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The poets, women, sailors, soldiers, farmers, miners, students thine!

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None separate from Thee-henceforth one only, we and Thou; (For the blood of the children-what is it only the blood Ma

ternal?

And lives and works-what are they all at last except the roads to Faith and Death?)

While we rehearse our measureless wealth, it is for thee, dear Mother!

We own it all and several to-day indissoluble in Thee; -Think not our chant, our show, merely for products gross, or lucre it is for Thee, the Soul, electric, spiritual! Our farms, inventions, crops, we own in Thee! Cities and States in Thee!

Our freedom all in Thee! our very lives in Thee!

ONE SONG, AMERICA, BEFORE I GO.

First published in "As a Strong Bird," etc., 1372.

ONE Song, America, before I go,

I'd sing, o'er all the rest, with trumpet sound,
For thee--the Future.

I'd sow a seed for thee of endless Nationality;

I'd fashion thy Ensemble, including Body and Soul;

I'd show, away ahead, thy real Union, and how it may be accomplish'd.

(The paths to the House I seek to make,

But leave to those to come, the House itself.)

Belief I sing-and Preparation;

As Life and Nature are not great with reference to the Present

only,

But greater still from what is yet to come,

Out of that formula for Thee I sing.

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SOUVENIRS OF DEMOCRACY.

First published in " As a Strong Bird," etc., 1872.

THE business man, the acquirer vast,

After assiduous years, surveying results, preparing for departure, Devises houses and lands to his children-bequeaths stocks, goods-funds for a school or hospital,

Leaves money to certain companions to buy tokens, souvenirs of gems and gold;

Parceling out with care--And then, to prevent all cavil,
His name to his testament formally signs.

But I, my life surveying,

With nothing to show, to devise, from its idle years,

Nor houses, nor lands-nor tokens of gems or gold for my friends, Only these Souvenirs of Democracy-In them-in all my songs -behind me leaving,

ΙΟ

To You, who ever you are, (bathing, leavening this leaf especially with my breath-pressing on it a moment with my own hands;

-Here! feel how the pulse beats in my wrists!-how my heart'sblood is swelling, contracting!)

I will You, in all, Myself, with promise to never desert you, To which I sign my name.

AS A STRONG BIRD ON PINIONS FREE. Commencement Poem, Dartmouth College, N. H., June 26, 1872, on invitation United Literary Societies.

First published in "As a Strong Bird," etc., 1872.

As a strong bird on pinions free,

I

Joyous, the amplest spaces heavenward cleaving,
Such be the thought I'd think to-day of thee, America,
Such be the recitative I'd bring to day for thee.

The conceits of the poets of other lands I bring thee not,
Nor the compliments that have served their turn so long,

Nor rhyme-nor the classics-nor perfume of foreign court, or indoor library;

But an odor I'd bring to-day as from forests of pine in the north, in Maine-or breath of an Illinois prairie,

With open airs of Virginia, or Georgia, or Tennessee—or from Texas uplands, or Florida's glades,

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With presentment of Yellowstone's scenes, or Yosemite; And murmuring under, pervading all, I'd bring the rustling seasound,

That endlessly sounds from the two great seas of the world.

And for thy subtler sense, subtler refrains, O Union!
Preludes of intellect tallying these and thee-mind-formulas fitted
for thee-real, and sane, and large as these and thee;
Thou, mounting higher, diving deeper than we knew-thou
transcendental Union!

By thee Fact to be justified-blended with Thought;
Thought of Man justified-blended with God:
Through thy Idea-lo! the immortal Reality!
Through thy Reality-lo! the immortal Idea!

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Brain of the New World! what a task is thine!
To formulate the Modern.

of the modern,

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Out of the peerless grandeur

Out of Thyself-comprising Science-to recast Poems, Churches. Art,

(Recast-may-be discard them, end them-May-be their work is done who knows?)

By vision, hand, conception, on the background of the mighty past, the dead,

To limn, with absolute faith, the mighty living present.

(And yet, thou living, present brain! heir of the dead, the Old World brain!

Thou that lay folded, like an unborn babe, within its folds so long! Thou carefully prepared by it so long!-haply thou but unfoldest it-only maturest it ;

It to eventuate in thee-the essence of the by-gone time contain'd in thee;

Its poems, churches, arts, unwitting to themselves, destined with reference to thee,

The fruit of all the Old, ripening to-day in thee.)

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Sail-sail thy best, ship of Democracy!

Of value is thy freight--'tis not the Present only,

The Past is also stored in thee!

Thou holdest not the venture of thyself alone-not of thy western continent alone;

Earth's résumé entire floats on thy keel, O ship-is steadied by thy spars;

With thee Time voyages in trust-the antecedent nations sink or swim with thee;

With all their ancient struggles, martyrs, heroes, epics, wars, thou bear'st the other continents;

Theirs, theirs as much as thine, the destination-port triumphant : -Steer, steer with good strong hand and wary eye, O helmsman-thou carryest great companions,

Venerable, priestly Asia sails this day with thee,
And royal, feudal Europe sails with thee.

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Beautiful World of new, superber Birth, that rises to my eyes, Like a limitless golden cloud, filling the western sky;

Emblem of general Maternity, lifted above all;

Sacred shape of the bearer of daughters and sons;

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Out of thy teeming womb, thy giant babes in ceaseless procession issuing,

Acceding from such gestation, taking and giving continual strength and life;

World of the Real! world of the twain in one!

World of the Soul-born by the world of the real alone-led to identity, body, by it alone;

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Yet in beginning only-incalculable masses of composite, precious materials,

By history's cycles forwarded-by every nation, language, hither

sent,

Ready, collected here—a freer, vast, electric World, to be constructed here,

(The true New World-the world of orbic Science, Morals,

Literatures to come,)

Thou Wonder World, yet undefined, unform'd-neither do I define thee;

How can I pierce the impenetrable blank of the future?

I feel thy ominous greatness, evil as well as good;

I watch thee, advancing, absorbing the present, transcending

the past;

I see thy light lighting and thy shadow shadowing, as if the

entire globe;

But I do not undertake to define thee-hardly to comprehend

thee;

I but thee name-thee prophecy—as now!

I merely thee ejaculate !

Thee in thy future;

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Thee in thy only permanent life, career-thy own unloosen'd mind-thy soaring spirit;

Thee as another equally needed sun, America-radiant, ablaze, swift-moving, fructifying all;

Thee! risen in thy potent cheerfulness and joy-thy endless, great hilarity!

(Scattering for good the cloud that hung so long-that weigh'd so long upon the mind of man,

The doubt, suspicion, dread, of gradual, certain decadence of man ;)

Thee in thy larger, saner breeds of Female, Male-thee in thy athletes, moral, spiritual, South, North, West, East, (To thy immortal breasts, Mother of All, thy every daughter, son, endear'd alike, forever equal ;)

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Thee in thy own musicians, singers, artists, unborn yet, but certain ;

Thee in thy moral wealth and civilization (until which thy proudest material wealth and civilization must remain in vain ;) Thee in thy all-supplying, all-enclosing Worship—thee in no single bible, saviour, merely,

Thy saviours countless, latent within thyself-thy bibles incessant, within thyself, equal to any, divine as any ;

Thee in an education grown of thee-in teachers, studies, students, born of thee;

Thee in thy democratic fêtes, en masse-thy high original festivals, operas, lecturers, preachers;

Thee in thy ultimata, (the preparations only now completedthe edifice on sure foundations tied,)

Thee in thy pinnacles, intellect, thought-thy topmost rational joys-thy love, and godlike aspiration,

In thy resplendent coming literati-thy full-lung'd orators-thy sacerdotal bards-kosmic savans,

These these in thee, (certain to come,) to-day I prophecy. So

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