Short Poems

O TAN-FACED prairie-boy!
Before you came to camp, came many a welcome gift;
Praises and presents came, and nourishing food--till at last, among
the recruits,
You came, taciturn, with nothing to give--we but look'd on each
other,
When lo! more than all the gifts of the world, you gave me.

YEAR that trembled and reel'd beneath me!
Your summer wind was warm enough--yet the air I breathed froze me;
A thick gloom fell through the sunshine and darken'd me;
Must I change my triumphant songs? said I to myself;
Must I indeed learn to chant the cold dirges of the baffled?
And sullen hymns of defeat?

ALL you are doing and saying is to America dangled mirages,
You have not learn'd of Nature--of the politics of Nature, you have
not learn'd the great amplitude, rectitude, impartiality;
You have not seen that only such as they are for These States,
And that what is less than they, must sooner or later lift off from
These States.

THROUGH the ample open door of the peaceful country barn,
A sun-lit pasture field, with cattle and horses feeding;
And haze, and vista, and the far horizon, fading away.

OF obedience, faith, adhesiveness;
As I stand aloof and look, there is to me something profoundly
affecting in large masses of men, following the lead of those
who do not believe in men.

I SEE the sleeping babe, nestling the breast of its mother;
The sleeping mother and babe--hush'd, I study them long and long.

WOMEN sit, or move to and fro--some old, some young;
The young are beautiful--but the old are more beautiful than the
young.

ON a flat road runs the well-train'd runner;
He is lean and sinewy, with muscular legs;
He is thinly clothed--he leans forward as he runs,
With lightly closed fists, and arms partially rais'd.

SILENT and amazed, even when a little boy,
I remember I heard the preacher every Sunday put God in his
statements,
As contending against some being or influence.

O YOU whom I often and silently come where you are, that I may be
with you;
As I walk by your side, or sit near, or remain in the same room with
you,
Little you know the subtle electric fire that for your sake is
playing within me.