Men and women crowding fast in the streets, if they are not flashes
    and specks what are they? 
The streets themselves and the facades of houses, and goods in the windows,
Vehicles, teams, the heavy-plank’d wharves, the huge crossing at
    the ferries,
The village on the highland seen from afar at sunset, the river between,
Shadows, aureola and mist, the light falling on roofs and gables of
    white or brown two miles off,
The schooner near by sleepily dropping down the tide, the little
    boat slack-tow’d astern,
The hurrying tumbling waves, quick-broken crests, slapping,
The strata of color’d clouds, the long bar of maroon-tint away
    solitary by itself, the spread of purity it lies motionless in,
The horizon’s edge, the flying sea-crow, the fragrance of salt marsh
    and shore mud,
These became part of that child who went forth every day, and who
    now goes, and will always go forth every day.

} Old Ireland

Far hence amid an isle of wondrous beauty,
Crouching over a grave an ancient sorrowful mother,
Once a queen, now lean and tatter’d seated on the ground,
Her old white hair drooping dishevel’d round her shoulders,
At her feet fallen an unused royal harp,
Long silent, she too long silent, mourning her shrouded hope and heir,
Of all the earth her heart most full of sorrow because most full of love.

Yet a word ancient mother,
You need crouch there no longer on the cold ground with forehead
    between your knees,
O you need not sit there veil’d in your old white hair so dishevel’d,
For know you the one you mourn is not in that grave,
It was an illusion, the son you love was not really dead,
The Lord is not dead, he is risen again young and strong in another country,
Even while you wept there by your fallen harp by the grave,
What you wept for was translated, pass’d from the grave,
The winds favor’d and the sea sail’d it,
And now with rosy and new blood,
Moves to-day in a new country.

} The City Dead-House

By the city dead-house by the gate,
As idly sauntering wending my way from the clangor,
I curious pause, for lo, an outcast form, a poor dead prostitute brought,
Her corpse they deposit unclaim’d, it lies on the damp brick pavement,
The divine woman, her body, I see the body, I look on it alone,
That house once full of passion and beauty, all else I notice not,
Nor stillness so cold, nor running water from faucet, nor odors
    morbific impress me,
But the house alone—­that wondrous house—­that delicate fair house
    —­that ruin! 
That immortal house more than all the rows of dwellings ever built! 
Or white-domed capitol with majestic figure surmounted, or all the
    old high-spired cathedrals,
That little house alone more than them all—­poor, desperate house! 
Fair, fearful wreck—­tenement of a soul—­itself