Walt Whitman

THE last sunbeam

Lightly falls from the finish’d Sabbath,

On the pavement here, and there beyond it is looking,

Down a new-made double grave.

Lo, the moon ascending,

Up from the east the silvery round moon,

Beautiful over the house-tops, ghastly, phantom moon,

Immense and silent moon.

I see a sad procession,

And I hear the sound of coming full-key’d bugles,

All the channels of the city streets they’re flooding,

As with voices and with tears.

I hear the great drums pounding,

And the small drums steady whirring,

And every blow of the great convulsive drums,

Strikes me through and through.

For the son is brought with the father,

(In the foremost ranks of the fierce assault they fell,

Two veterans son and father dropt together,

And the double grave awaits them.)

Now nearer blow the bugles,

And the drums strike more convulsive,

And the daylight o’er the pavement quite has faded,

And the strong dead-march enwraps me.

In the eastern sky up-buoying,

The sorrowful vast phantom moves illumin’d,

(‘Tis some mother’s large transparent face,

In heaven brighter growing.)

O strong dead-march you please me!

O moon immense with your silvery face you soothe me!

O my soldiers twain! O my veterans passing to burial!

What I have I also give you.

The moon gives you light,

And the bugles and the drums give you music,

And my heart, O my soldiers, my veterans,

My heart gives you love.

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up – for you the flag is flung – for you the bugle trills;
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths – for you the shores a-crowding;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head;
It is some dream that on the deck,
You’ve fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;
Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

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,

That may-be identity beyond the grave is a beautiful
fable only,

May-be the things I perceive—the animals, plants, men,
hills, shining and flowing waters,

The skies of day and night—colors, densities, forms—
May-be these are, (as doubtless they are,) only
apparitions, and the real something has yet to be
known;

(How often they dart out of themselves, as if to con-
found me and mock me!

How often I think neither I know, nor any man knows,
aught of them;)

May-be seeming to me what they are, (as doubtless
they indeed but seem,) as from my present point
of view—And might prove, (as of course they
would,) naught of what they appear, or naught
anyhow, from entirely changed points of view;

—To me, these, and the like of these, are curiously
answer’d by my lovers, my dear friends;

When he whom I love travels with me, or sits a long
while holding me by the hand,

When the subtle air, the impalpable, the sense that
words and reason hold not, surround us and
pervade us,

Then I am charged with untold and untellable wisdom
—I am silent—I require nothing further,

I cannot answer the question of appearances, or that
of identity beyond the grave;

But I walk or sit indifferent—I am satisfied,

He ahold of my hand has completely satisfied me.

AT the last, tenderly,

From the walls of the powerful fortress’d house,

From the clasp of the knitted locks, from the keep of the well-
closed doors,

Let me be wafted.

Let me glide noiselessly forth;

With the key of softness unlock the locks—with a whisper,

Set ope the doors O soul.

Tenderly—be not impatient,

(Strong is your hold O mortal flesh,

Strong is your hold O love.)

WHEN I peruse the conquer’d 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,

But when I hear of the brotherhood of lovers, how it was with 
them,

How together through life, through dangers, odium, unchanging, 
long and long,

Through youth and through middle and old age, how unfaltering, 
how affectionate and faithful they were,

Then I am pensive—I hastily walk away fill’d with the bitterest 
envy.