1 A CALIFORNIA song! A prophecy and indirection-a thought impalpable, to breathe, as air; A chorus of dryads, fading, departing-or hamadryads departing; A murmuring, fateful, giant voice, out of the earth and sky, Voice

PENSIVE and faltering, The words, the dead, I write; For living are the Dead; (Haply the only living, only real, And I the apparition-I the spectre.) 5

TWO Rivulets side by side, Two blended, parallel, strolling tides, Companions, travelers, gossiping as they journey. For the Eternal Ocean bound, These ripples, passing surges, streams of Death and Life, Object and Subject hurrying,

ONE’S-SELF I sing-a simple, separate Person; Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-masse. Of Physiology from top to toe I sing; Not physiognomy alone, nor brain alone, is worthy for the muse-I say

WEAVE in! weave in, my hardy life! Weave yet a soldier strong and full, for great campaigns to come; Weave in red blood! weave sinews in, like ropes! the senses, sight weave in! Weave

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

SPONTANEOUS me, Nature, The loving day, the mounting sun, the friend I am happy with, The arm of my friend hanging idly over my shoulder, The hill-side whiten’d with blossoms of the mountain ash,

ONE hour to madness and joy! O furious! O confine me not! (What is this that frees me so in storms? What do my shouts amid lightnings and raging winds mean?) O to drink

WHO learns my lesson complete? Boss, journeyman, apprentice-churchman and atheist, The stupid and the wise thinker-parents and offspring-merchant, clerk, porter and customer, Editor, author, artist, and schoolboy-Draw nigh and commence; It is no lesson-it

1 THE last sunbeam Lightly falls from the finish’d Sabbath, On the pavement here-and there beyond, it is looking, Down a new-made double grave. 2 Lo! the moon ascending! Up from the east, the

AGES and ages, returning at intervals, Undestroy’d, wandering immortal, Lusty, phallic, with the potent original loins, perfectly sweet, I, chanter of Adamic songs, Through the new garden, the West, the great cities calling, Deliriate,

ON journeys through the States we start, (Ay, through the world-urged by these songs, Sailing henceforth to every land-to every sea;) We, willing learners of all, teachers of all, and lovers of all. We

AS I walk these broad, majestic days of peace, (For the war, the struggle of blood finish’d, wherein, O terrific Ideal! Against vast odds, having gloriously won, Now thou stridest on-yet perhaps in time

NATIVE moments! when you come upon me-Ah you are here now! Give me now libidinous joys only! Give me the drench of my passions! Give me life coarse and rank! To-day, I go consort

I WILL take an egg out of the robin’s nest in the orchard, I will take a branch of gooseberries from the old bush in the garden, and go and preach to the world;

O MAGNET-SOUTH! O glistening, perfumed South! My South! O quick mettle, rich blood, impulse, and love! Good and evil! O all dear to me! O dear to me my birth-things-All moving things, and the

ROAMING in thought over the Universe, I saw the little that is Good steadily hastening towards immortality, And the vast all that is call’d Evil I saw hastening to merge itself and become lost

1 IN midnight sleep, of many a face of anguish, Of the look at first of the mortally wounded-of that indescribable look; Of the dead on their backs, with arms extended wide, I dream,

TO get betimes in Boston town, I rose this morning early; Here’s a good place at the corner-I must stand and see the show. Clear the way there, Jonathan! Way for the President’s marshal!

OTHERS may praise what they like; But I, from the banks of the running Missouri, praise nothing, in art, or aught else, Till it has well inhaled the atmosphere of this river-also the western

THE prairie-grass dividing-its special odor breathing, I demand of it the spiritual corresponding, Demand the most copious and close companionship of men, Demand the blades to rise of words, acts, beings, Those of the

I DREAM’D in a dream, I saw a city invincible to the attacks of the whole of the rest of the earth; I dream’d that was the new City of Friends; Nothing was greater

1 FIRST, O songs, for a prelude, Lightly strike on the stretch’d tympanum, pride and joy in my city, How she led the rest to arms-how she gave the cue, How at once with

A BATTER’D, wreck’d old man, Thrown on this savage shore, far, far from home, Pent by the sea, and dark rebellious brows, twelve dreary months, Sore, stiff with many toils, sicken’d, and nigh to

A LEAF for hand in hand! You natural persons old and young! You on the Mississippi, and on all the branches and bayous of the Mississippi! You friendly boatmen and mechanics! You roughs! You

POET. O A NEW song, a free song, Flapping, flapping, flapping, flapping, by sounds, by voices clearer, By the wind’s voice and that of the drum, By the banner’s voice, and child’s voice, and

WANDERING at morn, Emerging from the night, from gloomy thoughts-thee in my thoughts, Yearning for thee, harmonious Union! thee, Singing Bird divine! Thee, seated coil’d in evil times, my Country, with craft and black

JOY! shipmate-joy! (Pleas’d to my Soul at death I cry;) Our life is closed-our life begins; The long, long anchorage we leave, The ship is clear at last-she leaps! She swiftly courses from the

YOU who celebrate bygones! Who have explored the outward, the surfaces of the races-the life that has exhibited itself; Who have treated of man as the creature of politics, aggregates, rulers and priests; I,

AS toilsome I wander’d Virginia’s woods, To the music of rustling leaves, kick’d by my feet, (for ’twas autumn,) I mark’d at the foot of a tree the grave of a soldier, Mortally wounded

ONE sweeps by, attended by an immense train, All emblematic of peace-not a soldier or menial among them. One sweeps by, old, with black eyes, and profuse white hair, He has the simple magnificence

AH poverties, wincings, and sulky retreats! Ah you foes that in conflict have overcome me! (For what is my life, or any man’s life, but a conflict with foes-the old, the incessant war?) You

SMALL is the theme of the following Chant, yet the greatest-namely, One’s-Self-that wondrous thing a simple, separate person. That, for the use of the New World, I sing. Man’s physiology complete, from top to

TO thee, old Cause! Thou peerless, passionate, good cause! Thou stern, remorseless, sweet Idea! Deathless throughout the ages, races, lands! After a strange, sad war-great war for thee, (I think all war through time

THERE are who teach only the sweet lessons of peace and safety; But I teach lessons of war and death to those I love, That they readily meet invasions, when they come.

THOU who hast slept all night upon the storm, Waking renew’d on thy prodigious pinions, (Burst the wild storm? above it thou ascended’st, And rested on the sky, thy slave that cradled thee,) Now

1 TO-DAY a rude brief recitative, Of ships sailing the Seas, each with its special flag or ship-signal; Of unnamed heroes in the ships-Of waves spreading and spreading, far as the eye can reach;

, at a ship’s helm, A young steersman, steering with care. A bell through fog on a sea-coast dolefully ringing, An ocean-bell-O a warning bell, rock’d by the waves. O you give good notice

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.

IN the new garden, in all the parts, In cities now, modern, I wander, Though the second or third result, or still further, primitive yet, Days, places, indifferent-though various, the same, Time, Paradise, the

RACE of veterans! Race of victors! Race of the soil, ready for conflict! race of the conquering march! (No more credulity’s race, abiding-temper’d race;) Race henceforth owning no law but the law of itself;

HERE the frailest leaves of me, and yet my strongest-lasting: Here I shade and hide my thoughts-I myself do not expose them, And yet they expose me more than all my other poems.

CITY of ships! (O the black ships! O the fierce ships! O the beautiful, sharp-bow’d steam-ships and sail-ships!) City of the world! (for all races are here; All the lands of the earth make

THINK of the Soul; I swear to you that body of yours gives proportions to your Soul somehow to live in other spheres; I do not know how, but I know it is so.

BEHAVIOR-fresh, native, copious, each one for himself or herself, Nature and the Soul expressed-America and freedom expressed-In it the finest art, In it pride, cleanliness, sympathy, to have their chance, In it physique, intellect,

1 IN cabin’d ships, at sea, The boundless blue on every side expanding, With whistling winds and music of the waves-the large imperious waves-In such, Or some lone bark, buoy’d on the dense marine,

YOU just maturing youth! You male or female! Remember the organic compact of These States, Remember the pledge of the Old Thirteen thenceforward to the rights, life, liberty, equality of man, Remember what was

THAT shadow, my likeness, that goes to and fro, seeking a livelihood, chattering, chaffering; How often I find myself standing and looking at it where it flits; How often I question and doubt whether

1 NOW list to my morning’s romanza-I tell the signs of the Answerer; To the cities and farms I sing, as they spread in the sunshine before me. A young man comes to me

AARM’D year! year of the struggle! No dainty rhymes or sentimental love verses for you, terrible year! Not you as some pale poetling, seated at a desk, lisping cadenzas piano; But as a strong