A Carol Closing Sixty-Nine.

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.