Apostroph
O MATER! O fils! O brood continental! O flowers of the prairies! O space boundless! O hum of mighty products! O you teeming cities! O so invincible, turbulent, proud! O race of the future!
With Antecedents
1 WITH antecedents; With my fathers and mothers, and the accumulations of past ages; With all which, had it not been, I would not now be here, as I am: With Egypt, India, Phenicia,
Dalliance of the Eagles, The
SKIRTING the river road, (my forenoon walk, my rest,) Skyward in air a sudden muffled sound, the dalliance of the eagles, The rushing amorous contact high in space together, The clinching interlocking claws, a
Full of Life, Now
FULL of life, now, compact, visible, I, forty years old the Eighty-third Year of The States, To one a century hence, or any number of centuries hence, To you, yet unborn, these, seeking you.
Base of all Metaphysics, The
AND now, gentlemen, A word I give to remain in your memories and minds, As base, and finale too, for all metaphysics. (So, to the students, the old professor, At the close of his
Assurances
I NEED no assurances-I am a man who is preoccupied, of his own Soul; I do not doubt that from under the feet, and beside the hands and face I am cognizant of, are
Whispers of Heavenly Death
WHISPERS of heavenly death, murmur’d I hear; Labial gossip of night-sibilant chorals; Footsteps gently ascending-mystical breezes, wafted soft and low; Ripples of unseen rivers-tides of a current, flowing, forever flowing; (Or is it the
Chanting the Square Deific
1 CHANTING the square deific, out of the One advancing, out of the sides; Out of the old and new-out of the square entirely divine, Solid, four-sided, (all the sides needed)… from this side
Song of the Exposition
1 AFTER all, not to create only, or found only, But to bring, perhaps from afar, what is already founded, To give it our own identity, average, limitless, free; To fill the gross, the
Gods
1 THOUGHT of the Infinite-the All! Be thou my God. 2 Lover Divine, and Perfect Comrade! Waiting, content, invisible yet, but certain, Be thou my God. 3 Thou-thou, the Ideal Man! Fair, able, beautiful,
To a Stranger
PASSING stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you, You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking, (it comes to me, as of a dream,) I have
Among the Multitude
AMONG the men and women, the multitude, I perceive one picking me out by secret and divine signs, Acknowledging none else-not parent, wife, husband, brother, child, any nearer than I am; Some are baffled-But
When Lilacs Last in the Door-yard Bloom'd
1 WHEN lilacs last in the door-yard 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. O ever-returning spring! trinity sure
Excelsior
WHO has gone farthest? For lo! have not I gone farther? And who has been just? For I would be the most just person of the earth; And who most cautious? For I would
To Oratists
TO oratists-to male or female, Vocalism, measure, concentration, determination, and the divine power to use words. Are you full-lung’d and limber-lipp’d from long trial? from vigorous practice? from physique? Do you move in these