And the singer so shy to the rest received me,

The gray-brown bird I know received us comrades three, And he sang the carol of death, and a verse for him I love.

From deep secluded recesses,

From the fragrant cedars and the ghostly pines so still,
Came the carol of the bird.

And the charm of the carol rapt me,

As I held as if by their hands my comrades in the night, And the voice of my spirit tallied the song of the bird.

Come, lovely and soothing death,

Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving,
In the day, in the night, to all, to each,
Sooner or later delicate death.

Praised be the fathomless universe,

For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious,
And for love, sweet love-but praise! praise! praise !
For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding death.

Dark mother always gliding near with soft feet,

Have none chanted for thee a chant of fullest welcome?
Then I chant it for thee, I glorify thee above all,

bring thee a song that when thou must indeed come, come unfalteringly.

Approach, strong deliveress,

When it is so, when thou hast taken them I joyously sing the

dead,

Lost in the loving floating ocean of thee,

Laved in the flood of thy bliss, O death.

From me to thee glad serenades,

Dances for thee I propose, saluting thee, adornments and feastings for thee,

And the sights of the open landscape and the high-spread sky

are fitting,

And life and the fields, and the huge and thoughtful night.

ns hundreds of battle-flags, e of the battles and pierced with

yon through the smoke, and torn

hreds left on the staffs, (and all in

red and broken.

riads of them,

of young men, I saw them,

ebris of all the slain soldiers of the

But I saw they were not as was thought,

They themselves were fully at rest, they suffered not,
The living remained and suffered, the mother suffered,
And the wife and the child and the musing comrade suffered,
And the armies that remained suffered.

XVI

Passing the visions, passing the night,

Passing, unloosing the hold of my comrades' hands, Passing the song of the hermit bird, and the tallying song of my soul,

Victorious song, death's outlet song, yet varying everaltering song,

As low and wailing, yet clear the notes, rising and falling, flooding the night,

"

Sadly sinking and fainting, as warning and warning, and yet

again bursting with joy,

Covering the earth and filling the spread of the heaven, As that powerful psalm in the night I heard from recesses, Passing, I leave thee lilac with heart-shaped leaves,

I leave thee there in the dooryard, blooming, returning with spring.

I cease from my song for thee,

From my gaze on thee in the west, fronting the west, communing with thee,

O comrade lustrous with silver face in the night.

Yet each to keep and all, retrievements out of the night,
The song, the wondrous chant of the gray-brown bird,
And the tallying chant, the echo aroused in my soul,
With the lustrous and drooping star with the countenance
full of woe,

With the holders holding my hand hearing the call of the

bird,

Comrades mine and I in the midst, and their memory ever to keep, for the dead I loved so well,

For the sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and lands-and this for his dear sake,

Lilac and star and bird twined with the chant of my soul,
There in the fragrant pines and the cedars dusk and dim.

Walt Whitman [1819-1892]

of the People 3405

N OF THE PEOPLE

saw the Whirlwind Hour
g as it hurried on,
eroes and came down
the mortal need.
of the common road-
ancient heat of Earth,
strain of prophecy;
thrill of human tears;
with the serious stuff.
thed a flame to light
r-changing face.
1 against the world,
ountains and the sea.

I was in him, the red earth;

elemental things:

ence of the cliff;

in that loves all leaves;
of the wayside well;

d that dares the sea;
nd that shakes the corn;
y that hides all scars;
s that make their way
to the rifted rock;
e of the light

o the shrinking flower
aring to the wind-
ll as to the Matterhorn
he sky.

Sprung from the West,

In forests braced his mind, › prairies stilled his soul.

> the Capitol,

pirit, one resolve

to the root of wrong, for the feet of God. rned to do his deed