g, the smoke, the deafening noise;
Away with your life of peace!--your joys of peace!
Give me my old wild battle-life again!"

Stronger Lessons

Have you learn'd lessons only of those who admired you, and were
tender with you, and stood aside for you?
Have you not learn'd great lessons from those who reject you, and
brace themselves against you? or who treat you with contempt,
or dispute the passage with you?

A Prairie Sunset

Shot gold, maroon and violet, dazzling silver, emerald, fawn,
The earth's whole amplitude and Nature's multiform power consign'd
for once to colors;
The light, the general air possess'd by them--colors till now unknown,
No limit, confine--not the Western sky alone--the high meridian--
North, South, all,
Pure luminous color fighting the silent shadows to the last.

Twenty Years

Down on the ancient wharf, the sand, I sit, with a new-comer chatting:
He shipp'd as green-hand boy, and sail'd away, (took some sudden,
vehement notion;)
Since, twenty years and more have circled round and round,
While he the globe was circling round and round, --and now returns:
How changed the place--all the old land-marks gone--the parents dead;
(Yes, he comes back to lay in port for good--to settle--has a
well-fill'd purse--no spot will do but this;)
The little boat that scull'd him from the sloop, now held in leash I see,
I hear the slapping waves, the restless keel, the rocking in the sand,
I see the sailor kit, the canvas bag, the great box bound with brass,
I scan the face all berry-brown and bearded--the stout-strong frame,
Dress'd in its russet suit of good Scotch cloth:
(Then what the told-out story of those twenty years? What of the future?)

Orange Buds by Mail from Florida

A lesser proof than old Voltaire's, yet greater,
Proof of this present time, and thee, thy broad expanse, America,
To my plain Northern hut, in outside clouds and snow,
Brought safely for a thousand miles o'er land and tide,
Some three days since on their own soil live-sprouting,
Now here their sweetness through my room unfolding,
A bunch of orange buds by mall from Florida.

Twilight

The soft voluptuous opiate shades,
The sun just gone, the eager light dispell'd--(I too will soon be
gone, dispell'd,)
A haze--nirwana--rest and night--oblivion.

You Lingering Sparse Leaves of