While yet incessantly asking still I adhere to my city, streets, Where you hold me enchain'd a certain time refusing to give me up, Yet giving to make me glutted, enrich'd of soul, you give me forever faces; (Oh I see what I sought to escape, confronting, reversing my cries, I see my own soul trampling down what it ask'd for.) Keep your splendid silent sun, 2 Keep your woods O Nature, and the quiet places by the woods, Keep your fields of clover and timothy, and your corn-fields and orchards, Keep the blossoming buckwheat fields where the Ninth-month bees hum; Give me faces and streets-give me these phantoms incessant and endless along the trottoirs! Give me interminable eyes-give me women-give me comrades and lovers by the thousand! Let me see new ones every day-let me hold new ones by the hand every day! Give me such shows-give me the streets of Manhattan ! Give me Broadway, with the soldiers marching-give me the sound of the trumpets and drums! (The soldiers in companies or regiments-some starting away, flush'd and reckless, Some, their time up, returning with thinn'd ranks, young, yet very old, worn, marching, noticing nothing;) Give me the shores and wharves heavy-fringed with black ships! O such for me! O an intense life, full to repletion and varied! The life of the theatre, bar-room, huge hotel, for me! The saloon of the steamer! the crowded excursion for me! the torchlight procession! The dense brigade bound for the war, with high piled military wagons following; People, endless, streaming, with strong voices, passions, pageants, Manhattan streets with their powerful throbs, with beating drums as now, The endless and noisy chorus, the rustle and clank of muskets (even the sight of the wounded), Manhattan crowds, with their turbulent musical chorus! 820 O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN ! O CAPTAIN ! my Captain! our fearful trip is done, won, The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring; But O heart! heart! heart! O the bleeding drops of red, Where on the deck my Captain lies, O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells; 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. My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still, done, From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won; 821 Exult O shores, and ring O bells! Walk the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead. WHEN LILACS LAST IN THE DOORYARD BLOOM'D I WHEN lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd, And the great star early droop'd in the western sky in the night, I mourn'd, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring. 2 O powerful western fallen star! O shades of night-O moody, tearful night! O great star disappear'd-O the black murk that hides the star! O cruel hands that hold me powerless-O helpless soul of me! O harsh surrounding cloud that will not free my soul. 3 In the dooryard fronting an old farm-house near the whitewash'd palings, Stands the lilac-bush tall-growing with heart-shaped leaves of rich green, With many a pointed blossom rising delicate, with the perfume strong I love, With every leaf a miracle-and from this bush in the dooryard, With delicate-color'd blossoms and heart-shaped leaves of In the swamp in secluded recesses, A shy and hidden bird is warbling a song. Solitary the thrush, The hermit withdrawn to himself, avoiding the settlements, Sings by himself a song. Song of the bleeding throat, Death's outlet song of life (for well dear brother I know, If thou wast not granted to sing thou would'st surely die). 5 Over the breast of the spring, the land, amid cities, Amid lanes and through old woods, where lately the violets peep'd from the ground, spotting the gray débris, Amid the grass in the fields each side of the lanes, passing the endless grass, Passing the yellow-spear'd wheat, every grain from its shroud in the dark-brown fields uprisen, Passing the apple-tree blows of white and pink in the orchards, Carrying a corpse to where it shall rest in the grave, Night and day journeys a coffin. 6 Coffin that passes through lanes and streets, Through day and night with the great cloud darkening the land, With the pomp of the inloop'd flags with the cities draped in black, With the show of the States themselves as of crape-veil'd women standing, With processions long and winding and the flambeaus of the night, With the countless torches lit, with the silent sea of faces and the unbared heads, With the waiting depot, the arriving coffin, and the sombre faces, With dirges through the night, with the thousand voices rising strong and solemn, With all the mournful voices of the dirges pour'd around the coffin, The dim-lit churches and the shuddering organs-where amid these you journey, With the tolling tolling bells' perpetual clang, I give you my sprig of lilac. (Nor for you, for one alone, 7 Blossoms and branches green to coffins all I bring, For fresh as the morning, thus would I chant a song for you O sane and sacred death. All over bouquets of roses, O death, I cover you over with roses and early lilies, For you and the coffins all of you O death.), 8 O western orb sailing the heaven, Now I know what you must have meant as a month since I walk'd, As I walk'd in silence the transparent shadowy night, As I saw you had something to tell as you bent to me night after night, As you droop'd from the sky low down as if to my side (while the other stars all look'd on), As we wander'd together the solemn night (for something I know not what kept me from sleep), As the night advanced, and I saw on the rim of the west how full you were of woe, |