A Song - Walt Whitman

A Song


                    1

     Come, I will make the continent indissoluble;
     I will make the most splendid race the sun ever yet shone upon;
     I will make divine magnetic lands,
          With the love of comrades,
          With the life-long love of comrades.

                    2

     I will plant companionship thick as trees along all the rivers of 
          America, and along the shores of the great lakes, and all over 
          the prairies;
     I will make inseparable cities, with their arms about each other's 
          necks;
          By the love of comrades,
               By the manly love of comrades.

                    3

     For you these, from me, O Democracy, to serve you, ma femme!
     For you! for you, I am trilling these songs,
          In the love of comrades,
               In the high-towering love of comrades.

Miracles - Walt Whitman

Miracles


Why, who makes much of a miracle? 
              As to me, I know of nothing else but miracles, 
              Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan, 
              Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky, 
              Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of the water, 
              Or stand under trees in the woods, 
              Or talk by day with anyone I love, or sleep in the bed at night with anyone I love, 
              Or sit at table at dinner with the rest, 
              Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car, 
              Or watch honey bees busy around the hive of a summer forenoon, 
              Or animals feeding in the fields, 
              Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air, 
              Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining so quiet and bright, 
              Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring; 
              These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles, 
              The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place. 

              To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle, 
              Every cubic inch of space is a miracle, 
              Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same, 
              Every foot of the interior swarms with the same. 

              To me the sea is a continual miracle, 
              The fishes that swim--the rocks--the motion of the waves--the ships with the men in them, 
              What stranger miracles are there?

A Woman Waits for Me - Walt Whitman

A Woman Waits for Me



A Woman waits for me--she contains all, nothing is lacking,
Yet all were lacking, if sex were lacking, or if the moisture of the 
     right man were lacking.

Sex contains all,
Bodies, Souls, meanings, proofs, purities, delicacies, results, 
     promulgations,
Songs, commands, health, pride, the maternal mystery, the seminal 
     milk;
All hopes, benefactions, bestowals,
All the passions, loves, beauties, delights of the earth,
All the governments, judges, gods, follow'd persons of the earth,
These are contain'd in sex, as parts of itself, and justifications of 
     itself.

Without shame the man I like knows and avows the deliciousness of his 
     sex,
Without shame the woman I like knows and avows hers.

Now I will dismiss myself from impassive women,
I will go stay with her who waits for me, and with those women that 
     are warm-blooded and sufficient for me;
I see that they understand me, and do not deny me;
I see that they are worthy of me--I will be the robust husband of 
     those women.

They are not one jot less than I am,
They are tann'd in the face by shining suns and blowing winds,
Their flesh has the old divine suppleness and strength,
They know how to swim, row, ride, wrestle, shoot, run, strike, 
     retreat, advance, resist, defend themselves,
They are ultimate in their own right--they are calm, clear, well-
     possess'd of themselves.

I draw you close to me, you women!
I cannot let you go, I would do you good,
I am for you, and you are for me, not only for our own sake, but for 
     others' sakes;
Envelop'd in you sleep greater heroes and bards,
They refuse to awake at the touch of any man but me.

It is I, you women--I make my way,
I am stern, acrid, large, undissuadable--but I love you,
I do not hurt you any more than is necessary for you,
I pour the stuff to start sons and daughters fit for These States--I 
     press with slow rude muscle,
I brace myself effectually--I listen to no entreaties,
I dare not withdraw till I deposit what has so long accumulated 
     within me.

Through you I drain the pent-up rivers of myself,
In you I wrap a thousand onward years,
On you I graft the grafts of the best-beloved of me and America,
The drops I distil upon you shall grow fierce and athletic girls, new 
     artists, musicians, and singers,
The babes I beget upon you are to beget babes in their turn,
I shall demand perfect men and women out of my love-spendings,
I shall expect them to interpenetrate with others, as I and you 
     interpenetrate now,
I shall count on the fruits of the gushing showers of them, as I 
     count on the fruits of the gushing showers I give now,
I shall look for loving crops from the birth, life, death, 
     immortality, I plant so lovingly now.

VICTORY comes late - Emily Dickinson

VICTORY comes late,
And is held low to freezing lips
Too rapt with frost
To take it.
How sweet it would have tasted,
Just a drop!
Was God so economical?
His table’s spread too high for us
Unless we dine on tip-toe.
Crumbs fit such little mouths,
Cherries suit robins;
The eagle’s golden breakfast
Strangles them.
God keeps his oath to sparrows,
Who of little love
Know how to starve!

BELSHAZZAR had a letter - Emily Dickinson

BELSHAZZAR had a letter,—
He never had but one;
Belshazzar’s correspondent
Concluded and begun
In that immortal copy
The conscience of us all
Can read without its glasses
On revelation’s wall.

THE LINE-GANG - Robert Frost

THE LINE-GANG

Jriere come the line-gang pioneering by.
They throw a forest down less cut than broken.
They plant dead trees for living, and the dead
They string together with a living thread.
They string an instrument against the sky
Wherein words whether beaten out or spoken
Will run as hushed as when they were a thought.
But in no hush they string it: they go past
With shouts afar to pull the cable taut,
To hold it hard until they make it fast,
To ease away they have it. With a laugh,
An oath of towns that set the wild at naught
They bring the telephone and telegraph.

'OUT, OUT' - Robert Frost

'OUT, OUT'


The buzz-saw snarled and rattled in the yard
And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of
wood,
Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it.
And from there those that lifted eyes could count
Five mountain ranges one behind the other
Under the sunset far into Vermont.
And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled,
As it ran light, or had to bear a load.
And nothing happened: day was all but done.
Call it a day, I wish they might have said
To please the boy by giving him the half hour
That a boy counts so much when saved from work.
His sister stood beside them in her apron
To tell them 'Supper.' At the word, the saw,
As if to prove saws knew what supper meant,
Leaped out at the boy's hand, or seemed to leap-
He must have given the hand. However it was,
Neither refused the meeting. But the hand!
^ ne boy's first outcry was a rueful laugh,
As he swung toward them holding up the hand
Half in appeal, but half as if to keep
The life from spilling. Then the boy saw ail-
Since he was old enough to know, big boy
Doing a man's work, though a child at heart-
He saw all spoiled. 'Don't let him cut my hand off
The doctor, when he comes. Don't let him, sister !

So. But the hand was gone already.
The doctor put him in the dark of ether.
He lay and puffed his lips out with his breath.
And then the watcher at his pulse took fright.
No one believed. They listened at his heart.
Littleless nothing! and that ended it.
No more to build on there. And they, since they
Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.