10 Best Famous Afterward Poems

Here is a collection of the top 10 all-time best famous Afterward poems. This is a select list of the best famous Afterward poetry. Reading, writing, and enjoying famous Afterward poetry (as well as classical and contemporary poems) is a great past time. These top poems are the best examples of afterward poems.

• All Famous Afterward Poems

1
Complacencies of the peignoir, and late
Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair,
And the green freedom of a cockatoo
Upon a rug mingle to dissipate
The holy hush of ancient sacrifice.
She dreams a little, and she feels the dark
Encroachment of that old catastrophe,
As a calm darkens among water-lights.
The pungent oranges and bright, green wings
Seem things in some procession of the dead,
Winding across wide water, without sound.
The day is like wide water, without sound,
Stilled for the passion of her dreaming feet
Over the seas, to silent Palestine,
Dominion of the blood and sepulchre.

2
Why should she give her bounty to the dead?
What is divinity if it can come
Only in silent shadows and in dreams?
Shall she not find in the comforts of sun,
In pungent fruit and bright, green wings, or else
In any balm or beauty of the earth,
Things to be cherished like the thought of heaven?
Divinity must live within herself:
Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow;
Grievings in loneliness, or unsubdued
Elations when the forest blooms; gusty
Emotions on wet roads on autumn nights;
All pleasures and all pains, remembering
The bough of summer and the winter branch.
These are the measures destined for her soul.

3
Jove in the clouds had his inhuman birth.
No mother suckled him, no sweet land gave
Large-mannered motions to his mythy mind
He moved among us, as a muttering king,
Magnificent, would move among his hinds,
Until our blood, commingling, virginal,
With heaven, brought such requital to desire
The very hinds discerned it, in a star.
Shall our blood fail? Or shall it come to be
The blood of paradise? And shall the earth
Seem all of paradise that we shall know?
The sky will be much friendlier then than now,
A part of labor and a part of pain,
And next in glory to enduring love,
Not this dividing and indifferent blue.

4
She says, "I am content when wakened birds,
Before they fly, test the reality
Of misty fields, by their sweet questionings;
But when the birds are gone, and their warm fields
Return no more, where, then, is paradise?"
There is not any haunt of prophecy,
Nor any old chimera of the grave,
Neither the golden underground, nor isle
Melodious, where spirits gat them home,
Nor visionary south, nor cloudy palm
Remote as heaven's hill, that has endured
As April's green endures; or will endure
Like her rememberance of awakened birds,
Or her desire for June and evening, tipped
By the consummation of the swallow's wings.

5
She says, "But in contentment I still feel
The need of some imperishable bliss."
Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her,
Alone, shall come fulfillment to our dreams
And our desires. Although she strews the leaves
Of sure obliteration on our paths,
The path sick sorrow took, the many paths
Where triumph rang its brassy phrase, or love
Whispered a little out of tenderness,
She makes the willow shiver in the sun
For maidens who were wont to sit and gaze
Upon the grass, relinquished to their feet.
She causes boys to pile new plums and pears
On disregarded plate. The maidens taste
And stray impassioned in the littering leaves.

6
Is there no change of death in paradise?
Does ripe fruit never fall? Or do the boughs
Hang always heavy in that perfect sky,
Unchanging, yet so like our perishing earth,
With rivers like our own that seek for seas
They never find, the same receeding shores
That never touch with inarticulate pang?
Why set the pear upon those river-banks
Or spice the shores with odors of the plum?
Alas, that they should wear our colors there,
The silken weavings of our afternoons,
And pick the strings of our insipid lutes!
Death is the mother of beauty, mystical,
Within whose burning bosom we devise
Our earthly mothers waiting, sleeplessly.

7
Supple and turbulent, a ring of men
Shall chant in orgy on a summer morn
Their boisterous devotion to the sun,
Not as a god, but as a god might be,
Naked among them, like a savage source.
Their chant shall be a chant of paradise,
Out of their blood, returning to the sky;
And in their chant shall enter, voice by voice,
The windy lake wherein their lord delights,
The trees, like serafin, and echoing hills,
That choir among themselves long afterward.
They shall know well the heavenly fellowship
Of men that perish and of summer morn.
And whence they came and whither they shall go
The dew upon their feet shall manifest.

8
She hears, upon that water without sound,
A voice that cries, "The tomb in Palestine
Is not the porch of spirits lingering.
It is the grave of Jesus, where he lay."
We live in an old chaos of the sun,
Or old dependency of day and night,
Or island solitude, unsponsered, free,
Of that wide water, inescapable.
Deer walk upon our mountains, and the quail
Whistle about us their spontaneous cries;
Sweet berries ripen in the wilderness;
And, in the isolation of the sky,
At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make
Abiguous undulations as they sink,
Downward to darkness, on extended wings.

I MIND me in the days departed, 
How often underneath the sun 
With childish bounds I used to run 
To a garden long deserted. 

The beds and walks were vanish'd quite; 5 
And wheresoe'er had struck the spade, 
The greenest grasses Nature laid, 
To sanctify her right. 

I call'd the place my wilderness, 
For no one enter'd there but I. 10 
The sheep look'd in, the grass to espy, 
And pass'd it ne'ertheless. 

The trees were interwoven wild, 
And spread their boughs enough about 
To keep both sheep and shepherd out, 15 
But not a happy child. 

Adventurous joy it was for me! 
I crept beneath the boughs, and found 
A circle smooth of mossy ground 
Beneath a poplar-tree. 20 

Old garden rose-trees hedged it in, 
Bedropt with roses waxen-white, 
Well satisfied with dew and light, 
And careless to be seen. 

Long years ago, it might befall, 25 
When all the garden flowers were trim, 
The grave old gardener prided him 
On these the most of all. 

Some Lady, stately overmuch, 
Here moving with a silken noise, 30 
Has blush'd beside them at the voice 
That liken'd her to such. 

Or these, to make a diadem, 
She often may have pluck'd and twined; 
Half-smiling as it came to mind, 35 
That few would look at them. 

O, little thought that Lady proud, 
A child would watch her fair white rose, 
When buried lay her whiter brows, 
And silk was changed for shroud!¡ª 40 

Nor thought that gardener (full of scorns 
For men unlearn'd and simple phrase) 
A child would bring it all its praise, 
By creeping through the thorns! 

To me upon my low moss seat, 45 
Though never a dream the roses sent 
Of science or love's compliment, 
I ween they smelt as sweet. 

It did not move my grief to see 
The trace of human step departed: 50 
Because the garden was deserted, 
The blither place for me! 

Friends, blame me not! a narrow ken 
Hath childhood 'twixt the sun and sward: 
We draw the moral afterward¡ª 55 
We feel the gladness then. 

And gladdest hours for me did glide 
In silence at the rose-tree wall: 
A thrush made gladness musical 
Upon the other side. 60 

Nor he nor I did e'er incline 
To peck or pluck the blossoms white:¡ª 
How should I know but that they might 
Lead lives as glad as mine? 

To make my hermit-home complete, 65 
I brought clear water from the spring 
Praised in its own low murmuring, 
And cresses glossy wet. 

And so, I thought, my likeness grew 
(Without the melancholy tale) 70 
To 'gentle hermit of the dale,' 
And Angelina too. 

For oft I read within my nook 
Such minstrel stories; till the breeze 
Made sounds poetic in the trees, 75 
And then I shut the book. 

If I shut this wherein I write, 
I hear no more the wind athwart 
Those trees, nor feel that childish heart 
Delighting in delight. 80 

My childhood from my life is parted, 
My footstep from the moss which drew 
Its fairy circle round: anew 
The garden is deserted. 

Another thrush may there rehearse 85 
The madrigals which sweetest are; 
No more for me!¡ªmyself afar 
Do sing a sadder verse. 

Ah me! ah me! when erst I lay 
In that child's-nest so greenly wrought, 90 
I laugh'd unto myself and thought, 
'The time will pass away.' 

And still I laugh'd, and did not fear 
But that, whene'er was pass'd away 
The childish time, some happier play 95 
My womanhood would cheer. 

I knew the time would pass away; 
And yet, beside the rose-tree wall, 
Dear God, how seldom, if at all, 
Did I look up to pray! 100 

The time is past: and now that grows 
The cypress high among the trees, 
And I behold white sepulchres 
As well as the white rose,¡ª 

When wiser, meeker thoughts are given, 105 
And I have learnt to lift my face, 
Reminded how earth's greenest place 
The colour draws from heaven,¡ª 

It something saith for earthly pain, 
But more for heavenly promise free, 110 
That I who was, would shrink to be 
That happy child again. 

 1
TO conclude—I announce what comes after me; 
I announce mightier offspring, orators, days, and then, for the present, depart. 

I remember I said, before my leaves sprang at all, 
I would raise my voice jocund and strong, with reference to consummations. 

When America does what was promis’d,
When there are plentiful athletic bards, inland and seaboard, 
When through These States walk a hundred millions of superb persons, 
When the rest part away for superb persons, and contribute to them, 
When breeds of the most perfect mothers denote America, 
Then to me and mine our due fruition.

I have press’d through in my own right, 
I have sung the Body and the Soul—War and Peace have I sung, 
And the songs of Life and of Birth—and shown that there are many births: 
I have offer’d my style to everyone—I have journey’d with confident step; 
While my pleasure is yet at the full, I whisper, So long!
And take the young woman’s hand, and the young man’s hand, for the last time. 

2
I announce natural persons to arise; 
I announce justice triumphant; 
I announce uncompromising liberty and equality; 
I announce the justification of candor, and the justification of pride.

I announce that the identity of These States is a single identity only; 
I announce the Union more and more compact, indissoluble; 
I announce splendors and majesties to make all the previous politics of the earth
 insignificant. 

I announce adhesiveness—I say it shall be limitless, unloosen’d; 
I say you shall yet find the friend you were looking for.

I announce a man or woman coming—perhaps you are the one, (So long!) 
I announce the great individual, fluid as Nature, chaste, affectionate, compassionate,
 fully
 armed. 

I announce a life that shall be copious, vehement, spiritual, bold; 
I announce an end that shall lightly and joyfully meet its translation; 
I announce myriads of youths, beautiful, gigantic, sweet-blooded;
I announce a race of splendid and savage old men. 

3
O thicker and faster! (So long!) 
O crowding too close upon me; 
I foresee too much—it means more than I thought; 
It appears to me I am dying.

Hasten throat, and sound your last! 
Salute me—salute the days once more. Peal the old cry once more. 

Screaming electric, the atmosphere using, 
At random glancing, each as I notice absorbing, 
Swiftly on, but a little while alighting,
Curious envelop’d messages delivering, 
Sparkles hot, seed ethereal, down in the dirt dropping, 
Myself unknowing, my commission obeying, to question it never daring, 
To ages, and ages yet, the growth of the seed leaving, 
To troops out of me, out of the army, the war arising—they the tasks I have set
 promulging,
To women certain whispers of myself bequeathing—their affection me more clearly
 explaining, 
To young men my problems offering—no dallier I—I the muscle of their brains
 trying, 
So I pass—a little time vocal, visible, contrary; 
Afterward, a melodious echo, passionately bent for—(death making me really undying;) 
The best of me then when no longer visible—for toward that I have been incessantly
 preparing.

What is there more, that I lag and pause, and crouch extended with unshut mouth? 
Is there a single final farewell? 

4
My songs cease—I abandon them; 
From behind the screen where I hid I advance personally, solely to you. 

Camerado! This is no book;
Who touches this, touches a man; 
(Is it night? Are we here alone?) 
It is I you hold, and who holds you; 
I spring from the pages into your arms—decease calls me forth. 

O how your fingers drowse me!
Your breath falls around me like dew—your pulse lulls the tympans of my ears; 
I feel immerged from head to foot; 
Delicious—enough. 

Enough, O deed impromptu and secret! 
Enough, O gliding present! Enough, O summ’d-up past!

5
Dear friend, whoever you are, take this kiss, 
I give it especially to you—Do not forget me; 
I feel like one who has done work for the day, to retire awhile; 
I receive now again of my many translations—from my avataras ascending—while
 others
 doubtless await me; 
An unknown sphere, more real than I dream’d, more direct, darts awakening rays about
 me—So long!
Remember my words—I may again return, 
I love you—I depart from materials; 
I am as one disembodied, triumphant, dead.

 1
MANHATTAN’S streets I saunter’d, pondering, 
On time, space, reality—on such as these, and abreast with them, prudence. 

2
After all, the last explanation remains to be made about prudence; 
Little and large alike drop quietly aside from the prudence that suits immortality. 

The Soul is of itself;
All verges to it—all has reference to what ensues; 
All that a person does, says, thinks, is of consequence; 
Not a move can a man or woman make, that affects him or her in a day, month, any part of
 the
 direct
 life-time, or the hour of death, but the same affects him or her onward afterward through
 the
 indirect life-time. 

3
The indirect is just as much as the direct, 
The spirit receives from the body just as much as it gives to the body, if not more.

Not one word or deed—not venereal sore, discoloration, privacy of the onanist,
 putridity
 of
 gluttons or rum-drinkers, peculation, cunning, betrayal, murder, seduction, prostitution,
 but
 has
 results beyond death, as really as before death. 

4
Charity and personal force are the only investments worth anything. 

No specification is necessary—all that a male or female does, that is vigorous,
 benevolent,
 clean, is so much profit to him or her, in the unshakable order of the universe, and
 through
 the
 whole scope of it forever. 

5
Who has been wise, receives interest, 
Savage, felon, President, judge, farmer, sailor, mechanic, literat, young, old, it is the
 same,
The interest will come round—all will come round. 

Singly, wholly, to affect now, affected their time, will forever affect all of the past,
 and
 all of
 the present, and all of the future, 
All the brave actions of war and peace, 
All help given to relatives, strangers, the poor, old, sorrowful, young children, widows,
 the
 sick,
 and to shunn’d persons, 
All furtherance of fugitives, and of the escape of slaves,
All self-denial that stood steady and aloof on wrecks, and saw others fill the seats of
 the
 boats, 
All offering of substance or life for the good old cause, or for a friend’s sake, or
 opinion’s sake, 
All pains of enthusiasts, scoff’d at by their neighbors, 
All the limitless sweet love and precious suffering of mothers, 
All honest men baffled in strifes recorded or unrecorded,
All the grandeur and good of ancient nations whose fragments we inherit, 
All the good of the dozens of ancient nations unknown to us by name, date, location, 
All that was ever manfully begun, whether it succeeded or no, 
All suggestions of the divine mind of man, or the divinity of his mouth, or the shaping of
 his
 great
 hands; 
All that is well thought or said this day on any part of the globe—or on any of the
 wandering
 stars, or on any of the fix’d stars, by those there as we are here;
All that is henceforth to be thought or done by you, whoever you are, or by any one; 
These inure, have inured, shall inure, to the identities from which they sprang, or shall
 spring. 

6
Did you guess anything lived only its moment? 
The world does not so exist—no parts palpable or impalpable so exist; 
No consummation exists without being from some long previous consummation—and that
 from
 some
 other,
Without the farthest conceivable one coming a bit nearer the beginning than any. 

7
Whatever satisfies Souls is true; 
Prudence entirely satisfies the craving and glut of Souls; 
Itself only finally satisfies the Soul; 
The Soul has that measureless pride which revolts from every lesson but its own.

8
Now I give you an inkling; 
Now I breathe the word of the prudence that walks abreast with time, space, reality, 
That answers the pride which refuses every lesson but its own. 

What is prudence, is indivisible, 
Declines to separate one part of life from every part,
Divides not the righteous from the unrighteous, or the living from the dead, 
Matches every thought or act by its correlative, 
Knows no possible forgiveness, or deputed atonement, 
Knows that the young man who composedly peril’d his life and lost it, has done
 exceedingly
 well
 for himself without doubt, 
That he who never peril’d his life, but retains it to old age in riches and ease, has
 probably
 achiev’d nothing for himself worth mentioning;
Knows that only that person has really learn’d, who has learn’d to prefer
 results, 
Who favors Body and Soul the same, 
Who perceives the indirect assuredly following the direct, 
Who in his spirit in any emergency whatever neither hurries or, avoids death.

 GUID-MORNIN’ to our Majesty!
 May Heaven augment your blisses
On ev’ry new birth-day ye see,
 A humble poet wishes.
My bardship here, at your Levee
 On sic a day as this is,
Is sure an uncouth sight to see,
 Amang thae birth-day dresses
 Sae fine this day.


I see ye’re complimented thrang,
 By mony a lord an’ lady;
“God save the King” ’s a cuckoo sang
 That’s unco easy said aye:
The poets, too, a venal gang,
 Wi’ rhymes weel-turn’d an’ ready,
Wad gar you trow ye ne’er do wrang,
 But aye unerring steady,
 On sic a day.


For me! before a monarch’s face
 Ev’n there I winna flatter;
For neither pension, post, nor place,
 Am I your humble debtor:
So, nae reflection on your Grace,
 Your Kingship to bespatter;
There’s mony waur been o’ the race,
 And aiblins ane been better
 Than you this day.

’Tis very true, my sovereign King,
 My skill may weel be doubted;
But facts are chiels that winna ding,
 An’ downa be disputed:
Your royal nest, beneath your wing,
 Is e’en right reft and clouted,
And now the third part o’ the string,
 An’ less, will gang aboot it
 Than did ae day. 1


Far be’t frae me that I aspire
 To blame your legislation,
Or say, ye wisdom want, or fire,
 To rule this mighty nation:
But faith! I muckle doubt, my sire,
 Ye’ve trusted ministration
To chaps wha in barn or byre
 Wad better fill’d their station
 Than courts yon day.


And now ye’ve gien auld Britain peace,
 Her broken shins to plaister,
Your sair taxation does her fleece,
 Till she has scarce a tester:
For me, thank God, my life’s a lease,
 Nae bargain wearin’ faster,
Or, faith! I fear, that, wi’ the geese,
 I shortly boost to pasture
 I’ the craft some day.


I’m no mistrusting Willie Pitt,
 When taxes he enlarges,
(An’ Will’s a true guid fallow’s get,
 A name not envy spairges),
That he intends to pay your debt,
 An’ lessen a’ your charges;
But, God-sake! let nae saving fit
 Abridge your bonie barges
 An’boats this day.


Adieu, my Liege; may freedom geck
 Beneath your high protection;
An’ may ye rax Corruption’s neck,
 And gie her for dissection!
But since I’m here, I’ll no neglect,
 In loyal, true affection,
To pay your Queen, wi’ due respect,
 May fealty an’ subjection
 This great birth-day.


Hail, Majesty most Excellent!
 While nobles strive to please ye,
Will ye accept a compliment,
 A simple poet gies ye?
Thae bonie bairntime, Heav’n has lent,
 Still higher may they heeze ye
In bliss, till fate some day is sent
 For ever to release ye
 Frae care that day.


For you, young Potentate o’Wales,
 I tell your highness fairly,
Down Pleasure’s stream, wi’ swelling sails,
 I’m tauld ye’re driving rarely;
But some day ye may gnaw your nails,
 An’ curse your folly sairly,
That e’er ye brak Diana’s pales,
 Or rattl’d dice wi’ Charlie
 By night or day.


Yet aft a ragged cowt’s been known,
 To mak a noble aiver;
So, ye may doucely fill the throne,
 For a’their clish-ma-claver:
There, him 2 at Agincourt wha shone,
 Few better were or braver:
And yet, wi’ funny, ***** Sir John, 3
 He was an unco shaver
 For mony a day.


For you, right rev’rend Osnaburg,
 Nane sets the lawn-sleeve sweeter,
Altho’ a ribbon at your lug
 Wad been a dress completer:
As ye disown yon paughty dog,
 That bears the keys of Peter,
Then swith! an’ get a wife to hug,
 Or trowth, ye’ll stain the mitre
 Some luckless day!


Young, royal Tarry-breeks, I learn,
 Ye’ve lately come athwart her—
A glorious galley, 4 stem and stern,
 Weel rigg’d for Venus’ barter;
But first hang out, that she’ll discern,
 Your hymeneal charter;
Then heave aboard your grapple airn,
 An’ large upon her quarter,
 Come full that day.


Ye, lastly, bonie blossoms a’,
 Ye royal lasses dainty,
Heav’n mak you guid as well as braw,
 An’ gie you lads a-plenty!
But sneer na British boys awa!
 For kings are unco scant aye,
An’ German gentles are but sma’,
 They’re better just than want aye
 On ony day.


Gad bless you a’! consider now,
 Ye’re unco muckle dautit;
But ere the course o’ life be through,
 It may be bitter sautit:
An’ I hae seen their coggie fou,
 That yet hae tarrow’t at it.
But or the day was done, I trow,
 The laggen they hae clautit
 Fu’ clean that day.


 Note 1. The American colonies had recently been lost. [back]
Note 2. King Henry V.—R. B. [back]
Note 3. Sir John Falstaff, vid. Shakespeare.—R. B. [back]
Note 4. Alluding to the newspaper account of a certain Royal sailor’s amour.—R. B. This was Prince William Henry, third son of George III, afterward King William IV. [back]

 WHOEVER you are, holding me now in hand, 
Without one thing, all will be useless, 
I give you fair warning, before you attempt me further, 
I am not what you supposed, but far different. 

Who is he that would become my follower?
Who would sign himself a candidate for my affections? 

The way is suspicious—the result uncertain, perhaps destructive; 
You would have to give up all else—I alone would expect to be your God, sole and
 exclusive, 
Your novitiate would even then be long and exhausting, 
The whole past theory of your life, and all conformity to the lives around you, would have
 to
 be
 abandon’d;
Therefore release me now, before troubling yourself any further—Let go your hand from my
 shoulders, 
Put me down, and depart on your way. 

Or else, by stealth, in some wood, for trial, 
Or back of a rock, in the open air, 
(For in any roof’d room of a house I emerge not—nor in company,
And in libraries I lie as one dumb, a gawk, or unborn, or dead,) 
But just possibly with you on a high hill—first watching lest any person, for miles
 around,
 approach unawares, 
Or possibly with you sailing at sea, or on the beach of the sea, or some quiet island, 
Here to put your lips upon mine I permit you, 
With the comrade’s long-dwelling kiss, or the new husband’s kiss,
For I am the new husband, and I am the comrade. 

Or, if you will, thrusting me beneath your clothing, 
Where I may feel the throbs of your heart, or rest upon your hip, 
Carry me when you go forth over land or sea; 
For thus, merely touching you, is enough—is best,
And thus, touching you, would I silently sleep and be carried eternally. 

But these leaves conning, you con at peril, 
For these leaves, and me, you will not understand, 
They will elude you at first, and still more afterward—I will certainly elude you, 
Even while you should think you had unquestionably caught me, behold!
Already you see I have escaped from you. 

For it is not for what I have put into it that I have written this book, 
Nor is it by reading it you will acquire it, 
Nor do those know me best who admire me, and vauntingly praise me, 
Nor will the candidates for my love, (unless at most a very few,) prove victorious,
Nor will my poems do good only—they will do just as much evil, perhaps more; 
For all is useless without that which you may guess at many times and not hit—that which I
 hinted
 at; 
Therefore release me, and depart on your way.

 By this part of the century few are left who believe
 in the animals for they are not there in the carved parts
of them served on plates and the pleas from the slatted trucks
 are sounds of shadows that possess no future
there is still game for the pleasure of killing
 and there are pets for the children but the lives that followed
courses of their own other than ours and older
 have been migrating before us some are already
far on the way and yet Peter with his gaunt cheeks
 and point of white beard the face of an aged Lawrence
Peter who had lived on from another time and country
 and who had seen so many things set out and vanish
still believed in heaven and said he had never once
 doubted it since his childhood on the farm in the days
of the horses he had not doubted it in the worst
 times of the Great War and afterward and he had come
to what he took to be a kind of earthly
 model of it as he wandered south in his sixties
by that time speaking the language well enough
 for them to make him out he took the smallest roads
into a world he thought was a thing of the past
 with wildflowers he scarcely remembered and neighbors
working together scything the morning meadows
 turning the hay before the noon meal bringing it in
by milking time husbandry and abundance
 all the virtues he admired and their reward bounteous
in the eyes of a foreigner and there he remained
 for the rest of his days seeing what he wanted to see
until the winter when he could no longer fork
 the earth in his garden and then he gave away
his house land everything and committed himself
 to a home to die in an old chateau where he lingered
for some time surrounded by those who had lost
 the use of body or mind and as he lay there he told me
that the wall by his bed opened almost every day
 and he saw what was really there and it was eternal life
as he recognized at once when he saw the gardens
 he had made and the green fields where he had been
a child and his mother was standing there then the wall would close
 and around him again were the last days of the world

 All actors look for them-the defining moments
When what a character does is what he is.
The script may say, He goes to the door
And exits or She goes out the door stage left.

But you see your fingers touching the doorknob,
Closing around it, turning it
As if by themselves. The latch slides
Out of the strike-plate, the door swings on its hinges,
And you're about to take that step
Over the threshold into a different light.

For the audience, you may simply be
Disappearing from the scene, yet in those few seconds
You can reach for the knob as the last object on earth
You wanted to touch. Or you can take it
Warmly like the hand your father offered
Once in forgiveness and afterward
Kept to himself.

Or you can stand there briefly, as bewildered
As by the door of a walk-in time-lock safe,
Stand there and stare
At the whole concept of shutness, like a rat
Whose maze has been rebaffled overnight,
Stand still and quiver, unable to turn
Around or go left or right.

Or you can grasp it with a sly, soundless discretion,
Open it inch by inch, testing each fraction
Of torque on the spindles, on tiptoe
Slip yourself through the upright slot
And press the lock-stile silently
Back into its frame.

Or you can use your shoulder
Or the hard heel of your shoe
And a leg-thrust to break it open.

Or you can approach the door as if accustomed
To having all barriers open by themselves.
You can wrench aside
This unauthorized interruption of your progress
And then leave it ajar
For others to do with as they may see fit.

Or you can stand at ease
And give the impression you can see through
This door or any door and have no need
To take your physical self to the other side.

Or you can turn the knob as if at last
Nothing could please you more, your body language
Filled with expectations of joy at where you're going,
Holding yourself momentarily in the posture
Of an awestruck pilgrim at the gate-though you know
You'll only be stepping out against the scrim
Or a wobbly flat daubed with a landscape,
A scribble of leaves, a hint of flowers,
The bare suggestion of a garden.

 1
NOW list to my morning’s romanza—I tell the signs of the Answerer; 
To the cities and farms I sing, as they spread in the sunshine before me. 

A young man comes to me bearing a message from his brother; 
How shall the young man know the whether and when of his brother? 
Tell him to send me the signs.

And I stand before the young man face to face, and take his right hand in my left hand,
 and his
 left
 hand in my right hand, 
And I answer for his brother, and for men, and I answer for him that answers for all, and
 send
 these
 signs. 

2
Him all wait for—him all yield up to—his word is decisive and final, 
Him they accept, in him lave, in him perceive themselves, as amid light, 
Him they immerse, and he immerses them.

Beautiful women, the haughtiest nations, laws, the landscape, people, animals, 
The profound earth and its attributes, and the unquiet ocean, (so tell I my morning’s
 romanza;)

All enjoyments and properties, and money, and whatever money will buy, 
The best farms—others toiling and planting, and he unavoidably reaps, 
The noblest and costliest cities—others grading and building, and he domiciles there;
Nothing for any one, but what is for him—near and far are for him, the ships in the
 offing, 
The perpetual shows and marches on land, are for him, if they are for any body. 

He puts things in their attitudes; 
He puts to-day out of himself, with plasticity and love; 
He places his own city, times, reminiscences, parents, brothers and sisters, associations,
 employment, politics, so that the rest never shame them afterward, nor assume to command
 them.

He is the answerer: 
What can be answer’d he answers—and what cannot be answer’d, he shows how
 it
 cannot
 be answer’d. 

3
A man is a summons and challenge; 
(It is vain to skulk—Do you hear that mocking and laughter? Do you hear the ironical
 echoes?) 

Books, friendships, philosophers, priests, action, pleasure, pride, beat up and down,
 seeking
 to
 give satisfaction;
He indicates the satisfaction, and indicates them that beat up and down also. 

Whichever the sex, whatever the season or place, he may go freshly and gently and safely,
 by
 day or
 by night; 
He has the pass-key of hearts—to him the response of the prying of hands on the
 knobs. 

His welcome is universal—the flow of beauty is not more welcome or universal than he
 is; 
The person he favors by day, or sleeps with at night, is blessed.

4
Every existence has its idiom—everything has an idiom and tongue; 
He resolves all tongues into his own, and bestows it upon men, and any man translates, and
 any
 man
 translates himself also; 
One part does not counteract another part—he is the joiner—he sees how they
 join. 

He says indifferently and alike, How are you, friend? to the President at his
 levee, 
And he says, Good-day, my brother! to Cudge that hoes in the sugar-field,
And both understand him, and know that his speech is right. 

He walks with perfect ease in the Capitol, 
He walks among the Congress, and one Representative says to another, Here is our equal,
 appearing
 and new. 

Then the mechanics take him for a mechanic, 
And the soldiers suppose him to be a soldier, and the sailors that he has follow’d
 the
 sea,
And the authors take him for an author, and the artists for an artist, 
And the laborers perceive he could labor with them and love them; 
No matter what the work is, that he is the one to follow it, or has follow’d it, 
No matter what the nation, that he might find his brothers and sisters there. 

The English believe he comes of their English stock,
A Jew to the Jew he seems—a Russ to the Russ—usual and near, removed from none. 

Whoever he looks at in the traveler’s coffee-house claims him, 
The Italian or Frenchman is sure, and the German is sure, and the Spaniard is sure, and
 the
 island
 Cuban is sure; 
The engineer, the deck-hand on the great lakes, or on the Mississippi, or St. Lawrence, or
 Sacramento, or Hudson, or Paumanok Sound, claims him. 

The gentleman of perfect blood acknowledges his perfect blood;
The insulter, the prostitute, the angry person, the beggar, see themselves in the ways of
 him—he strangely transmutes them, 
They are not vile any more—they hardly know themselves, they are so grown.

 Through the Dark Sod -- as Education --
The Lily passes sure --
Feels her white foot -- no trepidation --
Her faith -- no fear --

Afterward -- in the Meadow --
Swinging her Beryl Bell --
The Mold-life -- all forgotten -- now --
In Ecstasy -- and Dell --