The chorus and indications, the vistas of coming humanity the settlements, features all, In the Mendocino woods I caught. 5 The flashing and golden pageant of California! The sudden and gorgeous drama-the sunny and ample lands; The long and varied stretch from Puget Sound to Colorado south; Lands bathed in sweeter, rarer, healthier air-valleys and mountain cliffs; The fields of Nature long prepared and fallow-the silent, cyclic chemistry; The slow and steady ages plodding-the unoccupied surface ripening the rich ores forming beneath; 89 At last the New arriving, assuming, taking possession, the whole world, To India and China and Australia, and the thousand island paradises of the Pacific; Populous cities-the latest inventions-the steamers on the rivers the railroads-with many a thrifty farm, with machinery, And wool, and wheat, and the grape-and diggings of yellow gold. 6 But more in you than these, Lands of the Western Shore ! (These but the means, the implements, the standing-ground,) I see in you, certain to come, the promise of thousands of till now deferr'd, Promis'd, to be fulfill'd, our common kind, the Race. The New Society at last, proportionate to Nature, years, In Man of you, more than your mountain peaks, or stalwart trees In Woman more, far more, than all your gold, or vines, or even vital air. Fresh come, to a New World indeed, yet long prepared, I see the Genius of the Modern, child of the Real and Ideal, Clearing the ground for broad humanity, the true America, heir of the past so grand, To build a grander future. SONG OF THE UNIVERSAL. (Commencement Poem, Tuft's College, Mass., June 17, 1874.) COME, said the Muse, I Sing me a song no poet yet has chanted, In this broad Earth of ours, Amid the measureless grossness and the slag, Nestles the seed Perfection. By every life a share, or more or less, None born but it is born-conceal'd or unconceal'd, the seed is waiting. 2 Lo! keen-eyed, towering Science ! As from tall peaks the Modern overlooking, Yet again, lo! the Soul-above all science; For it, has History gather'd like a husk around the globe; In spiral roads, by long detours, (As a much-tacking ship upon the sea,) For it, the partial to the permanent flowing, For it, the Real to the Ideal tends. Not the right only justified-what we call evil also justified. Forth from their masks, no matter what, ΙΟ 20 From the huge, festering trunk-from craft and guile and tears, Health to emerge, and joy-joy universal. Out of the bulk, the morbid and the shallow, Out of the bad majority-the varied, countless frauds of men and States, Electric, antiseptic yet-cleaving, suffusing all, 3 Over the mountain growths, disease and sorrow, From imperfection's murkiest cloud, Darts always forth one ray of perfect light, To fashion's, custom's discord, To the mad Babel-din, the deafening orgies, 4 O the blest eyes! the happy hearts! That see-that know the guiding thread so fine, And thou, America! 5 For the Scheme's culmination-its Thought, and its Reality, For these, (not for thyself,) Thou hast arrived. Thou too surroundest all; 330 40 Embracing, carrying, welcoming all, Thou too, by pathways broad and new, To the Ideal tendest. The measur'd faiths of other lands-the grandeurs of the past, Are not for Thee-but grandeurs of Thine own; Deific faiths and amplitudes, absorbing, comprehending all, 50 All eligible to all. All, all for Immortality! Love, like the light, silently wrapping all! Nature's amelioration blessing all! The blossoms, fruits of ages-orchards divine and certain ; Forms, objects, growths, humanities, to spiritual Images ripen ing. 6 Give me, O God, to sing that thought! Give me give him or her I love, this quenchless faith us, Belief in plan of Thee enclosed in Time and Space; Is it a dream? Nay, but the lack of it the dream, And, failing it, life's lore and wealth a dream, And all the world a dream. 60 SONG FOR ALL SEAS, ALL SHIPS. First published in Centennial Songs, 1876. TO-DAY a rude brief recitative, I Of ships sailing the Seas, each with its special flag or shipsignal; Of unnamed heroes in the ships-Of waves spreading and spreading, far as the eye can reach ; Of dashing spray, and the winds piping and blowing; Of Sea-Captains young or old, and the Mates-and of all intrepid Sailors; Of the few, very choice, taciturn, whom fate can never surprise, nor death dismay, Pick'd sparingly, without noise, by thee, old Ocean-chosen by thee, ΙΟ Thou Sea, that pickest and cullest the race, in Time, and unitest Nations! Suckled by thee, old husky Nurse-embodying thee! (Ever the heroes, on water or on land, by ones or twos appear ing, Ever the stock preserv'd, and never lost, though rare-enough for seed preserv'd.) 2 Flaunt out O Sea, your separate flags of nations! But do you reserve especially for yourself, and for the soul of man, one flag above all the rest, A spiritual woven Signal, for all nations, emblem of man elate above death, Token of all brave captains, and all intrepid sailors and mates, And all that went down doing their duty; 20 Reminiscent of them-twined from all intrepid captains, young or old; A pennant universal, subtly waving, all time, o'er all brave sailors, All seas, all ships. EIDÓLONS. Published in "Two Rivulets," 1876. I MET a Seer, Passing the hues and objects of the world, Put in thy chants, said he, No more the puzzling hour, nor day-nor segments, parts, put in, Put first before the rest, as light for all, and entrance-song of all, That of Eidolons. Ever the dim beginning; Ever the growth, the rounding of the circle; ΙΟ Ever the summit, and the merge at last, (to surely start again,) Eidolons! Eidolons! Ever the mutable! Ever materials, changing, crumbling, re-cohering; Issuing Eidolons! Lo! I or you! Or woman, man, or State, known or unknown, We seeming solid wealth, strength, beauty build, 20 |