AN EXECUTOR'S DIARY NOTE, 1891. I said to W. W. to-day: "Though you have put the finishing touches 'Leaves,' closed them with your good-by, you will go on living a year or tru a and writing more poems. The question is, what will you do with these pro when the time comes to fix their place in the volume?" Do with them? not unprepared-I have even contemplated that energency I have a tre reserve: Old Age Echoes-applying not so much to things as to echoes of 1 reverberant, an aftermath." "You have dropt enough by the roadside, as went along, from different editions, to make a volume. Some day the world w demand to have that put together somewhere." "Do you think it ?" Should you put it under ban?" "Why should I-how could I? So far as may have anything to do with it I place upon you the injunction that whatever be added to the 'Leaves' shall be supplementary, avowed as such, leaving the a complete as I left it, consecutive to the point I left off, marking always an unr able, deep down, unobliteratable division line. In the long run the world will da it pleases with the book. I am determined to have the world know what I w pleased to do." Here is a late personal note from W. W.: "My tho't is to collect a lot of pes and poetry pieces-small or smallish mostly, but a few larger-appealing t good will, the heart-sorrowful ones not rejected- but no morbid ones given There is no reason for doubt that A Thought of Columbus, closing “Cld Agr Echoes," was W. W's last deliberate composition, dating December, 1891. OLD AGE ECHOES. TO SOAR IN FREEDOM AND IN FULLNESS OF POWER. I HAVE not so much emulated the birds that musically sing, The hawk, the seagull, have far more possess'd me than the canary or mocking-bird. I have not felt to warble and trill, however sweetly, I have felt to soar in freedom and in the fullness of power, joy, volition. THEN SHALL PERCEIVE. IN softness, languor, bloom, and growth, Thine eyes, ears, all thy sense-thy loftiest attribute- all that takes cognizance of beauty, Shall rouse and fill then shall perceive ! THE FEW DROPS KNOWN. Or heroes, history, grand events, premises, myths, poems, A little of Greeks and Romans, a few Hebrew canticles, a few ONE THOUGHT EVER AT THE FORE. ONE thought ever at the fore — That in the Divine Ship, the World, breasting Time and Space, All Peoples of the globe together sail, sail the same voyage, are bound to the same destination. WHILE BEHIND ALL FIRM AND ERECT. WHILE behind all, firm and erect as ever, Undismay'd amid the rapids- amid the irresistible and deadurge, Stands a helmsman, with brow elate and strong hand. A KISS TO THE BRIDE. Marriage of Nelly Grant, May 21, 1874. SACRED, blithesome, undenied, With benisons from East and West, And salutations North and South, Through me indeed to-day a million hearts and hands, For the New World, through me, the old, old wedding greeting O youth and health! O sweet Missouri rose! O bonny bride: Yield thy red cheeks, thy lips, to-day, Unto a Nation's loving kiss. NAY, TELL ME NOT TO-DAY THE PUBLISH'D SHAME Winter of 1873, Congress in Session. NAY, tell me not to-day the publish'd shame, Read not to-day the journal's crowded page, The merciless reports still branding forehead after forehead, To-day to me the tale refusing, Turning from it from the white capitol turning, Unpublish'd, unreported. Through all your quiet ways, or North or South, you Equa States, you honest farms, Your million untold manly healthy lives, or East or West, city or country, Your noiseless mothers, sisters, wives, unconscious of their good. Your mass of homes nor poor nor rich, in visions rise (even your excellent poverties,) Your self-distilling, never-ceasing virtues, self-denials, graces, Your endless base of deep integrities within, timid but certain, Your blessings steadily bestow'd, sure as the light, and still, (Plunging to these as a determin'd diver down the deep hidden waters), These, these to-day I brood upon all else refusing, these will I con, To-day to these give audience. SUPPLEMENT HOURS. SANE, random, negligent hours, Sane, easy, culminating hours, After the flush, the Indian summer, of my life, Away from Books o'er, away from Art- the lesson learn'd, pass'd Soothing, bathing, merging all the sane, magnetic, the open air, Now for the fields, the seasons, insects, trees the rain and snow, Where wild bees flitting hum, Or August mulleins grow, or winter's snowflakes fall, The silent sun and stars. OF MANY A SMUTCH'D DEED REMINISCENT. FULL of wickedness, I — of many a smutch'd deed reminiscent of worse deeds capable, -- Yet I look composedly upon nature, drink day and night the joys of life, and await death with perfect equanimity, Because of my tender and boundless love for him I love and because of his boundless love for me. TO BE AT ALL. (Cf. Stanza 27, Song of Myself, p. 52.) To be at all- what is better than that? I think if there were nothing more developed, the clam in its callous shell in the sand were august enough. I am not in any callous shell; I am cased with supple conductors, all over They take every object by the hand, and lead it within me; |