Perfections.

ONLY themselves understand themselves and the like of them

selves,

As souls only understand souls.

Me! Life!

O ME! O life! of the questions of these recurring,

[foolish,

Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill'd with the Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)

Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew'd,

Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I

see around me,

[tertwined, Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me inThe question, O me! so sad, recurring - What good amid these,

O me, O life?

Answer.

That you are here that life exists and identity,

That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.

ALL

To a President.

you are doing and saying is to America dangled mirages, You have not learn'd of Nature-of the politics of Nature you have not learn'd the great amplitude, rectitude, impartiality, You have not seen that only such as they are for these States,

VOL. 11-3

And that what is less than they must sooner or later lift off from

these States.

1 Sit and Look Out.

I SIT and look out upon all the sorrows of the world, and upon all

oppression and shame,

I hear secret convulsive sobs from young men at anguish with themselves, remorseful after deeds done,

I see in low life the mother misused by her children, dying,

neglected, gaunt, desperate,

I see the wife misused by her husband, I see the treacherous seducer of young women,

I mark the ranklings of jealousy and unrequited love attempted to be hid, I see these sights on the earth,

[prisoners,

I see the workings of battle, pestilence, tyranny, I see martyrs and I observe a famine at sea, I observe the sailors casting lots who shall be kill'd to preserve the lives of the rest,

I observe the slights and degradations cast by arrogant persons upon laborers, the poor, and upon negroes, and the like; All these all the meanness and agony without end I sitting look

out upon,

See, hear, and am silent.

To Rich Givers.

WHAT you give me I cheerfully accept,

A little sustenance, a hut and garden, a little money, as I rendez.

vous with my poems,

1

A traveler's lodging and breakfast as I journey through the States, -why should I be ashamed to own such gifts? why to

advertise for them?

For I myself am not one who bestows nothing upon man and

woman,

For
For I bestow upon any man or woman the entrance to all the gifts

of the universe.

The Dalliance of the Eagles.

SKIRTING the river road, (my forenoon walk, my rest,)
Skyward in air a sudden muffled sound, the dalliance of the eagles,
The rushing amorous contact high in space together,

The clinching interlocking claws, a living, fierce, gyrating wheel,
Four beating wings, two beaks, a swirling mass tight grappling,
In tumbling turning clustering loops, straight downward falling,
Till o'er the river pois'd, the twain yet one, a moment's lull,
A motionless still balance in the air, then parting, talons loosing,
Upward again on slow, firm pinions slanting, their separate diverse
flight,

She hers, he his, pursuing.

Roaming in Thought.

(After reading HEGEL.)

ROAMING in thought over the Universe, I saw the little that is

Good steadily hastening towards immortality,

And the vast all that is call'd Evil I saw hastening to merge itself and become lost and dead.

A Farm Picture.

THROUGH the ample open door of the peaceful country barn,
A sunlit pasture field with cattle and horses feeding,
And haze and vista, and the far horizon fading away.

A Child's Amaze.

SILENT and amazed even when a little boy,

[statements,

I remember I heard the preacher every Sunday put God in his

As contending against some being or influence.

The Runner.

ON a flat road runs the well-train'd runner,

He is lean and sinewy with muscular legs,
He is thinly clothed, he leans forward as he runs,
With lightly closed fists and arms partially rais'd.

Beautiful Women.

WOMEN Sit or move to and fro, some old, some young,
The young are beautiful-but the old are more beautiful than

the young.

Mother and Babe.

I SEE the sleeping babe nestling the breast of its mother,

[long.

The sleeping mother and babe-hush'd, I study them long and

Thought.

OF obedience, faith, adhesiveness;

As I stand aloof and look there is to me something profoundly affecting in large masses of men following the lead of those

who do not believe in men.

Visor'd.

A MASK, a perpetual natural disguiser of herself,

Concealing her face, concealing her form,

Changes and transformations every hour, every moment,
Falling upon her even when she sleeps.

Thought.

OF Justice as if Justice could be anything but the same ample law, expounded by natural judges and saviors,

As if it might be this thing or that thing, according to decisions.