May-be one is now reading this who… life, Or may-be a stranger is reading th… Or may-be one who meets all my gra… derision,

Arm’d year—year of the struggle, No dainty rhymes or sentimental lo… Not you as some pale poetling seat… But as a strong man erect, clothed… rifle on your shoulder,

When I read the book, the biograp… And is this then (said I) what th… And so will some one when I am de… (As if any man really knew aught o… Why even I myself I often think k…

A newer garden of creation, no pri… Dense, joyous, modern, populous mi… With iron interlaced, composite, t… By all the world contributed—freed… The crown and teeming paradise, so…

Did you ask dulcet rhymes from me? Did you seek the civilian’s peacef… Did you find what I sang erewhile… Why I was not singing erewhile fo… am I now;

With its cloud of skirmishers in a… With now the sound of a single sho… irregular volley, The swarming ranks press on and on… Glittering dimly, toiling under th…

The friendly and flowing savage, w… Is he waiting for civilization, or… Is he some Southwesterner rais’d… Is he from the Mississippi countr… The mountains? prairie-life, bush-…

Out of the rolling ocean the crowd… Whispering, I love you, before lo… I have travell’d a long way merely… For I could not die till I once l… For I fear’d I might afterward lo…

How solemn as one by one, As the ranks returning worn and sw… As the faces the masks appear, as… (As I glance upward out of this p… you are,)

Always our old feuillage! Always Florida’s green peninsula—… Louisiana—always the cotton-fields… Always California’s golden hills… of New Mexico—always soft-breath’…

To-day, with bending head and eyes… Less for the mighty crown laid low… Thy true condolence breathest, sen… Mourning a good old man—a faithful…