Drum-Taps
#Americans #XIXCentury
As I sit writing here, sick and g… Not my least burden is that dulnes… Ungracious glooms, aches, lethargy… May filter in my dally songs.
I know I have the best of time an… I tramp a perpetual journey, (come… My signs are a rain-proof coat, go… No friend of mine takes his ease i… I have no chair, no church, no phi…
My spirit to yours dear brother, Do not mind because many sounding… I do not sound your name, but I u… I specify you with joy O my comra… who are with you, before and since…
Others may praise what they like; But I, from the banks of the runn… aught else, Till it has well inhaled the atmos… prairie-scent,
Old farmers, travelers, workmen (n… Old sailors, out of many a perilou… Old soldiers from campaigns, with… Enough that they’ve survived at al… Forth from their struggles, trials…
The commonplace I sing; How cheap is health! how cheap nob… Abstinence, no falsehood, no glutt… The open air I sing, freedom, tol… (Take here the mainest lesson—less…
Passage O soul to India! Eclaircise the myths Asiatic, the… Not you alone, proud truths of the… Nor you alone, ye facts of modern… But myths and fables of eld, Asia…
THE business man, the acquirer va… After assiduous years, surveying r… Devises houses and lands to his ch… funds for a school or hospital, Leaves money to certain companions…
Roots and leaves themselves alone… Scents brought to men and women fr… pond-side, Breast-sorrel and pinks of love—fi… than vines,
By the bivouac’s fitful flame, A procession winding around me, so… first I note, The tents of the sleeping army, th… The darkness lit by spots of kindl…
You who celebrate bygones, Who have explored the outward, the… has exhibited itself, Who have treated of man as the cre… and priests,
Why reclining, interrogating? why… What deepening twilight-scum float… Who are they as bats and night-dog… What a filthy Presidentiad! (O S… arctic freezings!)
I heard that you ask’d for somethi… And to define America, her athlet… Therefore I send you my poems tha… wanted.
Thou orb aloft full-dazzling! thou… Flooding with sheeny light the gra… The sibilant near sea with vistas… And tawny streaks and shades and s… O sun of noon refulgent! my specia…
Yet, yet, ye downcast hours, I kn… Weights of lead, how ye clog and c… Earth to a chamber of mourning tur… voice, Matter is conqueror—matter, triump…