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 labor,

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

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dimness,

To the solemn shadowy cedars and ghostly pines so still.

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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,

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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.

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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?

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Then I chant it for thee, I glorify thee above all,

I bring thee a song that, when thou must indeed come, come unfalleringly.

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;

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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,

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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,

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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,

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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.

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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),

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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, 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 door-yard, 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.

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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,

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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.

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ONE'S-SELF I SING

One's-Self I sing, a simple separate person,

Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-Masse.

Of physiology from top to toe I sing:

Not physiognomy alone nor brain alone is worthy for the
Muse; I say the Form complete is worthier far.

The Female equally with the Male I sing.

Of Life immense in passion, pulse, and power,

Cheerful, for freest action form'd under the laws divine,
The Modern Man I sing.

1867.

WHISPERS OF HEAVENLY DEATH

Whispers of heavenly death murmur'd I hear,

Labial gossip of night, sibilant chorals,

Footsteps gently ascending, mystical breezes wafted soft

and low,

Ripples of unseen rivers, tides of a current flowing, forever

flowing

(Or is it the plashing of tears? the measureless waters of
human tears?)

I see, just see skyward, great cloud-masses;

Mournfully, slowly they roll, silently swelling and mixing,
With at times a half-dimm'd sadden'd far-off star,
Appearing and disappearing.

(Some parturition rather, some solemn immortal birth;
On the frontiers to eyes impenetrable,

Some soul is passing over.)

1868.

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ΙΟ

Pouring in floods of melody in tones so pensive sweet and strong

the like whereof was never heard,

5

Reaching the far-off sentry and the armed guards, who ceas'd

their pacing,

Making the hearer's pulses stop for ecstasy and awe.

The sun was low in the west one winter day

When down a narrow aisle amid the thieves and outlaws of the

land

(There by the hundreds seated, sear-faced murderers, wily

counterfeiters,

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Gather'd to Sunday church in prison walls, the keepers round
Plenteous, well-armed, watching with vigilant eyes)

Calmly a lady walk'd, holding a little innocent child by either

hand;

Whom seating on their stools beside her on the platform,

She, first preluding with the instrument a low and musical

prelude,

In voice surpassing all, sang forth a quaint old hymn.

A soul confined by bars and bands

Cries, "Help! O help!" and wrings her hands;
Blinded her eyes, bleeding her breast,

Nor pardon finds nor balm of rest.

Ceaseless she paces to and fro:
O heart-sick days! O nights of woe!
Nor hand of friend, nor living face,
Nor favor comes, nor word of grace,

"It was not I that sinn'd the sin:

The ruthless body dragg'd me in;
Though long I strove courageously,
The body was too much for me."

Dear prison'd soul, bear up a space,
For soon or late the certain grace;
To set thee free and bear thee home
The heavenly pardoner, death, shall come.

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Convict no more, nor shame nor dole!

De part-a God-enfranchis'd soul!

The singer ceas'd.

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One glance swept from her clear calm eyes o'er all those upturn'd

faces,