WHEN I HEARD THE LEARN'D ASTRONOMER When I heard the learn'd astronomer; When the proofs, the figures were ranged in columns before me; When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them; When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room, How, soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick; Till rising and gliding out, I wander'd off by myself, In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, 5 O STAR OF FRANCE 1870-71 From Drum-Taps, 1865. O star of France, The brightness of thy hope and strength and fame, Like some proud ship that led the fleet so long, Beseems to-day a wreck driven by the gale, a mastless hulk, And 'mid its teeming madden'd half-drown'd crowds, Nor helm nor helmsman. Dim smitten star, Orb not of France alone, pale symbol of my soul, its dearest hopes, Of aspirations toward the far ideal, enthusiast's dreams of brotherhood, Star crucified-by traitors sold, Star panting o'er a land of death, heroic land, Miserable! yet for thy errors, vanities, sins, I will not now rebuke thee, And left thee sacred. In that amid thy many faults thou ever aimedst highly, 15 In that thou wouldst not really sell thyself however great the price, In that thou surely wakedst weeping from thy drugg'd sleep, 20 In that alone among thy sisters thou, giantess, didst rend the ones that shamed thee, In that thou coudst not, wouldst not, wear the usual chains, The travail o'er, the long-sought extrication, When lo! reborn, high o'er the European world, (In gladness answering thence, as face afar to face, reflecting ours, Columbia), Again thy star, O France, fair lustrous star, In heavenly peace, clear, more bright than ever, The Galaxy, June, 1871. A NOISELESS PATIENT SPIDER A noiseless patient spider, I mark'd where on a little promontory it stood isolated, It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself, And you O my soul where you stand, Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space, Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them, 10 From Passage to India, 1871. DAREST THOU NOW, O SOUL Darest thou now, O soul. Walk out with me toward the unknown region, Where neither ground is for the feet nor any path to follow? No map there, nor guide, Nor voice sounding, nor touch of human hand, Nor face with blooming flesh, nor lips, nor eyes, are in that land. I know it not, O soul, Nor dost thou, all is a blank before us, All waits undream'd of in that region, that inaccessible land. Till when the ties loosen, All but the ties eternal, Time and Space, Nor darkness, gravitation, sense, nor any bounds bounding us. Then we burst forth, we float, In Time and Space, O soul, prepared for them. Equal, equipt at last (O joy! O fruit of all!), them to fulfil, O Soul. THOU MOTHER WITH THY EQUAL BROOD Thou Mother with thy equal brood, Thou varied chain of different States, yet one identity only, A special song before I go I'd sing o'er all the rest, For thee, the future. I'd sow a seed for thee of endless Nationality, I'd fashion thy ensemble including body and soul, I'd show away ahead thy real Union, and how it may be accomplish'd. 10 35 The paths to the house I seek to make, But leave to those to come the house itself. Belief I sing, and preparation; As Life and Nature are not great with reference to the present only, But greater still from what is yet to come, Out of that formula for thee I sing. As a strong bird on pinions free, Joyous, the amplest spaces heavenward cleaving, Such be the thought I'd think of thee, America, Such be the recitative I'd bring for thee. The conceits of the poets of other lands I'd bring thee not, 10 15 Nor the compliments that have served their turn so long, Nor rime, nor the classics, nor perfume of foreign court or indoor library; 20 But an odor I'd bring as from forests of pine in Maine, or breath of an Illinois prairie, With open airs of Virginia or Georgia or Tennessee, or from Texas uplands, or Florida's glades, Or the Saguenay's black stream, or the wide blue spread of Huron, With presentment of Yellowstone's scenes, or Yosemite, And murmuring under, pervading all, I'd bring the rustling sea-sound, And for thy subtler sense subtler refrains, Dread Mother, Thou! mounting higher, diving deeper than we knew, thou transcendental Union! 25 Preludes of intellect tallying these and thee, mind-formulas fitted for thee, real and sane and large as these and thee, By thee fact to be justified, blended with thought, Thought of man justified, blended with God, Through thy idea, lo, the immortal reality! Through thy reality, lo, the immortal idea! Brain of the New World, what a task is thine, To formulate the Modern-out of the peerless grandeur of the modern, Out of thyself, comprising science, to recast poems, churches, art, 30 35 (Recast, may-be discard them, end them-may-be their work is done, who knows?) By vision, hand, conception, on the background of the mighty past, the dead, To limn with absolute faith the mighty living present. And yet thou living present brain, heir of the dead, the Old World brain, 40 Thou carefully prepared by it so long-haply thou but unfoldest it, only maturest it, Its poems, churches, arts, unwitting to themselves, destined with reference to thee; 45 The fruit of all the Old ripening to-day in thee. Sail, sail thy best, ship of Democracy, Of value is thy freight, 't is not the Present only, The Past is also stored in thee. Thou holdest not the venture of thyself alone, not of the Western continent alone, 50 With thee Time voyages in trust, the antecedent nations sink or swim with thee, Theirs, theirs as much as thine, the destination-port triumphant; With all their ancient struggles, martyrs, heroes, epics, wars, thou bear'st the other continents. Venerable priesty Asia sails this day with thee, Steer them with good strong hand and wary eye, O helmsman, thou carriest great companions, And royal feudal Europe sails with thee. 55 Beautiful world of new superber birth that rises to my eyes, Like a limitless golden cloud filling the western sky, Emblem of general maternity lifted above all, 60 Sacred shape of the bearer of daughters and sons, Out of thy teeming womb thy giant babes in ceaseless procession issuing, Acceding from such gestation, taking and giving continual strength and life, World of the real-world of the twain in one, World of the soul, born by the world of the real alone, led to identity, body, by it alone, 65 Yet in beginning only, incalculable masses of composite precious materials, By history's cycles forwarded, by every nation, language, hither sent, Ready, collected here, a freer, vast, electric world, to be constructed here, (The true New World, the world of orbic science, morals, literatures to come), Thou wonder world yet undefined, unform'd, neither do I define thee, How can I pierce the impenetrable blank of the future? I feel thy ominous greatness evil as well as good, I watch thee advancing, absorbing the present, transcending the past, I see thy light lighting, and thy shadow shadowing, as if the entire globe, But I do not undertake to define thee, hardly to comprehend thee, I but thee name, thee prophesy, as now, I merely thee ejaculate! Thee in thy future, Thee in thy only permanent life, career, thy own unloosen'd mind, thy soaring spirit, 70 75 80 Scattering for good the cloud that hung so long, that weigh'd so long upon the mind of man, The doubt, suspicion, dread, of gradual, certain decadence of man; Thee in thy larger, såner brood of female, male- thee in thy athletes, moral, spiritual, South, North, West, East, 85 (To thy immortal breasts, Mother of All, thy every daughter,.son, endear'd alike, forever equal). Thee in thy own musicians, singers, artists, unborn yet, but certain, Thee in thy moral wealth and civilization (until which thy proudest material civilization must remain in vain, Thee in thy all-supplying, all-enclosing worship— thee in no single bible, savior, merely, Thy saviors countless, latent within thyself, thy bibles incessant within thyself, equal to any, divine as any, 90 (Thy soaring course thee formulating, not in thy two great wars, nor in thy century's visible growth, But, far more in these leaves and chants, thy chants, great Mother!) Thee in an education grown of thee, in teachers, studies, students, born of thee, Thee in thy democratic fetes en-masse, thy high original festivals, operas, lecturers, preachers, Thee in thy ultimata (the preparations only now completed, the edifice on sure foundations tied), 95 Thee in thy pinnacles, intellect, thought, thy topmost rational joys, thy love and godlike aspiration, In thy resplendent coming literati, thy full-lung'd orators, thy sacerdotal bards, kosmic savans, These! these in thee (certain to come), to-day I prophesy. Land tolerating all, accepting all, not for the good alone, all good for thee, Land in the realms of God to be a realm unto thyself, Under the rule of God to be a rule unto thyself. 100 (Lo, where arise three peerless stars, To be thy natal stars my country, Ensemble, Evolution, Freedom, Set in the sky of Law.) Land of unprecedented faith, God's faith, Thy soil, thy very subsoil, all upheav'd, 105 The general inner earth so long so sedulously draped over, now hence for what it is so boldly laid bare, Open'd by thee to heaven's light for benefit or bale. Not for success alone, Not to fair-sail unintermitted always, 110 The storm shall dash thy face, the murk of war and worse than war shall cover thee all over, (Wert capable of war, its tugs and trials? be capable of peace, its trials, For the tug and mortal strain of nations come at last in prosperous peace, not war); In many a smiling mask death shall approach beguiling thee, thou in disease shalt swelter, The livid cancer spread its hideous claws, clinging upon thy breasts seeking to strike thee deep within, Consumption of the worst, moral consumption, shall rouge thy face with hectic, While thou, Time's spirals rounding, out of thyself, thyself still extricating, fusing, 115 120 Shalt soar toward the fulfilment of the future, the spirit of the body and the mind, The soul, its destinies, the real real, (Purport of all these apparitions of the real); In thee America, the soul, its destinies, Thou globe of globes! thou wonder nebulous! By many a throe of heat and cold convuls'd (by these thyself solidifying), DEMOCRATIC VISTAS From As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free, 1872. To him or her within whose thought rages the battle, advancing, retreating, between democracy's convictions, aspira- 5 tions, and the people's crudeness, vice, caprices, I mainly write this essay. I shall use the words America and democracy as convertible terms. Not an ordinary one is the issue. The United States 10 are destined either to surmount the gorgeous history of feudalism, or else prove the most tremendous failure of time. Not the least doubtful am I on any prospects of their material success. The 15 triumphant future of their business, geographic and productive departments, on larger scales and in more varieties than 125 130 ever, is certain. In those respects the republic must soon (if she does not already) outstrip all, examples hitherto afforded, and dominate the world. Admitting all this, with the priceless value of our political institutions, general suffrage (and fully acknowledging the latest, widest opening of the doors), I say that, far deeper than these, what finally and only is to make of our Western world a nationality superior to any hither known, and out-topping the past, must be vigorous, yet unsuspected Literatures, perfect personalities and sociologies, original, transcendental, and expressing (what, in highest sense, are not yet express'd at all), democracy and the modern. With these, and out of these, I |