New Beginnings and Rebirth

Ah, how I love it in these first few days,
Fresh from the forest and out of the snow,
Awkwardness obvious still in every bough,
When every silver thread lazily sways
And every cone begins slowly to glow
In candlelight—and the white sheet below
Hides its sore stump from our eyes.


It will not bat an eye if you heap gold
And jewels on it-this shyest of fays
In blue enamel and tinfoil enfolded
Creeps in your heart of hearts—and there it stays.
Ah, how I love it all in these first days,
All golden finery and silver shades!


All in the making-stars, flags, lanterns, flares,
There are no chocolates yet in bonbonnieres.
Even the candles are no candles—they
Look more like dull sticks of makeup by day.
This is an actress still lighting stage fright
In the tumult of her benefit night.
Ah, how I love her on this opening day,
Flushed in the coulisses before the play!


Apples to appletrees, and kicks to firtrees.
Only not this one—no kicks for the beauty.
She has a different purpose and duty.
She's the select one, receiver of favours.
Her evening party will go on forever.
Others may fear proverb s-this one does not.


Her fate is only a few firtrees' lot.
Golden and fiery, she will soar high,
Like an old prophet ascending the sky.


Ah, how I love it all in these first days,
When all the world chats and fusses and plays!

For what the Jews have not sold,
what neither nobility nor crime have tasted,
what is unknown to monstrous love
and to the infernal probity of the masses!


what neither time nor science need recognize: The Voices restored;
fraternal awakening of all choral and orchestral energies
and their instantaneous application; the opportunity, the only one,
for the release of our senses! For sale Bodies without price,
outside any race, any world, any sex, any lineage! Riches gushing at every step!


Uncontrolled sale of diamonds!
For sale anarchy for the masses;
irrepressible satisfaction for rare connoisseurs;
agonizing death for the faithful and for lovers!


For sale colonization and migrations, sports,
fairylands and incomparable comforts,
and the noise and the movement
and the future they make!


For sale the application of calculations
and the incredible leaps of harmony.
Discoveries and terms never dreamed of,
-- immediate possession.


Wild and infinite flight toward invisible splendors,
toward intangible delights-and
its maddening secrets for every vice
-- and its terrifying gaiety for the mob.


For sale, the bodies, the voices,
the enormous and unquestionable wealth,
that which will never be sold.
Salesmen are not at the end of their stock!
It will be some time before travelers have to turn in their accounts.

ONE song, America, before I go,
I'd sing, o'er all the rest, with trumpet sound,
For thee--the Future.


I'd sow a seed for thee of endless Nationality;
I'd fashion thy Ensemble, including Body and Soul;
I'd show, away ahead, thy real Union, and how it may be accomplish'd.


(The paths to the House I seek to make,
But leave to those to come, the House itself.)


Belief I sing--and Preparation;
As Life and Nature are not great with reference to the Present


only,
But greater still from what is yet to come,
Out of that formula for Thee I sing.

All that could never be said,
All that could never be done,
Wait for us at last
Somewhere back of the sun;
All the heart broke to forego
Shall be ours without pain,
We shall take them as lightly as girls
Pluck flowers after rain.
And when they are ours in the end
Perhaps after all
The skies will not open for us
Nor heaven be there at our call.

Let me look always forward. Never back.
Was I not formed for progress? Otherwise
With onward pointing feet and searching eyes
Would God have set me squarely on the track
Up which we all must labour with life's pack?
Yonder the goal of all this travel lies.
What matters it, if yesterday the skies
With light were golden, or with clouds were black?
I would not lose to-morrow's glow of dawn
By peering backward after sun's long set.
New hope is fairer than an old regret;
Let me pursue my journey and press on-
Nor tearful eyed, stand ever in one spot,
A briny statue like the wife of Lot.

The prophetic tribe of the ardent eyes
Yesterday they took the road, holding their babies
On their backs, delivering to fierce appetites
The always ready treasure of pendulous breasts.
The men stick their feet out, waving their guns
Alongside the caravan where they tremble together,
Scanning the sky their eyes are weighted down
In mourning for absent chimeras.
At the bottom of his sandy retreat, a cricket
Watched passing, redoubles his song,
Cybele, who loves, adds more flower,
Makes fountains out of rock and blossoms from desert
Opening up before these travelers in a yawn—
A familiar empire, the inscrutable future.
Translated by William A. Sigler

There was a sound of revelry by night,
And Belgium's capital had gathered then
Her beauty and her chivalry, and bright
The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men.
A thousand hearts beat happily; and when
Music arose with its voluptuous swell,
Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again,
And all went merry as a marriage bell;
But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell!


Did ye not hear it? No;
'twas but the wind,
Or the car rattling o'er the stony street;
On with the dance! let joy be unconfined;
No sleep till morn, when youth and pleasure meet
To chase the glowing hours with flying feet.
But hark! that
heavy sound breaks in once more,
As if the clouds its echo would repeat;
And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before;
Arm! arm! it is it
is the
cannon's opening roar!


Within a windowed niche of that high hall
Sate Brunswick's fated chieftain; he did hear
That sound the first amidst the festival,
And caught its tone with death's prophetic ear;
And when they smiled because he deemed it near,
His heart more truly knew that peal too well
Which stretched his father on a bloody bier,
And roused the vengeance blood alone could quell;
He rushed into the field, and, foremost fighting, fell.


Ah! then and there was hurrying to and fro,
And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress,
And cheeks all pale, which, but an hour ago,
Blushed at the praise of their own loveliness.
And there were sudden partings, such as press
The life from out young hearts, and choking sighs
Which ne'er might be repeated; who would guess
If ever more should meet those mutual eyes,
Since upon night so sweet such awful morn could rise!


And there was mounting in hot haste; the steed,
The mustering squadron, and the clattering car,
Went pouring forward with impetuous speed,
And swiftly forming in the ranks of war;
And the deep thunder, peal on peal afar;
And near, the beat of the alarming drum
Roused up the soldier ere the morning star;
While thronged the citizens with terror dumb,



Or whispering, with white lips '
The foe! they come! they come!'

RISE, O days, from your fathomless deeps, till you loftier, fiercer
sweep!
Long for my soul, hungering gymnastic, I devour'd what the earth gave

me;
Long I roam'd the woods of the north--long I watch'd Niagara pouring;
I travel'd the prairies over, and slept on their breast--I cross'd

the Nevadas, I cross'd the plateaus;
I ascended the towering rocks along the Pacific, I sail'd out to sea;
I sail'd through the storm, I was refresh'd by the storm;
I watch'd with joy the threatening maws of the waves;
I mark'd the white combs where they career'd so high, curling over;
I heard the wind piping, I saw the black clouds;
Saw from below what arose and mounted, (O superb! O wild as my heart,

and powerful!)
Heard the continuous thunder, as it bellow'd after the lightning;
Noted the slender and jagged threads of lightning, as sudden and fast


amid the din they chased each other across the sky;
--These, and such as these, I, elate, saw--saw with wonder, yet


pensive and masterful;
All the menacing might of the globe uprisen around me;
Yet there with my soul I fed--I fed content, supercilious.


'Twas well, O soul! 'twas a good preparation you gave me!
Now we advance our latent and ampler hunger to fill;
Now we go forth to receive what the earth and the sea never gave us;
Not through the mighty woods we go, but through the mightier cities;
Something for us is pouring now, more than Niagara pouring;
Torrents of men, (sources and rills of the Northwest, are you indeed


inexhaustible?)
What, to pavements and homesteads here--what were those storms of the

mountains and sea?
What, to passions I witness around me to-day? Was the sea risen?
Was the wind piping the pipe of death under the black clouds?
Lo! from deeps more unfathomable, something more deadly and savage;
Manhattan, rising, advancing with menacing front--Cincinnati,

Chicago, unchain'd;
--What was that swell I saw on the ocean? behold what comes here!
How it climbs with daring feet and hands! how it dashes!
How the true thunder bellows after the lightning! how bright the


flashes of lightning!
How DEMOCRACY, with desperate vengeful port strides on, shown through

the dark by those flashes of lightning!
(Yet a mournful wail and low sob I fancied I heard through the dark,
In a lull of the deafening confusion.)


Thunder on! stride on, Democracy! strike with vengeful stroke!
And do you rise higher than ever yet, O days, O cities!
Crash heavier, heavier yet, O storms! you have done me good;
My soul, prepared in the mountains, absorbs your immortal strong



nutriment;
--Long had I walk'd my cities, my country roads, through farms, only
half-satisfied;
One doubt, nauseous, undulating like a snake, crawl'd on the ground
before me,
Continually preceding my steps, turning upon me oft, ironically
hissing low;
--The cities I loved so well, I abandon'd and left--I sped to the
certainties suitable to me;
Hungering, hungering, hungering, for primal energies, and Nature's

dauntlessness,
I refresh'd myself with it only, I could relish it only;
I waited the bursting forth of the pent fire--on the water and air I

waited long;
--But now I no longer wait--I am fully satisfied--I am glutted;
I have witness'd the true lightning--I have witness'd my cities


electric;
I have lived to behold man burst forth, and warlike America rise;
Hence I will seek no more the food of the northern solitary wilds,
No more on the mountains roam, or sail the stormy sea.

YEAR of meteors! brooding year!
I would bind in words retrospective, some of your deeds and signs;
I would sing your contest for the 19th Presidentiad;
I would sing how an old man, tall, with white hair, mounted the


scaffold in Virginia;
(I was at hand--silent I stood, with teeth shut close--I watch'd;
I stood very near you, old man, when cool and indifferent, but


trembling with age and your unheal'd wounds, you mounted the

scaffold;)
--I would sing in my copious song your census returns of The States,
The tables of population and products--I would sing of your ships and


their cargoes,
The proud black ships of Manhattan, arriving, some fill'd with
immigrants, some from the isthmus with cargoes of gold;
Songs thereof would I sing--to all that hitherward comes would I
welcome give;
And you would I sing, fair stripling! welcome to you from me, sweet
boy of England!
Remember you surging Manhattan's crowds, as you pass'd with your


cortege of nobles?
There in the crowds stood I, and singled you out with attachment;
I know not why, but I loved you... (and so go forth little song,
Far over sea speed like an arrow, carrying my love all folded,
And find in his palace the youth I love, and drop these lines at his


feet;)
--Nor forget I to sing of the wonder, the ship as she swam up my bay,
Well-shaped and stately the Great Eastern swam up my bay, she was

feet long,
Her, moving swiftly, surrounded by myriads of small craft, I forget
not to sing;
--Nor the comet that came unannounced out of the north, flaring in
heaven;
Nor the strange huge meteor procession, dazzling and clear, shooting
over our heads,
(A moment, a moment long, it sail'd its balls of unearthly light over


our heads,
Then departed, dropt in the night, and was gone;)
--Of such, and fitful as they, I sing--with gleams from them would I


gleam and patch these chants;
Your chants, O year all mottled with evil and good! year of
forebodings! year of the youth I love!
Year of comets and meteors transient and strange!--lo! even here, one
equally transient and strange!
As I flit through you hastily, soon to fall and be gone, what is this
book,
What am I myself but one of your meteors?

Move eastward, happy earth, and leave
Yon orange sunset waning slow:
From fringes of the faded eve,
O, happy planet, eastward go:
Till over thy dark shoulder glow
Thy silver sister world, and rise
To glass herself in dewey eyes
That watch me from the glen below.


Ah, bear me with thee, lightly borne,
Dip forward under starry light,
And move me to my marriage-morn,
And round again to happy night.

AFTER all, not to create only, or found only,
But to bring, perhaps from afar, what is already founded,
To give it our own identity, average, limitless, free;
To fill the gross, the torpid bulk with vital religious fire;
Not to repel or destroy, so much as accept, fuse, rehabilitate;
To obey, as well as command--to follow, more than to lead;
These also are the lessons of our New World;
--While how little the New, after all--how much the Old, Old World!


Long, long, long, has the grass been growing,
Long and long has the rain been falling,
Long has the globe been rolling round.


Come, Muse, migrate from Greece and Ionia;
Cross out, please, those immensely overpaid accounts,
That matter of Troy, and Achilles' wrath, and Eneas', Odysseus'


wanderings;
Placard "Removed" and "To Let" on the rocks of your snowy Parnassus;
Repeat at Jerusalem--place the notice high on Jaffa's gate, and on

Mount Moriah;
The same on the walls of your Gothic European Cathedrals, and German,
French and Spanish Castles;
For know a better, fresher, busier sphere--a wide, untried domain
awaits, demands you.

Responsive to our summons,
Or rather to her long-nurs'd inclination,
Join'd with an irresistible, natural gravitation,


She comes! this famous Female--as was indeed to be expected;
(For who, so-ever youthful, 'cute and handsome, would wish to stay in


mansions such as those,
When offer'd quarters with all the modern improvements,
With all the fun that 's going--and all the best society?)


She comes! I hear the rustling of her gown;
I scent the odor of her breath's delicious fragrance;
I mark her step divine--her curious eyes a-turning, rolling,
Upon this very scene.


The Dame of Dames! can I believe, then,
Those ancient temples classic, and castles strong and feudalistic,
could none of them restrain her?
Nor shades of Virgil and Dante--nor myriad memories, poems, old


associations, magnetize and hold on to her?
But that she 's left them all--and here?


Yes, if you will allow me to say so,
I, my friends, if you do not, can plainly see Her,



The same Undying Soul of Earth's, activity's, beauty's, heroism's
Expression,
Out from her evolutions hither come--submerged the strata of her

former themes,
Hidden and cover'd by to-day's--foundation of to-day's;
Ended, deceas'd, through time, her voice by Castaly's fountain;
Silent through time the broken-lipp'd Sphynx in Egypt--silent those

century-baffling tombs;
Closed for aye the epics of Asia's, Europe's helmeted warriors;
Calliope's call for ever closed--Clio, Melpomene, Thalia closed and

dead;
Seal'd the stately rhythmus of Una and Oriana--ended the quest of the

Holy Graal;
Jerusalem a handful of ashes blown by the wind--extinct;
The Crusaders' streams of shadowy, midnight troops, sped with the

sunrise;
Amadis, Tancred, utterly gone--Charlemagne, Roland, Oliver gone,
Palmerin, ogre, departed--vanish'd the turrets that Usk reflected,
Arthur vanish'd with all his knights--Merlin and Lancelot and

Galahad--all gone--dissolv'd utterly, like an exhalation;
Pass'd! pass'd! for us, for ever pass'd! that once so mighty World-now
void, inanimate, phantom World!

Embroider'd, dazzling World! with all its gorgeous legends, myths,
Its kings and barons proud--its priests, and warlike lords, and
courtly dames;
Pass'd to its charnel vault--laid on the shelf--coffin'd, with Crown

and Armor on,
Blazon'd with Shakspeare's purple page,
And dirged by Tennyson's sweet sad rhyme.

I say I see, my friends, if you do not, the Animus of all that World,
Escaped, bequeath'd, vital, fugacious as ever, leaving those dead
remains, and now this spot approaching, filling;
--And I can hear what maybe you do not--a terrible aesthetical

commotion,
With howling, desperate gulp of "flower" and "bower,"
With "Sonnet to Matilda's Eyebrow" quite, quite frantic;
With gushing, sentimental reading circles turn'd to ice or stone;
With many a squeak, (in metre choice,) from Boston, New York,

Philadelphia, London;
As she, the illustrious Emigré, (having, it is true, in her day,
although the same, changed, journey'd considerable,)
Making directly for this rendezvous--vigorously clearing a path for

herself--striding through the confusion,
By thud of machinery and shrill steam-whistle undismay'd,
Bluff'd not a bit by drain-pipe, gasometers, artificial fertilizers,
Smiling and pleased, with palpable intent to stay,
She 's here, install'd amid the kitchen ware!

But hold--don't I forget my manners?


To introduce the Stranger (what else indeed have I come for?) to

thee, Columbia:
In Liberty's name, welcome, Immortal! clasp hands,
And ever henceforth Sisters dear be both.

Fear not, O Muse! truly new ways and days receive, surround you,
(I candidly confess, a queer, queer race, of novel fashion,)
And yet the same old human race--the same within, without,
Faces and hearts the same--feelings the same--yearnings the same,
The same old love--beauty and use the same.


We do not blame thee, Elder World--nor separate ourselves from thee:
(Would the Son separate himself from the Father?)
Looking back on thee--seeing thee to thy duties, grandeurs, through


past ages bending, building,
We build to ours to-day.

Mightier than Egypt's tombs,
Fairer than Grecia's, Roma's temples,
Prouder than Milan's statued, spired Cathedral,
More picturesque than Rhenish castle-keeps,
We plan, even now, to raise, beyond them all,
Thy great Cathedral, sacred Industry--no tomb,
A Keep for life for practical Invention.


As in a waking vision,
E'en while I chant, I see it rise--I scan and prophesy outside and
in,
Its manifold ensemble.

Around a Palace,
Loftier, fairer, ampler than any yet,
Earth's modern Wonder, History's Seven outstripping,
High rising tier on tier, with glass and iron façades.


Gladdening the sun and sky--enhued in cheerfulest hues,
Bronze, lilac, robin's-egg, marine and crimson,
Over whose golden roof shall flaunt, beneath thy banner, Freedom,
The banners of The States, the flags of every land,
A brood of lofty, fair, but lesser Palaces shall cluster.


Somewhere within the walls of all,
Shall all that forwards perfect human life be started,
Tried, taught, advanced, visibly exhibited.


Here shall you trace in flowing operation,
In every state of practical, busy movement,
The rills of Civilization.


Materials here, under your eye, shall change their shape, as if by



magic;
The cotton shall be pick'd almost in the very field,
Shall be dried, clean'd, ginn'd, baled, spun into thread and cloth,

before you:
You shall see hands at work at all the old processes, and all the new
ones;
You shall see the various grains, and how flour is made, and then
bread baked by the bakers;
You shall see the crude ores of California and Nevada passing on and
on till they become bullion;
You shall watch how the printer sets type, and learn what a composing
stick is;
You shall mark, in amazement, the Hoe press whirling its cylinders,
shedding the printed leaves steady and fast:
The photograph, model, watch, pin, nail, shall be created before you.

In large calm halls, a stately Museum shall teach you the infinite,
solemn lessons of Minerals;
In another, woods, plants, Vegetation shall be illustrated--in
another Animals, animal life and development.

One stately house shall be the Music House;
Others for other Arts--Learning, the Sciences, shall all be here;
None shall be slighted--none but shall here be honor'd, help'd,


exampled.

This, this and these, America, shall be your Pyramids and

Obelisks,
Your Alexandrian Pharos, gardens of Babylon,
Your temple at Olympia.

The male and female many laboring not,
Shall ever here confront the laboring many,
With precious benefits to both--glory to all,
To thee, America--and thee, Eternal Muse.


And here shall ye inhabit, Powerful Matrons!
In your vast state, vaster than all the old;
Echoed through long, long centuries to come,
To sound of different, prouder songs, with stronger themes,
Practical, peaceful life--the people's life--the People themselves,
Lifted, illumin'd, bathed in peace--elate, secure in peace.


Away with themes of war! away with War itself!
Hence from my shuddering sight, to never more return, that show of
blacken'd, mutilated corpses!
That hell unpent, and raid of blood--fit for wild tigers, or for lop


tongued wolves--not reasoning men!
And in its stead speed Industry's campaigns!
With thy undaunted armies, Engineering!


Thy pennants, Labor, loosen'd to the breeze!
Thy bugles sounding loud and clear!

Away with old romance!

Away with novels, plots, and plays of foreign courts!

Away with love-verses, sugar'd in rhyme--the intrigues, amours of
idlers,

Fitted for only banquets of the night, where dancers to late music
slide;

The unhealthy pleasures, extravagant dissipations of the few,

With perfumes, heat and wine, beneath the dazzling chandeliers.

To you, ye Reverent, sane Sisters,

To this resplendent day, the present scene,

These eyes and ears that like some broad parterre bloom up around,
before me,

I raise a voice for far superber themes for poets and for Art,

To exalt the present and the real,

To teach the average man the glory of his daily walk and trade,

To sing, in songs, how exercise and chemical life are never to be
baffled;

Boldly to thee, America, to-day! and thee, Immortal Muse!

To practical, manual work, for each and all--to plough, hoe, dig,

To plant and tend the tree, the berry, the vegetables, flowers,

For every man to see to it that he really do something--for every
woman too;

To use the hammer, and the saw, (rip or cross-cut,)

To cultivate a turn for carpentering, plastering, painting,

To work as tailor, tailoress, nurse, hostler, porter,

To invent a little--something ingenious--to aid the washing, cooking,
cleaning,

And hold it no disgrace to take a hand at them themselves.

I say I bring thee, Muse, to-day and here,

All occupations, duties broad and close,

Toil, healthy toil and sweat, endless, without cessation,

The old, old general burdens, interests, joys,

The family, parentage, childhood, husband and wife,

The house-comforts--the house itself, and all its belongings,

Food and its preservations--chemistry applied to it;

Whatever forms the average, strong, complete, sweet-blooded Man or
Woman--the perfect, longeve Personality,

And helps its present life to health and happiness--and shapes its
Soul,

For the eternal Real Life to come.


With latest materials, works,
Steam-power, the great Express lines, gas, petroleum,
These triumphs of our time, the Atlantic's delicate cable,
The Pacific Railroad, the Suez canal, the Mont Cenis tunnel;
Science advanced, in grandeur and reality, analyzing every thing,



This world all spann'd with iron rails--with lines of steamships
threading every sea,
Our own Rondure, the current globe I bring.


And thou, high-towering One--America!
Thy swarm of offspring towering high--yet higher thee, above all


towering,
With Victory on thy left, and at thy right hand Law;
Thou Union, holding all--fusing, absorbing, tolerating all,
Thee, ever thee, I bring.

Thou--also thou, a world!
With all thy wide geographies, manifold, different, distant,
Rounding by thee in One--one common orbic language,
One common indivisible destiny and Union.


And by the spells which ye vouchsafe,
To those, your ministers in earnest,
I here personify and call my themes,
To make them pass before ye.


Behold, America! (And thou, ineffable Guest and Sister!)
For thee come trooping up thy waters and thy lands:
Behold! thy fields and farms, thy far-off woods and mountains,
As in procession coming.


Behold! the sea itself!
And on its limitless, heaving breast, thy ships:
See! where their white sails, bellying in the wind, speckle the green


and blue!
See! thy steamers coming and going, steaming in or out of port!
See! dusky and undulating, their long pennants of smoke!

Behold, in Oregon, far in the north and west,
Or in Maine, far in the north and east, thy cheerful axemen,
Wielding all day their axes!


Behold, on the lakes, thy pilots at their wheels--thy oarsmen!
Behold how the ash writhes under those muscular arms!


There by the furnace, and there by the anvil,
Behold thy sturdy blacksmiths, swinging their sledges;
Overhand so steady--overhand they turn and fall, with joyous clank,
Like a tumult of laughter.


Behold! (for still the procession moves,)
Behold, Mother of All, thy countless sailors, boatmen, coasters!
The myriads of thy young and old mechanics!
Mark--mark the spirit of invention everywhere--thy rapid patents,
Thy continual workshops, foundries, risen or rising;



See, from their chimneys, how the tall flame-fires stream!

Mark, thy interminable farms, North, South,

Thy wealthy Daughter-States, Eastern, and Western,

The varied products of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Georgia, Texas,
and the rest;

Thy limitless crops--grass, wheat, sugar, corn, rice, hemp, hops,

Thy barns all fill'd--thy endless freight-trains, and thy bulging
store-houses,

The grapes that ripen on thy vines--the apples in thy orchards,

Thy incalculable lumber, beef, pork, potatoes--thy coal--thy gold and
silver,

The inexhaustible iron in thy mines.

All thine, O sacred Union!
Ship, farm, shop, barns, factories, mines,
City and State--North, South, item and aggregate,
We dedicate, dread Mother, all to thee!


Protectress absolute, thou! Bulwark of all!

For well we know that while thou givest each and all, (generous as
God,)

Without thee, neither all nor each, nor land, home,

Ship, nor mine--nor any here, this day, secure,

Nor aught, nor any day secure.

And thou, thy Emblem, waving over all!

Delicate beauty! a word to thee, (it may be salutary;)

Remember, thou hast not always been, as here to-day, so comfortably
ensovereign'd;

In other scenes than these have I observ'd thee, flag;

Not quite so trim and whole, and freshly blooming, in folds of
stainless silk;

But I have seen thee, bunting, to tatters torn, upon thy splinter'd
staff,

Or clutch'd to some young color-bearer's breast, with desperate
hands,

Savagely struggled for, for life or death--fought over long,

'Mid cannon's thunder-crash, and many a curse, and groan and yell-and
rifle-volleys cracking sharp,

And moving masses, as wild demons surging--and lives as nothing
risk'd,

For thy mere remnant, grimed with dirt and smoke, and sopp'd in
blood;

For sake of that, my beauty--and that thou might'st dally, as now,
secure up there,

Many a good man have I seen go under.

Now here, and these, and hence, in peace all thine, O Flag!


And here, and hence, for thee, O universal Muse! and thou for them!
And here and hence, O Union, all the work and workmen thine!
The poets, women, sailors, soldiers, farmers, miners, students thine!
None separate from Thee--henceforth one only, we and Thou;
(For the blood of the children--what is it only the blood Maternal?
And lives and works--what are they all at last except the roads to


Faith and Death?)

While we rehearse our measureless wealth, it is for thee, dear

Mother!
We own it all and several to-day indissoluble in Thee;
--Think not our chant, our show, merely for products gross, or


lucre--it is for Thee, the Soul, electric, spiritual!
Our farms, inventions, crops, we own in Thee! Cities and States in
Thee!
Our freedom all in Thee! our very lives in Thee!

A SONG of the good green grass!
A song no more of the city streets;
A song of farms--a song of the soil of fields.


A song with the smell of sun-dried hay, where the nimble pitchers
handle the pitch-fork;
A song tasting of new wheat, and of fresh-husk'd maize.


For the lands, and for these passionate days, and for myself,
Now I awhile return to thee, O soil of Autumn fields,
Reclining on thy breast, giving myself to thee,
Answering the pulses of thy sane and equable heart,
Tuning a verse for thee.


O Earth, that hast no voice, confide to me a voice!
O harvest of my lands! O boundless summer growths!
O lavish, brown, parturient earth! O infinite, teeming womb!
A verse to seek, to see, to narrate thee.


Ever upon this stage,
Is acted God's calm, annual drama,
Gorgeous processions, songs of birds,
Sunrise, that fullest feeds and freshens most the soul,
The heaving sea, the waves upon the shore, the musical, strong waves,
The woods, the stalwart trees, the slender, tapering trees,
The flowers, the grass, the lilliput, countless armies of the grass,
The heat, the showers, the measureless pasturages,
The scenery of the snows, the winds' free orchestra,
The stretching, light-hung roof of clouds--the clear cerulean, and


the bulging, silvery fringes,
The high dilating stars, the placid, beckoning stars,
The moving flocks and herds, the plains and emerald meadows,
The shows of all the varied lands, and all the growths and products.

Fecund America! To-day,
Thou art all over set in births and joys!
Thou groan'st with riches! thy wealth clothes thee as with a swathing


garment!
Thou laughest loud with ache of great possessions!
A myriad-twining life, like interlacing vines, binds all thy vast


demesne!
As some huge ship, freighted to water's edge, thou ridest into port!
As rain falls from the heaven, and vapors rise from earth, so have


the precious values fallen upon thee, and risen out of thee!
Thou envy of the globe! thou miracle!
Thou, bathed, choked, swimming in plenty!
Thou lucky Mistress of the tranquil barns!
Thou Prairie Dame that sittest in the middle, and lookest out upon



thy world, and lookest East, and lookest West!

Dispensatress, that by a word givest a thousand miles--that giv'st a
million farms, and missest nothing!

Thou All-Acceptress--thou Hospitable--(thou only art hospitable, as
God is hospitable.)

When late I sang, sad was my voice;

Sad were the shows around me, with deafening noises of hatred, and
smoke of conflict;

In the midst of the armies, the Heroes, I stood,

Or pass'd with slow step through the wounded and dying.

But now I sing not War,
Nor the measur'd march of soldiers, nor the tents of camps,
Nor the regiments hastily coming up, deploying in line of battle.


No more the dead and wounded;
No more the sad, unnatural shows of War.


Ask'd room those flush'd immortal ranks? the first forth-stepping
armies?

Ask room, alas, the ghastly ranks--the armies dread that follow'd.

(Pass--pass, ye proud brigades!

So handsome, dress'd in blue--with your tramping, sinewy legs;

With your shoulders young and strong--with your knapsacks and your
muskets;

--How elate I stood and watch'd you, where, starting off, you
march'd!

Pass;--then rattle, drums, again!

Scream, you steamers on the river, out of whistles loud and shrill,
your salutes!

For an army heaves in sight--O another gathering army!

Swarming, trailing on the rear--O you dread, accruing army!

O you regiments so piteous, with your mortal diarrhoea! with your
fever!

O my land's maimed darlings! with the plenteous bloody bandage and
the crutch!

Lo! your pallid army follow'd!)

But on these days of brightness,

On the far-stretching beauteous landscape, the roads and lanes, the
high-piled farm-wagons, and the fruits and barns,

Shall the dead intrude?


Ah, the dead to me mar not--they fit well in Nature;
They fit very well in the landscape, under the trees and grass,
And along the edge of the sky, in the horizon's far margin.



Nor do I forget you, departed;
Nor in winter or summer, my lost ones;
But most, in the open air, as now, when my soul is rapt and at

peace--like pleasing phantoms,
Your dear memories, rising, glide silently by me.

I saw the day, the return of the Heroes;
(Yet the Heroes never surpass'd, shall never return;
Them, that day, I saw not.)


I saw the interminable Corps--I saw the processions of armies,
I saw them approaching, defiling by, with divisions,
Streaming northward, their work done, camping awhile in clusters of


mighty camps.
No holiday soldiers!--youthful, yet veterans;
Worn, swart, handsome, strong, of the stock of homestead and
workshop,
Harden'd of many a long campaign and sweaty march,
Inured on many a hard-fought, bloody field.
80
A pause--the armies wait;
A million flush'd, embattled conquerors wait;
The world, too, waits--then, soft as breaking night, and sure as
dawn,
They melt--they disappear.
Exult, indeed, O lands! victorious lands!
Not there your victory, on those red, shuddering fields;
But here and hence your victory.
Melt, melt away, ye armies! disperse, ye blue-clad soldiers!
Resolve ye back again--give up, for good, your deadly arms;

Other the arms, the fields henceforth for you, or South or North, or
East or West,
With saner wars--sweet wars--life-giving wars.

Loud, O my throat, and clear, O soul!
The season of thanks, and the voice of full-yielding;
The chant of joy and power for boundless fertility.


All till'd and untill'd fields expand before me;
I see the true arenas of my race--or first, or last,
Man's innocent and strong arenas.


I see the Heroes at other toils;
I see, well-wielded in their hands, the better weapons.



I see where America, Mother of All,
Well-pleased, with full-spanning eye, gazes forth, dwells long,
And counts the varied gathering of the products.


Busy the far, the sunlit panorama;
Prairie, orchard, and yellow grain of the North,
Cotton and rice of the South, and Louisianian cane;
Open, unseeded fallows, rich fields of clover and timothy,
Kine and horses feeding, and droves of sheep and swine,
And many a stately river flowing, and many a jocund brook,
And healthy uplands with their herby-perfumed breezes,
And the good green grass--that delicate miracle, the ever-recurring


grass.

Toil on, Heroes! harvest the products!
Not alone on those warlike fields, the Mother of All,
With dilated form and lambent eyes, watch'd you.


Toil on, Heroes! toil well! Handle the weapons well!
The Mother of All--yet here, as ever, she watches you.


Well-pleased, America, thou beholdest,
Over the fields of the West, those crawling monsters,
The human-divine inventions, the labor-saving implements:
Beholdest, moving in every direction, imbued as with life, the


revolving hay-rakes,
The steam-power reaping-machines, and the horse-power machines,
The engines, thrashers of grain, and cleaners of grain, well

separating the straw--the nimble work of the patent pitch-fork;
Beholdest the newer saw-mill, the southern cotton-gin, and the ricecleanser.


Beneath thy look, O Maternal,
With these, and else, and with their own strong hands, the Heroes
harvest.

All gather, and all harvest;
(Yet but for thee, O Powerful! not a scythe might swing, as now, in
security;
Not a maize-stalk dangle, as now, its silken tassels in peace.)

Under Thee only they harvest--even but a wisp of hay, under thy great
face, only;
Harvest the wheat of Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin--every barbed spear,
under thee;
Harvest the maize of Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee--each ear in its

light-green sheath,
Gather the hay to its myriad mows, in the odorous, tranquil barns,
Oats to their bins--the white potato, the buckwheat of Michigan, to


theirs;
Gather the cotton in Mississippi or Alabama--dig and hoard the


golden, the sweet potato of Georgia and the Carolinas,
Clip the wool of California or Pennsylvania,
Cut the flax in the Middle States, or hemp, or tobacco in the


Borders,
Pick the pea and the bean, or pull apples from the trees, or bunches

of grapes from the vines,
Or aught that ripens in all These States, or North or South,
Under the beaming sun, and under Thee.

I, from a window where the Meuse is wide,
Looked eastward out to the September night;
The men that in the hopeless battle died
Rose, and deployed, and stationed for the fight;
A brumal army, vague and ordered large
For mile on mile by some pale general,-
I saw them lean by companies to the charge,
But no man living heard the bugle-call.


And fading still, and pointing to their scars,
They fled in lessening clouds, where gray and high
Dawn lay along the heaven in misty bars;
But watching from that eastern casement, I
Saw the Republic splendid in the sky,
And round her terrible head the morning stars.

YOU who celebrate bygones!
Who have explored the outward, the surfaces of the races--the life
that has exhibited itself;
Who have treated of man as the creature of politics, aggregates,
rulers and priests;
I, habitan of the Alleghanies, treating of him as he is in himself,
in his own rights,
Pressing the pulse of the life that has seldom exhibited itself, (the

great pride of man in himself;)
Chanter of Personality, outlining what is yet to be,
I project the history of the future.

Knowing nothing shuts the iron gates;
the new love opens them.

The sound of the gates opening wakes
the beautiful woman asleep.

Kabir says: Fantastic!
Don't let a chance like this go by!

That is solemn we have ended
Be it but a Play
Or a Glee among the Garret
Or a Holiday


Or a leaving Home, or later,
Parting with a World
We have understood for better
Still to be explained.

Come my cantilations,
Let us dump our hatreds into one bunch and be done with them,
Hot sun, clear water, fresh wind,
Let me be free of pavements,
Let me be free of the printers.
Let come beautiful people
Wearing raw silk of good colour,
Let come the graceful speakers,
Let come the ready of wit,
Let come the gay of manner, the insolent and the exulting.
We speak of burnished lakes,
Of dry air, as clear as metal.

AS a strong bird on pinions free,
Joyous, the amplest spaces heavenward cleaving,
Such be the thought I'd think to-day of thee, America,
Such be the recitative I'd bring to-day for thee.


The conceits of the poets of other lands I bring thee not,
Nor the compliments that have served their turn so long,
Nor rhyme--nor the classics--nor perfume of foreign court, or indoor


library;
But an odor I'd bring to-day as from forests of pine in the north, in
Maine--or breath of an Illinois prairie,
With open airs of Virginia, or Georgia, or Tennessee--or from Texas

uplands, or Florida's glades,
With presentment of Yellowstone's scenes, or Yosemite;
And murmuring under, pervading all, I'd bring the rustling sea-sound,
That endlessly sounds from the two great seas of the world.

And for thy subtler sense, subtler refrains, O Union!
Preludes of intellect tallying these and thee--mind-formulas fitted
for thee--real, and sane, and large as these and thee;
Thou, mounting higher, diving deeper than we knew--thou


transcendental Union!
By thee Fact to be justified--blended with Thought;
Thought of Man justified--blended with God:
Through thy Idea--lo! the immortal Reality!
Through thy Reality--lo! the immortal Idea!


Brain of the New World! what a task is thine!
To formulate the Modern.....Out of the peerless grandeur of the


modern,
Out of Thyself--comprising Science--to recast Poems, Churches, Art,
(Recast--may-be discard them, end them--May-be their work is done-


who knows?)
By vision, hand, conception, on the background of the mighty past,
the dead,
To limn, with absolute faith, the mighty living present.

(And yet, thou living, present brain! heir of the dead, the Old World

brain!
Thou that lay folded, like an unborn babe, within its folds so long!
Thou carefully prepared by it so long!--haply thou but unfoldest it-


only maturest it;
It to eventuate in thee--the essence of the by-gone time contain'd in
thee;
Its poems, churches, arts, unwitting to themselves, destined with
reference to thee,
The fruit of all the Old, ripening to-day in thee.)

Sail--sail thy best, ship of Democracy!


Of value is thy freight--'tis not the Present only,

The Past is also stored in thee!

Thou holdest not the venture of thyself alone--not of thy western
continent alone;

Earth's résumé entire floats on thy keel, O ship--is steadied by thy
spars;

With thee Time voyages in trust--the antecedent nations sink or swim
with thee;

With all their ancient struggles, martyrs, heroes, epics, wars, thou
bear'st the other continents;

Theirs, theirs as much as thine, the destination-port triumphant:

--Steer, steer with good strong hand and wary eye, O helmsman--thou
carryest great companions,

Venerable, priestly Asia sails this day with thee,

And royal, feudal Europe sails with thee.

Beautiful World of new, superber Birth, that rises to my eyes,

Like a limitless golden cloud, filling the western sky;

Emblem of general Maternity, lifted above all;

Sacred shape of the bearer of daughters and sons;

Out of thy teeming womb, thy giant babes in ceaseless procession
issuing,

Acceding from such gestation, taking and giving continual strength
and life;

World of the Real! world of the twain in one!

World of the Soul--born by the world of the real alone--led to
identity, body, by it alone;

Yet in beginning only--incalculable masses of composite, precious
materials,

By history's cycles forwarded--by every nation, language, hither
sent,

Ready, collected here--a freer, vast, electric World, to be
constructed here,

(The true New World--the world of orbic Science, Morals, Literatures
to come,)

Thou Wonder World, yet undefined, unform'd--neither do I define thee;

How can I pierce the impenetrable blank of the future?

I feel thy ominous greatness, evil as well as good;

I watch thee, advancing, absorbing the present, transcending the
past;

I see thy light lighting and thy shadow shadowing, as if the entire
globe;

But I do not undertake to define thee--hardly to comprehend thee;

I but thee name--thee prophecy--as now!

I merely thee ejaculate!

Thee in thy future;

Thee in thy only permanent life, career--thy own unloosen'd mind--thy
soaring spirit;

Thee as another equally needed sun, America--radiant, ablaze, swiftmoving,
fructifying all;


Thee! risen in thy potent cheerfulness and joy--thy endless, great
hilarity!

(Scattering for good the cloud that hung so long--that weigh'd so
long upon the mind of man,

The doubt, suspicion, dread, of gradual, certain decadence of man;)

Thee in thy larger, saner breeds of Female, Male--thee in thy
athletes, moral, spiritual, South, North, West, East,

(To thy immortal breasts, Mother of All, thy every daughter, son,
endear'd alike, forever equal;)

Thee in thy own musicians, singers, artists, unborn yet, but certain;

Thee in thy moral wealth and civilization (until which thy proudest
material wealth and civilization must remain in vain;)

Thee in thy all-supplying, all-enclosing Worship--thee in no single
bible, saviour, merely,

Thy saviours countless, latent within thyself--thy bibles incessant,
within thyself, equal to any, divine as any;

Thee in an education grown of thee--in teachers, studies, students,
born of thee;

Thee in thy democratic fetes, en masse--thy high original festivals,
operas, lecturers, preachers;

Thee in thy ultimata, (the preparations only now completed--the
edifice on sure foundations tied,)

Thee in thy pinnacles, intellect, thought--thy topmost rational
joys--thy love, and godlike aspiration,

In thy resplendent coming literati--thy full-lung'd orators--thy
sacerdotal bards--kosmic savans,

These! these in thee, (certain to come,) to-day I prophecy.

Land tolerating all--accepting all--not for the good alone--all good
for thee;

Land in the realms of God to be a realm unto thyself;

Under the rule of God to be a rule unto thyself.

(Lo! where arise three peerless stars,
To be thy natal stars, my country--Ensemble--Evolution--Freedom,
Set in the sky of Law.)


Land of unprecedented faith--God's faith!

Thy soil, thy very subsoil, all upheav'd;

The general inner earth, so long, so sedulously draped over, now and
hence for what it is, boldly laid bare,

Open'd by thee to heaven's light, for benefit or bale.

Not for success alone;

Not to fair-sail unintermitted always;

The storm shall dash thy face--the murk of war, and worse than war,
shall cover thee all over;

(Wert capable of war--its tug and trials? Be capable of peace, its
trials;

For the tug and mortal strain of nations come at last in peace--not
war;)


In many a smiling mask death shall approach, beguiling thee--thou in
disease shalt swelter;
The livid cancer spread its hideous claws, clinging upon thy breasts,
seeking to strike thee deep within;
Consumption of the worst--moral consumption--shall rouge thy face
with hectic:
But thou shalt face thy fortunes, thy diseases, and surmount them

all,
Whatever they are to-day, and whatever through time they may be,
They each and all shall lift, and pass away, and cease from thee;
While thou, Time's spirals rounding--out of thyself, thyself still

extricating, fusing,
Equable, natural, mystical Union thou--(the mortal with immortal
blent,)
Shalt soar toward the fulfilment of the future--the spirit of the
body and the mind,
The Soul--its destinies.


The Soul, its destinies--the real real,
(Purport of all these apparitions of the real;)
In thee, America, the Soul, its destinies;
Thou globe of globes! thou wonder nebulous!
By many a throe of heat and cold convuls'd--(by these thyself


solidifying;)
Thou mental, moral orb! thou New, indeed new, Spiritual World!
The Present holds thee not--for such vast growth as thine--for such


unparallel'd flight as thine,
The Future only holds thee, and can hold thee.

England! awake! awake! awake!
Jerusalem thy Sister calls!
Why wilt thou sleep the sleep of death
And close her from thy ancient walls?
Thy hills and valleys felt her feet
Gently upon their bosoms move:
Thy gates beheld sweet Zion's ways:
Then was a time of joy and love.
And now the time returns again:
Our souls exult, and London's towers
Receive the Lamb of God to dwell
In England's green and pleasant bowers.

When I woke, the town spoke.
Birds and clocks and cross bells
Dinned aside the coiling crowd,
The reptile profligates in a flame,
Spoilers and pokers of sleep,
The next-door sea dispelled
Frogs and satans and woman-luck,
While a man outside with a billhook,
Up to his head in his blood,
Cutting the morning off,
The warm-veined double of Time
And his scarving beard from a book,
Slashed down the last snake as though
It were a wand or subtle bough,
Its tongue peeled in the wrap of a leaf.


Every morning I make,
God in bed, good and bad,
After a water-face walk,
The death-stagged scatter-breath
Mammoth and sparrowfall
Everybody's earth.
Where birds ride like leaves and boats like ducks
I heard, this morning, waking,
Crossly out of the town noises
A voice in the erected air,
No prophet-progeny of mine,
Cry my sea town was breaking.
No Time, spoke the clocks, no God, rang the bells,
I drew the white sheet over the islands
And the coins on my eyelids sang like shells.

I.
THE FATHER.

FATHER of Heaven, and Him, by whom
It, and us for it, and all else for us,
Thou madest, and govern'st ever, come
And re-create me, now grown ruinous:
My heart is by dejection, clay,
And by self-murder, red.
From this red earth, O Father, purge away
All vicious tinctures, that new-fashioned
I may rise up from death, before I'm dead.


II.
THE SON.
O Son of God, who, seeing two things,
Sin and Death, crept in, which were never made,
By bearing one, tried'st with what stings
The other could Thine heritage invade ;
O be Thou nail'd unto my heart,
And crucified again ;
Part not from it, though it from Thee would part,
But let it be by applying so Thy pain,
Drown'd in Thy blood, and in Thy passion slain.


III.
THE HOLY GHOST.


O Holy Ghost, whose temple I
Am, but of mud walls , and condensèd dust,
And being sacrilegiously
Half wasted with youth's fires of pride and lust,
Must with new storms be weather-beat,
Double in my heart Thy flame,
Which let devout sad tears intend, and let—
Though this glass lanthorn, flesh, do suffer maim—
Fire, sacrifice, priest, altar be the same.


IV.
THE TRINITY.


O blessed glorious Trinity,
Bones to philosophy, but milk to faith,
Which, as wise serpents, diversely
Most slipperiness, yet most entanglings hath,



As you distinguish'd, undistinct,
By power, love, knowledge be,
Give me a such self different instinct,
Of these let all me elemented be,
Of power, to love, to know you unnumbered three.


V.
THE VIRGIN MARY.


For that fair blessed mother-maid,
Whose flesh redeem'd us, that she-cherubin,
Which unlock'd paradise, and made
One claim for innocence, and disseizèd sin,
Whose womb was a strange heaven, for there
God clothed Himself, and grew,
Our zealous thanks we pour. As her deeds were
Our helps, so are her prayers ; nor can she sue
In vain, who hath such titles unto you.


VI.
THE ANGELS.


And since this life our nonage is,
And we in wardship to Thine angels be,
Native in heaven's fair palaces
Where we shall be but denizen'd by Thee ;
As th' earth conceiving by the sun,
Yields fair diversity,
Yet never knows what course that light doth run ;
So let me study that mine actions be
Worthy their sight, though blind in how they see.


VII.
THE PATRIARCHS.


And let Thy patriarchs' desire,
—Those great grandfathers of Thy Church, which saw
More in the cloud than we in fire,
Whom nature clear'd more, than us grace and law,
And now in heaven still pray, that we
May use our new helps right—
Be satisfied, and fructify in me ;
Let not my mind be blinder by more light,
Nor faith by reason added lose her sight.



VIII.
THE PROPHETS.

Thy eagle-sighted prophets too,
—Which were Thy Church's organs, and did sound
That harmony which made of two
One law, and did unite, but not confound ;
Those heavenly poets which did see
Thy will, and it express
In rhythmic feet—in common pray for me,
That I by them excuse not my excess
In seeking secrets, or poeticness.

IX.
THE APOSTLES.

And thy illustrious zodiac
Of twelve apostles, which engirt this All,
—From whom whosoever do not take
Their light, to dark deep pits throw down and fall ;—
As through their prayers Thou'st let me know
That their books are divine,
May they pray still, and be heard, that I go
Th' old broad way in applying ; O decline
Me, when my comment would make Thy word mine.

X.
THE MARTYRS.

And since Thou so desirously
Didst long to die, that long before Thou couldst,
And long since Thou no more couldst die,
Thou in thy scatter'd mystic body wouldst
In Abel die, and ever since
In Thine ; let their blood come
To beg for us a discreet patience
Of death, or of worse life ; for O, to some
Not to be martyrs, is a martyrdom.

XI.
THE CONFESSORS.


Therefore with Thee triumpheth there
A virgin squadron of white confessors,
Whose bloods betroth'd not married were,



Tender'd, not taken by those ravishers.
They know, and pray that we may know,
In every Christian
Hourly tempestuous persecutions grow ;
Temptations martyr us alive ; a man
Is to himself a Diocletian.


XII.
THE VIRGINS.


The cold white snowy nunnery,
Which, as Thy Mother, their high abbess, sent
Their bodies back again to Thee,
As Thou hadst lent them, clean and innocent ;
Though they have not obtain'd of Thee,
That or Thy Church or I
Should keep, as they, our first integrity,
Divorce Thou sin in us, or bid it die,
And call chaste widowhead virginity.


XIII.
THE DOCTORS.

The sacred academy above
Of Doctors, whose pains have unclasp'd, and taught
Both books of life to us—for love
To know Thy scriptures tells us, we are wrote
In Thy other book—pray for us there,
That what they have misdone
Or missaid, we to that may not adhere.
Their zeal may be our sin. Lord, let us run
Mean ways, and call them stars, but not the sun.

XIV.
And whilst this universal quire,
That Church in triumph, this in warfare here,
Warm'd with one all-partaking fire
Of love, that none be lost, which cost Thee dear,
Prays ceaselessly, and Thou hearken too
—Since to be gracious
Our task is treble, to pray, bear, and do—
Hear this prayer, Lord ; O Lord, deliver us
From trusting in those prayers, though pour'd out
thus.



XV.
From being anxious, or secure,
Dead clods of sadness, or light squibs of mirth,
From thinking that great courts immure
All, or no happiness, or that this earth
Is only for our prison framed,
Or that Thou'rt covetous
To them whom Thou lovest, or that they are maim'd
From reaching this world's sweet who seek Thee
thus,
With all their might, good Lord, deliver us.


XVI.
From needing danger, to be good,
From owing Thee yesterday's tears to-day,
From trusting so much to Thy blood
That in that hope we wound our soul away,
From bribing Thee with alms, to excuse
Some sin more burdenous,
From light affecting, in religion, news,
From thinking us all soul, neglecting thus
Our mutual duties, Lord, deliver us.


XVII.
From tempting Satan to tempt us,
By our connivance, or slack company,
From measuring ill by vicious
Neglecting to choke sin's spawn, vanity,
From indiscreet humility,
Which might be scandalous
And cast reproach on Christianity,
From being spies, or to spies pervious,
From thirst or scorn of fame, deliver us.


XVIII.
Deliver us through Thy descent
Into the Virgin, whose womb was a place
Of middle kind ; and Thou being sent
To ungracious us, stay'dst at her full of grace ;
And through Thy poor birth, where first Thou
Glorified'st poverty ;
And yet soon after riches didst allow,
By accepting kings' gifts in th' Epiphany ;
Deliver us, and make us to both ways free.



XIX.
And through that bitter agony,
Which is still th' agony of pious wits,
Disputing what distorted Thee,
And interrupted evenness with fits ;
And through Thy free confession,
Though thereby they were then
Made blind, so that Thou mightst from them have gone ;
Good Lord, deliver us, and teach us when
We may not, and we may, blind unjust men.


XX.
Through Thy submitting all, to blows
Thy face, Thy robes to spoil, Thy fame to scorn,
All ways, which rage, or justice knows,
And by which Thou couldst show that Thou wast born ;
And through Thy gallant humbleness
Which Thou in death didst show,
Dying before Thy soul they could express ;
Deliver us from death, by dying so
To this world, ere this world do bid us go.


XXI.
When senses, which Thy soldiers are,
We arm against Thee, and they fight for sin ;
When want, sent but to tame, doth war,
And work despair a breach to enter in ;
When plenty, God's image, and seal,
Makes us idolatrous,
And love it, not him, whom it should reveal ;
When we are moved to seem religious
Only to vent wit ; Lord, deliver us.


XXII.
In churches, when th' infirmity
Of him which speaks, diminishes the word ;
When magistrates do misapply
To us, as we judge, lay or ghostly sword ;
When plague, which is Thine angel, reigns,
Or wars, Thy champions, sway ;
When heresy, Thy second deluge, gains ;
In th' hour of death, th' eve of last Judgment day ;
Deliver us from the sinister way.



XXIII.
Hear us, O hear us, Lord; to Thee
A sinner is more music, when he prays,
Than spheres' or angels' praises be,
In panegyric alleluias ;
Hear us, for till Thou hear us, Lord,
We know not what to say ;
Thine ear to our sighs, tears, thoughts, gives voice and word ;
O Thou, who Satan heard'st in Job's sick day,
Hear Thyself now, for Thou in us dost pray.


XXIV.
That we may change to evenness
This intermitting aguish piety ;
That snatching cramps of wickedness
And apoplexies of fast sin may die ;
That music of Thy promises,
Not threats in thunder may
Awaken us to our just offices ;
What in Thy book Thou dost, or creatures say,
That we may hear, Lord, hear us when we pray.


XXV.
That our ears' sickness we may cure,
And rectify those labyrinths aright,
That we by heark'ning not procure
Our praise, nor others' dispraise so invite ;
That we get not a slipp'riness
And senselessly decline,
From hearing bold wits jest at kings' excess,
To admit the like of majesty divine ;
That we may lock our ears, Lord, open Thine.


XXVI.
That living law, the magistrate,
Which to give us, and make us physic, doth
Our vices often aggravate ;
That preachers taxing sin, before her growth ;
That Satan, and envenom'd men—
Which will, if we starve, dine—
When they do most accuse us, may see then
Us to amendment hear them, Thee decline ;
That we may open our ears, Lord, lock Thine.



XXVII.
That learning, Thine ambassador,
From Thine allegiance we never tempt ;
That beauty, paradise's flower
For physic made, from poison be exempt ;
That wit—born apt high good to do—
By dwelling lazily
On nature's nothing be not nothing too ;
That our affections kill us not, nor die ;
Hear us, weak echoes, O, Thou Ear and Eye.


XXVIII.
Son of God, hear us, and since Thou
By taking our blood, owest it us again,
Gain to Thyself, or us allow ;
And let not both us and Thyself be slain ;
O Lamb of God, which took'st our sin,
Which could not stick to Thee,
O let it not return to us again ;
But patient and physician being free,
As sin is nothing, let it nowhere be.

The new hath come and now the old retires:
And so the past becomes a mountain-cell,
Where lone, apart, old hermit-memories dwell
In consecrated calm, forgotten yet
Of the keen heart that hastens to forget
Old longings in fulfilling new desires.


And now the Soul stands in a vague, intense
Expectancy and anguish of suspense,
On the dim chamber-threshold . . . lo! he sees
Like a strange, fated bride as yet unknown,
His timid future shrinking there alone,
Beneath her marriage-veil of mysteries.

Ye nymphs of Solyma! begin the song,
To heavenly themes sublimer strains belong.
The mossy fountains, and the sylvan shades,
The dreams of Pindus, and the Aonian maids,
Delight no more - O thou, my voice inspire,
Who touched Isaiah's hallowed lips with fire!


Rapt into future times the bard begun,
A virgin shall conceive, a Virgin bear a son!
From Jesse's root behold a branch arise,
Whose sacred flower with fragrance fills the skies;
The ethereal Spirit o'er its leaves shall move,
And on its top descend the mystic Dove.
Ye heavens! from high the dewy nectar pour,
And in soft silence shed the kindly shower!
The sick and weak, the healing Plant shall aid,
From storms a shelter, and from heat a shade.
All crimes shall cease, and ancient fraud shall fail;
Returning justice lift aloft her scale.
Peace o'er the world her olive wand extend,
And white robed innocence from heaven descend.


Swift fly the years, and rise the expected morn!
O spring to light, auspicious Babe, be born!
See! nature hastes her earliest wreaths to bring,
WIth all the incense of the breathing spring!
See! lofty Lebanon his head advance,
See! nodding forests on the mountains dance:
See! spicy clouds from lowly Sharon rise;
And Carmel's flowery top perfumes the skies.
Hark! a glad voice the lonely desart cheers;
Prepare the way! a God, a God appears:
A God, a God! the vocal hills reply,
The rocks proclaim the approaching Deity.
Lo! earth receives him from the bending skies!
Sink down ye mountains, and ye vallies rise!
With heads declined ye cedars homage pay!
Be smooth ye rocks, ye rapid floods give way!
The Saviour comes! by ancient bards foretold:
Hear him ye deaf, and all ye blind, behold!
He from thick films shall purge the visual ray,
And on the sightless eye-ball pour the day.
'Tis he the obstructed paths of sound shall clear,
The dumb shall sing, the lame his crutch forego,
And leap exulting like the bounding roe:
No sigh, no murmer the wide world shall hear;
From every face he wipes off every tear.
In adamantine chains shall death be bound,
And hell's grim tyrant feel the eternal wound.
As the good shepherd tends his fleecy care,
Seeks freshest pastures and the purest air:
Explores the lost, the wandering sheep directs,



By day o'ersees them, and by night protects;
The tender lambs he raises in his arms,
Feeds from his hand, and in his bosom warms!
Thus shall mankind his guardian care engage,
The promis'd father of the future age.
No more shall nation against nation rise,
Nor ardent warriors meet with hateful eyes;
Nor fields with gleaming steel be cover'd o'er,
The brazen trumpets kindle rage no more;
But useless lances into scythes shall bend,
And the broad faulchion in a plough-share end.
Then palaces shall rise: the joyful son
Shall finish what his short-liv'd fire begun;
Their vines a shadow to their race shall yield,
And the same hand that sow'd, shall reap the field.
The swain in barren desarts with surprise
Sees lillies spring, and sudden verdure rise,
And starts amidst the thirsty wilds to hear
New falls of water murmuring in his ear;
On rifted rocks, the dragon's late abodes,
The green reed trembles, and the bulrush nods.
Waste sandy vallies once perplex'd with thorn,
The spiry fir and shapely box adorn;
The leafless shrubs the flow'ring palms succeed,
And odorous myrtle to the noisome weed.
The lambs with wolves shall grace the verdant mead,
And boys in flow'ry bands the tyger lead;
The steer and lion at one crib shall meet,
And harmless serpents lick the pilgrim's feet.
The smiling infant in his hand shall take
The crested basilisk and speckled snake;
Pleas'd, the green lustres of the scales survey,
And with their forky tongues shall innocently play.


Rise, crown'd with light, imperial Salem rise!
Exalt thy tow'ry head, and lift thy eyes!
See! a long race thy spacious courts adorn;
See! future sons and daughters yet unborn,
In crowding ranks on ev'ry side arise,
Demanding life, impatient for the skies!
See! barb'rous nations at thy gates attend,
Walk in thy light, and in thy temple bend;
See! thy bright altars throng'd with prostrate kings,
And heap'd with products of Sabaean springs!
For thee Idume's spicy forests blow,
And seeds of gold in Ophir's mountains glow.
See! heav'n its sparkling portals wide display,
And break upon thee in a flood of day!
No more the rising sun shall gild the morn,
Nor ev'ning Cynthia fill her silver horn;
But lost, dissolv'd in thy superior rays,
One tide of glory, one unclouded blaze,



O'erflow thy courts: the Light Himself shall shine
Reveal'd, and God's eternal day be thine!
The seas shall waste, the skies in smoke decay,
Rocks fall to dust, and mountains melt away;
But fix'd his word, his saving pow'r remains,
Thy realm for ever lasts, thy own Messiah reigns.

When Earth's last picture is painted
And the tubes are twisted and dried
When the oldest colors have faded
And the youngest critic has died
We shall rest, and faith, we shall need it
Lie down for an aeon or two
'Till the Master of all good workmen
Shall put us to work anew
And those that were good shall be happy
They'll sit in a golden chair
They'll splash at a ten league canvas
With brushes of comet's hair
They'll find real saints to draw from
Magdalene, Peter, and Paul
They'll work for an age at a sitting
And never be tired at all.
And only the Master shall praise us.
And only the Master shall blame.
And no one will work for the money.
No one will work for the fame.
But each for the joy of the working,
And each, in his separate star,
Will draw the thing as he sees it.
For the God of things as they are!