From unsuspected parts a fierce and momentary proof,

(The sun there at the centre though conceal'd,

Electric life forever at the centre,)

Breaks forth a lightning flash.

Thou of the tawny flowing hair in battle,

I erewhile saw, with erect head, pressing ever in front, bearing a bright sword in thy hand,

Now ending well in death the splendid fever of thy deeds,

(I bring no dirge for it or thee, I bring a glad triumphal sonnet,) Desperate and glorious, aye in defeat most desperate, most

glorious,

[color,

After thy many battles in which never yielding up a gun or a Leaving behind thee a memory sweet to soldiers,

Thou yieldest up thyself.

Old War-Dreams.

IN midnight sleep of many a face of anguish,

Of the look at first of the mortally wounded, (of that indescrib

able look,)

Of the dead on their backs with arms extended wide,

I dream, I dream, I dream.

Of scenes of Nature, fields and mountains,

Of skies so beauteous after a storm, and at night the moon so

unearthly bright,

sweetly, shining down, where we dig the trenches and ather the heaps,

I dream, I dream, I dream.

Long have they pass'd, faces and trenches and fields,

Where through the carnage I moved with a callous composure,

or away from the fallen,

Onward I sped at the time-but now of their forms at night, I dream, I dream, I dream.

Tbick-Sprinkled Bunting.

THICK-SPRINKLED bunting! flag of stars!

Long yet your road, fateful flag-long yet your road, and lined

with bloody death,

For the prize I see at issue at last is the world,

All its ships and shores I see interwoven with your threads greedy

banner;

Dream'd again the flags of kings, highest borne, to flaunt unrival'd ?

O hasten flag of man-O with sure and steady step, passing

highest flags of kings,

Walk supreme to the heavens mighty symbol-run up above

them all,

Flag of stars! thick-sprinkled bunting!

Wabat Best 1 See in Thee.

To U. S. G. return'd from his World's Tour.

WHAT best I see in thee

Is not that where thou mov'st down history's great highways, Ever undimm'd by time shoots warlike victory's dazzle,

Or that thou sat'st where Washington sat, ruling the land in peace, Or thou the man whom feudal Europe fêted, venerable Asia swarm'd upon,

[nade; Who walk'd with kings with even pace the round world's promeBut that in foreign lands, in all thy walks with kings, Those prairie sovereigns of the West, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Ohio's, Indiana's millions, comrades, farmers, soldiers, all to the

front,

Invisibly with thee walking with kings with even pace the round world's promenade,

Were all so justified.

Spirit that Form'd Tbis Scene.

Written in Platte Cañon, Colorado.

SPIRIT that form'd this scene,

These tumbled rock-piles grim and red,

These reckless heaven-ambitious peaks,

These gorges, turbulent-clear streams, this naked freshness,
These formless wild arrays, for reasons of their own,

I know thee, savage spirit — we have communed together,
Mine too such wild arrays, for reasons of their own;
Was 't charged against my chants they had forgotten art?
To fuse within themselves its rules precise and delicatesse?
The lyrist's measur'd beat, the wrought-out temple's grace-
column and polish'd arch forgot?

But thou that revelest here- spirit that form'd this scene,
They have remember'd thee.

As I Walk these Broad Dajestic Days.

As I walk these broad majestic days of peace,

(For the war, the struggle of blood finish'd, wherein, O terrific

Ideal,

Against vast odds erewhile having gloriously won,

Now thou stridest on, yet perhaps in time toward denser wars,
Perhaps to engage in time in still more dreadful contests, dangers,
Longer campaigns and crises, labors beyond all others,)
Around me I hear that eclat of the world, politics, produce,

The announcements of recognized things, science,

The approved growth of cities and the spread of inventions.

I see the ships, (they will last a few years,)

The vast factories with their foremen and workmen,

And hear the indorsement of all, and do not object to it.

But I too announce solid things,

Science, ships, politics, cities, factories, are not nothing,

Like a grand procession to music of distant bugles pouring, triumphantly moving, and grander heaving in sight,

They stand for realities

Then my realities;

all is as it should be.

What else is so real as mine?

Libertad and the divine average, freedom to every slave on the

face of the earth,

The rapt promises and luminè of seers, the spiritual world, these

centuries-lasting songs,

And our visions, the visions of poets, the most solid announce

ments of any.

A Clear Midnight.

THIS is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless,

Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson

done,

Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the themes

thou lovest best,

Night, sleep, death and the stars.