244. To One Shortly to Die



1

FROM all the rest I single out you, having a message for you:       
You are to die—Let others tell you what they please, I cannot prevaricate,       
I am exact and merciless, but I love you—There is no escape for you.       
     
Softly I lay my right hand upon you—you just feel it,       
I do not argue—I bend my head close, and half envelope it,            5   
I sit quietly by—I remain faithful,       
I am more than nurse, more than parent or neighbor,       
I absolve you from all except yourself, spiritual, bodily—that is eternal—you yourself will surely escape,       
The corpse you will leave will be but excrementitious.       
     
2

The sun bursts through in unlooked-for directions!     10   
Strong thoughts fill you, and confidence—you smile!       
You forget you are sick, as I forget you are sick,       
You do not see the medicines—you do not mind the weeping friends—I am with you,       
I exclude others from you—there is nothing to be commiserated,       
I do not commiserate—I congratulate you.

245. Song of the Exposition



1

AFTER all, not to create only, or found only,       
But to bring, perhaps from afar, what is already founded,       
To give it our own identity, average, limitless, free;       
To fill the gross, the torpid bulk with vital religious fire;       
Not to repel or destroy, so much as accept, fuse, rehabilitate;            5   
To obey, as well as command—to follow, more than to lead;       
These also are the lessons of our New World;       
—While how little the New, after all—how much the Old, Old World!       
     
Long, long, long, has the grass been growing,       
Long and long has the rain been falling,     10   
Long has the globe been rolling round.       
     
2

Come, Muse, migrate from Greece and Ionia;       
Cross out, please, those immensely overpaid accounts,       
That matter of Troy, and Achilles’ wrath, and Eneas’, Odysseus’ wanderings;       
Placard “Removed” and “To Let” on the rocks of your snowy Parnassus;     15   
Repeat at Jerusalem—place the notice high on Jaffa’s gate, and on Mount Moriah;       
The same on the walls of your Gothic European Cathedrals, and German, French and Spanish Castles;       
For know a better, fresher, busier sphere—a wide, untried domain awaits, demands you.       
     
3

Responsive to our summons,       
Or rather to her long-nurs’d inclination,     20   
Join’d with an irresistible, natural gravitation,       
     
She comes! this famous Female—as was indeed to be expected;       
(For who, so-ever youthful, ’cute and handsome, would wish to stay in mansions such as those,       
When offer’d quarters with all the modern improvements,       
With all the fun that ’s going—and all the best society?)     25   
     
She comes! I hear the rustling of her gown;       
I scent the odor of her breath’s delicious fragrance;       
I mark her step divine—her curious eyes a-turning, rolling,       
Upon this very scene.       
     
The Dame of Dames! can I believe, then,     30   
Those ancient temples classic, and castles strong and feudalistic,       
could none of them restrain her?       
Nor shades of Virgil and Dante—nor myriad memories, poems, old associations, magnetize and hold on to her?       
But that she ’s left them all—and here?       
     
Yes, if you will allow me to say so,     35   
I, my friends, if you do not, can plainly see Her,       
The same Undying Soul of Earth’s, activity’s, beauty’s, heroism’s Expression,       
Out from her evolutions hither come—submerged the strata of her former themes,       
Hidden and cover’d by to-day’s—foundation of to-day’s;       
Ended, deceas’d, through time, her voice by Castaly’s fountain;     40   
Silent through time the broken-lipp’d Sphynx in Egypt—silent those century-baffling tombs;       
Closed for aye the epics of Asia’s, Europe’s helmeted warriors;       
Calliope’s call for ever closed—Clio, Melpomene, Thalia closed and dead;       
Seal’d the stately rhythmus of Una and Oriana—ended the quest of the Holy Graal;       
Jerusalem a handful of ashes blown by the wind—extinct;     45   
The Crusaders’ streams of shadowy, midnight troops, sped with the sunrise;       
Amadis, Tancred, utterly gone—Charlemagne, Roland, Oliver gone,       
Palmerin, ogre, departed—vanish’d the turrets that Usk reflected,       
Arthur vanish’d with all his knights—Merlin and Lancelot and Galahad—all gone—dissolv’d utterly, like an exhalation;       
Pass’d! pass’d! for us, for ever pass’d! that once so mighty World—now void, inanimate, phantom World!     50   
     
Embroider’d, dazzling World! with all its gorgeous legends, myths,       
Its kings and barons proud—its priests, and warlike lords, and courtly dames;       
Pass’d to its charnel vault—laid on the shelf—coffin’d, with Crown and Armor on,       
Blazon’d with Shakspeare’s purple page,       
And dirged by Tennyson’s sweet sad rhyme.     55   
     
I say I see, my friends, if you do not, the Animus of all that World,       
Escaped, bequeath’d, vital, fugacious as ever, leaving those dead remains, and now this spot approaching, filling;       
—And I can hear what maybe you do not—a terrible aesthetical commotion,       
With howling, desperate gulp of “flower” and “bower,”       
With “Sonnet to Matilda’s Eyebrow” quite, quite frantic;     60   
With gushing, sentimental reading circles turn’d to ice or stone;       
With many a squeak, (in metre choice,) from Boston, New York, Philadelphia, London;       
As she, the illustrious Emigré, (having, it is true, in her day, although the same, changed, journey’d considerable,)       
Making directly for this rendezvous—vigorously clearing a path for herself—striding through the confusion,       
By thud of machinery and shrill steam-whistle undismay’d,     65   
Bluff’d not a bit by drain-pipe, gasometers, artificial fertilizers,       
Smiling and pleased, with palpable intent to stay,       
She ’s here, install’d amid the kitchen ware!       
     
4

But hold—don’t I forget my manners?       
To introduce the Stranger (what else indeed have I come for?) to thee, Columbia:     70   
In Liberty’s name, welcome, Immortal! clasp hands,       
And ever henceforth Sisters dear be both.       
     
Fear not, O Muse! truly new ways and days receive, surround you,       
(I candidly confess, a queer, queer race, of novel fashion,)       
And yet the same old human race—the same within, without,     75   
Faces and hearts the same—feelings the same—yearnings the same,       
The same old love—beauty and use the same.       
     
5

We do not blame thee, Elder World—nor separate ourselves from thee:       
(Would the Son separate himself from the Father?)       
Looking back on thee—seeing thee to thy duties, grandeurs, through past ages bending, building,     80   
We build to ours to-day.       
     
Mightier than Egypt’s tombs,       
Fairer than Grecia’s, Roma’s temples,       
Prouder than Milan’s statued, spired Cathedral,       
More picturesque than Rhenish castle-keeps,     85   
We plan, even now, to raise, beyond them all,       
Thy great Cathedral, sacred Industry—no tomb,       
A Keep for life for practical Invention.       
     
As in a waking vision,       
E’en while I chant, I see it rise—I scan and prophesy outside and in,     90   
Its manifold ensemble.       
     
6

Around a Palace,       
Loftier, fairer, ampler than any yet,       
Earth’s modern Wonder, History’s Seven outstripping,       
High rising tier on tier, with glass and iron façades.     95   
     
Gladdening the sun and sky—enhued in cheerfulest hues,       
Bronze, lilac, robin’s-egg, marine and crimson,       
Over whose golden roof shall flaunt, beneath thy banner, Freedom,       
The banners of The States, the flags of every land,       
A brood of lofty, fair, but lesser Palaces shall cluster.    100   
     
Somewhere within the walls of all,       
Shall all that forwards perfect human life be started,       
Tried, taught, advanced, visibly exhibited.       
     
Here shall you trace in flowing operation,       
In every state of practical, busy movement,    105   
The rills of Civilization.       
     
Materials here, under your eye, shall change their shape, as if by magic;       
The cotton shall be pick’d almost in the very field,       
Shall be dried, clean’d, ginn’d, baled, spun into thread and cloth, before you:       
You shall see hands at work at all the old processes, and all the new ones;    110   
You shall see the various grains, and how flour is made, and then bread baked by the bakers;       
You shall see the crude ores of California and Nevada passing on and on till they become bullion;       
You shall watch how the printer sets type, and learn what a composing stick is;       
You shall mark, in amazement, the Hoe press whirling its cylinders, shedding the printed leaves steady and fast:       
The photograph, model, watch, pin, nail, shall be created before you.    115   
     
In large calm halls, a stately Museum shall teach you the infinite, solemn lessons of Minerals;       
In another, woods, plants, Vegetation shall be illustrated—in another Animals, animal life and development.       
     
One stately house shall be the Music House;       
Others for other Arts—Learning, the Sciences, shall all be here;       
None shall be slighted—none but shall here be honor’d, help’d, exampled.    120   
     
7

This, this and these, America, shall be your Pyramids and Obelisks,       
Your Alexandrian Pharos, gardens of Babylon,       
Your temple at Olympia.       
     
The male and female many laboring not,       
Shall ever here confront the laboring many,    125   
With precious benefits to both—glory to all,       
To thee, America—and thee, Eternal Muse.       
     
And here shall ye inhabit, Powerful Matrons!       
In your vast state, vaster than all the old;       
Echoed through long, long centuries to come,    130   
To sound of different, prouder songs, with stronger themes,       
Practical, peaceful life—the people’s life—the People themselves,       
Lifted, illumin’d, bathed in peace—elate, secure in peace.       
     
8

Away with themes of war! away with War itself!       
Hence from my shuddering sight, to never more return, that show of blacken’d, mutilated corpses!    135   
That hell unpent, and raid of blood—fit for wild tigers, or for lop-tongued wolves—not reasoning men!       
And in its stead speed Industry’s campaigns!       
With thy undaunted armies, Engineering!       
Thy pennants, Labor, loosen’d to the breeze!       
Thy bugles sounding loud and clear!    140   
     
Away with old romance!       
Away with novels, plots, and plays of foreign courts!       
Away with love-verses, sugar’d in rhyme—the intrigues, amours of idlers,       
Fitted for only banquets of the night, where dancers to late music slide;       
The unhealthy pleasures, extravagant dissipations of the few,    145   
With perfumes, heat and wine, beneath the dazzling chandeliers.       
     
9

To you, ye Reverent, sane Sisters,       
To this resplendent day, the present scene,       
These eyes and ears that like some broad parterre bloom up around, before me,       
I raise a voice for far superber themes for poets and for Art,    150   
To exalt the present and the real,       
To teach the average man the glory of his daily walk and trade,       
To sing, in songs, how exercise and chemical life are never to be baffled;       
Boldly to thee, America, to-day! and thee, Immortal Muse!       
To practical, manual work, for each and all—to plough, hoe, dig,    155   
To plant and tend the tree, the berry, the vegetables, flowers,       
For every man to see to it that he really do something—for every woman too;       
To use the hammer, and the saw, (rip or cross-cut,)       
To cultivate a turn for carpentering, plastering, painting,       
To work as tailor, tailoress, nurse, hostler, porter,    160   
To invent a little—something ingenious—to aid the washing, cooking, cleaning,       
And hold it no disgrace to take a hand at them themselves.       
     
I say I bring thee, Muse, to-day and here,       
All occupations, duties broad and close,       
Toil, healthy toil and sweat, endless, without cessation,    165   
The old, old general burdens, interests, joys,       
The family, parentage, childhood, husband and wife,       
The house-comforts—the house itself, and all its belongings,       
Food and its preservations—chemistry applied to it;       
Whatever forms the average, strong, complete, sweet-blooded Man or Woman—the perfect, longeve Personality,    170   
And helps its present life to health and happiness—and shapes its Soul,       
For the eternal Real Life to come.       
     
With latest materials, works,       
Steam-power, the great Express lines, gas, petroleum,       
These triumphs of our time, the Atlantic’s delicate cable,    175   
The Pacific Railroad, the Suez canal, the Mont Cenis tunnel;       
Science advanced, in grandeur and reality, analyzing every thing,       
This world all spann’d with iron rails—with lines of steamships       
threading every sea,       
Our own Rondure, the current globe I bring.    180   
     
10

And thou, high-towering One—America!       
Thy swarm of offspring towering high—yet higher thee, above all towering,       
With Victory on thy left, and at thy right hand Law;       
Thou Union, holding all—fusing, absorbing, tolerating all,       
Thee, ever thee, I bring.    185   
     
Thou—also thou, a world!       
With all thy wide geographies, manifold, different, distant,       
Rounding by thee in One—one common orbic language,       
One common indivisible destiny and Union.       
     
11

And by the spells which ye vouchsafe,    190   
To those, your ministers in earnest,       
I here personify and call my themes,       
To make them pass before ye.       
     
Behold, America! (And thou, ineffable Guest and Sister!)       
For thee come trooping up thy waters and thy lands:    195   
Behold! thy fields and farms, thy far-off woods and mountains,       
As in procession coming.       
     
Behold! the sea itself!       
And on its limitless, heaving breast, thy ships:       
See! where their white sails, bellying in the wind, speckle the green and blue!    200   
See! thy steamers coming and going, steaming in or out of port!       
See! dusky and undulating, their long pennants of smoke!       
     
Behold, in Oregon, far in the north and west,       
Or in Maine, far in the north and east, thy cheerful axemen,       
Wielding all day their axes!    205   
     
Behold, on the lakes, thy pilots at their wheels—thy oarsmen!       
Behold how the ash writhes under those muscular arms!       
     
There by the furnace, and there by the anvil,       
Behold thy sturdy blacksmiths, swinging their sledges;       
Overhand so steady—overhand they turn and fall, with joyous clank,    210   
Like a tumult of laughter.       
     
Behold! (for still the procession moves,)       
Behold, Mother of All, thy countless sailors, boatmen, coasters!       
The myriads of thy young and old mechanics!       
Mark—mark the spirit of invention everywhere—thy rapid patents,    215   
Thy continual workshops, foundries, risen or rising;       
See, from their chimneys, how the tall flame-fires stream!       
     
Mark, thy interminable farms, North, South,       
Thy wealthy Daughter-States, Eastern, and Western,       
The varied products of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Georgia, Texas, and the rest;    220   
Thy limitless crops—grass, wheat, sugar, corn, rice, hemp, hops,       
Thy barns all fill’d—thy endless freight-trains, and thy bulging store-houses,       
The grapes that ripen on thy vines—the apples in thy orchards,       
Thy incalculable lumber, beef, pork, potatoes—thy coal—thy gold and silver,       
The inexhaustible iron in thy mines.    225   
     
12

All thine, O sacred Union!       
Ship, farm, shop, barns, factories, mines,       
City and State—North, South, item and aggregate,       
We dedicate, dread Mother, all to thee!       
     
Protectress absolute, thou! Bulwark of all!    230   
For well we know that while thou givest each and all, (generous as God,)       
Without thee, neither all nor each, nor land, home,       
Ship, nor mine—nor any here, this day, secure,       
Nor aught, nor any day secure.       
     
13

And thou, thy Emblem, waving over all!    235   
Delicate beauty! a word to thee, (it may be salutary;)       
Remember, thou hast not always been, as here to-day, so comfortably ensovereign’d;       
In other scenes than these have I observ’d thee, flag;       
Not quite so trim and whole, and freshly blooming, in folds of stainless silk;       
But I have seen thee, bunting, to tatters torn, upon thy splinter’d staff,    240   
Or clutch’d to some young color-bearer’s breast, with desperate hands,       
Savagely struggled for, for life or death—fought over long,       
’Mid cannon’s thunder-crash, and many a curse, and groan and yell—and rifle-volleys cracking sharp,       
And moving masses, as wild demons surging—and lives as nothing risk’d,       
For thy mere remnant, grimed with dirt and smoke, and sopp’d in blood;    245   
For sake of that, my beauty—and that thou might’st dally, as now, secure up there,       
Many a good man have I seen go under.       
     
14

Now here, and these, and hence, in peace all thine, O Flag!       
And here, and hence, for thee, O universal Muse! and thou for them!       
And here and hence, O Union, all the work and workmen thine!    250   
The poets, women, sailors, soldiers, farmers, miners, students thine!       
None separate from Thee—henceforth one only, we and Thou;       
(For the blood of the children—what is it only the blood Maternal?       
And lives and works—what are they all at last except the roads to Faith and Death?)       
     
While we rehearse our measureless wealth, it is for thee, dear Mother!    255   
We own it all and several to-day indissoluble in Thee;       
—Think not our chant, our show, merely for products gross, or lucre—it is for Thee, the Soul, electric, spiritual!       
Our farms, inventions, crops, we own in Thee! Cities and States in Thee!       
Our freedom all in Thee! our very lives in Thee!

246. One Song, America, Before I Go



ONE song, America, before I go,       
I’d sing, o’er all the rest, with trumpet sound,       
For thee—the Future.       
     
I’d sow a seed for thee of endless Nationality;       
I’d fashion thy Ensemble, including Body and Soul;            5   
I’d show, away ahead, thy 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—and Preparation;       
As Life and Nature are not great with reference to the Present only,     10   
But greater still from what is yet to come,       
Out of that formula for Thee I sing.

247. Souvenirs of Democracy



THE business man, the acquirer vast,       
After assiduous 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;       
Parceling out with care—And then, to prevent all cavil,            5   
His name to his testament formally signs.       
     
But I, my life surveying,       
With nothing to show, to devise, from its idle years,       
Nor houses, nor lands—nor tokens of gems or gold for my friends,       
Only these Souvenirs of Democracy—In them—in all my songs—behind me leaving,     10   
To You, who ever you are, (bathing, leavening this leaf especially with my breath—pressing on it a moment with my own hands;       
—Here! feel how the pulse beats in my wrists!—how my heart’s-blood is swelling, contracting!)       
I will You, in all, Myself, with promise to never desert you,       
To which I sign my name.

248. As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free



1

AS a strong bird on pinions free,       
Joyous, the amplest spaces heavenward cleaving,       
Such be the thought I’d think to-day of thee, America,       
Such be the recitative I’d bring to-day for thee.       
     
The conceits of the poets of other lands I bring thee not,            5   
Nor the compliments that have served their turn so long,       
Nor rhyme—nor the classics—nor perfume of foreign court, or indoor library;       
But an odor I’d bring to-day as from forests of pine in the north, in Maine—or breath of an Illinois prairie,       
With open airs of Virginia, or Georgia, or Tennessee—or from Texas uplands, or Florida’s glades,       
With presentment of Yellowstone’s scenes, or Yosemite;     10   
And murmuring under, pervading all, I’d bring the rustling sea-sound,       
That endlessly sounds from the two great seas of the world.       
     
And for thy subtler sense, subtler refrains, O Union!       
Preludes of intellect tallying these and thee—mind-formulas fitted for thee—real, and sane, and large as these and thee;       
Thou, mounting higher, diving deeper than we knew—thou transcendental Union!     15   
By thee Fact to be justified—blended with Thought;       
Thought of Man justified—blended with God:       
Through thy Idea—lo! the immortal Reality!       
Through thy Reality—lo! the immortal Idea!       
     
2

Brain of the New World! what a task is thine!     20   
To formulate the Modern.....Out of the peerless grandeur of the modern,       
Out of Thyself—comprising Science—to recast Poems, Churches, Art,       
(Recast—may-be discard them, end them—May-be their work is done—who knows?)       
By vision, hand, conception, on the background of the mighty past, the dead,       
To limn, with absolute faith, the mighty living present.     25   
     
(And yet, thou living, present brain! heir of the dead, the Old World brain!       
Thou that lay folded, like an unborn babe, within its folds so long!       
Thou carefully prepared by it so long!—haply thou but unfoldest it—only maturest it;       
It to eventuate in thee—the essence of the by-gone time contain’d in thee;       
Its poems, churches, arts, unwitting to themselves, destined with reference to thee,     30   
The fruit of all the Old, ripening to-day in thee.)       
     
3

Sail—sail thy best, ship of Democracy!       
Of value is thy freight—’tis not the Present only,       
The Past is also stored in thee!       
Thou holdest not the venture of thyself alone—not of thy western continent alone;     35   
Earth’s résumé entire floats on thy keel, O ship—is steadied by thy spars;       
With thee Time voyages in trust—the antecedent nations sink or swim with thee;       
With all their ancient struggles, martyrs, heroes, epics, wars, thou bear’st the other continents;       
Theirs, theirs as much as thine, the destination-port triumphant:       
—Steer, steer with good strong hand and wary eye, O helmsman—thou carryest great companions,     40   
Venerable, priestly Asia sails this day with thee,       
And royal, feudal Europe sails with thee.       
     
4

Beautiful World of new, superber Birth, that rises to my eyes,       
Like a limitless golden cloud, filling the western sky;       
Emblem of general Maternity, lifted above all;     45   
Sacred shape of the bearer of daughters and sons;       
Out of thy teeming womb, thy giant babes in ceaseless procession issuing,       
Acceding from such gestation, taking and giving continual strength and life;       
World of the Real! world of the twain in one!       
World of the Soul—born by the world of the real alone—led to identity, body, by it alone;     50   
Yet in beginning only—incalculable masses of composite, precious materials,       
By history’s cycles forwarded—by every nation, language, hither sent,       
Ready, collected here—a freer, vast, electric World, to be constructed here,       
(The true New World—the world of orbic Science, Morals, Literatures to come,)       
Thou Wonder World, yet undefined, unform’d—neither do I define thee;     55   
How can I pierce the impenetrable blank of the future?       
I feel thy ominous greatness, evil as well as good;       
I watch thee, advancing, absorbing the present, transcending the past;       
I see thy light lighting and thy shadow shadowing, as if the entire globe;       
But I do not undertake to define thee—hardly to comprehend thee;     60   
I but thee name—thee prophecy—as now!       
I merely thee ejaculate!       
     
Thee in thy future;       
Thee in thy only permanent life, career—thy own unloosen’d mind—thy soaring spirit;       
Thee as another equally needed sun, America—radiant, ablaze, swift-moving, fructifying all;     65   
Thee! risen in thy potent cheerfulness and joy—thy endless, great hilarity!       
(Scattering for good the cloud that hung so long—that weigh’d so long upon the mind of man,       
The doubt, suspicion, dread, of gradual, certain decadence of man;)       
Thee in thy larger, saner breeds of Female, Male—thee in thy athletes, moral, spiritual, South, North, West, East,       
(To thy immortal breasts, Mother of All, thy every daughter, son, endear’d alike, forever equal;)     70   
Thee in thy own musicians, singers, artists, unborn yet, but certain;       
Thee in thy moral wealth and civilization (until which thy proudest material wealth and civilization must remain in vain;)       
Thee in thy all-supplying, all-enclosing Worship—thee in no single bible, saviour, merely,       
Thy saviours countless, latent within thyself—thy bibles incessant, within thyself, equal to any, divine as any;       
Thee in an education grown of thee—in teachers, studies, students, born of thee;     75   
Thee in thy democratic fetes, en masse—thy high original festivals, operas, lecturers, preachers;       
Thee in thy ultimata, (the preparations only now completed—the edifice on sure foundations tied,)       
Thee in thy pinnacles, intellect, thought—thy topmost rational joys—thy love, and godlike aspiration,       
In thy resplendent coming literati—thy full-lung’d orators—thy sacerdotal bards—kosmic savans,       
These! these in thee, (certain to come,) to-day I prophecy.     80   
     
5

Land tolerating all—accepting all—not for the good alone—all good for thee;       
Land in the realms of God to be a realm unto thyself;       
Under the rule of God to be a rule unto thyself.       
     
(Lo! where arise three peerless stars,       
To be thy natal stars, my country—Ensemble—Evolution—Freedom,     85   
Set in the sky of Law.)       
     
Land of unprecedented faith—God’s faith!       
Thy soil, thy very subsoil, all upheav’d;       
The general inner earth, so long, so sedulously draped over, now and hence for what it is, boldly laid bare,       
Open’d by thee to heaven’s light, for benefit or bale.     90   
     
Not for success alone;       
Not to fair-sail unintermitted always;       
The storm shall dash thy face—the murk of war, and worse than war, shall cover thee all over;       
(Wert capable of war—its tug and trials? Be capable of peace, its trials;       
For the tug and mortal strain of nations come at last in peace—not war;)     95   
In many a smiling mask death shall approach, beguiling thee—thou in disease shalt swelter;       
The livid cancer spread its hideous claws, clinging upon thy breasts, seeking to strike thee deep within;       
Consumption of the worst—moral consumption—shall rouge thy face with hectic:       
But thou shalt face thy fortunes, thy diseases, and surmount them all,       
Whatever they are to-day, and whatever through time they may be,    100   
They each and all shall lift, and pass away, and cease from thee;       
While thou, Time’s spirals rounding—out of thyself, thyself still extricating, fusing,       
Equable, natural, mystical Union thou—(the mortal with immortal blent,)       
Shalt soar toward the fulfilment of the future—the spirit of the body and the mind,       
The Soul—its destinies.    105   
     
The Soul, its destinies—the real real,       
(Purport of all these apparitions of the real;)       
In thee, America, the Soul, its destinies;       
Thou globe of globes! thou wonder nebulous!       
By many a throe of heat and cold convuls’d—(by these thyself solidifying;)    110   
Thou mental, moral orb! thou New, indeed new, Spiritual World!       
The Present holds thee not—for such vast growth as thine—for such unparallel’d flight as thine,       
The Future only holds thee, and can hold thee.

249. The Mystic Trumpeter



1

HARK! some wild trumpeter—some strange musician,       
Hovering unseen in air, vibrates capricious tunes to-night.       
     
I hear thee, trumpeter—listening, alert, I catch thy notes,       
Now pouring, whirling like a tempest round me,       
Now low, subdued—now in the distance lost.            5   
     
2

Come nearer, bodiless one—haply, in thee resounds       
Some dead composer—haply thy pensive life       
Was fill’d with aspirations high—unform’d ideals,       
Waves, oceans musical, chaotically surging,       
That now, ecstatic ghost, close to me bending, thy cornet echoing, pealing,     10   
Gives out to no one’s ears but mine—but freely gives to mine,       
That I may thee translate.       
     
3

Blow, trumpeter, free and clear—I follow thee,       
While at thy liquid prelude, glad, serene,       
The fretting world, the streets, the noisy hours of day, withdraw;     15   
A holy calm descends, like dew, upon me,       
I walk, in cool refreshing night, the walks of Paradise,       
I scent the grass, the moist air, and the roses;       
Thy song expands my numb’d, imbonded spirit—thou freest, launchest me,       
Floating and basking upon Heaven’s lake.     20   
     
4

Blow again, trumpeter! and for my sensuous eyes,       
Bring the old pageants—show the feudal world.       
     
What charm thy music works!—thou makest pass before me,       
Ladies and cavaliers long dead—barons are in their castle halls—the troubadours are singing;       
Arm’d knights go forth to redress wrongs—some in quest of the Holy Grail:     25   
I see the tournament—I see the contestants, encased in heavy armor, seated on stately, champing horses;       
I hear the shouts—the sounds of blows and smiting steel:       
I see the Crusaders’ tumultuous armies—Hark! how the cymbals clang!       
Lo! where the monks walk in advance, bearing the cross on high!       
     
5

Blow again, trumpeter! and for thy theme,     30   
Take now the enclosing theme of all—the solvent and the setting;       
Love, that is pulse of all—the sustenace and the pang;       
The heart of man and woman all for love;       
No other theme but love—knitting, enclosing, all-diffusing love.       
     
O, how the immortal phantoms crowd around me!     35   
I see the vast alembic ever working—I see and know the flames that heat the world;       
The glow, the blush, the beating hearts of lovers,       
So blissful happy some—and some so silent, dark, and nigh to death:       
Love, that is all the earth to lovers—Love, that mocks time and space;       
Love, that is day and night—Love, that is sun and moon and stars;     40   
Love, that is crimson, sumptuous, sick with perfume;       
No other words, but words of love—no other thought but Love.       
     
6

Blow again, trumpeter—conjure war’s Wild alarums.       
Swift to thy spell, a shuddering hum like distant thunder rolls;       
Lo! where the arm’d men hasten—Lo! mid the clouds of dust, the glint of bayonets;     45   
I see the grime-faced cannoniers—I mark the rosy flash amid the smoke—I hear the cracking of the guns:       
—Nor war alone—thy fearful music-song, wild player, brings every sight of fear,       
The deeds of ruthless brigands—rapine, murder—I hear the cries for help!       
I see ships foundering at sea—I behold on deck, and below deck, the terrible tableaux.       
     
7

O trumpeter! methinks I am myself the instrument thou playest!     50   
Thou melt’st my heart, my brain—thou movest, drawest, changest them, at will:       
And now thy sullen notes send darkness through me;       
Thou takest away all cheering light—all hope:       
I see the enslaved, the overthrown, the hurt, the opprest of the whole earth;       
I feel the measureless shame and humiliation of my race—it becomes all mine;     55   
Mine too the revenges of humanity—the wrongs of ages—baffled feuds and hatreds;       
Utter defeat upon me weighs—all lost! the foe victorious!       
(Yet ’mid the ruins Pride colossal stands, unshaken to the last;       
Endurance, resolution, to the last.)       
     
8

Now, trumpeter, for thy close,     60   
Vouchsafe a higher strain than any yet;       
Sing to my soul—renew its languishing faith and hope;       
Rouse up my slow belief—give me some vision of the future;       
Give me, for once, its prophecy and joy.       
     
O glad, exulting, culminating song!     65   
A vigor more than earth’s is in thy notes!       
Marches of victory—man disenthrall’d—the conqueror at last!       
Hymns to the universal God, from universal Man—all joy!       
A reborn race appears—a perfect World, all joy!       
Women and Men, in wisdom, innocence and health—all joy!     70   
Riotous, laughing bacchanals, fill’d with joy!       
     
War, sorrow, suffering gone—The rank earth purged—nothing but joy left!       
The ocean fill’d with joy—the atmosphere all joy!       
Joy! Joy! in freedom, worship, love! Joy in the ecstacy of life!       
Enough to merely be! Enough to breathe!     75   
Joy! Joy! all over Joy!

250. O Star of France



1

O STAR of France!       
The brightness of thy hope and strength and fame,       
Like some proud ship that led the fleet so long,       
Beseems to-day a wreck, driven by the gale—a mastless hulk;       
And ’mid its teeming, madden’d, half-drown’d crowds,            5   
Nor helm nor helmsman.       
     
2

Dim, smitten star!       
Orb not of France alone—pale symbol of my soul, its dearest hopes,       
The struggle and the daring—rage divine for liberty,       
Of aspirations toward the far ideal—enthusiast’s dreams of brotherhood,     10   
Of terror to the tyrant and the priest.       
     
3

Star crucified! by traitors sold!       
Star panting o’er a land of death—heroic land!       
Strange, passionate, mocking, frivolous land.       
     
Miserable! yet for thy errors, vanities, sins, I will not now rebuke thee;     15   
Thy unexampled woes and pangs have quell’d them all,       
And left thee sacred.       
     
In that amid thy many faults, thou ever aimedest highly,       
In that thou wouldst not really sell thyself, however great the price,       
In that thou surely wakedst weeping from thy drugg’d sleep,     20   
In that alone, among thy sisters, thou, Giantess, didst rend the ones that shamed thee,       
In that thou couldst not, wouldst not, wear the usual chains,       
This cross, thy livid face, thy pierced hands and feet,       
The spear thrust in thy side.       
     
4

O star! O ship of France, beat back and baffled long!     25   
Bear up, O smitten orb! O ship, continue on!       
     
Sure, as the ship of all, the Earth itself,       
Product of deathly fire and turbulent chaos,       
Forth from its spasms of fury and its poisons,       
Issuing at last in perfect power and beauty,     30   
Onward, beneath the sun, following its course,       
So thee, O ship of France!       
     
Finish’d the days, the clouds dispell’d,       
The travail o’er, the long-sought extrication,       
When lo! reborn, high o’er the European world,     35   
(In gladness, answering thence, as face afar to face, reflecting ours, Columbia,)       
Again thy star, O France—fair, lustrous star,       
In heavenly peace, clearer, more bright than ever,       
Shall beam immortal.

251. Virginia—The West



1

THE noble Sire, fallen on evil days,       
I saw, with hand uplifted, menacing, brandishing,       
(Memories of old in abeyance—love and faith in abeyance,)       
The insane knife toward the Mother of All.       
     
2

The noble Son, on sinewy feet advancing,            5   
I saw—out of the land of prairies—land of Ohio’s waters, and of Indiana,       
To the rescue, the stalwart giant, hurry his plenteous offspring,       
Drest in blue, bearing their trusty rifles on their shoulders.       
     
3

Then the Mother of All, with calm voice speaking,       
As to you, Virginia, (I seemed to hear her say,) why strive against me—and why seek my life?     10   
When you yourself forever provide to defend me?       
For you provided me Washington—and now these also.

252. By Broad Potomac’s Shore



1

BY broad Potomac’s shore—again, old tongue!       
(Still uttering—still ejaculating—canst never cease this babble?)       
Again, old heart so gay—again to you, your sense, the full flush spring returning;       
Again the freshness and the odors—again Virginia’s summer sky, pellucid blue and silver,       
Again the forenoon purple of the hills,            5   
Again the deathless grass, so noiseless, soft and green,       
Again the blood-red roses blooming.       
     
2

Perfume this book of mine, O blood-red roses!       
Lave subtly with your waters every line, Potomac!       
Give me of you, O spring, before I close, to put between its pages!     10   
O forenoon purple of the hills, before I close, of you!       
O smiling earth—O summer sun, give me of you!       
O deathless grass, of you!

253. Song of the Redwood-Tree



1

A CALIFORNIA song!       
A prophecy and indirection—a thought impalpable, to breathe, as air;       
A chorus of dryads, fading, departing—or hamadryads departing;       
A murmuring, fateful, giant voice, out of the earth and sky,       
Voice of a mighty dying tree in the Redwood forest dense.            5   
     
Farewell, my brethren,       
Farewell, O earth and sky—farewell, ye neighboring waters;       
My time has ended, my term has come.       
     
2

Along the northern coast,       
Just back from the rock-bound shore, and the caves,     10   
In the saline air from the sea, in the Mendocino country,       
With the surge for bass and accompaniment low and hoarse,       
With crackling blows of axes, sounding musically, driven by strong arms,       
Riven deep by the sharp tongues of the axes—there in the Redwood forest dense,       
I heard the mighty tree its death-chant chanting.     15   
     
The choppers heard not—the camp shanties echoed not;       
The quick-ear’d teamsters, and chain and jack-screw men, heard not,       
As the wood-spirits came from their haunts of a thousand years, to join the refrain;       
But in my soul I plainly heard.       
     
Murmuring out of its myriad leaves,     20   
Down from its lofty top, rising two hundred feet high,       
Out of its stalwart trunk and limbs—out of its foot-thick bark,       
That chant of the seasons and time—chant, not of the past only, but the future.       
     
3

You untold life of me,       
And all you venerable and innocent joys,     25   
Perennial, hardy life of me, with joys, ’mid rain, and many a summer sun,       
And the white snows, and night, and the wild winds;       
O the great patient, rugged joys! my soul’s strong joys, unreck’d by man;       
(For know I bear the soul befitting me—I too have consciousness, identity,       
And all the rocks and mountains have—and all the earth;)     30   
Joys of the life befitting me and brothers mine,       
Our time, our term has come.       
     
Nor yield we mournfully, majestic brothers,       
We who have grandly fill’d our time;       
With Nature’s calm content, and tacit, huge delight,     35   
We welcome what we wrought for through the past,       
And leave the field for them.       
     
For them predicted long,       
For a superber Race—they too to grandly fill their time,       
For them we abdicate—in them ourselves, ye forest kings!     40   
In them these skies and airs—these mountain peaks—Shasta—Nevadas,       
These huge, precipitous cliffs—this amplitude—these valleys grand—Yosemite,       
To be in them absorb’d, assimilated.       
     
4

Then to a loftier strain,       
Still prouder, more ecstatic, rose the chant,     45   
As if the heirs, the Deities of the West,       
Joining, with master-tongue, bore part.       
     
Not wan from Asia’s fetishes,       
Nor red from Europe’s old dynastic slaughter-house,       
(Area of murder-plots of thrones, with scent left yet of wars and scaffolds every where,)     50   
But come from Nature’s long and harmless throes—peacefully builded thence,       
These virgin lands—Lands of the Western Shore,       
To the new Culminating Man—to you, the Empire New,       
You, promis’d long, we pledge, we dedicate.       
     
You occult, deep volitions,     55   
You average Spiritual Manhood, purpose of all, pois’d on yourself—giving, not taking law,       
You Womanhood divine, mistress and source of all, whence life and love, and aught that comes from life and love,       
You unseen Moral Essence of all the vast materials of America, (age upon age, working in Death the same as Life,)       
You that, sometimes known, oftener unknown, really shape and mould the New World, adjusting it to Time and Space,       
You hidden National Will, lying in your abysms, conceal’d, but ever alert,     60   
You past and present purposes, tenaciously pursued, may-be unconscious of yourselves,       
Unswerv’d by all the passing errors, perturbations of the surface;       
You vital, universal, deathless germs, beneath all creeds, arts, statutes, literatures,       
Here build your homes for good—establish here—These areas entire, Lands of the Western Shore,       
We pledge, we dedicate to you.     65   
     
For man of you—your characteristic Race,       
Here may be hardy, sweet, gigantic grow—here tower, proportionate to Nature,       
Here climb the vast, pure spaces, unconfined, uncheck’d by wall or roof,       
Here laugh with storm or sun—here joy—here patiently inure,       
Here heed himself, unfold himself (not others’ formulas heed)—here fill his time,     70   
To duly fall, to aid, unreck’d at last,       
To disappear, to serve.       
     
Thus, on the northern coast,       
In the echo of teamsters’ calls, and the clinking chains, and the music of choppers’ axes,       
The falling trunk and limbs, the crash, the muffled shriek, the groan,     75   
Such words combined from the Redwood-tree—as of wood-spirits’ voices ecstatic, ancient and rustling,       
The century-lasting, unseen dryads, singing, withdrawing,       
All their recesses of forests and mountains leaving,       
From the Cascade range to the Wasatch—or Idaho far, or Utah,       
To the deities of the Modern henceforth yielding,     80   
The chorus and indications, the vistas of coming humanity—the settlements, features all,       
In the Mendocino woods I caught.       
     
5

The flashing and golden pageant of California!       
The sudden and gorgeous drama—the sunny and ample lands;       
The long and varied stretch from Puget Sound to Colorado south;     85   
Lands bathed in sweeter, rarer, healthier air—valleys and mountain cliffs;       
The fields of Nature long prepared and fallow—the silent, cyclic chemistry;       
The slow and steady ages plodding—the unoccupied surface ripening—the rich ores forming beneath;       
At last the New arriving, assuming, taking possession,       
A swarming and busy race settling and organizing every where;     90   
Ships coming in from the whole round world, and going out to the whole world,       
To India and China and Australia, and the thousand island paradises of the Pacific;       
Populous cities—the latest inventions—the steamers on the rivers—the railroads—with many a thrifty farm, with machinery,       
And wool, and wheat, and the grape—and diggings of yellow gold.       
     
6

But more in you than these, Lands of the Western Shore!     95   
(These but the means, the implements, the standing-ground,)       
I see in you, certain to come, the promise of thousands of years, till now deferr’d,       
Promis’d, to be fulfill’d, our common kind, the Race.       
     
The New Society at last, proportionate to Nature,       
In Man of you, more than your mountain peaks, or stalwart trees imperial,    100   
In Woman more, far more, than all your gold, or vines, or even vital air.       
     
Fresh come, to a New World indeed, yet long prepared,       
I see the Genius of the Modern, child of the Real and Ideal,       
Clearing the ground for broad humanity, the true America, heir of the past so grand,       
To build a grander future.