Leaves of Grass


Page 4 of 72



Old Salt Kossabone

The Dead Tenor

Continuities

Yonnondio

Life

"Going Somewhere"

Small the Theme of My Chant

True Conquerors

The United States to Old World Critics

The Calming Thought of All

Thanks in Old Age

Life and Death

The Voice of the Rain

Soon Shall the Winter's Foil Be Here

While Not the Past Forgetting

The Dying Veteran

Stronger Lessons

A Prairie Sunset

Twenty Years

Orange Buds by Mail from Florida

Twilight

You Lingering Sparse Leaves of Me

Not Meagre, Latent Boughs Alone

The Dead Emperor

As the Greek's Signal Flame

The Dismantled Ship

Now Precedent Songs, Farewell

An Evening Lull

Old Age's Lambent Peaks

After the Supper and Talk


BOOKXXXV. GOOD-BYE MY FANCY

Lingering Last Drops

Good-Bye My Fancy

On, on the Same, Ye Jocund Twain!

MY 71st Year

Apparitions

The Pallid Wreath

An Ended Day

Old Age's Ship & Crafty Death's

To the Pending Year

Shakspere-Bacon's Cipher

Long, Long Hence

Bravo, Paris Exposition!

Interpolation Sounds

To the Sun-Set Breeze

Old Chants

A Christmas Greeting

Sounds of the Winter

A Twilight Song

When the Full-Grown Poet Came

Osceola

A Voice from Death

A Persian Lesson

The Commonplace

"The Rounded Catalogue Divine Complete"

Mirages

L. of G.'s Purport

The Unexpress'd

Grand Is the Seen

Unseen Buds

Good-Bye My Fancy!










BOOK I. INSCRIPTIONS





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.





As I Ponder'd in Silence

  As I ponder'd in silence,
  Returning upon my poems, considering, lingering long,
  A Phantom arose before me with distrustful aspect,
  Terrible in beauty, age, and power,
  The genius of poets of old lands,
  As to me directing like flame its eyes,
  With finger pointing to many immortal songs,
  And menacing voice, What singest thou? it said,
  Know'st thou not there is but one theme for ever-enduring bards?
  And that is the theme of War, the fortune of battles,
  The making of perfect soldiers.

  Be it so, then I answer'd,
  I too haughty Shade also sing war, and a longer and greater one than any,
  Waged in my book with varying fortune, with flight, advance
      and retreat, victory deferr'd and wavering,
  (Yet methinks certain, or as good as certain, at the last,) the
      field the world,
  For life and death, for the Body and for the eternal Soul,
  Lo, I too am come, chanting the chant of battles,
  I above all promote brave soldiers.





In Cabin'd Ships at Sea

  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,
  Or some lone bark buoy'd on the dense marine,
  Where joyous full of faith, spreading white sails,
  She cleaves the ether mid the sparkle and the foam of day, or under
      many a star at night,
  By sailors young and old haply will I, a reminiscence of the land, be read,
  In full rapport at last.

  Here are our thoughts, voyagers' thoughts,
  Here not the land, firm land, alone appears, may then by them be said,
  The sky o'erarches here, we feel the undulating deck beneath our feet,
  We feel the long pulsation, ebb and flow of endless motion,
  The tones of unseen mystery, the vague and vast suggestions of the
      briny world, the liquid-flowing syllables,
  The perfume, the faint creaking of the cordage, the melancholy rhythm,
  The boundless vista and the horizon far and dim are all here,
  And this is ocean's poem.

  Then falter not O book, fulfil your destiny,
  You not a reminiscence of the land alone,
  You too as a lone bark cleaving the ether, purpos'd I know not
      whither, yet ever full of faith,
  Consort to every ship that sails, sail you!
  Bear forth to them folded my love, (dear mariners, for you I fold it
      here in every leaf;)
  Speed on my book! spread your white sails my little bark athwart the
      imperious waves,
  Chant on, sail on, bear o'er the boundless blue from me to every sea,
  This song for mariners and all their ships.


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