I do not doubt that the passionately-wept deaths of young men are provided for, and that the deaths of young women and

the deaths of little children are provided for,

(Did you think Life was so well provided for, and Death, the purport of all Life, is not well provided for ?)

I do not doubt that wrecks at sea, no matter what the horrors of them, no matter whose wife, child, husband, father, lover,

has gone down, are provided for, to the minutest points, I do not doubt that whatever can possibly happen anywhere at any time, is provided for in the inherences of things,

I do not think Life provides for all and for Time and Space, but I believe Heavenly Death provides for all.

Quicksand years.

QUICKSAND years that whirl me I know not whither,

Your schemes, politics, fail, lines give way, substances mock and

elude me,

[not, Only the theme I sing, the great and strong-possess'd soul, eludes One's-self must never give way—that is the final substance—

that out of all is sure,

Out of politics, triumphs, battles, life, what at last finally remains? When shows break up what but One's-Self is sure?

That Music Always Round Me.

THAT music always round me, unceasing, unbeginning, yet long untaught I did not hear,

But now the chorus I hear and am elated,

A tenor, strong, ascending with power and health, with glad notes of daybreak I hear,

A soprano at intervals sailing buoyantly over the tops of immense

waves,

A transparent base shuddering lusciously under and through the

universe,

The triumphant tutti, the funeral wailings with sweet flutes and violins, all these I fill myself with,

I hear not the volumes of sound merely, I am moved by the exquisite meanings,

I listen to the different voices winding in and out, striving, contending with fiery vehemence to excel each other in emotion;

I do not think the performers know themselves - but now I think I begin to know them.

Wabat Ship Puzzled at Sea.

WHAT ship puzzled at sea, cons for the true reckoning?

Or coming in, to avoid the bars and follow the channel a perfect pilot needs?

Here, sailor! here, ship! take aboard the most perfect pilot, Whom, in a little boat, putting off and rowing, I hailing you offer.

A Noiseless Patient Spider.

A NOISELESS patient spider,

I mark'd where on a little promontory it stood isolated,

Mark'd how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,

It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you O my soul where you stand,

Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,

Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to

connect them,

Till the bridge you will need be form'd, till the ductile anchor hold,

Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.)

Living Always, Always Dying.

O LIVING always, always dying!

O the burials of me past and present,

O me while I stride ahead, material, visible, imperious as ever; O me, what I was for years, now dead, (I lament not, I am

content;)

O to disengage myself from those corpses of me, which I turn and look at where I cast them,

To pass on, (O living! always living!) and leave the corpses behind.

To One Sbortly to Die.

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 envelop 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,

The corpse you will leave will be but excrementitious.

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,

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.

Night on the Prairies.

NIGHT on the prairies,

The supper is over, the fire on the ground burns low,

The wearied emigrants sleep, wrapt in their blankets;

I walk by myself-I stand and look at the stars, which I think now I never realized before.

Now I absorb immortality and peace,

I admire death and test propositions.

How plenteous! how spiritual! how résumé!

The same old man and soul—the same old aspirations, and the same content.

I was thinking the day most splendid till I saw what the not-day exhibited,

I was thinking this globe enough till there sprang out so noiseless around me myriads of other globes.

Now while the great thoughts of space and eternity fill me I will measure myself by them,

And now touch'd with the lives of other globes arrived as far

along as those of the earth,

Or waiting to arrive, or pass'd on farther than those of the earth,
I henceforth no more ignore them than I ignore my own life,
Or the lives of the earth arrived as far as mine, or waiting to

arrive.

OI see now that life cannot exhibit all to me, as the day cannot, I see that I am to wait for what will be exhibited by death.

Thought.

As I sit with others at a great feast, suddenly while the music is playing,

To my mind, (whence it comes I know not,) spectral in mist of

a wreck at sea,

Of certain ships, how they sail from port with flying streamers and wafted kisses, and that is the last of them,