style="font-size:15px;"> I descend to lave the drouths, atomies, dust-layers of the globe,And all that in them without me were seeds only, latent, unborn;
And forever, by day and night, I give back life to my own origin,
and make pure and beautify it;
(For song, issuing from its birth-place, after fulfilment, wandering,
Reck’d or unreck’d, duly with love returns.)
Soon Shall the Winter’s Foil Be Here
Soon shall the winter’s foil be here;
Soon shall these icy ligatures unbind and melt — A little while,
And air, soil, wave, suffused shall be in softness, bloom and
growth — a thousand forms shall rise
From these dead clods and chills as from low burial graves.
Thine eyes, ears — all thy best attributes — all that takes cognizance
of natural beauty,
Shall wake and fill. Thou shalt perceive the simple shows, the
delicate miracles of earth,
Dandelions, clover, the emerald grass, the early scents and flowers,
The arbutus under foot, the willow’s yellow-green, the blossoming
plum and cherry;
With these the robin, lark and thrush, singing their songs — the
flitting bluebird;
For such the scenes the annual play brings on.
While Not the Past Forgetting
While not the past forgetting,
To-day, at least, contention sunk entire — peace, brotherhood uprisen;
For sign reciprocal our Northern, Southern hands,
Lay on the graves of all dead soldiers, North or South,
(Nor for the past alone — for meanings to the future,)
Wreaths of roses and branches of palm.
The Dying Veteran
Amid these days of order, ease, prosperity,
Amid the current songs of beauty, peace, decorum,
I cast a reminiscence — (likely ‘twill offend you,
I heard it in my boyhood;) — More than a generation since,
A queer old savage man, a fighter under Washington himself,
(Large, brave, cleanly, hot-blooded, no talker, rather spiritualistic,
Had fought in the ranks — fought well — had been all through the
Revolutionary war,)
Lay dying — sons, daughters, church-deacons, lovingly tending him,
Sharping their sense, their ears, towards his murmuring, half-caught words:
“Let me return again to my war-days,
To the sights and scenes — to forming the line of battle,
To the scouts ahead reconnoitering,
To the cannons, the grim artillery,
To the galloping aides, carrying orders,
To the wounded, the fallen, the heat, the suspense,
The perfume strong, the smoke, the deafening noise;
Away with your life of peace! — your joys of peace!
Give me my old wild battle-life again!”
Stronger Lessons
Have you learn’d lessons only of those who admired you, and were
tender with you, and stood aside for you?
Have you not learn’d great lessons from those who reject you, and
brace themselves against you? or who treat you with contempt,
or dispute the passage with you?
A Prairie Sunset
Shot gold, maroon and violet, dazzling silver, emerald, fawn,
The earth’s whole amplitude and Nature’s multiform power consign’d
for once to colors;
The light, the general air possess’d by them — colors till now unknown,
No limit, confine — not the Western sky alone — the high meridian —
North, South, all,
Pure luminous color fighting the silent shadows to the last.
Twenty Years
Down on the ancient wharf, the sand, I sit, with a new-comer chatting:
He shipp’d as green-hand boy, and sail’d away, (took some sudden,
vehement notion;)
Since, twenty years and more have circled round and round,
While he the globe was circling round and round, — and now returns:
How changed the place — all the old land-marks gone — the parents dead;
(Yes, he comes back to lay in port for good — to settle — has a
well-fill’d purse — no spot will do but
