No bargainers' bargains by day-no brokers or speculatorswould they continue ?

Would the talkers be talking? would the singer attempt to sing? Would the lawyer rise in the court to state his case before the

judge?

Then rattle quicker, heavier drums-you bugles wilder blow.

Beat! beat! drums!-blow! bugles! blow!

Make no parley-stop for no expostulation,

Mind not the timid-mind not the weeper or prayer,

Mind not the old man beseeching the young man,

Let not the child's voice be heard, nor the mother's entreaties, Make even the trestles to shake the dead where they lie awaiting

the hearses,

So strong you thump O terrible drums-so loud you bugles blow.

From Paumanok Starting 1 Fly Like a Bird.

FROM Paumanok starting I fly like a bird,

Around and around to soar to sing the idea of all,

To the north betaking myself to sing there arctic songs,

To Kanada till I absorb Kanada in myself, to Michigan then,

To Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, to sing their songs, (they are

inimitable;)

Then to Ohio and Indiana to sing theirs, to Missouri and Kansas

and Arkansas to sing theirs,

[theirs,

To Tennessee and Kentucky, to the Carolinas and Georgia to sing To Texas and so along up toward California, to roam accepted

everywhere;

To sing first, (to the tap of the war-drum if need be,)
The idea of all, of the Western world one and inseparable,
And then the song of each member of these States.

Song of the Banner at Daybreak.

O A new song, a free song,

Poet.

Flapping, flapping, flapping, flapping, by sounds, by voices

clearer,

By the wind's voice and that of the drum,

By the banner's voice and child's voice and sea's voice and father's

voice,

Low on the ground and high in the air,

On the ground where father and child stand,

In the upward air where their eyes turn,

Where the banner at daybreak is flapping.

Words! book-words! what are you?

Words no more, for hearken and see,

My song is there in the open air, and I must sing,
With the banner and pennant a-flapping.

I'll weave the chord and twine in,

Man's desire and babe's desire, I'll twine them in, I'll put in life,
I'll put the bayonet's flashing point, I'll let bullets and slugs whizz,
(As one carrying a symbol and menace far into the future,
Crying with trumpet voice, Arouse and beware! Beware and

arouse!)

I'll pour the verse with streams of blood, full of volition, full of joy, Then loosen, launch forth, to go and compete,

With the banner and pennant a-flapping.

Pennant.

Come up here, bard, bard,

Come up here, soul, soul,

Come up here, dear little child,

To fly in the clouds and winds with me, and play with the measureless light.

Child.

Father what is that in the sky beckoning to me with long finger? And what does it say to me all the while?

Father.

Nothing my babe you see in the sky,

And nothing at all to you it says - but look you my babe,

Look at these dazzling things in the houses, and see you the

money-shops opening,

And see you the vehicles preparing to crawl along the streets

with goods;

These, ah these, how valued and toil'd for these!

How envied by all the earth!

Poet.

Fresh and rosy red the sun is mounting high,

On floats the sea in distant blue careering through its channels, On floats the wind over the breast of the sea setting in toward

land,

The great steady wind from west or west-by-south,

Floating so buoyant with milk-white foam on the waters.

But I am not the sea nor the red sun,

I am not the wind with girlish laughter,

Not the immense wind which strengthens, not the wind which

lashes,

Not the spirit that ever lashes its own body to terror and death, But I am that which unseen comes and sings, sings, sings, Which babbles in brooks and scoots in showers on the land, Which the birds know in the woods mornings and evenings, And the shore-sands know and the hissing wave, and that banner and pennant,

Aloft there flapping and flapping.

Child.

O father it is alive-it is full of people—it has children,

O now it seems to me it is talking to its children,

I hear it it talks to me - O it is wonderful!

O it stretches it spreads and runs so fast-O my father,

It is so broad it covers the whole sky.

Father.

Cease, cease, my foolish babe,

What you are saying is sorrowful to me, much it displeases

me;

Behold with the rest again I say, behold not banners and pennants

aloft,

But the well-prepared pavements behold, and mark the solid

wall'd houses.

Banner and Pennant.

Speak to the child O bard out of Manhattan,

To our children all, or north or south of Manhattan,

Point this day, leaving all the rest, to us over all - and yet we

know not why,

For what are we, mere strips of cloth profiting nothing,
Only flapping in the wind?

Poet.

I hear and see not strips of cloth alone,

I hear the tramp of armies, I hear the challenging sentry,

I hear the jubilant shouts of millions of men, I hear Liberty!

I hear the drums beat and the trumpets blowing,

I myself move abroad swift-rising flying then,

I use the wings of the land-bird and use the wings of the sea-bird,

and look down as from a height,

I do not deny the precious results of peace, I see populous cities with wealth incalculable

I see numberless farms, I see the farmers working in their fields or barns,

I see mechanics working, I see buildings everywhere founded, going up, or finish'd,

I see trains of cars swiftly speeding along railroad tracks drawn by the locomotives,

I see the stores, depots, of Boston, Baltimore, Charleston, New

Orleans,

I see far in the West the immense area of grain, I dwell awhile

hovering,

I pass to the lumber forests of the North, and again to the South

ern plantation, and again to California;

Sweeping the whole I see the countless profit, the busy gatherings, earn'd wages,

VOL. II-4