| SPLENDOR of ended day, floating and filling me! | |
| Hour prophetic—hour resuming the past! | |
| Inflating my throat—you, divine average! | |
| You, Earth and Life, till the last ray gleams, I sing. | |
| |
| Open mouth of my Soul, uttering gladness, | 5 |
| Eyes of my Soul, seeing perfection, | |
| Natural life of me, faithfully praising things; | |
| Corroborating forever the triumph of things. | |
| |
| Illustrious every one! | |
| Illustrious what we name space—sphere of unnumber’d spirits; | 10 |
| Illustrious the mystery of motion, in all beings, even the tiniest insect; | |
| Illustrious the attribute of speech—the senses—the body; | |
| Illustrious the passing light! Illustrious the pale reflection on the new moon in the western sky! | |
| Illustrious whatever I see, or hear, or touch, to the last. | |
| |
| Good in all, | 15 |
| In the satisfaction and aplomb of animals, | |
| In the annual return of the seasons, | |
| In the hilarity of youth, | |
| In the strength and flush of manhood, | |
| In the grandeur and exquisiteness of old age, | 20 |
| In the superb vistas of Death. | |
| |
| Wonderful to depart; | |
| Wonderful to be here! | |
| The heart, to jet the all-alike and innocent blood! | |
| To breathe the air, how delicious! | 25 |
| To speak! to walk! to seize something by the hand! | |
| To prepare for sleep, for bed—to look on my rose-color’d flesh; | |
| To be conscious of my body, so satisfied, so large; | |
| To be this incredible God I am; | |
| To have gone forth among other Gods—these men and women I love. | 30 |
| |
| Wonderful how I celebrate you and myself! | |
| How my thoughts play subtly at the spectacles around! | |
| How the clouds pass silently overhead! | |
| How the earth darts on and on! and how the sun, moon, stars, dart on and on! | |
| How the water sports and sings! (Surely it is alive!) | 35 |
| How the trees rise and stand up—with strong trunks—with branches and leaves! | |
| (Surely there is something more in each of the tree—some living Soul.) | |
| |
| O amazement of things! even the least particle! | |
| O spirituality of things! | |
| O strain musical, flowing through ages and continents—now reaching me and America! | 40 |
| I take your strong chords—I intersperse them, and cheerfully pass them forward. | |
| |
| I too carol the sun, usher’d, or at noon, or, as now, setting, | |
| I too throb to the brain and beauty of the earth, and of all the growths of the earth, | |
| I too have felt the resistless call of myself. | |
| |
| As I sail’d down the Mississippi, | 45 |
| As I wander’d over the prairies, | |
| As I have lived—As I have look’d through my windows, my eyes, | |
| As I went forth in the morning—As I beheld the light breaking in the east; | |
| As I bathed on the beach of the Eastern Sea, and again on the beach of the Western Sea; | |
| As I roam’d the streets of inland Chicago—whatever streets I have roam’d; | 50 |
| Or cities, or silent woods, or peace, or even amid the sights of war; | |
| Wherever I have been, I have charged myself with contentment and triumph. | |
| |
| I sing the Equalities, modern or old, | |
| I sing the endless finales of things; | |
| I say Nature continues—Glory continues; | 55 |
| I praise with electric voice; | |
| For I do not see one imperfection in the universe; | |
| And I do not see one cause or result lamentable at last in the universe. | |
| |
| O setting sun! though the time has come, | |
| I still warble under you, if none else does, unmitigated adoration. | 60 |
