How they inure to themselves as much as to any–What a paradox
appears their age;
How people respond to them, yet know them not;
How there is something relentless in their fate, all times;
How all times mischoose the objects of their adulation and reward,
And how the same inexorable price must still be paid for the same
great purchase.
Come tell us, old man, as from young men and maidens that love me;Years hence of these scenes, of these furious passions, thesechances,Of unsurpass’d heroes, (was one side so brave? the other was equallybrave;)Now be witness again–paint the mightiest armies of earth;Of those armies so rapid, so wondrous, what saw you to tell us?What stays…
For living are the Dead;(Haply the only living, only real,And I the apparition–I the spectre.)
face I am cognizant of, are now looking faces I am notcognizant of–calm and actual faces;I do not doubt but the majesty and beauty of the world are latent inany iota of the world;I do not doubt I am limitless, and that the universes are limitless–in vain I try to think how limitless;I do not…
As a ship on the waters advancing,The voyage of the soul–not life alone,Death, many deaths I’ll sing.
Embody all presences outlaw’d or suffering,See myself in prison shaped like another man,And feel the dull unintermitted pain.For me the keepers of convicts shoulder their carbines and keep watch,It is I let out in the morning and barr’d at night.Not a mutineer walks handcuff’d to jail but I am handcuff’d to him and walk by…
How often I find myself standing and looking at it where it flits;How often I question and doubt whether that is really me;–But in these, and among my lovers, and caroling my songs,O I never doubt whether that is really me.
