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still the present i raise aloft still the future of the states i harbinge glad and sublime and for the past i pronounce what the air holds of the red aborigines
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always california's golden hills and hollows and the silver mountains of new mexico always soft-breathed cuba
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i see freedom completely armed and victorious and very haughty with law by her side both issuing forth against the idea of caste what historic denouements are these we so rapidly approach
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come closer to me push close my lovers and take the best i possess yield closer and closer and give me the best you possess
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male and female i pass so poorly with paper and types i must pass with the contact of bodies and souls
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grown half-grown and babe of this country and every country indoors and outdoors one just as much as the other i see and all else behind or through them
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the wife and she is not one jot less than the husband the daughter and she is just as good as the son the mother and she is every bit as much as the father
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have you reckoned them for a trade or farm-work or for the profits of a store
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or to achieve yourself a position or to fill a gentleman's leisure or a lady's leisure
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can each see signs of the best by a look in the looking-glass is there nothing greater or more
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the great city is that which has the greatest man or woman if it be a few ragged huts it is still the greatest city in the whole world
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how beggarly appear arguments before a defiant deed how the floridness of the materials of cities shrivels before a man's or woman's look
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i see the european headsman he stands masked clothed in red with huge legs and strong naked arms and leans on a ponderous axe
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america i do not vaunt my love for you i have what i have
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as for me i have the idea of all and am all and believe in all i believe materialism is true and spiritualism is true i reject no part
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i behold the mariners of the world some are in storms some in the night with the watch on the look-out some drifting helplessly some with contagious diseases
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i see the electric telegraphs of the earth i see the filaments of the news of the wars deaths losses gains passions of my race
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i see the battlefields of the earth grass grows upon them and blossoms and corn i see the tracks of ancient and modern expeditions
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i see the highlands of abyssinia i see flocks of goats feeding and see the fig-tree tamarind date and see fields of teff-wheat and see the places of verdure and gold
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i see vapours exhaling from unexplored countries i see the savage types the bow and arrow the poisoned splint the fetish and the obi
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you working-man of the rhine the elbe or the weser you working-woman too
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you japanese man or woman you liver in madagascar ceylon sumatra borneo
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you benighted roamer of amazonia you patagonian you fejee-man
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i do not prefer others so very much before you either i do not say one word against you away back there where you stand you will come forward in due time to my side
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i have run through what any river or strait of the globe has run through i have taken my stand on the bases of peninsulas and on the highest embedded rocks to cry thence
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what cities the light or warmth penetrates i penetrate those cities myself all islands to which birds wing their way i wing my way myself
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see my cantabile these and more are flashing to us from the procession as it moves changing a kaleidoscope divine it moves changing before us
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they are justified they are accomplished they shall now be turned the other way also to travel toward you thence they shall now also march obediently eastward for your sake libertad
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i love to look on the stars and stripes i hope the fifes will play yankee doodle how bright shine the cutlasses of the foremost troops
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what troubles you yankee phantoms what is all this chattering of bare gums
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does the ague convulse your limbs do you mistake your crutches for firelocks and level them
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if you blind your eyes with tears you will not see the president's marshal if you groan such groans you might baulk the government cannon
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worse and worse can't you stand it are you retreating
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to your graves back back to the hills old limpers
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i will whisper it to the mayor he shall send a committee to england they shall get a grant from the parliament go with a cart to the royal vault haste
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you have got your revenge old bluster the crown is come to its own and more than its own
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stick your hands in your pockets jonathan you are a made man from this day you are mighty 'cute and here is one of your bargains
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a great year and place a harsh discordant natal scream out-sounding to touch the mother's heart closer than any yet
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not a grave of the murdered for freedom but grows seed for freedom in its turn to bear seed which the winds carry afar and resow and the rains and the snows nourish
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not a disembodied spirit can the weapons of tyrants let loose but it stalks invisibly over the earth whispering counselling cautioning
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then courage revolter revoltress
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from the houses then and the workshops and through all the doorways leaped they tumultuous and lo manhattan arming
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how i love them how i could hug them with their brown faces and their clothes and knapsacks covered with dust
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often in peace and wealth you were pensive or covertly frowned amid all your children but now you smile with joy exulting old mannahatta
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how the true thunder bellows after the lightning how bright the flashes of lightning
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thunder on stride on democracy strike with vengeful stroke
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crash heavier heavier yet o storms you have done me good my soul prepared in the mountains absorbs your immortal strong nutriment
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words book-words what are you
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words no more for hearken and see my song is there in the open air and i must sing with the banner and pennant a-flapping
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o it stretches it spreads and runs so fast o my father it is so broad it covers the whole sky
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i hear and see not strips of cloth alone i hear the tramp of armies i hear the challenging sentry i hear the jubilant shouts of millions of men i hear liberty
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o to hear you call the sailors and the soldiers flag like a beautiful woman
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o to hear the tramp tramp of a million answering men o the ships they arm with joy
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i dress a wound in the side deep deep but a day or two more for see the frame all wasted and sinking and the yellow-blue countenance see
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above all lo the sky so calm so transparent after the rain and with wondrous clouds below too all calm all vital and beautiful and the farm prospers well
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down in the fields all prospers well but now from the fields come father come at the daughter's call and come to the entry mother to the front door come right away
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open the envelope quickly o this is not our son's writing yet his name is signed o a strange hand writes for our dear son o stricken mother's soul
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o years and graves o air and soil o my dead an aroma sweet
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up from the east the silvery round moon beautiful over the house-tops ghastly phantom moon immense and silent moon
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the soul yourself i see great as any good as the best waiting secure and content which the bullet could never kill nor the bayonet stab o friend
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nor the long roll alarming the camp nor even the muffled beat for a burial nothing from you this time o drummers bearing my warlike drums
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invisible to the rest henceforth become my companions follow me ever desert me not while i live
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sweet are the blooming cheeks of the living sweet are the musical voices sounding but sweet ah sweet are the dead with their silent eyes
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dearest comrades all now is over but love is not over and what love o comrades
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o love o chant solve all with the last chemistry
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give me exhaustless make me a fountain that i exhale love from me wherever i go for the sake of all dead soldiers
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all night long on the prong of a moss-scalloped stake down almost amid the slapping waves sat the lone singer wonderful causing tears
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_soothe soothe soothe
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close on its wave soothes the wave behind and again another behind embracing and lapping every one close but my love soothes not me not me
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loud loud loud
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that is the whistle of the wind it is not my voice that is the fluttering the flattering of the spray those are the shadows of leaves
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o past o life o songs of joy
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demon or bird is it indeed toward your mate you sing or is it mostly to me
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o i cannot see in the dimness whether you smile or frown upon me o vapour a look a word o well-beloved
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sound out voices of young men loudly and musically call me by my nighest name
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you have waited you always wait you dumb beautiful ministers you novices
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how plenteous how spiritual how resume
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elemental drifts o i wish i could impress others as you and the waves have just been impressing me
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these you presented to me you fish-shaped island as i wended the shores i know as i walked with that eternal self of me seeking types
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i perceive nature here in sight of the sea is taking advantage of me to dart upon me and sting me because i have dared to open my mouth to sing at all
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you oceans both i close with you these little shreds shall indeed stand for all
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you fish-shaped island i take what is underfoot what is yours is mine my father
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i throw myself upon your breast my father i cling to you so that you cannot unloose me i hold you so firm till you answer me something
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i mean tenderly by you i gather for myself and for this phantom looking down where we lead and following me and mine
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the great laws take and effuse without argument i am of the same style for i am their friend i love them quits and quits i do not halt and make salaams
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i lie abstracted and hear beautiful tales of things and the reasons of things they are so beautiful i nudge myself to listen
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realism is mine my miracles take freely take without end i offer them to you wherever your feet can carry you or your eyes reach
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of detected persons to me detected persons are not in any respect worse than undetected persons and are not in any respect worse than i am myself
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as i lay with my head in your lap camerado the confession i made i resume what i said to you and the open air i resume
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to speak to walk to seize something by the hand
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o setting sun though the time has come i still warble under you unmitigated adoration
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when i peruse the conquered fame of heroes and the victories of mighty generals i do not envy the generals nor the president in his presidency nor the rich in his great house
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when lilacs last in the door-yard bloomed and the great star early drooped in the western sky in the night i mourned
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solitary the thrush the hermit withdrawn to himself avoiding the settlements sings by himself a song
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lo body and soul this land
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from deep secluded recesses from the fragrant cedars and the ghostly pines so still came the singing of the bird
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and the charm of the singing rapt me as i held as if by their hands my comrades in the night and the voice of my spirit tallied the song of the bird
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when it is so when thou hast taken them i joyously sing the dead lost in the loving floating ocean of thee laved in the flood of thy bliss o death
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to the tally of my soul loud and strong kept up the grey-brown bird with pure deliberate notes spreading filling the night
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loud in the pines and cedars dim clear in the freshness moist and the swamp-perfume and i with my comrades there in the night
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