Leaves of Grass

for thee, dear friend;
But I do not forget thee. Hast thou then faded?
Is the odor exhaled? Are the colors, vitalities, dead?
No, while memories subtly play⁠—the past vivid as ever;
For but last night I woke, and in that spectral ring saw thee,
Thy smile, eyes, face, calm, silent, loving as ever:
So let the wreath hang still awhile within my eye-reach,
It is not yet dead to me, nor even pallid.

An Ended Day

The soothing sanity and blitheness of completion,
The pomp and hurried contest-glare and rush are done;
Now triumph! transformation! jubilate!4

Old Age’s Ship & Crafty Death’s

From east and west across the horizon’s edge,
Two mighty masterful vessels sailers steal upon us:
But we’ll make race a-time upon the seas⁠—a battle-contest yet! bear lively there!
(Our joys of strife and derring-do to the last!)
Put on the old ship all her power to-day!
Crowd top-sail, top-gallant and royal studding-sails,
Out challenge and defiance⁠—flags and flaunting pennants added,
As we take to the open⁠—take to the deepest, freest waters.

To the Pending Year

Have I no weapon-word for thee⁠—some message brief and fierce?
(Have I fought out and done indeed the battle?) Is there no shot left,
For all thy affectations, lisps, scorns, manifold silliness?
Nor for myself⁠—my own rebellious self in thee?

Down, down, proud gorge!⁠—though choking thee;
Thy bearded throat and high-borne forehead to the gutter;
Crouch low thy neck to eleemosynary gifts.

Shakespeare-Bacon’s Cipher

I doubt it not⁠—then more, far more;
In each old song bequeath’d⁠—in every noble page or text,
(Different⁠—something unreck’d before⁠—some unsuspected author,)
In every object, mountain, tree, and star⁠—in every birth and life,
As part of each⁠—evolv’d from each⁠—meaning, behind the ostent,
A mystic cipher waits infolded.

Long, Long Hence

After a long, long course, hundreds of years, denials,
Accumulations, rous’d love and joy and thought,
Hopes, wishes, aspirations, ponderings, victories, myriads of readers,
Coating, compassing, covering⁠—after ages’ and ages’ encrustations,
Then only may these songs reach fruition.

Bravo, Paris Exposition!

Add to your show, before you close it, France,
With all the rest, visible, concrete, temples, towers, goods, machines and ores,
Our sentiment wafted from many million heart-throbs, ethereal but solid,
(We grand-sons and great-grand-sons do not forget your grand-sires,)
From fifty Nations and nebulous Nations, compacted, sent oversea to-day,
America’s applause, love, memories and good-will.

Interpolation Sounds

(General Philip Sheridan was buried at the Cathedral, Washington, D.C., August, 1888, with all the pomp, music, and ceremonies of the Roman Catholic service.)

Over and through the burial chant,
Organ and solemn service, sermon, bending priests,
To me come interpolation sounds not in the show⁠—plainly to me, crowding up the aisle and from the window,
Of sudden battle’s hurry and harsh noises⁠—war’s grim game to sight and ear in earnest;
The scout call’d up and forward⁠—the general mounted and his aids around him⁠—the new-brought word⁠—the instantaneous order issued;
The rifle crack⁠—the cannon thud⁠—the rushing forth of men from their tents;
The clank of cavalry⁠—the strange celerity of forming ranks⁠—the slender bugle note;
The sound of horses’ hoofs departing⁠—saddles, arms, accoutrements.5

To the Sun-Set Breeze

Ah, whispering, something again, unseen,
Where late this heated day thou enterest at my window, door,
Thou, laving, tempering all, cool-freshing, gently vitalizing
Me, old, alone, sick, weak-down, melted-worn with sweat;
Thou, nestling, folding close and firm yet soft, companion better than talk, book, art,
(Thou hast, O Nature! elements! utterance to my heart beyond the rest⁠—and this is of them,)
So sweet thy primitive taste to breathe within⁠—thy soothing fingers on my face and hands,
Thou, messenger-magical strange bringer to body and spirit of me,
(Distances balk’d⁠—occult medicines penetrating me from head to foot,)
I feel the sky, the prairies vast⁠—I feel the mighty northern lakes,
I feel the ocean and the forest⁠—somehow I feel the globe itself swift-swimming in space;
Thou blown from lips so loved, now gone⁠—haply from endless store, God-sent,
(For thou art spiritual, Godly, most of all known to my sense,)
Minister to speak to me, here and now, what word has never told, and cannot tell,
Art thou not universal concrete’s distillation? Law’s, all Astronomy’s last refinement?
Hast thou no soul? Can I not know, identify thee?

Old Chants

An ancient song, reciting, ending,
Once gazing toward thee, Mother of All,
Musing, seeking themes fitted for thee,
Accept for me, thou saidst, the elder ballads,
And name for me before thou goest each ancient poet.

(Of many debts incalculable,
Haply our New World’s chieftest debt is to old poems.)

Ever so far back, preluding thee, America,
Old chants, Egyptian priests, and those of Ethiopia,
The Hindu epics, the Grecian, Chinese, Persian,
The Biblic books and prophets, and deep idyls of the Nazarene,
The Iliad, Odyssey, plots, doings, wanderings of Eneas,
Hesiod, Eschylus, Sophocles, Merlin, Arthur,
The Cid, Roland at Roncesvalles, the Nibelungen,
The troubadours, minstrels, minnesingers, skalds,
Chaucer, Dante, flocks of singing birds,
The Border Minstrelsy, the bye-gone ballads, feudal tales, essays, plays,
Shakespeare, Schiller, Walter Scott, Tennyson,
As some vast wondrous weird dream-presences,
The great shadowy groups gathering around,
Darting their mighty masterful eyes forward at thee,
Thou! with as now thy bending neck and head, with courteous hand and word, ascending,
Thou! pausing a moment, drooping thine eyes upon them, blent with their music,
Well pleased, accepting all, curiously prepared for by them,
Thou enterest at thy entrance porch.

A Christmas Greeting

(From a Northern Star-Group to a Southern. 1889⁠–⁠90)

Welcome, Brazilian brother⁠—thy ample place is ready;
A loving hand⁠—a smile from the north⁠—a sunny instant hail!
(Let the future care for itself, where it reveals its troubles, impedimentas,
Ours, ours the present throe, the democratic aim, the acceptance and the faith;)
To thee to-day our reaching arm, our turning neck⁠—to thee from us the expectant eye,
Thou cluster free! thou brilliant lustrous one! thou, learning well,
The true lesson of a nation’s light in the sky,
(More shining than the Cross, more than the Crown,)
The height to be superb humanity.

Sounds of the Winter

Sounds of the winter too,
Sunshine upon the mountains⁠—many a distant strain
From cheery railroad train⁠—from nearer field, barn, house,
The whispering air⁠—even the mute crops, garner’d apples, corn,
Children’s and women’s tones⁠—rhythm of many a farmer and of flail,
An old man’s garrulous lips among the rest, Think not we give out yet,
Forth from these snowy hairs we keep up yet the lilt.

A Twilight Song

As I sit in twilight late alone by the