How plenteous! How spiritual! How resumé! The same Old Man and Soul- the same old aspirations, and the same content. I was thinking the day most splendid, till I saw what the not-day exhibited, I was thinking this globe enough, till there sprang out so noiseless around me myriads of other globes. Now, while the great thoughts of space and eternity fill me, I will measure myself by them; And now, touch'd with the lives of other globes, arrived as far along as those of the earth, Or waiting to arrive, or pass'd on farther than those of the earth, I henceforth no more ignore them, than I ignore my own life, Or the lives of the earth arrived as far as mine, or waiting to arrive. OI see now that life cannot exhibit all to meas the day cannot; I see that I am to wait for what will be exhibited by death. Walt Whitman B BY THE BIVOUAC'S FITFUL FLAME Y the bivouac's fitful flame, A procession winding around me, solemn and sweet and slow;- but first I note, The tents of the sleeping army, the fields' and woods' dim outline, The darkness, lit by spots of kindled fire - the silence; Like a phantom far or near an occasional figure moving; The shrubs and trees, (as I lift my eyes they seem to be stealthily watching me;) While wind in procession thoughts, O tender and wondrous thoughts, Of life and death of home and the past and loved, and of those that are far away; A solemn and slow procession there as I sit on the ground, By the bivouac's fitful flame. Walt Whitman I BIVOUAC ON A MOUNTAIN SIDE SEE before me now a travelling army halting; Below, a fertile valley spread, with barns, and the orchards of summer; Behind, the terraced sides of a mountain, abrupt in places, rising high; Broken, with rocks, with clinging cedars, with tall shapes, dingily seen; The numerous camp-fires scatter'd near and far, some away up on the mountains; The shadowy forms of men and horses, looming, large-sized, flickering; And over all, the sky- the sky! far, far out of reach, studded, breaking out, the eternal stars. Walt Whitman N THE OLD CAMP-FIRE OW shift your blanket pad before your saddle back you fling, And draw your cinch up tighter till the sweat drops from the ring: We've a dozen miles to cover ere we reach the next divide. Our limbs are stiffer now than when we first set out to ride, And worse, the horses know it, and feel the leg-grip tire, Since in the days when, long ago, we sought the old camp-fire. Yes, twenty years! Lord! how we'd scent its incense down the trail, Through balm of bay and spice of spruce, and eye and ear would fail, And worn and faint from useless quest we crept like this to rest, Or, flushed with luck and youthful hope, we rode, like this, abreast. Ay! straighten up, old friend and let the mustang think he's nigher, Through looser rein and stirrup strain, the welcome old camp-fire. You know the shout that would ring out before us down the glade, And start the blue jays like a flight of arrows through the shade, And sift the thin pine needles down like slanting, shining rain, And send the squirrels scampering back to their holes again, Until we saw, blue-veiled and dim, or leaping like desire, That flame of twenty years ago, which lit the old camp-fire. And then the rest on Nature's breast, when talk had dropped, and slow The night wind went from tree to tree with challenge soft and low! We lay on lazy elbows propped, or stood to stir the flame, Till up the soaring redwood's shaft our shadows danced and came, As if to draw us with the sparks, high o'er its unseen spire, To the five stars that kept their ward above the old camp-fire, Those picket stars whose tranquil watch half soothed, half shamed our sleep. What recked we then what beasts or men around might lurk or creep? We lay and heard with listless ears the far-off panther's cry, The near coyote's snarling snap, the grizzly's deep-drawn sigh, The brown bear's blundering human tread, the gray wolves' yelping choir Beyond the magic circle drawn round the old camp-fire. And then that morn! Was ever morn so filled with all things new? The light that fell through long brown aisles from out the kindling blue, The creak and yawn of stretching boughs, the jay-bird's early call. The rat-tat-tat of woodpecker that waked the woodland hall, The fainter stir of lower life in fern and brake and brier, Till flashing leaped the torch of Day from last night's old camp-fire! Bret Harte T LINE UP, BRAVE BOYS! HE packs are on, the cinches tight, Upon the grass the frost lies white, The leader's cry rings sharp and clear, The camp-fires smoulder low; Before us lies a shallow mere, Beyond, the mountain snow. "Line up, Billy, line up, boys, Five hundred miles behind us lie, As many more ahead, Through mud and mire on mountains high Our weary feet must tread. So one by one, with loyal mind, The horses swing to place, |