Part 37 (1/2)

_LOVE OF COMRADES._

1.

Come, I will make the continent indissoluble; I will make the most splendid race the sun ever yet shone upon!

I will make divine magnetic lands, With the love of comrades, With the life-long love of comrades.

2.

I will plant companions.h.i.+p thick as trees along all the rivers of America, and along the sh.o.r.es of the great lakes, and all over the prairies; I will make inseparable cities, with their arms about each other's necks; By the love of comrades, By the manly love of comrades.

3.

For you these, from me, O Democracy, to serve you, _ma femme_!

For you! for you, I am trilling these songs, In the love of comrades, In the high-towering love of comrades.

_PULSE OF MY LIFE._

Not heaving from my ribbed breast only; Not in sighs at night, in rage, dissatisfied with myself; Not in those long-drawn, ill-suppressed sighs; Not in many an oath and promise broken; Not in my wilful and savage soul's volition; Not in the subtle nourishment of the air; Not in this beating and pounding at my temples and wrists; Not in the curious systole and diastole within, which will one day cease; Not in many a hungry wish, told to the skies only; Not in cries, laughter, defiances, thrown from me when alone, far in the wilds; Not in husky pantings through clenched teeth; Not in sounded and resounded words--chattering words, echoes, dead words; Not in the murmurs of my dreams while I sleep, Nor the other murmurs of these incredible dreams of every day; Nor in the limbs and senses of my body, that take you and dismiss you continually--Not there; Not in any or all of them, O Adhesiveness! O pulse of my life!

Need I that you exist and show yourself, any more than in these songs.

_AUXILIARIES._

WHAT place is besieged, and vainly tries to raise the siege?

Lo! I send to that place a commander, swift, brave, immortal; And with him horse and foot, and parks of artillery, And artillerymen, the deadliest that ever fired gun.

_REALITIES._

1.

As I walk, solitary, unattended, Around me I hear that _eclat_ of the world--politics, produce, The announcements of recognised things--science, The approved growth of cities, and the spread of inventions.

I see the s.h.i.+ps, (they will last a few years,) The vast factories, with their foremen and workmen, And hear the endors.e.m.e.nt of all, and do not object to it.

2.

But I too announce solid things; Science, s.h.i.+ps, politics, cities, factories, are not nothing--they serve, They stand for realities--all is as it should be.

3.