Songs of Parting

As the Time Draws Rigb.

As the time draws nigh glooming a cloud,

A dread beyond of I know not what darkens me.

I shall go forth,

I shall traverse the States awhile, but I cannot tell whither or

how long,

Perhaps soon some day or night while I am singing my voice

will suddenly cease.

O book, O chants! must all then amount to but this?

Must we barely arrive at this beginning of us? — and yet it is

enough, O soul;

O soul, we have positively appear'd—that is enough.

years of the Modern.

YEARS of the modern! years of the unperform'd!

Your horizon rises, I see it parting away for more august dramas, I see not America only, not only Liberty's nation but other nations

preparing,

I see tremendous entrances and exits, new combinations, the

solidarity of races,

I see that force advancing with irresistible power on the world's

stage,

(Have the old forces, the old wars, played their parts? are the

acts suitable to them closed ?)

I see Freedom, completely arm'd and victorious and very haughty, with Law on one side and Peace on the other,

A stupendous trio all issuing forth against the idea of caste; What historic denouements are these we so rapidly approach? I see men marching and countermarching by swift millions,

I see the frontiers and boundaries of the old aristocracies broken, I see the landmarks of European kings removed,

I see this day the People beginning their landmarks, (all others give way;)

Never were such sharp questions ask'd as this day,

Never was average man, his soul, more energetic, more like a

God,

Lo, how he urges and urges, leaving the masses no rest!

His daring foot is on land and sea everywhere, he colonizes the

Pacific, the archipelagoes,

With the steamship, the electric telegraph, the newspaper, the

wholesale engines of war,

With these and the world-spreading factories he interlinks all geography, all lands;

What whispers are these O lands, running ahead of you, passing under the seas?

Are all nations communing? is there going to be but one heart to

the globe?

Is humanity forming en-masse? for lo, tyrants tremble, crowns grow dim.

The earth, restive, confronts a new era, perhaps a general divine

war,

No one knows what will happen next, such portents fill the days

and nights;

Years prophetical! the space ahead as I walk, as I vainly try to

pierce it, is full of phantoms,

Unborn deeds, things soon to be, project their shapes around me, This incredible rush and heat, this strange ecstatic fever of dreams

O years!

Your dreams O years, how they penetrate through me! (I know not whether I sleep or wake;)

The perform'd America and Europe grow dim, retiring in shadow

behind me,

[upon me.

The unperform'd, more gigantic than ever, advance, advance

Asbes of Soldiers.

ASHES of soldiers South or North,

As I muse retrospective murmuring a chant in thought,

The war resumes, again to my sense your shapes,

And again the advance of the armies.

Noiseless as mists and vapors,

From their graves in the trenches ascending,

From cemeteries all through Virginia and Tennessee,

From every point of the compass out of the countless graves,

In wafted clouds, in myriads large, or squads of twos or threes or

Now sound no note O trumpeters,

Not at the head of my cavalry parading on spirited horses, With sabres drawn and glistening, and carbines by their thighs, (ah my brave horsemen !

My handsome tan-faced horsemen! what life, what joy and pride, With all the perils were yours.)

Nor you drummers, neither at reveillé at dawn,

Nor the long roll alarming the camp, nor even the muffled beat

for a burial,

Nothing from you this time O drummers bearing my warlike

drums.

But aside from these and the marts of wealth and the crowded

promenade,

Admitting around me comrades close unseen by the rest and

voiceless,

The slain elate and alive again, the dust and debris alive,

I chant this chant of my silent soul in the name of all dead soldiers.

Faces so pale with wondrous eyes, very dear, gather closer yet, Draw close, but speak not.

Phantoms of countless lost,

Invisible to the rest henceforth become my companions,

Follow me ever- desert me not while I live.

Sweet are the blooming cheeks of the living-sweet are the mu

sical voices sounding,

But sweet, ah sweet, are the dead with their silent eyes.

Dearest comrades, all is over and long gone,

But love is not over - and what love, O comrades!
Perfume from battle-fields rising, up from the fœtor arising.

Perfume therefore my chant, O love, immortal love,

Give me to bathe the memories of all dead soldiers,

Shroud them, embalm them, cover them all over with tender pride.

Perfume all-make all wholesome,

Make these ashes to nourish and blossom,

O love, solve all, fructify all with the last chemistry.

Give me exhaustless, make me a fountain,

That I exhale love from me wherever I go like a moist perennial

dew,

For the ashes of all dead soldiers South or North.

Thoughts.

I

Of these years I sing,

How they pass and have pass'd through convuls'd pains, as through parturitions,

How America illustrates birth, muscular youth, the promise, the sure fulfilment, the absolute success, despite of people — illustrates evil as well as good,

The vehement struggle so fierce for unity in one's-self;

How many hold despairingly yet to the models departed, caste, myths, obedience, compulsion, and to infidelity,