Sands at Seventy

[First Annex]

MANNAHATTA

MY city's fit and noble name resumed,
Choice aboriginal name, with marvellous beauty, meaning,
A rocky founded island &emdash; shores where ever
     gayly dash the coming, going, hurrying sea waves. 
1888                                                                1888-9

PAUMANOK

SEA-BEAUTY! stretch'd and basking!
One side thy inland ocean laving, broad, with copious
     commerce, steamers, sails,
And one the Atlantic's wind caressing, fierce or gentle
     &emdash; mighty hulls dark-gliding in the distance.
Isle of sweet brooks of drinking-water &emdash; healthy
     air and soil!
Isle of the salty shore and breeze and brine! 
1888                                                                1888-9

FROM MONTAUK POINT

I STAND as on some mighty eagle's beak,
Eastward the sea absorbing, viewing, (nothing but sea and
     sky,)
The tossing waves, the foam, the ships in the distance.
The wild unrest, the snowy, curling caps &emdash; that
     inbound urge and urge of waves,
Seeking the shores forever. 
1888                                                                1888-9

TO THOSE WHO'VE FAIL'D

To those who've fail'd, in aspiration vast,
To unnam'd soldiers fallen in front on the lead,
To calm, devoted engineers &emdash; to over-ardent
     travelers &emdash; to pilots on their ships,
To many a lofty song and picture without recognition
     &emdash; I'd rear a laurel-cover'd monument,
High, high above the rest &emdash; To all cut off
     before their time,
Possess'd by some strange spirit of fire,
Quench'd by an early death. 
1888                                                                1888-9

A CAROL CLOSING SIXTY-NINE

A CAROL closing sixty-nine &emdash; a résumé
     &emdash; a repetition,
My lines in joy and hope continuing on the same,
Of ye, O God, Life, Nature, Freedom, Poetry;
Of you, my Land &emdash; your rivers, prairies,
     States &emdash; you, mottled
     Flag I love,
Your aggregate retain'd entire &emdash; Of north,
     south, east and west, your items all;
Of me myself &emdash; the jocund heart yet beating
     in my breast,
The body wreck'd, old, poor and paralyzed &emdash;
     the strange inertia falling pall-like round me,
The burning fires down in my sluggish blood not yet extinct,
The undiminish'd faith &emdash; the groups of loving friends. 
1888                                                                1888-9

THE BRAVEST SOLDIERS

BRAVE, brave were the soldiers (high named to-day) who
     lived through the fight;
But the bravest press'd to the front and fell, unnamed,
     unknown. 
1888                                                                1888-9

A FONT OF TYPE

THIS latent mine &emdash; these unlaunch'd voices &emdash;
     passionate powers,
Wrath, argument, or praise, or comic leer, or prayer devout,
(Not nonpareil, brevier, bourgeois, long primer merely,)
These ocean waves arousable to fury and to death,
Or sooth'd to ease and sheeny sun and sleep,
Within the pallid slivers slumbering. 
1888                                                                1888-9

AS I SIT WRITING HERE

As I sit writing here, sick and grown old,
Not my least burden is that dulness of the years, querilities,
Ungracious glooms, aches, lethargy, constipation, whimpering
     ennui,
May filter in my daily songs. 
1888                                                                1888-9

MY CANARY BIRD

DID we count great, O soul, to penetrate the themes of
     mighty books,
Absorbing deep and full from thoughts, plays, speculations?
But now from thee to me, caged bird, to feel thy joyous
     warble,
Filling the air, the lonesome room, the long forenoon,
Is it not just as great, O soul? 
1888                                                                1888-9

QUERIES TO MY SEVENTIETH YEAR

APPROACHING, nearing, curious,
Thou dim, uncertain spectre &emdash; bringest thou life
     or death?
Strength, weakness, blindness, more paralysis and heavier?
Or placid skies and sun? Wilt stir the waters yet?
Or haply cut me short for good? Or leave me here as now,
Dull, parrot-like and old, with crack'd voice harping,
     screeching? 
1888                                                                1888-9

THE WALLABOUT MARTYRS

(In Brooklyn, in an old vault, mark'd by no special recognition, lie huddled at this moment the undoubtedly authentic remains of the stanchest and earliest Revolutionary patriots from the British prison ships and prisons of the times of 1776-83, in and around New York, and from all over Long Island; originally buried &emdash; many thousands of them &emdash; in trenches in the Wallabout sands.)

 GREATER than memory of Achilles or Ulysses,
More, more by far to thee than tomb of Alexander,

 Those cart loads of old charnel ashes, scales and splints of
     mouldy bones,
Once living men &emdash; once resolute courage, aspiration,
     strength,
The stepping stones to thee to-day and here, America. 

1888                                                                1888-9

THE FIRST DANDELION

SIMPLE and fresh and fair from winter's close emerging,
As if no artifice of fashion, business, politics, had ever
     been,
Forth from its sunny nook of shelter'd grass &emdash;
     innocent, golden, calm as the dawn,
The spring's first dandelion shows its trustful face. 
1888                                                                1888-9

AMERICA

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. 
1888                                                                1888-9

MEMORIES

HOW sweet the silent backward tracings!
The wanderings as in dreams &emdash; the meditation
     of old times resumed &emdash; their loves, joys,
     persons, voyages. 
1888                                                                1888-9

TO-DAY AND THEE

THE appointed winners in a long-stretch'd game;
The course of Time and nations &emdash; Egypt,
     India, Greece and Rome;
The past entire, with all its heroes, histories, arts,
     experiments,
Its store of songs, inventions, voyages, teachers, books,
Garner'd for now and thee &emdash; To think of it!
The heirdom all converged in thee! 
1888                                                                1888-9

AFTER THE DAZZLE OF DAY

AFTER the dazzle of day is gone,
Only the dark, dark night shows to my eyes the
     stars;
After the clangor of organ majestic, or chorus,
     or perfect band,
Silent, athwart my soul, moves the symphony true. 
1888                                                                1888-9

ABRAHAM LINCOLN, BORN FEB. 12, 1809

(Publish'd Feb. 12, 1888)

TO-DAY, from each and all, a breath of prayer &emdash;
     a pulse of thought,
To memory of Him &emdash; to birth of Him. 

1888                                                                1888-9

OUT OF MAY'S SHOWS SELECTED

APPLE orchards, the trees all cover'd with blossoms;
Wheat fields carpeted far and near in vital emerald green;
The eternal, exhaustless freshness of each early morning;
The yellow, golden, transparent haze of the warm afternoon
     sun;
The aspiring lilac bushes with profuse purple or white
     flowers. 
1888                                                                1888-9

HALCYON DAYS

NOT from successful love alone,
Nor wealth, nor honor'd middle age, nor victories of politics
     or war;
But as life wanes, and all the turbulent passions calm,
As gorgeous, vapory, silent hues cover the evening sky,
As softness, fulness, rest, suffuse the frame, like fresher,
     balmier air,
As the days take on a mellower light, and the apple at
     last hangs really finish'd and indolent-ripe on the tree,
Then for the teeming quietest, happiest days of all!
The brooding and blissful halcyon days! 
1888                                                                1888-9

FANCIES AT NAVESINK

THE PILOT IN THE MIST

Steaming the northern rapids &emdash; (an old St.
     Lawrence reminiscence,
A sudden memory-flash comes back, I know not why,
Here waiting for the sunrise, gazing from this hill;)*
Again 'tis just at morning &emdash; a heavy haze
     contends with daybreak,
Again the trembling, laboring vessel veers me &emdash;
     I press through foam-dash'd rocks that almost touch me,
Again I mark where aft the small thin Indian helmsman
Looms in the mist, with brow elate and governing hand.

 

HAD I THE CHOICE

HAD I the choice to tally greatest bards,
To limn their portraits, stately, beautiful, and emulate
     at will,
Homer with all his wars and warriors &emdash; Hector,
     Achilles, Ajax,
Or Shakspere's woe-entangled Hamlet, Lear, Othello
     &emdash; Tennyson's fair ladies,
Metre or wit the best, or choice conceit to wield in
     perfect rhyme, delight of singers;
These, these, O sea, all these I'd gladly barter,
Would you the undulation of one wave, its trick to me
     transfer,
Or breathe one breath of yours upon my verse,
And leave its odor there,

 

YOU TIDES WITH CEASELESS SWELL

YOU tides with ceaseless swell! you power that does
     this work!
You unseen force, centripetal, centrifugal, through
     space's spread,
Rapport of sun, moon, earth, and all the constellations,

 What are the messages by you from distant stars to us?
     what Sirius? what Capella's?
What central heart &emdash; and you the pulse &emdash;
     vivifies all? what boundless aggregate of all?
What subtle indirection and significance in you? what clue
     to all in you? what fluid, vast identity,
Holding the universe with all its parts as one &emdash; as
     sailing in a ship?

 

LAST OF EBB, AND DAYLIGHT WANING

LAST of ebb, and daylight waning,
Scented sea-cool landward making, smells of sedge
     and salt incoming,
With many a half-caught voice sent up from the eddies,
Many a muffled confession &emdash; many a sob and
     whisper'd word,
As of speakers far or hid.

 How they sweep down and out! how they mutter!
Poets unnamed &emdash; artists greatest of any, with
     cherish'd lost designs,
Love's unresponse &emdash; a chorus of age's complaints
     &emdash; hope's last words,
Some suicide's despairing cry, Away to the boundless
     waste, and never again return.

 On to oblivion then!
On, on, and do your part, ye burying, ebbing tide!
On for your time, ye furious debouché!

 

AND YET NOT YOU ALONE

AND yet not you alone, twilight and burying ebb,
Nor you, ye lost designs alone &emdash; nor failures,
     aspirations;
I know, divine deceitful ones, your glamour's seeming;
Duly by you, from you, the tide and light again &emdash;
     duly the hinges turning,
Duly the needed discord-parts offsetting, blending,
Weaving from you, from Sleep, Night, Death itself,
The rhythmus of Birth eternal.

 

PROUDLY THE FLOOD COMES IN

PROUDLY the flood comes in, shouting, foaming, advancing,
Long it holds at the high, with bosom broad outswelling,
All throbs, dilates&emdash;the farms, woods, streets of cities
    &emdash;workmen at work,
Mainsails, topsails, jibs, appear in the offing&emdash;steamers'
     pennants of smoke&emdash;and under the forenoon sun,
Freighted with human lives, gaily the outward bound, gaily
     the inward bound,
Flaunting from many a spar the flag I love.

 

BY THAT LONG SCAN OF WAVES

BY that long scan of waves, myself call'd back, resumed
     upon myself,
In every crest some undulating light or shade&emdash;
     some retrospect,
Joys, travels, studies, silent panoramas&emdash;scenes,
     ephemeral,
The long past war, the battles, hospital sights, the wounded
     and the dead,
Myself through every by-gone phase&emdash;my idle
     youth&emdash;old age at hand,
My three-score years of life summ'd up, and more, and past,
By any grand ideal tried, intentionless, the whole a nothing,
And haply yet some drop within God's scheme's ensemble
    &emdash;some wave, or part of wave,
Like one of yours, ye multitudinous ocean.

 

THEN LAST OF ALL

THEN last of all, caught from these shores, this hill,
Of you O tides, the mystic human meaning:
Only by law of you, your swell and ebb, enclosing me
     the same,
The brain that shapes, the voice that chants this song. 
1885                                                                1888-9

ELECTION DAY, NOVEMBER, 1884

IF I should need to name, O Western World, your
     powerfulest scene and show,
'Twould not be you, Niagara&emdash;nor you, ye
     limitless prairies &emdash;nor your huge rifts of
     canyons, Colorado,
Nor you, Yosemite&emdash;nor Yellowstone, with
     all its spasmic geyser loops ascending to the skies,
     appearing and disappearing,
Nor Oregon's white cones&emdash;nor Huron's belt
     of mighty lakes&emdash;nor Mississippi's stream:
&emdash;This seething hemisphere's humanity, as now,
     I'd name &emdash;the still small voice vibrating
    &emdash;America's choosing day,
(The heart of it not in the chosen&emdash;the act itself
     the main, the quadrennial choosing,)
The stretch of North and South arous'd&emdash;sea-
     board and&emdash; inland Texas to Maine&emdash;
     the Prairie States&emdash; Vermont, Virginia, California,
The final ballot-shower from East to West&emdash;the
     paradox and conflict,
The countless snow-flakes falling&emdash;(a swordless
     conflict,
Yet more than all Rome's wars of old, or modern
     Napoleon's:) the peaceful choice of all,
Or good or ill humanity&emdash;welcoming the darker
     odds, the dross:
&emdash;Foams and ferments the wine? it serves to purify
    &emdash;while the heart pants, life glows:
These stormy gusts and winds waft precious ships,
Swell'd Washington's, Jefferson's, Lincoln's sails. 
1884                                                                1888-9

WITH HUSKY-HAUGHTY LIPS, O SEA!

WITH husky-haughty lips, O sea!
Where day and night I wend thy surf-beat shore,
Imaging to my sense thy varied strange suggestions,
(I see and plainly list thy talk and conference here,)
Thy troops of white-maned racers racing to the goal,
Thy ample, smiling face, dash'd with the sparkling
     dimples of the sun,
Thy brooding scowl and murk&emdash;thy unloos'd
     hurricanes,

 Thy unsubduedness, caprices, wilfulness;
Great as thou art above the rest, thy many tears&emdash;
    a lack from all eternity in thy content,
(Naught but the greatest struggles, wrongs, defeats, could
     make thee greatest&emdash;no less could make thee,)
Thy lonely state&emdash;something thou ever seek'st
     and seek'st, yet never gain'st,
Surely some right withheld&emdash;some voice, in huge
     monotonous rage, of freedom-lover pent,
Some vast heart, like a planet's, chain'd and chafing in
     those breakers,
By lengthen'd swell, and spasm, and panting breath,
And rhythmic rasping of thy sands and waves,
And serpent hiss, and savage peals of laughter,
And undertones of distant lion roar,
(Sounding, appealing to the sky's deaf ear&emdash;but
     now, rapport for once,
A phantom in the night thy confidant for once,)
The first and last confession of the globe,
Outsurging, muttering from thy soul's abysms,
The tale of cosmic elemental passion,
Thou tellest to a kindred soul. 

(1883)                                                              1888-9

DEATH OF GENERAL GRANT

AS one by one withdraw the lofty actors,
From that great play on history's stage eterne,
That lurid, partial act of war and peace&emdash;
     of old and new contending,
Fought out through wrath, fears, dark dismays, and
     many a long suspense;
All past&emdash;and since, in countless graves
     receding, mellowing,
Victor's and vanquish'd&emdash;Lincoln's and Lee's
     &emdash;now thou, with them,
Man of the mighty days&emdash;and equal to the
     days!
Thou from the prairies!&emdash;tangled and many-
     vein'd and hard has been thy part,
To admiration has it been enacted! 
1885                                                                1888-9

RED JACKET (FROM ALOFT)

(Impromptu on Buffalo City's monument to, and re-burial of
the old Iroquois orator, October 9, 1884)

UPON this scene, this show,
Yielded to-day by fashion, learning, wealth,
(Nor in caprice alone&emdash;some grains
     of deepest meaning,)
Haply, aloft, (who knows?) from distant sky-
     clouds' blended shapes,
As some old tree, or rock or cliff, thrill'd with
     its soul,
Product of Nature's sun, stars, earth direct
     &emdash; a towering human form,
In hunting-shirt of film, arm'd with the rifle, a
     half-ironical smile curving its phantom lips,
Like one of Ossian's ghosts looks down. 

(1884)                                                              1888-9

WASHINGTON'S MONUMENT, FEBRUARY, 1885

AH, not this marble, dead and cold:
Far from its base and shaft expanding&emdash;
     the round zones circling, comprehending,
Thou, Washington, art all the world's, the continents'
    &emdash; entire not yours alone, America,
Europe's as well, in every part, castle of lord or
     laborer's cot,
Or frozen North, or sultry South&emdash;the
     African's &emdash;the Arab's in his tent,
Old Asia's there with venerable smile, seated amid
     her ruins;
(Greets the antique the hero new? 'tis but the same
    &emdash;the heir legitimate, continued ever,
The indomitable heart and arm&emdash;proofs of
     the never-broken line,
Courage, alertness, patience, faith, the same
     &emdash; e'en in defeat defeated not, the same:)
Wherever sails a ship, or house is built on land, or
     day or night,
Through teeming cities' streets, indoors or out,
     factories or farms,

 Now, or to come, or past&emdash;where patriot
     wills existed or exist,
Wherever Freedom, pois'd by Toleration, sway'd
     by Law,
Stands or is rising thy true monument. 

(1885?)                                                             1888-9

OF THAT BLITHE THROAT OF THINE

(More than eighty-three degrees north&emdash;about a good day's steaming distance to the Pole by one of our fast oceaners in clear water&emdash;Greely the explorer heard the song of a single snow-bird merrily sounding over the desolation.)

 OF that blithe throat of thine from arctic bleak
     and blank,
I'll mind the lesson, solitary bird&emdash;let me
     too welcome chilling drifts,
E'en the profoundest chill, as now&emdash;a
     torpid pulse, a brain unnerv'd,
Old age land-lock'd within its winter bay&emdash;
     (cold, cold, O cold!)
These snowy hairs, my feeble arm, my frozen feet,
For them thy faith, thy rule I take, and grave it to
     the last;
Not summer's zones alone&emdash;not chants of
     youth, or south's warm tides alone,
But held by sluggish floes, pack'd in the northern
     ice, the cumulus of years,
These with gay heart I also sing. 

(1884)                                                              1888-9

BROADWAY

WHAT hurrying human tides, or day or night!
What passions, winnings, losses, ardors, swim
     thy waters!
What whirls of evil, bliss and sorrow, stem thee!
What curious questioning glances&emdash;glints
     of love!
Leer, envy, scorn, contempt, hope, aspiration!
Thou portal&emdash;thou arena&emdash;thou
     of the myriad long-drawn lines and groups!
(Could but thy flagstones, curbs, façades, tell
     their inimitable tales;
Thy windows rich, and huge hotels&emdash;
     thy side-walks wide;)

 Thou of the endless sliding, mincing, shuffling
     feet!
Thou, like the parti-colored world itself&emdash;
     like infinite, teeming, mocking life!
Thou visor'd, vast, unspeakable show and lesson! 

1888                                                                1888-9

TO GET THE FINAL LILT OF SONGS

TO get the final lilt of songs,
To penetrate the inmost lore of poets&emdash;to
     know the mighty ones,
Job, Homer, Eschylus, Dante, Shakspere,
     Tennyson, Emerson;
To diagnose the shifting-delicate tints of love and
     pride and doubt&emdash;to truly understand,
To encompass these, the last keen faculty and
     entranceprice,
Old age, and what it brings from all its past
     experiences. 
1888                                                                1888-9

OLD SALT KOSSABONE

FAR back, related on my mother's side,
Old Salt Kossabone, I'll tell you how he died:
(Had been a sailor all his life&emdash;was nearly
     90&emdash;lived with his married grandchild,
     Jenny;
House on a hill, with view of bay at hand, and
     distant cape, and stretch to open sea;
The last of afternoons, the evening hours, for many
     a year his regular custom,
In his great arm chair by the window seated,
(Sometimes, indeed, through half the day,)
Watching the coming, going of the vessels, he
     mutters to himself&emdash;And now the close
     of all:
One struggling outbound brig, one day, baffled for
     long &emdash;cross-tides and much wrong
     going,
At last at nightfall strikes the breeze aright, her
     whole luck veering,
And swiftly bending round the cape, the darkness
     proudly entering, cleaving, as he watches,

 ``She's free&emdash;she's on her destination''
     &emdash;these the last words&emdash;when
     Jenny came, he sat there dead,
Dutch Kossabone, Old Salt, related on my mother's
     side, far back. 

1888                                                                1888-9

THE DEAD TENOR

AS down the stage again,
With Spanish hat and plumes, and gait inimitable,
Back from the fading lessons of the past, I'd call,
     I'd tell and own,
How much from thee! the revelation of the singing
     voice from thee!
(So firm&emdash;so liquid soft&emdash;again
     that tremulous, manly timbre!
The perfect singing voice&emdash;deepest of all
     to me the lesson&emdash;trial and test of all:)
How through those strains distill'd&emdash;how
     the rapt ears, the soul of me, absorbing
Fernando's heart, Manrico's passionate call,
     Ernani's, sweet Gennaro's,
I fold thenceforth, or seek to fold, within my chants
     transmuting,
Freedom's and Love's and Faith's unloos'd cantabile,
(As perfume's, color's, sunlight's correlation:)
From these, for these, with these, a hurried line,
     dead tenor,
A wafted autumn leaf, dropt in the closing grave,
     the shovel'd earth,
To memory of thee. 
1884                                                                1888-9

CONTINUITIES

(From a talk I had lately with a German spiritualist)

NOTHING is ever really lost, or can be lost,
No birth, identity, form&emdash;no object
     of the world,
Nor life, nor force, nor any visible thing;
Appearance must not foil, nor shifted sphere
     confuse thy brain.
Ample are time and space&emdash;ample the
     fields of Nature.
The body, sluggish, aged, cold&emdash;the
     embers left from earlier fires,

 The light in the eye grown dim, shall duly flame
     again;
The sun now low in the west rises for mornings
     and for noons continual;
To frozen clods ever the spring's invisible law
     returns,
With grass and flowers and summer fruits and
     corn. 

1888                                                                1888-9

YONNONDIO

(The sense of the word is lament for the aborigines. It is an
     Iroquois term; and has been used for a personal name.)

 A SONG, a poem of itself&emdash;the word
     itself a dirge,
Amid the wilds, the rocks, the storm and wintry
     night,
To me such misty, strange tableaux the syllables
     calling up;
Yonnondio&emdash;I see, far in the west or
     north, a limitless ravine, with plains and
     mountains dark,
I see swarms of stalwart chieftains, medicine-men,
     and warriors,
As flitting by like clouds of ghosts, they pass and
     are gone in the twilight,
(Race of the woods, the landscapes free, and the
     falls!
No picture, poem, statement, passing them to the
     future:)
Yonnondio! Yonnondio!&emdash;unlimn'd they
     disappear;
To-day gives place, and fades&emdash;the cities,
     farms, factories fade;
A muffled sonorous sound, a wailing word is borne
     through the air for a moment,
Then blank and gone and still, and utterly lost. 

1887                                                                1888-9

LIFE

EVER the undiscouraged, resolute, struggling
     soul of man;
(Have former armies fail'd? then we send fresh
     armies &emdash;and fresh again;)
Ever the grappled mystery of all earth's ages old
     or new;
Ever the eager eyes, hurrahs, the welcome-clapping
     hands, the loud applause;
Ever the soul dissatisfied, curious, unconvinced at last;
Struggling to-day the same&emdash;battling the same. 
1888                                                                1888-9

``GOING SOMEWHERE''

MY science-friend, my noblest woman-friend,
(Now buried in an English grave&emdash;and
     this a memory-leaf for her dear sake,)
Ended our talk&emdash;``The sum, concluding
     all we know of old or modern learning,
     intuitions deep,
``Of all Geologies&emdash;Histories&emdash;
     of all Astronomy&emdash;of Evolution, Meta-
     physics all,
``Is, that we all are onward, onward, speeding
     slowly, surely bettering,
``Life, life an endless march, an endless army, (no
     halt, but it is duly over,)
``The world, the race, the soul&emdash;in space
     and time the universes,
``All bound as is befitting each&emdash;all surely
     going somewhere.'' 
1887                                                                1888-9

SMALL THE THEME OF MY CHANT

(From the 1867 edition ``L. of G.'')

SMALL the theme of my Chant, yet the greatest
     &emdash; namely, One's-Self&emdash;a
     simple, separate person. That, for the use of
     the New World, I sing,
Man's physiology complete, from top to toe, I
     sing. Not physiognomy alone, nor brain alone,
     is worthy for the Muse;&emdash;I say
     the Form complete is worthier far. The Female
     equally with the Male, I sing.
Nor cease at the theme of One's-Self. I speak
     the word of the modern, the word En-Masse.
My Days I sing, and the Lands&emdash;with
     interstice I knew of hapless War.
(O friend, whoe'er you are, at last arriving hither
     to commence, I feel through every leaf the
     pressure of your hand, which I return.
And thus upon our journey, footing the road, and
     more than once, and link'd together let us go.) 

1867                                                                1888-9

TRUE CONQUERORS

OLD farmers, travelers, workmen (no matter how
     crippled or bent,)
Old sailors, out of many a perilous voyage, storm
     and wreck,
Old soldiers from campaigns, with all their wounds,
     defeats and scars;
Enough that they've survived at all&emdash;long life's
     unflinching ones!
Forth from their struggles, trials, fights, to have emerged
     at all&emdash;in that alone,
True conquerors o'er all the rest. 
1888                                                                1888-9

THE UNITED STATES TO OLD WORLD CRITICS

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,
Whence to arise inevitable in time, the towering
     roofs, the lamps,
The solid-planted spires tall shooting to the stars. 
1888                                                                1888-9

THE CALMING THOUGHT OF ALL

THAT coursing on, whate'er men's speculations,
Amid the changing schools, theologies, philosophies,
Amid the bawling presentations new and old,
The round earth's silent vital laws, facts, modes
     continue. 
1888                                                                1888-9

THANKS IN OLD AGE

THANKS in old age&emdash;thanks ere I go,
For health, the midday sun, the impalpable air
     &emdash; for life, mere life,
For precious ever-lingering memories, (of you
     my mother dear
     &emdash;you father&emdash;you, brothers,
     sisters, friends,)
For all my days&emdash;not those of peace
     alone&emdash; the days of war the same,

 For gentle words, caresses, gifts from foreign
     lands,
For shelter, wine and meat&emdash;for sweet
     appreciation,
(You distant, dim unknown&emdash;or young
     or old&emdash;countless, unspecified,
     readers belov'd,
We never met, and ne'er shall meet&emdash;
     and yet our souls embrace, long, close and
     long;)
For beings, groups, love, deeds, words, books
     &emdash; for colors, forms,
For all the brave strong men&emdash;devoted,
     hardy men&emdash;who've forward sprung
     in freedom's help, all years, all lands,
For braver, stronger, more devoted men&emdash;
     (a special laurel ere I go, to life's war's chosen
     ones,
The cannoneers of song and thought&emdash;
     the great artillerists&emdash; the foremost
     leaders, captains of the soul:)
As soldier from an ended war return'd&emdash;
     As traveler out of myriads, to the long
     procession retrospective,
Thanks&emdash;joyful thanks!&emdash;a soldier's,
     traveler's thanks. 

1888                                                                1888-9

LIFE AND DEATH

THE two old, simple problems ever intertwined,
Close home, elusive, present, baffled, grappled.
By each successive age insoluble, pass'd on,
To ours to-day&emdash;and we pass on the same.
1888                                                                1888-9

THE VOICE OF THE RAIN

AND who art thou? said I to the soft-falling shower,
Which, strange to tell, gave me an answer, as here
     translated:
I am the Poem of Earth, said the voice of the rain,
Eternal I rise impalpable out of the land and the bottom-
    less sea,
Upward to heaven, whence, vaguely form'd, altogether
     changed, and yet the same,
I descend to lave the drouths, atomies, dust-layers of
     the globe,
And all that in them without me were seeds only, latent,
     unborn;

 And forever, by day and night, I give back life to my
     own origin and make pure and beautify it;
(For song, issuing from its birth-place, after fulfilment,
     wandering,
Reck'd or unreck'd, duly with love returns.) 

(1885)                                                              1888-9

SOON SHALL THE WINTER'S FOIL BE HERE

SOON shall the winter's foil be here;
Soon shall these icy ligatures unbind and melt&emdash;
     A little while,
And air, soil, wave, suffused shall be in softness, bloom
     and growth&emdash;a thousand forms shall rise
From these dead clods and chills as from low burial graves.
Thine eyes, ears&emdash;all thy best attributes&emdash;
     all that takes cognizance of natural beauty,
Shall wake and fill. Thou shalt perceive the simple shows,
     the delicate miracles of earth,
Dandelions, clover, the emerald grass, the early scents and
     flowers,
The arbutus under foot, the willow's yellow-green, the
     blossoming plum and cherry;
With these the robin, lark and thrush, singing their songs
    &emdash;the flitting bluebird;
For such the scenes the annual play brings on. 
1888                                                                1888-9

WHILE NOT THE PAST FORGETTING

(Publish'd May 30, 1888)

WHILE not the past forgetting,
To-day, at least, contention sunk entire&emdash;peace,
     brotherhood uprisen;
For sign reciprocal our Northern, Southern hands,
Lay on the graves of all dead soldiers, North or South,
(Nor for the past alone&emdash;for meanings to the
     future,)
Wreaths of roses and branches of palm. 

1888                                                                1888-9

THE DYING VETERAN

(A Long Island incident&emdash;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&emdash;(likely 'twill offend you,
I heard it in my boyhood;)&emdash;More than a
     generation since,
A queer old savage man, a fighter under Washington
     himself,
(Large, brave, cleanly, hot-blooded, no talker, rather
     spiritualistic,
Had fought in the ranks&emdash;fought well&emdash;
     had been all through the Revolutionary war,)
Lay dying&emdash;sons, daughters, church-deacons,
     lovingly tending him,
Sharping their sense, their ears, towards his murmuring,
     half-caught words:
``Let me return again to my war-days,
To the sights and scenes&emdash;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!&emdash;your joys of
     peace!
Give me my old wild battle-life again!'' 

(1887)                                                              1888-9

STRONGER LESSONS

HAVE you learn'd lessons only of those who admired
     you, and were tender with you, and stood aside for you?
Have you not learn'd great lessons from those who reject
     you, and brace themselves against you? or who treat
     you with contempt, or dispute the passage with you? 
1888                                                                1888-9

A PRAIRIE SUNSET

SHOT gold, maroon and violet, dazzling silver, emerald,
     fawn,
The earth's whole amplitude and Nature's multiform power
     consign'd for once to colors;
The light, the general air possess'd by them&emdash;colors
     till now unknown,
No limit, confine&emdash;not the Western sky alone
     &emdash;the high meridian&emdash;North, South, all,
Pure luminous color fighting the silent shadows to the last. 
1888                                                                1888-9

TWENTY YEARS

DOWN on the ancient wharf, the sand, I sit, with a new
    -comer chatting:
He shipp'd as green-hand boy, and sail'd away, (took some
     sudden, vehement notion;)
Since, twenty years and more have circled round and round,
While he the globe was circling round and round,&emdash;
     and now returns:
How changed the place&emdash;all the old land-marks gone
     &emdash;the parents dead;
(Yes, he comes back to lay in port for good&emdash;
     to settle&emdash;has a well-fill'd purse&emdash;
     no spot will do but this;)
The little boat that scull'd him from the sloop, now held in
     leash I see,
I hear the slapping waves, the restless keel, the rocking in
     the sand,
I see the sailor kit, the canvas bag, the great box bound
     with brass,
I scan the face all berry-brown and bearded&emdash;the
     stout-strong frame,
Dress'd in its russet suit of good Scotch cloth:
(Then what the told-out story of those twenty years? What
     of the future?) 
(1887)                                                              1888-9

ORANGE BUDS BY MAIL FROM FLORIDA

(Voltaire closed a famous argument by claiming that a ship of war and the grand opera were proofs enough of civilization's and France's progress, in his day.)

 A LESSER proof than old Voltaire's, yet greater,
Proof of this present time, and thee, thy broad expanse,
     America,
To my plain Northern hut, in outside clouds and snow,
Brought safely for a thousand miles o'er land and tide,
Some three days since on their own soil live-sprouting,
Now here their sweetness through my room unfolding,
A bunch of orange buds by mail from Florida. 

1888                                                                1888-9

TWILIGHT

THE soft voluptuous opiate shades,
The sun just gone, the eager light dispell'd&emdash;
     (I too will soon be gone, dispell'd,)
A haze&emdash;nirwana&emdash;rest and night
     &emdash;oblivion. 
(1887)                                                              1888-9

YOU LINGERING SPARSE LEAVES OF ME

YOU lingering sparse leaves of me on winter-nearing
     boughs,
And I some well-shorn tree of field or orchard-row;
You tokens diminute and lorn&emdash;(not now
     the flush of May, or July clover-bloom&emdash;no
     grain of August now;)
You pallid banner-staves&emdash;you pennants value-
    less&emdash;you overstay'd of time,
Yet me soul-dearest leaves confirming all the rest,
The faithfulest&emdash;hardiest&emdash;last. 
1887                                                                1888-9

NOT MEAGRE, LATENT BOUGHS ALONE

NOT meagre, latent boughs alone, O songs! (scaly
     and bare, like eagles' talons,)
But haply for some sunny day (who knows?) some
     future spring, some summer&emdash;bursting forth,
To verdant leaves, or sheltering shade&emdash;to
     nourishing fruit,
Apples and grapes&emdash;the stalwart limbs of trees
     emerging&emdash; the fresh, free, open air,
And love and faith, like scented roses blooming. 
1887                                                                1888-9

THE DEAD EMPEROR

(Publish'd March 10, 1888)

TO-DAY, with bending head and eyes, thou, too, Columbia,
Less for the mighty crown laid low in sorrow&emdash;less
     for the Emperor,
Thy true condolence breathest, sendest out o'er many a salt
     sea mile,
Mourning a good old man&emdash;a faithful shepherd, patriot. 

1888                                                                1888-9

AS THE GREEK'S SIGNAL FLAME

(For Whittier's eightieth birthday, December 17, 1887)
AS the Greek's signal flame, by antique records told,
Rose from the hill-top, like applause and glory,
Welcoming in fame some special veteran, hero,
With rosy tinge reddening the land he'd served,
So I aloft from Mannahatta's ship-fringed shore,
Lift high a kindled brand for thee, Old Poet.
1887                                                                1888-9

THE DISMANTLED SHIP

IN some unused lagoon, some nameless bay,
On sluggish, lonesome waters, anchor'd near the shore,
An old, dismasted, gray and batter'd ship, disabled, done,
After free voyages to all the seas of earth, haul'd up at last
     and hawser'd tight,
Lies rusting, mouldering. 
1888                                                                1888-9

NOW PRECEDENT SONGS, FAREWELL

NOW precedent songs, farewell&emdash;by every
     name farewell,
(Trains of a staggering line in many a strange procession,
     waggons,
From ups and downs&emdash;with intervals&emdash;
     from elder years, mid-age, or youth,)
``In Cabin'd Ships'', or ``Thee Old Cause'' or ``Poets to
     Come''

 Or ``Paumanok'', ``Song of Myself'', ``Calamus'',
     or ``Adam'',
Or ``Beat! Beat! Drums!'' or ``To the Leaven'd Soil
     they Trod,''
Or ``Captain! My Captain!'' ``Kosmos'', ``Quicksand
     Years'', or ``Thoughts'',
``Thou Mother with thy Equal Brood'', and many, many
     more unspecified,
From fibre heart of mine&emdash;from throat and tongue
     &emdash;(My life's hot pulsing blood,
The personal urge and form for me&emdash;not merely
     paper, automatic type and ink,)
Each song of mine&emdash;each utterance in the past
     &emdash;having its long, long history,
Of life or death, or soldier's wound, of country's loss or
     safety,
(O heaven! what flash and started endless train of all!
     compared indeed to that!
What wretched shred e'en at the best of all!) 

1888                                                                1888-9

AN EVENING LULL

AFTER a week of physical anguish,
Unrest and pain, and feverish heat,
Toward the ending day a calm and lull comes on,
Three hours of peace and soothing rest of brain.*
1888                                                                1888-9

OLD AGE'S LAMBENT PEAKS

THE touch of flame
     &emdash;the illuminating fire&emdash;the loftiest look
     at last,
O'er city, passion, sea&emdash;o'er prairie, mountain,
     wood&emdash;the earth itself;
The airy, different, changing hues of all, in falling twilight,
Objects and groups, bearings, faces, reminiscences;

 The calmer sight&emdash;the golden setting, clear and
     broad:
So much i' the atmosphere, the points of view, the
     situations whence we scan,
Bro't out by them alone&emdash;so much (perhaps the
     best) unreck'd before;
The lights indeed from them&emdash;old age's lambent
     peaks. 

1888                                                                  1889

AFTER THE SUPPER AND TALK

AFTER the supper and talk&emdash;after the day is done,
As a friend from friends his final withdrawal prolonging,
Good-bye and Good-bye with emotional lips repeating,
(So hard for his hand to release those hands&emdash;no
     more will they meet,
No more for communion of sorrow and joy, of old and
     young,
A far-stretching journey awaits him, to return no more,)
Shunning, postponing severance&emdash;seeking to ward
     off the last word ever so little,
E'en at the exit-door turning&emdash;charges superfluous
     calling back&emdash;e'en as he descends the steps,
Something to eke out a minute additional&emdash;
     shadows of nightfall deepening,
Farewells, messages lessening&emdash;dimmer the
     forthgoer's visage and form,
Soon to be lost for aye in the darkness&emdash;loth,
     O so loth to depart!
Garrulous to the very last. 
1887                                                                1888-9

*Navesink &emdash; a sea-side mountain, lower entrance of New York Bay.

 *The two songs on pages 476-477[``Now Precedent Songs, Farewell'' and ``an Evening Lull''] are eked out during an afternoon, June, 1888, in my seventieth year, at a critical spell of illness. Of course no reader and probably no human being at any time will ever have such phases of emotional and solemn action as these involve to me. I feel in them an end and close of all.