thou art above the rest, thy many tears—a lack from all eternity in thy content, (Naught but the greatest struggles, wrongs, defeats, could make thee greatest—no less could make thee,) Thy lonely state—something thou ever seek’st and seek’st, yet never gain’st, Surely some right withheld—some voice, in huge monotonous rage, of freedom-lover pent, Some vast heart, like a planet’s, chain’d and chafing in those breakers, By lengthen’d swell, and spasm, and panting breath, And rhythmic rasping of thy sands and waves, And serpent hiss, and savage peals of laughter, And undertones of distant lion roar, (Sounding, appealing to the sky’s deaf ear—but now, rapport for once, A phantom in the night thy confidant for once,) The first and last confession of the globe, Outsurging, muttering from thy soul’s abysms, The tale of cosmic elemental passion, Thou tellest to a kindred soul.
Death of General Grant
As one by one withdraw the lofty actors, From that great play on history’s stage