thy sands and waves,
And serpent hiss, and savage peals of laughter,
And undertones of distant lion roar,
(Sounding, appealing to the sky's deaf ear--but now, rapport for once,
A phantom in the night thy confidant for once,)
The first and last confession of the globe,
Outsurging, muttering from thy soul's abysms,
The tale of cosmic elemental passion,
Thou tellest to a kindred soul.

Death of General Grant

As one by one withdraw the lofty actors,
From that great play on history's stage eterne,
That lurid, partial act of war and peace--of old and new contending,
Fought out through wrath, fears, dark dismays, and many a long suspense;
All past--and since, in countless graves receding, mellowing,
Victor's and vanquish'd--Lincoln's and Lee's--now thou with them,
Man of the mighty days--and equal to the days!
Thou from the prairies!--tangled and many-vein'd and hard has been thy part,
To admiration has it been enacted!

Red Jacket (From Aloft)

Upon this scene, this show,
Yielded to-day by fashion, learning, wealth,
(Nor in caprice alone--some grains of deepest meaning,)
Haply, aloft, (who knows?) from distant sky-clouds' blended shapes,
As some old tree, or rock or cliff, thrill'd with its soul,
Product of Nature's sun, stars, earth direct--a towering human form,
In hunting-shirt of film, arm'd with the rifle, a half-ironical
smile curving its phantom lips,
Like one of Ossian's ghosts looks down.

Washington's Monument February, 1885

Ah, not this marble, dead and cold:
Far from its base and shaft expanding--the round zones circling,
comprehending,
Thou, Washington, art all the world's, the continents' entire--not
yours alone, America,
Europe's as well, in every part, castle of lord or laborer's cot,
Or frozen North, or sultry South--the African's--the Arab's in his tent,
Old Asia's there with venerable smile, seated amid her ruins;
(Greets the antique the hero new? 'tis but the same--the heir
legitimate, continued ever,
The indomitable heart and arm--proofs of the never-broken line,
Courage, alertness, patience, faith, the same--e'en in defeat
defeated not, the same:)
Wherever sails a ship, or house is built on land, or day or night,
Through teeming cities' streets, indoors or out, factories or farms,
Now, or to come, or past--where patriot wills existed or exist,
Wherever Freedom, poi