SANDS AT SEVENTY. THE WALLABOUT MARTYRS. THE FIRST DANDELION AMERICA MEMORIES. TO-DAY AND THEE AFTER THE DAZZLE OF DAY. ABRAHAM LINCOLN, BORN FEB. 12, 1809 OUT OF MAY'S SHOWS SELECTED HALCYON DAYS FANCIES AT NAVESINK (The Pilot in the Mist-Had I the Choice-You Tides With Ceaseless ELECTION DAY, NOVEMBER, 1884 WITH HUSKY-HAUGHTY LIPS, O SEA 391 DEATH OF GENERAL GRANT 392 RED JACKET (FROM ALOFT) 392 WASHINGTON'S MONUMENT, FEBRUARY, 1885 393 393 394 394 394 395 395 396 396 "GOING SOMEWHERE 396 SMALL THE THEME OF MY CHANT 397 TRUE CONQUERORS 397 THE UNITED STATES TO OLD WORLD CRITICS 397 THE CALMING THOUGHT OF ALL 398 THANKS IN OLD AGE. 398 LIFE AND DEATH THE VOICE OF THE RAIN 398 398 SOON SHALL THE WINTER'S FOIL BE HERE 399 WHILE NOT THE PAST FORGETTING 399 THE DYING VETERAN 399 STRONGER LESSONS 400 A PRAIRIE SUNSET 400 TWENTY YEARS 400 ORANGE BUDS BY MAIL TWILIGHT 401 YOU LINGERING SPARSE LEAVES OF ME. 401 NOT MEAGRE LATENT BOUGHS ALONE 402 THE DEAD EMPEROR 402 AS THE GREEK'S SIGNAL FLAME. 402 THE DISMANTLED SHIP Now PRECEDENT SONGS FAREWELL AN EVENING LULL OLD AGE'S LAMBENT PEAKS AFTER THE SUPPER AND TALK GOOD-BYE, MY FANCY (Second Annex). 402 403 403 403 404 404 407 8 APPARITIONS GOOD-BYE, MY FANCY. SAIL OUT FOR Good, EidÓLON YACHT ON, ON THE SAME, YE JOCUND TWAIN. PAGE 409 409 409 410 410 THE PALLID WREATH. 410 NAY, TELL ME NOT TO-DAY THE PUBLISH'D SHAME 426 426 OF MANY A SMUTCH'D DEED REMINISCENT 427 TO BE AT ALL 427 DEATH'S VALLEY 427 ON THE SAME PICTURE 428 A THOUGHT OF COLUMBUS 429 429 A BACKWARD glance O'ER TRAVEL'D ROADS 433 INSCRIPTIONS Ο ONE'S-SELF I SING. NE'S-SELF I sing, a simple separate person, Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-Masse. Of physiology from top to toe I sing, Not physiognomy alone nor brain alone is worthy for the Muse, I say the Form complete is worthier far, The Female equally with the Male I sing. Of Life immense in passion, pulse, and power, Cheerful, for freest action form'd under the laws divine, AS I PONDER'D IN SILENCE. As I ponder'd in silence, Returning upon my poems, considering, lingering long, The genius of poets of old lands, As to me directing like flame its eyes, With finger pointing to many immortal songs, And menacing voice, What singest thou? it said, Know'st thou not there is but one theme for ever-enduring bards ? And that is the theme of War, the fortune of battles, The making of perfect soldiers. Be it so, then I answer'd, I too haughty Shade also sing war, and a longer and greater one than any, Waged in my book with varying fortune, with flight, advance and retreat, victory deferr'd and wavering, (Yet methinks certain, or as good as certain, at the last,) the field the world, For life and death, for the Body and for the eternal Soul, I above all promote brave soldiers. IN CABIN'D SHIPS AT SEA. IN cabin'd ships at sea, The boundless blue on every side expanding, With whistling winds and music of the waves, the large imperious waves, Or some lone bark buoy'd on the dense marine, Where joyous full of faith, spreading white sails, She cleaves the ether mid the sparkle and the foam of day, or under many a star at night, By sailors young and old haply will I, a reminiscence of the land, be read, In full rapport at last. Here are our thoughts, voyagers' thoughts, Here not the land, firm land, alone appears, may then by them be said, The sky o'erarches here, we feel the undulating deck beneath our feet, We feel the long pulsation, ebb and flow of endless motion, The tones of unseen mystery, the vague and vast suggestions of the briny world, the liquid-flowing syllables, The perfume, the faint creaking of the cordage, the melancholy rhythm, The boundless vista and the horizon far and dim are all here, Then falter not O book, fulfil your destiny, You not a reminiscence of the land alone, You too as a lone bark cleaving the ether, purpos'd I know not whither, yet ever full of faith, Consort to every ship that sails, sail you! Bear forth to them folded my love, (dear mariners, for you I fold it here in every leaf ;) Speed on my book! spread your white sails my little bark athwart the imperious waves, Chant on, sail on, bear o'er the boundless blue from me to every sea, This song for mariners and all their ships. TO FOREIGN LANDS. I HEARD that you ask'd for something to prove this puzzle the New World, And to define America, her athletic Democracy, Therefore I send you my poems that you behold in them what you wanted. TO A HISTORIAN. You who celebrate bygones, Who have explored the outward, the surfaces of the races, the life that has exhibited itself, Who have treated of man as the creature of politics, aggregates, rulers and priests, I, habitan of the Alleghanies, treating of him as he is in himself in his own rights, Pressing the pulse of the life that has seldom exhibited itself, (the great pride of man in himself,) Chanter of Personality, outlining what is yet to be, I project the history of the future. To thee old cause! TO THEE OLD CAUSE. Thou peerless, passionate, good cause, Deathless throughout the ages, races, lands, After a strange sad war, great war for thee, (I think all war through time was really fought, and ever will be really fought, for thee,) These chants for thee, the eternal march of thee. (A war O soldiers not for itself alone, Far, far more stood silently waiting behind, now to advance in this book.) Thou orb of many orbs! Thou seething principle ! thou well-kept, latent germ! thou centre ! Around the idea of thee the war revolving, With all its angry and vehement play of causes, (With vast results to come for thrice a thousand years,) These recitatives for thee, my book and the war are one, Merged in its spirit I and mine, as the contest hinged on thee, As a wheel on its axis turns, this book unwitting to itself, Around the idea of thee. |