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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
Swell-Last of Ebb, and Daylight Waning - And Yet Not You
Alone Proudly the Flood Comes In By That Long Scan of
Waves Then Last of Al.)

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ELECTION DAY, NOVEMBER, 1884

WITH HUSKY-HAUGHTY LIPS, O SEA

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DEATH OF GENERAL GRANT

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RED JACKET (FROM ALOFT)

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WASHINGTON'S MONUMENT, FEBRUARY, 1885

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"GOING SOMEWHERE

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SMALL THE THEME OF MY CHANT

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TRUE CONQUERORS

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THE UNITED STATES TO OLD WORLD CRITICS

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THE CALMING THOUGHT OF ALL

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THANKS IN OLD AGE.

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LIFE AND DEATH

THE VOICE OF THE RAIN

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SOON SHALL THE WINTER'S FOIL BE HERE

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WHILE NOT THE PAST FORGETTING

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THE DYING VETERAN

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STRONGER LESSONS

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A PRAIRIE SUNSET

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TWENTY YEARS

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ORANGE BUDS BY MAIL

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TWILIGHT

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YOU LINGERING SPARSE LEAVES OF ME.

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NOT MEAGRE LATENT BOUGHS ALONE

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THE DEAD EMPEROR

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AS THE GREEK'S SIGNAL FLAME.

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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).
PREFACE NOTE TO SECOND ANNEX

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8

APPARITIONS

GOOD-BYE, MY FANCY.

SAIL OUT FOR Good, EidÓLON YACHT
LINGERING LAST DROPS
GOOD-BYE MY FANCY

ON, ON THE SAME, YE JOCUND TWAIN.
MY 71ST YEAR

PAGE

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THE PALLID WREATH.

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NAY, TELL ME NOT TO-DAY THE PUBLISH'D SHAME
SUPPLEMENT HOURS

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OF MANY A SMUTCH'D DEED REMINISCENT

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TO BE AT ALL

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DEATH'S VALLEY

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ON THE SAME PICTURE

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A THOUGHT OF COLUMBUS

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A BACKWARD glance O'ER TRAVEL'D ROADS

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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,
The Modern Man I sing.

AS I PONDER'D IN SILENCE.

As I ponder'd in silence,

Returning upon my poems, considering, lingering long,
A Phantom arose before me with distrustful aspect,
Terrible in beauty, age, and power,

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,
Lo, I too am come, chanting the chant of battles,

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,
And this is ocean's poem.

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,
Thou stern, remorseless, sweet idea,

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.

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