Long, too long, O land, Traveling roads all even and peaceful, you learn'd from joys and prosperity only; But now, ah now, to learn from crises of anguish--advancing, grappling with direst fate, and recoiling not;...
Lo! Victress on the peaks! Where thou, with mighty brow, regarding the world, (The world, O Libertad, that vainly conspired against thee;) Out of its countless beleaguering toils, after thwarting them all;...
Not the pilot has charged himself to bring his ship into port, though beaten back, and many times baffled; Not the path-finder, penetrating inland, weary and long,...
Now finale to the shore! Now, land and life, finale, and farewell! Now Voyager depart! (much, much for thee is yet in store;) Often enough hast thou adventur'd o'er the seas,...
Of the terrible doubt of appearances, Of the uncertainty after all - that we may be deluded, That may-be reliance and hope are but speculations after all,...
Of the visages of things - And of piercing through to the accepted hells beneath; Of ugliness - To me there is just as much in it as there is in beauty - And now the ugliness of human beings is acceptable to me;...
One hour to madness and joy! O furious! O confine me not! (What is this that frees me so in storms? What do my shouts amid lightnings and raging winds mean?) ...
On the beach at night alone, As the old mother sways her to and fro, singing her husky song, As I watch the bright stars shining--I think a thought of the clef of the universes, and of the future. ...
Or, from that Sea of Time, Spray, blown by the wind - a double winrow-drift of weeds and shells; (O little shells, so curious-convolute! so limpid-cold and voiceless!...
O tan-faced prairie-boy! Before you came to camp, came many a welcome gift; Praises and presents came, and nourishing food - till at last, among the recruits,...
Others may praise what they like; But I, from the banks of the running Missouri, praise nothing, in art, or aught else, Till it has well inhaled the atmosphere of this river - also the western prairie-scent,...
Out of the rolling ocean, the crowd, came a drop gently to me, Whispering, I love you, before long I die, I have travel'd a long way, merely to look on you, to touch you,...