Works

Thither, as I look, I see each result and glory retracing itself and nestling close, always obligated;
Thither hours, months, years thither trades, compacts, establishments, even the most minute;...

I say whatever tastes sweet to the most perfect person, that is finally right.

I say nourish a great intellect, a great brain;
If I have said anything to the contrary, I hereby retract it.
...

Scented herbage of my breast,
Leaves from you I yield, I write, to be perused best afterwards,
Tomb-leaves, body-leaves, growing up above me, above death,...

Out of the cradle endlessly rocking,
Out of the mocking-bird's throat, the musical shuttle,
Out of the Ninth-month midnight,...

Shut not your doors to me, proud libraries,
For that which was lacking on all your well-fill'd shelves, yet needed most, I bring;
Forth from the army, the war emerging a book I have made,...

POET.

O A new song, a free song,
Flapping, flapping, flapping, flapping, by sounds, by voices clearer,
By the wind's voice and that of the drum,...

So far, and so far, and on toward the end,
Singing what is sung in this book, from the irresistible impulses of me;
But whether I continue beyond this book, to maturity,...

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.

To conclude I announce what comes after me;
I announce mightier offspring, orators, days, and then, for the present, depart.

I remember I said, before my leaves sprang at all,...

Sometimes with one I love, I fill myself with rage, for fear I effuse unreturn'd love;
But now I think there is no unreturn'd love the pay is certain, one way or another;...

Splendor of ended day, floating and filling me!
Hour prophetic hour resuming the past!
Inflating my throat you, divine average!
You, Earth and Life, till the last ray gleams, I sing.
...

To-day a rude brief recitative,
Of ships sailing the Seas, each with its special flag or ship-signal;
Of unnamed heroes in the ships Of waves spreading and spreading, far as the eye can reach;...

Weapon, shapely, naked, wan!
Head from the mother's bowels drawn!
Wooded flesh and metal bone! limb only one, and lip only one!
Gray-blue leaf by red-heat grown! helve produced from a little seed sown!...

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;...

Afoot and light-hearted, I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me, leading wherever I choose.

Henceforth I ask not good-fortune I myself am good fortune;...

A California song!
A prophecy and indirection a thought impalpable, to breathe, as air;
A chorus of dryads, fading, departing or hamadryads departing;
A murmuring, fateful, giant voice, out of the earth and sky,...

Come, said the Muse,
Sing me a song no poet yet has chanted,
Sing me the Universal.

In this broad Earth of ours,
Amid the measureless grossness and the slag,...

The business man, the acquirer vast,
After assiduous years, surveying results, preparing for departure,
Devises houses and lands to his children bequeaths stocks, goods funds for a school or hospital,...

Out of the murk of heaviest clouds,
Out of the feudal wrecks, and heap'd-up skeletons of kings,
Out of that old entire European debris the shatter'd mummeries,...

Where the city's ceaseless crowd moves on, the live-long day,
Withdrawn, I join a group of children watching I pause aside with them.

By the curb, toward the edge of the flagging,...