Death poems
/ page 278 of 560 /
Song of the Exposition.
© Walt Whitman
1
AFTER all, not to create only, or found only,
But to bring, perhaps from afar, what is already founded,
To give it our own identity, average, limitless, free;
Or from that Sea of Time.
© Walt Whitman
1
OR, from that Sea of Time,
Spray, blown by the winda double winrow-drift of weeds and shells;
(O little shells, so curious-convolute! so limpid-cold and voiceless!
Thick-Sprinkled Bunting.
© Walt Whitman
THICK-SPRINKLED bunting! Flag of stars!
Long yet your road, fateful flag!long yet your road, and lined with bloody death!
For the prize I see at issue, at last is the world!
All its ships and shores I see, interwoven with your threads, greedy banner!
Sing of the Banner at Day-Break.
© Walt Whitman
POET.
O A NEW song, a free song,
Flapping, flapping, flapping, flapping, by sounds, by voices clearer,
By the winds voice and that of the drum,
Sobbing of The Bells, The.
© Walt Whitman
THE sobbing of the bells, the sudden death-news everywhere,
The slumberers rouse, the rapport of the People,
(Full well they know that message in the darkness,
Full well return, respond within their breasts, their brains, the sad reverberations,)
The passionate toll and clangcity to city, joining, sounding, passing,
Those heart-beats of a Nation in the night.
Apostroph.
© Walt Whitman
O MATER! O fils!
O brood continental!
O flowers of the prairies!
O space boundless! O hum of mighty products!
As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free.
© Walt Whitman
1
AS a strong bird on pinions free,
Joyous, the amplest spaces heavenward cleaving,
Such be the thought Id think to-day of thee, America,
Delicate Cluster.
© Walt Whitman
DELICATE cluster! flag of teeming life!
Covering all my lands! all my sea-shores lining!
Flag of death! (how I watchd you through the smoke of battle pressing!
How I heard you flap and rustle, cloth defiant!)
France, the 18th year of These States.
© Walt Whitman
1
A GREAT year and place;
A harsh, discordant, natal scream out-sounding, to touch the mothers heart closer
than
Rise, O Days.
© Walt Whitman
1
RISE, O days, from your fathomless deeps, till you loftier, fiercer sweep!
Long for my soul, hungering gymnastic, I devourd what the earth gave me;
Long I roamd the woods of the northlong I watchd Niagara pouring;
Mediums.
© Walt Whitman
THEY shall arise in the States,
They shall report Nature, laws, physiology, and happiness;
They shall illustrate Democracy and the kosmos;
They shall be alimentive, amative, perceptive;
Two Rivulets.
© Walt Whitman
TWO Rivulets side by side,
Two blended, parallel, strolling tides,
Companions, travelers, gossiping as they journey.
Mystic Trumpeter, The.
© Walt Whitman
1
HARK! some wild trumpetersome strange musician,
Hovering unseen in air, vibrates capricious tunes to-night.
Shut Not Your Doors, &c.
© Walt Whitman
SHUT not your doors to me, proud libraries,
For that which was lacking on all your well-filld shelves, yet needed most, I bring;
Forth from the army, the war emerginga book I have made,
The words of my book nothingthe drift of it everything;
Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field.
© Walt Whitman
VIGIL strange I kept on the field one night:
When you, my son and my comrade, dropt at my side that day,
One look I but gave, which your dear eyes returnd, with a look I shall never forget;
Dresser, The.
© Walt Whitman
1
AN old man bending, I come, among new faces,
Years looking backward, resuming, in answer to children,
Come tell us, old man, as from young men and maidens that love me;
Respondez!
© Walt Whitman
RESPONDEZ! Respondez!
(The war is completedthe price is paidthe title is settled beyond recall;)
Let every one answer! let those who sleep be waked! let none evade!
Must we still go on with our affectations and sneaking?
Salut au Monde.
© Walt Whitman
1
O TAKE my hand, Walt Whitman!
Such gliding wonders! such sights and sounds!
Such joind unended links, each hookd to the next!
States!
© Walt Whitman
STATES!
Were you looking to be held together by the lawyers?
By an agreement on a paper? Or by arms?
To a foild European Revolutionaire.
© Walt Whitman
1
COURAGE yet! my brother or my sister!
Keep on! Liberty is to be subservd, whatever occurs;
That is nothing, that is quelld by one or two failures, or any number of failures,
