To the States

   To the States or any one of them, or any city of the States, Resist
        much, obey little,
Once unquestioning obedience, once fully enslaved,
Once fully enslaved, no nation, state, city of this earth, ever    
        afterward resumes its liberty.

Walt Whitman


(Picture: Aurora borealis mt desert island from bar harbor maine, Frederic Edwin Church)

To a Foil’d European Revolutionaire

Courage yet, my brother or my sister!

Keep on—Liberty is to be subserv’d whatever occurs;

That is nothing that is quell’d by one or two failures, or any number of failures,

Or by the indifference or ingratitude of the people, or by any unfaithfulness,

Or the show of the tushes of power, soldiers, cannon, penal statutes.

What we believe in waits latent forever through all the continents,

Invites no one, promises nothing, sits in calmness and light, is positive and composed, knows no discouragement,

Waiting patiently, waiting its time.

A noiseless patient spider

A noiseless, patient spider,

I mark'd, where, on a little promontory, it stood, isolated;

Mark'd how, to explore the vacant, vast surrounding,

It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself;

Ever unreeling them--ever tirelessly speeding them. 

O Me! O Life!

O Me! O life!...of the questions of these recurring;  

Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill’d with the foolish;  

Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)  

Of eyes that vainly crave the light—of the objects mean—of the struggle ever renew’d;  

Of the poor results of all—of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me;         

Of the empty and useless years of the rest—with the rest me intertwined;  

The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?