Hissing melodious, neither like the bird nor like

my aroused child's heart,

But edging near as privately for me, rustling at my feet,

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Creeping thence steadily up to my ears and laving

me softly all over,

Death, death, death, death, death.

Which I do not forget,

But fuse the song of my dusky demon and brother,

That he sang to me in the moonlight on

Paumanok's gray beach,

With the thousand responsive songs at random, My own songs awaked from that hour,

And with them the key, the word up from the

waves,

The word of the sweetest song and all songs, 180 That strong and delicious word which, creeping to my feet,

(Or like some old crone rocking the cradle, swathed in sweet garments, bending aside)

The sea whispered me.

1871.

Walt Whitman.

PORTRAITS OF PEOPLE

IF

THE MEN OF OLD..

I KNOW not that the men of old

Were better than men now,

Of heart more kind, of hand more bold,

Of more ingenuous brow:

I heed not those who pine for force

A ghost of Time to raise,

As if they thus could check the course }
Of these appointed days.

Still it is true, and over-true,

That I delight to close

This book of life self-wise and new,

And let my thoughts repose
On all that humble happiness,
The world has since foregone,-

The daylight of contentedness

That on those faces shone!

With rights, though not too closely scanned,

Enjoyed, as far as known,

With will by no reverse unmanned,

With pulse of even tone,

They from to-day and from to-night /

Expected nothing more,

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