“Mark the spirit of invention everywhere, thy rapid patents, Thy continual workshops, foundries, risen or rising, See, from their chimneys how the tall flame-fires stream.”
“Sail, sail thy best, ship of democracy,Of value is thy freight, 'tis not the present only,The past is also stored in thee,Thou holdest not the venture of thyself alone, not of the western continent alone,Earth's resume entire floats upon thy keel, O ship, is steadied by thy spars,With thee Time voyages in trust, the antecedent nations sink or swim with thee,With all their ancient struggles , martyrs, heroes, epics, wars, thou bear'st the other continents,Theirs, theirs as much as thine, the destination-port triumphant..”
“I Think it is lost.....but nothing is ever lost nor can be lost .The body sluggish, aged, cold, the ember left from earlier fires shall duly flame again.”
“Dazzling and tremendous how quick the sun-rise would kill me, if I could not now and always send sun-rise out of me.”
“I see the cliffs, glaciers, torrents, valleys of Switzerland - I mark the long winters and the isolation.”
“Out of the cradle endlessly rocking, Out of the mocking-bird’s throat, the musical shuttle, Out of the Ninth-month midnight, Over the sterile sands, and the fields beyond, where the child, leaving his bed, wander’d alone, bare-headed, barefoot, Down from the shower’d halo,Up from the mystic play of shadows, twining and twisting as if they were alive, Out from the patches of briers and blackberries, From the memories of the bird that chanted to me, From your memories, sad brother—from the fitful risings and fallings I heard, From under that yellow half-moon, late-risen, and swollen as if with tears,From those beginning notes of sickness and love, there in the transparent mist, From the thousand responses of my heart, never to cease, From the myriad thence-arous’d words, From the word stronger and more delicious than any, From such, as now they start, the scene revisiting,As a flock, twittering, rising, or overhead passing, Borne hither—ere all eludes me, hurriedly, A man—yet by these tears a little boy again, Throwing myself on the sand, confronting the waves, I, chanter of pains and joys, uniter of here and hereafter,Taking all hints to use them—but swiftly leaping beyond them, A reminiscence sing. ”
“When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with such applause in the lecture room,How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;Till rising and gliding out, I wander'd off by myself,In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.”