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.
I am he that aches with amorous love; Does the earth gravitate? Does not all matter, aching, attract all matter? So the Body of me, to all I meet, or know.
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,...
I heard you, solemn-sweet pipes of the organ, as last Sunday morn I pass'd the church; Winds of autumn! - as I walk'd the woods at dusk, I heard your long-stretch'd sighs, up above, so mournful;...
I hear it was charged against me that I sought to destroy institutions; But really I am neither for nor against institutions; (What indeed have I in common with them? - Or what with the destruction of them?)...
In cabin'd ships, at sea, The boundless blue on every side expanding, With whistling winds and music of the waves - the large imperious waves - In such, Or some lone bark, buoy'd on the dense marine,...
In midnight sleep, of many a face of anguish, Of the look at first of the mortally wounded - of that indescribable look; Of the dead on their backs, with arms extended wide, I dream, I dream, I dream.
In paths untrodden, In the growth by margins of pond-waters, Escaped from the life that exhibits itself, From all the standards hitherto publish'd - from the pleasures, profits, eruditions, conformities,...
Small is the theme of the following Chant, yet the greatest - namely, One's-Self - that wondrous thing a simple, separate person. That, for the use of the New World, I sing....
In the new garden, in all the parts, In cities now, modern, I wander, Though the second or third result, or still further, primitive yet, Days, places, indifferent - though various, the same,...
I saw in Louisiana a live-oak growing, All alone stood it, and the moss hung down from the branches; Without any companion it grew there, uttering joyous leaves of dark green,...
I saw old General at bay; (Old as he was, his grey eyes yet shone out in battle like stars;) His small force was now completely hemm'd in, in his works;...
I sit and look out upon all the sorrows of the world, and upon all oppression and shame; I hear secret convulsive sobs from young men, at anguish with themselves, remorseful after deeds done;...
Through the soft evening air enwrinding all, Rocks, woods, fort, cannon, pacing sentries, endless wilds, In dulcet streams, in flutes' and cornets' notes, Electric, pensive, turbulent artificial,...
I thought I was not alone, walking here by the shore, But the one I thought was with me, as now I walk by the shore, As I lean and look through the glimmering light - that one has utterly disappeared,...
I was looking a long while for a clue to the history of the past for myself, and for these chants - and now I have found it; It is not in those paged fables in the libraries, (them I neither accept nor reject;)...
I will take an egg out of the robin's nest in the orchard, I will take a branch of gooseberries from the old bush in the garden, and go and preach to the world;...