Soul

Of The Terrible Doubt Of Apperarances

OF the terrible doubt of appearances,
Of the uncertainty after all--that we may be deluded,
That may-be reliance and hope are but speculations after all,
That may-be identity beyond the grave is a beautiful fable only,
May-be the things I perceive--the animals, plants, men, hills,


shining and flowing waters,

The skies of day and night--colors, densities, forms--May-be these
are, (as doubtless they are,) only apparitions, and the real
something has yet to be known;


(How often they dart out of themselves, as if to confound me and mock

me!
How often I think neither I know, nor any man knows, aught of them;)
May-be seeming to me what they are, (as doubtless they indeed but

seem,) as from my present point of view--And might prove, (as
of course they would,) naught of what they appear, or naught
any how, from entirely changed points of view;

--To me, these, and the like of these, are curiously answer'd by my
lovers, my dear friends; 10
When he whom I love travels with me, or sits a long while holding me
by the hand,
When the subtle air, the impalpable, the sense that words and reason
hold not, surround us and pervade us,
Then I am charged with untold and untellable wisdom--I am silent--I
require nothing further,
I cannot answer the question of appearances, or that of identity

beyond the grave;
But I walk or sit indifferent--I am satisfied,
He ahold of my hand has completely satisfied me.

O Sun Of Real Peace

O SUN of real peace! O hastening light!

O free and extatic! O what I here, preparing, warble for!

O the sun of the world will ascend, dazzling, and take his height-


and you too, O my Ideal, will surely ascend!

O so amazing and broad--up there resplendent, darting and burning!

O vision prophetic, stagger'd with weight of light! with pouring

glories!

O lips of my soul, already becoming powerless!

O ample and grand Presidentiads! Now the war, the war is over!

New history! new heroes! I project you!

Visions of poets! only you really last! sweep on! sweep on!

O heights too swift and dizzy yet! 10

O purged and luminous! you threaten me more than I can stand!

(I must not venture--the ground under my feet menaces me--it will not

support me:

O future too immense,)--O present, I return, while yet I may, to you.

O Me! O Life!

O ME! O life!... of the questions of these recurring;
Of the endless trains of the faithless--of cities fill'd with the
foolish;
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I,
and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light--of the objects mean--of the
struggle ever renew'd;
Of the poor results of all--of the plodding and sordid crowds I see
around me;
Of the empty and useless years of the rest--with the rest me
intertwined;
The question, O me! so sad, recurring--What good amid these, O me, O
life?

Answer.

That you are here--that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.

O Bitter Sprig! Confession Sprig!

O BITTER sprig! Confession sprig!
In the bouquet I give you place also--I bind you in,
Proceeding no further till, humbled publicly,
I give fair warning, once for all.

I own that I have been sly, thievish, mean, a prevaricator, greedy,
derelict,
And I own that I remain so yet.

What foul thought but I think it--or have in me the stuff out of
which it is thought?
What in darkness in bed at night, alone or with a companion?

Not Heaving From My Ribb'd Breast Only

NOT heaving from my ribb'd breast only;

Not in sighs at night, in rage, dissatisfied with myself;

Not in those long-drawn, ill-supprest sighs;

Not in many an oath and promise broken;

Not in my wilful and savage soul's volition;

Not in the subtle nourishment of the air;

Not in this beating and pounding at my temples and wrists;

Not in the curious systole and diastole within, which will one day

cease;

Not in many a hungry wish, told to the skies only;

Not in cries, laughter, defiances, thrown from me when alone, far in

the wilds; 10

Not in husky pantings through clench'd teeth;

Not in sounded and resounded words--chattering words, echoes, dead

words;

Not in the murmurs of my dreams while I sleep,

Nor the other murmurs of these incredible dreams of every day;

Nor in the limbs and senses of my body, that take you and dismiss you

continually--Not there;

Not in any or all of them, O adhesiveness! O pulse of my life!

Need I that you exist and show yourself, any more than in these

songs.

Me Imperturbe

ME imperturbe, standing at ease in Nature,
Master of all, or mistress of all--aplomb in the midst of irrational


things,
Imbued as they--passive, receptive, silent as they,
Finding my occupation, poverty, notoriety, foibles, crimes, less


important than I thought;
Me private, or public, or menial, or solitary--all these subordinate,
(I am eternally equal with the best--I am not subordinate;)
Me toward the Mexican Sea, or in the Mannahatta, or the Tennessee, or
far north, or inland,
A river man, or a man of the woods, or of any farm-life in These
States, or of the coast, or the lakes, or Kanada,

Me, wherever my life is lived, O to be
self-balanced for
contingencies!


O to confront night, storms, hunger, ridicule, accidents, rebuffs, as
the trees and animals do.

Manhattan Streets I Saunter'd, Pondering

MANHATTAN'S streets I saunter'd, pondering,
On time, space, reality--on such as these, and abreast with them,
prudence.


After all, the last explanation remains to be made about prudence;
Little and large alike drop quietly aside from the prudence that
suits immortality.


The Soul is of itself;
All verges to it--all has reference to what ensues;
All that a person does, says, thinks, is of consequence;
Not a move can a man or woman make, that affects him or her in a day,


month, any part of the direct life-time, or the hour of death,
but the same affects him or her onward afterward through the
indirect life-time.

The indirect is just as much as the direct,
The spirit receives from the body just as much as it gives to the
body, if not more. 10


Not one word or deed--not venereal sore, discoloration, privacy of
the onanist, putridity of gluttons or rum-drinkers, peculation,
cunning, betrayal, murder, seduction, prostitution, but has
results beyond death, as really as before death.


Charity and personal force are the only investments worth anything.

No specification is necessary--all that a male or female does, that
is vigorous, benevolent, clean, is so much profit to him or
her, in the unshakable order of the universe, and through the
whole scope of it forever.


Who has been wise, receives interest,
Savage, felon, President, judge, farmer, sailor, mechanic, literat,
young, old, it is the same,
The interest will come round--all will come round.


Singly, wholly, to affect now, affected their time, will forever
affect all of the past, and all of the present, and all of the
future,


All the brave actions of war and peace,
All help given to relatives, strangers, the poor, old, sorrowful,


young children, widows, the sick, and to shunn'd persons,
All furtherance of fugitives, and of the escape of slaves, 20
All self-denial that stood steady and aloof on wrecks, and saw others

fill the seats of the boats,
All offering of substance or life for the good old cause, or for a



friend's sake, or opinion's sake,

All pains of enthusiasts, scoff'd at by their neighbors,

All the limitless sweet love and precious suffering of mothers,

All honest men baffled in strifes recorded or unrecorded,

All the grandeur and good of ancient nations whose fragments we
inherit,

All the good of the dozens of ancient nations unknown to us by name,
date, location,

All that was ever manfully begun, whether it succeeded or no,

All suggestions of the divine mind of man, or the divinity of his
mouth, or the shaping of his great hands;

All that is well thought or said this day on any part of the globe-or
on any of the wandering stars, or on any of the fix'd stars,
by those there as we are here; 30

All that is henceforth to be thought or done by you, whoever you are,
or by any one;

These inure, have inured, shall inure, to the identities from which
they sprang, or shall spring.

Did you guess anything lived only its moment?

The world does not so exist--no parts palpable or impalpable so
exist;

No consummation exists without being from some long previous
consummation--and that from some other,

Without the farthest conceivable one coming a bit nearer the
beginning than any.

Whatever satisfies Souls is true;

Prudence entirely satisfies the craving and glut of Souls;

Itself only finally satisfies the Soul;

The Soul has that measureless pride which revolts from every lesson
but its own. 40

Now I give you an inkling;

Now I breathe the word of the prudence that walks abreast with time,
space, reality,

That answers the pride which refuses every lesson but its own.

What is prudence, is indivisible,

Declines to separate one part of life from every part,

Divides not the righteous from the unrighteous, or the living from
the dead,

Matches every thought or act by its correlative,

Knows no possible forgiveness, or deputed atonement,

Knows that the young man who composedly peril'd his life and lost it,
has done exceedingly well for himself without doubt,

That he who never peril'd his life, but retains it to old age in
riches and ease, has probably achiev'd nothing for himself
worth mentioning; 50


Knows that only that person has really learn'd, who has learn'd to

prefer results,

Who favors Body and Soul the same,

Who perceives the indirect assuredly following the direct,

Who in his spirit in any emergency whatever neither hurries or,

avoids death.

Leaves Of Grass. A Carol Of Harvest For 1867

A SONG of the good green grass!
A song no more of the city streets;
A song of farms--a song of the soil of fields.


A song with the smell of sun-dried hay, where the nimble pitchers
handle the pitch-fork;
A song tasting of new wheat, and of fresh-husk'd maize.


For the lands, and for these passionate days, and for myself,
Now I awhile return to thee, O soil of Autumn fields,
Reclining on thy breast, giving myself to thee,
Answering the pulses of thy sane and equable heart,
Tuning a verse for thee. 10


O Earth, that hast no voice, confide to me a voice!
O harvest of my lands! O boundless summer growths!
O lavish, brown, parturient earth! O infinite, teeming womb!
A verse to seek, to see, to narrate thee.


Ever upon this stage,
Is acted God's calm, annual drama,
Gorgeous processions, songs of birds,
Sunrise, that fullest feeds and freshens most the soul,
The heaving sea, the waves upon the shore, the musical, strong waves,
The woods, the stalwart trees, the slender, tapering trees, 20
The flowers, the grass, the lilliput, countless armies of the grass,
The heat, the showers, the measureless pasturages,
The scenery of the snows, the winds' free orchestra,
The stretching, light-hung roof of clouds--the clear cerulean, and


the bulging, silvery fringes,
The high dilating stars, the placid, beckoning stars,
The moving flocks and herds, the plains and emerald meadows,
The shows of all the varied lands, and all the growths and products.

Fecund America! To-day,
Thou art all over set in births and joys!
Thou groan'st with riches! thy wealth clothes thee as with a swathing


garment! 30
Thou laughest loud with ache of great possessions!
A myriad-twining life, like interlacing vines, binds all thy vast


demesne!
As some huge ship, freighted to water's edge, thou ridest into port!
As rain falls from the heaven, and vapors rise from earth, so have


the precious values fallen upon thee, and risen out of thee!
Thou envy of the globe! thou miracle!
Thou, bathed, choked, swimming in plenty!
Thou lucky Mistress of the tranquil barns!
Thou Prairie Dame that sittest in the middle, and lookest out upon



thy world, and lookest East, and lookest West!

Dispensatress, that by a word givest a thousand miles--that giv'st a
million farms, and missest nothing!

Thou All-Acceptress--thou Hospitable--(thou only art hospitable, as
God is hospitable.) 40

When late I sang, sad was my voice;

Sad were the shows around me, with deafening noises of hatred, and
smoke of conflict;

In the midst of the armies, the Heroes, I stood,

Or pass'd with slow step through the wounded and dying.

But now I sing not War,
Nor the measur'd march of soldiers, nor the tents of camps,
Nor the regiments hastily coming up, deploying in line of battle.


No more the dead and wounded;
No more the sad, unnatural shows of War.


Ask'd room those flush'd immortal ranks? the first forth-stepping
armies? 50

Ask room, alas, the ghastly ranks--the armies dread that follow'd.

(Pass--pass, ye proud brigades!

So handsome, dress'd in blue--with your tramping, sinewy legs;

With your shoulders young and strong--with your knapsacks and your
muskets;

--How elate I stood and watch'd you, where, starting off, you
march'd!

Pass;--then rattle, drums, again!

Scream, you steamers on the river, out of whistles loud and shrill,
your salutes!

For an army heaves in sight--O another gathering army!

Swarming, trailing on the rear--O you dread, accruing army!

O you regiments so piteous, with your mortal diarrhoea! with your
fever! 60

O my land's maimed darlings! with the plenteous bloody bandage and
the crutch!

Lo! your pallid army follow'd!)

But on these days of brightness,

On the far-stretching beauteous landscape, the roads and lanes, the
high-piled farm-wagons, and the fruits and barns,

Shall the dead intrude?


Ah, the dead to me mar not--they fit well in Nature;
They fit very well in the landscape, under the trees and grass,
And along the edge of the sky, in the horizon's far margin.



Nor do I forget you, departed;
Nor in winter or summer, my lost ones; 70
But most, in the open air, as now, when my soul is rapt and at

peace--like pleasing phantoms,
Your dear memories, rising, glide silently by me.

I saw the day, the return of the Heroes;
(Yet the Heroes never surpass'd, shall never return;
Them, that day, I saw not.)


I saw the interminable Corps--I saw the processions of armies,
I saw them approaching, defiling by, with divisions,
Streaming northward, their work done, camping awhile in clusters of


mighty camps.
No holiday soldiers!--youthful, yet veterans;
Worn, swart, handsome, strong, of the stock of homestead and
workshop,
Harden'd of many a long campaign and sweaty march,
Inured on many a hard-fought, bloody field.
80
A pause--the armies wait;
A million flush'd, embattled conquerors wait;
The world, too, waits--then, soft as breaking night, and sure as
dawn,
They melt--they disappear.
Exult, indeed, O lands! victorious lands!
Not there your victory, on those red, shuddering fields;
But here and hence your victory.
Melt, melt away, ye armies! disperse, ye blue-clad soldiers!
Resolve ye back again--give up, for good, your deadly arms; 90

Other the arms, the fields henceforth for you, or South or North, or
East or West,
With saner wars--sweet wars--life-giving wars.

Loud, O my throat, and clear, O soul!
The season of thanks, and the voice of full-yielding;
The chant of joy and power for boundless fertility.


All till'd and untill'd fields expand before me;
I see the true arenas of my race--or first, or last,
Man's innocent and strong arenas.


I see the Heroes at other toils;
I see, well-wielded in their hands, the better weapons. 100



I see where America, Mother of All,
Well-pleased, with full-spanning eye, gazes forth, dwells long,
And counts the varied gathering of the products.


Busy the far, the sunlit panorama;
Prairie, orchard, and yellow grain of the North,
Cotton and rice of the South, and Louisianian cane;
Open, unseeded fallows, rich fields of clover and timothy,
Kine and horses feeding, and droves of sheep and swine,
And many a stately river flowing, and many a jocund brook,
And healthy uplands with their herby-perfumed breezes, 110
And the good green grass--that delicate miracle, the ever-recurring


grass.

Toil on, Heroes! harvest the products!
Not alone on those warlike fields, the Mother of All,
With dilated form and lambent eyes, watch'd you.


Toil on, Heroes! toil well! Handle the weapons well!
The Mother of All--yet here, as ever, she watches you.


Well-pleased, America, thou beholdest,
Over the fields of the West, those crawling monsters,
The human-divine inventions, the labor-saving implements:
Beholdest, moving in every direction, imbued as with life, the


revolving hay-rakes, 120
The steam-power reaping-machines, and the horse-power machines,
The engines, thrashers of grain, and cleaners of grain, well

separating the straw--the nimble work of the patent pitch-fork;
Beholdest the newer saw-mill, the southern cotton-gin, and the ricecleanser.


Beneath thy look, O Maternal,
With these, and else, and with their own strong hands, the Heroes
harvest.

All gather, and all harvest;
(Yet but for thee, O Powerful! not a scythe might swing, as now, in
security;
Not a maize-stalk dangle, as now, its silken tassels in peace.)

Under Thee only they harvest--even but a wisp of hay, under thy great
face, only;
Harvest the wheat of Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin--every barbed spear,
under thee; 130
Harvest the maize of Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee--each ear in its

light-green sheath,
Gather the hay to its myriad mows, in the odorous, tranquil barns,
Oats to their bins--the white potato, the buckwheat of Michigan, to


theirs;
Gather the cotton in Mississippi or Alabama--dig and hoard the


golden, the sweet potato of Georgia and the Carolinas,
Clip the wool of California or Pennsylvania,
Cut the flax in the Middle States, or hemp, or tobacco in the


Borders,
Pick the pea and the bean, or pull apples from the trees, or bunches

of grapes from the vines,
Or aught that ripens in all These States, or North or South,
Under the beaming sun, and under Thee.

Kosmos

WHO includes diversity, and is Nature,

Who is the amplitude of the earth, and the coarseness and sexuality
of the earth, and the great charity of the earth, and the
equilibrium also,

Who has not look'd forth from the windows, the eyes, for nothing, or
whose brain held audience with messengers for nothing;
Who contains believers and disbelievers--Who is the most majestic
lover;
Who holds duly his or her triune proportion of realism, spiritualism,

and of the aesthetic, or intellectual,
Who, having consider'd the Body, finds all its organs and parts good;
Who, out of the theory of the earth, and of his or her body,

understands by subtle analogies all other theories,
The theory of a city, a poem, and of the large politics of These
States;
Who believes not only in our globe, with its sun and moon, but in
other globes, with their suns and moons;
Who, constructing the house of himself or herself, not for a day, but
for all time, sees races, eras, dates, generations, 10
The past, the future, dwelling there, like space, inseparable
together.

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,
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,
(As some old root or soil of earth its last-born flower or fruit,)
Listens well pleas'd.

In Midnight Sleep

IN midnight sleep, of many a face of anguish,
Of the look at first of the mortally wounded--of that indescribable
look;
Of the dead on their backs, with arms extended wide,
I dream, I dream, I dream.


Of scenes of nature, fields and mountains;
Of skies, so beauteous after a storm--and at night the moon so
unearthly bright,
Shining sweetly, shining down, where we dig the trenches and gather
the heaps,
I dream, I dream, I dream.

Long, long have they pass'd--faces and trenches and fields;
Where through the carnage I moved with a callous composure--or away
from the fallen,
Onward I sped at the time--But now of their forms at night,
I dream, I dream, I dream. 10

In The New Garden In All The Parts

IN the new garden, in all the parts,
In cities now, modern, I wander,
Though the second or third result, or still further, primitive yet,
Days, places, indifferent--though various, the same,
Time, Paradise, the Mannahatta, the prairies, finding me unchanged,
Death indifferent--Is it that I lived long since? Was I buried very

long ago?
For all that, I may now be watching you here, this moment;
For the future, with determined will, I seek--the woman of the


future,
You, born years, centuries after me, I seek.

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--In such,
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; 10
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, 20
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
shore,
This song for mariners and all their ships.

I Heard You, Solemn-sweep Pipes Of The Organ

I HEARD you, solemn-sweet pipes of the organ, as last Sunday morn I
pass'd the church;
Winds of autumn!--as I walk'd the woods at dusk, I heard your longstretch'd
sighs, up above, so mournful;
I heard the perfect Italian tenor, singing at the opera--I heard the
soprano in the midst of the quartet singing;
... Heart of my love!--you too I heard, murmuring low, through one of
the wrists around my head;
Heard the pulse of you, when all was still, ringing little bells last
night under my ear.

I Hear America Singing

I Hear America singing, the varied carols I hear;

Those of mechanics--each one singing his, as it should be, blithe and strong;

The carpenter singing his, as he measures his plank or beam,

The mason singing his, as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work;

The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat--the deckhand singing on the
steamboat deck;

The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench--the hatter singing as he stands;

The wood-cutter's song--the ploughboy's, on his way in the morning, or at the noon
intermission, or at sundown;

The delicious singing of the mother--or of the young wife at work--or of the girl
sewing or washing--Each singing what belongs to her, and to none else;

The day what belongs to the day--At night, the party of young fellows, robust,
friendly,

Singing, with open mouths, their strong melodious songs.

I Am He That Aches With Love

I AM he that aches with amorous love;
Does the earth gravitate? Does not all matter, aching, attract all
matter?
So the Body of me, to all I meet, or know.

Hush'd Be the Camps Today

Hush'd be the camps today,
And soldiers let us drape our war-worn weapons,
And each with musing soul retire to celebrate,
Our dear commander's death.


No more for him life's stormy conflicts,
Nor victory, nor defeat--no more time's dark events,
Charging like ceaseless clouds across the sky.


But sing poet in our name,
Sing of the love we bore him--because you, dweller in camps, know it truly.


As they invault the coffin there,
Sing--as they close the doors of earth upon him--one verse,
For the heavy hearts of soldiers.

Here The Frailest Leaves Of Me

HERE the frailest leaves of me, and yet my strongest-lasting:
Here I shade and hide my thoughts--I myself do not expose them,
And yet they expose me more than all my other poems.

Hours Continuing Long

HOURS continuing long, sore and heavy-hearted,
Hours of the dusk, when I withdraw to a lonesome and unfrequented
spot, seating myself, leaning my face in my hands;
Hours sleepless, deep in the night, when I go forth, speeding swiftly
the country roads, or through the city streets, or pacing miles
and miles, stifling plaintive cries;
Hours discouraged, distracted--for the one I cannot content myself
without, soon I saw him content himself without me;
Hours when I am forgotten, (O weeks and months are passing, but I
believe I am never to forget!)
Sullen and suffering hours! (I am ashamed--but it is useless--I am
what I am;)
Hours of my torment--I wonder if other men ever have the like, out of
the like feelings?
Is there even one other like me--distracted--his friend, his lover,
lost to him?
Is he too as I am now? Does he still rise in the morning, dejected,
thinking who is lost to him? and at night, awaking, think who
is lost?
Does he too harbor his friendship silent and endless? harbor his
anguish and passion? 10
Does some stray reminder, or the casual mention of a name, bring the
fit back upon him, taciturn and deprest?
Does he see himself reflected in me? In these hours, does he see the
face of his hours reflected?

God

THOUGHT of the Infinite--the All!
Be thou my God.


Lover Divine, and Perfect Comrade!
Waiting, content, invisible yet, but certain,
Be thou my God.


Thou--thou, the Ideal Man!
Fair, able, beautiful, content, and loving,
Complete in Body, and dilate in Spirit,
Be thou my God.


O Death--(for Life has served its turn;) 10
Opener and usher to the heavenly mansion!
Be thou my God.


Aught, aught, of mightiest, best, I see, conceive, or know,
(To break the stagnant tie--thee, thee to free, O Soul,)
Be thou my God.


Or thee, Old Cause, when'er advancing;
All great Ideas, the races' aspirations,
All that exalts, releases thee, my Soul!
All heroisms, deeds of rapt enthusiasts,
Be ye my Gods! 20


Or Time and Space!
Or shape of Earth, divine and wondrous!
Or shape in I myself--or some fair shape, I, viewing, worship,
Or lustrous orb of Sun, or star by night:
Be ye my Gods.

Give Me The Splendid, Silent Sun

GIVE me the splendid silent sun, with all his beams full-dazzling;
Give me juicy autumnal fruit, ripe and red from the orchard;
Give me a field where the unmow'd grass grows;
Give me an arbor, give me the trellis'd grape;
Give me fresh corn and wheat--give me serene-moving animals, teaching


content;
Give me nights perfectly quiet, as on high plateaus west of the
Mississippi, and I looking up at the stars;
Give me odorous at sunrise a garden of beautiful flowers, where I can
walk undisturb'd;
Give me for marriage a sweet-breath'd woman, of whom I should never
tire;
Give me a perfect child--give me, away, aside from the noise of the
world, a rural, domestic life;
Give me to warble spontaneous songs, reliev'd, recluse by myself, for
my own ears only; 10
Give me solitude--give me Nature--give me again, O Nature, your
primal sanities!
--These, demanding to have them, (tired with ceaseless excitement,

and rack'd by the war-strife;)
These to procure, incessantly asking, rising in cries from my heart,
While yet incessantly asking, still I adhere to my city;
Day upon day, and year upon year, O city, walking your streets,
Where you hold me enchain'd a certain time, refusing to give me up;
Yet giving to make me glutted, enrich'd of soul--you give me forever


faces;
(O I see what I sought to escape, confronting, reversing my cries;
I see my own soul trampling down what it ask'd for.)


Keep your splendid, silent sun; 20
Keep your woods, O Nature, and the quiet places by the woods;
Keep your fields of clover and timothy, and your corn-fields and


orchards;
Keep the blossoming buckwheat fields, where the Ninth-month bees hum;
Give me faces and streets! give me these phantoms incessant and

endless along the trottoirs!
Give me interminable eyes! give me women! give me comrades and lovers
by the thousand!
Let me see new ones every day! let me hold new ones by the hand every

day!
Give me such shows! give me the streets of Manhattan!
Give me Broadway, with the soldiers marching--give me the sound of


the trumpets and drums!
(The soldiers in companies or regiments--some, starting away, flush'd
and reckless;
Some, their time up, returning, with thinn'd ranks--young, yet very
old, worn, marching, noticing nothing;) 30
--Give me the shores and the wharves heavy-fringed with the black
ships!
O such for me! O an intense life! O full to repletion, and varied!



The life of the theatre, bar-room, huge hotel, for me!
The saloon of the steamer! the crowded excursion for me! the torchlight
procession!
The dense brigade, bound for the war, with high piled military wagons

following;
People, endless, streaming, with strong voices, passions, pageants;
Manhattan streets, with their powerful throbs, with the beating

drums, as now;
The endless and noisy chorus, the rustle and clank of muskets, (even
the sight of the wounded;)
Manhattan crowds, with their turbulent musical chorus--with varied
chorus, and light of the sparkling eyes;
Manhattan faces and eyes forever for me. 40

Full Of Life, Now

FULL of life, now, compact, visible,
I, forty years old the Eighty-third Year of The States,
To one a century hence, or any number of centuries hence,
To you, yet unborn, these, seeking you.


When you read these, I, that was visible, am become invisible;
Now it is you, compact, visible, realizing my poems, seeking me;
Fancying how happy you were, if I could be with you, and become your


comrade;
Be it as if I were with you. (Be not too certain but I am now with
you.)

For Him I Sing

FOR him I sing,
I raise the Present on the Past,
(As some perennial tree, out of its roots, the present on the past:)
With time and space I him dilate--and fuse the immortal laws,
To make himself, by them, the law unto himself.

Eidólons


I MET a Seer,
Passing the hues and objects of the world,
The fields of art and learning, pleasure, sense,

To glean Eidólons.

Put in thy chants, said he,
No more the puzzling hour, nor day--nor segments, parts, put in,
Put first before the rest, as light for all, and entrance-song of

all,
That of Eidólons.


Ever the dim beginning;
Ever the growth, the rounding of the circle; 10
Ever the summit, and the merge at last, (to surely start again,)


Eidólons! Eidólons!

Ever the mutable!
Ever materials, changing, crumbling, re-cohering;
Ever the ateliers, the factories divine,


Issuing Eidólons!

Lo! I or you!
Or woman, man, or State, known or unknown,
We seeming solid wealth, strength, beauty build,


But really build Eidólons. 20

The ostent evanescent;
The substance of an artist's mood, or savan's studies long,
Or warrior's, martyr's, hero's toils,


To fashion his Eidólon.

Of every human life,
(The units gather'd, posted--not a thought, emotion, deed, left out;)
The whole, or large or small, summ'd, added up,

In its Eidólon.

The old, old urge;
Based on the ancient pinnacles, lo! newer, higher pinnacles; 30
From Science and the Modern still impell'd,

The old, old urge, Eidólons.

The present, now and here,
America's busy, teeming, intricate whirl,
Of aggregate and segregate, for only thence releasing,


To-day's Eidólons.

These, with the past,
Of vanish'd lands--of all the reigns of kings across the sea,
Old conquerors, old campaigns, old sailors' voyages,


Joining Eidólons. 40

Densities, growth, façades,


Strata of mountains, soils, rocks, giant trees,

Far-born, far-dying, living long, to leave,
Eidólons everlasting.

Exaltè, rapt, extatic,

The visible but their womb of birth,

Of orbic tendencies to shape, and shape, and shape,
The mighty Earth-Eidólon.

All space, all time,

(The stars, the terrible perturbations of the suns, 50

Swelling, collapsing, ending--serving their longer, shorter use,)
Fill'd with Eidólons only.

The noiseless myriads!

The infinite oceans where the rivers empty!

The separate, countless free identities, like eyesight;
The true realities, Eidólons.

Not this the World,

Nor these the Universes--they the Universes,

Purport and end--ever the permanent life of life,
Eidólons, Eidólons. 60

Beyond thy lectures, learn'd professor,
Beyond thy telescope or spectroscope, observer keen--beyond all
mathematics,
Beyond the doctor's surgery, anatomy--beyond the chemist with his
chemistry,
The entities of entities, Eidólons.

Unfix'd, yet fix'd;

Ever shall be--ever have been, and are,

Sweeping the present to the infinite future,
Eidólons, Eidólons, Eidólons.

The prophet and the bard,

Shall yet maintain themselves--in higher stages yet, 70

Shall mediate to the Modern, to Democracy--interpret yet to them,
God, and Eidólons.

And thee, My Soul!

Joys, ceaseless exercises, exaltations!

Thy yearning amply fed at last, prepared to meet,
Thy mates, Eidólons.

Thy Body permanent,

The Body lurking there within thy Body,

The only purport of the Form thou art--the real I myself,
An image, an Eidólon. 80

Thy very songs, not in thy songs;


No special strains to sing--none for itself;
But from the whole resulting, rising at last and floating,
A round, full-orb'd Eidólon.