Mysterious Flood, that through the silent sands
Hast wandered, century on century,
Watering the length of green Egyptian lands,
Which were not but for thee,

Art thou the keeper of that eldest lore

Written ere yet thy hieroglyphs began

When dawned upon thy fresh, untrampled shore

The earliest life of Man?

Thou guardest temple and vast pyramid,

Where the gray Past records its ancient speech;

But in thine unrevealing breast lies hid

What they refuse to teach.

All other streams with human joys and fears
Run blended, o'er the plains of History:

Thou tak'st no note of Man; a thousand years

Are as a day to thee.

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15

What were to thee the Osirian festivals?

Or Memnon's music on the Theban plain?
The carnage, when Cambyses made thy halls
Ruddy with royal slain?

Even then thou wast a God, and shrines were built
For worship of thine own majestic flood;
For thee the incense burned, for thee was spilt
The sacrificial blood.

And past the bannered pylons that arose

Above thy palms, the pageantry and state,
Thy current flowed, calmly as now it flows,
Unchangeable as Fate.

Thou givest blessing as a God might give,
Whose being is his bounty: from the slime
Shaken from off thy skirts the nations live,
Through all the years of Time.

In thy solemnity, thine awful calm,

Thy grand indifference of Destiny,

My soul forgets its pain, and drinks the balm
Which thou dost proffer me.

Thy godship is unquestioned still: I bring

No doubtful worship to thy shrine supreme;
But thus my homage as a chaplet fling,

To float upon thy stream!

THE QUAKER WIDOW

1855

Thee finds me in the garden, Hannah-come in! T is kind of thee
To wait until the Friends were gone, who came to comfort me:
The still and quiet company a peace may give, indeed,
But blessed is the single heart that comes to us at need.

Come, sit thee down! Here is the bench where Benjamin would sit
On First-day afternoons in spring, and watch the swallows flit:
He loved to smell the sprouting box, and hear the pleasant bees
Go humming round the lilacs and through the apple-trees.

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I think he loved the spring: not that he cared for flowers-most men
Think such things foolishness-but we were first acquainted then,
One spring; the next he spoke his mind; the third I was his wife;
And in the spring (it happened so) our children entered life.

He was but seventy-five: I did not think to lay him yet
In Kennett graveyard, where at Monthly Meeting first we met.
The Father's mercy shows in this: 't is better I should be
Picked out to bear the heavy cross-alone in age-than he.

We 've lived together fifty years: it seems but one long day,
One quiet Sabbath of the heart, till he was called away;
And as we bring from Meeting-time a sweet contentment home,
So, Hannah, I have store of peace for all the days to come.

I mind (for I can tell thee now) how hard it was to know
If I had heard the spirit right, that told me I should go;
For father had a deep concern upon his mind that day,
But mother spoke for Benjamin-she knew what best to say.

Then she was still. They sat awhile; at last she spoke again: "The Lord incline thee to the right!" And "Thou shalt have him,

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Jane!"

My father said. I cried. Indeed, 't was not the least of shocks,
For Benjamin was Hicksite, and father Orthodox.

I thought of this ten years ago, when daughter Ruth we lost:
Her husband 's of the world, and yet I could not see her crossed.
She wears, thee knows, the gayest gowns, she hears a hireling
priest-

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Ah, dear! the cross was ours: her life's a happy one, at least.

Perhaps she 'll wear a plainer dress when she 's as old as I-
Would thee believe it, Hannah? once I felt temptation nigh!
My wedding-gown was ashen silk, too simple for my taste:
I wanted lace around the neck, and a ribbon at the waist.

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How strange it seemed to sit with him upon the women's side!
I did not dare to lift my eyes: I felt more fear than pride,
Till "In the presence of the Lord," he said, and then there came
A holy strength upon my heart and I could say the same.

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I used to blush when he came near, but then I showed no sign;
With all the meeting looking on, I held his hand in mine.
It seemed my bashfulness was gone, now I was his for life:
Thee knows the feeling, Hannah-thee, too, hast been a wife.

As home we rode, I saw no fields look half so green as ours;
The woods were coming into leaf, the meadows full of flowers;
The neighbors met us in the lane, and every face was kind—
'T is strange how lively everything comes back upon my mind.

I see, as plain as thee sits there, the wedding-dinner spread:
At our own table we were guests, with father at the head;
And Dinah Passmore helped us both-'t was she stood up with me,
And Abner Jones with Benjamin,—and now they 're gone, all three!

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It is not right to wish for death; the Lord disposes best.
His Spirit comes to quiet hearts, and fits them for His rest;
And that He halved our little flock was merciful, I see:
For Benjamin has two in heaven, and two are left with me.

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Eusebius never cared to farm-'t was not his call, in truth:
And I must rent the dear old place, and go to daughter Ruth.
Thee 'll say her ways are not like mine-young people now-a-days
Have fallen sadly off, I think, from all the good old ways.

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But Ruth is still a Friend at heart: she keeps the simple tongue,
The cheerful, kindly nature we loved when she was young;
And it was brought upon my mind, remembering her, of late,
That we on dress and outward things perhaps lay too much weight.

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I once heard Jesse Kersey say a spirit clothed with grace,
And pure almost as angels are, may have a homely face.
And dress may be of less account; the Lord will look within:
The soul it is that testifies of righteousness or sin.

Thee mustn't be too hard on Ruth: she 's anxious I should go,
And she will do her duty as a daughter should, I know.
'T is hard to change so late in life, but we must be resigned:
The Lord looks down contentedly upon a willing mind.

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WALT WHITMAN

[The selections from Whitman are reprinted from the copyrighted 1891 edition of his poems, with the permission of his literary executors, Messrs. H. L. Traubel and T. B. Harned, and of his publisher, Mitchell Kennerley]

FROM

SONG OF MYSELF

I celebrate myself, and sing myself,

And what I assume you shall assume,

I

For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul;

I lean and loafe at my ease, observing a spear of summer grass.

My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this soil, this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents

the same,

I, now thirty-seven years old, in perfect health begin,

Hoping to cease not till death.

Creeds and schools in abeyance,

Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are but never forgotten,
I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,
Nature without check, with original energy.

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I am the poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul.

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The pleasures of heaven are with me and the pains of hell are with me; 15 The first I graft and increase upon myself, the latter I translate into a

new tongue.

I am the poet of the woman the same as the man,

And I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man,

And I say there is nothing greater than the mother of men.

I chant the chant of dilation or pride,

We have had ducking and deprecating about enough,

I show that size is only development.

Have you outstript the rest? are you the President?

It is a trifle; they will more than arrive there every one, and still pass on.

I am he that walks with the tender and growing night;

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I call to the earth and sea half-held by the night.