A Carol Closing Sixty-Nine

A carol closing sixty-nine—a résumé—a repetition,

My lines in joy and hope continuing on the same,

Of ye, O God, Life, Nature, Freedom, Poetry;

Of you, my Land—your rivers, prairies, States—you, mottled

      Flag I love,

Your aggregate retain'd entire—Of north, south, east and west, your items all;

Of me myself—the jocund heart yet beating in my breast,

The body wreck'd, old, poor and paralyzed—the strange inertia falling pall-like round me,

The burning fires down in my sluggish blood not yet extinct,

The undiminish'd faith—the groups of loving friends.