On the sands of Paumanok's shore gray and rustling,
The yellow half-moon, enlarged, sagging down, droop-
ing, the face of the sea almost touching,
The boy extatic with his bare feet the

his hair the atmosphere dallying,

waves,

with

The love in the heart pent, now loose, now at last tumultuously bursting,

The aria's meaning, the ears, the Soul, swiftly depositing,

The strange tears down the cheeks coursing,

The colloquy there. the trio- each uttering,

The undertone-the savage old mother, incessantly crying,

To the boy's Soul's questions sullenly timing — some drowned secret hissing,

To the outsetting bard of love.

29. Bird! (then said the boy's Soul,)

Is it indeed toward your mate you sing? or is it
mostly to me?

For I that was a child, my tongue's use sleeping,
Now that I have heard you,

Now in a moment I know what I am for -I awake,
And already a thousand singers
a thousand songs,

clearer, louder, more sorrowful than yours, A thousand warbling echoes have started to life within me,

Never to die.

30. O throes!

O you demon, singing by yourself-projecting me,

O solitary me, listening

never more shall I cease

imitating, perpetuating you,

Never more shall I escape,

Never more shall the reverberations,

Never more the cries of unsatisfied love be absent

from me,

Never again leave me to be the peaceful child I was

before what there, in the night,

By the sea, under the yellow and sagging moon,

The dusky demon aroused

within,

the fire, the sweet hell

The unknown want, the destiny of me.

31. O give me some clew!

O if I am to have so much, let me have more!
O a word! O what is my destination?

OI fear it is henceforth chaos!

O how joys, dreads, convolutions, human shapes, and
all shapes, spring as from graves around me!
O phantoms! you cover all the land, and all the sea!
OI cannot see in the dimness whether you smile or
frown upon me;

O vapor, a look, a word! O well-beloved!

you dear women's and men's phantoms!

32. A word then, (for I will conquer it,) The word final, superior to all, Subtle, sent up- what is it?

I listen;

Are you whispering it, and have been all the time,

you sea-waves?

Is that it from your liquid rims and wet sands?

33. Answering, the sea,

Delaying not, hurrying not,

Whispered me through the night, and very plainly
before daybreak,

Lisped to me constantly the low and delicious word
DEATH,

And again Death-ever Death, Death, Death,
Hissing melodious, neither like the bird, nor like my
aroused child's heart,

But edging near, as privately for me, rustling at my feet,

And creeping thence steadily up to my ears,

Death, Death, Death, Death, Death.

34. Which I do not forget,

But fuse the song of two together,

That was sung to me in the moonlight on Paumanok's gray beach,

With the thousand responsive songs, at random,

My own songs, awaked from that hour,

And with them the key, the word up from the waves,
The word of the sweetest song, and all songs,

That strong and delicious word which, creeping to

my feet,

The sea whispered me.

LEAF OF FACES.

1. SAUNTERING the pavement, or riding the country by-road, here then are faces!

Faces of friendship, precision, caution, suavity, ideality,

The spiritual prescient face- the always welcome,
common, benevolent face,

The face of the singing of music- the grand faces of
natural lawyers and judges, broad at the back-
top,
The faces of hunters and fishers, bulged at the brows
the shaved blanched faces of orthodox citizens,
The pure, extravagant, yearning, questioning artist's
face,

The ugly face of some beautiful Soul, the handsome
detested or despised face,

The sacred faces of infants, the illumined face of the mother of many children,

The face of an amour, the face of veneration,

The face as of a dream, the face of an immobile rock,
The face withdrawn of its good and bad, a castrated

face,

A wild hawk, his wings clipped by the clipper,
A stallion that yielded at last to the thongs and knife
of the gelder.

2. Sauntering the pavement, or crossing the ceaseless ferry, here then are faces,

I see them and complain not, and am content with all.

3. Do you suppose I could be content with all, if I thought them their own finale?

4. This now is too lamentable a face for a man,

Some abject louse, asking leave to be - cringing for it,
Some milk-nosed maggot, blessing what lets it wrig to

its hole.

5. This face is a dog's snout sniffling for garbage; Snakes nest in that mouth - I hear the sibilant threat.

6. This face is a haze more chill than the arctic sea, Its sleepy and wobbling icebergs crunch as they go.

7. This is a face of bitter herbs this an emetic-they need no label,

And more of the drug-shelf, laudanum, caoutchouc, or hog's-lard.

8. This face is an epilepsy, its wordless tongue gives out the unearthly cry,

Its veins down the neck distend, its eyes roll till they show nothing but their whites,

Its teeth grit, the palms of the hands are cut by the turned-in nails,

The man falls struggling and foaming to the ground while he speculates well.

9. This face is bitten by vermin and worms,

And this is some murderer's knife with a half-pulled scabbard.

10. This face owes to the sexton his dismalest fee, An unceasing death-bell tolls there.

13. I see your rounded never-erased flow,

I see 'neath the rims of your haggard and mean disguises.

14. Splay and twist as you like-poke with the tangling fores of fishes or rats,

You'll be unmuzzled, you certainly will.

15. I saw the face of the most smeared and slobbering idiot they had at the asylum,

And I knew for my consolation what they knew not, And I knew of the agents that emptied and broke my brother,

The same wait to clear the rubbish from the fallen

tenement,

And I shall look again in a score or two of ages,
And I shall meet the real landlord, perfect and un-
harmed, every inch as good as myself.

16. The Lord advances, and yet advances,

Always the shadow in front - always the reached hand bringing up the laggards.

17. Out of this face emerge banners and horses superb! I see what is coming,

I see the high pioneer-caps-I see the staves of runners clearing the way,

I hear victorious drums.

18. This face is a life-boat,

This is the face commanding and bearded, it asks no odds of the rest,

This face is flavored fruit, ready for eating,

This face of a healthy honest boy is the programme of all good.

19. These faces bear testimony slumbering or awake, They show their descent from the Master himself.

20. Off the word I have spoken I except not one— red, white, black, are all deific,

In each house is the ovum it comes forth after a thousand years.

21. Spots or cracks at the windows do not disturb me, Tall and sufficient stand behind, and make signs to

me,

I read the promise, and patiently wait.

22. This is a full-grown lily's face,

She speaks to the limber-hipp'd man near the garden pickets,

Come here, she blushingly cries - Come nigh to me,