William Shakespeare - Sonnet 60

Sonnet 60

LX. Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore, So do our minutes hasten to their end; Each changing place with that which goes before, In sequent toil all forwards do contend. Nativity, once in the main of light, Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown'd, Crooked elipses 'gainst his glory fight, And Time that gave doth now his gift confound. Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth And delves the parallels in beauty's brow, Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth, And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow: And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand, Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 59

Sonnet 59

LIX. If there be nothing new, but that which is Hath been before, how are our brains beguiled, Which, labouring for invention, bear amiss The second burden of a former child! O, that record could with a backward look, Even of five hundred courses of the sun, Show me your image in some antique book, Since mind at first in character was done! That I might see what the old world could say To this composed wonder of your frame; Whether we are mended, or whether better they, Or whether revolution be the same. O, sure I am, the wits of former days To subjects worse have given admiring praise.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 58

Sonnet 58

LVIII. That god forbid that made me first your slave, I should in thought control your times of pleasure, Or at your hand the account of hours to crave, Being your vassal, bound to stay your leisure! O, let me suffer, being at your beck, The imprison'd absence of your liberty; And patience, tame to sufferance, bide each cheque, Without accusing you of injury. Be where you list, your charter is so strong That you yourself may privilege your time To what you will; to you it doth belong Yourself to pardon of self-doing crime. I am to wait, though waiting so be hell; Not blame your pleasure, be it ill or well.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 57

Sonnet 57

LVII. Being your slave, what should I do but tend Upon the hours and times of your desire? I have no precious time at all to spend, Nor services to do, till you require. Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you, Nor think the bitterness of absence sour When you have bid your servant once adieu; Nor dare I question with my jealous thought Where you may be, or your affairs suppose, But, like a sad slave, stay and think of nought Save, where you are how happy you make those. So true a fool is love that in your will, Though you do any thing, he thinks no ill.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 56

Sonnet 56

LVI. Sweet love, renew thy force; be it not said Thy edge should blunter be than appetite, Which but to-day by feeding is allay'd, To-morrow sharpen'd in his former might: So, love, be thou; although to-day thou fill Thy hungry eyes even till they wink with fullness, To-morrow see again, and do not kill The spirit of love with a perpetual dullness. Let this sad interim like the ocean be Which parts the shore, where two contracted new Come daily to the banks, that, when they see Return of love, more blest may be the view; Else call it winter, which being full of care Makes summer's welcome thrice more wish'd, more rare.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 55

Sonnet 55

LV. Not marble, nor the gilded monuments Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme; But you shall shine more bright in these contents Than unswept stone besmear'd with sluttish time. When wasteful war shall statues overturn, And broils root out the work of masonry, Nor Mars his sword nor war's quick fire shall burn The living record of your memory. 'Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room Even in the eyes of all posterity That wear this world out to the ending doom. So, till the judgment that yourself arise, You live in this, and dwell in lover's eyes.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 54

Sonnet 54

LIV. O, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem By that sweet ornament which truth doth give! The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem For that sweet odour which doth in it live. The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye As the perfumed tincture of the roses, Hang on such thorns and play as wantonly When summer's breath their masked buds discloses: But, for their virtue only is their show, They live unwoo'd and unrespected fade, Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so; Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made: And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth, When that shall fade, my verse distills your truth.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 53

Sonnet 53

LIII. What is your substance, whereof are you made, That millions of strange shadows on you tend? Since every one hath, every one, one shade, And you, but one, can every shadow lend. Describe Adonis, and the counterfeit Is poorly imitated after you; On Helen's cheek all art of beauty set, And you in Grecian tires are painted new: Speak of the spring and foison of the year; The one doth shadow of your beauty show, The other as your bounty doth appear; And you in every blessed shape we know. In all external grace you have some part, But you like none, none you, for constant heart.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 52

Sonnet 52

LII. So am I as the rich, whose blessed key Can bring him to his sweet up-locked treasure, The which he will not every hour survey, For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure. Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare, Since, seldom coming, in the long year set, Like stones of worth they thinly placed are, Or captain jewels in the carcanet. So is the time that keeps you as my chest, Or as the wardrobe which the robe doth hide, To make some special instant special blest, By new unfolding his imprison'd pride. Blessed are you, whose worthiness gives scope, Being had, to triumph, being lack'd, to hope.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 51

Sonnet 51

LI. Thus can my love excuse the slow offence Of my dull bearer when from thee I speed: From where thou art why should I haste me thence? Till I return, of posting is no need. O, what excuse will my poor beast then find, When swift extremity can seem but slow? Then should I spur, though mounted on the wind; In winged speed no motion shall I know: Then can no horse with my desire keep pace; Therefore desire of perfect'st love being made, Shall neigh--no dull flesh--in his fiery race; But love, for love, thus shall excuse my jade; Since from thee going he went wilful-slow, Towards thee I'll run, and give him leave to go.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 50

Sonnet 50

L. How heavy do I journey on the way, When what I seek, my weary travel's end, Doth teach that ease and that repose to say 'Thus far the miles are measured from thy friend!' The beast that bears me, tired with my woe, Plods dully on, to bear that weight in me, As if by some instinct the wretch did know His rider loved not speed, being made from thee: The bloody spur cannot provoke him on That sometimes anger thrusts into his hide; Which heavily he answers with a groan, More sharp to me than spurring to his side; For that same groan doth put this in my mind; My grief lies onward and my joy behind.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 49

Sonnet 49

XLIX. Against that time, if ever that time come, When I shall see thee frown on my defects, When as thy love hath cast his utmost sum, Call'd to that audit by advised respects; Against that time when thou shalt strangely pass And scarcely greet me with that sun thine eye, When love, converted from the thing it was, Shall reasons find of settled gravity,-- Against that time do I ensconce me here Within the knowledge of mine own desert, And this my hand against myself uprear, To guard the lawful reasons on thy part: To leave poor me thou hast the strength of laws, Since why to love I can allege no cause.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 48

Sonnet 48

XLVIII. How careful was I, when I took my way, Each trifle under truest bars to thrust, That to my use it might unused stay From hands of falsehood, in sure wards of trust! But thou, to whom my jewels trifles are, Most worthy of comfort, now my greatest grief, Thou, best of dearest and mine only care, Art left the prey of every vulgar thief. Thee have I not lock'd up in any chest, Save where thou art not, though I feel thou art, Within the gentle closure of my breast, From whence at pleasure thou mayst come and part; And even thence thou wilt be stol'n, I fear, For truth proves thievish for a prize so dear.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 47

Sonnet 47

XLVII. Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took, And each doth good turns now unto the other: When that mine eye is famish'd for a look, Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother, With my love's picture then my eye doth feast And to the painted banquet bids my heart; Another time mine eye is my heart's guest And in his thoughts of love doth share a part: So, either by thy picture or my love, Thyself away art resent still with me; For thou not farther than my thoughts canst move, And I am still with them and they with thee; Or, if they sleep, thy picture in my sight Awakes my heart to heart's and eye's delight.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 46

Sonnet 46

XLVI. Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war How to divide the conquest of thy sight; Mine eye my heart thy picture's sight would bar, My heart mine eye the freedom of that right. My heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie-- A closet never pierced with crystal eyes-- But the defendant doth that plea deny And says in him thy fair appearance lies. To 'cide this title is impanneled A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart, And by their verdict is determined The clear eye's moiety and the dear heart's part: As thus; mine eye's due is thy outward part, And my heart's right thy inward love of heart.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 45

Sonnet 45

XLV. The other two, slight air and purging fire, Are both with thee, wherever I abide; The first my thought, the other my desire, These present-absent with swift motion slide. For when these quicker elements are gone In tender embassy of love to thee, My life, being made of four, with two alone Sinks down to death, oppress'd with melancholy; Until life's composition be recured By those swift messengers return'd from thee, Who even but now come back again, assured Of thy fair health, recounting it to me: This told, I joy; but then no longer glad, I send them back again and straight grow sad.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 44

Sonnet 44

XLIV. If the dull substance of my flesh were thought, Injurious distance should not stop my way; For then despite of space I would be brought, From limits far remote where thou dost stay. No matter then although my foot did stand Upon the farthest earth removed from thee; For nimble thought can jump both sea and land As soon as think the place where he would be. But ah! thought kills me that I am not thought, To leap large lengths of miles when thou art gone, But that so much of earth and water wrought I must attend time's leisure with my moan, Receiving nought by elements so slow But heavy tears, badges of either's woe.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 43

Sonnet 43

XLIII. When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see, For all the day they view things unrespected; But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee, And darkly bright are bright in dark directed. Then thou, whose shadow shadows doth make bright, How would thy shadow's form form happy show To the clear day with thy much clearer light, When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so! How would, I say, mine eyes be blessed made By looking on thee in the living day, When in dead night thy fair imperfect shade Through heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay! All days are nights to see till I see thee, And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 42

Sonnet 42

XLII. That thou hast her, it is not all my grief, And yet it may be said I loved her dearly; That she hath thee, is of my wailing chief, A loss in love that touches me more nearly. Loving offenders, thus I will excuse ye: Thou dost love her, because thou knowst I love her; And for my sake even so doth she abuse me, Suffering my friend for my sake to approve her. If I lose thee, my loss is my love's gain, And losing her, my friend hath found that loss; Both find each other, and I lose both twain, And both for my sake lay on me this cross: But here's the joy; my friend and I are one; Sweet flattery! then she loves but me alone.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 41

Sonnet 41

XLI. Those petty wrongs that liberty commits, When I am sometime absent from thy heart, Thy beauty and thy years full well befits, For still temptation follows where thou art. Gentle thou art and therefore to be won, Beauteous thou art, therefore to be assailed; And when a woman woos, what woman's son Will sourly leave her till she have prevailed? Ay me! but yet thou mightest my seat forbear, And chide try beauty and thy straying youth, Who lead thee in their riot even there Where thou art forced to break a twofold truth, Hers by thy beauty tempting her to thee, Thine, by thy beauty being false to me.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 40

Sonnet 40

XL. Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all; What hast thou then more than thou hadst before? No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call; All mine was thine before thou hadst this more. Then if for my love thou my love receivest, I cannot blame thee for my love thou usest; But yet be blamed, if thou thyself deceivest By wilful taste of what thyself refusest. I do forgive thy robbery, gentle thief, Although thou steal thee all my poverty; And yet, love knows, it is a greater grief To bear love's wrong than hate's known injury. Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows, Kill me with spites; yet we must not be foes.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 39

Sonnet 39

XXXIX. O, how thy worth with manners may I sing, When thou art all the better part of me? What can mine own praise to mine own self bring? And what is 't but mine own when I praise thee? Even for this let us divided live, And our dear love lose name of single one, That by this separation I may give That due to thee which thou deservest alone. O absence, what a torment wouldst thou prove, Were it not thy sour leisure gave sweet leave To entertain the time with thoughts of love, Which time and thoughts so sweetly doth deceive, And that thou teachest how to make one twain, By praising him here who doth hence remain!

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 38

Sonnet 38

XXXVIII. How can my Muse want subject to invent, While thou dost breathe, that pour'st into my verse Thine own sweet argument, too excellent For every vulgar paper to rehearse? O, give thyself the thanks, if aught in me Worthy perusal stand against thy sight; For who's so dumb that cannot write to thee, When thou thyself dost give invention light? Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth Than those old nine which rhymers invocate; And he that calls on thee, let him bring forth Eternal numbers to outlive long date. If my slight Muse do please these curious days, The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 37

Sonnet 37

XXXVII. As a decrepit father takes delight To see his active child do deeds of youth, So I, made lame by fortune's dearest spite, Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth. For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit, Or any of these all, or all, or more, Entitled in thy parts do crowned sit, I make my love engrafted to this store: So then I am not lame, poor, nor despised, Whilst that this shadow doth such substance give That I in thy abundance am sufficed And by a part of all thy glory live. Look, what is best, that best I wish in thee: This wish I have; then ten times happy me!

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 36

Sonnet 36

XXXVI. Let me confess that we two must be twain, Although our undivided loves are one: So shall those blots that do with me remain Without thy help by me be borne alone. In our two loves there is but one respect, Though in our lives a separable spite, Which though it alter not love's sole effect, Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love's delight. I may not evermore acknowledge thee, Lest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame, Nor thou with public kindness honour me, Unless thou take that honour from thy name: But do not so; I love thee in such sort As, thou being mine, mine is thy good report.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 35

Sonnet 35

XXXV. No more be grieved at that which thou hast done: Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud; Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun, And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud. All men make faults, and even I in this, Authorizing thy trespass with compare, Myself corrupting, salving thy amiss, Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are; For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense-- Thy adverse party is thy advocate-- And 'gainst myself a lawful plea commence: Such civil war is in my love and hate That I an accessary needs must be To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 34

Sonnet 34

XXXIV. Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day, And make me travel forth without my cloak, To let base clouds o'ertake me in my way, Hiding thy bravery in their rotten smoke? 'Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break, To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face, For no man well of such a salve can speak That heals the wound and cures not the disgrace: Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief; Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss: The offender's sorrow lends but weak relief To him that bears the strong offence's cross. Ah! but those tears are pearl which thy love sheds, And they are rich and ransom all ill deeds.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 33

Sonnet 33

XXXIII. Full many a glorious morning have I seen Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye, Kissing with golden face the meadows green, Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy; Anon permit the basest clouds to ride With ugly rack on his celestial face, And from the forlorn world his visage hide, Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace: Even so my sun one early morn did shine With all triumphant splendor on my brow; But out, alack! he was but one hour mine; The region cloud hath mask'd him from me now. Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth; Suns of the world may stain when heaven's sun staineth.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 32

Sonnet 32

XXXII. If thou survive my well-contented day, When that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover, And shalt by fortune once more re-survey These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover, Compare them with the bettering of the time, And though they be outstripp'd by every pen, Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme, Exceeded by the height of happier men. O, then vouchsafe me but this loving thought: 'Had my friend's Muse grown with this growing age, A dearer birth than this his love had brought, To march in ranks of better equipage: But since he died and poets better prove, Theirs for their style I'll read, his for his love.'

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 31

Sonnet 31

XXXI. Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts, Which I by lacking have supposed dead, And there reigns love and all love's loving parts, And all those friends which I thought buried. How many a holy and obsequious tear Hath dear religious love stol'n from mine eye As interest of the dead, which now appear But things removed that hidden in thee lie! Thou art the grave where buried love doth live, Hung with the trophies of my lovers gone, Who all their parts of me to thee did give; That due of many now is thine alone: Their images I loved I view in thee, And thou, all they, hast all the all of me.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 30

Sonnet 30

XXX. When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past, I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste: Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow, For precious friends hid in death's dateless night, And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe, And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight: Then can I grieve at grievances foregone, And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan, Which I new pay as if not paid before. But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, All losses are restored and sorrows end.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 29

Sonnet 29

XXIX. When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state And trouble deal heaven with my bootless cries And look upon myself and curse my fate, Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd, Desiring this man's art and that man's scope, With what I most enjoy contented least; Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, Haply I think on thee, and then my state, Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate; For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 28

Sonnet 28

XXVIII. How can I then return in happy plight, That am debarr'd the benefit of rest? When day's oppression is not eased by night, But day by night, and night by day, oppress'd? And each, though enemies to either's reign, Do in consent shake hands to torture me; The one by toil, the other to complain How far I toil, still farther off from thee. I tell the day, to please them thou art bright And dost him grace when clouds do blot the heaven: So flatter I the swart-complexion'd night, When sparkling stars twire not thou gild'st the even. But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer And night doth nightly make grief's strength seem stronger.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 27

Sonnet 27

XXVII. Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed, The dear repose for limbs with travel tired; But then begins a journey in my head, To work my mind, when body's work's expired: For then my thoughts, from far where I abide, Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee, And keep my drooping eyelids open wide, Looking on darkness which the blind do see Save that my soul's imaginary sight Presents thy shadow to my sightless view, Which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night, Makes black night beauteous and her old face new. Lo! thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind, For thee and for myself no quiet find.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 26

Sonnet 26

XXVI. Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit, To thee I send this written embassage, To witness duty, not to show my wit: Duty so great, which wit so poor as mine May make seem bare, in wanting words to show it, But that I hope some good conceit of thine In thy soul's thought, all naked, will bestow it; Till whatsoever star that guides my moving Points on me graciously with fair aspect And puts apparel on my tatter'd loving, To show me worthy of thy sweet respect: Then may I dare to boast how I do love thee; Till then not show my head where thou mayst prove me.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 25

Sonnet 25

XXV. Let those who are in favour with their stars Of public honour and proud titles boast, Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars, Unlook'd for joy in that I honour most. Great princes' favourites their fair leaves spread But as the marigold at the sun's eye, And in themselves their pride lies buried, For at a frown they in their glory die. The painful warrior famoused for fight, After a thousand victories once foil'd, Is from the book of honour razed quite, And all the rest forgot for which he toil'd: Then happy I, that love and am beloved Where I may not remove nor be removed.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 24

Sonnet 24

XXIV. Mine eye hath play'd the painter and hath stell'd Thy beauty's form in table of my heart; My body is the frame wherein 'tis held, And perspective it is the painter's art. For through the painter must you see his skill, To find where your true image pictured lies; Which in my bosom's shop is hanging still, That hath his windows glazed with thine eyes. Now see what good turns eyes for eyes have done: Mine eyes have drawn thy shape, and thine for me Are windows to my breast, where-through the sun Delights to peep, to gaze therein on thee; Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art; They draw but what they see, know not the heart.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 23

Sonnet 23

XXIII. As an unperfect actor on the stage Who with his fear is put besides his part, Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage, Whose strength's abundance weakens his own heart. So I, for fear of trust, forget to say The perfect ceremony of love's rite, And in mine own love's strength seem to decay, O'ercharged with burden of mine own love's might. O, let my books be then the eloquence And dumb presagers of my speaking breast, Who plead for love and look for recompense More than that tongue that more hath more express'd. O, learn to read what silent love hath writ: To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 22

Sonnet 22

XXII. My glass shall not persuade me I am old, So long as youth and thou are of one date; But when in thee time's furrows I behold, Then look I death my days should expiate. For all that beauty that doth cover thee Is but the seemly raiment of my heart, Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me: How can I then be elder than thou art? O, therefore, love, be of thyself so wary As I, not for myself, but for thee will; Bearing thy heart, which I will keep so chary As tender nurse her babe from faring ill. Presume not on thy heart when mine is slain; Thou gavest me thine, not to give back again.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 21

Sonnet 21

XXI. So is it not with me as with that Muse Stirr'd by a painted beauty to his verse, Who heaven itself for ornament doth use And every fair with his fair doth rehearse Making a couplement of proud compare, With sun and moon, with earth and sea's rich gems, With April's first-born flowers, and all things rare That heaven's air in this huge rondure hems. O' let me, true in love, but truly write, And then believe me, my love is as fair As any mother's child, though not so bright As those gold candles fix'd in heaven's air: Let them say more than like of hearsay well; I will not praise that purpose not to sell.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 20

Sonnet 20

XX. A woman's face with Nature's own hand painted Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion; A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted With shifting change, as is false women's fashion; An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling, Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth; A man in hue, all 'hues' in his controlling, Much steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth. And for a woman wert thou first created; Till Nature, as she wrought thee, fell a-doting, And by addition me of thee defeated, By adding one thing to my purpose nothing. But since she prick'd thee out for women's pleasure, Mine be thy love and thy love's use their treasure.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 19

Sonnet 19

XIX. Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws, And make the earth devour her own sweet brood; Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws, And burn the long-lived phoenix in her blood; Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets, And do whate'er thou wilt, swift-footed Time, To the wide world and all her fading sweets; But I forbid thee one most heinous crime: O, carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow, Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen; Him in thy course untainted do allow For beauty's pattern to succeeding men. Yet, do thy worst, old Time: despite thy wrong, My love shall in my verse ever live young.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 18

Sonnet 18

XVIII. Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date: Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimm'd; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd; But thy eternal summer shall not fade Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou growest: So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 16

Sonnet 16

XVI. But wherefore do not you a mightier way Make war upon this bloody tyrant, Time? And fortify yourself in your decay With means more blessed than my barren rhyme? Now stand you on the top of happy hours, And many maiden gardens yet unset With virtuous wish would bear your living flowers, Much liker than your painted counterfeit: So should the lines of life that life repair, Which this, Time's pencil, or my pupil pen, Neither in inward worth nor outward fair, Can make you live yourself in eyes of men. To give away yourself keeps yourself still, And you must live, drawn by your own sweet skill.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 16

Sonnet 16

XVI. But wherefore do not you a mightier way Make war upon this bloody tyrant, Time? And fortify yourself in your decay With means more blessed than my barren rhyme? Now stand you on the top of happy hours, And many maiden gardens yet unset With virtuous wish would bear your living flowers, Much liker than your painted counterfeit: So should the lines of life that life repair, Which this, Time's pencil, or my pupil pen, Neither in inward worth nor outward fair, Can make you live yourself in eyes of men. To give away yourself keeps yourself still, And you must live, drawn by your own sweet skill.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 15

Sonnet 15

XV. When I consider every thing that grows Holds in perfection but a little moment, That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows Whereon the stars in secret influence comment; When I perceive that men as plants increase, Cheered and cheque'd even by the self-same sky, Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease, And wear their brave state out of memory; Then the conceit of this inconstant stay Sets you most rich in youth before my sight, Where wasteful Time debateth with Decay, To change your day of youth to sullied night; And all in war with Time for love of you, As he takes from you, I engraft you new.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 14

Sonnet 14

XIV. Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck; And yet methinks I have astronomy, But not to tell of good or evil luck, Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons' quality; Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell, Pointing to each his thunder, rain and wind, Or say with princes if it shall go well, By oft predict that I in heaven find: But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive, And, constant stars, in them I read such art As truth and beauty shall together thrive, If from thyself to store thou wouldst convert; Or else of thee this I prognosticate: Thy end is truth's and beauty's doom and date.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 13

Sonnet 13

XIII. O, that you were yourself! but, love, you are No longer yours than you yourself here live: Against this coming end you should prepare, And your sweet semblance to some other give. So should that beauty which you hold in lease Find no determination: then you were Yourself again after yourself's decease, When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear. Who lets so fair a house fall to decay, Which husbandry in honour might uphold Against the stormy gusts of winter's day And barren rage of death's eternal cold? O, none but unthrifts! Dear my love, you know You had a father: let your son say so.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 12

Sonnet 12

XII. When I do count the clock that tells the time, And see the brave day sunk in hideous night; When I behold the violet past prime, And sable curls all silver'd o'er with white; When lofty trees I see barren of leaves Which erst from heat did canopy the herd, And summer's green all girded up in sheaves Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard, Then of thy beauty do I question make, That thou among the wastes of time must go, Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake And die as fast as they see others grow; And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 11

Sonnet 11

XI. As fast as thou shalt wane, so fast thou growest In one of thine, from that which thou departest; And that fresh blood which youngly thou bestowest Thou mayst call thine when thou from youth convertest. Herein lives wisdom, beauty and increase: Without this, folly, age and cold decay: If all were minded so, the times should cease And threescore year would make the world away. Let those whom Nature hath not made for store, Harsh featureless and rude, barrenly perish: Look, whom she best endow'd she gave the more; Which bounteous gift thou shouldst in bounty cherish: She carved thee for her seal, and meant thereby Thou shouldst print more, not let that copy die.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 10

Sonnet 10

X. For shame! deny that thou bear'st love to any, Who for thyself art so unprovident. Grant, if thou wilt, thou art beloved of many, But that thou none lovest is most evident; For thou art so possess'd with murderous hate That 'gainst thyself thou stick'st not to conspire. Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate Which to repair should be thy chief desire. O, change thy thought, that I may change my mind! Shall hate be fairer lodged than gentle love? Be, as thy presence is, gracious and kind, Or to thyself at least kind-hearted prove: Make thee another self, for love of me, That beauty still may live in thine or thee.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 9

Sonnet 9

IX. Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye That thou consumest thyself in single life? Ah! if thou issueless shalt hap to die. The world will wail thee, like a makeless wife; The world will be thy widow and still weep That thou no form of thee hast left behind, When every private widow well may keep By children's eyes her husband's shape in mind. Look, what an unthrift in the world doth spend Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it; But beauty's waste hath in the world an end, And kept unused, the user so destroys it. No love toward others in that bosom sits That on himself such murderous shame commits.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 8

Sonnet 8

VIII. Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly? Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy. Why lovest thou that which thou receivest not gladly, Or else receivest with pleasure thine annoy? If the true concord of well-tuned sounds, By unions married, do offend thine ear, They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear. Mark how one string, sweet husband to another, Strikes each in each by mutual ordering, Resembling sire and child and happy mother Who all in one, one pleasing note do sing: Whose speechless song, being many, seeming one, Sings this to thee: 'thou single wilt prove none.'

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 7

Sonnet 7

VII. Lo! in the orient when the gracious light Lifts up his burning head, each under eye Doth homage to his new-appearing sight, Serving with looks his sacred majesty; And having climb'd the steep-up heavenly hill, Resembling strong youth in his middle age, yet mortal looks adore his beauty still, Attending on his golden pilgrimage; But when from highmost pitch, with weary car, Like feeble age, he reeleth from the day, The eyes, 'fore duteous, now converted are From his low tract and look another way: So thou, thyself out-going in thy noon, Unlook'd on diest, unless thou get a son.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 6

Sonnet 6

VI. Then let not winter's ragged hand deface In thee thy summer, ere thou be distill'd: Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place With beauty's treasure, ere it be self-kill'd. That use is not forbidden usury, Which happies those that pay the willing loan; That's for thyself to breed another thee, Or ten times happier, be it ten for one; Ten times thyself were happier than thou art, If ten of thine ten times refigured thee: Then what could death do, if thou shouldst depart, Leaving thee living in posterity? Be not self-will'd, for thou art much too fair To be death's conquest and make worms thine heir.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 5

Sonnet 5

V. Those hours, that with gentle work did frame The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell, Will play the tyrants to the very same And that unfair which fairly doth excel: For never-resting time leads summer on To hideous winter and confounds him there; Sap cheque'd with frost and lusty leaves quite gone, Beauty o'ersnow'd and bareness every where: Then, were not summer's distillation left, A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass, Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft, Nor it nor no remembrance what it was: But flowers distill'd though they with winter meet, Leese but their show; their substance still lives sweet.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 4

Sonnet 4

IV. Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend Upon thyself thy beauty's legacy? Nature's bequest gives nothing but doth lend, And being frank she lends to those are free. Then, beauteous niggard, why dost thou abuse The bounteous largess given thee to give? Profitless usurer, why dost thou use So great a sum of sums, yet canst not live? For having traffic with thyself alone, Thou of thyself thy sweet self dost deceive. Then how, when nature calls thee to be gone, What acceptable audit canst thou leave? Thy unused beauty must be tomb'd with thee, Which, used, lives th' executor to be.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 3

Sonnet 3

III. Look in thy glass, and tell the face thou viewest Now is the time that face should form another; Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest, Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother. For where is she so fair whose unear'd womb Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry? Or who is he so fond will be the tomb Of his self-love, to stop posterity? Thou art thy mother's glass, and she in thee Calls back the lovely April of her prime: So thou through windows of thine age shall see Despite of wrinkles this thy golden time. But if thou live, remember'd not to be, Die single, and thine image dies with thee.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 2

Sonnet 2

II. When forty winters shall beseige thy brow, And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field, Thy youth's proud livery, so gazed on now, Will be a tatter'd weed, of small worth held: Then being ask'd where all thy beauty lies, Where all the treasure of thy lusty days, To say, within thine own deep-sunken eyes, Were an all-eating shame and thriftless praise. How much more praise deserved thy beauty's use, If thou couldst answer 'This fair child of mine Shall sum my count and make my old excuse,' Proving his beauty by succession thine! This were to be new made when thou art old, And see thy blood warm when thou feel'st it cold.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 1

Sonnet 1

I. FROM fairest creatures we desire increase, That thereby beauty's rose might never die, But as the riper should by time decease, His tender heir might bear his memory: But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes, Feed'st thy light'st flame with self-substantial fuel, Making a famine where abundance lies, Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel. Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament And only herald to the gaudy spring, Within thine own bud buriest thy content And, tender churl, makest waste in niggarding. Pity the world, or else this glutton be, To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.

Walt Whitman - GOOD-BYE MY FANCY

GOOD-BYE MY FANCY

Sail out for Good, Eidolon Yacht!

Heave the anchor short!
Raise main-sail and jib--steer forth,
O little white-hull'd sloop, now speed on really deep waters,
(I will not call it our concluding voyage,
But outset and sure entrance to the truest, best, maturest;)
Depart, depart from solid earth--no more returning to these shores,
Now on for aye our infinite free venture wending,
Spurning all yet tried ports, seas, hawsers, densities, gravitation,
Sail out for good, eidolon yacht of me!

Lingering Last Drops:

And whence and why come you?

We know not whence, (was the answer,)
We only know that we drift here with the rest,
That we linger'd and lagg'd--but were wafted at last, and are now here,
To make the passing shower's concluding drops.

Good-Bye My Fancy:

Good-bye my fancy--(I had a word to say,
But 'tis not quite the time--The best of any man's word or say,
Is when its proper place arrives--and for its meaning,
I keep mine till the last.)

On, on the Same, Ye Jocund Twain!:

On, on the same, ye jocund twain!
My life and recitative, containing birth, youth, mid-age years,
Fitful as motley-tongues of flame, inseparably twined and merged in
one--combining all,
My single soul--aims, confirmations, failures, joys--Nor single soul alone,
I chant my nation's crucial stage, (America's, haply humanity's)--
the trial great, the victory great,
A strange eclaircissement of all the masses past, the eastern world,
the ancient, medieval,
Here, here from wanderings, strayings, lessons, wars, defeats--here
at the west a voice triumphant--justifying all,
A gladsome pealing cry--a song for once of utmost pride and satisfaction;
I chant from it the common bulk, the general average horde, (the
best sooner than the worst)--And now I chant old age,
(My verses, written first for forenoon life, and for the summer's,
autumn's spread,
I pass to snow-white hairs the same, and give to pulses
winter-cool'd the same;)
As here in careless trill, I and my recitatives, with faith and love,
wafting to other work, to unknown songs, conditions,
On, on ye jocund twain! continue on the same!

MY 71st Year:

After surmounting three-score and ten,
With all their chances, changes, losses, sorrows,
My parents' deaths, the vagaries of my life, the many tearing
passions of me, the war of '63 and '4,
As some old broken soldier, after a long, hot, wearying march, or
haply after battle,
To-day at twilight, hobbling, answering company roll-call, Here,
with vital voice,
Reporting yet, saluting yet the Officer over all.

Apparitions:

A vague mist hanging 'round half the pages:
(Sometimes how strange and clear to the soul,
That all these solid things are indeed but apparitions, concepts,
non-realities.)

The Pallid Wreath:

Somehow I cannot let it go yet, funeral though it is,
Let it remain back there on its nail suspended,
With pink, blue, yellow, all blanch'd, and the white now gray and ashy,
One wither'd rose put years ago for thee, dear friend;
But I do not forget thee. Hast thou then faded?
Is the odor exhaled? Are the colors, vitalities, dead?
No, while memories subtly play--the past vivid as ever;
For but last night I woke, and in that spectral ring saw thee,
Thy smile, eyes, face, calm, silent, loving as ever:
So let the wreath hang still awhile within my eye-reach,
It is not yet dead to me, nor even pallid.

An Ended Day:

The soothing sanity and blitheness of completion,
The pomp and hurried contest-glare and rush are done;
Now triumph! transformation! jubilate!

Old Age's Ship & Crafty Death's:

From east and west across the horizon's edge,
Two mighty masterful vessels sailers steal upon us:
But we'll make race a-time upon the seas--a battle-contest yet! bear
lively there!
(Our joys of strife and derring-do to the last!)
Put on the old ship all her power to-day!
Crowd top-sail, top-gallant and royal studding-sails,
Out challenge and defiance--flags and flaunting pennants added,
As we take to the open--take to the deepest, freest waters.

To the Pending Year:

Have I no weapon-word for thee--some message brief and fierce?
(Have I fought out and done indeed the battle?) Is there no shot left,
For all thy affectations, lisps, scorns, manifold silliness?
Nor for myself--my own rebellious self in thee?

Down, down, proud gorge!--though choking thee;
Thy bearded throat and high-borne forehead to the gutter;
Crouch low thy neck to eleemosynary gifts.

Shakspere-Bacon's Cipher:

I doubt it not--then more, far more;
In each old song bequeath'd--in every noble page or text,
(Different--something unreck'd before--some unsuspected author,)
In every object, mountain, tree, and star--in every birth and life,
As part of each--evolv'd from each--meaning, behind the ostent,
A mystic cipher waits infolded.

Long, Long Hence:

After a long, long course, hundreds of years, denials,
Accumulations, rous'd love and joy and thought,
Hopes, wishes, aspirations, ponderings, victories, myriads of readers,
Coating, compassing, covering--after ages' and ages' encrustations,
Then only may these songs reach fruition.

Bravo, Paris Exposition!

Add to your show, before you close it, France,
With all the rest, visible, concrete, temples, towers, goods,
machines and ores,
Our sentiment wafted from many million heart-throbs, ethereal but solid,
(We grand-sons and great-grandsons do not forget your grandsires,)
From fifty Nations and nebulous Nations, compacted, sent oversea to-day,
America's applause, love, memories and good-will.

Interpolation Sounds:

Over and through the burial chant,
Organ and solemn service, sermon, bending priests,
To me come interpolation sounds not in the show--plainly to me,
crowding up the aisle and from the window,
Of sudden battle's hurry and harsh noises--war's grim game to sight
and ear in earnest;
The scout call'd up and forward--the general mounted and his aides
around him--the new-brought word--the instantaneous order issued;
The rifle crack--the cannon thud--the rushing forth of men from their
tents;
The clank of cavalry--the strange celerity of forming ranks--the
slender bugle note;
The sound of horses' hoofs departing--saddles, arms, accoutrements.

To the Sun-Set Breeze:

Ah, whispering, something again, unseen,
Where late this heated day thou enterest at my window, door,
Thou, laving, tempering all, cool-freshing, gently vitalizing
Me, old, alone, sick, weak-down, melted-worn with sweat;
Thou, nestling, folding close and firm yet soft, companion better
than talk, book, art,
(Thou hast, O Nature! elements! utterance to my heart beyond the
rest--and this is of them,)
So sweet thy primitive taste to breathe within--thy soothing fingers
my face and hands,
Thou, messenger--magical strange bringer to body and spirit of me,
(Distances balk'd--occult medicines penetrating me from head to foot,)
I feel the sky, the prairies vast--I feel the mighty northern lakes,
I feel the ocean and the forest--somehow I feel the globe itself
swift-swimming in space;
Thou blown from lips so loved, now gone--haply from endless store,
God-sent,
(For thou art spiritual, Godly, most of all known to my sense,)
Minister to speak to me, here and now, what word has never told, and
cannot tell,
Art thou not universal concrete's distillation? Law's, all
Astronomy's last refinement?
Hast thou no soul? Can I not know, identify thee?

Old Chants:

An ancient song, reciting, ending,
Once gazing toward thee, Mother of All,
Musing, seeking themes fitted for thee,
Accept me, thou saidst, the elder ballads,
And name for me before thou goest each ancient poet.

(Of many debts incalculable,
Haply our New World's chieftest debt is to old poems.)

Ever so far back, preluding thee, America,
Old chants, Egyptian priests, and those of Ethiopia,
The Hindu epics, the Grecian, Chinese, Persian,
The Biblic books and prophets, and deep idyls of the Nazarene,
The Iliad, Odyssey, plots, doings, wanderings of Eneas,
Hesiod, Eschylus, Sophocles, Merlin, Arthur,
The Cid, Roland at Roncesvalles, the Nibelungen,
The troubadours, minstrels, minnesingers, skalds,
Chaucer, Dante, flocks of singing birds,
The Border Minstrelsy, the bye-gone ballads, feudal tales, essays, plays,
Shakespere, Schiller, Walter Scott, Tennyson,
As some vast wondrous weird dream-presences,
The great shadowy groups gathering around,
Darting their mighty masterful eyes forward at thee,
Thou! with as now thy bending neck and head, with courteous hand
and word, ascending,
Thou! pausing a moment, drooping thine eyes upon them, blent
with their music,
Well pleased, accepting all, curiously prepared for by them,
Thou enterest at thy entrance porch.

A Christmas Greeting:

Welcome, Brazilian brother--thy ample place is ready;
A loving hand--a smile from the north--a sunny instant hall!
(Let the future care for itself, where it reveals its troubles,
impedimentas,
Ours, ours the present throe, the democratic aim, the acceptance and
the faith;)
To thee to-day our reaching arm, our turning neck--to thee from us
the expectant eye,
Thou cluster free! thou brilliant lustrous one! thou, learning well,
The true lesson of a nation's light in the sky,
(More shining than the Cross, more than the Crown,)
The height to be superb humanity.

Sounds of the Winter:

Sounds of the winter too,
Sunshine upon the mountains--many a distant strain
From cheery railroad train--from nearer field, barn, house,
The whispering air--even the mute crops, garner'd apples, corn,
Children's and women's tones--rhythm of many a farmer and of flail,
An old man's garrulous lips among the rest, Think not we give out yet,
Forth from these snowy hairs we keep up yet the lilt.

A Twilight Song:

As I sit in twilight late alone by the flickering oak-flame,
Musing on long-pass'd war-scenes--of the countless buried unknown
soldiers,
Of the vacant names, as unindented air's and sea's--the unreturn'd,
The brief truce after battle, with grim burial-squads, and the
deep-fill'd trenches
Of gather'd from dead all America, North, South, East, West, whence
they came up,
From wooded Maine, New-England's farms, from fertile Pennsylvania,
Illinois, Ohio,
From the measureless West, Virginia, the South, the Carolinas, Texas,
(Even here in my room-shadows and half-lights in the noiseless
flickering flames,
Again I see the stalwart ranks on-filing, rising--I hear the
rhythmic tramp of the armies;)
You million unwrit names all, all--you dark bequest from all the war,
A special verse for you--a flash of duty long neglected--your mystic
roll strangely gather'd here,
Each name recall'd by me from out the darkness and death's ashes,
Henceforth to be, deep, deep within my heart recording, for many
future year,
Your mystic roll entire of unknown names, or North or South,
Embalm'd with love in this twilight song.

When the Full-Grown Poet Came:

When the full-grown poet came,
Out spake pleased Nature (the round impassive globe, with all its
shows of day and night,) saying, He is mine;
But out spake too the Soul of man, proud, jealous and unreconciled,
Nay he is mine alone;
--Then the full-grown poet stood between the two, and took each
by the hand;
And to-day and ever so stands, as blender, uniter, tightly holding hands,
Which he will never release until he reconciles the two,
And wholly and joyously blends them.

Osceola:

When his hour for death had come,
He slowly rais'd himself from the bed on the floor,
Drew on his war-dress, shirt, leggings, and girdled the belt around
his waist,
Call'd for vermilion paint (his looking-glass was held before him,)
Painted half his face and neck, his wrists, and back-hands.
Put the scalp-knife carefully in his belt--then lying down, resting
moment,
Rose again, half sitting, smiled, gave in silence his extended hand
to each and all,
Sank faintly low to the floor (tightly grasping the tomahawk handle,)
Fix'd his look on wife and little children--the last:

(And here a line in memory of his name and death.)

A Voice from Death:

A voice from Death, solemn and strange, in all his sweep and power,
With sudden, indescribable blow--towns drown'd--humanity by
thousands slain,
The vaunted work of thrift, goods, dwellings, forge, street, iron bridge,
Dash'd pell-mell by the blow--yet usher'd life continuing on,
(Amid the rest, amid the rushing, whirling, wild debris,
A suffering woman saved--a baby safely born!)

Although I come and unannounc'd, in horror and in pang,
In pouring flood and fire, and wholesale elemental crash, (this
voice so solemn, strange,)
I too a minister of Deity.

Yea, Death, we bow our faces, veil our eyes to thee,
We mourn the old, the young untimely drawn to thee,
The fair, the strong, the good, the capable,
The household wreck'd, the husband and the wife, the engulfed forger
in his forge,
The corpses in the whelming waters and the mud,
The gather'd thousands to their funeral mounds, and thousands never
found or gather'd.

Then after burying, mourning the dead,
(Faithful to them found or unfound, forgetting not, bearing the
past, here new musing,)
A day--a passing moment or an hour--America itself bends low,
Silent, resign'd, submissive.

War, death, cataclysm like this, America,
Take deep to thy proud prosperous heart.

E'en as I chant, lo! out of death, and out of ooze and slime,
The blossoms rapidly blooming, sympathy, help, love,
From West and East, from South and North and over sea,
Its hot-spurr'd hearts and hands humanity to human aid moves on;
And from within a thought and lesson yet.

Thou ever-darting Globe! through Space and Air!
Thou waters that encompass us!
Thou that in all the life and death of us, in action or in sleep!
Thou laws invisible that permeate them and all,
Thou that in all, and over all, and through and under all, incessant!
Thou! thou! the vital, universal, giant force resistless, sleepless, calm,
Holding Humanity as in thy open hand, as some ephemeral toy,
How ill to e'er forget thee!

For I too have forgotten,
(Wrapt in these little potencies of progress, politics, culture,
wealth, inventions, civilization,)
Have lost my recognition of your silent ever-swaying power, ye
mighty, elemental throes,
In which and upon which we float, and every one of us is buoy'd.

A Persian Lesson:

For his o'erarching and last lesson the greybeard sufi,
In the fresh scent of the morning in the open air,
On the slope of a teeming Persian rose-garden,
Under an ancient chestnut-tree wide spreading its branches,
Spoke to the young priests and students.

"Finally my children, to envelop each word, each part of the rest,
Allah is all, all,all--immanent in every life and object,
May-be at many and many-a-more removes--yet Allah, Allah, Allah is there.

"Has the estray wander'd far? Is the reason-why strangely hidden?
Would you sound below the restless ocean of the entire world?
Would you know the dissatisfaction? the urge and spur of every life;
The something never still'd--never entirely gone? the invisible need
of every seed?

"It is the central urge in every atom,
(Often unconscious, often evil, downfallen,)
To return to its divine source and origin, however distant,
Latent the same in subject and in object, without one exception."

The Commonplace:

The commonplace I sing;
How cheap is health! how cheap nobility!
Abstinence, no falsehood, no gluttony, lust;
The open air I sing, freedom, toleration,
(Take here the mainest lesson--less from books--less from the schools,)
The common day and night--the common earth and waters,
Your farm--your work, trade, occupation,
The democratic wisdom underneath, like solid ground for all.

"The Rounded Catalogue Divine Complete"

The devilish and the dark, the dying and diseas'd,
The countless (nineteen-twentieths) low and evil, crude and savage,
The crazed, prisoners in jail, the horrible, rank, malignant,
Venom and filth, serpents, the ravenous sharks, liars, the dissolute;
(What is the part the wicked and the loathesome bear within earth's
orbic scheme?)
Newts, crawling things in slime and mud, poisons,
The barren soil, the evil men, the slag and hideous rot.

Mirages:

More experiences and sights, stranger, than you'd think for;
Times again, now mostly just after sunrise or before sunset,
Sometimes in spring, oftener in autumn, perfectly clear weather, in
plain sight,
Camps far or near, the crowded streets of cities and the shopfronts,
(Account for it or not--credit or not--it is all true,
And my mate there could tell you the like--we have often confab'd
about it,)
People and scenes, animals, trees, colors and lines, plain as could be,
Farms and dooryards of home, paths border'd with box, lilacs in corners,
Weddings in churches, thanksgiving dinners, returns of long-absent sons,
Glum funerals, the crape-veil'd mother and the daughters,
Trials in courts, jury and judge, the accused in the box,
Contestants, battles, crowds, bridges, wharves,
Now and then mark'd faces of sorrow or joy,
(I could pick them out this moment if I saw them again,)
Show'd to me--just to the right in the sky-edge,
Or plainly there to the left on the hill-tops.

L. of G.'s Purport:

Not to exclude or demarcate, or pick out evils from their formidable
masses (even to expose them,)
But add, fuse, complete, extend--and celebrate the immortal and the good.
Haughty this song, its words and scope,
To span vast realms of space and time,
Evolution--the cumulative--growths and generations.

Begun in ripen'd youth and steadily pursued,
Wandering, peering, dallying with all--war, peace, day and night
absorbing,
Never even for one brief hour abandoning my task,
I end it here in sickness, poverty, and old age.

I sing of life, yet mind me well of death:
To-day shadowy Death dogs my steps, my seated shape, and has for years--
Draws sometimes close to me, as face to face.

The Unexpress'd:

How dare one say it?
After the cycles, poems, singers, plays,
Vaunted Ionia's, India's--Homer, Shakspere--the long, long times'
thick dotted roads, areas,
The shining clusters and the Milky Ways of stars--Nature's pulses reap'd,
All retrospective passions, heroes, war, love, adoration,
All ages' plummets dropt to their utmost depths,
All human lives, throats, wishes, brains--all experiences' utterance;
After the countless songs, or long or short, all tongues, all lands,
Still something not yet told in poesy's voice or print--something lacking,
(Who knows? the best yet unexpress'd and lacking.)

Grand Is the Seen:

Grand is the seen, the light, to me--grand are the sky and stars,
Grand is the earth, and grand are lasting time and space,
And grand their laws, so multiform, puzzling, evolutionary;
But grander far the unseen soul of me, comprehending, endowing all those,
Lighting the light, the sky and stars, delving the earth, sailing
the sea,
(What were all those, indeed, without thee, unseen soul? of what
amount without thee?)
More evolutionary, vast, puzzling, O my soul!
More multiform far--more lasting thou than they.

Unseen Buds:

Unseen buds, infinite, hidden well,
Under the snow and ice, under the darkness, in every square or cubic inch,
Germinal, exquisite, in delicate lace, microscopic, unborn,
Like babes in wombs, latent, folded, compact, sleeping;
Billions of billions, and trillions of trillions of them waiting,
(On earth and in the sea--the universe--the stars there in the
heavens,)
Urging slowly, surely forward, forming endless,
And waiting ever more, forever more behind.

Good-Bye My Fancy!

Good-bye my Fancy!
Farewell dear mate, dear love!
I'm going away, I know not where,
Or to what fortune, or whether I may ever see you again,
So Good-bye my Fancy.

Now for my last--let me look back a moment;
The slower fainter ticking of the clock is in me,
Exit, nightfall, and soon the heart-thud stopping.

Long have we lived, joy'd, caress'd together;
Delightful!--now separation--Good-bye my Fancy.

Yet let me not be too hasty,
Long indeed have we lived, slept, filter'd, become really blended
into one;
Then if we die we die together, (yes, we'll remain one,)
If we go anywhere we'll go together to meet what happens,
May-be we'll be better off and blither, and learn something,
May-be it is yourself now really ushering me to the true songs, (who
knows?)
May-be it is you the mortal knob really undoing, turning--so now finally,
Good-bye--and hail! my Fancy.

Walt Whitman - SANDS AT SEVENTY

SANDS AT SEVENTY

Mannahatta:

My city's fit and noble name resumed,
Choice aboriginal name, with marvellous beauty, meaning,
A rocky founded island--shores where ever gayly dash the coming,
going, hurrying sea waves.

Paumanok:

Sea-beauty! stretch'd and basking!
One side thy inland ocean laving, broad, with copious commerce,
steamers, sails,
And one the Atlantic's wind caressing, fierce or gentle--mighty hulls
dark-gliding in the distance.
Isle of sweet brooks of drinking-water--healthy air and soil!
Isle of the salty shore and breeze and brine!

From Montauk Point:

I stand as on some mighty eagle's beak,
Eastward the sea absorbing, viewing, (nothing but sea and sky,)
The tossing waves, the foam, the ships in the distance,
The wild unrest, the snowy, curling caps--that inbound urge and urge
of waves,
Seeking the shores forever.

To Those Who've Fail'd:

To those who've fail'd, in aspiration vast,
To unnam'd soldiers fallen in front on the lead,
To calm, devoted engineers--to over-ardent travelers--to pilots on
their ships,
To many a lofty song and picture without recognition--I'd rear
laurel-cover'd monument,
High, high above the rest--To all cut off before their time,
Possess'd by some strange spirit of fire,
Quench'd by an early death.

A Carol Closing Sixty-Nine:

A carol closing sixty-nine--a resume--a repetition,
My lines in joy and hope continuing on the same,
Of ye, O God, Life, Nature, Freedom, Poetry;
Of you, my Land--your rivers, prairies, States--you, mottled Flag I love,
Your aggregate retain'd entire--Of north, south, east and west, your
items all;
Of me myself--the jocund heart yet beating in my breast,
The body wreck'd, old, poor and paralyzed--the strange inertia
falling pall-like round me,
The burning fires down in my sluggish blood not yet extinct,
The undiminish'd faith--the groups of loving friends.

The Bravest Soldiers:

Brave, brave were the soldiers (high named to-day) who lived through
the fight;
But the bravest press'd to the front and fell, unnamed, unknown.

A Font of Type:

This latent mine--these unlaunch'd voices--passionate powers,
Wrath, argument, or praise, or comic leer, or prayer devout,
(Not nonpareil, brevier, bourgeois, long primer merely,)
These ocean waves arousable to fury and to death,
Or sooth'd to ease and sheeny sun and sleep,
Within the pallid slivers slumbering.

As I Sit Writing Here:

As I sit writing here, sick and grown old,
Not my least burden is that dulness of the years, querilities,
Ungracious glooms, aches, lethargy, constipation, whimpering ennui,
May filter in my dally songs.

My Canary Bird:

Did we count great, O soul, to penetrate the themes of mighty books,
Absorbing deep and full from thoughts, plays, speculations?
But now from thee to me, caged bird, to feel thy joyous warble,
Filling the air, the lonesome room, the long forenoon,
Is it not just as great, O soul?

Queries to My Seventieth Year:

Approaching, nearing, curious,
Thou dim, uncertain spectre--bringest thou life or death?
Strength, weakness, blindness, more paralysis and heavier?
Or placid skies and sun? Wilt stir the waters yet?
Or haply cut me short for good? Or leave me here as now,
Dull, parrot-like and old, with crack'd voice harping, screeching?

The Wallabout Martyrs:

Greater than memory of Achilles or Ulysses,
More, more by far to thee than tomb of Alexander,
Those cart loads of old charnel ashes, scales and splints of mouldy bones,
Once living men--once resolute courage, aspiration, strength,
The stepping stones to thee to-day and here, America.

The First Dandelion:

Simple and fresh and fair from winter's close emerging,
As if no artifice of fashion, business, politics, had ever been,
Forth from its sunny nook of shelter'd grass--innocent, golden, calm
as the dawn,
The spring's first dandelion shows its trustful face.

America:

Centre of equal daughters, equal sons,
All, all alike endear'd, grown, ungrown, young or old,
Strong, ample, fair, enduring, capable, rich,
Perennial with the Earth, with Freedom, Law and Love,
A grand, sane, towering, seated Mother,
Chair'd in the adamant of Time.

Memories:

How sweet the silent backward tracings!
The wanderings as in dreams--the meditation of old times resumed
--their loves, joys, persons, voyages.

To-Day and Thee:

The appointed winners in a long-stretch'd game;
The course of Time and nations--Egypt, India, Greece and Rome;
The past entire, with all its heroes, histories, arts, experiments,
Its store of songs, inventions, voyages, teachers, books,
Garner'd for now and thee--To think of it!
The heirdom all converged in thee!

After the Dazzle of Day:

After the dazzle of day is gone,
Only the dark, dark night shows to my eyes the stars;
After the clangor of organ majestic, or chorus, or perfect band,
Silent, athwart my soul, moves the symphony true.

Abraham Lincoln, Born Feb. 12, 1809:

To-day, from each and all, a breath of prayer--a pulse of thought,
To memory of Him--to birth of Him.

Out of May's Shows Selected:

Apple orchards, the trees all cover'd with blossoms;
Wheat fields carpeted far and near in vital emerald green;
The eternal, exhaustless freshness of each early morning;
The yellow, golden, transparent haze of the warm afternoon sun;
The aspiring lilac bushes with profuse purple or white flowers.

Halcyon Days:

Not from successful love alone,
Nor wealth, nor honor'd middle age, nor victories of politics or war;
But as life wanes, and all the turbulent passions calm,
As gorgeous, vapory, silent hues cover the evening sky,
As softness, fulness, rest, suffuse the frame, like freshier, balmier air,
As the days take on a mellower light, and the apple at last hangs
really finish'd and indolent-ripe on the tree,
Then for the teeming quietest, happiest days of all!
The brooding and blissful halcyon days!

[FANCIES AT NAVESINK]

[I] The Pilot in the Mist:

Steaming the northern rapids--(an old St. Lawrence reminiscence,
A sudden memory-flash comes back, I know not why,
Here waiting for the sunrise, gazing from this hill;)
Again 'tis just at morning--a heavy haze contends with daybreak,
Again the trembling, laboring vessel veers me--I press through
foam-dash'd rocks that almost touch me,
Again I mark where aft the small thin Indian helmsman
Looms in the mist, with brow elate and governing hand.

[II] Had I the Choice:

Had I the choice to tally greatest bards,
To limn their portraits, stately, beautiful, and emulate at will,
Homer with all his wars and warriors--Hector, Achilles, Ajax,
Or Shakspere'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.

[III] You Tides with Ceaseless Swell:

You tides with ceaseless swell! you power that does this work!
You unseen force, centripetal, centrifugal, through space's spread,
Rapport of sun, moon, earth, and all the constellations,
What are the messages by you from distant stars to us? what Sirius'?
what Capella's?
What central heart--and you the pulse--vivifies all? what boundless
aggregate of all?
What subtle indirection and significance in you? what clue to all in
you? what fluid, vast identity,
Holding the universe with all its parts as one--as sailing in a ship?

[IV] Last of Ebb, and Daylight Waning:

Last of ebb, and daylight waning,
Scented sea-cool landward making, smells of sedge and salt incoming,
With many a half-caught voice sent up from the eddies,
Many a muffled confession--many a sob and whisper'd word,
As of speakers far or hid.

How they sweep down and out! how they mutter!
Poets unnamed--artists greatest of any, with cherish'd lost designs,
Love's unresponse--a chorus of age's complaints--hope's last words,
Some suicide's despairing cry, Away to the boundless waste, and
never again return.

On to oblivion then!
On, on, and do your part, ye burying, ebbing tide!
On for your time, ye furious debouche!

[V] And Yet Not You Alone:

And yet not you alone, twilight and burying ebb,
Nor you, ye lost designs alone--nor failures, aspirations;
I know, divine deceitful ones, your glamour's seeming;
Duly by you, from you, the tide and light again--duly the hinges turning,
Duly the needed discord-parts offsetting, blending,
Weaving from you, from Sleep, Night, Death itself,
The rhythmus of Birth eternal.

[VI] Proudly the Flood Comes In:

Proudly the flood comes in, shouting, foaming, advancing,
Long it holds at the high, with bosom broad outswelling,
All throbs, dilates--the farms, woods, streets of cities--workmen at work,
Mainsails, topsails, jibs, appear in the offing--steamers' pennants
of smoke--and under the forenoon sun,
Freighted with human lives, gaily the outward bound, gaily the
inward bound,
Flaunting from many a spar the flag I love.

[VII] By That Long Scan of Waves:

By that long scan of waves, myself call'd back, resumed upon myself,
In every crest some undulating light or shade--some retrospect,
Joys, travels, studies, silent panoramas--scenes ephemeral,
The long past war, the battles, hospital sights, the wounded and the dead,
Myself through every by-gone phase--my idle youth--old age at hand,
My three-score years of life summ'd up, and more, and past,
By any grand ideal tried, intentionless, the whole a nothing,
And haply yet some drop within God's scheme's ensemble--some
wave, or part of wave,
Like one of yours, ye multitudinous ocean.

[VIII] Then Last Of All:

Then last of all, caught from these shores, this hill,
Of you O tides, the mystic human meaning:
Only by law of you, your swell and ebb, enclosing me the same,
The brain that shapes, the voice that chants this song.

Election Day, November, 1884:

If I should need to name, O Western World, your powerfulest scene and show,
'Twould not be you, Niagara--nor you, ye limitless prairies--nor
your huge rifts of canyons, Colorado,
Nor you, Yosemite--nor Yellowstone, with all its spasmic
geyser-loops ascending to the skies, appearing and disappearing,
Nor Oregon's white cones--nor Huron's belt of mighty lakes--nor
Mississippi's stream:
--This seething hemisphere's humanity, as now, I'd name--the still
small voice vibrating--America's choosing day,
(The heart of it not in the chosen--the act itself the main, the
quadriennial choosing,)
The stretch of North and South arous'd--sea-board and inland--
Texas to Maine--the Prairie States--Vermont, Virginia, California,
The final ballot-shower from East to West--the paradox and conflict,
The countless snow-flakes falling--(a swordless conflict,
Yet more than all Rome's wars of old, or modern Napoleon's:) the
peaceful choice of all,
Or good or ill humanity--welcoming the darker odds, the dross:
--Foams and ferments the wine? it serves to purify--while the heart
pants, life glows:
These stormy gusts and winds waft precious ships,
Swell'd Washington's, Jefferson's, Lincoln's sails.

} With Husky-Haughty Lips, O Sea!:

With husky-haughty lips, O sea!
Where day and night I wend thy surf-beat shore,
Imaging to my sense thy varied strange suggestions,
(I see and plainly list thy talk and conference here,)
Thy troops of white-maned racers racing to the goal,
Thy ample, smiling face, dash'd with the sparkling dimples of the sun,
Thy brooding scowl and murk--thy unloos'd hurricanes,
Thy unsubduedness, caprices, wilfulness;
Great as thou art above the rest, thy many tears--a lack from all
eternity in thy content,
(Naught but the greatest struggles, wrongs, defeats, could make thee
greatest--no less could make thee,)
Thy lonely state--something thou ever seek'st and seek'st, yet
never gain'st,
Surely some right withheld--some voice, in huge monotonous rage, of
freedom-lover pent,
Some vast heart, like a planet's, chain'd and chafing in those breakers,
By lengthen'd swell, and spasm, and panting breath,
And rhythmic rasping of thy sands and waves,
And serpent hiss, and savage peals of laughter,
And undertones of distant lion roar,
(Sounding, appealing to the sky's deaf ear--but now, rapport for once,
A phantom in the night thy confidant for once,)
The first and last confession of the globe,
Outsurging, muttering from thy soul's abysms,
The tale of cosmic elemental passion,
Thou tellest to a kindred soul.

Death of General Grant:

As one by one withdraw the lofty actors,
From that great play on history's stage eterne,
That lurid, partial act of war and peace--of old and new contending,
Fought out through wrath, fears, dark dismays, and many a long suspense;
All past--and since, in countless graves receding, mellowing,
Victor's and vanquish'd--Lincoln's and Lee's--now thou with them,
Man of the mighty days--and equal to the days!
Thou from the prairies!--tangled and many-vein'd and hard has been thy part,
To admiration has it been enacted!

Red Jacket (From Aloft):

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.

Washington's Monument February, 1885:

Ah, not this marble, dead and cold:
Far from its base and shaft expanding--the round zones circling,
comprehending,
Thou, Washington, art all the world's, the continents' entire--not
yours alone, America,
Europe's as well, in every part, castle of lord or laborer's cot,
Or frozen North, or sultry South--the African's--the Arab's in his tent,
Old Asia's there with venerable smile, seated amid her ruins;
(Greets the antique the hero new? 'tis but the same--the heir
legitimate, continued ever,
The indomitable heart and arm--proofs of the never-broken line,
Courage, alertness, patience, faith, the same--e'en in defeat
defeated not, the same:)
Wherever sails a ship, or house is built on land, or day or night,
Through teeming cities' streets, indoors or out, factories or farms,
Now, or to come, or past--where patriot wills existed or exist,
Wherever Freedom, pois'd by Toleration, sway'd by Law,
Stands or is rising thy true monument.

Of That Blithe Throat of Thine:

Of that blithe throat of thine from arctic bleak and blank,
I'll mind the lesson, solitary bird--let me too welcome chilling drifts,
E'en the profoundest chill, as now--a torpid pulse, a brain unnerv'd,
Old age land-lock'd within its winter bay--(cold, cold, O cold!)
These snowy hairs, my feeble arm, my frozen feet,
For them thy faith, thy rule I take, and grave it to the last;
Not summer's zones alone--not chants of youth, or south's warm tides alone,
But held by sluggish floes, pack'd in the northern ice, the cumulus
of years,
These with gay heart I also sing.

Broadway:

What hurrying human tides, or day or night!
What passions, winnings, losses, ardors, swim thy waters!
What whirls of evil, bliss and sorrow, stem thee!
What curious questioning glances--glints of love!
Leer, envy, scorn, contempt, hope, aspiration!
Thou portal--thou arena--thou of the myriad long-drawn lines and groups!
(Could but thy flagstones, curbs, facades, tell their inimitable tales;
Thy windows rich, and huge hotels--thy side-walks wide;)
Thou of the endless sliding, mincing, shuffling feet!
Thou, like the parti-colored world itself--like infinite, teeming,
mocking life!
Thou visor'd, vast, unspeakable show and lesson!

To Get the Final Lilt of Songs:

To get the final lilt of songs,
To penetrate the inmost lore of poets--to know the mighty ones,
Job, Homer, Eschylus, Dante, Shakespere, Tennyson, Emerson;
To diagnose the shifting-delicate tints of love and pride and doubt--
to truly understand,
To encompass these, the last keen faculty and entrance-price,
Old age, and what it brings from all its past experiences.

Old Salt Kossabone:

Far back, related on my mother's side,
Old Salt Kossabone, I'll tell you how he died:
(Had been a sailor all his life--was nearly 90--lived with his
married grandchild, Jenny;
House on a hill, with view of bay at hand, and distant cape, and
stretch to open sea;)
The last of afternoons, the evening hours, for many a year his
regular custom,
In his great arm chair by the window seated,
(Sometimes, indeed, through half the day,)
Watching the coming, going of the vessels, he mutters to himself--
And now the close of all:
One struggling outbound brig, one day, baffled for long--cross-tides
and much wrong going,
At last at nightfall strikes the breeze aright, her whole luck veering,
And swiftly bending round the cape, the darkness proudly entering,
cleaving, as he watches,
"She's free--she's on her destination"--these the last words--when
Jenny came, he sat there dead,
Dutch Kossabone, Old Salt, related on my mother's side, far back.

The Dead Tenor:

As down the stage again,
With Spanish hat and plumes, and gait inimitable,
Back from the fading lessons of the past, I'd call, I'd tell and own,
How much from thee! the revelation of the singing voice from thee!
(So firm--so liquid-soft--again that tremulous, manly timbre!
The perfect singing voice--deepest of all to me the lesson--trial
and test of all:)
How through those strains distill'd--how the rapt ears, the soul of
me, absorbing
Fernando's heart, Manrico's passionate call, Ernani's, sweet Gennaro's,
I fold thenceforth, or seek to fold, within my chants transmuting,
Freedom's and Love's and Faith's unloos'd cantabile,
(As perfume's, color's, sunlight's correlation:)
From these, for these, with these, a hurried line, dead tenor,
A wafted autumn leaf, dropt in the closing grave, the shovel'd earth,
To memory of thee.

Continuities:

Nothing is ever really lost, or can be lost,
No birth, identity, form--no object of the world.
Nor life, nor force, nor any visible thing;
Appearance must not foil, nor shifted sphere confuse thy brain.
Ample are time and space--ample the fields of Nature.
The body, sluggish, aged, cold--the embers left from earlier fires,
The light in the eye grown dim, shall duly flame again;
The sun now low in the west rises for mornings and for noons continual;
To frozen clods ever the spring's invisible law returns,
With grass and flowers and summer fruits and corn.

Yonnondio:

A song, a poem of itself--the word itself a dirge,
Amid the wilds, the rocks, the storm and wintry night,
To me such misty, strange tableaux the syllables calling up;
Yonnondio--I see, far in the west or north, a limitless ravine, with
plains and mountains dark,
I see swarms of stalwart chieftains, medicine-men, and warriors,
As flitting by like clouds of ghosts, they pass and are gone in the
twilight,
(Race of the woods, the landscapes free, and the falls!
No picture, poem, statement, passing them to the future:)
Yonnondio! Yonnondio!--unlimn'd they disappear;
To-day gives place, and fades--the cities, farms, factories fade;
A muffled sonorous sound, a wailing word is borne through the air
for a moment,
Then blank and gone and still, and utterly lost.

Life:

Ever the undiscouraged, resolute, struggling soul of man;
(Have former armies fail'd? then we send fresh armies--and fresh again;)
Ever the grappled mystery of all earth's ages old or new;
Ever the eager eyes, hurrahs, the welcome-clapping hands, the loud
applause;
Ever the soul dissatisfied, curious, unconvinced at last;
Struggling to-day the same--battling the same.

"Going Somewhere":

My science-friend, my noblest woman-friend,
(Now buried in an English grave--and this a memory-leaf for her dear sake,)
Ended our talk--"The sum, concluding all we know of old or modern
learning, intuitions deep,
"Of all Geologies--Histories--of all Astronomy--of Evolution,
Metaphysics all,
"Is, that we all are onward, onward, speeding slowly, surely bettering,
"Life, life an endless march, an endless army, (no halt, but it is
duly over,)
"The world, the race, the soul--in space and time the universes,
"All bound as is befitting each--all surely going somewhere."

Small the Theme of My Chant:

Small the theme of my Chant, yet the greatest--namely, One's-Self--
a simple, separate person. That, for the use of the New World, I sing.
Man's physiology complete, from top to toe, I sing. Not physiognomy alone,
nor brain alone, is worthy for the Muse;--I say the Form complete
is worthier far. The Female equally with the Male, I sing.
Nor cease at the theme of One's-Self. I speak the word of the
modern, the word En-Masse.
My Days I sing, and the Lands--with interstice I knew of hapless War.
(O friend, whoe'er you are, at last arriving hither to commence, I
feel through every leaf the pressure of your hand, which I return.
And thus upon our journey, footing the road, and more than once, and
link'd together let us go.)

True Conquerors:

Old farmers, travelers, workmen (no matter how crippled or bent,)
Old sailors, out of many a perilous voyage, storm and wreck,
Old soldiers from campaigns, with all their wounds, defeats and scars;
Enough that they've survived at all--long life's unflinching ones!
Forth from their struggles, trials, fights, to have emerged at all--
in that alone,
True conquerors o'er all the rest.

The United States to Old World Critics:

Here first the duties of to-day, the lessons of the concrete,
Wealth, order, travel, shelter, products, plenty;
As of the building of some varied, vast, perpetual edifice,
Whence to arise inevitable in time, the towering roofs, the lamps,
The solid-planted spires tall shooting to the stars.

The Calming Thought of All:

That coursing on, whate'er men's speculations,
Amid the changing schools, theologies, philosophies,
Amid the bawling presentations new and old,
The round earth's silent vital laws, facts, modes continue.

Thanks in Old Age:

Thanks in old age--thanks ere I go,
For health, the midday sun, the impalpable air--for life, mere life,
For precious ever-lingering memories, (of you my mother dear--you,
father--you, brothers, sisters, friends,)
For all my days--not those of peace alone--the days of war the same,
For gentle words, caresses, gifts from foreign lands,
For shelter, wine and meat--for sweet appreciation,
(You distant, dim unknown--or young or old--countless, unspecified,
readers belov'd,
We never met, and neer shall meet--and yet our souls embrace, long,
close and long;)
For beings, groups, love, deeds, words, books--for colors, forms,
For all the brave strong men--devoted, hardy men--who've forward
sprung in freedom's help, all years, all lands
For braver, stronger, more devoted men--(a special laurel ere I go,
to life's war's chosen ones,
The cannoneers of song and thought--the great artillerists--the
foremost leaders, captains of the soul:)
As soldier from an ended war return'd--As traveler out of myriads,
to the long procession retrospective,
Thanks--joyful thanks!--a soldier's, traveler's thanks.

Life and Death:

The two old, simple problems ever intertwined,
Close home, elusive, present, baffled, grappled.
By each successive age insoluble, pass'd on,
To ours to-day--and we pass on the same.


The Voice of the Rain:

And who art thou? said I to the soft-falling shower,
Which, strange to tell, gave me an answer, as here translated:
I am the Poem of Earth, said the voice of the rain,
Eternal I rise impalpable out of the land and the bottomless sea,
Upward to heaven, whence, vaguely form'd, altogether changed, and
yet the same,
I descend to lave the drouths, atomies, dust-layers of the globe,
And all that in them without me were seeds only, latent, unborn;
And forever, by day and night, I give back life to my own origin,
and make pure and beautify it;
(For song, issuing from its birth-place, after fulfilment, wandering,
Reck'd or unreck'd, duly with love returns.)

Soon Shall the Winter's Foil Be Here:

Soon shall the winter's foil be here;
Soon shall these icy ligatures unbind and melt--A little while,
And air, soil, wave, suffused shall be in softness, bloom and
growth--a thousand forms shall rise
From these dead clods and chills as from low burial graves.

Thine eyes, ears--all thy best attributes--all that takes cognizance
of natural beauty,
Shall wake and fill. Thou shalt perceive the simple shows, the
delicate miracles of earth,
Dandelions, clover, the emerald grass, the early scents and flowers,
The arbutus under foot, the willow's yellow-green, the blossoming
plum and cherry;
With these the robin, lark and thrush, singing their songs--the
flitting bluebird;
For such the scenes the annual play brings on.

While Not the Past Forgetting:

While not the past forgetting,
To-day, at least, contention sunk entire--peace, brotherhood uprisen;
For sign reciprocal our Northern, Southern hands,
Lay on the graves of all dead soldiers, North or South,
(Nor for the past alone--for meanings to the future,)
Wreaths of roses and branches of palm.

The Dying Veteran:

Amid these days of order, ease, prosperity,
Amid the current songs of beauty, peace, decorum,
I cast a reminiscence--(likely 'twill offend you,
I heard it in my boyhood;)--More than a generation since,
A queer old savage man, a fighter under Washington himself,
(Large, brave, cleanly, hot-blooded, no talker, rather spiritualistic,
Had fought in the ranks--fought well--had been all through the
Revolutionary war,)
Lay dying--sons, daughters, church-deacons, lovingly tending him,
Sharping their sense, their ears, towards his murmuring, half-caught words:
"Let me return again to my war-days,
To the sights and scenes--to forming the line of battle,
To the scouts ahead reconnoitering,
To the cannons, the grim artillery,
To the galloping aides, carrying orders,
To the wounded, the fallen, the heat, the suspense,
The perfume strong, the smoke, the deafening noise;
Away with your life of peace!--your joys of peace!
Give me my old wild battle-life again!"

Stronger Lessons:

Have you learn'd lessons only of those who admired you, and were
tender with you, and stood aside for you?
Have you not learn'd great lessons from those who reject you, and
brace themselves against you? or who treat you with contempt,
or dispute the passage with you?

A Prairie Sunset:

Shot gold, maroon and violet, dazzling silver, emerald, fawn,
The earth's whole amplitude and Nature's multiform power consign'd
for once to colors;
The light, the general air possess'd by them--colors till now unknown,
No limit, confine--not the Western sky alone--the high meridian--
North, South, all,
Pure luminous color fighting the silent shadows to the last.

Twenty Years:

Down on the ancient wharf, the sand, I sit, with a new-comer chatting:
He shipp'd as green-hand boy, and sail'd away, (took some sudden,
vehement notion;)
Since, twenty years and more have circled round and round,
While he the globe was circling round and round, --and now returns:
How changed the place--all the old land-marks gone--the parents dead;
(Yes, he comes back to lay in port for good--to settle--has a
well-fill'd purse--no spot will do but this;)
The little boat that scull'd him from the sloop, now held in leash I see,
I hear the slapping waves, the restless keel, the rocking in the sand,
I see the sailor kit, the canvas bag, the great box bound with brass,
I scan the face all berry-brown and bearded--the stout-strong frame,
Dress'd in its russet suit of good Scotch cloth:
(Then what the told-out story of those twenty years? What of the future?)

Orange Buds by Mail from Florida:

A lesser proof than old Voltaire's, yet greater,
Proof of this present time, and thee, thy broad expanse, America,
To my plain Northern hut, in outside clouds and snow,
Brought safely for a thousand miles o'er land and tide,
Some three days since on their own soil live-sprouting,
Now here their sweetness through my room unfolding,
A bunch of orange buds by mall from Florida.

Twilight:

The soft voluptuous opiate shades,
The sun just gone, the eager light dispell'd--(I too will soon be
gone, dispell'd,)
A haze--nirwana--rest and night--oblivion.

You Lingering Sparse Leaves of Me:

You lingering sparse leaves of me on winter-nearing boughs,
And I some well-shorn tree of field or orchard-row;
You tokens diminute and lorn--(not now the flush of May, or July
clover-bloom--no grain of August now;)
You pallid banner-staves--you pennants valueless--you overstay'd of time,
Yet my soul-dearest leaves confirming all the rest,
The faithfulest--hardiest--last.

Not Meagre, Latent Boughs Alone:

Not meagre, latent boughs alone, O songs! (scaly and bare, like
eagles' talons,)
But haply for some sunny day (who knows?) some future spring, some
summer--bursting forth,
To verdant leaves, or sheltering shade--to nourishing fruit,
Apples and grapes--the stalwart limbs of trees emerging--the fresh,
free, open air,
And love and faith, like scented roses blooming.

The Dead Emperor:

To-day, with bending head and eyes, thou, too, Columbia,
Less for the mighty crown laid low in sorrow--less for the Emperor,
Thy true condolence breathest, sendest out o'er many a salt sea mile,
Mourning a good old man--a faithful shepherd, patriot.

As the Greek's Signal Flame:

As the Greek's signal flame, by antique records told,
Rose from the hill-top, like applause and glory,
Welcoming in fame some special veteran, hero,
With rosy tinge reddening the land he'd served,
So I aloft from Mannahatta's ship-fringed shore,
Lift high a kindled brand for thee, Old Poet.

The Dismantled Ship:

In some unused lagoon, some nameless bay,
On sluggish, lonesome waters, anchor'd near the shore,
An old, dismasted, gray and batter'd ship, disabled, done,
After free voyages to all the seas of earth, haul'd up at last and
hawser'd tight,
Lies rusting, mouldering.

Now Precedent Songs, Farewell:

Now precedent songs, farewell--by every name farewell,
(Trains of a staggering line in many a strange procession, waggons,
From ups and downs--with intervals--from elder years, mid-age, or youth,)
"In Cabin'd Ships, or Thee Old Cause or Poets to Come
Or Paumanok, Song of Myself, Calamus, or Adam,
Or Beat! Beat! Drums! or To the Leaven'd Soil they Trod,
Or Captain! My Captain! Kosmos, Quicksand Years, or Thoughts,
Thou Mother with thy Equal Brood," and many, many more unspecified,
From fibre heart of mine--from throat and tongue--(My life's hot
pulsing blood,
The personal urge and form for me--not merely paper, automatic type
and ink,)
Each song of mine--each utterance in the past--having its long, long
history,
Of life or death, or soldier's wound, of country's loss or safety,
(O heaven! what flash and started endless train of all! compared
indeed to that!
What wretched shred e'en at the best of all!)

An Evening Lull:

After a week of physical anguish,
Unrest and pain, and feverish heat,
Toward the ending day a calm and lull comes on,
Three hours of peace and soothing rest of brain.

Old Age's Lambent Peaks:

The touch of flame--the illuminating fire--the loftiest look at last,
O'er city, passion, sea--o'er prairie, mountain, wood--the earth itself,
The airy, different, changing hues of all, in failing twilight,
Objects and groups, bearings, faces, reminiscences;
The calmer sight--the golden setting, clear and broad:
So much i' the atmosphere, the points of view, the situations whence
we scan,
Bro't out by them alone--so much (perhaps the best) unreck'd before;
The lights indeed from them--old age's lambent peaks.

After the Supper and Talk:

After the supper and talk--after the day is done,
As a friend from friends his final withdrawal prolonging,
Good-bye and Good-bye with emotional lips repeating,
(So hard for his hand to release those hands--no more will they meet,
No more for communion of sorrow and joy, of old and young,
A far-stretching journey awaits him, to return no more,)
Shunning, postponing severance--seeking to ward off the last word
ever so little,
E'en at the exit-door turning--charges superfluous calling back--
e'en as he descends the steps,
Something to eke out a minute additional--shadows of nightfall deepening,
Farewells, messages lessening--dimmer the forthgoer's visage and form,
Soon to be lost for aye in the darkness--loth, O so loth to depart!
Garrulous to the very last.