On which arising, rest, and leaping forth, depend, All shapes of beauty, grace and strength-all hues we know, Green blades of grass, and warbling birds-children that gambol and play-the clouds of heaven above,) The strong base stands, and its pulsations intermits not, rest; And with it every instrument in multitudes, The players playing—all the world's musicians And for their solvent setting, Earth's own diapason, 40 A new composite orchestra-binder of years and climes-ten-fold renewer, As of the far-back days the poets tell-the Paradiso, The straying thence, the separation long, but now the wandering done, The journey done, the Journeyman come home, And Man and Art, with Nature fused again. Tutti! for Earth and Heaven! 6 50 The Almighty Leader now for me, for once has signal'd with his wand. The manly strophe of the husbands of the world, And all the wives responding. The tongues of violins ! (I think, O tongues, ye tell this heart, that cannot tell itself; This brooding, yearning heart, that cannot tell itself.) Ah, from a little child, 7 Thou knowest, Soul, how to me all sounds became music; (The voice-O tender voices-memory's loving voices! 60 The rain, the growing corn, the breeze among the long-leav'd corn, The measur'd sea-surf, beating on the sand, The twittering bird, the hawk's sharp scream, The wild-fowl's notes at night, as flying low, migrating north or south, The psalm in the country church, or mid the clustering trees, the open air camp-meeting, The fiddler in the tavern-the glee, the long-strung sailor-song, The lowing cattle, bleating sheep-the crowing cock at dawn. 70 8 All songs of current lands come sounding 'round me, Irish ballads, merry jigs and dances-English warbles, Across the stage, with pallor on her face, yet lurid passion, I see poor crazed Lucia's eyes' unnatural gleam ; I see where Ernani, walking the bridal garden, 80 Amid the scent of night-roses, radiant, holding his bride by the hand, Hears the infernal call, the death-pledge of the horn. To crossing swords, and grey hairs bared to heaven, From Spanish chestnut trees' dense shade, By old and heavy convent walls, a wailing song, Song of lost love-the torch of youth and life quench'd in despair, Song of the dying swan-Fernando's heart is breaking. Awaking from her woes at last, retriev'd Amina sings; 90 Copious as stars, and glad as morning light, the torrents of her joy. (The teeming lady comes! The lustrious orb-Venus contralto-the blooming mother, 9 I hear those odes, symphonies, operas; I hear in the William Tell, the music of an arous'd and angry people; I hear Meyerbeer's Huguenots, the Prophet, or Robert; ΙΟ I hear the dance-music of all nations, The waltz, (some delicious measure, lapsing, bathing me in bliss ;) The bolero, to tinkling guitars and clattering castanets. I see religious dances old and new, I hear the sound of the Hebrew lyre, 100 I see the Crusaders marching, bearing the cross on high, to the martial clang of cymbals ; I hear dervishes monotonously chanting, interspers'd with frantic shouts, as they spin around, turning always towards Mecca ; I see the rapt religious dances of the Persians and the Arabs; Again, at Eleusis, home of Ceres, I see the modern Greeks dancing, I hear them clapping their hands, as they bend their bodies, I see again the wild old Corybantian dance, the performers wounding each other; I see the Roman youth, to the shrill sound of flageolets, throwing and catching their weapons, As they fall on their knees, and rise again. I hear from the Mussulman mosque the muezzin calling; I see the worshippers within, (nor form, nor sermon, argument, nor word, But silent, strange, devout-rais'd, glowing heads--extatic faces.) II I hear the Egyptian harp of many strings, The primitive chants of the Nile boatmen ; To the delicate sounds of the king, (the stricken wood and stone ;) Or to Hindu flutes, and the fretting twang of the vina, A band of bayaderes. 12 Now Asia, Africa leave me-Europe, seizing, inflates me; 120 To organs huge, and bands, I hear as from vast concourses of voices, Luther's strong hymn, Eine feste Burg ist unser Gott; Rossini's Stabat Mater dolorosa; Or, floating in some high cathedral dim, with gorgeous color'd windows, The passionate Agnus Dei, or Gloria in Excelsis. Composers mighty maestros! 13 And you, sweet singers of old lands-Soprani! Tenori! Bassi ! (Such led to thee, O Soul ! All senses, shows and objects, lead to thee, But now, it seems to me, sound leads o'er all the rest.) 14 130 I hear the annual singing of the children in St. Paul's Cathedral ; Or, under the high roof of some colossal hall, the symphonies, oratorios of Beethoven, Handel, or Haydn ; The Creation, in billows of godhood laves me. Give me to hold all sounds, (I, madly struggling, cry,) Endow me with their throbbings-Nature's also, The tempests, waters, winds-operas and chants-marches and dances, Utter-pour in-for I would take them all. Then I woke softly, 15 140 And pausing, questioning awhile the music of my dream, And those rapt oriental dances, of religious fervor, And the sweet varied instruments, and the diapason of organs, And all the artless plaints of love, and grief and death, I said to my silent, curious Soul, out of the bed of the slumber chamber, Come, for I have found the clue I sought so long, Let us go forth refresh'd amid the day, Cheerfully tallying life, walking the world, the real, And I said, moreover, 150 Haply, what thou hast heard, O Soul, was not the sound of winds, Nor dream of raging storm, nor sea-hawk's flapping wings, nor harsh scream, Nor vocalism of sun-bright Italy, Nor German organ majestic-nor vast concourse of voices-nor layers of harmonies; Nor strophes of husbands and wives-nor sound of marching soldiers, Nor flutes, nor harps, nor the bugle-calls of camps; But, to a new rhythmus fitted for thee, 160 Poems, bridging the way from Life to Death, vaguely wafted in night air, uncaught, unwritten, Which, let us go forth in the bold day, and write. ASHES OF SOLDIERS. Again a verse for sake of you, You soldiers in the ranks-you Volunteers, Who bravely fighting, silent fell, To fill unmention'd graves. ASHES OF SOLDIERS. First published in “ Drum-Taps," 1865, under title of Hymn of Dead Soldiers." ASHES of soldiers ! As I muse, retrospective, murmuring a chant in thought, |