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SINGING my days, |
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Singing the great achievements of the present, |
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Singing the strong, light works of engineers, |
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Our modern wonders, (the antique ponderous Seven
outvied,) |
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In the Old World, the east, the Suez canal, |
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The New by its mighty railroad spann’d, |
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The seas inlaid with eloquent, gentle wires, |
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I sound, to commence, the cry, with thee, O soul, |
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The Past! the Past! the Past! |
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The Past! the dark, unfathom’d retrospect! |
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The teeming gulf! the sleepers and the shadows! |
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The past! the infinite greatness of the past! |
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For what is the present, after all, but a growth
out of the past? |
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(As a projectile, form’d, impell’d, passing a
certain line, still keeps on, |
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So the present, utterly form’d, impell’d by
the past.) |
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Passage, O soul, to India! |
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Eclaircise the myths Asiatic—the primitive
fables. |
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Not you alone, proud truths of the world! |
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Nor you alone, ye facts of modern science! |
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But myths and fables of eld—Asia’s,
Africa’s fables! |
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The far-darting beams of the spirit!—the
unloos’d dreams! |
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The deep diving bibles and legends; |
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The daring plots of the poets—the elder
religions; |
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—O you temples fairer than lilies, pour’d
over by the rising sun! |
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O you fables, spurning the known, eluding the
hold of the known, mounting to heaven! |
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You lofty and dazzling towers, pinnacled, red as
roses, burnish’d with gold! |
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Towers of fables immortal, fashion’d from
mortal dreams! |
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You too I welcome, and fully, the same as the
rest; |
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You too with joy I sing. |
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Passage to India! |
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Lo, soul! seest thou not God’s purpose from the
first? |
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The earth to be spann’d, connected by net-work, |
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The people to become brothers and sisters, |
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The races, neighbors, to marry and be given in
marriage, |
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The oceans to be cross’d, the distant brought
near, |
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The lands to be welded together. |
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(A worship new, I sing; |
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You captains, voyagers, explorers, yours! |
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You engineers! you architects, machinists, your! |
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You, not for trade or transportation only, |
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But in God’s name, and for thy sake, O soul.) |
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Passage to India! |
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Lo, soul, for thee, of tableaus twain, |
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I see, in one, the Suez canal initiated, open’d, |
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I see the procession of steamships, the Empress
Eugenie’s leading the van; |
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I mark, from on deck, the strange landscape, the
pure sky, the level sand in the distance; |
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I pass swiftly the picturesque groups, the
workmen gather’d, |
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The gigantic dredging machines. |
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In one, again, different, (yet thine, all thine,
O soul, the same,) |
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I see over my own continent the Pacific Railroad,
surmounting every barrier; |
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I see continual trains of cars winding along the
Platte, carrying freight and passengers; |
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I hear the locomotives rushing and roaring, and
the shrill steam-whistle, |
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I hear the echoes reverberate through the
grandest scenery in the world; |
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I cross the Laramie plains—I note the rocks in
grotesque shapes—the buttes; |
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I see the plentiful larkspur and wild
onions—the barren, colorless, sage-deserts; |
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I see in glimpses afar, or towering immediately
above me, the great mountains—I see the Wind River and the
Wahsatch mountains; |
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I see the Monument mountain and the Eagle’s
Nest—I pass the Promontory—I ascend the Nevadas; |
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I scan the noble Elk mountain, and wind around
its base; |
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I see the Humboldt range—I thread the valley
and cross the river, |
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I see the clear waters of Lake Tahoe—I see
forests of majestic pines, |
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Or, crossing the great desert, the alkaline
plains, I behold enchanting mirages of waters and meadows; |
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Marking through these, and after all, in
duplicate slender lines, |
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Bridging the three or four thousand miles of land
travel, |
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Tying the Eastern to the Western sea, |
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The road between Europe and Asia. |
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(Ah Genoese, thy dream! thy dream! |
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Centuries after thou art laid in thy grave, |
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The shore thou foundest verifies thy dream!) |
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Passage to India! |
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Struggles of many a captain—tales of many a
sailor dead! |
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Over my mood, stealing and spreading they come, |
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Like clouds and cloudlets in the unreach’d sky. |
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Along all history, down the slopes, |
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As a rivulet running, sinking now, and now again
to the surface rising, |
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A ceaseless thought, a varied train—Lo, soul!
to thee, thy sight, they rise, |
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The plans, the voyages again, the expeditions: |
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Again Vasco de Gama sails forth; |
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Again the knowledge gain’d, the mariner’s
compass, |
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Lands found, and nations born—thou born,
America, (a hemisphere unborn,) |
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For purpose vast, man’s long probation fill’d, |
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Thou, rondure of the world, at last
accomplish’d. |
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O, vast Rondure, swimming in space! |
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Cover’d all over with visible power and beauty! |
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Alternate light and day, and the teeming,
spiritual darkness; |
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Unspeakable, high processions of sun and moon,
and countless stars, above; |
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Below, the manifold grass and waters, animals,
mountains, trees; |
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With inscrutable purpose—some hidden, prophetic
intention; |
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Now, first, it seems, my thought begins to span
thee. |
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Down from the gardens of Asia, descending,
radiating, |
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Adam and Eve appear, then their myriad progeny
after them, |
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Wandering, yearning, curious—with restless
explorations, |
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With questionings, baffled, formless,
feverish—with never-happy hearts, |
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With that sad, incessant refrain, Wherefore,
unsatisfied Soul? and Whither, O mocking Life? |
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Ah, who shall soothe these feverish children? |
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Who justify these restless explorations? |
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Who speak the secret of impassive Earth? |
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Who bind it to us? What is this separate Nature,
so unnatural? |
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What is this Earth, to our affections? (unloving
earth, without a throb to answer ours; |
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Cold earth, the place of graves.) |
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Yet, soul, be sure the first intent remains—and
shall be carried out; |
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(Perhaps even now the time has arrived.) |
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After the seas are all cross’d, (as they seem
already cross’d,) |
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After the great captains and engineers have
accomplish’d their work, |
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After the noble inventors—after the scientists,
the chemist, the geologist, ethnologist, |
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Finally shall come the Poet, worthy that name; |
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The true Son of God shall come, singing his
songs. |
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Then, not your deeds only, O voyagers, O
scientists and inventors, shall be justified, |
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All these hearts, as of fretted children, shall
be sooth’d, |
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All affection shall be fully responded to—the
secret shall be told; |
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All these separations and gaps shall be taken up,
and hook’d and link’d together; |
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The whole Earth—this cold, impassive, voiceless
Earth, shall be completely justified; |
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Trinitas divine shall be gloriously
accomplish’d and compacted by the the Son of God, the poet, |
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(He shall indeed pass the straits and conquer the
mountains, |
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He shall double the Cape of Good Hope to some
purpose;) |
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Nature and Man shall be disjoin’d and diffused
no more, |
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The true Son of God shall absolutely fuse them. |
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Year at whose open’d, wide-flung door I sing! |
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Year of the purpose accomplish’d! |
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Year of the marriage of continents, climates and
oceans! |
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(No mere Doge of Venice now, wedding the
Adriatic;) |
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I see, O year, in you, the vast terraqueous
globe, given, and giving all, |
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Europe to Asia, Africa join’d, and they to the
New World; |
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The lands, geographies, dancing before you,
holding a festival garland, |
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As brides and bridegrooms hand in hand. |
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Passage to India! |
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Cooling airs from Caucasus far, soothing cradle
of man, |
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The river Euphrates flowing, the past lit up
again. |
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Lo, soul, the retrospect, brought forward; |
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The old, most populous, wealthiest of Earth’s
lands, |
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The streams of the Indus and the Ganges, and
their many affluents; |
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(I, my shores of America walking to-day, behold,
resuming all,) |
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The tale of Alexander, on his warlike marches,
suddenly dying, |
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On one side China, and on the other side Persia
and Arabia, |
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To the south the great seas, and the Bay of
Bengal; |
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The flowing literatures, tremendous epics,
religions, castes, |
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Old occult Brahma, interminably far back—the
tender and junior Buddha, |
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Central and southern empires, and all their
belongings, possessors, |
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The wars of Tamerlane, the reign of Aurungzebe, |
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The traders, rulers, explorers, Moslems,
Venetians, Byzantium, the Arabs, Portuguese, |
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The first travelers, famous yet, Marco Polo,
Batouta the Moor, |
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Doubts to be solv’d, the map incognita, blanks
to be fill’d, |
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The foot of man unstay’d, the hands never at
rest, |
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Thyself, O soul, that will not brook a challenge. |
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The medieval navigators rise before me, |
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The world of 1492, with its awaken’d
enterprise; |
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Something swelling in humanity now like the sap
of the earth in spring, |
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The sunset splendor of chivalry declining. |
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And who art thou, sad shade? |
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Gigantic, visionary, thyself a visionary, |
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With majestic limbs, and pious, beaming eyes, |
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Spreading around, with every look of thine, a
golden world, |
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Enhuing it with gorgeous hues. |
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As the chief histrion, |
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Down to the footlights walks, in some great
scena, |
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Dominating the rest, I see the Admiral himself, |
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(History’s type of courage, action, faith;) |
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Behold him sail from Palos, leading his little
fleet; |
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His voyage behold—his return—his great fame, |
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His misfortunes, calumniators—behold him a
prisoner, chain’d, |
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Behold his dejection, poverty, death. |
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(Curious, in time, I stand, noting the efforts of
heroes; |
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Is the deferment long? bitter the slander,
poverty, death? |
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Lies the seed unreck’d for centuries in the
ground? Lo! to God’s due occasion, |
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Uprising in the night, it sprouts, blooms, |
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And fills the earth with use and beauty.) |
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Passage indeed, O soul, to primal thought! |
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Not lands and seas alone—thy own clear
freshness, |
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The young maturity of brood and bloom; |
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To realms of budding bibles. |
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O soul, repressless, I with thee, and thou with
me, |
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Thy circumnavigation of the world begin; |
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Of man, the voyage of his mind’s return, |
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To reason’s early paradise, |
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Back, back to wisdom’s birth, to innocent
intuitions, |
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Again with fair Creation. |
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O we can wait no longer! |
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We too take ship, O soul! |
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Joyous, we too launch out on trackless seas! |
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Fearless, for unknown shores, on waves of ectasy
to sail, |
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Amid the wafting winds, (thou pressing me to
thee, I thee to me, O soul,) |
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Caroling free—singing our song of God, |
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Chanting our chant of pleasant exploration. |
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With laugh, and many a kiss, |
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(Let others deprecate—let others weep for sin,
remorse, humiliation;) |
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O soul, thou pleasest me—I thee. |
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Ah, more than any priest, O soul, we too believe
in God; |
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But with the mystery of God we dare not dally. |
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O soul, thou pleasest me—I thee; |
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Sailing these seas, or on the hills, or waking in
the night, |
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Thoughts, silent thoughts, of Time, and Space,
and Death, like waters flowing, |
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Bear me, indeed, as through the regions infinite, |
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Whose air I breathe, whose ripples hear—lave me
all over; |
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Bathe me, O God, in thee—mounting to thee, |
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I and my soul to range in range of thee. |
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O Thou transcendant! |
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Nameless—the fibre and the breath! |
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Light of the light—shedding forth
universes—thou centre of them! |
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Thou mightier centre of the true, the good, the
loving! |
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Thou moral, spiritual fountain! affection’s
source! thou reservoir! |
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(O pensive soul of me! O thirst unsatisfied!
waitest not there? |
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Waitest not haply for us, somewhere there, the
Comrade perfect?) |
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Thou pulse! thou motive of the stars, suns,
systems, |
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That, circling, move in order, safe, harmonious, |
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Athwart the shapeless vastnesses of space! |
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How should I think—how breathe a single
breath—how speak—if, out of myself, |
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I could not launch, to those, superior universes? |
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Swiftly I shrivel at the thought of God, |
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At Nature and its wonders, Time and Space and
Death, |
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But that I, turning, call to thee, O soul, thou
actual Me, |
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And lo! thou gently masterest the orbs, |
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Thou matest Time, smilest content at Death, |
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And fillest, swellest full, the vastnesses of
Space. |
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Greater than stars or suns, |
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Bounding, O soul, thou journeyest forth; |
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—What love, than thine and ours could wider
amplify? |
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What aspirations, wishes, outvie thine and ours,
O soul? |
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What dreams of the ideal? what plans of purity,
perfection, strength? |
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What cheerful willingness, for others’ sake, to
give up all? |
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For others’ sake to suffer all? |
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Reckoning ahead, O soul, when thou, the time
achiev’d, |
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(The seas all cross’d, weather’d the capes,
the voyage done,) |
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Surrounded, copest, frontest God, yieldest, the
aim attain’d, |
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As, fill’d with friendship, love complete, the
Elder Brother found, |
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The Younger melts in fondness in his arms. |
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Passage to more than India! |
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Are thy wings plumed indeed for such far flights? |
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O Soul, voyagest thou indeed on voyages like
these? |
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Disportest thou on waters such as these? |
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Soundest below the Sanscrit and the Vedas? |
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Then have thy bent unleash’d. |
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Passage to you, your shores, ye aged fierce
enigmas! |
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Passage to you, to mastership of you, ye
strangling problems! |
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You, strew’d with the wrecks of skeletons,
that, living, never reach’d you. |
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Passage to more than India! |
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O secret of the earth and sky! |
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Of you, O waters of the sea! O winding creeks and
rivers! |
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Of you, O woods and fields! Of you, strong
mountains of my land! |
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Of you, O prairies! Of you, gray rocks! |
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O morning red! O clouds! O rain and snows! |
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O day and night, passage to you! |
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O sun and moon, and all you stars! Sirius and
Jupiter! |
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Passage to you! |
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Passage—immediate passage! the blood burns in
my veins! |
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Away, O soul! hoist instantly the anchor! |
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Cut the hawsers—haul out—shake out every
sail! |
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Have we not stood here like trees in the ground
long enough? |
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Have we not grovell’d here long enough, eating
and drinking like mere brutes? |
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Have we not darken’d and dazed ourselves with
books long enough? |
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Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only! |
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Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and
thou with me; |
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For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared
to go, |
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And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all. |
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O my brave soul! |
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O farther, farther sail! |
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O daring joy, but safe! Are they not all the seas
of God? |
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O farther, farther, farther sail! |