274. Italian Music in Dakota



THROUGH the soft evening air enwrinding all,       
Rocks, woods, fort, cannon, pacing sentries, endless wilds,       
In dulcet streams, in flutes’ and cornets’ notes,       
Electric, pensive, turbulent artificial,       
(Yet strangely fitting even here, meanings unknown before,            5   
Subtler than ever, more harmony, as if born here, related here,       
Not to the city’s fresco’d rooms, not to the audience of the opera house,       
Sounds, echoes, wandering strains, as really here at home,       
Sonnambula’s innocent love, trios with Norma’s anguish,       
And thy ecstatic chorus Poliuto;)     10   
Ray’d in the limpid yellow slanting sundown,       
Music, Italian music in Dakota.       
     
While Nature, sovereign of this gnarl’d realm,       
Lurking in hidden barbaric grim recesses,       
Acknowledging rapport however far remov’d,     15   
(As some old root or soil of earth its last-born flower or fruit,)       
Listens well pleas’d.

275. My Picture-Gallery



IN a little house keep I pictures suspended, it is not a fix’d house,       
It is round, it is only a few inches from one side to the other;       
Yet behold, it has room for all the shows of the world, all memories?       
Here the tableaus of life, and here the groupings of death;       
Here, do you know this? this is cicerone himself,            5   
With finger rais’d he points to the prodigal pictures.

276. The Prairie States



A NEWER garden of creation, no primal solitude,       
Dense, joyous, modern, populous millions, cities and farms,       
With iron interlaced, composite, tied, many in one,       
By all the world contributed—freedom’s and law’s and thrift’s society,       
The crown and teeming paradise, so far, of time’s accumulations,            5   
To justify the past.

277. A Paumanok Picture



TWO boats with nets lying off the sea-beach, quite still,       
Ten fishermen waiting—they discover a thick school of mossbonkers—they drop the join’d seine-ends in the water,       
The boats separate and row off, each on its rounding course to the beach, enclosing the mossbonkers,       
The net is drawn in by a windlass by those who stop ashore,       
Some of the fishermen lounge in their boats, others stand ankle-deep in the water, pois’d on strong legs,            5   
The boats partly drawn up, the water slapping against them,       
Strew’d on the sand in heaps and windrows, well out from the water, the green-back’d spotted mossbonkers.

278. Thou Orb Aloft Full-Dazzling



THOU orb aloft full-dazzling! thou hot October noon!       
Flooding with sheeny light the gray beach sand,       
The sibilant near sea with vistas far and foam,       
And tawny streaks and shades and spreading blue;       
O sun of noon rufulgent! my special word to thee.            5   
     
Hear me illustrious!       
Thy lover me, for always I have loved thee,       
Even as basking babe, then happy boy alone by some wood edge, thy touching-distant beams enough,       
Or man matured, or young or old, as now to thee I launch my invocation.       
     
(Thou canst not with thy dumbness me deceive,     10   
I know before the fitting man all Nature yields,       
Though answering not in words, the skies, trees, hear his voice—and thou O sun,       
As for thy throes, thy perturbations, sudden breaks and shafts of flame gigantic,       
I understand them, I know those flames, those perturbations well.)       
     
Thou that with fructifying heat and light,     15   
O’er myriad farms, o’er lands and waters North and South,       
O’er Mississippi’s endless course, o’er Texas’ grassy plains, Kanada’s woods,       
O’er all the globe that turns its face to thee shining in space,       
Thou that impartially infoldest all, not only continents, seas,       
Thou that to grapes and weeds and little wild flowers givest so liberally,     20   
Shed, shed thyself on mine and me, with but a fleeting ray out of thy million millions,       
Strike through these chants.       
     
Nor only launch thy subtle dazzle and thy strength for these,       
Prepare the later afternoon of me myself—prepare my lengthening shadows,       
Prepare my starry nights.

279. A Riddle Song



THAT which eludes this verse and any verse,       
Unheard by sharpest ear, unform’d in clearest eye or cunningest mind,       
Nor lore nor fame, nor happiness nor wealth,       
And yet the pulse of every heart and life throughout the world incessantly,       
Which you and I and all pursuing ever ever miss,            5   
Open but still a secret, the real of the real, an illusion,       
Costless, vouchsafed to each, yet never man the owner,       
Which poets vainly seek to put in rhyme, historians in prose,       
Which sculptor never chisel’d yet, nor painter painted,       
Which vocalist never sung, nor orator nor actor ever utter’d,     10   
Invoking here and now I challenge for my song.       
     
Indifferently, ’mid public, private haunts, in solitude,       
Behind the mountain and the wood,       
Companion of the city’s busiest streets, through the assemblage,       
It and its radiations constantly glide.     15   
     
In looks of fair unconscious babes,       
Or strangely in the coffin’d dead,       
Or show of breaking dawn or stars by night,       
As some dissolving delicate film of dreams,       
Hiding yet lingering.     20   
     
Two little breaths of words comprising it.       
Two words, yet all from first to last comprised in it.       
     
How ardently for it!       
How many ships have sail’d and sunk for it!       
How many travelers started from their homes and ne’er return’d!     25   
How much of genius boldly staked and lost for it!       
What countless stores of beauty, love, ventur’d for it!       
How all superbest deeds since Time began are traceable to it—and shall be to the end!       
How all heroic martyrdoms to it!       
How, justified by it, the horrors, evils, battles of the earth!     30   
How the bright fascinating lambent flames of it, in every age and land, have drawn men’s eyes,       
Rich as a sunset on the Norway coast, the sky, the islands, and the cliffs,       
Or midnight’s silent glowing northern lights unreachable.       
     
Haply God’s riddle it, so vague and yet so certain,       
The soul for it, and all the visible universe for it,     35   
And heaven at last for it.

280. From Far Dakota’s Cañons



FROM far Dakota’s cañons,       
Lands of the wild ravine, the dusky Sioux, the lonesome stretch, the silence,       
Haply to-day a mournful wail, haply a trumpet-note for heroes.       
     
The battle-bulletin,       
The Indian ambuscade, the craft, the fatal environment,            5   
The cavalry companies fighting to the last in sternest heroism,       
In the midst of their little circle, with their slaughter’d horses for breastworks,       
The fall of Custer and all his officers and men.       
     
Continues yet the old, old legend of our race,       
The loftiest of life upheld by death,     10   
The ancient banner perfectly maintain’d,       
O lesson opportune, O how I welcome thee!       
As sitting in dark days,       
Lone, sulky, through the time’s thick murk looking in vain for light, for hope,       
From unsuspected parts a fierce and momentary proof,     15   
(The sun there at the centre though conceal’d,       
Electric life forever at the centre,)       
Breaks forth a lightning flash.       
     
Thou of the tawny flowing hair in battle,       
I erewhile saw, with erect head, pressing ever in front, bearing a bright sword in thy hand,     20   
Now ending well in death the splendid fever of thy deeds,       
(I bring no dirge for it or thee, I bring a glad triumphal sonnet,)       
Desperate and glorious, aye in defeat most desperate, most glorious,       
After thy many battles in which never yielding up a gun or a color       
Leaving behind thee a memory sweet to soldiers,     25   
Thou yieldest up thyself.

281. What Best I See In Thee



WHAT best I see in thee,       
Is not that where thou mov’st down history’s great highways,       
Ever undimm’d by time shoots warlike victory’s dazzle,       
Or that thou sat’st where Washington sat, ruling the land in peace,       
Or thou the man whom feudal Europe feted, venerable Asia, swarm’d upon,            5   
Who walk’d with kings with even pace the round world’s promenade;       
But that in foreign lands, in all thy walks with kings,       
Those prairie sovereigns of the West, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois,       
Ohio’s, Indiana’s millions, comrades, farmers, soldiers, all to the front,       
Invisibly with thee walking with kings with even pace the round world’s promenade,     10   
We all so justified.

282. Spirit That Form’d This Scene



SPIRIT that form’d this scene,       
These tumbled rock-piles grim and red,       
These reckless heaven-ambitious peaks,       
These gorges, turbulent-clear streams, this naked freshness,       
These formless wild arrays, for reasons of their own,            5   
I know thee, savage spirit—we have communed together,       
Mine too such wild arrays, for reasons of their own;       
Was’t charged against my chants they had forgotten art?       
To fuse within themselves its rules precise and delicatesse?       
The lyrist’s measur’d beat, the wrought-out temple’s grace—column and polish’d arch forgot?     10   
But thou that revelest here—spirit that form’d this scene,       
They have remember’d thee.

283. A Clear Midnight



THIS is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless,       
Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson done,       
Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the themes thou lovest best.       
Night, sleep, and the stars.