Leaves of Grass First and Death-Bed Editions (85 page)

On earth are many sights of woe,
And many sounds of agony,
And many a sorrow-wither’d check,
And many a pain-dulled eye.

 

The wretched weep, the poor complain,
And luckless love pines on unknown;
And faintly from the midnight couch
Sounds out the sick child’s moan.

 

Each has his care—old age fears death;
The young man’s ills are pride, desire,
And heart-sickness; and in his breast
The heat of passion’s fire.

 

All, all know grief, and, at the close,
All lie earth’s spreading arms within—
The poor, the black-soul‘d, proud, and low,
Virtue, despair, and sin.

 

O, foolish, then, with pain to shrink
From the sure doom we each must meet.
Is earth so fair—or heaven so dark—
Or life so passing sweet?

 

No; dread ye not the fearful hour—
The coffin, and the pall’s dark gloom,
For there’s a calm to throbbing hearts,
And rest, down in the tomb.

 

Then our long journey will be o‘er,
And throwing off this load of woes,
The pallid brow, the feebled limbs,
Will sink in soft repose.

 

Nor only this: for wise men say
That when we leave our land of care,
We float to a mysterious shore,
Peaceful, and pure, and fair.

 

So, welcome death! Whene‘er the time
That the dread summons must be met,
I’ll yield without one pang of awe,
Or sigh, or vain regret.

 

But like unto a wearied child,
That over field and wood all day
Has ranged and struggled, and at last,
Worn out with toil and play,

 

Goes up at evening to his home,
And throws him, sleepy, tired, and sore,
Upon his bed, and rests him there,
His pain and trouble o‘er.

On a low couch reclining,
When slowly waned the day,
Wrapt in gentle slumber,
A Spanish maiden lay.

 

O beauteous was that lady;
And the splendour of the place
Matched well her form so graceful,
And her sweet, angelic face.

 

But what doth she lonely,
Who ought in courts to reign?
For the form that there lies sleeping
Owns the proudest name in Spain.

 

Tis the lovely Lady Inez.
De Castro’s daughter fair,
Who in the castle chamber,
Slumbers so sweetly there.

 

O, better had she laid her
Mid the couches of the dead;
O better had she slumbered
Where the poisonous snake lay hid.

 

For worse than deadly serpent,
Or mouldering skeleton,
Are the fierce bloody hands of men,
By hate and fear urged on.

 

O Lady Inez, pleasant
Be the thoughts that now have birth
In thy visions; they are last of all
That thou shalt dream on earth.

Now noiseless on its hinges
Opens the chamber door,
And one whose trade is blood and crime
Steals slow across the floor.

 

 

High gleams the assassin’s dagger;
And by the road that it has riven,
The soul of that fair lady
Has passed from earth to heaven.

Behold around us pomp and pride;
The rich, the lofty, and the gay,
Glitter before our dazzled eyes—
Live out their brief but brilliant day;
Then when the hour for fame is o‘er,
Unheeded pass away.

 

The warrior builds a mighty name,
The object of his hopes and fears,
That future times may see it where
Her tower aspiring Glory rears.
Desist, O, fool! think what thou‘lt be
In a few fleeting years.

 

Beside his ponderous age worn book
A student shades his weary brow;
He walks Philosophy’s dark path—
That journey difficult and slow:
But vain is all that teeming mind,
He, too, to earth must go.

 

The statesman’s sleepless, plodding brain
Schemes out a nation’s destiny;
His is the voice that awes the crowd,
And his, the bold, commanding eye;
But transient is his high renown—
He like the rest must die.

 

And beauty sweet, and all the fair,
Who sail on fortune’s sunniest wave;
The poor, with him of countless gold,
Owner of all that mortals crave,
Alike are fated soon to lie
Down in the silent grave.

 

Children of folly here behold
How soon the fame of man is gone:
Time levels all. Trophies and names,
Inscription that the proud have drawn
Surpassing strength—pillars and thrones
Sink as the waves roll on.

 

Why, then, O, insects of an hour!
Why, then, with struggling toil, contend
For honors you so soon must yield,
When Death shall his stern summons send?
For honor, glory, fortune, wit,
This is, to all, end.

 

Think not when you attain your wish,
Content will banish grief and care;
High though your stand, though round you thrown
The robes that rank and splendor wear,
A secret poison in the heart
Will stick and rankle there.

 

In night to view the solemn stars,
Ever in majesty the same—
Creation’s world’s; how poor must seem
The mightiest honors earth can name—
And most of all this silly strife
After the bubble, Fame!

What a fair and happy place
Is the one where Freedom lives,
And the knowledge that our arm is strong,
A haughty bearing gives!
For each sun that gilds the east,
When at dawn it first doth rise,
Sets at night,
Red and bright,
On a people where the prize
Which millions in the battle fight
Have sought with hope forlorn,
Grows brighter every hour,
In strength, and grace, and power,
And the sun this land doth leave
Mightier at filmy eve,
Than when it first arose, in the morn.

 

Beat the sounding note of joy!
Let it echo o‘er the hills,
Till shore and forest hear the pride,
That a bondless bosom fills.
And on the plain where patriot sires
Rest underneath the sod,
Where the stern resolve for liberty
Was writ in gushing blood,
Freeman go,
With upright brow,
And render thanks to God.

 

O, my soul is drunk with joy,
And my inmost heart is glad,
To think my country’s star will not
Through endless ages fade,
That on its upward glorious course
Our red eyed eagle leaps,
While with the ever moving winds,
Our dawn-striped banner sweeps:
That here at length is found
A wide extending shore,
Where Freedom’s starry gleam,
Shines with unvarying beam;
Not as it did of yore,
With flickering flash, when CAESAR fell,
Or haughty GESLER heard his knell,
Or STUART rolled in gore.

 

Nor let our foes presume
That this heart-prized union band,
Will e‘er be severed by the stroke
Of a fraternal hand.
Though parties sometime rage,
And Faction rears its form.
Its jealous eye, its scheming brain,
To revel in the storm:
Yet should a danger threaten,
Or enemy draw nigh,
Then scattered to the winds of heaven,
All civil strife would fly;
And north and south, and east and west,
Would rally at the cry—
’Brethren arise! to battle come,
For Truth, for Freedom, and for Home,
And for our Fathers’ Memory!’

Once on his star-gemmed, dazzling throne,
Sat an all bright and lofty One,
Unto whom God had given
To be the mightiest Angel-Lord
Within the range of Heaven;
With power of knowing things to come,
To judge o‘er man, and speak his doom.

 

O, he was pure! the fleecy snow,
Falling through air to earth below,
Was not more undefiled:
Sinless he was as the wreathed smile
On lip of sleeping child.
Haply, more like the snow was he,
Freezing—with all its purity.

 

Upon his forehead beamed a star,
Bright as the lamps of even are;
And his pale robe was worn
About him with a look of pride,
A high, majestic scorn,
Which showed he felt his glorious might,
His favor with the Lord of Light.

 

Years, thus he swayed the things of earth—
O‘er human crime and human worth—
Haughty, and high, and stern;
Nor ever, at sweet Mercy’s call,
His white neck would he turn;
But listening not to frailty’s plea,
Launched forth each just yet stern decree.

 

At last, our Father who above
Sits throned with Might, and Truth, and Love,
And knows our weakness blind,
Beheld him—proud, and pitying not
The errors of mankind;
And doomed him, for a punishment,
To be forth from his birth-place sent.

 

So down this angel from on high
Came from his sphere, to live and die
As mortal men have done;
That he might know the tempting snares
Which lure each human son;
And dwell as all on earth have dwelt.
And feel the grief we all have felt.

 

Then he knew Guilt, while round him weaved
Their spells, pale Sickness, Love deceived,
And Fear, and Hate, and Wrath;
And all the blighting ills of Fate
Were cast athwart his path:
He stood upon the grave’s dread brink,
And felt his soul with terror sink.

 

He learned why men to sin give way,
And how we live our passing day
In indolence and crime;
But yet his eye with awe looked on,
To see in all its prime
That godlike thing, the human mind,
A gem in black decay enshrined.

 

Long years in penance thus he spent,
Until the Mighty Parent sent
His loveliest messenger—
Who came with step so noiselessly,
And features passing fair;
Death was his name; the angel heard
The call, and swift to heaven he soared.

 

There in his former glory placed,
The star again his forehead graced;
But never more that brow
Was lifted up in scorn of sin;
His wings were folded now—
But not in pride: his port, though high,
No more spoke conscious majesty.

And O, what double light now shone
About that pure and heavenly one;
For in the clouds which made
The veil around his seat of power,
In silvery robes arrayed,
Hovered the seraph Charity,
And Pity with her melting eye.

One day, an obscure youth, a wanderer,
Known but to few, lay musing with himself
About the chances of his future life.
In that youth’s heart, there dwelt the coal Ambition,
Burning and glowing; and he asked himself,
“Shall I, in time to come, be great and famed?”
Now soon an answer wild and mystical
Seemed to sound forth from out the depths of air;
And to the gazer’s eye appeared a shape
Like one as of a cloud—and thus it spoke:

And as these accents dropped in the youth’s ears,
He felt him sick at heart; for many a month
His fancy had amused and charmed itself
With lofty aspirations, visions fair
Of what he
might be.
And it pierced him sore
To have his airy castles thus dashed down.

Not a sigh was heard, not a tear was shed,
As away to the “tombs” he was hurried,
No mother or friend held his dying head,
Or wept when the poet was buried.

 

They buried him lonely; no friend stood near,
(The scoffs of the multitude spurning,)
To weep o‘er the poet’s sacred bier;
No bosom with anguish was burning.

 

No polish’d coffin enclosed his breast,
Nor in purple or linen they wound him,
As a stranger he died; he went to his rest
With cold charity’s shroud wrapt ‘round him.

 

Few and cold were the prayers they said,
Cold and dry was the cheek of sadness,
Not a tear of grief baptised his head,
Nor of sympathy pardon’d his madness.

 

None thought, as they stood by his lowly bed,
Of the griefs and pains that craz’d him;
None thought of the sorrow that turn’d his head,
Of the vileness of those who prais’d him.

 

Lightly they speak of his anguish and woe,
And o‘er his cold ashes upbraid him,
By whatever he was that was evil below,
Unkindness
and
cruelty made
him.

 

Ye hypocrites! stain not his grave with a tear,
Nor blast the fresh planted willow
That weeps o‘er his grave; for while he was here,
Ye refused him a crumb and a pillow.