WALT WHITMAN Ultimate Collection: 500+ Works in Poetry & Prose - Walt Whitman

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surmounting three-score and ten,

       With all their chances, changes, losses, sorrows,

       My parents’ deaths, the vagaries of my life, the many tearing

       passions of me, the war of ‘63 and ‘4,

       As some old broken soldier, after a long, hot, wearying march, or

       haply after battle,

       To-day at twilight, hobbling, answering company roll-call, Here,

       with vital voice,

       Reporting yet, saluting yet the Officer over all.

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      A vague mist hanging ‘round half the pages:

       (Sometimes how strange and clear to the soul,

       That all these solid things are indeed but apparitions, concepts,

       non-realities.)

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      Somehow I cannot let it go yet, funeral though it is,

       Let it remain back there on its nail suspended,

       With pink, blue, yellow, all blanch’d, and the white now gray and ashy,

       One wither’d rose put years ago for thee, dear friend;

       But I do not forget thee. Hast thou then faded?

       Is the odor exhaled? Are the colors, vitalities, dead?

       No, while memories subtly play — the past vivid as ever;

       For but last night I woke, and in that spectral ring saw thee,

       Thy smile, eyes, face, calm, silent, loving as ever:

       So let the wreath hang still awhile within my eye-reach,

       It is not yet dead to me, nor even pallid.

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      The soothing sanity and blitheness of completion,

       The pomp and hurried contest-glare and rush are done;

       Now triumph! transformation! jubilate!

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      From east and west across the horizon’s edge,

       Two mighty masterful vessels sailers steal upon us:

       But we’ll make race a-time upon the seas — a battle-contest yet! bear

       lively there!

       (Our joys of strife and derring-do to the last!)

       Put on the old ship all her power to-day!

       Crowd top-sail, top-gallant and royal studding-sails,

       Out challenge and defiance — flags and flaunting pennants added,

       As we take to the open — take to the deepest, freest waters.

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      Have I no weapon-word for thee — some message brief and fierce?

       (Have I fought out and done indeed the battle?) Is there no shot left,

       For all thy affectations, lisps, scorns, manifold silliness?

       Nor for myself — my own rebellious self in thee?

      Down, down, proud gorge! — though choking thee;

       Thy bearded throat and high-borne forehead to the gutter;

       Crouch low thy neck to eleemosynary gifts.

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      I doubt it not — then more, far more;

       In each old song bequeath’d — in every noble page or text,

       (Different — something unreck’d before — some unsuspected author,)

       In every object, mountain, tree, and star — in every birth and life,

       As part of each — evolv’d from each — meaning, behind the ostent,

       A mystic cipher waits infolded.

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      After a long, long course, hundreds of years, denials,

       Accumulations, rous’d love and joy and thought,

       Hopes, wishes, aspirations, ponderings, victories, myriads of readers,

       Coating, compassing, covering — after ages’ and ages’ encrustations,

       Then only may these songs reach fruition.

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      Add to your show, before you close it, France,

       With all the rest, visible, concrete, temples, towers, goods,

       machines and ores,

       Our sentiment wafted from many million heart-throbs, ethereal but solid,

       (We grand-sons and great-grandsons do not forget your grandsires,)

       From fifty Nations and nebulous Nations, compacted, sent oversea to-day,

       America’s applause, love, memories and good-will.

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      Over and through the burial chant,

       Organ and solemn service, sermon, bending priests,

       To me come interpolation sounds not in the show — plainly to me,

       crowding up the aisle and from the window,

       Of sudden battle’s hurry and harsh noises — war’s grim game to sight

       and ear in earnest;

       The scout call’d up and forward — the general mounted and his aides

       around him — the new-brought word — the instantaneous order issued;

       The rifle crack — the cannon thud — the rushing forth of men from their

       tents;

       The clank of cavalry — the strange celerity of forming ranks — the

       slender bugle note;

       The sound of horses’ hoofs departing — saddles, arms, accoutrements.

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