Publisher: Poemhunter com The World's Poetry Archive

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As I Walk These Broad, Majestic Days
AS I walk these broad, majestic days of peace,
(For the war, the struggle of blood finish'd, wherein, O terrific
Ideal!
Against vast odds, having gloriously won,
Now thou stridest on--yet perhaps in time toward denser wars,
Perhaps to engage in time in still more dreadful contests, dangers,
Longer campaigns and crises, labors beyond all others;
--As I walk solitary, unattended,
Around me I hear that eclat of the world--politics, produce,
The announcements of recognized things--science,
The approved growth of cities, and the spread of inventions. 10
I see the ships, (they will last a few years,)
The vast factories, with their foremen and workmen,
And here the indorsement of all, and do not object to it.
But I too announce solid things;
Science, ships, politics, cities, factories, are not nothing--I watch
them,
Like a grand procession, to music of distant bugles, pouring,
triumphantly moving--and grander heaving in sight;
They stand for realities--all is as it should be.
Then my realities;
What else is so real as mine?
Libertad, and the divine average--Freedom to every slave on the face
of the earth, 20
The rapt promises and luminé of seers--the spiritual world--these
centuries lasting songs,
And our visions, the visions of poets, the most solid announcements
of any.
For we support all, fuse all,
After the rest is done and gone, we remain;
There is no final reliance but upon us;
Democracy rests finally upon us (I, my brethren, begin it,)
And our visions sweep through eternity.
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Walt Whitman
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As I Watche'D The Ploughman Ploughing
AS I watch'd the ploughman ploughing,
Or the sower sowing in the fields--or the harvester harvesting,
I saw there too, O life and death, your analogies:
(Life, life is the tillage, and Death is the harvest according.)
Walt Whitman
94
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As If A Phantom Caress'D Me
AS if a phantom caress'd me,
I thought I was not alone, walking here by the shore;
But the one I thought was with me, as now I walk by the shore--the
one I loved, that caress'd me,
As I lean and look through the glimmering light--that one has utterly
disappear'd,
And those appear that are hateful to me, and mock me.
Walt Whitman
95
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As The Time Draws Nigh
AS the time draws nigh, glooming, a cloud,
A dread beyond, of I know not what, darkens me.
I shall go forth,
I shall traverse The States awhile--but I cannot tell whither or how
long;
Perhaps soon, some day or night while I am singing, my voice will
suddenly cease.
O book, O chants! must all then amount to but this?
Must we barely arrive at this beginning of us?... And yet it is
enough, O soul!
O soul! we have positively appear'd--that is enough.
Walt Whitman
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As Toilsome I Wander'D
AS TOILSOME I wander'd Virginia's woods,
To the music of rustling leaves, kick'd by my feet, (for 'twas
autumn,)
I mark'd at the foot of a tree the grave of a soldier,
Mortally wounded he, and buried on the retreat, (easily all could I
understand;)
The halt of a mid-day hour, when up! no time to lose--yet this sign
left,
On a tablet scrawl'd and nail'd on the tree by the grave,
Bold, cautious, true, and my loving comrade.
Long, long I muse, then on my way go wandering;
Many a changeful season to follow, and many a scene of life;
Yet at times through changeful season and scene, abrupt, alone, or in
the crowded street, 10
Comes before me the unknown soldier's grave--comes the inscription
rude in Virginia's woods,
Bold, cautious, true, and my loving comrade.
Walt Whitman