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AND now gentlemen, A word I give to remain in your memories and minds, As base and finalè too for all metaphysics.   (So to the students the old professor, At the close of his crowded course.)   Having studied the…

WHILE my wife at my side lies slumbering, and the wars are over long, And my head on the pillow rests at home, and the vacant mid- night passes, And through the stillness, through the dark, I hear, just hear, the…

THAT shadow my likeness that goes to and fro seeking a liveli- hood, chattering, chaffering, How often I find myself standing and looking at it where it flits, How often I question and doubt whether that is really me; But among…

That music always round me, unceasing, unbeginning, yet long untaught I did not hear, But now the chorus I hear and am elated, A tenor, strong, ascending with power and health, with glad notes of daybreak I hear, A soprano…

Thanks in old age—thanks ere I go, For health, the midday sun, the impalpable air—for life, mere life, For precious ever-lingering memories, (of you my mother dear —you, father—you, brothers, sisters, friends,) For all my days—not those of peace alone—the…

ALL submit to them, where they sit, inner, secure, unapproachable to analysis, in the Soul; Not traditions—not the outer authorities are the judges—they are the judges of outer authori- ties, and of all traditions; They corroborate as they go, only whatever…

TEARS! tears! tears! In the night, in solitude, tears, On the white shore dripping, dripping, suck’d in by the sand, Tears, not a star shining, all dark and desolate, Moist tears from the eyes of a muffled head; O who…

HAVE you learned lessons only of those who admired you, and were tender with you, and stood aside for you? Have you not learned the great lessons of those who rejected you, and braced themselves against you? or who treated you…

STILL though the one I sing, (One, yet of contradictions made,) I dedicate to Nationality, I leave in him revolt, (O latent right of insurrection! O quench- less, indispensable fire!)

1   STARTING from fish-shape Paumanok where I was born, Well-begotten, and rais’d by a perfect mother, After roaming many lands, lover of populous pavements, Dweller in Mannahatta my city, or on southern savannas, Or a soldier camp’d or carrying my…