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(The Johnstown, Penn., cataclysm, May 31, 1889.)   A VOICE from Death, solemn and strange, in all his sweep and power, With sudden, indescribable blow—towns drown’d—humanity by thousands slain, The vaunted work of thrift, goods, dwellings, forge, street, iron bridge, Dash’d pell-mell…

AS I sit in twilight late alone by the flickering oak-flame, Musing on long-pass’d war-scenes—of the countless buried un- known soldiers, Of the vacant names, as unindented air’s and sea’s—the un- return’d, The brief truce after battle, with grim burial-squads, and…

1   A SONG of the rolling earth, and of words according, Were you thinking that those were the words, those upright lines? those curves, angles, dots? No, those are not the words, the substantial words are in the ground and sea,…

O TO make the most jubilant song! Full of music—full of manhood, womanhood, infancy! Full of common employments—full of grain and trees.   O for the voices of animals—O for the swiftness and balance of fishes! O for the dropping of raindrops…

A SONG for occupations! In the labor of engines and trades and the labor of fields I find the developments, And find the eternal meanings.   Workmen and Workwomen! Were all educations practical and ornamental well display’d out of me, what would…

A SIGHT in camp in the daybreak gray and dim, As from my tent I emerge so early sleepless, As slow I walk in the cool fresh air the path near by the hospital tent, Three forms I see on stretchers lying,…

THAT which eludes this verse and any verse, Unheard by sharpest ear, unform’d in clearest eye or cunningest mind, Nor lore nor fame, nor happiness nor wealth, And yet the pulse of every heart and life throughout the world incessantly, Which…

A PROMISE to California, Or inland to the great pastoral Plains, and on to Puget sound and Oregon; Sojourning east a while longer, soon I travel toward you, to remain, to teach robust American love, For I know very well that I…

Shot gold, maroon and violet, dazzling silver, emerald, fawn, The earth’s whole amplitude and Nature’s multiform power con- sign’d for once to colors; The light, the general air possess’d by them—colors till now un- known, No limit, confine—not the Western…

FOR his o’erarching and last lesson the greybeard sufi, In the fresh scent of the morning in the open air, On the slope of a teeming Persian rose-garden, Under an ancient chestnut-tree wide spreading its branches, Spoke to the young priests…