Leaves of Grass Annexes: Sands at Seventy (1st Annex, 1888); Good-Bye My Fancy (2nd Annex, 1891); A Backward Glance O'er Travel'd Roads (1888)

Whitman, Walt, 1819-1892. Leaves of Grass Annexes: Sands at Seventy (1st Annex, 1888); Good-Bye My Fancy (2nd Annex, 1891); A Backward Glance O'er Travel'd Roads (1888)
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OF THAT BLITHE THROAT OF THINE.

[More than eighty-three degrees north -- about a good day's steaming distance to the Pole by one of our fast oceaners in clear water -- Greely the explorer heard the song of a single snow-bird merrily sounding over the desolation.]

Of that blithe throat of thine from arctic bleak and blank,
I'll mind the lesson, solitary bird -- let me too welcome chilling
     drifts,
E'en the profoundest chill, as now -- a torpid pulse, a brain un-
     nerv'd,
Old age land-lock'd within its winter bay -- (cold, cold, O cold!)
These snowy hairs, my feeble arm, my frozen feet,
For them thy faith, thy rule I take, and grave it to the last;
Not summer's zones alone -- not chants of youth, or south's warm
     tides alone,
But held by sluggish floes, pack'd in the northern ice, the cumulus
     of years,
These with gay heart I also sing.