All which thy child's mistake

Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home:
Rise, clasp My hand, and come."

Halts by me that footfall:

Is my gloom, after all,

Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly?
"Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest,

I am He Whom thou seekest!

Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me."

- Francis Thompson

"I AM HE THAT WALKS”

FROM Song of Myself

I am he that walks with the tender and growing night,
I call to the earth and sea half-held by the night.

Press close, bare-bosomed night

nourishing night!

press close, magnetic,

Night of south winds — night of the large few stars!

Still, nodding night

mad, naked, summer night.

Smile, O voluptuous, cool-breath'd earth!

Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees!

Earth of the departed sunset earth of the mountains, misty-topt!

Earth of the vitreous pour of the full moon, just tinged with blue!

Earth of shine and dark, mottling the tide of the river! Earth of the limpid gray of clouds, brighter and clearer for my sake!

Far-swooping, elbow'd earth rich, apple-blossom'd earth! Smile, for your lover comes!

-Walt Whitman

WHEN I PERUSE THE CONQUER'D FAME When I peruse the conquer'd fame of heroes and the victories of mighty generals, I do not envy the generals, Nor the President in his Presidency, nor the rich in his great house;

But when I hear of the brotherhood of lovers, how it was

with them,

How together through life, through dangers, odium, unchanging, long and long,

Through youth and through middle and old age, how unfaltering, how affectionate and faithful they were, Then I am pensive I hastily walk away fill'd with the bitterest envy.

Walt Whitman

I SAW IN LOUISIANA A LIVE-OAK GROWING

I saw in Louisiana a live-oak growing,

All alone stood it, and the moss hung down from the branches; Without any companion it grew there, uttering joyous leaves

of dark green,

And its look, rude, unbending, lusty, made me think of myself;

But I wonder'd how it could utter joyous leaves, standing alone there, without its friend, its lover near- for I knew I could not;

And I broke off a twig with a certain number of leaves upon it, and twined around it a little moss,

And brought it away - and I have placed it in sight in my

room;

It is not needed to remind me as of my own dear friends (For I believe lately I think of little else than of them),

Yet it remains to me a curious token, it makes me think of manly love;

For all that, and though the live-oak glistens there in Louisiana, solitary in a wide flat space,

Uttering joyous leaves all its life without a friend, a lover,

near,

I know very well I could not.

-Walt Whitman

I HEAR IT WAS CHARGED AGAINST ME

I hear it was charged against me that I sought to destroy institutions,

But really I am neither for nor against institutions,

(What indeed have I in common with them? or what with the destruction of them?)

Only I will establish in the Mannahatta and in every city of these States inland and seaboard,

And in the fields and woods, and above every keel little or large that dents the water,

Without edifices or rules or trustees or any argument,
The institution of the dear love of comrades.

-Walt Whitman

THIS MOMENT YEARNING AND THOUGHTFUL

This moment yearning and thoughtful sitting alone, It seems to me there are other men in other lands yearning and thoughtful,

It seems to me I can look over and behold them in Germany, Italy, France, Spain,

Or far, far away, in China, or in Russia or Japan, talking other dialects,

And it seems to me if I could know those men I should become attached to them as I do to men in my own lands.

Oh, I know we should be brethren and lovers,—

I know I should be happy with them.

-Walt Whitman

I STROVE WITH NONE

I strove with none; for none was worth my
Nature I loved, and next to Nature, Art;
I warmed both hands before the fire of life;
It sinks, and I am ready to depart.

strife;

-Walter Savage Landor

TO ROBERT BROWNING

There is delight in singing, tho' none hear
Beside the singer; and there is delight
In praising, tho' the praiser sit alone
And see the praised far off him, far above.
Shakespeare is not our poet, but the world's,
Therefore on him no speech! and brief for thee,
Browning! Since Chaucer was alive and hale,
No man hath walked along our roads with step
So active, so inquiring eye, or tongue

So varied in discourse.

But warmer climes

Give brighter plumage, stronger wing: the breeze
Of Alpine heights thou playest with, borne on
Beyond Sorrento and Amalfi, where

The Siren waits thee, singing song for song.

-Walter Savage Landor

THE LOST LEADER

Just for a handful of silver he left us,
Just for a riband to stick in his coat -
Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us,
Lost all the others she lets us devote;

They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver,
So much was theirs who so little allow'd;
How all our copper had gone for his service!

Rags - were they purple, his heart had been proud!
We that had loved him so, follow'd him, honor'd him,
Lived in his mild and magnificent eye,

Learn'd his great language, caught his clear accents,
Made him our pattern to live and to die!
Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us,
Burns, Shelley, were with us,

graves!

they watch from their

He alone breaks from the van and the freemen,
- He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves!

We shall march prospering,
Songs may inspirit us,

Deeds will be done,

- not thro' his presence;
not from his lyre;

while he boasts his quiescence,

Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire. Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more, One task more declined, one more footpath untrod, One more devil's-triumph and sorrow for angels,

One wrong more to man, one more insult to God! Life's night begins: let him never come back to us! There would be doubt, hesitation, and pain, Forced praise on our part — the glimmer of twilight, Never glad confident morning again!

Best fight on well, for we taught him strike gallantly,