The Complete Works of Walt Whitman. Walt Whitman

a sure proof, the glimpse of thyself,

       Thou waitest there as everywhere thy time.

By Broad Potomac’s Shore

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      By broad Potomac’s shore, again old tongue,

       (Still uttering, still ejaculating, canst never cease this babble?)

       Again old heart so gay, again to you, your sense, the full flush

       spring returning,

       Again the freshness and the odors, again Virginia’s summer sky,

       pellucid blue and silver,

       Again the forenoon purple of the hills,

       Again the deathless grass, so noiseless soft and green,

       Again the blood-red roses blooming.

      Perfume this book of mine O blood-red roses!

       Lave subtly with your waters every line Potomac!

       Give me of you O spring, before I close, to put between its pages!

       O forenoon purple of the hills, before I close, of you!

       O deathless grass, of you!

From Far Dakota’s Canyons [June 25, 1876]

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      From far Dakota’s canyons,

       Lands of the wild ravine, the dusky Sioux, the lonesome stretch, the

       silence,

       Haply to-day a mournful wall, haply a trumpet-note for heroes.

      The battle-bulletin,

       The Indian ambuscade, the craft, the fatal environment,

       The cavalry companies fighting to the last in sternest heroism,

       In the midst of their little circle, with their slaughter’d horses

       for breastworks,

       The fall of Custer and all his officers and men.

      Continues yet the old, old legend of our race,

       The loftiest of life upheld by death,

       The ancient banner perfectly maintain’d,

       O lesson opportune, O how I welcome thee!

      As sitting in dark days,

       Lone, sulky, through the time’s thick murk looking in vain for

       light, for hope,

       From unsuspected parts a fierce and momentary proof,

       (The sun there at the centre though conceal’d,

       Electric life forever at the centre,)

       Breaks forth a lightning flash.

      Thou of the tawny flowing hair in battle,

       I erewhile saw, with erect head, pressing ever in front, bearing a

       bright sword in thy hand,

       Now ending well in death the splendid fever of thy deeds,

       (I bring no dirge for it or thee, I bring a glad triumphal sonnet,)

       Desperate and glorious, aye in defeat most desperate, most glorious,

       After thy many battles in which never yielding up a gun or a color,

       Leaving behind thee a memory sweet to soldiers,

       Thou yieldest up thyself.

Old War-Dreams

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      In midnight sleep of many a face of anguish,

       Of the look at first of the mortally wounded, (of that indescribable look,)

       Of the dead on their backs with arms extended wide,

       I dream, I dream, I dream.

      Of scenes of Nature, fields and mountains,

       Of skies so beauteous after a storm, and at night the moon so

       unearthly bright,

       Shining sweetly, shining down, where we dig the trenches and

       gather the heaps,

       I dream, I dream, I dream.

      Long have they pass’d, faces and trenches and fields,

       Where through the carnage I moved with a callous composure, or away

       from the fallen,

       Onward I sped at the time — but now of their forms at night,

       I dream, I dream, I dream.

Thick-Sprinkled Bunting

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      Thick-sprinkled bunting! flag of stars!

       Long yet your road, fateful flag — long yet your road, and lined with

       bloody death,

       For the prize I see at issue at last is the world,

       All its ships and shores I see interwoven with your threads greedy banner;

       Dream’d again the flags of kings, highest borne to flaunt unrival’d?

       O hasten flag of man — O with sure and steady step, passing highest

       flags of kings,

       Walk supreme to the heavens mighty symbol — run up above them all,

       Flag of stars! thick-sprinkled bunting!

       What Best I See in Thee

       [To U. S. G. return’d from his World’s Tour]

      What best I see in thee,

       Is not that where thou mov’st down history’s great highways,

       Ever undimm’d by time shoots warlike victory’s dazzle,

       Or that thou sat’st where Washington sat, ruling the land in peace,

       Or thou the man whom feudal Europe feted, venerable Asia swarm’d upon,

       Who walk’d with kings with even pace the round world’s promenade;

       But that in foreign lands, in all thy walks with kings,

       Those prairie sovereigns of the West, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois,

       Ohio’s, Indiana’s millions, comrades, farmers, soldiers, all to the front,

       Invisibly with thee walking with kings with even pace the round

       world’s promenade,

       Were all so justified.

       Spirit That Form’d This Scene

       [Written in Platte Canyon, Colorado]

      Spirit that form’d this scene,

       These tumbled rock-piles grim and red,

       These reckless heaven-ambitious peaks,

       These gorges, turbulent-clear streams, this naked freshness,

       These formless wild arrays, for reasons of their own,

       I know thee, savage spirit — we have communed together,

       Mine too such wild arrays, for reasons of their own;

       Wast charged against my chants they had forgotten art?

       To fuse within themselves its rules precise and delicatesse?