I see the ships, (they will last a few years,)
The vast factories with their foremen and workmen,
And hear the indorsement of all, and do not object
     to it.

But I too announce solid things,
Science, ships, politics, cities, factories, are not
     nothing,
Like a grand procession to music of distant bugles
     pouring, triumphantly moving, and grander
     heaving in sight,
They stand for realities — all is as it should be.

Then my realities;
What else is so real as mine?
Libertad and the divine average, freedom to every
     slave on the face of the earth,
The rapt promises and luminè of seers, the spiritual
     world, these centuries-lasting songs,
And our visions, the visions of poets, the most
     solid announcements of any.

1860 1881

A CLEAR MIDNIGHT

THIS is thy hour O soul, thy free flight into the wordless,
Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the
     lesson done,
Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the
     themes thou lovest best,
Night, sleep, death and the stars.

1881 1881