Of these years I sing, How they pass and have pass'd through convuls'd pains, as through parturitions, How America illustrates birth, muscular youth, the promise, the sure fulfilment, the absolute success, despite of people — illustrates evil as well as good, The vehement struggle so fierce for unity in one's-self; How many hold despairingly yet to the models departed, caste, myths, obedience, compulsion, and to infidelity, How few see the arrived models, the athletes, the Western States, or see freedom or spirituality, or hold any faith in results, (But I see the athletes, and I see the results of the war glorious and inevitable, and they again leading to other results.) How the great cities appear- how the Democratic masses, turbulent, wilful, as I love them, How the whirl, the contest, the wrestle of evil with good, the sounding and resounding, keep on and on, " How society waits unform'd, and is for a while between things ended and things begun, How America is the continent of glories, and of the triumph of freedom and of the Democracies, and of the fruits of so ciety, and of all that is begun, And how the States are complete in themselves—and how all triumphs and glories are complete in themselves, to lead onward, And how these of mine and of the States will in their turn be convuls'd, and serve other parturitions and transitions, And how all people, sights, combinations, the democratic masses too, serve and how every fact, and war itself, with all its horrors, serves, And how now or at any time each serves the exquisite transition of death. 2 Of seeds dropping into the ground, of births, Of the steady concentration of America, înland, upward, to impregnable and swarming places, Of what Indiana, Kentucky, Arkansas, and the rest, are to be, Nevada, and the rest, (Or afar, mounting the Northern Pacific to Sitka or Aliaska,) 374 Of what the feuillage of America is the preparation for- and of what all sights, North, South, East and West, are, Of this Union welded in blood, of the solemn price paid, of the unnamed lost ever present in my mind; Of the temporary use of materials for identity's sake, Of the present, passing, departing—of the growth of completer men than any yet, Of all sloping down there where the fresh free giver the mother, the Mississippi flows, Of mighty inland cities yet unsurvey'd and unsuspected, Of the new and good names, of the modern developments, of inalienable homesteads, Of a free and original life there, of simple diet and clean and sweet blood, Of litheness, majestic faces, clear eyes, and perfect physique there, Of immense spiritual results future years far West, each side of the Anahuacs, Of these songs, well understood there, (being made for that area,) Of the native scorn of grossness and gain there, (O it lurks in me night and day—what is gain after all to savageness and freedom?) SONG AT SUNSET. SPLENDOR of ended day floating and filling me, Inflating my throat, you divine average, You earth and life till the last ray gleams I sing. Open mouth of my soul uttering gladness, Natural life of me faithfully praising things, Illustrious every one! Illustrious what we name space, sphere of unnumber'd spirits, Illustrious the mystery of motion in all beings, even the tiniest insect, Illustrious the attribute of speech, the senses, the body, Illustrious the passing light illustrious the pale reflection on the new moon in the western sky, Illustrious whatever I see or hear or touch, to the last. Good in all, In the satisfaction and aplomb of animals, In the annual return of the seasons, In the hilarity of youth, In the strength and flush of manhood, In the grandeur and exquisiteness of old age, Wonderful to depart ! Wonderful to be here! The heart, to jet the all-alike and innocent blood! To speak -to walk. to seize something by the hand! To prepare for sleep, for bed, to look on my rose-color'd flesh! To be conscious of my body, so satisfied, so large ! To be this incredible God I am! To have gone forth among other Gods, these men and women I love. Wonderful how I celebrate you and myself! How my thoughts play subtly at the spectacles around! How the clouds pass silently overhead! How the earth darts on and on! and how the sun, moon, stars, dart on and on! How the water sports and sings! (surely it is alive!) How the trees rise and stand up, with strong trunks, with branches and leaves ! (Surely there is something more in each of the trees, some living soul.) O strain musical flowing through ages and continents, now reaching me and America! I take your strong chords, intersperse them, and cheerfully pass them forward. I too carol the sun, usher'd or at noon, or as now, setting, I too throb to the brain and beauty of the earth and of all the growths of the earth, I too have felt the resistless call of myself. As I steam'd down the Mississippi, As I wander'd over the prairies, As I have lived, as I have look'd through my windows my eyes, the east, As I bathed on the beach of the Eastern Sea, and again on the beach of the Western Sea, As I roam'd the streets of inland Chicago, whatever streets I have roam'd, Or cities or silent woods, or even amid the sights of war, Wherever I have been I have charged myself with contentment and triumph. I sing to the last the equalities modern or old, I sing the endless finalés of things, I say Nature continues, glory continues, I praise with electric voice, For I do not see one imperfection in the universe, And I do not see one cause or result lamentable at last in the universe. O setting sun! though the time has come, I still warble under you, if none else does, unmitigated adoration. AS AT THY PORTALS ALSO DEATH. As at thy portals also death, Entering thy sovereign, dim, illimitable grounds, To memories of my mother, to the divine blending, maternity, I kiss and kiss convulsively again the sweet old lips, the cheeks, the closed eyes in the coffin ;) To her, the ideal woman, practical, spiritual, of all of earth, life, love, to me the best, I grave a monumental line, before I go, amid these songs, MY LEGACY. THE business man the acquirer vast, After assiduous years surveying results, preparing for departure, Devises houses and lands to his children, bequeaths stocks, goods, funds for a school or hospital, Leaves money to certain companions to buy tokens, souvenirs of gems and gold. But I, my life surveying, closing, With nothing to show to devise from its idle years, Nor houses nor lands, nor tokens of gems or gold for my friends, I bind together and bequeath in this bundle of songs. PENSIVE ON HER DEAD GAZING. PENSIVE on her dead gazing I heard the Mother of All, Desperate on the torn bodies, on the forms covering the battlefields gazing, (As the last gun ceased, but the scent of the powder-smoke linger'd,) As she call'd to her earth with mournful voice while she stalk'd, Absorb them well O my earth, she cried, I charge you lose not my sons, lose not an atom, And you streams absorb them well, taking their dear blood, And you local spots, and you airs that swim above lightly impalpable, And all you essences of soil and growth, and you my rivers' depths, And you mountain sides, and the woods where my dear children's blood trickling redden'd, And you trees down in your roots to bequeath to all future trees, My dead absorb or South or North - my young men's bodies absorb, and their precious precious blood, Which holding in trust for me faithfully back again give me many a year hence, In unseen essence and odor of surface and grass, centuries hence, In blowing airs from the fields back again give me my darlings, give my immortal heroes, Exhale me them centuries hence, breathe me their breath, let not an atom be lost, years and graves! O air and soil! O my dead, an aroma sweet! Exhale them perennial sweet death, years, centuries hence. CAMPS OF GREEN. Not alone those camps of white, old comrades of the wars, Footsore and weary, soon as the light lessens we halt for the night, Some of us so fatigued carrying the gun and knapsack, dropping asleep in our tracks, Others pitching the little tents, and the fires lit up begin to sparkle, |