No More Learning

Child of mine, you fill me with anguish,
To be that pennant would be too fearful;
Little you know what it is this day, and henceforth for ever;
It is to gain nothing, but risk and defy everything;
Forward to stand in front of wars--and O, such wars! --what have you to do
with them?
With passions of demons, slaughter, premature death?


POET.

Demons and death then I sing;
Put in all, aye all, will I--sword-shaped pennant for war, and banner so
broad and blue,
And a pleasure new and ecstatic, and the prattled yearning of children,
Blent with the sounds of the peaceful land, and the liquid wash of the sea;
And the icy cool of the far, far north, with rustling cedars and pines;
And the whirr of drums, and the sound of soldiers marching, and the hot sun
shining south;
And the beach-waves combing over the beach on my eastern shore, and my
western shore the same;
And all between those shores, and my ever-running Mississippi, with bends
and chutes;
And my Illinois fields, and my Kansas fields, and my fields of Missouri;
The CONTINENT--devoting the whole identity, without reserving an atom,
Pour in! whelm that which asks, which sings, with all, and the yield of
all.


BANNER AND PENNANT.

Aye all! for ever, for all!
From sea to sea, north and south, east and west,
Fusing and holding, claiming, devouring the whole;
No more with tender lip, nor musical labial sound,
But out of the night emerging for good, our voice persuasive no more,
Croaking like crows here in the wind.


POET.

My limbs, my veins dilate;
The blood of the world has filled me full--my theme is clear at last.
--Banner so broad, advancing out of the night, I sing you haughty and
resolute;
I burst through where I waited long, too long, deafened and blinded;
My sight, my hearing and tongue, are come to me, (a little child taught
me;)
I hear from above, O pennant of war, your ironical call and demand;
Insensate! insensate! yet I at any rate chant you, O banner!
Not houses of peace are you, nor any nor all their prosperity; if need be,
you shall have every one of those houses to destroy them;
You thought not to destroy those valuable houses, standing fast, full of
comfort, built with money;
May they stand fast, then? Not an hour, unless you, above them and all,
stand fast.
--O banner! not money so precious are you, nor farm produce you, nor the
material good nutriment,
Nor excellent stores, nor landed on wharves from the ships;
Not the superb ships, with sail-power or steam-power, fetching and carrying
cargoes,
Nor machinery, vehicles, trade, nor revenues,--But you, as henceforth I see
you,
Running up out of the night, bringing your cluster of stars, ever-enlarging
stars;
Divider of daybreak you, cutting the air, touched by the sun, measuring the
sky,
Passionately seen and yearned for by one poor little child,
While others remain busy, or smartly talking, for ever teaching thrift,
thrift;
O you up there! O pennant! where you undulate like a snake, hissing so
curious,
Out of reach--an idea only--yet furiously fought for, risking bloody
death--loved by me!
So loved! O you banner, leading the day, with stars brought from the night!
Valueless, object of eyes, over all and demanding all--O banner and
pennant!
I too leave the rest--great as it is, it is nothing--houses, machines are
nothing--I see them not;
I see but you, O warlike pennant! O banner so broad, with stripes, I sing
you only,
Flapping up there in the wind.



_THE BIVOUAC'S FLAME. _


By the bivouac's fitful flame,
A procession winding around me, solemn and sweet and slow;--but first I
note
The tents of the sleeping army, the fields' and woods' dim outline,
The darkness, lit by spots of kindled fire--the silence;
Like a phantom far or near an occasional figure moving;
The shrubs and trees, (as I lift my eyes they seem to be stealthily
watching me;)
While wind in procession thoughts, O tender and wondrous thoughts,
Of life and death--of home and the past and loved, and of those that are
far away;
A solemn and slow procession there as I sit on the ground,
By the bivouac's fitful flame.



_BIVOUAC ON A MOUNTAIN-SIDE. _


I see before me now a travelling army halting;
Below, a fertile valley spread, with barns, and the orchards of summer;
Behind, the terraced sides of a mountain, abrupt in places, rising high;
Broken with rocks, with clinging cedars, with tall shapes, dingily seen;
The numerous camp-fires scattered near and far, some away up on the
mountain;
The shadowy forms of men and horses, looming, large-sized, flickering;
And over all, the sky--the sky! far, far out of reach, studded with the
eternal stars.