The streets themselves, and the façades of houses, and goods in the windows, The schooner near by, sleepily dropping down the tide, the little boat slack-tow'd astern, The hurrying tumbling waves, quick-broken crests, slapping, The strata of color'd clouds, the long bar of maroon-tint away solitary by itself, the spread of purity it lies motionless in, The horizon's edge, the flying sea-crow, the fragrance of salt marsh and shore mud; These became part of that child who went forth every day, and who now goes, and will always go forth every day. 40 (1855) THE GRASS [From the poem "Walt Whitman"] WALT WHITMAN A child said, What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands; How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is, any more than he. I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven. Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord, A scented gift and remembrancer, designedly dropp'd, Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark, and say Whose? Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the vegetation. Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones, Growing among black folks as among white, ΙΟ Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I receive them the same. And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves. Tenderly will I use you, curling grass; It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men, It may be if I had known them I would have loved them, It may be you are from old people, and from women, and from offspring taken soon out of their mothers' laps, And here you are the mothers' laps. This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers, Darker than the colorless beards of old men, Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths. OI perceive after all so many uttering tongues! And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for nothing. 20 I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and women, And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring taken soon out of their laps. What do you think has become of the young and old men? And what do you think has become of the women and children? They are alive and well somewhere; The smallest sprout shows there is really no death; And if ever there was, it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it, 30 And ceased the moment life appear'd. All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses, And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier. (1855) MY LOST YOUTH HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW [The poem refers to Portland, Maine, Longfellow's native town. "Deering's Woods" (lines 47, 82) was an oak-grove on the outskirts of the city; the sea-fight of line 37 was an engagement of the War of 1812, between the American brig Enterprise and the British Boxer.] Often I think of the beautiful town And my youth comes back to me. And a verse of a Lapland song Is haunting my memory still: "A boy's will is the wind's will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.' I can see the shadowy lines of its trees, 10 And the burden of that old song, It murmurs and whispers still: "A boy's will is the wind's will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." Goes through me with a thrill: "A boy's will is the wind's will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." I can see the breezy dome of groves, Come back with a Sabbath sound, as of doves song, It flutters and murmurs still: "A boy's will is the wind's will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." I remember the gleams and glooms that dart Across the school-boy's brain; The song and the silence in the heart, That in part are prophecies, and in part Are longings wild and vain. And the voice of that fitful song 60 Sings on, and is never still: "A boy's will is the wind's will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." There are things of which I may not speak; There are dreams that cannot die; There are thoughts that make the strong heart weak, And bring a pallor into the cheek, 70 And the words of that fatal song Come over me like a chill: "A boy's will is the wind's will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." Strange to me now are the forms I meet As they balance up and down, Are singing the beautiful song, Are sighing and whispering still: "A boy's will is the wind's will, 80 And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." And Deering's Woods are fresh and fair, I find my lost youth again. And the strange and beautiful song, The groves are repeating it still: "A boy's will is the wind's will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." (1855) 90 ROBERT OF LINCOLN WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT Blessings on thee, little man, Prince thou art,-the grown-up man Let the million-dollared ride! Oh for boyhood's painless play, 10 20 Health that mocks the doctor's rules, Of the tenants of the wood; Oh for boyhood's time of June, 30 40 50 Mine the sand-rimmed pickerel pond, 60 1 Still as my horizon grew, Purple-curtained, fringed with gold, Cheerily, then, my little man, Shall the cool wind kiss the heat: Quick and treacherous sands of sin. (1856) A FAREWELL CHARLES KINGSLEY 80 90 100 ["Suggested," said Holmes, "by looking at a section of one of those chambered shells to which is given the name of Pearly Nautilus. A section will show you the series of enlarging compartments successively dwelt in by the animal that inhabits the shell, which is built in a widening spiral."] This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, Sails the unshadowed main, The venturous bark that flings On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings, And coral reefs lie bare, Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair. Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl; As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell, Before thee lies revealed, Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed! Year after year beheld the silent toil Still, as the spiral grew, He left the past year's dwelling for the |