Queries to My Seventieth Year
Approaching, nearing, curious, / Thou dim, uncertain spectre--bringest thou life or death?
Somehow I cannot let it go yet, funeral though it is,
Let it remain back there on its nail suspended,
With pink, blue, yellow, all blanch'd, and the white now gray and ashy,
One wither'd rose put years ago for thee, dear friend;
But I do not forget thee. Hast thou then faded?
Is the odor exhaled? Are the colors, vitalities, dead?
No, while memories subtly play--the past vivid as ever;
For but last night I woke, and in that spectral ring saw thee,
Thy smile, eyes, face, calm, silent, loving as ever:
So let the wreath hang still awhile within my eye-reach,
It is not yet dead to me, nor even pallid.
Approaching, nearing, curious, / Thou dim, uncertain spectre--bringest thou life or death?
A promise to California, / Or inland to the great pastoral Plains, and on to Puget sound and Oregon;
As I ponder'd in silence, / Returning upon my poems, considering, lingering long,
Heave the anchor short! / Raise main-sail and jib--steer forth,