Goodbye My Fancy

SAIL OUT FOR GOOD, EIDÓLON YACHT!

HEAVE the anchor short!
Raise main-sail and jib — steer forth,
O little white-hull'd sloop, now speed on really deep
     waters,
(I will not call it our concluding voyage,
But outset and sure entrance to the truest, best,
     maturest;)
Depart, depart from solid earth — no more
     returning to these shores,
Now on for aye our infinite free venture wending,
Spurning all yet tried ports, seas, hawsers, densities,
     gravitation,
Sail out for good, eidólon yacht of me!

1891 1891-2

LINGERING LAST DROPS

AND whence and why come you?

We know not whence, (was the answer,)
We only know that we drift here with the rest,
That we linger'd and lagg'd — but were wafted
     at last, and are now here,
To make the passing shower's concluding drops,

1891 1891-2

GOOD-BYE MY FANCY

GOOD-BYE¹ my fancy — (I had a word to say,
But 'tis not quite the time — The best of any
     man's word or say,
Is when its proper place arrives — and for its
     meaning,
I keep mine till the last.)

1891 1891-2

ON, ON THE SAME, YE JOCUND TWAIN!

ON, on the same, ye jocund twain!
My life and recitative, containing birth, youth, mid-age
     years,
Fitful as motley-tongues of flame, inseparably twined
     and merged in one — combining all,
My single soul — aims, confirmations, failures,
     joys — Nor single soul alone,
I chant my nation's crucial stage, (America's, haply
     humanity's) — the trial great, the victory great,
A strange eclaircissement of all the masses past, the
     eastern world, the ancient, medieval,
Here, here from wanderings, strayings, lessons, wars,
     defeats — here at the west a voice triumphant
     — justifying all,
A gladsome pealing cry — a song for once of utmost
     pride and satisfaction;
I chant from it the common bulk, the general average horde,
     (the best no sooner than the worst) — And now
     I chant old age,
(My verses, written first for forenoon life, and for the
     summer's, autumn's spread,
I pass to snow-white hairs the same, and give to pulses
     winter-cool'd the same;)
As here in careless trill, I and my recitatives, with faith
     and love,

Wafting to other work, to unknown songs, conditions,
On, on, ye jocund twain! continue on the same!

1891 1891-2

MY 71ST YEAR

AFTER 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.

1889 1891-2

APPARITIONS

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.)

1891 1891-2