User: Can you write me a poem about alabama?
Assistant: Sure, here's a poem about alabama:
  Afoot and light-hearted, I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me, leading wherever I choose.
_In the same Series._
Ever upon this stage
Is acted God's calm annual drama,
Gorgeous processions, songs of birds,
Sunrise that fullest feeds and freshens most the soul,
The lilliput countless armies of the grass.
It may be doubted whether any other poet who has been inspired by
Every hour of the light and dark is a miracle--
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
I hear you whispering there, O stars of heaven--
Nor are you to suppose that this was a late development of
When the snows had melted--when the lilac-scent was in the air
and Fifth-month grass was growing,
Up this seashore, in some briers,
Two guests from Alabama--two together,
And their nest, and four light-green eggs, spotted with brown,
And every day the he-bird to and fro near at hand,
And every day I, a curious boy, never too close, never disturbing
Cautiously peering, absorbing, translating.
Till of a sudden,
May-be kill'd, unknown to her mate,
One forenoon the she-bird crouch'd not on the nest,
Nor return'd that afternoon, nor the next,
Nor ever appear'd again.
And thenceforward all summer in the sound of the sea,
And at night under the full of the moon in calmer weather....
Yes, when the stars glisten'd,
All night long on the prong of a moss-scallop'd stake,
Down, almost amid the slapping waves,
Sat the lone singer wonderful causing tears
I, with bare feet, a child, the wind wafting my hair,
Listen'd long and long....
That woman who passionately clung to me.
Again we wander, we love, we separate again,
Again she holds me by the hand, I must not go,
I see her close beside me with silent lips sad and tremulous.
Every day, at sundown, for your dear sake, my love.)
No dainty dolce affettuoso I,
Bearded, sun-burnt, gray-neck'd, forbidding, I have arrived.
I, with bare feet, a child, the wind wafting my hair,
Listen'd long and long....
creek ... filled with bushes, trees, grass, a group of willows, a
And each step of the way was a pure joy to him. "What a day!" he
transparent and blue," (_Specimen Days_,) and, "from old habit,
Me imperturbe, standing at ease in Nature,
Afoot and light-hearted, I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me, leading wherever I choose.
Allons! to that which is endless, as it was beginningless,
To undergo much, tramps of days, rests of nights,
To merge all in the travel they tend to, and the days and nights
they tend to,
Again to merge them in the start of superior journeys;
To see nothing anywhere but what you may reach it and pass it,
To look up or down no road but it stretches and waits for
you--however long, but it stretches and waits for you;
To see no being, not God's or any, but you also go thither.
inspiration continuously in the magic and mystery of Nature.
With music strong I come--with my cornets and my drums,
I play not marches for accepted victors only,
I play great marches for conquer'd and slain persons.
Sometimes he translates the sonorities of the air into immortal
effluences of meaning:
Hark, some wild trumpeter--some strange musician,
Hovering unseen in air, vibrates capricious tunes to-night....
Blow, trumpeter, free and clear--I follow thee,
While at thy liquid prelude, glad, serene,
Winds of autumn, as I walked the woods at dusk, I heard your
long-stretch'd sighs up above so mournful,
Heard the pulse of you, when all was still, ringing little bells
last night under my ear.
But now the precious hour had arrived, which to Whitman spelt
Day-break in the woods, stripes of snow on the limbs of trees,
the occasional snapping,
or a scion of the "youthful sinewy races," whom he had chanted in
Come, my tan-faced children,
Follow well in order, get your weapons ready;
Have you your pistols? have you your sharpedged axes?
Pioneers! O pioneers!...
All the past we leave behind!
We debouch upon a newer, mightier world, varied world;
Here at last was the true Walt Whitman, superabundant in splendid
All the past we leave behind!
We debouch upon a newer, mightier world,....
Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep....
All, all for immortality,
Love like the light silently wrapping all,
Nature's amelioration blessing all,
The blossoms, fruits of ages, orchards divine and certain,
Give me, give him or her I love this quenchless faith,
In Thy ensemble, whatever else withheld withhold not from us
Belief in plan of Thee enclosed in Time and Space,
Health, peace, salvation universal.
Is it a dream?
Nay but the lack of it the dream,
And failing it life's lore and wealth a dream,
And all the world a dream.
incidents of the War of Secession and anecdotes of his hospital
"Because, having looked at the objects of the Universe, I find
there is no one, nor any particle of one, but has reference to
the soul."
Of the dead on their backs, with arms extended wide--
I dream, I dream, I dream.
But he had faith in the future of his country, vast hopes in the
Thou who hast slept all night upon the storm,
Waking renew'd on thy prodigious pinions,
(Burst the wild storm? above it thou ascended'st,
And rested on the sky, thy slave that cradled thee,)....
Thou born to match the gale, (thou art all wings,)
To cope with heaven and earth and sea and hurricane,
Thou ship of air that never furl'st thy sails,
That sport'st amid the lightning-flash and thunder-cloud,
In them, in thy experiences, had'st thou my soul,
What joys! what joys were thine!
afternoon he would have returned to the creek, but to-day he was
expecting a friend.
outside, enquiring for Walt. He hastened down to receive her.
Thou born to match the gale, (thou art all wings,)
To cope with heaven and earth and sea and hurricane,
Thou ship of air that never furl'st thy sails,
That sport'st amid the lightning-flash and thunder-cloud,
In them, in thy experiences, had'st thou my soul,
What joys! what joys were thine!
aspirations.
Whispers of heavenly death, murmur'd I hear;
Labial gossip of night--sibilant chorals;
Come, lovely and soothing Death,
Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving,
In the day, in the night, to all, to each,
Sooner or later, delicate Death....
Dark Mother, always gliding near, with soft feet,
Have none chanted for thee a chant of fullest welcome?
Then I chant it for thee--I glorify thee above all.
Bathe me, O God, in Thee, mounting to Thee,
I and my soul to range in range of Thee!
Passage to more than India!
O secret of the earth and sky!
Of you, O waters of the sea! O winding creeks and rivers!
Of you, O woods and fields! Of you, strong mountains of my land!
Of you, O prairies! Of you, gray rocks!
O morning red! O clouds! O rain and snows!
O day and night, passage to you!
O sun and moon, and all you stars! Sirius and Jupiter!
Passage to you!...
O my brave soul!
O farther, farther sail!
O daring joy, but safe! Are they not all the seas of God?
O farther, farther, farther sail!