Works

Spirit that form'd this scene,
These tumbled rock-piles grim and red,
These reckless heaven-ambitious peaks,
These gorges, turbulent-clear streams, this naked freshness,...

Spirit whose work is done! spirit of dreadful hours!
Ere, departing, fade from my eyes your forests of bayonets;
Spirit of gloomiest fears and doubts, (yet onward ever unfaltering pressing;)...

Spontaneous me, Nature,
The loving day, the mounting sun, the friend I am happy with,
The arm of my friend hanging idly over my shoulder,
The hill-side whiten'd with blossoms of the mountain ash,...

Starting from fish-shape Paumanok, where I was born,
Well-begotten, and rais'd by a perfect mother;
After roaming many lands lover of populous pavements;
Dweller in Mannahatta, my city or on southern savannas;...

States!
Were you looking to be held together by the lawyers?
By an agreement on a paper? Or by arms?

Away!
I arrive, bringing these, beyond all the forces of courts and arms,...

Still, though the one I sing,
(One, yet of contradictions made,) I dedicate to Nationality,
I leave in him Revolt, (O latent right of insurrection! O quenchless, indispensable fire!)

Tears! tears! tears!
In the night, in solitude, tears;
On the white shore dripping, dripping, suck'd in by the sand;
Tears not a star shining all dark and desolate;...

All submit to them, where they sit, inner, secure, unapproachable to analysis, in the Soul;
Not traditions not the outer authorities are the judges they are the judges of outer authorities, and of all traditions;...

AT the last, tenderly,
From the walls of the powerful, fortress'd house,
From the clasp of the knitted locks from the keep of the well-closed doors,
Let me be wafted.

Let me glide noiselessly forth;...

That music always round me, unceasing, unbeginning yet long untaught I did not hear;
But now the chorus I hear, and am elated;
A tenor, strong, ascending, with power and health, with glad notes of day-break I hear,...

That shadow, my likeness, that goes to and fro, seeking a livelihood, chattering, chaffering;
How often I find myself standing and looking at it where it flits;...

While my wife at my side lies slumbering, and the wars are over long,
And my head on the pillow rests at home, and the vacant midnight passes,...

And now, gentlemen,
A word I give to remain in your memories and minds,
As base, and finale too, for all metaphysics.

(So, to the students, the old professor,
At the close of his crowded course.)
...

Give me your hand, old Revolutionary;
The hill-top is nigh but a few steps, (make room, gentlemen;)
Up the path you have follow'd me well, spite of your hundred and extra years;...

By the City Dead-House, by the gate,
As idly sauntering, wending my way from the clangor,
I curious pause for lo! an outcast form, a poor dead prostitute brought;...

Skirting the river road, (my forenoon walk, my rest,)
Skyward in air a sudden muffled sound, the dalliance of the eagles,
The rushing amorous contact high in space together,...

An old man bending, I come, among new faces,
Years looking backward, resuming, in answer to children,
Come tell us, old man, as from young men and maidens that love me;...

The indications, and tally of time;
Perfect sanity shows the master among philosophs;
Time, always without flaw, indicates itself in parts;...

Hark! some wild trumpeter some strange musician,
Hovering unseen in air, vibrates capricious tunes to-night.

I hear thee, trumpeter listening, alert, I catch thy notes,...

In a faraway northern county, in the placid, pastoral region,
Lives my farmer friend, the theme of my recitative, a famous Tamer of Oxen:
There they bring him the three-year-olds and the four-year-olds, to break them;...