By tying torches to a wheel and rolling it downhill.
But not the wet circumference of the seas
Can quench the living light in even these,
These who forget,
Eating the fruits of earth,
That nothing ever has been done
To spur the spirit of mankind,
Which has not come to pass
Forth from the heart and mind
Of some one man, through other men birth after birth,
In thoughts that dare
And in deeds that share
And in a will resolved to find
A finer breath
Born in the deep maternity of death.
... If these be ecstasies of youth,
Yet they are news of which all time has need.
If they be lies, tell them yourselves and heed
How poets' twice-told lies become the truth!

There was a poet Celia loved who, hearing all around
The multitudinous tread
Of common majesty,
(A hearty immigrant was he!)
Made of the gathering insurgent sound
Another continent of poetry?
His name is writ in his blood, mine and yours.
... "And when he celebrates
These States,"
She said, "how can Americans worth their salt
But listen to the wavesong on their shores,
The waves and Walt,
And hear the windsong over rock and wood,
The winds and Walt,
And let the mansong enter at their gates
And know that it is good!"

Walt Whitman, by his perfect friendliness
Has let me guess
That into Celia, into me,
He and unnumbered dead have come
To be our intimates,
To make of us their home
Commingling earth and heaven....
That by our true and mutual deeds
We shall at last be shriven
Of these hypocrisies and jealous creeds
And petty separate fates--
That I in every man and he in me,
Together making God, are gradually creating whole
The single soul.
Somebody called Walt Whitman--
Dead!
He is alive instead,
Alive as I am. When I lift my head,
His head is lifted. When his brave mouth speaks,
My lips contain his word. And when his rocker creaks
Ghostly in Camden, there I sit in it and watch my hand grow old
And take upon my constant lips the kiss of younger truth....
It is my joy to tell and to be told
That he, in all the world and me,
Cannot be dead,
That I, in all the world and him, youth after youth
Shall lift my head.

V

There is a vision, Celia, in your face....

Beauty had lived in India like a mad
And withdrawn prophetess, in Greece had set her pace
Between a laurelled lad
And a singing maiden, pitched he