TO A CERTAIN CANTATRICE. HERE, take this gift, I was reserving it for some hero, speaker, or general, One who should serve the good old cause, the great idea, the progress and freedom of the race, Some brave confronter of despots, some daring rebel; But I see that what I was reserving belongs to you just as much as to any. ME IMPERTURBE. ME imperturbe, standing at ease in Nature, Master of all or mistress of all, aplomb in the midst of irrational things, Imbued as they, passive, receptive, silent as they, Finding my occupation, poverty, notoriety, foibles, crimes, less important than I thought, Me toward the Mexican sea, or in the Mannahatta or the Tennessee, or far north or inland, A river man, or a man of the woods or of any farm-life of these States or of the coast, or the lakes or Kanada, Me wherever my life is lived, O to be self-balanced for contingencies, To confront night, storms, hunger, ridicule, accidents, rebuffs, as the trees and animals do. SAVANTISM. THITHER as I look I see each result and glory retracing itself and nestling close, always obligated, Thither hours, months, years—thither trades, compacts, establishments, even the most minute, Thither every-day life, speech, utensils, politics, persons, estates; Thither we also, I with my leaves and songs, trustful, admirant, As a father to his father going takes his children along with him. THE SHIP STARTING. Lo, the unbounded sea, On its breast a ship starting, spreading all sails, carrying even her moonsails, The pennant is flying aloft as she speeds she speeds so statelybelow emulous waves press forward, They surround the ship with shining curving motions and foam. I HEAR AMERICA SINGING. I HEAR America singing, the varied carols I hear, Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong, The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam, The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work, The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck, The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands, The wood-cutter's song, the ploughboy's on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown, The delicious singing of the mother, cr of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing, Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else, The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly, Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs. WHAT PLACE IS BESIEGED? WHAT place is besieged, and vainly tries to raise the siege? STILL THOUGH THE ONE I SING. STILL though the one I sing, (One, yet of contradictions made,) I dedicate to Nationality, I leave in him revolt, (O latent right of insurrection! O quenchless, indispensable fire !) SHUT NOT YOUR DOORS. SHUT not your doors to me proud libraries, For that which was lacking on all your well-fill'd shelves, yet needed most, I bring, Forth from the war emerging, a book I have made, The words of my book nothing, the drift of it every thing, A book separate, not link'd with the rest nor felt by the intellect, But you ye untold latencies will thrill to every page. POETS TO COME. POETS to come! orators, singers, musicians to come! Arouse! for you must justify me. I myself but write one or two indicative words for the future, I but advance a moment only to wheel and hurry back in the darkness. I am a man who, sauntering along without fully stopping, turns a casual look upon you and then averts his face, Leaving it to you to prove and define it, Expecting the main things from you. TO YOU. STRANGER, if you passing meet me and desire to speak to me, why should you not speak to me? And why should I not speak to you? THOU READER. THOU reader throbbest life and pride and love the same as I, STA STARTING FROM PAUMANOK. I TARTING from fish-shape Paumanok where I was born, After roaming many lands, lover of populous pavements, Or a soldier camp'd or carrying my knapsack and gun, or a miner in California, Or rude in my home in Dakota's woods, my diet meat,`my drink from the spring, Or withdrawn to muse and meditate in some deep recess, Far from the clank of crowds intervals passing rapt and happy, Aware of the fresh free giver the flowing Missouri, aware of mighty Niagara, Aware of the buffalo herds grazing the plains, the hirsute and strong-breasted bull, Of earth, rocks, Fifth-month flowers experienced, stars, rain, snow, my amaze, Having studied the mocking-bird's tones and the flight of the mountain-hawk, And heard at dawn the unrivall'd one, the hermit thrush from the swamp-cedars, Solitary, singing in the West, I strike up for a New World. 2 Victory, union, faith, identity, time, The indissoluble compacts, riches, mystery, Eternal progress, the kosmos, and the modern reports. This then is life, Here is what has come to the surface after so many throes and convulsions. How curious! how real! Underfoot the divine soil, overhead the sun. See revolving the globe, The ancestor-continents away group'd together, The present and future continents north and south, with the isthmus between. See, vast trackless spaces, As in a dream they change, they swiftly fill, Countless masses debouch upon them, They are now cover'd with the foremost people, arts, institutions, known. See, projected through time, For me an audience interminable. With firm and regular step they wend, they never stop, One generation playing its part and passing on, Another generation playing its part and passing on in its turn, 3 Americanos! conquerors! marches humanitarian! Chants of the prairies, Chants of the long-running Mississippi, and down to the Mexican sea, Chants of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota, Chants going forth from the centre from Kansas, and thence equidistant, Shooting in pulses of fire ceaseless to vivify all. 4 Take my leaves America, take them South and take them North, Make welcome for them everywhere, for they are your own off spring, Surround them East and West, for they would surround you, And you precedents, connect lovingly with them, for they connect lovingly with you. I conn'd old times, I sat studying at the feet of the great masters, Now if eligible O that the great masters might return and study me. In the name of these States shall I scorn the antique? Dead poets, philosophs, priests, 5 Martyrs, artists, inventors, governments long since, Nations once powerful, now reduced, withdrawn, or desolate, I dare not proceed till I respectfully credit what you have left wafted hither, I have perused it, own it is admirable, (moving awhile among it,) Think nothing can ever be greater, nothing can ever deserve more than it deserves, Regarding it all intently a long while, then dismissing it, I stand in my place with my own day here. Here lands female and male, Here the heir-ship and heiress-ship of the world, here the flame of materials, |