1.
First, O songs, for a prelude,
Lightly strike on the stretched tympanum, pride and joy in my city,
How she led the rest to arms—how she gave the cue,
How at once with lithe limbs, unwaiting a moment, she sprang;
O superb! O Manhattan, my own, my peerless!
O strongest you in the hour of danger, in crisis! O truer than steel!
How you sprang! how you threw off the costumes of peace with indifferent
hand;
How your soft opera-music changed, and the drum and fife were heard in
their stead;
How you led to the war, (that shall serve for our prelude, songs of
soldiers,)
How Manhattan drum-taps led.
2.
Forty years had I in my city seen soldiers parading;
Forty years as a pageant—till unawares, the Lady of this teeming and
turbulent city,
Sleepless, amid her ships, her houses, her incalculable wealth,
With her million children around her—suddenly,
At dead of night, at news from the South,
Incensed, struck with clenched hand the pavement.
A shock electric—the night sustained it;
Till, with ominous hum, our hive at daybreak poured out its myriads.
From the houses then, and the workshops, and through all the doorways,
Leaped they tumultuous—and lo! Manhattan arming.
3.
To the drum-taps prompt,
The young men falling in and arming;
The mechanics arming, the trowel, the jack-plane, the black-smith's hammer,
tossed aside with precipitation;
The lawyer leaving his office, and arming—the judge leaving the court;
The driver deserting his waggon in the street, jumping down, throwing the
reins abruptly down on the horses' backs;
The salesman leaving the store—the boss, book-keeper, porter, all leaving;
Squads gathering everywhere by common consent, and arming;
The new recruits, even boys—the old men show them how to wear their
accoutrements—they buckle the straps carefully;
Outdoors arming—indoors arming—the flash of the musket-barrels;
The white tents cluster in camps—the armed sentries around—the sunrise
cannon, and again at sunset;
Armed regiments arrive every day, pass through the city, and embark from
the wharves;
How good they look, as they tramp down to the river, sweaty, with their
guns on their shoulders!
How I love them! how I could hug them, with their brown faces, and their
clothes and knapsacks covered with dust!
The blood of the city up—armed! armed! the cry everywhere;
The flags flung out from the steeples of churches, and from all the public
buildings and stores;
The tearful parting—the mother kisses her son—the son kisses his mother;
Loth is the mother to part—yet not a word does she speak to detain him;
The tumultuous escort—the ranks of policemen preceding, clearing the way;
The unpent enthusiasm—the wild cheers of the crowd for their favourites;
The artillery—the silent cannons, bright as gold, drawn along, rumble
lightly over the stones;
Silent cannons—soon to cease your silence,
Soon, unlimbered, to begin the red business!
All the mutter of preparation—all the determined arming;
The hospital service—the lint, bandages, and medicines;
The women volunteering for nurses—the work begun for, in earnest—no mere
parade now;
War! an armed race is advancing!—the welcome for battle—no turning away;
War! be it weeks, months, or years—an armed race is advancing to welcome
it.
4.
Mannahatta a-march!—and it's O to sing it well!
It's O for a manly life in the camp!
5.
And the sturdy artillery!
The guns, bright as gold—the work for giants—to serve well the guns:
Unlimber them! no more, as the past forty years, for salutes for courtesies
merely;
Put in something else now besides powder and wadding.
6.
And you, Lady of Ships! you, Mannahatta!
Old matron of the city! this proud, friendly, turbulent city!
Often in peace and wealth you were pensive, or covertly frowned amid all
your children;
But now you smile with joy, exulting old Mannahatta!
1861.
Armed year! year of the struggle!
No dainty rhymes or sentimental love verses for you, terrible year!
Not you as some pale poetling, seated at a desk, lisping cadenzas piano;
But as a strong man, erect, clothed in blue clothes, advancing, carrying a
rifle on your shoulder,
With well-gristled body and sunburnt face and hands—with a knife in the
belt at your side,
As I heard you shouting loud—your sonorous voice ringing across the
continent;
Your masculine voice, O year, as rising amid the great cities,
Amid the men of Manhattan I saw you, as one of the workmen, the dwellers in
Manhattan;
Or with large steps crossing the prairies out of Illinois and Indiana,
Rapidly crossing the West with springy gait, and descending the
Alleghanies;
Or down from the great lakes, or in Pennsylvania, or on deck along the Ohio
river;
Or southward along the Tennessee or Cumberland rivers, or at Chattanooga on
the mountain-top,
Saw I your gait and saw I your sinewy limbs, clothed in blue, bearing
weapons, robust year;
Heard your determined voice, launched forth again and again;
Year that suddenly sang by the mouths of the round-lipped cannon,
I repeat you, hurrying, crashing, sad, distracted year.
THE UPRISING.
1.
Rise, O days, from your fathomless deeps, till you loftier and fiercer
sweep!
Long for my soul, hungering gymnastic, I devoured what the earth gave me;
Long I roamed the woods of the North—long I watched Niagara pouring;
I travelled the prairies over, and slept on their breast—I crossed the
Nevadas,
I crossed the plateaus;
I ascended the towering rocks along the Pacific, I sailed out to sea;
I sailed through the storm, I was refreshed by the storm;
I watched with joy the threatening maws of the waves;
I marked the white combs where they careered so high, curling over;
I heard the wind piping, I saw the black clouds;
Saw from below what arose and mounted, (O superb! O wild as my heart, and
powerful!)
Heard the continuous thunder, as it bellowed after the lightning;
Noted the slender and jagged threads of lightning, as sudden and fast amid
the din they chased each other across the sky;
—These, and such as these, I, elate, saw—saw with wonder, yet pensive and
masterful;
All the menacing might of the globe uprisen around me;
Yet there with my soul I fed—I fed content, supercilious.
2.
'Twas well, O soul! 'twas a good preparation you gave me!
Now we advance our latent and ampler hunger to fill;
Now we go forth to receive what the earth and the sea never gave us;
Not through the mighty woods we go, but through the mightier cities;
Something for us is pouring now, more than Niagara pouring;
Torrents of men, (sources and rills of the North-west, are you indeed
inexhaustible?)
What, to pavements and homesteads here—what were those storms of the
mountains and sea?
What, to passions I witness around me to-day, was the sea risen?
Was the wind piping the pipe of death under the black clouds?
Lo! from deeps more unfathomable, something more deadly and savage;
Manhattan, rising, advancing with menacing front—Cincinnati, Chicago,
unchained;
—What was that swell I saw on the ocean? behold what comes here!
How it climbs with daring feet and hands! how it dashes!
How the true thunder bellows after the lightning! how bright the flashes of
lightning!
How DEMOCRACY with desperate vengeful port strides on, shown through the
dark by those flashes of lightning!
Yet a mournful wail and low sob I fancied I heard through the dark,
In a lull of the deafening confusion.
3.
Thunder on! stride on, Democracy! strike with vengeful stroke!
And do you rise higher than ever yet, O days, O cities!
Crash heavier, heavier yet, O storms! you have done me good;
My soul, prepared in the mountains, absorbs your immortal strong nutriment.
Long had I walked my cities, my country roads, through farms, only half
satisfied;
One doubt, nauseous, undulating like a snake, crawled on the ground before
me,
Continually preceding my steps, turning upon me oft, ironically hissing
low;
—The cities I loved so well I abandoned and left—I sped to the
certainties suitable to me
Hungering, hungering, hungering, for primal energies, and Nature's
dauntlessness,
I refreshed myself with it only, I could relish it only;
I waited the bursting forth of the pent fire—on the water and air I waited
long.
—But now I no longer wait—I am fully satisfied—I am glutted;
I have witnessed the true lightning—I have witnessed my cities electric;
I have lived to behold man burst forth, and warlike America rise;
Hence I will seek no more the food of the northern solitary wilds,
No more on the mountains roam, or sail the stormy sea.
