When I heard the learn’d astronomer, When the proofs, the figures, were range… When I was shown the charts and diagram… them, When I sitting heard the astronomer whe…
Only themselves understand themselves an… As souls only understand souls.
Oh me! Oh life! of the questions of the… Of the endless trains of the faithless,… Of myself forever reproaching myself, (f… and who more faithless?) Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of…
All you are doing and saying is to Amer… You have not learn’d of Nature—of the p… learn’d the great amplitude, rectitude,… You have not seen that only such as they… And that what is less than they must soo…
I sit and look out upon all the sorrows… oppression and shame; I hear secret convulsive sobs from young… themselves, remorseful after deeds done; I see, in low life, the mother misused b…
What you give me, I cheerfully accept, A little sustenance, a hut and garden, a… rendezvous with my poems; A traveler’s lodging and breakfast as I… Why should I be ashamed to own such gif…
Skirting the river road, (my forenoon wa… Skyward in air a sudden muffled sound, t… The rushing amorous contact high in spac… The clinching interlocking claws, a livi… Four beating wings, two beaks, a swirlin…
Roaming in thought over the Universe, I… steadily hastening towards immortality, And the vast all that is call’d Evil I… and become lost and dead.
Through the ample open door of the peace… A sunlit pasture field with cattle and h… And haze and vista, and the far horizon…
Silent and amazed, even when a little bo… I remember I heard the preacher every S… As contending against some being or infl…
On a flat road runs the well-train’d run… He is lean and sinewy with muscular legs… He is thinly clothed, he leans forward a… With lightly closed fists and arms parti…
Women sit or move to and fro, some old,… The young are beautiful—but the old are…
I see the sleeping babe, nestling the br… mother; The sleeping mother and babe—hush’d, I… long and long.
Of obedience, faith, adhesiveness; As I stand aloof and look there is to m… in large masses of men following the lea… men.
A mask, a perpetual natural disguiser of… Concealing her face, concealing her form… Changes and transformations every hour,… Falling upon her even when she sleeps.
Of justice—as If could be any thing but… As if it might be this thing or that thi…
Gliding o’er all, through all, Through Nature, Time, and Space, As a ship on the waters advancing, The voyage of the soul—not life alone, Death, many deaths I’ll sing.
Hast never come to thee an hour, A sudden gleam divine, precipitating, bu… wealth? These eager business aims—books, politic… To utter nothingness?
Of Equality—as if it harm’d me, giving… rights as myself—as if it were not indis… that others possess the same.
I see in you the estuary that enlarges a… in the great sea.
Locations and times—what is it in me tha… and wherever, and makes me at home? Forms, colors, densities, odors—what is… them?
A thousand perfect men and women appear, Around each gathers a cluster of friends… with offerings.
Why reclining, interrogating? why myself… What deepening twilight-scum floating at… Who are they as bats and night-dogs aska… What a filthy Presidentiad! (O South,… arctic freezings!)
First O songs for a prelude, Lightly strike on the stretch’d tympanum… How she led the rest to arms, how she ga… How at once with lithe limbs unwaiting a… (O superb! O Manhattan, my own, my peer…
Arm’d year—year of the struggle, No dainty rhymes or sentimental love ver… Not you as some pale poetling seated at… But as a strong man erect, clothed in bl… rifle on your shoulder,
Beat! beat! drums!—blow! bugles! blow! Through the windows—through doors—burst… Into the solemn church, and scatter the… Into the school where the scholar is stu… Leave not the bridegroom quiet—no happin…
From Paumanok starting I fly like a bir… Around and around to soar to sing the id… To the north betaking myself to sing the… To Kanada till I absorb Kanada in myse… To Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, to sing…
O A new song, a free song, Flapping, flapping, flapping, flapping,… By the wind’s voice and that of the drum… By the banner’s voice and child’s voice… Low on the ground and high in the air,
Rise O days from your fathomless deeps,… Long for my soul hungering gymnastic I… Long I roam’d amid the woods of the nor… I travel’d the prairies over and slept o… Nevadas, I cross’d the plateaus,
The noble sire fallen on evil days, I saw with hand uplifted, menacing, bran… (Memories of old in abeyance, love and f… The insane knife toward the Mother of A… The noble son on sinewy feet advancing,
City of ships! (O the black ships! O the fierce ships! O the beautiful sharp-bow’d steam-ships… City of the world! (for all races are he… All the lands of the earth make contribu…
(Volunteer of 1861-2, at Washington Par… Centenarian.) Give me your hand old Revolutionary, The hill-top is nigh, but a few steps, (… Up the path you have follow’d me well, s…
A line in long array where they wind bet… They take a serpentine course, their arm… musical clank, Behold the silvery river, in it the spla… Behold the brown-faced men, each group,…
I see before me now a traveling army hal… Below a fertile valley spread, with barn… Behind, the terraced sides of a mountain… Broken, with rocks, with clinging cedars… The numerous camp-fires scatter’d near a…
With its cloud of skirmishers in advance… With now the sound of a single shot snap… irregular volley, The swarming ranks press on and on, the… Glittering dimly, toiling under the sun—…
By the bivouac’s fitful flame, A procession winding around me, solemn a… first I note, The tents of the sleeping army, the fiel… The darkness lit by spots of kindled fir…
Come up from the fields father, here’s a… And come to the front door mother, here’… Lo, ’tis autumn, Lo, where the trees, deeper green, yello… Cool and sweeten Ohio’s villages with l…
Vigil strange I kept on the field one n… When you my son and my comrade dropt at… One look I but gave which your dear eye… never forget, One touch of your hand to mine O boy, r…
A march in the ranks hard-prest, and the… A route through a heavy wood with muffle… Our army foil’d with loss severe, and th… Till after midnight glimmer upon us the… We come to an open space in the woods, a…
ll, and here again he lies.A sight in ca… As from my tent I emerge so early sleep… As slow I walk in the cool fresh air th… Three forms I see on stretchers lying,… Over each the blanket spread, ample brow…
As toilsome I wander’d Virginia’s woods… To the music of rustling leaves kick’d b… I mark’d at the foot of a tree the grave… Mortally wounded he and buried on the re… understand,)
Not the pilot has charged himself to bri… beaten back and many times baffled; Not the pathfinder penetrating inland we… By deserts parch’d, snows chill’d, river… destination,
Year that trembled and reel’d beneath me… Your summer wind was warm enough, yet th… A thick gloom fell through the sunshine… Must I change my triumphant songs? said… Must I indeed learn to chant the cold d…
An old man bending I come among new fac… Years looking backward resuming in answe… Come tell us old man, as from young men… (Arous’d and angry, I’d thought to beat… But soon my fingers fail’d me, my face d…
Long, too long America, Traveling roads all even and peaceful yo… only, But now, ah now, to learn from crises of… with direst fate and recoiling not,
Give me the splendid silent sun with all… Give me autumnal fruit ripe and red from… Give me a field where the unmow’d grass… Give me an arbor, give me the trellis’d… Give me fresh corn and wheat, give me se…
The last sunbeam Lightly falls from the finish’d Sabbath… On the pavement here, and there beyond i… Down a new-made double grave. Lo, the moon ascending,
Over the carnage rose prophetic a voice, Be not dishearten’d, affection shall sol… Those who love each other shall become i… They shall yet make Columbia victorious… Sons of the Mother of All, you shall ye…
I saw old General at bay, (Old as he was, his gray eyes yet shone… His small force was now completely hemm’… He call’d for volunteers to run the enem… I saw a hundred and more step forth from…
While my wife at my side lies slumbering… And my head on the pillow rests at home,… And through the stillness, through the d… of my infant, There in the room as I wake from sleep…
Who are you dusky woman, so ancient hard… With your woolly-white and turban’d head… Why rising by the roadside here, do you… (’Tis while our army lines Carolina’s s… Forth from thy hovel door thou Ethiopia…
Not youth pertains to me, Nor delicatesse, I cannot beguile the t… Awkward in the parlor, neither a dancer… In the learn’d coterie sitting constrain… to me,
Race of veterans—race of victors! Race of the soil, ready for conflict—rac… (No more credulity’s race, abiding-tempe… Race henceforth owning no law but the la… Race of passion and the storm.
World take good notice, silver stars fad… Milky hue ript, wet of white detaching, Coals thirty-eight, baleful and burning, Scarlet, significant, hands off warning, Now and henceforth flaunt from these sho…
O tan-faced prairie-boy, Before you came to camp came many a welc… Praises and presents came and nourishing… You came, taciturn, with nothing to give… When lo! more than all the gifts of the…
Look down fair moon and bathe this scene… Pour softly down night’s nimbus floods o… On the dead on their backs with arms tos… Pour down your unstinted nimbus sacred m…
Word over all, beautiful as the sky, Beautiful that war and all its deeds of… That the hands of the sisters Death and… again, and ever again, this solid world; For my enemy is dead, a man divine as my…
How solemn as one by one, As the ranks returning worn and sweaty,… As the faces the masks appear, as I gla… (As I glance upward out of this page st… you are,)
As I lay with my head in your lap, came… The confession I made I resume—what I… the open air I resume: I know I am restless, and make others s… I know my words are weapons, full of dan…
Delicate cluster! flag of teeming life! Covering all my lands—all my seashores l… Flag of death! (how I watch’d you throu… pressing! How I heard you flap and rustle, cloth…
