Skirting the river road, (my forenoon walk, my rest,)
Skyward in air a sudden muffled sound, the dalliance of the eagles,
The rushing amorous contact high in space together,
The clinching interlocking claws, a living, fierce, gyrating wheel,
Four beating wings, two beaks, a swirling mass tight grappling,
In tumbling turning clustering loops, straight downward falling,
Till o’er the river pois’d, the twain yet one, a moment’s lull,
A motionless still balance in the air, then parting, talons loosing,
Upward again on slow-firm pinions slanting, their separate diverse flight,
She hers, he his, pursuing.

} Roaming in Thought [After reading Hegel]

Roaming in thought over the Universe, I saw the little that is Good
    steadily hastening towards immortality,
And the vast all that is call’d Evil I saw hastening to merge itself
    and become lost and dead.

} A Farm Picture

Through the ample open door of the peaceful country barn,
A sunlit pasture field with cattle and horses feeding,
And haze and vista, and the far horizon fading away.

} A Child’s Amaze

Silent and amazed even when a little boy,
I remember I heard the preacher every Sunday put God in his statements,
As contending against some being or influence.

} The Runner

On a flat road runs the well-train’d runner,
He is lean and sinewy with muscular legs,
He is thinly clothed, he leans forward as he runs,
With lightly closed fists and arms partially rais’d.

} Beautiful Women

Women sit or move to and fro, some old, some young,
The young are beautiful—­but the old are more beautiful than the young.

} Mother and Babe

I see the sleeping babe nestling the breast of its mother,
The sleeping mother and babe—­hush’d, I study them long and long.

} Thought

Of obedience, faith, adhesiveness;
As I stand aloof and look there is to me something profoundly
    affecting in large masses of men following the lead of those who
    do not believe in men.

} Visor’d

A mask, a perpetual natural disguiser of herself,
Concealing her face, concealing her form,
Changes and transformations every hour, every moment,
Falling upon her even when she sleeps.

} Thought

Of justice—­as If could be any thing but the same ample law,
    expounded by natural judges and saviors,
As if it might be this thing or that thing, according to decisions.

} Gliding O’er all

Gliding o’er all, through all,
Through Nature, Time, and Space,
As a ship on the waters advancing,
The voyage of the soul—­not life alone,
Death, many deaths I’ll sing.

} Hast Never Come to Thee an Hour

Hast never come to thee an hour,
A sudden gleam divine, precipitating, bursting all these bubbles,
    fashions, wealth? 
These eager business aims—­books, politics, art, amours,
To utter nothingness?