who that was, or something of the kind. I spoke up, mentioning the name Walt Whitman, and said he was the author of Leaves of Grass. Mr. Lincoln did not say anything, but took a good look, till Whitman was quite gone by. Then he said (I cannot give you his way of saying it, but it was quite emphatic and odd), "Well, he looks like a MAN." He said it pretty loud, but in a sort of absent way, and with the emphasis on the words I have underscored.' This was probably in the winter of 1864-1865.

Coffin that passes through lanes and streets, Through day and night with the great cloud darkening the land,

With the pomp of the inloop'd flags with the cities draped in black,

With the show of the States themselves as of crape-veil'd women standing, With processions long and winding and the flambeaus of the night,

With the countless torches lit, with the si

lent sea of faces and the unbared heads, With the waiting depot, the arriving coffin, and the sombre faces,

With dirges through the night, with the thousand voices rising strong and sol

II

O what shall I hang on the chamber walls? And what shall the pictures be that I hang on the walls,

To adorn the burial-house of him I love ? 80

Pictures of growing spring and farms and homes,

With the Fourth-month eve at sundown, and the gray smoke lucid and bright, With floods of the yellow gold of the gorgeous, indolent, sinking sun, burning, expanding the air,

With the fresh sweet herbage under foot, and the pale green leaves of the trees prolific,

In the distance the flowing glaze, the breast of the river, with a wind-dapple here and there,

With ranging hills on the banks, with many a line against the sky, and shadows, And the city at hand with dwellings so dense, and stacks of chimneys,

And all the scenes of life and the workshops, and the workmen homeward returning.

Sing on dearest brother, warble your reedy song,

Loud human song, with voice of uttermost

woe.

O liquid and free and tender!

O wild and loose to my soul - O wondrous singer!

You only I hear yet the star holds me (but will soon depart),

Yet the lilac with mastering odor holds me.

14

Now while I sat in the day and look'd forth,

In the close of the day with its light and the fields of spring, and the farmers preparing their crops,

In the large unconscious

scenery of my land

110

with its lakes and forests, In the heavenly aerial beauty (after the perturb'd winds and the storms), Under the arching heavens of the afternoon swift passing, and the voices of children and women,

The many-moving sea-tides, and I saw the ships how they sail'd,

And the summer approaching with richness, and the fields all busy with labor, And the infinite separate houses, how they all went on, each with its meals and minutia of daily usages,

And the streets how their throbbings throbb'd, and the cities pent-lo, then and there,

Falling upon them all and among them all, enveloping me with the rest,

Appear'd the cloud, appear'd the long black trail,

And I knew death, its thought, and the sacred knowledge of death.

From me to thee glad serenades, Dances for thee I propose saluting thee, adornments and feastings for thee,

And the sights of the open landscape and the high-spread sky are fitting,

And life and the fields, and the huge and thoughtful night.

The night in silence under many a star, The ocean shore and the husky whispering wave whose voice I know,

And the soul turning to thee O vast and wellveil'd death,

And the body gratefully nestling close to thee.

Over the tree-tops I float thee a song, Over the rising and sinking waves, over the myriad fields and the prairies wide, 160 Over the dense-pack'd cities all and the teeming wharves and ways,

I float this carol with joy, with joy to thee O death.

RECONCILIATION

WORD Over all, beautiful as the sky, Beautiful that war and all its deeds of carnage must in time be utterly lost,

That the hands of the sisters Death and Night incessantly softly wash again, and ever again, this soil'd world;

For my enemy is dead, a man divine as myself is dead,

I look where he lies white-faced and still in the coffin-I draw near,

Bend down and touch lightly with my lips the white face in the coffin.

1865.

AS I LAY WITH MY HEAD IN YOUR LAP CAMERADO

As I lay with my head in your lap camerado, The confession I made I resume, what I said to you and the open air I resume, I know I am restless and make others so, I know my words are weapons full of danger, full of death,3

For I confront peace, security, and all the settled laws, to unsettle them,

I am more resolute because all have denied me than I could ever have been had all accepted me,

I heed not and have never heeded either experience, cautions, majorities, nor ridicule,

And the threat of what is call'd hell is little or nothing to me,

And the lure of what is call'd heaven is little or nothing to me;

Dear camerado! I confess I have urged you onward with me, and still urge you, without the least idea what is our destination,

Or whether we shall be victorious, or utterly quell'd and defeated.

1865.

ABOARD AT A SHIP'S HELM ABOARD at a ship's helm,

A young steersman steering with care.

In the original edition there followed here two lines since omitted: -

(Indeed I am myself the real soldier:

It is not he, there, with his bayonet, and not the red-striper artilleryman);