Flaunt away, flags of all nations! be duly lowered at sunset; Burn high your fires, foundry chimneys! cast black shadows at nightfall! cast red and yellow light over the tops of the houses; Appearances, now or henceforth, indicate what you are; You necessary film, continue to envelop the soul; About my body for me, and your body for you, be hung our divinest aromas; Thrive, cities bring your freight, bring your shows, ample and sufficient rivers; Expand, being than which none else is perhaps more spiritual; Keep your places, objects than which none else is more lasting. I 2. We descend upon you and all things—we arrest you all; We realize the soul only by you, you faithful solids and fluids; Through you colour, form, location, sublimity, ideality; Through you every proof, comparison, and all the suggestions and determinations of ourselves. You have waited, you always wait, you dumb, beautiful ministers! you novices ! We receive you with free sense at last, and are insatiate henceforward; Not you any more shall be able to foil us, or withhold yourselves from us; We use you, and do not cast you aside-we plant you permanently within us; We fathom you not-we love you--there is perfection in you also ; You furnish your parts toward eternity; Great or small, you furnish your parts toward the Soul. THERE WAS A CHILD WENT FORTH. THERE was a child went forth every day; And the first object he looked upon, that object he became ; And that object became part of him for the day, or a certain part of the day, or for many years, or stretching cycles of years. The early lilacs became part of this child, And grass, and white and red morning-glories,1 and white and red clover, and the song of the phoebebird,2 And the Third-month lambs, and the sow's pink-faint litter, and the mare's foal, and the cow's calf, And the noisy brood of the barn-yard, or by the mire of the pond-side, And the fish suspending themselves so curiously below there-and the beautiful curious liquid, And the water-plants with their graceful flat heads-all became part of him. The field-sprouts of Fourth-month and Fifth-month became part of him; Winter-grain sprouts, and those of the light-yellow corn, and the esculent roots of the garden, And the apple-trees covered with blossoms, and the fruit afterward, and wood-berries, and the commonest weeds by the road; And the old drunkard staggering home from the outhouse of the tavern, whence he had lately risen, And the schoolmistress that passed on her way to the school, And the friendly boys that passed-and the quarrelsome boys, 1 The name of "morning-glory" is given to the bindweed, or a sort of bindweed, in America. 2 A dim-coloured little bird, with a cheerful note, sounding like the word Phoebe. And the tidy and fresh-cheeked girls—and the barefoot negro boy and girl, And all the changes of city and country, wherever he went. His own parents, He that had fathered him, and she that had conceived him in her womb, and birthed him, They gave this child more of themselves than that; They gave him afterward every day-they became part of him. The mother at home, quietly placing the dishes on the supper-table ; The mother with mild words—clean her cap and gown, a wholesome odour falling off her person and clothes as she walks by; The father, strong, self-sufficient, manly, mean, angered, unjust; The blow, the quick loud word, the tight bargain, the crafty lure, The family usages, the language, the company, the furniture the yearning and swelling heart, Affection that will not be gainsaid the sense of what is real-the thought if, after all, it should prove unreal, The doubts of day-time and the doubts of night-timethe curious whether and how, Whether that which appears so is so, or is it all flashes and specks? Men and women crowding fast in the streets-if they are not flashes and specks, what are they? The streets themselves, and the façades of houses, and goods in the windows, Vehicles, teams, the heavy-planked wharves-the huge crossing at the ferries, The village on the highland, seen from afar at sunset— the river between, Shadows, aureola and mist, the light falling on roofs and gables of white or brown, three miles off, The schooner near by, sleepily dropping down the tide -the little boat slack-towed astern, The hurrying tumbling waves quick-broken crests slap ping, The strata of coloured clouds, the long bar of maroontint, away solitary by itself—the spread of purity it lies motionless in, The horizon's edge, the flying sea-crow, the fragrance of salt marsh and shore-mud; These became part of that child who went forth every day, and who now goes, and will always go forth every day. TO A FOILED EUROPEAN REVOLUTIONNAIRE. I. COURAGE yet! my brother or my sister! Keep on! Liberty is to be subserved, whatever occurs ; That is nothing that is quelled by one or two failures, or any number of failures, Or by the indifference or ingratitude of the people, or by any unfaithfulness, Or the show of the tushes of power, soldiers, cannon, penal statutes. Revolt! and still revolt! revolt! What we believe in waits latent for ever through all the continents, and all the islands and archipelagoes of the sea; What we believe in invites no one, promises nothing, sits in calmness and light, is positive and composed, knows no discouragement, Waiting patiently, waiting its time. (Not songs of loyalty alone are these, But songs of insurrection also; For I am the sworn poet of every dauntless rebel, the world over, And he going with me leaves peace and routine behind him, And stakes his life, to be lost at any moment.) 2. Revolt! and the downfall of tyrants!— The battle rages with many a loud aların, and frequent advance and retreat, The infidel triumphs-or supposes he triumphs, Then the prison, scaffold, garrote, handcuffs, iron necklace and anklet, lead-balls, do their work, The named and unnamed heroes pass to other spheres, The great speakers and writers are exiled—they lie sick in distant lands, The cause is asleep-the strongest throats are still, choked with their own blood, The young men droop their eyelashes toward the ground when they meet ; -But, for all this, liberty has not gone out of the place, nor the infidel entered into full possession. When liberty goes out of a place, it is not the first to go, nor the second or third to go, It waits for all the rest to go-it is the last. When there are no more memories of heroes and martyrs, And when all life, and all the souls of men and women, are discharged from any part of the earth, Then only shall liberty, or the idea of liberty, be discharged from that part of the earth, And the infidel come into full possession. 3. Then courage! European revolter! revoltress! I do not know what you are for (I do not know what |