Reconciliation
WORD over all, beautiful as the sky! Beautiful that war, and all its deeds of carnage, must in time be utterly lost; That the hands of the sisters Death and Night, incessantly softly wash
Not Heat Flames up and Consumes
NOT heat flames up and consumes, Not sea-waves hurry in and out, Not the air, delicious and dry, the air of the ripe summer, bears lightly along white down-balls of myriads of seeds, Wafted,
Beginners
HOW they are provided for upon the earth, (appearing at intervals;) How dear and dreadful they are to the earth; How they inure to themselves as much as to any-What a paradox appears their
By the Bivouac's Fitful Flame
BY the bivouac’s fitful flame, A procession winding around me, solemn and sweet and slow;-but first I note, The tents of the sleeping army, the fields’ and woods’ dim outline, The darkness, lit by
I hear it was Charged against Me
I HEAR it was charged against me that I sought to destroy institutions; But really I am neither for nor against institutions; (What indeed have I in common with them?-Or what with the destruction
A Paumanok Picture
TWO boats with nets lying off the sea-beach, quite still, Ten fishermen waiting-they discover a thick school of mossbonkers-they drop the join’d seine-ends in the water, The boats separate and row off, each on
Proud Music of The Storm
1 PROUD music of the storm! Blast that careers so free, whistling across the prairies! Strong hum of forest tree-tops! Wind of the mountains! Personified dim shapes! you hidden orchestras! You serenades of phantoms,
Thou Orb Aloft Full-Dazzling
THOU orb aloft full-dazzling! thou hot October noon! Flooding with sheeny light the gray beach sand, The sibilant near sea with vistas far and foam, And tawny streaks and shades and spreading blue; O
Crossing Brooklyn Ferry
1 FLOOD-TIDE below me! I watch you face to face; Clouds of the west! sun there half an hour high! I see you also face to face. Crowds of men and women attired in
Night on The Prairies
NIGHT on the prairies; The supper is over-the fire on the ground burns low; The wearied emigrants sleep, wrapt in their blankets: I walk by myself-I stand and look at the stars, which I
O You Whom I Often and Silently Come
O YOU whom I often and silently come where you are, that I may be with you; As I walk by your side, or sit near, or remain in the same room with you,
Poem of Joys
1 O TO make the most jubilant poem! Even to set off these, and merge with these, the carols of Death. O full of music! full of manhood, womanhood, infancy! Full of common employments!
Elemental Drifts
1 ELEMENTAL drifts! How I wish I could impress others as you have just been impressing me! As I ebb’d with an ebb of the ocean of life, As I wended the shores I
Thick-Sprinkled Bunting
THICK-SPRINKLED bunting! Flag of stars! Long yet your road, fateful flag!-long yet your road, and lined with bloody death! For the prize I see at issue, at last is the world! All its ships
Out from Behind this Mask
1 OUT from behind this bending, rough-cut Mask, (All straighter, liker Masks rejected-this preferr’d,) This common curtain of the face, contain’d in me for me, in you for you, in each for each, (Tragedies,