Camden Annotation

By That Long Scan of Waves

cellatreis — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 19:13:50 +0000

By that long scan of waves, myself call’d back, resumed upon myself,

In every crest some undulating light or shade – some retrospect,

Joys, travels, studies, silent panoramas-scenes ephemeral,

The long past war, the battles, hospital sights, the wounded and the dead,

Myself through every by-gone phase – my idle youth – old age at hand,

My three-score years of life summ’d up, and more, and past,

By any grand ideal tried, intentionless, the whole a nothing,

And haply yet some drop within God’s scheme’s ensemble – some wave, or part of wave,

Like one of yours, ye multitudinous ocean.

AFTER THE SUPPER AND TALK

cellatreis — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 19:45:46 +0000

After the supper and talk — after the day is done,
As a friend from friends his final withdrawal prolonging,
Good-bye and Good-bye with emotional lips repeating,
(So hard for his hand to release those hands — no more will they
meet,
No more for communion of sorrow and joy, of old and young,
A far-stretching journey awaits him, to return no more,)
Shunning, postponing severance — seeking to ward off the last
word ever so little,
E’en at the exit-door turning — charges superfluous calling back —
e’en as he descends the steps,
Something to eke out a minute additional — shadows of nightfall
deepening,
Farewells, messages lessening — dimmer the forthgoer’s visage
and form,
Soon to be lost for aye in the darkness — loth, O so loth to de-
part!
Garrulous to the very last.

OLD AGE’S LAMBENT PEAKS

cellatreis — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 19:45:08 +0000

The touch of flame — the illuminating fire — the loftiest look at
last,
O’er city, passion, sea — o’er prairie, mountain, wood — the earth
itself;
The airy, different, changing hues of all, in falling twilight,
Objects and groups, bearings, faces, reminiscences;
The calmer sight — the golden setting, clear and broad:
So much i’ the atmosphere, the points of view, the situations
whence we scan,
Bro’t out by them alone — so much (perhaps the best) unreck’d
before;
The lights indeed from them — old age’s lambent peaks.

AN EVENING LULL

cellatreis — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 19:44:07 +0000

After a week of physical anguish,
Unrest and pain, and feverish heat,
Toward the ending day a calm and lull comes on,
Three hours of peace and soothing rest of brain.*

* The two songs on this page are eked out during an afternoon, June, 1888, in my seventieth year, at a critical spell of illness. Of course no reader and probably no human being at any time will ever have such phases of emotional and solemn action as these involve to me. I feel in them an end and close of all.

NOW PRECEDENT SONGS, FAREWELL

cellatreis — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 19:43:30 +0000

Now precedent songs, farewell — by every name farewell,
(Trains of a staggering line in many a strange procession,
waggons,
From ups and downs — with intervals — from elder years, mid-age,
or youth,)
“In Cabin’d Ships,” or “Thee Old Cause” or “Poets to Come”
Or “Paumanok,” “Song of Myself,” “Calamus,” or “Adam,”
Or “Beat! Beat! Drums!” or “To the Leaven’d Soil they
Trod,”
Or “Captain! My Captain!” “Kosmos,” “Quicksand Years,”
or “Thoughts,”
“Thou Mother with thy Equal Brood,” and many, many more
unspecified,
From fibre heart of mine — from throat and tongue — (My life’s
hot pulsing blood,
The personal urge and form for me — not merely paper, automatic
type and ink,)
Each song of mine — each utterance in the past — having its long,
long history,
Of life or death, or soldier’s wound, of country’s loss or safety,
(O heaven! what flash and started endless train of all! com-
pared indeed to that!
What wretched shred e’en at the best of all!)

THE DISMANTLED SHIP

cellatreis — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 19:43:03 +0000

In some unused lagoon, some nameless bay,
On sluggish, lonesome waters, anchor’d near the shore,
An old, dismasted, gray and batter’d ship, disabled, done,
After free voyages to all the seas of earth, haul’d up at last and
hawser’d tight,
Lies rusting, mouldering.

AS THE GREEK’S SIGNAL FLAME. [For Whittier’s eightieth birthday, December 17, 1887.]

cellatreis — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 19:42:40 +0000

As the Greek’s signal flame, by antique records told,
Rose from the hill-top, like applause and glory,
Welcoming in fame some special veteran, hero,
With rosy tinge reddening the land he’d served,
So I aloft from Mannahatta’s ship-fringed shore,
Lift high a kindled brand for thee, Old Poet.

THE DEAD EMPEROR

cellatreis — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 19:42:13 +0000

To-day, with bending head and eyes, thou, too, Columbia,
Less for the mighty crown laid low in sorrow — less for the
Emperor,
Thy true condolence breathest, sendest out o’er many a salt sea
mile,
Mourning a good old man — a faithful shepherd, patriot.
Publish’d March 10, 1888.

NOT MEAGRE, LATENT BOUGHS ALONE

cellatreis — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 19:41:47 +0000

Not meagre, latent boughs alone, O songs! (scaly and bare,
like eagles’ talons,)
But haply for some sunny day (who knows?) some future spring,
some summer — bursting forth,
To verdant leaves, or sheltering shade — to nourishing fruit,
Apples and grapes — the stalwart limbs of trees emerging — the
fresh, free, open air,
And love and faith, like scented roses blooming.

YOU LINGERING SPARSE LEAVES OF ME

cellatreis — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 19:41:19 +0000

You lingering sparse leaves of me on winter-nearing boughs,
And I some well-shorn tree of field or orchard-row;
You tokens diminute and lorn — (not now the flush of May, or
July clover-bloom — no grain of August now;)
You pallid banner-staves — you pennants valueless — you over-
stay’d of time,
Yet my soul-dearest leaves confirming all the rest,
The faithfulest — hardiest — last.