.)

 In You, whoe'ver you are, my book perusing,
In I myself&emdash;in all the World&emdash;these ripples flow,
All, all, toward the mystic Ocean tending.

 (O yearnful waves! the kisses of your lips!
Your breast so broad, with open arms, O firm, expanded shore!)

1876

Or, from that Sea of Time,
Spray, blown by the wind&emdash;a double winrow-drift of weeds
    and shells;
(O little shells, so curious-convolute! so limpid-cold and
    voiceless!
Yet will you not, to the tympans of temples held,
Murmurs and echoes still bring up&emdash;Eternity's music, faint
    and far,
Wafted inland, sent from Atlantica's rim&emdash;strains for the
    Soul of the Prairies,
Whisper'd reverberations&emdash;chords for the ear of 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&emdash;all, all I give;)
These thoughts and Songs&emdash;waifs from the deep&emdash;here, cast
    high and dry,
Wash'd on America's shores.

Currents of starting a Continent new,
Overtures sent to the solid out of the liquid,
Fusion of ocean and land&emdash;tender and pensive waves,
(Not safe and peaceful only&emdash;waves rous'd and ominous too.

 Out of the depths, the storm's abysms&emdash;who knows whence?
    Death's waves,
Raging over the vast, with many a broken spar and tatter'd
    sail.)
1876

1876

 And now, Life, Pride, Love, Patriotism and Death,
To you, O Freedom, purport of all!
(You that elude me most&emdash;refusing to be caught in songs of
    mine,)
I offer all to you.

'Tis not for nothing, Death,
I sound out you, and words of you, with daring tone&emdash;
    embodying you,
In my new Democratic chants&emdash;keeping you for a close,
For last impregnable retreat&emdash;a citadel and tower,
For my last stand&emdash;my pealing, final cry.

1876