Walt Whitman - Yonnondio lyrics

A song, a poem of itself—the word itself a dirge, Amid the wilds, the rocks, the storm and wintry night, To me such misty, strange tableaux the syllables calling up; Yonnondio—I see, far in the west or north, a limitless ravine, with plains and mountains dark, I see swarms of stalwart chieftains, medicine-men, and warriors, As flitting by like clouds of ghosts, they pa** and are gone in the twilight, (Race of the woods, the landscapes free, and the falls! No picture, poem, statement, pa**ing them to the future:) Yonnondio! Yonnondio!—unlimn'd they disappear; To-day gives place, and fades—the cities, farms, factories fade; A muffled sonorous sound, a wailing word is borne through the air for a moment, Then blank and gone and still, and utterly lost.