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With many a pointed blossom rising delicate, with the perfume strong I love,

With every leaf a miracle- and from this bush in the door

yard,

With delicate-color'd blossoms and heart-shaped leaves of rich

green,

A sprig with its flower I break.

4

In the swamp in secluded recesses,

A shy and hidden bird is warbling a song.

Solitary the thrush,

The hermit withdrawn to himself, avoiding the settlements,
Sings by himself a song.

Song of the bleeding throat,

Death's outlet song of life, (for well dear brother I know,

If thou wast not granted to sing thou would'st surely die.)

5

Over the breast of the spring, the land, amid cities,

Amid lanes and through old woods, where lately the violets peep'd from the ground, spotting the gray debris,

Amid the grass in the fields each side of the lanes, passing the endless grass,

Passing the yellow-spear'd wheat, every grain from its shroud in

the dark-brown fields uprisen,

Passing the apple-tree blows of white and pink in the orchards, Carrying a corpse to where it shall rest in the grave,

Night and day journeys a coffin.

6

Coffin that passes through lanes and streets,

Through day and night with the great cloud darkening the land, With the pomp of the inloop'd flags with the cities draped in

black,

With the show of the States themselves as of crape-veil'd women

standing,

With processions long and winding and the flambeaus of the

night,

With the countless torches lit, with the silent sea of faces and the unbared heads,

With the waiting depot, the arriving coffin, and the sombre faces, With dirges through the night, with the thousand voices rising strong and solemn,

With all the mournful voices of the dirges pour'd around the coffin, The dim-lit churches and the shuddering organs where amid

these you journey,

With the tolling tolling bells' perpetual clang,

Here, coffin that slowly passes,

I give you my sprig of lilac.

(Nor for you, for one alone,

7

Blossoms and branches green to coffins all I bring,

For fresh as the morning, thus would I chant a song for you O

sane and sacred death.

All over bouquets of roses,

O death, I cover you over with roses and early lilies,

But mostly and now the lilac that blooms the first,

Copious I break, I break the sprigs from the bushes,
With loaded arms I come, pouring for you,

For you and the coffins all of you Ọ death.)

8

O western orb sailing the heaven,

Now I know what you must have meant as a month since I

walk'd,

As I walk'd in silence the transparent shadowy night,

As I saw you had something to tell as you bent to me night

after night,

As you droop'd from the sky low down as if to my side, (while the other stars all look'd on,)

As we wander'd together the solemn night, (for something I know not what kept me from sleep,)

As the night advanced, and I saw on the rim of the west how full you were of woe,

As I stood on the rising ground in the breeze in the cool transparent night,

As I watch'd where you pass'd and was lost in the netherward black of the night,

As my soul in its trouble dissatisfied sank, as where you sad orb, Concluded, dropt in the night, and was gone.

Sing on there in the swamp,

9

O singer bashful and tender, I hear your notes, I hear your call,

I hear, I come presently, I understand you,

But a moment I linger, for the lustrous star has detain'd me,

The star my departing comrade holds and detains me.

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10

O how shall I warble myself for the dead one there I loved?

And how shall I deck my song for the large sweet soul that has

gone?

And what shall my perfume be for the grave of him I love?

Sea-winds blown from east and west,

Blown from the Eastern sea and blown from the Western sea,

till there on the prairies meeting,

These and with these and the breath of my chant,

I'll perfume the grave of him I love.

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O what shall I hang on the chamber walls?

And what shall the pictures be that I hang on the walls,

To adorn the burial-house of him I love?

Pictures of growing spring and farms and homes,

With the Fourth-month eve at sundown, and the gray smoke lucid and bright,

With floods of the yellow gold of the gorgeous, indolent, sinking

sun, burning, expanding the air,

With the fresh sweet herbage under foot, and the pale green leaves of the trees prolific,

In the distance the flowing glaze, the breast of the river, with a

wind-dapple here and there,

With ranging hills on the banks, with many a line against the

sky, and shadows,

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