Works

The prairie-grass dividing its special odor breathing,
I demand of it the spiritual corresponding,
Demand the most copious and close companionship of men,
Demand the blades to rise of words, acts, beings,...

A newer garden of creation, no primal solitude,
Dense, joyous, modern, populous millions, cities and farms,
With iron interlaced, composite, tied, many in one,...

There was a child went forth every day;
And the first object he look'd upon, that object he became;...

On a flat road runs the well-train'd runner;
He is lean and sinewy, with muscular legs;
He is thinly clothed he leans forward as he runs,
With lightly closed fists, and arms partially rais'd.

These Carols, sung to cheer my passage through the world I see,
For completion, I dedicate to the Invisible World.

These, I, singing in spring, collect for lovers,
(For who but I should understand lovers, and all their sorrow and joy?
And who but I should be the poet of comrades?)...

Lo! The unbounded sea!
On its breast a Ship starting, spreading all her sails an ample Ship, carrying even her moonsails;...

O sight of shame, and pain, and dole!
O fearful thought a convict Soul!

Rang the refrain along the hall, the prison,
Rose to the roof, the vaults of heaven above,...

I wander all night in my vision,
Stepping with light feet, swiftly and noiselessly stepping and stopping,
Bending with open eyes over the shut eyes of sleepers,...

The sobbing of the bells, the sudden death-news everywhere,
The slumberers rouse, the rapport of the People,
(Full well they know that message in the darkness,...

On my northwest coast in the midst of the night, a fishermen's group stands watching;
Out on the lake, that expands before them, others are spearing salmon;...

The untold want, by life and land ne'er granted,
Now, Voyager, sail thou forth, to seek and find.

The world below the brine;
Forests at the bottom of the sea the branches and leaves,
Sea-lettuce, vast lichens, strange flowers and seeds the thick tangle, the openings, and the pink turf,...

Thick-sprinkled bunting! Flag of stars!
Long yet your road, fateful flag! long yet your road, and lined with bloody death!
For the prize I see at issue, at last is the world!...

Think of the Soul;
I swear to you that body of yours gives proportions to your Soul somehow to live in other spheres;
I do not know how, but I know it is so.

Think of loving and being loved;...

Something startles me where I thought I was safest;
I withdraw from the still woods I loved;
I will not go now on the pastures to walk;
I will not strip the clothes from my body to meet my lover the sea;...

This day, O Soul, I give you a wondrous mirror;
Long in the dark, in tarnish and cloud it lay But the cloud has pass'd, and the tarnish gone;
Behold, O Soul! it is now a clean and bright mirror,...

This dust was once the Man,
Gentle, plain, just and resolute under whose cautious hand,
Against the foulest crime in history known in any land or age,
Was saved the Union of These States.

This moment yearning and thoughtful, sitting alone,
It seems to me there are other men in other lands, yearning and thoughtful;
It seems to me I can look over and behold them, in Germany, Italy,...

As they draw to a close,
Of what underlies the precedent songs of my aims in them;
Of the seed I have sought to plant in them;
Of joy, sweet joy, through many a year, in them;...