Good in all, In the satisfaction and aplomb of animals, In the annual return of the seasons, In the hilarity of youth, In the strength and flush of manhood, In the grandeur and exquisiteness of old age, In the superb vistas of death.
Wonderful to depart!
Wonderful to be here!
The heart, to jet the all-alike and innocent blood!
To breathe the air, how delicious!
To speak-to walk-to seize something by the hand!
To prepare for sleep, for bed, to look on my rose-color"d flesh!
To be conscious of my body, so satisfied, so large!
To be this incredible G.o.d I am!
To have gone forth among other G.o.ds, these men and women I love.
Wonderful how I celebrate you and myself How my thoughts play subtly at the spectacles around!
How the clouds pa.s.s silently overhead!
How the earth darts on and on! and how the sun, moon, stars, dart on and on!
How the water sports and sings! (surely it is alive!) How the trees rise and stand up, with strong trunks, with branches and leaves!
(Surely there is something more in each of the trees, some living soul.)
O amazement of things-even the least particle!
O spirituality of things!
O strain musical flowing through ages and continents, now reaching me and America!
I take your strong chords, intersperse them, and cheerfully pa.s.s them forward.
I too carol the sun, usher"d or at noon, or as now, setting, I too throb to the brain and beauty of the earth and of all the growths of the earth, I too have felt the resistless call of myself.
As I steam"d down the Mississippi, As I wander"d over the prairies, As I have lived, as I have look"d through my windows my eyes, As I went forth in the morning, as I beheld the light breaking in the east, As I bathed on the beach of the Eastern Sea, and again on the beach of the Western Sea, As I roam"d the streets of inland Chicago, whatever streets I have roam"d, Or cities or silent woods, or even amid the sights of war, Wherever I have been I have charged myself with contentment and triumph.
I sing to the last the equalities modern or old, I sing the endless finales of things, I say Nature continues, glory continues, I praise with electric voice, For I do not see one imperfection in the universe, And I do not see one cause or result lamentable at last in the universe.
O setting sun! though the time has come, I still warble under you, if none else does, unmitigated adoration.
As at Thy Portals Also Death
As at thy portals also death, Entering thy sovereign, dim, illimitable grounds, To memories of my mother, to the divine blending, maternity, To her, buried and gone, yet buried not, gone not from me, (I see again the calm benignant face fresh and beautiful still, I sit by the form in the coffin, I kiss and kiss convulsively again the sweet old lips, the cheeks, the closed eyes in the coffin;) To her, the ideal woman, practical, spiritual, of all of earth, life, love, to me the best, I grave a monumental line, before I go, amid these songs, And set a tombstone here.
My Legacy
The business man the acquirer vast, After a.s.siduous years surveying results, preparing for departure, Devises houses and lands to his children, bequeaths stocks, goods, funds for a school or hospital, Leaves money to certain companions to buy tokens, souvenirs of gems and gold.
But I, my life surveying, closing, With nothing to show to devise from its idle years, Nor houses nor lands, nor tokens of gems or gold for my friends, Yet certain remembrances of the war for you, and after you, And little souvenirs of camps and soldiers, with my love, I bind together and bequeath in this bundle of songs.
Pensive on Her Dead Gazing
Pensive on her dead gazing I heard the Mother of All, Desperate on the torn bodies, on the forms covering the battlefields gazing, (As the last gun ceased, but the scent of the powder-smoke linger"d,) As she call"d to her earth with mournful voice while she stalk"d, Absorb them well O my earth, she cried, I charge you lose not my sons, lose not an atom, And you streams absorb them well, taking their dear blood, And you local spots, and you airs that swim above lightly impalpable, And all you essences of soil and growth, and you my rivers" depths, And you mountain sides, and the woods where my dear children"s blood trickling redden"d, And you trees down in your roots to bequeath to all future trees, My dead absorb or South or North-my young men"s bodies absorb, and their precious precious blood, Which holding in trust for me faithfully back again give me many a year hence, In unseen essence and odor of surface and gra.s.s, centuries hence, In blowing airs from the fields back again give me my darlings, give my immortal heroes, Exhale me them centuries hence, breathe me their breath, let not an atom be lost, O years and graves! O air and soil! O my dead, an aroma sweet!
Exhale them perennial sweet death, years, centuries hence.
Camps of Green
Nor alone those camps of white, old comrades of the wars, When as order"d forward, after a long march, Footsore and weary, soon as the light lessens we halt for the night, Some of us so fatigued carrying the gun and knapsack, dropping asleep in our tracks, Others pitching the little tents, and the fires lit up begin to sparkle, Outposts of pickets posted surrounding alert through the dark, And a word provided for countersign, careful for safety, Till to the call of the drummers at daybreak loudly beating the drums, We rise up refresh"d, the night and sleep pa.s.s"d over, and resume our journey, Or proceed to battle.
Lo, the camps of the tents of green, Which the days of peace keep filling, and the days of war keep filling, With a mystic army, (is it too order"d forward? is it too only halting awhile, Till night and sleep pa.s.s over?)
Now in those camps of green, in their tents dotting the world, In the parents, children, husbands, wives, in them, in the old and young, Sleeping under the sunlight, sleeping under the moonlight, content and silent there at last, Behold the mighty bivouac-field and waiting-camp of all, Of the corps and generals all, and the President over the corps and generals all, And of each of us O soldiers, and of each and all in the ranks we fought, (There without hatred we all, all meet.)
For presently O soldiers, we too camp in our place in the bivouac-camps of green, But we need not provide for outposts, nor word for the countersign, Nor drummer to beat the morning drum.
The Sobbing of the Bells [Midnight, Sept. 19-20, 1881]
The sobbing of the bells, the sudden death-news everywhere, The slumberers rouse, the rapport of the People, (Full well they know that message in the darkness, Full well return, respond within their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, their brains, the sad reverberations,) The pa.s.sionate toll and clang-city to city, joining, sounding, pa.s.sing, Those heart-beats of a Nation in the night.
As They Draw to a Close
As they draw to a close, Of what underlies the precedent songs-of my aims in them, Of the seed I have sought to plant in them, Of joy, sweet joy, through many a year, in them, (For them, for them have I lived, in them my work is done,) Of many an aspiration fond, of many a dream and plan; Through s.p.a.ce and Time fused in a chant, and the flowing eternal ident.i.ty, To Nature encompa.s.sing these, encompa.s.sing G.o.d-to the joyous, electric all, To the sense of Death, and accepting exulting in Death in its turn the same as life, The entrance of man to sing; To compact you, ye parted, diverse lives, To put rapport the mountains and rocks and streams, And the winds of the north, and the forests of oak and pine, With you O soul.
Joy, Shipmate, Joy!
Joy, shipmate, Joy!
(Pleas"d to my soul at death I cry,) Our life is closed, our life begins, The long, long anchorage we leave, The ship is clear at last, she leaps!
She swiftly courses from the sh.o.r.e, Joy, shipmate, joy.
The Untold Want
The untold want by life and land ne"er granted, Now voyager sail thou forth to seek and find.