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And Yet Not You

(The Pilot in the Mist-Had I the Choice- You Tides With Ceaseless

Swell-Last of Ebb, and Daylight Waning

-

-

Alone Proudly the Flood Comes In By That Long Scan of

Waves Then Last of All.)

ELECTION DAY, NOVEMBER, 1884

WITH HUSKY-HAUGHTY LIPS, O SEA

DEATH OF GENERAL GRANT

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394

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396

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"GOING SOMEWHERE'

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LIFE AND DEATH

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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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401

YOU LINGERING SPARSE LEAVES OF ME.

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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 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

(wantedded by the reader "the histor
TO A HISTORIAN.→ knows the past

You who celebrate bygones,

"

I project the future.' 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.

I MET a seer,

EIDÓLONS.

Passing the hues and objects of the world,
The fields of art and learning, pleasure, sense,
To glean eidolons.

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 eidolons.

Ever the dim beginning,

Ever the growth, the rounding of the circle,

Ever the summit and the merge at last, (to surely start again,) Eidolons! eidolons!

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 eidolons.

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 eidolon.

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,
From science and the modern still impell'd,

The old, old urge, eidolons.

The present now and here,

America's busy, teeming, intricate whirl,

Of aggregate and segregate for only thence releasing,
To-day's eidolons.