Then I chant it for thee, I glorify thee above all, I bring thee a song that when thou must indeed come, come unfalteringly. Approach strong deliveress, When it is so, when thou hast taken them I joyously sing the dead, From me to thee glad serenades, Dances for thee I propose saluting thee, adornments and feastings for thee, The night in silence under many a star, The ocean shore and the husky whispering wave whose voice I know, Over the tree-tops I float thee a song, 145 150 155 Over the rising and sinking waves, over the myriad fields and the prairies wide, 160 Over the dense-pack'd cities all and the teeming wharves and ways, I float this carol with joy, with joy to thee O death. To the tally of my soul, 15 Loud and strong kept up the gray-brown bird, Loud in the pines and cedars dim, Clear in the freshness moist and the swamp-perfume, And I with my comrades there in the night. While my sight that was bound in my eyes unclosed, 165 170 And I saw askant the armies, I saw as in noiseless dreams hundreds of battle-flags, Borne through the smoke of the battles and pierc'd with missiles I saw them, And carried hither and yon through the smoke, and torn and bloody, 175 And the staffs all splinter'd and broken. And the white skeletons of young men, I saw them, I saw battle-corpses, myriads of them, I saw the debris and debris of all the slain soldiers of the war, But I saw they were not as was thought, They themselves were fully at rest, they suffer'd not, And the wife and the child and the musing comrade suffer'd, 16 Passing the visions, passing the night, Passing, unloosing the hold of my comrades' hands, 180 135 Passing the song of the hermit bird and the tallying song of my soul, As low and wailing, yet clear the notes, rising and falling, flooding the night, Sadly sinking and fainting, as warning and warning, and yet again bursting with joy, Covering the earth and filling the spread of the heaven, As that powerful psalm in the night I heard from recesses, Passing, I leave thee lilac with heart-shaped leaves, I leave thee there in the door-yard, blooming, returning with spring. I cease from my song for thee, From my gaze on thee in the west, fronting the west, communing with thee, O comrade lustrous with silver face in the night. Yet each to keep and all, retrievements out of the night, The song, the wondrous chant of the gray-brown bird, And the tallying chant, the echo arous'd in my soul, With the lustrous and drooping star with the countenance full of woe, 190 195 200 Comrades mine and I in the midst, and their memory ever to keep, for the dead I loved so well, For the sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and lands-and this for his dear sake, O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN! O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done, The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won, The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring; O the bleeding drops of red, Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead. O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells; Rise up for you the flag is flung-for you the bugle trills, For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths for you the shores a-crowding Here Captain! dear father! The arm beneath your head! It is some dream that on the deck, My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still, The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done, Exult O shores, and ring O bells! But I with mournful tread, Walk the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead. 205 THERE WAS A CHILD WENT FORTH There was a child went forth every day, And the first object he look'd upon, that object he became, And that object became part of him for the day or a certain part of the day, Or for many years or stretching cycles of years. The early lilacs became part of this child, And grass and white and red morning-glories, and white and red clover, and the song of the phobe-bird, And the Third-month lambs and the sow's pink-faint litter, and the mare's foal and the cow's calf, And the noisy brood of the barnyard or by the mire of the pond-side, And the fish suspending themselves so curiously below there, and the beautiful curious liquid, And the water-plants with their graceful flat heads, all became part of him. 10 The field-sprouts of Fourth-month and Fifth-month became part of him, Winter-grain sprouts and those of the light-yellow corn, and the esculent roots of the garden, And the apple-trees cover'd with blossoms and the fruit afterward, and woodberries, and the commonest weeds by the road, And the old drunkard staggering home from the outhouse of the tavern whence he had lately risen, And the schoolmistress that pass'd on her way to the school, And the friendly boys that pass'd, and the quarrelsome boys, And the tidy and fresh-cheek'd girls, and the barefoot negro boy and girl, And all the changes of city and country wherever he went. 15 His own parents, he that had father'd him and she that had conceiv'd him in her womb and birth'd him, They gave this child more of themselves than that, They gave him afterward every day, they became part of him. The mother at home quietly placing the dishes on the supper-table, 20 The mother with mild words, clean her cap and gown, a wholesome odor falling off her person and clothes as she walks by, The father, strong, self-sufficient, manly, mean, anger'd, unjust, 25 The family usages, the language, the company, the furniture, the yearning and swelling heart, Affection that will not be gainsay'd, the sense of what is real, the thought if after all it should prove unreal, The doubts of day-time and the doubts of night-time, the curious whether and how, Whether that which appears so is so, or is it all flashes and specks? 30 Men and women crowding fast in the streets, if they are not flashes and specks what are they? The streets themselves and the façades of houses, and goods in the windows, brown two miles off, 35 The schooner near by sleepily dropping down the tide, the little boat slacktow'd astern, The hurrying tumbling waves, quick-broken crests, slapping, The strata of color'd clouds, the long bar of maroon-tint away solitary by itself, the spread of purity it lies motionless in, The horizon's edge, the flying sea-crow, the fragrance of salt marsh and shore mud, 40 These became part of that child who went forth every day, and who now goes, and will always go forth every day. Pouring in floods of melody in tones so pensive sweet and strong the like whereof was never heard, Reaching the far-off sentry and the armed guards, who ceas'd their pacing, 2 The sun was low in the west one winter day, When down a narrow aisle amid the thieves and outlaws of the land, 10 Calmly a lady walk'd holding a little innocent child by either hand, 15 In voice surpassing all, sang forth a quaint old hymn. A soul confined by bars and bands, Cries, help! O help! and wrings her hands, Ceaseless she paces to and fro, O heart-sick days! O nights of woe! Dear prison'd soul bear up a space, Convict no more, nor shame, nor dole! 3 The singer ceas'd, One glance swept from her clear calm eyes o'er all those upturn'd faces, 35 Strange sea of prison faces, a thousand varied, crafty, brutal, seam'd and beauteous faces, Then rising, passing back along the narrow aisle between them, While her gown touch'd them rustling in the silence, She vanish'd with her children in the dusk. While upon all, convicts and armed keepers ere they stirr'd, (Convict forgetting prison, keeper his loaded pistol,) 40 A hush and pause fell down a wondrous minute, With deep half-stifled sobs and sound of bad men bow'd and moved to weeping, The mother's voice in lullaby, the sister's care, the happy childhood, 45 A wondrous minute then-but after in the solitary night, to many, many there, Years after, even in the hour of death, the sad refrain, the tune, the voice, the words, Resumed, the large calm lady walks the narrow aisle, The wailing melody again, the singer in the prison sings, O sight of pity, shame and dole! O fearful thought-a convict soul. A NOISELESS PATIENT SPIDER A noiseless patient spider, I mark'd where on a little promontory it stood isolated, And you O my soul where you stand, Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space, Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them, Night on the prairies, NIGHT ON THE PRAIRIES The supper is over, the fire on the ground burns low, The wearied emigrants sleep, wrapt in their blankets; 50 5 10 I walk by myself I stand and look at the stars, which I think now I never realized before. Now I absorb immortality and peace, 5 |