From “a Fable for Critics”
THERE is Lowell, who ’s striving Parnassus to climb
With a whole bale of isms tied together with rhyme.
He might get on alone, spite of brambles and boulders,
But he can’t with that bundle he has on his shoulders.
The top of the hill he will ne’er come nigh reaching
Till he learns the distinction ’twixt singing and...
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To Confront His Own Portrait for “The Wound Dresser” in “Leaves of Grass”
OUT from behind this bending, rough-cut mask,
These lights and shades, this drama of the whole,
This common curtain of the face, contained in me for me, in you for you, in each for each.
(Tragedies, sorrows, laughter, tears—O heaven!
The passionate teeming plays this curtain hid!)... -
From “The Song of Myself”
I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loaf and invite my soul,
I lean and loaf at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.My tongue, every atom of my blood, formed from this soil, this air,
Born here of parents born... -
HARP of New England Song,
That even in slumber trembled with the touch
Of poets who like the four winds from thee waken
All harmonies that to thy strings belong,—
Say, wilt thou blame the younger hands too much
Which from thy laurelled resting place have taken
Thee crowned one in their hold? There is a name
Should... -
How beautiful it was, that one bright day
In the long week of rain!
Though all its splendor could not chase away
The omnipresent pain.The lovely town was white with apple-blooms,
And the great elms o’erhead
Dark shadows wove on their aerial looms
Shot through with golden thread.Across the meadows, by the gray old...
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She told the story, and the whole world wept
At wrongs and cruelties it had not known
But for this fearless woman’s voice alone.
She spoke to consciences that long had slept:
Her message. Freedom’s clear reveille, swept
From heedless hovel to complacent throne.
Command and prophecy were in the tone,
And from its sheath the sword of... -
On His Birthday, 27th February, 1867
I NEED not praise the sweetness of his song,
Where limpid verse to limpid verse succeeds
Smooth as our Charles, when, fearing lest he wrong
The new moon’s mirrored skiff, he slides along,
Full without noise, and whispers in his reeds.With loving breath of all the winds his name
Is blown about... -
In Memoriam
Nec turpem senectam
Degere, nec cithara carentem.“NOT to be tuneless in old age!”
Ah! surely blest his pilgrimage,
Who, in his winter’s snow,
Still sings with note as sweet and clear
As in the morning of the year
When the first violets blow!Blest!—but more blest, whom summer’s heat,
Whom... -
Shall I sonnet-sing you about myself?
Do I live in a house you would like to see?
Is it scant of gear, has it store of pelf?
“Unlock my heart with a sonnet-key?”Invite the world, as my betters have done?
...
“Take notice: this building remains on view,
Its suites of reception every one,
Its private apartment and bedroom too; -
First bring me Raffael, who alone hath seen
In all her purity heaven’s virgin queen,
Alone hath felt true beauty; bring me then
Titian, ennobler of the noblest men;
And next the sweet Correggio, nor chastise
His little Cupids for those wicked eyes.
I want not Rubens’s pink puffy bloom,
Nor Rembrandt’s glimmer in a dusty room.
With...