I saw askant the armies; And 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, 175 I saw battle-corpses, myriads of them, And the white skeletons of young men, I saw them, I saw the débris and débris 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, The living remain'd and suffer'd, the mother suffer'd, And the wife and the child and the musing comrade suffer'd, And the armies that remain'd suffer'd. 16 Passing the visions, passing the night, Passing, unloosing the hold of my comrades' hands, 180 185 Passing the song of the hermit bird and the tallying song of my soul, Victorious song, death's outlet song, yet varying ever-altering song, 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, 190 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, 195 From my gaze on thee in the west, fronting the west, communing with thee, Yet each I keep and all, retrievements out of the night, The song, the wondrous chant of the gray-brown bird, The tallying chant, the echo arous'd in my soul, 200 With the lustrous and drooping star with the countenance full of woe, 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; 201 From Sequel to Drum-Taps, 1865-6. PIONEERS! O PIONEERS! Come my tan-faced children, Follow well in order, get your weapons ready, Have you your pistols? have you your sharp-edged axes? For we cannot tarry here, We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger, Pioneers! O pioneers! O you youths, Western youths, So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship, Have the elder races halted? Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied over there beyond the sea? Pioneers! O Pioneers! All the past we leave behind, We debouch upon a newer mightier world, varied world, Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labor and the march, We detachments steady throwing, Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountain steep, We primeval forests felling, We the rivers stemming, vexing we and piercing deep the mines within, Pioneers! O pioneers! Colorado men are we, From the peaks gigantic, from the great sierras and the high plateaus. From Nebraska, from Arkansas, Central inland race are we, from Missouri, with the continental blood intervein'd, Pioneers! O pioneers! O resistless restless race! O beloved race in all! O my breast aches with tender love for all! OI mourn and yet exult, I am rapt with love for all, Pioneers! O pioneers! Raise the mighty mother mistress, Waving high the delicate mistress, over all the starry mistress (bend your heads all), Raise the fang'd and warlike mistress, stern, impassive, weapon'd mistress, Pioneers! O pioneers! See my children, resolute children, By those swarms upon our rear we must never yield or falter, Pioneers! O pioneers! 43 On and on the compact ranks, Pioneers! O pioneers! With accessions ever waiting, with the places of the dead quickly fill'd, O to die advancing on! Are there some of us to droop and die? has the hour come? 55 All the pulses of the world, Falling in they beat for us, with the Western movement beat, Life's involv'd and varied pageants, All the forms and shows, all the workmen at their work All the seamen and the landsmen, all the masters with their slaves, All the hapless silent lovers, All the prisoners in the prisons, all the righteous and the wickeu, I too with my soul and body, We, a curious trio, picking, wandering on our way, Through these shores amid the shadows, with the apparitions pressing, Lo, the darting bowling orb! Lo, the brother orbs around, all the clustering suns and planets, All the dazzling days, all the mystic nights with dreams, Pioneers! O pioneers! These are of us, they are with us, All for primal needed work, while the followers there in embryo wait behind, Pioneers! O pioneers! O you daughters of the West! O you young and elder daughters! O you mothers and you wives! Never must you be divided, in our ranks you move united, Pioneers! O pioneers! Minstrels latent on the prairies! (Shrouded bards of other lands, you may rest, you have done your work), Soon I hear you coming warbling, soon you rise and tramp amid us, Pioneers! O pioneers! Not for delectations sweet, Not the cushion and the slipper, not the peaceful and the studious, Do the feasters gluttonous feast? Do the corpulent sleepers sleep? Have they lock'd and bolted doors? Pioneers! O pioneers! Has the night descended? Was the road of late so toilsome? did we stop discouraged nodding on our way? Yet a passing hour I yield you in your tracks to pause oblivious, Pioneers! O pioneers! Till with sound of trumpet, Far, far off the daybreak call-hark! how loud and clear I hear it wind, Pioneers! O pioneers! From Drum-Taps, 1865. WHEN I HEARD THE LEARN'D ASTRONOMER When I heard the learn'd astronomer; When the proofs, the figures were ranged in columns before me; When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them; When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room, How, soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick; Till rising and gliding out, I wander'd off by myself, O STAR OF FRANCE 1870-71 From Drum-Taps, 1865. O star of France, The brightness of thy hope and strength and fame, Beseems to-day a wreck driven by the gale, a mastless hulk, Nor helm nor helmsman. Dim smitten star, Orb not of France alone, pale symbol of my soul, its dearest hopes, Of aspirations toward the far ideal, enthusiast's dreams of brotherhood, 10 Star crucified-by traitors sold, Star panting o'er a land of death, heroic land, Miserable! yet for thy errors, vanities, sins, I will not now rebuke thee, And left thee sacred. In that amid thy many faults thou ever aimedst highly, In that thou wouldst not really sell thyself however great the price, In that thou surely wakedst weeping from thy drugg'd sleep, 20 In that alone among thy sisters thou, giantess, didst rend the ones that shamed thee, In that thou coudst not, wouldst not, wear the usual chains, The travail o'er, the long-sought extrication, When lo! reborn, high o'er the European world, (In gladness answering thence, as face afar to face, reflecting ours, Columbia), Again thy star, O France, fair lustrous star, In heavenly peace, clear, more bright than ever, The Galaxy, June, 1871. A NOISELESS PATIENT SPIDER A noiseless patient spider, I mark'd where on a little promontory it stood isolated, It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself, 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, From Passage to India, 1871. DAREST THOU NOW, O SOUL Darest thou now, O soul, Walk out with me toward the unknown region, Where neither ground is for the feet nor any path to follow? No map there, nor guide, Nor voice sounding, nor touch of human hand, Nor face with blooming flesh, nor lips, nor eyes, are in that land. I know it not, O soul, Nor dost thou, all is a blank before us, All waits undream'd of in that region, that inaccessible land. Till when the ties loosen, All but the ties eternal, Time and Space, Nor darkness, gravitation, sense, nor any bounds bounding us. Then we burst forth, we float, In Time and Space, O soul, prepared for them, Equal, equipt at last (O joy! O fruit of all!), them to fulfil, O Soul. THOU MOTHER WITH THY EQUAL BROOD Thou Mother with thy equal brood, Thou varied chain of different States, yet one identity only, A special song before I go I'd sing o'er all the rest, 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. 10 |