New Beginnings and Rebirth

As soon as the idea of the Deluge had subsided,
A hare stopped in the clover and swaying flowerbells,
and said a prayer to the rainbow,
through the spider's web.


Oh! the precious stones that began to hide,-and
the flowers that already looked around.
In the dirty main street, stalls were set up
and boats were hauled toward the sea,
high tiered as in old prints.


Blood flowed at Blue Beard's,-through
slaughterhouses, in circuses,
where the windows were blanched by God's seal.
Blood and milk flowed. Beavers built.


'Mazagrans' smoked in the little bars.
In the big glass house, still dripping,
children in mourning looked
at the marvelous pictures.


A door banged; and in the village square
the little boy waved his arms,
understood by weather vanes
and cocks on steeples everywhere,
in the bursting shower.


Madame *** installed a piano in the Alps.
Mass and first communions were celebrated
at the hundred thousand altars of the cathedral.
Caravans set out. And Hotel Splendid was built
in the chaos of ice and of the polar night.


Ever after the moon heard jackals howling
across the deserts of thyme,
and eclogues in wooden shoes growling in the orchard.
Then in the violet and budding forest,
Eucharis told me it was spring.


Gush, pond,-- Foam, roll on the bridge and over the woods;-black
palls and organs, lightening and thunder, rise and roll;-waters
and sorrows rise and launch the Floods again.
For since they have been dissipated-oh!
the precious stones being buried and the opened flowers!-it's
unbearable! and the Queen, the Witch who lights her fire
in the earthen pot will never tell us what she knows,
and what we do not know.

I am not jealous
of what came before me.


Come with a man
on your shoulders,
come with a hundred men in your hair,
come with a thousand men between your breasts and your feet,
come like a river
full of drowned men
which flows down to the wild sea,
to the eternal surf, to Time!


Bring them all
to where I am waiting for you;
we shall always be alone,
we shall always be you and I
alone on earth,
to start our life!

O mad, superbly drunk;

If you kick open your doors and
play the fool in public;

If you empty your bag in a night,
and snap your fingers at prudence;

If you walk in curious paths and
play with useless things;

Reck not rhyme or reason;

If unfurling your sails before the
storm you snap the rudder in two,

Then I will follow you, comrade,
and be drunken and go to the dogs.

I have wasted my days and nights
in the company of steady wise neighbours.

Much knowing has turned my hair
grey, and much watching has made
my sight dim.

For years I have gathered and
heaped up scraps and fragments of
things:

Crush them and dance upon them,
and scatter them all to the winds.

For I know 'tis the height of wisdom
to be drunken and go the dogs.

Let all crooked scruples vanish,
let me hopelessly lose my way.

Let a gust of wild giddiness come
and sweep me away from my anchors.

The world is peopled with worthies,
and workers, useful and clever.

There are men who are easily first,
and men who come decently after.

Let them be happy and prosper,
and let me be foolishly futile.

For I know 'tis the end of all works
to be drunken and go to the dogs.

I swear to surrender this moment
all claims to the ranks of the decent.

I let go my pride of learning and
judgment of right and of wrong.

I'll shatter memory's vessel, scattering
the last drop of tears.

With the foam of the berry-red
wine I will bathe and brighten my
laughter.

The badge of the civil and staid
I'll tear into shreds for the nonce.

I'll take the holy vow to be worthless,
to be drunken and go to the dogs.

Writing
these
odes
in this
year nineteen
hundred and
fifty-five,
readying and tuning
my demanding, murmuring lyre,
I know who I am
and where my song is going.
I understand
that the shopper for myths
and mysteries
may enter
my wood
and adobe
house of odes,
may despise
the utensils,
the portraits
of father and mother and country
on the walls,
the simplicity
of the bread
and the saltcellar. But
that's how it is in my house of odes.
I deposed the dark monarchy,
the useless flowing hair of dreams,
I trod on the tail
of the cerebral reptile,
and set things
-- water and fire in
harmony with man and earth.
I want everything
to have
a handle,
I want everything to be
a cup or a tool,
I want people to enter a hardware
store through the door of my odes.
I work at
cutting
newly hewn boards,
storing casks
of honey,
arranging
horseshoes, harness,
forks:
I want everyone to enter here,
let them ask questions,
ask for anything they want.


I am from the South, a Chilean,
a sailor
returned
from the seas.
I did not stay in the islands,
a king.
I did not stay ensconced
in the land of dreams.
I returned to labor simply
beside others,
for everyone.
So that everyone
may live here,
I build my house
with transparent
odes.

I


A washing hangs upon the line,
but it's not mine.
None of the things that I can see
belong to me.
The neighbors got a radio with an aerial;
we got a little portable.
They got a lot of closet space;
we got a suitcase.


I say, "Le Roy, just how much are we owing?
Something I can't comprehend,
the more we got the more we spend...."
He only answers, "Let's get going."
Le Roy, you're earning too much money now.


I sit and look at our backyard
and find it very hard.
What have we got for all his dollars and cents?
--A pile of bottles by the fence.
He's faithful and he's kind
but he sure has an inquiring mind.
He's seen a lot; he's bound to see the rest,
and if I protest


Le Roy answers with a frown,
"Darling, when I earns I spends.
The world is wide; it still extends....
I'm going to get a job in the next town."
Le Roy, you're earning too much money now.


II


The time has come to call a halt;
and so it ends.
He's gone off with his other friends.
He needn't try to make amends,
this occasion's all his fault.
Through rain and dark I see his face
across the street at Flossie's place.
He's drinking in the warm pink glow
to th' accompaniment of the piccolo.


The time has come to call a halt.
I met him walking with Varella
and hit him twice with my umbrella.
Perhaps that occasion was my fault,
but the time has come to call a halt.


Go drink your wine and go get tight.
Let the piccolo play.



I'm sick of all your fussing anyway.
Now I'm pursuing my own way.
I'm leaving on the bus tonight.
Far down the highway wet and black
I'll ride and ride and not come back.
I'm going to go and take the bus
and find someone monogamous.


The time has come to call a halt.
I've borrowed fifteen dollars fare
and it will take me anywhere.
For this occasion's all his fault.
The time has come to call a halt.


III


Lullaby.
Adult and child
sink to their rest.
At sea the big ship sinks and dies,
lead in its breast.


Lullaby.
Let mations rage,
let nations fall.
The shadow of the crib makes an enormous cage
upon the wall.


Lullaby.
Sleep on and on,
war's over soon.
Drop the silly, harmless toy,
pick up the moon.


Lullaby.
If they should say
you have no sense,
don't you mind them; it won't make
much difference.


Lullaby.
Adult and child
sink to their rest.
At sea the big ship sinks and dies,
lead in its breast.


IV


What's that shining in the leaves,
the shadowy leaves,
like tears when somebody grieves,
shining, shining in the leaves?



Is it dew or is it tears,
dew or tears,
hanging there for years and years
like a heavy dew of tears?


Then that dew begins to fall,
roll down and fall,
Maybe it's not tears at all.
See it, see it roll and fall.


Hear it falling on the ground,
hear, all around.
That is not a tearful sound,
beating, beating on the ground.


See it lying there like seeds,
like black seeds.
see it taking root like weeds,
faster, faster than the weeds,


all the shining seeds take root,
conspiring root,
and what curious flower or fruit
will grow from that conspiring root?


fruit or flower? It is a face.
Yes, a face.
In that dark and dreary place
each seed grows into a face.


Like an army in a dream
the faces seem,
darker, darker, like a dream.
They're too real to be a dream.

From early dawn the thirtieth of April
Is given up to children of the town,
And caught in trying on the festive necklace,
By dusk it only just is settling down.


Like heaps of squashy berries under muslin
The town emerges out of crimson gauze.
Along the streets the boulevards are dragging
Their twilight with them, like a rank of dwarves.


The evening world is always eve and blossom,
But this one with a sprouting of its own
From May-day anniversaries will flower
One day into a commune fully blown.


For long it will remain a day of shifting,
Pre-festive cleaning, fanciful decor,
As once it used to be with Whitsun birches
Or pan-Athenian fires long before.


Just so they will go on, conveying actors
To their assembly points; beat sand; just so
Pull up towards illuminated ledges
The plywood boards, the crimson calico.


Just so in threes the sailors briskly walking
Will skirt the grass in gardens and in parks,
The moon at nightfall sink into the pavements
Like a dead city or a burnt-out hearth.


But with each year more splendid and more spreading
The taut beginning of the rose will bloom,
More clearly grow in health and sense of honour,
Sincerity more visibly will loom.


The living folksongs, customs and traditions
Will ever spreading, many-petalled lay
Their scent on fields and industries and meadows
From early buddings on the first of May,


Until the full fermented risen spirit
Of ripened years will shoot up, like the smell
Of humid centifolia. It will have to
Reveal itself, it cannot help but tell.

A Rock, A River, A Tree
Hosts to species long since departed,
Mark the mastodon.
The dinosaur, who left dry tokens
Of their sojourn here
On our planet floor,
Any broad alarm of their of their hastening doom
Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages.
But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully,
Come, you may stand upon my
Back and face your distant destiny,
But seek no haven in my shadow.
I will give you no hiding place down here.
You, created only a little lower than
The angels, have crouched too long in
The bruising darkness,
Have lain too long
Face down in ignorance.
Your mouths spelling words
Armed for slaughter.
The rock cries out today, you may stand on me,
But do not hide your face.
Across the wall of the world,
A river sings a beautiful song,
Come rest here by my side.
Each of you a bordered country,
Delicate and strangely made proud,
Yet thrusting perpetually under siege.
Your armed struggles for profit
Have left collars of waste upon
My shore, currents of debris upon my breast.
Yet, today I call you to my riverside,
If you will study war no more.
Come, clad in peace and I will sing the songs
The Creator gave to me when I
And the tree and stone were one.
Before cynicism was a bloody sear across your brow
And when you yet knew you still knew nothing.
The river sings and sings on.
There is a true yearning to respond to
The singing river and the wise rock.
So say the Asian, the Hispanic, the Jew,
The African and Native American, the Sioux,
The Catholic, the Muslim, the French, the Greek,
The Irish, the Rabbi, the Priest, the Sheikh,
The Gay, the Straight, the Preacher,
The privileged, the homeless, the teacher.
They hear. They all hear
The speaking of the tree.
Today, the first and last of every tree
Speaks to humankind. Come to me, here beside the river.
Plant yourself beside me, here beside the river.



Each of you, descendant of some passed on
Traveller, has been paid for.
You, who gave me my first name,
You Pawnee, Apache and Seneca,
You Cherokee Nation, who rested with me,
Then forced on bloody feet,
Left me to the employment of other seekers--
Desperate for gain, starving for gold.
You, the Turk, the Swede, the German, the Scot...
You the Ashanti, the Yoruba, the Kru,
Bought, sold, stolen, arriving on a nightmare
Praying for a dream.
Here, root yourselves beside me.
I am the tree planted by the river,
Which will not be moved.
I, the rock, I the river, I the tree
I am yours--your passages have been paid.
Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need
For this bright morning dawning for you.
History, despite its wrenching pain,
Cannot be unlived, and if faced with courage,
Need not be lived again.
Lift up your eyes upon
The day breaking for you.
Give birth again
To the dream.
Women, children, men,
Take it into the palms of your hands.
Mold it into the shape of your most
Private need. Sculpt it into
The image of your most public self.
Lift up your hearts.
Each new hour holds new chances
For new beginnings.
Do not be wedded forever
To fear, yoked eternally
To brutishness.
The horizon leans forward,
Offering you space to place new steps of change.
Here, on the pulse of this fine day
You may have the courage
To look up and out upon me,
The rock, the river, the tree, your country.
No less to Midas than the mendicant.
No less to you now than the mastodon then.
Here on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister's eyes,
Into your brother's face, your country
And say simply
Very simply
With hope



Good morning.

O the nameless eternal child
you have come across unknown lands,
what ornament of name you have put on!


What a prison it is for the chainless!

Tell me, by what name I'll call you again
to my heart's content,
you lost your way from this home
where you lived, where you do come back
over and over again losing your own name.

O my sweet dear,
you are the radiant pearl of my dark home
filling the hungry home with little butter

your tiny hand has brought.

That today in intimate happiness
a sea of wailing swells up in my bosom

to call you by a new name,
who is there to stop my voice
my mind, too, utterly dejected.


You came from settling down, O traveller
stepping toward rising up.

[Original: Chiro Shishu; Translation: Mohammad Nurul Huda]

Now mind is clear
as a cloudless sky.
Time then to make a
home in wilderness.

What have I done but
wander with my eyes
in the trees? So I
will build: wife,
family, and seek
for neighbors.

Or I
perish of lonesomeness
or want of food or
lightning or the bear
(must tame the hart
and wear the bear).

And maybe make an image
of my wandering, a little
image—shrine by the
roadside to signify
to traveler that I live
here in the wilderness
awake and at home.

The world`s great age begins anew,
The golden years return,
The earth doth like a snake renew
Her winter weeds outworn:
Heaven smiles, and faith and empires gleam,
Like a wrecks of a dissolving dream.
A brighter Hellas rears its mountains
From waves serener far;
A new Peneus rolls his fountains
Against the morning star.
Where fairer Tempes bloom, there sleep
Young Cyclads on a sunnier deep.
A loftier Argo cleaves the main,
Fraught with a later prize;
Another Orpheus sings again,
And loves, and weeps, and dies.
A new Ulyssses leaves once more
Calypso for his native shore...

Pluck this little flower and take it, delay not! I fear lest it
droop and drop into the dust.

I may not find a place in thy garland, but honour it with a touch of
pain from thy hand and pluck it. I fear lest the day end before I am
aware, and the time of offering go by.

Though its colour be not deep and its smell be faint, use this flower
in thy service and pluck it while there is time.

As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper protestations to the Gods of the Market-Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall.
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.
We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn.
That water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision, and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorilas while we followed the March of Mankind.
We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither clud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market-Place;
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.
With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch.
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch.
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings.
So we worshiped the Gods of the Market Who promiced these beautiful things.
When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promiced perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: 'Stick to the Devil you know.'
On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promiced the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbor and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: 'The Wages of Sin is Death/'
In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selective Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: 'If you don't work you die.'
The the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tounged wizards withdrew,
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to belive it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four---
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more
As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man---
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began:---
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

Do not fret, do not cry, do not tax
Your last strength, and your heart do not torture.
You're alive, you're inside me, intact,
As a buttress, a friend, an adventure.


I've no fear of standing exposed
As a fraud in my faith in the future.
It's not life, not a union of souls
We are breaking off, but a hoax mutual.


From straw mattresses' sick wretchedness
To the fresh air of wide open spaces!
It's my brother and hand. It's addressed
Like a letter, to you, crisp and bracing.


Like an envelope, tear it across,
With Horizon begin correspondence,
Give your speech the sheer Alpian force,
Overcome the sick sense of forlornness.


O'er the bowl of Bavarian lakes
With the marrow of osseous mountains
You will know I was not a glib fake
And of sugared assurances spouter.


Fare ye well and God bless you! Our bond
And our honour aren't tamely domestic.
Like a sprout in the sunlight, unbend,
And then things will assume a new aspect.

THE world's great age begins anew,
The golden years return,
The earth doth like a snake renew
Her winter weeds outworn;
Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam
Like wrecks of a dissolving dream.
A brighter Hellas rears its mountains
From waves serener far;
A new Peneus rolls his fountains
Against the morning star;
Where fairer Tempes bloom, there sleep
Young Cyclads on a sunnier deep.
A loftier Argo cleaves the main,
Fraught with a later prize;
Another Orpheus sings again,
And loves, and weeps, and dies;
A new Ulysses leaves once more
Calypso for his native shore.
O write no more the tale of Troy,
If earth Death's scroll must be--
Nor mix with Laian rage the joy
Which dawns upon the free,
Although a subtler Sphinx renew
Riddles of death Thebes never knew.
Another Athens shall arise,
And to remoter time
Bequeath, like sunset to the skies,
The splendour of its prime;
And leave, if naught so bright may live,
All earth can take or Heaven can give.
Saturn and Love their long repose
Shall burst, more bright and good
Than all who fell, than One who rose,
Than many unsubdued:
Not gold, not blood, their altar dowers,
But votive tears and symbol flowers.
O cease! must hate and death return?
Cease! must men kill and die?
Cease! drain not to its dregs the urn
Of bitter prophecy!
The world is weary of the past--
O might it die or rest at last!

O SUN of real peace! O hastening light!

O free and extatic! O what I here, preparing, warble for!

O the sun of the world will ascend, dazzling, and take his height-


and you too, O my Ideal, will surely ascend!

O so amazing and broad--up there resplendent, darting and burning!

O vision prophetic, stagger'd with weight of light! with pouring

glories!

O lips of my soul, already becoming powerless!

O ample and grand Presidentiads! Now the war, the war is over!

New history! new heroes! I project you!

Visions of poets! only you really last! sweep on! sweep on!

O heights too swift and dizzy yet!

O purged and luminous! you threaten me more than I can stand!

(I must not venture--the ground under my feet menaces me--it will not

support me:

O future too immense,)--O present, I return, while yet I may, to you.

PROUD music of the storm!
Blast that careers so free, whistling across the prairies!
Strong hum of forest tree-tops! Wind of the mountains!
Personified dim shapes! you hidden orchestras!
You serenades of phantoms, with instruments alert,
Blending, with Nature's rhythmus, all the tongues of nations;
You chords left us by vast composers! you choruses!
You formless, free, religious dances! you from the Orient!
You undertone of rivers, roar of pouring cataracts;
You sounds from distant guns, with galloping cavalry!
Echoes of camps, with all the different bugle-calls!
Trooping tumultuous, filling the midnight late, bending me powerless,
Entering my lonesome slumber-chamber--Why have you seiz'd me?


Come forward, O my Soul, and let the rest retire;
Listen--lose not--it is toward thee they tend;
Parting the midnight, entering my slumber-chamber,
For thee they sing and dance, O Soul.


A festival song!
The duet of the bridegroom and the bride--a marriage-march,
With lips of love, and hearts of lovers, fill'd to the brim with


love;
The red-flush'd cheeks, and perfumes--the cortege swarming, full of
friendly faces, young and old,
To flutes' clear notes, and sounding harps' cantabile.

Now loud approaching drums!
Victoria! see'st thou in powder-smoke the banners torn but flying?
the rout of the baffled?
Hearest those shouts of a conquering army?

(Ah, Soul, the sobs of women--the wounded groaning in agony,
The hiss and crackle of flames--the blacken'd ruins--the embers of
cities,
The dirge and desolation of mankind.)

Now airs antique and medieval fill me!
I see and hear old harpers with their harps, at Welsh festivals:
I hear the minnesingers, singing their lays of love,
I hear the minstrels, gleemen, troubadours, of the feudal ages.


Now the great organ sounds,
Tremulous--while underneath, (as the hid footholds of the earth,
On which arising, rest, and leaping forth, depend,
All shapes of beauty, grace and strength--all hues we know,
Green blades of grass, and warbling birds--children that gambol and



play--the clouds of heaven above,)
The strong base stands, and its pulsations intermits not,
Bathing, supporting, merging all the rest--maternity of all the rest;
And with it every instrument in multitudes,
The players playing--all the world's musicians,
The solemn hymns and masses, rousing adoration,
All passionate heart-chants, sorrowful appeals,
The measureless sweet vocalists of ages,
And for their solvent setting, Earth's own diapason,
Of winds and woods and mighty ocean waves;
A new composite orchestra--binder of years and climes--ten-fold

renewer,
As of the far-back days the poets tell--the Paradiso,
The straying thence, the separation long, but now the wandering done,
The journey done, the Journeyman come home,
And Man and Art, with Nature fused again.

Tutti! for Earth and Heaven!
The Almighty Leader now for me, for once has signal'd with his wand.


The manly strophe of the husbands of the world,
And all the wives responding.


The tongues of violins!
(I think, O tongues, ye tell this heart, that cannot tell itself;
This brooding, yearning heart, that cannot tell itself.)


Ah, from a little child,
Thou knowest, Soul, how to me all sounds became music;
My mother's voice, in lullaby or hymn;
(The voice--O tender voices--memory's loving voices!
Last miracle of all--O dearest mother's, sister's, voices;)
The rain, the growing corn, the breeze among the long-leav'd corn,
The measur'd sea-surf, beating on the sand,
The twittering bird, the hawk's sharp scream,
The wild-fowl's notes at night, as flying low, migrating north or


south,
The psalm in the country church, or mid the clustering trees, the

open air camp-meeting,
The fiddler in the tavern--the glee, the long-strung sailor-song,
The lowing cattle, bleating sheep--the crowing cock at dawn.

All songs of current lands come sounding 'round me,
The German airs of friendship, wine and love,
Irish ballads, merry jigs and dances--English warbles,
Chansons of France, Scotch tunes--and o'er the rest,
Italia's peerless compositions.


Across the stage, with pallor on her face, yet lurid passion,



Stalks Norma, brandishing the dagger in her hand.

I see poor crazed Lucia's eyes' unnatural gleam;
Her hair down her back falls loose and dishevell'd.

I see where Ernani, walking the bridal garden,
Amid the scent of night-roses, radiant, holding his bride by the
hand,
Hears the infernal call, the death-pledge of the horn.

To crossing swords, and grey hairs bared to heaven,
The clear, electric base and baritone of the world,
The trombone duo--Libertad forever!


From Spanish chestnut trees' dense shade,
By old and heavy convent walls, a wailing song,
Song of lost love--the torch of youth and life quench'd in despair,
Song of the dying swan--Fernando's heart is breaking.


Awaking from her woes at last, retriev'd Amina sings;
Copious as stars, and glad as morning light, the torrents of her joy.


(The teeming lady comes!
The lustrious orb--Venus contralto--the blooming mother,
Sister of loftiest gods--Alboni's self I hear.)


I hear those odes, symphonies, operas;
I hear in the William Tell, the music of an arous'd and angry people;
I hear Meyerbeer's Huguenots, the Prophet, or Robert;
Gounod's Faust, or Mozart's Don Juan.


I hear the dance-music of all nations,
The waltz, (some delicious measure, lapsing, bathing me in
bliss;)
The bolero, to tinkling guitars and clattering castanets.

I see religious dances old and new,
I hear the sound of the Hebrew lyre,
I see the Crusaders marching, bearing the cross on high, to the


martial clang of cymbals;
I hear dervishes monotonously chanting, interspers'd with frantic

shouts, as they spin around, turning always towards Mecca;
I see the rapt religious dances of the Persians and the Arabs;
Again, at Eleusis, home of Ceres, I see the modern Greeks dancing,
I hear them clapping their hands, as they bend their bodies,
I hear the metrical shuffling of their feet.

I see again the wild old Corybantian dance, the performers wounding
each other;
I see the Roman youth, to the shrill sound of flageolets, throwing


and catching their weapons,
As they fall on their knees, and rise again.

I hear from the Mussulman mosque the muezzin calling;
I see the worshippers within, (nor form, nor sermon, argument, nor
word,
But silent, strange, devout--rais'd, glowing heads--extatic faces.)

I hear the Egyptian harp of many strings,
The primitive chants of the Nile boatmen;
The sacred imperial hymns of China,
To the delicate sounds of the king, (the stricken wood and stone;)
Or to Hindu flutes, and the fretting twang of the vina,
A band of bayaderes.


Now Asia, Africa leave me--Europe, seizing, inflates me;
To organs huge, and bands, I hear as from vast concourses of voices,
Luther's strong hymn, Eine feste Burg ist unser Gott;
Rossini's Stabat Mater dolorosa;
Or, floating in some high cathedral dim, with gorgeous color'd


windows,
The passionate Agnus Dei, or Gloria in Excelsis.

Composers! mighty maestros!
And you, sweet singers of old lands--Soprani! Tenori! Bassi!
To you a new bard, carolling free in the west,
Obeisant, sends his love.


(Such led to thee, O Soul!
All senses, shows and objects, lead to thee,
But now, it seems to me, sound leads o'er all the rest.)


I hear the annual singing of the children in St. Paul's Cathedral;
Or, under the high roof of some colossal hall, the symphonies,
oratorios of Beethoven, Handel, or Haydn;
The Creation, in billows of godhood laves me.

Give me to hold all sounds, (I, madly struggling, cry,)
Fill me with all the voices of the universe,
Endow me with their throbbings--Nature's also,
The tempests, waters, winds--operas and chants--marches and


dances,
Utter--pour in--for I would take them all.

Then I woke softly,
And pausing, questioning awhile the music of my dream,
And questioning all those reminiscences--the tempest in its fury,



And all the songs of sopranos and tenors,
And those rapt oriental dances, of religious fervor,
And the sweet varied instruments, and the diapason of organs,
And all the artless plaints of love, and grief and death,
I said to my silent, curious Soul, out of the bed of the slumber


chamber,
Come, for I have found the clue I sought so long,
Let us go forth refresh'd amid the day,
Cheerfully tallying life, walking the world, the real,
Nourish'd henceforth by our celestial dream.


And I said, moreover,
Haply, what thou hast heard, O Soul, was not the sound of winds,
Nor dream of raging storm, nor sea-hawk's flapping wings, nor harsh


scream,
Nor vocalism of sun-bright Italy,
Nor German organ majestic--nor vast concourse of voices--nor layers

of harmonies;
Nor strophes of husbands and wives--nor sound of marching soldiers,
Nor flutes, nor harps, nor the bugle-calls of camps;
But, to a new rhythmus fitted for thee,
Poems, bridging the way from Life to Death, vaguely wafted in night

air, uncaught, unwritten,
Which, let us go forth in the bold day, and write.

STARTING from fish-shape Paumanok, where I was born,
Well-begotten, and rais'd by a perfect mother;
After roaming many lands--lover of populous pavements;
Dweller in Mannahatta, my city--or on


southern savannas;
Or a soldier camp'd, or carrying my knapsack and gun--or a miner in
California;
Or rude in my home in Dakota's woods, my diet meat, my drink from the

spring;
Or withdrawn to muse and meditate in some deep recess,
Far from the clank of crowds, intervals passing, rapt and happy;
Aware of the fresh free giver, the flowing Missouri--aware of mighty


Niagara;
Aware of the buffalo herds, grazing the plains--the hirsute and
strong-breasted bull;
Of earth, rocks, Fifth-month flowers, experienced--stars, rain, snow,


my amaze;
Having studied the mocking-bird's tones, and the mountainhawk's,
And heard at dusk the unrival'd one, the hermit thrush from the


swamp-cedars,
Solitary, singing in the West, I strike up for a New World.


Victory, union, faith, identity, time,
The indissoluble compacts, riches, mystery,
Eternal progress, the kosmos, and the modern reports.


This, then, is life;
Here is what has come to the surface after so many throes and
convulsions.


How curious! how real!
Underfoot the divine soil--overhead the sun.


See, revolving, the globe;
The ancestor-continents, away, group'd together;
The present and future continents, north and south, with the isthmus


between.

See, vast, trackless spaces;
As in a dream, they change, they swiftly fill;
Countless masses debouch upon them;
They are now cover'd with the foremost people, arts, institutions,


known.

See, projected, through time,
For me, an audience interminable.


With firm and regular step they wend--they never stop,
Successions of men, Americanos, a hundred millions;
One generation playing its part, and passing on;



Another generation playing its part, and passing on in its turn,
With faces turn'd sideways or backward towards me, to listen,
With eyes retrospective towards me,


Americanos! conquerors! marches humanitarian;
Foremost! century marches! Libertad! masses!
For you a programme of chants.


Chants of the prairies;
Chants of the long-running Mississippi, and down to the Mexican sea;
Chants of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota;
Chants going forth from the centre, from Kansas, and thence, equi


distant,
Shooting in pulses of fire, ceaseless, to vivify all.

In the Year 80 of The States,
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this soil, this air,
Born here of parents born here, from parents the same, and their


parents the same,
I, now thirty-six years old, in perfect health, begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.

Creeds and schools in abeyance,
(Retiring back a while, sufficed at what they are, but never

forgotten,)
I harbor, for good or bad--I permit to speak, at every hazard,
Nature now without check, with original energy.

Take my leaves, America! take them, South, and take them, North!
Make welcome for them everywhere, for they are your own offspring;
Surround them, East and West! for they would surround you;
And you precedents! connect lovingly with them, for they connect


lovingly with you.

I conn'd old times;
I sat studying at the feet of the great masters:
Now, if eligible, O that the great masters might return and study


me!

In the name of These States, shall I scorn the antique?
Why These are the children of the antique, to justify it.


Dead poets, philosophs, priests,
Martyrs, artists, inventors, governments long since,
Language-shapers, on other shores,
Nations once powerful, now reduced, withdrawn, or desolate,
I dare not proceed till I respectfully credit what you have left,


wafted hither:


I have perused it--own it is admirable,
(moving awhile among it;)

Think nothing can ever be greater--nothing can ever deserve more than
it deserves;

Regarding it all intently a long while--then dismissing it,

I stand in my place, with my own day, here.

Here lands female and male;

Here the heir-ship and heiress-ship of the world--here the flame of
materials;

Here Spirituality, the translatress, the openly-avow'd,

The ever-tending, the finale of visible forms;

The satisfier, after due long-waiting, now advancing,

Yes, here comes my mistress, the Soul.

The SOUL:

Forever and forever--longer than soil is brown and solid--longer than
water ebbs and flows.

I will make the poems of materials, for I think they are to be the
most spiritual poems;

And I will make the poems of my body and of mortality,

For I think I shall then supply myself with the poems of my Soul, and
of immortality.

I will make a song for These States, that no-one State may under any
circumstances be subjected to another State;

And I will make a song that there shall be comity by day and by night
between all The States, and between any two of them:

And I will make a song for the ears of the President, full of weapons
with menacing points,

And behind the weapons countless dissatisfied faces:

--And a song make I, of the One form'd out of all;

The fang'd and glittering One whose head is over all;

Resolute, warlike One, including and over all;

(However high the head of any else, that head is over all.)

I will acknowledge contemporary lands;

I will trail the whole geography of the globe, and salute courteously
every city large and small;

And employments! I will put in my poems, that with you is heroism,
upon land and sea;

And I will report all heroism from an American point of view.

I will sing the song of companionship;

I will show what alone must finally compact These;

I believe These are to found their own ideal of manly love,
indicating it in me;

I will therefore let flame from me the burning fires that were
threatening to consume me;

I will lift what has too long kept down those smouldering fires;


I will give them complete abandonment;
I will write the evangel-poem of comrades, and of love;
(For who but I should understand love, with all its sorrow and joy?
And who but I should be the poet of comrades?)


I am the credulous man of qualities, ages, races;
I advance from the people in their own spirit;
Here is what sings unrestricted faith.


Omnes! Omnes! let others ignore what they may;
I make the poem of evil also--I commemorate that part also;
I am myself just as much evil as good, and my nation is--And I say


there is in fact no evil;
(Or if there is, I say it is just as important to you, to the land,
or to me, as anything else.)

I too, following many, and follow'd by many, inaugurate a Religion--I
descend into the arena;
(It may be I am destin'd to utter the loudest cries there, the
winner's pealing shouts;
Who knows? they may rise from me yet, and soar above every thing.)

Each is not for its own sake;
I say the whole earth, and all the stars in the sky, are for
Religion's sake.

I say no man has ever yet been half devout enough;
None has ever yet adored or worship'd half enough;
None has begun to think how divine he himself is, and how certain the


future is.

I say that the real and permanent grandeur of These States must be

their Religion;
Otherwise there is no real and permanent grandeur:
(Nor character, nor life worthy the name, without Religion;
Nor land, nor man or woman, without Religion.)

What are you doing, young man?
Are you so earnest--so given up to literature, science, art, amours?
These ostensible realities, politics, points?
Your ambition or business, whatever it may be?


It is well--Against such I say not a word--I am their poet also;
But behold! such swiftly subside--burnt up for Religion's sake;
For not all matter is fuel to heat, impalpable flame, the essential


life of the earth,
Any more than such are to Religion.

What do you seek, so pensive and silent?


What do you need, Camerado?
Dear son! do you think it is love?


Listen, dear son--listen, America, daughter or son!
It is a painful thing to love a man or woman to excess--and yet it


satisfies--it is great;
But there is something else very great--it makes the whole coincide;
It, magnificent, beyond materials, with continuous hands, sweeps and

provides for all.

Know you! solely to drop in the earth the germs of a greater
Religion,
The following chants, each for its kind, I sing.

My comrade!
For you, to share with me, two greatnesses--and a third one, rising
inclusive and more resplendent,
The greatness of Love and Democracy--and the greatness of Religion.

Melange mine own! the unseen and the seen;
Mysterious ocean where the streams empty;
Prophetic spirit of materials shifting and flickering around me;
Living beings, identities, now doubtless near us, in the air, that we


know not of;
Contact daily and hourly that will not release me;
These selecting--these, in hints, demanded of me.

Not he, with a daily kiss, onward from childhood kissing me,
Has winded and twisted around me that which holds me to him,
Any more than I am held to the heavens, to the spiritual world,
And to the identities of the Gods, my lovers, faithful and true,
After what they have done to me, suggesting themes.


O such themes! Equalities!
O amazement of things! O divine average!
O warblings under the sun--usher'd, as now, or at noon, or setting!
O strain, musical, flowing through ages--now reaching hither!
I take to your reckless and composite chords--I add to them, and


cheerfully pass them forward.

As I have walk'd in Alabama my morning walk,
I have seen where the she-bird, the mocking-bird, sat on her nest in
the briers, hatching her brood.

I have seen the he-bird also;
I have paused to hear him, near at hand, inflating his throat, and
joyfully singing.

And while I paused, it came to me that what he really sang for was
not there only,


Nor for his mate, nor himself only, nor all sent back by the echoes;
But subtle, clandestine, away beyond,
A charge transmitted, and gift occult, for those being born.


Democracy!


Near at hand to you a throat is now inflating itself and joyfully
singing.

Ma femme!

For the brood beyond us and of us,

For those who belong here, and those to come,

I, exultant, to be ready for them, will now shake out carols stronger
and haughtier than have ever yet been heard upon earth.

I will make the songs of passion, to give them their way,

And your songs, outlaw'd offenders--for I scan you with kindred eyes,
and carry you with me the same as any.

I will make the true poem of riches,

To earn for the body and the mind whatever adheres, and goes forward,
and is not dropt by death.

I will effuse egotism, and show it underlying all--and I will be the
bard of personality;

And I will show of male and female that either is but the equal of
the other;

And sexual organs and acts! do you concentrate in me--for I am
determin'd to tell you with courageous clear voice, to prove
you illustrious;

And I will show that there is no imperfection in the present--and can
be none in the future;

And I will show that whatever happens to anybody, it may be turn'd to
beautiful results--and I will show that nothing can happen more
beautiful than death;

And I will thread a thread through my poems that time and events are
compact,

And that all the things of the universe are perfect miracles, each as
profound as any.

I will not make poems with reference to parts;

But I will make leaves, poems, poemets, songs, says, thoughts with
reference to ensemble:

And I will not sing with reference to a day, but with reference to
all days;

And I will not make a poem, nor the least part of a poem, but has
reference to the Soul;

(Because, having look'd at the objects of the universe, I find there
is no one, nor any particle of one, but has reference to the
Soul.)


Was somebody asking to see the Soul?

See! your own shape and countenance--persons, substances, beasts, the
trees, the running rivers, the rocks and sands.

All hold spiritual joys, and afterwards loosen them:
How can the real body ever die, and be buried?

Of your real body, and any man's or woman's real body,

Item for item, it will elude the hands of the corpse-cleaners, and
pass to fitting spheres,

Carrying what has accrued to it from the moment of birth to the
moment of death.

Not the types set up by the printer return their impression, the
meaning, the main concern,

Any more than a man's substance and life, or a woman's substance and
life, return in the body and the Soul,

Indifferently before death and after death.

Behold! the body includes and is the meaning, the main concern--and
includes and is the Soul;

Whoever you are! how superb and how divine is your body, or any part
of it.

Whoever you are! to you endless announcements.

Daughter of the lands, did you wait for your poet?
Did you wait for one with a flowing mouth and indicative hand?


Toward the male of The States, and toward the female of The States,
Live words--words to the lands.

O the lands! interlink'd, food-yielding lands!

Land of coal and iron! Land of gold! Lands of cotton, sugar, rice!

Land of wheat, beef, pork! Land of wool and hemp! Land of the apple
and grape!

Land of the pastoral plains, the grass-fields of the world! Land of
those sweet-air'd interminable plateaus!

Land of the herd, the garden, the healthy house of adobie!

Lands where the northwest Columbia winds, and where the southwest
Colorado winds!

Land of the eastern Chesapeake! Land of the Delaware!

Land of Ontario, Erie, Huron, Michigan!

Land of the Old Thirteen! Massachusetts land! Land of Vermont and
Connecticut!

Land of the ocean shores! Land of sierras and peaks!

Land of boatmen and sailors! Fishermen's land!

Inextricable lands! the clutch'd together! the passionate ones!

The side by side! the elder and younger brothers! the bony-limb'd!

The great women's land! the feminine! the experienced sisters and the
inexperienced sisters!


Far breath'd land! Arctic braced! Mexican breez'd! the diverse! the
compact!

The Pennsylvanian! the Virginian! the double Carolinian!

O all and each well-loved by me! my intrepid nations! O I at any rate
include you all with perfect love!

I cannot be discharged from you! not from one, any sooner than
another!

O Death! O for all that, I am yet of you, unseen, this hour, with
irrepressible love,

Walking New England, a friend, a traveler,

Splashing my bare feet in the edge of the summer ripples, on
Paumanok's sands,

Crossing the prairies--dwelling again in Chicago--dwelling in every
town,

Observing shows, births, improvements, structures, arts,

Listening to the orators and the oratresses in public halls,

Of and through The States, as during life--each man and woman my
neighbor,

The Louisianian, the Georgian, as near to me, and I as near to him
and her,

The Mississippian and Arkansian yet with me--and I yet with any of
them;

Yet upon the plains west of the spinal river--yet in my house of
adobie,

Yet returning eastward--yet in the Sea-Side State, or in Maryland,

Yet Kanadian, cheerily braving the winter--the snow and ice welcome
to me,

Yet a true son either of Maine, or of the Granite State, or of the
Narragansett Bay State, or of the Empire State;

Yet sailing to other shores to annex the same--yet welcoming every
new brother;

Hereby applying these leaves to the new ones, from the hour they
unite with the old ones;

Coming among the new ones myself, to be their companion and equal-coming
personally to you now;

Enjoining you to acts, characters, spectacles, with me.

With me, with firm holding--yet haste, haste on.

For your life, adhere to me!

Of all the men of the earth, I only can unloose you and toughen you;

I may have to be persuaded many times before I consent to give myself
really to you--but what of that?

Must not Nature be persuaded many times?

No dainty dolce affettuoso I;
Bearded, sun-burnt, gray-neck'd, forbidding, I have arrived,
To be wrestled with as I pass, for the solid prizes of the universe;
For such I afford whoever can persevere to win them.



On my way a moment I pause;

Here for you! and here for America!

Still the Present I raise aloft--Still the Future of The States I
harbinge, glad and sublime;

And for the Past, I pronounce what the air holds of the red
aborigines.

The red aborigines!

Leaving natural breaths, sounds of rain and winds, calls as of birds
and animals in the woods, syllabled to us for names;

Okonee, Koosa, Ottawa, Monongahela, Sauk, Natchez, Chattahoochee,
Kaqueta, Oronoco,

Wabash, Miami, Saginaw, Chippewa, Oshkosh, Walla-Walla;

Leaving such to The States, they melt, they depart, charging the
water and the land with names.

O expanding and swift! O henceforth,

Elements, breeds, adjustments, turbulent, quick, and audacious;

A world primal again--Vistas of glory, incessant and branching;

A new race, dominating previous ones, and grander far--with new
contests,

New politics, new literatures and religions, new inventions and arts.

These! my voice announcing--I will sleep no more, but arise;

You oceans that have been calm within me! how I feel you, fathomless,
stirring, preparing unprecedented waves and storms.

See! steamers steaming through my poems!

See, in my poems immigrants continually coming and landing;

See, in arriere, the wigwam, the trail, the hunter's hut, the
flatboat, the maize-leaf, the claim, the rude fence, and the
backwoods village;

See, on the one side the Western Sea, and on the other the Eastern
Sea, how they advance and retreat upon my poems, as upon their
own shores.

See, pastures and forests in my poems--See, animals, wild and tame-See,
beyond the Kanzas, countless herds of buffalo, feeding on
short curly grass;

See, in my poems, cities, solid, vast, inland, with paved streets,
with iron and stone edifices, ceaseless vehicles, and commerce;

See, the many-cylinder'd steam printing-press--See, the electric
telegraph, stretching across the Continent, from the Western
Sea to Manhattan;

See, through Atlantica's depths, pulses American, Europe reaching-pulses
of Europe, duly return'd;

See, the strong and quick locomotive, as it departs, panting, blowing
the steam-whistle;

See, ploughmen, ploughing farms--See, miners, digging mines--See, the
numberless factories;


See, mechanics, busy at their benches, with tools--See from among
them, superior judges, philosophs, Presidents, emerge, drest in
working dresses;

See, lounging through the shops and fields of The States, me, wellbelov'd,
close-held by day and night;
Hear the loud echoes of my songs there! Read the hints come at last.

O Camerado close!
O you and me at last--and us two only.


O a word to clear one's path ahead endlessly!
O something extatic and undemonstrable! O music wild!


O now I triumph--and you shall also;
O hand in hand--O wholesome pleasure--O one more desirer and lover!
O to haste, firm holding--to haste, haste on with me.

Friend, wake up! Why do you go on sleeping?
The night is over— do you want to lose the day
the same way?
Other women who managed to get up early have

already found an elephant or a jewel...
so much was lost already while you slept...
and that was so unnecessary!

The one who loves you understood, but you did not.
You forgot to make a place in your bed next to you.
Instead you spent your life playing.
In your twenties you did not grow
because you did not know who your Lord was.
Wake up! Wake up! There's no one in your bed—
He left you during the long night.


Kabir says: The only woman awake is the woman
who has heard the flute!

No-man kneads us again out of Earth and Loam,
no-man spirits our Dust.
No-man.


Praise to you, No-man.
For love of you
we will flower.
Moving
towards you.


A Nothing
we were, we are, we shall
be still, flowering:
the Nothing-, the
No-man’s-rose.


With
our Pistil soul-bright,
our Stamen heaven-torn,
our Corolla red
with the Violet-Word that we sang
over, O over
the thorn.

It went many years,
But at last came a knock,
And I thought of the door
With no lock to lock.
I blew out the light,
I tip-toed the floor,
And raised both hands
In prayer to the door.
But the knock came again
My window was wide;
I climbed on the sill
And descended outside.
Back over the sill
I bade a "Come in"
To whoever the knock
At the door may have been.
So at a knock
I emptied my cage
To hide in the world
And alter with age.

1. Is it the wind of the dawn that I hear
in the pine overhead?
2. No; but the voice of the deep as it hollows
the cliffs of the land.
1. Is there a voice coming up with the
voice of the deep from the strand,
Once coming up with a Song in the
flush of the glimmering red?


2. Love that is born of the deep coming
up with the sun from the sea.
1. Love that can shape or can shatter a
life till the life shall have fled?
2. Nay, let us welcome him, Love that
can lift up a life from the dead.
1. Keep him away from the lone little isle.
Let us be, let us be.
2. Nay, let him make it his own, let him
reign in it - he, it is he,
Love that is born of the deep coming
up with the sun from the sea.

O MATER! O fils!

O brood continental!

O flowers of the prairies!

O space boundless! O hum of mighty products!

O you teeming cities! O so invincible, turbulent, proud!

O race of the future! O women!

O fathers! O you men of passion and the storm!

O native power only! O beauty!

O yourself! O God! O divine average!

O you bearded roughs! O bards! O all those slumberers!

O arouse! the dawn bird's throat sounds shrill! Do you not hear the

cock crowing?

O, as I walk'd the beach, I heard the mournful notes foreboding a

tempest--the low, oft-repeated shriek of the diver, the long


lived loon;

O I heard, and yet hear, angry thunder;--O you sailors! O ships! make

quick preparation!

O from his masterful sweep, the warning cry of the eagle!

(Give way there, all! It is useless! Give up your spoils;)

O sarcasms! Propositions! (O if the whole world should prove indeed a

sham, a sell!)

O I believe there is nothing real but America and freedom!

O to sternly reject all except Democracy!

O imperator! O who dare confront you and me?

O to promulgate our own! O to build for that which builds for

mankind!

O feuillage! O North! O the slope drained by the Mexican sea!

O all, all inseparable--ages, ages, ages!

O a curse on him that would dissever this Union for any reason

whatever!

O climates, labors! O good and evil! O death!

O you strong with iron and wood! O Personality!

O the village or place which has the greatest man or woman! even if

it be only a few ragged huts;

O the city where women walk in public processions in the streets, the

same as the men;

O a wan and terrible emblem, by me adopted!

O shapes arising! shapes of the future centuries!

O muscle and pluck forever for me!

O workmen and workwomen forever for me!

O farmers and sailors! O drivers of horses forever for me!

O I will make the new bardic list of trades and tools!

O you coarse and wilful! I love you!

O South! O longings for my dear home! O soft and sunny airs!

O pensive! O I must return where the palm grows and the mocking-bird

sings, or else I die!

O equality! O organic compacts! I am come to be your born poet!

O whirl, contest, sounding and resounding! I am your poet, because I

am part of you;

O days by-gone! Enthusiasts! Antecedents!

O vast preparations for These States! O years!

O what is now being sent forward thousands of years to come!


O mediums! O to teach! to convey the invisible faith!

To promulge real things! to journey through all The States!

O creation! O to-day! O laws! O unmitigated adoration!

O for mightier broods of orators, artists, and singers!

O for native songs! carpenter's, boatman's, ploughman's songs!

shoemaker's songs!

O haughtiest growth of time! O free and extatic!

O what I, here, preparing, warble for!

O you hastening light! O the sun of the world will ascend, dazzling,

and take his height--and you too will ascend;

O so amazing and so broad! up there resplendent, darting and

burning;

O prophetic! O vision staggered with weight of light! with pouring

glories!

O copious! O hitherto unequalled!

O Libertad! O compact! O union impossible to dissever!

O my Soul! O lips becoming tremulous, powerless!

O centuries, centuries yet ahead!

O voices of greater orators! I pause--I listen for you

O you States! Cities! defiant of all outside authority! I spring at

once into your arms! you I most love!

O you grand Presidentiads! I wait for you!

New history! New heroes! I project you!

Visions of poets! only you really last! O sweep on! sweep on!

O Death! O you striding there! O I cannot yet!

O heights! O infinitely too swift and dizzy yet!

O purged lumine! you threaten me more than I can stand!

O present! I return while yet I may to you!

O poets to come, I depend upon you!

CAN it be! of stars the star,

Do I press thee to my heart?
In the night of distance far,
What deep gulf, what bitter smart!


Yes, 'tis thou, indeed, at last,


Of my joys the partner dear!
Mindful, though, of sorrows past,
I the present needs must fear.
When the still-unfashion'd earth
Lay on God's eternal breast,


He ordain'd its hour of birth,


With creative joy possess'd.
Then a heavy sigh arose,
When He spake the sentence:--"Be!"


And the All, with mighty throes,
Burst into reality.
And when thus was born the light,
Darkness near it fear'd to stay,


And the elements with might


Fled on every side away;
Each on some far-distant trace,
Each with visions wild employ,


Numb, in boundless realm of space,
Harmony and feeling-void.
Dumb was all, all still and dead,
For the first time, God alone!


Then He form'd the morning-red,


Which soon made its kindness known:
It unravelled from the waste,
Bright and glowing harmony,


And once more with love was grac'd
What contended formerly.


And with earnest, noble strife,


Each its own Peculiar sought;
Back to full, unbounded life
Sight and feeling soon were brought.


Wherefore, if 'tis done, explore


How? why give the manner, name?
Allah need create no more,
We his world ourselves can frame.
So, with morning pinions bright,
To thy mouth was I impell'd;


Stamped with thousand seals by night,


Star-clear is the bond fast held.
Paragons on earth are we
Both of grief and joy sublime,


And a second sentence:--"Be!"
Parts us not a second time.

TURN, O Libertad, for the war is over,
(From it and all henceforth expanding, doubting no more, resolute,


sweeping the world,)
Turn from lands retrospective, recording proofs of the past;
From the singers that sing the trailing glories of the past;
From the chants of the feudal world--the triumphs of kings, slavery,

caste;
Turn to the world, the triumphs reserv'd and to come--give up that

backward world;
Leave to the singers of hitherto--give them the trailing past;
But what remains, remains for singers for you--wars to come are for

you;
(Lo! how the wars of the past have duly inured to you--and the wars
of the present also inure:)
--Then turn, and be not alarm'd, O Libertad--turn your undying

face,
To where the future, greater than all the past,
Is swiftly, surely preparing for you.