7

Or Time and Space!

Or shape of Earth, divine and wondrous !

Or shape in I myself-or some fair shape, I, viewing, worship, Or lustrous orb of Sun, or star by night:

Be ye my Gods.

TO ONE SHORTLY TO DIE.

First published in 1860.

I

FROM all the rest I single out you, having a message for you: You are to die-Let others tell you what they please, I cannot prevaricate,

I am exact and merciless, but I love you-There is no escape

for you.

Softly I lay my right hand upon you—you just feel it,

I do not argue-I bend my head close, and half envelope it,

I sit quietly by-I remain faithful,

I am more than nurse, more than parent or neighbor,

I absolve you from all except yourself, spiritual, bodily-that is eternal-you yourself will surely escape,1

The corpse you will leave will be but excrementitious.

2

The sun bursts through in unlooked-for directions!
Strong thoughts fill you, and confidence-you smile!
You forget you are sick, as I forget you are sick,

ΙΟ

You do not see the medicines-you do not mind the weeping friends-I am with you,

I exclude others from you-there is nothing to be commiserated. I do not commiserate-I congratulate you.

1 "you yourself will surely escape" added in "Passage to India.' 1870

SONG OF THE EXPOSITION.

Applied to The Centennial, Philadelphia, 1976. (Originally recited for opening the Fortieth Annual Exhibition, American Institute, New York, noon, September 7, 1871.) Published in 1871 under title of "After All Not to Create Only."

I

AFTER all, not to create only, or found only,

But to bring, perhaps from afar, what is already founded,
To give it our own identity, average, limitless, free;
To fill the gross, the torpid bulk with vital religious fire;
Not to repel or destroy, so much as accept, fuse, rehabilitate;
To obey, as well as command-to follow, more than to lead ;
These also are the lessons of our New World;

-While how little the New, after all-how much the Old, Old
World!

Long, long, long, has the grass been growing,

Long and long has the rain been falling,

Long has the globe been rolling round.

Come, Muse, migrate from Greece and Ionia ;

Cross out, please, those immensely overpaid accounts,

That matter of Troy, and Achilles' wrath, and Eneas', Odysseus' wanderings;

Placard "Removed" and "To Let" on the rocks of your snowy Parnassus ;

Repeat at Jerusalem-place the notice high on Jaffa's gate, and on Mount Moriah;

The same on the walls of your Gothic European Cathedrals, and German, French and Spanish Castles ;

For know a better, fresher, busier sphere--a wide, untried domain awaits, demands you.

Responsive to our summons,

3

Or rather to her long-nurs'd inclination,

Join'd with an irresistible, natural gravitation,

20

She comes! this famous Female-as was indeed to be expected: (For who, so-ever youthful, 'cute and handsome, would wish to stay in mansions such as those,

When offer'd quarters with all the modern improvements,
With all the fun that 's going-and all the best society?)

She comes! I hear the rustling of her gown;

I scent the odor of her breath's delicious fragrance ;

I mark her step divine-her curious eyes a-turning, rolling,
Upon this very scene.

The Dame of Dames! can I believe, then,

30

Those ancient temples classic, and castles strong and feudalistic, could none of them restrain her?

Nor shades of Virgil and Dante-nor myriad memories, poems, old associations, magnetize and hold on to her?

But that she's left them all-and here?

Yes, if you will allow me to say so,

I, my friends, if you do not, can plainly see Her,

The same Undying Soul of Earth's, activity's, beauty's, heroism's Expression,

Out from her evolutions hither come-submerged the strata of her former themes,

Hidden and cover'd by to-day's--foundation of to-day's; Ended, deceas'd, through time, her voice by Castaly's fountain; Silent through time the broken-lipp'd Sphynx in Egypt-silent those century-baffling tombs ;

40

Closed for aye the epics of Asia's, Europe's helmeted warriors; Calliope's call for ever closed-Clio, Melpomene, Thalia closed

and dead;

Seal'd the stately rhythmus of Una and Oriana-ended the quest of the Holy Graal;

Jerusalem a handful of ashes blown by the wind--extinct; The Crusaders' streams of shadowy, midnight troops, sped with the sunrise;

Amadis, Tancred, utterly gone-Charlemagne, Roland, Oliver

gone,

Palmerin, ogre, departed-vanish'd the turrets that Usk reflected, Arthur vanish'd with all his knights-Merlin and Lancelot and

Galahad-all gone-dissolv'd utterly, like an exhalation; Pass'd! pass'd! for us, for ever pass'd! that once so mighty World-now void, inanimate, phantom World!

Embroider'd, dazzling World! with all its gorgeous legends,

myths,

50

Its kings and barons proud-its priests, and warlike lords, and

courtly dames;

Pass'd to its charnel vault-laid on the shelf-coffin'd, with Crown and Armor on,

Blazon'd with Shakspeare's purple page,

And dirged by Tennyson's sweet sad rhyme.

I say I see, my friends, if you do not, the Animus of all that World,

Escaped, bequeath'd, vital, fugacious as ever, leaving those dead remains, and now this spot approaching, filling;

—And I can hear what maybe you do not-a terrible æsthetical commotion,

With howling, desperate gulp of "flower" and "bower," With "Sonnet to Matilda's Eyebrow" quite, quite frantic; With gushing, sentimental reading circles turn'd to ice or stone; With many a squeak, (in metre choice,) from Boston, New York, Philadelphia, London;

61 As she, the illustrious Emigré, (having, it is true, in her day, although the same, changed, journey'd considerable,) Making directly for this rendezvous-vigorously clearing a path for herself-striding through the confusion,

By thud of machinery and shrill steam-whistle undismay'd,
Bluff'd not a bit by drain-pipe, gasometers, artificial fertilizers,
Smiling and pleased, with palpable intent to stay,
She's here, install'd amid the kitchen ware!

4

But hold-don't I forget my manners?

To introduce the Stranger (what else indeed have I come for?) to thee, Columbia:

In Liberty's name, welcome, Immortal! clasp hands,

And ever henceforth Sisters dear be both.

70

Fear not, O Muse! truly new ways and days receive, surround

you,

(I candidly confess, a queer, queer race, of novel fashion,) And yet the same old human race-the same within, without, Faces and hearts the same-feelings the same-yearnings the

same,

The same old love-beauty and use the same.

5

We do not blame thee, Elder World-nor separate ourselves from

thee:

(Would the Son separate himself from the Father?)

Looking back on thee-seeing thee to thy duties, grandeurs, through past ages bending, building,

We build to ours to-day.

Mightier than Egypt's tombs,

Fairer than Grecia's, Roma's temples,

Prouder than Milan's statued, spired Cathedral,
More picturesque than Rhenish castle-keeps,
We plan, even now, to raise, beyond them all,
Thy great Cathedral, sacred Industry-no tomb,

A Keep for life for practical Invention.

As in a waking vision,

E'en while I chant, I see it rise—I scan and prophesy outside and in,

Loftier, fairer, ampler than any yet,

Earth's modern Wonder, History's Seven outstripping,
High rising tier on tier, with glass and iron façades.

Gladdening the sun and sky-enhued in cheerfulest hues,
Bronze, lilac, robin's-egg, marine and crimson,

90

Over whose golden roof shall flaunt, beneath thy banner, Free

dom,

The banners of The States, the flags of every land,

A brood of lofty, fair, but lesser Palaces shall cluster.

Somewhere within the walls of all,

Shall all that forwards perfect human life be started,
Tried, taught, advanced, visibly exhibited.

Here shall you trace in flowing operation,

In every state of practical, busy movement,

The rills of Civilization.

100

Materials here, under your eye, shall change their shape, as if by

magic;