I swear I begin to see little or nothing in audible words, All merges toward the presentation of the unspoken meanings of the earth, Toward him who sings the songs of the body and of the truths of the earth, Toward him who makes the dictionaries of words that print cannot touch. I swear I see what is better than to tell the best, When I undertake to tell the best I find I cannot, My breath will not be obedient to its organs, I become a dumb man. The best of the earth cannot be told anyhow, all or any is best, But the soul is also real, it too is positive and direct. Undeniable growth has establish'd it. 4 These to echo the tones of souls and the phrases of souls, (If they did not echo the phrases of souls what were they then? If they had not reference to you in especial what were they then?) I swear I will never henceforth have to do with the faith that tells the best, I will have to do only with that faith that leaves the best untold. Say on, sayers! sing on, singers! Delve! mould! pile the words of the earth! Work on, age after age, nothing is to be lost, It may have to wait long, but it will certainly come in use, When the materials are all prepared and ready, the architects shall appear. I swear to you the architects shall appear without fail, He and the rest shall not forget you, they shall perceive that YOUTH, DAY, OLD AGE, AND NIGHT YOUTH, large, lusty, loving-youth full of grace, force, fascination, Do you know that Old Age may come after you with equal grace, force, fascination? Day full-blown and splendid-day of the immense sun, action, ambition, laughter, The Night follows close with millions of suns, and sleep and restoring darkness. BIRDS OF PASSAGE SONG OF THE UNIVERSAL COME, said the Muse, I Sing me a song no poet yet has chanted, Sing me the universal. In this broad earth of ours, Amid the measureless grossness and the slag, Enclosed and safe wtihin its central heart, Nestles the seed perfection. By every life a share or more or less, None born but it is born, conceal'd or unconceal'd the seed is waiting. 2 Lo! keen-eyed towering science, As from tall peaks the modern overlooking, Successive absolute fiats issuing. Yet again, lo! the soul, above all science, For it has history gather'd like husks around the globe, In spiral routes by long detours, (As a much-tacking ship upon the sea), For it the partial to the permanent flowing, For it the real to the ideal tends. For it the mystic evolution, Not the right only justified, what we call evil also justified. Forth from their masks, no matter what, From the huge festering trunk, from craft and guile and tears, Health to emerge and joy, joy universal. Out of the bulk, the morbid and the shallow, Out of the bad majority, the varied countless frauds of men and states, Electric, antiseptic yet, cleaving, suffusing all, 3 Over the mountain-growths disease and sorrow, From imperfection's murkiest cloud, Darts always forth one ray of perfect light, To fashion's, custom's discord, To the mad Babel-din, the deafening orgies, the blest eyes, the happy hearts, That see, that know the guiding thread so fine, 4 And thou, America, For the scheme's culmination, its thought and its reality, Thou too surroundest all, Embracing, carrying, welcoming all, thou too by pathways broad and new, To the ideal tendest. The measur'd faiths of other lands, the grandeurs of the past, Are not for thee, but grandeurs of thine own, Deific faiths and amplitudes, absorbing, comprehending all, All eligible to all. All, all for immortality, Love like the light silently wrapping all, Nature's amelioration blessing all, The blossoms, fruits of ages, orchards divine and certain, Forms, objects, growths, humanities, to spiritual images ripening. Give me, O God, to sing that thought, Give me, give him or her I love this quenchless faith, In Thy ensemble, whatever else withheld withhold not from us, Belief in plan of Thee enclosed in Time and Space, Health, peace, salvation universal. Is it a dream? Nay but the lack of it the dream, And failing it life's lore and wealth a dream, And all the world a dream. PIONEERS! O PIONEERS! COME my tan-faced children, Follow well in order, get your weapons ready, For we cannot tarry here, We must march, my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger We the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend, Pioneers! O pioneers! O you youths, Western youths, So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship, Plain I see you Western youths, see you tramping with the foremost, Pioneers! O pioneers! Have the elder races halted? Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied over there beyond the seas? We take up the task eternal, and the burden and the lesson, 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, Pioneers! O pioneers! We detachments steady throwing, Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep, |