O Captain! My Captain!
1 O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done; The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won; The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
Unfolded Out of the Folds
UNFOLDED out of the folds of the woman, man comes unfolded, and is always to come unfolded; Unfolded only out of the superbest woman of the earth, is to come the superbest man of
Locations and Times
LOCATIONS and times-what is it in me that meets them all, whenever and wherever, and makes me at home? Forms, colors, densities, odors-what is it in me that corresponds with them?
These, I, Singing in Spring
THESE, I, singing in spring, collect for lovers, (For who but I should understand lovers, and all their sorrow and joy? And who but I should be the poet of comrades?) Collecting, I traverse
Bathed in War's Perfume
BATHED in war’s perfume-delicate flag! (Should the days needing armies, needing fleets, come again,) O to hear you call the sailors and the soldiers! flag like a beautiful woman! O to hear the tramp,
Warble for Lilac-Time
WARBLE me now, for joy of Lilac-time, Sort me, O tongue and lips, for Nature’s sake, and sweet life’s sake-and death’s the same as life’s, Souvenirs of earliest summer-birds’ eggs, and the first berries;
So Long
1 TO conclude-I announce what comes after me; I announce mightier offspring, orators, days, and then, for the present, depart. I remember I said, before my leaves sprang at all, I would raise my
Turn, O Libertad
TURN, O Libertad, for the war is over, (From it and all henceforth expanding, doubting no more, resolute, sweeping the world,) Turn from lands retrospective, recording proofs of the past; From the singers that
Last Invocation, The
1 AT the last, tenderly, From the walls of the powerful, fortress’d house, From the clasp of the knitted locks-from the keep of the well-closed doors, Let me be wafted. 2 Let me glide
Respondez!
RESPONDEZ! Respondez! (The war is completed-the price is paid-the title is settled beyond recall;) Let every one answer! let those who sleep be waked! let none evade! Must we still go on with our
You Felons on Trial in Courts
YOU felons on trial in courts; You convicts in prison-cells-you sentenced assassins, chain’d and hand-cuff’d with iron; Who am I, too, that I am not on trial, or in prison? Me, ruthless and devilish
Singer in the Prison, The
1 O sight of shame, and pain, and dole! O fearful thought-a convict Soul! RANG the refrain along the hall, the prison, Rose to the roof, the vaults of heaven above, Pouring in floods
Yet, Yet, Ye Downcast Hours
1 YET, yet, ye downcast hours, I know ye also; Weights of lead, how ye clog and cling at my ankles! Earth to a chamber of mourning turns-I hear the o’erweening, mocking voice, Matter
Fast Anchor'd, Eternal, O Love
FAST-ANCHOR’D, eternal, O love! O woman I love! O bride! O wife! more resistless than I can tell, the thought of you! -Then separate, as disembodied, or another born, Ethereal, the last athletic reality,
All is Truth
O ME, man of slack faith so long! Standing aloof-denying portions so long; Only aware to-day of compact, all-diffused truth; Discovering to-day there is no lie, or form of lie, and can be none,