Her corpse they deposit unclaim'd, it lies on the damp brick pavement, The divine woman, her body, I see the body, I look on it alone, That house once full of passion and beauty, all else I notice not, Nor stillness so cold, nor running water from faucet, nor odors morbific impress me, But the house alone — that wondrous house - that delicate fair house that ruin! That immortal house more than all the rows of dwellings ever built! Or white-domed capitol with majestic figure surmounted, or all the old high-spired cathedrals, That little house alone more than them all-poor, desperate house! Fair, fearful wreck — tenement of a soul—itself a soul, Unclaim'd, avoided house-take one breath from my tremulous lips, Take one tear dropt aside as I go for thought of you, Dead house of love - house of madness and sin, crumbled, crush'd, House of life, erewhile talking and laughing-but ah, poor house, dead even then, Months, years, an echoing, garnish'd house - but dead, dead, dead. THIS COMPOST. SOMETHING startles me where I thought I was safest, I withdraw from the still woods I loved, I will not go now on the pastures to walk, I will not strip the clothes from my body to meet my lover the sea, I will not touch my flesh to the earth as to other flesh to renew me. O how can it be that the ground itself does not sicken? How can you furnish health you blood of herbs, roots, orchards, grain? Are they not continually putting distemper'd corpses within you? Is not every continent work'd over and over with sour dead? Where have you disposed of their carcasses? Those drunkards and gluttons of so many generations? Where have you drawn off all the foul liquid and meat? I do not see any of it upon you to-day, or perhaps I am deceiv'd I will run a furrow with my plough, I will press my spade through. the sod and turn it up underneath, I am sure I shall expose some of the foul meat. 2 Behold this compost! behold it well! Perhaps every mite has once form'd part of a sick person — yet behold! The grass of spring covers the prairies, The bean bursts noiselessly through the mould in the garden, The delicate spear of the onion pierces upward, The apple-buds cluster together on the apple-branches, The resurrection of the wheat appears with pale visage out of its graves, The tinge awakes over the willow-tree and the mulberry-tree, The he-birds carol mornings and evenings while the she-birds sit on their nests, The young of poultry break through the hatch'd eggs, The new-born of animals appear, the calf is dropt from the cow, the colt from the mare, Out of its little hill faithfully rise the potato's dark green leaves, Out of its hill rises the yellow maize-stalk, the lilacs bloom in the dooryards, The summer growth is innocent and disdainful above all those strata of sour dead. What chemistry! That the winds are really not infectious, That this is no cheat, this transparent green-wash of the sea which is so amorous after me, That it is safe to allow it to lick my naked body all over with its tongues, That it will not endanger me with the fevers that have deposited themselves in it, That all is clean forever and forever, That the cool drink from the well tastes so good, That blackberries are so flavorous and juicy, That the fruits of the apple-orchard and the orange-orchard, that melons, grapes, peaches, plums, will none of them poison me, That when I recline on the grass I do not catch any disease, Though probably every spear of grass rises out of what was once a catching disease. that they belong to the scheme of the world every bit as much as we now belong to it. ey stand, yet near to me they stand, with oval countenances learn'd and calm, naked and savage, some like huge collections of insects, prowling through woods, some living peaceably on farms, traversing paved avenues, amid temples, palaces, factories, libraries, shows, courts, theatres, wonderful monuments. those billions of men really gone? those women of the old experience of the earth gone? . they achieve nothing for good for themselves? believe of all those men and women that fill'd the unnamed lands, every one exists this hour here or elsewhere, invisible to us, exact proportion to what he or she grew from in life, and out of what he or she did, felt, became, loved, sinn'd, in life. believe that was not the end of those nations or any person of them, any more than this shall be the end of my nation, or of me; Of their languages, governments, marriage, literature, products, games, wars, manners, crimes, prisons, slaves, heroes, poets, I suspect their results curiously await in the yet unseen world, counterparts of what accrued to them in the seen world, I suspect I shall meet them there, I suspect I shall there find each old particular of those unnamed lands. SONG OF PRUDENCE. MANHATTAN's streets I saunter'd pondering, On Time, Space, Reality-on such as these, and abreast with them Prudence. The last explanation always remains to be made about prudence, Little and large alike drop quietly aside from the prudence that suits immortality. The soul is of itself, All verges to it, all has reference to what ensues, When liberty goes out of a place it is not the first to go, nor the second or third to go, It waits for all the rest to go, it is the last. When there are no more memories of heroes and martyrs, And when all life and all the souls of men and women are discharged from any part of the earth, Then only shall liberty or the idea of liberty be discharged from that part of the earth, And the infidel come into full possession. Then courage European revolter, revoltress! I do not know what you are for, (I do not know what I am for myself, nor what any thing is for,) But I will search carefully for it even in being foil'd, In defeat, poverty, misconception, imprisonment for they too are great. Did we think victory great? So it is but now it seems to me, when it cannot be help'd, that defeat is great, And that death and dismay are great. UNNAMED LANDS. NATIONS ten thousand years before these States, and many times ten thousand years before these States, Garner'd clusters of ages that men and women like us grew up and travel'd their course and pass'd on, What vast-built cities, what orderly republics, what pastoral tribes and nomads, What histories, rulers, heroes, perhaps transcending all others, What sort of marriage, what costumes, what physiology and phrenology, What of liberty and slavery among them, what they thought of death and the soul, Who were witty and wise, who beautiful and poetic, who brutish and undevelop'd, Not a mark, not a record remains — and yet all remains. I know that those men and women were not for nothing, any more than we are for nothing, I know that they belong to the scheme of the world every bit as much as we now belong to it. Afar they stand, yet near to me they stand, Some with oval countenances learn'd and calm, Some naked and savage, some like huge collections of insects, Some prowling through woods, some living peaceably on farms, laboring, reaping, filling barns, Some traversing paved avenues, amid temples, palaces, factories, libraries, shows, courts, theatres, wonderful monuments. Are those billions of men really gone? Are those women of the old experience of the earth gone? Did they achieve nothing for good for themselves? I believe of all those men and women that fill'd the unnamed lands, every one exists this hour here or elsewhere, invisible to us, In exact proportion to what he or she grew from in life, and out of what he or she did, felt, became, loved, sinn'd, in life. I believe that was not the end of those nations or any person of them, any more than this shall be the end of my nation, or of me; Of their languages, governments, marriage, literature, products, games, wars, manners, crimes, prisons, slaves, heroes, poets, I suspect their results curiously await in the yet unseen world, counterparts of what accrued to them in the seen world, I suspect I shall meet them there, I suspect I shall there find each old particular of those unnamed lands. SONG OF PRUDENCE. MANHATTAN'S streets I saunter'd pondering, On Time, Space, Reality-on such as these, and abreast with them Prudence. The last explanation always remains to be made about prudence, Little and large alike drop quietly aside from the prudence that suits immortality. The soul is of itself, All verges to it, all has reference to what ensues, |