fashions, wealth?
These eager business aims–books, politics, art, amours,
To utter nothingness?
Similar Posts
AS a strong bird on pinions free,
Such be the thought I’d think to-day of thee, America,Such be the recitative I’d bring to-day for thee.The conceits of the poets of other lands I bring thee not,Nor the compliments that have served their turn so long,Nor rhyme–nor the classics–nor perfume of foreign court, or indoorlibrary;But an odor I’d bring to-day as from forests…
ONE sweeps by, attended by an immense train,
One sweeps by, old, with black eyes, and profuse white hair,He has the simple magnificence of health and strength,His face strikes as with flashes of lightning whoever it turnstoward.Three old men slowly pass, followed by three others, and they bythree others,They are beautiful–the one in the middle of each group holds hiscompanions by the hand,As…
PRIMEVAL my love for the woman I love,
thought of you!Then separate, as disembodied, the purest born,The ethereal, the last athletic reality, my consolation,I ascend–I float in the regions of your love, O man,O sharer of my roving life.
HARK! some wild trumpeter–some strange musician,
I hear thee, trumpeter–listening, alert, I catch thy notes,Now pouring, whirling like a tempest round me,Now low, subdued–now in the distance lost.Come nearer, bodiless one–haply, in thee resoundsSome dead composer–haply thy pensive lifeWas fill’d with aspirations high–unform’d ideals,Waves, oceans musical, chaotically surging,That now, ecstatic ghost, close to me bending, thy cornet echoing,pealing, 10Gives out to…
WITH all thy gifts, America,
Power, wealth, extent, vouchsafed to thee–With these, and like ofthese, vouchsafed to thee,What if one gift thou lackest? (the ultimate human problem neversolving;)The gift of Perfect Women fit for thee–What of that gift of giftsthou lackest?The towering Feminine of thee? the beauty, health, completion, fitfor thee?The Mothers fit for thee?
SPONTANEOUS me, Nature,
The arm of my friend hanging idly over my shoulder,The hill-side whiten’d with blossoms of the mountain ash,The same, late in autumn–the hues of red, yellow, drab, purple, andlight and dark green,The rich coverlid of the grass–animals and birds–the privateuntrimm’d bank–the primitive apples–the pebble-stones,Beautiful dripping fragments–the negligent list of one afteranother, as I happen to…