I WAS looking a long while for a clue to the history of the past for

A chorus of dryads, fading, departing–or hamadryads departing;A murmuring, fateful, giant voice, out of the earth and sky,Voice of a mighty dying tree in the Redwood forest dense.Farewell, my brethren,Farewell, O earth and sky–farewell, ye neighboring waters;My time has ended, my term has come.Along the northern coast,Just back from the rock-bound shore, and the caves,…

Why, rising by the roadside here, do you the colors greet?(‘Tis while our army lines Carolina’s sand and pines,Forth from thy hovel door, thou, Ethiopia, com’st to me,As, under doughty Sherman, I march toward the sea.)Me, master, years a hundred, since from my parents sunder’d,A little child, they caught me as the savage beast is…

I launch all men and women forward with me into the Unknown.The clock indicates the moment—but what does eternity indicate?We have thus far exhausted trillions of winters and summers,There are trillions ahead, and trillions ahead of them.Births have brought us richness and variety,And other births will bring us richness and variety.I do not call one…

cannot.Now only do I know you!O fair auroral skies! O morning dew upon the grass!And these I see–these sparkling eyes,These stores of mystic meaning–these young lives,Building, equipping, like a fleet of ships–immortal ships!Soon to sail out over the measureless seas,On the Soul’s voyage.Only a lot of boys and girls? 10Only the tiresome spelling, writing, ciphering…

I saw there too, O life and death, your analogies:(Life, life is the tillage, and Death is the harvest according.)

And each with musing soul retire to celebrate,Our dear commander’s death.No more for him life’s stormy conflicts,Nor victory, nor defeat–no more time’s dark events,Charging like ceaseless clouds across the sky.But sing poet in our name,Sing of the love we bore him–because you, dweller in camps, know it truly.As they invault the coffin there,Sing–as they close…