The Complete Works of Walt Whitman. Walt Whitman

at Sunset

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      Splendor of ended day floating and filling me,

       Hour prophetic, hour resuming the past,

       Inflating my throat, you divine average,

       You earth and life till the last ray gleams I sing.

      Open mouth of my soul uttering gladness,

       Eyes of my soul seeing perfection,

       Natural life of me faithfully praising things,

       Corroborating forever the triumph of things.

      Illustrious every one!

       Illustrious what we name space, sphere of unnumber’d spirits,

       Illustrious the mystery of motion in all beings, even the tiniest insect,

       Illustrious the attribute of speech, the senses, the body,

       Illustrious the passing light — illustrious the pale reflection on

       the new moon in the western sky,

       Illustrious whatever I see or hear or touch, to the last.

      Good in all,

       In the satisfaction and aplomb of animals,

       In the annual return of the seasons,

       In the hilarity of youth,

       In the strength and flush of manhood,

       In the grandeur and exquisiteness of old age,

       In the superb vistas of death.

      Wonderful to depart!

       Wonderful to be here!

       The heart, to jet the all-alike and innocent blood!

       To breathe the air, how delicious!

       To speak — to walk — to seize something by the hand!

       To prepare for sleep, for bed, to look on my rose-color’d flesh!

       To be conscious of my body, so satisfied, so large!

       To be this incredible God I am!

       To have gone forth among other Gods, these men and women I love.

      Wonderful how I celebrate you and myself

       How my thoughts play subtly at the spectacles around!

       How the clouds pass silently overhead!

       How the earth darts on and on! and how the sun, moon, stars, dart on and on!

       How the water sports and sings! (surely it is alive!)

       How the trees rise and stand up, with strong trunks, with branches

       and leaves!

       (Surely there is something more in each of the trees, some living soul.)

      O amazement of things — even the least particle!

       O spirituality of things!

       O strain musical flowing through ages and continents, now reaching

       me and America!

       I take your strong chords, intersperse them, and cheerfully pass

       them forward.

      I too carol the sun, usher’d or at noon, or as now, setting,

       I too throb to the brain and beauty of the earth and of all the

       growths of the earth,

       I too have felt the resistless call of myself.

      As I steam’d down the Mississippi,

       As I wander’d over the prairies,

       As I have lived, as I have look’d through my windows my eyes,

       As I went forth in the morning, as I beheld the light breaking in the east,

       As I bathed on the beach of the Eastern Sea, and again on the beach

       of the Western Sea,

       As I roam’d the streets of inland Chicago, whatever streets I have roam’d,

       Or cities or silent woods, or even amid the sights of war,

       Wherever I have been I have charged myself with contentment and triumph.

      I sing to the last the equalities modern or old,

       I sing the endless finales of things,

       I say Nature continues, glory continues,

       I praise with electric voice,

       For I do not see one imperfection in the universe,

       And I do not see one cause or result lamentable at last in the universe.

      O setting sun! though the time has come,

       I still warble under you, if none else does, unmitigated adoration.

As at Thy Portals Also Death

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      As at thy portals also death,

       Entering thy sovereign, dim, illimitable grounds,

       To memories of my mother, to the divine blending, maternity,

       To her, buried and gone, yet buried not, gone not from me,

       (I see again the calm benignant face fresh and beautiful still,

       I sit by the form in the coffin,

       I kiss and kiss convulsively again the sweet old lips, the cheeks,

       the closed eyes in the coffin;)

       To her, the ideal woman, practical, spiritual, of all of earth,

       life, love, to me the best,

       I grave a monumental line, before I go, amid these songs,

       And set a tombstone here.

My Legacy

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      The business man the acquirer vast,

       After assiduous years surveying results, preparing for departure,

       Devises houses and lands to his children, bequeaths stocks, goods,

       funds for a school or hospital,

       Leaves money to certain companions to buy tokens, souvenirs of gems

       and gold.

      But I, my life surveying, closing,

       With nothing to show to devise from its idle years,

       Nor houses nor lands, nor tokens of gems or gold for my friends,

       Yet certain remembrances of the war for you, and after you,

       And little souvenirs of camps and soldiers, with my love,

       I bind together and bequeath in this bundle of songs.

Pensive on Her Dead Gazing

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      Pensive on her dead gazing I heard the Mother of All,

       Desperate on the torn bodies, on the forms covering the battlefields gazing,

       (As the last gun ceased, but the scent of the powder-smoke linger’d,)

       As she call’d to her earth with mournful voice while she stalk’d,

       Absorb them well O my earth, she cried, I charge you lose not my

       sons, lose not an atom,