With ray of light, steady, ineffable, vouchsafed of Thee,

Light rare untellable, lighting the very light,

Beyond all signs, descriptions, languages;

For that O God, be it my latest word, here on my knees,

Old, poor, and paralyzed, I thank Thee.

My terminus near,

The clouds already closing in upon me,

The voyage balk'd, the course disputed, lost,
I yield my ships to Thee.

My hands, my limbs grow nerveless,

My brain feels rack'd, bewilder'd,

Let the old timbers part, I will not part,

I will cling fast to Thee, O God, though the waves buffet me, Thee, Thee at least I know.

Is it the prophet's thought I speak, or am I raving?
What do I know of life? what of myself?

I know not even my own work past or present,
Dim ever-shifting guesses of it spread before me,
Of newer better worlds, their mighty parturition,
Mocking, perplexing me.

And these things I see suddenly, what mean they?
As if some miracle, some hand divine unseal'd my eyes,
Shadowy vast shapes smile through the air and sky,

And on the distant waves sail countless ships,
And anthems in new tongues I hear saluting me,

Stepping with light feet, swiftly and noiselessly stepping and

stopping,

Bending with open eyes over the shut eyes of sleepers,

Wandering and confused, lost to myself, ill-assorted, contradic

tory,

Pausing, gazing, bending, and stopping.

How solemn they look there, stretch'd and still,

How quiet they breathe, the little children in their cradles.

The wretched features of ennuyés, the white features of corpses, the livid faces of drunkards, the sick-gray faces of onanists,

The gash'd bodies on battle-fields, the insane in their strongdoor'd rooms, the sacred idiots, the new-born emerging from gates, and the dying emerging from gates,

The night pervades them and infolds them.

The married couple sleep calmly in their bed, he with his palm on the hip of the wife, and she with her palm on the hip of the husband,

The sisters sleep lovingly side by side in their bed,

The men sleep lovingly side by side in theirs,

And the mother sleeps with her little child carefully wrapt.

The blind sleep, and the deaf and dumb sleep,

The prisoner sleeps well in the prison, the runaway son sleeps, The murderer that is to be hung next day, how does he sleep? And the murder'd person, how does he sleep?

The female that loves unrequited sleeps,

And the male that loves unrequited sleeps,

The head of the money-maker that plotted all day sleeps,
And the enraged and treacherous dispositions, all, all sleep.

I stand in the dark with drooping eyes by the worst-suffering and

the most restless,

I pass my hands soothingly to and fro a few inches from them, The restless sink in their beds, they fitfully sleep.

Now I pierce the darkness, new beings appear,

The earth recedes from me into the night,

I saw that it was beautiful, and I see that what is not the earth is beautiful.

I go from bedside to bedside, I sleep close with the other sleep

ers each in turn,

I dream in my dream all the dreams of the other dreamers,
And I become the other dreamers.

I am a dance-play up there! the fit is whirling me fast!

I am the ever-laughing-it is new moon and twilight,

I see the hiding of douceurs, I see nimble ghosts whichever

way I look,

Cache and cache again deep in the ground and sea, and where

it is neither ground nor sea.

Well do they do their jobs those journeymen divine,

Only from me can they hide nothing, and would not if they

could,

I reckon I am their boss and they make me a pet besides,

And surround me and lead me and run ahead when I walk,
To lift their cunning covers to signify me with stretch'd arms,

and resume the way;

Onward we move, a gay gang of blackguards! with mirthshouting music and wild-flapping pennants of joy!

I am the actor, the actress, the voter, the politician,

The emigrant and the exile, the criminal that stood in the box, He who has been famous and he who shall be famous after to

day.

The stammerer, the well-formed person, the wasted or feeble

person.

I am she who adorn'd herself and folded her hair expectantly, My truant lover has come, and it is dark.

Double yourself and receive me darkness,

Receive me and my lover too, he will not let me go without him.

I roll myself upon you as upon a bed, I resign myself to the dusk.

He whom I call answers me and takes the place of my lover,
He rises with me silently from the bed.

Darkness, you are gentler than my lover, his flesh was sweaty

and panting,

I feel the hot moisture yet that he left me.

My hands are spread forth, I pass them in all directions,

I would sound up the shadowy shore to which you are journeying.

Be careful darkness! already what was it touch'd me?

I thought my lover had gone, else darkness and he are one,
I hear the heart-beat, I follow, I fade away.

2

I descend my western course, my sinews are flaccid,
Perfume and youth course through me and I am their wake.

It is my face yellow and wrinkled instead of the old woman's, I sit low in a straw-bottom chair and carefully darn my grandson's stockings.

It is I too, the sleepless widow looking out on the winter mid

night,

I see the sparkles of starshine on the icy and pallid earth.

A shroud I see and I am the shroud, I wrap a body and lie in the

coffin,

It is dark here under ground, it is not evil or pain here, it is blank here, for reasons.

(It seems to me that every thing in the light and air ought to be

happy,

Whoever is not in his coffin and the dark grave let him know he

has enough.)