12

O Death! the voyage of Death !1

The beautiful touch of Death, soothing and benumbing a few moments, for reasons;

Myself, discharging my excrementitious body, to be burn'd, or render'd to powder, or buried,

My real body doubtless left to me for other spheres,

My voided body, nothing more to me, returning to the purifications, further offices, eternal uses of the earth.

13

O to bathe in the swimming-bath, or in a good place along shore !

To splash the water! to walk ankle-deep-to race naked along the shore.

O to realize space!

The plenteousness of all-that there are no bounds ;

130

To emerge, and be of the sky-of the sun and moon, and the flying clouds, as one with them.

O the joy of a manly self-hood!

Personality to be servile to none-to defer to none-not to any tyrant, known or unknown,

To walk with erect carriage, a step springy and elastic,
To look with calm gaze, or with a flashing eye,

To speak with a full and sonorous voice, out of a broad chest, To confront with your personality all the other personalities of the earth.

14'

Know'st thou the excellent joys of youth?

Joys of the dear companions, and of the merry word, and laughing face?

Joys of the glad, light-beaming day-joy of the wide-breath'à

games?

140

Joy of sweet music-joy of the lighted ball-room, and the dancers ?

1 "the voyage of Death!" added in 1870.

2 1860 '67 read "O the beautiful," etc.

3 1860 '67 read "O that of myself," etc.

4 Stanzas 14-15-16. Lines 138-150 added in 1870.

Joy of the friendly, plenteous dinner-the strong carouse, and drinking?

Yet, O my soul supreme !

15

Know'st thou the joys of pensive thought?

Joys of the free and lonesome heart-the tender, gloomy heart? Joy of the solitary walk-the spirit bowed yet proud-the suf fering and the struggle?

The agonistic throes, the extasies-joys of the solemn musings, day or night?

Joys of the thought of Death-the great spheres Time and Space? Prophetic joys of better, loftier love's ideals-the Divine Wife -the sweet, eternal, perfect Comrade?

Joys all thine own, undying one-joys worthy thee, O Soul. 150

16

O, while I live, to be the ruler of life—not a slave,

To meet life as a powerful conqueror,

No fumes-no ennui-no more complaints, or scornful criticisms.

O me repellent and ugly!

To these proud laws of the air, the water, and the ground, proving my interior Soul impregnable,

And nothing exterior shall ever take command of me.

O to attract by more than attraction!

How it is I know not-yet behold! the something which obeys none of the rest,

It is offensive, never defensive-yet how magnetic it draws.

O joy of suffering!

17

160

To struggle against great odds! to meet enemies undaunted! To be entirely alone with them! to find how much one can stand!

To look strife, torture, prison, popular odium, death, face to

face!

To mount the scaffold! to advance to the muzzles of guns with

perfect nonchalance !

To be indeed a God!

18

O, to sail to sea in a ship!

To leave this steady, unendurable land!

To leave the tiresome sameness of the streets, the sidewalks and the houses;

To leave you, O you solid motionless land, and entering a ship, To sail, and sail, and sail!1

19

O to have my life henceforth a poem of new2 joys!

170

To dance, clap hands, exult, shout, skip, leap, roll on, float on,3 To be a sailor of the world, bound for all ports,

A ship itself, (see indeed these sails I spread to the sun and air,) A swift and swelling ship, full of rich words--full of joys.

TO THINK OF TIME.

First published in 1855. In 1856 under title of Burial." In 1860 '67 under title of "Burial Poem."

I

"To think of time-of all that retrospection !5

To think of to-day, and the ages continued henceforward!

Have you guess'd you yourself would not continue?
Have you dreaded these earth-beetles ?

Have you fear'd the future would be nothing to you?

Is to-day nothing? Is the beginningless past nothing?
If the future is nothing, they are just as surely nothing.

To think that the sun rose in the east! that men and women were flexible, real, alive! that everything was alive!

To think that you and I did not see, feel, think, nor bear our part!

To think that we are now here, and bear our part !

1 Stanza 18, lines 166-170 added in 1870.

2 "new" added in 1870.

ΙΟ

After line 172, 1860 '67 read "An athlete-full of rich words-full of

joys," which ends the poem in those editions.

1860 '67 begin the Poem "To think of it! To think of time--" etc.
1855 '60 read "to think through the retrospection."

2

Not a day passes—not a minute or second, without an accouche

ment !

Not a day passes—not a minute or second, without a corpse!

The dull nights go over, and the dull days also,
The soreness of lying so much in bed goes over,

The physician, after long putting off, gives the silent and terrible look for an answer,

The children come hurried and weeping, and the brothers and sisters are sent for,

Medicines stand unused on the shelf-(the camphor-smell has long pervaded the rooms,)

The faithful hand of the living does not desert the hand of the

dying,

The twitching lips press lightly on the forehead of the dying,
The breath ceases, and the pulse of the heart ceases,1
The corpse stretches' on the bed, and the living look upon it,
It is palpable as the living are palpable.

The living look upon the corpse with their eye-sight,

20

But without eye-sight lingers a different living, and looks curiously on the corpse.

3

To think the thought of Death, merged in the thought of materials !'

To think that the rivers will flow, and the snow fall, and fruits ripen, and act upon others as upon us now-yet not act upon us!

To think of all these wonders of city and country, and others taking great interest in them—and we taking no interest in them!

To think how eager we are in building our houses!

To think others shall be just as eager, and we quite indifferent!

1 In 1855 lines 13-20 each begin with "When."

2 1855 reads "Then the corpse-limbs stretch on the bed and the living look upon them.'

3 1855 reads "They are palpable."

Line 25 added in 1870.

5 1855 '56 read "will come to flow."

61855 for "no" reads "small,”

(I see one building the house that serves him a few years, or seventy or eighty years at most,

30 I see one building the house that serves him longer than that.)

Slow-moving and black lines creep over the whole earth-they never cease they are the burial lines,

He that was President was buried, and he that is now President shall surely be buried.

4

A reminiscence of the vulgar fate,

A frequent sample of the life and death of workmen,
Each after his kind :'

Cold dash of waves at the ferry-wharf-posh and ice in the river, half-frozen mud in the streets, a gray, discouraged sky overhead, the short, last daylight of Twelfth-month, A hearse and stages-other vehicles give place-the funeral of an old Broadway' stage-driver, the cortege mostly drivers.

Steady the trot to the cemetery, duly rattles the death-bell, the gate is pass'd, the new-dug grave is halted at, the living alight, the hearse uncloses,

The coffin is pass'd out, lower'd and settled, the whip is laid on the coffin, the earth is swiftly shovel'd in,

The mound above is flatted with the spades-silence,
A minute-no one moves or speaks--it is done,
He is decently put away—is there anything more?

40

He was a good fellow, free-mouth'd, quick-temper'd, not badlooking, able to take his own part, witty, sensitive to a slight, ready with life or death for a friend, fond of women, gambled, ate hearty, drank hearty, had known. what it was to be flush, grew low-spirited toward the last, sicken'd, was help'd by a contribution, died, aged fortyone years—and that was his funeral.

Thumb extended, finger uplifted, apron, cape, gloves, strap, wet-weather clothes, whip carefully chosen, boss, spotter, starter, hostler, somebody loafing on you, you loafing on somebody, headway, man before and man behind, good 1 Lines 34-36 added in 1870. "Broadway" added in 1856.