(Mother! with subtle sense severe, with the naked sword in your hand,

I saw you at last refuse to treat but directly with individuals.)

Underneath all, Nativity,

16

I swear I will stand by my own nativity, pious or impious so be it ; I swear I am charm'd with nothing except nativity,

Men, women, cities, nations, are only beautiful from nativity.

Underneath all is the Expression of love for men and women, (I swear I have seen enough of mean and impotent modes of expressing love for men and women,

After this day I take my own modes of expressing love for men and women.)

I swear I will have each quality of my race in myself,

(Talk as you like, he only suits these States whose manners favor the audacity and sublime turbulence of the States.)

Underneath the lessons of things, spirits, Nature, governments, ownerships, I swear I perceive other lessons,

Underneath all to me is myself, to you yourself, (the same monotonous old song.)

17

OI see flashing that this America is only you and me,

Its power, weapons, testimony, are you and me,

Its crimes, lies, thefts, defections, are you and me,

Its Congress is you and me, the officers, capitols, armies, ships, are you and me,

Its endless gestations of new States are you and me,

The war, (that war so bloody and grim, the war I will henceforth forget), was you and me,

Natural and artificial are you and me,

Freedom, language, poems, employments, are you and me,
Past, present, future, are you and me.

I dare not shirk any part of myself,

Not any part of America good or bad,

Not to build for that which builds for mankind,

Not to balance ranks, complexions, creeds, and the sexes,

Not to justify science nor the march of equality,

Nor to feed the arrogant blood of the brawn belov'd of time.

I am for those that have never been master'd,

For men and women whose tempers have never been master'd, For those whom laws, theories, conventions, can never master.

I am for those who walk abreast with the whole earth,
Who inaugurate one to inaugurate all.

I will not be outfaced by irrational things,

I will penetrate what it is in them that is sarcastic upon me,
I will make cities and civilizations defer to me,
This is what I have learnt from America

I teach again.

it is the amount, and it

(Democracy, while weapons were everywhere aim'd at your breast, I saw you serenely give birth to immortal children, saw in dreams your dilating form,

Saw you with spreading mantle covering the world.)

18

I will confront these shows of the day and night,

I will know if I am to be less than they,

I will see if I am not as majestic as they,

I will see if I am not as subtle and real as they,

I will see if I am to be less generous than they,

I will see if I have no meaning, while the houses and ships have meaning,

I will see if the fishes and birds are to be enough for themselves, and I am not to be enough for myself.

I match my spirit against yours you orbs, growths, mountains, brutes,

Copious as you are I absorb you all in myself, and become the master myself,

America isolated yet embodying all, what is it finally except myself?

These States, what are they except myself?

I know now why the earth is gross, tantalizing, wicked, it is for my sake,

I take you specially to be mine, you terrible, rude forms.

(Mother, bend down, bend close to me your face,

I know not what these plots and wars and deferments are for, I know not fruition's success, but I know that through war and crime your work goes on, and must yet go on.)

19

Thus by blue Ontario's shore,

While the winds fann'd me and the waves came trooping toward

me,

I thrill'd with the power's pulsations, and the charm of my theme was upon me,

Till the tissues that held me parted their ties upon me.

And I saw the free souls of poets,

The loftiest bards of past ages strode before me,

Strange large men, long unwaked, undisclosed, were disclosed to

me.

20

O my rapt verse, my call, mock me not!

Not for the bards of the past, not to invoke them have I launch'd you forth,

Not to call even those lofty bards here by Ontario's shores,
Have I sung so capricious and loud my savage song.

Bards for my own land only I invoke,

(For the war the war is over, the field is clear'd,)

Till they strike up marches henceforth triumphant and onward, To cheer O Mother your boundless expectant soul.

Bards of the great Idea! bards of the peaceful inventions! (for the war, the war is over !)

Yet bards of latent armies, a million soldiers waiting ever-ready, Bards with songs as from burning coals or the lightning's fork'd stripes!

Ample Ohio's, Kanada's bards bards of California! inland bards- bards of the war!

You by my charm I invoke.

REVERSALS.

LET that which stood in front go behind,

Let that which was behind advance to the front,

Let bigots, fools, unclean persons, offer new propositions,
Let the old propositions be postponed,

Let a man seek pleasure everywhere except in himself,

Let a woman seek happiness everywhere except in herself.

AUTUMN RIVULETS.

AS CONSEQUENT, Etc.

As consequent from store of summer rains,
Or wayward rivulets in autumn flowing,
Or many a herb-lined brook's reticulations,
Or subterranean sea-rills making for the sea,
Songs of continued years I sing.

Life's ever-modern rapids first, (soon, soon to blend,
With the old streams of death.)

Some threading Ohio's farm-fields or the woods,

Some down Colorado's cañons from sources of perpetual snow,
Some half-hid in Oregon, or away southward in Texas,

Some in the north finding their way to Erie, Niagara, Ottawa,
Some to Atlantica's bays, and so to the great salt brine.

In you whoe'er you are my book perusing,

In I myself, in all the world, these currents flowing,
All, all toward the mystic ocean tending.

Currents for starting a continent new,

Overtures sent to the solid out of the liquid,

Fusion of ocean and land, tender and pensive waves,

(Not safe and peaceful only, waves rous'd and ominous too,

Out of the depths the storm's abysmic waves, who knows whence?
Raging over the vast, with many a broken spar and tatter'd sail.)

Or from the sea of Time, collecting vasting all, I bring,
A windrow-drift of weeds and shells.

O little shells, so curious-convolute, so limpid-cold and voiceless,
Will you not little shells to the tympans of temples held,
Murmurs and echoes still call up, eternity's music faint and far,
Wafted inland, sent from Atlantica's rim, strains for the soul of the
prairies,

Whisper'd reverberations, chords for the ear of the West joyously sounding,

Your tidings old, yet ever new and untranslatable,

Infinitesimals out of my life, and many a life,

(For not my life and years alone I give-all, all I give,) These waifs from the deep, cast high and dry,

Wash'd on America's shores?

THE RETURN OF THE HEROES.

I

For the lands and for these passionate days and for myself,
Now I awhile retire 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.

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 song 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,

The liliput 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 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,

3

Thou art all over set in births and joys!

Thou groan'st with riches, thy wealth clothes thee as a swathing

garment,

Thou laughest loud with ache of great possessions,

A myriad-twining life like interlacing vines binds all thy vast

demesne,