284. 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,            5   
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.

285. The Sobbing of The Bells



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 breasts, their brains, the sad reverberations,)       
The passionate toll and clang—city to city, joining, sounding, passing,            5   
Those heart-beats of a Nation in the night.

286. Now Finale to the Shore



NOW finale to the shore!       
Now, land and life, finale, and farewell!       
Now Voyager depart! (much, much for thee is yet in store;)       
Often enough hast thou adventur’d o’er the seas,       
Cautiously cruising, studying the charts,            5   
Duly again to port, and hawser’s tie, returning:       
—But now obey, thy cherish’d, secret wish,       
Embrace thy friends—leave all in order;       
To port, and hawser’s tie, no more returning,       
Depart upon thy endless cruise, old Sailor!     10

287. Shut Not Your Doors, &c.



SHUT not your doors to me, proud libraries,       
For that which was lacking on all your well-fill’d shelves, yet needed most, I bring;       
Forth from the army, the war emerging—a book I have made,       
The words of my book nothing—the drift of it everything;       
A book separate, not link’d with the rest, nor felt by the intellect,            5   
But you, ye untold latencies, will thrill to every page;       
Through Space and Time fused in a chant, and the flowing, eternal Identity,       
To Nature, encompassing these, encompassing God—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 I sing.

288. Thought



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;)            5   
Of many an aspiration fond—of many a dream and plan,       
Of you, O mystery great!—to place on record faith in you, O death!       
—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,     10   
With you, O soul of man.

289. The Untold Want



THE untold want, by life and land ne’er granted,       
Now, Voyager, sail thou forth, to seek and find.   

290. Portals



WHAT are those of the known, but to ascend and enter the Unknown?       
And what are those of life, but for Death?

291. These Carols



THESE Carols, sung to cheer my passage through the world I see,       
For completion, I dedicate to the Invisible World.

292. What Place is Besieged?



WHAT place is besieged, and vainly tries to raise the siege?       
Lo! I send to that place a commander, swift, brave, immortal;       
And with him horse and foot—and parks of artillery,       
And artillery-men, the deadliest that ever fired gun.

293. 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!            5   
She swiftly courses from the shore;       
Joy! shipmate—joy!