Chapter 3 of 7 · 3983 words · ~20 min read

Part 3

All gather and all harvest, Yet but for thee O Powerful, not a scythe might swing as now in security, Not a maize-stalk dangle as now its silken tassels in peace.

Under thee only they harvest, even but a wisp of hay under thy great face only, Harvest the wheat of Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin, every barbed spear under thee, Harvest the maize of Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, each ear in its light-green sheath, Gather the hay to its myriad mows in the odorous tranquil barns, Oats to their bins, the white potato, the buckwheat of Michigan, to theirs; Gather the cotton in Mississippi or Alabama, dig and hoard the golden the sweet potato of Georgia and the Carolinas, Clip the wool of California or Pennsylvania, Cut the flax in the Middle States, or hemp or tobacco in the Borders, Pick the pea and the bean, or pull apples from the trees or bunches of grapes from the vines, Or aught that ripens in all these States or North or South, Under the beaming sun and under thee.

MEMORIES OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN

WHEN LILACS LAST IN THE DOORYARD BLOOM'D

When lilacs last in the dooryard 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.

Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring, Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west, And thought of him I love.

O powerful western fallen star! O shades of night--O moody, tearful night! O great star disappear'd--O the black 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.

In the dooryard 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 delicate-colour'd blossoms and heart-shaped leaves of rich green, A sprig with its flower I break.

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Solitary the thrush, The hermit withdrawn to himself, avoiding the settlements, Sings by himself a song.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 granted to sing thou would'st surely die).

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 uprisen, 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.

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.

(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.)

O western orb sailing the heaven, Now I know what you must have meant as a month since I walk'd, As I 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 dropp'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 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.

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 departing comrade holds and detains me.

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'll perfume the grave of him I love.

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 against 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.

Lo, body and soul--this land, My own 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.

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 odour holds me.

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 farmers preparing their 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 labour, 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, Falling upon them all and among them all, enveloping me with the rest, Appear'd the cloud, appear'd the long black trail, And I knew death, its thought, and the sacred knowledge of death.

Then with the knowledge of death as walking one side of me, And the thought of death close-walking the other side of me, And I in the middle as with companions, and as holding the hands of companions, I fled forth to the hiding receiving night that talks not, Down to the shores of the water, the path by the swamp in the dimness, To the solemn shadowy cedars and ghostly pines so still.

And the singer so shy to the rest receiv'd me, The gray-brown bird I know receiv'd us comrades three, And he sang the carol of death, and a verse for him I love.

From deep secluded recesses, From the fragrant cedars and the ghostly pines so still, Came the carol of the bird.

And the charm of the carol rapt me, As I held as if by their hands my comrades in the night, And the voice of my spirit tallied the song of the bird.

_Come lovely and soothing death, Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving, In the day, in the night, to all, to each, Sooner or later delicate death._

_Prais'd be the fathomless universe, For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious, And for love, sweet love--but praise! praise! praise! For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding death._

_Dark mother always gliding near with soft feet, Have none chanted for thee a chant of fullest welcome? Then I chant it for thee, I glorify thee above all, I bring thee a song that when thou must indeed come, come unfalteringly._

_Approach strong deliveress, When it is so, when thou hast taken them I joyously sing the dead, Lost in the loving floating ocean of thee, Laved in the flood of thy bliss O death._

_From me to thee glad serenades, Dances for thee I propose saluting thee, adornments and feastings for thee, And the sights of the open landscape and the high-spread sky are fitting, And life and the fields, and the huge and thoughtful night._

_The night in silence under many a star, The ocean shore and the husky whispering wave whose voice I know, And the soul turning to thee O vast and well-veil'd death, And the body gratefully nestling close to thee._

_Over the tree-tops I float thee a song, Over the rising and sinking waves, over the myriad fields and the prairies wide, Over the dense-pack'd cities all and the teeming wharves and ways, I float this carol with joy, with joy to thee O death._

To the tally of my soul, Loud and strong kept up the gray-brown bird, With pure deliberate notes spreading filling the night.

Loud in the pines and cedars dim, Clear in the freshness moist and the swamp-perfume, And I with my comrades there in the night.

While my sight that was bound in my eyes unclosed, As to long panoramas of visions.

And I saw askant the armies, I saw as in noiseless dreams hundreds of battle-flags, Borne through the smoke of the battles and pierc'd with missiles I saw them, And carried hither and yon through the smoke, and torn and bloody, And at last but a few shreds left on the staffs (and all in silence), And the staffs all splinter'd and broken.

I saw battle-corpses, myriads of them, And the white skeletons of young men, I saw them, I saw the debris and debris of all the slain soldiers of the war, But I saw they were not as was thought, They themselves were fully at rest, they suffer'd not, The living remain'd and suffer'd, the mother suffer'd, And the wife and the child and the musing comrade suffer'd, And the armies that remain'd suffer'd.

Passing the visions, passing the night, Passing, unloosing the hold of my comrades' hands, Passing the song of the hermit bird and the tallying song of my soul, Victorious song, death's outlet song, yet varying ever-altering song, As low and wailing, yet clear the notes, rising and falling, flooding the night, Sadly sinking and fainting, as warning and warning, and yet again bursting with joy, Covering the earth and filling the spread of the heaven, As that powerful psalm in the night I heard from recesses, Passing, I leave thee lilac with heart-shaped leaves, I leave thee there in the dooryard, blooming, returning with spring.

I cease from my song for thee, From my gaze on thee in the west, fronting the west, communing with thee, O comrade lustrous with silver face in the night.

Yet each to keep and all, retrievements out of the night, The song, the wondrous chant of the gray-brown bird, And the tallying chant, the echo arous'd in my soul, With the lustrous and drooping star with the countenance full of woe, With the holders holding my hand nearing the call of the bird, Comrades mine and I in the midst, and their memory ever to keep, for the dead I loved so well, For the sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and lands--and this for his dear sake, Lilac and star and bird twined with the chant of my soul, There in the fragrant pines and the cedars dusk and dim.

O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN!

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, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring; But O heart! heart! heart! O the bleeding drops of red, Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells; Rise up--for you the flag is flung--for you the bugle trills, For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths--for you the shores a-crowding, For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning; Here Captain! dear father! This arm beneath your head! It is some dream that on the deck, You've fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still, My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will, The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done, From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won; Exult O shores, and ring O bells! But I with mournful tread, Walk the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.

HUSH'D BE THE CAMPS TO-DAY

(_May 4, 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.

As they invault the coffin there, Sing--as they close the doors of earth upon him--one verse, For the heavy hearts of soldiers.

ASHES OF SOLDIERS

Ashes of soldiers South or North, As I muse retrospective murmuring a chant in thought, The war resumes, again to my sense your shapes, And again the advance of the armies.

Noiseless as mists and vapours, From their graves in the trenches ascending, From cemeteries all through Virginia and Tennessee, From every point of the compass out of the countless graves, In wafted clouds, in myriads large, or squads of twos or threes or single ones they come, And silently gather round me.

Now sound no note O trumpeters, Not at the head of my cavalry parading on spirited horses, With sabres drawn and glistening, and carbines by their thighs (ah my brave horsemen! My handsome tan-faced horsemen! what life, what joy and pride, With all the perils were yours).

Nor you drummers, neither at reveille at dawn, Nor the long roll alarming the camp, nor even the muffled beat for a burial, Nothing from you this time O drummers bearing my warlike drums.

But aside from these and the marts of wealth and the crowded promenade, Admitting around me comrades close unseen by the rest and voiceless, The slain elate and alive again, the dust and debris alive, I chant this chant of my silent soul in the name of all dead soldiers.

Faces so pale with wondrous eyes, very dear, gather closer yet, Draw close, but speak not.

Phantoms of countless lost, Invisible to the rest henceforth become my companions, Follow me ever--desert me not while I live.

Sweet are the blooming cheeks of the living--sweet are the musical voices sounding, But sweet, ah sweet, are the dead with their silent eyes.

Dearest comrades, all is over and long gone, But love is not over--and what love, O comrades! Perfume from battlefields rising, up from the foetor arising.

Perfume therefore my chant, O love, immortal love, Give me to bathe the memories of all dead soldiers, Shroud them, embalm them, cover them all over with tender pride.

Perfume all--make all wholesome, Make these ashes to nourish and blossom, O love, solve all, fructify all with the last chemistry.

Give me exhaustless, make me a fountain, That I exhale love from me wherever I go like a moist perennial dew, For the ashes of all dead soldiers South or North.

PENSIVE ON HER DEAD GAZING

Pensive on her dead gazing I heard the Mother of All, Desperate on the torn bodies, on the forms covering the battlefields gazing (As the last gun ceased, but the scent of the powder-smoke linger'd), 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 impalpable, And all you essences of soil and growth, and you 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 or South or North--my young men's bodies absorb, and their precious, precious blood, Which holding in trust for me faithfully back again give me many a year hence, In unseen essence and odour 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.

III

POEMS OF AMERICA

I HEAR AMERICA SINGING

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear, Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong, The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam, The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work, The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck, The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands, The wood-cutter's song, the ploughboy's on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown, The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing, Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else, The day what belongs to the day--at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly, Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.

PIONEERS! O PIONEERS!

Come my tan-faced children, Follow well in order, get your weapons ready, Have you your pistols? have you your sharp-edged axes? Pioneers! O pioneers!

For we cannot tarry here, We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger We the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend, Pioneers! O pioneers!

O you youths, Western youths, So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship, Plain I see you Western youths, see you tramping with the foremost, Pioneers! O pioneers!

Have the elder races halted? Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied over there beyond the seas? We take up the task eternal, and the burden and the lesson, Pioneers! O pioneers!

All the past we leave behind, We debouch upon a newer mightier world, varied world, Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labour and the march, Pioneers! O pioneers!

We detachments steady throwing, Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep, Conquering, holding, daring, venturing as we go the unknown ways, Pioneers! O pioneers!

We primeval forests felling, We the rivers stemming, vexing we and piercing deep the mines within, We the surface broad surveying, we the virgin soil upheaving, Pioneers! O pioneers!

Colorado men are we, From the peaks gigantic, from the great sierras and the high plateaus, From the mine and from the gully, from the hunting trail we come, Pioneers! O pioneers!

From Nebraska, from Arkansas, Central inland race are we, from Missouri, with the continental blood intervein'd, All the hands of comrades clasping, all the Southern, all the Northern, Pioneers! O pioneers!

O resistless restless race! O beloved race in all! O my breast aches with tender love for all! O I mourn and yet exult, I am rapt with love for all, Pioneers! O pioneers!

Raise the mighty mother mistress, Waving high the delicate mistress, over all the starry mistress (bend your heads all), Raise the fang'd and warlike mistress, stern, impassive, weapon'd mistress, Pioneers! O pioneers!

See my children, resolute children, By those swarms upon our rear we must never yield or falter, Ages back in ghostly millions frowning there behind us urging, Pioneers! O pioneers!

On and on the compact ranks, With accessions ever waiting, with the places of the dead quickly fill'd, Through the battle, through defeat, moving yet and never stopping, Pioneers! O pioneers!

O to die advancing on! Are there some of us to droop and die? has the hour come? Then upon the march we fittest die, soon and sure the gap is fill'd, Pioneers! O pioneers!

All the pulses of the world, Falling in they beat for us, with the Western movement beat, Holding single or together, steady moving to the front, all for us, Pioneers! O pioneers!

Life's involv'd and varied pageants, All the forms and shows, all the workmen at their work, All the seamen and the landsmen, all the masters with their slaves, Pioneers! O pioneers!

All the hapless silent lovers, All the prisoners in the prisons, all the righteous and the wicked, All the joyous, all the sorrowing, all the living, all the dying, Pioneers! O pioneers!

I too with my soul and body, We, a curious trio, picking, wandering on our way, Through these shores amid the shadows, with the apparitions pressing, Pioneers! O pioneers!