"I Sing the Body Electric"  [from "Children of Adam"]

                                 I

   I SING the body electric,
   The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them,
   They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,
   And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the
      soul.

   Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal
      themselves?
   And if those who defile the living are as bad as they who defile the
      dead?
   And if the body does not do fully as much as the soul?
   And if the body were not the soul, what is the soul?

 
                                   2

   The love of the body of man or woman balks account, the body itself
      balks account,
   That of the male is perfect, and that of the female is perfect.

   The expression of the face
      balks account,
   But the expression of a well-made man appears not only in his
      face,
   It is in his limbs and joints also, it is curiously in the joints of
      his hips and wrists,
   It is in his walk, the carriage of his neck, the flex of his waist
      and knees, dress does not hide him,
   The strong sweet quality he has strikes through the cotton and
      broadcloth,
   To see him pass conveys as much as the best poem, perhaps more,
   You linger to see his back, and the back of his neck and
      shoulder-side.

   The sprawl and fulness of babes, the bosoms and heads of women, the
      folds of their dress, their style as we pass in the street, the
      contour of their shape downwards,
   The swimmer naked in the swimming-bath, seen as he swims through
      the transparent green-shine, or lies with his face up and rolls
      silently to and from the heave of the water,
   The bending forward and backward of rowers in row-boats, the
      horse-man in his saddle,
   Girls, mothers, house-keepers, in all their performances,
   The group of laborers seated at noon-time with their open
      dinner-kettles, and their wives waiting,
   The female soothing a child, the farmer's daughter in the garden or
      cow-yard,
   The young fellow hosing corn, the sleigh-driver driving his six
      horses through the crowd,
   The wrestle of wrestlers, two apprentice-boys, quite grown, lusty,
      good-natured, native-born, out on the vacant lot at sundown
      after work,
   The coats and caps thrown down, the embrace of love and resistance,
   The upper-hold and under-hold, the hair rumpled over and blinding
      the eyes;
   The march of firemen in their own costumes, the play of masculine
      muscle through clean-setting trowsers and waist-straps,
   The slow return from the fire, the pause when the bell strikes
      suddenly again, and the listening on the alert,
   The natural, perfect, varied attitudes, the bent head, the curv'd
      neck and the counting;
   Such-like I love- I loosen myself, pass freely, am at the mother's
      breast with the little child,
   Swim with the swimmers, wrestle with wrestlers, march in line with
      the firemen, and pause, listen, count.

 
                                   3

   I knew a man, a common farmer, the father of five sons,
   And in them the fathers of sons, and in them the fathers of sons.
   This man was a wonderful vigor, calmness, beauty of person,
   The shape of his head, the pale yellow and white of his hair and
      beard, the immeasurable meaning of his black eyes, the richness
      and breadth of his manners,
   These I used to go and visit him to see, he was wise also,
   He was six feet tall, he was over eighty years old, his sons were
      massive, clean, bearded, tan-faced, handsome,
   They and his daughters loved him, all who saw him loved him,
   They did not love him by allowance, they loved him with personal
      love,
   He drank water only, the blood show'd like scarlet through the
      clear-brown skin of his face,
   He was a frequent gunner and fisher, he sail'd his boat himself, he
      had a fine one presented to him by a ship-joiner, he had
      fowling-pieces presented to him by men that loved him,
   When he went with his five sons and many grand-sons to hunt or fish,
      you would pick him out as the most beautiful and vigorous of
      the gang,
   You would wish long and long to be with him, you would wish to sit
      by him in the boat that you and he might touch each other.

 
                                   4

   I have perceiv'd that to be with those I like is enough,
   To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough,
   To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is
      enough,
   To pass among them or touch any one, or rest my arm ever so lightly
      round his or her neck for a moment, what is this then?
   I do not ask any more delight, I swim in it as in a sea.

   There is something in staying close to men and women and looking
      on them, and in the contact and odor of them, that pleases
      the soul well,
   All things please the soul, but these please the soul well.

 
                                   5

   This is the female form,
   A divine nimbus exhales from it from head to foot,
   It attracts with fierce undeniable attraction,
   I am drawn by its breath as if I were no more than a helpless vapor,
      all falls aside but myself and it,
   Books, art, religion, time, the visible and solid earth, and what
      was expected of heaven or fear'd of hell, are now consumed,
   Mad filaments, ungovernable shoots play out of it, the response
      likewise ungovernable,
   Hair, bosom, hips, bend of legs, negligent falling hands all
      diffused, mine too diffused,
   Ebb stung by the flow and flow stung by the ebb, love-flesh swelling
      and deliciously aching,
   Limitless limpid jets of love hot and enormous, quivering jelly of
      love, white-blow and delirious nice,
   Bridegroom night of love working surely and softly into the
      prostrate dawn,
   Undulating into the willing and yielding day,
   Lost in the cleave of the clasping and sweet-flesh'd day.

   This the nucleus- after the child is born of woman, man is born of
      woman,
   This the bath of birth, this the merge of small and large, and the
      outlet again.

   Be not ashamed women, your privilege encloses the rest, and is the
      exit of the rest,
   You are the gates of the body, and you are the gates of the soul.

   The female contains all qualities and tempers them,
   She is in her place and moves with perfect balance,
   She is all things duly veil'd, she is both passive and active,
   She is to conceive daughters as well as sons, and sons as well as
      daughters.

   As I see my soul reflected in Nature,
   As I see through a mist, One with inexpressible completeness,
      sanity, beauty,
   See the bent head and arms folded over the breast, the Female I see.

 
                                   6

   The male is not less the soul nor more, he too is in his place,
   He too is all qualities, he is action and power,
   The flush of the known universe is in him,
   Scorn becomes him well, and appetite and defiance become him well,
   The wildest largest passions, bliss that is utmost, sorrow that is
      utmost become him well, pride is for him,
   The full-spread pride of man is calming and excellent to the soul,
   Knowledge becomes him, he likes it always, he brings every thing to
      the test of himself,
   Whatever the survey, whatever the sea and the sail he strikes
      soundings at last only here,
   (Where else does he strike soundings except here?)

   The man's body is sacred and the woman's body is sacred,
   No matter who it is, it is sacred- is it the meanest one in the
      laborers' gang?
   Is it one of the dull-faced immigrants just landed on the wharf?
   Each belongs here or anywhere just as much as the well-off, just as
      much as you,
   Each has his or her place in the procession.

 
   (All is a procession,
   The universe is a procession with measured and perfect motion.)

   Do you know so much yourself that you call the meanest ignorant?
   Do you suppose you have a right to a good sight, and he or she has
      no right to a sight?
   Do you think matter has cohered together from its diffuse float, and
      the soil is on the surface, and water runs and vegetation
      sprouts,
   For you only, and not for him and her?

 
                                   7

   A man's body at auction,
   (For before the war I often go to the slave-mart and watch the
      sale,)
   I help the auctioneer, the sloven does not half know his business.

   Gentlemen look on this wonder,
   Whatever the bids of the bidders they cannot be high enough for it,
   For it the globe lay preparing quintillions of years without one
      animal or plant,
   For it the revolving cycles truly and steadily roll'd.

   In this head the all-baffling brain,
   In it and below it the makings of heroes.

   Examine these limbs, red, black, or white, they are cunning in
      tendon and nerve,
   They shall be stript that you may see them.

   Exquisite senses, life-lit eyes, pluck, volition,
   Flakes of breast-muscle, pliant backbone and neck, flesh not flabby,
      good-sized arms and legs,
   And wonders within there yet.

   Within there runs blood,
   The same old blood! the same red-running blood!
   There swells and jets a heart, there all passions, desires,
      reachings, aspirations,
   (Do you think they are not there because they are not express'd in
      parlors and lecture-rooms?)

 
   This is not only one man, this the father of those who shall be
      fathers in their turns,
   In him the start of populous states and rich republics,
   Of him countless immortal lives with countless embodiments and
      enjoyments.

   How do you know who shall come from the offspring of his offspring
      through the centuries?
   (Who might you find you have come from yourself, if you could trace
      back through the centuries?)

 
                                   8

   A woman's body at auction,
   She too is not only herself, she is the teeming mother of mothers,
   She is the bearer of them that shall grow and be mates to the
      mothers.

   Have you ever loved the body of a woman?
   Have you ever loved the body of a man?
   Do you not see that these are exactly the same to all in all nations
      and times all over the earth?

   If any thing is sacred the human body is sacred,
   And the glory and sweet of a man is the token of manhood untainted,
   And in man or woman a clean, strong, firm-fibred body, is more
      beautiful than the most beautiful face.

   Have you seen the fool that corrupted his own live body? or the fool
      that corrupted her own live body?
   For they do not conceal themselves, and cannot conceal themselves.

 
                                   9

   O my body! I dare not desert the likes of you in other men and
      women, nor the likes of the parts of you,
   I believe the likes of you are to stand or fall with the likes of
      the soul, (and that they are the soul,)
   I believe the likes of you shall stand or fall with my poems, and
      that they are my poems,
   Man's, woman's, child, youth's, wife's, husband's, mother's,
      father's, young man's, young woman's poems,
   Head, neck, hair, ears, drop and tympan of the ears,
   Eyes, eye-fringes, iris of the eye, eyebrows, and the waking or
      sleeping of the lids,
   Mouth, tongue, lips, teeth, roof of the mouth, jaws, and the
      jaw-hinges,
   Nose, nostrils of the nose, and the partition,
   Cheeks, temples, forehead, chin, throat, back of the neck,
      neck-slue,
   Strong shoulders, manly beard, scapula, hind-shoulders, and the
      ample side-round of the chest,
   Upper-arm, armpit, elbow-socket, lower-arm, arm-sinews, arm-bones,
   Wrist and wrist-joints, hand, palm, knuckles, thumb, forefinger,
      finger-joints, finger-nails,
   Broad breast-front, curling hair of the breast, breast-bone,
      breast-side,
   Ribs, belly, backbone, joints of the backbone,
   Hips, hip-sockets, hip-strength, inward and outward round,
      man-balls, man-root,
   Strong set of thighs, well carrying the trunk above,
   Leg-fibres, knee, knee-pan, upper-leg, under-leg,
   Ankles, instep, foot-ball, toes, toe-joints, the heel;
   All attitudes, all the shapeliness, all the belongings of my or your
      body or of any one's body, male or female,
   The lung-sponges, the stomach-sac, the bowels sweet and clean,
   The brain in its folds inside the skull-frame,
   Sympathies, heart-valves, palate-valves, sexuality, maternity,
   Womanhood, and all that is a woman, and the man that comes from
      woman,
   The womb, the teats, nipples, breast-milk, tears, laughter, weeping,
      love-looks, love-perturbations and risings,
   The voice, articulation, language, whispering, shouting aloud,
   Food, drink, pulse, digestion, sweat, sleep, walking, swimming,
   Poise on the hips, leaping, reclining, embracing, arm-curving and
      tightening,
   The continual changes of the flex of the mouth, and around the eyes,
   The skin, the sunburnt shade, freckles, hair,
   The curious sympathy one feels when feeling with the hand the naked
      meat of the body,
   The circling rivers the breath, and breathing it in and out,
   The beauty of the waist, and thence of the hips, and thence downward
      toward the knees,
   The thin red jellies within you or within me, the bones and the
      marrow in the bones,
   The exquisite realization of health;
   O I say these are not the parts and poems of the body only, but of
      the soul,
   O I say now these are the soul!

"In Paths Untrodden" [from "Calamus"]

   IN paths untrodden,
   In the growth by margins of pond-waters,
   Escaped from the lite that exhibits itself,
   From all the standards hitherto publish'd, from the pleasures,
      profits, conformities,
   Which too long I was offering to feed my soul,
   Clear to me now standards not yet publish'd, clear to me that my
      soul,
   That the soul of the man I speak for rejoices in comrades,
   Here by myself away from the clank of the world,
   Tallying and talk'd to here by tongues aromatic,
   No longer abash'd, (for in this secluded spot I can respond as I
      would not dare elsewhere,)
   Strong upon me the life that does not exhibit itself, yet contains
      all the rest,
   Resolv'd to sing no songs to-day but those of manly attachment,
   Projecting them along that substantial life,
   Bequeathing hence types of athletic love,
   Afternoon this delicious Ninth-month in my forty-first year,
   I proceed for all who are or have been young men,
   To tell the secret my nights and days,
   To celebrate the need of comrades.

"Whoever You Are Holding Me Now in Hand" [from "Calamus"]

   WHOEVER you are holding me now in hand,
   Without one thing all will be useless,
   I give you fair warning before you attempt me further,
   I am not what you supposed, but far different.

   Who is he that would become my follower?
   Who would sign himself a candidate for my affections?

   The way is suspicious, the result uncertain, perhaps destructive,
   You would have to give up all else, I alone would expect to be your
      sole and exclusive standard,
   Your novitiate would even then be long and exhausting,
   The whole past theory of your life and all conformity to the lives
      around you would have to be abandon'd,
   Therefore release me now before troubling yourself any further, let
      go your hand from my shoulders,
   Put me down and depart on your way.

   Or else by stealth in some wood for trial,
   Or back of a rock in the open air,
   (For in any roof'd room of a house I emerge not, nor in company,
   And in libraries I lie as one dumb, a gawk, or unborn, or dead,)
   But just possibly with you on a high hill, first watching lest any
      person for miles around approach unawares,
   Or possibly with you sailing at sea, or on the beach of the sea or
      some quiet island,
   Here to put your lips upon mine I permit you,
   With the comrade's long-dwelling kiss or the new husband's kiss,
   For I am the new husband and I am the comrade.

   Or if you will, thrusting me beneath your clothing,
   Where I may feel the throbs of your heart or rest upon your hip,
   Carry me when you go forth over land or sea;
   For thus merely touching you is enough, is best,
   And thus touching you would I silently sleep and be carried
      eternally.

   But these leaves conning you con at peril,
   For these leaves and me you will not understand,
   They will elude you at first and still more afterward, I will
      certainly elude you.
   Even while you should think you had unquestionably caught me, behold!
   Already you see I have escaped from you.

   For it is not for what I have put into it that I have written this
      book,
   Nor is it by reading it you will acquire it,
   Nor do those know me best who admire me and vauntingly praise me,
   Nor will the candidates for my love (unless at most a very few)
      prove victorious,
   Nor will my poems do good only, they will do just as much evil,
      perhaps more,
   For all is useless without that which you may guess at many times
      and not hit, that which I hinted at;
   Therefore release me and depart on your way.
 

"Beat! Beat! Drums!" [from "Drum-Taps"]

   BEAT! beat! drums!-blow! bugles! blow!
   Through the windows-through doors-burst like a ruthless force,
   Into the solemn church, and scatter the congregation,
   Into the school where the scholar is studying;
   Leave not the bridegroom quiet-no happiness must he have now with
      his bride,
   Nor the peaceful farmer any peace, ploughing his field or gathering
      his grain,
   So fierce you whirr and pound you drums-so shrill you bugles blow.

   Beat! beat! drums!-blow! bugles! blow!
   Over the traffic of cities-over the rumble of wheels in the streets;
   Are beds prepared for sleepers at night in the houses? no sleepers
      must sleep in those beds,
   No bargainers' bargains by day-no brokers or speculators-would
      they continue?
   Would the talkers be talking? would the singer attempt to sing?
   Would the lawyer rise in the court to state his case before the
      judge?
   Then rattle quicker, heavier drums-you bugles wilder blow.

   Beat! beat! drums!-blow! bugles! blow!
   Make no parley-stop for no expostulation,
   Mind not the timid-mind not the weeper or prayer,
   Mind not the old man beseeching the young man,
   Let not the child's voice be heard, nor the mother's entreaties,
   Make even the trestles to shake the dead where they lie awaiting the
      hearses,
   So strong you thump O terrible drums-so loud you bugles blow.

"Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night" [from "Drum-Taps"]

   VIGIL strange I kept on the field one night;
   When you my son and my comrade dropt at my side that day,
   One look I but gave which your dear eyes return'd with a look I
      shall never forget,
   One touch of your hand to mine O boy, reach'd up as you lay on the
      ground,
   Then onward I sped in the battle, the even-contested battle,
   Till late in the night reliev'd to the place at last again I made my
      way,
   Found you in death so cold dear comrade, found your body son of
      responding kisses, (never again on earth responding,)
   Bared your face in the starlight, curious the scene, cool blew the
      moderate night-wind,
   Long there and then in vigil I stood, dimly around me the
      battlefield spreading,
   Vigil wondrous and vigil sweet there in the fragrant silent night,
   But not a tear fell, not even a long-drawn sigh, long, long I gazed,
   Then on the earth partially reclining sat by your side leaning my
      chin in my hands,
   Passing sweet hours, immortal and mystic hours with you dearest
      comrade- not a tear, not a word,
   Vigil of silence, love and death, vigil for you my son and my
      soldier,
   As onward silently stars aloft, eastward new ones upward stole,
   Vigil final for you brave boy, (I could not save you, swift was your
      death,
   I faithfully loved you and cared for you living, I think we shall
      surely meet again,)
   Till at latest lingering of the night, indeed just as the dawn
      appear'd,
   My comrade I wrapt in his blanket, envelop'd well his form,
   Folded the blanket well, tucking it carefully over head and
      carefully under feet,
   And there and then and bathed by the rising sun, my son in his
      grave, in his rude-dug grave I deposited,
   Ending my vigil strange with that, vigil of night and battle-field
      dim,
   Vigil for boy of responding kisses, (never again on earth
      responding,)
   Vigil for comrade swiftly slain, vigil I never forget, how as day
      brighten'd,
   I rose from the chill ground and folded my soldier well in his
      blanket,
   And buried him where he fell.

"Year That Trembled and Reel’d Beneath Me" [from "Drum-Taps"]

   YEAR that trembled and reel'd beneath me!
   Your summer wind was warm enough, yet the air I breathed froze me,
   A thick gloom fell through the sunshine and darken'd me,
   Must I change my triumphant songs? said I to myself,
   Must I indeed learn to chant the cold dirges of the baffled?
   And sullen hymns of defeat?

"When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d" [from "Memories of President Lincoln"]

                                   I

   WHEN lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd,
   And the great star early droop'd in the western sky in the night,
   I mourn'd, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.

   Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring,
   Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west,
   And thought of him I love.

 
                                   2

   O powerful western fallen star!
   O shades of night- O moody, tearful night!
   O great star disappear'd- O the black murk that hides the star!
   O cruel hands that hold me powerless- O helpless soul of me!
   O harsh surrounding cloud that will not free my soul.

 
                                   3

   In the dooryard fronting an old farm-house near the white-wash'd
      palings,
   Stands the lilac-bush tall-growing with heart-shaped leaves of rich
      green,
   With many a pointed blossom rising delicate, with the perfume strong
      I love,
   With every leaf a miracle- and from this bush in the dooryard,
   With delicate-color'd blossoms and heart-shaped leaves of rich green,
   A sprig with its flower I break.

 
                                    4

   In the swamp in secluded recesses,
   A shy and hidden bird is warbling a song.

   Solitary the thrush,
   The hermit withdrawn to himself, avoiding the settlements,
   Sings by himself a song.

   Song of the bleeding throat,
   Death's outlet song of life, (for well dear brother I know,
   If thou wast not granted to sing thou wouldist surely die.)

 
                                    5

   Over the breast of the spring, the land, amid cities,
   Amid lanes and through old woods, where lately the violets peep'd
      from the ground, spotting the gray debris,
   Amid the grass in the fields each side of the lanes, passing the
      endless grass,
   Passing the yellow-spear'd wheat, every grain from its shroud in the
      dark-brown fields uprisen,
   Passing the apple-tree blows of white and pink in the orchards,
   Carrying a corpse to where it shall rest in the grave,
   Night and day journeys a coffin.

 
                                    6

   Coffin that passes through lanes and streets,
   Through day and night with the great cloud darkening the land,
   With the pomp of the inloop'd flags with the cities draped in black,
   With the show of the States themselves as of crape-veil'd women
      standing,
   With processions long and winding and the flambeaus of the night,
   With the countless torches lit, with the silent sea of faces and the
      unbared heads,
   With the waiting depot, the arriving coffin, and the sombre faces,
   With dirges through the night, with the thousand voices rising
      strong and solemn,
   With all the mournful voices of the dirges pour'd around the coffin,
   The dim-lit churches and the shuddering organs-where amid these
      you journey,
   With the tolling tolling bells' perpetual clang,
   Here, coffin that slowly passes,
   I give you my sprig of lilac.

 
                                   7

   (Nor for you, for one alone,
   Blossoms and branches green to coffins all I bring,
   For fresh as the morning, thus would I chant a song for you O sane
      and sacred death.

   All over bouquets of roses,
   O death, I cover you over with roses and early lilies,
   But mostly and now the lilac that blooms the first,
   Copious I break, I break the sprigs from the bushes,
   With loaded arms I come, pouring for you,
   For you and the coffins all of you O death.)

 
                                   8

   O western orb sailing the heaven,
   Now I know what you must have meant as a month since I walk'd,
   As I walk'd in silence the transparent shadowy night,
   As I saw you had something to tell as you bent to me night after
      night,
   As you droop'd from the sky low down as if to my side, (while the
      other stars all look'd on,)
   As we wander'd together the solemn night, (for something I know not
      what kept me from sleep,)
   As the night advanced, and I saw on the rim of the west how full you
      were of woe,
   As I stood on the rising ground in the breeze in the cool
      transparent night,
   As I watch'd where you pass'd and was lost in the netherward black
      of the night,
   As my soul in its trouble dissatisfied sank, as where you sad orb,
   Concluded, dropt in the night, and was gone.

 
                                   9

   Sing on there in the swamp,
   O singer bashful and tender, I hear your notes, I hear your call,
   I hear, I come presently, I understand you,
   But a moment I linger, for the lustrous star has detain'd me,
   The star my departing comrade holds and detains me.

                                   10

   O how shall I warble myself for the dead one there I loved?
   And how shall I deck my song for the large sweet soul that has gone?
   And what shall my perfume be for the grave of him I love?

   Sea-winds blown from east and west,
   Blown from the Eastern sea and blown from the Western sea, till
      there on the prairies meeting,
   These and with these and the breath of my chant,
   I'll perfume the grave of him I love.

 
                                   11

   O what shall I hang on the chamber walls?
   And what shall the pictures be that I hang on the walls,
   To adorn the burial-house of him I love?
   Pictures of growing spring and farms and homes,
   With the Fourth-month eve at sundown, and the gray smoke lucid and
      bright,
   With floods of the yellow gold of the gorgeous, indolent, sinking
      sun, burning, expanding the air,
   With the fresh sweet herbage under foot, and the pale green leaves
      of the trees prolific,
   In the distance the flowing glaze, the breast of the river, with a
      wind-dapple here and there,
   With ranging hills on the banks, with many a line against the sky,
      and shadows,
   And the city at hand with dwellings so dense, and stacks of
      chimneys,
   And all the scenes of life and the workshops, and the workmen
      homeward returning.

 
                                   12

   Lo, body and soul- this land,
   My own Manhattan with spires, and the sparkling and hurrying tides,
      and the ships,
   The varied and ample land, the South and the North in the light,
      Ohio's shores and flashing Missouri,
   And ever the far-spreading prairies cover'd with grass and corn.

   Lo, the most excellent sun so calm and haughty,
   The violet and purple morn with just-felt breezes,
   The gentle soft-born measureless light
   The miracle spreading bathing all, the fulfill'd noon,
   The coming eve delicious, the welcome night and the stars,
   Over my cities shining all, enveloping man and land.

 
                                   13

   Sing on, sing on you gray-brown bird,
   Sing from the swamps, the recesses, pour your chant from the bushes,
   Limitless out of the dusk, out of the cedars and pines.

   Sing on dearest brother, warble your reedy song,
   Loud human song, with voice of uttermost woe.

   O liquid and free and tender!
   O wild and loose to my soul- O wondrous singer!
   You only I hear- yet the star holds me, (but will soon depart,)
   Yet the lilac with mastering odor holds me.

 
                                   14

   Now while I sat in the day and look'd forth,
   In the close of the day with its light and the fields of spring, and
      the farmers preparing their crops,
   In the large unconscious scenery of my land with its lakes and
      forests,
   In the heavenly aerial beauty, (after the perturb'd winds and the
      storms,)
   Under the arching heavens of the afternoon swift passing, and the
      voices of children and women,
   The many-moving sea-tides, and I saw the ships how they sail'd,
   And the summer approaching with richness, and the fields all busy
      with labor,
   And the infinite separate houses, how they all went on, each with
      its meals and minutia of daily usages,
   And the streets how their throbbings throbb'd, and the cities pent-
      lo, then and there,
   Falling upon them all and among them all, enveloping me with the
      rest,
   Appear'd the cloud, appear'd the long black trail,
   And I knew death, its thought, and the sacred knowledge of death.

   Then with the knowledge of death as walking one side of me,
   And the thought of death close-walking the other side of me,
   And I in the middle as with companions, and as holding the hands of
      companions,
   I fled forth to the hiding receiving night that talks not,
   Down to the shores of the water, the path by the swamp in the
      dimness,
   To the solemn shadowy cedars and ghostly pines so still.

   And the singer so shy to the rest receiv'd me,
   The gray-brown bird I know receiv'd us comrades three,
   And he sang the carol of death, and a verse for him I love.

   From deep secluded recesses,
   From the fragrant cedars and the ghostly pines so still,
   Came the carol of the bird.

   And the charm of the carol rapt me,
   As I held as if by their hands my comrades in the night,
   And the voice of my spirit tallied the song of the bird.

   Come lovely and soothing death,
   Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving,
   In the day, in the night, to all, to each,
   Sooner or later delicate death.

   Prais'd be the fathomless universe,
   For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious,
   And for love, sweet love- but praise! praise! praise!
   For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding death.

   Dark mother always gliding near with soft feet,
   Have none chanted for thee a chant of fullest welcome?
   Then I chant it for thee, I glorify thee above all,
   I bring thee a song that when thou must indeed come, come
      unfalteringly.

   Approach strong deliveress,
   When it is so, when thou hast taken them I joyously sing the dead,
   Lost in the loving floating ocean of thee,
   Laved in the flood of thy bliss O death.

   From me to thee glad serenades,
   Dances for thee I propose saluting thee, adornments and feastings
      for thee,
   And the sights of the open landscape and the high-spread shy are
      fitting,
   And life and the fields, and the huge and thoughtful night.

   The night in silence under many a star,
   The ocean shore and the husky whispering wave whose voice I know,
   And the soul turning to thee O vast and well-veil'd death,
   And the body gratefully nestling close to thee.

   Over the tree-tops I float thee a song,
   Over the rising and sinking waves, over the myriad fields and the
      prairies wide,
   Over the dense-pack'd cities all and the teeming wharves and ways,
   I float this carol with joy, with joy to thee O death.

 
                                  15

   To the tally of my soul,
   Loud and strong kept up the gray-brown bird,
   With pure deliberate notes spreading filling the night.

   Loud in the pines and cedars dim,
   Clear in the freshness moist and the swamp-perfume,
   And I with my comrades there in the night.

   While my sight that was bound in my eyes unclosed,
   As to long panoramas of visions.

   And I saw askant the armies,
   I saw as in noiseless dreams hundreds of battle-flags,
   Borne through the smoke of the battles and pierc'd with missiles I
      saw them,
   And carried hither and yon through the smoke, and torn and bloody,
   And at last but a few shreds left on the staffs, (and all in
      silence,)
   And the staffs all splinter'd and broken.

   I saw battle-corpses, myriads of them,
   And the white skeletons of young men, I saw them,
   I saw the debris and debris of all the slain soldiers of the war,
   But I saw they were not as was thought,
   They themselves were fully at rest, they suffer'd not,
   The living remain'd and suffer'd, the mother suffer'd,
   And the wife and the child and the musing comrade suffer'd,
   And the armies that remain'd suffer'd.

 
                                  16

   Passing the visions, passing the night,
   Passing, unloosing the hold of my comrades' hands,
   Passing the song of the hermit bird and the tallying song of my
      soul,
   Victorious song, death's outlet song, yet varying ever-altering
      song,
   As low and wailing, yet clear the notes, rising and falling,
      flooding the night,
   Sadly sinking and fainting, as warning and warning, and yet again
      bursting with joy,
   Covering the earth and filling the spread of the heaven,
   As that powerful psalm in the night I heard from recesses,
   Passing, I leave thee lilac with heart-shaped leaves,
   I leave thee there in the door-yard, blooming, returning with
      spring.

   I cease from my song for thee,
   From my gaze on thee in the west, fronting the west, communing with
      thee,
   O comrade lustrous with silver face in the night.

   Yet each to keep and all, retrievements out of the night,
   The song, the wondrous chant of the gray-brown bird,
   And the tallying chant, the echo arous'd in my soul,
   With the lustrous and drooping star with the countenance full of
      woe,
   With the holders holding my hand nearing the call of the bird,
   Comrades mine and I in the midst, and their memory ever to keep, for
      the dead I loved so well,
   For the sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and lands-and this for
      his dear sake,
   Lilac and star and bird twined with the chant of my soul,
   There in the fragrant pines and the cedars dusk and dim.