Low-hanging moon! What is that dusky spot in your brown yellow? O it is the shape, the shape of my mate! O moon do not keep her from me any longer. Land! land! O land! Whichever way I turn, O I think you could give me my mate back again if you only would, For I am almost sure I see her dimly whichever way I look. O rising stars! Perhaps the one I want so much will rise, will rise with some of you. O throat! O trembling throat! Sound clearer through the atmosphere! Pierce the woods, the earth, Somewhere listening to catch you must be the one I want. Shake out carols! Solitary here, the night's carols! Carols of lonesome love! death's carols! Carols under that lagging, yellow, waning moon! O under that moon where she droops almost down into the sea! O reckless despairing carols. But soft! sink low! Soft! let me just murmur, And do you wait a moment you husky-nois'd sea, For somewhere I believe I heard my mate responding to me, So faint, I must be still, be still to listen, But not altogether still, for then she might not come immediately to me. Hither my love! Here I am! here! With this just-sustain'd note I announce myself to you, This gentle call is for you my love, for you. Do not be decoy'd elsewhere, That is the whistle of the wind, it is not my voice, That is the fluttering, the fluttering of the spray, Those are the shadows of leaves. O darkness! O in vain! 0 I am very sick and sorrowful. O brown halo in the sky near the moon, drooping upon the sea! O troubled reflection in the sea ! O throat! O throbbing heart! And I singing uselessly, uselessly all the night. O past! O happy life! O songs of joy! In the air, in the woods, over fields, Loved! loved! loved! loved! loved! But my mate no more, no more with me! We two together no more. The aria sinking, All else continuing, the stars shining, The winds blowing, the notes of the bird continuous echoing, On the sands of Paumanok's shore gray and rustling, The yellow half-moon enlarged, sagging down, drooping, the face of the sea almost touching, The boy ecstatic, with his bare feet the waves, with his hair the atmosphere dallying, The love in the heart long pent, now loose, now at last tumultuously bursting, The aria's meaning, the ears, the soul, swiftly depositing, The strange tears down the cheeks coursing, The colloquy there, the trio, each uttering, The undertone, the savage old mother incessantly crying, To the boy's soul's questions sullenly timing, some drown'd secret hissing, After the night's fierce drifts have strewn the shore with wrecks, With re-appearing day as now so happy and serene, The rosy and elastic dawn, the flashing sun, The limpid spread of air cerulean, Thou also re-appearest. Thou born to match the gale, (thou art all wings,) To cope with heaven and earth and sea and hurricane, Thou ship of air that never furl'st thy sails, Days, even weeks untired and onward, through spaces, realms gyrating, At dusk that look'st on Senegal, at morn America, That sport'st amid the lightning-flash and thunder-cloud, In them, in thy experiences, had'st thou my soul, What joys! what joys were thine! ETHIOPIA SALUTING THE COLORS. WHO are you dusky woman, so ancient hardly human, With your woolly-white and turban'd head, and bare bony feet ? Why rising by the roadside here, do you the colors greet? ('Tis while our army lines Carolina's sands and pines, Forth from thy hovel door thou Ethiopia com'st to me, As under doughty Sherman I march toward the sea.) Me master years a hundred since from my parents sunder'd, No further does she say, but lingering all the day, Her high-borne turban'd head she wags, and rolls her darkling eye, And courtesies to the regiments, the guidons moving by. What is it fateful woman, so blear, hardly human? Why wag your head with turban bound, yellow, red and green? O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN ! CAPTAIN ! my Captain! our fearful trip is done, The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won, The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring; O the bleeding drops of red, Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead. O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells; Rise up for you the flag is flung-for you the bugle trills, For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths-for you the shores a-crowding, For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning; Here Captain! dear father! This arm beneath your head! It is some dream that on the deck, You've fallen cold and dead. My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still, My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will, The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done, From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won; Exult O shores, and ring O bells! Walk the deck my Captain lies, OLD IRELAND. AR hence amid an isle of wondrous beauty, FAR Crouching over a grave an ancient sorrowful mother, Once a queen, now lean and tatter'd seated on the ground, Her old white hair drooping dishevel'd round her shoulders, At her feet fallen an unused royal harp, Long silent, she too long silent, mourning her shrouded hope and heir, Of all the earth her heart most full of sorrow because most full of love. Yet a word ancient mother, You need crouch there no longer on the cold ground with forehead between your knees, O you need not sit there veil'd in your old white hair so dishevel'd, For know you the one you mourn is not in that grave, It was an illusion, the son you love was not really dead, The Lord is not dead, he is risen again young and strong in another country, Even while you wept there by your fallen harp by the grave, What you wept for was translated, pass'd from the grave, The winds favor'd and the sea sail'd it, And now with rosy and new blood, Moves to-day in a new country. BEHOLD A WOMAN! THE old face of the mother of many children, Lull'd and late is the smoke of the First-day morning, It hangs low over the rows of trees by the fences, It hangs thin by the sassafras and wild cherry and cat-brier under them. I saw the rich ladies in full dress at the soiree, I heard what the singers were singing so long, Heard who sprang in crimson youth from the white froth and the water-blue. Behold a woman! She looks out from her Quaker cap, her face is clearer and more beautiful than the sky. She sits in an arm-chair under the shaded porch of the farmhouse, The sun just shines on her old white head. Her ample gown is of creamed-hued linen, Hei grandsons raised the flax, and her grand-daughters spun it with the distaff and the wheel. The melodious character of the earth, The finish beyond which philosophy cannot go and does not wish to go, The justified mother of men. SPIRIT THAT FORM'D THIS SCENE. WRITTEN IN PLATTE CAÑON, COLORADO. PIRIT that form'd this scene, SPIR These tumbled rock-piles grim and red, These reckless heaven-ambitious peaks, These gorges, turbulent-clear streams, this naked freshness, I know thee, savage spirit-we have communed together, 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? But thou that revelest here-spirit that form'd this scene, They have remember'd thee. O VAST RONDURE! VAST Rondure, swimming in space, Cover'd all over with visible power and beauty, Alternate light and day and the teeming spiritual darkness, Unspeakable high processions of sun and moon and countless stars above, Below, the manifold grass and waters, animals, mountains, trees, With inscrutable purpose, some hidden prophetic intention, Now first it seems my thought begins to span thee. Down from the gardens of Asia descending radiating, Adam and Eve appear, then their myriad progeny after them, Wandering, yearning, curious, with restless explorations, With questionings, baffled, formless, feverish, with never-happy hearts, With that sad incessant refrain, Wherefore unsatisfied soul? and Whither O mocking life? Ah who shall soothe these feverish children? Who justify these restless explorations? |