Sluggish existences grazing there suspended, or

slowly crawling close to the bottom, The sperm-whale at the surface blowing air and

spray, or disporting with his flukes, The leaden-eyed shark, the walrus, the turtle, the

hairy sea-leopard, and the sting-ray, Passions there, wars, pursuits, tribes, sight in those

ocean-depths, breathing that thick-breathing

air, as so many do, The change thence to the sight here, and to the

subtle air breathed by beings like us who

walk this sphere, The change onward from ours to that of beings

who walk other spheres.

That the hands of the sisters Death and Night

incessantly softly wash again, and ever

again, this soil'd world; For my enemy is dead, a man divine as myself is

dead, I look where he lies white-faced and still in the

coffin - I draw near, Bend down and touch lightly with my lips the

white face in the coffin.

O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN!

ETHIOPIA SALUTING THE COLORS.

Who are you dusky woman, so ancient hardly

human. With your woolly-white and turban'd head, and

bare bony feet? Why rising by the roadside here, do you the colors

greet?

('T is while our army lines Carolina's sands and

pines, Forth from thy hovel door thou Ethiopia com'st

to me, As under doughty Sherman I march toward

the sea.)

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, For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager

faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head!
It is some dream that on the deck,

You've fallen cold and dead.

Me master years a hundred since from my parents

sunder'd, A little child, they caught me as the savage beast is

caught, Then hither me across the sea the cruel slaver brought.

No further does she say, but lingering all the day, Her high-borne turban'd head she wags, and rolls

her darkling eye, And courtesies to the regiments, the guidons mov

ing by.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and

still, My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse

nor will, The ship is anchored safe and sound, its voyage

closed and done, From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with

object won;
Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
But I with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

What is it fateful woman, so blear, hardly human? Why wag your head with turban bound, yellow,

red and green? Are the things so strange and marvelous you see

or have seen?

RECONCILIATION.

OLD IRELAND.

WORD over all, beautiful as the sky,
Beautiful that war and all its deeds of carnage

must in time be utterly lost,

FAR hence amid an isle of wondrous beauty, Crouching over a grave an ancient sorrowful

mother,

Unclaim'd, avoided house take one breath from

my tremulous lips, Take one tear dropt aside as I go for thought of

you, Dead house of love house of madness and sin,

crumbled, crush'd, House of life, erewhile talking and laughing -

but ah, poor house, dead even then, Months, years, an echoing, garnished house — but

dead, dead, dead.

WHAT AM I AFTER ALL.

Once a queen, now lean and tatter'd seated on the

ground, Her old white hair drooping dishevel'd round her

shoulders, At her feet fallen an unused royal harp, Long silent, she too long silent, mourning her

shrouded hope and heir, Of all the earth her heart most full of sorrow

because most full of love. Yet a word ancient mother, You need crouch there no longer on the cold

ground with forehead between your knees, O you need not sit there veil'd in your old white

hair so dishevel'd, For know you the one you mourn is not in that

grave, It was an illusion, the son you love was not really

dead, The Lord is not dead, he is risen again young and

strong in another country, Even while you wept there by your fallen harp by

the grave, What you wept for was translated, pass'd from the

grave,
The winds favor'd and the sea sail'd it,
And now with rosy and new blood,
Moves to-day in a new country.

What am I after all but a child, pleas'd with the

sound of my own name? repeating it

over and over; I stand apart to hear — it never tires me.

To you your name also;
Did you think there was nothing but two or three

pronunciations in the sound of your name?

HAD I THE CHOICE.

THE CITY DEAD-HOUSE.

Had I the choice to tally greatest bards,
To limn their portraits, stately, beautiful, and emu.

late at will, Homer with all his wars and warriors — Hector,

Achilles, Ajax, Or Shakespeare's woe-entangled Hamlet, Lear,

Othello — Tennyson's fair ladies, Metre or wit the best, or choice conceit to wield in

perfect rhyme, delight of singers; These, these, O sea, all these I'd gladly barter, Would you the undulation of one wave, its trick to

me transfer, Or breathe one breath of yours upon my verse, And leave its odor there.

9, 1884.]

By the city dead-house by the gate,
As idly sauntering wending my way from the

clangor, I curious pause, for lo, an outcast form, a poor

dead prostitute brought, Her corpse they deposit unclaim'd, it lies on the

damp brick pavement, The divine woman, her body, I see the body, I

look on it alone, That house once full of passion and beauty, all else

I notice not, Nor stillness so cold, nor running water from

fauc nor odors morbific impress me, But the house alone — that wondrous house - that

delicate fair house that ruin! That immortal house more than all the rows of

dwellings ever built! Or white-domed capitol with majestic figure sur

mounted, or all the old high-spired

cathedrals, That little house alone more than them all - poor,

RED JACKET (FROM ALOFT). [Impromptu on Buffalo City's monument to, and re-burial of the old Iroquois orator,

October UPON this scene, this show, Yielded to-day by fashion, learning, wealth, (Nor in caprice alone some grains of deepest

meaning.) Haply, aloft, (who knows?) from distant sky-clouds'

blended shapes, As some old tree, or rock or cliff, thrill'd with its

soul, Product of Nature's sun, stars, earth direct - a

towering human form, In hunting-shirt of film, arm'd with the rifle, a

half-ironical smile curving its phantom lips, Like one of Ossian's ghosts looks down.

REALITY.

How curious! how real!
Under foot the divine soil, overhead the sun.

Starting from Paumanok.

EVANGEL-POEM.

I will write the evangel-poem of comrades and of love.

- Ibid. RELIGION.

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.

- Ibid. DEATH. And I will show that nothing can happen more beautiful than death.

- Ibid. INDOLENCE.

I loaf and invite my soul, I lean and loaf at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

Song of Myself.

GRASS.

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of

hopeful green stuff woven. Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord, A scented gift and remembrancer designedly

dropt, Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners,

that we may see and remark, and say Whose ?

- Ibid. FAILURE. Have you heard that it was good to gain the day? I also say it is good to fall, battles are lost in the

same spirit in which they are won. I beat and pound for the dead, I blow through my embouchures my loudest and

gayest for them. Vivas to those who have fail'd! And to those whose war-vessels sank in the sea! And to those themselves who sank in the sea! And to all generals that lost engagements, and all

overcome heroes! And the numberless unknown heroes equal to the greatest heroes known!

– Ibid. NIGHT. I am he that walks with the tender and growing

night, I call to the earth and sea half-held by the night.

Press close bare-bosom'd night — press close mag

netic nourishing night! Night of south winds — night of the large few

stars! Still nodding night - mad naked summer night.

- Tbiit. EARTH. Smile O voluptuous cool-breath'd earth! Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees! Earth of departed sunset — earth of the mountains

misty-topt! Earth of the vitreous pour of the full moon just

tinged with blue! Earth of shine and dark mottling the tide of the

river! Earth of the limpid gray of clouds brighter and

clearer for my sake! Far-swooping elbow'd earth — rich apple-blossom'd

earth! Smile, for your lover comes.

- Ibiu. FAITH. I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey

work of the stars, And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of

sand, and the egg of the wren, And the tree-toad is a chef-d'ouvre for the highest, And the running blackberry would adorn the par

lors of heaven, And the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn

all machinery, And the cow crunching with depress'd head sur.

passes any statue, And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels.

Ibid. ANIMALS. I think I could turn and live with animals, they are

so placid and self-contain'd, I stand and look at ihem long and long. They do not sweat and whine about their condition, They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for

their sins, They do not make me sick discussing their duty to

God, Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with

the mania of owning things, Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that

lived thousands of years ago, Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.

- Ibid. SYMPATHY. I have said that the soul is not more than the body, And I have said that the body is not more than the

soul,