'Are you full-lung'd and limber-lipp'd from long trial? from vigorous practice? from physique?

Do you move in these broad lands as broad as they ??
Come duly to the divine power to use words?

For only at last, after many years—after chastity, friendship procreation, prudence, and nakedness;

After treading ground and breasting river and lake;

After a loosen'd throat-after absorbing eras, temperaments, races after knowledge, freedom, crimes;

After complete faith-after clarifyings, elevations, and removing obstructions;

After these, and more, it is just possible there comes to a man, a woman, the divine power to use words.

ΙΟ

Then toward that man or that woman, swiftly hasten all-None refuse, all attend;

Armies, ships, antiquities, the dead, libraries, paintings, machines, cities, hate, despair, amity, pain, theft, murder, aspiration, form in close ranks;

They debouch as they are wanted to march obediently through the mouth of that man, or that woman.

OI see arise orators fit for inland America;

And I see it is as slow to become an orator as to become a man; And I see that all power is folded in a great vocalism.

Of a great vocalism, the merciless light thereof shall pour, and the storm rage,

Every flash shall be a revelation, an insult,

The glaring flame on depths,* on heights, on suns, on stars,

On the interior and exterior of man or woman,

On the laws of Nature-on passive materials,

20

On what you called death-(and what to you therefore was

death,

As far as there can be death.)

1 1860 before line 3 reads "Are you eligible?"

2 1860 after line 4 adds " Remembering inland America, the high plateaus, stretching long?

Remembering Kanada-remembering what edge of the Mexican Sea?"

3 "all" added in 1870.

1860 reads "flame turned on depths," etc.

A HAND-MIRROR.

First published in 1860.

HOLD it up sternly! See this it sends back! (Who is it? Is it you?)

Outside fair costume-within ashes and filth,

No more a flashing eye--no more a sonorous voice or springy

step;

Now some slave's eye, voice, hands, step,

A drunkard's breath, unwholesome eater's face, venerealee's flesh,

Lungs rotting away piecemeal, stomach sour and cankerous,
Joints rheumatic, bowels clogged with abomination,

Blood circulating dark and poisonous streams,

Words babble, hearing and touch callous,

No brain, no heart left-no magnetism of sex;

Such, from one look in this looking-glass ere you go hence,
Such a result so soon-and from such a beginning!

ΙΟ

GERMS.

First published in 1860.

FORMS, qualities, lives, humanity, language, thoughts,

The ones known, and the ones unknown-the ones on the stars, The stars themselves, some shaped, others unshaped,

Wonders as of those countries-the soil, trees, cities, inhabitants, whatever they may be,

Splendid suns, the moons and rings, the countless combinations and effects;

Such-like, and as good as such-like, visible here or anywhere, stand provided for in a handful of space, which I extend my arm and half enclose with my hand;

That contains the start of each and all-the virtue, the germs of all.'

O ME! O LIFE!

First published in "

When Lilacs Last in the Door-yard Bloom'd," 1865-6.

O ME! O life! . . .

of the questions of these recurring; Of the endless trains of the faithless-of cities fill'd with the

foolish;

1 1860 adds "That is the theory as of origins."

Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolis than I, and who more faithless?)

Of eyes

that vainly crave the light-of the objects mean—of the struggle ever renew'd ;

Of the poor results of all—of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me ;

Of the empty and useless years of the rest-with the rest me intertwined;

The question, O me! so sad, recurring-What good amid these, O me, O life?

Answer.

That you are here—that life exists, and identity;

That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.

OF Public Opinion;

THOUGHTS.

First published in 1860.

Of a calm and cool fiat, sooner or later, (How impassive! How certain and final!)

Of the President with pale face, asking secretly to himself, What will the people say at last?

Of the frivolous Judge Of the corrupt Congressman, Governor, Mayor-Of such as these, standing helpless and exposed;

Of the mumbling and screaming priest―(soon, soon deserted ;) Of the lessening, year by year, of venerableness, and of the dicta of officers, statutes, pulpits, schools;

Of the rising forever taller and stronger and broader, of the intuitions of men and women, and of self-esteem, and of personality;

-Of the New World-Of the Democracies, resplendent, en

masse;

Of the conformity of politics, armies, navies, to them and to me, Of the shining sun by them-Of the inherent light, greater than

the rest,

ΙΟ

Of the envelopment of all by them, and of the effusion of all from them.

BEGINNERS.

First published in 1860.

How they are provided for upon the earth, (appearing at inter

vals ;)

How dear and dreadful they are to the earth;

How they inure to themselves as much as to any-What a paradox appears their age;

How people respond to them, yet know them not;

How there is something relentless in their fate, all times;

How all times mischoose the objects of their adulation and reward,

And how the same inexorable price must still be paid for the same great purchase.

SONGS OF INSURRECTION.

STILL THOUGH THE ONE I SING.

First published in 1870.

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!)

TO A FOIL'D EUROPEAN REVOLUTIONAIRE. First published in 1856 under title of Liberty Poem for Asia, Africa, Europe, America." etc. In 1860 '67 under title of "To a Foiled Revolter or Revoltress."

I

COURAGE yet!1 my brother or my sister!

Keep on! Liberty is to be subserv'd, whatever occurs;

That is nothing, that is quell'd by one or two failures, or any number of failures,

Or by the indifference or ingratitude of the people, or by any unfaithfulness,

Or the show of the tushes of power, soldiers, cannon, penal

statutes.

1 "yet" added in 1870.

Revolt! and still revolt! revolt!1

What we believe in waits latent forever through all the continents, and all the islands and archipelagos of the sea ;* What we believe in invites no one, promises nothing, sits in calmness and light, is positive and composed, knows no discouragement,

Waiting patiently, waiting its time.3

(Not songs of loyalty alone are these,

But songs of insurrection also ;

ΙΟ

For I am the sworn poet of every dauntless rebel, the world

over,

And he going with me leaves peace and routine behind him,
And stakes his life, to be lost at any moment.)

2

Revolt and the downfall of tyrants!"

The battle rages with many a loud alarm, and frequent advance and retreat,

The infidel triumphs-or supposes he triumphs,

Then the prison, scaffold, garrote, hand-cuffs, iron necklace and anklet, lead-balls, do their work,

The named and unnamed heroes pass to other spheres,
The great speakers and writers are exiled-they lie sick in

distant lands,

20

The cause is asleep-the strongest throats are still, choked with their own blood,

The young men droop their eyelashes toward the ground when they meet;

—But for all this, liberty has not gone out of the place, nor the infidel enter'd into full possession.

When liberty goes out of a place, it is not the first to go, nor the second or third to go,

It waits for all the rest to go-it is the last.

1 Line 6 added in 1870.

2 1856 '60 read

66

through Asia, Africa, Europe, America, Australia, Cuba, and all the islands," etc.

31856'60 read "Waits patiently its time, a year, a century, a hundred centuries."

4 Lines 10-15 added in 1870.