Blow again trumpeter! and for thy theme,
Take now the enclosing theme of all, the solvent
     and the setting,
Love, that is pulse of all, the sustenance and
     the pang,
The heart of man and woman all for love,
No other theme but love — knitting,
     enclosing, all-diffusing love.

O how the immortal phantoms crowd around me!
I see the vast alembic ever working, I see and
     know the flames that heat the world,
The glow, the blush, the beating hearts of lovers,
So blissful happy some, and some so silent, dark,
     and nigh to death;
Love, that is all the earth to lovers — love,
     that mocks time and space,
Love, that is day and night — love, that is
     sun and moon and stars,
Love, that is crimson, sumptuous, sick with perfume,
No other words but words of love, no other thought
     but love.

Blow again trumpeter — conjure war's alarums.

Swift to thy spell a shuddering hum like distant
     thunder rolls,
Lo, where the arm'd men hasten — lo, mid the
     clouds of dust the glint of bayonets,
I see the grime-faced cannoneers, I mark the rosy flash
     amid the smoke, I hear the cracking of the guns;
Nor war alone — thy fearful music-song, wild
     prayer, brings every sight of fear,
The deeds of ruthless brigands, rapine, murder —
    I hear the cries for help!
I see ships foundering at sea, I behold on deck and
     below deck the terrible tableaus.

O trumpeter, methinks I am myself the instrument
     thou playest,
Thou melt'st my heart, my brain — thou movest,
     drawest, changest them at will;
And now thy sullen notes send darkness through me,
Thou takest away all cheering light, all hope,
I see the enslaved, the overthrown, the hurt, the
     opprest of the whole earth,
I feel the measureless shame and humiliation of
     my race, it becomes all mine,
Mine too the revenges of humanity, the wrongs of
     ages, baffled feuds and hatreds,
Utter defeat upon me weighs — all lost —
    the foe victorious,
(Yet 'mid the ruins Pride colossal stands unshaken to
     the last,
Endurance, resolution to the last.)

Now trumpeter for thy close,
Vouchsafe a higher strain than any yet,
Sing to my soul, renew its languishing faith and
     hope,
Rouse up my slow belief, give me some vision of
     the future,
Give me for once its prophecy and joy.

O glad, exulting, culminating song!
A vigor more than earth's is in thy notes,
Marches of victory — man disenthral'd
     — the conqueror at last,
Hymns to the universal God from universal man
     — all joy!
A reborn race appears — a perfect world,
     all joy!
Women and men in wisdom innocence and health
     — all joy!
Riotous laughing bacchanals fill'd with joy!
War, sorrow, suffering gone — the rank earth
     purged — nothing but joy left!
The ocean fill'd with joy — the atmosphere
     all joy!
Joy! joy! in freedom, worship, love! joy in the
    ecstasy of life!
Enough to merely be! enough to breathe!
Joy! joy! all over joy!

1872 1881

TO A LOCOMOTIVE IN WINTER

THEE for my recitative,
Thee in the driving storm even as now, the snow,
     the winterday declining,
Thee in thy panoply, thy measur'd dual throbbing
     and thy beat convulsive,
Thy black cylindric body, golden brass and
     silvery steel,
Thy ponderous side-bars, parallel and connecting
     rods, gyrating, shuttling at thy sides,
Thy metrical, now swelling pant and roar, now
     tapering in the distance,
Thy great protruding head- light fix'd in front,
Thy long, pale, floating vapor-pennants, tinged
     with delicate purple,
The dense and murky clouds out-belching from thy
     smoke-stack,
Thy knitted frame, thy springs and valves, the
     tremulous twinkle of thy wheels,
Thy train of cars behind, obedient, merrily following,
    
Through gale or calm, now swift, now slack, yet
     steadily careering;
Type of the modern — emblem of motion and
     power — pulse