THE BEAUTY OF THE SHIP

When, staunchly entering port,
After long ventures, hauling up, worn and old,
Battered by sea and wind, torn by many a fight,
With the original sails all gone, replaced, or mended,
I only saw, at last, the beauty of the Ship.

1876

TWO RIVULETS

Two Rivulets side by side,
Two blended, parallel, strolling tides,
Companions, travelers, gossiping as they journey.

For the Eternal Ocean bound,
These ripples, passing surges, streams of Death and Life,
Object and Subject hurrying, whirling by,
The Real and Ideal,

Alternate ebb and flow the Days and Nights,
(Strands of a Trio twining, Present, Future, Past.)

In You, whoe'ver you are, my book perusing,
In I myself — in all the World — these ripples flow,
All, all, toward the mystic Ocean tending.

(O yearnful waves! the kisses of your lips!
Your breast so broad, with open arms, O firm, expanded shore!)

1876

OR FROM THAT SEA OF TIME

Or, from that Sea of Time,
Spray, blown by the wind — a double winrow-drift of weeds
    and shells;
(O little shells, so curious-convolute! so limpid-cold and
    voiceless!
Yet will you not, to the tympans of temples held,
Murmurs and echoes still bring up — Eternity's music, faint
    and far,
Wafted inland, sent from Atlantica's rim — strains for the
    Soul of the Prairies,
Whisper'd reverberations — chords for the ear of the West,
    joyously sounding
Your tidings old, yet ever new and untranslatable;)
Infinitesimals out of my life, and many a life,
(For not my life and years alone I give — all, all I give;)
These thoughts and Songs — waifs from the deep — here, cast
    high and dry,
Wash'd on America's shores.

Currents of starting a Continent new,
Overtures sent to the solid out of the liquid,
Fusion of ocean and land — tender and pensive waves,
(Not safe and peaceful only — waves rous'd and ominous too.

Out of the depths, the storm's abysms — who knows whence?
    Death's waves,
Raging over the vast, with many a broken spar and tatter'd
    sail.)
1876

FROM MY LAST YEARS

From my last years, last thoughts I here bequeath,
Scatter'd and dropt, in seeds, and wafted to the West,
Through moisture of Ohio, prairie soil of Illinois — through
    Colorado, California air,
For Time to germinate fully.

1876

IN FORMER SONGS

In former songs Pride have I sung, and Love, and passionate,
    joyful Life,
But here I twine the strands of Patriotism and Death.