9.

Sing on there in the swamp,
O singer bashful and tender!  I hear your notes, I hear your call,
I hear, I come presently, I understand you;
But a moment I linger, for the lustrous star has detained me,
The star my departing comrade holds and detains me.

10.

O how shall I warble myself for the dead one there I loved? 
And how shall I deck my song for the large sweet soul that has gone? 
And what shall my perfume be for the grave of him I love?

Sea-winds blown from east and west,
Blown from the Eastern sea and blown from the Western sea, till there on
          the prairies meeting,
These and with these and the breath of my chant,
I’ll perfume the grave of him I love.

11.

O what shall I hang on the chamber walls? 
And what shall the pictures be that I hang on the walls,
To adorn the burial-house of him I love? 
Pictures of growing spring and farms and homes,
With the Fourth-month eve at sundown, and the gray smoke lucid and bright,
With floods of the yellow gold of the gorgeous, indolent, sinking sun,
          burning, expanding the air,
With the fresh sweet herbage under foot, and the pale green leaves of
          the trees prolific,
In the distance the flowing glaze, the breast of the river, with a
          wind-dapple here and there,
With ranging hills on the banks, with many a line against the sky, and
          shadows,
And the city at hand with dwellings so dense, and stacks of chimneys,
And all the scenes of life and the workshops, and the workmen homeward
          returning.

12.

Lo, body and soul—­this land,
My own Manhattan with spires, and the sparkling and hurrying tides, and
          the ships,
The varied and ample land, the South and the North in the light, Ohio’s
          shores and flashing Missouri,
And ever the far-spreading prairies covered with grass and corn. 
Lo, the most excellent sun so calm and haughty,
The violet and purple morn with just-felt breezes,
The gentle soft-born measureless light,
The miracle spreading, bathing all, the fulfilled noon,
The coming eve delicious, the welcome night and the stars,
Over my cities shining all, enveloping man and land.

13.

Sing on, sing on, you gray-brown bird! 
Sing from the swamps, the recesses; pour your chant from the bushes,
Limitless out of the dusk, out of the cedars and pines.

Sing on, dearest brother, warble your reedy song,
Loud human song, with voice of uttermost woe.

O liquid and free and tender! 
O wild and loose to my soul—­O wondrous singer! 
You only I hear—­yet the star holds me (but will soon depart),
Yet the lilac with mastering odor holds me.

14.