I see ships floundering at sea, I behold on deck and below deck the terrible tableaus. 7 O trumpeter, methinks I am myself the instrument thou playest, Thou melt'st my heart, my brain-thou movest, drawest, changest them at will; And now thy sullen notes send darkness through me, I see the enslaved, the overthrown, the hurt, the opprest of the whole earth, I feel the measureless shame and humiliation of my race, it becomes all mine, Mine too the revenges of humanity, the wrongs of ages, baffled feuds and hatreds, Utter defeat upon me weighs - all lost the foe victori ous, (Yet 'mid the ruins Pride colossal stands unshaken to the last, Endurance, resolution to the last.) Now trumpeter for thy close, 8 Vouchsafe a higher strain than any yet, Sing to my soul, renew its languishing faith and hope, Rouse up my slow belief, give me some vision of the future, Give me for once its prophecy and joy. O glad, exulting, culminating song! A vigor more than earth's is in thy notes, last, the conqueror at Hymns to the universal God from universal man — all joy! A reborn race appears a perfect world, all joy! Women and men in wisdom innocence and health — all joy! Riotous laughing bacchanals fill'd with joy! War, sorrow, suffering gone-the rank earth purged nothing but joy left! The ocean fill'd with joy - the atmosphere all joy! Joy! joy in freedom, worship, love! joy in the ecstasy of life! Enough to merely be! enough to breathe! TO A LOCOMOTIVE IN WINTER Thee for my recitative, Thee in the driving storm even as now, the snow, the winter-day declining, Thee in thy panoply, thy measur'd dual throbbing and thy beat convulsive, Thy black cylindric body, golden brass and silvery steel, Thy ponderous side-bars, parallel and connecting rods, gyrating, shuttling at thy sides, Thy metrical, now swelling pant and roar, now tapering in the distance, Thy great protruding head-light fix'd in front, Thy long, pale, floating vapor-pennants, tinged with delicate purple, The dense and murky clouds out-belching from thy smokestack, Thy knitted frame, thy springs and valves, the tremulous twinkle of thy wheels, Thy train of cars behind, obedient, merrily following, Through gale or calm, now swift, now slack, yet steadily careering; Type of the modern emblem of motion and power pulse of the continent, For once come.serve the Muse and merge in verse, even as here I see thee, With storm and buffeting gusts of wind and falling snow, By day thy warning ringing bell to sound its notes, By night thy silent signal lamps to swing. Fierce-throated beauty! Roll through my chant with all thy lawless music, thy swinging lamps at night, Thy madly-whistled laughter, echoing, rumbling like an earthquake, rousing all, Law of thyself complete, thine own track firmly holding, THICK-SPRINKLED BUNTING 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, All its ships and shores I see interwoven with your threads greedy banner; Dream'd again the flags of kings, highest borne, to flaunt unrivall'd? O hasten flag of man O with sure and steady step, pass ing highest flags of kings, Walk supreme to the heavens mighty symbol-run up above them all, Flag of stars! thick-sprinkled bunting! WHAT BEST I SEE IN THEE To U. S. G. return'd from his World's Tour. What best I see in thee, Is not that where thou mov'st down history's great high ways, Ever undimm'd by time shoots warlike victory's dazzle, in peace, Or thou the man whom feudal Europe feted, venerable Asia swarm'd upon, Who walk'd with kings with even pace the round world's promenade; But that in foreign lands, in all thy walks with kings, Those prairie sovereigns of the West, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Ohio's, Indiana's millions, comrades, farmers, soldiers, all to the front, Invisibly with thee walking with kings with even pace the round world's promenade, Were all so justified. A CLEAR MIDNIGHT This is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the worldless, Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson done, Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the themes thou lovest best, Night, sleep, death and the stars. SONGS OF PARTING YEARS OF THE MODERN Years of the modern! years of the unperform'd! Your horizon rises, I see it parting away for more august dramas, I see not America only, not only Liberty's nation but other nations preparing, I see tremendous entrances and exits, new combinations, the solidarity of races, I see that force advancing with irresistible power on the world's stage, (Have the old forces, the old wars, played their parts ? are the acts suitable to them closed?) I see Freedom, completely arm'd and victorious and very haughty, with Law on one side and Peace on the other, A stupendous trio all issuing forth against the idea of caste; What historic denouements are these we so rapidly approach? I see men marching and countermarching by swift millions, I see the frontiers and boundaries of the old aristocracies broken, I see the landmarks of European kings removed, I see this day the People beginning their landmarks, (all others give way ;) Never were such sharp questions ask'd as this day, Never was average man, his soul, more energetic, more like a God, Lo, how he urges and urges, leaving the masses no rest! His daring foot is on land and sea everywhere, he colonizes the Pacific, the archipelagoes, With the steamship, the electric telegraph, the newspaper, the wholesale engines of war, With these and the world-spreading factories he interlinks all geography, all lands; What whispers are these O lands, running ahead of you, passing under the seas? Are all nations communing? is there going to be but one heart to the globe? Is humanity forming en-masse? for lo, tyrants tremble, crowns grow dim, The earth restive, confronts a new era, perhaps a general divine war, No one knows what will happen next, such portents fill the days and nights; Years prophetical! the space ahead as I walk, as I vainly try to pierce it, is full of phantoms, Unborn deeds, things soon to be, project their shapes around me, This incredible rush and heat, this strange ecstatic fever of dreams O years! Your dreams O years, how they penetrate through me! (I know not whether I sleep or wake;) The perform'd America and Europe grow dim, retiring in shadow behind me, The unperform'd, more gigantic than ever, advance, ad vance upon me. |