6 Blow again trumpeter—­conjure war’s alarums.

Swift to thy spell a shuddering hum like distant thunder rolls,
Lo, where the arm’d men hasten—­lo, mid the clouds of dust the glint
    of bayonets,
I see the grime-faced cannoneers, I mark the rosy flash amid the
    smoke, I hear the cracking of the guns;
Nor war alone—­thy fearful music-song, wild player, brings every
    sight of fear,
The deeds of ruthless brigands, rapine, murder—­I hear the cries for help! 
I see ships foundering at sea, I behold on deck and below deck the
    terrible tableaus.

     7
O trumpeter, methinks I am myself the instrument thou playest, Thou melt’st my heart, my brain—­thou movest, drawest, changest
    them at will;
And now thy sullen notes send darkness through me,
Thou takest away all cheering light, all hope,
I see the enslaved, the overthrown, the hurt, the opprest of the
    whole earth,
I feel the measureless shame and humiliation of my race, it becomes
    all mine,
Mine too the revenges of humanity, the wrongs of ages, baffled feuds
    and hatreds,
Utter defeat upon me weighs—­all lost—­the foe victorious,
(Yet ’mid the ruins Pride colossal stands unshaken to the last, Endurance, resolution to the last.)

8
Now trumpeter for thy close,
Vouchsafe a higher strain than any yet,
Sing to my soul, renew its languishing faith and hope,
Rouse up my slow belief, give me some vision of the future,
Give me for once its prophecy and joy.

O glad, exulting, culminating song! 
A vigor more than earth’s is in thy notes,
Marches of victory—­man disenthral’d—­the conqueror at last,
Hymns to the universal God from universal man—­all joy! 
A reborn race appears—­a perfect world, all joy! 
Women and men in wisdom innocence and health—­all joy! 
Riotous laughing bacchanals fill’d with joy! 
War, sorrow, suffering gone—­the rank earth purged—­nothing but joy left! 
The ocean fill’d with joy—­the atmosphere all joy! 
Joy! joy! in freedom, worship, love! joy in the ecstasy of life! 
Enough to merely be! enough to breathe! 
Joy! joy! all over joy!

} To a Locomotive in Winter

Thee for my recitative,
Thee in the driving storm even as now, the snow, the winter-day declining,
Thee in thy panoply, thy measur’d dual throbbing and thy beat convulsive,
Thy black cylindric body, golden brass and silvery steel,
Thy ponderous side-bars, parallel and connecting rods, gyrating,
    shuttling at thy sides,
Thy metrical, now swelling pant and roar, now tapering in the distance,
Thy great protruding head-light fix’d in front,
Thy long, pale, floating vapor-pennants, tinged with delicate purple,
The dense and murky clouds out-belching from thy smoke-stack,
Thy knitted frame, thy springs and valves, the tremulous twinkle of
    thy wheels,