215. Aboard at a Ship’s Helm



ABOARD, at a ship’s helm,       
A young steersman, steering with care.       
     
A bell through fog on a sea-coast dolefully ringing,       
An ocean-bell—O a warning bell, rock’d by the waves.       
     
O you give good notice indeed, you bell by the sea-reefs ringing,            5   
Ringing, ringing, to warn the ship from its wreck-place.       
     
For, as on the alert, O steersman, you mind the bell’s admonition,       
The bows turn,—the freighted ship, tacking, speeds away under her gray sails,       
The beautiful and noble ship, with all her precious wealth, speeds away gaily and safe.       
     
But O the ship, the immortal ship! O ship aboard the ship!     10   
O ship of the body—ship of the soul—voyaging, voyaging, voyaging.

216. On the Beach at Night



1

ON the beach, at night,       
Stands a child, with her father,       
Watching the east, the autumn sky.       
     
Up through the darkness,       
While ravening clouds, the burial clouds, in black masses spreading,            5   
Lower, sullen and fast, athwart and down the sky,       
Amid a transparent clear belt of ether yet left in the east,       
Ascends, large and calm, the lord-star Jupiter;       
And nigh at hand, only a very little above,       
Swim the delicate brothers, the Pleiades.     10   
     
2

From the beach, the child, holding the hand of her father,       
Those burial-clouds that lower, victorious, soon to devour all,       
Watching, silently weeps.       
     
Weep not, child,       
Weep not, my darling,     15   
With these kisses let me remove your tears;       
The ravening clouds shall not long be victorious,       
They shall not long possess the sky—shall devour the stars only in apparition:       
Jupiter shall emerge—be patient—watch again another night—the Pleiades shall emerge,       
They are immortal—all those stars, both silvery and golden, shall shine out again,     20   
The great stars and the little ones shall shine out again—they endure;       
The vast immortal suns, and the long-enduring pensive moons, shall again shine.       
     
3

Then, dearest child, mournest thou only for Jupiter?       
Considerest thou alone the burial of the stars?       
     
Something there is,     25   
(With my lips soothing thee, adding, I whisper,       
I give thee the first suggestion, the problem and indirection,)       
Something there is more immortal even than the stars,       
(Many the burials, many the days and nights, passing away,)       
Something that shall endure longer even than lustrous Jupiter,     30   
Longer than sun, or any revolving satellite,       
Or the radiant brothers, the Pleiades.

217. The World Below the Brine



THE world below the brine;       
Forests at the bottom of the sea—the branches and leaves,       
Sea-lettuce, vast lichens, strange flowers and seeds—the thick tangle, the openings, and the pink turf,       
Different colors, pale gray and green, purple, white, and gold—the play of light through the water,       
Dumb swimmers there among the rocks—coral, gluten, grass, rushes—and the aliment of the swimmers,            5   
Sluggish existences grazing there, suspended, or slowly crawling close to the bottom,       
The sperm-whale at the surface, blowing air and spray, or disporting with his flukes,       
The leaden-eyed shark, the walrus, the turtle, the hairy sea-leopard, and the sting-ray;       
Passions there—wars, pursuits, tribes—sight in those ocean-depths—breathing that thick-breathing air, as so many do;       
The change thence to the sight here, and to the subtle air breathed by beings like us, who walk this sphere;     10   
The change onward from ours, to that of beings who walk other spheres.

218. On the Beach at Night, Alone



ON the beach at night alone,       
As the old mother sways her to and fro, singing her husky song,       
As I watch the bright stars shining—I think a thought of the clef of the universes, and of the future.       
     
A VAST SIMILITUDE interlocks all,       
All spheres, grown, ungrown, small, large, suns, moons, planets, comets, asteroids,            5   
All the substances of the same, and all that is spiritual upon the same,       
All distances of place, however wide,       
All distances of time—all inanimate forms,       
All Souls—all living bodies, though they be ever so different, or in different worlds,       
All gaseous, watery, vegetable, mineral processes—the fishes, the brutes,     10   
All men and women—me also;       
All nations, colors, barbarisms, civilizations, languages;       
All identities that have existed, or may exist, on this globe, or any globe;       
All lives and deaths—all of the past, present, future;       
This vast similitude spans them, and always has spann’d, and shall forever span them, and compactly hold them, and enclose them.

219. A Carol of Harvest, for 1867



1

A SONG of the good green grass!       
A song no more of the city streets;       
A song of farms—a song of the soil of fields.       
     
A song with the smell of sun-dried hay, where the nimble pitchers handle the pitch-fork;       
A song tasting of new wheat, and of fresh-husk’d maize.            5   
     
2

For the lands, and for these passionate days, and for myself,       
Now I awhile return 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.     10   
     
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 verse to seek, to see, to narrate thee.       
     
3

Ever upon this stage,     15   
Is acted God’s calm, annual drama,       
Gorgeous processions, songs of birds,       
Sunrise, that fullest feeds and freshens most the soul,       
The heaving sea, the waves upon the shore, the musical, strong waves,       
The woods, the stalwart trees, the slender, tapering trees,     20   
The flowers, the grass, the lilliput, countless armies of the grass,       
The heat, the showers, the measureless pasturages,       
The scenery of the snows, the winds’ free orchestra,       
The stretching, light-hung roof of clouds—the clear cerulean, and the bulging, silvery fringes,       
The high dilating stars, the placid, beckoning stars,     25   
The moving flocks and herds, the plains and emerald meadows,       
The shows of all the varied lands, and all the growths and products.       
     
4

Fecund America! To-day,       
Thou art all over set in births and joys!       
Thou groan’st with riches! thy wealth clothes thee as with a swathing garment!     30   
Thou laughest loud with ache of great possessions!       
A myriad-twining life, like interlacing vines, binds all thy vast demesne!       
As some huge ship, freighted to water’s edge, thou ridest into port!       
As rain falls from the heaven, and vapors rise from earth, so have the precious values fallen upon thee, and risen out of thee!       
Thou envy of the globe! thou miracle!     35   
Thou, bathed, choked, swimming in plenty!       
Thou lucky Mistress of the tranquil barns!       
Thou Prairie Dame that sittest in the middle, and lookest out upon thy world, and lookest East, and lookest West!       
Dispensatress, that by a word givest a thousand miles—that giv’st a million farms, and missest nothing!       
Thou All-Acceptress—thou Hospitable—(thou only art hospitable, as God is hospitable.)     40   
     
5

When late I sang, sad was my voice;       
Sad were the shows around me, with deafening noises of hatred, and smoke of conflict;       
In the midst of the armies, the Heroes, I stood,       
Or pass’d with slow step through the wounded and dying.       
     
But now I sing not War,     45   
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 dead and wounded;       
No more the sad, unnatural shows of War.       
     
Ask’d room those flush’d immortal ranks? the first forth-stepping armies?     50   
Ask room, alas, the ghastly ranks—the armies dread that follow’d.       
     
6

(Pass—pass, ye proud brigades!       
So handsome, dress’d in blue—with your tramping, sinewy legs;       
With your shoulders young and strong—with your knapsacks and your muskets;       
—How elate I stood and watch’d you, where, starting off, you march’d!     55   
     
Pass;—then rattle, drums, again!       
Scream, you steamers on the river, out of whistles loud and shrill, your salutes!       
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 fever!     60   
O my land’s maimed darlings! with the plenteous bloody bandage and the crutch!       
Lo! your pallid army follow’d!)       
     
7

But on these days of brightness,       
On the far-stretching beauteous landscape, the roads and lanes, the high-piled farm-wagons, and the fruits and barns,       
Shall the dead intrude?     65   
     
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;     70   
But most, in the open air, as now, when my soul is rapt and at peace—like pleasing phantoms,       
Your dear memories, rising, glide silently by me.       
     
8

I saw the day, the return of the Heroes;       
(Yet the Heroes never surpass’d, shall never return;       
Them, that day, I saw not.)     75   
     
I saw the interminable Corps—I saw the processions of armies,       
I saw them approaching, defiling by, with divisions,       
Streaming northward, their work done, camping awhile in clusters of mighty camps.       
     
No holiday soldiers!—youthful, yet veterans;       
Worn, swart, handsome, strong, of the stock of homestead and workshop,     80   
Harden’d of many a long campaign and sweaty march,       
Inured on many a hard-fought, bloody field.       
     
9

A pause—the armies wait;       
A million flush’d, embattled conquerors wait;       
The world, too, waits—then, soft as breaking night, and sure as dawn,     85   
They melt—they disappear.       
     
Exult, indeed, 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!     90   
Resolve ye back again—give up, for good, your deadly arms;       
Other the arms, the fields henceforth for you, or South or North, or East or West,       
With saner wars—sweet wars—life-giving wars.       
     
10

Loud, O my throat, and clear, O soul!       
The season of thanks, and the voice of full-yielding;     95   
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;    100   
I see, well-wielded in their hands, the better weapons.       
 

   
11

I see where America, Mother of All,       
Well-pleased, with full-spanning eye, gazes forth, dwells long,       
And counts the varied gathering of the products.       
     
Busy the far, the sunlit panorama;    105   
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,    110   
And healthy uplands with their herby-perfumed breezes,       
And the good green grass—that delicate miracle, the ever-recurring grass.       
     
12

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.    115   
     
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 labor-saving implements:    120   
Beholdest, moving in every direction, imbued as with life, the revolving hay-rakes,       
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 pitch-fork;       
Beholdest the newer saw-mill, the southern cotton-gin, and the rice-cleanser.       
     
Beneath thy look, O Maternal,    125   
With these, and else, and with their own strong hands, the Heroes harvest.       
     
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.)       
     
13

Under Thee only they harvest—even but a wisp of hay, under thy great face, only;    130   
Harvest the wheat of Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin—every barbed spear, under thee;       
Harvest the maize of Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee—each ear in its light-green sheath,       
Gather the hay to its myriad mows, in the odorous, tranquil barns,       
Oats to their bins—the white potato, the buckwheat of Michigan, to theirs;       
Gather the cotton in Mississippi or Alabama—dig and hoard the golden, the sweet potato of Georgia and the Carolinas,    135   
Clip the wool of California or Pennsylvania,       
Cut the flax in the Middle States, or hemp, or tobacco in the Borders,       
Pick the pea and the bean, or pull apples from the trees, or bunches of grapes from the vines,       
Or aught that ripens in all These States, or North or South,       
Under the beaming sun, and under Thee.

220. The Singer in the Prison



1

    O sight of shame, and pain, and dole!       
                O fearful thought—a convict Soul!       


RANG the refrain along the hall, the prison,       
Rose to the roof, the vaults of heaven above,       
Pouring in floods of melody, in tones so pensive, sweet and strong, the like whereof was never heard,            5   
Reaching the far-off sentry, and the armed guards, who ceas’d their pacing,       
Making the hearer’s pulses stop for extasy and awe.       


2

                O sight of pity, gloom, and dole!       
                O pardon me, a hapless Soul!       


The sun was low in the west one winter day,     10   
When down a narrow aisle, amid the thieves and outlaws of the land,       
(There by the hundreds seated, sear-faced murderers, wily counterfeiters,       
Gather’d to Sunday church in prison walls—the keepers round,       
Plenteous, well-arm’d, watching, with vigilant eyes,)       
All that dark, cankerous blotch, a nation’s criminal mass,     15   
Calmly a Lady walk’d, holding a little innocent child by either hand,       
Whom, seating on their stools beside her on the platform,       
She, first preluding with the instrument, a low and musical prelude,       
In voice surpassing all, sang forth a quaint old hymn.       


3
THE HYMN.

A Soul, confined by bars and bands,     20   
Cries, Help! O help! and wrings her hands;       
Blinded her eyes—bleeding her breast,       
Nor pardon finds, nor balm of rest.       


  O sight of shame, and pain, and dole!       
  O fearful thought—a convict Soul!     25   


Ceaseless, she paces to and fro;       
O heart-sick days! O nights of wo!       
Nor hand of friend, nor loving face;       
Nor favor comes, nor word of grace.       


  O sight of pity, gloom, and dole!     30   
  O pardon me, a hapless Soul!       


It was not I that sinn’d the sin,       
The ruthless Body dragg’d me in;       
Though long I strove courageously,       
The Body was too much for me.     35   


  O Life! no life, but bitter dole!       
  O burning, beaten, baffled Soul!       


(Dear prison’d Soul, bear up a space,       
For soon or late the certain grace;       
To set thee free, and bear thee home,     40   
The Heavenly Pardoner, Death shall come.       


  Convict no more—nor shame, nor dole!       
  Depart! a God-enfranchis’d Soul!)       


4

The singer ceas’d;       
One glance swept from her clear, calm eyes, o’er all those upturn’d faces;     45   
Strange sea of prison faces—a thousand varied, crafty, brutal, seam’d and beauteous faces;       
Then rising, passing back along the narrow aisle between them,       
While her gown touch’d them, rustling in the silence,       
She vanish’d with her children in the dusk.       


5

While upon all, convicts and armed keepers, ere they stirr’d,     50   
(Convict forgetting prison, keeper his loaded pistol,)       
A hush and pause fell down, a wondrous minute,       
With deep, half-stifled sobs, and sound of bad men bow’d, and moved to weeping,       
And youth’s convulsive breathings, memories of home,       
The mother’s voice in lullaby, the sister’s care, the happy childhood,     55   
The long-pent spirit rous’d to reminiscence;       
—A wondrous minute then—But after, in the solitary night, to many, many there,       
Years after—even in the hour of death—the sad refrain—the tune, the voice, the words,       
Resumed—the large, calm Lady walks the narrow aisle,       
The wailing melody again—the singer in the prison sings:     60   


  O sight of shame, and pain, and dole!       
  O fearful thought—a convict Soul!

221. Warble for Lilac-Time



WARBLE me now, for joy of Lilac-time,       
Sort me, O tongue and lips, for Nature’s sake, and sweet life’s sake—and death’s the same as life’s,       
Souvenirs of earliest summer—birds’ eggs, and the first berries;       
Gather the welcome signs, (as children, with pebbles, or stringing shells;)       
Put in April and May—the hylas croaking in the ponds—the elastic air,            5   
Bees, butterflies, the sparrow with its simple notes,       
Blue-bird, and darting swallow—nor forget the high-hole flashing his golden wings,       
The tranquil sunny haze, the clinging smoke, the vapor,       
Spiritual, airy insects, humming on gossamer wings,       
Shimmer of waters, with fish in them—the cerulean above;     10   
All that is jocund and sparkling—the brooks running,       
The maple woods, the crisp February days, and the sugar-making;       
The robin, where he hops, bright-eyed, brown-breasted,       
With musical clear call at sunrise, and again at sunset,       
Or flitting among the trees of the apple-orchard, building the nest of his mate;     15   
The melted snow of March—the willow sending forth its yellow-green sprouts;       
—For spring-time is here! the summer is here! and what is this in it and from it?       
Thou, Soul, unloosen’d—the restlessness after I know not what;       
Come! let us lag here no longer—let us be up and away!       
O for another world! O if one could but fly like a bird!     20   
O to escape—to sail forth, as in a ship!       
To glide with thee, O Soul, o’er all, in all, as a ship o’er the waters!       
—Gathering these hints, these preludes—the blue sky, the grass, the morning drops of dew;       
(With additional songs—every spring will I now strike up additional songs,       
Nor ever again forget, these tender days, the chants of Death as well as Life;)     25   
The lilac-scent, the bushes, and the dark green, heart-shaped leaves,       
Wood violets, the little delicate pale blossoms called innocence,       
Samples and sorts not for themselves alone, but for their atmosphere,       
To tally, drench’d with them, tested by them,       
Cities and artificial life, and all their sights and scenes,     30   
My mind henceforth, and all its meditations—my recitatives,       
My land, my age, my race, for once to serve in songs,       
(Sprouts, tokens ever of death indeed the same as life,)       
To grace the bush I love—to sing with the birds,       
A warble for joy of Lilac-time.     35

222. Who Learns My Lesson Complete?



WHO learns my lesson complete?       
Boss, journeyman, apprentice—churchman and atheist,       
The stupid and the wise thinker—parents and offspring—merchant, clerk, porter and customer,       
Editor, author, artist, and schoolboy—Draw nigh and commence;       
It is no lesson—it lets down the bars to a good lesson,            5   
And that to another, and every one to another still.       
     
The great laws take and effuse without argument;       
I am of the same style, for I am their friend,       
I love them quits and quits—I do not halt, and make salaams.       
     
I lie abstracted, and hear beautiful tales of things, and the reasons of things;     10   
They are so beautiful, I nudge myself to listen.       
     
I cannot say to any person what I hear—I cannot say it to myself—it is very wonderful.       
     
It is no small matter, this round and delicious globe, moving so exactly in its orbit forever and ever, without one jolt, or the untruth of a single second;       
I do not think it was made in six days, nor in ten thousand years, nor ten billions of years,       
Nor plann’d and built one thing after another, as an architect plans and builds a house.     15   
     
I do not think seventy years is the time of a man or woman,       
Nor that seventy millions of years is the time of a man or woman,       
Nor that years will ever stop the existence of me, or any one else.       
     
Is it wonderful that I should be immortal? as every one is immortal;       
I know it is wonderful, but my eyesight is equally wonderful, and how I was conceived in my mother’s womb is equally wonderful;     20   
And pass’d from a babe, in the creeping trance of a couple of summers and winters, to articulate and walk—All this is equally wonderful.       
     
And that my Soul embraces you this hour, and we affect each other without ever seeing each other, and never perhaps to see each other, is every bit as wonderful.       
     
And that I can think such thoughts as these, is just as wonderful;       
And that I can remind you, and you think them, and know them to be true, is just as wonderful.       
     
And that the moon spins round the earth, and on with the earth, is equally wonderful,     25   
And that they balance themselves with the sun and stars, is equally wonderful.   

223. Thought



OF Justice—As if Justice could be anything but the same ample law, expounded by natural judges and saviors,       
As if it might be this thing or that thing, according to decisions.