Nor the President in his Presidency, nor the rich in his great house;
But when I hear of the brotherhood of lovers, how it was with them,
How through life, through dangers, odium, unchanging, long and long,
Through youth, and through middle and old age, how unfaltering, how
affectionate and faithful they were,
Then I am pensive–I hastily walk away, fill’d with the bitterest
envy.
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SOLID, ironical, rolling orb!
Bringing to practical, vulgar tests, of all my ideal dreams,And of me, as lover and hero.
I SAW in Louisiana a live-oak growing,
Without any companion it grew there, uttering joyous leaves of darkgreen,And its look, rude, unbending, lusty, made me think of myself;But I wonder’d how it could utter joyous leaves, standing alonethere, without its friend, its lover near–for I knew I couldnot;And I broke off a twig with a certain number of leaves upon it, andtwined…
I DREAM’D in a dream, I saw a city invincible to the attacks of the
I dream’d that was the new City of Friends;Nothing was greater there than the quality of robust love–it led therest;It was seen every hour in the actions of the men of that city,And in all their looks and words.
THAT music always round me, unceasing, unbeginning–yet long untaught
But now the chorus I hear, and am elated;A tenor, strong, ascending, with power and health, with glad notes ofday-break I hear,A soprano, at intervals, sailing buoyantly over the tops of immensewaves,A transparent bass, shuddering lusciously under and through theuniverse,The triumphant tutti–the funeral wailings, with sweet flutes andviolins–all these I fill myself with;I hear not…
THE prairie-grass dividing–its special odor breathing,
Demand the most copious and close companionship of men,Demand the blades to rise of words, acts, beings,Those of the open atmosphere, coarse, sunlit, fresh, nutritious,Those that go their own gait, erect, stepping with freedom andcommand–leading, not following,Those with a never-quell’d audacity–those with sweet and lustyflesh, clear of taint,Those that look carelessly in the faces of…
NOT heat flames up and consumes,
Not the air, delicious and dry, the air of the ripe summer, bearslightly along white down-balls of myriads of seeds,Wafted, sailing gracefully, to drop where they may;Not these–O none of these, more than the flames of me, consuming,burning for his love whom I love!O none, more than I, hurrying in and out:–Does the tide hurry,…