Leaves of Grass Part 65

Thou portal-thou arena-thou of the myriad long-drawn lines and groups!

(Could but thy flagstones, curbs, facades, tell their inimitable tales; Thy windows rich, and huge hotels-thy side-walks wide;) Thou of the endless sliding, mincing, shuffling feet!

Thou, like the parti-colored world itself-like infinite, teeming, mocking life!

Thou visor'd, vast, unspeakable show and lesson!

To Get the Final Lilt of Songs

To get the final lilt of songs, To penetrate the inmost lore of poets-to know the mighty ones, Job, Homer, Eschylus, Dante, Shakespere, Tennyson, Emerson; To diagnose the s.h.i.+fting-delicate tints of love and pride and doubt- to truly understand, To encompa.s.s these, the last keen faculty and entrance-price, Old age, and what it brings from all its past experiences.

Old Salt Kossabone

Far back, related on my mother's side, Old Salt Kossabone, I'll tell you how he died: (Had been a sailor all his life-was nearly 90-lived with his married grandchild, Jenny; House on a hill, with view of bay at hand, and distant cape, and stretch to open sea;) The last of afternoons, the evening hours, for many a year his regular custom, In his great arm chair by the window seated, (Sometimes, indeed, through half the day,) Watching the coming, going of the vessels, he mutters to himself- And now the close of all: One struggling outbound brig, one day, baffled for long-cross-tides and much wrong going, At last at nightfall strikes the breeze aright, her whole luck veering, And swiftly bending round the cape, the darkness proudly entering, cleaving, as he watches, "She's free-she's on her destination"-these the last words-when Jenny came, he sat there dead, Dutch Kossabone, Old Salt, related on my mother's side, far back.

The Dead Tenor

As down the stage again, With Spanish hat and plumes, and gait inimitable, Back from the fading lessons of the past, I'd call, I'd tell and own, How much from thee! the revelation of the singing voice from thee!

(So firm-so liquid-soft-again that tremulous, manly timbre!

The perfect singing voice-deepest of all to me the lesson-trial and test of all:) How through those strains distill'd-how the rapt ears, the soul of me, absorbing Fernando's heart, Manrico's pa.s.sionate call, Ernani's, sweet Gennaro's, I fold thenceforth, or seek to fold, within my chants trans.m.u.ting, Freedom's and Love's and Faith's unloos'd cantabile, (As perfume's, color's, sunlight's correlation:) From these, for these, with these, a hurried line, dead tenor, A wafted autumn leaf, dropt in the closing grave, the shovel'd earth, To memory of thee.

Continuities

Nothing is ever really lost, or can be lost, No birth, ident.i.ty, form-no object of the world.

Nor life, nor force, nor any visible thing; Appearance must not foil, nor s.h.i.+fted sphere confuse thy brain.

Ample are time and s.p.a.ce-ample the fields of Nature.

The body, sluggish, aged, cold-the embers left from earlier fires, The light in the eye grown dim, shall duly flame again; The sun now low in the west rises for mornings and for noons continual; To frozen clods ever the spring's invisible law returns, With gra.s.s and flowers and summer fruits and corn.

Yonnondio

A song, a poem of itself-the word itself a dirge, Amid the wilds, the rocks, the storm and wintry night, To me such misty, strange tableaux the syllables calling up; Yonnondio-I see, far in the west or north, a limitless ravine, with plains and mountains dark, I see swarms of stalwart chieftains, medicine-men, and warriors, As flitting by like clouds of ghosts, they pa.s.s and are gone in the twilight, (Race of the woods, the landscapes free, and the falls!

No picture, poem, statement, pa.s.sing them to the future:) Yonnondio! Yonnondio!-unlimn'd they disappear; To-day gives place, and fades-the cities, farms, factories fade; A m.u.f.fled sonorous sound, a wailing word is borne through the air for a moment, Then blank and gone and still, and utterly lost.

Life

Ever the undiscouraged, resolute, struggling soul of man; (Have former armies fail'd? then we send fresh armies-and fresh again;) Ever the grappled mystery of all earth's ages old or new; Ever the eager eyes, hurrahs, the welcome-clapping hands, the loud applause; Ever the soul dissatisfied, curious, unconvinced at last; Struggling to-day the same-battling the same.

"Going Somewhere"

My science-friend, my n.o.blest woman-friend, (Now buried in an English grave-and this a memory-leaf for her dear sake,) Ended our talk-"The sum, concluding all we know of old or modern learning, intuitions deep, "Of all Geologies-Histories-of all Astronomy-of Evolution, Metaphysics all, "Is, that we all are onward, onward, speeding slowly, surely bettering, "Life, life an endless march, an endless army, (no halt, but it is duly over,) "The world, the race, the soul-in s.p.a.ce and time the universes, "All bound as is befitting each-all surely going somewhere."

Small the Theme of My Chant

Small the theme of my Chant, yet the greatest-namely, One's-Self- a simple, separate person. That, for the use of the New World, I sing.

Man's physiology complete, from top to toe, I sing. Not physiognomy alone, nor brain alone, is worthy for the Muse;-I say the Form complete is worthier far. The Female equally with the Male, I sing.

Nor cease at the theme of One's-Self. I speak the word of the modern, the word En-Ma.s.se.

My Days I sing, and the Lands-with interstice I knew of hapless War.

(O friend, whoe'er you are, at last arriving hither to commence, I feel through every leaf the pressure of your hand, which I return.

And thus upon our journey, footing the road, and more than once, and link'd together let us go.)

True Conquerors

Old farmers, travelers, workmen (no matter how crippled or bent,) Old sailors, out of many a perilous voyage, storm and wreck, Old soldiers from campaigns, with all their wounds, defeats and scars; Enough that they've survived at all-long life's unflinching ones!

Forth from their struggles, trials, fights, to have emerged at all- in that alone, True conquerors o'er all the rest.

The United States to Old World Critics

Here first the duties of to-day, the lessons of the concrete, Wealth, order, travel, shelter, products, plenty; As of the building of some varied, vast, perpetual edifice, Whence to arise inevitable in time, the towering roofs, the lamps, The solid-planted spires tall shooting to the stars.

The Calming Thought of All

That coursing on, whate'er men's speculations, Amid the changing schools, theologies, philosophies, Amid the bawling presentations new and old, The round earth's silent vital laws, facts, modes continue.

Thanks in Old Age

Thanks in old age-thanks ere I go, For health, the midday sun, the impalpable air-for life, mere life, For precious ever-lingering memories, (of you my mother dear-you, father-you, brothers, sisters, friends,) For all my days-not those of peace alone-the days of war the same, For gentle words, caresses, gifts from foreign lands, For shelter, wine and meat-for sweet appreciation, (You distant, dim unknown-or young or old-countless, unspecified, readers belov'd, We never met, and neer shall meet-and yet our souls embrace, long, close and long;) For beings, groups, love, deeds, words, books-for colors, forms, For all the brave strong men-devoted, hardy men-who've forward sprung in freedom's help, all years, all lands For braver, stronger, more devoted men-(a special laurel ere I go, to life's war's chosen ones, The cannoneers of song and thought-the great artillerists-the foremost leaders, captains of the soul:) As soldier from an ended war return'd-As traveler out of myriads, to the long procession retrospective, Thanks-joyful thanks!-a soldier's, traveler's thanks.