I am for those that have never been master'd, For men and women whose tempers have never been master'd, For those whom laws, theories, conventions, can never master. I am for those who walk abreast with the whole earth, I will not be outfaced by irrational things, I will penetrate what it is in them that is sarcastic upon me, I will make cities and civilizations defer to me, This is what I have learnt from America it is the amount, and it I teach again. (Democracy, while weapons were everywhere aim'd at your breast, I saw you serenely give birth to immortal children, saw in dreams your dilating form, Saw you with spreading mantle covering the world.) 18 I will confront these shows of the day and night, I will know if I am to be less than they, I will see if I am not as majestic as they, I will see if I am not as subtle and real as they, .I will see if I am to be less generous than they, I will see if I have no meaning, while the houses and ships have meaning, I will see if the fishes and birds are to be enough for themselves, and I am not to be enough for myself. I match my spirit against yours you orbs, growths, mountains, brutes, Copious as you are I absorb you all in myself, and become the master myself, America isolated yet embodying all, what is it finally except myself? These States, what are they except myself? I know now why the earth is gross, tantalizing, wicked, it is for my sake, I take you specially to be mine, you terrible, rude forms. (Mother, bend down, bend close to me your face, I know not what these plots and wars and deferments are for, I know not fruition's success, but I know that through war and crime your work goes on, and must yet go on.) 19 Thus by blue Ontario's shore, While the winds fann'd me and the waves came trooping toward me, I thrill'd with the power's pulsations, and the charm of my theme was upon me, Till the tissues that held me parted their ties upon me. And I saw the free souls of poets, The loftiest bards of past ages strode before me, Strange large men, long unwaked, undisclosed, were disclosed to me. 20 O my rapt verse, my call, mock me not! Not for the bards of the past, not to invoke them have I launch'd you forth, Not to call even those lofty bards here by Ontario's shores, Bards for my own land only I invoke, (For the war the war is over, the field is clear'd,) Till they strike up marches henceforth triumphant and onward, To cheer O Mother your boundless expectant soul. Bards of the great Idea! bards of the peaceful inventions! (for the war, the war is over!) Yet bards of latent armies, a million soldiers waiting ever-ready, Bards with songs as from burning coals or the lightning's fork'd stripes! Ample Ohio's, Kanada's bards bards- bards of the war! You by my charm I invoke. bards of California! inland REVERSALS. LET that which stood in front go behind, Let that which was behind advance to the front, Let bigots, fools, unclean persons, offer new propositions, Let the old propositions be postponed, Let a man seek pleasure everywhere except in himself, Let a woman seek happiness everywhere except in herself. AUTUMN RIVULETS. As AS CONSEQUENT, Etc. S consequent from store of summer rains, Life's ever-modern rapids first, (soon, soon to blend, Some threading Ohio's farm-fields or the woods, Some down Colorado's cañons from sources of perpetual snow, Some in the north finding their way to Erie, Niagara, Ottawa, In you whoe'er you are my book perusing, In I myself, in all the world, these currents flowing, Currents for starting a continent new, Overtures sent to the solid out of the liquid, Fusion of ocean and land, tender and pensive waves, (Not safe and peaceful only, waves rous'd and ominous too, Out of the depths the storm's abysmic waves, who knows whence? Or from the sea of Time, collecting vasting all, I bring, O little shells, so curious-convolute, so limpid-cold and voiceless, Whisper'd reverberations, chords for the ear of the West joyously sounding, Your tidings old, yet ever new and untranslatable, Infinitesimals out of my life, and many a life, (For not my life and years alone I give-all, all I give,) These waifs from the deep, cast high and dry, Wash'd on America's shores? THE RETURN OF THE HEROES. I FOR the lands and for these passionate days and for myself, Answering the pulses of thy sane and equable heart, 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, 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 liliput 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 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, 3 Thou art all over set in births and joys! Thou groan'st with riches, thy wealth clothes thee as a swathinggarment, 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, a million farms, and missest nothing, Thou all-acceptress-thou hospitable, (thou only art hospitable as God is hospitable.) 4 When late I sang sad was my voice, Sad were the shows around me with deafening noises of hatred and smoke of war; In the midst of the conflict, 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, 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, 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, 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 maim'd darlings, with the plenteous bloody bandage and the crutch, Lo, your pallid army follows.) |