by Walt Whitman
All its ships and shores I see, interwoven with your threads, greedy banner!
—Dream’d again the flags of kings, highest borne, to flaunt unrivall’d?
O hasten, flag of man! O with sure and steady step, passing highest flags of kings,
Walk supreme to the heavens, mighty symbol—run up above them all,
Flag of stars! thick sprinkled bunting!
Old Ireland
Far hence, amid an isle of wondrous beauty,
Crouching over a grave, an ancient sorrowful mother,*
Once a queen—now lean and tatter’d, seated on the ground,
Her old white hair drooping dishevel’d round her shoulders;
At her feet fallen an unused royal harp,*
Long silent—she too long silent—mourning her shrouded hope and heir;
Of all the earth her heart most full of sorrow, because most full of love.
Yet a word, ancient mother;
You need crouch there no longer on the cold ground, with forehead between your knees;
O you need not sit there, veil’d in your old white hair, so dishevel’d;
For know you, the one you mourn is not in that grave;
It was an illusion—the heir, the son you love, was not really dead;
The Lord is not dead—he is risen again, young and strong, in another country;
Even while you wept there by your fallen harp, by the grave,
What you wept for, was translated, pass’d from the grave,
The winds favor’d, and the sea sail’d it,
And now with rosy and new blood,
Moves to-day in a new country.*
Look down fair moon
Look down, fair moon, and bathe this scene;*
Pour softly down night’s nimbus floods, on faces ghastly, swollen, purple;*
On the dead, on their backs, with their arms toss’d wide,
Pour down your unstinted nimbus, sacred moon.
Out of the rolling ocean, the crowd
1
Out of the rolling ocean, the crowd, came a drop gently to me,
Whispering, I love you, before long I die,
I have travel’d a long way, merely to look on you, to touch you,
For I could not die till I once look’d on you,
For I fear’d I might afterward lose you.
2
(Now we have met, we have look’d, we are safe;
Return in peace to the ocean my love;
I too am part of that ocean, my love—we are not so much separated;
Behold the great rondure—the cohesion of all, how perfect!
But as for me, for you, the irresistible sea is to separate us,
As for an hour carrying us diverse—yet cannot carry us diverse for ever;
Be not impatient—a little space—know you, I salute the air, the ocean and the land,
Every day, at sundown, for your dear sake, my love.)
World, take good notice
World, take good notice, silver stars fading,
Milky hue ript, weft of white detaching,
Coals thirty-six, baleful and burning,
Scarlet, significant, hands off warning,
Now and henceforth flaunt from these shores.
I saw old General at bay
I saw old General at bay;
(Old as he was, his grey eyes yet shone out in battle like stars;)
His small force was now completely hemmed in, in his works;
He call’d for volunteers to run the enemy’s lines—a desperate emergency;
I saw a hundred and more step forth from the ranks—but two or three were selected;
I saw them receive their orders aside—they listen’d with care—the adjutant was very grave;
I saw them depart with cheerfulness, freely risking their lives.
Others may praise what they like
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 breathed well the atmosphere of this river—also the western prairie-scent,
And fully exudes it again.*
Solid, ironical, rolling orb
Solid, ironical, rolling orb!
Master of all, and matter of fact!—at last I accept your terms;
Bringing to practical, vulgar tests, of all my ideal dreams,
And of me, as lover and hero.
Hush’d be the camps to-day
A. L. Buried April 19, 1865
Hush’d be the camps to-day;
And, soldiers, let us drape our war-worn weapons;
And each, with musing soul retire, to celebrate,
Our dear commander’s death.
No more for him life’s stormy conflicts;
Nor victory, nor defeat—No more time’s dark events,
Charging like ceaseless clouds across the sky.
But sing, poet, in our name;
Sing of the love we bore him—because you, dweller in camps, know it truly.
Sing, to the lower’d coffin there;
Sing, with the shovel’d clods that fill the grave—a verse,
For the heavy hearts of soldiers.
Weave in, weave in, my hardy life
Weave in! weave in, my hardy life!*
Weave, weave 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 lasting sure! weave day and night the weft, the warp! incessant weave! tire not!
(We know not what the use, O life! nor know the aim, the end—nor really aught we know;
But know the work, the need goes on, and shall go on—the death-envelop’d march of peace as well as war, goes on;)
For great campaigns of peace the same, the wiry threads to weave;*
We know not why or what, yet weave, forever weave.
Turn O Libertad
Turn, O Libertad, no more doubting;
Turn from lands retrospective, recording proofs of the past;
From the singers that sing the trailing glories of the past;
From the chants of the feudal world—the triumphs of kings, slavery, caste;
Turn to the world, the triumphs reserv’d and to come—give up that backward world;
Leave to the singers of hitherto—give them the trailing past:
But what remains, remains for singers for you—wars to come are for you;
(Lo! how the wars of the past have duly inured to you—and the wars of the present shall also inure:)
—Then turn, and be not alarm’d, O Libertad—turn your undying face,
To where the future, greater than all the past,
Is swiftly, surely preparing for you.
Bivouac on a mountain side
I see before me now, a traveling army halting;
Below, a fertile valley spread, with barns, and the orchards of summer;
Behind, the terraced sides of a mountain, abrupt in places, rising high;
Broken, with rocks, with clinging cedars, with tall shapes, dingily seen;
The numerous camp-fires scatter’d near and far, some away up on the mountain;
The shadowy forms of men and horses, looming, large sized, flickering;
And over all, the sky—the sky! far, far out of reach, studded with the eternal stars.
Pensive on her dead gazing, I heard the mother of all
Pensive, on her dead gazing, I heard the Mother of All,
Desperate, on the torn bodies, on the forms covering the battle-fields gazing;
As she call’d to her earth with mournful voice while she stalk’d:
Absorb them well, O my earth, she cried—I charge you, lose not my sons! lose not an atom;
And you streams, absorb them well, taking their dear blood;
And you local spots, and you airs that swim above lightly,
And all you essences of soil and growth—and you, O my rivers’ depths;
And you mountain sides—and the woods where my dear children’s blood, trickling, redden’d;*
And you trees, down in your roots, to bequeath to all future trees,
My dead absorb—my young men’s beautiful bodies absorb—and their precious, precious, precious blood;*
Which holding in trust for me, faithfully back again give me, many a year hence,
In unseen essence and odor of surface and grass, centuries hence;
In blowing airs from the fields, back again give me my darlings—give my immortal heroes;
Exhale me them centuries hence—breathe me their breath—let not an atom be lost;
O years and graves! O air and soil! O my dead, an aroma sweet!
Exhale them perennial, sweet death, years, centuries hence.*
Not youth pertains to me
Not youth pertains to me,
Nor delicatesse—I cannot beguile the time with talk;
Awkward in the parlor, neither a dancer nor elegant;
In the learn’d coterie sitting constrain’d and still—for learning inures not to me;
Beauty, knowledge, fortune, inure not to me—yet there are two things inure to me;
I have nourish’d the wounded, and sooth’d many a dying soldier;
And at intervals I have strung together a few songs,
Fit for war, and the life of the camp.
FINIS
Sequel to Drum-Taps
(Since the preceding came from the Press)
When Lilacs last in the door-yard bloom’d and other poems
(Washington, 1965–6)143
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 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 blank 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 door-yard 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 door-yard,
With its 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 gifted to sing, thou would’st 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 uprising;*
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 we walk’d,*
As we walk’d up and down in the dark blue so mystic,
As we 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, ere you went, 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 comrade, departing, 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 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 again
st 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!
Mighty 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 farmer preparing his 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,